Replay: Toddler Sleep Struggles? Let’s Talk Solutions with the Pyramid Model

0:00Welcome to another family engagement Friday podcast. Today we have Robin Levy, a pyramid coordinator, and Morgan, a mom of an energetic 14-month-old. They are here today to chat about sleep patterns for Morgan's 14-month-old hobby. Robin will share some free, pyramid model resources with Morgan to help her make a plan to reach hobbies sleep goals. Welcome, ladies. Hi, Sue. Welcome, Morgan. Hi, thank you. So Morgan, I'm excited to hear a little bit more about hobby. How his normal sleep patterns are and what your wishes are for those sleep patterns. Yeah, so he has always been kind of a rough sleeper. You know, everybody that knows me knows how bad of a sleeper he is, from the way that I would show up to work with absolute exhaustion.

1:03But he, now he's just become very inconsistent. You know, he will sleep through the night for maybe a week or a couple of weeks or if he's really loving me three weeks. And then, you know, he gets a tooth coming in or he gets sick. Or just something throws him off balance. And suddenly he's up five times in the night. And you know, I don't really love sleeping in a rocking chair all night long. Multiple nights on end. So I really, I would just, I would love to find ways to sleep when something happens that throws him off his schedule, just a way to kind of kind of put him back onto his schedule very quickly, not having to take multiple weeks to switch back to sleeping through the night.

2:03Yeah, well, you know, it sounds like your experience is that one that many moms have. It's one reminiscent of my own kids when they were little. Research actually shows that 43%. Maybe even as many as 86% of children have sleep difficulties over time. So this really is a typical thing, but it certainly doesn't make it any better. So how do we address this? Well, I think it sounds like you've got a number of things going in a sleep routine. Some of the things that we would talk about with parents in general is really having a very solid routine of deescalating excitement, getting calmed, getting soothing, right? And being as consistent in that routine as possible.

3:03The reason you see slide back when Harvey has a new tooth or maybe a change in his normal days routine that lets him off-kilter is because he's just so little he can't quite compensate for all the things going on. His energy gets pushed exactly to where he needs to communicate with you most, right? And if he's uncomfortable, then it makes him hard for him to sort of go back to that routine. So typically, we know this about kids. So it's having the really good routine so that if the tooth comes up or if you go to a baseball game one evening and the next day is kind of off, it's actually the strength of the routine when it's pretty typical that helps him to get through in order to sort of readjust.

4:03So oddly enough, it's not working with him when he's dysregulated. That's going to help him the most. It's working with him and having really consistent routines when you're in one of those flows. That's where you want to put all your focus and energy because he's with you. You're in the flow. You want to strengthen that. Now, knowing that we were going to have this conversation, I went into the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations website which is challengingbehavior.org and I just went into the resource folder and looked up a couple of resources that were family resources in English because that's what you and I are communicating in. That might be available to help you sort of address this. I found three different resources that I shared with you.

5:05One is a multi-page resource for parents called making life easier, bedtime and nap time, and it's part of a bigger suite of things, but this is the one on sleeping, so this is the one we wanted. I also pulled out a document that was to support caregivers in writing or creating planning routines, right? What is your real routine? Is it written anywhere so that you know a babysitter could do it, your husband could do it, your mom could do it, right? How are we going to strengthen that across people? Then there's another article in there that was just specifically gaged toward toddler age kids about calming and being calm in general because we know we want to start calming as we move towards bedtime.

6:06And I'm just wondering, what did you think about those articles? Were they helpful for you? Have you tried any other things? Yeah, one of the things I've loved actually with the one about routines and writing them down, I never thought to write hobbies bedtime routine down. I have it stored away in my head. I do it every single night to make sure it gets done exactly how I want it to. But then I do notice, you know, when he has a tooth coming in and he's extra fussy, like we might stray away from something in the routine. And I think having it written down and in front of me might help me make sure that even though he is hurting with a tooth or sick or something, whatever is going on with him, making sure that I still stick to that routine.

7:07Yeah, absolutely. So you could even think of starting the routine at like his dinner time and what you give him, right? And you're like, okay, he's two hours out. No, nothing sweet. I want to watch what he's eating, right? The next thing might be just, you know, it's lighter now at this time of year. You're trying to get your baby to bed and it's bright. So dim those lights, right? Help them out. Those are going to give him some body cues. Make sure he's comfortable. Temperature has changed. Has the bedding changed yet? Heck in my house, I have a blanket that comes on and off during the night three times, right? So what does it like for hobby? How are you accommodating those changes? Really looking for signs of sleepiness and you could even help him notice that.

8:07Oh, hobby, look, you yawned. Oh, you're stretching. Hobbies eyes are getting heavy, right? And when you feel sleepy, you can even point those things out in yourself. So really just sort of, you know, it almost seems like gosh, do those things really make a difference? You're going so fast through your day, but they do. Yeah, and I love the idea of talking to him like that. You know, you always hear about how important it is to talk the children about what you're doing and just like helping them learn. But I, I had never thought of it in relating to a sleep. You know, I held up his eyes and I'm like, oh, you're tired, but I'm not saying like, oh, you're rubbing your eyes. You must be getting sleepy. Oh, you're yawning. Like, I never thought about kind of just repeating his actions back to him in regards to him getting tired.

9:14Right. So what we hope happens when we do that is that he connects those things to a feeling. And again, let's fast forward and he's got a tooth coming in and he's not able to settle down and he's dysregulated. But you see him rubbing his eyes and you've talked about that before. Right. When he was calm and comfortable. So that connection, that bridge is going to be more likely to help you be able to coregulate and calm with him. Right. I think that's the other piece of it is sometimes it we can't really anxious like we're ready to go on to the next thing. And it's like, I need you to sleep. And if you're feeling I need you to sleep, he feels that inside you because you're coregulating.

10:20You're trying to calm so that he can calm so that he can sleep. So your body presence matters. And then again, just giving him that language so he can connect those things over time. I can't promise you this is magic and Morgan, this is not going to make you sleep tomorrow night. Right. Right. And this is how we really give children those skills, those those opportunities to understand these ways of being which leads into more emotional regulation. And this does matter for him. Yeah, and I love the fact that you talked about me being calm too, because I, I will say I did notice a lot. So you know, I put him to bed at seven and even with the time change, I still try to put him to bed at seven.

11:21And if I, you know, I try to make sure I have time for myself after I put him to sleep. And sometimes if he's taking forever to fall asleep and it's seven thirty seven forty. And I'm getting impatient. I notice he is not calm anymore. And all of a sudden he is going to cry when I put him down in his crib. And I, I did notice immediately the difference by me just staying calm, even closing my eyes with him. Just making sure that we were not rushing, getting him to sleep, but it's just a very like soothing case in my arms. He's watching me sometimes he likes to grab at my cheek or my lips and just making sure that he's just having a very calm night time experience so that he can sleep better. And I really did notice that there was one item particular I was like my fiancee and I really want to watch our show before we go to sleep.

12:29But it's seven forty five and now I don't have time to clean before doing all of this in our whole night time plan was a mess and every time I put him down he'd scream and I was like, okay, relax, he'll get to bed and he gets fed, everything is fine. So I mean, you know, when you think about this whole concept of calming, it's it's bigger than just bedtime too, right? Because you're going to notice as he continues to develop the idea of how do you teach him to self soothe is really important. It's, it's, you know, we will always want to co regulate with our children and hold our own selves calm, right? But those are such important skills for kids to be able to get and see and the idea that you actually talk about them.

13:31One of the things in the making life easier that first bedtime and nap time document was the idea of putting your kids to bed still awake. Which most people when we talk about that, they're like, oh my goodness, like no, I have to get them like they would never let me leave. But and if you more again can begin teaching hobby to self calm, then they almost start to look forward some children to that quiet time before they fall asleep and it really becomes a beautiful gift. And, you know, fast forward 20 years, you can't teach it to a money's 20 and and frantic in college, right? But you can give him that gift now that he'll take forever. So thank you for having this conversation. I would say to you, keep these things handy, notice the last page of the making life easier is just a recap of all of them.

14:36Like you could print that one off and put it in his dresser drawer for if you need it and you don't have to read the whole thing, but it might be sometimes enough to help you feel calm. And maybe do write down the routine of the evening, see if it makes a difference or not. You know, these are things that you can explore and play with as a parent and then share what you learn with other parents. Yeah, absolutely. And it was one of my favorite things about all of these resources is that there's there's so many different options to try. You don't have to just stick to this one resource. There's so many tips and, you know, every baby is different. And it's just so nice to be able to practice different things and if one doesn't work, you've got more options to explore. Yeah, absolutely. Well, happy sleeping and thank you so much for taking the time to chat today. Thank you.

15:38But thank you, Morgan and Robin for sharing today and and Robin for sharing these valuable resources from Pyramid. We will attach a resource link to our podcasts so families can access that and thanks again.