July 22, 2025 • 47 mins
The Packers are stuck in Michigan and catching up on all things parenting— from hot takes on gentle parenting to the hilarious story of how their one-week vacation turned into three. Then comes the main event: sleep coach and Why Won’t You Sleep?! author Macall Gordon joins to talk about Waylon’s sleep drama (which they spilled a couple weeks ago). Macall specializes in deeply feeling kids and explains why temperament plays a huge role in sleep patterns. She helps crack the code on Waylon—and offers wisdom for every tired parent out there.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, everyone, Welcome to these packs puck. I'm Madison Packer.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And I'm Anya Packer. Madison and I are both former
pro hockey players. We met through hockey and fell in love,
and now we're married with two awesome toddlers, ages two
and four.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
These days, we're opening up about the chaos of our
daily lives, between the juggle of being athletes, raising kids.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And all the messiness in between. So buckle the puck
up because there is a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
My babe, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm fabulous? How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Where are we in the world.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We are in northern Michigan. It is going on week three.
It's been an absolute chaos, but we're here and thriving.
That's so great. We had some car troubles. We are
headed home soon. Hopefully We'll get into all that in
a little bit. But did we get into the hot
take first? Let's talk about the hockey hot take. Let's
(00:55):
get into it. Hockey hot take, my hot take, and
it lends to the episode. So I'm really excited for
today's episode because we have sleep coach and expert McCall gordon,
who talks to us a lot about our cry for
help with Wyleen a couple weeks ago. But all that
to say, we had a quick check in on gentle parenting,
and I want to open it up because I think
(01:17):
we honestly disagree here, but dentle parenting, give me your
hot take.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I guess I'm feeling it a little more now with Harlan,
where like her reaction to everything is just to punch
somewhere in the face, which is probably not the best
parenting style. However, gentle parenting does not work with Whyalan.
It works with Harlan. She's a different story, and I
think we try to apply it to both. We don't
spank our kids because we don't believe in that, and
(01:43):
I'm not advocating for like hitting our kids. I just
think that, like it's tough to find a consequence system
or structure and Whyalan needs a little firmer hand sometimes
And I don't know how we do that because the
whole like like you get down on one knee or
you're like Maddie just like and like I just feel
(02:05):
like it's like he like takes advantage.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You're conflating gentle parenting with being a pushover. Like I
believe very literally what.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I thought in my head and then you said it,
I do, and that's what I know what I think.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
But I'm telling you right now, I don't think like
gentle parenting is basically just being like super empathetic, super
respectful and super understanding every time your kid has an issue,
and like there's probably more nuance to it, right, But
like if Whylan doesn't get a toy, if he asks
me for a toy and I say no and he
loses his marbles and has a whole temper tantrum, I
(02:40):
am fine to spend time in that feeling saying, dude,
I get it. I get frustrated too, I get upset
to I get let down too. Do you want to hug?
Would you like to talk about it? Would you like
some space? It's not going to happen, but we can
certainly sit in the real feeling that he's got. I mean, like,
(03:00):
that's a good example of when I think that my
parenting style is a little bit different because I'm not
going to cave I just say yes to this that
or like I just think like sometimes you'll be like Wayland, stop,
you know what I'm saying, Like I don't know how
to explain it better. Than that, but like there are
certain times where I feel like if you were to
(03:22):
just say to him, hey, I totally get it, I
get upset to we're not going to use our hands.
We can use our hands to color, we can use
our hands to hug, we can use our hands to whatever,
but we're not going to use them to push our
sister to the ground, right Like I will. Don't think
I do that. No, I don't disagree. I mean, like
I'm not perfect. I didn't say I'm like the gentle
parent expert that never does it wrong. I'm just saying
(03:44):
I will spend more time to create conversation around the
discipline versus Mama said blank and it is what it
is and stop. And I think it comes from like
noise fry. I think you get noise fry and then
you are spent. I can live in the weeds longer.
(04:06):
Not bad.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, no, I can't do the noise. And I'm definitely
the yes person, but I don't know. I also, I
grew up in a consequence house, but not even the
reward system. So like we're like tonight, like my Teabob
is watching Whaleen right now at the beach, which I'm
like is either going great or it's World War three
down there. I don't know. We'll find out in about
twenty minutes, but I'm like, you need to be a
(04:29):
good listener or you know, like we're trying to earn
the sleepover tonight. He's gonna have his first sleepover because
we're gonna make it someone else's problem for a night.
But I just don't know, Like, I think our generation
has turned out fine. I think the generation before us
is like eh, I think the generation after us is
(04:50):
a little spoiled, which I think I cater to with
our kids, but I think that there's needs to be
like like I'm not advocating for like kicking a four
year old's ass, but gentle parenting. When you have a
really spirited, opinionated, smart kid, like you have to be
firm with them, and like sometimes that means that he's
going to get upset and he's gonna be sad and
he's gonna have his feelings shirt. But like like we'll
(05:10):
say something away and he's like that broke my heart,
and I'm like, you don't even know what that means, right.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I hate when he says that though.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Where he's like I don't love you anymore. But Madison,
when I got hit with my first I don't love
you anymore, I was like, you don't even know what
that means.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
But you're not. That's you're thinking permissive parenting. You're thinking
of just being a yes person, not having boundaries, letting
him completely run his ship and back it up over us.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about giving him
the autonomy to work through his stuff, to like model
what I want him to do, to give him positive discipline,
(05:46):
giving him proportionate discipline to the action that's happening right
Like it's not like, oh, you did X, no dessert
for the rest of the week, Like that doesn't that
doesn't make sense for him in the moment. I'm not
saying that's what you do. I'm saying, generally speaking, it
has like the crime has to fit the punishment, and
I think for.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Kids, and definitely, I'm definitely.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You go the heavy. But I'm saying it's so hard,
especially with Whylan because he's so so smart. I'm not
saying let's be undisciplined. I'm good with the discipline, but
I don't think that discipline should be painful, not physically,
but like like losing blue Bunny for an hour, I've
never done that. Okay, well maybe I'm a psychopath. But
my point is like that's cruel. But that's what I'm
(06:30):
trying to say, is like getting away from things like
that and getting into things that are like, you know,
problem solving rather than a punishment. I just truly was
raised in a household where there was space to make
an error, then there was space to self correct, and
then there was space to coach through it. And if
all of those spaces were were plowed right through, you're
(06:51):
gonna get punished. But I very rarely. I think I
was grounded once in my entire life.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Ever, let's ground all the time.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Your house was like crime and punishment like pick up
dog poop per hours in the Michigan Cold like it
was just like it's different.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I'm not that never happened. Darren had to pick up
dog poop when she was hung over.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Okay, here's a perfect example.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I don't I don't believe in like it doesn't have
to be a physical punishment. This is a a quote
unquote physical example. The other day, Whaling kept smacking me
on the butt. Then he was squirting me with the
squirt gun, and the rule is squorrek guns on the
lawn only. So I said to him, if you do
it again, you're going in the lake. He did it again,
and I turned around and I said, whaling, for real,
(07:38):
if you do it again, you're going in the lake.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But do you see he did it again. It's they're
on the same page.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
The threat doesn't Then he flipped it and I carried
him over to the lake and he had an absolute meltdown.
And you were like, obviously I wasn't gonna actually drop
him in the lake, but like, he doesn't understand consequence,
and that's how life works.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You make a poor choice.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
There's a consequence.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
But Maddie, you're not gonna get him to be less
aggressive by giving him an aggressive solution. That's what I'm
saying is I think you get frustrated in those moments
because you're approaching an aggressive state with an aggressive response.
If you said, hey, buddy, I know you really want
to squirt the score gun, but Mama doesn't want to
get scorted right now. Is there something else we can
squirt together so that you get to squirt something? But
(08:22):
it isn't me I'm telling you right now, you would
have had a better solution with that versus that, like,
you know, volatile spark plug that he could touch, touch,
touch until you went to blow up, because that's what
he wanted. He wanted to play with you. He wanted
rough house like. You didn't give him an alternative out
of it. You said, stop squirting me, or I'm gonna
throw you in the lake. It was aggressive to aggressive.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
He's gonna it's.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Gonna keep going. All right, do you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
I do see what you're saying, and I will try
that next time he scorts me on the desk.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I'll incorporate that.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
I will incorporate that into my aggressive parenting style. Well, yeah,
we're up here for a few more days, so when
it happen again, I will try that, and we will
next check and we'll get back to that cool speaking
of checonds, Yeah, how we feel unpacked where we are?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I've been happier the car. Oh, he's actually completely destroyed.
Now everyone's gonna be like, oh my gosh, so dramatic.
It's probably fine. Let me just run you some bullet
point items that have happened to the vehicle. In two weeks. First,
the car was being driven with a five gallon gas
can full of gas in the trunk. That gas can
(09:39):
tipped over as a gas can typically would, and there
is gasoline all throughout the car. So first, no, our
car does not have carpets. It got sprayed out. It
is in the process of being cleaned. However, five gallons
of gas smattered that the defender is meant to be
an off road vehicle carry gas cans. Nope, I do
(10:02):
not agree, But okay, gasoline in the car. Then we're
in this process of like clearing the car out. So
we rip everything out of it, We clean it all out,
we air everything out, we put in charcoal bags. The
doors stay open for like a week. Okay, family of spiders.
That car is full littered with spiders. There's a thousand
spider webs Charlotte's Web. The whole movie and book recreated
(10:24):
itself inside this vehicle. Then that's not over. We go
to move it because a car typically moves it has
three completely flat tires holes in all three. What did
we drive over a freaking police line? Like car has
no tires? So the car has no tires Charlotte's Web gasoline.
The doors stay open to get rid of the gasoline smell. Monsoon,
(10:47):
a literal monsoon. The car is now completely moist throughout.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Okay, I didn't deserve that, So hit me with your number,
because we also need to bring people up.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
To on the right of the car story thirty.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Now I'm I'm at a ninety nine point seven because
I am in my favorite place on earth, and I'm
over at my nanny's house. Any and I arecross the
lake from each other right now. The story of the
car continues because it is a packer curse. Mind you
like like you would assume that, like this was a
(11:23):
very very nice truck that we have completely destroyed in
a week's time. I apologize it was me the week started.
Even with all this that's about to come out of
my mouth, I am at a ninety nine point point seven.
I think I'm a ninety nine point nine, not even
point seven. Ninety nine point nine. I could only be
better if my nanny had made brownies, which I think
(11:44):
she did because I saw a little baggy for me
on the side out in the kitchen. Check that out
in a little bit. But we get up north Northern
Michigan Lake Charlot Boy. My family's got a spot twenty
acres beautiful, love it fantastic. My mom has her car,
which is like, is it a coop? It's like a
load to the ground, but it's it's an suv. It's
a crossover maybe whatever. Yeah, so like a smither Like
(12:07):
our driveway can fit like four cars across comfortably. Three.
We parked like normal human beings. My brother and his
girlfriend parked, my mom's BMW like normal human beings, and
then my dad parked. I thought it was okay. My
mom took exception to how my dad parks, thought it
was too close.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Whatever.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
We have a pond and a creek and blah blah
bah blah. So rather than just using a backup cam
and backing out, my mom floored it after it had
rained and got the car stuck in the ditch.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
You know it's in the for context, it's in a creek.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
My dad and I were like trying to figure out,
how can we get this out? Why couldn't we just
use a backup cam. We got a culture play. My
dad didn't want to culture play. My dad wanted to
call like Tony's towing or something. So we call this
guy brings his toe trup down. My poor dad just
trying to get the car out. This guy hooks the
car up, just rips it out, rips it over a stump.
(13:01):
What was just a stuck car becomes a total vehicle
because he ripped the whole front bumper off. Then that
same day, my dad hit a deer and like wrecked
the front of his car. He calls the insurance company
the next day and he had like credit his credit
card got compromised. I don't know. They didn't have insurance
(13:23):
on their cars for like forty eight hours. And it
was the forty eight hours when all of this happened.
And then we spilled gas in our car. Our car
got rained on.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Do not ride in the car with a packer. That's
what I've heard. I've never been in like a bad accident.
It's just like bad, It's horrible luck. That's what I'm saying.
You have bad luck. All of that to say you're amazing.
The boats work all that to say you're amazing, I
could cry. But we are up north, so it does
make everybody a little happier. I'm really excited for our
(13:54):
next conversation. We haven't a called Gordon joining us. She
is an expert, a sleep coach, and she works really
closely with deeply feeling kids, which scratches Madison and eyes
like back of our brain given everything going on with Waylan.
But she just wrote a book called why Don't You Sleep?
She talks a little bit about it, breaks it down foundationally.
Throughout our conversation, imparts some great nuggets, some great wisdom,
(14:15):
things to try, things that you can pick up and
replicate in your own home. I'm extremely excited for this
on Madison, So we'll get into the conversation with maccollo
just after this. McCall, Hi, welcome to these packs, Puck.
(14:37):
I've never been so excited for a guest to join
us in my entire life. Welcome. That's so awesome to hear.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Can you just I want you to say it again
because I just it just feels great to hear that.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
We'll send you the recording. You can make it a
ring tone, yes, I know, I'll.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Just play it on a loop.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Well, we're so excited to have you. When we kind
of got connected, it was a cry from help for
our children. Don't Sleep Episode one. Thank you for answering McCall.
But two, I'm going to hand it over to you
to give us. Let us our audience and listeners know
who we're speaking to.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
So I am McCall gordon. Yes, that's my first name
is McCall. Because people get confused. I'm a certified gentle
sleep coach, which means I don't do the whole further thing,
but I really specialize in kids who are more alert
and intense and sensitive and persistent and perceptive, and they
(15:34):
just don't sleep because guess what temperament is everything when
it comes to sleep, and no one talks about it,
and it's like the elephant in the room that no
one is paying attention to. And I know this because
I had two of these kids. Oh and yeah, sleep
was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. And everybody's trying
(15:57):
the stuff that they all tell you to do and
it does not work. And what parents do is they go,
what's the matter with me? Well, it's not you, it's temperament.
And it's like trying to use a manual for a
PC when you have a MAC and you're like, why
isn't this working? Well, you have a different kid, right,
(16:18):
So I started really questioning the whole paradigm of sleep
training with this in mind, and I did research and
I was working specifically with these kids. And the more
I did this work, the more I mean, obviously, it's
just the more obvious and huge it became. And so
(16:40):
I wrote this book with Kim West, who train me
essentially in a different approach to sleep training.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
All of that is perfectly applicable to our household. And
we have, like I said, we have a four year
old who, like I retired recently and I took over
a lot of the kids stuff and whatever. And I
said to my wife, probably month into it, I'm like,
I'm actually concerned for your mental health because the fact
that you haven't asked for help at any point, like
(17:07):
is in itself a cry for help. Like I'm I'm drowning.
And I think that everything that you just said is
spot on what we're dealing with with our son. But
I'm kind of interested, Like did your kids drive you
into doing this work or was that just a passion
that you had anyways?
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Oh no, no, no no. I was an actor and
uh then I was I was going into mental like
I wanted to be a therapist, but I also liked
talking too much.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
So that was working out, and uh.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
And then I was a mom and then and then
the whole reality of being a mom with these kids
was like, none of this is making sense right. Well,
first of all, my daughter had colic. Oh, like forget it,
Like all bets are off. So just from for me,
from the get go, nothing made sense. And so for me,
(18:01):
the whole motherhood journey was drowning. Same and so I
kind of went about the whole mothering thing just with
this kind of what the what now? My Madison is thirty,
So this was even like the Internet was barely a thing.
(18:21):
It was really like am what world am I in?
Because my experience was just so different from everything I
was reading. So the way I got into the sleep
thing was because everything out there was fervor, everything except
for the whole attachment parenting thing. So we were doing
we were following Sears. We were like, he said, it
(18:41):
would all be great, right, you co sleep, it would
be great. You'd follow cues, it would be great. And
I say, I followed my daughter's cues right off a cliff,
like it was.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It was crazy.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
And in fact, his doctor, Sears's office was right near
where my parents lived in San Clementian. So we made
an appointment and we went to his office and.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
We were like, what do I do with this thing?
Speaker 4 (19:07):
So yeah, like okay, so so hello, and he was like, well,
just so happens it Right now, I'm writing this book
called the Fussy Baby Book and would you like to
contribute to it?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And I was like, well sure.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
But the deal is that he had whatever four or
five kids, and his last one was one of these kids. Right,
So even doctor Sears was like, hey, my methods don't
totally work the same way for these kids.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I like how much you're identifying that, Like that, like
kid and temperament equals a different parenting style because like,
you know, the big joke is like I could be
a gentle parent, but I don't have gentle children. So
like there that's gone, right, Like I like, so we joke,
but like we get ourselves a meddie And I call
it the yell cycle, right, Like Whylan doesn't go to
bed and when he's upset and he's deeply feeling, and
(20:00):
then he's fresh, and then we yell and then he
goes to bed upset and then you guys, you feel
like crap. You feel like crap, you're looking at a
four year old or deprived. He's trying the best he can,
he's kicking his sister, and it stinks. Everyone's mad, right,
So like I think that all worse.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
It's the worst.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
It's the worst. It's the worst. And I like that
you identify that. The beginning of the book really comes
to a place where you're like almost patching the parent
up because it really, it really is hard. It's a
different it's a different kind of parenting style because you
have to actually self reflect and say, I have a
different type of child and that's okay, but let me
(20:39):
kind of go into it. So how do you navigate
that first part?
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yeah, well, the first part is, yeah, you have to say, first,
it's not your fault. This is harder and you're on
like I call it, like the iron Man of parenting.
So you you have to know that you you have
to stay hydrated. You can't be perfect all the time.
(21:04):
You're not going to know what to do most of
the time. You're on an epic quest right with these kids.
So you have to just give yourself lots of grace.
Like I said, you have to literally hydrate, make sure
you have food. And I'm saying like emotional food, all
of that self compassion stuff. But you also need a
(21:27):
good map. You need to know how to get where
you're going. And you really have to know this kid's
operating system because there are some sneaky ones, there are
some real sneaky ones, and it's good to know how,
like I said, how these kids operate and also how
we operate. Right, That's what I mean is sometimes parents
(21:50):
were never told what their temperament is, like we don't know.
For example, like I say this a million times. I
remember the day I was like, why are my kids
so intense? And then was like, my god, I think
I'm I literally had no idea because I created a
mini me. Yeah, well, but it had been socialized out
(22:10):
of me.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Look, I have never taught that I was intense. I
had like.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Squashed it. Yeah, when it comes up, it's scary, never good,
never good.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah, I mean I do want to get I want
to get on into whalen.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Because okay, wait good, then good, that's next, that's next.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I love three and four year olds so much.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Is that?
Speaker 4 (22:35):
But but I think I really think he's got something
physical going on.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Our son has a big issue. He is having some
issues sleep, and we talked about it in a prior episode.
I know you've listened to it, but if our audience
hasn't heard it, go listen, commiserate, laugh at us, please
like feel our pain. What's happening is Waylan is having
a really hard time settling for bed. He's going into bed,
he's wanting water, he's wanting a he's wanting a cuddle,
(23:01):
he's wanting to get out. He's getting out of his bed.
He's turning his camera off. He's going and messing with
his you know nan it sound in light mode that
turns it night and daytime. He's playing with cars, he's
running away, he's sneaking downstairs and jump scaring my wife. Like,
he is truly going through a phase. Yeah, he cannot
(23:23):
go from daytime to night time in any form of
a transition. And then what is then coming of that
is he's getting really irritable during the day. He's really frustrated.
He's a terrible listeners. He's having really big day complexities.
And we think he's mean to the nanny. He's mean
(23:43):
to the nanny right like, and he's just like doesn't
want to leave the house. He really wants to insulate
himself only in his space, and he's having a really
hard time with seemingly everything, and we think that the
end all be all is the kid doesn't sleep. Yep,
got it.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
So let me ask some other questions because you said
something that went ding ding ding for me then the episode.
And one is that sometimes you say, and this first
of all, so common, so so so common. I hear
it all the time. You guys are not alone three
and four year olds drunk with power, That's what I say,
drunk with power. They take their little brains and they say,
(24:21):
what can I make happen with my brain? Yes, that
happens totally biologically developmentally appropriate. There were some things that
pinged other stuff as well. You did say sometimes we
just have to lay down with him or bring him
into our bed, and then it's like a Kung Fu
Panda moment and he's kicking and punching and yeah, yeah, okay.
(24:43):
When he finally does go to sleep, did you say
he's up a lot at night, like he wakes up
or is he well.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
He when he's like Kung Fu Panda, he's asleep, so
he's like he doesn't even realize he's doing it, But okay,
he wakes up probably at least four nights a week, babe,
five nights maybe, and comes into our room. And then
if it's just me, I'm like, I buckle and I
let him sleep with me. If it's Anya and I
(25:10):
then like, maybe we let him fall back asleep with
us and take him back to his bed.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
A couple questions believe it or not? Way back when
about pregnancy, were you low iron and pregnancy with him? Yes, okay,
I think this little guy's got restless leg syndrome.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Don't tell me my Yeah, I think he's got My
cousin has restless leg syndrome.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Yeah, so in little kids, they can get restless leg syndrome.
And what it looks like is a long time to
fall asleep at bedtime where they and it looks like shenanigans.
They don't want to lay down. They get this jumpy,
unsettled feeling. They don't want to lay down, they want
to be up. They are uncomfortable, they're nervous, they're jumpy.
(25:57):
They want covers. They don't want covers. They they just
want to they're just nervous. And it takes an hour
or more for them to fall asleep. The big one,
the big one that you said was when he's asleep,
he's moving around, he's kicking, he's.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
He literally punches in his sleep. He punched me in
the face a couple of nights ago. Like, yeah, and
he doesn't even know he's doing it.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yeah. And his sleep is fractured even when he's asleep,
and they have bad it affects their daytime behavior. So
the minute you said that last week, I was like,
I know what this is. I know what this is.
I've now referred over one hundred people to testing for
restless leg syndrome in kids now as young as you know,
in infants, even in toddlers.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
But it happens.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Does he ever complain that his leg's hurt.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
He just said it the other day when we when
we were in the car. He's like, I have a
headache and my leg's hurt. And I thought it was like, oh,
he's probably growing. He says that all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, you're right. I actually I do feel like I
recall the growing Paine.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah. So I'll tell you that this is at the
root of the hardest, worst sleep problems that I've seen. Now,
you guys could try. There are some behavioral stuff and
I can we can totally talk about that because people
who are listening maybe don't have these symptoms. Yeah, and
I do want to talk more about what the process
(27:21):
is for getting this tested and dealt with the other
part of the shenanigans. We can talk about how to
manage that. But you guys literally could stand on your
head behaviorally and it's not going to do anything because
the little guy just doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
It makes them feel nervous and they want to be
near you and they want help, but they don't know.
He can't say. He doesn't know enough to go. Hey,
I have this weird feeling in my legs, right.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
H So how do you fix it?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:51):
I fixed that?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
So yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
So what it takes is a blood draw. Ew gross
takes blood test. It's simple to do. I mean, it's
a quick test. It's just a blood test. There's a
low threshold for its ferretin. Ferretin is the iron storage
factor in the blood. It's not hemoglobe. And now he
may be low iron too. It's not a bad idea
(28:14):
to check his iron levels as well. But it's ferretin.
Restless legs syndrome can be caused by ferretin that's under
fifty five Oh. Pediatricians threshold for low is like seven.
Sleep doctors want that level to be fifty or above
five oh. If you were low iron in pregnancy, if
(28:34):
he had early cord clamp BA. There's a lot of
other risk factors that raise his risk for this. But
the treatment is really just kind of assertive iron supplementation,
so like iron drops or you know, iron supplementation, and
once the iron levels come up, sleep problems literally disappear. Literally.
(28:57):
I've seen some like nightmarish problems go poof, not quickly,
not super quickly, but they do.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So if that's not the case, if it's not RLS
and you have a deeply feeling kid and it's not
a kind of solve from there, what's the behavioral path?
Speaker 4 (29:28):
What do you do? Yeah, so behavioral let's take out
some of the RLS pieces of this. So let's pretend
you just have a kid who's got all the requests
and popping out of bed and you know, you can
tell they're just delaying bedtime.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Very common.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
So with these kids, we have a better lead up
to h or a good lead up to the routine.
So I usually suggest two different things. One is, especially
if it's a kid who's been in like daycare all
day and then it's a rush when they get home,
and then it's bedtime, something called special time, which is
a one parent takes them to their room for fifteen
(30:07):
minutes and it's one hundred percent one on one child
focused play, and that means that kid is in charge.
The parent doesn't have one idea in their head. That
kid is the boss for fifteen minutes. Gives them this
dose of power and agency that they may not you know,
(30:28):
some kids are trying to work that out in the routine,
so we give it to them. It also works great
for new older siblings, so a three year old has
a brand new baby brother or sister. The other one
is something called heavy work. A lot of these live
wire kids have a lot of sensory processing sensitivities, and
one of them can be helped by stuff that we
(30:51):
don't usually associate with bedtime, which is sort of kind
of rough housing games really, you know, jumping, pushing, crash swinging,
all those things that we usually go, oh, don't do
that before bed, No, yes, do it before bed.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
So I told you I told you I wrestle.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, also also true. But we also installed those sensory
sling swings too, because my obsession is to just search
everything on the internet and then try every single thing
with those Ryan Mariason scattered format until something works, which
I also know probably doesn't help. But I've heard the
concept of heavy work like pushing or we used to
(31:32):
create a harlan in a blanket our younger one and
swinger back and forth like yeah, just to give them
like this this feeling. So why does heavy work, Yeah,
the compression, why does that work?
Speaker 4 (31:43):
It gives their body, the joints and muscles this big input,
which you know, remember have you ever done that thing
where people say, tense up all your muscles and then
let them go and you go like that kind of
like that. So some kids need this big input that's
called sensory seeking. They like the big input. Heavy work
(32:05):
gives them the big input that helps them calm down.
So you can do these like crashing into couch cushions
or wheelbarrowing, so you could do these games. Then you
can do special time. Then you start the routine right,
which gets them kind of in the zone for like
more ready for it. It's like priming before you paint, right,
(32:27):
you prep the surfaces and then you paint. And then
the big kahuna for me is you make a chart
that's not for stickers, it's not for rewards. It's like
a contract for what will happen and therefore what will
not happen. And you have them help you, and I say,
do it in word or canva is great like with pictures,
(32:51):
and it has everything that will happen. How many books?
And you do line items like last drink of water,
last choice of stuffed anim last trip to the bathroom,
you know, whatever the process is, and then things that
you want to see. I'm the boss of my sleep.
I'm in charge of my blanket. I stay in my
(33:14):
room if I wake up. This is what's gonna happen,
whatever it is, and you have understandings for things that
will happen. And that way if they throw a curveball
at you, because this is what I call it curveball prevention,
because what happens is they'll say I'm hungry, and then
you're like, okay. If I say yes, now there's a
(33:36):
snack every night. And if I say no, there's a meltdown.
You're on the hook for having to make these decisions.
So if you have a chart, you can say, oh, oh,
you want a banana. Hang on, let me check the chart.
A banana, banana, banana. Oh, I don't see a banana.
Oh a stupid chart. We'll decide if you want to
(33:56):
add a snack tomorrow. But there's no there's no banana
on the chart. Turn it, ah, rats, you know, you
just really follow it like it's the law of the land.
The other thing you can do is print it out,
put it on a clipboard, and make the child the
(34:16):
boss of the clipboard, so they get to be in
charge of the clipboard. And once something is crossed off,
that is it. So it's kind of like it's collaborative
in a way, but it becomes the rule. And then
the other thing is that you go over it in
the daytime and say, Okay, remember tonight mom is doing
(34:38):
special time and mother mom is doing the routine. Oh,
and you're having a babysitter tomorrow. Don't forget we're having
a babysitter. To see the picture of the babysit like
you remind them, give them a heads up, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, Yeah.
And then The other little trick that I say is
rehearse any changes ahead of time, so if anything's gonna change.
(35:02):
So I in the book talk about a way to
scaffold new skills. So for people who are like lying
down full time with their kid and they decide they
want to stop that, and they're now gonna sit in
a chair beside the bed or hurt, do a dry
run in the daytime. Or if instead of for example,
for you guys, instead of climbing into bed with you,
(35:23):
if you want him to be on a floorbed in
your room, Like, that's okay with you, Hey, bud, you
can come sleep on this cool floor bed.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Practice it in the daytime.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Okay, we're gonna get in bed. We're gonna pretend to
be in bed. You pretend to be in your bed. Okay,
when we say, go see.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
How quietly you can get on.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
That floor bed, Like, practice it so that at night
he's got like a template. You're not doing it when
everybody's exhausted. And then right into the chart. When I
wake up at night, I go to my floor bed,
and then the next morning go, oh.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
My god, you totally did it.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Woo great, good job. The only other thing I will
say because we haven't talked about this ons is and
this is probably in the last six months, and we
don't we're pretty conscious of what they have, Like we
don't do YouTube, but where we know the movies they watch,
the games, they play whatever. He again being up north,
like he will be so tired in the middle of
(36:24):
the day and he'll like literally start falling asleep and
then he's like, I'm not napping. I cannot take a nap.
And he's also said that he's like not afraid to
fall asleep, but he doesn't want to go to sleep
because he doesn't want to have a bad dream. And
I'm like, I don't know. I mean, that was happening
for a long time when we were you know, get
like we put like lavender spray on his pillow and
(36:45):
told him that it was like special spray, and he
literally slept that night for like thirteen hours. But I
don't even I don't know how to help with that,
because it's like, I guess you can be scared of
what you're exposed to or just use your imagination. But
I think he's also having nightmares and I don't know
if that correlates to the to the restless legs or.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
Would be it could yeah. So there's two things about that.
One is it could be like and he doesn't snore
or breathe through his mouth or anything, does he?
Speaker 5 (37:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Okay, yeah. Sometimes so sometimes this stuff wakes kids up
out of their deep sleep. So some kids are are
like crying in their sleep, they're doing weird things, almost
sleep walking from the sensations. But at this age they
can start having sort of nightmarish things. They can also
the whole monsters thing can happen.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Up there were the monster's face, great, okay, and we're
sharing it with our two year old, which isn't great.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Oh yeah, thank you. So up until like you know, seven,
eight years old, you know, there's there's some people say,
don't do this, but really, kids at this age don't
understand that what they imagine can't true. That whole thing.
They they just you can't convince them about imagination. So
(38:07):
it's okay that lavender spray, it's okay to use monster spray,
it's okay to use monsters keep out signs. All of
that is fine because they can imagine it as being true.
You can do some if he really has a specific
monster fixation thing. You can do some kind of reframing stuff,
(38:28):
like you know, sesame street characters or monsters. You can
call the monster a funny name. You can draw a
funny hat on a you know some of that. But
I think that magical fixes are okay as well. You know, like,
like you said, like the lavender spray, you could call
it something else if you if you want to.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Did you was it was? It? Was it the episode? Though?
Did you hear about the lavender spray story? Oh?
Speaker 2 (38:53):
You put it like up his nose, right, he put
it up his nose.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
He poured it on his bed. I mean like it's
like it's in the math.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
He is one with the lavender spray.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
So next time we're just gonna go with a dream catcher.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
Yeah right, and never he'll never like lavender ever again.
Maybe some just water with like.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
A little sprit spottle.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
That's a good just water, magic water, magic water.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I think it's so important and I actually love like
so many of these things that you say seem like
so obvious, but in the moment, when you're that broken parent,
it is impossible to be okay with just being like
I'm gonna put some monster glitter in a water jug
and we're gonna splits it around your room. But I
do remember when he was little, so there was there's
been some incidents. There's been some like ebbs and flows
(39:40):
of this when he was really little. Yeah, and maybe
I would call this three right because he's almost five.
He would make Madison open all of the cabinets and
look under the bed and do the whole shit like
shebang about, like checking the room to make sure it
was safe. And then he would be very clear to
be like, Mama, you're gonna sleep in there and you'll
protect me if something comes. And then when Madison would
(40:02):
have to go away for hockey travel, he'd be like, Mommy,
where's Mama. And I'm like she's not here, and he's like, ah,
like right then, like to the point of the contract,
Like then then it's broken. Listen.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
When you have these smart kids, that's what I'm I
tell parents with these babies that I work with, I'm like, you, guys,
you're gonna get sleep solved. I Mean, I don't want
to bum them out, really, but I'm sure I do.
You're gonna get sleep solved. But there's a long string
of challenges. These little guys are smart and so sensitive.
(40:40):
Their brains go in so many directions that you're not
gonna know what to do.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
We're in a place where we're try things. Like I said,
we're kind of like throwing this kitchen sink at this kid.
But he's aware, so like, that's the problem. This is
the problem. Is he's not just blind to us saying
mommy said blank. So that's what happens. He'll say to us, Mommy,
consequences don't work. Consequences don't work. I mean, like to
this this boy. He's so smart and not to say like,
(41:08):
oh my smart.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Smart, I needing consequences don't work.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I need conquences works. But but so he's aware and
so like he'll see when we try to deploy a
tactic and he'll come back at us and he'll say whatever,
like it doesn't work, and like and or he'll be like, mommy, mama,
yelling doesn't make me listen. And I'm like, but I
want to, but I get it, it doesn't help. And
(41:33):
he is really really clear about what work and doesn't work.
I swear to god, he's thirty five and like a
little tiny body.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
No, you guy.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
You guys, well, I put in the book I see
parents squirm, but I don't care. In the book under temperament,
I put smarts. I put intelligence because these kids are really,
really bright, and you have to factor that in. It's
a huge piece of this because you add intelligence and sensitivity,
(42:06):
you know, in this mix, and then you do get
anxiety and you get the brain running away with these kids.
And you have to watch what they're exposed to because
they'll get an idea off of something. They're walking through
a mall and they hear something offhandedly and suddenly they
grab it and they run away. It runs away with them,
(42:27):
and then you're dealing with it, right, So it's hard,
it's really and it's running away with them. At bedtime,
my son was tornadoes. We lived in the Bay Area.
There are no tornadoes in the Bay Area, but for
him it was tornadoes because I don't know, somewhere he
saw there was a tornado, you know. So yes, it's
a challenge. I would say, if you guys wanted to,
(42:50):
you could try some of this, like, Okay, we're gonna
loosely or we're in a very rudimentary way, have a
sequence of steps that we always follow and we don't
veer from it. But with the idea that he has
some limitations on how fast we can get him in
bed because of what's going on. Things that can help
(43:11):
him from a physical standpoint, massaging his legs, giving him
something to put his legs up on, like a bolster
so we can elevate it. You could also ask him
at bedtime. He's old enough to tell you how your legs,
how your legs fill right now, you know, And then
a body pillow or or maybe a floor bed, you know,
if he'll do that so that you guys don't get
(43:32):
kicked in the middle of the night for.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
My pregnancy fellow back out.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Yes, yes, yes, because he really Yeah, that's a thing.
That's really a thing. But I'll email that information.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah, please do.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
So we have we have We mostly now bring guests
on who can help us solve our life problems. So
we have selfishly used this entire time to unpack whalan However,
for anyone who has a kid who has a different
sleep problem, and this is a very broad I'm sure
it's a difficult to narrow down, but what advice would
you give to parents who are struggling with their kids'
(44:05):
sleep routines or patterns. Totally. You had to give one
piece of advice.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
One piece of advice, Okay, So I would say for
people who are stuck, there's maybe two nuggets, Like for
people who are really, really really stuck. In fact, I'm
just in the process of doing a little teeny thirty
minute I call it a blast course. It's really for
(44:30):
people who are just like bad, desperate, can't even think straight.
And the nuggets kind of in there are watch out
for serious overtiredness. Capping kids sleep is not the answer.
Kids don't get more tired, they get wired. That is
not the direction to go. We get more tired, children don't.
(44:54):
It's like you're giving them coffee. They actually need more
sleep to be more manageable. That's number one and number two.
If you are stuck doing stuff for them, meaning lying
with them or whatever, you gotta start moving. The answer
is not leaving the room. Really, you don't have to
do that. The answer is starting to move and then
(45:17):
gradually keep moving every couple of days. So if you're
fully lying down with them or you're stuck sitting in
the room with them, just move a little sit up
in the bed for a couple of days, then sit
next to the bed, then sit a little away from
the bed, and then just start moving.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Seriously.
Speaker 4 (45:36):
They can handle it. I mean, they won't love it,
but they can handle it. It's the leaving and coming
back and leaving and coming back that we can't sustain
as parents, and especially toddler's enup.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
They hate that.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
You don't have to do it. You don't have to
do it. You can just go gradually and just stick
with it. You gotta stick with it. It's not going to
work in one night. Forget the one night, give it
at least two, better three to see if it's going
to work.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
Well.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I appreciate everything that you've said so so so much.
I am going to literally burn through your book now
as we get off the line here. But it's so important.
It honestly is so refreshing to just have somebody hear
what we've said and give us some real sage advice.
I mean, I think from everything from special time to
heavy work to having a chart like our son really
(46:25):
loves the structure of those things, so we're going to
start to deploy them. We'll keep everybody in the loop
on what's going on within this I lovingly call our
house the Chaos Crew, but we'll keep everyone past and we.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Have your email, and we have your email off the hook. Yeah,
there you.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Go, and our listeners can absolutely go in for the
blast courses. I think it's really helpful and accessible to
just have somebody who's been in the trenches gone through
it and gave some really great nuggets of advice. So
thank you so much for joining us, Thank you for
answering the call our cry for help. Yeah, we couldn't
be happy to have you on, So thank you so
much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Oh my goodness, what a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Of course, that's it for this week.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Thanks for listening, and if you like what you heard,
spread the word seriously right now, take your phone out,
text a friend and tell them to subscribe.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
And be sure to rate and review us on Apple
Podcasts and Spotify if you haven't already.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
It really really helps.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Until next week. I'm Madison Packer and.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
I'm Onya Packer and this was These Packs Puck.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
These Packs Puck is a production of iHeart Women's Sports
and Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
It's hosted by us Madison.
Speaker 5 (47:35):
And Aya Packer, Emily Mehronoff, is our senior producer and
story editor.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
We were mixed and mastered by Mary Deo.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
Our executive producers are Jennifer Bassett, Jesse Katz, and Ali Perry.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to these packs puck. I'm Madison Packer.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And I'm Anya Packer. Madison and I are both former
pro hockey players. We met through hockey and fell in love,
and now we're married with two awesome toddlers, ages two
and four.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
These days, we're opening up about the chaos of our
daily lives, between the juggle of being athletes, raising kids.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And all the messiness in between. So buckle the puck
up because there is a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
My babe, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm fabulous? How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Where are we in the world.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We are in northern Michigan. It is going on week three.
It's been an absolute chaos, but we're here and thriving.
That's so great. We had some car troubles. We are
headed home soon. Hopefully We'll get into all that in
a little bit. But did we get into the hot
take first? Let's talk about the hockey hot take. Let's
(00:55):
get into it. Hockey hot take, my hot take, and
it lends to the episode. So I'm really excited for
today's episode because we have sleep coach and expert McCall gordon,
who talks to us a lot about our cry for
help with Wyleen a couple weeks ago. But all that
to say, we had a quick check in on gentle parenting,
and I want to open it up because I think
(01:17):
we honestly disagree here, but dentle parenting, give me your
hot take.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I guess I'm feeling it a little more now with Harlan,
where like her reaction to everything is just to punch
somewhere in the face, which is probably not the best
parenting style. However, gentle parenting does not work with Whyalan.
It works with Harlan. She's a different story, and I
think we try to apply it to both. We don't
spank our kids because we don't believe in that, and
(01:43):
I'm not advocating for like hitting our kids. I just
think that, like it's tough to find a consequence system
or structure and Whyalan needs a little firmer hand sometimes
And I don't know how we do that because the
whole like like you get down on one knee or
you're like Maddie just like and like I just feel
(02:05):
like it's like he like takes advantage.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
You're conflating gentle parenting with being a pushover. Like I
believe very literally what.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I thought in my head and then you said it,
I do, and that's what I know what I think.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
But I'm telling you right now, I don't think like
gentle parenting is basically just being like super empathetic, super
respectful and super understanding every time your kid has an issue,
and like there's probably more nuance to it, right, But
like if Whylan doesn't get a toy, if he asks
me for a toy and I say no and he
loses his marbles and has a whole temper tantrum, I
(02:40):
am fine to spend time in that feeling saying, dude,
I get it. I get frustrated too, I get upset
to I get let down too. Do you want to hug?
Would you like to talk about it? Would you like
some space? It's not going to happen, but we can
certainly sit in the real feeling that he's got. I mean, like,
(03:00):
that's a good example of when I think that my
parenting style is a little bit different because I'm not
going to cave I just say yes to this that
or like I just think like sometimes you'll be like Wayland, stop,
you know what I'm saying, Like I don't know how
to explain it better. Than that, but like there are
certain times where I feel like if you were to
(03:22):
just say to him, hey, I totally get it, I
get upset to we're not going to use our hands.
We can use our hands to color, we can use
our hands to hug, we can use our hands to whatever,
but we're not going to use them to push our
sister to the ground, right Like I will. Don't think
I do that. No, I don't disagree. I mean, like
I'm not perfect. I didn't say I'm like the gentle
parent expert that never does it wrong. I'm just saying
(03:44):
I will spend more time to create conversation around the
discipline versus Mama said blank and it is what it
is and stop. And I think it comes from like
noise fry. I think you get noise fry and then
you are spent. I can live in the weeds longer.
(04:06):
Not bad.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, no, I can't do the noise. And I'm definitely
the yes person, but I don't know. I also, I
grew up in a consequence house, but not even the
reward system. So like we're like tonight, like my Teabob
is watching Whaleen right now at the beach, which I'm
like is either going great or it's World War three
down there. I don't know. We'll find out in about
twenty minutes, but I'm like, you need to be a
(04:29):
good listener or you know, like we're trying to earn
the sleepover tonight. He's gonna have his first sleepover because
we're gonna make it someone else's problem for a night.
But I just don't know, Like, I think our generation
has turned out fine. I think the generation before us
is like eh, I think the generation after us is
(04:50):
a little spoiled, which I think I cater to with
our kids, but I think that there's needs to be
like like I'm not advocating for like kicking a four
year old's ass, but gentle parenting. When you have a
really spirited, opinionated, smart kid, like you have to be
firm with them, and like sometimes that means that he's
going to get upset and he's gonna be sad and
he's gonna have his feelings shirt. But like like we'll
(05:10):
say something away and he's like that broke my heart,
and I'm like, you don't even know what that means, right.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I hate when he says that though.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Where he's like I don't love you anymore. But Madison,
when I got hit with my first I don't love
you anymore, I was like, you don't even know what
that means.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
But you're not. That's you're thinking permissive parenting. You're thinking
of just being a yes person, not having boundaries, letting
him completely run his ship and back it up over us.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about giving him
the autonomy to work through his stuff, to like model
what I want him to do, to give him positive discipline,
(05:46):
giving him proportionate discipline to the action that's happening right
Like it's not like, oh, you did X, no dessert
for the rest of the week, Like that doesn't that
doesn't make sense for him in the moment. I'm not
saying that's what you do. I'm saying, generally speaking, it
has like the crime has to fit the punishment, and
I think for.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Kids, and definitely, I'm definitely.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You go the heavy. But I'm saying it's so hard,
especially with Whylan because he's so so smart. I'm not
saying let's be undisciplined. I'm good with the discipline, but
I don't think that discipline should be painful, not physically,
but like like losing blue Bunny for an hour, I've
never done that. Okay, well maybe I'm a psychopath. But
my point is like that's cruel. But that's what I'm
(06:30):
trying to say, is like getting away from things like
that and getting into things that are like, you know,
problem solving rather than a punishment. I just truly was
raised in a household where there was space to make
an error, then there was space to self correct, and
then there was space to coach through it. And if
all of those spaces were were plowed right through, you're
(06:51):
gonna get punished. But I very rarely. I think I
was grounded once in my entire life.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Ever, let's ground all the time.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Your house was like crime and punishment like pick up
dog poop per hours in the Michigan Cold like it
was just like it's different.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
I'm not that never happened. Darren had to pick up
dog poop when she was hung over.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Okay, here's a perfect example.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I don't I don't believe in like it doesn't have
to be a physical punishment. This is a a quote
unquote physical example. The other day, Whaling kept smacking me
on the butt. Then he was squirting me with the
squirt gun, and the rule is squorrek guns on the
lawn only. So I said to him, if you do
it again, you're going in the lake. He did it again,
and I turned around and I said, whaling, for real,
(07:38):
if you do it again, you're going in the lake.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But do you see he did it again. It's they're
on the same page.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
The threat doesn't Then he flipped it and I carried
him over to the lake and he had an absolute meltdown.
And you were like, obviously I wasn't gonna actually drop
him in the lake, but like, he doesn't understand consequence,
and that's how life works.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You make a poor choice.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
There's a consequence.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
But Maddie, you're not gonna get him to be less
aggressive by giving him an aggressive solution. That's what I'm
saying is I think you get frustrated in those moments
because you're approaching an aggressive state with an aggressive response.
If you said, hey, buddy, I know you really want
to squirt the score gun, but Mama doesn't want to
get scorted right now. Is there something else we can
squirt together so that you get to squirt something? But
(08:22):
it isn't me I'm telling you right now, you would
have had a better solution with that versus that, like,
you know, volatile spark plug that he could touch, touch,
touch until you went to blow up, because that's what
he wanted. He wanted to play with you. He wanted
rough house like. You didn't give him an alternative out
of it. You said, stop squirting me, or I'm gonna
throw you in the lake. It was aggressive to aggressive.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
He's gonna it's.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Gonna keep going. All right, do you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
I do see what you're saying, and I will try
that next time he scorts me on the desk.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I'll incorporate that.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
I will incorporate that into my aggressive parenting style. Well, yeah,
we're up here for a few more days, so when
it happen again, I will try that, and we will
next check and we'll get back to that cool speaking
of checonds, Yeah, how we feel unpacked where we are?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I've been happier the car. Oh, he's actually completely destroyed.
Now everyone's gonna be like, oh my gosh, so dramatic.
It's probably fine. Let me just run you some bullet
point items that have happened to the vehicle. In two weeks. First,
the car was being driven with a five gallon gas
can full of gas in the trunk. That gas can
(09:39):
tipped over as a gas can typically would, and there
is gasoline all throughout the car. So first, no, our
car does not have carpets. It got sprayed out. It
is in the process of being cleaned. However, five gallons
of gas smattered that the defender is meant to be
an off road vehicle carry gas cans. Nope, I do
(10:02):
not agree, But okay, gasoline in the car. Then we're
in this process of like clearing the car out. So
we rip everything out of it, We clean it all out,
we air everything out, we put in charcoal bags. The
doors stay open for like a week. Okay, family of spiders.
That car is full littered with spiders. There's a thousand
spider webs Charlotte's Web. The whole movie and book recreated
(10:24):
itself inside this vehicle. Then that's not over. We go
to move it because a car typically moves it has
three completely flat tires holes in all three. What did
we drive over a freaking police line? Like car has
no tires? So the car has no tires Charlotte's Web gasoline.
The doors stay open to get rid of the gasoline smell. Monsoon,
(10:47):
a literal monsoon. The car is now completely moist throughout.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Okay, I didn't deserve that, So hit me with your number,
because we also need to bring people up.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
To on the right of the car story thirty.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Now I'm I'm at a ninety nine point seven because
I am in my favorite place on earth, and I'm
over at my nanny's house. Any and I arecross the
lake from each other right now. The story of the
car continues because it is a packer curse. Mind you
like like you would assume that, like this was a
(11:23):
very very nice truck that we have completely destroyed in
a week's time. I apologize it was me the week started.
Even with all this that's about to come out of
my mouth, I am at a ninety nine point point seven.
I think I'm a ninety nine point nine, not even
point seven. Ninety nine point nine. I could only be
better if my nanny had made brownies, which I think
(11:44):
she did because I saw a little baggy for me
on the side out in the kitchen. Check that out
in a little bit. But we get up north Northern
Michigan Lake Charlot Boy. My family's got a spot twenty
acres beautiful, love it fantastic. My mom has her car,
which is like, is it a coop? It's like a
load to the ground, but it's it's an suv. It's
a crossover maybe whatever. Yeah, so like a smither Like
(12:07):
our driveway can fit like four cars across comfortably. Three.
We parked like normal human beings. My brother and his
girlfriend parked, my mom's BMW like normal human beings, and
then my dad parked. I thought it was okay. My
mom took exception to how my dad parks, thought it
was too close.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Whatever.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
We have a pond and a creek and blah blah
bah blah. So rather than just using a backup cam
and backing out, my mom floored it after it had
rained and got the car stuck in the ditch.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
You know it's in the for context, it's in a creek.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
My dad and I were like trying to figure out,
how can we get this out? Why couldn't we just
use a backup cam. We got a culture play. My
dad didn't want to culture play. My dad wanted to
call like Tony's towing or something. So we call this
guy brings his toe trup down. My poor dad just
trying to get the car out. This guy hooks the
car up, just rips it out, rips it over a stump.
(13:01):
What was just a stuck car becomes a total vehicle
because he ripped the whole front bumper off. Then that
same day, my dad hit a deer and like wrecked
the front of his car. He calls the insurance company
the next day and he had like credit his credit
card got compromised. I don't know. They didn't have insurance
(13:23):
on their cars for like forty eight hours. And it
was the forty eight hours when all of this happened.
And then we spilled gas in our car. Our car
got rained on.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Do not ride in the car with a packer. That's
what I've heard. I've never been in like a bad accident.
It's just like bad, It's horrible luck. That's what I'm saying.
You have bad luck. All of that to say you're amazing.
The boats work all that to say you're amazing, I
could cry. But we are up north, so it does
make everybody a little happier. I'm really excited for our
(13:54):
next conversation. We haven't a called Gordon joining us. She
is an expert, a sleep coach, and she works really
closely with deeply feeling kids, which scratches Madison and eyes
like back of our brain given everything going on with Waylan.
But she just wrote a book called why Don't You Sleep?
She talks a little bit about it, breaks it down foundationally.
Throughout our conversation, imparts some great nuggets, some great wisdom,
(14:15):
things to try, things that you can pick up and
replicate in your own home. I'm extremely excited for this
on Madison, So we'll get into the conversation with maccollo
just after this. McCall, Hi, welcome to these packs, Puck.
(14:37):
I've never been so excited for a guest to join
us in my entire life. Welcome. That's so awesome to hear.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Can you just I want you to say it again
because I just it just feels great to hear that.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
We'll send you the recording. You can make it a
ring tone, yes, I know, I'll.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Just play it on a loop.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Well, we're so excited to have you. When we kind
of got connected, it was a cry from help for
our children. Don't Sleep Episode one. Thank you for answering McCall.
But two, I'm going to hand it over to you
to give us. Let us our audience and listeners know
who we're speaking to.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
So I am McCall gordon. Yes, that's my first name
is McCall. Because people get confused. I'm a certified gentle
sleep coach, which means I don't do the whole further thing,
but I really specialize in kids who are more alert
and intense and sensitive and persistent and perceptive, and they
(15:34):
just don't sleep because guess what temperament is everything when
it comes to sleep, and no one talks about it,
and it's like the elephant in the room that no
one is paying attention to. And I know this because
I had two of these kids. Oh and yeah, sleep
was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. And everybody's trying
(15:57):
the stuff that they all tell you to do and
it does not work. And what parents do is they go,
what's the matter with me? Well, it's not you, it's temperament.
And it's like trying to use a manual for a
PC when you have a MAC and you're like, why
isn't this working? Well, you have a different kid, right,
(16:18):
So I started really questioning the whole paradigm of sleep
training with this in mind, and I did research and
I was working specifically with these kids. And the more
I did this work, the more I mean, obviously, it's
just the more obvious and huge it became. And so
(16:40):
I wrote this book with Kim West, who train me
essentially in a different approach to sleep training.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
All of that is perfectly applicable to our household. And
we have, like I said, we have a four year
old who, like I retired recently and I took over
a lot of the kids stuff and whatever. And I
said to my wife, probably month into it, I'm like,
I'm actually concerned for your mental health because the fact
that you haven't asked for help at any point, like
(17:07):
is in itself a cry for help. Like I'm I'm drowning.
And I think that everything that you just said is
spot on what we're dealing with with our son. But
I'm kind of interested, Like did your kids drive you
into doing this work or was that just a passion
that you had anyways?
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Oh no, no, no no. I was an actor and
uh then I was I was going into mental like
I wanted to be a therapist, but I also liked
talking too much.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
So that was working out, and uh.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
And then I was a mom and then and then
the whole reality of being a mom with these kids
was like, none of this is making sense right. Well,
first of all, my daughter had colic. Oh, like forget it,
Like all bets are off. So just from for me,
from the get go, nothing made sense. And so for me,
(18:01):
the whole motherhood journey was drowning. Same and so I
kind of went about the whole mothering thing just with
this kind of what the what now? My Madison is thirty,
So this was even like the Internet was barely a thing.
(18:21):
It was really like am what world am I in?
Because my experience was just so different from everything I
was reading. So the way I got into the sleep
thing was because everything out there was fervor, everything except
for the whole attachment parenting thing. So we were doing
we were following Sears. We were like, he said, it
(18:41):
would all be great, right, you co sleep, it would
be great. You'd follow cues, it would be great. And
I say, I followed my daughter's cues right off a cliff,
like it was.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
It was crazy.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
And in fact, his doctor, Sears's office was right near
where my parents lived in San Clementian. So we made
an appointment and we went to his office and.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
We were like, what do I do with this thing?
Speaker 4 (19:07):
So yeah, like okay, so so hello, and he was like, well,
just so happens it Right now, I'm writing this book
called the Fussy Baby Book and would you like to
contribute to it?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And I was like, well sure.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
But the deal is that he had whatever four or
five kids, and his last one was one of these kids. Right,
So even doctor Sears was like, hey, my methods don't
totally work the same way for these kids.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I like how much you're identifying that, Like that, like
kid and temperament equals a different parenting style because like,
you know, the big joke is like I could be
a gentle parent, but I don't have gentle children. So
like there that's gone, right, Like I like, so we joke,
but like we get ourselves a meddie And I call
it the yell cycle, right, Like Whylan doesn't go to
bed and when he's upset and he's deeply feeling, and
(20:00):
then he's fresh, and then we yell and then he
goes to bed upset and then you guys, you feel
like crap. You feel like crap, you're looking at a
four year old or deprived. He's trying the best he can,
he's kicking his sister, and it stinks. Everyone's mad, right,
So like I think that all worse.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
It's the worst.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
It's the worst. It's the worst. And I like that
you identify that. The beginning of the book really comes
to a place where you're like almost patching the parent
up because it really, it really is hard. It's a
different it's a different kind of parenting style because you
have to actually self reflect and say, I have a
different type of child and that's okay, but let me
(20:39):
kind of go into it. So how do you navigate
that first part?
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yeah, well, the first part is, yeah, you have to say, first,
it's not your fault. This is harder and you're on
like I call it, like the iron Man of parenting.
So you you have to know that you you have
to stay hydrated. You can't be perfect all the time.
(21:04):
You're not going to know what to do most of
the time. You're on an epic quest right with these kids.
So you have to just give yourself lots of grace.
Like I said, you have to literally hydrate, make sure
you have food. And I'm saying like emotional food, all
of that self compassion stuff. But you also need a
(21:27):
good map. You need to know how to get where
you're going. And you really have to know this kid's
operating system because there are some sneaky ones, there are
some real sneaky ones, and it's good to know how,
like I said, how these kids operate and also how
we operate. Right, That's what I mean is sometimes parents
(21:50):
were never told what their temperament is, like we don't know.
For example, like I say this a million times. I
remember the day I was like, why are my kids
so intense? And then was like, my god, I think
I'm I literally had no idea because I created a
mini me. Yeah, well, but it had been socialized out
(22:10):
of me.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Look, I have never taught that I was intense. I
had like.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Squashed it. Yeah, when it comes up, it's scary, never good,
never good.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Yeah, I mean I do want to get I want
to get on into whalen.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Because okay, wait good, then good, that's next, that's next.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I love three and four year olds so much.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Is that?
Speaker 4 (22:35):
But but I think I really think he's got something
physical going on.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Our son has a big issue. He is having some
issues sleep, and we talked about it in a prior episode.
I know you've listened to it, but if our audience
hasn't heard it, go listen, commiserate, laugh at us, please
like feel our pain. What's happening is Waylan is having
a really hard time settling for bed. He's going into bed,
he's wanting water, he's wanting a he's wanting a cuddle,
(23:01):
he's wanting to get out. He's getting out of his bed.
He's turning his camera off. He's going and messing with
his you know nan it sound in light mode that
turns it night and daytime. He's playing with cars, he's
running away, he's sneaking downstairs and jump scaring my wife. Like,
he is truly going through a phase. Yeah, he cannot
(23:23):
go from daytime to night time in any form of
a transition. And then what is then coming of that
is he's getting really irritable during the day. He's really frustrated.
He's a terrible listeners. He's having really big day complexities.
And we think he's mean to the nanny. He's mean
(23:43):
to the nanny right like, and he's just like doesn't
want to leave the house. He really wants to insulate
himself only in his space, and he's having a really
hard time with seemingly everything, and we think that the
end all be all is the kid doesn't sleep. Yep,
got it.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
So let me ask some other questions because you said
something that went ding ding ding for me then the episode.
And one is that sometimes you say, and this first
of all, so common, so so so common. I hear
it all the time. You guys are not alone three
and four year olds drunk with power, That's what I say,
drunk with power. They take their little brains and they say,
(24:21):
what can I make happen with my brain? Yes, that
happens totally biologically developmentally appropriate. There were some things that
pinged other stuff as well. You did say sometimes we
just have to lay down with him or bring him
into our bed, and then it's like a Kung Fu
Panda moment and he's kicking and punching and yeah, yeah, okay.
(24:43):
When he finally does go to sleep, did you say
he's up a lot at night, like he wakes up
or is he well.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
He when he's like Kung Fu Panda, he's asleep, so
he's like he doesn't even realize he's doing it, But okay,
he wakes up probably at least four nights a week, babe,
five nights maybe, and comes into our room. And then
if it's just me, I'm like, I buckle and I
let him sleep with me. If it's Anya and I
(25:10):
then like, maybe we let him fall back asleep with
us and take him back to his bed.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
A couple questions believe it or not? Way back when
about pregnancy, were you low iron and pregnancy with him? Yes, okay,
I think this little guy's got restless leg syndrome.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Don't tell me my Yeah, I think he's got My
cousin has restless leg syndrome.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
Yeah, so in little kids, they can get restless leg syndrome.
And what it looks like is a long time to
fall asleep at bedtime where they and it looks like shenanigans.
They don't want to lay down. They get this jumpy,
unsettled feeling. They don't want to lay down, they want
to be up. They are uncomfortable, they're nervous, they're jumpy.
(25:57):
They want covers. They don't want covers. They they just
want to they're just nervous. And it takes an hour
or more for them to fall asleep. The big one,
the big one that you said was when he's asleep,
he's moving around, he's kicking, he's.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
He literally punches in his sleep. He punched me in
the face a couple of nights ago. Like, yeah, and
he doesn't even know he's doing it.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yeah. And his sleep is fractured even when he's asleep,
and they have bad it affects their daytime behavior. So
the minute you said that last week, I was like,
I know what this is. I know what this is.
I've now referred over one hundred people to testing for
restless leg syndrome in kids now as young as you know,
in infants, even in toddlers.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
But it happens.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Does he ever complain that his leg's hurt.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
He just said it the other day when we when
we were in the car. He's like, I have a
headache and my leg's hurt. And I thought it was like, oh,
he's probably growing. He says that all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, you're right. I actually I do feel like I
recall the growing Paine.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah. So I'll tell you that this is at the
root of the hardest, worst sleep problems that I've seen. Now,
you guys could try. There are some behavioral stuff and
I can we can totally talk about that because people
who are listening maybe don't have these symptoms. Yeah, and
I do want to talk more about what the process
(27:21):
is for getting this tested and dealt with the other
part of the shenanigans. We can talk about how to
manage that. But you guys literally could stand on your
head behaviorally and it's not going to do anything because
the little guy just doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
It makes them feel nervous and they want to be
near you and they want help, but they don't know.
He can't say. He doesn't know enough to go. Hey,
I have this weird feeling in my legs, right.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
H So how do you fix it?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:51):
I fixed that?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
So yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
So what it takes is a blood draw. Ew gross
takes blood test. It's simple to do. I mean, it's
a quick test. It's just a blood test. There's a
low threshold for its ferretin. Ferretin is the iron storage
factor in the blood. It's not hemoglobe. And now he
may be low iron too. It's not a bad idea
(28:14):
to check his iron levels as well. But it's ferretin.
Restless legs syndrome can be caused by ferretin that's under
fifty five Oh. Pediatricians threshold for low is like seven.
Sleep doctors want that level to be fifty or above
five oh. If you were low iron in pregnancy, if
(28:34):
he had early cord clamp BA. There's a lot of
other risk factors that raise his risk for this. But
the treatment is really just kind of assertive iron supplementation,
so like iron drops or you know, iron supplementation, and
once the iron levels come up, sleep problems literally disappear. Literally.
(28:57):
I've seen some like nightmarish problems go poof, not quickly,
not super quickly, but they do.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So if that's not the case, if it's not RLS
and you have a deeply feeling kid and it's not
a kind of solve from there, what's the behavioral path?
Speaker 4 (29:28):
What do you do? Yeah, so behavioral let's take out
some of the RLS pieces of this. So let's pretend
you just have a kid who's got all the requests
and popping out of bed and you know, you can
tell they're just delaying bedtime.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Very common.
Speaker 4 (29:44):
So with these kids, we have a better lead up
to h or a good lead up to the routine.
So I usually suggest two different things. One is, especially
if it's a kid who's been in like daycare all
day and then it's a rush when they get home,
and then it's bedtime, something called special time, which is
a one parent takes them to their room for fifteen
(30:07):
minutes and it's one hundred percent one on one child
focused play, and that means that kid is in charge.
The parent doesn't have one idea in their head. That
kid is the boss for fifteen minutes. Gives them this
dose of power and agency that they may not you know,
(30:28):
some kids are trying to work that out in the routine,
so we give it to them. It also works great
for new older siblings, so a three year old has
a brand new baby brother or sister. The other one
is something called heavy work. A lot of these live
wire kids have a lot of sensory processing sensitivities, and
one of them can be helped by stuff that we
(30:51):
don't usually associate with bedtime, which is sort of kind
of rough housing games really, you know, jumping, pushing, crash swinging,
all those things that we usually go, oh, don't do
that before bed, No, yes, do it before bed.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
So I told you I told you I wrestle.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Yeah, also also true. But we also installed those sensory
sling swings too, because my obsession is to just search
everything on the internet and then try every single thing
with those Ryan Mariason scattered format until something works, which
I also know probably doesn't help. But I've heard the
concept of heavy work like pushing or we used to
(31:32):
create a harlan in a blanket our younger one and
swinger back and forth like yeah, just to give them
like this this feeling. So why does heavy work, Yeah,
the compression, why does that work?
Speaker 4 (31:43):
It gives their body, the joints and muscles this big input,
which you know, remember have you ever done that thing
where people say, tense up all your muscles and then
let them go and you go like that kind of
like that. So some kids need this big input that's
called sensory seeking. They like the big input. Heavy work
(32:05):
gives them the big input that helps them calm down.
So you can do these like crashing into couch cushions
or wheelbarrowing, so you could do these games. Then you
can do special time. Then you start the routine right,
which gets them kind of in the zone for like
more ready for it. It's like priming before you paint, right,
(32:27):
you prep the surfaces and then you paint. And then
the big kahuna for me is you make a chart
that's not for stickers, it's not for rewards. It's like
a contract for what will happen and therefore what will
not happen. And you have them help you, and I say,
do it in word or canva is great like with pictures,
(32:51):
and it has everything that will happen. How many books?
And you do line items like last drink of water,
last choice of stuffed anim last trip to the bathroom,
you know, whatever the process is, and then things that
you want to see. I'm the boss of my sleep.
I'm in charge of my blanket. I stay in my
(33:14):
room if I wake up. This is what's gonna happen,
whatever it is, and you have understandings for things that
will happen. And that way if they throw a curveball
at you, because this is what I call it curveball prevention,
because what happens is they'll say I'm hungry, and then
you're like, okay. If I say yes, now there's a
(33:36):
snack every night. And if I say no, there's a meltdown.
You're on the hook for having to make these decisions.
So if you have a chart, you can say, oh, oh,
you want a banana. Hang on, let me check the chart.
A banana, banana, banana. Oh, I don't see a banana.
Oh a stupid chart. We'll decide if you want to
(33:56):
add a snack tomorrow. But there's no there's no banana
on the chart. Turn it, ah, rats, you know, you
just really follow it like it's the law of the land.
The other thing you can do is print it out,
put it on a clipboard, and make the child the
(34:16):
boss of the clipboard, so they get to be in
charge of the clipboard. And once something is crossed off,
that is it. So it's kind of like it's collaborative
in a way, but it becomes the rule. And then
the other thing is that you go over it in
the daytime and say, Okay, remember tonight mom is doing
(34:38):
special time and mother mom is doing the routine. Oh,
and you're having a babysitter tomorrow. Don't forget we're having
a babysitter. To see the picture of the babysit like
you remind them, give them a heads up, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, Yeah.
And then The other little trick that I say is
rehearse any changes ahead of time, so if anything's gonna change.
(35:02):
So I in the book talk about a way to
scaffold new skills. So for people who are like lying
down full time with their kid and they decide they
want to stop that, and they're now gonna sit in
a chair beside the bed or hurt, do a dry
run in the daytime. Or if instead of for example,
for you guys, instead of climbing into bed with you,
(35:23):
if you want him to be on a floorbed in
your room, Like, that's okay with you, Hey, bud, you
can come sleep on this cool floor bed.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Practice it in the daytime.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Okay, we're gonna get in bed. We're gonna pretend to
be in bed. You pretend to be in your bed. Okay,
when we say, go see.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
How quietly you can get on.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
That floor bed, Like, practice it so that at night
he's got like a template. You're not doing it when
everybody's exhausted. And then right into the chart. When I
wake up at night, I go to my floor bed,
and then the next morning go, oh.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
My god, you totally did it.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Woo great, good job. The only other thing I will
say because we haven't talked about this ons is and
this is probably in the last six months, and we
don't we're pretty conscious of what they have, Like we
don't do YouTube, but where we know the movies they watch,
the games, they play whatever. He again being up north,
like he will be so tired in the middle of
(36:24):
the day and he'll like literally start falling asleep and
then he's like, I'm not napping. I cannot take a nap.
And he's also said that he's like not afraid to
fall asleep, but he doesn't want to go to sleep
because he doesn't want to have a bad dream. And
I'm like, I don't know. I mean, that was happening
for a long time when we were you know, get
like we put like lavender spray on his pillow and
(36:45):
told him that it was like special spray, and he
literally slept that night for like thirteen hours. But I
don't even I don't know how to help with that,
because it's like, I guess you can be scared of
what you're exposed to or just use your imagination. But
I think he's also having nightmares and I don't know
if that correlates to the to the restless legs or.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
Would be it could yeah. So there's two things about that.
One is it could be like and he doesn't snore
or breathe through his mouth or anything, does he?
Speaker 5 (37:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Okay, yeah. Sometimes so sometimes this stuff wakes kids up
out of their deep sleep. So some kids are are
like crying in their sleep, they're doing weird things, almost
sleep walking from the sensations. But at this age they
can start having sort of nightmarish things. They can also
the whole monsters thing can happen.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Up there were the monster's face, great, okay, and we're
sharing it with our two year old, which isn't great.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Oh yeah, thank you. So up until like you know, seven,
eight years old, you know, there's there's some people say,
don't do this, but really, kids at this age don't
understand that what they imagine can't true. That whole thing.
They they just you can't convince them about imagination. So
(38:07):
it's okay that lavender spray, it's okay to use monster spray,
it's okay to use monsters keep out signs. All of
that is fine because they can imagine it as being true.
You can do some if he really has a specific
monster fixation thing. You can do some kind of reframing stuff,
(38:28):
like you know, sesame street characters or monsters. You can
call the monster a funny name. You can draw a
funny hat on a you know some of that. But
I think that magical fixes are okay as well. You know, like,
like you said, like the lavender spray, you could call
it something else if you if you want to.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Did you was it was? It? Was it the episode? Though?
Did you hear about the lavender spray story? Oh?
Speaker 2 (38:53):
You put it like up his nose, right, he put
it up his nose.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
He poured it on his bed. I mean like it's
like it's in the math.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
He is one with the lavender spray.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
So next time we're just gonna go with a dream catcher.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
Yeah right, and never he'll never like lavender ever again.
Maybe some just water with like.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
A little sprit spottle.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
That's a good just water, magic water, magic water.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I think it's so important and I actually love like
so many of these things that you say seem like
so obvious, but in the moment, when you're that broken parent,
it is impossible to be okay with just being like
I'm gonna put some monster glitter in a water jug
and we're gonna splits it around your room. But I
do remember when he was little, so there was there's
been some incidents. There's been some like ebbs and flows
(39:40):
of this when he was really little. Yeah, and maybe
I would call this three right because he's almost five.
He would make Madison open all of the cabinets and
look under the bed and do the whole shit like
shebang about, like checking the room to make sure it
was safe. And then he would be very clear to
be like, Mama, you're gonna sleep in there and you'll
protect me if something comes. And then when Madison would
(40:02):
have to go away for hockey travel, he'd be like, Mommy,
where's Mama. And I'm like she's not here, and he's like, ah,
like right then, like to the point of the contract,
Like then then it's broken. Listen.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
When you have these smart kids, that's what I'm I
tell parents with these babies that I work with, I'm like, you, guys,
you're gonna get sleep solved. I Mean, I don't want
to bum them out, really, but I'm sure I do.
You're gonna get sleep solved. But there's a long string
of challenges. These little guys are smart and so sensitive.
(40:40):
Their brains go in so many directions that you're not
gonna know what to do.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
We're in a place where we're try things. Like I said,
we're kind of like throwing this kitchen sink at this kid.
But he's aware, so like, that's the problem. This is
the problem. Is he's not just blind to us saying
mommy said blank. So that's what happens. He'll say to us, Mommy,
consequences don't work. Consequences don't work. I mean, like to
this this boy. He's so smart and not to say like,
(41:08):
oh my smart.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Smart, I needing consequences don't work.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I need conquences works. But but so he's aware and
so like he'll see when we try to deploy a
tactic and he'll come back at us and he'll say whatever,
like it doesn't work, and like and or he'll be like, mommy, mama,
yelling doesn't make me listen. And I'm like, but I
want to, but I get it, it doesn't help. And
(41:33):
he is really really clear about what work and doesn't work.
I swear to god, he's thirty five and like a
little tiny body.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
No, you guy.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
You guys, well, I put in the book I see
parents squirm, but I don't care. In the book under temperament,
I put smarts. I put intelligence because these kids are really,
really bright, and you have to factor that in. It's
a huge piece of this because you add intelligence and sensitivity,
(42:06):
you know, in this mix, and then you do get
anxiety and you get the brain running away with these kids.
And you have to watch what they're exposed to because
they'll get an idea off of something. They're walking through
a mall and they hear something offhandedly and suddenly they
grab it and they run away. It runs away with them,
(42:27):
and then you're dealing with it, right, So it's hard,
it's really and it's running away with them. At bedtime,
my son was tornadoes. We lived in the Bay Area.
There are no tornadoes in the Bay Area, but for
him it was tornadoes because I don't know, somewhere he
saw there was a tornado, you know. So yes, it's
a challenge. I would say, if you guys wanted to,
(42:50):
you could try some of this, like, Okay, we're gonna
loosely or we're in a very rudimentary way, have a
sequence of steps that we always follow and we don't
veer from it. But with the idea that he has
some limitations on how fast we can get him in
bed because of what's going on. Things that can help
(43:11):
him from a physical standpoint, massaging his legs, giving him
something to put his legs up on, like a bolster
so we can elevate it. You could also ask him
at bedtime. He's old enough to tell you how your legs,
how your legs fill right now, you know, And then
a body pillow or or maybe a floor bed, you know,
if he'll do that so that you guys don't get
(43:32):
kicked in the middle of the night for.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
My pregnancy fellow back out.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Yes, yes, yes, because he really Yeah, that's a thing.
That's really a thing. But I'll email that information.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah, please do.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
So we have we have We mostly now bring guests
on who can help us solve our life problems. So
we have selfishly used this entire time to unpack whalan However,
for anyone who has a kid who has a different
sleep problem, and this is a very broad I'm sure
it's a difficult to narrow down, but what advice would
you give to parents who are struggling with their kids'
(44:05):
sleep routines or patterns. Totally. You had to give one
piece of advice.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
One piece of advice, Okay, So I would say for
people who are stuck, there's maybe two nuggets, Like for
people who are really, really really stuck. In fact, I'm
just in the process of doing a little teeny thirty
minute I call it a blast course. It's really for
(44:30):
people who are just like bad, desperate, can't even think straight.
And the nuggets kind of in there are watch out
for serious overtiredness. Capping kids sleep is not the answer.
Kids don't get more tired, they get wired. That is
not the direction to go. We get more tired, children don't.
(44:54):
It's like you're giving them coffee. They actually need more
sleep to be more manageable. That's number one and number two.
If you are stuck doing stuff for them, meaning lying
with them or whatever, you gotta start moving. The answer
is not leaving the room. Really, you don't have to
do that. The answer is starting to move and then
(45:17):
gradually keep moving every couple of days. So if you're
fully lying down with them or you're stuck sitting in
the room with them, just move a little sit up
in the bed for a couple of days, then sit
next to the bed, then sit a little away from
the bed, and then just start moving.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Seriously.
Speaker 4 (45:36):
They can handle it. I mean, they won't love it,
but they can handle it. It's the leaving and coming
back and leaving and coming back that we can't sustain
as parents, and especially toddler's enup.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
They hate that.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
You don't have to do it. You don't have to
do it. You can just go gradually and just stick
with it. You gotta stick with it. It's not going to
work in one night. Forget the one night, give it
at least two, better three to see if it's going
to work.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
Well.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I appreciate everything that you've said so so so much.
I am going to literally burn through your book now
as we get off the line here. But it's so important.
It honestly is so refreshing to just have somebody hear
what we've said and give us some real sage advice.
I mean, I think from everything from special time to
heavy work to having a chart like our son really
(46:25):
loves the structure of those things, so we're going to
start to deploy them. We'll keep everybody in the loop
on what's going on within this I lovingly call our
house the Chaos Crew, but we'll keep everyone past and we.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Have your email, and we have your email off the hook. Yeah,
there you.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Go, and our listeners can absolutely go in for the
blast courses. I think it's really helpful and accessible to
just have somebody who's been in the trenches gone through
it and gave some really great nuggets of advice. So
thank you so much for joining us, Thank you for
answering the call our cry for help. Yeah, we couldn't
be happy to have you on, So thank you so
much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Oh my goodness, what a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Of course, that's it for this week.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Thanks for listening, and if you like what you heard,
spread the word seriously right now, take your phone out,
text a friend and tell them to subscribe.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
And be sure to rate and review us on Apple
Podcasts and Spotify if you haven't already.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
It really really helps.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Until next week. I'm Madison Packer and.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
I'm Onya Packer and this was These Packs Puck.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
These Packs Puck is a production of iHeart Women's Sports
and Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
It's hosted by us Madison.
Speaker 5 (47:35):
And Aya Packer, Emily Mehronoff, is our senior producer and
story editor.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
We were mixed and mastered by Mary Deo.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
Our executive producers are Jennifer Bassett, Jesse Katz, and Ali Perry.
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