themotherloadpda.sleep

I am really thrilled to be announcing this... 🤩

📖 I try to ensure I learn something new and dive deeper into my knowledge base every day.  I love it.  I LOVE this work and it is something that I am truly passionate about. ❤

And spreading my work, social media education and advocacy, and research, across infants through to older children with complex sleep needs, meant that I was constantly feeling like I couldn't show up for both as I wanted to.🥴  It's a pretty wide demographic!

As such, I have been focussing on family sleep support for Autistic, ADHD and especially PDA families.🧠

💤Although I will no longer focus on neurotypical, developmentally appropriate sleep, you'll still get great tips and advice thru .nd.sleep. Neurodivergent families deal with the same stuff as NT families but largely on a more amplified level with some added complexities. 💤

I'll still be here, advocating for women's rights, children's and infants rights, and family rights, mental health and responsive nurture but only through .nd.sleep.

🙏Please follow and support my account by sharing far and wide. 👍

I have now made the decision to fully make the transition over to the  support world and here I will be showing up for families and peers in educating and advocating for developmentally nurturing and responsive sleep support.

Suzanne

You might breathe a sigh of relief when your child FINALLY passes out asleep but ESPECIALLY if your child has behaviour fluctuations on a dime, their sensory experiences are feeling moreso than previously, they breakdown over things they usually wouldn't, they're more forgetful or distracted. AND especially if your child wakes or has parasomnias during the night, this is something you really want to focus on.

We need to put a bit of effort in for decent sleep in this house. We have two children with the PDA profile of autism and I'm AuDHD. There are times when life is a bit messy and being a neurodivergent family sleep specialist, it's my bag to be ultimately nurturing sleep.

We need good sleep to be able to cope better with the day. Mental health, emotional regulation and executive functioning are the top priorities most of the time and quality sleep improves them all.

There are always going to be factors that can negatively impact sleep and so being aware of what you can easily avoid and what to easily support is really important.

There's been a 30yr historic explosion in research in neuroscience.  We KNOW that we have to look BEYOND behaviour and that not all behaviours are choices.  We know that the stress responses - fight, flight, freeze or fawn are not something that can be decided upon, they happen whether we want them to or not.  We also know that emotions are not made of thin air and live within the body and are stored until they can be released.  We know that if a our senses perceive a threat, they will not be able to learn.  And we know that if a brain perceives threat, as it does through sensory messaging, it cannot focus on anything other than gaining safety.

If a provider is still using yesteryear's behaviour approaches and declaring you or your child at fault, they are using debunked and outdated information. Your child doesn't have a behavioral problem. You don't have a parenting problem. Your child has a neurology that needs and deserves support and respect.

 

We're still in winter, months away from spring. Our bodies and minds need more time to rest, to heal, to embrace mindful practices. We still need to take it slowly. When we prematurely emerge, we suffer from depletion. When we do not give our bodies and minds the rest we need, our bodies and minds will forcefully take it, bringing illness, dis-ease, inflammation, stress.

But choosing to take it slow, one thing at a time, is liberating, graceful, empowering.

Our lives can be and feel too much. I invite you to set an intention for 2023 to take things slowly, one step at a time.

Nature never rushes, yet everything always gets done.