Batelle: The Sleep Technique That Makes Your Toddler Sleep Through The Night

It’s no secret that being a new mom and sleep-deprived goes hand in hand. What I didn’t know is that the sleepless nights will go past my toddler’s first year of life. Why don’t you sleep train? I would get that question a lot. Basically because I never had the stomach to leave my son crying in his crib. I also breastfed until he was almost 3, so by the time he was 22 months and he was still waking up 2-3 times at night and would only fall asleep in my breast, I reached my bottom. I simply couldn’t do it anymore. I tried co-sleeping, but weirdly enough, my son didn’t like to sleep with my husband and me, I tried aromatherapy, lullabies, following a very strict routine, feeding him more before going to sleep so he wouldn’t wake up to eat…nothing worked. And when I say nothing, I mean NOTHING.

So one day, out of desperation I went to the source of all information (google) and looked for non-traumatic ways of sleep training and that’s when I came upon a strange concept, a “Sleep School” called Batelle. The ad promised success after two weeks or money-back guaranteed. I think it twice though, it’s quite pricey, $1,500 but since it promises to give the money back if it doesn’t work,  I think, why not? If it works, these are the best invested $1,500, if not, I’ll get them back. So here I am, on a preliminary zoom call with one of the Batelle consultants and she is guiding me through the whole process. Despite her lovely British accent, it sounds like a lot of work, but I’m giving my 100%. After all, it’s just two weeks.

A week later my Batelle kit arrived. They were not joking when they said there were a lot of things in it: a sleep sack (the Hug), a smart lamp that changed colors and sounds, a Nest so they could see how we were doing, a timer, a bedtime storybook, and a speaker. A lot of “techy” things. Then I downloaded the app and watched all the preliminary videos. It was clear to me that the whole Batelle concept was to make the sleeping experience a fun one. The objective is to get your kid excited to go to bed, which was the exact opposite of what was happening at that moment.

Obviously, I was more than skeptical, but as I logged in my first zoom meeting I started to get excited. There were over 30 people there and I liked the idea of making the whole bed routine a playful and fun one. The first night I managed to get my little one inside the “Hug”. He resisted it quite a bit but once he was in there and I started applying the things I learned from the first lesson, and guess what, it worked! This was just the first step, of course, I still had a long way to go, but the first objective (which was getting him to sleep on his bed and not on his favorite pacifier, my boob), was accomplished! For me that was amazing, because trying to get him to sleep any other way, had been just plain impossible up until that moment.

I’m not going to lie, the days that follow were a lot of consistency and hard work, and definitely some resistance from my son at times.  But he was never left crying alone. He always had me. And I always had a sleep expert at all times I could message via the app, so I felt very supported too, which is key for this method to work. And then the miracle happened. At night 9, I finally put him in bed, read him a story, gave him a goodnight kiss, and left. No tears, no fuss. UNBELIEVABLE! I was so happy and shocked that I stood at the other side of the door thinking “he is going to call me anytime now”. But he didn’t. We mastered the whole sleep process together and now he was a pro. The whole sleep school paid off in the end.

Obviously, there have been some setbacks since then; when my toddler is sick, when we moved to a new house…any significant change brought us back to step 3 or 4 (never to step 1 though) but the good thing is that through the app you can reach out at any moment until your baby is 6 years old so you can always reach back to them and advise you what to do.

Do I recommend it? 100%. If only I had found it earlier…so for any parents out there, If you are in a desperate position as I was, go to batelle.com/latv to redeem your $250 credit for Batelle and let us know how it went for you!