Decoded: The First Year

It's 5pm. And something shifts.

The baby who was manageable this morning — who even smiled at you after the 11 o'clock feed — is gone. In their place is a baby who cannot be put down, cannot be settled, won't feed properly, won't sleep, and is somehow both absolutely exhausted and completely wired.

And the worst part? It happens every day. At roughly the same time. Like clockwork.

You've started dreading 4:30pm. You've started managing your whole day around trying to avoid it. And somewhere in the back of your mind you're wondering: am I doing something wrong in the mornings that causes the 5pm collapse?

You're not. And today I'm going to tell you exactly what is causing it — because it is not random, and it is not your fault.

Silent reflux. All babies will vomit after a feed, it’s just a little “spit up”. Probably just gas. Projectile vomiting. They’ll grow out of it.If your baby is arching their back during feeds, pulling off the breast screaming, refusing a bottle they were taking happily an hour ago, or just persistently uncomfortable in a way nobody can quite pin down — you've probably heard some version of those phrases.Maybe you've been given a medication. Maybe you’ve been told to stop breast feeding.Maybe you've been told to thicken the feeds. Maybe you've been told to hold on because it will pass.Today I want to give you what you almost certainly haven't been given: the nervous system explanation for why some babies experience reflux — and why the standard script is missing a significant part of the picture.

Three hours of crying. Every evening. For weeks.

And every professional you've spoken to has said some version of the same thing: "It's colic. There's nothing you can do. It passes."

And they're right that it passes.

But the "nothing you can do" part? That's where I have a massive problem.

Having been a chiropractor who has been in the room with way too many parents struggling with sleepless nights and an distressed child, I know there can be nothing more soul destroying than being told there is nothing you can do, cross you fingers and hope it passes soon.

Because there's a reason colic happens when it does. There's a reason it resolves when it does. And there's a reason it affects some babies far more severely than others. That reason is one hundred percent nervous system.

So today — no more "just wait it out." Let's actually decode this.

You've done everything.

You've been trying for a burp for twenty minutes.

You’ve bounce around, patted on the back…nothing.

Your mother said to try the bicycle legs. Your mother-in-law said to try the tiger-in-the-tree hold, plus the belly rubs, plus the walk-and-pat.

You've watched six different videos.

You've tried three positions.

And still — nothing. Or it shifts for a moment, and then comes straight back.

Your baby is uncomfortable. You're exhausted. And no one has actually explained to you why some babies have wind that just won't budge — while other babies seem to move it without a second thought.

Today we're going to fix that. Because the answer isn't in a better technique. It all starts in your baby's nervous system.

You've had your latch checked. Positioning, attachment, tongue — all assessed, maybe even "fixed." And something is still not right. It's still painful, still shallow, still a fight every single feed. So what's left, if the mechanics have already been ruled out?If you've been told "the latch looks fine" while it very clearly does not feel fine, there's a piece of this conversation that's been missing the whole time… and it's more than tongue tie.

You've probably been told the startle reflex is "just a normal newborn thing" — and technically, that's true. But what happens when it's not settling into background noise, and it's still hijacking every nap, every transfer, every quiet moment, weeks or even months in?You've been told it'll pass. You’ve been told to swaddle. You’ve been told to rock them to sleep. But you're the one living inside the loop of startle, cry, resettle, startle again — and "it's normal" doesn't help you right now, doesn’t explain why it's happening so much, or what to actually do about it.

Someone told you it's "just a preference." Or maybe it's tummy time positioning. Or it's their sleeping position. Or maybe you've been quietly worrying it's something worse, and nobody's given you a straight answerYou've noticed it — your baby always turns their head the same direction. In the cot, on the change table, in the pram. Always that way. Never the other. You've tried gently turning them the other way and they turn straight back, like it's automatic.And to add further fuel to the fire, this preference is starting to impact - 1. feeding (you notice your baby will only feed from one breast and not the other), 2. their general motor development & milestones (it’s impacting their ability to see and ultimately move their little body in a balanced and symmetrical manner which makes it more difficult for primitive reflexes and postures to integrate) and even 3. the skull shape (the flat spot on the back of their head slightly off to one side is known as plagiocephaly).Today I want to decode what's actually driving that pattern — because it's more than a preference. It's not stubbornness. It's not even really about the neck itself.

Here's what I noticed a year ago, and it's the reason this podcast exists.Mums in that first year are handed a checklist. Rolls by four months. Sits by six. Latches "properly." Sleeps through "eventually." And when something doesn't tick the box on schedule, she's sent off to fix the symptom — more tummy time, a different bottle, a stricter routine.Nobody's lying to her. The advice usually isn't wrong. It's just incomplete. It's downstream.An OT can tell you what a milestone should look like. A physio can show you how to help a body get there. But almost nobody is sitting a mum down and explaining why some babies get there easily and others fight it every step of the way — and that why almost always traces back to one system running the whole show underneath everything else.That gap — that's the entire podcast. Fifty-two episodes, one recurring idea: the nervous system isn't one factor among many. It's upstream of all of it.

You've probably heard the phrase."Regulated parents raise regulated children."And if you're anything like the parents I see in clinic — you heard that and felt one of two things. Either guilt. Or confusion. Guilt, because you are exhausted and you know it. Confusion, because nobody actually explains why that's true. They just say it — and leave you with the pressure of it — without giving you the neuroscience underneath.Today, we fix that. Because this is not a conversation about parenting better. This is a conversation about how development actually works — at a nervous system level — and why your state, your child's state, and the space between you matters more than almost anything else in early childhood.

Today, I want to talk about why development often slows down when nervous systems stop feeling safe enough to explore naturally.Modern parents are under enormous pressure. And yes, it is pressure that creates diamonds.Developmentally - parents feel pressure to stimulate more. Do more. Optimise more. Intervene earlier. Achieve milestones faster. Because, as we know - when it comes to development, faster equals better, right? Of course not!And honestly? Many babies and children are feeling that pressure too.But little nervous systems do not develop best under pressure. They develop best under safety.