Couples Counseling For Parents
Couples Counseling For Parents
Interview with Rachel and Marley Shepard-Ohta of Heysleepybaby
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On our latest podcast, we're joined by Rachel and Marley Shepard -Ohta from HeySleepyBaby, who share their experience navigating the wild ride that is understanding kids and sleep.
Join Stephen Mitchell, PhD and Erin Mitchell, MACP as they share this dynamic and insightful conversation with Rachel and Marley from HeySleepyBaby.
Hello and welcome, mrs Couples. Counseling for Parents, I show about couple relationships, how they work, why they don't, what you can do to fix what's broken. Hiya parents Our Dad Dr Steven Mitchell and our Mom Erin Mitchell.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Couples Counseling for Parents. I'm Dr Steven Mitchell and on today's episode, Erin and I wanted to share with you the privilege that we had of interviewing Rachel and Marley Shepherd Ota and Rachel and Marley are parents to three kids and Rachel is the founder and creator of hey Sleepy Baby. And we had a conversation with Rachel and Marley just about sleep, about how she got interested in sleep and felt like it was a really important topic to try and be engaging with parenting couples about.
Speaker 2:And so Erin and I wanted to hear a little bit from Rachel and her partner, marley, just about their own personal experience of dealing with sleep and kids, and then also how that has really helped guide them and particularly Rachel in her work with parents and talking with them about sleep and how to navigate that with their partner and with their kids.
Speaker 2:So let's jump right in and we hope you enjoy. On today's show we have Rachel and Marley Shepherd Ota, who are parents to three little kids that live in San Francisco, and they live in San Francisco, california, and after Rachel and Marley had their first baby, they realized how little they knew about the way babies sleep. That's a big deal, didn't we all realize that? I get it. I'm there with them. And so Rachel decided to pursue an infant sleep certification when she was pregnant with her second child, and then she decided to use this knowledge and her passion for helping families to create a new platform for parents to learn about normal infant sleep and to help them find community. Rachel and Marley recently welcomed their third baby and they are here with us today and I'm ready. I'm ready for this conversation.
Speaker 3:We are ready, thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:I know that prior to this official interview, Rachel, we were talking a little bit about this whole conversation about sleep and partners and just it feels rich.
Speaker 3:It's a lot, there's a lot, there's a lot here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there really is, and kind of, maybe we can start at the beginning.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Maybe A very good place to begin. I'm sorry, I'll turn the sound of music in that.
Speaker 2:Just so, like you and Marley, what was the kind of the awakening, in a sense, when you're like, oh, we did it, we didn't know, yeah, what was going on?
Speaker 3:Well, we had. I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse to have your hardest baby first, but our first baby was very difficult and I had been around babies my whole life. I started babysitting when I was like 12 or something, and so he really just threw me for a loop, and Marley really didn't have much experience with babies at all, so both of us were just kind of bewildered by the fact that he wouldn't let us put him down and didn't really sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time, and all of these things that I know now are very common, especially in the first few months. But at the time I realized that I just hadn't heard any of this before, like, oh, your baby might actually want to be attached to you all the time, or your baby is going to be feeding a lot in those first few weeks, and I just remember feeling so completely lost.
Speaker 3:Even my own mom was like, oh, you guys were never like this. You were such easy babies and super helpful mom, thank you. So I just kind of had this feeling like I must be doing something wrong or there must be something wrong with him, because it just was so outside of what I had envisioned while I was pregnant. So yeah, I kind of just started there, marley, what about for you?
Speaker 4:So you didn't have the 12-year-old babysitting experience. Not just like you weren't, you didn't, maybe didn't have expectations, but what did it feel like for you?
Speaker 5:You know you worry so much about the pregnancy that when the baby comes you realize there's this whole other side of things that you absolutely haven't even you know, you've tried to prepare for but you don't have a ton of knowledge about. So I think that it was sort of felt like doing a research paper from scratch, where you just tried to find the best articles and, you know, sorting through all that information, trying to synthesize it, trying to realize what the best recommendation is and then applying that to your kid. For us a lot of the most common approaches weren't working very well with our son and so that made us, you know, discouraged us a lot and certainly had impacts on our relationship. And all of these things, like Rachel said, that we know now are really common. We just didn't know in the moment. We were both the first kids in our family to have children and so there weren't any.
Speaker 4:Oh, first borns, with the first born.
Speaker 3:And even the first out of most of our friends.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The only friend at the time that had had a baby before us was kind of like this tertiary friend. We weren't super close but she was, you know, very kind, trying to give me advice. But she was like a very type A mom and had a very, you know, specific way of doing things and so the things she would tell me to do just like did not work for us at all. And so, yeah, like Marley said, it was just like information overload, not having any clue what was normal, and then kind of you know, taking that out on each other and bickering a lot about what the best way was or you know how we should be doing things, and I'm more tired no, you're more tired and just all of that stuff, our favorite game with no good ending.
Speaker 4:Marley, you just said something that and I because I think we'll come back here anyway, but like just to pause you said I was so worried during the pregnancy. Like what did that mean for the two of you? Like what, and Rachel, maybe that wasn't true for you, but Marley, like what were those fears or what was the anxiety there?
Speaker 5:You know, you just think a lot about, or I should say I just thought a lot about what could go wrong. Right, Like everything you know. During the pregnancy, you go into doctor's appointments and they always talk about the percentage of risks, and so you never really know how to gauge that. Like, what does one in 10,000 really mean? Is that?
Speaker 5:like how afraid, should I be? It doesn't necessarily always correlate, and so you know, the pregnancy itself is really demanding on your partner, and so you're trying to be as supportive as possible and as present and make sure that they have everything they need, but ends up culminating in birth, which is itself just like a really, really you know, intense, big experience in your life. Yeah, a million ways to try and prepare, none of which will fully prepare you if you haven't like witnessed it before.
Speaker 3:And we even took birth classes. But like, like you said before, we did all this preparation for pregnancy and birth. I did, like prenatal yoga and all this, you know, acupuncture and all this stuff, and then we just didn't really ever think about what happened after the baby.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think I think I'm definitely reading my own experience into that, but I think we hear it all the time that there's you're playing catch up because you are focused on pregnancy, you are focused on birth. Those feel like pretty intense and very present things. You know like this is happening. Are we ready? Are we ready? Are you okay? Are you okay? And I don't know if you all know, we've talked about it, but our first pregnancy ended in a pregnancy loss. So there's, you are worried and Stephen was worried all the time about like am I going to?
Speaker 4:end up losing Aaron, like what there's? There's fear, and then then you do get to the labor and, as you said, rachel, it's intense, to put it lightly. Yeah, and you don't even really need to process any of that. The 10 months you've just spent sort of having a lot of things happening and then now, all of a sudden, there's this human and they don't sleep or they have.
Speaker 3:All you want to do is sleep afterwards, right, yeah?
Speaker 4:And if you just think about just the experience like that you just talked about, like there's fear, you're trying to figure out numbers Like what is one in 10,000? You know, like all of a sudden you're counting jelly beans, Like like well, I don't know what this means and you don't ever really get to catch up Right, I just think that's an intense, it's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and then also kind of one of these fundamental needs that we need to like to be well is people's to sleep.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And it just like it's just is gone and it just is as like as a couple, that that experience of being so exhausted and then being in this new situation where you're also supposed to be parenting, like you mentioned, the bickering and the differing of opinions, I was curious about that too. I think that, honestly, this is one of the most.
Speaker 4:Present, universal, but I don't know what word, because there are a lot.
Speaker 2:It is a tough conversation. It is a tough experience for couples that most couples go through, Because I think it's pretty common. You know little babies, they're learning how I mean you're running on like no sleep.
Speaker 3:Having a newborn is extremely stressful. You're depleted, your whole world has just changed, like nothing is the same. I love when people try to act like having a baby shouldn't change your life and they're like oh, baby just comes along for the ride and I'm like I don't. I that was not my experience at all, but good for them. For us, having a baby changed absolutely everything, and so that's really hard to kind of grapple with when it happens literally overnight.
Speaker 2:Were you surprised that y'all were, that it created any kind of Friction, bickering or friction or difference in opinion, like, did you even know what your opinions were about? Sleep before?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the thing Like we didn't talk about that kind of stuff, like I knew the basics that, like I wanted to breastfeed and you know we had certain things that we knew we were going to do or try to do, but sleep was kind of this thing that we just assumed with. Naturally there's our baby bed. Oh.
Speaker 3:Naturally fall into place, and oh bless you. So when sleep doesn't just kind of like happen, I think people can tend to freak out, because what we see a lot in social media and in other media like movies, TV shows it's everywhere is we see, you know, you just put a baby down in their crib and they fall asleep, and so when that doesn't happen. You're like wait what I don't think, so yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we had opinions about sleep. And then you get up in the middle of the night and your baby is not doing what you want it to do, and then you're exhausted and then your opinions could.
Speaker 4:They changed.
Speaker 5:They changed pretty quick. Yeah, yeah, they changed.
Speaker 4:Marley, I love that comment because I think that is where couples turn sideways, because, like but we agreed this morning. Well, yeah, but you weren't there at 3 am, like. And, by the way, you weren't there at 3 am, like I was there. Yeah. But so like, so what did that look like? And you don't need to go into like the grittiness, but like, did you all start to feel like you didn't feel aligned, or did you feel like you were just tired and you know, sort of no one's their best when they're tired?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, it was definitely that. I was definitely not my best self in the middle of the night when I was, you know, breastfeeding a tongue tied baby for the 45th time and he was peacefully snoring next to me. There were many fights had in the middle of the night and we ended up developing our own little rule that nothing said in the middle of the night counts.
Speaker 1:And when we woke up in the morning, it was just like a clean slate.
Speaker 3:We didn't hold anything that we said against each other, and I said some real bad stuff, but he was very good about just like letting it go. And so that actually really helped us once we started doing that, because then we weren't, you know, fighting all night and all day.
Speaker 5:I was also peacefully snoring with our first yes I wondered about that.
Speaker 4:I was like I'm going to go because Stephen would not have been okay with that.
Speaker 5:It was a culture where she wanted. She said it. Would you know? It would be helpful if you were up in the night with me sympathize. You could run my back, you could tell me good job. You did do that, I'll give you that I'll give you that, when she was at her wit's end and like just in pain and exhausted me, rubbing her back and saying like get off me.
Speaker 5:He was doing such a good job. She was like I don't know if you can bleed these out, but she would just basically tell me to just give her some space and yeah, yeah, I'd like space please.
Speaker 4:I'm serious. Yeah, that's what our three year old says I need space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so actually you're right, we did do that with our first, especially for the first few weeks, and then with our second we realized, like this doesn't make any sense for two of us to be exhausted, so you just sleep and I'll be up with the baby, and that's fine and that worked much better for us with subsequent kids. But yeah, I mean the bickering and you know you were actually very good at kind of taking my lead. I was the one which I'm sure is pretty common in hetero relationships where you know I was the one doing all the research and looking up all the different sleep programs and things like that. So you know I was also the one that was feeding the baby. So he kind of deferred to me on that and in a way that felt good for you both it felt good because I was.
Speaker 3:I didn't know it then, but I was definitely struggling with some postpartum anxiety and the way that a lot of my anxiety manifested was around his sleep and his schedule, and so having some semblance of control over that was really important to me, which I now see was very unhealthy, but I did feel like I really wanted to like find a solution and find a plan, and so he let me kind of take the lead on that and it ended up really really not working out for us. But was a good learning experience that like nobody knows your baby the way you do and you can't look up a generic schedule on Pinterest and think that it's going to just magically apply to your baby. So yeah, is that?
Speaker 4:what you were feeling Like when you I think, the postpartum anxiety. I think people are beginning to understand more and talk about more and become aware of like did you? You didn't know it at the time. No, but what would have been?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and how long ago are we talking? This was about five years ago. My son just turned five in October, so not that long ago, not that long ago. But Instagram was a very different thing. Even just five years ago, there weren't all these amazing resources out there, so I never even thought to look for the information.
Speaker 3:I knew about postpartum depression. That was something that I had heard of before, but I didn't feel depressed, I didn't feel sad. You know I had those few weeks of baby blues where I was crying all the time and you know that, you know, came down. So I wasn't super worried, that I was depressed, but I did have this sense of like doom Every time the sun went down and he was a fall baby. So that happened at like 430 pm, which was not fun and, like I said, I just really ruminated and really obsessed over his sleep and was very, very anxious if a nap didn't go well or if, if you know, he didn't sleep for as long as I thought he should sleep, and I would spend the whole next day researching and reading chapters from books and it just really like consumed my life, which I now know is not a great sign.
Speaker 4:Yes, marlee, were you aware of that?
Speaker 5:I was not aware of her postpartum anxiety by any means. I thought that we were just both struggling and because it's, you know, the first time going around like you don't know what normal is. And so if you're in like a real pit, you think well you know, maybe this is what having a child is like. You're just exhausted and miserable all the time. You feel kind of crumbly.
Speaker 5:I now know that that is not the case. But you know, rachel and I it's not that I didn't have opinions about things, but I did you know we would have conversations and ultimately, because she was doing the majority of the labor at night and breastfeeding, I did defer to her a lot but our first sleep approach really felt awful for both of us. It felt like we were really kind of causing our child undue pain and that didn't feel really good as parents and that you did agree on Like yeah, we did end up sleeping training.
Speaker 3:We used a popular sleep training course and you know, the piece of the course that was the hardest was that they say you have to be really consistent and you have to stick to it for two weeks. And so even you know, in the first few nights, when it was feeling really terrible, we kind of just had to like talk ourselves through it and say, like it's not. You know, all of this is going to be for nothing if we quit now. So it's like it's really unhealthy mentality that teaches you to kind of like ignore your instincts, but anyway. So we did end up making it the two weeks and it still wasn't helping at all with his sleep. So we did agree to kind of call it. We ended up trying it a couple other times more, like light versions, like oh, he's older, now let's maybe try it again and see if it works. This time Didn't, and then didn't again. And so when he was about nine months old, that was our last attempt, because I was getting ready to go back to work. It was the fall and I was a teacher and I was like you know what this is? So not worth it, and if I still have to wake up a couple of times per night to feed him and then still go to work the next day like that's just the way it is, like I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 3:And then, like a month and a half later, he started sleeping through the night by himself. So it was like all for nothing. But we were very much by that point, on the same page, that like all right, this is just, it is what it is and we're just going to figure out a way to support each other through it while we're tired, because we can't keep obsessing over this and we really really let go. And ironically, that was when things kind of started to fall into place for him. So you know, I don't know if it was he didn't have these like crazy anxious parents anymore or he was just developmentally ready to sleep through the night, or both, but he did. And it's so ironic to us now because he's five and he is our best sleeper now, compared to other two. I mean, our youngest, it's still a tiny newborn, but he loves to sleep. He'll go to bed without a single word of protest every single night. He would still nap if we let him like he just loves to sleep now.
Speaker 3:It's so funny If we could just like go back in time and tell ourselves to chill out.
Speaker 4:That would be really great. So if you could go back in time, other than telling yourselves to chill out, like what else would you think you both have wanted to hear or needed to hear? Or to yourselves or each other.
Speaker 5:I think a big piece for me is like this idea of future tripping right Like yeah definitely everybody's. The best piece of advice is like this too shall pass and, like you're at stages and they are not permanent and this child is going to develop and grow and change.
Speaker 5:So quickly many of the things that you struggle with even now, just like developmental, behavioral stuff, whatever it is, it changes and it changes over time Nothing happens really in an instant and that things can be hard but they won't be the same hard forever. That's not to say that things go away and different challenges present themselves, but certainly not thinking like, oh my God, this sleep thing or whatever it is in the moment is the rest of my life and they're never going to change. It's like, oh, I'm an awful parent. Yeah.
Speaker 2:What do you think? And Marley, hearing you say kind of that, that belief, oh, I'm an awful parent.
Speaker 4:I wonder about that too.
Speaker 2:I'm really curious, Like I think being a parent is hard, but I think that there is a lot of anxiety, maybe even like culturally, like in our culture I don't know about other cultures about about that, about being a parent and this kind of good or bad or a bad parent, and then you kind of measure that on if you can say your kid is a quote, unquote good sleeper or bad sleeper, Like what, like, how did, like I don't know. Do you see that like sort of impacting? I mean, obviously this is a very leading question, I'm a really good question. Ask her person, Great interview. But like does that? Do you see that impacting like people you work with and couples you talk to like about?
Speaker 4:Well and clearly yourself, you did feel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, this is honestly like what we keep coming back to as parents ourselves, like Marley said before, like maybe the sleep thing is in a challenge forever, but there's always a new challenge with parenting and so having a sense of like, intuition and confidence is so important, and I think so many new parents now don't have that and I don't know why that is. I don't know if it's just our culture or if it's, you know, too much information out there where people just really feel so lost and confused.
Speaker 5:I don't know what it is, but I think a lot of new parents don't give themselves very much compassion. They're not compassionate with themselves and just like, hey, this is going to be hard and I might make some mistakes, but like, so long as I'm present and I care and I continue to learn and evolve with my child, then I'm doing the best that I can. I think a lot of people really worry that each little thing is going to have a really negative long term outcome on their child. And you know, as my son gets older and my daughter gets older, just it's not the case. Like there's so many opportunities for engagement with your kid, no one thing is going to, you know, spiral them out into some really long term negative outcome.
Speaker 3:We have so many opportunities to mess that up.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's, yeah, it's broken out.
Speaker 4:It's not equal to repair right, Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that spirit of what you're saying, of being present and engaged you know like you can make mistakes but you're still present and engaged and that means that you know it's just a different experience, I think for sure. Also, kind of the statement of evolving with your kids. I feel like in even how you all have talked about sort of the journey with understanding, like sleep for your kids, like it changed yeah, I think you've said this here like that flexibility, that ability to be like maybe this works for this night week month. I don't know, but we need to be willing to change and I wonder that that seems like maybe an important principle.
Speaker 3:For sure and like even between kids, right For people with multiple kids we have a bunch of things so differently with each of our kids, just because of what they've needed.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, I think that flexibility piece is really really huge because, like Marley said earlier, sometimes in the morning you have a plan and then in the middle of the night you have to switch that plan. And you know, having such rigid expectations and such, you know, inflexible ideas about anything in parenting but with sleep for sure, it's just kind of setting yourself up for disappointment because we can't predict what they're going to be like or what they're going to need or what's going to come up.
Speaker 4:So one of the biggest and this is a little, I mean definitely what we hear from couples, but I don't actually think there's a research study on this, so it's my own conclusion. I genuinely believe that there are differences in parenting styles. Like, of course I get that, but I do think most couples who feel like they came relatively aligned on, like this is how we're going to approach sleep or this is how we're going to approach, you know, I mean honestly, in those first few months, that is what parenting is Sleep and feeding is pretty much all you're doing that is
Speaker 4:exactly right, yeah, so like that's, that is your parenting style at that point. And I think both parents think they're aligned, and then what I think looks like difference is one parent again, if you're in a, the nursing mom, if you're in this heteronormative relationship and it doesn't have to be nursing whatever the mom, their focus is on baby and that is brain based. Like that's not because they're just choosing that, like that's how we are made. But, and then I think there's a concern from the other parent who also happens to be that person's partner. That's like I'm not sure this is okay for you, right, are you? Am I losing you? And I think back to my question tomorrow earlier about, like we just left pregnancy, where I've been concerned, and now I'm still concerned and this is taking a big toll on you, yeah, and us, I'm concerned. I think that's where sometimes it starts to be like, well, we're not aligned, when really it's like I am aligned, I just just worried about I'm worried.
Speaker 4:Um, and it doesn't always come out like that. Have you felt that? Have you seen that Like?
Speaker 3:yeah, and I think that was probably part of the reason. I mean. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was probably part of the reason you agreed to do the sleep training at first was because you wanted to make the nights easier for me. You saw that I was really struggling, I was really tired and I was really kind of just like obsessed with how many times he was waking up. Um, and we were kind of sold that this was going to be the thing that would like fix all those problems. So for you it was probably a pretty easy sell, Cause you were worried about me.
Speaker 5:I mean it's also. It was marketed to us as a quick sell right. It was like one of the most popular sleep books on Amazon, right 12 hours by 12 weeks.
Speaker 3:And I'm like oh of course. Oh yeah, that was the first thing we tried.
Speaker 5:Love 12 hours to myself. Yeah, of course, like, yeah, little did, we know yeah.
Speaker 5:Wasn't going to quite work for us, but like, yeah, it was a place of concern because the struggle with the child, for the, you know, the, the primary parent, is doing the feeding in the night, especially if you're breastfeeding it. Just it took such a toll and, like, this person who is just the two of us, pre-child, is now all of a sudden being drained and trying to find all these answers. Like you look for quick fixes sometimes, um, but it certainly came out of a place of worry and you know there's, even if you agree upon something in the morning, there can still be resentment, even if you're following through with that exact plan.
Speaker 4:Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 5:And that happens with each of our kids. Right Like there's, I don't breastfeed, and that is a huge favor for my wife, even if she pumps and does the bottle like there's no way out of it. If we want to stick with that path and we do- yeah. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't look at me sometimes just like kind of freezing, living my life, you and your useless boo. You can have those nipples.
Speaker 4:It is a good question.
Speaker 2:I would love to know, wouldn't we all, wouldn't we all?
Speaker 4:I think I just mean that because, yeah, like you're, we're sticking to the plan, I'm doing the thing you said. But I think it sometimes feels like we're not aligned, when really the core is still very much aligned, like, oh, we just got to see her.
Speaker 2:A baby. Oh, a baby has just appeared on. The video Explains my gas.
Speaker 4:I think it just starts to feel personal when really the the intent and like, the hope and the desire for the couple remains the same, which is like, of course, we both want what's best for this baby. But I'm seeing, steven, I'm, this is Well, I think it can be even more than just personal.
Speaker 2:I think it can feel Controlling, like, like so, if I like, in my, in our experience, like my input or my thoughts about what Erin should be doing with her body and the baby, out of out of concern, out of like you know, this seems to be hard but, yes, I don't breastfeed and we are unsure what my nipples are for and so, and so it feels, it feels really controlling, like you're not a, you're not only not understanding, you're trying to control my, my body and that right, I mean I get, I mean I get the energy around that I didn't, I didn't, it took, it took some, it took some um we're speaking to breastfeeding in depth conversations.
Speaker 4:But I think that experience is true even when it's not breastfeeding because it's still like you have you don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, even the bottle, like whatever you're.
Speaker 3:yeah, there's an embodying difference when he would go back to work. And then, you know, I was the one with the baby, literally 24, seven, and he would try to be like, oh, I think we should do it this way. I'd be like what do you know? Like what are you?
Speaker 4:talking about? Oh, tell me more of wise one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, I was just like you know, get an opinion, which, of course, is not fair. That I'm not saying that I was right in that scenario, but I think that probably is a dynamic that plays out very often, um, even though we do have the same goal underneath it all, which is just for the best for our baby.
Speaker 5:And for partners, though, there's this A line that you should walk, where you need to formulate an opinion and care and inform yourself, but also not assuming that role of like well, I looked this up, so you need to, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's very, very hard for you. I understand to walk that line, because if you were totally disinterested, didn't have any opinions on anything, then I'd also be upset. Yes, so yeah it's. I'm not saying it's not hard to be you.
Speaker 5:No, no, no, no, I'm not looking for something yeah.
Speaker 2:I see you.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:She's the decision maker, but I also care. Yes, okay that I do hear that, though Like I want your involvement.
Speaker 2:But maybe not your input.
Speaker 3:I mean, I want your input, but just not like that, but just say exactly what I want to hear.
Speaker 4:But I do think I think there is concern. I think when you said like our ultimate goal is a healthy baby, I think another ultimate goal is like a healthy family. And I know for Stephen with me, I I nightnursed too long every time. I nightnursed to the point where I was not okay, and every single time he was like hey, you're in any chance? This time we could not do that and I'm like you're right, you're right, no, because I didn't notice it until it was too, until I was like I'm not okay. Like I'm not okay, all yeah. And so I think the concern, but he can't, I mean, he's like gently trying to sort of lob that.
Speaker 2:Well, and maybe in our you know, with our first two kids, maybe, like I, would have been more vocal about like, well, you need to do this, and then I realized that I didn't need to do that and it was much more like I'm noticing, I I'm just saying this and you're gonna interact with it in the way you want to. I'm not trying to tell you not to, but it is a fun. I mean, I think that only it took two kids for that.
Speaker 4:Well, I think, fairly, it took three until you really got it.
Speaker 2:Are we gonna find about it right?
Speaker 4:now I like it?
Speaker 2:Is it this I?
Speaker 4:don't think it comes out as concerned. I think it comes out as like are you sure this is the right thing? Let's try something else. Have you thought of something else? I think we forget the like hey, I'm worried, right.
Speaker 3:And I think, as women too, we or I should speak for myself, I suppose but we're always assuming that there's like an ulterior motive Interesting. So I'm like, oh, are you just trying to get the baby out of the bed so we can have more sex? Or like are you?
Speaker 3:just trying to get the baby out of the bed because you want this, this and this and for some reason even though he's never given me any indication that those things are true you assume that, like they're having all these thoughts and just not saying them and the scapegoat is the baby, right? So then you walk on even more and you're like, no, she's gonna stay in her bed until she's 25.
Speaker 5:She's better not. No, she's in her own room.
Speaker 3:I'm happy to report. But, yeah, like I think that there, for us at least, there was a lot of that too, where I was kind of like you know, don't rush me, don't rush her, like it's gonna happen, it's fine. You know, we managed to have a third baby, so obviously it was all okay in the end. But I do think that there's this element of like pressure for intimacy and for things to be exactly the way they used to be before kids, and that's just not always gonna be realistic when your kids are really little.
Speaker 4:Yes, I think that's yes. I didn't know what you meant by the like, the pressure and that, but yeah, I do think we look for. I think a lot of times the way we hear it from couples is like they're lazy, they just don't want to do this, they don't want to be an engaged parent, they don't want, and I honestly think and that means some of those things- might be a little bit true.
Speaker 4:I'm not trying to dismiss any of that, but like I do think at the core, when you get a couple layers deeper, like it's fear and it's sometimes just unresolved fear that I've been pent up for 15 months of like are you okay, are we okay? And I think that can be heard Like oh wait, you're concerned about me, like sure, and having some sort of cue about like I'm willing to try this until this, or like I am okay, maybe I don't look okay, maybe I don't sound okay, but like how do we both know? Because, like you said, I had post heartom depression and have a master's in counseling, was married to a guy who had a master's in counseling and was getting a PhD in marriage and family therapy and we didn't notice, like we were just and we were looking for.
Speaker 2:we chatted about it A year later.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that makes me feel better.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think a lot of people do, but we forget to talk about this openly and to take cause it feels critical.
Speaker 3:That's the thing and I love how you're framing it for people to just kind of approach it with curiosity and concern instead of oh well, we need to change this, or you need to do this or you need to stop doing this, just coming at it with more of like I'm noticing and just you know here when you want to make a change or whatever it is like when we were night weaning my daughter, he ended up being the one that was full time on her overnight and he really stepped up in that way, which was so wonderful, and I don't know that everybody has that kind of support. But yeah, those big transitions like weaning and moving your kids to their own room or you know things like that, can be really, really tough on the relationship, especially if you feel like you're being kind of pressured into it before you're ready.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think that offering the experience rather than solutions. Because you mentioned you had a tongue tie. I had. We had a tongue tie baby. Oh no, oh, I'm so sorry. I literally just had a physical reaction to that. I know it's like I do. Oh, it's mine. Yes, I have only myself. Well, there's a way to see this. We can show everybody your tongue, honey. I, it was our middle, and I was struggling. I mean, it was so painful. We saw the tongue tie doctor and all the things. Anyway, stephen ended up. I joke I mock I shouldn't, but I'm going to anyway Whittling me this nursing stool.
Speaker 4:Go ahead, I don't need a nursing stool. Well, because so this? I really just gave eyes like no, I didn't.
Speaker 2:This goes to show. So like I wasn't engaged and involved you know, husband, dad trying to be, and we had done, I'd done some research and we had been- reading Like the doctor said.
Speaker 4:You know he talked about like maybe your posture and this helps your positioning.
Speaker 2:Maybe that would be useful.
Speaker 4:You can get those on Amazon right. Well, you can also whittle them from wood from your backyard.
Speaker 2:That is really sweet. You know what, Rachel? It did not feel sweet at all.
Speaker 4:I felt so mad. He brought this into my room and I was like get it out. Like what are?
Speaker 3:you doing Okay, so why did you feel mad? This is very interesting to me.
Speaker 4:I didn't want that solution One. I took it as like your posture's wrong, like if you would put your feet up on this little bench. I whittled for you and he did it. I don't know why I keep saying it. It makes you feel worse.
Speaker 2:It was that idea. You make it sound like I got a little pocket knife, that's what it felt like Whittle it out of the tree.
Speaker 4:That's what it felt like I did it, okay, yes, so.
Speaker 2:And again, I think it's that idea of like look, I have some input about your body, yes, and about how you're not doing something right with your body. And that was not my intent, of course not. I absolutely understand.
Speaker 4:I was very sensitive. I was bleeding, I felt, but besides, I did not love our interaction with our doctor in that moment either, and so it felt like you're taking her side, like everybody against you, everybody's against me and it's my fault. And oh, I just named my knees up two inches higher.
Speaker 2:I played right into it with that little dumb stool.
Speaker 4:That's been nine years. I'm clearly not over it.
Speaker 3:But I would also like, if he made me a stool, I would be like why did you just waste all that time? Don't you know they sell the money? I was on, yes, when you could have like. I was just like efficiency, efficiency. Why would you do that when you could have taken the baby and I could have had a nice long nap during that time, or something?
Speaker 2:Yeah, marley, and.
Speaker 4:Stephen are sharing a like we're trying.
Speaker 2:So what we've reviewed is how much of a failure that was, and I appreciate us bringing that up and acknowledging that.
Speaker 4:Sorry, I'm not sorry, but what I mean, though, is like that it's my body, and like what I want is your shared experience. Join me in this. Don't offer me solutions unless I ask for it, and like I want you to tell me that, like you see that I'm struggling and you're with me, and the other people would totally disagree and be like whittle me a stool, but like, where I am, like, ask for that Wait for me.
Speaker 2:I did not whittle this. We need to go to the stool, please. It makes it sound more pathetic, I'm sure I burned it. Just me sitting out there whittling Just perversely, you know, me and my useless boobs Did it have like intricate curvings on it Like what was it?
Speaker 4:Heart shaped. I love it. No, I know it did not. It was very functional and Very rudimentary.
Speaker 2:I did it as quickly as I could with my trill.
Speaker 4:But I just see, like that shared experience, like this is what it's like for me, like, do you see and I think that a lot of times people move into action Like I want to help you, yeah, like, if you want to help me, get me some crushed ice yes, and some water and I think with sleep that comes up so often, I mean I talk to like 98% moms.
Speaker 3:There are a few dads on my page which I'm very proud of, but there's not. So I'm usually hearing the mom's perspective and they are always saying like my husband is pressuring me into sleep training or is trying to get me to wean or is trying to do all these different things to make our situation different, and it's really frustrating because I don't want to do that. I just want them to understand and to empathize and to acknowledge how hard and working for our baby and how difficult this is.
Speaker 4:I think that the pressure feels like in my. I don't know any of these people, but I think what we hear over and over is that pressure is the attempt to share your experience. Yeah, it doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 4:No, it feels like whittling a stool, it's like, no, just join me, tell me how sad you are too and how tough this must be, and like let's talk about that. And then let's agree on, like what would be helpful if anything, because sometimes no change is okay Like cause. As Marley said, this isn't gonna last forever.
Speaker 3:No, if you do absolutely nothing to change your situation. It's gonna change, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think, something too that I've noticed just from the other the non birthing and nursing and all of that partner is one of the things that when and I actually learned this, so I did my PhD research on couples who experienced miscarriage and infertility, and in listening and it was heteronormative couples, but listening to them tell the story, so the non birthing partner so oftentimes when they saw their partner in physical pain and discomfort, it really activated this place of fear and worry and wanting to help. But then it did come through and like, let me give you a solution for fixing this. And that's just confusing, Because I do think that there is something for that other partner watching, like with the tongue ties, stuff, like you were in actually, like really like it was painful, oh it's brutal.
Speaker 4:I cannot. I don't know how you did that three times.
Speaker 2:And there's so much just bodily discomfort. It's pregnancy and birth and such a bodily experience Like it's hard to see that oftentimes and feel like, oh, I wanna help you not be in pain and it doesn't compute that really, what you want is me to understand and recognize that we really can't change Like maybe we can change some of these things, but a lot of them we can't. We just have to kind of be together in the midst of this discomfort and I think that that's hard. That's just hard to click, I think-.
Speaker 4:Well, it's sort of what you talked about like being like what is a good parent? It's presence, it's doing our best, it's trying, it's engagement, it's just you're with me, right. And I think sleep is one of those things where couples feel like you are not with me and I've. There was no time lonelier for me than when the sun went down. Also, I'm so resonated with that, just like oh. I know it's coming and it's gonna be awful and and I'm gonna be all by myself. Yes, even if you're with me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 4:It is a very, very lonely feeling. Yes, yeah, and I do think that turns couples against each other, when I do think sometimes, just like that, shoulder to shoulder, like this is hard and I'm with you Really what people are looking for? That presence?
Speaker 2:And then it might change to don't be shoulder to shoulder with me, let's figure something out.
Speaker 4:And that I think that is the key.
Speaker 2:Like for couples to be able to be like. It can change.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and knowing how to approach that together and knowing when it's time is so key too.
Speaker 2:Sorry, we have to let them go. So, Rachel, maybe you can just tell everyone a little bit about what you specifically do with hey Sleepy Baby, like where people can find you in anything that you think is important. Sure that you want the world to know.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So at the beginning you guys asked like what would you go back and tell yourself, yes, and honestly, that's like the entire ethos to my Instagram page Like I just wanted to create a space where I could have, you know, real life, evidence-based information, where you're not just doling out solutions all the time but you're also really empathizing and finding this place of community where you can kind of, you know, commiserate or celebrate or whatever it is. And you know, I just wanted to create something that I would have loved as a first-time mom. So I started with the Instagram page and I now have a website that has all kinds of resources for families to make changes to their sleep. What did I say? What's the website? What's the website? Oh, he's like look yourself, girl. Yeah, it's HeySleepyBabycom, and my Instagram and TikTok is also just HeySleepyBaby.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I focus on babies and toddlers and I have a new bedtime course coming out that's gonna be for toddlers and older kids. You know some new tricks up my sleeve now that we have a five-year-old and there's. You know, all of these different changes and challenges that come up with each age and stage. So it's kind of fun that I get to kind of grow with my followers and I started when my first was a newborn and I'm no, I started when my second was a newborn and now we have another. So I have a lot of followers that have like seen me go through this whole journey of motherhood and pregnancy and postpartum. So it's really really cool and it's it does have a really awesome like community feel where people can kind of just come and find solace in each other. Sorry for all the baby hiccups by the way.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, he's so cute. He's taking a sun tie, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:He's taking a sun tie. I love the noises.
Speaker 2:I know they are cute. I love them too.
Speaker 4:I love that you did that, though, like you are, like you did what you needed and I think that is that is a felt experience on your page and in your community is like presence, engagement and no judgment and realistic expectations and normalizing, and I just I mean just you know, the size of my following is something that was like never in my wildest dreams, but it really just show how much a place like that was needed for parents.
Speaker 3:Yeah right Kind of alternative information, because when you Google you're only finding a very select viewpoint Right For sleep stuff.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, yeah, I think it's really important what you're doing and that people do have access to more than one voice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. Marley and Rachel, thank you very much. It was so good to have you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having us from Marley's first podcast experience. Let me go.
Speaker 2:You did great, you did great.
Speaker 4:Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:All right, thanks y'all. That was a lovely conversation. Do I say that after every interview? I feel like I did.
Speaker 4:I'm not sure you say lovely. One of the highlights for me was all the baby cooing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And y'all couldn't see what. Marley was just sort of back there bouncing her the whole time. Yeah, she was adorable, for sure. So special.
Speaker 2:You know, I think what I loved about that conversation was just the idea that the conversation about sleep is not a static conversation. It's one that changes, and it can change day to day, week to week, whatever it might be, it could change from kid to kid. Because I think that that's where this conversation can feel really hard for couples is they're like you were saying but we decided and we were going to do this, and now we're not doing that and that can feel really stuck and I think it can make couples feel really polarized, Like we are this.
Speaker 4:Now you want to be that. I mean you've said that about me a hundred times that I can sort of be one side, kind of go back and forth, yeah, back and forth. But there has to be a lot of shades of gray in that conversation and a lot of conversation. But I think when done with openness and curiosity, it can be a real invitation to understanding each other and each experience.
Speaker 2:And I really like what Marley said too Just being compassionate to yourself as a parent, I think there is so much pressure to get this right and to get your kids sleeping according to some standard that is out there, all that kind of stuff where it's like I think for some parents too, they don't have that standard thing. You and I didn't Sure.
Speaker 4:But we still felt the pressure to want to sleep. Yes, we still felt resentful Because we were tired. But I'm not really sure why. Maybe because we're not really internet savvy.
Speaker 2:I'm not even joking, but we just didn't have a lot of input. That's true. It was so long ago. The internet really wasn't around, yet you still had to plug something into a wall.
Speaker 4:No, well, I kind of mean that, though Not in terms of our cake.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:But just because we didn't have an outside or an external pressure to, they should be doing this. We still wanted more sleep.
Speaker 2:The pressure was we wanted to sleep, yeah, and we still reasoned to you got more than me, yeah.
Speaker 4:By 17 minutes.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did and I think that again, the flexibility, the compassion, I think if you can come to it just even with those two things, because I think it just gets so charged so quickly and oftentimes it's just because people feel really anxious about getting it right and trying to do it right.
Speaker 4:And take care of not only that, but their kid, but their partner, their own self, and they're like family we want to be well. All of us do. Yeah. So there is like are we, are you, am I, are they? It's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sure can be, and so I really appreciate Marley and Rachel for just sharing that with us, and you should check out.
Speaker 2:Rachel on hey Sleepy Baby. That's her website too. She's got a lot of great resources and just a lot of great things that help you remember to be flexible, you remember to be compassionate. Just her post and her quotes and her content, I think, can help couples foster that ethos in their relationship. Today's show was produced by Aaron and Stephen Mitchell. If you're enjoying the podcast, please hit the follow button and leave us a rating. This helps our content become more visible to others who might enjoy it and it lets us know how we can keep improving the show. And, as always, we're grateful for you listening. Thanks so much for being with us here today on Couples Counseling for Parents. And remember, working on a healthy couple relationship is good parenting.