How Inner Work Fuels Client Success with Liza Montanino

 

Today on the podcast, I’m welcoming back Liza Montanino—certified sleep consultant, mom of two, and one of our most thoughtful returning guests.

This time, we’re talking about something a little different: how her personal experience with therapy has shaped the way she approaches her work as a sleep consultant.

 

We covered:

• How therapy gave her a framework for navigating big emotions
• Why setting boundaries is essential—and how to actually do it
• What self-care really looks like when you’re supporting others for a living

 

If you’ve ever felt emotionally drained, unsure how to protect your energy, or just curious how to stay grounded while running your business, this one is for you.

 

Links:

Website: Rock-a-Bye Baby Sleep
Email: liza@rockabyebabysleep.com
Instagram: @liza_rockabyebabysleep

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.

Today on the podcast, I’m welcoming back Liza Montanino—certified sleep consultant, mom of two, and one of our most thoughtful returning guests. This time, we’re diving into a topic that I’ve not yet covered on the podcast: how therapy has shaped the way Liza approaches her work as a sleep consultant.

Through her own personal experience with therapy, Liza has gained powerful tools for navigating big emotions, setting clear boundaries, and prioritizing her own self-care, all of which have deeply impacted the way she shows up for her clients and for herself.

Jayne Havens: Liza, welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. I always love having these conversations with you.

Liza Montanino: Me, too. Thanks so much for having me back.

Jayne Havens: So today I think we’re going to talk about how therapy has shaped your approach to sleep consulting, which I actually think is a really interesting topic. It was your idea. So before we get started, why don’t you share — first of all, share a little bit about yourself for those who haven’t listened to other episodes. Then we’ll dive in to the whole therapy, sleep consultant connection.

Liza Montanino: Sure. Yes, so I got certified through CPSM back in 2021. Since then, I have added on a few other certifications, both in special needs and in autism and anxiety. So I work with a lot of families across the neurospectrum.

Part of what I have found so important in doing this work, and just chatting with parents in general, is the connection between mental health and sleep. It sounds so obvious. But I think part of what brought me to this line of work was also the struggle that I had with my son when he was a newborn and the toll that that actually took on my ability to be a good mom, be a good person. Because my mental health really suffered, I think it’s been a natural extension to really consider the overall well-being of the parents or of the mom in the sleep training process.

I’m a huge proponent of therapy. I’ve been in therapy a very long time, long before I became a mom. So I think having that framework for support is just really, really important to me and something that I talk about with clients as well.

Jayne Havens: Are you comfortable sharing a little bit about your personal journey with therapy, how you got started in therapy, and what it looks like now, how it’s impacting your work?

Liza Montanino: Yes, that’s a great question. So I actually started with therapy back in 2003. I joke with my therapist that she’s the longest relationship I’ve ever been in. I’ve been with her long before I met my husband. I came to her because I was just really struggling with some relationships in my life. She was really a lifeline for me in learning how to help myself navigate a lot of fraught emotional dynamics.

Our journey together has changed over time. I’ve taken some breaks. I’ve come back around. I don’t see her weekly anymore. Now we’re on like a bi-weekly schedule. But she’s seen me through a lot of highs and lows. I think it’s really, really helpful to have someone in your life who has really walked through all of the emotions that you can experience.

What I find so helpful now is that I will talk to her about my work as a sleep consultant and how emotionally draining that can be. I think all of us who are in this profession do it because we love it, and we really believe that parenthood doesn’t have to be a sleepless struggle. And because of that, we meet a lot of parents who are at their rock bottom. And that can just be a lot to sit with, especially when you also have your own emotional life. You’re taking care of your kids, and you have other jobs in the world.

One thing, I had a little bit of an aha moment when I was talking with her a couple weeks ago was that, in the same way that we are teaching parents to be co-regulators for their babies or their toddlers during this process, and helping them sit with the discomfort and also realizing this doesn’t feel great, but I’m okay. I can survive, and I can learn and move through it. I was telling her, I realized as a sleep consultant I am the co-regulator for the parents that I work with. So they can have these freakouts or breakdowns with us, and we hold space for that while encouraging them and holding them accountable and reminding them that sometimes the best support looks like observing and giving space.

And so I just love all of that. I know it’s very, very dorky and a little bit meta, but I love it. But it’s also, it can be really exhausting at times at the end of the day. When it’s like, okay, I’ve been there for my kids, I’ve been there for my clients, and it all has to go somewhere. So part of my therapy work lately has been figuring out how I can take care of myself so that I can really still be there for my kids, be there for my clients—not just emotionally vomit all over my husband at the end of the day as I tend to do and feel like I can still take all this on and do it well.

Jayne Havens: I love that. Are there any tools that you’ve learned from your therapist that you’ve passed along to your clients to help them deal with challenging moments?

Liza Montanino: Yes, actually, there’s one phrase that my therapist uses with me, and I have used it with my clients, which is: just be where you are. I think for anyone who’s prone to anxiety, it is the spiraling thoughts of, like, “What could happen? What might go wrong? If this happens, then what? If his next nap is only 27 minutes and then I don’t want to feed them right away because it hasn’t been three hours, how is that going to impact the rest of the day?” So I’ve really, really tried to encourage my clients to just focus on the moment that they’re in. Celebrate every single little win as if that was the whole purpose of the day, is to have one win.

Not every day is going to even have that. But most of them will, if not all. We’re looking for one sign of improvement. And if you can stay where you are, I do think it helps frame any of the challenges that come later in the day. Because then you’re like, “Okay. Now this moment is hard. I was worried about it. It’s here, but I’m actually okay. I can work through it,” and realizing that every day is just one day. I say that all the time to my clients. Whether it’s a good day or a bad day, it’s one day. Every night is a chance to reset, and every morning is another refresh.

Jayne Havens: Do you think that being in therapy or just your therapist has given you more confidence to support your clients at a higher level?

Liza Montanino: I do, yes. I think even just some of the language that she uses. Like I hear you saying X, Y, and Z, or putting together a few different things that I’ve talked about and trying to find the underlying theme. I think it’s helped me look a little bit more critically and also just hear what’s not being said. Right? Because when a parent says, like, “Oh my god. He’s traumatized right now.” It’s like okay, well, I know he’s not traumatized. But it sounds like you are, like you feel traumatized by this experience. So let’s try to separate his response from your feelings.

I have sometimes called clients out and said, “It sounds like you might be really in touch with your own fears right now and putting that, projecting that on your baby.” He’s actually showing you that he can do this. So it’s really helpful to remember that even though we might have our own fears and feelings about this process, what you’re seeing happen doesn’t always align with those fears. And they’re still valid. So I think a lot of it too is just, it’s validating their feelings whatever they might be and honoring that however you feel is okay. There’s no wrong feeling. There’s no—

You know, it’s like what we tell our toddlers or kids in general. Like, all feelings are okay, all behaviors are not. It’s like however you feel. I don’t ever want to try to change how a parent feels about the experience, but I do want to drill down what’s actually happening in the process, which then does often take them out of that scary feeling they’re in and make them realize, “Oh, yeah. Okay. This is working. He is capable. I was just scared.”

Jayne Havens: I think what that is, is just a reframe, right?

Liza Montanino: Mm-hmm.

Jayne Havens: It’s helping them to see it from a different angle, think about it from a different perspective. And really, as you said, their feelings are valid, but we want to work on our thoughts. We want to make sure that we’re having productive thoughts during this process, right?

Because if we’re constantly — I wish you had been in my ear literally four hours ago. Because I had a dad saying to me this morning, “I think she’s traumatized.” So I really wish I had that language from you. It’s really, the way that you worded it is beautiful. I encourage parents, I think “traumatized” is a really strong word, you know. I don’t want to take it away from them, but I want them to think about if that’s really the word that they want to use, you know.

And is that productive here? Because if we really do believe that they’re being traumatized, then we certainly would not want to do that. Right? And so we have to get to a place where we realize that the decisions that we’re making for our children are in their best interest. We would never ever do anything to traumatize them intentionally, right? And so we have to feel confident in the choices that we’re making, with the boundaries that we’re setting so that our children can accept this, I call it the Just Right Challenge. Do you ever hear that? I like to call sleep training a just right challenge. It’s not too hard. It’s hard, but it’s not too hard. Right?

Liza Montanino: I love that. I’ve not heard that, but I think it—

Jayne Havens: Yeah, actually, somebody inside of our CPSM community taught me that. I love it. Because there are so many situations in childhood where our children experience discomfort, and they struggle. The examples that I often give to parents are: when they learn to fall asleep on their own for the first time, of course, but also when they learn to poop on the potty, when they maybe go to preschool for the first time, or when they’re out to protest. It’s too hard, right? There are so many situations along the way, and we want to help our children to get comfortable with being a little bit uncomfortable. And I think that having the right language to talk to parents about that is really important.

Liza Montanino: I completely agree. One thing that I’ve used — I actually don’t think I’ve used pooping on the potty. But there are a few different analogies that I come back to, especially with toddler families or older kids, where we’re talking about the fact that your kid is going to have a huge reaction when you tell them we’re making some changes.

And just reminding parents that it’s okay to make decisions that conflict with your child’s preferences. It is normal for them to be sharing with you, “Hey, I don’t like this,” whether that is in words or in cries. But if you believe that you are doing it for their long-term best interest—which I think all of our clients are. They come to us because they’re looking for progress and for things to be different—I think that makes a huge difference in your ability to be consistent and to commit.

One specific example that I will give is, think about all of the other situations where you have no problem being consistent, responding in one consistent way 100% of the time. Your child tries to dart out in the road without holding your hand. 100% of the time, you would grab their hand and pull them back. Are they going to like that when they wanted to cross by themselves? No. Will they cry about it? Maybe. But you’re not going to question your decision to do that because you’re putting their well-being above what they want in that moment. I think that is really helpful to apply to the entire sleep training process.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk about boundaries and self-care. I’m sure this is something that comes up in therapy—

Liza Montanino: Oh, yes.

Jayne Havens: —I would imagine. What would you say you’ve learned in therapy about setting boundaries in your business? How do you take care of yourself so that you can maintain a sense of longevity in your business?

Liza Montanino: One thing I will admit, I’ve been a really not good stickler for this boundary. My therapist had suggested that I carve out 30 minutes for lunch every single day where I am not on calls. I tried it and it was very difficult. Because my call window is what it is around my kids’ schedules. And so what I have done sort of to offshoot that is, I do not start my day until at least 9 AM. But most days, to be totally honest, I am not starting my day until 10.

And so my self-care is, after the kids get on the bus in the morning, I get back in bed and I read. Sometimes I will doze. But for the most part, I will give myself at least an hour, if not more, to read, to ease into the day so that I can gear up for all of the many conversations, or teaching, or whatever it is. The other boundary that I have set that I really have never wavered on is, I will not do calls over the weekend. I’ve had a lot of people ask and, at first, I felt really bad saying no. But people do respect it. They get it that it is family time.

To be honest, it’s not even like I necessarily want to be with my kids 24/7 on the weekend, but I don’t want the obligation of having to be on. And so text support for a client, I can do that anywhere. But I have really, like, that is something I feel very strongly about. So if anyone is like, “I don’t know. I feel like I need to be available all the time in order to get clients,” I really don’t think that’s true. I think you just need to carve out some blocks of time where you’re 100% in so that you can then remove yourself at those other times and recharge in whatever way feels good to you.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, those are great boundaries. I actually have very similar boundaries. I don’t start my calls until 10 AM either. I drop my kids off at school at 8:00 in the morning, and I use between 8 and 10 to get my life in order. I run to the grocery store, I go to the dry cleaner, I make Amazon returns, I come home and start a load of laundry. I use that time so that I’m not underwater in everything else in my life. Sometimes I just sit on the couch and scroll my phone or listen to a podcast and empty the dishwasher.

But I do that too. I don’t start my day until 10 AM. Because I have the same problem. Once I’m going, it’s very hard for me to hold that 30-minute block in the middle of the day. That’s very hard for me. So I do the same thing. I literally ate a quick lunch in the eight minutes that I had before this podcast, but I’m fine with that.

Also, so I don’t want to say I don’t do phone calls on the weekends, but I’ve scaled it back significantly. I used to have two morning blocks. Like both on Saturdays and Sundays, I would make my calendar available from like 8 until 9:30 in the morning when my kids are just lounging around and nothing’s really going on. I wasn’t really missing anything. But what would aggravate me is, people would schedule calls 8:30, 9:00 in the morning on a Saturday or Sunday, and they wouldn’t show up. It would just be like the worst start to my day on a weekend, when I was otherwise going to have a great day.

And so I said, you know what? You know, my daughter, Ivy, would be asking me, “Can you make me chocolate chip pancakes?” I’d be like, “Oh, I’m about to get on a call.” Then the call wouldn’t show up. So I really, I cut it. So now I only do them on Sundays, and I only have two 30-minute blocks instead of three on Saturday and three on Sunday.

It’s like if you don’t get one of those two little 30-minute blocks on Sunday, you snooze, you lose. It’s okay. You can either book it for next week, or you can hop on to my calendar during regular business hours. I make no apologies about it because it was just sort of making me salty and not the best version of myself. It feels really good to set those boundaries, I’ll tell you. I love it.

Liza Montanino: It really does. I think then when you’re doing it on terms that feel good for you, you’re right, it changes the way you show up to that call. You’re not resentful because you carefully blocked it out.

Jayne Havens: Yeah. So sleep consulting, I think, can be pretty emotionally-draining work sometimes. What would you say, especially maybe to newer sleep consultants or people who are thinking about getting into this field? Any sort of advice or tips to share, to manage your own, whether it’s anxiety or mental load, around this work that we’re doing?

Liza Montanino: I think it can be very easy to meet a parent where they are emotionally, but I think the best thing for that parent is for you to show up as the authority that you are. Rather than getting bogged down by a parent’s feelings, I would say try to be as strong and sturdy, a leader—to borrow a Kerry phrase—as you would want in that moment if you were struggling. You can fall apart. You can take a minute when you get off the call and be like, “Oh my god. That was so hard.” And you made it through.

We’re all empathetic people. But I do think that the fastest way to burn out probably is to take every hard situation as you did something wrong, or you coached them inappropriately, or your plan was not right. More often than not, I don’t think it’s us as sleep consultants that are giving inappropriate or bad advice; it’s that parents are so uncertain about what to do. So I think pumping them up with confidence is probably the number one tip that I would give. Because I think if you can help them feel more confident, they will also just see you more as that authority figure. Then it’s sort of like, you know, just—

Jayne Havens: It’s sort of a cycle, right? Because we’re instilling a level of confidence in our clients, and then we’re hoping that our clients then in turn instill a level of confidence in their children. That’s ultimately what leads to results, right? So yeah, I love that. It’s sort of like this weird cycle of support.

One thing that I do is, I make sure to surround myself with other people who understand the heaviness of the work that I do and understand the mental load of it all. I’m not currently in therapy, although I would love to be. I aspire to be, but I’m just not right now. So I don’t have a therapist to lean on, but I do have friends and colleagues and family members who I do rely heavily on for support for myself.

You know, I spent last night coaching a mom and a dad through night one of sleep training of their 14-month-old, and they are highly anxious about the process. And while I was coaching them, I had another sleep coach coaching me. It was really special to have that. I thanked her. At the end of it, I was like, “Thank you so much for that support.” Because I really needed it for my own mental well-being. I was able to support them at that high level because I had a friend and colleague who was supporting me. And I think it’s really important.

Look, I’ve been doing this work for a long time, and I still lean on other people to help me through. She gave me in the moment some verbiage to use that really landed beautifully. It’s not that I couldn’t come up with my own. But sometimes when we’re stressed, when we’re carrying the weight of our client’s stress on our shoulders, sometimes those are the moments when it’s hardest for us to show up the way that we want to show up for them.

So having somebody else in that chain who’s not stressed, who’s not living in that anxious moment to sort of give you the words that otherwise you normally would have had, I find it to be really helpful. I don’t always need that support. But when you want it and it’s there, I find that to be golden.

Liza Montanino: Yeah, that sounds really, really helpful in the moment. Sometimes what I will do, just in terms of a coping strategy, is I will just out loud say what I would like to say to this client. Then I will sort of edit myself and compose something that is very encouraging and supportive and more objective. Because I think that is the challenge.

This work is very emotional. But our role, I guess, in the process is to be this objective third party who can say, “Yes, I hear that cry. I know it’s triggering for you, but it’s actually like a level six.” So I think removing the emotional piece from ourselves can be a challenge, but I think that is what parents need in the moment to feel confident about what they’re doing.

Jayne Havens: It’s so great to hear you speak so confidently about your work and your business. You’ve been at this for a handful of years now, and your business is evolving. You’re now not only supporting parents, but you’re also starting to support other sleep consultants. Do you want to share a little bit about that?

Liza Montanino: Yeah, sure. So this kind of happened naturally. Just I think having been on the podcast a couple of times and being active in the group, I just got random questions here and there from other new or just-starting-out sleep consultants. We would have exchanges back and forth, hop on calls. I just decided that maybe I would turn this into another avenue of sleep consulting. Because, to your point, it can feel really, really helpful to have that other person in the chain.

Whenever you’re feeling slightly unsure about something, getting another perspective of someone who has that same knowledge base, who is talking to parents at the same stage, can really help just give you things that you didn’t necessarily think of.

So, yeah, I’m starting to work with other sleep consultants in a mentorship capacity, and I love it. It just kind of feels like a think tank, especially for the business building piece, which I think is what most new sleep consultants seem to be the most anxious about. It’s just like the getting of the clients. Then, okay, once I get them, like, how do I keep them coming? So we talk about a lot of organic outreach and things like that that rely less on social media. Because that’s just not where I feel like I show up as myself. So I don’t usually invest time in it.

Jayne Havens: Do you think, if we’re going back to the mental health aspect of it all, do you think that when it comes to growing a sleep consulting business, the major sort of barrier is the mindset piece—counting yourself out before you’re even really fully in it?

Liza Montanino: I think the fear of failure, which I guess, yes, would be—

Jayne Havens: Yeah, that’s sort of what I’m saying. It’s like the fear of failure completely gets in the way of people’s success.

Liza Montanino: Yes, I think mindset probably is the biggest factor. Because if you feel like you can’t do it, or you’re so scared to do it, that you don’t give it your 100%, I think it just gets easier and easier to come up with other reasons why today is not the day to try X, Y, and Z. Then before you know it, weeks or months have gone by and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, I guess I really wasn’t cut out for this.” That’s sort of just, it snowballs from there.

But I think giving yourself one to-do item every single day, it just starts slowly. Because I think if you find really micro goals to work toward and to celebrate, that does help with the mindset piece. Where it’s like your goal doesn’t need to be to have 10 clients a month the first month that you’re in business. Just try to start smaller and be where you are, to quote my therapist. Just focus on one thing that you can do that day that will leave you feeling like things are a little bit better than they were before the day started.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think that’s right. Where can people connect with you, learn more from you? Give us the goods.

Liza Montanino: My website is www.rockabyebabysleep.com. Email liza@rockabyebabysleep.com. I am on Instagram. But for the most part, I’m sharing other people’s content or sharing posts about things that I’m doing. Not as active, not videos or anything like that. But that is @liza_rockabyebabysleep. I think those are the main places where I am.

Jayne Havens: That’s perfect. Liza, as always, it was great chatting with you. I always feel more energized about my business after speaking with you, and maybe even a little bit smarter too. So thank you. We’ll have to do this again soon.

Liza Montanino: Sounds great. Thanks for having me.

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.