Sleep Training for Trauma-Impacted Children

Discussing nighttime challenges for kids

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Why is it that the moment the lights go out, the biological alarm goes off? In the second cradle, bedtime isn't just a routine. It's often a battlefield of abandonment, anxiety, and night terrors. Well, today we're joined by sleep expert Allison Ajiti to discuss how to stabilize the nighttime environment. We're auditing the YouTube babysitter, decoding the circadian rhythm of trauma, and learning why boring is actually your greatest leadership tool. Welcome to Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Nurturing Through Adversity. In this podcast, we will delve deep into the challenges and triumphs of grandparents raising grandchildren. As we navigate the complexities of legal, financial, and emotional support, I invite you to join us on a journey of exploring thoughts, feelings, and beliefs surrounding this growing segment of our society. Drawing from real stories and expert advice, we will explore the nuances of child rearing for children who have experienced trauma and offer valuable resources to guide you through the intricate journey of kinship care. We'll discuss how we can change the course of history by rewriting our grandchildren's future, all within a supportive community that understands the unique joys and struggles. This podcast was made especially for you. Welcome to a community where your voice is heard, your experiences are valued, and your journey is honored. I'll admit it, I've used YouTube as a nighttime babysitter. When you're an exhausted grandmother raising a six-year-old and a ten-year-old, you reach for whatever tool stops the crying. But lately, the quick fix of the tablet has turned into a survival mode nightmare for my grandson. His mind gets sucked into these digital worlds and he can't find his way out when the lights go off. I realized I was afraid to change the rules because I didn't think I had the energy for the blowback. But as a CEO, I know that you can't build a stable mission on a crumbling foundation. This conversation with Allison reminded me that my job isn't to avoid the tantrum, it's to reimprint their brains with the safety of a solid night's rest. Welcome, Allison. It's nice to have you back on the show.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Yeah, so nice to be here.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

In episode 32, we've talked about the basic mechanics of sleep. And this time I wanted to talk to you a little bit about some of the issues that many of us kinship caregivers are experiencing with children that have had issues with trauma. And of course, all of it comes out in the sleep. You come from a high-achieving background where you're used to solving complex problems, yet a toddler's sleep nearly broke you. And in our grandmother's community, we're often dealing with children with night terrors, abandonment anxiety, and a biological alarm that goes off the second the lights go out. Why is it that bedtime feels like a battle for these families?

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Sleep is not something that we all are getting a lot of education on, which is why it really stumped me with my typical child. And I think if you just take whether it's a typical child or a child who's been through trauma, or you or me, when you're tired and you're at the end of the day, anything that we're prone to is going to start to rear its ugly head. So whether it's natural anxiety, it's being arnery, it's trauma, the more tired you are, those things start to creep in. So when you think about bedtime, that's part of the reason it's a very commonplace for parents to start to feel friction.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

When we're tired and exhausted, I just don't cope with the kids as well as I should.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Absolutely. I think all parents can relate to that.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

I'm relying on techniques that were used when my kids were young, and it doesn't quite work the same. Plus, I'm a different person. I'm older, um, I'm less flexible. My granddaughter was sleeping with the lights on, music playing at full blast, and she could still go to sleep, but I knew she couldn't be getting solid sleep. You suggested that we use a red light in the room. That's worked excellently.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

We're turning down the music, but we've kept that on. She has coped with the adjustment much less smoothly than my grandson, who's much younger. Now, Tommy is having some trauma that's coming back. As he feels more safe, some of the trauma and memories are coming back to him. So I've struggled, and my husband and I have had disagreements about him coming back into our room to sleep, which is what he's been wanting to do. I've been a little lenient about it, but I realize that I need to readdress what the parameters are coming to our room at night to sleep. And my daughter slept with me until she was almost seven years old, I'm embarrassed to say. But it worked for us. And I want to know what I should do now that my six-year-old is wanting to come into our room to sleep because he's going through some of these night

Addressing bad dreams in kids

SPEAKER_00 6:16

terrors.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yeah. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is what can we do to help him possibly not have as many bad dreams? And bad dreams can obviously be triggered by trauma. But the first thing that comes to mind is is it possible he's also watching something? He's probably prone to having bad dreams because of his history and potentially because of his genetics. And that may mean that he is more easily triggered. So he's at an age where he probably has interest in reading different books and watching different shows and watching different movies. And sometimes it can be something that's very benign to you or me that is triggering to him. So I'm completely making this up because I know nothing about his specific details. But if he's watching something that has even humorous violence in it and he has some history of being exposed to violence, it may be very triggering to his internal system. And that's playing itself out at night. So one thing, whenever any children are having bad dreams, is I say, just take inventory of what they're being exposed to. Obviously, kids go to school, we can't micromanage everything, but sometimes I'll say or have a parent say to a child, hey, I've noticed you've been having more bad dreams lately. We're gonna take a break from shows. Sometimes we'll just take a little hiatus. I realize this can sometimes feel like punishment to the caretaker because sometimes the shows are our kind of babysitter momentarily. But you can take a one or two week hiatus and just see, do you notice any improvement in the dreams? We just want to get curious about that.

Addressing bad dreams with sleep adjustments

SPEAKER_02 7:56

And then another thing that can help, whether it's a show or not, and it's just kind of history coming forward as he's feeling more secure at home, would be trying an earlier bedtime. So one of the best ways to avoid bad dreams is to fall into a high quality sleep out of the gate and to not be in an overtired state. So if we just take me, for example, I grew up with bad dreams all throughout my childhood, not because of trauma, but just I was prone to them. And I cured my own nightmares as an adult after becoming a sleep coach by realizing I need to go to sleep earlier. When I as soon as my bad dreams flare up, I always know, like, you gotta go to bed early, Allison. You gotta really get yourself in bed by nine o'clock. And I can kind of reset my system. So whenever a child has bad dreams flare up, I always say one thing we can start to do after we take inventory of any potential triggers to them is to try to put them to bed a little bit earlier. And with a six-year-old, I would say, we're gonna do a little experiment. I learned that sometimes getting more sleep is one of the best ways to help someone not have bad dreams. So we're gonna work on trying to help you get a little more sleep and we're gonna see if it helps. And so testing out some of these things, it may naturally help him. But as it relates to coming into your room, you can always have some sort of structure in place. So I don't know what your current structure is, but you could say something like, if you have a bad dream, you can come into our room and what? Is it we'll take you back to bed and rub your back? Is it you can sleep on this mattress on the floor in our room? That's gonna be very dependent on what you think your child needs, but having a clear structure also helps with general kind of nighttime anxiety of knowing what they should do if they're having a problem, and then what they can expect from their caretaker in return. That helps with that whole process.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Well, as you talk about this, one of my issues, and I think it's my own issue, is that I think that there has to be a general rule. I notice that it's more a problem for me than it is for the kids when I change the rules. So I know that because we're having some sleep issues right now, I'm hesitant about saying, we're gonna try a new thing. We're gonna try going to bed without watching YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

You are not alone with letting children watch YouTube. It's all the rage.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Well, it was it was a babysitter when we first got them, but now it's not working. Now we know they're stabilized and it's too much stimulation at night. So what we started implementing yesterday actually was that they have a little software program called Splash Learn. And they like it, it's entertaining as well as educational, and it worked really well yesterday when we started using it. It helps them uh just get into the sleep mode, but it's boring to them. So they fall asleep quickly. It's entertaining, which they need because they're a little fearful of going to sleep at night and they go to sleep quickly, so it worked super well.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

And uh Tommy was excited to go to sleep, so we didn't take their tablets away completely. I was nervous about implementing it, but the kids seemed to accept it pretty well. So I think it's me that's more afraid of changing the rules when we need to. And what I hear you saying is don't be afraid to do that.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Well, I think we can all relate to that if we just take the screen example specifically. I knew that my oldest daughter, when she was in early elementary school, was struggling with the screens. She's also my child who is very drawn to the screens. So one of my children likes screens, what child doesn't, but she can easily kind of take it or leave it, or she'll get bored of it. My other daughter, if you gave her a screen and let her take it to her room, she could literally stay up all night and just be glued to the screen. And we were having

Struggles with screens and transitions

SPEAKER_02 12:13

a lot of struggles once she was in elementary school with her transitioning and her behavior, and she's also my child who's prone to bad dreams. And so, in my heart of hearts, I knew I need to get rid of screens, but I put it off probably for months because I was scared to make the transition. I now don't recall what the breaking point was, but maybe we had such a disastrous evening at some point that I said, that's it. I'm taking two weeks off. I'm gonna commit to two weeks and then I'm gonna reevaluate. And I did. I said, We're gonna do no screens during the week, during the school week. If it's a school day, we are gonna do no screens. And I was terrified personally to do this. And I think I got three days of significant blowback, like tantrums, you're so mean, all the things. And then it that was it. It was like three painful days, and we never brought it back for years during the school week. We just didn't have screens. And to your point, I put it off, I dreaded it. And then after three days of discomfort, it was better for all of us. And they stopped asking, they just kind of fell into a routine. So I think it's very normal sometimes for us to have angst around parental chains, particularly if you have children who have big feelings. They are children not afraid to express their big feelings, and one of my children very much falls into that camp. And so I have to mentally prepare myself when I know I'm doing something that's gonna get a big response.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yeah. Well, I'm really glad I brought that up because I do think that's a big fear for it sounds like for all parents now that tablets are all the rage. But I I was surprised to see how there was resistance and the with the one child that is more attached to screens, definitely you could see the fear come up in her right away. And my husband and I thought, oh my gosh, we can't handle it if we have to go through a week of her being traumatized by taking the screen completely away. But I really was surprised at how well it went. And then we talked about it this morning. I said, How'd you sleep? I go, Oh, fine.

Kids and online gaming concerns

SPEAKER_00 14:23

It's like, oh, okay, that worked well, so we'll go with that. And yes, I'm when you brought up the issue of what they're watching, something I've noticed is that I've allowed the kids to play some of these online games like Minecraft and Rob and Roblox only in controlled environments.

unknown 14:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Thinking that that would solve the issue of me being concerned about them having contact with people I didn't want them to have contact with. But the thing I didn't expect was that their minds are sucked into these worlds where there is the constant fear of things coming after them. And not only that, but just the fact alone that their minds are constantly doing something. I mean, I started playing with the kids just to find out what it was like and to let them know that I cared about what they were doing. And it was it was fun in a way. It wasn't very relaxing for me, but I enjoyed the time that we had together. And I realized that their minds are so consumed that to get when they turn the tablets off, even when they're ready to go to bed, their minds are still going.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

And so Tommy would say to me, it was almost like, Help me, I can't get out of this world.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

And so we put an end to that. They're not allowed to watch it after five o'clock, and we give them a time limit, which we still have resistance about. But anyway, uh that whole problem of being sucked into a universe that they can't get themselves out of at bedtime, is something we've had to eliminate.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Or even when they sleep. So those things can come back into their dreams. You can only dream about things you've been exposed to. And so those things, if it was stressful, even if you're playing that game, like you said, it wasn't that enjoyable. There's it can be an aspect where you're having fun, but it's also stressful, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

It's a lot of work.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

There's a lot happening. So your nervous system is like, oh my gosh, I'm in the game. And there's just a lot happening. So then when you go to sleep, that's when your body's processing the day. For better or for worse, what happened is getting processed when

Helping kids sleep better

SPEAKER_02 16:58

you sleep. And so it can come back up if there was stress while playing it. And this is falls into the camp where I always say we need to get curious about what is making it harder for our child to sleep if they're having struggles. And so this would not be an easy task that I would suggest. But what you could suggest, and he's not gonna like it because he's six, is I have noticed since we've been playing the video games, that you've been having more dreams and your sleep has been harder. And I have recently learned because funny thing, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, we are not born knowing everything about sleep. I've recently learned that those video games could actually be making it harder for you to sleep. And so we're gonna do an experiment and we're gonna take a break and we're gonna try two weeks without the video games, and we're gonna see what happens. And he could say, no, it's not that, and you know, whatever it may be. But until you try, you just don't know. So, you know, my oldest daughter had a terrible nightmare situation after watching the movie Frozen. And she got very hung up on this one specific part of the movie, and it's where the snow monster beast comes in and throws the princess out of the castle. To me, it felt fairly benign. Like, yes, he was big. He didn't really hurt. He like chucked her out of the castle, and I think she fell in the snow. And for whatever reason, it kind of imprinted, and she had repetitive dreams for I can't remember if it was one week, two weeks, about this snow monster. It just repetitive over and over and over. And since then, we were like, we just won't watch Disney movies. Every Disney movie has some sort of villain in it that's going to do something. And so my other daughter could absolutely watch things, and she she's not prone to bad dreams, and she did fine. And so I just had to tell her, we can't watch that. It's gonna make you worry. And then as she got older, she can absolutely self-regulate. So now she's 13 and she could start watching something, and she'll start to say, I feel the feel, I'm feeling it. I'm gonna have bad dreams if I keep watching this. And then we just turn it off. And over time, she's been able to take on more and watch more things. But she'll sometimes send her younger sister to watch something and say, report back to me and tell me if I should watch it. And so some of it is doing the experiment to test it and then helping your child learn what works for them and what doesn't. And it's a journey, but that could be helpful. But until you test it out, you kind of don't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Yeah, and what works for one child doesn't work for the other. That's I think important. And I forget that. You know, I don't know why I think we we tend to generalize and say, oh, just because it's G-rated, that right, the kids can all watch it. And then you see one child have a reaction to it and you go, mm, you shouldn't. That's not very scary. I don't know why you're scared about that.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Or my child was fine. Like that can't be the problem because my child watched that movie and was fine.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Same thing with the video games. Some children are fine with the video games, yeah. And some are not, they're internalizing a lot of it.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

I like that. I think that awareness is important. So, have you ever heard about trauma affecting the circadian rhythm?

SPEAKER_02 20:06

So I am not trained specifically in trauma. So I haven't heard specifics around it, but I'm curious if you have been reading up on it or what you've learned.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Well, I have been, and I know that defiance tends to start becoming activated around eight o'clock, and it's a response to the dark. Now I know myself, if I have any issue that's troubling me, it's about that time of night. If I start thinking about it, I become anxious. But I think that's an important fact for for grandparents to know. If they notice it around that time, that would be normally when the circadian rhythm is starting to kick in. We start getting calm around the dark. It's not not, I guess not that way for everyone, but if but if parents notice it, I I it was something that I had read about.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

I think that

Understanding children's sleep patterns

SPEAKER_02 21:05

the everyone's circadian rhythm, I think it's underrated, the power of the circadian rhythm. And so what you're describing to me, I see often where we've kind of miss the window. So if there's a window where it's going to be easiest for children to fall asleep, and then if they get over that hump and sometimes they're shifting into second wind category, you can meet more defiance in general because now they don't feel as tired. And if you're anxious and then suddenly you're asked to do something that's not feeling easy because you're not feeling tired, you're gonna be more defiant. So I would argue without having read what you've read, and not I'm not saying it's incorrect, but I would encourage parents or grandparents to really watch like, do you see a law? Where you think, oh, they look tired. If you see yawning, my kids know if they if I see a yawn, it's over. So, like, did you see a game?

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Oh, I'm fighting that yawn because then my parents are gonna send me to bed.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Right. My parents, my kids know I don't like to see a yawn. So if you see some sign, you're like, oh, that could be the sleep wave. That's it, it's coming. They're getting irritable. But then you might notice, oh, there's this moment. Maybe it's close to eight. Maybe some between 7:30 and 8 is a very common window where it's like that sleep wave came, they made it past, and they took off. It's a little bit like if I stay up past 10 o'clock.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

So you I'm ready. And if we miss it, that it's you're gonna meet defiance. I did not realize that.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Because that natural pull to sleep, where their circadian rhythm has the most natural pull to sleep, it's past. And then sometimes you creep into, well, now they're ready to chug along or push back on sleep until they crash, until they literally can't stay awake anymore. And so it's sometimes it's trying to get ahead of that period that feels most challenging. So it's very counterintuitive. Parents come to me all the time and they say, My child doesn't fall asleep till 10. And I'll say, Okay, great, we're gonna do lights out at seven. And that's really hard to comprehend, but we're trying to get ahead of that second wind.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Okay. Okay. I think that's a great lesson to learn. Tell us a little bit about your coaching program, the podcast. I know it's a wonderful podcast. I listen to it. I love getting your newsletters, they're fun. I think there was something about a nail in this one. Your nails. And this great find that you had about nails, and we're always looking as grandparents. We're always looking to save money. So I really encourage everyone listening to sign up for Allison's newsletter because she has this little section, and I think it's wonderful. It has nothing to do with sleep. It's all about great products that she finds. And and I'm already I went into Amazon to look about the nails this week.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

They're great. I found my friend who introduced me to those nails. She heard about them from a friend whose husband was battling cancer. And so they were spending a lot of time at the hospital. And so she got these nails so that when she was sitting there, she could do her own nails. And it is so much less expensive than going to the nail salon. And I can do it whenever I want. Yes, a little weekly fines. But my sleep practice, I do one-on-one coaching where we'll get on Zoom and talk through a child-specific sleep struggles. And then I have sleep coaches who do that as well. And then I'll do educational workshops and programs that are online as well. And I work with newborns all the way to kids in high school. And the main focus is figuring out how to put together their sleep puzzle. So a little bit of everything we are just talking about around how do we make sleep easier for that child and figure out what works for them specifically.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

I know you're a wealth of information, and I've loved being introduced to you. I encourage everyone to at least follow the podcast and get on her newsletter. Um, and if you need one-on-one coaching, of course, I think Allison is a wonderful person to work with. I I'm asking all of my interviewees right now to answer a few questions for me. I'm putting that in the book that I'm writing, and I'd love to hear what your opinion is on what I'm hearing as far as systematically and socially, that one of the biggest problems we do is we put everyone into a one size fits all category. And what you're saying is that no one size fits all, and that that's an important social concept of sleep that we need to be aware of

No one size fits all sleep

SPEAKER_00 26:01

with our kids.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yes, I do not think there is a one size fits all, really in any area of parenting, but sleep specifically. If there was a one size fits all approach, we'd all be doing it. And our children would be sleeping beautifully. So I always just encourage people to learn about sleep, to learn about the importance of sleep, understand why it should be a priority, and then get very curious not only about their children's sleep, but about their own sleep and what sets them up for success. And even if you're doing a sleep intervention or sleep training, there's no one size fits-all approach to that either. You need to find what works well for that child based on their history, based on their temperament, based on the parenting style or their caretaker's style. You have to put all those pieces together, but there is no one size fits all approach to sleep.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I'm glad that I'm glad that you brought that up because I'm learning a lot about that. And that's not something I was aware of before I met you and we spoke. My taboo question is, and since this is something I'm dealing with, my grandson is wanting to start coming into our room to sleep with us. And because, I guess because of his trauma background, maybe it's because I'm a grandma and grandmas are I think we want to be more flexible with these kids. We want to spoil them a little bit. And I'm letting him sleep in our room right now. My husband is not in agreement with me, but so it's somewhat of a marital issue. What do you think is okay and what's not okay when it comes to that? How flexible should we be? And and how what do we tell them? How do we deal with

Discussing co-sleeping flexibility

SPEAKER_00 27:58

that problem?

SPEAKER_02 27:58

I think this falls into there's no one size fits all approach. And as a sleep coach who often gets asked, so are you anti-co-sleeping? Because usually someone's hiring me to help them get out of that situation. And I always tell people, no, I'm not anti-co-sleeping. If you are co-sleeping and it's working for your family, meaning anyone involved in the co-sleeping experience is getting the sleep they need, then that's fine. I actually don't have a problem with that. But if it's not working for someone involved, that's when you have to kind of evaluate what's going on. And so in your situation where it's not just a black and white situation, there might be some middle ground where you and your husband decide, okay, we're gonna have a transitional period where we're going to build him back up to being able to sleep independently. And if that's the goal, that's where you want to start looking at all those other pieces. Like what is causing his bad dreams? What is causing his angst at night? Is there anything we can do to naturally relieve that? And then it's well, you can come in and do XYZ. Is it sleep in our bed or is it sleep on a mattress?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Yeah, that's where I draw the line. He can't sleep in the bed with me. I can't get no one's. I would have done that when I was young, but not now.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

And I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

So he sleeps on the couch.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

Right. So then that is the option. And if it's you're gonna move away from that ultimately, if that's what you guys want to do, then you want to just have a clear plan and tell him that that's gonna happen. What's not effective and which is very stressful for children and ultimately the caretaker as well, is to suddenly he goes to bed and you and your husband decide tonight we're not letting him do it. But he went to bed and he did not know that. And then he comes in in the middle of the night and you say, no, not tonight. That is very upsetting. What children don't like change anyway. And if it's sprung on you in the middle of the night, you're not gonna be happy. And that's going to be distressing. And so I always tell people if you want to make a change with your child's sleep, it needs to be thought out, it needs to be intentional, and it needs to be communicated before any sleep is happening. So I always say, at least before dinner, you want them to have a little time to digest it. It doesn't mean they're gonna say, Thank you so much for sharing that lovely plan. I will happily do that. But it does mean when you're saying, no, not tonight, remember, we're gonna do this, even if you get pushback, there's not that sense of feeling out of control because you're just doing what you told them you were gonna do. And so there's some security in that of, oh, they're doing what they said and we're sticking to a plan. So I think if if you decide co-sleeping's not working, then you want to be thoughtful about that transition away from that.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Thank you. I think that's good to remember. And my last question is a policy question. If you were COO of national health in this country, what would you mandate that parents know about sleep education?

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Well, I'm certainly not qualified to have that position. One thing that if you were If I I was, I absolutely think it would be powerful for parents to receive education on the power of sleep at multiple points. So I think it'd be fantastic if the pediatricians were able to provide some basic education. I realize they are very spread thin with all the things we would like them to provide, but also schools, whether it be preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, some basic education for parents to understand how much sleep is optimal at different ages. And as kids develop and change, what might they expect? And then just understanding the importance of sleep. Sleep helps with emotional regulation, it helps with impulse control, it helps with learning retention, it helps, as you've already pointed out, with processing trauma. So helping people understand that there's a reason to keep sleep a priority. It helps with immune systems. I mean, it is literally the foundation that we can build a lot off of. And so I would love to see pediatricians have some basic education they can share and then schools along the way to help parents understand how it could be helpful to their children to keep sleep a priority.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

And is it still the belief that the best sleep is between certain hours of the day

Importance of sleep timing

SPEAKER_00 32:45

or well, you want it?

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Yes, it's absolutely important to get the most restorative sleep, you want to sleep in alignment with your circadian rhythm. So, for example, if you took someone, let's say a healthcare worker who works a night shift. If you were to track the quality of their sleep, even if they came home and they slept seven to eight hours after their night shift, the quality of that sleep is not as restorative and healthy for them as it would be if they slept during the night. So the timing of sleep is important. I wear a sleep tracker. The quality of my sleep when I fall asleep closer to 9:30 is much better than when I stay up till 11. And so finding that window, that's when we talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

And it's a bit different for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

For everyone. It's gonna be a little bit different. But for kids, it's early. It has just over and over been proven to me that they do better with an earlier bedtime. And so that's the education piece I think a lot of us are missing is the fact that kids can get a lot more sleep than we think they can. My 11-year-old's ideal bedtime, while we don't hit it all the time because she plays sports, is 7:30. And so I think you're just not hearing that. You're not hearing that your 11-year-old could probably still get 11 plus hours of sleep. And when she does, she's her best little self. She can get by on less, but she is her best little self when she gets that much sleep. Now, my daughter, who's 18 months older than she is, so not much, did not need that much sleep when she was 11. And so it's each kid, it's nailing down the timing of their sleep and how much sleep allows them to be their best little self.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Thank you. Thanks for reminding us all of that. You've been a wealth of information. Thanks so much, Allison. I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

I always love connecting with you, so thank for thanks for having me back.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

As do I. Thanks, Alison. Bye-bye.

Reflecting on sleep and priorities

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Okay, let's go to the reflection room. Allison mentioned the sleep wave. That narrow window of time where sleep is actually possible before the second wind of defiance kicks in. So ask yourself today, am I missing the window because I'm trying to finish one more chore? Am I prioritizing a clean kitchen over a regulated grandchild? Well, this week I challenge you to try the boring experiment. Turn off the screens, dim the lights, and get ahead of that wave. Your sanity and theirs depends on it. Join us next week as we sit down with Matt O'Neill. We'll be discussing how to identify the eight bad moods we struggle with as kinship caregivers and how to shift our internal weather so we can lead from a place of joy instead of exhaustion. We are 2.7 million strong, still nurturing and still here. We're the ones keeping watch in the night, turning on the red lights, and proving that safety is a place where you can finally close your eyes. Your heart is the most important asset on this balance sheet. So keep nurturing, keep leading, and I'll see you in the next boardroom.