Kimberley Walsh: ‘It killed me teaching my boys to sleep through the night'
The former Girls Aloud star opens up about one of the hardest parenting phases she’s faced: getting her 2 newborns to sleep through the night
Unless you’re blessed with a baby who slept through from the get-go, chances are you can relate to mum-of-2 Kimberley Walsh’s most recent confession.
In a candid chat with MFM, 36-year-old Kimberley shared how she struggled to get her sons Bobby (now 3 and a half) and Cole (now 19 months) to sleep as babies.
She admits she didn’t go for the full-throttle controlled crying technique, as fellow celeb mum Fearne Cotton did (“It was never that intense”) but she did practise ‘leaving them be’ when they stirred at night.
“The newborn sleeping thing is always hard,” she says. “I haven’t had either one sleep through of their own accord, they’ve needed gentle persuasion, and it’s not nice to do, to try and teach them.
“It just kills you – but then they always end up sleeping well, in the end, which is good I think, for them.
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“Cole was starting to wake up every hour when I was breastfeeding. He literally wanted a feed and a cuddle and then back to sleep, but it was killing me.
“For 6 months, I gave them grace to just be how they are - whatever they need is what they need - but then at 6 months they start eating and they’re a bit more solid, so then [I was] like, ‘OK and try and push them through [the waking up phase] a little bit more’."
Interestingly, Kimberley also found that long-time love and hubby-of-2-years, Justin Scott, was a real rock when it came to leaving the little ones be.
(Something, by the way, one of the mums on our team could totally relate to. She says she had the exact same experience.)
“Justin helps with that but [he’s] obviously less emotionally affected by crying and stuff.
“I’ll rush straight to [the baby] but Justin’s just like, ‘leave him a minute, he’ll go back off’.
“They go back off, they do, they actually do sometimes - so I guess you learn with more children.”
Have your say
How did you and your partner navigate getting your babies to sleep through the night?
Perhaps you had a routine in place – or maybe you never got so lucky and had a poor sleeper throughout (and still do)?
Let us know on Instagram, Facebook or in the comments below…
Images: Instagram/Kimberley Walsh
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