Preparing for Newborn Sleep: Myth Busting with Samantha Day | 132

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So Sam, just go ahead and tell everyone who you are, what you do, and also tell us how you landed on what you're doing. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me today. I'm really excited to chat with everybody and bust some myths because those need to be addressed. For sure. But to tell you a little bit about me.

And my goal was always to work with children on the autism spectrum or with some type of special needs. And that still holds a very special place. In my heart, but what happened was I was in the classroom setting working mostly with children with autism for the first 10 years or so of my career. And then I had my children and I am not the happiest person in the world when I don't get sick.

But when he got to an age where. Sleep was able to be stronger. I wasn't sure how to get there. So what I started doing was brainstorming some behavioral things from my background and just kind of implementing foundational behavioral things to make sure that he could predict what's next and have routines and all of that.

And it started to work. So I did some more research on the sleep side of things at that point. That's what I didn't know was the science and the psychology. it. So as a new mom, I did all the research and what I found was a lot of contradicting information and that's so overwhelming. So at that point, to kind of, you know, sum up the story a little bit, I decided to make sure that the information I was getting was actually accurate.

And I started working with my son using both the science of sleep and the behavioral background. And the combination of the two made him so much better. sleep really, really well, between about four and five months old, we reached some big goals. And so never cared much about helping other people with sleep.

Working. So eventually after about a year or so, I realized how much I loved this. And it was actually my husband who stepped in and said, Hey, you light up every time another mom is actually rested and their babies are getting sleep too. What's going on here? And he kind of made me explore that. And so I went back to school at that point and I decided I loved the sleep side of things.

So I went back to school and I got certified in the science of sleep and learned what it really takes to reach that restorative sleep that we're all looking for. And then I decided to start my business after that. So although the sleep side was huge and I'm very thankful, obviously that was needed to get that education.

So it's the combination of that that's guided me to having this business now for about 10 years I've been partnering with families. I love that so much. And as you're talking, I was like, okay, I've got some questions. Because you and I were talking about the fear, there's so. much fear. And there's a lot of fear mongering that happens when you're pregnant.

And I tell my mamas all the time, we have a whole lesson that we talk about creating boundaries when it comes to horror stories, because I don't know why. Like, I So, someone tell me why women especially feel it necessary to scare the bejesus out of every pregnant person. Like, why do we do that? Why don't we come along?

That first year after having a baby can be very difficult and lonely. And here's a novel idea, for those of y'all listening, stop scaring people, encourage them, because the truth of the matter is, I've had six pregnancies, so one of my children is adopted, but I've done this journey six times, and each one was so different from the other.

Absolutely not. Is it guaranteed that we're going to have night wakings? Of course, because it's age appropriate that babies are going to be needing to eat in the middle of the night and those types of things for a certain period of time. That period of time is different per child, but there are definitely things that we, that we can do that we can put into place to prioritize sleep, even in a period of time where we know that night wakings are.

Potentially going to happen, right? So, and there are some babies that come out. I have had families come to me and they're ready to be prepared. And the baby starts sleeping through the night, like day three, and we're going, what in the world is happening? So every single baby and every single birth is completely different, right?

Oh, it's huge. Yeah. Huge. Oh my goodness. This is both of my businesses, both labor nurse mama and my coaching business. I mean, I, in life in general, what you tell yourself really matters. And if you tell yourself like the first year is going to suck, chances are it will. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, it's how you approach it and how you look at it and how you frame it and what you tell yourself is so stinking important no matter what you're approaching in life.

So for a mom who is pregnant and going to have a baby, what are some of your top tips for her to do while she's pregnant to prepare for pregnancy? newborn sleep and mama's sleep. Yeah. Because I always joke and tell my students like I understand after having Grayson, cause I had a really difficult time, why they use sleep deprivation and prisoner of war camps.

But I think that going back to that fear mongering that you're talking about, we do often hear things like, get your sleep now because when baby comes, nobody's going to be sleeping, right? But none of that does you any good. That's not, you can't bank up your sleep. So what can we do? So that's the number one thing that I would say to look at is when you hear those types of things, because they're inevitable, take a deep breath and remind yourself that this is your individual journey, your story.

And I was just, I won, I was sick to my stomach as I was listening to it only because imagine the one mom who's so desperate for sleep and then reads this article and she has a, Let's say 11 month old and she goes, okay, well, I guess this is normal. I just have to deal with this for X amount more years and then it'll get better.

And then she doesn't pursue help. Exactly. Exactly. Because she's find something that makes it potentially feel relatable, even though that's not the case. So going back to your question of what can we do, make sure that you're doing research about sleep. Yeah. In from a source that's credible and from the source that you feel like is going to fit your current version of parenting.

So making sure that it actually is going to be credible information Focus is on what, what to expect when your baby is first born, because yes, we are expecting some night wakings, but it's not going to be something that we, you know, if we have our days and nights reversed, we can figure out how to switch those.

It's not something we're stuck in for the next five months. So really focusing in the beginning, just learn about something. sleep, learn about how it works and what a typical or normal infant sleep pattern looks like. Um, how we can use naps and nighttime to support each other. A lot of times you'll hear people say, Oh, just skip the naps and they'll sleep better at nighttime.

You know, just kind of giving yourself information, but. Something not to do is get too much information because oftentimes we have too much at our fingertips. It becomes so overwhelming. And then we're in a place of having to ask ourselves, what do, what do I want to do and what's true and what's not. I think that's good.

And then I think like, while you were talking, I, I know for myself, I had a perception of sleep training, sleep consultants, as it's going to be a lot of crying and me having to stifle my nurture feelings for this baby. And I'd love for you to address that because I think that people, like, especially when you've got a mom who's listening to an older generation.

They'll be fine. But we have so much more information and education and studies by the time we're parents that, you know, we're going to question doing that. And there are some families that still choose to. But what I would love to do, like you said, is talk about that, cry it out and the truth behind it.

behind it. Because I think where the controversy came into play on those words, cry it out and sleep training is that most people think they're the same thing. That if I'm talking about training my child how to sleep, that I have to let them cry to figure out how to do it. And that's just not the case.

But when we're talking about the behavior of being able to fall asleep, stay asleep, and then science takes over and the ability to connect sleep cycles and continue to stay asleep throughout the night. That first behavioral part of learning to fall asleep, that's going to come a little bit later, probably around three, four, five months is an age where we can start to teach that specific skill, but that is a learned skill.

There's, there's. Sleep teaching methods that we can choose that fit our parenting style. There's really, really, really gentle ones. There's very firm. And then there's a bunch in the middle. I personally am a fan of the middle of the road methods because a lot of times middle of the road ways of teaching our children new sleep skills involve.

a little bit of support and then a lot of independence and you're kind of building that. I give support, then I give you a little time and I give you more support and a little time and we can build up the independence and decrease our support as we feel more comfortable with it and as they get to an age where they're actually able to take over some of those independent sleep things.

I'm only going to use this method. And they choose the method before they even get to that place. Those are terrible words in parenting, though. Yes. Never and only. Yes, exactly. You're gonna eat that shit, I promise. Because I think about, as you were talking, and each child is so different. And what worked with baby number one might not work with baby number five.

And I remember being like, I tell them. I was so cocky. I didn't know it was because of who they were that it worked so well. I thought it was me and how skilled I was at being a mom, and then along comes Gavin. Who wouldn't do anything my way, nothing my way. And it's so true with everything when it comes to parenting your children.

And I think that's where that flexibility needs to come. And like you said, we're teaching them, but they're also teaching us. Amen to that. Absolutely. Because it won't, it might not work with your, like, I, I'm thinking about my, one of my team members just had baby number two and her baby number one is on the best sleep schedule.

Anyway. But she just had baby number two. He's like nine weeks old. And. When I was at her house, I was like, man, baby number one has the best, he's 17 months old, best schedule I've ever seen. And I remember thinking, oh, I hope baby number two follows this, you know, but you, you do have to morph and adjust because it, it, their personality plays into it as well, who they are as people.

I actually love that you said that because a lot of times People will say like, this is the method I'm going to choose to guide my kids with sleep. But then the personality comes and you're like, Oh, okay. I was going to pick something really, really gentle, for example, but I go in there and if I'm in the room, they want me to just nurse them to sleep and there's no in between, right?

Absolutely. Find the rhythm that, and then also make sure that we're trying to be consistent with that rhythm because one of the strongest ways to. Consistency is everything. Consistency is everything, especially even with our four month olds or eight month olds. They're so young, but they still are picking up on those patterns and the consistency and are able to start predicting what's next.

So another one, we're just jumping from one myth to another. Is that okay with you? Yes. I like it. Because that's, again, how my brain works. So another one that I feel like is such a hot topic is contact sleep. Mm hmm. So what do you have to say about that? Let's talk about that. So I think that there's different, I have different answers for different ages.

So first, for families that want to contact sleep, co sleep, and they want to do it from the beginning, of course, the main thing I'm going to say is make sure we're doing it as safely as possible. Because You know, that's definitely a big piece of the puzzle, but if it's something that fits your family and you are getting sleep and baby is getting sleep, then I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with it.

And sometimes even when we are contact sleeping, it's still not leading to sleep. We still have a baby or a toddler, or I had a nine year old a couple of weeks ago that came to me. The mom did who had never been able to sleep without mom right there with her. And so sometimes that continues for a long period of time, but if we're doing it out of, this is all I know.

This is, I'm just doing it so that we can get the most amount of sleep possible, but it's still leading to broken sleep for you and for your child. My answer would be, there are ways that we can set new goals. So if your goal is to co sleep and we're getting sleep, go for it. But if your goal is independent sleep and you just don't know how to get there, then then that's where we can reach out for help or do research from a credible source that's going to get you there in an accurate way, right?

And that's a big difference, but I would recommend that. If that's our goal, number one, don't let anybody make you feel bad about it because that's something I hear often. Number two, have a plan so that you know from the night you start, we're going to address this from the sleep side of things, setting their body up for success before you even start.

For example, making sure they're not overtired when we start this new plan or something like that. And then from the behavioral side, making sure that we're consistently queuing change with a new bed, uh, bedtime routine and being consistent when they do wake up in the middle of the night and we're trying to guide them back to sleep.

This is enough. I'm just going to put them in the room and close the door because a lot of times that's what happens. We go from co sleeping to cry it out when there's so much more in between that we could be doing to support your little one. Yeah. I love that. And I love that you said that there is two camps.

There's probably thousands of camps when it comes to contact sleeping. But I love that you said there's also those moms who are doing it to survive, but it's not really necessarily what they want. And I thought when my daughter in law had my grandson, she was like, Because I contact sleep with Grayson and that's just he was baby number seven.

So I love that scatter. Are there any other like big elephants in the room that you feel people don't address that you hear often? Yeah, I think the biggest one is the amount of social media that we take in nowadays can bring up the comparison game really quickly in our minds as moms in so many different areas, like how they're crawling or whatever, but of course, that is a big portion of that can be sleep, you know, your best friend who had a baby a month before you is saying that their baby's sleeping through the night, 12 hours every night, two, two hour naps.

Posts or even just maybe not social media. Maybe it's just a conversation over coffee with a friend, but babies are so different. Toddlers are so different and we want to make sure we're looking at your individual child and your goals and figure out where are we at now and where could we potentially get?

Ultimately, we all want the same thing of our Children being well rested since we know that sleep is equally as important as eating. And this is a random fact, but we can actually go longer without Food and water than we can without sleep. And I only, I don't suggest that obviously, but I only say that because some people forget how important it is.

And we want to give our best version. So when we are continuing to have less sleep and night wakings and early rising into, you know, a year old, even six months and on from there, All that's happening is you're not getting the sleep you need for your functioning and your body and your baby isn't getting their sleep either.

And so when you start thinking about yourself and how you function when you're not getting the right sleep, it really. hammers into you how important it is for baby as well, to, to have the right sleep and for your child. And, you know, I think, I love that you talked about the comparison on social media.

Just remembering that you're seeing what they want you to see you're not seeing the whole picture And I think that's where it's like you said, it's really important that let's just learn from a viable You know a valuable source not just anybody who wants to tell you and then implement consistently what you learn, but also being And this goes for those of you guys who are pregnant.

If you're talking about birth, if we're talking about, you know, teaching your baby to sleep, teaching yourself how to parent, also learning how to listen to you because you are so valuable. And I think that's really important when it comes to all of these things. And, and again, why I say, don't say never don't say only because you are going to grow as a mother with each of your children as well.

And I think it's important to recognize those when we get to an age where consecutive sleep is possible, which I usually say is four months and up where we can reach a solid sleep overnight and more, you know, um, not scheduled, but specific routines, naps, we're looking at those. Deep restorative sleep sessions affecting growth, development, eating habits, behavior.

We can always do that. But what oftentimes happens in situations like that is when new sleep skills are reached, we all of a sudden start seeing that our babies sleep more solidly overnight and start taking more food throughout the day instead of a lot of different small meals. through the day and the night.

And so I just had a family I worked with a couple weeks ago and this was a huge concern and doctors said, we want to feedings overnight. We went with it. But all of a sudden we started taking more food. We were more concentrated in our feeding sessions during the day. And that growth, that weight started going up and up.

We're getting to right where we need to be. And those concerns are going away. So I thought that was, it's really cool. Well, as a nurse, that completely makes sense because what contributes to health problems. including weight gain issues or whatever, is stress. And what contributes to stress is not getting enough sleep.

And I told, I just was talking to my nine year old about this because he's been sick. And I'm like, you know, one of the most powerful things you can do is sleep. And we want to get, cause I was like, he's not going to school because he's got strep throat. And he's like, well, can I stay up later? No, you're going to bed actually earlier because you need sleep.

I want you to just tell everyone where they can find you. And I did figure out that. Okay. Two things. It's Allison. Yes. Is who works with you. And I messaged my doula team because I have my two birth doulas and my postpartum doula. And I was like, who worked with Samantha? And it was Allison. And then second, for those of you guys, because we are on video right now, I just have to ask you, why do you have so many clocks on your wall?

And so we did. And from a different angle, they actually looked pretty cool. But the other part of it is, is that I talk about timing of stuff. sleep constantly because timing of sleep is like everything. So in my business, this was always my backdrop for all my podcasts and things like that because timing is everything.

So it started as a joke. That's the same for birth. I say the same thing when it comes to pushing, when it comes to go to the hospital, you can change the whole thing. It's everything. So if he started as a joke, then I kind of liked it. And so now it's like our little interior design move. Nice. My husband's obsessed with watches.

You can go to my website. There's a bunch of free podcast episodes there that'll help you kind of absorb the information. Uh, and then I would say biggest thing is on my website. There's an infant sleep course, and it is for the pregnant mamas and mamas with newborn babies. And it's going to talk about those foundational things you can start with that really are going to lay that foundation to sleep as they get older.

Nothing to do with cry it out, everything to do with the signs of sleep. Awesome. And if Allison vouches for you, I know that that's good because I love, yeah, she's awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming today. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

If you found this episode helpful, please share it with other expectant mothers who might benefit. And don't forget, subscribe for more tips and myth busting. Until next Friday, this is Trish. I will see you again then. Bye for now.