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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers.

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Speaker 2: Now when in actual reality it was never going to

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Speaker 2: work for me. But there's like if there's no money

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Speaker 2: to be made by an industry that only continues on

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Speaker 2: the basis that it can fixes.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mum

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson. Very excited about today.

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Speaker 3: We've got a special guest to talk about sleep training

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Speaker 3: and the good, the bad, and the ugly around the

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Speaker 3: sleep training idea. Actually there's not much good, so mainly

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Speaker 3: the bad. He with Kylie, my wife and mum to

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Speaker 3: our six kids, and we're excited to introduce you to

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Speaker 3: Carlie grub. Carli is the founder and managing director of

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Speaker 3: Little Sparklers, home to the Beyond Sleep Training Project. Hey, Carly,

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Speaker 3: thanks for joining us today.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. It's real honor to be here.

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Speaker 3: So this this is a highly contentious conversation. Well sorry,

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Speaker 3: we don't need to make it highly contentious, but there

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Speaker 3: are some people who do get very contentious about this

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Speaker 3: particular topic. Let's start right at the very start. For

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Speaker 3: any parents who haven't heard of it what is sleep training?

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Speaker 2: So sleep training is basically there's a range of methods

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Speaker 2: that get used, but the whole idea is to basically

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Speaker 2: make your baby sleep independently, put themselves to sleep, keep

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Speaker 2: themselves asleep, and not need any input from another human.

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Speaker 3: So I'm going to take my PhD hat off for

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Speaker 3: a moment and just be the dad that I was

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Speaker 3: twenty years ago when I was falling apart. Well sorry,

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Speaker 3: I wasn't falling apart, but when I was getting it

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Speaker 3: completely wrong with my daughter. And I'm going to hear

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Speaker 3: somebody say teaching a baby to sleep independently without any

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Speaker 3: input from another adult or any other person, and I'm

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Speaker 3: going to go give me some of that, please, Like

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Speaker 3: I'm tired, say totally that was.

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Speaker 2: Like with my first baby. So that's actually how I

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Speaker 2: came to all of this was that I went for

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Speaker 2: sleep training path because I'm super wakeful baby, so I

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Speaker 2: know sleep to birth deprivation on like an intimate level.

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Speaker 2: And it really does sound like a great thing to do,

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Speaker 2: Like who wouldn't want that?

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Speaker 3: Like it?

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Speaker 2: You know, it's sold as being the healthy way to

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Speaker 2: manage sleep for your family, and it's got a compelling

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Speaker 2: argument when you don't understand the implications in behind it.

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Speaker 2: So what do its proponents say are the benefits of

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Speaker 2: sleep training.

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Speaker 3: Other than the family gets to sleep.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So largely the idea is that people will say

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Speaker 2: that this is the way to build healthy sleep habits

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Speaker 2: for life, for their baby and for the whole family.

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Speaker 2: And sleep, as we know, is a basic human need.

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Speaker 2: So of course the idea of getting everybody more sleep

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Speaker 2: seems so logical that really oftentimes that's about the level

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Speaker 2: of the surface that gets scratched before people dive right

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Speaker 2: on into sleep training. So that's yeah, it's an easy

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Speaker 2: argument to make, I guess.

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Speaker 3: So there are some people out there who have written

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Speaker 3: some really influential books on this whole sleep training thing,

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Speaker 3: people who are talking about how we can save our

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Speaker 3: sanity by sleeping more and teaching the kids to do that.

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Speaker 3: Australian and overseas. It's a very very marketable idea and

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Speaker 3: these people have done very well from selling this. What

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Speaker 3: are the concerns with sleep training?

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Speaker 2: Well, basically, it's the whole idea that, first of all,

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Speaker 2: that it's something that's needed for your baby to be healthy,

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Speaker 2: and so for people to understand that actually what your

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Speaker 2: baby needs is response, and that growing brain actually benefits

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Speaker 2: from that nurturing response that you're providing them. But sleep

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Speaker 2: training kind of really downplays that and makes out like

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Speaker 2: it's an optional extra or a want, whereas your baby's

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Speaker 2: actually asking only for what they need from you, and

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Speaker 2: that is care right through the twenty four hour period.

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Speaker 2: It just doesn't stop when the sun goes down. And

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Speaker 2: so I guess the danger there lies in the fact

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Speaker 2: that automatically we start to disconnect from what our baby

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Speaker 2: is actually communicating to us in terms of their genuine needs,

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Speaker 2: and we start to put boundaries around that, which brings

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Speaker 2: in this level of disconnection between what can be previously

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Speaker 2: a really synchronous relationship that people have built with their child.

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Speaker 2: And as that breakdown begins, it can have a really

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Speaker 2: detrimental effect on your ability to pay attention to what

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Speaker 2: your baby's trying to communicate to you in general. So that,

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Speaker 2: for me, is the first real risk that we see

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Speaker 2: when people go down the sleep trading path with their baby.

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Speaker 4: It's interesting, as I'm listening to you, Cali, I'm going

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Speaker 4: back twenty two years now to you know, parenting started

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Speaker 4: for us. We've just celebrated our eldest birthday, and we

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Speaker 4: were talking about some of the memories we had from

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Speaker 4: those early years and early days of her birth and

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Speaker 4: Justin and I, as he's eluded, we had many sleepless

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Speaker 4: nights and at the time, control crying was the thing,

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Speaker 4: and everybody was telling us we needed to do it

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Speaker 4: for our sanity, and so we actually decided to we

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Speaker 4: would go ahead and try. And I remember that one night,

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Speaker 4: that's all I last did, one night where Justin literally

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Speaker 4: had to pin me to the bed because my baby

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Speaker 4: was crying and my heart.

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Speaker 3: Was breaking to be with her.

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Speaker 4: But everybody was telling me that she didn't need that,

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Speaker 4: that I just needed to allow her to work this

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Speaker 4: out and realize that she could just go to sleep

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Speaker 4: by herself. And I'm just so grateful that in spite

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Speaker 4: of the lack of sleep that we had, that we

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Speaker 4: kind of just went with our gut and decided that,

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Speaker 4: you know, at the end of the day, this was

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Speaker 4: not going to last forever, and that my baby just

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Speaker 4: needed me, and that has built a lifelong relationship that

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Speaker 4: we have with her that we love and cherish.

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Speaker 3: So I'm just going to jump in here. I don't

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Speaker 3: remember ever pinning you to the bed, especially when our

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Speaker 3: baby was crying. You made that sound really bad.

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Speaker 4: You had to hold me down.

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Speaker 3: I don't remember. You don't remember.

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Speaker 2: I really don't remember, but probably blanked it out from

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Speaker 2: the memory for the sound.

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Speaker 3: Never you really had to hold me back. I was

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Speaker 3: just a mess. I was sobbing in the bed. I'm

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Speaker 3: assuming that you told me that I needed to keep

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Speaker 3: you from doing that.

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Speaker 4: Oh well, we made a decision that we were going

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Speaker 4: to do it, but I just I couldn't handle it.

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Speaker 3: I wouldn't.

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Speaker 1: I just can't.

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Speaker 3: I can't imagine I did that. Wow. But I do

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Speaker 3: remember another night with a different child. We were living

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Speaker 3: in we were living in a different place then, and

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Speaker 3: we had several children, and I remember we tried it again.

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Speaker 3: After many years and several children, we decided to try

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Speaker 3: it again because this child was just killing us with

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Speaker 3: her inability to sleep. And you went and locked yourself

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Speaker 3: in the car outside, and you could still hear a

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Speaker 3: screaming from outside, and I remember just thinking this, this

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Speaker 3: is crazy. This is not what we're supposed to be doing.

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Speaker 3: This is not how this should work. Now. Of course,

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Speaker 3: proponents of sleep training are probably going to say, well,

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Speaker 3: you're doing it wrong. You're supposed to you're supposed to

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Speaker 3: go to them once they become really really upset. But

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Speaker 3: I guess, Cali, what's the what's the deal here?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? See, this is the thing. Like, it's like anyone

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Speaker 2: who doesn't feel like it, you know, feels right to them,

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Speaker 2: they're either told they need to be stronger or like

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Speaker 2: it's some kind of weakness that you actually physically, viscerally

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Speaker 2: cannot stand that sound of your baby crying, as though

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Speaker 2: that's not, on a human level, actually compelling you to act.

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Speaker 2: So there's that kind of argument around it as well.

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Speaker 2: But then there's also this other side where if it

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Speaker 2: doesn't work out, there's a really common blame game that

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Speaker 2: gets placed at your feet. And I, as someone who

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Speaker 2: was a sleep training failure, felt that acutely, even though

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Speaker 2: I was actually supremely sleep deprived, even worse so from

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Speaker 2: having been through the sleep training process and to then

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Speaker 2: I was in the depths of postnatal depression and desperately lost.

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Speaker 2: And unfortunately, the way that played out was I was

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Speaker 2: almost blamed for my failure to make it work, as

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Speaker 2: though I hadn't tried hard enough or I hadn't done it.

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Speaker 2: A particular way, or if I'd just done this it

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Speaker 2: would have worked, when in actual reality it was never

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Speaker 2: going to work for me. But there's like, if there's

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Speaker 2: no money to be made by an industry that only

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Speaker 2: continues on the basis that it can fix this for

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Speaker 2: your family, I don't sell a good story.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the whole issue

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Speaker 3: around time out, Like there's some studies out there that

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Speaker 3: suggest that time out can actually be pretty useful. But

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Speaker 3: for the most part, anyone who tries to.

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Speaker 4: If I lock myself in the room, that's right.

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Speaker 3: Anyone who actually tries time out goes this is hard.

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Speaker 3: I'm not doing it right. This doesn't work. I'm not

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Speaker 3: getting the results, and the proponents of time out keep

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Speaker 3: on saying no, no, no, here's our latest parenting program. This

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Speaker 3: is the thing to do to make it work. I've

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Speaker 3: spoken with the research behind this, and it just it

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Speaker 3: doesn't make sense in real life. They've got some statistics

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Speaker 3: that make it look like it can, but it doesn't

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Speaker 3: make sense in real life. I'm hearing exactly the same

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Speaker 3: thing with the sleep training. So after the break, we're

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Speaker 3: going to continue our conversation with Karlie Grubb. The founder

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Speaker 3: and managing director of Little Sparklers, which is home to

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Speaker 3: Beyond Sleep Training, and we're going to talk about what

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Speaker 3: is beyond sleep training, what the best alternatives are, and

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Speaker 3: what we do in those tricky situations where sometimes we

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Speaker 3: just need some structure because we literally can't do it all.

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Speaker 1: It's their Happy Families podcasts.

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Speaker 5: Are Screens Creating Tension at home, tweens, teens and Screens

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Speaker 5: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.

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Speaker 5: Bye today at happyfamilies dot com, dot au slash shop.

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Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers now. And today we're

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Speaker 4: talking with Carlie Grubb.

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Speaker 3: Carlie is the founder and managing director of Little Sparklers,

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Speaker 3: home to Beyond Sleep Training or the Beyond Sleep Training Project.

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Speaker 3: I should say so, Carlie. We've talked about what sleep

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Speaker 3: training is. We've shared our horror stories about when we've

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Speaker 3: tried to do the sleep training stuff or the controlled crying.

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Speaker 4: Well, we've also touched on the guilt that parents fail

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Speaker 4: when they try this and it doesn't work.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what are the better alternatives, Carlie, Because beyond sleep

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Speaker 3: training sounds good, right, It absolutely does.

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Speaker 2: But the thing is is I'm not going to give

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Speaker 2: anyone at one size it's all fixer approach, because that's

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Speaker 2: actually the whole point is that there are ways we

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Speaker 2: can come at life without sleep training. But it's not

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Speaker 2: like it looks the same for every family, and I

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Speaker 2: think that's the beauty of it. You can take what

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Speaker 2: works for your family, adapt it, give it a try,

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Speaker 2: and change it as your baby grows and learns and develops,

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Speaker 2: or circumstances change for your family as well. So for

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Speaker 2: many of us in the group, one thing that is

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Speaker 2: a huge part of actually being able to move beyond

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Speaker 2: sleep training is first getting a handle on what is

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Speaker 2: normal infant and toddless sleep. And by doing that, even

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Speaker 2: though sometimes knowing it's normal that's certainly not going to

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Speaker 2: stop you being any less tired or exhausted, it is

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Speaker 2: actually still crucial in being able to pinpoint where the

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Speaker 2: problems actually liee for you to solve, because as long

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Speaker 2: as you're looking for a solution and pinning all your

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Speaker 2: hopes on that solution being around getting your baby to

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Speaker 2: sleep better, probably going to be sadly just pointed because

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Speaker 2: being a wakeful baby or needing someone to help them

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Speaker 2: to find and maintain sleep. That's actually normal behavior for

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Speaker 2: a baby, and so if that's where you're thinking all

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Speaker 2: your solutions lie, generally you're up for a bit of disappointment.

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Speaker 2: But the good news is when you stop fighting against

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Speaker 2: that normal behavior, you actually open your mind to being

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Speaker 2: able to come up with clever solutions that allow you

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Speaker 2: to meet those normal needs of your baby while also

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Speaker 2: meeting your own needs and the needs of your whole

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Speaker 2: family around you. And so for many of us, that

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Speaker 2: involves being a bit more flexible around our sleeping arrangements,

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Speaker 2: they're off in their own nursery, which actually has threefold

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Speaker 2: benefits too, because it room sharing does reduce the risk

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Speaker 2: of SUTI and SIDS, and it also just limits that

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Speaker 2: physical exertion that you need to go and tend to

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Speaker 2: their nighttime needs. And a third bonus that many people

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Speaker 2: underestimate is that it actually is really important to maintaining

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Speaker 2: your breastmelt supply. So cutting nut time feeds, well, it

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Speaker 2: might sound like you're going to get a lot more sleep,

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Speaker 2: a lot of people soon find out that if they

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Speaker 2: purposely cut those feeds early, their breast milk supply can tank,

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Speaker 2: and if breastfeeding is important to you, it's a really

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Speaker 2: important understanding to come to that those nighttime feeds can

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Speaker 2: be crucial in maintaining your supply. Also being able to

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Speaker 2: figure out ways to get contact maps, because lots of

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Speaker 2: babies don't like to be put down, so learning about

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Speaker 2: baby wearing can be a very helpful tool for people,

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Speaker 2: and finding ways to get partners involved so that all

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Speaker 2: of the nighttime nurturing isn't necessarily heavily on one person's shoulders,

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Speaker 2: poritizing that.

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Speaker 3: I'm just listening to what you're saying, and I'm remembering

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Speaker 3: when we made the decision, and we did it quite late.

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Speaker 3: But when we made the decision to bring our kids

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Speaker 3: into our room, we tried co sleeping. It never really

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Speaker 3: worked for us. We just found that kids wanted too

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Speaker 3: much of the bed and we.

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Speaker 4: Don't understand it stuff.

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Speaker 3: She's right, but but just having them in the same

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Speaker 3: room as us, And there's enough evidence now to say

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Speaker 3: that that's probably sufficient. Like, if parents want to co sleep,

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Speaker 3: that's great, but the evidence shows just having them in

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Speaker 3: the same room. And I loved how you said it

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Speaker 3: reduces I can't remember the words that you used, but

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Speaker 3: it kind of reduces the amount of exertion that you've

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Speaker 3: got to put out in the nighttime. Once the baby

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Speaker 3: was in the same room, I became much more involved

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Speaker 3: in the nighttime process. I would actually wake up and

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Speaker 3: get the baby out of the cot and hand her

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Speaker 3: to Kylie in the bed because I only had to

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Speaker 3: take three steps until we started doing that, though for

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Speaker 3: our older kids, I would just lay there and pretend

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Speaker 3: that I couldn't hear anything, that I was fast asleep.

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Speaker 3: I tend to be asleep so that Kylie would do

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Speaker 3: it because it was too much exertion, exertion at that

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Speaker 3: hour of the night. I was exhausted. I can't imagine

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Speaker 3: how Kylie must have felt at the time. I'm not

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Speaker 3: looking I'm coming off really badly in this podcast. I

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Speaker 3: pinned you down, I sent you out to the car,

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Speaker 3: and now I'm so lazy. Oh look, I'm a.

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Speaker 4: Really slow learner. And it literally took us baby number

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Speaker 4: six before I worked out a few of these things.

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Speaker 3: And that's why we're all for big families. Just keep

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Speaker 3: going to you get it right, just keep trying.

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Speaker 4: But one of the things written till then, one of

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Speaker 4: the things that really stands out to me was, I'm

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Speaker 4: listening to the things that you're saying. Baby number four,

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Speaker 4: I wore her for pretty much the first six months.

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Speaker 3: I remember that sling.

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Speaker 4: That changed everything. But then I had a cesaian with

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Speaker 4: baby number five and I couldn't wear her, and that

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Speaker 4: kind of, you know, changed things again. But baby number six,

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Speaker 4: she actually slept in the living room while I was

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Speaker 4: downstairs during the day, and then she slept in my

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Speaker 4: room at night times.

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Speaker 3: Our room room, Sancha's your room. Just was wondering.

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Speaker 4: I didn't wear her a lot. She actually didn't like

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Speaker 4: being in the sling, but she slept wherever I was,

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Speaker 4: and that had such a huge impact as well. She

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Speaker 4: was such a peaceful baby because she was just in

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Speaker 4: my space.

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Speaker 3: It's not funny that you've used the word peaceful with

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Speaker 3: that particular child. She was anything but peacefulness anyway. So

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Speaker 3: Carl's let's talk about this. What about in cases where

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Speaker 3: where there are triplets or quads or other situations where

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Speaker 3: routine really really matters. And I mean, you can see

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Speaker 3: the appeal with sleep training when you've got these kids multiples,

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Speaker 3: when you've got multiples, it's like, I just need routine,

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Speaker 3: I just need structure. How do you respond when people

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Speaker 3: bring that up to you.

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Speaker 2: Oh, it's absolutely and you can so see why the appeal.

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Speaker 2: Once again, the appeals there like we're human. That makes

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Speaker 2: so much sense. So don't get me wrong on that

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Speaker 2: for anybody listening along finding all of the appeal in that.

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Speaker 2: But the reality remains that you're dealing with small humans,

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Speaker 2: whole humans, so multiples. We've got families with multiples in

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Speaker 2: our group, and they do require unique support and care.

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Speaker 2: And a big thing that stands out here is that

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Speaker 2: our culture generally isn't set up well to provide the

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Speaker 2: kind of supports families actually deserve to be able to

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Speaker 2: parent their babes in the way that they actually need.

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Speaker 2: So while we're dealing in realities that aren't ideal, we

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Speaker 2: have to recognize that that's not on the babies. The

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Speaker 2: fact that they still need all of these things is

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Speaker 2: not actually any fault on their part. And so for

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Speaker 2: our families with multiples, often a big component is rallying

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Speaker 2: support crews. And the thing is is some kids thrive

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Speaker 2: on routines, but you will soon know if you've got

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Speaker 2: one of those kids because it's something you can actually achieve,

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Speaker 2: whereas other babies are more like boxes of chocolates and

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Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what you're going to do, you're never

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Speaker 2: going to know what you're going to get on any

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Speaker 2: given day. And in our families with multiples, it's quite

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Speaker 2: common for one or two babies to be relatively chill

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Speaker 2: and go with the flow and fall into somebody's routine,

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Speaker 2: and then there's usually a standout character who's going to

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Speaker 2: do it their own way always. And so for our families,

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Speaker 2: it's knowing that they have that flexibility to try things

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Speaker 2: out and know that these stages where it's really messy

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Speaker 2: and really intense do pass, because, for example, four months,

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Speaker 2: this is a really common time for people to be

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Speaker 2: freaking out about their baby and their sleep, and it

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Speaker 2: coincides with the time where they're still needing a fair

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Speaker 2: amount of day sleep, but it's starting to reduce a

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Speaker 2: little and they're waking up a lot at nighttime and whatnot,

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Speaker 2: and their intense needs are huge, and if you're imagining

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Speaker 2: that this is going to continue on for many months

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Speaker 2: to come, it's hard not to freak out, going, wow,

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Speaker 2: how is ever? Going to be okay, And yet in

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Speaker 2: actual reality, over those months, the number of naps reduces

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Speaker 2: naturally and all of those things, And so it's not

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Speaker 2: like any routine you nail is going to be the

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Speaker 2: routine that sticks through anyway. So it's having that understanding

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Speaker 2: it's okay to be flexible with it around what works.

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Speaker 3: For you that is the annoying thing about kids.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I know that just participating in this conversation and

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Speaker 4: having a dialogue around all of this has the potential

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Speaker 4: to just alleviate so much of the stress and guilt

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Speaker 4: that parents, especially new parents feel when they're kind of

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Speaker 4: juggling all of these things and thinking, why is my

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Speaker 4: baby not doing? What's you know, my best friend down

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Speaker 4: the roads babies doing. We had a baby friends of

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Speaker 4: ours who had a baby and literally slept through the

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Speaker 4: state of origin with ten adults in the room, like

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Speaker 4: going crazy. My baby never did that. But understanding that

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Speaker 4: we're all different and our babies are no different from that,

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Speaker 4: and that we can just be okay with what's going

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Speaker 4: on is so powerful. So I'm hopeful that this conversation

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Speaker 4: helps everybody as.

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Speaker 3: They wish we'd learn about it in the early days,

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Speaker 3: would have been so different for us. Yeah, seat of

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Speaker 3: baby number six.

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Speaker 4: If people are wanting more information, where can they go?

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Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for asking. So we have got a

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Speaker 2: free peer support group, which is the Beyond Soup Training

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Speaker 2: Project on Facebook. We just managed to get one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty thousand members last week. We've been celebrating and

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Speaker 2: we also run a charity called Little Sparklers where we're

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Speaker 2: trying to fill up that website with useful resources that

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Speaker 2: are evidence space written by experts for families. And we've

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Speaker 2: also launched the Beyond Sleep Training Podcast this year where

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Speaker 2: we're sharing real tales from real families so people can

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Speaker 2: actually really get a handle on how life can look

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Speaker 2: without sleep training in their family or if they're like

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Speaker 2: me and actually have sleep train in the past, and

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Speaker 2: how you can kind of move from there into finding

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Speaker 2: other ways of working sleep in your family.

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Speaker 3: Well, we'll make sure that we link to all of

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Speaker 3: those sites in the show notes. Karlie Grubb, founder managing director,

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Speaker 3: Little Sparklers and home to the Beyond Sleep Training Project,

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Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us.

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Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having me. It's great to get

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Speaker 2: the message out there.

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Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from

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Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and if

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Speaker 3: you'd like more and fo about making your family happier,

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Speaker 3: please visit happy families dot com. Do a you