Why Won't My Child Sleep?! (And What Can I Do?)

Do you struggle with getting your child to sleep? Join our conversation with Macall Gordon and Kim West, co-authors of the book, Why Won’t You Sleep?!: A Game-Changing Approach for Exhausted Parents of Nonstop, Super Alert, Big Feeling Kids.

In this episode, we cover:
This is not a newborn sleep training book. This is for those exhausted parents of kids from about age 1-6 who have tried it all and their child still won’t fall asleep easily or put themselves back to sleep when they awake in the night. 

• Why are some kids just harder to get to sleep or harder to keep asleep?
• Why is sleep so hard for some kids?
• How does trauma impact a child’s ability to fall and stay asleep?
• What are the biggest sleep issues for these kids and what can we do about them?
  • Overtiredness
  • Problems with the lead-up to lights out (transitions and routine)
  • Parent is a required part of the go-to-sleep and back-to-sleep pattern
  • Past inconsistency (trying a method then stopping too soon or only partly trying)
• Parents worry that if they don’t immediately respond to their child’s cry, they will damage the attachment or that their child will feel unloved.
• Thoughts on co-sleeping or the family bed.
• Thoughts on books on tape or video?
• AD has been with us since she was 1, is now almost 7. She's always required us to be with her to fall asleep, occasionally waking in the night. Now for about 2 months she basically needs my husband or I to sleep in her room. If we aren't there, she wakes multiple times, crying for us.
• She says she's afraid of bad dreams and bad thoughts inside her head, so no lights, monster spray, soothing music, etc. have helped. There is no event we can recall that started this, the only thing that fits time-wise is an age-appropriate storybook we read about adoption, with a happy ending.
• We are happy to give her the connection she needs but we are also tired... Any ideas on how to help?

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome everyone to Creating a Family. Talk about foster, adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport, and I am the host of the show, as well as the director of the nonprofit creating a family.org. Today we're going to be talking about a subject near and dear to many of their hearts, and that is, why won't my child sleep, and what can I do about it? All right, we'll be talking with the authors of a book that is, why won't you sleep? A game changing approach for exhaustive parents of non stop, super alert, big feeling kids. We'll be speaking with McCall Gordon. She has a master's degree in Applied Psychology from Antioch University, with a research based specialization in infant mental health, sleep advice and parenting culture, she has conducted research on popular sleep training advice, as well as on how temperament affects sleeps. She is a certified gentle sleep coach, and has presented her research at infant and child development conferences worldwide. Kim West is the co author of the book, and she is a licensed clinical social worker with over 25 years of experience. She is known online as the sleep lady, and has personally helped over 20,000 families worldwide teach their children how to fall asleep and fall back asleep. She started training gentle sleep coaches internationally in 2010 and has appeared as a child sleep expert on numerous magazines, newspapers and television programs, including Dr Phil today and Good Morning America, as I mentioned together, they have written the book. Why won't you sleep? A game changing approach for exhaustive parents of non stop, super alert, big feeling kids. Let me say at the beginning that this is not a newborn sleep training book. This is for exhaustive parents of kids from, you know, somewhere around one to six who have tried it all, and their kids still won't fall asleep easily or put themselves back to sleep when they awake at night, and just so, there are many resources out there for what to do in the newborn period, but we're really not going to focus on that. Well, let's jump in. McCall, I'll start with you. Why do some kids just find it harder to get to sleep or harder to keep asleep? Yeah,

Speaker 1  2:20  
first of all, we know that about 25% of kids can be classified as having sort of a more intense, sensitive temperament, and these are generally the ones who have the most trouble with sleeping. So we wrote this book because most of the books really just don't take temperament into account, and they're sort of talking about the middle of the bell curve kids. And the problem with that is that the approaches that are kind of typical and out there really just don't work for these little ones, because they react more strongly, they have a lot more trouble with sleep, and they really just kind of need a lot more help in general. And so that's why we finally wrote something just for these parents, because I think a lot of them are really used to going, Oh, well, that book's not going to be for me, because it's not going to work.

Dawn Davenport  3:10  
Yeah. Do you find that these kids, you know, is the subtitle of the book for non stop, super alert, big feeling kids as a parent of a child who would fit that description are as a spirited child. One Who do you find? I may ask that these kids struggle in other areas as well, because that temperament is one that makes life more difficult, also more exciting and more there are many positives about that we need this temperament in this in this world, we absolutely do. Yeah, Kim, what about that? Do we notice that these kids sleep is one of their issues, but the same temperament makes transitions hard, makes other issues and from from a parent standpoint, difficult,

Speaker 2  3:57  
definitely. And not that I want to, like describe them all blanketly, right? Because, like, for instance, one of my two daughters, I would consider one of these alert, Live Wire children, but she's more internally focused, you know, as opposed to external but yes, absolutely, like you said, transition. So it's not just transitioning from awake to asleep, right? It's getting up, getting dressed, going to school, getting, you know, stopping

Dawn Davenport  4:26  
playing, moving into having to take a bath, getting him to the table. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2  4:33  
And I always say, you know, they know what they want, when they want it, and they're willing to hold out until they get it so they really know where to, kind of dig their feet in. And I also do find, and we have seen this in research, that there is a link to slightly higher IQ. I don't know if they're like brilliant, but I find these kids to be very intuitive, and that's really a wonderful trait later on. I. I also have found that maybe this is connected to the transition, but they are not always the most flexible in terms of sleeping in new and different areas, even in their own bed well, but like, for instance, people who want to go camping with their their toddler, you know, with one of these live wires, things like that are a little difficult. I've had clients of Live Wire children who have lifestyles and jobs, bringing them to all over the world and in different time zones, and this is harder for these children. So absolutely, yes,

Dawn Davenport  5:36  
I'm shaking my head as hard as I can. I definitely understand this. So is it primarily temperament that makes it hard for these kids? McCall,

Speaker 1  5:47  
a lot of people say, Well, what is temperament? Right? It's not just a personality. It's really the way somebody is wired, almost really genetically and neurologically. I used to say about my son, it was like he was a big raw nerve, or that my daughter's circuits were always open, right? They're just taking in so much, and also they have less of a capacity to buffer things out. Now that's a huge strength. It's amazing. They're taking in so much about the world, but they have not the first idea how to manage it, and so then they can get triggered quite easily. But also there's positive there too. They're so curious. They're so you know, especially the ones who are sort of more extroverted, but I think even the introverted ones too are really engaged in the world. They love learning. They love being awake, and all of that works against being able to go, Oh, I'm sleepy and go to sleep, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think these kids don't get strong signals that they're tired. These are the ones that parents are like, well, we're waiting for a sleepy signal, but I haven't seen one yet, and then the kid is over tired and melting down. So everything about sleep, I would say, is harder for these kids, every piece of it.

Dawn Davenport  7:11  
Kim, how does trauma impact a child's ability to fall asleep, fall and stay asleep? And I will say that. I mean, trauma can look like many different things. It can be abuse, but it can also be neglect, or it can also be any number of things. Some people call it Big T versus little T trauma, so let's include all forms of trauma. How does that impact the ability to fall asleep and stay asleep? Yeah,

Speaker 2  7:37  
that's I'm glad that you're saying big T and little t, because that's a big question, right? You know, trauma is also on a continuum, not to mention how your child or you as an adult, particular temperament affects how you respond and heal and process through such a good point, too, right? And so some trauma can cause, of course, attachment challenges, if we don't want to use the word, disorders that require treatment and healing and same force through processing. And lots of times, you'll see those two together. And so if a child who, let's say, has sensory processing sensitivities and has difficulty taking in the world through what OTS count as seven different ways and processing that in order to self regulate. One of the things that is going to affect is the ability to slow down and put yourself to sleep. You know, in terms of attachment and trauma, I would say our first three years of life, not I, but you know, we know this through Child Development our first three years of life, we are working on trust versus mistrust, and in order for us, I frankly, think as adults too. But let's just start with our children. To be able to go to sleep, they have to feel safe and know that there is somebody to attend to their needs. And so when that doesn't happen, it makes it harder right for them to be on the are in flight, fright mode, probably secreting, alerting stress hormones that make it harder to go to sleep and stay asleep. And so children who you know as a social worker and therapist myself, obviously, I'm completely biased and think that we should always do gentle sleep coaching and not start off with extinction. Ie leaving a child to kind of figure it out on their own and cry themselves to sleep. But I especially think that for children who have been in foster care who were not adopted at birth, or perhaps had, you know, perinatal trauma, that it's essential for these children to have a gentler approach, and for that to be factored in, really, of course, in all parenting, but particularly since we're talking about sleep coaching in this. Regard, these are children who need our support, both physically and emotionally, to down regulate and be able to feel safe and go to sleep. Yeah.

Dawn Davenport  10:12  
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. We

Speaker 1  10:14  
know too that, you know, there's that idea and research. It's called differential susceptibility to environment. People may have heard the terms of orchid and dandelion. The idea is two kids who experience the same event will respond or come out of that event differently. A child who is more sensitive or intense or this live wire like we're talking about, they react much more strongly to negative events. They can really be knocked down by them. On the other hand, they respond much more positively to positive environments. So it really matters for these I mean, it matters for all kids, of course, for sensitive kids who are wired a little more intensely, a positive sort of approach and environment is even more important because parental or caregiver presence while they're falling asleep, even if they're crying while they're doing it, it reduces their physiological stress levels and promotes better sleep just by having a caregiver nearby.

Dawn Davenport  11:24  
Let me pause here to thank the jockey being Family Foundation for their support of the creating a family nonprofit, as well as this podcast, their support also allows us to bring you the jockey being family Parent Education Center. We have free courses in this center that you can access to help you be a better parent. There are certificates of completion if you need that for continuing ed if you're a foster parent, but if you just want to be a better parent, check it out at Bitly slash JBf. Support, that's B, I T, dot, l, y, slash J B, F. Support, so in the book, why won't you sleep? You talk about the four big issues for these kids, and then, most importantly, what we can do about them. The first, and I think it is such an interesting one to think about, and one that I think is not identified by many parents, and that is a child being overly tired. So I want to start with that one. Kim, some thoughts on that. Okay, first of all, it's you've identified it as one of the big four sleep issues. It seems counterintuitive, because they're not going to sleep. So easy to assume that they're not sleepy. I'm assuming that isn't the case,

Speaker 2  12:43  
correct? And these live wires are much harder to read. It'd be interesting to know, is it that they don't experience it, or that they're just so engaged in the world? It's like they brush it off like something that's bothering them, like a fly, you know, flying around them, but I always try like to explain like this to families. So you know, we have our circadian rhythm, our internal clock that tells us when to be awake and when to be asleep, and it doesn't like it when we operate off mode. So it's just like if you and I tried to take a nap six to 8pm which is supposed to be our prime time brain awake time, and when we wake up, we'll feel disoriented, like, should I have gone to sleep? Now, when is my bedtime? Do I have coffee? Do I you know? What do I do, right? So it really matters when you sleep, just like it matters when you are awake, when you should be asleep, right? So as adults, our circadian rhythm tells us to be asleep between somewhere between 10 and 11pm on average, right then we're supposed to do all these things, you know, an hour or so before, to help us slow down right. So if we miss that window, and I know most of us have experienced this, Steve and I like to say, like maybe perhaps, when you were in school and you decided to stay up super late and study for an exam, you actually will have a harder time going to sleep like you pick you know that you get that second wind, and that's the body's way of protecting itself. It's saying, Wow, I don't see any signs of going to sleep. There's not a dimming of the lights, I guess I better stay awake. The body's saying this. And instead of secreting drowsy, making hormones like melatonin, it starts so creating alerting hormones, making it harder to go to sleep. And then again, another counterintuitive thing, you'll tend to wake up more often during the night, and our children will wake up too early in the morning and again. So not counterintuitive, like even well intended people in the grocery store will say, Oh, if they're not sleeping well at night, just skip all the naps and put them to bed later, when it's actually the exact opposite of what we really do need to do. So I think McCall and I spend a lot of time. I'm talking to parents about, like, I know that's what it looks like, but that's not what we actually should do. And so these Energizer bunnies could be running around the living room at 8pm and the parents say, see, there's no sign. I always say, like, well, I'd rather you start, you know, signaling the body longer or further ahead than when it's, you know, kind of too far gone. So often you'll take these live wire children and you'll bring them into their bedroom. Hold the shade down, even though out in the living room they were running around. Start a calming routine. And maybe 30 minutes in, you'll see them yawning or showing like, I'm tired signs, and you'll say, Wow, would never have guessed that. So I always tell families like, let's create an environment where we can allow the body to start secreting melatonin by Dimming the lights and having a soothing routine and creating that environment from us through social cues.

Dawn Davenport  16:04  
You've alluded to one thing, okay, so we have identified that being overtired is a enemy of sleep. It doesn't encourage sleep. It encourages our kids to not sleep. So how do we deal with that? You've already mentioned one that people will tell you, yeah, cut the nap out, because the NAP is the problem. So let's talk about that. What are some ways to overcome or make certain our kids don't become overly tired? Well,

Speaker 1  16:31  
I mean, we don't want anybody to make themselves crazy about it, but the idea is, with these kids, don't wait for them to look tired. Kind of have a in the book, at least, and in other places on Kim's website, there are like, nap and wake window targets. Again, they're just targets. It's a place to start. Know that. Okay, my child is six months old. Can only be awake for about two hours. Okay, it's been two hours. They're still going strong. I know they need a nap, or it's before two hours. I know they're gonna need a nap by two hours, I'm gonna go start on that. The child may not have any signs at all, but you need to go try. A lot of parents again, they're waiting for yawning. They're waiting for rubbing of eyes. These little guys don't if my daughter ever yawned, I never saw it, but just never happened. So I wish I had known like to just go try, just see what happens if you get ahead of that sort of second wind. That's usually my go to I say that probably more than anything,

Dawn Davenport  17:31  
what to get ahead of of the second wind.

Speaker 1  17:34  
Don't wait, yeah, don't wait for them to look tired. People will say, Oh, my child is low. Sleep needs. Kim hears this a lot too. My child is just low sleep needs. And yeah, there might be some kids out there who really, definitely are wired for a little less sleep, but most of them just act like they don't need sleep. They really do, because they're taking in so much, I think they even need a little more sleep than maybe other kids. So again, you're right, so counterintuitive and not obvious, gotcha.

Dawn Davenport  18:06  
That makes sense. And at what age, generally speaking, do kids not need a daytime nap? And this is for parents who say, look, I want them to go to bed by, you know, 730 and so I don't want them to be, you know, too rusted. So when should they give up that nap?

Speaker 2  18:23  
Well, the average is four years of age, but I will say I have seen a good number, especially these alert kids, drop their nap at three and a half. So I know that there are some parents who are like, Oh, I dropped it really early. But I think that kids go through particularly around two, two and a half, where they go through a phase where they think they don't need enough. And I always say, we know better as the parent, right? So I always encourage parents, like, don't be quick to drop the nap, because frankly, also, you probably could use a little quiet time yourself, and at the very least, always provide the timing and the atmosphere that's sleepy inducive to at least calm and quiet the body so like my if I look at my older child, who has her own sensitivities, but I would not have said is maybe on the Live Wire spectrum or continuum as far I had to kind of get her To stop napping when she went to kindergarten, so she was five. Then and then my younger one, three and a half stopped, and she definitely is a live wire. But I always encourage quiet time. I did as well. I know you do.

Speaker 1  19:33  
I do, yeah, yeah. I agree with Kim completely. I do know, though, especially when there's a younger sibling. A lot of parents have troubles with the slightly older sibling. So I have seen parents of, well, I had one two and a half, where they reach a point where, like number one, it's too much work to get to. You can't go lay with them. They won't stay in their room, like it's impossible. Or I have heard of kids. Who have these like, I can't explain it, but parents will say if I even give her 20 minutes of nap, bedtime is 10 o'clock. Yeah, I've heard that too. It's not ideal, not ideal. It's definitely not the norm. So I also follow what Kim says and say, look, at least, let's set something up where they can listen to a story on tape. They can even, God forbid, watch a quiet video, just something to give them some downtime. Anything you're talking about

Dawn Davenport  20:31  
the midday, during the midday, yeah, okay. Any other thoughts on over tiredness before we move on to the second big sleep issue. Kim, I'll start with you. Any other thoughts being overtired? What we do about it?

Speaker 2  20:46  
Well, in addition to what I was saying about getting those sleep windows just right, right, so that the body can start to slow down and secrete melatonin, I would have to say, if you can just focus on one thing, it would be figuring out when your child's ideal bed time is, because I'm gonna venture to say, in my 30 years of working with families, the vast majority of my clients are putting their children to bed too late, and they're missing that window. So I think that if we could just do that even start depending on, of course, the age of your child, between seven and 8pm and then trying to do that consistently. So again, that's a big blanket statement, but in general, I would say if we could just start there, that would really be helpful, and

Dawn Davenport  21:38  
that's regardless of nap or not nap. So if they have a nap, we can't say, oh, we'll keep them up. They had a nap today, so I'll keep them up till nine or 10.

Speaker 2  21:47  
They say that we should regulate two things, what time we wake up in the morning and what time we go to bed. We should really only vary it by an hour. And when I say we, I'm including us as adults. It's what works the best for our internal clocks, and so, yes, I try to be thoughtful of that. And also, if we're having a child that, let's say, who is still having like a big afternoon now that we try to regulate when it ends so that there's enough sleep pressure between nap and bedtime for them to be able to go to sleep, so that you don't have, oh, one day they woke up at two and one day they woke up at 430 and one day they woke up at 5pm and so I'm varying the bedtime every night. As a result, I'd rather kind of tap the nap at a regular time so that we can keep that time consistent, because the body needs to have popularity.

Dawn Davenport  22:47  
Did you know that we have a podcast where we answer your questions? It's called weekend wisdom. It happens on the weekend, as you would imagine, and we are seeking questions for us to answer. It's short, probably five minutes. So send us your questions to info at creating a family.org or you can click on the link in the show notes to send us your questions. All right. Well, let's move on to the second big sleep issue, and that is the lead up to lights out, or transition to bedtime. McCall, I think we all know, or maybe I just because I am such a person who needs that. But it seems to me intuitive that we as adults need a transition. We need it's called sleep hygiene at this point. So let's talk about what that looks like for children.

Speaker 1  23:37  
Yeah. So just as a side note, our book at least the sleep approaches are for six months to about six years. So we do, we do deal with babies under a year. I think routines for babies can be quite simple. It doesn't have to be a big deal with these alert kids, though there's a couple things to pay attention to, because there are two activities that work great for other kids and may not work at all for these kids, and one is a bath. If a bath helps your child, if they're having fun and it kind of helps them wind down, that's great. Some kids, it wakes them up. If a bath wakes your child up, don't do it at bedtime. That's the same with picture books. There are some incredibly verbal, incredibly visually attuned kids that a book just like lights their brain up again. If a book isn't helping you, wind them down. We save the books for another. Time, I had one parent with a very alert three year old, and I was going through what they currently did for bedtime routine, and they said, Well, we lay with her and then we give her a bespoke story about her day. We make up a story about her day. And I'm like, Oh, does that? Does that help her calm down? Or is it a lot of conversation? And they're like, Oh, good grief, so much conversation. Let's not do it in bedtime, right? Let's do it at a different time with babies. It can be really short. But the important part is that a feed should not be the last thing that happens. We want to really separate feeding from sleep, where a routine really becomes critical for parents. To me is two and a half and up, definitely for three year olds. And my big takeaway there is lock it down, and that means the routine is set in stone and does not change, because that's the age where negotiation really starts, right? I need one more hug, I need to go the bathroom, I need a drink of water. I need right? And with these kids, they're so sharp that suddenly you're reading eight books and doing an interpretive dance, and you're like, how did you get here? Right? So a routine really should be fairly set in stone, and also gives them lots of heads up about what's about to happen next. Well, you know, as we said earlier, these kids hate transitions, and they really hate surprises. So if all of a sudden grandma is going to be putting them to bed that night, don't just spring that on them. Let them know ahead of time if you're going to be sitting somewhere new in the room. Do a dry run in the daytime. Show them what it's going to look like and how it's going to go like. Really give these kids a heads up about what to expect, and then really follow through with the sequence of events, because that, just for tonight, it doesn't compute. For these kids, you've got to be ahead of the game, because they will challenge you on every step.

Dawn Davenport  26:32  
Kim, how long should this routine last? Because honestly, at the end of the day, parents just want to get out of there and have some time on their own. So how long should this routine last?

Speaker 2  26:44  
I mean, I encourage people not to get so caught up in the number of minutes, because it's really not about that. And it is true that these live wires might need more kind of slowing down time. And you know, I would say, if I had to give a number 2030 minutes. It shouldn't be two hours, three hours, you know. And do we include bath time in that? I don't think that's so relevant, right? I think it's about what's happening in the room where they're sleeping and the you know, 2030 minutes before lights are out. So does that mean it has to be 30 minutes? Of course not, you know. So I always like to blame everything on the clock, especially with these older kids, right? It's like, Huh? Look, you know, 730s lights out, or eight or whatever it is that's, you know, right? You've discovered is right for your child, and we only have 20 more minutes. I mean, I used to do this with my own children. So why don't you pick out one book? Because we don't have time for two books. And then if they give me the gigantic book, I'll be like, well, we could only read this many pages in that time, but I really put it on the clock, it really takes some of the power struggle out. Like, oh no, okay. Well, we can read until the timer goes off, and now the clock is out, and now we have, like, kisses, hugs, you know, and in Tibet, lights out.

Dawn Davenport  28:07  
And what if the child objects to the routine and says, I don't want to read tonight, or I don't want to say prayers tonight, or I don't want to, I mean, brushing teeth, I think parents would insist on but other parts of the routine, they say, I don't want to do that tonight. I

Speaker 2  28:22  
think, you know, if you give them a choice, where you are okay with both choices, right? You know, you can wear your yellow pajamas or your blue pajamas, but it's not, we're not going to bed now, right? You know. So you could say, Do you want to do a quiet puzzle? Do you want to look at this book? Do you want to do that? Like, you know, give them just two choices, but you're okay with them, and then be okay with that, right? Gives them some, what's the word

Dawn Davenport  28:51  
autonomy, or some voice or control? Agency, agency, the

Speaker 2  28:55  
word I was thinking of, yeah? And that can be really helpful, yeah. And

Speaker 1  28:59  
I would say, if it's a checklist, you know, like a routine checklist, that I really recommend, cross it off. Go, okay, you don't want to do that tonight. Great. It's done like, we're just not going to do it. We're going to skip to the next thing. And that's, that's okay.

Unknown Speaker  29:13  
Reduce your power struggles. Yeah,

Dawn Davenport  29:15  
you're going to have enough. Okay? McCall, another of the big three. The third of the Big Three is the parents having to be required as part of the go to sleep and get back to sleep pattern. What do you mean by that?

Speaker 1  29:27  
Usually it's that the parent is doing all kinds of work to get the child to sleep. They're rocking them, they're walking them, they're bouncing them on a yoga ball frequently, or they're feeding them to sleep. There's lying with them, like they're in the pattern. So I say that bedtime sets the template for how kids think that humans fall asleep. For all they know, that's how you fall asleep with a bottle or whatever. So they're like, Oh, this is how sleep happens, Mom and Dad. You know, I'm held and I'm fed and then I'm. Asleep, so that when they wake up, they're like, Hello, come back. I need to be fed and held so I can go back to sleep. So ideally, we really need to pull the parent out of that pattern, so that the child is doing the work, so the child is understanding where they are, and they have a little road map for how to get themselves back to sleep, and we start that at bedtime. That's the most important part. Kim already said how important bedtime is. This is another moment where, if people can only work on one thing, bedtime, work on bedtime,

Dawn Davenport  30:35  
establishing a bedtime. You mean establishing, I

Speaker 1  30:38  
know like working on pulling yourself out of their pattern at bedtime. I've got to because these kids are so hard. Often by the time they reach me as a sleep coach, they are exhausted. They are completely out of gas, and sometimes all they can manage is working on bedtime. And they they just do whatever in the middle of the night, because they just, they just don't have the bandwidth for it. So bedtime is really critical. One last thing about that is, I get lots of parents who want to change middle of the night. They're like, I want my baby to stop drinking a bottle at night. And I'm like, Well, what's happening at bedtime? Oh, we're feeding her to sleep. You have to change bedtime, and then you can change middle of the night. Okay? Because just

Speaker 2  31:22  
another little tidbit on that, bedtime is the easiest time to learn to put yourself to sleep. I always give myself as an example. If I, you know, can go to sleep easily at bedtime, but then I wake up at 5am and let's say, you know, I have to go to the bathroom, and I somehow it's taking too long for me to get back into bed, and my brain starts ticking, right? I'm not going back to sleep, right? You know? So bedtime, we have that all that, what they call sleep pressure, that's building up throughout the day, same for our children, that makes it easiest for us to go to sleep at bedtime, especially if we're getting that window right. And I'm all about like, let's start when it's the easiest. Let's set ourselves up as parents and for our children at the easiest time. And parents are awake, yeah?

Dawn Davenport  32:12  
And parents Good point, as opposed to in the middle of night. And then the last of the big sleep issues, number four is oh boy, Pat. Yeah, I know. Oh, boy is the right word past inconsistencies, you know, trying something but not sticking with it or not, yeah, just giving up very quickly, or doing something one night and then changing the next night. Yeah,

Speaker 1  32:33  
I tell parents it's like, if I were teaching you a dance and every other time I changed the steps, you'd be like, I don't know what you're trying to tell me to do, because you keep changing it. What's the what are the steps? Right? What's the path here? But at the same time, I really want to express to parents who might be listening, if you have a kid like this, it's so much harder. It is so much harder, because their reactions to things are so much better. And it feels like especially parents have read other books where it sounds so simple to sleep train and like the first night their kid just just loses it for hours. That's hard to hang with, that's hard to believe that that was a good thing. And of course, they're going to stop you know, I just talked to somebody whose kid cried for an hour and a half and didn't show any signs of calming down. And they're like, fine, we're just gonna give him a bottle. I totally get it. We're

Dawn Davenport  33:30  
ready to be putting ourselves out of my misery. Oh, of course.

Speaker 1  33:33  
And parents, don't you know, without the confidence and without the backup, they're like, Well, this is just not I'm doing it wrong, or this just isn't working. And the problem with that, with these smart kids, is they clock it. They're like, oh, oh, the bottle is on the table. I just have to work for it. And then they really will, right? So the inconsistency ends up really biting you and really making it worse. So we say, look, pick what you know, you can do, even if it's just bedtime, whatever piece it is, and really do it, really push all the way through, because then you'll actually see improvement. And that will give you the, you know, encouragement to keep going. And

Dawn Davenport  34:18  
when you say, Pick bed time again, you're not talking about the timing of the bedtime. You're picking the routine. What you follow, right,

Speaker 1  34:25  
right? Like to say we're going to stop bouncing on the ball. You know, at bedtime, we're going to stop bouncing on the ball. And maybe at first you walk with the baby instead of or you slow the bouncing down. But the idea is you don't slow the bouncing down, and if your baby's not falling asleep, you just give up and bounce them again, because you've just lost your traction. Okay,

Dawn Davenport  34:48  
all right, what I'll start with you on this one, Kim, what are your thoughts on co sleeping or the family bed?

Unknown Speaker  34:56  
I'm actually,

Speaker 2  34:57  
I'm not against it at all. If a family. Family is, you know, doing it safely, number one priority. And two, it is what they want to do, or at least what they thought they wanted to do before they had a child, right? Because, you know, look, there's plenty of other cultures that CO sleep and so to me, Well, the important part is a Is it working for the family? Because honestly, I find some of these kids the temperament, it doesn't work well co sleeping, even if it's done out of desperation. And two is, if a family is doing it out of desperation, what I call reactive co sleeping, then most of the time they want that to change. They're like the only reason why we're bringing them into our bed is because there's no other way for us to get them to sleep, go back to sleep, stay in their bed, their room, their whatever it is. So I have worked with families both who want to improve sleep and continue to co sleep safely and reactive co sleeping. So I don't think the issue is about co sleeping in and of itself. I would say, as I say to the families who want to continue to co sleep is no matter what your child still has to learn at some point the skill of putting themselves to sleep independently. So if you could have it be that, you know, they start the night in your bed, but you're not laying down with them, rubbing their back, holding their hand to sleep, but maybe you're sitting up, you're reading a book, and then Good night, sweetie. I love you, and we're turning off the light and you're leaving. That would be better, right? Because then they know, oh, when I come back to bed, mommy and daddy and I, or whoever and child, We're all sleeping together, and that's okay for the entire family. So either way, they have to learn the skill of putting themselves asleep. Most the families who who've come to me are doing reactive, co sleeping. Most mean again, there are the ones who want to continue but improvement and that they've also had the clients who have the live wires who really wanted to co sleep, but it's just not working. It's just this. These kids are too sensitive, the touch, the smell, the sounds, it's like too overwhelming. And they just are like, leave me alone. I need my own space. And then, then we have to do sleep coaching, so either way, the child has to learn that skill. One

Dawn Davenport  37:26  
thing that I noticed this is quite a few years ago. I interviewed quite a few families who were co sleeping, and almost universally, although not quite but almost universally, it was one parent, and in my survey, it was the mom who wanted to co sleep. So what was happening most nights, the mom and the kids were sleeping together and the dad was sleeping in the kid's room or on the couch. So I just throw it out there to think that through. But I'm confused, because it seems to me that one of the things you would talk about is getting the parent out of the going to sleep routine. And if you're co sleeping, you are the vital part of the going to sleep routine. So how does that? How does that play? Yeah,

Speaker 2  38:09  
however, you can make it so that you are not putting your child to sleep, right, and therefore needing it at bedtime. So like, the example I gave was, I'm with a three year old that you've been co sleeping with, that you wouldn't be laying down with them and rubbing their back to sleep. You'd have the routine and be like this is where you sleep. And then, of course, I'd recommend our gentler approach, where you start off with sitting by them, you know, next to the bed, and you slowly move away and do less and less as they learn the skill to put themselves to sleep independently. And then I've had lots of different scenarios. I've even had co sleeping families who have the child start in their bed and then have a role that after whatever, after, you know, midnight, let's say, if you were to wake up, you can come into Mommy and Daddy's room. So there's lots of different ways to do this, as long as we're clear on boundaries, and the child is learning the skill of putting themselves to sleep independently. I

Speaker 1  39:16  
also want to say that I really recommend because I've seen way too many moms having to go to bed at seven o'clock, exactly with infants. I always say, even if you're going to routinely co sleep, let's work on crib skills for that first part of the night. So you can put the baby in the crib, you can go have an evening, and then co sleep after, because that kind of does two things. One, again, it frees mom up to have an evening. And second, it does give the child some crib skills. And you really can't, you really are doing what Kim said, but in a crib context. And then you also, you know, if it ever needs to happen that the baby has to sleep in a different space, you've already got those skills established. Established, so you're kind of best of both worlds. I think by doing that,

Dawn Davenport  40:04  
McCall, what are your thoughts on books on tape to put kids to bed, or even videos?

Unknown Speaker  40:10  
Yeah,

Speaker 1  40:11  
what I recommend often, especially for kids that really smart ones and old enough to start having thoughts really spin, really active brains right as they're about to go to sleep, there are recorded sleep visualization stories. So they sound like a story, but they're actually guided visualizations to help the child calm down. So I'm a huge fan of those, because it gives these big brain kids something to focus on so their thoughts aren't going crazy, and it's also teaching them about how to downshift their body. So I'm a huge fan of those recorded regular stories. Again, the question is, is it working for you? Is it making things better or worse for your child? Videos, no, we don't want anything to disrupt melatonin and any kind of screen, tablet, video, needs to be an hour, really, or more away from bedtime. I just that's a full stop, because the research on that is so strong. But the question is, just always, is it working? Is it helping? I should say, is it helping or making it harder? Yeah,

Dawn Davenport  41:24  
don't forget that creating a family has a Facebook support group. It is a tremendous place of resources and been there, done that advice. You could check it out at facebook.com/groups/creating, a family. All right, we got a question from our audience. I'm going to read it to you, and then Kim, I'll let you start with it. My adopted daughter has been with us since she was one. She is now almost seven. She's always required us to be with her, to fall asleep, occasionally waking in the middle of the night. Now for about two months, she basically needs my husband or I to sleep in her room if we aren't there, she wakes up multiple times crying for us. She says she's afraid of bad dreams and bad thoughts inside of her head. So no lights, monster spray, soothing music, etc, have helped. There is no event that we can recall that started this. The only thing that fits time wise is an age appropriate storybook we read about adoption with a happy ending, we are happy to give her the connection she needs, but we're also very tired. What would you say? Kim, starting with you, and then McCall, if you will, chime in. All right, we have a almost seven year old who is, requires and is, it seems to be, at least at this point where she has to have a parent there the entire time she falls asleep. Of

Speaker 2  42:41  
course, I would be asking, in a very comprehensive consultation with an eight page intake form, I would also be asking, have they always had to do something to her or for her to put herself to sleep? Yeah, they

Dawn Davenport  42:56  
say she has. They say she's always required us to be exactly I thought

Speaker 2  42:59  
I heard that word always so parents, I think, is helpful to understand, therefore, why they are where they are, right? Because this little girl doesn't know any other way whether her parents, you know, rocked her to sleep, fed her to sleep, laid down with her to sleep. It doesn't matter because they did something to her, or for her to put herself to sleep and back to sleep, right? And it just gets at it just gets kind of acted out differently as they get older. I mean, when I had a private practice and I worked with kids all the way into their teens, this is what you would see like, oh, they did these little things when they were babies. And then, you know, my favorite story of this 12 year old is she had to listen to a book on tape for an hour and a half every night to go to sleep, because her mom, a few years before that, Said, I'm all done lying down with you when she was nine. And so she had to find a way. So this the seven year old, the parents, could do the same thing. They can develop one of these kind of very gradual, gentle sleep coaching approaches, where they really empower her, and they can also teach her some visualization techniques I like to use the one where, when a scary thought comes into your brain or into your mind, you throw it out, just like we you and I have to do if we have a bad dream, like if we sometimes go right back to sleep, we can go, I know I have gone right back into the bad dream, right? And so I always tell kids, so I want you to replace that bad thought if you're going to throw it out, so some new bad one doesn't come back in, or that one flies back in. What are you going to think about instead? So that's where I like to really pull from, maybe perhaps a storybook or a picture book that they may have looked at before bedtime. You know, so lots of skill building for a seven year old, for her in terms of calming her body and slowing down her brain. These are also kids that are not a good idea to talk about like you. What's one good thing and one bad thing about your day at bedtime, right? I would do any kind of conversations like that at dinner time.

Dawn Davenport  45:07  
Yeah, just thinking that's a dinner time conversation. And in fact, from what you're saying, developmentally, she's at the stage where you would think she's going to be getting more active and more ideas and more thoughts in her head, as far as and some of these are going to be scary, and right now, what she's doing is she's substituting her parents, her parents, because they've always been the ones who put her to sleep or stay with her till she is asleep. And if I hear you, what you're suggesting is they need to teach her that, not them, that there are other ways, outside of having your parents sleep with you or lay down with you until you fall asleep. Yes, and

Speaker 2  45:47  
I think as a parent of a seven year old, where I've been doing that for six years, that I would say, You know what? I just real. I always like to have, like a family meeting, mommy learned today that she was supposed to teach you how to put yourself to sleep when you are much younger, just like your cousin Joey does. And so I'm going, you know, so whatever they're doing. So now I'm not going to lay down with you, but we're going to have stories and kisses, and Mommy will sit next to you after we turn the lights off, and I'll stay with you while you learn to put yourself to sleep, right? Because it's not fair to her. She has no idea, right? Yeah, exactly, exactly to give her that support and that reassurance, and you might tell her before lights out what to do about her thoughts. I mean, I'm you have to be careful with these very bright kids. Is they'll engage you, you know, like, I mean, some of my favorite is, how does a whale breathe underwater? Like, we're going to have this conversation now at bedtime. Good question. We should have talked about that earlier.

Speaker 1  46:52  
Pin in that Yeah, exactly, yeah, you know.

Speaker 2  46:55  
So really being there for them, but being careful not to also transfer one, what I like to call sleep crutch, to a new one. Like, oh, I used to lay down or rub your back. Now I talk to you to sleep and hold your hand right, and then we're just going from one thing to another, which will make it harder. Yeah.

Dawn Davenport  47:16  
Okay. McCall, any final thoughts on that one?

Speaker 1  47:20  
Yeah. I mean, I think it's such a good question. I get it a lot, and I get it with even much younger kids, hyper vigilance, where are you going to go? Are you coming back? You know, fears, and that's a product of a again, a big, sensitive brain is going to go places. And these little kids can be thrown off by very small little snippets of things that they hear or see doesn't have to be obvious, and so I often say with these kids again, yes, parents can totally do things to help, but if it's ever appropriate, and you ever find that these fears are starting to crop up and that you're hearing about The thoughts in the daytime, or they're starting to be more of a thing that's not just about bedtime, a little bit of play therapy or a little bit of backup, from a mental health perspective, for the parents, would be really helpful, because these kids can get in a cycle of sort of anxiety and rumination and things like that, and we want to make sure that we give them all the skills to drive that big sensitive brain, because that's not going away, and we don't want it to the big brain is not going away, and they will be more vulnerable to things those kinds of fears. The new thinking about anxieties and fears, though, is not to what they call accommodate them. That means I'm afraid of monsters. Oh, okay, I'll turn on a light. Is to get them better at being in the dark. Get them better at tolerating the things or confronting the things that they're afraid of. So we're trying to build resilience even when they have so Kim's ideas of you know, manage the thoughts, do something active when you have these thoughts. Is really helpful. It really builds some inner strength so that they're in control of their thinking. I would say it's

Speaker 2  49:14  
like a kind of a little bit of a softening of one of those rules about getting used to the dark. I'm okay with the dim nightlight, particularly if it's a colored bowl, right? So I just don't want parents to think that we're saying, Oh, you have to learn how to sleep in pitch dark. It can be very disorienting to wake up for me, too, in complete pitch dark,

Dawn Davenport  49:35  
right? Yeah. And your basic approach is, you are proponents of the gentle method, which doesn't mean the child will never cry, but it means that you are training them with alternatives to having to have the parent there, and you're doing it gradually so the parent could stay in the room, sitting beside the bed, not engaging in conversation, and then the parent might move towards the door. Or sit there for a while for the X period a couple other nights, then move to the hall. So the idea is to gradually wean them off of and if they're not weaned on you, but they're dependent on a bottle or whatever, you're gradually reducing the presence of that, substituting it with healthier habits. Is that a good summary? McCall,

Speaker 1  50:23  
yeah. I mean, I think so. I just you, I like the term scaffolding, because then you feel like you're building skills rather than pulling something away. So it's just to change a slight shift in terminology, but then we're scaffolding their ability to do it themselves again, like teaching them to ride a bike, we don't want to pedal for them and and we don't want to be holding on to the bike forever. We're going to start letting go, but we're not going to we're going to help. We're going to give them a chance to learn and feel what it's like. And say, I'm here for you, but I'm not going to do the work for you. You're going to do the work, but I will. I'm right here. I'm going to be here. And sometimes, really, I shouldn't say, sometimes I would say, all the time, almost. It's phenomenally helpful, especially for like, toddlers and stuff, who were really separation, and maybe even some of these foster kids were really separation sensitive. Being there just, I think, makes all the difference in the world. And

Speaker 2  51:22  
I just want to add, because there's been some misunderstanding about this approach, that you can be there in the room but have no engagement at all with them. I don't want any parent to be reenacting the still face experiment, right, which will further dysregulate a child. So the idea of being there is to be engaged with them and reassuring with them, right? So that you can touch and make noises and shushing, and it's okay, sweetie, I'm right here, and if they're baby or toddler in a crib, pick up to calm, just not doing anything to sleep. And I'm super biased about doing this approach with children in beds, because I I believe that the approach of, you know, put them into their bed and leave, and when they come out, and you put them back in, and then they come out, and usually the parent loses their patience, and the child also falls apart, right? And then there's a slamming of the door, locking the door, which increases anxiety, makes bedtime. You know, the struggle can now start at bedtime when they know it's happening. So I find this more gentle approach to be not only empowering to the child, but more successful

Dawn Davenport  52:42  
ultimately. Well, thank you so much. McCall Gordon and Kim West, authors of the book, why won't you sleep? A Game Changing approach for exhausted parents of non stop super alert, big feeling kids, thank you so much for being with us today to help us get our kids to sleep. You.