By Owner Jolandi Becker
The journey of Good Night as a company, is very closely linked to my own personal journey over the last 10 years. A journey marked with growth, obstacles, learnings, love, gratitude, the support of others and of course a lot of blessings and luck (or destiny of you like)!
The journey started 11 years ago with my own son, Oscar. The age-old tale of preconceived ideas of what you will be like as a parent, what your child will be like and then the consequential shattered dreams of sleepless nights, reflux, sore nipples, mom guilt and NEVER ever being alone again, yet feeling very lonely and isolated. My saving grace was my lack of knowledge, my son’s cuteness, the overpowering love for him, my husband and the blessing (luck) to have been able to stop working full time! I naively thought I would be bored at home when I stopped working, so I enrolled and later finished my Post Graduate Certificate in Education, thinking I would go into the family norm of becoming a teacher.
Meanwhile, a much smarter mom and businesswomen (Petro Wells), had a similar non-sleeping little boy but decided to do something about it. She flew all the way to the U.S.A to train under Dana Obleman and become a certified sleep consultant, after which Good Night was born (2012).
Oscar never slept through as a baby, not even by the time his sister (Emmi) arrived about 2 years after. Her arrival signalled the start of mom guilt version 2.0. An emotion which made bonding with Emmi an impossible task. Thank goodness (luck/destiny), she was a sleeping angel. Finally, I was doing something right, or so I thought. It was a wonderful first 3 months. I even remember finding a Good Night business card at the local clinic after a check-up and thinking who would need this? I will take it for my ‘friend’ (luck/destiny).
Overnight, the sleeping angel, turned into the devil itself. She went from almost sleeping through to waking up every 45 minutes. We spent nights, feeding her to sleep, rocking her, taking her in the car in the middle of the night to find a way to get her to sleep, getting her to sleep and then having to do it all over again 45 minutes later. Combined with a toddler who was still waking up twice a night for his ‘milky.’ Why had we decided to become parents? Is this something we willingly chose?
I spent every available moment reading about sleep, but the sleep deprivation, guilt and baby blues were NOT helping me focus. I felt hopeless, useless and could NOT figure out what I was doing wrong. Luckily, I still had the Good Night business card … I remembered I cried on the first initial call. Desperate and tired, hoping this was the person that could help. Megan (still a Good Night consultant and my sleep angel) came a couple of days later. I did everything precisely as she said, it made sense. I kept thinking was it REALLY possible to just put a baby down awake and they would sleep? I spent over 2 years trying to get my kids to sleep. My brain did not want to believe that I wasted all that time.
Three nights later, Emmi (4 months old) slept till 04:00 am, fed and only woke at 07:00 am. Another 7 days later she was sleeping from 6h30 pm till 6h30 am. That was amazing of course but the BEST part for me was the fact that I just put her down and she slept! I felt so liberated, in control and feeling I knew what as was doing (yet actually I was doing a lot less) and rested!
A couple of months later (and a lot of referrals to Megan), I felt a lot more like me. I started thinking about going back to work. As I was setting up my CV, the email came through: Do YOU want to become a consultant (luck/destiny)? “YES, I do!” My husband loves to tell the story of me telling him that I wanted to become a sleep consultant thinking: “This will be a nice way to keep her busy.”
I loved everything about being a consultant! The team, the fact that I was working for myself, the flexible hours, the ability to earn money but to also still spend time with my family. Mostly I loved the difference that I was making and helping families feel the same liberation. With each family I helped not only did my passion grow for what we were doing but also my knowledge. Books, blogs, additional trainings and experience (not only my own but also that of our team), helped to grow and change the offering to our clients, my confidence as a consultant and my belief in the great work we were doing as a team.
Buying into the business (and investing in our team) less than 2 years later was a no brainer (luck/destiny)! Taking on more responsibility with regards to what we offer and how we offer it, gave me the opportunity to grow in my own role and capabilities. Helping to train new consultants and supporting those consultants, started the shift into a new era. The era where my focus for the client, was channelled through our team!
Another year later, I became sole owner of Good Night (a TEAM of 16 consultants then). I realized our biggest strength laid in our team, with shared knowledge, shared experience and shared support! Building on a great foundation, my focus shifted to our team: supporting them in growing our business, increasing and sharing in their experience and knowledge and most importantly ensuring that what they do is the most responsible offering and solution for our clients!
Throughout the years with our amazing team (which have grown to over 20!) there has been many updates in the team, in design, the website, our questionnaires, our sleep plans and our follow up support, yet we have remained steadfast in our WANT to HELP parents. We have not been afraid to analyse what we do, not been afraid to change or look at different ways of doing things and to ensure that what we do keeps making a difference for the BETTER.
Thank you to my TEAM, my husband and every single client who has joined us on this journey. Without you it would not have been possible!
#sleeptraining