#TeamCrockett: Emily Blewett of Infantbasicsandtoddlertraining

Emily of Infantbasicsandtoddlertraining joined our “team” when Crockett was around three months old. Emily is a certified moms on call baby & toddler sleep consultant + certified lactation counselor. She came via recommendation from a close friend who worked with her previously and Conley and I quickly experienced the value of having her as support and a wealth of knowledge on all-things baby, including having a third-party perspective.

Initially, I reached out with sleep training in mind. I was preparing to go back to work full time and felt like I needed to start working towards a more concrete routine for Crockett. We signed up with Emily for an initial phone consult followed by 3 months of email support (which turned into four!) with the thought that our focus would be on sleep. Crockett was consistently waking twice at night and feeding on both occasions. I thought we were headed towards sleeping through the night “right around the corner” and just needed a little boost to get us there. I had the moms on call book, but was not holding myself accountable to the daytime schedule and was not comfortable with the cold-turkey approach to dropping middle of the night feeds and intervention at the age suggested (12 weeks). So instead, Emily worked with us to develop an individualized routine for Crockett that fit in-line with our family goals and an interval soothing plan for nights to help stretch Crockett’s feeds and create consistency. I’ll pause here to say that it is SO IMPORTANT that you, the parent, are always comfortable with whatever decisions you make for your child. Whether it is your pediatrician, your mom, a brilliant book, or a hired consultant giving you advice or instruction, YOU have to be on board and believe it is the right thing for your child or you need to find a different solution (or pediatrician, which we had to do at one point). You are your child’s best advocate and don’t let anyone make you think or feel otherwise. Emily is someone who gets this. Emily understood we weren’t comfortable with extended periods of crying at three months and worked with us to come up with a plan that we were comfortable with that was tailored to Crockett. Ultimately, we put sleep training on pause altogether. We just weren't ready. And that was okay! Crockett entered the four month sleep regression and was waking up every two hours. We took the approach of comforting him with the idea that he would come out of the regression and sleep longer stretches soon enough. When sleep took a back seat to our relationship, it enabled us to learn so much more from Emily.

Emily is incredibly organized. My type A brain loves Emily’s work style so much. For each month, Emily provided an email of organized age-specific information, including tweaks to schedules and feeds and new things we should be working on like introducing a sippy cup. She also provided “forms” (i.e. emails filled with information and checklists) for topics ranging from postpartum anxiety to acid reflux. We really benefited from the full suite of Emily’s information, beyond our initial focus of sleep. When I had a random question on whether something going on with Crockett was “normal" or what I should do in a certain situation I would send off an email to Emily (oftentimes at 2am) and get a helpful and thoughtful response. Sometimes that just meant having one more cheerleader in our corner. And during those early months, that’s oftentimes exactly what you need. Around five months, we circled back to sleep because nights were not improving and we reached our sleep-deprived breaking point. Emily helped us again come up with a plan and was our accountability buddy (and support system) getting us through it. When I had moments of stress, I would email Emily for encouragement and she never gave up on us (…me….even when I changed my mind 10 times) in our goal to do what was best for our baby Crockett.

Asking for help is sometimes hard to do. And sometimes you don’t even know what you need to be asking for. Emily helped us cut through some of the confusion of being a first time parent and we are so grateful to her for it. I wouldn’t have known such a great resource was out there and accessible if it weren’t for my friend sharing with me about her experience with Emily. So if you’ve wondered whether a third-party resource is right for your family, I’d encourage you to reach out to Emily @infantbasicsandtoddlertraining.

XOXO,

The mom next door

p.s. cover photo by Milana Mia Photography and Emily is pictured with Kaylee Baggerly