Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome back to Since I Became a Mother, the podcast about the things that motherhood changes, the things no one warns you about, and where we figure out who we are becoming together. I'm your host, Taylor Rae Roman.
Speaker: Hello, and welcome back to Since I Became a Mother, the podcast about the things motherhood changes, the things no one warns you about, and the way that we are figuring it out together. I'm your host, Taylor Rae Roman.
Speaker: Friends, I'm so excited that you're here today because we're talking about a topic that I know you're gonna be obsessed with. I had so many endless worries when my son was a newborn. Not to say I don't still have endless worries about him, but i was like, is he crying too much? Is he breathing? Does he have reflux? Does he have colic? Is he allergic to something in my breast milk? Like I was freaking out all the time. And that is why I know you're probably freaking out all the time. And I'm so happy to have our guest today, Nilay Donmez. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me. So Dr. Nilay Donmez, just a little background for you guys. She's a triple board certified pediatrician in general pediatrics, the founder of First Steps Pediatrics in Tribeca. She has extensive training in pediatric medicine and and her current practice places a particular emphasis on early childhood preventative care, Parent education and the first 1000 days. So I know she's going to be just the perfect person to have this conversation with. I'm very excited. Yeah, I'm so excited because I think there's like, you just never end how many times you're Googling when you have a newborn. and
Speaker: The biggest question I feel like everyone is is asking themselves is like, is this normal? What's happening with my baby? So you have a very extensive medical background. First, I just want to start with how did you ultimately end up being a pediat having a pediatric practice focused so heavily on babies, young children and their families?
Speaker: Yeah, I realized that there was so much need for parental education, preventive medicine in the first couple of years of life. You really, majority of my families in New York City are away from their families, away from their village. And what happens is they're just left without really true guidance. And I realized that they were just looking at me as their pediatrician for every single question yeah that is normally answered by their extensive family, their community, which we really don't have it anymore. So I decided to start my practice and i all my families have my direct number so they can text me, call me anytime, including the weekends, everything. So I realized that they needed so much support, especially the first year of life. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. I love that. And I so resonate with that because I feel like I go to my pediatrician for everything.
Speaker: After working with so many new parents, what do you think first time parents worry about most that a pediatrician would consider completely normal? Yeah. So. They worry a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of things. And I usually give them a heads up saying that, you know, 99% the time, I will say that is normal, just a heads up. But because they have a lot of questions. um it is It is easier for them to just reach out to me instead of just Googling things or asking chat GPT. Yeah. yeah so Yeah. So let's get into some specifics.
Speaker: Newborns cry a lot. What is normal? What is not normal? I think the word colic gets thrown around a ton when we talk about babies. What does colic even mean? What is normal when it comes to crying?
Speaker: Yeah. So I would say, um let's talk about crying first, right? So what I see in my family every time their baby is crying, they they kind of want to interpret, why is my baby crying, right? But we need to remember babies cry sometimes for no reason. Sometimes they cry when they're hungry, when they are overstimulated, when they're understimulated, when they need your warmth, your proximity. So this is their only way of communicating with us, right? We have... Many languages, many, many words to express how we feel and what we need. Unfortunately, babies only have crying. yeah
Speaker: And not every crying really means they are in trouble or they're uncomfortable. um and talking about colic, colic basically, I mean, if you're really talking about true definition, it is um a rule of threes, meaning that a baby is crying at least approximately three hours per day, three days per week,
Speaker: three weeks in a row. So that is considered colic. um And parents use this term freely, but not every baby has a colic. Every baby cries. Some babies cry more than others. And not every excessively crying baby has an underlying medical condition. And one thing I teach my families is to understand crying curve. Babies in the first two weeks of life, they don't cry that much. I call this period honeymoon phase. Yeah.
Speaker: After two weeks, now your baby is, my Now your baby is um awake, they're crying more, and then this crying peaks around six weeks of life.
Speaker: This is actually when I start getting text messages like, oh, my God, Dr. Dahmer has helped me. Something is wrong with with my baby. I'm feeding her, changing her diaper, etc. They're still crying. And remember, after this peak of crying at six weeks, life starts getting better. After three months of life, we don't expect babies to cry excessively like they used to at six weeks of life. um So I think for families, understanding the normal newborn behavior, even before newborn gets here, is so important to prevent majority of the parental anxieties they're going to experience in the first months of life. Yeah, you're reminding me when my son, i was thinking like, okay, when he was six weeks old, what was going on? And we actually used to call it his crying time, which was like just randomly at some point during the day usually. And I'll get into like witching hour and sundown scaries because I think that comes to mind for a lot of parents. But around that time, he would just be crying. And I would like try and breastfeed him, try and soothe him, try and console him. And sometimes he was just like crying, crying, crying. And we'd be like, oh, no, it's his crying time. Like, this is it. And
Speaker: I was like, I feel like there's no reason. Like, there's literally nothing else that I can do. He just is crying. But as a new mom, it was like, I would always be crying because I was like, oh my God, it's just so sad to see like their little tiny newborn face. And so many newborns do like the exact like frown face and like his lip would quiver. And I was like, oh my gosh, he's so sad. But yeah, We're making it like we're interpreting it that way, but like he wasn't sad. He was just doing what babies do, I think. Yeah, he's doing his job. Yeah. He's crying. Which is like so stressful in the moment because you're trying so hard to figure out what's wrong and...
Speaker: as a new mom, your hormones are going insane, you're adjusting to this new period of life, your brain is melting, you haven't slept, you're freaking out about everything, and then your baby's screaming, and you're like, what can I do to make this stop? So just hearing, this is normal and it's gonna happen, like I think you want an answer because you want to try and make it stop. But what you just said, what was it called? The crying curve? Crying curve. Yeah. That seems like a really helpful point of reference. So to talk a little bit ah more about witching hour.
Speaker: What is there anything specific about that time of day of like why babies cry so much when the sun is coming down? Yeah, so we really don't know why babies have that. um Some babies cry excessively in the afternoon or early evening hours. um And there are a few things you can do to alleviate these symptoms. Obviously, when a baby is crying, you you have your list to go through, right?
Speaker: You know, do I need to change the diaper? Do I need to feed my baby? Do I need to burp my baby? Is my baby cold or is my baby sweating hot? So after you address all of these and if your baby is still crying, you know, she may just need your warmth, really. She may just need your smell.
Speaker: The first three months of life, we call it fourth trimester. You're Your baby really wants to be right by you, especially mother's smell, mother's voice, because yeah she is listening to you in the last couple of weeks or months of of your pregnancy. They can hear you. So they just want that familiar sound, familiar warmth. um And again, not not every crying really means something. um And that's why we have... ah ah while baby visits in the first couple of months of life, right? We we see you like every month, every two weeks. And um we do weight check. We do full examination just to make sure there's nothing underlying. So as long as your pediatrician is happy with your baby's growth and your her development, I think there's really not much to worry about. It's just the witching hours. Yeah. They have. For...
Speaker: me as the mom in the Experiencing Witching Hour, something that I always tell my friends, and I'm wondering what your thoughts would be, is like I had earplugs that weren't like 100% noise-canceling, obviously, but I had earplugs that would like muffle the noise, or I'd wear headphones and listen to like classical music or like something soothing, turn down the lights, turn off all my screens. Like my screens, I felt like just stressed me out, like trying to scroll while he was like crying was making my brain melt. And I would just try to like calm myself, even if he was freaking out crying. um And that's kind of what I always recommend to my friends. What do you think? What do you tell new parents? I agree. I mean, so a few things. So dimming the lights, quieting the noise, maybe after 7 p.m., you know, trying to create the day and night difference for babies. Because remember, babies really don't have that diurnal rhythm, which is
Speaker: which means they don't really understand the difference between day and night because they're not producing their own melatonin yet, which is usually produced after three months of life. So consider your newborn as in constant jet lag in the first couple of months of life and try to create a calmer nighttime routine. Again, like lower the voice, dim the lights. And the other thing is belly massages, infant belly massages, you know, put a little bit of coconut oil on their belly like very gentle massages or bicycle exercises you know creating that natural squat position or just doing chest to chest skin to skin which really decreases their cortisol level decreases their heart rate and respiratory rate decreases their so stress response and i think when nothing is really working um
Speaker: Taking a break, putting them in a safe place and just walking away for a minute or two for your mental health. I think that's really, really important. And reminding yourself that you're not really failing as a parent because, you know, mom guilt kicks in the moment you have your baby. You have this idea of my baby's crying. I'm not I'm doing everything and I'm failing as a mother because I'm not.
Speaker: you know responding to their needs. And that is not true. And what I see in my families, right? So most of the time, the family unit that comes to me in Manhattan is two professionals, one mom and one dad or whatever, two two partners. taking care of a baby and um they were not supposed to do this. You know, 200 years ago, you had your village, you had your aunt, your older sibling, your mother, everybody was kind of like close to each other and helping you out. Now you guys as ah as an isolated nuclear family trying to take care of an infant, especially now you're like working, like you're trying to juggle multiple things. It's just not easy. So maternal mental health is really important when it comes to this. For sure. Because I think while searching for the answers about why your newborn is doing this or that is, yeah, of course, you're making sure that they're safe and healthy. it also is just about like trying to quiet your own anxiety because, yeah, as a new parent, you're just freaking out all the time. You're like, I'm keeping this baby alive 24-7 forever. Like it feels like forever. Obviously, they grow up, but it doesn't.
Speaker: Feel like that in the moment you're like forever. i have to do this and it's so hard So I love that you mentioned maternal mental health because obviously that's also just such a key point to all of this conversation um Something you mentioned about like belly massage and doing bicycles and that kind of gets into my next question which is That new parents talk constantly about their babies being gassy. Mm-hmm So are babies actually experiencing as much gas as we think they are? What actually helps? How do you know? Like my son, for example, I've never burped him in his life. He's 16 month old now, so he's like not being burped. But when he was a newborn,
Speaker: I exclusively breastfed and I never burped him once. He just would like burp on his own farting up a storm. And burping wasn't something i was like worried about. And I didn't feel like he was gassy. But then I have friends that are like, oh, no, I have to spend like so much time trying to get my baby to burp. So our baby's this gassy. What's happening? Yeah, there's so much to explore there. So.
Speaker: Starting with burping, burping is such a um great tradition, I would say, but it is really not evidence-based. So there are very few studies that are done in babies. And actually one study that was done in burping babies versus non-burping babies And they realize that burping does not decrease the colic symptoms, does not decrease crying. And actually it may increase the regurgitation symptoms, which is, you know, reflux. um and And remember, breastfed babies actually swallow less air. So if your baby is breastfed and they're looking comfortable you may even not need to burp but if your baby is breastfed if they're swallowing a lot of air if you feel like they're uncomfortable and burping helps them that no that's fine that's that's going to be okay but i just want families to be okay sometimes baby is not going to burp i don't want you to spend an hour 3 a.m try to get a burp out of them yeah And I understand that babies look really uncomfortable, but not every uncomfortable look means gas. Because what happens is, you know, they look at the baby's face, the baby's turning red, purple, screaming, they look like they're in pain. And then they pass a gas and families are like, oh my God, my baby has gas problem. My baby has a GI problem. I need to see a GI specialist. I'm sure my baby is...
Speaker: allergic to something in my milk, maybe the cow's milk, maybe I should go off of cow's milk or this and that. or if baby is formula fed, then now they're switching from one formula to the next every week, every two weeks. It's just, it becomes really chaotic. I would say there are a few things. So babies are of course gassy. They're producing a lot of gas and poop and it is natural because in the first couple of months of life, they're doubling their birth weight. So imagine from now to four months from now, Imagine you're doubling your weight right now. How much food you need to consume, how much gas it would produce and et cetera. So babies are gassy, but again, the uncomfortable look in their face is not coming from the gas all the time. And-
Speaker: you know, when parents are exhausted, tired, trying to look for an answer, yeah they become the perfect target for marketing. yeah Then the next thing you you see, you have this algorithm that is pushing you things like, you know, your pediatrician might have said it's normal, but it is not. You need to buy this product. You need to come to my practice. Your baby needs adjustment. Right. So like then you see a lot of marketing, but unfortunately, majority of them,
Speaker: they're not evidence-based. yeah I would say one thing that is actually showing good promise is probiotics, particularly the strain of lactobacillus rotary. That's the only really um supplement we have that show that is that has shown significant improvement in infant crying up to an hour a day, particularly breast fated in breastfed infants. Oh, wow. yeah So cool. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Wow. I feel like that was super helpful. and for all the parents that are, again, it's like, I totally understand, especially because I was just there, the impulse to look for the reason why.
Speaker: Like you think if I find the reason why i can solve it and then my baby will stop crying and then I will sleep and then i will like have peace and then like on and on, like just things will be easier. So I totally understand the impulse looking for the reason why, but I think,
Speaker: What I've learned as a mom is, and it's exactly what you're saying as a pediatrician, is like sometimes there is no thing, there's nothing to solve. It's just babies being babies, which like it sucks as an answer, but like it's just babies being babies sometimes. yeah So I think, yeah. and Kind of going back a little bit just to clarify for anyone listening and also for myself, colic, people, you colic is usually tied to gas. Like, is that what colic means that the baby's gassy? don't really know. No, I mean, it's really, it is...
Speaker: It is reported to be correlated by many people, but scientifically speaking, we really don't know. It's just that rule of threes is what colic actually like is defined by. Yeah. On a day-to-day basis, as it's just a baby that is excessively crying, like just so much for no reason. Yeah.
Speaker: So back to some of the topics that we constantly hear parents talk about. We talked about colic a little bit. We talked about witching hour a little bit. Something else that I constantly hear is about reflux. And you got into a little bit of like how burping might even cause potentially a little bit more reflux. But overall, what does infant reflux look like?
Speaker: When do we know that there's a problem? And then what can be done about it? Sure. So when we talk about reflux, we first need to differentiate ah between reflux versus reflux disease. So me as as a pediatrician, I am concerned about reflux disease. That's what I treat. Reflux is just part of a daily life. I always say, you know, 40% of babies have reflux because they have so many reasons to have reflux, right? They're constantly in a horizontal position. their food is not solid, their food is liquid. They have a very immature um GI system, so whatever they're eating is kind of coming back up a little bit, sometimes partially, sometimes fully.
Speaker: And if they're just doing what we call happy spitter, know, i'm spitting up and just like goes back to being her cute self, that's that's fine. I'm not concerned about that. That's why I call this, you know, reflux is not a medical problem, it's a laundry problem. so I love that. so So true too. Yeah. So as long as, ah you know, a baby is gaining weight, looking well in my exam, I'm not really worried about it. What I'm worried about is if your baby is not gaining weight, if your pediatrician is not happy with the weight gain, or if your baby is refusing the the boob or the bottle, now we have a problem, or your baby is...
Speaker: pretty much doing arching and looking looking like they're in pain at every feeding, that's then that's when we need to talk about what we can do. And unfortunately, reflux symptoms and milk protein allergy symptoms kind of overlap. So it's your pediatrician's job to differentiate between the two and tell you what you need to do. It could be that um you know you may come off of milk products, eggs, soy, if your baby has milk protein allergy, if that doesn't work, your pediatrician might actually start some medication for reflux, which is, again, very, very rare.
Speaker: Majority of the time when parents think that their baby has a reflux problem, it's not a problem. It's just the way the baby is. yeah It's a non-problem problem, basically. got it. Yeah.
Speaker: um One of the hardest decisions as a new parent is, do I call the pediatrician, wait until morning, go to urgent care, go to the go to the ER? r So what framework should parents use to make that decision? Because i'm i mean, I'm even thinking back to my son's first fever and immediately I called my pediatrician. She recommended that we go to the ER. r So that was kind of like,
Speaker: a no-brainer like I called her she said we should go to the ER r so that's what we did but thankfully everything was totally fine but we went there and like I was happy to just actually be somewhere that they could see him but then you know now I was actually just telling you this before we started recording my son had hand foot and mouth hate that for me luckily it wasn't that bad but I didn't go to the pediatrician because I just monitored his symptoms his fever was super low He was still eating and drinking. He was still happy. And then the symptoms kind of passed and resolved on their own. But especially, i mean, he's 16 months now. So rewind it to when he was really tiny.
Speaker: i don't know that I would have felt confident enough to be at home with him and like just monitor. So what do you tell new parents? Like, what should they really be thinking about when it comes to when to call you, when to go to the yeah ER, r like what they should do. Right.
Speaker: So um honestly, my practice setup is a bit different. So my patients just text me whenever they have a question. And I always tell families that are not my patients, like when in doubt, call your pediatrician to be on the safe side. But in your case, for example, yes, fever,
Speaker: is a medical emergency in the first three months of life. Because their immune system is very immature, we don't really know what they're dealing with when they have a fever, especially the first round of vaccines are given at two months. so Before then, you know, your baby is so immature, so it's always... um fever under 90 days emergency room so probably that's why your pediatrician sent you to the yeah er but after that fever is really just part of life unless you have fever for five days or more or your baby is looking ill your baby is not drinking um the other thing is really um obviously seizures or breathing problems so those are more ah emergency situations but um
Speaker: it's It's really hard to differentiate, really. So that's why I went in doubt really calling your pediatrician because your pediatrician or their nurse some in some clinics, ah they will be the ones who will be triaging this because, you know, you guys don't have the pediatric training. So ah the the safest thing would be calling your pediatrician.
Speaker: um But again, fever, once your baby's three months old, fever in a happy looking baby, that that's that's not really concerning. I think the majority of that could be handled in a pediatric office instead of ER. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, love that. um And kind of around the same topic, which is what are symptoms in a newborn or young infant that you never want parents to wait and see? So I know you mentioned, especially in the first 90 days when it comes to fever, is there anything else that if you see it in a newborn or i i feel like newborn and then you can say if there's anything in like older babies or toddlers, anything that you see that you're like immediately go to the ER r or immediately call your pediatrician. Like we don't want to just wait. and see Repetitive vomiting is one of them. and I'm not talking about one, just projectile vomiting. One off, that's fine. Maybe, you know, something is happening. Maybe your baby ate too much, whatever. But repetitive vomiting, like three, four times in a row to a point that maybe you start seeing some green vomiting, right? The bilious vomiting. That's something we are really concerned about. The other one is breeding. Breeding in children is, um is
Speaker: Very, very important because, you know, kids kids are notorious to develop severe symptoms in terms of breathing in ah such a short period of time. So when your baby is making extreme sounds like croupy sounds or if your baby is...
Speaker: Breathing in an uncomfortable way or breathing so fast to a point that she can't even properly breastfeed or bottle feed. Those are um red flags that you need to go to ER. Not even wait for an appointment with your pediatrician. Yeah. um Just straight to ER, I would say. Yeah. and back to what you were saying about fever. is it important that...
Speaker: parents are taking their baby's temperature with a rectal thermometer versus any other kind? The first three months of life, the gold standard for fever is rectal temperature. yeah Beyond that, because it's not an emergency anymore, that's fine. You don't have to use rectal because it it is really uncomfortable, let's be honest, to do the rectal temperature. um But beyond that, you can use just you know regular thermometers.
Speaker: I remember being so shocked because I was like, oh, my God, my baby is going so uncomfortable. And I feel like he didn't even notice when I would take his temperature. I was like, oh, he's super fine. He doesn't care about this. um OK, that was so helpful. Is there anything else that you we have like ah some recurring questions that I'm going to get into in a second. but is there anything else that you feel like as someone that sees so many families, you're like, this is what I'd really want the new parents to keep in mind when it comes to the health of their baby? Yes. Thank you for asking me that question. Because, you know, as a pediatrician in Manhattan, majority like majority of my pi families are very well educated. They have resources to buy any gadget they need. So many gadgets. Yes. I have many. I'm going to ask you about them actually right after this. That's true. And what I see, because, you know, like pregnant women join my practice um proactively because of I also I also give like education towards what to do in newborn phase even before baby arrives. So that's really helpful. um And what I see my parents do is they're buying all these gadgets, all these fancy things and just but not really doing enough prep for normal newborn behaviors. What happens is they have all these beautiful things, but the newborn arrives, every little thing the newborn does becomes an emergency for them. And now they have anxiety, they're texting me, calling me. So um I prefer meeting with the pregnant expecting families and educating them about normal newborn behavior. so What parents can do is maybe they can read a book like, you know, um what to expect in the first year type of books. Or if your pediatrician is giving you like you know, like a course before your baby arrives, that that would be great. Or your doula maybe will...
Speaker: train you, you know, about normal newborn behavior or just start following pediatricians online and get educated. And I say specifically pediatricians because I really want medical advice to come from medical professionals yeah because there's so much misinformation. so Yeah, guys, are you hearing that? Yeah. I would say half of my job is pediatrics and half of my job is really um correcting the misinformation that families got before meeting me. So and that's that's really helpful. And...
Speaker: What I see, I think this is happening, like families are not familiar with the normal newborn behavior because again, this goes back to that village I was describing, right? We don't have that village anymore. And majority of my first time parents are between age 35 to 45 because I'm in Manhattan, right? So my my families are having babies older. So what happens is the first time ever they're they' seeing a newborn is when they're 35 versus back in the day, you know, they would have a lot of aunts, cousins, they would be taking care of each other's babies and they would be more like familiar with the normal newborn behavior. But now this is the first time they're meeting a newborn and every simple thing a newborn does becomes a problem for them. And that increases anxiety. That makes so much sense even when i see so much content people being like, did you know newborns make so many sounds when they sleep like that's crazy. And i my oldest niece actually shared a bedroom with me when I was like 14. So when she was a baby, she slept right next to me. And I remember hearing all the sounds she made, but I was like 14. So I would sleep through it like I was a kid. And like, it was not a big deal to me. So when I had my son, I was like, oh my God, I remember this. But exactly what you said, if I had never been around newborns, I would have not known any of anything. I still didn't know a lot, but some things I remembered. so that's such a great point. And yeah, I've had so many gadgets. I've had many a gadget. And like we had a monitor that was on my son and it would do like false alarms and it would...
Speaker: I would ascend to another dimension where that alarm would go off and like jump out of my skin. Yeah, hate hated that experience. um But I, yeah, we've had every single gadget. But really, I did read a book that was like the first year of you know, what to kind of expect. I forget what book it is, but I'll put in the show notes. I'll i'll look it up for you guys and put it in the show notes. um And I remember one thing that I read was about... how newborns and babies get so many like rashes and how there's like so many rashes that are harmless. And having that knowledge was so helpful to me as my son was in those first few weeks and he had like baby acne and he had this and he had like a little rash and a little eczema. And I was like, oh, this is normal. yeah My book said it was normal. yeah My pediatrician obviously said it was normal. yeah But having...
Speaker: I said this one of my recent episodes too. There's nothing like reading a book. There's nothing like reading a book compared to all the other ways we can get information. Like you retain so much of it. So I love that you gave that advice because being able to kind of you I mean, you can't really, there's so much you can't prepare for as a new parent, but like having an idea of like, okay, babies cry. They're going to cry. They're going to wake up.
Speaker: They're going to eat all, ah maybe more often than you might think, especially if you're breastfeeding. um Like I never even heard the term cluster feeding. And I was like, oh, this is insane.
Speaker: This is forever. This is what breastfeeding is. But yeah. Luckily, my pediatrician was super supportive. She was like, no, it's not like this forever. It's okay. But having an idea, i think, is so helpful.
Speaker: So I love that you said that. yeah um Let's get into some recurring questions that I ask all of my guests, which is, since you started working with mothers, what do you understand about motherhood now that you didn't before as a pediatrician?
Speaker: Hmm. I would say, you know, I get kind of similar questions around this because, you know, sometimes families ask me, since you became a pediatrician, do you want to be a mom more or less? did it affect you? And, you know, I would say, you know, I love babies, but being a pediatrician, taking care of thousands of new families with their newborns made me realize how hard it is.
Speaker: Because, you know, when you look from afar to a baby, they look so cute, adorable. I just want to hold them. And, you know, but when you are in it, you realize this is a 24-7 job. You have a dependent for life. Yeah. And it's it's high responsibility, high reward, I'm sure. ah It's just not easy. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. No, that's so true. And i feel like I could have never actually understood how insane it was until I was like in it.
Speaker: And I mean, you intimately get to see all of these families experience it. So that makes a lot of sense. What is something that mothers worry about that you wish they could give themselves permission to stop worrying about?
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: I would say there is always this, i would say, I mean, especially moms have mom guilt. I don't see a lot of dads having dad guilt, but I would see you know newborns come in with mom and dad and mom usually is the first one crying and feeling like my milk is not enough, my baby is eating a lot. And I'm like, no, it's the you know cluster feeding. It doesn't mean that your milk is enough. You're enough, you're doing a good job.
Speaker: And I think it's the hormones and just like being postpartum, it's it's really not easy. um So I think they need to take a deep breath and Just remember, like, this is not an easy job and they're doing their best. And majority of the inefficiencies or insufficiency they're feeling is really a perception. they're just Their perception is that they're not doing a good job, but they're actually doing a good job. Yeah. The fact that they are worried about not being a good mom is the fact that they're a good mom. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: Yeah. And lastly, what would you say to the mother listening right now who feels like she's the only one struggling with some of the topics that we covered today? Oh, thank you for asking me that because this is exactly what I tell my parents because they bring their newborn or at six weeks they would text me like my baby is nonstop crying, having reflux, colic, because they're feeling like this baby is doing this. Therefore, my baby has the problem. And I'm like, no, no, no. This is exactly how everybody else is struggling.
Speaker: And it's not that your baby has a medical condition. um So I would just say, you know, you're not alone. A lot of other families are going through this. And if you look at Instagram, yeah, you just see happy moms and lovely babies never crying. It's just not true let me tell you even i look at my own camera roll and i see pictures of my son sleeping and i'm like gaslighting myself i'm like what like when did he ever see sleep in this bassinet during the day with no swaddle in the pure sunlight i'm like he must have been asleep for actually 10 seconds when i took this picture because this is fake and like it's literally i took the picture of my own son and i'm like who is this baby? like He never did this. like We did contact naps for a thousand years, it felt like, when he was a newborn. And somehow I have pictures of him sleeping in a bassinet and I'm like, sir, you never slept in that. Like what? So I totally agree with like what you see online, even what I see in my own camera roll is not really how it is. Every parent is going through it. Every parent is freaking out, wondering if what their baby's doing is normal. So I love the reassurance you were able to give that like, it's normal and babies are going to be babies.
Speaker: yeah Babies are going to cry They probably don't have colic. They probably don't have reflux disease. They might have a little reflux, but they probably don't have reflux disease. yeah, You know, even though they're making like red and purple faces when they're pooping, it's probably fine. Yeah, it's called infant dyskigia, by the way, that red purple face that freaks parents out. yeah It's called infant dyskigia. That's another really common question I get, by the way, before we finish. I want to explain that. Basically, babies, you know, passing a gas or like pooping is actually a very complex yeah task. So they need to...
Speaker: understand how to coordinate their intra-abdominal muscles and their pelvic muscles. And imagine they're doing that while they're laying on their back instead of like squatting position. So it's a really complex task. They turn red, purple, they're screaming and a lot of families are thinking my baby is constipated. No, they're not constipated. As long as the poop is coming out soft, they're not constipated. That's another thing. Sometimes they poop once once a day, sometimes once in a few days. That's also okay. We don't really...
Speaker: classify constipation in babies by time or frequency, we just look at the poop. As long as the poop is soft, you're good. Your baby's good. Infant dyskiesia, they will grow out of it.
Speaker: So yeah, another thing that you're freaking out about, it's okay. Your baby's just making a purple face because if they don't know how to poop. yeah They're learning how. yeah Thank you so much. um I mean, I don't have a newborn anymore, but I feel a lot calmer. I feel reassured that my baby's okay. I hope you you guys feel reassured. Also, where can people find you? where they Where can they keep up with you? And where can they find your practice? Sure. So my practice is located in Tribeca, Manhattan. It's called First Steps Pediatrics.
Speaker: And ah my Instagram is doctor4kids. It's D-O-C-T-O-R-F-O-R-K-I-D-S. And I'll put it in the show notes too, guys. Thanks so much for having me here. Thanks so much. See you guys in the next one. Thanks so much for listening. If you loved this episode, if something resonated with you, if you learned something that you think is interesting or amazing, make sure you share this with another mom that you know.
Speaker: All of the links for today's episode will be in the show notes, my social channels, any info about our guests, any links, products, or resources that we mentioned will all be there for you. i hope to see you in the next one released every Tuesday.
Speaker: Before I was a mother, i barely noticed mothers and now they're all I see. I see you.
