Paging Dr. Mom
I was a medical student with two kids, trying to keep it all together. I constantly felt like I had to defend my decision to chase a meaningful career and raise a family at the same time. But professional women with children shouldn’t have to choose between ambition and motherhood.
Paging Dr. Mom is a podcast for the women doing it all and wondering if it’s ever enough. If you’ve ever felt the pressure to be everything to everyone, this space is for you. I’m Dr. Angelle Downey, a family physician, single mom, and host who believes we can thrive, not just survive, through the chaos.
With real talk, expert insights, honest stories, and a few good laughs, we’ll navigate the mental load, burnout, identity shifts, guilt, and joy that come with being a high-achieving woman in a messy, beautiful life. Together, we’ll cry, connect, and grow into the strong, wise women our kids are watching us become.
Let’s build a life we don’t need to apologize for and actually love living.
Paging Dr. Mom
2: Navigating Motherhood's Messy Beautiful Journey: Interview with Naiomi Catron, Lactation Specialist
Struggling to juggle motherhood and career? You’re not alone. In this honest and hilarious episode, Dr. Angela Downey chats with Naiomi Catron, labor nurse, lactation consultant, and founder of Milk Diva, about the messy beauty of early motherhood. From car naps to cold coffee, Naiomi shares real talk on feeding, burnout, and redefining success. Tune in for laughs, practical tips, and a big dose of mom-to-mom honesty.
Naiomi is leaving all guests a gift, click below
10 Common Breastfeeding Pitfalls to Avoid
She can be reached at:
IG: @milk_diva
Linkedin: Naiomi Catron
This episode includes a paid partnership with BetterHelp. Click the link, betterhelp.com/drdowney, to get 10% off your first month.
Click below to order a copy of my 365 day journal called Enough As I Grow
🖋️ Enough as I Grow 365 day Guided Journal on Amazon
Email: drangeladowney@gmail.com
Social Media links: Here
🎵 Music: Upbeat Strings by Evan MacDonald
Welcome to the first official episode of Paging Dr Mom. I'm your host and colleague, dr Angela Downey, and today's episode is packed with insight, encouragement and real talk that I know many of you will love to hear. If you're a new mom, a seasoned pro or somewhere in between, today's episode is for you. We're diving into all the messy, beautiful and emotional parts of early motherhood the kind that no one prepares you for with an incredible guest who truly gets it. We're talking about what it really feels like to juggle breastfeeding, work, guilt, identity and trying to be everything to everyone. We're also going to get into the pressures of breastfeeding and what to do when it's not going as planned, how to handle judgment from others and from ourselves, and what actually matters most when you look back and what doesn't. If you've ever questioned whether you're doing enough, if you've ever cried in your office between patients, or if you're just needing a little dose of validation today, then stick around. You're going to feel seen, supported and maybe even a little inspired to let go some of that guilt. So let's get into it. Hey, hey, I'm Dr Angela Downey and this is Paging Dr Mom, the podcast for women who are juggling careers, kids, chaos and cold cups of coffee. We're talking about the real life behind the resumes, the messy moments, big feelings and how to stay human when you're doing all the things. If you've ever felt like the only one trying to keep it together, you're not. We're going to laugh, cry, vent and thrive together. So here we go. Hello to all my busy mamas. I'm Dr Angela Downey and I'm so glad that you're hanging out with me today on Paging, dr Mom. This podcast is for all of us who are just trying to keep it all together while juggling kids, careers and whatever else that life throws your way Each week. I'm going to be chatting with some amazing guests, other busy women who really get it. We're going to keep it real and have a couple laughs and talking about the parts of motherhood that we definitely wouldn't put on our resumes. So if you're feeling a little overwhelmed, a little tired or just need someone to say hey, I'm with you, you're in the right place.
Speaker 1:My guest today is Naomi Catron. She is a distinguished figure in lactation and collaborative care, with a background as a best-selling author, an award-winning labor and delivery nurse and an international board-certified lactation consultant. Naomi founded Milk Diva Lactation Services in Austin, texas, in 2019. Her visionary leadership has not only established Milk Diva as a premier destination for lactation support, but also transformed it into a thriving multi-provider and multidisciplinary practice. Through her innovative approach, naomi has fostered a collaborative environment that significantly improves outcomes for breastfeeding dyads. Her dedication to identifying root causes and supporting families has earned her recognition as a trusted advocate for dyads facing breastfeeding issues, including, but not limited to, tethered oral tissues. Committed to her mission, naomi works tirelessly to foster thriving lactation practices and elevate her lactation profession, advocating for equal respect as allied healthcare professionals. Naomi is a wife to Christian of 22 years and mother of two college-bound young men. Hello, naomi, it is great to have you on Paging Dr Mom today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I'm so sorry for such a long intro and background.
Speaker 1:That is good. You've done a lot of things. That's amazing. I'm so happy to have you here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate you having this platform, for you know moms that are going through it, that are professionals Like I wish I would have had this when my kids were coming up I first heard from you from the podcast the Boo Business, and your story really resonated with me and I really look forward to hearing some more Well thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you start maybe by telling all of us about you and your journey?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. As you heard on the introduction, I am a former labor and delivery nurse and I own a practice of five lactation consultants and two chiropractors and an infant nutritionist in Austin, texas. So we do home visits and we do office visits and virtual visits. But I am originally from New York. English was not my first language.
Speaker 2:I went to college in New York. My husband was military, so we had to move around the country a bit and change jobs and all the things. And so I did work in sales, at first when I was like right out of college and then I had kids. And I at first when I was like right out of college and then I had kids and I just didn't feel like sales. I actually was pharmaceutical sales and so I didn't feel like that was very fulfilling to my soul. So when my kids were about to start school, I went to nursing school and I immediately knew I wanted to do labor and delivery. I did labor and delivery for about 10 years.
Speaker 2:But I mean, when you're working in the hospital, you're working 12-hour shifts at least. You're working holidays, you're working nights, you're working days, you're getting called in. You know, and I remember my son. He did a section in school a science section on bats, because we're in Austin and we have the big Congress Street bridge with the bats. And I remember he told one of our friends he's like my mommy's, like a bat, she sleeps in the day, she's nocturnal and I was like this sucks. I just felt like you know, like you want to be and do all the things.
Speaker 2:I vividly remember driving my kids to school in the morning after having worked all night and I had to take a nap in the kids parking lot because I was way too sleepy to drive home and my house is only 15 minutes from the school but I was not able to keep my eyes open. I mean, there's so many of those like and I'm not a single mom, like I'm married, I just I wanted to work. I like my career, I liked work, I like working with moms and babies. You know now I still work a lot.
Speaker 2:My kids are bigger, but I don't have to work at night. I'm not taking naps in the parking lot of my kid's school to make it home. So I just thought, hey, there's a lot of silent struggles that we might go through in the background, but we're. I'm not the kind of person I can't just keep a smiley face on. Like everybody knew I was tired and irritable and like loved my job but hated the hours I was working and I did. I missed a lot of birthday parties and, yes, my son thought I was related to a bat for a little while. But you know, it does turn around and I think even those hard experiences did teach my family some really good lessons that I thought I would maybe be able to encourage another person who's listening today.
Speaker 1:So you work with a lot of moms during, like, some of the most emotional and intense times of their life, which is like right after childbirth and when they're trying to breastfeed and when hormones are just all over the place. So what are some of like the most common emotional struggles that you see with new moms and what would you want them to know during that really vulnerable time that they're in?
Speaker 2:Such a good question, I would say the number one thing that I see or hear people struggling with is this idea of what they thought things were going to be like and how they were going to feel, compared to what things really are like and then how they really feel. So a lot, a lot, a lot of times, women who are expecting to have a baby are planning showers, picking colors for the nursery, picking bedding, signing up for birth classes, planning how their birth is going to go, picking their birth playlist and things like that, and all of that is fantastic and great. However, that experience really only lasts. Like birth is going to last like a day, and then comes the rest of your life. And that's when sometimes things hit you like oh gosh, did I sign up for actually being like only getting two hours of sleep at a time forever? Like is this going to last forever? And the idea and the thoughts I have of like, oh, I want to breastfeed. I just assumed that would come naturally, because this is a natural thing. It should be an instinct. Why is this so hard? Why is my baby crying so much? What am I doing wrong? Is there something wrong with my baby? This is not what it looks like on Instagram. I must be defective, because my girlfriend's not having that problem, my, you know. She said she was able to breastfeed her baby for two years, and here I am at two weeks, and you know.
Speaker 2:So I hear a lot of, a lot, a lot of that, a lot of comparison to what they see on social media, and then, unfortunately this is the part that's the most challenging part Then they turn to social media to get advice to fix their challenges, and because it's usually not going to be advice that is made for their unique situation, they can sometimes dig themselves in a bigger hole, and so I try to share with people. First of all, all the feelings that you're feeling are 100% normal and okay and warranted. Like you are not supposed to love this part. Like you are not supposed to love this part and that's the thing I think people are surprised about is like how okay it is to not enjoy every part of motherhood, especially that first transition period. Who knows how your birth went? Like births go all sorts of different ways. Like I've delivered over a thousand babies and they're just so unique and different in what you plan and what your baby plans are two different things and so give yourself that grace to be tired, to rest, to not feel 100% joyful.
Speaker 2:But then also, this is about progress, not perfection, and I tell people, when it comes to infant feeding, it's really much more like a marathon, not a sprint. It's really much more like a marathon, not a sprint. And so if you're running this thing like a sprint, you are going to give up and give out by four weeks postpartum. But if we can take baby steps and you have someone holding your hand who's equipped to help you with infant feeding, we're going to get through this. You're going to pace yourself. We're going to make it to eight to 12 weeks. We're going to get you in cruise control and we're going to pace yourself. We're going to make it to eight to 12 weeks. We're going to get you in cruise control and we're going to be fine. But what your feeding looks like at two days old versus two weeks old versus two months old are very, very different in each of those stages. So that's generally what I am seeing and hearing early on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I struggled. I had two children and I struggled a lot with breastfeeding, especially at the beginning with my first one, and for me I almost took that as a sign that right off the hop, I was failing as a mother. Right, I couldn't feed my child, and it was a very frustrating progress and I think it was hard for me to wrap my head around like how could I not know how to do this? And it really is a learning process for both people, right, the baby's trying to learn, you're trying to learn and as women, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to, you know, be able to just know how to do these things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think people like us too. We're like I imagine most of the people listening to your podcasts are high achieving people, like we're not used to, just like not excelling in things. And so a lot, a lot of my patients are, you know, doctors, breast surgeons, pediatricians, marketing directors like they have control over things, they are responsible for a lot of things. And then you have an idea and a plan in your mind for how things should be going with this baby and all the things that you're going to do to try to mitigate these disasters that you might hear from other people. And then, when you've done all the things and expended all of the energy and brain cells that you have and things are still a hot mess, how like it's logical to be like, oh, it must be me.
Speaker 2:And so that's actually why I wrote my book back there called Milked.
Speaker 2:It is all about that whole like transition from pregnancy through the first few weeks of life, of all the things no one tells you and how to mitigate some of the things that can go wrong with early breastfeeding, depending on how old your baby was born at like 37 weeks versus 40 weeks, or if you had preeclampsia, or if your baby went to the NIC unit or all the things that are not in the vanilla plain Jane birth classes, because that in itself, I feel like knowledge is power and if we can help set you up for appropriate expectations, then you're less likely to feel like, oh, I'm defective or oh, it was me, because you already have been a little forewarned and you have some tools in your pocket what you'll learn in the book as to how to maneuver when the road gets a little windy, when it comes to breastfeeding or infant feeding, because I had a terrible nursing experience and I had a terrible birth experience, and it was before Google was invented, before Facebook, before you can go anywhere except for your neighbor or your aunt or your cousin.
Speaker 2:And I didn't have a lot of breastfeeding people in my family that I can turn to. So I like totally floundered and really felt very, very isolated, very, very alone and very, very defective, and I don't want any more women to feel like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're in Texas and I think mat leave in the US tends to be a fairly short period of time. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's sometimes six weeks and you have to use PTO Okay.
Speaker 1:So in Canada, a lot of physicians you know, some are able to take the full year Mattly, but some are needing to go back to work much earlier because of income and whatnot. So what are some? What would you say? Some of the judgments are that women face for trying to like juggle breastfeeding and work, or maybe needing to move to bottle feeding instead. And how are different ways that we can manage that?
Speaker 2:So I'm not sure how different it is in our two different countries, but because so many people have to go back to work before a year, there's a ton of American women who are pumping and bottle feeding, and I think there's so many people like that that are pumping and bottle feeding. That it's not, I would say, it's a majority. However and this is a subtle undertone those people who can stay home and directly breastfeed and not have to pump and bottle feed sometimes carry a little bit of air of superiority, and so I think that's sad. I feel like it's terrible that women are often pitted against each other, whether it be working mom versus stay-at-home mom, versus direct breastfeeding, versus pumping and giving your baby breast milk and I would like us all to do our best to not even participate in that kind of comparison, because the way our countries are set up, the way our finances are set up, breastfeeding many times direct breastfeeding still is more of a luxury, not a right, and that shouldn't be. That's wrong. However, we have to work in the system that we live in, and I think women are doing an amazing job making it work, like I just just right now, on my little lunch break, I went over to the office across the hall. I work with a pediatric dentist and we've helped her with nursing and all the things and she's so proud of herself because she she found a pump that lets her once in a while be hands-free and she's figured out just like she's making all this milk and she's giving her baby all this milk. And I am so proud of her because she's working full time because her husband is the dentist and you just can't shut down your business because you had a baby Like you, to still see patients.
Speaker 2:So not sure if that answers your question, but I think that there is a big, you know, first bottle feeding versus breastfeeding, or like if you're giving formula, excuse me, if you're giving breast milk in a bottle.
Speaker 2:You know some people, depending where you live, can look down on that. I feel like there is a very large percentage of americans who are pumping and giving their baby breast milk that way. I also think that there's a huge stigma if people skip breastfeeding and they go straight to formula. Once again, you have to do what you have to do as a parent and that is your choice and no one should be judged for that. They should be supported. So it might be a little bit of a surprise, but in our practice we do support moms who want to just formula feed and we help select a formula that's going to be more agreeable with their baby if they're having some challenges. So, depending what the symptoms are, we will give advice on which formulas to try, based on their ingredients, to help reduce some of the side effects that they might be experiencing, to help reduce some of the side effects that they might be experiencing.
Speaker 1:No, that's great. So when we were talking earlier, you had mentioned that like starting a business and just like having a medical practice is like, you know, raising kids, or while you're raising kids, is like having another baby. So and you've done both of them, you've been a really busy lady and you've launched a successful like women's health clinic while your kids were still growing up. So what were those early years like for you and how did you manage the pull between building your business and being present at home as a mom?
Speaker 2:That is a really great question. I don't know that I did them well, but what I can tell you is I it was definitely like having another child, because when you start a business, it's a lot like. It's a lot like having a brand new baby. They need a lot of attention. So a new business needs lots of attention. And you know, one thing I will share is I hate to see people and it's very sad to see people who, like, go after their dreams and whether it be starting a business of any kind, but then they put so much of themselves and energy into this one thing and forget, like the other, really important things in their life and then you see them go through a divorce or having really difficult relationship with their kids five, six, seven years later because you forget what's in this hand, right To go grasp what's in the other hand. And so I'm really grateful that, while I definitely made mistakes, I was advised like be careful, protect your marriage, you know your kids. Mistakes I was advised like be careful, protect your marriage, you know your kids. What people don't realize is your kids don't need 100% of your time and your energy and your space in your brain all the time, and that is one thing I think that was beneficial to my kids learning, because I think they were like, I don't know, five and eight or somewhere in that school age period when I went to go work at the hospital. Those long hours and that prepared them for when I had a business is they need to learn. In the same way, daddy has work and his work hours are to be respected and he has limited time and that's acceptable. The same is true for mommy. You're going to get taken care of by one of us but we're taking turns and it's a little bit more for us and our marriage and my situation is a little bit more egalitarian and one of them doesn't. I never play the role of like oh I'm so sorry, I couldn't make it to that birthday party because the work that I was doing was really important. A lot of Saturdays I worked in the hospital delivering babies. Daddy is not sorry that he didn't make it to your Wednesday night basketball game because he was on a business trip. I mean, like we are sorry but we're like not going to wallow in it because your kids will like feed off of that and they'll. They know how to feed off your guilt, and so I think it's really important that the kids, early on, did learn to respect our careers. But we made time While I wasn't there on Saturdays, maybe for birthday parties. I picked them up every day from school at three o'clock and we had snack time and we did homework time and you're, you know, eyeball to eyeball.
Speaker 2:So I think, having a new business if that's what you're doing and that's the next chapter in your life, someone explained it to me as having a jar and you need to place the big rocks in your life in the jar first. So that would be like your kids, your family, your health, your spirituality, and then smaller rocks, and so you just can't. So having a business is another big rock. Does that rock fit in your jar that you have? I don't have a jar, but imagine if this was a jar. You know, does it? Does it fit in there, or are you trying to shove it in there? And then, when those big rocks are in there, then you can fit pebbles and you can fit a little bit of sand, and you need to be the judge as to how full do you want your jar to be.
Speaker 2:As I'm getting a little bit older, as my business is getting older. I don't want a full jar, I don't want the sand in there. I don't need every little space to be filled up. But in the beginning I will tell you, every space was filled up and your friends, who are your good friends, are going to support you through that and they're going to understand that you're not able to make it to all the things and you're going to come up for air. You know when you can, and I just think it's very, very important that people don't forget their priorities and and and don't. You know you don't want to look back five and six years and be like man. I really messed up that really important part of my life because I neglected it, because I was so busy starting this business. So I'm not sure if that helps to answer that question, but it does?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm, you know it is, and for many of us who've been through all of that, you know professional women. We've definitely had to work hard to get to where we're at. So it is it's really important to recognize you know what you're juggling and you know some balls are going to be made of glass and are going to make more of an impact if you happen to drop it, whereas you know some are rubber and you can kind of just put those off to the side if you need to. So did you manage to get through all of this without feeling any guilt and like if, if you did, like what, maybe what, maybe you shift.
Speaker 2:I thought you're going to ask your mindset. I thought you're going to ask me. I thought you were going to ask me did you manage to get through all this without any medication?
Speaker 1:Oh, well, there's. That, but.
Speaker 1:I know I felt a lot of guilt for a lot of things. I was in medical school with two kids and so when I got into medical school I already had two children. So there was definitely times where I felt, times where I felt I felt guilty, like I wasn't being the mom that you know, that I had envisioned when I was younger and what I thought a mom should be. So I I did have a lot of guilty feelings and I definitely had to do a lot of like mindset work, to work to get around that and, to you know, realize that you know, being a mother looks different for different people. So are there some things like that help you shift your how you thought about you know moments where you just couldn't be there working at night.
Speaker 2:That was really, really just. I just felt like I was missing a lot. I wasn't able to connect with my kids as much. I also have boys, and boys like I didn't know anything about sports, I was not like I don't have any boy cousins or boy anything Like I felt like that was a huge learning curve for me. And then I work in women's health and everything I do is women related and I didn't know about Roblox and Skylanders and the toys they were playing with and the boy thing. So I was like I'm not even there to learn the things and then I'm not there to even connect. And then they want boys want to connect in a physical fashion. So I give it a, get on the floor and play with them and do physical things. And I was like I'm so tired I worked all night like that was really, really hard and there was no real talking myself out of that kind of guilt, because I think I'm pretty no-transcript. I laid a.
Speaker 2:Really I would say I feel like I laid a really rich foundation with my kids because I did stay home with them for the first five years without interruption. That what helped is being able to carve out like nuggets of time at least once a month, that I was just going to be able to just live up on them. And when I say once a month, I'm picking them up from school every single day at three o'clock, but they take that for granted. They don't really like, they don't see that as special, but like a day to just pour into one kid and then a day to just pour, like try to have the individual date time with one kid at a time, was really helpful, and the same thing for my husband and those are my big three rocks. I was like each one of them is really important and if I can do that, the other thing, though, that helped mitigate some of that risk or guilt, excuse me, is bringing them into my world.
Speaker 2:So I didn't compartmentalize what I was doing. Instead, like of course you have to do it in an age appropriate fashion, but they knew what was going on. They're kind of like your cheerleaders too, like your kids need to see you going through adversity and see how you manage that stress and learn from your mistakes, because it helps them when they face something like that, because they all will, and they're going to know mom talks to me about her junk. I'm going to talk to her about my junk. And so she talks to me when things get stressful. She talks to me when deals don't go well. I see how she feels, right, because the kids also have to learn how to feel At least boys do. I don't know anything about girls, but the boys needed to have words to these emotions. So I really felt like some of the highs and lows and the stressors bringing them into my world and then they would then let me to come into this world was helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you find, did you? You mentioned the church and you've got a partner who was supportive, but did you ever find that you were trying to do like?
Speaker 2:a lot of things on your own and that sometimes it got a little bit lonely, oh my gosh, all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because. So one thing I do regret is I feel like I and I have this tendency I don't know if, like other listeners maybe who are high achieving people is like you go all in like hard and heavy and fast, like I just. I feel like I just tried to bite off a lot more that fit in my mouth at one time, like I just, and I feel you can burn out really quickly when you try to do all the things right now to 100. Like someone finally told me listen, naomi, sometimes done is better than perfect, because I learned I can be a bit of a perfectionist. And then you, like I, can be a bit of a perfectionist. And then you, like I, would be up really late at night like focusing on the finest details of like the website or what the invoice looks like or Whatever it is. Like looking at Excel spreadsheets like super, super, like detail oriented and things had to be perfectly aligned and all the things. And after a couple of years someone was like, listen, it's done is better than perfect. And so I definitely went in way too heavy and a bit off, more than I can chew.
Speaker 2:And that's when I noticed myself feeling very alone and feeling like I almost didn't even have time to look up and like even tell anyone what was going on. I was just busy, busy, busy, work, work, work, do, do, do. So I couldn't allow anyone to come into my world because I was so busy I didn't have time to look at phone or text messages. I was like what does that say? Where do I need to be? I don't have time to read all the words. Like send me five words and that's all I can handle, because everything else I just didn't have any bandwidth for. And it was because I wanted to be number one and I wanted to look like my practice was a well-established 10-year-old practice on day one and I didn't want to have a ramp up time and I didn't want to be slowly building my business. I wanted it to like be a big, successful, you know, thriving practice on day one. And that's not healthy for anyone to do, that's not proper expectations.
Speaker 1:What are some of the things that you did to create some support for yourself over those first couple of years, when times are really busy?
Speaker 2:This is some silly practical things. But I used to always tell my husband this is gonna sound silly, but I used to say I really need a wife. I need a wife to make all my appointments for me and do this and do that. And he was like that would be such a good idea. So I started to piece meal a wife together for me and that looked like a meal service. So there's different ways you can go about doing that and I've had different things in my life depending you know what was available in my area. So they were like there was this fantastic chef.
Speaker 2:She was a single person, like a mom, and she had this meal delivery service. She put a menu out in the beginning of the week. You ordered what you wanted and then everything came with a container. Everything she made like a meal came within this really amazing fresh, homemade like couple quarts of soup on top of whatever else she made. I don't know. There was just something about her and her food that was just so perfect and it just felt like just felt like a big hug when she just came and I was like I don't have to worry about food this week, that's amazing. Or grocery shopping I do have a housekeeper that comes every two weeks.
Speaker 2:That to me is like I don't know if this is politically correct or not, but I feel like it's like Xanax in a bottle. It's just like for her to come clean my house alleviates all the anxiety of my mind because I need my house to be clean. I just can. The kids are always messing it up. So even if it's just clean for a couple hours, like I just feel so relaxed and good about that, I can do anything in a clean house and I did for my business.
Speaker 2:I did need a virtual assistant. She first started part time because I hired her when I was way too busy to train her and I wanted her just to know what to do, and that's unfair. So we started her with part-time. As she got more proficient with what I needed and could kind of preemptively kind of know what to do next, we increased her hours and that has been amazing.
Speaker 2:Those three things have been amazing and those are like practical things that anyone can do. I also did read some really great books about like mindset and like having faith, like I have faith that God is going to take care of these things, because God has taken care of all these other things in my life too, and if I can really trust in that, then I don't need to be awake at night ruminating on all these what ifs. Clearly that still happens and I have lost plenty of sleep. But I do try to keep a little notepad or something to jot down all my thoughts that I'm thinking about before I go to sleep and once I have them down, like they're not really in my mind anymore, at least at this point in my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I called it hiring a mother. So I yeah, it was great and I think I had to, you know recognize that just because I wasn't cooking a meal or doing the laundry, that it didn't make me any less of a mother and those are things I hated doing. So I'm not a big cook and I didn't like doing laundry, and if I could pay, somebody to do those things, yeah, and then I would have more time to spend with my kids.
Speaker 2:Then that was worth like every penny for me and yes, in my culture the cooking and cleaning thing was a huge thing and I was very apprehensive to outsource that because of the judgment that might come because I'm Latina. Maybe not everyone can tell, but I'm Latina and so cooking is like a huge thing in our culture. But then I don't know if it was my husband or where I heard I don't know where I heard this, but it was basically like I think my husband used to tell me, like if you paid someone to do what you're doing, how much more free time would you be able to then put into your paid work? Like, if you had an extra four hours a week that you didn't have to cook, then that means you have an extra four hours a week that you didn't have to cook, then that means you have an extra four hours a week that you could see patients. How much more income would that bring you in compared to, like, the cost of having someone else do that? And that was one way to look at it early in the business.
Speaker 2:But then I was kind of thinking like my kids don't need to see me in the kitchen cooking for them to know I love them. Instead, what they need is that one or two hours, instead of me cooking and cleaning, to sit down, be with them, do their homework, talk with them and be relaxed, rather than running around like a crazy person and being short with them, especially as they started doing sports. So as your kids get older and you start doing sports with them, that's when I think it gets really difficult and you have to understand. You only have a certain amount of hours in the day and if you're going to commit that amount of hours to a certain work or business, how are you going to replace those hours of work you can't do at home? And simple math. You have to get help for that and you have to account for that in your business plan for you know how you're going to spend your resources.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely so. I. I I'm a bit of a perfectionist and you know I feel like there's just a lot of pressure to do everything and to do it all and to, you know, look good when you're doing it and to look a certain way as a parent. And that was that was really tough for me, and I know when we were talking earlier, you had mentioned that. You know you talked about redefining success on on your own terms success on your own terms. So was there a moment that you had to, like, step back and say I just can't do everything and that's okay. And how did you learn to let go of perfectionism and to focus on?
Speaker 2:what really mattered. That's such a good question. Um, I was forced to let go of perfectionism during 2020, when COVID happened. During 2020, when COVID happened, my experience might be a little bit different than others, because if you have your own business during COVID, that may have caused a slump in your business. That's what a lot of people experience, because I work in healthcare. That was not what happened.
Speaker 2:So my private practice got super, super busy because we did home visits and my train of thought at that time was because I was working at the hospital still while I was starting my business. So I just thought, like I'm working in the hospital anyway, I'm being exposed, like I can't just hide from the world because moms and babies still need help and they're getting less help now during COVID, so I'm just going to keep doing my business and I'm going to keep doing home visits. So I got so, so busy. I had to hire help and man, was that hard, because you're not there with every visit. You don't know if they're doing things exactly the way you would be doing things with every visit. You don't know if they're doing things exactly the way you would be doing things, and that was a real thrust. I almost felt like someone pushed me. You know when you're like at the end of a like little pool diving board and someone just pushes you in, like I don't want to take that dive, but I didn't have a choice because I was working so many hours in the hospital seeing. So I was a labor nurse only like I've only ever taken care of women and then during COVID they put me in the ICU units and I was like I've never had a male patient, I don't know what event is.
Speaker 2:Thankfully I wasn't the primary care nurse. I was tasking and helping, but it was definitely a kind of nursing that I never signed up for and it was very heavy. I wasn't signed up for seeing people dying all the time. So I had that heavy, heavy burden to carry and the stress of thinking like I might get COVID and die because I have asthma. We didn't know how severe it was going to be and then tons and tons of patients wanting lactation care in their home and not enough bandwidth, and so I had to let go of all my perfectionism and I did hire people with excellent qualifications, even though they may have not done things exactly the way that I did in that moment. Later on.
Speaker 2:I did learn from that experience and develop a better training program when we weren't in crisis mode, but that pushed me to just be like. You know what this is. I've always been a very what people say might be like authentic, like I show up, who I am and how I'm talking here is how I am, everywhere with my patients, so so that part wasn't a big jump for me, but the letting go of like jump for me, but the letting go of like exactly how you say or do things, in what order. I had to let all of that go and people had their different ways of doing things. But the cool part about doing that is I learned stuff from these other two people that I hired. I was like, yes, I, my brand and my company sets itself apart because the way I do things is different, but you know what I can learn from them too, and so it was a good experience and a stretching experience.
Speaker 2:Hard to let all the things go, because every once in a while you're going to get feedback that it's negative. When you're a business owner, things aren't always going to be perfect, and I used to lose a lot of sleep over that and through some of those experiences, just like having a child. When you first hear them cry in those first few weeks, your blood pressure goes up. You get very nervous and anxious because you want to fix it. By the time they're two and three and four years old, you know what each cry means.
Speaker 1:And unless you hear a pain cry.
Speaker 2:You're like you're going to be fine. Let's just I'll waddle myself over there when I get a second I can. I know that's whining, I know it's not urgent, I can live with it. Same thing in your business is like, as I, you know, got different things that didn't go perfectly and I heard about them through the grapevine. I knew which things to get alert about and pay attention to right now, and I learned which things can wait a little bit. I don't need to respond to that right now. I'm on vacation and it didn't make my blood pressure go up anymore, but sometimes it takes that experiential learning to get that to happen.
Speaker 1:Just learning how to trust who you're working with and knowing you don't have to micromanage as much. That's tough. It does take a lot of trust.
Speaker 2:It does take a lot of trust. But, like, let me tell you, you learn fast. All you got to do is make a mistake. You're like I will never make that mistake again because it's so painful, like, and so your interviewing process changes, your hiring questions change, like, your training program changes, and I feel like being an entrepreneur. In that way. You get to see that you get to affect the change quickly, versus being in a big company. There's so much bureaucracy. For anything to change it takes forever. But let me tell you, when you feel that pain of your bad decision, oh, you're going to change so quickly and that will never happen again and you just learn quickly and it kind of smooth. Things get smooth out pretty quickly because you're the one in charge of making those positive changes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so your kids, they're almost all grown now. I think one of yours is going to university now. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:I have a sophomore in college and then a senior in high school right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you've been like a hardworking mom through your entire life and through all of their stages growing up. So, looking back, what mattered more than you expected it to and what mattered less than you thought it would at that time.
Speaker 2:With the kids or with the business or balance.
Speaker 1:Maybe. Let's do maybe a little bit of both, you know. Stick with your kids maybe I know this yeah this is.
Speaker 2:I know I did a whole podcast episode on parenting and what really matters. Ok, let me tell you all the things that don't matter. If you make homemade baby food, if you make all their homemade little lunches, they're not going to remember that. That's for you, that's how it makes you feel when they are 13, 14, 15, they're not going to think about that, they're not going to ever thank you for that, and if that's going to cause you to be bitter, then probably don't do it. That's what I wish. Someone would have told me. All the things, all the organic sheets and all the beautiful if you put air filters in their room, and the purified water and the fancy bottles and at one point I was making homemade yogurt for my kids in my Instant Pot and like it's good for their nutrition, like all the things that you're making at home that are free from dyes and organic. It's very good for them and so do that for you if it feeds your soul. But don't do it if you need, in the future, anyone to thank you because they're not going to thank you for that in the future, anyone to thank you because they're not going to thank you for that.
Speaker 2:So sometimes I'm like, okay, what really is what I look back on and I think was really important is the kids need to see, need to feel loved, and they need to feel seen. And buying them ice cream, while it makes them happy for that moment, doesn't really make them feel loved or seen. However, when they walk in that front door of after school or when you pick them up in the pickup line, the way you greet them and if you're not on your phone and if you're not paying attention, like you're totally locked into them and being like hey, elijah, oh my gosh, it's so good to see you. How was your day you look so like this that you're so it's so good to see you. How is your day? You look so like this that you're like whatever it is interacting with them and building up their self-esteem and just their like, teaching them like even their feelings, like okay, I see you are looking like this. Tell me, does this look like this feeling I had like little feeling cards Like those are life skills that really start to like they will pay off. Feeling cards like those are life skills that really start to like they will pay off.
Speaker 2:So, life skills like that and also helping them feel seen and loved is, I think, above most, like above everything, the most important things like you making them an organic, gluten-free, whatever afterschool snack. They're not going to appreciate that as much as like being seen and loved and then learning some life skills. So that's what I feel like is really important when it comes to looking back on my kids throughout the last almost 20 years. And then the other thing I'll say is be really careful not to and clearly I have a tendency to do this you want to be careful not to put all your energy and parenting front loaded and then by the time they're 12, you're so tired from doing all the things that you're like give up, because I personally feel like at 12 years old is when you need to kick it, put it in fifth gear, because they you really need to be super present. They don't need you to like tie their shoes anymore and tuck them in and do their laundry. They don't need that, but they need need to be super present. They don't need you to like tie their shoes anymore and tuck them in and do their laundry. They don't need that but they need you to be really emotionally vested and present, because sometimes they don't want to talk and they're tight-lipped.
Speaker 2:But you know things are going on and there's like a whole digital world that you can't give up on.
Speaker 2:On, and there's like a whole digital world that you can't give up on. I know kids always find a hack and like a workaround, whatever, like little safety controls you've put on their devices. But it's your job to then one up them as this little cat and mouse game. And if you give up too early and you just let them left to their own devices, I remember I used to tell my husband like if they want to eat Cheetos for dinner, it's fine. I'm so tired, Like I was just at that at a certain point because I started off, I really front loaded my parenting and I put all this energy into like they're going to learn sign language, they're going to do this, I'm going to make all this organic food and then like hit 12. And I was like there's so many sports, there's so much driving, there's all this digital stuff I need to worry about and puberty, and so that's kind of my takeaway is like save some energy because you're going to need some at 12 years old.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us and your wisdom. Naomi, how can listeners find you and your work?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say the first thing is, if you have a friend who is expecting, definitely I recommend maybe picking up a copy of my book, or on my personal Instagram page, which is Naomi Katran RN. Ibclc A lot of initials, but IBCLC stands for International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Yeah, and that's the way you can connect.
Speaker 1:Do you do virtual visits as well for lactation?
Speaker 2:Yes, we do a lot of virtual visits back to work pumping consultations, formula consultations, prenatal consultations. I always like for people to connect with a really good lactation consultant that's local to them for hands-on support if you have an actual little baby and you're having trouble. But if you're having things like flange fitting, pumping, prenatal back to work, intro to solids, all that stuff can be done Virtually. Troubleshooting like nipple pain, things I can help with, but I really like to have hands-on, local support whenever possible.
Speaker 1:And I loved your podcast, the Boo Business, really good, so that's another great way for people to get some.
Speaker 2:I was like there's stuff on milk supply in there. There's stuff on tongue tie. There's stuff on pacifiers should you use them or not? There's stuff on inductions.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of stuff. There's about 50 episodes now. Yeah, no, that's great. I'm going to put all of those show links, all those links, in my show notes so anybody can find you there. And you've also shared with me this like great document with 10 common breastfeeding pitfalls to avoid, so I'm going to be sure to include that in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:So, naomi, I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with us today and it's been great getting to know you and your work, and I know that a lot of people are going to benefit from your wisdom. So, and to all of my listeners, thanks for hanging out with us today. On Paging Dr Mom, if you've enjoyed today's episode, go ahead and hit that follow or subscribe button so you don't miss anything that's coming up next. And if you want to keep the conversation going, you can find me over on Instagram at drangeladowney. I'd love to hear from you. Take care for now. That is it for today's episode of Paging Dr mom. If it made you smile, nod along or feel just a little more seen, then go ahead and hit that follow button and share it with a friend who needs to hear it. Take care for now you are doing better than you think.