Supporting Families as a Sleep Consultant with Jayne Havens
Have you ever wondered what it really looks like to support families as a sleep consultant? In this episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast, I’m breaking down what my day-to-day client support looks like. You will get to hear my entire process, from morning check-ins to handling bedtime struggles, how I leverage voice notes and baby monitor videos, and of course how I set boundaries while still being there for my clients. Jayne Havens
Whether you’re thinking about becoming a sleep consultant or looking to refine your client support process, this episode is loaded with valuable takeaways!
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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: A recent graduate of Center for Pediatric Sleep Management asked me recently what it looks like for me to support my clients. While I’ve done several episodes outlining a day in a life, I don’t think I’ve ever covered the client journey from start to finish. So here it goes.
I guess I’ll start from the beginning. At this point, almost all of my clients come to me by way of referral. Every single day, I get an email, a phone call, a text, or someone just schedules a call with me because they got my name from a friend who’s worked with me in the past. If they reach out by text, I’ll reply with a link to my calendar so they can book a call with me.
My discovery calls last about 15 minutes, and I usually start by asking them to spend three to five minutes giving me a rundown of their current sleep challenges. Once they’ve told me a bit about their circumstances, I usually follow up with a few questions before outlining what it looks like to work together. I rarely take the approach of selling them on my services, as I find that most people come to me a bit pre-sold as they’ve already heard their friends say that I was a lifesaver for them.
Once they pay via my website, I do my best to turn around a written plan within two to three days. If I’m working with an infant, my sleep plan is pretty straightforward. My plan includes safe sleep recommendations, age-appropriate daytime schedules with guidance on naps and feedings. It also always includes a really solid bedtime routine, and then typically three to four options for teaching independent sleep. For my toddlers and preschoolers, I’m including much of the same. But I’m also including a script for a family meeting, some of my parent coaching resources, as well as a video interview with a child psychologist who outlines how to best approach fear and anxiety around bedtime and sleep for this age group.
Once my clients have read through their plan, I ask them to book their kickoff call, and I do ask that they come to the call prepared with a list of questions. After I’ve answered all of their specific questions, I make sure to address anything that I feel perhaps they have overlooked or anything that I can tell they are avoiding. For example, when working with toddlers and preschoolers, I do ask that parents turn off all screens during the time that we work together. I know this is a big ask, as parents and their children are highly dependent on screens to get through the day. I’ve noticed that if I don’t specifically reiterate this on the call, it doesn’t happen. So it’s always something that I like to cover both in writing and when we speak by phone.
As we’re wrapping up this call, which usually takes about 30 minutes, I’ll take the last few minutes to outline what communication looks like moving forward. I’ll tell parents that they should set up a group text message thread so that we can all communicate together. I ask them to send me a picture of their child if they’re willing.
Parents love sharing pictures of their children, and it also helps me to put a name with a face. I let them know that after our call wraps up, we will move to text message support and voice note support. I let them know that they are free to send me a message at any time, day or night, and it’s my goal to support them in real time as much as possible.
I also let them know that I do put my phone on silent when I go to sleep, which is usually somewhere between 9:30 and 10:30 PM. If they send me a message when I’m sleeping, I’ll just answer them in the morning. I also let them know that if they feel like they need a phone call during our two weeks together, I’m always willing to chat by phone. But I do ask that the call be scheduled in advance. I ask them not to call me in a panic, as I’m often on calls with other families or taking care of my own two kids.
If they don’t need to chat by phone during our two weeks together, we absolutely will connect by phone a final time to wrap up at the end. I let families know that this is a great opportunity to discuss future travel, any upcoming nap transitions, how to handle illness, et cetera. On the first few nights of sleep training, I always make sure to be available by text for the families that I support. This is when our clients need us the most. I’m often asked by people who are interested in getting into this field how to manage offering support during bedtime when we have young kids of our own.
Honestly, my answer is that this is the price that we pay for the work-life balance that we have in this field. I do feel strongly that sleep consultants should be providing real-time support at bedtime. When my kids were younger, this meant that my husband took the primary role of handling bedtime in our home. Now my kids are older, and they essentially put themselves to bed. But there was absolutely a season of life where I took a back seat in the bedtime department in my home because I is prioritizing a high level of support for my clients.
I should also note that there are creative ways around this if you truly cannot pull yourself away from bedtime in your own home. You can support families in different time zones, or you can hire an assistant to manage this part of the job for you. The beautiful thing about being your own boss is that you get to decide what your business looks like. As long as you’re upfront with your clients and they understand what support looks like before they agree to work with you, I say do whatever works best for you and for your business.
In addition to providing real-time support at bedtime, I’m also committed to being present for my clients during the day. This is what they’re paying me for. That being said, I’m very upfront with families during the interview process, letting them know that there will be times when I’m not available to respond immediately. Usually, if there’s a delay in response, that’s because I’m driving, I’m in the shower, or I’m on the phone with another family. I always let my clients know that if I can’t respond immediately, I will answer them at my earliest convenience.
Most of my communication with parents does happen via text message, but sometimes I find that communicating via voice note is more effective. I tend to use voice notes when I have too much to write out by text, or if I need to coach them through something that’s feeling challenging and I want them to hear my heart. Sometimes, tone and intention is lost in translation when sending a written message. So if my clients need to hear a hard truth, I will almost always communicate via voice note.
In addition to text and voice note support, I also provide support by offering to listen on the monitor. Sometimes my clients think their baby is screaming intensely. But then when I ask them to send me a clip from the monitor, I can tell that their baby is actually just frustrated to still be awake. They’re not panicked: they’re just trying. When I can see this on the monitor, I can help my clients to see it too. I will show them how their baby is rubbing their face with their hands or swaying their head side to side—both signs that they’re trying to settle themselves to sleep.
The toddlers and preschoolers having access to the monitor is so helpful. Because sometimes I’ll hear a parent going off script. My process involves very specific verbiage so that we are not engaging in a power struggle with a three-year-old. When I’m able to listen in on the monitor, I can hear if a parent is veering off script. If they’re veering off from what we have discussed, I can correct them in real time so that we can get back on track and get bedtime wrapped up as quickly as possible.
Most of my clients have access to me for two full weeks. Sometimes I’ll do a quick one-week session if I think I can resolve the struggle quickly. But that is definitely the exception and not the rule. The first few days tend to be heavier on communication. But as the days go by and everyone gets into a groove, I tend to hear from parents less and less. My process is to check in first thing in the morning, somewhere between 7 and 9 AM, to see how the night went.
After that morning check-in, I leave it up to my clients to be in touch as necessary throughout the day. If I’m working with parents of a 12-week-old baby, let’s say, I may hear from them each time the baby naps. If I’m working with a baby in daycare, I usually won’t hear from the parents during the day at all.
Over the past few years, my clientele has really shifted from the baby stage to the three- to six-year-old age group. This shift has allowed me to support many more families at once because I’m providing little to no support during the day. I check in every morning and usually after bedtime, and that’s it. I love supporting school-aged children for this reason.
When things are going well, sometimes it feels a little bit like overkill to check in every single day. For example, I’m currently working with a two-year-old who sleeps in a crib. By night two, she was going down at bedtime confidently and sleeping through the night. We are currently on day 10, and it feels a little bit silly to check in every single day. So I’ve been checking in more like every other day at this point. I tend to feel it out on a case-by-case basis. When our two weeks are officially up, I will invite parents to book a wrap-up call with me, and that can take place at any point within a week or two of our time ending.
Sometimes I feel like it’s helpful for parents to have a week or so on their own so that, when they come to the closing call, they have a few questions based on their time spent without me. We spend about 20 to 30 minutes on this final call, and then we wrap up for good. I let them know that it was an absolute pleasure working with them, and the best way that they can thank me is to share my name with their circle of friends. And that’s it. I pop a thank you note and a small gift in the mail to their child, and then I wait for the referral cycle to continue.
I hope this was helpful. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you have been listening and working, please don’t be a stranger. If you’re wondering if sleep consulting would be a good fit for you, please hop onto my calendar. The link is in the show notes. I would love to connect and see if CPSM is the right fit for you.
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. community