 i gael i'r Pw Sagfyrdd, mae amser hynny'n ei ddweud, yn ystod Myllewid Dweud âwr Feoliadol. A'r ystod ni wedi'i gŷchodio'n ehlion arall ymddangos digwydd a wedi ddim yn gweithio i'r Dawsyn Fkudio. Mi'n dweud i'r Dawsyn Fkudio, a rai eisiau Maidfawr i Ystod Newydd. Mae gennym iawn i'r Chyflwyr Ildraig ac rai gwellu a'r hynny'n oes iawn. support for families who have children or young people with sleepy shoes. Over the last year the tragedy has evolved, we've had a name change and we've also widened our remit as well because what we're finding is an awful lot of people out there with sleepy shoes and I don't know where to go for evidence-based information. The kind of episode question that we're going to dive in with is how can we tackle the negative culture around sleep and Rwy'n gwybod i siwr ymlaen, unrhyw geisio'n gweithio i'r wneud hynny, i fathio'r byw i gweithio'n gweithio? Rwy'n gweithio, mae'r byw i'n gweithio'n gweithio, yn ddod. Rwy'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio ar ymgylchedd y dyfodol o'i sreifon a'r byw. A'r byw oedd y dyfodol, yn ideal, yn ei wneud ar y dyfodol yma o'i rheswm. false information, and so I have been giving positive messages to youngsters about the importance of sleep. I think that there's a role there for parents. Quite often you will hear parents say if you don't behave well, I'm sending you to bed. Sleep becomes this nosso and the bedroom becomes a place where I wnaethwch eich gweithio gwahodd i'w ffadau oeddaeth gyda i'r wych yn ddestun. Felly yn gwneud, fe fyddai'n Almightyll, sydd y mynd i gallu bod, gwneud trwy'r gwerthdydd gyda, oherwydd mae hwn yn ffazur ac yn ffazur i'ch zygwyd. Ynddech chi yn wneud o'u gwahodd ei ffadau oeddaeth y byddai. Yna sy'n ceisio'r gweithio ar hynny ac mae'n cerddon o gweithio ymguwn i ffadau i ffadau'r gweithio. gyda pobl a'n dod. Dyna, yn y gweithio, mae'n mynd i ddenud gyda bod all Windy negraeth yn ddarparu, ystod dyn ni'n mynd i'r ddweithio o'r gwbl continue? A yn y fydden ni'n fydd wedi ei wneud fydd yn byw i'r ddweithio tŷfod gyda ni, felly mae'n iawn nifer y gallu meddwl ar y rhaglen. Y rherwydd mae'r cyffrifno, rydyn ni'n mynd i wneud gweinid hynny. Ond dros yr ymddiwch, dyna'r dod negraeth i ddefnyddio, a llwyddon y profesiwnol sydd wedi bod chi seriwch ymddangos o bryddoedd ymddangos, nid oedd yn gwneud yn ymddangos i ddechrau, ond ond rydyn ni'n gwneud ymddangos i ddau sydd eisiau oherwydd y chyfodol yma. Felly mae'n meddwl sy'n golygu bod rydyn ni'n gwneud yn ei ddefnyddio. Rydyn ni'n gwneud bod yma, chi'n defnyddio a'r wneud oherwydd fyrdiwch yn dda'u cyfrifiad o ymddangos i ddechrau, mae'r rhannu arloeddol i'r fnwysgu ei wneud o'r fforddol sydd ar hyn yn fawr. Mae'r rhannu arwadau ychydig iawn i'r wneud. A mae'n fawr i'n ddweud i wych yn gwneud o'ch cyfnod o'r gwybodaeth o'r fforddol, ac mae'n fawr i'n fawr o'r fforddol. A yna wnaeth yw'r fforddol o'r fforddol? Felly, mae'n gwybodaeth yn ymddangos i'w gweithio'r ysgol. Mae'n gyfan y cyfosiwn cyfeirio'r fforddol o'r potensiwn ni'n fawr o'r sleidiau. O bwy, mae'n dweud o'ch datblygu'n gwybod a'r ddysgu'n ddweud o gymhreifft o'r gwybod? Ja, mae'n gwybod i'n gwybod o'r gwybod o un gwybod i gydigolol, felly, mae'r ddych chi'n golygu o'r hyn sy'n bwysig a'r hynod o'r cyfr wokil, yw'r cwylwch cyflwyno cyflwyno ar y cynnwysion cyffredinol, ac ydym yn siŵr cyflwyno. Byddwn ni'n fyw bod ydych yn siŵr cyflwyno, rwy'n rwy'n gweithio eu cyflwyno. Byddwn ni'n gweithio pethau cyflwyno ar gyflwyno cyflwyno ar gyflwyno cyflwyno. Yn ymgylchedd argyllidol yn fwyaf. Mae'r rhaglenau, Can you think about this from your own perspective if you sleep deprived? You don't behave as well as you would, you can become irrational, you can become snappy, all those things. What we see in children is quite often they become hyperactive, they find it difficult to concentrate in school, sleep deprivation impacts on memory, We are actually... Our brains are still working when we're sleeping, so we are consolidating our learning during the night. So it's really, really important that children do get adequate sleep but also good quality sleep. Then there's the physical side of things, so while we are asleep, there's hormones being released. a dweud o ddechrau i obesidol a rhaglionio. Felly, rydyn ni'n cael ei ddigit arlaed o gweithio, i gael i gael i'r adroddau. A dweud o ddweud o ddweud o bwysigau fel ddweud o bobl yn grwsiau, ac yn dweud o'r rhaglionio i ddweud o'r system. Yn dweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud, dweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud. ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud o ddweud. A we start to sort of pick up all sorts of books and the colds and all the things that we might have fought off usually. And when you start to look at the impact of sleep deprivation, it gets quite depressing because it really is linked to so many things. And I try to turn that round and look at actually sleepers, you know, super power. It's something that we all need. Mae'n gwybodaeth ymlaen, ac os oes yn gweithio, mae'n mynd a fyddwn yn ynorio'r bufau yn rhanau. Mae'n hynny sy'n gwneud hynny, ond y gallwn y rhanau oherwydd mae'n gweithio. Mae'n hefyd yn ddeninydd. Mae'n gweithio'r rhywbeth yn ymd Piechelwn. Mae'r cyffredin ddweud sy'n gwneud hynny sy'n gweithio'n cyffredin. How do you balance the getting across the importance of a good night's sleep without panicking people who might have rubbish sleep? Adrian Bethune who is one of my Twitter followers and has written a great book on well being for teachers and we often do talk about the importance of sleeping in our kind of work but I think that's a really important question so we're telling people how important it is but if they find it hard to sleep and they've got challenges there how do we not panic them? i fyny ychydig i ddigonio i'n gwych. Rydyn ni'n ddefnyddio gyda mynd i gael astangol, a'i dwy'n ddim o gyntaf amhael, a'n ddysgu'n ddweud yma, fan ydyn ni'n ei fod yn ei ddigonio gweld gael gweld gweld gweld wath i gael gweld, yn ymgyrch i fod yn gwybod, ac roedden ni'n ddysgu'n gwybod gweld gweithio gweld gweld gweld gweld gweld gweld gwung Roedd eich mynd i ddweud ei lag yn oed i'r maen nhw'n dywed am oed i fynd i'r dalnut i'w rhan o'r ddoedd rhan, a rydw i'n ddweud i'r ddau hi i'w ddau. Phaid bod hynny'n ddangos o wak angen ymhynglad sydd ond yma sy'n edrych blaenau a gwahodd amdod. Yn rhai dyma ni'n amser yw i wneud, mae angen i'w ddau i'w ddau i'w ddau. Gwyddaeth Lleolf 19 ac aened gan yw'r cyffredig, ond arnynt o fforsiau'r cyffredig hynny gyfan. mae'r cyllid yw'r cyffredig yn cael eich cael eu rhain, ac ond yn ddigonol yr unedig, ac mae'r rhain yn unedig yng nghymru ei amser gennych gyda'r cyffredig a oedd yn ymddorol. Mae'r cyffredig yn ychydig yn cyffredig, os y cyffredig wedi yn ddigonol, mae weithio gartffordd er wrthu'n ymddi. Felly mae'n rhaid i'r cyffredig. Rydym yn hyn ymddiff nhw'n bosibl lle i yw'r gennych. Rydw i'n ddweud, rydym yn gyfa'r gwirionedd i ddeulught o'r mynd i ddeunydd ar yw'r gwirionedd. Rydw i'n dduffredd i'r cyflwymp unsibu! Rydw i'n f compressed o'r Manifestau ond, oedd y cerddon yn Cysylltu Menrydd a'r cyflwymp. Rydym yn ddweud i ddweud i'r gwirionedd, o'r ddweud peth i ddeunydd. Roedd gennym ni'n amser. So, we heard Mark Rowland, CEO of the Mental Health Foundation, speaking about the importance of sleep for mental health. And you know, within that manifesto is around actually professionals need to be able to access training around sleep. And people who are having issues need to be able to access support and appropriate information because sleep isn't regulated. Felly ydych chi wedi cyntaf i wneud yn cael cyfrifiadau a'r hyn yn ymddangos i'w cyfrifiadol, ac sy'n meddwl fath o gyfleddau bod yn rhan o'r gwaed amser iawn i gael gyfleddau, ond mae'n cael amser, ac mae'n meddwl i chi'n gwneud o'r pleidwyr lleol. Y baid ei gafodd y ffwrdd yma, oedd cychewch i chi'n adreourio'r cyfrifiadau. Wai'n gondoli, rwy'n gŵr i yn gwneud fod ymddangos o'r strategiaid, pan mae'r bod ni wedi gweithio'n fitfaron a sgrifion ar gweithleidio'r cyfnodol. Ni'n cael ei ddod i'r pethau'r gwlad adeiladau y llyfr o ffordd hwn i gael gwlad a'r rhensio'n ffordd i fureddol a chael byddiol. Prydych yn gweithio'n ddosion oherwydd éch newydd o'r llwyffiad o'r llwyffiad o'r llyfr o'r colleg o'r bleidio'r llychwyr sydd spaidd. Beth ydych chi'n rhaid hyn o efo'r demnodol i'r mwy? Prwy o ddau ar y dyfodol hefyd, raddyn ni wedi gweithio'r ddigon y bod ni'n gweithio peth yn ymhwyllt y gweithio'r eraill yn yr wych mewn wahanol. Mae'r gwahanol yn wahanol iawn fel y cyfnodau ymhwylltebol yn llawer o'r hyn. O hynny'n llunio'n meddwl ar y tael iawn o'r hyn o'r llunio sydd wedi rhoi dechrau nu'r cookw follows â'r perknum yn dweud beth o'r wahanol. Alberta studying you sorted reading. Also you know we do pick up a lot of people who need referring in for mental health support. But if we're looking at the behavioural side of sleep, once we've done the assessment we'll actually educate families and we will explain to them about sleep cycles the circadian rhythm, the role of melatonin and light and dark and then we'll start to explore strategies and generally speaking, I mean, Mae'r wyfthyr iawn erbyd i gyfução gwneud. Mae'r wyfthyr iawn e ffennu efallai. A dwi'n brots снимau welts. Mae'r wyfthyr iawn efallai, cyffran iawn efallai a'r bwysig. Mae'r wyfthyr iawn efallai a frefredd, ac mae'r wyfthyr iawn i'w fynd i'w ffyrdd. Maen nhw'n rhaid yn dod i fyfafolol. Yn gofyn, mae cyfan rhaid i fyfafol i'w ffyrdd yn fydden i'n gair a ond mae'r bydd yn ganddygiadu i fyfyrdd. duol, a'w ffrindio. Rydyn ni'n fawr sydd gynnal i hynny oherwydd ystyried a'r byd cyfyrdd fel hyn rydych chi'n byw meddwl be'i bydd rydych chi'n byw meddwl i'r byd hefyd. On i'r wychenni sydd gynnwys erbyn yr adyn nhw y bydd learnu o ran o'r llwytoedd cyddarparau, a'r ceffingau, ond ten i dim yn rhan o всё cyffinwch i ddalfnu. Mae'n archwpio allan a ddalfnwch i ddim yn rhoi. Mae'n deutod yn cyf truthsiol. Mae'n mynd i gael tiesau o wneud o'r ffordd. Mae'r gweliadau sy'n ddifynh chi'n mynd i gael eich gweld. Rwy'r sgwynhau i ddechrau'n meddwl. Mae methu efallai yn cael y rhanegiddeddiol. i chi'n gwrthu'n gumfwyr, mae'n fwy gweithio ar y cwestiwn. Byddwn yn gallu cyfansiidd y gallwn am risen bwysig. Yn amlwg am y gallu tynnu gweld wedi'i gweithio, yn blaid i'r rhagleni? Mae ymddir i bwysig ymddir yng Nghymru, bo'r bwysig arnau ychydig isodol yn gweithio ayna responded yn 가서 i hesi'r dweud yn mynd i ni. Rhaid hynny mae sydd gennyn yn gweithio ar y fronton. Mae gweithio ar gwaith cyfansi'r hynny fydd. Ac roeddwn ni'n gweithio gweithio'r llyfr o'r ystod fydd yn bwysig. Rwy'n meddwl y byddai'r bwysig yn unig, ond yn 60-80 gradi. Ond yw'n meddwl'r gweithio'n meddwl, ond weithio gyda'r gweithio'r cyfrifedig sy'n bywysig yn gweithio'r cyfrifedig. Rydyn ni'n meddwl â'r gweithio'r environment yn ôl yn cael ei wneud. A gydden ni'n meddwl, ond byddai'n meddwl yn gweithio'r meddwl a'r nightlight. Rydym yn rhoi llawernt mwy yn yr ysgrifennu, ac felly ond rydym yn y sengfyrdd yn y sengfyrdd, ac mae wnaeth o wneud ar y barau, a nid yw'r ysgrifennu'r gael ni'n cael ei fod yn unw i'r ynened yn y sengfyrdd, a rydyn ni'n mynd i'w gael'r amdano yn y sengfyrdd i'r badan, ac mae yna des whiffrwydd o sylfa cymraethau, ac mae'r sengfyrdd yn cael ei ddefnyddio, ac mae'r sengfyrdd yn y sengfyrdd, a'r ysgrifennu'n sullfa cwym. but, if things are different, that's when we wake up. We see quite a lot of differences made by parents, with all the right intentions in children's sleep environments, so we'll be looking for those kind of things too so that a child goes to sleep with a landing light on. A parent turns it off when they go to bed, and then, when a child comes to a part of a partial wake in him, they wake up fully because they're suddenly in this darkened environment. loads. And if things have changed then there's a question isn't it introduced with that ambiguity. Okay, that's really interesting. So keeping things really, really consistent. And in terms of your talking there about strategies that we can use if perhaps people are struggling, but presumably you use those similar ideas for actually establishing positive sleep patterns sydd wedi cael ei fod iawn. Mae yna, fyddwn ni'n gweithio o'n gweithio y'r môn o y Chwymbrin, mae'n bwysigol i'ch gwirio. Rydyn ni'n gweithio, sydd wedi cerddoriaeth fath. Rydyn ni'n cael ei fath ei gen i fath o'r bwysigol, mae'r gweithio yw'r kreiffe? Mae'n gweithio i gyd yn tyfnwysgol a fyddwn ni'n gweithio rydyn ni i llweinu a fydd honno'i gweithio ychydigol first 12 months in terms of development. So we start at 12 months, but we do offer, you know, the information about routines because routines are so, so important. And, you know, our bodies thrive on routine, our circadian rhythms thrive on routine. So having those regular wait times, having those regular bed times is really useful. And having the cues around sleep as well. So even as adults, you know, our teenagers too, not using the bed to do work. So not checking emails in bed because we want to build this really strong association between bed is for sleeping. So there's sort of little tips that you can do, but right from the very start, things like changing into night wear at night time, you know, that indicates that actually it's the end of the day. Dimming the lights, that's hugely important to help to produce the melatonin. So our bodies, you know, really rely on light and darkness in order to regulate circadian rhythm. And the darkness helps us to produce that melatonin, which helps us to feel sleepy and to nod off. And the daylight helps us to suppress it, which is really difficult when it's sort of miserable winter days, but just getting half an hour outside or sitting by the window, or some people use light boxes as well, just for half an hour to help themselves to wake up. So the use of light is, you know, really, really important. And the timing's too. So doing everything sort of at the same time, seven days a week. Seven days a week. So we can't have a line at the weekend. It will be a lovely thought. And what we say is when we're doing the actual programs with families, just go for like doing this rigidly until you get the routine really firmly in place. And you could try to do things, you know, and move things on by maybe an hour. But what you might actually find is that you let youngsters have a late night and they still get up at the same time the next morning. And then what happens is actually they're an hour sleep deprived, you have pretty miserable weekend because the cranky and it's not actually worth it. Now some children will sleep in later and it won't, you know, won't affect them at all. And they'll be fine. Some are just great sleepers. But for others, you know, you have to question is it actually worth that extra hour's lying or not? And what you tend to find is you keep them up later at night times. You've not got your evenings. And then they're still up at the same time in the morning. So you've not actually gained a great deal. So my advice would be try to keep it fairly structured. The bedtime certainly. But yeah, the get up. And one of the things I often find myself advising people if they're looking at their own kind of sleep pattern as an adult is I often just say, do what you would do for a toddler because I think we're quite good, aren't we? Thinking about what bedtime routines might look like for younger children. And we do do those things. We do think having a nice bath and make sure they've eaten their tea and that you're in your pyjamas and you might read a story and you do it at the same time every night. But then as adults often that all goes out the window when we're working until the 11th hour and yeah, not creating that nice environment for ourselves. And yeah, I think often if we treat ourselves more like a four year old. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we just kind of don't prioritise it at all for ourselves. And we're so busy doing other things. And I read something the other day and it really made me laugh because it said something about, you know, we're the only species that actually deprives ourselves of sleep. You know, can you imagine a cat deciding on, you know, can't sleep now? I've got to go out and do stuff. Well, no, because it's ridiculous. But this is what we do, you know, we feel tired and actually we put it off because we're so busy and we've got to do all these other things. But our body is telling us that we need this rest. And you're absolutely right. You know, we need these bedtime routines in place as well. And again, you know, some adults are great sleepers, but you know, stats out there are about 40% of the population aren't, which is a huge number who are struggling with sleep. And it is about having that routine. And I think another important thing is not to overdo it. So when you ask somebody who has got either a child with a sleepy shoe or they've got a sleepy shoe, and you say, what do you do to try to get sleep? And they will say, oh, I've tried everything. And then there'll be this huge list of I do lavender in the bath. I do pillow sprays. I do chamomile tea. And it's almost become sort of it's built up this anxiety to the point where you get in bed and you've done that much that it's just feeding it rather than being helpful. So it's going back to basics and making sure that you have got that wind down time that you are avoiding the screen. You're doing something relaxing. You're comfortable in your bed. You know, it's like thinking about your mattress, your pillows. Are they actually comfortable? Are you getting too hot in there? Is your temperature regulated? All those things. And we just don't think about it in those terms, I'm afraid. But I love that to treat yourself like four year old. That's very well. Steph Little, who's an educational psychologist, tweeted when I said I was going to be chatting to you saying, when did sleep become unfashionable? Me personally, I love it. But going to bed early seems to be a problem for some just out of principle. Oh, wow. What an interesting question. I actually don't know. Certainly, you know, when I look back through my life, there's points where it has been unfashionable. It's almost been like a badge of honour to not need much sleep. So, you know, I remember reading about Margaret Thatcher didn't need many hours sleep. I think President Trump has made similar claims. I don't know, but it certainly is there and it certainly is hugely concerning, particularly as we've moved more through into this 24 seven culture. And I think, you know, we've seen certainly sleep issues increasing because going back to when I was young, the children's TV programmes went off. They just turned off at, you know, six o'clock. There was nothing for kids to watch on TV. And actually, the TV channels turned off themselves at midnight. So there wasn't this entertainment going on 24 seven. And another interesting question that I ponder and I've got no answer to whatsoever is, at what point do children start to see sleep as a positive? So if you talk to little ones about sleep, they will resist it. You know, we did some work actually last year with a theatre company because we are hoping to take what we should have been taking a piece of theatre on tour around schools with a company called Tutti Frutti. And we're working with the research team at Sheffield Children's Hospital on this. And there was some work done with focus groups in schools asking children what do they think about sleep? You know, the words coming back was like it's boring. And there was no positives around sleep. Yet you ask older people what to think about sleep and we see it as being wonderful and we really enjoy it. And I'm interested in when that change happens and what we can do to try to make the younger generation be positive about sleep. And this is, you know, why we buy into the Sean stuff and working alongside them to try to put those positive messages. And this is why the piece of theatre that we've been developing was done to try to again educate but also give some positives about how important sleep is and how it can help us to perform better. I think that's such an important question and one as a parent I find myself sort of battling. So my children are 11 and they will see being asked to go to bed on time as almost like some kind of punishment. And, you know, I have really good and open discussions with them about sleep and the importance of sleep. And I think they get it more than probably many kids do. But still they, yeah, they see it as a reward to stay up late or that going to bed is boring. And I'm like, but going to bed is wonderful. I love it, you know. But again, it's a journey. As you say, I was definitely someone who the large parts of my life was quite sleep deprived. And people used to say to me things like, oh, how are you so productive? And I'd say, well, I work 100 hours a week and I hardly ever sleep. And people say, oh, well done. But that isn't right, is it? Yeah, no, no, absolutely. And, you know, that message gets really fast, doesn't it? And then you kind of feel like you've got to be getting up earlier and saying later. And the kind of more you do the more comes in to do so it feeds into itself. And it is hard to have those boundaries, but I think it is just so, so very important. And the other thing that we've sort of got as well as the circadian rhythms going on. And, you know, children have got those. So some of us are night owls and some of us are larks and some have got no, you know, no real sort of strong preference. But sometimes we're working against those because of society. So, you know, I feel for teenagers because their circadian rhythms go through this biological change, which means that actually they don't release the melatonin until much later. So you'll find they're not falling asleep until two, three in the morning. But school times have got earlier and earlier. And, you know, the real struggle to get up in the morning and the kind of wake up just round about the time that they're coming home to end the day. And this is where we've just got sort of real differences in the way that our body clocks work and the way that sort of society works. And there are ways that we can make those tweaks and get young people back on track. But if they've not got the support to do that, then it's really tough because changing sleep is such hard work. It's a behaviour that we need to change and, you know, we're resistant to making change, especially when we're tired. So what we find is that the support along the way is absolutely key to keep people going, you know, to champion them along, to coach them along, to make these changes. And have you had any success in terms of what is effective when educating young people and trying to bring them on board with this message? I mean, does it help them to understand, you know, the impact of their sleep on their attainment or enjoyment of life? Or does it sit well with some of the self-care messages, maybe, which are a little bit more kind of popular with younger people and they might have been in previous generations? Or yeah, what's what? I mean, you talked about the theatre production you were looking to do. So I'm guessing this is an area that you're interested in developing? It's an area hugely interested in. We did some work a few years ago now as a bit of a pilot study with young people in secondary schools. And it was really great. We got some funding from Paul Hamlin Foundation and we could basically go into five different secondary schools and ask young people, what did they want, you know, what would be helpful for them? And they wanted some help basically. So the pizza budget was actually used to support the filming of a piece of theatre in one of the schools that the young people wanted to make because they were saying what they needed was information. That was the key bit and they didn't know where to find it and they would go on Google and there'd be lots of different sort of things on that. Lots of products claiming that it's going to help you to sort your sleep out and they just didn't know where to start. And from there we developed a parent workshop and a pupil workshop and our sleep champion sort of project started, which we've developed a little bit further over the lockdown. And the idea is we'll get a sleep champion in every school across the country so that young people have got somebody who has been trained in sleep so that they can go take the sleep issues there and have a discussion and they will have empathy. It will be non-judgmental because it's not as simple as just saying go to bed earlier. And the other thing that we've done during the lockdown is we managed to get some funding to develop a teen sleep hub which went live in Ottopopa. I think in the first few weeks it had like 4000 hits and we developed that with young people so we had young people's advisory boards that we set up and they helped us to develop the content and they helped us with the language to use, the look of it and they were saying that what they want is again the information, the education so that they can go through the ebook and they can find tips for themselves as well to try to develop their understanding. But the biggest message we got was that they want people to understand, they don't want to be viewed as lazy, they're struggling and they want parents to understand and they want staff in schools to understand that it's really difficult to change the sleep patterns. And I think there is often a lot of misunderstanding about quite how much sleep teenagers in particular need isn't there because we know that little children need a lot of sleep and that becomes perhaps and correct me if I'm getting this wrong but my understanding is always it becomes a bit less but then as we kind of hit adolescence our need for sleep increases because we've got you know so much brain development and stuff going on and that maybe we don't realise that that changing need over time. Yeah that's a and I think as well because of this delay sleep phase you know people think that they just don't need the amount of sleep because they can't get to sleep but actually they do it's just the timings of the sleep and the big problem that we see is that the teenagers are getting up for school going to school coming back and quite often having a nap because they're just so exhausted and then of course that makes it all worse because during the daytime we build up our sleep drive so we get up in the morning and sort of I always think about it as a battery our batteries are full and then as we go through the day they get depleted until bedtime when your battery needs recharging again but what happens with these naps is they're getting that recharge to a certain point and then when bedtime comes they can't get to sleep because I've got the melatonin thing going on but also they've had this sleep so it's sort of making the problem much worse and then the weekend comes and what happens is they typically stay in bed until lunchtime so again the sleep drive is massively reduced for those weekends so they're going to bed even later and it just continues and what we have to do with young people is work with them to gradually move the sleep routines to a more appropriate time and you know largely they really they engage really well they want to do the work they are committed to it and they're grateful that they're getting some support so we've had real positives from working with young people. It's napping always a bad thing see I'm a big fan of the power nap when you feel that exactly as you say your battery depleting sometimes I know if I'm going to teach and it's I'm not teaching till four o'clock in the afternoon and I'm feeling a bit you know drained 20 minutes sleep and I'm on it but maybe not I don't know what's your what's your power nap absolutely I'm a big fan myself it's about sort of the timing of it it's about making sure that it's not too long and you know it can be really helpful for exactly that reason it can just sort of get you back to that right place and particularly if you're doing things like driving you know it's so important that we're not driving around sleep deprived so power naps can be really important really valuable and I think sometimes naps get bad press so you know parents when you look at the early years they will knock off naps because they presume that that's the cause of sleep issues at night time but what we know is that naps can actually help you to sleep better as well because if you become sort of chronically sleep deprived that's when sort of going to this hyperactive mode um so naps I'm a big fan of naps yeah yeah and again as parents that phrase over tired we all kind of recognise that one don't we where the kids become a little bit kind of climbing the walls and it sort of doesn't make sense that you're seeing hyperactivity but actually it's yeah as you say very very tired one of the the people who contacted me on twitter um at historytastic who in this context is a mum she said um how will my nearly five-year-old ever sleep through the night and in her own bed um I'm guessing that's the kind of question you get all the time yeah it is it is and um you know it takes work some children just do it which is not what that mum will want to hear right now and others need to learn how to sleep and it I always feel that it sounds a little bit odd saying this but some children you need to teach them how to sleep and people worry then that we're talking about control crying leaving children distress I'm not talking about that at all I liken it to potty training you know we we're putting effort into teaching our children to use the potty we're putting a lot of patience et cetera um for some children they need that with sleep so that sounds like the child is in the parents bed and you know if that is what the parents are happy with um that's absolutely fine but it also sounds like they might now want her to go into her own room which is fine too um and it depends again on each family sometimes it's real baby steps um it may be just getting that little girl used to being in her bedroom during the daytime um building some positive associations with the bedroom it may be having the bedtime story in there initially it may be the um one of the parents actually sleeps in there initially and then we start to gradually retreat out of the bedroom um the thing about children having a parent with them when they sleep is again it comes back to the sleep associations that I talked about so the easiest way to think about this is in terms of also sharing our beds with a bed partner yeah so when we get into bed um we start to slowly sort of nod off into this stage one of sleep which is really light sleep and if a bed partner was to get up you would sort of wake up and go where are you going and that's the same as the parents who sort of lie there and think brilliant they've gone to sleep and they make one attempt to start to do the old commando crawl out the room without being there and the voice goes wherever you're going and the parents are like how did they know they're in this really light sleep so you've got to wait until they just drop a little bit further till you kind of escape and then what happens is they go through the sleep cycle so they'll go into the deep sleep and then they'll cycle back up to this partial waking in and again you know think about a time when you've sort of been coming to this point and you've realised that your bed partner's no longer there and you kind of wake up and you think where are they have they gone to the bathroom this is the child who's parent has suddenly disappeared so then they will fully awaken because they need the parent there to get back to sleep because they've become an association and the difficulty that we have as parents is because we're exhausted and it's the middle of the night we quite often just go back put them back in bed and go back to our room and the child can't do that because they've not learnt to fall asleep at the start of the night without the parent there so it's really it's difficult you know parents have got to have the capacity to do this stuff and to follow it through for at least two weeks so sometimes it's about your timing and when you choose to make the changes as well because if you start it and then stop it it's almost worse than never starting it because you're reinforcing the message that if you keep getting up if you keep doing this then yeah you can get back in bed so I always say to families you know when is the best time for you and what do you actually want to do what's your goal because their goal may not be to have that child back in their own room it might be a much smaller goal to begin with that feels manageable and I think that the one of the points you made there about you know as long as the family are happy with it the child being in the family bed isn't necessarily a problem and I think that's a really important point actually because certainly I remember when my children were younger feeling there was this societal expectation around co-sleeping that they should be in their own beds but when you think about it from the point of view of the child I don't like going to sleep on my own if my husband's not there I find it really hard to sleep so it's not surprising a two three four five-year-old child might feel a bit uncertain without an adult there I mean in in our family in the end we um there comes a point when everyone's just too big for one bed right and we we had the discussion with the children and they were motivated to learn to sleep in their own beds but it worked for us by having the conversation with them that if they were scared if they were worried they could come to us and still you know they're in year six and every now and then I'll find one of them just crawls in with us but we all get back to sleep and sleep is the most important thing so we just crack on with it but yeah I don't know other families I know would feel really differently about that but yeah um yeah there's a lot around parenting style and we've got to be respectful about parenting style and um cultural beliefs as well um so you know we really do try to um acknowledge all of those things but what I do find is that people are really judgmental about sleep um so quite often there's a presumption that we are going to be very antico sleeping as a charity which is ridiculous that's not what we're about that we're going to be very into sleep training and these distressed children absolutely not what we're about at all um and if you look at parenting forums you know if you see a family asking for sleep help wow the threads often get completely out of control just with judgment about what other people are doing and that really concerns me because actually we all do the best that we can do for our families um and you know we've just got to work in true partnership with families and parents to the experts on their children so that's where we come from listening to the parents and what can work in your home you know what do you want to work in your home and absolutely no judgment around it because if it's done safely that's absolutely fine and um if everyone's happy with that and what you described yeah how lovely to have a little person appear as well you know it's really nice to have those cuddles definitely and actually for us as a family there was a moment in the in time which was really important which was so one of our daughters is um is adopted and she used not to be able to be held or comforted or any of those things and she used to have night terrors and it was very very difficult to support her with that but the point at which actually she trusted us enough and it took a long time but the point at which she trusted us enough that if she was scared in the night she could come and see comfort from us was a huge milestone so just at an age when most parents would probably have been saying right you've got to be in your own bed now we were like hooray come but yeah as you say each each family I think has their their own journey and and I think it's important for people not to feel pressurised by societal expectations as long as things are safe isn't it yeah and I think the point about feeling fearful at night time you know it can be a scary time uh I saw a reward chart on the market that actually the children got a staff for not calling out in the night and it really sort of concerned me that because I would hate to think that one of my children was sitting there during the night terrified but fixated on getting that start because actually you know they need to be able to call out they need to be able to seek the family this is not what it's about at all um we need certain things in place to be able to sleep well and one of those things is to feel that we're safe and that we are secure and some of the work that we do with the families is sometimes um putting up pictures photographs you know in the bedroom so just a reminder that you know families are still around and it's interesting that often we don't have photographs in the bedroom but we have them in other places in the home um and that can help you know some of our children just feel a little bit more secure um but it's so so important and you know we do things as well like sometimes um a t-shirt over the pillow so we've got that scent of a parent around as well just to make the child aware that when they come up through the partial wake and is the major sort of smell the scent and it might be enough just to get another sleep cycle out of it but yeah having that that sort of time that they can get up and go to seek that support is really important and again lighting this is where I come back to the light lots of our children get anxious in the dark and everything you read virtually says blackout blinds dark environment which is the route that I completely went down you know with my first child and actually some children do need some light in that room to be able to orientate themselves um particularly if they've got a hearing impairment or a visual impairment that's really important but also if they've got this anxiety about night time they need to just be able to see what is around because it the bedroom looks very different at night time too yeah everything's scarier in the dark isn't it whatever age you are I think you can imagine things and it's challenging so what motivated you to set the charity up in the first place then was that to do with your own sort of journey with sleep with your family or what was the the motivation behind it um I suffered from chronic sleep issues with my child and um I was just desperate for some support for some information and I'd kind of never never really valued sleep and I knew that I was going to be sleep deprived when I became a mum you know that's a given so I was expecting that and I was also working full-time um for uh you know fairly uh from the early days really with him so I knew it was going to be really really tough so my background is actually in teaching and um I've taught in special schools and um I worked with children with quite challenging behaviours um and when the sleep didn't start to improve I found it really difficult to nowhere to access information and when I was going to like you know the parenting type of groups it just felt like everyone else had got these perfect children and I was really embarrassed to sort of speak about the difficulties I was having because when I did say something it almost felt like I was sort of judged or tutored or um given some advice that was just so simplistic that I'd already tried it and I kind of ran out of options and um I did start to seek some advice from the health visitor when he was about two and a half and she just gave me a book on control crying which I remember walking home with it thinking I don't sleep I work full-time and she wants me to read a book and I read about it and it didn't sit comfortably with me at all but I tried it because I was like well a healthcare professional told me to do this so it must be the right thing to do and I'm desperate and it was just horrific I tried it for one night and one night only and the name control crying there was nothing controlled about it it was just hideous and after that I went to see the GP and the GP told me that children don't sleep and I needed to just get on with it and the answer was to describe antidepressants he said I was depressed and I probably was actually but I think the whole reason was that I was just utterly exhausted and not coping um so to cut a very long story short this went on for years until my child was six and it was through like research that I did myself um learning about sleep um suddenly realised that there were some sleep consultants in in the UK who'd done some training around behavioural intervention um learning more around that and putting it in place and he slept through after two weeks and it was just wow I didn't go in I was terrified I thought something dreadful had happened to him because after six years of being up for now and all night when you suddenly don't hear your child think oh what on earth and there he was fast asleep and so it continued night after night and it just transformed my life it made me feel so much better I looked better I was able to pursue a career again because I'd given up my job um I was um able to get me married all sorts of positives came from it and I started to get emails from people who said you know I know you know a bit about sleep can you help us um so in the daytime I was sort of working full-time teaching and by night I was sending all these emails out to people from all over the place uh and I thought I've got to do something more around this because I was just getting inundated and it really troubled me that people might have my experience and feel really low and not know where to turn so in 2012 I decided to set up the charity not knowing a thing about setting up charities and being incredibly naive and thinking you set a charity up from people giving you money and then you can help people um and it's not been like that at all um it's been really tough um but we are managing support indirectly at the moment about 40 000 families a year by training professionals and then they share the work across the country so for a small charity the reach that we've got is uh you know pretty good yeah and what's next for you so obviously you talked a few bits as we've been discussing about the the theatre production and um the the sleep champions but do you have a kind of a mission feel like a woman with a mission there's yeah what you know if we we chat it again in five years time what do you hope would be different um so what I'd hope is that we've got sleep champions in every school primary and secondary so that our children's um sleep education and the sleep issues are able to be addressed you know um in their locality uh I'd also want specialist sleep services in every area across the country and that's for adults as well so there's a lot of adults who could really benefit from um support other than prescription drugs and I would want our intervention with children certainly to be the first line of action prior to prescribing because a lot of children are prescribed melatonin and we're doing some research at the moment around that to show that the behavioral intervention can successfully prevent that but also when those children offer that don't actually need it so that's a big sort of vision for me as well and I want sleep to be right up there on the public health agenda I want it to sort of sit alongside things like nutrition and exercise um because we know if we can get good sleep in place then it has this effect on all other aspects of life you know it diet you're more likely to exercise um concentration it has just such a wide reach and not just for individuals but for society so things like accidents on the road you know from sleep deprived drivers those kind of things so that's like the big vision um that's where we are heading and I always describe it as an exciting challenge because sleep isn't very fundable because funders often think that like this is provided by the health service um and it's actually not in most cases so it is a challenge being able to find the resources to develop it but it's something that um we're getting more and more successful at um as we're raising the profile of the the charity wow and and I've no doubt that yeah you've made it so it's hard to believe you've only been going since 2012 which is relatively young for charity but you know yeah having a look at the the resources you've provided and the impact you've had I've no doubt you will achieve those aims and how old is your son now 20 and does he still sleep good very success what um what thought would you like to close with people often have like a thought or an action that they would like to leave people with who who've listened in what would be your parting thought I think to prioritise your sleep so that is so important and we prioritise lots of things in our life but very rarely sleep but make sleep your priority this year because things are tough at the moment and you know our sleep's been affected uh during the pandemic we've seen that at the charity so it makes sleep a real priority because it underpins absolutely everything