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Transcript

Sleep Training Is Killing Your Marriage · The Parent Tap

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: What is the biggest lie the modern sleep training industry sells to parents?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Why does weaponizing their biology succeed where standard parent bribery completely fails?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: I had a child who didn't sleep through the night in his own bed till he was about four.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: What was a specific broken metric you realized you were operating on that forced you to invent this system?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Hey Rebecca Linny, welcome to the Parent Top.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being here.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Just to introduce you.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you just to introduce yourself.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: My name's Ryan McDonough.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I am a parent to two toddlers.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm about 40.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm nearing up on that 40-year-old range.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I started this because like I just want to have more connection with other parents, more experts in this space.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to help selfishly myself, but also everyone else out there who's going through just the chaos and the mess of parenthood, but also there's beauty in it, obviously.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, there's a lot that we need to learn and a lot that we can take in from the experts.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: So but the idea is to have an expert on and you tell us what to do in these situations and everything like that.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to just go ahead and get into it and run through the tape?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: I I love that you have called me an expert, but I will be the first to say I am I'm in no way a parenting expert.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think any of us are, and I'm always quite leery of anyone who says they're an expert at parenting, because I'm like, you want to know who's gonna tell you you're not an expert at parenting, your kid.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I did, however, as most parents have a certain struggle with my child that I found a way to pretty much resolve.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's kind of what led me to write this children's book called The Growing Bed.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: And one of that was just one of the ways you and I connected.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: But my our our biggest struggle in our family was with sleep, which is, I've been told, a very common struggle with families.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: I had a child who didn't sleep through the night in his own bed till he was about four, which is not the norm.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so hence the the idea, I'm sure I came up with it some sleep-deprived hour of the morning for the growing bed, which eventually turned into a book.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's a huge problem personally.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it like in this space, if you search for it, you can go really go down the rabbit hole.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because I did.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: I bought books on it, I went down that rabbit hole on Reddit and all the other parent forums out there because sleep deprivation is one of the most psychological, like messed up things that can go on in your head because it's like you're exhausted and your kid's not sleeping, and so that's frustrating.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then like it's either you or your spouse that has to go kind of do the shifts, and you know, you kind of have to navigate through all those landmines of just like feeling like, oh my god, you're a 24-hour nurse on call.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: It seems like when they give you your baby in the hospital, right, and you come home with it, and they sleep every hour or two, and then it's like they need something, it's like it's very hard.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, I appreciate you being on.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, what when you were in the darkest days of sleep deprivation with your own son, what was a specific broken metric you realized you were operating on that forced you to invent this system?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, just to reiterate and reiterate your point, pardon me, there is a reason that sleep deprivation is a method of torture because it is torturous.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: If you had told me if you bathe your son in a pool of jello, he will sleep through the night, I would have said, what color, what flavor?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'll do it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And just like you, I had tried everything.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: I had spent thousands of dollars on a sleep trainer, I bought a metronome, I put pieces of my clothing that smelled like me near the crib.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: We had done it all.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the only thing that was getting him a good night's sleep was, or a continuous long night's sleep was him sleeping in our bed.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I'm not saying co-sleeping is not a good method.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: If that works for your family, it's terrific.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't working for our family, though.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: So of the three of us in bed, only one of us was getting a good night's sleep, which meant the other two were not running on full cylinders the next day.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: We weren't able to be the best spouse, the best parent, the best employee, the best neighbor, the best of anything because we were exhausted.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: So what was broken in our house was the fact that, you know, while my son was sleeping and saw and logs when he was in our room and in our bed, the rest of us were not.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it just was not working for our lifestyle.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Again, not to say it doesn't work for some people, but for us, it doesn't.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they say that the best ideas or the best products or the best inventions solve a problem.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: So my son's problem was not sleep.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, it was just sleeping in his own bed.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: My son's problem that he felt was his biggest problem.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're at like age three, age four, things like that, right?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Was that he was a little smaller than most kids his size.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing was wrong with him.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: He was just, we like to tease that he was IKEA-sized.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: And we can say that because my husband's European.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: So again, and I'm sure some sleep-deprived state one night, I said to Anderson, my son, I said, Look, when you come to sleep with mom and dad, we are done growing.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: We are going to bed to rest, to relax, and to recharge.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: But when you go to bed, buddy, it's to grow.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: And his frustration was that, you know, a lot of his friends, many of whom were younger, were able to go on the monkey bars or ride the roller coasters or get a big boy booster seat and he couldn't.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: He just couldn't wrap his head around it.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, you know, again, right or wrong, not everyone will agree with it, but not everyone agrees on any parenting strategy, right?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: That if you slept in your bed and your growing bed, that will help you grow.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: And the science behind that is somewhat accurate.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: That is when children grow mentally and physically, is when they're asleep, right?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: So there is some truth to it, even though I know I'm not a doctor.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: And and that was just a an aha light bulb moment for him that where he could put two and two together, that sleeping in his growing bed meant he could grow.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: And if he grew, he could get, you know, the monkey bars and the roller coasters.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: That makes total sense.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about the standard negotiation tactics.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: I find myself falling into this a lot, just to give you some background.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: I was a teacher and I use this a lot as a teacher, my even myself, of like, oh my gosh, if you do this, you get this.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I fall into this trap with my kids a lot.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you stay in your room, you get a toy.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you stay in bed, you get candy.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, and it usually fails, right?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like it lasts for maybe a little bit, and then it's like kind of goes out the window.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So your framework focuses focuses on intristic, intrinsic intrinsic motivation, sorry, specifically a child's desire to grow big enough for the monkey bars or roller coasters.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, why does weaponizing their biology succeed where standard parent bribery completely fails?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure it's not a form of bribery, really.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think he, while the reward is intrinsic to your point that he gets something out of sleeping in his growing bed, I I may I took no shame in throwing that bribery out there.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: I always joke that being a parent is also part being like a hostage negotiator.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just it's just what who's being held hostage at which time, right?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Or what concept, whether it's peace of mind or whatever, is being held hostage.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, we I'm sure we had tried other negotiation tactics, you know, a sweet cereal for breakfast if you stay in your bed, or an extra book at bedtime if you stay in your bed through the night.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: And nothing really, like to your point, nothing really stuck until this concept of the growing bed came around.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it just must have been the factor that motivated him the most.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing I want to bring up is, you know, I see empathy mentioned in your bio, and I get it.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like I am, I try to be, I'm an empath, I try to be empathetic to situations and people and all that, and I have all the feelings.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: But how do you do that when you're dealing with this standoff at 2 a.m.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: with those sleep issues that your son had?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: What how do you kind of like have the mental fortitude to have that empathy without just reverting back to kind of going into like, you know, kind of our own tantrums at that moment?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's almost like a fight or flight thing, right?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Where you're just like, oh my God, this is happening again.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's like, you know, it kind of becomes like a nightmare, to be honest with you, when you, you know, it's a nightly occurrence and it seems like nothing's changing and this is gonna last forever, and everyone tells you, oh, enjoy it.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's the best years of your life, and it goes by so fast.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're in it, holy crap, it really feels like forever.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: It does, it feels very all-consuming.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I like the fact that you use the word tantrum because I think this concept of empathy was brought around, introduced to our son because I had a tantrum.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: The adult, the grown-up, the mom had a tantrum.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it was a full-blown, like lay, I'm sure it wasn't a full-blown laying down on the floor, arms flailing, pounding my fists, crying.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: But my guess is that I had, you know, something wasn't going my way during the day, which should have just been able to easily roll off my back.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: But because I was so tired, I probably ended up in tears, as many women do in a sleep-deprived state.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I, and at that point, my son was like, why are you crying?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: What's wrong, mommy?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: And again, he's three and four years old.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: So he's not, he doesn't really know what true empathy is.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I explained at that moment that I'm exhausted and I'm tired.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the reasons I'm exhausted and tired is because we don't get a great night's sleep when you're in mommy and daddy's bed.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it was, it was just a tiptoe, if you will, just a slight introduction to him at such a young age, because they can only process so much, right?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: That his behavior was directly affecting mom and dad's behavior.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: And no kid, even at three and four, wants to see their mom or dad are ups upset and certainly not see their mom crying.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a nice tiptoe into the pool of empathy, if you will, to teach him that that lesson at a young age, because I was the one who had the tantrum.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can relate to that a lot.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: I do, I uh probably have tantrums daily.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be honest with you as a parent.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: I have two toddlers of a one and a four-year-old.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And my four-year-old is a newer divergent child.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going through the rounds of getting her services.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we had an old dog recently, which is passed, but it was like the trifecta of all of those things at once.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then we just moved.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we had a lot of life circumstances, which everyone does listening.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: You we're all going through something and and whatnot.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that that leads me into my next question here.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when it's happening tonight, let's say tonight, someone listening right now, your kid's going through this right now, you're going through the sleep training or the patterns you described where your son would only sleep in your bed, right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you handle that and enforce the growing bed boundary without starting, you know, a screaming match or getting mad at your partner or causing all those cascading issues that that can kind of, or the ripple effect, I should say, that that happens sometimes when we we do have a child that's not sleeping or sleeping in their own bed.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh that's such a personal question in the fact that you you have to do what protects the peace of your family.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure that part of the reason he ended up sleeping in our bed many, many nights for all those years was because my husband and I decided the screaming and the kicking and the crying from either the adults or the kid wasn't worth it in exchange, or it wasn't worth avoiding that more than it was keeping a peaceful environment, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure our son had a serious case of FOMO and didn't want to miss out.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what kids think we as adults do when it's nighttime and they go to bed.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if they think we just party, but if only they knew that's not the case.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's a little bit of it too is how much of the hard stuff are you willing to put up with to get to the reward.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, with sleep training, a lot of a lot of sleep trainers use that cry it out method.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason it works is because you have somebody else doing that and they're not, they're hearing your kid cry, but it's not affecting them the same way it would affect you as the dad or the mom.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's it's such a such a tricky spot.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: You just kind of have to decide how much work you want to put into the end result and how much kind of peace you want to keep with the family.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that that looks different for everybody.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's there's a famous podcaster YouTuber, Cody Sanchez, who always says, choose your hard, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like we have we have hards, right?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Being skinny is hard, being overweight is hard, being rich is hard, being poor is hard, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like in all aspects of it.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like you kind of have to choose your heart.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And like you said, you have to think what matters most in your household, like the bargaining, it's almost like the grief stages, right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Bargaining about, you know, how like what exactly is the thing you can give up, or what what is your non-negotiable?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And for us, our four-year-old still has issues sleeping in her own bed.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we we we got this Spider-Man bed for the floor, and it's like kind of this huge overgrown like futon, essentially.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: But she loves sleeping in it, and she she sleeps on her floor a lot on that bed, and it doesn't like disrupt anyone's sleep.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: But if we let her sleep upstairs, she'll come to up and down the stairs 20 times, wake up her brother who's got one, uh, you know, do stuff she's not supposed to do.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like that's kind of our bargain there.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, at least she's sleeping, you know, at least everyone's like kind of, I mean, it's not exactly what we want, but it works for now.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband was always really good about reminding me that, especially with children, that it's likely to change soon.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: We he never really grew out of the sleeping with us phase until this concept of the growing bag came around.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: But with other little things and behavioral things, kids grow and evolve so quickly that if you just give it three or four weeks, it's it's likely to change.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the bigger issues don't, or some of the bigger issues.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: I've been, I always used to love it when my friends who had really good sleepers were like, oh, Timmy's such a great sleeper.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then we moved houses and then he regressed, you know.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: So even the best of sleepers I hear regress when you move, or maybe there's a new sibling enters the picture, or mom or dad's work schedule changes.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: So again, it's something that even if you haven't had to deal with it before, it could rear its head sometime down the road.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good point too.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: As life events come up, you know, nothing's static in life, everything's always changing.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so I could see how, you know, even if you don't have this issue right now, you could eventually have this issue.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I wouldn't say it's an issue.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: We love our daughter sleeping in our room, to be honest with you.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's great.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: But there are things we have to give up.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: We give up the TV time, we can't watch the shows we want to watch at the end of the day or kind of have intimacy or whatever that we might have if our kid was actually sleeping in their bed.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also one of the sacrifices you have to make.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also like, you know what, if everyone's sleeping at the end of the day, that's the most important thing.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if she's up all night, not sleeping, you know, like her development's being disrupted, that's that's the bigger issue.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like you said, the bargaining phase of just realizing what's the most important thing and going with it and figuring out what works for you and your family because it's gonna be different across the board.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Not everyone, I mean, I'm sure I've had plenty of people who have have heard of my book and went, oh, I would never, how could you, or why would you even think of not letting your kids sleep with you?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: There's a million different ways to parrot, none of which are incorrect.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Just the same way there's a a bunch of different ways to build a house.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: It this is just another tool in our parroting tool belt, if you will.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: One of those books you hope no one will ever need, but chances are either you at some point or someone you know will will need it.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, totally.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a great resource to have.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of those things in the toolkit that, you know, I have my own sleep training books and my own, you know, again, I was doing my research at 3 a.m.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Remember my son and my daughter were both born during the Olympics.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was like, I was like, you know, because it was like that weird year where it got skipped.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then so, anyways, it was just like, I just remember being up, like researching stuff, and it's like it'd be great just to have it before it's an issue because once it's an issue, you're kind of already in it, and you you know, you've gone days, weeks perhaps without kind of tackling it.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so being proactive, I think, is the best thing you can do.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I like to end every uh interview with like a lightning round.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like a quick what what first comes to your mind, and these are a little bit more like maybe spicy kind of okay.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see how it goes.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And these are actually like really good for the shorts, usually gets good, good, good views on it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, question one what is the biggest lie the modern sleep training industry sells to parents?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: That one size fits all, one size doesn't fit all in anything, not in swim cover-ups and not in sleep training.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, one size most definitely doesn't fit all.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Every family is way too unique for that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great answer.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Second one, and this is personal to me because my wife and I see very differently on this.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, however, you answer is gonna be two sided.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, melatonin gummies for children, yay or nay.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yay, in limited situations for flights, great, long car rides, terrific.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Every single night.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I personally wouldn't do it.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: The only two times my son has ever wet the bed were the two nights we gave him melatonin gummies.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because again, I had tried, I had tried everything.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: We had tried everything, and that was one of the things on the long list of things we had tried.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: And they were literally, we did them maybe a month apart.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: The only two times he's ever wet the bed were the nights he took those.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Which could be a coincidence, but I'm guessing it wasn't.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: But for flights, they have obviously different doses of of melatonin.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: So, like if you need to calm a child before a dental appointment or something like that, in the I think in the right situations, which is right to you and your family, a great tool.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: As a as a everyday vitamin, for lack of a better phrase, wasn't the choice our family made.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's that's a fair answer.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's probably how we implement it mostly.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's more of a break emergency if needed kind of thing, like a fire, you know, right, right.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Fire extinguisher.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: But because sometimes, at least before our daughter was sleeping in our room, she would again, she's so hyperactive and she will not calm down.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what we do.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like after school, we have swim, we go to the slide park, she plays outside, she's still not tired, like and and she, you know, she's out daycare all day and it's like she doesn't nap.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, how?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: How you know, like I'm tired just watching you.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean, melatonin has been something we've used in our arsenal, but it's not like like you know, again, doctors are always like, or pediatricians are always like very they definitely look at you weird if you say you you use that.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I yeah, I definitely don't think it's something we do every day, but yeah, I just wanted to get your opinion on that because I think everyone kind of thinks a little bit differently, maybe about their own take on that.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Next question.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is the absolute worst thing a parent can say to a toddler during a middle of the night waking?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh gosh, they what I'm trying to think of some of the terrible things I've said, and fortunately our memories have a wonderful way of erasing what's not worth keeping.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: I just oh gosh.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think making the child feel like they're truly in trouble for not allowing the night to go smoothly would be an awful, an awful thing.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Punish punishing or any kind of verbal abuse in that direction, I think would be just not the best way to handle that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: My daughter says all the time she doesn't know how to sleep.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so, I mean, she's being like real.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, like, I don't know how to go to sleep.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like that's a very interesting perspective.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Honey, you've gone to sleep, you know, 365 times almost five years, you know, how almost over a thousand times.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: How do you what do you mean you don't know how to go to sleep?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like kids almost, it's like it just happens.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's like they don't even know the process of it because she's being legitimately like she doesn't lie to me at all.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: She's very honest.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, I don't that's just something to consider too.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's definitely not their fault if it's something they don't even like know how to do, you know what I mean?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: So just something to consider and ponder as we do get frustrated with the sleep training process, and we all have probably said and done things we regret as parents, of course, of course part of the process.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: We're not, we're not he's sitting up here on a pedestal pretending we're perfect, and I love that.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like the authenticity and the you know genuineness is appreciated on this side of the microphone.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Last question.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if a parent is starting the growing bed protocol tonight, what is the one point of failure they need to brace for on night one?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: That it might not change on night one.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I would be lying if I said it changed a hundred percent in our household overnight.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: It sh it surely didn't.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: But it was there was a market improvement, I would say, within about four to five days.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: The concept really hit home in about four to five days.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then we found a way to make sure he saw, even in four to five days of good sleep, we make found a way to make sure he saw kind of.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Fruits of his labor.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we'd even like tried to source a playground that had like really low monkey bars, for example, just so he would feel like, Oh my gosh, in just this week of sleeping well, I have grown and now I can reach these monkey bars.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a bit again, we were working towards this one goal of his.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of finding out whatever the incentive is for your child.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: And in the book, I'll leave a little bit to be discovered if by reading the book, but it shows you how to turn any bed anywhere into a growing bed, whether that's while bed in a hotel while you're on vacation or a bed at grandma's or in a sleepover.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: So any bed can be turned into a growing bed.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think the biggest failure would be to think it's going to change literally overnight.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: So setting those expectations, I think, is super important because I think sometimes we do want that immediate, like, oh, this on this thing.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: It worked night one, awesome, problem solved.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it does, you know.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: So expect setting our expectations up for it, might not work on night one, but stay consistent with it and see it through and give it an opportunity to work.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like that's kind of the mindset we should have going into this process.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: At least that seems like the most reasonable mindset to have.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing really worth having works initially, right?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have to put a lot of work, a lot of consistency, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get the end result you want.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's applicable to this situation too.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: Rebecca, where can the audience get the book?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little, first of all, tell us a little bit more about the book.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Where can the audience get the book and pull this exact framework into their own house tonight?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: So you can get the book anywhere you buy books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, all those dot com places.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: The best place, in my opinion, of course, to get the book is at thegrowingbed.com.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: If you buy it directly from thegrowingbed.com, then I can sign it to your kid or your kiddos and personalize it, send it to you.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, shipping's still free and all that good stuff, but thegrowingbed.com is, I think, the best way to find it.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'm on Instagram at thegrowingbed.com also.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then if you wanted to incorporate just a little bit of the concept tonight at home, just you know, again, find the pain point your kid is struggling with right now.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe he or she's trying to achieve a new belt and karate or they're trying to earn a goldfish or something, and maybe just tying the concept of the growing bed to whatever you're trying to incentivize them with.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: That could be a great step one.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: I know the viewers will want this book.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Is there any kind of special, you know, offer?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like if people listening to this show can get their hands on the book because I know everybody's gonna want this.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody needs this, like you said.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: If they don't need it now, you probably will, or someone in your immediate circle probably will.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, where can they get this special offer and give us the nitty-gritty on that?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: So I can create or I've created a code at TPT for the parent tap.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: TPT will get your listeners 25% off the book.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, that's great.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's great value for the listeners and the viewers out there.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I appreciate that offer.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I will obviously include all your information in the description.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so everyone can follow you and get the book.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, as you know, I'm sure there's more projects, right, in the works.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: That that kind of seems to be the operating procedure for most authors.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: So get this book and then follow you along for your future projects.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure there's resources and and stuff that you put out there consistently as well.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: So just yeah, well, I'll follow you and and hear, you know, wait to hear more from you.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like even in this 25-minute session here, we've got a lot of value out of this.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Lovely.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me, Ryan.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I hope all of your listeners get a good night's sleep.