S3: E1: Neurodivergent Sleep Support: Nicole Bateman chats with Michelle Cyril

In the first episode of Season 3, Nicole Bateman sits down with Michelle Cyril, The Family Sleep Specialist, to discuss how to help neurodivergent children with complex sleep needs. As a nurse with a specialism in paediatric sleep, and a parent navigated sleep challenges with one of her children, Michelle brings a wealth of knowledge to the conversation.

Highlights of the Episode:

1. Michelle’s Personal Journey:
   Michelle shares her experience as a mum of a child with significant sleep challenges. She talks about how her personal struggles motivated her to develop solutions and ultimately led her to specialise in paediatric sleep support.
2. Meeting Sensory Needs for Better Sleep:
   Michelle dives into the role of sensory processing in sleep difficulties, explaining how meeting a child’s sensory needs can greatly impact their ability to settle at night. She offers practical strategies and insights on how parents can create an environment that helps their children feel safe, calm, and ready for rest.
3. Effective Sleep Strategies for Neurodivergent Kids:
   Nicole and Michelle discuss tailored strategies for supporting sleep and emotional regulation in children who are neurodivergent and may have reduced sleep needs. Michelle outlines some simple steps families can take to improve sleep routines, from addressing sensory sensitivities to creating calming bedtime routines.

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Check out our Season 1 and 2 sponsor The Super Sensory Squad who support kids in understanding the eight sensory systems and emotional regulation using their penguin squad at: www.thesupersensorysquad.com and www.instagram.com/thesupersensorysquad

Transcript

2:08

Hello and welcome to Conversations with an SEND Mum with me as your host Nicole Bateman. This week I am joined by Michelle Cyril from Family Sleep Specialists and we are going to be talking about sleep and also, how we can help our neurodivergent kids especially so Michelle, welcome. Thank you for having me on. That's all right. So first of all, can you explain what your connection to the neurodivergent or SEND community is please? Yeah, so going backwards, I, started my nurse training in London at Great Ormond Street and then worked in London for about 20 years. And then after moving from London to the Cotswolds, I decided to work in a residential college for teenagers and young adults with disability. So and then I had a child with terrible sleep and helped I've got twins and one of them was a horrific sleeper. And so I managed to help them with their sleep. But then I decided that I, I wanted to help other people and other families. And so given my nursing background, I decided that I would do a course, an advanced paediatric sleep course including special educational needs and disabilities. So I could like intertwine my new passion for sleep and, help people with more complex sleep situations. So I, also work for a company who provide NHS sleep support as well, where we get complex sleep. But my private work, I do all ages, but recently I've decided to really like hone in and support the people I am really passionate about helping, is the families with, who have neurodivergent children and And poor sleep. Yeah. And that is, so needed because I know within, the community that is, tricky. And sleep is like, if we don't get good sleep, then that has a knock on effect for everything else in the day. So it is so key, isn't it? It's foundational to, yeah. Us as parents to the children and their regulation and, yeah. How we respond to them, it's, yeah, it's foundational, it affects every area of a family's life. Absolutely. I'm sure you're going to give some great nuggets here to people listening. So, but first of all, what are some of the common misconceptions about sleep that you encounter, in your day to day? What I'd say is that people come up with a lot of shoulds. So when I'm doing a free call with somebody, they're like, Oh, I know we should be doing this or I know we should be doing that. But when a family have got a neurodivergent child, that sometimes you just have to throw out all the shoulds. And, really look at, well, what is helping your child regulate? So lots of people say, I know we should do a bath before bed every night. And sometimes, and yes, a short warm bath right before bed is very helpful for sleep. But if a child is finding that like a bath is a really great sensory experience for them, then a short 10 minute bath is not going to meet any sensory needs if they want to be in there for 45 minutes. So. In that situation, we would say, right, well, let's have the sensory bath not being part of the bedtime routine. So, after the bath, they might stick on some comfy clothes and not pyjamas, because putting, just the act of putting on pyjamas is a very good cue for sleep. So, yeah, there's lots of shoulds, like, they should go to bed at this time, they should fall asleep at this time, they should have this number of hours sleep, and, If a child is neurodivergent, the chances are they have a reduced sleep need. So again, those, it's just taking away, taking away the, the shoulds really. And, and also that bedtime should be calm. And actually when I'm doing a sleep plan for a family, every sleep, Pam Bespoke. I would say every sleep plan does include meeting some sensory needs before bed. And, and that can be really fun. It doesn't have to be calm. It doesn't have to be really relaxed. And if they're stomping around, jumping, doing what I call the burrito game, where we wrap them up in a blanket, get the commando crew their way out. Do this. It's not necessarily a calm and relaxed bedtime, but it's fun. It's great connection time and the children absolutely love it. So yeah. I love that. I love that. Yeah. Cause we do, we put so much pressure on ourselves. So we, we think we should, we should do this, we should do that. So that's great advice. I love that. I'm like, yes, people coming to you will not have that pressure of what we should be doing because we shouldn't. We shouldn't. And yeah, the sensory, we do that. My daughter especially seeks a lot of vestibular input, the movement that my son loves, the proprioceptive input, doing those kinds of games that you were saying before ideal, which a few years ago, I definitely would not have known that that would be helpful. I would have thought that. That's totally counter to what I'm doing. So I'm sure there's many people that even just listened to that and been like, Oh wow, I need to do that. So I was working with a nine year old fairly recently who would go up to their bedroom at bedtime because that was the time they should have gone to sleep. But he would go into his room and he would just completely trash his room, like stuff would come out the drawers, off the shelves. He was so dysregulated and we built in this one to one time of like the vestibular input, the the deep proprioception input and He would then go to his room and just be really calm, and they just, they couldn't believe the transformation. He wasn't necessarily falling asleep any quicker just because of that, but they had a much calmer child, and we made other changes to get him falling asleep. Yeah, meeting his sensory needs before bed was something they hadn't, hadn't even considered. No. Absolutely. So you and yourself, you said, you've got, twins and one struggled with sleep. What are some of those unique challenges but also successes that you've gone through that help then when you're speaking to other parents? So he was struggling with his sleep when he was very little. He, so as a family, we struggled with sleep deprivation for two and a half years before I thought. I need to make, I need to make a change. I need to do something different. Cause I kept waiting for that thing of he'll grow out of it. You know, he won't be doing this ever. And then I sat on his bed and he would wake up just like instantly screaming multiple times a night. And I just remember sitting on his bed one night and just thinking. I've got to do something different, he's not going to change this, this needs to come from within me. So I, I worked out what, what I needed to do to help him. But, that was, it was much, much younger before I realized that there were probably neurodivergent pictures. You know, the work I do now, it's working with like children who have very complex sleep situations. So they might have autism and PDA. The child may just have no, inclination to want to make any changes around their sleep at all. They're happy falling asleep in their parent's bed. Happy falling asleep and waking up and getting back into their bed when they wake in the night. And and it's the parents who are feeling quite broken by it all. And, what I support families to do is like totally transform their, their sleep. So the, the child with PDA who's not on board at all ends up with amazing sleep at the end of it and feels so much better. So I've got an example of working with an 11 year old recently, who, he was taking melatonin around 7 in the evening, he was falling asleep in mum's bed, mum and dad's bed next to him, they were next to him, and then dad would carry him through to his bed, then he'd wake up in the night. Do that in, we all do it, an environment check and a body check. You'd think, Oh, I'm in a different room and I haven't got anyone laying next to me. So then he'd go off to his parents room cause that's where he'd fallen asleep. They'd play musical beds. One of the adults would get out and go in the child's bed and then He was waking up really early in the morning around five past four, five o'clock in the morning ready to start his day. But what we managed to do is we managed to get him into falling asleep in his bed. Not he was very happy to not have mum in his room, but it's by the end of the sport. His own bed, no support at bedtime, sleeping all night and waking up at six o'clock in the morning. They were like, when I started the call, they had a free call with me. When they started, they're like, I just don't know how you can help us. And it was like transformational for them. Yeah. And how long did that take? Like, as in, what's the Time frame. Oh, so it's, I never say it's gonna be quick, you know, it's never a sprint finish, it is a marathon rather than a sprint, but, oh, for the complex sneak picture, you're looking at about eight to ten weeks of, like, running. Maybe fortnightly calls, you know, from the beginning, from when I just first touched base with them to, to the But it's the, the support that people get along the way. They don't just get given a sleep plan and, and off you go. It's helping them implement those changes little by little. Like, let's work on this now. And like, we've nailed that. Let's work on that. That's the support they need when it's a complex, deep situation. Yeah, definitely. And that's, that's amazing. That transformation, that's life changing for that family, isn't it? That's right. Yeah. They managed to reduce his melatonin, they stopped melatonin by the end of that. So that's Wow. Out of his list. That's, that's so good. That's so good. Yeah, I love that because, and I love chatting with people like yourself who, you come from that place of wanting to, you've been for a situation, you then want to help others, and you're making that change in so many people's lives. And sleep I've had mixed relationship with sleep, for my son, he's got epilepsy. He's autistic, but he has epilepsy. But because of the altered brain activity all the time and his epilepsy, he actually has always been going to sleep super well, because I think he's just so whacked out from the day and because it's not just when he has seizures that he has the epileptic brain activity. It's all the time. So, we've, we've been fortunate in the fact that that, but then my daughter, she loves the routines and then it gets, longer and rubbing backs and different things you start something and then you continue it and you're like, okay, right how could she get to sleep herself? And she's, we're transitioning to that, but you know, every family will be different and every child will be different, won't they? I remember working with a child who, they would, they would only fall asleep with dad and dad had to be literally bear hugging him to sleep and And the dad had to breathe really heavily in the child's face and they were like, how? I mean, how? How? We want him to fall asleep independently, but they just couldn't imagine how that was ever possible. And yeah, sure enough, like little by little, we just were interacting and tweaking what dad was doing over a number of weeks. You're never going to say, right, well, that's going to be sorted in two weeks, over a number of weeks. You managed to The dad never wanted to be out of the room, which is fine, but with dad being on a camp bed at the edge of the room, rather than hugging his child to sleep and, and they, yeah, they came so far in just a few weeks. It was amazing. Yeah. That's great. And I love, I love the fact. So the reason why I wanted to chat to you is because, for me, there's a lot of sleep experts out there and there's a lot of different viewpoints on things. And even from when I was younger, I was not a cry it out kind of person. I know obviously different people. Go for different things, but me personally, I prefer that gentle approach because we want to make sure that our kids feel safe and we want to make sure that they, they are regulated. So yeah, I like the approach. The world of sleep consultants is not a regulated area. There's nobody overseeing what we're doing. So you could have somebody who's just done a three day course in sleep and call themselves a sleep consultant. Whereas I've done a degree level course in it. It's pediatric sleep. And so it's, it's lovely to be able to provide that expertise and to provide, you know, as a specialist, you know, somebody who gets the challenges that they're experiencing rather than just a, well, I was taught this in my two day course and going to work for everybody. It's not every plan. That I put together for families bespoke, it's, you know, to meet the entire family's needs. It's not just that one child because poor sleep affects siblings and parents and, and, and the wider, yeah, definitely, so in your opinion, what's the most kind of crucial aspect of support? Obviously everyone's different, but what should families be kind of thinking about when, when regards to sleep? So, meeting sensory needs before bed is absolutely crucial, thinking about what needs do we need to meet to help them regulate and be relaxed? Because if they can't, if they're not relaxed, they're not going to be able to fall asleep. And the proprioception work, it's amazing that it lasts for up to six hours after we do it. build it in pre bed, but the impact just lasts so long. It's phenomenal. But in terms of like what, what people can do to, to be helpful and is thinking of that, the ideal bedtime, stop thinking about the strict routine and the ideal bedtime, because if you do have a child who's got reduced sleep needs because they are neurodivergent, then, What we need to do is start putting a child into bed when they can get into bed and fall asleep quickly, rather than get into bed and take ages about falling asleep, because then their bed becomes this place of wakefulness. And once the bed's this place of wakefulness, they've got more time to worry. About school the next day. They've got more time to get frustrated. I can't fall asleep. Oh, I'm still awake. I'm still awake. And, and it it, the bed just becomes this place of wakefulness. And then that can lead to breaks in sleep overnight. And it can lead to early rising as well, because they just, they, they wake up and think, oh no, I'm awake. That means I'm not going to get back to sleep for ages. So really that get into bed and fall asleep quickly idea is It's what's really, really important to, to help, to help get sleep back on track. And also sticking to a regular wake up time, because if sometimes people think, Oh, they've slept so badly, what we'll do is we'll let them sleep in at the weekend. So offering catch up sleep at the weekend is very counterproductive when it comes to sorting out a sleep problem, because If you have a long lay in on Saturday and Sunday, that means going to bed on Sunday night is really tricky, which means getting up for school on Monday morning is even trickier. So, really, and also, having a lie in, it's a very artificial concept. That's so interesting and it makes me think about, you try and put your kids to bed, for example, actually both of my kids need different things. My son needs more sleep than my daughter, even though she's younger. Recently we have been. being like actually she doesn't need to go to bed at the same, but it's tricky isn't it when you've got two kids and especially if say the younger one needs less sleep than the older one then as a family how would you navigate that? Yeah and I have that with so with my twins I've got one who always needed much less sleep and I just had a conversation with my daughter and said You need more sleep darling, you've always needed more sleep. So I will do your bedtime first Yeah, and and she's like, yeah, I I am ready for do my bedtime and it's just sometimes about having that Conversation for them to realize that i'm doing what's right for them For you as an individual. Yeah. You're not missing out on, wake time, et cetera. It is actually best for you as an individual. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's so important. So anything from your experience that you want to kind of share to parents listening right now that are struggling with sleep and dysregulation in the family because there's not much sleep? How would you encouraging. Yeah, and I think lots of parents like really struggle with the idea that, oh gosh, she keeps talking about a later bedtime, later bedtime, and we're not going to have any evening for ourselves. And and I totally get that, but, so, it's not always that you need to do a later bedtime forever. So, what I've done, I've created a free guide about how to overcome bedtime battles with your neurodivergent child, which we can add to the show notes, actually. Yeah. And, so it's about where you would do a sleep diary first, and the sleep diary is it reveals so much for a family, like looking at their average fall asleep time. You might have like the odd outlier, kind of ignore that, but what is their average fall asleep time? And then you start doing bedtime around that average fall asleep time. But you wouldn't have to stick at that forever. So the guide would then talk to you about, right, well, This is how to recognize what's going on. This is how to prepare for making changes. And then this is how we're going to resolve the sleep problem, but slowly start bringing bedtime earlier again. So we start getting them to fall asleep earlier. So it's not, so sometimes you like jump it back if you, we want them to get into bed and fall asleep much quicker, and then we can slowly start bringing it back. Bearing in mind, they may have, reduced sleep needs compared to your siblings or peers. Yeah. Yeah. So but I was also, you know, somebody's really struggling now, I think they meet those sensory needs before bed and, and think about later bedtime. So they're not so wakeful in that bedtime space. I've got more time to worry. I'm to just get frustrated Yeah, that's that's so helpful. Literally like I'm sure this is gonna help so many people listening I can think of some people that I'm like, I need to give your free guide to them to Yeah People can book a call with me. They can I do free calls to everybody. So just like hear what's going on. And there's a no obligation that nobody has to book in any service with me afterwards, but sometimes just speaking to. Me about what's happening and just giving some like very immediate advice is enough to, make the magic happen. And, and sometimes, people think, oh, it's too complex and, and we would like support, but I hope everybody, yeah, thank you so much. So where's the best place to connect with you? So I'm on Instagram and Facebook, but I have, if they have a child who's neurodivergent and you're struggling with sleep, I have a Facebook group. So it's sleep help for parents of neurodivergent children. So literally every week I'm on there, I'm doing a live giving some information and education and helping people navigate the return to school, which we've just been doing recently. And yeah, just keeping people's sleep on track in the autumn winter is very different to the summer. So it's a weekly place of multiple sleep tips and advice that people can, access from the Facebook page. Excellent. And just before we go, cause you're saying if the bed is a place, a wakeful place, then they get more anxious and think about all of the different things. What's that? Cause anxiety and sleep. Is there a correlation? Well, there's no mental health condition where sleep is unaffected and if somebody's very anxious. So sometimes we have children who we call, what we call like bed dread. They just, they cannot bear the idea of getting into bed cause they just don't know. When they're going to be able to fall asleep and that it just builds and builds and builds. And so the, the free guide that I was saying that, that would help people address it. A child who has anxiety related sleep problems as well. Excellent. Great. So yeah, look in the show notes and and definitely follow Michelle because even just in this 20 minutes, so many great tips definitely get in touch with her. So thank you very much, Michelle, for coming on. You are very welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you. And remember that every Wednesday, there is a new episode chatting with different people. So definitely come and have a listen, check out the new episodes, follow and share the episodes too with those who you think it would help. So I will see you next week. Bye!