What to do if Sleep Training Isn’t Working

What happens if Little Z’s sleep coaching program and sleep training doesn’t work? We want to help you make sleep a thing here at Little Z’s, and I want to tell you a little bit about how we got started.

Who are we at Little Z’s?

I used to be an elementary school teacher, but after I had Ellie, our first born, I didn’t want to be a teacher anymore. My husband was also a teacher and we couldn’t afford to live on one salary.

We were also so exhausted because Ellie was not sleeping. We ended up working with the sleep consultant and she started sleeping 12 hours a night. And I wanted to tell the whole world about it. You could not have told me six years ago when I started Little Z’s that we would be here today. I wouldn’t believe it.

We are so grateful that we are here every week to help you across all of our platforms. And when I say help you, I’m also talking about the 13,000 people who have made sleep a thing inside of our programs.

And you have heard me say this, but children are not robots.

Okay? Kids are not robots. Babies are not robots. Things happen, things change. I want to talk to you today about what happens when my program doesn’t work. This probably feels really weird. Why would I put a video out there in the world that says my program may not work.

That seems really weird, right? Well, the point of this is we want to take you behind the scenes. We want to show you what we do here at Little Z’s. It’s not just me or my husband Chad. We have a support staff of six other women who are here with us daily online, all across America. They are the biggest cheerleaders. They are helping you problem solve and troubleshoot. So let’s go behind the scenes.

What are these 13,000 plus families experiencing? If, and when, they realize that sleep training isn’t working well, I’ll tell you how we work with those issues. First of all, the reality is we rarely get people coming to us and requesting a refund because our programs aren’t working.

I think it’s because we’ve been doing an amazing job of actually connecting to the people who are here for sleep training.

How to troubleshoot sleep training when it isn’t working

When someone tells us that our sleep training programs aren’t working, we go through a five-step process with that family to help them troubleshoot and let them know what steps they can take to actually help this program work.

So I’m going to walk through all of these five steps with you.

First Step

Do you have the right course from Little Z?

The very first thing we’re going to ask them is what email address they purchased their plan. And then we check what plan they have purchased. If they say the plan isn’t working for their toddler, but they purchased a baby plan, we realize that it’s not working because they don’t have the right program. It’s very easy when you are exhausted to not pick the one that is the right fit.

Second Step

Have you watched the training videos? Have you started the training? Have you listened to the voice memos? We pride ourselves here at Little Z’s. I’m going to brag on my husband because he is so good at organizing our training content. We have been able to condense our program with the exact things that you need. Everything is laid out so clearly for you.

So when we ask, have you consumed the plan? Don’t get all worried. Like, “I don’t have five hours to go through all of this”. The plan itself is 45 to 60 minutes for you to watch the video.

We want to make sure that you’ve consumed it entirely.

This would be very similar to you saying, “I’m going to go to the gym today and purchase a good bodybuilding app”. And then you put it away and you don’t even look at it. You just hop on the machines and start doing some exercise. You aren’t using the machines correctly and won’t see the results you were looking for.

You want to make sure that if you have purchased the plan, you’ve consumed the plan.

Third Step

Our third check is to gauge where you are in the program. The baby program is a 14-day plan. The toddler and preschooler are 21-day plans. This is really critical because if you say the programs aren’t working after three days, we want to encourage you to continue because consistency matters.

Let’s go back to that bodybuilding example. You cannot go to the gym for three days and expect to be super built. It’s just not a thing. You’re not going to master it in three days.

Consistency matters, hang with it.

Fourth Step

The fourth step is to review your sleep log. We ask you to keep a hard or digital copy of your child’s log. And this sounds like a lot of work, but in all reality, we provide this for you. You print it out and you’re going to track what time your child wakes up and how long it takes them to fall asleep.

We want to know this because our team is trained, and they can understand where you are with your child’s age and their schedule.

Fifth Step

The fifth step is to connect you to support. This means adding on a service, like live chat or a phone call to help you get connected to troubleshooting one-on-one.

We offer live chat for the baby through preschool programs. This means you can chat with our team for two to three weeks and you can get your questions answered every single day.

This is my favorite way to help you make “sleep a thing” because sometimes you need that accountability and listening ear. Oftentimes, we know that becoming invested in the next step helps you get that consistency and accountability.

What if I don’t like sleep training for my family?

Well, then I have to ask you, do you want to sleep train? Sometimes there are situations where a mom has felt pressured to sleep train.

Nobody can twist your arm and force you to sleep train. As you may know, there are lots of opinions about sleep on social media, and sleep training can be a very polarizing topic. And I want you to know that it’s your choice.

We actually have a whole blog post and video about the four methods to sleep train. There’s the extinction method, which is the true cry it out. There is controlled crying, stay in the room, and the no-cry solutions, which is a whole other thing on its own. Go check out that video. Here at Little Z’s, we teach leave and check (controlled crying) and stay in the room inside our programs.

There are no secrets when it comes to sleep training; it’s the accountability, our clear plan of action, and our education that helps you make sleep a thing.

The beauty of the world as parents is that you can find what you want. And sometimes at the end of the day, if sleep training isn’t working, maybe it’s because this isn’t something you wanted to do. I hope that these five steps have helped you understand if something isn’t working, we can get you on the right page!

If you are interested in learning more about Little Z’s programs, you can explore them here as soon as you are ready.

Sweet dreams. See you next time.

Becca

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