36 | I Slept in the Spare Room While My Partner Did the Nights. Then I Took Over. | Brynn | Dad Sleep Training, How to Support Your Partner Postpartum, Baby Waking All Night, Sleep Deprivation

Jessica had already spent more than a year surviving on broken sleep with her first baby, Noah. So when her second baby, Portia, started waking hourly too, she knew she'd eventually need help. What she didn't expect was to spend $1,000 on a sleep consultant, follow the advice for weeks, and end up feeling more exhausted, more defeated, and more alone than when she'd started. Jessica is a mum of two, and she'd spent months following a sleep consultant online before deciding to trust her with Portia's sleep. But what she thought would be personalised support became a generic sleep guide, hours spent patting her daughter in the cot, and a growing feeling that she was just another number. In this episode, Jessica shares what happened when she finally confronted the consultant, why she kept questioning herself when the advice wasn't working, and how difficult it was to trust someone else after that experience. She also talks about the guilt of having a second baby, the loneliness of motherhood without family nearby, and what finally changed when she found an approach that worked for Portia. This episode explores: Sleep deprivation and the toll it takes on maternal mental health

Sarah had no idea that stopping breastfeeding could leave her feeling so low, and nobody had warned her. She only found out when she Googled it. Sarah is a mum of two under two, and for months bedtime with her toddler, Charlie, could take up to three hours, sometimes ending in screaming tantrums while she had a newborn in her arms. She’d tried two sleep consultants, car rides and the TV, and people kept telling her the gentle approach she wanted wasn’t possible. In this episode, Sarah talks about the post-weaning low that hit when she stopped breastfeeding, which she compares to her postnatal depression, and why she thinks more mums should be told it can happen. She also shares how role-playing with toy trucks during the day helped prepare Charlie for his own room, how bedtime went from hours to around an hour and a half on the very first night with his dad in the room, and how it now ends with “Mummy working” and straight to sleep. This episode explores: Post-weaning depression and the hormone drop after stopping breastfeeding Mood changes after weaning with a history of postnatal depression Two under two: looking after a toddler and a newborn Gentle sleep training for toddlers Toddler bedtime battles and bedtimes that take hours Using role play to prepare a toddler for sleep changes Moving a toddler into their own room Breastfeeding to sleep and parental preference at bedtime Bed sharing and co-sleeping with a toddler and a newborn Partner-led bedtime and settling Mum guilt, and stepping away for five minutes when you’re overwhelmed

Lory had a Taylor Swift playlist for labour. A birth version, and a separate one for a C-section, just in case. What she didn't plan for was her blood pressure spiking to 190, an emergency caesarean, and 24 hours in and out of consciousness while her newborn son went to NICU without her. Lory is a mum of one, and she thought the hardest part would end there. It didn't. Months later, she was diagnosed with postnatal depression, after telling herself for weeks that she was "so good at masking" how she felt that even she didn't notice how bad it had gotten. Then, just as she started to recover, she learned her husband John had been diagnosed too, after a moment that broke her heart: their baby smiled at him, and he couldn't smile back. In this episode, Lory shares what preeclampsia actually looked like from the inside, how a couple can end up fighting over who's "doing it harder" when they're both drowning, and how couples therapy became the thing that held their family together when neither of them could. This episode explores: Preeclampsia and emergency caesarean birth Postnatal depression and antidepressant medication Paternal postnatal depression Adult ADHD diagnosis Masking mental health struggles, even from yourself Resentment and disconnect in a relationship after baby Couples therapy and relationship repair Returning to work after maternity leave IVF and fertility treatment If you've ever felt like you had to hold everything together while the person next to you was falling apart too, or you've masked how you're really doing so well that even you stopped noticing, this conversation is for you. Follow us at Awake at 3am and Sophia's Sleep School for more real stories of motherhood, sleep and survival.

Some nights, Sabrina was waking every thirty minutes to an hour. She'd assumed she'd hit the jackpot, a newborn sleeping eight hours a night, barely one wake. Then four months hit, and it never really stopped. By seven months, some nights she was waking six to ten times. She told herself it was teething. It wasn't. Before any of that, Sabrina spent ten years chasing a diagnosis for pain doctors kept dismissing. Stage four endometriosis, found only after a routine 45-minute surgery turned into eight hours on the table. In this episode, Sabrina shares what it actually took to fall pregnant after that diagnosis, the night she sent a photo of herself to two friends because she couldn't say out loud that she was struggling, and the unusual setup she and her partner used to finally get her daughter sleeping through, one that involved a spare apartment two floors down. This episode explores: Stage 4 endometriosis and delayed diagnosis Trying to conceive after endometriosis surgery Newborn and infant sleep regressions Frequent night waking and feeding to sleep Postpartum mental load and isolation Recognising when you need to ask for help Sleep training when breastfeeding is the only thing that works Partner-led settling and parenting through sleep training If you've ever been too exhausted to say the words "I'm not okay," or you're stuck wondering whether your baby's sleep is ever going to change, this conversation is for you. Follow Sabrina here and follow us at Awake at 3am and Sophia's Sleep School for more real stories of motherhood, sleep and survival.

For three months, Jess convinced herself the night terrors would just pass. Every night, roughly two hours after bedtime, her daughter Floss would start screaming, kicking, thrashing, eyes wide open, completely unreachable. Sometimes it happened every thirty minutes until 1am. In the morning, she had no memory of any of it. Jess's own GP had never heard of a link between night terrors and tonsils. In this episode, Jess shares what actually led her to push past "wait and see," the nasal spray that worked for a month and then stopped, the moment an ENT said her tonsils were graded a three out of four, and the brutal, unexpected recovery that had her convinced, days after the surgery, that they'd made a huge mistake. Because it doesn't get better in three days. For Jess and Floss, it took closer to a month, and then everything changed. This episode explores: Night terrors in toddlers Toddler sleep and frequent night waking Teeth grinding and night sweats in children Restless, disrupted sleep and its causes ENT referrals and long wait times Surgery recovery in young children When to push past "it's probably nothing" Mood, appetite and behaviour changes tied to poor sleep