Episode 63- 3 Things You Can Change Today for More Sleep Tonight

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

Welcome to the kids sleep show, where we help tired parents from around the world to get their children to fall asleep independently, sleep through the night and build healthy sleep habits for life. I’m your host, Courtney Zentz. Now let’s sleep together. Hi, Courtney Zentz. Here, the founder of tiny transition, sleep consulting. Thank you so much for joining me today, I am excited to talk with you all about the three simple shifts that your little one can make in your home today so that they can sleep better overnight. I work with a lot of tired parents all over the world I’ve been doing this for over six years have supported 1000s of families privately in building sustainable and healthy sleep habits in the home. And it starts with the foundation. So every few weeks in my private Facebook group, I offer a free training and it’s a five day series that takes you through each of the different components around sleep. So in today’s session, I’m talking about the three simple shifts you can make in your home today. To fix sleep tonight, as you continue to watch other episodes you’re going to see the second part is around building a healthy bedtime routine. We’re going to talk all about the number one mistake that parents make. In regards to sleep. We’re going to talk all about sleep training and myth busting about sleep training. And we’re also going to talk all about sleep regressions and early morning wakings. So it is going to be an action packed few episodes here. So we’re going to start today with the three main things that you can take a look at today, that could be potentially causing your child not sleeping well. So I’ve been there. I started this company over seven years ago with a foundation around really feeling lost and alone. Because there was no help. I was anxious. I was agitated, I was tired. I was very, very unprepared. I came from a fortune 500 company. I was a rising executive and worked and worked and worked so hard, and really never failed at a job because I put a lot of effort into it right. And then I became a parent. And I realized how hard it was and frankly, how much I sucked at it. So the hospital made it seem like when I left, they made sure my son was strapped in, right. And that was it.
There’s no manual, right. And so I think As parents, we all do our best. But many of us several weeks into the journey of parenting, find ourselves one at each other’s throats around really just this chronic exhaustion, right? So you’re fighting with your spouse or your partner, your anxiety levels are increasing for many new moms, postpartum anxiety and depression come into play. You’re not sleeping, they’re not sleeping. I think there’s this underlying pressure, especially with social media to keep up with the Joneses. And, you know, nobody shows you the ugly side of this. They show you the pretty perfect sleeping baby, but they don’t show you the you know, the 23 hours prior to that and what it looked like. And for me it was a dumpster fire, which is what led me down this journey to build this company to empower parents to really take back control. I am a lactation counselor, a postpartum doula and a sleep specialist. I work with kids all over the place to build healthy sleep habits. And so my mission for you and my values of this company are quite vastly different one, I’m going to share with you a ton of information that is going to set your sleep foundation. So as we dive in today, there is a workbook. That workbook is available inside of the comments section here for where I’m posting the content. And then as well, it is always available out in my facebook group called slumber Made Simple. So if you want the workbook to go along with this, and you find it’s going to be helpful to have that be sure to download a copy. Now let’s dive in. So the three changes that parents make in the home today that truly do impact how your child sleeps tonight are going to be as follows. Number one eating. The first question parents say to me is when should a child sleep through the night? And frankly, it’s a very loaded question, right? I have children at three months of age who are easily taking in 32 ounces of milk in the day. They are bottle fed parents can measure whether it’s breast milk or formula. And they know for a fact their child is getting the right intake. And they sleep through the night for 12 hours because they have had the right intake and they have the right foundation. Right? newborns shouldn’t sleep through the night at least most of them now There always is going to be some parent who says my baby slept through the night from when you got home. Well congratulations, you’re not the norm. Right? So waking up a child to eat depending on their situation, or having a child wake you you know typically every three or four hours overnight to eat those first 12 weeks is normal, right? You know and then you start to get into like the different months well when should my child sleep? It really depends. The first and biggest foundational element to child sleeping Through the night is intake can they sustain going through the night without eating. So if you’re nursing, the really big challenging part of it is understanding how much milk you are transferring. If you are a nursing mom with a baby, who still doesn’t sleep through the night, and they’re typically somewhere between, you know, three months and 12 months of age, the first thing I would suggest that you do is set up a weighted transfer. The next time you go to your pediatricians office, they’re going to weigh the baby before your nurse. So you make sure you show up there with a baby that’s hungry, right. And then you see how much they take off one or two breasts during the feeding, so that you have an understanding that each time they’re nursing, what is the ballpark amount that they are transferring children, the entire first year of life need 24 to 32 ounces of milk, that is the same number, the day they’re born. And through 12 months of age 24 to 32 ounces, I don’t know what that converts to milliliters. I’m in the states here. So we’re gonna go with ounces. And you can always convert it if you’re watching from somewhere else. But children need 24 to 32 ounces. And when they get that milk in the day, and they have healthy sleep habits and hygiene, they can sleep through the night. And we’ll get into what some of that looks like in a few minutes.
But from a milk standpoint, it really is ounces, right breast milk and formula from an ounce standpoint are the same. I know there are some myths out there that while formulas are thicker than breast milk, so it lasts longer. not accurate, right, not accurate. So for any child breast or bottle, or excuse me breast or formula fed, it’s 24 to 32 ounces. So what I always encourage clients to do is to set up some sort of a structure with their child around eating, I do think it’s super important that kids get some aspect of structure around it. And the reason I say that is because there are a lot of parents who feed on demand. And if it’s working for you, that’s great, don’t change it. Many of the parents who feed on demand that I come in contact with or who hire me for private coaching, they actually end up eating less in the day, because they’re perpetually snacking, right. So what happens is baby never really takes a full feeding, they’re always kind of just eating enough to be satisfied, but not enough to fill the tank, right. So by allowing your child to have feedings every three hours, they’re hungry, right. So they’re going to eat better at those feedings roughly every three hours. If you’re looking at a typical structure to the day, we’re going to call it 7pm for bedtime, and a 7am waking that’s how I structure most of my private clients, it’s kind of a 12 hour day, 12 hour night type structure. Seven to seven is the most popular time there is a little bit of leeway there. But you know, we get into that in the private coaching as to what’s ideal for your family. But we’ll go with seven to seven. And that works with a lot of the families. And so between the hours of 7am and 7pm, you basically want to maximize the intake, which means that if your baby is not up by seven, I encourage parents to wake their little one and start that day off with the feeding at seven. Okay, and then every three hours. So 710 one four and seven are going to be when you’re offering feeds to a child. Now again, I’m not suggesting that you don’t feed a hungry baby. What I often see though is parents Miss read a queue, Miss read a child being overtired. Miss read the fact that maybe they got a burp or a fart or something going on for hunger. So they get into this perpetual snacking or they don’t know how any other way is to get their child to sleep besides feeding, or they don’t know any other way to calm the child down besides feeding. And you create not only a habit, but you create a perpetual snacker. And by the end of the day, they haven’t taken in as much as they would with normal, full feedings. So the first thing I look at when a parent says to me like hey, what what things could I shift around in the day, you want to make sure your little ones getting full feedings roughly every three hours. And you want to try to get as close to that 24 ounces in the day as you can. Because remember, the range is 24 to 32 ounces. I have children at three months that sleep 12 hours at night, I have clients that hire me at six months, they’re still waiting three or four times to nurse and we’re going to talk about what that looks like. Because they’re very real situations. And there may be a case where there still needs to be some feedings at six months of age. And we’ll talk about what that looks like but more importantly, how to get rid of them. Okay, as it’s age appropriate. And as the baby’s getting the right intake in the day. If they’re eating breakfast and lunch in the middle of the night. They’re not eating breakfast and lunch in the day and that’s what we want to aim to fix. So the first point is, are they getting enough in the day from an eating standpoint? Okay, so now that we’ve covered that, the second shift that we want to talk about making is a want versus a need mind check. Okay? And what I mean by that when your little one wakes in the middle of the night, and they have to go back to sleep right because it’s two o’clock in the morning. What are you doing for them, that helps them to go back to sleep. So many of the parents I work with have enough advertently got into some habits. And those habits include rocking, to sleep, bouncing to sleep, putting in the pacifier for the baby until they’re back asleep, feeding to sleep, nursing, to sleep driving to sleep, and you’re noticing a common theme, the word to sleep, right? Sometimes as parents, you go in and you go, Well, the only way they’ll go back to bed is if I nursed them, or bounce them, or rock them or feed them? Well, that’s because you have a habit, right? It’s not that they need you, it’s that they want you that is the way in which they have learned to go to bed, sleep is a skill set, my friends, and when you have a healthy foundation for sleep, the skill gets stronger and stronger. So one of the things that I talk a lot about, is a weighted pendulum, right? So think of yourself as like a law firm, right? I always remember the lawyer commercials, and you have a weighted scale. And on that scale, you have, you know, one side of the pendulum that goes up one side of the pendulum that goes down. So as the skill set strengthens, right, the habits and the needs that a child has
lesson, right, they no longer need you to sleep, they want you to sleep, right, if a child truly needs us, their arm is stuck in the crib, they have to burn, they are truly hungry. It’s our job as parents to feed them. Absolutely. But when I asked parents to do is kind of assess what the want versus need is, from a situational standpoint, with regard to balance around the day, right? Is your little one waking because they want your help to go back to sleep, or they truly need something from you. And so when you can assess it’s this want versus need, you’ve identified the problem, right? Well, now you have to shift away from the problem, right, you can no longer offer the support back to sleep, because that’s not strengthening their own internal skill set. Kids sleep through the night when they get the right amount of intake, and they have the skill set to be able to do it. And it’s literally as simple as that. Now, if you’ve gotten, you know, into six months, or nine months, or 12 months, or however old you are right now, and your little one is listening to this particular training, you have to assess like, okay, where are we? Am I setting things up properly? Do we have the right amount of success? And is there a want versus a need situation that I have to adjust? Right? So when you have an understanding of what that is, then you have to fix it right? Is it supported sleep? Or is it independent? Right? Do they want to eat? Or do they need to eat? So the next thing I would look at is the independent sleep, right? Do they actually possess this skill set to go to sleep? And how do you teach a child who is solely reliant on you rocking, bouncing, nursing, feeding, driving to sleep to sleep to sleep, right? How do you fix that? How do you get away from that? Well, as a parent, the first thing that you need to do is obviously identify the challenge, right? Do they have enough to eat? Is this a want versus a need in the middle of the night? And do they have the skill set to settle themselves, right? So for most parents who are struggling, and frankly, find this particular training, you’re missing something there. And there’s generally a prop in which the child is reliant on that to go back to sleep. So the first thing that you’re going to want to do and to try and fix this is work with food, make sure that they’re getting the right intake at the right times during the day, because you never want to question, are they really hungry? Or is this habit and I’ll tell you how you can tell, right? If you think your child is hungry in the middle of the night, and you just opened the door, and they all of a sudden get quiet and look at you and go Hi. They don’t actually need it. Typically, they’re just looking for you. Oh, by the way, if you’re willing to throw it out there, I’m willing to take it right. Usually when a baby’s hungry, especially a newborn, you can tell they’re gonna cry until they’re fed, because they’re legitimately hungry. People say to me, what’s a good threshold to know, hey, Courtney, this is probably a habit, but I’m not sure. And I will tell you six months, I’ll give you the leeway between four and six months. Because again, your supply, the intake, the habits, the skills, there’s a lot of developmental things going on. So if a parent comes to me with a child between kind of three and six months of age, and says, Courtney, I want to work with you privately, we balance making sure that we do have the right amount of feedings or we keep feedings in overnight where they’re appropriate. But it’s not feeding to sleep. It’s feeding for nutrition, which is a vastly different thing, right. The next thing you’re going to look at after you’ve assessed the feeding situation, right? And you understand where your little one is, is to then look at what are the other mechanisms? Are there props in there. First and foremost, I’m going in four times to put the pacifier in or, you know, I’m reliant on mom picking me up and rocking me back to sleep and then I do the ninja transfer back down from what does that look like? Right? So when you assess the want versus need, you then have to come up with a plan to teach them to become independent sleepers because then they’re typically not at that point, right? So they have a want versus a need. Again, if you notice on the monitor, your little ones arm is stuck in the crib go in and fix it. You notice they poop, change them, right? Those are things where it is truly a need in the middle of the night. And if we ever not sure, because they are babies go in and check, right. But if the second you pick them up, they pass out on your shoulder, that’s a habit, you know, you have to get rid of that right now to build independence sleep, I always equate it to that skill set that you have to learn the first time a child learns to stand up, for example, on their own, maybe they’re in the living room, and they pull themselves up on the coffee table, right?
What happens,
they don’t just start walking around, they fall down. And then maybe the next day, they’re up for 10 seconds, and then 20 seconds, and then 30 seconds, by the end of the week, they’re kind of cruising around the coffee table sleeps a skill set, right? When you do it consistently. And you teach it consistently and you respond consistently based on whether it’s a want or a need, a child responds to the new structure and routine that you’ve set in place as a boundary. Right now, if your child wakes up five times a night, the first time you want to rock them the second time you want to pay them the third time you’re going to feed them the fourth time you’re going to pick them up the fifth time you don’t the sixth time you let them cry every single time they wake, they’re going, what am I going to get today, right? Because they don’t understand what the expectations are. So you have to create the right expectations around sleep. And I can tell you in doing this, kids are super responsive, right? When you teach them the independent skill of sleep, they go to sleep peacefully at bedtime without a single tier. They wake in the middle of the night because they do have to fart and they put themselves right back to sleep. They go down for naps easily peacefully and can consolidate naps. And they stay asleep through the early morning waking hours, which is typically four to 6am when a child is in their latest stages of sleep. Right? So when you’re looking at the entire picture, that’s what you have to assess. Now you may say, Well, that’s great, Courtney, I’m stuck with a child who I’m not sure is eating right has a whole bunch of bad habits and can’t settle themselves. What do I do? Well, that’s the beauty of this, I’m going to teach you. So the first thing you want to do is always assess hunger, right, making sure they’re getting those full feeds, you’ve got the point 24 to 32 ounces. Once we’ve checked that box, for that bedtime, you have to make sure that the child’s wake window is proper, that their last nap to bedtime is age appropriate. Okay, so what I mean by that is, a child who is three or four months of age should not go any more than 75 to 90 minutes from the last nap to when they go down for bed. Okay, a child who’s five months of age can go roughly about two hours, six months, two and a half hours, seven months through about 11 months, it’s three hours, and then somewhere around 12 months, you can start to creep closer to four hours. Okay, so that last nap to bedtime window is very important. And we’re going to dive into more of that this next couple sessions that come up. But it’s very important to make sure you’re paying attention to that. Because if you’re missing that window, and you’re trying to teach a child independent sleep, and they do not have the ability to settle independently, and they are going into bedtime with the wrong wake window, you are going to have a to your fest and it sucks. And there’s nothing you can do because they are overtired, you have to avoid that like the plague. So you always want to make sure you’re watching that last nap to bedtime window. And then you have to decide how you’re going to put your child down. And here’s what I mean by that. Sleep training itself isn’t overly complex when you start talking about methods, right? So I think there’s this big kind of question around what I do and is it just cry it out? And it’s really not at all not even remotely close to that. I do want to break some myths, though, around what sleep training actually is. And here’s why. Because there are a lot of folks who will talk about sleep trainings and the methods and people try to coin through marketing, their own proprietary approach their own secret private way of doing it, how to get your baby to sleep without a single tear and such right? I’ll tell you if it was that easy. Number one, I’d be a millionaire. And number two, every single child in the world would sleep. So just be cautious of that. Sleep training is hard. Right? When I work with a newborn family, people are like what do you mean, you’re training a newborn and like it’s not training a newborn, it’s teaching a newborn foundations from the start so that they have good sleep hygiene without ever needing to train a child. They legitimately become a beautiful sleeper from birth, but it’s age appropriate and their newborns. And so there’s realities to that. But you’re not actually training a newborn, you’re really just teaching them the right skill without bad habits from the start, right? typically around three or four months is when you get into the sleep training part of it right. And what I mean by that is they have 12 weeks, sometimes much more months, years of bad habits that you have to change because the habits wrong. They’re reliant on you to fall asleep. So every single time they’re waking in the middle of the night or passing through a cycle of sleep, they’re reliant
on you
in order to Go back to sleep, right? That’s not healthy sleep hygiene, that’s your Prop, they need you to get back to sleep. Right? What they don’t understand is that actually they just want you. And they don’t recognize that they can do it on their own. Right. So, when we talk about sleep training, I’m going to take you through what the different approaches are. Because I think it’s important that you understand, right, everybody’s gonna call it something different. All of sleep training philosophies are built off the same research, the same medical studies, and the same, you know, perspectives, we’ve all had a lot of experience, we all do things a little bit differently. With regards to the overall picture. That’s what makes people unique in the space. But the foundations of the actual sleep training style, regardless of who you decide to work with, are all going to be exactly the same. Okay, for children, the first couple weeks of life, when you’re trying to teach them that they actually have the ability to settle independently, and that they have that skill in there, even as a newborn, right? It’s something referred to commonly as the pickup put down method, okay? What that really means is that with a newborn, they don’t really realize that they can fall asleep without kind of needing that support. So when you’re working with a newborn, and you’re trying to teach them, hey, like, you can do this, you know, newborns are only awake about 45 to 60 minutes in between sleep cycles, right? So they wake up, they stare at you, they eat a little bit, they go back to bed, they wake up, they stare at you, they eat a little bit, go back to bed. 45 to 60 minutes is all a newborn should and could really take without becoming overtired. Okay, if they’re staying awake for hours, I can guarantee they’re overtired. And I can guarantee things are not happy at home, because you’re missing the windows from an awake standpoint, right? So when you’re working through something like the pick up put down method, it’s not something I would use on a baby really over four months of age, okay, and here’s why newborn sleep in stages, right, you have two different stages of sleep, there’s 50% of your time spent in REM sleep 50% of your time spent in non REM sleep, okay. So those two particular stages happen the first 12 weeks of life, somewhere between three and four months, your body shifts and moves to cycle based sleep, just like we carry with us all the way through adulthood. They also shift from what was 50% REM and 50%. Non REM, which by the way is the only time in our life we do that is as a newborn into this cycle based sleep. And that’s where kids, you know, the first couple of weeks to live parents like this is great, they’re sleeping great. And then all of a sudden, this four months hits, and they’re waking every 45 minutes. That is not, it’s commonly referred to as the four month sleep regression. It’s not a it’s not something that has to happen, right? It’s not a guarantee, if your child has the ability to resettle, you’ll breeze right past that, because they’re waking every 45 minutes, but they possess the skill to go back to sleep, right? So the pick up put down method is really something where you lay a baby down, for example, a newborn, maybe they’re eight weeks old, and you’re like, you know, Courtney, I want them to take their first nap today in their crib, and I want them to do it independently, right? So you lay him in the crib and about 45 minutes. And they might fast and get upset, you pick them right up, you walk around for a little bit, Pat their shoulder Pat there, but not to sleep, remember not to sleep, but you just pat them calm them down, walk around the room for a minute you lay them back down, okay? And then you pick them back up, okay? And then you lay them back down, and then you pick them back up. So every time they fuss, you’re going to pick them back up, and you’re going to walk them around and call them and then you lay them back down. It may take five or six times have you kind of dancing with them a little bit for them to go, well wait a minute, why is she putting me to sleep, and they fall asleep independently?
Is it gonna happen the first try the first nap not every time but for many clients. Absolutely. So if you’re kind of with a little one now who’s under four months of age, I would encourage you to try that for the first nap of the day making sure you pay attention to your awake window, and that you are paying attention to putting them down awake, ready to go to bed at 45 minutes. If they get upset and cry, you pick them right up. And then you repeat that until they’re asleep. Again, it could take a few times, and they will most often drift to sleep. Now don’t worry if they don’t sleep longer than like 40 minutes. That’s totally normal for a child really under five months of age, they do not start consolidating their naps until roughly about five to six months of age. So it is completely age appropriate to take a one cycle nap really under five months of age supported sleep 100% kids are going to sleep longer if so many parents are like, well, they’ll sleep three hours on Grandma will no kidding because it’s motion sleep. They’re on grandma’s chest. They’re in the car, they’re walking, right? You’re wearing them. It’s motion based sleep, it’s supported. They’re always gonna sleep better and supported sleep. Okay. So when we’re past that first age group, right, of zero to four months, you move into really what tends to be kind of two different approaches, right? You’re going to work with a child and they’re going to be in the room with you, right? So you’re going to stay in there as you’re teaching them the foundational skill of sleep. So typically I tell clients, I’m like pull up a chair. Next to the crib, you want to be at eye level comb breeds calm when you’re working with kids, because they’re trying to understand what the expectation is, right? They want to know, like, Oh, this is what you expect, right? I’m not gonna feed you, I’m not gonna pick you up, right, but I’m here with you, buddy. And I love you, and you are safe, you are just mad, right? And sometimes you have to do a little bit of a reset, where you pick them up, and they kind of stop immediately. And you’re like, was just a habit, okay, I’m going to lay you back down a week. And you’re going to figure this out. This is the part where many parents frankly, can’t be consistent, because they’re just unsure is your child going to probably yell in your face? Absolutely. For a minute or two, right. And then they call them down. And they start to do what I kind of refer to as a cycle, right? So typically, a child’s going to have some sort of a protest, it’s a spike, right? They’re going to cry and be upset, and they’re going to come down and have what I call the stages of grief.
And
that’s themselves settling, then they’re going to spike again. Yeah, and then they’re going to come back down. Most parents don’t ever listen to it, they hear the cry, they immediately respond, and then they end up putting their little one to sleep, if you would just give them a chance and be there with them, you know, they’re safe, you know, they’re fine, you know, they’re fed, you know, they’re clean, you know, they’re in their crib, like, everything’s good. Give them a little bit of time, they have to understand that this is the new expectation around sleep, I can tell you, every child goes to bed, as long as your wake windows are proper, you don’t have a child who’s overtired. You know, you’re not struggling in that regard, that is going to be your biggest success metric, right is putting them down in that capacity, and then being there with them in the room. And then it’s called essentially kind of weaning yourself off of them. I hate to use the example of a drug dealer, but you’re the drug to your kids in many cases, right? You have to wean them off the drug. So sometimes parents will say, Well, wait a minute, do I just like leave them in there, and then they cry, and I’m sitting there watching them cry, you can support your child through gentle touch through sometimes, like vocal engagement, right through physical touch. Sometimes I tell clients, I’m like, you know, if you have to put your hand on them and kind of rock them a little bit to sleep in the crib that night, fine. The next night, do it less. And then the next night, do it less. And then the next night do it less, right? You’re weaning yourself off of them as the skill set is strengthening that they recognize they can do it, every single child can do it, they have to understand the easiest analogy is that they are pulling out a Phillips head or a flathead screwdriver on a Phillips head screw, right. So what happens is the child pulls out this Flathead, and it works on a Phillips head screw, right. So they’re always kind of going for that screwdriver, because that’s the one they know, they don’t realize they possess the Phillips head screw and the Phillips head screwdriver, it’s a lot easier to turn a Phillips head screw with a Phillips head screwdriver than it is a flathead. Right. So by giving kids that skill set, it makes it much easier to turn, then they don’t struggle as much kids want to sleep, they just don’t know how you have to rebuild the skill set. And you’re there with them, supporting them, ensuring they’re safe and ensuring they’re comfortable. Right. The next is more of a check in based approach. People say you know, they call it for rising or cry it out or check ins and such right? Like, I don’t teach just one method, right? When I work with families, we kind of understand the whole picture and what all the props are. So it’s not just as simple as understanding the methods, right? But I want to explain them to you. So you understand what you’re dealing with. When you do something that’s an interval based check. And that’s where you’re checking in at specific intervals until a child is asleep. Okay, you’re essentially looking to reset a boundary, I’m here, I love you, it’s time to go to sleep, you leave the room and let them cycle up and down practice. Protest practice, protest practice protests, because for nine months, the only thing they knew was you rock them to sleep. They’re not just going to magically lay down high five and let you leave the room. Okay, so that’s more of what you would call that interval check in based approach, right? Some people call it you know, interval check ins for rising, right. Like, there’s a lot of different folks that have kind of come up with different approaches, each of us use our unique way in doing that. It’s not as simple as like checking it three minutes and five minutes and seven minutes. because, frankly, that pisses kids off way more because you don’t ever give them the chance to practice before you’re already back in there. Right. The next is going to be extinction, which is truly put them in the crib and leave the room. There are doctors that talk about doing that there are parents that I’m sure do it. I can tell you in six years, I’ve never had to do that. Right. It’s not necessary. Does it work? Absolutely. Is it necessary? Is it gentle? Are there less tears? Absolutely not. So I think for every family, it’s understanding that balance right? of understanding how you teach independence, sleep, and then you got to throw in food. Does your child actually need to eat or want to eat right? If they need to eat you should absolutely go in and feed them in the middle of the night for sure. But you don’t do it to sleep. And that’s the balance, right? And a child who’s nine months age shouldn’t be eating three times at night, it’s habits. So now you’ve got to gradually shift that milk into other parts of the day by slowly reducing the total overall intake overnight, and then that shifts the milk into the daytime. Okay, so there’s a lot to cover, as you can see, and I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much in this first session. But I really want you to take a step back and assess first, are they getting the right amount of milk in the day,
second, do they have a want versus a need in the middle of the night, something that you just recognized? He, I’m actually doing that right. And third, do they possess the ability to settle independently for that sleep, whether it’s for naps, whether it’s for bedtime, overnights middle of the night, if they do not possess that skill, they are going to wake every single time they need help going back down. That is the same for naps, you will have chronically short naps, you will have rough overnights, all of these things need to be put together into a beautiful picture to build the healthy sleep habits. So they are the three changes that you can implement today to build healthy sleep habits in the home. And I hope you have found this first part of the session. A great one. From a foundational standpoint, make sure you stay with us there’s going to be a lot of other topics I’m covering. The next one we’re going to talk about is the number one mistake parents make with regards to sleep. And then following suit, we’re going to talk about the perfect and ideal bedtime routine the mistake parents make when they’re actually sleep training and how to avoid those how to manage getting rid of sleep regressions forever. And then we’re going to talk a lot about early morning waking. So make sure you stay tuned. Lots of great information coming and be sure that you choose follow so you can find me every single time I’m posting a new video like this and you can learn and get your little ones sleeping through as much and as soon as you would like them to. And be sure that you click follow so you can make sure to be notified anytime I have a new video or training up. And as always, I work privately with clients through phone consultations coaching and with my team of 13 specialists around the country who support you and your little one with their sleep needs. Thank you so much for tuning in. Again. My name is Courtney Zentz, the founder of tiny transitions, take some time and enjoy it with your family. Leave the rest to us. Hold on one more thing before you go. As a valued listener of the kids sleep show. I want to help you build a great sleep or not just in the times you’re listening to the show. But all day every day. Every week of the year. I have a new Facebook group called slumber Made Simple. It’s a place to gather with other parents looking for sleep support, laughs and the latest in sleep research to build a family that is rested and at their best day in and day out. If you want to be part of the community where you can get free sleep support, weekly training sessions, unbelievable content and so much more. Head on over to tiny transitions.com forward slash community that’s tiny transition stuff comm forward slash community or head over to Facebook and search slumber Made Simple. drop me a note and let me know when you join. I can’t wait to see you there.