Baby Sleep!

Andrea:
Today I’m speaking with somebody I have followed for probably eight or nine years now, Nicole Johnson of the Baby Sleep Site. We've never actually met in person or via video, but I am super excited because I have personally used the Baby Sleep Site as my go-to resource for helping my baby sleep.

I am an infant potty training expert. I am not a sleep expert. I actually feel like I stink at it! I feel like it's my biggest nemesis. With two of my five babies, I got a customized sleep plan from the Baby Sleep Site with a consultant available to me by email. They literally saved my life, because I did not know what else to do with a couple of my babies. So, Nicole, welcome to the show.

Nicole:
Thank you very much for having me. I'm so happy to talk with you today. I've been following you for a long time as well, so it's mutual.

Andrea:
Yes, we go way back. We’re both moms doing the entrepreneur thing while raising kids and all that stuff. We have so much to talk about. But we will keep it to just sleep today, though. There are so many gimmicky ideas about baby sleep. There's so much pressure out there. There's so much misinformation. So much, "You have to do it this way or don't do it at all." It runs the gamut, just like with potty training. You've got so much stuff to sift through as a new parent. It can be overwhelming. So today we're going to talk about what Nicole does and how the Baby Sleep Site addresses baby sleep. (They have a rather large Facebook following, www.Facebook.com/BabySleepSite . And you can also find them on Instagram, @BabySleepSite.)

The Baby Sleep Site helps tired parents everywhere with personalized sleep plans, sample schedules, guides, and other resources. They have a free guide, just like I do at Go Diaper Free. Their blog is really extensive. I've always gone through there and searched. Their member's site is awesome. It's kind of like the Go Diaper Free parallel in the baby sleep world. I do EC, Nicole does sleep, and our websites are the place where you can literally go to find out everything you need.

Now, a little bit about Nicole. She's a married mother of two wonderful boys and the lead sleep consultant and owner of the Baby Sleep Site, which she founded in 2008 just two years before I founded Go Diaper Free. This is a little bit from Nicole herself: “Back when my eldest son was a baby, he had a lot of sleep problems. “Sleep like a baby,” yeah, right! You had better hope you never sleep like my baby did. He would wake up every one or two hours all night long. I had to do so much to get him through the night. By thoroughly researching the key literature and the scientific reports, I became an expert in sleep methods, scheduling routines, babies' development needs, and more. I overcame my son's sleeping issues in a way that matched my own parenting style.”

That part is key. She did it the way that matched her parenting style. She finishes with “I knew it was my mission to help other tired parents find their child's sleep.” I just love how everything you do at Baby Sleep Site is so custom to the individual parent. Can you speak a little bit more as to why you decided to go about it that way instead of just teaching everybody what you did for your child?

Nicole:
Yes, absolutely. Early on, I learned just how different all babies are. My first son, he came out almost “allergic” to sleep. He fought it all the time. He’s 16 years old now, and he still thinks sleep is a waste of time, to be honest. But I try to educate him on the importance of sleep for all of us. But back then, once I finally got him sleeping, my youngest came about. He's 14 now. They're about two years apart and he wasn't the best sleeper, either, but he was a better sleeper.

I learned about temperament traits and how all babies are different, from things like how regular they are, to their first reaction to things, etc. When I was reading all of the baby sleep books, they all conflicted. And they had that “do it my way or take the highway” approach.

For me, it was very important that I found something that felt good to me. For example, some of the books said my baby didn't have to eat at night after, (I think) eight weeks old or something like that. To me, that didn't feel right, especially being a breastfeeding mom. Also, I knew my son just couldn't do that. But I knew it could be better than it was, waking up every one to two hours.

Andrea:
With my first child, I was up every one to two hours. I co-slept with him, and he would want to nurse, and then I'd potty him, because that's what we did. He insisted. It was like that for two years. And I was a hot mess at the end of all of that. Waking up every two hours might feel like you're doing the right thing, but are you, really? And is your child really getting enough rest too?

Nicole:
Right. That's exactly right, because you're not getting enough sleep. Your child is not getting enough sleep. The entire family really struggles in that situation. You're a very patient mom to wait two years! I personally started feeling depressed. I was going to bed at seven o'clock at night. I couldn't spend any time with my husband. I started getting really sleep deprived and frustrated.

I've made it my mission to take a holistic approach to sleep. The other thing that's important to note is that there's a lot of sleep consultants out there that focus a lot on sleep training or “sleep coaching” as we call it. But, there is also a lot in schedules and different sleep-impacting things that don’t actually require sleep coaching or sleep training.

We at the Baby Sleep Site really try to look at everything. How much milk does baby need in a 24 hour period, taking into account that every baby is different and every mother/baby pair is unique, as well. My two boys ate very differently. So I learned very early on that you have to have a different approach for different types of babies. Now that I've been a sleep consultant for 14 years, working with thousands of parents, I can draw on my experience of, "Oh, this type of baby needs this kind of approach." That experience lets me fast-track you on the road to a better sleep because you don't have to do all the experimentation that I had to do.

Andrea:
That is awesome. I love that because at Go Diaper Free, I do the same exact thing with EC. It's so flexible, so customizable, as it should be, because every baby's different. Every parent, every mom is different and every family unit is different. I was consulting with someone in Australia, and I had to adapt what I teach to their family’s very unique dietary system. Her baby is pooping seven times a day. This surprised me, but it feels really right to them because they feed a lot of fiber. For me as a consultant, I was challenged to customize what we do for their family. “What I would have said for your baby, I will not. You actually need to do this other thing.”

To everybody listening or watching, know that there is no “one size fits all” for EC. There's no “one size fits all” for sleeping. There's not “one size” for breastfeeding. It would be great if we just lived in a big tribe and we could just know, going into all the things we face, what to do and have lots of moms around us to help us. We don’t live in a big tribe, but that’s where somebody like Nicole definitely comes in.

Nicole:
Yes. I thought of you, too. Maybe a month or two ago, I was working with a family who does EC. You know how some people use the potty at night and some don't? This particular family was trying not to use the potty at night, but their baby just said, “I'm not going in a diaper. I'm sorry.” So, you really have to be flexible and try to respect the baby and what they have adopted as their routine. That was a really interesting case, because that was the first time I’ve encountered that in I think in 14 years. Every time I think I've seen it all, something new happens. But at least, I'm able to help guide parents and set expectations. Sometimes, it's just about expectations as far as, “you can only make your baby do so much.” Sometimes, we have to realize that we're adding the baby into our lifestyle and we can't always expect them to just adapt to ours. It has to be a whole family unit where everybody can thrive.

Andrea:
Yes, it's a team effort, for sure. It's never going to look like what you thought it would look like. And it will never look like what it looked like when you were a child with your parents. You might want to go the direct opposite way, but your child might not.

I feel like something else we have in common is this responsiveness. We see what this child needs and give that child what they need instead of just applying, "Here, this thing will fix everybody." If anybody ever tells you that they can fix everything with the same one sleep training or even potty training method, they're wrong. That's why it's so important you have a community aspect to what you offer at the Baby Sleep Site, as I do with Go Diaper Free. You have coaches. I've got coaches. I feel like there is no way to do this without a community. I appreciate that you provide that, as well.

Nicole:
Yes. We like to say we're an extension of your village or your “virtual village.”

Andrea:
Yes. Exactly. Because so many of us don't have that. We just had a homeschool group this morning - I’ve been hosting it on my property because I have five children and I cannot get anywhere on time with them. It's just impossible. I've given up. So, we are finding our village by creating that.

Anyway, regarding sleep, Nicole has your back. Also, she mentioned she worked with somebody who does EC. So I want to tell you a little quick story. I use the Baby Sleep Site with Branson and Twyla, my fourth and fifth babies. I wish I had known about you with Kiva. I wish I had known that I had a problem. I had postpartum depression with him, probably because I was way over extended.

Nicole:
I can imagine.

Andrea:
I was doing too much. Too much attachment parenting - on steroids. And not taking care of myself. So with Branson, I think he was two weeks old. He might have been seven weeks old. He was very new, very young, and really a joy of a baby. I would try to put him to bed at 7:00 PM and he would not go to sleep. I would spend two, three hours trying to get him to go to sleep, and he would not. So I filled out the form on the Baby Sleep Site. It's very long. I don't know if it still is, but it was a really detailed survey, because it is so custom. There was a question on there, “do you do elimination communication?” And I thought, "Okay. I've been following you for a long time, but I had no idea that you actually knew what elimination communication was."

So, I filled out the survey. I had email support and relied on my consultant pretty heavily. I didn't get you, but I definitelygot somebody amazing. It turns out, I was trying to put my baby to bed too early, and putting him to bed at 9:00 PM actually ended up working perfectly for us. After four kids, you would think that I would know what I was doing. But again, I stink at the sleep part. Now I feel like maybe finally, I'm okay at it. But it doesn’t come naturally to me. Also, I've always felt guilty about letting them cry it out, so I really appreciated how your approach took that into consideration. At Go Diaper Free, we always say, “whatever gives the baby the best sleep and the whole family the best sleep at night” determines whether you should do nighttime EC or not.

Usually, the first four months, we encourage nighttime EC because parents are usually co-sleeping or sleeping close by to baby. Baby's waking up to nurse, anyway, at this age, and pottying usually helps them go back to sleep more easily. Beyond that, when pottying starts to interfere with sleep, it's like a whole other monster. I feel like your and my approach are a good team in being able to address all of that.

I also wanted to highlight how I was at my wits end, unable to get this baby to sleep. I thought I was doing the right thing, too, with the early bedtime.

Nicole:
That's a very common misconception, I guess you could say. When you Google bed times for babies, usually you hear “early bedtime” - 7:00 PM, “between six and eight.” But, that only applies after about anywhere from eight to 12 weeks old. When your baby is younger, we often need to have a later bedtime. So it's not surprising that you struggled with that early bedtime. I'm so sorry you went through that.

Andrea:
Well, I got to the point I said, “Nope, I’m done with this. I'm getting my custom package from the Baby Sleep Site. I don't care how much it costs. I'm going to do this because I cannot sleep. I have three other little ones who also need me. This not sleeping thing is not working for me.”

Nicole:
I always say, I'm a better mom when I'm getting sleep. I can be more patient, more fun, and not fall asleep on the floor of the playroom.

Andrea:
Let's talk about that a little bit. I feel like so many of us moms, we’re “martyrs.” We will give our left arm for our baby, and do whatever it takes to give them everything they need. But that can go a little too far. Talk to us about the importance of the mom’s needs - and the dad’s needs, too. I'm primarily talking about moms right now, because usually, we're the ones getting up with the newborn most of the time. How important is it for us to get good sleep throughout our baby's babyhood?

Nicole:
I would definitely say, it's very important. A lot of moms contact us feeling guilty that they're “complaining” or feeling guilty that they're being “selfish.” In my opinion, it's not a selfish thing to want to care for yourself, as well. We need sleep for breast milk supply and to avoid postpartum depression. Sleep is very crucial for everybody, really, new moms included. Now, of course, new moms are not going to get as much sleep. It's still normal for your newborn to wake up every two hours to eat. As they get older, every three hours. That's already disrupted sleep. If you're waking up even more frequently than that, you're probably really suffering. Even moreso, as we said before, when you have other children to care for. Even if you only have one, getting more sleep means you're going to be able to be a better mom, including being a safer driver.

Sometimes, it could be downright dangerous to drive your baby around when you're very sleep deprived. It's not a selfish thing to want the best for the entire family. When mom is thriving, the entire family thrives. Even though my boys are older now, when I'm sick or something like that, the entire family is a little bit discombobulated. That is even more true when you have a baby and other people depend on you. So, try not to feel like you're doing something that is selfish in any way, because you want what's best for your baby. We all do.

Andrea:
Talk about how important it is for the baby to get really good, deep unbroken sleep. Share how important it is for them to learn how to connect sleep cycles get really nourishing sleep.

Nicole:
Yes. Our growth hormone is released when we sleep. It's very important for human development and growth. Also, many people, babies included, are just irritable when they don’t get enough sleep. So, they're going to be happier if they're getting sleep. Some families we work with have the challenge of a baby who's happy no matter how much sleep they're getting. That can be kind of misleading. You think they're getting enough sleep because they’re happy all the time, but they’re really not getting enough sleep. Now, my son was not like that. He was very irritable when he didn't sleep. So it really gave me even more motivation to teach him how to put sleep cycles together and get unbroken sleep. Otherwise, we were both miserable during the day.

Andrea:
Do you have a word for this? There’s “hangry” when you’re angry and you're hungry. Is there “slangry” for sleep-hungry?

Nicole:
Not that I've heard. Just irritable, sleep deprived.

Andrea:
That’s a thing for me. I am very irritable when I don't get a full night's sleep. Actually, ever since I started having kids, I have not had a single full night sleep because I’m so wake-able. That's how we're supposed to be, right? We get that little increase in anxiety and it never goes away, right?

Nicole:
Oh, absolutely. Especially when my 16 year old's driving now. Oh goodness. I can't even go to bed until he's home safe. So, the worry doesn't go away, even when they go to college, I've heard. We're in it for a long time.

Andrea:
It's permanent, ladies, get used to it.

Nicole:
Yes, exactly. You have five children, I only have two. Some nights now, I'm sleeping straight through. But it took a long time to get there. I would say, at least a decade.

Andrea:
Well we’ve got a kitten, and a rooster, and that stupid thing crows at 4:30 in the morning. I think to myself, “you know, I could have got a whole night's sleep, and now the animals wake me up.”

Nicole:
I know. When my boys were young, if it wasn't one, it was the other.

Andrea:
Right. With five, let me tell you, it's like ping pong or something. Especially if they're passing around illness, it is exhausting. Now, with just one baby and just a mom and a dad, when the baby is not sleeping through the night, oftentimes moms will hear, "Oh, you should sleep train." I feel like that kind of advice falls into the “you should use formula” or “you should potty train this way”.

I want to share something from experience, because this concept of hard-line “sleep training” kept me from helping my first baby sleep. It kept both of us from optimum health because we were both very irritable from not sleeping. I literally would put him down, look in the room and then I'd see his arm flap up. Within seconds, he'd be crying. The kid would not nap without being in the Moby Wrap. It was terrible.

I'd walk two miles every day just to get him to sleep. He’d sleep attached to my breast. It was literally like that for two years. I put up with that, because my conception of “sleep training” was that it was bad and wrong. My sister told me to let her daughter cry it out when I was babysitting one time. I ended up picking up that baby and putting her on my chest and sleeping with her on the couch. I couldn't do cry it out. You’ve mentioned this a lot on your social media. “Sleep training” has a bad reputation as only being a cry-it-out method. Can you tell me what's actually true?

Nicole:
That's a big misconception that I've been fighting for 14 years. A lot of times when people hear “sleep training,” they think, “put the baby down and let them cry, leave the room and don't go back.” That is just one (extreme) method some people use. But at the Baby Sleep Site, we have gentle sleep solutions where we try to support the child just like when they're learning to walk. You hold their hands, you're there for support, but they obviously have to learn how to do it on their own. I always say, it's a journey between two extremes. On one end, they're completely dependent on you to sleep. And on the other end, they're completely independent. Let me tell you, it takes a decade to get to independence. It’s just like when they finally don't need help with brushing their teeth, or going potty. That's a long process and there's a lot in between.

We even help people who want to continue co-sleeping. For example, they’re bed sharing, and a baby's waking up every hour, and they want to continue bed sharing, but they just don't want to wake up every hour. There are so many ways that we can help them learn.

The number one thing to keep in mind: we all have what are called sleep associations. That's essentially what sleep training or sleep coaching: changing your baby's sleep association. For example, I sleep on a mattress, on a pillow with a blanket. If I woke up at two in the morning, and my pillow was gone, I would wake up more fully. I'd look for my pillow. I'd have trouble going back to sleep. I might even wake up my husband and say, "Hey, have you seen my pillow?" Because that's how I associate going to sleep.

Let’s say your baby is suckling at the breast or being rocked or bounced - anything that's very repetitive in nature - to sleep. Then they wake up between sleep cycles - which is very normal, we all wake between sleep cycles, it’s just most of us just go straight into another one. But if baby needs something repeated, like bouncing on a yoga ball, (which we commonly encounter), then that's when they wake up. So sleep coaching would involve teaching your baby to sleep next to you in a bed, or teach them to go to sleep in your arms without bouncing. And from there, a lot of times, we just make baby steps.

We teach them one skill, just like we teach them to eat. You teach them to eat with their fingers. Then you teach them with the fork. You can take baby steps. The pace is really up to you in this spectrum of dependent sleep versus independent. You can gently make very small changes. Sometimes all we do is change the schedule. We don't even do “sleep training.” There is a lot that encompasses teaching healthy sleep habits. I try to make that clear.

I can’t promise no crying. For example, when I was teaching my son that he didn't need to be rocked to sleep the entire time, he complained a little bit about that, but I was with him every step of the way, soothing him, showing him that he doesn't need to be moving at a fast pace in order to sleep. If you ever get to the point where it's outside your comfort zone that he's crying too hard, then you can always stop, slow down, take a step back. That's what our Go Diaper Free coaches work through with parents, teaching them when to push forward, when to go back. The pace is up to you. What I typically say, is it might take anywhere from two to four weeks to achieve your goals. For some people, they take one to three moths. It depends on what your goals are, and how fast you want to get there.

Some people get to a certain point and they say, "You know what? I'm good enough for now. This is great.” They revisit that other thing in a few months. We see this with night weaning, for example. If we get a six month old waking up every two hours to eat and we get them to wake only twice a night, maybe (or maybe not) they can get down to even one feeding. But for a lot of people, its “I'm fine with feeding twice a night”. That is great, because we don’t have a pre-described, “this is what your success looks like.” You tell us when you feel you're in a good spot. That's what's really important to know, so don’t let any sleep consultant tell you, "You're not done yet," if you feel like this is good for your family, ok?

Andrea:
Right. I have over 300 coaches throughout the world that are active and have groups in their areas. The first thing that I train all my coaches to do, is ask the mom what her intuition is saying about the situation. Her intuition is the first place where we have a big resource. If we could just quiet everything down for a moment and have another grown-up to talk to and realize, "You know what? I'm actually feeling like I don't want to be up every two hours. Can I just admit that to you?" Then you can start having a conversation about what actually works for your family. It really does start with the mom - dad’s important, too - because the mom has a very specific role in all of this.

It’s so important to try to carve out some kind of time to follow your intuition and to find out, “what do I really want?” Sometimes, we don't even know what we want because we don't know what's okay or not okay.

Nicole:
Exactly. Exactly.

Andrea:
Back to the cry-it-out kind of stuff, my sister gave me that one example. I thought, "No way am I doing that!" Then I read Bringing Up Bebe, a French parenting book. In it, they talk about “the pause” - just giving it five minutes. Now with an EC signal, I don't give it five minutes because then I've missed a pee or a poop, and that’s not good. But, with something like laying them down in the crib, with my second child, I did just wait five minutes and see what happens. Then, the next day, it was only three minutes. And the next, there was only two minutes. And then it was nothing [until she settled].

After that she was connecting her sleep cycles when she'd wake up in between. This was at several months old. So we weren't needing to nurse as much at all, if at all, at night anymore. When she started to connect those, it was like magic.

This is just an example of having just a little bit more of an open mind of, "Okay, I thought I was going to do it this way, but it's actually not working for me. So how can I adjust and be open to other possibilities?"

Nicole:
Absolutely.

Andrea:
It's almost like planning a home birth and you end up with a cesarean birth.

Nicole:
Right.

Andrea:
You go, "Ah, that's not what I intended, but that's what happened." You have to pivot, right?

Nicole:
Yes, absolutely. That's so true.

Andrea:
Okay, now tell me what you think about nursing to sleep.

Nicole:
Some people will say, "Oh, that's bad." But I don't think it's a bad thing. The thing that I always say, is, "It's not a problem until it's a problem." There are many parents who will nurse to sleep and the baby sleeps through the night. There's no problem. If you're happy, they're happy.

Andrea:
And they stay dry all night, which is unbelievable. It's an anomaly, and if it works, fine.

Nicole:
I always tell people, if you are happy with how things are, don't change something because it might become a problem later.

Andrea:
Or don't make a problem where there's not already one.

Nicole:
Exactly, exactly. Because if you're happy and they're happy and they're sleeping well and everybody's thriving, there's really no reason to change it. I always say, from experience having two boys who have gone through many stages, there's going to be things that change. When they were one, it was so cute when they ran around the house. When they get older, that's not so cute anymore. So we always have to change our parenting and change the rules and different things.

If nursing to sleep works at six months, and then all of a sudden, they're two and it's not working so much, then maybe that's when you change it. But it's not pre-described like, "You should never nurse to sleep,” or “you should never rock to sleep." I loved rocking my boys, actually. If I had been able to rock them to sleep and they slept all night, I would've kept doing it. I loved it.

Andrea:
Can we go back to that again, because I definitely bounced my second one on the ball, and then my ex-husband, he had to bounce her for like, I swear it was hours. She finally get to sleep, and I thought, "This is a little excessive." So you say “no” to that, right? If you're waking up throughout the night and you're bouncing them to sleep?

Nicole:
First of all, if it's taking one to two hours to bounce to sleep, we would look at the schedule first, and make sure that you're doing it at the right time. That's the number one thing.

Andrea:
This is true even with EC, by the way. “You might want to check in with your baby's natural rhythms. This isn't really working.”

Nicole:
Exactly. Exactly. In general, if you're bouncing or rocking your baby for 5 to 10 minutes get them to sleep, and they sleep all night and everybody's happy, [there’s no need to change it]. Sometimes, it’s a personal choice, too. My boys eventually stopped wanting to be rocked.

Andrea:
My three year old just told me she doesn't want to rock anymore. I'm going, "This is terrible."

Nicole:
Yes, I know. See? It will happen. They don't go to college wanting to get rocked to sleep.

Andrea:
Right.

Nicole:
But, if you're rocking to sleep and they wake up every one to two hours, and everyone's suffering, then [you might want to consider changing something]. I still rocked my boys, I just didn't rock them all the way to sleep. So we did it as part of the routine. Then I put them down, and I talked them to sleep the rest of the way.

Andrea:
I love that.

Nicole:
Yes, that's the other thing that some people think sleep training means. It's going to be a cold process, right? “I have to not look at my baby. Put them down and walk out.” We cuddled for a long time. We rocked for a long time. I'm a very touchy feely person. So we still had a really strong bond.

Andrea:
I just want to point out the routine part. You all know how much I stress “the routine” for the potty routine. The routine is almost more important than the act of actually using the toilet. Routine gives the familiarity, repetition and consistency that helps our babies. If we're wishy washy and all over the place, our babies are going to respond the same. Right?

Nicole:
Yes, absolutely. The routine is so important, and it's so bonding for you, as well.

Andrea:
It's so bonding. Yes, EC and your sleep approach both sound very high touch, very complimentary. Which is, well, why I've been dying to talk to you! All right, I have a couple more quick questions and then we're going to wrap up: Yay or nay to baby swing for naps?

Nicole:
Technically, unless it's approved as a sleep device, you're not supposed to use a swing for sleep. A lot of people do. Again, that's the movement part [sleep association]. Sometimes they can unnaturally lengthen a nap that generally wouldn't be three hours. That can mess up the rest of your schedule. Some people use it in a pinch, but generally, I'm a “no” on that.

Andrea:
All right. And how about pacifiers?

Nicole:
Pediatric dentists do have a problem with pacifiers after a certain age. In general, they're supposed to help with SIDS prevention. Now, if it becomes a sleep crutch that needs to be repeated throughout the night, then we try to use it just at bedtime.

Andrea:
“Crutch” like, it falls out and they freak out and wake up?

Nicole:
Yes. There's different variables. Some babies use it to fall asleep. They spit it out and they don't need it the rest of the night. That's okay. Some babies need it in their mouths constantly, like a hundred percent of the time. That's tougher for sleep and we usually have to take it away in that case. Then there's somewhere in between, where they use it to sleep. They might need it replaced once or twice a night. If it's manageable, it's okay.

Andrea:
So if it distracts from the task, we're going to say no. If it helps with the task, we're going to say yes.

Nicole:
Yes. I know. They could be a godsend or not.

Andrea:
That's the same with us. Same with the Potty Tribe.

Nicole:
So, I would look at the specific situation, because there are some babies who have a very strong need to suck. If you take the pacifier away, you can accidentally replace it with breastfeeding or you have a very unhappy baby. Then there are some babies that just don't need to suck that much.

Andrea:
This is where you can go down a rabbit hole looking at Nicole's blog or you can just bite the bullet and just get a plan from the Baby Sleep Site. You still have those Express Plans too, right?

Nicole:
Yes, we do. That's right.

Andrea:
The Express Plans are a less expensive option that you can get quickly, they’re not quite as custom. Then there's the one I got, the Custom Plan. It saved my whole sanity. I didn’t even use all the email follow-ups that came with it because after a couple of sessions, and I said, "Okay, I'm good. I've got this."

Nicole:
When people sign up, they probably think, "Oh, four emails isn't that much." But really, a lot of people only use one or two to help implement a plan. Because we answer for free right after you get the plan, anyway. The other thing is we grow with you. A lot of people might use one or two to implement the plan. Then we don't hear from them for three or four months. Then they go, "Oh, my baby's dropping a nap. Can you help me with my new schedule?" We love doing that.

Andrea:
So, you can do that? You can wait a little while to use the rest of them?

Nicole:
Yes. They're good for about six months.

Andrea:
Oh, that's awesome. I didn't even need that, though. I got to the point where “I’ve unlocked the two things that might have been blocking me, and I'm good to go.” This is also why my book comes with a support forum run by my coaches. I understand that literally one question could be the difference between you giving up or keeping up with EC. It could come down to just a little thing. We need to rely on each other as that community, for sure.

Nicole:
That's right. When somebody is saving their emails, and not asking questions, I want to say, "Don’t do that; let us help you."

Andrea:
Let us help you. Please speak up. Yes. I want to encourage everybody listening and watching to look at the Baby Sleep Site for how often baby should nap, and be awake at various ages. That was one of the biggest things that I had a question about with my newborn. There are various sample schedules there on the site. You can probably find some things to help you today with that.

I'm also an affiliate of Nicole's. This is not why I'm interviewing you, because I was a customer first. If you use my link, then that helps me to keep doing what I do, as well. So if you go through my link (above or godiaperfree.com/babysleepsite) it will take you to her site, and I will give you a virtual high five thank you, I appreciate that. But affiliate is not why I’m doing this. You can use my link or not. I’m doing this because there is no way I could have gotten through a couple of my baby's babyhood without the Baby Sleep Site. I am so wholeheartedly into this that I ran into somebody on the street and it came out they were having trouble with baby sleep, and I go, “It's okay. It's normal. Did you know you don't have to stay stuck? This is okay, you're going to get help. And you're going to be fine."

As a final note, there is a rabbit hole on the internet regarding baby sleep, and I would advise you to stay away from that. The consultants at the Baby Sleep Site work with individual families, one on one, giving specific help based on the parenting styles. So each family can be who they are.

My followers are different. We run against the grain. We are doing something that is totally radical, yet totally natural and ancient. This is so similar to what you're doing. It’s very intuitive and personal and something that we want to really protect and not let the mainstream influence. We want to have that bond protected with our babies, so we can parent the way that we want to in a way that we feel is right.

Definitely, I encourage all of you to go and visit Nicole’s site. Nicole, do you have anything else that you're offering or anywhere else we can find you?

Nicole:
I think you covered it all. We just love to work with families. I find it very rewarding when I get the emails saying, "You saved my marriage," because I know husbands sometimes get tired of hearing about sleep and that kind of thing. I know mine did. So, I just love doing what I do. I love talking to new moms all the time.

I would like to go back to one thing that you touched on earlier. We make it a big point to educate moms on why we're recommending what we're doing so that they can move forward on their own, as well. I love giving new moms confidence. Because sometimes, they kind of have a gut feel, I can even hear it when I'm doing a free 15 minute evaluation. Sometimes I tell people, "You know what, this is pretty good." And I wouldn't change it just because what they hear on the internet doesn’t match what they're doing.

Andrea:
They feel like they need to change and be like everybody else. I hear that, too. "What do I need to be doing right now?" I'm say, "Nothing. You're doing great."

Nicole:
Yes, exactly. I love talking to new moms and helping them have that confidence of being a new mom.

Andrea:
I tell you what, when you have sleep in the bag, you have so much stability in your family. I really appreciate all that you do. Oh, I just want to mention that, when you take the survey on the Baby Sleep Site, you can choose, “I want all the details” or “I don't want any details. Just give me the plan. Just tell me what to do.” So, if you're at your limit and you're going, "I cannot read another thing on this topic or I will throw up," you can select to which extent you want to be bombarded with information or not.

Nicole:
That's right.

Andrea:
That’s awesome, because I'm “go, go, go” and don't have time for a lot.

Nicole:
Right. That's right.

Andrea:
Okay. Guys, you can find the links in the show notes at godiaperfree.com/202. Thank you for listening or watching all the way through the end. I hope you've got some amazing things to think on. Even just a little bit more confidence and courage to just say, "Hey, I need help with this." Or, "Wow. What we're doing is actually great. And I feel better just having heard this conversation." Nicole, thank you so much for joining me.

Nicole:
Well, thank you so much for having me. This was really fun. Thank you.

Andrea:
I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Nicole:
Yes, you too. Good bye.

Andrea:
Please let me know, what piece of sleep insight has encouraged you most today? Go over to the show notes at godiaperfree.com/202 and leave us your comment there. I look forward to discussing with you, there!

Thanks so much for listening. This is the Go Diaper Free Podcast at godiaperfree.com. We'll see you next time.