Mother’s Hour – The Sleepgeeks

My life, how can I resist her? Mamma mia. Does it show again, my mind? Just how much I missed you. A very big warm welcome to this week's Mothers Hour with me, Carolyn Van Beers, here on Women's Radio station. Well, this week, this week's show should I say, could definitely be changing a few lives if you have a baby, a toddler or even a teenager or two. Stay tuned. This week's Mother's Hour is all about sleep. Sleep. My special guests in the studio today are experts in everything to do with sleep and they're hopefully going to help any of you who are struggling, perhaps a little bit with your little ones or even your big ones. Can I please welcome to the studio the sleep geeks. Welcome. Sarah Johnson. Hello. And Lou Toosey. Is that right, Toosey? Welcome, welcome, welcome. I'm very, very pleased to have you on the show. Sleep is so important and as you know, I'm a very big advocator of getting help. More about that later for children, triplets and all that. We will be talking a little bit more about that. But you don't need me to tell you mums how stressful your life becomes if you don't get enough sleep. So over the next hour, we're going to be looking at all things sleep, starting with newborns, then moving on to three months and onwards. We'll also be having a good look at those toddlers and teenagers and beyond. So let's get started. Ladies, welcome, welcome, welcome. How did you First. Well, tell me a bit about your background. Let's start with Sarah. So I'm a doula and a postnatal and birth doula, a trained antenatal teacher for the NCT National Childbirth Trust. In another life, I was a journalist. I still actually write if I'm paid, but that's me, basically. I used to be a children's books editor, actually. Wow. And, yeah, so that's me. Nice qualifications there, Lou. Yes, I'm so similar to Sarah. I'm also a doula and an NCT teacher. I teach baby massage and I am a mum of two teenage boys, so right in that teenage year. Fun stuff. But we predominantly work with mums and dads who are pregnant or have young children. So how did you two meet and how did sleepgeeks come about? Oh, we trained together for the NCT Antenatal Diploma, which is much more strenuous than you might think, actually. And we got together and as we started teaching. I've been teaching NCT for years and years. We both have, and we realized that the parents that we meet or the parents to be that we meet, this is something they're so, so worried about all the time, is how will the baby sleep? How will we get the baby into a routine? Will we ever get any sleep? Exactly. And it's something that they hear about from their friends. They get a lot of conflicting information and advice. Isn't that right, Lily? That's right. And we just thought that we are very passionate about helping parents and, and giving them the right information that they need that actually sort of makes sense and is accessible. And everything that seems to be available to parents is a little bit confusing. And everyone's got their sixpence worth to tell somebody. I mean, Sarah was just commenting on the journalists with Meghan. And yes, when Meghan and Harry showed off their baby to the press, a reporter's voice came out. You know, that predictably good baby sleeps well. Poor little Mike was only two days old. You know, he hadn't plugged into the Judeo Christian morality scheme quite yet. It's unbelievable the expectations people have. It's the expectations and then it becomes the anxiety, doesn't it? So before even the baby's sometimes born, there's already that anxiety. And I think as we'll go on, we'll see that a lot of that anxiety we put on to the children as well, don't we? I bet you got that with your triplet. You'll never sleep again. Yes, thank you. Oh, dear, oh dear. How do you manage all that kind of stuff? Yes, exactly, exactly. So when did you start sleepgeeks? We started it about two years ago. Yep, I think so, yeah. And what predominantly you go into people's houses or do you do a lot of phone consultations or. We do do phone consultations, which you talk about later. We're offering a 15 minute phone conversation consultation to anyone who need some help. For free, I might add. I'll be plugging that, don't you worry. But we also do home visits where possible in London surrounding areas. But we can do kind of WhatsApp or Skype. Yes, Skype consultation can work. I've, you know, done Skype consultation in Italy. It's better to meet people and see the environment. You know, we can get into what we need to know about a family in order to help them. I guess it also depends on if somebody's just having a few little niggles. Then a Skype conversation would be fine because you can probably see a mile away what the person can't see, who's in it. You know, sometimes it's just a few nips and tucks that you need to do. Other times it's the whole routine that needs changing. And I guess that's when you probably would prefer to be home. Well, what's important is to see the family as a whole. And we are holistic sleep consultants. So we're seeing the family as a whole, the child as a whole. So we might be looking, looking at their nutrition, the relationships, what's going on with siblings, what's going on with parents, and what the parent child sort of style is, what their parenting style is. This all has to be taken into account, what the parents can manage, what they've done before, what they've tried in the past. Also the child's sleep environment. One thing is I feel sometimes slightly weird saying, please send me a photograph of your child's bedroom. Which feels very, very strange. But actually it's very helpful because you can look at a picture sometimes and go, oh, wow, okay. No, seriously, that happened to me. I did not have proper blackout blinds. They were gaping. This is me in my first child where I made all the mistakes and he was waking up really early. I just couldn't figure out why. And there it was right in front of my face. But because I'm so stressed out and tired, I couldn't see it. I couldn't see the leaves for the trees. That's exhaustion. Blackout blinds for babies. Yes. But we'll talk about older children. So sometimes the bedroom is, is just for sleeping. And actually they associate. It's not associated with being fun and safe. I mean, it's not talking about fun, but just being comfortable and familiar to the child rather than the kind of show bedroom. Do they actually like being there? Exactly. Very, very important. Just before we start on our journey, I think we're going to start with newborns, aren't we? And you know, and you offer up your wonderful advice. I'm very excited to have you here and just tell us about the sleep. So I'm going to talk to Sarah first. She's the bit more of the science side, aren't you? And then Lou, you sometimes come in with a bit more of the practical, just so you know who's talking here? So sleep, I mean, how important is it? And can you just define babies, toddlers and kind of, you know, as it changes, doesn't it? Well, it does change. We all know that we need sleep and we all know, I think the obvious of doing without sleep, you know, you've got the obvious things, you've Got the irritation, lack of coordination, memory problems, learning ability, impaired vision problems even. And then there are more, perhaps more invisible effects of long term sleep deprivation, which we're not necessarily so aware of. For example, effects on increases in cardiovascular disease, more likelihood of obesity, diabetes, depression. The immune system becomes compromised when somebody does without sleep, which is probably why when you've been at some sort of big thing like a conference or something like that, where you've been burning the candle at both ends slowly, as soon as you get home, you go down with flu. I don't know if that's ever happened to you. And it's estimated that about 30% of adults are probably sleep deprived and also probably 60% of teenagers, which is quite depressing. Oh, the gaming. We'll talk about that later. It's more than just the gaming. It's life, actually. Anyway, now our sleep cycles, yes, they do change. I mean, we can talk about those as we go along. Luz brought slightly unusual visual aid to help remind us where we are. I didn't know it was on radio, but I just thought that Carolyn could as our audience as well, she could sort of squeeze and feel these. So shall I just describe what's in front of me and then you can actually talk about what it all represents? Louis? Okay, so I have a very orange tangerine in front of me. It's about 4cm in diameter. Then I have quite a juicy orange in front of me, about 8 or 9 centimeters in diameter. And then I have a lovely big fat grapefruit, which is about. Ooh, that's not six inches, is it? Good? 10 centimeters. So, yeah, this represents the baby's brains. So it's a tangerine that is representing a newborn brain, which is about 40% developed when the baby is born and not very capable of complex sleep, limited cognitive development, meaning babies can't don't have memory, thought, perception, language skills or physical coordination. Then the orange, which is three to six months. Ah, three to six months on the orange. Okay. So a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more developed. You know, think about a month old, what they can do. And then the toddler, which is 18 months to two years, which is the grapefruit. Wow. So this is the toddler by that stage it's grown that much. 80% in terms of size and capacity compared to an adult brain. Yeah. Most of the development of the brain is actually happening in the first two years. Wow. Get the fish in. Okay, that's absolutely fascinating. So that is actually going to determine the amount of sleep, how long you sleep and all the factors that we actually need. Sleep. Yeah. Carolyn, how long you sleep over a 24 hour period? Not necessarily how long you sleep at a time, which is something we'll come onto. Wow, that's very, very interesting. So we're gonna start in a few minutes. We're gonna go to a little break now, but we're gonna start in a few minutes with newborn to three months, which is the tangerine size of brain. Then we're gonna move on to three months and onwards. And what kind of what changes you need to do to your sleep routine. And then, and then a little bit later on in the show, we're gonna do toddlers. And that's enlightening, what you were telling me before the show about the toddlers. So definitely stay tuned for that. Don't forget as well we've got that freebie to offer you, which is a 15 minute phone call from the sleep geeks. Welcome to women's radio Station. I'm Sarah Louise Ryan and welcome to Love Lessons live on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to future Classic women awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on women's radio station. Hello and welcome to Julie Mae is listening. Hi, this is Anna Kennedy and we're at women's radio Station supporting women's well being and we're talking all things autism women. The possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Lauren Mishkon. I'm a birth doula and mum of three and I'm passionate about supporting women to have empowering and positive birth experiences. Please join me for my brand new show From Tummy to Mummy here on Women's Radio Station. 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To find out more and be part of this movement, come check out our website@mediamattersforwomen.org you're listening to Women's Radio Station supporting women's well being. Women's Radio Station's creating a global network for the empowerment of women and we want you to be involved. Join us on Instagram and Twitter @WomensRadio station, that's Women's Radio STN or Facebook Women's Radio Station to keep up to date with all our exciting programs. Welcome back to Mother's Hour with me, Carolyn Van Beers here on Women's Radio Station. It's a great show today, ladies. It's the sleep geek, Sarah Johnson and Lou Toosey telling us exactly or actually helping us with what to do with babies, toddlers and teenagers. We are just starting our journey and we were just talking a little bit about the baby's brains before, or should I say the brain of a child when they're bor to when they're a toddler. And we have a tangerine, an orange and a grapefruit. That's the progression of the brain. I'm going to go to start with you, Sarah. So we're going to talk now about the first three months from newborn to three months. What's going on? So your baby's still got a very, very tiny tummy which needs very frequent feeding. That's a given. Your baby is not born with a circadian rhythm, in other words, a biological understanding of day. There's no biological rhythm there. A baby's not born with that. So their sleep wake cycles go across the 24 hour cycle. And we have melatonin, which is a hormone that we have which gives us an idea of when it's time to go to sleep that isn't present in the newborn. They acquire it over time, over those first 12 weeks and we can help the baby to do that. It's too early to talk about a routine because you are talking about a child who's changing so fast that a routine isn't really the word. But the word that we do like to use is sleep hygiene. Isn't it, Lou? And well, sleep hygiene, Lou. I mean, what do you think? Well, yeah, so we kind of suggest that obviously you get your newborn baby and you need to get to know your baby and you need to understand who each other are, what the baby's cues are, what does a baby need and how can you support it. And actually we suggest that you're going to be living the crazy for the first six weeks because there's no. The science says that babies don't even get any kind of beginning of circadian rhythm to minimum six to eight weeks. So we really do suggest just enjoy your baby, learn from your baby for the first six to eight weeks. But maybe as things start falling into a natural sort of rhythm, then you can start, there's slightly gentle things that you can do. The main thing is to try to recreate the womb environment. A lot of people have heard of the term the fourth trimester which basically saying that for naught to three months babies actually would prefer to perhaps still be in the womb. And certainly anything that feels like the womb environment will settle them and help them sleep. And particularly with premature babies that I had absolutely sort of rocking them, holding them tightly to your body, being on your chest so they can hear your heartbeat swaddling them if you follow the guidelines to do that safely. And we will be giving you a link to basis which is the website we highly suggest parents look for their safe sleep information. So it's about recreating the womb environment and you can do that with white noise. Sorry to interrupt but I didn't do this with my first baby because I didn't know about it. But with the triplets I did quite a bit of skin to skin which was really lovely. But you know, totally get, I mean completely naked with your baby. You know, I was doing it in the hospital, it was really weird and so is my husband. Okay. But then obviously you can put any blankets over the top of you, but your skin has got to be on the skin and you keep each other warm naturally, don't you? Well, absolutely. Mums and triplet mums that's amazing because you could have kept each individual baby the right temperature with just your chest. Yeah. So. But in terms of why babies want to sleep on their mother's or father's chest, that's where they're actually producing the most dopamine and becoming very calm. So what you're doing is giving them a safe, calm environment and teaching them that sleep is a good thing in a gentle, supportive way. And if you think about how we've evolved a baby who falls asleep as soon as it's put down on a flat surface, that baby in prehistoric times was going to get eaten by a predator. Okay. That baby is not going to survive. So your baby is definitely not descended from that baby. Your baby is descended from the baby who set up a massive squawking noise as soon as his or her mum put her down. And we recognize that baby as a clever baby. That baby is going to survive and grow up to have more babies who will do the same. And that's where your baby came from. Yes. That's perfect sense when you know it. So I mean, that's really. And when you know that, then you don't get quite as freaked out by it, do you? Because it's like being terrified that people, you know, people sort of think they can get a newborn baby into a routine and it's just not. It's not true or fair to suggest that they will. It's a developmental process and you need to teach your baby, give your baby the tools to fall asleep. The baby's not born knowing how to teach herself to fall asleep. Okay. Any more than we're born knowing how to teach ourselves to drive. But when you get into the car with an instructor, they get in with you and they show you what to do and carry on doing that until you're confident enough, you've practiced enough to teach yourself to drive on your own. And that's really how we teach a baby to fall asleep on their own, is by giving them the confidence that an adult, not necessarily mum or dad, but an adult is there for them. Yeah, that's great. So just in a nutshell, lots of skin to skin is really nice. Getting them calm, getting them in a calm. Anything that recreates a warm environment. And don't expect too much for those first three months because you're just trying to really. And I enjoy it because it's gone so quickly, isn't it? Enjoy that moment when you're just, just with the little baby and it's your little baby gap time will go and you can never get it back. So try to enjoy and don't expect full sleeps like you're saying no. My grandson is now three months old and I can't believe it. It's only two days ago that he was born, as far as I can remember. So, Carolyn, one thing we would say is sleep associations. So we say live the crazy, but layering up sleep associations. So actually, if you can get your baby, your newborn to sleep, then you're amazing and you're a hero. And if that means that you're breastfeeding your baby to sleep or bottle feeding or using or rocking your baby or putting your baby on your chest, that's great. But we suggest layering those up so having several methods. So maybe it's a song and rocking, patting, patting, sort of rhythmic shushing sound because then it's easier when you do start getting into. We can talk about that. Towards the three month sort of age where you've got more to work with circadian rhythms and melatonin development, then you can remove the more onerous sort of parental supports. For example, if it did mean that you had to drive on the A40 every evening to get the baby to sleep and play white noise, perhaps you could sort of peel that back to just a bit of white noise and gentle rocking. Add the rocking and the white noise and then take away the thing that's difficult to sustain, but do it gradually. Babies are not terribly good with sudden change, but a gradual, as Lou puts it, layering of cues allows you to start taking away the cues that are actually difficult to keep going with or that only one person can really do. Does that make sense? Yep, Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I think that's been brilliant. And if you do have any more questions, obviously you can email me carolinewimmynsradiostation.com I will pass on your emails. And also you have an opportunity later on to perhaps even talk to the sleep geeks yourself, which we'll tell you about in the next part. Ladies, we're going to move on because we've got loads to cover. We're going to move on now to the orange. Okay, so this is the size of your baby's brain at four, three months. So now we're going to talk about three months onwards and setting up some kind of routine. Is that right? Yep. Okay, who's going to start me off? Okay, Sarah's in. Sarah's in with her fingers out. I like it. So from the age of about three or four months, then the sleep cycle of your baby changes again and Becomes more complex in the newborn sort of time. It's quite a simple cycle. It just goes light sleep, deep sleep, light sleep. And then at the end of each cycle, the baby will either go back to sleep or wake up. In fact, that's how the sleep cycle is. At the end of a sleep cycle, you either go back to sleep or you wake up. Well, around about four months, then it will become more complicated and introduce more layers of different layers of sleep as the brain is changing. And that can make the baby wake up more often than they were. Okay, not good news. Right. And that's why a lot of people will attribute that to, oh, they're hungry, I better give them solids. Oh, my breastfeeding isn't working. I remember doing that. Or this is not working, whatever we've been doing isn't working, you know, and actually it's developmental change. It's normal developmental change. Likewise at about 8 months. Should I talk about 8 months? From 8 months onwards, your baby becomes much more aware of mum not being there. Okay. It's what we call separation awareness. And that's when they will also start to wake up more in the night and have sort of what you might call a regression. So you can't have regression and then everyone starts to panic again. Yes. And call in the sleepgoods. But that's actually a normal developmental stage for the baby. And you know, parents just need to stay calm and do whatever they were doing before gently, you know, sleep layering. And we haven't sort of got to the fact that at three months babies would be ready for a gentle, non coercive bedtime routine. Okay. And there's a lot that you can do to help your baby sleep better. At about three months, we've actually got a lovely sheet that you've given us which I'm going to put up on the website under materials, on the board on the top. And that's a lovely routine that you've set up. But we're going to talk about that in a few minutes of exactly what to start with in the routine. And routine at this stage is very, very important. Is that right? Yeah. How long do you give yourself up for the routine? Well, as Sarah said, you know, babies don't learn suddenly, you know, we need to subtly and gently introduce a routine. So it starts with a downtime before bedtime and repetition of repetition of things that you do every evening. So Sarah, quiet time. Bath. That's not too hot. Little cuddle, feed, massage. Baby massage. Lose expert. A song. It's all got to be the same. And it's got to be quiet and gentle and it's got to be the same every day, roughly the same time of day. Doesn't matter if it's dead on time, but it's got to be predictable and not too long, not too long winded. We'll talk about that with toddlers as well. Yes. Okay, we're gonna have a little recap of that, so get your pens and papers at the ready if you would like. We're gonna go to another short break now, but, but don't forget, when we come back, we'll be talking more about babies and we'll be doing those little toddlers. We'll see you in just a few minutes after these short messages. Welcome to the women's radio station supporting women's well being. Women's radio station is all about diversity from opinions, career, ethnicity, education and most importantly, women's well being. We aim to say celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and the platform for your voice. Visit our website womensradiostation.com for more information. I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? Do you wish you could save more money or are you hoping you have enough for retirement? You are not alone. 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For more information on how you can sponsor a Show, go to womensradiostation.com Women's radio station supporting women's well being. Welcome back to to Women's Radio Station to Mother's Hour. Here on Women's Radio Station, I'm Carolyn Van Beers. Here in the studio with me is Sarah Johnson and Lou Toosley who are together, the Sleep Geeks. And they are helping us out. Thank you, ladies for coming on. We're talking all about sleep for babies. We are on three months onwards, the routine. Come on, ladies, give it to me. So don't forget, ladies, this will be on the website. It's a beautiful little A4 sheet on bedtime, so enjoy the time together. A stressed parent's emotions are picked up easily by the child. Oh, yes, yes. Relax, take deep breaths and that's really good because when you're doing that, you're actually modelling, regulating your emotions for your child, which is such a helpful thing to do for a little one. You could practice doing that at other times of the day actually, like, you know, when you're running late for something, take deep breaths and go, oh, Mum's getting really worked up here. I need to calm down. Oh, I'm going to, you know, take some deep breaths and wave my wrists in the air. I'm waving my wrists in the air right now. Okay. And you know, and sort of model it and you're not great doing it. Model it. You could stamp it out if you're stressed. Stamp it out if you're stressed and you know, and show your child what calming yourself down looks like. That's a helpful thing to do. But also babies do pick up on little bits of stress and just remind yourself you're only 45 minutes away from a glass of wine. As you were saying, Lou? Or just going downstairs and just going, ah, so, yes, I always, I Was quite excited because I'm like, yeah, okay, your day is done. Carolyn, you were surprised that we were saying bedtime routine should be about 45 minutes. That's from beginning it to the child being actually a sleep. Yes, I was do sort of give a lot of time and it's lovely to spend time with your children, but actually that's the best window to calm them down and get them ready to sleep. And sometimes if it becomes longer, you could be actually making them more overtired or pushing them into elevated cortisol, which means it'll be harder for them to fall asleep. So when we're overtired, our cortisol levels raise because our body assumes that there's a reason why we need to be staying awake and our bodies literally try to keep us awake. This is familiar to us as adults. You know, exam nerves, putting an all nighter as a student. Babies do it too. Don't we know that? And the cortisol levels are actually stopping the child from going to sleep. That's what overtiredness does. Yep. So that's one thing you've really got to try and almost start identifying at this stage, isn't it? Are they overtired and what's going on there? Watch the cues. Yeah, watch for the cues. Some babies tired cues are so subtle, such as even a red eyebrow, you know, their eyebrows go red. And we associate sleep cues as being yawning, pulling your ears. And they might be sort of later cues. The parents just sort of notice when their child is turning away less interested, they're becoming sleepy. So that's when you sort of start taking them, you know, getting ready for their bed. Do you have a time that you recommend? I mean, is there, is it, is there any time that's too early or too, you know, or bedtime? Yeah, well, you know, I mean, we're talking, we're at three months now. It's got to suit the family, hasn't it, because. And the baby we were talking about, babies are very individual and you know, you might have a family where one of the parents is coming home from work at 8 or 8:30 and you know this. So later bedtime for some families. But you know, it seems to be a lot of people thinking 7 and 7 o' clock is a good time, but it's really up to you. It's just about consistency. Yes, exactly. It's got to fit in with the family. Okay, so we've got, we've sorted out the time, so start with a triptopian snack, please. Explain, ladies. Tryptophan. Tryptophan, yeah, tryptophan. So tryptophan. I did rot me my notes beforehand. Sorry, I got away from the microphone. Yeah, go to the mic, go to the mic. It's radio. It's radio. Yes. I mustn't lean over your shoulder. So tryptophan is an amino acid and it's contained in some foods and it promotes melatonin, basically which helps us to, you know, start to feel sick. I did not know that that's a good thing to give your child a tryptophan rich food. And it's in sort of at suppertime. So we've got turkey, tofu, nuts, seeds. That's easy to do. Nuts. As long as they're not allergic. Exactly. Milk, eggs, cheese, pineapple, cherries and salmon. All great stuff. Well, they're all very high protein, you notice. Yep. So obviously, you know, if you're vegan or vegetarian, then there are ways in which you can work with that. I have a wonderful recipe I picked up off the Internet for those tofu bites. Oh yeah, famous tofu bites. Yes, yes. I'm now on orders from my family to make them about once a week. Okay, we're digressing. Sorry. Let's move on. So you've got your snack there or that could even be, you know, you could have salmon for supper. Right. Warm, short bath, 5 to 15 minutes. The effect is to relax and cause a slight drop in core temperature. That's interesting. Slight drop in core temperature which tells us it's time to go to bed and drop in. The atmospheric temperature also is a thing that prompts melatonin as well because that's the way night works on this planet. Okay. So when that happens, so if that is followed by moving from bathroom into a dim room which is the bedroom and actually we need to cover this with toddlers if we have time. Is not going downstairs and immediately having a fantastic playtime. But that is going to help baby start to feel more sleepy. So it's a short bath, about 10 minutes. Not too hot. Obviously just slightly lowers the body core temperature and that's really helpful. I love the Lou Moving into a beautiful, calm, dimly lit room. That's got to be one of the key ingredients after that bath. Don't like you said, no going downstairs, saying goodnight to everyone. Keep them quiet and keep it familiar. The same songs, the same order of events. Maybe dressing them or using a little bit of a massage. Just the same things you do every day. Baby massage. Now, what's too hard what's too soft? What's too. Do you use creams, oils? That's just a big subject, but it's. I have a link to myself on YouTube if people want to look at that. But there's lots of classes out there and a lot of them are free with your local care providers, so look into that. But sort of gently. I would say legs and arms and upper body and a bit of oil but it's, it's maybe depends on your baby as well and that's probably only up to about one or two years old and then they might like you to do it for longer. Yeah, yeah. Do you know, baby massage is the thing that has changed since my children were little, which I really, really wish we'd known about because we used to never really touch our children. I had my babies in the 90s. It's skin to skin. Yeah, skin to skin, exactly. My teenager will let me get anywhere near him for a little massage. It's my way of still having skin to skin with routine and appropriate touch, loving touch. It's a lovely thing to get to do. So look for the classes in your area and you know, it's a great way for mums. We haven't really talked about. I'm hoping we will. How mums and dads can help themselves in all this difficult sleep time. Because we did talk about sleep deprivation and we know that that kicks in for three minutes, three days. So an adult will experience sleep deprivation if they haven't slept well for three days. And that's obviously what's happening with parents. So a baby massage class not only will help relax the baby, hopefully relax the parent and talking to other parents and normalising the kind of experiences they're having with their lack of sleep and also hearing parents. Other tips. So, yeah, it's not something I can recommend more, to be honest. It's fantastic and it's, it's bonding. Yes, Everything. And then one of the beautiful gifts that I no longer have with my 13 year old boy is story time. I mean we have a story sofa because I have triplets and they're all in the same bedroom so we've had to create an environment where we can all. But you know, there are fights about who sits next to mummy. We have to take it in turns and you know, but it is a very safe environment for them and I think it's just the most precious time. We had a story sofa too. Yes, absolutely. And yeah. So any recommendations for storytime? Well, if you have a toddler who really is struggling with bedtime. Can we move on to that a bit? Yeah, yeah. And then there are lots and lots of books out there about children, about going to sleep. Surprise, surprise. It seems to be a very popular topic for children's picture books. I brought along with me just a couple which are sort of like from different ends of the spectrum. So there's the Invisible String by Patrice Karst. And the Invisible String is a picture book. It's. Yeah, it's in paperback as well as hardback. So it's a picture book about how there is this invisible string which is attaching you to your mum or to your dad or whoever's looking after you. And the person who loves you has an invisible string that's always going to be there. And that's really lovely for an anxious child who's worried about being left alone in bed. The other one is. I think this is hilarious. It's called My dad is Big and Strong but. And it's a Bedtime. It's by Coralie Saudo. And it's about this child who has to put his dad to bed every night. And his dad is so naughty. You know, he plays the trick about asking for another story and you know, the child has to say, now one more story. Okay, Exactly. It's complete role reversal and I think it's. And very effective. It is. It opens up a really fun conversation about, gosh, how would you feel if you had to deal with this crazy person who keeps asking for one more story and another drink of water? And how would you feel if you were looking after that person? I think it's charming and very funny. I actually find that with my triplets that I sometimes do more than one story because the longer story time goes on. I know you said you have to limit the time, the calmer my children get because they've got three in one bedroom. And sometimes if you're reading to maybe more than one toddler or you've got a one year old and a three year old, to have two stories, one for them and one for the other, can sometimes be a fair. Would you recommend that or might be. Well, you know, that's what the children do, don't they? They really want to have more stories. It's a difficult one. We tried to say only as many stories as how old you are, but I guess if you're eight, that sort of works when you're two or three. But yeah, I mean, it's really about keeping it short, not letting them get too razzed up. Because sometimes the length of the stories may be could mean that they're not going to fall asleep as easily. They might be just thinking about the story too much. So we've got the routine, we've got that all intact. After the break, we are going to do a little bit of troubleshooting. We're going to talk about white noise, pink noise, brown nose even, and a few ways that you can get your toddler to sleep. Welcome to Women's Radio Station. I'm Sarah Louise Ryan and welcome to Love Lessons live on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on Women's Radio station. Hello and welcome to Julie Mae is listening. Hi, this is Anna Kennedy and we're at Women's Radio station supporting women's wellbeing and we're talking all things autism women. The possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Lauren Miscon. I'm a birth doula and mum of three and I'm passionate about supporting women to have empowering and positive birth experience experiences. Please join me for my brand new show From Tummy to Mummy here on Women's Radio Station. 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To find out more and be part of this movement, come check out our website@mediamattersforwomen.org you're listening to women's radio stations supporting women's well being. Women's Radio Station's creating a global network for the empowerment of women and we want you to be involved. Join us on Instagram and Twitter @WomensRadio station. That's WomensRadio stn or Facebook. Women's radio station to keep up to date with all our exciting programmes. Welcome back to Mother's Hour with me, Carolyn Ramdias, here on Women's Radio Station. We are having a lovely chat with Lou and Sarah from the Sleep Geeks. And without further ado, we're going to get Carrie straight on because we've got so much to say. You're going to have to come back, ladies. You are so going to have to come back. I will hold you to that. That actually might be great because we can get some emails and get some questions in probably that could really work. We're doing all this live on the radio with you. So we have just done a kind of routine that the Sleep Geeks recommend from three months onwards. But now let's look at some of the differences. When we've got the grapefruit brain, which is the toddler, where might we adapt that routine that we just set out earlier for the toddler? Well, I think if you haven't done any sort of gentle sleep routines and things for, for your grapefruit brained child, then it's going to be difficult because we were trying to imprint good sleep behavior, good sleep hygiene from orange brain from six months, three to six months onwards. So hopefully a grapefruit brain knows about day and night, knows that everybody, if we open the curtains, everybody outside is sleeping. All your friends at nursery or granny and grandpa, all the other children, everyone's asleep and bedtime is the for sleeping. But they are very much more sophisticated. The brain at grapefruit size is 80% in terms of capacity and size of an adult. And we talked about whether a newborn can manipulate and maybe get parents to do what they want and we decided that's not possible. A newborn baby is just surviving. Has grapefruit got any plans to get into your bed or delay bedtime? I ask you. Carolyn and Sarah very good at plan. Yes. Every trick in the book, every trick in the plan. And if all else fails, then a full on tantrum. So the routine basically stays the same, but we just need some little tactics, some little handy hints now just to kind of coerce, you know, just to keep that routine in place because they will try every trick in the book. Like you said, be consistent. Thank you. Don't suddenly give in after an hour of pleading and say, oh, all right, then come downstairs because I'm doing something else. Because then you're saying, yeah, it works. An hour of pleading works. And this sounds dreadfully old fashioned, but it is true. If your child also hasn't heard the word no, we can't do that, it's not happening in the daytime, then why should they suddenly be expected to accept it at night time? Just because you want to go to bed. So if you're not firm during the day, then how can you be firm in the evening? Consistency the child to completely change the rules and adapt to new rules at night just because you want to go to bed. And they will often go from mummy to daddy, don't they, to see who they can push, whose buttons they can push. So trying to have a plan together, a consistent plan together and backing each other up, teamwork makes the dream work. And that goes with anyone else who's helping you look after to your child. You know, if you have other support, then yeah, you need to get everyone on the same page. I don't subscribe to the idea that grandparents are there to undermine parents, but I really don't subscribe to that. So yeah, but everyone needs to be on the same page as to what's allowed and what isn't. So make it fun as well. Make it fun and you know, check the overtiredness. Make it fun, fun, a nice thing to do. Be consistent. Yeah. So we've got a baby now, it's in a routine, but we're still struggling with the sleeping. You hear a lot about people recommending white noise. So we're just gonna have a little listen now to some different types of noises and then we're gonna talk to the sleep geeks about how and why they can possibly work. So the first one is called brown noise. Here it is not very pleasant, quite low. Okay, let's now move on to pink noise. This is pink noise. A lot louder, a lot more aggressive, isn't it. And finally, let's do white noise. Noise. That's. Yeah, it's slightly different. This is imitating the sounds that are in the womb. Also, they can be used with children who are really struggling because of special needs with sensory problems. It can help to block out other sensory sort of stimuli around them. So it can be quite useful. Gosh. And presumably you would just get a recording of that on your phone and just. Well, there are lots of toys and things you can buy that have this. Noises and different types of noises. Yeah. So I wouldn't suggest necessarily putting your phone in the cot, although plenty of parents do. There's just buy one of these little toys. And somebody I met the other day said they took something out of their radio or wobbled an old radio. They said the baby's got a radio, a broken radio, hanging off the side of its cord. Interesting. What about other recommendations, like lavender lullabies? I mean, do you advocate all of those kind of things? These are layers of sleep associations. If you use them repeatedly, any of these things, you've used them repeatedly every night, then your baby, your toddler, associates them with going to sleep. So if they're portable, if they're things that you can take on holiday with you, like the lavender scent, the lullaby, then that's brilliant because you've got the way of getting your child to sleep with you. But it's about using them consistently. But the trickier one, and the one that I couldn't really do with my triplets, I can't rock all three of them. I can't, you know, so I obviously got help. And we'll talk about that in a little bit, in a minute. How much I advocate getting help if you are struggling. But there are things that you do, and it's like you're making a rod for your own back. You know, if you have to put your child in a car to get them to sleep every time, that's going to be tricky, isn't it? Because you can't always do that. So how do we probably not start by, you know, doing that in the first place, which is not helpful for someone who's already in that situation. So add other sleep cues to that. If it's not actually rocking, it could be patting, gently wobbling your child, gently rubbing their belly. You know, a baby who's lying in a cot, you're rubbing their belly, you're kind of wobbling them, but they're still in the cot. And so you're not holding the baby, so you're gradually saying, to the baby, I'm still holding you, but actually it's just having. Just having that warm hand, the presence of mother or father there to make them feel secure. And then. And you can dial it, dial it back, sort of. Maybe just the warm hand is brilliant, the warm hand. I mean, I couldn't quite manage it with all three, but, you know, use a foot. I did a little gentle, you know, a little thing that's been on the radiator, just pop that on, but that really works. And then just taking it away very slowly, particularly on babies, I would say, with that one. So that's absolutely excellent. I am going to talk now about getting help, though, because my situation was I had a little baby boy, I didn't get any help. I didn't have particularly good routines, and we really suffered as a consequence. I mean, I just didn't realize the power of routine. I didn't realize the power. You know, things like not putting the blackout blinds at the curtains, you know, just little things that are so simple, but I didn't know about. And had I only just made a phone call or just called somebody, that would have saved me, you know, six months of my life, of I'm doing it all wrong. When I had the triplets, I had to get help. There was just no way. And getting them, you know, sorted at night and having sleep, you look back and you can enjoy that time. It's so important, if you are struggling, please get help. You know, we are offering a free 15 minutes, which I might talk about now, because we're just getting towards the end of the show with the sleep geeks. Take advantage of that. And how much would you charge? I mean, give us a ballpark of. I know you don't like charging, I like to give all your services for free because you're nzt. But if we were to call you out for an hour's consultation, how much would that be? Well, an hour is kind of short. Our consultations generally last around about two to two and a half hours. And then. You've done a lot of preliminary work with the parents before? Exactly. What's important is that, is that we have. There's a detailed questionnaire for them to fill in, then a sleep diary and a consultation as well. That's all for us. It's under £200. We follow up with six weeks, very comprehensive, you know, almost daily with some of my clients to just see how the night was and what we can talk, what helped and what didn't help, just to keep them in, you know, Feel like they're supported and they're not doing it alone. Because that's the thing about parenting in the modern world. You so often feel you're doing it alone. It's the best money you will ever spend. I promise to have sleep, to have calm for the next three years. It's just amazing. I cannot recommend it enough, but we today are offering you a 15 minute phone call for free. You find all the information about this on women's radio station on the website under Materials. It's on the top bar. Or you could just click onto Mother's Hour and you'll find it there as well. So in that we get a free 15 minute phone call with you ladies for a bit of troubleshooting to see how bad the problem is and to see if the listener wants to make a booking via our website to schedule a phone call. Then we start from there. Okay, brilliant. And that's free, ladies. It's free with either Lou or, or Sarah. They will take you through it and they'll do some troubleshooting. It could be the best phone call you ever make. Can we give you them your website as well? Yes, it's ww.sleepgeeks.co.uk lovely. And on your website you do offer wonderful advice as well. You're on Facebook as well, aren't you? Facebook? We're on Instagram as the sleepgeeks. And actually I'm sort of adding to our Instagram feed of the sort of basically tips. There's a whole series there of tips for making the first three months of your baby's life a bit easier. That's what Lou calls the fourth trimester. The fourth trimester of pregnancy is what that means. In other words, your baby is still really part of you during those first three months. And once you think of it that way, it becomes much easier. Beautiful. Chat us on Instagram, Facebook. Yeah, we're just the sleep geeks, aren't we? And yeah, just to sort of reiterate as well that, you know, this is very individualised. We've been talking very generally and obviously we do want to talk to families very individually and realize that no baby is the same, no solution is the same. So that's something I just want. Yeah, there is no one thing that fits everyone. That's absolutely right. Do you know what, ladies? We are coming to the end of the show, but I really believe that there's a live Q and A in this show and maybe we could get you back on and if you'd like. Teenagers. Yeah, talked about so many things. I know, I know. Do you know what, ladies? If you would like to maybe give us a call or talk to the speakers or you've got any questions, maybe you can email me carolinemensradiostation.com and I'll try and get these wonderful ladies back on. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn. It's been a joy to meet you. Welcome to the women's radio station. Supporting women's well being. Women's Radio Station is all about diversity from opinions, career, ethnicity, education and most importantly, women's well being. We aim to celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and the platform for your voice. Visit our website, womensradiostation.com for more information. I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? Do you wish you could save more money or are you hoping you have enough for retirement? You are not alone. Many women want to be smarter with their cash, but just don't know where to start. @empowerandenrich.org you will find a host of options to help you take charge of your finances and learn how to put your money to work for you in an easy, affordable way. Get in touch with me@empowerandenrich.org and let's change your future together. Hello, my name is Natasha Ann Kelleher. Welcome to you lovely lady listeners of your very own women's radio station. Over the coming months, I'll be doing a survey in big brand coffee shops, interviewing customers, asking why they like to drink coffee and if they would like to give us a health tip. For our listeners, the most shared and liked post will be the winner of a prize. Stay tuned for further details. Hi, I'm Carolyn Van Beers. 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