Amy Beeman’s Adventures in Sleep

By now, we’ve probably all heard of, or read the book Go The F–k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach. It’s no wonder this spoof of a children’s book was such a success; not only does it make you laugh, it also addresses one of the most frustrating parenting challenges: a baby’s unwillingness or inability to sleep.

“When you become a parent, you really start to understand sleep deprivation as a torture tactic,” jokes Vancouver-based radio show host, Amy Beeman. “I thought I was used to being tired with the early morning [radio] show, but nothing prepared me for this,” Amy says of becoming a mother of twins, Sam and Lucy who are now a year old. Though most parents experience sleep adjustments when they first have children, having two at the exact same time can accentuate the challenge and make your nights even more frustrating.

One of the most common sleep problems according to licensed sleep therapist Pam Nease, is when a child requires a ‘crutch’ to get to sleep. This crutch could be anything; a soother, a toy, a timely feeding, a song, being rocked or going for a car ride. Crutches are so easily developed for children and even more easily relied upon by parents. And when a sleep trick works, why not keep using it? The answer is because sleep is a learned behaviour and your child will continue to depend on this habitual sleep crutch for as long as you allow them to.

“We had breast feeding down to a tee,” says Amy of getting her two children back to sleep in the middle of the night (yes, every night!). “I could get up, feed them both in twenty minutes and then get back to bed,” Amy explains. The ease and effectiveness of breastfeeding kept the habit going whether her babies were hungry or not. Sam and Lucy continued to wake up consistently in the middle of the night until they were a year old.

“It was just easier [to feed them]. It was like short-term gain for long-term pain,” Amy says. Amy and her husband Mark didn’t feel their twenty-minute nightly disruption was even a problem worth discussing, until they met Pam. Now, they both wish they’d met with her sooner.

Pam is confident that nearly all sleep problems can be solved within two weeks of working with a sleep consultant such as herself. Pam first learned about sleep therapy because her first-born was a troubled sleeper. After enlisting the help of a sleep therapist for her own son, then successfully using the techniques with her second child, Pam was sold. She came to understand that sleep is a learned behaviour and that it can often take an outsider’s perspective for parents to teach their children to sleep properly.

Amy wanted to test this out for herself. “We didn’t have major problems, my kids are pretty good sleepers, but I was going back to work and I wanted to get rid of that mid-night feed,” explains Amy. Working on an early morning radio show for which she had to be good-humored and witty for her listeners, few people would require a good night’s sleep more than Amy! So she and her somewhat skeptical husband got started with Pam.

Their work started as an in-home consultation where Pam was able to see where the children slept, what their surroundings were like and assess the family’s needs. Pam gave Amy and Mark a program to follow over the next couple of weeks and instructed them not to, under any circumstances, fall back on their breastfeeding crutch. Gradual changes were made so that Sam and Lucy were able to adjust to not having a mid-night feeding. Shockingly, some of the most effective changes didn’t have anything to do with sleep directly, or so Amy thought. For instance, the children’s evening mealtime (and the amount of food they were eating) was changed and their naptime was moved later. Additionally, instead of bathing them every other night, Amy and Mark started giving Sam and Lucy a bath every night because “a consistent bedtime routine is critical,” according to Pam.

Amy’s reaction to these changes was initially a little skeptical. “I totally questioned it. I thought: ‘you don’t know my children, that’s not going to work!’ But [Pam] was totally right,” explains a humbled Amy. Amazingly, the complete opposite of what Amy thought would have solved her problems (less food, later nap etc.) ended up being the solution.

The key to success for Amy was simply having that outside perspective, someone to point out things you would never think of yourself and someone to hold you accountable. “It’s like trying to lose weight by yourself versus joining a weight watchers group,” says Amy. “there were so many nights where I wanted to pick them up and comfort them, nights where I sang 99 bottles of beer on the wall and made it all the way down to zero! But I didn’t pick them up because I knew Pam would be checking in on me in the morning.”

It was an amazing experience for both Amy and Mark who was initially wary of what made Pam a “sleep therapist.” But, as it turns out, having an outsider come in and assess their needs and adjust little things here and there while still adhering to their family’s needs made all the difference. The one thing Amy would do differently in dealing with a sleep therapist is to call Pam sooner!

Dangers of Sleep Deprivation

According to Pam Nease, poor sleep in childhood can lead to poor sleep in their teenage years and this is linked to…

• Diabetes
• Misdiagnosis of ADD or ADHD and therefore unnecessary medications to treat this
• A propensity toward drugs and alcohol
• Obesity
• Poor academic results
• Behavioural issues
• Depression

Adults can suffer too, mothers of poor sleepers are at a greater risk of:

• Developing post-partum depression
• Weight gain
• Marital difficulties
• Problems at work

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