My First Paying Client with Jayne Havens

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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: I was racking my brain trying to think of a podcast topic that would be worthy of the first episode being released in 2026, and I just felt like all of my ideas were falling short. Because, I don’t know, it’s the new year. I wanted to really come out with a bang, and nothing was really landing.

The last episode that I aired in 2025 was all about goal setting and setting intentions for the new year. So then it didn’t really make sense to do something so similar for the first episode of 2026. And then in the 11th hour, an idea came to me. I’m excited about it. This is totally unscripted. I don’t know if it’s going to land. But either way, I think I’m going to air it because I don’t have a backup plan. And sometimes that’s just how my business works.

This idea popped into my head where I thought it might be fun to share a little bit about my first ever client that I ever supported. Because it’s the first episode of 2026, why not share my first client ever? I don’t know. I thought it was a good idea. We’re rolling with it.

Before I get started, I want to give you guys a heads up that I actually don’t remember all of the details. I do not even remember the mom’s name. I remember the little girl’s name. Her name was Samantha. But I don’t remember the mom’s name. I could look back in my phone, but I didn’t want to cheat. I just wanted to do this off the cuff, last minute, figure it out. Boom, boom, boom. And that’s what we’re doing.

So this little girl, Samantha, was six years old, and she was bed sharing. She was sleeping with her mom every single night. She was also still in overnight diapers. There was a lot of attachment and just a really, really strong connection and bond with mom. Samantha had a lot of separation anxiety, both daytime and nighttime, just always wanted her mom to be by her side. I think, if I remember correctly, they had been bedsharing for a really, really long time, and mom was just ready to make a change.

This was my first ever paying client as a certified sleep consultant. When I first decided to become a sleep consultant, the reason I decided I wanted to do this work is because I was really good at sleep training my own kids, who were babies.

They were not six-year-olds. They were four months old when I sleep trained them, and they slept beautifully ever after, pretty much. And so I had zero personal experience with any sort of toddler or preschooler sleep challenges. I never had a child climb out of the crib. I never had a child who wouldn’t stay in bed. I never went through any of the stuff that so many parents struggle with—where they feel like they need to sit in the room while their child falls asleep, then their child is up in the middle of the night and they’re getting into bed with them, or they’re sitting in a chair waiting till they fall asleep again. I never did any of that.

Honestly, I don’t think it’s because I got lucky. I think it’s just because I really, always had really, really clear expectations and firm boundaries around what sleep look like in my home. So if one of my children was struggling, you know, if they were sick, of course, I met their needs. If they needed a little extra TLC and it caught me off guard, I would provide it. But then, once they were healthy, or once I realized this was just a one-night thing, I immediately sort of recalibrated and got sleep back on track. So nothing ever spiraled in my home. So this was really unfamiliar territory to me.

Now, of course, I had just been through a sleep consultant certification program. I was trained. I had tools. But I didn’t have any personal experience.

As a brand-new sleep consultant, fresh out of the gate, this really, honestly, was scary. It was overwhelming. I didn’t have a whole lot of support. I didn’t have anybody helping me. So it was me. And so I spoke to this mom, and she told me all about her daughter. It was a combination of daytime separation anxiety, bedtime separation anxiety. Again, this was something that was not anything that I had any personal experience with, but I just went for it. And so I wrote her a plan. I don’t remember exactly what it said, but I do remember what my process used to be.

My process now, if this family had hired me today, it would actually look a lot different than what it looked like when I supported this family. I had fewer tools. I had no experience, and so I really was just basing the plan off of what I learned in a course, which is a great place to start. And so, most likely, what I coached them through — actually, I know that what I coached them through was the chair method. And so we gradually pulled mom out of the room at bedtime and also in the middle of the night. What I do remember is that she was wildly successful. This little girl did great.

What I realized very quickly is that six-year-olds are easy. Because six-year-olds understand. And so we were able to communicate the plan with her. We were able to sit down. Now, this was before — I guess now would be a good time to tell everybody.

For those who don’t know, I just recently got my parent coaching certification, which I am so excited about. I am all over the place on this podcast, but you’re going to have to just bear with me. I recently just got certified to work as a parent coach. The reason I did that is because I was working with so many toddlers and preschoolers and early elementary age kiddos, and what I realized in my work with these families is that parents thought that they had a sleep struggle. They thought that their child was just not a good sleeper, or didn’t want to go to bed, or hated bedtime. And really, it wasn’t so much about bedtime. It was really just about a lack of boundaries around sleep.

Usually, these families who are struggling with boundaries around sleep are also struggling with boundaries during the daytime. The kids who don’t want to stay in bed also aren’t really great at getting themselves dressed in the morning. They’re not great with sitting nicely at the dinner table. They typically have a hard time with being told it’s time to clean up and transition away from play to bath.

And so I really felt like I needed the tools to more effectively communicate this with parents, and really approach the struggle that they were up against more holistically. And so I decided to get my parent coach certification. I am armed now with so many better tools and so much more verbiage and communication strategies that really position parents to show up with a higher level of confidence and a greater level of authority with their children. It’s really just been very transformative. But back in the day, I did not have all of these tools.

That being said, I understood what a six-year-old looks like. Six-year-olds, you can communicate with them. You can role play. I’m sure we put all of that into place. What I do remember clearly about this process is that mom was so coachable. She literally soaked up every single thing that I said. It really empowered me. Because this was my first case. This was the first time that anybody had paid me to help them. She really, really valued my knowledge, my expertise, my coaching. Everything that I offered to her, she was here for it. I will say that that experience, I think, really boosted my confidence. It boosted my morale. It made me feel like, “Man, I’ve got this. I can do this.”

I coached her through the chair method. We gradually pulled our way out of the room at bedtime. I don’t remember. I wish I could remember. I think — I can’t swear to it, but I think that we were just working on bedtime at first. Because this had been a long-time bedsharing family, and I just really felt like it was going to be a lot to tackle bedtime and night wakings all at the same time. So we really just worked on teaching her to fall asleep in her own bed. Once she had mastered falling asleep in her own bed, then we really sort of put the pedal to the metal and held the same expectations overnight.

What I can tell you is that this little girl did so well. She gained so much confidence. I remember mom telling me that she was the kid that wanted mom to go to the bathroom with her at six years old, in their own home. This child really, really gained her confidence. What she realized through this process is that she was highly capable and that she could do the hard things. Really, all it took was a little bit of discomfort tolerance on the part of mom. Really, the two of them worked together, and they got it done. So that was amazing. It really built my confidence and made me feel so, so good about the fact that I was going to be successful in this field.

Really, that’s what this mom did for me. She really made me feel like, “Wow. If I can sleep train a six-year-old, first case, straight out of the gate, I can do anything.” Right? That was an amazing feeling for me. And really, I guess that’s what I hold. That’s what I remember about the experience. When I had the idea to share this story on the podcast today, I really didn’t think too much about it. I didn’t jot down any notes. I was like, “This is what I’m going to talk about.”

When I hit record and I started talking, I started thinking, “Well, I don’t even remember this mom’s name. I barely remember the way I coached her. But what I do remember is the way that she made me feel.” That’s what I remember. I remember the way that this mom made me feel. She gave me my confidence. She really, really made me feel like I was the professional.

Maybe you guys are listening and you’re thinking, “Well, she didn’t make you feel that way. You just felt that way because you were doing a good job and you had success.” That’s fine. Right? I showed up. I did my job. I supported her at the highest level. I was so in touch, like so in touch. Because she was my first case, I wanted to do everything right. And so I really gave her my all. But my memory from the experience is not in the details. It’s not in, how many nights did it take us to get the chair out of the room at bedtime? It’s not in the, did we get her out of her nighttime pull ups?

Honestly, I can’t even swear that I remember that we did. I don’t even know if that became part of the goal. What I remember is how amazing this mom made me feel. She gave me so much confidence, and she really, really made me feel like I was good at my job. I think that that’s the takeaway from this first working experience.

Because my second client — I remember just a few details about my second client too. My second client was a two-year-old in a crib who had never been sleep trained before, ever, ever. And so this little girl was being rocked to sleep and gently placed into the crib. She would wake up screaming and yelling. And again, when I got into this work, I thought I was going to be sleep training babies. I really didn’t want anything to do with toddlers, preschoolers, big kids, because it felt so far out of my element.

It felt like, “I have no experience with this. I don’t know anything about this. My kids are barely this old. How am I ever going to coach parents through this stuff when I’ve never lived it?” My first client and then, again, my second, both of them were situations I had never been in before. It was completely out of my comfort zone, and I just poured my all into it. I gave it my best, and I was successful with both of them. That feeling of success, I think, is what propelled me and carried me through to have more and more and more positive experiences with future families.

I guess if I think about the why, why am I sharing this with you today, the why is that, if you are a brand new sleep consultant and you’re listening to this podcast and you’re just thinking like you don’t know everything yet, which is a really normal way to feel. If I think about my work now as a parent coach, I’ve really just started to dabble in parent coaching. And when I tell you, I feel so out of my element sometimes because I’m brand new, sometimes I just don’t know exactly what to say. Because I haven’t said these things enough times yet. It doesn’t roll off the tongue the way everything rolls off the tongue when I’m working with families who are struggling with sleep.

But I share this because, if you’re new, I want you to hear from me that even the stuff that you’ve never done before, you can figure it out. Everything is figure-outable. You have learned it inside of a course. You are going to apply it with a family. And hopefully, you have a network surrounding you to support you, answer your questions, and set you up for success. I know that that’s what’s going on in CPSM, and I hope that other programs are offering the same to their students.

If you’re listening to this podcast because you’re interested in becoming a sleep consultant—maybe you’re a brand-new mom of a little newborn baby, and you found yourself to be wildly fascinated with newborn sleep. You’re already implementing some sleep conditioning. Or maybe you’ve just sleep trained your baby for the first time, and you found it to be such a transformative experience—you’re really, really wanting to do this, but the thought of sleep training a two-year-old just scares you to death, or the idea of coaching a mom who’s bed sharing with her six year old just sounds wildly outside of your comfort zone, I guess what I want to say to you is: So what? You’ll figure it out. We’re going to help you through. You can do this.

When you’re committed to your own greatness, you’re committed to your own excellence, you’re committed to providing families with the highest level of coaching and support, you’re going to do whatever you need to do to get them from the starting point to the finish line. You’re going to do it with empathy and with grace and with patience and with knowledge and expertise. And when you’re done, you’re going to feel so, so good.

So I guess that’s it. I think I’m going to keep it short and sweet. No need to ramble. But I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I hope everyone had happy holidays and a happy new year. I will see you all again next week.

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. first paying client