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Sleep Will Never Be The Same · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] Hey, I have three kids. They eat so much. We try to eat real food. We try to cook when we can.
• 0:10
  We try not to waste too much, 'cause it drives me nuts, and it's expensive, and also for obvious climate reasons, which is why the Mill Food Recycler changed our lives a couple years ago.
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• 0:44
  Look, you got peels, bones, stalks, whatever leftovers, dump them in the Mill, and Mill dries and grinds them while you sleep. Again, it doesn't smell, which I don't understand. It's sleek. It's actually sexy.
• 1:00
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• 1:07
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• 1:15
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• 1:26
  It is mill.com/lp/important-not-important. That is mill.com/lp/important-not-important. I couldn't remember that, so we put it in the show notes.
• 1:44
  It's right there for you. Check it out. Huge thanks to Mill for sponsoring our work and doing the right thing, and thanks to all of you listeners for supporting our partners.
• 1:55
  [upbeat music] Really, truly nothing prepares you for how fucked up you get, like, when you are postpartum and sleep deprived. [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.
• 2:12
  We'll be talking about/crashing out over topics like- Soccer snacks and sea level rise... while the Arctic melts, question mark. Cleaning out uneaten lunch boxes again at 4:00 PM or 10:00 PM every day.
• 2:26
  Youth sports and other camp signups you forgot about and won't get into anyways. And is there such a thing as unstructured time anymore for anyone? For me? It's not an advice show.
• 2:36
  It's a you're not alone, and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kinda show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches. And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important.
• 2:46
  You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website notrightnow.show..show.
• 2:53
  And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet, and then drop us a nice little five-star review.
• 3:02
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions@notrightnow.show. [upbeat music] I'm exhausted, which is perfect- Yeah...
• 3:19
  for today. You know, as opposed to my other podcast, doing this one as organically as possible in the conditions we describe is pretty important, you know? [laughs] Yes.
• 3:33
  I have a, like a million dollar idea that I can put out there for people to listen to. Yeah. Please, by all means. Okay. It's called Play It Again Fancy, and it's inspired by...
• 3:43
  Do you guys have Play It Again Sports out there? Do you have that company? Oh, yeah, the used sp- Yeah, I gotta go there, actually. We need some new catcher's gear. Yeah. Yeah.
• 3:51
  So this is inspired by May crowning, the Catholic ceremony tomorrow that I just learned the hard way that I'm apparently the only mother in my grade who is not excited about.
• 4:01
  It is an event, a Catholic rite that- Oh, boy... I don't, I'm not familiar with, but it is a big deal tomorrow that is like short day at school, dress up, and bring a bouquet of flowers.
• 4:13
  And I s- made a witchy comment and misread the room, because I was sorta complaining about it, and other folks were like, "It's my favorite day," and I was like, "Ah, shit."
• 4:21
  But part of it is that my sons are just, like, not nicely dressed kids. It's just not a priority for me to have them have nice clothes and shoes and all that stuff on-hand, but I also am not confident in that.
• 4:34
  I always think, like, maybe if I made different decisions, I'd be someone who had, like, a nicely turned out child all the time.
• 4:39
  Anyway, all that is to say Play It Again Fancy is a store where you can take your child's, like, once worn dress-up shoes that they wore for one wedding and then instantly outgrew.
• 4:49
  So it'll be like Play It Again Sports, so you can get, like, a pair of dress-up shoes for $5 or whatever and turn your dress-up clothes in for store credit. So let's make that happen. I think that's great. There was a
• 5:02
  company, organization, boy, I don't know if it survived, and this is back to when we were having kids. Same thing, but for, like, maternity clothes. Anyways. Yeah, I have to go to a fourth grade recorder concert.
• 5:15
  Oh, boy, so much tooting. I hope they play "Hot Cross Buns." I'm sure they will. I had a question for you about that. One, have you seen my children introduce to me, and I'm such a dick about it.
• 5:26
  They're like, "Can I show you the YouTube of the person playing recorder?" And I'm always such an asshole. I'm always like, "How the fuck are you on YouTube?" They're like, "I was trying to share something with you."
• 5:34
  [laughs] So I thought- Yeah... of you, and what a fucking dickhead. Anyways, I'll find the link to it. It's incredible. It's a kid,
• 5:42
  I'm assuming a child, playing a recorder, but it's the Mission Impossible theme, and it's so bad. Oh. It's very funny. [laughs] But my second question, what's the worst instrument your child could choose to play?
• 5:52
  You can answer objectively, but also for your children if you'd like and your preferences. Is there a different answer? I think anything with a reed, I would presume, because there's so much spit involved.
• 6:04
  Anything with a spit valve. That's, that's what I'm thinking. That's all the woodwinds. You're knocking those all outYeah.
• 6:10
  If anyone who is listening went to school with me, there's a really iconic rendition of a kid in my grade school playing Silent Night on the trombone at the school Christmas concert.
• 6:20
  And the cool moms, like who are my moms, like the... And her friends, like could not stop laughing and like smothering their laughter. So anyway, and now in retrospect, you're like, "Well, what an angel.
• 6:30
  He tried really hard. Like, who would laugh at him?" But anyway, I just think of that. Do you think that's the guy outside my window every day? I've told you about the trombone guy, right? No.
• 6:37
  In the middle of Colonial Williamsburg that plays the trombone all fucking day in like the busker spot. Mm. And I think it's really influenced. Again, I grew up playing music in orchestras.
• 6:46
  I played percussion, which as you know, now my oldest child chose percussion. I said, "It's never gonna get you laid. No one's gonna ask you to play percussion at a party."
• 6:55
  [laughs] Like there, there's no like Spanish flamenco. But there's also not like sensual saxophone. That's a woodwind, that's a wind. That could mean something to somebody. But trombone, like isn't gonna do it.
• 7:05
  I'm losing my mind. No. The more I think about it, the more thankful I am that I don't involve... There's no spit valve in my life.
• 7:13
  Like that, I just, I still remember the time during COVID, when COVID was like max COVID- Mm... and like you couldn't go anywhere without a mask. I didn't have a mask, and I put on a mask that my child had already worn.
• 7:25
  Oh, nope. And that was one of the like- Nope... top three facial smell experiences that like the worst of my life, so. Um. No, I don't need to hear the rest of those. That's horrible.
• 7:34
  We used to play a game when our kids had the clear little... Remember they'd have the little water bottles before they kinda graduated? Yeah. And they were clear, and had the little sucky straw thing that you'd bite on.
• 7:46
  And we used to, you know, like the end of a day, there would be residue in them, and water. And I used to show it to Dana, 'cause again, it was clear, and you could see chunks of things in it. I'd say, "Real answer,
• 8:01
  how much do I have to pay you to drink that?" From the same spout. And yeah, it's a har- it's a hard one. Yeah. 'Cause the answer's probably, you couldn't. No.
• 8:11
  A friend of mine, even before we had kids, she told me about a, a disease that she and her sister talked about with regard to their little sister called baby mouth, where it's, you know, anything that a baby's mouth has touched is instantly poisoned.
• 8:23
  So that is a bad case of baby mouth. And yeah, it's pretty, pretty disgusting. Anyway, yeah, my older son played guitar. And on the one hand, he practices for maximum, I would say 15 minutes a week total. Mm.
• 8:35
  But I am reluctant to make him work harder, 'cause I can hear the improvement. What's the point of just like making him resent it more?
• 8:42
  This recorder concert been coming for months, and she's like, "Hey, are you gonna come?" I was like, "Of course. Like wild horses couldn't keep me away. Yada, yada, all this." I said, "Do you feel prepared?"
• 8:51
  And again, like trying to make it fun, build the confidence. She's like, "Yeah. I mean, obviously we practice at school all the time." I said, "I thought you only had music like once a week."
• 8:59
  She's like, "Yeah, but you know, practice at home, too." And I said, "Do you?" [laughs] She said, "Yeah, no, obviously."
• 9:05
  I said, " 'Cause your home recorder, as you described it, has been like on my dresser for six fucking months. Whatever you're telling yourself is not true." And I've done it. We all do it, you know?
• 9:15
  I gotta swim in an ocean in two weeks, and I'm gonna tell myself I'm prepared. Like, I haven't swam since the last ocean. I've been tapering since the last one. So whatever I guess you gotta tell yourself to get by.
• 9:26
  If only there was an app. Maybe there is some kind of app that you don't know about where she is practicing. You know, it's like Duolingo, but for recorder. And- They've got music. Duolingo's got music now.
• 9:34
  And they do like it, but I don't think it... You know, it's not this. No.
• 9:38
  By the way, we don't have to talk about this now, especially 'cause I don't have any thoughts on it, but we need to talk about how p- more people are getting, I guess, addicted to and becoming psychotic after talking to ChatGPT too much.
• 9:49
  And I'm like, that's a great, like a new thing to worry about. Great. I'm already worried about my son going to college. Well, first of all, let's assume he lives that long and doesn't go to jail. But yeah.
• 9:58
  A lot of assumptions here. The idea of his own time management with a computer, you know? And I always worry about gambling.
• 10:04
  I'm sorry, not to be not fun, but I think gambling is a hu- like sports gambling- Oh, it's amazing. Here's a commercial, and at the bottom they're like, "If you're already fucked up- Yeah...
• 10:12
  call this number immediately." Did you see the commercial during the NCAA that was like, "Don't hassle the players if you lost your bet." Great work, everybody. To them. And I'm like, it's- Great work...
• 10:20
  I'm glad that was a great commer- commercial. But yeah. But now I'm like, I can totally see a college kid going to school and making no friends, and then being in their dark room talking to their sexy computer wife.
• 10:31
  Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. Who will only tell them, everything that you say is right. Anyway. I'll send you the New York Magazine article just came out this week about how GPT has completely fucked higher education.
• 10:42
  Which- Great. Yeah. Everyone's cheating. Yeah, I think I saw that one. And- Yeah... it was kind of sad, 'cause my older one, who's usually like the good one- Is he objectively good, or is it relative?
• 10:51
  I mean, what is objective? Let's just say he's more compliant. [laughs] He, like... [laughs] More compliant- That's such a great corporate word. [laughs] He has- You know, he's got synergy. Yeah, exactly.
• 11:04
  He never asks for a raise. We have a good understanding. You know what I mean? He doesn't tend to rock the boat.
• 11:08
  I made the mistake of forgetting to take away his laptop whilst he was out of town, and I opened the door to wake him up, and he was on his computer. And it's one of those things where I don't need to...
• 11:16
  Like, he knows he's fucked. Yep. Like, he's fucked up the second I look at him. Anyway, so we were talking about it the other day, and I was like, "I should have just taken it from your room."
• 11:24
  And he was kinda confessing, like his inability to like be off the computer, and I was like, "I'm not mad at you. I can't blame you." I'm like, "I know exactly what you go through. I feel the same way." So.
• 11:34
  We try to be really specific and brutally honest about that. Like, when we have the same things, we're like, one, it's not your fucking fault, nor is it the parents' fault.
• 11:43
  Like, the fact that we're the ones fending this shit off is ridiculous, but like we all struggle with the same shit. So the difference is I've had it for longer, and I had a life without them. Yeah.
• 11:51
  Which makes me wanna throw mine in the fucking ocean every day. Yeah. I don't want it, you know? And I don't think a lot of times they want it either. Anyways, it's a whole fucking thing. No, it totally is.
• 12:01
  But it speaks to bedtime, because it does fuck them up, right? Yeah. And everyone's like, "Well, the research goes back and forth." I'm like, I don't fucking care, man. I'm worried about my house. Yeah.
• 12:11
  And like what my kids' friends, are they functional people?Because I would like them to be, 'cause they're good kids, and it's a fucking nightmare. So let's talk about sleep. Yeah.
• 12:20
  Which I feel like we could weave into everything. And yeah, I'm exhausted. I have a journal app I've been using for 15 years, very intermittently, called Day One. It's fantastic. Is it digital? Of course. But I do it.
• 12:34
  Well, as much as I'll do it. And I send screenshots to my friend, and they are just single-line entries from the past 15 years that just say, "Tired." Oh. And I'll show you a collage of these. It's incredible.
• 12:49
  You could pick a date, and it's just me having written that. And it doesn't matter if my kids are all under four, or now. It's just tired.
• 12:56
  And he sent me a message this morning [laughs] that said, "Why am I still so tired? It's like one night of halfway decent sleep didn't solve all my problems." I guess the big question is, is it possible to feel good?
• 13:07
  I don't know at this point. Right. Well, you know, sleep versus mornings are two very different things. Yeah.
• 13:14
  And so I don't think, like, the world's best night of sleep is necessarily gonna make you wake up and be like, "I'm really glad- I'm alive... another day of..."
• 13:21
  Well, like, for instance, I brought some dishes to the sink, and I looked in the sink, and some child had dumped a mostly full bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats in the sink.
• 13:30
  And, you know, it's soaked up all the water, you know. So- Do you know how angry I would be? Because, one, I don't buy them that kind of poison shit, but I would enjoy it, and they would enjoy it.
• 13:40
  And so I would like to be, like, the fun dad. Like, Dana was unexpectedly gone for a couple days. Like, that's a little thing I'm trying to do more of. Let me do a fun thing. Oh, yeah.
• 13:47
  And if they dumped it in the fucking sink, I'd be like- [laughs]... "Are you fucking kidding me? Do you know what it took for me to get over my bullshit to buy you this dumb box of fucking cereal?" Yeah.
• 13:57
  That was, like, the third-string fun cereal. 'Cause while Steve was gone, I bought Lucky Charms and Frosted Flakes. Sorry, Quinn. Don't cancel me.
• 14:04
  'Cause I was like, "Maybe they'll make their own breakfast," and they did. Great. No, that's a hack. No amount of sleeping well will make you be like, "That was sweet," you know? "What a charming little task."
• 14:14
  How did you sleep last night? Let's kick off with that. Dana came home late from LA, which was very kind of her.
• 14:19
  She came back a little earlier than she thought she would and could, and sacrificed a lot of her own sleep to do that, to be there for the kids and to make sure she makes the recorder concert today. Mm.
• 14:28
  And so I bounce between being a deep sleeper and a light sleeper, but I don't know. She got back at, I don't even know, like, 12:30 or whatever. So I'm sure I was up during that, and had to pee three times. Mm.
• 14:39
  That's not bad. None of the kids were up last night that I remember, which is great. Yeah. That's what really fucks me up. Yeah. Because I have a hard time going back to sleep.
• 14:47
  I find if I actually pick up my Kindle, like, I can read a little bit and go back to sleep. But it was fine. It hasn't been great lately, definitely. Mm. And that really adds up in the aggregate.
• 14:57
  Again, like, I can't catch up.
• 14:59
  Are you one of those people who's, like, really diligent about your sleep hygiene at this time of your life, where you are like, screens off, like, in my bed, you know, cool room, or devil may care? Yeah.
• 15:09
  You sent me a message that said, "Ask Dana tonight to report on whether you're an easy person to share a bedroom with, or whether she has notes." And she said, "This is amazing."
• 15:19
  She said, "Besides your need to have 36 pillows on your bed," which is an exaggeration, "you're a great person to sleep with."
• 15:26
  She said, "You do like to keep the room at a temperature that could kill me if I, given the wrong circumstances, forget to wear socks. But other than that, no notes." So listen, it's not 36 pillows.
• 15:36
  What I've developed, I guess, working backwards, is... And it's different when she's gone. It's a little more exaggerated, 'cause I have to recreate her in the aggregate with pillows.
• 15:46
  [laughs] We are a couple that actually likes physical contact during the night, and I realize that goes against most people. It just works better for us, which is great. So I'm a side sleeper, mostly.
• 15:56
  Doesn't matter the side. My body's so broken, I have to rotate anyways, my sleep shitty from that. Everything hurts. The best night of sleep I ever get is when I take three Advil.
• 16:04
  I treat myself, like, once or twice a month. Mm. It's great. So on one side, I have a foam pregnancy pillow, body pillow, that I took from her, like, 12 years ago. It's made the move across the country.
• 16:15
  It's very important. There's another pillow that I don't actually sleep on unless she needs much more room to sleep on some given night, in which case I go over there.
• 16:23
  It's basically never been used, but it's there as an emotional support pillow. Mm-hmm. Under my head is one, like, very firm foam pillow with a neck cradle, but I don't actually use it.
• 16:32
  There's another [laughs] pillow on top of that, 'cause I get acid reflux sometimes. That's a foam one, and it's very specific. I think it... What does it say? Easy Breather? I'll figure out what it is.
• 16:41
  It's very specific. And then there's a thinner but still foam pillow between my knees. Dude. And now I've added a nice little treat, a really soft little one for between my feet.
• 16:51
  I have various machines and gadgets as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. [laughs] Oh, we can talk about the machine, but we haven't even gotten to that. I do keep it, like, exceptionally cold. I've always done that.
• 16:59
  Like, when I was at Colgate- Yeah... I'd sleep with the window open when it was, like, zero degrees. I mean, you could call it dangerous. There's three blankets, 'cause it needs to be cozy as fuck. Mm.
• 17:06
  Again, these blankets we fucking love, all from a woman in LA named Carrie Castle. They're these wonderful quilts, and they're very breathable but also very snuggly. I don't remember where her sheets are from.
• 17:17
  We use, right now we're sleeping on one of those Avocado mattresses, so it's not giving you cancer the whole time. They're very fucking comfortable. They're really great. Mm. I think there's a couple different versions.
• 17:26
  A friend used to work there. Th- They do good shit. And then we've got one of those... I think this guy's a fucking MAGA guy, but I don't really care. It's an Eight Sleep machine. Have you heard of this thing? Mm-mm.
• 17:37
  So we're both very hot sleepers. It's a water-filled pad that goes on your bed, attached to what looks like a CPAP machine on the side. Okay. And you can set the temperature.
• 17:45
  You can even split it on different sides of the bed, and you can make it cool if you need it to. Supposedly adjusts throughout the night. I don't give a fuck about that. [laughs] Okay.
• 17:54
  I turn it down, make it as cold as I can. So- Yeah... that's the final piece of my routine. Other than that, no phone in the room, really, for me. As dark as we can get it, cold as we can get it.
• 18:05
  Ceiling fan always on high 24/7. Doesn't matter the, the day of the year, Christmas or the height of summer. Sound machine, old-school sound machine, and my Kindle on night mode.And what about your dog?
• 18:18
  Oh, I have a slight dog allergy, which is- Mm... fine, except for they're like, "Don't sleep in a fucking room with it. That's just closed air." Sure. So she sleeps- Okay... in another room, much to the chagrin of Dana.
• 18:29
  You sound like my younger son, just in that he, white noise machine, sleep mask- Mm-hmm... fan on low, turtle. Do you have one of those turtles you turn on and it, you know, constellation on the ceiling?
• 18:40
  The kids had one at one point. I can't have that shit. It, I need it to be pitch black.
• 18:44
  Well, he also, he creates a wall out of his stuffed animals and covers it with a blanket so that kinda, you know, it gives him, like, a Temple Grandin sort of effect. [laughs] Clearly.
• 18:52
  I mean, that's clearly [laughs] what I fucking described for me. Yeah.
• 18:56
  Dana came back at one point, and I had done all that, and then recreated the other side as her, and she pulled back the blanket and it was all still there. I hadn't made the bed. And she was like, "Oh my God." Oh.
• 19:05
  I'm like, "Sorry." I mean, maybe boys need hugs. Yeah, and the wall always has to be constructed in a certain way. Like- Mm-hmm... the dinosaur goes here- Mm-hmm... and the panda goes there, you know?
• 19:13
  And then, like, one sleeping buddy, like, who is, like, his main guy. How much did you influence that? Or is that something he developed over time on his own? I think on his own. I certainly don't do the wall thing.
• 19:24
  Although, we all have... Like, I have a sleeping pillow, like a hugging pillow I've always had. So, you know, I don't begrudge anyone, like, a comfort item, but I don't need, like, a whole...
• 19:33
  It's funny 'cause we used to say that, I mean, going back in time, like, James has had more historical sleep issues. Like, Paul kind of just, like I said, compliant.
• 19:42
  I remember when he, we told him, "You're moving from a crib to the bed. Here's your bed. Go to sleep." "Okay." Night, lights out. Oh. No problem. Jesus. Yeah. Okay.
• 19:49
  But our older one used to do this thing called head banging, and if you Google my name and head banging, I wrote a blog about this because it was so disturbing.
• 19:58
  And of course, if you Google it, like, the only answers are, like, sociopath- Mm... autism, put him in a, you know, a f- facility A- Mm-hmm... ASAP. Mm-hmm.
• 20:07
  Like, he would bang his head, and it wasn't, like, a comfort thing. But as a baby, he would bang his head so insistently that he would, like, seek out the side of his crib. And we have pictures of him.
• 20:16
  He would get, like, a sore, like a open wound on his head- Mm... 'cause he wanted, he like, for some reason. So anyway, he kinda does a little bit now. We sort of joke about it. I think he can control it.
• 20:25
  But, you know, those were very different things where on the one hand you're like, this one kid won't stay in bed, on the other hand, this other one we're like, are you trying to, like, open up your head, like, and expose your brain?
• 20:33
  What is going on? You know, everyone brings their own adventure, that's for sure. How early did that start for him? And do you think you caused it? Oh, yeah. I caused it 'cause I had drinks during pregnancy. Mm-hmm.
• 20:44
  Absolutely. Okay. That started probably... Well, he was big enough to hold his head. Like, he was probably just, like, s- maybe four or five months. Like, he was- Wow... pretty little. Yeah. And how long did it continue?
• 20:55
  Well, he'll still kinda sometimes do it. Like, you'll hear him maybe humming a little tune or, you know, kind of droning a little bit in his room.
• 21:01
  And we actually ended up buying him a bed frame from IKEA 'cause I found one that had a soft, you know, like a soft headboard. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I was like...
• 21:08
  But I mean, if you go around the world enough and you ask normal people, like, I feel like everyone has, like, a brother who did that.
• 21:14
  I have one friend, Lauren, who is, like, one of my best girlfriends because first of all, Paul was very little when he was born. I think he was, like, five and a half, six pounds, which, like, it kinda gave me a complex.
• 21:23
  And she was like, "I was that size, too." And she's like, "Look at me now." [laughs] And she's a full-grown person who is also a doctor. And she also talked about head banging, too, and she's like, "I love it."
• 21:31
  She's like, "It was the best." But it's kind of funny now to talk about it with Paul, be like, "Did you do any head banging last night?" Mm-hmm.
• 21:36
  You know, sometimes I'll pretend to do it, too, and so it's nice that we can talk about it as opposed to being terrified that he is, you know, demonic or something like that. Mm-hmm. You know? I mean, still might be.
• 21:46
  You don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Biding his time. Who of your kids, were they, was it, like, right out the gate that you guys realized that your sleep was never gonna be the same?
• 21:56
  Or was it, like, the subsequent kids that really showed you, like, how your life is gonna be different now sleep-wise? It's both a very simple and a complicated answer. So the simple answer is Dana
• 22:08
  didn't love the idea of, or the experience of, like, maternity leave not working as it was. I, I mean, she worked on our honeymoon, so that was an early indication.
• 22:19
  But she was running a TV show and had to go back to work two weeks after our first kid was born. So we did get a night nurse, which was super helpful, 'cause again, she had to go back and this child had to survive.
• 22:31
  And so Fox, like, begrudgingly pulled up, like, a trailer behind the lot in Century City, Los Angeles, so Dana could pop out there and feed this child.
• 22:43
  And then I would drive him home through the Los Angeles traffic at 5:30 because what we did was, like, the world's most regimented sleep routines.
• 22:53
  And for all three of our kids, the short story is, or as the kids say, TL;DR semicolon, it fucking worked. Mm-hmm. Sleep does, at least for our kids, sleep did beget sleep. And the grandmas were not pleased.
• 23:07
  They were like, "This is fucking ridiculous. It's so much sleep." [laughs] I think they also felt like it was constrictive, but it fucking worked. And our kids- Uh-huh...
• 23:14
  because their sleeping and eating was so predictable, there weren't a lot of questions about are they just randomly upset about whatever the fuck.
• 23:22
  Like, they're tired when they were supposed to be tired, and hungry, and all that. And again, was it restrictive and annoying? For sure, especially, like, going around town. You just couldn't do a lot of shit.
• 23:30
  But basically it was for a long time the child would wake up s- six-ish, and this was, like, post-fucking sleep training, which we can talk about. Child would wake up six-ish.
• 23:42
  We've, we had a bunch of, like, little board books in their fucking crib so that they could dick around with them, even if they didn't know they had hands yet. Mm-hmm.
• 23:49
  We would get them at 6:45, 7, boob or bottle or, you know, eventually food. At 9:00, it was nap time from 9:00 to 10:00. So again, boob or bottle, sleep for an hour.
• 24:02
  Up at 10:00, fuck around for an hour and a half, lunch and bottle or whatever, and then nap from 12:00 to 4:00. Whoa. And, I know.
• 24:12
  And then again, up for, like, hour and a half, and then dinner and boob or bottle at 5:45, and they would sleep from 6:00-To six. Now, it didn't always go that way.
• 24:23
  Of course, we had plenty of night- and again, this is all after sleep training shit. Mm-hmm. Which we did, fully. And did it nearly break us? Like, of course. Like- Right...
• 24:30
  I wrote a whole movie scene about how it, it, two people almost killed each other over it. Like, hormones, you're exhausted, you're killing the child, whatever. Worked for them. And again, sleep begets sleep. It worked.
• 24:40
  They were pretty healthy, and we were lucky to be able to do it. We tried to, you know, bite the bullet and really just commit to it. Was it hard?
• 24:47
  Because we had three under three at one time, so they were all kinda going through all that shit at the same time. Yeah, but it made our schedules more predictable. It did, I think, help them sleep.
• 24:56
  They liked going to sleep. We did, I mean, various tools and tricks, which I'm sure have changed in the past 12 years. My kids really loved those, you know those sleep sacks? Oh, yeah.
• 25:05
  I swear, m- my youngest, I feel like he was in it until he was like six. He was just like, "Fuck yeah, this is so cozy." Did you ever do the Merlin suit?
• 25:12
  It's like a big snow suit that they sleep in, and it was for- No, but I'll buy one for me. [laughs] It was for when your baby was too big, your baby was big enough that they would bust out of their suit.
• 25:23
  But when they would jerk, the suit holds them down [laughs] a little bit, basically, and it's adorable and hilarious. But God, I ha- can't...
• 25:30
  One of those things that like flies through your life, but at the moment, you realize, "This is gonna fix all my fucking problems."
• 25:34
  Well, it's like the zipper, the Velcro swaddle, when you realize, like, you don't have to subscribe to that 1800 shit and you just Velcro the sh- you just lock 'em up in there. Why did I do that?
• 25:42
  It's fucking- Why did I do that? Those things are life... I send them to everybody whenever they have a kid. I can't even wrap a burrito. I don't know why I thought I could Right, right... you know?
• 25:49
  Baby who's clearly born three months too early, doesn't know they have- Yeah... fucking hands, can't do anything. Meanwhile, like, a deer pops out, and it just walks around and eats, fucking day one. Yeah.
• 25:58
  That was it, and we committed to it for a long time. The kids, they kept that middle of the day nap for a long time, and that was great for us. Seemed like great for them. Mm-hmm.
• 26:05
  We eventually transitioned it into quiet time. Mm. "Hey, listen. Now, we've come to rely on that time. Fuck off. You gotta stay in your room. I don't care if you sleep or not."
• 26:13
  And again, sometimes, most of the time, we do the thing where we treat them like adults even though they're not, obviously, in, in various capacities.
• 26:22
  But we try to stick with, and we do this in the mornings as well, you get to be tired at night- Mm-hmm... or in the morning or whatever. Hopefully it's at, quote-unquote, the right time.
• 26:32
  Hey, you're supposed to be tired when you're brushing your teeth. You don't want to. This is great. Your body's ready to do this.
• 26:36
  You don't get to be a dickhead, and that's a hard one to learn when you're seven, eight, nine, or 42, right? Yes. 'Cause sometimes you just fucking wanna be, but we just try to encourage them.
• 26:46
  We're not trying to say, "Don't be tired," or whatever. Totally get it. Yeah. But we're also trying to get to the point where you're responsible for your fucking... If you read until late, I get it. I did it.
• 26:56
  I still sometimes do it. It's not gonna feel great the next day. Mm-hmm. So that's kinda where we are- Yeah... at this point. But we don't do any devices in the rooms at all.
• 27:06
  They've got those little hatch alarm clock fucking things that I can program.
• 27:09
  It's mostly because they kept fucking with the settings on all the other ones I had, and I had to reset their clocks four times a week, and I was like, "I'm not doing it." Sure. So took that away.
• 27:18
  And they got, yeah, fans, sound machines. I keep it cold as fuck and, yeah, just books. Mm-hmm. We don't even do really, like, toys in the rooms. Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:27
  Now, I remember, I don't remember what stage of life this was, but there was a certain point after the kids were born that I told Steve, I was like, "Let's stop talking about how tired we are first thing in the morning because, like- Yeah...
• 27:37
  let's just take it for granted that we are tired." 'Cause complaining about being tired is a real drag, so let's just assume we're tired.
• 27:44
  Last thing about me, have I told you the story the first time our oldest slept through the night? Did I mention this to you? No. Did you think he was dead? It didn't occur to me.
• 27:52
  We had a little house up in the Hollywood Hills, and his bedroom, old spare room, was right next to our bedroom, and you know that first night, you wake up and don't realize you hadn't gotten up, right? Mm-hmm.
• 28:04
  And then you suddenly go, "Oh my God." And we come out of our room, and we're so excited. It's our first kid. We tried so hard for so long, all this. He slept through the night.
• 28:12
  I know, like, his crib is inches from the door. We're so close to how did this go? Mm. And I go to open the door, and Dana goes, "Don't do that yet." I said, "Why not?" Yeah. She goes, "Oh, well, he's dead."
• 28:23
  [laughs] I said, "Excuse me?" She's like, "He's dead." So right now it's like Schrodinger's cat. She said, "I'm gonna have a coffee because the second I open that door, my whole life's gonna change- Yeah...
• 28:34
  and I need to have a coffee before that all happens." [laughs] And I was like, "Holy fucking shit," but okay. So anyways. Oh, what a great woman. Anyways, what about you guys? How did it all go?
• 28:45
  How did it make its way through to now? I mean, it was kinda predictable with Paul, our firstborn.
• 28:50
  If I could do life all over again, if I had the money, I suppose, maybe we did have the money, I just didn't know about it, like, I would've had a postpartum doula.
• 28:58
  Like, really truly nothing prepares you for how fucked up you get, like, when you are postpartum and sleep deprived. Just the choices even that you make.
• 29:05
  Like, I remember my mom, she meant well, but she gave me a baby book at my baby shower, and Paul, I think it was, like, one of my first or second nights up with him, and for some reason, I think, guess it was 2:00 in the morning, I had nothing to do, I started working on the baby book, and I still remember, like, tears falling on the baby book, you know.
• 29:21
  And, and also being up, like, watching the video.
• 29:24
  We got some baby wrap that was, like, a 24-foot-long piece of fabric, and you had to wrap it, you know, in a certain way so that you can carry the, your baby around with you. Oh, God.
• 29:33
  And, uh, watching the DVD of that also, like, while Paul was in the crib. You know, it was just very, I guess, like, you could write this.
• 29:40
  You know, you come home, here's your baby, so tiny, put him in this huge crib, and you're like, "Okay, I guess that's it. Good night," click, and then, you know, instantly starts the crying.
• 29:51
  And it's, you just, you don't know what you don't know. But, like, we would basically sleep in the room with him during our shifts- Mm-hmm... so that you can wake up the second he woke up because...
• 29:59
  I don't know why we did that. With our second kid, we were like, "You know what? If we put him to bed and leave the door open, and he cries, we'll hear him cry.
• 30:06
  You know, and he won't die if we sleep for a half an hour while he's crying." He had slept through the night on his three-month, third month, yeah, his exactly three months.
• 30:14
  But with James, I did not breastfeed, which I stand by, and I think it's great in terms of, like, moms getting more quality sleep-wise.But with James, we had more of a system down where I was like, "Okay, you're gonna be on the shift from 8:00 to 2:00," or whatever.
• 30:29
  You switch it up, and so, so you're guaranteed to get at least six hours of sleep or maybe five, which is pretty good. But the downside was that that was when I started, like, having really bad night sweats.
• 30:40
  So I felt- Mm-hmm... a little short-changed, where I was like, "We have a system, and I could get my sleep, but I keep waking up in this, like, pool of sweat." So that was a bummer.
• 30:46
  But yeah, we didn't have, in retrospect, like colic. Steve thought... He's like, "I think Paul might have colic." I'm like, "I don't think he does 'cause if he did, he wouldn't say, 'I think.'
• 30:56
  Like, we would be at the doctor's like, shit." Did any of your kids have anything like that? We had croup at times, and you gotta put them in the shower and then cold air, and they sh- you know. Yeah... stuff like that.
• 31:05
  I mean, we had a variety of shit. But they didn't have the panicky, exhaustive crying where you're- Mm... like, "There's something wrong with this child. Like, we need to figure out what's wrong with it"?
• 31:13
  Short answer, I'm sure there's things I'm forgetting or have blacked out. Mm-hmm. Longer answer, I don't think so, but oh- Mm... God, I don't fucking know. So you guys never did co-sleeping? Okay.
• 31:23
  So this was my thing, and it was kinda this is w- how I was with the dog in the bed as well. So I was like, "Absolutely fucking not." Okay. "We're just not doing it. I need my space. I'm fine to, to do this.
• 31:33
  I'm excited to be a dad, be up in the middle of the night. We gotta do what we gotta do. Like, we're exhausted," this and this, "but, like, our room and our bed is, is ours." It was a fight for a long time, but I just
• 31:46
  ... Yeah, I needed it. A fight between you and Dana? I presume if she was breastfeeding, she probably was like, "It's easier for me to just-" 100%, turn over. Yeah... and the boob's right there.
• 31:54
  I totally get it, but I was just like, "It's gotta be... " And I still feel this way with our kids now. We'll, they'll just walk in our bedroom. I'm like, I don't remember just, like- No... walking into my parents' bed.
• 32:03
  It's like that theme, like, one doesn't just walk into Mordor. [laughs] My kids just come in. I'm like, "Fucking turn around and, and knock and try again, or also just don't come in."
• 32:11
  But anyways, that's a different thing. I just needed one place in the fucking house that was ours, but it's amazing. So I asked my buddy Drew, who's...
• 32:20
  He was a sub captain, and he was gone for so much of his kids' lives.
• 32:23
  By the way, w- when I told that story last time, he started listening to the podcast as he was, like, driving to work, and he's like, "Nothing makes me feel better about my [laughs] life choices than hearing my- [laughs] Good...
• 32:32
  best friend fucking recount them to the world." [laughs] Anyways, so he was really gone for six or seven years. He would come back on weekends when he could, but he sent me this thing this morning.
• 32:42
  He has three kids, and now they're 14, 12, and nine. He said, "When I first moved back home, I went through a couple weeks of cycling between all three kids' floors while they fell asleep," which parents do that. Oh.
• 32:55
  Chair, floor, end of the bed. But he said, "I routinely took three hours every night. My phone was almost too hot to hold at the end." He said, "You think it's a phase, and then you realize it's not.
• 33:03
  It finally stopped when I told them I would never lay down in their room again, and then they magically didn't need it." [laughs] He said, "But one of them still sleeps with my wife every other night." Oh, God.
• 33:13
  "And I take that opportunity to go to bed early in the guest room, and it's delightful." What about you guys? Well, it's funny. There's a famous story about how my parents... It was the '70s back when...
• 33:24
  I don't know if anyone else has parents who are, like, still defensive to this day about, like, how they put you to sleep face down, 'cause that was what they did back then. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You know, and it...
• 33:32
  But my parents sleep trained me the day I came home, which is not, like, something that's done anymore. [laughs] I might explain a few things. Fuck this kid. Yeah, exactly. Get out. Yeah.
• 33:42
  They're like, "We're getting you on a schedule. I don't care if you, like, w- inside" God, that's outstanding. You're, like, still slimy. Right. Yeah, exactly.
• 33:47
  I, I didn't wanna emulate that, but I did come out very, like, being like I believe in sleep health. I don't believe in, you know, crossing the streams, like crossing the borders.
• 33:56
  And again, the not breastfeeding I think probably helped that. But I, m- maybe because of this, like, extreme sleep training, I love sleep. I am a good sleeper.
• 34:04
  I don't tend to wake up in the middle of the night, especially now that I stopped drinking. And I think that when I was so shell-shocked by the sleep deprivation, I was like, "Why would you voluntarily make this worse?"
• 34:14
  You know?
• 34:15
  But I remember, like, the weird battle between friends, you know, and moms who, like, and parents who didn't sleep train and the ones who did, like, co-sleep because it is so personal, and I think it speaks- Oh, my God...
• 34:28
  to, like, what you fear most about yourself as a parent, you know? Where it's basically like if you don't let your kids in your bed, like, you are a cold person, and you only care about yourself. Mm-hmm.
• 34:39
  And you're, like, pushing them away, but then also if you do let your kids come sleep in your bed, you have no boundaries. Like, you're- Never gonna end. Yeah... maybe, maybe creepy. Mm-hmm.
• 34:49
  But it's so strange 'cause it's like it shouldn't matter to you at all what other people do, but you're always wondering- Mm. Oh... like, "Did I do the wrong thing?" You know?
• 34:56
  I have a friend whose kids still sleep in her room with her, and my kids are welcome in my bed, but not during sleep hours. Mm. You can come in the morning and read with me or in the evening. Mm-hmm.
• 35:05
  I have a machine called a BedJet 'cause I sweat when I sleep 'cause of perimenopause. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Like, and it can dry you off. It'll also warm you up or cool you down. Mm-hmm.
• 35:12
  And so Paul will like to get in bed with me, and we'll read together, like, with the dog, and we'll make the sheets nice and toasty, you know? But then- Great... you know, off to the office. Go to your place.
• 35:22
  But when it's time for business, it's get the fuck out? Yeah, we have business to attend to. We need to sleep, you know? And James in particular we've been on a m- more of a journey with because he has ADHD.
• 35:33
  You know, it took a long time to get that diagnosed. I remember, oh, man, we ended up putting a lock on his door for a while, which made me feel like parent of the year of course. Like- Yeah... I feel...
• 35:44
  It's even so, like, medieval, basically. Yeah. But, like, he would pop out of his room and come turn the lights on in your bedroom while you were sleeping, you know? And you're like, "I will fucking destroy you."
• 35:53
  We put a lock on his door. I remember making the mistake of mentioning that on Facebook in Gen Pop, and one woman- Oh... yeah, I still remember it. Damn.
• 36:01
  The old lady was like, "I would be worried about whether the house was on fire if you could get to him." [laughs] And I was like, "Well, we live on a four-lane busy street.
• 36:09
  How do you feel about him walking out the front door?" Like- On any given fucking moment, right. Yeah. Are your guns secure? Right. Right, exactly. You know, and then we went through a whole melatonin phase, which is...
• 36:20
  I still don't- Oh, yeah. Fucking turns out. And- Yeah...
• 36:23
  n- I now, we give him a medicine called clonidine in the evening that-Allegedly helps him, 'cause he used to pop out of bed and come confess, usually to Steve, 'cause he's nicer than me, but he, like, couldn't sleep, you know.
• 36:34
  "Hey, just..." Then like, "Read a book. Why do you have to tell us that you can't sleep?"
• 36:38
  At least he stays asleep, so you know, yeah, we're always trying to c- control him with a lock or a pill, you know, and I'm sure that he will end up, who knows, murdering us in our sleep the way we deserve.
• 36:50
  But, you know, we're like, when the kid is up and you can't sleep, and you're panicking 'cause you start speeding ahead to how shitty the next day is gonna be, that's when I, my heart is spiraling, you know, as a parent.
• 37:01
  Yeah, the anxiety just adds up, and it's such a fucked up circle because you're exhausted, which makes it worse, and you're anxious it's gonna make it worse than the next day.
• 37:09
  I mean, there's still mornings where Dana and I wake up, look at each other, and go, "Okay, exactly how many hours till we can get back in bed?" Oh, yeah. Because this is gonna be a fucking disaster of a day.
• 37:18
  Do you know how often I think I'm gonna get to bed early, and then my excitement over it being bedtime, like, kind of overrides it, so I end up- Fascinating... staying up later?
• 37:27
  'Cause I'm like, "Well, fucking yeah, I'm in bed, like, the way I wanted to be." And then I end up, you know, watching Veep or something like that for- See, we don't... Do you have a TV in the room? I do.
• 37:36
  I actually use my laptop. Oh, what are you doing? Get that the fuck out of there. I can't see. I need something closer to my face.
• 37:43
  I'm telling you, the Kindle or whatever, the Kobo if you fucking hate Amazon, 'cause fuck 'em, uh, with the night screen, it's fantastic. I've got it down, I think I'm at 12 brightness and four warmth in night mode.
• 37:54
  It's fantastic. I- Or backwards... find nothing more delicious than falling asleep in front of a show that I love. Like, there's nothing- Totally... better. But you can do that in a separate room.
• 38:02
  If you're gonna take it seriously, you gotta get the laptop. There's too many options. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I got a system, and I feel like it's well-deserved. No, I get it. It's fine. It's fine.
• 38:09
  [laughs] But if by bringing it up here, though, you're opening it up to criticism. I know. All right. I mean, I have my psychopathic pillows. I totally get it. No, I get it. Yeah.
• 38:17
  I mean, my kids are like, "I could get in bed with you once," and I just go back. And again, this amazing night nurse we had, [laughs] and I remember her once, Dana had a baby, I don't fucking...
• 38:28
  strapped to her, going on a walk, and it was one of those, like, religiously set nap times. And night nurse looked at her so chill, and she goes, "Oh, where you going?"
• 38:38
  "Oh, I thought I'd just strap him on and I go for a walk and he can nap on me." And she's like, "Cool. Are you ready to do that every day?" [laughs] And she's like, "What?"
• 38:46
  And she goes, "Don't do something you are not-" Yeah... "willing to do every day." 'Cause those motherfuckers- Yeah... if you give a mouse a cookie, holy shit, man.
• 38:54
  I had a buddy, one of my first friends in LA, I remember the same thing, like, five, six-year-old daughter. Every day, I said, "Well, you wanna get together for this?" He's like, "Oh, I can't. I gotta drive."
• 39:04
  "What do you mean you gotta drive?" "Oh, well, my daughter only naps in the car when we take this certain route." And I was like, "Jesus Christ." And he's like- Yeah... "Yeah, we fucked up."
• 39:12
  My cousin, she would have to put her son in his car seat in the crib, 'cause he would only fall asleep in the car seat, and if they took him out, you know, it's like dismantling a bomb, and it's just not worth it. Yeah.
• 39:21
  Yeah, I wish... You know, I always think about how if I could, like, revamp parenthood or rebrand it, like, I wish it would be illegal to tell parents that you can, like, control their sleep.
• 39:31
  Obviously, there's certain things that make more sense, and although, to be honest, it's so funny, 'cause you will be, like, doing all of this geometry and time management, and, like, all these, like the shushing and the four S's and all of that stuff.
• 39:44
  And then there's some other family who has got their baby out at 10:30 PM at a big party, and they seem happy, and you're like, "Well, what do they know?"
• 39:51
  But, like, the glimmers of hope are so unhelpful to think, "If you read this book," and who has time to read a book anyway, about how to make your baby sleep, like, this will make your baby sleep. Yeah.
• 40:02
  You know, it's funny, my buddy, my original co-host on, on the other podcast, Brian, you know, he has twins now, twin boys, and they're coming up on a year.
• 40:12
  And, you know, he got to the point, he asked recently, my friend and I, "Hey, listen, we were on a really good sleep schedule, and it was actually going well at night.
• 40:20
  But now, like, we give them their bottle and they kinda fuck around and they stay awake, and this and that, and it drives us crazy." I said, "Well, do they sleep in, in another room?" He said, "Yeah.
• 40:30
  I mean, there's two of them. We kinda, you know, had to spend a lot of space." And I said, like, "How old are they? How much do they weigh?" I'm not a doctor, but you remember the rules. Yeah. Like, 11 pounds- Mm-hmm...
• 40:38
  sleep training, all this. I was like, "Fuck them kids. Give them the bottle. You wanna stay awake all night? Go fuck yourself." Well- "Don't let them sleep the next day when they're not supposed to.
• 40:47
  Don't let them reverse their fucking schedule." I was like, "Who fucking care... If they're in another room and they wanna fuck around all night, roll around in their crib, fuck them." Yeah. "They're fine.
• 40:54
  Did you feed them? Did they shit? Great. It's fine." Yeah. That's not your fucking job anymore, man.
• 41:00
  Did you ever have the days where your baby, your kid was supposed to take a nap, and then you heard them beeping and bopping around, and then you went up and realized they took a big shit right when it was, like, time to take a nap, and then you'd have to, [laughs] like, restart and they took like- The other day, one of my kids, and they're sorta past this- [laughs]...
• 41:15
  was like, "Oh, God, can you imagine, like, having poop on yourself?" I said, "Excuse me?" And they said this and this. I was like,
• 41:23
  "You used to not only sit in your own shit, shit yourself and then sit in your own shit, or a 12-pound, like, hefty bag of, of piss.
• 41:33
  But you would sometimes do it that it would go f- so far up your fucking back, that it would not only coat your shirt, it would be on your neck, and it would be always on a plane, in a car, five minutes into a four-hour drive, at the beginning of a fucking nap, or right when I fucking sat down."
• 41:49
  One of my favorite Instagrams ever was someone said, "What they never tell you about parenting is how often you have to get up from where you're sitting." Oh, yeah.
• 41:56
  And I was like, "Goddammit, that's so specific and correct." [laughs] You think you fucking nailed it, and you got them down and the bottle and all this. 20 minutes into it, yeah, what are they doing?
• 42:03
  And you walk into the room, and it's like Saving Private Ryan in their crib- Yeah... with shit. It's a fucking nightmare. Yes. I- And I was like, "What do you mean you t- can't imagine being covered in shit?"
• 42:11
  When your kids are, like, up at night or can't sleep or whatever, are you nice? Are you kind to them and sweet- Yeah. Mm... and rub back? Or... It's 50/50. Mm.
• 42:20
  It depends on if it's a anomaly or if we're in a streak about it. Dana's nicer, for sure. She'll just go lay with them more.
• 42:30
  I'll definitely bail sooner.Well, for her it's like she can sleep anywhere anytime 'cause she's so tired that she's, "All right, I'll get in their bed," 'cause she's like, "I'm going to sleep too.
• 42:40
  I'm not gonna sit up and pet their back." She's like, "You're getting in the bed, I'm getting in the bed, and we're both going to fucking sleep. Don't fucking talk. Mm. I will help you by doing this."
• 42:49
  'Cause she's like, "I have to sleep somewhere," where I'll be much more mechanical about, "Let's go up. Nope, you're gonna try to fall asleep back in your bed, 'cause that's a place. You know where to sleep.
• 42:57
  You, all your shit's in there. You know what's in the room." Our kids are less about scary things or this or that. Mm. Sometimes it's like cramps and stuff if they're tired or- Yeah...
• 43:08
  for instance, didn't drink a fucking drop of water during the day. Yeah. But we've definitely had like more anxiety type stuff, either- Mm...
• 43:14
  going to sleep with some of them or during the night, which I'm like, yep, that's every night of being an adult, is 2:00 in the morning- Yeah... you're up. And I've never had, like can't fall asleep for myself.
• 43:23
  Every night is 2:30 in the morning questioning all my fucking choices. So I try to empathize on that front. So I'll go up and, you know, again, "Let's get in bed. Let's be good."
• 43:34
  We have these little, like meditation machines. Oh. I'll put the link into... They're not cheap, but they're really great. And they can set them theirselves. There's only two controls.
• 43:41
  You pick an animal and you pick a situation, and it's... What's the one my daughter- Yeah... loves so much? It's a koala in the castle, I think. Mm. She listens to it every fucking night. They're great.
• 43:51
  They are really helpful. Soft little British voice. I had the highest hopes for Headspace and all that stuff, and like I would put on like a Sesame Street one for James, and like it just didn't work.
• 44:01
  And it would get to the point where he would like have to s- pause and use the bath, then we'd have to come and pause the podcast. Oh, whole fucking thing.
• 44:06
  It was- We definitely did versions of that too, and that's where these machines help. 'Cause they fuck with them. They have their things. There's no screen, there's no nothing, and then you just charge them with a cord.
• 44:14
  But they can do it. And it times out after 20 minutes. So we'll put that on. We'll do sound machine. We'll lay there, and then be like... I try to set the stage. I'm like, "I'm gonna be here for five minutes." Mm.
• 44:24
  "Here's the deal." And then I gotta go because I'm like, "I have to sleep too or you're getting mad dad tomorrow, and nobody wins." I don't get in my kids' beds, 'cause they're disgusting.
• 44:33
  And you might say, "Why don't you just wash your children's sheets?" And then I would say, "It's none of your business." Fuck you. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. Get, go f- go fuck yourself. Yeah.
• 44:42
  I, so James has boogers and nail clippings I'm sure in there. Then Paul will get these random nosebleeds that I can't keep up with, so there's like definitely bloodstains in his bed.
• 44:51
  And it's like- The fucking nail clipping. Our oldest will sit in a chair in the kitchen with his feet up somewhere clipping his nails. I'm like, "What the fuck are you doing?" He's like, "It's going on the floor."
• 45:00
  And I'm like- At least he's doing it... "What?" Yeah, well- Yeah... there's that. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm just like- I've-... just i- think about what you just said. "Ew, it's going on the floor." What, what? Yeah.
• 45:08
  I can't believe how mean I am to my kids. It's, again, it's James. Yeah. Paul really never comes down. Again, 'cause- Yeah... he's good. But quickly I turn to, "I'm not here. I'm not talking to you. I'm done." Yep. Yep.
• 45:20
  "I don't care. I'm not listening to you." And yeah, it's the kinda thing where I'm like, wow, I wonder what it's like to be like a nice mom who like lays down- Yeah... and scratches her kids' back.
• 45:30
  I will say, I totally forgot part of my... I was looking back on a note from my friends. I asked a bunch about their kids and their own sleep routines.
• 45:37
  And a friend of mine, a amazing science video game writer named Swapna, sent me like 67 tweets on hers, which includes a 30 minute on an acupressure mat in a dark room, and a silk eye mask, weighted blanket, and Oslo white noise sleep buds, which is a Kickstarter I actually bought for Dana.
• 45:53
  Mm. And then my other friend down the hall, Rob, just wrote sleep gummies. Mm.
• 45:57
  And I will say for myself, I think I've really found, like when I was really dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety stuff, like Prozac really helps every day, and then I was doing like a Klonopin like every fucking night.
• 46:07
  And that was not a great flywheel. But I found these sleep gummies, they're the ones you can order online. Feels, F-E-A-L-S. And they've actually got sleep ones now.
• 46:16
  I did not love those, because they gave me some weird fucking nightmares that I did not love- Mm... which I do not usually have.
• 46:22
  But their regular ones, one of those, I don't know what it is, two and a half grams of fucking something, just turns my brain off enough that I can get to sleep. Mm. And that's fine by me. You know?
• 46:35
  Probably more regulated than melatonin, frankly, at this point. But that's a key part of my thing now, and I wish I could give it to my children. I don't take anything usually to fall asleep.
• 46:44
  Once in a while, maybe if I know something's gonna be crazy, I'll take a, you know, an Ambien. But my system does work pretty well.
• 46:50
  But Steve, one thing I'm like maybe dropping the bomb end of the pod is that we do not share a bedroom. I know a lot of people like that. Yeah. And I'm trying to normalize it.
• 46:58
  It was actually through Evil Witches, 'cause I interviewed some other women whose husbands, they just gave it up. Is it snoring? Yeah, snoring, but also- Yeah... different sleep schedules.
• 47:06
  Like I like to go to bed early and wake up. I'm more of a morning person than he is. Like I don't mind the morning grind that much, even if I'm not necessarily in a good mood, you know, up and at 'em.
• 47:15
  Like, but he's more of a grump. He likes to sleep in. He's more of a sleep in princess.
• 47:19
  So it was during COVID w- when I was like, I think it was 'cause we'd already had the kids, I could recognize the anxiety like coming down the pike, and I was like, if we wanna make this marriage last, like we gotta have separate bedrooms.
• 47:31
  And we never went back. Can I ask you a couple questions about that?
• 47:34
  Was it like a realization in the moment, "Hey, we need to try this," or, "We need to do it," like you were just saying, it's like the marriage depends on it? Which is how sleep feels.
• 47:42
  And once you get serious about it, it's better for everyone, right?
• 47:45
  But had you tried it different nights because of snoring or different schedules, and maybe quietly never really said to each other, "Maybe we should try this"? Was there angst about the relationship?
• 47:56
  We're supposed to sleep in separate beds. You just talked about how you wanna normalize it more. Like, there's so much shit that goes into that. Yeah.
• 48:04
  Well, we're lucky that we have a guest bedroom, and so we would tend to sleep separately when somebody wasn't feeling well or had to get up super early, you know, or someone was tossing and turning.
• 48:14
  And I would never feel sad about that. It always was like, good, like bed to myself.
• 48:18
  And so, and I have to see when I did this interview, but like talking to my other friends who do have separate sleep rooms, they're like, "It's better for our relationship, 'cause we don't wake up mad at each other."
• 48:29
  Yeah. My grandparents did it, and I remember it blowing my mind, and they were like, "It's been untenable for 20 years."I mean, we certainly have physical affection and time for that in, you know, other places.
• 48:40
  Probably more and better because you're fucking well-rested. Yeah. Also, I think a lot of women feel this way. Bedtime is not for, like, love time. Bedtime is for bedtime. Oh, yeah. No, not in our house. Fuck no.
• 48:50
  There's been no, like, bedtime shenanigans at night for a very long time. No, that's not what that's about. So it was a pretty easy decision, to be honest. I think, again, we had homeschooling.
• 49:01
  We had one in preschool, one in second grade. Like, his anxiety was off the charts, absolutely, so we were already... I was like, "This is level of anxiety that is very much like postpartum."
• 49:12
  And, uh, so I was like, "This is the one thing that we can do." This is something we can do. There's so fucking little when your kids are up, with life, and the anxiety, and you can't change the world outside.
• 49:21
  I mean, again, like, my buddy down the hall was like, "Oh, at least I can compartmentalize. I do this." I was like, "My job is climate change and democracy. There's nothing to fucking compartmentalize."
• 49:30
  What you can control, if you have a guest room or a fucking futon, and if you can get over the cultural bullshit and say, "I can control this. Why don't we try this? I think we might actually be better"...
• 49:43
  Jesus Christ, man. Yeah. Well, especially, I mean, and this was before even, like, perimenopause set in, and it's very much more controlled now that I have this machine. I mean, it's not cheap. It's called the BedJet.
• 49:53
  I love it so much, I take it with me when I travel, and it, it is so perilous, you know, to, to sleep well. And there's commercials out there.
• 50:01
  There's a guy who does, like, nasal passage surgery, and they talk about, in the radio commercials, like, talk about sleep divorce, and the tragedy of a sleep divorce. Same thing from smoking and meat.
• 50:11
  It's the same goddamn people with the same advertising agencies. Look, I get it, and I think we both feel very lucky that we actually really not just enjoy, but really do very well with sleeping together.
• 50:26
  Because if one of us did and the other didn't, that would be frustrating, to say the least. Yeah. And if neither of us did, then that's better, and you just go your fucking separate ways, and you do whatever.
• 50:37
  We have a California king. Like, there's miles of fucking room in there. But I feel very lucky about that, where that we're on the same page. But at the same time, like, w- we definitely have...
• 50:48
  It's such a, like, a life and business decision, sleep, and we both take it so seriously, that if one of us has, like, a cough, 'cause we're very lucky we don't really have snoring, if one of us has a cough, the other one's like, "I'm out."
• 51:01
  Yeah. "See ya." And the other one's like, "Great. Good for you. Good for me. Everybody wins." 'Cause the other one feels bad. Am I keeping them up? This and this. Yeah. I know most people don't care.
• 51:08
  We do, but I'm like, "I'm out of here. I'm taking my nine pillows." Do you have a sack, like, for carrying them all? Like, are you, like- No, I'm a guy... coming out going like [laughs] I'm like the groceries.
• 51:16
  I'm gonna take them all in one trip and not make it through the stairs. But I'm not kidding. I take them all with me. I'm not fucking kidding. No, I believe...
• 51:22
  I took my pillow, my special pillow, with me when I gave birth. Your one pillow. Um, yeah. Well, that's my hugging pillow. Right. I have nine. And then I have... And I always have to have a replacement.
• 51:31
  I have to have one on deck because they don't live forever, so I'll get another one. I do need to get some. So that's a real deal. [laughs] I kid.
• 51:37
  It's funny 'cause the more you grow up, the more you realize there's plenty of adults out there who have lovies. Like, and- It's fucking hard enough out there. Like, the... Yeah, of course I do. Are you fucking kidding?
• 51:46
  That's how I stockpile these fucking quilts from this crazy lady in LA. They're incredible. When Paul was born, a friend of mine gave him a stuffed hedgehog, and for whatever...
• 51:54
  You know, and kids get so many stuffed animals when they're born, and to the point where you're like, "I don't need any of these." Right.
• 51:59
  But for some reason, the hedgehog, like, stuck, and so hedgehogs have kind of been his thing. Mm-hmm. And he has a main, a main hedgehog just named Hedgehog. Creative. And that's his, like... Yes.
• 52:08
  Well, you know, like, why, you know, reinvent the wheel? Mm-hmm.
• 52:12
  But a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine had a birthday party, and a grownup had a animal encounter, like, party, and Paul finally got to hold an actual hedgehog for the first time in his life.
• 52:22
  And I was, like, so pleased for him. Oh, that's awesome. That I was thinking about getting a hedgehog, and then I forgot that we have a terrier. I'm like, "That's probably a bad idea." Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 52:29
  But I told him, I was like, "You can have either a smartphone or a pet hedgehog." I think he's still gonna go with the phone, but it was very...
• 52:37
  You know, I was happy for him that all his, like, sleep totems could come together, uh, as one thing. Mm-hmm.
• 52:42
  People say this shit, and we're so fucking good, especially in this country, about normalizing overwork, and the sacrifice, and the hustle, and all this shit.
• 52:49
  And then other people are like, "Oh, sleep's a third of your life, and you should pay for the good mattress," and shit like that. It's like, you should. Well- And most people in this country, like, fucking cannot.
• 52:59
  We make it hard. Most people cannot afford air conditioning, or they're renting and they can't control the circumstances of their room, and the people upstairs, and all this shit.
• 53:06
  If you are able to do that, you should do that, and you will be a better person, and a better parent, and a better citizen. Like, it's crazy. And especially as we get older, it makes such a fucking difference every day.
• 53:19
  It truly does. Yeah. Because you're baseline gonna be exhausted no matter what. Yeah. So if you can make that any better, great. You're not gonna feel good. I'm never gonna feel good again. [laughs] Right.
• 53:28
  I think I've come to terms with that. But you can feel a lot better. Yeah. Like, again, with the not drinking, I'm very pleased- Oh, yeah...
• 53:33
  that I don't wake up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning being like, "You're giving yourself breast cancer, you fucking idiot." Yeah. "And now you're gonna think about it nonstop for an hour." Yep. Best wishes.
• 53:42
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