WO3- I Support Her-Macall Gordon of Little Livewires
In honor of WO3 2025, I am delighted to partner, promote, and support Macall Gordon of Little Livewires!
Why Won't You Sleep? A Conversation with Macall Gordon
As a sleep coach and board member of WO3, I love celebrating and supporting female entrepreneurs who are making a real impact. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Macall Gordon, co-author of Why Won’t You Sleep?, to discuss her research, expertise, and groundbreaking approach to understanding pediatric sleep struggles.
Macall, a Certified Gentle Sleep Coach with a Master’s in Applied Psychology, has spent years researching sleep, temperament, and parenting. But beyond her academic expertise, she brings a deeply personal perspective—raising two highly sensitive, alert children who didn’t sleep well for 18 years! Her experience has fueled her mission to shift the conversation about sleep from a rigid behavioral model to a more holistic, systems-based approach that acknowledges temperament, biological factors, and family dynamics.
The Problem with Traditional Sleep Training
Macall challenges the conventional behaviorist approach to sleep training, which often ignores a child’s temperament and development. She explains how traditional sleep advice is written for the “easy” babies—the ones who respond quickly to structured sleep programs. But what about the 10-20% of babies who struggle intensely? When sleep training fails, parents are left feeling like they’re doing something wrong.
Macall emphasizes that parents need more than a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, she advocates for understanding biological sleep disruptors—like low ferritin levels (linked to pediatric restless leg syndrome), sensory sensitivities, and even neurodivergence—all of which can impact a child’s ability to sleep well.
Giving Parents the Information They Need
In our conversation, Macall shared valuable insights, including:
Why some babies are wired to sleep while others aren’t.
The importance of recognizing physiological barriers to sleep, like reflux, oral ties, and ferritin deficiencies.
How traditional sleep books often set unrealistic expectations, creating unnecessary stress for parents.
Why parents should trust their instincts rather than feeling pressured by rigid sleep training rules.
Watch the Full Interview
If you’re a parent struggling with a child who “just won’t sleep,” this interview is a must-watch. Macall provides reassurance, research-backed insights, and real-world strategies to help families find solutions that work for them.
WO3 is all about uplifting female entrepreneurs like Macall who are making a difference in their industries. On WO3 Day, let’s remember to support women-owned businesses—whether by leaving a positive review, making a purchase, or simply spreading the word. Small actions make a big impact!
Have you experienced sleep struggles with your child? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
In our Interview, we SHOUT OUT to some other Female Owned Businesses that Macall admires and you will definitely want to check it out!
Robyn Gobbel - Author of “Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors”
Website: RobynGobbel.com -
Instagram: @robyn.gobbel
Podcast: https://robyngobbel.com/podcast
Facebook: facebook.com/robyngobbelmsw
Urban Earth Nursery in Seattle - The most amazing little boutique nursery
Website: urbanearthnursery.com
Insta: @urbanearthnursery (Seattle)
Learn more about Macall Gordon of Little Livewires:
Macall has a master’s degree in Applied Psychology from Antioch University, Seattle where she was a Senior Lecturer in the graduate Counseling Psychology program. She also has a B.S. in Human Biology from Stanford University.
She has conducted and presented research on temperament, sleep, and parenting advice at conferences around the world including the World Association for Infant Mental Health, the International Congress for Infant Studies, and the Society for Research in Child Development.
She is a certified Gentle Sleep Coach in private practice as well as a Featured Provider with the women’s telehealth platform, Maven Clinic. She has been featured on a variety of podcasts and recently on Parents.com. She just published a book, co-authored with Kim West, MSW (Benbella Books) called “Why Won’t You SLEEP?! A Gamechanging Approach for Exhausted Parents of Nonstop, Super Alert, Big Feeling Kids.”
She comes to this work because she had two sensitive, alert, intense children, and she didn’t sleep for 18 years.
Website: littlelivewires.com
Facebook @littlelivewires
Instagram @littlelivewires
GET INVOLVED: Embracing the spirit of unity and empowerment, joining the movement to champion women-owned businesses this March is as effortless as following three simple steps. Here's how you can become a part of this vibrant celebration:
Sign up for March Reminders:
Begin your journey by registering to receive enchanting, cost-free ideas that make it easy to support, promote, and partner with small, women-owned businesses.
This initiative builds momentum towards the climax of WO3 Day. You can sign up here.
Spread the Enthusiasm:
Ignite a wave of support by encouraging your friends and family to participate.
Engage with us on social media platforms for a dose of inspiration and use hashtags like #isupporther, #wo3connect, and #wo3day to amplify your impact. Find us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn at WO3Connect.
Plan Your Support:
Devise a plan to back women-owned businesses throughout March with simple, yet meaningful actions.
From writing a touching review to finding creative ways to support your favorite female entrepreneurs, every effort counts.
Join us in making WO3 a jubilant celebration of women's achievements. Together, we can shine a light on the remarkable contributions of women in business. Let's connect, support, and celebrate. 🚀 #wo3connect #isupporther
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Foreign. Hello, I'm Joanna Clark of Blissful baby sleep Coaching and also a board member of W3, which is a grassroots movement to help partner, promote and support small female owned businesses. And I am delighted to be interviewing today. McCall Gordon, author of this book, why won't you sleep? Yay call. Thank you for being here. I'm gonna tell everybody about you. Can I do that before we get started?
Okay, so you guys ready? So McCall holds a master's in applied psychology from Antioch University in Seattle and a B.S. in human biology from Stanford. A certified gentle sleep coach, she has co authored why won't you sleep? And has presented research literally globally on sleep, temperament and parenting. She is also a featured provider at Maven Clinic, a women's telehealth platform. And the reason why McCall started this whole journey of becoming a thought leader in the space is because she comes to this work because she had not one, but two highly sensitive, highly alert, highly intense children that literally did not sleep for 18 years.
So McCall knows her topics well, both intellectually and from a research perspective, from an everyday mom perspective. So thank you so much for being here, McCall. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yes, yes. I don't come to this because I nailed sleep. That is for darn sure. Yes, yes, exactly. Which is usually so really, you guys, McCall is truly a thought leader in this space. She has been researching and researching and everybody I know in the sleep coaching community, because I've been this community sleep coaching industry for 13 years now, and everyone knows who McCall is and everyone wants to know McCall is thinking and researching.
And so McCall, why don't you tell us what you. What is like top of mind for you now after being in this industry for such a long time? Yeah, well, it's funny because it started when my daughter was born in 1994, honestly, where I was reading parenting magazines back then because the Internet was like barely a thing, so it was magazines and books and I was. It just.
The stuff on sleep just didn't make sense, honestly. Because, you know, they were talking about the importance of brain development and at the same time saying, but you should let your child cry. You know, be responsive, but let your kid cry in the middle of the night. And it just didn't make sense. And it still doesn't. Really, Honestly. So for me, I really think we need to change the whole perspective on sleep, which still is within a behaviorist paradigm.
So John Watson, back in the 1920s, you know this idea that, that all sleep behavior is shaped by, by behavior and what gets reinforced and what doesn't? And within that paradigm, the only thing that's important is behavior. Literally nothing else matters. And what is the outcome of that? If we're only looking at sleep through this behavioral lens, what is the outcome of that? For families, that means nothing else matters.
Right. The baby's biology, the baby's temperament, the baby's developmental status, what parents want, what parents bring to the table. Parents, cultural preferences. Literally nothing else matters, only behavior. What the baby does and how the parent responds. So all of the big sleep strategies, or I would say the main one. Right. Ferber and all those. Well, I shouldn't say all those other ones. Ferber is. And Wise Blood. Yeah.
Well, yeah, it's all the same, right, that. That the baby cries. And if you don't want the baby to wake up and cry, you just don't reward that behavior. And then the baby's behavior is extinguished. They call that extinction. It's behavior modification. It doesn't matter why the baby's crying. It doesn't matter how old the baby is or how much they cry. The fact is that if you respond, you're rewarding the behavior.
So therefore, if you. If it doesn't work, the only one that's at fault is the parent. And that. Right. It puts all the pressure on the parent, and if it fails, it's all the parent's fault. Right. Nothing else is important. Right. That's just incredibly unfair, and it's incredibly inaccurate because we all know there's a lot more that goes into slack sleep. Right? So I want to pinpoint that.
So what I hear you saying is that if we're only looking at sleep through this kind of behavioralist lens, the outcome is, is that it puts all the pressure on the parents. It puts all the shame on the parents if they don't succeed, and it raises their anxiety. And it also creates this box that they go into where they feel like they're either winning or they're losing. And there's no other reasons that they can look to or understand why they might not be successful.
And that is why you want to change the dialogue. So tell me about where you want to go. How would you rather have us look? What lens would you rather have us look? Forward. Yes, exactly. Well, let me. Let me step one, take one teeny little baby step back and then forward to exactly answer that really good question. What happens is like all the books, sleep books will say, yeah, it's really simple.
The steps are really simple. You put the baby in the crib, you leave the room and really, you guys, it's not really that hard. In like three to four nights, the baby, yeah, there'll be some crying, but in three nights it'll be over. Well, for some parents, that absolutely works. And if that's, you know, that's what happens. And yay for them. Right. Like, I can't really argue with that.
But the parents that I work with of these more intense kids, that is absolutely not what's happening. And then this paradigm doesn't tell them what to do. So these are. The kiddos are crying for hours and the books do not say what to hap. What. What to do. Right. And so these parents are completely out in the cold. Right. So what I'd rather have us do is really look at the full picture and start saying, well, maybe there are ages where we should take a more nuanced approach.
Let's look at, well, if your baby's struggling this much or at this age, or are there alternatives? Or maybe you can make different choices, or maybe you can wait or maybe you can decide what's a problem. Maybe it can be, okay, enough. You. Let's, let's. Maybe you can just work on this piece or not. Or maybe you can have the baby in your room if everyone's sleeping. Okay, that's what I don't hear.
I mean, I'm sure you run into this all the time. I had a call today with somebody whose baby was sleeping like a dream and they still thought that sleep was bad. That's a huge problem, I think, in our country, when every single parent thinks their baby's sleep is not living up to some crazy standard. Exactly. Right. Problem. Right, exactly. So we've kind of got this behavioralist standpoint which makes babies become like, almost like robots.
Like, baby must go to sleep at this time, wake up at this time, you know, etc, and it. And, and if the parent can't twist it to get it to look that way through a certain sleep training methodology, then they have failed. And the way. And what you're hoping in terms of being a thought leader and helping people, like, shape a new. A new conversation, which is, let's look at it from a systems perspective so that we can look at the entire family system and where the baby is developmentally so that we can better manage and say, okay, what are your.
What are the parents? Values, goals, cultural preferences? What are, what is the nursing plan? What is the, the, you know, the goals? What, you know, what, what are the requirements for the parents in terms of caregiving and tag teaming and all of that? And looking at this holistically, so that you're looking at from a system point of view. Yeah, well. And I'm sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. So if you could just kind of like talk about that a little bit more about the system point of view.
Because I think that's from our perspective as coaches. I think what I often tell parents is, listen, you have a long time to be a parent. You, you really can take your time. Because I think parents also get the message that they have to hurry up and get this baby on a schedule or they have to hurry up and get that baby sleeping in the crib right away or else really bad things will happen.
And, and I put the blame squarely on books for doing this. The books I've done a lot of kind of like analysis in a way of the tone of sleep books. Oh. And they really scare the pants off off of parents by saying, you better get that baby sleeping or the baby's going to have a weight problem. And ADHD if you, conduct disorder if you don't. Parents are just like quivering, they're so worried.
Yes. And most of the time when you tell parents, hey, you do not have to listen to that. It's really not true. It's not based in research. I literally see the worry like rising off of their shoulders. That's right. I think we're really doing a disservice to parents and not telling them. You really have time. The baby needs time to develop. You do not have that much control over a newborn sleep.
You really don't. And you can take your time, you can experiment, keep your expectations low, and you tell them how a baby develops over the first several months of life. And boy, oh boy, it makes a huge difference. So I think we've got to like dial the stress down for parents and let them know that they really have time to learn about themselves, to learn about their baby.
The rush to get these kiddos sleeping in ways that are just not biologically normal. I don't understand. I mean. Exactly. So, so that leads us to kind of your book. Right. Which is the question that parents are always saying, why won't my child sleep? And so what, what brought about the book and what's tell us about what's inside the book. That's going to be really helpful. So that.
So the thing I get a lot when I, when I talk to parents of even newborns is, well, my sister's baby or I have this friend who's 3 month old is sleeping like 12 hours already and mine can't Even lay down in the bassinet. What is, you know, she did this thing and I want to do that, or I tried it and my kid is just not working.
And I'm always like, well, it's not because of what your friend did. That baby is wired to do that and has done since birth. Your baby is not wired to do that. And so we start talking about temperament, and some kids are just wired to sleep, and some kids absolutely are not. Right. I always say that the line, the dividing line between kids who sleep well and those who don't is temperament.
So I wrote this book because the research, really, all of the research and virtually every single sleep book out there is written for mellow kids. Kids will get on board with just about anything you do with not that much drama, right? And the other kids, about 10 to 20%, will not get on board without a ton of drama. These are the kids who are crying for hours when parents try to do Ferber.
And these are the kids who have much bigger sleep problems, and parents are suffering a lot more, and literally no one is talking to them. So that's absolutely why I wrote the book, because these parents all feel like they're the only ones with a kid like this. I hear it every single day. Parents are like, I think I'm the only one, because I don't know anybody else with a child like mine.
Right? They're suffering really in isolation as well. Yes, they are absolutely suffering isolation. I think what you said was really potent, which is that there is this fine line between, you know, easy and hard. And what you said is the line is the temperament of the baby. That is kind of what takes this to this and that 10 to 20% or the babies are on the hard side.
But one thing I want to say about if you are listening to this and you're thinking, oh, no, I think I'm on the hard side, I want you to still know that all mostly problems are solvable with the right approach and with taking into consideration all of these other elements that we're going to about to talk about. That is in this kind of systems arena that she's trying to communicate that we don't just look at behavior, we look at temperament, we look at feeding, we look at low ferritin.
I mean, we're going to go into this. And so I want those of you that are listening to this thinking you're doomed. I please know you're not. This is why we're having this conversation. Her point is, is that there's never been a book written specifically for people who fall into the 20%. All the books have been written for the 80%. And so we are talking to those of you that are the 20% of that are constantly saying why won't my baby sleep?
And comparing and sparing with all the 80% of your friends that it's no problem. So thank you for writing this book because I think the way you language that, that the temperament is the, is the beginning of the, of the division point. So in fact, let's talk about all these other things. If we're looking at sleep through this systems part, let's go through that. Let's talk about all the other ways that we need to be evaluating a child before we go in there and start trying to like do sleep better.
Yeah, well, there's a chapter in there about like, you know, I, I kind of use a, you know, I should say we because I co authored this with Kim west, but I use sort of a, a, a trek analogy where you kind of have to get ready to, to go because this is a harder, a harder trip than with an easy kiddo. You know, I'm like an easy kiddo.
You pack a couple of snacks and you're out the door. And this one is like get the map, figure out the road, pack the car, service the, you know, like it's a big deal. So your first one of the big steps is you have to figure out if your child is ready. And that means making sure there's no big physiological things in the way because number one, it, it takes less to throw these kids, kids off because they're just more sensitive and it's like a little like Princess and the Pea.
Like it, it just takes less to be something that really stops progress. So we do look at silent reflux, feeding issues, oral ties, obstructed breathing. Right. Apnea, restless leg syndrome, any of eczema, any of those things. Low ferritin. Ferritin is restless legs. Right. So any of those things that could cause enough physiolog discomfort that's going to completely destroy a kid's ability to work on their sleep skills. Right.
Could you actually explain lo ferritin? Because a lot of people don't know what that is. Yeah, some, some children have enormous sleep struggles. Like this is not just like a little trouble with sleep. These are huge problems at bedtime and, or a big awake period in the middle of the night. And like I said, these are not small problems. These are big, long time to fall asleep with a lot of restlessness.
If they're babies, lots of crying, do not want to be lying down on the mattress. If they're older kids, they want to be standing, kicking off their legs, they want to be picked up, they want to be jumping. They're awake in the middle of the night where nothing seems to work. Some kids will sleepwalk, they'll cry in their sleep like weird problems and, and often like nothing really has worked.
Like nothing. And it's often not explained by anything else. This can be caused by low levels of ferritin in the blood. Ferritin is the iron storage factor in the blood. It's not iron, but it's related to iron. We don't know why. I have seen a lot of it partly because I get really hard sleep problems in my practice. And I don't know if it's a bigger problem now or if we're just seeing it, but it causes essentially pediatric restless leg syndrome.
And it often looks like shenanigans at bedtime. It looks like a kid who doesn't want to lay down or a kid who wants to jump on their bed. But it's because it causes this like jumpy, nervous, scared. Kids will say, I feel scared. I just had an 8 year old who wants to climb in bed with her parents or wants to be with her brother because she feels scared.
But it was like restless leg syndrome. So see, there can be problems that look behavioral but aren't physiological. Yeah, that are physiological. Exactly. And another piece that we forgot to mention was the neurodivergence. You have a really interesting statistic about that. Divergence can cause sleep challenges. Yeah. So neurodivergence. A lot of kids with adhd, autism spectrum and other other types of neurodivergence often, number one, have very low sensory thresholds or sensory processing sensitivities, which absolutely affects sleep 1,000%.
Also, kids with autism spectrum and sometimes ADHD have deficiencies in melatonin. So they just have problems with a bedtime, with a setting their bedtime like circadian clock. And also that we know that 50% of kids with ADHD and autism spectrum have restless leg syndrome. So it's worth sometimes getting them tested. So those are also in addition to the diagnoses that they have, they may also have organic sleep problems.
So it's sometimes worth getting them into a pediatric sleep clinic to get to either get a blood test or get them, you know, seen. Right. And for the blood, just you can do behavioral strategies all you want with those kids and you're going to be hitting a brick wall. Yeah, you'll be hitting a brick wall. So just to clarify, because often people think low ferritin. They think, oh, I'll just go get my child's iron tested.
And then the. If they're anemic. That's not what we're talking about. So low ferritin is the iron storage, how your body actually stores iron before it actually goes to the usage. Right. Anything from 50 or below is considered deficient. And most pediatricians don't know this at all. And so if you go to ask for a ferritin lab, they'll probably go, what? And they'll probably try to test your child for iron, trying to test them for anemia.
But you have to be very care deliberate and saying, I want ferritin. And if it's 50 or below, then you will want to talk to your doctor about supplementation so that we can raise the levels. And as the levels raise, then a lot of times the sleep disturbances and some of this crazy behavior starts to diminish, which then opens up the doorway to being able to do some behavioral modification.
But it doesn't. The behavioral modification does not work prior to the levels getting 50 or above. Yeah. And I often actually recommend people, if you get the ferritin test to actually, if you have the ability and resources to actually go to a sleep doctor, because you can't. You actually need. Often need prescription, prescription supplementation to get a multivitamin. Yeah. I have actually seen sleep problems. I say they go poof.
I, I've, I've actually seen you don't. Many people don't even need to do behavioral sleep stuff. Right. Which is amazing. Yeah, I've seen some nightmarish problems. Yeah. Go away. So McCall. So I'm sure that everyone's like thinking about this and going, oh, my God, I need the book. Like, maybe my, maybe my child is in this, like, divided road. They're in the 20%. So can you tell everybody how they can find you, how they can find the book and any other places you.
You are, Maybe some recent podcasts you've been on and things like that so that they can learn more? Sure. Website is Little Livewires because I call these kids Live Wires because they just have more juice running through their little systems. Littlelivewires.com will tell you there's also why won't you sleep dot com. So that's. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's a major booksellers, you know those and some good independent booksellers.
It's available on Kindle and Bookshop, also has an ebook. I'm in the process of recording the audiobook now so that. Okay, great. At some point soon. Great. You can also if you are looking for support in terms of like other parents. Yes. So admin two large Facebook groups. One is called Fussy Baby site on Facebook and the that's for little ones up to three and the other one is called Spirited Child.
Okay. For kiddos three to seven. Okay. And we will have all of this in the notes so you guys can easily find these. Okay. So in honor of W3 we always like to pay it forward and honor and shout out to some other women authors or women owned businesses. And McCall has two people that she'd like to do a quick shout out for. I do my. My recent favorite topical author is Robin Goble.
R O B Y N Goble. That'll be in the notes. I guess she write she has written a fantastic book called Raising kids with Big baffling Behaviors. She's got a great podcast and lots of information on her website. These are actionable items for kids who have a lot of those crazy meltdowns. So lots of these kinds of kids. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant material. Okay. Seattle is where I don't live there now, but my house is still there and I love it.
But a great, oh great female owned queer owned nursery in Seattle called Urban Earth. It's a tiny little boutique, lovely nursery. So I definitely want to shout them out because they are amazing and it's Urban Earth. Is that what it is? Earth in Seattle? So boutique nursery. We love that because that means when you go there they'll probably help you. And we love that. It's like a little jewel right in the middle of Seattle.
It's okay. I love it. Okay, and then last question from a call is what are you gonna do on W3 Day? Which is this year it's Saturday, August 29th and the goal on WO3 Day is what or what can you do to partner, promote or support a female owned business? And remember everyone, this does not require money. It doesn't require a lot of time. Think of it as small business Saturday.
Long ago when people were like oh, small business Saturday. Let me go and do, let me go shop at a small business on Saturday. This is the same concept except it's for small women owned businesses. What can I do to partner promoter support a female owned business. And so McCall has two ideas that she is going to share with us on what she's do on w3day. Just had one but I have a good one.
Well, you really gave me a forcing function because I forget to leave positive reviews. I think I always get, you know, fired up to leave those. Not always, but when I do those negative ones. But I forget to leave reviews for books that I love or businesses that I love. So I am absolutely going to make a list of all the ones that I know about and I'm going to go leave those lovely, positive, uplifting reviews.
A thousand. Okay, I'm not even gonna wait till August. Don't even wait, you guys. Don't even wait. But it's just such a lovely sentiment. Again, the purpose of W3 day everybody is just to really stop and recognize how many incredible women you know are running small businesses but making a huge impact. And that for you to echo what they're doing out in the world, shouting them out, writing a review, referring a friend, writing them a thank you note, buying something for them if they're product based service and really making a deliberate decision to be partnering, promoting and supporting them.
Because this is the way small businesses grow. And so this is our grassroots effort. And I want to say thank you McCall for being here. I'm so happy to shout you out in the month of March of 2025 for all the incredible work that you are doing. Everybody buy the book and and we will get all these resources for you so you can find McCall if you need her for further support.
Thank you, Joanna.