Speaker 1: 0:37

Welcome back to Speak Out Standout. I'm Elizabeth Green, and today's guest is Maisie Rattan Maybe. Maisie is a family sleep specialist and parenting coach. She helps parents navigate those dreadful sleepless nights and challenging bedtimes using a combination of sleep science and parenting strategies. So I'm super excited to hear the answers that I wish I would have had many years ago when mine were littles. But unlike most sleep coaches, maisie specializes in working with the kids beyond like ages two and beyond the baby years. So she's very experienced in this as well, because she has twins herself, so understands the family dynamic of bedtime routines and sometimes the challenges it poses. So, maisie, thanks so much for being here. We're really excited to check out with you.

Speaker 2: 1:24

Thanks for having me. I'm excited too.

Speaker 1: 1:27

So, very quickly, I gave you a rough like background of what you do. But how did you find that this was your calling? This is the thing that speaks to you in the way that you can help families. What happened to lead you there?

Speaker 2: 1:43

Yeah, I have no idea. If you would have said, maisie, you're gonna be a sleep coach, I would have been like, huh, I'm not a sleep coach, right. But it all started when I was pregnant, because I have twins and I was on an early kind of bed rest because there were some complications, but I was restless and so going out to the mall and things and I was huge, and so everybody was always like, oh, my goodness, you're never gonna sleep again. I was like people are so unkind, like I'd go home and cry, like I was so scared because people were like, oh, I used to want twins until I had kids, and now there's no way. Or my cousin's, auntie's sister, so-and-so, has twins and it's really hard. Like, yeah, I mean, people said nice things too, but I got scared. So I just read a lot about sleep, parenting, pregnancy, birth, all the things. And then my twins they slept, okay, not amazing, but they slept like babies and pretty good. And it wasn't really until I wanted to go back to work that I realized I didn't wanna go back to work.

Speaker 2: 2:43

I'm a nurse. I was a nurse and was kind of just throwing around ideas and a friend suggested it and so I kind of became a sleep coach and that kind of just that's where the obsession started was just like, oh, this is really interesting. It fit really closely with what I did before. I used to work really closely with adults and youth with disabilities and mental health challenges and none of them slept well, so it was very hand in hand and I was like, yeah, this is good.

Speaker 2: 3:13

And then my kids got older and everything got harder and I was like, okay, maybe I don't know as much as I thought I did, like this is hard. And that's where my parenting certification came in and that's really where I decided to specialize in kids, because there are so many families with you know four or five, you know eight, 10 year olds that have these sleep challenges and nobody talks about them. Everybody's just like, oh yeah, baby years is hard, you know. Then you got like kind of the no phase in the toddler years, but the impression is, is that sleep is easy after that? And for a lot of people it's not, and so that's how I got here in a roundabout way over the last five, six years.

Speaker 1: 3:59

But it's so true. I feel like when people talk about having an infant, they're like you're not gonna be able to sleep or sleep when the baby sleeps, whatever. And infants, if there aren't any complications, sleep pretty darn good. I mean, they're awake several hours, you know, like consistently, but they can be kind of solid sleepers and it's interesting that that is the point, like you said, that everybody focuses on whenever the challenges in my family definitely arose when we got a little bit older, and so I'm excited to talk with you about this.

Speaker 1: 4:33

It is, I feel, like there's varying advice and it's like one extreme or the other as of how we deal with sleep issues with our kids, and I look back at the way some of the things that we tried with my oldest when we were going through this and regret so much some of the things that we tried. So I am really excited to have you and I'm sure this is gonna be helpful for many people listening. So let's just start with you know what is your number one, like go to raise strategy, whatever. When somebody says my kid won't go to bed. They just won't go to bed and go to sleep, and I know this is like that's a very broad question with many answers, but like how do you start this, how do you start evaluating what is the issue and how can we help support them?

Speaker 2: 5:18

Oh, that's a tricky one. It is a loaded question because there's like a million different reasons why a kid might not go to sleep. But you know, the first thing that I would be really wanting them to recognize is that sleep is a biological process. You know like it will happen eventually. Right, it's like breathing. You know your heart rates. There will become a point where your child physically cannot stay awake any longer. So when you say won't sleep or can't sleep, you know the physical piece, you know there's so much is there. But there's a simple mental piece and the whole relationship piece and the confidence piece is where it really really gets tricky, I find. And so I would say you know what? I would want to know why, what is their instinct as to why? Often families have an idea Well, I think it's because this sometimes not. But that would be my first thing is to look at if we could figure out the why. Why are they having troubles with sleeping?

Speaker 1: 6:22

And what do you find is the most kind of common thread for that of what we might be thinking?

Speaker 2: 6:31

Maybe this is the why in our house, yeah, I would say the most common reason is relationship or connection based, where we are just not super bonded with our kids.

Speaker 2: 6:46

That day, not super connected We've been busy working or busy doing cooking and running back and forth to after school activities or whatever the thing is where we haven't spent enough time actually face to face in a conversation with our child and that impacts sleep in so many different ways, because they need us for offloading all of their emotions from the day, for problem solving anything that happened and even just to feel kind of just regulated and calm.

Speaker 2: 7:19

They rely so much on us and the routines, and so that's the biggest thing that I would say, particularly in toddlers and preschoolers but don't write it off. If you have an older child, like this can absolutely be a thing where they're delaying with things like oh, I'm not tired, I want another story, can I stay up a little bit longer and watch TV, can I this? Or I need some water. Can you come talk to me again? You know all of these different things is is often related to this connection where they're they're seeking you because their love tank is empty, essentially not that they're consciously thinking. You know, I don't feel love today, like. That's not what I'm saying, but you know, we are a like a community species, where meant to be surrounded by each other, and sometimes we don't get enough of that today.

Speaker 1: 8:10

I think that that makes perfect sense. That's the first time I've ever heard that, or it considered that thought, but it, you know, I feel like I have trouble going to sleep. If I am, you know, maybe irritated at my husband for something you know, or a co worker, or something like that, it bothers my sleep. Why wouldn't it impact our kids too? Yeah, so I think that's it makes perfect sense, but that's brand new information to me.

Speaker 2: 8:34

Oh yeah, it's, it's something that people don't think about. People will talk about it in different ways. They'll say that your child is attention seeking, that they need stronger boundaries, that they are just you know they're they're trying to push the boundaries to be able to stay up later and, to, you know, have more control, and things like that. And that is a, I would say, the predominant viewpoint in society and in our modern society, that that is what's happening.

Speaker 2: 9:06

I argue that it's, yes, their attention seeking, if you want to call it that, but it's not manipulative or of mal intent. It's that there's a reason that they are not relaxing and to sleep and that they're holding on to the day and holding on to you for some sort of reason that they need solved and it's not just to be a pain in the ass, for lack of a better word. Right, right, it's so easy to want to like, just feel it as being intentional, especially when you're tired at the end of the day and you're like, just go to sleep. I just, I'm tired, just please, just go to sleep. It's, it's. It's hard to see through the underlying root of what it could be and see your child through those empathetic eyes when you're frustrated.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Right, and tired too. Right, we go to bed as well, yeah, so what? What do you say then? Like, how do we handle this worry in that moment and, like you just said, we just want them to go to sleep. We have, like, a kitchen to clean before we can go to bed, or whatever lunch is to pack, and it's not always easy to be super patient in those moments, but it's so important that we are. What are your tips and strategies that you say this is the way to best handle and communicate with your child about the situation.

Speaker 2: 10:23

Okay. So, even though you want them to do bedtime, you want them to go to bed, you, you, you don't either. Getting older, you want them to be doing things more independently. Don't be afraid to backtrack and do things together. And there's this obsession with independence. Like, you can get dressed and brush your teeth by yourself, go get dressed and brush your teeth by yourself. You can read yourself. You can read now, go read yourself a story. You know that kind of thing. Bring yourself into the bedtime routine.

Speaker 2: 10:52

Our kids learn to be confident. They learn healthy associations with sleep by having repeated interactions with us doing that. And so if your child is, you know, expressing fears, not wanting you to leave after the tuck, in all of these different things, they need that confidence built up and they build that through us. And so I would say to, even if they can do things themselves, don't be afraid to, to bring yourself back in and treat them like your little baby again. And, yeah, it really can help blossom the independence. Like independence comes from supported dependence, and that's what I think a lot of families go wrong with when it comes to bedtime. They're just like push kids to do it themselves, all right, goodnight Bye, and it's just too much. We support them with so many other things more than we do with sleep. We kind of fast track the sleep development. I find Mm hmm.

Speaker 1: 11:59

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And so if you're talking about the process of going to bed, is it? I'm assuming it's good to have a routine, right, so they know exactly what to expect each night and talk them through that routine.

Speaker 2: 12:17

Yeah, I mean, that depends on the age of the child. I think, you know, routines are helpful. We don't want them to be so rigid that it's just boring. And if it's too rigid and it's not working, then you're just like repeating Dread every night, right? Like the definition of sanity is doing the same thing over and over, right, and expecting different results. So routines are good when they're working. If they're not working, don't be afraid to kind of change things up a little bit. But yeah, you know, I think that ultimately there's no right or wrong with the bedtime routine.

Speaker 2: 12:50

People obsess over the bedtime routine. Oh, I've got to do my books, I've got to do my stories. It's oh, it's eight o'clock. You better be doing this, right? That's important. You know our kids need to brush our teeth, they need to go pee before going to bed. You know, like things like this, they have to happen.

Speaker 2: 13:05

But the biggest thing is that is that connection that I mentioned and allowing kids to offload during the day. And so, you know, giving them a chance, especially with, like bedtime stories, for example, even if they can read themselves, doesn't mean you have to read them a book. But, you know, come in during that time when their guard has been let down, when they're relaxed and allow them to talk to you, that you'd be surprised. That is the number one time when kids will open up to you is at bedtime. And if that's a time when you emotionally can't handle it because a lot of parents just can't, they're too tired to like, oh God, not now, and then the kid you know they feel, they feel like we're closed off, then build that into your routine earlier on in the evening or after school or something like that. But your child needs to offload with you before bedtime, or at least it helps if they can.

Speaker 2: 14:00

So, yeah, that's what I would say is that is like the must to include in the bedtime routine is some sort of element of connection. Maybe you give them a massage and you chat during that. Maybe you tell them something from your childhood that you remember that reflected on something that was today. You know it's the conversational piece, right, it's really is huge the bonding that you have together when you're talking and snuggling or reading stories or whatever you're doing. It boosts oxytocin, which enhances your connection. It lets your guard down. It lets their guard down, helps them fall into sleep easier, and there's so much research on the importance of stories at bedtime, particularly with younger kids, in helping with language development and helping with routines and all of these things into the into the later years.

Speaker 1: 14:54

Yeah, I think it's so interesting to what you just said about that. Kids are most likely to open up to you at that point. I'd never had heard that as a fact, but it is definitely in my house and I see that with my 14-year-old. He still likes for me to scratch his back at night and that's when he'll tell me things about the day or things that are bothering him or whatever, and sometimes it can be like I'm just really tired, I'm not ready to have a conversation like this with you, but then trying to reset and be like this is so important that he is having this conversation with me.

Speaker 1: 15:32

Even though it's not the ideal time for me, it's the ideal time for him. So we want to make them obviously feel loved and connected, and not just that it's a rigid brush your teeth. Read one story kiss you good night. That's it, that it's a time for them to feel safe, to feel loved, and all of that. What do you say about the kiddos that wake up in the middle of the night and come in and say you know, mom, I can't sleep. I'm going to get in bed with you. Mom, will you come scratch my back or whatever, when we are probably at our lowest point of being able to handle it and communicate in an empathetic way? What do we do with those situations? Because this is normal, everybody deals with it, right, everybody has a kid that will do this at some point. So how?

Speaker 2: 16:14

do we handle it? It is normal for kids to continue making up, you know, once a night, a couple times a week, ongoing really. Eventually it slowly decreases, you know, over time and you know, instead of happening every day, it's you know a couple times a week kind of thing, or a couple times a month. But yeah, absolutely, it's super normal and I would say it's really dependent on, again, the why. I know that's kind of like it feels like a cop out answer, but it does. You know, if your child is scared or anxious, your response is going to be different than if they can't sleep. You know, if they're having trouble sleeping, then we're going to want to look at, you know, things like their circadian rhythm and their sleep schedule and what time they're waking up, and whereas, if they're scared, then we're going to be looking into like helping them feel grounded and calm right. So there's so many, so many different things. I would say that the number you know what the number one thing for this. I'm going to take that back. That stuff's good, but the number one is screens. The screens, yes, I'm going to say no screens before bed, and I'm sure anybody listening to this is like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, we know this and it's. It's hard to wear a screen era, it's hard to turn the phone off, the games off, the computer, off the TV, all of these different things. We know this.

Speaker 2: 17:34

But what a lot of people don't know is why and so we know it impacts melatonin. Most people realize this, but the the downfall of this is that it can lead to nightwakes. So what happens is your kids are tired. They've been awake all day, they've had a busy day at daycare or school or whatever, playing, whatever they're doing so they fall asleep because they are tired. But if they've watched TV your screens right up till bedtime, there's going to be a delay in their melatonin, so that melatonin doesn't get released until it has some dimness If we're thinking evolutionary days, like the sun's gone down, it's signaling melatonin, so that delays it from being released for a couple of hours. So what happens then is that there's less in your system. So once your initial tiredness wears off from being just super tired from the day, it's like you've had a nap kind of thing. You can wake up because your pressure to go to sleep is gone and you might not have enough melatonin in your body. So it can lead to night wakes. It can also lead to restless sleep not as good as quality of sleep, and so it can really just impact the quality of your sleep.

Speaker 2: 18:52

And so I just wanted to mention that, because so many families will say well, my kid falls asleep, just fine, I don't need to worry about the screen, they're quiet, they're out of my hair. A lot of kids fall asleep to the TV, and that is one of the things that has been shown in the research to be one of the worst things that you can do for sleep, and I say that like apprehensively, because I know a lot of families have TVs in their kids room. It's nice for them to have some space out of your hair. But yeah, watching TV at bedtime or while you're sleeping has been associated with insomnia and other not so great factors into adulthood and that. So something worth thinking about setting that boundary if you currently are doing that with your child.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Yeah, yeah, and I'm the same as you have thought well, they go to sleep just fine, not thinking about how that would impact them hours later. Right, that's not on the radar. So thank you for explaining the reasons why behind that. That is so important for us to remember. Yeah, well, how do we know when it's just you know our child is just growing and you know they're not always going to have a good night's sleep Some nights are going to be better than others or when it's maybe something more that we really should, you know, bring somebody in, like an expert, like you, to talk about what is going on and how can we make this, you know, better. Better for them, because we know how important sleep is for them and for us. Obviously we have to have it. We, you know, can't live without it. Yeah, so when do we think this is beyond just the norm? Maybe we need some assistance.

Speaker 2: 20:33

I would say follow your gut. Really. Anytime you're worried or feeling stressed is worth reaching out. I mean because ultimately your kids could be, it could be normal. But if you're not coping, then something's wrong. Right that we need to, that what is worth improving? Right.

Speaker 2: 20:52

And so everybody's lives and situations are so different. Some people can handle a child waking up overnight because they fall asleep instantly and it doesn't really matter. Other, you know parents, they get woken up and they're awake for two hours and you know the child falls asleep quick again, but parent hasn't. So then that's a problem, right. So I would say, if it's taking your child a long time to fall asleep, so if it's taking them, you know, more than you know 20 minutes or half an hour to fall asleep at bedtime, if the bedtime routine is taking more than like a half an hour or an hour, and if they're waking up, you know, pretty regularly one or more times a night after the age of, say, you know, five, then I would say there's most likely something that can be done to improve things. So in the normal I find there's always room to make things smoother.

Speaker 1: 21:45

Yeah, so what would be one of my last Christians for you is what do you what? What do you suggest that we? How do we communicate this with kids? Because they only have, you know, they don't understand necessarily why sleep is so important, and I think about, like you know, the age old thing of when you can't go to sleep, counting sheep, which has never worked for me. Do you have any like strategies, though, or things like that, that we could, you know, explain to our children that might help them relax and calm down and actually be able to sleep, and whenever they're struggling, yeah, it's, it's hard.

Speaker 2: 22:23

And the younger the child, the harder it is to rationalize and teach them. And then also, the older the child, the harder it is to rationalize and teach them. So you have to like magic sweet spot around like age six or seven where they might listen to you. But the biggest way is by modeling, is by modeling and living and practicing what you're teaching. You know, don't stay up late and watch TV after your kids go to bed, because that's a little bit hypocritical, right? You know things like this.

Speaker 2: 22:52

So, modeling and having having strong boundaries maybe everybody in the family puts their phone into a basket overnight, or maybe the, the router and the modem get turned off at night. You know you can get little timers for them and have it turn off. So there's no counting Netflix without the internet, right? So, yeah, it's, it's hard. You can tell them that they're going to be cranky the next day. But other than letting them have that lived experience which they probably won't really care, or connect the dots, there's not a whole lot that you can do. You can create self awareness by thinking oh, you're so tired, look at your sleepy, look at you've got droopy eyes, you're yawning and try and help them connect the dots between how their body feels and but yeah, that's a million dollar question. It really is.

Speaker 1: 23:43

Because we still haven't found out what works for adults either right Exactly.

Speaker 2: 23:50

Like what adult doesn't fight their sleepy signs because they're watching something good on TV or reading the last few pages in a book or cause they just need some downtime after the kids went to bed? Right? Like again, that's that modeling piece, right? If we don't listen to our own bodies and respect the need for sleep, how can we expect our kids to? So that modeling piece really is important.

Speaker 1: 24:13

Yeah makes sense. Well, maisie, this was really informational and very helpful. Do you have any last tips or strategies or anything that you want to share? And then, of course, you know, people can contact you, they can work with you directly, but anything else that we didn't cover that you'd like to add.

Speaker 2: 24:30

My last tip is to just be recognized how much your child sleep, how much sleep your child needs, because that's another thing that I would say that most families that I see have wrong is that they're expecting their child to need more sleep than they actually are, and so if they're needing less sleep than you're expecting, what's going to happen is they're going to well, they're going to wake up early, they're going to have a hard time falling asleep or they're going to wake up in the middle of the night, right, like?

Speaker 2: 24:59

Ultimately, we can't make their bodies sleep. If their bodies are going to sleep, there's a big range of what's normal in terms of the hours of sleep, depending on the age, and you can look that up on Google. But that doesn't mean that your child is going to necessarily sleep the exact same every night. There's an average that fluctuates. It depends on how busy you are. If you've had a lazy day, they're probably going to sleep a bit less than if they had a really busy day, and so really just getting an idea of what that is and then timing it, from what time they need to go to school in the morning or what time you need to get out of the house and then count backwards, because there's so many families. They put their kids to bed too early because society tells us kids need to be in bed at seven or eight and they just they can't fall asleep and so they're not tired. So that's my last tip.

Speaker 2: 25:48

I would say so we're creating a battle that maybe wouldn't have been there otherwise we're tired, yet we want them to go to bed, because good parents have their kids to bed early and all of those lovely beliefs that are out there.

Speaker 1: 26:03

And it's so situational, right, it is so situational, it is yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:06

Yeah, some kids need their early bedtime, so this is very individual, right.

Speaker 1: 26:12

Yeah, for sure. Well, maisie, this was great, and so you do offer individualized coaching and things like that, right, and we'll make sure we link to everything in the show notes, but if you want to just tell us quickly, too, a little bit about some of these things, I need more help with this. What does that look like with you?

Speaker 2: 26:29

Yeah, I do individual coaching with families. Even if you just have like a quick written question, we can book an hour and can help you out, or we can work together longer and solve some bigger challenges. And then I have a group program as well that I run. That's for families between the ages of six and eight generally and that is really focusing on bedtime battles and supporting and nurturing independent sleep for kids. That just can't hold on and bedtime stressful and generally they're crawling into parents' beds and waking up overnight and it's usually a big hodgepodge of all the things that can go wrong going wrong, but sometimes it's just that bedtime stressful.

Speaker 2: 27:16

So that's me, that's primarily what I do. And, yeah, I hang out on Instagram a lot and so if you have any questions you can DM me on Instagram. I've got lots of little freebie videos on Instagram that you can check out that give you some more quick tips, kind of similar to what we've talked about today. I'm really big on just normalizing and helping families understand the real things about sleep that are important, rather than just what kind of just gets regurgitated over and over and over in blogs and on Google because it's not helpful. What you see on Google is not helpful.

Speaker 1: 27:56

So, yeah, well, that's awesome. So, again, we'll link to everything. So if you're listening, you can click on the show notes to be able to connect with Maisie in one of those ways. Again, appreciate your time and your insight. Thanks so much for being here.

Speaker 2: 28:10

Thank you so much for having me.