I’m a sleep doctor. Here’s how I get kids to (finally!) sleep through the night

“I still use the Hatch Baby sound machine for my kids. I love it,” Tahir says. “It was gifted to me by one of my oldest friends when I had my first daughter, and that's five years now, and it's held up. I can't stand something that I have to get every few weeks, and I'm very impressed with the product.

“I love a sound machine. I never slept with one before kids, but it really helps dull out the background noise for all of us. We live in New York City. Apartments are small. There's noise outside. It really helps. The kids sleep really well, I actually think.

“I started using it after I got my kids into it because I noticed there were some nights that when they were infants, I would be a scared mom, sleeping in the chair in the room. I got used to it. It does dull out the background noise, and now it's more soothing to me.”

As someone who makes traveling a priority in her family’s life, that small sound machine made a huge difference in prepping her children for sleeping on the go. “You know how the airplane has background noise? I think they were such easy kids to travel with because they would hear this hum of the plane and be out within minutes because they were used to it.

“In the beginning, I used to go see my parents in Michigan and my husband's parents in Ohio, and we would go to Miami often. I would put it in my suitcase. Again, first-time mom. I was afraid to try anything new, and it probably would have been fine, but I would travel with it.

But, those powerful tiny but mighty machines come with a hard to ignore nightlight feature. “There is one setting that switches them to all different colors, but I noticed when I put that one on that my daughter and my son would both stay up a little bit. So, I just try to avoid using the light.

“I try to avoid any light in the bedroom. It's okay to have a nightlight. Some kids are afraid of the dark, and a nightlight is okay. My kids are not there yet. Maybe they will never get there, but we don't use the light.”

“For their sheets, I recently tried out the Quince brand,” Tahir says. “I got the linen ones for them. They’re a good price point. They wash very well. It’s not a fancy brand at all, but I'm very impressed by their quality.

“I just tried them out because we're in-between buying beds, and we’re kind of figuring out whether should we get bunk beds or get singles, and I'm so far happy with them. I’m just always on the go, so I like a clean, quiet, calm palette at night.

“But kids should be creative and very individualized. I am assuming that my clean palette of her bedroom sheets now is going to be a rainbow of glitter, cartoons, figures, etc. soon. But that's so important for her creativity and her growth.

“My kids usually like a stuffy in the bed,” Tahir says. “My daughter tends to go to this little sloth one she's had since she was an infant, and then she has this Elsa one from Frozen, and then the Build-A-Bear one. She rotates them. They're never all three in the bed.”

“It was interesting, their Build-A-Bear choices. My daughter has this neon rainbow glittery bear with high heels and a tutu, and my son has Chase from Paw Patrol. Chase is really cute and refined-looking, but they’re both fun.

“It’s great because it’s something they got to participate in building, which was so cute. It's just that I'm a clean-palette person, so it's challenging having them branch out, but I learn a lot about myself every day from these kids. My husband was also a painter before his corporate job so we're very much into letting them explore art and color.”