Episode 43- Moving and Avoiding a Sleep Regression

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.
Hello,
everyone. Welcome to the kids sleep show, Courtney Zentz here and I am coming to you from my rainy Philadelphia this morning. And I want to talk about all things moving and sleep regressions. So I had a new client who is just getting started this week. And when we spoke last week, she said, Hey, we are moving this weekend into a new house. So we obviously don’t want to start this weekend because we’re going to be moving. But next week we want to get started. And how do we avoid sleep progressions while moving to a new space. And I thought, you know what, that’s a great idea for the podcast. So here we are chatting, all things moving, and sleep regressions and really how to make sure that in that new space, your little one, regardless of their age, whether they’re a baby, whether they’re a toddler, whether they’re in middle or elementary school, no worries, we’re gonna get them doing great with that big move. And so the first thing we want to talk about, as far as when you’re moving into the new space, you want to really create consistency in the sleep environment. And what I mean by that is, again, obviously, you’re moving so it’s going to look like a totally different space. But things in the environment can be consistent, right. So you’ve got typically a noise machine, I know a lot of families use a noise machine or a fan. You know, to emulate that background noise, you want to look at things like blackout blinds, or blackout curtains. As well as things like sheets. I am a huge fan for children of all ages, of shinier sheets or flannel sheets as they get older, shinier sheets I love for babies for a few reasons. First, they are as soft as the lovies that you buy at the store, right. But obviously a child under one can’t have anything in the crib with them. So these Chanel sheets, which they sell at Target, I get them on Amazon. I think the brand is heavenly sheets, I’m not sure they’re about 16 bucks for a sheet. They used to sell them at Pottery Barn Kids, which is actually how I found them, but they don’t sell them anymore. But if you have a pottery barn outlet near you, you may be able to snag them there. But they’re just Chanel sheets, and they’re so soft. And for a baby who especially likes to nuzzle their face, but obviously can’t have anything in the sleep space. They’re super comfy. The other benefit of that is it’s consistency, right? So if you go from grandma’s and a pack and play to a hotel and a crib, to the new house in a crib to the old house that was a bassinet, right. And that sheet is the same, it is comfortable, right? It’s also consistent. So even though that kind of exterior of the space looks a little different. If you’re hopping between a crib bassinet and a pack and play, the feeling that baby gets when they lay down is going to be comfortable and consistent. You want to also check in that new sleep environment for ambient light and new noises. Right. So the first night you stay, you’re gonna have the whole room setup, you’ve got the monitors, you’ve got the elephant that’s the little humidifier that smokes You know, there’s a million different little devices and night lights and stuff that ended up creating almost a sense of and I don’t want to say daylight because I think that’s an aggressive statement. But if you go in that room at two in the morning and look around, you’re gonna see everything and so can baby and that can mess with their body clocks. So I always encourage client I’m like, take some duct tape, take some white electrical tape and just pop little pieces of tape over those little lights. It doesn’t hurt the function. It’s just less light. Those lights are bright and they’re agitating. Especially if they’re blue like I’m staring at one right now on my podcast microphone and it’s a little blue light in our bedroom actually our you know cable box if you will. from Comcast when you turn it off it has like this weird blue light that like lights up half the bedroom. So I’ve covered it with duct tape. I know it sounds crazy but those little lights can be super agitating you also want to look for new noises now I know a lot of houses have kind of the the pushed air forced air I think it’s called Cisco Systems. So you don’t have a ton of noise when things are heating up but you can hear like all of a sudden Hey, the you know the air system kicks on for heat or AC depending on where you live. And that could be a new noise to a child that wakes them up. Right things like older houses, right? Our old house had the original steam heaters with the humungous radiators, and the water would flow through and then it would steam and then it would ping, ping ping right if you’re moving into the city or what have you. You may hear garbage trucks, emptying dumpsters 13 stories down at four in the morning, you know all that kind of stuff you want to just pay attention to, from a new noise standpoint, which is where I also find that, you know, blocking out the
noise is with a white noise machine or something red noise, black noise, there’s a bazillion different noises if you Google it, I’m sure red and black I just made up. But I know there’s different colors, pink noise, for sure. But there’s different like tones that these noises make. So you can take a look at you know, one of those obviously, the most common is white noise, but kids like noise.
The next thing you want to look
at is keeping the routine consistent, right. So if you had a really good routine in your old house, and you’re in a new house, nothing has to change, you’re just in a different space, right? So you’re gonna have really just a nice routine, I incorporate things like egg timers into my routine, even for little ones kind of 12 to 18 months, they’re starting to understand routine and consistency. They’re starting to test boundaries, right? You know, if your little ones under 12 months, you still want to keep that same routine with like a bath. And then you know, maybe a little lotion, I actually refer all my clients to do the bedtime feeding with just a diaper on before pajamas. And I know that may seem weird, but it usually means that they will eat better before bedtime, which is great, especially for kids under one if they’re still waking up and you think it’s hunger related, that’s going to give them a nice full feeding, okay? Things like an egg timer. So I use an old school egg timer. I’m not a huge fan of devices. But I got an old school egg timer. It’s like, Alright, five minutes until we go upstairs for a bath, right. And then I’ll say, hey, the first one upstairs gets to pick the color of the bath. So I bought bathtubs on Amazon. And so my kids basically throw each other down the stairs, I mean that really, really but you know, they they fight to get upstairs because they know the first one gets to pick the color of the bath that night, right? I use an egg timer to say, Look, I’ll lay here for five minutes, and then it’s time to go to bed. Right. My kids are pretty regimented at this point. So I don’t have to use it for every single step of the process. But there was a point where I did, because it helped them with transitions, it is now time to move on to the next thing, which again, is going to eventually be sleep, okay? If you’re stuck laying in your kid’s room for three hours every night, that’s not going anywhere, because you’re allowing it to happen. But if you set a boundary that says hey, I’ll lay here for 10 minutes, but when that timer goes off, it’s time to go to sleep and you have to have their buy in in it right? Like do you either want me in here for 10 minutes, or not at all? And if they say 10 minutes, then they’re the ones that made the choice not you dictating, it’s them choosing right, you’re they’re choosing me for 10 minutes, or you don’t get me at all you pick. Right. So, you know, from that standpoint, I think that that’s going to be a great, a great thing you can do is keeping that routine consistent reading books, even things like reward charts, right? Like first night in your new home. Here’s a new reward chart, I slept in my big girl bed, maybe you made that transition from like a crib or a toddler bed to the next size up and you know, you want to do something fun, I have a million different downloadables things like reward charts packing and travel checklist if you’re in between houses for a couple days. And you can find all of that stuff always out on tiny transitions.com forward slash tools. So there’s lots of great stuff out there. You want to make sure that you know again, that consistency in the routine is good. And also the routines only about 30 minutes. You don’t want these things to be drawn out. Number one, you guys want some time for yourself, right? No parents gonna be like, yeah, God, I love spending seven hours getting my kids ready for bed. That’s great. You know, they want to sit down and relax and unwind with you know, like me last night a cup of hot apple cider, which was delightful. I’m watching our Eagles lose, not delightful, but
what are you gonna do? Alright, so
we also want to talk about decorating the space. So have them involved in the process, right? So if they’re only little infants and you know, they can play with stickers, they’re kind of 12 to 18 months of age. I say like, Hey, give them some stickers and let them decorate the crib. Right? It gives them some ownership. Maybe they just decorate a piece of paper that you hang on the wall with some scotch tape, it doesn’t really matter you know? It’s just that they’re involved in that process. You want to also let them help with things like if they’ve gotten a new bed, take them to the store to pick out what they want, right? Do you want an Allison on a comforter? Do you want Pink Sheets or purple sheets right like hey, you can pick out a new pillow mommy’s picking the Comforter out whatever it’s going to be have them involved in the process because then they have pride in the sleep space and ownership in the space that was created our son max his bedroom right now is the whole wall I actually painted into a football field. So I used you know, obviously green paint and then I took white electrical tape and then I stencilled on the field lines. So it actually looks like a full football field. You know on his wall. My husband’s a huge Eagles fan. And my son loves sports and football stuff and then my husband got all of his pennants from when he was a kid. hung up on the walls, like old school pendants, and they’re awesome. The room looks great. And probably two weeks ago, he’s like, Can I have a Pokemon room? I’m like, absolutely not. No, not not number 1am I not painting all of this number two, you’re gonna be out of Pokemon in like two weeks, so no dice. But he at least has some ownership in like, he wanted a little hockey net. So we got an indoor little hockey Natty plays hockey up in his bedroom and stuff. Like, I mean, it’s ridiculous. But it’s fun, you know, it was 25 bucks on Amazon and keeps him busy. Up in his bedroom, if you know, he’s kind of just looking for something to do, especially on rainy or cold winter days. So again, have them involved in decorating the space, it really does make a make a difference. And then I would say Finally, like, bend a bit, right? But don’t break. And I think boundaries for parents that I work with are really hard. Because you want to be the fun parent, you want to do all these things and fill their cup and be the best version of yourself so that they can see that and frankly, love that, right? Like who doesn’t want that. But at the same time, when you bend, they know there’s flexibility, and they’re going to keep pushing to the point where it breaks. And now all of a sudden, you’re laying in there for three hours every night, right are getting up six times at night, you know, so there does have to be boundaries. But it’s the first night in a new home make it fun. Maybe you start a new bedtime tradition. Right in our home every night. You’ve heard me talk about it. We do our Zoo animal. And it’s a little meditation turtle. We turn this animal on. We do our my husband calls them ablutions. I could probably Google the word I’m not sure he that’s his word for it. But it’s basically meditation for the kids. And we do it together as a family. It’s the thing we’d have gotten into since quarantine and it’s been beautiful for me and for them, frankly, my husband to like we get, that’s the time I laugh because my husband will fall asleep in there. And then get up like 20 minutes later. He’s like, how long was I out? You know, so it just totally puts your mind at ease. And it you know, relaxes, you know relaxes you to the point where everybody goes from 100 to zero. And it’s beautiful. And it’s a little thing we’ve gotten into, we do a lot of storytelling, right? Like we we read books every night we have since my kids were born every single night, at least one book. But sometimes we do a book and then we do stories. My daughter is in love with stories about unicorns now and her unicorns name is sprinkles or ice cream, you get the gist, she’s a sugar, sugar addict that gets pissed mommy doesn’t really give her a lot of sugar. So when she gets it, she takes it but her unicorn is sprinkles. And we tell stories about sprinkles every night and where they go and our dog passed away in March. So you know, he goes to visit Dawkins on the Rainbow Bridge. And, you know, we just talk a lot about stories and then I send them into sleep with a mission. Right? And I say when you’re sleeping tonight, I want you to dream about where sprinkles goes on the adventure at the beach, right? So I give them like something specific. And then in the morning, I asked where sprinkles went. Okay, so again, it provides a
you know, what I would say is a boundary around the timing right of like what we’re doing, but at the same time, it also gives them something that they have to look forward to but you know, in the morning, it’s accountability, you have to make sure you that you, you know, follow through and say, Hey, what did you know when sprinkles do last night? The other thing is like, would you rather replay that in the car a lot. But, you know, it’s kind of like a fun game where every night We Go Round Robin like would you rather be a fox or a bunny rabbit? Would you rather be a car or motorcycle and why? You know, and then it just again, it’s like connection time and one on one. I think since quarantine. For me personally, I’ve thought it’s been the most beautiful six months, and the most miserable at the same time. So it’s a little bit of an oxymoron. Because I feel like we’ve done things we never would have, we connect in ways we never would have. We go for family walks. And we do scavenger hunts and we’re outside all the time together as a family like trying to do things because there’s nothing else to do. And I will say things have gotten a little bit more back to normal. My kids are at private school right now at Catholic school. And they are in school five days a week. And they have been and they’re doing beautiful with it. They wear their masks all day. And there’s been no incidents and you know, they’re really blessed in that, you know, we made that decision this summer to move them to the Catholic school because I wanted some normalcy for them. And as a family, that’s what you know, we thought was the best choice for our family. I know not everybody’s in that situation or agrees with that choice, but it’s our choice. And, you know, so what we are trying to do now is balance like, Hey, we’re keeping our circle opened at school, right? Because the kids are all school together. So at home, we’re just kind of sticking to you know, our posse of in the cul de sac here that we that we have and you know, really trying to enjoy that time together. But I think it’s been hard for folks and this is there’s a lot of change. There’s a lot of people moving out of cities and into more kind of rural areas so they can enjoy the air a bit more than being stuck in an apartment for you know, six months now. But it is You know, something that you just have to balance for your family, like what’s going to look right. And if you’re ever unsure, or you’re stuck in a situation where you just moved and things are a mess, give us a call, we’ll do a free nursery assessment free bedroom assessment for you, you can take a video of what’s kind of going on in there. And you know, we’re happy to have a look and chat with you more about kind of that before and after,
what does it look like now?
What’s going on? Where are you struggling with sleep? You know, I just started working with a surgeon at University of Pennsylvania and her two kids four and six, were, you know, just struggling struggling a lot, you know, and she’s like, I’m tired. I work different shifts all the time. And I’m trying to figure out, you know, how to really make my kids sleep well, and yet not have like this mom Guild, and they’re doing beautiful. I got an email over the weekend that was like she slept through the night. You know, we were really struggling with the four year old and she’s doing great now. And sometimes it’s just changing things up and working with a professional. And so I encourage you always to reach out, we offer preliminary sleep calls. There’s a team of 12 and in addition to myself that work under me here across the US so we’ve got all the time zones covered all of the different personalities, backgrounds, experience, expertise, like you name it, we’re always happy to help you lots of great stuff. I just released actually a new download out on tiny transitions.com Ford slash tools, which is the five things you can do to survive during quarantine. So you want to pick that up if you have not seen it in any of the other places I load or send or email or what have you. And otherwise, I wish you all beautiful luck in your new home. I sure hope that this helps you to avoid sleep regressions. The biggest thing is to be consistent consistent in your response and your timing. And just make sure that you’re setting boundaries and expectations and that you’re really setting yourself and them up for success in the overnights. Until next time, have a great day and sweet dreams. 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 sleeper 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.