Are you losing sleep over your child's restless nights? You're not alone. I'm thrilled to share with you a conversation brimming with wisdom, insights, and practical tips from pediatric sleep consultant, Alison Egidi. She's not just an expert in her field, but also a mother who's walked the path of sleep troubles with her own child. We explore and debunk sleep myths, emphasizing the individuality of each child's sleep rhythm. The goal isn't to control their sleep schedules but to understand and align with their unique circadian rhythms. But the conversation doesn't stop there. We touch on how anxiety can impact sleep and parenting, sharing our personal experiences and offering strategies to make bedtime less stressful.
Connect with Allison
IG: https://www.instagram.com/sleepandwellnesscoach/
Website: https://sleepandwellnesscoach.com/
Dr. Winter's Sleep Podcast
Connect with Kara, host of The Special Needs Mom Podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespecialneedsmompodcast/
Website: https://www.kararyska.com/
Coaching Opportunities
Pathway to Peace {Group Coaching Program}: Schedule a Consult or Contact Me
Join The Special Needs Mom Podcast Community FaceBook Group!! Click here to Request to Join
Are you losing sleep over your child's restless nights? You're not alone. I'm thrilled to share with you a conversation brimming with wisdom, insights, and practical tips from pediatric sleep consultant, Alison Egidi. She's not just an expert in her field, but also a mother who's walked the path of sleep troubles with her own child. We explore and debunk sleep myths, emphasizing the individuality of each child's sleep rhythm. The goal isn't to control their sleep schedules but to understand and align with their unique circadian rhythms. But the conversation doesn't stop there. We touch on how anxiety can impact sleep and parenting, sharing our personal experiences and offering strategies to make bedtime less stressful.
Connect with Allison
IG: https://www.instagram.com/sleepandwellnesscoach/
Website: https://sleepandwellnesscoach.com/
Dr. Winter's Sleep Podcast
Connect with Kara, host of The Special Needs Mom Podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespecialneedsmompodcast/
Website: https://www.kararyska.com/
Coaching Opportunities
Pathway to Peace {Group Coaching Program}: Schedule a Consult or Contact Me
Join The Special Needs Mom Podcast Community FaceBook Group!! Click here to Request to Join
Hi, I'm Cara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible, and the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. This forward has many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking. I created this special needs mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves going trapped and with no one who really understands. My intention is to spark the flare of possibility in your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you. If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome, hello and welcome to the special needs mom podcast.
Speaker 1:Today's guest, alison Edgey, is a pediatric sleep consultant. No, I know I don't normally bring people on that specialize or focus on our children. I have a pretty firm line for that. However, I'm sure you also know how much your child's sleep affects you. So today I brought Alison, who's actually somebody I've known for years. I think we met about six or seven years ago at a conference, which is kind of fun. We just stayed in touch. It's been really fun having another Instagram friend although we did meet in person, so that's kind of fun, but until recently I didn't really connect how I can incorporate her into the show. So I'm very glad I finally figured this out and, honestly, this was one of those conversations where I left, I don't want to say, with more questions than answers, because that wasn't it at all. It was really more that I was so intrigued to learn more and to kind of question some things that I hadn't even thought to question. Like many of you, we kind of get stuck in how we do things and how things are and we accept things with the experience that we have, and so I really valued the outside perspective and expertise of Alison and I know that you will have the same. The thing I want to really ask you to do in this episode is to really push yourself, and specifically, I think because a lot of our children are so non-typical in the way they do things that we could easily take the thoughts or ideas that somebody has and just say those don't apply to me, those don't work for me, because, and then we'd have a reason for why our child's so different, and you may be absolutely on target. The whole thing, though, I think, is the opportunity to observe, to question, to wonder and to try, and you'll see, in the conversation with Alison, she's all about observations and kind of experimentations and then like adjusting, and that's the thing I think that's really valuable for us. So this episode's really kind of looking at all aspects of sleep, but I will say it is looking a little bit at our children and how to support them, and I know for myself I left the conversation with some very specific things that I see that I can do to adjust our life and how it goes, and, interestingly, I actually I wouldn't say that we're a family that really struggles with sleep, but I think we always have an opportunity to take a look and make some adjustments.
Speaker 1:Please welcome our guest. I am so excited to have you on the show. Welcome to the Special News Mom podcast. Thanks so much for having me. Well, what's fun is that we met. I don't know, is it like six, seven years ago maybe, at a conference, at an entrepreneurial-based conference, and at that time I think we were just reminiscing I was working with women in construction, like had no intention of ever working, doing what I do now, and so I think it was fun, as we kind of looked at that. But you, you were still doing what you do now and actually, though, you still had a full-time job, I think this was a side gig and now it's a full gig, which is very cool. Love to hear a little bit more about you and for you to share with us a little bit about you as a mom, as a woman and then, of course, as a pediatric sleep consultant.
Speaker 2:Sure, so I am a mom. My two girls are nine and 10 years old and I have a background initially in investment banking. So I was an investment banker for seven years and then, when I wanted to move back to my college town, I got into higher ed fundraising. So I was a major and principal gift fundraiser for the University of Virginia and then ultimately led a major gift fundraising team there.
Speaker 2:During that time is when I had my kids and my first daughter did not sleep, despite me being a planner and overachiever, feeling very confident. I had this mom thing in the bag and I could plan the heck out of it and make it look easy while working full time, and I think we can all relate to this. Parenting is humbling, and I was humbled very quickly in a multitude of ways, but one of them being sleep, and the sleep struggle went on for about two years until I ultimately stumbled upon a sleep coach through a sorority sister of mine hired her and, after finally giving in to implementing her plan, everything was fixed in 11 days after two years 11 days After two years of struggle.
Speaker 2:Wow, it was game changing. And at the time I was relieved. And at that point I already had a second child. And I remember going back to the pediatrician and saying how did this woman fix this in 11 days? And I have come in here and talked to multiple pediatricians in this practice and asked for help and you offered advice.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that they dismissed me, but nothing worked. And she said well, the reality is we aren't really trained in sleep. So on average we get about three hours of training in medical school. So for the vast majority by no means is this all pediatricians but for the vast majority of pediatricians, asking them for sleep help is kind of like asking the mom at the park and they're telling you what worked for their children and or some of their patients what worked. And so I was blown away by that.
Speaker 2:And since I worked at the university, I had access to the university library and the actual research versus the headline articles we all see. And so I started to really read about sleep more and ultimately got certified as a sleep consultant and kind of did it as a little side passion project of helping people. And then ultimately it grew and I was doing two jobs. I love full time and something had to give so I did pull the plug on the fundraising and that's kind of a side gig and now I'll do volunteer fundraising now and focused on the sleep, consulting or coaching full time.
Speaker 1:I love to hear kind of more of the backstory. So thank you for sharing the question popped in my head. So pediatricians aren't necessarily the sleep people in the medical field, but so a lot of people in the special needs world, medical complexity world, we see a lot of doctors. If there was going to be an area of medicine that did have more insight, where would that be?
Speaker 2:Inside into sleep. Yeah, so there are pediatric neurologists who have some expertise in sleep. I know here at the University of Virginia there's a popular one. There are just general neurologists who focus on sleep. So I would say, generally, it's more through. The neurology department is where you're going to find most of those sleep experts. Also, there are pediatricians. I don't want to discredit all pediatricians. There are pediatricians who have a passion for sleep and have gotten further education. It's kind of falls in that a similar bucket to nutrition. So pediatricians aren't typically trained in nutrition, but there are pediatricians who that is an area of focus for them, so they have received additional training.
Speaker 1:So what is interesting about that is so my guess is a pediatric neurologist is going to be very focused, obviously, on neurology, like that is their lens in which they're looking at sleep. So what it tells me is that probably pretty valuable to get other lenses, and that's probably where you come in, would you agree? That's kind of like you're looking through different lenses than the lens of neurology. Exactly so with that, tell us a little bit about, like, what exactly is a sleep coach? Slash consultant.
Speaker 2:So I think you can find all kinds of sleep coaches and consultants, and everyone's focus will be somewhat unique. So some people are focused on a particular style of quote sleep training. This is what we think of, and some offer a variety of different approaches to sleep. Some are focused on gentle parenting I mean, you know, there's just a variety, so I don't want to put one cap on everyone. How I approach it is trying to understand each child and meet them where they are and seeing how can we improve their sleep hygiene, and that may look like sleep training for some folks. There's a variety of methods. I don't have one method on wed too.
Speaker 2:I think when you think about sleep training as we typically think of it, it's about choosing the method that's right for that child, and so that could involve being super hands on. It could involve leaving them to cry for a bit. So I don't think there's any one right approach. I think it's the approach for the family and the child, but a lot of it is also just sleep hygiene and some parent coaching. So some of it is just helping parents understand what their children may be capable of and where they could make some tweaks around their hygiene as it relates to sleep and the practices of prepping them for sleep that can set them up for success. So depends on each family. Sometimes it's understanding the child, sometimes it's understanding the parent's mentality around sleep, because I think we can all relate to the fact that sleeps a head game.
Speaker 1:I mean for us as parents every Sunday night my head is telling me don't not sleep tonight, don't not sleep tonight, right. And then it turns out I don't sleep very well on Sunday nights and it's like very head game now for me, so maybe we can talk offline about that.
Speaker 1:But that leaves me to kind of look at. I think that we probably all come into life with varying understandings of, like, how we get good sleep, what is good sleep, and I guess that there's a lot of myths that we may not even know our myths when it comes to pediatric sleep, and so I wonder if you can share that kind of top handful or what you see as the most common misconceptions as it comes to sleep, and I'd love for you to kind of put a little spin on what you see with people that would maybe fall out of your typical children, maybe children with high sensory needs or other communication disabilities or anything of that nature. So what are those myths that you most commonly see?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I don't know if I'd say it's a myth although we could spin it into a myth but I think the myth would be that everyone's kind of born into this world with the same ability to sleep, and whether that's someone that we classify as neurotypical or someone we classify as neurodivergent, I think within all of these groups you have a spectrum of what I like to call a natural sleep talent, and I compare it to athleticism. So if you've ever gone out to see the three year olds on the soccer field, some of them appear to have been born, come out of the womb with the ability to do all the things. They take the ball coast to coast, they could dribble, they could shoot their super fast runners. They just naturally get it. And then you have kids who are good runners but they can't kick the ball. Some can kick the ball but they can barely put their feet one in front of the other to run. You have kids who just can't even get on the field. They have no idea what's happening. So you kind of have this wide range. And then I coached eight year old soccer for years and around that age you start to see, well, who's been coached, you know who's been taught to come into a little bit of their athleticism and some kind of grow into it. And then you still have those sweet kids who are just struggling and you're like, oh, sports are not going to be your thing. And so you kind of have this spectrum.
Speaker 2:And I think sleep is very similar, because we all know people who just put their head on the pillow and they sleep and they don't need a perfect environment and they don't need the timing to be perfect, and it doesn't matter if they've had the biggest fight ever with their spouse or their child has had the worst day, they're just going to sleep like rocks. And then you have people that it's like if anything, just the slightest thing, is off, they struggle with sleep, and so those are kind of the extremes. And then you have everything in between and I think it's important to understand that with our kids and with ourselves, we're somewhere on the spectrum and trying to get an idea of where you are, because it's somewhat stress relieving when you realize, ok, it's just not my God given talent, but I do think people can work to optimize where they are on that spectrum and improve their sleep. So I think it's a myth to just think there's something wrong with you because you don't sleep and I sleep great, and what's your problem? I think it's really important to understand that there is a wide spectrum of natural ability in the sleep department and to your point of sensory and sensitivity, I do not have a research to back this up, but I have seen it in my seven years of practicing sleep coaching that I have watched infants who are now into elementary school and they may have struggled to sleep and they were little, really like it may have taken us two solid weeks to figure out what helped this child tick.
Speaker 2:And then, as they get older, I'll hear for parents like oh, they're super, in tune to everything, they're very alert, they have sensory struggles and so anecdotally I would say now I see these infants and I'll generally say to parents well, buckle up, you may find that they're a more sensitive person. And even with my own daughter who struggled with sleep, she's very intuitive, she's very in tune to my energy, she's hyper alert and aware and she's just a really sensitive person. And then my daughter, who I had sleeping through the night eight weeks, I would say she's not sensitive. She is but she's not feeling everything coming at her the way my older daughter does, so I've even seen it in my own house.
Speaker 1:That is incredible, and, as being a very highly sensitive person myself, I'm thinking of all the different things that I need to do for sleep that other people do not. I just, you know, for whatever reason have learned them through the years, and I relate a lot to these babies. I'm like I should ask my mom how I slept when I was a baby. I happen to come from a family, though, where we kind of always joke that sleep is our special skill. We're pretty good sleepers in general, and so you know, yes, there's always some challenges, but I can see, though, through a lot of my friends, that they do not have that natural talent. So what are the other myths or misunderstandings that you think most comes up about sleep?
Speaker 2:I think, a big one that I see all the time. Not surprisingly, what I do is that we can put our children on the schedule that we want as it relates to sleep. So everybody has an ideal circadian rhythm, so we each have a bedtime window, I'd say, where we're set up to have optimal sleep. And I was still this way with my first, where I thought this child's going to live on my schedule. I'm not going to be wed to some insane regimented schedule because we're doing all these things and my child's going to be cool and laid back. And of course, my first one was my highly sensitive one and for her, once we figured out her schedule, it was super important to stay on it and if we didn't, it threw her off for days. It could take three days to recover. And this comes back to where you are in the spectrum.
Speaker 2:My other child was more flexible, but she too has an ideal bedtime and she's nine. She was asking about it last night. She was saying well, when is my bedtime going to get later, like my sisters? And I do explain to her well, your sister's in puberty. So her circadian rhythm has shifted.
Speaker 2:And I started to tell her, like, here's what you'll look for, and when that happens, your bedtime will probably start to shift, and so I just think it's important to understand that everybody has this rhythm, and if your child is struggling with sleep, you can't make them have the rhythm that works for you. That's not to say we can always accommodate our children's rhythms If you have multiple kids and there's lots of moving pieces, but it's helpful to know what it is, because that's how you're going to help your child get optimal sleep. So I think it's a big myth that we can put our children on the schedule we want. Everyone has an ideal circadian rhythm and we decide whether we want to or can work with it, but everyone has that ideal rhythm, and this is true for the parents as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm thinking about it's been so interesting to me. I'm like I don't understand this. You might that I usually will get up around six. It's 30 on a regular day, but a couple of days a week I get up a little bit earlier to go to the gym at six, and so I get up at 5.25. And what I think is interesting is I have an easier time waking up at 5.25, no matter how much sleep I've gotten. Then, if I'm sleeping until like six or six, 10 or whatever, I'm trying to eke out all my sleep and I'm like this is weird, like I've noticed it, you know, because I've done it for years now. I'm like that is weird, but anyhow, so is that kind of what you're speaking to is like perhaps my rhythm is almost happier getting up a little bit earlier.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's why they say, generally speaking, sleeping in on the weekends isn't optimal for most people. You're going to probably not feel as good as if you got up at your ideal time. So your ideal wake time is probably closer to the time that you wake up to work out than it is when you sleep in later.
Speaker 1:And so right now I'm like but what if I don't like that? Just like with the children, right, we're like, but I don't like them. Because I'm thinking also of a client. Her daughter goes to bed, I think pretty well, I think around 7, 7.30. But she's often shared, like, but she gets up really early, she's ready to go at I don't remember exactly, but it's 4.35, 5.30 range. So it's pretty early for some humans that don't want to get up that early. And so you're kind of saying like that might be her rhythm, is what you're suggesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is this someone who's gone through puberty or not gone through puberty?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No, I like to see kids sleeping until at least six, and a lot of times when we're dealing with 4.30, 5.30, sometimes there's other factors driving that. It can be wrong bedtime that makes it so they don't fall into as high quality sleep which can trigger an early wake up. It could be room temperature. A lot of times waking in that window could be triggered by something else. So the bigger question would be does she seem well rested?
Speaker 1:Because that's a good question.
Speaker 2:So typically for an eight year old, for a typical child, I still like to see them getting 10 and a half to 12 hours of sleep. So my nine year old can still sleep 11 hours quite easily, sometimes up to 12. Now, granted, she kind of has always fallen on that higher spectrum. Now I realize there are always going to be kids who, if they are not falling into our typical bucket, they may not get enough sleep. So then the question when you're dealing with a child, like okay, well, they're not going to fall into that typical bucket, is do they actually seem well rested?
Speaker 1:That would be a big driver and I'm sure we can't go into all the things today. But well, what do you do if they then the same well rested? So we'll leave that lingering question for another time. Actually, let's even look at, like, when you have a new relationship with somebody that's saying, please help me, what are the one or two things that you first look at, like, what are the low hanging fruits of trying to improve somebody's sleep?
Speaker 2:I usually start with the bedtime. So an eight year old going to bed between 7 and 730 is actually great. It's a great window to start. But sometimes I'll say, if you're a child in a rut of let's take that example of waking before 5am have you tried tinkering with the bedtime? This comes back to the ideal rhythm because sometimes if you're off by 15 minutes with a child it affects the quality of sleep that they fall into. And so I probably wouldn't try anything earlier than 630 for an eight year old and I'd say, like bump, if they've been tried 7, that hasn't worked, try 645.
Speaker 2:Just see, does it help your child get more sleep? Because sometimes first we have to do is remind that body that it could use more sleep. So sometimes if we back the bedtime up to an earlier time, even if they're still waking at, say, 530, were we able to suddenly get them from 630 to 530? Did? Were we able to remind the body that 11 hours would be sweet? And then we can kind of shift it out. So a lot of times a good place to start is moving that bedtime One way or the other and just, I usually say shift in 10 or 15 minute increments and you're tracking, yes, what time they woke, but also how much sleep did they get? An eight year old I have so many questions for that child too, but just talking to them about how they're feeling about their sleep, and so I start there. And then also, environment is a really big one, and you had mentioned, when we first hopped on, you were curious about what are some things that people don't always think about, and so sometimes people will say I tried all the things, or I've worked with a sleep coach, or I tried sleep training and it didn't work, and a lot of times those are more sensitive kids and I will say okay, if you think about a sleep puzzle, some people sleep puzzles 25 pieces, and this pretty easy. We've all put together those 25 piece puzzle. They're big, they're chunky, it's easy to figure out where they fit. And then some kids, as well as adults, sleep puzzles 1000 pieces, and if they don't have all these tiny pieces put together, it's going to be hard for them to sleep well.
Speaker 2:So some of the other things you can look at is temperature. So being too warm could absolutely trigger a too early wake up, because the body has to cool itself to sleep and if it's working, it gets fatigued. Come for 435. And then you might wake up because your body got tired of working to keep you cool. So I would say where's the temperature? If it's above 68, drop it to 68 and see. Do you notice the difference? You should see this instantly. This should not take six nights to figure out. Try it for two or three, see if you notice the difference. So temperatures, one area white noise.
Speaker 2:We mentioned sometimes white noise. I am a fan of white noise, but it can be very irritating for some people and I truly think for some kids. It keeps the brain in a more active state. So this is why I'm not a fan of music. When kids are falling asleep or letting kids fall asleep to TV, any sort of noise and this is true for adults too it keeps your brain in a more active state, so you're more likely to have a waking.
Speaker 2:And so I recently had a client whose child is a headbanger. I've worked with a lot of headbangers and it typically they do outgrow it. But this parent said let's try without the white noise and immediately stopped the headbanging, because this child was into toddlerhood and headbanging longer than we typically see, and it fixed it right away. So clearly that child was very irritated by the white noise and wasn't, probably didn't realize that and couldn't communicate that with us. And then I just had a infant where we remove white noise and it stopped the wakings between four and five thirty. So I think some of that is just it keeps the brain active and then it's not resting as well and it can cause waking. So sometimes it's environmental factors that we don't realize are causing wakings.
Speaker 1:It's funny because I'm like, oh my gosh, I have like so many more questions for you than we even started with, so moving around these things, it just makes me think of there's all these things that we think, okay, this is helping my kids sleep the white noise is an example. But until we're willing to say I'm going to experiment with everything, we may not learn. And it sounds like that part of your process is experimenting and seeing what works and what doesn't and, as you said early in the conversation, very individualized, okay. So also, I don't know what you said that prompted me to think this. We talked a little bit before the call about the correlation to sleep and anxiety, but also what I'm curious about is what may show up as a result of not enough sleep for a child, because I think we talked earlier too about lack of sleep is often mistaken for ADHD, and I'm thinking there's others too. So what do you see are cues that we may wonder if our child's not getting enough sleep?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I think the big three that I like to think of are emotional regulation, impulse control and learning retention, and I think all of those I'm not an ADHD expert by any means, but I think a lot of those fall into categories that you're looking at with ADHD as well. It's a little bit of a common sense when, after I read several studies on it and I thought this is actually true for me too, I struggle with my emotional regulation I don't know if I struggle with my impulse control, but possibly and learning retention, absolutely when I don't sleep well. And so this is a little easier in young kids because it's like oh, they're hitting or they're biting. So sometimes it's easier to pinpoint it in the smaller kids, but it's also true in high schoolers. So they have done studies where they have proven that kids not getting enough sleep not surprisingly, are struggling with their learning retention, but also they're more impulsive, they're more likely to make poor choices, and so I can't stress enough how much I think we should be prioritizing sleep for our kids for all those reasons. Who doesn't want their child to have more emotional regulation, more impulse control and better learning retention? And so I always tell parents if you see your child struggling in one of these areas, even if they do have ADHD or you think they may.
Speaker 2:You should try to address sleep because I help a lot of families who are going to go get additional testing in a variety of areas. It could be occupational therapy, it could be for ADHD. And they'll come to me and say the pediatrician suggested we work on the sleep first so we get accurate test results. And I think that's great and I have great admiration for pediatricians who have learned enough to realize this could be a first approach to making sure we get the right results. So with those kids it's like great, let's get sleep habits to the best place we can so you can go in and the lack of sleep is not muddying up the test results that your child gets. And sometimes I have kids who are like, well, they walk away and they say we don't even think we need additional testing and others. We can make a lot of improvement in the sleep department, but a lot of the behavioral aspects haven't changed. So those parents could go in with a lot of confidence that those test results are going to not be muddied by lack of sleep.
Speaker 1:Well, the three things emotional regulation, impulse control and learning retention, I would say. I mean I 100% know for myself. I'm like those are all areas where my kid is really, really struggling and in my mind this is the part I think is interesting is he has frontal lobe damage. That is, that is a fact and that provides evidence for challenges in all these three areas. So it'd be very easy for me to be like, yeah, it's just because of this, the way his brain is, he struggles in these areas. But I think what I'm like, wow, you know what? I wonder how much we could support him in these areas by really looking at sleep, because he often will wake up and not be rested. He's always saying he's tired and there could be a lot of medical reasons for that, and it could be both and or it could just be sleep, who knows?
Speaker 2:And that's why I like to encourage parents to be curious and I'm curious with my kids all the time, if they will for example, my great sleep or the one that's naturally inclined to sleep. Occasionally she'll come out and say, oh my gosh, I woke up at 3.30 and the last time I looked at the clock it was like 4.49, I was still awake and then I went back to sleep and I will immediately say, oh, that's so interesting, so I'll be interested to see how we feel the rest of the day. And so I just tried to get curious about it. And then there might be a meltdown or something might happen. I'll say, oh, this is your body struggling. Or for some people and this is true for me it's not that first day that I struggle, it's the next day, it's. Even if I got a great night of sleep the next night, I'm struggling from two nights ago.
Speaker 2:And so I think, being curious about our own sleep, but also our kids, and helping, when they're capable of this, to help them be curious about it, because I do think, particularly when you have a child who could have medical reasons or medication or something that's making it hard for them to sleep, I do think it's important to normalize that every night of sleep won't be perfect, and I struggle with this for myself because I know too much, and so I will lay awake and think I'm definitely getting Alzheimer's. I'm definitely getting Alzheimer's. Look at this. I've been awake for hours, my brain is not cleansing, I'm getting plaque filled up and I have to remind myself, like, take a deep breath. This is not helpful to you. Every night of sleep is not going to be perfect. You will be fine with this night of sleep. And so I try to give that gift to my kids of let's be curious how this affects you so we can learn about our bodies. But then it's okay, some nights aren't going to be perfect, but I think that curiosity is helpful, knowing when to change that.
Speaker 2:So, for example, my daughter, who's in puberty. She started to say I'm laying in bed for like an hour after you turn the lights off. Why is it taking me so long to fall asleep? And I was like, oh duh, I'd already noticed these other changes happening. I was like that's so interesting. It's because you're in puberty and your rhythm is changing. You're kind of becoming more like a grownup. So let's experiment with different bedtimes until we find a time that you're able to fall asleep and we're going to see how you feel with less sleep. Well, sure enough, she started to sleep in. Her whole rhythm had shifted and we've just been experimenting with it. So I think with your son it's just kind of experimenting and being curious if sleep is a factor in some of those areas.
Speaker 1:Most definitely the way that you described your mind when you were maybe having a poor night's sleep of oh my gosh, I'm getting Alzheimer's, all the things I'm like. Oh, I relate to these kind of very quickly spitting cycles and I feel like, oh, I feel like you'll appreciate the anxious mind and I think a lot of people I think it's safe to say a lot of us have anxiety. That is true, and I shared one of these statistics already. But those with anxiety are five times more likely to experience a short sleep duration and had less effective sleep in a study, and we talked about this a little bit before we started recording. Because I think the question is does the anxiety come from the lack of sleep, or the lack of sleep create the anxiety? And I would love to get your take on that More for adults, but obviously your expertise has been children, but I think we could bridge it over to adults, because I think something I hear most commonly from the people I work with is that we're dealing with a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I personally struggle with anxiety and I have been able to manage my own with sleep. Now, grinnin, that means I have days when I don't get a good night's sleep, where I am really struggling with anxiety. Now I try to remind myself in those days this is because you've had a really poor night of sleep. You are really worried about this thing that if you get a good night of sleep tonight, you will not feel so big and daunting tomorrow. Now, grinnin, I could tell myself they're irrational thoughts and I'm still spinning on them.
Speaker 2:So this comes back to experimenting what's driving what here? And medications can also muddy that water of. They can make you oversleep, they can make you undersleep. Some anxiety medications can actually make you oversleep.
Speaker 2:But I just think prioritizing your own sleep hygiene and sometimes it's keeping a journal of how much sleep did you get, because there's also a wide range of how much is optimal. So research is very supportive that it's good for all of us if we get at least seven hours. I certainly know people who say I need at least eight hours. I personally feel amazing on seven hours. So I think trying to figure out what is optimal for you and then, if your sleep is bad figuring out what helps you reset.
Speaker 2:So for a long time I had this 40 minute sleep yoga practice that I would do Took a lot of time, so I was very resistant to doing it, but I would sleep like a rock.
Speaker 2:So if I got out of whack for like three nights I would do this yoga practice and then I would sleep like a rock. Now I have meditation that will help me reset, but for me it's going to bed between if I'm really out of whack, going to bed by nine I'm in a good cycle, it's like nine 45, but if I have to reset, like last night, I was exhausted. I was like I got to be in bed by nine, so I went to bed around the same time that my 10 year old is going to bed. Dad's going to tuck you in. I got to go to bed. I need to reset.
Speaker 2:It's finding your ideal bedtime, your reset bedtime and a practice to help you reset. So, whether that's yoga, meditation, something to allow your body to reset, and then really take a note how you feel after a good night of sleep versus a poor night of sleep, and figuring out how much that sleep is playing into your anxiety, you may need great sleep and medication, but you may need less medication or no medication if you're able to manage your sleep hygiene.
Speaker 1:And bringing it back to the reason I wanted to bring you on, or kind of the driving forces. I see so many of my clients' children struggling with sleep or hear about it. Therefore, my clients are not getting that, and so I know my clients have anxiety. I don't know about their children in all cases, but what do you see as the impact of a very anxious mom on sleep to the whole family?
Speaker 2:I think it's hugely impactful. I actually see this even with the infants. So I think infants, all children, are pretty in tune to energy, and I think some people are absolutely more in tune to energy than others. But I think infants because they're not verbal yet and children who are less verbal or non-verbal, I think are so in tune to energy because that is how they are taking the world in, more so than the rest of us who are blabbing away over here. And so I think, with that group, I see it more and more that the more anxious the parents are and I almost hate to bring this up because I think it adds to our mom guilt, which I hate but the more anxious the parents are, the harder time the children have learning how to sleep.
Speaker 2:And so what I tell parents all the time is, when you're going into your child's bedtime, you need to figure out how to get yourself in the right head space, and so, whether that's you're doing a meditation before you start or some people just controlling their thought process, so I'll say, when you're going through that bedtime process with your child, you at least need to be thinking they've got this, they can go to sleep, they're gonna have a great night of sleep.
Speaker 2:This is gonna go well. Maybe it's not always gonna go well, but if you go into it like, oh, I hate bedtime and oh my gosh, we're gonna have another bad night, where they're gonna be up four times and you're just in this whole thought process, all of that energy is being channeled to your child, and the more sensitive they are, the more they're picking up on this energy. And so I really try to go into every bedtime with my kids believing they can do it, that particularly my sensitive child, she's got this, she can do this. It's gonna be great, even when she's like, I don't know, I'm feeling worried about it or I can sleep well, I just try to channel some energy there. And I also think I'm sure there are people in your audience who they're thinking, yeah, I could meditate all night long, but my child is gonna wake me up, there are medical reasons, I'm gonna be awake, and so I kind of put that group into a similar group where I would think of my newborn parents, like those are parents.
Speaker 2:they have to get up and feed their babies. There's nothing we can do to get them a full night of sleep in theory, but I think this is another myth. If you are fortunate enough to have a partner or another adult in that home, I would really encourage parents to come up with a plan to get each of these adults at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep multiple times a week, because while seven hours is the optimal, the research is pretty clear as it relates to anxiety and mental health that five hours of more is beneficial, and so it could be you decide. This is the five hour window. I am sleeping in the basement, in the guest room somewhere, not with this monitor or not an ear shot of my child.
Speaker 2:I have ear plugs on something, and then you're gonna have shifts and I think that can help with anxiety, because it's like I at least know I have this five hour window where I'm gonna get sleep and I'm gonna set myself up for sleep, and that may mean you have to go to bed really early and that may mean you need some extra tools. But I think so often it's like, well, I just have a child who can't sleep, so I'm gonna go through the rest of my life without sleep. I don't think that's a good solution. So if you have two grownups in that home, you've got to have a plan, because the research is very clear that five hours improves mental health significantly. So seven is optimal for our general health, but five for your mental health is really helpful.
Speaker 1:This all makes so much sense to me based on what I see, what I've experienced and all of that. So, and thank you for bringing in well one, just the understanding that not all people do have that partnering situation that can allow that. But if you do, if you have even the glimmer of hope of having that, that it is worth pursuing a plan. And I think the listeners of this podcast know I don't shy away from mothers looking at themselves and how they're showing it may impact those around them, as in their children and their sleep, and so that's I'm glad you brought that up. And of course, we won't blame ourselves for what is happening, but it is a great chance to I think you've used the word you know observe and notice, which are some of my favorite words as well.
Speaker 1:And then experiment, gosh, there's so much good information, and I think I mentioned earlier like oh my gosh, I have so many more questions, so I'm gonna give you two questions at once. First one is what else would you like to share? Just ask as we kind of wrap up. But then the second question is how can people find you and what resources would you link them to if they're like I really want to know more? Maybe I'm not ready to hire a coach, but I do want to know more and kind of lead into this.
Speaker 2:Great, I would say, since it's the parents, not the children, listening to the podcast and I'm sure this is what you tell parents all the time.
Speaker 2:But you matter and your sleep matters and I think, really trying to understand your own sleep and what helps you get the sleep you need to be the best version of yourself, because I know I am by far a better parent when I am well rested, in part because my anxiety is under control when I am well rested and I have so much empathy for parents who don't have that ability to sleep all night. But I think, really trying to find a way to prioritize getting you your sleep, because I think you deserve it. So I think that would be my big takeaway, and I can't say that I know exactly for your audience what the best resource would be, but there are doctors out there. There's actually a local neurologist here, dr Winters, and his podcast is called Sleep Unplugged, I believe, and as it relates to adult sleep, he covers a lot of interesting topics. So I would say that could be an interesting resource for parents who are interested in learning about their own sleep. That'd be one I would check out for sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, that sounds really good and I will mention you also have a podcast and you don't entirely focus on sleep. It's actually just a really, really good, I'd say, podcast for parents that wanna learn more, and I really I love the different variations of conversations that you bring there. So where can we find your podcast and where can people connect with you? They wanna connect with you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. My podcast is called how Long Till Bedtime and, as you mentioned, it covers sleep, but it's also just about solutions for parents. So that's my big focus of that podcast and you could find it. Anywhere you would listen to a podcast or through my website, which is sleepandwellnesscoachcom.
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome, and you're an Instagram as well, and you're a sleep and wellness coach right.
Speaker 2:What is your hand again? Yes, is that right?
Speaker 1:Okay, I was like I see it all the time, what is it? And I'd give her a follow because you'll just give little like tidbits, like in your stories or whatever about like hey, it's daylight savings, Like just here is like literally three sentences that may just make your life a little bit easier. I love it. So thank you so much and thank you just for sharing yourself and your wisdom and your heart for helping people with my audience and my podcast. I am so glad we had this conversation.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me and thanks for everything that you do.
Speaker 1:Thank you All right we'll see you all in the next episode.