Eva: (00:04)
Hey there, you’re listening to the, My Sleeping Baby podcast, which is all about baby and child sleep. I’m so excited to teach you how you can get your little ones sleeping so that you can sleep too and enjoy parenthood to its fullest. I’m Eva Klein, your resident’s sleep expert, mom of three, founder of the Sleep Bible online coaching program, and lover of all things sleep and motherhood. If you’re looking for tangible solutions for your little one sleep woes or you simply want to learn more, this podcast is for you. For more information, check out mysleepingbaby.com and you can follow me on Instagram and Facebook @mysleepingbaby.

Eva: (00:43)
All right. So today I feel like going down memory lane and recount basically how I became a pediatric sleep consultant and what life has been like for me over the last seven years, because it really does feel like it was yesterday when Eliana was just a few months old, waking me up all night long, which was ultimately the catalyst that got me where I am today. Now, before I take you down memory lane, I first just want to say that I feel so privileged to be in this position to have been able to help well over 2000 families to date, get their little ones consistently sleeping through the night so that they can be functioning humans. Again, words just can’t describe how humbled I feel being in this position. Um, I never imagined in my wildest dreams that this would be where I was at right now, uh, considering it was just supposed to be a fun side business, but we’ll, we’ll get into that soon.

Eva: (01:56)
But before we do, I just want to put it out there that I feel so grateful to each and every one of you who have supported me throughout this journey, um, those of you who have followed me and have asked me questions and recommended me and worked with me and joined my programs, I just feel so grateful that you have all entrusted me with your most precious gems, your little ones. Right. Um, and I take that privilege very, very seriously. So I first just want to say a huge, thank you to all of you for entrusting me with your little ones. It really is an honor and a privilege. So I get asked a lot. How I got into this business is specially when I mentioned that I am a lawyer that is oftentimes when people will be going, huh? What do you, what do you mean?

Eva: (02:55)
How did this all happen? So let me take a step back. I wanted to be a lawyer ever since high school. Um, it was always something that really interested me for a number of reasons. And so thankfully I did just that. And I graduated law school in 2011. I graduated from the university of Western Ontario’s faculty of law, and I gave birth to my first baby immune app a month after writing my last set of finals. Um, and I just have to give a shout out to westerns faculty of law for letting me write my exams early in case I went into labor early. That was a really, um, a little bit of a stressful time. Let’s just say, but thank God it all works out. And I wrote my final exams and when Amuna was five months old, I began my articling, which is basically this paid internship that you have to do in Ontario to get called to the bar.

Eva: (03:55)
And even though it was really busy cause I was working and I was studying for the bar and I had a baby, thankfully Amuna was this very, very easy going happy baby, who was just naturally the best sleeper in the entire world. And so I managed to juggle all of those millions of balls all at once. Um, simply because she was a very easy going baby. And so I’m forever grateful for that because that was exactly what I needed at that time of my life. And so I completed my articling. I started working, um, in-house at an academic hospital here in Toronto, um, which, you know, I actually really enjoyed. I, I got to, I was in charge of negotiating the hospitals, clinical trial agreements and research related agreements. And, uh, and it was a really great job and it was really interesting and I got to work with doctors and, and it was, it was enjoyable in that sense.

Eva: (04:51)
Um, and then, but a year later went on maternity leave and had my second baby and this baby Eliana, she is the famous baby that did not let me sleep. And I remember the type of exhaustion, the type of overwhelm and feeling of hopelessness that I felt in those days. I, I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy. And so that basically gave me no choice, but to sort of open up the sleep books and Google like crazy and hop on the phone, you know, with some friends that I had older kids getting some advice and I managed to make the situation a little bit better on my own. Um, but it was definitely far from perfect. It was like, so rather than her waking up every hour and a half to two hours, she would sleep like three to four hours stretches. So I was able to sort of, you know, unclog my brain a little bit like default, a teeny tiny bit, which I remember the day I called my husband, he was at work and I said to him, I said, you know, maybe I should use up the rest of my maternity leave, um, to get my certification to become a pediatric sleep consultant.

Eva: (06:07)
I just had this random Eureka idea. And I remembered, he said to me, he was like, cool, no problem. We’ll talk about it more when I get home, but, um, go for it. And cause you see, I live in Toronto, I live in Canada where we are great, very grateful. You know, employees, um, can get at the time I was eligible for 12 months of maternity leave. Now you can actually get up to 18, you can take up to 18 months off, but then it was 12 months. And Eliana was about five months at the time when I started researching this. And I want to emphasize that the goal was just to launch a side business cause they have, at the end of the day, I’m a lawyer like who leaves law to go and do something like sleep consulting, like who the heck does that?

Eva: (06:54)
Not me. And so the idea really was the hope was that my boss would let me come back to work on a part-time basis, you know, three days a week, which was really what I wanted at the time. Considering the girls were going to be three in one and my husband worked a very demanding job in the financial sector. And so I wanted to have a little bit more flexibility. And so having this fun side business would allow me to, you know, recoup a little bit of the money that I wouldn’t have been making if I was working full-time. So that was the plan. And for the most part, at least at the very beginning, the plan actually panned out because my boss allowed me to come back to work three days a week, which I was so unbelievably grateful for. And so I went back to work in this with this really fantastic arrangements with me working Mondays Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then be off Thursday and Friday where I could focus on this side business of mine.

Eva: (07:54)
But then I remember what happened. And this was, I remember it was September, 2014. What happened was, is I was back at work. So, you know, Eliana is a September baby. So she was now a year. She was in daycare. I was back at work and I remember in a local Facebook group that I’m, that I was in at the time, I’m still in this group, somebody posted, asking for a recommendation for a pediatric sleep consultant. Now up until that point, I had helped a big chunk of people for free to be able to get my certification. You had to get a certain number of hours. And so I had helped a number of my friends and acquaintances and even people that I didn’t know, I recruited actually within this group as to be able to get these volunteer hours of mine. And so that gave me the opportunity to say, Hey, you know, what, can you do me a favor?

Eva: (08:54)
I helped you out with, you know, your, your baby, your toddler, your preschooler. Do you mind recommending me on this post? And they all said, yeah, a hundred percent. Like you were a godsend, Eva, you, you helped my babies now sleeping through the night because of you. And so they all recommended on this particular post. And I guess when people keep saying like Eva Klein, Eva Klein, Eva Klein. She’s so awesome that within the next 24 hours, I had four people book, my one-on-one three week packages, which made me go, wow, holy smokes. Maybe just, maybe I can make this into something that’s more than just a side gig. I remember that Eureka moment where I was, you know, sitting on the couch, the kids were asleep and I said to my husband, I said, gosh, this might be able to grow into my full-time thing.

Eva: (09:52)
And my husband said, go for it. I believe in you. I think that it can happen. But you know, the back of my mind I was going like, okay, yeah, maybe in theory it can happen, but like I’m still a lawyer. But the reality is that it actually ended up growing a lot more quickly than I ever imagined because when you help an exhausted, overwhelmed sleep deprived, mom, get her little ones sleeping through the night, take a wild, guess what she does. She goes and tells all of her mom friends, Hey, guess what guess who just saved my life? You know, me to go and reach out to her and that’s precisely what happened. And so, but at the same time, I’m a very type a personality I like to be in control. I like to plan things. And I said, very, very clearly, you know, I’m not one of these people that can just quit my job on a whim and take the plunge and take massive, massive risk, starting up a business from scratch.

Eva: (10:53)
I can’t be that person. And so I was very grateful to have, you know, this part-time job that I could, you know, work while thinking, exploring the possibility of growing this business. And then what happened was, and I remember this day, so clearly what happened was six months in to this arrangement. My boss pulls me into the office and says, Eva, we need you back full time. We’re too busy right now. We’ve got too much going on. And this arrangement is just not working anymore for us. And he wasn’t lying. You know, I know for a fact that the office at the time was very, very busy, but as a type, a personality that needs to, you know, plan everything and be in control. I mean, I was absolutely beside myself because my business was growing and I knew that there was real potential for this to grow into something bigger, but I was not ready to quit my job and take that plunge because I’m just not a natural, massive risk taker when it comes to this sort of thing.

Eva: (12:04)
I mean, that was one of the reasons why I got a law degree. It provides a certain amount of stability, arguably. And so it felt like such a crazy thing to do, but I was so beside myself over it, like, again, I understood, but I understood where they were coming from. And my boss understood, you know, why I was really upset because, you know, I still had really gone kids at home and it just wasn’t something I was ready to do. And so I left work early that day and I’m, I’m so unbelievably grateful for the fact that my husband was home and was able to talk to me and comfort me and talk through everything immediately. Um, the reason why he was home was because he was actually starting a new job in the next couple of weeks. And so he was kind of in that in-between stage where he had like quit, his old job was taking a couple of weeks off and then starting his new job a little bit later.

Eva: (13:00)
And so he was home like watching a movie when I called him in hysterics and we talked through the various different options and we both agreed. We literally talked it through, it took us maybe three minutes to figure out that based on where my business is at right now, it wouldn’t make any sense to continue working full time to go back to a full-time arrangements at my current job. And he was absolutely right. And I knew that it was what I had to do, but it was so flipping scary, so scary. And so frightening. I lost so much sleep over this. I remember lying in bed at night, thinking through all the various different options, you know, so if I were to go back to work, full-time like, how would it work with the business and how would it work with childcare and just going through all the various different options and what they would all look like.

Eva: (14:00)
And I kept making full circle on the fact that my business was growing. It was growing at a really great rates and had the, and you know, what the most important thing is here is that my business was so much more rewarding. It was so much more fun. You know what I remember talking to my husband and he said, well, what do you want to do? If you had a, your dream world, would you be working your way up the corporate ladder in the legal world? Or would you be growing and scaling your business? And I said, a hundred percent, I’d be doing my business because this is way more fun and way more rewarding. I get to help exhausted families, get their baby sleeping. Like how flipping awesome is that. And then that made a crystal clear that really, it was like, God is just giving me no choice.

Eva: (14:56)
God’s giving me that push, that I needed, that I probably wouldn’t have taken myself because, you know, quitting your, your, your job is a very big move. Um, and so I got that push that I needed to do what I needed to do, and it was absolutely frightening, but I did it nonetheless. And what ended up happening from there is once I had five days a week to focus on my clients and focus on bringing in more clients and getting those referrals, I’m being able to help more families. What it meant was that I had so much more time to just focus on my business, that my business grew even more. And then within about a few months of quitting my job, I remember saying, oh my gosh, I think I’m full. Like I had someone calling me up saying, Hey, you know, and, and, and speaking to me and wanting to book a consultation for that week, and I had to wait until like the following week or the week after to book them in because I was full.

Eva: (15:59)
And I remember being at a family get together. And, uh, uh, there was a, a family member who said to me, I think it was a cousin of mine who said, so, are you not going back to law? Like, are you not looking for another job or are you actually doing this full time? And I said, yeah, actually I am. And it’s so amazing because not only as I said, it’s so much fun, it’s so much more rewarding. I love working for myself. And I loved the flexibility that it offered me having two young kids at home. And so that in a nutshell is basically how I went from leaving law to being a full time pediatric sleep consultant. Now I will just say for the record that I still pay my loss society dues because I can’t psychologically give up my license. I feel like I worked too hard for it.

Eva: (16:55)
I’m not just gonna let it, you know, go to the wayside. And so for my own mental health, emotional wellbeing, I just consider it a business expense and call it a day. So as I reflect over the last seven years in this role, I’ll tell you what I have seen. I have seen a tremendous move towards normalizing working with a sleep professional. And I think that that is so wonderful and so amazing because when your little one is struggling with speech, it is normal to go to a speech therapist when your little one is struggling to walk, it is normal to take them to a physio therapist, right? We have all these professionals that can help with many of these very normal, common challenges that young parents very often face. And then, but when it comes to sleep for so long, for like literally since the Dawn of time sleep struggles have been just part of life as being a young mom.

Eva: (18:09)
And it was just thought of as this completely unavoidable part of being a mom to a baby or a young child, like kind of like a suck it up buttercup type of approach, because nobody knew what to do. That was the thing. Nobody knew how to help exhausted moms get their little one sleeping. And, uh, and it wasn’t till probably about maybe 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago at the absolute earliest. So I think probably more like 15 is when there were some people that began to help moms in this area. And, and then from there, it sort of became a more common area of expertise for people to gather, right? And so when I got certified, uh, you know, this was 2014 when I launched my business, I wouldn’t say that our industry was mainstream. I would say it was one of those things where, you know, maybe some people would work with a sleep professional, but for many, for the most part didn’t.

Eva: (19:13)
And then I think as the years went on, I start to see how much more accepted it is to be getting help in this area that without support and without solutions can be so not only overwhelming, but it can majorly affect your quality of life. And so that’s one of the things that I have noticed is that even though there are way more people doing what I do, which by the way is not a bad thing at all. I, I’ve also noticed that I think there are way, way, way more people reaching out for help than there were seven years ago when I first started in this business. So kudos to all of you who have reached out to anyone, to any professional for support in this area, because you matter your sleep matters, your little one’s sleep matters. And when you are well rested, it means that your little one has a happy, well rested mommy.

Eva: (20:18)
And that matters. That is important. Now I remember it was about probably 2016 when I had, I was a couple of years in, and I had a full caseload of clients. I’m using the word caseload. That’s probably not the best word. That’s such a legal term. I know it’s like I not practicing law, but then sometimes the legal jargon comes out. What the, what is the term that I’m looking to describe it as I had a full practice? Yes. That’s probably the better part supposed to caseload. I had a full practice of ongoing clients, right. Where, you know, no matter what, I always had a handful of clients, handful of families that I was helping. And, uh, and then it was around that point, like mid 2016 when I realized, okay, you know what? There’s only 24 hours in the day. And eight of those days, eight of those hours, I got to spend sleeping and there needs to be a few other of those hours that I’m spending with my family and I’m taking care of myself.

Eva: (21:21)
And so my time to be able to help families right now is tapped, right? Cause there’s only so many hours in the day. And so that’s when I started to think, okay, what’s next for my sleeping baby? What is next for me? How can I take what I am doing? What I am helping families with the next level so that I can help as many families as possible. And I came across an article in Forbes that if Forbes magazine about a couple, I’m going to give them a shout out. Their names are Shane and Jocelyn Sams. And I will link them in the show notes because they are flipping awesome. Um, they are a married couple from Southeast Kentucky who are teachers. They don’t pray, they don’t work as teachers anymore, but they, you know, built up this thriving business, um, with a membership selling lesson plans to teachers online.

Eva: (22:22)
And that was when I went, oh my gosh, that’s what I have to do. I got to start a membership. And I was reading about the thousands of members that they had in this program. Being able to help all these teachers and I’ll tell you why, you know, their membership. It actually, um, it hit me to the core, like it really affected me emotionally, um, in terms of the type of value that they were able to offer people in their membership. And I’ll, and I’ll tell you why. So the wife, Jocelyn, she used to work as a teacher library and in an elementary school, when I was in grade six, my mother got a job, miraculously, that’s a whole other story, but she miraculously landed a job in a public school, around the corner from our house as an elementary librarian with zero experience, as a librarian, she beat out like literally, um, I handful of other people with tons of experience, but the principal liked her and hired her.

Eva: (23:32)
And so she was so ecstatic because this was such a dream, um, arrangement for her. Um, she had gotten to where my parents divorced when I was in grade three. And so this was her, you know, she had gone back to school, get her master’s. And so this was, you know, her first job like rebuilding, right? And I remember that she was so ecstatic and then the, that turned into a true level of panic so quickly because she had no clue what she was doing because she had never worked as a librarian before. And so I remember, I think there was Google at the time, but it was like dial up internet. And it wasn’t anything near what Google is today. And so she literally got on the phone and was calling all of her teacher friends to see if she can get connected with, with a teacher librarian somewhere that can help her so that she’s not floundering in this brown brand new job.

Eva: (24:31)
And I know, I remember calling her up and I said to her, I said, mom, you won’t believe I’m reading this article about this couple in Southeast Kentucky selling lesson plans. And I said, you know, her membership is something like 50 bucks a month for lesson plans. Would you have paid 50 bucks a month? If you could have gotten all the lesson plans that you needed for your job. And she says, oh my gosh, I would have paid like 500 a month for that. Okay. Button, maybe not that much, but she goes, I would have paid more than $50 a month. I S she said I was drowning when I started this job. It was so overwhelming and so stressful. And so that was when I went, oh my gosh, this is what I have to do, because what was also happening around that time was a lot of my past clients would reach out to me for follow-up help.

Eva: (25:24)
Not because things had fallen apart completely, but they needed help navigating a nap transition, or a milestone that their baby had raised, or maybe they had gone away on vacation and sleep regress a little bit and they needed some help getting back on track. And so at the same time, I started realizing that getting a baby sleeping and keeping a baby sleeping are clearly two different things. And that was also, you know, that same Eureka moment where I thought to myself, gosh, if I can create a membership to help, not only just my past clients, but anyone be able to get that ongoing follow-up support throughout their journey so that they always know what to do so that they’re always armed with all the coaching and support that they need to be able to navigate those nap, transitions and milestones and regressions. Oh my gosh, this would be a game changer for people.

Eva: (26:23)
And so that was when the sleep Bible was born because the sleep Bible is my online program, membership and community that helps exhausted moms get their little one sleeping and keep it that way. And I’m so privileged to have been able to help. Now, hundreds of people specifically in my sleep Bible program, get their little ones sleeping like champs, and the program has four different tracks tailored to four different age ranges. And I made sure when I was designing that program, that somebody that has a four month old is going to get access to advice that is tailored specifically to that age range. So, um, the first track is four to six months. We’ve got a seven to 12 month track, a 13 to eight month track, and then a toddler and preschool or track. So if you have little ones in those age ranges, I’ve got you covered.

Eva: (27:21)
So when I think about, you know, life over the last seven years, uh, with my business, there have definitely been a lot of highs, but there have been some lows as well, but I have learned from those lows. So namely when I think of those lows, it, it refers to families that I have worked with in the past. You know, namely probably at the very beginning of my journey that we’re just not a good fit. And looking back, there were very clear red flags that they were just not going to be a good fit, but now I have that radar to be able to, um, sift through who is going to be a good fit working with me and who won’t like, I, I remember, I think this was one of the first, it was within my first year of business for sure where I got on a discovery call with someone and, you know, I think they answered the phone and automatically, you know, they answered it.

Eva: (28:18)
They were just so grumpy, like, hello. And I said, you know, hi, this is Eva from my sleeping baby. Um, how, how are you doing? And she was like, fine. And I was like, thinking to myself, like, gosh, my mom taught me when I was like six years old to say, you know, find things, how are you, but okay. Maybe she’s just really tired and I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. And I said, oh, okay, great. Um, you know, we had a 15 minute discovery call scheduled now, did I reach it an okay time? And I think her response was like, yeah, I guess. And it was just the most uncomfortable conversation because she was just negating everything. I was saying disagreeing with it, um, pushing back on everything. Um, but then she still decided that she wanted to work with me and being that I was so inexperienced, I, I agreed to work with her and not surprisingly, it was awful.

Eva: (29:19)
It was not a good experience, um, for either of us because, um, she just wasn’t ready for this work. Right. She didn’t want, I think she was just hoping that I would be able to, you know, wave my magic wand and magically get her baby sleeping. But, you know, the reality is that she just wasn’t in the right head space to be able to do that work. And didn’t take me very long to develop a bit of a radar when it comes to families that I connect with that just might not be a good fit for me. And so now, and I’m not a good fit for them. Like it needs to be both ways. Right. And so right now I would say I’m definitely much more particular with people that I work with. And I have no problem saying to someone, you know, what, I don’t think this is going to be the right fit.

Eva: (30:07)
Um, but you know, maybe there’s, there’s, there’s somebody else that can help you, you know, but I, this is not going to work for me, but I wish you all the best. And, and I have done that, you know, a few times, not, not tons, you know, the vast majority of people who reach out, you know, are wonderful and a great fit and, and, uh, and, and are looking to get my help. But, um, but sometimes, you know, there are these people that are just not a good fit. And so over the years, that’s definitely something that I have become more particular with. And then when I think of the highs, I mean, oh my gosh, there’s so many of them, you know, I think of, I think of a family with three year old twin boys in beds that were waking each other up all night long.

Eva: (30:52)
I mean, you can just imagine, just imagine three identical. They were three-year-olds identical twin boys that were literally like thing one and thing, two, getting them sleeping through the night, like champs was an incredibly rewarding experience. That’s, that’s one family that I can think of off the top of my head. There’s so many of these stories, you know, some of which are just sort of coming back to memory right now, I worked with a family with a one-year-old who was waking up out of habits for those squeezy yogurt pouches, where literally all night long, she was waking up and needed that yogurt pouch to fall back asleep. And so the parents literally had in their nightstand, they had like three or four yogurt pouches, um, for her to learn, to put herself back to sleep. I think it was the dentist that may have referred them to me if I recall.

Eva: (31:54)
Um, that was an interesting one, but that kiddo, we got sleeping through the night that was so unbelievably. Um, I felt so privileged to able to help them with that. And then I think about this two and a half year old, who was not only was he waking up throughout the night, but his midnight habit that he woke up for was he would wake up and ask his mom to get him a bagel, promise you where he would wake up. He wouldn’t even eat it cause he wasn’t actually hungry, but he would like nibble on it and needed that bagel. So before going back to sleep only then to wake up a couple hours later and want something else. But yeah, that was a fun one, got one resolved as well. And I think one of the most rewarding parts of this whole process is just seeing that end result, you know, seeing those massive changes that we’re able to make in such a short period of time.

Eva: (32:53)
Gosh, you know, as I’m going down memory lane, I literally sometimes have to pinch myself, reminding myself that this is, this is what I get to do. This is my job day in and day out. And I feel so flipping lucky about it. So once again, I really want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. Those of you who follow me, those of you who subscribed to this podcast, those of you who have referred me people and have recommended me and have worked with me and entrusted your little ones with me. I can’t tell you enough how unreal, how unbelievably grateful I am for that privilege to be here. Um, sometimes people will ask me, you know, do you think you’re ever going to go back to law? And I’ve sorta learned to stop planning these sorts of things as a recovering type, a sort of plan everything out.

Eva: (33:54)
Um, my answer right now is no I don’t. I mean, I have no idea what the future holds, but right now I am 100% focused on serving my families, making their lives better and getting everyone a good night’s sleep that I can help. So no plans to go back to Lord right now that is about it. And thank you so much to those of you who have gone down memory lane with me. Um, as I said, some lows, a lot of highs, very, very grateful to be here. That is about it. Have a great day, everyone. Bye-bye

Eva: (34:34)
Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share this episode with a friend who can benefit from it. I also love hearing from my listeners. So feel free to DM me on Instagram @mysleepingbaby, or send me an email at eva@mysleepingbaby.com until next time have a wonderful restful nights.