SNOO Is This Mom of 8’s ‘Favorite Thing Ever’
As the mom of eight kids, Barbara Fryman has seen it all—especially when it comes to baby sleep.
She describes her oldest child as being a great sleeper, who slept long stretches off the bat.
“I kind of thought we were just awesome at putting babies to sleep,” Barbara admits.
Then, after six stellar sleepers, Barbara’s seventh baby, did not sleep.
“I don’t know how we survived. My husband and I were just zombies,” Barbara says. “I remember waking up in the car stopped at a red light. I would feel like I was going to be pulled over for a DUI sometimes. I was that tired.”
When she found out she was pregnant with her eighth child, Barbara and her husband were excited—they both come from large families and wanted a lot of kids—but their exhausting experience was still fresh in their minds.
“I could not do another 17 months of not sleeping. I became a woman on a mission,” Barbara says. “I had read the Happiest Baby on the Block. I loved it, so I pulled it out and googled Dr. Karp’s name and SNOO came up. Everything I Googled about sleep, SNOO came up.”
Though all signs pointed to SNOO, initially, Barbara didn’t feel like she could justify spending so much on her eighth child’s bed. But as her due date grew closer and closer, SNOO became more and more appealing. Then, she learned about SNOO’s rental program. She told her husband she thought it would be worth it.
“He was like, ‘I’m way ahead of you, we’re definitely doing it,’” she remembers.
It was a bet that paid off! Penelope’s first nap in SNOO was a success.
“She slept so long that first nap she took, I was worried we would have to wake her up to feed her, and it just went from there,” Barbara says.
SNOO also helped Barbara during waking hours.
“It’s nice to have a safe place to put her,” Barbara says. “Just being able to get dressed and blow-dry my hair…I don’t think with other babies I could blow-dry my hair for at least three months.”
When the time came to move Penelope out of SNOO and into the crib, Barbara was pleasantly surprised with how smoothly it went—which she attributes, in part, to using Sleepea (which, like SNOO Sacks, snugly swaddles babies) once Penelope was in the crib.
“We stick her in that swaddle, and she knows it’s time to go to sleep. We have white noise for her as well,” she says.
Barbara credits SNOO with helping to make the expansion from being a family of nine to a family of 10 as smooth as possible.
“With first four, I was young and had ton of energy, so it worked out fine. Now I’m a little bit older, but this has been a really easy transition,” she says. “And she’s a really happy baby. I know a lot of that a lot of that has to do with her sleep.”
With 15+ years of parenting and eight births under her belt, Barbara feels confident that SNOO has the potential to change new parents’ mental wellbeing.
“It’s my favorite thing ever. I don’t feel that way about anything. I don’t feel that way about anything. I don’t feel that way about any other parenting thing—it’s that big of a game-changer.”
Barbara has since emphatically recommended SNOO to fellow parents.
“I know so many people who already have babies. I tell them get a SNOO, it’s worth it,” she says. “If you can’t afford it, have everyone who wants to give you a baby gift contribute. Just get it. Sleep is so flipping important when you have other kids.”
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