In our Sleeping With… series, we speak to people from different career paths, backgrounds, and stages of life to find out how they make sleep magic happen.
Ashley Graham is sitting in the bathroom at her New York apartment, eating lamb meatball stew. Her eight-month-old son, Isaac, whom she shares with husband Justin Erwin, is attempting to nap in the next room. “He’s teething like crazy, so it’s rough out here,” she tells SELF over the phone. “I was like, you know what? I’m going to be walking through my nightly routine, so I might as well be in my bathroom.”
Season two of Graham’s online workout series, Thank Bod, premiered on YouTube today. The model, host, and television personality filmed this season in her Nebraska garage, right next to her pickup truck. “My husband shot the whole thing,” she says. “It’s a lot of work to shoot workout videos when the whole crew is not there that you’re used to working with. This is really just him and I doing this together, and making it work.” The series consists of five 15-minute workouts, created by trainer Kira Stokes and modeled by Graham. It echoes the same approach to fitness and movement Graham regularly shows on Instagram, whether she’s doing couples yoga or pushing a stroller on rollerblades—one that prioritizes humility, joy, and humor.
Graham and her family spent the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic hunkered down in Nebraska. They recently returned to their home in New York City. In late September, Graham spent four days in Milan for Fashion Week—the longest amount of time she’s spent apart from her son—and is now back in New York until further notice. Every day is different: some days she’s on set, and others she’s Zooming from home. “It’s a new normal that everybody’s adjusting to—getting COVID tests a couple times a week, wearing masks, getting temperatures taken,” she says. “But it feels so good to be back in New York.”
Here, Graham shares her bedtime routine with SELF—including “popping [her son] on the boob,” completing an efficient skin-care routine, and having two hours of time for herself.
Bath time is around 7:30 p.m. Isaac eats at 7:45 p.m., and he is down at 8:00 p.m. He usually just goes straight to sleep, so then it’s my time.
We have a little night routine where we do a bath, and then we’ll have a little lotion, massage, and then we talk about what’s in his room. We’ll read a little book. It just kind of depends on what mood he’s in. He has a full-on library. And then he will go to bed after I feed him. I try to get his belly to be really full.
I worked with this amazing woman who has a book called The Sleepeasy Solution. Her name is Jill [Spivack]. She’s absolutely incredible, and this helps with every range of age, and if you’re teething, or crawling, or walking, because apparently these stages change the way that your baby sleeps. Instead of calling it “sleep training,” we call it “sleep learning,” because we need to all learn how to sleep. When you’re sleeping, that’s when you’re growing, and you’re developing more in your brain. All kinds of things are happening that are so good for you.
When I looked at it as sleep learning instead of sleep training, all my defenses came down. I was like, “Oh, yeah. My kid actually needs this. This is not me being a parent trying to morph my child into something that he doesn’t wanna do.” And sure enough, within three days, he took to it.
I do a dream feeding at 10:30, which means I go into his room when he’s asleep, and I pick him out of the crib. I pop him on the boob, and he eats.
He’s still nursing a lot, and we’re incorporating a lot of solids now. He never wakes up. He just eats for probably five to eight minutes. This is so mind-blowing to me. When [Spivack] was telling me, “He’s not gonna wake up,” I was like, “He’s gonna wake up.” She said, “No, he’s not gonna wake up.” I’m like, “Okay.” He never wakes up. It’s really cool. So I have until 8:00 to 10:30 to do me.
After I feed him at 10:30, I wanna go to bed. I usually pop in the shower.
I don’t do a long drawn-out shower. I’ll do shampoo, conditioner, face wash, body wash, maybe a little exfoliant situation, and then when I pop out, I immediately moisturize my body from head to toe.
For the latest news and updates, follow us and if you like our efforts, consider sharing this story with your friends, this will encourage us to bring more exciting updates for you.