Oct. 20, 2020

Getting Better Sleep For The Whole Family with Holistic and Gentle Sleep Consultant Andrea Strang

#007 - In this episode we learn how to get better sleep as parents, as well as, kids of any age.

Andrea Strang is a mother of 3 and the founder of KinderSleep. She is a Holistic and Gentle Sleep Consultant, Adult Insomnia Coach, Author, and educator.

She started supporting families as a Birth and Postpartum Doula in 1999 and for the past 16 years has focused primarily on gentle sleep coaching.

Find show notes, transcriptions, and more at

* workinghomeparents.com/7

Learn more about Andrea Strang at
Website: Kindersleep.com
Instagram: @KinderSleep

Get Free access to Andrea's online sleep course Gift of Sleep Bootcamp for babies from 4 months to 20 months.

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Transcript

Andrea Strang  0:03  
When we are tired, and we're still awake, then our body releases cortisol and adrenaline. So we get that sort of second wind. So for adults, you got about two to three hours of energy. And this is also really problematic. If you're working late into the night, you'll probably find that you're tired. But then you start working and you work through it. And then you've got all this energy and you couldn't sleep anyways. And so it lasts for about two to three hours, and then the cortisol stays in the system. So it can actually create really poor quality sleep.

Daniel Norton  0:37  
That was a clip from today's guest, holistic and gentle sleep consultant, and insomnia coach, Andrea Strang, of kinders sleep, we're going to go deep into her tips on how you can get better sleep as an adult, parent, and even for your family as a whole. So if you want some better sleep, this is the episode for you. Cue the intro.

Bumper  1:02  
Welcome to working home parents helping you find stability between client calls, and potty training. Because we're all figuring this out as we go. And now your hosts Amanda and Dan Norton.

Amanda Norton  1:19  
Hi, welcome to Episode Seven. I am so excited. We're gonna be talking a lot about sleep today. I think it's just something every parent struggles with. I mean, that's

Daniel Norton  1:29  
for sure. Yeah, I don't think I had very good sleep last night. Oh, really? Well, I mean, I woke up and just felt like dizzy and ended up going back. Laying down. I'm just

Amanda Norton  1:39  
not even feeling an ounce of empathy for you cuz you had a two hour nap yesterday afternoon.

Daniel Norton  1:45  
Well, it was a busy day for me.

Amanda Norton  1:48  
I know. But still, like, come on. So okay, I am so sorry. You've had a crazy night of sleep last night. Um, and then you got to nap a little? How was your sleep? Oh, my sleep was actually decent. I got up once in the middle of the night. And I love that I have the Fitbit to tell me how many hours I actually slept through the night. I never got that before having the kid I was kind of using it before as to check my heart rate when I was exercising when I was pregnant. But now I just use it for that. But also for sleep. I want to know how many hours of sleep every night now it's like I'm addicted to that. So

Daniel Norton  2:26  
and how many times you've woken up in the middle of night? Yeah. You don't remember any of the times you wake up?

Amanda Norton  2:30  
I never do. Um, I you know, I'm just so crazy at night. Between my sleep talking and my sleep walk asleep talking for sure.

Daniel Norton  2:38  
We've got a lot of stories that might be a really interesting episode. You think? Oh, I'm just hearing about the crazy things you say in your sleep. And? And seems like it's genetic? Because we're dealing with it with our son. Yes. All right. Well, I'm excited to get into this because I'm a deep sleeper. And it's hard for me to wake up and ever feel like I have good sleep. And a lot of times you you, you know are sleeping short and don't have enough sleep throughout the day too. Yeah. So I think this will be a really good episode for everyone. Yeah.

Amanda Norton  3:12  
And actually, she's going to be giving us free access to her online sleep course for baby. So make sure you stick around to the end because we'll have more information for you.

Daniel Norton  3:21  
So let's get into the interview.

Amanda Norton  3:24  
All right. Hi, Andrea. Welcome to working home parents podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Andrea Strang  3:31  
Hi, guys. I'm so happy to be here. And I love what you're doing. And helping parents especially right now it's so important. Because of so many parents are

Amanda Norton  3:42  
working from home. Definitely. Well, we wanted to invite you to talk about your superpowers with sleep.

Andrea Strang  3:50  
However, before we get into that, I would love to hear about your origin story. So like how you got into your business and where you are right now with everything going on? Sure What great. So I actually started when my kids were kind of in school as a doula and I first was a birth doula but became a postpartum doula very shortly after and I was working at 10 years as a postpartum doula doing night work so I would put my kids to bed, go to work come home, get them off to school. And then I would go to sleep and I'd be app when they got home from school was like the perfect scenario. And but through that, I started watching a lot of baby's sleep and getting really fascinated with how how babies sleep. And my clients started calling me back and later and saying, Hey, can you help us get our baby sleeping through the night? And so then I started scouring for training and books and reading everything I could get my hands on. At that time, there really weren't any trainings available, but the first ones that came vailable I jumped on right away. And so I took my first train through a program in the UK. And then I worked with program in the US and I ended up teaching. For the last eight years, I've been teaching other sleep consultants, and mentoring also. So I really love that opportunity. And and yeah, so I primarily do sleep consulting now. Sometimes I'll go in home and help parents, with their babies to get them sleeping through the night. But I do have other night coaches that work with me. So usually, they do that work. So I'm, I actually have been working from home for the last eight years, and I actually love it. So it's not new to me. And I'm not used to my husband working down the hall for me, but

Unknown Speaker  5:56  
are adjusting.

Daniel Norton  5:59  
Yeah, I'm sure that's gonna be that's gonna be a difference too. Like with when both are it's similar to what's happened with us as well, because Amanda has worked home for three years, and I've been side hustling at home, but I did work in an office for like 11 years. And and trying to figure out that balance is definitely it's definitely interesting, especially with with a little one with like a toddler that's home.

Andrea Strang  6:20  
Oh, yeah, for sure. I understand. A lot of my clients right now, though, they're finding that the dads or the moms working from home has been really helpful. Because some times one of them can slip away and help with a nap. Or they can take team the early rising or whatever is happening. So it, it can be a little bit easier with sleep. It depends.

Daniel Norton  6:46  
Yeah, I think so I think there's so many positives to it, I guess it all depends on your situation and how you deal with things. Right. But specifically for for what we could talk about today, I think, you know, the the hard part I think of working at home is like the lack of routine and schedule and how easy it is to just be like, Well, you know, I'm home. So we don't have to feel like I need to be out the door at a certain time or, you know, we're meant to be out and get in the car and drive a certain way I would have to get on a train and get to a certain place like without, with all that out the window, it's almost harder to figure out a good sleep routine, which feels like you it would be easier because you're home.

Andrea Strang  7:26  
Right? Yeah, it's really important to find some routines, and rituals. And this will create meaning and also bring the family closer together, right. So you want to get up in the morning and at least put your zoom uniform on. Whether you change your pajama bottoms or not, that's up to you, but definitely change your clothes. And you know, just sort of start the day declare the day started. And starting the day at a you know, within a reasonable timeframe actually sets you up to have good for the children for good naps. And also, for adults and children to have a good sleep later in the evening. And if you're if you start the day, kind of, I always say it's like the morning, it's kind of fuzzy, then it actually is going to have an impact on the rest of the day. So you really want to start the day and expose yourself to bright light in the morning and your child and just sort of do some rituals that declare it morning instead of the days just started dragging into one another. But these are actually things that can really set you up and then having like meals at a reasonable time, you know, pretty regular will also help because your your body is going to be digesting and that actually has an impact on sleep to try to keep your naps if you're doing that with kids around the same time are quiet time around the same time. And just also so important to include in your daily rituals is getting outside. Every day, you know, the more fresh air and bright light or natural light exposure you can get the better. And of course exercise or at least going for a walk really helpful for kids as well as parents. And you know, doing these rituals actually will help kids understand that. The we're not in a crisis here, right life is going on and continuing when we do when we have patterns and routines. When you all of a sudden their parents are like glued to Netflix or something or they get to be on screens all day long. This isn't the norm and that actually can sort of contribute to that sort of general feeling of anxiety that's in society right now.

Daniel Norton  9:55  
So do you have like let's say do you have like a story or an example Of how someone has like transformed from like having this maybe lack of ritual or lack of routine and just not getting the sleep to how they were able to get to a good routine or something that really works well.

Andrea Strang  10:15  
Yeah, absolutely, you know, this happens every single year, at the end of summer. Because in the summertime, it would just bedtimes sneak later mornings tend to be later also. And so the time comes when we need to get back on track at the end of the summer. And so a lot of families experience this, and, you know, it's fine to sort of let things slide a little bit, but really important that we have that structure, especially with little little children, they really need the structure even more than the older children. So every year, you know, getting things you know, you might say in September or the beginning of October, we're gonna get it done. And, and just bring things together. And so what you'll find is that once we start with, you know, more structure in the day, children tend to sleep better, and it has a lot to do with being active. And just having that structure

Amanda Norton  11:16  
can you um, kind of unpack what you do for postpartum do like for being a postpartum doula? Like, when How long do you work with the family after that, and, and all that? Absolutely.

Andrea Strang  11:30  
So, um, some, so I have some postpartum doulas who work with me now. And so I don't do that very much. I mostly focus on sleep. And we have contracts that are just like one night, give the parent a break. And we do that. We mostly just do nights, though. So, um, and then, you know, some families will want us from two to seven nights a week. Often it's for several weeks or months. Or even until the baby's sleeping through the night, we get sort of the five, six month contracts as well. But it really depends like, as a postpartum doula doing nights, it's a little bit different than working daytime, but we still really support the mom, we do the breastfeeding support, and you know, have that check in with the mom will normally tidy up the kitchen or, you know, take care of the baby stuff. And usually, in the beginning, were bringing the baby to the mom to feed. And then we do the in between burping changing, you know, sometimes it's up all night juggling a baby. And you know, so it really depends. But usually we can get a baby into a good routine. And our team actually does a few different techniques that can help babies start to get longer stretches of sleep. And so sometimes families will just have us come in for two weeks to really try to establish a solid stretch at night. And so usually that's somewhere between four hours and seven hours for a little one. So and sometimes that can be a nice consistent stretch to manage. Usually we aim for something around in the midnight to six range so that parents are able to sleep at their optimal time as well. That's great.

Amanda Norton  13:26  
That's great. I never heard of postpartum doulas. So this is so interesting. I love it.

Andrea Strang  13:32  
Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I it was I loved it so much when I was working, and just really there when families are getting started, you know, and there are a lot of questions. I know you guys are really big on answering questions. It just to have somebody that sort of mothering the mother through that transition. It's just amazing.

Amanda Norton  13:55  
That's good. And it's nice that it's coming from a professional that is kind of outside of the family, but but being a part of the family. And it's not just like, it's just my mom trying to tell me what to do. It's like, no, this is this is Andrea, and she's like a mom to me now. And she really knows what she's doing. And she is up to date with what's safe for the baby. Because a lot of parents that tell new parents what to do. Some of the stuff is not you know, some of the stuff is not up to date, and you're like wait, my pediatrician said no, not not right now.

Andrea Strang  14:31  
Yeah, and sometimes as a postpartum doula, I'm navigating a conversation with the grandparents to say, Well, this is something that has changed and because it's theirs, it's a low conflict situation. We're often able to help grandparents, be able to support in you know, a way that really works well for the family. That's great.

Daniel Norton  14:54  
So with like with with changing routines, and everything Like back to like with, with sleep with families, even even just thinking like families with newborns, right, or really little ones. While working from home, like figuring out routines there, I know that there's that's a huge challenge, right? It's like a huge challenge to figure out how do you even figure out time to sleep? Because often, when they're sleeping, it's like, oh, now it's time for me to get work done. Right? Like, how do you navigate that?

Andrea Strang  15:23  
Yeah, well, I think, um, as a new mom, it's like if you are waking up multiple times in the night. And one thing to keep in mind is that, as new parents, both Mom and Dad, you have to get a minimum of five and a half hours of sleep. And this can be broken up per 24 hours. But when you look at all of the adult sleep rules, like no napping, and you know, a few nap, it should be within this time period, this actually doesn't apply to new parents, new parents are essentially shift workers. And with shift workers, they should get asleep whenever they can. So really important that parents work together, if they're able to, to really get the five and half hours or whoever your support team is, make sure you're getting in five and a half hours, if you got four hours solid, that would be a dream. And then some naps, perfect, but if it's all broken up, that's fine, too. The research shows that parents can cope and manage on at least five and a half hours of sleep for eight months. So of course, longer is better. Um, but there's a lot of things that often have to go by the wayside. You know, if you have to eat peanut butter sandwiches, or do skip the dishes or Uber Eats for you know, a few months, then just do what you have to do. Um, but you know, getting that five and a half hours of sleep is really important. However, the problem is, is a lot of times, and parents will have a sleeping baby and think there's no way I can sleep right now, either because there's so much to do, or I'm not gonna be able to sleep. And, and actually, and this applies to everybody, like if you're trying to fall asleep, and you can really psych yourself out of sleeping, if you're saying, Oh, I really should be sleeping right now, I'm not sleeping, if I don't sleep, I'm gonna feel miserable The next day, these sorts of self talk actually will psych you out of sleep. So if you focus on resting, resting is actually something you can do, you can actually focus on resting different parts of your body, you can start at your feet and say, I'm going to rest my feet, I'm going to rest my legs, and work your way up. And so once you are able to rest your chin and your jaw and your eyes, your mind will probably follow suit and you'll fall asleep. But if you are only able to rest, you have to know that that is valuable. Resting is valuable. It's it's kind of a piece of falling asleep is the body at rest. And so finding time and you know, the babies may have several naps in the daytime. So it'd be great if you could rest or sleep for all of those. But even if you can just choose some of those times to have a rest when the baby's sleeping, or the children are sleeping it is it is one of the challenges. But honestly, if you don't get the five and a half hours of sleep, and you are going to wonder if you have a mental illness. And so if you feel out of sorts, and you feel like maybe you need to go see the doctor, it could just be that five and a half hours, I'm not saying don't go to the doctor, but just make sure you're getting a minimum of five and a half hours. Because if you're not, there's no way you're going to be able to cope.

Daniel Norton  18:53  
And so if someone's feeling that way, let's say you're feeling like you something might be wrong or something, would it just be a one night full sleep and see how you feel the next day or is it should be, hey, I need a few nights, maybe I need to get someone to watch, to get smoke just to get you

Andrea Strang  19:08  
always better than one best. But even one night you should notice a significant difference, you know, just being able to rest in it. And it doesn't mean that you don't have to, you know, attend to your child. It's just maybe in between those feeds or you know, you can pick a stretch of time when you can get that solid stretch where someone else can be on duty and if you have another parent you have a co parent perfect you can tag team otherwise, you know, friend, relative postpartum doula night nanny, you know what, whoever you can get to help.

Daniel Norton  19:49  
That's great. Yeah, one of the things you mentioned too, is just like the resting part, which is really hard. Like I it's hard for me to even think like how do I begin to rest like my feet and like and stuff like that. I think a lot of times parents who work from home can can become really anxious. Because you never leave the space, you don't have that break even I mean, New York traffic, we never we're not anxious, we're more interested the car sometimes anyway, because of how bad it is. But sometimes that's kind of like the brake to clear your head. And you might not have that. Like, do you have any? Can you share, like a time where you've been able to help help transition someone with maybe dealing with some anxiety in that level? Or where it's hard to actually get yourself to rest?

Andrea Strang  20:31  
Yeah, absolutely. So I, I mean, it's so common, almost every single one of my clients, and by but what I hear a lot is a busy mind is keeping them from resting. So there's, there's two things, there's the body, and then there's the mind, right. And so I've had many, many clients who lay in bed and just are thinking, the baby's going to wake up or, you know, their whatever's going on through the day, it's even harder when you're working from home. Because you don't have that separate compartment for work, you're you haven't had this buffer zone, to take the transit home, you know, from work. And so if you have the option, don't bring your work into your bedroom. But, you know, there's some great strategies that people talk about mindfulness, relaxation, progressive muscle relaxation, meditations, there's YouTube videos. But if you are just trying to do these things at bedtime, when you're trying to fall asleep, you're gonna have a hard time. And so these are great things to practice and get good at at other times of the day. So if you're good at meditating, or mindfulness, then you can apply it at bedtime. But a lot of people can't. So I do have this one trick that actually works. And most of my clients will tell me that it works amazing. And so if you are laying in bed trying to fall asleep, and your mind is busy, and play Sudoku. So you can do a counting game like you can count to 100 by Prime numbers forward and backwards or by threes. Do something numbers challenging, but Sudoku is perfect. Because when you're trying to sort out those nine squares, it actually requires all the parts of your mind to focus in on this one activity. And then when you're done, your mind is blank. And you can fall asleep. So I am I but we also want to avoid bright light, especially white blue and green lights. So if you get the Sudoku on a device, I like to use it on device because I need to know right away, if I make a mistake, I'm not actually very good at it. And so on the device, make sure you have a nightlight filter, nightlight mode blue light filter on there, most of the devices come with that now that that screen should look slightly yellow in the evening. And and then you can just do your Sudoku. And then once you feel tired, put it down. And you'll your mind with the blank to go to sleep. The other thing to keep in mind is if you have a busy mind, or if you're able to only clear your mind completely, there's always a program going in the background, chances are your child has the same problem. And so that's kind of my specialty was sleep is working with super alert children who just have a hard time shutting off their minds to fall asleep. And a lot of traditional sleep coaching strategies actually won't work with these kids. So most families have already tried some stuff before they come to me. And for those kids, I mean, a couple things, we do pitch black, usually they need it pitch black, because the more they can see the more distracted they are from sleep white noise or if they're over six months, you can use pink noise or brown noise that can actually help lengthen sleep cycles. And then and then there's some specific strategies that we use where you know, we can offer support, but then just sort of not be a visual distraction. So I I'm a big fan of staying and helping the child learn to fall asleep. But if we're sitting there, and chances are they're not going to sleep well. So we have a whole strategy where the adults is out of sight but still offering that support to fall asleep.

Daniel Norton  24:39  
What What is pink noise or brown noise? I've only heard white noise.

Andrea Strang  24:43  
Yeah, so so white noise is sort of like a broad spectrum term like white light. There's lots of different tones that you could sort of pick out of that. And so it's just different different tones, pink noise, deep Pink Noise These are really popular with especially older kids. Now, for babies under six months, we actually don't want them to have deep sleep. So that's why it's just recommended for over six months, I actually use these techniques over and over again, and they they're really, really helpful for families. So, um, you know, I had one family, just recently the whole family was had a sleep problem. So we're kind of working through all of them. We've worked with the parents, there, they are doing the Sudoku before bed and lip taping. So this is actually something that I do at night. And if you are a mouth breather or inclined to be a mouth breather, or if you snore, and I mean, it's always a good idea to go chat with your doctor about this. But if you take your mouth shot, you might find that your sleep quality improves significantly. So even people who breathe through their nose and their you know, jock and drop open, and that can actually disturb your sleep really significantly for a number of reasons. So just some medical tape across not duct tape or anything, you have to do it to yourself, it's not appropriate if you put the tape on someone else. But slipping with her lips. So then we move on to the next child. And we've got a timing issue where the child is overtired before bed, which is really common. If you're if you have a child who's waking up before six o'clock in the morning, 80% chance this baby or child is going to bed, overtired at the beginning of the night. And this happens to adults too. So when we are tired, and we're still awake, then our body releases cortisol and adrenaline. So we get that sort of second wind. So for adults, you get about two to three hours of energy. And this is also really problematic. If you're working late into the night, you'll probably find that you're tired. But then you start working and you work through it. And then you've got all this energy and you couldn't sleep anyways. And so it lasts for about two to three hours, and then the cortisol stays in the system. So it can actually create really poor quality sleep. And can you know, usually as adults, you don't have any problems sleeping in in the morning, when you go to bed overtired. For little ones, we tend to see these waves that happen in the evening, so they look tired, if they're not going to bed, then they get this burst of energy, it lasts for about 40 to 60 minutes, then there might be a dip in energy. But if they're not asleep, then we got another burst of energy. And so this cycling happens every about two to three times in the evening. And then we have just complete and utter exhaustion on the other side of that. But the cortisol and adrenaline stay in the system, fragmenting the sleep cycle. So it can cause night wakings, but really commonly causes waking between four and six o'clock in the morning. So that's actually one of the biggest sleep issues that I see in my practice.

Amanda Norton  28:19  
What would be a normal like sleep schedule for a toddler, like between the ages of two to five or two to four? Something I don't? I don't really know, past to a past three at this point. What does like what's the normal sleep schedule?

Andrea Strang  28:34  
Yeah, so most children by two are down to one nap, usually by 18 months are down to one nap, we'd like that to be in the afternoon. Because to prevent over tiredness, we really want to be concerned with how Wait, how long they're awake between nap and bedtime. So um, so we've got this nap that happens, most children will have a nap until three and a half usually. But we do see some kids who are dropping them a bit earlier, every child is a bit different. And then we're looking at bedtime between six and 8pm, usually, and wake up between six and 7:30am. There's huge range of variability. And there's a huge range of what is normal as far as how long a child needs to sleep. Most children in this age range are getting 10 to 12 hours of sleep at night, sometimes 13. But the range is actually quite broad. It's something like nine to 14 hours. So there's actually a lot of misinformation about this. But there's been a lot of research over the last 10 years or so. And it's pretty comprehensive. The National Sleep Foundation has come out with some very broad ranges of sleep averages. That's awesome. So it's really good to know.

Daniel Norton  29:56  
You know one thing for me today, maybe this is something that I'm sure maybe Some other share, like I have always had an issue of waking up. where like, I don't hear anything. I don't remember anything that I'm told in the morning. A lot of times, it's probably an over an overtired thing. I don't know maybe, but I've always had that. And that's one of my biggest struggles, especially with working on too is like, just being able to get up. I don't have that. Like, I need to make a train in me thing where I don't so but if I don't have that somewhere deep in my mind, even an alarm I'll completely sleep through.

Andrea Strang  30:31  
Yeah, so and I mean, it's the struggle is real. Yeah, I do it, too. It's like, oh, and I really have to get a bed right now. Um, but when you say wake up in the night, are you saying there's a particular time in the night that you wake up? Or no, I don't wake up.

Daniel Norton  30:47  
I don't wake up to Oh, you don't wait. Nothing? Yeah. It's like, like, it's solidly, yes. Very, very, very deep sleep. She's the light sleeper. I've never had a problem with sleep, but I think I don't. And that's kind of something that scares me too. It's like, I don't wake up to hearing things. So there's times where if she's not there in the morning, and I wake up to him, he's been like, crying and somewhere, you know, and I'm like, why I'm just hearing this now. With an alarm going off, so I know that there's an that it's just like, I'm trying to I've always tried to figure out what that is. I don't know what it is. But uh, so yeah, but

Andrea Strang  31:22  
um, you know, do use snore or sweat, or breathe loudly when you're sleeping.

Daniel Norton  31:32  
You would know more than I know,

Amanda Norton  31:33  
I'm trying to think about it. Um, I guess it depends when he's sick. He definitely snores more. And if it's stuffy in the room, he'll snore. But here, you're pretty quiet. You breathe heavy, but you're quiet, I would think. But yeah, it's, it's to the point where like, I'll be working, and I'm working from home and my son is entertaining himself. And all of his alarms are going off. He's got like two alarms, his phone alarm and a regular alarm. And the regular alarm is loud. And it's like scary. So when I'm on the phone with somebody, I'm like, mute, and then I'm like, Can I call you back and then I run over. And I'm like, Don't you hear this, like, two alarms are going off. And he is deep in asleep. And I'll tell him something in the morning when he's half asleep. And he has no recollection, obviously, but

Daniel Norton  32:24  
a lot of times I'm working, you know, working on my own business video, and working with international clients or people to like three in the morning, sometimes. So it is sometimes like this, this late sleep. So I do kind of have, I don't have a consistent pattern.

Andrea Strang  32:38  
It's tricky, you might have to figure out how long your body wants to sleep for, and go to bed at the appropriate time. But you know, this is also something you probably want to just check with your doctor because a lot of people who have sleep apnea and other issues like that will also have a lot of difficulty waking up in the morning. So it's good idea just to get it checked, or at bare minimum, like use a Fitbit and just kind of see what's going on there. But that's not very accurate. Actually, it just might be enough to convince you to go get it checked. There's also dentist like if you don't want to go to the doctor, there's dentists that specialize in breathing and snoring. And you can go to them, they, you know, might do their own sleep study. There's appliances, dental appliances that they can create. But yeah, they do have some really crazy alarm clocks, though. Like there's one that and you know, it will start bouncing vibrating and bat jumping all over the room. And it doesn't stop until Yeah,

Daniel Norton  33:49  
I've had I've had one of those in the past that still didn't work. So it's the it's I'm crazy. But you do have a point there. I probably should use I think it's is that genetic?

Andrea Strang  33:58  
Oh, it can absolutely be. And so just to give you an example, my husband actually, for the first 1015 years of our marriage, honestly, I could have killed him every morning, he would hit that snooze button. He like was long sleeper. He had a really hard time getting out of bed. And he went to the doctor. And turns out he has sleep apnea. So now he sleeps for the C Pap, and he wakes up exactly eight hours after he goes to bed feeling rested and ready to start the day. It's amazing. He actually doesn't even set an alarm clock anymore. He just goes to bed eight hours before he needs to get up. And it's been like that for the last eight years or so. It's been amazing. And of course no snoring. So

Daniel Norton  34:50  
I think I probably need to at that point. Yeah, but I could see that being a problem for a lot of parents, especially if you work from home. But no matter what, like you're struggling with all this stuff, it could be You think it could be a whole lot of things, but potentially there is these other health issues that we're not looking at or thinking about? Because, you know, I guess you don't think oh, that that's not me. I'm not I don't have those problems, right.

Andrea Strang  35:11  
Yeah, it's always a good idea to start with the doctor. But you know, also you have to go to bed, right? To go to bed. And it isn't time before ideally, before all those hormones of cortisol adrenaline start kicking in. So that's where it's tricky as well.

Daniel Norton  35:31  
Well, that's great. You should so much so much. Great stuff. Yeah, I'm looking forward to to you trying a lot of this stuff out trying to figure out some of my schedule as well. One last thing, just in case anyone doesn't know, including myself knows what, what is Sudoku. Okay.

Andrea Strang  35:49  
You can Google it. But yeah, it's actually just a little math puzzle. There's nine squares with nine squares, and each line and each square has one to nine in it. So you're just sort of just find it trying to figure out the puzzle. I like I said, I am not very good at it. But there are apps, and you can just start plugging in numbers. And you'll know whether you've got it right or not. So, um, it's a great little a little sleep aid. It's amazing. And all a lot of my clients. In fact, most people who try it actually find that it is really helpful. And it's a bit easy. It's a lot easier than, you know, meditating or mindfulness and all of these things. So it's something you can kind of guarantee you get to get you calm down and ready for for bed. You got to try that tonight.

Amanda Norton  36:45  
Well, where can our listeners connect with you? With your website? Instagram?

Andrea Strang  36:52  
Yeah, so my companies can just leave. So I'm facebook.com slash Kindersley, and Instagram, Kindersley. But I also have an online course for it's mostly for babies and toddlers. But there is a lot of information that's relevant to adults in there, there's an adult food guide as well as tacked on. And if you can find it at gift, sleep calm, it's called the gift asleep boot camp. And there's also Facebook group, private Facebook group. So if you join, then you can get access to me, I pop on once or twice a week and answer questions and also share other tidbits of information. But I actually wanted to offer your audience free access for two months to the gift of sleep boot camp. So if you use two gifts, sleep calm, you can use the coupon code tribe, t ri ve. And I will also I'll send that over. So you have that information as well. But you can join me in in the boot camp, and we can look at sleep and it kind of walks you through creating your own sleep plan. There's eight different gentle sleep strategies in the course. And it's there's also some strategies for gently leaning down off of feeds are completely as appropriate if we get into temperament and understanding your child's temperament. So you can figure out what might be more appropriate as far as taking a sleep strategy in there. And there's also my books are also provided for free in the gift asleep boot camp camp as well. So yes, it's a great community. And it's a great way to just gently get your child sleeping better. What an amazing resource.

Daniel Norton  38:55  
Wow. Well, we'll make sure all the links and information are in the show notes at working on parents calm. And but Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today.

Andrea Strang  39:06  
Yeah, thanks so much, Dan. And Amanda. It's amazing. And I look forward to connecting in the future.

Daniel Norton  39:13  
Well, I hope you enjoyed episode seven of the podcast. I am definitely taking some of these things into action tonight.

Amanda Norton  39:22  
Yeah, I hope so.

Daniel Norton  39:24  
And remember to take advantage of Andrea's free offer at gift sleep.com and use promo code tribe 2020 t ri ve all caps 2020 that'll get you two months free at gift sleep.com. We'll also have links to all of this in the information in the show notes at working home parents.com slash seven. That's where you could find all the links and transcription of this episode working home parents.com slash seven.

Amanda Norton  39:58  
Yeah, and if you haven't already, remember To hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app of choice so that you get every episode delivered to you each week.

Daniel Norton  40:07  
Thank you so much for listening here with us and looking forward to talking with you in our next episode.

Bumper  40:15  
Thank you for listening to working home parents find show notes links mentioned and more at working home parents.com