On this last episode of my sleep series, I talk with six mothers. Six mothers who approached sleep in different ways with their children.

I decided to do this episode for a few reasons:
1. To hear from real mothers about how they approached sleep-training for their child
2. To hear different methods
3. To hear how although the methods were different, they are loving mothers who are raising amazing children.

00;00;06;10 – 00;00;36;10

Dr. Mona

Hey, everyone, welcome to the PedsDocTalk podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Mona, where each week I hope to educate and inspire you in your journey through parenthood with information on your most common concerns as a parent and interviews with fellow parents and experts in the field. My hope is you leave each week feeling more educated, confident, and empowered in decisions you make for your child.

 

00;00;36;13 – 00;00;57;18

Dr. Mona

Welcome to this episode. This is the last of four episodes in my sleep series, and in episode 17, 18 and 19, you heard me talk about different methods of sleep training. You heard me talk to a sleep consultant about sleep, and this episode is very special to me because I welcome six of my followers for my Instagram account at PedsDocTalk.

 

00;00;57;20 – 00;01;22;12

Dr. Mona

Six mothers who chose different methods of sleep training their child, and the reason I created this episode was because I wanted people to hear from mothers on how they approach sleep and how even though it was different, even though they chose methods that maybe you agree with or you, you know, you also did as well that they are loving mothers who are raising amazing children.

 

00;01;22;14 – 00;01;39;16

Dr. Mona

And that is the purpose of all of my sleep episodes. Right? So it’s a no judgment zone. There is a lot of back and forth with sleep training. Well, this is damaging. You’re going to do this bad. And I want to be perfectly blunt. There is no harm that you’re going to be doing with your child with whatever method you choose.

 

00;01;39;18 – 00;02;00;06

Dr. Mona

So in the end, as you’re going to see, it’s what makes the mother most comfortable. What makes obviously any partner of the mother most more comfortable. So it’s really, really important that you listen to what these women have to say and welcome it. Right. So if as you’re listening, if you hear a method that you’re like, wow, I would never do that, I really want you to hear the perspective that they give.

 

00;02;00;08 – 00;02;19;24

Dr. Mona

Just because sometimes you may think you want to do one method, and your child’s temperament may dictate another method, or you may do one method and realize that it’s not working. And you might have to redirect and use another method. So it’s really important to hear the different perspectives and how, like I said, all of these women are amazing mothers.

 

00;02;20;01 – 00;02;42;13

Dr. Mona

All of these women are raising thriving children. So it’s really important you keep that open mind when you’re listening to this. So I have six different moms. The first mom talks about a cried out method, which involves a full crying out method, which, is basically when you go in, give them give them a kiss goodnight, do the bedtime routine kiss, shut the door and don’t come back in the morning.

 

00;02;42;16 – 00;03;02;05

Dr. Mona

And again, I need you to keep an open mind because you should listen to our conversation the next mom. We talk about a Ferber method, which is a graduated extinction method of crying. The third mom, we talk about how she did a cry method and later had to switch to a more gradual weaning method. The next mom. We talk about a gradual method and switch to a method that involve more crying.

 

00;03;02;15 – 00;03;24;07

Dr. Mona

Just because of changes in the baby’s, age. And what was working better for the baby. And then I go to a mother who co slept with her child until the child was about little over two, and then had to transition to that child to a bed. And the last one is a mother who chose a more gradual weaning method that she kind of came up with looking at different things.

 

00;03;24;09 – 00;03;43;14

Dr. Mona

So as you listen, the rules are, like I said in the other podcast episodes for sleep, keep an open mind. Remember that I really want you to hear all the methods, because you may find that one method you never even thought of, or never even thought would be appropriate would be something that works for you. And you’re going to hear me talk to these mothers very openly.

 

00;03;43;16 – 00;04;03;07

Dr. Mona

It’s almost like being on a mommy group. Or you can kind of listen to what people are saying, but I’m kind of there asking the questions and seeing, you know, does this make sense? And I approve of all of these methods. And of course, there are probably way more methods, than what I’m portraying on this episode. But this is just to kind of give a overview of six mothers and how they approached it.

 

00;04;03;15 – 00;04;28;09

Dr. Mona

So if you hear a method that you did that wasn’t on there, or if you are curious about another method, obviously you can, research that and that may be something that works for you, but I wanted to encompass the variety of different methods that I speak about in the other podcast episodes as well. But know that whatever method you choose, you have to choose what’s best for you, your child, and anyone else that is a caretaker in the family.

 

00;04;28;12 – 00;04;47;16

Dr. Mona

So sit back and listen. The episode is a little bit on the longer side than I do for my episodes, because I do welcome six Mothers, but I promise you’ll get something out of it. So stay tuned. Will welcome the first mom. So the first mom I have is Lauren, and she has a three year old and a one year old, and we are going to be talking about the method she chose.

 

00;04;47;22 – 00;05;03;17

Dr. Mona

I spoke about this method in the other podcast episode, about sleep training, and it’s a method that basically requires crying. And we’re going to discuss what she did and it’s also the method I actually did as well. So Lauren, welcome to the episode.

 

00;05;03;19 – 00;05;04;24

Lauren

Hi. Thank you for having me.

 

00;05;04;25 – 00;05;16;09

Dr. Mona

Thank you so much. I’m so excited we’re doing this. So first of all, how old I know you have two sons, right? How old were your sons? I know you said it was like, different ages, but when you decided to train them, how old were they?

 

00;05;16;11 – 00;05;18;29

Lauren

The oldest was six months and the youngest was four months.

 

00;05;19;03 – 00;05;22;29

Dr. Mona

Okay. And what method? You chose the same method for both of them, right?

 

00;05;23;01 – 00;05;23;16

Lauren

Correct.

 

00;05;23;16 – 00;05;30;19

Dr. Mona

So let’s talk about your older son who was trained at six months. Right. So describe how the method went for you.

 

00;05;30;21 – 00;05;40;04

Lauren

So it’s basically you start their bedtime routine. Give them a kiss, tell them good night, put them in the crib and shut the light out and walk out.

 

00;05;40;04 – 00;05;59;15

Dr. Mona

Oh my gosh how could you say that? Okay, look I’m happy you’re on because this is probably of all the sleep training methods, it’s the most controversial one. It is. Okay. And we’ll talk about that. It is also the method we did for Ryan and I speak about that. So if any of you are listening that have not talked or have sorry, I have not listened to my other episode where I talk about all the different options.

 

00;05;59;22 – 00;06;19;00

Dr. Mona

I speak about how we sleep during Ryan. What I want to talk about is how it went like meaning obviously that so people listening who have not had children or who are against crime methods, they must be like, oh my gosh, for these awful mothers, I know we’re not. Okay. So how do they kind of go, let’s talk about your six month old meaning night by night, if you can remember.

 

00;06;19;00 – 00;06;20;10

Dr. Mona

I know it’s been a few years.

 

00;06;20;10 – 00;06;21;08

Lauren

Oh, I can remember.

 

00;06;21;09 – 00;06;28;10

Dr. Mona

Okay. So let’s see. Let’s see how many, if you can remember how many minutes he cried for. Or you know, when night by night, if you can remember. It’s okay if you can’t.

 

00;06;28;13 – 00;06;46;16

Lauren

Oh, I absolutely can’t. With our first when we started training him at six months, the first night was 60 minutes of crime, which we expected. We knew it was going to be a while. We were told that it would be cut in half the next night, and it basically went a minute every day, a minute less of crime.

 

00;06;46;16 – 00;06;59;07

Lauren

So, from like an hour to, like, the next night was 59 minutes and the next night was 58. We were seeing progress, but it took a while for him to kind of learn how to self-soothe.

 

00;06;59;15 – 00;07;01;10

Dr. Mona

How many nights do you think it took?

 

00;07;01;12 – 00;07;06;06

Lauren

Probably a week before we really saw, you know, it was maybe five minutes and he was out.

 

00;07;06;09 – 00;07;12;12

Dr. Mona

So after that week, did he start? Did you see him sleeping through the night or did you watch it? Yes. Okay.

 

00;07;12;14 – 00;07;19;28

Lauren

As soon as he cried the like initially when we laid him down, he would be out for the night, which was about 12 hours actually.

 

00;07;19;28 – 00;07;37;15

Dr. Mona

So after the initial hour, 59 minutes, the rest of the night was okay. Yes. I see that’s how it went for us too. And now I again, I mine was just so you know, since we you didn’t listen to that episode yet for for me it was actually for our first night. It was weird. It was 20 minutes.

 

00;07;37;17 – 00;07;52;18

Dr. Mona

Our next night was ten minutes at the beginning of the night, and then the third night. Weird. 40 minutes at four in the morning, which was super bizarre. So I thought that it wouldn’t stick for him. I actually was like, oh, this may not be his method. This may not work for him. And we’ll talk about that.

 

00;07;52;18 – 00;08;08;21

Dr. Mona

But like, I was like, oh, maybe he’s not a cry it out type baby. And so then I ended up seeing the fourth night and the fourth night, literally, you’re like, standing there and it’s like five, like, literally less than five minutes. And he was he was down and I was like, what? And then it lasted basically for, for a while now.

 

00;08;09;18 – 00;08;12;07

Dr. Mona

But why did you decide this was the method you guys wanted?

 

00;08;12;12 – 00;08;33;09

Lauren

So we had tried it all started when he was about five months. He was a great sleeper up until that point, and then all of a sudden he was woke and it was no napping. It was nearly impossible to get him down. He was fussy all day long because he was just exhausted. We decided to try the Ferber method just based off of Google searching.

 

00;08;33;11 – 00;08;50;03

Lauren

And just like you had said with Ryan it, you may have thought it wasn’t the method. Ferber was definitely not the method for us. It actually seemed to upset him even more whenever we went in there and walked away. So it was almost every time we were kind of traumatizing everybody by walking in there. It was hard on me.

 

00;08;50;03 – 00;09;11;18

Lauren

He wanted me. You could actually see it. And then it was harder on him when we left. So we knew that was out. The rocking him all night wasn’t going to work. The sleeping with him in our room was definitely not going to work because he just wanted to play. So it was kind of the last method that we tried.

 

00;09;11;23 – 00;09;15;05

Dr. Mona

And was the method you found. You said you just searched online, right?

 

00;09;15;07 – 00;09;33;08

Lauren

No, actually, we I had explained to my sister that he wasn’t napping and he was having issues sleeping, and she knew somebody who had done sleep consulting, which is something we had never heard of. We were first time parents. And she asked if she could connect us and she kind of walked us through. She no longer did it professionally.

 

00;09;33;10 – 00;09;45;26

Lauren

She offered her services for free, but it was more of a via the phone kind of walk through us, the process. And she just explained, listen, you got to give him his bedtime routine, give him a kiss, put him down and walk away and he’ll be fine.

 

00;09;45;29 – 00;09;46;10

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;09;46;18 – 00;09;48;22

Lauren

You know. Yeah. And it go ahead and what?

 

00;09;48;25 – 00;09;54;17

Dr. Mona

When when he was like at that time, was he feeding during the night when you decided to do this method. Yes.

 

00;09;54;17 – 00;10;11;00

Lauren

And he would wake up right around 334. So it was kind of hard for me because it was that hour of, okay, well, now do I just go back to bed? Do I start my day? I kind of can’t go back to sleep now. So he was having difficulty falling asleep. He would fall asleep, wake up in the middle of the night and feed as well, and feed himself to sleep.

 

00;10;12;00 – 00;10;14;26

Dr. Mona

So when you did the method obviously you’re cut, you cut out the feed correctly.

 

00;10;14;26 – 00;10;20;14

Lauren

Right. Correct. Right. And he was right at that point. So he was on solids. He was getting food throughout the day.

 

00;10;20;16 – 00;10;34;17

Dr. Mona

And this is a method right. Like I’m happy we’re talking about this because like I said at the beginning, this is a method that when we’re I used to work as a pediatrician, it was very popular. This give them a kiss goodnight. And for all of you listening, I know this is the first conversation with a mother.

 

00;10;34;17 – 00;10;50;18

Dr. Mona

Like I have five more mothers on this episode. So you’re like, what is this? This episode is going to be about, it is just one of the episodes, and it’s actually the reason I put you first is that it’s the first method I speak about in my other episode, which is why I’m talking about it. First on here it is.

 

00;10;50;21 – 00;11;14;23

Dr. Mona

It is actually, like you said perfectly, some babies need this method. So for us, I actually we should train Ryan pretty early. I mentioned it and I mentioned it later in this episode as well, but we’ve we’ve trained him at two months. Yes. Because he was stretching nine, 8 to 9 hours already. So I would probably have not done it that early had he been feeding four, three, three, four times in the night.

 

00;11;14;27 – 00;11;36;24

Dr. Mona

But he was already stretching nine hours. So I, I talked to my husband like, why don’t we try doing 11, right? Right. Why not? So that’s why we chose the method. And it was something that worked for us. And it worked amazingly. And not every night. It’s not going to work for every baby. At four months, he started to regress because he was flipping himself over onto his belly and freaking out.

 

00;11;37;00 – 00;11;46;10

Dr. Mona

So we actually tried doing Ferber at four months and it didn’t. Like you said, it didn’t work for him. It was like mom. And he actually would just get more crying. Yeah, in the room.

 

00;11;46;10 – 00;11;53;14

Lauren

That’s exactly what happened. It would just piss him off even more. It was just, it was upsetting for everybody all over again.

 

00;11;53;16 – 00;12;08;10

Dr. Mona

So I actually left the room because I’m like. Like you. Like I left the room because I’m like. And then he’d stop crying. It’s insane how some kids just don’t can’t do the method that maybe you read online or that some other method that a family chose. So that is why I’m putting this on here. This what this conversation.

 

00;12;08;14 – 00;12;14;23

Dr. Mona

Because like you said, it’s it may just not be the method that you may think you’re going to do, but it may just work for your baby.

 

00;12;14;23 – 00;12;40;00

Lauren

And I also think timing has a lot to do with it. So when we sleep trained our youngest at four months, it actually went a lot better. I think he cried maybe one night, and I don’t know if it’s just because we were more confident in what we were doing because we had done it before. But at six months, I feel like our son was just so much more aware and he had more of a voice and he could kind of understand the situation more, if that makes any sense.

 

00;12;40;08 – 00;12;40;13

Lauren

Of.

 

00;12;40;13 – 00;12;40;29

Dr. Mona

Course it does.

 

00;12;41;00 – 00;12;48;12

Lauren

So I think it was actually harder for us. Had I known about sleep training, I would have done it sooner with our first as opposed to six months.

 

00;12;48;15 – 00;13;06;22

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And you’re right, because the some, you know, separation anxiety develops around like maybe nine months, but some babies have it as early as four months. And I completely agree with you that the that the, the voice is louder and also their awareness of the of the parent in the room. And Ferber works so well for so many families like you said.

 

00;13;06;27 – 00;13;25;14

Dr. Mona

But the anger that he had with me being there. Yeah, like like almost like me being there, he would calm down. But then the moment I step back, it would be like, mommy, wait. And then and but then I was like, let me, let me experiment. So I actually just trial and error and I slept outside. I slept on the couch because I share a room with Ryan because of Covid.

 

00;13;25;14 – 00;13;44;11

Dr. Mona

Long story, but I, I went outside, my husband’s in a separate room right now, and I went outside and in one minute poop down. And it’s just it’s it’s interesting conversation to for people listening to understand that that can be how it goes. And you actually consulted someone who does sleep consulting for a living, right? I mentioned this method.

 

00;13;44;11 – 00;13;54;28

Lauren

Yes. There was what you just suggested and it worked for us. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to work for everybody, but that’s just what worked for our kid.

 

00;13;55;00 – 00;14;05;06

Dr. Mona

And I think and I speak about this with a on the other, another episode with the sleep consultant, we talk about the different methods and how there’s so much, you know, well, to get to this, like judgment or like, oh, how could you?

 

00;14;05;06 – 00;14;05;22

Lauren

Oh yeah.

 

00;14;05;22 – 00;14;18;19

Dr. Mona

I as a pediatrician, I it’s exhausting because I’m like, I, it’s like I’m not telling you to do anything that’s harmful and I wouldn’t I obviously did this for my child and this child, if you follow me on Instagram is like the most happiest.

 

00;14;18;22 – 00;14;22;06

Lauren

Not like it’s very obvious that you have.

 

00;14;22;06 – 00;14;24;02

Dr. Mona

Obviously like and I.

 

00;14;24;02 – 00;14;43;14

Lauren

Will say to our son, before we decided to sleep train he again, like I said, he slept great. And then all of a sudden he was not sleeping great and he was miserable and fussy and nothing made him happy. Holding him and walking didn’t make him happy. He didn’t want to be rocked and I think he was just overstimulated and sleep training, out of sleep training, training.

 

00;14;43;14 – 00;15;09;24

Lauren

We got the happiest, most well-adjusted, well-rested. He didn’t have tantrums. He was just sleep. I had no idea. But sleep really does wonders for kids and their development. Yeah, and it really changed things for us. So I had the opposite of an experience of it didn’t traumatize my kid. It didn’t change things for us. It actually made things better for all of us, especially him.

 

00;15;09;26 – 00;15;24;11

Dr. Mona

And that is, you know, I get a lot of stuff on my my Instagram. Instagram is where I’m getting most of the, you know, like judgment calls. But why would we support this in my office? Everyone knows me and trust me. And so they know when I give them a method and I don’t, I don’t always give this method.

 

00;15;24;11 – 00;15;40;01

Dr. Mona

I give them three options. Always. And you’ll hear it on the other episode, meaning depending on the age, but they know me and they know that I would never let them. And some people on social media don’t really know me that well. Most of my followers trust me, but I would never, ever tell them to do something that I do not support.

 

00;15;40;01 – 00;16;00;09

Dr. Mona

Of course, and you are right that it is. It goes down to and I know we’re kind of going on tangents because I love this conversation. This is an important conversation with a fellow mom, is that as a pediatrician, when I have children, I really recommend sleep training by one by one. Latest because when you get into those toddler years, sleep and a routine are vital.

 

00;16;00;14 – 00;16;18;07

Dr. Mona

And if your child’s not sleeping through the night by one and you’re approaching, it’s not terrible twos, by the way, it’s the terrible ones. You are getting into this age where if you’re don’t have a routine of of sleep at night and then doing naps in the day, feeding in the day, your child is going to have way more breakdowns.

 

00;16;18;07 – 00;16;36;27

Dr. Mona

You’re going to be a mess and you’re not going to enjoy the toddler years. Can I be honest? I have friends who sleep. All my friends who sleep train actually are really obviously no one loves toddlers having tantrums, but they’re enjoying the toddler years because their child has a rhythm. Yes, like you’re going to you’re going to roll with the punches more because you know that your child is not over tired, is it?

 

00;16;36;27 – 00;16;42;15

Dr. Mona

Sleep or is it hunger? Your child is not sleepy because they have a rhythm like it’s it’s probably other things. You’re probably just in a mood.

 

00;16;42;16 – 00;17;04;09

Lauren

We all go through sleep training. We learned kids have cues very early on. Kids have cues of our oldest. Our oldest son would rub his face and suck his thumb. And our sleep trainer kind of taught us like, those are those early cues. And then there’s late cues. So now we kind of are able to tell, okay, is his behavior because he’s tired and we’re missing something.

 

00;17;04;09 – 00;17;18;09

Lauren

And we would sit back and watch and we’d say, oh, yep, there goes with them in his mouth. He’s tired. Let’s try and get them down for a nap. So we also kind of learn to read him a little bit better to to help him help us. So that was really valuable.

 

00;17;18;09 – 00;17;34;27

Dr. Mona

So that is it. I mean, I spoke about this also later in this episode, but it’s you’re right that it is the sleep training with the combination of the cues is so vital, because I get it that, you know, the people who are naysayers, falsely trained, they’ll be like, well, then why wouldn’t you listen to their cues for sleep at night?

 

00;17;34;27 – 00;18;00;06

Dr. Mona

But how I kind of view it is at nighttime is a regenerative, regenerative thing, right? You’re you’re learning how to sleep. It’s a very important thing. And daytime when you’re starting to be this cuz you’re teaching them an a vital skill. This is not like a bad thing. This is a thing to be celebrated. And as a mother also who saw my child from a young age, do this and again I it’s because I worked at a practice that preached to monthly training.

 

00;18;00;06 – 00;18;16;29

Dr. Mona

Okay, I wouldn’t have probably thought about this if I had hadn’t work there. But everyone sleep trained at two months at this practice, and it was eye opening to me because I’m like, how is that? That’s too young? But then when I thought when I saw Ryan stretching the feed and he was able and it’s it’s fascinating to see the capability, right, to see the capability of them.

 

00;18;16;29 – 00;18;19;21

Dr. Mona

So subtle. That’s I think the goal that we’re trying to get right.

 

00;18;19;21 – 00;18;35;01

Lauren

And they almost become a little bit more independent in a good way, where as a mother, you want to see your children, like, really grow and hit these milestones and become independent and it’s something that you can help them do on their own, which I think helps with growth.

 

00;18;35;01 – 00;18;44;20

Dr. Mona

And this needs to be said because I think people who are against crime methods, especially this method, I have a feeling. But is your son connected to you? Does he love you? Does he show attachment?

 

00;18;44;23 – 00;19;06;05

Lauren

He is the sweetest, kindest, most gentle boy in the world and I, I can’t express. I actually think that it’s helped our bond because I, like your friends, have said, I’m enjoying this time more and I think he feeds off of me being more relaxed, and he’s also more relaxed because he’s getting more sleep. So it’s really made us, I think it’s bonded us.

 

00;19;06;07 – 00;19;13;05

Lauren

We’re spending less time and tantrums. We’re spending less time trying to figure out why he’s exhausted or getting him to sleep. And I think it’s really helped us.

 

00;19;13;07 – 00;19;26;19

Dr. Mona

Yeah, like I, I you’re like my new friend, okay. Because I just like I look I obviously I know you be the same at that I am I did but it’s more than that. It’s more of the, the fact that I think you’re my friend. Is that the way you just speak about this and the positivity you have?

 

00;19;26;25 – 00;19;38;22

Dr. Mona

And it’s that message of doing something like, this is a beneficial thing, and I really appreciate that. Now, did you obviously struggle with the decision to do it, or was it hard for you to hear him cry? Because I think obviously people need to hear that.

 

00;19;38;25 – 00;19;56;03

Lauren

Oh man, I don’t know if I can be this clear about it, but there was a lot of like wine drinking and issues being used and my pour has been worked. At the time he was working really long hours and he would come home and just say, I just want to come home and not have my wife be crying and my son crying.

 

00;19;56;05 – 00;20;08;14

Lauren

Of course it was difficult. Of course I want to run in there and comfort him, but I’m not doing him any good by doing that. And I’m not doing myself any good by doing that. And it also took there were nights where my husband would say, I’m going to go up there and get up, and I would say, no, no, no, no.

 

00;20;08;15 – 00;20;24;12

Lauren

I’ve been it’s been three days of me having to sit downstairs and hear it and listen and go through it. We can do this. And then there were nights where I would say, I’m going to go get him and my husband say, no, no, no. So there was some struggles there of me just wanting like to give in.

 

00;20;24;14 – 00;20;46;00

Lauren

But when we started to see that he was doing so much better during the daytime, I think that’s when I was saying, okay, there was like, there’s it’s an a reward system. We’re getting rewarded for this. So I’m going to go through the tears and I’m going to struggle with this, but tomorrow is going to be a really good day because he’s going to have slept and I’m going to have slept and my husband’s going to have slept, and it’s just going to be a better household for all of us.

 

00;20;46;00 – 00;20;52;08

Lauren

But those first, those first few nights was this is never going to end. This is it’s going to be like this till he goes to college.

 

00;20;52;10 – 00;21;08;12

Dr. Mona

Oh yeah. No. And I mean that that pit in my stomach because it’s not the pit in the stomach that I knew that I thought that something was, that I was damaging him at all. It was this pit that I’m like, oh, man, baby, I love you. Yes. I go, sorry, like, I know you can do it. That’s what it was, right?

 

00;21;08;12 – 00;21;09;19

Dr. Mona

Yeah. It’s it’s the just.

 

00;21;09;25 – 00;21;28;02

Lauren

Been just given. I know, we know you’re tired. I like you’re the biggest cheerleader and you want them to succeed. You know, it’s weird. Like, I don’t want to say it’s like a sporting event, but you’re like that mom who’s like, we can get you there. You can do it. And it’s just a strange. It wasn’t, you know, your baby’s cries.

 

00;21;28;04 – 00;21;44;13

Lauren

You know, as a mother, you really start to to get to know what your baby needs. And at that time, it wasn’t a cry of, I need my mom. It was. He’s exhausted and he has to burn this off in order to sleep. And so I had to keep reminding myself, you kind of have to find a mantra of this is just a phase, this is just a phase.

 

00;21;44;18 – 00;21;45;22

Lauren

And get through it.

 

00;21;45;24 – 00;22;04;04

Dr. Mona

Oh yeah, ours was like, you can do this. And we always we. Our little motto was father, sleep always wins. Like whenever we were worried about him, like, oh, he’s over Ty. We’re like father, sleep always wins. He’s going to do it. Yeah, meaning I’m talking even for, like, naps and stuff. Like we don’t play, you know, probably my personnel that we don’t play a lot of games in this house.

 

00;22;04;04 – 00;22;21;19

Dr. Mona

We literally, we read our son. We don’t. We’re not a very high fuss couple. My husband and I are very easy breezy and we don’t. Yeah. Like we don’t overthink. We obviously are careful and we love our son and we’re like, okay, this is good. Are we comfortable? We but we just have insight and checking in with ourselves.

 

00;22;21;19 – 00;22;27;07

Dr. Mona

And that happened to you, right? Like my husband, I actually had to do the sleep training on nights that my husband was working in the evenings.

 

00;22;27;13 – 00;22;31;00

Lauren

And I know that’s hard because my husband was working. Yeah.

 

00;22;31;00 – 00;22;50;08

Dr. Mona

And I but it was he was like, I don’t know if I can handle him like, you think I can handle it. So I was like, okay, I trust my son. I have faith in him. And I think I’ve always been pro sleep training, you know, it’s what it is. And because of where I worked and my my experience as a pediatrician, after we had Ryan with the strokes and seizures, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be the method we chose.

 

00;22;51;00 – 00;23;05;15

Dr. Mona

You know, my husband’s like, do you think we’ll do it? I’m like, I don’t know. We have to see how things go. And then when I just saw how and this is a really when I saw how resilient he was with the stroke and seizures and how he went through, I mean, lack of a better he went through shit.

 

00;23;05;15 – 00;23;06;25

Dr. Mona

Okay. Right. And so.

 

00;23;06;28 – 00;23;07;10

Lauren

Know.

 

00;23;07;12 – 00;23;27;26

Dr. Mona

He got stuck like thousands of times, like not thousands, but hundreds of times with needles and eggs and when. So when I get sad that he cried when he’s trying to go to sleep, I. I wasn’t sad because I’m like, no, he’s a resilient little guy. Like he this is something I’m helping him do. And he’s going to get through this and he’s a warrior and oh my God, like, like you said, you see him.

 

00;23;27;26 – 00;23;48;26

Dr. Mona

He’s just this kid is like so happy because he sleeps. Mommy’s happy because mommy’s sleeping. Daddy’s happy because he’s sleeping. Right. And I really think people need to remember the mental health component of sleep training. And I think, you know, my biggest. And I’m speaking openly with you now, I know the topic is the we were talking for a long time, but I like I like this.

 

00;23;48;28 – 00;24;08;14

Dr. Mona

The problem is, is that when I see families come into my office and they are so exhausted with their child not sleeping, and then they tell me, but I don’t want to sleep, train. And then I tell them, I’m like, that’s fine, but what what is your solution? Because. Right. I don’t mind that you don’t want to sleep train, but then we can’t keep complaining about it because there are solutions.

 

00;24;08;17 – 00;24;12;15

Dr. Mona

Right. Like and that’s my thing is that, you know, you change nothing and nothing changes.

 

00;24;12;22 – 00;24;37;08

Lauren

And there’s a solution for every baby. You know, it’s not a one size fits all. Like every kid is different. Every kid is going to respond different. You as a mother, sometimes it takes figuring out what’s going to work and what what’s not going to work. And we went through trial and error and what worked for us may not work for others, but I think the biggest thing is there are gentler methods and options.

 

00;24;37;14 – 00;24;57;22

Lauren

And I don’t want to say it’s kind of hard saying gentler, because I feel like that means that my method was not gentle. Right. And our method did come from a place of love. But I think people really, like, don’t realize there’s so many options when it comes to sleep training. Sleep training isn’t black and white and just cry or no cry.

 

00;24;57;25 – 00;25;04;08

Lauren

There’s ways to kind of cater it to your child and their personality and what you are comfortable with.

 

00;25;04;10 – 00;25;07;06

Dr. Mona

Did you tell anyone the method you did?

 

00;25;07;08 – 00;25;08;02

Lauren

No, no.

 

00;25;08;02 – 00;25;10;00

Dr. Mona

Okay. I was going to ask. And yeah.

 

00;25;10;03 – 00;25;27;12

Lauren

I think part of it was we were so tired and we were so just at the end of our rope and hoping that it would work, that I didn’t need to hear negativity. And I knew our baby and I knew us, and I knew that we were seeing work when we did have family come over and, you know, it was bedtime for him.

 

00;25;27;14 – 00;25;45;16

Lauren

I think that was when we would like my the grandparents may not have been very comfortable with hearing their grandchild crying, but we we explained it and this was a choice that we were going to make for our family. And it was the first time that I think we had to stand up and say, this is what we’re doing for us and what we’re doing for our child.

 

00;25;45;18 – 00;25;51;02

Lauren

And if you have a problem with it, like that’s unfortunate for you. But this is what we’re doing for us.

 

00;25;51;06 – 00;25;55;19

Dr. Mona

Yeah. No, it’s it’s so far it hasn’t had to happen because we haven’t had anyone in the home.

 

00;25;55;19 – 00;25;56;00

Dominika

Right.

 

00;25;56;12 – 00;26;13;18

Dr. Mona

For us. But yeah, because it happened obviously after, you know, during Covid. But you’re right. Like, I think, people have a lot of comments and I know when I, I, when I share these episodes and I talk about this method, even though, like you said, it’s not the only method. Like I’m not telling everyone to do this with their child for every child.

 

00;26;13;21 – 00;26;30;29

Dr. Mona

But even though I say it, I know it’s going to be. Some people are just not going to like, like it. And it’s it’s hard for me. It’s hard for me as a period. It’s hard for me as a pediatrician because this is where the judgment is. It’s like, dude, what does it matter to you what someone else is doing with their kid when their kid is an awesome kid?

 

00;26;31;06 – 00;26;57;23

Dr. Mona

Like, you’re, I don’t even know your son, but I can guarantee you that he’s awesome because you seem like a very loving human being. Yeah. And so it’s like, to me, I just I’m like, what’s what’s the point? Like, I, I don’t feel judgment because I know what I’m doing. Does that make sense? Like, I know I’m not harming him, but I get I get a little defensive for all the mothers out there who choose a method, they’re kind of wishy washy and they get people on social media or their friends saying, you’re a horrible mother.

 

00;26;57;24 – 00;27;10;08

Dr. Mona

You. I can’t believe you just ruined your child. He’s going to end up, you know, in awful things, like, they say awful things. I don’t want to say it, but like, this kid is going to end up in like, situations that are on the news. And I’m like, this is just so mean. Like, I.

 

00;27;10;08 – 00;27;14;05

Lauren

Cried it out as a child, and I would like to think that I’m a pretty well-adjusted adult.

 

00;27;14;05 – 00;27;17;29

Dr. Mona

Yes. And so, yeah, I agree, I think and I don’t.

 

00;27;17;29 – 00;27;37;18

Lauren

And I don’t sit here and say, you know, I’m so angry at the world because my parents made me cry it out when I was an infant, you know, in fact, when we were going to preschool, he, before Covid 19, even his teacher said he’s just the happiest, most laid back, harmless kid. And I think that’s just part of his personality.

 

00;27;37;20 – 00;27;45;18

Lauren

But I also think, again, he comes from a loving, caring home where everything that we’re doing is coming from a place of love.

 

00;27;45;20 – 00;27;52;29

Dr. Mona

And going back and briefly before we wrap up the bedtime routine, what did you guys do with your bedtime routine? I’m curious. Or did you do a bedtime routine?

 

00;27;53;03 – 00;28;02;19

Lauren

So we just did teeth brushing. We read two books in the rocking chair, and then sang songs, and then we kissed him and put him in his bed and said, good night.

 

00;28;02;23 – 00;28;22;11

Dr. Mona

What I want people to hear. And that’s why I’m happy you said that. Because there’s a stigma or like a misconception. I should say that it’s literally this callous situation where you’re dropping the baby and walking out the door. It’s there’s a process. And we did the same thing I actually do a really long bedtime routine because I have an exhausting day at work, and I it’s my it’s my relaxing time.

 

00;28;22;16 – 00;28;41;02

Dr. Mona

So it’s literally maybe some days are shorter, but usually it’s anywhere from 30 minutes to 45 minutes because I want that. It’s not for him, but it’s it’s to me, it’s such an enduring time. Like, you know, like you said, I reach a bad time bottle and then I have to give a medicine. And then we reread and I talk to him for like ten minutes, and I just tell him about my day.

 

00;28;41;04 – 00;28;55;19

Dr. Mona

He, like, looks around like, what the heck is this lady doing? And then I yeah, I snuggle, I use my little like, portable rocker and then I, I like, I said, I put him down, I give him a kiss, I like lean over the side of the crib, I jump and I give him a kiss. And I say, I love you, sweetheart.

 

00;28;55;19 – 00;29;12;05

Dr. Mona

And I walk out and he looks at me like mama. And he’s so sweet. And it’s it’s such a beautiful thing now. Because when I do that and we watch him on the monitor the minute we come out and how easy it is for him to go down now. And he literally does like a two minute, like rocking back and forth and then he’s down.

 

00;29;12;05 – 00;29;27;22

Dr. Mona

And I’m just so proud of him. Like, and I know you’re proud of your children to like seeing them do that. And I really appreciate you sharing that message with me because if someone does find this method to be the method they choose, I don’t want them to feel like they caused any damage because, hey, I did it.

 

00;29;27;29 – 00;29;33;16

Dr. Mona

You did it right? Thousands of people are doing it. Maybe they’re not the ones telling people on social media.

 

00;29;33;18 – 00;29;52;10

Lauren

And that’s the thing is, I think a lot of people there’s because there’s a stigma with it. A lot of people aren’t speaking up and saying that their that’s what they’ve done or that’s the method that worked for them. And again, not every kid is the same. It’s a not it’s not a one size fits all. So what works for me and my family may not work for another mother and her family.

 

00;29;52;10 – 00;29;54;00

Lauren

And that’s okay.

 

00;29;54;02 – 00;30;02;22

Dr. Mona

Well, I wanted you to give a final message, but that sounds like a really good final message to me. Is there anything else that you would say, like in terms of for anyone listening? And,

 

00;30;02;24 – 00;30;19;24

Lauren

I would definitely say one, if you’re a mother who’s struggling with a baby who isn’t sleeping, you’re not alone. And it’s all just a phase and two, it’s okay to try. And if it doesn’t work for you to try another method. But once you do think that you are making progress, keep at it. Even if it’s a little hard.

 

00;30;19;27 – 00;30;23;01

Lauren

Keep trying. You’ll get there at some point. They all sleep.

 

00;30;23;04 – 00;30;43;01

Dr. Mona

Exactly, and at some point they all sleep. And that final you mentioned this in the in in our conversation that as the no one is sitting around as 20, 30 year olds talking about how we were sleep trained when we were younger. So for us to be debating this back and forth and saying, you’re depriving, you’re doing this at, at I’m like, no one is asking at a job interview.

 

00;30;43;01 – 00;30;58;11

Dr. Mona

Will, how did your mother sleep train you? No one is asking these questions. So it really is up to the family to decide what’s best for them, what’s best for the child. And like you said, beautifully changing it up. If it’s not free, if it’s not the method that works. And I think that’s such a such a beautiful message.

 

00;30;58;14 – 00;31;06;00

Dr. Mona

Look, you gave me such amazing information and such good insight. I cannot thank you enough, Lauren, for being.

 

00;31;06;02 – 00;31;06;29

Lauren

Oh you’re welcome.

 

00;31;07;00 – 00;31;07;09

Dr. Mona

I.

 

00;31;07;09 – 00;31;12;02

Lauren

Love thank you. I’m I’m very big on sleep training. So this was very fun to talk about.

 

00;31;12;02 – 00;31;27;12

Dr. Mona

And I really appreciate you opening up about the method because like you said, it’s the least talked about method. And it is just a method that I do see work for many families. So I appreciate you, coming on and talking about it and obviously, you know, sharing, sharing the airwaves with me today.

 

00;31;27;14 – 00;31;45;11

Lauren

Yeah. And thanks for having me. This is kind of neat. And, thank you for everything that you do with you are a pediatrician, a mother, and you’re adding, you know, all of this to your huge basket. I don’t know how you do it all, but we all really appreciate it as mothers. So thank you very, very much.

 

00;31;45;11 – 00;32;01;08

Dr. Mona

No, no, I will do another episode on how I handle it all. I see it’s a whole episode. Just kidding. But I really appreciate you. It’s super fun for me. I, you know, kind of going a little tangent again. The reason I started this was because of all this sort of. But why this? Why can’t I do this?

 

00;32;01;08 – 00;32;10;29

Dr. Mona

Done it. I’m like, guys, I’m going to tell you how it really is and how, you know, it doesn’t have to be so much, well, you’re doing bad. You’re doing this like it’s it doesn’t have to be so divisive.

 

00;32;11;04 – 00;32;11;29

Lauren

Like, no, it.

 

00;32;11;29 – 00;32;28;03

Dr. Mona

Doesn’t have to be like, we’re all, I know a lot of mothers are listening, but we’re all a lot. We’re all mothers. We’re all. We all want the best for our children, but it really needs to be. There just seems to be so much less. You are doing this bad and you suck. And I’m like, we’re women. We should support each other and this needs to stop.

 

00;32;28;05 – 00;32;30;24

Dr. Mona

We’re all doing our best. Yes. Yeah. As long as you’re doing your.

 

00;32;30;24 – 00;32;31;24

Lauren

Best, you’re doing a great job.

 

00;32;31;25 – 00;32;34;17

Dr. Mona

Exactly. Lauren, thank you so much again.

 

00;32;34;19 – 00;32;35;26

Lauren

Thank you for having me.

 

00;32;35;28 – 00;32;57;25

Dr. Mona

So the next mom I have is Miriam, and she’s actually a very special guest because she’s also a pediatrician, which I think is super cool that she responded to me when I requested moms, for this episode. So it’s going to be nice to hear her perspective as a fellow pediatrician and a mother. And she’s going to be talking about Ferber method, which is a very popular method, that I also support.

 

00;32;57;25 – 00;33;00;11

Dr. Mona

So thank you, Miriam, for being here and being with us today.

 

00;33;00;17 – 00;33;02;18

Dominika

Cause thank you for having me.

 

00;33;02;20 – 00;33;04;23

Dr. Mona

So how old is your child? Right now?

 

00;33;05;00 – 00;33;06;21

Dominika

She just turned two.

 

00;33;06;23 – 00;33;12;04

Dr. Mona

Two. Okay. And so how old was she when you decided that you wanted to do the Ferber method of sleep training?

 

00;33;12;04 – 00;33;20;18

Dominika

She was three months, and she was actually born five and a half weeks early. So kind of significant in the grand scheme of things.

 

00;33;20;23 – 00;33;33;03

Dr. Mona

And what was the reason that you decided that it was the right time for her? Obviously I know your pediatrician too, but was there kind of a reasoning when you were like, you know what, I want to do it now. I don’t want to wait. What was the reasoning behind that?

 

00;33;33;05 – 00;33;56;05

Dominika

So it was somewhat selfish in a sense. That it was the weekend before I was going back to work and I had my baby early, which basically ended my residency. She was born right at the end of my third year of residency, and I was going to be doing a chief resident here, which is a pretty grueling year, and was going to be very busy when I went to start back to work.

 

00;33;56;05 – 00;34;11;28

Dominika

And I was also going to be studying for my pediatric board exam that was going to be in October, which was, you know, a handful of months later. And I just thought to myself, If I’m not sleeping, I’m not going to pass my boards, I’m not going to do all my job, nobody’s going to be happy. And we all just need to sleep.

 

00;34;12;00 – 00;34;20;27

Dr. Mona

And how how did it kind of go, like, if you can? I know it’s been a few years, but how did it kind of go? Night. My night. Do you remember kind of the scenario.

 

00;34;21;00 – 00;34;43;19

Dominika

Yeah. So we did Ferber. So basically a modified cried out where you let them cry and extended intervals, you go in, for a minute and comfort them. And then if they’re still crying, you leave regardless. So the first night we let her cry for five minutes. We went in for a minute, laughed, and then let her cry for seven minutes, went in for a minute, laughed and then let her cry for nine minutes.

 

00;34;43;19 – 00;34;58;17

Dominika

And that was going to be every interval was going to be nine minutes. The first, time we went in there and we had to leave when she was still crying, I lost it and said to my husband, you have to go in again because work, it’s not going to happen. If I’m going, it has to go in.

 

00;34;58;19 – 00;35;01;10

Dominika

So I think that’s part of why we were successful.

 

00;35;01;28 – 00;35;17;26

Dr. Mona

Did you? So I’m happy also that you’re a pediatrician because I know you probably give all this advice to your patients, too, like I do, which is. Which is great. Was it did you have to do, like, a bedtime routine to get her super drowsy, or did you let her, like, is it basically you set her down at a same time every night?

 

00;35;18;01 – 00;35;21;21

Dr. Mona

How did you approach the timing of when you laid her down?

 

00;35;21;23 – 00;35;42;19

Dominika

So we started with a bedtime routine pretty strictly, I would say, at least 4 to 6 weeks prior to that. Just keeping lights low stimulation while doing the same thing every night so she would know that bedtime was coming. But we did have to, like, rock her to sleep, soothe her to sleep. She was not able to put herself to sleep at that point.

 

00;35;43;01 – 00;35;55;03

Dominika

So I knew we were going to have to intervene in some way. And she also had never gone more than five hours stretches of sleeping before waking up again, regardless if she was hungry or not, she would just wake up.

 

00;35;55;05 – 00;36;17;13

Dr. Mona

And, in terms of so you talked about that that first night and you had to, you know, you talk to your partner about like, you know, that’s actually, we’ll get into that. But that is a huge, huge comment that I agree with, that sometimes the parent that is less, you know, less likely to kind of break that sort of, agreement that you have is the one who should be, you know, obviously taking a step back if they’re going to if they’re going to jump too soon.

 

00;36;18;04 – 00;36;21;23

Dr. Mona

How many nights did it take for this to kind of set in? Would you say.

 

00;36;21;25 – 00;36;22;23

Dominika

3 to 4.

 

00;36;22;26 – 00;36;39;00

Dr. Mona

3 to 4. Night number two. Again, because I this is a lot of people listening may not know about Ferber. Night number two, did you start the minute interval where you left off the night before? So just say, you know, you got to ten minutes. Did you start at now ten minutes set on night two or did you start from the beginning.

 

00;36;39;00 – 00;36;44;25

Dominika

So we did five, seven, nine the first night. And then we did six, eight, ten the second night.

 

00;36;44;28 – 00;37;00;17

Dr. Mona

Perfect. Yeah. And that’s you know, a lot I’m talking about Ferber in a different episode, but I love when obviously other mothers are talking about it too. And that was done obviously 3 to 4 nights. Did you also deal with, you know, regressions where you had to sleep, train her in the same method?

 

00;37;00;20 – 00;37;21;08

Dominika

No, we actually got very lucky. She never went through a regression. The only time she really, would wake up in the middle of the night was when she was sick. And then, you know, the rules kind of go out the window when they’re sick. But she never went through a regression, which I know is somewhat rare. A lot of babies do when they’re, you know, meeting new developmental milestones.

 

00;37;21;10 – 00;37;23;13

Dominika

But, yeah, we never had to deal with that.

 

00;37;23;20 – 00;37;41;16

Dr. Mona

That’s awesome. No, I and I talk about regressions in another episode, too, because I think there’s there’s a fear. If you fear it, then it becomes an issue. And I’m seeing it like this. And maybe you agree that when parents come to me in my office and they’re like, oh my gosh, I’m so worried about this going to happen, I’m like, well, then if you’re worrying about it, you’re almost willing it to happen.

 

00;37;41;16 – 00;38;07;14

Dr. Mona

But if you just kind of go flow, like you’re just going to deal with it as it comes, rather than fearing it as a four month regression or fearing it as an 18 month regression when it’s actually life, right? Like everyone’s going through ups and downs and having to retrain whatever it is. And we. So you brought up a really good point that I want to talk about that you sleep trained, your daughter at around three months and she adjusted for age because of her baby about two months.

 

00;38;08;03 – 00;38;15;06

Dr. Mona

Did you get any judgment about that? Because I also sleep train ride very early, and I’ll mention that. But did you get any judgment or. No.

 

00;38;15;08 – 00;38;39;20

Dominika

You know, I don’t think I did just because I am a pediatrician. And I think that judging me, you know, they assume that I know what’s best. I knew that it might not work. I know that generally, if you read all the books, most of them are going to say John Trooper for six months. Some will say you can do it as early as four months, but really none are going to tell you to do it before four months.

 

00;38;40;01 – 00;38;52;07

Dominika

It was really a mentor of mine in residency who did it at 4 or 5 months. To his daughter and, and when I was pregnant, said sleep trainer kid had three months. Do it before you go back to work. It’s possible.

 

00;38;52;10 – 00;38;52;27

Dr. Mona

Yes.

 

00;38;52;27 – 00;39;10;23

Dominika

So I was I had that in my ear and I was like, okay, well my, you know, she was premature. But at that point she was healthy doing everything she was supposed to do. She was, you know, over at like 12 pounds or so. She was big enough and she didn’t need that nighttime feeding anymore. So was like, why not?

 

00;39;10;23 – 00;39;12;00

Dominika

Let’s try it.

 

00;39;12;02 – 00;39;29;08

Dr. Mona

And so yeah, I and so I used to work at a private practice in New York City and I can’t name names, but I used to. You can look it up, but I work at a private practice who sleep train babies at two months. It was huge. And it was this controversial thing. And everyone who came to this practice knew that they’re going to talk about sleep training at two months.

 

00;39;29;08 – 00;39;44;25

Dr. Mona

And it was I saw it work so well. And so when we had Orion, and obviously I was working there for two years and I was like, wow, okay, all these babies are sleeping through the night and it’s amazing. So all these babies were doing well. The parents were happy and the children were developing and obviously securely attached.

 

00;39;44;25 – 00;39;58;11

Dr. Mona

All the things that people are worried about with crime methods. Right. So when we had Ryan, my husband was like, when are we going to be able to sleep train? I’m like, whoa, let’s. Meaning this is actually when I was pregnant, right? And then I know you follow me on Instagram. Then we had our birth trauma and then he had some issues.

 

00;39;58;11 – 00;40;18;26

Dr. Mona

So obviously the talk never came because we were like, let’s see how it goes. And we made the decision to do it so early. At two months we did because he was already stretching feeds about eight hours. So in our eyes we were like, look, if he’s already stretching, it’s going to be that extra few like 3 or 4 hours to get him to that full, you know, 11 to 12 hours.

 

00;40;19;00 – 00;40;33;29

Dr. Mona

Let’s try it and use it. It perfectly that the the partners have to be on the same page. And you have to kind of decide who’s going to be who’s it going to be harder for. It was actually harder for my husband. I knew like you that I wasn’t harming him. I knew that, you know, this was going to be fine.

 

00;40;33;29 – 00;40;54;24

Dr. Mona

So I actually did it when my husband was at work in the evenings, because the crying happened more at the beginning of the night, and then the rest of the night. He was fine because he wasn’t used to that first four hours where he’s like, wait, I’m supposed to be up now at 9:00 or 10:00? But you know, the two points that I’m happy we’re talking about is this controversy over how soon can you do it.

 

00;40;54;24 – 00;41;17;04

Dr. Mona

And I know people are like, oh my gosh, that’s so early. I have seen many babies be successfully sleep trained as early as two months, and it’s because of where I used to work. Now, would I say that every kid could get that? Probably not. If they’re like feeding continuously through the night or if there’s, you know, medical issues or whatever it may be, but I think, you know, there’s not a lot of research on two months and sleep training.

 

00;41;17;04 – 00;41;18;26

Dr. Mona

So a lot of it’s based on our experience.

 

00;41;18;28 – 00;41;20;14

Dominika

And like you said, your.

 

00;41;20;18 – 00;41;38;12

Dr. Mona

Mentor who said, look, I see things happen. And that’s kind of where I’m coming from, too, right? That I’m making those judgment calls. Honestly, no evidence on whether it’s sleep or not. It’s just knowing that these kids are turning out awesome ten, 15 years down the line. No one knows or cares how you were sleep trained.

 

00;41;38;14 – 00;42;00;19

Dominika

Exactly. And I think, you know, you know, we go through our training and we take these exams and sleep training is never going to be on an exam. It’s never going to be part of the literature that, you know, we have to learn to get to the next phase in our career. But it’s such an important thing that we need to know to help guide other people in this process.

 

00;42;01;15 – 00;42;25;15

Dominika

You know, I’ve helped friends do it just because they saw how well my daughter was sleeping. And and I think, you know, there is a lot of research out there that supports, child with healthy sleep habits and how, you know, it’s developmentally beneficial to the child. It’s it’s good for the parents mental health, you know, decreases postpartum depression.

 

00;42;25;17 – 00;42;47;14

Dominika

There’s so many benefits to having a child who has a, healthy relationship with sleep. And I think doing it sooner rather than later is helpful in the sense, there’s less, you know, bad learn behaviors, you know, that, like, it’s it’s hard to do it once a child can go from the lane to sitting position because then they don’t want to go, you know, back to lay down again.

 

00;42;47;14 – 00;43;05;16

Dominika

They keep themselves up longer. So I think that there’s not one right time for every child. But I think that bringing it up and talking about and having that discussion and letting parents be like, oh, like maybe they are ready because they’re doing this, this and this, is really important.

 

00;43;05;18 – 00;43;27;22

Dr. Mona

Yeah, absolutely. And I you know, I’m loving that we’re able to connect also because like I said earlier that we’re both pediatrician and moms as well. But the, you know, the the timing and the decision on how you do it is so parent based. Right. And I, I also like that sweet spot. So I don’t tell every family to do two months that those are only families that come to me and they’re like, look, I’m exhausted and my kids are doing this.

 

00;43;27;22 – 00;43;43;19

Dr. Mona

What do you think? And I’m like, look, if you want to do it, I, you know, but it’s it’s important for families to hear all this, right? Because there are so many families listening that I’m sure that are thinking, oh, how can I want to sleep train my kid at three months? But, you know, I’m hearing this or the other.

 

00;43;43;24 – 00;44;01;05

Dr. Mona

It’s good. Obviously, if they’re gaining weight appropriately, like, you know, tracking on their percentiles, obviously I don’t want them dropping or having severe reflux or, you know, other medical issues, but it is a possibility to consider. And I you know, you also mentioned about I asked you about judgment judgments. An interesting thing because I also don’t get judgment.

 

00;44;01;05 – 00;44;19;06

Dr. Mona

And I think I don’t get judgment because I don’t feel judgment because I’m a pediatrician. I know you people feel judgment if they’re insecure about their decisions. So and it’s an interesting question, because you just said it perfectly that, no, I didn’t feel judgment because you knew as a pediatrician that you’re doing everything in the right way and that you’re a loving mother.

 

00;44;19;13 – 00;44;35;25

Dr. Mona

So that’s what I hope people are understanding from this conversation that whatever you choose, whether you want to delay it a little bit or do it or whatever method you choose, if it’s your decision, stick with it. And don’t let anyone tell you that it’s, you know, not not a good one, because that is kind of where it comes from, right?

 

00;44;35;25 – 00;44;49;24

Dr. Mona

Judgment. Because if you’re if you’re like, you know, I’m doing the best thing I can with the information and resources I have, then you’re not going to feel that that, that that level of, you know, oh, wow. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. So I completely agree with you, Mary. I’m. I’m so happy we talked about this.

 

00;44;49;24 – 00;45;12;10

Dominika

Yeah. And I and I also believe that, doing it at a young age creates a healthy relationship with slate for the child because you don’t have that, that constant battle. So, like, you know, my daughter will will do like a fun bedtime routine. My husband, like, made up this big, like, big jump thing where they go all across the second floor of our house before we put her in her crib.

 

00;45;12;10 – 00;45;34;10

Dominika

And it’s like the most exciting part of the day. And then she just goes to sleep and she has her stuffed animals. And then when she wakes up in the morning, she’s not crying. She’s just like kind of playing in her front till we get her up. And she’s been like that since she was three months old. You know, I just don’t have the stuffed animals in there when she was really little, but but she, but she would just kind of lay there and, like, you know, make noises.

 

00;45;34;10 – 00;45;47;15

Dominika

But she’s never been upset in her crib, and I, I’m just a believer that that’s because she kind of learned how to sleep at an early age. And it’s a good experience. It’s not a negative experience. So it is.

 

00;45;47;20 – 00;46;04;13

Dr. Mona

A beautiful thing watching your kid love sleep, right? Meaning it’s and like you said, perfectly like I on my videos, on my Insta story, Ryan always wakes up with the biggest smile on his face because he’s sleeping 11 hours, right? So he is sleeping 11 hours. So of course you’re going to wake up with a smile on your face.

 

00;46;04;13 – 00;46;21;10

Dr. Mona

I wake up with a smile on my face if I slept 11 years. But it’s it is possible. And you’re right that I. I love this mirror because it is a skill and it is something that you’re not. You know, I know the anti sleep training again things that kids need to be attached to as they can’t learn this skill.

 

00;46;21;10 – 00;46;39;23

Dr. Mona

I disagree. I think children are super capable and they understand that sleep is for sleep and daytime is for the, you know, back and forth with the parents, right? You’re never going to leave your kid crying for hours or 40 minutes in the middle of the day, you know, like that’s different. This is not this is this is boundary setting with sleep.

 

00;46;39;23 – 00;47;02;03

Dr. Mona

And it’s a skill. And I love it. Like I think it’s so it’s beautiful to watch because when you get to the other side you’re like wow. And you’re like he does this like, you know, two minute, five minute routine where he kind of like, you know, rocks himself and then he finally poop. And that’s after, like you said, a 20, 30 minute whole bedtime routine that I do every night, you know, so he’s getting that connection like you do with your daughter.

 

00;47;02;03 – 00;47;18;22

Dr. Mona

And then it’s finally like, I love you, sweetheart. And then he goes in the crib and he’s like, okay, time for bed. It’s awesome. I watch it on the monitor every night because I’m just so amazed. Yeah, I’m just really amazed with what he’s capable of doing. And he’s they’re smart and they know that this is not anything more than just.

 

00;47;18;22 – 00;47;21;08

Dr. Mona

Okay, it’s bedtime. Time to go to bed.

 

00;47;21;10 – 00;47;39;14

Dominika

Exactly when I know as like as on the pediatrician side, I always bring it up when parents. You know, I always talk about sleep a lot at two months, because I think two months is a really good time to get into that routine. Not, you know, you don’t have to sleep train at two months, but doing the same thing every night, keeping lights low, keeping stimulation.

 

00;47;39;14 – 00;48;02;24

Dominika

No, kind of identifying those tired cues to know when your baby needs to go to sleep because everybody’s like, oh, when should they be going to sleep? And, you know, not every kid is going to be on the exact same time. But kind of noticing when your child is sleepy is the most important part. And I kind of like put it in their head about, you know, these are things you can do as they get a little bit older once they’re ready.

 

00;48;02;27 – 00;48;17;19

Dominika

So that way it’s at least in their head and they haven’t. If they haven’t done anything, they come back at four months and they’re like, okay, I know you talked about sleep like something about that. Like we need to start sleeping. Let’s talk about it because I want them to know at two months like this isn’t going to last forever.

 

00;48;17;22 – 00;48;37;05

Dominika

Let’s get into some good habits and there is something we can do about it. If you’re not ready to do it between now and the four month visit, then four months is a great time to do it as well. And at least it’s not going to be something that I just, you know, mentioned out of nowhere they’ve at least thought about, oh, maybe we do need to sleep more.

 

00;48;37;06 – 00;48;59;14

Dominika

Maybe my child that doesn’t need just to feed in the middle of the night. They weigh, you know, 14 pounds and they’re feeding really well during the day. So that’s kind of how I like to do it, to kind of like just slide it in there and then kind of gauge how ready they are, because I don’t think you can be successful if the parent is not ready, because the most important part of sleep training is consistency and sticking with it.

 

00;49;00;02 – 00;49;03;08

Dominika

The second you kind of deviate from that, it’s over.

 

00;49;03;10 – 00;49;21;03

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the philosophy behind sleep that I learned comes from a lot of French philosophy that, you’re right, goes into the first trimester or the fourth trimester, or about how we approach baby sleep in the first, you know, first three months of life, meaning taking a pause before you react, learning their sleep cues.

 

00;49;21;03 – 00;49;42;01

Dr. Mona

And I agree, because if you can do that, you may not even need like, you may get a kid like that. Sleep for longer stretches because you set up the sleep cues. And I love that you put that into the family’s heads, you know, at the two month, because it’s important for them to look at those cues as important it is to engage with your child, like the sleep, hunger and play cues are so important.

 

00;49;42;01 – 00;50;00;21

Dr. Mona

And if you read that, then you may not even need to do a lot of training because for Ryan, he didn’t cry a lot. He actually didn’t cry a lot because we had done these tips before. And you said it perfectly. That bedtime routine, the lights dim month before we actually did the training because that was part of our routine and it primes their body for sleep.

 

00;50;00;21 – 00;50;19;29

Dr. Mona

And it’s it’s a pretty, pretty fascinating thing. I think infant sleep is so, so interesting. And obviously having done it, it’s like it’s interesting now to see him go through as he gets older and how he how he handles sleep like a champ. And I know it’s hard, not easy for all families, but what would be your final message to, you know, any parents listening?

 

00;50;19;29 – 00;50;24;15

Dr. Mona

You kind of gave so many amazing people throughout this conversation, but what would be your take home?

 

00;50;24;18 – 00;50;44;04

Dominika

I would say that, kind of really check in with yourself to see how important this is. And, you know, when I did it, it was textbook where every night she cried like the crying was cut in half. And, you know, we did it. Within four days, she was going down, maybe whimpering for 30s. And that was quiet before she went to sleep.

 

00;50;44;04 – 00;51;10;05

Dominika

So I was really nervous. I didn’t want to hear my child cry, but after seeing how amazing it went and how easy it really ended up being, and then the amazing relationship she has with her crib and sleep now it’s the best thing we ever did. I mean, we’re having our second in the fall and as soon as they’re ready, probably at three months again, that kid’s going to get sleep trained because I just think it was one of the best things we did.

 

00;51;10;05 – 00;51;22;18

Dominika

And, but I do feel like the parents need to feel ready, and really need to be all in on it in order for it to be as painless as possible.

 

00;51;22;20 – 00;51;41;07

Dr. Mona

Yeah, and you said it. Consistency between consistent consistency in the method that’s chosen and the consistency between all care too. Exactly. And you said you said that beautifully in the episode because or in the conversation. Because if one like if one parent caves in, then that’s fine, you can cave, but then you have to just reset. Just take a break and try it again later.

 

00;51;41;07 – 00;51;44;06

Dr. Mona

Right? You don’t want to commit to it if you’re just not ready. I love.

 

00;51;44;06 – 00;51;44;20

Dominika

That.

 

00;51;44;22 – 00;52;02;28

Dr. Mona

Mary. I wish we could talk. We could do a whole episode talking about this, but, I really appreciate your perspective. It’s super nice. Like I said, being a mom, obviously, and as a pediatrician, because I know you give this advice, day in and day out. So rather than, people just hearing from one pediatrician, they get to hear from two, which I think is super cool.

 

00;52;03;04 – 00;52;08;02

Dr. Mona

And I wish you the best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy. And, hoping, hoping you get some sleep.

 

00;52;08;02 – 00;52;10;19

Dominika

Yes. Thank you so much. So nice talking with you.

 

00;52;10;22 – 00;52;29;08

Dr. Mona

So our next mom is Hope. And Hope has a two and a half year old son, and she did a cried method, initially. And then later when her son went through a regression later, in toddler years, she actually did a more, gradual or gentler method that didn’t involve as much crying. So hope, thank you for being here.

 

00;52;29;10 – 00;52;30;25

Dominika

Thank you for having me.

 

00;52;30;27 – 00;52;39;03

Dr. Mona

So let’s talk about when your son was more in that infancy period. How old was he, when you did the sleep training the first time?

 

00;52;39;14 – 00;52;41;29

Dominika

So he is around seven and a half months.

 

00;52;42;01 – 00;52;47;00

Dr. Mona

Okay. And why did you decide at that point that you were ready to do the sleep training?

 

00;52;47;02 – 00;52;58;01

Dominika

So, we were living in a one bedroom apartment up until that point. So when we moved and he got his own room, we were pretty ready to have him, to start sleep training at that point.

 

00;52;58;03 – 00;53;12;01

Dr. Mona

Okay. And when you did it at that point, obviously, if you can describe if you remember, I know it’s been like, you know, over a year. But if you can describe how it kind of went, night by night or just general, if you can remember, like just general details.

 

00;53;12;03 – 00;53;37;18

Dominika

Sure. So, we did, kind of a method where we would put him down, drowsy me. But not asleep. And check on him, every few minutes, like, gradually, until he was sleeping. If the first few nights he did cry a lot. But it was it as bad as, like, I’ve heard, like two hours or something like that.

 

00;53;37;18 – 00;53;46;03

Dominika

Like it was maybe like 20, 30 minutes. And then he would fall, like, instantly asleep. And then it did get better as the nights went on.

 

00;53;46;06 – 00;53;53;06

Dr. Mona

So, if you can remember, did he was he what’s the longest stretch he was doing at night at that point between feeds?

 

00;53;53;26 – 00;54;06;23

Dominika

So he was doing at that point, by the time we get started sleep training, he would get one feed between like, three and 4 a.m.. So he went to bed around like 7 or 730.

 

00;54;06;25 – 00;54;12;06

Dr. Mona

Okay. And to 730 he went to bed and then got one feeding in three, four and then would wake up at seven.

 

00;54;12;08 – 00;54;14;05

Dominika

Yeah. Right around that time. Okay.

 

00;54;14;05 – 00;54;25;25

Dr. Mona

And so when you did this, this method, you said that you allowed for you allowed for some crying before you went in or you did check ins where you were by his side even before he started crying.

 

00;54;25;29 – 00;54;31;16

Dominika

So we allowed for crying before. Okay. We were leave for like, a certain amount of time and then, yes, come back.

 

00;54;31;16 – 00;54;47;25

Dr. Mona

So kind of like the Ferber method. Yeah. Well, good. Yeah. I just want to make clear because, there’s there’s the Ferber method, which is what you just described. And then there’s also some people do something different, which is not, official method, where they basically stay by the child for a, for a period of time, even if they’re not crying.

 

00;54;48;02 – 00;54;53;28

Dr. Mona

And then they leave and it’s, it’s a little backwards. But so you did allow for some crying and graduated in like, gradual increments.

 

00;54;53;28 – 00;54;55;19

Dominika

Yeah. We left there. Okay. Yeah.

 

00;54;55;20 – 00;54;59;05

Dr. Mona

So how many how many nights do you think that took to kind of set in?

 

00;54;59;19 – 00;55;00;07

Lauren

It was probably.

 

00;55;00;07 – 00;55;02;05

Dominika

Around like 3 or 4 nights.

 

00;55;02;07 – 00;55;18;05

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And that’s, you know, I have actually been hearing that consistently, anywhere from 3 to 4 nights sometimes, sometimes a week. I’ve heard, with the Ferber. And how long did that last for? Meaning where you kind of saw that this was his new sleep rhythm, and he was, you know, doing doing this pretty much every night.

 

00;55;19;11 – 00;55;40;24

Dominika

So probably he right around 12 months, he had a big regression. And that’s when we kind of had to just, like, throw away sleep train for a little bit and just, like, survive. And he was waking up a lot at night, and we were doing more of, like, rocking him and just trying to get all of us to have more sleep.

 

00;55;40;26 – 00;55;51;03

Dr. Mona

And at that point. So when you did it at one year, plus, how did it look like then? Because you kind of said it obviously wasn’t the as much of the Crying method, but what did you do differently this time around?

 

00;55;51;07 – 00;55;59;26

Dominika

Yeah. So we we did like a few months where we were. He wasn’t like after like the initial regression, maybe like a week. He was waking up a couple times at night.

 

00;56;00;06 – 00;56;00;09

Lauren

And.

 

00;56;00;09 – 00;56;16;25

Dominika

Yeah, yeah, he was, he was pretty much sleeping mostly through the night. Sometimes he would wake up at like 5 a.m., and I might have nursed him just to go back to sleep. And then another hour or two. But he was pretty much still sleeping. It was just the going to sleep. What? He was fighting bedtime at that point.

 

00;56;16;25 – 00;56;35;25

Dominika

More so, so for a couple months, we kind of just didn’t sleep train at all. And we were my husband and I were either rocking him to sleep, and then we decided that he needed to be able to, fall asleep on his own, as he was previously. So that’s when we started, like, a more gradual method.

 

00;56;35;27 – 00;56;39;01

Dr. Mona

Okay. And, what did that kind of look like?

 

00;56;39;03 – 00;56;58;24

Dominika

So we did, we would he would still be. We would, have his routine, and, we sang the song and rocked him and all that. Right. And books. And then we put him down in his crib awake, and we would rub his back for a little bit. And so we sat in his room and we started sitting, like, right next to the crib where he could see us.

 

00;56;58;24 – 00;57;14;13

Dominika

And he was at a point then where he like, I mean, he was probably 16, 17 months. So he like, knew what was going on more than it would. And then we would slowly like, move back every couple days or even like sometimes I would sit there for five minutes and, like, inch my way to the door.

 

00;57;14;28 – 00;57;36;26

Dominika

And then he at first, like, got upset a little bit. But he would slowly, get used to us moving away and he would fall asleep on his own, and he wasn’t falling asleep right away. He that’s when he would start, I think around like 17, 18 months is when he would sit in his crib for like ten, 20 minutes and talk to himself for a while before he actually went to sleep.

 

00;57;36;29 – 00;57;43;14

Dr. Mona

So when you did that sort of gradual moving away from him, right. So you started off with like kind of he said you started off with kind of patting him.

 

00;57;43;16 – 00;57;46;15

Dominika

Yeah, just like rocking back. If he was upset, like sitting there.

 

00;57;46;21 – 00;57;53;03

Dr. Mona

So how many would you do that for? Like, is that what you did for a few nights? And then you moved to sitting by a chair by the crib, and then you moved to near the door.

 

00;57;53;15 – 00;58;07;20

Dominika

So I think what we did was we would like pat his back and sit in the room and, and then. Yeah. So we would start like right next to the crib that first, the first few nights and then slowly move away. And then like, I started like farther away. I don’t think I was actually sitting in a chair.

 

00;58;07;20 – 00;58;19;20

Dominika

I was sitting on the floor and like, scooting farther away. Yeah. So it was like every few days I would start like farther away from him, than I had, like the previous night, I see.

 

00;58;19;21 – 00;58;26;18

Dr. Mona

Yeah, yeah. Okay. And did he have any medical questions? So in one night you would eventually leave the room, right?

 

00;58;26;18 – 00;58;27;15

Dominika

Yeah.

 

00;58;27;17 – 00;58;31;10

Dr. Mona

So was there nights where he would wake back up and you have to go back inside?

 

00;58;31;28 – 00;58;43;08

Dominika

We’re not realizing really waking up at that point. Maybe like the first month or two, like after he turned 18 months, he. Unless something was wrong, he wasn’t really waking up in the middle of the night.

 

00;58;43;10 – 00;58;59;04

Dr. Mona

You bring up a good point because I. Yeah, because I’m asking because in the toddler years I find that if the if there’s sleep concerns, there’s usually more of issues in the beginning of the night, which is what you kind of saw, like getting himself to go down. And then once they’re down, they tend to sleep through the night.

 

00;58;59;04 – 00;59;04;18

Dr. Mona

And that’s why I’m asking, like, if you had if you had like middle of the night waking like you did when you were, you know, he was an infant.

 

00;59;04;18 – 00;59;08;23

Dominika

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like, unless, like he was sick or like.

 

00;59;08;27 – 00;59;09;12

Dr. Mona

Of course.

 

00;59;09;12 – 00;59;15;16

Dominika

Something like that. I don’t, I don’t remember, like, specific, issues of waking up.

 

00;59;15;18 – 00;59;31;29

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And that’s kind of why I like, I mean, again, everyone has their own beliefs on sleep training and when to do it and whatnot. I like sleep training as a pediatrician for many reasons, but I like it because when you do it, you can kind of know, like you said, well, of course when he when he wakes up, you know, that something might be up, right?

 

00;59;32;19 – 00;59;47;24

Dr. Mona

Teething sickness, whatever it may be, when you know that that’s the routine and all of a sudden you’re like, whoa, you might want, you know, you’ll go and check in. So this is great. I love that you obviously talked about the fact that you did one method and then had to switch, because I think parents sometimes don’t remember that.

 

00;59;47;24 – 01;00;07;12

Dr. Mona

They think that, oh, well, I can do the same thing the same time, same age. But you might want to adapt based on your comfort and your child’s comfort. How did each of those methods make you feel like? Did you have like, you know, especially with the crying method and even with the other one, did you find one harder than the other or they’re, you know, they were equally the same.

 

01;00;07;26 – 01;00;23;15

Dominika

I think they’re hard in different ways. My method, like, I got really anxious when he was really upset. And like, even sometimes I remember, like, I would step out on, like, the back porch and my husband would be like, do it. Like putting him to bat or looking at the monitor or whatever. Just because I couldn’t hear.

 

01;00;23;15 – 01;00;50;13

Dominika

It was like maybe the second night I was like, I already heard him cry last night. I can’t hear him cry again. So that was definitely hard, but I think it definitely was a quicker like sleep training than the gradual one. Yeah, but I also think with then on the other side of it with the gradual method, he because he was older, I think he understood more that like, oh, I was sitting like mommy sitting right next to me.

 

01;00;50;13 – 01;01;09;12

Dominika

And then I have to start going to sleep and then she’s going to leave. And like, he was learning like, oh, I actually need to put myself to sleep rather then I’m going to like, cry and then I’m going to fall asleep, I don’t know, like so I think like it took longer and it, it was maybe like over a week that he was like finally like it was consistent.

 

01;01;09;12 – 01;01;25;10

Dominika

Very consistent for like a little over a week maybe until he, like, finally was like, we can put him in his crib and, I think first and then after that he would we even once we put him in his crib and walked out of the room for a little bit, we were standing outside his door for like a minute or two, and he would just be like, mommy!

 

01;01;25;10 – 01;01;34;20

Dominika

And we’d be like, yeah, I’m right here. And then that was it. So like, it was even to that point where he was still like just needed their reassurance. But and then after that we just put him in and walk away.

 

01;01;34;23 – 01;01;53;11

Dr. Mona

Yeah. You said it perfectly. And I like again talking to you and this episode is so awesome for this reason, just because I like to hear how mothers feel when they do things, and I think that’s going to give everyone a really good perspective. But yeah, you’re right that both methods are difficult in different ways. I agree with the fact that I think gradual methods do take longer.

 

01;01;53;25 – 01;02;10;05

Dr. Mona

Some kids do need gradual methods because the methods don’t work or, you know, like like you said, but I think that’s such a great point. Did you tell anyone, did anyone ever ask you like friends, family, social media about what methods you were using or you guys kind of just did it on your own? So I have like.

 

01;02;10;05 – 01;02;25;19

Dominika

Two close mom friends that I met at, like in New Moms group. So our kids are exactly the same age. So we have like a group text that we even now we all moved away and we still like text all the time. So we’ve like, bounce ideas off of each other about like sleep training and stuff like that.

 

01;02;26;07 – 01;02;45;09

Dominika

And we kind of all, I think did the same thing in the beginning. And then once we’ve all kind of hit the same issues, and I think my two friends, may have continued to do more like a cry method, and it worked for them and it wasn’t really working as much for us. So that’s basically who I talk to you about it.

 

01;02;45;09 – 01;02;48;18

Dominika

I don’t think I really talked about it with anyone else.

 

01;02;48;20 – 01;02;55;15

Dr. Mona

And did you I mean, it sounds like you have, that group was very supportive. Did you get any judgment? It sounds like probably not everyone’s pretty supportive of whatever method.

 

01;02;55;22 – 01;02;57;23

Dominika

Yeah, everyone was pretty supportive.

 

01;02;57;25 – 01;03;13;13

Dr. Mona

Awesome. No, I think that’s. I find that obviously within friend groups it’s usually support because they’re your friends. Obviously. I hope so that even if it’s something that may not be what they do, they’re still your friends so that you guys can get through the fact that, hey, we may not do things exactly the same, but we’re, you know, we’re still friends.

 

01;03;14;08 – 01;03;24;03

Dr. Mona

But I find that, like, some of the. Oh, don’t do that. Do this. Like, how could you do this comes more on like, social media platform. So I was just curious if you had, you know, received any sort of judgment or feedback.

 

01;03;24;06 – 01;03;38;15

Dominika

Yeah. I mean, I don’t I’m in like a bunch of Facebook groups, but I’m not like super like I don’t have a huge following on social media. So I’m not like posting about that type of stuff, like personal like. Yeah. So I guess, I wouldn’t get that much feedback about it.

 

01;03;38;19 – 01;03;58;06

Dr. Mona

Yeah. Well, no, I mean, it kind of goes what you’re describing kind of goes basically to my message and that any method is great. It just has to do with the child and the mom and dad and the partners or whoever, you know, just it really just depends on the caretakers comfort level and also the child. So I really appreciate it.

 

01;03;58;06 – 01;04;06;21

Dr. Mona

Help. Is there any final message you would have to, you know, parents that are listening in regards to, you know, getting your child to sleep and self settle?

 

01;04;06;24 – 01;04;25;29

Dominika

Yeah. I mean, I guess kind of bouncing off of what you said, like every baby is different and every parent is different. So I don’t think there’s like a one method fits all for everyone. So and I also like there’s so many parenting books out there and sleep books that like like it’s just like overwhelming for a lot of times for parents to be like, what am I going to do?

 

01;04;26;22 – 01;04;38;15

Dominika

So I think just figuring out what works best for your situation, might and also won’t work best for like, someone else’s situation. And just, like going with that, even if you have to, like, try a couple different things.

 

01;04;38;22 – 01;04;57;09

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And I, in my other episode that I debuted this week about, like when I talk about sleep training, I talk about how we’re as a generation, we’re overthinking how we approach sleep with our kids, in the sense that we’re so worried that we’re going to do something wrong and that we’re losing sleep over it like it is like our parents generation.

 

01;04;57;16 – 01;05;10;22

Dr. Mona

If you talk about this, they’re like, what are you talking about? What is sleep training? You just put your kid in and it was done. Like there was no like, oh, am I doing it wrong or bad? And so I really I love that because I really think it’s important that parents understand that, they got to do what’s best for them.

 

01;05;10;22 – 01;05;25;09

Dr. Mona

It doesn’t matter what anyone else says, whatever makes them sleep better at night in the figurative sense too, right? Like if something’s not feeling right to you and you’re like, I don’t like this. I don’t want the crying, or I don’t like the gradual or I don’t like this. It’s important to just listen to your heart and say, okay, let’s do this.

 

01;05;25;09 – 01;05;29;29

Dr. Mona

And yeah, totally great message. Hope. Thank you so much for being on today.

 

01;05;30;02 – 01;05;31;22

Dominika

Thank you so much for having me.

 

01;05;31;25 – 01;05;59;16

Dr. Mona

So the next mom I have, did things a little bit differently than what you heard in the last segment. So the last segment, we had a mother who chose to do a cry method first didn’t work. As a child got older, so switched to a more gradual method that involved a little less crying. And in this situation, I’m welcoming Anna, who actually started with a more gradual method, and then had to actually switch to a, method that involved a little more crying as a child that older.

 

01;05;59;16 – 01;06;01;21

Dr. Mona

So thank you for being here, Anna.

 

01;06;01;24 – 01;06;02;29

Dominika

Thank you so much for having me.

 

01;06;02;29 – 01;06;05;23

Dr. Mona

So how old is your child right now?

 

01;06;06;04 – 01;06;09;24

Dominika

Amelia is 13 months old. She just turned 13 months on the 25th.

 

01;06;09;24 – 01;06;15;18

Dr. Mona

So when did you decide to do the first round of sleep training?

 

01;06;15;27 – 01;06;35;06

Dominika

The first round of sleep training was around, five months old. Amelia was a micro preemie, so we knew that it would be quite a while before she was able to go more than 2 to 3 hours without our feeds. So at about five months, she started kind of refusing that night bottle, refusing any kind of soothing unless you held her.

 

01;06;35;08 – 01;06;45;19

Dominika

And that’s when we tried, a very, very gentle approach of just kind of rubbing her back. And if she’s cried for more than 30s to a minute, we picked her right up and rocked her back to sleep.

 

01;06;45;21 – 01;06;55;25

Dr. Mona

And did you find that that that helped. And then there was good kind of sleep habits for a while. And then it and then it changed. Or was it ever really a success and I guess quote unquote.

 

01;06;55;28 – 01;07;18;21

Dominika

It was slightly successful. Maybe for the first month, she would sleep for longer, maybe for our stretches. But about six months she started kind of cutting her first tooth, and it all just went out the window. We had it in the holiday season. Naps got a little messed up. We were transitioning from that 3 to 2, and at one point, she was up 10 to 15 times a night.

 

01;07;19;00 – 01;07;20;20

Dr. Mona

Around that. And that was at six months.

 

01;07;20;27 – 01;07;21;18

Dominika

That was between.

 

01;07;21;18 – 01;07;23;00

Lauren

Six months and about seven months.

 

01;07;23;05 – 01;07;25;05

Dominika

It got really intense.

 

01;07;25;07 – 01;07;30;02

Dr. Mona

And was it more, do you think that she actually needed something or she just didn’t know how to put she didn’t know how to self settle?

 

01;07;30;03 – 01;07;45;22

Dominika

I don’t think she knew how to self settle. I think she’d do that like awake and kind of wake herself up or some sound would happen, with the older kids outside the room. Or we would make a noise because she was in our room in a pack and play, and she’d just be done and she wouldn’t settle back down.

 

01;07;45;22 – 01;07;48;26

Dominika

She. I just don’t think she knew how to put herself back to sleep.

 

01;07;48;28 – 01;07;54;02

Dr. Mona

So the gradual methods that you used involve more, like you said, patting her back and a pacifier.

 

01;07;54;04 – 01;08;08;19

Dominika

Yes. And then, slight rocking, you know, pick her up and kind of, like, hold her. And then try to get her back to sleep. That way and gently put her back down to sleep. But she would have to be completely dead asleep and out for a solid ten minutes before you could even move, or she’d wake up.

 

01;08;08;26 – 01;08;19;20

Dr. Mona

Did you have, like, a minute plan for each? I’m just asking, like, did you have, like, okay, we’ll use the pacifier for a certain amount of time, rocker for a certain amount of time, or was it just more getting her down to be drowsy?

 

01;08;19;23 – 01;08;29;01

Dominika

Yeah, it was just getting her down to be drowsy. There was no real plan, no real method other than just to soothe her when she fussed. And don’t let her fuss for very long.

 

01;08;29;03 – 01;08;33;27

Dr. Mona

Okay? And then. So when did you change to do a different method? How old was she at that point?

 

01;08;33;27 – 01;08;51;20

Dominika

At that time she was a eight and a half, nine months old. At eight months, we moved into her room and at about eight and a half, nine months, I realized that she needed to learn that skill. I needed her to learn that skill, and so did our. Our whole family just needed her to just be able to lay down for more than ten minutes by herself.

 

01;08;51;22 – 01;09;03;24

Dr. Mona

And so at that point, what method did you choose and why did you choose to do it, differently? Because we know it’s, obviously involves a little more crying. So what? Why did you choose that method? And, how did it look like for you guys?

 

01;09;03;27 – 01;09;27;03

Dominika

We, chose a little bit more of a try it out method, while still kind of listening to her, cuz if she made a cry that was really intense or a cry that sounded more than just like a a fuss, we would go in, but, we chose the cried out method. Just sheer watching her personality. She, is very strong willed, very determined, does beats to her own drum, very, very independent.

 

01;09;27;03 – 01;09;51;25

Dominika

And so we knew that what we had tried for eight and a half months of just, you know, going in and it’s okay and slight soothing. It just wasn’t going to be her method. And it was kind of a trial and error was like, let’s see if this helps. I gone back to night shift. So we were really kind of trying to give my husband some support and not have him up every two hours and then go to work, and then I’m still not home the next night, and then the next night.

 

01;09;52;12 – 01;09;54;20

Dominika

So that’s kind of what led us to that cried on method.

 

01;09;54;22 – 01;10;02;02

Dr. Mona

So when you did the cried out, did you also at that point, was she still eating at night or was it more the crying method with no eating overnight?

 

01;10;02;05 – 01;10;21;21

Dominika

It was not no eating. She transitioned. She had pretty much not every any, any time we offered her a bottle, she might drink an ounce. And then she wasn’t interested. And she was very much into solids, when we did for feeding around six month, but eight months, she was extremely into solids and usually could make it a good while without a bottle.

 

01;10;21;21 – 01;10;25;29

Dominika

This was more just waking up because she didn’t know how to go back to sleep.

 

01;10;26;01 – 01;10;44;12

Dr. Mona

And that’s a that’s a great point, right? Because there’s a whole, you know, you can kind of start to tell when it’s and it’s when you start to know your baby whether what they’re kind of crying means. And also a comfortability of kind of like you said, understanding that, okay, you only took a little sip and it’s more of it’s probably a comfort thing than anything, but maybe we can teach you other skills to go down.

 

01;10;45;00 – 01;10;50;16

Dr. Mona

So what are they kind of look like? Meaning, did you do the Ferber method or did you do something different like that? You kind of,

 

01;10;50;18 – 01;11;09;10

Dominika

We kind of did like a I basically read I love research, love diving into all sorts of different ideas. I don’t read a lot of parenting books per se, because I feel that it’s so individual. But I kind of took pieces of everybody, read stuff that sleep coaches had knew that it was not in our budget to do a sleep coach.

 

01;11;10;15 – 01;11;26;02

Dominika

And I just didn’t feel right paying for, like, a book that was supposed to be one size fits all for my baby. So we just kind of came up with a method, and I picked a stretch where I was off work for 4 or 5 nights in a row. Because my husband was not a fan of her crying it out.

 

01;11;26;08 – 01;11;44;19

Dominika

He’s still struggles a little bit. He after our Nike experience, he just it’s really hard for him. But, we decided to just kind of try it for we set some minute intervals. We did. We wouldn’t go in for five minutes. And then when we did go in and she was still fussing, we would rub her back, make sure she had her passy.

 

01;11;44;21 – 01;12;01;16

Dominika

If she continued to fuss through that and just wouldn’t settle, we would actually walk back out for three minutes. We didn’t talk, we didn’t pick her up. And then after those three minutes and we just kind of repeated that cycle, slowly expanding those time frames until we got to where she could sleep a stretch or she would wake up.

 

01;12;01;16 – 01;12;04;21

Dominika

But she’d fall back asleep before it was time for us to go get her.

 

01;12;04;24 – 01;12;07;20

Dr. Mona

So how many nights did that sort of take?

 

01;12;07;22 – 01;12;26;02

Dominika

It took about four nights to see any improvement. The first two nights. I’m, I literally we have a couch in our loft, our with three bedrooms upstairs, for the kids. And we have a couch in between them. And I literally lay there because I was in her room every couple minutes. I didn’t want my husband to hear.

 

01;12;26;04 – 01;12;43;06

Dominika

I wanted him to just sleep and think it was going fine. And probably about night 6 or 7, she started to stretch and not wake up as often, and I would say it took another probably two weeks for her to really stretch it out. And I think we got our first sleeping through the night at around two weeks.

 

01;12;43;16 – 01;12;45;02

Dr. Mona

After you started?

 

01;12;45;04 – 01;12;46;08

Dominika

Yes, after we started.

 

01;12;46;10 – 01;12;52;07

Dr. Mona

For that was at eight months. So now she’s obviously a little over a year, like 13 months. And so how is she doing with sleep now?

 

01;12;52;09 – 01;13;18;22

Dominika

She does really well. She, she’ll have a few moments here and there, especially between when we. Tucker. And we’re still we just transition from two naps to one. Because she was taking like a 40 minute catnap and then being cranky all day. So we just did that transition. So it’s kind of mess with our bedtime. But now she’s pretty much from, I want to say, when we tuck around between 7 and 7 30 to 10, she might wake up and kind of.

 

01;13;18;22 – 01;13;31;25

Dominika

Plus, I didn’t realize how noisy of a sleeper babies actually are. Feel to kind of talk to herself. She’ll roll around, she’ll take her hand out the crib, she’ll fuss for just 10s, and then she’ll fall back asleep. But up until about.

 

01;13;31;25 – 01;13;32;25

Lauren

Ten, she’ll kind of.

 

01;13;32;27 – 01;13;47;06

Dominika

Do her thing. Might wake up at once, and then she’ll sleep the whole night. And we usually we. I think we’ve gone in once in the past three months like that. She wasn’t able to do their self well.

 

01;13;47;06 – 01;14;08;27

Dr. Mona

Yeah. I mean it’s I love I love that you DM me about this because it’s nice to know that you actually had to readdress and figure out something different. You brought up that because she was a little more independent by nature, right? And every baby is different. And I appreciate you saying that, because that’s kind of the purpose of this episode and all my episodes for sleep, and that there is no one size fits all sort of approach.

 

01;14;09;04 – 01;14;30;10

Dr. Mona

And it’s important to remember that because as a child gets older, you may need to switch your approach. And also even between siblings, right? Like your own child may not do the same thing your younger child does. So I really appreciate that. Did you find, I mean, any struggles or was either method or both methods difficult in any way, in, same ways, or did you have any struggles, getting through those nights?

 

01;14;30;23 – 01;14;49;16

Dominika

I think the first the first method was really tough because it would be just as soon as you fell asleep, she’d wake up. And she it worked until up until five months because she would go allow you to soothe her and go back to sleep. And around five months she would fight. And, I mean, there would be you’d be rocking a baby for two hours.

 

01;14;50;05 – 01;15;06;05

Dominika

And then you’re trying to not sleep with the baby in the rocker and not fall asleep and be safe. And I am. I’m in the pediatric respiratory field, so I was big on, like, we can’t every once in a while, if I’m awake and seeing you guys fall asleep, that kind of thing. But we were really trying to be safe.

 

01;15;06;08 – 01;15;26;10

Dominika

So that was just just making it through that and feeling like a non-human. And the crying was tough until we kind of saw her just blossom and wake up and then put herself back to sleep. And still, I think my husband and I needed to see that. She still felt loved. She still is thriving. She still loves us, even though we do let her for us.

 

01;15;26;16 – 01;15;43;17

Dominika

Last night, she first 2 or 3 times last night was a rough night for, I think, she didn’t eat super good that day. Her nap was off, so I knew it was kind of rough night. We actually ended up going back in and rocking her, you know, doing our night routine a second time, and then she finally conked out for the night.

 

01;15;43;26 – 01;16;03;21

Dominika

So last night was rough, but otherwise it it was a blessing to just two weeks of rough crying a little bit and then watch her just be like, oh, I can do this. I can sleep and then it help nap time. It helped playtime because she doesn’t scream the moment I walk away. So it’s been a really big blessing.

 

01;16;03;23 – 01;16;23;02

Dr. Mona

Oh yeah. And I exactly like, I, I know there are many people listening that probably won’t ever choose to sleep, train or choose a method or choose any method. Right? And that’s okay. But I agree with you that the benefits are there. If you can get a child to learn to self settle. And I mean, that’s kind of why many pediatricians are such pro sleep training.

 

01;16;23;02 – 01;16;34;06

Dr. Mona

It’s not you know, there’s a lot of debate about it. Like should we do it? But what if they’re not ready? And a lot of it is what you just said that, but especially before the age of one, I find that if we can get this, it really makes this toddler years a little.

 

01;16;34;06 – 01;16;35;05

Dominika

More.

 

01;16;35;07 – 01;16;51;08

Dr. Mona

Tolerable because everyone’s getting at least hopefully eight, nine. You know, obviously 11 to 12 hours is ideal, and it really sets a tone, like you said, for the for the day. It really does did really well. And one about the methods you chose at all, like whether you choose some method or second.

 

01;16;51;10 – 01;17;05;01

Dominika

I talked to a couple friends, who have at my job. It was kind of like a like that comes in threes. There was a lot. There was about six people before me who had just had babies. And then I was in a group of three who had just had babies, and we joked that our kids, like, didn’t sleep.

 

01;17;05;08 – 01;17;22;28

Dominika

And so when mine started to sleep, I kind of talked about it. But in all reality, most of my coworkers are like it. This is what it is. Our family, this is, we’re a big family. Just even my little nuclear family in itself is a big group of people. So my family just kind of lets us do our own thing.

 

01;17;23;01 – 01;17;45;19

Dominika

They laugh. We don’t do a lot of overnight visits for our kids. It’s a little overwhelming for family, so nobody really has to learn our methods. Our nanny did have to kind of understand. And, she wasn’t exactly on board with crying it out. But she’s only here for naptime. So we just had to encourage her that, you know, this was what was working really well for her.

 

01;17;45;19 – 01;18;03;24

Dominika

And she set the timer, and she’ll sit there and she’ll text me if it starts like, hey, she’s fussing. But since we’ve gotten pretty good at sleeping, and now that we’ve transitioned from that 2 to 1, that she’s so much easier to put down for naptime, because for a minute she was doing great at night, and then all of a sudden her naps were horrible.

 

01;18;03;26 – 01;18;15;15

Dominika

You couldn’t put her down. She’d cry. She just. She’d fast, she’d sleep for 30 minutes. And then I realized that she just. She was going to transition earlier than my other kids to just one nap.

 

01;18;15;18 – 01;18;29;17

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And, well, naps are a whole different other, other stuff. But you’re right that you’re kind of reading their their cues. As for for a nap as well. And your point is valid that like for me too, like there was really no one coming into the home except my nanny and I. She watched, Ryan for one evening.

 

01;18;30;00 – 01;18;45;10

Dr. Mona

Me and my husband wanted to just go go get some dinner, after they opened everything up after Covid open. And I told her I’m like, look, you haven’t been here tonight. Some nights he goes down so fast and some nights he does a little more of a production of like five, you know, 2 to 5 minutes of crying.

 

01;18;45;15 – 01;18;58;20

Dr. Mona

He’s like, well, I’m not going to let him cry that much. I’m like, but know that if he does cry, just give him the five minutes and leave Brett with five minutes and she she you texted like I got home and she’s like, oh my God, you’re right. He cried for a minute and a half and then I heard nothing.

 

01;18;58;20 – 01;19;14;12

Dr. Mona

And so I checked up on him because I wanted to make sure he was okay. And I’m like, no, he knows what we know him. Like, we know we can handle it. But it’s a very valid thing that you, you know, as a parent, you kind of have to set the rules. And obviously, you know, it’s working best, you know, so you kind of have to just say, this is what we’re doing.

 

01;19;14;28 – 01;19;18;15

Dr. Mona

I’m comfortable with it. It’s working for our family. So I appreciate that.

 

01;19;18;17 – 01;19;19;07

Lauren

That’s what I told my.

 

01;19;19;07 – 01;19;41;10

Dominika

Husband the other night. I was like, we are protecting that bedtime. I was like, do not go in, because when I’m at work for a while, he would go back and forth and kind of cheat. Sometimes I was like, you’re only making it last longer. I honestly think that’s why it took two weeks is because he would at two and three in the morning, you know, you just want to sleep or he’d break down or he couldn’t handle her crying and I’d check in from the monitor at work and I’d see him rocking her.

 

01;19;41;10 – 01;19;57;10

Dominika

And I was like, you know, we got to do our own thing. So we lived through it. And finally it clicked that sleeping through the night again is really nice. And being an adult in a human who’s parenting a human all day with sleep is way easier. So he he got on board.

 

01;19;57;17 – 01;20;17;01

Dr. Mona

Oh, absolutely. And I really appreciate you sharing this because like I said, it’s just nice to hear, different perspectives. This episode includes five other mothers besides you, and obviously me talking about a little bit about my experiences. I really, really appreciate it. Giving your perspective, is there any other final message you would give to everyone listening in regards to sleep?

 

01;20;17;03 – 01;20;36;00

Dominika

I think the biggest thing is that it’s all a season. Even those rough newborn hours where you’re up every 2 to 3 hours and that’s on a good day, where you’ve got one kid nursing and one kid running in circles. Recipes like breastfeeding for us did not go well. I think compiled with our Nikki say it just didn’t work.

 

01;20;36;02 – 01;20;52;29

Dominika

And it’s just I worked up myself and got myself so worked up for things that just pass so quickly, and the frustration and the exhaustion. It’s a season and it gets so much better. Every day gets better. And then you look back and now, like we were in the car day and I was like, do you remember that night I recorded it in my phone.

 

01;20;52;29 – 01;21;06;04

Dominika

I typed every minute she woke up, how long she was up, what we did to put her down. There were 18 entries for her. One night I was like, do you remember that? And we just laugh so the time will pass and soak it up.

 

01;21;06;16 – 01;21;10;10

Dr. Mona

What a great message, Anna. Thank you so much for being on today.

 

01;21;10;13 – 01;21;27;10

Dominika

Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for your messages and your just the genuine love that you provide for everybody. And then you can tell that you love what you do, and you love the messages that you get to give. And you worked so hard to provide such incredibly researched knowledge that it’s just you are a gold mine.

 

01;21;27;13 – 01;21;45;05

Dr. Mona

Oh. Thank you. That’s so kind. You know, my I started this with, like, a mission to kind of share so much that I, a lot of parents just bring in frustrations and bring in judgment and bring in all the things that the emotions that we just don’t need anymore with parenting. Right? So exactly what how you started this, this conversation that there really is no right or wrong.

 

01;21;45;05 – 01;21;59;28

Dr. Mona

I think every parent just needs to be educated that here are all of your options. With everything that I do, you choose what’s best for you and everyone else that has judgment. It doesn’t matter in parenting what you choose, what someone’s choosing to do with their kid as long as they’re raising loving children.

 

01;22;00;03 – 01;22;00;19

Dominika

Yeah.

 

01;22;00;21 – 01;22;21;05

Dr. Mona

You obviously I know you ended up choosing a client method, and I have no doubt that your 13 month old is a loving young lady. And as is Ryan, right. Because we did choose a different method for Ryan. But I think it’s important, right? That everyone kind of realizes the knows the options because there is this sort of especially around sleep, there is a stigma, around pro methods, there’s a stigma around co-sleeping.

 

01;22;21;05 – 01;22;28;28

Dr. Mona

It’s all over the place. And it’s just really a parent needs to do what’s best for them and their mental health. So, the kids are going to turn out fine.

 

01;22;29;00 – 01;22;36;01

Dominika

Yeah, exactly. I’m out and all of a sudden you’ll be waking them up in the morning like my older kids. And like, you have to wake up now.

 

01;22;36;03 – 01;23;00;23

Dr. Mona

Oh, thank you so much again. So the next mother I have is Madison. And Madison actually has two children. So for her older daughter, she actually slept with her and decided to do some sleep training later in her toddler years. And for her younger daughter, she actually chose to sleep train earlier. So I’m really excited to have Madison on to hear why she chose to do it differently for both girls.

 

01;23;00;23 – 01;23;01;23

Dr. Mona

So welcome Madison.

 

01;23;01;29 – 01;23;03;18

Madison

Hi, how are you?

 

01;23;03;20 – 01;23;14;26

Dr. Mona

Thank you for being here. So first of all, let’s talk about your older daughter. So how old was she when you decided that you wanted to, transition her from co-sleeping to actually sleeping on her own and sleep training?

 

01;23;15;14 – 01;23;38;29

Madison

She was about two, maybe a little over two. We just had a lot of transition in our life. Kind of before that, moving across country, living in a fifth wheel, doing kind of what just kept our family sane. You know, she went from co-sleeping to sleeping on a mattress in our room to finally her room in a twin bed.

 

01;23;39;02 – 01;23;57;20

Madison

We tried the, taking the side of the crib off. That didn’t work. We tried putting her back in the crib for crib that didn’t work. And then when I got pregnant, putting her in the crib with a belly, I got really in the way. Yeah.

 

01;23;57;23 – 01;24;17;24

Dr. Mona

And yeah. So how did you how did you decide? I know, because you obviously went through so much with, you know, you said your lifestyle like moving and whatnot. When how did you decide that it was now the right time? Was it just because, you were pregnant or was there any other kind of reason that you were like, you know what, I love co-sleeping, but it’s time to kind of move to the next, next step now.

 

01;24;17;26 – 01;24;41;12

Madison

Mainly because I was pregnant and I knew we had another child coming, and co-sleeping with two children wasn’t my ideal. I know many families that do do it and they’re totally happy with it, but you know, with my husband and two kids and breastfeeding, it just didn’t. We just didn’t want to be something we wanted to do for the next 5 or 6 years.

 

01;24;41;12 – 01;24;52;06

Madison

So we knew we had to get her in her own room, in her own bed, successfully. So yeah, another child on the way was definitely a huge part of it.

 

01;24;52;08 – 01;25;09;01

Dr. Mona

Yeah. Epsilon, I agree with you completely. You know, this this episode is talking all about different styles of parenting in terms of sleep, right. So like you said, some parents do the co-sleeping until the child’s 4 or 5 and that’s that’s fine. But I obviously like to get the perspective of mothers like you and mothers like me who maybe did things differently.

 

01;25;09;01 – 01;25;27;27

Dr. Mona

So I appreciate you saying that. So I’m curious now, when you finally decided to move her from her, move her into her own room. So let’s say, you know, obviously she was you said she was with you, and then she was on a mattress in your room. How was the process or what did you guys do that you found was successful to get her into her own room?

 

01;25;27;27 – 01;25;28;24

Dr. Mona

Or is she in her own room?

 

01;25;28;28 – 01;26;00;04

Madison

She is in her own room right now. We the thing that helped us the most, was getting a hatch, baby light. I don’t know if you’ve heard of them or if they’re, It’s really awesome because you can control it from your phone. You set different times, different colors, different sounds. So her we set it to the normal, like light color, normal light, dim, very dim for her sleeping time.

 

01;26;00;06 – 01;26;19;20

Madison

And then we started off at like 645 in the morning, which may seem early to some parents, but that was late for her to stay in her bed. We would turn green. So it was like, okay, when it turns green, you can go upstairs. And my husband works early. So it would be like, okay, you go upstairs and go to go get mommy.

 

01;26;19;24 – 01;26;43;26

Madison

And so we did 645 for like a week. And then we moved it to seven. And now it’s at 710 in the morning, which our one year old wakes up at around six. So I get like an hour, an hour and ten minutes with her just by herself. I can have some coffee and then our three and a half year old will wake up.

 

01;26;43;26 – 01;26;50;11

Madison

And the light, I think, was a huge success because it’s when the light turns green. You can help us make coffee.

 

01;26;50;16 – 01;26;57;27

Dr. Mona

So nice. And how so? She was two years old when you started implementing the lighter? A little older, a little older.

 

01;26;57;27 – 01;27;04;09

Madison

She is three and a half now, so we actually really only started using it. Maybe eight months ago.

 

01;27;05;00 – 01;27;18;17

Dr. Mona

I love the light. I think I actually spoke about that in my other episode, but I think the light is a great thing above three. That’s why I’m curious of what you did, because developmentally they can understand that. Oh well, this is kind of a rule now. Like this is kind of what we’re, you know, the rule of the house.

 

01;27;18;17 – 01;27;24;10

Dr. Mona

And does she ever try to break, like come out of the room before that light went out at all or what?

 

01;27;24;22 – 01;27;51;21

Madison

She has I think the first couple times we used it, she did, and we would, since I can control over my phone and I have a monitor, just keeping an eye on her and stuff. It’s. I would change it. Like, if I’m awake and I’m awake with the baby and my husband’s awake. We’re upstairs. I can change it to green before 710, and she’ll get out of her room and come in.

 

01;27;51;24 – 01;28;03;24

Madison

And then one day I was kind of messing with her, but. And I changed it to green and she went to her door, and then I changed it back, and she, like, ran back in her bed real quick. Oh, in my eyes it’s like, don’t do that. And I’m like, but she’s so smart. Like, she.

 

01;28;03;24 – 01;28;20;13

Dr. Mona

Oh, that is smart. You’re right. I think there’s, I think there’s a misconception like, with older kids, like, parents are kind of worried if they haven’t done it yet, you know, like, meaning getting boundaries with sleep in their own bed or own room, that it’s not going to work or that’s too late night. You’re you’re bringing up a perfect point that they are very smart.

 

01;28;20;13 – 01;28;43;13

Dr. Mona

They’re smart babies too, but they’re very smart in those toddler years. And they actually really like the rules, like the like you did with the light and stuff. And it’s kind of fun for them in some ways. And with your younger daughter, you decided to do things a little bit differently, right? Correct. So explain to me why you decided to do it differently for your second, and exactly how you trained her for sleeping so she.

 

01;28;43;15 – 01;29;26;06

Madison

You know, was born. And obviously, like, people with a second kids think, oh, we’re just going to do everything the same with the first kid, because our first kids, you know, easy, great. Perfect. Whatever, you know, adjective you want to use. So it was easy for us to co-sleep and I breastfed with our older one. And then when our second one, her name is Molly, when she came around and proven to be opposite and just about everything that they are, we tried co-sleeping and we did it for about eight months, but it was her and I co-sleeping, and then my husband and I in separate beds, which again, I know many couples that do

 

01;29;26;06 – 01;29;43;19

Madison

that and they’re happy with that. But after a while, it kind of took a toll on our marriage just with, you know, like, I would wake up tired because Molly would be awake all night and he’d be getting this nice, restful sleep. And then so in the back of my head, I was like, okay, we need to do something.

 

01;29;43;19 – 01;30;06;17

Madison

We need to do something. And then we tried to just put her in her crib and let her cry. And we don’t have an extra room for her. We have a guest room, so we just her, she’s in the guest room now with a crib, so it’s kind of her space. But after co-sleeping for so long, she wiggled all night long, even though she was asleep.

 

01;30;06;17 – 01;30;29;00

Madison

She just moved and even breastfeeding was hard. And then she’d be awake at, like, 1:00 in the morning, 2:00 in the morning, and would not sleep. And, you know, it took a toll. And I had friends who were like, oh, my baby sleep 7 to 7. And it was so easy to do. I let my baby cry for like 95 minutes.

 

01;30;29;00 – 01;30;56;12

Madison

I’m like 95 minutes, like, how do I do that? But, I, we decided there was just a time and it was coincidentally at the beginning of the quarantine, the middle of March, I think, was when we decided to do the sleep training. We purchased a sleep training course, I guess, which was taking care of babies.

 

01;30;57;06 – 01;31;20;14

Madison

And I follow her on Instagram, and there’s so many good testimonies about it. And I didn’t have any friends who purchased her course that I could talk to, but just, you know, reading on Instagram, there’s so much stuff out there. And then, I just decided to just pull the trigger and pay for it. It was a little pricey, but.

 

01;31;20;14 – 01;31;40;24

Madison

And then, of course, my husband’s like, why do you want to pay for somebody to tell you how to sleep, train your baby? And I’m like, I don’t know. I obviously know something. She knows you gotta do something. So we did it and it was worth every penny. And I can’t tell my friends enough about it because they’re like, oh, how’s Molly sleeping?

 

01;31;40;24 – 01;32;01;23

Madison

Oh how’s my sleep thing? I’m like, great. She goes down 7:00 with I mean, the beginning of it was very rough. But we were prepared for that. And then now she sleeps 11 to 12 hours. We’re very stuck on her routine. And some of my mom friends are like, see, I don’t like if you change one thing, it makes them harder to go to bed.

 

01;32;01;23 – 01;32;19;16

Madison

And I’m like, yeah, but once you get back into that routine, it’s super easy. And it’s been life changing for us. Just as a family, we can put Savannah to bed, we can put Molly to bed, and then we can actually sit on the couch and watch a TV show or, you know, have some.

 

01;32;19;18 – 01;32;25;04

Dr. Mona

How how old was Molly? So she younger daughter, how old was she when you guys decided to do the course and the sleep training?

 

01;32;25;18 – 01;32;28;14

Madison

She was,

 

01;32;28;16 – 01;32;28;27

Dr. Mona

Like, back.

 

01;32;28;27 – 01;32;29;25

Dominika

In March 9th.

 

01;32;30;00 – 01;32;34;11

Madison

Ten months. Nine, ten months. Yeah. So yeah, because she just.

 

01;32;34;18 – 01;32;41;14

Dr. Mona

And did it, did that method involve some crying or was she like Ferber. Was it a like a Ferber style or. No.

 

01;32;41;23 – 01;32;56;21

Madison

I think it’s a Ferber style. Yeah. I don’t I’m not exactly sure what what the Ferber yeah is, but, yeah. Crying at different intervals. I don’t really want to give away too much of of the course, but,

 

01;32;56;24 – 01;33;26;00

Dr. Mona

No, it’s it’s, Yes. And for anyone listening, this is not sponsoring any sort of, I have to I have to put a little stigma is is not sponsoring any sort of courses, but a lot of the, sleep training that is involved in many courses involves, intervals of crying. So it’s not we’re not going to get into the nitty gritty of the course, but I speak about the nitty gritties of how I approach sleep training, which I have a feeling might be similar, in a different episode, but but it has to do a lot with, you know, taking these intervals, where they cry and then you go in

 

01;33;26;00 – 01;33;48;18

Dr. Mona

at lengthening intervals and then you usually don’t, you know, pick them up or anything usually. But I again, there’s different methods to do it. You’re just there for reassurance. But no, my, my other question is just on for both. For both the girls. Did you ever face any judgment about co-sleeping and waiting too long? Did you face any judgment about buying a cause?

 

01;33;48;18 – 01;33;57;16

Dr. Mona

Like you said, your your even your partner said it. But did you face any judgment in general with your choices, with how you, you know, sleep trained or lack thereof of your children?

 

01;33;58;05 – 01;34;24;13

Madison

I did from some family members actually, and some friends who like, oh, I can’t believe you’re still co-sleeping or, and, you know, sleep training or more so on the sleep training side with the cried out method is how could you let your baby cry that long? Yeah. Why do you want to do it? You know, there is judgment.

 

01;34;24;13 – 01;34;54;20

Madison

Most of my friends are pretty understanding and in both sides of the spectrum, but I just did a lot of research and talked to a few friends. Even my daughter’s pediatrician just. Is there any sort of long term effects of doing any cry it out. And the the common consensus is no, even, you know, stuff that I read online and, you know, we just needed to do it.

 

01;34;54;20 – 01;35;04;17

Madison

And the judge was there. But at the same time, it’s like, whatever works for your family, whether it’s today or tomorrow, in a year, whatever helps.

 

01;35;04;19 – 01;35;27;24

Dr. Mona

Absolutely. And this is, again, the purpose of this episode is because I am clipping many different, situations, right? Mothers who chose to do different things. And you’re a prime example of a mother who chose one method for your older, you know, your older daughter and then another method for your second daughter, which is really the important message of my whole sleep series, in that you are not going to be able to do the same thing for every child.

 

01;35;27;24 – 01;35;47;10

Dr. Mona

So if I have ten patients in my office, they’re all going to choose something different just because of the baby’s temperament and also the parents comfort. And even within the same family, twins, it could be completely different because every baby has a different temperament. Some babies can’t do cry it out because just their temperament won’t handle it. Some is like, please leave me.

 

01;35;47;11 – 01;36;05;22

Dr. Mona

Like I don’t want any any intervention at all. So it’s really fascinating to me and I, I really appreciate you getting on to talk about this, because it’s important that anyone listening understands that we really should not be judging, you know, each other for the choices that we make with our children. Because I agree with you cry methods are not harmful.

 

01;36;05;23 – 01;36;14;12

Dr. Mona

Co-sleeping isn’t. If a parent chooses to close it, that’s fine too. And you’re just a prime example of an amazing mom who did both. So I really appreciate you being on today.

 

01;36;14;12 – 01;36;35;29

Madison

Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely, like I said, our daughters are just complete opposite and just about everything from highchair to car seat to eating to sleeping to the way they look. I mean, it’s just, you know, and I guess even going forward with my younger daughter, like, oh, well, Savannah did this and Molly should be doing this too.

 

01;36;35;29 – 01;36;57;04

Madison

And it’s like, not even the same. So we’ve even even as parents, we’ve definitely adapted to the differences in them. But I also in the big picture think it’s great because, you know, why do you want two kids who are exactly the same? And my one of my good friends was like, you’re pretty much doing everything you what you did with Savannah that you’re doing with Molly, right?

 

01;36;57;04 – 01;37;13;08

Madison

And I’m like, well, not really like maybe the first couple weeks because all they do is eat, sleep, poop and cry. Like, no, but they’re completely different and it’s kind of fun. Most days it’s fun. Other days it’s like, why? Why are they so different?

 

01;37;13;10 – 01;37;31;13

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And it keeps us on our toes. And I, you know, as a pediatrician, one of the biggest things is when I was in residency and, in my trip my early on in my, in my practice as a, you know, once I left residency, I also was like, oh, it’s always going to be Sperber, because that’s what we actually kind of learn most of, is that that’s the Ferber technique.

 

01;37;32;02 – 01;38;00;20

Dr. Mona

But then as I started to practice more, I was like, Ferber is not working for a lot of my patients, and some of my patients need either a gradual method or need something else. Because, again, like you said, we’re all just so different. So I completely agree with that. Is there like any you already you already said such amazing, amazing tips for mothers listening, but is there any other final message that you would want to, you know, you have a platform here now that you would want to share with other mothers or fathers that are listening right now?

 

01;38;00;23 – 01;38;21;25

Madison

Just whatever. Do whatever’s right for your family at the time. It may not be right in a couple months or whatever is best for your family. Not like right or wrong, but like, whatever, you know, keeps you happy, keeps you sane, keeps you, you know, getting through that day because, you know, we’re all going through some tough times right now.

 

01;38;21;25 – 01;38;54;03

Madison

We’ve all hopefully adjusted to our new schedules, new normals, whatever verbiage we want to use. But I know, you know, during the quarantine time, because my husband wasn’t working as much, was a good time for us to establish strong schedules with our kids. And I guess that’s one thing I can say is like, babies love schedules. I know you’ve preached that before, on your Instagram and podcasts and stuff, but babies love schedules.

 

01;38;54;03 – 01;38;55;26

Madison

I mean, I love schedule, I’m 30 or.

 

01;38;55;28 – 01;38;56;23

Dominika

Yeah.

 

01;38;56;25 – 01;39;28;14

Madison

Oh, yeah. But as far as sleeping, I know that Molly has done such. She’s had such success with the sleep schedule, mainly night schedule. We’re still working on naps, but, the night schedules are huge because we’re all getting much needed sleep. Yeah. You know, and then talk to your partner about what their opinions are. If if something you know is good or bad or what they think.

 

01;39;28;14 – 01;39;50;08

Madison

Because my husband and I definitely had a lot of conversations about purchasing sleep training, like, why are we going to spend money on something when we can Google it, or talk to our friends, or just put her in the room, or close the door and get her in the morning? But, you know, definitely communicate with your partner and do what is best for your family at the time.

 

01;39;50;10 – 01;39;59;27

Dr. Mona

Oh Madison, I cannot agree more. That is the perfect message. I really thank you so much for sharing your experience with the world. I really appreciate it.

 

01;40;00;00 – 01;40;01;25

Madison

Yeah. You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

 

01;40;01;27 – 01;40;16;21

Dr. Mona

So my last mom on the episode is Dominika, and she has a five month old, and she did a more, gradual method or gentler method than, full on, you know, cry it out and welcome. Dominika. Thank you for being here.

 

01;40;16;23 – 01;40;18;10

Dominika

Yeah, it’s my pleasure. Nice to meet you.

 

01;40;18;16 – 01;40;24;15

Dr. Mona

So, when did you decide that you wanted to do some sort of, you know, sleep training? How old was your son?

 

01;40;24;18 – 01;40;45;29

Dominika

He was about 12 weeks old. When we decided to do something purposeful, we wanted, before then, we were doing kind of letting him fall asleep nursing or taking his lead. But around the 12 week time was when I kind of decided I need more sleep and, wanted to try some structure. And I felt that he was ready with being.

 

01;40;45;29 – 01;40;47;09

Madison

Able to.

 

01;40;47;11 – 01;40;50;10

Dominika

Kind of self-soothe at that point.

 

01;40;50;13 – 01;40;54;23

Dr. Mona

So what was the more purposeful things that you guys kind of incorporated around the 12 week mark?

 

01;40;54;23 – 01;41;14;06

Dominika

So one thing I tried first was the cried out method. I’ve seen it work, I do. I use it a lot for training parents in my field, and I was full on ready to do that and my husband was on board. But, we live in a one bedroom condo. And our neighbors are right, like, share a wall to our bedroom.

 

01;41;14;09 – 01;41;32;09

Dominika

And so the crying just kind of wasn’t feasible. And then Covid happened and we moved in with my in-laws temporarily. And then there were just a lot more people, that we had to get on board. So for me, it was just more of the instant gratification of if I just nursed him, I knew he would go back to sleep at night.

 

01;41;32;26 – 01;41;58;09

Dominika

So the cry it out kind of. We tried it for two days, but realized it wasn’t for us. And then I kind of crowdsourced some recommendations from my friends who are new moms and, some online Google searches and things like that. And, discovered, gentle weaning, and decided that, you know, that sounds like something that could be more what we could handle.

 

01;41;59;06 – 01;42;05;28

Dominika

So we tried that, we really started it at around 15, 16 weeks.

 

01;42;06;01 – 01;42;12;18

Dr. Mona

And you mentioned that you, what do you do for a living because you mentioned, like, in your field, you talk about crime methods with your families. What do you do?

 

01;42;12;25 – 01;42;31;01

Dominika

I’m a board certified behavior analyst. So, behavior therapy for mainly for kids with autism, but it applies across the board. And so cried our extinction, as we would call it. It’s is a big, principle that we use, to work effectively.

 

01;42;31;03 – 01;42;37;21

Dr. Mona

So. Yeah. Well, so when you decided to do the different method, obviously, you know, deciding that it wasn’t for you, what did that kind of look like?

 

01;42;38;05 – 01;42;57;09

Dominika

It was, you know, we still, you know, let them cry. Or kind of, so didn’t really like, he wasn’t screaming, crying, but, let them fast for about five minutes, see if you’d fall asleep on his own. Mainly at bedtime. He fell asleep fine. And would sleep for five hours straight. And then after that, he would wake up every two hours.

 

01;42;57;17 – 01;43;21;03

Dominika

So that’s where we kind of hit the pitfalls and where the training happened. So we would kind of let him try to fall back asleep on his own. If that didn’t work, we would go over and give him a pacifier, and hand on the chest and try that for three minutes. If that still wasn’t working, we’d pick him up and rock him, and I would try my hardest not to nurse at that point, even though, like, I just wanted to go back to sleep.

 

01;43;21;18 – 01;43;44;00

Dominika

And then usually by the second night, he would fall asleep by us. Rockingham with the pacifier. And then when he did that, like 2 or 3 times in one night, and by the second night, he was only waking up once, needed to be rocked, and then fell asleep and then slept until, like 6 a.m..

 

01;43;44;02 – 01;43;47;26

Dr. Mona

And so this, how many nights to that sort of plan kind of take to.

 

01;43;47;26 – 01;43;48;12

Madison

See a change?

 

01;43;48;12 – 01;44;05;20

Dominika

It took only two nights because, big thing for was for me to realize that he didn’t need to eat at night. That was a big struggle for me to to kind of be able to figure out, okay, is he crying because he’s actually really hungry or like, is he fine and just needs to be rock back to sleep the same?

 

01;44;05;25 – 01;44;10;16

Dr. Mona

What made you realize that, like, what made you feel comfortable realizing that he did not need to eat?

 

01;44;11;00 – 01;44;28;15

Dominika

Well, he was. He woke up crying. And around midnight, the first kind of night that we tried it. And, with my husband’s help, he really, like, you know, was supportive and being like, okay, we said we weren’t going to feed him, so, like, try your best not to, so he was crying, and it was stressful.

 

01;44;28;15 – 01;44;48;09

Dominika

And then I just kind of held him. I gave him a pacifier, rocked him back and forth. He calmed down, stopped crying. So I was like, okay, it’s working. And then he was close his eyes, and then he was asleep and I was like, okay, well, watch. I’ll put him down and he’ll wake back up. But we put him down and he kept sleeping and he slept for five more hours that night.

 

01;44;48;09 – 01;44;52;12

Dominika

So the next day I was more inspired to to keep it going.

 

01;44;52;15 – 01;45;06;05

Dr. Mona

I see, so your method that you kind of came up with. Right, because you said that you kind of, crowdsource friends and other, you know, obviously your other mom friends or wherever you did. So you kind of came up with this plan, like, like you said, a mishmash of different things.

 

01;45;06;05 – 01;45;07;19

Dominika

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

 

01;45;07;25 – 01;45;22;25

Dr. Mona

And, were you pretty strategic in the timings that you did every night? Like, did you choose that? Okay. So we’ll do pacifier for, you know, three like pacifier if that gets knocked out, rocking will only be for a set number of time. Or was it more like a just a feeling that you had?

 

01;45;22;28 – 01;45;42;09

Dominika

It was more instinctual. I wish I could say a bit more, you know, time based, but it really was just more of I could feel that he was calming down or, and, or and he was, you know, falling asleep. And it was more of like, if he’s not calming down, sometimes it would be 30s and I would know, okay, he’s actually hungry.

 

01;45;42;21 – 01;45;57;22

Dominika

Other times it would be it, it would take it wasn’t that hard of a cry and it would maybe take three minutes, but he would fall back asleep and I know it was good. So it kind of we still had it be more baby led. You know, it’s that time period.

 

01;45;57;28 – 01;46;15;15

Dr. Mona

And you know, what you’re talking about is so important. And I, I’m so happy that you’re on this episode because it is it’s kind of like how I imagine our parents dealt with our sleeping, meaning there was no book. There was no such thing as sleep training. Right? I spoke about this earlier in the episode, but you just kind of did it based on the baby’s cues, right?

 

01;46;15;18 – 01;46;39;24

Dr. Mona

And I think that’s really awesome, right? Because you were like, look, I’m going to calm you down and it’s not working, or it is, and I’ll just have I’ll just read you. And that is an amazing perspective because I think, you know, especially with your training and, you know, obviously, your expertise, because crime methods can be successful, but sometimes they’re not for us or for the child and sometimes just reading the baby, because you can do that.

 

01;46;39;24 – 01;46;55;22

Dr. Mona

We do that with everything else. The babies. Right. Can be the success. So overall you said how many, how many nights? Total. You said it was a couple nights that he started to get the the picture, what was going on? And how long ago was that that you finally that from where we’re recording right now?

 

01;46;56;05 – 01;47;17;07

Dominika

It was probably about two weeks ago where we really had a stride. Okay. However, he, he once a month, he goes through, like, at least a 2 or 3 night growth spurt is what we think it is, where he actually does need to eat at night. And he because he’s a lot more during the day. And then that happens for, you know, two nights and then like clockwork, he goes back to sleeping a lot better.

 

01;47;18;01 – 01;47;39;19

Dominika

So it’s been now, I would say two weeks of us falling into this pattern and, and being confident with it. And then another success that he’s had, because I want to give him credit, is that he, now is able to fall asleep. He doesn’t fall asleep nursing. He’ll eat, and I can put him down awake, and he can fall asleep by himself.

 

01;47;39;19 – 01;47;48;09

Dominika

Fine. Which I know is a big thing to tackle during sleep training. And that was kind of something he just naturally learned on his own.

 

01;47;48;11 – 01;47;57;26

Dr. Mona

That’s awesome. And so you said that when you you’re living in, like a one bedroom condo and you have other people, other people around a lot are living there besides your partner, and you.

 

01;47;57;28 – 01;47;59;19

Dominika

Know, just next door, next.

 

01;47;59;19 – 01;48;10;06

Dr. Mona

Door, I see. Did you get, any like, judgment or negative feedback about the methods you were choosing, whether it was the crime method or the, method that you guys ended up having success with or. No.

 

01;48;10;20 – 01;48;30;11

Dominika

No. Unfortunately, we had just a lot of support. My husband was supportive with whatever method we we tried to do. I personally am not a very rigid or regimented person, so the struggle was more of trying to get myself more structured. Because I knew that that was what babies need, to fall into their schedule.

 

01;48;31;16 – 01;48;50;18

Dominika

And I was kind of my own worst enemy some nights where I was just getting frustrated of, like, why isn’t this working? Or why are you waking up and, and also like hearing other my other mom friends who were super helpful, some of them, their babies slept through the night at five weeks and I would be like, oh my gosh, like that’s possible.

 

01;48;50;18 – 01;49;07;14

Dominika

How come it’s not happening for us? And there were times where we kind of let that frustration get in the way. But everyone else, I mean, we live with my in-laws. My mother in law was really supportive and helped talk us down of exactly what you said of back in the day. You know, there were no methods.

 

01;49;07;14 – 01;49;11;27

Dominika

We just went with it and it eventually happened. And do.

 

01;49;11;27 – 01;49;27;17

Dr. Mona

You think that your, you know, going on that sort of, you know, the the, you know, the rigid and trying to be like, okay, this has to be patient with it. Do you think your career, like what you do for a living made you less flexible and like, okay, let’s just stick with this. Or do you think that it really had no effect?

 

01;49;27;20 – 01;49;52;28

Dominika

Well, in my in my field, it really is. What we preach to other parents is to be more structured. So it was a humbling experience to see, as a parent myself of, oh, I can see now why a lot of parents I worked with had a hard time following every instruction. Because even when I read different methods, I tried like moms on call or 12 hours by 12 weeks of babies, all of that.

 

01;49;52;28 – 01;50;20;12

Dominika

I’m like, on paper. Wow. Sounds like an easy plan to follow. And then you would try it and something would inevitably come up that wasn’t answered in the books, because every child is so different. So I think though, all in all, my experience in the field and doing what I do helped me be more flexible because I had seen multiple different things work in the past, and, that helped to keep me going of, okay, we can switch course if something’s not working.

 

01;50;20;12 – 01;50;25;27

Dominika

It’s not an effective intervention. So we have to try something that is going to be effective.

 

01;50;25;29 – 01;50;43;24

Dr. Mona

And that’s why I think this, you know, this whole sleep training discussion is so confusing for so many people. You know, on my Instagram, like, I know you’re a follower. People are like, well, what do you think? Like what’s going on? Most of my patients in my office, they don’t even though like, yeah, they’re sleeping because they handle the cues.

 

01;50;43;24 – 01;51;03;00

Dr. Mona

Right. Like you said, they really read the baby. And I think a lot of the success comes in the first. If you set up good habits in the first 12 weeks, right. Like it’s actually it can happen. You’re not you’re not crying it out or sleep training a baby in the first 12 weeks. But it has a lot to do with like, a lot of the French philosophy of parenting, which is basically, allowing more pausing.

 

01;51;03;00 – 01;51;25;03

Dr. Mona

And it’s something I believe in. Well, as well, because I think it actually helped Ryan a lot. But that being said, I think it’s really important for parents to understand that you kind of have to be flexible, and you kind of have to understand that it won’t always be rigid to what method you choose. And I learned that also, you know, we the what I thought would be so not easy.

 

01;51;25;03 – 01;51;52;00

Dr. Mona

I wish I knew that hearing we did choose a prior method, and it did end up working for Ryan. But it was extremely it was a lot more difficult as a, you know, obviously as a mother to hear the crying, obviously, which I can understand now, how people want to not do it right, because I was literally would be crying like I it was literally the first night I was like, oh my God, I, I can’t believe I’m going to admit I can’t believe I, I would make people do this.

 

01;51;52;03 – 01;52;09;14

Dr. Mona

Like I said, I’m like, I can’t believe I would even do that. Like, I can see why people are so hesitant. But then obviously I stuck with it because I knew he could do it and it actually ended up working. But I can. That moment that you’re like, should I do it? Should I not? And so I really hope parents understand that if they are not comfortable, the baby’s going to be fine.

 

01;52;09;18 – 01;52;21;08

Dr. Mona

Like I need to stress that that the baby, whatever method you choose will be fine because I see them grow up amazing as long as you provide a loving home. But it’s the parental choice. Also like what? What makes you feel better with the situation?

 

01;52;21;08 – 01;52;42;01

Dominika

You know I love it. Yeah, what? I kind of went through my inner monologue of, okay, stick through this, be structured. He can do it. But then it was a matter of wait, but can I do it? And do it? Is there a reason that I’m doing this over something else? Yeah. If something else can work for us and be better and and luckily that worked out for us.

 

01;52;42;03 – 01;52;55;21

Dr. Mona

And what would you say? I mean, this is obviously the reason I’m happy this episode’s happening is every mother has given me such, such great like tips and motivation. What would be your final message to, you know, anyone listening in regards to how they should approach sleep in general?

 

01;52;56;04 – 01;53;20;13

Dominika

I would have two things to say. One is, don’t you know, get caught up in being set in your way of if you’re going to go through one method, it’s okay to switch. If you feel like it’s not going the way you want it to or, or you’re just not comfortable with it. And then the second would be like you said, is the pause, is really helpful and effective, not only in, you know, reading your baby’s cues, but also pausing in the moment.

 

01;53;20;13 – 01;53;39;04

Dominika

And even if you’re up at 5 a.m. and you’re frustrated because you’re up for the third time knowing that, you know, breathe the baby in, hold its tiny hand and remember that it’s a fleeting moment. It’s going to pass, and you’re going to miss it when it’s gone. So that helped me get through a lot of nights, and I know a lot of mothers can agree with that.

 

01;53;39;06 – 01;53;56;26

Dr. Mona

Thank you to all the amazing mothers who were on this episode today. I know it was a little bit longer of an episode that you guys are used to, but it was so important for me to get their message out in terms of how they approach sleeping with their child, and it’s just really important for us to hear that, that there are so many methods out there.

 

01;53;56;26 – 01;54;12;14

Dr. Mona

And in the end, as you heard, all of these mothers chose a method that was best for them, best for their child, and they all raised amazing, amazing children. So definitely hope this was helpful. As always, if you did find a helpful, leave a review, share with a friend.

 

01;54;12;16 – 01;54;13;15

Dominika

And make sure you.

 

01;54;13;15 – 01;54;14;27

Dr. Mona

Listen to episode.

 

01;54;14;27 – 01;54;16;12

Dominika

17, 18, and 18.

 

01;54;16;12 – 01;54;18;15

Dr. Mona

Which is the other three episodes.

 

01;54;18;15 – 01;54;20;22

Dominika

As part of the sleep series.

 

01;54;20;24 – 01;54;23;08

Dr. Mona

Thank you. Have a great day! Talk to you soon.