Mama You Belong
Welcome to 'Mama You Belong' - a podcast for moms in the thick of it. We delve into the need for belonging and connection that mothers often face alone and help you feel seen. We acknowledge the dissonance between societal expectations of motherhood and the realities of managing our mental and physical load, with science and trauma-informed support. Co-hosts of 'Mama You Belong' are Kirsten Desmarais, PT, DPT, OCS, CD(DONA) a physical therapist, birth doula, and mother of three, and Molly Hilgenberg, MSW, LICSW, a psychotherapist, singer/songwriter, and new mom.
Kirsten and Molly were both kids who collected rocks, hugged trees and grew up in different towns in Minnesota. They met only a few years ago when Kirsten became Molly's PT and then her birth doula. They bonded when they both realized they could pretty much share anything without judgment and text each other about the moon.
Through shared stories and expert insights, 'Mama You Belong' seeks to empower mothers by creating a supportive space for connection and understanding in their unique journeys. Each episode aims to provide validation, education, and some laughs. By sharing our stories and inviting expert guests in future episodes, we aspire to create a nurturing and inclusive environment for moms.
Mama You Belong
Unlearning Sleep Rules: Choosing Connection Over Shoulds (Transforming Our Sleep Practice) - Part One
Kirsten traces the journey from pressure-filled, sleep training newborn days to a more child-centered and connected approach to sleep. Together, we share how postpartum rage became a compass, how sensory needs shaped real rest, and why prioritizing relationship over rules brought relief.
• check in: school strain reaches a tipping point and home education is considered; Molly pursuing an amazing creative endeavor!
• Kirsten's experience as a first time mom. The sleep "shoulds" were HEAVY
• postpartum rage named as boundary signal and guide
• the weight of sleep training culture and external validation
• sensory input, proximity, and ritual as sleep supports
• co-sleeping stigma vs what actually works for rest
• unlearning rigid schedules or expectations and centering relationship over expectations
• grief for lost early weeks and permission to choose differently
Resources:
Duluth Perinatal - perinatal mental health and parenting resources curated by a perinatal mental health therapist
My Connected Motherhood - Sleep consultants WITHOUT SLEEP TRAINING. Love them.
Subscribing to our podcast and leaving us a review is one of the best ways for other people to find us. So if you enjoy what you are hearing or if it resonates with you, please subscribe and leave us a review. It would mean a lot.
Kirsten's Physical Therapy website
Hey mama, you belong. We're so glad you're here. We are your hosts, Molly, mental health therapist, singer and songwriter, tree hugger, and a new mom like many of you.
Speaker 02:And Kirsten, physical therapist, birth dua, deep feeler, lover of trees, and fellow mama. We hope you feel seen through these episodes and truly believe that you belong.
Speaker 01:Welcome everyone to Mama You Belong. Today's episode is um just a heads up, a Zoom call between myself and Kirsten, and we had a bit of a connection problem throughout. So I did my best to edit out some of the moments when we lost our connection. Um, but please forgive us if it sounds a little choppy or strange. That's probably why. But it still is a very cohesive, beautiful interview uh getting Kirsten's experience back when she became a new mom. So I hope you enjoy this episode. Hi, Kirsten. Hi, Molly. Yeah, I'm still trying to chew that gross granola bar. It's not it's not working.
Speaker 02:No, um, I fully get it. And we will probably be interrupted because I am not child-free right now. Yeah and I don't have another adult in the house, but we are gonna do it anyway.
Speaker 01:We're gonna do it anyway. We just found cancellations in our schedules like together in the middle of a Monday. So we're just like able to put this on our schedules today, um unplanned, which is nice. And it's National Coffee Day, so I'm having another coffee, which I didn't need, but I want.
Speaker 02:Yeah, I always think it's funny when I hear that or say that to myself, like I don't need this because I just also feel like it is an actual need. Whether it's the caffeine or the ritual of it, or the fact that I usually slow down when I have coffee. There's some there is a need woven in there. Yeah. So uh yeah. Um interesting to be recording during the day.
Speaker 01:I know, usually it's like at night. Yeah. I was gonna say you're also gonna probably get interrupted by me because I'm having that third coffee. So on top of your kids, I'll try I'll do my best. All right. Apologies ahead of time if I take you off track.
Speaker 02:It's okay. There's not really a track. Yeah. Totally. I mean, I have some things I hope to convey. Yeah. Yeah, what I wanted to piggyback off of your summertime sleep regression, what you learned about yourselves and your child's sleep needs, because so much of your story resonated with me. And I don't always tell the entirety of the story because everybody's in a different season, but our sleep story continues to unfold. So I've had opportunities to learn more and reflect further back on like the beginning of basically parenthood and see just how far we've come, but just ongoing the things we're learning.
Speaker 01:Yes. Yes. I can't believe it's been so long, like over a month since we've recorded that. So much has changed and evolved. But I I'm really excited to hear more from your life experience with this issue. Um, before we dive in, can we just do a little check-in? Absolutely. Okay. How are you today in this moment?
Speaker 02:Today, in this moment, I'm feeling pretty good. We have some pretty big things happening life-wise, in that school has been incredibly tough for my oldest this year. It's always been tough, and we'll get into that story through this episode and probably a future episode. But things really kind of seemed to come to a T where I just had this realization that we have done so much work to tolerate school and to be able to be there for mediocre at best outcome. And actually, that's just academic focus. But when we look at person-focused outcomes, my oldest is not doing well. And so she was in the car. Well, she was about to leave for school and was like, I just can't do it. This happened twice last week, too. And I kept her home. And we just did other stuff. Uh, I had to rearrange some work things, but I am the flexible one and was happy to do that if that meant that she just wasn't so overwhelmed.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 02:And so we did that today. And I feel uh over my head when it comes to learning about like home education. But I also look at the last five years of how much work we've put in to honestly like not get very far and to have her still suffer, that I feel really good about shifting gears and not continue to put effort into what would require a systemic change that I just know won't happen. Yeah. And I'm eager to put energy into something that we have more control over.
Speaker 01:Um yeah, I want to just pause. And since like I'm just kind of noticing something, I want to point out that like this has been actually a really common theme lately with um a lot of my clients is that when I ask someone how they're doing, and I like really want to hear how they're doing, if they're a mom, their immediate response is how their kids are doing. And oh yeah, it is such a like it is so tied to our well-being. Like anyone who's asked me how I've been doing, right? August just got over hand, foot, and mouth, and that's what I say. Like, whether or not he's doing okay. Like it's just so built into we are okay if our kids are okay and we're not okay if they're not okay. So, like right now in this moment, you're okay because you kept her home because she was not okay. Yeah.
Speaker 02:And I don't want to fall into this like possibility of like codependency where I'm like doing all these things just so should you know, like I don't think that's what this is. I think No, and I don't want I don't want it to be, but it truly is like when she's not okay, I'm her safe person. Yeah. And it impacts our home life, it impacts the things that I can do. And ultimately, like when I see my children really struggling, it breaks you, you know, whether it's sleep, emotionally, struggling with just some milestone, like whatever it is, I am not unaffected. Yeah. So yeah, you're right. Like I feel good today because I made this decision to support her, and I feel confident in my decision, and I feel relief knowing that she feels relief.
Speaker 01:Yeah, I'm I just really wanted to point that out. I don't think that's a codependence thing at all. Like, I think codependence gets tossed around a lot. Like, I'm sure it is out there and it can be an unhealthy dynamic for families, but like this is more like you're her safe person. This is all about interdependence, like making sure your kid is okay is going to like decide whether or not you're okay. Totally. Yeah. Or not decide, but it's just it's going to influence like how your heart is, right? Yeah. I can breathe easier. Yeah. So um I really want to know more, but maybe I'll just do a quick check-in too. Yeah, you can get it. I first of all am in love with this late summer weather, even though it's probably means something terrible is happening with the climate. Um, but it's like a few more weeks of sunshine. Um, especially since we had such a smoky summer. Yeah. Um and I am doing okay, especially because my son is like a hundred percent better from hand, foot, and mouth. And that was horrifying. What an awful illness. Terrible. Oh my god. Um, and just learning like how much a one-year-old cannot communicate how they're feeling. So you just have to guess so much through their actions, like not eating or you know, severe diaper ash or whatever. So I'm really low on sleep. Um, this is the week of my album release show. So in the past, like we haven't met in so long because I've been so focused on forming a band and practicing and releasing my album, self-released, um, and then putting together this show, which is really exciting. But like that's definitely been where a lot of my energy has been going. And you've been very busy too with the start of school and stuff. So um, I'm excited we're back together and doing this because I love Mama You Belong so much and what we're we're doing. So yeah, but the show is on Saturday and I can't believe it. And there are still tickets left if anyone listens to this this week and wants to come get a babysitter. Yeah, you should come. Kids below 18 actually are free. There, I think will be like all my nephews will be there. They're coming. And so, like, I think that's an age span from like five to twelve. So I don't know. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, some kids will be there.
Speaker 02:Yeah.
Speaker 01:Um, yeah, so I'm just really um curious about what you want to share after we talked last about the sleep aggression. Yeah.
Speaker 02:Well, I think my starting point is really just like becoming a parent for the first time and realizing how much I didn't know. How much I didn't know about birth at the time, how much I didn't know about myself, about parenting, about just like infant development and support needs, and um the circles I was in, it was very much like here's this book that we've all circulated. This is the way that we've raised our kids. Um here you go. And I honestly don't even think I really did anything else. I think I kind of was like, oh, okay, like they know. And we were gonna be doing daycare. And I felt this overwhelming pressure, knowing that my child had to sleep independently. They weren't gonna be rocked to sleep. There were certain requirements for obviously safe sleep at daycare and sleep training and the questions around are they sleeping through the night yet? Are they sleeping? All the variations were were felt constant. That my entire job, self-appointed during maternity leave, was to get her to sleep. My uh from the second I woke up through the entire day, including the nighttime, I viewed my role as getting her on a routine. And that was what the book was about. That was what all the conversations I was having with different moms was about, what worked, what didn't. That was what a lot of my husband and I, like our conversations were about how did you get, like, what was the day? And it wasn't about like, did you enjoy the day? What did you, you know what I mean? It was about like tell me the schedule. And I have like journal entries of what I used to leave family members and people watching her, of the times she would eat, the times she would sleep, the times like every single day. And the only thing I really learned about my child during that time was that she did get really overstimulated and inconsolable if um we kind of ventured too far from the routine that she had known. So if we stretched a wake window and she was like obviously tired and she didn't get sleep, or if there was just a lot of stimulation with her, um it was, you know, it'd be the comments we'd be like leaving a holiday, and they'd be like, oh, she'll sleep well tonight, like, you know, whatever it was. And it was like incessant screaming.
Speaker 01:Like I remember like sleeping well, like overstimulation.
Speaker 02:I felt like I didn't know what I was doing, yeah, except I knew that we should not stretch her. Like we knew I knew that, but I felt like I completely missed out on an entire 12 weeks of time with her because my entire focus was on getting her to sleep when I when I thought she needed to sleep and how I thought she needed to sleep.
Speaker 01:God, that's so hard. Like, I don't know about you, but I would just be like grieving that still. Like that, like the the newborn bubble of like the bonding and all of that, and here you were just like trying to download a book into your brain and regurgitate it into like how to get your baby ready for daycare, and you missed out on so much of that. Like all of it.
Speaker 02:To the point of like, I remember if I was like holding her too much, I would be like, Oh, put her down. Like she'd be in the room with me, maybe, but I would be like, I don't need to hold her right now. Like, put her down. And it was like even then, I remember being like, I already like when do I hold my child then? If not on maternity, but I but I remember being like, this is what I have to do. Like, no one else is gonna get her ready except me. And she isn't gonna be held at daycare. You know, I don't know, I don't know what happens at daycare. Except like she was going to my friend's daycare, who like I trusted so much. It wasn't a daycare center. And I I I I kind of self-imposed a lot of this because I just truly was looking around. I I didn't feel any power to make any of these decisions for myself or to be curious about pursuing what she showed me she needed or what I thought she needed. Like that was not even a thought in my mind, um, except for it really showed itself with the whole like don't stretch her too far, simulation-wise. So that feels like such a bummer because I did miss out and I still grieve that time of like, what the heck was I doing? But in the moment, I I was pursuing everything that I thought was right.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Well, and it makes sense because it was everything that you were also surrounded by, right? We're so influenced by what we see and hear and read and experience. That's such a big part of who we are. So if you don't have anyone else showing you like it's okay to actually spoil your baby and hold her 24-7 and never put her down, and that's not gonna harm her experience at daycare, like you didn't have anyone saying that to you. No, you had the opposite. Yeah, I had the questions about sleep.
Speaker 02:So it like further directed me to like, I really have to, I have to figure this out. And so that was exhausting. I was also dealing with like really significant postpartum mental health things that I didn't fully realize the intensity of until I had moved through it. And I think the these two things coexisting at the same time were really brutal. They like made each other worse. Uh-huh. Because I I felt powerless and I felt really bad at my job because it wasn't working. I had pursued full-on like extinction sleep training at least twice during maternity leave. Understand she was this was like, I think I tried it at eight weeks and it didn't work. Bad news. And I tried it again closer to like 10 weeks or something. I might have even tried it sooner. Like it's honestly like this black hole of like a blur timeline-wise. I probably blocked it out for many reasons, but I remember trying it twice. And I remember at um 10 or 11 weeks, I realized how this wasn't working. And I realized what I had already missed out on, and I said, screw it. And that last week I held her the entire week. You know, so I was like, I figured it out then, but I had that whole process of almost the entire maternity leave serving other people. And feeling powerless. This is telling me from the beginning that that was not gonna work. So I think part of me woke up at week 11 to say, like, she's obviously telling you what she needs.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 02:And she needed support. She needed a lot of proprioceptive input. She needed routine and structure around transitions. She needed some predictability, but she's she still needed physical support to sleep, you know, like connection, proximity. And it bedtimes were kind of lengthy. And um so I learned a lot. And in those really early infancy times, I had these questions of like, does she have like sensory? Like, I didn't even have the language to describe what I was looking at, but she was always incredibly rigid and um always loved input, like um really hard, proprioceptive, like jumping, like slamming her heels and her feet into stuff and was super rigid, where other kids would kind of lose that and become a puddle. Um, she always was incredibly rigid, erect, straight. And um people would have different reasons. They'd be like, oh yeah, because I bring it up like it's kind of, you know, I know enough. I'm a physical therapist. Yeah. I'm like, she's not like this noodly baby. Yeah. She's like rigid. Yeah, like a wood board. And they're like, oh, it's probably reflux, you know, and she was a huge puker. But she was not an unhappy puker. Um and again, I like didn't I if people said no, that she's fine, she was meeting all of the other, you know, benchmarks, things like that. I just let it go.
Speaker 01:Uh-huh. And you knew something was wrong, like, or not wrong, but you just knew something was not typical.
Speaker 02:Yeah. It was another opportunity for me to see that in some way she was kind of telling me something. And I chose to listen to other people first and completely squash just the curiosity that I had. Mm-hmm. It's not like I knew what that meant. I didn't even have language to describe it.
Speaker 01:Well, gosh, Kirsten, why? I mean, weren't you like raised in a whole culture where women are bred to just please others and do what other people tell you to and not think for yourself?
Speaker 02:Yes. And raising concerns or questions, especially pointing out atypical things. Yeah.
Speaker 01:Oh, no, no, no.
Speaker 02:That's not you know, atypical leads down an entirely different path that's really not desirable. And there was a level of, you know, kind of this blind trust. And I just again chose to follow that same path I had on the sleep stuff, squash curiosity, listen to other people who either had more experience or were older. Uh physicians didn't say anything. All of the more objective testing was completely normal. Oh wow. But we continued to have sleep things. It evolved.
Speaker 01:Go for it. I sorry, I wanted to pause you because I feel like I just want to frame what I'm hearing you say. Like from the start with postpartum, like already you're feeling the um that like super pressured time. Like when you think of so many other countries where moms get to stay home with their babies and there's no, I have 12 weeks to do this, right? Like, there's a window of time where you just get to be at home with your baby without that pressure. And it's built into our system where we get, you know, six to 12 weeks if we have to go back to work, where you have to feel like you have everything figured out before you go and send your baby to daycare. So, like already everything is starting out from this sense of pressure and powerlessness and not even knowing that you can listen to your inner voice. Totally.
Speaker 02:From the beginning, it started like that. And I do feel like that pressure and hopelessness on top of my own mental health experiences post port postpartum sort of spiraled together. Where I really second guessed and ignored a lot of what my feelings were. Like I like I didn't know and that they were invalid, so I should ignore them. My kids are playing basketball outside. Can you hear that? No. Okay, perfect.
Speaker 01:But you're just in like total survival mode. I mean, that's what we do. Yeah, we have to ignore so many things coming from within when we're surviving.
Speaker 02:Absolutely. And I'm not sure if it's because I experienced like so much rage early postpartum. And I sort of just like didn't know myself. Like I had never experienced some of these feelings where logic didn't explain it. You know, that I think it that really fed my desire, whether it was conscious or not, to squash and ignore what I was feeling. So I would notice things and I would bring them up. But then as soon as they were, you know, dismissed or invalidated or made small, it was this thing of like, oh, I must be overreacting. I must be and it was immediate gaslighting. Yeah. And one of those reference points was early on when I didn't have a logical reason for those feelings as a new mom. Rage, anxiety, panic. And it would be this thing of like, see, everything's fine. Like, stop being crazy. You she's safe, you're safe, like, why are you whatever? Snap out of it. And so it was like essentially I couldn't trust my feelings. And included in that were these suspicions that something was off.
Speaker 01:Well, and you were being told by people with more authority externally to not trust your feelings, right? Oh, something seems different. Sh her body's rigid. No, you know, it's just like all that dismissing and gaslighting over time. You're going to have that happening inside as well. Like that's just what we do. Absolutely.
Speaker 02:And as a first-time mom, it it's very easy to be like, well, I must not know. Yeah. So I had noticed things in her early development that I tried to ignore or excuse. And then we still experienced sleep issues. And I definitely still felt pressure for the longest time to figure out her sleep. But we definitely agreed that crying out for her was not an option. Did you call it extinction sleep training earlier? Yeah, I don't I is that what like the Ferber method or whatever? Where like do not intervene, do not go in.
Speaker 01:Your poor nervous system. I can't even imagine trying that.
Speaker 02:Absolutely, like every part of it. Because it wasn't working. So I'm internalizing this as I'm also failing while I'm hearing her scream. While my husband and I are trying to figure this out together with the pressure. That this is my job to make her sleep.
Speaker 01:Have you ever done some like inquiry around with yourself, like around the rage you experienced at that time and like made any connections to why it kept popping up?
Speaker 02:Well, I I definitely still felt that with the other two, but was a lot more open about um not well like embracing it, I guess. And it absolutely for me in in at in at least a part comes from not being trusted. Yeah. So I have this bear tattoo on my forearm. Yes. And that's part of it. Yes. Is the like this rage that I've never felt any other time except for being a mom and in the early stages. So primal. Yeah. It is very primal. It does. I've had another mom express this was around um centered around birth, but they were basically saying they want to be andor see themselves as like this cat that's giving birth, and they just want to be like in a basement in the dark, leave me alone. If you open the door, I'm gonna hiss. And that is how I can understand that. That is sort of how I feel early postpartum. And I think it's this part of me that really like I know what my kids need. And I don't need to be questioned. I actually need to be listened to and supported.
Speaker 01:Yeah. I think that um, I mean, I know that postpartum rage is something that's just not like talked about enough in how it like is considered as a part of postpartum mental health. But like I also just feel like in our society and our culture, women aren't really allowed to be angry. Like we're we just like there's no space for that. So in a way, like, I just can't help but listen to your story, especially with your first, and think of like how sacred it was that you had rage almost as this like guiding, unfiltered, raw force of power coming through that was just like this. You are you are not going to ignore this. You can't ignore the rage. Totally.
Speaker 02:Yes. And and I could suppress it and I could try to explain it, dissociate from it, but eventually like it came through.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 02:And it has been this guiding force that I have now kind of embraced and listened to. And when I feel that way, I might pause because I also know that I process and move really quickly in decision making. And sometimes if there's rage infused in that, I've learned that maybe I just need to slow down. Sure. It doesn't mean that feeling goes away, but I don't want to use that as that trigger to act quickly.
Speaker 01:Yeah, you can still be skilled with it, right? And like how you respond to it.
Speaker 02:But it it has been this guiding force. And in raising my oldest, there are definitely points where that has gotten really loud. And it's definitely around um my intuition being challenged. Or having or having to somehow, you know, basically go along with something, even though I know it's not gonna work, like boundaries getting infringed upon, it will come out then too.
Speaker 01:Well, you've been writing on Instagram lately about how like I I'm not gonna remember it exactly, but like if you can state it here, like the like once you prioritize your the relationship with your child over what everyone else is saying, like that's when things really start to move forward. So something like that.
Speaker 02:For sure. Yeah. And that when I feel really ragey, like these boundaries are really being ignored, I sometimes realize I'm choosing to prioritize or center societal expectations, family expectations, tradition, structure. Yeah, instead of prioritizing my relationship with my child. So if we look at it in terms of sleep, I was prioritizing some sort of made-up cookie-cutter structure to what our day and night should look like, and the kind of connection that should suffice. That a man wrote in a book. Correct. And the kind of connection that's excessive. Um, I prioritized what other people said and thought about my child who they've never met, versus what I actually knew and what my child was telling me. Insert rage. Insert rage here, yes. Here. And when I at that 10-week, 11-week mark decided like, okay, this is absolutely not what I'm gonna do. And I chose her and us over that instant relief. So fast forward to like this school stuff, realizing I've spent like five years forcing a square peg in a round hole to the detriment of pretty much everybody because that's what we're supposed to do. Kind of making this mental decision to be like, I have I we have to do something different. I'm just gonna prioritize what I know is going to help us be okay. Uh, instant relief.
Speaker 01:Yeah. So, okay, if we back up, I I'd really want to hear more about like your process of kind of undoing, unraveling all of the expectations that were put on you and that you had you were holding on to when trying to move through the postpartum like early times with her in sleep and everything. Like, can you also share what was happening in terms of like you making sense of like how were you making sense of what her bodily needs were, her sensory input, all of that? Like, how long did that take for you to really start to understand what she did need?
Speaker 02:Yeah, it happened in pieces because I viewed a lot of things as separate. So sleep I viewed separate from maybe some preferences and needs around food, texture, nutrition, even frequency of meals. I viewed them separately. So, how I learned about them, they were each in their own time.
Speaker 01:Okay.
Speaker 02:And maybe that's good. Maybe I wouldn't have done well if I would have been shown all of it at the same time. So I noticed she would immediately calm and relax and have like a softer body, and she would be very observant the second we went outside. So I had she was like a late fall baby. So in spring, I she was in a carrier all the time. We still have the carrier, and I randomly put our youngest in it, and she's four. This thing has just been the trustiest thing ever. And we would be outside because I was like, there's something about this. It didn't matter the weather. It was like as soon as we stepped foot outside, things were different for her. Wow. Um she loves water. And so, kind of same thing. Anytime we can be around water, it was just like, okay, this is something I want to prioritize. She loves this. The way she played, I didn't have context, but I just kind of learned like we are we do things together, and she's kind of waits for me to lead. There's not independent play. And loves texture-y things with crafts and and that. So we did a ton of artsy stuff because that was just she lit up with that versus a whole toy bin. She didn't really know what to do with that.
Speaker 01:I remember you saying also one time that you didn't even realize how kids can do independent play until you had your second.
Speaker 02:For sure. I was just kind of so boggled. Like, I don't know why we keep getting toys, because she doesn't actually play with them. She might drag a couple things out, you know. Um, she might play amidst them, but her play was a lot of gross motor, like jumping around, rolling around. She might look at books, but like she kind of would like float from one thing to the next and play amidst them. But like she never played without me literally in it with her. Otherwise, it was like rolling around and playing on me. And I just that was normal because that's all I knew until I had our second. And he would just like sit or go to the toy bin and like play with stuff. And his play might be like chucking stuff, you know, but like he played, and I could, I didn't have to be next to him, and he was just like content. And I didn't know that existed until he did that. Because I just, I don't know. That was your normal before that. Yeah. We did the stuff that she really gravitated to, and it ended up being a lot of like sensory, you know, like finger paint. She loved to color with anything. Um so I just sort of started slowly seeing things in different areas of our life that worked and that she enjoyed. Um but we still definitely had from the external perspective a typical looking like structure. We still did naps, but we kind of knew the process she needed in order to fall asleep. Can you share more about that actually?
Speaker 01:Like what was that like to get her to go to sleep?
Speaker 02:Outside time definitely helped. So if we did outside time before nap, that would calm things down. But we we usually had to have uh rain sounds on, uh, and a music. We have a CD that is just like quiet music um that playing, and a book while I'm like holding her, and a pacifier. And then I would often have to like she, I'd lay her in her crib, I'd have to rub her back and sing a few songs, and then I'd usually have to lay next to her crib and we would hold hands or do something until she fell asleep. She would generally transfer okay. So if she fell asleep in a carrier, um, I would either just hold her or she I could transfer her. She would often wake up 45 minutes to maybe an hour into her nap, and I would pick her up. She'd have a blanket and her pacifier and bring her on the couch, and she would often fall asleep with me again and sleep longer. But she never could console herself and go back to sleep during a nap time. This whole idea of like, I don't remember what it's called. Soothing. Yeah, well, and like um linking, linking naps or oh, I don't know what that is. I don't know. It's a thing where you try to get them to do that themselves. That was never a thing. But we figured that out. Similarly, she was a really, really early waker in the morning, like 4 30. She would be up. And we were like, we can't do this. Yeah. So one of us would wake up with her, we'd go downstairs, we'd give her milk, and she'd fall asleep on the couch with us again. But it was this thing of it was very routine, and it always required another person. It required proximity and our support. Lots of things. Um we just learned that that's what we had to do.
Speaker 01:All the things. So while you're talking about like the early days with all of this, you were saying like when we talked through the sleep regression stuff with my son last time, like you were making some parallel insights. So what are you what are you seeing now looking back? Like like did it feel like you were failing? No matter what you did. Like what how are you feeling about it now looking back?
Speaker 02:Yes. I would have phases where oh it worked, or it's working, and she's sleeping, and it looks acceptable societally, and I would feel the most confident. And when things shifted, which they do, and they became less socially acceptable, less talked about, people are less open about it, I would have a lot more self-doubt, even though it was working. We were all sleeping.
Speaker 01:Interesting. So the more it was working, but it was less like socially acceptable, meaning like I'm ex- I'm assuming more proximity to your body. Correct. That's what you're getting at. Um, then you were worrying that it wasn't the right thing. Exactly.
Speaker 02:We went through a season probably a year and a half where she would wake up in the middle of the night and come in our room. She was between three and four at the time. And she would run into our room in the middle of the night and want to be in here. And in we had tried, okay, go back to your bed. I'd lay by her bed, she'd fall asleep, she might wake up again, come back in our room. I can't sleep. I want to be in here. Nope, you have your own bed. And we were doing this nighttime dance where we would be sleeping on her floor and we would be fighting about who was gonna go do that. It's freezing in her room. We're covering up with baby blankets because we won't admit that this isn't a thing. So we didn't put our own blanket and pillows in there. We just would tough it out, be mad at each other about it. Uh-huh. And finally, I was like, I'm not doing this. I think I was pregnant with clay. Oh. And or early cardum. And I was like, this isn't possible for us. So I made her a nest on my floor next to my bed. And when she would wake up, she would come in here, she'd close the door, she'd lay down, she'd cover herself up, and I would be like, okay, good night. And she would sleep. And guess what we still do if she really struggles to sleep, if she's really scared, if it's too hot in her room, if there's bad weather, she sleeps on the floor next to my bed. Maybe. And she's like, I sleep so good.
Speaker 01:Like, maybe part of mama you belong is just like, Mama, you belong if your kid still sleeps next to you. Like, this is all so much more normal than we talk about.
Speaker 02:Yeah. To the point where I'm like, why do we live in this house? You know, like we do not need this many rooms. Unfortunately, we bought our house at like the very end of a recession, and there's no house we could afford except this one. Or we would downsize because I'm like, this is honestly hilarious. Because we don't need it.
Speaker 01:You just need like one giant pillow room.
Speaker 02:Yes. So when things looked socially acceptable, societally normal, I would be more confident, like, oh, okay, see, like we're actually fine. Like clinging to that, even though there's so much of what I know to be true that doesn't resemble that. Yeah. And as soon as life would start to look different, she's sleeping on our floor more than she's sleeping in her bed. We still have to lay with her. We have to have music and a sound machine and a weighted blanket and a fan on, no windows open because that's scary. We have to, all these things. I still feel like, in many respects, like we are behind.
Speaker 01:And behind what? Like right? It it's so it's so frustrating that so many parents out there are holding that expectation that there's just some sort of finish line to get to with where your your child should be at for quote independence when that's not every child's way of being. Like there are like, okay, I mean this is under the context that we can acknowledge that neurodivergence is normal and a part of humanity and not something to try to like get rid of, right? Like we embrace neurodivergence and recognize that it's okay if a child or an adult needs something different to sleep or to function or whatever the thing is. And yet we still have it so built in within us to be like they're behind.
Speaker 02:Yeah. When now she's old enough to be able to talk to me about some of this, I remember when she was probably like four or five. Because we would, when I was still trying to get her to do something independently, uh when we would start to have this conflict between life doesn't look the way it should look based on what people are saying. I feel like I need to try to mold things to look that way. We would have this conflict there. And even though often, you know, end with us just screaming at each other. Like it would be like an hour, hour and a half of like an all-out battle to try to get her to fall asleep. And both of us would go to bed be having been yelled at by each other. And I remember her telling me one time, like, I'm the kid and you're the grown-up and I can't do this. She was like very young, and I it was like one of those moments where I like snapped my mouth shut and was like, You are so right. Because I think I was trying to get her to go to sleep with like one book, one song, I rubbed her back, now I'm gonna leave. You don't need all the things, and she was telling me, like, I need all the things. I can't do it. And if she, if there has been like one theme with her across like kind of the entirety of her existence, is she really does a great job of advocating for what she actually needs. It's usually the adults who don't want to do them or don't think that they are necessary, including myself.
Speaker 01:Who are going, you you should, right? You should be able to do this because other kids your age can do this. Absolutely.
Speaker 02:And now she's old enough to feel really bad about and have a lot of shame about how she can't, even though other kids can. And I still catch myself on the verge of saying things like that because I get so frustrated because I'm like, when are we gonna move beyond this? And I usually stop myself because I'm like, she knows that. And part of why this is so hard for her is because she's also battling the reality of I need all this support. I have to have it. And people my age don't need this, but for some reason I do, and I don't want to be like this. I want to be like them. But she can tell me. Like you can talk about this what she needs. Yeah.
Speaker 01:Yeah. Um, I think we should do a part two so that we can talk more about like all of the school stuff and how sleep is going now and your evolving process as her mom. Um but I feel like this was a really important window into what it was like from day one for you and to hear you talk more about like how much unraveling and unlearning you had to do from like from within to become her mom. Like that, I I just I really appreciate you sharing more about that, and I hope listeners find the significance of what you're saying in all of that. Because like neuro neurodivergent or not, for our kids, there's something in there for everyone to hold of like being guided by that inner voice and that inner force, and not what the outer world is pressuring us to do and to be.
Speaker 02:Yeah. Yeah. Our kids are great teachers. Yeah. And parenting is some of the hardest work because it's humbling to realize that you thought you knew and maybe you didn't.
Speaker 01:Yeah, I I was just thinking about how someone keeps making the comment like over and over again about like when is our son not going to be sleeping with us anymore? Like it's just this very abnormal thing that needs to be done with as soon as possible. And it's like it's not a problem for us. So why why would we change anything that's not a problem? It's working. He is doing well, he's thriving. Like if it were a problem, then we'd work on it. But it's so strange to like and confusing for someone externally to be like, this is a problem. When are you gonna change it? I'm like, what? It's it's not a problem.
Speaker 02:Yeah, like a problem for who?
Speaker 01:Right. And I think that's I don't know, just like a big takeaway too, is like I get to be a new mom in this time where I have friends and support and professionals who are sharing like another way of sleeping and like easing up on those societal expectations that like you just didn't get that privilege when you were a new mom. No. Yeah, so I hope others others can. Yeah. Okay, so we'll do a part two if that's sounds good to you. Okay. Well thank you. Bye Molly. Bye. Mamma, you belong. Mamma, you are seen. We are connected like the mother trees. Mamma you belong Mamma you are seen strong as the mountain and gentle as the stream flowing underneath and throughout the stories of our lives centering each other so families can thrive. Centering each other so families can thrive.
Speaker 02:Thanks for listening. We hope you feel seen. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with other mamas. Subscribing to our podcast and leaving us a review is one of the best ways for other people to find us. So if you enjoy what you are hearing or if it resonates with you, please subscribe and leave us a review. It would mean a lot. You can find me, Kirsten, at empowerortho and public health.com, or on Instagram at Kirsten Demoray DPT.
Speaker 01:And you can find me, Molly, through my music at Sister Veri on Bandcamp or other streaming platforms, or through my clinical practice at InsightCounseling in Duluth, Minnesota. You can follow us or send us a DM on Instagram at mamayoubelong or email us if you have questions, ideas, or just want to connect. At mamayubelong at gmail.com. We will see you next time.