Holding Firm on Your Boundaries with Jayne Havens

 

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Transcript:boundaries

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: If you hang out in the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Facebook group, you might have seen a really important and insightful conversation we had last week about safe sleep. I asked the group if anyone had ever come up against families who pushed back on following safe sleep guidelines. Because, believe it or not, in my 12 years of supporting families through sleep training, I’d never really faced that situation until recently. This was a new and challenging experience for me, and I thought it would be helpful to come onto the podcast today and share what happened, how I navigated it, and what I learned.

My learning lesson might just become a learning lesson for you too. First, let me say this. I firmly believe that parents have the right to make their own choices about how they wish to parent and how they want their children to sleep. My role as a sleep consultant is not to force parents into doing things my way. It’s to guide them using safe, evidence-based recommendations and to help them implement strategies that align with their goals. I’ve never been one to shame or bully families into abandoning bed sharing, for example. If that’s what they feel is best for them, then that’s their choice. But I’m just not the right support person for those families.

The families that I work with understand from the start that I follow the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for safe sleep. For anyone who might be new here, the AAP guidelines recommend that babies sleep alone in a crib, bassinet, or pack and play on a firm and flat surface. Babies who are not yet rolling can be swaddled or sleep in a transitional product.

Once they learn to roll, they really should be transitioned into a sleep sack or a wearable blanket. The sleep space should be clear with nothing in it but a tight-fitted sheet on the mattress. This means no blankets, no pillows, no lovies, no stuffed animals, no bumpers, even the breathable kind. While those may seem harmless, they pose risks that we don’t want to take.

Now let’s get into the story. A few weeks ago, I started with a family who has a really sweet, little 10-month-old baby boy. This little guy was only sleeping in 45-minute stretches overnight, which was exhausting for him and, of course, his parents. Both mom and dad are doctors, so sleep was incredibly important for them. They were also pretty resistant to the idea of sleep training. Before hiring me, they had a night nanny who rocked their baby back to sleep 10 to 12 times a night. That’s how they were handling the situation.

This mom had heard about me through one of her close friends — a family I had actually worked with twice before. I have so much love and respect for that family. So when this mom reached out, I was genuinely excited to help her. I sent over a written sleep plan outlining three different sleep training methods. And after some discussion, they chose to implement the check and console method based on my recommendation.

During the first night of implementing the plan, mom was understandably pretty anxious. It’s always hard when your baby is adjusting to a new way of

sleeping. To reassure her and to check in on how things were going, I asked her to send me a video of the baby’s monitor. When she sent me the clip, I could not believe what I was seeing. The crib had padded bumpers around the inside perimeter, plus mesh bumpers layered on top. There were blankets, stuffed animals, and even what looked like maybe a small pillow in the crib.

I want to pause here to say this. Seeing an unsafe sleep space is not entirely uncommon when I start working with new families. Most of the time, if this happens, it’s because parents just simply don’t know. They might think that certain products are fine because their market it as safe. When in actuality, they’re really not. Or they might have been gifted something that feels cozy and comforting for their baby, not realizing that it poses a safety risk. That’s why education is such a key part of the work that we do as sleep consultants.

Once I received this video of this little 10-month-old baby standing upset in his crib, I reassured mom that her baby was okay. But I also very gently let her know that we really needed to clear the crib to make his sleep space safe for him. I wasn’t expecting what came next. She replied, and this was all over text message. She replied with big capital letters: “HE’S SAFE.” I’ll admit. I was taken aback by this. This was really new territory for me. In 12 years of supporting families, I had never had a parent pushback so strongly on safe sleep guidelines, and certainly not a parent who was a medical professional.

I think that what surprised me the most is that, as a doctor, I thought she’d recognize that these recommendations are evidence-based and not arbitrary. Here’s the thing: I’m not here to judge anyone’s parenting decisions, but I also have to hold a firm boundary in my business and with my values. I let her know that, ultimately, the choice was hers, but I couldn’t continue to support her while knowing that her baby was sleeping in an unsafe environment. This is a boundary that I was not willing to compromise on — for her child’s safety or for mine. I told her I’d stick around and support her that night.

But starting the next day, I needed to see that the crib had been made safe for her child. That’s when things got tricky. Instead of making the changes, mom started telling me that the Wi-Fi wasn’t working on her monitor so she couldn’t send me videos. I’ll be honest. I knew what was happening. This was her way of avoiding the issue. I’ve worked with families in the past who didn’t realize their baby’s sleep space wasn’t entirely safe. But as soon as I brought it to their attention, they made the changes immediately. This situation was entirely different.

For the next 10 days, we were essentially in a standoff. I continued to check in and offered to talk things through with her. I even left her voice notes inviting her to schedule a call so that she could share her concerns or questions. but she largely ignored my attempts to connect. Finally, during one of our texts, she told me she wasn’t worried about suffocation or rebreathing, which she knew were the primary concerns with bumpers.

At that moment, I realized that she thought she knew better. And, as a doctor, she probably assumed that she should know better than me. But I explained that the risks go beyond suffocation. I told her that at 10 months old, her little guy could use the bumpers and the pillow to hoist himself up and climb out of his crib. “Oh,” she said, “I never thought of that.” And there it was, the shift. I think that was just the moment when she recognized me as the expert. Up until then, she saw me as just a sleep consultant, not someone with knowledge and experience she could trust.

It’s a really tough position to be in, and I wanted to share this story because I know many of you listening are new to this work. If I had been brand-new in this field, I think the situation would have rocked me. I probably would have second-guessed myself. But here’s what I knew for sure. I was right. I was giving her evidence-based guidance. I was holding firm on my boundaries, and I was protecting both my client’s baby and my business.

Ultimately, she did come around. By the time the crib was safe, we had just about, I think, three days left together. But in those three days, her little guy made incredible progress. He was going down at bedtime without a fight and sleeping until the morning. Somewhere along the way, during that time where we weren’t in day-to-day communication, mom had actually started feeding him once in the middle of the night. And that still persisted through our time together. And you know what? That’s okay. I gave her instructions for gradually night weaning when she was ready, and I left it at that.

Not every case is a perfect slam dunk, and that’s okay. This mom and I didn’t have the greatest rapport. But I did do my job, and I felt really good about that. I stayed firm in my values. I held my boundaries, and I delivered the safest, most effective support that I could. At the end of the day, this little boy is sleeping better, and he’s safe. That’s a win in my book. I hope this story reminds you that challenges will come up in this work, no matter how much experience you have. And when challenges do arise, you have to trust your training, trust the evidence, and trust yourself because you are the expert.

Now, for those of you who are listening who are just thinking about getting into this line of work, I want to speak directly to you. I know this kind of situation can feel incredibly overwhelming and make you question whether or not you even want to get into this field. I get it. I want you to understand that being a certified sleep consultant will give you the knowledge and the confidence that you need to hold your boundaries and to trust the process. When you’re properly trained and certified, you can lean on evidence-based guidelines, and you can feel confident that you’re providing the safest, most effective solutions for the families you support.

Challenges like this are not a reflection on us as sleep consultants. They’re a part of the learning process. It’s okay to feel nervous and unsure. But over time, you’ll develop the skills to navigate even the trickiest situations with grace and professionalism. I’m actually really proud of the way that I handled this situation, and it set me up for future situations that might be similar down the road. Certification will prepare you to stand firm in your values, while also understanding how to communicate with both empathy and respect. At the end of the day, you’re here to support families and to help their little ones thrive. And sometimes, that means having really tough conversations.

This podcast is usually a more puppies-and-rainbows type of vibe, but I also think it’s important to have real talk. And that’s why I shared this story with you today. This work can be really hard, sometimes emotionally draining or taxing. But I think it’s always worth it. This little guy is safe in his crib because of me. He’s sleeping so much better through the night. I don’t care what anybody says. I’m going to call it a win!

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. boundaries