In 2017, I hit a wall in my job. I was exhausted. I felt like I was sprinting all day long, from the moment I woke up until I collapsed into bed at night. I was a single parent to a two-year-old and a five-year-old. I was working full time at a fast paced clinic within a public school. I was dragging my older child to the subway each morning after waiting anxiously in my building’s lobby for my nanny to arrive late once again. I was getting up early to squeeze in a half-assed workout, too, before getting the kids ready for the day. I felt like I was actually enjoying my days, and I certainly wasn’t enjoying my precious on a daily basis. Which felt terrible. Guilt inducing.

And financially, I was in the red every single month, mostly from the high cost of quality childcare.

But I also had two best friends, one a fellow single mom who lived in my building, another who lived two blocks away and shared our nanny. We saw both families daily. And I had a large circle of more distant friends beyond them. My work was rewarding. I had many patients who loved me, and the feeling was mutual. It wasn’t their fault that my administrators prioritzed paperwork over patient care. And I loved the energy of New York City, even while it also exhausted me.  

Then one day I went – on one of my every other Friday evenings a babysitter stayed with my kids – for a pedicure. My pedicurist was a lovely Mexican woman named Rosa. I had so much fun chatting with her in Spanish! Later, I had dinner with an old friend who had recently retired. I was so envious, listening to him talk about his upcoming travel. I realized I didn’t want to wait until retirement to start traveling, and especially, I didn’t want to wait until my children were gone. I wanted to have these adventures with them. This was not how I wanted to spend "my one wild and precious life." 

Something suddenly clicked in my brain.

I didn’t want to continue living this half-living lifestyle any longer. I didn’t want to rush through my days, and through my children’s childhoods.

In that moment, I decided I was going to give it all up. I was going to quit my job, and my New York City home, and my community, for a chance at a more fulfilling life with my children.

Five months later, we boarded a plane with 7 suitcases. I had sold, donated, or stored everything else we owned. I was working with a realtor to rent out my NYC apartment to provide us with income to live on. I had a short term and a longer term rental lined up in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and a friend who decided to move there at the same time as I did. A friend who I had met online many years before through our shared Single Mothers by Choice community. We had only met once in person.

I didn’t have much of a plan beyond that and a school to send my children too. It was a massive leap of faith. I cried as I said goodbye to my friends.

I also knew that I had incredible financial privilege to be able to afford this leap, though moving to Mexico saved me money in many ways. But having a safety net absolutely enabled this move.

Many people dream of moving to another country, but think they have to wait until their children are older, or their careers are more stable, or their parents need less support… and the list goes on.

But what if you didn’t have to wait? What if you could find solutions to those endless insurmountable barriers and make the leap now? Would you want to?

Let’s schedule a powerful complimentary coaching session to explore if you are ready to make your wildest dream come true.

“Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” (Mary Oliver)

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There’s no doubt about it: excellent sleep habits for your child require a significant commitment on the part of you, the parent. And that can feel impossible during travel, especially if you have multiple destinations or multiple trips in quick succession.

I invite you to consider two things.

Number one, not prioritizing your child’s sleep is likely to result in night wakings and early morning wakings. Would you rather — if you have to choose, and you very well might — prioritize flexible nap and bedtimes or would you rather prioritize getting to sleep through the night and waking up at a reasonable time in the morning?

There’s no “right” answer to this question. It’s simply a matter of your preferences and the needs of your family as a whole. It might be worth it to you on a very special occasion — going to see Fourth of July fireworks, for example — but not at other times. Whatever works best for your family as a whole is the right answer for you. Especially in families with multiple children, that may very well mean sometimes compromising the nap time or bedtime of the youngest family member. 

In general, the older your child, the more flexible they are able to be about a late bedtime and missing a nap. Babies are much more likely to have night wakings with disrupted routines than school aged children. Your specific child, however, may be more or less flexible than the average child her age.

The second thing I invite you to consider is the frequency of the exceptions to the routine. Making an exception once a month is less likely to cause sleep disruptions than making an exception three times a week. Can you rank your various sleep compromising activities so that you have a sense are most important for you and your family? Again, there’s no right answer here, but you might decide Fourth of July fireworks are worth a couple of nights of disturbed sleep but three times a week playground + ice cream after camp are not.

One final thing: you are absolutely guaranteed to be surrounded by other families making different choices than yours. Your child — if they are old enough to talk — is pretty much guaranteed to say some version of “but it’s not even dark out yet!” or “but my best friend gets to play outside until 9 pm every night!.”

Try not to be swayed by these arguments. The average American — and this absolutely includes children — is chronically sleep deprived. And they are likely so accustomed to being tired that they may not realize what they are missing out on. And children, most especially, aren’t likely to complain of being tired (except when you wake them up in the morning and need to get them out the door on a schedule). Most children under 6 years old need 11-12 hours of sleep at night, regardless of naps. I suggest a bedtime between 6:30-7:30 for most children this age. A bedtime of 8-9 pm is almost certainly too late. Even for a school aged child, 8-9 pm is very likely too late.

Symptoms of over tiredness often include frequent meltdowns and difficulty focusing. In fact, sleep deprivation in the school aged child can look exactly like ADHD. So if you are considering an evaluation for ADHD, consider moving bedtime earlier first, and see if your child’s learning or focusing challenges disappear.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good when it comes to your child’s sleep. Figure out which things you are willing to compromise on, and which you are not. And be realistic with yourself about the price you will pay when you decide to compromise bedtime for a fun family activity. There’s no morality here. It’s just a matter of being clear with yourself that you are making a concious choice.

PS If you’d like to get your family’s sleep back on track despite a busy summer schedule, you’ve come to the right place. Schedule a free consult and find out how your family can be sleeping beautifully in 2 weeks or less, guaranteed.

A former client recently sent me a question about early wakings in her young child and this comment jumped out at me.

But it’s not all that different than what many parents report when they share that they feed their older babies and toddlers back to sleep with milk at 5 am. (I might be guilty of doing this myself sometimes.)

While it makes perfect sense that we do this – anything for just a smidge more sleep! – it also makes perfect sense that our little ones keep on waking up. Because we are rewarding the very behavior we wish to eliminate.

If your child is waking up early for any sort of screen time – iPad, video games, learning apps, etc – and you want to end the early wakings, you have to stop offering screen time before your approved waking time. I suggest using a timer or an OK to Wake clock or some other pre-set notification so that your child isn’t waking you up to ask if it’s time yet. You want a signal that requires zero involvement from you, if it’s going to happen in the slightly-less-early morning. (If it happens after lunch, you probably won’t mind being asked quite as much.) 

If your child is waking up for milk and then going back to sleep, well, you have to stop rewarding that early waking, too. If you want him or her to stop waking up early for milk, that is.

You can either do a gradual wean – reduce by a tiny amount each morning – or go cold turkey. I generally recommend a more gradual approach in babies under year but either approach can work.

I totally get that this will be a painful transition and I am full of sympathy. But your child is unlikely to stop a behavior on his or her own that is rewarding. Sorry!

The other likely contenders for early wakings still exist – a too late bedtime, a too late naptime, a too early bedtime – but regardless of those, rewarding the early waking will surely make it worse.

If your little one is struggling with early wakings, let’s get your family back on track. Schedule a free consult and find out how you can be sleeping peacefully in 2 weeks or less, guaranteed. 

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