Eight months of broken sleep and a head full of shoulds.

This is the mini where Alex talks about sleep-training Scarlett, and the hardest part of it actually being just undoing everything she'd told herself about what she was supposed to do. Lorissa, who's immune to the shoulds, has great advice on how to ignore the conflicting noise.

What We Cover

→ Why "what's best for the baby" isn't what you think

→ How anti-sleep-training messaging kept Alex questioning her own intuition for eight months straight before she called it

→ Why the "shoulds" in motherhood can sneak up on you, and what it means to "be your own camp"

If You're Running on Empty

Alex got through eight months of broken sleep because she had the routines in place to take care of herself. If yours aren't holding, Wake Up Different is the 28-day rebuild.

👉 alexpayetta.com/wake-up-different

Connect With Us

Lorissa Violet

lorissaviolet.com | @lorissaviolet

Alex Payetta

alexpayetta.com | @alexpayetta

Timestamps

• 0:00 Alex is finally sleeping
• 1:30 Eight months of broken sleep and the home birth community
• 4:00 Co-sleeping, home birth, and why they get tied together
• 7:00 Identity, camps, and the should spiral
• 10:00 Weaning Scarlett and letting the baby decide
• 13:00 "Be your own camp"

You've tried the charts, the timers, the consequences, the gentle approach, and your kid is still melting down every morning before anyone's out the door. What Randy Free teaches is the middle ground many parents are actually looking for, somewhere between gentle parenting and old-school discipline, and it works for all kid (even neurodivergent ones).

Randy Free is a family counselor and retired international tax partner who spent 30 years in high-pressure corporate environments before building the PEACE-ful Parenting Process for neurodivergent kids and the high-achieving parents trying to figure out what actually works.

What You'll Learn

• A simple framework for deciding which battles to fight and which ones to let go, so you stop trying to correct everything at once.
• What's actually happening in your child's brain during a meltdown, and why your calm matters more than your consequence.
• The story Randy tells about kicking his own son's door down in anger, and what his son remembered years later (it's not the lesson).

Mentioned in This Episode

• Randy Free's PEACE-ful Parenting Process at coachtoresilience.com
• The PEACE-ful Parenting Self Assessment (free download): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t5k06pPR-OeTqDBiMIJh_bE4j9phnhra/view

Take the Stress Loop Quiz

This whole episode comes back to how the mom's nervous system sets the tone for the entire house. If you've been running at a pace that leaves no room for patience, that shows up in every interaction with your kids. The Stress Loop quiz helps you figure out where your capacity is actually breaking down so you can start building it back.

alexpayetta.com/quiz

Connect With Us

Alex Payetta at alexpayetta.com and @alexpayetta on Instagram

Lorissa Violet at lorissaviolet.com and @lorissaviolet on Instagram

Timestamps

0:00 Meet Randy Free and his path from tax partner to parenting counselor

2:45 The PEACE acronym and how peaceful parenting differs from gentle parenting

6:30 The parenting quadrant, choosing your battles with red, blue, green, and yellow

12:15 Alex and Lorissa on the consistency struggle between partners

18:00 Nature vs. nurture and how neurodivergent brains process emotions differently

23:30 Mirror neurons and why your kids absorb your stress

29:00 The volcano exercise for teaching kids their own warning signs

35:00 Repairing after you lose your temper

40:45 When kids question authority and where to draw the line

48:00 Over-scheduling and what transitions do to a child's nervous system

55:00 Structure vs. flexibility for neurodivergent kids

1:00:00 Parenting a highly intelligent child who is emotionally behind

1:05:00 How to work with Randy and where to find him

Two moms break down every system they use to run their households, businesses, and families without losing their minds.

If you've ever felt like you're doing a million things and none of it is running smoothly, this one's for you.

What You'll Learn

→ The weekly rhythm that replaced seven nightly "what's for dinner" spirals with one 30-minute decision

→ How a $75/week hire fits into a system that runs your entire household without you holding every piece

→ The thing Alex does every single day that most people don't even know exists, and it's saving her hours

Grab the Free Guide

Everything we talked about in this episode comes back to one thing: knowing where your time is actually going so you can take it back. Alex put together a free guide called "4 Proven Strategies to Get Back 10 Hours Every Week" that walks you through the exact audit and filtering process she uses with every single client. If this episode fired you up, start here.

👉 https://alexpayetta.com/createtime

Connect With Us

Alex Payetta

https://alexpayetta.com | https://www.instagram.com/alexpayetta/

Lorissa Violet

https://lorissaviolet.com | https://www.instagram.com/lorissaviolet/

Mentioned in This Episode

Butcher Box https://www.butcherbox.com

Thrive Market https://www.thrivemarket.com/lorissa

Mixbook https://www.mixbook.com

Whisper Flow https://whisperflow.com

Resonant https://resonant.app

The Short Years https://theshortyears.com

Asana https://asana.com

Timestamps

0:00 Life updates (Japan, South by Southwest, sleep struggles)

12:00 Meal systems and why we eat the same thing every day

19:24 Why Lorissa picks sleep over the 5:30 AM workout

23:31 Buying back your time before anything else

26:45 Revenge bedtime procrastination

37:03 What happened when a client got a task management system

44:00 The $75/week part-time assistant breakdown

57:00 Car bins, mudroom staging, diaper bag systems

62:00 Kids artwork system that keeps memories without clutter

68:42 Why Lorissa starts every day praying for discernment

76:36 How AI is changing the way Alex runs her business