Hi, I’m Liz!
Here’s a little insight into my journey with sleep. I have always loved to sleep and have also always been someone who needs a lot of sleep. Everyone expects to lose some sleep when they have a newborn, but I felt a little in over my head when, at 5 months, my sweet baby boy, whom I loved so much, was sleeping 30-minute to 1-hour stretches all. night. long. for weeks. Yikes! We weren’t sleeping at night and we were only sleeping during the day if I was holding him. So that was my life – feeding and holding a baby, and getting tiny naps in here and there. I found myself wanting my old life back (which I felt an insane amount of mom guilt about because I loved my sweet baby boy). At the same time, I had this feeling – I knew he was capable of being a good sleeper. And I knew something needed to change. That’s when I found a sleep consultant. We learned how to teach our baby how to sleep, and this was life-changing. Our baby learned how to fall asleep and stay asleep, which meant I was able to get the sleep that I needed.
Once our family’s sleep needs were being met, I was able to begin pouring energy into the other areas of my life that brought me joy. I went from sleep deprived to well rested and thriving. I went from dreading the night and how many times I might wake up, to confident I would sleep through the night and excited for the day ahead. Sleep training gave me the confidence that my son was getting quality sleep while giving me the energy to show up for my family and time to care for myself, embrace my new role in life as a mother, and pursue a career working as a registered nurse in inpatient pediatrics. That’s where I discovered my passion for working with babies and their families. I love pediatrics because kids and babies are so resilient. I got to see sick babies get better and get to go home. I realized, though, that I wanted to work with healthy babies too. And I want to give parents the same gift that sleep training our son gave me.
Fast forward to welcoming our second baby. Having knowledge around baby sleep allowed my husband and I to navigate the newborn stage with much more grace and joy. We slept so well as newborn parents. And now that our girl has grown and learned sleep skills, she and all of us are sleeping, growing, and thriving!
Liz Marr
RN, BSN, Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant
How Graceful Rhythms got its name…
Early one morning, when my second baby was just a couple of weeks old, I was sitting in my rocking chair nursing her after a restorative stretch of a few hours of sleep. Everyone else in the house was still sleeping, and our charming little beach house just felt so quiet and peaceful. I decided to open up my phone and do a devotional (something I had been lacking the ability to do consistently). The bible verse for that day was Matthew 11:28b-29 (MSG): “Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”
Reading this version of this verse in the early morning made me think of the sunrise coming over the calm, rhythmic waves coming in down at the beach. And I thought of the continuous waves like sleep cycles connecting, one after the other, through a full night. I thought this is what sleep brought to my life as a mom – rhythm.
Once the rhythm and momentum came back, that’s when I regained the capacity to do the things that brought me life – showing up for my family, cooking healthy meals, exercising, spending time doing a daily devotional, moving through my day with grace instead of chaos. And that is what I want to give to other parents - the feeling of waking up to the baby in the morning feeling rested and peaceful.