Episode 52- "Expanding Your Expertise: Embrace Baby-Centered Sleep Methods for a Responsive & Gentle Approach"

In this episode of the Sweet Slumber podcast, Meredith Brough recounts her transformation from a mother and childcare provider to a sought-after sleep consultant. She shares her early struggles with her own children's sleep issues, which led her to develop baby-centered sleep solutions that prioritize the child's needs and temperament. Meredith's approach evolved from gentle, traditional methods to more empathetic and responsive strategies, inspired by her work with sensitive and spirited children.

Her success story includes instructing other mothers and professionals, creating a mastermind group, and educating the public about responsive parenting. Meredith's dedication to changing sleep training narratives and supporting families is evident throughout her journey.

Topics

• Background working with children and experiences as a mother
• A personal journey of becoming a sleep consultant
• Challenges faced in the early stages of Meredith's business
• The process of developing Baby-Centered Sleep solutions
• Lack of resources in understanding and addressing the needs of highly sensitive and spirited children
• Initial struggles in understanding the impact of a child's temperament on sleep
• Emphasis on intuition, prayer, and perseverance in her journey as a sleep consultant
• Shifting away from crying methods and focusing on baby-centered sleep solutions

If you'd like to learn about the Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Program or Mastermind set up a call with Meredith HERE.

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Keywords
sleep consultant, sleep consultant certification program,  baby-centered sleep solutions, infant sleep, toddler's sleep, children's sleep,  healthy sleep methods, holistic sleep solutions, gentle sleep consultant, gentle sleep solutions, parenting, intuition, responsive parenting, motherhood, sleep patterns, temperament, mentoring mothers, highly sensitive children, spirited children, infant sleep, crying methods, gentle methods, mastermind for sleep consultants, responsive parenting, team-work, supporting each other, attachment, coregulation, emotional regulation

The Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Certification Program Launches on November 11th, 2024!

Check out the links below & add your name to our waiting list so you can join our next session.

Learn More About the Baby-Centered Sleep Consultant Certification Program HERE.

Learn about our Baby-Centered Sleep approach, methods and principles, hear from a few of our graduates, and get to know Meredith HERE.

Transcript

Meredith Brough (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Sweet Slumber podcast. I'm your host, Meredith Brough. Whether you're a seasoned sleep consultant, a sleep coach, a birth world professional, or a mother aspiring to enter this fulfilling field of sleep expertise, you're in the right place. I'm here to teach you my baby centered solutions so you can help exhausted, struggling parents reclaim their sleep and help children thrive along the way. I'll teach you how to find harmony in your life and avoid burnout. Build a thriving business and become a financially independent woman. My goal is to help you fall in love with sleep coaching and never look back. Let's embark on this journey together. Her dreams are sweet and the work is rewarding. Stay tuned for a show that will transform your business and the lives of those who touch. Hello! Today I want to share a different part of my sleep coaching and entrepreneurial story with you. I want you to understand why I created sleep methods in the first place, so you can hear about my journey of ups and downs and understand the reasons I believe so strongly in my sleep.

Meredith Brough (00:01:07) - Solutions that are so focused on baby's needs and their well-being. Now, you might have taken a sleep consultant training course that didn't feel right, or fit your parenting style or personal beliefs. Your intuition might be telling you there's something else you can do to help your clients. It might be telling you that there are loving, nurturing ways to help them. Solutions you believe in and would use yourself. If this sounds familiar, I think you'll appreciate what I have to say today. I hope this insight will give you hope that there are new ways to help families, and maybe some excitement that I have solutions for you. So first, I want to tell you a little bit about my background. Forgive me if you've listened to other episodes and heard some of these stories. So I'm a mom of five. From the time I was about 12, I was very, very obsessed with kids. So I was babysitter always, always busy babysitting before I got married. I was a nanny for a few years, which I adored.

Meredith Brough (00:02:04) - And then when we were first married, I worked in a preschool. When I became a mom, I started a daycare in my home so that I could stay home with my little one. All in all, I worked with children for about 30 years and raised my five babies. In the last six years I have been asleep. Consultant full time and you'll hear that story soon. So where it all began is that my oldest child was what I would call a typical baby who struggled with sleep, and I had no tools. I had no idea that there was any way to improve this. And he really, really depended on me, preferred me, and I was the one doing the feedings and the waking and everything. The one that could get him to sleep. So it was really exhausting. And then when he was just over one, I found out I was pregnant and I really wanted another baby. It had taken us over two years to get pregnant the first time, so it was quite a surprise that I was already pregnant with the one year old.

Meredith Brough (00:03:05) - But the problem was, I was extremely scared about what it was going to be like with two babies waking me. I was so worried about it that when someone would congratulate me or say they were excited, I would almost break into tears. Now I hope my daughter's not listening and thinking, oh mom, come on! One of my daycare families. The mom gave me a book and said, oh my gosh, it's going to be okay. Just read this. It's going to be okay. So I did. I read the book, skim through it, got some ideas, used some of the principles, and I didn't realize at the time so much about a child's temperament affect sleep. And she was an easygoing kid. So by the time she was nine weeks old, too, sleeping for 12 hours at night and the only sleep interruptions we really experienced were teething. And she was a great napper. Life was super predictable. I was getting my eight hours of sleep every night. I loved babies and I just thought this was so much fun and not so scary and hard that I had three more and they were just as successful with sleep at early ages.

Meredith Brough (00:04:13) - So honestly, I just thought I had this gift. I had no idea that things could be more challenging based on a child's temperament and other factors. I just thought I had this great gift, and so I kind of made it my hobby to help all the families in my in home daycare help their kids sleep better. And I didn't even tell people when they signed up to have me take care of their children. They definitely liked how much experience I had, but then I surprised them with this ability to help their kids sleep for about eight hours within the first week of being in my home, it didn't matter if they were very young or closer to one or older than that. It was my gift to the families and it was so much fun. So I actually stopped running my daycare after about 15 years and worked in the schools, mostly because this was easier on my family and my kids were in. All of them were in school. After two years of working in the schools, I loved it.

Meredith Brough (00:05:08) - I was planning on doing something in education and was going to go back to school after two years. But a woman came along from church who needed my help with her kids. She was in the middle of a move. Short story lady was very fragile, very sick. Really, really lost with these babies and not in a good place. And she did not know how she could go on. And I really felt my heart just compel me, propel me to take care of these babies and help her. And so I did. I took care of them day and night with my daughter's help. For about four days. The girls were really, really not thriving. There were two months old twins, by the way, but they were not doing well when I met them. You know, like 15 minute cat naps, a couple ounces, 3 or 4 hours would go by and they'd repeat that. And they do that all day and all night. So it was extremely exhausting for mom, but I brought them back sleeping eight hours a night, taking great naps, you know, eating really well.

Meredith Brough (00:06:06) - Their disposition was brighter. They had gained weight. It was really amazing. But this experience just gave her so much hope and it saved her family. And so it was quite a awakening for me, like to realize how impactful sleep could be. And I just started realizing this is a big deal. I seriously had no idea there was such a thing as sleep consultants, even though I had read that book and I read more books as I prepare to start my business. I had never heard of any trainings. I just thought these people who wrote the books for, you know, parenting experts and I just had no clue. So I decided to start my business. And honestly, my biggest challenge for several months was this is an intuitive gift. How do I pass this on to other people? How do I actually teach the parents what to do? Because I just do it. So it was very, very challenging. But I got to work the week I planned to start my business. I had a client with twins and I kept busy for several months.

Meredith Brough (00:07:09) - I spent like 40 hours in people's homes and so this was, for me, major hands on training, because I did this for eight months and I spent so much time in those homes, I started learning more about tougher challenges and temperaments and development and sleep regressions and things like that that I didn't really understand before. I started to see that I didn't always have the answers, and that I had to work hard for those sometimes, and honestly, not knowing that there was sleep consultant trainings, I was at a huge disadvantage because I was extremely isolated. I did not know anyone. I didn't have anyone to turn to for help. So I was very, very hard working finding my own answers. This was a good experience for me. I used a similar method to what I'd been using in my daycare for sleep shaping. Basically, you know, with independent sleep helping these little ones put themselves to sleep, it's always gentle. There was a little bit of fussing, but always just a lot of support, a lot of flexibility.

Meredith Brough (00:08:10) - Moms being in tune, paying attention to their little ones, and a lot of the things that I taught just felt right to me as a daycare provider, as a mom. And, you know, the moms loved them. They loved that it was gentle. And there was the sense of nurture and connection. I definitely had my own way of doing things. I'd read a book, but I did not go back to it. I did not follow it. I had this instinctive, intuitive gift. So that was fun for me because I was able to teach these parents. Like, it doesn't matter if you've tried something before, let's try my way and see if it works. And it did. What I did worked and I felt like I was on fire. I had this mission. I wanted moms to feel good like I did. I wanted them to have energy and strength and enjoy motherhood like I did. I wanted them to be able to pursue their dreams and their jobs and have balance at home and feel confident and trust themselves and be kind to themselves.

Meredith Brough (00:09:08) - So mentoring became a really big part of my work. It was never just about the sleep. I just loved helping moms. I would it would help them tune into their little ones. I was able to help them recognize the good they were doing, and pay attention to all the good things and give themselves credit. So I was good at listening to my own heart and my own gut, and finding that science backed me up later. This was really fun for me. I would just follow my heart, do what felt right, do what I already knew intuitively, and science would back me up later. I didn't know much about how kids develop the ability to calm themselves, that they don't have that ability as babies or toddlers. It's extremely. Limited. They need their parents to calm them. They need their parents to pick them up. They need their parents to even just be there with their voice or padding or whatever. But I didn't even know about this, really. I just knew it was important for parents to be there.

Meredith Brough (00:10:08) - I didn't know the benefits of responsive parenting. I didn't know how much that can help a child thrive. And even like a brain will develop properly from responsive parenting, it's amazing. I knew it was natural to be there for children and it was important. So I researched what I could find and I did my best. I listened to my intuition and I prayed for guidance and that is always helped me. And it still does. Eventually, after working in people's homes, I had a breakthrough in my business. I just happened to meet this influencer lady. I was in Iowa. She's all the way in LA. She was a very big influencer with a very big audience, a viral video, 30 million views, all about her child's sleep. And I just reached out and said, I'd love to help you. This is so sad that your sleep so bad. But other people came to her too and asked if they could work for a trade like, you know, promote me. And I hadn't even really thought about that.

Meredith Brough (00:11:03) - I just offered to help her. And so it was funny, is that we had an initial meeting, and then we met like a week or two later, and she wanted to promote me. And so she hired me out of all these people that were extremely qualified. Because of the connection. We had mom to mom and she knew that I understood babies and understood her. So when that happened, 100,000 people learned about me. And overnight I gained all of these clients all over the world. And that was really exciting. But I got to tell you. Out of like 30, 40 clients that I got in about a month. Almost all of them had difficult cases. Their children were extremely challenging. I was able to help them. I didn't always have the answers. What I suggested often didn't work. It took forever at times, but I was determined to think outside the box to find the answers, to not give up. I had this urge inside to help them. So I did lots of research and I worked with the parents.

Meredith Brough (00:12:03) - We did trial and error and I tried to understand their children, and it was really cool because I was able to learn directly from parents the ins and outs of their personalities, the challenges that they were having. And I was always taking notes, always learning, always thinking. And I didn't have resources like you do today. So what I needed and what I did was look for information about temperament. Nowadays, sleep consultants are talking about this. There's blogs, Instagram accounts and Facebook groups. I didn't find info about highly sensitive kids for years. I found a little bit about what Doctor Sears said on sensitivity. But now there's so much more information, so many more resources that are much more helpful. I didn't find very much about spirited kids, which could be called high needs as well. I found a website that talked about it. I found Mary Kosinski's book, Raising Your Spirited Child. I found an article about high needs kids from Doctor Sears, and he included that active side of little ones in his description.

Meredith Brough (00:13:06) - I use the temperament test from Tracy Hogg from The Baby Whisperer, but I have changed the way I use it. I change what it means to me. I've changed so many things about that, and I do not rely on the insight or the method she teaches in her book. It honestly doesn't work for these types of temperaments. So I have some episodes on temperament. You can listen to those if you want. I'll make sure and list those in the notes as well. A few hints or tips on what I did find. I found that sensitive and spirited little ones got distressed or stressed out easily, so we couldn't push some hard. I found a little bit of fussing was actually getting in the way. Unlike easy kids, you know they fuss a little bit and they sleep great forever. These little kids, if they they got upset, they would go from 0 to 60 or they wouldn't go to sleep or they were just so resistant. So we worked from a different angle. I found that if we kept the children happy and calm that we can move forward.

Meredith Brough (00:14:02) - So it was really exciting. I created methods that are peaceful and loving. We tried to avoid tears and triggers all together, and it's often possible, especially for easygoing kids. Like there's not a problem there. They don't really fuss with change. But you know, we have to be really subtle and careful and sneaky and tricky with a lot of these babies. In my approach, there's a big focus on connection, more baby steps, time limits on methods, a big focus on teaching security and being responsive. Parents need to hold their little ones and pick them up to calm them. I teach parents to be intuitive and in tune, to never shut off that connection, to teach your little ones, to trust them, to love sleep space. Parents offer comfort and create calming neural pathways that lead to emotional intelligence down the road. I learned so much when things were challenging and difficult. The hard work was worth it. But there was one more hurdle. I struggled to figure out how to help spirited babies and toddlers calm down and fall asleep in the crypts.

Meredith Brough (00:15:05) - Nothing was working. It felt really hard. And when I'd say this right now, without emotion, you don't get it. Like there were months where I was pleading with God to let me off the hook. I wrestling inside, I don't want to work with these kids. I don't want to work with these families. It's too hard. I want some easy, fulfilling, fast work. I want answers, I don't like how this feels, but I just kept praying and I actually felt pushed to help them and not give up. Like I was being called to the work. So after a while I found the solutions. But you know what it came from? Prayer, I prayed. God helped me create this method very quickly, in fact. And then miraculously, within another day or two, a mom that I had been in contact with, who I was learning from about her spirited child, messaged me and said, guess what? I did? And it worked. It was very similar to my method.

Meredith Brough (00:15:59) - And so that was another seriously joyful spiritual moment for me, because I knew I was on the right track, and I felt good about being able to tell people to try this instead of being scared. And like, I don't even know if this works. So it was so amazing to me. Now when I look back, I laugh that I wanted to quit because now my passion is helping families who don't have easy cases, who don't have solutions. Because a lot of the methods that are out there are geared towards these really easy going babies, and these parents are just extremely sleep deprived and maybe even hopeless. Often they come to me just feeling completely broken, and they don't believe in themselves, and they're blaming themselves and they're so sleep deprived and they can hardly find the strength to work with me. I hope you don't mind me sharing all these layers of my journey, because these are like breakthrough moments for me. These are just really important. Mile markers or milestones in my business that I shifted, I changed, I discovered something.

Meredith Brough (00:17:04) - So let's go another layer into my journey. When my heart and focus changed and I really shifted away from old expectations that parents had, such as little ones progressing early, close to the same pace as each other. You know, they all sleep well in the first few months. That belief that's out there and even very experienced people believe that. But after many years, I realized I had seen too much to make promises like that. Don't worry, if we start early, it's going to work. I knew from experience that little ones were waking up at night for a reason, and there was something different about these sensitive, spirited and high needs babies and toddlers that I could not ignore. They seem to need more care, more time, more patience from parents. They weren't going to become perfect sleepers early. They were going to be affected by sleep regressions more than other babies. They're going to have needs at night more than other babies. They were going to take short naps for a longer period of time.

Meredith Brough (00:18:07) - They're going to be more attached to their parent. They weren't going to be like, oh, okay, I'll lay down for you because you're persistent. There's stretches of sleep. We're going to need different parameters. I knew that babies were different from each other, and I knew that sleep was different from spirit and sensitive kids to the angelic kids, but I didn't recognize it for a while that, you know that their nature was different. They were on their own pace, and it was no one's fault. The idea of pushing these babies was not good for them. In time they would sleep really well, but their parents needed to be patient and be available to their children, even when it was very difficult. I decided then, in this breakthrough moment, that I was truly against crying methods or allowing crying with my own methods. I became so passionate about focusing on babies needs. I came up with baby centered sleep. It was always in my heart to make sure they were front and center, but I feel like parents were not adjusting their expectations to what their children needed, and I was keeping what I felt and what I knew inside too much.

Meredith Brough (00:19:11) - Unless I was teaching my clients or sharing with my close friends, I wasn't really speaking up about what I knew and what I felt in my heart. I decided I had to do more. I needed to stand up from it for baby's needs. So I created my podcast series What's Wrong with Traditional Sleep Training, where I interviewed child development and parenting experts who could share info and insight about science and what they know about helping babies and children thrive. What parents can and should do to set their children up for the brightest future possible. My goal was to help parents understand their options for sleep training or improving sleep, and make an educated decision about what they were going to do or not do. And of course, I focused on temperament because I am not worried about the easygoing, angelic babies who cry for a couple of minutes and then sleep great for evermore. They're not my concern whatsoever. So there's no shame to anybody who believes in those methods or uses them, because it's more about adjusting what we're doing appropriately.

Meredith Brough (00:20:07) - So after I introduced this series, I had another breakthrough and it was very exciting. I found research on sleep temperaments. It was incredible. The scientists found the same thing as they found that there were self soothers and signallers. Some babies would just naturally sleep well early. They would, you know, find some easy way to slip into sleep, like sucking a thumb. And their parents could do all the right things and they would sleep great early. But then these other ones, through no one's fault, would take longer. These other children or babies would not be interested in independence. They would be on their own timetable for progress. And since I knew this was true already, this just brought everything together for me and it was so exciting. So I started focusing on this principle a lot. It was something that parents could really wrap their minds around. In fact, it felt true. Like I was telling them something they already knew, but no one else had ever believed it or said it. So hear me say it to them.

Meredith Brough (00:21:13) - Made them feel a million times better. A few years ago, people started coming to me, asking me to teach them my methods and approach. The first was a mom who was studying to be a pediatric psychiatrist. She was actually my client. She was so obsessed with everything I taught and the science that backed everything up. It was so much fun to teach explore with her. She would find, research and help me in my work all the time. It was so fun. Then I had a sleep consultant and another. And another and some newborn care specialists asking me if I had a course. So I threw my digital products together and we met weekly for several months. They digested everything and applied what they were learning. I learned so much from them and they learned so much from me. I fell in love with instructing and mentoring. I upgraded my course about a year and a half ago, and taught mothers who had read about sleep, training and holistic principles and just loved it. There were some sleep consultants that joined us too.

Meredith Brough (00:22:09) - It was a wonderful experience. This was when I really fell in love with the business and marketing side of things, and more of the mentoring. The mamas were newbies and I could help them from the ground up, and it was just amazing. It was so fulfilling to share my baby centered sleep solutions with them and help them build their businesses. Share important lessons about entrepreneurship that I wish I had known way back when there was a big side benefit to all of this. I learned so much from my students, especially those who took other courses and those with a natural gift for this work. I absolutely believe I can and will learn from my students. I will not tell them to do what I do, tell them their ideas are great and they should listen to their intuition, follow what's in their heart, listen to instincts, and follow their own good ideas. I'm all about support, building friendships, collaborating on ideas and solutions, supporting other people's parenting styles and belief systems, collaborating on business, sending referrals to sum it up teamwork and caring about each other and not competing.

Meredith Brough (00:23:14) - I feel like my program is always growing, and yet there's so much to learn, so many tools and so much insight and info at your fingertips now, and so much more to come in the future as I continue to add to my course. It's just amazing. Last year, when my most recent program was wrapping up, I realized that my students needed more support to continue to grow and learn to become confident and build their businesses. So I started a mastermind for my graduates and sleep consultants from other programs too. I brought in an amazing mentor and experienced holistic sleep coach, Kim Holley from Intuitive Parenting to help me mentor my clients in weekly mastermind meetings when we meet together with Kim. We have some of the most beautiful, inspiring conversations about our work, our philosophies, experiences, solutions. And a couple of months ago, we started talking about working with toddlers and babies who are very strong willed and specifically about those who refuse to give up breastfeeding at night. We started discussing what crying was about communication.

Meredith Brough (00:24:18) - That's it and how innocent that is. But moms are afraid of their infants and children crying. They shouldn't be. But are they learning that we don't want to send the wrong message when we claim tier free methods? So it really just opened my mind up to, I guess, you know, let's get the right information out there and let's focus on the right thing. We agreed that what really matters is that we teach about responsive parenting, that parents need to focus on supporting their little ones needs, and they need to understand what normal crying and communication is. After all, mothers can absolutely stop nursing and set a boundary around their body when they're touched out and done breastfeeding. But they may not be able to do that without a toddler crying. There are situations when tears happen. In most cases, we can make powerful changes to sleep in a loving and peaceful way. But in my teaching, I focus needed to change the way children are cared for and treated. The support they receive, especially these tougher babies and toddlers.

Meredith Brough (00:25:23) - This is what they need to thrive. And moms need a support system. Absolutely. There's no judgment here. I just love my method so much and I want to share them with the world. So I'm sharing with you all these different experiences I went through where my mind was expanded and I changed and I grew. I really want to change things. I've always wanted to change the way the world approaches sleep training. But I got so passionate about things being tear free because there was so much sadness happening. And, you know, parents doing things without listening to their instincts and forcing independence when it began to work and cause harm that way. So it feels really good to just kind of come full circle and be like, this is what really matters, and this is how I can really help parents. So now you'll hear me focusing on responsive parenting. I talk about nurturing but powerful methods that help challenging little ones move forward with their sleep. I explained differences in temperament and I teach more about normal crying in communication.

Meredith Brough (00:26:23) - I talk about these other subjects because they matter more, and I want to help mothers who are afraid of damaging their children, to not be afraid to understand and support their children and know what really matters. I want them to know what a great job they're doing, and that their children aren't at risk for trauma, or feeling abandoned when they're doing such a wonderful job at being responsive. As you can tell, it's been a journey. There's so much in my heart and soul. I am passionate about this work. I love helping parents who need me and my approach. I am passionate about teaching and I love that sharing my tools and what I've learned and created helps all parents use methods that feel right and support their infants and children's optimal development and health in every way. We can improve sleep while keeping connection, attachment, emotional regulation, responsiveness, security and what feels right at the center of everything. And how amazing is that? I followed my heart and it led me down this path that I adore.

Meredith Brough (00:27:22) - And now I get to help others, love the work and help me in my cause, our cause to change the way the world approaches sleep training. I don't have to do this on my own. I wonderful mama signing up to learn and join my cause. And there's trained sleep consultants out there adopting and using the new methods and solutions that they can't find anywhere else. I could protect the things I've learned and keep them to myself, but I don't because they aren't mine. God taught me and he used me to help families. These methods are yours. I'd love to become your friend, your cheerleader, and more than anything, share my baby centered sleep solutions with you and maybe even learn from you. I'm gearing up for a new session of my Sleep Consultant certification program in the beginning of May. There'll be another session next fall, but this is a relaunch, so the price is lower and you'll even find a discount code on my website. It's a great time to enroll in my program. You can learn all about my baby centered sleep methods and approach in the baby Centered Sleep Consultant Certification Program.

Meredith Brough (00:28:21) - Or if you're a newer sleep consultant who would like to take my certification but also want long term mentoring advice from other sleep consultants quarterly, one on ones with me, classes for continuing ed and marketing and business growth and more. Look into my mastermind program. You can set up a call to talk to me about either option. Go to SweetSlumberTime.com and find the certification tab, or click on my home page and click on Sleep Consultants or Certification to learn more. Thanks for being here today. Until next time, I'll see you soon. Thanks for listening to the Sweet Slumber podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's show. Before you go, please leave a review and hit subscribe and have a great day!