Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Securely Attached podcast. This is Beyond the Sessions segment where we answer your listener questions. And today I have Dr. Rebecca Hershberg here to shine a light on all the wisdom.

Dr. Rebecca (00:57):

Oh wow. But no pressure.

Dr. Sarah (01:00):

No pressure.

Dr. Rebecca (01:01):

Shine a light on all the wisdom. I’ll see what I can do, Sarah.

Dr. Sarah (01:03):

Oh my God. I don’t even think that makes any sense because are you shining a light on the wisdom or do you bring the wisdom?

Dr. Rebecca (01:09):

Either way. I sound like a beacon of light and I’ll take it.

Dr. Sarah (01:12):

You’re a Yoda. Thank you.

Dr. Rebecca (01:15):

Probably.

Dr. Sarah (01:16):

So wise. Okay, well now I’ve really set you up and I’m going to give you a question. You ready? Sure. Let’s see what I can do. So this is a very tired mom of three-year-old twins that wrote in this question. She says, I’ve been listening to your podcast, but I haven’t been able to find an episode to help me with my current struggle. Are there resources specific to severe nightmares? Fear of sleeping in bed alone. I have 3-year-old twin girls. They used to be such good sleepers and nappers and we had no real issues when they transitioned out of the crib about six months ago. Then all of a sudden over the last few weeks, it’s like a battle to go to bed. They don’t want the curtains closed because of the dark. So we got a nightlight, which didn’t seem to matter to them.

(02:01):

One or the other will wake up in a panic in the middle of the night every night, which wakes up the other one and it’s hard to calm them down to fall back asleep. They’re also waking up much earlier now, which I think is because of the curtains being open and the sun shines right into their bedroom in the morning. They also have stopped napping during the day, which I think is fairly normal for this age. But how little they’re sleeping at night, I feel like they benefit from some extra sleep during the day. We’ve tried a couple books. I’m just kind of at a loss of how to reassure them that their room is safe to not be scared of the dark, whatever the case may be. But I’m kind of at a standstill and I’m desperate.

(02:37):

Mama, there’s so many things happening here, but I think if I were to try to extract a key couple anchors in this question that I’m hearing that I think are really important for us to keep in mind is that there was a shift from good sleepers to no issues or from good sleepers and no issues to some major issues that seem to be kind of happening. All of a sudden they transitioned out of the crib about six months ago, so that’s not super all. There’s not completely out of the blue. And then there’s this other piece. They’re not having having trouble going to bed. There’s a bedtime struggle, but there’s also a wake up in the night and panic and have trouble falling back, a sleep struggle, which I actually think sometimes can be two separate things. They might be connected to the same issue, but I think we approach them possibly differently. And then it sounds like she’s doing all kinds of things to try to fix the problem, but it sounds like she’s maybe playing whack-a-mole and then, yeah, what do you think? What’s standing out to you?

Dr. Rebecca (03:49):

What’s standing out to me is that this mom is understandably and justifiably and no judgment exhausted.

(03:59):

And I hear the overwhelm in her question. I almost feel like there’s this, not to sound all psych dorky, but there’s this parallel process thing going on. Her kids are in my mind, sort of calling out for containment, right? It’s like they’re scared of this, they’re scared of that. This isn’t right. That isn’t right. They need someone to come in and just be like, okay, I’ve got you. Here’s how we’re doing this. Here’s what, and it almost seems like the mom needs the same thing. There’s so many. You use the word anchor. I actually don’t get a feeling of an anchor. I get a feeling of like there’s this thread out over here and there’s this thread out over here and I kind of want to anchor this in. First of all, and most importantly, developmental normalization. This is an age where kids often start to have a really hard time with sleep. A because there’s been some transition of where they sleep. And again, whether it was six months ago or not, that’s sometimes the effects of that or not immediate B, because they’re three. And when you’re three, your job starts to be rebel, to make things harder for your parents to have power struggles. That’s part of what happens.

Dr. Sarah (05:24):

I also stopped napping in the day, which I cannot underline, stop napping in circle in red enough times because I find this all the time that when kids drop their nap even for a while, well after that there’s sleep disruption.

Dr. Rebecca (05:41):

There’s sleep stuff. Exactly. And that often happens around this age, which is why we also see this. And then the final reason is because there imaginations have a big leap, and when your imagination has a big leap, you can be scared of many more things because you can imagine many more things and then the nightmares come. So all of this is completely developmentally typical and understandable. It’s of course squared because of the twins, but I want to just ground this mom and say, yes, this is all happening and let, let’s take a deep breath and reset the rituals that you were doing before aren’t working anymore. And instead of letting your kids dictate, do this, do this, do this, do this let’s you, or in this case on the podcast, us come up with some general guidelines and a plan that can be a foundation for what happens now.

Dr. Sarah (06:36):

Yeah. See, you are going to shine a light on the wisdom. This is why you’re here. So good.

Dr. Rebecca (06:48):

And I do think to your point, where I would start is bedtime because I think as you said, I think those can be different things. Sometimes when you correct bedtime, you end up just inadvertently the middle of the night stuff correct also.

Dr. Sarah (07:02):

I also think you have more bandwidth at seven or eight or 9:00 PM whenever your bedtime starts. Then we do at 1, 2, 3 in the morning.

Dr. Rebecca (07:08):

Let’s just start there. Let’s start with bedtime. I would immediate, the very first thing I would do is move everything 15 minutes earlier if you can. I understand that work schedules and childcare schedules and all that may not permit it, but without knowing anything else about anything, I would say even if it didn’t start out this way, the kids are now sleep deprived and it’s pretty well known that you can move sleep 15 minutes earlier without it being a, you can’t suddenly go an hour earlier without having it a big thing, but you can do 15 minutes at a time and 15 minutes can make a big difference.

(07:46):

So I would start everything 15 minutes earlier. That might be hard right now because it’s not dark. Whether we choose to close the curtains is a decision for us. If you think that your kids are not falling asleep in part because it’s bright in the room, then you get to say, we’re closing the curtains and I know you’re scared and it’s going to be okay, and I’m here. You can make that decision. If you don’t think it’s the light itself that at least at night is interfering with their sleep, then by all means keep the curtains open and come back and close.

(08:30):

But again, it’s not reacting to every single little thing that they bring to the table. It’s kind of having that, what do you think is the role of the light and the curtains and what do you want to do? And then how do we frame that to that which they may not like. And that’s okay. It may be a situation of a real short-term pain for long-term gain thing. And when you’re exhausted, never choose the short-term pain. It’s like, oh my gosh, my kids are starting to have a meltdown. I’m just too tired to deal. I could see myself back in this phase of life changing the curtains 10 times. It’s over too far to the left. It’s over too far to the right. It’s over too. Suddenly there you are being an interior decorator, seven in the evening. You’re just so tired and you want it to stop, but it may be that you need to come in…

Dr. Sarah (09:18):

It’s also hard because there’s two of them. So they might also be like, oh my gosh, no, I want it that way. No, I want it that way. And you have to, it’s like you’re always triangulating with twins. It’s a lot harder.

Dr. Rebecca (09:27):

Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (09:29):

And all more to say, I am going to make this decision because whether they’re in alignment or not, if they’re not in alignment, then you really have to be the one that makes the decision. And if they are in alignment, they also need to know that you’re the one that makes the decision that they can’t gang up on you. It’s not two votes against one. It’s still my vote counts for all the votes.

Dr. Rebecca (09:57):

Right, exactly. I’m looking for that line. There was a lot Here it is the line of the question. I’m at a loss for how to reassure them that their room is safe. You just tell them their room is safe. Right. They will pick up on your, it’s not about I have to convince them I have to. I am your parent. I am the one who knows the world. Your room is safe. We are sleeping with the curtains closed, whatever. I get the sense, and again, I can’t emphasize enough how little I’m judging and how much compassion I have, but there’s the sense that the kids are kind of holding all the cards here, and there needs to be not by any means, I mean this is securely attached, right? No one’s saying no more Mr. Nice guy type of parenting. But this containing focus on the structure, focus on the limits, focus on the getting things back into a sort of more grounded place as opposed to reactive.

Dr. Sarah (10:59):

And if I were sitting with this mom right now and was able to ask her questions, some of the questions I would probably be curious about would be, what’s happening three or four or five hours before bedtime? What does that look like for them? Is this their 3-year-old kids? They’re in a nursery school program or preschool program and they get home at three and then we have time to relax and we have a dinner together and then we have bath time and is it nice and slow and steady? Do they get outside or is it like they’re in daycare until five 30 when I pick them up from work and then we have 30 minutes to get dinner done and then we got to get in the bath before we get, and again, the latter is my family. So I’m a working mom, right. It’s no judgment.

(11:47):

Exactly. Our evenings are chaos. And that was always a big challenge because everything felt like it was compressed. And for us, I think one of the challenges we had was that the urgency around moving from the evening to bedtime to I want to be done with bedtime was always, there was more urgency for us because everything did feel compressed. And so I had to figure out a way within the same amount of limited time to change the mood, to change my own affect, to reduce my sense of urgency and build in more space for transitioning calmly myself. Not the kids. The kids sometimes were sometimes weren’t, but it was more of there was a more predictable rhythm and I was chiller about it, and that helped. So one thing is to just do an audit of what is the tone, what is the affect, what’s the energy like in the evenings before we even start thinking about bedtime routine? And are there ways to just introduce or, I don’t know, just rebalance extra kind of melon. Conversely, some kids really need to get their wiggles out and you need to actually introduce more opportunities for some bursts of energy earlier on, or maybe some, but those would be earlier.

Dr. Rebecca (13:21):

Again, I think there’s a lot of, there’s a myth that that’ll be okay right before bed. And it’s not I think.

Dr. Sarah (13:28):

Right?

Dr. Rebecca (13:29):

Not not okay. I sound…

Dr. Sarah (13:31):

I know what you mean.

Dr. Rebecca (13:31):

But I think research shows that it’s not helpful. But I think you’re absolutely right, and I think one of the things you highlighted there is the part of this that you can most easily control, which is yourself because they are at this developmental stage and they are tired and they are. The other thing is I’ve worked with a lot of families with twins. And really, again, to continue on your point, if this mom was here, what would I ask? It’s sort of like what’s the twin relationship like here? And would it be possible to separate them a little bit? How much are they not great influences on each other right now? And would it be possible, is this a true parent home where each parent could take one of the kids and spend a little time before bedtime and then bring them back together at the end of that? Or maybe even depending on the structure of your home, separate the beds and have them not sleep in the same room for a little while until you get back on the path. There’s things you can do in terms of thinking about the togetherness and separateness of twins that some parents of twins are like, oh my God, we would never do that in a million years. And others are like, oh my God, we would never do that. Whatever. It probably something to think about.

Dr. Sarah (14:45):

Like she’s saying if one’s waking up in a panic in the middle of the night, which then wakes up the other one and then we can’t get either of them back to bed, even just having a plan around that that works for your dynamic or your setup. So if it doesn’t make sense to have them in different rooms, if you were like, no, they do better together, or That’s the only space we’ve got, then we play with that. So in the night, if one wakes up, what is your plan to support the sleep of the other? It might be that it’s fastest and easiest to go in and attend to the sleeping child or the one that is not distressed. Get them up out. Try to keep it calm, move ’em into your room. Just drop ’em off with the other parent and try to keep that child kind of protected from, try to keep them in their sleep state as much as you can. If you can respond fast enough. And I would really just let the other one go, she’s up.

(15:48):

You’re going to have to deal with that in a second. But I think I would prioritize trying to keep the other one from catching it if possible. So maybe the plan is, the first thing I do if I hear that in the night is I go to the sleeping one or the sleepier one, and I try to get them in a different setting to try to just stave off the disruption kind of spreading. And then I go and I attend to the one who’s in distress. And even maybe just them having a little one-on-one space without the other kind of, I just think it sounds like what’s happening in the middle of the night is a bit of a contagion problem.

Dr. Rebecca (16:27):

It’s two different kinds of distress. Exactly. Like if this mom asked about resources for severe nightmares, twin number one in the absence of having names is the one who’s having a severe nightmare. Twin number two is irritated and cranky and upset because her sister is crying at the top of her lungs. And so how you address those two things are differently. I agree with you. Let’s see if we can keep the second one addressed. Excuse me, asleep. The first one. If the question is what do you do about severe nightmares? I tend to fall on the side of like you comfort. This is a severe nightmare. And as a parent, you’ve got in your gut that that’s what this is. And this isn’t habit, and this isn’t a minor irritation that your kid has learned will get you come running if this is a severe nightmare. And certainly one of my kids had many of them, in my opinion. You go in and you comfort your kid and you pick them up and you calm them down and you reassure them because they’re having an awful nightmare. And that’s really scary, especially when you’re three. That’s not what the other one is going through. And so you can treat them differently.

Dr. Sarah (17:35):

And while, I mean it’s a little unclear. She says she wanted resources on nightmares, but that she also says that in the middle of night, one’s waking up in a panic. It’s possible that that’s because of a nightmare. And maybe because they’re explicitly saying, I had a nightmare. It could just be that we are inferring it’s nightmare because they’re panicked. And so also, I don’t know that much about the science of nightmares, which would be a really interesting episode to do with an actual sleep specialist or researcher on that. But what I can say that I think is helpful with nightmares is to help them, to your point, Rebecca, soothe them, reassure them. But I also think it’s best not to get into the narrative of the nightmare. I try to contain it like, you had a nightmare. That was scary. I’m here. You’re safe. That was not happening.

Dr. Rebecca (18:38):

And the narrative rarely happens at that time anyway. But absolutely. It’s also important to know, and again, maybe this is a different even beyond the Sessions episode, but sleep terrors versus nightmares, there’s an important distinction in that If it’s a night terror, not a sleep terror night terror, the second you go in, it’s actually going to get worse. Which is again, even more reason to just go for twin number two, get through number two out of the room, go to your room, plug your ears, take deep breaths and just wait for it to pass. Because if you start interacting with a child who’s having sleep terrors, night terrors, excuse me, it becomes much, much worse. Which is horrifying. I mean, again, I have been through this times a thousand and it’s horrifying.

Dr. Sarah (19:23):

My kid had ’em a lot.

Dr. Rebecca (19:24):

But that’s important. So we’re getting a little bit in the weeds, and I think maybe we do need to do an episode on general sleep stuff, presumably with an expert, and not just us riffing on our own experiences, but these things are kind of important to notice and take into account.

Dr. Sarah (19:40):

Yeah, so I think I would start with bedtime. I would actually start before bedtime and really think about, I’ve done a couple episodes with Eileen Henry, who’s a phenomenal sleep specialist, who I love. I’ll link those to show notes because I really do think she talks a lot about this, about we have to go way to the beginning of the day to address sleep issues. And so she talks a lot about that. But I say you start kind of in an Eileen Henry approach. You start actually looking at the beginning of the day to kind of understand how to address the nighttime, resourcing them with a lot of physiological resources, but well, are they moving? Are they getting enough sunlight? Are they getting enough nutrition and sleep or hot water and all that stuff. And if they are overtired, that can cause problems with sleep. But also emotional and relational resources like connection and feeling sort of getting that fill up time with you so that separating can feel a little bit more tolerable, all that stuff. She is going to be more articulate about that than I just was. But then you need to look at the transition to bed and the energy we’re bringing to that, the confidence we’re bringing to that, the predictability and containment we’re bringing to that.

(21:10):

And then for the wake up times, the night times in the middle of the night, I think there’s very specific strategies just because you have two kids in this room that are unique to that. But in general, I think that middle of the night wake up time is particularly challenging. We are also really tired and we want nothing more than to just go back to sleep and for this to be over. So I think having a plan before it happens can be helpful, groggy, and we’re not our sharpest.

Dr. Rebecca (21:48):

Yep.

Dr. Sarah (21:49):

Yeah. And good luck. Yeah, good luck. I know this is hard, but also it does get better. It really does. The sleep stuff that happens in the threes.

Dr. Rebecca (22:03):

It does get better.

Dr. Sarah (22:03):

It does get better.

Dr. Rebecca (22:04):

And it’s brutal. And it’s brutal. Both things are true.

Dr. Sarah (22:06):

Yes. All right, solidarity, mama. We’ll see you guys all next time.

Dr. Rebecca (22:12):

Bye everyone.

Dr. Sarah (22:14):

Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.