As children begin to develop an active imagination, nighttime has a funny way of turning completely ordinary things into danger lurking around every corner. In fact, studies show that most children (somewhere between 70 and 85 percent, depending on age) experience nighttime fears at some point. As soon as mom or dad leaves the room, everything suddenly feels darker. A creak in the hall becomes a monster. A weird shadow becomes a dragon. The tricky thing is, sometimes the more

If you've ever gone down a late night internet rabbit hole searching for a better night's sleep, you know the advice out there can be overwhelming, and not all of it holds up. Some tips are backed by solid research, while others are more marketing than science, or even risk making sleep problems worse. On today's blog, we'll look at some of the most popular internet sleep advice that you'll want to proceed with caution on. Melatonin. Melatonin is a powerful hormone that tells

We all know the feeling of being in a stressful situation when the body’s fight-or-flight response kicks in. Your palms begin to sweat, your heart pounds, and your blood pressure rises as your brain signals that something may not be safe. This response can be incredibly helpful when you need to respond to a real threat. However, when the body remains in this heightened state for too long, it can make it much more difficult to fall asleep. Sleep requires the body to feel safe

For the kiddos I work with, today is their first day back to school from summer break. Some go year round and were only off for two weeks, while others haven't been in school since June. Either way, the transition into the school year, with different routines, bus times, and general busyness, can be a struggle for everyone. And that means sleep often suffers as well. On today's blog, we'll break down five concrete recommendations you can give families to help kids transition

Lots of BCBAs want to help families with sleep, but they're afraid they'll make a mistake or won't know enough. They feel like they need to become sleep experts before they can say anything at all. Of course we always want to work within our scope, and there are certainly times when families need comprehensive sleep support, but there are also plenty of opportunities to support healthy sleep during your everyday ABA sessions. In fact, many of the skills we already teach have

As behavior analysts, we're always mindful of using reinforcement over punishment whenever possible. When it comes to spotting punishers, we usually think of the big ones, like yelling or time-out, but so many of the ways behavior can accidentally be punished are way more subtle than that. Sometimes it's just the way we talk about something, or small things in the environment, that end up being punishing without anyone even realizing it. This is definitely true for sleep, an