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EP26: You Can Get Out of the Nightmare of Sleep Deprivation as a New Mother

 

Most new parents expect babies and toddlers to sleep well under 12 hours a night, and that seemingly unrealistic number is unattainable. Parents believe that sleep deprivation is just part of the job and struggle to get a decent’s night sleep. What if we told you there was a way to get your baby to sleep "like a baby"?

 

Joining Patty Post on Checkable Health's weekly podcast to discuss the importance of sleep for children (and parents) is Neha Naik. Neha is a certified infant sleep trainer and the founder of Sleepy Cubs, a 1:1 online coaching course for parents on how to sleep train their children based on their own needs and lifestyle.

 

Neha shares her journey to becoming a certified sleep trainer, including how she got her 5-month-old son to sleep 12 hours a night after just one week of training! She also talks about the many cultural and societal stigmas around sleep training and the common misconceptions contributing to women feeling unsupported.

 

Tune in to learn more about the science behind sleep training, when it's okay to start sleep training, and the many ways it can benefit you and your baby.

 

Topics discussed in this episode:

 

  • Neha Naik's business, Sleepy Cubs, and becoming a certified sleep trainer
  • How Neha first started sleep training her child 
  • Societal and cultural stigmas around sleep training
  • Dangers of sleep deprivation
  • Benefits of getting good sleep
  • Best age to start sleep training
  • How to be successful in sleep training
  • Sleep training for toddlers and older children
  • Sleep training as a self-soothing act
  • Possible positive effects of sleep training
  • Neha's sleep training workshops and programs

 

Be sure to follow Neha Naik and Checkable Health on Instagram to enter to win an adorable Mommy and Me set from Etsy’s, MommasCraftingStore!

 

Connect with Neha:

Instagram

Facebook

Website

Blog

 

Parents, need help getting a better night's sleep? Checkable’s Sleep Easy Melatonin Gummies can help.

 

Check out our podcast selection for valuable info on health, wellness, and more, and continue the conversation in the Hero Moms Social Group on Facebook! 

 

Connect with Checkable Health:

Facebook

Instagram

LinkedIn

Connect with Patty Post:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patty-post/

 

About Checkable

Checkable is revolutionizing healthcare with fast and accurate at-home test kits, telehealth services, and a line of wellness supplements designed to keep you feeling your best while saving valuable time and money. At the forefront of home healthcare, Checkable is developing the first FDA-approved at-home strep test. Paired with a proprietary digital telemedicine platform to instantly connect consumers with healthcare professionals, you can skip the doctor's office and start treatment fast, right from the comforts of your home. http://www.testforstrep.com

Checkable Health is revolutionizing healthcare with fast and accurate at-home test kits, telehealth services, and a line of wellness supplements designed to keep you feeling your best while saving valuable time and money.

 

At the forefront of home healthcare, Checkable is developing the first FDA-approved at-home strep test. Paired with a proprietary digital telemedicine platform to instantly connect consumers with healthcare professionals, you can skip the doctor's office and start treatment fast, right from the comforts of your home.

 

Transcript: 

 

0:00:04.1 S1: Welcome to the Checkable Health Podcast, where we're helping everyday moms rethink how their healthcare starts at home. This podcast is for moms of school-aged children, born in the 1900s that would buy an at-home strep test to check their child’s sore throat from home. Hi, I'm Patty Post, founder and CEO of Checkable Health. I'm a mother of two amazing teenage sons and a daughter of a tween... And married to my husband, Andrew, for nearly 20 years. I believe that all of us should be empowered to make clinical evidence-based healthcare decisions from home, and I also believe that through information, we can feel empowered to have better health through podcasts like this. Today, I have a really special guest that doesn't apply to my life right now because my kids are teenagers, but if I could have had Neha when I was a new mother, I would have paid a lot for her. Neha is a certified sleep trainer for infants and on to toddlers and even school-aged children. Her belief is that sleep is the most important thing in a child's life, it leads to better health, development, it leads to a happier family. Self-soothing is incredibly important in development and it applies to, even as adults, if we're able to self-soothe, we are able to handle our lives better. Just think of this, you brought your little bundle of joy home, all you new moms out there, you know what I'm talking about, you brought your bundle of joy home, and it's sleeping well during the day, and then at night, it's like eyes are bright, wide open.

 

0:01:48.1 S1: Well, for the first few months, that's just what it is, but there's a point where your baby should be sleeping through the night; 12 hours during the night, and then during the day, naps as well. It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? Well, with Neha Naik, who is founder of Sleepy Cub, she is able to provide sleep training to new parents for infants all the way up to school-age children. It takes about seven days and it is humane, a lot of times we think that sleep training is... Okay, I'm gonna throw my baby in the crib, I'm just gonna let it cry it out until he finally falls asleep. That is not sleep training. In this episode today, Neha will talk to us about what sleep training is, the benefits, and how you can get in touch with her and start your sleep training at an appropriate time. The science behind it is actually fascinating, and like I said, if I could have had this when I was a mom, I definitely would have taken advantage of it. Good morning everyone, this is Patty Post, your host of the Checkable Health Podcast. And today, I have a guest that is an expert in sleep training for infants, Neha Naik. This is a wonderful pleasure to have you on the podcast.

 

0:03:10.1 S1: Thank you so much.

 

0:03:12.0 S2: Thanks for having me and hi to all the listeners. Super excited to be here today.

 

0:03:16.3 S1: Now, your business is named Sleepy Cub. I love that name by the way. It's just perfectly suited.

 

0:03:24.1 S2: Yeah, I actually came up with that with my husband 'cause we were thinking, what do you think of the Sleepy Cub? It just makes you think of this little baby bear sleeping, like when I imagined it. And I think that's what we want. We want our little cubs to be sleeping well. It should be a very comforting and cutesy name, and I think when people see it, they know what it's about, it's about sleep, right? 

 

0:03:46.1 S1: And a little hibernating away and they just are in a nice sound sleep. Exactly.

 

0:03:52.7 S2: A dream come true.

 

0:03:53.2 S1: Yeah, I was just gonna say that. So how many kids do you have? Let's start off with that. So I have two, I have a five-and-a-half-year-old boy, and then a two-and-a-half-year-old girl. So two babies. And what made you come up with this business? And also, tell us about your training that you got certified in to start this business.

 

0:04:16.6 S2: I got certified as a sleep consultant about two and a half years ago through IPSP. And the reason I was, I became certified is because when I had my first born, that was five and a half years ago, when I was pregnant, I did a lot of research just on being a good mom, raising good kids, we all do it. We all read those books 'cause they're like, we're gonna be the best parent there in the whole wide world; and along with that, I also started reading about sleep. Now, I will say that when you are reading about sleep and people tell you, Well, sleep now, 'cause it's gonna be hard, you don't really understand what that means until you have the baby, right, because you’re like, how hard can it be, it’s just a baby. It's gonna sleep 90% of the time. It's not that bad. And then you bring the baby home and then you're like, oh my gosh.

 

0:05:05.6 S1: What is this foreign thing that never sleeps?

 

0:05:13.2 S2: Yeah, and it's like your whole life, and your day, and your sleep, and your food revolves around this little baby you bring home from the hospital. And so what I started researching sleep. I was like, this is really cool, I hope my baby is a good sleeper, so I don't have to worry about the sleep. And of course, my firstborn, he was not that good of a sleeper. He had colic about four to six weeks in, the nights were miserable and the watching hour, where they scream and cry for no reason. And so I was like, okay, like this cannot be my life for the rest of my life, there is no way because I also went back to work. At the time I was working for a company, so I went back to work 12 weeks in, and so I was like, I can’t be awake all day and then awake all night, that's not gonna work. And so while I have the foundations, we know what healthy sleep looks like in kids, I then really took it up to the next level and did a bunch of research. I watched YouTube videos of child psychologists and pediatricians, research papers written on sleep and sleep training, and if it's actually harmful for the baby...

 

0:06:14.2 S2: Is it helpful? And then came up with a plan that worked for me and my baby. Looked at wake times and self-soothing, and then I started right when he was five months old, and then he was sleep trained about a week-ish in. 

 

0:06:27.5 S1: Wow, that's fast. 

 

0:06:28.8 S2: It was, yeah, it was good. And then he was sleeping 12 hours at night, and then taking two very healthy naps, like an hour, hour and a half, and that was really good. Even my nanny at the time was like, Oh my gosh, this is great. I don't have to rock him, I don't have to coax him to go to sleep like, you just put him in the crib and then he goes to sleep. I think the only uphill battle that I personally had was just coming from women of a diverse background. I'm originally Indian, so my parents moved here from India when I was 11, and I married my husband who was primarily brought up in India and moved here just about 10, 15 years ago. And so there was a lot of this cultural stigma around sleep training, it almost made me feel like a selfish mom, it made me feel like I'm hurting my baby. There were questions about, if you don't co-sleep, is the baby even gonna love you, are they gonna be attached to you? There was a lot of that, and it's interesting because when you're a first-time mom and your hormonal and you’re breastfeeding, there's so many things going on, and so while rationally, you may know what you're doing is right, emotionally and psychologically, sometimes it's hard to push those feelings back of wait, am I doing the right thing? The psychologist said this, but...

 

0:07:40.7 S2: My parents are saying one thing, my husband's saying one thing. And so really kind of digging through that, but one of the reasons I wanted to become a sleep consultant is once I sleep trained both of my kids, every family kept asking, family members asked, cousins asked, friends asked. Especially people from diverse backgrounds because it's not as mainstream, right? Like in India, this is not mainstream. So they were like, wait, how did you do this? I want to do this 'cause now I'm working. And my husband was like, why don't you get certified and actually start your business? And that's how I want to be, a support system for women and families who are really struggling with the whole issue of kids’ sleep, as it relates specifically to what their societal and cultural expectations are, so... Yeah, it's just easier for women who are in that background to identify with someone like me, 'cause I've been through those very same hurdles.

 

0:08:29.3 S1: And what are some of the... Just so we can understand, what are some of those stigmas around that. Is it that you should be sleeping with your baby or you shouldn't let them cry too long, what was it that you were battling through culturally?

 

0:08:43.9 S2: I think it was actually both, so it was definitely this concept of, at least my parents, it was like, well we slept with both of you, I have a younger brother, until you were six or seven years old, and then put you in your own room and you know, he's only five months old. Like is this too young? I think the other stigma was, there is this weird concept about how the baby still needs to eat at night even after they’ve gained enough weight. Of course, if your baby is developmentally not where they need to be, they should get that extra feeding and I'm 100% on board with that. Or if they're younger than five, six months old, they should probably keep that night feed so they have their body weight. But that being said, I also didn't feel like if the doctor said, hey, he doesn't need the feed at night, I don't need to keep the feed at night. And I think there was... I was made to feel guilty around taking away the feed 'cause it was like, are you starving your baby now? Like is this supposed to happen? And my baby, honestly, as soon as I sleep trained, ate so well during the day…

 

0:09:39.1 S2: I was like, Oh my gosh, you are eating everything in the house, 'cause he was making up those calories like us during the day. Right, and then, yes, the third part of it was definitely the crying. Why should they cry? Like they’re a baby, they need you. But crying is the way they communicate, it doesn't mean that they're hurt, and my pediatrician actually was the first person when first we did sleep training who was like, as long as they're well fed, they're clean, they're dry, they’re warm, they're in a safe environment, it's okay. And we’re not putting them out in the middle of the freeway; they're very safe and loved. And I think the fourth thing was this concept of self-care is maybe in a lot of cultures still missing, where if a woman specifically... And I'm going to play the gender card, 'cause I think it does very much apply here, if a woman were to sleep in or a woman were to go to sleep early or go get a massage or a facial, like, woah, she just like, how dare she. And it's the whole concept of you’re selfish, 'cause you're sleep training because you want your alone time.

 

0:10:43.9 S2: And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Especially, you know, you're still a human being. Whether you're working or not working or stay-at-home-mom or whatever, you are allowed to sleep at a decent hour and wake up when you want to wake up. So I am very much that whole stereotype, and I wanted to push back against that.

 

0:11:09.3 S1: In your summary, you talked about sleep deprivation and it’s sleep deprivation for everyone in the family, and that's really the root of it can cause stress, it can cause anxiety, and just your overall productivity is so much inferior than if you had a quality sleep, right?

 

0:11:29.3 S2: Exactly. And they have studies where you go like two or three nights without sleep and drive a vehicle and I think it’s as equivalent to having four or five shots of whiskey and driving a vehicle. There’s an actual study on that where it's like, your brain literally cannot function, and I always tell this, one of the main things I talk about on my website, and with my clients is sleep is a biological necessity, it's not an option. Working out, maybe is an option if you're healthy, but sleep is not an option, you can’t just skip sleep because you don't have the time. If you’ve gone a couple nights without sleep, you're gonna be like, okay, I'm miserable, I need my bed and I need to just pass out, I don’t even care for a pillow or blanket at this point, I just need to sleep. It's really important to go back and think through that, and I think a lot of times what happens is, especially with new parents, it's very much underestimated how much of a good sleep you need, and it's not just for you, it's also for your baby. So even babies and kids who sleep well without interruptions at night and have an earlier bedtime are less likely to be diagnosed with behavioral disorders, are less likely to be diagnosed with any type of physical dependencies later on in life, like alcohol, substance abuse, because they're able to self-soothe and they don't need this thing to help them make themselves feel better. They're less likely to get sick.

 

0:12:44.2 S2: Because our immune systems are amazing, they have good long-term and short-term memory, and they developmentally meet all of their milestones because their body is getting the rest it needs to develop their brain and other organs while they're sleeping. And so it's not just important for parents but it's very much important for the kids. So if you do do this, you are probably being the opposite of selfish, you are actually teaching your children a very important life skill, like riding a bike, like writing, reading that they're gonna use for the rest of their lives, right? And you're ensuring that you and your spouse have a healthy marriage, you have date nights, you are a healthy mom, you go for massages or dinners and girl’s nights out, because we all need that. We all need a change, we all need a break, and to think otherwise is, I think, just to be unfair, because it's like you can't just be a mom and that's all you do for the rest of your life. I don't think that's the right expectation that we need to set for women or just families in general in our society.

 

0:13:41.7 S1: I couldn't agree more. If there's a mom listening that is hesitant of sleep training, I think what you said right there would totally shift their mindset, you are doing it for your entire family and for your child, most importantly. That's very interesting that you said that you won't lead to a dependence on substances, because you have that opportunity. You know how to self-soothe. That's fascinating to me. In our last podcast with Cody Baxter, we talked about obesity as a chronic disease, and he talked about sleep hygiene and the importance of a regular sleep, and it just... That is like a key element in health, is quality sleep. I think a lot of times as mothers, we think okay, well, that's just our cross to bear the first year of life, we're just gonna have to be sleep-deprived. So tell us about when... You mentioned five weeks, so that five to six weeks, you know your baby is healthy, in a healthy weight range, what's the way to start and even how do they access you?

 

0:14:51.1 S2: Yeah, so it's technically five or six months. So typically the first. Oh, sorry. 

 

0:14:55.3 S1: No, it's okay, I just don't want the listeners to be like, oh, I could do this. Do you need help sleeping? Do you wanna change your life with a good night's rest? Go to checkablehealth.com and get our melatonin with Passiflora. It's a low dose of melatonin with Passiflora that allows you to stay asleep through the night, and it makes it so you don't wake up really groggy. It's checkablehealth.com. Use the persevere code for 10% off your next order.

 

0:15:25.6 S2: So typically, the way you do it is the fourth trimester, which is from the day, the minute the baby's born until they are about three months old. This does not apply if you have a premature baby, obviously for that you need to make sure that they are tracking well. We have to be very careful about what we put out there, because sometimes people will listen and then it's like, oh, I can do this! But I think the biggest thing is usually around the four to six-month mark if your baby is tracking well developmentally, which is health, the head circumference and the height. Those are the three things when you walk in the pediatrician's office, that's what the first three things they check. If they're tracking well, and on that little chart that the doctor has shown you and they're doing well, that is typically the time we can start asking your pediatrician, hey, I want to sleep train, what’s a good time? And at that point, your doctor may say, okay, let's give her two more weeks, I really want for him or her to be here instead of here, and then see how that goes.

 

0:16:16.3 S2: Once you are okayed by the pediatrician, that's when you’d sought out someone like me. That's the very first step because your pediatrician's gonna intimately know your child's background more than we do as a sleep consultants. I'm not a licensed pediatrician, so there's no way for me on a video call to know exactly what type of a birth you had, if your baby had any other trauma or surgery when they were little. And typically I've seen that happen in the five- to six-month mark, some kids are four months, or if they're really cute, and they're healthy and they love to eat and all that, but typically the five, six-month mark. And I have worked with families sooner as well, but we keep the feeding. So we start at three months, but they wake up to eat, then we feed them or the mom feeds, burps them and puts them in awake. So there's no right time. It's just from a dropping the night feed perspective, it's a five- to six-month mark. Once you get clear, then you basically reach out to me, we figure out what your concerns are, what’s holding you back from sleep training, because I really like to get to the root of a problem.

 

0:17:12.4 S2: I don't wanna just put a band-aid solution and then you come back with a bigger wound two weeks from now, so I'm gonna ask you, Okay, is your spouse on board with it, it is your... Any other caretakers on board with this? No? Why are they not on board with it? Okay, let's get them involved. Right. I’ve had people say, well, my husband's traveling for a week can we just get it over with? And I'm like, I mean sure we could get it over with, but it's probably better for him to be there, because let's say there's a regression and you're not available, he can handle that regression, and he knows exactly what to do, right. And I feel like crying is made such a big deal of in this whole, I think situation about sleep training, but I'm telling you, it's actually not as bad if you stick to the wake times and you are consistent. Consistency is key. If you do it for a night and then stop for two nights, and then do it for a night, you’re gonna confuse the baby. Right. I don't know if you've ever worked out or exercised or gone on a diet, right, but it's always that the hardest part about anything you take over is accountability or consistency.

 

0:18:12.4 S2: Right, and that's when a sleep consultant comes in and says, hey, you can do this. It's like your personal trainer going, you don't need to eat the cake, you got this, right? We can do this. You can do the 10 push-ups. And so if you are struggling with accountability, with consistency, with the science behind it, if you're struggling with having other family members on board, that's really when you would use my services, because I will look at all of those things of that quadrant and make sure that we are equipped that when you start, you do it the right way, and when you're done, I really want you to feel relieved and I want you to come and say, oh my gosh, I wish I would have done this sooner. That's typically 99% of my clients to be like, Oh, I don't know, why didn't we do this sooner? I don't know what I was freaking out about. And then literally within days, within weeks, you will see that parent go from, even my calls with them, my first call with the hair and the crazy clothes, to my last call where they're all dressed up now. They look good, they feel good, right? And I think it's really all about that.

 

0:19:10.1 S2: You want to feel good, you want your baby to feel good and want the entire family to sleep well because taking pride in the fact that I only slept three hours last night is not where you want to be. It's not the foundation you want to set for your family. You don't want to sleep in one room with a baby and your spouse in another room. You're not giving them a healthy example of what a true family should look like, right. So you have to start thinking about those things that are going to factor into their personalities and their belief systems as they grow up, and so you want them to know that mommy and daddy have a healthy marriage and that's good. That's a good thing, right? And so those are the kind of things you wanna think about when you start sleep training. It's not just the impact we have on their lives today, but it's also what you’re going to put into their belief systems as they grow up.

 

0:19:52.9 S1: That’s great advice to think of early on. For example, what if you've had a couple of years to create these bad habits though, can you still rescue that and get it into shape?

 

0:20:05.5 S2: Yeah, I always say, better late than never, right? We've all heard that cliche saying and I think it definitely applies here. So I've worked with clients that are as young as eight weeks, nine weeks old, but I've also worked with children more as old as six or seven years old, and... So typically, what will happen is, this is kind of a trend where the parents get pregnant with the second one and they're like, well, now I'm being... We can't do this, like this is too much, we can't have two kids in the bed, we can’t have three kids in the bed, right, it's a lot. And typically, that's when people start saying, okay, our firstborn is four years, I'm expecting my second one in three months, how do we fix this, how do we rectify the situation? And there are so many things that you can do with toddlers, there's pros and cons to each age. With infants and younger children, you can’t talk to a six month old and say, hey, it's bedtime. She's probably just gonna look at you and be like, okay, cool, great. I don’t understand what you're saying, right? Yeah, but when it comes to older children, you can actually sit down and talk to them and say hey, here's what's going on.

 

0:21:04.4 S2: Here's what we're gonna do, you're gonna sleep in your own bed. And typically, when I work with older older children, I like to do a video call or FaceTime with them. I'd just say, hey, this is what mommy and daddy are gonna do with you today. I'm Miss Neha, I’m gonna help you through this. Because I feel like when the teacher tells you something versus when the parents tell you something, it’s a different dynamic. And then I send them a little... I'm like, Hey, if you do this for seven nights, I'm gonna send you a little toy, and then I send them like a little toy on Amazon, and it's like, oh my gosh, I did this! And then I tell the parents to make them their favorite breakfast all weekend and make it super fun for them, and so it can be done more fun. Now, are they going to push back more than a six month old? Yes. Because for four years, all they’ve known is to sleep next to mommy and daddy. So you will see them push back more, it doesn't mean that they're gonna hate you, it doesn't mean that they love you any less, they're reacting to it.

 

0:21:54.7 S2: They're reacting to change. As adults, when there's change, even we sometimes have to process the change. If we move, we start a new job, break up with our spouse or boyfriends, whatever, that change, we have to internalize and kind of let it sink in and react to that. With kids, the only way to do that is cry or push back. And they can't communicate that psychologically, they can’t say, this is not cool. Like, this sucks. Yeah, and so the way it comes out is them crying and just rebelling against what's going on. It only lasts a couple of nights and once they start sleeping really well, and they realize that their bed in their room is a safe space for them, they love it, right? And I've more put 5 and 6-year-olds who started off going, I'm absolutely not sleeping without mommy, and then start sleeping there, and now they're like, mommy, time to go to bed, I wanna go to my room. For us, our bedroom is a safe space. We go there, it’s like, okay, it's time to go to bed, it's finally me. And you want to start installing that feeling in them because it helps also instill boundaries when they grow up and they could say, this is enough, I'm out, and they're able to disconnect from that situation. So there's a lot of psychological parallels that you can draw from just sleep training.

 

0:23:06.0 S1: Tell us what sleep training looks like for an infant. My baby is sleep-trained, what does that mean? 

 

0:23:13.5 S2: So sleep training essentially means the art of self soothing. So if you think of the very, very basics of it is if you have a six-month-old and they're used to sleeping with you feeding them, and so what happens when they wake up, is they expect a bottle or your boob right, because that's what they're expecting. They're expecting this thing to soothe them. A sleep-trained baby will no longer need that external stimuli, so what that means is when you put them to sleep, you're not gonna put them to sleep feeding, you're gonna put them to sleep completely awake. They're going to self-soothe themselves to sleep, so that when they wake up at 2 AM, they don’t need mommy or daddy anymore to feed them; they wake up and they're able to put themselves to sleep right away. And a misconception is that if I sleep train, they should never wake up at night, that's not the case. Even as adults, we have dreams. Sleep training is not just putting the baby in the crib and just letting them cry it out, there’s a method to the madness, there’s science behind it. There's a way to do it without having so many tears, so much pushback from your kids. So that's the first thing to start to not think about it that way.

 

0:24:13.4 S2: I think the second thing is there's other implications within the child's life, like the ability to teach themselves to eat. They become independent faster. And I'm not saying independent like they're gonna go to college tomorrow, I say independent in terms of if they were to go to a daycare or some type of a care, or even with a nanny, you will notice their behavior a little bit different from other babies who were a little bit more needy. And so you will kind of start, like even the kids that I work with, the parents would say, oh my gosh, she never used to play by herself, she used to scream bloody murder if I left the room. But now, she likes to play by herself, and she eats really well, you see the food intake go up, because now at night, if your baby was dependent on a bottle, they're no longer getting those calories at night, so during the day they're eating much healthier breakfast, you're trying new foods. And also as a parent, you feel just happy, right, to see your baby go through that in a positive way, it's such a good feeling, so... Yeah, I mean, only good things for sure...

 

0:25:13.7 S2: But unfortunately, because of all the resources that are out there that are negative, people are like, well, it's going to damage them. I’m telling you right now, I’ve worked with hundreds of families, I’ve worked with two of my own kids, no one has turned out damaged. They’re healthy, they love me very much, and I have never felt that way.

 

0:25:32.5 S1: Happy, healthy families, that's the name of your game, right, that sleep well. Yeah, exactly. So if there's any moms out there listening or dads and they're like, oh my gosh, I have to do this, what is the training? Is it online, you do group trainings or is it always one-on-one? 

 

0:25:50.4 S2: So there's a couple of things actually. So I do workshops every four to six weeks, and we have one coming up on October 27, is kind of like a group session, it's 90 minutes, and during that time, people could join, ask questions, I go through my exact methodology and show you how I do it, I have done it with families that like working with me one-on-one, but in a group setting. Right, that's one way to do it. The second way is I do have a one-on-one package where you could sign up, it's $497, it's one week of support with me, email and text. I used to offer two weeks, but I realized nobody ever needs the full two weeks, so might as well do it one week, right, get it over within a week, you don't even need the two weeks. Yeah, and then, so that's one way and then you get a one hour like a call with me where I walk you through specifically for your child, and all my programs are customized, so I don't use a copy-and-paste template. Everything is according to your child, their age, what they're eating, you aren't just kind of family lifestyle, 'cause I've worked with doctors and nurses who were like, we don't want them to sleep until 9:00 pm and then wake up at 9:00 am, and then we have...

 

0:26:54.4 S2: I want them to have a 7:00 pm bedtime. It just really is customized for what you're looking for, and then I have my DIY, which is a do-it-yourself course, which basically you buy the course and you would just watch videos of me walking you through it. It’s worksheets, there's questions that I ask you through out the course, and then there's actual email support as well with that, so you can send me an email and say, hey, this is really good, but I have a question on this module, this is what I'm struggling with, how can I get over this hurdle?  You can kind of get that too, and so I think it depends on what type of personality are you... If you like the group, we could do the group, if you like the one-on-one, we could do the one-on-one, if you're like, I'm gonna learn this myself and do it myself, but I don't need extra support, then you can do the DIY course as well.

 

0:27:36.3 S1: Wow. Those are amazing options. And I love that you have three different options for maybe you can't afford it, or your learning style. What came to my mind 'cause my kids are all teenagers now is I always struggle with a baby shower gift because I think, Oh gosh, they'll wear this outfit once or they don't need another wipe warmer. This would be the perfect gift to go in with a couple of your girlfriends and get it for that new mom, and she might not use it right away, she won't use it right away, but speaking of that, we have a new mom. When should she take the training, should she take it and then apply it immediately?

 

0:28:20.8 S2: That's a really good question. I think this is such a case-by-case basis, so I know like myself, I started researching before I had the baby 'cause that's... My husband jokes about this, even when we go on vacation, I need to know what’s going on, what’s around there.

 

0:28:33.7 S1: And plan out everything. Right, I can't just vacation truly, I can't just wake up at 9:00am and go, I don't know what I'm doing today. 

 

0:28:41.6 S2: I have to have a plan. If I’m not doing something today, that has to be like a plan. It can't just happen. So it just really depends. I also do know moms that will do the training, and then they'll start... They'll watch the course and then they start like two or three weeks later because they want time to digest that information, they want the time to answer questions. Then I work with parents who are like, I watched your course in the morning and we started in the evening. Boom. But I think it really depends, I think you just have to know that person really well. If it was someone like me, I would like to actually have it when I was actually pregnant because I’d have the time then right before the baby comes, I'm probably on maternity leave, maybe taking it a little bit lighter at work, and I have time to just sit there on the weekends and watch that, right? But if you're someone like, nope, I can’t watch this now and do it six months later, I'd rather do it a week before. Then you can buy it for them then, but they would just use it a couple of months later.

 

0:29:36.6 S1: And you have an active blog, so if she is wanting to do research, she can head over to your blog and learn more.

 

0:29:45.1 S2: I try to publish one or two articles per month 'cause they're well researched, so it takes me time to write them out, but yes, feel free to follow the blog and then anything else that you need, our website’s actually much better. We're actually doing a re-branding of it in a couple of weeks, which we are really excited about, it's gonna be much more awesome.

 

0:30:03.0 S1: Very cool. Well, by the time we launch this then, you'll have a new website. Exactly. That's exciting. So how about your social channels, is that a great way to learn about you as well?

 

0:30:14.4 S2: Yes, so I do Lives on Facebook and Instagram every week, and then I also do Reels on Instagram, but on Instagram I post a ton of information. In the carousel posts we have “did you know?” posts, we do myth-busters posts, and so if you're ever interested in following me, that’d be awesome 'cause you could just kind of see the stuff that I talk about. And 99% of things that I pull for that is because I'm working with somebody who's experiencing that issue. So while I don’t say Kathy from Scottsdale is having that issue, I'll say, have you ever... known your toddler doesn't sleep and wakes up three times a night? So I'm using what I'm learning in real life, 'cause I'm assuming that other people are facing that same issue too, and then maybe generalizing it, so then you could say, oh my gosh, I actually went through that two months ago. Oh, she's so right about that. And then how do you actually solve it, so like quick tips. I'm really about providing value, because I understand that this is a very, very fragile area. So you have to be very careful about how you approach it, and you have to be very careful with what you put out there, 'cause you don't want someone to read something and then take it to mean something totally different, and so a lot of my posts are very well researched.

 

0:31:24.2 S2: A lot of my posts are stuff that I've experienced with my clients, that's really true life, so you could say like, this isn't something that I'm Googling and putting out there, this is something that I'm experiencing myself as well.

 

0:31:35.6 S1: If you're going through it most likely... Anyone... There are others that are going through it... Yeah, that's a great piece of advice there, so we are gonna do a giveaway, we have some great hand-made gifts that…crocheted, a little bear, the snuggly bear, and then a little hat, and each thing comes with a head wrap for mom and so she can match baby. So we'll be giving that away when we promote the podcast, so encourage all the listeners to comment and comment on your posts, get involved, 'cause that's what it is, is a community of moms that you have of new moms, and that makes it easier when we have others that we can relate to. Exactly. Well, it was so nice to meet you. It was, I'm really, really grateful for all of the work that you've done in this area for new moms, because it is critical to get our sleep as new moms and for babies to be healthy and happy kids for our families. Exactly, thank you so much for having me. And again, thank you to all the listeners. This podcast was brought to you by the Checkable Health podcast team and edited by the Grow The Show team.


0:32:45.9 S1: Thank you so much for joining us. This is just an awesome podcast, if I was a new mom, I would definitely take advantage of Neha’s training, and I love how she has it in so many different forms, the one-on-one, the group coaching, or maybe you wanna do it yourself, sort of online school, and the research part, definitely go to her blog, she has so much information that is really relevant and sleeping is our most important thing, I think as moms, as well as the weight gain, which she talks about on her blog as well. So we will have opportunities for you to participate and enter to join our giveaway, so please follow us on all of the social channels we are at Checkable Health. Thank you so much for listening, and we are empowering you to make healthcare decisions from home, so go out there, be healthy, thrive and live your best life.