Kristina Rihanoff admitted she has been struggling to settle baby Mila into a sleep routine ever since her little girl was sick, but now it seems the Strictly Come Dancing star has found a solution!
The first-time mum explained in her HELLO! blog that she searched high and low for techniques to get her daughter sleeping through the night, and turned to Gina Ford's renowned books on motherhood techniques. However, Kristina struggled with Gina's 'crying down' technique which suggests that mothers put babies to bed awake and let them fall asleep alone, admitting that hearing Mila's cries felt like "torture".
"I'm sure that the Gina Ford books are incredible for a lot of parents, but for me I couldn't do the 'crying down' thing," she wrote in her latest HELLO! blog post.
"I was trying to leave the baby for five minutes, then ten, but the longer it was going Mila was getting into such a state that I couldn't calm her down at all afterwards. It just felt like torture to me. I needed to see what alternatives I had," Kristina wrote.
Kristina Rihanoff opened up about Mila's sleep routine in her HELLO! blog
It was after reading an article about sleeping babies that Kristina discovered Jo Tantum, a sleeping guru with whom she got in touch via social media. Jo was more than happy to help the Russian dancer find a method that worked for her.
"She offered different services and actually came to stay with us for 48 hours," Kristina explained. "I've done a few things Mila wouldn’t like, for example letting her settle herself to get comfortable once she's in her cot rather than me gently rocking her to sleep – it was little things like that.
© Photo: InstagramThe Russian dancer admitted listening to Mila cry felt like "torture"
"Jo also gave me amazing advice on feeding, such as how to feed Mila, how to settle my day routine better with her. So now I am following that, I need to stick to a week of it!"
So far, Jo's techniques have proved to be a success for Kristina, who revealed she felt "fantastic" to have found an alternative to 'crying down'.
"I was very happy because I felt that actually I don't have to stress out, listening to the crying and closing the door on my child, that perhaps there was a different way to approaching night routines," she wrote. "It was absolutely fantastic.
"I just want to say to those mums who don't want to sit there and be tortured by your baby's crying and you want to sort out a night routine, maybe this is the answer. I was very appreciative to Jo. I just need to persevere – and Mila seems like a much happier baby."
