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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Working with so many clients in New York City where sharing bedrooms is a requirement, I get a lot of questions about when and how to move siblings into the same bedroom.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation to room share (parent and newborn) for at least 6 months to decrease the risk of SIDS. 

When considering moving your baby into the room of your older child, probably your first and biggest concern is if they will wake each other up.

The good news is that older siblings typically sleep through their baby siblings’ crying, or can learn to. Make sure to tell your older child ahead of time that the baby might cry at night sometimes but Big Sibling doesn’t need to worry about it and can keep on sleeping. With reassurance, chlidren that wake up with the crying can sometimes learn to sleep through it. 

If your baby is still waking up multiple times per night to feed, I suggest sleep training before room sharing with the big sibling. You might still have one feeding per night, or none, but multiple feedings is just too disruptive.

In order to sleep train, you have a couple of options. I typically suggest moving the baby into the children’s move and having the older child temporarily sleep in your room with you, on the floor and not in your bed. You don’t want your older child to get used to sleeping with you and have to sleep train them, too!

The reason I recommend this is that then you are able to sleep train the baby in the same environment where you intend for them to sleep for the long term. If you sleep train your baby in your room, you will have another transition to weather, moving the baby to their new room. Also, many parents have a full size crib for the baby in the children’s room but not in the parental bedroom for reasons of space. Again, it’s best to sleep train in the actual conditions where you plan for the baby to sleep.

If for some reason you can’t sleep train in the children’s room, then I suggest you sleep train in the parental bedroom, in a full sized crib if possible, otherwise in whatever sleep space you have been using (Snoo, bassinet, pack n play, mini crib). If your baby is rolling, they should not be in a bassinet any longer. I also suggest that one or both parents move out of the bedroom while sleep training, as being able to hear one’s parents moving and breathing often causes night wakings. Most parents in this situation choose to sleep in the living room. This is especially recommended for the breastfeeding parent, if there is one.

If your baby is still in your room at night but could nap in the children’s bedroom during the day, do that. That’s another opportunity for the baby to get used to the new sleep space.

Once your baby is sleep trained, you’ll need to bite the bullet and move the children into the same room together. Remember to reassure your older child multiple times ahead of time of what to expect. I suggest you tell your older child, “Baby is learning to be a great sleeper just like you! So if you hear Baby crying at night, just keep on sleeping so Baby can learn what to do.”

Big siblings love to be role models!

After the first few days, you’ll want to stop playing Bedtime Whack A Mole. You won’t be able to prevent either child from crying or waking the other. And you do want to be permanently poised to run into the bedroom at a moment’s notice, because that’s not good for your sleep. At some point, you’ll have to let them cry (or play or talk) and figure out how to go back to sleep on their own. This may happen immediately, or it may take some time. But it’s a necessary part of the process. It’s normal to be nervous about this part!

If you’d like some support in moving your kids in together, or with another sleep challenge, set up a free consult and let’s get your family the rest you deserve in two weeks or less, guaranteed. 

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Jenny and Rusty came to me for sleep support for their two-year-old daughter, Ariella. Here’s how they described their bedtime routine to me:

“Ariella has always been a challenging sleeper. We shared our bed with her for the first 18 months, then gradually transitioned her to a crib, starting out sitting next to the crib while she fell asleep, then gradually moving further away until Dad was sitting in a chair by the door every day while she fell asleep. We live in a small apartment and we couldn’t move outside the door because then light from the rest of the apartment would flood her bedroom with light (with the door open).

Then about 6 months ago, she started climbing out of the crib so we transitioned her to a toddler bed. The issue is that recently she seems really revved up at bedtime. Sometimes she stands on the lower railing of the toddler bed. It’s taking longer and longer to get her to fall asleep.

Previously she was going to bed at 7:45 but now it’s more like 8:30-8:45. The bedtime routine has gotten progressively longer (it used to be 45 minutes and now it is 1.5-2 hours) and now Rusty has to rock her to sleep instead of just sitting in the chair by the door."

Simultaneously with these bedtime challenges, Rusy’s job has gotten really busy and he often has to work in the evenings, while Jenny is 2 months away from delivering their second child.

Rusty and Jenny said they would like an easier bedtime routine that takes less time because Rusty needs time to work and with a newborn, they won’t be able to manage a 2 hour bedtime routine for Ariella. “We want Ariella to feel confident in her abilities to sleep independently, and for us to have time to get things done and also reconnect in the evenings.”

Rusty and Jenny had never done any sort of formal sleep training, and felt strongly that they were “not CIO people,” so after reviewing the options, they decided to go with the most gradual approach, the Chair Method. With that method, the parent sits in a chair in the room, in this case starting by the door since that’s where they had already been, and gradually moves further away every 3rd night.

Things were going pretty well until Rusty moved the chair outside the room. That’s when all hell broke loose. Ariella wouldn’t stay in her room, and was up for hours. She took off her diaper, and emptied the contents of her dresser. It seemed like having Rusty outside the door, even with the door open and where Ariella could see him, was making her increasingly upset.

The next few nights got progressively worse. She started waking up repeatedly during the night, increasingly anxious and upset. Her parents were getting more and more tired, and so, of course, was Ariella.

One night things came to a head. Rusty was working late and Jenny had already been up multiple times with Ariella and was at her wits end. Ariella was waking up screaming every 45-90 minutes. Jenny made a spur of the moment decision because she felt like all the check-ins were actually making Ariella progressively more anxious.

Jenny stopped responding and within half an hour, Ariella fell asleep… and slept 6 consecutive hours, the most she had slept in days. Best of all, she woke up in a better mood and less clingy than she had in a week. We spoke that day and they decided to sit with Ariella only at bedtime that night, and stay out of her room the rest of the night. That night, Ariella cried 25 minutes at bedtime and then slept the rest of the night! And then last night, they left her room after 5 minutes, with her still awake, and she had her best night yet and slept through the entire night! She woke up relaxed and happy.

This is an interesting case because it became so clear that a more involved approach was actually making this child more anxious. As parents, we assume that a gentler, more gradual approach is a kinder one but in Ariella’s case, we can see that in this case, the opposite was true.

If you’d like to see your child sleep through the night independently, set up a free consult to find out more about what the process might look like for your family. There’s no obligation to buy and I promise you’ll come away with a few things to try, free of charge. And there's zero pressure to try an approach that doesn't feel right for your family. 

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I’m working with 3 different families at this moment that were all co-sleeping and breastfeeding multiple times per night prior to working together.

Family #1 has 21-month-old Hallie, who was sometimes sleeping in her crib and sometimes sleeping with her mom in her parents’ room. Either way, she nursed several times per night. Her mom was very stressed at the idea of Halley crying but was also beyond exhausted with being up multiple times per night and working a busy 4-day work week during the day.

Family #2 has 15-month-old Ophelia, who always slept on her floor bed with her mother and doesn’t have a crib. Ophelia’s mom was also exhausted, but in her case because she is home with the baby and doesn’t ever get a break because she has to lie down with Ophelia at naptime.

Family #3 has 11-month-old Isabel, who has a side car crib which doesn’t really feel safe to her mother, so she ends up cosleeping all night in her mother’s bed while her dad sleeps in another room for safety reasons. Isabella’s mom is a teacher and she is exhausted, just like the other two.

All three mothers scheduled coaching calls to help work through fears of crying (a new service I am offering!), as well as booking sleep coaching packages. We discussed their thoughts and feelings about their daughters’ crying (before starting sleep training). The first two families chose a sleep training method where their partners stayed in the room while their babies were falling asleep, and the third family chose a method where her dad checked in on her every few minutes. The second family bought a crib and the third family put the side back on their crib so that the baby could sleep safely.

All three families saw improvement quickly.

Hallie woke up 3 times the first night, after taking one hour to fall asleep. Her dad rubbed her back and helped her back to sleep. She didn’t breastfeed until morning. The second night, she fell asleep in 20 minutes and woke up twice during the night… but the second time, fell back asleep before her dad even made it to her room to soothe her. The third night, she slept through the night!

She did skip naps the first few days but is now napping independently as well. Her mom commented that Hallie was clingy and fussy for the first few days but now seems much happier.

Ophelia fell asleep in 38 minutes her first night, with her dad rubbing her back as she lay in the crib for her very first time. She had one night feed and 2 additional wakings but didn’t open her eyes for one of them. Her dad rubbed her back and repeated the sleep mantra each time.

The second night, she woke up one additional time and took an hour to fall asleep at bedtime. Night 3 was similar but night 4, she fell asleep in 20 minutes at bedtime and only woke up twice. By night 6, she was still waking twice per night (once for a scheduled feeding) but was no longer crying at night. Her dad continues to soothe her gently at night.

Eleven-month-old Isabel was most surprising of all. She woke 2 nights the first night, including for one scheduled feed. Second night, she only woke up once and skipped her night feeding (despite nursing continuously at night before sleep training), and on night three, slept through the night!

It’s hard to say if it’s a coincidence or not, but the first two families used a more involved method and experienced more crying and for more nights than the third family, who used a less involved method (dad going in every few minutes to briefly soothe her).

In any case, despite a lot of fear and reluctance to sleep train, all 3 families were surprised and pleased by their progress in just a few days. All 3 children are already much more relaxed about bedtime and naps are gradually getting easier for the first and third family, who have started nap training. The second family is still cosleeping and breastfeeding during naps but is eager to tackle naps.

If you have been cosleeping and are scared of traumatizing your child, fear not. The transition may not be easy (or it may be, depending on your child) but it IS doable and it’s NOT traumatic. Frustrating and confusing at first, yes, but not traumatic. And the payoff of better sleep is huge, not just for you but most especially for your child, who needs restful sleep to thrive nearly as much as she needs healthy food to thrive.

If you’re interested in better sleep but not sure you can tolerate crying, you are not alone. Schedule a free consult and let’s talk about what it might look like to get your little one restful sleep. There’s no sales pressure and no commitment. 

You can also schedule a free consult or go ahead and book the "Want to sleep train but scared of the crying" workshop for $89. 

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