About Me
B'sha'ah tovah!
Your family is growing!
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Your babies are just delicious.
(not that you’re biased or anything.)
And, of course, you love every single one of them to bits.
But… well, you’re embarrassed to admit it... but, you just wish you could think straight, know what to do and just get a normal night of sleep (and is that all too much to ask for?)
Oh, and, you know, have time to take a shower after your new baby is born. (You can add that to your wishlist, right?).
And with another baby on the way - well, you just aren't sure how you're going to be able to manage and be your usual amazing self (showers or no showers!).
Cue soft lighting and fairy music: this is where your wishes are answered.
I’m Chaya Shifra Sadoff, and I help frum women flourish in motherhood.
Motherhood doesn’t have to be one endless muddling struggle of “maybe we’ll figure this out” at some point or another.
(Maybe when your youngest has a baby of her own?)
I work with smart, loving mothers who are expecting a new baby.
They’ve always dreamed of being a mother, but now feel overwhelmed and frustrated.
Can you relate?
You
• get tips from everyone and their sister
• read up on newborns and babies and kids
• or feel like you're just supposed to know what to do (mother’s intuition and all that!) about crying, schedules and sleep.
But... you feel like you tried every single possible thing...
and still, nothing seems to be working.
And by this point, you're too exhausted, overwhelmed and adviced-out to figure out what to do next.
If you’re expecting and are 16 weeks pregnant or more --
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it’s time to make a change so you can be your usual smart, kind, funny self - and use all of your strengths to raise your children the way you've always dreamed of.
Because motherhood isn’t a phase that you "just get through".
Imagine...
- having a calm baby that you can enjoy playing with or holding
- knowing your baby is getting the sleep he needs
- getting the answers you need if you're struggling with nursing, reflux, regressions and more
- knowing you know who to ask when things go south
- having time and mental space to just shmooze with your husband
- being able to be present and calm with your other children
- being able to get the sleep you need, and waking up feeling rested and refreshed
Because motherhood should be joyful for you.
And childhood should be joyful for your children
You want to be able to enjoy every waking second of your precious children’s lives – and hey, I don’t blame you. I’m totally with you on that one.
And you want to wake in the morning with a clear mind, no exhaustion fuzzing things up to make everything seem worse than it is.
I’m here to tell you that this can happen for you just like it does for my clients.
This is my story:
Like many young girls, I always wanted to be a mother. A hands-on, love-every-moment kind of mother.
I wanted to be the one who helped my children reach all their milestones, who sat and played with them on the floor, who prepared fresh foods, who cuddled and hugged them, who laughed and read to them.
And, of course, I knew just how to do everything that had to be done – after all, I did have 6 younger siblings. Clothing? Bathing? Changing diapers? I got it. I’d been doing it for years.
I watched my own siblings, watched other kids – you know, a normal high-school and middle school kid. In seminary, I “adopted” my אם בית’s baby. I was the only one he’d come to from his mother, the only one who could calm him down.
And then… my first turned out to be “firsts”: twins.
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Unexpected, totally out of left field… and I had no clue what hit me.
But they set me on a journey to figure things out. First up, inspired by the absolute sheer exhaustion from too many sleepless nights was: sleep.
I knew I needed help but I wanted help from an expert not only in sleep but also a woman who understood what it meant to be a Jewish mother.
About Shabbos and Yom Tov, about lots of little kids, and about the family-central focus of Yiddishkeit, and all those fine details that you just can't explain - you need her to get it.
There was a need in our community to provide Jewish moms the tools to get the sleep their families needed.
So I became a sleep consultant.
It was amazing and beautiful and powerful.
Watching, helping, guiding families transform their lives simply by helping their babies fall asleep easily and sleep well - so that they would also be able to go to bed at night and sleep well.
And, for a few years, I was the go-to address for tens of families to guide their children to learn the skill and art of sleeping well.
My clients learned
- Why their babies struggled with sleep (to keep it from happening next time!)
- The exact steps to help their babies sleep well during our time together
- How to keep things on track even after our time together.
Which was great.
Except when it wasn't.
Because ...
• My client herself (ie mom) would STILL not be getting enough sleep -- even though her baby was! -- and would still find herself struggling with sleep deprivation
• Sure, the baby or toddler would be sleeping through the night - buuuuut there were still other kids at home. Who were NOT sleeping well, and waking Mommy up, too.
• Everyone was sleeping fine… but one kid was just driving her crazy -- and she didn’t know WHAT to do about it!
• There was just something off
Mothers were still feeling like they were winging it, just makin’ it up as they went along… and it wasn’t going so well.
Sure, no one ever said being a mother was going to be easy but feeling inadequate? Lost? Drowning? Depleted? Guilty?
That’s not supposed to be part of the package.
Something had to change. And it did.
What started out as “just sleep” morphed and shifted and expanded to include those other things that my clients - women like you - were dealing with.
You know that raising your children is a gift, and a beautiful part of your tafkid
but sometimes you wonder what went wrong during your baby’s first year of life -- and why you feel like you’re dreading what should be a time you love.
Some people say that
- “babies just cry”
- “you’ll just be sleep deprived”
- “this is what it means to be a mother”
But deep within your kishkes, you know there has to be a way for you to enjoy the adorable little cutie who you will, b'sha'ah tovah, birth (or have already!).
And I’m with you on that one -- there absolutely is.
And we can change the cycle before your next baby is born.
Because the good news is that the newborn stage doesn’t have to be a sleep deprived crying fest for you.
Having a real plan to meet our babies’ - and our own! - needs during the newborn stage is absolutely possible - and one of the biggest advancements in the way we lovingly raise our children today.
And you can do it, too.
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