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Transcript

TMG: Dr Golly's Baby Sleep Secrets Revealed · Outspoken the Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Don't resign to the concept that you just have a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: bad sleeper. Don't feel like if I haven't done anything now,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: it's too late. It is never too late. You say
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: sleep training and I immediately think cried out and that's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: just torture. That's mean. Sleep training is essentially moving your
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: child from having no routine to having a routine. That's
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: what breaks my heart, is that concept of writing off
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the first few months and just saying, well, I'm going
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to have a baby and for six months I'm just
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: going to be tortured. I'm not going to live, I'm
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: not going to have a life, I'm going to suffer.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: And I really try to change the narrative.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to the Mums Group you actually want
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: to be a part of. Today we're excited to be
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: joined by the man, the myth, the legend that is
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Dr Golly. This man has been an absolute saviour in
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: our households. He's a pediatrician and one of Australia's best
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: known baby sleep experts.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: So today we're getting into all of it.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: What actually works, the sleep advice.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: That drives Dr.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Golly crazy and what to do when your baby just
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: won't sleep. So whether you're in the newborn trenches or
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: dealing with a toddler who suddenly decided bedtime is optional,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: this one's for you. Listeners will know what a big
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: deal it is for us to have you on our podcast.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Your guide is literally gospel in our house.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: The Messiah.
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Before we get into all things sleep though, I would
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: love to know how you actually became the person parents
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: turn to.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Very unintentionally. So how long do we have? My story
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: is not a very happy and entertaining one. It's quite
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the opposite in some ways. I was training to become
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a pediatric cardiologist. That was my pathway, what I wanted
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: to do, what I wanted to be. And it was
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: at that time that my wife and I had our
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: first child. And I'm not sure if it was my
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: own self-imposed pressure or perceived or societal or a little
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: bit of all, but I had this vision that I
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: would be the perfect dad. I wanted to be, I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: supposedly knew everything about children. I look after other children.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I had nieces, nephews. And I was so excited for
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: my daughter to arrive. She arrived. I was like you,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: like you hear people say, you know, instantly in love.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And she was, the universe brought me the world's most
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: unsettled baby, just unhelpful. And what I had thought and
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: dreamed would be the most exciting, phenomenal period of my
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: life turned into the, the biggest nightmare I had ever
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: personally experienced. Now that may not be a big nightmare
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: for other people, but it was relative. And for me,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I'd built it up and it all came crashing down. Um,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I hated the first six months of her life. I
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: hated my life and it was, it was far from enjoyable.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I turned to everyone and I realized very quickly and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: brutally that there was very little support. There was very
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: little guidance. Everyone said that they had the answers, but
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: then when it didn't work, I moved on to the next.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And when I say that I tried everything, the deepest
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: of dives to try to figure out how to settle
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: this unsettled baby. And to cut a very long story short,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: it quite literally pivoted my entire life. So I tell
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: people that the worst thing that ever happened to me
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: was the best thing that ever happened to me. And
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard that before because it completely redirected
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: me into this area of the unsettled baby and infant sleep.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And I left cardiology and went even deeper into this
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: space and then started to use it in my practice
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: as a pediatrician and found that people, it was really
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: helping people. It was making a significant difference to families.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: And then I wanted to spread it because you've got
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: this challenge as a doctor where your audience is one.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: It's always one. And so I partnered with someone who
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: had the ability to amplify this message and this offering.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: And together we launched the program, which you've all experienced.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: So that's the story of how I got to be
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: in this position. It's not a romantic one by any means,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: but it was one that I'm, I wouldn't change for
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: It's so good to hear you speak so honestly about
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: that period, because I feel like a lot of the
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: time society tells you like, this should be the best moment.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: And if you're not happy, you're thinking, what's wrong with me?
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: And you see it on social media where people talk about,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: or they capture a particular aspect of their life, which
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: is usually very beautiful and made up and, you know,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: under a filter, et cetera. And then you do, you
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: look upon yourself and wonder why why am i not
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: sleeping why am i not enjoying i'm looking at this
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: child and i should feel this and i should feel
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: that and maybe perhaps you're not and that's a it's
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: a growing.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Problem hearing you speak, you've obviously got such a beautiful,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: calming voice. And I know that was really helpful for Kate,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Sophie and I. I have this memory of my husband
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: and I watching one of your videos when I think
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Harry was eight weeks old. And in your video, you
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: said at this stage, you are no longer running on
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: adrenaline and you are very tired. And my husband and
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I just looked at each other and we're like, yes. Yeah.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: What does it feel like knowing that you've helped so
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: many families through something that you actually experienced yourself?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: It's really, it's a privilege. It's an honour to be
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: able to, you know, when people, it's quite humbling. People
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: will stop me randomly in the street and make comments
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: like you have, you know, you changed my life or
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I can't, you know, don't know what I would do
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: without you. It's, you know, the first thing that I
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: think is it's not me. There's a team here. There's
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who go into producing this content
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and amplifying the message. So I'm grateful to everyone. I
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: also always, whenever I get a comment like that, I
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: always think of my wife. The first person that I
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: think of because she was in the trenches with me. She,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: whatever I went through, she went through worse. There's no question.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So none of this, I wouldn't have any of this
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: or any of this privilege without her. I also think
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of my kids and think, oh, you tortured me, but
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I'm so grateful. And, um, and it is, I see
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: it very much as a privilege. You, you, um, Certain
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: people have jobs where they deal with people. It's transactional.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: My job, I get to work with people at their
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: most vulnerable, at their lowest point for some of these people.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: And to be able to work with them and lift
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: them up and literally, as you say, change lives, it's
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: a beautiful position to be in and it's not lost
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: on me.
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: Before having a baby, I literally had no idea that
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: burping was such a big thing. And I saw Kate burping.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: I'm like, what is she like? She was spending like 45.
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: I think you took it to the biggest level. Like
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: you were doing 45 minutes of burping, which I feel
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: like we've got to ask Dr. Golley. I think that
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: was too much.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: I need to explain.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: So I was doing, I was mixed feeding. So I
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: would breastfeed on one side, then burp. And then I'd
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: breastfeed on the other side, do the burping. And then
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I'd do a formula top up and burp. So the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: whole thing was taking.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: 15 times three is 45. Thank you.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Do you know what?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I know what ultimately, it doesn't matter what you do.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Did your baby sleep through the night? Yes, he does.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: There you go. Exactly. And I say this to everyone.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: If what you're doing results in your child sleeping and
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: you being happy, I don't care what you're doing.
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: You know, as long as you are sleeping, then anything goes.
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: The worst thing is she always thinks she's right. So
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: now she feels very vindicated and got the backup of Dr. Gurley.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: She paid me before that. I think so.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: But I was going to say, like for those, someone
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: who's pregnant and they don't understand the importance, like how
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: is the burping linked to the sleeping well?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Great question. This is one of the major learnings that
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I undertook in this throughout my journey was understanding the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: role of wind and why it causes problems now and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: later so the problems now as in at the time
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: of the feed you have to understand that a stomach
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: is it's a vessel it holds something right and it
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: holds milk but it also holds swallowed air and that
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: air takes up space and the stomach is only so
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: big it can only stretch so far so when a
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: that baby gets the message to the brain, my stomach
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: is full. It doesn't know what it's full of. And
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: for argument's sake, or to illustrate the point, let's say
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: that we swallow a drop of milk and a drop
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: of air. So at the end of a feed, or
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: what we think is the end of a feed because
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: the baby's pulled off, they're full, but they're not full
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of milk. So if you can extract that gas in
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the form of burping after the first side or after
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the first part of the bottle, what you're doing is
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: you're making room for more milk. And logically, if you
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: have more milk, you have more time before the next feed.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: So you're becoming more efficient. The problem later is that
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: if we leave that milk in the stomach, not only
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: are we having an inefficient feeding regimen, that gas has
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: got to go somewhere. So it doesn't just get absorbed,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: it doesn't disappear. What happens is it goes down and
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: it makes its way to become a fart. And through
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: that process, you're talking about a colon that was designed
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: to contract on milk. poo, sorry for the visual.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: Don't worry, we talk about poo a lot.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: If there's anyone I can talk about it, it's here.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: But if it's.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Going to be contracting on gas, that's going to cause cramping.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: And so what we often see is the baby who
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: starts feeding and then one or two minutes into, sometimes
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: even earlier, into that feed, they start to pull their
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: legs up, they pull off the breast or the bottle
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and they look uncomfortable and people think, oh, there must
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: be something wrong with the milk or why are they
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: pulling off? What they're actually telling you is that they're
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: cramping on gas from two feeds ago. So there is
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a flow on effect, which just illustrates the importance of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: getting it out at the time.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: And I think it's hard because a lot of like
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: mums for our age group, they didn't do a lot
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: of the burping because obviously baby's lying on their stomachs,
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: so there was no need. Because I think, you know,
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: I mean, our mum had triplets, so poor thing. I
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: don't know how she'd be doing 45 minutes of burping
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: for each of us, but thank God that we were
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: lying on our stomachs then. But there's a lot of pushback,
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: isn't there, from the grandparents about the burping?
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Huge. Yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And you talk about, you know, the social media influence
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and this kind of thing, pressure on new parents. One
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: thing we have to also consider is that generational advice.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: And we do, we get a lot of advice from our,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: usually our mothers, mothers-in-law often, because they bore the, they
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: shouldered the responsibility of child rearing. Thankfully, it's shifting now,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: but that is a generation that raised a very, very,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: very different baby. So What we did in the 1980s
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: is we brought in the Safe to Sleep, Back to
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Sleep campaign through Red Nose and increasing awareness on SIDS. Now,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: there is no question that that was a brilliant campaign.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: We dramatically reduced the incidence of SIDS. But what we did,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: we traded it in for colic and flatheads because babies
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: are sleeping on the back. And so when you get
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: advice from the well-meaning grandmother, you have to understand that
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: they practice something different.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: So.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: When we talk about colic and winding and not settling
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and et cetera, they don't, they didn't, they live through
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a different world. They had a different experience. So they
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: often will say, well, we didn't have any of this.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: You know, you must be doing it wrong. Okay, hold on.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: We have a significantly lower infant mortality. So it's a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: trade-off that we're not going to compromise on. And that's, again,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: another source of pressure for young mums especially.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: They're also turning the baby, they didn't have baby monitors.
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: They were just turning it off, shutting the door.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: That's right. Exactly right. Yeah.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: When do you think parents should start establishing a routine?
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Is there a perfect age to do that?
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: It's the first thing that I say in response to
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: that question is when, what suits you? It's all about you.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It's not about me. I'm not militant in my approach
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: and I certainly don't shove anything down anyone's throat. And
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I had this conversation with two parents yesterday. Different cultures
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: have different practices. So if, um, co-sleeping is something that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: you've grown up with and it's part of your culture
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and you love it. Who am I to tell you
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: not to? Because babies are raised safely across the entire globe,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: which means there isn't one strict only way to do it.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: You know, my parents raised their three, raised two boys
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: in South Africa. I was born in Australia, but they
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: had that South African mentality where you started solids within
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: weeks of birth, you know, two, three weeks of age
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: of starting solids. Now, That goes against the current advice
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and common practice, but we survived. So it all depends
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: on who you talk to, which is guided by their
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: own experience, by their own culture, sometimes their religion. There
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: are so many things that come into play. And so
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: there's no rule. There's no one size fits all. There's no,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: you have to do this.
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Now, in answer to your question about a routine, I
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: start from literally from the first few days of life
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: with a rhythm. And there's a very big difference between
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: a rhythm and a routine. When you're talking about a rhythm,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: it's essentially to try to avoid the trap of cluster feeding. Now,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: cluster feeding is necessary to bring milk in, in the
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: setting of a breastfeeding mother. Once that milk is established,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: you want to have discrete feeding times and non-feeding times.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: And the best thing is to try to fall into
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a three to four hour rhythm, knowing that there's sometimes
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: two and there's sometimes five, but we're roughly three to four.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: When you have that established, the first target that I
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: set is six weeks, five kilograms sleeping through the night,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: which is roughly four hour feeds during the day and
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: then a much longer stretch overnight. The second target that
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I have is four to five months established on solids
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: and that same routine subtracting the late evening feed. So
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: that seven to seven kind of ideal picture. That's where
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I like to position myself. babies and children. And my
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: message to parents is, if that's what you want, I'll
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: show you the tools to get it. I'll show you
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the way. I'll empower you with the knowledge, the tools
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: to be able to execute that. But if you don't
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: want it, if you don't need it, if you're quite happy,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: then that is absolutely fine.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I think that was the biggest thing for me. I
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: remember seeing your guide and that you know, the, not promise,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: but that thought that it is possible to have your
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: baby having that long stretch of sleep. I just remember
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: that was my goal. Like I used to sit in
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: my breastfeeding chair and be like, like my husband was
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: burping and I'm like looking at your garden, like, yes,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: it says like 60. And I want to say like,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: it actually worked. Like, and so many people were shocked.
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: I think a lot of people have a misconception that
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: if you have a newborn, you're never going to sleep again.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: And I think obviously seeing Kate's experience with your program,
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: I probably wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean? Like hearing you say you
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: can get your baby to sleep 12 hours overnight. It's
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: just a lot of people wouldn't buy into it, but
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: it's a misconception.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: That's what breaks my heart is that concept of writing
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: off the first few months and just saying, well, I'm
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: going to have a baby for six months. I'm just
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: going to be tortured. I'm not going to live. I'm
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: not going to have a life. I'm going to suffer
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to survive that word. It absolutely kills me.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, we've got to survive the newborn phase. And
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I really try to change the narrative because it is
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the most, as the three of you know, it is
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the most magnificent period. There's so much and it's so fleeting.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: It just goes by and then all you're left with
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: is photos and you don't have a short-term memory. So
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you literally need the photos. So I want people to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. I want people to thrive and not just survive.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: Well, I found that it actually gave me freedom because
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: my child was sleeping overnight. And also, I mean, in
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: the first year of our son's lives, we worked during
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: their nap break so that we could keep our businesses going.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: We should really be giving you some money for that.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering what my percentage is.
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: We haven't left yet.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: But that's another interesting thing about the generational difference is
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: we often have two dual income homes. And so sleep
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: is even more important. That's another thing to take into consideration.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I was telling you off mic that it was actually
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: my husband who came across you and he, I was
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: pregnant at the time and we'd been both listening to
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: parenting podcasts and he heard you on a podcast and
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: he's like, oh my gosh, there's this amazing doctor. And
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: he says, you know, like the dads is really important.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Like they have to play such an important role. I
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: have to do basically everything. You just focus on, you know,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: breastfeeding and relaxing.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: I will say breastfeeding is a big job.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: But, you know, I'll do everything else. I'll have the
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: baby sleep on my side because, you know, he can't
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: smell your milk. And I was just literally, as soon
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: as I heard that, sold. And it was just honestly
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: the best thing that, you know, for my postpartum experience,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: it was amazing because of you.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: So thank you.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: No, thanks to your husband. Yes, thank you, Rhys. We
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: need more dads like that. And we are... We, the
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: collective dads, we're taking on a much bigger role than
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: we used to. And it's this seismic societal shift that
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: we've needed to have. It's happening. I would still argue
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: too slow, but I'm so glad that it is happening.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And it's dads like that who take ownership and, and
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: don't fall into this preconceived notion that dads can't do
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: anything because they don't have breasts. And a lot of
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: them just put their hands up and say, well, I can't,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I can't solve this problem. I can't fix this crying baby.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: You just have to put them on the breast. I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: was guilty of that because you do, you want to
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: turn off the cry. Again, we talked about forms of torture. Well,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: loud noises, especially that one, it hits you and you
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: can't hear it and you don't want to and you
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: want to remove their ostensible pain. And so it's very
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: easy for dads to just hamble. And when we do
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: take a much more hands-on role, what we find is
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: that we reach sleeping through the night much faster. So
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: when we put in more effort, we get more back
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: and the benefits don't end there. So there's a lot
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: of research that shows that dads who are more hands-on
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: have got lower rates of paternal postnatal depression, paternal postnatal anxiety.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: They have children who are more healthier, literally healthier, because
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: when dads are more hands-on, the way that dads tend
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to play with kids is more rough and tumble. We
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: tend to wrestle more. We tend to play more sport.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: And what that means is that your child, you're developing
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: their hand-eye coordination, their gross motor skills. And you might think, well, whatever,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: everyone can walk. No, you're planting seeds. They did this
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: incredible study in, I think it was in one of
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the Nordic nations, where they looked at elite athletes and
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: they dug deep into their history and found that all
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: of them had hands-on dads.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And it just goes to show that when you've got
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: a dad who is much more involved in it benefits
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the entire family, but it also really benefits the dad
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and you're investing in the child's future. It's like tick, tick, tick.
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: That's a good way to get your husband involved. If
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: you want your child to be a future sports star.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, our audience is predominantly mums, but it would
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: be great if you could run through like the things
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: that dads can actually do. Cause I know, as you said,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: even yourself, you're like, oh, you know, I can't do
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: much cause you're breastfeeding.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it starts before the baby arrives. Like, like,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: In your situation, listen to those podcasts, read those books,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: get upskilled and empowered. The smartest way to learn is
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: before you need the knowledge. So I'll give you one example.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: This is absolutely true. It happened last week. I was
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: doing a morning ward round with a new family. The
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: baby was three days old and my book was sitting
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: on dad's bedside table in the hospital. And the mum
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: turned to me. I do my morning ward round every
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: day and I say, any questions? And mum said, I'm
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: just worried about this rash. And before I could answer,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: the dad said, that's newborn acne, darling.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: Oh, I love that.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And then he goes and he flicks through the book
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and he shows her photos and says, it's just because
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: of hormone changes and it's not eczema and it's going
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: to pattern all this stuff. You don't have to put
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: anything on it. And I literally tears welled in my
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: eyes because I was, I said, this is the point.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: This is why I do what I do. That dad
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: knew that. what the problem was before it was a
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: problem completely calmed her down because she had never seen
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: or heard of this before. And if you can do
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: that at two in the morning, you don't, then you
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: avoid a trip to emergency or a sleepless night or,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: or a worry because if you worry your child worries
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and then, you know, you get this negative cycle. So
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: what can dads do? Know about what is normal before
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the problem arises and then take that hands on role.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: So what, women go through, it's, I don't know how
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: to find the words to describe, like, it is not 50-50,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and we all know that, okay? When a baby arrives,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the dad has arrived, yeah, fresh, ready to go, look
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: after this newborn. The mum is on so many backward steps.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: That mum has potentially had a fertility journey, potentially had a,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: you know, definitely gone through pregnancy and potentially a difficult one.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: And then the delivery and the sleepless nights in the
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: lead up, because everyone, you know, how uncomfortable is being
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: nine months pregnant and So it shouldn't be 50-50 when
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: baby arrives. It should be like 99-1 if we could.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And so the more that you do to protect the mum,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and I think if you have that, to all the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: dads out there, if you have that as your mentality,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: my job is to protect the mum. It's not to
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: protect the baby, right? You all have this part of
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: your brain that literally grows when a baby is born, okay?
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: It's the mama bear. It's the I can lift a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: car off my child kind of mentality. ability. It's superhuman.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: We dads, we don't get access to it. We get
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit the more involved we are, but you
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: get the really explosive amount. So if my aim is
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: to look after my children, all I need to do
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: is look after one person. It's that easy because I
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: know that if I give her credits and energy and
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: fuel and recharge, I know exactly where she's going to
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: use that. It's going to go straight to the children.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: So if you have that mentality, you then understand, that's
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: why the baby should be on my side of the bed.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: That's why I should take my paternity leave now. That's
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: why I should be the bodyguard against visitors when my
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: wife wants to sleep. You know, I should be the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: master swaddler. I should take the baby for a walk.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I should do an assisted nap. I should know what
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the next stage is so I know when to introduce
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: solids and buy the equipment and start cooking. All of that,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: dads can own that.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: It's funny because my husband obviously read your book as well.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: And he had this really serious chat with me before
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: my son Harry was born. And he was like, so
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: you just tell me when you want people to leave
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: that are visiting.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: And he can be quite blunt and not realize. And
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, it's all right.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: But how good is that? I love that. And I
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: love also, I'm seeing more and more, you know, I've
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: been practicing for a decade. I've seen the shift. When
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I ask couples questions, it used to be that I'm
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: used to dads didn't turn up. They were at work
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: or whatever. Now, the mum and the dad sit together.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: The dad's holding the baby. The dad's answering half, if
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: not more, of the questions. It's fantastic. It's really good.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: And one thing that is a very necessary ingredient in
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: that is the mum letting him. Not always easy.
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I think you struggle with that, Soph. And I'm
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: actually getting flashbacks. I don't want to shame our friend,
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: one of our friends. He's a colleague, so he's in
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: his 60s. And he has three children, told us over
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: his time he changed three nappies, and my heart just
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: bled for his poor wife. Because I do think, as
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: you said, that dads have got so much more involved,
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: and so they should. But it is wonderful to see
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: that change happening, and I think it is down to
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: people like you talking about how important it is. But
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: getting back to babies, something I loved about your program
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: was the wake windows. I found it so helpful, particularly
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: when you look at what age– requirements you should be following.
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: Can you talk us through what are some signs that
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: your baby might be overtired?
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The key when you're looking for signs of overtiredness
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: is when. So the when is really important. The reason
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: why is because a lot of newborn signs are identical.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: So tired signs, wind signs, hunger signs, all bloody look
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the same. It's so hard to interpret, but it's when
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: they're happening. So if your baby, for example, if you've
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: got a three week old and feeding is established and
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: you fed them say at midday for example and then
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you start to see some signs of apparent discomfort at
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: one so one hour after a feed hunger signs it
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: can't be they just fed an hour ago so you
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you don't think of hunger and then you might interrogate
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: what happened after the feed and think well did they
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: burp enough did did i pay enough attention to it
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: did i extract enough wind and if the answer is
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: no and if you're then seeing things like grunting and
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: and pulling of the legs up and wincing and all
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: of that, then you might say, okay, hold on, this
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: is probably wind signs. And if their wake window has
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: been at that age, let's say an hour or perhaps
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: even less, and they're fed and they're burped and the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: nap is changed and they're starting to show some signs,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: fists opening and closing, rubbing of their face, just squawking noises,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: then you start to think, okay, hold on, we're approaching
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the end of a wake window. We probably should be
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: thinking about sleeping now and then you interpret it correctly
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: and put them down to sleep.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: Because I think that is the old school mentality. Speaking
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: to a lot of grandparents sometimes who are like, no, no, no,
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: just keep them up longer and then they'll sleep for
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: the whole night.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: And you're just like, no, unfortunately that doesn't work. Or
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: just give them the boob like, oh, they must be hungry.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: And I think that then creates that cycle, doesn't it?
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, must be hungry is something that has to leave
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the vernacular. It's not the solution. It does work in
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the short term as in we're using you as a pacifier.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: We're using you as a dummy. And it's not healthy
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: for mums and it's not healthy for babies. And then
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: you get into this snack cycle where they just have
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: a little bit and then they fall asleep because they
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: weren't actually hungry. So that's part of the clustering that
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: we talked about that we really want to avoid.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: I think it's important to knowledge.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: We're obviously talking about our success stories and like, I
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: think it's, I found because I have a son that
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: sleeps that I almost feel sometimes quite apologetic and I
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: don't want to admit it. But sometimes I then think
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: it's actually important to put it out there that it's
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: possible that kids can sleep. But I do want to
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: acknowledge that there are some parents out there that are
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: doing everything right and their baby just isn't sleeping.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: What would you say to them?
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Look, I see them. I see them in my rooms.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I see, um, parents who are doing their very best.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: They're doing everything by the book, exactly as instructed. Um,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: it might be a mom who's significantly limiting her diet
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: in the setting of breastfeeding. Um, very hands-on dad, like
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: all the ingredients are there, all the low hanging fruit
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: are ticked. Um, and the baby just remains unsettled and
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the reality is it does happen. Um, They're hard. They're
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: really hard. And while we are trying to remedy the problem,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: we always have to have one eye on potential complication
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: in terms of postnatal depression, anxiety, adjustment disorder in both
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: mum and dad. We have to also keep one eye.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many eyes do we have on an
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: older sibling potentially? And watch out for that, their experience
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: and their relationship with the baby, but also with the parents,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: both parents. One of the good things about this space,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: which I actually hate referencing, is the fact that they're
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: always changing. And so sometimes time is the solution. And
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I hate saying that because it's what people said to me,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it'll pass. And it sort of ties into that story of,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: you know, it's something you have to survive. And I really,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: really dislike that as a concept. But you're 100% right.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: You do have to talk about the fact that there is...
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: a reality where some babies, we don't know why, they
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: remain unsettled. There are some times when I will admit
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: patients to hospital to have a period of one-on-one observation
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: where I can see exactly what happens with sleeping, bathing, feeding, everything,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and we still can't get to the bottom of it.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And we shift our focus to support as opposed to
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: solving the problem. We can't. And that's a reality of medicine.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: We don't always know the answer. Mm-hmm.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I think sleep training is such a contentious topic online.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: You've got mums like us that swear by it and
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: then you've got people that literally think it's the worst
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: thing ever.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Is it something that's dangerous and we should be worried about?
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: It's the connotation that's incorrect and that's what's scary. So
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who don't know, you say sleep
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: training and they immediately think cry it out and that's
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: just torture. That's mean. So no, I don't practice cry
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: it out. I never have. I never will. Sleep training
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: is essentially moving your child from having no routine to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: having a routine. And there are two parts to sleep training.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: There is setting up for success. And then there is
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: executing a new routine. The funny thing is, is that
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the vast majority of the time when you set up
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: for success, there is no sleep training required. Babies want
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: to sleep. It's not like they're fighting you. An adolescent
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: who says, no, I want to go to bed at midnight.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: They actually want to sleep. They need to sleep. And
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: so if there's something that's interrupting them, they're even more
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: annoyed by it than you. So if, you know, an
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: example would be the baby who has uncontrolled eczema. They're
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: never going to sleep through that or they're going to
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: get through one sleep cycle and wake up because they're
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: itchy and they can't scratch. You remove the eczema, the
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: baby sleeps. You don't have to sleep train them or
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: suggest that or force them or get them into it.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: They want to. So the vast majority of the time
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: when you set up for success and you solve the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: little mini problems like the room's too light or there's
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: no white noise or the swaddle's too loose or the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: eczema's uncontrolled. When you remove those hurdles, there is no
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: sleep training. Baby just sleeps through the night and parents
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: are often very surprised by that. But it just goes
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to that misconception and myth surrounding sleep training. I also feel.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Like when you first have a newborn, you get home
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: and they just sleep.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: You get a bit cocky. I remember having a baby
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: and I was like, I remember like putting him down.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: We're watching Love Island like quite loudly.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: You guys came over with your partners and we're kind
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: of like, What's everyone going on about? And then it's
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: almost like they wake up to the world and.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: You're like, wow. They do. That's exactly what happens.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Week three.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: So what happens is babies are born intentionally insensitive. The
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: birthing process, I'm not going to talk to three mums
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: about birthing process and how uncomfortable it is, but it's
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: really uncomfortable for babies. They are squeezed through an extremely
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: tight passage and it hurts constantly. So they get crushed, literally.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: And that's why we have their heads are made the
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: way they are with the capacity for their bones to overlap.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: And we often see babies who are born with very
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: misshapen heads because they are forced through a pelvic canal
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: that is not a wide open water slide.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: I was going to say, don't worry, you don't have
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: to be sensitive because we all had C-sections.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: But you know what?
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: You're right.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Even through a C-section, it's not a particular... There's a trade-off, right?
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: We want to make the incision as small as possible.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: And so it's not anyone who has gone through a
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: C-section or observed them as I do every day. They
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: are no walk in the park.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: No.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you. There's lots of pulling and pushing and tugging, forceps,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: et cetera. So it's still quite a process. And I mean,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think it would feel particularly good having metal
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: claw put on your head and then lifted up.
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: No.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: It's quite... It's not painful, but it is quite pain-inducing.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And for that reason, babies are insensitive. That insensitivity means
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: they just don't hear anything. They don't feel much. And so,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, for example, immunizations give baby a vitamin K injection,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and a lot of them do not even flinch, nothing. Now,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: that is an intentional design. And it means that when
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: you take them home, they don't hear the garbage truck
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: going past and they don't hear the dog barking. They
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: don't care. I mean, I took my newborn to a restaurant. Loud, noisy.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: They just sleep.
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: It's blissful.
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: But that wears off.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: And then they wake up and it's a classic story.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: My baby was so good. And then at three weeks,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: it all just turned to, hmm.
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: What happened?
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: I was going to say, because I feel like the
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: three-month to four-month period is a bit of a scary
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: one too, because I feel like, as you say, the
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: adrenaline's kind of worn off. You're not getting as many visitors.
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: And I know you don't like the word regression, but
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: people talk about this four-month sleep regression.
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: What do you say about regressions?
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I literally had this conversation with someone in the waiting
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: room before we started. I don't like the word regression because-
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Developmental regression is the kind of thing that gets a
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: pediatrician out of bed at 2 in the morning. It's
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: a scary word, and it's something that we take very,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: very seriously because it's a problem. It usually represents a
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: significant medical disease or problem. When it is bandied around
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: because a baby who used to sleep through the night
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: at 3 months is now not sleeping through the night
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: at 4 months, it's not a regression. It's a progression.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: It's a step in the positive direction, right?
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: You don't want your children to have three-month development for years.
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: You don't want that, right? Now, I'm not saying that
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: that development is easy, okay? Like, for example, when we
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: all wait, wait with bated breath, when will my child
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: start crawling? And then they finally crawl and you realize, oh,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: my God, they're dangerous. And then you beg for them
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: to be able to walk and then, oh, my God,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: we've got stairs. I want to teach my son how
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: to ride a bike. Oh, God. Now she's, you know,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: my daughter is dangerous. She's a weapon. So all of these,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: every developmental thing that we attain is now a problem.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: So you can see how we would never wish our
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: children not to walk so that we can have the
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: benefit of not worrying about them or not to ride
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: a bike or not to drive a car. And the
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: same thing, we want them to progress through this. The
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: problem comes when we don't move with the times. Okay.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: So if I won't use an analogy, I'll just go
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: straight to the, to the guts of the issue at
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: four months babies grow fast their needs change and they're
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: growing so fast they need fuel and the most common
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: thing that happens at four months is the babies are
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: growing they are often outgrowing the ability of a breastfeeding
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: mother to nourish them exclusively but also we talked about
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: efficiency before a baby's stomach is only so big right
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: they can only get a certain amount of milk in
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: per feed. And if they are feeding, for example, five
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: times in a 24-hour period at three months of age,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and they need more calories to grow because they're growing,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: they're three times the size they were when they were born,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: how do they get more calories? Well, they can't get
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: more milk per feed because we said the stomach is finite.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: So the only option is for them to add a feed.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: And the only time for them to add a feed,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: because you also need sleep to grow, is the period
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of time where they're not feeding, which is in the
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: middle of the night. It's a very logical thing. So
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: they wake up at 2 in the morning for a feed.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: And people say, oh, my baby's going through the four-month regression.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: It's another thing I've got to get through. I've got
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: to survive. And that language comes back. And all of
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: a sudden, you're thrown right back into that newborn mentality of, oh, God,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: just when we got through, we're going to go backwards.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: And you can see how it's very seductive, this negative
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: talk and all of this. And I'm sitting here saying, no. A,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: it's not a regression. It's a progression. And B, you
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: don't have to suffer through it. You just have to
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: find a way to give your child more calories so
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: they don't seek it or need it overnight. And the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: answer is in solids.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I want to know, obviously, there's so much advice on
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: TikTok and Instagram about sleep. What is the advice that
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: you see that just makes you want to scream, that
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: you get so irritated by?
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: How long do we have? I mean, that's the reason
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: why I got into this space. When I started in
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: social media... It was very frowned upon for doctors to
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: play in this space. Very, very few did, especially in Australia.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: That's changed, thankfully. We need more evidence-based medical voices out
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: there in the places where people play, because you can
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: talk as much as you want, but if you don't
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: have that audience listening to you, it's for nothing. There
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: are many things that really bother me. Touching on that
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: topic of regression, another thing that people talk about are leaps.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: That's a big big bugbear of mine, really big, because
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: what frustrated me through my experience with my first and
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: second and third was being told, don't worry, it's normal.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: It'll pass. It could be the most unhelpful thing to
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: say to a sleep deprived parent. It's normal. It will pass. Oh,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: thank you, Captain Obvious. And thank you for not helping
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: me sleep at night. So if you normalize something that's
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: not normal, you're not solving the problem. You're just describing it.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: You're giving it an adjective. So I despise when someone
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: says your child has colic in a dismissive way. I'm
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: not going to give you a solution. I'm just going
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: to describe it. I hate when people use the term
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: purple crying.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, don't worry.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: It's purple crying. It'll pass. That's not helpful. You're giving
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: me an adjective. Can you imagine? If you went to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: the emergency department because you broke your leg and someone said,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I've got a diagnosis for you, you have pain.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: How about why?
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: How about solving the reason so that I don't have pain?
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: That's how nonsensical it is to me. So I despise
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the term purple crying. It's an adjective. I don't like
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: the word colic. It's an adjective. Reflux is overused, overdiagnosed
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: and often incorrectly diagnosed. And leaps fall into the same
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: category for me because if, I mean, have you used
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: that particular product where people talk, thank you, I love
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: the three of you.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: I heard you didn't like it, so I was like,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: not for me.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Good, the message is getting out.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: I think people read into it.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: They do.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: And they're like, oh, that must be because, and it's like, no,
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: it's because you need to burp your child.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: Or I'm going to have a bad week because the
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: app says I'm going to have a bad week.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: So if you have a bad moment, your baby's five
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: months old, they usually sleep through the night, they wake up,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: you look at the app and it says, oh, It's
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: because they went through so-and-so leap. So you don't look
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: for the real reason because this concept that when you
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: go through a developmental progress, you have to have bad sleep.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: What's that all about? There's no science behind that. It
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't made by scientists, this product, and there's no evidence
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: behind it. It's a very easy sell because you're giving
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: someone who's sleep-deprived and desperate an answer, which helps, makes
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you feel better. but it doesn't solve the problem.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Because I've got a toddler and I keep saying
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: this thing about the toddler regret, like the two-year-old regression.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm interested to hear your thoughts, but
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: is it essentially because just so much is changing? Because
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of people are putting their toddler
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: in a bed and suddenly they're waking up. And is it,
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: is that really what this regression is about?
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful example. Again, it's a progression. They're getting autonomy.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: That's the source of conflict, of friction. because they've never
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: controlled anything in their world for two years. And all
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, they've got this newfound superpower, which is
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: called autonomy. And when you get a new skill, you
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: are terrible at it by definition. You learn to ride
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: a bike, you get a grazed knee. You don't become
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: a Tour de France cyclist on day one. So you
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: get this thing called autonomy. And do we want our
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: children to have autonomy? Absolutely. Is it an enjoyable start? Absolutely. No,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: it's not. But this is, again, this is part of
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: developmental progress. And what happens with autonomy? They want to
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: control things. And what can they control? What they put
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: in their mouth, their body when you try and dress them,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: and when they go to sleep. Therefore, you get the
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: three most common conflicts of toddlers. And people say, oh,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: terrible toddlers and toddler tantrums and terrorist toddler. All this negative, negative,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: negative talk. And it's so unfair and it's so wrong
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: and it is so preventable.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I totally agree because I was kind of scared to
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: have a two-year-old and he's nearly two and a half
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: and I have loved the experience in saying that he
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: has started to try and climb out of his cot.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: So we've put it like the mattress is right on
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: the ground. So that seems to have stopped it at
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: the moment, but we did panic by a toddler bed.
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: What is the best time to put them?
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: I know there's not always a best time, but do
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: you just wait until the latest as possible.
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: To put them in the bed?
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Is that? I think it's easier to wait. Definitely. I
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: also think How is more important than when. I advise
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: people not to make any significant changes within three months
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: of a new baby arriving or three months after, lest
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: they perceive that as a theft. This new baby stole
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: my cot and stole my bath and stole my mum's
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: breasts and stole dad's attention. When it comes to bed transition,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: if possible, I would bring the bed into the room
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: with the cot. We talked about autonomy. The best way
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to give, to exercise and run dry their desire for
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: autonomy is to give them choices, always the choice of two,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: two options that you're very happy with. Do you want
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the blue jumper or the red jumper?
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I just want my kid to wear a jumper because
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: it's four degrees outside, right? You don't say, put your
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: jumper on. You say, which jumper do you want to choose?
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Which plate do you want to eat?
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Which way should we drive down the street? Whatever it
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: may be. When you put them in that bedroom, you say,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: do you want to sleep in the cot or the bed?
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: They feel like they are driving. They are in charge.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: They have control. And therefore, you're more likely to get
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: no objection and you'll get buy-in. And eventually, they know
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: that they can choose either. And when they usually move
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: to the bed, they're very happy because no one's taken
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: their cot. And they just know they can see it there.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: They have the sleep association. They get it. They're not
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: threatened by anything. And eventually... they want more space to
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: play so you can take it out.
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, that's really good to know.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: Is that the same advice for your husbands? Like would
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: you like Dr. Golley's book or would you like Dr.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Golley's guide? Or both.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Just to wrap things up because we know you are
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: very busy, we thought we'd do a bit of a
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: quick round, quick fire round. So white noise, essential or unnecessary?
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Essential. You've got to remember that in the womb it's
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: really noisy. When you're underwater, it's noisy. And so babies
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: are not used to complete silence. And it's quite disconcerting.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, last night we obviously didn't have our kids here
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: and I had to have the white noise on.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: I get it.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: I know this is meant to be a quick round,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: but is there a time when you turn it off?
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: You don't have to. As you can see, adults benefit
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: from it as well. We're not used to complete silence.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Silence is deafening.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: What are your thoughts on blackout blinds? Are they worth
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: every cent or overrated?
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Every cent. Again, every answer I give you is going
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: to take us back to the womb. So underwater, white noise,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: complete darkness, being in the womb. Everything that we do
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: that gives you a feeling of being back in the
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: womb is going to settle you. So the answers are
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: definite yes.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: What about contact napping?
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Absolutely fine, infrequently. So if you do it every now
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: and then, it's fine. It's absolutely not a problem. The
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: issue arises when you need it for them to get
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: any sleep or you're using it multiple times a day,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: every single day, you're missing a reason for them to
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: be unsettled.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: What about a strict schedule or following their cues?
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Bit of both. I'm not one for strict. I'm not
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: one for militant. Babies don't work. Humans don't work like that.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: So I don't watch the clock. What I do say
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: is that there is a rhythm. There is a routine.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: You know, I say if the feeding time is 11am,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: then anywhere from 10.30 to 11.30 is absolutely fine. Everything,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: give or take 15, 20 minutes, either side, no problem.
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: Early bedtime or later bedtime?
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: For toddlers. A really common thing is early waking. People
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: come to me and say, my toddler wakes too early.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: And the easiest, most effective solution is putting them to
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: bed earlier. A lot of people think if I put
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: them to bed later, they will wake up later. The
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: exact opposite happens because of this concept called overtired. So again,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: setting up for success, put them to bed later and
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: make sure they have enough protein in their diet during
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: the day.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Lastly, if there's a mum who's listening and she's having
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: trouble with her child's sleep, what is one thing you
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: would tell her to do tonight?
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Don't resign to the concept that you just have a
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: bad sleeper. Don't feel like if I haven't done anything now,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: it's too late. It is never too late. The earlier
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: you do it, the easier it is, but you can
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: get into a better sleep habit with a 10-year-old, even
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: if it hasn't been good prior to that. And you should,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: because we know There's a lot of evidence that shows
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: that good sleep has a lifetime of impact. It impacts
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: your mental health. It impacts your physical health. In terms
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: of public health initiatives, we talk about, you know, eating
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: well and exercising. Sleep is absolutely on that list. So
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: it is never, ever, ever too late. Mm-hmm.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for your time. We really
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: appreciate it. Very excited to have you on the show.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: And as we said, thank you for making our postpartum
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: journey so good.
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: We're just so thankful.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: of The Mums Group. I think Kate is still recovering
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: from our.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: Interview with Dr.
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: Collie.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: They say that you should never meet your idols, but
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: in this case, Dr.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Collie lived up to all of our expectations. Now, if
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: you'd like to follow Dr. Golley, he is on Instagram
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: at Dr. Golley. You can also find out more information
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: about his courses at drgolley.com. This episode was recorded on
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: the traditional land of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: We pay respect to elders past and present.