Ep 128: Your child's sleep: how to get more of it? with Katie Pitts, Founder & CEO of Sleep Wise Consulting

Do you struggle with sleep and your kids? Do you feel like you and your children would benefit from more rest? Katie Pitts, founder of Sleepwise Consulting, shares her journey into sleep consulting and her philosophy on sleep training.  Katie reviews common issues that arise with children's sleep, and she  provides valuable insights and tips. She also dispels common misconceptions about sleep training and highlights the significance of sleep for overall health.

 Katie L Pitts, MS, MA, CSSC Owner & Founder of Sleep Wise Consulting, a consulting group that has now helped over 9 thousand people with sleep issues. Sleep Wise Consulting is made of a team of 40+ certified pediatric (and adult) sleep consultants offer the highest quality private sleep support. 

For more information:
www.sleepwiseconsulting.com
IG @sleepwiseconsulting

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

For more content from Dr Jessica Hochman:
Instagram: @AskDrJessica
YouTube channel: Ask Dr Jessica
Website: www.askdrjessicamd.com

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Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.

The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

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Hi everybody I'm Dr. Jessica Hochman, paediatrician, and mom of three. On this podcast I like to talk about various paediatric health topics, sharing my knowledge not only as a doctor but also as a parent. Ultimately, my hope is that when it comes to your children's health, you feel more confident, worry less, and enjoy your parenting experience as much as possible. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ask Dr. Jessica. I'm your host and paediatrician Dr. Jessica Hochman. So I just want to start off this episode by saying a genuine thank you to all of my listeners. I know your time is valuable, and I so appreciate that you support this podcast. So today's topic I thought would be particularly helpful, especially given that this week, we just had daylight savings time. And I don't know about you, but I find this week to feel especially exhausting. So that being said, I thought this week it might be helpful to hear from an expert about sleep. Today's guest is Katie Pitts and she's the founder of a sleep consulting group. This group started with just Katie and now it's grown to a team of over 40 certified sleep consultants. So in today's episode, Katie offers many suggestions regarding common challenges families face around sleep, including but not limited to, tips with daylight savings, time, sleep training, bedtime room sharing, and more. Thank you so much to Katie for coming on the podcast. And to find out more about Katie, definitely check out our website, sleep wise. consulting.com. Katie Pitts, I'm so happy to have you on here. I'm so happy to know about you and spread the word about what you do. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Tell me about yourself. What got you inspired to start sleep wise consulting? Absolutely. So let's see my oldest now is nine years old. And about eight and a half years ago, we had brought this little baby home from the hospital, he was premature. So we had been in the hospital a while but my husband and I we're like Type A we are people that are ready, we are prepared, brought this little guy home from the hospital and realise, oh, babies don't just sleep. And basically to make a very long story short, he never slept the first three months of his life longer than 45 minutes at a time. And it was terrible. And anybody who's listening who has been in the throes of sleep deprivation, know that it is a terrible, terrible feeling. And so after about three months of really struggling me questioning being a mom, our marriage falling apart, I finally I will always talk about this. And I will always remember my rock bottom moment when I woke up one morning after you know, a full, like the movie Alpha full 45 minutes of sleep. And I just said enough is enough. I can't do this anymore. I can't live like this. I'm going to solve this problem. So I spent hours upon hours researching online in the throes of sleep deprivation. And as I'm sure many of your listeners know, Google will tell you do this. Oh, wait, no, don't do that. You're gonna ruin your baby. Oh, goodness, don't do that. That's the worst thing you can do. And it's really confusing. And so what I ended up doing is pulling pieces from a multitude of things that felt right for me, and putting together a programme for my son. And within one to two nights, our lives were transformed. He was sleeping better, I was coming back to myself again. And after a couple more nights, things were getting a little better and better. And after probably about a month or two from when I had made these changes. I remember sitting in thinking people have to know about this, people need to know that just because you became a parent doesn't mean that you have to live in sleep deprivation. And so nine years later, here I am. And that's kind of what got me into sleep consulting and starting sleep wise. And I'm just curious, so you helped your son you got through that period. And then how did you go on to create sleep wise consulting? So I went and through a certification programme it was an in person certification to do paediatric sleep. And then there was an intensive mentorship a process after and started working closely with one of the leading experts a paediatric sleep consulting, and started doing it for about a year on my own, became pretty popular pretty quickly. But lucky to say happy to say and then I started bringing on team members because I needed some help as I was doing this while staying home with my kiddos. And we quickly learned that the more consultants we had on our team, the further our reach the more families we could help and the more that we could spread the word that once again you don't have to live in sleep deprivation, there is an answer if you need one. And I'm just curious, do you have a general philosophy when it comes to sleep training and getting kids to sleep? Get through the night. Yes and no, basically it all goes down to sleep as a skill. And so just like a child learning to talk, learning to walk, sleep is something that you have to teach them. That's what I didn't know, that was my big aha moment. And how you teach each child is different. There's different methods out there, there's things that work well, for some don't work well for others. And so we really customise it based on the baby. And equally as important what the parent is comfortable with. But all of it boils down to teaching your child to learn to go from point A awake, to point B asleep, completely on their own. And I like your philosophy about not making parents feel bad about the choices that they make. I think that is really important. Because I do feel like what works for one family may not work for another. So for sleep training, for example, so many parents are so frazzled, that they're not sure what to think about sleep training, I think they're often leaning towards doing it, but they've heard from other parents that it's going to be really harmful for their baby, which, of course, I don't think is true. And I just appreciate that you talk about not making other families feel bad for their choices. Yeah, absolutely. Sleep training gets a really bad rap. And it there's not any research that proves that it's deserving of that, in fact, the research around sleep and around attachment and sleep is really interesting. There's not a lot about it, it's still in the works. But more and more is coming. And ultimately, if you look at, there's probably a dozen studies that we've looked at really extensively, what it all comes down to, is maternal mental health. And when it comes to your child's attachment, the research shows that you have to be okay for your child to be okay. And so here's the deal, I'm not going to go out there and say, you have to sleep train, your child isn't going to develop well, if you're not sleep training, because the research doesn't prove that that's true. What the research shows, though, is if you are suffering, and you are barely surviving and not making it, and maybe in the throes of some postpartum depression or anxiety, then that's when it might be time to look at what kind of change do you need, and teaching your child to sleep well, so that they can thrive and you can thrive is an option that's out there? Absolutely. And I think so often, there's this fear that you're gonna mess up your kid in the future. And I like to think about the here and now, how can we make our life today better? How can we make our family dynamic better right now. And I think if it takes sleep training, and that is what works to make your family thrive and get rest, then so be it. And I agree with you that the research has really murky, or really absent about sleep training being harmful. What I've read is there's a study that gets often quoted from Romania and an orphanage, that kids that didn't sleep well and weren't attended to came out with some attachment issues. But most families that I meet, to be honest, this is not a comparable relationship, we are there for our kids were there the next day, we're going to attend to them throughout their lives. And so if it takes a few days to teach them that skill, and it works for the family than I do support it. Absolutely. And there's a really cool, it's the biggest longitudinal study to date, I think it's about six years where they followed children who went through sleep training and children who did it and what their attachment looks like six years later. And they're showing no different that it's, it's secure. It's a secure attachment. And so I agree, I think also a lot of people here sleep training, and they think putting my baby in their room, letting them cry, closing the door and walking away. And that's not what it is, in fact, what we do hit sleep wise, the crying component, or what you do during the crying is probably one of the smallest things that we do. You need to look at routine and schedule and quality, awake time and nutrition. Right? All of those impacts sleep. And it's really important. I agree with you. I think sleep training has gotten a really bad rap. And not to say that it's for everybody. If some families really feel like it's not for them, I fully support that. But for families that are listening, and they're interested, explain why it's not just closing the door and letting your child cry, where are we getting it wrong? And that explanation? I think that that's in the people who are anti sleep training and wanting to be very vocal about it or spreading those messages on social media. And really, it's goes back to that journey to sleep. And so we all have a journey to sleep right? How do we get from point A awake to point B asleep? All human beings wake up two to five times every single night. And so when you're a little baby and you We're reliant on nursing to fall asleep every time or rocking or bouncing or any sort of thing. We call these sleep props to fall asleep, when you wake up naturally, as you are supposed to two to five times a night, and you don't have that thing and that sleep prop to get you from point A awake to point B asleep. Well, that's where you're going to need help. And that's where you're going to need your parents to come back in and give you that Prop. And so what we are doing is working with the parents to give their kiddos the tools that they need to fall asleep. Now how do babies and kids communicate? Well, through crying, right, my background way back when is in speech language pathology. And so I have a lot of education on communication and those needs. And so crying is a form of communication. While it's okay to let even when working with toddlers, right, you have to let them be frustrated a little bit, let them figure things out. It's similar with babies, you don't have to let them do it all on their own, you're there to help them you're there to give them support until they're able to figure it out on their own. I think this is the hard part is that when kids cry, we want to help them we either want to give them a pacifier or breastfeed them or bottle feed them or pick them up and sue them. It's hard not to help provide a prop. So tell me for young kids, what is your suggestion to get them away from needing us to assist them to get back to sleep, it really goes to what you're doing before you're putting them in their bed. So it's looking at their schedule, let's make sure that they're not overtired, or under tired, right? Let's look at their age and the age appropriate wake times that they need. Let's give them a nice calming bedtime routine, you can set your kid up for failure accidentally, so to speak by, let's say your bedtime routine is giving them a bath and then falling asleep during nursing getting really really sleepy, maybe asleep. And then you go to put them into bed and they their eyes pop open. And we've all had it happen and they're awake, well to the baby, they just had a little bit of a nap. So they're going to cry a lot harder and a lot longer when you put them down. So to get them to sleep well to teach them those strategies to get them from that point A to point B. It's about setting yourself up for success with those foundations. So I think what might be helpful for people listening, I actually pulled my audience and I asked them, what questions do they have right now with sleep? Where are they struggling with their own children? So I thought I would go through those questions with you. And I know a lot of them may deserve a longer answer, but just to kind of hone in on some key skills that you think might be helpful to these families listening. Okay, let's do it. All right. I actually got this question asked a few times, parents. A few parents asked about what to do with kids that wake up early in the morning. So when parents said their kid is routinely waking up at 5am, and other parents said also about

5: 13:08

30am. When before 5am? What kind of advice can we give to parents generally for those early risers? So you're starting with a very complex question that has about 500 reasons of why it could be happening and that's okay. I'll give you some of the most common reasons perfect. It goes. A lot of it's going to go back to that schedule. An overtired baby is going to wake up earlier in the morning. And so you want to make sure that whatever your baby's age, those wait times are appropriate for like, well, what should the wait times be? It's hard to run through everyone right now. But if you go to our Instagram, at sleep wise consulting, wait times are pinned right at the top of our page every age and what that should be for your baby. So start there, because if you have a five month old and you're from their last map to the time they fall asleep at bedtime, there's four hours in between their will that's going to cause an early morning waking. Another really common of this isn't going to be as much this time of the year depending on where you live. I live in Illinois, it's like darkness all around all the time. But any light coming into the room in the early morning hours is going to cause that wake up. So looking at I mean, we're talking like Pitch Black can't see your hand in front of the face, making the room really dark. That's going to be the second thing that really helps with early mornings. Okay, so, so make sure the room is totally dark. Make sure your child isn't overtired make sure they're not under tired. Now what about for parents that have gotten to the habit where they bring the child into the bedroom with them at that early morning hour? Because they can't take it anymore? How do you break that habit? Yeah, first of all, I feel you done it myself in the throes of like, oh my gosh, I just need you to sleep a little bit longer. But I want you to think about your Self. And let's say chocolate cake is your favourite thing in the whole wide world. And every morning, if you wake up at 5am, you get a piece of chocolate cake, where you're going to continue to do that. And the same is going to be true for our babies or our toddler. So if they wake up, and they get to go snuggle in bed with you, or they get TV first thing in the morning, those things are just going to perpetuate those early mornings. And so that's when you're going to want to go to some sort of sleep training method, there's several to choose from, but even if it's just kind of check ins with your child, or it's or staying in their room with them, and helping kind of pat their head or pat their little bottom to settle them down so that they can go back to sleep for just another hour or so. I like that. So something to let them know that you're there for them. But they're still the ones getting themselves back to sleep. Yep, exactly. By the way, I use that same exact analogy when parents ask about feeding in the middle of the night, because I'll often talk about why it's important not to feed in the middle of the night at a certain point. And parents will say but they must be starving, they downed six ounces of a bottle or they breastfed vigorously. And I explained to them that if you got your favourite dessert in the middle of the night, every morning at 2am at 3am, and you didn't know about calories or health, you would learn to continue to wake up at that time, even if you're not really hungry. You take exactly, exactly. Okay. And then another common question I received was about naps. Parents want to know how do you know when your child has done napping altogether? And do we still encourage arrest time? Yes. Love that question. Usually, kids are ready to drop the nap a little bit earlier than most people think we kind of think back, oh, kindergarteners still have some rest time or naptime. And that can really impact their overnight sleep until kids are generally ready to drop the nap. Take a breath between two and a half to three and a half years old. You're going to see this when they're getting less than 10 hours of sleep overnight. So if you have a two and a half year old and their sleep is less than 10 hours overnight, you really want to look at possibly dropping that nap. But because overnight sleep is the most restorative. And that's what we need to prioritise. Now still, should they still have some sort of rest time during the day? Yes, absolutely. This is going to be called quiet time. And it's basically where they're playing in a location for we generally recommend an hour, sometimes you have to start a little bit shorter to have your child be successful with it. But they're doing some independent play for that time so that they get a chance to come down and rest their body and brain and the parents get that time as well. I think one of the most important pieces of what you just said right there is that parents get some rest time. Yeah, I think it's really hard when we have a full day of a toddler and no break time. That's so daunting. So yes, it's good for everybody to make sure that there's some downtime. And one other thing with dropping the NAP is you a lot of parents will do it and they'll keep the regular bedtime. Don't do that. Because you're gonna have an overtired disaster. So make sure to move that bedtime way earlier, when both of my children drop their naps. And a lot of our clients drop that nap, we're seeing their children get 12 to 13 hours of overnight sleep while they're transitioning. And so don't hesitate. If your kiddo wakes up at about seven in the morning. Don't hesitate to do bedtime, six 630 for about a week or so during that transition. I promise you will think that when you do that, and I'm curious what you think about this, but I'll often encourage parents to stop napping start to stop the NAPS altogether when they're struggling for earlier bedtimes. So sometimes parents will have a three four year old and they can't get them to sleep in the evening before 9pm. And that's just way too late for families. And so I'll mention that it might be time to think about dropping the nap or at least having the nap finish before 3pm Or something that doesn't get too late into the afternoon. I'm so glad you mentioned this absolutely, because most parents think their child's gonna be ready to stop dropping the nap or excuse me to drop the nap when they stop napping or fight the nap. That almost never happens. It's always that party at bedtime and the extra stall tactics. So yes, absolutely. That is assigned to drop the nap as well. Also, it's a hit or miss with capping the nap. If you're capping the nap, meaning you're waking your child up after an hour and a half, and they are out of it and groggy and not themselves for at least 20 minutes or more. That's probably not the answer for you. Now if you can wake them up and they kind of pop out of it and go on with their day then that can be a great solution to keep that nap a little bit longer to just watch that 10 hours of overnight sleep and make sure that you're at least getting that Okay perfect. All right, another common question. How long should the typical nighttime routine be? It's going to depend on the age of the baby like a newborn, if they're nursing, or even bottle feeding, that can take a long time. So you might have a bedtime routine of about 30 to 45 minutes. But after about three months, we recommend a bedtime routine between 20 and 30 minutes, including, like a bath or a shower, including a feed if they're 12 months and under stories, put those stories in the bedtime routine, a little massage, if you want, those are all options for a really good bedtime routine. But about 20 to 30 minutes is your target. Perfect. I think if it goes on too long, that can just be impractical for families, especially if you have multiple kids. And I think if it's too short, kids don't feel like they don't get their cup filled. They don't get that connection time with parents. And I find that if they do get a good enough, long enough meaningful bedtime, they'll actually sleep better throughout the night. Absolutely, absolutely. And I was just going to add another thing, if it's too long, it can make the separation a little bit harder to like, that's that lingering Oh, they're still there, there's an end it can exacerbate that? What do you say to families where the child sneaks into their bedroom at 4am in the morning. And where the parents notice or don't notice, because I've seen both? I'll say from personal experience, my son used to come in at four in the morning. And I was I noticed but I was too exhausted, quite honestly to do anything about it. And I think that was a mistake, because it ended up being a habit that ended up being hard to break. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first of all, if you wake up and your child just like sleeping next to you, which does happen, we recommend doing simple things like putting a bell on your door handle or something to wake you up, because that's step one, you have to be aware of it so that you can correct it. But you're exactly right. It's a very slippery slope. And so while maybe they are good, go back to that journey to sleep point A to point B from awake to asleep while they're doing that on their own at bedtime. That's great. But the net sleep prop, that association is sneaking in some time in the morning, where they're wanting you to help them fall asleep, even if it's just laying next to you. And what will happen over time is 4am becomes 2am becomes 11pm, because I'm fighting bedtime now. And so it's a really slippery slope. And so kind of nipping that as quick as you can is going to help. So what I'm hearing from you is, it's worth it to pay attention. When your kid comes into your bedroom, you can't ignore it, and you have to help bring them back to their bedroom. Yes, and the best thing about normally the kiddos that are doing this that age, it could be between two plus usually like two to four we're seeing this is that they're cognitively at that level where they can understand what you're saying. And so let's say you're walking them back, and it's a back and forth, back and forth, add in some sort of incentive, or rewards or positive reinforcement, any of those things can really help to get your child motivated to stay in their bed all night. And then it's a really big deal when they see you in the morning and make a big deal about that. I think that's a good point. I've heard some parents have success when they get their kids a brand new toddler bed, or maybe a new stuffed animal or a new toy to be with them. Do you have any other examples of things that might be exciting for a child to get back to bed? Absolutely. If it's a really, if it's a child who's really attached to a caregiver, something that belongs to that caregiver or smells like them, like a new stuffed animal that mom or dad sleeps with for a while you give that to them, or one of your shirts, something like that can help. But this can be really anything simple. I mean, we love to do like time rewards meaning in the morning, we get to have a dance party before breakfast, or we get to have a picnic breakfast on the floor. If you stay in your bed all night. Or depending on the child's age. If they're like two or three, you want to make the reward pretty immediate. So right away when they wake up. They're a little bit older four or five it can be they get to go get ice cream, a special ice cream date with dad after school. Or maybe it's just I might have mentioned a little matchbox car or things from the dollar section. It can be really really simple as well. I love that. So a little prize or an experience reward with parent grades are great suggestions. Thank you. Another question I got that I thought was a really good common question. A mom is interested in sleep training but they have a sibling and they're afraid that sleep training will wake up the other sibling. Do you have any advice for this family? Absolutely. This is another really common question. Great question. Ultimately, it might. It's short term pain for long term gain. And I know All you're hearing me say right now is now I'm gonna have two kids awake in the middle of the night. And so I get that it could, if your other child is a good sleeper, and or has independent sleep skills, most of the time we find it doesn't wake up the other child. Now if this child is the other sibling is 345 plus, explain to them what's going on. Let's say you're doing sleep training with a six month old and you have a three and a half year old say you know mommy or daddy, we're teaching little Tommy how to sleep well just like we did with you. So if you hear him in the night, we've got it, we're taking care of it, you just keep going to sleep. So that if he wakes up and it's not like, oh, something's wrong, he knows what's going on. That can help. Also adding in some extra white noise temporarily can help. But if you don't have white noise in there, maybe a little sound machine in there and or especially outside their door. Like if you have a big box fan, those are allowed outside their door that can help drown out any noise from sleep training in the initial phases. Okay, that's, that's great advice. And I agree with you, I find the same thing that most of the time when kids are asleep, they will not get awakened by anything. Really. If it's in the middle of the night, like 2am 3am 4am It's really hard to wake up a toddler. I agree. I mean, scarily, so we've had our, we have those weird fire alarms that will like blast at you and then also say fire fire, it's a fire, like, my kids are just sleeping through it. Okay. And the movie, not so but I mean, what you're saying is true, is they they just sleep they sleep really, really deep. Right? Right. I think it changes maybe you know, 5:36am, you might have an easier time waking up the other sibling, but in the middle of the night, it's near impossible to wake them up. Yeah, exactly. And that's, I mean, there's science behind that, which you don't necessarily need to know. But it's basically that's their deeper stages of sleep, right. And so that's when they're going to get that really deep restorative sleep in in the morning. It's the lighter stages of sleep. And that's why it's a lot easier for them to wake up then. We also love the dome, D O H M A Sound Machine. That's a really great product because it doesn't get super loud. And so you don't have to worry about it being too loud. Or any like, oh, damaging my child's here. You're any bad. It's just a natural white noise. It's a little fan inside of this container. So if you're looking for great white noise machine, that's the one that we're singing praises about. Okay, great. No. As with anything, moderation is the key. Right? Exactly. I feel so bad because there's so many things that parents are scared to do. Even though it might be helpful for sleep, as we talked about, like sleep training, using the white noise machines, but anything in moderation, I believe, especially those examples kids are going to be okay. I agree. Yep. And you're saying that with a good night's sleep, right? Yes, as clearly health benefits. So? Absolutely. Do you find that there's a certain window where kids should not be looking at screens before bed so that it does not negatively impact their sleep? Absolutely. We work with adults as well. And the advice is the same is to turn off those screens about an hour before bedtime. For kiddos, I would err on the side of caution and probably do 90 minutes to two hours before bed. What's happening with screens is there's a blue light coming from it and a blue light coming into your child's eyes acts like a concrete wall in their system for melatonin. We all know melatonin is that hormone that tells us sleeps ready time to begin. And so if they're not getting it that's going to interfere not only with how long it takes them to fall asleep at night with their quality of sleep. So play it safe. Two hours before bed, turn off the screens. Can I tell you last night I was scrolling on my phone before bed and my 13 year old daughter came in my room and she said mom, you got to turn off your phone, you're seeing all that blue light. Oh, she corrected me. You're like I've done a good job as a parent. Ouch. Oh, I wanted to keep scrolling but I also wanted to be a good example. So she did she did cause me to turn my phone off. So that was good. You know, if you do have any parents of teenage teenagers, this can be a really hard one. And one kind of middle ground with it's like okay, I'm not doing that or they're gonna sneak it as at least see if they'll wear that some blue light blockers these glasses that you can get pretty much anywhere. It's not as good as no screen time. But it really does help and so that can be a great tip for when those lights or maybe for yourself when those lights are coming in too close to bedtime. Yes, I actually do have some of those blue light glasses, and they're not that expensive. You can get them on Amazon for anybody listening. They're easy to have the very very accessible to have in your home. Absolutely. Now, tell me about daylight savings this comes up every year. Do you have any tips for parents that want to get ready or want to prepare? Should they prepare? Or do we just let it pan out as time goes on? So have you seen those memes where it's a person and there's like all these math calculations floating their head, that's us every year at daylight savings time, I'm like, Okay, it's this time, regular time, this time old timing, it's confusing. Every parent knows exactly what I'm talking about. It's very confusing. There's really two methods that you can choose when it comes to daylight savings time. And one is to just go cold turkey. If you have a child who isn't super sensitive to any sleep changes, go for this one, because it's simpler, meaning Sunday morning, whenever they wake up, get them up. And then on Sunday, because always time always changes on Sunday, do nap, do bedtime with the new time, whatever that new time for your schedule is. You also can adjust either before the time change or after. Generally speaking, just do this in about 30 minute increments towards that new time for three days. And then that's going to kind of get you a little bit more slower approach to get there. Once again, though, we are talking constantly about time changes when they get nearer. So if you do go to that our Instagram page, sleep wise consulting, will have very specific tips for you. They're pending on if it's spring forward or fall back. And hopefully we won't have to worry about it too much longer. That's true. That's true. And your Instagram page is fantastic. There's so many good tips thank you for for daylight savings for sleep training for for typical sleep schedules for various ages. So it's a great resource for anybody listening, definitely follow sleep wise consulting. And I'm just curious, is there ever a time when you recommend melatonin to help kids with sleep? Yes, oh, I love that you're bringing this up. This is a really, really hot topic. So I mean, you can find melatonin everywhere. And people think that because you can find it at the health food store or Whole Foods and it's natural, that it's okay. And the research actually doesn't show that. And so when we're giving our kids, melatonin gummies, or whatever it is, at the end of the day, what is actually happening with their bodies, is it's telling your body, oh, I don't need to produce as much melatonin. By the way, the same advice goes for adults. And so over time, they're actually producing less and less melatonin, which makes you more reliant on it, and you're needing more to have the same effects. The only place where they're showing that melatonin and kids might be helpful at this point is kids with autism, because they're seeing they might not have as much melatonin as typically developing peers. But outside of that, it's just not needed. And it is something that you can quit cold turkey when we work with our families saying okay, as of tonight, we're stopping the melatonin. And we've never I mean, we've been doing this nine years and over 9000 families we've worked with, we've never seen an issue with it. Outside, like we said on kiddos with autism that might need it. That's interesting that you say that the body makes less overtime. That makes sense. If you're supplying it to the body, then why would why would our body need to produce as much what I've always read about melatonin is that if you take it, it's fairly safe because you don't develop a tolerance. But that point would speak against this that you do actually build somewhat of a tolerance if your body starts to make less overtime. Yeah, as an interesting point. They're showing it in children and they're showing it especially in adults, melatonin another thing is not at this point regulated by the FDA. And there's been studies where in like one gummy, or one pill of melatonin, where it can have significantly less dosage than it says on the bottle, or I don't have the exact number in my head, but something like 478 times more dosage than in one little pill. And so that's a little bit worrisome as well. So just really be curious about that. Don't do it as a my child's not sleeping, they have to have this. Let's look at all the other things first. It goes somewhat to sleep training, and you kind of spoke to this. There's a lot we know and there's a lot we don't know. Yes, yes, no, actually, that study that I think you're referring to my coincidentally my husband's good friend actually wrote that article. His name's Peter Cohen. And he talks all about how melatonin is not regulated by the FDA. And when he actually he actually looked at the gummies and said them to a lab and some of them were laced with CBD. Yeah, and some of them had, as you mentioned, much more like a much higher concentration of melatonin then was listed on the bottle. And nothing just to point out nothing dangerous happened to anybody. But it's scary to think that you're taking something that's not properly labelled. Yes. But I like your point that we don't need to take melatonin to sufficiently sleep for the night that no kid actually needs to rely on melatonin. Exactly. And if you're listening, and you do have a kiddo who you're like, oh, my gosh, I've been giving, it's okay. You haven't broke them and you know, it's all okay. You can stop it and their bodies, melatonin is going to naturally get back to where it needs to be. So I don't want anyone to go down that parent shaming rabbit hole because we don't need that. You don't need that. Yeah, I would just encourage you to be curious. I think it's okay. Especially if you're travelling with your kids, and you're worried about jetlag. I do think every once in a while using melatonin hopefully from a quality reputable company is okay. But I totally agree with you that you don't need melatonin and you don't want your kids to rely on anything to go to sleep at night. Right? Absolutely. Yeah, I yeah, I like the point about not, no need to shame anybody. No, no shame me. There's just there's no need. Don't don't do it to yourself. Don't let anyone do it. Do you? There's no need. We're all doing the best we can every single day. I agree with you. I like there's a line of that Brene Brown says that I use all the time, just do the best you can with the tools you have. Absolutely. Absolutely. So and I also just want to say I think I like talking about sleep a lot. Because I think it is so important. I think it's such a pillar of health. In fact, it's probably my favourite medicine that I can recommend to any family caring for children. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's one of the five essential human needs, right? It goes along with like oxygen and water. I mean, sleep is on that list of essential human needs. It's, it's important. I truly believe there isn't one facet of our physical, emotional mental health that isn't impacted by the quality of our sleep. I can speak for myself, I'm a much better human being when I get a good night's sleep saying, saying I'm much I'm much more patient. I'm a much better mom, better spouse, better physician, everything feels better with a good night's sleep. I agree. I agree. And then tell me Okay, so and then tell us about your company? How can people find you is the best to help tell people about what you do, how they can find you and what using sleep wise consulting would look like? Absolutely. So we work with families one on one, we give parents the tools that they need to be able to teach their children to sleep through the night. Our goal is that we are educating you through the entire two to three week process that you are working with one of my consultants one on one, we're giving you the education. So you walk away being your child's sleep expert, you know the why behind things, you know what to do with changes happen, sickness, travel, teething, nap, transitions, all of that, you have those tools. We're basically working with you, as I mentioned, really holistically. And what I mean by that is we're looking at the schedule, the bedtime routine, what to do at bedtime, what to do in the middle of the night, what to do in the early morning, what does nutrition look like? What does awake time look like looking at all of those aspects? Because they all matter when it comes to teaching your child to sleep? Well. If you are interested in learning more about what we do and seeing no Is this a good fit for me, we offer free 20 minute evaluation calls that you can talk with one of our consultants tell us your unique situation, what's happening with your child? And we'll give you some feedback on that and let you know if we recommend working together and if we do what that process looks like. That's awesome. No, I think that's awesome. Because there really are so many unique situations, every family has a different set of challenges. So that's great that you can offer one on one help. Well, exactly. And you could have two babies that have the exact same issues. And the parents could be completely different. One could be very uncomfortable and hesitant with crying and another could have made peace with them like Okay, let's get going. And those plans are going to look really different. We also have a fantastic free guide. It's my top five sleep training tips. I even go into the guide a little bit on what to do at bedtime, what to do in the night. And so we can put a link for that if parents are interested like Oh, I think I want to look at this a little bit on my own or just learn a little bit more about what sleep training is. You can download that free guide because we really tried to plump up full of all the information to help get you started as well, it will. Thank you so much for coming on as Dr. Jessica It was a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me. restwell everybody. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review wherever it is you listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr. Jessica See you next Monday.