Do you have a New Year's Resolution for yourself and your family? Does it involve better sleep?

Want some help with that? 

I'm not talking about sleep coaching, but about "thought work. "

Six months ago, I started listening to The Life Coach School podcasts. Not long after, I joined Self Coaching Scholars. The thought model they teach has changed my life.

When we change our thoughts, it's a lot easier to change our feelings, and thus our behavior, which changes our results. Let me show you how. 

Unintentional Thought Model About Sleep Training

Circumstance: My baby wakes up crying every two hours at night. I nurse her back to sleep.
Thought: I hate listening to her cry. Sleep training will be too hard. I won't be able to stand it.
Emotion: dread, fear, frustration
Action: I do nothing to change her sleep.
Result: Her sleep continues to be disrupted. She is overtired and cranky and so am I.

Now look what happens if I change my thinking, even without changing my circumstance. 

Intentional Thought Model About Sleep Training
Circumstance: My baby wakes up crying every two hours at night. I nurse her back to sleep.
Thought: The poor thing is crying because she's overtired. Just like me. I am strong enough to endure some crying to help her get the sleep she so desperately needs. (Note: sleep training doesn't necessarily have to involve crying.)
Emotion: resolve, determination
Action: I take steps to ensure that I have support with sleep training. I make a plan. And then I dig deep and sleep train my baby.
Result: My baby is sleeping so much better and so am I. We are so much happier and enjoying our time together so much more!

You can see clearly how sleep training would be so much easier with the second model. Changing our thinking is amazingly powerful!

It's important, though, to recognize and empathize with the thoughts and feelings of the first model before changing thoughts to create the second model. Your thoughts and feelings and fears are still completely valid and worth recognizing.

Lest you think I am oversimplifying or making this all sound so easy, let me share my own thought model from today. They really work! I've made so many amazing changes in my life as a result of them.

Circumstance: There are rolls and desserts served with dinner at our resort. 
Thought: I deserve the rolls and desserts because I successfully fasted today. (I practice intermittent fasting each day. I love it! Usually.)
Feeling: justified
Action: I eat the rolls and the dessert. A lot of them.
Result: I have a stomach ache during the night. I have a harder time fasting the next day because all those processed carbohydrates make me more hungry.

Here's my intentional thought model for today: 

Circumstance: There are rolls and desserts served with dinner at our resort. 
Thought: My body will feel so much better if I abstain. I'll be so proud of myself tomorrow. And my fast will be easier. I can do hard things, like avoid processed carbohydrates!
Feeling: determined
Action: I abstain from processed carbohydrates.
Result: I don't have a stomach ache tonight. I feel proud of myself. My body doesn't hurt. I like how my body looks.

Here's one I did yesterday. I got coached on this one by a coach at the Life Coach School. You can see that I'm not perfect at bedtime, either!

Circumstance: It's bedtime and the kids are dawdling.
Thought: I am DONE. I need them in bed NOW. 
Feeling: impatience, frustration, irritability
Action: I snap at the kids.
Result: An unpleasant bedtime experience for everyone.

versus

Circumstance: It's bedtime and the kids are dawdling.
Thought: It's only natural that the kids are delaying bedtime. They are having a great time and don't want to stop having fun. We are so lucky to have lives we love.
Feeling: sympathetic
Action: kind but firm limits are enforced without anger
Result: children are in bed and I am not frazzled and frustrated. 

I do a thought download every single day. I like to do them first thing each morning, to set the stage for a great day, each and every day. I encourage you to do the same.

Next week, I'll talk about some of the nuts and bolts of creating your New Year's Resolutions to change your family's sleep for the better.  

The idea of sleep training your baby or child is scary.

I get it. I've been there.

I didn't know about sleep coaches when my oldest was a baby so I hired my doula (the amazing Grace Veras Sealey in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn) to come over and hold my hand. She sat with me and gave me courage and lo and behold, two days later my daughter was falling asleep on her own in her crib. Easy peasy.

Last week, I told my friend that I love her. I've never in my life said that first to someone. (She didn't say it back. Yet. And that's okay, too.)

So many things in our lives sound so scary. Until we actually do them. 

And then we feel great and move on to the next hard and scary thing. 

I'm not scared of sleep training any more, but there's still lots of things I find scary. That's why my new motto, as we count down 16 days until the new decade, is "I can do hard and scary things."

I don't need a sleep coach but I get weekly coaching from an amazing program called Self Coaching Scholars at the Life Coach School. I think we never outgrow the need for support in tackling the hard and scary things in life. 

Next up on my Hard And Scary Things list: posting video of myself each week to Instagram and Facebook so you guys can get to know me. 

What hard and scary things are you planning to do as as 2019 winds down, or when 2020 starts? I would love to hear! Please post in the comments section.

If your hard and scary thing is sleep training, let's make it easier. Schedule a free consult and we will break it down into manageable steps. Imagine 2020 as your year to be well-rested! How amazing would THAT feel?

​ 

There's one essential ingredient for sleep training.

And nope, it's not crying.

Or white noise. Or any specific sleep environment.

It's actually the essential ingredient in changing any human behavior. It's even necessary for changing the behavior of other mammals, too. 

Positive reinforcement. 

It's so easy to forget about. But once we remember, it's so helpful.

Case in point: my four-year-old had a habit of swallowing the water she uses to rinse her teeth after I brush them.

It drove me batty. Because she's not supposed to swallow fluoride toothpaste. Fluoride is a known neurotoxin. Ingesting small amounts are almost certainly not dangerous but all the same, I'd rather not risk it. 

So it became "a thing" between us. Every night she would defy me when I asked her to spit. And every night I would get frustrated. And then she would laugh. Delighted that she had power, once again, over my emotions. 

Until finally, I came to my senses, and tried a new strategy. 

Before I brushed her teeth, I said, "Hey Amelie, I bet you can't remember to spit in the sink after you rinse your teeth!" (Four-year-olds are total suckers for reverse psychology.) 

I could see her eyes brighten at the challenge. Game on.

I brushed her teeth then handed her the cup of water. She rinsed and spat and turned to me with a triumphant gleam in her eye.

"Whoa! What??? You did remember! That was AMAZING! Give me a high five!" 

And that was the end of that battle. As long as I remember to occasionally praise her for spitting out that toothpaste water, she's delighted to comply with my preferences. Eventually, the behavior will become so automatic for her that I won't need to comment on it anymore. 

Likewise, when we want to change a child's behavior around sleep, the easiest and most successful way to do it is by focusing on the positive. Find the one thing, no matter how small, that your child did right and praise it to the skies. Make him a sticker chart and use it to acknowledge even the smallest of successes. If you only had to silently return your child to bed 20 times last night and it was 30 times the night before, celebrate! Make a huge deal of it. Give hugs and verbal praise along with the sticker. 

Likewise, if you are using a baby gate or Door Monkey to keep your child safe in his room at night, he still gets a sticker or a prize in the morning for staying in his room. Why not? There is no harm and lots of benefit to celebarating the positive.  

Along with that, we will totally ignore the negative. We think that commenting on the behavior we don't like will help change it, but it rarely does. So say nothing when your child gets out of bed for the 11th time. Just lead them back to bed without a word. Don't engage. Likewise, if they are yelling or falling asleep at the baby gate, leave them be. Wait for the morning and then celebrate the positive. It will change your child's behavior so much faster. 

This approach works even with much younger children. If you are waiting until 6 am for the first time to go get your baby from the crib, make sure to have a huge smile on your face when you go into the room. Scoop her into your arms and smother her with kisses. Hide your frustration from your child and let your love shine, no matter the age.

The best thing I ever read about this was this Modern Love piece from the New York Times, published for the first time more than a decade ago, and reposted recently: What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage.  I highly recommend this entertaining read!

Having trouble finding the positive in your child's anything-but-sleeping behaviors? Schedule a free consult and let's get you and your little one the sleep you both deserve.