TPP 287: Macall Gordon Shares Her Best Sleep hacks for Differently Wired Kids
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
40 min
2 speakers
3 chapters
transcribed 13 hours ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What makes “livewire” children struggle with sleep?
So we can't make them fall asleep. All we can do is A, make sure we're not woven into their go-to-sleep pattern. And and then set set them up for success. And then after that, it's it's important that they then do the work. And some of these kids just take a long time to go to sleep.
Welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Rieber. My guest today is McCall Gordon, a certified pediatric sleep coach with a research-based specialization in sleep development, temperament, emotional regulation, and parenting psychology. Through her private practice, Little Live Wires, McCall focuses exclusively on working with children who are more sensitive, perceptive, persistent, and active. Sounds like our kids. McCall, who has a master's in applied psychology and a bachelor's in human biology, started studying sleep because her own children did not sleep very well, and she found that none of the advice offered by parenting books worked for her family.
She was determined to find some answers, and she has. In this episode, McCall talks about the unique sensitivities differently wired children have that frequently result in sleep challenges. How she supports families struggling with sleep issues by helping them to introduce a sustainable night routine and strategies for helping our kids establish better sleep habits. I also asked McCall to share her opinion on co sleeping and melatonin, which I know so many of us have used with our kids, as well as how we can get back on track with a healthy nighttime routine, especially if we've done some of what I refer to as accidental parenting and established sleep routines that aren't going to work in the long run.
I really tried to cover all the big questions, but I know that sleep is a big topic. So please let me know if there are more things you'd like me to cover and perhaps I can do a follow-up episode with McCall. Thank you so much, and now here is my conversation with McCall. Hey McCall, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to talk to you.
I'm looking forward to diving into this and I'm really thankful that you reached out to me because the issue of sleep is well, it's a quality of life issue and it's something that comes up a lot, especially in this community for all parents, but really in this community. So before we kind of get into all of that, I would love if you could just take a few minutes and tell us a little bit more about yourself, the work that you do in the world. And I always love to know people's why, what got them into doing this.
Yeah. Well that's a good one, isn't it? Uh yeah, well it's not because I nailed sleep with my kids, I'll tell you that, right? It's not because it was perfect for me. So I right now, a certified uh gentle sleep coach, I primarily work with younger kids, but it really the stuff that I talk about, especially with when I start talking at three and four-year-olds, really can extend up. It becomes all a similar um mindset. So I got into this because I had two very Very intense young children, very intense, very sensitive, and the sleep advice that was out there just didn't work and I was suffering. Because I I didn't know what else to do.
How did Macall Gordon become a pediatric sleep coach?
And so at the time, now they're both young adults, right? So at the time, way back in the dark ages apparently, there was only one school of thought about sleep, right? And for young children. And if if you couldn't do that, then you were really you just had to suffer through it. And I was thinking there's just gotta be, there's gotta be an answer here. So I've um got I got my master's degree looking at sleep and sleep research and temperament and emotional regulation and sensory processing. And then I've been using that in my coaching and it's amazing how many people are out there that are still in the same boat that I was in twenty some odd years ago.
Yeah, I mean, sleep was an issue in my world from very early on.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
2 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
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