“Being a mother sometimes sucks and that’s okay,” says Lotte Olde Olthof (32) from Hengelo. She is at her wits end after a violent delivery and sleepless nights because of her crying baby. Lotte does research, shares her suffering on Instagram, leaves her job at an insurance office and now focuses on her own practice as a dream rhythm coach to help babies with sleeping problems. She is convinced that that is lacking in Twente.
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“It started as a bit of processing,” says Lotte. She certainly had something to process. Pregnancy and delivery didn’t exactly run smoothly. Lotte became very ill at 24 weeks. She had a kidney infection, was hospitalized for two weeks and had to take eight to nine courses of antibiotics.
‘I went through hell’
During the home birth, the inflammation in the renal pelvis that was initially resolved is still there. The consequence? renal congestion. All the contractions are pressing on that kidney infection. “I really went through hell, I was not approachable”, says Lotte. There was only one thing for it: giving birth in the hospital. Meanwhile, the baby in Lotte’s tummy is getting worse. The baby’s heart rate drops. Lotte is given morphine and hears voices shouting: “She has to get out now or we’re going to the OR”. Lotte does not want a caesarean section.
Without heartbeat
She gathers all her strength that she has in her at that moment and her daughter Rose is born, without a heartbeat. “She was lying on my chest and was taken away from me within ten seconds,” says Lotte. Rose’s heartbeat returns. Her lungs are emptied and the newborn girl is turned upside down and beaten on her back. After twenty minutes everything seems to be fine.
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Then the trouble begins
At home Roos sleeps like a real baby. “You often hear brand new mothers say after a week that their baby is ‘already’ sleeping through the night, so that’s bullshit”, says Lotte. “Your child has a gigantic birth trauma that he needs to recover from.” Two weeks after the birth, the misery begins for Lotte and her boyfriend: Roos doesn’t stop crying, spits up a lot and doesn’t sleep anymore.
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‘Considered to quit’
“Babies do cry,” is what these brand new parents often hear. They try everything: feed differently, drops, put away their newborn daughter and let them cry under the guise of processing stimuli. Not only do they get frustrated with the general practitioner, they also ask an osteopath and a homeopath for help. Nothing helps and even their relationship takes a beating. “We seriously considered at least three times to just stop,” says Lotte.
Time for a sleep coach
According to Lotte, she and her boyfriend are being sent from pillar to post. “I couldn’t take it anymore and I wanted to know how to deal with that.” Lotte investigates and ends up with Stephanie Molenaar. A ‘sleep and restlessness expert’ in babies. When Roos is eight months old and no longer sleeps at all, the couple decides to hire a sleep coach.
‘Too little help here in the region’
The suburbs are teeming with these sleep coaches. According to Lotte, you can be a sleep coach for a course of a thousand euros within two weeks, but are you really suitable? “It has helped a little, but not enough,” says Lotte. ”You usually buy a very expensive consultation of six weeks and regardless of whether your child sleeps well or not, the counseling stops and you have to pay for a new consultation. This really needs to change, there is too little help here in the region for parents with cry babies,” says Lotte.
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Back to school
Again Lotte encounters the sleep and restlessness expert, whose books she has already read carefully: Stefanie Molenaar. She also developed a dream rhythm training. Lotte quits her office job as an insurance consultant and is allowed to start with this study, which she hopes to complete by the end of this year. Lotte would like to have her own practice with the aim of helping parents and not for ‘just’ six weeks. “I won’t stop until it’s better.”
‘I’m not the only one’
During her entire search for answers, Lotte kept an Instagram diary, also to process everything. “I doubted for a long time whether I would put Roos on social media, but I did it anyway,” says Lotte. On this Instagram account she not only shares the fun moments such as days out or a cute new outfit from Roos. No: the hellish nights, crying spells, being sick again and having to go to the hospital again, really everything. Lotte soon gets a lot of followers. “I suddenly realized that I was not alone.”
Breaking Taboo
“Being older isn’t always fun, sometimes it’s just really bad. When you’re a mother, you don’t always have to be fit or cheerful and you certainly don’t have to be able to do everything,” explains Lotte. Besides the fact that Lotte would like to help parents of cry babies and children with sleeping problems, she also wants to break the taboo. “It’s tough, it sucks, but talk about it and get help. It’s okay, you’re not alone!”
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