Getting Started with Crystal Sedore

 

Crystal is a certified pediatric sleep consultant, wife, mother to a precious baby girl and the owner and founder of Rest Within Reach. 

Two years ago, after having a traumatic birth experience, an undiagnosed tongue-tie, challenges with nursing leading to 14 months of exclusive pumping, coupled with lack of support and sleepless nights, Crystal was quickly spiraling into physical exhaustion and mild postpartum depression. She knew something needed to change and eventually sleep trained her daughter.  It completely transformed her life and mental health and later compelled her to pursue a certification in sleep consulting.

With a background enriched by 13 years in education, 4 years as the Spanish-speaking operations manager of a school bus company, a former nanny and the firsthand experience of being a mom, she understands the many challenges that come with becoming a parent for the first time and how that experience is greatly affected by littles who aren’t sleeping well. Crystal graduated from CPSM in February of 2024 and is passionate about helping families achieve sleep for their littles so that mental and physical rest can be achieved by all, because support shouldn’t end at birth. Rest is within reach! 

 

Links: 

Website: Rest Within Reach

Instagram: @restwithinreach

Facebook: Rest Within Reach

 

If you would like to learn more about the Becoming a Sleep Consultant, please join our free Facebook Group or check out our CPSM Website.

Book a free discovery call to learn how you can become a Certified Sleep Consultant here.

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Transcript:

Intro: Welcome to Becoming a Sleep Consultant! I’m your host Jayne Havens, a certified sleep consultant and founder of both Snooze Fest by Jayne Havens and Center for Pediatric Sleep Management.

On this podcast, I’ll be discussing the business side of sleep consulting. You’ll have an insider’s view on launching, growing, and even scaling a sleep consulting business. This is not a podcast about sleep training. This is a podcast about business building and entrepreneurship.

Crystal is a certified pediatric sleep consultant, wife, mother to a precious baby girl and the owner and founder of Rest Within Reach.

Two years ago, after having a traumatic birth experience, an undiagnosed tongue-tie, challenges with nursing leading to 14 months of exclusive pumping, coupled with lack of support and sleepless nights, Crystal was quickly spiraling into a physical exhaustion and mild postpartum depression. She knew something needed to change, and eventually she sleep trained her daughter. It completely transformed her life and mental health and later compelled her to pursue a certification in sleep consulting.

With a background enriched by 13 years in education, 4 years as the Spanish-speaking operations manager of a school bus company, a former nanny and the firsthand experience of being a mom, she understands the many challenges that come with becoming a parent for the first time and how that experience is greatly affected by littles who aren’t sleeping well. Crystal graduated from CPSM in February of 2024 and is passionate about helping families achieve sleep for their littles so that mental and physical rest can be achieved by all, because support shouldn’t end at birth. Rest is within reach!

Jayne Havens: Crystal, welcome to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. I’m so excited to have this conversation with you today.

Crystal Sedore: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Jayne Havens: So before we get started, why don’t you tell us a little bit about you? What is your professional background, and why did you decide to get certified to work as a sleep consultant?

Crystal Sedore: So, by way of education, I have a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice & Mathematics. After college, I was in the education arena for about 10-11 years, specifically college age. Then I transferred into Homeland Security, and I was working for TSA for a couple of years. Then after I transferred from there, I was the operations manager for my family’s school bus company, in which I ran the office, supervised the staff, dealt with dispatching, handled drivers and bus aides and all the things. I was in charge of that.

Then we had our almost predominantly Spanish-speaking workforce. So I was able to also be able to speak in their language in a way that was comfortable for them in order to help the dispatching operation arena of the company.

Jayne Havens: Okay. Then why sleep consulting, which sounds entirely on the other end of the spectrum of all of the other work experience?

Crystal Sedore: So then when I got married and we were expecting our daughter, we decided that we wanted to keep her home. So I transferred from the workforce to become a stay-at-home mom. And while I love doing that, it’s my favorite thing in the whole wide world, it was something that became available to me when I was also struggling with sleep deprivation, which I didn’t know was a thing that existed. I think between lactation and sleep consulting and things in that arena, they’re now becoming more popular and well-known. But when I had my daughter, I didn’t know about it until I finally knew about it. I saw what a game changer that was for me.

Then over time, I noticed that I was giving help to other moms who had similar questions like I did. Then the the light bulb flickered on and I realized, wait a minute. I can do this too as a profession. Not that I didn’t like helping people for free for sure. But this can be something that I can do to not only help other moms who were needing the help like me, but also to help contribute to my family’s finances so that we can accomplish some goals.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, for sure. When your daughter was struggling with sleep, did you hire a sleep consultant, or did you just navigate researching on your own and sleep training without support?

Crystal Sedore: So we didn’t hire a sleep consultant because I didn’t know that was a thing, and she’s only two years old.

Jayne Havens: Okay. So you didn’t even realize sleep consultants were a thing until after you had already navigated the sleep training process.

Crystal Sedore: Yes, exactly. Then oddly enough, I wasn’t the one who truly navigated it. It was my husband.

Jayne Havens: Okay.

Crystal Sedore: So he was the one that did the research, implemented the method, held my hand nice and tight. We did it, but it was mostly my husband who was leading that horse with sleep training. But we did it on our own. We researched. We chose a method, and then we implemented it and had success very quickly.

Jayne Havens: Okay. And now you have a little toddler at home.

Crystal Sedore: Yes.

Jayne Havens: And you are really just getting started in your new sort of — should we call it a career? It’s more like right now, I think, a side hustle or a passion project for you. But maybe it’ll evolve as your daughter grows. What does it look like for you to juggle? I know that taking care of your daughter is your number one priority, and that’s what you’re focused on right now. But also, you’re trying to grow this little business of yours. So how are you juggling both?

Crystal Sedore: Right now, I guess it’s not hard to juggle. I can’t even say I’m juggling because I’m still learning. I’m still learning what it even means to be my own business owner. It’s interesting because I come from a long line of business owners. My parents have always owned businesses, and they still do. My brother now owns his own business. So it’s not anything that I’m unfamiliar with. But at the time, I wasn’t interested, so to speak. Then now here I am, years later, owning my own business. So it’s kind of navigating the waters of what that actually means.

Being your own business owner and your own boss, that can mean so many things for so many different people. Because you make your rules; you call your shots. So I think I’m still developing what that means for me. Then, of course, having a very active, rambunctious two-year-old at home, freshly two, then it’s kind of figuring out. Okay. I want her to know that mommy is still there for her, and she’s still my number one priority. But then at the same time, not feeling guilty when I have to set her down and maybe put a TV show on or schedule a playdate or something where I have to say not right now, Alena.

Learning to balance and not feel guilty for having to tell her mommy needs a second so that I can then figure out how I’m going to squeeze in pockets of time to get work done, whether that’s doing something on the computer or planning for something that I want to do in the future or setting up a call or whatever the case may be. So I’m still navigating what it means to juggle the two and be my own boss.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, what I would say to you as somebody who started my business when my children were very young, like hanging on my ankles, is that I think that it’s hard in the moment when you’re trying to juggle your two year old that doesn’t quite understand, like, mommy needs just a few minutes. That can sometimes feel hard in the moment.

But what I will say to you now, having children that are 11 and 7 who have watched me organically grow a business over the years, is that I think that it’s really taught them patience and manners and resilience that they are okay to sit and play with their Magna-Tiles for 20 minutes while I get something done. And it really created a situation where my children both improved in their ability to play independently and use their imagination. And mommy always came back. I always came back from those calls. I always got back right into baking with them or whatever we were doing.

I think ultimately, I think, as moms, sometimes we have a lot of guilt around that trying to juggle being really present. I know. I hear from a lot of moms like, “I don’t want to be on my phone all day. I want to be present with my kids.” And what I will say as somebody who did it — I was a stay-at-home mom, and I was raising two little kids while also growing a business — I do think that it ultimately gave them a lot of strength in a lot of areas.

They learned how to play independently. They saw. They’ve watched me grow a successful business, which I know that they’re really proud. And it shows them that they can do something interesting and unique and entrepreneurial if they want to.

So I don’t know. I think you’re still in the thick of it with a toddler who doesn’t quite understand. But as somebody who’s on the other side, I hope that whatever guilt you’re struggling with, if you are, that you set it aside and realize that she’s so lucky to have you home. My kids, I keep them in an aftercare at school two days a week. And so they stay from 3:45 until 5. They used to be upset with me about that, like, “Why do we have to stay?” It’s like, first of all, you’re doing art. You’re doing tennis. You’re doing all this stuff that you like.

Crystal Sedore: Right. You get to stay. You don’t have to stay. You get to stay.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, like, you get to stay. And also, I could bring them home and put them in front of the TV, or I could have a babysitter pick them up. But they’re getting to do fun activities. They’re learning that it’s okay, that sometimes they get picked up at a regular time, and sometimes they do it after school activity. Kids are resilient.

Crystal Sedore: Right. For sure.

Jayne Havens: They learn that it’s all okay. So I don’t know. I get where you are right now. Before you know it, I think it’ll probably all feel easier. Let’s talk about your first handful of families that you’ve supported. What did it look like? Maybe tell us about your first family that you ever helped, if you’re willing to share.

Crystal Sedore: For sure. She was a mom who lives almost on the West Coast. Not fully. So that’s about a two-hour time difference for me. She also was a stay-at-home mom with a fresh four month old and getting ready to turn five months old, and in the thick of the regression.

Of course, I met her online. She’s one of the people in the mommy groups. I can just sense the desperation. I get it. Facebook groups are great. You get free information and all of it, but I can just tell she wasn’t getting the answer she needed. And so I kind of picked her out from the thick of it, and I reached out to her. I said, “Hey, feel free to message me personally. I would love to help you.”

Of course, I told her up front I’m not seeking anything from you except to help you. Like, what’s going on? I went ahead and followed the process with her. She told me what was going on and the short naps and the early wake ups and not linking sleep cycles at night and waking up constantly and needing to be bounced and moved and everything back to sleep, the usuals.

Jayne Havens: All the things.

Crystal Sedore: All the things, the usual. And so I said okay. So first of all, let’s address the issue here. You don’t have a consistent schedule. Baby is all over the place, so we had to address that and put baby on an age-appropriate daytime schedule. Then after that, then we addressed, okay, does he need night feeds? Do you want to discontinue? She’s like, I think he gets plenty during the day, so we need to kind of wean out some of those night feeds. I think they’re just for comfort.

So we kind of went through the little troubleshooting, all the issues along the way to see, okay, do we need to tweak something? Does something needs to be weaned, or eliminated, or whatever the case may be? We came up with a plan, and then we implemented it. And at the end of it, he was successful with his nighttime sleep. But then, of course, it’s common between that four- to six-month age range where the naps are just, developmentally, they’re just going to be short.

I think that was the most frustrating thing. Because he was at a place where he could have been on three naps, but then he needed to take five because the naps are so short. You just have to squeeze it in as best you can. But she was still doing everything else right — the eat-play-sleep, separating the feeds to sleep, making sure he got plenty of stimulation and sunlight. So while the naps themselves weren’t a win right away, everything else was a win. I think that that’s the hardest part.

Sometimes with parents, it’s because they want all the wins all at the same time. You have to help them to see that, okay, remember, they are still four months, or five months, or whatever it is. This is still a developmentally, biologically-appropriate thing for them to do. It’s not anything you did or didn’t do. So we have to give them time. But look how well we’re doing everywhere else. He’s slam dunk everywhere else. Then they catch their breath and like, “You’re right. You’re right. I got to remember. I got to remember.”

A lot of this often is parent coaching more than it is sleep training for the baby. But it was wonderful. It was a great experience. She felt so relieved. I think that weight lifted off her shoulder. When you hear it — because you can’t see it, and since you’re working virtually with these families sometimes — it’s a wonderful feeling to know. We’ve kept in touch. Now he is seven months old now. I asked how he is doing now that naps are longer. She’s like, he finally long naps or whatever. So he’s doing great.

Yeah, so it was a pretty awesome experience. And I feel like she was the perfect client because she was very understanding that she was my first client, but then it didn’t hesitate for her to still ask questions, still trust what I was saying to her. She wasn’t getting frustrated. She didn’t think less of me that I didn’t have “more experience.” So that was pretty awesome.

Jayne Havens: I love that you placed a heavy emphasis on managing expectations. I think that that’s something that not enough sleep consultants are doing or talking about. It’s something that I place a heavy weight, heavy emphasis, on this in my business. Because I know that babies are not robots, and children are not computers to be programmed.

A lot of what I do, and I’m sure that you’re — it sounds like you’re doing the same. It’s like we put all of the pieces into the puzzle properly so that we can optimize their sleep as best as we possibly can. Then also, they’re humans, right? I always tell parents, like, sometimes I wake up at 5:15, and I’m annoyed about it. I don’t cry about it because I’m not a baby. But I wake up at 5:15, and I’m annoyed. I’m tired, and I can’t get myself back to sleep. And sometimes I sleep until 6:45, and I wake up rested and happy.

That’s the same for infants. It’s the same for the little four year old that I’m working with. This morning, she was up at 6:45, which is still great. But the two nights, the two mornings before that, she was up at 7:30. So mom is like, “Well, why is she up at 6:45?” I was like, because she’s a human being. She went to bed at 7:30 last night. She slept until 6:45. Congratulations. You’re doing great.

Crystal Sedore: Sure, yeah.

Jayne Havens: I’m helping parents to realize that their babies or their children are not to be programmed. But really, we want to give them all of the tools and put everything into place so that they can be as successful as possible. Then just recognize that their babies are their people. Sometimes sleep is a little rocky, and that’s okay. And as a really fresh, green, brand new sleep consultant, for you to have the wherewithal to do that is really great. So I’m proud of you for that. Great job.

Crystal Sedore: Thank you. Thank you. It just reminded me of a different mom that I was working with. Ultimately, she was more concerned with wanting nighttime sleep to be better, and she felt like she was forcing the nap part of it to happen. Then eventually, I had to say, listen, you want nighttime sleep to be better. And it was. It improved. At daytime, you want to be able to nap in the stroller and nap on the go or whatever it was. Sure. For me, personally, that’s not the ideal scenario. But those were her goals.

I told her we reached the goal. We’re done. You don’t have to sit here and stress. So I think even too not only managing expectations but also helping them to identify what their goals are and that it doesn’t have to look a certain way. I think oftentimes parents probably go into it thinking naps have to look like this by the end of it. Sleep has to look like this by the end of it. Feeds have to look like this by the end of it. Then when it doesn’t, they feel so defeated.

So I think even in managing their expectations, let’s identify your goals. Let’s talk about what that really looks like. Then making sure that they’re clear. Is this what you want, or is it what you think you want?

Jayne Havens: Yeah, you’re speaking my language. You’re speaking my language right now. Yeah, I totally agree. When I think about sometimes there’s stigma around sleep training, and even sleep consultants. Sometimes people think that we just race to night wean, or we race to implement extinction or whatever’s going on online. It’s not even close to the truth.

The reality, I work with a lot of families who are continuing to night feed once or twice in the middle of the night, and they’re totally fine with that. I always say to them, like, I’m not the night weaning police. I’m not the night feed police. If you want to continue to feed your baby in the middle of the night, that’s great. I’m here to help you meet your own goals and to help make sleep feel more manageable for everyone in your family. And if you want to continue to feed your baby once or twice in the middle of the night, carry on. Right?

Crystal Sedore: Right. More power to you.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, and I think that that’s really great that you already have that awareness as a brand-new sleep consultant. Because, really, I think that the way that we are most successful in this field is by meeting families where they are. I always say coaching them through methods that align with their parenting style and, as you said, helping them to achieve their goals. I’m very careful — it sounds like you are too — to not push my own agenda onto my clients, right?

Crystal Sedore: Yeah, and that’s hard.

Jayne Havens: It is hard. Because we have an idea of how we would handle it in our own household, with our own children, and that may look very different from what our clients are doing in their homes. It’s funny. I work with a lot of toddlers and preschoolers, and I coach a lot of them through the chair method. And never in a million years would I ever implement the chair method in my own home. I just wouldn’t.

I would say I love you. You’re safe. Go back to bed. That would be the end of it, you know. I would never do the chair method. But that’s how a lot of my clients want to be supported, and their goals are to gradually remove themselves from from the picture. That’s what works for them, and that’s great. So I love that you’re doing all of that.

When we were prepping for this interview, you had mentioned that you had sort of an ideal client or a target audience. Can you tell us about that? And how do you plan to connect with families that fit this target profile?

Crystal Sedore: Ideally, I feel like my ideal client is me. I have a husband and a great support system. I was essentially a single mom for most of the day. I find that I resonate the most with moms who are single moms, moms who have to go back to work very quickly, moms who don’t have a support system at home or family living nearby. Like where I live now, we have zero family. We actually moved here because I was expecting. And so that meant that now family is two and a half, three hours away.

Postpartum was hard. Postpartum was very hard when you are dispatched from the hospital, and then your husband only gets two weeks off. You’re on your own, and you’re healing from a birth and a surgery. Then having fainted, then a child who won’t nurse, and then now pumping exclusively, that’s a learning curve. Then now you have a baby at home. Good luck. See you in six weeks. So postpartum depression to the core. It was through the roof. I add now sleep deprivation to that. I just was in the thick of all of that.

My heart goes out to everyone who was like me. I think that you look at other countries and the systems they have in place for maternity leave. It’s months and months long, and paternity leave. They send you home with a doula in some places. I’m like, oh, my gosh. I feel like the U.S. is dropping the ball when it comes to a lot of that.

But I’m grateful at the same time that our industry, whether it’s lactation and sleep consulting or whatever the case may be, is now becoming more popular and more known so that women can get the support that they need. Because I think that we can do hard things, right? Our bodies are made to have babies, however they come into the world. But it’s not like before where you lived in these villages, and everybody was nearby. Moms just got rest, and there were always a pair of hands to hold this baby, and you were able to recover. That’s not the case.

While I was home, in my situation, not every mom gets to stay home. My best friend, she had her maternity leave and then was back to work working an overnight shift. Her husband worked during the day. You can imagine that dynamic. So it’s not the same for everyone. Everyone doesn’t have the best set of circumstances. And if we can help just a little bit with at least sleep, then I know that that can make a world of difference, especially for mental health.

Because it steals the joy. When you lack sleep, amongst everything else that you’re recovering from and dealing with in the postpartum stage, it then steals the joy of this brand-new baby that you brought home. Especially for a first-time mom, this is your first time doing this. You want to enjoy this baby, and sometimes that’s not the case. You look at your child, and it’s the thing causing you frustration. And if we can help just a little bit to improve that and if that means getting you some sleep, then let’s do it. But yeah, my heart goes out to women who have zero support. Because that was me.

Jayne Havens: How do you plan to connect with those families specifically?

Crystal Sedore: Obviously, I wouldn’t know who they are unless they told me that was the case. But I think a lot of it, I put that language in my website. It’s the thing that I’ll probably post frequently about in my social media, but especially in my website. I know that that’s language that I put in there so that whoever does visit, if that resonates with you, then hopefully that will tug on a heartstring and then perhaps encourage you to reach out even if it’s just a discovery call. But yeah, obviously, I’m willing to help all types of families. I’m not just exclusive to that profile of person or people.

We can’t help everyone. At some point, I desire to niche down and figure out what that is. I don’t know who that is. Or even, I know you often talk about you prefer to work with some of the toddlers and the older kids as opposed to a newborn baby, or that four, five-month-old age range.

Whereas for me, I feel like I would probably be more confident with that newborn or infant or younger baby because I just left that stage rather than a two, three, four, five year old because my child has not reached that stage yet. Not that it should matter. We’re trying to help that age range as well. But I know that, for me, there’s like that slight I don’t know what a three year old does. What does a four year old do at that time? I have no idea. I just have a great little sleeper, and she’s two. So I desire to help whoever needs my help. But ultimately, if they’re a good fit. If they’re not a good fit, then they’re just not a good fit.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, well, I think your willingness to be transparent about your own experiences through birth and postpartum is definitely going to be a major factor in you attracting the clientele that you wish to support. Right?

Crystal Sedore: Yeah.

Jayne Havens: Like, if you’re putting it out there that that was your shared experience, that you lived it, you understand what they’re going through, you had a very similar experience yourself, and you feel called to serve those families that are still sort of underwater where you’ve already sort of maybe come up for air, I think is something that will definitely resonate with families that are still struggling. Just the fact that you’re willing to be transparent about your experiences is probably going to help you to connect with those ideal clients of yours.

Hats off to you for wanting to serve that specific demographic. Because sometimes I think that’s the hardest, right? Moms who are struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety sometimes have the hardest time with making the changes that would probably benefit them the most. Sleep consultants are definitely a major tool and resource for them. But it takes them being willing to seek out that type of support and accept that support and then also make the changes that will yield better sleep for everybody. It’s a big ask, you know.

Crystal Sedore: For sure. For sure.

Jayne Havens: So I think you’re just in the beginning stages of all of this. But when I think about entrepreneurship, so much of it in my mind boils down to mindset and confidence. Do you feel like your head is in the right place in those two categories? Are you on the right track to — I know you’re just in the beginning. But are you feeling like you’re gaining confidence with each family that you support? Are you making steps in the right direction and feeling like your wheels are spinning and things are getting going?

Crystal Sedore: I think confidence-wise, I’m there. Overall, I’m a social person. I’m not afraid to talk to new people and engage them in different things like that. So as far as confidence, that’s there. But right now, because it’s the brand new beginning stage, it’s doing that beginning work of making meaningful connections and getting myself out there.

I’m not as active on social media as I would like to be, but it’s something that I’m going to push myself to do more of and be better at. But also just getting out there even in my own community, you know. I know that the work that we do is obviously predominantly virtual, and we can help families anywhere in the world. But I also want to be active in my community, attending local events that birth workers or postpartum workers are attending, just so I can even become a name in my own Delaware, USA community. So that’s something that I’m actively trying to do now as well. It’s to make those meaningful connections that will help propel my business forward.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I love that. It sounds like you’re doing it. I think, in the beginning, you got to just keep talking to people, keep getting out there and making those meaningful connections, seeing what sticks and what doesn’t, and really just keep doing the work until you gain momentum and gain traction. I think you’re right there. Before we wrap up, would you share? Do you have a website yet? Do you have social media?

Crystal Sedore: I do, yes.

Jayne Havens: Share all your stuff, whatever you want to share.

Crystal Sedore: My website is restwithinreach.com, facebook.com/restwithinreach, instagram.com/restwithinreach. It’s a mouthful if you say it all at once.

Jayne Havens: Yeah.

Crystal Sedore: Yeah, so I can be reached out there.

Jayne Havens: Perfect. Crystal, it was great chatting with you. I’m so excited to see you off to the races and really hitting the ground running. It sounds like the families that you’ve supported already have gotten nothing but the best, highest quality of support and care, which I’m so grateful for you for doing that. I think it gives all us sleep consultants a good name when you get out there, and you do the good work and you support families at a really high level. So thank you. We’ll keep an eye on you, and we’ll update. Maybe we’ll do another interview in six months and see where you are then.

Crystal Sedore: Yeah, great. That sounds like fun. I look forward to it.

Outro: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, it would mean so much to me if you would rate, review, and subscribe. When you rate, review, and subscribe, this helps the podcast reach a greater audience. I am so grateful for your support.

If you would like to learn more about how you can become a certified sleep consultant, head over to my Facebook Group, Becoming a Sleep Consultant or to my website thecpsm.com. Thanks so much, and I hope you will tune in for the next episode.