Taking Cara Babies Review: Newborn Sleep Program

Let me guess… you recently had a baby and are barely getting any sleep. Am I right? Yeah, I was in your same shoes a short while ago. That’s why I’m here now, sharing my Taking Cara Babies review of the newborn sleep program… to help sleepy new mamas like you decide whether this is right for you! 

Will you finally get some sleep? Possibly. But just in case you aren’t even sure what Taking Cara Babies is, let’s start there.

[Disclaimer: Please note this post may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a commission if clicked at no extra cost to you. Though the opinions remain my own.]

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What is Taking Cara Babies?

Taking Cara Babies is a blog run by Cara, a mother of four, neonatal nurse and a certified sleep consultant married to a pediatrician. 

Her passion is to help new moms like us finally get some sleep (and of course the babies too LOL). This passion led her to create baby sleep programs for babies in different age ranges including newborns, ages 3-4 months and 5-24 months.

However, I’ve personally only taken this newborn sleep class and is what I will base my Taking Cara Babies review on. Though I’ll admit that I did purchase her First Five Month Bundle just in case my baby goes through a sleep regression later butttt that’s for another time LOL.

What is the Newborn Sleep Program by Taking Cara Babies?

So what exactly is the newborn sleep class by Taking Cara Babies? 

It’s an online sleep course for babies 12 weeks and younger. Ideally, the sooner you start the program, the sooner you can lay a healthy sleep foundation for your baby… giving you more peaceful sleep as well. 

It includes hours of videos with specific tips to help you love the newborn phase. 

Everything is evidence-based and compatible with breastfeeding or formula feeding moms. 

However, note that this is not a sleep training program as it’s not recommended to sleep train babies until they are at least 4 months, according to Dr. Schwartz.

The goal of the newborn sleep class is to help lay a solid sleep foundation that will help your baby for months to come. It’ll teach you to understand your baby’s cues, learn how to calm them down when being fussy and set up your days and nights for successful sleep.

Why did we decide to purchase the newborn sleep program?

Wait, so if it’s not a sleep training course then what’s the point and why did we decide to purchase it anyways? 

Well, just like you, I too was getting very little sleep when we first brought my baby girl home. So I started researching different variations of “how to get my newborn to sleep” on Google. 

But after trying everything myself, I figured there had to be a better way. 

Shortly after, I came across Taking Cara Babies and saw that a few people actually recommended it in some mom Facebook groups I’m a part of. 

So in the midst of struggling with breastfeeding, sleeping less than 4 hours in total per night and trying to calm a fussy baby although I hadn’t showered or eaten… it seemed like maybe, just maybe there was hope. I needed to find a way to survive life with a newborn LOL.

That’s when I talked to (and convinced) my husband that we should invest in the newborn sleep class. After all, you can’t put a price tag on getting a good night’s rest. 

Plus, it allows me to get things done at home, even with my baby girl around.

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My Honest Taking Cara Babies Review

Fast forward a few weeks and here I am writing my honest Taking Cara Babies review. Why? Because I want to help you make the best decision when researching how to get a newborn to sleep. 

But before I get into the nitty gritty of my Taking Cara Babies review, here are some things I consider to be pros and cons to the “Will I Ever Sleep Again?” newborn sleep class. 

Newborn Sleep Program Cons

I like to start out with the cons to get these out the way first. And spoiler alert, there are more pros to cons in my Taking Cara Babies review.

But you still deserve to know them all, so here are some cons to the Taking Cara Babies newborn sleep course: 

Few questions unanswered

Because every baby is so unique, there are a few questions left unanswered. 

Like what do you do when my baby sleeps for longer naps? What if they skip a nap all together? 

She does bring up naps but because there are different variations of nap times, it’s kept a bit generic. However, I’ll admit that these situations are not very common and were more “one offs.” Eventually, we figured out what worked best for our baby girl in these circumstances. 

No lifetime access

Yeah, this one is a bummer. As a fellow course junkie, most courses I’ve taken include lifetime access and updates, but not this one. 

However, I do understand why this sleep program doesn’t provide it. The course is intended for one family and we only need it for a certain period of time. 

After the time has passed, there is no point in us keeping it. I mean, it’s not like we can rewind time and try to put our one-year old to sleep using newborn sleep methods LOL. 

Additional props needed

If you don’t already own some of the sleeping props Cara uses in her methods, the overall cost of implementing this newborn sleep program increases.

In her methods, she uses a bassinet, pacifiers, baby swaddles and a sound machine. 

Thankfully, we were already trying to put our baby to sleep in her Mika Micky bassinet. It’s kind of the point of this class right? Haha. We had also finally started to get the hang of breastfeeding so introducing a pacifier wasn’t an issue for us.

So in our situation, we just needed to invest in the proper swaddles and a sound machine. We opted for these SwaddleMe baby swaddles and this Hatch sound machine which increased the overall investment into our nightly sleep routine. But again, it’s an investment because we need our sleep so we can function LOL.

Newborn Sleep Program Pros

Next up in my Taking Cara Babies review are the pros and there are plenty! Trust me, I was just as shocked as you when I deep-dived into this newborn sleep program and realized how helpful it was. 

The reasons below are what I found to be the best parts of this newborn sleep course.

Not a cry-it-out method

First of all, I was not about to let my cute little newborn baby cry for an hour or hours just to get them to sleep for a little. At this stage in their life, they want to feel loved and protected. Letting them cry is not going to help them feel better.

So I’m really happy that this newborn sleep program is not a cry-it-out method. In fact, it’s not even a strict program that doesn’t allow cuddles, baby wearing or rocking. In fact, Cara encourages us to do this which is great because I wasn’t planning on stopping anyways LOL.

Short, hands-on lessons

Even though there are over 3 hours worth of video content, they are broken down into bite-sized lessons. This is especially helpful because realistically, we wouldn’t be able to sit through a super long video in one setting with a newborn. 

So by having everything seamlessly broken down into short video lessons, it allows us to watch a few at a time without having to go back and rewind. 

Plus, each lesson is labeled so you can even skip through some if you feel like you need to learn one section more than another.

Real life examples shown with multiple babies

I’m not gonna lie. Me and my husband were a bit skeptical at first because we felt that she would only show the babies that the method worked on. However, this was not the case.

In some of her lessons, she shows live events she hosted where she practiced her methods with random babies from the crowd. 

Cara also introduced multiple babies in which she went to their homes to help implement her methods. And believe it or not, there were a few where her method wouldn’t work right away, but she would still walk us through what to do in those situations.

Compatible with breast and formula feeding

The methods taught in this newborn sleep program are good no matter how you’re feeding your baby. This is especially good to know because when babies are so small, you typically feed on demand. 

This program teaches that flexibility is important and that you can still have a good sleeping baby even if they aren’t on a set schedule. And let’s be honest, which baby comes out of the womb already with one? LOL

Related Post: Gifts For Nursing Moms (From Essentials to Unique Ideas)

30-day money back guarantee

Guarantees are always nice to have because it makes your purchase less risky. The “Will I Ever Sleep Again?” along with her other sleep programs, all come with a 30-day money back guarantee.

So if you try it and don’t see an improvement, you can reach out and get a refund. But from experience, I don’t think this would be necessary. Why? Well because…

It actually works!

It did for us anyway. We purchased the First Five Months Bundle when my baby girl was two weeks old because yeah, sleepless nights were real. 

Cara does say that the methods she teaches are best for babies at least 4 weeks old. If you grab it before then, she says to see it as practice without getting frustrated if it doesn’t work right away. So this is exactly what we did. 

And believe it or not, we saw improvement when my baby turned 4 weeks (after two weeks of practicing). We went from sleeping 1-2 hours at a time, to a good 3-4 hour stretch at night.

Now we are hitting the two month mark and my baby girl has been sleeping in her bassinet ever since. Her nightly sleep stretches has also increased to at least one 5-7 stretch. So yeah, I get about 6-7 hours of sleep each night now (and that’s without me going to bed at the same time as her). 

Related Post: Sanity-Saving Tips to Survive Life with a Newborn

What did I learn and implement?

The pros in my Taking Cara Babies review definitely outweigh the cons in my opinion. However, I’d be lying if I said that I implemented everythinggg the exact way Cara teaches it. 

Yes, I did put everything to practice and once we got to a place where I felt that we could tweak things a bit, we did. So what did I end up learning and what did I implement?

Used props to our advantage

Remember how I said we had to invest in some sleep props as well? Yeah well we definitely took advantage of these.

I really thought my baby girl hated being swaddled but apparently, they just hate the process of being swaddled. Once we started using the SwaddleMe swaddles, it made Cara’s method so much easier to implement. So yes, my baby girl is swaddled every night.

A sound machine is something I had heard of but wanted to try to do without. However, the Hatch sound machine did make the world of a difference in blocking outside noise. Plus, I didn’t really know that the reason why babies love white noise is because that’s how it sounds in the womb. It makes total sense now. 

Haha the pacifier… So Cara has step-by-step systems called C.R.I.E.S. and S.I.T.B.A.C.K. (which I’ll talk about in a bit). But in these systems, you’re supposed to give the pacifier after you’ve done a certain task, not before. However, there have been plenty of times where we skipped some of the tasks and went straight to the binky LOL. Hey, it still worked 🤷‍♀️

C.R.I.E.S and S.I.T.B.A.C.K.

These are the two methods Cara teaches in her “Will I Ever Sleep Again?” newborn sleep class. They are specifically aimed at helping you calm your fussy baby and allowing them to learn how to fall asleep on their own. 

I honestly didn’t even think it was possible for a baby to fall asleep without being held or rocked immediately beforehand. However, by using these two methods combined, I can place my baby girl in her bassinet with sleepy open eyes and watch her fall asleep within minutes. 

C.R.I.E.S. is what you would do after you have swaddled your baby and want to calm them down. This method worked wonders in the beginning but we honestly don’t need to do this as much anymore (thankfully). 

S.I.T.B.A.C.K is what helps you get more sleep at night LOL. Use this method when your baby wakes up at night to eat, especially if they are waking up constantly. Again, this method worked great in the beginning but now that my baby girl has longer stretches, I find it okay to feed her when she wakes up instead of trying to put her back to sleep using S.I.T.B.A.C.K.

Naps.. still working on LOL

Okay so let’s talk about naps. Babies like to be on their own schedule or no schedule at all LOL. So although naps and awake times are covered in the course, she specifically mentions that we cannot control the length of their naps. 

This is something that is a hit or miss for us. Some weeks, my baby girl has perfect awake windows with predictable nap times. But as she goes through different phases and hits new developmental milestones, her nap cycles tend to change.

But although these periods are a bit frustrating, it’s good to know that we aren’t the only ones. And now we at least know how to handle and what to do during her awake and sleep cycles.

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Is the newborn sleep course worth it?

Now, there is quite a bit more we learned from the course but that list can go on for a while. The most important thing we got out of it was being able to put my baby to sleep in her bassinet at nights. 

That’s why our Taking Cara Babies review is mostly positive and our recommendation is to definitely take this course. This is especially if you feel that you aren’t in a good place when it comes to your baby’s sleep.

However, if you feel that your baby is ready for sleep training or if they are older than 12 weeks, this sleep course is not for you. The “Will I Ever Sleep Again?” sleep program is specifically for newborns under 12 weeks who can’t seem to sleep outside of their mama’s arms. 

So yes, this newborn sleep class is definitely worth it because again, you can’t put a price tag on a good night’s rest. 

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Yes, You Will Sleep Again

Yay, there is light at the end of the tunnel with restful nights ahead! LOL. There was a time when I thought sleep was never going to come again so I am very glad I came across someone else’s recommendation of the course. 

If your baby is a bit older than 12 weeks and you’re still not getting some sleep, then the Navigating Months 3-4 eBook is what you’ll need. 

But if your baby is a newborn and you’re ready to lay out a healthy sleep foundation for them, you can save 15% by grabbing the First Five Months Bundle. It’s what I did just in case a sleep regression comes along a few months from now, because I don’t want to lose sleep again LOL.

So tell me, have you taken this course before? Do you have any additional questions on the newborn sleep program? If so, please let me know below as I’d love to hear from you!

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