Bite-sized dental wisdom in under 2 minutes.

My youngest is 14 months old, and she’s been sleeping with me since the beginning.
No judgment. It just worked for our family.

But also… I was tired.

Not I need a nap tired. The kind of tired where you wake up already annoyed at the world kind of tired. And I knew what needed to happen.

I’ve sleep trained before. Twice. I know how this goes: there’s a system. It’s not just tossing your kid in a crib and hoping for the best. There’s a plan, there’s timing. There are usually a couple rough nights - and then, magically, everyone sleeps.

Still, I couldn’t get around to doing it.

I told myself she wasn’t ready. That this wasn’t the right week for the family. But we’d do it soon.

Which is parent code for I don’t feel like dealing with this right now.

Eventually, I ran out of excuses. Or patience. Hard to say.

So night one, I gave her the pep talk.
“You’re going to sleep in your own bed. Mommy loves you. You can do this.”

Mostly, I was talking to myself.

I put her down and waited… fully prepared for a meltdown.

She cried.
Briefly.
Maybe five minutes total.

And then she went to sleep.

All fricken night.

I remember lying there thinking, Okay. Beginner’s luck. Night two is going to be rough.

I gave her the pep talk again. Put her down.

She didn’t cry. At all.

She slept through the whole night again.

So if I’m being completely honest with myself - she was ready long before I was.

All the reasons I had for waiting - the timing, the excuses, the “not yet” - weren’t really about her. They were about me avoiding being uncomfortable...and being more tired.

And in doing that, I delayed something that ended up being way easier than the story I was telling myself. And this doesn’t just apply to sleep training, but in business too. We tell ourselves we’re waiting for the “right time,” when really we’re just postponing the hard part. We avoid short-term discomfort and pay for it long-term.

The truth is, there’s rarely a perfect time.
And most of the time, if it feels like the right time… it’s probably later than it needed to be.

Once you move, you usually realize the thing you were afraid of was smaller than the narrative you built around it.

She sleeps better.
I sleep better.
And I’m left wondering how many other things I delayed for the same reason.

-Dr. Alex

P.S. If you’re delaying the inevitable when it comes to systems or checklists in your office, consider this your sign. I’m launching Milo - the checklist app I wish I had in practice - very soon. Get on the early access list so you can check it out first.