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“You Really Want To Talk About Sleep Training!?”
9.2k Plays4 months ago
In this episode, Jess and Scott dive deep into the challenges of infant and toddler sleep and parenting through sleep deprivation. Jess opens up about her struggles as a new mom trying to follow rigid sleep training rules and how she eventually found a more attuned, connection-based approach.
In the episode, Jess and Scott discuss:
- The pitfalls of strictly following sleep training methods without considering your child's unique needs.
- How postpartum anxiety can fuel obsession over sleep schedules.
- Mindset shifts that can help parents cope better with nighttime wakings.
- Why attunement and trusting your parental instincts is so important.
Listeners will gain valuable insights on finding a balance between sleep strategies and responding to their child's needs, as well as practical tips for staying calm during those long nights. This raw and honest conversation is a must-listen for any parent struggling with sleep issues.
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here.
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Transcript
Introduction and a Sleep Query
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Robot Unicorn. We are so glad that you are here. As always, let's start the show with a question from Scott.
00:00:15
Speaker
Are you ready for my question? Mm-hmm. All right. So I was on a bike ride with my buddy on the weekend. OK. And we were talking about ah sleep struggles and how challenging the first little bit of when you first have a baby and sometimes for a couple of years, it's like that. And I was explaining to him that I felt like you have a bit of a superpower when it comes to sleep. Because for whatever reason, you can survive. Like, it seems as though easily. I'm sure that it's not. But it seems like you can survive very easily on next to no sleep for days on end. Versus for me, that's impossible. Yeah. So my question is, how do you do it?
Sleep Deprivation Experiences
00:00:58
Speaker
Yeah, good question. It's a bit facetious, but... No, it's a good question. It's ah legitimately you are weirdly good with almost no sleep. But was I always like that? I think so. Like even through university, you're working all the time and like you would work until after midnight, come home and then get up and be ready for work at like six or seven in the morning again. Yeah. Whereas I feel like I can do that, but for a maximum of let's say three days. And then after that, I am just like, you're ill.
00:01:29
Speaker
Yeah, I get sick or I am just incredibly irritable. So, like, legitimately, ah I feel as though people would be interested in knowing how to do it. Because they may not even know that you are that good at that. Yeah, I feel like if I talk to my personal friends, it's the question that always comes up. It's like, how do you... Yeah, you're honestly weirdly good at having no sleep, so... Yeah, so, like, I asked you, do you feel like I was always like that? I don't feel like I was always like that, especially in parenthood. Like I feel like, yeah, okay, in university I got by on not that much sleep. But I remember when we first had a baby that was the biggest struggle that I had was not sleeping. And the other thing was my postpartum anxiety was completely fixated on yeah how we were going to get our daughter to sleep. Yeah, that's true. She did not sleep well. And I remember feeling like not sleeping through the night was going to be the end of the world.
00:02:20
Speaker
Right. But don't see too much of a difference between our first daughter and our second daughter in terms of like the sleep that you had. But I feel like the second one, I was fine. Yeah. You kind of dealt with it. No problem. So yeah, but the first, yeah, true. The first one was definitely a struggle. That's why I wanted to bring that up because yeah between the three kids, they all were not good sleepers. Yeah, not at first. Not at first. Now they are for the most part. Yeah. Except for last night. Except for last night. Scott and I are coming onto this episode about sleep deprivation and how to cope with it. Literally we both had terrible, terrible nights of sleep last night. That's pretty like, honestly, relatively rare at this point. It was just a weird fluke of a night where two of the kids were awake.
00:03:02
Speaker
Yeah, so to go back to what we were saying, when we had our first daughter, my postpartum anxiety was completely fixated around sleep, sleep schedules, how long she would sleep for, how much sleep I would get that night, getting a certain amount of sleep. Like I just remember all I could think about was sleep. And I definitely did not have the mindset that I have now. And it was incredibly difficult. So I just feel like off the top, we have to say that sometimes your mental health and sleep are just so tied together.
Advice for New Moms on Sleep and Mental Health
00:03:29
Speaker
I think for me, Sometimes I feel like all the time, well all the time they're tied together. yeah But I think for me as a new mom, if there's a new mom listening to it and you feel like you're just completely stuck on sleep, I just want to identify like I've been there. I know how that feels. And I'm so far removed from that now. And I'll share some of the tools and some of the tips that have really helped me get into a better space of sleep.
00:03:51
Speaker
because you say like you're so good at being up in the middle of the night, you're so good at coping with it. I feel like I just have so many tools in my toolbox now that I pull from when I'm awake in the middle of the night or when the kids wake up. Plus, I have the temperament that allows me to- Yeah, I think that's a big thing. It's a big thing. Because for me, like it's still not something that I can handle at all. Right. Yeah. You do very poorly with no sleep, but maybe you can take that's always been how I am. Maybe you can take some of the tools away from me today. yeah maybe This might be a good learning lesson for me as well. Yeah, exactly.
Mindset Tools for Sleep Deprivation
00:04:25
Speaker
Cause I do feel like there's also a piece that because you've never really been able to tolerate waking up at night, like you just can't function on no sleep. very well at all. I always kind of have taken the brunt of like the night wakings for the most part because I can handle it better. But I feel like you also haven't had a chance to really implement some of the tools that I use for myself. Yeah. So maybe, maybe there's something that you'll learn today and take away. Okay. Yep.
00:04:51
Speaker
And then tonight you can take all the night wakings. Just kidding. Scott actually is pretty good at waking up in the night with the kids if they need you. yeah Like last night our middle daughter was in bed kicking you, yeah stroking nice stroking your face. oh yeah It was the most loving yeah and the most annoying. Yeah. So and we both handle night wakings, but anyway, how did I get from, I think being a really, really anxious first time mom around sleep to being able to tolerate waking up in the
Coping Strategies for Night Wakings
00:05:20
Speaker
night? There's a couple of things that really helped me. First, I think just adjusting to it was big, right? So when I was pregnant, I would sleep for 10 hours a night, 12 hours a night sometimes, like I was very tired in pregnancy. So we were used to getting a certain amount of sleep. while there was that and you were also on bed rest like for four months of that pregnancy too. So I'm sure that made you more lethargic. Yeah, I was used to just having a lot of rest during the day and then you have a baby and the baby
00:05:51
Speaker
naturally it doesn't sleep very well. I think part of the anxiety and the anger, the rage that I would feel at bedtime was because everything I was reading was telling me your baby is capable of sleeping six hours at a time or your baby can go to bed drowsy but not awake. And so I think in my head, then I had these rules, right? I'm not going to rock her to sleep because babies should go to bed drowsy and awake. That will help them sleep better. But then our daughter would never go to bed drowsy, but awake. So I was following every sleep rule. And then of course, babies don't follow sleep rules. Toddlers don't follow sleep rules. So I got hyper fixated on these rules and then our child wasn't doing the rule. And I was so afraid to rock her to sleep because they didn't want to make a bad habit or breastfeed her to sleep. All the things that felt like they would be most natural to me. So I think part of the anxiety that I felt and that many parents feel around sleep is following these rigid rules, these rigid schedules, hoping that she would sleep better and then she didn't. And then it was the baby that was the problem in my mind at the time, right?
00:06:53
Speaker
She's a bad sleeper. And the first question everybody always asks you is, how does the baby sleep? You know, is it a good baby? And being a good baby is defined by how they sleep at night. And so what am I supposed to say? Yeah, she's a bad baby. She's up every 45 minutes. So i I think that that's where a lot of parents struggled. That piece of it is a mindset thing. So one of the things that has really helped me be able to cope better at night is changing my mindset towards night wakings. And this is not going to solve all your problems. But one of the things that I would spiral on was when I would wake up in the middle of the night, I would tell myself, You're never going to sleep again. You're not going to be able to function tomorrow. No matter what happens tomorrow, like you have to go to work and you're not going to be able to keep your eyes open. You're going to be grumpy and I would start spiraling on all these messages. And then I get so angry. Like I can't cope because tomorrow's going to suck and then the next day is going to suck and I'm not going to be able to tolerate it.
00:07:45
Speaker
So I started really changing my mindset towards the night wakings. So I would tell myself things like, if you can't sleep right now, you can just rest. And so even last night in the middle of the night, I had the worst night of sleep I've had in months last night, like really, really bad. And I was sitting in the rocking chair with our toddler and she was awake for whatever reason, not sure still. Yep. And she's babbling in my ear and I just felt that rage boiling up in my body. Like I have a full day of work tomorrow. I'm supposed to record a podcast tomorrow. How am I gonna do all this on no sleep? And I just try calming my brain and say, it's okay Jess, even if you can't sleep, you can rest.
00:08:21
Speaker
rest is important too. And I try and tell myself those messages. Another message I'll tell myself is we don't need to make a change in the middle of the night. It's 2 a.m. And I think this is where a lot of parents will start sleep training their kids. And I know that you've felt this way too in the middle of the night before where your kids woken up and they're not sleeping very well. It's 2 a.m. you're like Fine. You could just cry then, right? Like you just become so enraged that you're like, fine, I'll just leave you. If you're not going to listen to me, then just deal with it. And what I tell myself is when I have those thoughts come up, it's very conscious thinking process. It's like, I'm having the thought that I just want to slam the door and leave this child because I'm so angry that they're not going to sleep. I don't make changes for how I deal with sleep at two a at two AM. m My job is just to provide comfort and be there for her. If I need to take a break, I can.
00:09:12
Speaker
but we don't make a change for our sleep schedules at 2 a
Debating Sleep Training Methods
00:09:15
Speaker
.m. And that has also really helped me. And anytime that we have, like we've had to make changes for their sleep before, and we've had to make plans and readjust what we do for sleep, but I do that in the morning, not at 2 a.m. So to your question, I mean, there's so many different things I do, but the one, the biggest thing, and it sounds maybe floofy, but once you really start trying to change those thought processes around night wakings, the mindset shift has been the single biggest thing for me in the middle of the night. To be honest, I didn't know that second one. No? No. Yeah. In the morning. That is my role for myself. Yeah. Like I will never. I wish I would have known that one.
00:09:50
Speaker
See, I told you you might learn something. I did learn something new today. So I have that mindset. I also tell myself consistently when I'm up in the middle of the night, sun will come back out and you will feel better in the morning. Like you feel in the middle of the night, the world is ending. You feel heat in your body. You feel like I have to yell. I have to scream like rage. Rage comes out. And I know people may or may not believe it, but I do feel rage in the middle of the night. Really? Even last night. I felt it. I felt it in my body like I felt so Frustrated because I was up for hours and I knew I had a big day today But I just kept telling myself the Sun is going to come out tomorrow morning Even if you've only had three hours of sleep, you will feel better. This night is not going to last forever You just have to get through it. We don't make a change
00:10:34
Speaker
And if tonight goes terrible again, which I don't think it will, I think it was a one-off thing, yeah then tomorrow morning, I'll be like, okay, Scott, we need to make a change. We need to figure out, get curious about what's going on. Cause this is not going to work long-term for me, but I don't make that change it to it. Okay. So can we go back to, you're talking about like sleep training and babies don't follow the rules and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But doesn't like the research that's out there kind of suggest that on average they do. Like if you follow what sleep trainers will tell you, don't they kind of follow those rules at some point? So like, I guess my question to you is why shouldn't we
00:11:10
Speaker
use the fervor method or cry it out or whatever, all those those different methods to get your baby to sleep, if maybe they will sleep six hours a night then. So, I mean, you want to get into sleep training? yeah Sure. Yeah. I think that we can get into that discussion. There's just so... I think it's related. It's related. Yeah. There's so many things. Cause we're at a point now where we were up last night, but it was kind of a one-off thing that we haven't had in a long time. Right. But when we had each of the kids, when they were infants, they were definitely up a lot. Right. So.
00:11:43
Speaker
And absolutely we made changes to help them sleep better. yeah I think the issue with the rules comes into place when we expect a baby to do something because we created this rule that this is how they fall asleep. So for example, the one that I was so stuck on as a new mom was drowsy but awake, putting them down drowsy awake. And to me, as a new mom, I read it all all over Pinterest and I was like, Pinterest is where I would search things because Instagram wasn't really a thing back then for baby sleep help. And I was like, this one rule is going to fix my sleep struggles. And I didn't look at the big picture. And I think that's where we get, it's black and white. And we've talked about that before on lots of different episodes. We get really stuck on like this black and white rule that if I put my child down drowsy but awake, that's going to solve all my issues. And it didn't because I wasn't looking at the whole picture. Right, but I feel like isn't that sort of a limited view of what I see this quote-unquote sleep training experts say about sleep training your your baby? Because it's like, yeah, okay, drowsy but awake, wake windows. Yeah. I'm sure there's other things too, like well-fed or something before, like there's a bunch of different things altogether. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was saying, I was hyper-fixated on this one role, and I wasn't looking at the whole picture.
00:12:58
Speaker
There's just so many pieces to bring into this discussion. Like first off, we have to look at the mental health of parents and we have to look at the wellbeing of a child. You have to look at both, the relationship. How is the relationship doing with the sleep that's happening right now? Why? Because we want to always be taking care of parents. So let's say we have a mom who is solo parenting all the time, who has another child at home who's so exhausted, she can barely function. She's depressed. She's not getting any sleep where baby's up every 45 minutes. Right? Like this mom's going to need to make a change in order to sleep well. But we also want to look at the wellbeing of the baby. And I think a lot of times we look at some of these sleep training methods. For example, the one that we used when our daughter was young, which I would never recommend, which is extinction. And so the extinction method is basically you make sure that they're well fed. You look at their wake time, you do a little routine, and then you put them in their crib and you walk away and wait till they fall asleep.
00:13:55
Speaker
And we did that and I have big regrets about doing that. I have compassion on myself because I understand that I was so anxious and so and sleep deprived and didn't have a great mindset around sleep that that's what I felt I had to do in order to become mentally well. And I wish that I had other options that were provided to me. The extinction method, like you talk about research. Sure, like we can look at research on the extinction method or the Ferber method, and it will show that it's effective in getting your child to sleep. Because if we just
Emotional Toll and Environmental Factors
00:14:25
Speaker
specifically look at behavior, like the behavior change that happens, it will happen. Like the behavior change will happen. You're not attending to your child's needs. You're leaving them in their crib and they're crying.
00:14:35
Speaker
they're going to eventually learn that their caregiver is not coming back and they're going to stop crying. That doesn't mean they're going to stop waking up. That doesn't mean that it's the best thing for the child. And that's what I'm trying to say. Like we need to hold both in mind. So when we were doing the extinction training for our oldest daughter, there was times when she would be crying in there for what, 30, 40 minutes and screaming. And I look back on that and I am so sad for us that that is the only option we felt that we had. And I remember I did the research and the research showed me at the time, this is the best approach because it's the quickest way to get them to sleep through the night. And that's why we did it because we believe that research said it. Now looking back, I'm like, yeah, but I was looking at research specifically on this one behavioral change. I wasn't looking at how that might impact our child.
00:15:21
Speaker
And it's really hard to say whether or not that had an impact on her long term, but I know it had an impact on us. And the impact it had on us was, it was incredibly stressful and difficult to hear your baby crying. And it led to like a mismatch in our attunement with our baby. Because you had me like a breastfeeding mom of a very little baby. Like she was young at the time because yeah Also, people were like, oh, it's fine. You can do this at 12 weeks old or whatever it was. And we're sitting outside the door, like crying. And there's this feeling in my body of like, all I want to do is go in and nurse her to sleep. But because I had that rule of she has to go down awake, I never allowed myself to nurse her to sleep. So it was going against like this feeling in my body that told me just pick up your baby, rock her, nurse her to sleep. And I never even gave myself the chance to see if maybe she would fall asleep and sleep well if I was nursing her.
00:16:12
Speaker
So that's where I'm saying like the rules come up and the research gets a little murky, right? Cause like what research are we looking at? Are we specifically looking at behavior and are we looking at the impact that this has in the level of attunement towards the parent and the child? What does attunement mean? Attunement is the way that we can basically tune in with the needs of our child, right? So there's this feeling in your body as a parent and I had it, you had it too. When your child's crying of like, I want to help meet their needs. I want to figure out what's going on for them, right? So I want to change their diaper. I want to rock them. I want to do what I can to help them. And in that that moment, for us specifically, we sat outside the door and both of us in our bodies, the only thing we wanted to do is go in and pick her up yeah and hold her and kiss her and sing to her. and snuggle her and all I wanted to do is breastfeed her. But because I read this book that told me that this is the only way I'm going to get sleep quick, I just totally shut that down. And then what that does in your body is like you create a bit of a rupture between you and your infant because you're working to go against those instincts that you had.
00:17:16
Speaker
Like I remember in that time of our lives, there was one day where I did fall asleep nursing her and she was beside me. She was totally safe in the bed and you took a picture of me and I was laying there beside her and sleeping and you're like, oh my goodness, this is so cute. Like, and you would always encourage me like, Jess, it's okay if you breastfeed her to sleep. Like, look, look at her. She loves it. Like, look, she's so cozy with you. yeah And maybe that's why she's not sleeping, Jess, because you, you always wake her up at the end of breastfeeding and try and get her to sleep by herself. And I remember I was so mad at you for taking that picture of me. I was like, Scott, why wouldn't you wake me up? Like, I can't believe I let her fall asleep like that beside me. And you were like, Jess, look, like you're trying to show me the picture. Like, look, yeah how beautiful. I remember that. So, like, those times were hard. And I feel like it's important to talk about that because I think so many parents end up sleep treating in that way, the extinction method or cry it out, because they feel there's no other option to get their child to sleep. And I don't believe that that's true.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah. And I think in that season, like that time our lives, we were just flooded out of our home. We didn't have a home for what, a couple months? Yeah. Two months or something like that. Our apartment at the time of flooded. So we actually were yeah we without a home. Lost most of our possessions and it was a right at least a little over half of our possessions. And we didn't have a home for a couple months. We were like sleeping in different people's houses. And yeah so I have a feeling that probably added to the additional pressure to do that. But I had already made that decision to do the extinction with her before the flood even happened. Right, but that probably amplified for sure the stress that was in our lives because then also we found a place to live for about a month of that, yeah like one location, but it was further from work for me. yeah So then I basically was gone before either of you woke up and back and we were essentially putting her to bed like 30 minutes, 45 minutes after I got back. yeah So I was not there to help. And I was exhausted. I remember several times driving to work, stopping on the side of the road because I'm like, I think I'm going to fall asleep if I keep going. Yeah. The adjustments in new parenthood plus all the environmental factors that was going on at the time. Yeah. And
Mindset and Connection in Sleep Training
00:19:25
Speaker
I feel like every new parent, I remember like doing this training for, I'm also trained in postpartum mental health and perinatal mental health.
00:19:33
Speaker
And we were, as practitioners, we were all laughing. So like, why does every postpartum parent decide to make a big life change? Like right after they have a baby? Because we were noticing in all of our clients, it's like, you're moving. Your partner's starting a new job. This and this happens. Like we're all making these life changes around having a baby, which adds to the environmental stress. There's not maybe some confirmation bias, like all these people are making that change after having a baby. and therefore they are seeking help from therapists. Maybe the ones that didn't make those big life changes are not and totally requiring a therapist as much. Well yeah, making a whole bunch of environmental changes definitely is going to impact your mental health. We have an unplanned major change in our life. Yeah, exactly. but All that to say, that impacted the way we viewed sleep because we felt, and I felt within my body, that the only way to be better mentally would be to get more sleep.
00:20:27
Speaker
and Yes. Which is probably not completely false either. A piece of that is true. But now if I look back on the last four years with our two younger daughters, I think that my mindset towards it is a big reason of what made that sleep deprivation so hard. I told myself the story. You can't handle it Jess. You cannot be up with her. And if she's up, she's a bad baby because babies don't, there's no reason. She does not need to be up twice in the night. She's, right Three months old. She should be able to sleep 12 hours. This research tells you they should be able to sleep for six hours. Exactly. This research tells you, Jess, you should be able to sleep for six hours at a time. She's not doing it.
00:21:06
Speaker
Now the research, are any of those longitudinal studies like they're following kids for a long period of time? Are they big sample sizes? That's the problem with a lot of research too. Yeah, I don't want to speak for it all because it's been a while since I've been like back in that research, but I will say I think there's one study that they look at kids who are sleep trained and kids who were not sleep trained. And they were like, yeah, they all sleep the same by age six. So that was like a longer one. That's like, it's pretty hard to study the impact that that's going to have on attachment, right? Because when you look at attachment, when you look at relationship, like there's a lot of different factors, like so many factors. Like I truly don't believe you're going to ruin your attachment for life. If your child cries it out like a couple of nights and don't cancel me for that.
00:21:46
Speaker
ah No, no, but I mean like attachment is is not so fragile that one event like that But the thing is like when we tried to do extinction with our child. It wasn't one event It wasn't two nights. It wasn't three nights. It was many nights because She's it didn't work like ah She wasn't following the rules like the rules were like yeah by night three. She should be only crying for like two two minutes. It's like, well, no, she's not listening to that role. That didn't happen. And that, again, like a blanket method that says, let your child cry for this many minutes at this time. It doesn't take into effect like your child's unique nature. yeah Like our highly sensitive child. Like if we were to have done that with her, maybe she was really impacted because we had a super busy day or there was a lot of lights that day or it was really loud. Like,
00:22:34
Speaker
We're not taking into account a child's temperament or personality, what they uniquely need. We're just saying, here's a rule, like go in every five minutes, go in every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes. To me, it's like a lot of things. It goes back to that conversation we had on like where the hashtag parenting experts, to me, like the three day potty method, yeah sleep training, like anything that's black and white is honestly bullshit. Yeah, like we're we're not taking into account a child's unique needs and temperament. Like our sensitive child, her sleep was totally different and unique based on like what her day was like because of her different sensory needs and things that happened. And she needed, it and she still needs sensory input in order to fall asleep.
00:23:19
Speaker
She always did so well with rocking and now she's four and she still requires belly tickles in order to fall asleep. Like she just needs, I'm sure we could wean her off that, but do we need to? Like she falls asleep well and she sleeps for like 12 hours, 13 hours, something crazy. She has an amazing sleep, but for her having just that little bit of sensory input at bedtime, like just the belly tickles is exactly what she needs to fall asleep. Yeah. And that's where I push back against any rule that's like, well, she should always go to bed drowsy or awake in order to sleep well. She's been a good sleeper, but knowing her needs, rocking always helped her fall asleep well. yeah And now belly tickles help her fall asleep while she's still a good sleeper and it's a 30 minute total routine. It's not like it's crazy. Yeah, right. That's including brushing teeth and reading books and everything.
00:24:06
Speaker
yeah Yeah. So that's where I push back on that being the only way to get a child to sleep through the night, because I think of course a parent sometimes needs to make changes to sleep. We've had to make changes to sleep, but it's not so simple that it's only cried out. Like there's other ways to help your kids sleep well. Yeah, right. And ones that maybe focus more heavily on that attachment that you have with your child. Yeah, that attunement. So to go back to like the original question of how do you stay calm at night, right? Yeah, I feel like we changed our path here. What will the title be of this episode? Sleep training or how to stay calm? I guess we'll figure that out. But to go back to the question about how do you stay calm at night, I think part of it for me is like when they're waking up, I'm no longer seeing them as bad. I'm like, oh, okay, you're waking up. Do you have a need?
00:24:54
Speaker
And I'm allowing myself to try and tune in with that need. I think when they woke up at night and I told myself, there's no reason you should be waking up because you're three and three year olds can sleep 12 hours at night. So why the heck are you waking up twice? Now, when they wake up, I ask myself, huh, I wonder why. See, I feel like we have two very different lines of thinking then. Yeah. Because you're more like, originally you should follow the rules. Yeah. And for me, I'm more like, this is very disruptive. And I know that my following day is going to be completely messed up because I just know when I don't have a good sleep, my brain is foggy. I can't think through things as clearly, I'm more distracted. So that's more what I'm thinking. you have the spiraling thought. And I was talking about, I used to experience that too, right? Like now tomorrow shot, I won't be able to handle it. And I feel like your spiraling thoughts then turn into anchor towards the kids. Why are you waking me up? I can't handle this. yeah So I think for you, some small mindset shifts honestly might be helpful because you're also telling yourself the story that tomorrow is not going to go well. And then tomorrow doesn't go well and you're confirmed. all Yeah, right. It's like self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
00:26:05
Speaker
I will say that up until, let's say last year, middle of the year, around this time, when I had that legal boundary I talked about in the episode with Libby, I was so incredibly stressed out. yeah And before that, I was dealing with, like I've been dealing with this for my entire life. So up until the middle of last year, I feel like I never really had a time where I wasn't incredibly anxious or stressed out. yeah And now that that's sort of dealt with. And now I'm on medication, I'm seeing a therapist and all that kind of stuff. It's, I think honestly become easier. Like last night didn't really bother me. yeah I feel like I, I don't know when our middle daughter came into bed with us. It was like 2 AM.
00:26:47
Speaker
Okay. Well, I didn't sleep from then until I got out of bed at just after six because the amount of ah kick slapping in my face and kicking and all that in the middle of the night, it's like a blue, that blue episode we were talking about this morning. I feel like I'm handling it perfectly fine today. So I feel like I am getting better at it because I'm in a better mental space now to handle it. Absolutely. And that's the same as what I was saying for myself too, right? When I was in the depths of postpartum anxiety, I couldn't handle it the same way I can handle it now when I'm in a better mental space. So I think parents should have some grace on themselves too. If you're going through a really hard time mentally and you
00:27:25
Speaker
feel like you can't tolerate your child's sleep, then I would be tuning in with yourself and trying to figure out what you need in order to help your child's sleep, right? So maybe that's medication, maybe that's therapy, maybe that's some more supports in place. I think often too, like we're dealing with sleep issues. We don't have the village that we used to have, right? Like we're doing this in isolation. I think that was a big thing for me too. Like at the time when I was really struggling with waking up in the night, I didn't have many mom friends. My mom was not nearby. I didn't have grandparents before. We were the first of our friends to have any kids. We were the first of our friends to have kids. I didn't have anyone to text and be like, oh, did you have a bad night of sleep? Oh yeah, me too. Like I didn't have anyone to validate that. That's probably a big difference because now you could probably text any of our friends in the middle of the night at any given yeah point. And there's probably going to be one person that's awake, at least.
00:28:13
Speaker
Exactly. Like I know so many moms and dads who are awake in the middle of the night. yeah So that's different too. I didn't have someone being like, oh yeah, me too. And so then I felt like my baby, because I'm comparing them to the internet babies, is the only baby who wakes up like this. Yeah, the unicorn internet babies, right? And I think parents can still do that. They can compare their baby to like their friend's baby yeah or toddler. toddlers wake up a lot in the night too, right? We can compare our toddler to our friend's toddler and be like, well, theirs never wakes up. So mine must just be bad. And that's where, again, like I keep bringing this up, but it comes back to attunement. Like your child's not bad. There's something going on. So let's get curious. That's, yeah, that's not really where my mind goes though, that they're bad for it. It's more like this is, in for me, it's legitimately the main line of thinking is this is going to be incredibly disruptive to my following day.
00:29:05
Speaker
Okay. So let's, let's work on that for a minute. So it's the middle of the night and our daughter wakes up and she's, she's crying. She's having a meltdown. This will happen last night to me. The first thought you have is, holy crap, I can't handle this. I have a big deal. Like what's the first step that comes up? If it takes more, like honestly, if it takes more than 10 minutes, then yeah, that that's where my mind goes. and you You quickly go there. I feel like. Yeah. At first, I'm just trying to figure out what happened. Like if it's a ah nightmare, maybe the toddler peed through her diaper or whatever, or whatever it is. I'm trying to figure out what the issue is so I can rectify the issue, change that, and then get them back. But if after we've resolved whatever needed to be resolved, I don't want it to take like two hours to resolve it or get them back to sleep. I want to go back to bed, basically. Of course.
00:29:53
Speaker
Okay, so then what? It's been 10 minutes and they're still crying. What's going through your head at that point? Can I get Jess? Yeah. I mean, typically, yeah, that's what happens. Isn't what happened though? Well, usually I'm already the one up. I feel like of the two of us, you are the lighter sleeper for sure. I'm the lighter sleeper. You're usually the one that wakes up. And I don't usually wake Scott up. Usually I'm just like, that's fine. I'll handle it. I also, going back to mindset, have changed my mindset to be like, this is going to sound so woo woo. I know a lot of people are not going to resonate with this, but I'm like, what an honor.
00:30:32
Speaker
Like I will, if I hear them crying and they want me and they want me to like rock them in the chair or whatever it is or sleep with them, I'll be like, oh, what a privilege that I get to sleep with them tonight. Like that's honestly what I tell myself and I know it's like maybe not. Why? Like why is that what's going to your mind? What a privilege. Yeah. because I don't often get to snuggle with them anymore in the middle of the night. So like our four-year-old, she wants to snuggle me in the guest bed because she had a bad dream. What a privilege. Like how many times am I gonna snuggle my four-year-old in the middle of the night? Sure, I'm not gonna sleep the best, but how long is she gonna be for wanting me in the middle of the night? Like that, that's where my head goes. And again, like I said, it's a conscious stream of thoughts. Like I have to switch it. Like I'll notice my brain going to like, Oh, I was so looking forward to sleeping in my own beds. And I like, Oh, I really could use a full night of sleep. And I'll consciously in my brain be like.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yep, that's true. You wanted a full night of sleep tonight, but that's not gonna happen. She just had a nightmare or peed through the bed and I know she's gonna be up for a while. So what if I just am okay with that and think to myself, what an honor that I get to cuddle with her for a little bit. This is pretty rare. She really wants to snuggles with me. It's a memory you can have when she's moved out and going to school or something like that. or Yeah. And I look at her little hands and they stroke my face. I think to myself, man, she's still so little. Yeah. How often am I going to get this chance? And I honestly, I did kind of think that last night. I wasn't like, again, you were pretty good about it last night. It was slightly annoying because every time I was about to fall asleep, I would get kicked or of course slapped or something like that. But.
00:32:07
Speaker
It's not that it's not still annoying to me, but again, my biggest thing is the mindset. And I truly believe that that has a huge impact on the way that you view it. And it's not a natural mindset that comes to me. Like I consciously have to notice the thoughts that come up. This is my therapist brain. This is all the therapy I've done. Notice the thoughts that come up and be like, yeah, that's true. You're not going to have a good night of sleep tonight. And. You're gonna be okay. You've coped with a little sleep before and we don't make changes in the middle of the night. Like that's my rule. So what are we gonna do then? Well, I guess we're just gonna snuggle her till she falls back asleep. Maybe I'll roll out of the bed at some point and rolling back to my bed. Maybe I'll end up being here all night. Whatever comes up, I can handle that. It's one night of bad sleep. I will be able to be okay tomorrow.
00:32:54
Speaker
Right.
Reflective Advice on Sleep Struggles
00:32:55
Speaker
So if you were to help just seven years ago, yeah because I feel like that is the most and difficult in terms of sleep, the most difficult time of parenting I think we've had. So what advice would you give to yourself in that situation? With like a newborn baby and worth, I guess not a newborn, but an infant. It's like three months. yeah Hey, we had this terrible thing happen. Our house is destroyed. So we had to move out and find another place to live for several months. What advice would you give?
00:33:30
Speaker
Well, and I just want to say too, in that time when we weren't sleeping when she was a newborn, we did the extinction sleep training for a long time. Eventually I gave up on it because yeah it didn't work and she continued to not sleep well until she was like two and a half years old. Yeah. And we use the tools in like the bedtime course now based, that was like very connection based yeah in order to, and that's what finally got her to sleep well. Yeah. Now she sleeps. She's she's the best sleeper in the house. the best sleeper She had a lot of anxiety around bedtime for a long time. Yep. I believe had to do with the way that we tried to sleep train her as an infant. I had to do a lot of work with her around worry at bedtime, nightmares, bad dreams. So I truly do believe that it had an impact on her. I think that there's healing that can be done. And the healing has been done. And now she has a beautiful relationship with sleep. Who spends a lot of work on that?
00:34:18
Speaker
Well, we did have to do a lot of work to heal the way that we tried to get her to sleep that never ended up working. So if I look at the first two and a half years of her life and I look at how hard Jess struggled there, like previous Jess, first thing I would do is give myself a hug. Because... You could cry. Oh, I could cry. I could honestly cry. And at any point when a sleep deprived mom or dad comes to me and they're at that point that I was at, I just want to give them a hug. Like I will never judge you if you come to me and be like, Jess, I've been sleep training my kid. I don't feel good about how I've been doing it, but I haven't had another option. Like you will never find judgment from me I will only ever try and give you a hug or a virtual hug if you say this to me online
00:34:54
Speaker
So that's the first thing I would do. And then I would say, yeah, man, sleep is really tricky. It's so hard. I wonder, like, where are these thoughts coming from that she has to go to bed drowsy but awake? So I'd get curious about all these rules that I've put on myself. And then what I would do with myself is I would try and help me tune back into my own beliefs and my own thoughts, because at that point in my life, rules, what my friend's kids were doing, all of that. spreadsheets of spreadsheets of wake windows. That was the only thing running my mind. I didn't have any attunement. Like there was no part of me that trusted myself. So I would love to have gotten curious with myself and be like, Jessica, what is your body telling you to do? Like, what is your mind telling you to do? So when you say attunement before you move on, do you not think though that it's possible you learned how to attune better as our oldest got older and then we had our second and then you kind of like knew a little better than how to attune? Because I think often parents think you're just going to naturally just be like, be able to understand what your child needs and wants. But I just feel like that doesn't make any sense. so it's It's a skill.
00:36:08
Speaker
Yeah, it is a skill like you haven't had a child before. So how do you know? And that's why I would want to help me. If I was my own therapist or friend, yeah I'd want to help me tune in with those instincts and get to know them because I feel like I didn't trust myself at all because I was a new parent. I've never done it before. And I was a new parent with a master's degree who's only ever learned to research things. yeah So I was like, oh, no problem. I'll just research my way out of this one. Well, it didn't work. yeah um So what I would want to do with myself is help me like piece away, okay, so your mom told you this and this person told you that and this person, what do you feel? Because I truly believe that if someone had done that with me, which eventually they did because I went to therapy and therapy is what really ended up helping me. If someone had done that with me,
00:36:51
Speaker
You're like, what do you feel in your body that your baby needs when you are standing on the other side of the door and she's been screaming for 30 minutes? I'd be like, all I want to do is run in, snuggle her, hold her, and breastfeed her. And if someone had been like, and what if you did that, then just tried it and see what would happen. I would have been like, well, I can't because like I'm not supposed to. And so if I had someone who kind of helped me with that and helped me get into those like caregiving instincts that were inside of me, but I was just like shutting them off with rules, I think it would have been a totally different experience. yeah And I think with baby number two, I had done a lot of therapy, a lot of work, and I was
00:37:27
Speaker
so much more in tune with myself. And that's when we had used finally like these connection-based tools to help our toddler then sleep. And that's when she finally slept. When I was like pouring connection into her at bedtime and coming back and checking on her and showing her delight and like all of these things tuning in with her nap, like attuning with her, she finally slept well. Two and a half years of like leaving her, crying, yelling, bribing, threatening, all these things. Finally, connection helped her sleep well. With our second child, I knew off the bat, I would have those rules pop up in my mind and I would be like, Jess, now is not the time. That rule does not serve you. It does not help your relationship with your daughter. And I did what felt right for me, which was feeding her to sleep, rocking her to sleep.
00:38:10
Speaker
Yeah, she slept much better. Balancing her to- she slept so much better. I never once worried about Drowsy but Wake. Yep. Screw it. I don't care. And that worked for me. Now again, some babies that doesn't work for and they're not sleeping well, so then we would take some of these things that maybe would help a baby sleep well. but maybe the mom is helping the baby learn how to sleep in the crib and they have their hand on their baby while they're crying, right? So there's still attunement happening there. There's still ways to help a baby sleep well and stay attuned with them. yeah I think that's the really important takeaway. And when we're in tune with our own caregiver instincts, it helps you when you wake up in the night. It helps you when you're putting your baby to sleep because you're aligned and you're you're on the same page.
00:38:52
Speaker
So that's what I would do with myself after giving myself a big hug and letting me cry it out myself. Cause I really just needed someone to tell me that I needed to release those tears. I needed to release them tears. I needed to know that it was okay, that it felt as hard as it did and know that the tools that I actually needed were not found in a course. They were not found in a book on extinction. They were not found in a research article. They were already there within me and I just had to find them with
Closing Remarks and Feedback Request
00:39:17
Speaker
myself. I feel like that's a great place to end. Mm-hmm. I feel like I didn't get into some of the other things that I do in the middle of the night, but... Let us know if you have any other questions or you want us to go deeper into this this topic. Yeah. I think this really became a sleep training episode. Yeah, kind of. A little bit. Slash tools, mindset shifts. Yeah. I think it's going to be really powerful and excited for people to listen to it. Yeah. So let us know. Let us know what you think.
00:39:45
Speaker
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We are glad that you are here. If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review. Scott and I actually sit down together and read them all. A five star rating helps us share our podcast and get these important messages out there. Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.