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
6: Sleep Tips for Busy Moms: Daycare, Twins, and Restoring Your Sanity
Sleepless nights don’t have to be the norm. In this episode, I chat with Laura Van Luven, RN, nurse coach, sleep consultant, and mom of five (including twins!), about practical, compassionate sleep solutions for busy families.
Laura shares why “cry it out” isn’t the only option, how to use your baby’s natural rhythms, and tips for navigating daycare, nannies, and even twins. We also talk about the connection between sleep and mental health, and why giving yourself permission to rest is essential, not selfish.
Connect with Laura:
Instagram: @twin.sleep.help
Facebook: @twinsleepzzz
Website: twinsleep.com
Free download: Twin sleep help
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
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Email: drangeladowney@gmail.com
Social Media links: Here
🎵 Music: Upbeat Strings by Evan MacDonald
Today we're diving into one of the biggest struggles for busy moms sleep, not just for our kids, but for ourselves too. I'm joined by Laura Van Leuven, an RN born, certified nurse coach, sleep consultant and mom of five, including twins. Laura knows firsthand how sleepless nights can take a toll on our mental health, our relationships and even our sense of joy in motherhood. In this episode, we'll talk about why sleep doesn't have to mean crying it out, how to work with our babies' natural rhythms and what to do when daycare or nannies make schedules a little tricky, and why prioritizing our own rest is essential, not selfish, whether you're in the newborn trenches or juggling toddlers and a demanding career. This conversation is packed with hope, practical tips and permission to ask for help. So stick around. You do not want to miss this one. 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 us on Paging Daughter Mom. This podcast is for all of us who are just trying to keep it all together while juggling kids, careers and whatever else life throws your way. We're going to explore all those moments that we definitely wouldn't be putting on our resumes.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited to have Laura Van Leuven on today's show. She's not only a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach, but also a sleep consultant who has lived what so many of us go through as working moms. She's raising five kids, including a set of twins in there, so she gets the exhaustion, the pressure and juggling active career and motherhood. What I love about Laura is that she takes something that's so overwhelming like sleepless nights and gives parents a way forward that feels doable and compassionate. She's here to remind us that we don't have to accept being chronically tired as the norm and that when our kids sleep better, our whole family thrives. I think her mix of professional expertise and personal experience is going to resonate with so many of us.
Speaker 1:Hi, laura, it's so great to have you on Paging. Dr Mom, how are you doing today I'm doing. Great Thanks for having me. You are a busy lady, you're a mom of five You've got a set of twins in there and can you share some of your personal story and what led you to become a sleep consultant and a nurse coach?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when I found out I was having twins, this was in 2015,. My daughter was just a year and a half old and we were ready to add one more baby to the family, thought we'd have two kids. We were living in East Africa in a little country called Djibouti, and when we found out that it was twins that we were expecting, we were thrilled and we also were very aware of the reality of the lack of medical care for premature babies and the high risk nature of any multiple pregnancy. So we decided to come back to Minneapolis and we came back. Pretty much the latest I could travel was 24 weeks and we did end up carrying them full term. They were healthy. We had no complications. We were so thankful for that. They were just nice, big, six and a half pound babies and we brought them right home from the hospital in 2016.
Speaker 2:And our lives were pretty much flipped upside down. We were living in a guest room at my parents' house, getting ready to go back to our work in Djibouti, and our daughter was two, she had just turned two and she was not sleeping. And then, of course, you add on the two newborns who we were doing the triple feed thing, where I would breastfeed, then my husband would syringe feed and then I would pump, and that was like times two. So we were just not getting any sleep at all. I was recovering from a C-section and our daughter's sleep issues just intensified with adding two little ones to the family. So that was kind of where we were at when we moved back to Djibouti, and again our lives got flipped upside down with the time change, and then of course they lost all of our bags. I think we had 18 bags, and there was only one flight into the country per week, so we had to wait a week to get any of our belongings and there was no Target, there was no Amazon. So we're just kind of that sounds chaotic.
Speaker 2:It was, and so, believe it or not, I pretty much spiraled into a fairly deep depression and anxiety, and you know there wasn't a whole lot in that situation that I could control. But I started realizing that I could try to figure out how to get them to sleep, and so I really did a deep dive into even though I'm a nurse I was not a first time mom I still didn't really know a lot about how to help babies sleep, and so I researched as much as I could. I found books online that I could read and I finally got my twins sleeping through the night, and while it didn't fix all of my mental health issues, we ended up moving to Nairobi, kenya, where I received intensive therapy, but because I was sleeping at night, I could actually benefit from the therapy and participate in the therapy. I was able to get myself and some healthier patterns like exercising and eating healthy again, enjoying things like just reading or spending time with my colleagues and friends. So that's kind of my story up until that point.
Speaker 1:Were you also struggling with your first child having trouble sleeping as well?
Speaker 2:I absolutely struggled with sleep with my first child. It just felt more manageable because it was one. Now, that's not to discount if somebody has one child. I know it is hard to be up multiple times with that child throughout the night for many months on end, to be up multiple times with that child throughout the night for many months on end. But I had, I think, come up with some ways that worked for us for getting her to sleep, like breastfeeding. Her Breastfeeding came very easy not super easy, but it was a lot easier with one. And so getting up with her to breastfeed her to sleep. Although that wasn't like the ideal plan, it was something I could do. But when it came to two babies it just wasn't feasible. And then you add in a two-year-old that would come in in the middle of the night and want to snuggle.
Speaker 1:It just wasn't possible. And at that point you're not able to sleep during the day. So when you have that first child, you're able to be up with them, sometimes at night, and then you can snooze during the day. But when you have that second child, you still have that first child who wants to be awake all day. And now you're awake all day and all night.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly so I think the sleeplessness really contributed to the postpartum depression and anxiety.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure it would. So a lot of our listeners were juggling busy careers and family life. So, from your perspective, both as a nurse and a mom, what are some of the unique challenges that working moms face when it comes to sleep for themselves and their kids?
Speaker 2:challenges that working moms face when it comes to sleep for themselves and their kids. Well, I think, even when both parents are working, it typically is mom that is getting up in the middle of the night with the babies, whether it's to feed them, because maybe she is breastfeeding, or even if it's just to get up and rock them. Moms do tend to be the primary caregivers of their children, and that includes at night. And so, especially for me, in healthcare and in such an intense place like the emergency room, you know, sleep just felt so essential. It's not like it's not something that's nice to have, it is an absolute necessity.
Speaker 2:Because if I'm, you know, triaging a patient, I need to be listening to every single word they are saying, looking at every single vital sign and deciding whether this patient needs to get back to a room right now or if they can wait in the lobby for a little bit, and this could mean the difference, you know, between good outcomes for my patient's life or not. So I think it's really important, especially when we're in these high stress jobs like healthcare, that we are getting sleep that we need, and a lot of times we're working weird hours to add into that. So, you know starting a shift at six or 7amm and then, if you've been woken up multiple times in the middle of the night, it's really hard for us to perform well, and I think that we also feel that pressure to be a certain, you know, type of mom, always, you know, being a perfect mom, responding in a perfect way to our children's needs and then also keeping our house a certain way as well, and a lot of that falls on our shoulders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's that invisible load that we carry, all those extra things that we're having to do right, remembering birthday parties and buying gifts for the birthday parties. And as a healthcare person, sleep is elusive at the best of times, right? Shift work is not easy and it's hard to get sleep, so when you throw kids in the mix, especially if they're not sleeping at night, that just adds so much more complexity to your day. Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. A lot of parents I know with myself when I had young kids. People would just tell me oh, just let them cry it out and they'll learn to self-soothe, and they'll learn to put themselves to bed and it's okay if they cry. So how do you work with families to improve sleep, while taking consideration that your baby's got its own biological rhythms? So my approach is I don't, as a person who is board certified as a coach, as a nurse coach with the American Holistic Nursing Association, I don't see myself as the expert. When I'm working with a family. I'm there to guide a family, to provide options and to provide information and education. They know their situation best. They know their babies the best. So, while I can make recommendations, I always want them to be the ones driving the situation. I don't believe that if I just give them every single thing to do, that, they're going to build the confidence they need to parent their children going forward. So that's always the stance that I take when I work with a family, in terms of being harsh or allowing children to cry it out. I think this is a you know it's become very popular in a lot of medical circles. To be honest, you know I've had, like I said, five children and every single baby that I've had I've had my pediatrician tell me to allow babies to cry it out and to figure it out on their own. Now it is important that our kids are learning to sleep on their own and to figure it out on their own, but that doesn't mean that we, as their parents, don't support them through the process. If you think about a baby who's just a few days old, we need to give them tummy time, right, because they need to learn how to hold their head up and to strengthen those muscles so that, you know, a person isn't having to hold their parent isn't holding their head up for them as they grow. But we don't just leave our babies on the floor to figure it out on their own while they cry and suffer through it. You know, a lot of times the recommendation is we'll get on the floor with them, give them a toy If they're really struggling with it, you know, only do it for very short amount of time and then also putting the baby on your tummy so that they feel even safer. So the same thing goes with sleep.
Speaker 2:We can absolutely guide our children and support our children in learning this skill. But that doesn't mean that we're just going to leave them to cry it out without any kind of support. So, yes, it might involve crying, especially the older babies, if they've had habits established like breastfeeding to sleep or even co-sleeping. You know it's going to be really hard for them to learn a new habit of sleeping in their own crib without mom or dad there to rock them or feed them to sleep. But we can use, based on the family's preferences, based on the child's age and temperament, we can use gentler, more parent-involved methods to help them learn this skill. If they're a little older, sometimes it's actually I find it's better for parents to be a little bit more hands-off and allow some periods of crying, but that doesn't mean that you've walked away and just abandoned your child for the night. So when you say older, what does that look like?
Speaker 2:Usually around the nine-month stage, I find that babies really reject the gentler methods. It's almost like they feel as though if you're not going to give me what I want, whether it's again co-sleeping, being rocked or fed to sleep, then they don't even want you to offer any kind of comfort. So they tend to reject and I'm saying this just as a broad stroke. Of course you know every baby is different, but as then they tend to do a little bit better with the more the check-ins or the. You know every baby is different, but then they tend to do a little bit better with more of the check-ins or the. You know less parental involvement, and they tend to cry more even if parents are trying a gentle method.
Speaker 1:So when should parents start kind of training their babies to sleep more Well, so that's a great question. Or sleep better?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a great question. You know, formal sleep training really shouldn't happen until at least the you know, the four-month mark is kind of the earliest I would ever recommend anyone trying like an actual formal sleep training program. And when I say sleep training I am talking about from the moment that the child wakes up in the morning until they're laid down at night, and then throughout the night. So we are looking at are they getting enough active time during the day? Are they getting enough nap time during the day? Is the environment set up and conducive for sleep?
Speaker 2:These are all elements that go into sleep training that maybe don't get captured when we're told by our pediatricians to just allow our babies to cry it out and figure it out on their own. So, even though I don't recommend formal sleep training until four months, there are still things we can be doing with our newborns that can help them start to lay that foundation for learning this skill. Just like with tummy time, they're not ready to crawl yet, but they need to master this skill before they can reach the next level, which is crawling and then ultimately walking right. So with newborns there are things we can do, like having them unlatch before they fall asleep. It's very comforting for a newborn to breastfeed to sleep and I support that. But I just encourage parents that to gently unlatch their babies from the breast or the bottle before they completely fall asleep, doing things like having them exposed to some sunlight and noise during the day even if they're napping. That's totally a great way to start helping them learn that daytime is for being awake and nighttime is for sleeping.
Speaker 1:So no tiptoeing throughout the house. It's okay to let the other kids play and make noise, even while the baby's napping during the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's fine for a newborn baby Now an older baby I wouldn't recommend that like older than four months but for a newborn they haven't had that light exposure yet. So we're trying to get them to get on like good circadian rhythms and develop some of those hormones that are developed by exposure to sunlight, like melatonin. So having them. What I've always done with my babies is I like to set up a pack and play or a bassinet in the living room and maybe I have some light white noise near them so it kind of dampens the sound a bit. But no, we're not tiptoeing around them. They're getting sunlight during the day. Once they hit that four or five month phase then I put them into a dark room during nap time, so that's up to four months After that.
Speaker 1:what would you suggest doing so that maybe you start getting a little bit more sleep throughout the night?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. So the big thing that happens at four months is that babies are able to start connecting sleep cycles the same way that adults are. It's still going to look different. Their sleep is still going to look different than an adult's sleep, but it isn't so chaotic and disorganized as a newborn's sleep. So during the newborn days you are watching their sleep cues and laying them down as they're showing you those sleepy cues and you're following the newborn's lead when it comes to nap time and sleep.
Speaker 2:When it comes to four months and up, we can actually start to put them on a parent-led schedule. So that doesn't mean that the parents decide well, I want my babies to nap at this time and this time, so that's what we're going to do. Parents, by four months, usually will see a pattern emerging naturally in their own children and we can use wake times as a guide for setting the schedule, along with the baby's natural biology. So if you're noticing every day that your baby is getting tired around 9 am, then it's great to just say 9 am is nap time. Whether your baby is showing those cues every day or not, you lay them down for a nap at that time.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then they develop. It just kind of starts developing into a routine.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah. And babies, we all know, thrive on routine Sure, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Is there something you can do to make them sleep longer at night?
Speaker 2:So one of the the first thing is to always make sure they're getting enough calories during the day. They're going to sleep a lot better if they've had enough formula or breast milk or if they're on solids during the day. The other thing is, especially if you live in places like Minnesota or Canada during the summer, it is really important to have blackout curtains in the nursery just to keep them sleeping longer in the morning and going down at a decent time in the evening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's a really important thing yeah.
Speaker 2:If you have twins, it's great to have white noise as well, right, if you have twins.
Speaker 1:It's great to have white noise as well. Right, what about? I remember the first time my daughter slept until five in the morning, so we went to bed at night. She woke up at five in the morning and I remember waking up in a panic because I think I woke up before she did. And I woke up thinking oh my gosh, she's dead.
Speaker 1:And I ran into her room like there's no way she slept all night long, and 5 am is sleeping all night long, I guess. But I was so panicked so when I got to the room and she was still breathing I thought like how did this? How did she all of a sudden sleep so much longer? And it was. It was a relief that now I could actually start getting some sleep, but it was really scary that first time that that she gave me a little bit more time to sleep. But it was really scary that first time that she gave me a little bit more time to sleep. So what are some of the changes that you see in families, whether like emotionally, mentally or even in their relationships, once everyone starts sleeping through the night?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm laughing because I had the same experience with my oldest when she was about six weeks old.
Speaker 2:One of the biggest changes is just that you are able to confront the challenges of being a parent when you've slept and I think we've all experienced this. You know that even if you're in school, going into an exam, having been up all night studying versus having studied, you know, over time, and then having a good night's sleep, you're going to do much better when you've slept all night. We all know how much crankier we are when we haven't slept, and so it's hard to be in a relationship and be a good partner when we're constantly snapping at our partner over small things. So it doesn't like eliminate the challenges of our lives, but it makes it so that we are able to confront it in a more human like, a healthier way. We can ignore or deal more gracefully when our partner is doing something we don't like. When our children are throwing a tantrum, it is easier to be that gentle, calm, patient parent and respond emotionally, you know, appropriate to their meltdowns that they will inevitably have.
Speaker 1:You want to focus on this emotional intelligence kind of way of parenting. But that's really hard when you haven't slept and you're exhausted, absolutely yeah. There's a lot of challenges as well with professional parents. Oftentimes, mat leaves aren't very long. You're having to go back to work early, so we end up relying on daycares and nannies, which can make sleep consistency routines a lot harder. Do you have any tips for helping families coordinate schedules with caregivers so that they can keep things on track?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest thing when you've got whether it's a nanny or you're dropping your children off at a daycare or maybe it's a grandparent that's watching your kids for certain days of the week is to have really good communication. So this could mean that you're all using the same nap or sleep log. I think it's great to have a really clear communication with your caregivers of what the nap schedule is, what's working and if it needs to be tweaked at all, especially with family members. I work with a lot of families twin families who have like grandma that provides care once or twice a week for their twins, and it can be a little bit touchy to talk to a mother or a mother-in-law who has a very set idea of what the napping should be. Especially you know if they want the babies to nap more than two hours. Especially you know if they want the babies to nap more than two hours. You know that can really hinder nighttime sleep.
Speaker 2:So having a really clear communication and then trying to keep that schedule, no matter who is taking care of the child. So if it's your day off in your home, try to keep the same daycare nap schedule that your child thrives on. Keep the same daycare nap schedule that your child thrives on. So that might mean getting up at 7 or 7.30, even on your day off, just to be able to keep the schedule going. But I think it's just really important so that you, when the day comes for you to go back to work, that you are able to put your babies down or put your children down for sleep and they're able to continue on that same healthy routine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting that you brought up grandma coming to take care of the babies, because I know when I grew up, babies were put to sleep on their stomachs with a blanket on top, and now that's very different, and I think when I started doing that with my kids, where I would put them on their backs, no blankets, no toys in the crib, that was something that was really hard for my mom to understand. Do you find that there's still some generational differences?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think the best way that I've found to approach it is to actually just honor your mom or grandmother's experience and just let them know that they did a really good job keeping you safe and doing the best they could with what information they had, and that you honor what that was like for them to raise babies in the you know 80s in my case, or earlier, and just to share with them that research now has shown. You know that it is safer to lay babies on their backs. We did see a huge decrease in fluids when we started putting babies to sleep on their backs without loose blankets, and that doesn't mean they did anything wrong. But this is how we are doing things now because of research. So I think it's just good to not discount that they did or to not share that they did something wrong or bad.
Speaker 1:Right, right, but as we start doing more studies on things like bottle feeding versus breastfeeding and whatnot, it's just good to get that information out there. Absolutely, are there myths or misconceptions about baby sleep that you hear a lot?
Speaker 2:I hear a lot of. I'm just going to wait for them to get out of this phase and then we'll start with sleep training. And, like I said, of course it's going to look different at every stage and it's going to look different for every family, but even from day one, there are things that parents can be doing to start to lay that foundation. And, honestly, if your baby is over six or nine months old and they're still, you know, relying on some of these crutches to sleep all night, it is going to take some guidance and leadership and intentionality from parents to change those habits. As the old adage goes, if you don't change anything, nothing's going to change, and your children are not going to take the initiative to change habits that they really find comfort in. So I think that, while, yes, they are constantly going through phases and growing out of phases when it comes to sleep, it's okay to take ownership, take leadership and guide them to a healthier way of sleeping.
Speaker 1:So should we be sitting in a rocking chair in the room rocking our kids to sleep?
Speaker 2:I love, I love rocking my babies to sleep. It is just one of the biggest joys of being a parent is having like a newborn baby and rocking them to sleep and having a contact nap, and that is absolutely fine. It's so important for bonding in those early weeks and months and it is such a sweet time as they're getting older. I do challenge parents to, yes, rock your babies and lay them down just before they fall asleep, just so that you can start getting them used to that feeling of falling asleep while they're in their own crib or bassinet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then do you just start extending the activity between either feeding or rocking and falling asleep.
Speaker 2:So that could be you rock them, and then you maybe say a nursery rhyme together or do a little patty cake or just something, you know, kind of calming gentle, and it could even just take one minute, and then laying them down in their crib.
Speaker 1:So let's say you have a 10 month old and they're used to eating in the middle of the night because you just you know we give our kids sometimes what they want and you want to start breaking that cycle. How do you do that without letting them scream in the middle of the night?
Speaker 2:First of all, with any age kids, I don't like to assume that a 10-month-old is ready to go through the night without eating, because I don't know that child, I don't know their medical history. So I always want parents to check with their pediatrician and make sure that their babies are growing well enough to be able to go the full night without feeding. So that's the first step. The second step is what you can do is what you do at bedtime is going to set the stage for the middle of the night. So make sure you start your bedtime routine with a feeding. Then you go through, put the pajamas on, read the story, lay them down. Then you go through, put the pajamas on, read the story, lay them down.
Speaker 2:Um, in the middle of the night, if they're waking up and you're not sure if they need a feeding and you know that they're getting enough calories they've been cleared by their pediatrician. What I would do is just wait 10 minutes, 15 minutes, um. Try doing other comforting measures, whether that's holding them or checking in every couple of minutes, giving them verbal reassurance, patting their back, trying to see if that is something that they actually need in that moment. And if they're waiting 15 minutes and you still feel that they need a feeding, go ahead and feed them, but don't let them fall asleep while feeding. So don't let them fall asleep If they start drifting off while your breasts are bottle feeding them, unlatch them, take the bottle out and lay them down.
Speaker 1:Before they fall asleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if they continue to cry, then you know that it's likely not because they are hungry. So if they latch onto the breast, they take a few sucks, they fall asleep. You unlatch them and lay them down and then they cry. They're probably not actually hungry, they are seeking out comfort. So then you would go through whatever you know, and it's less about the sleep training method itself. You can try some of the gentler methods, like the shush pat or if you're doing something a little bit more, you know, with the crying, such as Ferber, you can go ahead and start some of those methods to try to get your baby to learn to go to sleep. What is Ferber? Well, ferber is kind of one of those. It's like a controlled crying method. So you know, you allow your baby to cry, you choose however much time and then you allow them to cry for those minutes that you've chosen whether it's five minutes or 10 minutes and then you go back and check on them. So that's kind of more of that allowing them to cry without just completely abandoning them, right?
Speaker 1:Right, so they know they're not alone, right, exactly. So does all this change when you have twins. So there must be some pretty unique challenges that come up when you're helping multiple sleep. And what advice do you have for parents of twins?
Speaker 2:helping multiple sleep and what advice do you have for parents of twins? My advice for parents of twins is to seek help, whatever it is you need help in. I was always one of those kind of people that had a really hard time seeking and accepting help, and then, when my twins were born, I really had to challenge myself to learn to say yes when people would offer to help me and to have practical ways that I could, because a lot of people don't know what to ask. They just say let me know if I can help in any way, and it's like kind of, and I think they truly do want to help, but they don't know what is needed. So it's great for parents to kind of think ahead of time. If somebody says that to me, what am I going to say to them? Will I say, yes, I would really love it if you could cook me a meal, or I would really love it if you could come over one afternoon so I can take a nap, something like that. So that's one of the biggest things. The second thing is to never compare yourself to other parents. If you have a friend or a sister whose baby is sleeping through the night at three months old. That's great, and your babies are still up a lot. You're just in a really different situation and you shouldn't be thinking you are doing something wrong or your babies are doing something wrong.
Speaker 2:One of the other big things I see with twin parents is we really rely on some of those crutches that are unsafe.
Speaker 2:So I see a lot of unsafe sleep practices from twin parents and they don't always want to talk about it with their doctors or with their pediatricians because they know it's wrong. So they know that it's not right to lay their babies on their tummies, but that's how they get them to sleep, so they just do it. Or maybe they know it's right not to let their babies sleep in a bouncy seat or a swing all night, but that's the only way they can get their babies to sleep. So I think it's important for parents to be honest about what is going on with sleep, so that the people in their life, whether it's their pediatrician or a sleep consultant, can really help them try to find ways to get their babies to sleep without using some of those unsafe practices. And for pediatricians and sleep consultants who work with these families, what's so important for us is to not shame them and not just preach more information at these families. They know, they know how their babies are supposed to sleep.
Speaker 1:Sure, I do have a lot of. I had a lot of patients who are co-sleeping with their babies and they like, just wouldn't tell me. They didn't tell me until a lot later. And there's just they. They know it's it's not recommended and so they're scared to tell their doctors. But really that just creates this environment where you're. You don't have all the information that you need to help them, and so shaming them and having them close up isn't helpful, absolutely. Yeah, so I'm terrible at asking for help as well. It's something that I struggled with.
Speaker 2:So what are some?
Speaker 1:of the things you could ask for? Help with Cooking me a meal, coming and staying with the kids for a couple of hours in the afternoon while you sleep, or what other things do people ask for? Can you go grocery shopping for me, Like? Do you have any ideas of things that people could be asking for help with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the other thing is yeah. So cooking a meal, maybe doing some light cleaning, helping in the afternoon with nap time I've had friends, you know, if my husband is working evenings, I've had friends and family come over and just help with the bedtime routine. If the family has older children and an infant or infant twins, it's great if you can take the older child out of the house for a few hours, just even to the park or the zoo or something like that, or just to your house to play, just to kind of give the parent a little bit of breathing room, you know, if you're comfortable with it. Sometimes light cleaning is also really helpful. Or doing the kids laundry. Some people can I mean my mom. Like I said, my mom is actually here right now and even though my twins are a little older, she still helps me with just getting some basic cleaning done every couple of weeks and taking the kids out, or even just catching up on the kids' laundry no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Not doing your child's laundry or, you know, cooking that meal doesn't make you any less of a parent or mother.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and something I learned living in a country like Kenya and like Djibouti is that not everywhere in the world sees these things the same way as you know, Americans or Westerners or Canadians.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:You know it is very much expected. It was when I was there. It was absolutely expected that I would hire somebody to be in my home helping me care for the kids and cleaning and cooking and it was almost seen as selfish to not hire somebody to come in and help me with these things when I would be at the playground with my kids, it was very common for other moms, if they saw my kids doing something they shouldn't be doing, to gently redirect them and it just felt very much more of this like communal setting than it does here.
Speaker 1:So it is very different in North America and I feel like there is kind of this expectation that every parent is going to take care of their own little unit. Right, it's not a big community, it's every household for themselves almost. Yeah, it's unfortunate and it is hard to ask for help, but I'm getting used to it a little bit at a time. What are some of the unique challenges that come up when you have multiples?
Speaker 2:I think it's just. It's a lot of little things that add up, you know. So when you talk about swaddling, well, that takes time to swaddle a baby, but now you're doing it twice. What do you do? You know, bathing is a big issue that comes up for a lot of my families. You know, how do I bathe two babies at the same time safely if I'm the only parent there? So those are the types of challenges. How do I bottle feed two babies at the same time if I'm the only parent there?
Speaker 2:It's these things that parents have to constantly think through when twins get to become mobile. You know, you look at playgrounds with a very different lens. If you have one baby, you might not be as aware of all of the safety concerns because you as a parent are always there right with them, but when you have two, you just you can't be in two places at once. I know for me there was just places I would say I cannot come to that place unless I have another parent or another adult with me. And so there's just a lot of times during those first two or three years with my twins where I just had to say no, whereas with one baby I don't really think about those things anymore, but you're just more acutely aware of a lot of the safety issues that could come when you have two mobile toddlers.
Speaker 1:Does it change sleep because one child wakes up the other one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Mm-hmm, Does it change sleep because one child wakes up the other one? Yeah, that is a huge concern for twin parents is how do I get them to number one be on the same schedule? That can be a huge challenge, especially if the twins do have some different sleep needs or temperaments. The second one is, of course, that they will wake each other up. Most twin families they do keep their twins in the same nursery, either because they don't have space for each of them to have their own room or because they want them to be in the same room, for either simplicity's sake or they just want that sibling bond to grow Right. So it is definitely a challenge that many people struggle with is how do I get them to not wake each other up?
Speaker 1:So, and how do you? How do you?
Speaker 2:deal with that. You know, when my husband and I first got married and started living together and sharing a bed together, I woke up a lot. He snores pretty loud and it used to disturb me a lot when we first got married and I was getting pretty poor sleep because of it. I would try shoving him or waking him up, but inevitably he kept snoring. Now we've been married almost 16 years and I don't hear it. He wakes me up and I have learned now over time to go back to sleep on my own without even realizing it.
Speaker 2:But you know, this summer we traveled a bit and we shared hotel rooms with our kids. We shared a tent with our kids and they had a really hard time sleeping because they are not used to hearing dad's snore and so they constantly complain about it. I don't hear it anymore. So it's kind of the same concept with our twins is we kind of have to let them go through that process of being woken up so that they can learn to go back to sleep on their own when their twin makes noises, so that in the long run they have that ability to just sleep through things that they don't need to respond to.
Speaker 1:Right, and that just takes time.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you talk a little bit about the connection between sleep and postpartum mood disorders?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we do see. Emily Oster is a fantastic researcher that I really appreciate, and in her book I believe it's Cripside she talked about the connection between postpartum mood disorders and satisfaction with parenting as well. So when parents are, when they go through the sleep training process yes, it is for our babies. It is important for their brain development and their growth and their ability to store memories that they learn how to sleep long enough, especially in those early morning hours when a lot of that memory is stored.
Speaker 2:Most important reasons that I like to encourage parents to make changes to their baby's sleep if it's not working is for their own mental health and satisfaction when they are getting enough sleep. Like I said earlier, it may not fix all of their anxiety and depression symptoms, but they are going to be able to take steps needed to address them, whether that is making the phone call and actually showing up to a counseling appointment and participating in counseling. Or we know that things like exercise and diet can absolutely affect our mental health, and so when we're sleeping, we're going to be better able to think about, prepare, cook a healthier meal. It's really hard when we're tired. It's so easy to just, you know, grab a burger or grab a bag of chips instead of actually taking the time to think about and make a salad or, you know, something like a healthy dish. So those are the types of things that can help promote mental health for parents.
Speaker 1:Looking back, what do you wish you had known for your first baby? That would have saved you stress and heartache.
Speaker 2:I wish that I would have known that skipping a nap was not going to ensure that she slept all night. I thought when she was fighting her nap it's because she wasn't tired and that if I went ahead and just let her muscle through the nap, then she would be so tired at bedtime that she would just fall asleep. Then she would be so tired at bedtime that she would just fall asleep. But the truth is it can be. Once you kind of force that cortisol level up and all those hormones up, it then can be really hard to regulate and actually fall asleep and stay asleep for the whole night.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like if you work night shift I used to work night shift in my early 20s when I first started as a nurse I would get home at. You know, by the time I would get into bed it was about 830 in the morning and then I would, even though I was so tired. I would have such a hard time winding down and I needed some of those sort of like sleep crutches that aren't really good for you, so like I would watch TV until I fell asleep just to try to relax, but then I would have pretty poor sleep during the day before I had to go into work that night. So it's kind of the same with our kids. They do have such high sleep needs when they're little, so it's easier for them to dysregulate when it comes to their daytime sleep and that can then affect and throw off the whole night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it just makes for a really horrible evening as well, where babies are just cranky and messy and no one in the house is happy at that point, absolutely. What would you say to a mom who's listening right now, who's completely exhausted and doesn't know where to start? What would you say, the first step that she can take tonight or tomorrow to improve the sleep in her household?
Speaker 2:The first thing I would say is to start looking at what are some of the patterns that you're noticing right away. Sometimes we fall into these habits and we don't even really realize. So start noticing. When is my baby sleeping during the day? When do they seem to want to go down About what time are they waking up at night and what are they doing? What gets them to go back to sleep at night and what are they doing? What gets them to go back to sleep? And one of the biggest things that I say right away is to change your bedtime routine. If you are in a cycle where you are feeding your baby to sleep or rocking your baby to sleep, try to just have that, like I said earlier, that one little activity between the whether it's rocking or feeding and laying them down in their crib. Maybe it's even just changing them into their sleep sack, so maybe you rock them, that you notice they're getting very sleepy. Time to put them in their sleep sack and now we lay them down in bed.
Speaker 2:Where can listeners find you? So you can find me on Instagram. My handle is at twinsleephelp. I also am on Facebook at Twin Sleep ZZZ, and my website is twinsleepcom, so it's pretty easy to remember and you can connect with me there. My email is laura at twinsleepcom, and I always answer all my emails, so if you have a question, feel free to reach out. Amazing, and you have a free guide for twin parents as well. I do so. If you head over to my Instagram, there is a link in my bio for a free guide, and if you feel like you need a little more support than that, I do a free sleep assessment, and there's also a link in my bio on Instagram to my schedule where you can hop onto my calendar and we can talk about your baby. And while I do specialize with twins, I have helped singleton babies as well, and I'm happy to help any family that is struggling with sleep Sure.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be putting all of those links in the show notes so it's a little bit easier for people to find them. Awesome, thank you, laura. Thank you so much for being here today, and I really appreciate you sharing not just your expertise but also your own story as a mom. It's going to make this conversation much more real for people and relatable, and I know a lot of listeners are going to walk away feeling more encouraged and a little bit more hopeful about sleep and motherhood and giving themselves permission to ask for help. So it's been a real gift to have you here on the show.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me, and I want to thank everyone out there who's hanging out with us on Paging Dr Mom. If you enjoyed today's episode, then go ahead and hit follow or subscribe so you don't miss what's coming up next, and if you want to keep the conversation going, you can find me over on Instagram at drangeladowney. I would love to hear from you. 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're doing better than you think.