Brain Power with Dr. Eko

EP. 35 | Transforming Family Sleep: Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown's New Book

• Season 1 • Episode 35

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Ever wondered how a good night's sleep can transform your family's life? Join us for an enlightening episode featuring Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown, a board-certified sleep physician who specializes in sleep for children and their parents. Dr. Funke shares her personal journey into sleep medicine, sparked by her own experiences and the positive changes it brought to her family's well-being. We also get an exclusive look at her upcoming book, "Beyond Tired: A Sleep Physician's Guide to Solving Your Child Sleep Problems for Good," which is packed with practical, science-backed strategies for tackling children's sleep challenges. This conversation promises to equip you with the knowledge to transform your family's sleep habits for long-term benefits.

Dive into the complex world of teenage sleep issues as we discuss everything from circadian rhythms to academic pressures. Dr. Funke provides actionable strategies for parents to support their teenagers and foster healthier sleep routines. Learn about the holistic, family-centered approach of The Restful Sleep Place, where customized sleep services and diagnostic testing are offered. We also highlight the integrative care at Glow Pediatrics, including evaluations for ADHD and autism, and a focus on brain and gut health. This episode is full of invaluable insights and resources that every parent needs to create a restful and thriving household. Don't miss out—your family's well-being is just a listen away.

Connect with Dr. Funke!
linktr.ee/restfulsleepmd

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If you want to schedule an ADHD/Autism appointment for your child, you may contact Glow Pediatrics:

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Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Brain Power with Dr Echo. I have my wonderful friend and my amazing colleague and sister here, Dr Funke Afolabi-Brown, and you're in for a treat today. So, without further ado, welcome to the show, Dr Funke.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

Thank you so so much, dr Echo, thank you. It's always such a pleasure having conversations with you and congrats on the summit. That was just an amazing, amazing event and I'm just so thankful for the work you do, thank you, and you, of course, are part of it.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

So thank you for sharing your expertise. That's about me, so wonderfully. So for the listeners who don't know who you are, please can you introduce yourself?

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

Yes, yes, so I'm Dr Funke Afolabi-Brown. I am a board certified sleep physician with expertise in sleep in children as well as their parents, and really my mission in my practice, the Restful Sleep Place, and also my platform, which is Restful Sleep MD, is to help individuals change their relationship with sleep, because when we do that, we thrive and we reach our fullest potential. And so I do this through multiple avenues. I do this through my speaking, I do this through a lot of workshops I provide, and I also provide that through my clinical practice, which is the Restful Sleep Place, and then I'm going to be doing that also through my upcoming book, so I'm really excited to be here. We'll talk about that a little later.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Yes, you're very wonderful. As you can see, she's a wealth of knowledge, and that's half of the resume. Trust me on this one. Oh, I'm curious, why did you decide to?

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

become a sleep doctor.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

Well, it was a combination of things.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

It was a combination of seeing how much sleep impacted myself as a professional, as a physician, where I was telling people they needed to take care of themselves, and I really did not have. I knew I needed to do that, but I didn't have the tools. And so learning the tools learning how to optimize my sleep and also address my kids' sleep issues changed my life, and so it was one of those things you see that you can't unsee and you feel obliged to teach everybody, and so that was really what I started to do in my own little way in my practice, and then I realized that I needed to get the education, the science and the research to be able to further help people, and so that motivated me to get my sleep medicine fellowship at Penn, and then the rest is history. I fell in love with sleep. I just realized a lot of what I was telling people was just scratching the surface. So really understanding the depth and the breadth of sleep medicine now, combining that with my own personal story, is just really been my mission.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Wonderful. I love that. Your passion for, or just even seeing the difference you made in your family that led you to where your passion is now and you're helping so many people around the world with your knowledge and your wisdom, and so I know that you mentioned your book and I really want to dive into that. So tell us, why did you decide to write a book and what's this book about?

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

Yeah, so the title of the book is called Beyond Tired A Sleep Physician's Guide to Solving your Child Sleep Problems for Good. For good, Amen.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Listen, you all need the book. Get the book before it's even out.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

I'm really excited I mean, I that I had tried, looked at so many different titles and I'm like you know what? What I hear, what is recurring with the kids that come to see me, with the parents that they come with, is we're tired, this child is tired, is overtired, so he's like he's going to be untired, he's going to be untired, to be untired, and the parents are like I'm tired, I'll be untired, and so I wanted to. I wanted a title that resonates with people, but also to provide hope. So, yes, we're tired, but also to provide hope. So, yes, we're tired, sometimes we are beyond tired. But here is a comprehensive guide for you, as a parent, to help fix your child's sleep problems, and not a temporary fix, not a let's just give some melatonin and cross our fingers, let's take some sleep medication and hope everything works well, but actually dive into the what, the how, the why, so that we can then provide lasting solutions. And I wanted it to be something that was very practical and relatable for the folk that are going to be reading it, which is tired parents, right, so that, at the end of the day, you're living with nuggets that you can start to implement right away. It's not complicated.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

I share a lot of stories because I feel stories resonate People see themselves in stories but also I bring the science.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

So it's not just fluff, it is the scientific reason why this is happening in your child's sleep, and this is why the following steps will help you to figure out what to do next.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

And then, and the reason why I wanted to do this, in addition to just really connecting with more people, because I always say, like I can, I need to get out of the four walls of an exam room, right, the most number of people I can see at a time when I'm in my clinic is one person, right, one person which is one family right.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

But there are over 8 billion people in the world. I can't see everybody, and we know that the prevalence of sleep issues, even in children, is anywhere from like 30 to sometimes 50%, depending on what population you're looking at, right. So of course, I'm not going to be able to see everybody, but with a tool like this, these are the strategies that I share in my practice. These you know the content came from things that people ask me all the time, either on social media, in the grocery store, by phone, by text, and also just really my own lived experiences as well. So I think that was my motivation really to provide knowledge in a way that's distilled, it's simple, it's practical, that even tired parents can execute.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Oh my goodness. So okay, just to tease out a little bit from the book. So for those mommies who are had their newborn babies and they're just like're like wonderful, this amazing bundle of joy. So now what? Because I can barely think, please say to that mom get the book and the beautiful thing I would say.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

First of all, you're not alone. This too shall pass in a good way. But you don't have to struggle through it, you don't have to barely make it through. You can thrive, believe it or not, even in that newborn phase. And I have a whole section that's dedicated to how sleep changes. So what are the expectations for your child's sleep, from the moment they are born all the way to when they become older and they become school-age children all the way to when they're teenagers. So there's a whole spectrum. So you can kind of jump around and say, listen, we're not at the teenage years.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

I'm going to just focus on this section, and I also have a chapter that's solely dedicated to moms, because we know that we, as moms, always put our care on the back burner. We don't prioritize it. So this chapter really focuses on what are practical things that I can do in the newborn period. Well, how can I take care of myself? How can I make sure that I'm not depleted? How can I make sure I get my own sleep as well? And we move to sleep during, you know, you know menopause and perimenopause, and then we talk about what are the common sleep disorders that that a woman can experience that many times people say it's hormones or it's your, it's all in your mind, right Like it is so unfair and so we dive into all of that. So, even though we're talking, the book is for your kids' sleep, I could not leave you out. I had to make sure that moms also get you know the care they need and the information they need to make the best decisions for themselves.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

I love it, so do you have a chapter for that?

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

Well, I don't. But the entire book is great for dads to read because, again, it's a book that my mission, a lot of my passion, really is towards moms, but of course I want dads to get the care and the support. So this book will support anybody teachers, dads, moms, actually physicians as well, I would say within a practice would read it, because a lot of the information is applicable and then a lot of the content you know, even though I talk a lot about kids sleep, it is 100% applicable to families, because when I'm talking to the child or I'm talking to you about your child, I'm talking about your family, because if you're not well as a unit, as a family unit, then of course your child is not going to be able to thrive like they should. So there's absolute content that's applicable for dads too.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Wonderful. And so, for the special group called teenagers, let's talk about them, because they need all the support and the help that they can get. And they're often, of course, in the transition phase between childhood and adulthood and all the hormones and all the changes happening, and oftentimes they're sleeping completely off. So what can you tell parents about that?

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

Yeah, I mean again, just like that newborn phase. Everything occurs in phases and so when you're empowered with the right information to know what to expect, it really doesn't pat you off guard. When your child who maybe they used to go to bed at 8 pm and now it's 10.30 pm and they said they're not sleeping right, I actually break down. Why is that happening? It's not just their fault, it's not just social media or their phones. Yes, that plays a huge role.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

So we talk about the role of circadian rhythms, we talk about the role of you know their. You know the pressure, academic pressure that they're also experiencing. We talk about you know the start school, you know the fact that school starts so early and so that's jeopardizing them as well. So we really go through all of that in a very comprehensive way, because when you understand what is happening, then you realize oh, my teenager is not just being cranky or being difficult or being lazy, no, you understand what is going on. And then we provide the strategies specifically for you know their mind racing at bedtime or their difficulties with putting on their phones, or you know the social racing at bedtime or their difficulties with putting on their phones, or you know the social pressures that you have to help them to navigate or helping them set boundaries. So we talk through all of those things as well, so that you're having a well-rounded conversation with your team and they don't feel like they're being talked at.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

They feel like it's a real conversation, wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. As a mom of a teenager who has been so well taken care of by you, I'm definitely learning myself, because they don't call me to manual. So yeah, and what you just said is absolutely right. My daughter will say it's 11. I can't see You're serious.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

But after talking with you and getting some more like structure around, it's like okay, I understand, because she really isn't going into deep sleep until early in the morning. So that makes sense and the whole thing with school starting so early and as you were talking, I was just like you know, I need to let her sleep in until 7.30. Her school doesn't start until 8.20.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

So that should be enough time.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

I try to get everything ready the night before so she can get that extra sleep. So, yeah, parents, it's important for you to be a student of your child so that you can just help them navigate this time, and not so that then lessens the fussing right that we tend to have with our teenagers, like, oh my God, like a teacher. That's right, so we eliminate all of that and have some peace at home. So thank you, thank you for sharing that. So can you please tell our listeners where they can find this amazing book? And everybody, please get the book.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

I think I've already said that like four times, but yes, yeah, yes, thank you. I think I've already said that like four times. But yes, yeah, yes, yes. And I also wanted to also let you know, with the amazing work you do with kids with autism and who have neurodiverse conditions, are really grasping for straws or they're trying to fit this, you know, square peg into a round hole, right? Sometimes we need to make adjustments. So we go through all of that and I'm really looking forward to folks to really really be able to get practical tips that they need from that. Now the book is coming out in October. We to really really be able to get practical tips that they need from that. Now the book is coming out in October. We're really really excited. We're geared up, we're ready to launch and it's going to be on Amazon so you'll be able to get, you know, a paper copy. You can also get a Kindle version, so I'm really excited about that.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Right, oh, it's going to be so good. So thank you again so much, and please tell the listeners about your amazing practice also.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

Yes, oh, thank you, thank you. So the Restful Sleep Place really provides customized sleep services to your child and you if you have sleep issues. So we offer diagnostic testing, a very holistic, family value-based approach to sleep issues. So if you're looking for a place where you feel seen, you feel heard, that's where you should go and there's no certain that, oh, we'll just wait for them to outgrow it, especially if your family is suffering. So please, please, feel free to connect with us and you can go to our website. It's therestfulsleeplesscom. That's therestfulsleeplesscom, that's the restfulsleeplesscom. And then you can also follow me on social media. So on Instagram, on Facebook, I'm at Restful Sleep MD.

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown:

So Restful Sleep MD is really that platform that educates, teaches folks on how to sleep well, and then the practice is the Restful Sleep Place With the practice we're licensed in a few states, so we're licensed in California teaches folks on how to sleep well. And then the practices the restful sleep places with a practice. We're licensed in a few states, so we're licensed in california, new jersey and in pennsylvania. So if you're ever wondering, those are the places we're licensing. But we can still help you because I do have a coaching practice that I offer as well. So if you just go to that website, you'll you'll learn all the information and you can schedule a complimentary call to learn more.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

Yes, well, please check her out, because not just check her out seriously? She's taking such amazing care of my daughter, and so I can personally vouch for Dr Brown's expertise and loving compassion and she definitely will help your child sleep better and your whole family will do better.

Dr. Hokehe Eko:

So thank you again for listening to this episode my pleasure, and I hope you all have a wonderful day and please share this with someone that you need to, that you know needs to hear this, and if you're looking for an evaluation for your child for ADHD and autism, reach out to Glow Pediatrics, and also we offer integrative care for children with ADHD and autism, so taking care of their brain health, their gut health, so that the entire family can thrive. Okay, so until next time, have an amazing day.