Learn With Less

On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, we were joined by Mercedes Thomas, of Advanced Practice Wellness.

We chatted about:

• Mercedes’ personal and professional background, and how she came to do the work she’s doing today
• What to ACTUALLY expect as a parent, what kinds of topics to collect wisdom about (to prepare for that beginning phase), and how to prepare for that
• Why it’s so important to develop your postpartum plan, not just a birth plan
• Mercedes’s top 3 tips and resources for supporting new parents through that initial postpartum period

Download a portion of Mercedes’ forthcoming book, What In The Baby?! The Modern Mama’s Guide to Confidently Caring For Your Baby and Surviving the Postpartum Period

Mercedes’ classes and services (parenting classes, lactation services, healthcare consulting)

Learn With Less® Classes: “parent & me” classes worldwide (in person and virtual) using the Learn With Less® curriculum

Learn With Less episode with Dr. Katayune Kaeni: Perinatal Mood Changes and Postpartum Mood Disorders

Learn With Less episode with Arianna Taboada: Postpartum Care and How to Get Your Mental Health Needs Met

Learn With Less episode with Kate Turza: What Is A Postpartum Doula?

healthychildren.org

napnap.org/

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, by Diane Weissinger

Hypnobirthing (Marie Mongan Method) and Natal Hypnotherapy (Maggie Howell)

DONA International (find and connect with a birth or postpartum doula)

Mercedes: Website / Instagram

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Welcome! Today, I am speaking with Mercedes Thomas, a board certified pediatric nurse practitioner, certified lactation counselor, maternal child health consultant, and author of What in the Baby: the Modern Mama’s Guide to Confidently Caring For Your Baby and Surviving the Postpartum Period, which will be released in February, 2021.

Mercedes is also the owner of Advanced Practice Wellness and Lactation, which is a private practice based in the Washington DC area, where she provides virtual lactation services, parenting classes, and healthcare consulting to organizations serving families. Mercedes was most recently awarded the 2020 Washington Parent Pick in the category of breastfeeding support. I saw that, Mercedes that’s so cool! And Mercedes has over 12 years of nursing experience working in both the neonatal intensive care unit or the NICU as well as inpatient and outpatient pediatrics.

Her mission is to combine her nursing experience with her experience as a mom, to support families with evidence-based education and resources, which is why I just love everything you share, Mercedes, and I just want to welcome you so graciously to Learn With Less!

Mercedes: Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here today.

Ayelet: Great. Well, I’ve asked you today to come onto the show to speak to us about, you know, how to prepare for baby’s arrival by developing a postpartum plan. But first, why don’t you just tell us a little bit more about you and how you got into the work that you’re doing today?

Mercedes: Sure. So I’m a wife, I’m a mom of one. I have a two and a half year old son, and my story is pretty straightforward. So as you’ve seen, I have, uh, basically my whole career has been dedicated to babies and pediatrics. It was obvious to me right out of nursing school. I didn’t need to do any soul searching. I didn’t need to do any figuring: it was pediatrics for me and NICU. I thought it was a great place to start. For those that are listening that may not be familiar. A NICU is when babies are born too early or premature, and we help them and their families to grow and learn during that period.

And really, although I’m making it sound a little rosy, it can be a little scary for families. So I, I thought it was a good place for me to start. I got a ton of great experience at a huge NICU down in Atlanta, which is where I started my career. And we learned a lot. We learned from critical care how to take care of really sick premature babies. So that was starting at 25 weeks of gestation all the way down to a lot of education with breastfeeding. We had a lot of multiples too. I’m not sure how that ran, like in terms of numbers with our hospital, but I just remember having a ton of multiples and we were in about a hundred bed unit. So a lot of great experience.

I stayed in NICU for about three and a half years. Went back to get my master’s in pediatric primary care, which is kind of a different token. So I went from being in a hospital setting to being in a primary care setting, or when you would go visit your pediatrician, that’s essentially the role that I was doing, but as a nurse practitioner. So I did that for several years. And then I had my son, we moved up to the Washington DC area and yeah, the rest is history.

We had some troubles with lactation, even though I knew a lot. I thought I had it covered. Our story wasn’t rosy because he didn’t come out and it wasn’t just, it wasn’t just an instantaneous ease to breastfeeding. Taking care of the baby was pretty easy because I had a ton of experience with that. But the, the trials and tribulations of being a new mom, postpartum, and breastfeeding is not going right for you. We had a lot to work out.

And so I had a lactation consultant myself because I felt like, you know, you can have a baby and have all this experience and then your baby comes and you’re like, huh? Like I literally actually have a Facebook post that I’d like to go back and find when I was the new mom. And I was like, now I get what everyone’s saying. When it’s your baby, you don’t know anything, which is absolutely crazy, right. 12 years of a career. And then you’re like, huh, what do I do? How do I do this? It’s just kind of, it’s kind of like a postpartum fog almost that you almost may even be in for up to a year. So it’s totally normal. And I can sympathize with that.

So that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. I’ve decided to help other families. And I, the real thing is to get out quality, evidence based information to them because there’s so much swirling around. I love mom groups. I’m a part of some of them in my area. And they’re great. They’re very supportive, it’s a great way to network with other moms and that are in small businesses, which is great.

But you have to be careful about the information that you get sometimes because people can mean well, and I don’t think anyone ever means to hurt anybody with the information they give, but sometimes it may not be reliable information that you get. So, yeah, that’s why I’m here today. Um, hopefully we can get you the right information or where to look for the right information.

Ayelet: Absolutely. Well, I just, I appreciate so much what you said about how, you know, you’re, you’re the best parent until you become a parent and you’re like, Holy moly, what just hit me?! So let’s dig right in, you know, also pulling from my own experiences as a parent, I definitely, from on my end, like I had a lot of information and ideas around supporting my tiny human’s development and, and knowing how to connect with my baby or play with my little one and things like that. But there were many areas that I was not, I, I suppose I could say informed around or prepared for, you know, for me it was things like the realities of infant sleep patterns or how to my own postpartum mental health, and so many more.

So I would love to know what you think, you know, in your opinion, professionally, from your own experience, both as a professional supporting your parents and pulling from your own experiences as a new mom, what are some of those things that we can actually expect as, as a parent? What are the kinds of topics that new and expecting parents can collect wisdom about in order to really prepare for that beginning phase?

Mercedes: So I think you need to know your options. That’s first and foremost. So before you have the baby is when the preparation really begins. So you don’t want to get just insane about it and reading 50 books and reading all the blogs and… Pick several trusted resources, maybe two or three, figure out what your mode of learning is.

So is it a book? Is it a class? How do you learn best and figure that out. There’s also even individual classes that you can have where someone can teach you one-on-one if you work best that way, we did a hospital class, which was great. The nurse that taught it, she had a ton of experience in lactation and in both L and D. So I…

Ayelet: Oh, Labor and Delivery, for those who don’t know.

Mercedes: Oh, sorry! Yeah. So she had a lot of experience, and it was fun. It was a fun class. We got to get up and feel things. We got to simulate different positions and comfort measures that my husband could try and so that is very helpful. Getting a class. You want to try to look for those resources that you are going to sign up for, like commit to and around your third trimester. So I would really suggest a birth class that’s first and foremost, because you need to know your options.

Some people out there, they don’t even know where a baby comes from anatomically. So please know where the baby is coming from, coming out of how they’re growing in there and what you need to do as a parent when the baby is on the other side. So after you’ve had your baby, do you want to formula feed? Do you want to breastfeed? I have to insert that I’m a huge breastfeeding advocate, but as a pediatric nurse practitioner, I support all families. So although a lot of my content, a lot of my book is very infant feeding heavy. It’s probably like half of my book. That chapter is like very heavy for obvious reasons because it’s one of my focuses, but I want you to know what you want to do.

So you don’t have to have it all figured out, but know your options. Maybe you want to breastfeed and try and see how it goes. And then maybe you have to figure out another way, if that doesn’t go right for you. You mentioned a lot about your mental health. So you have to figure out what is going to work for you as a parent and whoever your support system is. If it’s your spouse, if it’s a family member, maybe it’s a neighbor. Maybe you’re a military spouse and maybe your partner is not going to be able to be there.

So figure out your situation, get a book, if that’s your mode of learning, that’s – really, people can do that in between working, in between other kids, get a podcast like this one, you can listen and consume that information. If you have another child, it makes it easy to pop in maybe a wireless headset, but get reliable information from professionals in whatever mode you learn best. We talked a lot about when we initially talked about this podcast about a postpartum plan.

A lot of people, they are gung ho about their birth. They know what they’re going to do. They’ve got an eight page birth plan about what it is that they want to have happen. Sometimes those things happen. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the nurse may look at it and the doctor and go, what is this? And kind of sit it to the side.

Keep your plans, at least a page. So that can be front and back, but try to keep it to a page, try to really figure out what it is that you want not to happen, right? So we can figure, I think that list is going to be a lot shorter for most of us than what we want to have happen. So maybe you don’t want to have an episiotomy, but these are things again that you’ve talked to your provider about before you’ve had the baby, but these are kind of like reminder bulleted points about what to do.

You get a postpartum plan as well. So don’t just focus on the birth. What’s going to happen after? Who’s going to help you. How do you get to your first doctor’s visit after you have the baby? Can you have someone else come into the doctor’s visit with you with the baby? You know?

Ayelet: Especially right now, as we record, right, during COVID. Yeah,

Mercedes: Absolutely. So things have changed. Know what your pediatrician or your pediatric nurse practitioner, what their office policies are. Are they going to have someone on call? If you need to call someone in the middle of the night and think your baby’s sick or have a question, is someone going to be available to you to answer those phone calls at midnight one o’clock in the morning. If that’s something that you need, then that’s really important to discuss when you’re looking for a pediatrician before, certainly should go in your postpartum plan. Because you would be seeing your pediatric provider, at least maybe on the second or third day after going home from the hospital.

Think about those things. Are you going to go somewhere where they’re able to space out your vaccines or are you going to be on a schedule? These are not things you want to go somewhere and figure out afterwards what you want to do and get into that is going to mess with your mental health and you don’t want that. So figure out what you do not want to happen, right? And then work from there and come up with a plan. That’s going to be workable for you and your family.

Ayelet: Yeah. I love that. I would love to just dig a little bit deeper about this sort of distinction between developing a birth plan versus a postpartum plan. Because again, like you said, if you have never experienced, assuming you are carrying your child physically, and I think a lot of us do focus on birth. What does that look like? What is that gonna feel like? What is the whole experience going to be like? Because that’s something we can wrap our head around, right? And then, and then there’s a baby, or maybe several babies.

So what are some of the things that you would recommend considering? And including in that postpartum plan? I, myself, I had a birth doula, but not a postpartum doula, but I, for my first birth, when we were living abroad, my mom was in town. She was here for, for the first month. And that was incredible and so important for me. And so what, what are some of the pieces there that you would recommend to new parents looking into this?

Mercedes: So you touched on one, definitely. So who’s your village, who’s your support system? So is that support system going to be a family member? Is it someone that can reasonably get to you in a safe way, meaning “safe” because we’re in the midst of a pandemic still. So how can you figure out a plan for if you want a family member that may not be local to you, for them to be able to help you, if you don’t have any family, if you don’t have friends to help you, do you have the resources and the funds to be able to hire out help?

You mentioned a postpartum doula. That’s something that definitely I would look into as a new parent, as a new mom. They are not only really there to help support you, but they’re there to help support you with the baby. So if you need to go take a nap, if you need help preparing meals, they’re there for you to do that. And it’s absolutely great if you have the resource and the funding to be able to do that. If you do not have that, your postpartum plan should most certainly talk about what is going to happen in each situation. Maybe think of a week of what your normal week would look like when you’re doing laundry.

When you’re cooking, try to have a plan for your meals. That’s important. Are you going to have a meal train? Are people going to drop off a meal to you that’s home cooked? Are you going to make a bunch of meals and then freeze them? That’s a really good way to approach it. Are you going to have a family member that’s going to be able to come in and cook for you? After I had my baby, my mom was able to come up immediately, right after we had him.

It actually, I had him two weeks earlier than my due date at 38 weeks. And so it actually worked out that my mom was on her spring break. She’s a teacher. So we wouldn’t have had that additional time built in to her being able to be there for like almost seven days, if not a little bit more. So we didn’t want him to, you know, you want the baby to stay in there. You want to be patient. But I did have him two weeks early. He was still full term, but that was actually a blessing for us.

So my mom was able to come and, I mean, my mom does everything. She cooks. She cleans, she, I mean folds the clothes too. So, she’s doing it all. And so I think the thing that you need to ask yourself is what can you do to help make things easier for you? You may not necessarily need help with the baby, right? Because this is your time immediately after birth to bond, but what can you do so that your time is freed up and so that your body can heal.

You’ve just had a baby that you’ve been carrying around for most women have been carrying for nine months, at least. So what can you do to support that? So that you’re not in a stressful state, in a heightened, stressful state because you’re already emotional and you have hormones that are readjusting.

And that’s another important thing -before you have the baby, right? Who is your support system to know how you normally are, right? So does my husband understand that I’m just a little tearful and sad versus like I’m having scary thoughts about harming myself or my baby. Those are absolutely things that you want to consider before you have your baby. Because when you’re in the thick of it in the midst of it, you may not even, I mean, your partner or your support may be tired too and miss some things. But I think these are real conversations that we need to have.

And not to assume that anybody knows these things. I had, I had someone say they didn’t even know what postpartum depression was. That was at the, and it was a person that I has gone through masters and doctoral program. And they still, so don’t assume people understand that they know that, they may have. That’s why I backtracked to, before you have the baby, did you take a class? Did you read, did you prepare yourself? Figure out at least one or two resources, definitely taking a class about the way that you would care for your baby. If you don’t have any experience with that, realizing a lot of families and people have never even changed a diaper before they’ve had a baby.

There are classes that can go through all of that with you. And infant safety, what to do if your baby is in a scary situation, they’re choking. If they change color, what do you do in those situations outside of calling nine one one, but what can you do before, you know, in the midst of that? So these are really important things. And I, my book goes through those steps of what to do.

I use a method that I used to teach and I go through, from infant feeding from your postpartum plan. I like to call it a postpartum wishlist rather than a plan, because a plan sounds so, like, serious, but I think we need to communicate what you want to have happen. And so those are our wishes, right? What we really want to see happen and yeah, work on that and know that your postpartum, what you, what you’re normally like have a baseline for that with whomever is going to be the closest person to you so that you can measure if you’re not feeling well.

I even have a, a little chart in there to kind of document your feelings for the day. And it’s super easy. You just kind of check off the smiley face. It’s not writing anything if that’s not your thing, but just to kind of check in with yourself and say, Hmm, how do I feel today? And if you’ve been putting in only frowning faces for greater than three weeks, four weeks, and you just can’t figure out how to get out of that, you definitely want to talk to somebody, even if it’s before your six week visit, which is usually when you get back in to see your OBGYN or midwife.

Ayelet: I am going to absolutely link to several other podcast, episodes that touch on some of these things. In addition to your book, Mercedes, which I’m so excited about, and we can let people know that they can listen to a few of those other podcast episodes that inform people about, like, we had an interview with Dr. Katayune Kaeni about postpartum mood disorders. We’ve had an interview with Arianna Taboada about maternal mental health – going, going back to work and setting yourself up and things like that. So we have a lot of great resources that we’ll link to in the show notes, in addition to a link to pre-order your book.

Okay. So we’re going to just take a brief break to hear a word from our sponsors. And then we will hear a few tips from Mercedes about what you can do to prepare for that postpartum period. And we’ll hear about her favorite resources to share it with families.

Ayelet: Okay. Mercedes, we would love to hear your top say three tips for really supporting new parents through that initial postpartum period.

Mercedes: So, we, I talked a little bit about what is going to be an evidence-based resource versus just maybe a personal blog or maybe information that you’ve gotten that are, “this work for me, so…” Yeah, try to stay away from that, right? Because what worked for somebody what even worked for, if you’re not a first-time parent for another child that you have may not work, just because, so, one of the things that I like to do is give out websites that are going to be reliable for families to be able to get the information that they need.

One of my favorite resources for that is Healthychildren.org that’s by the American Academy of Pediatrics. They even have an symptom tracker on there that you can look in there and kind of, you’re not diagnosing yourself, but you’re kind of seeing, is this something that I should be worried about, which is important to know as a parent also napnap.org. That’s the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners and it’s napnap.org/families. So you’re also going to get a bunch of information and it’s kind of divided by development category. So you’ll get all the way from birth up until 21, which is the range of pediatrics.

If you are looking for a book on understanding how to feed your baby, maybe breastfeeding, a really helpful book is The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. Like I said, my book also has, it’s pretty heavy on infant feeding and goes through positioning, latching, all of those things. But that book is pretty comprehensive and giving you what you would need to know about preparing to breastfeed.

Take a class. So there’s a lot of resources for that. You can take a class, I even teach classes on infant development. So I think that’s really important to know what’s normal and what’s not – I think a really great example is that most families do not know that a newborn baby, their sleep wake cycle is about an hour to 90 minutes at a time. That’s a shocker to a lot of people because they think, “my baby’s not sleeping. They’re up all the time,” but it’s not just you. It’s pretty normal, the research tells us that.

So you want to manage your expectations, too, as a new parent, because that can really take you in a, in a dark place. You don’t want to go, if you feel like you’re doing it all wrong… Why is my baby not doing X, Y, and Z? This person said their baby was sleeping eight hours by X, Y, and Z time. Developmentally, your baby is going to be waking and it’s for, one, safety purposes and also to feed. So those are really good resources that you can check out to have something reliable. You want to stay away from just a personal blog post that someone wrote, and it’s, it’s just opinion based. And it may not be fact based, and it may not apply to your situation at all.

Ayelet: I love that. And I also want to pull that back into what you said earlier about, like, how do you like to learn? Do you like to learn through listening, right? Whether it’s an audiobook or a podcast, do you like to learn through reading, whether it’s through text, or do you like to learn by watching – whether that’s in a class or watching a series of videos or something like that? And I love that, like you pointed out, you have these fantastic infant development classes, Learn With Less® classes are all over the world, as well, and offered, and you know, all about evidence-based practice.

Even if you’re not like a terribly social person, I think there’s so much to be, there can be so much to be gained by just that power of observing others and seeing the differences actually, because that’s, that’s a piece of it too, is knowing like, all right, well, my baby is not crawling and is eight months old and this baby is, but look like they’re both developing along a spectrum that is a typical progression.

And having that knowledge base of sort of like a facilitator who does have that knowledge and understanding to help you to see that, like there’s a range of typical development and you may or may not fall within that with your child, but like having that community based network of other families who are going through it at the same time is so important. So just another plug for community in general, I think is just such, there’s so much to be gained from that. So awesome. What else have you got for us Mercedes?

Mercedes: So, I don’t want to leave out on us on a scary note, but this is something I like to, for all families to know. And like I said, this is about your support person, too, being able to sometimes recognize things that we may not see. So I did want to talk about the post-birth warning signs, absolutely important for all women [birthing persons] that have just birthed the baby. And basically it’s an acronym and that was developed by a nursing association. I won’t get into the whole acronym, but, so it’s literally just that.

So it’s POSTBIRTH. And so the P stands for pain. These are things you want to watch out after you have your baby. That may mean that you need to contact your healthcare provider right away. The O is for obstructed breathing or shortness of breath. Seizures is the S, T is thoughts of harm. So we talked about those scary thoughts, which is what I like to call it. If anything is, if you ever hear voices, if someone is, if you feel like you’re compelled to do something to harm you, your baby, or a family member, the birth B is for bleeding. So bleeding is specifically soaking heavy soaking of a pad within an hour’s time. So if you see that happening after you have a baby, you’re doing a very soaked pad within one hour constantly, then that is an immediate call to 9 11 and to your provider to get in, to be seen right away.

The I in birth is for incision and healing. If you ever have any reddened area, if it’s burning, stinging, has any like discharge coming from it, that’s another sign that there may be an infection, a rather swollen leg that could mean that you have a blood clot forming, which is really common, and you don’t want that to happen to get up into your lungs. So again, it might just feel like, man, what’s going on? Am I just swollen because of pregnancy or am I just swollen for other reasons? So just watch that. And you just want to monitor that if you see that and elevate your legs up, if you notice that.

A temperature, a lot of people are not really clear on what a fever is. So a fever is a 100.4 [farenheit] and a baby that’s rectally adults. We have some flexibility with taking that. But in a baby that’s a rectal temperature of 100.4. So you wouldn’t ever stick a thermometer in a baby’s mouth. You can do under their arm, but under three months, you want to stick to doing a rectal temperature. And then headache, right? So this isn’t your normal, like just hormonal headache. This can be changes in your vision. This can be, you just are not even functional, not your normal headache.

So these are things that you want to look at, the things that you want to contact your healthcare provider about right away. In some of my mom groups, I see people oftentimes say that they have these things, and they’re not quite sure what it is and skip the mom group and call your provider. Okay. So, that’s very important. You could save your life or someone else’s life by just knowing those things.

Ayelet: Wow. That is that’s all so important. And so good. I had never heard that acronym before. Thank you so much for sharing that. I’d love to know, too, what are some of your favorite other resources to share with families who are looking ahead and who are expecting the arrival of their baby? You mentioned a few amazing ones, right? Healthychildren.org. Yeah, go ahead and let us know what some of the other ones that you would recommend.

Mercedes: So I, I mentioned those earlier, but in specific the types of birth classes that you want to take. So I would look for a certified childbirth educator. So there’s multiple out there. There’s Lamaze, that’s really popular. That’s internationally known. You can also look at – some parents like Hypnobirthing. I’ve never participated in that, but there’s been a lot of good feedback where you’re able to kind of channel your mind into another place, to help with the pain and, hopefully alleviate some of the pain that you may have going into birth.

Ayelet: Anecdotally, I did do that in the UK, the natal hypnotherapy, which is like the same idea, but it it’s, it’s fascinating. Yeah.

Mercedes: Yeah. I’ve heard some really positive feedback about it. So I would explore those. And there are also classes if you decide that you want to have a birth at home, so you may have a midwife, there’s either nurse midwife or a certified professional midwife that you would hire, and they’re able to also come into your home.

DONA International has a really great checklist. If you’re looking to interview someone for a birth doula or postpartum doula, they have a list on there. So you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can go to that website and they’re able to get a list that you can use to interview someone that you’re potentially thinking about having help you. So birth doula would be a really important thing.

Really important thing to note is even with COVID, there are virtual services available to you. Please look at those. You can be supported whether in person or virtually – same thing with the classes, there are classes, a gamut of classes that are available to you virtually even if it’s just not even having to do with COVID, it may just fit into your schedule better. Yeah. So look at those and definitely look into getting a doula that would be something really important, a resource, even if you’re a family that may not be able to afford it, there are resources out there to get scholarships and lower costs in many different areas.

Ayelet: Yes. I’ve even heard that some hospitals are providing that as a service, which is incredible. Awesome. And I understand you have a special link that you’d like to share with our audience.

Mercedes: Yeah. So I am going to be giving away a couple of pages of my first chapter. So, check that out and it will allow you to be able to stay in touch and learn about pre-sales. And, also I have some awesome giveaways coming up, so that will allow you to get first dibs on that as well. It’ll include my book and then also some other awesome items. I partnered with a local mom and she does beautiful crochet items. So that’s all I’ll say. And she has, graciously donated a few items. So we’re excited about getting those out to parents. So we have a few giveaways happening.

Ayelet: Excellent. And the link to that will be in the show notes available on this episode. So do not miss that. That’s an amazing gift. Thank you so much, Mercedes.

Mercedes: Thank you.

Ayelet: Thank you for all of your time and energy today, Mercedes, and for everyone joining us from home or on the go, thank you so much. And we will see you next time.

The post How to Prepare For Baby’s Arrival: The Postpartum Plan, with Mercedes Thomas appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, we were joined by Sonnet Simmons, Veronica Morales Frieling, and Bryana Kappa. Sonnet and Veronica are hosts of the “Not Your Mother’s Podcast.” and co-creators of the parenting online course “Raising Children You Like” with Bryana Kappa. 

We chatted about:

• Each of our guests’ backgrounds and how they came into the work they’re all doing today
• Personal experiences in the transition from parenting an infant into toddlerhood 
• What’s happening in the brain when a young child is having a tantrum
• Older methods of discipline and diffusing a tantrum why they don’t work, and what you can do instead
• Specific changes these parents have made as a result of understanding their toddlers better
• Recommended resources for families looking for additional support

Not Your Mother’s Podcast (hosted by Sonnet and Veronica)

The system of courses over at Raising Children You Like, including the Toddler Tantrum Toolkit

Beyond Behaviors, by Mona Delahooke

No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame, by Janet Lansbury

Parenting From The Inside Out, by Dan Siegel

The Conscious Parent, by Dr. Shefali Tsabary

Siblings Without Rivalry, by Adele Faber

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen, by Joanna Faber and Julie King

South Bay Mommy & Me, based in Redondo Beach, California

Veronica, Sonnet, and Bryana’s resources at Raising Children You Like: Website / Instagram

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: So, today I am speaking with Sonnet Simmons, Veronica Frieling, and Bryana Kappa. Sonnet and Veronica are hosts of the Not Your Mother’s Podcast and co-creators of the parenting online course, Raising Children You Like, with Bryana Kappa.

So, Sonnet and Veronica are two long-time friends who became new moms at the same time, and who kept asking the question: “why doesn’t anyone tell you this about motherhood?” And set out on a journey to find answers to the unsaid and unspoken’s of motherhood by interviewing experts in areas like sex after baby, female body postpartum marriage. That’s two separate things. Postpartum, marriage…

Sonnet: [Laughter] postpartum marriage is definitely something!

Ayelet: Yes! Childhood development, and so much more. Sonnet is also a singer and songwriter. And Veronica is a digital marketing queen. And Bryana is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a private practice in Redondo beach, California. She’s endorsed as an infant family, early childhood mental health specialist. And she works exclusively with new moms and young children, birth to five. She owns, it operates South Bay Mommy and Me, and is the mother to Mateo, someone we can hear in the background because we are all parents. We’re all moms and welcome to motherhood, right?

Veronica: Yep. Yeah. I tried to put her down, but she wanted to go down.

Ayelet: Hashtag, motherhood, right? This is a podcast for and from parents. So it’s fine. So Sonnet, Veronica and Bryana. This is I think the first time we’ve ever actually braved three guests on the Learn With Less podcast, and I can’t think of a better triple threat panel. So I want to thank you so much for coming onto the Learn With Less podcast to share your story. Welcome, you guys.

Sonnet: Thank you so much for having us. Thank you.

Ayelet: So I’ve asked you to come onto the show today to speak to us about some tips to create what you guys call a toddler tantrum toolkit. But first I know we did a little bit of a background, but why don’t you give us just sort of a short backstory about you guys and how you came into this crazy thing called parenthood. And whoever wants to go first, just chime in.

Bryana: You guys go.

Sonnet: Okay. Um, so this is Sonnet, and I don’t know. I mean, how I got into parenthood is I think the same as everybody else. One, one, one night, one sexy night, that’s how that happened. But luckily I had Veronica and I have been friends. We have been like single lady friends. We met at a music festival. Like you look through our pictures together and we have really gone through a lot. And so we became moms at the same time, too.

And we would go on these walks and we were just in that mode of transition, where you’re trying to just get back to your old identity and you haven’t figured out yet that there is no getting back. And so you’re just frustrated that nobody talks about this, and you can’t put your finger on it, and you can’t find information about it. And so we decided to find that information ourselves.

And I mean, you also go on your own journey, but through the experts, we have learned so much, and we’re so grateful to be creating this community of moms and experts to get information from and how much we’ve learned as mothers to really allow ourselves to go through that transition. And to understand that we are becoming new people, rebirthing ourselves, as well as, you know, as a child, when we become a mom. And how that looks so different than you could ever imagine it will look. So that’s pretty much it, here we are!

Ayelet: So true. Anybody else

Bryana: For me? This is, this is Bryana. I, my story is a little different because I actually started working with moms and children, long before I became a mother myself. I’ve been working in a clinical capacity for eight years. And I think what really led me to working in infant mental health in particular and toddler mental health, was my own relationship with my mom and my family. And really just trying to understand and make sense of what happened as a child and the way it affected me.

And it really like lit this fire in me of, wow, what can I do to help support moms and children in having healthy, safe, secure relationships, attachments like a real sense of trust so that, you know, these children grow up. I want, I would like children to grow up into adults who believe that they are worthy, who believe they’re adequate, who believes that they can be loved and can love themselves.

These are all things that I, myself, even just as an adult, with all the work I’ve done, still struggle with and still feel uncertain about. And, you know, after learning about attachment and family systems in graduate school, it was just like this light bulb went off of, Oh, wow. Trauma. Isn’t just something like something that’s happened to you, but it’s something that gets passed down from generations. And sometimes you’re the, the holder of multiple generations of trauma. And what does that do to a person’s psyche? And what does that do? How does a person like go out into the world and live like that?

So all of those things just kind of came into one melting pot and I got that’s what really put me into the field of prevention. I was like, well, it doesn’t make sense to try to like work with adults who are already like going and like already having so much baggage. Let me like work with adults in this major transition. Let me work with parents in this major transition into life of becoming a parent where they are in such a powerful, influential place with their child. And how can we start that, right from the very beginning and prevent things right from the very beginning. So I’m very motivated by that. And then I became a mom myself, again, one sexy night.

Ayelet: [Laughter] Just to put it out there, it does not always happen that way, right?

Veronica: Okay. That’s true, that’s true.

Bryana: That’s true. For us, it did, and it was a very intentional, sexy night, guys, legs up, you know, for 30 minutes.

Sonnet: Wearing your heels and earrings. [Laughter]

Bryana: Anyway, so then, I became a parent myself and I started to, with my own child, utilize the things that I’ve been teaching parents for all these years. And it all kind of solidified for me like, wow, this, this stuff actually works.

And now, as you know, through just over the course of the last 18 months, we’ve been, Sonnet and Veronica and I, have been working together to really solidify the message of what really helps support children and families in their relationships in their, you know, engagements in everything. So, okay. I’m done talking. That was a lot.

Sonnet: No, it’s fantastic. And obviously just to add, like we, I met Bryana through South Bay Mommy and Me, I was a student or I still am, you know, I had come in and was just blown away by the whole approach, you know, cause it’s what we desire as moms, to show up for our children that way. And then we were like, come work together!

Veronica: So like before Sonnet went to South Bay Mommy and Me, we were in a Mommy and Me class up here in LA and that, our instructor was the one that introduced her to Bryana and once, and once, I got pregnant (another sexy night) six months after the first toddler was born. And so I, so I, while Sonnet was like, really in toddlerville, I was in like, Oh my God, I’m going to be a mom to a second child, you know, place.

And when I saw, and so Sonnet moved down and we don’t see each other as regularly as we used to. And when I saw her, her parenting and her relationship with Cairo had completely shifted from when I had last seen them. And I was like, whatever you’re learning, I need to learn too, because we were getting into the, the tantrums and that whole thing.

And so that’s when we were like, we need to work with Bryana and really get her message out there because it’s so helpful. And so it just, in the past few months of just working with her, I’ve seen a complete shift in my own patience and all, all that jazz that we’ll get into. So yeah, that’s how we all came to be.

Ayelet: I love it. Okay. So let’s get into it. Sonnet and Veronica, from a parent perspective, I would love to hear a little bit more about what that transition from parenting an infant to parenting a toddler, was like for each of you and Veronica, we can start with you also, because you mentioned also, you’re not only, at that point, you were not only parenting a toddler, but also an infant at the same time. So, yeah, I… It’s hard. Let’s hear about that.

Veronica: Also, what I’ve learned is that each stage that you hope to get out of, the next one that comes isn’t better than the last one, you know, there’s, there’s always problems. So it was really not about the child. It’s about the parent. Yeah. It’s like, I learned that it’s not about them. It’s about you. It’s not about where they’re at, because they’re gonna, they’re gonna run their course. They’re gonna do their thing. They’re going to learn and be messy and make mistakes and do all those things regardless of how you feel about it. So it’s really not about them. It’s about you. And also, that time goes by really fast.

So now seeing Melrose, my four month old, before months, whereas just Cecilia was four months last year, time goes by so quickly. So I’m not so honed in on like fixing them or like, or like fixating on the problems. I’m able to also care less because I just don’t have the bandwidth to be so, like high strung on what’s going on with them, even though I still am high strung. Um, but it’s just really, it’s just about doing the work on myself.

Ayelet: Yeah. Let’s, I mean, we’re going to get into all of that too, but will you give us a couple of things about what, what does that look like for you?

Veronica: Um, uh, so just prioritizing self care. So before, like now I’m going to the gym five to six times a week, whereas before it might be like two or three times a week, and it would be around their nap schedule and feedings and all this stuff. And it’s like, they can just call me if they, if they’re hungry, if they’re tired, I can just leave, but I have to get there and take care of myself. So I would say that’s like the biggest shift.

Also, I’ve been working with Bryana with this, about when Cecilia, my toddler, is having a tantrum. She’s very triggering like her, her and I are, her birthday is like a day after mine. So I think there’s like some cosmic, like relationship thing that is going on between us. So a lot, like most of the things that she does, I’m like, Oh God, okay. Like I can’t react.

So I’m learning how to pause and take a breath, multiple breaths, before I engage has been like a total game changer, because it’s so easy for me to react to her, rather than to like proactively or like, not necessarily prevent, but just create some space between us. But so I don’t like get into her swell of energy. I’m much better at creating the safe space for her to come to me and me be there for her to like, give her a hug or listen or whatever it is that she needs at that time.

Ayelet: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. And then to, to figure out like that, okay. That you’re taking a breath and then try and figure out what it is that she needs. Right. Because she’s going, “BLEH!!!,” right? But if you are able to just sit, sit for a second with, with your brain, your, your like adult brain, which actually does have layers of like impulse control that she doesn’t have…

When you can activate it, right, which is hard, especially when you’re being triggered.But the, that you can find those ways to step back. That’s awesome. Sonnet, let’s hear about it from, from your perspective, what was that transition like parenting, this brand new, cute little baby who’s coming themselves every day and then there’s a shift, right?

Sonnet: Yeah. No, I was like, hello, I just gave birth to you. So I feel like you should still be listening to me. Like, you know, I should still be in control here! But it’s not the way it goes, you know? And, and I think for me, what has been really helpful is just understanding where they’re at, you know, like developmentally, this is super normal developmentally, this is why they’re doing this. And this is why they need this kind of support.

And the best thing that I, like, I was in a restaurant the other day with an older lady, like my grandma, I was like an older lady who shall remain nameless. With my grandma. And Cairo was making a little bit of noise. And she was like, we do not make noise in the restaurant like this. And I was like, well, you know, she’s a toddler. She’s going to make noise. She’s babbling, she’s doing her thing. Like, she’s upset, she’s whatever.

But it’s such a just difference in the parenting of, I probably was raised like that. You know, it’s like, we are quiet here. And if you’re not able to be quiet, then we’re going to leave. And it’s a very different thing to be like, okay, well, she just needs to sit here and like, take all the sugar out and put it all back and she’s not hurting anybody.

And I can like take a deep breath and be okay with that and let her be, you know, and it’s really a testament to Bryana teaching us, really, this whole story of, of where they are developmentally so that we can help support them where they are and what they need.

And like you said, they don’t have those layers. That’s just not built into them yet. And so we are, we look to them and we’re like, why don’t you understand? I mean, I even hear my husband say it sometimes. Like she should know.. I’m like, but she doesn’t like, she doesn’t know, like, that’s okay. You know, like…

Veronica: You’re like, you’re 40 and you don’t know!

Sonnet: I know, right? They’re not even there yet, you know? So how do we help them support them where they are at, whether that, rather than where we are.

Ayelet: Right, well, and I think, too, it’s important for families and, and grownups in general to hear like, because I think some people could hear what you’re saying. Like, Oh, well, this child in a restaurant was so loud and that mom’s just letting her be so loud. Like, there’s a difference between, like, I mean, there there’s a limit, right? Like, of course I’m not run loose in a restaurant and trip all the waiters and scream and not let other people enjoy their restaurant experience.

But I am gonna let my child maybe like open a sugar packet and empty it into a bowl. Like, that’s fine. That’s fine motor control and all kinds of wonderful developmental tasks. Right. Like that’s okay. And like you said, the babbling and the talking to herself, that like, that’s fine, right So I just wanted to like, be perfectly clear. Cause I think a lot of people are like, well, what is it? Like, where’s the limit? Like there’s a limit.

Sonnet: Yeah! But then I find when she is like super loud and she is feeling like she needs to go trip all the waiters. Like I need to take her outside. Like my job is not to make her sit in her high chair and yell at her till she does, till she’s quiet.

Ayelet: Cuz that’s enjoyable for all the other people, too.

Sonnet: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. But we don’t keep her there to trip the waiters. Right.

Bryana: Right. We’re always looking at our child’s sense of regulation. And our goal is not to control our child because that doesn’t work. That always ends up in power struggles and battles between children and parents. Our goal is to see, how regulated is my child, and if my child is not in a nice green ready to go zone, then how do I get my child back to that?

And so, yeah, sometimes a child is just babbling and happy and playing and they’re good to go. And they’re not, like I love the way Sonnet said it. Like, she’s not hurting anybody, but if we’re yelling and we’re screaming and we’re a hot mess, or we’re even like screeching and throwing our bodies around, yeah. Go take a sensory break, get out of that, loud, you know, environment of the restaurant or whatever it is. Go take a walk, go take in some fresh air.

And it actually is more regulating for us as well. And that’s something that I keep talking about, you know, because so much of parenting these days has become about like, what can we do to our child or what can we do for our child? And I think the best thing that we can do for our child is get ourselves grounded, really feel our bottoms on the chair, our feet on the floor or wherever we are, take some deep breaths and clear our own mind before we hop in, and before we try to engage and support our child.

There is something so powerful about a regulated parent hopping in to support a child who’s not feeling, not feeling their best. Whereas when we are dysregulated, we’re only going to further add to the dysregulation of the child. Or if we’re dysregulated and our child is regulated, we’re only going to further, we’re only going to cause that child to become dysregulated because our children are really, you know, they’re monitoring their own regulation based on us. They’re looking to us to get themselves calm, cool, and collected, not the other way around.

Ayelet: Right. We talked so much about self-regulation in children, and in fact it is all about co-regulation, right?

Bryana: All of it.

Ayelet: That’s exactly what you’re saying, Bryana, it’s not just getting your child to be regulated. It’s being able to provide a model because they are always learning in observation and in imitation of us, right? So how are they going to be calmed and regulated if we’re like, ” YOU HAVE TO BE CALM!”

Bryana: That’s how I grew up, by the way.

Ayelet: Okay. So we’re going to take a break in just a minute, but first Bryana, can you tell us a little bit about what is happening in the brain when a young child is having a tantrum? Cause we spoke a little bit about this regulation piece, but…

Bryana: Absolutely. So children have, you know, for the, for the most part, children, birth to five are doing the majority of their operating out of the emotional part of the brain. That’s a very non-technical term, but we do have, like, different segments of our brain that our children are operating from the thinking part of the brain that allows them to rationalize strategize, organize, plan.

The moment a child becomes triggered, that part of the brain flies off the handle. And if we look to Dan Siegel, he kind of talks about like our thinking brain, our hand brain model. So this is the, this is our thinking brain. It flies off. And now just that really emotional part of the brain is like, “AAAH!,” and it, it activates the fight, flight, or freeze response for our babies. And that’s a very instinctual, emotional, almost reptilian response. And this is why our children can, you know, show physiological signs of distress, right?

If they’re anxious, their eyes are going to get really big and they might start to slobber and their bodies might look kind of scared and they might be pushing away. If they’re feeling really angry, you might see their eyebrows, kind of, you know, tense up and their jaws are going to get tight. We start to see the fists close in.

Either way, the body starts to kind of expand and go away from a nice calm, cool midline, keeping the body, you know, inward, the body starts to splay outward. And this is really the brain communicating to the body: Hey, you got to get ready because you’re threatened and you need to do something about this threat.

And what happens then, the brain releases adrenaline and cortisol, which are some really big stress hormones in the body. And what happens in our brains, as we’re watching that, we’re taking in, visually, the information that we’re seeing from our child, and our brain is also reading all of their cortisol, being, being dripped into their, into their system.

And so our brain starts releasing a ton of cortisol and adrenaline too. So our brain actually ends up mirroring our children’s brain. And now we have an adult, which is like, who becomes like a mini child, and a child, both operating in this limbic system, this, this emotional part of the brain.

And it’s a really unhelpful place for us to be as parents, because what it kind of does is it creates this feedback loop in the child’s brain that says, yeah, this isn’t this an event where I should be threatened. Or this is an event where I should be scared. This is an event that I should be feeling really angry and really upset because my parent is showing me the exact same thing that I’m feeling. So what we, I met, I’ll just stop there. Cause that I feel like answers, answers the question. If you want me to go into more detail, I can. Yes.

Ayelet: I love it. Well, well, we all have more opportunity for that during our Q and a portion after the interview, with our participants, but we’re going to take a break to hear a word from our sponsors. And then we’ll hear a few tips about raising toddlers and diffusing tantrums from Sonnet and Veronica and Bryana. And we’ll hear about their favorite resources to share with families.

Ayelet: Okay. Bryana, let’s start with you. I would love to hear about some of the, what we might call “older” methods of discipline, and diffusing a tantrum. So why… Tell us a couple of these, why they might not be terribly effective and then give us a “what you can do instead,” if that’s alright.

Bryana: Okay. So to just kind of piggyback off what I was saying with the brain, spanking is an older, you know, not as popular, but still being, being utilized way to discipline children. But what happens when we, when we spank, research has shown that children are not able to discriminate spanking from physical abuse. So the brain reads it and experiences it as if it is physical abuse and it automatically activates that fight, flight, or freeze response in the child’s brain. And then what this creates is a lot of complication in that child-parent relationship.

This child kind of becomes a little bit more submissive and compliant in the moment, but out of fear that the parent is like a dual source of love and, and also fear and pain. And so long-term, that is not a very effective way to promote healthy, secure relationships and attachments, which is really, you know, where discipline and, and you know, that like internal sense of like self motivation and self control and impulse control really comes from – it comes from healthy, secure attachments and a sense of trust in the world and people in your world.

So we have that. Another old method, um, are timeouts now timeouts aren’t as like, I don’t know what the word I wanna say is, you know, damaging, if that’s the best word?

Veronica: Traumatic?

Ayelet: It’s not a physical reminder…

Bryana: Reminder, but happens when we do timeouts is it sends a message to a child that you’re, I can’t tolerate your big emotions. You need to go be alone with your big emotions. And so this child then internalizes that as, you know, I don’t, I don’t have anybody who can safely help me navigate these big things that I’m experiencing, that I’m supposed to be experiencing.

And so that’s why, you know, timeouts are, can be kind of, again, they can be effective in the moment, but they’re largely ineffective in the long-term because what I would really, what I think of like a whole person, I think of somebody who is aware of their emotions, is aware of how other people impact them and is also aware of how they impact others. And that is an experience that we get to teach our children about, and we get so many opportunities to teach them about.

So I like to look at temper tantrums and emotional dysregulation as an opportunity to teach my child about what is going on with them inside, how they are impacting others, and how others are impacting them. And each moment is really a learning opportunity. It doesn’t need to be something that I need to punish, because that sends the message that these things are bad.

But instead, it’s something that I get to teach because we’re really learning and growing from them, me as a parent, I’m learning and growing from them. And my child is also learning and growing from each of these experiences.

Ayelet: Okay. So there’s that part. And then we’re going to get to the, what you can do instead part, for sure. But before we do, I want, I want to just say for the purpose of this show, this podcast episode is not to tell you as a parent what to do and what not to do. I think for me, the idea is, when we have, when we see what’s modeled to us from our own parenting, from our friends, from our culture, whatever it is, we feel like that’s what we have.

And that’s what… So the purpose of this is to give you a broader toolbox to use, to understand, to, to see about what some other options are. And then you go back into your family and you decide what’s right for you, right? Because, number one, I also want to say, I love that you, Sonnet and Veronica have sought out professional resources, other people, and as you call “experts.”

For me, as a professional, with a background in early child development and early language development, I actually abhor that word “expert” because I don’t believe there is a parenting expert out there. There is no parenting expert. Who is the parenting expert? That’s you, that’s you, you’re the parent. You are, you are becoming the expert on your own child every single day. And that’s the only way that you’re going to get through this thing.

But, there are professional resources out there, so, call it semantics, call it whatever you want. But I… it’s like one of those triggering terms for me. That I’m like, noooo the chalkboard! Like, No, I’m not an expert. I mess this up all the time! Right? Like Bryana, you’re so mellow and so together right now, but I’m sure you have your moments too, right? Like I love it. And I love that. We all have, like, we can call each other out on this because we are human.

So I think it’s important to recognize this and say like, these are the tools in our tool belt, when we can activate and be regulated ourselves with our tiny humans, then we feel… Like personally, I’m like, I am an Olympic athlete. I just killed that. Like, that was awesome. I did it “right,” like “right”. Like I got that.

I know that I did not activate that limbic part of my kid’s brain and I didn’t quote unquote, damage him in the moment. Like I’m going to do it later today, but I did it that time. And that feels really good. And the more we can retrain our brains – cause that’s what we’re doing, right? Where us, we have to retrain our brain. For them, we are training their brain, like and it’s both really hard from both sides.

I just wanted to say that because I think it’s important to say, because when we, as parents hear, you know, “these are the tools and they’re so pretty, and here’s what it looks like when you do it right?” Like, you’re not going to do it right all the time. And that doesn’t make you a bad parent. It’s okay.

Bryana: Right. It’s such an important conversation. I feel like I was having with sauna and Veronica, when they wanted me to put together tools, I was like, look, guys, the tool is… The tool is take some deep breaths and trust that it’s all going to unfold the way it’s going to unfold, and we have to do our work. It’s our work! Where, we’re raising our children, but really they’re raising us. They’re really teaching us about what we need to work on and what we need to understand better about ourselves and about our lives. So I’m totally with you. It’s, you know,

Ayelet: I love how you said, that, too. It is that, it’s a self discovery piece, right? It’s rough.

Veronica: Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s so easy to feel like you’re doing it wrong. I think that’s such an ease. That’s like a thought that just comes in all the time of your, your head. Like there must be a right way to do this because this one isn’t working.

And to really trust and give yourself permission or give yourself permission to trust that you are the best person who can answer this, you know, with, and, but it, it’s very helpful to have an education and have information and, and know kind of what’s going on for your child, but then you’re the best one to kind of, to be there for your child. Yeah.

Ayelet: You’re the one decide what and how to do that in your own families. Right. I love it.

Bryana: And it needs to be authentic to you the way that you re respond and are in relationship with your children. If it’s fake, if it’s somebody else’s words or someone, else’s way of being, it’s not going to be an authentic way of being in relationship with your children. Like presence is probably the best parenting skill.

One of the best parenting skills that we have, is how do we just be present, be in the moment and, and recognize what’s happening for me and recognize what’s happening for my child, without any judgment, just holding both of those. Like at all times, you know, that, I feel like if, if we did that, that would probably be enough. That’d be all we need to do in raising our kids.

Ayelet: That would change the world, right?

Bryana: Yeah, it would!

Sonnet: For everybody,

Ayelet: Alright, so we have some quote, unquote older methods. These methods have been around a long time, spanking, timeout. What can we do instead?

Bryana: So I like to talk about self-regulation as a tool and our AWE method. So, self-regulation and the AWE method go together. Self-regulation i how do I get myself feeling grounded, get some deep breaths into my body. Am I, is my chest, is my breath in my chest? If it is, send it down into my tummy, what’s going on with my hands? Are my hands starting to clench, if they are relax, them. Notice my shoulders. Are my shoulders up at my ears? If they are, can I bring them down?

I am literally trying to change my physiological cues of stress and get my brain to respond by taking deep breaths and feeling grounded as opposed to reacting to the stress that’s happening in front of me in the moment.

And then, I want to hop into that AWE method. So with my AWE method, it’s, it’s very simple. A W E. A stands for acknowledge. I’m going to acknowledge what I see going on for my child. It’s a pretty simple description. It’s non-judgmental. It’s really simply narrating noticing, in a short way, like one quick little sentence. I can acknowledge the emotion, I can acknowledge if I don’t understand the emotion or if I’m unsure what the need is. I can just notice the behavior that’s in front of me and maybe speak to that quickly.

And then my W is wait. We must wait. Because in those moments that, like I said earlier, the front part of the brain is shut down. It’s all emotional, which means they are processing at a slower speed. And so I need to see: how does my acknowledgement land on my child? Did I get it right? My child is going to be the best indicator, the best litmus test to tell me if I got it right or not.

And if I got it right, they’re gonna, you know, take a pause. They’re going to listen in. If maybe I’m maybe I didn’t quite get the emotion right or I didn’t quite get that need right. Or I’m not really seeing the behavior for what it is. My child’s going to protest a little bit, but when we get it right, they do, they feel felt, they feel heard by us.

Then I can hop into my E, which is my, my engage and my connection. So my whole philosophy is connect before we correct. So I really wanna, like help my child feel safe in that moment. Cause obviously if they’re having a big meltdown, they’re having a big emotional dysregulation, they’re not feeling safe. So my, my main goal is how do I get my baby feeling safe? And then I can set a little limit if I need to.

Right? Like if for the restaurant situation, maybe when we’re in the restaurant, we use our gentle hands or we use, we use our inside voice. When we’re in the restaurant. If you need to use your outside voice, let me know. We’ll take a break and we’ll go outside. Those kinds of gentle but effective limits. And then I want to trust that this process is going to repeat itself. And my child is not going to remember every single thing that I said. But over time and through consistency, we’re going to have this experience.

My child’s body is going to get wired to be able to respond to their own stress in these kinds of ways. And for children who are older, then we can really start problem solving. You know, my young kiddos, my two, you know, two, three-year-old kiddos, I’m helping my children problem solve at that age. For my kiddos four and five. I want to enact that problem solving process because it’s that problem solving process that helps impulse control, and helps our children really, you know, navigate their own emotions and navigate their behaviors in a healthy, safe, and adaptive way. And yeah, that’s the process. It’s pretty simple.

Ayelet: Let’s hear, because you gave a really wonderful example of what that, the engaged piece looks like with say the restaurant example. I would love to have you just give us an example of what the A piece looks like. So for instance, okay. I’m Sonnet’s two year old and I’m shoveling stuff in my mouth, or I’m standing on my chair, whatever I’m doing, what does the parent say?

Bryana: Oh, I would probably say, Oh, it looks like your body really needs to move right now. That would be my A. And then I would wait. So just nonjudgmental, simply noticing what I see the child doing.

Ayelet: And helping the child call attention to what, what it is without, without being like, Oh yeah. Oh yeah, my body.

Bryana: There you go, exactly. Because that’s promoting mindfulness. I’m teaching my child’s brain and my child’s body to be in sync and to recognize, Oh, that is what’s going on. And maybe that two year old will say, “outside.” Maybe, maybe then that two year old will solve their own problem. I want to go outside. If not, either way I’m waiting and I’m taking deep breaths. Especially if I notice this is triggering for me, or I’m aware that other people are watching me and other people are upset with what my child is doing. I’m going to get myself regulated.

And then I hop in with that engage and connect: I can see you really want to move your body right now. We do need to move our bodies outside. I’m going to pick you up and take you outside. Beautiful. Right? Simple, safe, warm, affectionate, but still the boundaries are clear, and they’re, and they’re firm, I’m not advocating for letting your children run the show. I’m not advocating for children being your boss. No, I believe that parents are still the ones in charge, but we don’t need to be controlling to be in charge.

We don’t need to be punitive to be in charge. We can actually collaborate. And I think when we really see our children as our best collaborators, it changes how we, how we want to be in relationship with our kids. It changes how, how they want to respond and be in relationship with us.

Sonnet: Yeah. It’s because you feel like the weight, the weight of the responsibility is balanced. You don’t feel like you’re responsible for how they’re acting and for all of those things. And that’s how mom, where mom guilt comes in, you know, because it’s like, I can’t control my child. My child is insane, you know.

Ayelet: Right, right. Cause they are, we think of them as a reflection of ourselves, right? But we have to acknowledge that they have their own needs, their own physical and emotional needs and feelings. And that’s how they are engaging with the world. I love it. All right. Sonnet and Veronica, I want to hear what are some specific changes that you have each made as a result of really understanding your toddlers better?

Veronica: Oh, what shifts have we made? I mean, just the AWE method that Bryana has that just talks about that has been the biggest shift because, and for me, it’s like, like I had said earlier, it’s the, before even getting to the A, because I was showing up triggered, just taking the breath before I even engaged with her because I just kept feeling like I wasn’t showing up authentically. I was irritated saying like, it looks like your body needs to move. You know, because I was already, I was already frustrated, showing up.

So I had to take a pause before that, uh, to re, to re because my I’m short fused, you know, it’s like these two under 2 is like, don’t do that. It’s a lot. It’s a lot of, it’s a lot of, it’s a lot of baby. So just, yeah, I would say that the AWE method is the, is the biggest shift in, in how I, in our relationship. And it does change so much.

And most of the time when I engage, when I get to the E and I just say, like, it looks it when you can just tell that they’re having a hard time. I’ll just say like, it looks like you need a hug. Do you need a hug? And then she’ll just be like, Ooh. And then like, we’ll hug and then it’ll be over. Yeah. But it’s like, I wouldn’t have gotten there had I, if I didn’t regulate before I engaged authentically.

Ayelet: Yeah. I was just gonna say, I love how you identified because it is so easy to like, try and make that nonjudgmental sentence with so much like, Oh, totally. “Your body’s really loud right now.” Let me try that again.

Veronica: Yeah. That was, I was having a hard time getting there right now.

Ayelet: Yeah. That’s great. How about you for you Sonnet?

Sonnet: I mean, similarly, I feel like just having the acknowledge part, learning that, that it doesn’t have to be this big, like huge acknowledgement paragraph. You know, it’s really like narrating what is happening in that moment for them too. And it’s also extremely helpful for you because it makes you have to take a break and be like, Oh, I see what’s happening here. And have to put words to it.

For me, that’s been incredibly helpful. I don’t even know if Cairo even knows sometimes, you know, like what I’m saying, you know, but for me it’s helpful. Cause I could, I can put words to it and be like, okay, well we’re going to go outside then. Cause I can see you need to move your body. So for me that’s been one of the most helpful parts of this is, is the acknowledgement of it.

Ayelet: Yeah. That’s awesome. Um, all right, well guys, let’s hear about some of your favorite resources you’d like to recommend to families who are looking for additional support in this area. Cause we have acknowledged that it is hard. We have given some tools, but we have knowledge that it is difficult. So what are some resources that families, that you’ve used, that you’ve created, that families might look to for additional support and strategies?

Bryana: Go ahead, girls.

Sonnet: Well, I mean, we’ve created together something, cause we were looking for that support and we were looking for information that really spoke to us, you know, as the whole parent and how are we going to show up to help support a, a child that is going to be a teenager and going to be an adult and not just in that moment. And so we created with Bryana, Raising Children You Like. And it’s actually, it’s actually going to be, it’s a series of online video trainings, not just with tantrums.

And we’ll talk about discipline and connecting with your child and screen time and lots of different aspects of the parenting world of information that you can take and use to incorporate into your life as you, as it works for your family, but on your own time. And so the first one that we launched was Toddler Tantrum Toolkit. So I think that has been an incredible resource for me. You know, like we started this podcast because we were looking for answers and then we created this because we were looking for answers too so, you know, we don’t, we’re just learning, we’re just figuring it out.

Ayelet: You’re learning with some guidance and it’s wonderful. So that’s, uh, I’ve had a chance to look at it. It’s a beautiful course. So if anyone is interested in going that route, we will obviously put the link to that in the show notes. Bryana, what about you? What are some resources that you like to recommend to, to families?

Bryana: Some of my biggest inspirations for my work are Mona Delahooke and Janet Lansbury, Dan Siegel, Dr. Shefali. I mean they wrote some, some really powerful things. Mona Delahooke wrote a book, Beyond Behaviors. So we’re really learning and understanding the nervous system of ourselves and our children. And how do we promote, how do we see beyond the behavior?

So one of the things that we talk about all the time, I talk about all the time is, you know, behaviors are really just the gateway to what’s going on emotionally. And when we can tap into that, then we can actually see the child’s need. And when we start shifting to see the child’s need, we’re really going to help our children in a way that’s more profound.

Janet Lansbury, you know, she takes a very, you know, No Bad Kids and takes away the sense of shaming our children into listening and following directions. So she has a very, you know, she comes from Magda Gerber and the, the RIE philosophy. So it’s really child led and respectful and gentle, but still an effective way of raising children.

Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Shefali, you know, they both wrote two books: Parenting From the Inside Out, Dan Siegel, and The Conscious Parent, Dr. Shefali, that are really asking us to look inward and understand our own past, and how our past influences how we are raising our children today. What old wounds are being triggered in relationship with our child that have nothing to do with our child that we need to show up for, for ourselves. How do we need to, how can we repair it ourselves so that we can now really show up for our children in the way that we want to?

And I think all of these, you know, there’s so many wonderful resources. These just tend to be some of the ones that I really rely on that just really change our framework, shift our framework in how we see parenting, how we see our role as, as parents. I really think it kind of grounds us as mothers. We don’t have to see ourselves as these martyrs who know how to do everything perfect. And these Disney princesses who get everything done well and right, that we actually get to be human beings in this process who are alongside, our children are learning and growing.

So yeah, I just, I really appreciate those. And I think any parent at any stage in Parenthood actually can really benefit from these. And then, one more resource that I point parents to is Siblings Without Rivalry when you, especially when you’re adding in multiple children. Because I think that really creates a collaborative non-competitive atmosphere.

And I know some parents benefit from How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. That book gives more, like, scripts, and kind of trains us to even use some of this language that I’m talking about. So I think especially for parents who didn’t have great models, and who are kind of struggling with being triggered in the moment, that is a really hands-on practical book that, you know, I think can be very empowering for a lot of, for a lot of parents.

Ayelet: Agreed, Yeah, I actually, I also love the one that her daughter wrote, co-wrote, which is the How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen. Yeah.

Veronica: I just got the audio book of that one.

Ayelet: Yes. Yes. It’s lovely. Perfect. Really great. They’re both perfect. Yeah. Excellent resources. Thanks so much. And I love, I love what you said Bryana about, about the Disney princess mother, right? That’s none of us, by the way. Nope.

Bryana: Even though I pretend to be, I do sing Disney songs all around the house. But I’m not actually a Disney princess!

Ayelet: Thank you so much. Sonnet, Veronica and Bryana, and thanks to all our participants of the Learn With Less® curriculum who are here, listening live as a benefit to our membership community. We’re going to continue the discussion and open up for a Q and A session for you all in just a minute, but for everyone listening from home or on the go, thank you so much for joining us. And we will see you next time.

The post Tips to Create A Toddler Tantrum Toolkit , with Sonnet Simmons, Veronica Morales Frieling, and Bryana Kappa appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, we were joined by LaDawn White, an Early Childhood Educator and Family Childcare Director. LaDawn is the owner of Labor of Love Childcare, a preschool prep, family childcare program that services families with children aged birth to three years old.

We chatted about:

• LaDawn’s background and how she came to do the work she’s doing today
• What are the kinds of materials and experiences she finds are the most supportive of learning for infants and toddlers?
• What are some of the simple ways parents and caregivers can set up the home environment to help support early learning and connection?
• LaDawn’s top tips for parents and caregivers who want to ensure they’re “doing it right” and “doing enough” when it comes to their little ones
• LaDawn’s favorite resources to share with families raising infants and toddlers of all developmental levels

CDC Developmental Checklist

Janet Lansbury: Elevating Childcare

LaDawn: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Today I am speaking with LaDawn White, the owner of Labor Of Love Childcare, a preschool prep, family childcare program that services families with children aged birth to three years old, located in Northern Indiana. Through her collection of experiences and education, LaDawn offers an all-inclusive childcare program that provides education, activities, and resources for young children and their entire families. LaDawn, you and I connected a while back on social media, and I know that you provide such value for families in your community. So I’m really excited to chat with you about your approach to play and early childhood education. So welcome to Learn With Less.

LaDawn: Thank you for having me! Yay.

Ayelet: I’m so glad you’re here. So I’ve asked you to come onto the show today to speak to us really about, you know, how to provide nurturing relationships and environments that shape a young child’s brain. But first, why don’t you tell us more, a little bit about you and how you actually got into the work that you’re doing today?

LaDawn: Sure. So I started, just, I guess initially this wasn’t my career pathway. So I was in fashion design and had children got married, had children and was like, okay, I need something a little more practical. I need something that… I’m a small town girl, you know, big cities did not seem very appeasing to me having a young family. And so ultimately, I just wanted my kids to have the best education and for them to be with people who I could trust. And so that kind of is what prompted me to look into education.

And then I started thinking about how I didn’t want to work with kids that were too old. So, you know, the younger children seem to be underserved. So maybe I can kind of explore that field, just really got into it and start off as a nanny, of course, trying to make sure my children knew as much as they needed to before they went off to preschools and things like that after I kind of let go because I was like, “oh I don’t want them to go!” They can stay with me.

And so I ended up, that prompted me then to open up a childcare in my home, my first one, I was like 23. So, you know, things were lot different than they are now, now I’m 35 and, you know, looking at things different through different lenses, from experience and education. So, you know, I was just so just excited about being in a field that was underserved. And I knew that I could offer a lot too, cause I come from a family of teachers. So I’m like, okay, this may be my purpose. This may be way to do it. It just came so natural.

And then, like I said, through the different experiences, I’ve been a teacher assistant, I’ve been a teaching coach. I had my own program, now of course my own program again. And I just really enjoy and love teaching children. And I noticed such a big need to teach not only them, but their families, they need the resources to do. And in order to help their children be the best they can be.

Ayelet: Yeah, well said, it’s so true. And I love how, because I, I had a similar path as far as the parent education component of my career when I had my own child, I definitely felt like, well, I already know a little bit about, you know, early childhood education on play and early child development. And I, I think, you know, and we have talked about this in the past, like that feeling that you, you know what’s best for your child and you have a little bit of knowledge and you can apply that. And that, that is really so powerful and so empowering for you as an educator and as a parent.

LaDawn: Yes, exactly.

Ayelet: So let’s dig right in. What are some of the kinds of materials and experiences that you have found are the most supportive for learning for infants and toddlers?

LaDawn: You know, during that stage, children are just imitating so much, you know, I’ve been one of those educators and parents that really wanted to get gadgets and gizmos that, you know, have bells and whistles and, you know, they, they did so many different things and the kids, just their attention span was so short with those things. And I’m like, I just spent a gazillion dollars on this toy for the child to love the box that the toy came in and it’s like, that is not what is supposed to happen.

You know, I really, throughout the years it just seems like kids want whatever the adult has, whether it be a phone, whether it be a cooking utensil, whether it be the laundry basket, I mean, whatever your child sees you with, they ultimately want. And so providing a child with those types of items where they can have, and you know, this one’s yours and this one’s mine, but this one’s yours and it looks just like yours. So ultimately, you know, of course I still want yours, but at least knowing they have something that looks like, you know, yours, they will be more inclined to play with.

And then, you know, you’ll be able to do whatever you need to do as a parent or an educator. And so it’s so funny that, you know, we would think, I don’t know who makes toys, toys for children, but I don’t know. I don’t think it’s the thing. I don’t think it’s educators, because it’s like, that’s not what they like, you know? And it’s sad because you think all these people know, really know what children like, and then ultimately you see them play with for two seconds. And it was like, Oh, what a waste of money! So, you know, boxes. And like I said, kitchen utensils, bubbles, kids love bubbles and anything sensory based, sand and dirt and water, which ultimately are very minimal costs. You know, these are things that kids love. And so, yeah, that’s been my experience.

Ayelet: Yeah. I love what you said about how, like, I don’t know who’s making these toys, but… Because the point is like, they’re not marketing to the children, obviously they’re marketing to the parents, right? The baby industry. And I’m also, I think it’s really interesting because I think especially parents, but also us as educators, therapists, professionals, working with families like that term “educational toy,” and I’m doing air quotes, we think it means something, right? We think that it means that that’s passed through some sort of process to become accredited. And it’s just a term you can put on a box that’s, you know, it doesn’t mean…

LaDawn: It’s a marketing term.

Ayelet: Yes! It’s marketing, so, right. Like you said, families are looking for these high quality things, but what we often and educators too, because I think you’re absolutely right. As a, as a therapist I’ve, especially earlier in my career, I spent hundreds of dollars getting, you know, that one toy that I could only find on eBay because some other speech-language pathologist said it was so great for, you know, for therapy, but really I could just make it out of cardboard pieces, right? I mean, it’s ridiculous.

And it’s that, I like to say, like the emperor has no toys, right? Because if it’s like it just, but it does, it takes a reframe and we’d have to come back to like what you were saying about how children learn through observation of their environment and the people in their environment, imitation of what the parents and caregivers and other adults are doing in their environment, and interaction with those people and those objects. So I love all of that.

So tell us a little bit about, because as we know, there are many families, especially right now, as we record in the midst of a global pandemic, there are a lot of families who are home with their kids and thinking, Oh my gosh, I need more materials, more stuff, more things to entertain my child. I’m not doing enough for their, you know, their learning, their development. What are some of the very simple ways that parents and caregivers can set up their home environment to help, to support early learning? What do you recommend?

LaDawn: I believe in a lot of your philosophies, which is why we connected so well use what you have in your home. It’s not, you know, it’s really just that simple. I mean, we have so many teaching tools that we can use and implement that children love just naturally. Why buy some fancy toy just because, like I said, it’s marketable or it’s trending, you know, based on a mom’s group or a parent group “try this new toy. You know, this is the coolest thing to have,” you know, no, we want to do what’s best for children and doing what’s best for children, it’s just the simplest thing. So use what you have in your environment!

Ayelet: Totally. What are some of the kinds of, I mean, you already gave some great examples as far as like kitchen items and cardboard boxes. What about, like, what are some of the ways that you have set up, for instance, your family and daycare program, the space itself to help, to maximize learning?

LaDawn: We have a lot of open space. However, of course, with, you know, childcare environments themselves, you have to kind of section off things to reduce, you know, behaviors that may not be as appropriate because of the space and having so many children. But, I believe, you know, we initially, like I said, got all these fancy toys and all these fancy things, we switched out a lot of stuff to just things, like I said, that are everyday materials, every day, things that kids can use.

So, we we’ve gotten like phones, you know, that are the corded phones that we used to have back in the day, the landlines. We use ice cream scoops, we use, we’ve had at one point we had the strainer bowls, we had some of those, just a lot of open ended materials that kids can use, that they can use their own minds and creativity to learn and to explore. I’m trying to think of a few things that we just put in. They love to pound on things. We got these like age-appropriate hammers, like, that they can use. And just really looking at what they’re interested in and what we can provide that is an age-appropriate, you know, mimic or copy. So, yeah.

Ayelet: I like how you were saying earlier about how it’s great to give them a developmentally-appropriate size or weight or something of the thing that the parent has like exactly the same thing, but, and it doesn’t even necessarily have to be like the plastic keys that come as a toy. It can be like, you know, a few old key, like keys on a key chain or whatever it is. That’s like a safe version or a safe size, or, you know, obviously a lot of these things you need adult supervision.

LaDawn: Of course.

Ayelet: But you would do with infants and toddlers, anyway.

LaDawn: Anyway! Yes. And speaking of keys, we have a container of keys. They are so drawn to it, you know? And like you said, there has to be supervision because there’s small keys, there’s larger ones. So yeah, definitely.

Ayelet: Right. And then when it comes to that independent play, you can be present and also, you know, ensure that your child is playing with safe things. What about for, for families who are say, trying to work or work part time at home while their children are home, what are some of the kinds of things that you might suggest to families to help help them deal with that?

LaDawn: Yeah, the same kind of stuff, you know, and we are a no-screen environment. We don’t have any television screens, computer screens when we play our music, if it happens to be YouTube, I’m always so very adamant about making sure I flip over the phone because they’re drawn to it. Kids are naturally drawn to technology.

Ayelet: Just like us.

LaDawn: Yeah, just like us. We do a lot of sensory baskets for, you know, younger children. It gives them a variety of options, textures, different items that they can explore. They might want like one thing versus the other. So parents can do that. They can get a basket of different items that a child may be interested in and gather them up and hand those. And they can see, you can switch them out. You can do different kinds of sensory baskets. You know, you could do themed ones. So those might be good for young children to keep them busy for a little bit.

You know, children’s attention spans when they’re young are hard, but I think having those types of items, and of course having a schedule for children, even though you may be home, will be beneficial, allow you to be able to get some more things done, because if you don’t have a schedule, then kids are kind of going to, it’s going to be hard for you and them.

Ayelet: That’s so true. That’s such great input. Absolutely. Well, we’re going to just take a very brief break to hear a word from our sponsors. And then we’ll hear a few more sort of specific tips from you, LaDawn, about what you can do to ensure that you have, you know, access to a great environment and what you can do to support your child. And we’ll hear about your favorite resources to share with new and expecting parents, as well.

Ayelet: Okay, LaDawn! What are a few of your top tips? And we sort of got into these a little bit, but we could go into them a little bit more, I think, for parents and caregivers who want to ensure that they’re “doing it right, “and “doing enough” when it comes to supporting and connecting with their little ones.

LaDawn: So for me as a educator, you know, provider, I really believe it’s important to not have just, I guess I wouldn’t say nonsense toys, but toys that don’t have a purpose. So everything that we do, even when it comes to lesson planning, we think about what type of skill will be developed and present a certain kind of toy. So, as a parent, you know, there’s a lot of different resources and things out there and available for parents to be able to know what kind of skills my child would need for their different developmental area.

There’s developmental guides, checklists, things of that nature. So, you know, I would, I would look for those types of things. I know that’s probably the next question I’m kind of going into that is what, you know, what are the resources, but I would look for those types of things and thinking about, you know, how I can help my child, the different checklists and tools to see how a toy could match up. And that may be a little harder and easier said than done. But, yeah, there’s a lot of resources available for parents, parents interested in that.

Ayelet: Could you give a couple of examples about what that might look like? I think that would be really helpful for parents.

LaDawn: Sure. For instance, like with our, our little ones, our infants, they do a lot of bringing things to midline, you know, where you’re bringing the toy to midline. So we, we look and try to think of what type of objects that we can give to them, um, to be able to help them to do that.

Ayelet: Yeah. So like, to the middle of their bodies, for parents who aren’t quite familiar with that.

LaDawn: Yeah, and definitely a skill that, you know, helps in fine motor development later in life, you know? So we look for things that they may be interested in to kind of help them with their grasp. You know, once again, you can go back to sensory baskets that have a lot of different options for younger children, especially infants. And then you can look and see what’s age and developmentally appropriate.

But we, you know, we do those, I’m trying to think for toddlers, looking at the same skill, maybe we’ll find motor and development. We’re looking more at grasp. We do a lot of, you know, things that they can hold. So we call them work utensils, or work tools, markers, giving them opportunities to write and draw, scribble play dough, um, things of that nature.

So you’re looking at, you know, these different skills, which once again, you could find a developmental checklist that will kind of coincide and then the activity would then be to, you know, allow them to use a tool to practice the grasp and, you know, the, the pincer grasp, which is definitely important for later future writing when they get to school.

Ayelet: For everything early, right? Like self-feeding and independent and adaptive skills like that. And then writing on all of those things. Yes. So as you know, I’d love to know what are some of the, your favorite resources that you might like to share for families raising infants and toddlers of all developmental levels?

LaDawn: Yes, definitely. I follow you. That’s how we met. I follow your Facebook page, I believe you have a lot of great resources on there. I really love Janet Lansbury’s information. She has the same types of philosophies, a lot of great articles for everything from infant to toddlers and beyond. So, between those two, you got your hands full, but I also follow every group that I can on Facebook, because I feel like, you know, there’s so many things that we can learn from each other, you know, there’s people that are experts, but like we don’t know everything.

So you can always learn from somebody and I just love to continue to learn. So I’m in every group I could find that relates to what I do. So I think as a parent, I would look for groups that, you know, are, you know, the same thing related to my child’s age and like and join those groups, follow those groups, look for tips and strategies. So, you know, of course we’re in a technology age. I can’t think of a specific book, but there’s lots of resources online. Yeah.

Ayelet: Do you have any specific favorite developmental checklists or, or milestone checklists like that, that you mentioned?

LaDawn: I do. I I’ve used the, I wanna say I can’t remember the specific, but it’s a government one that we use for our parent teacher conferences, which we do three times a year. And we use a checklist that is government derived. Like I said, I can’t remember the exact one right now.

Ayelet: If you want, if you want to let me know later and we can link to it in the show notes.

LaDawn: That will be great. I’ll, I’ll pull it up for you. And it has, it has what a child should be doing at a certain age. And then it has a checklist. So you can kind of check off, you don’t want you, you’re using it as a loose guide. It’s not something that every child is going to be doing, but just kind of to give you an idea of what your child should be doing around a certain age to show if they’re progressing as they should.

Ayelet: That’s great. Well, thank you so much for your time and energy today and thank you to all our participants of the Learn With Less Curriculum Online Family Program who are here, listening live as a benefit of our community. We’ll continue the discussion and open up for Q and a session for you guys in just a minute, but for everyone listening from home or on the go, thank you so much for joining us, and we will see you next time.

The post How to Provide Nurturing Environments That Shape Your Young Child’s Brain, with LaDawn White appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet sits down with Parijat Deshpande, of parijatdeshpande.com. Parijat is a leading high-risk pregnancy expert, mind-body health specialist, trauma professional, speaker and author who teaches women how to deactivate their stress response before, during and after a high-risk pregnancy so they can give their baby a strong start to life.

We discussed:

• Parijat’s personal background and how she came to do the work she’s doing today
• What might it mean to be parenting a child with medical needs.
• For those families who are parenting a child with medical needs, the biggest obstacles Parijat sees families dealing with
• Critical tips for families facing these challenges
• Tips for loved ones of families facing these challenges
• Favorite resources for families and loved ones

Alliance of Professional Health Advocates

Parijat’s Healing Hearts Program

Delivering Miracles Podcast

Parijat’s book, Pregnancy Brain (affiliate link)

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program: Use your existing skills as an educator or therapist to serve families holistically with a high quality program that will provide lasting impact! Apply now to become a licensed facilitator Learn With Less®.

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Parijat: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Today, I’m speaking with Parijat Deshpande, of parijatdeshpande.com. Parijat is a leading high-risk pregnancy expert, mind-body health specialist, trauma professional, speaker and author who teaches women how to deactivate their stress response before, during and after a high-risk pregnancy so they can give their baby a strong start to life.

Parijat’s unique approach has served hundreds of women to manage pregnancy complications and reclaim a safety and trust in their bodies that they thought was eroded forever. Parijat is the author of bestselling book Pregnancy Brain: A Mind-Body Approach to Stress Management During a High-Risk Pregnancy. She is also the host of the popular podcast Delivering Miracles®, that discusses the real, raw side of family-building including infertility, loss, high-risk pregnancy, bed rest, prematurity and healing once baby comes home. Parijat, I am so thrilled to have you on thank you so much for joining us!

Parijat: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Ayelet: I’ve asked you to come on today to this about some tips, parenting a child with medical needs, but first, I would love to just hear a bit about your own background and how you came in that you’re doing today?

Parijat: Yeah, absolutely. So I am classically trained in clinical psychology. That is not where I thought I would end up. I thought I would end up as an OB GYN. That was kind of my dream dream career since I was a really little kid, but chemistry and I realized did not, we don’t get along at all. And so I went kind of in a psychology route, but I was very interested in women’s health from a very, very young age.

And it wasn’t until my own experience with fertility treatment losses, a very high risk pregnancy months on bedrest and an extremely preterm delivery with months in the NICU afterwards, that really shifted the way that I wanted to, and I, I, I guess I, I felt I was supposed to be in this world. And the work I was supposed to do in this world was to show women exactly how much power we have in our bodies. And I, and at first, you know, my focus and I mean, my primary focus really is before and during pregnancy, but it really wasn’t until after I brought my son home from the NICU.

And I, you know, the first two and a half years of his life were just so intense with medical care for him, that it became so apparent to me that the tools, techniques and the power that we have in our bodies as we’re trying to get pregnant. And as we are trying to stay pregnant are still the same types of strengths that we have to be really, really strong advocates for our children, as we are raising them as infants, toddlers and beyond.

And so it really so much of this work is inspired by my personal journey and just seeing how little empowering messages are out there and how much power we have. And so it just, that disconnect never sat well with me. And so that’s how, that’s how we’re here. Short story, short version of that.

Ayelet: I love it. I mean, I think there are certain things like person-centered language and, and, you know, things that we can do for children, say, with disabilities and ways that families can feel more empowered talking about is really just advocating for oneself, one’s management of that… So tell us, because we have quite a variety of listeners here with their own, you know, various back stories, what might it actually mean to be parenting a child with medical needs? Can you give us sort of a brief definition of like, what are some of those things that might look like?

Parijat: Yeah, it’s such a wide range of things, right? It could be having a child with food allergies, having a child with asthma, having a child with developmental disabilities, having a child with learning disabilities, having a child with anxiety or depression, having a child with digestive trouble. I mean, it’s really such a wide, wide range. And I like to keep that really open to the definition that the parent comes in with, because oftentimes we can’t see the medical needs on the outside and the child may look completely fine to the untrained eye, so to speak, when the parents know a completely different story, from, by living with them at home and by raising them at home. And so I think it’s really important for us to honor what that definition is for each parent and each family.

Ayelet: Yeah. So important. And then for those families who are parenting a child with medical needs, whatever that might mean, what are some of the biggest obstacles you see is might be dealing with?

Parijat: I think there’s a number of them. One I find to be the, the, maybe not the first one that comes up, but often is the most prevalent is the loneliness around this style of parenting. And whatever that may be, because depending on the needs of the child, what you have to do as a parent is, is on top of what you have to do with all the typical things to take care of a child. You know, if you’re changing diapers, you’re feeding, you’re brushing teeth, you’re, you know, teaching them how to count, something like that. And then on top of that, you’ve got all these medical needs and there’s, there’s a loneliness around that because it’s really hard to connect with other parents who may not understand.

And I can speak from personal experience, too, is there’s sometimes a pull for, from our loved ones to go, but she’s fine now. Right. But he doesn’t need so much now, right? He’s, he’s three, she’s six, like it’s, it’s over now. Right? And for, for families who have children who have either chronic medical needs or ones that are complex and will take time to resolve – if they resolve at all, uh, there’s that pressure of needing to appease or kind of comfort people in our life, which then further adds to that loneliness, without being able to truly share what the challenges are, what the realities are of raising a child with complex needs, whatever those might be.

And so I think that that’s kind of backdrop against which so much else happens. There’s the logistical issues of trying to coordinate appointments that, that can be so challenging. The mental load of that can be so exhausting. Trying to figure out appointments schedules between certain specialists. If you’re working, then trying to figure that out with work and your employer, if you’re employed at a, say a corporate job, trying to figure out just the moving parts of schedules is another aspect of it that comes up, which can be very, very exhausting.

On top of that, you’ve got the management of medical bills and coordinating that with insurance coverage. The first two years of my son’s life, I probably spent about five hours a month on the phone with insurance, trying to figure out why all the bills were messed up or why certain charges were, you know, given there so many mistakes that kept happening. And that in itself also almost a full time job to do all of that. And so I think there’s so many different factors.

And then you’ve got the emotional side of it. There is a tremendous amount of grief that needs to be grief. There’s a loss in having a child and watching a child grow up with any type of medical needs. That’s not something any parent wanted for their child, right? It’s not something that you hoped for. It’s not something you wish for as a parent. Sometimes we can see a few steps ahead, which is a blessing and a curse at the same time of what these medical needs might mean for our child, as they become toddlers and young children, and then move on to school age. And there’s a lot of loss in that, in your role as what you thought it would be as a parent, what you hoped for, for your child.

And there’s a, there’s a lot of loss that needs to be grieved, and there’s often not enough space or allowance to, to actually agree with that because there’s a pressure of, well, but at least your child’s alive. Well, at least your child can walk well, at least… And there’s so much pressure to overcome that. I like to call it toxic positivity, which can be very, very difficult for parents who are raising children with medical needs to overcome and to live with when oftentimes what we need is to be able to talk about it and go, this day is hard. This week is hard. This phase is hard and that’s, this is why, and to have a safe place to be able to do that. So I, it’s very nuanced and a lot of different layers kind of built on top of each other, that impact the experience of raising a child with medical needs.

Ayelet: Thank you for breaking that down for us. I think it’s really important to hear all of it, as we said, the audience base for this show is many of our listeners know exactly what you’re talking about are some are not as attuned to those experiences. So thank you. Yeah. All right. Well, we’re just going to take a brief break to hear a word from our sponsors. And then we’re going to hear a few tips from Parijat, for families facing these challenges and for loved ones who are facing challenges like these. And we’ll hear about her favorite resources to share with families.

Ayelet: Okay, Parijat. Let’s hear some of your most valuable tips for families facing these sorts of challenges.

Parijat: Yeah, I think the number one thing is actually tied to the last thing that I just said, which is give yourself the opportunity to grieve the losses, because as long as we try to avoid that and we, and it’s so easy, I say this purely from personal experience, as well. As long as we try to avoid that. And we just stick with the go, go, go of the logistics and the routines and the therapies and the whatever is required, the appointments and all of that, which is very easy to fill up our time with, that grief sits deep and it gets deeper and deeper and deeper.

And it comes out with red flags that show up often as your own medical needs, new diagnoses that you come up with new illnesses that you end up happening having, or you end up getting sick more often. And you know, if you’ve got a child with medical needs, you have even less bandwidth to be able to get sick or be knocked down for even day or two, because your life is busy. So really, really allowing yourself to experience and release that grief that comes with parenting a child with medical complications that you had wished they’d never had. I think that has to be number one.

Ayelet: Oh, I was just going to say, what are some of the ways that you recommend to people, people doing that?

Parijat: One of a really great way to do that is to find people who you can really resonate with and who can hold that space for you. Sometimes that’s a professional. Sometimes that’s another parent who has either a child going through the same type of thing or something completely different. I can tell you from my personal experience, sometimes the parents who really understood the most about what I’m going through, many of them were micro preemie moms. And they’re, our friendship is invaluable, especially as we get into RSV and flu season in the winter time.

But there were also parents who had children with different medical complications than my child did, but really understood the lifestyle shifts that it required in order to care for our children, even though the diagnoses were completely different. So I think number one is connecting yourself with people who really speak your language and, and keep an open mind that again, the diagnoses for your children may be different, but if they understand kind of the underlying challenges, they may be fantastic supports for that. I think, secondly, in order to release some of that grief, it requires you to be in a place where you can allow yourself to really tolerate that, feeling.

And I’ll say this all the time on my podcast, I say this all the time to my clients, and I’ll say this here, too: grief is painful. And that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. If it hurts, if it doesn’t feel good, if that is the point of grief, so to speak, it is, it is painful. And the more you release it, the less painful it becomes time does not heal it. It will be in getting it out of your body. I’ve got several techniques that I teach my clients on how to do that because it is so essential.

And it’s not something you can talk yourself out of, although sharing your experiences is wholly invaluable. But it’s really just about allowing your body to lean into that, really feeling it and then letting it go. And it’s hard. It is really hard and it is also extremely beneficial for you to be a better and more present parent. And for you to also protect your health as you are caring for your children. So I think that would be kinda my, my number one thing, where to start with being right there.

Ayelet: Right. What other tips do you have for our audience?

Parijat: Yeah, I think the second thing is, and this is the, this is one that I wished I had learned myself sooner is to delegate. There are certain things that only you can do for your child. Totally fine, right? That’s great. That is your spot. That’s where you need to be. What other things do you have in your life that you personally do not need to do, right? Is it washing dishes? Is it doing laundry? Is it, it could even be making the appointments. Do you have somebody in your life or could you hire somebody to make these appointments and juggle the calendar for you?

There are patient advocates around the country who actually will make phone calls on your behalf to insurance companies and handle that nonsense, if you will, on your behalf, you know, where can you find moments in your life? And I know that sometimes we hold onto some of these day to day tasks as a way to maintain some semblance of a life that we’d wished we’d had.

Again, it goes back to grieving those losses, right, of well, I thought I would be the mom who cooked dinner every single night. And I really wanted that for my children, but truthfully given the circumstances, maybe that’s not possible right now at this stage of life. And that’s okay, can you have somebody else cook for you? Can you order some meal kits, order out whatever that might be, find those places to delegate because the mental load that you have as a parent, raising a child with any type of medical needs is much higher than the mental load of a parent who does not have a child with complications.

And I, I think it’s very easy to downplay that because we can’t see it anywhere, right? But if you sit down and you actually make a list of every single thing that you’re holding on in your head every single day, it is much more than which appointment do we need? Do we need to update the equipment, the medical equipment, do I need to call insurance? There’s so you’ll be shocked at how much is in your head. And the more you can kind of take that out of your head and give it to somebody else for the things that you don’t need to do, that can be done any time by anybody else.

You are going to start to feel a relief, you’ll start noticing your body will relax a little bit more and your shoulders will drop a little bit more. And that’s not because you’re just breathing more deeply. It is just literally, because you can imagine the bricks you’re carrying on your shoulders. You’re just kind of handing a few of them off, and so the weight will alleviate a little bit.

Ayelet: Yeah. And I love that visual. What are your best tips for loved ones of families facing these challenges, because we’ve talked about so much of the people who are actually dealing with it, and it’s so important to have a few of those. And if you’re not ready to move on, do you have any more tips for these guys, please go ahead. I want to make sure that we give tips to loved ones of family members for this. We want to support families.

Parijat: Totally. I’ve got a couple that I find to be really helpful and really powerful in strengthening your relationship with your loved one. So if you are a loved one, if you are somebody who has a loved one is parenting a child with medical needs, one thing I often recommend is watch how you ask your questions. So instead of asking, when’s your baby coming home from the hospital, when’s she going to be off oxygen? When’s he going to be able to drink milk again? When is she going to be able… You know, instead of asking that because oftentimes the parents don’t know, and the not knowing is causing tremendous amount of uncertainty and tension and stress and anxiety for parents that they, they don’t often share, but they live with every day.

So instead of asking that way, I often recommend asking about their current situation. How is your child in the hospital? How is the speech therapy going, Hey, I know you said that you took them to the audiologist. How did that appointment go? And so instead of focusing on that ultimate outcome, because we don’t know what that’s going to be, there are going to be some children who, who, whose symptoms improve, or the diagnosis is just gone completely because they’re so quote unquote healed. And there are going to be some children where they’re going to live with us for the rest of their life. And we do not know sometimes who those kids are.

And so instead of focusing on the outcomes, it’s, I, I find it to be so much more supportive to focus on where they are right now. Ask them about what’s going on, ask them about what’s the big thing that they’re dealing with. What’s the big win for the week. And you’ll be surprised to hear what these families are celebrating that is so meaningful to them. You know, maybe it’s a walk to the park. Maybe it’s the fact that the child ate macaroni for the first time. Maybe it’s the fact that the child put her feet on grass for the first time or that they could read a sentence for the first time, even though they’re much older than you’d expect, it doesn’t matter. These moments are so special. And I can tell you from personal experience, we like to share this and we love to celebrate with our loved ones. And so asking us where we are in the moment is so, so helpful.

Ayelet: That’s great. It’s such a good place to start. What else, what else? Family or friends looking for additional support. What can they do?

Parijat: I think the other thing, the second one is more on the practical side, which is tied to the delegation. Sometimes it is very hard to delegate. I have a very hard time delegating. Just the idea of even thinking of what to send to somebody and then asking to do it is hard. I find it still very challenging. So if you can see it from the outside and go, oh gosh, I haven’t seen this person in a couple of days. Maybe I’ll come by and bring them dinner, maybe I’ll call and check in and see how they’re doing. Maybe I can invite them to something so that they get a break.

Giving, trusting that you can probably see something that they’re able to benefit from your help with, and then offering that help and really being there, checking in frequently, coming by and visiting if it’s safe and for the health of the child for you to do so, because I know that’s not always the case, but just really being there and offering as much practical support as you can, maybe it’s doing play dates at your house. So the parents get a little break, whatever that might be, walking the dog, All of that helps so, so, so much really just relieving that mental load for the parents.

Ayelet: Yeah. A good one that a friend of mine and I were recently talking about was like, just replenishing basics in the fridge. What are you out of? It’s so simple, right? But makes such a big difference! So yeah. Fantastic. Any other things that you’d like to share with us?

Parijat: I think the only other thing I would say is that there are a lot of challenges and there are also so many moments of just incredible eye opening moments of, of just, “wow!” You know, it just takes your breath away what the human body and the human spirit can do. And so as the parent, to really just, when you have a moment like that, when your child is doing the one thing you’ve been working on for so long or we’re told they would never do, or even some, some semblance of that to really just stop it all. And just bathe in that moment, because those are the moments that carry us through.

And as parents of children who have medical complications, we know how few and far between those can be. And so we need, you know, that’s kind of like our fuel to, to boost us back up and to keep doing the things that we do out of love every day, but that are very exhausting and taxing on the mind and the body. I think similarly for our, our family and friends is to continue to be open to what these moments are that we’re celebrating, because they may not look the same as what you expect for a child of whatever age it might be.

These might be much smaller or much nuanced moments, but they’re a really big deal for the family. And so, join us in the celebration and really get a chance to understand what this means in the context of this child’s life, in this family’s life. And, and in doing that, I think we create a really beautiful community that’s so helpful to carry us through even during some of the darker days and the harder days, because those ups and downs happen as we’re raising our children with these needs and things are changing all the time.

Ayelet: So true. Thank you. Parijat, let’s hear some of your favorite resources that you like to recommend to families or to loved ones looking for additional support.

Parijat: Yeah. You know, I recently came across and now I can’t think of a name of it, of course. So I will send it to you after, but there’s a really great organization that has patient advocates available around the country. And I really, I just think that’s such a fantastic resource to have, because I, I said this earlier and I still looking back and thinking about those days, calling the insurance companies and coordinating all of that and doing three way calls with, you know, the clinic and the insurance.

And this is, it was it, Oh my God. I think it took years off my life. And so to be able to delegate that, to have somebody who knows the system very well and can do this on your behalf is so tremendously powerful. So I’ll send you that link so you can send it out to your, your members. I, it completely just flew out of my head.

Ayelet: And we’ll certainly put it in the show notes as well. Perfect.

Parijat: I think that’s great. I think, you know, because there’s such a wide range, there’s not one specific resource I have, but finding parents like you, who are living the life similar to you is super helpful. And I found that we, there were actually groups on Meetup that I could find that weren’t necessarily specifically for micro preemie, and we tried this through our hospital and in our case specifically, it was just so hard to coordinate because of how many health challenges there were.

We couldn’t actually meet in person. So there were some more like larger umbrella type groups of like special needs kids or kids with developmental disabilities or autistic kids. And you can find some of a bigger umbrella like that. And within that, you might be able to find that, you know, a few handful of people that really get your specific type of lifestyle and then to add to that would be, find virtual support groups. Because I also know how, like you’re busy, you’re even if you’re not working outside the home, sometimes taking care of your child fills up your calendar so fast.

I remember there was some times where I’m like, I really need to talk to a friend. I cannot get myself out of the house, can’t do it. And so video chats and virtual support groups that meet in a group, something like that I found to be so, so helpful. And you can find those there’s a lot more of them now than there were back when we were kind of in this phase, which is really, really supportive and helpful. And sometimes your hospital or your clinic or the social worker at your particular, maybe developmental clinic might have access to your resources that are very local to you so definitely check that out.

Ayelet: Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And where can people find you, Parijat, if they’re interested in your resources?

Parijat: Yeah. So yeah, I guess I should mention that. So I actually have, I have a couple of workshops coming up on for parents actually, who are parenting children with medical complications on how to relieve the grief and trauma of parenting a child with medical complications. So that workshop’s actually coming up. And if you experienced a traumatic experience trying to get pregnant, stay pregnant, or afterwards, then there’s a second workshop for that.

And I have a group program that actually encompasses all of this called Healing Hearts that I think would be fantastic. We have several moms in there right now who have children with complex medical needs, who have just in a very short amount of time have had major medical issues of their own completely reverse because of the nervous system regulation techniques that I teach in there. And that’s, that’s called Healing Hearts. So best place to find all of that is on my website at parijatdeshpande.com. And there’s a button on the homepage that says live events, and you can check out how to join healing hearts or how to join some of these upcoming workshops in the next few weeks!

Ayelet: And then I’m sure that your podcast itself, Delivering Miracles, is a great resource for people as well in general. So thank you so much. Thanks so much, Parijat, thank you to all of our participants of the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program. If you’re listening live and we’ll continue the discussion and open up for a Q&A session with you guys in just a minute, but for everyone listening from home or on the goat, thank you so much for joining us and we’ll see you next time.

The post Tips for parenting a child with medical needs, with Parijat Deshpande appeared first on Learn With Less.

In this episode of Learn With Less, Ayelet sat down with Arianna Taboada, a maternal health consultant for businesses and entrepreneurs. Arianna holds a Masters of Social Work and Master of Science in Maternal & Child Health, and was introduced to the maternal health field as a public health professional working with new mothers in some of the most vulnerable situations women can find themselves in: living in poverty, leaving abusive spouses, navigating a new country and language — all while they experienced pregnancy, postpartum, and tried to make sense of the resources available to them.

We discussed:

• The status of postpartum care (and how the US falls short of international standards)
• Maternity leave as a human rights and economic equity imperative
• Arianna’s best tips on what you can do to ensure you have access to the postpartum support you need (both clinical and psychosocial support)
• A little known way you can leverage your baby’s pediatric visits to get YOUR mental health needs met
• Arianna’s favorite resources to share with expecting and new parents

Paid Leave for the United States (PLUS)

Postpartum Planning Workbook from Arianna Taboada

New Mom Mental Health Checklist from Postpartum Progress

Postpartum Support International

Learn With Less Podcast episode: Perinatal Mood Changes & Postpartum Mood Disorders, with Dr. Katayune Kaeni

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Arianna: Website / Facebook / Instagram / LinkedIn

Ayelet: So today I am speaking with Arianna Taboada, a maternal health consultant for businesses and entrepreneurs. Arianna holds a Master’s of Social Work and Master’s of Science in maternal and child health, and was introduced to the maternal health field as a public health professional, working with new mothers in some of the most vulnerable situations women can find themselves in: living in poverty, leaving abusive spouses, navigating a new country and language – all while they experienced pregnancy, postpartum, and tried to make sense of the resources available to them. Arianna, I think that your work is so important, and you bring so much passion and gusto and intelligence to an extremely complicated field. So I’m so excited to have you on the show today. Welcome to Learn With Less!

Arianna: Thanks. I’m so glad to be here and very glad that we’ve connected in the past few weeks.

Ayelet: Me too. It’s very exciting. So I have asked you to come onto the show today to speak to us, really, about postpartum care and how new and expecting parents can get their mental health needs met. But first, why don’t you just go ahead and tell us a bit more about you, and how you actually got into the work that you’re doing today?

Arianna: Sure. So, one of the funny things that people, or that people always find funny when I talk about it is that I worked in maternal health long before I was actually a mother. So, you talked about my background and in clinical settings, I was in mental health settings, and in the U.S., In what we call “safety net systems.” So, health centers and clinical settings that provide services to primarily the Medicaid population. So people who are below a certain level of the federal poverty line, and therefore have access to services that are reimbursed by the federal government and, and states to some extent.

Uh, so this was all pre-baby for me. And from… Started in health centers in 2002, and I didn’t have my kid until 2016. And at one point I did end up pivoting a little more into the research side of things. So, instead of doing direct patient services, I was on the side of evaluating programs and implementing new programs and quality improvement in services. And I went into private practice in 2013 and have been doing that for the past few years. So that is, kind of, in a nutshell how, how it happened. And obviously once I was in private practice, I also had my own for – the personal and professional collided, and I became my own client, in other words.

Ayelet: Yeah. I’m super familiar with that! Yeah, it’s great. So well, let’s dig right in. So, I wanted to just sort of start by telling a bit about my story, because my experience with postpartum care is not typical. I myself was in an interesting position during my “birthing years” we can call them, because I spent my first pregnancy, birth, and postpartum months and years after my first child was born, in the UK. And I spent the majority of my second pregnancy living in Germany, and I had my second child in the US so we actually ended up hiring a home birth midwife to cover the last 10 weeks of my prenatal care, the birth, and the postpartum care – partially because we only qualified for emergency health insurance for the first 30 days of our, I think you call it repatriation.

And at that point I was actually 30 weeks pregnant, so that was not going to fly. And then partially because I really wanted access to very good postpartum care. You know, someone coming to my home to check on me, as I’d had in the UK, thankfully, cause I, I did have complications with my first. So now, I understand, that this is not the standard of care in the U S, so let’s hear a little bit about that. Tell us about the status of postpartum care and how the US compares to international standards.

Arianna: Sure. So I’ll, I mean, it’s a big question. For people that have had babies in the US you might already know that the standard is pretty, the bar is very low in the US. Essentially, there, since the formalized maternity care system in the US it has been a kind of six week postpartum visit that only about 60% of mothers even make it to.

Ayelet: And it’s not in your home, it’s somewhere else, right?

Arianna: You have to get up from wherever you are lying with a baby clinging on you, and make your way to this visit. And so that really varies from state to state, in urban versus rural geographies. And in terms of how realistic it is that people even make it to that postpartum appointment. There was a shift last year in the federal recommendations. So the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology developed a set of postpartum guidelines that are greatly improved from that six week, one time checkup.

Ayelet: In 2019, we finally have guidelines!

Arianna: Right! But, and again, they’re recommendations. So what we know in healthcare settings is that recommendations take a long time to trickle down and actually be policy. And then once their policy, it takes a long time to trickle down and be standard practice. So we’re probably a good 8 to 10 years away from any kind of quality postpartum care in the US and especially compared to international standards, where four visits within the first six weeks is standard. And there’s also a long list of things that should be covered in those first four visits.

And it ranges from the physiological recovery, which in the US is kind of the only thing that was checked on in those first, in that six week appointment. So basically, is mom healing? And the international standards recommend covering that, but also social support, psychological support, emotional wellness, and kind of the full scope of what you need to be well postpartum.

Ayelet: Yeah. Seems pretty standard. Yeah. Okay. As it is now, it feels also very much like maternity leave is this, like, added benefit or like a super bougie option that women are lucky if they, say, work at a company that values it. I would love you to get on your high horse and tell us your thoughts about maternity leave and where you think we should be going. And if you have any ideas about how we, how we can get there and how we can help get there?

Arianna: Sure. So again, just to set a little context on what the very low bar is in the US… We, during the Clinton administration in 1996 was when the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act was signed in as a bill. And so what that means is that certain companies, large companies who have over 50 employees, are required to not give someone’s job away for 12 weeks after birth, and allow someone to take 12 unpaid weeks of leave. And that’s it, that’s all we have. Uh, there are some states that have implemented state leave policies where essentially, similar to how part of your paycheck is taken into state taxes, you pay into a state disability leave policy, and you can request to dip into that money when you have a baby. So it’s six weeks of partial pay for those who have a vaginal birth, eight weeks of partial pay for a caesarean birth.

And it is based the percentage that you get of your income is really based on how much you make. So a lot of people make a very small percentage, are given a very small percentage of their income during that leave. So you and I are both in California, California has that, for example, Rhode Island has it. And New York has a version of it. I believe a few other states are rolling out their, their state level policies.

So again, when we look at the international comparison, where it’s pretty standard for new parents to have paid leave, wage replacement, and also a, I won’t even call it generous amount of leave, like a normal amount of leave. So, you know, it ranges widely country, to country and UK. Your experience might have been a lot of people, mothers have have a full year of leave. I mean, Canada, there’s a full year in like all the Nordic countries, and the U S is one of three countries in the world that doesn’t have – and the only industrialized high income country that doesn’t have a paid leave policy.

Luckily there are folks on the ground working to change that. So actually here in our neck of the woods in San Francisco, the only advocacy group that’s specifically around paid leave exists. And they’re seeing actually support from, bipartisan support, essentially for a policy that will be like a first iteration of a US paid leave policy. And they’re seeing it as possible in the next few years. So by kind of their goal is by 2022 to get, to get a bill passed. So we might see some real change happening in the next few years.

Ayelet: Woohoo! Any recommendations for basic things that people can do to get involved in that?

Arianna: Yeah, so that organization is called paid leave for the US – PLUS, for short. And they have a great website where if you are an organization or if you are kind of interested in, in changing policy at the organizational level, they have workshops you can attend. And then if you join their newsletter, essentially as they get ready to propose bills, you can sign your name on as a supporter. So those are two great ways to use… Everyone’s busy. So use a little bit of the precious time you have to…

Ayelet: Yeah! We are also talking to often new parents or people who work with new parents. So yes, quite busy, but, but Hey, I mean, sometimes it feels good to be useful!

Arianna: And those things you can do pretty easily from your phone.

Ayelet: Yeah. Awesome. Thanks. Okay. Well, let’s take just a brief break to hear a word from our sponsors. And then we’re going to get into a few tips from Arianna about what you can do to ensure that you have access to the postpartum support you need!

Ayelet: Okay. Arianna, let’s get into the gold. We want to know what are your best tips for new or expecting parents to ensure they have access to the postpartum support they need, both on a clinical level and on a psychosocial level.

Arianna: Sure. So again, until… I’m all for like top down and bottom up approach, and until we have a policy and kind of the infrastructure for a positive maternity leave and postpartum experience, I really believe in doing it yourself in the absence of that. So creating, creating a system that can match these international guidelines and get your physiological, mental health, psychological, emotional needs met – and your, like, basic material needs, basic human needs.

And so for me that often looks like helping people walk out their support systems, like walk through, map it out on a piece of paper, identify your local support. So that might look like friends and family, people you already know that you can make specific asks from. And then from the wider network, it might be like looking up resources in your community that are specifically for new moms, for new families.

Sounds like you did some of this, it’s finding someone to fill the gaps, right? Finding a professional whose services exactly align with what you need and setting that up. It’s… I find it really interesting to visually map out support networks, because if you are identifying that, like, I actually don’t have anyone that I can ask for, for, you know, for making sure that I have meals and something to eat for the first few weeks when I do not plan to be cooking, then that’s an indicator of actually that might be a specific ask that you need to find someone to fulfill.

Whether it’s a family member from afar who can set up a meal train or getting meal prep support and hiring someone to do that. So I, for this exercise, it’s one of the things that I do with everyone, with all my clients. And I’m happy to share a kind of free download that folks can use to DIY it. It’s literally just how to map out the postpartum support map. Awesome. We are going to link to the show notes to that. Can you give us the link right now? I can, let’s see. Hold the, I might need to go look it up.

Ayelet: Oh that’s ok – I’ll put it in the replay of this in the community, and we can put it in the show notes later on. That’s no problem. Alright, keep going. That’s great.

Arianna: Well there’s… So one aspect is, is mapping it out and then there’s, there’s the filling in the gaps. And so that I found really helpful to actually, especially if this is first baby, to talk to people who have been in your shoes recently, and not have to reinvent the wheel in terms of, like, spending hours on Google, figuring out what exists. So talking to two or three people and doing kind of “informational interviews” for, for new parenthood and postpartum, if you will, is another great tool.

Ayelet: That’s so my style!

Arianna: Yeah. But you’re basically crowdsourcing all of the things that people have done recently. And, you know, if you can remove the barrier of having to find stuff yourself, I think it does make it that much easier to put in a strong plan.

Ayelet: Absolutely. Yeah. I understand that you have a special tip sort of a little known way that you can leverage your baby’s pediatric visits to get your mental health needs met. Will you give us the goods on that?

Arianna: Yeah. So maternal mental health is another one of these like woefully inadequate systems we have in the US. And so really the mechanism that we have is that postpartum visit, which again, if only 60% of women are even getting to, then…

Ayelet: Right, and that’s six weeks in! There’s a HUGE amount of stuff that happens in those first six weeks. That’s crazy.

Arianna: Yeah. And the scope of that visit is usually just physiological, right? Exactly.

Ayelet: But the baby is going to their well-baby visits.

Arianna: Yes, baby is going to, well-baby visits. So there’s, I’ve found there’s essentially a new mom checklist that you could fill out prior to one of those well baby visits and you bring it with you, and you share it with their provider. Now, their provider is not your provider. So there’s still a handoff that has to be made to get you connected with services.

But that is the most frequent point of contact with the health system that a new mom has. And so even though, you know, the mentality is like, “Oh, they’re, they’re here for my baby. Like, I’m, it’s not a place where I can get my needs met.” If that’s the entry point into the system, I’m all about using it.

Ayelet: Absolutely! So you have a download on your website. That is that checklist. Is that right?

Arianna: I’m happy to share it. It’s from, it’s actually created by Postpartum Progress, which has since I believe, like shut their doors or narrowed their services. So the handout still exists and I can share a link in the show notes, but it, yeah, so it’s basically a way to say, “Hey, I know I’m here for my well baby visit. And I also want to let you know that I am not feeling great,” and it gets the conversation started.

Ayelet: Yes. So important. That’s awesome. And such a great resource to share. Let’s hear some of your other favorite resources that you like to share with expecting and new parents.

Arianna: Sure. So another one on the mental health side is Postpartum Support International‘s helpline, which you may have heard me talk about.

Ayelet: You and others. Yeah. It’s a great, it’s a great thing that exists.

Arianna: So it is essentially a volunteer-run hotline. So it’s a number that you can call at any time and a train volunteer will either pick up or will, if you leave a voicemail, will call you back and be able to help you identify what supports for your own mental health would be helpful.

So they do a little bit of their training to do a little bit of crisis management, but also they have access to a directory and can look up based on your zip code and location, who are the in-person resources and they can directly connect you with them.

So there, you do get, what’s called a warm handoff where it’s not just like, here’s the name of some people, go reach out to them. It’s like they make the email introduction. They provide the local person with your phone number to call you back. And…

Ayelet: Wow! I actually didn’t realize that it was that. Wow, that’s amazing.

Arianna: Yeah, so that is a wonderful, you know, if, if you don’t have a well baby visit coming up or it just, that’s not the place you want to bring it up. This is a place specifically for new moms whose whole mission is to connect you with mental health supports in your local area.

Ayelet: That’s amazing. Are there any other resources that you’d like to share?

Arianna: I mean, I kind of mentioned it as we were chatting earlier, but I am a huge fan of the meal trains. So both for pregnant women, new moms in your life, offering to set up a mail train and also in your own pregnancy, identifying someone in your life who can organize a meal train for you. I mean, at this point, there’s very easy kind of online systems you can use to have people sign up for meals, but I think there’s, there’s like no match for, for having food provided for you and your family for those first few weeks.

Ayelet: Totally. And then another, like a thing that if you’re in the mind space or you’re able to do it beforehand, if you don’t have people, I actually like stockpiled a bunch of stuff in my freezer for, for after, while I was still pregnant. That’s another, you know, little hack.

Arianna: Right, yeah, some meal prep or even, you know, meal delivery services. There are so many of those these days per preferably, one of the ones that are like already cooked when they deliver it.

Ayelet: Yeah, seriously! Obviously, I think the meal train has a more social component, which is nice – should you want it right? Or you can be specific about, “here. Just leave it on my doorstep. I will get to it when I can.” But yeah, no, that’s, that’s so important.

Well, thank you so much, Arianna. And thanks to all of our participants of the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Program who are here, listening live, as a benefit to our membership community. We are going to continue the discussion and open up for a Q&A session with you guys in just a minute. But for everyone listening from home or on the go, thank you so much for joining us. And we will see you next time.

The post Postpartum Care and How to Get Your Mental Health Needs Met, With Arianna Taboada appeared first on Learn With Less.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been sharing a lot with you about the value and benefits of leading caregiver / baby “mommy & me” style family enrichment classes or workshops. We use the term “caregiver & me” classes to describe our programming, as it describes a more inclusive version of “mommy & me” classes that centers all kinds of families, caregivers, and family structures, reflective of the world we’d like to live in. But we’ll play the search term game to include “mommy & me” classes… to help you find us!

As educators or therapists who serve infant and toddler families or who have an educational or professional background in a field related to early child development, we know that our job is much more than simply helping babies and toddlers develop new skills. We know the exponential impact we can make when we serve families holistically in our own communities.

If you haven’t yet watched my on-demand training for educators and therapists, I invite you to do so today: How to Supplement Your Income By Providing Rich, Meaningful, Supportive Resources That Every Infant/Toddler Family Can Access – Even If You’ve Never Led a Group Workshop For Families

Today, I want to share the story of someone I’ve come to know over the last few months. I first met Lesley in February of this year (2020), just about 6 months ago. Lesley has a B.A. and M.A. in Human Development with an emphasis in Leadership and Education. She has been working in infant and toddler classrooms for over 10 years in a variety of settings, and most recently in her own family child care program for birth to three year olds in San Jose, CA.

Learn With Less® Stories: Podcast episodes and other interviews from educators who’ve provided the Learn With Less® infant/toddler family enrichment curriculum and families who’ve experienced our programming.

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program: Use your existing skills as an educator or therapist to serve families holistically with a high quality program that will provide lasting impact! Apply now to become a licensed facilitator Learn With Less®.

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Lesley: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Lesley had been following Learn with Less® on the podcast and on Facebook, and regularly used my information to share with the parents of the children in her care. She had been daydreaming about expanding her reach to other parents.

So many moms, fathers, grandparents, friends, etc have been following her facebook page and instagram account where she documents the learning happening in her childcare program with simple materials, and she was getting a lot of positive feedback and questions. She started to feel that parents in her community were craving this type of information.

She envisioned more for her own program. She wanted to be able to create a support system for families, serving them (eventually) with enrichment services from the prenatal period through toddlerhood. So finding a new way to offer informational and supportive enriching experiences for the whole family felt like a natural next step for her. Here’s how she describes it:

Lesley: And so I think this was the next step for me because it uses the skills I’ve been developing, and under a philosophy that I really appreciate, you know, these loose parts and recycled materials. That’s been part of my classroom since I first opened the door. And for the past two years, I was kind of researching different parent/caregiver baby classes, and, you know, there’s baby sign language, infant massage, all the different approaches and they all, they all sounded great and I still would love to be all of them, but yours spoke to me the most because it is just use what you have and you can enhance your child’s experience and their learning and their, your attachment just by being yourself and using things that you have.

That’s so important to me because I, I just, I feel I always did not really appreciate all the marketing tactics that all you see in the baby industry that lead with, say, fear. And I didn’t really understand it until I was pregnant too, because even though I had this philosophy ingrained in me where I just want to use everyday materials, loose parts, I felt, “oh, well, I need to get this, and I need to get that,” even with my prior knowledge, I still felt all this pressure. So I was thinking, and having conversations with my friends and hearing how much bigger their fear was, and I found that yeah, this is really important to talk about. There’s gotta be a way…

I started following you on… I think I even listened to your podcast before I found your internet presence. And I was like, oh this is so interesting! Who’s this lady? We would totally get along! I started following your stuff for probably at least a year, if not more. And when I, as soon as I saw that this was available, I knew it was like a sign.

Now, when I first met Lesley, she had offered a few workshops to both parents and other providers, but she wanted to step up her game and offer more workshops for her community.

On top of running her own infant and toddler child care program, she had some experience with designing and developing programs for families. But Learn With Less aligned so well with her approach, and she was excited to partner together.

But she was having a difficult time being able to do the actual work of taking her years of education and experience in this other direction. She was craving a clear way to take her child development knowledge beyond the classroom and be confident about it!

Now, she had some initial hesitations when considering the opportunity of joining the Learn With Less® Facilitator Training and Certification Program. Here’s what she said:

Lesley: I know one of the things was cost because, you know, I’m an early childhood educator. It’s just the, you know, we don’t get a very respectable pay. So I have to really reflect hard on how I want to invest in my future. And so I think interviewing with you and talking with you helped me make that decision to move forward.

Ayelet: What were some of the things, or, what did I say that convinced you?!

Lesley: I think it was just the conversation. I don’t even think it was anything specific, I think because you’re relatable. And you just talked about your program with passion that I knew that it was going to be something good. I think I just, that made me remember why, my hesitation – because I was going to be part of the first cohort that I was, I wasn’t sure, like, you know, does Ayelet know what she’s doing, you know? Like this is the first class, and I like to be over prepared. I had shared that earlier. And so without having run all of that before, your program, I was a little hesitant. But like I said, that conversation where you spoke with passion, you explained what the classes looked like and you know, that, that was enough to convince me.

Lesley was part of the first cohort of the training program, which meant that she had to put a lot of faith in me. One of her main hesitations was that she was worried that the training program I had developed might not adequately help her feel confident to actually go forward and lead a class in her community, either online or in person, using the curriculum I developed, or that she wouldn’t finish what she started. She shared:

Lesley: I think, one of my personality traits is sometimes not being able to complete what I start. So something that required a length of time to, to partake in, in order to complete, and also having to host a demo class, which was a little scary and intimidating. Yeah, I was just worried that I was going to invest in something and not follow through, which I have done a few times in my past.

Ayelet: Sure. I think we all have.

Lesley: Yeah. I just kept reminding myself that I felt like this was meant to be, and I was meant to be part of this program, in the first cohort, and I just, I pushed through it. And I think what helped was that you had your schedule. I can listen back as needed, attend when I, yeah. And so I didn’t, sometimes I attended and you know just had the earbud on but listened, even though I was cooking or something. So that was very helpful. And I was able to go back and be listening to the lessons, which was very helpful. There are some things that I just wanted to hear again, you can just go at your pace, still, and even at the end, I wanted to host a demo class, but I’ll have to do it this week. Because I knew, if I procrastinated too much that I might not do it, I just put it on the calendar and did it.”

Ayelet: And yet you’re the second person to complete the entire, the entirety of it. So, ta-da, congratulations. Yeah.

Lesley: It’s such a huge sense of accomplishment because I was fearful that I wasn’t going to finish. So I’m feeling pretty proud of myself right now.

Ayelet: And it’s what, like, not even two weeks since we completed the last module, like that’s amazing. And in the middle of, lest I say it, a global pandemic. Okay. So how about like, what is, what is a perception change or a few, but that you’ve had after participating in the program, what are some of the things that maybe also that you didn’t expect to learn or think about that you, that you have?

Lesley: Yeah, that’s, that’s great. I think when I entered, I had this idea, Oh, well, I’ve been teaching infants and toddlers for 10 years. I probably know all this stuff already. I’m in it, just so I can learn about the class structure and to be able to learn how to create this business. But I think throughout, I was able to learn so much more and just reinforce what I’ve already believed in, but maybe mainstream media told me that it’s not ok?

So, you know, it just felt good to be in a group of people that all shared the same idea, that you can really have a wonderful experience with your child, just you and your child, and junk mail or pots and pans. Yeah. Or, you know, some brushes from the bath. Yeah. And you know, I, I sometimes strive to have that Instagram worthy, you know, play area or activity. And it just, it’s not about that.

Ayelet: Lesley, we’re, we’re changing. We’re changing what “Instagram-worthy” looks like. Yes, but sorry, I interrupted you please.

Lesley: Oh, no, it’s not. Yeah. That’s, that was a big perception change. I think what I had mentioned when we were kind of talking about the demo video that I realized the difference between having on a teacher hat, and being a facilitator of a parent child, and it is very different. It feels very different in my heart.

In that moment where a parent had shared some vulnerable information or what became vulnerable, my teacher hat wanted to share so many different facts and scientific data, but the facilitator hat was on and I just, it felt to share and hold space with her, to share her experiences. And the classes really helped me figure out the difference between those two hats.

Ayelet: The difference between those two hats. Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s powerful. What about like, what do you, what do you feel like the impact of having this program in your life now will, will have on your life? How, how is this going to change your, your career trajectory or your life goals? Obviously your life goals are not different, but what is, what is different?

Lesley: It’s exciting. I feel like what I’ve been envisioning for the past few years is slowly coming into fruition. So, um, I, so I operate a family childcare program and I’ve been open Monday through Friday, but starting August I’m closing Fridays. Um, and then I’m going to host my Learn With Less® classes on Fridays. That way I have more time with my son on Fridays, and then the class will be an hour. And then I have the rest of my day to, to be with him, which I’ve kind of come to really, really enjoy during this whole pandemic.

Then going back to work, it’s still great because I’m with him all day, but it’s very different, and I’m sharing my time with him and other children. And it’s kind of motivated me to, to really look at my business and try to expand it even further. I’m just so full of confidence right now.

I think it’s a really great opportunity for early childhood educators and preschool teachers who are looking maybe to, to just try to use their degree, their education in a different way besides being in the classroom. Yeah. I think, I think parents are really appreciative of this type of work, creating a community for them, as well as that validation that what they’re doing is enough, that they’re teaching their babies every day. Yeah.

Ayelet: With, with what they’re already doing. And you’re just calling attention to that in new ways.

Lesley: Yeah.

Lesley feels confident, she has a roadmap to reach another level in her career. She knows exactly what she needs to do, and she’s already started laying the foundation.

She led her first infant class a few weeks ago, completely online, and for me, to sit and watch her take the reigns, to put her own spin on it, to create rich, meaningful, supportive experiences for the families who participated – and will continue to participate in her classes… it was just incredible.

I got to hand that to her, and she gets to bring it to her community.

Now, if this kind of work calls to you, if you are an educator or therapist looking for new ways to serve families, to use your knowledge to support new parents and caregivers in your community, I invite you to download my free caregiver/baby classes roadmap, which is waiting for you at learnwithless.com/facilitator. Downloading that will get you onto the waitlist to learn more about the Learn With Less® Facilitator Training and Certification Program, which I’ll be opening for enrollment again very soon.

Now, I’d love to know more about you: does this work call to you? Do you already serve families in your community in a similar way? Send me a direct message Instagram – I’m @learnwithless and I’d love to hear from you.

The post How Lesley Took Her Existing Skills as an Educator, and Started Serving Infant/Toddler Families in a Holistic, Meaningful Way appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet is joined by Stacey Landberg, M.S., CCC-SLP of speechtheraping.com. Stacey is a pediatric speech-language pathologist and regular presenter on topics related to early intervention, autism, and navigating parenthood in the digital age. She is also the mother of two great kids. 

On this episode, we discuss:

• Stacey’s own professional background, and how she came to do the work she’s doing today
• What everyday routines have to do with early development
• Why these everyday, mundane tasks are such powerful opportunities for supporting early development
• Why early interventionists and developmental therapists are implementing “routines-based intervention” with families, and how this is model different from what traditional therapy looked like with 0-3 year olds
• How the Learn With Less philosophy goes hand in hand with this new model of intervention
• Stacey’s top tips and resources for parents hoping to maximize the interactions they have within everyday routines

Zero to Three

Family-Guided Routines-Based Intervention

Harvard Center for the Developing Child

Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler (books)

Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Program

Learn With Less® Facilitator Training & Certification Program

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Stacey: Website / Instagram

Ayelet: Today I am speaking with Stacy Landberg of speechtheraping.com. Stacey has devoted her career to supporting communication and connection between young children and their caregivers. She has worked in the homes of hundreds of families across Southern California, and she has guest lectured to early education specialists across the United States.

At the time of this recording, Stacey is in her 15th year of professional practice as a speech language pathologist, and her current work is focused on interdisciplinary and early intervention and dissemination of best practice patterns for improved child and family outcomes. Stacey, you are an incredible resource for parents and caregivers and professionals working with families. So I’m so excited to finally have you on the show today.

Stacey: Yay. Thank you, Ayelet. I’m so happy to be a guest, it’s just an honor because I obviously love the work that you do as well.

Ayelet: Thank you. Well, I’ve asked you to come onto the show today specifically to talk about, you know, how to use everyday routines to support infant and toddler development. But first, why don’t you just tell us a little bit more about you and how you got into the work that you are doing today.

Stacey: Sure. So I feel like you already gave me a really generous introduction. I, yeah, I feel like, you know, I always knew I wanted to work with little, little ones, early intervention. So that was why I specifically like went to the program that I went to and pursued that. And then, you know, and then I just, I stuck with it. But it’s easy to get burnt out cause as we know, like little people are, can be exhausting…

Ayelet: … as we know, both as parents and professionals!

Stacey: Yes, and so, and so, you know, then I had my own kids, very close in age, they’re 19 months apart. And I was just really in the thick of like motherhood and how hard that was. It was a very, um, you know, I dealt with all the postpartum stuff and it was such a hard transition and that kind of reinvigorated me to want to just support parents, period.

Not even, you know, of course parents because I’m a speech pathologist of kids with special needs, but just to all parents need support. And so yeah, I just have such a calling towards this young age group. I will say that around like my kids turning four, five, six, it’s like every year the clouds lift a little bit more, but I feel like those early years are just so precious and so that’s kind of why I’ve devoted most of my career to that age group.

Ayelet: Great. Well, we’ve talked, you know, certainly talked on the podcast about everyday routines and everyday household objects, but I would love to start by just hearing from you in your own words, what do everyday routines have to do with early development?

Stacey: So every day routines are like the context, right? Basically, I don’t even, I know that it’s called routines based intervention, but I don’t even love calling it that because as you know, you know a lot of people, we think of a routine as brushing your teeth. But even within that, there are those tiny little moments between like choosing your toothbrush, opening the toothpaste, putting it on. So it’s more of like these, and I think you’ve used the word before, like these mundane moments, right? So it’s creating the magic in those little moments.

For me, that’s so cool and special because really as adults we do that stuff automatically. That’s our procedural memory. Just we don’t think about it. We don’t even know later if we think someone asks you, where did you put your toothbrush back? Like on the left side or the right side, you might not even remember. Because it’s so habitual, right?

But for little people it’s like those tiny moments are new and exciting for them. And that’s really where learning happens. And of course it happens within play as well. But when we bring those elements of play into these little moments or just love and excitement into them, that, that was such a mind shift for me as a parent because I had been doing therapy, right, in air quotes, for so long with like a bag of two ways, a bag of tricks and sitting down.

And then I had my own children and I was like, Whoa, when am I ever going to sit down and do this with them? And I didn’t need to because that’s not where the magic happens, right? So it was such a mind shift for me, even though I had that training in school and I, I was aware of it. It just, yeah, it really shifted for me once I entered motherhood. I don’t know to actually answer your question about what of routines.

Ayelet: Well, yeah, I mean it, like you said, it’s the context for learning, right? It’s that it’s, it’s those things that happen day in and day out and it’s the, it’s implanting those moments with play. I think that’s, yeah, that’s such a key.

Stacey: And playfulness. So, cause we all have our own sort of definitions of what play looks like. Right. So you know, if you’re playful to children, that’s how they experience as fun. Yeah.

Ayelet: Exactly. So, okay, so let’s get a little bit deeper into it. What is it about everyday mundane tasks and everyday objects that are such powerful opportunities for supporting early development? What, what makes them so strong?

Stacey: Okay, so they’re special, right? So first let’s talk about the mundane moments, the routines themselves. Why are they special? They’re special because they happen over and over and over again, right? So, and they’re functional for the most part. Meaning a parent doesn’t have to have add anything else to their schedule. They don’t have to go to a class, they don’t have to read a specific book, get a specific object. They’re already doing it. They’re already putting, picking out socks. They’re already putting shoes on.

So it, and they have functional outcomes. Meaning when you embed our activities, our learning and our play into these moments, the functional outcome is my child’s shoes are on their feet and we’re ready to go. So now as a parent it’s like, okay, I didn’t have to add anything extra because we’re already so overwhelmed, right? And then there’s the opportunities for repetition, right?

Because you wash your hands five times a day or 20 times a day. So the idea is if you’re already doing it, the child has that opportunity of repetition to learn and practice. But if you’re going to say, okay, instead, you know we have to add play, a specific toy or a specific routine or this or that, how often does that get done? How often does the child have that interaction?

It might be once a week instead of five times a day. Two of the reasons they’re special routines are also predictable. So like I said, for adults, it’s this like automatic memory. And so if we do something the same way kind of every day like, okay, it’s, we’re going to eat, I’m going to pull the high chair over to the table, I’m going to reach over. You’re going to reach out, I’m going to put you in.

Well, maybe the child is reaching up there because you know, reaching up to request being picked up because that happens so frequently that they’ve learned, okay, in this routine, this is where my job is, this is how I initiate. And those are the building blocks, right? So their routine is kind of like the anchor. It happens all the time. It happens in the same way very often.

And then the child knows, Oh, this is where I get a part, this is how I can initiate. And then as adults we build off of that. So they reach up and we say, up! And then the next time and the next time that happens 20 more times and then they say up and then we say, up! Now you’re in, and then the child, you know, so it’s like there are these building blocks that are anchored within the routine. That’s why there’s, yeah.

Ayelet: Yeah. Those are literally the moments of learning. Of learning language, of learning fine motor tasks, of learning all of it. And building anticipation, which of course is a cognitive task. Like it’s all all in there. I love it. Thank you for that. Okay. So why are early inter, I mean this is, I think fairly clear where we’re going with this, right? Why are early interventionists and developmental therapists implementing more of this as you called it, a routines based intervention model with families?

And talk a little bit about the difference between that and then what you had described earlier as that model of like more traditional therapy, what that looked like or what that used to look like with zero to three year olds. Because we do have a model of routines based intervention. I believe there are even some states now that require early intervention therapists, those servings zero to three year olds to implement, uh, early, a routines based intervention approach. So talk a little bit about that.

Stacey: Yeah, so the, so there is like a nationwide shift and in some States we’re a little more ahead in this direction than others. But basically the, like what we would consider like the old way is the traditional model and it’s also been called the medical model or living room therapy. So the clinician comes in with like a bag of tricks and sets up the therapy in the living room and just says like, okay, now we’re gonna do potato head. Now we’re going to do blocks. Now we’re going to do read a book.

And it’s not to say there’s not benefits from that, but especially with this really young age, we know that we can have such a bigger impact on a child’s overall development when we embed learning into let’s say like 10 or 20 everyday moments, then in this like one hour devoted because that’s the value of their routines. They repeat so frequently. And so I might be a specialist with speech and language, right? But every parent is going to be this expert on their child.

So if I can teach mom or dad or help support them on how to do this, when snack time, when you know, opening the door to go outside and play, then that intervention can happen 20 times a day, all throughout the week, even when I’m not there. It’s this model of supporting parents and as parents, as we feel supported, we’re encouraged and we realize, Hey, I have the tools, I just maybe, you know, needed to see them from a different perspective and now I get to use them effectively with my child.

Ayelet: Yeah, exactly. I think I hear from so many parents, you know, I came into this, I know that these are, you know, special and precious moments that I have to take advantage of the, these first three years, there’s so much brain development, blah, blah, blah. Right? And this is, there’s marketing tactics that are, this is what the baby industry is using to market, you know, expert curated toys and toy subscription boxes and, and so when we realize that, okay, the learning is literally happening right in front of you, that’s so powerful and such a shift.

And I think it’s been a real shift, too, and is continuing to be a shift for many therapists as well and professionals working with, with families because it does require a little bit more of many things, including up more flexibility, more integrating the parent or caregiver into the therapy, and so many different things. So yes, go ahead.

Stacey: Oh, I was going to say, you made me think of something, I hope it’s okay to chime in with this, but, I just feel like the, like what you hit on with the marketing industry and like you need this toy or that book or this, you know, in my mind, like those are not for the child, those are for the adults, right? Because the child is so excited about putting the lid on the toothpaste and trying to figure that out and that magical moment and hearing the word toothpaste and like our excitement about it and we, and, and that opportunity of just simple engagement is thrilling for them. Right?

So when you have the… So for adults to get that same thrill out of something we’ve done a gazillion times, we have to have something novel or exciting, right? So the new book or the new toy or that this or that kind of invigorates that adults passion. Um, you know, really not at all needed for the child. This is all new and exciting for them. Every little moment.

Ayelet: Yeah. Well and that is exactly why I love showing families how those mundane every day objects are so powerful and, and that you can do exactly the same thing with a, you know, beautiful plush finger, you know, puppet and a dishwashing glove, which I…

Stacey: Or a sock, or a paper bag!

Ayelet: Exactly! It’s all right there in front of you. It’s a matter of exploding your own sense of like, Oh actually it has exactly the same developmental value. It’s all a matter of how you use it. So that really brings me into my next question then. I know that you are familiar with the philosophy that I am sort of calling Learning With Less. So how does this really go hand in hand with this new model of intervention? Can you explain to the people?

Stacey: I think I kind of feel like that’s sort of what we’ve been describing all along. Definitely goes both in the same like grounded in the same philosophy. What else can I add to that though? I guess sometimes my concern is actually that all the stuff, all the like, you know, toys and electronics and all these things are almost a distraction from missed opportunities that we’re not getting when we include the child in sweeping with us. Right?

Because it’s like, Oh well look at the, here’s the new toy. So I, I do, I just definitely feel like less is more… because with less, there’s, you are bringing more to the table, right? Like now it’s about the engagement in the interaction, which is really, that’s more important to any child’s learning than anything else, right? Is that relationship piece. Yeah.

Ayelet: So how do we, how do we really infuse all of these things with the relationship piece? That’s what we’re going to get into in just a second. So we’re going to take a break to hear just a quick word from our sponsor and then we’ll hear a few tips from Stacy about supporting early development through everyday routines and hear about some of her favorite resources for parents and caregivers interested in learning a bit more about this topic.

Ayelet: Okay Stacey, let’s hear it. We would love to hear your top tips for parents and caregivers who are hoping to maximize those interactions they have within everyday routines. So what are some of your best tips for families who need a few more ideas and support? Because again, this is not just about intervention.

This is about all families. We can all use these things. They are just the building blocks for learning and development. Whether your child is developing along a typical progression or whether they are experiencing delays. Let’s hear your best tips.

Stacey: Okay. I feel like this is actually a hard question for me because it’s just in so many ways it feels like common sense, right? Like use what you have, make it fun, get in there, be, you know, just be creative. But actually like being creative is not all that easy for a lot of adults and a lot of parents because you know, we all, we have a constant task list of things to do. So we know that play is great for children. So of course anytime we can play and just, you know, I always say just like looking at what’s in your recycling bin.

Like what can you just take out of that and make into play, you know, like making rolling, you know, I mean, I don’t have to give you any ideas to figure it out you’re the queen of this, but, you know, take toilet paper rolls that you literally like roll down a hill. Like that is so exciting to kids. Right? So I just think it’s this idea of novelty.

A lot of times like looking at something from a different lens and in that sense, my biggest tip for parents is mindful activities that they can do for themselves, right? So that we are making time for ourselves to practice mindfulness, to engage in something that’s creative and artistic or beautiful for ourselves.

Whether it’s cooking, whether it’s gardening, whether it’s knitting, like whatever it is. Something like those practices, we have to think that we’re using a different part of our brain when we’re doing that and as we’re experiencing that, we want to think that’s what we want to bring. That sense of presence is what we want to bring to the moment of putting the shoes on, right? Like how do we bring the art into this? And that same feeling that we’re getting, right, into the these other moments because for children, that’s the, that’s what the thinking is happening in their brain.

We’re just over conditioned and we’ve done it thousands of times. But if we can build our own mindfulness practices, you know, it’s like I said, I don’t have a lot of stuff, but it goes along with your Learn With Less curriculum because we don’t need a lot of stuff. I don’t need to give you a list of 20 resources to then take extra time away to build.

So I would say prioritizing like your own mental health, that’s always my first, creating some time for mindfulness for yourself and then realizing that that’s what we want to cultivate in these everyday moments for kids. So it’s not a magic cookbook or any recipe like that, but that is my top suggestion.

Ayelet: I love that. And I love the two sides of it because it looks like it’s that feeling that you get when you’re doing the thing that you need to do for yourself, like that, that, and you’re able to do that with your child so much better when you’ve had that moment. But that’s what we bring to that moment of play. And like you said, putting your shoes on. That’s, that’s it. Oh, I love it. Beautiful. What else? What else? What else?

Stacey: I feel like a scenario would be helpful for me, but, um, I’m trying to think. So other thing is, I, you know, as for parents, you know, a lot of our kids with the screen time stuff and, and that’s a different topic altogether. But what I will say is we know kids like to watch the videos that are like opening a box, right? And we look at it and we’re like, that’s so boring. We watched cartoons or this was so exciting. But if we just look at that content that they’re interested in and think like, well look, they care about this silly little stuff.

So maybe, maybe we can just use that as a, as a guide for ourselves to be like, it doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. But I can, you know, realize how powerful just the simplest little thing is and that my child is interested in it and how we can use that. Kind of just like as a reminder for ourselves. Yeah. Do you have any, like any other things that you are thinking, I’m sure I’ve talked about this before and I didn’t want to overwhelm parents with too many.

Ayelet: Well, those two are just such great tips and I mean for more specific ideas, check out my Instagram or Facebook page. And I know you’re always sharing fun things too, Stacey.

Stacey: Yes. And I definitely, I mean you’re one of my go-to resources all the time. So I feel like there’s a lot out there, but there’s not a lot that I can recommend full-heartedly knowing it’s really quality content. So thank you for that.

Ayelet: Thank you. That’s a huge testimonial and I feel very honored. Well what, so what are some of the other favorite resources that you do like to share with families?

Stacey: Yeah, so I often share of course Zero to Three just for overall development. I like that one. There’s the family guided routines based intervention website that’s out of Florida State. So that’s my former professor’s website where she talks all about embedding into daily routines. That’s my number one website for professionals. Parents can also see videos there.

Then there’s, there’s a few others that are sometimes parents like to watch a video, right. To see like, well, what should I be doing or what should this look like? So the Center for the Developing Child out of Harvard also has some really high quality content that I highly recommend and it’s free.

Ayelet: Great. That’s great. Very cool. Thank you so much Stacey. This is awesome and thanks to all of our participants of the Learn With Less curriculum online program who are listening live as a benefit to our membership community.

So we will continue the discussion and open up for a Q and a session for you guys in just a minute. But for everyone listening live, I mean, sorry for everyone listening from home or on the go. Thanks so much for joining us and we will see you next time. Stacey.

The post How to Use Everyday Routines to Boost Baby and Toddler Development, with Stacey Landberg appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet is joined by Jeana Kinne, M.A., of jdeducational.com. Jeana is an Early Childhood Development Specialist with over 15 years experience working with children birth to six years.

Her work experience has taught her that regardless of whether a child is typically developing or has some developmental delays, a parent’s engagement in their child’s daily lives directly correlates with their child’s academic and social progress. 

On this episode, we discuss:

• Jeana’s own professional background, and how she came to do the work she’s doing today
• How Jeana defines “hands-on learning” and why it’s so important for young children
• How young children experience the world through sensory experiences
• Jeana’s top tips and resources for parents hoping to offer more opportunities for hands-on learning at home, even if they have limited time, energy, or materials

Pairing Process Art and Early Literacy Experiences: Learn With Less podcast episode

Pre-K Your Way: Jeana’s curriculum

• Pre-K Your Way Level 1: Beginning Academics
• Pre-K Your Way Volume 2: Intermediate Academics and Alphabet Activities
• Pre-K Your Way Volume 3: Advanced Academics, Multilevel Projects

Soothing Sammy, story book by Jeana Kinne

Soothing Sammy Emotions and Feelings Activities: Soothing Sammy program by Jeana Kinne

Natural Playscapes, by Rusty Keeler

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Jeana: Website / Facebook

Ayelet: Today. I am speaking with Jeana Kinne of jdeducational.com. Jeanna is an early childhood development specialist with over 15 years experience working with children birth to six years. Her work experience has taught her that regardless of whether a child is typically developing or has some developmental delays, a parent’s engagement in their child’s daily lives directly correlates with their child’s academic and social progress. So Jeanna, I am so excited to have you on the show today.

Jeana: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Ayelet: So I’ve asked you onto the show today really to speak to us about the importance of hands-on learning for young children. But first, why don’t you just give us a little bit more information about you and how you really started to get into the work.

Jeana: Yes. So I started as a young child babysitting, and then I moved into college and I started working at the children’s center on campus, which we watched all the teachers and the staff and the students’ kids. And I was undeclared at that point. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I loved that job. And I so enjoyed being around the kids and playing with them, and helping them learn and grow.

And so I decided to get my bachelor’s degree in sociology and human development. And then I went on to getting my master’s degree in early childhood curriculum development. And from there became a preschool director. That was my ultimate dream at that time, was to have my own school and direct it.

And so then I ended up transitioning into a new kind of career working with infants and toddlers with special needs and their families, supporting their learning and working with speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and also becoming a preschool consultation specialist, working with preschool teachers and staff in the area. Trying to better their programs. That’s more what I do today, but I still love the preschool and being with the kids.

Ayelet: Yeah. Well, and I know that that’s sort of your “golden age” and of course the Learn With Less podcast is more about the infant-toddler side, but everything that we talk about today, we’re going to be able to chat about the early stuff, and then heading into what’s coming next, as well.

So we’ve spoken a lot on the Learn With Less podcast about the fact that you know, infants and toddlers really do learn through observation and imitation and interaction with other people and with objects in the environment, regardless of whether, as you said, they are developing along a typical progression or whether they have developmental delays.

This is how young children learn. So we know that it’s a very much sort of a experiential process. But I would love to hear from you, how do you define hands-on learning?

Jeana: So hands-on learning to me means that there’s multiple different ways that children learn. And to have an experience with an object or an activity is better than just watching someone else do the activity. So, I know we had talked about the multiple languages of learning and how my whole master’s degree was on this theory by a guy named Howard Gardner who developed a theory called the “eight learning languages” or the multiple languages of learning. And he talked about how children learn not just through one language, but multiple languages at a time.

So by moving and by touching and by seeing and by hearing and by really becoming super engaged in an activity in more than one way. And that also means children that are not so interested in sitting down and doing worksheets or tracing letters. There’s other ways they can learn through moving and games that the adults are able to adapt the whatever learning skill they’re trying to teach that child to the way that child learns.

Ayelet: Right. And it’s, yeah, it’s so hard because I think, you know, we hear, I hear so often from parents like, “well, you know, my toddler is, he would so much rather run and jump and climb and stuff like that than, like, sit and learn his letters.” So what would you, what would you say to a parent who says something like that?

Jeana: Well, and I, I like to give the expandable of as an adult, and you walk into a classroom about trains, would you rather someone sit at the front of the room with a PowerPoint and give you the 50 top bullet points about what makes a train a train?

Or would you rather experience through videos and for the adults maybe songs or maybe stories about trains are actually getting in there and learning the mechanics of trains and how they work and doing a lot of this stuff hands on.

And most kids want to be in there, hands on. They don’t want to be talked at or told what to learn. They want to actually experience it for themselves, which is how they remember what they learned, tomorrow. So if someone were to give me a PowerPoint if 50 train activities and they asked me tomorrow what were the 50 train activities, maybe I’ll say one or two.

Well, if I was actually actively engaged in building this train and singing songs about this train, I could probably tell you tomorrow 50 to 75% of what that person was trying to teach me with the train. So it’s all about making sure your child is experiencing these lessons in multiple different ways.

Ayelet: Yeah, and I think it’s so important to say too that this does not mean that you have to go out and, number one, buy expensive materials so that they can experience whatever it is you are thinking that they want to learn or should be learning about. It doesn’t mean that you have to go out and spend a whole lot of money on, you know, experiences like museums and wonderful centers…

Like these things are amazing add-ons that of course are wonderful and can benefit your children, but they are not the essentials. And what I think is important for the take home for parents and caregivers to hear is that that’s not how we can do it at home.

How we can do it at home and in a learning environment in general, say a daycare center or a school is with very simple materials, with movement, with play, with, you know, like you said, music and, and in communication with each other, right? It’s that interaction.

It’s not about sitting and doing a worksheet. It’s not even about sitting and coloring a worksheet. It’s about actually moving and playing and all of that experience with an object and with a person. And you’re nodding. So I want to give you a chance to respond.

Jeana: Yeah. In the curriculum like, and I create curriculum for parents to do at home with their kids and also preschool and daycare teachers do this, too. And one of the – trains is one of the themes – that starts by, they can either watch a YouTube video of a real train going down the tracks. Cause some kids have never seen a train before, they don’t even know it looks like or what the railroad tracks look like.

And then go to the library and get a book about trains, and then encourage your child to build a train out of empty cardboard boxes and maybe making the wheels out of empty toilet paper rolls, coloring the box of crayons. Even if you have a big box and you put a couple of them back to back, the kids can actually get in and out of the boxes and the different parts of the train.

You could talk about the front of the train, the caboose of the train, where does the conductor sit? All of that sort of stuff. And all that you needed were three big boxes and empty toilet paper.

Ayelet: Yup. And, and look what you have. You have vocabulary, you have core strengthening, right? I mean, and again this is a great thing for if you have an older kid and a toddler or even an infant who’s starting to sit up, like putting some cushions around them and helping them, like moving them around and working on that core. That’s great. These are all like, this is simple, right? This is…

Jeana: Yeah, Thomas the Train starts at what, two?

Ayelet: I know a lot of two year olds who like that stuff. Sure. Yeah. So I love that. Let’s talk a little bit about how young children experience the world through these sort of sensory experience. Because number one, I think there’s sort of a misnomer that’s going around these days.

We hear this sensory buzzword and we go to either one of two areas generally because of just the connotation of, and parents’ limited experience with this word and concept. Either we go straight to, like, Oh, sensory as in kids who have sensory processing issues or sensory as in a sensory, you know, tactile experiences, uh, things that you can touch, right? Like a sensory bin.

But that’s not all there is to it. So what are some of the other ways that young children can experience the world through sensory experiences?

Jeana: So sensory, if you think about the five senses that we all know, the sight, sound, auditory, the visual, that tactile, which is touch. All of those are senses. So when you’re working with kids and you want to encourage that all of those senses be used, including smell and movement. Like vestibular is how the kids are moving. That’s another way to engage with the world.

And so the sensory and the sensory system is how your body is responding to all of these things that are around them at once. So if you want to do a tactile, bin like with play-dough, then add some essential oils to the play-dough. So now it’s not just touch, it’s they smell something good. Or if you want to do a movement activity with a ball, you can run up to the ball and kick it and maybe there’s three or four different colors of balls.

So they’re visually seeing all those different colors while they’re moving into getting that vestibular input, or even swinging and counting. And all of those different activities have multiple sensory components to them. And I think that is what kids respond to the most. And it’s how we see the world as adults. We have to experience it 10 times, right?

Ayelet: That’s right. And there’s, like we talked about, there’s a lot of research that even indicates that like babies experience the world with this sort of sensory “Sensorama” kind of thing where they’re literally, they’re like smelling a color and seeing how something tastes like, It’s, it’s just a very different “sense” of things.

And I think the other piece of the puzzle here that I want to take home for parents is the fact that, like, everything is a sensory experience. Literally like if you are watering the driveway with your child, how can you make that more learning? It’s more of a learning experience, meaning how can you engage more senses? How can you incorporate more of these sort of four pillars that I talk about in terms of play, talk, sing and move, into any experience that you’re, that you’re engaging with your child.

So yeah, that’s great. Well let’s take just a brief break to hear a word from our sponsors and then we will hear a few tips from Jeana about supporting early development through hands on learning and we’ll hear about some of her favorite resources for parents and caregivers interested in learning more about this topic.

Ayelet: Okay, Jeana, let’s get into it. We would love to hear your top tips for parents and caregivers who really just want more ideas for supporting their little ones through hands on learning experiences. So what are some of your best tips for families who need a few more ideas and support?

Jeana: My favorite thing to do is just pay attention to what your child loves to do. I think that that is the key. Do they love to move? Do they love to sing? Do they love to dance? Do they love to do artwork or paint? And just encourage more of that! Incorporate different things that they like to do and then incorporate different or new skillsets that you want to teach within that learning language that they’ve already demonstrated to you that they love doing.

And then, what we already talked about was not to go out and buy a ton of things. You already have them at home. There’s so many different ways that you can manipulate objects from ice cubes to blankets and pillows and boxes and wooden spoons from the kitchen, and tape and paper and all sorts of things that you already have at home, and you can do activities in five or 10 or 15 minutes or just let your kids go for as long as they want to or as short as they want to.

I think those are really, really important: that all kids have different attention spans and all kids, and that’s fine! They’re developing and growing and we expect them to want to go run around the house every 20 minutes, that’s normal.

Ayelet: Yes, exactly, right! I think a lot of parents think like, okay, I’ve set up, now I’ve set up this activity that I found on Pinterest that looks so great and that is perfect for my kid because I know he likes trains or whatever it is.

Right, but he’s only interested in it for two minutes and then he destroys it or he goes over to the other side of the room and it’s like… Exactly! That is how long it lasts! That’s how long any given activity probably is going to last, unless you can add more of the sort of repetitive pieces of it or add more interesting ways to play with that object, or vary it a little bit, right? We talk a lot on the podcast about repetition with variation. That’s the key to so much of play with infants and toddlers and beyond.

But it’s really I think giving families a sense of how long something is most likely going to last. And this is, again, this is another reason why like you don’t go out and buy those expensive materials or spend all this time preparing an activity because literally gonna last five seconds and that’s it! So the best thing to do is just to create some open ended experiences or opportunities, set out some stuff that you already have, and go from there and see what happens.

Okay, great. And I want to say too that as we get into resources also you mentioned that you have this amazing curriculum which is perfect for this sort of toddler slash incoming like preschool and kinder, incoming kindergarten sort of set. And so with those kinds of things and the Learn With Less Curriculum, and things covered in the Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler books… Like, you’re covered guys.

So let’s hear a little bit about some of your favorite resources to share with families. I want to hear some of the stuff that you’ve created and then what other kinds of things you love to share with families, as well.

Jeana: So I created, what I found was that a lot of parents were struggling with finding out how to teach their kids skills that they would need for success in kindergarten. Now that their kids are developmentally ready for some of these more advanced learning things like learning the alphabet, learning their colors and shapes and all those other things that we look at towards success in their first week of school.

We don’t want them to fall behind or be frustrated. I created some activities you guys can do at home with your kids that teach those skills through these hands-on learning techniques. So it’s a little bit different. It’s not worksheets to print out. It’s not things to cut out and cutesy crafts to do. It’s a very open-ended play-based hands-on activities that actually teach the skills that preschool teachers teach, based on the kindergarten standards. But these teach in the way that children learn best.

I have it either printed on Amazon, you can buy it in the books or I have a membership class where I walk you through everything and help you adapt the activities to your children and your family individually, give you ideas of substitute materials. If you don’t have something so you don’t go out and buy that expensive thing, or if your child doesn’t want to sit and do this activity, what could we do instead?

Or if you have a busy family and you’re learning on the go all the time or in the car or at the park, or we, I help adapt all the activities to anything because really kids learn everywhere and so that’s what’s in the membership course. Right now, It’s for kids. It’s open right now, today for kids that are starting kindergarten in 2020, so for older kids, but then in the Spring, we’re opening up for the three year olds.

Ayelet: Very cool. So this is great for all of you guys who are sort of aging out of the, you know, birth to three age. This is what we really focus on. So I just, I believe so wholeheartedly in what you’re doing Jeana. And I’m so happy to have a place where we can send people as they age out of our curriculum, as well. First of all, where can we find those things on your website? JDeducational.com. Is that right?

Jeana: Yes. When you go to the website, there’s two dropdown menus, one says for parents and one says for teachers. So if you’re a parent, or you can drop down there or if you even, I have some parents that have little daycares or in co-op groups, they use those activities in there also. So there’s two different memberships, honestly for a teacher or for a parent.

Ayelet: And then, what are some of the other kinds of things that you like to recommend the parents look at?

Jeana: Well the other, the other thing I have on my website is the Soothing Sammy kit that teaches emotional, social and emotional skills sets. That teaches kids how to calm down and manage their emotions. Cause I know we talked about how just because the kids know all of their academic skills for kindergarten, that’s only half the battle.

The other part is that they can understand how they feel, communicate their feelings, problem solve, share space and toys with other kids. And so Soothing Sammy is a book and a parent set that I’ve created that teaches kids how to do that in a hands-on sensory based way. We’re talking about it in a way they remember. So that’s the other thing I have on there. So that is the social emotional support and then the academic support.

Ayelet: Right, because it’s a two sided, two pronged thing. And I was sharing with you also before we started recording that we went to a kindergarten panel because my son was starting kindergarten and it was a question that had come out by some of the parents asking all these kindergarten teachers, “what is the best way, what can we do over the summer to make sure that our kids are ready” and or like “how do we know that our kids are ready for kindergarten?”

And the answer that I’m so happy that all of the kindergarten teachers agreed upon was, “I can teach a child to read. I can teach your child math. What I cannot teach your child are those social emotional skills that they need to come into kindergarten with like impulse control, emotional regulation, being able to sit and being able to be ready to learn.” That’s what play does. That’s what play-based curriculum does.

That’s what you as the parent can do and support with emotional language and with tasks that just help with all of those things. We’ve had so many great podcast episodes of in the past about you know, how to teach these skills.

But I just want to say I think it’s so awesome and so important that you Jeana, are addressing both sides of that, because it is two sides of the same coin. What about other resources or books or things like that you like of others?

Jeana: One of my favorite things, and you can Google these, is to look up Reggio Emilia or I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but it looks like process based art and as I said that is so important. It all comes back to how kids learn by doing and it’s not really what the art project or the craft looks like at the end. It’s the process of how they got there. That’s where they’re building their skills.

Ayelet: And we actually, this is great cause we actually have a great episode of, in the past, with Julia Linstead who is the founder, cofounder of KidArtLit, and the whole episode is about pairing process art and early literacy for infants and toddlers. So guys read that, listen to that. I’ll send you the link to do that. I’m a huge fan of that. I’m a big fan of anything Reggio.

And the last one, I know last time we did talk about the book for creating an outdoor environment. It’s called outdoor. It’s like outdoor place scapes I think is what it’s called and it is such a cool book that teaches all the different ways you can bring what you’re learning inside, outside. And I know you had a question about that. We can get into more. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Jeana.

This is awesome and thank you to all our participants of the Learn With Less Curriculum who are here listening live as a benefit to our membership community. We are going to continue the discussion and open up for a Q&A session for you guys in just a minute, but for everyone listening from home or on the go, thank you so much for joining us and we will see you next time.

The post Hands-On Learning For Infants and Toddlers, with Jeana Kinne appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, we’re joined by Jennifer Russell of the Instagram handle @otmomdiaries. Jen is a pediatric occupational therapist by training, and at the time of this recording, on maternity leave with her NICU warrior twin babies and spunky preschooler.

Jen is committed to boosting parent confidence & connection, and her passion lies in supporting young children and families to set the foundation for greater participation in life. She believes supporting children’s emerging skills, as well as bolstering parent understanding during early development, sets the stage for further learning.

On this episode, we discuss:

• Jen’s own professional background, and how she came to do the work she’s doing today
• Jen shares with us the story of her journey into three kids under three, and about her NICU experience
• What resonates with her about the Learn With Less philosophy: how she knew the simple things were the things that mattered, and how she knew that was the “right” thing to do for her little ones
• Jen’s top tips and resources for all parents – especially applicable to parents of premature babies

Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler: the week-by-week development and activity guides to playing with your baby from birth to three years

Learn With Less Curriculum Online Program: get week-by-week developmental info and simple activities based on your child’s developmental age (using what you already have), plus additional group support and virtual workshops

Every Tiny Thing: created by a NICU nurse, products specializing in journaling and celebrating small milestones for parents of babies in the NICU

CanDoKiddo: pediatric occupational therapist, Rachel Coley, shares baby and toddler development resources from an OT perspective

Secret Guide to Tummy Time: Learn With Less podcast episode featuring Rachel Coley of CanDoKiddo

Pathways.org

The Whole Brain Child, by Dan Siegel (amazon affiliate link)

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Jennifer: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Today, I’m speaking with Jennifer Russell, a pediatric occupational therapist by training who is currently on maternity leave with her NICU warrior twin babies and spunky preschooler. Jen is committed to boosting parent confidence and connection, and her passion lies in supporting young children and families to set the foundation for greater participation in life.

She believes that supporting young children’s emerging skills as well as bolstering parent understanding during early development sets the stage for further learning. So Jennifer, I first connected with you on Instagram by following your feed over at @OTmomdiaries, and I just love how you share and talk about your experience both as a mom and a professional. And I want to thank you for being here. So welcome.

Jennifer: Thank you so much. It was, I was honestly so shocked and floored since I’d been listening to you for a couple of years. I have a bit of a commute when I go back to work. So when I went back to work after my first mat leave. You were a regular in our car for those commutes for my daughter in the back. So it’s a, it’s a pleasure to be talking to you.

Ayelet: Oh, awesome. Well, I’ve asked you to come onto the show today to speak to us really about your story and your journey into the world of having three kids under three and a bit about your NICU experience and about your philosophy in supporting all three of your young children. But first, why don’t you just tell us a bit more about you and how you got into the work you’re doing today.

Jennifer: Well, as you said, I’m a pediatric occupational therapist. I graduated from OT school back in 2010 and at that point, within a couple of months I was super lucky to land what I thought at the time or, still is, my dream job right away, at a government funded children’s treatment center here in Ontario, Canada, Canadian here. And since 2010 I’ve primarily worked with the children and their families, zero to five years old.

In case, some listeners are thinking, what is occupational therapy? I came prepared to, to explain that one. Our title is so confusing for people. They always assume we have something to do with helping people work. But as any good pediatric occupational therapist will do, we will then joke that in fact children have very important jobs to do. So.

And then my next joke that usually follows that one up for any new family is that, you know, the speech therapist will look at helping your child to talk. The physiotherapist is going to help them to walk, and then the OT is going to look at all the other stuff in between walking and talking.

Ayelet: Well tell us, just a couple of little tidbits about what that might look like. So people have just like a firm grasp.

Jennifer: Oh, good question. So basically we, we look at daily function. Again, another cheesy joke (I’m full of them) is that we put the fun in function for, for kids since there are so many aspects of their day as they’re learning and growing and playing that they’re really kind of, like I said before, they’re setting those foundations for future skills that they need. And a lot of that really is supporting that early development.

Usually as an OT to help make all the other things in between more manageable, I’ll break it down into three main categories when I’m working with families. So I might ask how things are going in a category called “self care.” So how your child’s doing with dressing, eating, sleeping, their ability to participate or the parents’ ability to care for them. Especially for those younger children where they’re a bit more dependent on you. Seeing kind of how you can support them in feeding or sleeping early on.

The next category we call kind of “productivity.” So to be a productive child, usually that’s play… As they get a bit older into school years, looking at how they’re functioning at school and participating in routine circle time at classroom activities.

And then the third category we call “leisure.” So kind of just what that child wants to do on a daily basis. We kind of just think of occupation as the meaningful activities that people want to do and people need to do on a daily basis. And we look at any of those barriers that are in the way to having those children participate in what they want to do every day.

Ayelet: Perfect. Ah, so well-stated I’ve had several OTs come on and everyone does their little bit, but that was, that was great. Thank you. So tell us, you became a mom the first time around. Tell us a bit about life back then. You went from professional working with families to being an actual parent. So tell me a bit about… What were some of the biggest challenges that you found yourself experiencing the first time around?

Jennifer: The first time round, I guess it was just kind of an eye-opener I think to kind of transition from telling people what to do or should do to then realizing maybe how realistic or not realistic some of the recommendations or things that I may have been giving to families, pre-kids. And just the aspect of time, and what you kind of have the bandwidth available to do.

So I guess not necessarily, well I guess it was a challenge and trying to, just being… Reflecting back on previous assumptions or clinical skills and kind of reflecting on how going forward I’m going to change how I work with a family or what I might recommend going forward, and just breaking things down and just being more manageable, being more digestible and kind of saying if I can give you one thing to work on this week, it’s this versus maybe the 10 things I might’ve given them before having my own child.

Ayelet: Right! Yeah, so the overwhelm, the need to really things down into one piece. I think that’s exactly what I found as well. All right, so now your little girl is a toddler, and you get pregnant again. Talk us through a little bit about your journey with the twins.

Jennifer: I’ll just say so if I take everyone back to, I guess, our 12 week ultrasound with the twins. My first daughter was I think one and a half at the time and we had that first ultrasound at 12 weeks and kind of had our worlds rocked to find out that there were two babies instead of one at that point along. And then we were still recovering from that news, when my obstetrician called us to schedule another ultrasound at 16 weeks.

I’m not sure how it is in other places, but here in Ontario, Canada, it’s routine, you kind of have a 12 week ultrasound and then you don’t have another one usually until 20 weeks unless there’s other complications and things. So I was a bit surprised to get a call that there was a new ultrasound I wasn’t, I never needed the first time around. And it was because we had twins, and later we found out it especially because we had what they call monochorionic twins, which are identical twins that share one placenta.

So we had to be followed much more closely and scanned more frequently for complications. The very complications that did happen. So I guess that’ll be my one awareness plug that if you know somebody who is expecting twins and they haven’t been told to have this extra scan at 16 weeks, make sure that you’re getting monitored by somebody who knows what they’re looking for.

Because at 16 weeks, it revealed the beginnings of something called twin to twin transfusion syndrome. Or I’ll just call it TTTS from now on to keep it short. And this only happens to those identical twins who are sharing a placenta.

So my girls had shared blood vessels in this shared placenta and essentially to sum it up, shortly, it’s just that the blood flow issues occur and one baby who’s known as the “donor” ends up kind of giving away, sending away all their blood and nutrition to what they call the “recipient” twin through these shared blood vessels, and things get kind of pretty scary pretty fast.

We were immediately referred to a hospital in Toronto where we luckily only live a short distance from, as we later found out that maybe only one or two other hospitals in all of Canada can deal with this and are ready to treat.

So we felt really fortunate that we could either drive when there’s no traffic or take a commuter train downtown. So we had that scan around 17 weeks and then by 18 weeks on the dot, I had an in utero surgery that I was wide awake for. They made a small incision beside my belly button and they just placed in a camera and a laser to essentially zap all of those blood vessels that were causing the blood flow issue. And I was just there watching, they asked if I wanted to watch on a TV screen and I said, sure.

I guess having a healthcare background, I was more just fascinated and I was like, it’s not very often you’ll have that type of opportunity to see your fetuses at 18 weeks I saw them saw little hands, feet float by and it was truly surreal. I was pretty, we were, we were very successful. The surgery was very successful. They were able to stop that blood flow issue.

But, there’s a but, the doctors had told us that on top of this blood flow issue, the girls were not sharing the placenta evenly. So they kind of explained that with the surgery, they could prevent Olivia or donor baby from giving away what she was getting, but they couldn’t give her any more of the placenta than what she had.

So she had what they also call selective intrauterine growth restriction or IUGR, on top of the twin to twin transfusion. So they didn’t know at that point if she had a big enough share to grow big enough and strong enough to make it to a gestation where she could be viable. So it was kind of just a wait and see after that surgery.

Ayelet: It’s a lot. It’s a time to take in. That’s really when you’re managing the big needs of a toddler at the same time.

Jennifer: Oh yes. Yes. It gets, it gets even more dramatic.

Ayelet: Keep going.

Jennifer: So our specialist at the time of the surgery gave her about a 30% chance of surviving the pregnancy, not to mention on top of that, one of the main risks in having the surgery itself is your water breaking, because they put a hole in it to do the surgery. So then from weeks 18 to 31, we had ultrasounds every two weeks, just to kind of keep monitoring to make sure that the surgery was successful and that…

It was, it was actually really quite incredible, the degree of precision that they could monitor certain blood flows to different parts of each baby’s brain and heart. And it was, we tried our best to keep up with what they are telling us and I was so grateful to have the OT background that I can’t imagine what it’s like for those parents who don’t have that kind of previous knowledge to allow them to be, it would just be so overwhelming.

At one point there was one follow-up and I remember clearly it was, it was black Friday and so about three weeks after our surgery. And for some reason we had um, a new specialist filling in that day to interpret our results from our ultrasound. And he actually told us that, well my husband didn’t come because things have been going so well.

So I was by myself and that doctor actually told me to prepare for her to pass away. And that based on what he was seeing that day, she wouldn’t make it and to be fully prepared at the next ultrasound to not hear her heartbeat.

So we kind of spent two weeks grieving really hard in the middle of everything and trying to make sense of what that all meant. But then at the next followup she was there, she was fighting hard. We never saw that doctor again. So I never got to fully tell him how I felt about his prediction.

Ayelet: Right. I’m sure you rehearsed that one in your head many times though.

Jennifer: Oh yeah! But then it was all at the same time glad not to have to see him again. So then, yeah, every, every two weeks she was there, she was always tracking underneath the first percentile, if you can imagine a baby growing that slowly and that small. So we just kinda kept showing up, just waiting to find out how things were going to happen.

It was always just looking for signs that we needed to deliver, that things would be better out than in as they say. So we reached 31 weeks and I was admitted to the hospital on my birthday, with new symptoms that were kind of happening that we weren’t sure what they meant. So I had the steroid shots at that point. They do two shots, I think 24 hours apart, I believe to help with the lung development, to prepare for premature labor.

I was there for a week every single morning, at that point they had an ultrasound again, it all those precise measurements and then every three hours they hooked up my tummy to what they call non-stress tests or NSTs, kind of like those monitors they put on when you have contractions when you’re out to go into labor. Just to be, tracking heart rates and things like that to make sure if they see any big decelerations then it just means they need closer monitoring or maybe they need to come out.

So because Olivia was always so tiny, our doctor had kind of, when we asked for, kind of his blunt opinion of when is it that she has a chance to make it, he told us that he felt we needed to make it to 32 weeks for her to be big enough and strong enough.

So, low and behold, 32 weeks and one day, that morning the daily ultrasound showed some fluid in her tummy that wasn’t there the day before and up until that point all week, the steroids shots actually give the babies what they call a “honeymoon period” where the steroids might temporarily increase blood flow and give the babies more positive readings than they might have without them.

So she’d been doing really well all week and then we saw the fluid on her tummy and the doctor said, we don’t know what this means, but we know leaving her in there means she’s going to get sicker. So you’re having your babies today. And we had them that afternoon and they were able to kind of show me Evelyn, Baby A, or the receipient, quickly.

They pulled her out first and showed me her on the other side of the curtain. So I got to hear her, and then Olivia though needed to be taken right away to the resuscitation room and my husband was able to go with them as the doctors kind of did their thing to make sure everybody was breathing and seeing what kind of support they need. While I had to wait to be stitched back up, I think it was a good, I don’t know, half an hour, 40 minutes till I got to get in the room and see how everyone was, was doing.

So Evelyn, just to give you an idea of like how small everybody was, Evelyn at 32 weeks and one day was three pounds, 10 ounces and Olivia was only one pound, 10 ounces, still. Even though she was 32 weeks gestation, she was about the size of a 25 week old baby. Evelyn was able to breathe right away on room air and then Olivia just needed some light kind of pressure to help those lungs fill or otherwise known as C-PAP for anyone that knows what that is.

But actually she didn’t require any supplemental oxygen, which was pretty incredible for such a small baby, she, she was, they actually say that sometimes those IEGR babies because they’re under so much stress in utero that they come out just fighting because they’re, they’re just used to fighting for their life. And then the next part, sorry, it keeps going!

Ayelet: No! It’s the story! No apologies!

Jennifer: So everything was kind of under control for a day. We were like, wow, okay. We didn’t know until that day if we were going to be a family of four or five. So we kind of started settling into we’re going to be a family of five, we need to buy a van.

Ayelet: All the practical issues.

Jennifer: Emma needs to be moved into a smaller room so the twins can share her big bedroom. You kind of start nesting now. But then on the second warning, the nurses that had been with her the day before, had said to me that they thought, they asked me if they thought her stomach looks more swollen and more red. And when I looked, I definitely thought it did.

So the doctors did some x-rays and saw air in her abdomen, now. So the doctor sat me down and said that this meant there must be a hole somewhere in her bowel and that kind of her breathing support was pushing air out into her tummy through that hole.

At this point at this hospital, they couldn’t tell me if this was just kind of like a fluke, a hole just from her bowel being fragile, from being so restricted in her growth or if it was something called necrotizing enterocolitis, or they call it NEC for short, which is a pretty common and and very aggressive and very scary infection that preemies can get in the NICU.

They needed to send her across the street to a specialized children’s hospital. So that part was, I still feel like when I think of that memory, play it back in my mind. It feels like I was kind of watching from above. Like one of those moments in your life. They had to intubate her, so kind of put a breathing tube in and stabilize her to be moved and prepped for the surgery.

And I still remember we’d had the same nurse for a couple of days and she was crying as she was getting her ready. So it was just kind of like, wow, okay. If the nurse is this upset, like this is serious, I just, I just remember sitting beside the bed being helpless. I couldn’t touch her, just waiting for the team to move her and singing her, “you are my sunshine” because that’s what I saying to them in my tummy the whole whole time.

So yeah. So we, my husband had to wheel me and that wheelchair across the street since I was still recovering from the C-section, it was the middle of like the middle of February. It was freezing. And so for whatever reason, I, we weren’t allowed to go with the actual transport team through the specialized tunnels and things that they bring her. So we… yeah, I’m not sure what the policy and procedure is there.

We met with the surgeon in the NICU at the other hospital, and he was kind of going through all, we had to sign off on the paperwork saying that we understood all the risks. And then, yeah, before we knew it, he was back and he was able to say that even though he had thought it was NEC, that infection, it wasn’t.

And we didn’t know at the time it happened, later kind of confirmed that it was just when a fetus has really severe IEGR, it’s really smart and it takes the blood and nutrition that it is getting and it sends it to all the really critical organs like the brain and the heart and the bowel was after the first place that it kind of starts neglecting.

So it can become very fragile. And then if there’s that meconium sticky poop in there, that’s the babies have, that those breathing reports can end up blowing that through the sides of the intestine. So, the surgeon removed an inch and a half of her bowel. But because she was so tiny, she was less than a pound and a half when he operated because of that weight that they lose. And she didn’t want to, I guess for lack of a better explanation, sew both backs ends together, because that would just potentially cause more scar tissue, more blockage and potentially another rupture.

So he left the two ends outside of her tummy and gave her what they call an ostomy. So there was a bag that got secured around what we called her two little nubs just to catch her stool, and she came home with this ostomy 10 weeks later and I was left to be the nurse at home to change it and clean it.

Ayelet: How often does you have to do that? I mean every time a newborn poos or pees…

Jennifer: Luckily, it had like a little cap on the end that as it filled up, you could empty it into a diaper or a syringe, but a lot of times depending on how good you were at putting it on or how well you cleaned the surface, like to stick the bag on, usually the more of the concern was that it started leaking.

So some days if I did a really good one it would last maybe three or four days. But then there were some days I think if I was extra sleep deprived or, or what have you, that it felt like upwards of like three times a day where it, when it was like the process too. She wasn’t a huge fan because we cleaned the area and then drag it off and yeah…

Ayelet: Of course. So, okay. So let’s just back up for just a second, because you said 10 weeks later they came, did both twins stay for 10 weeks or did she stay longer, Olivia?

Jennifer: Yes sorry. I can, I can go back. So Evelyn was kind of like a NICU rock star. She just was what they call like a “feeder and grower.” There were no complications. So when a baby’s that little, they just need to wait till they’ve matured enough to be able to coordinate, kind of that suck, swallow, breathe to be able to feed successfully at home and not without the support of the feeding tube down her nose. So she was home in five weeks.

Ayelet: With the feeding tube removed?

Jennifer: Yep!

Ayelet: Amazing.

Jennifer: Yeah. So she, she did great. She was bottle fed at that time. And yeah, so that was five weeks. Cause usually when you have a baby premature, they, they tell you to prepare for them to at least be there until their due date. So we were pretty lucky that she came home at what would have been like 37 weeks I guess then. And then so those early days were really hard because the girls were in two different hospitals.

Olivia couldn’t be transferred back to where Evelyn was, and Evelyn, they wouldn’t send her to a hospital that had more care than she needed. And we were actually quite fortunate, the hospital that Evelyn was at, she would have otherwise been transferred to kind of what they call the step down care somewhere else then because they weren’t twofold.

They had said to us that if it’s easier for you to have your babies across the street from each other versus in different cities, then we’ll do that here for you. Yeah. So, um, so I would kind of split my day. You know, I, I’d wake up, I would pump.

Well, that was the other piece too is that I remember the morning after Olivia’s surgery, the nurses said to me, your breast milk is critical to your daughter’s bowel recovery and her surgery, like she needs it. So I was pumping about nine times a day to get that going so that way my milk could help her heal.

So there was pumping nine times a day. There was getting up, taking the train downtown and then from the train a subway up to one hospital for around three, four hours. Then I’d literally walk across the street, while eating the sandwich that I packed in my backpack, I’d walk and eat over to the next hospital to spend another three or four hours with my other daughter.

And then, I mean my toddler was not even two yet when they were born. So she still needed me too and we would, if she went a day without seeing me, we could see it in her behavior. And knowing what I know about childhood and development and attachment, I was like, it’s equally as important that like she feels all this stress, she knows what’s going on.

And she needs to see me at least for an hour or two before she goes to bed. So every day was being torn three different ways and then waking up in the middle of the night for pump for babies that aren’t even at home.

Ayelet: How long were you in the hospital and at what point did you go home at least, I mean obviously you were in the hospital all the time, but at what point were you discharged?

Jennifer: That’s a story in itself. I’ll condense that one. So, we had the babies Friday afternoon and they were trying to, like, I would have been discharged the Sunday afternoon, but that’s when we started seeing the difficulties.

So I remember, I don’t know, I think I was technically discharged, but she had the surgery Sunday night around like 11:00 PM or midnight and we just kind of didn’t leave the hospital because we didn’t know where else to go by midnight or ever so. But like by Monday morning we had to be out and yeah, she was. Yeah, it was pretty quick. Yeah.

Ayelet: What was the biggest, I mean in terms of both practical and emotional challenge that you would say for you that happened then when you were home and they were still there?

Jennifer: I feel like it’s, it is a big blur. It’s kind of like, I don’t know, like an, I do kind of compare it to the difference between when you have your first baby, the only… and it’s only one, you just get so used to doing and being everything for that, that child, but then kind of when you don’t have a choice, I don’t know, it just, it felt like this is what we have to do and I trusted the teams, I trusted the doctors.

The hospitals are so renowned that I just knew that I needed to take care of myself. I needed to pump and I needed to not get sick because if you get sick, you can’t go to the NICU. So it was just kind of like, I think you just are purely functioning on adrenaline. Yeah. And you just, you’re just moving kind of like a robot through what you need to do. And if you stop, you don’t know if you’ll start again. So you don’t entertain that.

Ayelet: Okay. Okay. So now everyone’s home 10 weeks later. What then, how did you manage everyone’s needs? What were your biggest challenges in all three of them at once?

Jennifer: We had a set of grandparents, or at least a grandma, 24-7, and we were so fortunate for at least a few good months. And even now, my mother-in-law still does help a few times a week because three at this age is just insane. Like I can manage everybody during the day, but then I have no energy left at the end of the day to do the laundry or go grocery shopping or anything like that. So…

Ayelet: And the twins now are how old?

Jennifer: They’re almost 17, almost 17 months. 17 months and almost 15 months corrected. Right. It’s hard to keep track of their actual age and the, that corrected age for preemies.

Ayelet: Okay. So in the beginning.

Jennifer: I got really good, I had this amazing, um, pillow. It’s like a twin size boppy pillow. So the only way I could really, the girls never ended up being able to actually breastfeed. So I actually exclusively pumped for 14 months. Evelyn, I don’t know, the lactation consultant couldn’t come up with anything other than she was a little bit lazy and just preferred the bottle.

And then Olivia, because she was so tiny, she came home with strict kind of rules around being fed exactly on like a three hour schedule, a certain amount. And they had me adding formula to all of the breast milk for extra calories, so there wasn’t a lot of wiggle room to practice breastfeeding. And then when you have twins and a toddler and you’re still pumping cause you need to be making milk, there’s not a lot of time to practice.

So I just kind of threw in the towel after about a month of being home and a few visits to the lactation consultant to just survive, survive. So then kinda back to my big pillow, I found a way that I could lie each twin on their side, prop the bottle up and then be pumping at the same time.

So that at least I could have some sanity and not kind of feed and then pump and then clean the bottles. It was more just if I can feed and pump at the same time, then… then I can at least have a little bit of free time to try and see the toddler or snuggle a baby or… shower.

Ayelet: And actually enjoy or take care of something to keep you alive. Yeah. All right. So you mentioned a little bit about your own background as an occupational therapist and you know, having some knowledge at least a little bit of just the medical knowledge, the, the terminology, all of those things. What about your husband? How was he fairing?

Jennifer: I think… He’s an engineer by profession, so it was just interesting I think too to see a therapist brain versus like an analytic and linear brain, kind of what information stood out to him versus me where you can get very stuck on like statistics and numbers and where I like, I’d always be more concerned like long-term function and like that type of thing.

I do think he was really good at asking questions when he didn’t understand so he’d get his information that way. But there was definitely a lot of times where I could be like, Oh they mean this or like that means that where it was, I guess he would get that second hand through me and being able to kind of interpret what some of the doctors and nurses meant sometimes. Especially around like things like feeding.

Ayelet: Right. That’s great. Because there is so, I mean in general there’s so much of that physical care is sort of overwhelming when you have a new baby and then when you have three babies essentially, especially the youngest of which have extreme physical care needs. That’s a lot. That’s a lot of the time.

Jennifer: Yes.

Ayelet: So tell me more about as things went along, when do you feel like the physical care sort of started to subside and the actual care and love and play and all of that started to replace it?

Jennifer: That’s, that’s a really good question. So I guess by the time Olivia came home, she was two weeks past her due date. I’m trying to think. It was a couple of months l,ike especially as I got used to just that care for the ostomy and we’d have different professionals coming and going from our homes. There were a lot of follow-up appointments right away too where that kind of just takes all of your time and you’re just trying to function and get from doctor to doctor and wait for results.

But I’d say a good two months at home to get in that groove of feeling like I’ve got this pumping and feeding thing down. I’ve got this ostomy bag thing down and then like, okay, now it’s just time to snuggle a bit. And yeah, like probably a couple, a couple months, but I was always so thankful that it wasn’t my first parenting experience and I always, when I would see brand new parents in the NICU, I would just feel for them cause I couldn’t imagine.

I mean you’re so overwhelmed as a new parent of a typically fully grown full-term baby that I was always so thankful that I already had some tools in my toolbox to kind of talk. And you have that experience that like if a baby’s crying, you remember that like it was tough but you got through it and like without that added stress like it was, yeah. So my heart goes out to all you, all you preemie mamas, that that was your first experience. That must’ve been so tough.

Ayelet: Right? It’s tough all around. And then knowing what you know about early development, tell me a bit about what resonates with you about sort of the Learn With Less philosophy. Did you read both books or did you just read the toddler book?

Jennifer: I’ve just got to the toddler book. When, when did you have them come out? I don’t know if it was while the pregnancy, but anyways, but yeah, like I part of me like I mentioned that I wish I had found the baby book, but I’ve been all over the, the toddler book.

So what resonates with me is that, you know, when all of a sudden you have three children under three and you just realize that you’re living life with less anyway, less time, less sleep, less patience. So you want to make the biggest impact in the limited time that you have so that you feel like you are doing something good for and with your baby or toddler, as you always say.

But in reality they really just need you and maybe some random stuff around the house. So when you can get that concise, impactful and practical information about their development and how to foster it without any crazy equipment or toys, it’s so, so empowering.

And then the philosophy is just such a great reminder of how it is those simple things and simple moments that matter the most. It’s quality over quantity. Which is what you got to work with when you’re, especially in some survival mode, whether that be because of premature birth or just life.

And you don’t need, you don’t need to break the bank to support their development. I wish I had found the books while the girls were babies, but I’ve been so appreciating the toddler book, especially as everybody gets older and busier. So currently I’ve been following along for their corrected age, and love how simple your suggestion was even just at 15 months old that adding in music doesn’t mean a full song. I think some people get really intimidated by music especially, I’m not that musically inclined. So just the reminder that you can just use one word and just change the intonation.

So the girls are loving if we’re making a tower just up, up, up, and then it’s just so funny to see that they look at me differently, they notice the activity’s different when I’m adding that in and just keeps them interested that much longer and adds a bit more excitement and they, they love it. And even though I’m a therapist that’s supposed to kind of know this stuff, you forget at the end of a long day or I haven’t been practicing for almost two years…

Ayelet: Right! When you’re the mom, it’s harder.

Jennifer: It’s so much harder. So to, like, have three or four pages a month to kind of turn to when I remember it, whenever I remember it, is really invaluable and so manageable and the suggestions are so incredibly easy to implement and it’s often just a tweak to what you’re doing to your daily routine anyway.

Ayelet: Yeah. Yeah. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Great. So what, what was it that made you feel that you even needed to find something like this? Like what do you feel like instigated that, that problem, I guess you could call it?

Jennifer: I think it was just like, yeah, that realization of just having no time and feeling… I think no matter what your background as a parent, you always have that nagging feeling in the back of your mind that, am I like, am I doing what I’m supposed to be doing? Am I doing enough? So I was just super intrigued that it was so simple.

And having had listened to you for a couple of years, I knew exactly where kind of all your approaches and your games and everything was coming from. And I, I especially loved that, just, you know, keep it simple. So I knew that I was completely in line with, with your philosophy and was just curious about what it looked like.

And to be honest too, I’m always looking for resources to give other parents and I like to have it fully know what that resource is and read it myself. So that I’m not just saying I think this is good, try it.

So it was partly just as a clinician knowing, okay, I like everything that she does on her podcasts. Let’s see what the books look like. They might be helpful for me, but then I’ll have a resource to recommend to other people.

Ayelet: Ah, excellent. That’s awesome. Well, let’s take just a brief break to hear a word from our sponsors and then we’re going to get a few tips from Jen about supporting early development with multiple young children who have different developmental needs, and we’re to hear her favorite resources for parents and caregivers who are interested in learning more about that.

Ayelet: Okay. Jennifer, let’s get into it. We would love to hear after all this crazy experience, what are your top tips for parents and caregivers who are hoping to better support their infants and toddlers? Whether their babies are developing along a typical progression or whether they’re at risk for delays or experiencing delays. So what are some of your best tips for families who need a boost of encouragement and confidence?

Jennifer: I think, well my number one tip I’ve got here in my notes in bold is just letting go of, you struggles sometimes as a new mom to let anyone do anything else for your baby. And it was so much easier the second time around when it was twins and they were premature and it was like literally I had no choice but to let it go and just take the help. Take all the help you can get, then ask for more.

I think sometimes it’s just getting over… I think it’s something that’s become cultural, especially in North America, that it feels like we’re supposed to do this… We’ve lost that village, we’re village-less. And when I really did embrace that village, this, this second time around, it was, it was so like it sounds cheesy but beautiful and refreshing to see how well grandma or auntie or uncle could care and love on my child. And it was a blessing to see those relationships flourish in a way that maybe I kind of blocked the first time.

Ayelet: Yeah. I so get that. I totally did the same thing the first time around and was totally less in control the second time around. But it is… I mean it’s really hard. In my perspective, it was really hard to accept that even though as I was trying to figure out how to do the things and feeling like I was doing them “right or wrong”, I was not able to just let go and accept that other people might do them and do them differently and it would be equally as okay and it would, you know, it would result in a deep connection with someone else in addition to me and that’s… it’s hard, though. It’s so hard.

Jennifer: Yeah, I think, you know, I think that first time like you get so protective that it feels like if you let someone kind of in and do the things that it’s like an “instead” kind of situation instead of an “and” so that they can have more beautiful connections instead of it taking from the one that you have. If that makes sense.

Ayelet: I think that’s perfect sense. Yeah.

Jennifer: So yes. So that’s the main tip is whether their preemies are new or you have to, or you have one. Just take the help, take all the freezer meals, take it all! And I guess just as an aside, I few people, other people have asked me when they have friends or family going through this situation where there’s a premature birth or just a mom going through a hard time and they always ask like what’s the best way to support someone going through that?

My number one tip is, you know, everyone, I know everyone always means so well and there was always so many people saying like “anything you need, just let me know.” But when you’re going through that, you don’t have kind of any, you don’t even know what you need. You don’t have any bandwidth or time to kind of reach out to set it up. So it’s more just like if you know someone’s going through something and you think you could do something helpful, just just do it. Even if it doesn’t end up being that helpful, I’m sure it is.

But they’ll, they’ll get the gesture or reach out to their partner or the grandma or the aunt that’s helping coordinate some things. Drop off a meal. Food is always good. Pay for a hospital parking pass a few people did where they gave us gift cards for say the coffee place that happens to be in the hospitals where mom’s at. So if she forgot a lunch or just kind of those simple little things that say, I’m thinking of you, because I remember sometimes my mom would ask me, what do you want me to make you for dinner? And I honestly couldn’t even, I couldn’t even tell her. I was like, just…

Ayelet: Whatever’s here. Put it in my mouth.

Jennifer: Yeah, exactly. Look, I couldn’t even come up with how to tell the person that’s living with me, helping me, to tell her what to make for dinner. It was, it was kind of that overwhelming. It was just like, I just know one, I’m going to pump, when I’m going to go to each hospital, what train I’m going to catch home, and I’ve got nothing else left.

Ayelet: … And that I need to put some sustenance in my body.

Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So don’t ask. Just do. So another piece, again, preemie parents or any parents, I think you might be waiting for me to give you all those great nuggets for the child, necessarily. But the more I learned in my OT practice, the more I keep finding that sometimes it’s so important to take care of you as the parent.

If you can’t be a calm, regulated, well taken care of parents, you can’t, you can’t give that to your child. So what I found huge for me while we were going through the NICU was was writing. Journaling. There’s so much research to support how your brain, it helps your brain kind of connect those dots, putting the story together, processing what’s happening to you when you retell your story.

Whether that’s you just read it down and no one ever reads it again. Or now that I’m further out in my journey, I’m sharing more of it on Instagram, hoping to reach other people that may have the same situation as me.

And I do find, and I honestly do think that I’m doing as well as I am with this process because of how much I’ve been able to kind of rehash it all and let my brain makes sense of what is happening. Write. Even if you don’t know what to write, just write what happened that day, write how you’re feeling in that moment.

And then gratitude is huge. Write down one thing you’re thankful for even if that day sucked. So that’s kind of a number. Another one that’s I found really huge in helping your child is helping you first.

Ayelet: So whatever that outlet is for you, whether it’s writing or taking pictures or meditating or whatever, or exercising, just taking a walk around the hospital or around the block. That’s, yeah, that’s important. Totally.

What about, yes, it is so hard to remember and when you’re in it, it can be hard to remember that it’s important. What about, because with your situation specifically, you were, you were managing two very different developmental stages and still are, as I am. What, what kind of tips do you have for parents and caregivers dealing with that?

Jennifer: I think the two biggest things is just really keeping things super simple. I did really want to talk about, you know, kind of how there is so much equipment out there that’s kind of pushed in your face, shoved in your face as something that’s “good” for your baby’s development or something that, you know, it’s so cute and it’s so pretty that you can’t help but register for it. I did, the first time around

Ayelet: They got you too, huh?

Jennifer: Yeah, they got me too. But then it was funny in a way because with twins and having preemies, a lot of the teams and doctors and therapists would actually say full out that that,, say an exer-saucer is not allowed for your preemie and a Jolly Jumper’s not allowed for your preemie.

So these were things that with my first, I used, still sparingly having my OT background, but they were kind of fun things that I would add to break up my day. And so I thought, how would I, how am I going to do this? Not using those things when I’m been told I’m not allowed. And I honestly didn’t even end up noticing it.

So just you know, all a baby needs to do when they get home is they need somewhere to sleep. They need to be fed, they need lots of snuggles, and they need a flat surface to play and they need your face.

And that’s pretty much it. Whether you have a premature baby or you have a full term baby, that’s it. So I really, really embraced that. Just flat… Give that baby’s body the ability to move and roll and respond to their own. And it was huge. And both my girls, even Olivia was walking by 12 months, corrected. And I did not do any extra mummy therapy.

I just made sure that I met that free play time, having a toddler run around, my number one did for anyone as baby number two is use a pack and play with the bassinet insert. So that way they’re kind of off the floor, and still cannot be reached by said toddler. So I had the twins in a twin sized pack and play for a good chunk of their first year up on that higher insert where they could play.

Maybe a mobile, maybe a book stuck on the side. They can look around and yeah, that was kind of that piece. And just using your daily routines to the most of your ability. Sometimes you know, just thinking of tummy time differently than when your baby’s just flat on their face, not liking it.

That tummy time is whether they’re lying on your face to cuddle or maybe tell me time is you have to take the baby from this room to that room, so you’re going to hold them, tummy down in a football hold or maybe it’s just every time you change their diaper, you think, okay, I’m going to flip you on your tummy right now for a few seconds. It’s kind of just building those things into your day that you’re already doing and not feeling like development needs to be something extra that you’re…Yes.

Ayelet: Oh yeah. Yes. So then just to clarify completely for everyone listening, like the tip literally was just work in the development into your day and the play into your day. You’re already doing it. It’s already happening. You just need to figure out how to maximize those moments.

And it’s with these little things like that tummy time stuff that you know you’re supposed to be doing, do it during caregiving routines or do it while you’re holding your baby in a football hold and your toddler is brushing their teeth and you’re singing a song about teeth. Right. Or counting or whatever. That’s how you address all of the development with the stuff that you’re already doing.

Jennifer: Exactly. Exactly.

Ayelet: Yeah. That’s awesome. What about a few favorite resources that you enjoy sharing with families? You mentioned that you like to collect good resources.

Jennifer: Um, well your books! And… there was something that I found after we left the NICU that I really wished, I had found when we were in, the website is called every tiny thing, and it’s a NICU nurse who has created specialized NICU journals for parents, and special milestone cards.

So I think sometimes in the NICU parents are kind of overly aware of all the “normal” things that other babies get to do and have like those cute milestone cards that say “I rolled over today” or like “I did this” or she’s made a set that you can kind of pop into your child’s isolette that’s maybe said, you know, like “I came off my breathing support today” and kind of make that a normal, beautiful thing.

I wish that I had known about that earlier. But if you know somebody who maybe is going through the same journey or you are going to be about to go through this journey, it would be a really cool resource.

I really love, I know you’ve interviewed her, Rachel Coley and CanDoKiddo, I’m always telling parents to go check out her Instagram or her website. She does that simple childhood development so well, as well. And if you do have any concerns about your child’s development, we use this one at work a lot. Pathways is a great organization.

Yeah, where they’ve got things right down to those videos of saying normal motor development versus atypical so that you can actually see some of those differences. And just really helped inform yourself if you do have some of those concerns. I’m trying to think of what other books I’m really into right now. I’m a big audio book junkie.

Ayelet: Hmmmm, good.

Jennifer: Cause I find with three kids, the only time I can quote unquote read is when I’m listening while doing dishes and things like that. Yeah. The whole Brain Child by Dan Siegel is a really great, that’s a great one. That’s a really great resource. I think that’s it off the top of my head.

Ayelet: Excellent. Did I tell you that I’m now just starting to release the books in weekly email slash audio book form based on where you are and where your child is you get that week or that corrected age, week, whatever you put in. And then you get it as an email wherever your child is and you get a downloadable audio as well. And that’s, that’s…

Jennifer: That’s amazing.

Ayelet: Sound good? Excellent. And then you get, you also receive a link to a video and then a place where like a members area where you can also engage with other videos and post your own and see other examples of other families engaging with the curriculum.

Jennifer: Oh, that’s amazing. That community piece is so huge to kind of just be able to see what other people are doing and just chat about, Hey, this is where I’m at. This is how I’m doing it and share. It’s, that’s huge. That’s amazing that you’re doing that.

Ayelet: All right. Well Jan, thank you so much for being here and thanks to all of our participants of the Learn With Less Curriculum Online Program who are listening live. We are going to continue the discussion and open up for a Q and a session for you guys in just a minute, but for everyone listening from home or on the go, thank you so much for joining us and we will see you next time.

The post From Pediatric Occupational Therapist to Surviving The NICU with Three Under Three, with Jennifer Russell appeared first on Learn With Less.

In this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet is joined by Sarah Reppenhagen, a licensed occupational therapist who has worked in a variety of pediatric settings, including Early Intervention, outpatient clinics, and inpatient hospitals. 

Sarah’s passion lies in supporting young children and families to set the foundation for greater participation in life. She believes that all children have innate capabilities and the desire to engage with the people and environment around them. Supporting children’s emerging skills, as well as bolstering parent understanding during early development, sets the stage for further learning. 

We discuss Sarah’s background and how she came to do the work she’s doing today, the definition of “self-regulation” and why it’s important to consider ways to support it in both parents and children, how our kids’ regulation and behavior is often a mirror of our internal state, the “stories” we tell ourselves about what our children’s behavior means… actually affects our ability to support them, and, of course, top tips and resources for supporting our children and ourselves through co-regulation.

Fostering Healthy Social and Emotional Development in Young Children (Tips For Families)

Promoting Self-Regulation in the First Five Years (Duke University Center For Child and Family Policy)

Pathways.org

Still Face Experiment with Dr. Edward Tronick

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Sarah: Website / Facebook /

Ayelet: Today, I’m speaking with Sarah Reppenhagen, a pediatric occupational therapist and the founder of Gather and Grow, which is a pediatric practice supporting infants through preschool age children and their families, located in Portland, Oregon. Sarah’s passions lie in supporting development from the start, at a time when young brains are growing immensely and adults are evolving in their roles as parents.

Sarah believes that children have innate capabilities and the desire to engage with the people and environment around them, while parents have an intrinsic drive to connect with their child and nurture their growth. So, fostering children’s emerging skills as well as bolstering parent understanding during early development sets the stage for further learning and participation in life.

And Sarah, as you know, the work that both you and I are doing, it’s so much about, you know, how do we get our children to do these things? How do we boost our children’s development, how do we do this and that… And we also know that so much of it is about educating the parents. So I just love how you put that, and the focus that you have on parent education. So I want to thank you for being here!

Sarah: Thanks so much. I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean parents are the most influential factor in their child’s development and so yeah, bolstering their understanding and you know, they are the experts in their children, but sometimes they get to have a little bit more support to fully, yeah, support their kids’ development.

Ayelet: Yeah, exactly. And I love how you say that because anytime someone introduces me as a parenting expert, I cringe. It’s like nails on a chalkboard because… It’s not us. We are not parenting experts. I have two kids, I hope to be the expert on my two kids, but they are constantly evolving. But yeah, you’re the only expert on your children.

Sarah: Exactly. Exactly.

Ayelet: That’s what you’re trying to get to. Right, so I asked you to come onto the show today to speak to us about how to change your child’s behavior and what that has to do with the term self-regulation. But first, I just would love to hear a bit more about you and how you got into this, the work that you’re doing today.

Sarah: Yeah, so I have always been interested in child development for as long as I can remember. I started out babysitting early on in life and was always fascinated by kids, how kids really grow and develop into full fledged humans. And so I, you know, went to undergrad for child and family development and then pursued occupational therapy. And I’ve been practicing for, gosh, I think it’s 14 years now.

I’ve been in pediatrics the whole time, kind of in a variety of different settings. But I’ve really focused in on those early years through my work in early intervention and working in the neonatal intensive care unit, working closely with families and that environment. And yeah, just the opportunity to really work with just the child, but knowing that we’re not just focusing on the discrete abilities that a child has, it’s really about supporting the whole unit, which is, which includes the family.

Ayelet: Absolutely. All right. So let’s talk about this term “self-regulation.” How do you define it and why is it important to consider ways to support it in both parents and in children?

Sarah: Yeah, so self regulation is the way that we control our thoughts and our feelings and our behaviors. And it’s really important to develop that skill and it develops over a lifetime. So we’re born with, you know, some biology that supports that, you know, including temperament and our sensory processing abilities.

But really the bulk of that development happens over the lifespan, and even into adulthood, we are constantly working on our own self regulation and our kids give us a perfect opportunity to continue that development.

Ayelet: Well said.

Sarah: And so, so yeah, kids, especially little ones really rely on us to support their self regulation and that term, supporting another person’s self-regulation, is called co-regulation. And it’s really just this dynamic process of how one really influences the other. Yeah. But that self regulation is just so key to resiliency, long-term health, it has predictive factors for educational success, career success, relationships.

So relationships with our loved ones, but also, you know, how our own kids, the skills they’re learning now will support them in their own marriages and then when they become, if and when they become parents in the future. So it’s a pretty big deal, a pretty important thing to support. But in order to do that, we get to work on our own self regulation, and there’s times we do it better than others. For sure. I know for myself sometimes I got it down and other times I’m like, okay, I can’t really go regulate my kid if I… If the wheels are falling off in my own head.

Ayelet: Yes. And thank you for saying that because I think all too often we hear like, “don’t yell at your kid. It’s horrible for your kid.” And I hope that that’s not what people are taking away from this conversation, right? Of course it’s so important that we try, as we can, to regulate our own emotions, and that’s hard! So true. And actually in so doing, when we model that we’re not perfect and that nobody is perfect, that’s actually a great weight off of them in many ways.

If we can take the opportunity to show them that, “okay, I’m really sorry for yelling, maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Here’s a better way that I could do it next time. Now let’s talk about what we need to do, which is to get our shoes on and get into the car,” whatever it is, which that just happened to me yesterday. And then just giving them that opportunity to show them how our actions impact ourselves and each other, and that us noticing how we impact and how we notice that our actions impact each other.

So, okay, I would love to hear more about how our kids regulation and behavior is often a mirror of our own internal state. And when we were in discussion about having you come onto the show, you wrote something to me that really stood out and I just going to read it here cause I just think it’s so right on. You suggested that we talk about how the stories we tell ourselves about what our children’s behavior means actually affects our ability to support them. So let’s dig into this. Tell our listeners about what you mean by that.

Sarah: Yeah. So let’s, let’s go back to the mirror part first and that will lead into the story part. So, you know, on a biological level, we have these great brain cells called mirror neurons that allow us really to be great at co-regulating. And really what it does is allow us to be empathetic. So we have these mirror neurons at birth and they allow us to read somebody else’s emotions – from a primal level, really just to know if that person is a safe person or someone to, you know, be careful of.

Kids, even early, tiny little babies have this inborn ability to read our emotions as parents and often times respond by mirroring how we are feeling. And we have that ability to do the same for them. So you know, when a baby is crying, we reach down and we pick them up and we look in their eyes and we comfort them and we console them.

We might, you know, our voice might drop down, we might do some slow rocking movement. We do all of these things to come and soothe them, and they adopt our emotional state so they mirror our emotional state. Sometimes, you know, if we’re in a frantic mood and, or for, sorry, frantically running around and there’s a lot going on and we’re distracted, we might not have the same capacity to do that. And so that baby oftentimes or young child oftentimes can kind of read that we are disconnected and they might be acting out a little bit more than they ordinarily would and we also might have less capacity to soothe them in the moment. It might take a little longer or take more effort or be less successful.

And the other cool thing is that when we are successful as parents in soothing and calming and meeting our kids’ emotional needs, we get our own little dopamine hit that feels good. Like, Hey, I’m effective, I’m doing this really well, which then improves our own self regulation. And it’s kind of just this ongoing cycle that can positively really reinforce the other. There’s an interesting experiment that was done years ago, a “still face” experiment. I’m not sure if you’ve seen this, but it’s basically a baby…

Ayelet: I have – we’ll put it in the show notes cause that’s great.

Sarah: Yeah, it is fascinating. And it just illustrates really how even at a very young age, children can pick up on the emotional state of the caregiver and you know, mirror that emotional state. It’s pretty cool stuff.

Ayelet: Yeah, I know they recently did or there there’s been sort of replications of that where they did it with like a parent looking at their phone instead of just looking at the child. Which of course also has implications about when we’re distracted and looking at our phones instead of engaging with our children, we’re not able to co-regulate, right. And they’re often looking to us for help or attention or you know, power or whatever it is. And when we’re distracted, which of course we’re going to be in moments… Like this is the nature of our lives right now, but just to be more aware of what effect that has on our own children.

So, yeah. And I wanted to also going back to like, that’s mirroring like that, the dopamine hit of when we are effective. I had personally just such a hard time in my second with infancy because my second had silent reflux and he was just so physically uncomfortable. And until we sort of got it under control and figured out what was going on, he was just inconsolable. And I had never had that experience with my first, because I always got that dopamine hit and I could soothe him in different ways.

The implication of that for parents who are dealing with a colicky baby or medical issues of any kind and sensory issues when it’s really hard to decrease the stimulation and, and really help your child to regulate himself or herself, like, it is so hard. But keep going and keep trying and get to the bottom of it.

Sarah: Yeah, and that’s a great point. I mean there are times when there is an underlying situation that is making regulation hard. You know, there’s like skill based, like maybe they don’t have the skills yet developmentally or maybe there’s an underlying medical condition going on. Maybe they process sensory information differently and they can get easily overwhelmed.

And so if some of these co-regulation strategies that we’ll talk about, you’re feeling like, man, this is not helping, I’m not feeling effective, then it might be a good idea to kind of look at, dig a little deeper and see if there might be some other underlying reason for this and kind of get some extra help onboard for your kid but also for yourself because it can be really hard, as you know, when you don’t feel effective as a caregiver in consoling and soothing and co-regulating your child.

Ayelet: Absolutely. Well, Sarah, this is so exciting. We’re going to take just a brief break to hear a word from our sponsors and then we’re going to hear a few tips and strategies from Sarah about this very topic about co-regulation and then we’ll hear about her favorite resources for parents and caregivers interested in learning more.

Ayelet: Okay, Sarah, let’s get into it. We would like to hear your top tips for parents and caregivers who are hoping to better support their infants and toddlers and themselves through co-regulation.

Sarah: Yeah. So you hit it right on the head. It’s about, you know, supporting both, regulation. So I would say first and foremost is put your oxygen mask on. Really take care of yourself, because you’re going to be really the most effective at supporting your child’s regulation if you yourself are regulated. And nobody is regulated at all times, like many times throughout the day, you will notice your own personal rollercoaster.

But you know, if there’s practices that you have that allow you and that you know, support your own self regulation, then engage in those. So mindfulness, meditation, connecting with nature, you know, making sure that your biological needs are met and have you, are you eating and sleeping and getting exercise. I mean those are things that you’re making sure that your child gets, but also make sure that you are getting those as well.

And then you know, really in terms of supporting your child is… There’ve been a lot of studies that really support and show that, you know, coming from a place of warmth and sensitivity has such a huge, tremendous impact on self regulation. So again, it’s not like necessarily, I mean there’s strategies that you can put in place, but it’s your way of being and how you are showing up with your child that really best supports them and less about like the specific doing pieces.

Ayelet: Getting the background together, right?

Sarah: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then just looking at the environment, you know, are there things in the environment that maybe creating stress for your child or for yourself? Those things might need to kind of be switched up, depending on the day, and your child’s tolerance for that. Looking for those early signs of dysregulation. Kind of going back to that technology piece, it’s all a part, it’s a part of all of our lives as you said, but I’m really looking at that having a potential impact on your ability to get those early cues of dysregulation.

Sometimes we’re distracted and then, like I said, the wheels are sort of falling off and and things are, yeah, things are falling apart, but if you can catch those earlier cues, it’s a much easier to support that regulation and then just really hold space for your kids’ big emotions, like it’s okay for them to feel those things. It’s really an important part of their development and it doesn’t always mean that there’s something that’s wrong with them.

You know, sometimes we do make up those stories about what their behaviors mean, and it doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with them or that there’s something wrong with you. It’s just a natural part of how we operate as humans. It’s one of the beautiful things that makes us human. So, allow for those big emotions and take note in yourself like, what’s coming up for me when my kid is having a total tantrum? Am I mirroring their emotion? And what can I do to self regulate in this moment so that I can best support them?

Ayelet: Yeah, I was just going to say that I find that trying to understand the underlying sort of “reason” of why my little ones, like what they actually need, what’s the underlying need can be really helpful for me because it’s, it’s like, okay, he needs more attention right now. He actually needs more connection with me, or if he needs to feel power over, you know, where he’s eating the food.

I did an, I had an Instagram post recently about like my older one was heading off to camp on my, and I was packing a lunch box and my younger one was like refusing to sit down at the table and eat his breakfast and was just pointing out the lunchbox and talking about the lunchbox. And I was like, okay, well here I’ll put some food in another lunchbox and he can stand and graze and eat his breakfast that way. And he did.

So figuring out what is the need, and serving that need for both of you in a way that is acceptable to both of you. And sometimes it does take getting out of the, you know, looking outside of the box in many ways. But that’s a great way to regulate our own emotions and figure out, you know, what’s going on from my kid and how can I meet him where he is to figure out how we can both be happy.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s so true. I mean it’s about like looking at that behavior as a way of communication versus, you know, creating a story or placing a judgment on what the behavior feels like or is. And I think just generally having age expected, having age appropriate expectations for your kid.

I think sometimes we forget that our kids are just still learning and even if they’ve shown that they, you know, have developed, done at once kind of right or done it really well once, it doesn’t mean that they always transfer that skill to another context or can do it the next day. It takes them so many times, it takes like thousands of hours to like learn to stand, it takes thousands of hours to learn and reinforce this emotional development as well.

Ayelet: And like you said, it’s still happening for all of us. We are… there are so many factors, you know, are involved in how well we can do it like sleep and how fed we are and you know, all of those things. So. Okay. That’s awesome. So what are a few of your favorite resources that you like sharing with families?

Sarah: Yeah, I mean one of my favorite resources just for general development, but that does touch on social emotional development is pathways.org and they have a lot of really great free online resources for families. I also, I know that you recently did an interview with Dr. Laura Markham. I’m a big fan of hers. I think she’s got some great resources around, you know, social/emotional regulation. So she is a really good support. I mean, there’s so many amazing…

You, right? There’s so many amazing people out there that support parents and, you know, I think it’s finding those people that really speak to you, and the way that you want to parent. So there’s not necessarily like one, right. And one specific person to follow or to act as your guide. It usually takes a village and a community.

There is, if you want to learn a little bit more about this specific topic, I can send you a link. But Duke Center for Child and Family Policy has some really good resources, to learn a little bit more about self regulation in general and how to co-regulate as parents.

Ayelet: Yeah, and we’ll link to the, we’ll do that in the show notes as well if this episode. That’s awesome. Sarah, this has been so helpful. Thank you so much and thank you to all of our participants of the Learn With Less™ Curriculum online program who are here listening live. We’ll continue the discussion and open up for a Q and A session with you guys in just a minute, but for everyone listening from home or on the go, thanks so much for joining us and we will see you next time.

The post How To Change Your Child’s Behavior (And Why You Might Need To Change Your Own), with Sarah Reppenhagen appeared first on Learn With Less.