Speaker 1: Hi everybody, and welcome to Katie's Crib. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we are talking about babies and sleep, sleep training, scheduling
Speaker 1: on demand. We are going to investigate this big and
Speaker 1: for a lot of people, a very controversial subject. We
Speaker 1: have here a friend of mine by the name of
Speaker 1: Susie Menke's and she works with a company that she
Speaker 1: started called Healthy Little Sleepers here in Los Angeles. She's
Speaker 1: the founder and she's going to talk to us about
Speaker 1: sleep training. Hi. Susie, Hi, I'm so happy to have
Speaker 1: you here. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. Um.
Speaker 1: I never heard about sleep training. I never knew what
Speaker 1: it was, and then I had a baby, and then
Speaker 1: it was all of a sudden, all everybody was talking about.
Speaker 1: Can you walk us through the very simple question of
Speaker 1: what is sleep training? What is sleep training? Such a
Speaker 1: good question because oftentimes people don't know about it until
Speaker 1: you actually have a baby. And there's this thing leap training.
Speaker 1: You have to train your baby to sleep. Um, So
Speaker 1: it's basically just making changes in your baby's sleep habits
Speaker 1: so that they can learn to sell soup. So a
Speaker 1: lot of times we come home from the hospital they're newborn,
Speaker 1: we're there for them we're doing it for them. But
Speaker 1: at some point, and it's typically around four months of age,
Speaker 1: is when there's circadian rhythms start coming into play. What's that? Basically,
Speaker 1: they're what is the word circadian rhythms start, you're smart
Speaker 1: circadian rhythms? Okay, they're sleep rhythms, um. And it's set
Speaker 1: by the rising and setting of the sun, and so
Speaker 1: that's where you get kind of those sleep schedules that
Speaker 1: people talk about, that nine and one nap and things
Speaker 1: like that, um. But really what happens is that four
Speaker 1: months of ages, they've become already accustomed to some associations
Speaker 1: to sleep. So whether you're nursing them to sleep, whether
Speaker 1: you're rocking them to sleep, dark room, dark room, there's
Speaker 1: all of it. So there's associations of all involved with
Speaker 1: sleeping that they may need to unlearn and learn to
Speaker 1: sell soothe, and so that's where we come in and
Speaker 1: try to do sleep learning for them and by self soothing.
Speaker 1: To clarify that, you mean, like the baby, he or
Speaker 1: she has her own tools to put her or himself
Speaker 1: to sleep. Right. So sleep is a science, right, So
Speaker 1: it's a balancing of hormones. Melatonin is a sleep hormone
Speaker 1: that we produce um, and we don't really start producing
Speaker 1: it until we're three or four months of age. So
Speaker 1: that's where you get that day night confusion. Before that,
Speaker 1: they're up during. Yeah, it's in case you didn't know
Speaker 1: where you're freaking out. Babies come out and they lived
Speaker 1: in a dark place for ten months and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden we're telling them like, oh the sun's down,
Speaker 1: the sun's up, but they have no idea, and a
Speaker 1: lot of babies, even when I first come out, which
Speaker 1: I didn't know until I was going through myself, it's reversed,
Speaker 1: so they could be up for some reason. Wow, they
Speaker 1: are napping the hell out of this day. But at
Speaker 1: nighttime it's like the most energy you've ever seen. And
Speaker 1: it's because you're saying until month three or four, they
Speaker 1: don't know. They don't go by the sun yet, they
Speaker 1: don't go by those rhythms. Yet, they don't produce melatonin.
Speaker 1: The one thing that we do is produce melatonin, and
Speaker 1: so melatonin in our breast milk is actually highest in
Speaker 1: the evenings. So if you are nursing, you have that
Speaker 1: benefit to give them nighttime bread smelt. I am rather
Speaker 1: than night mind blown right now again? Oh God, I
Speaker 1: love Katie's grib selfishly because I get lessons like in
Speaker 1: motherhood on the regular, which is so great. Um wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: why do you think sleeve training is such a controversial
Speaker 1: and heated topic amongst parents. It is. It's often misguided
Speaker 1: sometimes by um, like a fear tactic don't let your
Speaker 1: baby cry um. And there is that kind of almost
Speaker 1: like breastfeeding. There's that controversy to breastfeed or not to
Speaker 1: breast fresh and stigers attached judgment like this makes me aod. Now,
Speaker 1: this makes you a bad mom. Sure, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: let your baby cry, you're harming your baby. Right. There's
Speaker 1: a level of stress that's involved in learning a new tactic.
Speaker 1: But the American Academy of Pediatrics is something that we
Speaker 1: follow as sleep consultants, and they actually put a framework
Speaker 1: together of stress that's really a good guideline to think
Speaker 1: about stress and what you are doing or not doing
Speaker 1: for your baby. Right. So, there's a positive stress response,
Speaker 1: which is a typical frustration, struggling, starting daycare, all those
Speaker 1: are typical stress responses. There's a tolerable stress response, which
Speaker 1: is more of something that's not every day, maybe a divorce,
Speaker 1: a death in the family, and then there's toxic stress
Speaker 1: response where um, you don't have a loving caregifter, there's abuse,
Speaker 1: there's neglecting fault, right, So those are the leve That
Speaker 1: toxic level is what we're talking about, being harmful and
Speaker 1: damaging to the brain. That's not what sleep training is about, right, Um.
Speaker 1: And you're not equating sleep training with abuse, right right.
Speaker 1: So that's where this kind of misguided information comes from.
Speaker 1: Of sleep training is involved with levels of stress. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're learning a new habit and it's hard for any
Speaker 1: of us to change something, so it's kind of dealing
Speaker 1: with that. You have a stable environment, you have a
Speaker 1: loving caregiver to help you cope through that stress. Right.
Speaker 1: We don't say here, go go learn how to sleep
Speaker 1: and walk away right one. We do it for them first,
Speaker 1: we do it with them, we watch them do it,
Speaker 1: and then they do it on their own. Whoa, guys,
Speaker 1: that was just like a real SmackDown. Yeah. I definitely
Speaker 1: personally had You know, I went back to work when
Speaker 1: Albi was seven weeks old, and for me, sleep was
Speaker 1: literally like a number one priority list because I couldn't
Speaker 1: memorize my lines, show up at work, look remotely like
Speaker 1: I was a sane person and not like a garbage
Speaker 1: bag and not get my sleep. And so I remember
Speaker 1: the first times I, you know, was told it's okay
Speaker 1: to let him make annoy kind of cry as sounds
Speaker 1: for two or three minutes. Wait a minute, let's see
Speaker 1: what he does. And he's going to start to teach himself,
Speaker 1: find his thumb or if you're a pacifier person or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, find tools with which to put himself
Speaker 1: to sleep. And I did have those thoughts termittive of like,
Speaker 1: am I subconsciously damaging my baby that he's going to
Speaker 1: be in therapy for a million years because of me?
Speaker 1: Because I let him cry for three minutes And you're
Speaker 1: saying that is a stress that is not damaging. No. Plus,
Speaker 1: he's in the stable environment. I was watching that monitor
Speaker 1: hawk and counting down the second. And you're there when
Speaker 1: he wakes up, or you're there to feed him, to
Speaker 1: love him, to play with him. You know, he's in
Speaker 1: that environment. He is. You're building that secure attachment in
Speaker 1: those first four four to six months. So that's what
Speaker 1: you're doing. It's good to hear that I have. And
Speaker 1: there's also atroversy. And I think there's also controversy and
Speaker 1: that if you do sleep train around four between four
Speaker 1: and six months, that there is that stigma of um
Speaker 1: that you'r harm and your baby it's too soon, is
Speaker 1: not enough weight? What do you say about those sort
Speaker 1: of situations? Is there a set rule of when, how
Speaker 1: how much weight? All these things? And again I don't
Speaker 1: really know what I'm talking about. These are like literally
Speaker 1: rumors that have flown into my head. Typically, PD I
Speaker 1: always say, go by your pediatrician. Where are they on
Speaker 1: the spectrum in terms of weight wise, and or are
Speaker 1: they gaining weight? Um? You know, if they're born early,
Speaker 1: sometimes you have to wait a bit longer because you
Speaker 1: really want to go by their developmental age, which is
Speaker 1: based on their do date, not when they're born. Um,
Speaker 1: So if they're early, you might have to wait another
Speaker 1: two weeks or three sure. Um. Pediatricians often have kind
Speaker 1: of a fourteen pound rule. Um. If I get a
Speaker 1: client with a twelve thirteen pound baby, but they're feeding well,
Speaker 1: they're gaining weight, I'm not gonna turn them away. Um,
Speaker 1: because they are developmentally ready, they are producing melatonin, they
Speaker 1: are their circadian rhythms are in place. They do have
Speaker 1: social smiles UM, which develop around six to eight weeks
Speaker 1: of age, which is a prime example of when to
Speaker 1: set routines in place. Because social smiles is a connection.
Speaker 1: They are making connections and associations interesting. Can you UM
Speaker 1: talk to us about some of the different methods of
Speaker 1: sleep training that parents use. Is there a particular one
Speaker 1: that you recommend as it depend on the baby and
Speaker 1: the issue at hand, UM, So there's no one particular
Speaker 1: method that I use. I often take a look at
Speaker 1: the baby, and you know, the parent is the expert
Speaker 1: on their baby, so I get a lot of information
Speaker 1: from the parents, UM, their age, what's been going on before,
Speaker 1: anything has been tried before, how long have they tried it.
Speaker 1: I've been trained by the Family Sleep Institute, which doesn't
Speaker 1: have one particular method that they were trained in all
Speaker 1: of them UM, and it's sometimes a combination of them.
Speaker 1: There's a Ferbor method which is like a check and console.
Speaker 1: There is the sleep wave by Kim West. I believe
Speaker 1: there is cried out, which is extinction. Where is the
Speaker 1: true cried out? You put your baby in your bed,
Speaker 1: in their crib, you leave the room, You come back
Speaker 1: the next morning, assuming there's no night feeds, assuming and
Speaker 1: you still can do sleep training with a night feed
Speaker 1: And that's the one that moms say, like they did
Speaker 1: that for two or three nights and then they never
Speaker 1: did it again. Like is that true? I didn't have
Speaker 1: to do that, So I don't know if I wouldn't
Speaker 1: even be built of the stuff that could do it.
Speaker 1: It's not for the faint of heart. I did it
Speaker 1: with my first Um, how many nights did it take?
Speaker 1: And how long was the crying? Do you know? Minutes? No?
Speaker 1: I opened a bottle of wine and I cried and
Speaker 1: watched the monitor and thirty minutes he was asleep. Wow.
Speaker 1: The next night it was like maybe ten minutes. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's the cryed out method. What's the verber Berberber method?
Speaker 1: What is that? So that is a check and console.
Speaker 1: So you put your baby down to sleep, he starts crying.
Speaker 1: Five minutes, you go and check on him. You don't
Speaker 1: pick him up, her up. Um, you say a little,
Speaker 1: it's okay, we're here, it's time to sleep, and you
Speaker 1: leave the room and then you can wait ten minutes
Speaker 1: and then you go in after tens I mean it
Speaker 1: can be another five. You can do lights of like
Speaker 1: going in every five minutes and just using your voice
Speaker 1: and your presence to console them, but you don't touch them.
Speaker 1: And then the next two nights or whatever it is
Speaker 1: that's comfortable for you, then you might extend to you
Speaker 1: wait ten minutes before you go in the room. I
Speaker 1: have a friend that did that exactly. And then what's
Speaker 1: the other method that you say. There's a chair method,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit more gentle approach. So you're
Speaker 1: in the room with them. Um. It takes a little
Speaker 1: bit longer in terms of, you know, getting out of
Speaker 1: the room and being able. So you start next to
Speaker 1: the crib in a chair or on the floor. It's
Speaker 1: like the chairman um, and you're there. You can first
Speaker 1: couple of days, you can use your hands on them,
Speaker 1: but you don't want any like any other rhythm involved
Speaker 1: because you don't want to start another association for them
Speaker 1: to get attached to. So you keep it minimal interaction.
Speaker 1: But you're there for them, and when they fall asleep,
Speaker 1: you leave the room. When they cry again, you come
Speaker 1: back into that position and you do the same thing
Speaker 1: without picking your baby up. Wow. And and then you
Speaker 1: slowly move the next two days or maybe in the
Speaker 1: middle of the room. Then you're not doing touching, it's
Speaker 1: just your voice. The next two days you move again
Speaker 1: and maybe your three quarters the way of the room.
Speaker 1: Then you're at the door. Then you're outside the door,
Speaker 1: and then and then kind of like slowly slowly introducing
Speaker 1: that they are safe in this space, that you are
Speaker 1: here until I'm not here physically, but I am here
Speaker 1: to hear me, but I am here. WHOA, that's this
Speaker 1: is all god motherhood. You've got to be a beast
Speaker 1: like this is so so fascinating. Um, do you have
Speaker 1: any advice for what parents can say when I don't know.
Speaker 1: I do feel like this is like breastfeeding, like you
Speaker 1: brought it up already. It's just a very judgy topic. Um.
Speaker 1: I can remember very early on, like my baby was
Speaker 1: sleeping to the night at eight weeks, or like the
Speaker 1: other version, which is like, oh my gosh, I I
Speaker 1: honestly do not believe in sleep train until they are
Speaker 1: six months of age and fifteen pounds and that is
Speaker 1: cruel to be doing. I've heard all sides of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: and people are not afraid to give their opinion and
Speaker 1: their advice. So what would you suggest for parents that
Speaker 1: are I don't know. I might have that are picking
Speaker 1: whatever it is they're picking and how to stick with it,
Speaker 1: or I think finding the support, um, whether it's their husband,
Speaker 1: their friend, their family. Sometimes family has different opinions though. Um.
Speaker 1: I've had clients who was like, I didn't tell my
Speaker 1: mom I was doing this or my dad I was
Speaker 1: doing this, And there's the mom and dad calling and
Speaker 1: I'm at their house and they're not picking up. And
Speaker 1: then she's saying, oh, shoot, my sister probably told them,
Speaker 1: and that's why they're calling. You know, they know you're here. Um,
Speaker 1: So they got to find where they can find that support.
Speaker 1: And sometimes that's me, right. Um. I work with families
Speaker 1: on a two week period when they hired me, so
Speaker 1: I'm there for them for two So that how it
Speaker 1: works with a sleep consultant. You get hired for a
Speaker 1: two week period and you work with that family closely
Speaker 1: and hopefully in that two weeks you see a bunch
Speaker 1: of improvement as far as sleep is concerned. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: have to say sleeping, even to this day is probably
Speaker 1: the only really touchy subject where Adam and I, my
Speaker 1: husband and I, we really sometimes butt heads, which is
Speaker 1: when we put the baby down and he's making fussy sounds.
Speaker 1: Um it's like someone screaming in my head, Like it's
Speaker 1: so loud to me that I'm not going in there.
Speaker 1: And the seconds go by like years, and my husband
Speaker 1: just has a way higher threshold for like it's only
Speaker 1: in fifteen minutes. He's going to put himself down. He
Speaker 1: always does. He does it every night. He's gonna put
Speaker 1: himself down. And I'm like, no, no no, no, no, no, no
Speaker 1: no no no. Tonight is different, it sounds different. It
Speaker 1: is just it's just taking forever. And and to be clear,
Speaker 1: he's going he's not screaming crying at all. He's either
Speaker 1: has gas or he's like getting tired and expressing himself.
Speaker 1: But I have to say even to this day that
Speaker 1: that is a husband wife dilemma for me, for our family, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I work with family couples that way because there
Speaker 1: are differing opinions about what to do and kind of
Speaker 1: coming to an agreement in the middleground and having that
Speaker 1: plan and being able to have that plan for both
Speaker 1: of them to work off of and the caregivers too.
Speaker 1: So you're like a therapist to the middle woman. Um, So,
Speaker 1: at what age would you say a sleep routine is established. Um,
Speaker 1: so I touched on this early around six to eight weeks. Um.
Speaker 1: Just a routine, right, not sleep training. Right. We're not
Speaker 1: trying to get them to sleep on their own, um,
Speaker 1: but they are. When you see social smiles, they are
Speaker 1: making connections. So when you put those pre bedtime routines
Speaker 1: in place, it's their sense of routine and structure that
Speaker 1: sleep is around the corner. Right. And that's when I
Speaker 1: was told like this is when you might introduce a
Speaker 1: bath routine and then like a song or a book,
Speaker 1: or the lights change or the white noise sound comes up.
Speaker 1: But you get into this like sort of ritual routine
Speaker 1: that they can associate with. Now, I'm going to sleep
Speaker 1: for the night, right, and and and naps too. You
Speaker 1: can do a shortened version for now do and it
Speaker 1: helps so helps increase that melatonin levels because their bodies
Speaker 1: and their mind are already getting ready for sleep because
Speaker 1: those routines are starting, and so that melatonin is starting
Speaker 1: to get produced. Great. Um, is it ever too late
Speaker 1: to start? Like do you ever get phone calls from
Speaker 1: babies that are are not sleeping through the night at
Speaker 1: one and a half too? It's never too late. It's
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier when you start early because you
Speaker 1: just have certain pattern patterns and rhythms um that are
Speaker 1: in place. Um. So when you start sleep training a
Speaker 1: little bit later, um, there's just a little bit bigger
Speaker 1: of an adjustment. UM. Maybe a little bit more protest
Speaker 1: because they're verbal. Um. So you put, so, what are
Speaker 1: the benefits of sleep training? And you know, if I
Speaker 1: was playing Devil's Advocate, here are there benefits to just
Speaker 1: reading the baby's cues and just letting the baby sleep
Speaker 1: when they're ready. That's probably like nails on a chalkboard too,
Speaker 1: But no, I mean for our listeners and viewers who
Speaker 1: are like truly, because there are so many stigmas attached.
Speaker 1: So sleep training is important both for the parents and
Speaker 1: for the child because sleep deprivation is hard on us.
Speaker 1: We can't function as well. We're going to fight more
Speaker 1: with our partner, We're going to be testy during the day,
Speaker 1: we won't remember things as well. We don't have pregnancy brain.
Speaker 1: It's going to be like mom right not yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the same thing, um yeah, continuous um. So, and what
Speaker 1: happens in sleep, especially in the first four to five
Speaker 1: hours of sleep um is non ari em sleep. It's
Speaker 1: the most important sleep we get. It's when our brain
Speaker 1: shrinks and our toxins are flushed out, so that sleep
Speaker 1: is most important to get consolidated, which is get them
Speaker 1: to sleep from like seven to twelve. And then that's
Speaker 1: when we say, if you're still having a feeding at night,
Speaker 1: have it after midnight. WHOA, Okay, I was doing that
Speaker 1: in the early days. Okay, okay, okay. So sleep training,
Speaker 1: you would say, is so beneficial because it's important to
Speaker 1: get them to have quality, uninterrupted sleep that's where their
Speaker 1: brain develops. And also so that we don't just jump
Speaker 1: off a crazy drain of insanity because it's just so
Speaker 1: hard to be I mean, I've never been so sleep
Speaker 1: deprived in my whole life. I thought I was gonna
Speaker 1: lose my mind. Um. And on the flip side, right,
Speaker 1: just following your baby's cute, right, Yes, So that works
Speaker 1: great if you have a flexible sleeper, and sometimes you
Speaker 1: just fall naturally into that pattern and that's when you
Speaker 1: get like, oh yeah, my baby sleep and at eight
Speaker 1: weeks you're like, right, you have a uniform baby. Thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, you know, right, Um, But it goes hand
Speaker 1: in hand, right, So the parenting style and the baby's
Speaker 1: flexibility just matched up and they got into a good
Speaker 1: rhythm um and it just it happens naturally, and so
Speaker 1: they're able to follow those babies cubes. Sometimes babies have colic,
Speaker 1: sometimes they have reflux. Sometimes the parents are working, so
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other things juggling and to follow
Speaker 1: your baby's cues um necessarily doesn't always work. And that was, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was my case. Like I remember going back at
Speaker 1: seven weeks to work and emailing my nursing schedule to
Speaker 1: carry Washington work because she was the director of the episode,
Speaker 1: and I had to feed albeit six nine twelve three six,
Speaker 1: and I had to know that he was going to
Speaker 1: be waking up from his nap at that time, that
Speaker 1: I was going to be allowed to go back to
Speaker 1: my trailer at that time to feed my kids. So
Speaker 1: for me, it really helped knowing that he naps from
Speaker 1: a thirty to ten in the morning. At ten, I
Speaker 1: feed him, then he naps again from eleven thirty to one.
Speaker 1: At one, I feed him, and then he napped again
Speaker 1: so in the morning, you know, so the early stages,
Speaker 1: it was very helpful. Now it's funny that I find
Speaker 1: that I'm off and he's in a routine already. His
Speaker 1: naps are sort of changing, and I've become far more
Speaker 1: flexible in sort of experimenting, like not waking him up
Speaker 1: from a nap and seeing how long he goes because
Speaker 1: I think he's trying to tell me something that his
Speaker 1: naps are. Maybe we're going to drop a nap, Maybee.
Speaker 1: You know, we're going to go from four naps to
Speaker 1: three naps to two naps, you know so. But I'm
Speaker 1: also off, so I have some of the you know it, really,
Speaker 1: you're right. It depends on the schedule and what your
Speaker 1: baby thrives on. And he's already in a great routine totally,
Speaker 1: so you have that kind of Okay, Well, he knows
Speaker 1: when he needs time to go to he knows. I
Speaker 1: have a whole setup, the whole aura vibe of his
Speaker 1: room is totally set and shades. She's got a mark
Speaker 1: pac don't. Oh yeah, guys, we're in Albie's crib right now, micrib,
Speaker 1: Albie's nursery. But yes, and I do carry those things
Speaker 1: around with me. Now. I've gotten so confident that we've
Speaker 1: um that he's a good sleeper right now that we
Speaker 1: are able to we black out his stroller and we
Speaker 1: haven't traveling sound machine. And so if I am on
Speaker 1: the go and can't move my schedule things around, he
Speaker 1: will take his nap. It's on is good and I
Speaker 1: don't want to do it all the time, but when
Speaker 1: I do, it's he knows. It's like he knows as
Speaker 1: it's time exactly. Um. Can co sleeping be a part
Speaker 1: of sleep training? Are the mutually exclusive? Um? Close sleeping
Speaker 1: is another controversial topic. UM. There co sleeping so you
Speaker 1: guys know means sleeping the same bed as your parents.
Speaker 1: Is the mom or dad, correct or or and the
Speaker 1: baby you get me? So again, we go by what
Speaker 1: the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends, and part of their
Speaker 1: role of having the baby in your room till one
Speaker 1: year of age, UM was to encourage you know, the
Speaker 1: ease of breastfeeding and taking care of your baby and
Speaker 1: reducing the risk of sids. CO sleeping with a newborn
Speaker 1: and a baby under a year of age is not safe. Um,
Speaker 1: So instead of co sleeping, we want to think of
Speaker 1: it as room sharing. Right, you can have a co
Speaker 1: sleeper that's attached to the bed, but you're not going
Speaker 1: to roll over onto the baby. Right. Um, so it's
Speaker 1: really about reducing the risk of SIDS, and that's something
Speaker 1: can control because there's other things that we can't control,
Speaker 1: like developmental periods. And maybe something they're thinking about about
Speaker 1: SIDS is that it is biological, so we can't control that,
Speaker 1: but we can control all these external factors. So if
Speaker 1: I have a co sleeping parents, if they're over one
Speaker 1: year of age and the baby and you know there
Speaker 1: that's the setup they want to do. I can work
Speaker 1: with them, but I really try and encourage room sharing.
Speaker 1: And sometimes room sharing is a necessity because of another baby,
Speaker 1: or they live in New York's Yeah, yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: so kind of working around maybe they're in a studio apartment.
Speaker 1: I've done that too. I just took my first trip
Speaker 1: where Albie hasn't slept in my room in a long time.
Speaker 1: He's seven months old, and he was in my room
Speaker 1: and every two minutes I heard a sound and I
Speaker 1: thought something was happening. It was insane. Um, you say
Speaker 1: you do a two week period with the family. Is
Speaker 1: that how long sleep training typically takes? Again depends on
Speaker 1: the method, right, So the chair method will take up
Speaker 1: to ten to fourteen days. Just in terms of your
Speaker 1: process of removing the room. Right. Um, but that's not
Speaker 1: to say your baby might be sleeping way before that.
Speaker 1: You might sit there for five minutes and then leave
Speaker 1: by the all right, it could be all done in
Speaker 1: two days, three days, five days. It's wow. It's a
Speaker 1: case by case basis and how long it typically takes.
Speaker 1: And it also depends on how consistent the parents are.
Speaker 1: So consistency is a real, real big component. Because maybe
Speaker 1: there are a visitor comes and I always say no visitors,
Speaker 1: no traveling, no this, but things life happens, right, I
Speaker 1: always get called like, oh no, I messed up. Well
Speaker 1: that's okay, let's reset. Right, it just might take a
Speaker 1: little bit longer. Right, How do you wean a baby
Speaker 1: off of nighttime feedings in order to get a longer
Speaker 1: chunk stretch of sleep? So again, so the first feeding
Speaker 1: we want, we want it after midnight because their brains
Speaker 1: is going to develop. If they go down at seven
Speaker 1: pm and they sleep till midnight, that's a great five
Speaker 1: hour developmental chunk. Okay um, And then you can do
Speaker 1: it a couple of ways. You can push the time out.
Speaker 1: So let's say two nights in a row they made
Speaker 1: it to twelve thirty, okay, tomorrow night, let's try and
Speaker 1: make it twelve or one o'clock. So you can push
Speaker 1: it out that way. You can also reduce how much
Speaker 1: how much time wise or that's what I did, um,
Speaker 1: and kind of push it out that way, so they
Speaker 1: getting their stomach is less full, right, so they're not
Speaker 1: used to sleeping on a full stuff. That's what I did.
Speaker 1: It took forever, but it was like what worked for me,
Speaker 1: which was I would pump and then that bottle that
Speaker 1: would happen at one o'clock in the morning. It was
Speaker 1: five ounces, then four and a half for three nights,
Speaker 1: then four for three nights, and three and a half
Speaker 1: for three nights, and three for three nights, then two
Speaker 1: and a half then two then gone exactly, Um, okay, great,
Speaker 1: thank you I have I'm not like a freak about sleeping,
Speaker 1: but I'm always like, he's not eating enough, Like there's
Speaker 1: this weird you'll see like as Mom's just every single
Speaker 1: thing is like anxiety. It's like it's like he's not working,
Speaker 1: he's not eating. It's like he's not eating at one am.
Speaker 1: And I had to do that. First, I dropped the
Speaker 1: four am feed. Then I dropped the one am feed
Speaker 1: and then magically it happened. Um, and then I felt
Speaker 1: like a human being. Is nap training and sleep training
Speaker 1: same different? Do do the same thing at the same time?
Speaker 1: It tell me I typically like doing them both at
Speaker 1: the same time because sleep comes together much quicker that way. Um,
Speaker 1: because when you don't get good naps, you don't get
Speaker 1: a good nighttime sleep. Are they directly related? They can't.
Speaker 1: They can lead to nighttime wakings. No, thank you. I
Speaker 1: do like working on them together. That doesn't mean they
Speaker 1: can be. They also can be separated, so you can
Speaker 1: work on nine. If you're going to do one first,
Speaker 1: you work on nighttime first, because it's the easier of
Speaker 1: the two, because naps are harder to come together because
Speaker 1: they're a lighter stage of sleep. Got it. So even
Speaker 1: when you're working on them together at the same time,
Speaker 1: naps still might be wonky a little bit. Um. But
Speaker 1: then as the more practice you give your baby for
Speaker 1: now being, the more it will come together. What are
Speaker 1: the early I don't know mistakes that parents make with
Speaker 1: sleep training stopping too fast, saying it does it's not
Speaker 1: working one day two, Oh gosh, I'm so bad. That
Speaker 1: is me I mean, I end up working out there.
Speaker 1: But good thing, Adam. You know, I always feel like
Speaker 1: it takes a partner to be kind of stronger than
Speaker 1: the other too, stick with it, not given too soon,
Speaker 1: not just quit too early. So it's really perseverance and
Speaker 1: stamina and having a plan. Write it down, even if
Speaker 1: you're not working with someone, put a plan down on paper.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm going to do on night one.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm going to do on night too.
Speaker 1: That's really your resolution, keeping yourself accountable. Tell somebody about it,
Speaker 1: right takes a village guys. Um, so you had already
Speaker 1: mentioned this and this is big on me. But what
Speaker 1: happens when you might have gotten a lot of these
Speaker 1: routines into place, and then all of a sudden something
Speaker 1: does come up travel illness, somebody's come to visit it,
Speaker 1: just throw off everything and you kind of get through
Speaker 1: it and then you come back when you come back
Speaker 1: to it. Is that kind of the deal, Yep, You
Speaker 1: come back when you get at home, you pick things
Speaker 1: right back up where you left off. Um, waking them
Speaker 1: up in the morning to reset their circadian rhythms. If
Speaker 1: you've been traveling, guys, I'm going on a trip, and
Speaker 1: I am fully f freaking out about the time difference
Speaker 1: because I have a great schedule going on and a
Speaker 1: great sleeping baby, and I'm like, what am I doing?
Speaker 1: But see, I am of this person of like I'm
Speaker 1: two ways, like I'm I'm I'm sort of a hippie
Speaker 1: and down for like whatever, and it's my life and
Speaker 1: I want to live it and I want to grab
Speaker 1: it by the khons. But I also am like, but
Speaker 1: he we're on a schedule and he sleeps through the night,
Speaker 1: and like, what am I doing? He'll get back, it's
Speaker 1: a muscle, he knows it. He'll come back to it.
Speaker 1: And it's a personal choice. Like you know, um, you
Speaker 1: basically just go back to whatever training method you had
Speaker 1: going great for you from before. What do you suggest
Speaker 1: for people who like you, say, A, the partners involved,
Speaker 1: nanny's are involved, grandparents are involved, you know, any sort
Speaker 1: of other help. I'm sure it's so important to get
Speaker 1: everybody on the same freaking page of your schedule. Later,
Speaker 1: if you're a scheduled person, have your schedule laid out.
Speaker 1: I had printed all over my trailer because I had
Speaker 1: a lot of different I it took me a while
Speaker 1: to find nanny I very much trusted, and so at
Speaker 1: the beginning, it was my husband, and it was friends
Speaker 1: who were also nanny's when I was a nannie, and
Speaker 1: people I really trusted because I was having a hard
Speaker 1: time leaving the baby alone and I had to write
Speaker 1: everything down, and I really hope that everyone's stuck to it.
Speaker 1: What are the common myths, stigmas, all this stuff about
Speaker 1: sleep training that you want to dispel, Susie, right here,
Speaker 1: right now. Um, we talked about when already that your
Speaker 1: harm and your baby if you let them cry. Thank
Speaker 1: you for telling me, because I even still worry. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm like, I think about those early days
Speaker 1: of like letting him cry for three minutes and just
Speaker 1: being like, because you know what, I just went away
Speaker 1: with my mother, God bless her. I love her so much.
Speaker 1: But I put the baby down and he was whining
Speaker 1: and complaining for a couple of minutes. Um. And my
Speaker 1: mom was horrified, like horrified that I let him do that. Um.
Speaker 1: And she'll be the first to admit, Oh, Katie, I
Speaker 1: let you sleep in the bed for whatever. I never
Speaker 1: let you cry a day in your life, you know.
Speaker 1: And and so we have differing opinions there um, but
Speaker 1: I have to admit I totally caved and went in
Speaker 1: and got him and rocked him, and I like, never
Speaker 1: rock him to sleep, but like my mom, and I
Speaker 1: felt the judgment of it, and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, you're You're totally right. We're on a family vacation.
Speaker 1: He's upset. He should never be upset. I'm a horrible mom.
Speaker 1: I'm hurting him. I went up and I rocked the
Speaker 1: baby and he wanted to sleep in my arms, and like,
Speaker 1: I don't ever do that. So the smallest comment will
Speaker 1: make you do the stranger for a stranger. I remember
Speaker 1: being in baby Gap and my little girl was taking
Speaker 1: a nap and I was like, all right, here it
Speaker 1: comes he forty five minutes sleep cycle. She starts crying.
Speaker 1: Grandma in front of me, turns around says, I think
Speaker 1: she needs to burp. Oh, you're like, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: how do you know? And I'm like okay, I'm like
Speaker 1: ever reason, I'm like, my god, damn it, I gotta
Speaker 1: buckle her now and like pick her up. And I did,
Speaker 1: and you did? I did. Oh my god, we don't
Speaker 1: even know this person, you guys. Being a mom is
Speaker 1: so weird and hard and a study in being strong
Speaker 1: on your own and sticking to your convictions and oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, it's so insane. Um So another one, Yes,
Speaker 1: what else is your only option is cry it out?
Speaker 1: That it's involved in, like just letting your baby cry. Right,
Speaker 1: So you're saying, if that's something that just freaks you out,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you necessarily can still achieve getting
Speaker 1: some sort of sleep schedule in place, right, And timing
Speaker 1: is a key component of it, Like you can get
Speaker 1: your baby down if the timing is right and you're
Speaker 1: processing their sleepy cues and getting all the things in
Speaker 1: line that I can go down without crying. Oh, it
Speaker 1: might take a little bit, but I watched my baby
Speaker 1: like a hawk. As soon as I see like yawn
Speaker 1: one to three, I'm like, we got nap, baby, we
Speaker 1: got nap. But I'm going to catch him before the
Speaker 1: breakdown happens. But like I know when I've crossed over
Speaker 1: into breakdown land where I missed. I was doing whatever
Speaker 1: and I didn't see the cues of the rubbing eyes
Speaker 1: and the yawning and whatever, and now we're into full
Speaker 1: blown but bye, And now I know it's gonna be
Speaker 1: so much harder to get them down. Um, this is
Speaker 1: so so so all interesting, and I think that that's
Speaker 1: very helpful to know for moms who might be super
Speaker 1: turned off by the stigma attached with crying it out,
Speaker 1: or feel really upset about babies crying and their own
Speaker 1: baby crying, that there are options, like you've said, the
Speaker 1: Ferber method and what was the other one? Others others. Chair,
Speaker 1: there's a sleepwave, they's hug it out. There's another I'll
Speaker 1: get out. We didn't talk about you at all. What's that?
Speaker 1: So it's another gentle version. So you have a baby
Speaker 1: that's standing, Um, I haven't gotten there yet, guys, I
Speaker 1: am scared. Okay, it's similar to chair, but you don't
Speaker 1: pick up your baby, but you kind of go over
Speaker 1: and you just kind of like I'm here, hug yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I'll slowly like calm down with your calmness
Speaker 1: and they'll light down. Oh my gosh. So I did
Speaker 1: hug it out with my daughter at some point when
Speaker 1: she was standing, because she was she was sleeping very well.
Speaker 1: And then you know, some developmental thing. So that's also
Speaker 1: the thing where you might have your sleep thing down
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden rolling over his new
Speaker 1: four months sleep regression is new. We're standing now, we're
Speaker 1: pulling ourselves over the crib, and we are mcgivering and
Speaker 1: matrix ng our way down the side of the crib.
Speaker 1: I'm so scared for that to happen. By the way,
Speaker 1: I'm like, that'll be another episode. Oh good. Then I
Speaker 1: had a friend who um when her son got the
Speaker 1: big boy bed. He kept running out of his bed,
Speaker 1: drunk with freedom and getting into their room every single night,
Speaker 1: like in the middle of the night whenever he woke
Speaker 1: up and they put a gate up, and then he
Speaker 1: would scream cry through the night on the other side
Speaker 1: of the gate and say, I'm bleeding, I'm hurt, I
Speaker 1: need to change my shirt, I'm all wet. I mean
Speaker 1: not true things. And I just have a vision of
Speaker 1: my friend and her husband holding each other sobbing to
Speaker 1: stay strong and not go because he had to walk
Speaker 1: his own self back to his big boy bed and
Speaker 1: put himself to sleep. Guys, this is not for the
Speaker 1: faint of art being a parent and whatever method you choose,
Speaker 1: just getting through the night and everyone having sleep. It's safety, guys.
Speaker 1: Like there were moments you're driving behind a wheel of
Speaker 1: the car. You need sleep. So we've talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about the benefits of sleep training for the baby,
Speaker 1: um developmentally, but also I'm sure you probably see huge
Speaker 1: leaps and bounds in in parents themselves when they get sleep. Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: we're able when we get sleep, We're able to be
Speaker 1: more responsive to them versus being reactive. Because when I
Speaker 1: know when I don't get sleep, I'm snappy for sure,
Speaker 1: and I don't need to take it out on them
Speaker 1: just because there having a tantrum over something and I
Speaker 1: blow up at them because I'm tired. Right, So getting
Speaker 1: sleep in line, not only for them but for you
Speaker 1: is really important so you can parent better too and
Speaker 1: get behind the wheel of a car drive them somewhere, yes,
Speaker 1: or just yourself. Yes, But yes, it's it's sleep. Is
Speaker 1: I had never gone without sleep in my entire life.
Speaker 1: I had never. I mean, any time I'd had like
Speaker 1: a crazy night all night are in college to get
Speaker 1: a paper in or something, I would sleep the next day.
Speaker 1: Or any time those early twenty years where I partied
Speaker 1: really hard or whatever, I would sleep the next day.
Speaker 1: You didn't have to do anything. No, And when I
Speaker 1: brought my son home, I for the first time my
Speaker 1: whole life went three nights without sleep, and my husband said,
Speaker 1: I was saying crazy things, like literally crazy things. I
Speaker 1: was scared, Like, I I really enjoy sleeping, I like napping,
Speaker 1: I like my eight hours, and sleep was, like, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the most important thing. And I'm so
Speaker 1: happy to know you. There are tons of different options
Speaker 1: with figuring out what a parent is comfortable with for
Speaker 1: themselves and for their baby and for their family, But
Speaker 1: what we know is that sleep is more important day
Speaker 1: and that's what I do too, is building a relationship
Speaker 1: with the family to understand them, and you know, are
Speaker 1: they working, are they not working, Who's taking care of
Speaker 1: the baby during the day, What type of schedules do
Speaker 1: we need? Um? Kind of putting it all to ore
Speaker 1: they going to daycare, are they going to preschool? Um?
Speaker 1: When naps look like they're what are their philosophy? Kind
Speaker 1: of putting it all together for them so that they
Speaker 1: can have a plan of what to do when they
Speaker 1: do get home or maybe they're not getting home in time,
Speaker 1: so it really tailoring it to your individual case. Susie Mankis,
Speaker 1: you are awesome, healthy little sleepers. You guys, Um, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for all of your time and your
Speaker 1: information and for talking about babies and sleeping. You're welcome
Speaker 1: for the pleasure. Hi, guys, I am so excited today
Speaker 1: because my dear friend Abigail Morgan is here, and she
Speaker 1: is not only a very good friend, but she really
Speaker 1: helped me through very rough time in my life after
Speaker 1: my miscarriage. Um I, it took me months to get
Speaker 1: a regular cycle back. It took me months to feel
Speaker 1: like myself again. Abigail was the person that stuck needles
Speaker 1: in me lovingly every single week I got pregnant. And
Speaker 1: I also went to Abigail every week of my pregnancy,
Speaker 1: and she visited me at home after I gave birth.
Speaker 1: Um So, not only is it like acupuncture, but you
Speaker 1: were a helper and spiritual help to me mentally physically
Speaker 1: pre pregnancy, throughout my pregnancy and after my pregnancy. Thank
Speaker 1: you for that. You're welcome. I explain a little bit
Speaker 1: about what you do, and then we'll we'll move into
Speaker 1: um all of the awesome stuff you do to your
Speaker 1: with your own children, because you are a mother of two.
Speaker 1: I am yeah. So I'm a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist,
Speaker 1: board certified in traditional Chinese medicine in the state of California.
Speaker 1: So what that means is that I'm I have a
Speaker 1: master's degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine Masters and Science and UM.
Speaker 1: I am a primary care physician in California. So I
Speaker 1: have to diagnose using you know, biomedical codes UM and
Speaker 1: let's say you know ib s or dysmenorrhea, painful periods
Speaker 1: or migraines, whatever it is, UM, and understand what that
Speaker 1: means from a Western perspective, but then also diagnose and
Speaker 1: treat according to Eastern medicine or traditional Chinese medicine. I
Speaker 1: specialize in reproductive health, so I have an additional board
Speaker 1: sort of vacation from the American Board of Oriental Reproductive
Speaker 1: Medicine in UM Integrated Reproductive Health, and it is float
Speaker 1: Chinese Float, Chinese Medical Arts, yes, yes, flow Chinese Medical Arts.
Speaker 1: And you when you're not busy doing that, you're a
Speaker 1: mom of two I am, and they howl. My kids
Speaker 1: are seven and nine, and they're gosh almost eight, almost ten, great,
Speaker 1: And I want to talk to you a lot about
Speaker 1: when we started to get close mere working together throughout
Speaker 1: my pregnancy. I was and still am very fascinated in
Speaker 1: the way in which you raise your kids, which I
Speaker 1: think is great for this episode, and I would love
Speaker 1: to talk to you about how you raise them really
Speaker 1: like through sleep, through food, all of your because I
Speaker 1: know you worked with attachment parenting. You had a family bed,
Speaker 1: and I'm fascinated by these things because I've met your
Speaker 1: kids and they're awesome. So clearly the things you did
Speaker 1: were successful for you and your family. Um, can you
Speaker 1: talk to me how you came to the decision about
Speaker 1: a family bed and what is that exactly? Well? For me, Um,
Speaker 1: I grew up in New York City. My parents were
Speaker 1: in the theater business. They're very had a very unconventional upbringing. UM,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I was I felt like, well
Speaker 1: I kind of grew up, Okay, I'm well adjusted, Like
Speaker 1: what did they do? And I didn't honestly know apparently
Speaker 1: that I had a crib and everything. But my mom's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you were in our bed every night. Oh your
Speaker 1: brother was in our bed until he was six. So
Speaker 1: I just thought, well that worked. And then I also
Speaker 1: had other people in my life who were doing family bed. Um,
Speaker 1: what is it? What is that? What does that mean? Basically?
Speaker 1: Bed sharing, there's okay, so there's room sharing and there's
Speaker 1: bed sharing. So now we know the American Academy Pediatrics
Speaker 1: recommends room sharing as of two thousands, sixteen, up until
Speaker 1: minimum of six months, preferably a year. How they say, so,
Speaker 1: even if you have your baby in a crib, the
Speaker 1: a a p recommends crippy in the room. Now that's
Speaker 1: obviously not the right answer for everybody, but they came
Speaker 1: to that decision after a hole and my understanding is
Speaker 1: um after a lot of pediatricians were reporting, yeah, infant
Speaker 1: death from from kids from parents that weren't attentive to
Speaker 1: let's say they didn't have a monitor or you know,
Speaker 1: they were relying too much on it or wearing noise
Speaker 1: canceling iPhones or something. So so that said, I felt
Speaker 1: that I just wanted to be close to my baby.
Speaker 1: I I felt that it would be hard to get
Speaker 1: up out of bed and go into another room and
Speaker 1: take the baby out of the crib and nurse and
Speaker 1: put the baby back. We also had a small two
Speaker 1: bedroom apartment at the time, when I had logically, logistically,
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't I feel like it made a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense. The walls were you know, it's
Speaker 1: like a nineteen sixties building with paper thin walls. We
Speaker 1: would have heard the kid anyway. And I just wanted
Speaker 1: to sleep as much as possible because I knew i'd
Speaker 1: be going back to work and all that. I also
Speaker 1: read a book I had to write down the title
Speaker 1: because I, um, I haven't looked at and so long,
Speaker 1: but it was called The Continuum Calm The Continuum Concept
Speaker 1: by Gene Leadloff from six. I read it probably in
Speaker 1: two thousand, um way before I thought about having kids,
Speaker 1: and um, the it's a it's a book by an
Speaker 1: anthropologist who went into essentially a pre industrial society and
Speaker 1: looked at how these parents were all functioned and they
Speaker 1: all wear their babies. So then I looked into attachment
Speaker 1: parenting and I looked into how that's based on attachment theory.
Speaker 1: This is yes, but explained to our listeners what exactly
Speaker 1: is attachment parenting because you know, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of these trigger words when you're a new mom or
Speaker 1: when you're pregnant that you hear, like sleep training, the
Speaker 1: cryed out method, attachment parenting, a family bed, co sleeping.
Speaker 1: These are all such triggering words that I think are
Speaker 1: like not what's fascinating is that you've done some of them,
Speaker 1: and can you explain what exactly attachment parenting is and
Speaker 1: that worked for you? I can't, and I feel like
Speaker 1: I didn't fully explain the answer to your question about
Speaker 1: family bed Yes, we will get that. So. Yeah, So basically,
Speaker 1: bed sharing is parents or caregivers in the same bed
Speaker 1: as the baby. Room sharing is maybe there's a sidecar,
Speaker 1: you in one bed with you and your husband and
Speaker 1: your baby. And then when the second kid came around,
Speaker 1: we already had what's called a sidecar, a small um
Speaker 1: infant mattress on the floor, and our king bed was
Speaker 1: on the floor right next to him. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: that but then shortly after my second kid was born
Speaker 1: there two years apart, he was like I'm out room.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he was like, this is you know this
Speaker 1: waking up in the middle of the night baby infant stuff,
Speaker 1: Like I'm over now the fear that people have about
Speaker 1: like blankets, sheets rolling over on your baby. How did
Speaker 1: that just not happen? It doesn't happen. But there are
Speaker 1: safe sleeping guidelines and your listeners can look them up
Speaker 1: from Dr James McKenna. He actually wrote a great book
Speaker 1: called sleeping with your baby, A parent's guide to co sleeping,
Speaker 1: and so all of that is explained in that look.
Speaker 1: But you know, the long and short of it is,
Speaker 1: you don't have a lot of blankets. You don't have
Speaker 1: blankets over the baby. It basically goes the breastfeeding parent, uh,
Speaker 1: and then and the baby some sort of bedrail or
Speaker 1: wall baby, breastfeeding parent and then other parent. So we
Speaker 1: actually that's the best way to do it. That's actually
Speaker 1: not what we ended up doing. The configuration of the
Speaker 1: of the room. We had dad on one side, baby
Speaker 1: in the middle, and me and we just baby didn't
Speaker 1: have our comforter over him. We made a U shape
Speaker 1: with the comforter god or we had two separate comforters,
Speaker 1: depending on the time of here. You know here we
Speaker 1: are in Los Angeles, right, you don't really are, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's different than and so when the baby would wake
Speaker 1: up and make sounds, you would just roll over and
Speaker 1: lay down breastfeed he is right there. So the beauty
Speaker 1: of beauty of it is that you know with que
Speaker 1: feeding overnight is baby goes you know in roots and
Speaker 1: even at eight weeks self attaches and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess he's nursing, you wake up and then you're
Speaker 1: done and you go back to sleep. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: nursing hormones, the oxytocin and all those feel good hormones
Speaker 1: really help me as the rest gating mom to go
Speaker 1: back to sleep. Sure, and and then you do that
Speaker 1: in a safe way. By not you don't obviously that
Speaker 1: there's a suffocation hazard if there's a big blanket over
Speaker 1: the baby, of course, so we would have our own
Speaker 1: little baby blanket over him, or a sleep sack or
Speaker 1: something like that, various things depending on the time of year.
Speaker 1: If it was warm, then baby would just be in
Speaker 1: a sleeper without any blankets. And then when you gave
Speaker 1: birth to your second baby, how did the bed look there?
Speaker 1: So fascinating? Yeah so at I my toddler was still nursing.
Speaker 1: He I breastfed through my whole second pregnancy. Um oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys, Abigail as a champion who tandem breastbed. That's
Speaker 1: why I ever heard of that. That's two babies, one
Speaker 1: on each boob. Yeah, not always at the same time,
Speaker 1: although they were at the same time sometimes. Um, it
Speaker 1: was just the second pregnancy was not. It took us
Speaker 1: by surprise. So they were two years apart. So the
Speaker 1: was a older kid who was too when my the
Speaker 1: second one was born, was at that time from eighteen months.
Speaker 1: From his age eighteen months until baby two was born,
Speaker 1: he was sleeping in a sidecar arrangement, so he was
Speaker 1: on the floor in a small baby mattress. Yeah, next
Speaker 1: to our bed. So we would put him down at
Speaker 1: his bedtime six thirty or seven or whatever it was,
Speaker 1: and then we would go leave the room and go
Speaker 1: about our night, and then we would just go in
Speaker 1: and sleep in the family bed. And so when baby
Speaker 1: two was born, um, and I had both kids at home.
Speaker 1: So baby Nuver two was born. That my birth was
Speaker 1: super super fast. The whole thing was about an hour. Um.
Speaker 1: My husband had been putting my older kid to bed,
Speaker 1: the two year old, while I was realizing, holy shit,
Speaker 1: I'm in labor. And then you know, an hour later later,
Speaker 1: the baby's born in the in the kitchen and water birth.
Speaker 1: This was a planned home birth, i should say, with
Speaker 1: a with a nurse midwife. Um. So then the next
Speaker 1: morning my son met the new baby and he just
Speaker 1: kind of toddled out of his little sidecar bed. Um.
Speaker 1: I think I had slept in the couch pull out
Speaker 1: that night, whatever sleep after, Like Superwoman, I can't just
Speaker 1: what made sense? I mean? And and so when shortly
Speaker 1: after you asked how the sleep when the number two
Speaker 1: was born, so she we co slept with her and UM,
Speaker 1: and then after the first couple of nights, it became clear, Okay,
Speaker 1: so toddler really needs to continue having this eleven hour
Speaker 1: straight sleep which he had been getting, and UM and
Speaker 1: my husband needed sleep, And so I slept in the
Speaker 1: twin bed in my son's room, which he hadn't even
Speaker 1: moved into yet. This is our two bedroom house, right,
Speaker 1: we upgraded, but it was still only two bedrooms, And
Speaker 1: so I slept in the twin bed with my daughter,
Speaker 1: the newborn, so that she could queue feed. That said
Speaker 1: she would go three four hours straight from newborn age,
Speaker 1: which you know, you can't really let a newborn more
Speaker 1: than four hours from when a breastfeed. So I had
Speaker 1: to sometimes wake her. UM. But she was a totally
Speaker 1: different type of breastfeeder than than her older brother was
Speaker 1: UM and they are to this day. They eat in
Speaker 1: very different ways of different metalism. UM where he was
Speaker 1: just you know, like a hummingbird, nursing frequently and she
Speaker 1: was like whatever, I'm like, fast asleep. How did you?
Speaker 1: And then we all went into the family bed. I
Speaker 1: don't know, she was maybe a month old. I brought
Speaker 1: her back into the family bed and then I'm out.
Speaker 1: He was two years old, and he was like forget,
Speaker 1: was like moms up every four hours or less? Yea.
Speaker 1: And I don't even know if he knew that I
Speaker 1: was up, because you know, it's quiet. It's not like
Speaker 1: the child is screaming right right, feed them when they're hungry.
Speaker 1: But he just I think that he was so completely
Speaker 1: appalled that there was another child to be joined the family.
Speaker 1: Was like, I'm going to just pretend this isn't happening.
Speaker 1: And so we gave How did you find? Um? How
Speaker 1: is it on a relationship? You know? I think that
Speaker 1: like I imagine I had the cozy moments of like,
Speaker 1: you know, because I didn't do Albie was. I was
Speaker 1: really really sick after I gave birth. I had probably
Speaker 1: the worst cold and cough I've ever had in my
Speaker 1: entire life. UM, and so Albie was sleeping in his
Speaker 1: crib outside of my room from day one, UM with
Speaker 1: a night nurse. And I really still romanticized the idea
Speaker 1: of like the whole family being in a bed and
Speaker 1: all of these things. But realistically, since you have done
Speaker 1: it for a long time, you had a family bed,
Speaker 1: how does that look with your relationship, like with your husband?
Speaker 1: Is it like? Do you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good question. I'm sure it looks different for
Speaker 1: every family. I know it does because I have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends and family members who've done family bed
Speaker 1: and many of them even longer than we did. So
Speaker 1: I'm just going to speak from my own experience, but
Speaker 1: it was amazing when my first one was born, you know,
Speaker 1: it really was. And this is a kid who physiologically
Speaker 1: needed to eat every forty five minutes to an hour
Speaker 1: and a half until he was about a year old.
Speaker 1: That was just who he is, and he would get
Speaker 1: super full fast. His kid is a newborn could drain
Speaker 1: abreast in five minutes for you guys, like it would
Speaker 1: take that sometimes at the beginning I would be breastfeeding
Speaker 1: for and I remember asking my midwife, who was also
Speaker 1: you know, lactation expert, like, what about twenty minutes per side?
Speaker 1: Isn't it supposed to She's like, honey, watched the baby,
Speaker 1: not the clock, and that was the best advice I got. Right, So,
Speaker 1: in the light of all of these repeated surges of
Speaker 1: oxytocin and the feel good hormones that you know, our
Speaker 1: brain has the pituitary gland, which is between our eyes
Speaker 1: and the forehead, secretes oxytocin, which stimulates uter in contractions.
Speaker 1: So that's part of what helps the uterus go back
Speaker 1: to its normal size after giving birth and also stimulates
Speaker 1: that prolactin comes from there to stimulates the milk let down.
Speaker 1: So every time you get that surge of oxytocin, the
Speaker 1: prolactin milk let down, you know, it feels kind of
Speaker 1: like being high, you know, you're a little bit in college,
Speaker 1: or I could just say it's you know, it's a
Speaker 1: really heavy or or like a post orgasmic feeling, except
Speaker 1: it's not sexual. It's just really feel you're all in bed,
Speaker 1: feeling swimming in you know, the cooked of of mother homoes.
Speaker 1: That's what you were feeling, and I was feeling. I
Speaker 1: also felt a lot of anxiety right. Um. My husband
Speaker 1: and I were talking about this the other day that
Speaker 1: he's like, do you remember when we could you drop
Speaker 1: a fork in the kitchen and we would panic because
Speaker 1: we thought he was going to wake up because he
Speaker 1: was such a light sleeper. I can't. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: oh my gosh. Yeah. So the first time was was
Speaker 1: was amazing, but it was also it also was not
Speaker 1: without its challenges. Did you feel that you got quality
Speaker 1: It sounds like you've got quality sleep in this situation
Speaker 1: because you weren't having to get out of bed. I
Speaker 1: remember that to go breastfeed, like for you going back
Speaker 1: to work, it was all about logging the most amount
Speaker 1: of minutes possible to sleep, and that would mean having
Speaker 1: the baby right there next to you. Means you're not
Speaker 1: getting up out of bed to get the baby out
Speaker 1: of the crib and skin. It's better, you know, regulation
Speaker 1: of the breastfeeding mechanism, the you know, the letdown reflects
Speaker 1: happens sooner when your baby's right next to you. Um.
Speaker 1: And then baby wearing, which we did during the day.
Speaker 1: And this is all in regards to attachment parenting, is
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. Can you explain a little bit
Speaker 1: about what that means? Yes, absolutely, Well, there's the eight
Speaker 1: principles of attachment parenting can be found from Attachment Parenting
Speaker 1: dot org, which is a not for profit organization. But
Speaker 1: basically it's based on attachment theory, which goes way way back.
Speaker 1: But um, it's the psychological model that describes relationships between humans,
Speaker 1: and attachment theory is now the primary, the dominant theory
Speaker 1: used in child development UM, in infant and toddler mental health.
Speaker 1: This is what psychotherapists us. It's called attachment theory theory UM.
Speaker 1: And so we look at it in the West in
Speaker 1: terms of the diade, like the mother infant diade, but um,
Speaker 1: really we need to look at the whole world and
Speaker 1: see that in most cultures it's not a nuclear family. Right.
Speaker 1: We're kind of forgive me, we're kind of fucked in
Speaker 1: because this whole idea of it's like one or two
Speaker 1: parents raising kids is not you guys, it really really
Speaker 1: is true? Yes, yes, um. So attachment attachment parenting looks
Speaker 1: at um being the a having a primary character, which
Speaker 1: usually ends up being the mother who gave birth. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be. I had a good friend
Speaker 1: whose wife went back to work at Disney as a
Speaker 1: producer like six weeks after giving birth, and he was
Speaker 1: they were attachment parenting, so she would they co slept
Speaker 1: and but he was the baby wearing dad and he
Speaker 1: was at the park with us and all of that,
Speaker 1: And so it doesn't have to be just a mom
Speaker 1: So it doesn't have basically means like that the baby
Speaker 1: is always close to you in proximity. Yeah, always and
Speaker 1: most of the time. So baby wearing allows you to
Speaker 1: kind of go about your day while having the baby
Speaker 1: close to you. Baby would for me, baby would sleep
Speaker 1: on me, and we baby where I had like fourteen
Speaker 1: different baby carriers, um, and so some in the beginning
Speaker 1: were more appropriate to an infant, and then as the
Speaker 1: older Yeah, and then once I had you know, I
Speaker 1: got pregnant, I was wearing him more on my back
Speaker 1: um and then coast sleeping or bedshine. You are que feeding, wow,
Speaker 1: And okay, so explain que feeding. This is also a
Speaker 1: whole thing. And then I want to get into a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you naturally got your babies sort
Speaker 1: of on a schedule on their own and because you
Speaker 1: did end up going you went back to work after
Speaker 1: the first kid. I went back to work about three
Speaker 1: and a half months after giving birth. But you know,
Speaker 1: I'm my own business owner, so I wasn't going back
Speaker 1: to work in the nine to six corporate office with
Speaker 1: an hour community each way, right, you were just having
Speaker 1: your own hours. You do that plan, so you practice
Speaker 1: co sleeping attachment parenting. You would wear that, you would
Speaker 1: sleep with the baby on you for naps in your
Speaker 1: bed at night, and then you would wear him and
Speaker 1: her as you did stuff that the day. I should
Speaker 1: point out when my husband, my husband was the primary
Speaker 1: caregiver on when I went back to work, he would
Speaker 1: do the baby wearing, and on the weekends we both
Speaker 1: would and then when we had a babysitter, they would
Speaker 1: wear the baby. Did you find there to be any
Speaker 1: sort of huge separation that happened or does the baby
Speaker 1: just decide like, mom, I don't want to be warned,
Speaker 1: like you know, when they start to really separate, look
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, it's it's clear. You know. Basically, I
Speaker 1: feel that it's important to look at the brain and
Speaker 1: brain development. And so when attachment theory looks at how
Speaker 1: an infant responds when they are separated from their primary caregiver. Right,
Speaker 1: and so in in Africa, in um certain countries that
Speaker 1: are we might call pre pre industrial, you know, where
Speaker 1: they still have UM the I can't spacing on the
Speaker 1: word for it, but there's multiple mothers in the village
Speaker 1: still goes on in many parts of This idea of
Speaker 1: solitary sleep is less than a hundred years old, so
Speaker 1: to kind of just put that in perspective, if you
Speaker 1: think of how long we've been around as a human race.
Speaker 1: So if a child is separated by themselves in the dark, scared,
Speaker 1: that goes into um, you know, what's called our implicit memory.
Speaker 1: So they look at it. This is more of Dr
Speaker 1: Dan Siegel, who's a psychotherapist and neurobiologist UM here in California,
Speaker 1: but um looking at how how the brain works, the amygdala,
Speaker 1: the hippocampus, the parts of brain that store our raw
Speaker 1: sensory memory. This is this stuff that's you know, pre verbal.
Speaker 1: But if you let's say a child is attacked by
Speaker 1: a bear, you know, just because there's three months doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they're not going to remember, because it goes in
Speaker 1: there somewhere, of course. And so the same thing happens
Speaker 1: when a child is by themselves alone. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: so the idea is not to never leave your child alone.
Speaker 1: But with attached and parenting, we are they you're really
Speaker 1: looking for their cues of when they are ready. Like
Speaker 1: you carried this baby inside of you when they were
Speaker 1: not alone for ten months, and now the babies outside
Speaker 1: of you, and you keep them close and they will
Speaker 1: make it clear within when they are ready for any
Speaker 1: sort of distance. Is that sort of the well, yes,
Speaker 1: but also when the mom and the dad or the
Speaker 1: parents are ready exactly for whatever it is. Know, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a soothing approach so that the child is
Speaker 1: associating going to sleep with being safe. If the child
Speaker 1: associates going to sleep with being in a state of
Speaker 1: terror and fear, then you can bet that kid's going
Speaker 1: to have problems later on in life with those implicit memories.
Speaker 1: Got it. So I saw that a lot because I
Speaker 1: worked with moms for so long before I became a parent,
Speaker 1: and I saw that, and I just didn't want that.
Speaker 1: You knew in your heart that that was not like
Speaker 1: you were never going to be. For example, this whole
Speaker 1: cryed out method are letting babies really cry when they
Speaker 1: go to sleep fundamentally and psychologically to you. That didn't
Speaker 1: sit right to me and my husband, and we talked
Speaker 1: about it quite a lot, especially in pregnancy. You just
Speaker 1: knew that you were going to always put your baby
Speaker 1: to sleep in a state of comfort and peace and safety.
Speaker 1: That was the idea. And then when eventually I nightleaned
Speaker 1: my my oldest child when he was about seventeen months,
Speaker 1: we used the doctor J Gordon, who is a pediatrician
Speaker 1: on the West side of California, Santa Monica, rather west
Speaker 1: side west side California, the west side. But yes, so
Speaker 1: what did you say? And um, and that approach is
Speaker 1: picking a seven hour chunk because the definition of sleeping
Speaker 1: through the night is about seven hours. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: for a child under about a year. And he says,
Speaker 1: do not use this method under like twelve to fourteen months.
Speaker 1: But we picked a seven hour chunk because I was
Speaker 1: just tired of nursing all night through my pregnancy. Honestly,
Speaker 1: like that point, literally, I'm sitting here, you guys, I'm
Speaker 1: probably the most quiet I've ever been in any of
Speaker 1: the podcast because my mouth is on the floor, just
Speaker 1: a gape at like and that you look pretty and
Speaker 1: you're like well rested, and you did all of this.
Speaker 1: I just can't even imagine it. Okay, so well, they
Speaker 1: do eventually sleep, but yeah, the idea was pick a
Speaker 1: seven hour chunk. And he says, you know, eleven PM
Speaker 1: to six am, yeah, exactly, um, and and when instead
Speaker 1: of it's gradual, but for us it took about a
Speaker 1: week and we did it with both kids. So instead
Speaker 1: of nursing to sleep, you breastfeed and then after eleven
Speaker 1: PM you don't breastfeed at all, and so you do
Speaker 1: shishing and patting their back, but it's still within the
Speaker 1: family bed. So this approach is fantastic if you're doing
Speaker 1: family bed but you want to, you're ready to night
Speaker 1: lean your kids because you're making themselves feel safe and comforted,
Speaker 1: but not through food and nursing anything. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be the quote primary parent, It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be the mom as long as everybody's on the
Speaker 1: same page and you're really clear on your guide. So
Speaker 1: when did you start to see a schedule? I'm assuming
Speaker 1: it started to naturally form because then you went back
Speaker 1: to work and I know that your baby was cared
Speaker 1: for by your husband and then also at daycare and
Speaker 1: things like that, Like, how did you continue this sort
Speaker 1: of methodology with really basically being sort of on demand
Speaker 1: and taking things off of cues of your baby, um
Speaker 1: when other people are involved, right, Well, we did dare
Speaker 1: daycareed in startil eighteen months, so I didn't have the
Speaker 1: experience of infant daycare, which I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have. But I went back to work three
Speaker 1: days a week and two days my husband was on
Speaker 1: was the primary parent, and then one day we had
Speaker 1: a and you guys, who we saw eye to eye
Speaker 1: like he could do it, no problem. Yeah, we did,
Speaker 1: and we still did, and he would just feed a
Speaker 1: bottle before. The idea with que feeding is that whether
Speaker 1: you're bottle feeding or your breastfeeding, if you have listeners
Speaker 1: who have really tried to breastfeed but can't, you can
Speaker 1: absolutely still do cue feeding. Whether it's with breast milk,
Speaker 1: your own breast milk that's pumped don't, or milk formula,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it's food, and que feeding is basically
Speaker 1: like you think they're hungry, they're expressing that they're hungry. Feed.
Speaker 1: You learn their cues pretty quickly, just like you do
Speaker 1: with with when they need to poop, which is the
Speaker 1: whole other conversation for another episode. But so I went
Speaker 1: back to work at three and a half months after
Speaker 1: baby number one was born, and um at that point
Speaker 1: he had really around I think about three months. He
Speaker 1: settled into a pretty predictable pattern of breastfeeding, of sleep.
Speaker 1: And I believe rhythm and routine are so important. Um.
Speaker 1: I love that sort of Walldorf approach of rhythm and routine.
Speaker 1: Um of you know, a Rudolf Steiner of babies love routine.
Speaker 1: They can be you know, looking at the baby's cues,
Speaker 1: just like I explained, my first kid and my second
Speaker 1: kid totally different metabolisms. You know, one need to eat
Speaker 1: every and the only one could totally by six months
Speaker 1: was going like much much longer. So um, So we
Speaker 1: would watch their cues and then if it was a
Speaker 1: caregiver there, they would give a bottle of breast milk. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you know often wear the baby or or
Speaker 1: bounce on a ball and put them down to sleep
Speaker 1: in their bed and then go about their business. Um
Speaker 1: and I do were to daycare, and they weren't on
Speaker 1: a set schedule, for example, like they weren't saying like
Speaker 1: we do nap time here for to dake care was
Speaker 1: until eighteen months. Okay, so by that time the baby
Speaker 1: was set one and a half year old. Yeah he was.
Speaker 1: I mean by the time he started daycare, he was
Speaker 1: probably waking up once a night, maybe twice a night
Speaker 1: to nurse. No. No, that's actually because we night wanted
Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen months, so he was waking more frequently. But
Speaker 1: basically the full three full days a week of daycare
Speaker 1: when that started, um was about the time he was
Speaker 1: sleeping straight through the night, eleven hour straight. So no,
Speaker 1: they had a set naptime, you know, one to two thirty.
Speaker 1: And I've said, how the heck are you going to
Speaker 1: get fourteen kids to nap at the same time, and
Speaker 1: they said, oh, we just it happened. And they they're
Speaker 1: incredibly loving and they sit there and they pat their
Speaker 1: backs and then it's contagious. All the kids are turn
Speaker 1: on that white noise exactly, and I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god. So, um, what did
Speaker 1: have you found to be the benefits of co sleeping?
Speaker 1: So the advantage is basically from when they night leaned,
Speaker 1: stopped nursing overnight, but continue nursing during the day. Um,
Speaker 1: they have not had any sleep aggressions at all, and
Speaker 1: so uh, and they have positive associations with sleep. They're
Speaker 1: basically they're not afraid of it. They're not getting in
Speaker 1: a dark room and freaking out. The biggest issue now
Speaker 1: is but mom, I'm not done with this chapter. They
Speaker 1: want to keep reading, and we have a firm lights out,
Speaker 1: you know role, and I know, I know you want
Speaker 1: to keep reading. So I really take an empathy based
Speaker 1: approach to parenting and that just grows with them. You know.
Speaker 1: Now they're in second and fourth grade and their sleep
Speaker 1: is absolutely crucial. So if anything, it's they don't want
Speaker 1: to go to bed soon, not even if they're still
Speaker 1: like in bed at seven thirty, that's a hard out
Speaker 1: for us. But they may be reading for an hour
Speaker 1: and a half and so you know, we have to
Speaker 1: turn the bedded seven thirty and then they go to
Speaker 1: sleep at nine. They might read well, I mean, my
Speaker 1: daughters out by eight fifteen most nights, but my son
Speaker 1: will push it as late as can. I be your kid,
Speaker 1: this is like, that sounds well, they have to be
Speaker 1: up at six delicious school. So yeah, and I'm in
Speaker 1: bed bow. I treat a lot of insomnie in my practice,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the adults I work with did
Speaker 1: not have healthy sleep hygiene as kids, and so I
Speaker 1: think sleep hygiene, you know, however, that's defined, it looks
Speaker 1: different for every family. Is super important for setting us
Speaker 1: up as adults because the brain is so malleable. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not fully milinated until age seven. Um, what advice
Speaker 1: would you give to parents who might be looking into
Speaker 1: making a choice like this. The number one piece of
Speaker 1: advice I would give is trust your instinct, Trust your intuition,
Speaker 1: because it's never wrong. And if you are married, and
Speaker 1: you're because a lot of the people I work with
Speaker 1: are going about this alone. Um, single moms by choice,
Speaker 1: But if you with your partner or the person that
Speaker 1: you're deciding to raise your kids with, make sure that
Speaker 1: you talk about all these questions first, not all of them,
Speaker 1: but many of them. How what do you want parenting
Speaker 1: to look like? Did you do that with your husband?
Speaker 1: I did? Like you guys knew while you were pregnant,
Speaker 1: you had spoken about a family bed and attachment parenting
Speaker 1: and you had read books and I mean it was
Speaker 1: kind of hilarious. My my mother in law, Ga bless
Speaker 1: her through me a baby shower with a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of her friends that I had never met before. She said,
Speaker 1: so what's the nursery? Like? What is ther color theme?
Speaker 1: You know? And I said, well, we were not going
Speaker 1: to have a nursery because we have a two bedroom
Speaker 1: apartment and one of them, one of the bedrooms was
Speaker 1: our office, right and um, and the other was our bedroom,
Speaker 1: and so we were She's like, okay, well, you know,
Speaker 1: are you going to find out the gender? I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to find out gender because there's no
Speaker 1: test for gender, you know. But we elected not to
Speaker 1: choose to find out the sex for my first so
Speaker 1: we didn't know. So I literally got like thirty fantastic
Speaker 1: gifts that were all pink or green and um, and
Speaker 1: my my mother in law net this adorable white baby
Speaker 1: blanket for my son with a Raider patch on it
Speaker 1: because my huss a huge Raider fan. She's determined to
Speaker 1: have something in something, so I she was like, if
Speaker 1: I can't have a pick color, I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: blanket with a raider. And I love her. So the
Speaker 1: real thing, it's trust your instinct, which it's wonderful that
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here listening to because I I am such
Speaker 1: a libra in that. Yes, I'm just like very good
Speaker 1: at weighing out. Like I love being a part of
Speaker 1: this podcast because I love hearing how people do things.
Speaker 1: And I also really am able to see way things
Speaker 1: out and so for me instinctually it can get hard
Speaker 1: because I'm like, well, I'm feeling this, but maybe it's that,
Speaker 1: but maybe it's this, but maybe yes, you know it's
Speaker 1: It's so good that you say that, because as a libra,
Speaker 1: I have the same thing. I'm always wanting to know
Speaker 1: the in and the young things, the plus in the
Speaker 1: minus the cost benefit ratio exactly. And for a new parent,
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe a parent who had a kid
Speaker 1: nine ten years ago and is going to be doing
Speaker 1: it all over again and thinking maybe I'll do things different.
Speaker 1: You can go to the library, get books. Just it's you, guys.
Speaker 1: That's why I Abigail's brought up so many amazing points
Speaker 1: in this podcast that will all be listed in the
Speaker 1: crib notes. Absolutely, and just I think follow your instinct
Speaker 1: and follow your your inclination to learn more about something,
Speaker 1: and ultimately you are the expert about your baby right
Speaker 1: nobody else's And it for me, resisting the mommy wars
Speaker 1: brought on a lot of anxiety. I felt judged. Whether
Speaker 1: or not I was actually being judged, I would feel anxious,
Speaker 1: Am I doing what's best for my kid? Can I
Speaker 1: be any better. But I've learned now almost ten years
Speaker 1: into this, to just to surrender and let it go
Speaker 1: and detached with love and find acceptance with that uncertainty
Speaker 1: because ultimately, you know, we really can't control our kids.
Speaker 1: We can set no fee boundaries, I can try, but
Speaker 1: absolutely we can set healthy boundaries and you know, have
Speaker 1: a really good rhythm and routine in our day and
Speaker 1: all that and and um and then ultimately I think,
Speaker 1: I truly think a lot of the personality just come
Speaker 1: into the world with it. Oh for sure, to know
Speaker 1: that a lot of them just kind of came out
Speaker 1: who they were really weird, they absolutely did. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: my mom and dad read this book by t Berry
Speaker 1: Brazilton who just passed away at age couple of months ago. Um,
Speaker 1: and he's, you know, a world famous guy, but he
Speaker 1: was like the pediatrician and the post spock era who
Speaker 1: was started talking about this attachment theory and all that
Speaker 1: and my parents and my mom was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it just made so much sense and it was totally
Speaker 1: different with her from what her parents had done their
Speaker 1: six children. And that was that I saw that. I
Speaker 1: saw She's like she found a book. It lit a fire.
Speaker 1: You know, she didn't. She said she felt like the
Speaker 1: only person in the world who had ever had a baby.
Speaker 1: She was an actress in New York. None of her
Speaker 1: friends kids, right, So I I took a cue from
Speaker 1: my mom, I think, and just following following my instinct,
Speaker 1: learning more about it, and then ultimately just letting it go.
Speaker 1: And you know, reading your baby and getting to know
Speaker 1: your baby and trusting that you know what's best for him.
Speaker 1: And and sometimes I was on the floor hysterically crying,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, that's the reality of it, no
Speaker 1: matter what you choose, whichever ways, And just because you
Speaker 1: choose something one day doesn't mean you can't change your
Speaker 1: mind another day. Also, by the way, at some point
Speaker 1: you're all going to be crying on the floor, and
Speaker 1: at some point you're all going to be laughing your
Speaker 1: grasses off. And that's just seems to be motherhood. It is.
Speaker 1: And whether it's a biological child or an adopted child,
Speaker 1: or you know, a grandchild or whatever, it's that same dynamic.
Speaker 1: You have to just render into that powerlessness. I think
Speaker 1: I was actually just away without me and we had
Speaker 1: a nap in the bed with us for fun, and
Speaker 1: I felt like I couldn't really like get into a
Speaker 1: comfortable position, honestly, Like I was like, what about the blankets.
Speaker 1: I know we've already talked about this, but is that
Speaker 1: just something in time that you sort of figure out
Speaker 1: the best way position wise to sleep with your baby
Speaker 1: in the bed or was there something that you know
Speaker 1: works every time that's written in a book. Um, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I will refer you back to the Dr
Speaker 1: James McKenna guidelines for Safeco sleeping because he gives good
Speaker 1: guidelines in general for everybody, but um and to avoid
Speaker 1: sids and all of that. But I think what I
Speaker 1: tell my patients to, especially if they're dealing with insomnia
Speaker 1: and the new baby, is find whatever is comfortable for
Speaker 1: you first, exclusive of the baby. I personally, I am
Speaker 1: a side sleeper. I've always left on my left side.
Speaker 1: That's how I sleep, Except my mom says when I
Speaker 1: was a baby, I slept on my tummy. Um, I
Speaker 1: you know, find your pillow, blanket, combo on the mattress
Speaker 1: and then figure out how baby can work around that
Speaker 1: in a safe way, so that for example, with me,
Speaker 1: I would tuck the blanket under my legs so it
Speaker 1: wasn't anywhere near baby um. And it also has to
Speaker 1: be a firm mattress. We can't be dealing with a
Speaker 1: mushy mattress here or a big cushy mattress cover those
Speaker 1: those don't fit the safe sleeping guidelines. So we had
Speaker 1: a super firm mattress, which is what we liked anyway.
Speaker 1: So find where your comfortable spot is and then if
Speaker 1: that's it kind of is easiest on the side. Because
Speaker 1: this is all keeping in mind that I learned how
Speaker 1: to nurse on my side very early once the baby.
Speaker 1: I think you taught me on my side. Remember, came
Speaker 1: over to do a postpartum um tune up acupuncture session
Speaker 1: and she was like, oh, you could just lay right
Speaker 1: here and put the baby right here. And I was like,
Speaker 1: you can lay down and nurse. I only thought in
Speaker 1: the hospital, I had only learned that there was a
Speaker 1: football hold or the cradle hold right you could do.
Speaker 1: So you would be sleeping on the side. You get
Speaker 1: comfortable and figure out how the baby works into that.
Speaker 1: Because you're sleeping well and comfortably, so is the baby
Speaker 1: right And basically lined up baby nose to nipple or
Speaker 1: he was a little bit lower um, and that was
Speaker 1: what was comfortable for me. Babies are very resilient. They
Speaker 1: will pretty much sleep anywhere, and so the advantage of
Speaker 1: bed sharing was that, you know, we did travel to
Speaker 1: see family, or we went on vacation, or we were
Speaker 1: in a hotel or what would and it would just
Speaker 1: the baby would just sleep where we slept, you know.
Speaker 1: And and this whole idea of a lot of people
Speaker 1: think of family bed means you go to bed when
Speaker 1: the kid goes to bed. No, you know, when they
Speaker 1: were really little, bedtime was six o'clock. Sure, you would
Speaker 1: put the big kid down to six o'clock and then
Speaker 1: I would like rush to do laundry and make dinner
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff. The dirty secret of parenting
Speaker 1: is that that window narrows, you know, and then you
Speaker 1: end up with so much night hanno. Right now he
Speaker 1: goes to sleep at seven, and I'm really my seven
Speaker 1: to ten windows like huge for me. Atually it's like
Speaker 1: you know, when I see my husband and like when
Speaker 1: I have a five glass of wine whatever. Well, the
Speaker 1: other thing is you get creative with where you are
Speaker 1: intimate with your partner, you know, I mean it's not
Speaker 1: list have to talk to other people, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to, especially when you have the second kid, and
Speaker 1: after the second kid comes, you know, it's super important
Speaker 1: not to lose that intimacy in that one at one
Speaker 1: time date night became crucial. This has been so eye
Speaker 1: opening and so wonderful, and you are I'm just so
Speaker 1: happy to be sitting with you in my crib on
Speaker 1: my couch. UM, we both fitt're just the best. And
Speaker 1: thank you so much for all of your wise words
Speaker 1: and advice and personal experience. UM, you really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks so much for listening to Katie's crib.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to subscribe and tell your friends, tell your
Speaker 1: mom's friends, tell your mom's mom, mom's friends. You get it.
Speaker 1: Do