My Experience Working With a Sleep Consultant

Bedtime in my house had gotten really, really bad. It had become a multiple-hour-long endeavor leaving all of us frustrated, tired, and emotionally drained. I would spend the afternoon hours filled with dread. This probably sounds like I’m being dramatic, but in all honesty, I had lost all control over bedtime and I had absolutely no idea how to get back into a healthy routine. I had tried sticker charts, toy rewards, and so many different things. Most worked for a time, but eventually, the appeal wore off and stopped working.

My kid was clearly tired but would be up until 9pm, sometimes 10pm, and I was going absolutely bonkers without a second of time to be an autonomous adult post-bedtime, or even simply to tidy up the kitchen and pack lunches for the next day.

My Breaking Point

One night, after a particularly difficult bedtime, I finally reached my breaking point and wrote an email to Emma Jackson, the sleep consultant behind Your Healthy Dreamer. I had seen Emma give a presentation a few months before and was really struck by her explanation of not only what a healthy sleep routine looks like, but also, biologically why. 

She got back to me the following morning and we scheduled a call for that same day. I gave her the rundown of what exactly we were experiencing, and she laid out her packages and how she would support us in each.

We opted for the Ultimate Healthy Dreamer Package because it gave us an additional week of daily support. This gave us ample time to troubleshoot new challenges as they arose while implementing our new routine. This package also included weekend check-ins, if we needed them, and a 1-month follow-up call after the daily check-in period had ended.

Getting Started

Emma had us fill out an intake assessment where we provided lots of background information about our bedtime struggles, as well as about our general family habits and values. When we met with Emma for our 60-minute Zoom consultation, it was clear she had read through our answers in great detail and had really thought about them as she formulated our personalized plan.

The plan that Emma presented to us had absolutely every last detail covered. She created a completely individualized plan for us that incorporated the important biological needs of a 4-year-old, as well as what was important to our family. The part that really blew me away was that she taught us how to present the new routine and expectations to our daughter so that she would understand it and be on board with it. For me, this part was truly invaluable. This allowed me to go into that conversation feeling confident that we could actually make the changes we needed, and that we were doing it as a team, and not as parents against child.

She also taught us how to respond to all of the bedtime delay tactics, every bedtime fear – she has seen it all. She also walked us through the timing of the implementation. We figured out what day and time would make the most sense to sit down and explain the new routine to our daughter so that we could all properly prepare together. It was also important to have a few days in a row where we had pretty much full control over the schedule (no late-night activities), so we could focus on getting into a rhythm. At the end of the call, she emailed us a document that outlined our plan and everything we had talked about so that we could reference it throughout the process. Again, this was very clearly totally customized to our child and our family with notes made specifically about things we had discussed on the call.

Time to Implement

Then it was off to the races. We sat down with our daughter and had the conversation just like we had rehearsed with Emma. She was receptive to our talk and was excited to join us in making sure the whole family got enough good sleep to have enough energy for the next day of activities.

We kept a spreadsheet to track how each bedtime went, and anything we wanted to check back with Emma about. She messaged us every morning to see how the previous night went and to offer tips or guidance based on what we entered in the spreadsheet.

There were bumps in the road, for sure, but we were overall making good progress. The most important piece for us was repetition. We continued to remind our daughter of the new routine and why it is important, just like Emma had taught us, every night for several weeks. By the end of our daily support period, we had really gotten into a groove and our whole house was sleeping better as a result.

Unexpected Changes for the Better

But it wasn’t just my sleep that improved, it changed my life in ways I didn’t expect. Having some time back in the evenings for myself meant I got to catch up on things that needed to be done, and also enjoy some leisure time. Watch a movie with my husband. Do a puzzle – I just love puzzles. I found myself snapping at my kids less often because I was able to actually unwind at the end of the day.

It has now been well over 6 months since we finished working with Emma and my only regret is not having called her sooner. She gave us so many valuable tools that we continue to use on a daily basis, and even as our daughter grows and her routine needs to shift, we now know how to make the needed adjustments. And when we have an occasional off-night, I don’t panic – I just remind myself what we learned and work toward getting back on track.