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Sometimes solving a child’s sleep struggle requires a full reset. And sometimes, it’s just one small missing piece.

Allison shares four real client sleep stories that highlight how one simple change completely shifted a child’s sleep. From newborn naps to bedtime protests to nighttime wakings, each family had a different challenge, but in every case, one specific adjustment made a surprisingly big difference.

Allison walks through:
— How restructuring daytime naps helped a newborn start getting longer stretches of sleep at night
— Why giving a toddler permission to cry actually stopped bedtime protests
— The power of “special time” and how one small language shift helped reduce evening meltdowns
— How using simple language helped a preschooler stop waking her parents overnight

Allison explains why sleep puzzles are unique and how understanding your child’s temperament, rhythms, and emotional needs can often reveal the missing piece.

If your child’s sleep feels stuck right now, this episode may help you think about the problem in a completely different way.

And if you want more help, Allison and her team are always available for free 15 minute consultations. Click here to find out how to schedule your call.

🎉 10-Year Anniversary Giveaways
To celebrate 10 years of Sleep and Wellness Coach, Allison is hosting four weekly giveaways throughout June over on Instagram.

On the first four Mondays in June, a new giveaway will be posted featuring a mix of sleep and wellness favorites. To enter, follow along on Instagram and watch for each Monday’s post.

It’s a fun way to celebrate 10 years of supporting families—and to say thank you to the community that made it all possible.

Give your child the gift of better sleep. Allison’s free, age-specific guides show you exactly how many hours of rest kids need to grow, learn, and thrive—no matter their age. Get your free copy now: 0-2 Years Old or 3 to 10 years old

From baby sleep to toddler sleep, daycare naps to sleep training—How Long ’Til Bedtime? is the podcast for parents who want practical, guilt-free sleep tips they can actually use.

Hosted by pediatric sleep coach Allison Egidi, each episode delivers real solutions for every stage—from navigating newborn sleep struggles and weaning night feedings to helping your 3-year-old fall asleep independently (and stay asleep!). Whether you’re trying to make sense of daycare sleep patterns, craving your evenings back, or simply need a working mom podcast to keep you grounded, you’re in the right place.

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Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode.

243. 4 Real Sleep Coaching Stories & the One Change That Made a Big Difference
Before we dive in today, just a quick reminder that June is Sleep and Wellness Coach’s 10 year anniversary month. And I am celebrating with four weekly giveaways throughout the first weeks of June. So each Monday I have been posting a new giveaway on Instagram. And these include sleep consultation, my favorite book of poems all about motherhood, and I’ve partnered with my friend Ashley at Green Bean Baby Boutique to include some of my most recommended sleep products, including a Hatch, a Kyte sleep sack, a Yoga Sleep white noise machine, and bamboo pajamas. So if you missed last week or you’re listening and it is still June and you’ve missed any of them, rush over to Instagram and get yourself entered for the current week, so you don’t miss out. And be sure to share it with your friends who may want in on these giveaways. My handle over on Instagram is @sleepandwellnesscoach. Okay, now on to today’s episode.

Hey there, Allison here. Welcome back to How Long ‘Til Bedtime. 10 years of sleep coaching has given me a lot of stories. Thousands of families, thousands of sleep puzzles solved. And there have been hundreds of occasions where there was just one small change that made an enormous difference. And that’s exactly what today’s episode is all about. I want to share four client stories. All with different challenges and different solutions, but they all have one thing in common. In each case, there was one specific change, sometimes a structural change, sometimes just a shift in language, that turned out to be the primary missing piece of these children’s sleep puzzles. I think you’re going to find these stories interesting. And maybe one of them will help you find the missing piece to your child’s sleep puzzle.

My first story is about a six-week-old baby girl. Her mom had joined my newborn sleep coaching group and she was really struggling. This baby was not getting any decent naps during the day because every time they put her down, she woke right back up. But the nights were their own special form of torture. No stretch longer than one, maybe two hours if they were lucky. For everyone’s safety and sanity, we decided our first goal was going to be simple, get one longer initial stretch of sleep at night. Just one. Because that first stretch, even if it was just four hours can start to change everything for a new parent.

So we looked at what was happening during a full 24-hour period, and it was just a ton of fragmented sleep. So here’s what we changed. I had her make sure that this baby got one nap in the first half of the day, so between 8 a.m. and noon, that was one to two hours long. And then one nap in the second half of the day, so between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., that was also one to two hours long. Since this little lady struggled to take any naps longer than 20 minutes when she was put down, mom just went ahead and planned for those two naps to be contact naps. Because that way she could reliably get the one to two hour nap. And I encouraged her to be okay with all of the other naps during the day being short and not more than an hour. So not only was I okay with them being short, I actually wanted her to cap any of the other naps at no more than an hour.

So also there’s a piece of this where it’s like relieving the stress of her feeling like a 20-minute nap was a failed nap, and that the goal was for every nap to be long, because that was not realistic in her situation, and generally not in most situations. So that was all I had her do in week one was a longer nap in the first half of the day and a longer nap in the second half of the day. And fairly quickly, her baby started getting that initial four-hour stretch of sleep at night. This gave us a foundation to build on, which allowed us to start putting the other pieces of the puzzle together in the weeks that followed.

So if you have a newborn who is not getting any long stretches of sleep at night, start with this nap approach. One, one-to-two-hour nap in the morning window. One one to two hour nap in the afternoon window, and then shorter naps in between. It can make a big, big difference. Probably even bigger than you imagined.

Okay, my second story is about a two-year-old little boy, and it’s one of my favorites because the solution was somewhat unexpected from the parents’ perspective. This little boy had been putting himself to sleep independently at bedtime and for naps since he was an infant. I had been working with him since he was a newborn. And it wasn’t like he was always the best and easiest sleeper, but the foundation was built right out of the gate, and he had good sleep habits. By every measure, he was a solid independent sleeper. But then in kind of the recent months before they reached out, he developed this persistent habit of complaining and calling out at bedtime after he was gone through his bedtime routine and put in the crib. And then he would call out for a little bit and then he would put himself to sleep. And then he also had the habit of waking up early in the morning and being up before his Hatch light turned green. And he would cry out for them again or call out for them.

His parents knew that he was fine and they never engaged and he always put himself back to sleep and typically in the morning would kind of ultimately quiet down until his light turned green, but he continued to cry out after being put down at night. And then when he woke up first thing in the morning, instead of just patiently waiting for his light to turn green. So, even though they had held the boundaries consistently for a long time here of not responding to his cries to get him back up at bedtime or to let him get up ahead of his green light, this calling out and crying just kept happening.

So his parents reached out to me because they were curious. Was there anything we could do to fix this? And my recommendation surprised them. I suggested that every single night during the bedtime routine that they would say to him what the bedtime routine was, and then they would finish that by saying, And when I put you in your crib, it’s time to rest and sleep all the way until your light turns green. And if you want to cry and call for mom or dad, that’s okay. You’re allowed to do that. But mom and dad will not be coming back in to pick you up or hang out until your light turns green because it’s time to be sleeping. So if you want to cry, that’s okay. But we will not be coming back because it’s time to be sleeping. And we will come back when the light turns green.

They were surprised when I recommended this because it’s counterintuitive to tell your child it’s okay to cry when what you actually want is for them to not cry or stop crying. But the plan was to give him permission to cry. And within two nights, you guys, within two nights, he stopped complaining at bedtime and he stopped calling out before his light turned green. Even though his parents had not been responding for the previous like two months that this was happening, he had clearly still been thinking that if he kept protesting at bedtime, or when he woke up early, that they might come in and get him back up. It’s like that whole concept of like, so you’re saying I have a chance. Like he still thought he had a chance. But once they gave him explicit permission to go ahead and cry and complain if he wanted to, and they made it very clear that they would not be coming back until the light turned green because it was time to be sleeping, he realized that there was really no reason for him to be crying. It wasn’t going to get him what he was hoping it was going to get him. And so he stopped. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is set clear, loving expectations and remind your child of those expectations every night, and then stick to them because then they know what you expect from them and what they can expect from you in return.

My third story is about a three-year-old boy. And this one involves a concept that I’ve talked about on the podcast before. Special one-on-one time, where you are just pouring into your child. This family had an infant and the three-year-old. Mom was home with both kids during the day, and the evenings were a disaster. The moment dad walked in the door from work, their three year old son would completely fall apart. He had complete meltdowns. And he started to resist everything. And it carried right through the bedtime routine and into the night.
So as we were chatting through it, it became clear that this little guy was desperately craving attention from his dad. And I explained that he didn’t even care if it was negative attention. But dad walked in, he had a meltdown, and then dad had to help mom and focus on him. And then this just carried on and on. And it was impacting his bedtime and his sleep. So I explained the concept of consistent, special one-on-one time. But dad’s time at home was super limited during the week because he worked outside the home and he had to leave fairly early. And then he didn’t get home until it was dinner time. And then post-dinner, I was also saying, like, okay, let’s move to getting the bedtime routine going. So he was really squeezed at both ends.

But when we did a blow by blow of this dad’s daily schedule, I noticed something. Every morning while mom was nursing the baby in their bedroom, dad took the three year old downstairs and fed him breakfast. So special time with this little guy and his dad was already happening. In fact, it was happening like every single day, which is not always easy for parents. The only thing missing was the language around it.

So we made one change. As they were heading down for breakfast each morning, dad would say, let’s go downstairs and have special Sam and Daddy time, just the two of us while we eat breakfast. Another piece of this was he made sure to leave his phone behind and he sat with his son while he was eating breakfast, which he wasn’t always doing before. Sometimes he was just in the kitchen doing stuff. So he told them they were having special time. He left his phone behind so he was present and he sat with him while he was having breakfast and they kind of chatted. And he had a good time. It was great. And it wasn’t long, just the length of eating breakfast. And then at the end of breakfast, he would say, I love having special Sam and Daddy time, and I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow. He took a window, a period of time during the day that was already happening, a time that he was already hanging out with his son, and he simply put words around it. So dad now got credit for filling his son’s cup, and it actually was filling his cup, where maybe it wasn’t before.

After the very first morning of doing this, the meltdown when dad got home from work stopped just like that, immediately after starting it on one day. And so he started to implement it consistently. And once the evening meltdown stopped, the bedtime resistance improved quickly as well. So it didn’t fix everything related to his sleep, but it really fixed a lot of it. And then it was easy to put the other pieces together. So the takeaway with this story is something I feel really strongly about. And it’s not always that you need to spend more time with your child. Sometimes you just need to put words around the time that already exists with your child and be sure to be fully present during those times. Point out when special time is starting, be present, and then point out that it happened. This lets your child’s brain register my parent wants to and is spending time with me and they like it. Therefore, my cup is getting filled. This little change is something that can change everything.

All right, my fourth story is about an almost three-year-old girl, and this one is my love letter to the power of using a child’s identity to help them sleep better. This little gal had been a genuinely great sleeper for a long time. Solid bedtime routine, stayed in her bed until her light turned green, good habits all around. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, she started waking once during the night, about half of the time, and screaming. And her dad would come in, see that nothing was really wrong, reassure her, tell it was time to go back to sleep, and she would. She would go back to sleep.

No other sleep issues. Just this one random waking about half the time. Her mom is a member of my monthly membership group and she brought it to one of our weekly office hours. And I knew from working with this family that this little girl is a natural rule follower. I mean, come on, parents, you kind of know, because I have a rule follower and I have someone who’s not a rule follower. And you just gotta parent those kids differently. But I knew that this little gal is a rule follower.

So I suggested they start saying one new thing as part of their bedtime routine. Each night they would remind her that it’s important to be a sleep champion, which is language they’d already used. And a sleep champion follows their sleep rules, something else they were already using, and sleeps in their own bed all night, all the way until their light turns green. And here’s the new language, you guys, without waking sleeping people. That last line without waking sleeping people was all she needed. She had already been following her sleep rules, but those rules didn’t technically include not waking sleeping people. So by adding this one line, she now knew what was expected of her, and she stopped screaming for dad during the night. And not only that, in the morning she proudly announced, I’m a sleep champion who doesn’t wake sleeping people.

Now, I want to be clear about why this worked. Because if your child has all sorts of sleep struggles, adding this one line is not going to fix everything. But this little girl already had a great consistent bedtime routine. Her bedtime was already aligned with her biological rhythm. She had a strong sleep foundation. What she had developed was simply a bad habit, a weird little pattern that formed around what was really just a natural nighttime waking, because we all wake up sometimes during the night. She’s created a weird habit around it. And the sleep champions don’t wake sleeping people language gave this little rule follower clear guidelines about how she’s supposed to behave during the night. And she latched right onto it.

So to wrap up, four stories, four different missing puzzle pieces. A newborn who needed her daytime naps restructured in order to unlock longer nighttime stretches. A two year old who needed explicit permission to cry and clear expectations around what he could expect from his parents. A three year old whose cup Just needed a little filling, not with more time, but with language that made that time that already existed count. And an almost three-year-old who just needed to know what a sleep champion looks like because she took pride in being one.

Every child’s sleep puzzle is unique. Sometimes there are going to be a lot of pieces that are out of place and need to be put together. But other times there’s just one little piece that we need to pop in. And then the puzzle is complete.

And as a reminder, we offer one-on-one virtual sleep consultations here at Sleep and Wellness Coach. So if you ever need help figuring out what pieces of the puzzle are out of place for your child, we are always here to help. You can learn more under the Work With Us page at sleepandwellnesscoach.com. And as always, thanks for listening. And I will see you back here next week. Bye for now.