The Art of Manliness - Set Your Kids Up for a Lifetime of Healthy Sleep

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.160 When neurologist and sleep specialist Dr. Chris Winter sees adult patients in his sleep

00:00:15.080 clinic, they often come to him because of a struggle with insomnia, which as he described

00:00:18.960 in a previous appearance on the AOM podcast, is caused by stressing too much about sleep

00:00:23.320 so that going to bed becomes an anxious and fear-inducing routine that sabotages the natural

00:00:27.980 needs and rhythms of the sleep cycle.

00:00:29.980 Chris would see fewer adult patients like this if, when they were kids, their parents

00:00:33.640 set them up to have a healthy relationship with sleep.

00:00:36.100 How to establish that kind of healthy relationship is something Chris writes about in his latest

00:00:39.460 book, The Rested Child, and it's the topic of our conversation today.

00:00:42.700 Chris will take us through what parents should know about their kids' sleep from the womb

00:00:45.360 through young adulthood with tips on both how to improve your children's sleep and how

00:00:48.620 to avoid messing it up, including his take on co-sleeping, why he let his kids go to bed

00:00:52.620 whenever they wanted, and why he discourages giving children melatonin to help them sleep.

00:00:56.180 After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash kidsleep.

00:01:15.620 Chris Winter, welcome back to the show.

00:01:17.740 Hey, Brett.

00:01:18.320 It's an honor to be back.

00:01:19.960 So we had you on the show a few years ago to discuss your book, The Sleep Solution.

00:01:23.840 It's all about how to manage the most common sleep problems that you see people have.

00:01:29.400 The latest book is called The Rested Child, and it's all about sleeping kids.

00:01:33.240 So in our conversation, The Sleep Solution, we talked about the health consequences for

00:01:36.620 adults if they don't get enough sleep or they have poor sleep.

00:01:40.060 Are there unique health consequences for children?

00:01:43.000 It's interesting, unique.

00:01:44.180 I think they are unique in the sense that maybe the difference between a child's sleep problem

00:01:52.400 and an adult has to do with kids are sort of laying foundations.

00:01:58.920 You know, in other words, I was talking to a patient today who was a good sleeper.

00:02:03.440 Now he is 58.

00:02:04.740 He is struggling versus somebody who deals with something or develops something when they're

00:02:13.420 young, and that almost gets sort of incorporated into who they are.

00:02:17.720 In fact, one of the chapters in my book, I write about good sleepers, bad sleepers.

00:02:21.120 What does that mean?

00:02:21.980 If you meet somebody at a dinner party, they say, well, I've always been a bad sleeper.

00:02:25.160 What exactly are they saying?

00:02:28.180 And where did that label come from?

00:02:31.760 Which I find to be really fascinating.

00:02:34.080 I was talking to somebody the other day.

00:02:35.900 I said, I've never had a parent in my clinic who's brought their children and said, well,

00:02:43.180 there's Keith.

00:02:44.120 He's my smart child.

00:02:45.800 And that's Daryl over there. 1.00

00:02:47.420 He's dumb as dirt. 1.00

00:02:49.440 You know, in front of the kid, like you would never do that. 1.00

00:02:52.400 And if I said, well, which is Daryl, your stupid child or your smart child, that parent 1.00

00:02:57.440 would probably get very upset with me and maybe never come back. 1.00

00:03:00.500 What's interesting is the way they talk about sleep with their kids.

00:03:04.020 They'll often say, well, Daryl's my great sleeper, but Keith, he's the worst sleeper

00:03:09.360 God ever on this earth.

00:03:10.960 I mean, right in front of the child who's sitting there, you know, playing with Legos.

00:03:15.360 So it's interesting.

00:03:16.640 I think that the consequences sometimes with children's sleep is that they develop

00:03:22.260 identities and behaviors about sleep that are very rooted developmentally.

00:03:28.280 It's sort of like learning to swim when you're little versus learning to swim when you're

00:03:32.480 in your forties.

00:03:33.320 It's really a different thing or acquiring a language.

00:03:37.100 And the other thing that I think tends to happen is that because children are developing

00:03:43.460 and the things that are happening in their lives are pushing them in directions, you know,

00:03:48.740 they're accelerating in school, they're going to college, you've decided not to go to college,

00:03:53.380 maybe do something different.

00:03:55.160 How much of that decision is being made because of problems related to their sleep?

00:04:01.460 So it always concerns me when I see children who are excessively sleepy and struggling in

00:04:07.800 school because forces beyond their control are kind of making determinations about them.

00:04:14.100 And one of the things I want to avoid is dealing with a 31-year-old who says, you know, I probably

00:04:22.700 have had narcolepsy ever since I was a kid.

00:04:25.820 I can't believe it's taking 20 years to figure this out.

00:04:28.960 And they often have this look like, if I had known that when I was in high school, I think

00:04:35.080 my life would be very different than it is now.

00:04:37.980 And so I want disorders of sleep to be addressed quickly and efficiently so that that child can

00:04:46.580 lead their best, happiest life, frankly.

00:04:50.160 And I think sometimes with adults, it's a little bit different.

00:04:53.760 So you want the child to have a great sleeping life all their life.

00:04:57.420 I mean, there's also health issues.

00:04:58.640 I think we'll get into this a little bit, the role of sleep and growth, particularly for

00:05:02.660 teenagers.

00:05:03.460 Yeah.

00:05:03.640 And, but also a lot of parents are concerned about their child's sleep because they're

00:05:08.240 concerned about their own sleep, right?

00:05:09.860 Like if their child's not sleeping well, then the parent, like that's, I imagine a lot of

00:05:13.640 the patients you see with sleeping problems, it's like, well, my kid, he just keeps waking

00:05:17.360 up and he's not, he's not a good sleeper.

00:05:19.560 So helping your kid sleep also helps your sleep as well.

00:05:23.580 Absolutely.

00:05:24.500 I was just in Nashville last night giving a lecture about narcolepsy, which is a disorder

00:05:29.600 where individuals are excessively sleepy.

00:05:32.360 They, they have a very unique relationship with sleep and that they want it all the time.

00:05:38.840 And I was talking to another doctor and he said that one of the patients that he had

00:05:46.380 diagnosed with narcolepsy, it was a, you know, 20 year old somewhere, you know, early, you

00:05:50.960 know, mid college age years, the parent, uh, parents had come with her to the doctor's

00:05:56.700 visit.

00:05:57.100 And when he said, I think your child has narcolepsy, the mother said, it was kind of emotional and

00:06:03.280 said, oh my God, I always thought she was our great sleeper.

00:06:07.980 And it's interesting because my guess is it would look that way to a parent of a young

00:06:13.280 child who, when you say, okay, kids, it's time for bed.

00:06:17.140 This child is already there.

00:06:19.520 Like they've put themselves to bed.

00:06:21.420 And every time you put that child down to nap, they went to sleep immediately.

00:06:26.620 So again, you're kind of back to that good sleeper, bad sleeper.

00:06:31.140 I think to your point, Brett, part of that evaluation has to do with how much is the sleep

00:06:38.780 affecting or not affecting the parent.

00:06:41.480 So in that metric, the child was great.

00:06:43.780 You know, I diagnosed narcolepsy in a major league baseball player.

00:06:47.060 And I talked to, I said, do you mind if I call your mom?

00:06:49.360 And he's like, no, I don't mind at all.

00:06:50.540 So I called his mom and the mother said, you know, it's funny when he was a high school

00:06:55.560 student, he would play baseball.

00:06:58.280 And then in between innings would come off the field, go to the dugout, put his glove

00:07:02.440 on the bench and go right to sleep.

00:07:04.460 And then his teammates would wake him up if it was his turn to bat, or if he had to go

00:07:08.500 back out in the field again.

00:07:09.800 And I said, what'd you think about that?

00:07:11.320 And she said, I don't know.

00:07:12.760 I just thought he was working really hard.

00:07:15.020 So it's amazing what we will tolerate, what we will make an excuse for, particularly if it's

00:07:22.720 not affecting our own sleep.

00:07:25.200 Okay.

00:07:25.240 So I think it'd be useful to structure this conversation so that we go through the different

00:07:29.380 stages of a child's sleep development and the unique needs of each of those parks.

00:07:34.060 I imagine we've got listeners who are parents who've got a kid at these different stages.

00:07:39.880 But I think the first question to ask, like, do we know, like, when do we start sleeping

00:07:42.660 as a fetus?

00:07:43.600 Do we have an idea when that happens?

00:07:46.000 Yeah, we do.

00:07:47.020 And I write about that.

00:07:49.340 So sleep in a fetus does look different than it does in an older child or a child, obviously,

00:07:57.120 it's been born.

00:07:57.820 Both the timing of it, but also the brain activity is just inherently different.

00:08:04.560 Now, this is a very difficult thing to study because it's difficult to get a kid to wear

00:08:08.620 a Fitbit when they're inside of a mother's uterus. 1.00

00:08:11.000 But, you know, we can look at these types of things and relatively early on in the child's

00:08:17.820 development, these stages of arousal and less arousal start to emerge.

00:08:22.740 And that's important because if you are a parent or you're expecting to be a parent one day,

00:08:29.820 you can influence that sleep based upon your own activities.

00:08:35.040 So, you know, the mother's schedule, the mother's exercise, is it regular?

00:08:40.340 Is it sporadic?

00:08:41.920 Is she sort of a shift worker? 1.00

00:08:43.860 Is she somebody who works nine to five every day, exercises every day for 30 minutes at noon? 0.91

00:08:48.260 You know, has a very routine eating schedule, movement schedule.

00:08:53.040 They've done studies that looked at how rocking, talking to a child, even driving influences a

00:09:00.920 child's rhythm.

00:09:01.800 So, I always tell parents, you know, you're going to start to create and help your child

00:09:06.860 organize his sleep before you meet him or her, which is just absolutely fascinating to me.

00:09:13.480 And that's why, you know, in the book, I write that this process of sleep is happening well

00:09:20.040 before the child is born.

00:09:21.760 And what's cool is you can influence it.

00:09:24.020 Okay.

00:09:24.060 So the mother, her actions can influence the child's sleep before it's even born. 0.57

00:09:29.020 What about genetics?

00:09:29.900 Like what role does genetics play in our sleep habits?

00:09:32.920 Absolutely.

00:09:33.520 So genetically, I like to think about a few things.

00:09:39.280 I mean, genetics could be potentially endless in terms of its influence on sleep, but the

00:09:45.000 things that I think that are most relevant to a parent and maybe to a child are three

00:09:50.900 things.

00:09:51.400 Number one, how much sleep does your child need as an individual?

00:09:56.360 We talk a lot about eight hours, but it's really a lot more unique to your own child.

00:10:02.760 And unfortunately is rapidly changing during those childhood years.

00:10:07.620 So nobody would be shocked if I told them, you know what, regardless of what your child

00:10:12.420 needs genetically, it will probably be more when they're six months old than when they're

00:10:17.640 six years old or 16 years old.

00:10:19.960 I included in the book, a chart that you can look up in the National Sleep Foundation.

00:10:25.960 If you type in like National Sleep Foundation, sleep need by age, there's this really cool chart

00:10:31.180 that they've put out there that kind of shows that bell curve distribution of sleep, you

00:10:36.740 know, the average, but what the outliers are that are considered normal for a child who's

00:10:42.940 just been born all the way up to their senior citizen discount at the movie theater.

00:10:47.420 And what you see is slowly as we mature in age, we lose sleep.

00:10:53.200 So grandma and grandpa tend to need a lot less sleep than their grandchildren.

00:10:58.320 And so it's not only just a matter of figuring out how much you need, it's how much do you need

00:11:02.660 in this point in your life because it can change.

00:11:05.840 So sleep need is highly genetically determined.

00:11:09.720 So if you're somebody who's a trauma surgeon and you work, you know, feel pretty good getting

00:11:14.800 six hours of sleep at night, you could very well pass that on to your daughter and she'll

00:11:19.060 be an amazing trauma surgeon like her mom.

00:11:21.260 The other genetic pieces are when do you prefer your sleep?

00:11:25.460 And so there's this idea of chronotype, meaning, are you a night owl?

00:11:30.080 Are you a morning person?

00:11:31.120 This, the idea of chronotype has been around for decades, even though it's gotten a little

00:11:36.400 bit more attention of late.

00:11:37.780 And so it doesn't mean that you can't do something in the morning if you're a night owl or vice

00:11:42.880 versa.

00:11:43.180 But when you think about children, it's extremely important because by and large, most kids tend

00:11:49.100 to be what we call phase delayed.

00:11:50.800 They're more on the night owl or part of the spectrum than the morning part of the spectrum.

00:11:57.040 And I think that has a lot of relevance.

00:11:58.940 If your child maybe struggles in math and you know that they're very night oriented, they

00:12:05.600 may struggle with a school start time that's early.

00:12:08.540 In fact, there's a whole movement, you know, wanting to make school start times later to

00:12:13.000 facilitate most children's circadian rhythm.

00:12:16.420 But, you know, one of the things I talk about in the book is there are assessments that you

00:12:20.560 can do for your children.

00:12:22.140 And if you did an assessment on your child and determined that he is extremely night

00:12:26.340 oriented, that might be a tool that you could use with a school to say, look, he cannot take

00:12:32.400 trigonometry at 8 a.m.

00:12:34.820 We really need him in that three o'clock trigonometry block, or we would like to help.

00:12:40.860 We would like help making arrangements for him to take this at a community college or something.

00:12:45.460 So I think that that understanding of timing is extremely important.

00:12:50.280 The third genetic variable I call horsepower, because I've never really heard it refer to

00:12:55.100 anything meaningful.

00:12:56.760 What it is, is if you deprive a child of sleep, you know, a teenager, you have three teenage

00:13:03.140 kids and you make them stay up all night studying art history, and then you give them a test the

00:13:09.220 next day on Renaissance painters, which of your children are able to do that and which

00:13:16.100 are not, meaning that how do we deal with inadequate sleep?

00:13:22.100 And it's a very double-edged sword.

00:13:24.820 I think that a lot of people that I went to medical school with had that horsepower gene.

00:13:30.140 We could stay up all night and run around the hospital and put needles in people's necks and

00:13:33.700 function pretty well the next day, or at least we thought we were, versus there are some people

00:13:38.920 I've met, might even be married to one, that after 11, 12 o'clock, they're not going to be

00:13:45.000 particularly helpful getting your hemorrhaging under control if you came into their emergency room.

00:13:49.980 So we find that individuals who possess that ability to go without sleep can become quite

00:13:58.740 successful.

00:13:59.320 They just kind of outwork everybody.

00:14:02.180 But the other edge of that sword is, you know, they can often die when they're 55 because they're

00:14:08.060 not, they're able to not get an adequate amount of sleep and do okay.

00:14:13.440 So we always want to be encouraging people to get the right amount of sleep.

00:14:18.340 Don't be scared about not getting it, but don't be cavalier about the fact that, you know,

00:14:23.340 I've got a daughter who's like, look, as long as I'm, you know, get two or three hours of sleep,

00:14:26.820 I'm good the next day. Well, being good, however you define that and being healthy and living a

00:14:33.960 long life might be mutually exclusive. So we always want to watch out for those types of kids

00:14:40.680 that live in our household, the high achievers, straight A's, stay up all night, studying Latin,

00:14:45.760 play two different sports and a musical instrument. Just because you can do it may not mean you should.

00:14:51.880 Okay. So a child's sleep patterns are being, they're influenced by genetics. The mother is 0.95

00:15:00.300 also playing a role that child's born, you bring the baby home. A lot of parents probably notice

00:15:05.300 first off that your baby just like, it eats and sleeps. Why do newborns sleep so much? What's

00:15:11.640 going on there? Yeah. So it's an interesting question. You're being sneaky, Brett, because

00:15:17.140 what you're essentially asking me is why do we sleep? And I think it's always fun to say,

00:15:25.480 you know, to people that we really don't know why exactly. Now, what's interesting about kids

00:15:30.060 is that during this period of massive growth, you know, that's sort of what distinguishes a child

00:15:37.860 from an adult in some ways that they're, you know, they're very busy growing. And we know that the

00:15:43.460 majority of growth hormone, what makes an individual essentially grow is produced during

00:15:50.620 deep sleep. And so when you actually look at a chart, there's a wonderful chart that you can find

00:15:57.600 if you look it up, that looks at how much light sleep, deep sleep, dreaming, and sort of wakefulness

00:16:04.420 during the night we have over the course of our lives. And what you notice when you look at that is

00:16:11.300 the diminishment in our sleep over time seems to be most tied to a lack of deep sleep. In other

00:16:19.200 words, the amount of dreaming we do seems about the same. The amount of light sleep is about the

00:16:24.180 same. Deep sleep is about this. I'm sorry. Dream sleep is about the same. Light sleep is about the

00:16:28.320 same. Wakefulness might get a little bit more as you get older, but deep sleep rapidly decreases as

00:16:34.760 we age. So kids are getting tons of deep sleep. And we know this as parents, you know, you can wake

00:16:39.780 them up in the car seat and pick them up, take them into their bedroom. They just out cold, you can put

00:16:45.800 their pajamas on and they never wake up. I mean, that's deep sleep. I mean, you can't even wake

00:16:50.100 them up to bring them in the car and put their PJs on. So that deep sleep is when the child is making

00:16:55.480 growth hormones. So I think the big thing that's happening there with children is their bodies are

00:17:01.300 exceptionally focused on this deep sleep because it's the sort of necessary component of growth

00:17:09.320 that makes these kids get bigger. In fact, sometimes when you have children who are sort of falling off

00:17:15.160 their growth curve, and I give a couple of examples of real patients that we've seen where, you know,

00:17:20.040 they're chugging along 80% height and weight. When you go to the pediatrician, they plot that out on the

00:17:24.240 chart and you get real proud when your kid's in the 80th percentile or 90th percentile for height or

00:17:28.580 whatever. Then all of a sudden they're, you know, the next time you visit, they're in the 60th percentile

00:17:33.400 and then maybe even less the next time. So that trajectory they were on is starting to fall off. A lot

00:17:41.460 of times that can be a subtle indication that there is something going on with their sleep because their

00:17:47.140 sleep disturbance is affecting their deep sleep. The deep sleep is affecting growth and now they're not

00:17:51.700 growing. So the most common one you see is something like sleep apnea. A kid has big tonsils, they're not

00:17:56.720 breathing well during the night. And what's crazy is you take the kid's tonsils out and all of a sudden

00:18:02.640 their growth just surges. And one of the things I predict will come out of COVID, and this is my own

00:18:09.880 prediction. Well, so this is not being supported by any scientific study that I'm aware of at this point

00:18:15.860 is that a lot of kids were basically told during COVID, do not come to swim practice. Do not come to

00:18:23.280 your early morning prayer group. Do not come to everything's canceled. So, and in fact, we're not

00:18:29.400 even going to start school until nine 30 and that's going to be a zoom school. So you could log in,

00:18:34.580 turn your camera microphone off and keep on sleeping if you wanted to. So a lot of kids during COVID,

00:18:40.200 we did this kind of accidental massive experiment on what happens if we almost force kids to get more

00:18:47.580 sleep. And I've anecdotally sort of collected a lot of experiences from people that said, you know,

00:18:54.700 wow, my kids really grew a lot. They had growth surges during COVID. I have two boys that were high

00:19:01.840 school students at the time. And one of them, a senior had kind of stopped growing. The other one

00:19:07.180 had not, but they both had huge surges in their growth during this time. Now my senior was a swimmer.

00:19:13.240 So he was used to getting up at four 30, five o'clock every morning, seven days a week. And

00:19:17.920 suddenly was told, nah, you can sleep till nine or 10 now if you want to. So it'll be really

00:19:22.380 interesting to see that. But that growth hormone is really tied to that infant sleep experience.

00:19:27.880 And it's probably essential for developing a healthy body and mind. All right. So newborns are

00:19:33.240 sleeping a lot because they're growing a lot, not only physically, but their brain, there's a lot going

00:19:36.400 on with their brain. And a lot happens with our brain while we sleep. When a parent comes to you

00:19:42.080 with a newborn that's having sleeping problems, what are the most common problems and what are

00:19:47.300 parents doing maybe unintentionally to exacerbate the problem? Yeah. So I think if we're looking at

00:19:55.480 newborns, young children, probably the biggest problem that they have is, I don't mean to sound

00:20:03.980 flip about this. It's a lack of maturity in the sense that that brain has not really started to

00:20:11.080 organize itself into a period of wakefulness and period or periods of sleep. And I think that for

00:20:19.480 most parents, what they're dealing with, and we get, you know, parents all the time bring us very

00:20:25.800 young children who, what they'll say is, you know, I get a little note, you know, here's, here's your

00:20:30.160 patient. You're seeing him at three o'clock and here's the complaint. Can't sleep or their baby won't

00:20:34.560 sleep. I'm approaching 50. I've never seen a child that won't sleep. I've never heard of one,

00:20:42.060 never seen one with my own eyes. Maybe they exist, but I'm not privy to it. So what the parent is

00:20:46.820 basically saying is the child's not sleeping in a predictable or efficient way. And parents can get a

00:20:54.680 lot done if they know what's going to happen, even if they're not sleeping that much, if they know,

00:21:00.740 okay, well, that's fine. When are they going to sleep? If you can tell me that it really makes

00:21:05.600 the difference. So I think a lot of parents just need a plan, but the plan that your book is reading

00:21:12.820 might not be the plan that's perfect for your child. I mean, it's awesome that Blake Lively and

00:21:18.300 Ryan Reynolds, you know, post, this is the schedule we have for our perfect little child. And here's how he or

00:21:24.100 she's sleeping and you think, well, great, you know, this is the person that helped Blake Lively

00:21:28.720 and Ryan Reynolds' baby sleep is going to help my baby sleep. I'm going to put my child on that

00:21:32.940 schedule, which could very well work. It might not because again, your child has very different

00:21:38.200 genes than that, that other child. So it's really about understanding how much sleep does your kid

00:21:43.620 need? And so what, one thing I tell parents all the time to do is for the next week or two,

00:21:48.520 I want you to write down every minute that they're sleeping. So they, you put them down at eight

00:21:56.300 o'clock, they slept until 10 and woke up and they were up until 1130. And then they fell back to sleep

00:22:01.260 again. They took a 20 minute nap during the day on the ride to, you know, whole foods. And then they

00:22:07.100 fall asleep in this little bouncy chair that your grandmother got you. Like, you know, you track every

00:22:12.020 little bit of it. And then over two weeks when that's done, add up all that time, divide by 14 days,

00:22:19.140 and you'll get a sleep time per 24 hours. So essentially how much sleep is your child getting

00:22:25.460 right now on average every 24 hours? And when that number is calculated, now you can split that up

00:22:34.320 and arrange the schedule in the way that, you know, you would like it or what's your other child.

00:22:39.420 But, you know, what I often find parents doing is they've got a child who's sleeping a relatively

00:22:44.860 small amount, but they're trying to get the child to sleep for like 17 hours. And one of the things I

00:22:50.600 want you to pay attention to when you look at that National Sleep Foundation chart is the tremendous

00:22:56.860 variance when you look at young kids in terms of how much sleep they need. And what I mean by that is

00:23:03.240 a newborn zero to three months could be sleeping anywhere from 11 to 19 hours every 24. So that

00:23:13.400 means when you're sitting in a park with your friend who both of you have babies that are somewhere in

00:23:18.480 that zero to three month range, what your friend is telling you to do, what you're telling your friend

00:23:24.600 to do could be very wrong. If you've got an 11 hour baby and they've got a 19 hour baby. And once

00:23:33.160 again, you know, the 19 hour baby is always a good sleeper, the 11 hour baby is the bad sleeper, but

00:23:38.360 it's not, they're both fine. This needs to be an understanding of what that child needs. And I

00:23:44.160 sometimes think that that's sometimes lost. So figure out how much sleep your, your newborn needs,

00:23:49.720 your child needs. And then from there, like, do you recommend establishing a schedule saying, okay,

00:23:54.060 we're going to get one nap at this time. And then you're going to go to bed at this time to get most

00:23:58.380 of your sleep. So my answer to that is yes, but it's qualified in the sense that if a parent,

00:24:05.280 if I ran into a parent at a dinner party and said, you know what, we don't really have a schedule for

00:24:10.980 our child. We just let him or her be awake and sleep whatever they want to. My first question would be,

00:24:18.020 how's that working out for you? And if the answer is lovely, well, we are so happy that I don't really

00:24:23.940 have a problem with it. This is your child. You know, you're, you're fully qualified to make those

00:24:28.840 decisions. Now, if you ask me, uh, how many parents have come to my clinic asking for help,

00:24:35.940 getting their kids off of a schedule and sleeping whenever they want to that number as of today is

00:24:43.480 zero. So I want to be very clear. I wrote this book for individuals who are struggling to make

00:24:52.000 something happen that they want to have happen with their kids sleep. If you have a child who kind of

00:24:57.440 sleeps whenever he or she wants to, and it's working out well for you, you can keep doing that.

00:25:01.960 I've got personal beliefs about that, you know, in terms of a kid who eats whenever he wants to

00:25:07.400 goes to school, whenever he wants to, you know, sleeps whenever he wants to that, that can create

00:25:12.520 problems. Brains like a schedule. Our brains do nothing accidentally. We don't release hormones 0.88

00:25:18.700 accidentally. We don't create digestive tides accidentally. We, our brains like a schedule and

00:25:24.840 it's kind of tied to the sun. So if the parent is saying, look, we would like our child on a more

00:25:30.420 of a predictable sleep schedule, then yes. I think that once you've determined how much sleep you need,

00:25:35.940 it's time to start sort of divvying out into sort of sleep periods that make sense for your child and

00:25:42.240 your family's life. We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:25:48.000 And now back to the show. So a lot of parents, when the child's a newborn, they'll do things like

00:25:52.820 swaddling or co-sleeping. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Swaddling is interesting. I mean,

00:25:58.800 why do we hug people? Isn't it? If you think about it, like, okay, you see your friend and

00:26:02.900 friend's pretty upset about something and you get this idea in your head, I'm going to walk over,

00:26:08.100 I'm going to put my arms around him and I'm going to squeeze him and that's going to make him feel

00:26:12.880 better. And it does, you know, hugging does make us feel better. And the reason for it is that we've

00:26:19.660 got sensors at the end of some nerves that respond to pressure and that pressure is comforting. And

00:26:25.740 and that's why weighted blankets. That's why swaddling is helpful for some people. They like

00:26:32.440 that feeling of pressure. I always ask people when you go to the dentist and they put that lead apron 0.97

00:26:36.340 on you before they do x-rays, how does that make you feel? And if the answer is, well, I kind of like

00:26:41.480 it because personally I do, I think it's lovely. Then you might really respond well to a weighted

00:26:46.180 blanket or something of that nature. So swaddling to me is fine. It's, it's kind of natural. It's a great

00:26:52.160 little technique for, you know, getting a kid to kind of relax and settle down. You just popped out

00:26:56.780 of a womb, you know, in terms of co-sleeping, I want to be careful about this one too. I don't have

00:27:03.060 a problem with co-sleeping. If that's something you've decided to do with your child or children,

00:27:07.880 I do think we have to be careful when children are young. The American Academy of Pediatrics just came

00:27:14.200 out with more sort of definitive guidelines about that, which they were always sort of reluctant to do in

00:27:20.680 that. I don't think a child should be in bed with a parent until they're at least a year old. Now

00:27:28.280 they can be in a bassinet right next to your bed, but I just think that idea of you sleeping with a

00:27:33.580 child is, it can be problematic. And I write about this in the book that I have been privy to several

00:27:42.000 episodes where parents have inadvertently killed children. And one of them was a family member of

00:27:49.140 somebody who works for me. So very close relationship. And it was absolutely devastating.

00:27:55.260 The mother got up for work, picked up the child, took care of it, put it in bed with the husband, 1.00

00:27:59.440 which they did frequently. But in this point, the husband just kind of rolled over a little bit

00:28:04.640 too close to the baby and suffocated it. So I've never, now this is only in what, five or six times

00:28:11.640 in my career have I've been sort of a part of this. So I can't make big definitive statements,

00:28:16.580 but in all five, the parents said, we will never do this again. It was, you know, I think in the

00:28:24.040 book I wrote, it was like a bomb went off in the family, the family I'm talking about who gave me

00:28:28.620 permission to talk about this. They are now divorced. Significant, significant grief that I don't think

00:28:35.180 will ever end. I just don't see it as something that's really worth it. I think you can struggle

00:28:42.020 with your kid. You can cradle them. You can put them in baby Bjorns and do stuff. But when it comes

00:28:48.400 to that early sleeping as a one-year-old, I just think safety is so important, even though it can

00:28:54.320 be rare. I put the statistics of crib death and things like that in there. It's a leading cause of

00:28:59.580 little ones dying. I've just never seen it. Like, you know, when you talk to these cliff jumpers or

00:29:04.480 people who climb mountains, they'll tell you, I can't imagine a world where I'm not doing this

00:29:11.940 dangerous activity. So if unfortunately I pass away doing it, it's okay because I'm sort of dead if I'm

00:29:19.760 not doing it. I don't, I've never met anybody who's sort of talked about sleeping with children like

00:29:25.300 that. Maybe they exist, but I, you know, it's somebody else's life. It's this beautiful,

00:29:30.720 innocent little person next to you. And I just think, you know, put them in a bassinet, be safe.

00:29:36.280 Let's eliminate this risk. And when they get old enough to protect themselves and move their head

00:29:40.780 around and whatnot, then really that's, that's, that's your choice to make, I think.

00:29:45.940 Okay. So the newborn period, babies are going to sleep a lot. The big problem there for parents is

00:29:51.080 like maybe the baby's not sleeping when the parent would like the baby to sleep. It has its own schedule.

00:29:55.760 But I think the key there is like babies probably get enough sleep. You got to figure out how much

00:29:59.420 sleep it needs in a 24 hour period. And then, you know, kind of nudge the baby into a schedule

00:30:04.600 that fits in, you know, again, again, there's qualifications of that, but like moving on to

00:30:09.560 like toddler and school age years, I imagine the amount of sleep they need starts to slowly reduce

00:30:16.160 with these kids, like, you know, five, six, seven, eight year olds. Like what are the big problems you

00:30:22.100 see with parents that parents have there? Yeah. I mean, part of it is once you figured it out,

00:30:28.560 it starts to change, you know, it's like COVID. Okay. We figured it out. Oh no, there's a new

00:30:33.260 variant. Like, so you're, you're constantly having variables change in your algorithm. So

00:30:38.640 with toddlers, you know, you run into the, the problems of they're starting to maybe need less

00:30:45.200 sleep. So when do you drop that particular nap and when does it stay? The other thing with toddlers

00:30:52.040 toddlers are, they can do stuff like get out of their crib. So when you put the baby in the bed,

00:30:58.620 you know, he can cry and fuss and make little whimpering sounds, but can't really go anywhere.

00:31:03.500 I write about one of my children really at a very young age figured out how to get out of his crib.

00:31:11.260 He could climb out. And, you know, we heard it one night when we were watching television,

00:31:15.000 just thump and we walked up and he's just walking out in his room. And literally once that cat's out of

00:31:20.700 the bag, it's very difficult to kind of, you can't reason with them. Everybody's like, oh my gosh,

00:31:25.640 it's so great. Your, your child's walking so early. I mean, what in the world is great about this? He

00:31:29.700 can walk, but he has absolutely no sense. You know, I'm worried he's going to get out of his crib and

00:31:33.960 stick his finger in a socket or something. So that starts to become a problem. The idea of, you know,

00:31:39.840 you're waking up at three o'clock in the morning, your child's standing over you or has crawled into bed

00:31:44.100 with you. That that's a whole new issue of, you can't really lock them in their bedroom, you know,

00:31:49.400 for heaven's sake. So what are you going to do to convince the child to be in that bedroom? And

00:31:54.520 then I also think at that same time, they're interested in what you're doing. And so the

00:31:59.320 idea of a nap time or something like they're constantly coming out and what people call

00:32:04.740 curtain calls, you know, I need some water and my blue crayon is dull. And can you sharpen that? And

00:32:10.320 I can't find my blanket, you know, so there's constantly, you know, trying to convince them to

00:32:16.280 stay in your room and do this and do that. So I think that's sort of the toddler year problem

00:32:22.100 that a lot of people deal with. And, you know, I wrote in the book, one of the things that we did

00:32:27.040 when our kids were pretty young was we told them, we don't need you to sleep. We just want you to be

00:32:34.440 in your bedroom and we're all going to have a rest period. We never talked about sleep. We didn't talk

00:32:37.920 about napping that, okay, you know, 10 o'clock or one o'clock, everybody has rest time. So I need you

00:32:43.820 to color or you can play with your cards. You can dress your dolls up. You can write mommy a picture

00:32:48.400 or write daddy a letter or whatever you want to do, but, and you can sleep if you want to,

00:32:52.320 but you don't have to just rest. Resting is good for your body. And if you can just lie in your bed

00:32:56.540 and think about things and imagine, you know, what your dream tree house would look like or draw a

00:33:02.840 picture of it, like all this resting is very good for your body. One of the things we start to do in

00:33:07.360 the toddler years is determine the child's relationship to sleep. So when the kid comes

00:33:13.360 out of the bedroom, when they don't take a nap, they're up the entire time is, are you excited

00:33:19.140 about that? Are you angry with them? Is there stress in your voice when you're dealing with them?

00:33:24.200 Because a lot of the times we start to create a performance pressure. It's like that overbearing

00:33:29.240 parent that, you know, every time the kid strikes out, you got to keep your elbow up. You got to do this.

00:33:33.700 You got to do that. And like, you're yelling from the stands. And now the kid is so freaked out about

00:33:37.700 striking out or disappointing mom or dad at the baseball game that they really approach the plate

00:33:44.320 very differently than the other kid is like, I don't know. I just go up there and swing the bat.

00:33:47.580 If I hit it, great. If I don't, it's no big deal. I still get dinner, no matter what. Like, so

00:33:50.900 creating that relationship and those ideas and that emotion around sleep is really important in those

00:33:58.600 toddler years. Because I think that that's where we create the 31 year old who says, you know,

00:34:04.160 I've had a, I've been a bad sleeper all my life. I don't, I still don't know what that necessarily

00:34:09.020 means. And, but, but we can kind of create that in editing kids.

00:34:13.020 Well, you had this interesting for, especially for school age children, like when they're nine,

00:34:17.000 you actually don't set a strict time to go to sleep schedule. You have a time to wake up

00:34:22.840 schedule that's strict, but you don't have a time to go to sleep, but there is a go to bedtime.

00:34:27.540 Yep. And I think that one of the problems that we've created, or one of the mistakes that we

00:34:33.380 make is we focus a lot on bedtime, but not as much as maybe we should on wake time. So you're

00:34:39.560 absolutely right. And when you say strict, meaning our kids are going to wake up in our house

00:34:45.040 somewhere, you know, around seven or eight every day. Now there are exceptions. You were at some

00:34:50.440 travel soccer game or something, or a swim meet, and it didn't get in until whatever, then sure,

00:34:55.440 you sleep a little bit later if you want to, but by and large, we want that day to start and be

00:35:02.160 extremely stereotyped. It's going to be the same every day. You're going to get up. I'm going to

00:35:06.940 open up your blinds. I'm going to sing a goofy song in the morning. I'm going to scratch your

00:35:11.600 back. I'm going to say, Hey, it's going to be a great day. I'm so excited to share it with you or

00:35:15.800 whatever. Like it's, it's positive. It's not punitive. I'm not a drill. I'm not a, I got a son at the

00:35:21.460 Naval Academy. It's not what we're talking about here with blowing a bugle and screaming at you to

00:35:25.780 get up and do pushups. It's, it's just, Hey, it's time to get up and get going. And you're going to

00:35:30.520 have kids who say things like, Oh, I'm too tired. And can I go to school late? And I don't do

00:35:35.640 anything my first three periods. So could you just take me to school at lunch? And no, we don't want

00:35:40.320 to do that. Not because we're mean, but because we're, Hey, this is, this is the day we're going to

00:35:44.240 start it and it's going to be great. And you're going to feel better in 30 minutes. Once you get up

00:35:48.400 and shower and it's not going to be a big deal. So yes, we always want to focus on that. Now the

00:35:52.580 flip side is the bedtime. I think what we did was we had a time where I needed you to be in your

00:35:59.180 bedroom. Hey, it's eight o'clock for you young one. It's 10 o'clock for you older kid, you know,

00:36:04.000 whatever it's time to be in your bedroom. Now we have a very strict rule that there's no phones or

00:36:09.260 electronics in the bedroom. Now that's harder as they get older and they're like, look, dad, all my

00:36:13.480 homework's on my computer. So it becomes a little bit more of a challenge, but by and large,

00:36:17.500 be in your bedroom, read your books, color, look at your toys, do whatever you want to do. Just

00:36:21.360 no electronics, Snapchat, Instagram, nothing like that. You go to bed when you want to. If you're

00:36:27.700 sleepy, go to bed. If you're not, Oh, by all means, stay up, read another comic book. I really want you

00:36:33.080 to, I don't really want you trying to go to bed when you're not sleepy. And we really instilled that

00:36:38.760 idea in our kids at a young age, sort of welcoming it. Hey, if you want to stay up, it's okay. Now we're

00:36:45.480 going to wake you up at the same time every morning. We're not like you take a three hour

00:36:48.720 nap on Saturday, but you know, if you don't feel the net, the need to go to sleep at this point,

00:36:53.220 that's fine. I remember all the kids gave you this look like, are you kidding me? I can just stay up

00:36:57.260 and read more comic books. Like, and it fades. It was like the study they did many years ago where

00:37:02.080 they brought kids into cafeterias that eat, eat whatever you want. And there's like vegetables on

00:37:06.600 this table, desserts on this table. And for the first three days, they eat nothing but dessert,

00:37:10.680 but you know, check in with them a month later and they're actually balancing their meal quite

00:37:14.460 lovely and without being told to do so. So what you're trying to do is with every child and really

00:37:20.300 with every adult is I want you to have a healthy relationship with sleep. And that means that you

00:37:25.220 respect it, that you work on getting enough, but you're not fearful. If things don't work out

00:37:31.280 perfectly, I want you right there in the middle. I don't want you to be the person who's terrified and

00:37:36.100 taking tons of sleeping pills. Cause you're worried that if you get in bed and takes you more than

00:37:39.240 premise to fall asleep, all is lost. I also don't want you to be the 28 year old trauma surgeon.

00:37:45.580 Who's like, yeah, as long as I get three hours of sleep, I'm fine because she's not,

00:37:49.260 she's fooling herself just because she can take your spleen out on three hours of sleep. 1.00

00:37:53.420 Maybe that should be applauded, but she is headed for some problem in the future,

00:37:58.320 even though she seems to be functioning quite well right now. I want somebody in the middle of those

00:38:02.860 two people. So something I've seen an increase in with parents is parents who give their toddlers

00:38:09.040 or school age children, uh, melatonin gummies before they go to bed each night. Uh, you discourage

00:38:14.740 that. Why is that? Yeah. So I'll, I'll be clear. I don't think there's, you're going to harm your

00:38:20.540 kid giving the melatonin gummies, although there's some melatonin products that also have serotonin in

00:38:25.600 them. That can be kind of an issue, but by and large, first and foremost, it's unclear when you give

00:38:31.800 your child a melatonin gummy, what you're actually giving them. There was this recent study not too long

00:38:36.200 ago that looked at melatonin products we give adults and kids and the variance, even within

00:38:41.660 the same brand or the same bottle can be tremendous. So the idea that we know we're giving our kids

00:38:48.220 three milligrams of melatonin every night with a gummy bear is, is not true. God knows what you're

00:38:52.920 giving them. I will also say that there was a study that was done. It basically said, look,

00:38:56.960 it'd be pretty difficult to hurt yourself with melatonin. So I don't like it, but I'm not trying

00:39:02.660 to fear monger here. Oh, we're hurting our children by giving them melatonin. No, I don't

00:39:07.000 think chemically we are, but I do think we're hurting them in a different way. We're hurting

00:39:11.420 them in that. We're not really addressing the problem. You know, you're giving your child a

00:39:17.560 melatonin gummy bear every night. Why I've never met a parent says, Oh, it's because my kid sleeps

00:39:23.320 wonderfully, but we just thought this would even enhance that even more. I've never met that person.

00:39:28.740 Like a supplement. They're giving it to them because their kid can't sleep. And chances are

00:39:34.020 they've gone to a pediatrician, gotten that advice from a doctor who probably has gotten very little,

00:39:39.860 if any training whatsoever. So melatonin gummy bears are like a pediatrician's best friend because

00:39:44.600 they're harmless and they allow the pediatrician to do something quickly for a problem that often

00:39:51.280 doesn't have a quick solution. My child won't sleep. The pediatrician does not have time amidst his

00:39:56.700 flu shots and asthma treatments and school physicals to sit down for an hour, talk to you

00:40:02.040 about what is going on with your child that makes you feel like you can't sleep. So here's the, you

00:40:07.320 should try some melatonin gummy bears, you know, next patient. I mean, I don't fault the pediatrician.

00:40:11.740 I mean, I think there was a study that was done that said 25% of pediatricians have never gotten any

00:40:15.720 sleep training, even though sleep problems are some of the most common things that they're forced to deal

00:40:20.300 with. And the average pediatrician has gotten what, two to four hours, something like that.

00:40:24.440 I think the average employee at mattress firm has gotten 200 hours. So it's a real problem in terms

00:40:31.820 of the education gap here. So to me, the problem with the melatonin gummy bear is sort of like

00:40:39.140 I've taken my child to the doctor because there's some blood trickling out of their nose. And the

00:40:46.180 doctor keeps shoving a melatonin gummy bear up their nose and says, see problem. You don't see it

00:40:51.060 anymore. It's gone. No, the problem's not gone. It's just hidden now. So we haven't fixed anything.

00:40:59.020 Are these going to take melatonin gummy bears the rest of their life? We've really missing an

00:41:03.260 opportunity to sit down and talk to that child or the parent and say, let's figure out where this

00:41:09.540 sleeplessness is coming from. And I say that sort of in quotations and that again, I've never met a child

00:41:15.960 that can't sleep. Like, so let's better define the problem so we can better solve it. Because when we

00:41:21.360 don't, we go down the Michael Jackson pathway, which is Michael Jackson couldn't sleep. So let's give

00:41:27.140 him a melatonin gummy bear. That didn't work. Let's give him some stronger pills. Well, those don't work

00:41:30.840 either. Let's send a surgeon to his house to anesthetize him every night. Well, that killed him.

00:41:36.100 So again, we're not killing kids with melatonin gummy bears, but we are setting them down this pathway

00:41:41.620 of I've got a brain that doesn't sleep. So I have to take this grape flavored chewy in order to be

00:41:48.880 able to sleep, which really isn't true. And I don't want any child believing that. So if there is a

00:41:54.720 sleep problem, let's diagnose it and fix it and move forward and not just simply cover it up.

00:42:00.900 All right. So don't default to giving kids melatonin because you think they got a sleeping

00:42:04.180 problem. I mean, they might have a sleeping disorder that's stopping them from sleeping,

00:42:07.760 but those are rare. The more likely scenario is that the kid's just not sleeping when the parent

00:42:12.840 wants them to go to sleep or it's convenient for the parent. And so instead of giving melatonin,

00:42:17.840 maybe the parent just needs to try that thing you were talking about, where you tell the kid,

00:42:21.960 you got to be in your bedroom at a certain time, but then go to sleep whenever they want. And then

00:42:26.420 regardless of what time they go to sleep, you wake them up at the same time. And hopefully that will

00:42:31.040 just naturally get things on track. So that's school age kids. What about high school kids? What are the

00:42:37.100 big issues you see with sleep in this period? High school, technology in school. And I'm married

00:42:45.760 to a teacher. Both of my parents are school teachers. I love teachers. I'm not bashing school

00:42:50.940 at all. I do get to places sometimes where I think this algorithm does not work. I remember one time I

00:42:59.320 was asked by the NCA to come out with a group of doctors and talk to them about the sleep in their

00:43:04.720 athletes. And I thought, well, I'm a good sleep doctor and I've worked all these pro athletes.

00:43:09.300 I'm going to arrive in Indianapolis and I'm going to tell them exactly what to do. I'm going to solve

00:43:13.380 the problem. And I remember sitting there listening to an NCA swimmer from Indiana, a school in Indiana

00:43:20.680 talked to me about his schedule. And then this was dear to me because I've got a collegiate swimmer too.

00:43:27.480 And when I was done listening to his schedule of mandatory workouts, well, these workouts are

00:43:33.480 mandatory, but you have to go. And we have mandatory study all we cannot miss or be late to a class.

00:43:40.720 I remember thinking, well, this doesn't add up to the number of hours in a week. Like how are you doing

00:43:46.200 this? And to be blunt, my son who was a swimmer, collegiate swimmer said I was spending 27 hours a week

00:43:55.300 doing my sport and I just couldn't do it. I'm not strong enough academically to be able to lose an

00:44:02.000 entire day and be able to keep my grades where I want them to be. So he decided after his first year

00:44:08.400 of swimming that he was not, he was done. So to me, you know, I think that school can be that for some

00:44:15.920 people. I think every child has the right to go to school, play an instrument and play a sport and be

00:44:22.640 able to fit all that into a 24 hour day or, you know, a regular work week. And when I look at my

00:44:29.060 own children, sometimes I'm like, my God, why do you have four tests tomorrow? Do your teachers not

00:44:35.180 discuss that? And when were you made aware of this project? And I just feel like sometimes schools,

00:44:41.800 and I've gotten letters and communications from parents that are just, they're not the experience

00:44:46.660 I had in high school. What they're experiencing in high school is kind of what I experienced in medical

00:44:51.340 school. Like the math doesn't work out and it's dangerous, but Hey, it's only for a few years and

00:44:57.440 it'll be okay after that's done. So school is a big problem. I think technology is a massive problem.

00:45:04.240 And I don't have the answer for that. So if you're looking for the answer to technology,

00:45:10.380 I might provide some guidance here and there, but I'm going to tell you right now, save your money.

00:45:15.240 Do not buy my book. I do not have the answer to how to get technology under control with

00:45:20.860 your child. I mean, it's just everywhere and everything's working against us. Like we have

00:45:25.060 pretty strict rules about technology in our family. I follow them as well. I do not bring a cell phone

00:45:29.700 into my bedroom. We plug them all up in the kitchen at night, but I had one child build a phone out of

00:45:35.580 a piece of wood and he would plug the wood up every night. Cause I thought it was a phone cause it was

00:45:40.060 an iPhone case and he had his phone up in his bedroom and it's like a little drug for kids.

00:45:44.320 And it always upsets me. You know, when you, when the parent brings the child in and I'm talking to

00:45:50.900 the eight-year-old and the five-year-old's rummaging around in the purse, grabs the cell

00:45:55.180 phone out and sit there, sitting there the entire time we're talking on that phone. Like it's all,

00:46:00.960 it's begun, you know, it's happening. They're getting that little dopamine hit in their brain. And

00:46:05.700 to wrestle that phone out of their hand is going to be tough. I was talking to a professional

00:46:11.060 football player who said, I get home because I've got a problem with my phone. I'm addicted to it.

00:46:17.040 And it's, it's hurting me professionally. He said, I get home, I'll put the phone in a drawer.

00:46:21.880 And he goes, an hour later, I'm sitting on the couch with the phone in my hand. He goes,

00:46:24.840 I'm not entirely sure how it got there. I mean, that's the kind of dialogue you would hear with

00:46:30.720 a drug addict. And so I think that those two things within the teenage years or something,

00:46:36.700 parents have to be extremely organized and thoughtful about as to how they're going to deal

00:46:42.460 with technology, cell phones, streaming services, computers in your bedroom, whatever, as well as

00:46:51.460 schools that can sometimes, I think, overstep what they should be doing from a work perspective

00:46:58.300 with our kids. And again, I'm not a snowflake. I don't know what the word would be for. I mean,

00:47:02.920 work the kids, make them work, you know, make them organized. But at some times I'm just kind

00:47:07.100 of like, what on earth were they thinking when they gave you this five page paper to do today,

00:47:14.420 when you've got these two other exams going on and, you know, it's like, it just seems mean to me,

00:47:20.840 like, make them write the paper because they do it next week when they've got nothing going on.

00:47:25.780 And so anyway, I just think those are two things we have to be very organized about.

00:47:30.120 And I think with the school thing too, just in the high school years, you may, as a parent

00:47:34.340 have to, you know, subtly encourage or discourage your kids from taking on too much. So they're

00:47:39.960 like, well, I don't want to do this third sport. Well, maybe not.

00:47:44.240 And I think that there are kids out there and schedules out there that they can do it.

00:47:48.440 And if you're saying, well, my kid's sleeping a ton and it's playing three sports and all that,

00:47:52.680 then great. I don't have a problem with it. I think that, like you said, they're entitled to one

00:47:58.700 sport. If they want to play two concurrently, or, you know, I want to do a sport, I'm doing quiz

00:48:04.660 team model you in and this other thing, they might have to cut things out a little bit. I think

00:48:10.140 beyond, you know, there's what, what's a right and a privilege and what's what, and what's a

00:48:15.860 privilege. I think you're, you're, you have a right to one sport and maybe one other activity.

00:48:20.620 I think everything beyond that becomes a privilege. So yeah, I think we as parents do have to step in

00:48:25.700 because it's kind of an arms race, isn't it? Well, Susie's taking three APs and two, you know,

00:48:32.260 they say, I want to get into a great college. And I think that that's, that's a very difficult

00:48:37.380 thing for, for parents to know when to be like, Hey, look, this take the standard level, this or

00:48:42.820 the honors level, this it's, it's going to be okay. You're going to be fine. I don't meet a lot of

00:48:49.120 adults who are like, you know, drinking in bars because they didn't do AP psychology their junior

00:48:55.120 year. They instead took, you know, just regular biology and it's just, and, and all was lost when

00:48:59.980 that happened, but it's hard in the moment. Like dealing with kids in schools was definitely the

00:49:05.480 most unexpectedly hard thing for me personally, as a, as a parent, I just had no idea the kinds of

00:49:12.700 pressures and things that they would be exposed to because it just wasn't what I was exposed to as a

00:49:16.960 high school student. So it sounds like the overarching goal as a parent, when you're trying

00:49:21.400 to help your kids sleep is okay. Your kids are sleeping, right? That usually most kids don't

00:49:27.760 have like sleeping. Yeah, absolutely. Most kids don't have a serious sleep disorder. Usually if

00:49:32.540 the problem is, is there, maybe they're not sleeping when you'd like them to. Yeah. So the goal is as a

00:49:38.520 parent throughout there from crib to college is to, I don't know, just help your kids develop good

00:49:44.440 sleeping habits and a good, have a good relationship with sleep. Yeah. And be, and to be on the lookout

00:49:50.120 when you feel like there might be something wrong with sleep. And the problem there, particularly in

00:49:56.520 the teenage years is I think we're as a medical community, much more likely to jump to the idea

00:50:04.840 of depression or anxiety or ADHD before we actually consider, Oh, maybe his concentration is okay.

00:50:14.680 There's just something going on with this sleep. So if you, as a parent think my child sleeps a lot and

00:50:22.440 always just seems tired. Like when my mother-in-law comes to town, she always says, you know, Jonathan

00:50:28.680 always looks so tired. You know, I think that that's where you want to sort of exercise that parental

00:50:35.500 radar that you have, because you know, that child better than anybody in the world, particularly their

00:50:39.780 doctor and say, you know what? Yeah, he is struggling with some attention and he has been a bit moodier,

00:50:46.600 more depressed lately, but I'd like to, to, to explore more about his sleep because I don't think

00:50:53.560 that it's as healthy as it could be. To me, it's always disappointing when we figure out a sleep

00:51:00.200 problem and somebody who's been dealing with those symptoms for years, it's all that lost time and

00:51:07.220 energy. And so to me, I think a sleep evaluation so that they can sort of, you know, make the proper

00:51:15.580 arrangements to figuring out what they need to do to get, get help and be that advocate because it can

00:51:21.660 be life-changing for a kid. Well, Chris, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to

00:51:26.100 learn more about the book and your work? Yeah. So the book's available wherever books are sold. It's

00:51:30.680 called The Rested Child, While You're Tired, Wired, or Irritable Child May Have a Sleep Disorder

00:51:36.080 and How to Help. You can buy it on Amazon. And then my social media is drchriswinner, like drchriswinner,

00:51:43.340 d-r-c-h-r-i-s-w-n-t-e-r, Twitter and Instagram. And I try to put good stuff about adults and kids

00:51:50.260 sleep on those feeds as well too. And yeah, so I really appreciate the time and the spotlight.

00:51:56.280 This is a book that I think would be very helpful to parents and really look forward to it being in

00:52:03.020 their hands. Well, Chris Winner, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. Hey, Brett, I really

00:52:07.320 appreciate your time too. Thank you so much. My guest today was Dr. Chris Winner. He's the author

00:52:12.260 of the book, The Rested Child. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find

00:52:16.220 more information about his work at our show notes at aom.is slash kidsleep, where you can find links

00:52:20.880 to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the

00:52:31.540 AOM Podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanly.com where you can find our podcast

00:52:35.540 archives, as well as thousands of articles over the years about pretty much anything you think of.

00:52:39.440 And if you'd like to enjoy ad-free episodes of the AOM Podcast, you can do so on Stitcher Premium.

00:52:42.760 Head over to stitcherpremium.com, sign up, use code MANLYS at checkout for a free month trial.

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00:53:00.520 we'd get something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time,

00:53:03.400 it's Brett McKay. Remind you on the list of the AOM Podcast, put what you've heard into action.

00:53:12.760 AOM Podcast is a production of the AOM Podcast.

The Art of Manliness - April 04, 2022

Set Your Kids Up for a Lifetime of Healthy Sleep

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