Becoming a Children’s Book Author with Aly Dabbs

 

In this episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast, I’m joined by CPSM graduate and now Amazon best-selling children’s book author Aly Dabbs! Aly’s story is such a beautiful reminder that entrepreneurship doesn’t always follow a straight line, and that when you lean into your passion, one opportunity can open the door to the next.

After leaving her HR career to stay home with her children, Aly built a sleep consulting business centered around supporting toddler families. That work eventually inspired her to write Bedtime Hearts, a playful and heartwarming children’s book that’s already topping the charts on Amazon. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Aly went from feeling stuck to taking consistent action and gaining momentum in her business
• Why she fell in love with toddler sleep support, and how she uses playfulness to make bedtime more enjoyable for families
• The story behind Bedtime Hearts and how sleep consulting paved the way for Aly to achieve her dream of becoming a children’s book author

 

Links:

Website: Restful Baby
Instagram: @aly_sleepconsultant
Buy Bedtime Hearts here: Bedtime Hearts

 
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.

Jayne Havens: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast. Today, I’m joined by a CPSM graduate. Her name is Aly Dabbs. Aly has built her business from the heart. She has found passion in supporting toddler families, and now she’s officially a published children’s book author.

Aly, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to chat with you today.

Aly Dabbs: Hi. Oh, my goodness. This is going to be so much fun. I’m excited to be here.

Jayne Havens: So tell us a little bit about you. Who are you? Why did you decide to become a certified sleep consultant?

Aly Dabbs: Yes, so quick summary: I am a mom. I live in the Nashville area. I was actually pregnant with our second. Whenever I was like, “Man, I’m working full-time in HR. I’m doing this 8 to 5,” I’m not feeling really fulfilled, and I wanted to be with my babies. I kept searching for this thing that I could do, and what kept coming up was sleep consulting.

Because we had worked with a sleep consultant the first time around. And if you had bottled that up, it felt pretty magical and everything else started clicking into place when sleep wasn’t such just a garbage disaster. I wanted to be able to help moms through a period of life that feels really, really hard and oftentimes isolating—having been there myself. I jumped on a call with you, and the rest was history. It was pretty much like, jump off the cliff—let’s do it, all in. And I’m so glad that I did.

Jayne Havens: And so that was back — I was looking. I think that was back in 2023 when you got certified. Tell us a little bit about what the beginning of sleep consulting looked like for you, and how that’s evolved slowly over the past two years.

Aly Dabbs: It’s crazy how much things can change in a year and a half, almost two years. But I graduated, I think it was like two days before my youngest was born. I remember being in the hospital jumping on Facebook mom groups, trying to schedule consult calls from when I was back home and doing some pro bono-work. I did that. That was in September. So for the rest of the years, kind of just working with families pro bono, just getting out there, talking to people, pitching my service. I got on a lot of consult calls, because I was at home and my baby was mostly sleeping.

Then kind of in January, I had a toddler at home. I had quit my job, and things just kind of stalled. I felt really, really stuck. Jayne, if you remember, in February, I jumped on a call with you to just kind of like re-figure out where I was, what I needed to do. I didn’t know what to ask. I didn’t write down any questions. I was so unprepared, overwhelmed, all of the things. I got on that call with you. And it was like, “Hey, this is how you show up for your business.”

You were not prepared for this call, probably not prepared for business, but you gave me action items to, like, “Hey, you’re either going to do this, or you’re not.” I probably could have taken that and be like, “Whatever. I’m done.” But I didn’t. I took it, I ran with it, and it was a game-changer. It made me really show up for my business, which I think is at play today.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, that call that you and I had—whether it was a year and a half ago, two years, whatever—is such a core memory for me. Clearly, it is for you as well. All you needed was that kick in the tush. You’re smart. You’re capable. You’re spending all this time thinking about your business. You’re not actually spending any time taking action on your business. Let’s get to work. Right?

What are some things that we can put into place today and tomorrow and the next day and the following day so that you can actually build your business? We talked about it, and you did it. It was such a turning point, I think, for your career. But it was also a turning point for me because, really, it highlighted that I can make people successful. I really can do this for people, but I need them to take charge and do it for themselves too.

Aly Dabbs: Yeah, it really hit home. And I know one thing that you suggested was getting an accountability buddy. And so I did. That day, I went and I posted. I had a few people. We formed like this little group. That kind of like was steady and then fizzled over time. But what came of that is one of the ladies in my little accountability group ended up going from being an accountability buddy to business bestie, to now we meet up annually, travel and vacation together, and talk every single day. We used to text, but now we do voice notes. So it’s like talking on the phone but not, and we love it. Just this beautiful friendship and support came out of it.

Jayne Havens: I love that so much, because I also have a business bestie who I send voice notes to back and forth all day long. I really do find that it helps me to stay engaged with my business. Because the more I’m talking about my business, the more I’m thinking about my business, the more I’m inclined to take action on my business. And when you’re going at it alone, I think it can feel easy to just put it on the back burner.

Even if it’s just for today, like, “Ugh. Today I’m not going to worry about it. Maybe I’ll worry about it tomorrow.” And if you don’t have somebody to have those conversations with regularly, I think it’s really easy to just let it go. So I have that. I’m glad you have that too.

Let’s shift gears a little bit. I want to talk about your love for toddler sleep. I know that you’ve niched down, and you’re really focusing on toddlers and preschoolers. Why did you decide to niche down? What is it that you love so much about toddlers? Talk about that a little bit.

Aly Dabbs: I think it came from my oldest kind of joining the toddler group and big little kid era, and really finding out how much personality and interaction and communication that they’re capable of. But one thing that really stood out for me — because I’m that quirky, awkward, random, fun person that is just usually doing something nerdy like bird watching, or reading books, or something like that. But I really like the playfulness and the ability to bring fun into bedtime when you have toddlers, more so than you can do when you have little bitty babies. Something that we’ve done with our own is make fun games. If he’s not really wanting to put his pajamas on, can we make this a really fun game?

One thing we do is we’ll put Alexa on to have like a two-minute timer. He’s like, ” Can mommy beat the clock?” We’re going and we’re talking fast. We’re rushing and we’re rushing. He gets really into it, and he thinks it’s this fun thing. I started bringing more things like that into getting ready for bed, bedtime routine, all of the things. Then working with families that I was working with one-on-one, to do some of those same things to just make bedtime this really fun moment, and then winding down the day doing more of that instead of screaming and fighting and, “Ugh. Can you just go to bed? It’s been two hours.”

Jayne Havens: I love that. I feel the same way. I wouldn’t say that I’ve niched down entirely to toddler sleep. I still work with babies. But I get so much joy out of working with parents who have older children. I find that the whole process is so empowering for them to realize that bedtime doesn’t need to be miserable. It doesn’t need to be the longest, drawn-out, worst part of the day. It can be a part of the day that parents look forward to. I really love empowering parents to sort of like take back control over bedtime, and really turn it into a lovely experience. And it sounds like that’s what you’re doing as well.

Aly Dabbs: I agree with all of that. Plus, we have very little patience sometimes at the end of the night, so if we can just make it a little bit more fun. Because I don’t want to go through bedtime battles at the end of the day.

Jayne Havens: No, nobody wants to. Okay. So let’s talk about what we’re really here to talk about—your book. Okay. So this is so exciting. For everybody listening, Aly wrote a children’s book about bedtime. Literally, it went on sale, what, yesterday or two days ago on Amazon, right?

Aly Dabbs: Yes.

Jayne Havens: So you literally just launched it. The second I saw her launch it, I went on Amazon. I purchased it. Honestly, I was not expecting the book to be here in time for our interview. But I was just telling Aly before we started recording—I happened to go check outside my front door three minutes before we were set to hop onto Zoom and have this conversation, and lo and behold, the book was outside. I raced through it. The book is so impressive. I don’t know what I was expecting. I mean, I actually have rarely read books about bedtime that I find to be particularly special.

Like when families ask, “Do you have a really good book that you can recommend,” I honestly don’t. I don’t love most of the books that are out there that are about bedtime. I read through this super quickly, and my heart literally skipped a beat because it has a different angle, a different take. And Aly, why don’t you tell us about it? Tell everybody the story and how the book is all laid out.

Aly Dabbs: Okay. I’m going to start with—I love talking about the book—kind of what sparked the curiosity. Because it will kind of make a little bit of sense. But last kind of early summer, I was working one on one with a toddler family. It was a little girl who was about three, four years old. Oddly enough, I had never worked with a little girl before.

I’m a boy mom. All of my clients have been boys, unintentionally. I have no idea how this worked out. But she was my first little girl client, and it was completely different. She was the fussiest, most adorable, sweetest little girl. But everything that I was throwing at her with bed time to improve like staying in her room, not getting up, she didn’t want any part of. So we really had to troubleshoot, spin our wheels, figure out what motivated her.

Once that happened, once we figured out what motivates this little girl particularly, then it was a game changer. It was a light switch moment, and she was sleeping through the night. I was lying in bed. Oh, man. I also don’t have a lot of books that I really recommend that are kids’ books for bedtime. There’s probably some out there. There’s not that many, but there’s not a lot that I’m like, “Oh, I love this book at bedtime.”

There’s this quote that, “If you’re looking for a book and there’s not one out there, then you have to write it.” Just really brief, when I was in high school and younger, little bitty kid, I’ve always loved reading. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a writer. I didn’t think that it was possible. I used to write these awful short stories that were worse than like a Lifetime movie, network movie. They were terrible. I just kind of ignored it. I buried it. I was lying in bed when that spark ignited. I got chills. It was like this sensation of, “This is going to be huge, and you have to do this.”

I didn’t know the first thing about writing—let alone a children’s book. You have to find an illustrator. A picture book is a whole another game changer than just writing a novel. They’re totally different. I had a lot to learn, but I just went at it piece by piece, figured it out. But taking that little girl’s story, I pulled from that experience, working with families one on one through sleep coaching as a sleep coach, I pulled from my own experiences as a mom of two little crazy kids. The story kind of didn’t write itself, but it just kind of all flowed.

There were times where I’m like, okay, I really need to shift gears and maybe pause the book a little bit. Because I need to bring in revenue and work on my fleet coaching business more than the book. Where do I want to be spending my time? But nothing that I could do that could tame this. It was, this is what I am supposed to be doing. And so I started writing it.

The story is about a little girl. The main character is Sylvie. She is having a hard time staying in her own bed at night, sleeping through the night. She is super tired the next day. I thought about the parents, the parents that are going through this, and how they are up all night. They’re not getting good sleep. If their kids are in bed with them, then they’re getting like kids shoving in their bed and poking their ribs and tossing and turning all night. They’re at work, and they’re super tired that they can’t really function the next day. So I bottled all of that up, and the story kind of formed. But the little twist here is to make it fun and entertaining for kids.

It’s a little bit of role reversal. Sylvie, again, she’s not able to sleep, and she’s having a hard time with bedtime. But the reason is because her parents are the ones that are sneaking into her bed in the middle of the night. They’re stalling bedtime because they want to stay up all night, and they don’t want to go to bed. She’s tired of daycare. She can’t even play with her friends. So flipping the chart here and making it to where Sylvie really wants to be sleeping, but her parents are the reason that she can’t.

Then throughout the story, she’s trying to figure out, “How am I going to get my parents to sleep through the night? Because I’m tired.” She’s throwing things at them, and she’s trying different things. They’re like, “Nope, I don’t want any part of this. I’m good.” Then at the very end, she figures out.

She comes up with the idea of Bedtime Hearts. So it’s playing on the door hearts method to use for sleep coaching. And so she introduces the bedtime hearts. Her parents are really excited about it. She uses them. Then at the very end, Sylvie is so excited because she slept through the night in her own bed. So it kind of flips it back a little bit. In the story, she’s excited because her parents slept through the night—but really, she slept in her bed all night long, and they did it together.

Jayne Havens: I just love it. I love it. I know that kids will love this book. I cannot wait. I have a little three-year-old nephew who I think is going to be totally into this. I can’t wait to share it with clients and friends. It’s just a great book. I read this and I was like, “This is a fantastic spin to really get kid’s attention.” Right? Because it’s the parents that are being mischievous and the parents who are doing, you know. It’s a flipped script. It’s adorable. I love it.

Aly Dabbs: Yay! I’m really excited. Just big announcement. It launched yesterday, and it hit Amazon’s number one Hot New Releases. So it’s number one Amazon Hot New Release, and it is currently number three Amazon Best Seller List. I’m going for number one. I’m so close. But just to be on the Amazon Best Seller List and to see my book number three has been just — I can’t even explain it. I’m over the moon.

Jayne Havens: It’s so exciting. I’m so proud of you. You know, it just makes me think when people come to me and they’re interested in becoming sleep consultants. I don’t think, two years ago, you ever had a thought about being a children’s book author, right? That was not on your radar. You got into this field because you wanted to support families. You had this experience of being supported yourself, and you wanted to help others. I just love — it’s not just you.

We have a lot of people inside of the CPSM community who have started in this field supporting families one way, or growing their business as a sleep consultant in a very specific way, and then their journey takes a left turn. They do something that’s related but totally different. I love that. I just think, for some people, it’s a springboard. And for you, I think it gave you the knowledge and the experience and the passion so that you could write this incredible book.

Aly Dabbs: Yeah, originally, when I started writing it, I thought that writing this book and having this book out there would leverage me more as an expert in my field as a sleep consultant. What I learned was, it was almost the opposite and that becoming certified through the Center for Pediatric Sleep Management and becoming a certified sleep coach was the stepping stone to be able to reach children and connect with them more about that time through this book, and really just leaning into the playfulness and fun part of it.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, you know, I love to ask people what’s next. But what’s next is probably that you’re getting this book into as many hands as possible. I have to ask you, do you anticipate writing more books? I have to ask you, what’s next?

Aly Dabbs: Yes, so I am currently still reaching, trying to get more reach for this book, growing the excitement and promoting this. I have this new goal of getting Bedtime Hearts in the local stores across the 50 states. I’m in Tennessee, so I’ve already got Tennessee. There’s a couple of stores that are going to have it on their shelf. So not just on Amazon or online through Barnes and Nobles, but I’ve also expanded to Illinois. So I shipped my books there for a bookstore. So I’m really excited about that.

But this book, really, it will be fine for all ages like the little kids, kind of one to five, one to six age range. But it is kind of more of like the older toddlers, like three to five would be most ideal. So I want to write a book that is also aligned with sleep and bedtime but geared towards the one year olds or the younger kids. Not necessarily a board book, but kind of along those lines. So a little bit more targeted for the younger age to have a bedtime story. I already got some ideas and things concepted out that I haven’t started. So I just really wanted to give Bedtime Hearts the justice and space that it deserved.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, 100%. You’re so fortunate. I’m going to help you with this. You’re so fortunate to have such a large sleep consultant community behind you, right? CPSM grads, if there’s one thing anybody knows about any of us is that we all support one another. It’s a very collaborative and really wonderfully kind and supportive community. I just know that CPSM grads are going to be sharing this book with their clients and spreading the word, maybe sending it to families as a thank you gift at the end of your time working. There are so many ways that we can support you to get this book into the hands of more and more families. So I just can’t wait to see that happen for you.

Aly Dabbs: Oh, yeah, that couldn’t be more true. Because I’ve kind of shared in the Facebook groups and things for CPSM graduates the progress of the book—from when we started to when I was like, “I’m putting this out there and I’m sharing it.” Just the level of love and support that showed up and I could tell, they were so excited and wanted to be a part of it and to see where this would go. So that was really cool.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, well, I’m really proud of you. I cannot wait to share this with the world. I just hope that you’ll keep us posted as we get that book to number one. And if you write more books down the road, of course, we want to be in the know. So, Aly, congrats on your early success with the launch. I just can’t wait to tell everybody.

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.