Episode 178: Why Won’t You Sleep?! An Interview with Kim West & Macall Gordon on their New Book about Parenting Alert Littles

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

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Welcome to The Kids Sleep Show podcast, where we dive into the magical world of sleep and all things parenting. Join us as we embark on a journey filled with expert advice, practical tips, and heartwarming stories that will transform your little ones into sleep superheroes and empower you to navigate the beautiful chaos of parenting. I’m your host, Courtney Zents, and I’m on a mission to change how the world views sleep and provide accessible sleep coaching resources for all families to build healthy sleep habits in their home for children and adults of all ages. As an award winning speaker, author, and pediatric sleep expert, myself and my team of consultants work intimately with families around the world to teach healthy sleep habits to children and adults. I believe wholeheartedly that sleep is the foundation for which a happy home is built.

So let’s sleep together. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the episode. I am excited today to welcome two guests to the show for the launch of their new book, Why Won’t You Sleep, which I know as parents is probably a question that we ask all the time. So first and foremost, the sleep lady, miss Kim West, who I have known for several years now and do some mentoring of her gentle sleep coaches.

And she came on the podcast as the author of a new book, Why Won’t You Sleep with McCall Gordon, who is also a gentle sleep coach and the founder of Little Livewire. So I’m excited to welcome them because we talked today about sleep training and sleep support for children who have, I would consider, a little bit more of a Livewire type personality. And it was a really great podcast, and I’m so excited to share with you. I wanna take a few minutes to talk to you about who these two fabulous women are before we jump in because they bring so much knowledge and so much research to the space of sleep that I think it’s important to understand in the conversations that, we got two powerhouses on the show today. So McCall Gordon has a bachelor’s in human biology from Stanford and a master’s in applied psychology.

She’s done research worldwide and became a certified general sleep coach and is in private practice and also available on the telehealth platform, Maven. She has an ongoing column in Psychology Today and runs two Facebook support groups for over a hundred thousand struggling families who have fussy alert babies and children that are struggling to sleep better. And so I’m excited because she loves working with children who are more sensitive, more alert, and, you can find her and a little bit more about her in the show notes. But she has Little LiveWires, which is her sleep consulting agency. And again, she’s a gentle sleep coach who’s certified under Kim West, and Kim is the sleep lady.

She has been a licensed clinical social worker for over twenty five years and has so much amazing knowledge and research and support for new parents from newborn throughout, those early elementary ages. She has been on doctor Phil and NBC Nightly News and Good Morning America, TLC’s Bringing Home Baby, and CNN, and has written a lot of different books that you have probably got on your bookshelves if you’re a new parent or a seasoned parent. And I’m excited for her new book here, Why Won’t You Sleep. So join me in welcoming both of them to the episode today. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we’re gonna jump over there and say hello.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Kids Sleep Show. I am joined this week by two very special guests, miss Kim West, the gentle sleep coach and the original sleep lady, and McCall Gordon. She is the founder of Little Live Wires and works with Kim to write an amazing book that just recently came out that I wanted to have them on the podcast to talk about. So I’m gonna take a minute and allow Kim and McCall to both do their own introductions, and you can learn a little bit more about them.

And then we’re gonna dive into why you wanna listen to this episode and tune in to, our conversation on the book. So, Kim, thank you so much for being here in McCall. So lovely to see you again. Thank you for having us, Courtney. So I’m, a mom of two.

I’m also a licensed clinical social worker for thirty two years, and I have been doing sleep coaching known as the sleep lady for thirty years. When I had my first child, the only thing available at the time was what they call it America Ferber or what I like to call time checks. And I felt like I’ve there needs to be something else particularly for these alert live wire babies that that we’re gonna talk about. And so I developed what’s now called the sleep lady shuffle, sort of a gentle, method of sleep coaching. And I used to, you know, consult families, create customized plans, and coach them through the process, and it made me pretty popular.

And when you get a child sleeping through the night, it transforms their lives, as you know, Courtney. And about 80% of my practice ended up being these live wires or what I called alert babies. And I’ll let McCall tell you a little bit about how it came to be with this book. And fifteen years ago you know, so I’ve written a a few books. And and then fifteen years ago, I started training gentle sleep coaches, basically, you know, people all over the world, who wanted to start their own business like you did, Courtney, sleep coaching, families.

And, you know, also, I would teach them my gentle method along with the other approaches. And that’s how I ended up meeting McCall. We became kindred spirits because I of my two kids, one of them is one of these alert live wires. And I think, McCall, you would say both of yours are. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I I loved, both of us telling these stories because our paths started at the same time. Really, Kim and I really had kids at the same time, mercifully before the Internet, I would say.

Thank God. Right? And we had the same a very similar experience and took sort of two different paths. And I always say, boy, do I wish I had known Kim. We were on two different coasts, but, she would have probably saved my life at that time.

Anyway, I’m McCall Gordon. I came to this because I had two of these kids and, I I came to this work because I did not nail sleep. I really slogged through it. And, it was not pretty. That’s all I can say.

It was not pretty. I really questioned what I was reading because the one hand it said, you know, responsiveness is so important for this important moment of brain development. And in the very next page of the magazines we were reading, it said, but don’t do don’t be responsive at night. And I was just like, this just doesn’t make sense. And I had these two, especially my first who was so persistent and so intense and never slept.

I was like, well, Ferber’s just never gonna work, so I’m not even gonna try. But I was not sleeping. And so we were co sleeping and I was trying to follow cues because that was at the time the only alternative. I was just a zombie. I was just a zombie because I didn’t know what else to do.

Now Kim had the presence of mind to come to go, wait a minute. I I think I can figure something out. I didn’t do that. So luckily, now I can empathize with parents who feel stuck, because I didn’t come up with a solution. And so then I went to graduate school and took a research, sort of path to really, dissect the research that everybody throws at parents.

Like, well, Fervor is research based and the research says, and here’s what we know. And so I really deconstructed all the research underneath crying it out and all the parenting advice in the books to say, wait a minute, what do we really know? And when you apply it to kids who are tense and alert and sensitive, it really falls apart, like in a big way. So I realized that, hey, everything we know about sleep and sleep training just doesn’t apply to these kids, and everything we say about sleep doesn’t apply. Meaning that parents like me were really out in the cold.

Truly, truly, truly. And what I experienced thirty years ago hasn’t really changed very much, really hasn’t. And that’s just darn sad. So this book partly is helping to get Kim’s information to these parents in a way that’s, you know, hopefully gonna actually be useful and, and that they’ll know it’s for them. It’s for them because they’ve just rejected so many books.

They’re like, nope. Not for me. Not for me. Not gonna work. They’re not talking about me.

And it’s like, hopefully, yes. It is talking about me. Yeah. Well Even though and that even though I talked about these alert what I called alert babies in my first book, the sleeplies goodnight sleep tight, we wanted to sort of pull out, and tweak the approach for you know, specifically for these kids so that the book is written for the parents of these children. And so far, the feedback is they they feel really, like, validated and heard and seen and, like, thank goodness.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think there’s there’s there’s no one. Like, you know, I tell clients all the time when I work with families in a private capacity. Right?

Whether it’s a baby or a toddler or a 10 year old, parents, there’s this predisposition that it’s like, oh, cry it out. My my pediatrician said cry it out. It’s like, well, number one, you don’t have to do that. Number two, that’s not appropriate. Number three, a lot of times doesn’t work, frankly, because sometimes it’s not a skill deficiency.

It’s something else is going on. And as parents, it’s our job to always be accessible, not excessive. And that’s like a statement I use almost in every consultation I do because it’s like, yes. If your child is hungry, you feed them. Yes.

If your child, you know, wants you or needs you for something, we are there. Like, you are always accessible to you, you know, to these children. And and I think it’s not generic nor should it be in how you respond to fix it. I think there’s a framework and a structure for certain ages and stages. Right?

Like, amount of awake windows that kids tend to do best with and stuff. But when it comes down to, like, the sleep training stuff, having done this at tiny transitions now for ten years and thousands of kids, like, every kid is different. Right? And I think what it is in the book is probably so validating to this underserved area that’s, like, to your point, not a blanket, oh, just do x y z, and in three to five days, your baby will be sleeping through the night. And, like, I see that from these consultants sometimes.

And it does drive me a little batty having done this for so long as you both have, you know, that you’re just like, well, I’m like, great. Here’s the thing. In research in research studies, crying it out didn’t work for between twenty five and fifty percent of the samples in the study. Like, there’s a there’s a whole thing of, like, the translation of research to parenting advice as a baseline. So parents are kinda getting a certain End of the stick.

Yeah. I was gonna say crock, but, yes, you know, there’s there’s a certain exaggeration as a baseline. But then you apply it to kids who are intense, and those parents really are getting, inaccurate information because the books will say, yes, three to five nights of tolerable amounts of crying. Right? So we’re not talking half an hour or forty five minutes the first night, twenty minutes the second night, ten minutes the next, and then zero.

They’re talking hours the first night, maybe an hour and a half, two hours the next night. I mean, for weeks on end, and no one says, hey. If your kid’s crying for hours for a week, stop. It just they just say, nope. Do it harder.

Keep going. You’re just not doing it right. And that’s that’s just that’s just mean to tell parents. It’s just not necessary. And I do think there’s an aspect of, with with the you know, I was talking to a a a peer who’s a pediatrician, and and we have, you know, a side conversation about this a lot.

And she’s like, Courtney, we get no training on sleep in med school, maybe a thirty minute class. So I I have fifteen minutes with you. My schedule is based on the time in which I have a hundred patients come in my office every day. She’s like, I get fifteen minutes to do an entire exam, and I’m on to the next client. I see four clients an hour.

I see clients eight hours a day. They expect me at the end of the day to have seen x number of clients plus the one that comes in who’s an emergency, you know, whenever those happen. And she’s like, I don’t have time to properly sit and understand what’s truly happening. Is it an intake issue? Is it a personality issue?

Is it an environment issue? You know? So our easiest response is, you know, you gotta sleep train them. Just cry it out. I’m like, but it’s inaccurate.

You know? Responsible. It’s really Yeah. It really is. You know?

So I’d love to learn a little bit more about you know, you take what Kim built for the past thirty years from an education standpoint. Right? And you see a lot of kids and certain things, you know, again, based on age and total sleep needs and things like there’s some standards across the American Academy of Pediatrics. Right? But then you also have, I think, the impact, which is not talked about enough, right, around the environment, the, intake as far as, like, nutrition and how kids are different based on their diets and dietary, you know, kind of, choices or situations, right, and how everything kind of from a body standpoint, right, it it can be triggering.

You know? So sometimes it isn’t just sleep training methods. It’s the whole picture of, like, what’s going on with this unique child. You know? And, I have a member of my team who, works with neurodiverse children.

She typically deals a lot with, like, autism spectrum disorder or ADHD. And she’s like, if I gave my son a banana, he would stim for four days. But yet, you know, my husband who thinks he’s doing a good job by giving our son a banana, and, you know, and I have to deal with the repercussions for a couple days. You know? So it’s just it’s interesting in seeing so many kids through so many years of combined practice between the three of us.

And, you know, they are all so different based on their their sleep needs, but also their developmental abilities with where they are. So what led you to come together, right, and to decide, hey. This particular community of parents is underserved. I know, McCall, you have quite a large following in the area of Facebook around parents and and, you know, kind of that little LiveWires, FOMO baby, area. So how did you come up with the idea to say, hey.

Wait a minute. Like, I’ve been doing this a while now as a pediatric sleep coach. We’re missing something here that’s not in the research. Well, it was really I mean, a part a lot with Kim. Right?

Like, Kim was seeing it. We were seeing it. I was, you know, mostly focusing on these kids because I had one, knowing that this kinda like Kim with your yours. Right? You said it worked with her, and it worked with those families, and this is the key that you say, right, Kim, where other things hadn’t worked.

And I think that’s absolutely the key, right, what what you say. Other thing cry it out had not worked. Taking care of babies had not worked. Nothing had worked. Now what would you say would be, like, a couple signs?

Right? We’ve got a ton of parents that listen to the kids sleep show. So if they’re listening going, we’ve tried all of these things, and none of them are working. How do we know if we might benefit from getting the book and understanding why won’t you sleep? Yeah.

Like, are there signs that parents should look for or things they should try? Like, tell me through the process. Like, if you’re a parent listening and going, I might have one of them. McCall, you wanna take this one? Well, that sign, you mean temperament wise?

I mean, just in general. Right? Retired parent of a how a nine month old, a two year old. Like, what at what point even as a parent do you go, this this kid is something’s left the center here with it. I I think parents know quite early on.

I think a lot of parents know right from birth. I knew I knew the minute they wheeled my daughter in. Didn’t didn’t you say Kim Yu as well? Kinda knew. Yeah.

They were like, wow. Good luck with this one. And then I remember my pediatrician when I when I think I went for her, I don’t know, two or six week checkup, and she was wiggling on the table. And she was like, wow. You got a Tigger, you know, instead of a Winnie the Pooh.

A Tigger instead of a Winnie the Pooh. You got a Tigger this time. I was like, uh-oh. I love that. You know, they’re also they’re very engaged.

You know? They end up looking older than they are, you know, because they’re it’s like they’re videotaping everything that they see. I also find just saying couple of things I’ve noticed over the years is, you know, they’re harder to read cues because they’re so engaged. It’s hard for them to disengage. It doesn’t mean that they’re not tired.

And they need they have trouble kinda shutting the world out in order to go to sleep. I also find there is a link to slightly higher IQ. I don’t know if brilliance is part of it, but maybe, you know, sharper than the average pencil in the box. I’ve also seen them often, reach physical milestones early. Sometimes they may be able to but choose not to because of sensory sensitivities too.

And then, temperament wise, I always say they know what they want, when they want it, and they’re willing to hold out until they get it. Yep. And difficulty transitioning. They need sort of longer routines. These are some They do.

Of many that we could add. But, Paul, maybe you could Yeah. Yeah. And so the things that parents will say to me, and lots of what Kim said, that’s the FOMO. Right?

Fear of missing out. People will say, yeah. Won’t nap because, like, it’s like she’s afraid she’ll miss something. Even as a tiny baby, tiny baby. Super early alertness.

Like, that’s what I meant. When when they wheel my little newborn, brand new baby into me in the hospital, her eyes were like this. Yeah. Like that. And I was like, like like, that’s not normal, is it?

Is that normal? You know? Like, no. It’s not. High intensity intensity feel, like, zero to a hundred fast.

Yeah. Persistence, like Kim said, a a lot of alertness, zero sleepy signals. If you’re waiting for a yawn or an eye rub, you’re gonna be waiting a long time. Like, it just doesn’t happen. A lot of engagement.

They want you. They want to engage with you. They do not wanna play lay on the mat and play with toys. They just don’t. No.

They don’t very low on sleep. They’re really hard to get to sleep. They just don’t behave like other babies. I mean, that’s just a fact. They just are not like other babies.

And you that’s the key is that parents are like, this child isn’t like other babies I see, not like my sister’s baby. They may not even be like the other babies that you’ve have had or they not like their twin. I’ve seen twins. One is completely different from the other, even identical twins. Like, not even just fraternal twins.

So parents often will know really right out of the gate. This isn’t something that creeps up on you. This is like what is happening? Well, and I think it’s good to know at an early age, you know, because I see in my experience, people are like, oh, well, I can’t sleep train till six months or whatever. Right?

And I’m like, you’re you’re using that term too blanket in my opinion. Right? Like, we look at skill development, intake, you know, kind of the management of the day. I don’t put an age on a baby. Oh, as to, like, when you can work with them.

I I because we’re not sleep training newborns. Right? That’s not what we do. It’s about understanding and educating parents who come home from the hospital with this Livewire baby and go, well, this isn’t in the manual. You know what I mean?

Like, the best we got was wheeled out, and they were like, good luck. I’m like, what? Like, I don’t know what I’m doing. You know? And then you come home with this livewire baby, and you’re like, mhmm.

What do we do? They won’t nap. They won’t eat. They won’t nurse. They won’t you know?

And they’re they’re like, I think it just compounds. Right? So I think a lot of it is just a lack of education, which for anybody listening, I think it’s super important even if you don’t have a Livewire baby or you’re not sure to pick up a copy of the book and get the understanding of what the signs are and what other options there are in the way in which you build the skill of sleep while managing some of the other things that are going on. Right? And, you know, so I just think that’s super important for parents to understand because I think what I see traditionally today in the baby sleep training space is, I wanna say generic, and I mean that nicely, but kind of generic.

Right? Having done this now for ten years, it is everybody’s trying to put this child into, like, an age bucket, and you’re gonna do this one thing, and that’s the only and it’s like, well, it doesn’t really work for everybody, and every family is different. Every child’s temperament is different. You might have nursing or lip and tongue tie issues that you don’t even know are going on, and that’s the root of your problem. But then other times, you might have, like, a FOMO Livewire baby.

And I think sometimes people wait too long because they either expect it. Oh, you’re not gonna sleep for eighteen years. They justify it. Like, oh, it’s another tooth or another sleep regression, or they farted yesterday, so now they’re gonna sleep bad for three weeks. And I I want people to understand that there’s hope and you know?

So talk about the process of the book. Right? And and really how you walk parents through at an early age to identify and begin to rectify some of these challenges. Because I see so many times parents come to us, like, two years in, and they’re like, we haven’t slept for two years. I’m like, that’s not good for you or the child.

You know? We don’t I don’t really recommend working that hard on sleep early at all. I mean, I really don’t, only because it doesn’t usually stick for these guys. That’s interesting. Yes.

Yeah. I’ve had the opposite where, like, in just with the right education around nutrition and environment and Well, I guess. Development, you don’t need to ever sleep train. But we work a lot with newborns because I’m a lactation counselor as well, So it’s a little bit of a different educational track. I don’t know.

Kim, you you have your newborn book, so you have a lot more in this space. When people start asking me about feeding, I go, not my area. So that could be that could just be me. But you have your newborn book, so you may have a whole different perspective. Yeah.

And this book isn’t addressing newborns. The why won’t you sleep? Yeah. We’ll wait. You know?

Because, you know, the the sleep expectations are more, what do we say, the bell curve is fatter after six months. Yeah. But, you know, I think that one of the big differences is that so often, temperament of the child, and I would add the parent, is not factored in, in sleep training. And nobody everyone’s sort of, like, blanket do this. A %.

Matter what you got, you know, going. And that and I, you know, I got kinda kinda, you know, I get my knickers twisted around this whole idea that you somehow a baby learns how to self soothe, which is completely overused, that term too. It left in distress. Like, that’s how they’ll figure it out. And, you know, the research says, and we talk about this in the book, that none of us learn, in a dysregulated state.

So we don’t as adults, you know, when we’re really upset about something. And so it makes sense to me that these babies who are even more intense and have more difficulty self regulating, that they would need, more help. Right? You know, like, Nicole always uses the example, why is it in other areas of parenting we offer so much reassurance and help, like riding a bike and tying a shoe. But this point, we’re like, yep.

We’re gonna, like, throw you in the crib and figure it out and let you cry, where we don’t do that in other in other parts. So I think that that’s the real differentiator here is that we’re talking about temperament. And and then we’re breaking it down and, I don’t know, lowering our expectations and focusing on where we can see the most movement and improvement. I think it’s progress, not loss action. Right?

People are so fixated on perfect perfect sleep, perfect kid, perfect behavior, prevent, like, their children. They learn through growth like them. That way, though. It’s really not I would say it’s not their fault, and we have to remember that. Yeah.

And not the parent there’s so often where we say, oh, parents are expecting it. Society has made them that way, really. We’ve made I I talk to parents every day on telehealth who have, they’ll they’ll talk to me about their four month old who is sleeping beautifully like a dream, and they are still worried that the baby’s not sleeping enough. And I’m like, what have we done to parents that they are that this that this mom is worried their baby’s not sleeping well enough? We have made parents think that their baby has to be sleeping without waking at all, like, without a peep for twelve straight hours overnight.

Like like, I think the expectations have been raised for parents, and parents are really struggling to meet them. So then with these parents, they’re trying to meet this crazy bar, and they can’t even get in the game. Right? I sort of did, I admin these two big Facebook groups for fussy babies and then these spirited older kids. It’s kinda the same idea, but just two age groups.

And I asked them, I said, what do you wish people knew about the reality of parenting these kids? And, boy, I got some really intense feedback about how much these parents are struggling because they feel like nobody nobody understands how hard it is, and everyone judges them. Everyone really blames them for, you know, not being, strong enough or not being firm enough with their kids or, you know, if their kid isn’t sleeping that they just haven’t tried Ferber. They just haven’t tried hard enough. And it’s it’s it’s really you know, their their pediatrician is saying, well, you just didn’t try hard enough.

You just need to be you just need to be more firm with your kid. And they’re you know, it’s a it’s a really sad path that they’re on. I’m just gonna say it doesn’t help their overall mental state Oh, okay. Being exhausted as a parent or as a child. Like, how you feel in the morning as a tired parent with a spirited child Yeah.

That’s how your child feels too. You know? It’s not even in the morning because these people these parents are working harder all day too. These kids require more all day long and at night. So these parents are like the walking dead, really, honestly.

And and every time I think about this book, those are the parents we’re talking to. Those are the parents we’re trying to rescue because, again, no one’s talking to them, and they are the ones that need the most help. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s really a population that is honestly screaming for help. And the books that are out there are like, well, you just have to do Ferber.

That is so easy. Why are you not using Ferber? And it’s like, you guys, first of all, there’s the sleep lady. I say this every day in the group. I can’t Kim knows this.

But people go, well, everybody, my nine month old has just never slept through the night. I guess I have to just do Ferber. I really don’t want to. And every single day, I’m like, hello. Try the sleep lady shuffle.

You and it’s it’s it’s bananas to me that Kim’s approach isn’t front and center because I know everybody wants an alternative to And it seems like social media makes it so much worse because there is so much access to information, and it depends on who you get in front of you. Right? And and and and who you’re in front of. Right? Like, you can have the most beautiful Instagram account and be giving baby sleep advice and have yesterday been a dishwasher at Friendly’s, which is fine.

The, you know, the industry per se being unregulated, I think, makes it a little harder, honestly, in deciphering some of the advice that’s out there. And I think people are constantly, like, getting all this input of sleep advice, whether it’s good or not, from another parent or a sleep coach that may be ill prepared. And it’s it’s kind of frustrating as somebody who’s built a business as all three of us have on the way in which we work with families, but it’s so much misinformation or blanket generic information out there that I think is, it’s disheartening, especially to these parents who are like, obviously, you think, like, I’ve tried that. Thank you. You know, I’ve I’ve done so many of these things, and they’re not working for my child.

What else is there? And I think it’s beautiful that you’re both serving that need because there’s so much of that population that fits into that area, you know, as you can even see, McCall, in your in your Facebook communities that are thriving. Like, okay. Well, we we’re here now to to answer that. But to your point, like, I think people go right for the blanket, like, method.

Like, anybody can Google methods. There’s so many other pieces to it, the personality and the intake and the age and the environment and all these other things. You know? I had a client this morning who was like, well, I you know, I’m I let him watch a a thirty second, show on YouTube right before we go to bed. I’m like, he’s 11 old.

Why are you doing that? Read a book. She’s like, well, he throws the book. I’m like, that doesn’t mean get a device. That that’s like an addictive behavior because he’s gonna start waking at 2AM going, train video train video.

You know? Like, don’t do that. You know? Well, the thing I loved about Kim’s, training that I don’t I know that other programs don’t have is and I know for a fact because we we talk. We coaches talk, how often we have caught serious health issues that pediatricians have missed, that other people have missed.

Oh, absolutely. And that people who are just coming to sleep coaching and they’re getting a short course just on the method and nothing else are missing. Right? So in order to be a sleep coach and with this population, I think I mean, I don’t have research on this, but I think these kids are more prone to health things. Do you think so, Kim?

I mean, I don’t know. I’ve seen yeah. I’ve seen a a link with sometimes just a little bit of prematurity Mhmm. In birth and reflux history, reflux allergy history, and sensory processing even if it’s very slim. You know, very light, I should say.

And now restless legs, stuff like that. But we but we’ve caught apnea. We’ve caught, a lot of restless legs syndrome. You know, like, these health issues that are the big gorilla in the corner. Yep.

And these parents have been struggling for months, if not years, saying, you know, I’ve try I’ve been working you know, sleep has just been horrific. And they meet with us, and we go, well, this is why you need to go get this fixed right now. This is not a sleep issue. You know? And and so, it’s really important that people look at the training of people of of coaches because really coaches need and it I would say especially for LiveWires, just because they react more strongly to things.

It’s like princess and the pea. You know? Like, any little thing is gonna completely tank sleep. But mental health some mental health training is great. Absolutely, child development training is important.

Yeah. Some kind of training in sleep health. Like, you cannot just have someone who only knows about sleep. Some of these training programs literally only treat teach you about the method and nothing else, and I think that’s dangerous. I know.

Or not enough of the clinical part and a lot of marketing part. That too. Yeah. I know. There’s a lot of that.

That’s so scary. And, again, these the the Livewire FOMO cases are complex, complex, complex. The telehealth platform that a bunch of us coaches work on, we just get people. Right? It’s just not live wires.

It’s just people come on through with all all kinds of babies, all kinds of issues. So we really get this great cross section. And, of course, a lot of them are these intense, sensitive kids. Of course. Yeah.

If you have an easy kid, you’re probably not gonna talk to a sleep coach. And it’s just shocking how many of them are not no brainer questions. If I have six a day every single day, maybe one or maybe three a week a week are simple. Like, oh, okay. Well, your six day old is waking up in the night because no.

You can’t sleep train a 10 old. I’m sorry. You know, those are easy. But all the rest of them are like brain benders because they’re these intense kids, and they’re hard problems. Well, and I think too, it’s like you’re being able to isolate that, you know, which I do think is important, in in such a short amount of time on those calls.

You know? It’s like I’ve picked up things that, you know, I’m like, there’s there’s a problem. There’s a GI problem. Your kids should be taking more than a four ounce bottle at nine months old. You know?

And, like, it turns out it’s like, okay. This caused this because, like, there were, like, major medical challenges that I picked up as a sleep coach in a lactation counselor versus, like, a pediatrician who’s like, no. It’s fine. They’ll grow out of it, or, oh, they’re just feeding so much. I’m like, no.

That’s not normal Yeah. At all. You know? So to circle you know, just to quickly circle back to the book, the there is a chapter, like, thank goodness. So the beginning part is like, here’s here’s temperament, and here’s how it impacts sleep.

So here’s how to assess temperament. There is a chapter on, like, here’s how to rule out physiological roadblocks. So we don’t have people go all the way through the book when there might be something standing in the way. And, of course, we can’t rule everything out, but it’s the biggies. Right?

It’s the real major things that I think we would run into most often. So we Tell me, like, where can folks find the book? I, you know, wanna make sure that all of our listeners are going, I know it’s probably at the obvious places, but I always like people to share because with books, it differs. You know? So it is.

It’s all the obvious places. Okay. Thank you. Perfect. And we’ll make sure Amazon.

Yeah. And they run Amazon and yeah. And the independent books bookshop is the new independent big independent bookseller. Both Amazon and bookshop have an ebook, so then now there’s two sources. It is not available outside The United States.

Well Yeah. Yet. Right? Not at all yet. Mhmm.

Yeah. Well, meaning it hasn’t been transferred. Right. No. No.

It’s UK. Mhmm. It is available, in Canada, but The UK, areas is not quite yet, but very soon. Very soon. Okay.

And then the audiobook on Audible is coming coming soon. Hopefully soon. That’s all I can say. Exciting. That’s how I read now.

I’m like a a dog walker listening to my Elin Hildebrand books. Mhmm. We get a little break. I do I wanted to just say one thing for listeners, you know, who who maybe not know. Like, well, is you know, do I have a live wire?

You know, should I, you know, should I try, you know, a gentler approach? You know, is that if you just follow this idea that if you let’s say you’ve hired a coach or you’ve read a book that’s, you know, teaching you graduated extinction, which is, you know, when you you leave the child in awake, but you go check on them in timed increments. And you are you know, you’ve ruled out underlying medical conditions as we just talked about, and you’re really being consistent. And in three to five, and I’d even say three nights or days, you see absolutely no progress, I would stop. Right?

Stop. Go back. You know, maybe go back and talk to your pediatrician and say, you know, let’s make sure. And then I think you try a gentler approach so often. I mean, I I remember I had one client years ago who used doctor Weisbach.

He actually what doctor Weisbach was her pediatrician, and he’s full extinction. Put them into the crib, leave the room, don’t go in all night long. She did it with her toddler for three weeks with no progress in crying. And she said, well, how could that be? I thought the research says, because it does, that this is the most successful because then we, as the parents, can’t mess it up by going in and doing stuff.

And he just said, I don’t know. Sometimes it just doesn’t work, which, of course, that’s true. Right? Nothing never one thing works for everything, and so that would be the time then. Well, then you have nothing to lose by trying something, gentler that’s more, customized to your child and family.

Well, and I think the thing about this book that’s nice is it walks a person through creating a customized program that’s gonna work for their LiveWire. And it works for bedtime routines and making sure that’s established properly for overnight sleep and making sure that’s establishing and kinda growing properly. And then also for naps. You know? So often I get questions like, would you help with naps too?

I’m like, yes. Obviously. Right? Like so it’s like I think I I wanna make sure people understand in the book that they have the ability to customize it for their unique child. They have the ability to work through the bedtime routine, to understand the environment, to work through overnight, and to work through naps.

It’s not just targeting, you know, one component of sleep, which I do think is super important to mention. And then I also think my, honestly, my favorite part of the book, my favorite favorite part of the book. In fact, I had to stop when I was doing recording the audiobook because I got actually choked up when I was reading it, is that we actually talk to the to the parent a lot. Because when parents come to me often for coaching, the first thing I have to do is patch them up because they come with so much guilt and so much hopelessness. And so the book really talks to them about their journey and about what this is like and lets them know they’re not alone.

They’re not the only parent going through this. And the after we talk about the sleep plan, we talk about self care, and we talk about how their experience has been different and the actual perks of having a kid like this. And then kind of Kim and I sort of say, and here’s our view from down the road of of now parents of grown LiveWires and what maybe you can expect sort of from the long view. And so, really, it it it’s a sleep book that also talks to the parents, which really doesn’t happen in most books. Usually, it’s just like, okay.

Here’s what you do to the kid and leaves it at that. And it really doesn’t talk to the parent because parents are very much a huge part. Their experience is a huge part of this. So that’s that’s kinda my favorite part of the book, I have to say. How about you, Kim?

What’s your favorite part? I think it was some of those chap it was some of those chapters in the back that were about, like, empower me empowering the parent and the future. You know, because so often these parents feel like they’re horrible parents and that there’s something deeply wrong with their child, and they’ll end up being whatever. You know, these horrible young young adults. And, and we’ve been so lucky to see I think these kids end up being because now I’ve been in practice long enough that I’ve seen them go off to college and be amazing people and young adults.

And, they tend to be very sensitive and empathic and intuitive and smart, and and I just feel like parents need to hold on Yeah. You know, and and know that and that it and that it can get better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So It’s really Well, I’m excited. I’m excited to share all about it. I’m glad to have you on the show today, and I appreciate you both joining. I will put links to the both places from a book standpoint, the social media so they can follow you out on Instagram and, find those Facebook communities as well, McCall, And everything that both of you are doing, I really appreciate you calling on today because there’s so many parents that need help, and, I’m excited to tell more of them about it. I’ve got, quite a lot of listeners of the kids sleep show, but just in my own email nurtures that I send out, will certainly be excited to share with parents because I do think there is an aspect of, you know, the population that obviously needs this.

And it’s so great that you’re filling that void. So thank you for coming on today. Thank you. Thank you, Courtney, for having us. One more thing before you go.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share this episode with someone you know who could use a little more sleep in their life. For tips and resources, be sure to visit us at tinytransitions.com or follow us across social media. Here’s to better sleep, brighter days, and healthier, happier.