Testimonials

I just wanted to write and say thank you. I have a nearly three year old daughter who has never slept all night. When she was a baby I read Robin Grille’s book ‘Parenting for a Peaceful World’. When she was 11 months old she was rarely sleeping for more than an hour at a time, day and night. We’d tried a day sleep school, but I hated their methods. Most people were telling us to let her cry it out. I emailed Robin asking for suggestions. He recommended your book ‘Sleeping Like a Baby’ which I’ve read many times now. When my daughter was 18 months I had a phone appointment with you. You were wonderful, you made me feel so good about myself and how I was doing as a parent. You made me feel proud and confident. You’d suggested I try many things, which I did, but nothing helped. One thing you asked was what was waking her so frequently. I started thinking about this and it occurred to me that she snored, her nose constantly ran, she sometimes appeared to stop breathing in her sleep and sometimes choked on her own mucus and vomited- and all this was getting worse.

During the day my daughter is a happy, clever, wonderful kid. She rarely appears ill, although her nose constantly runs. I realised she was breathing through her mouth all day, but when she went to sleep she tried to breath through her nose- and that really didn’t work for her.

Over the next 6 months I took her to numerous GPs, but their response was usually the same. Her frequent waking was behavioral, use controlled crying, go back to sleep school and so on. I’m a single parent and I was left with the distinct impression on several occasions that I’d been written off as a single mum who wasn’t coping. By the time my daughter turned 2 I was seriously sleep deprived, and I was concerned that she was also becoming very overtired.

She had her first sleep over with my Mum, who was horrified by the noises she made during her sleep, and how difficult her breathing was. Back we went to the GP, this time with Mum along as a witness. This time we were given a referral to a peadiatrician. It took several months to get in to see the peadiatrician, however when we saw the pead he quickly identified that she had a problem. He’s tried a few things, and we are now waiting for an appointment to see an ENT as the paed is certain her adenoids will need to be removed.

She’s still waking fairly frequently overnight, but she’s improving, and I’m no longer being told to leave her to cry it out.
Since that appointment over a year ago now I’ve received your email newsletters, and I’ve also got you as a friend on facebook. The information you provide has been so helpful in affirming my commitment not to use any CIO methods with her. Plus I’ve never forgotten how you made me feel I could trust myself as her parent to know what is best for her.

She’s a wonderful kid, she’s happy, compassionate (for a toddler anyway), confident and clever.
So thank you so much for your support, and for providing so much information.

Best wishes,

Im 28 years old and I have 12 week old twins, born at 35 weeks, a boy and a girl- Tayte and Breea. I just wanted to send you an email saying thank you.When I was pregnant my sister bought me a book on baby sleeping, it is a book with very strict routines. She heard from one of her friends how great it was. I did try to follow the routine suited to their age, from about 7 weeks old, but it just was not working. They seemed to get extra hungry in the afternoons and I did try to hold them out til the desired time for a feed in the routine, I thought it might be their witching hour. The book also suggests a ‘dreamfeed’, I personally didn’t try that….I dont believe that it is the right thing to do. I would put my babies down to have a sleep, but they weren’t tired when the book stated they should be put down to sleep, in saying that, im finding they have little naps and a good sleep during the day. My mother and mother-in-law are a great help, but they would hold the babies til they slept and I was so scard of them being so dependant on being cuddled to fall asleep, I would make them put the kids down in their cots. So, after about 3 weeks on this ‘routine’, I just thought….this isn’t for my babies. I did some research on the internet and came across forums about your book Sleeping Like a Baby, it got great reviews. I bought your book and I can not put it down. It is fantastic. The kids (my husband and I don’t call them ‘the twins’, they are each their own little person) are waking once through the night, usually between 1-3am, I feed them and they go back to bed really easily, but come 4-5am, they are unsettled and upset. We put them in bed with us and they just sleep so well for a few more hours, sometimes they are hungry and I feed them again. Your book doesn’t make me feel guilty for co sleeping with my babies or giving them plenty of love and attention. I now let my kids decide when they are hungry and tired and lucky for me, both of them are pretty much at the same time. I now always put myself in their shoes and think what it would feel like to be them. And I think, adults don’t always eat lunch at the same time or have tea at the exact same time everyday, and we do get hungry more sometimes. My husband and I agree on a bedtime ritual, we bath them, feed them and if they aren’t sleepy, read them a book. They both are pretty easy to settle….for now. I feel much more relaxed now with my babies and am enjoying them so much more, all thanks to your book. I don’t feel like I am doing the wrong them by them or me. Strict routines might work for some babies, but not mine.

Thank you Pinky for a loving and caring book that not only understands babies, but parents to. I will be recommending your book to all mothers.

I know you must get thousands of emails just like mine but I feel I have to let you know what a difference your book “sleeping like a baby” has made to me and my gorgeous little 4 month old boy Indi and I.

Indi had a traumatic birth (vac assisted) and as a result was quite unsettled during the daytime in the early weeks of his life. Being the organised girl that I am, and having read all the wrong routine books (CLB – Gina Ford… hideous!) prior to our little darling’s arrival I was lost as to what to do when my baby and I did not even come close to fitting into these rigid schedules. After many days of no daytime sleep I finally caved and got a so called “sleep expert” out to the house. After $550 I was told that my interference (trying to comfort him) was only going to lead to sleep association issues and I need to learn to “back off” and let him cry. Indi has always been a brilliant night time sleeper but I was told that this too would change if I didn’t get him sleeping more during the day. After many days of tears (both his and mine)10 days ago I decided to ditch all the advice I’d received, buy your book and start over and it is the best thing I have ever done!

Thank you for giving me the courage to be the Mum I always thought I could be, follow my heart and not the advice of so called experts. Now that I’m just going with his natural flow he is more relaxed and sometimes will just take a longer nap because he is relaxed and happy at bed times. A natural flow is emerging in our day instead of me forcing him to do something he doesn’t want to do. The fact of the matter is our babies need us and this includes at sleep time. They are only small for such a short time so I have decided rather then “training” him to have the sleep patterns of an adult (which he clearly isn’t!) I will go with the flow of what he needs for now. Most of my anxiety around sleep has been due to trying to fit into what I have read and advice from “professionals” who really don’t know my baby at all!

I have recommended your book, website and blog to all Mums I know. Thank you for making it feel OK to unashamedly and unconditionally love my darling baby and tune into his needs rather than tune out.

I just finished ‘sleeping like a baby’. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making me realise that my baby and I are no exception to the rule – in terms of the fact that we don’t fit any pre-determined schedules or moulds. This is what many well-intentioned people have led me to believe over the last few months (or worse – essentially insinuated that it wasn’t that there was anything ‘wrong’ with my baby, but that she wasn’t a good sleeper because I wasn’t ‘persistent’ enough with sleep training). I was doing my own head in – anxious, not sleeping – pretty well a hot mess, because my baby wasn’t sleeping like she was ‘supposed to’. Well, I’m now giving my bub as many cuddles as she needs and doing everything gently with love… I should have listened to my inner voice and trusted in myself from the beginning. My drive to be doing it right was so misguided, when all I wanted was the best for our beautiful Alana. Well now, I am doing it right, and it feels right and it’s un large part because of you xxxxxxxxx

Hi Pinky

I just wanted to touch base with you and thank you for your support when Harry was just a few weeks old. I thought you might like to know that we have been going great. We started co sleeping at about 4 weeks – and suddenly I felt human again! Last week we upgraded to a side car cot, and Harry spends most of the night and 1 or 2 naps each day in this! The rest of his naps are either in the car, stroller, carrier or on me.

After speaking to you it was like a weight had been lifted. I started to feel more confident in my decision making – knowing that I was always going to make the best choices for Harry and I!

You are a great support for so many parents and your gentle, instinctual approach to parenting makes so much sense! The people I have told about our phone chat cannot believe I actually got to speak to “the” Pinky McKay!!!

Again thanks so much.

I really would like to thank you. I had my first baby 5 years ago and I did the Gina Ford Contented Baby routines with him. Amazingly, it worked well and he was a fabulous sleeper…BUT, I think he might have been regardless of a routine. He was just a very chilled out little man. I must admit, I didn’t follow it 100%. I still made eye contact at bedtime and I would chat to him and sing little songs and kiss him lots! Who can resist?!

Fast forward to 9 weeks ago when I had my second baby, Fergus. Lucky for Fergs, I was too lazy to start any kind of routine early on. In the meantime, I downloaded your talks to my ipod and listened to them while folding washing, mopping the floors etc.

OH MY GOSH! My whole approach to parenting has changed SO much. I feed him to sleep, and love his little smile as I gently pop him into bed without waking him up. I can’t stand to let him cry! Funny thing is, at 9 weeks old he goes to bed after his bath and a little massage at 7-7.30pm and he sleeps until 5am! For now, I am happy to get up with him at 5am because I have missed him so much all night!

So, thank you! You have changed our lives.

I’ve just finished reading your “Sleeping like a baby” book and I wanted to tell you how much it meant to me. While I was pregnant I was sure that a natural approach to raising my little girl was right. I didn’t do a lot of reading as I wanted to read my baby and give her what she needed, so apart from watching some brilliant ABA videos to set me up for breastfeeding and reading a couple of basic baby care books, I spent my pregnancy nurturing my baby and myself and not worrying. So far so good … and then she was born, and I was sitting up holding her the first night being told by the nurses that I SHOULD put her in her bassinet (and did I want her to go to the nursery?). And then a week later, when we were home and she still hadn’t started all the crying she SHOULD do, my mum told me I SHOULD put her in her cot “with a firm pat on the nappy” and make her sleep, instead of carrying her in the sling for most of the day. And then the in-laws all told us that we SHOULD stop giving in to this child and “letting her control our lives”. And ever since it has been a cascade of criticism about how much I am spoiling this baby and what I SHOULD be doing. My husband and I were the only ones who seemed to notice that our 2, 4, and 6 week old baby was calm, content, rarely cried, and settled herself over several sleep cycles by the time she was 8 weeks old. Now she’s twelve weeks old, and she doesn’t even need her Music for Dreaming playing to get a blissful 6 hour sleep most nights, from which she awakes in her bassinet next to my bed smiling, having had only to murmur in order to wake me because we have become so attuned to one another. She decides when her last feed of the night will be, pulls off the breast, rolls onto her back with a grunt of pleasure, and promptly falls asleep. I just pick her up and put her to bed! And yet when I shared this positive with people, they only said I was setting her up for a lifetime of sleep problems and she SHOULD fall asleep without the breast.

And so despite all the evidence that we were all right (and the emphatic reassurance of my lovely hubby), only a week ago, after some particularly harsh criticism combined with a tough couple of growth-spurt days, I was in tears, full of self doubt, sure that everyone else was right and that I was wrecking my baby’s life for her. I felt like I was doing the exact right thing, but how can you be sure of yourself when everyone around you disagrees? And then, while looking through the ABA online shop the next day (to buy hubby an ergo because he loves carrying her so much too!) I saw your book. I read it from cover to cover the day it arrived with my baby sleeping on my chest and I have stopped worrying. I tune out at the word SHOULD. I am feeling strong and confident in my ability to raise my daughter, and I have found the strength to politely listen to the advice and the criticism, kiss my daughter on the head in her sling, and smile as I ignore everything that’s been said. I will make sure I read your toddler book before too long so that I am armed in advance this time.

Last night we changed from bassinet and blankets to the cot and a sleeping bag for the first time – and no dramas! She was smiling at me through the bars of the cot when we woke this morning – awwwww that’s what matters!

There is a big, bright note near our phone : DON’T LET ANYONE SHOULD ON YOU.

So I just wanted to say thank you! for your wonderful book, a great website, and for making me feel that I’m in no way alone in what I am doing.