Episode 29- What Sleep “Training” Really Is

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. All right. Hello,
everyone.
Welcome to day four of the Savior sanity sleep boot camp. My name is Courtney Zentz. I’m the founder of tiny transitions. You are on day four of my free workshop here that teaches you all about sleep, all about building healthy sleep habits for your newborn infant toddler or school aged child. Welcome. If you’ve been following along following along the past four days, I hope that it’s been helpful for you. And I’m excited to take you into a bit more today. All about what sleep training really is right? The word sleep coaching, sleep training, Ferber eyes, cry it out, shuffle, you name it, there’s all these analogies around what it is that I do is a profession with myself and the team here at tiny transitions. And we’re gonna mythbuster answer all your questions around sleep training. And then there’s some exciting stuff coming at the end of the session today. So thank you, again, for joining. I aim for these sessions to be engaging and interacting. So if you have questions, please comment, let me know you’re out there, let me know you’re watching. I’m always so excited and humbled by the feedback that I get during these sessions. I’ve had a few folks talk to me already, through direct message about working privately with me, or with a member of my team, we are always here to serve and support you. That’s the goal here. This Facebook group was created to build a community there’s over 600 people now, who I work with and who I talked to, and who I try to share information with around sleep because it really is that foundation and that pillar for what helps us all to be better humans. Right. I am going to kick off today, with First and foremost, a question, tell me what the biggest thing is, from a takeaway standpoint, that you have learned so far, in this session, I do these live, I can tell you, I do them roughly about every six or so weeks, I can also tell you that every single time I do it, you’re going to learn something different, there’s going to be some new information. And I’m going to swizzle around how I structure it because I want it to be impactful for you. So your feedback helps me to drive future sessions to make sure that the information I’m giving is perfect for what it is that you’re looking for. And the age in which your little one is I’ve had a few folks already direct messaged me and tell me how excited they were they wish they knew me two years ago and how they shared it with, you know, friends already and expectant parents and stuff. So that’s very cool. Again, I aim to serve in this capacity. I do these workshops differently, right, a lot of people and I’m sure you’re in the space of a tired parent, you know, when you see webinars and 60 minute sessions and such and I just seem to serve in a different capacity. So I offer these sessions. Because I think the education is important, frankly, if I can help you to build a strong foundation for your little one without having to pay me a dime. Great. At some point, if you struggle, you’ll come back to me and I’ll be happy to help you. Okay, so I serve in a bit of a different capacity. There are many people I’ve heard from that are like we are rock stars. Now. We never need you your free boot camp was amazing. And that’s perfect. That’s the whole point of this, which is why I give you so much information. You know, and there’s some people that frankly, come back about six months later and are like, Hey, I’m still struggling. And I need some help. And that’s perfectly acceptable
as well.
So we are here to serve. I’m going to jump right in and talk a little bit about the myth of what it is that I do as a sleep professional. So in my career, I have worked with children for over six years now as a sleep specialist. I started with a training about six years ago, I was a certified sleep sense. pediatric sleep consultant. So I trained under Dana Oberman. She was one of the original creators of you know, kind of sleep training, right? I think back then you had heard around like Ferb rising and waist Bluth and all these different people that had basically done a lot of research and put together foundations around, you know, whether or not a child could sleep at what point they should sleep through the night which seemed to be this like kind of statement that a lot of parents refer to. And you know, Dana noblemen and other women Kim West are kind of the two I would say founders on the forefront of this sleep coaching sleep training methodologies. Right. So I actually trained under Dana about six years ago and look at things in a very holistic manner, right? So I don’t just teach the sleep sense method or the shuffle method or the waist Bluetooth method or the cried out method, right. Like when you look at sleep training, sleep coaching, I hate the word training because it makes it seem like You’re training a dog, which we’re not, they’re small humans. But when you look at this word, right, anybody today
can go to Google.
And they can type sleep training methods for and you can insert the age of a child. Okay? So it’s not that it’s hidden information, right? Anybody could go out and do that many of you probably have, frankly. And to be honest, you’ve probably been unsuccessful. And that’s the reason you’re here. When you start to look at the foundations of sleep, and the the years and years of research, information, education, right, the the, the changes and shifts that we see in, you know, the research and education one, I think in recent years, the importance of sleep, even from an early age has become even more on the forefront. Right. I think people are talking about sleep more. They’re talking about mental wellness for parents, they’re talking about, you know, the impact of chronic sleep deprivation in children, even at a young age and how it impacts their cognitive and developmental skills as they’re going through early childhood early toddlerhood. Right? So when you go out and Google, you know, quote, sleep training, you’re going to find a whole bunch of information. I’m going to break it down for you, right? There’s not some like secret sauce that everybody’s doing things completely different, right, as the consultants, I’m friends with many of them because we work together, as you know, many of us trained together, I’ve got friends all over the country that are on like a group WhatsApp every day sending messages and chatting from all over the world. And you know that the foundation of what we do, right? isn’t rocket science to a degree, right? Anybody? Can Google the sleep training methods? The problem is, it’s not that cut and dry. Because if it was everybody would sleep, right? So while the approaches that are used when you’re working with families are based off a lot of the same research and education, right, because there’s only so many ways to skin a cat here, the importance of building this thing into a jigsaw puzzle that is perfect. And that all the pieces are there is the part where I come in, right? So I’m not only looking at your specific family’s unique challenges, right? What’s happening, what the prompts are, what the timing looks like, what the reality is, what the goals are that you for your family hat? Are they in daycare or not? Are they on the breast or bottle? Are you exclusively doing one thing exclusively doing something else? Right? Every unique dynamic is going to dictate how I work with the family. Okay, so yes, when you talk about like sleep training methods, right, you can Google that, and you’re gonna find probably five or six, that are sort of the foundational pillars. That’s not news to anyone. Okay. Frankly, what I teach is based off of that same research, because that’s what every sleep consultant around the world who no matter who you work with, is basing, you know, the four foundations of their programs. Okay, I can tell you, I’ve worked with 1000s of families around the world, and almost every single one looks different. And here’s why. Right? When you get into working with families, you have to look at what is happening within the household. Right? So what are the dynamics? What are the wishes, what are the situations, right? Like, I’ve dealt with children who have very unique and odd schedules that, you know, based on the family’s work environment, they have to, you know, build a structure and a schedule that’s going to meet the needs of that dynamic, right? I’ve got children that, frankly, have disabilities, and you’re unsure as a parent, like, should I be doing this, right, you know, working with children who are deaf or blind, working with children who have been diagnosed as somewhere on the spectrum, and parents are a little hesitant, but you know, really know that sleep is important, and that their children can do it, right. I’ve worked with children who have very, very sensitive gag reflexes. So literally, the second they open their mouth, whether to take a drink of water to take a sip of the bottle, or to let out one small single tear are going to vomit everywhere, right? And that’s scary as a parent, right? And how do you deal with that? What does that look like? Now? Those are very small percentages of the cases that I work with, right? A lot of times it’s just a parent going, ah, nap suck. bedtimes a battle. They’re up six times a night, they’re eight months old. I can’t figure out what’s happening with overnights Why are they waking? Should they still be eating? I’m not sure what the day should look like, right?
And so with each family,
I essentially am doing a unique assessment, right? That assessments going to tell me what’s going on what your goals are. And frankly, like where they are behaviorally, developmentally and cognitively, in order to build a program for them, that’s going to be the best based on where they’re struggling,
right? So
tell me like, from your perspective, right, that if you could change one thing about your little one sleep like what would that be? Right? Like, I would love to know some comments around what forces and drives you to say, you know, what, enough is enough. I’m tired and I need sleep or they’re tired, frankly, and they need sleep. You know, one of the big questions I asked parents who come to me and they say, you know, Courtney, I’m just not sure if I’m ready. I’m not sure if they’re Ready? You know, and I’m not sure if sleep training, sleep coaching is the right choice for us my question for, you know, that particular parent is usually how do you feel in the morning, right? So if you’re going to bed at eight 910 o’clock at night, and you’re waking three times, but you still slept as an adult, eight hours, right? In your mind, you should be thinking like, Oh, I got eight hours of sleep, I feel really good, right? But if you’re up three times with your little one, even though you still slept eight hours, you don’t feel so good, right? Your baby, your toddler, your infant, your child, your school age, or sixth grade or whatever, they feel the same way you feel right? broken, sleep is hard. And it makes you not feel great, right? So when I talk to parents, and they say like, Is it the right time for me to make a change for our family? My answer is always Yes. Because sleep is my superpower. I sleep nine to five, every single night, I don’t take my phone in my bedroom. That is a boundary. If you want me all night you’re paying for it. I draw that line because I think sleeps super important in the foundation of what we do for our children sleep is when they are editing, right the whole day, they’re taking in millions and millions of new pieces of information, guess what happens when they’re having, you know, that broken sleep, it really is turning into the inability for them to consolidate things. And they’re losing some of what they learned that day, right? Like sleep is my superpower. And it is your child’s superpower too. And there’s no shame in like working through that to help right people ask me do you teach the cried out method, right? And to say that you’re going to do this for any age child without a single tear shed? Unless they’re like 678 years old, and we’re working more on like anxieties and fear and such? The answer is no. Okay, because you’re changing a habit, right? Any person is going to be pissed off when you take what they were doing for four months, four weeks, four years, they’re going to be upset because sleeps a skill set and you’re changing the only thing they knew as the skill to fall asleep, whether it’s rocking, to sleep, bouncing to sleep, nursing, to sleep driving, to sleep, holding to sleep, right? When you’re changing somebody’s habits, there’s gonna be some aspect of protests associated with it. But what I do is manage for you what the right approach is. And then on the back end with the private coaching, it’s being able to deviate on the dime, if something’s not working out the way we thought it would write, that’s the benefit of private coaching, are working with me in a capacity where you have my attention and support about your unique needs. Because this is a jigsaw puzzle. It is not cut and dry. It is not a one size fits all do this. And it’ll work because every baby is different, right? And so when I talk about like, what method do you teach, I don’t just teach for rising crying out the shuffle, the check ins the pick up, put down the extinction, right? Like, there’s no right or wrong, there’s no one way or not like we have to talk through it together. And part of what I do is look at what’s happening in your family. And I educate you, right? This is not dictation. You have seen me educating out you out here all week, right? I’m talking to you about all the different things that go into building a really solid sleeper, and some of it for you maybe enough that you’ve just been like boom, lightbulb moment. And I hope it is. Because that’s amazing. And that’s going to get your little one and you feeling your best, right. But some of this is challenging, and it’s trying to put it all together to figure out where the puzzle was missing. And what you need to do to fix that and how you need to get there. That’s what I aim to do. And that’s part of what when you talk about sleep training, sleep coaching, what it looks like,
Okay,
how long does this take to work? I will tell you I started with a new toddler last night, not a single waking they’re three years old. And this little girl rocked it. We set them up for success foundations were laid education was there. That little one went down basically high five and herself. Woke up this morning at 730. The mom who I’d worked with actually with their son when he was a baby, so still an infant so it looks a little different. And she had hired me to work with their daughter now who’s three and a half. And she was like this is insane. Like she slept the latest she ever has she don’t wake up once last night like you’re amazing, right? So that’s really cool. And it’s fun to have those types of nights. And then you know that that’s the first night right I have other clients typically within about three to five days. Your little ones sleeping through the night. They are rocking it. They are doing good. The ultimate foundation of what I teach here, and something I’ve talked about for years is sleeps a skill set. Okay. Any child is born with the ability to sleep right? That’s biology. We all can sleep when we’re born. We are born with a blank slate, how we build the house on that slate is what I aim to look at. Sometimes the house is built on frankly, rocks, mulch, you know pebbles, whatever leaves, right it’s not necessarily a stable foundation. It works. The house is standing But one tornado comes in nothing is flatlined, right? When I work together with families, we blow the house up here and we start from scratch and we build a foundation that creates good sleep habits and that skill set for life. I’m an educator, you’ve seen this for the past four days, I educate you a ton. You’ve seen how much I’ve educated you now, during this particular workshop, take that and times that by 20. And that’s going to be what you get when we work together in that private or group coaching capacity. Because I’m an educator, I want you to have success now. And forever, right? If you’re a little one to six months old, I want you to have success through 60 years old, right? Like, you build good sleep habits. Now those are going to carry with you through life. And that is like the single greatest gift that you can give your child. So I know sleep coaching, comes with a lot of questions, right? I try to mythbuster some of the things you know, initially at the start of this with what I do, and how I work with families, because it is very unique and different. Both the pre, the during, and the follow up support that I give clients is very unique and different.
But I want to pause and
open this up for some questions. And, you know, I know some people have kind of been teetering on like, am I interested in just nipping this in the bottom getting some sleep by Fourth of July so I can enjoy the rest of the summer when the world opens back up? Now’s the perfect time to do it. Everybody’s stuck at home. You know, is this the right time for me and my family? You know, are we doing okay enough that we’re good? Or do we want to get some help? Right? Like, okay, maybe working for you? And maybe like, Okay is not good anymore? Right? You, you don’t feel great. And your little one doesn’t either. And that’s cool. So let’s open it up for some questions. I do want to make sure I address all of those for you as they’re coming in. So I can talk through what’s on your mind, right how you’re feeling, sleep training, sleep coaching, whatever you want to call it, right? Again, I’m not a huge fan of the word sleep training, but it’s kind of what everybody uses. I don’t want it to be some like secretive thing like nobody, regardless of who you’re working with, has some like special sauce secret approach to kicking the hell out of this in one night. And you’re good. Like, if that was out there, frankly, everybody would do it. And every child in this world would sleep. And I can tell you from the volume of clients that I have, they are not, I’m booked right now into the middle of July, with tired parents in the private coaching capacity that want to, you know, they want to get their kids help and you know, build those habits. So, you know, it’s definitely not something that is this, this quick and easy thing to solve. So let me pause for a second see if there’s any questions that are coming in. I’m waking up in the middle of the night, right? That’s a huge challenge. I actually just got off the phone with a client of mine that I worked with in February, we were chatting about her twins who are just about seven months. And they started to creep into like one middle of the night waking and I’ll tell you why it was because they’re still doing three naps. So we had a quick phone call before I jumped on here. That’s why I was a minute or two late and said, hey, look, you just got time to adjust to two naps, right? So let’s do that you don’t need to rehire me, like just go to two naps and call me in a week, right. That’s the kind of service I provide. So they’re doing great. They were rockstars, they had a little speed bump, they reached out. That’s the beauty of working with me, Hey, I’m always here, right after we’re done. There’s so many different ways that you can connect with me whether it’s out here in the Facebook group, or through a quick check in phone call or something like I don’t ever go away, I aim to continue to serve and provide training and education and so, so it’s definitely very cool. You know, the biggest thing is consistency, I would say like if someone said to me, what’s the biggest struggle that you know, parents have as far as like, why they don’t reach success. And a lot of times, it’s, frankly, pieces of the puzzle are missing, and you don’t know it. So it’s like we tried this and it didn’t work. So then we tried this and it didn’t work. And we tried this and it didn’t work, right. And sometimes it’s that consistency, or the lack of it that can cause those issues in the middle of the night. And sometimes it’s just you don’t know what the hell is causing it. And that’s what I do, right? Like, I work with a lot of families, to try to troubleshoot exactly what’s going on, I’m gonna see things that you’re not gonna be able to help you build on that from a foundational standpoint. So that is the beauty of, you know, sleep coaching. And I kind of wanted to chat through it a little bit today, because I think there again, there’s this myth around what I do, and that I’m like some monster, baby monster who makes children go in their criminal night and cry for 20 hours. And that’s really the furthest thing from what I do. I can tell you like chronic sleep deprivation in your kids isn’t good for mental health for either of you. Right? And so my aim to try to balance effective changes empowerment with children to help them become good sleepers. And frankly, doing it in a couple days, right? And working out the kinks. And then once the overnight sleeps happening, the naps happen. And then guess what you get to do you get to lay your child down for sleep, say goodnight and get some time to yourself, right? And know that they’re going to fall asleep independently that they have that skill set. They’re going to take it with them through life, right. And that’s the coolest part about you know, being in this profession. So I am like most excited with you and I know there’s a lot of folks watching right now, and it’s just so fun, right? If you’re gonna Catch this on the replay. Great. Like I welcome any additional questions on sleep coaching, because
it is it is the question, right? Like when, at some point if you’re watching this, like, there’s something going on where you’re like, when do I make that jump? Right? And what do I do? And you know the time maybe now and the time may not be now. And you may just say like, let me implement some things I learned this weekend. That’s perfectly great. And if it doesn’t work out, guess what I’m here. One of the things that I do want to talk about is a few folks, I’ve been going back and forth with over messenger around coaching, and I said, hang on, like just wait a couple days, let me get through this, because I’m actually launching something I have never done before. For one time, I’m going to see how it works out. I’m pretty excited about it. Because I think it’s a really cool way to work together. But it’s also a little bit different than what I’ve done. I love teaching in this capacity. Right? So you’ve got me live here all week, coming in every day. I’m teaching I’m educating. I’m working through things we’re live together, we’re doing Q and A’s. So actually, what I’m doing is July 15, it’s a Monday, I am kicking off a group training in the form of live, right. So it’s going to be a live training four weeks together. So
a whole month, you’re going
to have a program that’s going to be written for you, we’re going to go through an intake, so I understand exactly what’s happening. Okay, you’re going to have direct support with me in the group capacity for four weeks to implement. We’re going to take you through training, I’m going to teach you everything you need to know we’re going to get started on night one. And then we’re going to move forward every day with troubleshooting, understanding what’s going on answering your questions, we’re gonna have Q and A’s live hot seats, like all kinds of different stuff. I’ve never done anything like this. But I love this teaching, I love the capacity of being there live with you to work back and forth on things. So if you are interested in the group training program, let me know reach out via direct message, comment here and say I’m interested I’m in whether you’re catching this live or on the replay. And I’ll be happy to dm you some information, I am going to follow up with anybody who registered through the actual kind of registration for this, I’ll follow up with an email with all of the details around the group group coaching, as well as out here in the Facebook group. So if you’re interested, if you’re like, forget it, I’m tired, I’m ready to make a move. This is going to be your one time I’m limiting the number of seats, I have never done a group training like this before, I’m super excited, it’s going to be almost 50% cheaper than doing the private coaching with me. So it’s going to be a cost incentive for you to to move forward in this capacity, you’re going to get the same results, the same beautiful ability to work with me directly. We’re just going to be doing it in a little bit of a different capacity, because I love being out here and love working with you. So if you’re interested, please comment below, let me know. And I’m just going to open it up. See if there’s any other questions that come in. I know there’s a little bit of a delay between what you’re seeing here, and what’s coming out on the Facebook side, if you’re catching it in my slumber Made Simple group. If you’re catching this on any of the other channels, you can check more information out here at tiny transitions.com forward slash tools. Or you can send me a direct message on Facebook, you can email me Courtney at tiny transitions calm, my website is tiny transitions comm there’s a million ways to get a hold of me and say I want in on the group training. And we will get you what you need to move forward with that again, we’re kicking off. It’s going to be Monday, July 15, or excuse me, July 13. My goodness, the 15th is a Wednesday, June 15 was in my mind, July 15 is or damage July 13. Monday, July 13 is when we’re kicking off the group coaching. So I’ve got all that information for you. And I am most excited What other questions if there’s anything else? If not, I hope everybody has an awesome day. I am actually heading up to the lake right now my kids are with my aunt, she decided to do Nana boot camp this week. My daughter’s for Miss sybella is struggling a little bit with being away from mommy since Saturday. And so I’m going to go up and surprise them. They think I’m coming tomorrow afternoon. So I’m going to hightail it up there this evening. And then I’ll be doing my final day of boot camp tomorrow where we talk about some more great stuff around really what the cost is of not choosing to get sleep. And then I’m going to do a q&a at the end of that for anything that we’ve missed throughout the week. Make sure I’ve got all your questions answered. Whether there’s some things you still want to try on your own or whether you’re ready to make the jump into the group training. We’ve got a whole bunch of stuff coming tomorrow and I’ll be doing that from the lake. It’ll be a much more beautiful setting to be doing a live stream but I look forward to hearing from you guys. I’m going to go up and hug and kiss my kids. I thought I would be totally digging the fact that I got a couple days without children than the first time in six years and I’ve been pretty bombed I miss my kids. My husband every night comes home from work and has been putting hardwood floor in our living room, and I pretty much work from 5am to eight o’clock every night. So, while I’m grateful for that time to be doing some, some great work, I am definitely looking forward to a hug and a kiss and probably some s’mores tonight. So have a good rest of the day. I look forward to catching you tomorrow. If there’s any questions again, feel free to reach out but I will be sharing some information about the group training. If you’re interested. Let me know. Otherwise, have a great rest of the day.
Take care. Hold on one more thing before you go. As the value 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 transitions.com 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.