The Art of Sturdy Coaching with Ali Manning
This week on the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast, we are talking about something that does not get discussed nearly enough in our field, and that is the emotional side of coaching families through sleep.
Supporting parents through sleep challenges is not just about wake windows and schedules. It is about holding space for big feelings, uncertainty, exhaustion, and sometimes even grief and anxiety. And as sleep consultants, we have to learn how to stay steady in the middle of all of that.
I am joined by CPSM grad Ali Manning, a pediatric sleep consultant who specializes in gradual and parent present approaches for families who feel nervous about sleep training. Ali shares how her own journey into sleep consulting shaped the way she supports parents today, and how her coaching style has evolved over the past three years in business.
In this episode, we dive into the concept of “sturdy coaching.” We talk about what it really means to hold space for parents’ emotions without absorbing them, how to avoid jumping in to fix every feeling, and why our confidence and calm presence can make all the difference for the families we serve.
Ali also opens up about the learning curve she experienced early on, the moments that pushed her to grow, and the mindset shifts that helped her stop taking client struggles personally. If you have ever felt emotionally drained by your work with families or questioned whether you are doing enough, this conversation will feel both validating and grounding.
Whether you are brand new to sleep consulting or years into your business, this episode is a powerful reminder that being a great coach is not about eliminating discomfort. It is about learning how to remain confident and sturdy while guiding families through it.
Links:
Website: Snuggles and Slumber Sleep Consulting
Instagram: @ali.manning.sleep.coach
If you’d like to learn more about becoming a Sleep Consultant, please join our Facebook Group: Becoming A Sleep Consultant
CPSM Website: Center for Pediatric Sleep Management
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.
This week on the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast, we’re talking about something that doesn’t get discussed nearly enough in our field, and that is the emotional side of coaching families through sleep. Supporting parents through sleep challenges is not just about wake windows and schedules. It’s about holding space for big feelings, uncertainty, exhaustion, and sometimes even grief and anxiety. As sleep consultants, we have to learn how to stay steady in the middle of all of it.
I’m joined today by CPSM grad Ali Manning, a pediatric sleep consultant who specializes in gradual approaches for families who feel nervous about sleep training. Ali shares how her own journey into sleep consulting shaped the way she supports families today, and how her coaching style has evolved over the past three years in business. In this episode, we dive into the concept of “sturdy coaching.” We talk about what it really means to hold space for parents’ emotions without absorbing them, how to avoid jumping in to fix every feeling, and why our confidence and calm presence can make all the difference for the families we serve.
Ali also opens up about the learning curve she experienced early on, the moments that pushed her to grow, and the mindset shifts that helped her stop taking client struggles so personally. If you’ve ever felt emotionally drained by your work with families or questioned whether you’re doing enough, this conversation will feel both validating and grounding. Whether you’re brand new to sleep consulting or years into your business, this episode is a powerful reminder that being a great coach is not about eliminating discomfort. It’s about learning how to remain confident and sturdy while guiding families through it.
Jayne Havens: Ali, welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. I’m so glad you’re here today.
Ali Manning: Thanks, Jayne. I’m so happy to be back. I can’t wait to dive in.
Jayne Havens: So for those who don’t know you, why don’t you share a little bit about yourself and also a bit about your typical client that you support as a sleep consultant?
Ali Manning: Yeah, so I got started — I’m actually coming up on my three-year anniversary for being in business in a couple of weeks, which is shocking to me. I feel like it went by in a blank in just thinking about how my business has evolved in that three years, and just the roller coaster it’s been and how it just feels so good right now. I started because my daughter was a terrible sleeper, and we were Ferber failures. I couldn’t do it on my own, so we hired a sleep consultant who helped us get her through this hump that we had been in for two years. It just changed everything for us.
So when I decided I needed to be home with my kids, I thought, “What could I do that’s still meaningful?” I was teaching, and I thought back to how much this impacted me and said, “I’ve got to become a sleep consultant.” So that’s how I got here.
Really, I couldn’t find my groove in the beginning, trying to figure out who am I going to work with, what’s my ideal client? It ended up being people who really needed a parent-present gradual approach. I think that’s because that’s where I started. I really needed someone to hold my hand and tell me it was going to be okay, and help me figure out how to get over this without doing things really quickly. I needed someone to guide me through slowly. I pretty much work with families who want to make changes with their sleep but are a little bit afraid of sleep training. We still do sleep training. We just do it in a really slow and gradual kind of one step at a time way.
Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think that there’s such a need for this type of support, because not every parent is ready to just implement Ferber with their baby. And if they’re not, that’s okay. There really needs to be coaches out there who are willing to take it slow, be patient, and—the word that we’re going to be talking about today, sturdy—be sturdy, show up sturdy. I’d love for you to share a little bit about how you would describe the term “sturdy coaching.” What does that mean?
Ali Manning: Just to start, I talk with all my clients about sturdy parenting, whether they have a baby or whether they have a five-year-old. Because I feel like that is a super critical thing, just in parenting in general, but also with sleep. That term, I believe, comes from Dr. Becky from Good Inside, who I love. She’s a great person to follow. She has a really good podcast, if you’re into parenting podcasts.
She talks about needing to be the leader in the parent-child relationship. One of her best examples that I tell all my clients is, if you’re on an airplane and there’s turbulence and you’re looking to the pilot, see what he does or she does. And if the pilot is, “Oh my God. We have turbulence. Hold on,” you’re going to be freaked out. It’s going to be really hard for you to get through that moment. But if the pilot says, “We’re going through some turbulence. I’ve done this 100 times. I’ve got this. I know we’re going to be fine,” you feel so much calmer, and you can function the way that you want and need to. So that’s something I suggest to all parents with sleep.
Even if you are a little uncertain going into it, “I know what I’m doing. I’ve got a plan. I’m going to stick with this and see this out. I’m here to support you. You can have your emotions. Emotions are okay. We’ve got this.”
As sleep coaches, I feel like we need to be sturdy coaches as well. Because especially working with families who want the gentle, gradual approach, they often, like I know a lot of my clients have struggled with infertility or baby loss. Those were all things for me as well. You have a different lens, I think, parenting when you’ve gone through some of those things. So all those little things that might not normally rock you, like your baby crying or like your baby expressing discomfort, can feel huge.
When you work with this type of client, they often have extra big emotions. So a lot of the, “I can’t do this,” or a lot of, “I don’t know if this is right,” or a lot of, “My baby is crying. My baby is crying.” So it can be hard as a coach, especially in the beginning, because you want them to feel really good.
What I found in the beginning of my coaching was, parents would have this big emotion, and I would panic. I’d be like, “Oh my gosh. I’ve got to fix this because the parent is upset.” The parent is upset. I realized I wasn’t being a very sturdy coach. I was trying to change what I was doing based on their emotions. Over time, I realized this wasn’t serving them well, because part of their problem was they weren’t being sturdy. So they were like changing their mind every five seconds, and now here I am changing my mind. What I’ve realized is, to be a sturdy coach, you have to acknowledge their emotions. Then you have to trust the process, and you have to guide them through them.
A lot of the time, that looks like naming the feeling. “Your baby is crying. That feels really uncomfortable. Let’s unpack what that crying is. Let’s unpack what you’re doing. Let’s unpack how your baby is responding.” I recently had a client who was literally holding her baby and rocking him. The baby was crying and she was like, “I’m not okay because the baby is crying.” I was like, “You are literally doing everything you can to comfort him. You’re giving him everything he needs. He’s fed, he’s changed. You’re holding him. He’s expressing that he does not know how to fall asleep without nursing, and he’s working through this change.”
Being sturdy for her and not being rattled by her emotions helped her get past this so that she could see, okay, I’m rocking him to sleep. He’s not nursing. We are okay. Everybody’s okay. So I just feel like that’s really important to acknowledge emotions, accept the emotions, and then help clients move past them and say, “Look, I’ve got this. I’ve seen this before. I’ve done this before. Trust me. Trust the process. Trust yourself, and we’ll get there.”
Jayne Havens: When did you notice that you needed to show up differently for your clients? I would imagine this isn’t wisdom that you had day one of supporting families, right? Was there either a moment when you noticed it? Was it a specific family that sort of triggered, “I got to show up differently here,” or was it just a gradual progression that evolved over time?
Ali Manning: I think it was a gradual progression. There’s definitely a couple of families that stick in my mind. They really had a longer process and more of a struggle that were huge learning shifts for me. But one of the problems I was having was, I was taking on their emotions as my own. So if my clients were having a good day, I was having a good day. If my clients were on the struggle bus, I was on the struggle bus. And just realizing how unhealthy that was and how much sense that didn’t make for me or for my client.
But I think there was one client that—I’ve talked about this client a lot, possibly on this podcast, definitely in our CPSM group—we worked together on and off for six months because they were just having such a hard time making changes. It was as gradual as it could be. At first, I really was going with — the mom would say, “I can’t, I can’t.” And I’d say, “Okay. Then don’t. Then don’t, then don’t.” I realized she’s feeding off me. Because when I’m reacting to her reactions, she feels like, “Oh my gosh. Maybe that was wrong because my coach is panicking.” So that was a huge point of reflection for me.
That’s when I really decided, look, I’ve got to show up differently. I do know what I’m doing, and I need to stay strong in that. I think that happens with experience too. In the beginning, when you’ve only had a few clients, you don’t know that everything is going to be okay. You don’t have the knowledge of all the patterns. Now, I’ve seen all these patterns so many times, so I know that often things start out really, really great. Then there’s a little lull, and then they go back to really great again. I coach all my parents that, with the gradual methods, there’s very typically two steps forward, one step back.
Two steps forward, one step back. So I coach them right from the beginning that this is not like, “Yay. Here we are, and tomorrow we’re sleeping through the night.” These are baby steps. Your baby is a human. He’s not a robot. So there’s going to be good days and bad days. That’s helped a lot, too.
Jayne Havens: One thing that I noticed with brand new sleep consultants is they often feel like, or at least they express in our CPSM community, that they want to fix the feelings of the parents. They are so uncomfortable with the parent’s discomfort, and they want to jump in and make them feel better. Do you have strategies for helping parents to sit in that discomfort and then feeling less of it yourself?
Ali Manning: I do a lot of active listening. I can talk about that in a second. But I think that really helps with not taking on feelings and helping clients work through them. When I was doing educational coaching, I had a mentor—shout out to Kim—who would always say, “Just pretend you’re a Teflon, and let it slide off.”
Because you have to remember, their emotions aren’t about us. We are like a vehicle for them right now. Sometimes emotions come to us, and we’re a lot of a sounding board. But it’s not about us. So if a client is having a bad night, or if they wake up and they’re like, “That was a horrible night,” I think some sleep consultants, and I certainly did in the beginning, take that on as, “Oh my god. I suck as a sleep consultant,” or, “They don’t think I’m doing a good job.” So we kind of take their emotions as a reflection on our performance. It’s really not that at all. Because this is a process. It’s like therapy, almost, right?
You’re working through all of these emotions. We are guiding and coaching them through. But it’s not. Their emotions aren’t most of the time a reflection on how well we’re doing. So trying to take their emotions, hear them, and then let them slide off. We don’t have to hold on to those. It’s not a reflection on us.
A strategy for that is active listening too and helping the client process, why am I feeling this way? I have talked on the phone with clients more than ever lately, because I find that’s just such a helpful thing. So just pick up the phone. “Hey, last night was really rough. Tell me about that,” and have them just talk. You listen. You don’t say a lot. You just talk and reflecting back what they say. So, yeah.
You were up seven times. That’s a lot. That’s a lot for any mom to process. How are you going to take care of yourself today? What are some things you can do to care for yourself and get yourself what you need today? So just listening and saying like, “I know it feels like you’re not going to get there,” or, “I know you felt so hopeful yesterday and today, you’re feeling x. This is what I know as a coach. I’ve done this with 100 babies. I’ve seen that most moms have this moment. You’re going to come out of this. Here’s our plan to come out of it.” So really coaching them through and just acknowledging their feelings makes such a difference for everybody.
Jayne Havens: I think sleep consulting is such emotional work. Sometimes when we get into this, we don’t necessarily realize how much it’s going to weigh on us in the beginning. I don’t know that there’s any way to avoid it in the beginning. I think when you’re first getting started, all you want is for a family to have success. You want to minimize their stress. That’s a big part of our job. We are just there to support them and hold them accountable and minimize the anxiety on the part of the child and the parents.
In the beginning, I think we’re just always carrying that weight on our shoulders to some degree. And I think you are right, that it does take working with enough families to see that they do end up having success. We do get to the other side of this, and everybody feels great. Until you’ve seen that and felt that a solid handful of times, it’s hard, right? We have to work on that ourselves so that we can support our families at the highest level.
Ali Manning: We do care so much.
We’re all in this because we want to help families, and we’re all helping kind of people. It can be hard to separate that. I think for new sleep consultants, ones who don’t end up staying in this long term, I think I’ve heard several to say that’s the reason for, like, this didn’t work for me because they had a hard time separating that progress and those daily emotions from their own emotions. So I think it’s a super important thing for all sleep consultants as you get into this field—to just what are your strategies for acknowledging feelings and normalizing them and knowing that they’re totally part of this process. And going through those emotions, it’s really important for our clients and for us as well.
Jayne Havens: I want to talk about the whole idea of gradual sleep training and what that actually means. Because I think that when people hire a sleep consultant, they think, “Oh, we’re going to get it done in two weeks, or even if it’s three weeks.” But when you’re implementing a gradual approach and then you’re seeing gradual improvement, sometimes I think — I don’t know. I think you work in this space way more than I do. But when parents are really taking a gradual approach and they’re seeing really tiny, incremental improvements, do you find that it’s harder to keep them motivated and on track because they’re not seeing the drastic improvement that you often see on night two or three of implementing check and console?
Ali Manning: I do two things to help with this. One is, in their sleep plan, I have a section on what’s happening now so that they can see this is the hell I’m living in. Because it helps us to look back and be like, “Oh my gosh. Remember when you were up 42 times in a night, and now you’re up three? Holy cow. That’s amazing.” So that’s one thing that I really do to help with that, so they can see all those little things.
I also break things down into phases, especially if I have — I do work with some clients for a six-week duration. It’ll be, “This is phase one of our plan. This is phase two.” So they can look at, “Oh my gosh, I met my phase one goals.” So giving them tangible things to see is super helpful. I also talk with all of them about being in a marathon. Because when you run a marathon, you start out super excited, raring to go. You’re like, “It’s going to be the best thing ever.”
Then you get about halfway through, and you go through that, “this is so stupid. Why am I here? I don’t want to do this. It’s never going to end.” Then you get to the finish, and you have this incredible high of, “Oh my gosh. I did this. I want to do another one again tomorrow. This is amazing. I need it.” You’re so proud of yourself.
When you do gradual sleep training, it’s very similar to that. Parents start out, “I’m so excited, I’m going to have some relief. Things are going to be better.” Then they get in the middle, and there’s often this low of, “Why isn’t my baby sleeping through the night? I’ve been working really hard on this.” That’s when we have to coach through. “Here’s all the changes you’ve made. Let’s get there.” Then they get to the finish, and you get the, “I never thought I would have these results. I never thought my baby would sleep. This is amazing.”
Jayne Havens: How do you handle families that aren’t following the plan exactly? I would imagine in your work, this comes up a fair amount, maybe for two reasons. One, because these are parents that are really apprehensive about sleep training, and two, just from sheer exhaustion, right? If you’re implementing a really gradual approach and you’re three weeks in, it’s really difficult to be consistent three weeks in to putting in a lot of work. I work with families that three days in are too tired to be consistent. So I would imagine that just sheer exhaustion plays a role in their lack of consistency. How are you coaching them through that? How are you managing?
Ali Manning: A couple of different things. One, and this was another learning curve for me. One of my very first clients will always be, every client says, “Am I your hardest client?” I hold that badge of honor for one of my very first clients, the one who took about six months, who I absolutely adore. I am still in contact with her at least once a month. She holds that on her.
She literally could not stick to the plan, because she was so overwhelmed, so tired, so afraid of messing up the bond with her baby. There were so many things to unpack that were making the sleep issue challenging. Her husband was supportive, but in a way that wasn’t necessarily the way that she needed him to show up in the context of sleep training. So it was a real challenge for her. In the beginning, for me, I was so frustrated, because I just wanted her to have results. Why can’t she just follow the plan? Then I realized she was literally doing the best she could. She was making baby steps, but they were the babiest of baby steps.
The turning point for me was, I realized she was proud of herself for these moments, that I was like, “What? Why didn’t she do that last night?” She would text me in the morning and be like, “Guess what? I touched her four times last night instead of six,” while they were co-sleeping. I feel like, that’s great. I realized that was — I mean, that’s an exaggeration. But that’s where she was at, right? She needed the babiest of baby steps, and she knew that. She moved in the pace she could.
Every couple of months, we’d take a break and come back together. I’ll never forget the night that she texted and said, “Guess what? My baby slept through the night.” And I almost fell on the floor because even I was like, is this ever going to happen? But it did. And so what she taught me was, I think, grace and perspective. Because I realized some of these moms are barely functioning. All moms who are not sleeping, it’s hard—especially if you are a working mom and you’re not sleeping, and then you’re going to work and having to function as a professional all day, and then come home and just all those layers.
Sometimes you literally can’t do things. So she really taught me perspective and grace when I saw how much she wanted it. I keep that in mind with all of my clients now. I try to ask myself: what’s my client experiencing? So that has been a huge shift for me. That’s another Dr. Becky when I used that with my kids too. When you’re having a hard moment with someone, what are they experiencing right now? That’s a really huge shift.
Jayne Havens: You just are speaking in a way that you know that you’re good at this work. I think that that takes time. It takes having success stories and living through those really challenging cases and getting through to the other side and realizing that, no, I’m not scared of the way that mom is feeling right now. Because I know that if we keep working, we’re going to get there. It just, I don’t know. I’m just so happy that you’re in that place.
I’m in that place too. I am not afraid of my client’s feelings and emotions around sleep training. Parents will say to me all the time, “This isn’t working. This isn’t working. It’s getting worse.” I always just tell them, “I’ll let you know when I’m worried. I’m not worried. I’m really totally comfortable with where we are right now. I know that it feels uncomfortable for you, and I know that maybe you’re getting a little bit less sleep than you were getting before, when you were providing all of these accommodations to keep your baby quiet and sleepy, but not really actually sleeping.” I just think it takes time and experience.
Having those cases under your belt, like, you know, we just don’t feel this way right out of the gate. I love that you’re sharing the tools and the strategies and the communication, the verbiage that you use with families. But at the end of the day, for anybody who’s sort of brand new and just getting started, I think a really important message is to cut yourself some slack and give yourself some time to get there. Because none of us felt this way, neither of us felt this way on day one.
Ali Manning: Find someone in our group too to support you. That’s been a huge game changer for me, having my business besties. So talking through the client side of things, we always are texting like, “What do you think about this client? What would you do for this client?” That’s been such a huge support system. I feel like everybody needs that, or even just someone to tell you it’s going to be okay.
Jayne Havens: I have that too. I still, every single day, I chat with Kerri Nachlas. She’s my business bestie in my sleep piece of my work. She’s my overall business bestie too. She and I are chatting all day long about our cases. What’s interesting is, sometimes when I’m really frustrated about a certain situation, she’ll say something that very quickly can change my mindset on it. I think having somebody who can bring you back down, bring you home, is super valuable. Because just like our clients are hiring us to support them, sometimes we need people to support us as well so that we can show up as best we can for the families that we’re supporting.
Where do you see your business three years from now? Are you in a spot where your business looks the way you want it to look? Are you still looking to grow your business? How do you see this evolving?
Ali Manning: I’ve got big dreams, and I’m committed to saying them out loud.
Jayne Havens: Then I’m going to give you a space to do so. Go for it. Say it.
Ali Manning: So I started doing some potty training consulting as well. I have opened up to just all of these community needs, all these support for moms. So I am working on starting an agency that’s going to encompass all things parent support. So it’s going to be a slow process, I think, starting one little bit at a time. But I’m super excited for that adventure. That’s my big focus right now.
Jayne Havens: I’m really excited about that for you. I love that you’re not sitting in your own comfort zone, that you’re going to remain uncomfortable in order to grow. That just makes me so happy. I think when we first spoke years ago, you just really, really felt comfortable being comfortable, you know?
Ali Manning: Yep.
Jayne Havens: And as you have grown your business and you’ve gained your confidence, I think you’re so much more comfortable now sitting in that feeling of moderate discomfort. In order to get to the next level in your business—not even just to get to the next level in your business, but to be a better consultant, right—to be better at your job, you have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. And I see you doing that all the time, which is just incredibly impressive. I just cannot wait to see how it all unfolds. Congrats on your success.
Before we wrap up, share whatever you’d like to share, your website, Instagram, whatever. Share the goodies.
Ali Manning: Yep, you can find me at www.snugglesandslumber.com. There is also a pajama company with that name now, so you need to be careful when you type it in. I should probably team up with them. Let’s see. My Insta is ali.manning.sleepcoach and my Facebook is Snuggles and Slumber Sleep Consulting. So I would love to connect with anybody on there anytime.
Jayne Havens: Thanks, Ali. Always great chatting with you. We’ll do it again soon.
Ali Manning: Awesome. Thanks, Jayne.
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