Transcript of EP66: The Real Impact Of Sleep Deprivation & How To Get Your Little One To Sleep - Guest Emma Roberts

00:08
Suzy Olivier
Welcome to the Mothers of Enterprise podcast. I'm your host, Suzy Olivier, mama of three, military wife and successful serial entrepreneur of 15 years, now turned business mentor and mindset coach for women who want it all, minus the hustle and the overwhelm. This show is for the woman who wants to build a wildly successful, high profit, heart centred business and thriving lifestyle, all while raising a family. It's time to harness your feminine superpowers and join me as we dive into all things mindset, business strategy, wealth creation and motherhood to support you in building the business and life of your dreams. Welcome to the Mothers of Enterprise podcast.

01:04
Suzy Olivier
Hello, hello beautiful people. Welcome to a brand new, shiny podcast episode.

01:09
Suzy Olivier
Today's one is a little bit different.

01:11
Suzy Olivier
So hopefully by now you know that we are getting some amazing guests onto the podcast. And so far it's been very business orientated, business themed. But today's one is a slightly different angle, but one that I think that we desperately need in the parenting business world. And that is support around getting our beautiful kiddos, those little darlings that we love so much, to freaking sleep and really understand what the effects of sleep deprivation are beyond just making us feel absolutely exhausted all the time.

01:43
Suzy Olivier
So I have invited the amazing Emma from Dear Mama, who is a baby sleep coach and mama expert or coach, to come and help us through all of this and just shed some light on what we are doing in our lives that might be hindering our little one's sleep and how to make sure that we are being looked after in the process of all this as well. So, Emma, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for agreeing to come and chat to me about this very important, very hot topic. Could you just introduce yourself to everyone? I know I've obviously briefly given you a very short bio, but who you are, what you do and what your business is about.

02:22
Emma Roberts
Hi, yes, so thank you for having me, Suzy. For a start, it's a privilege to be on here today. Yeah. So I'm Emma, I'm the founder of Dear Mama. So dear mama is my. I'm a sort of one man band business. And what I do is I help babies sleep. I also help mummers who are experiencing postnatal depression or it's not one specialist service, it's kind of like a few different things. My main aim is to obviously get babies to sleep so that mums can feel refreshed and revitalized and relaxed and calm. And also to kind of help with quite a lot of my work is sort of the practical side of things somebody might have a baby, and they call me and they say, look, I don't know how to bath my baby. I don't know how to make bottles up.

03:25
Emma Roberts
I've never changed a nappy before. I don't know how to settle my baby to sleep. So then I'll come along and I'll kind of give them some practical tips and some kind of help them with their sort of. If they're feeding when you've just had a baby, you've got some baby blues, which are completely normal, and they might just be feeding a little bit, kind of lacking confidence. So I'll come along, give them a boost and just set them off on their way to the journey of parenting. Yeah. So that's kind of a bit about what I do, really. I absolutely love it. I've been doing it for about 15 years now, so I've got a lot of experience. But saying that it's not that I know everything about babies because they're all so completely different, so they all teach me something new.

04:11
Suzy Olivier
Oh, I love that. And I love it that you got so much experience. And that's why I kind of gravitated towards you when I found you on the Instagram, because you got the qualifications, you got the expertise, you've got the experience, as we had a call together a week or so ago. And your passion and your heart for what you do just shines through on every level. So when I found you, I'm like, right, we are now going to be Instagram best friends and I'm going to support you any way I can for your business. And likewise, I really feel that you've got so much wisdom for my people, my beautiful mums in business, who are, quite frankly, absolutely exhausted. So kind of diving into that exhaustion now. People listening to the podcast don't hate me. My first two slept really well.

04:53
Suzy Olivier
I did nothing special. Like Annabelle, she was three weeks old when she did her first kind of 07:00. Then she'd a 10:00 dream feed and then she would go through until seven. And that was kind of her. I mean, obviously we had the occasional bad night, but most of the time I had a full night's sleep from three weeks old. And then Delilah came along and she.

05:11
Emma Roberts
Was a bit late.

05:12
Suzy Olivier
She was five to six weeks when she was doing full nights, and that was my experience of baby sleep. Again, obviously, we had the bad nights, both exclusively breastfed, but I somehow just hit some sleep baby kid lottery with the first two. And Gabriella, shall we put it nicely, she does sleep, and it could be worse. And I do try and count my blessings and try and focus on the fact that I know so many people experience so much worse than me, but it is still freaking exhausting if, you know, if you have not had a full night's sleep. Coming on free a year today. Because it's her birthday right now.

05:48
Emma Roberts
Yes.

05:48
Suzy Olivier
I'm recording a podcast on her birthday, but she's out with nanny at the park, so. Having a great time. Yeah. It starts adding up a little bit in how you actually mean Emma. We know kind of sleep deprivation makes you died, obviously, but what are the other side effects that we are experiencing and might not even realize that actually, it's because the fact we haven't slept in a very long time.

06:10
Emma Roberts
Yeah. Most of the families that I go and see are suffering from sleep deprivation, and it has such an impact on absolutely everything. It's like your metabolism. I mean, when you're tired, you can't be bothered to make a nice, healthy meal. I know myself when I'm tired. I'm going to the cupboard and I'm grabbing bread, chocolate, pasta, kind of cereal.

06:41
Suzy Olivier
That's my go to.

06:42
Emma Roberts
Yeah, it's like, metabolism, energy, mental health, physical health, your memory. It's like, I went to a family a few weeks ago, and the mum said that she was so sleep deprived she couldn't find her phone, and she eventually found it in the freezer. She was getting some fish fingers out for her son. She put her phone in the fish finger box, so she'd opened the freezer, and obviously it wasn't in there. She had to wait for her husband to get home to ring it, and then thankfully, it worked. But it just. Memory, cognition, relationship. See, what I find really sad is a lot of the families that I go to, you kind of like, sometimes the dads are sleeping on office floors and things like that.

07:34
Emma Roberts
The mum and dad haven't shared a bed for so long, been on a date night, or they don't have dinner together, because sleep deprivation just affects absolutely everything. And I've seen it completely kind of tear families apart, really, because it is just so intense. I mean, you are. Every day you are just living on a sleep debt, and it just kind of affects everything. Yeah, I suppose I see the real kind of the end of it where it is really tough, where parents are like, look, we need to do something. We can't cope anymore. I can't function. And a lot of it is about kind of that year mark or six month mark when mums are having to go back to work and they're like, how can I function on 2 hours sleep? It is not possible.

08:32
Emma Roberts
So I come in and kind of do some sleep training, and it really does change people's lives. I mean, you see a huge difference and it is so rewarding. I don't really see it as a job, I see it as like a hobby, because I absolutely just love it the way that I change people's lives. And I'm not trying to have a big head or anything like that, but it does it change people's lives? I can imagine rewarding, because I go to them and they're this, like, in their voice, there's not much energy in their voice and they're tired. Then after a couple of nights fall sleep, they are a different person, and it's like they can take on the world.

09:17
Suzy Olivier
Absolutely. I've had that. When Gabriella would give me one or two nights of like eleven till six or twelve until six, she's like, oh, my goodness, I'm a completely new human being today. I'm going to do all these things. I'm going to conquer my to do this because you just feel like you got a new lease on life. So I can only imagine if, you know, you can have that most notes, it's going to feel like heaven. But the whole impact on kind of your cognition. I would be coaching a client and the words would escape me. I know exactly what I want to say. I can think, and obviously I'm telling my clients as value filled, and I'm completely there for them, but the vocabulary just drops out of my brain and they're really simple words.

09:57
Suzy Olivier
I'll be going, okay, just give me a second. The words coming, no. And I'll try and find every other word imaginable to try and describe the one thing. Obviously, as soon as the call ends.

10:04
Emma Roberts
I'm like, there's the word, it's come.

10:06
Suzy Olivier
To me, and then I'll get to them on our calm system. Like, I'm sorry, this is the word I'm talking about. And I'm not usually like that. When it comes to coaching, when comes to live streams, it comes to recording my podcast. I usually absolutely fine, but it's literally words would have Spanish. It's like my brain just went into this blank, like there's nothing there. I can't even think of something else to say. So, yeah, I think it's so vital for ladies listening to realize that they deprivation isn't just about you being tired, it's your health. It's your mental health, it's your relationships, it's your fitness, it's the food that you eat. Literally, it spills into every part of your being.

10:44
Suzy Olivier
Which is why if you read any book on optimal living and healthy living and how to deal with menopause, or how to deal with postpartum or how to get really fit or grow muscle or hormone balancing, they're like, oh, get your eight, nine sleep, hours of sleep a night. You're like, all right, okay then that's not me right now. I'll focus on the later. But yeah, it literally is. It's the lifeblood of our well-being. I've asked my community for a few questions as to what suffering with and after you mentioned before we pressed that record button, they kind of had the same answer, which might be quite useful. So I'm going to, shall I read them all out, Emma? And then you can kind of give your answer for all of them or do you want to do them individually?

11:29
Emma Roberts
You could read them all out. Yeah, that's fine. How many are there?

11:33
Suzy Olivier
There's four that I've seen so far.

11:36
Emma Roberts
Okay, that's fine. Yeah, if you can read them all out and then.

11:39
Suzy Olivier
Okay, so we got, number one is tips for getting a one year old to sleep with. Sleep in capital letters and extra ease sleep. My six month old won't go to sleep at bedtime at 07:00 p.m. But will only fall asleep closer to 10:00 p.m. She has two naps a day with the last one ending at three. Question number three is my two year old still wakes up several times a night and won't fall back to sleep without me next to him.

12:02
Emma Roberts
Help.

12:03
Suzy Olivier
And last one is my one. My twelve month old, who's currently not breastfed, wakes up for feeds one to two times a night, but has recently stopped going back to sleep easily afterwards and instead wide awake for two to 3 hours before going back to sleep, which was last night. So, yeah, can I hand over to your expertise?

12:22
Emma Roberts
Yep, that's fine. So we'll start with your one because it will be great to ask you a few more questions as.

12:33
Suzy Olivier
Oh, live coaching.

12:34
Emma Roberts
Love it. So your little girl, is it? Little girl, little boy?

12:39
Suzy Olivier
Little girl? Gabriella.

12:40
Emma Roberts
Yes, Gabriella. So she is twelve months exactly today and she is waking two times a night. Did you say to breastfeed?

12:51
Suzy Olivier
Yeah, one to two times a night, she'll wake up for a feed and I've tried to give her water instead and I've tried sending her husband in thinking like, maybe she can smell the milk on me. And she will just kick off until she gets her feed and then she has a milk and usually a little cuddle and I could put her down and walk away, but lately she will come off, she will start chatting away, she'll call the dog, she'll want to roll off the feeding pillow and she'll start sticking her dummy in my mouth and laughing about it. And she is wide awake. So last night were with her for two and a half hours before.

13:21
Emma Roberts
She would go back to sleep after.

13:22
Suzy Olivier
Her like 03:00 feed. So, yeah, that's where we're currently at.

13:26
Emma Roberts
Is she sleeping in her own room or is she in your room?

13:31
Suzy Olivier
In her own room.

13:32
Emma Roberts
Okay. And so you don't co sleep?

13:37
Suzy Olivier
No. So my husband was deployed recently and she's got a double bed in her bedroom as well, next to her cot. And she wasn't well, she had a fever and she had two teeth coming through. And so just as a survival technique, I would feed her and then she would happily roll over on the bed next to me and I'm like, you know what, it's just everyone trying to get some sleep. So I do think I may have triggered some unhealthy habits in those few weeks away by just letting her do that. So she would sleep. So majority of the time she would be in her own cot, not co sleeping. But there has been a blip in that routine recently.

14:10
Emma Roberts
Yeah. And she's having solid, she's having free meals a day.

14:16
Suzy Olivier
Oh, yeah, free good meals a day. She loves her food.

14:19
Emma Roberts
Underweight or anything. She's healthy.

14:21
Suzy Olivier
Healthy as can be.

14:24
Emma Roberts
It sounds like to me that this is kind of the feeding is a habit, like a sleep association where she is needing some kind of input to be able to go back to sleep. But actually she doesn't need that. I mean, she's having three healthy meals a day, she's having snacks. It sounds like it's a habit. And what sometimes happens, especially at around this age, is actually you going in and feeding her is waking her up. She's like, okay, mummy, this is playtime, this is not sleep time. Mummy's here. And then she'll start trying to get some kind of interaction out of you by, for example, calling the dog or having a conversation with you.

15:09
Emma Roberts
And then I often find round about this age, once they're awake and they've had that kind of stimulation, it is more difficult for them to get back to sleep. So actually going in to feed her before might have sort of got her off to sleep quite quickly, but now it sounds like it's waking her up even more 100%. So it's about kind of, if you wanted to make a change, you could, and you could look at other ways of settling her without feeding her so that there's more of a consistent kind of routine based approach where she knows what's expected. And, I mean, they get it really easily. It's often harder for the parent sleep training. They tend to get it really quickly. They love routine, they love boundaries, they love consistency. So it's about looking.

16:11
Emma Roberts
I mean, because she's a healthy weight, she has her three meals a day, she has her snacks. She does need that feed. It sounds like it's more of a routine, more of a habit. So there are things that you can do which I can help with that will kind of take away those feeds, and you can still comfort her in other ways, but slowly moving away from that will help her sleep better. It just sounds like she's got her dog into this routine of waking up and being awake for hours on end.

16:43
Suzy Olivier
It's not fun. And bless her, so she thinks it's hilarious. She's laughing away, and obviously the dog responds to her. Now when she's calling, the dog comes, runs running into the bedroom and the dog jumping on the bed. Like, what's happening to my life? Okay, so I have to stop feeding her at night.

16:57
Emma Roberts
Okay. And the thing is, we don't have to sleep train if we don't want to. I don't ever put pressure on parents to sleep train, because you have to do what's right for you. If you're happy feeding twice a night, then I've worked with parents that have fed their babies till they're three years old, completely fine. It's whatever works for you. But if you feel like, if parents feel like they want to make a change, that things are not working as they are, then there are options, but there's no pressure to do that. You don't have to sleep train your child unless you want to.

17:36
Suzy Olivier
Yeah, absolutely. I think if she, for me, if she went back to sleep after her feed, it doesn't bother me. She used to plug on for ten minutes, be back in a deep sleep, and I'd happily put her down. But now it's affecting the sleep I have, and so now it's turning into ash. But it's just a bit like business. I mean, I've got clients coming to me with all the problems. I'm like, actually, you can just stay with your business at the current rate you're going at and just figure it out and hope it gets better, or you can take action and get the support and make changes. So, yeah, it's very similar.

18:08
Emma Roberts
Yeah, you don't have to make changes. I only work with people that want to work with me. I don't sleep train because it's completely their choice. So another one of those questions was babies not going to sleep until 10:00 p.m. Is that right?

18:29
Suzy Olivier
Yeah. Six months old, won't go to sleep at bedtime, which is 07:00 p.m. But will only fall asleep close to ten. She has two naps a day with the last one ending at 03:00 p.m.. Yeah.

18:39
Emma Roberts
How old is she? Does it say six months? Okay, so she's awake for quite a long period of time. From free till seven. Well, actually from free till 10:00 so I would probably look at maybe having a cat nap around five ish. Also, it would be helpful to know kind of what happens at 07:00. I mean, is there a routine? Is there a lovely, calming bedtime where you have a bath and then you come out of the bath and you go into the room where they'll be sleeping and you have a massage and you have some quite calm stories, and then you have a feed and then what actually is going on at 07:00 is it kind of quite upbeat play? Is there any calming downtime? Because are they happy being awake from seven till ten? Are they crying?

19:35
Emma Roberts
So I'd need to know a bit more information around that. But if she's awake from three till ten, that is a long time to be awake. So I'd be looking at kind of being overtired. And when we're overtired, what happens is the cortisol in the brain kind of reduces the melatonin, which is a sleepy hormone. So it might be that kind of. There needs to be either another nap at the end of the day or to bring bedtime a bit earlier. So putting her down half six and just having that really calming bedtime routine and consistency as well, because if one night she's going to bed at seven and then the next time it's nine, there's not much consistency there. So there's a lot of things that go into it.

20:25
Emma Roberts
It's not kind of a lot of information that I have to be able to kind of really understand what's going.

20:32
Suzy Olivier
On, but kind of general advice, get an extra nap in and a beautiful, consistent, calm bedtime routine.

20:41
Emma Roberts
Bedtime routine, where it's kind of my perfect routine is a bath and then go into the room that they'll be sleeping, dim the lights, have a lovely massage. I mean, it doesn't have to be a massage. Just put some moisturizer on them and then sort of sit them in the chair that you're going to be feeding them in. Have some little stories, because I don't believe that there's an earlier age to do bedtime stories. I read new-borns stories because it's really. Yeah, I just think that the earlier you do it, the more it just becomes part of their routine. And then they begin to ask books because that's all they know, so it's really helpful. And then a feed, whether you're breastfeeding or bottle feeding, and then having a consistent bedtime routine.

21:32
Emma Roberts
Yeah, but it would be great to know some kind of more information on that.

21:38
Suzy Olivier
What I'll do is I'll make sure we've got the links to your website, to your Instagram, and everything in the show notes. So anyone who is listening, and for people who did ask the questions, feel free to get in touch with Emma.

21:47
Emma Roberts
And obviously, sleep is. I mean, there's so much that goes into sleep. I need to find out about kind of how much they're eating. Yeah, everything. And often night wakings after six months old, especially if they've started solids, kind of. It can be habit, routine, sleep associations. And you can do it however gently you want to do it. I don't do cry out. I don't believe in cry out. I, in order to see change, do have to put boundaries in place, and often that can cause some tears. I mean, I've not managed to sleep train a child before that has never cried once. Because we are changing something that they're used to. But it's about supporting those tears. It's about not leaving cry on their own. In order to see change, we have to put boundaries in place.

22:46
Emma Roberts
But again, if you don't want to do it, you don't have to. It's whatever is working or not working for you. But what I would say to parents is that sleep training, for me, it's easy to do. Within a couple of nights, you see huge change. And it's often the parents that I'm having to coach because the babies get it quite easily, parents that think, oh, my goodness, my baby's going to be crying all night. And in 15 years, I've never had a baby cry all night. Never. It's just, yeah, there will be tears, but we will be supporting those tears. And they get it so quickly.

23:32
Suzy Olivier
Absolutely. For the greater good, isn't it? Like I say, it's completely up to the parent as to whether they want to go through it or not, but essentially it's better for the baby in the long term and obviously it's a way better for the parents in the long term. So it's one of those things you just go through. It's not overly pleasant at the time.

23:50
Emma Roberts
But if you want to get feedback, if you don't climb the mountain, you can't see the view. Baby, that I'm sleep training at the moment. He was waking five, six times a night for a breastfeed. The first night we did sleep training, last night was the second night he woke once for two minutes. Wow. And that was it. That was it. And it's like the parents are like, I can't believe that this is happening. Like, this is amazing.

24:20
Suzy Olivier
So quickly. Yeah.

24:22
Emma Roberts
Sleep isn't linear. We don't sleep amazingly every night. It doesn't happen. We have good nights and we have bad nights, but it's just about improving that sleep. Yeah, absolutely.

24:33
Suzy Olivier
So, like the lady you're working with or family working with. Now, even in my situation, stopping the breastfeeding at night, what's your recommendation? Do we just go in? Do we pick up baby? Do we give them a cuddle? Do we rub their backs? Is there a recommended kind of replacement routine that you think works best?

24:51
Emma Roberts
What I do, when I have my consultation with parents, I give them a few options of sleep training that I use and I let them choose the approach because I don't know your baby, I don't know what works for you.

25:06
Suzy Olivier
This is your decision.

25:07
Emma Roberts
This is your baby. So I give them a very gentle approach where we basically replace the feeding with a cuddle or a pattern of shush in the cot and you stay in the room at all times. And every couple of nights we move further away from the cot. So staying in the room, the next approach that I do is it's like a pop in, pop out. So we'll pop out the room for 20 seconds and then we'll pop back in, and then we'll pop out for 40 seconds and we gradually increase it. Some people might say it's controlled crying, but actually the increments that I choose.

25:53
Suzy Olivier
Are very tiny, aren't they? Yeah.

25:56
Emma Roberts
Actually, that approach creates less crying because it's like if you're hungry and somebody puts a cheese sandwich next to you and it's in sight, you're going to want it. But babies, it's a bit like out of sight, out of mind sometimes. But those are my main two approaches in a nutshell. Obviously, there's a lot more that goes into it and each baby, and I tailor it to each baby, but that is it in a nutshell. So parents have that choice of staying in the room and not leaving, or if they want quicker results, they want something that is going to work really quickly because they might be going back to work next week and they've left it to the last minute, then that approach really well, it just depends what works for you, really.

26:44
Suzy Olivier
I love that you got the options as well. And their parents do kind of have the control in what they feel they're comfortable with and what they think the baby's comfortable with. So, no, I think we discussed this previously about a very popular sleep course, sleep coaches out there in America, that I purchased when I realized that Gabriella wasn't going to sleep through the night like the first two did. And everything was so regimental. Like, the baby can never fall asleep on the boob or the bottle. And the baby, once you put the baby in the cot, never pick the baby up again. So you pick the baby up again, you're messing with them and they think the more they cry, eventually you will pick them up. And so I think she described it like playing those sort of things a word.

27:23
Suzy Olivier
Now, see, I'm using my example of words vanishing. There's like jackpot machines, like in Vegas, like, you keep pulling the lever and the baby kind of goes like, wait, if I just keep putting the lever, eventually mummy will pay out and she'll pick me up. And so we need to teach the baby that no matter how many times they push the lever, they're never going to pay out. Mummy's never picking them up. And I just felt it was so regimental and just unnatural, which is why I thought, well, obviously steep training isn't for me. Obviously, I can't do it, therefore I just have to suck it up buttercup, and deal with being tired until eventually, one day she sleeps. But it's actually not the case.

27:54
Suzy Olivier
Like talking to you now, I'm like, wow, there really is so much flexibility in the approach, and finding one that works for you that you're comfortable with is kind of the key to it all. It doesn't have to be like, these are the rules for sleep and this is how it has to look. And even in the course, they kind of said, in fact, the reason why I bought the course was that you won't have to let your baby cry herself to sleep. And we agree with cuddle naps, but then I got into the course, I'm like, no cuddle naps. And they do the 510, 50 minutes kind of control crying. I'm like leaving a baby to cry for five minutes when they're young.

28:28
Suzy Olivier
I mean, now, I would leave Gabrielle to fuss in her cot for five or ten minutes, but I wouldn't let her to cry. Like, actually sob and cry for 510 minutes. They don't have 15 minutes. So I just couldn't. So I just assumed. No, obviously, sleep training is something doesn't work for me. I'm not going to do it. But I love the fact that you actually allow parents to find something that they feel comfortable with and the fact that there are many different modalities and tips and tricks and systems and routines that can work. It's not just one regimental, this is how you do it, full stop.

28:55
Emma Roberts
So I love that they have to be involved in it, they have to feel confident in it. You can't force somebody to do something that they don't feel comfortable with because they're not going to carry it through. So it's about giving parents autonomy to decide what is right for their child, because at the end of the day, mum knows best. I don't know best. I can give you the facts and I can give you the method to choose, but at the end of the day, this is your baby and it's not for me to say, do this, do. And it works better when parents are given choices, rather than saying, you should do this.

29:39
Suzy Olivier
Absolutely. I think, Matthew, from a mindset and even kind of an energetic perspective, if you've got the parents buy in energetically into the process and they aren't freaking out and anxious and holding all that tension and worrying about the baby, then baby's going to kind of pick up, oh, mom's cool and calm and relaxed about this. Like, I'm not loving it. I would much rather have my feed, but I can pick up that mum chilled out and relaxed and she's bought into to this, so therefore, hopefully, baby will feed off that and not mum, literally. So, yeah, no, I absolutely love that. Any advice for the question about the two year old who wakes several times in the night and won't fall back to sleep without mum next to him?

30:13
Emma Roberts
Yeah. So, again, this is kind of a sleep association. Again, the baby, the toddler, is needing mum next to him, so every time he wakes, he is going to need that same sleep association in order to get back to sleep. So again, in order to improve sleep for this little one, it's about gently mum, sort of moving further and further away from this child so that the child gets the independence and the confidence to be able to sleep independently. And again, parents often think, oh, my child is over one, over two, nothing's going to work. We've left it too late. I've worked with children up to seven, eight years of age, so there's no age that you've not left it too late at all.

31:07
Emma Roberts
I mean, often it can be harder the older they are, especially if they're in a bed or they can kind of come in and out of their room. It is more difficult, but it still works. It's again, all about consistency, routine. The child knows what's expected of them, so they feel safe and contained. If a child, when they wake up, they don't know whether they're going to be fed, rocked to sleep, took out in the car, in the buggy, kind of rocking up and down the stairs, then they don't know what's expected. So I believe that a baby or a toddler or a preschool child needs to know what happens when they wake up, because once they know, they're more prepared for it and they know what's going to happen, so they do sleep better.

31:55
Suzy Olivier
I love that. Now I know, again, a bit like business coaching. Like, you need to know the specifics, you want to know the context. There is no one size fits all, but I'm going to mildly challenge you. Anyway, let's go for this question instead. When you are working with all of the families that you have worked with in the last 15 years, what are the most kind of common mistakes or the most common kind of areas that need your attention or need addressing that maybe can be applied to kind of a broader audience listening now and kind of take away from this and put into action.

32:28
Emma Roberts
When parents call me, they're like, oh, I've done this wrong. I've broken my baby, I'm a failure. Actually, you've done nothing wrong. You are responding to your baby. But what can sometimes happen is, so the baby wakes in the night, you feed them, because we all want to get sleep. We want our baby to sleep. So we feed them. Every time they wake up, we feed them. What happens is then as the baby grows up, they learn that every time they wake up, they get fed. So this is their routine, this is all they know. So we can't expect them to wake up and not want to feed if that's all they know, obviously with new-born babies, they need to be fed every time they wake, because they're new-born, they're growing, it's kind of completely.

33:24
Emma Roberts
And especially if I'm working with breastfed babies, because I don't know how much milk they're having or if they're hungry or not, I will then have to keep taking them to mum to say, look, I think they're hungry, they're rooting, and it's quite difficult because I don't know if they've had 20 meal ten minutes ago or they've had. But with kind of formula fed babies, I can see how much they've had. So what I would then do is start patting and shushing them when they wake up, because I know that half an hour ago they've had 100 meal of milk, so I know they're not hungry or they're starving. So I will use other ways to get them to sleep.

34:04
Emma Roberts
And what that does from the very start is just create some really sort of great sleep hygiene habits where the baby learns that actually when they wake up, they're not fed every time. But it is difficult because we all want sleep and we all do whatever we can to get feeding your baby ten times a night, then so be it. But then at some point, that becomes kind of a sleep problem for people because there's only so long that you can live off sleep deprivation. It really does.

34:42
Suzy Olivier
So creating better sleep associations or better kind of techniques, rather, to get them back down again versus, like, shoving a boob or a bottle in their mouth.

34:52
Emma Roberts
Yeah. And it's like I'm looking after an new-born baby at the moment who's breastfed, and mum will often express milk, so I'll give the baby an express bottle during the night. But she's only four and a half weeks now. But I've had some really great improvements with her because at first I was having to take her upstairs every half an hour to be fed because I didn't know if she was hungry or not. But now I'm using, like, swaddle, I'm using white noise, and it's really helping her. And last night she only fed twice, so great.

35:23
Suzy Olivier
Wow, that's amazing, Emma. Thank you so much. I love the fact that it's kind of a different theme, not all about business, but I think it's really the fundamental element of our business, because we can't show up, we can't serve, we can't create the products, we can't think clearly without sleep. So I think it's a really vital conversation. Where can everyone listening find you? On the interwebs?

35:47
Emma Roberts
So I am Dear Mama ZZ on Instagram and my website is www.dearmama.co.uk and I'll be happy to answer anybody's questions or if they want a bit of advice, always happy to help. As I say, it's like my hobby really. Oh, and I love that.

36:09
Suzy Olivier
I think it's such a blessing when we find those businesses which, like you say, it doesn't feel like work. It feels like an absolute joy and that comes through in talking to you and your work and kind of getting to know you recently. So love it. Absolutely love it. Love everything you're about. Love how you approach it all. I will pop links to everything about you into the show notes. Ladies, if you have any questions, if you need Emma's help, please go and get in touch with her. I've been at this mum thing now for nearly ten years and I've come across a lot of sleep coaches and a lot of courses and a lot of books.

36:43
Suzy Olivier
And Emma's the first one who I'm like, wow, I would actually give her all my money because of your ethos, your passion, your energy around what you do.

36:55
Emma Roberts
Oh, please, don't read the books.

37:02
Suzy Olivier
Don't take blanket advice and try and apply it to your very intricate individual.

37:08
Emma Roberts
Babies. You don't have a manual for a baby. They're all completely different.

37:13
Suzy Olivier
Honestly, I think babies and businesses are so similar. My clients come to me going, Suzy, I've read every business book going, and nothing works for me. I'm like, yeah, because your business is completely unique to you and you are completely unique in how you want to run it. So stop trying to apply blanket advice for your beautiful individual needs. And so, yeah, business and babies people, they are side by side in how they function. Emma, thank you so much. I appreciate your time so much. Ladies, please go and get in touch with Emma. Go and share some love on her Instagram. I'll again link to all below and then everyone, of course, I will see.

37:45
Suzy Olivier
You same time next week.

37:46
Suzy Olivier
Bye for now.

37:50
Suzy Olivier
Thank you so much for joining me on this episode. If you know someone who'd love this podcast, I will be so grateful if you could share it with them. Because what the world needs more of are mothers stepping into their superpowers and creating amazing success because they're mothers and not in spite of it. If you've enjoyed this episode and found value in this podcast, which I really hope you have, please rate review and comment.

38:18
Suzy Olivier
I will be so grateful.

38:19
Suzy Olivier
And as a thank you, we'll be selecting one reviewer each month who will receive a 1 hour business clinic intensive coaching session with me worth over 500 pounds. Thank you again so much for joining me. I appreciate more than I can say, and I'll be back with you soon. In the next episode.