Sept. 12, 2020

How To Get Your Little Ones To Sleep Consistently with Eva Klein

#002 | How To Get Your Little Ones To Sleep Consistently with Eva Klein | 9.12.2020


Sleep deprivation and 3am wake-up cries are necessary pains of raising a little one, right? Wrong. Special Guest Eva Klein, certified infant and child sleep consultant and mother of three, shares her insights for establishing healthy sleep habits for both newborns and toddlers. After experiencing the debilitating effects of chronic sleep deprivation from her middle child, Eva was inspired to help families overcome their sleep challenges. With tips for developing a consistent sleep schedule, creating an optimal sleep environment, and the science behind child-sleep, Eva changes the game of parenting by defying the myth that raising a little one means sacrificing sleep! 

Key Takeaways:

Chronic sleep deprivation doesn’t have to be in the job description of raising a child
The easier you make it for your child to sleep, the easier they will make it for you to sleep
Your little one won’t sleep more at night to compensate for not sleeping enough during the day
As babies become more aware, they need their own sleep space to prevent sleep distractions 
Independent sleep is key to making sure your little one develops healthy sleeping habits
Resources:

Questions? Visit workinghomeparents.com.

Want even more content? Visit the Parent Pacifier YouTube channel.

Download Eva’s free sleep guide: https://mailchi.mp/14450de44132/freesleepguide.

For more about Eva Klein visit: mysleepingbaby.com

Follow Eva on Instagram or Facebook @MySleepingBaby

 

Check out some other Working Home Parents episodes:

https://www.workinghomeparents.com/1

https://www.workinghomeparents.com/3


What to Listen for:

[02:10] Eva Klein’s background as a sleep consultant and mother; why she started My Sleeping Baby

[12:07] How to create optimal sleeping conditions

[19:44] Maintaining a tight sleep schedule or routine

[28:13] Teaching infants and toddlers how to sleep independently

[32:23] Is there a correlation between good sleep when they have their own room versus if they don’t?


Quotes:

“You want to stick to those wake windows or wake periods like glue, like your life depends on it, because it can really end up making or breaking your night.” [21:21]

“When you're five steps ahead of the game and you know what you need to do, when you have your little ones on the right schedule, you don't have to be sleep deprived.” [25:09]

“Part of the equation needs to involve teaching them how to sleep independently, and by the way, it doesn't have to involve ‘crying it out’.” [31:30]

“Step number one is setting those foundations, getting the sleep environment… Step number two is really preparing your little one for change.” [35:26] 

Transcript

Eva Klein  0:00  
You don't want your little one to get overtired. That is not something that you want. When your little one is over tired because he has been up for too long during the day he has asked, well hasn't napped often enough. bedtime is too late. That causes night wakings and a lot of people don't realize that that that's what can cause difficulty falling asleep. It can cause night wakings it can cause early rising and your little one I like what is my tell you is not going to compensate by sleeping more at night if he barely naps during the day. 

Daniel Norton  0:42  
That clip was from today's guest Eva Klein of my sleeping baby.com where we go into her top tips to help your baby whether newborn or toddler sleep consistently through the night. Yes, consistently through the night, it is possible. I didn't think it was possible before this to get a newborn to sleep consistently. And I know now it's very possible. She's gonna share her top tips with us. And we're so excited to share that with you in today's episode. 

Intro Music  1:19  
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  1:36  
Welcome to Episode Two of working home parents, it's back to school season have an already difficult 2020 year and one of the hardest things is getting schedules back on track and especially consistent sleep habits. For us. We're about to send our toddler back to nursery school and we're working on a better sleep schedule so he can get a full night of sleep and wake up on time for school.

And maybe you're in the same boat, or you have a newborn and you're just trying to get some kind of sleep for them and yourself. I believe our guests can help. Eva Klein is a certified infant and child sleep consultant, the founder of my sleeping baby, and the sleep Bible program, she helps establish healthy sleep habits for children. So let's get started.

Hi, Eva. Welcome to working home parents podcast. Thank you so much for being here today. We wanted to invite you on to talk all about your superpowers with baby sleep. However, before we get into that, I would love to hear about your origin story. So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got this whole thing and your whole business started? Yes, well, first of all, thank you so much, guys for having me. I my favorite thing in the world is honestly to sit and chat about how to get babies sleeping because that is that's that's my

Eva Klein  3:00  
zone of genius. So I got into this business by totally by accident. This is accidental entrepreneurship to the tee. I happen to be a lawyer by training if if you can believe, hey, that's quite the pivot. And so what happened was, I graduated law school. I had my first baby, that first baby was, I like to call her my unicorn child and that she was that baby that just made me look good. You know this. You know, those babies that you know, they just they're happy all the time they eat when they're supposed to eat, they sleep when they're supposed to sleep and everything is wonderful. And everybody says to you, gosh, you must you guys must be the best parents. And you're like, I know. Thanks. Thank you. We got this. We got this. And then two years and four months later, her sister was born. And that made us go, Oh, well, that's what everyone's talking about when they're referring to babies who cry non stop and need to be held all day.

Long and don't smile and are completely miserable all the time and you can't figure out what's going on. And so this particular baby had a much more needy temperament. And as a result, sleep was just not something that came naturally to her and was and I have always needed my sleep always all Yes, that's how I need it. You know what, for the record, every human needs sleep. Yeah, I should really you know, preface this by saying like I need sleep but you know who else needs sleep? You do and you do what you do and yeah, no, it's a function every single person needs needs sleep just like we need oxygen and food right and water. And so when she was about four months old, I kid you not she was waking me every 90 minutes all night long, and I thought I was gonna die. I was delirious just completely non functional.

Reading. And so I had no choice. But for the very first time to open up these sleep books. You're out what was going on because I didn't open up one book when I was pregnant with my first I mean, I was in last levels i was i was reading law textbooks I was not reading, you know how to be a first time parents. And so I figured out how to get her sleeping a little bit better. So three to four hours stretches, which gave me a little bit of relief. And it made me go hey, you know what, why don't I use up the rest of my maternity leave to become a sleep consultant and get certified because hearing I'm based in Canada and Toronto, okay, we get 12 months of maternity leave. And so this baby at the time I know, right? I know. I used to think that it was an old wives tale hearing about American moms going back to work after six weeks, and then I knew it was for sure. Not an old wives tale when my sister in law who has

had a baby The day after I had my oldest and and they were living, they were living in Memphis at the time. She was so excited that because this baby was born in May, and she was a teacher, and school ended right around the time she gave birth and she would have three whole months off until she had to go back to work in September. That was when I went really so otherwise you would actually have to go back after six weeks and she's like, of course, that's just what this whole 12 month thing is. We don't know anything about that here. So that being said, it's it's it was a very big privilege, and it allowed me to use up the rest of that time it was about I had six or seven months left to get my certification to become a sleep consultant and launch a side business. And that's really what it was just supposed to be it was supposed to be a side hustle. That was lots of fun would get me some you know fun shoe money. I called it you know, I get a new client go buy a pair of shoes. That's all it was supposed to be.

But then lo and behold, it grew a lot more quickly than I thought. Because not so surprisingly, when somebody has a baby or a toddler or preschooler who won't sleep, and you, me, I had have the experience the knowledge to know how to be able to fix that problem. People will pay for that, right? I mean, which wasn't a surprise, because I'll tell you for the record, I paid for that help. Because what happened was, I got some relief from my younger daughter, I started my certification program. My daughter's sleep regressed, again, because I didn't really know you know what I was doing at that time, I had just started the program. And so I hired my teacher to help me out with her. And it was a lot of money. But to this day, it was the best money that we've ever spent as parents. And so when, when my business started to grow, I found myself at a fork in the road where I had to choose between business and my quite frankly

stagnant job and I went with my business thinking I always have my law degree that I can fall back on but so far so almost six years later I haven't had to fall back on it at all. So here I am. That is so cool. Wow law to sleep. It's quite the pivot but again, it was totally accidental. I love the side hustle thing because I'm a huge believer in the side hustle that's Yeah, that's what's worked for me as well. And that's so cool and knowing to like, hey, a side hustle plus a job that's that's crazy. Because like how much work that is back and forth to it. It wasn't a lot of work it go it my boss, I should mention did allow me to go back three days a week. So that was a huge help. For me. I mean, I doing a side hustle with a full time job plus two kids what has been, you know, significantly more challenging, so, but I'll tell you it's still doable. It's still doable if that's anyone's goal.

It just allowed me to grow my business pressure free. I could take on the clients that I wanted to take on, I could turn down people that I knew weren't going to be a good fit. because there wasn't that immediate urgency to bring in cash right away because I had my job. It was just supposed to be, you know, fun money on the side. You seem so passionate about it. And and I know it's because you're getting great sleep now.

That's amazing. So you have three kids now? Yes, right. I had my son, he just celebrated his second birthday. Um, just a couple days ago, September 3 2008. beavers born and so he was my first kid that I had as a sleep professional. You know, I had been doing this for a number of years. And so he was he was kind of like my, you know, my little like, test subject that I could apply everything that I've been telling people to do to my own baby. And I'll tell you

That he was by far the best sleeper that I've had from the three of them because I was always five steps ahead knowing exactly what to do so I could get myself a wickedly awesome sleeper like by five six weeks he was giving me consistent eight hour stretches of sleep. Wow, everybody wants to know that. Oh, he must have been formula fed. Nope. Nope, nope, no Wow. So you know the the and nor was he a unicorn baby either want to also put that out there. As I said, I've had a unicorn, baby. I know what those are like. He was a very average baby. Everything was properly in place. He'd be happy and sleep and eat well, if things were off because I lost track of time or you know, the schedule went out the window, then yeah, he'd be unhappy and not sleep so well. So you know if there's like something that I can scream rooftops for people and I can say this so confidently having worked with well over 2000 families to date, it's that you don't have to be crying.

sleep deprived raising your young kids. You just don't amazing. You don't? Yeah, it's totally revolutionary because our parents, when they were raising us, were all chronically sleep deprived every single one except for the lucky ones. And unfortunately, there wasn't much they could do about it. Because nobody knew what we know today. When it comes to maximizing our little one's sleep, and getting them to sleep through the night, we know so much more. And what it means is that if you don't want to be chronically sleep deprived, you don't have to be it's pretty awesome. That is awesome. We may need you in the future

Amanda Norton  11:41  
in  the near future.

Eva Klein  11:43  
Or tonight, 

Amanda Norton  11:45  
tonight, amen 

Daniel Norton  11:46  
well, just one thing I always tell like new parents, it's like, well, you're not gonna sleep for the next four months, because that's what we understood. He was like, pretty, it's pretty crazy. So I mean, I think that's a perfect segue into like, so what

how, how, how does this How does this happen? How do we get Tell me about a time like how this happened? 

Eva Klein  12:06  
Yes. Okay, so here's the reality. The reality is that there are when it comes to getting babies to sleep, both in the short term as well as in the long run, it is a puzzle, right? There's like multiple puzzle pieces that we need to have properly down, Pat. So I'll tell you what some of the big ones are. puzzle piece number one is that we want to make sure that your little one's sleep environment is optimal.

And so that means blackout blinds.

You want little ones room to be super duper dark during daytime hours will tell me Oh, there The room is dark at night. The room is dark at night, and I'm going That's great. That's because the sun has set. What about during the daytime, we want the room to be super dark during the day, because otherwise it's going to be significantly more challenging for your little ones to be able to fall asleep and stay up.

asleep during the daytime, which will cause them to be covered tired, which is going to segue into point number two. But stay with me here, when your little one is struggling to fall asleep during the day because there's too much sunlight coming into the room. That's when blackout blinds become an absolute must, especially this time of year where we're still getting lots of sunlight during the day, and lots of sunlight in those early evening hours. So I even find that one black cup product might not be enough that we actually need to combine two blackout products together to get ourselves in optimal darkness looks awful. So don't be worried about trying to teach your little one to sleep in a brightly lit room. because let me tell you guys something, there's no such thing. Either either your little one can fall asleep in a brightly lit room or he can't. Just like either you can sleep eight hours.

We're straight on an international flight to somewhere or the dinging for the stewardess is going to wake you up every five minutes, right? And then you're going to be watching five movies straight, you know, bleary eyed for that 12 hour period. Like, I so I know. And I'll tell you just for the record my sister in person that sleeps 10 out of the 12 hours on an international flight, God bless her. I don't know how she can do it. Because I am that person that is watching five movies in a row wanting to die on a flight like I'm only going to sleep if you give me a general anaesthetic and lie me down horizontally, then I will sleep anything short of that. It's just not happening. And I think that there is this huge misconception that we can teach our kids to sleep through noise and distraction and light and whatnot when when really some kids can. But those black up line up is important.

Getting your little one a white machine by that same token is also really imposed. When there's background noise, like your dog, the doorbell, the garbage truck, you know, or in the dead of winter, it's the snowplow, right? There's always something that could potentially wake your little one up. And it's going to be really hard for him to fall back to sleep when his sleep has been interrupted. And then he will make sure that in terms of their sleep attire, that they're nice and cool and comfortable. So for the younger ones, like the zero to three months, newborns, swaddles are fantastic to vent their their arms from you know, flailing all over the place. When they get older. We want to I love having them in sleep sacks because it's like a wearable blanket that they can't kick off. By the way my two year old still sleeps in a sleep sack. It's fantastic. Those are like my key points I would say when it comes to creating that optimum merriment darkness, white noise new comfy sleep attire, including

Amanda Norton  16:00  
Sleep sacks because I'm a massive fan of them. Okay, I'm so glad you mentioned that because I was looking on your Instagram and seeing how you swaddle so tightly. You beautifully I saw that that was great.

Eva Klein  16:11  
But then I think I saw you talk about sleep sacks and I know people still two year olds wearing the sleep sack and we never did it and I heard wonderful things about it. And maybe I would have gotten us more sleep. So how does it work? How do you How does the child like it? Is it is it a you know, did the wrestle them in there or No, not at all. I had my son in a sleep sack. As soon as he was basically done being swaddled right when I saw he was getting older, he was about you know, three, three and a half months he was breaking out he was starting to roll it's time to get them out of it and just a safe wearable blanket. So because it's not safe for kids, hundreds of months to be to give them actual blankets. I sleepsack is like that wearable blanket that they can't kick off right away.

Don't have to worry about things from a safety standpoint, but it still keeps them nice and comfy and cozy. And so I always recommend that people introduce sleep sacks early on, so that when their little ones get older, they're used to it and they don't know any better because my son who's now two still in a sleep sack for a reason. So number one, even though I do also give him a little baby blanket to sleep with, let's be real. He falls asleep he ends up at one end of the crib, his blankets at the opposite end, right? He sleeps like a toddler. And so if if we don't want our little ones getting cold at night, and remember our body temperatures drop to their lowest point by three 4am. We don't want them waking up because they're uncomfortable having him in a sleep sack even a very late one is going to keep him comfy. On top of that. The sleep sack is your surance policy against having a criminal

jumper so I don't know if your son enjoyed diving out of his crib headfirst if that was his, you know, hobby of choice, but it was my son's, I'll tell you, my, my girls were never bothered ever to jump out of their crib. But my son is like, love him dearly, but he's like a little bit of a maniac and that he is just totally fearless. And getting him keeping him in the crib was so much easier came in asleep sack, because climbing out of the crib, in that sleep sack was significantly more challenging for him. So it really helps by keeping most kids you know, contained in in their cribs because let me tell you something, you do not want to be transitioning a toddler to a bed under those circumstances, because it's just going to create a whole other slew of sleep issues when all of a sudden now they can just get out of

To the room whenever they want, right and so you want to be able to keep your your kiddos your two year olds in their cribs, but safely. And then when do you usually suggest transitioning from the sleep sack to no sleep sack and just the blanket? Yeah, I'd say they're ready for a bed, which is usually somewhere between three and four years old, depending on the child's temperament, how mid bed offers, you know, some kids are ready and some are not. And we got her into a bed when she was three, like middle child was in a crib until her fourth birthday. Okay, so there's a difference. every kid's a little bit different. Learn that definitely. And as you know, ensure that you've got everything covered with your little one sleep environment. Tip number two is make sure that your little one has a solid routine or schedule or some kind of structure to their daytime because you don't want your little one ticket.

Get overtired. That is not something that you want. When your little one is over tired, because he has been up for too long during the day he has asked, well hasn't napped often enough. bedtime is too late. That causes night wakings. And a lot of people don't realize that, that that's what can cause difficulty falling asleep. It can cause night wakings it can cause early rising and your little one I like what is my tell you is not going to compensate by sleeping more at night if he barely naps during the day. So that's actually one of the reasons why not having a dark enough room can end up having a domino effect at night, because the room is too light, and then therefore she doesn't nap well. And then therefore she gets overtired and then it causes her to wake and so being five said of when she

needs to go down for her naps and, and and, and when you expect that she's going to get tired and how long she can stay up for in between sleeps is very, very important and so that actually the term that describes how how long a beak up for in between sleeps it's called a week window or awake period. And you want to stick to those wake windows or wake periods like glue like your life depends on it. Because there is it can really end up making or breaking your night like I'll give you guys a really kind of a funny anecdote. So when my son was about four and a half months, my husband was going to do bedtime with all three kids by himself for the first time because I was heading out to a client's in the evening. And so I gave him very explicit instructions and the background here is that my son at four and a half months had been sleeping straight through the

Consistently with just one wake up before he was even three months old, right? You know, I had him sleeping really, really well just waking up wise. And so he had woken up from his last nap at 630. So that meant that he needed to be in his crib by eight o'clock because his wake window before bedtime was about was 90 minutes. And that's pretty average for a four to four and a half month old, they usually need to sleep every 90 minutes, maybe an hour and 45 minutes or so. So I told him I said, you know, JJ has got to go to bed for eight o'clock. Got it? Eight o'clock, not a 10 not eat 15 eights. Okay, wonderful. I come home from my clients. And I asked him, I said, so how did bedtime go for the first time and he goes, Oh, it was fine. You know, one of the kids had a meltdown. The girls were fighting blah, blah, blah, but it was totally fine. And I said, Okay, all right. What time did JJ go to bed for? He goes Oh, I got JJ down for 830 and I said eight 830 he but I think

vaad I said it, and he goes, Oh, I'm so sorry. It just got crazy around here. Don't worry, JJ be just fine because he's a champ. He's such a good sleeper Eva, I'm telling you, we've got nothing to worry about. His last words, right. So

that night that night, instead of him waking up his normal one time that once again, he had been giving me since before he was three months old. My son woke me up four times, four times that night, all because my husband put him down 30 minutes too late. The rest of his day was great naps. Fantastic schedule was great. But he went down 30 minutes too late. Now, just want to assure everybody The good news is I didn't murder my husband. Just gonna throw five.

I thought about it. But at the time, my son was still sleeping in our room and my husband happens

To be a fairly light sleeper, and so every single time he woke, I heard my husband you know, rolling around and you know wrestling as well. So I figured, okay, it's a natural consequence for you know, not listening to his wife is a professional and does this for a living and knows what the hell she's doing. But okay that aside, the next day he he apologized recognize that he made a mistake, and has never put the kids to bed too late ever again. The reason why I'm sharing this story is because all it took was for my son to go down 30 minutes too late for him to get overtired. And for his night to be a mess, that's all it took. But I want you guys to look at the glass half full here. All it took was for me to make sure that he went down at the right time every night, of course making sure those other puzzle pieces were in place and then he was only waking me up once which is

Very age appropriate for a four month old for even a three month old. That's fantastic. And so I just want to assure you all that when you when you're five steps ahead of the game, and you know what you need to do when you have your little ones on the right schedule, you don't have to be sleep deprived, you can get that consistency that you are probably craving, because you probably hate going to sleep not knowing what your night is going to be like, Am I going to wake up feeling like a human or am I going to wake up feeling like I got hit by a truck, right? When you've got that inconsistency? You have no idea. But knowing what's involved with establishing healthy sleep habits is so unbelievably empowering. So be on top of those schedules. Be on top of those naps be on top of bedtime, because it's gold. 

Amanda Norton  25:53  
And I know you said you're from Canada, right? Yes, Toronto in particular. Now do you only go and make home visits in like in Canada, like anywhere in Canada, or do you ever travel like further out? 

Eva Klein  26:06  
No, you know, I'll tell you so again right now, I'm not doing any home visits. And I'll tell you that you know, the majority of the time even before COVID the vast majority of support that I give families is virtually either in my one on one consultations or in my online coaching program, the sleep Bible. Some families would want to meet with me in person who live locally and so I would go to their homes just to do the initial consultation but because of covid I'm not offering that you know at the moment I don't really know what I'm going to bring you know, start that up again. But no, I haven't been you know, I haven't been the one to you know, travel anywhere because I'll tell you it's not like I am Mary Poppins coming into your house and you know, spreading like sleepy dust over you know, the kids cribs and then they magically

asleep, right? That's just not, that's just not what I do. It doesn't exist. I mean, I, gosh, that I'd be able to charge a lot for that sleepy dust, wouldn't I? If I if I could do that, but no, it's the way that the whole, you know, process works is, you know, I take you through and guide you step by step exactly what you the parent has to do to be able to make those changes and see those results. And so I'm the one coaching you along the way. The problem with bringing Mary Poppins into your home to do the work for you is that eventually Mary Poppins has to leave, right? And so if the if the baby or the child that association with you the sleep professional, guess what, it's going to be back to your regular scheduled programming. The second that Mary Poppins flies out your window with her umbrella. So you know that's why it's in everyone's best interest to you know, for the parents or whoever, you know, the main

carrier is to be the one going through the coaching process with of course, you know me and you know my community supporting you along the way, so that those changes really stick. Awesome. And so and I'll tell you tip number three in terms of getting babies, Toddlers and Preschoolers sleeping, and this is equally huge. Make sure that they know how to sleep independently. It's massive. This is a make or break factor in the world of consistent, wickedly awesome sleep. If you want that consistency. I can tell you more than half the time when my family is not getting that consistency. And it just seems like every night is a crapshoot. Usually it's because the child is not sleeping independently. So maybe it means they need to be nurse to sleep bottle affects asleep rocked asleep. Maybe they need a parent to lie down next to them.

them until they fall asleep. Or maybe they're not, maybe they're not helping the child fall all the way. Maybe they're rocking him until he's very drowsy. Or maybe they're feeding him until very drowsy, or maybe they're lying down next to her until she's like half asleep. And then they leave the room thinking oh, well, she's not falling all the way to sleep, and so therefore, it must be okay. But the reality is that as long as your child is getting help falling asleep and getting help staying asleep throughout the night, then those habits are likely going to continue because your little one hasn't learned how to completely fall asleep on her own, and how to stay asleep on her own. And the reason why that's a problem, if you want a full night's sleep on a regular basis, is because from a sleep science standpoint, we expect our little ones our environment to remain the same throughout

The night. And so if I fall asleep in my bed, I expect after a few slight sleep cycles, I'm gonna you know what what happens is we have something called a partial arousal where we kind of wake ourselves up like ever so slightly, roll over, make sure everything is safe, nothing has changed, and then we go right back to sleep. And we usually don't ever remember that because if nothing in our environment has changed, we barely even wake up. But let's say I fall asleep in my bed and I wake up on my kitchen floor. I am going to likely jolt myself awake and go How the hell did I end up here? And how do I get back to my bed? If your baby has fallen asleep in your arms, and then woke up in his crib? He's gonna go How the hell did I end up here and how do I get back to my parents arms, right? It's the same thing or in the form of a three year old. He's falling asleep with you lying next to him. There is a high likelihood that he will wake up at some point in the night and say this

Same thing, how did I ends up here? How do I get? How do I get back? How do I get my mom back here. And so I guess at three, they're smarter, right? So either they'll just call out for you because they want you to come back and recreate those conditions. Or they might be pretty helpful and just get out of bed and go and find you themselves and just make their way to your room. And so if you want all of those shenanigans to come to an end, because they can, if that's something that you want, we can make it happen, then part of the equation needs to involve teaching them how to sleep into play. And by the way, it doesn't have to involve cried out a lot of parents, they'll be sold on the first half of what I say and they'll go yes, I want that give me five give me 10 I want I want to or you know as as many sleeping babies as I possibly can, but I don't want to have to leave my little one to scream and cry for hours on it. And that doesn't have to be the case. In fact, it usually

is not the go to approach that most of my members in my coaching program and most of my clients want, you know, they're typically looking for a happy medium where they want big results in a short period of time without having to leave their little line for hours and hours on enterprise. And you can have your cake and eat it too here. 

Amanda Norton  32:23  
Do you think there is a big correlation with good sleep and when they're in their own room versus if they don't have their own room? 

Eva Klein  32:32  
Yeah, it's a good question. It doesn't have to. So what's obviously most ideal is you know, when you have a baby and the five to six month range and older to have them sleeping in their own space, because by that age, that's when most babies become much more aware of their environment and their surroundings and the people that might be around them. And if you're sharing a room with the baby, the baby by that age range

can typically sense and know that you know mommy or daddy is right there and then their presence can end up becoming a distraction at nighttime. So it is definitely ideal by that age and older to have your little one in their own space. Now I know that you guys are new york based where you know one bedroom apartments are even a one bedroom apartment is unaffordable, you know, on a good day. So I get that that is, you know, much easier said than done for some people depending on the city that you're living in or you know your circumstances. And so what I would say is if you're if you're in a one bedroom apartment and your little one has to be in your room, your best bet would first of all be try and push your bed as far away from the crib as possible. I'm talking specifically about babies ages five to six months and onwards for the younger ones. Have your baby close to you.

It's fine, it's healthy, it's wonderful. The other thing that you can do that I would strongly recommend is getting some kind of room divider so like a portable wall that you can literally create like a room within a room. So that's your little one D they might still be able to hear you so you're gonna want to be mindful of standing around you know be Be careful when you're going in and out as a little one is you know, sleeping maybe get like your pajamas out before you know before he goes to sleep so you can easily just you know, get changed in your bathroom and then go right to sleep something like that. But at least this a with a portal room divider of some kinds won't have to be that same level of distraction that that you could be faced with at nighttime.

So as I said, it's not there are definitely work around solutions. If space is is a concern. So yeah, so looking at those the key things that you're talking here it's like you know, controlling the room and the environment. Having

That set schedule, including naps, and when they go to bed and then the sleeping independently. Yes, I think those are really I really like that then. Yeah. So in that sense, one of the things that you teach them is how to get them to sleep independently. Like that's one of the things that you're doing with your coaching program. Oh 100%. So I'll tell you in my online coaching programs, sleep Bible, there are four stages towards getting you that wickedly awesome consistent sleep. So step number one is setting those foundations, getting the sleep environment getting if your little one has been co sleeping, and they're ready to transition to their own space, getting that whole process ready. And then step number two is really preparing your little one for change. So really getting into the nitty gritty of what that schedule is going to need to look like because schedules are going to vary from baby to baby based on their age, right and even when you've got two babies that have the exact same birthday, there is still a range that you can look at

At and so troubleshooting, that whole process is a really big meaningful part of the process. Step three is teaching your little one. And so that refers to establishing those independence leave skills. And and there are

areas in which you can get from point A to point B, right, there is a multiple, there's multiple different approaches that you can use, as well as we this is applicable during the night weaning process. So weaning your baby from some or all of their night feeds, if they're eating more at night than they need to be, which often times they are, you know, sometimes we just have to do sleep training, but other times we are eating and some night weaning as well. And so having that all lines out, you know, having multiple approaches you know, some quicker some more slow to account for various different comfort levels and parenting styles. And then stage number four, which is

The best age is maintenance. So how do we maintain our little ones wickedly awesome sleep because getting your little one to sleep through the night is not like teaching them to ride a bike. We're all you just got to do it once and then that's it, you're done. That's not how it is with sleep right with sleep. You always want to be five steps ahead, because Can you maintain your little one's wickedly awesome sleep indefinitely? 100% I can tell you my two year old I do not remember the last time he woke me up at night legitimately. And we we moved to our new house back in December. And he hasn't woken me up once since then. And I don't even remember when he woke me up last at our old place. I'm telling you this is like no word of exaggeration. And as I said it's not because he's this gifted, you know, gifted unicorn sleeping baby. It's just because

I am always five steps ahead of the game knowing what kind of changes I have to meet to account for his

scheduling needs etc so that he can always be a wickedly awesome sleeper because I'm telling you it is a game changer being able to go to bed every night and know that I am not going to get woken up until the morning barring anything massively extenuating like a kid projectile vomiting. Yeah, that still happens. Yeah. But you know, anything short of that, and I'm gonna sleep straight through till the morning. 

Daniel Norton  38:36  
Oh, wow. I love that. How can people learn more about your program or get in touch with you? 

Eva Klein  38:40  
Yeah, so they can head to my website my sleeping baby.com surely have a free download a free sleep guide that you guys can download that has all my suggested, my top seven sleep tips that you can implementing immediately tomorrow.

Really get yourself off on the right foot in the world of getting your little one sleeping, because it's very doable if your goal is to get yourself a consistent, awesome night's sleep day in and day out. Very, very doable.

Amanda Norton  39:14  
 Awesome. And do they connect with you through email? Like how do you get started? Usually? 

Eva Klein  39:20  
Yeah, I mean, if you head to my website, my sleeping baby calm, you can either schedule a free 15 minute coaching call with me, or you can send me an email and we can connect from there. 

Daniel Norton  39:32  
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. There's so much great information that even for us to be able to take take away from this and and for our listeners as well. And, you know, I definitely look to maybe have you back on another time. Sure. There's going to be some more questions but, but thank you so much. 

Amanda Norton  39:48  
Thank you so much, Eva. 

Eva Klein  39:50  
Oh, I'm sure my pleasure. 

Daniel Norton  39:52  
Well, I hope you enjoyed Episode Two with Eva Klein and you can find her everywhere at My Sleeping Baby, she's an excellent resource. But if you want the links mentioned in this episode at any show notes and transcription, you can head over to working home parents.com slash two. You can find everything mentioned in this episode, working home parents.com slash two. But hey, if you haven't already, remember to hit subscribe, because you will then get every episode of this podcast delivered to you every week in your podcast app of choice. Thank you so much for being with us this week and I'm looking forward to our next check in our next episode.

Ending Music  40:40  
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