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Exploring Nervous System Dynamics in Sleep Coaching with Chantal Donnelly

Did you know that children under age 9 look to the parents nervous system to determine if they should be in fight, flight or freeze state?

In the realm of parenting, including when it comes to sleep coaching, understanding the intricate dance between a parent's nervous system and their child's nervous system is crucial. I recently sat down with Chantal Donnelly, a physical therapist, author of Settled and founder of Body Insight, to delve into this vital topic.

The conversation revolves around the three crucial phases of sleep coaching and how a parent's regulation impacts their child's ability to self-soothe. Chantal gives us tips and tools on regulating yourself so you can best support yourself AND your child. 

Listening to the interview, Chantal will demonstrate many EASY and FAST tools to use to regulate your nervous system before interacting with your child. Below I overview a few key areas of family life when checking in with your body and nervous system can make the difference between a smooth family time and bedtime vs own of struggle and irritation. 

Transitioning Home and Preparing for Bedtime

As parents transition from work life to family life, it's essential to allow themselves moments of transition. Rushing home only signals stress to the nervous system. Simple rituals like the alternating touch technique, where one sweeps their arms from shoulder to fingertips, or the butterfly hug, can help calm the nervous system before diving into bedtime routines.

Bedtime Routine and Initial Sleep Coaching

During the bedtime routine, parents often find their minds wandering, thinking about to-do lists or upcoming tasks. Mindfulness techniques, such as focusing on sensory experiences like temperature or light in the room, can ground parents in the present moment. By staying regulated during this phase, parents set the stage for successful sleep coaching.

Active Sleep Coaching

When actively engaging in sleep coaching with a frustrated or upset baby, parents must maintain their regulation. Tools like the panoramic vision technique, where one softens their gaze and takes in the entire room, can help parents stay present and calm. Entrainment breathing, matching the baby's breathing rhythm before gradually slowing down, can also facilitate co-regulation and soothe the child.

Throughout the discussion, it becomes evident that a parent's state directly influences their child's ability to self-regulate. By prioritizing their own regulation, through simple techniques and mindfulness practices, parents can create a nurturing environment conducive to healthy sleep habits.

Chantal emphasizes the importance of self-compassion, acknowledging that parenting is inherently challenging and stressful. By incorporating these tools into their daily routines, parents not only enhance their ability to support their child's development, but also cultivate resilience and calmness within themselves.

So without further ado, let's dive into the interview and uncover the secrets to unlocking the power of co-regulation with Chantal Donnelly.

Watch the conversation

In today's fast-paced world, understanding the intricate interplay between a parent's nervous system and their child's is paramount. Through insightful conversations like this one, coupled with practical tools and techniques, parents can navigate the journey of sleep coaching with confidence and compassion. As Chantal's work continues to illuminate the path to self-regulation and calmness, parents everywhere can find solace in knowing that they have the power to foster a peaceful environment for themselves and their children.

More about Chantal

Chantal Donnelly is a physical therapist and author of the Amazon best-selling book Settled: How to Find Calm in a Stress-Inducing World. She is also the owner of Body Insight, a wellness company designed to help people reconnect with their bodies and improve their health.

She combines her anatomy and physiology knowledge and experience with nervous system science to help people with chronic pain, overwhelming stress, and stress-related illnesses. Through videos, workshops, and her book, Chantal teaches body-focused tools for calming the nervous system. She believes that stress fluency can make the world a better place.

Better Sleep Starts With a Regulated Parent

One of the biggest misconceptions about sleep coaching is that it's only about changing a baby's behavior.

In reality, gentle sleep coaching often begins with us.

When parents understand their own nervous systems, they can respond with greater confidence, patience, and consistency. That calm presence helps children feel safe enough to develop healthy sleep skills over time.

Whether you're just beginning your sleep journey or working through a challenging phase, remember that your regulation matters—and you don't have to do it alone.

If you're looking for personalized, gentle guidance, I'd love to support your family.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Co-regulation is the process where children borrow the calm, regulated nervous system of a trusted adult. Before children develop strong self-regulation skills, they rely on parents to help them feel safe and settled.

  • Research suggests babies and young children are highly responsive to their caregivers' emotional state. While stress doesn't directly "cause" sleep problems, a calm and regulated parent can create a more supportive environment for sleep.

  • Nervous system regulation refers to helping the body move out of a stress response and into a calmer, more balanced state through breathing, movement, mindfulness, or sensory awareness.

  • Yes. Gentle sleep coaching emphasizes responsive support while teaching independent sleep skills. Helping parents stay regulated is often an important part of the process.

Are you struggling to get your child to sleep?

The first step to see if I can help you achieve beautiful, blissful sleep is to schedule a 60 minute ZOOM sleep strategy session. Go to this link and complete the contact me form and I will be in touch within 24 hours with directions on how to schedule your Sleep Strategy Session.

Contact Me

If you are still wondering if I can help, please know I do NOT advocate 'cry-it-out'. I am a Gentle Sleep Coach. If you want to learn about my guilt-free and gentle process, please go to these links.

Blissful Baby Beliefs

The Gentle Sleep Process

The Blissful Baby Stairway to Sleep

Please join my Sleep is Bliss Tribe in Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn so we can stay connected and you can continue to get amazing resources on sleep and family wellness.

Sleep is Bliss, Let's Get you more! 

  • Hello, I am Joanna with Blissful Baby Sleep Coaching. And I'm here with Chantal Donnelly, a physical therapist and author of an incredible book that I am reading and devouring called Settled, how to Find Calm in a Stress-Inducing World. And she's also the founder of a wellness company called Body Insight. Thank you Chantal, so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

    Okay. So I have been reading Chantal's book and being part of her book club over the last four weeks. And I'm learning so much about what it means to self-regulate, and I think it's important for any human being to understand their nervous system, which I never understood to the level of detail that Chantal has helped me know and understand. And so I wanted to have Chantal come on today to talk about this really critical understanding of how a parent's nervous system and a baby's nervous system interact and how we can help the parent's nervous system remain calm,

    centered and balanced when they're in a sleep coaching mode with their child while they're trying to improve their child's sleep. So we have a lot to discuss today, so thank you Chantal. Yeah, yeah. Super important for the parent to stay as regulated and calm as possible. And before we started recording, you were telling me about how your first three sessions of sleep coaching are the most difficult,

    because that's when the baby is really frustrated with all the change that's starting to happen. I am gonna guess that even though the parent isn't conscious of it, their nervous system is also really frustrated. Even though they want their child to go to sleep, the nervous system likes the status quo. It doesn't like change. Ah, interesting. Okay. So it's gonna be the baby who doesn't like change as well as the parent.

    There's a little bit of that going on even though you're not aware of it. Okay. So tell us, so explain the interaction between a parent's nervous system and a baby's nervous system. So if you have a premature baby, first of all, their calming nervous system, their parasympathetic nervous system has not completely developed yet. That happens at the very end of the third trimester.

    So that's gonna, so if a baby is premature, they're gonna still be in that developmental phase. Okay. Okay. So that's number one. Yeah. That is important. Yeah. The, if you have a child who isn't premature who was born on schedule, then that child's nervous system is developed, but it's not formed its preferences yet. So it's,

    it's a, it's a newborn nervous system. Right? So like anything else, it's gonna take a little while for the baby to actually understand how to self-regulate. And what happens is children under the age of nine look to the parent's nervous system to decide if they're going to be in freeze, in fight or flight or in calm. And I mean, think about it.

    Have you ever seen a child be calmer than the parent? No, It doesn't happen. It can't generally, right. They can look like they're calmer, but that's usually because they're in freeze, they're in shutdown, or they're, you know, completely paralyzed by stress. That's when it looks like they're calmer than the parent. 'cause the parent might be running around like a chicken with their head cut off in,

    in fight or flight and the kid is just sort of frozen, but really they're in freeze. They are not calmer than, than the parent. It's just almost impossible for that to happen. Okay? Right. So in other words, it is for us as, as parents, especially parents of young children up until age nine, it is really important for us to understand where we are standing on the spectrum of self-regulation.

    And when, when a parent's doing something really new, like learning how to be a sleep coach to their child, they're coming into this experience sleep deprived, they're coming into this experience having probably already tried some attempts at sleep coaching and it's failed. So in the back of their mind, there's this big question mark, like, how can, how will this time be different?

    Or a big question mark of maybe my baby's gonna be the toughest baby on the planet to learn to sleep and everyone else has been lucky but me. And then they also know that they're gonna have to go do what they think is this really hard thing and they're not sure if they really have the stamina to, to, to, to be the sleep coach.

    So, you know, one of the things that happens when in those first three to four nights, which are the most important, is the, I feel like there's three stages that a parent might be in where they need to double check their regula, their own personal self-regulation. So stage one would be they've just come home from work, they're transitioning from work life to family life.

    Okay. So that might be like, okay, now I'm home, we're doing family dinner, I'm helping, you know, get the babies, you know, bathed and everything. So it's kinda like, okay, how to make that transition. Then the second phase would be, alright, now I'm the sleep coach and I am with this child doing a final feed and reading books before I put them in the crib.

    Am I regulated even in that what's supposed to be this relaxing, reliable bedtime routine? Am I even reg showing up regulated in that phase? And then the third phase would be, my child is now in the crib and I'm in active sleep coach mode, meaning I am there to support my child as they learn how to regulate, settle, and soothe themselves.

    But in those first three to four nights, the role of the coach is to be the regulator, the child, because of what Chantal just said, that that, that they have an underdeveloped nervous system and the parent is the one that is the co-regulation. So what Chantel's gonna do today is take us through each of those three phases and talk about tools and things to consider for yourself so that you're really ready to show up being your best self when you are helping your child learn these new skills.

    Yeah. There's definitely different things you can do at the, the three different stages. First thing I would wanna say is, coming into this, you wanna have as much self-compassion as you possibly can because being a parent, whether you were trying to get a child to sleep or just trying to parent on any regular day, is very difficult and very stressful.

    And we, you shouldn't expect yourself to always be calm through it, all of that. Like, there are gonna be times that you're gonna be stressed as a parent, right? A hundred percent. Right. And, and not to feel like that is some kind of fa a failure or a weakness because absolutely not. It's just a normal natural way that things work.

    So that's number one. And so when you're coming home from work or, or coming to that transition of coming into back into family and getting ready, you know, dinner time, bath time, whatever it is, getting ready to go into the sleeping phase, that second phase, the first thing I would say is that if you are rushing to do that,

    which we often are and don't have a choice, right? 'cause our time is limited and we've gotta leave work at a certain hour and blah, blah, blah. If you are rushing your nervous system, we'll think you are under stress. Yep. So allowing yourself to slow down a little bit, particularly the closer you get to home is helpful. And then having a little bit of a transition ritual.

    And it can be a 32nd ritual. It doesn't have to be a big ordeal, but just 30 seconds where maybe you're still in the car before you get out of the car to go into the house. And it's something that you can do to just let your body know that you are transitioning and that you're going into a, a more settled state right before you get with the family.

    And one of those tools, there is many different tools. There can be a breathing tool, there can be something, what we call cross body alternating touch tool. You can use your eyes as a tool, you can use mindfulness as a tool. There's a whole bunch of things. What I find that really works well for transitioning is the alternating touch tool.

    Yeah. Can you show us that one? Sure. There's lots of different tools there, but the one that I like to use is I just take my right hand and I place it on the top of my left shoulder, and then I just sweep my arm down towards my fingers and then I use the other side of the body left hand to right shoulder and sweep.

    Yeah. And you can keep your arms on your steering wheel or wherever by your side depending on where you are. Right. And you can just do this a couple of times, 30 seconds. That's it. Right? That's all you need to do. And, and that alternating touch has been shown to calm your amygdala. Your amygdala is where there's a fear center of your,

    your brain. And it has been shown to calm the fear centers of the brain. And so, you know, going into this situation where, oh my, I'm gonna have to get my child to sleep and I have to do this successfully. There's a little bit of fear there, right? And so this is just sort of calming everything down, sending a message from the body up to the brain that you are safe,

    that everything's okay, and to just sort of settle that nervous system when you do it, you should feel a slowing of your breath, perhaps a deepening of your breath. You're going to feel your heart rate come down a slow down a little bit. Maybe the tension in your shoulders from your workday is gonna release a little bit tension in your jaw. Maybe your stomach might feel a little bit looser,

    not so clenched. You might just feel a little more expansive, maybe a little warmer. Those are the signs that your nervous and Also sometimes saliva Increased salivation is, yeah, That's what happens to me. I take a deep breath and then I can feel an increase in saliva in my mouth. And then I know the tool's working. And what's amazing about these tools is that,

    like she says, they only take like 15 to 30 seconds. I mean, I, I've been doing several of these tools frequently and usually within the first 15 seconds I can feel my breath getting deeper and more saliva in my mouth. And then I am, I know I'm taking care of myself and I'm calming my nervous system down. It's pretty powerful.

    Yeah. So I love that idea of not rushing, having a little transition ritual. And maybe that transition ritual is something as simple as the side arm sweeps Yeah. Before you come back into the homestead with the family. Yeah. I love that. This is a little, little woo woo. But what I add to my little transition ritual after I do this is just sort of three little sweeps where I'm just sort of like washing the day away,

    kind of like blah. Right. Just get that day the workday off of you. Yeah. And it's just sort of a, again, it's just a symbolic ritual of, okay, I'm going from work to home now. Right? And this is even true if you're, you know, coming out of your home office, right? I mean, let's not be fooled that making the transition from home office back out into family life is,

    is not a transition. In fact, it can be almost a bigger transition than doing the car ride. 'cause at least in the car ride, you're like, you know, have time to think or listen to music or whatever. But sometimes just stepping out, you know, two feet into the, into the household can, can be a big change.

    That's a good point. Okay. Now let's talk about kind of like there you are, you're a parent. You're like, all right, I've made the successful transition. I've helped my baby get ready for bed. And now I'm the sleep coach and I'm in my first, you know, you know, one to four days of sleep coaching and I'm nervous,

    I'm scared. I hope this is gonna work. Hopefully I've got Joanna on my team as the sleep coach. But if you don't, you know, 'cause I would be coaching you on all of this to really get you really geared up. But if you're doing this on your own, then you would just be able to say, okay, so now I'm in the room with the baby.

    And the thing about babies, you guys, whether they are six months old or 10 years old, whenever there's a change of pattern, there will be frustration and confusion. And when children are frustrated and confused, they will protest. It is normal human response to change. But when we are parents and we are already sleep deprived and probably a bit frazzled when we hear our babies' protest,

    you know, we have that visceral response like, okay, I gotta go do something. Right? And the thing about gentle sleep coaching is there's lots you can do to settle your child, but it matters what state you're in before you go try to do that loving approach. Like picking up or the loving song or the loving pat. So this is what we're talking about.

    It's like we're talking about your state in direct relationship with your baby, because their nervous system below age nine is underdeveloped. And their nervous system depends on your nervous system. So we're in the room, we're in phase two, now we're in the room, baby's in the crib, baby's had the bottle or the F of or the bedtime feed. Baby's been read to baby's in the,

    in the crib at the right sleep window. So you know, you've done everything right and baby's frustrated because this is night two of coaching and baby still is waiting for mom to show up to breastfeed. And the dad starts freaking out and being like, oh my God, what can dad do? So if dad hasn't picked the baby up yet, then he can use tools with his hands to self-soothe.

    So another tool that is the alternating touch tool would be the butterfly hug. So he can, what you do is you take your hands, palms facing, you cross the hands and interlock the thumbs, and then you place your hands on your chest so that your fingers are just under your collarbones. And then you're gonna tap one side of the body and then the other side.

    So it's alternating touch, right? You can tap fast, you can tap slow, you can tap hard, you can tap light's totally up to you, but you just need to do this for about 30 seconds. So this is another alternating touch that's an option for a dad or a mom who's in that situation. Because as soon as you hear your,

    your child cry, particularly if it's a a, a more desperate cry, your nervous system is gonna signal danger, right? So you need to tell your body to tell your brain that there is no danger, right? And so things like butterfly hug, what another thing you can do breathing wise is a long exhalation. We know that when you inhale,

    your heart rate goes up a little bit and when you exhale, your heart rate goes down a little bit. So you can use that physiological phenomenon by lengthening the exhale. So you can inhale for three counts, for example, and then exhale for six counts. That's also gonna send a message up to the brain that you were not stressed. So good.

    And you know, what's fascinating about this is that no one taught us this. That I am, you know, because of you and your book and your work and being a, you know, resilience toolkit facilitator, which is all about building, building resilience in the body, is this idea that what's happening in the body is sending messages to the brain.

    So we think all the messages are coming from the brain, but they're actually coming from the body up to the brain. And so when we're feeling nervous or stressed or something, it's, it's all starting here, but we don't know that we think it's all happening up here. Right. Our thoughts can certainly augment it, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

    So, you know, maybe this is, maybe all you guys know about this already, but I, I feel like I've been having kind of an awakening in reading her book and just understanding my, my mind body connection a little bit more deliberately. Yeah. And testing these things out, like as part of her book club, she's got homework for us.

    I was a little delin delinquent on my homework, but I'm gonna start doing it again. And because I know ultimately it's gonna help me, you know, that's why I wanted Chantal to come today to just help us all. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So that's where, there you are, we're in phase two. Like you're, you're, you're coaching you,

    you don't have the baby in arms, right? So you are realizing, so you can do more of this, More of the arm sweeps. Yep. Can do. But butterfly hug, you can do the long exhalation. Now if those are not working, another one you can try is doing a neck massage. It's specifically your sternocleidomastoid muscle. SCM muscle goes from behind the ear and goes down to your collarbone,

    right? Where your collarbone and your throat kind of meet up. So you don't have to worry that you're on the muscle specifically, but just raking from behind the ear down to the collarbone talks to the sternocleidomastoid. And that muscle is innervated by a cranial nerve that's very, very close to your vagus nerve. And your vagus nerve is your calming nervous system.

    So those two nerves interconnect and can help you to regulate, I think of this muscle as sort of being a portal to the calming nervous system. And so that's something that really works for people is just massaging right behind the ear and going down to the collarbone. Sometimes just staying behind the ear and just massaging back there can be really helpful for people. Yeah.

    And again, these are just gentle movements. These are not, you know, intense, you know, just, you don't have to press hard. I mean, I went, the first time I did butterfly, I was going, you know, like really fast. And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, you can,

    you don't have to do it slow, but you don't need to like, you know, Don't beat yourself up For the moon. You know, so, you know, like that. Right? So there, that's okay. All right. So now we're in a situation where you have the baby in arms. Yep. And the baby's not calming down.

    And that's probably because you either overstimulated the baby or you're in power struggle with the baby or, and or it probably means you are still dysregulated. Yeah. I think if you, if there's a power struggle happening or the baby is feeling overstimulated, you're trying too hard and you're probably trying too hard because you are stressed, you're in fight flight, right?

    So you're fighting through this, you're pushing through a little aggressively. And again, this could be very unconscious. You could be doing this and not really knowing that you're pushing too much, but you're just trying so hard. Right. And you're a little stressed about it. And so that comes across to a very new nervous system as too much. Yeah.

    Right? I call it flooding. Mm. I try to explain flooding because parents seem to really resonate. Like, oh my gosh, you're right. When I went to go do that third pickup in a row, you know, me coming at the baby with my arms with my big nervous system on fire, I'm like literally flooding the baby with all of that energy and then the baby isn't calm even when I do the most loving thing,

    which is to pick them up. They are not downregulating with me. And it's not because you're doing it wrong, but because you guys are, you know, your nervous systems are clashing, right? So let's talk about what you do when you're, when you have a baby in arms. So of course you can use breathing techniques 'cause you don't need your hands for that.

    The other thing I really like to do is we tend to kind of look at the baby in a very sort of narrow focused, intense kind of way. And that visual mechanism is exactly what happens naturally to your eyes when you're in fight or flight, right? So if you do the opposite, which would be to open up your gaze and take in 180 degree view of what's happening in your face in the room.

    And you don't even have to move your eyeballs like that Joanna, you can just literally think about, imagine you're taking in a sunset. Like think about softening your eye. Oh yeah, I see. And just letting your whole visual perspective open up. I call it panoramic vision, Right? So you're just taking everything in and just that will kind of trigger your brain to go,

    oh, we're not in a stress state. It's when we're in that really intense focused state that things can kind of go awry because our brain can get a little confused by the information coming in from our eyes when it's that focused and narrow our vision. You know? And that's why I wouldn't recommend a parent prior to picking up the baby if they are trying to soothe themselves to look at their phone,

    right? Like scrolling on social media is not gonna help you downregulate. Not just because of the content on social media, because that's one of the reasons, right? But the other reason is that your eyes are going into focus mode and we don't want that. We want your eyes to stay soft and opened and to take in 180 degree view. Wow.

    Yeah. So that one's really powerful, right? Because I often say to families like, don't stare your baby straight in the eyes because they will actually get matter. But it kind of makes sense because if, if you are dysregulated and you're looking at your baby and they're looking at you like you guys kind of get locked into that. Whereas if you pick up your baby and you're maybe,

    you know, taking in kind of the panoramic view and then you're breathing 'cause you're trying to co-regulate, right? So three breaths in and then six counts out, you know, then you're now co-regulating with your child in arms and we all know what this looks like, right? So the analogy I always give is, you know, if your baby, if your child or baby falls on the ground and bumps their head,

    they're gonna be crying. You're absolutely gonna be picking them up. And usually when you pick them up, they're still crying in arms. And when they're in your arms calming down after bumping their head, they are co-regulating with you. They are crying in arms is fine. Like it is a, is a, a safe place to be to co-regulate. And as they calm they're still crying but they're getting,

    you know, less and less and less until they're at a whimper and then they recover. That is fine. That's kind of what we're looking like co-regulation. That's what we want to see. We wanna see this coming down both for the child and for the parent. And then when the child's calm you can put them back in the crib, right? Yeah.

    One thing you can do is what's called entrainment breathing, which can be kind of fun to play with with a child. Entrainment breathing is when you, if you are breathing is calm, but the person you're with, in this case the baby is not, you match their staccato irregular breath for just two, three seconds and then you start to slow your breath down.

    Oh Wow. And that kind of helps them so they're on the same rhythm with you 'cause you've matched the way that they're breathing and then you start to slow your breathing down to a calmer pace and then they can kind of follow suit. And that can be really effective in that situation where you're holding your child That I can see how that could work really beautifully.

    That's a very powerful tool. So as you can see everybody that you know there, there are these three zones you're going to inevitably be in when you're in sleep coaching mode. And each zone is an an opportunity for you to regulate yourself. And when you do that, you are literally helping your child's regulation system mature because you're showing them what like is is,

    could I say the word right? Regulation looks like what? What is that you're Co-regulating with them so they're able to sort of match your tune if you will. And yeah, you're helping them learn how to regulate by showing them what a regulated nervous system looks like. Calm is contagious, right? So they're gonna pick up on that. There's a little bit of mirroring that happens.

    So they're learning from from what you're doing, but it's also just that they don't know what to do and they're just gonna follow suit. They trust you, they're gonna follow suit with where you're at. If you feel safe and you show that through a regulated nervous system, then they will feel safe. If you are feeling, oh my gosh, this isn't working and I wanna get to my glass of wine and go to bed myself.

    And so you start to upregulate a little bit, it's gonna be really hard to get your child to downregulate or to soothe. Right? Right. I wanted to see too in that second zone, 'cause we didn't really touch on that Joanna the second zone when you're reading the book and it, right. Am I correct on that's the second zone. It's the reading and the prepping for bed and everything.

    You know, you might have your mind wander and you're thinking about your to-do list and you're thinking about, you know, is this gonna work? Or when do I get my downtime 'cause I'm really tired. Like all of that stuff that really happens naturally as parents. That's when mindfulness can really be helpful during that phase. Or you can focus on what you're hearing in the room or the,

    the temperature of the room or the light in the room and all those little things that you can focus on to bring you into the present moment and to keep you grounded that way. 'cause otherwise if, if you're thinking about all that stuff, then you're not gonna be settled as you go into the the third zone. Right. Right. That, thank you so much.

    I, I realize I skipped, I skipped a zone, but I'll on that note about you know, trying to detach yourself from like your to-do list. The other thing I often say is like, don't be thinking about the other caregiver outside the room. So for example, if dad is a sleep coach and mom's outside the room and you're afraid that you're gonna be judged Or she might be watching you on the monitor or she hears a cry,

    she's gonna think you're doing it wrong. Like all of that happens right now when I'm working with clients, I like really help build a united front so that there's agreements made between partners about how mom is not to interrupt. Mom is, you know, not gonna text him because dad really does need to be really emotionally present because he's there to pay exquisite attention to his child.

    Like that's really what's happening when you're really doing gentle sleep coaching. The parent is very emotionally present and is paying exquisite attention to their child and being very loving and very attentive. And in order to be that way, they have to be in the moment. And I always say to them, if you find yourself popping out, you know, thinking about that work project,

    thinking about maybe you know, someone watching you on the monitor in that moment you pop out guarantee that baby's gonna start crying more. Yeah. Guarantee your nervous system isn't settled too, right? Yeah. And the, and the parent, the dad will say, God, you were so right. I found myself getting a little distracted and was thinking about some work deadline and that baby w that was literally about to fall asleep,

    ramped up and was all like ding, you know? And I said, yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty remarkable what happens. Which is why, you know, I wanted Chantal to come today to talk to us more about how to stay properly regulated because ultimately it will make the sleep coaching process go way better and you will walk away with more tools that you can use outside of your sleep coaching environment.

    Like I said, I'm in Chantal's book club for settled and I'm learning all these tools that I can use throughout my day, what I can do before a meal, what I can do between client calls, you know, all of that to stay really balanced and centered and calm so that I can be the best coach I can be and also the best human I can be.

    You know, not to be upregulated all the time. So this has been so valuable, Chantal, thank you so much. Can you tell everybody more like how to find your book, how to find you, what, what other services are you offering these days if people wanna learn more about their nervous system? Sure. I have a company called Body Insight so if people go to body insight.com,

    they can find out how to contact me, they can find out about my upcoming workshops. There I am on Instagram and Facebook at Body Insight Inc. Okay. And you can get my book settled, how to Find Calm in a Stress Inducing World that's available pretty much online where, where books are sold and what else? Hoping to have some workshops coming up soon.

    I know I have an in-person one in Pasadena coming up in October. Okay, good. And she does, she does one-on-one coaching too. So if you want to say come to Chantal and be like, okay, these are all the things that are going on with me. Give me some customized tools and protocols that will help me. You do, you do one-on-one coaching in that way,

    which I think is really valuable because if you want to get right to the heart of things, if you don't have time to read the book or time to do the workshop, but you want direct help, Chantelle is available for one-on-one coaching as well. So I will make sure that in the show notes all of that contact information is available. But I,

    I do highly, in fact, can you hold up the book? Do you have the book read? I do. Mine's upstairs by my bedside, so there we go. That's the book. So I do recommend this and then, but her Instagram is awesome because she's constantly demo demonstrating tools on, so if you're more of a visual learner, the Instagram is a great place to go.

    So thank you so much Chantelle, for helping us to, to learn more about her nervous system. Yeah, thanks for having me. I hope it helped. Yes.

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