Expert Tips On How To Get Baby To Sleep Through The Night

[Discover effective strategies and expert advice on how to get your baby to sleep peacefully through the night. Explore solutions for rest and sleep, and find help if your baby is not sleeping well.]

I read all the books and got all the gadgets to try and help my baby sleep well…

I thought I was all set, but I soon found out why they called the newborn stage the “fourth trimester”.

It’s an intense period of time full of connection, bonding, and sweet baby coos, but also…

Sleepless nights…

Nursing and rocking…

Countless naps and diaper changes…

Whether you’re still in the newborn phase or your kiddos are older and struggling to get a good night’s rest…I invite you to settle in and enjoy this insightful conversation with my guest Hilliary Giglio on this episode of the Soul Care Mom Podcast.

If you are feeling sleep-deprived and you struggle with helping your child sleep through the night, you are going to love this episode of the Soul Care Mom podcast, where I chat with Hilary Giglio, a certified sleep specialist and family coach, all about how to empower your children to sleep through the night and create beautiful sleep habits, as well as how you can optimize your sleep so you can wake up feeling rested and refreshed.

You can also listen on iTunes, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

[Disclaimer: The information shared is from personal experiences and/or research. We’re not medical professionals. We share in hopes that it will help you tap into new insights and inspire you. Everything shared is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice. Always seek the guidance of a trusted health professional for your unique journey.]

Please Note: This post may contain affiliate links. This means that Soul Care Mom may receive a small commission if you click through and make a purchase, at no additional cost to you. Some episodes may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. And guests may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. We only recommend products and services that we believe in, trust, and would recommend even if we didn’t receive a commission. Please see disclaimers for more information.

Hi there, Soulful Mama. Welcome to the Soul Care Mom podcast. I’m Catherine Wilde of soulcaremom.com. I’m a mom of three amazing kids, a Soul Care Mom coach, and a yoga and meditation teacher. I’ve helped hundreds of women, and I’m here to help you feel calm and find your unshakable confidence as a mom.

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Let’s get started.

Expert Tips On How To Get Baby To Sleep

Catherine Wilde

Hi, Hillary. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Hilliary Giglio

You’re welcome. I’m so happy to be here.

Catherine Wilde

I’m so excited to chat with you. It’s all about sleep, how to optimize it, the role that mindset plays. I love that when it comes to sleep. But first, would you share a little bit about yourself? What led you to helping people enhance their sleep?

Hilliary Giglio

Absolutely. So I am a mom of two boys, five and three, and I have not always been a pediatric sleep specialist. But when my first child was born, it pretty much went from being a bad sleeper to a worse sleeper. I was convinced that we hadn’t found the right bed, right?

Every time I’d put him in the bath and that, he would cry. He literally was only sleeping if I was holding him in a recliner. Occasionally, if my mom was holding him in a recliner. So I returned to my job that I had earlier in life and was struggling. I mean, my child was waking up every 45 minutes all night long. We had eventually shifted to my bed and we’re sharing my bed.

My husband is on the couch, and he would wake up and he would nurse just long enough to put himself back to sleep And we would literally do that every 45 minutes or 10 to 12 hours, because that’s what I had read was how long a baby should sleep, right? So we were both confined to that bed nearly half the day, but nobody was getting any sleep. And I really, and never in my life had really understood the true importance of sleep for human beings.

Hilliary Giglio

Was not functioning at my job. Don’t feel like I was functioning as the wife I wanted to be, the mother I wanted to be, the friend I wanted to be, you name it, and would just come home in tears most days. So my mom actually had told me that there are sleep coaches, sleep consultants out there that can help. And I had an ego, first time mama ego about it and was like, eh. Moms have been getting their babies to sleep for thousands of years. I’m no different, whatever.

A couple of months later, I took my baby boy into a mama-baby yoga class, place that I was very comfortable. And the yoga teacher happened to also be a sleep coach. So we got chatting. She gave me her card. I put it in my wallet, pretended to forget about it. And I finally hit a point where I was like, all right, fine. Pulled out that business card, gave her a call. So long story short, the rest is history. She went from… She She took my life from that place I described every 45 minutes to my child, sleeping in his crib 11 hours straight in a matter of three days.

Hilliary Giglio

Was life-changing for me, for him. I mean, he wasn’t getting the sleep he needed either. Wasn’t just me suffering. And I was like, this is magic. More parents need to know that there is support out there. This isn’t nearly as hard or scary as I thought it was going to be. And it was amazing when I was already looking for a way to work for myself, to work more flexibly. And within a matter of a few months, My Business, Tranquil Beginnings was born and we’re in our fifth year.

Catherine Wilde

That’s so exciting. And yes, you don’t really understand the importance of sleep until you have that newborn, right?

Hilliary Giglio

It’s right. Oh my gosh. Everybody knows babies don’t sleep all night. I wasn’t expecting that, but really just the ongoing impact of being awake that often.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah, it’s a function, for sure.

Hilliary Giglio

Yeah, extremely.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

Hilliary Giglio

You’re welcome.

Catherine Wilde

And something that you had mentioned to me that really stood out as we were preparing for this chat was empowering your child, teaching them to sleep well. It’s often seen as a taboo topic you mentioned. Can you share more about what you mean about that? How can we begin to shift the conversation to a more empowering

Hilliary Giglio

Yes, absolutely. I love that. So, yes, it is a controversial topic in the parenting world. I feel like almost every topic in parenting can be fairly polarizing, right? And so this is no different. However, from my perspective now, I think there is a common misconception or several misconceptions. And it might be that children aren’t designed, to sleep through the night, even at ages. People will quote that far off into the future. Or that it’s selfish for moms to want to sleep, that we’re not actually teaching a child anything.

They’re just eventually passing out when they get too tired. And after working with nearly 250 families, I can tell you, I watch it every day, much less my own experience. And Babies and children are innately super intelligent, and they actually like to sleep, but it is a skill. Yes, sleep is a biological need. It happens for all humans at some point. We will sleep at some point. The ability to confidently and peacefully and quickly make that journey from awake to asleep on our own independently is a skill. And just like learning any skill, we have to set our children up for success. We have to give them the roadmap.

Hilliary Giglio

We have to hold their hand along the way and support them. But it’s not always seen as a skill that can be learned. And so what I do with families is we make sure before we even start to expect a child to sleep well, we get a million contributing factors just right. We want to make this as easy on them as possible. And when you can get that environment, all the sleep hygiene aspects just right for that unique child, and then support them, respond to them along their journey, you can see it with your own eyes, they learn to make that journey peaceful and confidently. Parents all the time tell me they are amazed their child to do this.

They never thought it was going to be possible that the same experience I had, that it wasn’t as hard or scary as they thought it was going to be. Tell However, there are a lot of nuances, and sleep is super complex. Sleep science is super complex, and most parents don’t get that information, right? And there’s things they could be doing or not doing unintentionally that are making it harder or easier. When parents are able to get the support from somebody who no sleep, and then they’re able to support their child, it is amazing what children are capable of. It really is.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah, absolutely. I remember doing lots of research because I was having a hard time when my babies were little. There is just a hard time. And they do wake up often. But it’s so amazing when you get those longer stretches and those longer stretches and to see that they’re able to put themselves back to sleep, that they’re able to go through those sleep cycles and then wake up really refreshed And you do, too.

Hilliary Giglio

Yeah, it’s incredible. And the hard part is you have to give your child both physical and emotional space. So yes, we’re supporting them, but we also have to give them space. And if we’re constantly hovering, so we’re all used, they’re not even going to have a chance to do it. So sometimes we’re just that mother instinct, which is very normal and natural, is actually getting in the way of our child’s ability to learn.

Catherine Wilde

Let’s talk about that a little bit, because something that I talk about when I work with moms, too, is just some big uncomfortable emotions come up, right? In terms of mindset involved and all these things, and being able to be okay with whatever’s coming up for you I’m not going to grab your child because you’re uncomfortable.

Hilliary Giglio

Exactly.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah, don’t cry. But babies cry, and it’s our own internal stuff that we have to process. Guys.

Hilliary Giglio

Right.

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Baby Not Sleeping? Try This

Catherine Wilde

And I love that when we connected, you said, let’s talk about mindset, and you shared the importance of that and how it plays into our sleep. And I was so excited. Will you share any tips or strategies to build connection, mindfulness.

Hilliary Giglio

Absolutely. So something you said about what is that triggering for us. And so I talk a lot with my clients. I mean, crying is the thing in sleep, but most of parenting that is so hard, right? Some resistance or protest or tears. I think we’re all hardwired. Nobody wants to hear their baby cry, myself included, of course. But when we learn that it’s just simply the primary form of communication, especially for a baby, that they have, they’re doing it all day long for various things, sometimes unmet needs, sometimes other reasons. It’s not the only reason, right?

And so I will dig deep with parents that are really struggling with that on what about the crying, right? What about the crying? How is that making you feel? What is your belief system around what that means when your child cries? And parents have all sorts of different answers that are very valid, but we can get to the root of that and isolate that from what’s really happening and experiencing in the room. And on the mindset piece, so I always tell parents, I always use the phrase calm, cool, and collective, that cliché phrase, but all humans feed off each other’s energy, right?

Hilliary Giglio

But the same is true for babies and parents. And so with the parents who are on the high end of being really anxious, really nervous about this, and they’re bringing that mindset, that energy, into this work, their baby is going to sense that, right? They don’t obviously know exactly what’s going on, but it does not help the situation.

That’s for sure.

So I coach my parents that I work with through using lots of affirmations and mantras, and I give them lots of examples. I tell them they can make up their own. But we talk about the fact that their baby is safe and loved, and that they are doing something for their child, not to child. Many parents feel that they are making their baby cry, right? That if they weren’t doing this, their baby wouldn’t be crying.

And so I’ve had some clients who will type those out, handwriten them out. And I’ve been in clients’ homes where they are literally pasting these up on the outside of baby’s bedroom. So when they’re ready to rush in there at the very first sound of them not sleeping, they can pause, they can remind themselves to take a second to check in, and then choose how they respond rather than just instantaneously reacting.

Hilliary Giglio

And so we do a lot of work around that. I talk to parents about… In two parent household, about how to support each other in the work. It doesn’t always, doesn’t usually look like a 50/50 split in terms of parental role in sleep stuff. But both parents being as involved as possible. And before you get in there and your baby’s crying at 2:00 AM, to have that conversation before. Like, what’s this going to look like?

How can we support each other? How can I help keep you calm? How can you help me vice versa, so to speak. And so there’s a lot of different aspects to it. But when parents can have that mindset, even if there’s hard moments when they can remind themselves of these things, take a moment to pause, really dig into what’s underneath it for him, the whole experience is so much more smooth. And they get through the learning stages that much more peacefully, that much quicker, rather than getting in a cycle in their own thoughts.

Catherine Wilde

Absolutely. I love that so much. I surround myself with… I mean, my babies are past the baby stage, but But just those reminders in general of helping you to reconnect with yourself, helping you to remind yourself to check in and take care of yourself. Because we get so many other messages in the world. So being intentional about surrounding yourself.

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Catherine Wilde

Love what you said about The energy, the energy that we bring to the situation, because that happens even now. If I’m feeling anxious and overwhelmed and stressed out, and my kids can still feel that. Well, the other ladies are not. So as you practice this, you’re taking this skill into the rest of parenthood.

So it’s so amazing. When you’re saying being aware of your emotions and digging deep, we’re not talking about having your child cry it out. We’re just helping them to feel their own feelings like you’re doing in that moment when they’re expressing themselves as well. Yeah. Right.

Hilliary Giglio

And I think in addition to teaching those mindfulness tools, also helping parents to understand why a baby is crying in these situations, because a lot of those mixed messages that come from your friend, your mother-in-law, the Internet, We’ll fill people’s heads with the only reason a baby would cry is X, Y, or Z, that are very happy reasons, right? But with sleep, a baby cries because they’re never one, they’re usually confused.

So when we start doing some work around sleep, we’re changing habits. We’re creatures of habit in lots of areas, but humans are extremely habitual around sleep. Even as adults, we mostly sleep on the same side of the bed, use a particular pillow, maybe lay in a certain position. We don’t even think twice about it.

And I always like to shift the perspective with parents and tell them, if I came into your home and I told you to go to bed in a new bed at a new time in a new way, you’d probably be like, I don’t think so, lady, or worse. And so if we can think about that, and then we transfer that to a baby or a child, where we can’t really reason with them that we’re doing this in your best interest.

Hilliary Giglio

You need sleep for your health. I need sleep for my health. We’re going to do things differently. Saying those words isn’t going to mean the same thing to them. And so they’re a little confused in the beginning, and that’s why there’s a little more protest in the beginning. And they’re tired.

Quite frankly, they’re tired, but they haven’t mastered that skill of that independent sleep. And we can’t make them sleep. We can’t physically walk them through this steps. We can set them up for success, make sure we’re not doing anything that’s going to make that harder, and then be there as a loving support person along the way.

And so I find that the education around why crimes happening, what we’re doing about it, that we are responding, that we are making sure needs are met before they ever even think about going in that bed, and combining that work with the self-work for parents can really make huge, huge difference.

Catherine Wilde

I love that. I love that you’re coming at it from all the angles. You’re helping set up this space for success for both the parent and the child. It’s amazing.

Hilliary Giglio

Thank you.

Catherine Wilde

So if there’s a mom dad listening right now, and they are so excited to implement these steps, but they’re feeling really sleep-deprived, they don’t know where to start in creating a shift in their family’s sleep, what would you say to them? Where should they start?

Hilliary Giglio

So when I mentioned a tip of the iceberg earlier talking about setting kid up for success first. So a lot of parents will say, I’ve tried to teach my child to sleep. I’ve tried some sleep training, whatever they want to say. And usually what I find is that there were some steps before that that they forgot to do.

And that’s part of why they aren’t having this success or seeing more crying than is really needed. So looking at their sleep schedule, making sure are on an age and developmentally appropriate schedule because an overtired and an under tired, lots of people use the word overtired, but an under tired baby can have just as much trouble as an overtired baby. So Really honing in on their sleep needs on the appropriate schedule, thinking about where their baby sleeps. Some families, their baby always sleeps in the same place.

Other families, they’re sleeping in lots of different places. As we can create consistency, anywhere we can create consistency so that that child knows when this happens or when I’m in this place, this is because it’s time to sleep. And if sometimes we are put to sleep at this time of day at 9:00 AM, and sometimes it’s at noon, and sometimes it’s in the crib, and sometimes it’s on mom and dad’s bed, or in the stroller, or the pack and play, it sends a confusing message.

Hilliary Giglio

And that’s just adding to the baby’s confusion and going to make it that much harder. Now, I don’t expect parents to be at home on the schedule every single day of their life. But if you’re really wanting to prioritize getting sleep on track, look at your calendar. Find a couple of weeks where you can do those things. Once your child is sleeping better, you’re going to be able to be way more flexible.

One of the beautiful things about this. But while we’re asking your child to learn something new, we want to take as much of the guesswork out of it for them as possible. So looking at that schedule, getting a consistent environment, making sure the environment is conducive to good sleep. So darkness is much more important than a lot of people believe, as dark as you can literally make it.

We want lots of exposure to natural light during the day. But darkness, nothing too over-stimulating in the room, really just making sure it’s a calm, peaceful, dark place, using white noise to help to block out environmental disruptions, and then looking at your routine. So do you have a nap or bedtime routine?

Hilliary Giglio

If you don’t and you have a child that is three months of age or older, I’d say go ahead and start implementing one. Having those steps be in the exact same order every night. Again, we want to make it easy. We want the child to be able to predict what’s coming next and know that at the end of this last step, that’s when I get put into bed and to sleep. And we want to get all of that just right.

And those would be step one. Even if how we get to sleep, how long we’re sleeping at night doesn’t change, we want to get that right first, no matter what. And if that’s as far as you get, for now, it’s a good first step. After that, we start talking about how would they be making that journey from awake to asleep. Can they do it on their own? Or Do they require some external assistance from you? Will they not sleep unless you feed them to sleep? Will they not sleep unless you rock them to sleep, bounce them to sleep? And there’s nothing wrong with rocking and bouncing and feeding. It’s the association that children develop between those things in sleep.

Hilliary Giglio

So if they had what could have been a naturally occurring wake up where they just go right back to sleep, when they’ve learned that’s the way to get to sleep, that’s going to trigger more wakings, longer wakings, more escalated wakings, because they’re not going to know how to get back to sleep. So we can’t really expect a child to sleep through the night if they’re relying on this health at bedtime. All of us have naturally occurring wakeups from time to time. They won’t know how, and they’re going to need you to come in and read me in that situation. Really making a list of what are the strategies my child’s uses.

Then the very last step, which is usually where people start, is now that we know what we need to work on, we got all those pieces just right, what strategies do we want to use? What feels good to us as a family to support our child if they’re not going to use beating and rocking and bouncing, whatever, to get to sleep? So I see it in chunks. That was a lot of information, I realized. But we do want to start at the beginning, and it’s okay to get all that right before we even talk about putting our baby in that bed awake, right?

Hilliary Giglio

Not having to get them all the way to sleep first.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah, right. I love that. Thank you.

Hilliary Giglio

You’re welcome. Yeah.

Catherine Wilde

I’d love to transition to adult sleep. What tips do you have for us there? Just a little side story. The other day was with some girlfriends, and the topic had shifted to snoring, specifically partners. I was just surprised by how many women struggled, how many of us struggled with that. Not only were they not getting good sleep, but when your partner snores, they’re probably not getting the oxygen they need, getting the quality sleep that they need as well. Weeding through our mouths, not optimizing that oxygen. I’d love to hear your tips for adults and how to navigate snoring.

Hilliary Giglio

A lot of my tips might be how, as a parent, especially, to get to get better sleep. I will say, although I’m not a medical professional, anybody, babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, your husband, yourself, mouth breathing and snoring is not considered normal for any human, right? And so I always encourage anybody who’s experiencing that in their family, no matter the age, to talk to a medical professional about that.

A lot of times it has to do with some obstructive airway issue. In my clients with babies and children, most common reason is usually enlarged adenoids and tonsils, since so many kids have those removed. But sometimes it has to do with things that are more in the dental world, how your jaw is formed, where your teeth lie. Again, I’m not the medical professional, but find one who is knowledgeable in sleep and in airway issues if you’re experiencing that, because it does impact the quality of sleep.

Yes. Not for the person in bed next to him, but also for that person. Even with my kiddos, we can teach them the sleep skills, but they still won’t be getting as good of a quality of sleep until we address that and the root cause of that.

Hilliary Giglio

When it comes to being a parent and trying to sleep well, there are a few things I like to remind parents. So all that stuff about environment is just as important for adults. So even if you can sleep in a light room, it really is, you really will get better sleep in a dark room. The darkness helps our body’s melatonin production. And so we’re flattered in the same age with so much artificial light. And we’re up later than the sunset and all of these things already working against our natural melatonin production, which is the sleepy hormone.

So having that dark space in your room, having a calm space. Another big one for adults is, what else do you do in your bed? Are you working in your bed? Are you watching Netflix in your bed? Are you eating in your bed? Do you spend an hour on your phone scrolling in your bed? We want to associate, we want our brains to associate the bed with sleep. So trying to have the bed be primarily for sleep, not eating, working, binging Netflix from your bed can help you to get better sleep. It’s just a natural cue that my body’s in this place.

Hilliary Giglio

It’s time for sleep. And it doesn’t help so many of us who are awake for an hour or more at night running through all the things in our heads. I’m pretty sure that happens for humans of all different ages and demographics. But I find as a mom, it’s for me anyway, been even worse, right? Because there’s all of the things on the mom list, right?

Catherine Wilde

So many things.

Hilliary Giglio

So many things. The screens, I mean, I’ll be honest, I’m not perfect with it either. But the blue light, our iPads, our cell phones, our TVs emit to do mess with our body’s natural tone in production. So a good rule of thumb is an hour before bed. It’s really hard in this society to cut that off. But if you can put your phone away, if you use it for your alarm, if you can put it somewhere across the room and plug it in, don’t bring it in bed with you. It can make a huge difference. And then the baby monitor. So parents, specifically.

Now, I am pro baby monitor. I still use them with my toddlers. I think they’re great, and I think they serve a very important purpose. I also think that they can create this sense of anxiety, this sense of urgency, We’re at the slightest peep. We’re up. We’re now in this reactive response rate where we’re like, What’s going on? And the baby might just have been making some noise. Babies are noisy sleepers. I’ve worked with a lot of moms where the baby monitor is essentially next to their pillow.

Hilliary Giglio

The volume is at the max capacity, and this baby could make a little wimper as they’re rolling over in the night and fully disrupt mom’s sleep. Before the time of baby monitors, it would take a baby legitimately crying, probably before we would hear them. I do think there’s a middle ground. I don’t think you need to wait until your baby is screaming their head off. But just be mindful of it.

And it’s another, like the phone, it doesn’t have to be right next to your pillow. It doesn’t have to be on level 10 or 10 volume for you to hear it. So trying to give yourself a little permission to have a little space between you and the baby monitor is going to help you get more sleep as well.

Catherine Wilde

Oh, yeah.

Hilliary Giglio

Yes. Those are some big ones. And then make your husband go take care of the story, of course.

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The Importance Of Rest And Sleep

Catherine Wilde

Yeah. I love that you mentioned working together, whatever that looks like for your family. But having that support, if it’s you guys taking turns or if it’s your partner supporting you in some way so So they can maybe do the nights, but you get rest.

Hilliary Giglio

Yeah. And you might… Some families split the night in half while baby is still waking. Some parents switch off every other night. Some parents… I mean, I know with breastfeeding moms, it tends to be a little bit harder. If they’ve introduced bottles, it’s always the time that we could do a bottle and let mom sleep through one of those wakings. But figuring out a way to support each other, for the parents’ sake, yes.

But also if we can teach babies, and it’s not just mom’s job or just dad’s job, that either parent can do it. So they’re comfortable with either parent. And eventually that means grandma grandma, nanny, date night babysitter. So the child’s only relationship with sleep isn’t one person, right? Yeah. Lots of good reasons to get everybody involved.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah. And they do say it takes a village, right?

Hilliary Giglio

Right? Yes, 100 % agree with that.

Catherine Wilde

Thank you so much. I loved all these tips. And so sleep is such an important part of our self-care. So thank you for diving deep into this with us. And I’d love to hear what Do you have other self-care practices that you personally enjoy?

Hilliary Giglio

Yes. So I, previously in life, one of my other careers, I was a yoga teacher. And so I don’t teach anymore, but yoga and mindfulness is still important to my own self-care. Now that, free kids, work in a job, having a partner, that life of me was in my yoga video three times a week, loving life. And I don’t have the luxury or the time or capacity for that now. And so it’s really been important for me to find 5, 10, 15 minutes breaks throughout my week throughout my day where I can do some of that.

And it might mean just not opening my laptop to start my day and sitting at my desk with my feet on the ground and taking a few minutes to breathe. It might be not not getting my kids up out of bed for five extra minutes in the morning, but fitting that in where I can. So it doesn’t look the same as it did once. Also, really important for me to have a few routines in my day So just like they’re good for kids, they can be good for adults, too. I tend to be a person that does well with some structure.

Hilliary Giglio

But even if that’s not, you’re more go with the flow person, Having a morning ritual, having an evening ritual, even if it’s five minutes, I find for me, can just clear out the noise, help me focus on what’s important that day. And so it’s looked different, different stages of my life. But it might simply being able to get up and get my coffee before my kids wake up or by tea. It might mean that at the end of the night, I’m writing down the three most important things I want to get done the next day.

I’ve often had a gratitude journal where I don’t have a long time to journal, and it might be three things I was grateful for that day. Ways to just not go through the motions every day helps me feel like I’m not just going crazy. I’m not just on this rat race of running a family, running a business, and doing all the things. So really taking a few minutes here and there. I love that. To focus on me and my priorities.

Catherine Wilde

Yeah, it definitely looks different in the different seasons of life and motherhood. You found a really beautiful way to infuse your days with just that connection and taking care of yourself. And even just like you’re saying, those five minutes in the morning. It doesn’t have to be 30 minutes or an hour, but five minutes to yourself to do something that to you.

Hilliary Giglio

Yes. I used to start feeling really guilty or shaming myself because I would want to get up an hour, 90 minutes before I needed to get my kids up and had all these plans. And then when it didn’t happen, I just felt happy about myself, right? So if we can make the expectations a little more realistic, it’s And it doesn’t have to be 60 or 90 minutes of me time or Zen time that I’ll still start my day better if it’s five or 10 minutes. Be me.

Catherine Wilde

Yes. And like you’re saying, The energy that you bring to your baby, taking care of yourself in those little ways can help you show up differently with them and help them to feel calm as well.

Hilliary Giglio

For sure. Having a five and three-year-old, it’s a different ball game than babies in sleep, but constantly, reminding myself about their emotions and trying to pause before I respond. It doesn’t go away. With your age kids, you can still relate. Yes.

Catherine Wilde

It’s a huge growth journey for sure. Continue.

Hilliary Giglio

Yes.

Catherine Wilde

And thank you. Thank you for sharing all of this. I love asking this question just because of the beautiful wisdom that comes up. But you’ve been on this journey with your kids and sleep. And if you could go back in time to When you first became a mom, if you could talk to her, what would you tell yourself?

Hilliary Giglio

That’s a great question. Well, I would remind myself or tell myself that I was doing a good job, even on the days that it felt like I wasn’t. And I probably would try to have gotten through that ego a little bit. But asking for help is okay, that getting support is okay, that it doesn’t mean you’re failing at anything. And that what you think you know about other people isn’t always what you find out on the surface.

We all hear about, “Oh, my baby’s sleeping through the night.” Well, sleeping through the night might mean six hours in her home, right? And I’ve heard a lot of things like that.

And so the funny part about that is, is prior to becoming a sleep consultant, I have the yoga in mind in this background, but also social work and psychology is what my degrees are in. And so it’s all about supporting people and empowering people. And I felt like that wasn’t really… I lost that in the craziness of becoming a new mom. And so, hey, just like you help people do for years of how do we find those resources and that support, giving myself the chance to do that, right?

Catherine Wilde

Yes. I love that.

Hilliary Giglio

Thank you.

Catherine Wilde

Oh, thank you so much for all of this. Will you let us know where we can find you online?

Hilliary Giglio

Absolutely, yes. So I do have a website. It is tranquil-beginnings.com. I’m also on Instagram and on Facebook. The handle is the same. It’s just @tranquil.beginnings.sleep. So there’s lots of things about sleep there, lots of things about motherhood in general there, all sorts of ways to get in touch with me if you get to my website.

I always tell people never be shy about reaching out. I’m always happy to chat and see what I can do to help people or not. I offer complimentary phone calls to anybody who just wants to learn more. It is no obligation. It is no pressure. But if you’re wondering if what’s going on with sleep is the only way it has to be or you’re Curious about what it might look like to get support around sleep. And there, all that’s on my website. Happy to chat with anyone about where they’re at and what their goals are.

Catherine Wilde

That’s amazing. Thank you. I will share all of that in the show notes.

Hilliary Giglio

Awesome. Yeah. That’s been awesome. Well, thank you for this opportunity. It was so lovely to connect with you and to be here today. So I appreciate it.

Catherine Wilde

I feel the same way. Thank you for being here, for sharing your journey, and for sharing all these amazing tips.

Catherine Wilde

Thanks for joining me, mama. I’m over here smiling from ear to ear and giving you a big virtual hug. I love spending this time with you. You are amazing for showing up carving out this space to nourish your soul. If you are loving the Soul Care Mom podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave a review.

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