Learn With Less

In this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet chats with Anton Marinovich, her very own partner in parenting.

We cover:

• Anton’s own challenges as a new dad
• The journey into his self-identity as a father
• His own perspective on the first few years of fatherhood (and his concept of “the tunnel”)
• How he started noticing his baby’s behavior
• What led to him understanding his babies

Join us for this special episode by listening on your favorite podcast player or reading the transcript below.

Ayelet: Welcome to episode 77 of the Learn With Less podcast. It’s nearly Father’s Day, and I wanted to take a moment to recognize my parenting partner. I also thought it might be a nice way for you guys to get a sense of the other half of my team in real life… because, as you know, when I’m not creating podcast episodes and working, I’m momming two young children.

This episode is dedicated to celebrate the role of your co-parent or co-caregiver. Because whether you are parenting with or without a partner, whether you are a dad, have a dad (or have three), or whether your children have no dads… whether you lost your dad, have a complicated relationship with your dad, or have the best dad in the world, none of us is raising children in isolation. So I hope you’ll take this opportunity, as I have, to thank the person or people who are helping you get through the day.

Today, I’m speaking with my husband, Anton Marinovich. I’d love to introduce him to you, and let him tell you his story. He’ll share a few of his own words of wisdom, things he’s learned along the way, his own challenges, and the way he has learned to understand his young children.

Ayelet: Hi Husband.

Anton: Hi, Wife.

Ayelet: So I’m sitting here with my husband, Anton Marinovich, and usually on the Learn With Less podcast, we start by giving a little bit of background information about who my guest is and how they came into doing what they’re doing, or being who they are, in all their fabulousness.

So, because this is a feature on fathers and partners, I’d love to just sort of chat with you today about how that all came to be, and your experience as a father thus far in our parenting journey together. So, will you tell the listeners a little bit about, you know, who you are and what you came into fatherhood with. What were your sort of initial… Right before everything went down, what were some of the things that you were excited about and what were the, if you can recall, the hopes and dreams that you had coming into fatherhood.

Anton: Okay. That’s quite a bit. Let’s start from the top a little bit about myself. So, I’m your husband and my, I guess professional career, has been in sales, primarily sales management and leadership roles in tech companies. I think if I was to start with, like, fatherhood, I would say that probably the, maybe it’s the first time or your first child was pretty nerve wracking.

I mean we had a lot going on in a lot of big changes. We had just gotten married and then we moved and I switched jobs, and all of those things. And then here was like that you’re going to become a dad and all that was kind of converging all at once.

Ayelet: Right. I mean we, we moved not only like to the next town over, we moved across the pond from California to the UK. Right.

Anton: Right. And switching jobs and so all that dramatic change. And so I think probably initially I think I was very fearful of just what it all meant. You know, there was a little bit too much change for me to handle at once. But once you get through that, then I think it started to get more and more real about the fact that I was going to become a dad.

So instead of having that level of insecurity of ‘am I going to be a good father or not?’ I think it became more of a point of embracing the fact that I was moving onto the next phase of my life, if you will. You know, it’s like it’s just everything kind of happens in a step. And I saw that as a, as a step.

And I would say that like my hopes and dreams, I don’t know. I think when you were pregnant and when we were about to have our first son, I don’t think it was so much, you know, after you get over that kind of initial fear then it was more, and I wasn’t really thinking about like, ‘Oh, what kind of dad am I going to be?’ Or like, ‘oh this is going to play sports and stuff.’

I think it turned out to be more of like, you know, I want to make sure that the, you know, hopefully the pregnancy goes smooth and I hope I can support you through the birthing process as well as possible. And I hope we have a healthy baby and I hope, you know, we’re able to adapt to the changes that you know, having a baby will bring. So maybe a bit more rational in that thought process. So…

Ayelet: I don’t think you’re alone in that.

Anton: Yeah, I probably had some dreams and hopes in it, but I think with just everything going on, it was a bit more of like, no, let’s focus on the tangibles and the things that I can deal with right now. And not try to get lost in the future. 

Ayelet: Well, and that’s, I mean those in fact are actually quite intangible. Those are the things that you feel like you’d like to have control over, which of course you don’t. All right, so baby comes, we get back home. My mom was there with us. Staying with us for the first few weeks. What were some of those initial feelings of… What you were experiencing? What was happening as far as fatherhood?

Because I think, you know, there’s a lot about like, okay, well the transition into motherhood, the… Things change, of course a lot for the mom. Obviously, you know, physically there’s all kinds of things to adapt to, whether or not you choose or can, or are having an easy or hard time with breastfeeding and all of the sleep and all of that stuff. Like what were some of those things for you that changed or you were grappling with?

Anton: I think it was that, I think I’m a bit routine-driven, right? And so that was a whole dramatic change to the routine. And it’s like how do you compensate for that while you’re still, you know, again, being very rational, hey, I’m building out a business and I’m hiring people and managing them and changing the way that they do things. And you know, Oh God.

Also my whole home life is different. And like, oh wait a sec, we just can’t go out on Friday nights anymore. And you know, I’ll get in a beer with the guys and Saturday night. Like that’s probably not a good idea, seeing that I’m probably gonna wake up like five times during the night with you or whatever it’s going to be. So those little things were an interesting change that you just had to cope with. But at the same time, it was also like, okay, you know, my family needs me.

So maybe it’s more of, you know, something nestled into our DNA or just that deep kind of, you know, I want to support and provide kind of mentality. So I was like, okay, you know what, those things aren’t so important anymore. It’s about being on-call and just trying to support you and the baby through that process because I can’t really give anything more than just support because you know, you really had gone to, you know, that whole dramatic change.

Here’s this whole new life that’s like, where the hell am I? And so that’s… I felt like probably the best role that I could do is just being that support mechanism, both physically and mentally. I think I did an okay job though.

Ayelet: I think you did a great job. You’ve had many friends since become first-time dads. Have any of them asked for like advice or your thoughts or what should I be aware of or something like that?

Anton: Yeah, I think most of the time it’s more of like, what do I have to be aware of? Like going on with my wife. Like how do I support my wife? Or what do I need to know? Like, does the baby really like get up that many times or… You know, what do you do in the baby’s crying?

So I think for, at least from my network of friends who have become fathers, no one’s really said, like, what does it feel to be a dad? It’s more very tactical. Everything’s like tactical, tactical questions. No, like, philosophical things. It’s just how much longer do I need to, you know… When do you start really seeing the baby sleep through the night, right. And this kind of stuff.

Ayelet: So what is the, I mean, knowing what you know now and having been through it with two very different tiny humans, what kinds of things do you like to say to new parents to your buddies? 

Anton: Well, I think it’s, I think it’s the concept of the tunnel or I’ve also heard the term of the baby fog.

Ayelet: Yeah. So will you explain that to our listeners? Because I’ve mentioned that you’ve said… 

Anton: I don’t know if I necessarily coined the term, if I heard it from someone, but that feeling of, you know, you have the baby and you know, and as, as the partner who didn’t give birth, you know, I’m back at work, so you’re going through your routine, but then at home you’re kind of dealing with this whole new dynamic.

And so life starts feeling like it’s passing you by so fast because you’re just completely exhausted and you’re basically, you know, you have your work, but then you have your home work if you will. And so it just feels like you’re really in this tunnel and you’re just kind of running down this tunnel and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you know, you just can’t grab it.

You keep on, you can’t grab it, you keep on running towards it. And then finally, you know, maybe it’s this milestone that the baby gets, you know, six hours of straight sleep or it just, something kind of happens in that dynamic or the baby passes a certain, again, milestone that all of a sudden it’s like, oh my God, wow, I’m out of the tunnel.

Like how long has it been like, Oh God, three months or four months? Like, oh Geez, this is unreal. Well, where’s life gone? Like what? What do you mean? Like, Oh, you know, it’s just life passes you by so fast because you literally have tunnel vision. And so that’s the concept of living in the tunnel or being in the tunnel. Yes. 

Ayelet: Just to be clear, neither of our two children and slept through the night. No. By three or four months.

Anton: No, I shouldn’t say by sleeping through the night. But I mean like, you know, you get that stretch. Yeah. Or maybe it’s something that your body adapts to it, but there’s just like this kind of change that happens. Uh, and maybe it’s just, you know, just both partners get a… And I don’t know exactly, I can’t say the exact point, but there is this just stays where all of a sudden you see color again.

Ayelet: Yeah. It’s like going black and white to color. Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

Anton: I think with both of ours there’s about three or four months. No, just the saying that being in the tunnel.

Ayelet: I’ve heard you describe it as the first year. 

Anton: Yeah. Yes. But there’s this, the initial first three or four months though is where it’s really crazy. Like that’s where you really deep maybe like five, like five like you know, stories deep underground kind of tunnel. 

Ayelet: Inception, five levels in. Yeah. Right. Amazing. Yeah. Okay, cool. All right. So you get out of the little tunnel early, maybe you get out of the deepest, darkest depths of the tunnel and then your baby maybe is like starting to be more interactive. And so obviously with my work, like, it’s all about that interaction and the focus of, of what you can do with your baby and what you are already doing. And, and how you can maximize that time with the time that you’re already spending.

So for me, that was the piece of early parenthood that came very naturally to me. What were some of the… what was that like for you as just as far as interacting with your tiny baby? Was it something that you ever struggled with or questioned whether you were, you know, doing the right things or enough things or had the right tools or anything like that? Like what, what was I guess the biggest challenge when it came to connecting with our little ones when they were teeny tiny? And what were those sort of struggles for you? Do you remember?

Anton: I mean, I think you have to jog my memory a little bit. You know, it wasn’t all that long ago, but it feels like it was like so long ago. I would say that I, I mean again, going back to like that being the support mechanism, I feel like I wish it was around maybe around nine months probably with both that, you know, I was able to engage with them. Of course, I love them. And I’m going to hold them and I’m going to do, you know, everything I can. But then there was this change where you can actually engage with him a bit further. Where your reactions are getting like in, I mean you’re always getting some kind of reactions, but you read it better.

And maybe it’s also, you know, the fact of, you know, they’re getting older or getting a little stronger and you’re not so worried about something happening to them. You know, you’ve been, grown accustomed to the routine to having a baby that it kind of changes then from, you know, Oh, I’m going to be the supporter-provider to like, Oh wow, I’m a father, this is my child. And you kind of feel those initial points of, of relationship building where you’re actually building relationship and it’s becoming or feels like anyways, it’s more of a two way street and just a one way street of you do, you know, come on, come on please, please look at me. You, oh, I think he’s finally, you smiled, oh yeah, yeah yeah! Oh no, I think he farted, oh. That’s why he smiled.

Ayelet: There’s a big gap in that timeline between like say six weeks and nine months.

Anton: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.

Ayelet: So, do you feel like within that gap that that was a difficult time, a more difficult time or a more challenging time as far as… 

Anton: Well, I dunno, you know, it may, say, maybe circumstances would have been different had we like, you know, we had both children after two major like kind of career and like Trans-Atlantic moves. So there was already, like, we moved with our first son, you know, we okay, you know, what will it’s not change countries and switch jobs when we have the second one. And then we had the second one, we did the same thing again.

So there was a lot of stuff going around that for your own personal sake, it takes a couple months to then feel settled again. So maybe if those circumstances were a little bit different, I’d feel a little bit more grounded, but you know, there was just a lot of chaos going on at once and we had a lot to deal with. But in hindsight I still, you know, I don’t think I would’ve changed either cause I think it made us stronger as a couple and oh, sorry. You know, how does understand our children even more so too.

Ayelet: Well, so what, what were some of those things as far as starting to understand your babies?

Anton: Yeah, I think it’s the start getting clued into the power of noticing behavior. I think that’s one thing. I mean, you know, when you’re around people and you get older, I mean I think you’ve spent a lot of time focusing on what people say and what they do, but not really the behavior behind it or what’s driving it, and with the child, they’re so, or a baby anyways. It’s so simple, right? It’s so pure. Everything is pure about it.

Ayelet: Sure. And it’s not verbal yet, either. So what were some of the things that you can remember noticing that taught you about your son’s behavior or your son’s preferences or needs or desires or even what, what he was interested in?

Anton: Well, you learned that there’s a lot of different tools around you to, to help your child. I think that the things I started noticing is how he notices the world around him. And that is like for instance, where we were living when our first son was born. You know, we weren’t too far from an airport and you know, an airplane coming not only is something visual that you could see but also makes a sound. And I forget at what stage or how old he was when he started realizing or understanding, you know, what that meant in… 

Ayelet: Connecting the thing in the sky, yeah. 

Anton: To the sound. Yeah. And then do you remember how we used to put him in his rocker and he could look out the window and then you’d see them all flying over and you know, be content with that. That was a very interesting thing. And then also came with cars, right?

So we’re living in a city and yeah, I think that’s the next thing about it, right? You’re living in a city, you know? Yes. We have like regional parks around us, but it’s not like we had a nice luscious backyard or anything else. We were living in a building that was like kind of, you know, an apartment complex and you know, what are the things around him? Well, it’s glass, it’s doors, it’s concrete, it’s cars, it’s people walking, it’s buses, it’s airplanes, it’s subways and…

Ayelet: It’s the hub-bub.

Anton: Yeah. And you know, and you could see then as he got older, that was where the initial biggest points of interest that he had and some of his earlier words for those things.

Ayelet: Yeah. He was super interested in vehicles of all kinds. Yeah. 

Anton: Right, right. I mean, I remember I used to sit him at the corner at the top of Radipole Road and we’d just sit there and watch, you know, the buses and the taxis come by. I think he was what maybe about…

Ayelet: About a year old.

Anton: Yeah, a little bit older. I think about 15, 16 months. I mean, he would just do that and he’d be so content with that for a while.

Ayelet: And every time he’d see one, like a van, he’d go, ” VAN, VAN!”

Anton: Yeah, the Mini Cooper, you know, out of the blue was like one of the like…

Ayelet: The mini pooper.

Anton: Yeah. Oh yes. But I guess, yeah, you’re a combination of influence of, of the environment around him.

Ayelet: Yeah. And what, and his, his own development, right.

Anton: His own interests. 

Ayelet: Yeah. Had we been on a farm, it would’ve been a much different thing, or a village or even in Suburbia, you know, it would’ve been much different.

Anton: Yeah, that’s true.

Ayelet: Or which of course then would’ve been a totally different set of vocabulary. Or maybe it would have been animals. Right. Who knows. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, exactly. That influence of the environment and his own interests. But it’s also you reading what his interests were, right?

Anton: Yeah. And picking up on that. Yes. And being able to…

Ayelet: And reinforcing.

Anton: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a fun thing. And then Number Two doesn’t seem to be as like interested in cars. You know, here we are living in the suburbs now and he isn’t as interested in cars…

Ayelet: He’s into cars, but…

Anton: But you know, not like, you driving down the street where the, our first child would literally call out like the, the make of that car, he started knowing like an Audi to a Ford. 

Ayelet: Right, right, right. 

Anton: A Honda.

Ayelet: A little bit crazy. Yeah. What do you feel like were some of our second’s early interests and how did you determine what those were?

Anton: Uh, his, his initial: balls. I think a lot of that was, was also driven that our first son started getting really into soccer, or at least I had an interest about it. A very, you know, he’s still quite young but like bombs at a very young age of, of wanting to kick around a soccer ball. 

Ayelet: Which of course is like, the two of us are like some of the lease athletic people you might find.

Anton: Yeah. I mean, I’m interested in sports. But yes. But I’m not very athletic, but yeah. And I think, you know, initially for, for our second child, you know how much, I mean he’s still does, you know, there’s, you can put a lot of different toys in front of him, but he will always kind of gravitate towards a ball. It’s his first or second choice. And, and I think that… 

Ayelet: And he points out basketball hoops all the time. He’s almost two and a half now.

Anton: Yeah. Yeah. And we just reinforced that a lot because obviously it’s very easy to get a ball or find something that’s circular.

Ayelet: Right! Ooh, talk more about that. I love that.

Anton: So you would find, you know, rocks, circular rocks, balls that may go to other type of toys and so forth. Yeah.

Ayelet: The dryer ball is one that comes to mind.

Anton: Yeah, I forgot that one. Yeah, that one too.

Ayelet: Yeah. We already have so many of them. Yeah, I’d love that you said like anything round. I mean we’ve even like crumpled up newspaper and thrown it into something round like a bowl. 

Anton: Or bottle caps, bottle caps, he loves, and that was a circular thing.

Ayelet: Yeah, it can roll, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then that also, it’s interesting because that like interest in a ball or something that’s round and that rolls is actually something that he seems to be interested in shapes naturally, quite early as well. Sure. Yeah. And he would say circle and, and then we would then reinforce that with other shapes that we saw in the environment or found in the environment.

Anton: Yeah. And then I think also, you know, going back to balls and shapes, it’s led him to have an interest in numbers.

Ayelet: How do you think?

Anton: Well, you know, for instance, like some of his favorite books are number books or a clock for instance. Right? It’s circular.

Ayelet: Mm. Interesting!

Anton: And then there’s numbers in the middle, right? Like at my parents’ house, I remember we had that kind of stage where he would constantly want to go to my parents like grandfather clock and then just look at the clock, but then try to, you know, you’d tell them what the numbers are. And then he’d be like, you know, three, five, eight, nine, seven, 12 but he just would be so happy doing that.

And then, but then looking at clocks with numbers has led him now in general though, I find it’s like even when you walk around and there’s house numbers, right. You know, so like with number four, four, eight, six. Yeah, I think it was like, you know, kind of one step to another step to another step.

Ayelet: Right. But I think the key there is that I find that I’ve always enjoyed watching you naturally support is his natural interest. That they’re both of them, their natural interests instead of, you know, thinking that you needed to drill him or tell him that. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Anton: I dunno. I think of, well, I mean a lot of it also has to probably go to the way that I was raised and my parents never forced anything on me. Right. It was always, if I had an interest in it, then they supported that interest and then if I stopped interest, then it was okay. Yeah, yeah. I went to things from playing sports to playing piano and so forth.

So I feel like, I think just naturally I’d want to do the same for, for our kids. I know you’re very much like that too, so we both, you know, it’s not like one of us is pushing one angle and the other one’s not. It’s, you know, we both very much, you know, understand and see when they play and they get, they gravitate towards something and try to talk to him about it or play with him on it and then see if that continues.

Because, also sometimes their interest is kind of short lived too. But then you find through that repetition that they find the things that are like, okay, wow, they’re, they’re really like, again to being our second son with balls. You could still pull that out. It’s like, yeah, okay. Yeah, ball. All right. All right. Yeah. Look what I’m going to do with this ball. Now, actually it gets a little dangerous because now he’s really like realizing how to throw a ball.

Ayelet: Oh yeah, definitely! 

Anton: In the early days it was, it was easy.

Ayelet: Right? But so how do you redirect? What do you do when he wants to throw a ball?

Anton: Teach him that it’s more about rolling a ball inside and the fun that you can have rolling it and throwing it while throwing it is an outside sport. 

Ayelet: And when he insists that he wants to throw it?

Anton: Then, we get on our shoes and go on outside.

Ayelet: There ya go! So what are, what are some of the things for you that have really stood out as far as your early fatherhood? Like what were some of the surprises as far as what fatherhood actually was, versus what you thought it might be like? 

Anton: Hmm. That’s a good question. I don’t, I think my surprises was more about myself than, than anything else. And maybe that’s because you just never know what kind of father you’re going to be until you’re a father. And it’s just, it’s funny things like, you know, I remember when we were, when our first son was born, right. Just being really nervous about being in a taxi cab with him and is he going to be safe and you know, and these things that I would just never ever care about before or think about before. So it was like that heightened level of anxiety level. 

Ayelet: It wasn’t something you thought about every day in your 20s…

Anton: Yes. So those little things, but then you know, being a parent like you know, okay, I could tell that I don’t have a lot of patience for this, but then these other areas I do see I have a lot of patience for it.

Ayelet: What are some of the things for you that you struggle with patience-wise? Especially with the sort of infant, toddler age group?

Anton: I mean the infant-toddler, I would say that it was…

Ayelet: First three years.

Anton: I would say. It’s just, just the coping and the understanding of when they’re upset about something or you want them to be happy or you’re like, I don’t understand. Like you know, you’re not an infant anymore. I just fed you. We just played a great game. Where are you still upset? Like, where are you crying or why did you just bite your brother? Uh, you know, those little things. Yeah. Yeah. Good. I think when you’re just an adult, you’re kind of like, come on two year old, why can’t you act like an adult? I think you have to take a step back and say, you know what? No, you’re two years old. What am I thinking? 

Ayelet: Yeah, yeah. Your brain is actually a little bit different. Yeah.

Anton: But those, those, those, those little things, I mean also in the same time, I think we’re kind of, we, you know, knock on wood, I’ve been lucky that, yeah, we have two children that I think will, like all kids are overall quite happy, but we’ve also come at a pretty good point to understanding, you know, how to read them and how to support them. So other than the fact that maybe when they’re fighting with each other, like that’s the only kind of wildcard, you know, in the whole dynamic right now.

Ayelet: Well, and you grew up with a brother who was three years younger than you. So, this is much more in your wheelhouse than mine because I grew up without any siblings for the majority of my childhood. And then had a younger sister much later. Yeah. So I number one, didn’t grow up with boys and number two didn’t grow up with close siblings. So I’ve really struggled with that.

Anton: I think, you know, I remember with my brother, we used to fight a lot and you know, and play like the rough and tumble, but then it turned into fighting and just every like, you know, we used to just fight, but now like we’re best friends, we love each other. Right. But I, it’s just one of these things like when you grow up with a sibling, I think a lot of it too depends on, you know, the, the home life.

But I think the, the big thing is, is that where you have a hard time is understanding that you have to share and, but then also being, you know, where everything is not about you, it’s about the you and somebody else. And you’ve learned that at a very young phase, right? Like, you know, you get a toy or are you going to share, right?

Ayelet: Right, it’s not just yours.

Anton: No, it’s not just yours anymore. Everything, everything you share with the other person… You don’t have like even though like let’s say it’s your birthday, you get that Spider Man doll that you always wanted and it is yours, but is it really? Like, and so it’s hard to understand that and cope with that.

But I think also that’s kind of something, then when you get older you, it’s kind of just inherent in you like supporting and sharing and having a bit of patience because you had to go through these struggles of being a little kid of always having to deal with this other person who wanted to be like you or follow you and share your stuff and sit next to you or eat where you’re eating and doing what you’re doing. You just have to learn how to cope with that. 

Ayelet: Spoken like a true older brother.

Anton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think, you know, it changes the whole family dynamic too. I mean, as we even saw with our first child. Right. You know, I think, I mean, we had a lot of changes going on for us, but when, you know, the second was born, I think it took him a little while to to cope with that. Well, of course. I mean, I did too. I mean, there were stories about me, like me always pinching my brother’s cheeks and stuff like that when he was just a little infant and my grandmother catching me…

Ayelet: So overall you feel, I mean obviously you feel pretty, pretty good about your father, fatherly ways.

Anton: Yeah.

Ayelet: I feel pretty good about your father.

Anton: Good. Thank you.

Ayelet: Yeah, happy Father’s Day.

Anton: Thank you.

Ayelet: Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Anton: Thanks for having me. I appreciate being here.

The post Things New Dads Should Know, with Anton Marinovich appeared first on Learn With Less.

In this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet chats about the origins of Learn With Less, the need for support in early parenthood, the art of community building for new parents, and the joys of connecting with other parents and caregivers.

Learn With Less was started to fill a much-needed gap for parents and caregivers who know they want more and who feel they “should” be able to create more out of this special, precious time with their babies and toddlers, and who want to understand more about how their babies learn so they can support them with simple activities.

What started as a way to enrich both young children and their parents and caregivers became an entire platform for parent education and parent support, framed through the Learn With Less® curriculum. These podcast episodes, our blog, social media presence, the bestselling books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, our email newsletter, and our live, local workshops, are the ways in which we disseminate useful information about infants and toddlers for the grownups who love them.

The Learn With Less® Curriculum

Understanding Your Baby: A Week-By-Week Development and Activity Guide For Playing With Your Baby From Birth to 12 Months, by Ayelet Marinovich

Understanding Your Toddler: A Month-By-Month Development and Activity Guide For Playing With Your Toddler From One to Three Years, by Ayelet Marinovich

I like being around other people. I’ve always considered myself an extrovert, and I thrive on conversation. Connection to other people has always been a major value of mine. When I had my first child, I was living abroad, and knew that if I wanted to connect with other people, I’d have to make a concerted effort.

The thing is, when you’re sleep-deprived and your body and brain and entire system are recovering from the experience of bringing a human into the world, it’s kinda hard to make an effort. But I had a few things going for me. First of all, I’d had the foresight to participate in a birth prep program and a prenatal yoga class during pregnancy. I’d already started to forge some relationships through those activities, and hope that the other women who were having babies around me were also feeling like they could use some connection.

Secondly, I had some tools in my back pocket from having worked professionally with parents and caregivers with young children. I knew a thing or two about play, and I knew a lot about child development. So, I decided to dangle a proverbial carrot. I invited my new friends to get out of the house, and join me to play with their babies and hang out.

Each week when we met, we sang a few songs, talked about what our babies were doing, about what they were learning about with regard to cognitive, communicative, motor, and social development, and I showed them some simple strategies I had come up with, ideas to play with household items, or creative ways to use simple toys. We used play, language, music, and movement to connect with our babies, with each other, and find beauty in the mess of our new selves.

Soon, we all had a bunch of tools in our tool belt for connecting with our tiny humans. As our babies grew and their needs changed, we kept meeting. We had these amazing shared, interactive experiences with each other, and with our babies. We created community around the transition into parenthood. Moms, dads, grandparents, babysitters, siblings, cousins – all were welcome.

It was truly a magical time.

And then my little family and I left the city of my son’s birth. We left our friends, our community, and I wanted to make sure that I could keep creating this… this thing. It had become part of me – creating a space for families and friendships. And so, the Learn With Less podcast was born.

Now that my eldest is 5 years old and my younger son is 2, I’m finding that I have a tiny bit of space to reflect. I’ve created a LOT of content over the last 3 years – with this podcast, the blog, a social media presence. I’ve experimented with form, using video to connect with you, audio through this podcast, and with text. I started a virtual community, because I enjoy connecting with so many of you from all over the world, and I get to know you and understand you. What I find amazing is that parenting truly is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what language or languages you speak, whether you work full time or whether home is your work  – all of those things are just details.

What defines early parenthood is that transition. We become different. A different person is born from us, alongside our children: we simultaneously learn to get in touch with who we are as parents as we try to get to know our babies. We may or may not recognize ourselves. Many of us come into parenthood with full confidence that we’ll tackle all of life’s parenting challenges with the success that we had in school or our careers. And we’re amazed and mystified when a 7 pound poop machine throws us for a loop on the daily.

And that connection to other people, that synthesis of information, that need to figure out what’s working for other people and what might work for us… becomes a matter of survival for some.

That’s why I do what I do. That’s why I share the conversations I have with you and with others on this podcast. That’s why I wrote the books Understanding Your Baby and Understanding Your Toddler, which form the basis for the curriculum I developed when my baby was born. I call it the Learn With Less® curriculum, because that’s really what it is.

My goal is to help you maximize what you already have and what you’re already doing with your baby, so you’re empowered to “get it right” and able to confidently unlock the power of everyday routines and everyday objects, so that you can support and connect with your tiny human.

I know we all learn through different means. Some people prefer reading a book on their own, and some want to talk through what they learn. Some of us need the power of that connection… and some of us are “connection’ed out” after being attached to another human or set of humans for a few months or years.

I’ll be honest – I have been hiding behind my computer for the last couple of years, and I have not gone out and formed many new relationships in person, because I constantly have people on me. By the end of the day, I’m exhausted. But recently, I have been feeling the need to build relationships. So I’m coming out from behind the screen, and I’m starting to lead live, local workshops again. I’m starting to remember how powerful it is to connect with other people in early parenthood.

I want to share with you a few things I said in my introduction episode of the Learn With Less podcast, because it’s still so true, and I want you to hear it fresh:

There are some experiences in life that sort of “defy” language, that we think of as “larger” or “fuller” than what words can express. In Norwegian, there is a word, “koselig,” that is more like a concept. There is no direct translation – it’s been described to me as… a feeling. I asked a Norwegian friend of mine what her koselig is. She described it to me in the following way:

“Eating tacos on a Friday night in sweat pants with a glass of wine. Making cinnamon rolls, decorating for Christmas. Picking up coffee and taking a walk with a friend I haven’t seen for a long time.”

I asked her how family related to her concept of koselig, and she said,

“My son is not koselig. But it could be koselig to read a book to him. Or give him a bath, or have some quiet time with him in the morning.”

The reality is that not every moment of parenthood is anything close to koselig. But when we feel less like we’re winging it, and more like we have the power to create these moments that support and boost our baby’s development, using what time, energy, and materials we already have, that, to me, is koselig. And that’s why I continue to bring you content through Learn With Less. Because we have that power to create together. And this weekend, I’m inviting a few families into my home to create moments like these, for a live and local workshop using my Learn With Less® curriculum.

So if you happen to be in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ll be leading these from time to time. If you’re hearing this before March 31, 2019, you’re welcome to come to the inaugural workshop – just head to learnwithless.com/classes – you’ll be prompted to answer a few questions so I can make sure I tailor the workshop to serve your needs, preferences, and address your major challenges, and then I’ll send you all the details!

And if you’re not local but you still want to be part of a community of families and educators who want to become more intentional caregivers, I invite you to join the Learn With Less® curriculum, and where we address those most pressing challenges – things like understanding infant and toddler development, planning simple activities to engage with our tiny humans, making more from less, setting limits and managing behavior, setting up the environment to maximize learning, and much, much more. Just head to learnwithless.com/online for all the details.

And now, I’d love to hear from you. What’s your koselig? You can write me at [email protected], or tag me or DM me in a post on Instagram. I’m @learnwithless  – I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to tell me a bit about yourself, and what kind of connections you crave?

Until next time.

The post Support and Community For New Parents appeared first on Learn With Less.

In this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet chats with Rachel Kammeyer, a speech-language pathologist and mother of two children under two.

Rachel has an 8-week old baby and a nearly 2-year old toddler. She joins us nearly a year after we brought her on the podcast back on episode 58, when her son was about to turn one. Rachel received an advanced copy of the book, “Understanding Your Toddler,” a month-by-month development and activity guide for playing with your toddler from one to three years.

We cover the strategies Rachel uses to keep afloat as a mother of “two under two,” the resources she turns to when searching for developmentally appropriate, simple play activities for babies and toddlers, and simple ways she can engage both her young children at the same time (without feeling guilty)!

Understanding Your Toddler: A Month-By-Month Development and Activity Guide For Playing With Your Toddler From One to Three Years, by Ayelet Marinovich

Understanding Your Baby: A Week-By-Week Development and Activity Guide For Playing With Your Baby From Birth to 12 Months, by Ayelet Marinovich

Learn With Less® Curriculum parent education & parent support classes for parents and caregivers of infants and toddlers

Surviving and Thriving in the First Year of Motherhood: Learn With Less podcast episode 58, featuring Rachel Kammeyer

Ayelet: Welcome to episode 75 of the Learn With Less podcast. Today, I’m speaking with Rachel Kammeyer, the mother of an 8-week old baby and a nearly 2-year old toddler. I had Rachel on the podcast back on episode 58, when her son was about to turn one. Let’s see where she is now!

All right, so Rachel, let’s get started. I would love to ask you, why don’t you give us a little bit of a background. We chatted a little bit before the launch of the first book, Understanding Your Baby, a few things have changed for you since then. You are now also in the process of reading Understanding Your Toddler. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about you and who you are, and what your family looks like these days?

Rachel: So, I’m Rachel Kammeyer, I have a background in speech pathology. I had been working primarily with adults in the geriatric and brain injury communities and then I had my first little guy who will be two in April, and since then I’ve become a lot more interested again in the early childhood side of things. And then at the end of December, we welcomed little Bridget to our house, so now I have an 8-week old and we are a family of four!

Ayelet: Amazing, congratulations!

Rachel: Thank you. It’s amazing. Thank you. So we’ve got the “two under two” thing going for us…

Ayelet: Woo! Brave lady, yup!

Rachel:  Yeah!

Ayelet: You’re not alone… So tell me a little bit about, because you are in the sort of unique, not “unique, unique” but in the interesting, unique position of actually reading both of the books right now, at the same time. I know that since you had already skimmed through Understanding Your Baby previously when your son was just about to turn one, basically, you have a sense of how it’s a pretty quick read, it’s an easy read, it’s short and sweet, but now you have two under two. What is it like? Did you have some skepticism about what it would be like to actually read some books? Sit down and and find time to read the books or what? What’s that like for you?

Rachel: I think it was actually the opposite. What happened was I felt like I knew what I was doing, because this wasn’t my first rodeo. And motherhood is such a double-edged sword of feeling like you’ve got this while simultaneously feeling like you have no idea what you’re doing. And around Bridget’s six weeks timeframe, when my mom had left (she was here for four and a half amazing weeks) and we were really in the thick of, like, just being a family of four and my toddler was, William was doing a really good job of adapting to his sister, but we have a lot of rain and our routine… We didn’t have a routine, we were trying to figure out what our new routine was going to look like. And that’s when it sort of dawned on me that I had the resource that I needed to help in this exact situation. I had the toddler book for my toddler, and I had the baby book for my baby.

And in the moment of sitting there I pulled up the one where it talks about giving your baby time to rest, like, sensory downtime. And I was like, oh, it’s okay that she’s sleeping a lot. It’s okay that I’m not like totally in her face like all the time doing the things that I did maybe as a first time mom jumping right in and being like, “oh look, I’ve got this baby I need to nurture and I can do that because like look, I’m home and it’s great.”

And so that immediately just helped me feel relaxed and, and then I was like, oh, and next week I can see what’s on the plate for the next week. Like, I don’t have to read ahead and like start getting one foot ahead of the other. I can just save this for when I’m nursing. Just check in on Sunday when she rolls over to the next week.

Make that my new habit and do the same look William, just like, I have the two books side by side in my drive so I can just swipe between them, and get some ideas. And the nice thing with the toddler book is, because I’ve been reading it as a part of the pre-read, the launch team, I jumped to his age group first and then I realized that I needed to read a little bit ahead for him because he’s definitely moving along at a good clip. But then I got to go back in the past few days and go back to the introduction and check-in with all of that other early except, and that’s actually been very helpful because it helps me really… I’ve been really interested in play lately, not just because of the LAB [the members area of the Learn With Less® Curriculum] and all of your good work on it, but because we’re thinking about pre-schools and thinking about what William will need as a person and where we want to like take his education route.

And the more and more I learn and the more and more I read, I just really want play to be an important part of it. And I’ve had conversations with other parents that are like, “well we want more academics because our kid is interested in that.” And I’m like, I just, I don’t know how to articulate it, but I don’t think there’s, there’s, they’re not two different things. Like, you can treat them like they’re two different things, but I just… but I just, I just don’t feel like they are. And I was reading your introduction just this morning and I watched that Carol Westby talk yesterday, and I was like, yeah, okay, okay. PLAY. And then what’s nice about the toddler book for me is that the “TALK” section I got down. The PLAY, I realize, because I, for example, I didn’t do a lot of ECI [Early Childhood Intervention] work. I only worked with kids that were three and up.

And when I worked in the schools I was doing a lot of activities, but I wasn’t doing a whole lot of like “on the floor play” with that population. And it’s been really nice to read those tips on play. Like, how to make the two trains, talk to each other and have their experience. Cause I’m like, oh usually he’s the one I do a lot of like child led. Like he’s the one with the trains, and even with all of my experience, it didn’t dawn on me to get on the floor and pretend to be another train with him, and like talk to him on the train. I know.

And so that’s what I love about the book is it’s like, it’s one little sentence that can just like radically alter what you’re doing maybe in a moment, and you feel good about it. You feel like you don’t have to stress about it because it’s one tiny little thing, it’s one little detail and it’s just using what you already have. But it’s also like a little revolutionary sometimes, especially when you are really tired and you’ve spent all morning and all you’ve really managed to accomplish is feeding everyone and getting everyone drops and it took three hours and yet you know that that actually wasn’t accomplishment because it did take three hours.

Ayelet: A minor miracle, in fact, yeah! Oh gosh, totally. And yeah, I love what you say about how it’s just that tiny little shift that you can make that can actually make a difference. I find that so much to be true. You know, when I read a new book that I’ve never read about play or infants or toddlers, because it’s somebody saying the same thing in just a slightly different way, for instance. And even then, you’re like, oh yeah, yeah, that’s a great way to think about it.

And I think also as professionals working with families, we’re always looking for new ways to explain things to parents and caregivers as well because as parents we tend to get in… not in a rut, but we get in our own routine. We get in this sort of limiting factors of trying to balance everything and trying to get through the day because those are limiting factors, right? Yeah. When we can use exactly like you said, the things that we’re already doing, the time we’re already spending, and then shift something just a tiny bit that can be really useful. I would love to know, what are some of the things…

Describe to me a moment that instigates you going to the books. I think the easiest way to describe this I’m sure is when you have a free hand, obviously as you sit here with me feeding your baby in one hand and talking on the phone with the other, that’s clearly the answer, but is there any other time that instigates you heading to either book?

Rachel: Yeah, so one of the things that’s been intriguing to me sort of as a researcher / parent /clinician, is William’s language is really advanced, but he’s still very much a 22 month old. And so, there are a lot of times that I see him doing a skill that might indicate my expectation for him might be too high for other things. So, I’ve been really using the book a lot to kind of check in, to kind of puzzle-piece together where William is and what I need to do for him. For example, one of the things that I’ve been . doing a lot of… It’s not the drill and kill, kind of like “what is that, what is that, what is that?” Lately I’ve been asking him a lot of questions about “well, why did that happen? What happened?” Because he’s been doing a lot of testing behavior.

And I loved – I absolutely loved the part – and I told my husband right after I read it, about how at this age they’re little scientists and they’re doing a little controlled experiment to see if they get the same results when they replicate their action across contexts. And I love that. That really resonated because that, in that moment, that’s what I needed to see that he’s not only testing is it okay to throw a ball in the house? Is it okay to throw a lid at your sister, is it okay to bang on the table in this context, in not this context. And it really helped me frame my perspective that okay, this is totally, it’s not just is it age appropriate, but what he’s doing is he’s looking to me for the guidance of “what can I get away with because I need to know what’s safe and what the acceptable, and I need you to explain it to me.”

So I’ve been trying over the past couple of days to reframe his analysis of it and take that burden off of him and just say, “that is unsafe because it’s hurting the table” or “this is unsafe because your sister is here,” or “that’s actually just really annoying and mommy is getting uncomfortable having to listen to you say that over and over again. Can you try to maybe tell me something else? I think you might be feeling like this, are you feeling like this?” We also tried taking away his binky this week and that… You can let me know what chapter that’s in.

So for me, the book has been a moment where I think, “okay, I’m seeing something and I kind of want to know how I can do more or less to meet him where he is and I need to figure out where he is.” And so the other thing that’s been really nice with the book when I go to it is when a friend comes and asks me about something, and then I can say actually my friend just wrote this book. But I’m not trying to sell it. It’s really, I mean I would like to help you, but also, the fact is, we’re all asking the same questions and you know, we tend to, you know, you’re always saying we don’t parent in isolation, but when you’re at home alone with your kid it often just does feel like you’re isolated with a tiny dictator and you’re wondering, you know, what the next steps are.

And, I’ve lately felt because I am literally sitting in a corner nursing now, a lot more of his day. Am I providing him an appropriate level of engagement? And obviously, like my mom, she had this huge joke with me because I think Bridget was like two weeks old. And William was getting really needy and obviously I was really feeling the loss of just William. Like I was not, it’s a thing like in a lot of ways like our relationship shifted and I felt that just as acutely as he did.

And it’s a weird thing, you can’t explain to people, but there’s this loss of that time. And like I would cry in front of my husband, I’d be like, you know when she’s really hard right now cause I miss William like I miss, I miss him because I’m over here doing this with Bridget and I looked at my mom at one point and I was like, “yeah, like I know urgency needs are like almost as important as William, like feeding her.” And she was like, “do you hear yourself?” I was like, okay, play is not actually equal to like Bridget eating.

Ayelet: But it feels like that! Because, he was your world. He was your only child, the only person you were responsible for (aside from yourself, and maybe your husband a little bit – oh that guy, right)! And then all of the sudden, that is just turned up on its head and of course you feel way, because that has been the most important thing! And you know the value of it, you know the value of that input, all that input that you’ve been giving him. And then suddenly you can’t… Do it the same way. That’s the end of that sentence: you can’t do it the same way.

Rachel: Yeah. And that’s where the book is also very helpful because TALK and SING and MOVE are parts of it. So we’re going through, and when I’m sitting there in the corner nursing on the sofa and he’s playing in front of me, how can I still engage him and these two different modalities that we can still be connected and also she’ll be getting the indirect… now she’s hearing the singing, and she’s hearing the talking, and that’s good for her too. Although, she gets overstimulated during the day and she doesn’t really come alive until he’s asleep.

So it’s definitely, that’s when I’ve been accessing the toddler book is really trying to figure out where William is and what he needs. Like a problem solving tool, I guess, although I think once like I’ve read through it for the purposes of helping the launch, I think what I’ll just be doing is going back to the week by week or the month by month. You know, because it goes through the month and it adds the different, like different like, social/emotional… And that’s something today I was thinking about with the binky, was that William was always really good at self-soothing.

But a lot of that came from the oral component. He got a rash and that’s what facilitated taking the binky away is because I think he’s teething and I think that saliva created a rash and we just needed to remove the binky for him to get better. And we explained that to him and he understood “rash.” But he’s been waking at night, and he’s been really a lot more challenging during the day.

And it kind of dawned on me about 48 hours ago, that the binky probably has something to do with it. And I didn’t give him a replacement behavior. I wasn’t going to tell him to suck his thumb, and I wasn’t going to hand him food, but I didn’t really know what I could do instead for him. And then, one of the chapters, I think somewhere around 24 months, was talking about the social emotional needs of the kid and labeling the feelings and saying, you know, are you experiencing this?

And kind of talking them through that. And I realized this might be an opportunity for me to use that. That dialogue when I see he’s starting to tither and he either asks for the binky or he’s like looking for that, we can start using some of that language to help. Are you feeling like you need a break, or you’re like, I need to start giving him some way that we can communicate what he… to help him grow.

And I may also just give him the binky back for a little bit because I’m not sure I’m ready… but I know, it’s like sleep training, you know, so lots of different schools of thought on it. But it became very clear to me that that was a crutch for him and I took it away and I didn’t give him another tool. But in the book that could be an opportunity for me to help give him something else instead. And so I need to read that again.

Ayelet: Well that’s really interesting how you described that, because I think that is some really good information about how the book can be used. Because, although it may not address specifically how to take the pacifier away and remove that from your child’s life, there are tools that you learned because the book literally is about understanding your toddler, how they learn in all these different ways and what’s going on with them, you know, cognitively communicatively, motorically, social emotionally and how we can support those things… That you can take the tools that you’re learning from each of the sections in the book and apply them to all the different specific situations in your life.

Rachel: It’s not like you’re not like you’re not going to address his social-emotional needs until 25 months. That’s just a section that talks about “this is a good opportunity for that, for where they are in this new period of transition” or whatever. And or, you know, you’re always going to be addressing their social emotional needs. But like the social stories thing – that was really useful because we had been using transition objects for a long time, which is something that you know, you talk about in the baby book.

Ayelet: Yeah. Why don’t you tell a little bit about that so that people who are listening can…

Rachel: Embedded in your routine are your environmental objects that you use throughout the day. And so, for children, oftentimes transitions going from a preferred activity to something that’s less preferred or even just going from one activity that’s interesting to another, it can be challenging. And so having a tool, like a literal object that they need for the next thing or something that they can carry with them to the next activity, is a nice way of helping them transition and redirect their attention and anticipate with next or understand what’s next…

Understand what they need to do, or what they know what’s going to happen to them. And so, for example, like when William was a lot younger, we had a particular towel that we would use for part of the routine to get out of the shower and it was the duck towel, and he loved the duck towel. And then we had a duck towel ceremony where we sat on the duck towel for the story time.

And then what that turned into was the next step was turning off the light and he could turn the light off himself. And so, the routine was full of these punctuation marks of objects that would guide him to what’s next. And he loves them and we’ve been using them for a long time. So, with the screen time being so powerful, and dinnertime, not necessarily being as rewarding, having that extra visual of, okay, this is what’s expected of you because we, he knows what’s next, he knows now that dinner is always after Blippi. And he knows where he sits, but the picture gave him the sense of, oh, this is what it’s gonna look like when it’s finished, when I’m sitting there, getting into my stool.

And he could carry the picture and we can put it on the table where he’s going to go, and he could reference it, he could see it. Now, the next day we did have a big meltdown in that process, but there was a lot more going on. Dinner was later, he was hungrier. Again, there was no binky during the day, so I’m pretty sure he had some pent up feelings about that. So it’s not like everything always works 100% all of the time. No tool is that useful. It’s something that now I just keep it under the laptop, you know? And if there are other things that become challenging, we can write little social stories along the way.

And so, that was a great way of seeing something that you used for Understanding Your Baby transition to the needs of the toddlerhood. It’s not like once you’ve read one book, you’re going to be able to deal like without the book. For the next one it’s that these piggy back off of each other. And also the dynamic nature of a child who’s growing. Is this something that worked can continue to work, but you have to tweak it a little bit. And that, that tweak was very helpful for us because Blippi is five feet from the dinner table, so it’s not like he had to go far, but those are the longest five feet.

Ayelet: Yeah. And there are little steps that have to happen, like Blippi has to get turned off, and I have to go over there and remove my eyes from it – that doesn’t sound fun!

Rachel: Oh yeah, that is, no, there’s – no, that’s the worst.

Ayelet: Oh yeah.

Rachel: But it’s been really good too, because one of the things about being a stay at home parent is, it’s a little bit harder to bounce your ideas off of people in like a context of just sitting here having a one on one conversation like we all right now. So right now in my head it’s like “Ping, Ping, Ping!”, like I’m thinking about a lot of different things because the speech therapist inside of me is well aware of all these techniques, but often they were for older children or children who had a very specific kind of disorder that this might be for and they needed even more structured, even more over labeling of the elements of the transition. And if that’s where you’re always thinking about going, the more complicated things, then the book is really nice because nothing in the both is too complicated.

Ayelet: Right! And it’s a great tool that you can use for a typical or even advanced, or a child who is delayed, experiencing delays – it’s all… Because it is that basic: How do children learn and develop at this, around these levels of zero to three years and it does happen for every child regardless of their chronological age, developmental age, where they are in that spectrum, but it… Any human, it doesn’t matter if you’re in Silicon Valley or in Nairobi or anywhere in between and whatever socioeconomic bracket you fall under, this is how humans learn.

Now how you choose to implement that is also of course going to be determined by your own culture, your own predisposition, your own interests and how comfortable you are with using the SING pillar or whether you’re more of a MOVE kind of a parent or whether you are very comfortable like yourself with talking, but that’s it. It’s giving you tools for whatever style you, wherever you are naturally, or where ever you’d like to take yourself.

Rachel: Or, the temperament of your child! You know, like I have a really strong suspicion that MOVE is not going to be as important for Bridget as it is for William. And so in some ways I’ll have to challenge her in that way but she really loves singing, so she gets to listen to your album a lot, so she’ll know what a real pretty singing voice is! But yeah, the first time she really lit up and connected with me was when I was singing our good morning song together with William and I was like, oh, I am going to have to sing again… because I think one of the first times we talked it was because I was really reluctant to sing to my kid! Like. He doesn’t know that I have a very mediocre voice.

Ayelet: It doesn’t matter what kind of voice you have.

Rachel: It’s Mommy’s voice, yeah. So, that’s how I’ve been accessing the books and thinking about them. The Understanding Your Baby, it’s been nice to just go chapter by chapter again, because that helps… Honestly like this time is going so much faster with number two. It’s really, you don’t want to feel like you’re cheating yourself or your kid out of, like… So I’m not in a rush to move ahead with that. It’s weird. She’s almost, she’s almost two months old. And I’m like, how did that happen?

Ayelet: You’ve spoken a bit about the impact that it’s had on your life. What kind of impact do you imagine it might have on other families? What would you say to someone who’s, you know, looking at a couple of toddler books, potentially. Why is this one a good one?

Rachel: This one is great because it’s evidence based. So I know it’s pulled from a lot of different research sources, versus like one person peddling one philosophy. I think there are a lot of toddler books that say “this is the way to do something,” and this book is, “this is how kids learn, these are things you can do.” I do plan on trying to, so…

When I give this talk to the parents club, I’m very much going to emphasize that there are tools out there because everyone wants to know, well what can I do? Like, I know that this is important, but what do I do? I think the brilliance of this book is in a very digestible content, a manageable amount of content you have, in any given time, a framework for how to do something. You’ve got the MOVE, the SING, the PLAY, and the TALK.

And then you’ve also got one idea, two ideas or the flexibility within each idea of how to do that. And none of it requires anything particular, except for the things you have in your environment that are already there. So I can’t think of a more simple or straightforward way of enriching a child and to say, “you can read in four to five minutes this section on this age group and have 15 to 20 new ways of accessing what your child needs.” You don’t get more bang for your buck than that, you know? And then, there’s nothing you have to buy.

It’s like, hey look, like one of the things I did with William, so for his age, you were talking about categorization, and William has, he learned his colors and he is really interested in where things go. He knows that things have a home and I’ve never really overtly talked about, oh, you know, we’ve talked about the categories of things or what the kinds of things are, I never sat down and did like a sorting task with him. I thought, well maybe I should do that sometime and then – but I don’t have to! No pressure! It’s just, you know, he’s going to get it anyway, God willing.

Ayelet: He is! Because you have kitchen things in your kitchen, and bathroom things in your bathroom!

Rachel: Exactly! So we were sitting down the other day and I was trying to fold laundry and I was like, oh, I dumped out the socks and I said, hey, let’s match the socks, let’s put our socks together! Because some of the socks had days of the week, and some of them just have colors and it was a fun 10 minutes, 15 minute, little activity we could do together. So it was his one, one time with me while she was sleeping, but it was also a really nice way of kind of helping him. He loves, he took the lead, he would pick up the sock and then… He does this really cute thing now where he’ll be like, “how ’bout… this one? How ’bout…”

And so he would like deliberately get them wrong and say “no…” And instead of like just jumping in and being like, “you know which one it is!” I’m just like, oh, okay. How about that one? And then later when they were all laid out, I was like, oh, some of these seem like they might not be a match. What do you think? And then it was really, like, it was so easy. It was, and it’s fun and nice. And I would tell someone: I made sorting socks with my son into a really great cognitive task. And the only thing it took was like 15 minutes versus like a slap dash let’s put the socks away in two minutes, you know, or for however long it takes to put socks away.

Ayelet: Well, for you…

Rachel: Yeah, for me it could have taken 15 minutes regardless. But, but he didn’t dump the socks out, you know, it was really deliberate. It was. So that’s the kind of thing that I think a lot of us want, and that’s what I would explain to someone. You know, I think that this book is a really great tool for letting you figure out things to do in your own home, or things to do in the car or things to do with your family.

Ayelet: Things to do with the things you’re already doing.

Rachel: Exactly. Yeah. Brilliant. And I know, like, I have a hard time or I don’t like sounding preachy because, but I swear like if given the opportunity to talk about a tool that is very useful, I think this would be the top one that I would mention.

Ayelet: Ooh, that’s high praise!

Rachel: But I also would say that you draw from some of the other resources that I’ve also found. And so that’s the other reason that I trust it. And so a lot of people, you know, like the holistic view of learning and understanding the neuroscience behind toddlerhood I think really is an important part of not just seeing everything the toddler does as a behavior, as this acting out, as this super negative time.

Because really for them, it’s a super challenging time because their brain is exploding, but it’s also like this is, their world is getting bigger and bigger and bigger every day, and there’s more and more that they need to do with that. And you know, if you have the privilege or the luxury of being able to directly involve yourself in your child’s care one day a week, seven days a week, it’s great to know, oh this is, this is something I can help them in this world. Be a little world ambassador.

Ayelet: Yeah. You are currently a stay at home parent, what about for a working parent. Is this a good tool for working parents?

Rachel: I can see it, yeah definitely because I feel like weekend for working parents. I know cause my husband is working so there was always this like, pull between getting things done and then the bonding time or the family time. And it’s also really easy, I think to get stuck in a rut when you have like designated days for things. So, for a working parent, I think one of the nice things is that none of the things in this book require any extra. It’s just like we said, like tweaking what you’re already doing.

And if you do have an opportunity to influence your children’s childcare, like with a nanny or a family member or even like a really open daycare system, you know, I think this is a great tool for saying, this is why we’re doing this, or this is how I’m doing this. Could you carry this over or you know you have your Recipes For Play, and that’s brilliant because this isn’t like something where if you read the chapter on the 25 months it’s like a “four week plan for improving your child’s use of spatial relations.” It’s like, “hey look, here’s a box, let’s dump things in and talk about it.”

And this is how you can access, this as a 14 month old and this is how you can access it as a 24 month olds and it’s the same box and we can do, like… And then you can, as a parent, I think it doesn’t matter if you’re working or you’re staying home, you’re still in awe of what your child is doing. Yeah, I know that not everyone has the luxury of 15 minutes to put socks away, but there is some time that you’re spending alone with your toddler or as a family and that’s all you need is a little bit.

Ayelet: Thank you Rachel. This is great. Is there anything else that you would like to share?

Rachel: I think that seeing the world through your kid’s eyes is so important and it can be so challenging at with age because we’re always thinking about these like adaptive skills, you know like the toilet training and the getting yourself dressed and it’s really nice to spend a little time just thinking about play. You know? It’s something I think even as adults we need to do better at, not just scrolling through Facebook and like… Yeah it’s a great resource.

Like, a friend of mine asked me, because I was talking about something I learned from the book, and she was like, well how did you get to read it already? And I was like, oh well it’s because you know, I was part of the launch team. But also, you know, I wanted this book to come out like, since I read the one for the baby! And so I really hope that, you know, anyone who hears me talk about it, knows that I’m, I’m doing this because it’s something I believe in, it really, it’s a great product. It’s a great resource.

Ayelet: Yay. I’m so happy you feel that way. Well, thank you for taking the time to chat with me today, sharing your experience.

Rachel: Absolutely.

The post Activities For Toddler and Baby appeared first on Learn With Less.

In this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet chats with Joshua Morgan, a former high school teacher, husband, father, and participant of the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program.

Joshua shares his journey toward a deeper connection with his 19-month old son, and how his path to learning about how his toddler learns strengthened the bond and helps him feel empowered to do the big job of parenting his son every day.

Joshua received an advanced copy of the book, “Understanding Your Toddler,” a month-by-month development and activity guide for playing with your toddler from one to three years.

You’ll love the way Joshua shares openly about his journey, the analogies he makes between parent education and early childhood education, and his self-reflection about what works for him and for his family.

Understanding Your Toddler: A Month-By-Month Development and Activity Guide For Playing With Your Toddler From One to Three Years, by Ayelet Marinovich

Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program, a parent education and parent support hub for parents, caregivers, and educators of infants and toddlers

Ayelet: How are you? Thank you so much for being here today with me. So, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from and your family life so that people can get a sense of who you are.

Josh: Sure. My wife and I, we live in Charleston, South Carolina area. We have one son, he’s 19 months old, and we have another little one on the way, due in July. But born and raised in the Midwest, Akron, Ohio area, moved down here to the South when I was in high school and been here ever since.

Ayelet: That’s great. And how did you find Learn With Less?

Josh: Yeah, good question. It started when I was looking for a solution to a problem that I saw. Let’s not call it a problem, let’s call it a circumstance, a situation that I saw was.. A concern, it was a concern. So, Daniel had his one year old birthday and someone bought him this, like transformer car, battery operated thing.

And it went around in circles, and it went down, went up. But that’s all I did. And so, I would turn it on, and you know, he’s mesmerized by it and, yeah, he would pick it up and play with it and try to pull in, do whatever he can with it. But then sometimes he would just sit there and stare at it and you’re like, oh this isn’t good. He’s just staring at the thing. We were like, he needs to be active. He’s just like a just like a zombie.

It just kept on going like that and I was like, well I think I should put this away and maybe there’s something that would be better at helping him in many areas – that would be a better tool to keep him engaged and keep him active and keep him exploring and learning. Yes, he was exploring and learning with this transformer toy. But most of the time he was passive with it. So I didn’t know where to go, I didn’t know where to look, and I did a lot of exploration online.

Long story short it was around Thanksgiving time and oh yeah, I was looking for music. I wanted to incorporate more music like, that will get him active. And you had your music cds and we began incorporating it and it really added a nice development to the day, really active. Then you had the Understanding Your Toddler book. My wife and I had been exploring some other areas, Montessori-like things and we wanted to get more help but we didn’t know what the best type of help would be. We tried some other things, not that they were bad, just for us in our circumstance, it probably wasn’t the most helpful. And so we then looked into Understanding Your Toddler, and we really think that’s a really good fit for us in our circumstances, and what we believe, what we have come to believe and know more.

Ayelet: Tell me more about that. So just for everyone who’s listening, Joshua, you are on the Understanding Your Toddler book launch team. So you received an advanced copy of the book. By the time this episode comes out, we’ll be just about to launch or have launched the book. So first of all, I would love to hear about, what were some of those things that you’ve come to sort of hold dear and believe about your son. And about his development and his learning. Can you define those at all?

Josh: Yeah! What I found is I wasn’t respecting him as a person because you know, you talk about the “child-led,” and you know, no one holds reign over this knowledge. This is just what is their nature and this is what we know. I mean what you talk about is exactly what Socrates talks about. It’s just our modernity age has just lost it. But I realized I wasn’t respecting Daniel as a person, you know, he knows how to learn, he knows that he wants to learn. He instinctively knows how learning should take place. And I wasn’t respecting that. “No, sit down, sit down at the table and look at these cards and match the animal with the card.

That’s what I want you to, no, don’t do it that way. Do it this way.” And I realized, oh my gosh, not explicitly, I would never want to disrespect my child, but implicitly I think I was disrespecting him, I wasn’t respecting him as, as a person. You know, one of the overall things that I see through your work is you respect the child, and you respect the environment. You value nature, you value the nature of the home, you value the nature of the world outside and that it does have pretty much everything you need. Yes, you can go out further, you can expand and go to Pinterest and get all the crafty ideas, but really you’ve got everything you need there. You’ve got it all there.

Ayelet: Yeah – it’s just a matter of figuring out how to use it.

Josh: Yes, yes, and that was the thing. It was like, I’m looking at these clues and I need a guide. I need someone to help me move through these clues to get to that higher form of understanding and knowledge, which is exactly what he’s doing. He’s looking at all these clues and integrating clues into his life. “Oh wow. That’s what happens when I bang a spoon down.

It really makes a loud noise. So then he integrates that into his conscious mind and then when he learns something else, he uses that knowledge. “Oh yeah, I remember when I bang the spoon down, it makes a really loud sound.” You respect the person, and you respect the home, you respect nature and you see the value that they have.

Ayelet: I love how you say that, that, that that is exactly what he’s doing. And I think this sort of Continuing Ed for parents is something that we’re sort of unfamiliar with, right? Because we have a baby, we have a child, and then we think, oh, okay, well I’m going to parent that kid as he or she moves through each stage of development.

I’m the parent, so I’m going to do that. We forget how much learning goes with that as far as both the child is always learning, and we also must adapt and learn ourselves about how our children learn so that we can keep up with them and so that we can offer appropriate experiences. Like you said, it’s… We have this sort of preordained idea of how learning is supposed to look.

Josh: It’s interesting. My wife is learning to drive, I’m trying to help teach her, and I’ll go, oh, this should be easy. I mean, I know how to drive, right. It’s a good analogy for the way I came into parenting. “Well, you know, this shouldn’t be hard,” but I’m so far removed. I am far removed, but I really am not because we actually go through that same process that the kids go through, that children go through in all our learning, but it’s just not at that fundamental level of elements of the thing.

So when my wife was learning how to drive, like wow, it was just so difficult to really put it in the words of what to do and how to do it. And a lot of times I was like, you’ve just kind of got to feel it. I said, “you gotta take this clue and this clue when you kind of have to just mold it together and integrate it and you’ll get the idea.”

Ayelet: That’s a great analogy because it’s second nature for you. But at one point it wasn’t.

Josh: So you, you guide them. But here’s the thing, I had to let her do it. In the driving environment, you know, it’s not like I can just sit her down at the table and give her the factual information. I had to take her out, she had to drive, and I had to let go, I had to let go. But, I could direct her, I could encourage her… And when I did that, it made for a peaceful relationship.

Ayelet: And in that process you learned so much from her: about the way that you could teach her, about the way that she learns best and about how she sees the world. So, I mean it’s exactly what you’re doing with your son. I want to just bring up something that you said recently in our community that I found, a comment that you made inside the Learn With Less LAB after starting the Learn With Less Accelerator Course [benefits of the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Family Program]. You said, “play is the medium by which they learn and by which we learn.” You said how all along, your son has been showing you what learning looks like for him at this stage, “learning is relational, not some scripted program” and that’s it. That’s it. That’s it. Exactly.

Josh: Yeah. We turn the object into a means towards the lesson that we want kids to learn. So, we use this activity, not for them to learn the thing in and of itself, but so that they learn this over here, right. The idea is the object is the lesson, the pots and pans that he’s banging. That’s the lesson. I do like to get out, like the, those sensory bins. What you’ve helped me understand more is that the senses are beyond the five and that, even I can make the sensory bin about the sensory bin – when it’s not. “No Daniel, when you take the spoon and you poured into the toilet paper roll, no, you’ve got to do it this way.” Right? And so even with them, I have to let them go and just experience the beans however he wants. But you know, give him, create that environment where there’s a lot of senses that he can play with soft things, hard things, big things, small things.

Here’s what I think your material, it’s helped me with that. I at least, I don’t want to speak for anybody else, but just myself is: it’s very easy because we get distracted, we have a lot of responsibilities that we say, just give me what I need to teach to my kid, and that’ll be it. That’s very dangerous and it’s even harder because we, we then become a slave to that school of thought. That program, we become a slave to it, right? I need to have the Montessori toy, because if I don’t have that, then he’s not going to learn the wrist movements, and if he’s not gonna learn the writs movements then he’s not going to learn pencil grip and pencil turning. So I’ve got to have, that’s what I got to have and it’s not true!

And what you’ve allowed me to see is bringing me back to understanding my child. And the fact is, I’m learning just like he’s learning, which is, you’re allowing me to strengthen my intuition and trust my intuition and let that be all these clues. Let that guide me in what I’m, in wherever I go, right? Because when we focus on the tool, we become a slave to the tool, we don’t… One of the things that happens is we don’t move outside of that tool. So for instance, going back to that sensory bin, you know, “no Daniel, we can only play with the beans in these contrived ways.”

Well, we’re playing, and, I was just thinking, what else could we do with these beans, right? And he had his socks off and his toes. I was like, you know, and, and you’ve giving me these classifications, these classifications of play, sing, move, talk: that urges me to guide my intuition. We need classifications. So I thought, oh, let me filter it through the [four pillars you outline in your book] “PLAY, SING, MOVE, TALK.” So I thought, Oh, let me put the bean between his toes and then you know, we would, you know, you talk about TALK… “oh look, Daniel, the bean is between your toes! It’s between, you know, and your big toe and…” Whatever. Just say what I know at that moment. And then you know, he has to take the pincer movement, you know, and get the bean out, right.

But I wasn’t a slave to the tool. I wasn’t a slave to the toy. I let these classifications and understandings guide my relationship with the material. It’s like the different kingdoms, you know, in Biology and we talk about the fungi kingdom or the animal kingdom, you know, those things are only guides so that when I look at a hamster, I don’t put it in water because mammals don’t absorb things. They ingest things, right? I’m not going to put it in water and wonder why he’s not taking in the water. Well, that’s because it’s not a fungi, it’s a mammal, but it’s just those classifications that are there to help and to guide and it’s a whole lot easier.

For instance, when I was a teacher, my students, they would want to memorize the information. I was like, you can’t, you can’t memorize it. They’re learning this AP material. And I don’t know if those mothers out there if they have high school kids and know about how much information comes through the AP.

Ayelet: I think we can remember those of us that went through it ourselves.

Josh: We just have nightmares of learning all the things, right? And it’s learning about classification. So we would make mind maps, of like mind maps for them and you know, yeah, we’d take the Civil War and then put the generals and categorize them by the generals or categorize them by the wars. And I said, “let those be your anchors on which you sail out on and talk about the different things.”

So those are good anchors for me. Those classifications that you have, you know, no one taught me to put the bean between his toes. I didn’t go find that on Pinterest. It came up and you know, we talked about the experienced. He was doing a pincer grasp and, and you know, when you talk about the pincer grasp, then I can, I can be more assured and helping more guiding of him.

So yeah, it’s like, it’s these things that I kind of know, and then you come in with your knowledge because you spend all day with this, and you just pour more into me because I, I’m trying to learn software programming right now. I don’t got time to do all this research. I need to find somebody that already has done this research.

And so what’s cool is then I can learn from you and then I can see those things and then I can take advantage of those moments. And that’s what I like about this is it’s not, it can get frustrating when I look at some of your stuff, and… but what’s the activity I must do? Just tell me the activity. Okay, thank you for the information. Now, what’s the activity? And you kind of don’t do that and…

Ayelet: I tease it, don’t I!

Josh: You do! But that all goes back to, I got to be okay with not being in control. I’m a control freak, and I want to hover over him and be in control. But all that causes in him, is anxiety. Whereas what I want to develop in him, is wonder and adventure and competence and truth, and wisdom, promise, and the only way I can do that is to let go of that control.

Not let go completely, but let go and build that skill, which is hard… Of intuition, messing around with him. It’s okay that I don’t get it right. It’s okay that I don’t get it right today, or tomorrow. And if I don’t talk to him, right, guess what, I can say I’m sorry.

Ayelet: Absolutely! Because we all do that. So, you’ve said so many golden nuggets, but I want to piece it apart a little bit. First of all, Josh, you were saying some of the sort of initial skepticisms about, say the book for instance, Understanding Your Toddler, for you were maybe things like, okay, I have this information now, but you’re not telling me exactly… I mean there’s a, like, “what you can do” section as far as, you can play, you can talk, you can sing, you can move.

There’s these nice sort of pillars of things to use and the way to think about it. But what’s the one activity that I can do and that that was initially sort of frustrating, but it sounds like you had sort of a perception change about that after you actually started to really implement it and try it out and just see what happened. I would love to hear some specific example of when you implemented that. And I love the example of, of between his toes, the little bean between his toes. Can you give me an example of how that affected him, with you?

Josh: Oh, yeah, It brought… it created relationship between us. Now, we’re engaging in relationship: it’s not a pupil-students, not headmaster-student, his boss-worker. It’s a father-son, one person and another, and it’s keeping, helping that relationship grow in all sorts of areas. You know, like we like to explore outside a lot. Okay. No one told me that the activity to do is when he gets on a driveway that is an incline, have him go up and go down it. I just intuitively saw the clues, “oh, here’s an incline and he’s going up it, Oh, why don’t I talk to Daniel about what he’s doing? Well, wait, what if I sing to him about what he’s doing?” And when I did that, it’s like his face just lit up, right? He and I were relating to each other.

Ayelet: And he’s more motivated to explore his environment and to do that.

Josh: Oh yes, he did it for 20 more minutes. He just thought it was the coolest thing. Oh, here’s daddy singing. Oh, let me go down, and let me, I don’t know, maybe in his head he was saying, oh, daddy’s going to go say down. Or like, you know, we’re in the bathroom and he flips the light on, and flips the light off.

And so all I’ll say on and off, but clues as my guide, oh, play, sing… You know, you talk about talking and intonation voice. All right, so I’ll go, “up!” or “on!” really loud. And, you know, “off,” slowly or changing the intonation voice, which thing he thinks is the coolest thing and he’ll keep on doing it longer.

So it’s taking these base elements and adapting them and basically, you know, it’s not that you don’t give activities, but they’re within the context of examples. I have to be careful, though, because what I can still do with your material is turn it into “the tool is the master. The tool is the thing that has most important.” When it’s not, I can go to anybody else. I mean I just still go to Pinterest for help and ideas.

It’s just like school and memorizing. Memorizing is not bad. It’s very, very helpful. It’s when we make memorizing the chief end, that’s when all we become are robots. So using those structures, those classifications, play, sing, move, talk, as a base and thinking about examples. And then in my environment with him, it’s funny there it is, in my environment, I am learning… Of what I can do with him and that’s, and what it does then, is build a relationship between he and I.

Ayelet: And that in many cases, you’re already doing the things… Just a matter of sort of highlighting it.

Josh: Yeah, and that’s the thing. It’s like we all naturally do this but we can, I can get off track. So this helps me feel good that these intuitions that I have about these clues are, I’m on the right track and I have to question myself. Right. I don’t have to question myself. I don’t have to feel bad about myself. I don’t have to second guess myself. I have something here that can help me strengthen, nurture, and grow it. That’s what I’m doing. I’m strengthening it, I’m nurturing and growing it and I’m telling myself to stay on track.

I know what on track looks like and this is what on track looks like. So you know, it’s kind of like someone who it’s great to learn a hobby online, you know, learning to play guitar online. But if you don’t have anybody there in front of you watching you and it’s hard for you to see if you’re on track or not. Maybe that’s a good analogy. You’re there guiding me and helping me become, you know, stay on track. And that’s what I really appreciate about the material.

Ayelet: Yeah. That’s awesome. So what would you say to someone who’s looking for some resources about how to play and offer new fun things and how to keep up with their toddlers development? What would you say to someone who’s considering the book, Understanding Your Toddler amongst other books? Why is that something that they should have on their bookshelf?

Josh: Because it’s all about relationships, and fundamental to the relationship is the understanding of the person. You know, when I, when I was a teacher, I helped students with learning disabilities, ADHD, dyslexia, and it surprised me (but really should have not have) when I would share with the other teachers about the student, helping them understand, oh, you know, this is why he’s doing that. This is what’s going on in him. That makes so much sense now. Wow. Now I can be better able… So I think the most important thing is whatever you look at, wherever you go, what’s most important is make sure you get an understanding of who your child is. If that thing will help you understand your child more, then that’s great and that’s going to be a good tool. And then let that be the basis from which to go out from.

Ayelet: So this book, you think is sort of a good fundamental.

Josh: Yes. Yeah, a good, a good fundamental.

Ayelet: How is this book different from some of the other ones? For you? What stands out about this book? How does this book differ from others out there?

Josh: You know, it doesn’t tell you how to parent your child more. You know, if you’re getting into an argument… How to talk to your child, it’s very fundamental: how to understand your child. Because if you don’t understand your child, you’re going to have a very difficult time, then, talking to him and then interacting with them. There’s no use in using a tool if you don’t know the thing that you’re working with.

There are other books that help you in a lot of ways, but I think most fundamental is you’ve got to understand your child first. And what I really love about it is that you already have everything right there in your home and it’s easy for us to lose track of that reality because we see all the shiny toys. A lot of us who don’t have the means for that, we can get really discouraged, we can get embarrassed and we have to understand that it’s actually all there.

And I remember sharing with you my wife, she grew up in the Barrios of the Philippines, which is just another name for, the Spanish word for neighborhood, and she’ll say, you know, you don’t wish anybody to live in those environments, but they have nothing. They have a wok, a Saute Pan, they have a fork a spoon and a small chef knife. That’s it. That’s all they have for their kitchen utensils. You know what I’m saying? Um, they don’t, they don’t have a orange scraper or the avocado, the thing to get the avocado out, they don’t have those types of things that we have.

And we can get lost in those things, and all they had was love and attention and letting the child explore. Meaning, my wife just explored all day long. I mean, there wasn’t much else to do, but explore. And she is a software programmer. How does a person coming from a pit that none of us would want to live in, come to become a software programmer, engineer? How does that happen? It starts early and it comes with this environment. It’s all there.

The parents, it’s respecting the child. It’s guiding the child, leading the child and play, sing, move, talk. That’s about all they were able to do and yet was enough. Not that those things aren’t helpful. If I have the means to send my kid to a science camp, I’m going to do it, and he wants to, great, I’m going to do it, but he doesn’t need to go to a science camp. I think that’s the biggest takeaway.

Understanding my child and realizing not that the home is second place. No, it’s, it’s not… Well it’s just enough – no, it’s, it’s enough! Don’t you realize how awesome that idea is? The idea that your home is enough? Like wow, how freeing that is. Help me understand and learn that I can utilize it, which as much power as I can. And that’s why Understanding Your Toddler, the book, the Acceleration Course [a bonus of the Learn With Less® Curriculum], has brought me back to, and I think that’s where all the clues and my intuition was always leading.

And yeah, I, I was side-tracked, I got so side-tracked in this toy or that toy. And honestly, it made me frustrated. It made Daniel frustrated, it made my wife frustrated and this material has… No, it’s not solved everything. How, you know, another book, like, How to talk to your child so that they will listen. I’m not getting it all right. But, that book has really helped me.

Ayelet: Yeah, that’s a great book: How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen.

Josh: That’s right, what a great book. I’ve learned so much from that book. What it has been teaching me is respecting the child. You know, don’t… Get down from that table. Do as I say, well, what? What? What type of relationship am I having with him? I’m the dictator. I’m the authoritarian, and he’s the robot, there’s no respect for his choices. Now, I’m not telling him to do whatever he wants, but “Daniel, would you like some help off that table? Do you want to do it yourself, Daniel or would you like me to help you, Daniel?”

That’s respecting the child – that he has choices and yes, if he’s still on the table and he’s bouncing around, I’m then going to grab it and then I’m not going to say, “I’m gonna get you for doing that.” No, “it looks like Daniel, it looks like you don’t know how to engage with a table without hurting yourself, so I’m going to remove you from right now and then maybe we’ll come back so that you don’t hurt yourself.”

That’s respecting the child and that’s what I’m coming back to, and it feels really good because for a long time, for many months… Which is learning, it’s struggle! Learning is frustration, learning is lots of crumbled papers for a math problem. But! When you get to that plateau, not the peak because you’re never at a peak.

At that plateau, it’s so refreshing and that’s what knowledge is. It’s a pilgrimage and it’s not cramming, which just makes you get headaches. It’s an exploration and it’s one plateau after another and it’s not a Mount Everest where you get to the top. It’s actually just a plateau after plateau after plateau, and it just keeps going and it never ends, and all along it’s one base after another and when you come to that next base it’s like, wow, look what I just did. Look where I came from and oh my gosh, look at all the possibilities that are before me.

This is just wonderful and it just, I feel like I’m at a plateau right now. I know there’s more struggles coming. They’re already have been, but it really feels good to be at that plateau. Do that pilgrimage of learning and understanding, and your, your material brought back to me what I always really knew is, which I knew teaching high school kids: before I can give them anything, I’ve got to understand who they are. If I give them too much, it’s going to go over their heads. If I give them too little, they’re going to get bored and they’re going to not like it. You know, that zone of proximal development, right. And um, so thank you so much.

Ayelet: Josh, thank you. Thank you for your time today, and for all your, your words of wisdom. I love all the analogies. I think it helps people think about things and it’s great. How are you enjoying the Learn With Less® Curriculum and the community so far?

Josh: Yeah, I like the videos, reading the transcripts, there’s so much. You are very economic with your words and you’re very precise, which is beautiful because it doesn’t take long to read, but it’s very kind of packed full of nuggets and I have to reread it and reread it. Not that that’s a burden. I do come away with an understanding, but then I, I want to grow that more. So I go back and I read and I see what I missed, but they’re in small chunks, so I get them and I don’t feel like it’s interfering too much with my lifestyle.

And I love the posts that other people make, sharing, you know, we’re all in this together. It’s relational: learning is relational and that’s hard online. It’s hard in an online community. So you know, putting comments at the end and seeing what other people say. I mean I, I forgot what the one mother said. It got me thinking and I wrote out all those thoughts. I was like, wow, that was really cool. She just helped me really solidify a lot of what was going in my mind and, look, that could not have happened if there weren’t other people involved.

Ayelet: Yes, exactly! We need each other to synthesize the information that we learn.

Josh: Yeah, and it doesn’t all come from you. It comes from all of us, and you as that guide, creating that environment, creating an environment in which we explore and we look at and poke around and get frustrated with and figure out. So I love the interaction. I love the nuggets that I can chew on and come back to. I like the video with the transcript with me. It’s just sometimes just solidifies the videos solidify a bit more for me and then I can go deeper with the transcripts. I like that.

Ayelet: Yeah. It is funny how even the same information, we ingest it totally differently when we’re watching something versus just listening or just reading.

Josh: Right. All the senses.

Ayelet: Exactly! Awesome. Is there anything else that you want to share with us, Joshua?

Josh: You know, I think first off, just thank you for all that work and dedication that you do. It means a lot to me, and I’m sure it means all the other families, but just that little small voice in your head, that’s leading you: think those through, work with them, get frustrated with them, find people, find resources that will come alongside you, that you feel comfortable with, that are nudging you forward, that are allowing the knowledge to reveal itself to you. Go in that way. And one of those nuggets, those clues is that understanding your child is very important. It’s very important.

Ayelet: That’s the basis. I love it. Thank you, Joshua for your time today and for sharing everything that you’ve experienced along the way over the last six months or so. That’s great.

The post How to Understand and Support Your Toddler appeared first on Learn With Less.

How do we do the big job of teaching and supporting our infants and toddlers when it comes to emotional development? How do we reign in our own emotions when our toddlers are testing us?

On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet sits down with Dr. Laura Markham, a trained Clinical Psychologist, author, founding editor of AhaParenting, and a mom.

We speak about: how she came to do the work she’s doing today, how babies, toddlers, and young children learn about emotions, how expressing emotions in words helps young children, and Dr. Laura’s top tips and resources for best practice when it comes to healthy emotional development.

Aha Parenting.com

Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, by Dr. Laura Markham (affiliate link)

Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Workbook, by Dr. Laura Markham (affiliate link)

Yell Less, Love More, by Sheila McCraith (affiliate link)

Attachment Play: How to solve children’s behavior problems with play, laughter, and connection, by Aletha Solter (affiliate link)

Understanding Your Toddler: A Month-By-Month Development & Activity Guide For Playing With Your Toddler From One to Three Years, by Ayelet Marinovich

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / YouTube

Dr. Laura Markham: Website / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

Ayelet: Today I am speaking with Dr. Laura Markham, a trained clinical psychologist, author, founding editor of Aha-Parenting, and a mom. She translates proven science into the practical solutions you need for the family life you want.

Her relationship-based parenting model, which she calls Peaceful Parenting, has helped thousands of families across the US and Canada. Find compassionate, common sense solutions to everything from separation anxiety and sleep problems to sass-talk and cell phones. She is the proud parent of two terrific young adults who were raised with Peaceful Parenting.

So, Dr. Laura, thank you so much for being here and welcome to Learn With Less. So, I have asked you to come onto the show today to speak to us about how infants and toddlers learn about emotions. But first, can you just tell us a bit about more about you, and how you got into the work that you’re doing today?

Dr. Laura: So, I think parents are doing the hardest job there is, and they need more support and that’s why I do what I do. And while I’m trained as a clinical psychologist, what that means is that you’re trained to look for what can go wrong inside people. And so I have that training and that’s really useful in what I do, but really what I’m always looking for is what can go right because it’s sort of an amazing thing that all parents come in to the work with – the work of raising a child with – all of us, bring our own history, our own unresolved issues, our own genetics, and then we receive a child who has their own genetics and their own way being in the world (which might be very different than ours) and we forge a relationship and that’s what parenting is.

And I find it endlessly fascinating the wide variety of ways to be human and and that love is the answer to all of the conflicts that arise from that and that struggle. Meaning, working with what is, and trying to bring more compassion to it, whether it’s inside us, inside our child, between us, even that stranger on the street who cut you off in traffic. Whatever it is, love really turns out to be the answer.

Ayelet: Absolutely. Part of this is that we… we think that there are these things called “parenting experts,” right? I think, you come into parenting and you think, okay, well somebody must know the answer. You and I both know, having worked with many families and being parents ourselves that… That just doesn’t exist. There is no “answer,” but there are bits of information that we can use to help us do the job a bit more easily or with a bit more information about that. So that said…

Dr. Laura: We’re on a journey, right?

Ayelet: Yeah. So I would love for you to tell us a little bit about what is that basis for the ways that infants, toddlers, and young children learn about emotions because as we all know, emotions are a big part of growing up, of being, of becoming our own self, our own identity and of displaying independence in many, many ways for both positive and negative. So tell us a bit about that process and what that basis is.

Dr. Laura: Well, first of all, I love that you’re asking about emotion because I think that’s the big unaddressed issue. You know, you read any parenting book and it’ll say, well, and you control yourself and then you interact with your child in a calm and collected way. It’s like “what?” You know, and there are big emotions… on both sides. Yes, it’s going to happen. And so I think, just becoming aware of emotions is a really good place to start to support our child.

But you asked how children learn. They learn from us, they learn in the context of relationship. It doesn’t happen outside of relationship. So really when children, when babies are born, they’re born looking for someone to interact with who will, as you say, “be that expert” – only, they’re not looking for a parenting expert, they’re looking for a life expert. They’re looking for some to explain to them what that feeling is inside them, who can help them get food when they need it, you know, give them food.

In the beginning it’s all, it’s all… they can’t even control their arms and legs. Right? It’s all us giving, and then eventually modeling how to get things for themselves, how to find what they need and meet their needs while not trampling on other people, right? I mean, that’s sort of the basic human lesson because none of us, no one would ever be happy because that’s how humans are designed and so they’re coming into the world looking for that relationship and they learn about emotions by experiencing them in the context of the relationship and learning… it’s not just that they learn what to do with them as if it’s an intellectual thing. Their actual neural pathways are formed as they interact with us because the brain and the neurology, neurology, it’s not just your brain, right? The neurology that – the heart has neurons that are throughout our entire body.

There is neurology and it’s all pretty unfinished when we’re born. And there’s a reason for that, which is that then we’re very adaptable. Humans are amazingly adaptable, right? So when you’re born in a war zone, you’re going to need a different neurology than if you’re born on a farm in a peaceful, you know, beaucolic countryside, right? So, and, you know, we know that different humans come into the world with genetics that have been modified by past experience of even our parents and grandparents. We… it turns out that genes get turned off and on, you know, epigenetics shows us that it’s not just nature – nurture, it’s all so interwoven, right? So they are born.

So you ask, how to babies learn about emotion? They cry – express automatically, because we’re designed to, they express what they’re feeling and how do we respond? We might respond by reassuring them and saying, oh sweetheart, it’s okay. What do you need? Do you need to be fed? You need to be held, do you need to be changed, you know, or we might respond by yelling at them to be quiet… Or it might drive us so crazy that the baby’s crying because we can’t handle it, that we might shake the baby, right? And terrify them, right?

There’s all kinds of things that can happen to that baby at that moment. And that’s the most basic lesson there is about emotions and how, whether emotions are safe, whether there are ways to get what they need, you know, and gradually over time, kids hopefully are going to learn from us that having those feelings, it’s not an emergency and it’s a safe universe that will help them. And they can trust that they’ll be taken care of and that their needs will be met and therefore they don’t become drama queens, you know, they, they become able to express their emotions in a way that’s respectful of other people to still get what they need in the world, right? Right. So that’s the basic lesson of emotions. And of course it’s much more complicated, but it’s very simple…

Ayelet: Right, exactly. They learn from us, essentially. So, I think many of the parents, caregivers, and professionals out there listening right now would love to hear a little bit about, obviously, not just the tips or helping our children with their emotions, but also helping ourselves to self-regulate. And we’ll definitely get there in a few minutes, but one of the things that we’ve talked about previously on the Learn With Less podcast, because this is what much of the research indicates, is that that act of expressing our emotions in words, right? When we do have those big emotions that labeling what those are, whether they’re from us, whether they’re from our children, whether they’re from the environment. Can you talk a little bit about, how does that act of expressing emotions in words help our little people?

Dr. Laura: So, it’s so interesting you say that, because I think there’s some misconception of the research. So the reason I know about is done on adults and it turns out that when we as an adult are able to articulate what we’re feeling, then the feeling begins to dissipate. That’s really important for us to notice because regulating our own emotions certainly isn’t about repressing them, right?

It isn’t, oh, I’m not angry because then we know what happens. You’re stuffing down the anger and it’s gonna explode, right? You’re in some way letting the emotion out by recognizing it. Right, but you’re also getting message. You know your emotions are there for a purpose. It’s giving us the message that something’s not working for us at that moment and when we get the message, our body doesn’t have to keep giving us this sensation of discomfort, which is that frustrated feeling because we already got it.

We’ve got the message and we’re ready to take some action on it. Then our body doesn’t have to keep sending it to us and saying, pay attention. Right. Okay. But for children, so this is really interesting. There’s a whole assumption that therefore if we tell our children what they’re feeling, they won’t feel it. I don’t think that’s true. If we… Maybe it depends on how you say it, right?

If you say, oh, that is so frustrating, they’re gonna feel understood probably, but when you say you’re getting frustrated, now, stop and control yourself. Your kid’s gonna wanna smack you, right? Because they’re, they feel judged. They don’t feel understood. Children like the rest of us, once they can express something, they feel better. So rage only really begins to dissipate when it’s acknowledged, right? When they can name it themselves, it has the same good effect as it has for us, but it’s not to be told what you’re feeling.

Ayelet: No, certainly not. And I absolutely agree, and I agree that the research says otherwise. I think what we’re talking about here is the ways that our infants and toddlers learn about emotions and about using emotional language, so that’s more about the kinds of research that I’m talking about is using the, “Oh Look, look at that child’s in the playground. She is crying, she is sad,” or “I am yelling at you. I need to take a breath. I’m going to take a moment so that I can feel better because I’m frustrated.” Or “you look really frustrated because you’re struggling with that toy. I wonder what we could do to help you feel better.” That’s – so I think we got a little bit off track there, but, so that kind of emotional language is more what I’m talking about.

Dr. Laura: I think you’re right. It’s a different thing when they’re first learning the language and it’s such a relief to them for us to say, “You’re so mad,” right? They’re like, yeah, mad, that’s what I am, and it helps them to express it.

Ayelet: Right. Yeah. So, and you were saying a little bit about they are going to learn how to use those words. So in your mind, what are the ways that we can do the job of teaching them how to use those words?

Dr. Laura: I think exactly what you just modeled is beautiful so that when we’re in interaction with our child and they’re frustrated with something or when we’re frustrated with something. I think so often we as parents feel a responsibility and a delight in teaching our children, “oh, this is red and this is blue and this is green and what color is this?” And what we don’t do is say, “and this is mad and this is sad and this is frustrated and” – right, and so I love that – it’s just part of life. There’s nothing dangerous, there’s nothing bad, there’s nothing that has to be done. We can just notice how we think and feelings changed and that’s good too.

Ayelet: Yeah, exactly. So that is the way that we can use that expression of emotions. That’s wonderful. Thank you Dr Laura. All right, we’re just going to take a very brief break to hear a word from our sponsor and then we’re going to hear a few tips from Dr Laura about practical everyday things we can do to raise these healthy and emotionally intelligent young children, and then as well as a few of her favorite resources for families interested in learning more about this topic.

Ayelet: Okay, Dr. Laura, we would love to hear a few of your top tips for raising these emotionally intelligent beings. And again, talking about starting from day one and if we haven’t started from day one, from year two, where it is. Because of course, again, this is not about guilt.

Oh my gosh, I screwed up my kid from day one because I haven’t been doing this until, you know, year two. And of course a lot of times we have, we get sort of thrown into toddlerhood when that sort of parenting portion of parenting starts, right? So what kinds of tips can you give to our parents of infants and toddlers to help them with that day to day practice?

Dr. Laura: Well, you know, you mentioned that transition from infancy to toddlerhood and with infancy, we’re just meeting their needs. So the most important thing to do in infancy is to meet those needs and to allow all of the emotions. So there’s research showing that children form a working model of relationships.

In fact, they form more than one, based on all of their important relationships and they have an expectation of how the world will treat them based on those relationships and how… you know, It determines, unless there’s a significant change that first year trusting, knowing your needs will be met, knowing that people will allow you to be who you are and still love you.

That determines the kind of marriage you’ll have or partnership later in life and the kind of parent you will be, which is pretty amazing because when they assess this at 14 months, the child has almost no language, but they demonstrate what working model they formed, right? So in that first year, it’s all about meeting needs and allowing the child to be who they are.

So and, and acknowledging like we’ve noticed that some parents can’t handle anger from their child, so they’re very good at, “Oh, you’re sad you’re hurt.” But when the child is like, “Agh!” they don’t, they don’t want the child to be angry and they can’t acknowledge the anger. So part of it is just acknowledging and allowing that you are so mad you wanted that. You’re sad. You didn’t get it, now you’re mad, right? And, and feelings are all tangled up, right? You’re sad and then you get mad, right?

Because you’re sad, for instance, but when kids become toddlers, what happens is suddenly we’re in the business of setting limits, you know, we’re not just meeting needs! Because, before that, you basically are meeting all needs, but – I mean, obviously you know, you’re not letting your child touch the hot stove that they’re reaching for, but basically you’re, you’re meeting their needs all of a sudden as a toddler, they have a million needs that they’re very forward and advancing and many of those needs are for that cookie or whatever, you know, climbing to the top of that thing…

We’re not going to let them do because it’s not safe for them or not good for other people if they’re climbing over the top of the seat into the airplane and it, in somebody else’s face, right? So we have to learn how to set limits while still acknowledging and allowing emotions. And I think that’s where most parents, most parents of toddlers find it’s a big challenge.

How do you acknowledge the feelings and say you wish you could climb up in that space but that’s somebody else’s space, right? Or you know, you really want that cookie. You’re so hungry. We’re not going to have a cookie right now, but how do you allow the child to have the emotions not make them bad, not make them feel like a bad person, but still teach them appropriate behavior?

You asked of tips for how to do that. I think the answer is exactly that. You set limits, but you set them with an understanding of why the child wants to do it. You know, you’re feeling so you’re, you’re, you’re tired of being in one place. You’re feeling stir crazy. Let’s get up and move around. You’re so hungry to find something healthy to eat. So you’re also helping them solve their problem. So you’re understanding what their problem is.

You’re seeing it as it’s not a problem. It’s just a challenge we have to solve. And you’re giving your child the message it’s not an emergency. It’s okay to have those emotions, even if they’re very upset, but they, they’ll get through it. You’ll help them through it, you’re their backup and you’re even gonna help them solve the problem they’re having.

Ayelet: Right, and in fact meeting those needs, you are seeing that they are challenged, you’re acknowledging that they are challenged, and you are finding a way to acknowledge that and then meet the need. So I think for many parents it’s all about figuring out what the need is because I think it can be very…

Obviously, especially with those little ones who are pre-verbal or just emergently verbal. We have a lot of – it’s really about being a detective as a parent and figuring out, okay, what’s the basis for this frustration? And sometimes it’s more obvious and sometimes it’s not. So that, that figuring out what the basis for that big emotion is, I think is often… that is the what a great takeaway.

What about as far as for the parents? Because I think a lot of us do struggle with that self regulation piece, and, like you said, we all do it. None of us is a perfect parent or a perfect human all the time because that is inherently impossible. So what, what are some of the recommendations that you can give to families who, to parents who are struggling with that and who would like some tools?

Dr. Laura: So, you have tools in the moment in your life in general that allow you to self regulate better if your life is set up in certain ways. Obviously the more stress you’re under, the harder it’s going to be to self regulate. That’s just the way it is. So the more you can look at your life and say, okay, do only what’s essential, I have little kids, there’s no way I can get everything done.

There’s no way I can have a perfect life. And there’s no reason to be judging myself for… I’m just doing my best to show up and you really can postpone almost anything but love, you know, so I’d say start with the stress level and the amount of sleep you’re getting. But then, self regulation itself, we have seen that meditators, their brain will change.

Now, by the time you already have a kid, you don’t have time to meditate. That’s the problem with this. By the time you realize you need it, you have no time to do it, but I highly recommend that if you have little kids who sleep, that while they’re sleeping, you don’t catch up on work, which is what we all want to do, right?

And you don’t get lost on Facebook, but you don’t even do the dishes. You know, you, you find a way to do the dishes while your child’s awake, standing next to you at the sink, making it take three times as long and make three times as much mess. But you at least you’re doing that while your child is there because A, that’s good for your child, and B, then you’re getting the dishes done without doing it on sort of your own time.

Your own time while everyone’s asleep, either sleep if you have a little one or you haven’t gotten enough sleep at night or whatever, or meditate and – or exercise! Exercise is very important to reducing stress levels. Yeah. Exercise and meditation are the two things that allow us to self regulate. Really.

And sleep will be the third one. So I would just say for medication, if you haven’t had a practice before, then do a guided meditation because it’s just easier to do it. Make it very short. Start with five minutes. There are so many good ones you can download for free on your phone, on your computer. It’s just easy. And pick a five minute one to do five minutes every single day. You’ll find yourself wanting more. Do 10, and I think even 15 minutes a day for a month, changes your brain.

So, if that’s the case, you know, parents who say to me, I just can’t stop yelling, I can’t. Well you can actually. And if your child said, I just can’t stop hitting my sister, you wouldn’t accept that. So, we know it’s not good to yell at your kids, right? So there is a way around it. And so one way is to give yourself the brain that can self regulate better and we know this is a proven way to do it. So, reduce your stress, get enough sleep, and start to rewire your brain. Now in the moment there’s also brain rewiring that has to happen.

So in the moment when you’re upset and you’re just, you know, your kid just stopped at the toilet by dumping everything in it, whatever you know, and the baby’s crying and you’re just beside yourself and you’re just and you’re screaming. You find yourself screaming because, who wouldn’t be?

So, at that moment, stop. Shut your mouth. Bite your tongue. And it’s hardest thing in the world to do. But as you do it, what ends up happening is your brain goes, oh, I guess this isn’t necessarily the most effective way to deal with this. We’ll learn a new coping mechanism here. And your brain starts to rewire to figure out another way to do it.

And the next time something happens where you’re, you’re in the car and the kids are at each other and you’re, you know, and, and you just took the wrong turn and you’re going to be late and you’re starting to scream. You’re gonna find it’s, it’s still hard. You’re going to be screaming, but you’re going to be able to notice your screaming a little earlier in the process and shut your mouth a little more easily.

And each time you do it, it gets easier. And for some of us, if you grew up with yellers a long line of yellers, it’s really, really hard. And so give yourself support. There’s all kinds of support. There’s charts you can download from my website that are, you know, that have respectful voice charts that you or your child draws a star or gives you a star when you had a respectful voice that day.

There’s the Orange Rhino, who’s wonderful, Sheila McCraith, who has a whole book on how to stop yelling, and there are many more resources that are available online and whatever. So I just, what we’ve seen, what the research shows, is that it gets easier and easier. And I’ve spoken at this point to thousands of parents who stopped yelling by doing a process like this and you know, giving themselves as much support and, and just start right now knowing you’re gonna mess up, you are going to, if you’re a yeller, you’re going to be yelling.

That’s the way it is. Deciding it, listening to me right now might inspire you, but you’re going to yell tomorrow. That’s okay. Or even today, later, give yourself right now, you don’t have to be perfect. Just increase your ratio of times when you’re able to reign yourself in and you could give yourself a choice. What’s the most effective way to deal with the situation? What is that I want my child to get out of this action and therefore what’s the most effective thing.

Ayelet: Yes, exactly, and that is the key piece, right? What actually, because when you recognize in yourself the behavior that you’re trying to stop in your toddler, that’s like the worst feeling in the world and we’ve all been there, but that’s the key because you start to think like, okay, what is it exactly that I want to get out of this situation? And when you can get there, then you can start to answer that question.

So actually I think I have a little follow up question which is you said stop in your tracks. Shut your mouth and just breathe for a second. But I think a lot of parents listening are saying, okay, then what? So what, what is that next step for people? Because I think this is part of the issue is that we can’t see the trajectory of, honestly, like I think so many parents just need a one, two, three. What are my steps? Can you give us a little bit more of an insight?

Dr. Laura: And I want to say that all of this is really clearly outlined in my workbook, my book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, taught the theory and gives you some tips about how to do it. The workbook is that cut and dry step-by-step, but I’ll just. I’ll just say, so I call that “Stop, Drop and Breathe,” what we just did. Stop. Drop your agenda. Breathe, right? And what research shows is that gives you a choice. You’re moving back into the present moment.

You can, it gives you a choice about not getting hijacked, but you’re still pretty angry. Your body is like, flushed with fight or flight hormones and neurotransmitters and you’re still ready to throttle somebody, right? So at that moment, at that moment, you may need to take more than one breath, right? Stop, drop and breathe might be 10 breaths and it may be that you need to turn away.

You know, here’s the overflowing toilet and you’ve got the baby crying in the other room, you’ve got your toddler. Really what you might at this point do is lift up the toddler out of the room, shut the bathroom door and, and go to the baby, like bring, say to the toddler, “the baby’s crying. We need to go get your sister,” you know, as I used to say to my son, when he was four, “your baby’s crying, what does she need.?”

And we would go get her and he would, you know, so at that moment you might be too angry at your toddler to even be nice to them. And so, so you might, you need to make sure they’re safe, but they’re not going to fall down the stairs if you leave them alone to go with the baby, but you need to find a way to not indulge in your anger. But you have a choice now. And really the choice is, are you going to be acting out of your anger or you gonna act out of compassion. So I, to me, it all boils down to love and fear.

Every choice at heart is either love or it’s fear, so in this case we’re going to go with love because we took that deep breath. If it was fear, it would be, Oh my goodness, the plumber’s going to cost this much money and now this and now that, and you’d have a whole cascade of fear coming at you. We’re not doing that. We took the deep breath.

We shut the door symbolically and physically – you know, actually, literally. So now we’re choosing love. Even though we’re angry at the toddler for doing this, we’ve told him before and not to throw all that stuff in the toilet and he knows better.

Okay, so we choose love and we try, we say, and maybe the baby’s not crying and you can say to him, “the toilet overflowed.” Maybe if you’re calm enough, you can say, “the toilet overflowed. Oh No!” Right. Which allows you to express a little of the… You’re not just being totally calm and collected because you don’t feel that way.

That’s not authentic. He would know it’s not right, or true. It is an emergency on some level, but no one’s dying and it’s not as important as what your toddler froze up feeling like what kind of a parent you were, right?

So, “oh no!” And your toddler looks at you with big eyes and you say, “the toilet’s broken. It doesn’t work now. Did you see the water?” Maybe maybe you reached under and turned off the water underneath before you walked out of the room, if you had the wherewithal to do it, but now you still realize you’re still mad and what you need to do is calm your body down and there are, because it’s still pumping out fight or flight hormones and neurotransmitters.

So there are two things you can do. One is you change what you’re thinking because remember, every thought you have, and we have thousands in a minute, basically. Every thought you have creates emotions. So if your thought is this toddler is going to be a criminal, everything I tell him, he does the opposite. What’s he going to be like when he’s a teenager? Oh, no, right? Imagine what emotions are going to be feeling – all kinds of fear, right? We’re not trying to go there, we’re trying to go to compassion, so now we have a different thought.

Okay, let’s reframe this: he is a toddler. He’s acting like a toddler. Oh, he is a toddler. No wonder he’s acting like a toddler and maybe even… maybe you can’t go this far at this moment, but maybe even, the baby has an ear infection and the baby’s been on my lap all morning and I wasn’t really engaging with the toddler and I left and sort of unsupervised. I mean give my best as a mother to meet the needs of everybody.

I can’t always do it, but maybe there’s some contribution that I made to this. That also can really help us if we can allow that and the only way to allow it is not to guilt yourself. The only way to allow it is if you immediately go, no, I didn’t. I was a good mother. That’s a defensive reaction because we can’t even go there. Right?

Ayelet: Or the other side, which is, I did this, I’m at fault. I’m guilty, right? It’s somewhere totally different that we’re going. It’s the love and compassion that we’re going, for ourselves, for our children…

Dr. Laura: Right, and what’s different is that there’s no blame. You’re looking for someone who’s gonna blame. Most of us were trained when we were young – “who did this!” you know, but actually, and it makes us feel a little more in control and a little more not wrong, right? It helps us from some of the shame and blame – the blame helps us get out of the guilt and shame. It’s not useful! Shame is not useful. And even guilt can be useful once in a while, but in this case it’s not useful. Maybe you’re going to learn something about your child that needs a little more supervision even though they seem so grown up compared to the baby.

You know, so I think the point is that you said what the parents do at that moment, change your mind, right? By reframing the thoughts that are leading to the emotions – that can change everything on a dime. And let some of that emotion. What are emotions? Emotions, are physical sensations.

You know you’re feeling an emotion because your throat gets tight or your heart starts pounding, or your fists are clenched, or your breathing gets shallow. It’s all a physical sensation and we learn to interpret that as a certain emotion, like fear and excitement basically are the same profile, but we interpret it differently based on the context. Right?

So at that moment when you’re feeling that big emotion and you’re angry at your toddler and you’ve stopped and dropped and breathed, and you try to change your thought, you’ll probably need to let out some emotion, right? Because they’re still stuck circulating your body, shake out your hands, run them under the water, you know, if you can and everything’s safe and you don’t have an overflowing toilet. You could say to your toddler, this was such a frustrating morning. I need to dance out these feelings. It’s the best thing in the world to have a dance party, you know, turn on the music – dance. Show your toddler constructive ways of handling big emotions.

Ayelet: Yeah, very nice. Thank you. So… You mentioned a few great resources and then I think obviously there’s so many, but you mentioned obviously your book Peaceful Parenting, and the workbook portion, which I think is a great thing for families who are looking for that, that sort of piece by piece.

Dr. Laura: The book is called Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, just so people know it’s not called Peaceful Parenting.

Ayelet: Thank you, yes, and then the other one was the work of – you mentioned another wonderful professional?

Dr. Laura: Orange Rhino, Sheila McCraith. Yeah, she’s great. If you’re looking at emotions for young children. I love Aletha Solter. She’s one of the first to say… I think she came out of reevaluation co-counseling, but I wouldn’t say that’s what she does. She basically took those ideas that emotions are a message we need to let ourselves feel them and express them, and she applied that to young children from a preschool and then parenting perspective, so she’s got some great work out which includes a lot of games. Games to help children work through big feelings that they have.

Ayelet: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Laura and thank you to all of our participants of the Learn With Less® Curriculum Online Program who are here listening live. We are going to continue the discussion and open up for 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 How Infants and Toddlers Learn About Emotions appeared first on Learn With Less.

This episode of the Learn With Less podcast was produced in partnership with the San Francisco Moms Blog. In this episode, Ayelet sits down with Kelly Arditi, founder of the San Francisco Moms Blog. San Francisco Moms Blog is part of the well known City Moms Blog Network. It is written by local moms for local moms and provides resources, recommendations, support and community philanthropy through their website, videos, social media platforms, and events.

Today, we flip the script and have Kelly interview Ayelet about how to support early communication in infants and toddlers. We cover the various areas of communication development, how to support speech & language development (using Ayelet’s 4-step framework which you can download here in the Infant/Toddler Development Blueprint), early communication milestones, when to seek help, and a few tips and tricks about playing with a tiny baby, using Baby Sign Language, supporting bilingual language development, as well as a few words about Ayelet’s bestselling book, Understanding Your Baby.

Plus, a big announcement about Ayelet’s next book, Understanding Your Toddler!

Kelly: Hi Guys, I’m Kelly with San Francisco Mom’s Blog, and I am so excited to be here with our contributing writer, the founder of Learn With Less and the Learn With Less podcast, and author of Understanding Your Baby. Yes, I keep going on and she’s a speech pathologist and a mom. Ayelet Marinovich (did I say it right?)

Ayelet: You did so well, Kelly, that’s very impressive.

Kelly: And today we’re talking about how to support early communication with your baby and your toddler, and how to interact and play with them. And we have a couple questions that were sent in, so we’ll go over those at the end. I did link her book, so please take a look in the comment section. And my son is home sick today. Yes. Authentic parenting life at its best. So he’s sitting right here with a popsicle and some books. But please don’t be alarmed if you hear him playing in the background. Okay. So let’s go ahead and start. Tell us a little bit about early communication and the different parts, and things like that.

Ayelet: Sure. So in the first three years, well not actually just in the first three years, but when we break down communication development, we’re looking at a few different areas, right? We’re looking at speech, which is that actual, like, motor component of articulating sounds, and then we’re looking at language, which is both the input (which we refer to as receptive language) and then the output (which we refer to as expressive language). And within the area of language, we have a few different things, as well.

Things like phonology, which are the basic speech sounds, like ah, oo, b, d, those kinds of things. We have morphology, which are all the units of meaning, right? Those tiny, teeny pieces like plural markers, right? We have syntax, which is grammar. And then we have semantics, which is vocabulary, and then we have pragmatics, which is the social use of language. So, there are all different kinds of areas that we look at when we think of communication. And then of course there’s the verbal part and then there’s the written part, which will eventually become literacy.

Kelly: Right, later on. Wow. So it’s a lot.

Ayelet: It’s a lot, and as a pediatric speech language pathologist, I work on all of those different things, and then the sort of, the atypical things that can happen with little guys and gals and how to support parents who are dealing with those gaps in early development when their kiddos are not necessarily meeting the milestones or are delayed, or if they have a child who was born with a preexisting condition, for instance.

Kelly: Okay. So how do you support those areas, specifically?

Ayelet: Yeah, so this goes for both typical and atypical communication development because I am a pediatric speech language pathologist, but I also work as a parent educator with my work with Learn With Less, which serves families with all kids with all developmental levels.

Kelly: And you guys should follow this. She has a facebook group. It’s fantastic. And the podcast, and it’s full of really great information. Even your instagram feed, she always has really fun ideas to play and to, to get down and really hang out with your kids with just normal stuff around the house. So it’s really great. You should check that out for sure. Okay, so go ahead and continue explaining that.

Ayelet: So I think the most important thing that I want to get through to families is that it does not take fancy toys, you don’t have to be a stay-at-home parent. If you are a stay-at-home parent, we know the stay at home moms and dads are not necessarily spending all day sitting there and staring at their babies, right? This is not reality. We got to get the stuff of life done. We gotta actually get through the day, whether or not you work full time or you’re at home full time, whatever.

So I want to… what I really, like, my passion and what I really strive to hit home is the fact that you are most likely already doing all of the really big, wonderful things to maximize, number one, your time with your child, and number two, to really support your child’s development. Especially in that area of communication.

That’s my real sweet spot, but we know that in the first five years, but certainly in the first three years, infants and toddlers learn holistically, which means that when you are sort of working or targeting a specific area like cognitive development, or communication development, you’re also working on motor development and social and emotional development. Those things are not going to be separated, right? Because when we’re learning how to gesture, we’re isolating a finger. We’re lifting up our arm. We’re pointing at vocabulary words.

We’re integrating a concept – that’s cognitive development, and we’re interacting with somebody else – that’s social and emotional… So there are, when you are working on something, you’re going to be working really on so many different things and you can do this with stuff… Number one with stuff that you’re already, that you already have in your home, and with the time that you’re already spending with your child. Primarily through things like caregiving routines, through daily routines, like going to check the mail or putting your shoes on.

Kelly: Or even running an errand.

Ayelet: Right, exactly.

Kelly: I love this because I think as parents we always question and doubt everything that we’re doing. And you feel guilty about everything. I feel guilty right now that my son is sick and sitting next to you still doing this, but that’s normal. And so what I love about this is that you don’t really need anything fancy. You’re already doing it. You already have the tools that you need.

Ayelet: It’s just a matter of figuring out how to use them.

Kelly: Yes! And not being afraid to use them and get creative with them. Right.

Ayelet: So how to support communication? Well, I think about this as sort of a four-step or four area framework. So number one is PLAY, right? And what does that mean, really? Play is really defined as using tools, using materials and experimenting with them for no specific purpose, right? So when we’re thinking of play, it’s a really, it’s hard to get down to that level because as adults we think about the notion of play as like, we play a game.

Kelly: As like a task, where there’s like a goal.

Ayelet: Yeah, A plus B equals C.

Kelly: It’s about the process, totally open.

Ayelet: Yeah. So, so infants and toddlers and young children in general are going to be learning best through open-ended play and through open-ended play materials. So forget the notion of like “blocks are for stacking and books are for reading front to back.” Like your child is, your baby’s mouthing a block. Guess what he’s playing with it. What’s he learning about when he does that? He’s learning about the texture. He’s learning about the weight of it, all of the properties of it. He’s learning about how it moves when he brings…

Kelly: How to hold it…

Ayelet: Exactly. All of those things. Books, your baby’s mouthing a book. Guess what? That’s developmentally appropriate early literacy experience for your child, and regardless of if you just sit there reading the newspaper out loud and your baby’s sitting there, that’s wonderful early literacy, like that’s awesome. That’s… All of that is play and just walking around with your baby, talking about what you see that’s play, right? That’s supporting all areas of development. So it’s really basic stuff.

Kelly: And just being open minded.

Ayelet: Yeah. And, I think you’re gonna really like this because I know you have a background in improvisational comedy, Kelly, but what I like to think about it is this idea of “yes, and…” Right, so we, we talk about things like, oh, like your baby’s lead, right? Follow your child’s lead, right? But what does that mean? Like, we hear all these great things on tv now, these amazing advertisements of First Five, like talk, play, sing, read, right?

But what does that look like? Ok, so here’s what it looks like. Your baby starts mouthing a book. Okay, great – “you’re mouthing a book.” Fill it in with words, right? Which brings me to my second framework idea, which is TALK, right? So we want to play, we want to talk to our babies. Bathe them in a language rich environment, which means, talking about what they’re doing, giving words to what they’re doing, giving words to how you interpret what they’re doing or how they’re feeling.

Kelly: So, even now, I’m cleaning his hands. I would say, oh, I’m cleaning your hands right now. Mommy’s cleaning your face.

Ayelet: Sticky, right? So think about things like action words, descriptive words…

Kelly: So like in something as simple as cleaning up, you can add words to that and that’s a learning experience.

Ayelet: That’s it. Exactly. That’s how they learn. That’s how they learn vocabulary – through contextual experience. So, of course, like your child’s first word is not going to be banana if he’s never seen a banana or hates bananas, right? They’re going to be using words, they’re going to be learning how to use words and they’re going to be motivated to use words that are based on their interests and their experience.

Kelly: Stuff that they’ve heard.

Ayelet: Exactly. So, PLAY, TALK, SING. So I think I get a lot of flack for this one sometimes because not everyone feels musical, right? But I want to remind everybody that being musical or providing musical experiences for your child does not necessarily mean singing in a beautifully operatic voice.

Kelly: Right – they don’t know that your voice isn’t like fantastic, right?

Ayelet: Exactly. Number one, like you’ve got a good, at least two, two and a half years before your child even decides that you, that you should or should not be singing. And your voice, it represents comfort and closeness, right? Your baby, if you carried your baby, they have been hearing your voice since before they were born.

Kelly: Right, it’s comforting to them.

Ayelet: It’s a comfort measure, it’s associated with these positive things. So they’re associating you and your voice and you talking or singing to them with that. Not like my gosh, my mom is a horrible singer. Number two, like rhythm… [noisy toddler background noise] These are actually excellent communication skills at work, right? Like, look at this wonderful early literacy experience.

Kelly: He’s got like 16 Pete the Cat books right here.

Ayelet: All right, so not just singing but playing music around your baby, right? Imagine holding your child tapping to the rhythm – all you have to do is tap the rhythm on your baby’s body, right? And it’s a rhythm experience!

Kelly: So, this is actually really funny. So my mom is very musical. She’s probably going to watch this at some point later today. She’s very musical and I come from a very musical family, and what she used to do when we were in the car, I remember this as a child, she on the center console when we will be in the car, just the regular radio would be on. She would pat the beats of the song on the center console to teach us…

Ayelet: Rhythm Competence!

Kelly: Yes. And I remember like hearing it and she’d be like, come find the beat with me and we would find the beat and so I actually do it with my kids because it was really special!

Ayelet: And don’t forget – that is also supporting communication development, that rhythm, because when think about it, when we talk. [talks in robotic monotone voice] Imagine if I talked like this and it was only like this and there were no gaps and pauses and anything like this, that would be strange. Yeah. That would be atypical social use of language, right? Yeah. And so music really mirrors so much of what we do in speech and language. So we use pauses, we used phrases, we use a melody. The intonation of voice is called prosody, right? There’s a term for this course. Of course, there’s a term for everything.

Kelly: Of course! And I love she knows the term!

Ayelet: But all of this stuff – this is based on science. This is not like the like, oh, what’s best practice for like, how I should do this. If I have $30 today, what should I spend the money on to support my baby’s development? It doesn’t matter what it is. You are the toy, right?

Kelly: Right. And these are really simple things that you can do. Yeah. Okay. So we have PLAY, we have TALK, we have SING, so what’s the fourth?

Ayelet: The last one is move, right? Because we know that children learn through movement. Movement… Motor and sensory development are sort of two sides of the same coin. I’m not an occupational therapist, so that’s not my primary part of expertise, but it is. So all related, like I was talking about earlier, holistic learning, right? So motor development is about how our bodies enact on the world and telling our bodies to do those things. And sensory development is figuring out how our body is taking in sensory information, information through the different senses that we have.

So when our children are exploring their environment right, when a baby is on a blanket, on a sheepskin, on whatever it is, the floor, they’re learning through movement – just through moving their arms up and down. Remember when your baby realized that they had hands like, yeah, that’s amazing stuff. So little things to help to encourage that movement, give them space, right? We have all these sort of containers that we rely on now because they’re modern, they’re going to help our babies develop… They’re not. What’s going to help your baby develop is to move and experience the world, right?

Kelly: So we have dance parties during the witching hours. Oh my mom just said hi. I was just chatting about you. So in the evening. So I have two boys, one you just met, and sometimes in the evenings there’s so much energy and we will put on really fun music and have like these little dance parties. And to be honest, it’s like a little break for mommy because it’s hard, right? But I think it’s so good for them to explore and that’s music and movement and that’s of course they’re older, but if you picked up an infant and moved.

Ayelet: So these are things like these sort of ways to think about like what are the things that I can do with my child? They are totally appropriate for infants from birth to at least three years old and beyond. This is like pre-school, my almost five year old. This is how I think, okay, what can I be doing if I have been playing with stuff, What can I do right now to enhance, to get more movement? Right? And you have to think about too, movement.

Movement can be used, especially when you combine it with music and things like that, to both enhance and liven up a child’s sensory system or to also calm it down, right? So thinking about like play song, we’re talking about a dance party, right? But like, upbeat, exciting, fun, like you’re singing along, it’s a dance party, it’s great. Or you can think more along the lines of a lullaby which is calm soft and soothe and even like slow movements, and holding… Like these are things that you can do to both encourage excitement, and also sort of decrease the level of energy.

Kelly: Okay, perfect. And what are the milestones in the first three years that parents, you know, I think a lot of people are concerned they want to make sure their child’s meeting every milestone… so what are some things that they should look for in the first three years that have to do with this early communication?

Ayelet: So I, first of all, I want to encourage you to look at again, your whole child. But these are some things that you can be aware of, right? So I think we focus on like, oh my gosh, my baby should be talking at age one. Right? But think about even if you have an infant, like what are the little things that you can do to encourage things? Like smiling and giggling, which is through play, right? And interaction!

And what are the kinds of things that you can do to encourage babbling, like use of that consonant and vowel combination bah, bah, bah, bah. And a great way to do that is through music and talking to your baby, right? Your child babbles… it’s actually amazing, your child is going to be babbling using the speech sounds and the melody of the language or languages that you are exposing him to, which is so cool, right? I mean it makes sense obviously.

Kelly: So, my sister in law always used to, she had kids before me and she always with her kids, and now I do it with my kids because I loved it. She would say, “And then what happened? And then what happened?” to an infant because the infant will be like bah bah bah bah. And she’d be like, “tell me more. And then what happened?”

Ayelet: So encouraging turn taking, right? Because if you think about like, how do we break down the conversation, what are the elements of the conversation? I send a message to you, you listen and respond back to me. And so the content actually doesn’t matter when we’re teaching about what that looks like, right?

So there are lots of elements that we can focus on, just that pragmatic, the use of language, when you’re teaching your child to take turns back and forth, conversational turns, you’re teaching them about communication, you’re teaching them about social cues and emotional regulation, right? How to wait.

You’re teaching them about joint attention, which is a precursor to learning about being able to partake in a conversation which is essentially like we’re both attending to that flower over there. There’s some like, oh my gosh, look there that is, and we’re both aware that we’re both looking together. So these kinds of things, right? And all of those things really happened in the first year, which is great.

So like your baby’s not just talking at 12 months or whatever. There are lots of little things. So all of these little things are things to be thinking about them being aware of. And you can accomplish those through playing, talking, making musical experiences and movement experiences for your child.

Kelly: And what about comparing? Yeah, we always say this: don’t compare. You can’t… Even from one child to like your second child, everything is so different. That’s really hard because especially I think with your first child, when you’re a first time parent, you’re going to the little preschool class or the Mommy and Me class and you see, you know, so and so over here is having like full sentence conversations with his or her mommy and that’s really hard. But you just, you can’t. You just can’t compare.

Ayelet: Right. So I think this is related, so we were talking about the infant stuff, but then when you get into, once verbal, linguistic development is they’re actually using words. So we want to see about one word by age one and we want to see that our children are able to follow about one step directions around age one.

Kelly: Okay. So one word and one step direction. Meaning go get your blankets.

Ayelet: Yeah. Where are your shoes?

Kelly: Ok, that’s a good one. Okay. Okay. So one by one. And then what about like, 18 months?

Ayelet: So 18 months we, we want to see a real, like generally when they have about 50 words, you’ll start to see them combining two words, because around that 50 word count is when they’re using lots of different kinds of words, right? Nouns and verbs and adjectives and social words, environmental sounds and things like, uh-oh, and stuff like that. So, “uh-oh, banana! Mama up!”

Kelly: “Go, Dog, Go” is a really great book. We love that book. But he would say “red dog, blue dog” and just copying me, I don’t think obviously he’d understand, but like, but he would say that because we would read the books together! Those two words together.

Ayelet: And I want to encourage parents, number one, when we talk about like what, what is a first word? Signing counts, right? Your first sign, right? Your first sign. That’s a word! That’s symbolic language. I know we’ll get there…

Kelly: So that was something… someone asked about Sign Language, so we’ll talk about that in just a sec.

Ayelet: But first word also is like, you want to, when we count a word, it does not, number one have to be said in the correct way, like “wawa” for water, that’s a word – he’s saying something very specific. So you count that word, right?

Kelly: And that’s ok, you don’t have to worry that they can’t say it perfectly.

Ayelet: Yeah, exactly because they’re sequencing so many different things. Remember all of those elements, all the speech, although the placement of the tongue, and the breath support, that’s a whole lot of stuff. That’s why they don’t speak much before age one.

Kelly: Right, and it takes time! But I liked what you were saying before. There’s two different… so, they have to understand…

Ayelet: They have to be able to understand language in order to use it.

Kelly: Right. So that’s really important because I know that… I remember we had a conversation a long time ago because I was worried. My son Byron had problems with his ears. He had tubes in his ears and he’s totally fine now, but I called her and I was like, what are the signs I need to look for? And I remember you told me, can he understand you? Even though he’s not saying it, that’s a huge step, right? Is being able to say, where are your shoes? Go get your shoes. Come to the front door, you know, and, and so it’s really two parts, right?

Ayelet: Absolutely. Okay. And then forming those words, you have to be able to sequence the speech sounds to be understood. So really, three.

Kelly: Ok, what about an older milestone, real quick and then we’ll go to our questions.

Ayelet: Okay. So I wanted to say so by age one we want to generally see around one word or more, but this is again, this is a range. This is just like basic. And then by age two, we want to see two words being put together. By age three, we want to see at least three words.

Kelly: Ok, so that’s easy to remember, so 1, 2, and 3.

Ayelet: And then also on the other side of that understanding, following around at least two step directions by age two, and three step directions by age three.

Kelly: Ok, three steps, meaning “go get your jacket, go get your shoes, and meet me by the front door.” Okay. Okay, perfect. Alright, so we have a couple questions that were sent into us. The first one we briefly touched on is Sign Language.

I feel like this is a very big trend right now is signing up for the Baby Sign Language classes. [loud toddler background giggling] He’s playing with Siri right now, and she keeps saying, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about!” Just so can you just touch on that and like how beneficial this can really be, should parents be doing this, is for everyone?

Ayelet: Okay. So number one, we’re already using gestures. If you are waving around your child, if you’ve ever clapped, if you’ve ever pointed, right, if you’ve ever nodded your head or shaken your head or done like this, or “Where?” [lifts up shoulders and holds out hands]. Those are all gestures, and Sign Language is a whole language full of gestures. Now for the purposes of typically developing children using Sign Language and also developmentally delayed, sign as a bridge to verbal language.

So, we see children’s using gestures before we see them using words, generally. So if you think about it that way, you’ll understand like, yes, of course my baby started pointing or clapping, before he started saying what he was pointing to, right? So, we know that use of gestures.

The more a young child an infant, really uses gestures – and into toddlerhood to there is a correlation between early gestural use and more gestural use, and language development, which is cool. But does that mean that every child should go out and every parent is doing their children a disservice if you’re not able to participate in a Sign Language class? No.

Kelly: No, because you can do certain things at home.

Ayelet: You can do all of it at home.

Kelly: So it’s very beneficial. But you shouldn’t feel bad if you can’t make that Sign Language class. You can still work on things at home.

Ayelet: Absolutely. And through that framework again of playing right, if you are playing and you hide something under a book, you can do this. Where, where, where’s the ball? Or, “ball” or “eat” right during caregiving routines during daily routines, like whatever it is, like going and opening up the window and saying, where’s the sun? Right.

I’m just using the gesture, over using where because it’s like this is a really useful… And it’s not even a sign, right? That’s not like American Sign Language. You don’t need to use any formal system of signs, you just have to be consistent.

Kelly: So if you teach your child that this is “eat,” I think this is actually eat, but let’s just say it wasn’t, let’s say I made that up. It doesn’t matter. He can still communicate with me.

Ayelet: And as long as you understand that. As far as signing, like prohibiting verbal language, that’s been shown in all of the research that it does not impair or delay verbal language. It actually…

Kelly: It only helps.

Ayelet: Exactly. Like I said, it’s a bridge.

Kelly: So that was my other question because I feel like sometimes there’s a little controversy like, I’m going not going to teach sign, I’m not going to worry that he’s not going to talk. So it actually does help.

Ayelet: Yeah. It’s been shown… like I said, more gestures is, is going to be great for the kid’s language development.

Kelly: Ok, so Becky just said here, “hand gestures helped my son in speech therapy. Visual cues helped him so much in improving his articulation.”

Ayelet: That too. Yeah. And that’s like a specific can be a whole area of use in speech therapy for not only language but also articulation that speech because we use, we can use cues to like to help a child remember, like where to place his tongue right?

All of these, these are helping, right? We don’t communicate just through verbal language. All of us use gestures. So we are already communicating using multiple modes of communication, nonverbal and verbal alike. And what happens is we help to assist in our conversational partner’s understanding of what we’re saying… As I moved my hands all around… When we broke it down, right?

So it’s really, it’s a helpful thing and it’s a great thing and you can use it within play – when you talk to your child, pair that sign with the word right, because if you want your child to not only use the sign but also eventually use the word, you do it together. And they’re going to use the most efficient way possible. So if they’re not able to say the word yet or they’re just not comfortable with imitating that word, then they’re going to use the sign first. But once they can, they’re going to say the word, and that sign will fall away.

Kelly: When should you seek help? That was a question. Again, we touched on this, you worry. You want them to meet every milestone. So at what point do you recommend a parent actually saying, okay, I need to talk to my pediatrician, I need a referral, I need help.

Ayelet: Yeah. So those milestones sort of basics that I, that I referenced earlier, like the one word by one, two words by two, three words by three. Those are averages, right? So if your child is slightly delayed and he’s not saying one word exactly at 12 months, okay, that’s fine. But be aware of what else is going on, right. And some children are just like really motivated in the area of motor development, right?

Like both my boys did not crawl until 10 and 11 months, and we had friends who like, her son was crawling at six months and I was like, “oh my son’s not crawling…” And I know, like, I have all this information in my head, but as a mom, I’m still doubting. It’s a vulnerable time, and that’s why having this information is so empowering because you have a better sense of what and how to manage your expectations, really.

So generally what I like to say is your child, if you’re not seeing like a basic progression of like, little movement forward in all of those different areas, right? Cognitive development, problem solving skills and things like that and paying attention. Communication, development, motor and sensory development and social emotional development. If your child seems to be just like stuck at a place for more than a couple of months, then absolutely talk to your doctor about it.

And in the state of California and in all over the United States of America, we have something called Early Start, which means that you, if your child is experiencing delays or you feel like your child is experiencing delays, you can get recommended. And you can get an assessment, and people will come and look at your child and, and tell you whether or not something is going on and whether you need to get extra support to help your child develop to meet those milestones. And early intervention services are free. So I mean…

Kelly: So, how do you get that information?

Ayelet: So number one, talk to your doctor if you don’t like what your doctor is saying because some doctors are old school and they go with the wait-and-see approach. If that does not sit well with you and you really feel like something’s going on, you can contact the Department of Developmental Services in your state and contact early start. You will find that information.

Kelly: That’s really helpful.

Ayelet: It’s great. And I think it’s hard because we as parents, we don’t. Sometimes it’s really hard to get to that place where we can admit that there is something to worry about. And when we don’t know whether or not there’s nothing to worry about. It’s like number one, like if there’s a family history in hearing impairment and your child is delayed in speech and language, go talk to your doctor, get that hearing test.

Number two, if you feel like your kid is just like stuck in a place and he is just not moving forward or she. Sorry, I’m using “he’s” because I have two of them at home. But like, go and ask, because the worst that can happen is that you will get the help that you need, and your child will get the help that he or she needs. And, you will get free support from a person who has all kinds of amazing tricks up their sleeves, you will get this toolbox of stuff and you’ll be like, I never thought about that. What a great idea.

Kelly: And also talk to the teachers too. I feel like teachers are a really, really good place to start if you have some questions. Even even like with the little guy in preschool, daycare, because they have a lot of experience. Um, okay.

Kelly: This one was sent in. How do I play with my three month old? So this is hard, because three months old is really little. You feel like you can’t play but you can.

Ayelet: Absolutely. That’s what my book is all about. So again, this framework of playing, right? So offering up something… A three month old is most likely starting to use their hands and legs and reaching out more purposefully. Right up to that three month old period, they’re more sort of just reflexive, jerky movements. But around three, four months is when a child starts to move more purposefully.

So, put things around them that they can reach for and even start to grasp or hold and bring to their mouths. When you have a child who’s found their thumb or hand, it’s great for them to find that. I think a lot of people are like, oh, I don’t want him to be a thumb sucker, so they take their babies hand out.

Kelly: Right, but it’s only three months old.

Ayelet: And I think since we don’t know, like we imagine when our children are three months old and I know, you and Sarah Mitchell [of Helping Babies Sleep], have talked about this like, oh my God, my baby’s not going to sleep until he’s in college. Right? But like, this is three months old. Things are gonna change so quickly. So much more quickly than you are even prepared for.

Kelly: Actually I used to, whenever I felt like I had a doubt and I was like, okay, I got this, then they would change, it changes that quick. Um, okay. So touching and feeling at the three month mark because yeah.

Ayelet: Absolutely touching and feeling and then also singing or playing music with them and just offering different kinds of tactile materials. They may still be having this reflexive grasp when you put something in there, so take advantage of that. Put your hands in their hands, put different things, have different textures in their hands so they can just experience that feel.

And then like visual things that, moving around, I think we get really excited about like, oh, those high contrast images, those black and white images are great, we need to buy those. Sure, you can buy those, and they’re beautiful. But guess what else is a high contrast image: your face, the connection between the window and the darkness behind the window, right? The wall, that’s the word I’m looking for, I’m looking around at 100 of them, right now.

Kelly: Just stuff in your house.

Ayelet: A picture frame. All of these are high contrast images. So, moving around with your baby and taking a walk down the hallway and looking at stuff, commenting on the stuff that you’re seeing, who’s in the picture, what you’re looking up, what you like to do, where you like to go, right? All of those kinds of words bathes your child and in language because they’re going to be learning the language that you’re exposing them to or languages by hearing it.

Kelly: I love that it’s going on a little tour of your house. That’s a great idea.

Kelly: So, what are your favorite toys for toddler development?

Ayelet: Yeah, so I love anything that is stackable, that you can hide things under, that makes noise (but doesn’t have like crazy voices and buttons to push). I’m thinking more like things that nest in between other things and have different shapes and things that fit in other things, um, things that you can blow or, or throw or move with.

Again, it all comes back to this like playing with open-ended materials. Now all of these things that I’ve mentioned, like yes, you can go out and buy a shape sorter or a stacking cup set… Or you can go into the kitchen and take out your Tupperware. Yes, exactly. Because look at what’s happening? Like, putting things inside, taking them out, putting the top on.

Kelly: Finding the top that fits.

Ayelet: Yes. Hiding things inside and rattling it around. That’s a musical instrument, right? There’s so many different things.

Kelly: It’s like, tell your four year old, hey, can you help mommy match the Tupperware tops? You know, because it’s always a mess. Like in that cabinet or drawer.

Ayelet: Give them a mission. They are mission driven!

Kelly: But it seems like that, some stackable shapes, things like that.

Ayelet: Or a ball right, or building materials, but again, like yes, you can go out and buy this like beautiful organically stained wooden blocks which are beautiful and amazing, but you know what else you can use? Those bricks of diaper wipes – stack them on top of each other.

All of these things are already in your house! You already have the power to maximize all of these naturally occurring things in your home. You just have to figure out how to use and be creative. Play peekaboo, hide behind the diaper wipe…

Kelly: Like we all have those, right?! Yeah!

Ayelet: The magic is not in the material. The magic is in the interaction, and the experimentation that can happen with that object, right? So if you have a bunch of toys that are like, press this button and it’s going to teach your child about shapes. What’s going to teach your child about shapes? Teaching them out i . the environment, like finding them and putting two stars on top of your eyes and pretending that they’re right. Right? These are, this is how you’re doing it, through play.

Kelly: So, basic. Think basic, think simple. Okay.

Kelly: So I have one more question and that is the languages, real quick. What do you recommend for parents that are trying to do two languages? This is something that we’re doing. We’re doing Spanish with our children. They go to Spanish immersion preschool, when they don’t have fever. And so, is there anything that you could recommend when you’re trying to help them learn something other than English, as well?

Ayelet: Well, again, this is like, just like learning one language, you’re going to be supporting it through play, words, using those words in the environment, songs, reading books, and social engagement and moving around and talking about how those kids are moving and experiencing lots of interesting things.

Kelly: So you just expose them on all those different, different categories the same way.

Ayelet: What I would say is, usually best practice and I’d get, like, we don’t live in a vacuum, so this is hard to do and not always a reasonable thing and it may not work for every family, but like with simultaneous language development, which is learning two languages simultaneously.

If you speak English and your child’s teacher speaks Spanish, keep it that way. But you can also like, that doesn’t mean that you can’t read a book or do something within a specific kind of routine, like a bedtime routine, like give them an option of a Spanish book or an English book, and read it in both languages or one language.

So I think just keeping it consistent is a great idea, and giving them lots of different kinds of ways to experience each of those languages, right? So if you have one parent who speaks Spanish and one parent who speaks French be as consistent as you can with your child and, and if you both speak English together, and that’s your language of love, that’s fine! When you’re talking to your child or children, be as consistent as you can.

Many children learn multiple languages in a what’s called a sequential language learning environment, which is like you only speak your home language until they go to school or in French or whatever it is. And that’s fine too. So I think the consistency is the key, and also giving access to that language or languages in lots of different ways and making it fun, making it fun to play with the words, play with the sounds.

Kelly: And not being afraid to expose. I think a lot of people that I’ve talked to worry because, you know, we’re doing two languages, so they asked us like, aren’t you worried they’re going to be delayed in English because you’re exposing them to another language? And so not, so not to worry too much about that, right?

Ayelet: Because children are picking, they are figuring out how to categorize and make sense of those patterns. So when you are exposing your child to multiple languages, you’re actually encouraging lots of cognitive development as well, which is really good.

Kelly: Okay. So, um, to finish up, if you guys have any other questions, please ask them live. And to finish up, I want you to tell us a little bit about your book, why you wrote it again. We have the link here so you guys should definitely check it out. So yeah, tell us a little bit about the book real quick.

Ayelet: Yeah. So, in May 2018, I launched my first book which is called Understanding Your Baby, and what it is is a week-by-week development and activity guide for playing with your baby, from birth to 12 months. So it goes through and I think when new parents hear that, they’re like, I can’t read a book, but literally, and of course because I’m a mom and I ran out the door without my book this morning…

Kelly: We were going to show you the book! It’s been one of those days for all of us.

Ayelet: But literally it’s like, for instance, it goes through and it’s the section of like, here’s one thing your child might be working on in the area of cognitive development. Here’s what you can do. And all of the ideas are using those kinds of things that I suggested, with stuff that’s already in your home or attached to you and giving you ideas for supporting your child’s development through play and through movement and through early literacy experiences and stuff like that.

Kelly: And are you going to write another book?

Ayelet: I am actually in the thick of my toddler book, which will be launching in March 2019.

Kelly: And will it be similar or kind of tell you the different stages and stuff?

Ayelet: So with the toddler book, it’s going to be covering age one to three years, so instead of week by week, because I think that can get a little bit intense. It’s month by month, but for each month I give to different areas of developmental stuff like social/emotional and motor. And then two different kinds of things that they might be working on.

Then two different sets of ideas that you can do to support that development. So you can find that all on Amazon, which you found the link that Kelly put on the baby book and the toddler book is actually now available for pre-order. You just look up on Amazon, Understanding Your Toddler, you will find that and you are welcome to preorder.

Kelly: Perfect. Well that’s very exciting. Well thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for your patience with my little toddler.

Ayelet: Who’s now sitting with his book.

Kelly: And thank you guys for your patience as well. This was unexpected with a little fever, can’t send him to school and we do have a doctor’s appointment later today, but thank you so much. I feel like this was really, really helpful and please keep the conversation going. You can continue to comment on this.

And we will be uploading this to our youtube channel and definitely check out Learn With Less, the facebook group and instagram handle. It’s really great tips, things that you can just look at everyday. Alright guys, thanks so much for joining us. We’ll see you guys next time. Thank you. Bye!

The post How To Support Early Communication appeared first on Learn With Less.

The Learn With Less podcast is a family enrichment program for parents, caregivers, and infants and toddlers of all developmental levels. In this podcast series, we get together to sing a few songs, discuss some ideas for play, outline some insight about early development, and talk about life as a parent or caregiver in these early years of parenthood. As many of you know, I released my first book in May 2018, Understanding Your Baby: A Week-By-Week Development and Activity Guide For Playing With Your Baby From Birth to 12 Months. And today, what I’d like to do is to just give you a little bit of insight about how I became the person to write this book.

I am a speech-language pathologist. For the entirety of my career, I’ve been working with early communicators. Much of my focus has been in early intervention, which is birth to three years. When I became a mom, it really dawned on me how much more work I had to do as far as the parent education piece. So, I want to just give you a little bit of a background and give you the rationale behind what I do with Learn With Less, and what I do with families with infants. So here goes!

Regardless of who you are, where you come from, what language or languages you speak, you and I (and anyone who considers themselves a parent or caregiver) are each ultimately responsible for raising humans. When we understand more about how humans all over the world develop and learn, we feel more empowered to parent.

Regardless of whether you’re a first time or a “seasoned” parent or caregiver, when you have an infant, you are in the thick of it. Becoming a parent (or any type of caregiver – I’ll use these words interchangeably throughout) to a new person is an enormous undertaking. Regardless of how much (or how little) we think we know about babies, there is so much to learn. I want you to remember that we all feel vulnerable, and we all want the best for the children in our care.

At Learn With Less, we do not aim to cover the divisive topics on which we tend to stand vehemently behind opposing lines. This is about our babies. This is about you. I want to provide gentle support to help you understand and connect with your baby, so you can move together through the first year of caregiving. We mix the developmental research (the science) with the creative ways to support the developmental stages your baby moves through (the art). We are going to get to the heart of what it is to be a caregiver of infants.

Infants (and toddlers) learn through observation, imitation, and interaction. When we learn more about what “play” looks like using very simple materials, we feel some peace of mind that we all crave as parents. Peace of mind is what we all want: we want to know that we are doing all we can to raise decent human beings.

That’s what I aim to provide at Learn With Less. That’s the kind of community that I’m fostering, and that’s what I’d like to begin to offer you with this book. It’s all about finding the joy in the mayhem. Parenting infants and toddlers is crazy – I’m not going to tell you I can take that away… I can’t! What I can do is to help you find the joy in the connection, and start to build the foundation for a lifetime of learning.

I was 10 weeks pregnant with my first baby when my husband and I moved across the world. Surrounded by new people, customs, systems, and struck by the newness of the journey toward parenthood, I was very focused on creating connections.

When my baby was born, I decided to combine my professional background and my desire to create a safe, social learning space for myself and my baby along with other caregiver-baby pairs. I started to devise a curriculum that was based on my own developmental knowledge, that of my friends and colleagues in early learning, a ton of developmental research, and information and experiences I integrated as a mother along the way.

Through this process, I learned several things. First, I learned to become more confident as a mother. I learned to listen to myself, to my baby, and to other caregivers, distilling information that was pertinent to me (and to my baby) and of interest to the other caregivers around me. Perhaps most importantly, I learned just how powerful knowledge can be.

There are so many divisive topics in the world of parenthood. In the beginning, I was very fixated on these issues, because the choices we make about how to nourish and support our babies feel all- encompassing in those early days of parenthood. These are individualized, personal choices. I searched for information – and often, I was met with “experts” and “solutions,” when really, what I needed was knowledge.

When I stepped back and remembered how much I understood about how babies learn, I began to feel more connected to my baby – and more empowered as a mother to make decisions about all aspects of parenthood. When I shared that information with other caregivers, they felt the same way. Now, I’d like to share it with you.

I want to start by saying that I certainly don’t know everything there is to know about infant development. That said, over the last several years, I’ve sharpened and deepened my professional knowledge as a practicing pediatric speech-language pathologist. I’ve mothered my way through two very different early parenting experiences.

I’ve also interviewed countless professionals about the ways we can support infants and toddlers in the areas of cognition, communication, motor/ sensory, and social/emotional development, and read a good deal of the developmental research and literature that informs how (and what) we practice as professionals in the world of early child development.

Much of my professional background is in early intervention. I have dedicated my career to working with “early communicators,” primarily with infants and toddlers and their adult counterparts. In the world of education, the term “early learning” often refers to children who are not yet school-aged, but who are in the pre-school years… but we know that babies are learning from day one (and even before). We know that their parents and caregivers are learning, too.

Those first few years of life set the stage for the rest of our child’s life. Now, I don’t say that to add to the incredible pressure we have as parents and caregivers to “do enough” for our children. That weight is already more than sufficiently heavy! In my mind, it’s about simplification. We desperately need to simplify our lives.

We need access to quality over quantity. Our children need high quality interactions and opportunities to engage with the world, not “the latest learning toy.” We, their caregivers, need access to high quality information and high quality interactions, and an opportunity to reflect upon what’s working and what’s not working – not a million mommy blogs and fancy craft ideas on Pinterest.

When we (as parents and caregivers) feel confident that we have access to resources that actually make a difference, we feel empowered to do the job of raising tiny humans. As an early interventionist, I strive to work within family-centered practice. This means that I help families maximize the opportunities for play and development within naturally occurring, everyday activities, and using materials that already exist within the home. Instead of being the therapist who walks into a family’s home with a “magical” bag of therapy materials, I see my job as that of a facilitator or coach, helping families see the power of routines-based intervention, and focusing on “routines” that are most important to that family.

A routine is any activity that is regularly occurring, that has fairly predictable steps, and that has a clear beginning and end. We all engage in different kinds of routines in our homes – caregiving routines (e.g., eating, dressing, washing), play routines (e.g., infant massage, dance parties, book- reading), social routines (e.g., performing a finger play, playing peek- a-boo, tickling), and daily tasks (e.g., getting the mail, putting on shoes before we go outside). When we can identify these and maximize their value, we can make a huge difference within simple activities (that we’re already doing)!

At Learn With Less, we create resources to improve the quality of your family’s interactions by sharing easily digestible information that increases your knowledge about early development. Come join our community of families and help us spread the word about Learn With Less.

Because here’s the thing I really want you to take away from all this: you already have all the “right” tools to support your baby. You just need to know how to use them!

So when you learn to recognize the tools that you already have to boost your baby’s development, you are able to maximize the time you have with your baby, you’re empowered to “get it right,” and you’re able to unlock the power of these everyday routines and everyday objects to figure out how to play with your baby.

I invite you to learn to maximize those preciously brief moments, because they are the ones that build big brains. So, if you would like to confidently support the infant and/or toddler in your life (even if you feel like you’re “winging it” most of the time), I invite you to come to learnwithless.com/blueprint. Because when it comes to connecting with infants and toddlers, there is no one-size-fits-all approach or solution. But if you take a moment to tell me more about yourself, I can give you the recipes to more confidently play with and support the little person or people in your life, designed specifically for you – absolutely free. So come on over, and I cannot wait to play with you!

The post What To Do With Baby appeared first on Learn With Less.

Early morning wake ups. Bodies not our own. Hormones awry. Cuddles for days.

We are the champions of tiny humans.

We are the givers of love even when we have nothing left for ourselves.

We are the warriors and survivors of tantrums and meltdowns (our own, too). We are the deliverers of sustenance: whether from our own bodies, from a can, from organic leafy greens or from frozen, prepared, or boxed preservatives.

This early parenthood thing is a beast. It’s amazing and insane and leaves us both full and empty in the same moment.

As a mother of two tiny humans myself, I’m also in the trenches. As a pediatric speech-language pathologist, I carry with me a few extra tools for connecting with tiny humans.

It’s a crazy time, for sure. But when we understand more about how infants and toddlers learn and develop, we feel more empowered to do the big job of parenting tiny humans. Here’s the secret sauce: you don’t have to buy anything to support your baby. You don’t have to spend money, time, and energy you don’t have to support your baby.

In this episode, I’d like to share two conversations I had with new parents who have recently joined the ranks of parenthood.

I think it makes me feel better because we’re just trying to survive, right? But at the same time I know I’m doing something to support his development. It makes me feel better every week… I think in essence the book [Understanding Your Baby] makes me feel better that I’m doing something so he can develop and not just, you know, like change his diaper and feed him and talk to him, there’s other little things I could do.

Lisa Dou, Mother of a 3-month old, Nurse Practitioner

Ayelet: So you said your baby is three months old.

Lisa: Almost three months. He’s 11 weeks this week.

Ayelet: And then, if you could just tell me the story of how you came upon the book because it’s…

Lisa: Yeah. So I work with Dr Wu in Los Altos. I’m a nurse practitioner, so I think a few weeks before I went on leave, she was like, hey, you should read this, you know, she said she flipped through it. She said she thought it’d be a good resource since I’m a new mom and she thought it would be useful. So my mom actually had a daycare before she retired, so she was in child development, so she was helping me the first eight weeks. So she flipped through it. She was like, Oh, you know, she really used a lot of the resources I used when I was in school. So it was mom approved.

Ayelet: Mom and professional-approved, yeah!

Lisa: It was great. So we, you know, I would try different things every week. It’s hard to kind of look up because I’m not a Peds NP [Pediatric Nurse Practitioner], so I don’t remember from school, like what the different steps…. so it was just nice to have something where okay, I feel like I’m doing something for his development I’m not just caring for him – you know, using the stuff around me to help him grow or develop.

Ayelet: Absolutely. So it’s kind of neat because you had it actually from day one, which I think is unique because of course some people find the book while they’re still pregnant and sort of flip through it and then they can use it from day one. But of course so many people if they’re gifted it and then they just have it… I think oftentimes we’re not really looking in those early days, especially, for like what can I do to support my baby’s development, right, because we’re just trying to like keep the baby alive. And ourselves.

Lisa: Yeah. Pretty much, yeah. I mean I was reading “Baby 411” before I gave birth. It was more like, wait, what do I need to know if he’s sick or what if this happened to XYZ? But then not really so much. I didn’t really read the development part because I was like, okay, I just need to survive and see. I didn’t even read that part until I read your book and then reading your book. I already kind of knew what to expect, so..

Ayelet: Yeah. So it was sort of like before you even asked the questions you had…

Lisa: Yes!

Ayelet: That sounds really nice. I wish… That’s why I wrote it – because I wish I had that. That’s awesome. What were the circumstances that preempted you even picking the book up?

Lisa: I was reading a lot before I gave birth, but again, mostly like “Baby 411” and then, like, breastfeeding was my main concern, but then when she gave it to me I was like, okay, it’s one more book I have to read… But then it was useful because you know when you’re tired and sleepy, you read two pages and you’re good for the week, right?

And so it was actually nice to read it while I was going through the weeks not really in advance, if that makes sense. So now that I had a baby, every Monday I would pick it up, I’m like okay, what’s going on this week? Then I would try out the suggestions, so I would just read a few pages in. That way I don’t. I guess I don’t really have a lot of time to read ahead, but then every week it was something to look forward to.

Ayelet: Yeah. But, and that’s sort of the whole point, right? Because literally you read one to two pages, and that’s it. That’s all you need for the entire week.

Lisa: Yeah. It’s very concise.

Ayelet: Yeah. That’s nice. So it was sort of just like a weekly ritual that you sort of started for yourself, like you said, every Monday. That’s so cute.

Lisa: Yeah, like a weekly ritual. And then we started listening to the podcasts if he’s awake and then, you know, I’ve already read books to him, so we’ll do the… I mean he, he smiles when he hears your voice. It’s nice.

Ayelet: That’s so nice!

Lisa: You know, when you start singing he’s like, oh my God, this is, this is a good activity because you run out of things to do, right, I feel like with a baby, so… And it’s good that I could do that with him, not just, okay, now he’s gone for a nap, I need to listen to the podcast.

Ayelet: That’s awesome. What have been some of your favorite episodes, or episodes that helped you most, so far?

Lisa: I’ve only listened to a couple, but the one, I think the zero to six and then the… Raising a child in a multilingual because I speak to… I’m Filipino and Chinese so I speak Tagalog, and my husband speaks Mandarin. We speak English to each other. So then I didn’t really know, you know, I don’t know how to approach it and as far, you know, I want to speak to him in Tagalog, but I speak English to my siblings so it’s, you know, it’s been a challenge. And my husband speaks in English to him and I’m like, no, you need to speak in Mandarin. So just trying to figure that out or like what are the first few steps that we could take or what other people have, you know, the couple that was in your podcast, that was really useful.

Ayelet: Yeah. I thought they had some wonderful concrete suggestions and insights. And then the other one you mentioned was the Communication in Zero to Six Months realm.

Lisa: Yeah. The zero to six months, yeah.

Ayelet: Did you come upon those specific episodes because of the book? Because of the sort of reference to them in the book?

Lisa: Yeah, yeah.

Ayelet: Can you tell me, what are one or two specific things that you’ve done, or changes that you made because of things that you read in the book?

Lisa: So, lying down next to… Addison’s my son – Addison, and then taking turns. So if he’s saying something, then I imitate what he’s saying or, or wait for him to finish and then I’ll talk to him. So that was interesting. And then I think earlier on there was… I had like gift-wrap paper, right? And I’m putting that on his feet and he’s kicking and, he realizes, oh, okay, I’m making that noise.

I think the mirror, holding the mirror, just using the mirror so he can see himself. And then the rituals. I think that was for this week. So, and routine. So we started getting into routine a little bit earlier on. But then this week I’m really trying to get him into a better routine and then seeing if it’s morning time, you know, I say “okay, it’s morning, look outside.” Well look outside, or if we’re changing a diaper, singing the song before I do the diaper change every time.

Ayelet: Oh so nice. So just the little, little morsels, little things. And then can you just think, what are the sort of top, just a few words that come to mind about how having the book sort of makes you feel or how that makes it different sort of the experience. I mean, granted you’ve had it since the beginning, so, how does access to the book make you feel and what is that like?

Lisa: I think, you know, it makes me feel better because again, you know, we’re just trying to survive, right? But at the same time I know I’m doing something to support his development. It makes me feel better every week. I’m not just… oftentimes you’re just so tired, you know, you want to put… Because, I have a niece, and sometimes I think when my sister gives up, Okay, just watch some TV. You know, I don’t know what else to do with you.

I don’t know if that’s a great example, but I feel like I’m doing something to, okay, you’re just a baby, can’t really do much, but then it’s nice that I know I’m doing something appropriate for his age to help him grow because, again, there’s not much I can do, right, and I don’t know if I can really be creative myself to think of ways to support him.

And I think with the access that we have with social media, you know, oh, this is the thing to get right, this is the thing to buy, you need this, you need that. And then as a new parent you’re like, okay, well I guess I got to get that, but then you ended up just accumulating so much stuff that you know, I mean, where am I going to put it?

I have a small house, you know, I can’t always buy everything and then it might not really be useful. You know, you kind of get into the hype, but then if I can use the stuff around me, right? I think the post that you had today, the, the milk, I mean that makes sense. I mean why do I have to buy flash cards, I guess?

Ayelet: Exactly. Yeah. I had an instagram post today about, on the milk container, you can use a picture of a cow. Literally cut it out and you have two pictures of cows, one’s big, one’s small. It’s matching activity. It’s an opportunity to use a little visual even. I mean it’s literally just a piece of card stock or something.

Lisa: Yeah. So it’s made me, I think, think outside the box, you know? I mean it’s hard to think right now. So it’s nice that you have ideas that you could tell me, but then it’s made me think more about, okay then I can use this. I could use that. I don’t have to buy X, Y, Z, you know, we have a play mat and it’s been great, but I have so many other things here. And I guess with my niece too, when I watched her, you know, she would be fascinated with Tupperware and boxes, you know, like why do we even buy toys?

Ayelet: Exactly. Yeah. It’s lovely to have them because then there’s different kinds of textures or different things that are different colors. But we have to remind ourselves that it’s literally, we already have all of the tools we need to support our babies. We just have to figure out how to use them.

Lisa: Exactly. And I think before I didn’t really know how to, I didn’t really connect the dots. Oh you can use this, you can do that. But I think in essence the book makes me feel better that I’m, I’m doing something so he can develop and not just, you know, like change his diaper and feed him and talk to him, you know there’s other things I could do.

Ayelet: Yeah. And they’re really basic and they take a second of your time.

Lisa: Exactly.

Ayelet: And you’ll be able to do them, too, when you go back to work! When is that happening?

Lisa: Not until January. So yeah, so I’m taking a little time.

My mom had her child development books but I donated them, because she lives in the Philippines. She was like, why’d you donate them? I’m like, I don’t know. So I started looking into like, well why do I need that? I mean I have this book, it’s concise. I don’t have time to read a textbook, I really don’t have time to do anything, you know. So.

Ayelet: And the book has all of the references, right. So if you wanted to go and find the article or whatever, the book that’s cited, then yeah.

Lisa: Yeah. I mean you’re doing all the work for me, so it’s great.

Ayelet: Right! What parent doesn’t want that?

Lisa: And when I go back to work, you know, it’s going to be crazier. So then I still have something that I couldn’t do that doesn’t take up time.

Ayelet: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Lisa. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon!

Lisa: Ok, bye!

“I like kids, I’ve been around kids. I really didn’t expect that moment after having him of not knowing how to play with him. And I realized that it’s because when I’ve been able to be around babies they were often a little bit older, and so it was easier to watch what they were interested in and interact with them based on that. And with a newborn it was a little more…. he was just not giving me those cues that I expected and I knew that there was a lot of processing going on and I wanted to support that and so I was really relieved to find some ideas.”

Katie Pelletier, Mother of a 12-month old, Journalist

Ayelet: Okay, so I’ve got Katie Pelletier, and Katie, how many children do you have? How old is or are your children?

Katie: So I have one child, Adrian, and he just turned one on Sunday.

Ayelet: Oh, congratulations!

Katie: Yeah, thank you.

Ayelet: Well since I know that you read the book, Understanding Your Baby, I would love to just know a little bit about… Number one, like how you came upon the book, how old Adrian was when you found or started reading the book?

Katie: I came upon the book from probably facebook, seeing your posts. That was, I think, the way, and actually I probably came upon your posts before the book, so I think I was maybe looking at your podcast or things that you had posted and then when did the book come out, it seemed like it came out in the spring or…

Ayelet: Yeah, it was May.

Katie: May. Okay. So yeah, I didn’t get it until then. So Adrian was probably about six months old or seven months old, but early on your posts were so helpful. As I said in my review that I like kids, I’ve been around kids. I really didn’t expect that moment after having him of not knowing how to play with him. And I realized that it’s because when I’ve been able to be around babies they were often a little bit older, and so it was easier to watch what they were interested in and interact with them based on that.

And with a newborn it was a little more…. he was just not giving me those cues that I expected and I knew that there was a lot of processing going on and I wanted to support that and so I was really relieved to find some ideas. As I said, in the books that I had been reading, they would be like, talk to your baby and you know, these very broad general statements about what to do. And so having like the recipe and some ideas and some real specific “say these kinds of things” was really helpful. So, then when the book came out I was really excited to download a book when it was available and found similar activities and things for his age at that point.

Ayelet: So what are some of the feelings that you were experiencing before you had it?

Katie: I think I felt like I might be letting him down, like, this sort of anxiety of like a low grade anxiety of “I should be doing something that I’m not doing.”

Ayelet: A lot of “should’s.”

Katie: Yeah, exactly. And confusion maybe about where to find resources. The internet is such a fire hose of information and I just found so much of it really disappointing. As I said, you know, either really general advice, advice, written… I don’t want to be insulting!

Ayelet: But just dumbed down, essentially, I think is what you said – because you wrote this beautiful review in our alumni magazine of the book, and one of the things that you said, which I really appreciated was that you could find things like a textbook or something that was just, like, really dumbed down.

Katie: Yeah. Exactly. And I was really looking for that week by week ideas because he was changing so fast. So yeah, the things that we’re really dumbed down in general, you know, they would cover a huge swath zero to three months, talk to your baby or it would be, you know, a paper that was like “The effect of making clicking sounds on infants at week seven through nine.” You know, like, great. I got clicking sounds, you know, it would just be too much to wade through in the middle of trying to nurse and figuring out how to be a mom and all these other ways.

So I think that having a book, I also mentioned how much I appreciated those, footnotes. So because it gave me the confidence. I didn’t have time to read through the published material, but if I’d wanted to it was there. And then, I used to teach writing classes, and so we would talk about credibility of the writer and that just gave me such faith, I guess. Faith is not exactly the word, but in, in your ability in you as a writer to have really done your homework. Not just regurgitated a few things that you saw on the Internet and repackage them, which was so much of what I was looking at prior.

Ayelet: That’s well said. I loved the word you used just a couple minutes ago, which was that the internet is such a fire hose because it’s true. It’s like, you know, you type in a search term and it’s like, “blech,” literally, it’s just so much and it is, it’s that idea of wading through stuff, when what you’re trying to do is like figure out how to be a mom, like you said, and figure out how, what on earth is happening to your body, right. And whether, like, what’s happening to your child’s body is supposed to be happening.

Katie: Exactly. Yeah. And I’d had a c section so I had not anticipated and I hadn’t expected what you said about trying to navigate what’s happening to your body, and you know, there’s just so much going on, and it feels like such a critical time. So getting back to that should, those “should’s” loom large when you’re managing all these other things, they feel very heavy on top of everything.

Ayelet: I’m curious to hear, because you mentioned earlier that sense of, like, having a newborn, I know that there are things that I’m supposed to be doing or that I could be doing, but I don’t know how to do it with a newborn. I know how to do it with maybe an older baby. What were some of the circumstances that sort of preempted or made you think of those things? Can you recall that? And at what point were you starting to look for stuff?

Katie: Probably, I mean very early, very early. I think, you know, we had, we like a little play mat for him to lay on with things dangling from it. And so I think at about the moment that I saw him really start to observe that, and, you know, it was just like, at first it’s so he sleeps, he eats, he sleeps, he eats, and then there are these… I began to observe longer periods of wakefulness and, and him watching me and beginning to respond to his environment and you know, we had fallen into a routine really quickly.

I mean, you’re trying to get stuff done around the house and do the laundry and we foolishly also decided to remodel our kitchen, like, weeks before the baby was born. I say remodel the kitchen. We have an old fixer upper house, so it was never in a completed state. We decided to make that final push completing it. So.

And I think that what triggered it was this feeling that, oh, these, in between when he’s sleeping and eating, these are moments to capitalize on it rather than just him laying in his bassinet and looking at the light around him. I mean, it just seems like, I guess, I’m very curious and bookish, you know, so whatever I do, I want to know all the things about it. And so I, I really wanted to know that, you know, what was happening with him. One, what was going on in his mind, what sort of developmental processes were at work and two, what I could do to make him be the smartest little guy most emotionally well balanced, little guy that I could help him be.

So, those were, that’s when it triggered me to seek stuff out. I remember, I think one of the very first activities that I brought, because I’ve incorporated so many that it’s, as I was reviewing your book before this call, I was like, oh, I got that from this book. Oh, that came from this book, I hadn’t even realized. And so one of them was putting him in tummy time, so that was a big moment to when we started doing more tummy time, and your idea to set up things for him to look at.

And it seems so simple, but it’s so surprising how at the time, like I just, I didn’t even think of that, it was such like, oh yeah, he might like stuff very close to him that he can see. And so putting up a mirror or flashcards. And then the other thing was some songs and finger games that I could do with him. And those were, I think some of the first things I got.

Ayelet: Nice. So it sounds like there are several sort of specific changes that you made because of the book, because of things that you read. So little, little things like that. Are there any other changes that you made or changes in the ways that you were thinking about him?

Katie: Let’s see. I think broadly, as I mentioned, it was interesting to look at the book again and see how much I had absorbed. So I do think that key was your under-riding philosophies about not feeling like I needed to go research the best products, but to use what I had already and so that gave me a lot of confidence to not even rely on a book or such, but to just be curious and inventive about the things that I already had.

So, one aspect of our redoing our kitchen is that we took out all the cabinet doors and so he could crawl in and out of the cabinets and we of course removed anything dangerous. But I, you know, I had the confidence to say, well, if it’s not dangerous, he’s welcome to play with whatever. He loves crawling in and out of the cabinets and finding things.

And so, you know, feeling comfortable that that was enough toys for him, you know, that was fine and, and supporting his development and I didn’t need to steer him towards the blocks or some other plastic developmental toy that I had ordered off Amazon, I would say what it gave me, it was a lot of confidence to borrow your philosophy of, of just using what we already had and it gave me a new way of thinking about what we already had in the house. 

And, two, as far as how I regarded him, was also to respect his interest, what he gravitated towards and that he, you know, to regard him as sort of the, the expert in what he needed for his development, instead of trying to find that other places, but to use observation as the guiding principle.

Ayelet: It’s such a total reframe of, not only what it is to interact with a young baby, but also what it is to be a parent… Of a baby of this age. Right. So you found the book when he was about six months, which technically is, you know, halfway through the use of it. But obviously it sounds like you still feel that it was extremely useful. What are some, like how do you feel now? How are things different for you now and then and now also in approaching his second year of life? What are you going into that with?

Katie: I think that, let’s see, meaning, how am I approaching motherhood differently now than I did in the first year? I’m sure that there’s a lot that’s the same! Often a sense of, you know, I could’ve been better prepared for this. I could have read more books in advance, and that sense of I’m just winging it. But I think that I feel more… I feel more relaxed, I feel more confident I know where the good resources are to find what I need and that is, that’s really a good feeling to me because as I said, at first I just, I was really stunned. I remember my sister when she had a baby, she didn’t have any books around…

And it’s the joke in my family. I love books. If anything involves books, I love it, and that I reach for books for everything. But I was so stunned that she just didn’t read many baby development books because she’s a researcher too. I mean she likes to look things up and after I had Adrian, I got it, because it just was so hard to find quality information and it was, you had so much else to do, but I was really stubborn about looking, so I do feel like your book was really invaluable to me and that feeling that I didn’t have to just wade through 900 pages to have confidence that I was getting good information was…. It was really great.

So I would say you asked what’s different now is that confidence, both that I know where to find the information when I need it, and that I know a lot of stuff. Having a governing philosophy allows me to wing it in a way that I feel is less haphazard, but more just a nice balance to my parenting style. Yeah.

Ayelet: Oh, that’s really nicely said because I think if you asked like 10 parents in a room, what’s parenthood like? They’d be like, yeah, I mean I just wing it, I don’t know, I just wing it all the time, but I think it’s true, like, we all feel that way. We all, it doesn’t matter how much you know about anything or how little, we all feel that way because, as you said, our babies and our children are constantly evolving as humans.

That’s what are doing, but yeah, I think when you have a governing philosophy, as you said, and you have some basic information about those facts, right, those tiny important facts, but when you have just this, these nuggets of information about how humans develop all over the world, regardless of socioeconomic status, regardless of culture or linguistic background, it, this is the way that humanity emerges and that gives you a little bit more of a basis for for where to go from there.

Katie: Yeah.

Ayelet: Awesome. Katie, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your thoughts with us and..

Katie: Absolutely. It was my pleasure. Yeah. Thanks for writing a great book.

Ayelet: Thank you.

The post How To Find Baby Development Activities By Age appeared first on Learn With Less.

From the moment we expect the arrival of a new baby, we tend to start thinking about the gear we need. It helps us make logical, linear sense of the giant change that we know is coming to our lives.

So we make a list: car seat (check), burp cloths (check), diapers (check).

Strolling down the aisle of a local big box or baby store, we think about what to register for or what we probably need to get for our growing, changing baby.

We hear a constant barrage from friends, family and colleagues about the latest “must-have” learning toys and gadgets, the things that are “absolutely essential.”

Anything to place more control in our hands. Anything to make it all a little easier.

Does this sound familiar?

Image by Ayelet Marinovich, published first on Instagram

You’re cruising down the aisle, and you come upon the infant/toddler section and… boom! it’s a “stuff” explosion.

Gear.

Toys.

Devices.

#allthethings

… and though perhaps you thought you had what you needed, you suddenly find yourself questioning everything:

Do I have what I need?

Do I even know what I need?

Am I doing / going to do it “right?”

It can get overwhelming fast.

You already have all the “right” tools to support your baby: you just need to know how to use them.

Those early days, weeks, and months with our babies are incredible and intense. We put so much pressure on ourselves to “get it right,” and all of us – at some point – have felt that we’re “doing it wrong.”

The adventure of raising tiny humans is an ever-changing landscape of highs and lows, and we often feel that just when we’re “figuring it out,” everything changes. 

But connecting with a baby is not at all about having the “right” toys and tools… it’s about learning to maximize the tools you already have (in the precious few moments that you can drink in that baby).

It’s about learning about the developmental basis for the things you’re already doing, so you can do them more and think of new and simple ways to “change it up” (to keep it interesting for both you and for your baby).

It’s about finding new ways to use and reuse incredibly powerful, developmentally impactful materials that are already all around you, becoming an expert on your own baby so you don’t have to rely on Dr. Google.

When you learn to recognize the tools you already have to boost your baby’s development, you’re able to maximize the time you have with your baby, you’re empowered to “get it right,” and you’re able to unlock the power of everyday routines and everyday objects to figure out how to play with your baby.

If you want to learn more, you can learn all about what I’m talking about right here at learnwithless.com/books – and I can’t wait to talk more about it with you.

The post Developmentally Appropriate Toys For Infants appeared first on Learn With Less.

On this episode of the Learn With Less podcast, Ayelet sits down with Kate Turza, a mother of three, a CAPPA certified postpartum doula, and co-host of the Mom Deconstructed podcast. Kate is passionate about normalizing the postpartum period, creating community to support new families, and pulling back the curtain of what “real” motherhood looks like.

We spoke about Kate’s professional background, as well as her personal journey into becoming a doula. We discussed the roles of both the birth doula and postpartum doula (and why families might benefit from each), and we discussed various options for families who are more marginalized or who have fewer resources to pay for needed services like these.

Most importantly, we covered Kate’s top tips and resources for families who are hoping to maximize the ways they can conserve energy, take care of themselves and their babies, and try to enjoy those early days and weeks after the arrival of a new baby. 

Mom Deconstructed podcast

Kate’s free postpartum support workbook

Mothering the New Mother, by Sally Placksin (affiliate link)

Find a DONA Certified Doula

Find a CAPPA Certified Doula

Postpartum Support International

Ayelet: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / YouTube

Kate: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Ayelet: Welcome to episode 68 of the Learn With Less podcast. Today I am speaking with Kate Turza, a mom of three beautiful, energetic and loving kiddos, a CAPPA certified postpartum Doula, a board member of the East End Birth Network, Inc., and host of the Mom Deconstructed podcast.

Kate says that after experiencing a trying postpartum period, after her third child was born, she began her training to become a postpartum doula, and since then, she has been providing support for new families as they transitioned into early parenthood. She is passionate about normalizing the postpartum period and creating community to support new families, pulling back the curtain of what real motherhood looks like. Kate, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Learn With Less.

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

Ayelet: So I have asked you to come onto the show today to speak to us about postpartum doulas, but first I know I’ve introduced you, but tell us a little bit more about you and about how you got into the work that you are doing.

Kate: Right. So as I had mentioned, I’m a mom with three who are now almost eight, which is crazy to me to think about. And then I’ve got a six-year old, and then I’ve got an almost four-year old, and two boys followed by a girl. We live here on long island. We’re on the Eastern end of Long Island, which is pretty rural despite what people think. I mean we live out in the Hamptons so people don’t think of it as rural, but it actually really is very rural out here.

There’s not a lot of support for new families. Most families are two income households like mine. I mean I have another another day job that I do in addition to my side hustle – my benefit-paying job, and when I had my third… I suffer from anxiety had it since as long as I can remember, I was diagnosed in college and had been kind of battling it and learning how to manage it through my twenties.

And then when I had my first, I had a really hard time with the postpartum period, but I attributed it more at the time to being a first-time mom and not having any study that I could ask for help. I mean there were no support groups I could go to. There was, there was not, I mean it was, it was. There’s nothing. And this was almost eight years ago. Things have changed since then.

And then I had my second quickly after and then I had my third pretty quickly after that, and after my third I had some medical complications that cut my breastfeeding relationship with her shorter than I had wanted. And that kind of sent me into a tailspin and I was having a really hard time processing it. And for whatever reason it was very fixated on… I had a goal in mind of what I wanted to do and I wasn’t able to reach that goal. And I had – the goal was more than I had done my previous two and I was determined.

She was, she always was our last or my third no matter what, boy or, you know, we had, we wanted three kids, she was going to be my last and so when I couldn’t meet the goal, it was really hard for me and I didn’t know where to turn. And my good friend, my best friend, she lives in Denver, which is much more urban than where I live and she had her first child right at the same time.

I was having my third and she was saying how she has all these supports. She has, you know, she goes to lactation support weekly meetings and she’s, she knows of a therapist she could like, she had all these resources and I, I searched the internet and couldn’t find one within a 20-mile radius of where I live.

So I just got to thinking and talking and I wanted to change that and then I found out what a postpartum doula was and I went through my training for that, and that kind of started the journey of an evolution and hopefully we’re kind of changing the way things are out here.

Ayelet: That’s great. Did you, did you find out what a postpartum doula was through a google search?

Kate: Well, my friend said, the same friend from Denver said, Hey, I’ve heard of this postpartum… my therapist has this postpartum doula that she recommends. And I was like, what is that? And so I googled it and then I figured out what it was and I was like, oh, that’s what I need to start, like, start this whole thing rolling.

Ayelet: Wow, that’s so great. So okay. I would love for you to tell us a little bit about what it means to be a doula because as you said, you didn’t even know what it was. Of course, people who’ve never, who never have had kids don’t know the term, aren’t necessarily familiar with the term. And of course there are a few different kinds of doulas, right.

So the role of a birth doula seems to be becoming more understood, but I do think the role of postpartum doula is still misunderstood by many. So can you give us, because we have a large variety of listeners, some are expecting their first child, some have multiple young children, you know, tell us a little bit about what each of those types of doulas is and really what the differences are. And then can you tell us a little bit about why new mothers and new families might benefit from a postpartum doula?

Kate: Sure. Lots of questions, so if I forget to answer any of them, remind me to get back on track. So, so first let’s talk about what a doula is. A doula is actually, it’s a Greek word and it means female servant that’s like its origin, but it encompasses a broad variety of women supporting women, generally, supporting families.

One is a birth support or labor support doula and they tend to cater to the prenatal. They might do a couple meetings during the prenatal period, but they’re there for the actual labor. So from the time labor starts until the time labor finishes and possibly a couple of hours after and maybe a visit or two after the labor is concluded and the baby’s earth side, they are your support and they provide physical, emotional, spiritual support to the laboring mom and also education to the family unit.

Ayelet: I mean I think because I had a birth Doula for my first birth, I was supposed to have one for my second birth but he came really quickly, it was a precipitous labor…. But the first time, I think it was, having a birth doula was also very, uh, advantageous for my husband. And of course my doula was there for me as well. But just to give the birth partner a little bit of respite and education, like you said, I think just to chime in a little bit.

Kate: Right. And that’s the role of a birth support doula. It’s not, they’re not medical professionals, they’re not delivering the babies. They’re there to support the family unit and, or the mom and whoever supportive partner they have.

And then you have a postpartum doula. Some birth support doulas are also postpartum doulas, but a postpartum doula comes into the relationship after the baby is born and it can last – the relationship can last with the postpartum doula for as long as the between the postpartum doula and the family want.

Some relationships I’ve had have been over six weeks with a visit or two or checking in once or twice a week for six or more weeks. Sometimes it’s just one or two visits in the first week trying to, you know, get their feet on the ground, but a postpartum doula is there to increase the parent confidence and the mother’s confidence so that we work ourselves out of the job. It’s just to ease that transition.

You’re providing resources and education when appropriate, you’re providing practical support, so helping out around the house so that the mother can rest because we all know, no matter how your baby comes into the world, it is emotionally and physically draining and you need to recover (in addition to take care of this baby). So we’re there to support that.

Obviously there’s physical support, so some women who do have a c-section were doing the lifting. We’re doing that kind of stuff, helping her get the baby to nurse or however you’re feeding, you know, just kind of help ease that transition, and there’s also the spiritual and emotional support of this huge upheaval and your hormones are the highest right after you give birth and then they plummet within that first week to the lowest they’ve been since before you’ve gotten pregnant, which is, it’s a huge transition and we’re there to talk, talk through it, and there’s a lot of things that go along with having a baby that isn’t just caring for a baby and that’s, that’s where a postpartum doula comes in. I would say most of my job is listening and kind of gentle guidance, but mostly just listening.

Ayelet: It’s such an such an incredible role that you play, and again, I want to reiterate, this is not a medical professional, but you are, yeah. You’re this supportive, helpful person. Now I imagine that some postpartum doulas are also breastfeeding counselors or have additional sort of certifications or specialties that they can help.

Kate: Oh yeah. There’s a ton of different training that you can have in addition to the general postpartum doula training. I have continuing education credits in postpartum mood disorders, so I have a little more education than the generic postpartum doula in terms of that. But there are postpartum doulas that our CLCs, IBCLCs, therapists. I mean, a postpartum doula is just an additional training.

Ayelet: So I mean, here’s the thing. These are services that cost money obviously. I mean, you said, like, I love how you put that. You work yourself out of a job, which is so fantastic, right? Like the whole purpose of a postpartum doula is to create a sense in a family that a postpartum doula is not needed, which is great, but we know that there are many mothers with fewer resources or who are more marginalized, especially in the United States, and those moms and families are often those who could benefit the most. Tell was a little bit about, you know, what is the conversation like within the birth and postpartum community? What is sort of being done about this disconnect?

Kate: There’s a lot of things things being done. I’m part of a nonprofit out here and so we focus a lot of our efforts out here, but I’m also a member of the Long Island Doula Association, which is a much bigger nonprofit, but there are a lot of doula and birth community organizations that are trying to cater to this lower income, less able to pay for services and there’s, there’s lots of different ways you can look into getting the support you need.

One is, first I would contact your whoever your birth professional is, and see what they have to say because they may be able to tell you about a program. I know out here we have a program for lower income. You apply and then you can get a postpartum or birth doula depending on if you get accepted. In New York state, they’re looking to have Medicaid cover doula services. So that’s a bigger, you know, that’s a big legislative issue, but honestly you need to talk to your professional. They’ll be able to point you in the right direction and if they don’t give you an answer that you think is correct or don’t give you enough information, then you need to find another professional who can give you that information.

So whether that be, even if it’s not the person who’s going to be delivering your baby, call the local midwife, call another doula because most doulas want to help, even if we can’t actually be there to support you physically, we want to be able to get you the help you need. So we probably know maybe a doula who’s in training has got to reduced rate going on. Yeah, so you just have to reach out and kind of see what’s available in your hospital or wherever you’re birthing, your birth center probably has programs that they know about and then you can apply through those things.

Ayelet: That’s great, thank you. So let’s just take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and then we are going to hear a few tips and resources from Kate about easing into that transitional period of new parenthood, as well as a few of our favorite resources for families interested in learning a little bit more about this.

Ayelet: Okay, Kate. Whether or not families decide that a postpartum doula is for them, can you give our listeners a few tips for maximizing the ways that they can, say, conserve energy, take care of themselves and their babies and really just try to find more joy in those early days and weeks after the arrival of a new baby because I know you mentioned so much…. there’s so much more than just caring for a new baby. That physical care. There’s so much more that happens within a new mom, a new parent’s life that comes with that transition.

Kate: So there are a bunch of things that I recommend I actually have a resource on my website you can get and go through all of them, but I will highlight the ones that I think are most important. I just want to say also, something to highlight why it’s so important, having support during the postpartum.

Our culture 100 years ago was living in small knit communities and we had the social networks already built in and we were around, we were around other women that were having babies and we weren’t so isolated, and now 100 years later, our primary mode of communication is via the internet and not necessarily physical interaction with people and our, you know, transition into a family after you have a newborn.

It’s not there because we’re not, we’re not secondhand experiencing it. Our neighbor’s not going through it and we’re not involved in there. So that why this profession has kind of started to make an uprising in the last, I would say probably 10 years, I don’t think. I think the first training was probably 25 years ago, so it’s a fairly new outcropping of professionals, but I think that that just highlights why it’s so important. I’m, we don’t have the networks set up already.

Ayelet: Which is why so much like – this is why our community – our online community exists for instance, right? Because there are so wonderful when like your friend in Denver, has amazing community-based networks and organizations and support programs, but number one, not all communities have that and number two, they’re not always easily accessible or affordable or whatever, you know, are the things that are limiting ourselves from…

Kate: I mean, let’s be real. You have a baby, the last thing you want to do is to get some semblance of dressed and you know, get somewhere at a certain time… Like it just doesn’t happen.

Ayelet: Right? Yeah. It’s crazy.

Kate: Anyway, so that’s kind of. That was an aside, but so things that you can, you and your partner, whoever that may be, whether it’s a grandparent, whoever is going to be your support person during this initial period, it might your parent not a partner, because your partner goes back to work right away and won’t be there. So whoever is going to be your support person that you think you’re going to rely on the most, this is the conversations you need to have with them.

So one thing is, you need to be real about what you think your postpartum period is going to look like. So this is where you put your expectations: do you want visitors, do not want visitors. Who do you want to visit? Who do you not want to visit? Who are you comfortable with having do chores around the house? Who are you comfortable with holding the baby, who you comfortable with being just being in your home when you’re, you know, starting to lactate and your body’s doing who knows what.

So that’s, that’s something that needs to be discussed. If you have a history of mental health issues, so even if you have them under control, but if you, you know, 10 years ago you battled depression, that’s something you need to talk about with your partner so that they know that they’re aware that you’re at a higher risk for developing postpartum mood disorders.

Also, explaining that the postpartum blues happens to 80 percent of moms and the, I don’t think that’s talked about enough either, which can be up to two weeks of depression, anxiety, just feeling crying all the time. And that can be really hard for a partner if they’ve never experienced it, don’t know what it is to experience it.

So just kind of trying to meet up with that can be kind of difficult when they don’t know what to expect that this might be a normal period in the postpartum period. Something else that you need to go through with this particular partner is all the professionals that you’re going to be relying on, even if you’re not hiring them. But knowing who a postpartum doula is that you could call if you were or who a lactation consultant is, where the nearest lactation support group, where the nearest new moms support group, all that kind of stuff. You both need to know where they are.

That’s another huge thing and that’s, I mean, we’re list making at this point if you can, if it’s written down you’ll remember it, but having the conversation is still better than nothing. So another thing that I like to talk to my clients about is you need to set up boundaries. There are people that are going to be wanting to be part of your postpartum period that you may not want to have part of your postpartum period, and there are people that your partner may not want to be a part of your postpartum period and you kind of need to navigate that and try and do that ahead of time so that it’s not all of a sudden you’re hearing that his great aunt is coming by in an hour and you haven’t showered in three days. Just being real and opening up the communication. That’s another thing is it’s hard for new moms to really express how they’re feeling, to communicate well.

It’s hard for anybody to communicate well, but really just maybe having a code word that like, I can’t handle that right now, or just saying I can’t right now, and not being okay. You need to put off all major decisions. So the idea of two months after having a baby of maybe like looking for a new house, probably not a good decision. Getting a dog, not a good decision, getting a hamster, probably not a good decision. So if you can put off any major decisions for six months after the baby comes, because when, during the prenatal when you don’t have that baby, it’s fun to think about like, oh, we could do this, I’ll be home on maternity leave, I’ll have time to do this.

Ayelet: We can’t imagine what it will be like and we can’t anticipate what it will be like because what happened for our best friend, may be a very different experience for us internally, for the kind of baby that we have. I mean it’s just, it’s so variable and you cannot anticipate, and I want to say, too, I mean it’s, I think for many of our listeners hearing you say, you know, oh, don’t make any decisions.

Obviously you’d have to make some decisions and some of them are things that we can start to think about before we have the baby and some are things that we just won’t be able to anticipate. And that’s, I think taking away any additional things that are just not necessary. I think Kate, that’s so important and I totally agree. Obviously, many of them, I things like how and when to go back to work, how to orchestrate things like childcare and all of those things which are, you know, a whole other level of stress and often necessary and not everyone has to deal with that and some do and it’s just, it’s a hard thing to navigate. And so I think what you’re saying Kate, about minimizing those kinds of extra stress points is so important.

Kate: Yeah, just trying to make your life as easy as you can. Another thing is trying to outsource. This doesn’t have to be paid, but, you know, you, you say outsource when people think I’m, I’m not going to, you know, hire a house cleaner, but if you can do it, if you have a friend that’s willing to come every other week and help out around the house, do it.

Whatever you can to take things off your plate that you normally would do and you can always just add them in as you feel ready. Another thing is to reframe visitors into helpers. So taking a mind shift that people coming to see you are not visiting, they’re there to help. So having chores!

Ayelet: I recently saw an article about how instead of having baby showers, we should have post-baby showers for people who are like, instead of bringing another onesie or another muslin cloth, bring the ability to take a shower, the ability to whatever it is, feed a mom without her having to get up.

Kate: You know people have… it’s hard now because everybody’s so busy and doing things, but most moms that have recently gone through it, I would say recently in the past 10 years, remember vividly what it was like and will make – carve out time if you ask to help you.

But that’s another hard thing, asking, you have to learn how to ask for help and not view it as a negative and not view it as a character flaw that you’re asking for help. We have seasons in our lives where we’re giving and we’re taking, and this is the season. It’s fine to take.

Ayelet: Yeah. Because you’re giving so much of yourself to this tiny, brand new human being!

Kate: Right, so you need to take some to re-nourish yourself.

Ayelet: Well said. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what are some of your favorite resources that you like sharing with families?

Kate: So the first, as I mentioned, I have on my website a workbook, which is ktpostpartumdoula.com/workbook/ and it goes through a lot of what I’ve talked about. You can work through it with your partner, even if you just work through yourself. There’s a place that lists all the professionals you should know in your area, so that’s something you can just go, you enter your email address and then you can download it.

Ayelet: Perfect. And we’ll connect to that in the show notes as well.

Kate: Another, it’s a book, it’s a little bit on the long side, but it is chockfull of information. It’s called Mothering The New Mother by Sally Placksin. It’s an amazing resource, and I’m pretty sure she has a website that has more of a condensed version, but that is another. That’s like the book.

And if you’re looking for a postpartum doula in your area, I first I would suggest getting a certified postpartum doula and there’s a bunch of different certifications, I don’t know them all, but the certification gives you a little more, you know, they have to be CPR certified, all that kind of stuff.

So the two bigger organizations are DONA, so you can go on their website and find a postpartum doula and birth support Doula and CAPPA, which is what I’m trying to through which is another larger organization. And lastly, I would like to, if you’re suffering or think you’re suffering from any postpartum mood disorder or prenatal mood disorder, Postpartum Support International is an amazing, amazing resource. They will help you find therapists. They’ve got a warm line, and that’s postpartum.net. And that’s a great website.

Ayelet: Yes. Awesome. Thank you so much, Kate. And thanks to all of the participants of the Learn With Less® Curriculum who are listening live. We are going to continue the discussion and open up for Q and A session in just a minute for you guys, and for everyone listening from home or on the go, thank you so much for joining us and we’ll see you next time.

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