Supporting Families Looking for a Gentle Approach with Ali Manning
Have you ever wondered what sleep training looks like when families take a more gradual or parent-present approach? In today’s episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast, I’m joined by Ali Manning a CPSM certified sleep consultant who specializes in working with parents who want to improve their child’s sleep without making big, abrupt changes.
We talk about what it really means to support families over a longer period of time, how to navigate concerns about crying, and the mindset shifts parents need when implementing gradual sleep training methods. Ali shares her experiences working with families who want to move at a slower pace, the challenges that can come with this approach, and why the long-term benefits are so worth it.
Whether you’re a parent considering a gentler sleep training method or a sleep consultant who wants to better support families in this way, this episode is packed with insights and encouragement!
Cohen
Links:
Website: Snuggles and Slumber Sleep Consulting
Instagram: @ali.manning.sleep.coach
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.
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.
Have you ever wondered what sleep training looks like when families take a more gradual or parent-present approach? In today’s episode, I’m joined by Ali Manning, a CPSM certified sleep consultant who specializes in working with parents who want to improve their child’s sleep without making big, abrupt changes.
We’ll talk about what it really means to support families over a longer period of time, how to navigate concerns about crying, and the mindset shifts parents need when implementing gradual sleep training methods. Ali shares her experiences working with families who want to move at a slower pace, the challenges that can come with this approach, and why the long-term benefits are so worth it.
Whether you’re a parent considering a gentler sleep training method or a sleep consultant who wants to better support families in this way, this episode is packed with insights and encouragement!
Jayne Havens: Ali, welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast. I am so excited you’re here today.
Ali Manning: Thanks, Jayne. I’m so excited to be back.
Jayne Havens: So for those of you who don’t know Ali, why don’t we let Ali give a little bit of an introduction? Share a little bit about yourself. Tell us who you are and what your business looks like today.
Ali Manning: All right. So I started about two years ago. I was a teacher for 20 years before that, and I was just looking for something that I could be home with my kids, something I was still really passionate about. We had worked with a sleep consultant for our daughter, which I’ll talk about a little bit more, and it totally changed our lives.
So when I was trying to think about what’s next for me, that popped right into my mind. I took Jayne’s course, and it’s really nice to be two years in now. I think when I started, when I came on the podcast last year, everything was still really new. I was still kind of finding my footing, finding my way. Now I’m like, okay, I know who I am as a sleep consultant. I have a really good following. I have some clients that I’ve just loved working with. And I’m well on my way now, so it’s good.
Jayne Havens: I love that. I love that. I think with time and experience comes confidence. And I can hear that in your voice so that makes me really happy for you.
Ali Manning: Thank you.
Jayne Havens: So today on the podcast, I think the plan is to be talking about what it looks like to support families through a more gradual or gentle approach to sleep training. I think for many families, the idea of sleep training can feel really overwhelming and stressful, especially when they’re concerned about crying or making big changes too quickly. So let’s talk about how these gentle methods work, and the mindset shifts that parents need to make, and the strategies that you’re putting into place for positive, long-term impact.
Before we get started with that, let’s talk about how you landed in the position of supporting families who wanted a more gradual or gentle approach. How did that happen?
Ali Manning: So when I started, I didn’t really know. Everybody said you’ll find your thing. It’ll be babies, or it’ll be toddlers, or it’ll be something that you’re just drawn to and that people aren’t drawn to you for. I didn’t really know what that would be. But it ended up being working with families who are looking with gentle approaches.
And I think the way that happened is, that’s really what I needed for my family when we were going with sleep struggles for our daughter. She is six and a half now, so this feels like a lifetime ago. But she was up every hour and a half to two hours until she was almost two. We had struggled with infertility, so we didn’t even know if we were going to get to be parents.
When I had this little baby, I never wanted to put her down. She was just, you know. Me all the time, I was nursing her just around the clock. I loved it. I was nursing for any chance I could get. I really struggled to put her down and to let other people have her. And even to let my husband help with sleep, I just couldn’t. It was me. I was mom. I was nursing. That was it.
And so we tried Ferber with her when she was six months old. I didn’t know anything else. I wasn’t like the let-me-read-everything kind of mom. I was the, “I’ve always wanted this. I’m just going to go with my gut, and it’ll be fine,” kind of mom. And for the most part, it was, but not for sleep. So we tried Ferber and very quickly realized it wasn’t a method that was for us.
Looking back on it and having the tools I have now, I’m like, oh, I totally could have coached myself through that if I knew, if I understood it better back then. But I didn’t. We’re like, we’re just not going to sleep for a little bit. It’s okay. Then everyone said when she is one, things will get so much better. She’ll start sleeping. We held out. She turned one, and she wasn’t sleeping. Then I was like, maybe I should start looking into this a little more.
So I found a book about no cry sleep training or whatever. I looked at that and tried that, and that didn’t work either. Because it just didn’t. It’s so slow and so gradual if you never want your baby to cry. We were like, okay, this isn’t really a thing either.
Finally, when she was almost two, a friend was like, “Hey, we worked with a sleep consultant, and it helped us a lot. I’m going to give you her card.” I didn’t even know the profession existed at that point. I had not a clue. But we ended up reaching out to her, and she showed us some really nice, gentle methods and walked us through them.
We got our daughter sleeping really, really well. It took a little bit of time. It took like six-ish weeks, and we just really had to stick with it. It was still some work, for sure. It was still work, but we got her doing it just in a way where we could be parent present. With I think looking back, probably the postpartum anxiety I was having, that felt much better to me. So that’s kind of how it started.
Then when I had my first, she actually ended up needing a really gentle approach. She had two little boys who were — she had a toddler and a baby and a partner who didn’t believe in sleep training. But she did all the sleep stuff, so she was just exhausted. She was like, “We can’t sleep train. My partner says no, but I need to sleep. Can you help me?” So that was kind of how it got started. Then after that, I just had more and more people coming to me saying, you know, “We want to sleep train, but we really are very worried about this. We want to be in the room.” That’s just how it started.
I realized that I really like working with families that have things like anxiety or that have things like we did, where they’d been through infertility — it’s just a whole different parenting journey for some families — and just had a hard time even putting their baby down. So I guess it kind of happened by accident. I think sometimes what you project is who you draw in. And I think that’s what happened for me.
Jayne Havens: How do you see the demand for gentle sleep training evolving in today’s parenting culture?
Ali Manning: I think that’s such an interesting question. Because I think it is one of the hardest times to be a parent ever with social media. Because you can have somebody in one ear saying, “This is the best thing ever. You have to do it this way.” And somebody in your other ear is saying, “You’re a horrible mom if you… x.”
So I think it’s just a really hard time to be a parent, and there seems to be a lot of negative talk around sleep training by people who don’t understand what’s happening at this point. So I feel like, for some people, going the more gentle method, they feel less social pressure, if that makes sense. So I think there’s more of a demand for it in that way. But I equally have clients who do understand what’s happening when you work with sleep and do understand you’re just helping your child work through something.
You’re helping them along. It’s really sometimes positive to do the faster methods because kids understand what’s happening much more quickly, and they just get it down. So there’s still a lot of both, but I do think with societal pressures today, there’s more of a draw for gentle sleep training. I also think there are more families with experiencing postpartum anxiety and depression. And I think that lends itself to some of the gentle methods. And those tend to be the people that I’m working with right now.
Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think it’s so important for there to be lots of different types of support for lots of different types of families. And I love the work that you’re doing. Because, frankly, it’s not really the work that I want to be doing. I prefer to take a speedier approach to sleep training. I’m wondering how you feel about this. I actually really grapple with the word ‘gentle.’ Because, first of all, I think that that implies that other sleep training isn’t gentle. So I don’t like that.
Then also, in my experience when I work parents through — I like to call them gradual approaches. When I work parents through gradual approaches to sleep training, I find that sometimes it’s harder on everybody, mom and baby. Not always. But a lot of the time, it is. I’m wondering if that’s your experience and/or if families are just sort of okay with that. Because they feel that as long as they’re there supporting their baby through the process, being very hands-on, being very parent-present, that that’s what feels best for them even if it takes longer, even if there is more crying sometimes.
Ali Manning: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with parent-present. I think that is a really good term for it when you’re describing what’s happening and maybe gradual. Because they are parent present and gradual approaches.
It’s really a mindset shift. So when I work with families that want to use methods like check and console, the mindset is, okay, your baby is communicating to us that they’re unsure about the change. Or your baby is communicating to us that they don’t know how to fall asleep like this yet. But we’re going to hang out. We’re going to stay the course, and they’re really going to get this pretty quickly. And in a couple of nights, everyone is going to feel really good. So that’s kind of the mindset work that happens when I’m working with check-and-console families.
With families doing more of the gradual methods, we talk a lot especially. And I want to go back. There’s such a range, right? So if we’re doing shush pat, you’re still really parent present. That can happen really quickly for families too. I’ve had a lot of families right there beside the crib doing shush pat that two to three nights in, their baby is sleeping through the night.
The families that I’m looking at right now that are working more on a four-to-six-week range, the mindset is more, look, you’re running a marathon right now. So these people are running a 5k. They’re going to feel really good in a couple of days. You’re going to feel really good in a few weeks, and you’re going to start out — we talked about the roller coaster. You’re going to start out. You’re going to feel really excited. You’re at the top of this roller coaster. You’re all in. Then you’re going to get to a place where you’re like, “Oh my gosh. This is hard. Is this working?” Then you’re going to have a really good night, and you’re going to feel really good.
We talk a lot about two steps forward, one is back. And it’s a lot of reminding them of, these are the steps we’re taking. I always map out their trajectory for them. So, first, we’re going to work on this. Then we’re going to work on this. These are things to look for to know this is working. And by the end, they do always feel so good. And it’s just like when you run. For anyone listening who’s run a real marathon, you start and you’re all excited. Then you’re halfway through, and you’re like, “Oh my god. I want to die.” Then you’re to the end and you’re like. “This is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
It’s a lot of marathon coaching with them. I have to take really diligent notes when working with families doing the gradual approaches so that we can really say, “Hey, remember two weeks ago when you couldn’t even have her fall asleep not nursing, and now she’s fAling asleep in our crib? What?” These are huge moments. So we always, every day, like, let’s stop. Let’s set our goal for the day. Let’s celebrate what progress have we made so far. So it’s a much different mindset.
Jayne Havens: What challenges do you face when working with families who want to take a really gradual and parent-present approach?
Ali Manning: The duration can be a challenge. So just like you said, there is crying with gradual approaches. That’s something I prepare families for too. It’s just like with any method. Babies are going through something. And in most cases, we are changing what your baby has done their whole life, right? So it doesn’t matter how fast or if you’re standing right there. It’s still something for your baby to go through. So that is something that we talk a lot about too, is your baby is going to cry. Here’s what that means. Here’s why your baby is crying.
Families are usually pretty good with that when we talk a lot about, “And you are right here. And you’re comforting.” So we do a lot of coaching about, “Remember that you’re right here comforting your baby. All your baby’s needs are met.” So the first little bit, that can feel really challenging for families looking for a gradual approach. Then they get used to that, and they start to see my baby really is okay. We are making progress.
Another challenge can be the duration. So, like I said, you’re feeling like really excited in the beginning. But you have to celebrate all the small successes or it can feel like, “Man, I’ve been doing this forever. Is it going to get better?”
Jayne Havens: And I would guess that you probably — just because I know you and I know you’re really good at your job, I would imagine that you are managing expectations on the front end of this process. Because I think sometimes parents think that gentle sleep training means less crying or no crying, right? Then they get into it with you, and their baby is really frustrated and really having a hard time about the changes that you’re putting into place. What sort of conversations are you having on discovery calls on the front end when parents say, “Do we have to cry it out,” or, “I can’t stand to hear any crying?” How are you tackling those conversations?
Ali Manning: Yeah, I talk a lot about the crying in discovery calls, just like I said, to manage expectations. But I really help parents know, when you’re right there, you are 100% sure your baby is fed. Your baby is loved. Your baby doesn’t need to be changed. There’s not a need. Your baby is literally saying, “I don’t know what’s happening. I’m not used to this. This is uncomfortable for me.” We talk about how that’s uncomfortable for everybody. It’s uncomfortable for parents to see our kids uncomfortable.
I think the last time I was on my talk was about being uncomfortable and being comfortable being uncomfortable. And so I talk a lot about that with families too and just letting them know there will be some crying. Because that’s naturally part of change and part of growing and being uncomfortable. That’s how babies communicate to us. They’ve got babbling. They’ve got crying. They’ve, sometimes they have smiling, laughing. So to expect that.
And when we do the gradual methods, it’s often a less duration of crying. So we’ll start out, you know. Okay. You’ve got a minute. Okay. Go ahead pick him up. And you can just feel the relief that parents have when, oh my gosh, I got to pick him up and then put him down. Some parents in the gradual process will start to say, “Man, I think he gets more escalated when I pick him up and put him down.” And we work through that and say, “Okay. Well, do you want to try this approach instead?” Because a lot of babies actually do better when they have some space and some time.
So a lot of working with families on gradual methods is dealing with parents’ level of comfortability, and how can we push just a little bit more but stay within your realm of being okay, not overwhelmed by all of this, and letting parents come to their own realizations about what’s going to work best for their babies. So it’s a lot of coaching parents and helping them work through and figure out what’s going to work best for them.
Jayne Havens: I really appreciate your whole angle. Because I think there’s this all-consuming messaging online about sleep training being bad and gentle sleep training being good. What I like that you’re doing is, you’re sort of putting it all in the same bucket, and you’re saying that it actually is entirely okay to do it either way.
Your baby is going to maybe have a hard time a little bit regardless, because it’s something new. And if it makes you feel better to be really parent-present and physically there during the process and that’s what resonates with you, then I will support you through that. I love that. Because I do think that there are some sleep coaches out there that sort of promote themselves as anti-cry it out or no cry it out sleep training. That messaging just really personally doesn’t resonate with me, because I think it’s a little bit bait and switch, right?
I think that sometimes that messaging attracts a highly anxious mom who thinks that the sleep consultant has some sort of magic wand and sleep glitter to sprinkle all over the place and to make it a really seamless and quiet process. And it doesn’t always pan out that way. So I really appreciate the way that you’re approaching it, I think, with a whole lot of honesty. That sleep training can be and will be somewhat challenging regardless of how you handle it. But we want to make sure that you handle it in a way that works for you and for your family.
Ali Manning: Thank you. Yeah, I think that really hits the nail on the head of my approach. This isn’t just, “Here you go. This is what we’re doing.” It’s really, “What do you need to make this successful?”
Jayne Havens: What advice would you share with sleep consultants? Look, you’re a couple of years in now, and it’s so clear that you have found your footing. You’ve really landed on your coaching style and the verbiage that you use with family is. What advice can you share with sleep consultants who maybe aren’t there yet and are trying to figure out how to define themselves and their coaching style?
Ali Manning: Yeah, I would say it will happen. When you start out, everything feels so new and so hard and you have to really think about — I mean, you think about it all the time obviously. But you have to think about everything so much more. It really does once you get going, you just get into your groove. And you get to a place where, oh, I can. I can just talk to somebody randomly in the shopping line and absolutely feel 100% confident knowing what I’m talking about and knowing how to support them. So hang in there. It does get easier.
For other sleep consultants who want to use the gradual approach, I think the hardest thing for me in the beginning was trusting the process. I always tell parents trust the process. I always say stay consistent. Trust the process, and this is going to work. I found myself the first few times not trusting the process. So I would be like, “Oh my god. Is this actually working,” and staying up all night just praying that everything was going okay. And it always worked out. Just like we tell our clients, if we stay the course and trust the process, it will work out. The babies will, the toddlers will, whoever will get to sleep. You just have to hang on.
Jayne Havens: You have since lengthened your timeframe that you’re working with families, right? Like I work with families for two weeks. Are you supporting families for a longer duration?
Ali Manning: Yeah, so I still have my two- and three-week packages. It really depends on what method is going to work best for families. So families who are looking for more of a check-and-console method or even a shush pat, often, I’ll work with for two weeks. Sometimes three and sometimes they kind of hybrid between two and three weeks depending on needs.
I’ve recently just launched a Right Beside You Program, which is for families that really want to move slowly and really gradually, maybe families who are feeling a little bit overwhelmed by all of this, who don’t have the desire or the capacity to really hit sleep training hard and get it done, for families who are feeling maybe a little bit anxious about it, who really, really want a gradual approach. That’s a six-week duration. So I have two families doing that right now, and I’m really excited to be starting that.
Jayne Havens: What I love about that is you’ve sort of taken yourself off the clock a little bit. And so it takes the pressure off of you to get it done in a certain amount of time. I always say to families that I’m supporting, especially because I’ve been working mostly with older kids these days. It’s less about sleep training, and it’s more about limit setting and really coaching parents to establish boundaries, like a mutual level of respect in the home, right? And so the 14-day time period is really quite arbitrary, right? Like, you know, maybe we can get it done in that period of time, but there are so many variables at play.
Sometimes I do feel up against the clock. I feel like if my parents that I’m working with aren’t super coachable from the very beginning, and it takes four or five days for them to realize that they’re not doing what we talked about, then we’ve just wasted a third of our time together. And so I feel pressure to get it done in that 14-day period a lot of the time. I love that you have created an option to take the pressure off from a time perspective. And it’s not about getting it done in two weeks or three weeks. It’s just about making gradual changes that will benefit everybody in a time period and using methods that feel safe and comfortable for everybody.
Ali Manning: Yeah, and I think for some families, just like you kind of talked about, it takes them a while to find their footing, especially when they’re looking for a gradual approach. So they may have a few days where like, “This is what I can do. This is what I’m capable of doing right now.” Then they work through their own level of comfort, and they’re ready for that next step.
I will never forget the second client that I had that really needed a long duration. I think we had probably chatted about her a couple of times when I was looking for just some support on how to steer her in the right direction. She really struggled to make any changes because she was having such a hard time. She wanted so badly to make these changes, but she just couldn’t. And she just didn’t.
Working on my mindset as a coach of, she’s not doing this because she doesn’t want to do it. She has something mentally that’s really blocking her from doing that. So how do I coach her? What can I do in these small steps to get her to a place that she so desperately wants to be without feeling incredibly anxious? That work takes time. I think she and I worked together on and off for a very long time.
One of the best days of my sleep consulting career was when she sent me a text and said, “My God. She slept from eight till five in the morning. I had to go make sure she was still breathing.” I’m pretty sure I actually jumped up and down for joy. Because I was just so happy that this mom, she had made it. She did great. Sometimes people just need a little more time to get themselves to where they want to be too.
Jayne Havens: For sure. Any thoughts that you might be willing to share for any parents listening who are struggling in the space of feeling really anxious about making any sort of changes, and yet the space where they’re currently living is also perhaps not sustainable?
Ali Manning: I think that’s a really hard place to be, and I think that’s where so many parents are. So I think just give yourself some grace, is the biggest thing. Take a step back from social media too. Don’t worry about what’s this baby doing, what’s my friend’s baby doing. You’re going to be okay. Everything happens in time. But also, just to push yourself to take, what’s one little step I can take today to get closer? So it doesn’t have to be grand.
The first step I take with a lot of my gradual clients is, let’s just get your baby — instead of taking 5 to 20-minute naps, let’s work on two-hour naps, something like that. Let’s just work on your baby schedule. You can contact nap. You can do whatever you need to do. But let’s get some good naps in, so we can start to get in the schedule. You know, we’re for moms who are nursing to sleep.
They eventually want to be able to have their baby fall asleep in bed. Let’s just practice taking your baby off the breast for two minutes tonight. Then if she’s screaming, you can put her back on. But let’s take her out for two minutes and rock. That feels really hard for a lot of moms, but they do it. Then they’re like, okay, I did two minutes. And a few days down the road, oh my gosh, I did five minutes. Then it’s, oh my gosh, I didn’t even put her back on because she stopped. She didn’t even ask.” So small steps are still steps. They’re really big steps, so give yourself some credit. Give yourself some grace, and you will eventually get there.
Jayne Havens: Ali, you are doing the good work.
Ali Manning: Thank you.
Jayne Havens: Bless your heart. How can people connect with you?
Ali Manning: I am on Instagram @ali.manning.sleep.coach. I am also on Facebook. I have a Facebook community for moms. We have about 150 moms in there right now. It’s just a place to come together and support each other. I do trainings in there each month. I have open office hours for people to come chat with me in there. So that’s a great place to find me. I have a Facebook page. My business is Snuggles and Slumber Sleep Consulting. My website is www.snugglesandslumber.com. So come check me out and say hi.
Jayne Havens: Thank you, Ali. This was really amazing. I think that this conversation will be really helpful for both sleep consultants and parents who are listening to this. I am just so proud of you that you have found your footing, and you’ve found your path in this career. I know that it’s only going to grow from here, so congrats.
Ali Manning: Thanks, Jayne. Thanks for all your support.
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.