Ep 62: Helping your Little Ones Sleep with Missy of Say Yes to the Rest

As a parent you can understand the struggles with getting your child to sleep so I was excited to be able to interview Missy a Pediatric Sleep Consultant who's goal it is to help your child start sleeping soundly so that you can feel like yourself again.

Would love to discuss the importance of healthy sleep for children and for parents. Can give tips if you like. Also more than happy to duscuss Mom support and why it is so important to take care of ourselves

-Introduce yourself and explain why you chose to become a pediatric sleep consultant

-Importance of sleep for our children

-What is the recommended amount of time children (based on age) should be sleeping? 

-What if we have a child who likes to take shorter naps throughout the day?  Are we trying to get them on a more regulated sleep pattern?

-Recommendations for children who struggle to fall asleep?

-Tell us where we can find you and how we can work with you. 

You can learn more from Missy here:

Home - Say Yes to the Rest
(1) Say Yes to the Rest Pediatric Sleep Consulting | Facebook
Missy 🌜Pediatric Sleep Coach (@sayyestotheresttoday) • Instagram photos and videos

Transcript

Unknown: 0:09

Welcome to raising healthy humans, a podcast created for busy moms where you can easily find information on health and wellness for your family. Enjoy experts who share tips on how to raise children through each phase of life. Gather current information on nutrition and wellness and listen to Courtney, a health coach, movement specialist and founder of form fit and active and supportive community where she helps busy moms move more on raising healthy humans podcast, Courtney shares her personal life experiences, training, knowledge and conversations with other health and wellness experts. So you can raise healthy humans. As a parent, I'm sure you can understand the struggles with getting your child to sleep. It's so funny how we as parents love getting that extra time to sleep. But trying to get our children to go down can be so difficult. So I was excited to be able to interview Missy, a pediatric sleep consultant whose goal it is to help your child start sleeping soundly, so that you can feel like yourself again, let's listen in my journey as far as becoming a sleep consultant or sleep coach was I have two little children. I have a three year old and a five year old and my firstborn. For the first she was colic. And then for the nine months after that, following that she was co sleeping everything because we didn't know any other way we were just surviving. And a friend of mine said you need to reach out to a sleep consultant. I said I don't know. I don't even know what that is. I didn't know that that existed. And so what we did, we did our research and our investigation. And sure enough, we hired one best decision I ever made. And I don't just say that, because that's what I do. I say it because it literally changed our lives. It changed my daughter's life, all of a sudden, she was getting the adequate sleep she needed. Our marriage was saved, we got our bed back, things like that. It was just amazing. And I said to my husband, I need to find out how she does that. Because my prior career, I was a I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in musical theater. I'm a pastor, a dancer, singer or doing shows, but I left that world other than dance teaching, when I had my kids and when I moved to Canada. And so I said, you know, I'd love to pursue something else and have something for me. And this is really something I'm passionate about. Because this woman just she changed her life, she must change all these lives all the time. And so after I had my son, I decided to really pursue that. And so I got certified under the sleep sense program. And it's been amazing building the business, getting to meet parents along the way. And again, changing their lives for the better and getting their children sleeping so that they're getting the sleep that they need. So just it's been incredible. But that's how my journey started was much like most of the moms that reach out to me is that they're struggling with sleep and they're sleep deprived as well. Okay, with sleep sense, is that is there a specific protocol that you all follow? Yes, yes. So we Dana Olbermann is the CEO and head of sleep sense that she created? Oh, goodness, I think it's been about 15, almost 20 years now that she created her. So the sleep sense program. And so basically, the strategies that we follow, are very gentle, no, we're each our own business owner. So I own my own business and I can do what I want to do with that. But as a certified member, we're we're supposed to follow certain guidelines. And we, we we don't believe in things like doing cry it out things like that are not necessary. There are such gentler strategies that we can use with our children to support them to learn those independency skills. Okay, so you had mentioned you don't do like a cry out method, right, which is a big stigma for for what I do most a lot of people just assume that that's what sleep consultants do so that I like to get that in there pretty quickly because people are tend to I think will listen more if they know that my approaches are much more supportive and such. Okay, do you recommend I mean, you mentioned co sleeping Yeah, that's something you usually recommend or the goal is to get the child out of the bed into their own bed? That's correct. Yes, we're the goal is to teach the child to independent sleep skills so that they can sleep you know, by themselves. So we don't of course because a safe seat sleep guidelines, we never promote cosleeping but from personal experience, I did it I had to other mothers happy so I have no bias at all against it, but my recommendation is always to let's get baby too. You know the crib because they'll learn those skills much better if they're if they're not co sleeping. So, but it's always moms come to me and they're co sleeping. If they're not ready yet to change that, then we wait. And I say, Come to me when your family's ready for that change. So, but never any any bias there because again, I did it. And I'm curious when you mentioned children having the independence of sleeping on their own, is there a benefit for them? To be able to learn how to go to sleep on their own? Oh, I'm sure there's many benefits. Yes. Can you tell us some of them? Yes, absolutely. So the benefits, of course are being able to connect, one of the biggest ones is being able to connect those sleep skip asleep cycles throughout the night. So a great example, let's just say we're talking about an infant who's let's just say 10 months old. And let's say that they're used to having, whether it was co sleeping or mom and dad are coming in a lot on having to rock them to sleep or, or just rubbing their back consistently or holding their hand something that's an external prop. If they wake up in the middle of the night, they're going to most likely cry out because they're used to where they're looking around. Where did where did mom go? Why is she not holding my hand anymore. And because they don't know how to then say, Oh, I'm still in my crib, I can just roll over and go back to sleep. They cry out needing mom or dad to come back. And so what the goal is, is that just like we as adults, so when we wake up in the middle, because we all wake up in the middle of the night, there's no such thing is when we say we'll get baby sleeping through the night, it's bridging their sleep cycles. Through the night of that makes sense. So everyone wakes up as adults, we shift our kit on our pillows we rolled over, but we learned those independent sleep skills. So we sometimes don't even notice that we woke it up, we just roll over, we go back to sleep. But the baby let's say again, that 10 month old wakes up doesn't know the surroundings are now different. They panic, where is everybody, I don't know how to go back to sleep without that. And then they don't know what to do. Whereas once we teach them those skills through supportive methods, then when they wake up, they just find their roll over get comfortable, and they go back to bed just like we do as an adult. So it's a lifelong skill that you're teaching them. Because especially once they get into that toddler age, preschool age school age, we want them to be able to go back to sleep and learn have those skills so that they're getting that adequate sleep that they need. And with adequate sleep is there and we hear lots of numbers thrown around for different ages. Do you have recommendations? And why do we need to make sure that we're following these recommendations for sleep times? Absolutely. So it changes vary varies based on age, of course. So our newborn babies, if you have a brand new baby coming home, of course, they are going to sleep a ton. And you want to enjoy all that enjoy the snuggles enjoy the cuddle all of that. But we want to make sure that our newborns are getting between 15 and 18 hours in a 24 hour period. So and that's it typically that happens. Most newborns, as you probably know, they, they sleep a lot, which is what we want, we want them to be sitting right so babies, we're looking for 12 to 15 hours in a 24 hour period. So 10 to 12 hours at night. Plus those naps during the day add into that for our toddlers, we'll get 12 to 14 hours in a 24 hour period 10 to 12. At night still. And of course and your toddler age, you start out with that one nap is still there. But as they get to that to some two and a half, some three, some three and a half, sometimes even a four year old is still especially if they're in daycare or anything like that is getting a little bit of a nap time during the day still. So we factor that in as well. But 10 to 12 is the goal at night, for that age group. Once we get to school age, preschool age still 10 to 12 at night, it becomes kind of the staple is 10 to 12 hours, until they get up into that teenage years. Then we move to a nine to 12. So they can there's a little bit of a relaxed part where they could be getting nine hours in that school, like the older school age version, but still getting enough but are our kids in from Qaeda, you know, K to six and sixth grade seventh or eighth grade, we still want to see them getting 10 hours of sleep, at least at night would be helpful. If they're getting a little less than that, you know, look at their watch their moods, watch their behavior, what's there. Are they getting tired by the end of the day, you can see a lot of that in your kid and that those little things you can watch out for may say, oh wait, maybe they're not maybe they need that earlier bedtime at night. Because that's where it comes in is most most kids especially because of activities, things like that. They're going to bed later later than it's daylight out longer. Now things like that. It's tough to keep your kids on a schedule, but early bedtimes are so beneficial for everyone. You know that that's so important. So I always recommend anywhere between seven to eight o'clock is great up to that. It's a middle, middle age like if we're looking at fourth graders, fifth graders, you can get them in bed by eight, perfect. Once you get into your teenage years, yes, you're going to start seeing closer to that nine o'clock neither, especially because of activities. But the earlier the better for everybody because they're always going to wake up at the same time in the morning that never changes. Kids are clockwork, their body clocks just they typically are going to wake up, especially like babies, toddlers, if there are seven o'clock wake, or even if they go to bed at nine are gonna wake at seven. If they go to bed at six, they're probably gonna wake at seven still. So it's always going to be very similar because they work the body clock is constantly, you know, on a repetition schedule. Okay, so that morning time is usually the time that they wake up, because I'm thinking those moms are like my child always wakes up at 530 in the morning. Yeah, yeah, there's no way to extend that. There are ways there are ways. There's definitely ways depending on the age group, there are so many different tips and tricks that I can give so depends on the age group. But a lot of times if they're going to bed, let's say it 839 930 That can actually be a cause for that super duper early wake up. Because it takes when a when someone's overtired, it's actually harder to fall asleep at night. And it's harder for them to get into those deep sleep cycles they need to get into, and that can all have an effect a ripple effect on everything. So early bedtimes benefit in so many ways, and that's why it's so tough, but I see even for my own kids, oh, like here comes gymnastics that's gonna start at six o'clock. And I'm like, Well, gotta make a choice here. Do we want the child sleeping better. So I try not to overbook. My kids like maybe there's one or two nights a week that things are going to be a little bit later. But I try really hard to keep them on that that schedule of that earlier bedtime because it makes a big difference. In in speaking into that, with scheduling, making sure that your children go to bed at the same time each night. How important is that? So important routine is key. So having that routine kids thrive on and this goes from babies to teenagers. And we all do we thrive on routine. But that predictability makes them feel safe knowing and feeling their bodies learn their body clock again, that circadian rhythm, that 24 hour cycle learns when it's time for bed. So doing things like a bedtime routine is so key to getting everybody to wind down at the end of the day. And making sure that yes, that that bedtime, can give yourself a half an hour kind of cushion there. But really trying to aim for that 80% of the time is what I recommend. So an 80 to 20% 80 percentage want time routine, stick to the schedule 20% of the time, especially the summer coming up, get out there, go do your camping or traveling. If you have activities, that's okay. But 80% of the time, we really want to try to stick to a set schedule because like you said, they wake up at the same time every morning no matter what you do. So if they go to bed later, they're not going to get the amount of hours that they actually need to get in that nighttime sleep. Okay, okay. Um, what if we like a child? Or what if we have a child that likes taking shorter naps throughout the day? Do you have recommendations for that, and this is more probably more of your toddlers, those Yes, the little ones who they like to take sometimes two is usually normal Correct? To when naps a day for when we get past 18 months, then we're typically going to want to see one nap per day. So once they're usually they make babies usually make that transition between 14 and 18 months. It just depends on the child you need to usually if we moms of your mom's listening, that are have babies that are in that like 1312 month age range, watch for the signs. Typically they'll stop a symbol stop sleeping altogether in their second nap, they'll just lay there and you know, twiddle their fingers and not go to sleep. Or they'll actually start to really protest that second nap, you might see extra tears all of a sudden be like, Why is this you know, why is this happening? Sometimes, sometimes they'll fight the first nap, it's more common that they'll fight the second nap and that they'll start to really sleep longer in that first nap. And if you see those signs for two weeks or more, then you know that it's not a developmental milestone or something else teething, something like that going on that it's time to transition to one nap. And typically again between 14 and 18 months is when that typically happens. By 18 months, you're going to want to switch them because we want our toddlers to take a good solid afternoon nap, we want to see up to two, even three hours sometimes kids need, depending on the child, usually two hours is about the average that I see. Well, we want to see that usually it'll fall somewhere between anywhere from 1130 to one is when they typically start that nap just depends on when the child wakes up in the morning, that kind of thing. And finding a wakeup time that works for the family is so important at that age too. So if your family has to get going, if there's daycare, work, all of that set up morning, wake up, if it's 7am, do that every single morning, because then your NAP will fall at the same time every day as well. And that helps to for the bedtime to then fall at the same time. So routine, makes us excuse me, makes a big, big difference. So definitely wanting to get them down to that one nap for the toddler age. If you're struggling with short naps for your babies, the big thing is, is we want to again teach them to bridge those sleep cycles. So if they don't have independent sleep skills yet, and that's why they're shorter nap, then it's definitely worth it to work on extending and teaching them those sleep skills so they can extend their sleep cycles. For toddlers, if you're struggling with shorter naps, if they're in like the two year old to three year old age range, if they're taking a short nap, it may just be that that nap is starting to disappear. And that it's time to instill that quiet time instead in place of that. So they have some downtime, and you have as mom or dad have some downtime as well. Okay. And this all sounds great to me. For me, the problem that I have, I have three children and mine are way past this. But I remember this, and I have clients who are dealing with this now, the guilt that is coming the first child, we had them on the perfect routine. And then the second child comes. And now we have to get that first child to either school or whatever. And now that second child is taking all of their naps in the car seat. Yeah, how do you feel about this? No, and it happens. And it's and it's life, right? And it's like I have to so I experienced that too. Once I had my second and and I did my best to try to schedule things as best I could around his nap. Does it happen? Is there going to be a nap in the car occasionally? Because that's life? Absolutely. The biggest thing, especially when parents come to me to work with me privately as I say them, okay, we're going to create a schedule that works for your family. And we're gonna while we're doing the training and working to teach them the skills, right, then I need that 100% commitment of the routine constantly. But once your child learns those skills, and has that and the routine is set, and that schedule is set, that again, I go back to that 80% 20% Again, then you go and you do what you need to do, and you make that schedule work for you. So if it means that on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays that you have to take your other child to let's just say preschool, you know and that the pickup is right at the same time, because I know that that happened to me. I pushed my son's nap and we made it so that his nap fell at one o'clock so that I could get her home and get them both settled in, get her some lunch, set her up with quiet time and then get my son down for his nap. Was it ideal? No, I would have loved for him to have been going down for a 12 three out but we made it work and his body clock adapted. But I also made sure it was consistent all the time. So that it wasn't always fluctuating. I did it you know what, whatever was going to set state so there's always going to be give and take to everything you just have to and then once you add a third one in, absolutely, there's going to be cat naps in the carpet if you've got them with those once they learn the skills. If they're sleeping soundly at night, and they're getting that most of the time that routine is going it you will still see the benefits to that it definitely you'll see them if that helps that answer some of these benefits that what should we be noticing when they're awake? Absolutely. So things that are you're gonna see as benefits are mood, you're gonna see change in mood. So happier children, less tantrums, less fighting back, things like that, because they're not if you think of, I guess the best way to describe this Think of yourself as an adult, being overtired. If you didn't get the sleep you needed last night. How do you feel the next day? What does that feel like? It's a fog, right? We're in a fog or we're short tempered, we're irritable, we're tired. We're we're just overall Your mood is just down. So typically when a child is getting the sleep that they need, you're going to see an improvement in mood improvement and behavior, more energy for activities, more energy for sleep. School, the better attention span in school, just overall health well being. Because when we sleep, our body repairs itself, the cells repair, it's a time for our bodies to restore, which is why it's a need, right? That's why everybody needs it just like we need to eat, we need to breathe, you have to sleep in order to survive. So just if you think about that feeling, I think it's a great, great way to describe it. If you think about how you feel when you're exhausted. Think of your child going to school or going to their activities every day feeling exhausted. That's what it's like and think about it when you're rested. That's what they would feel like is they're rested, and they're rejuvenated and restored for the next day. Okay, do you when you work with older children? Is there is there a point in time you say take the NAPS away from them? Once they're like in like school age, I'm thinking, do you recommend that just so they take Longer sleep has a longer sleep cycle at night? Absolutely. So typically, the the typical child now again, there's always going to be, you know, the random children that do different things. But typically, on average, anywhere between two and a half years old to about four years old is where we see that nap disappear. And the thing that we usually see, which is what we don't want is that at bedtime, they're laying awake for an hour, or an hour and a half, or even 45 minutes, not falling asleep. So let's say they're going to bed at eight, they're not falling asleep till nine 930. And that's what we don't want, because then all of a sudden that that amount of time they're getting at night is just not adequate. So that's when you want to start looking at okay, you know what I think they're just not, they're not falling asleep at night, they're not getting that solid sleep, that's when it's time to start either. The first thing you can do, you don't even have to pull the nap immediately is capping the nap. So cutting it down, let's say they're taking a solid two hour nap, going down to first you know, go to an hour and 45 minutes, then go to an hour and a half, you can do that every three days cutting it down, and then hold once you see that at bedtime, that they're settling in, okay, because you can hold on to that that for a bit. Once you do take that nap away, then we want to go to an earlier bedtime because all of a sudden our toddler is not getting that sleep they're used to during the day. So that's going to take sometimes it could take three to six weeks for their bodies to adjust to that for their body clock to change. So if they're typically going to bed at 730, let's say when they were taking that nap, then you may have to go to a seven or even a 630 bed time for a bit until they get adjusted then that seven o'clock is usually a really good sweet spot for toddlers to go to bed. But watching for that, that bedtime laying awake, not falling asleep struggling to fall asleep can be a great indicator that it's time for that nap to go. Now I do have Courtney, some people that come to us. I just my kid naps at daycare, that's not going to change. Sometimes you can ask daycare, if they could have quiet time there. If that's a no and they're absolutely going to have the child nap at daycare. It's doable, I have to deal with it. Mike's my son goes to daycare two days a week. And on those days, I know that he doesn't need to go to bed as early so his bedtime is a half an hour later on those days. Just because I know he's not going to fall asleep right away. So if you choose to keep the nap in there, then the bedtime would then have to be a bit later just to let them go to sleep, you know, so they fall asleep right away. But just be careful because then if that window if there are 6am Waker, then you're not getting that adequate sleep. So it's it's kind of a give or take on when it's time to pull but once you do, it's still quiet time I highly recommend time for for kiddos. Okay, I have a few questions like I want to be able to give our moms something that they can take with them for different ages since I do have some different ages. And then I also have some questions for myself. Thinking about and this is me thinking about my one of my children when they were younger, but they were past the napping. The trouble to get them to fall asleep it it was always you know, they'd lay in bed and they would just toss and turn. Some of it I think had to do with having older siblings in the house knowing that they were in another room not having to go to sleep. The fear of missing out. Yeah, like Do you have tips for those families that do have this situation where there's different bedtimes because, you know like for myself. I have a high schooler, a middle schooler and an elementary school and we don't deal with it quite so much now, but we did have that you know the different times of when people are waking and going to sleep going to sleep. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a great question too. So I'll address one part of that first and then the second part two for answers. So if you have a, let's say toddler or preschool age, that struggling to go to bed at night, now if they have those sleep skills, that would be the first thing. So if they have independent sleep skills, fantastic, we don't even have to worry about that part. But if they're still, if they have those skills, and they're still struggling, if there's any type of there could be a little bit of anxiety there, if there's any kind of fears going on, or if it's just that they have trouble, just relaxing from the end of the day one, a bedtime routine, I can't emphasize that enough how important that is to set the brain and the body going to cue it because we want the melatonin to start pumping. So doing things in your household like dimming, Dimming the lights a little bit towards the end of the day, shutting the blinds, especially when it's so light out at like, you know, 730 it's still you might as well be noon, to you know, it's closing your book, okay? Closing your blinds and just just creating that environment that the melatonin production starts to happen. So we want that sleep pressure to start to build. Doing the bedtime routine continues that and doing it consistently every night so that the body knows every night, but this is the time now if you've got a little one who's giving you the bedtime battles, which is so typical of our toddlers have a bedtime routine chart, create the chart that it says Okay, here we go bath, brush your teeth into your pajamas storytime, Cuddles, and to the bed night night, bye bye. That's and they can see it, they can visualize it. And that helps it helps their brain to understand what's coming. Next thing is to talk to them. Why is healthy sleep important? Just like they talked to them at school about healthy eating all those things, health fitness exercise, we talk to them about all those things. Why don't we talk to our kids about healthy sleep, we don't do it. So talking to them, especially at that toddler preschool age, they get it they understand. There's some great resources out there that you can go on and Google, the world Sleep Foundation, places like that a great resources for kids, there's coloring books, there's worksheets they can do to learn about why sleep is important. So setting that the building those blocks and setting those things. So again, doing the bedtime routine. Now if they're getting into bed, you've done all this and they're still struggling, good ideas to try, you can do a deep pressure massage, if they like that kind of thing. So doing a little bit of relaxation techniques with them. Deep breathing, if they're at a point where they understand that and they can do deep breaths, you can also do meditation. There's some great apps out there that have ones for kids for bedtime. The calm app I know has some really wonderful ones, doing something like that with them. Another fun idea, fill up a little app a little iBeacon make your own eye pillow, make a little sock, put little things in it, fill it with a scent, and they could put it over their eyes to relax at the end of the day doing things that promote relaxation. I love the deep breathing. I love telling kids, you know, think about something that makes you happy. What makes you feel relaxed, just like we do for ourselves. Just giving them that ability to bring it down a notch just really relaxing, making sure we're not getting them riled up before bed I dads are famous for that one, getting the you know, wrestling, all of a sudden, they're gonna come in in a wrestling before bed. We don't want the cortisol to go up, we want that down, we want melatonin. So really setting the scene for bedtime. Now, if it's more of a battle type situation party where your child gets into bed, and they're asking you for 500 things, I need two glasses of water, five more books, all of that. That's when it's time to set boundaries. So really coming in there and saying, Nope, we have one, you can have a sip of water right before bed, we will read one, you can pick one story from the two. Here's your choice. So we're still fostering independence, we want to do that so important for our toddlers to foster that independence. But giving them choices are a great way to do that while also setting the boundaries. You could do asleep rules chart your son, you know, when you get after our bedtime routine, then we get in bed, we close our eyes, we go to sleep, giving them the visualization. All of those things are really great. So that gave a lot of info right there. And I know I already forget, I already forget part two. What the question was not sure if I covered all of it. But no, I mean, that was pretty much the age groups, the different ages going to bed. I think the best thing with that is to to explain to them why, again that Oh, well. You know, your big brother is older than you so he needs a little bit less sleep than you do or he has homework to do currently, but you're at this age and this is really important for your health. So this is when you go to bed, and that's where boundaries again come in. It's kind of some night a lot of the work I do with toddlers and older children is coming in there and working on the boundaries and that and working on the day boundaries to can really help with the night boundaries as well, but just explain it to them. They're, they're smarter than we think they understand. But they, you know, just giving them the tools of wide again, just like healthy eating exercise sleep important. Um, you also you continue to mention, like the teaching them the independence to be able to go to sleep on their own. What about families who have little ones who, and they're maybe not so little anymore? Who are not going to sleep on their own? They still need? Mom, I'm not speaking from experience. For sure. It's okay. Yeah. And it's so interesting, because the other two I mean, I shouldn't say needs to say that because the other two they slept together in the same bed for a few years, you know, while they were younger? How do we get breaks this? Well, first, you hire me not to plug myself in. When it comes to that age group. It is it is a tough one to break that habit. Especially because they are and I do. And I don't say bad habit. Because it's not a bad habit. It is. It's life, right? We all do what we need to do as mom's parents we do what's best, right? We think is best. And then as we go we learn more, and we say, Oh, well, maybe I need to work on that. Maybe we need to help them with that. So with that age group, yes, you would need to work on doing work and teaching him those skills. But it does require usually hiring someone as like myself to help you with a specific plan for the family. What's going to work for that child working on the boundaries, things like that, and doing a program that you know, you work three to three, sometimes four weeks to instill it, because it's it's it's a tough one when they're older to break those habits, right? Because they are, that's what they're used to. So a lot of my coaching program, that's when kind of those details come in and finding what what what dynamic works. But this family specifically, what technique is going to work for this child what's going on? And then we we get them there. That's, that makes sense. There's, there's, I would suggest this, at that age group, I usually say You know what, it's best to work with somebody just like you would work with an exercise coach, or somebody that to have that support that consistency, accountability and to tell you how to do it, because Google will tell you everything, but it's so often people google it, and then they try for a few days. And they say oh, that didn't work or, or my child seems so upset. And it's because it's not necessarily being done correctly. Because we know we need to do and we need to make changes, but we don't know how to do it. Right. And that's where someone like me comes in is to help with that. And to give you that clear, actionable plan that's going to get them to that point. Yeah, well, and I would recommend it for anyone. Not having gone through your service. But even just knowing that I remember a neighbor of mine mentioning this years ago, and she her daughter was 12 years old. And she said I have to lay with my daughter every night she will not go to sleep. And my eyes were like here. And I thought they'll grow out like this is ridiculous. Why hasn't she grown out of it? And then, lo and behold, I kept thinking over the years that my she'll grow out of it, she'll grow out of it. And I mean, we're we're heading into sixth grade next year, and we have not grown out of it. So I do believe the honesty of that and love it because it's so that, like it does prove that that whole thing we talked about the beginning that and that's people, the pediatricians doctors, I love them. We always go to medical advice for things but they so often will say, Oh, they'll just grow out of it. Or they'll say oh, let them cry it out. Or they'll suggest Oh Just take me the naps and it drives me nuts because I'm like Don't you know come to me I'll help because there's there's ways but it's it they don't if they don't know those skills they just they just don't they don't collide some will there are a few that yes, the you will come across the parents will say oh my kid did it. You know they were six but they did and sure that happens with the majority. They want you to learn those skills and it's and that's okay, you know that's again, that's that's life and I love honesty about it because it's important that moms hear that? Right that that that it does happen, but it's yeah, there's and there are ways to help her and get hurt. So I don't want to take this whole time for myself. And I also don't want everything too. I want you to though maybe provide a like one tip for each age. I'm not meaning one, you know, but maybe like that baby stage the toddler stage. Is there anything like, start here? This is my first thing like to just give them a little nudge to be able to help all of us moms, whatever stage we're at. And then we see you know, then we can come seek your help. are still sleeping in the bed? Bed? are now 15 years old. Need your time back mom? Yes, so absolutely. So the one overall, I'm going to start with one overall tip. Okay, and we talked about it already. But for all age groups, bedtime routine, absolutely down pat, one of the most important things you can do and that and you might have a mom sitting there with a newborn right now going half me, yes, you can start to establish a bedtime routine. Even with your newborn, just doing a little bit of a wipe down a little pat down at the beginning of the night, getting their body could do it every night. You don't have to do it before every nap that the Newport takes, that would be extensive. But this is for the bedtime, right doing that. Now when they do get, oh, I'm gonna divert her to go off topic. You will need A naptime routine. Once they get past that newborn stage and start taking let's say three naps a day, do a naptime routine, it's just much shorter than your bedtime routine. So five to 15 minutes, keep it short. But you still want to do a routine because again, we're cueing the body and the brain. So that's my overall number one tip is to and then a bedtime routine. And that's for all of us. I mean, if we can teach our children these skills at a young age, then that's great for us, because we should be carrying this on all of us should be carrying this on will. And that's the joy of it. You're teaching your child adult skill, lifelong skills, they will take this into the adulthood. Absolutely. I love that. It couldn't have said it better myself. Okay, so now I'll go specific. So as far as the newborns, the biggest thing I want newborn moms to remember is we are never going to sleep train a newborn ever. We are just working on goals. So you're just working on a starting to establish healthy sleep habits and the more you know, before and that's my, if you're an expectant mom, and you're listening, reach out to me reach out to sleep consultants in your area, find out if they have a newborn program like I do, where we teach you these goals and then you have the knowledge in your hands before baby comes or right when baby comes because I wish I had I wish I knew what I know today because there's so much knowledge to have. But so you're going to also want to divert again. So I'm biggest okay newborn one work to follow an eat play sleep pattern. Now you might come across a lot of people saying okay, on demand feeding all those things, you'll work all that out baby will learn what it wants to feed. But it as they're getting into the later months, this isn't your first two weeks or three weeks. This is as you're going working to keep those feeds after when they wake up from their nap feed them after the nap instead of before. So you don't create a feed to sleep association. So you're just working on that from the get go. So just bought. So it's it's a week, eat, play, sleep, wake, eat, play sleep. And so that way, that's tough. I'm just thinking of Yes, feeding yours. Yes, in the beginning, it's so tough with the newborn. But we if you know about it, and you start to get there, so once your child is, let's say at three months, now you know about this, you're getting there, so then you strategically place it so they wake up in the morning fi then they have their nap, they feed, nap feed, nap feed, bedtime routine, feed, bedtime, and then the cycle starts again. And then you again that that breaks that feed asleep association because they're feeding after the nap. So work for that. So that's my newborn one, my infants frozen oops, a baby's three months to 12 months. Again, bedtime routine, but also working on establishing those sleep skills. You have to do that. That's the key. So working on that working to make sure that you're not, especially in those early months doing any crazy external props that are constantly like if you're rocking, start to work on naps. Try not rocking your baby to sleep for one nap. Try just putting them down. So just working on it. It's not going to all happen at once. Unless you hire someone like me. Then we're going to dive right in and we're going to do it together but if you just wanting to take baby steps, start there, start small. For our toddlers, my biggest thing would be work on boundaries and work on it during the day because I would say 75 to 85% of my clients that come to me with toddler or older child sleep issues, something's most likely going on where toddler has taken over the house, that happens, that's what they're going to do. That's what they want to do. They are the boss, they can't be you've got to put your foot down and say, No, you can't read five books before bed, it's not going to happen, there's going to be too and that's it. And as they get used to this, because you can do it too. Like if you're having trouble. Most of the time I hear well, they don't want to eat dinner, they don't want to sit at the table for dinner. So we actually work on that first for the first week and work on one skill during the day. But all of a sudden mom and dad are becoming the boss again. And then when we come to bedtime, mom and dad are now the boss and the child understands. So implementing the sleep stuff is so much easier. So work on boundaries and do a bedtime routine chart, things like that. Do those things that we talked about? And that'll that'll start you off on the right foot for sure. Okay, perfect. I digressed a bit there, but I don't. That's great. That's great. Um, so let us know where can we find you? Absolutely. How can we work with you and all of that? Absolutely. So first places to find me I'm on Instagram at say yes to the rest today. I'm also on Facebook, it's the same one say yes to the rest today. So you can follow me on there as I do. Sleep tips I get I do question and answers. I actually do a little IG Live series all sorts of things. So follow me on there. And that's a great place for no resources tips. I also have a website, www dot say yes to the rest.com. That's a place where you can find out more about me my background about my sleep packages, my blog is on there, my philosophies, all of that fun stuff, my newsletter, you can sign up for that. So head to my website, because that's a great place. And if you want if you're listening to this, and you're saying you know what I need, I need help I need support, then the best thing to do is to go to my website, and book on there, you'll see it's everywhere. Book a free 15 minute sleep evaluation call with me, it's no obligation, it's just an ability for you to tell me what's going on for me to tell you about how I what my private coaching work looks like. And see if we're the right fit. Because that's important, you're not going to want to work with let's just say I was a fitness coach, you don't want to work with a fitness coach that doesn't if it doesn't match, it doesn't match. So we find out do we work well together? Is this right for your family. And then from there, if you're ready to jump in there and make a change in your child's life, we get you started. And it's usually two to three weeks, depending on the age. My toddler is always an older children take a bit longer. And we work together to asleep goals are met. And it's a it's an all inclusive program, you have access to knee support all of that. And yeah, so that's, that's the best approach, if you're, if you're looking to work with me is to book that call first. Okay, and you mentioned you have a newborn program, right? I do. Yes. And then what age do you usually go up to? So my, yeah, my newborn program is that one goes up to three months is kind of my cut off three to depending on when they start with me. And if you start right at the beginning, it's a I'm with you for the whole time period, there's three months there. So it's actually a really nice, a nice plan. And I'm actually working on a retainer program to where moms can stick with me out Oh, through the course of time there and then they can just come to me and we can work together through the whole baby course because there's always changes baby's constantly changing. So we're we got to nap three naps, two naps, one, we've got teething, we've got everything regressions, which I like to call progression. So that's actually a thing I'm in beta testing for is I'm looking to do so I can hold hold keep my clients with me, because I'm all about supporting my moms that super am my dads that come to me. Then I'm worked for my baby program is three months to likely 12 months. So okay, that's the infant toddlers is two to two years to usually four years and then my older children I work with up to age 12. But I see that lightly because I would never say no to working with one that's a little bit older than that. If they haven't learned independent sleep skills, then that's definitely for me if if they if it's something that's different going on, if it's a medical thing, somebody that we're going to refer outsource or if it's even more detailed, there's always adult sleep consultants that work under the sleep sense program that I can always refer you on to as well but so but if there's a if mom or dad is the prop still then I'm your girl working Perfect. And then is there anything you'd like to leave us with? For the moms? Absolutely. I think I just mentioned it a second ago is is support and that stigma around moms and dads need being exhausted and that that's okay. It doesn't have to be that way. There's no shame in teaching your child these skills because it does make a difference. There's no shame in asking for help. I wish I had done it sooner. And I love now that I'm able to help parents. But remember that sleep is not a luxury, and it's not a punishment. It's a necessity. And that I think is so so important to remember that it's vital for our health, well being for us and for our kids. Excellent. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day for this. Absolutely, Courtney, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to our podcast. I hope that you found this information valuable. And I hope that you were able to immediately use some of the information that was provided, make sure to go check out our show notes for all of the links that we discussed today. As a mom, I understand that at times you can feel alone and are looking for that sense of community. Here at formfit. I am bringing moms together in a healthy and supportive community. I would love for you to come join us over on our free Facebook community that is form fit community. Join us over there where we can get to know you more, or feel free to try out our membership free for seven days. It provides you with workouts recipe guides information on healthy hormones healthy habits, posture information, accountability calls, and in person in zoom events. Plus, you can receive one on one training from me for 50% off. Find out all the information by going to form sit online.com so that you can learn more. Now, go out and enjoy your day while practicing small healthy choices that will make lasting changes