Expert Helps Babies, Children and Parents Get a Full Night’s Sleep
Abu Dhabi: Ausra Cirkelyte, whose King of Sleep online consulting agency has helped more than 150 families since opening in 2018, is now offering a free 15-minute phone consultations to inform parents in the United Arab Emirates on how to provide the gift of long restorative sleep to children. Cirkelyte works with parents to create a step-by-step action plan and guide them through it so their children’s sleep problems can be solved. Once children master new sleep skills and can sleep well unassisted, parents can get their sleep, too.
“I can help you learn how to teach your child self-soothing skills, how to go to sleep and get back to sleep independently, and how to take restorative and healthful naps,” said Cirkelyte, who was inspired to become a pediatric sleep consultant after her son was born and did not sleep well. “Sleep training is the process of helping a child learn to get to sleep by himself and stay asleep through the night. Some children do this quickly and easily. However, many others have trouble settling down to sleep—or getting back to sleep when they’ve wakened—and they need help along the way.”
According to Cirkelyte, many parents believe that not getting sleep is the price of being a parent. However, parents need sleep as well as their children. The pandemic has made things worse. At this time, more children in the UAE are facing problems with their sleep especially because of so much exposure to technology. “I want people here to know that the earlier they deal with their children’s sleep problems the easier it will be to solve it,” Cirkelyte said.
As Cirkelyte notes, sleep is essential for a child’s health and development. Restorative sleep is crucial for development and memory consolidation, not to mention the peace within the family when a child sleeps well. Uninterrupted sleep is central for parents and children, and well-rested children are healthier, happier, less fussy and irritable.
Children, especially babies, are not able to organize their own days and nights into predictable rhythms, but they have the biological need to do so. That is why parents must take the lead and create a structured routine for their babies and for themselves.
One of the main reasons’ children won’t sleep is because they have developed “sleep props” over the first part of their lives, Cirkelyte said. Sleep props refer to the ways children have learned to fall asleep using assistance instead of developing their own skills. These may include feeding to sleep, being rocked to sleep and co-sleeping. “To be more precise, your child has learned to fall asleep using a certain method. When these methods no longer work, and your child is losing sleep, it may be time to figure out which sleep training method would work best for you,” she said.
“I am very passionate about my job and my mission is to see happy children with happy parents,” Cirkelyte said. In addition to completing a Sleep Sense Certification, Cirkelyte is a member of the International Association of Child Sleep Consultants and the Association of Professional Sleep Consultants.
