Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail
When Tracey Ruiz turns out the lights at night, she is more likely to be found lying under a bed than on top if it.
There, eyes wide open, the Brampton, Ont., mother of two keeps an ear open to clients who might otherwise burst into tears if they saw her looming over them in the darkness.
They are babies, and it's their bleary-eyed parents who have called in Ms. Ruiz, begging her to come into their homes to instill in their little ones a little discipline about dozing through the night.
Call it a tuck-in service with a difference.
A self-described "sleep doula," Ms. Ruiz charges a $150 consulting fee and up to $35 an hour to lull restless babies into La-la-land.
She is in the process of trademarking the moniker, after discovering there is a growing demand for teaching techniques that can make even the most resistant baby sleep for long, glorious stretches at a time. Outsourcing your child's sleep is a growing trend in the United States and Britain, where sleep consultants cater to growing numbers of parents driven by exhaustion to pay for nighttime peace.
With a team of 17 under her direction, seven of them trained by her in a variety of sleep techniques gleaned mostly from medical experts in the field, Ms. Ruiz works all across the Greater Toronto Area.
For the most part, she and her co-workers use old-fashioned methods, tried-and-true but somehow lost in our souped-up, progress-focused society. They include a commonly known technique called the Five S's -- swaddling, putting the baby on his or her side, shushing, swinging and sucking -- and also allowing the baby to cry it out in hopes that it discovers how to self-soothe. (Shushing is the technique she employs while lying under the crib, out of the baby's sight, so it's not obvious that the shusher is a stranger.)
"The trick," she offers, after a recent all-night turn with a newborn, "is knowing whether the crying is because they're sad or they're mad. If it's the latter, I know how to support them through that."
The silence that ensues, not just for hours or days but for many months to come, is what one Toronto mother calls nothing short of a miracle.
"I was a bitch," says Alexia Eiley, describing the effects of sleep deprivation induced by her night-owlish nine-month-old daughter, who had been co-sleeping with her parents and feeding up to six times a night. Ms. Eiley, 29, had tried to move her daughter into a crib, but she reacted with tears and fussing.
"I was overtired," she says. "I was in an unhealthy mental state because I had no time for myself and no time for my husband. It still feels like a dream, but it took Tracey just one visit. On the first night, our daughter slept alone, in her crib, for 10 hours straight."
To help the baby develop new habits, Ms. Ruiz came up with a more efficient feeding and sleep schedule than the haphazard one the couple had adopted out of a combination of convenience, ignorance and just plain confusion over how to implement healthy sleep patterns.
Ms. Ruiz became a doula (from a Greek word meaning woman's servant, the term is used to refer to someone who assists and supports a new mother, before and after childbirth) after her own birthing and postpartum experiences left her wishing there were better support systems available to women who, like her, lack friends and family members to see them through the first and often most difficult year of child rearing.
She began by specializing in postpartum care, and the majority of families she worked with asked about sleep -- how to get it and how to make it last. That's when she saw a niche to fill.
While some experts like neurologist Shelly Weiss, author of the recently published Better Sleep for Your Baby, say there's no research to support the effectiveness of sleep doulas (Ms. Weiss is specifically concerned that babies under the age of three months do not yet have the natural abilities to self-soothe or sleep through the night), others welcome the idea, saying a doula benefits women's mental and physical health.
Baby-induced sleep loss, observes Alija Fischell, a psychiatrist at Women's College Hospital, is clinically proven to push even the most even-keeled mother off her rocker, so why not introduce some kind of preventive measure to keep families thriving and together?
"I think the concept of a sleep doula is wonderful, and for some women it is absolutely necessary in reducing postpartum depression, psychosis or anxiety disorders. But for any woman, whether at risk or not, sleep protection is important, because what happens? Irritability. Anger. Outbursts. And who takes it? The family."
To date, Ms. Ruiz and her team have worked with 300 families on sleep-related issues. A recent interview saw her BlackBerry flashing overtime with calls from parents seeking advice.
Often, the calls come at 3 a.m., and yes, sometimes while she is under a crib.