This is how Katie started our session today.
Then she explained. Her credit card bill was $9000 instead of its normal $2000. “And I have nothing to show for it,” she said, “just a trip to Milwaukee to see my aunt." "What’s more, “ she continued, “my room is a mess and I have 401k accounts from every job I have ever been at. I have no idea what they are doing. Some of them probably aren’t earning anything. Maybe they are even losing money. And I haven’t unpacked and my room is a mess.” Do you ever feel like Katie? I know I do, sometimes. Adding to her overwhelm is the fact that her ADHD brain, as she says, requires a “long runway” to get started on tasks. Sometimes it’s really hard for her to find the energy to just get going. One of the ways that I support Katie is by helping her organize her overwhelm and then break down her to do list to manageable bites. Today, we started by processing the despair she was feeling over her finances. There was guilt and shame and frustration, all rolled up into one. Feeling all those feelings was the last thing she wanted to do, but she agreed to try it, and was surprised to find that she was breathing easier after a few minutes of that. Afterwards, she made her bed while we talked and then we created a strategy for her to move forward. Just the simple act of making her bed and laying down a towel for her suitcase and opening the suitcase gave her relief. The dreaded first three steps were done. They weren’t the hardest, but they required the most energy. By the end of our session, she was feeling a lot better about herself. She had a plan to move forward, and energy to execute it. Do you ever need help getting started with overwhelming tasks? You’re not alone. I know I do. It’s part of the human experience, at least if you live in Western culture and have children. And if you have ADHD or are a single parent, the overwhelm can be all the more daunting. If you are struggle with overwhelm or beating yourself up on the regular, support can be life changing. Schedule a free consult (scroll down past sleep coaching to life coaching) and find out how we can get you on the road to conquering your own overwhelm. There’s no sales technique and no pressure to commit. Just an opportunity to see what coaching is all about. I can’t wait to meet you. PS Here’s what Katie just messaged me two minutes ago, “I'm taking my unused checkbook register that is in my file cabinet where I store my extra checks and I'm writing my current checking account balance in it. And I am going to have to record everything I spend w/ my debit card so I can make sure I have enough to cover whatever I am buying. When I use the Amex card I don't have to keep a close eye, and that is how it's gotten so out of control.” Can you believe that her mindset switched from “everything is hopeless,” to this in the space of an hour?
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In my last parent coaching blog post, I mentioned that writing out a daily schedule – and even assigning times for things – can be very reassuring for anxious young children.
But writing about this also reminded me of the time I wrote out a schedule like this for my niece.. And then we had to leave the pool, where we were all having fun, at a set time because my completely arbitrary schedule had assumed we would be done by that time. So while it’s great to help lessen anxiety by planning ahead, it’s also great to help children learn to be more flexible sometimes. Schedules inevitably have to shift occasionally. It's best to to practice this ahead of time so that your child isn't melting down at the same time you have to make a stressful exception to the schedule. To that end, I would actually plan on an occasional low stress exception to the rules. Do you always go straight home from daycare? One day, offer to stop for an ice cream. Another day, swing by the playground. I wouldn’t make these exceptions too frequent, because you don’t want to be constantly negotiating your trip home. But once or twice a month might be a fun amount of freedom. Try to time your exceptions to the rule with some thoughtfulness. For example, when my kids used to get screentime right after school on Fridays, planning a stop by a playground on a Friday after school might have really stressed them out. Better to pick a different day in that case. Likewise, if your child missed a nap that day, or slept badly the night before, better to stick to the schedule. Maximize your odds of success with these children who are anxious about schedule changes. With repeated positive exposure to fun exceptions to the schedule, your child can learn to become somewhat more flexible to schedule changes. If you have a child who is less flexible than you wish, I would love to talk to you about how you can make life less stressful for the entire family. Schedule a free parent coaching session (scroll down past sleep coaching to life coaching) and find out how we can work together to make family time more enjoyable. If the onset of daylight savings time has meant that your child is waking up at a more human hour, congratulations! Enjoy!
If you want to maintain that later waking time, here’s what you need to know: You need to keep your child’s schedule on the OLD time zone/clock, NOT on the new one. It’s probably obvious to you that you need to keep bedtime an hour later in order to keep the waking time an hour later. What may not be obvious is that you ALSO need to keep meal times (and naptimes) an hour later as well. If dinner was at 5 before, you need to have dinner at 6 pm now. If nap was at 12, move it to 1 pm. The other challenge with DST is that the days are typically, depending on your location, getting a LOT longer. If it’s light out late, it’s a lot harder for your kid to go to sleep at the same time in June as she does in December. (With my own kids, I also find that they typically sleep less in the warmer months.) To prevent this from happening, blackout shades become increasingly important. If your child’s room is too bright either at bedtime or in the early morning, it’s going to be really hard for you to get your desired results with your child’s sleep. Invest in blackout shades and consider blackout curtains or something else to cover the edges and top of the blackout shades if your child is struggling to fall asleep at night or is waking up too early in the morning. Those little cracks can add up to a lot of light leakage. Let me know if you have success with keeping your child on the new schedule! And if you are struggling with bedtime struggles or early morning wakings, schedule a free consult and find out how to get your family the sleep you need to truly enjoy your time together. “We have a kid with… very strong preferences. She is miserable if she is with anyone but me (Mom), and has a huge meltdown. We need two parents to do bedtime because she'll be very upset if she doesn't have one on one time. And she can't wait her turn while I put her brother to bed first. But what is weird is that she doesn’t have this problem at school. She does great at school!
She’s also highly verbal compared to her peers.” One thing I have heard many times from parents is that their extra smart kiddos have extra big feelings. Some people call this being a Highly Sensitive Person, or a Deeply Feeling Kid. I call it “more anxious than your typical preschooler… because all of them are anxious!” Whatever you call it, these wonderful kids require some extra parenting skills. Here one tip that I gave the parents I spoke to yesterday. Make your schedule and your expectations very clear. A child like this, even at 3 or 4 years old, may benefit from a written schedule. Even if she can’t tell time, you can tell her “when my phone says seven zero zero, we will have breakfast.” You can write out a schedule for her, for example: 6:30 Wake up 7:00 Breakfast 7:30 Get dressed, use the potty, brush teeth and hair 7:55 put on shoes 8:00 leave the house And so on. For the entire day. Note that the times and the tasks are very specific. Having all this detail actually gives these kids a sense of control, because they know what to expect, which helps them to feel less anxious. You can also invite your child to decorate the schedule, if he would like. That is a way to give him a sense of ownership, which will also lessen his anxiety. Setting expectations would look like, "Mommy will help you get dressed, and Daddy will make you breakfast while Mommy showers." It's important with these kids, that once you set these expectations, that you stick with what you said. Do not change plans so that Mommy makes breakfast to avoid your preschooler's meltdown. The more you try to accommodate her preferences, the more rigid and prone to meltdowns she'll actually become. This means there is no shortcut to peace, and in fact, things will get more stressful in the short term. But in the long term, you'll find she becomes more calm and patient. If you'd like some help figuring out how to reduce tension in a household with a child with strong preferences, you are not alone. Schedule a free consult to discuss how parent coaching (scroll down past sleep coaching to parent coaching) can help reduce stress and increase family happiness. Many breastfeeding parents wonder if it's possible to sleep train if they are breastfeeding. After all, isn't it important to breastfeed around the clock in order to maintain supply?
Well, first off, I always support breastfeeding for those who want to do it. I also support bottle feeders while sleep training. Your body, your choice. You will have a fabulous kid either way. The advice that many parents get from lactation consultants is to feed frequently around the clock, especially in the early weeks and months. This is excellent advice for supporting a breastmilk supply but less than ideal for sleep. Here’s what i recommend, to optimize both breastfeeding and sleep. You will not get this controversial advice from your ICBLC, but with in almost all cases, I have found that it works beautifully for sleep while also preserving the breastfeeding relationship. (In those couple of cases, breastmilk supply was negatively impacted and those parents decided to supplement with formula... but in both cases, they have supplemented with their older children, too, and had planned to do so with these newer babies.) For the first six weeks of life, or longer if your baby was born early, breastfeed around the clock, on demand. At age 6-8 weeks old, if your milk supply is well established, start to gently encourage a schedule of eating every 3 hours during the day and same at night. This change doesn't need to happen overnight. Take it slowly, monitor your baby's wet diapers as well as your milk supply. Consider pumping once a day or more if you have supply concerns or if you want your baby to take a bottle sometimes. At eight weeks and older, if breastfeeding and milk supply are continuing to go well, start gently encouraging the feedings to be on an every four-hour-schedule during the day and at night. You can add in an extra feeding in the late afternoons if you have any concerns about your baby getting enough to eat. Continue to count wet diapers -- you should have at least six in a 24-hour period. You may find that your baby starts to sleep a longer stretch at night when you switch to an every-four-hour schedule during th day. If this is the case, and if your pediatrician has no concerns about your baby's weight gain, congratulations! Please take advantage of this and get some extra sleep yourself! This is exactly what happened with all three of my babies, and it was glorious. My oldest was sleeping an 8-hour stretch by 8 weeks old, and my middle was sleeping 10 hours by 10 weeks. My youngest was born very small after fetal growth restriction so she didn't sleep through the night until 4 months old. In every case, there was minimal to no crying. Want to get your newest member of the family sleeping longer stretches at night? You've come to the right place. Book a complimentary sleep consultation today and find out how you can have a well-rested family in two weeks or less, guaranteed. This is a frequent question from families interested in sleep training. They want the benefits of great sleep but don’t want to have to commit to being home for every nap.
Like so many things, the answer is: it depends. My daughter Valentina ended up being out to dinner not once but twice this weekend. The first time was planned, and we returned home at 7 pm. The second time was because she fell off the couch and hit her head while being babysat by my older daughter. My partner swooped home to pick her up and then joined friends and I at dinner. She was, luckily, in a great mood despite her dramatic fall. Since we hadn’t planned on attendance at dinner, she didn’t get to bed until more than an hour after her regular bedtime. Both evenings, she was an excellent dinner companion and I got lots of compliments about how she never cries. We got lucky. She slept great that night. But last night, the following night, she was up for 90 minutes in the middle of the night, apparently starving. Or overtired. Or probably both. In my experience, well-rested babies who are almost always on a schedule are the easiest going ones. Babies who don’t have a regular schedule are more fussy because their little bodies never know when the next nap is coming. Just like regularly scheduled meals, regularly scheduled sleep means happier kids. Some of this is luck, too. But with all three of my kids, I saw a drastic shift in their behavior when they were on a sleep and feeding schedule. They got much happier and more easy going. They were more comfortable with strangers. They were more curious and engaged in their environments. So the irony of this all? A regular sleep schedule may actually give you more flexibility. Beyond that, I learned to embrace the requirement of being home for naps. It forced us to get up and out in the mornings, and then we were able to enjoy planned laziness in the middle part of the day. I’m not a sleeping late kind of person, so that works well for me. My older kids do best if screen time is a deferred pleasure – if they start the day with it, we may never leave the house. My advice is to use school days for schedules and then one of the weekend as well, then let your family be flexible on the other weekend day. You’ll see how your child does with missed, delayed, or on-the-go naps, and then can make an educated decision from there. Of course, during a sleep training regimen, I always recommend sticking to the recommended schedule. But that’s only a couple of weeks and then you can return to “regular life.” But don’t be too surprised if you discover that you mostly enjoy sticking to the prescribed schedule! One other thing, if you have more than one child and more than one parent/adult caregiver, I highly recommend a divide and conquer strategy of parenting. Let one adult stay home with the napping child while the other takes the older one to the birthday party or sporting event. The next weekend, swap roles. And then in the evening, have some restorative adult time. If you’d like better sleep at night but are worried about tying yourself down with a schedule, you aren’t alone. Schedule a free consult today and let’s discuss your concerns. There’s no commitment and no sales pressure. Not long ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) changed its recommendation for roomsharing, dropping their recommendation to at least 6 months of rooming-in with your baby instead of 12 months.
But many families I work with wonder if they can stop sooner than that. Why? Well, most babies and adults sleep longer, and more deeply when they are not sharing a room. We hypothesize that that is because we aren’t waking each other up with those little noises we all make while sleeping, babies too. But is it safe? Although it’s annoying, it seems like too-deep sleep for young babies might be a risk factor for SIDS, right? Emily Oster (Cribsheet) did a deep dive into the literature and found that room sharing actually only significantly reduces the risk of SIDS during the first four months of sleep. In fact, she says, “the choice of sharing a room, or even sharing a bed, does not seem to affect SIDS risk after three or four months, at least for parents who are nonsmokers.” (Smoking is a known risk factor for SIDS.) Moreover, she says, room sharing after 4 month has a significant negative effect on child sleep after 4 months old. And certainly, we can all agree, doesn’t have a positive impact on parents’ sleep (no one sleeps well with a crying baby in one’s bedroom!). In fact, she says, babies who slept alone at 4 months also slept longer alone at 9 months old, even longer than babies who started sleeping alone later than 4 months. And “these differences were still present when the child was two and a half years old.” At 9 months old, babies who slept alone slept 45 minutes longer per night than those who were still room sharing. If we consider that sleep is just as important for healthy brain development as food – and I, personally, do – than we can see that not room sharing after 4 months old is often the healthiest and best choice for a baby as well as her parents. Of course, I always recommend that parents read the literature for themselves! This is not a decision to make lightly. But I found Oster’s conclusions quite surprising and compelling. (Chapter 6, Recommendation 3, from Cribsheet -- check it for yourself.) Are you thinking about moving your baby out of your room but feeling a bit nervous about tromping down the hall to his room multiple times a night? Let’s talk on a free consult call about how we can reduce your baby’s night wakings – maybe even gradually but fully night weaning, if you’re ready for that! – so that the move to a separate bedroom means better sleep for everyone, not just your baby. You know that annoying feeling when you’ve finally got your child settled in bed at night and you’re mentally exhaling after a very long day, looking forward to finally being “done” for the night? You’re looking forward to eating something, a little Netflix, or even just tackling leftover work, the dishes, or the laundry?
And then you hear that little voice calling loudly from the bedroom, “Maaaaaaaahm?” or “Daaaaaaaaad?” And you inwardly groan with exasperation, but outwardly pull yourself together and patiently go back to the child’s bedroom to respond to yet another request for water, a hug, to fix the blanket, to replace a missing stuffy, to respond to a “very important” question or thought about the day, or one of a hundred other silly things? You’re not alone if you are frustrated by this. I venture to guess that almost every parent is. And it’s not by accident. Your child knows that you are turning your focus from them to yourself and your adult pursuits, or the needs of another child, and it unconsciously freaks them out. That feeling of not being your primary focus is unsettling for them, even though it's healthy. It also unconsciously freaks them out because small humans are biologically programmed to want to be near their adults at all times. It makes perfect evolutionary sense: stray too far from the cave and a little one might get eaten by a tiger. However, we no longer live in caves and no longer have to fear tigers. So we have collectively decided to work against evolution in the pursuit of alone time to get chores done, relax, and get better sleep for everyone. This means that we adults have to practice setting clear boundaries at bedtime. Clear boundaries does not mean that we tell our child to stay in bed and they do it. Clear boundaries means that we tell our child that we won’t come back after lights out and we stick to it. We don’t respond to requests for attention after lights out. We fulfill all the requests before lights out and then, that’s it. (Boundaries are things that WE do, not things that we ask OTHERS to do.) This can feel really mean. We worry that we will traumatize our children if we don’t respond. What if they think they aren’t loved? What if they can’t sleep without their water (which is next to them on the bedside table but maybe they forgot?), their 14th best stuffie, their blanket at just the right angle? This is hard. BUT. Secure, consistent boundaries are the best way to make children feel safe and secure. Far from traumatizing them, they actually feel a LOT safer when they know what the rules are and they see their adults do things the same way they say they will, every single time. No child will say, “hey thanks for not giving me my 14th favorite stuffy back. I feel so much more secure now.” But my clients report again and again and again that their children are so much happier when their parents put an end to the bedtime shenanigans. There’s a few hard nights and then peace reigns. Children are better rested and parents have their batteries recharged. It’s a win for everyone. Doing this requires that parents have a strong stomach. Many of us have trauma from childhood that makes holding boundaries really, really hard. Let me help you process that discomfort – no, you don’t have to dig into the trauma if you don’t want to – so that you can hold strong boundaries with your child, leading to a happier, more rested family. Schedule a free parent coaching session here and look forward to peaceful evenings for yourself. What’s the best age to sleep train? When is too early? Have I missed the boat if I haven’t started yet and my kid is x months or years old?
The first answer is, it’s never too late to sleep train. No matter how old your kid is, there is hope for you. So many families come to me, shamefaced, worried they’d missed the boat on sleep training. No, it’s not too late for you (unless your child no longer lives at home). Please don’t beat yourself up for not starting sooner! And in most cases, it’s also never too early to start sleep training or at least, sleep shaping (in the case of very young babies). If your goal is get your child to sleep through the night, and you want close to 100% odds of success, your safest bet is to wait until at least 6 months. (Please note: I do not consider sleeping 11 pm to 5 am to be sleeping through the night, nor do I consider night feeds part of sleeping through the night.) However, if you wait until 6 months old, you also miss out on improved sleep well before then. Many babies do sleep through the night before 6 months old – my youngest was sleeping through the night by 4 months old, and the other two of them before 3 months old. Moreover, you don’t have to define success only as sleeping through the night. If your baby is currently waking up multiple times a night at younger than 6 months old, we can certainly improve the situation if not entirely night train them. I typically don’t work with babies younger than 6 weeks old, just because I want to make sure that feeding is well-established, but the truth is, you can start working on appropriate wake windows from day one. I was sure my one-day-old baby had an intestinal blockage because she wouldn’t stop screaming while we were still in the hospital. The pediatirican examined her and found nothing wrong. He said that she was hungry and i should offer formula. But she refused the bottle. Finally, she passed out and woke up a bit later, perfectly content. She had been overtired. You can start working with wake windows and sleepy cues from your baby’s earliest days. This doesn’t lead to any crying, and preventing your baby from getting overtired should reduce crying. I thought my oldest was colicky but once I shortened her wake windows and started going by sleepy cues (I was not a sleep consultant at the time), her so-called colic disappeared over night. It had been overtiredness. If your child is already in preschool, the good news is that sleep training usually goes more quickly at this age. The reason for this is that we are able to prepare this age group ahead of time with a Family Sleep Meeting, visual checklists, visual timers, roughhousing play and talking things out. That doesn’t mean they’ll agree to the changes the first time bedtime rolls around! But the transition generally happens pretty quickly, even with the most gradual of methods. If you’ve been holding off on meeting to discuss sleep training because your child is too young, too old, too stubborn, or something else… go ahead and set up a complimentary sleep consult! There’s hope for you! Parents often ask about an intermediate option between cry it out and the most gradual options (which are typically the most time consuming methods).
Here’s what you need to know about timed checks. First off, there are no no-cry methods, for most kids. Sorry. I know that’s a bummer. If there was a no-cry method, I would be all over it! ***There are some kids – usually 3 and up – who don’t end up crying at all after we prepare them adequately for the sleep training process. And there are some gentle options for very little babies that likewise don’t involve crying. Given that, the question becomes: what is the easiest way for your child to learn to sleep independently. Timed checks are a popular option. The basic gist of them is that you leave the child alone and awake in their room. You set a timer and come back every few minutes for a brief check-in. You typically do not pick them up or even pat them, because this tends to ultimately be more upsetting for kids… because when you get close enough to touch your child, your child thinks you are going to pick them up… and they get really frustrated when they realize the truth. So the check is usually just 10-20 seconds. You pop your head in and say a calm sleep mantra, something like, “it’s time to sleep, I love you, I’ll check on you again in a few minutes.” Then you wait another pre-determined interval. With traditional Ferber, you increase the waiting time each time. Another method recommends staying at every 5 minutes. I generally recommend increasing the interval because the checks are stimulating… but some of my colleagues do not. Likewise with traditional Ferber, you do not go back in if the child’s crying is winding down. In that case, you stop the clock and set it back to zero. You only start it again if the crying ramps up again. A common misconception is that the check-ins will be soothing. They generally are not soothing for babies and toddlers. Preschoolers and above are more likely to be soothed by them, because they are able to understand your intent with coming back. From a baby or toddler’s perception, popping your head in and not picking them up is frustrating. That doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile, though. There may be value in teaching them that you always come back… it just takes a few days to see the benefit. Personally, doing timed checks with my oldest just enraged her, so I only checked on her a few times. With my youngest, timed checks were helpful at 5 months and younger because I could replace the pacifier. When I try to do them now, at 8 months, they make her hysterical. I only go in if her pacifier has fallen to the floor. There is, unfortunately, no perfect, no-cry method, nor one that is successful with 100% of children. But timed checks can be an effective method for many families. Want to talk about what method would be best for your family? Schedule a free consult and find out how your family can be sleeping better in 2 weeks or less, guaranteed. (For babies 6 months or older. Success rates are not 100% in younger babies, due to variability in their ability to self-soothe..) |
AuthorAbby Wolfson is a pediatric nurse practitioner, certified child sleep consultant and certified life coach for parents. She divides her time between Brooklyn, NY and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Archives
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