Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Not Feeling Guilty for Your Decisions with Dr Penelope Leach

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

Dr Penelope Leach joins us this week to answer some of our burning questions on sleep, screen time and toddler tantrums as we discuss the vast amount of information for the modern mum and how to know what is really normal. Send in your experiences, questions and episode suggestions to [e-mail]---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm sure as parents we all know how messy things can get whether that's around the house during meal times and even when it comes to our little ones themselves when it comes to wiping Alf's messy face and body I want to be sure that what I am using is the best choice for his skin with baby eczema and nappy rash being common conditions using wipes for sensitive skin is a must we've both been loving water wipes we've actually used them since Alf was born and they gently clean and help protect delicate newborn and premature baby skin. They're made of just two ingredients, so 99.9% water and a drop of fruit extract. That means they are the best wipe choice for sensitive skin. Alf loves them and I even find myself using them.

Do you guys ever feel like sometimes you don't know if you are doing the right thing or the wrong thing or what your baby is going through is normal or maybe it's something that you're doing wrong? So we are still going through the sleep issue with Alf. And by the sleep issue, I mean that he's still waking up at 3.30, 4 in the morning. And, you know, despite our best efforts of trying to get him back down, we just aren't. And we're doing our best. But one thing I have been finding really overwhelming is that there is so much information out there and actually thinking about it this goes from everything from newborn life to sleep to breastfeeding to toddler tantrums I feel like everywhere you look and every person you speak to

they have different advice and a lot of it can be contradictory there just seems to be so much information out there and obviously there is no right or wrong I'm sure you know like adults or children are very different but with sleep it does feel overwhelming um you know is this a normal developmental stage that Alf is going through and then some of the advice is put him down earlier some is put him down later some is you need to drop his nap some is you need to increase his nap so he's not overtired so it's just a bit of a minefield and I'm trying to remember that number one everything is a phase and that will pass and number two some babies just do really sleep and you don't have to think much about it you know my my sister is going through

a phase with my nephew Jasper where he just sleeps like she puts him down at seven and he wakes up at seven so she doesn't overthink nap she doesn't overthink anything whereas I'm in this overthinking of what am I doing wrong what can I do differently differently? And actually, six months ago, he napped when he was tired, usually around the same time. So I thought it'd be really interesting, A, to know, like, do you guys feel overwhelmed with all the information? But also, I wanted to speak to someone who is an expert in their field and hopefully just get some advice away from all the different noise. So with that in mind, I came across a book, which I have to be honest, I'm yet to read, but I've got I've seen a chapter which is all around toddler sleep so this lady my guest today is one of the world's most respected and best loved developmental child psychologists so the book that I have in my hand is called your baby and Child and it sold over three million copies and she basically specializes in

child development from birth all the way to age five and basically the book was originally released in 1977 but she has rewritten it because of change in science and change in um well everything from societal changes to family life so um she's a fellow of the british psychological society and a founding member of the association for infant mental health and on top of this, she is also a mother and grandmother. So I feel like also has the experience as well as the expertise. So I would love to welcome Dr. Penelope Leach. Very nice to be here. Thank you. I'm very excited because you originally published this book in, was it 1978? Yes. Isn't that extraordinary? What a long

time ago. Yeah. I mean, that's why there had to be, I either had to rewrite it or kill it, you know, 50 years for a single book. So I rewrote it. This is really fascinating to me because I have found a lot of pressure in the world in which we live to do things a certain way. And with Alf, I didn't plan to ever go against the book, but I very much followed my intuition. And if I'm honest, it's even caused arguments between me and my partner in that I co-slept. I refused do quiet out but obviously I have a child who doesn't sleep so I'm not necessarily um but I do feel like I grew up in a childhood that it was very much discipline like the child should fit into the adult's life and the child is naughty if it misbehaves even the word you know tantrums but I still kind of battle against this pressure that there's this one size fits all

narrative that we should take for babies and toddlers so obviously my current challenge is the fact that Alf is waking up at 3 30 in the morning every morning and we cannot for love or money get him back down to sleep but everybody wants to fix you know oh have you you need to put him to bed later you need to put him to bed later, you need to put him to bed earlier, you need to give him a longer nap, you need to cut his naps. And sometimes I feel overwhelmed that I'm like, is this normal? He might just be teething, or he might be ill, or I might be doing it wrong. But it's hard not to feel like a failure when there's so much information out there. Have these pressures always been around? Or can you give me

any advice? It's hard to know where to begin, because there's so much stuff out there. these pressures always been around or can you give me any advice it's hard to know where to begin because there's so much stuff out there i mean i think the starting point is that becoming a an animal who sleeps by night and stays awake by day doesn't happen very readily in a lot of children i mean there's nothing peculiar about waking up in the night. The problem is that it takes sometimes a long time for a toddler to learn to put himself back to sleep. It isn't the waking up that bothers you. It's the fact that you have to get up and go and settle him um so i think

some people anyway find it helpful to realize that not only is this not naughty it isn't even peculiar behavior it's the the child who goes to bed at seven and sleeps until seven is the peculiar one. I mean, lucky parents, don't get me wrong. I had one that did that, but it's not what you'd expect. And, you know, this is why the evidence is that co-sleeping deals with a lot of sleeping problems, partly because it's so much less disturbing for the parent than having to get up and go and do something about it. times useful to say, although it sounds really obvious, is that you will not meet a four-year-old, even a three-year-old who regularly wakes up at two in the morning. In other words, this is awful. Don't think I'm not aware of how hellish it can be, but it will not last very long. And you can count on that that whatever you do or don't

do did you find the same pressure when you were a mom um or do you think it is because we're living in this world where now say moms are expected to work as if they don't have a family at home but also still do a lot of the you know as much as we say that we're a 50 50 relationship society's expectations are very different and i would say tommy gets praised for doing very basic parenting you know they're still still the hands-on dad and the daddy daycare and the babysitting. That's right. And he changes dappies. Wow.

Yeah. Big deal. Yes. I do think that aspect is worse because, you know, if we're going to have virtually all mothers in the workplace, we need to have virtually all fathers in the home place, for goodness sake. You can't actually be in two places at once. And I think there's a horrible tendency to leave the babies and toddlers well-being out of the argument. and toddlers' well-being out of the argument. I mean, I'm thinking, for instance, about let's make childcare cheaper by changing the ratio of adults to children.

I'm horrified. Yeah, me too. I mean, because, you know, the one person who isn't going to gain from that is the baby or toddler. And nobody's saying that they're thinking about reducing the cost to adults but not the quality for babies um i definitely do think there is a huge amount of pressure even just from society on mum still that even though a lot of us are working and are in equal relationships the

expectation is still very much on um mums and obviously that that puts so much pressure on us when it comes to you know the feeding and the all the developmental things that actually you know i'd love i'd love to know more about which i I know are in your book, from feeding, from sleep, from screen time, which I imagine is probably something that might not have existed in your original. Is there a right and wrong with child development? And is it a kind of one size fits all? I don't think there are any one sizesize-fits-all because there's no one-baby-fits-all. They are genuinely all different just as we are. But the thing I want to mention that we haven't yet, in a way, society makes genuinely equal parenting almost impossible by continuing to pay men more than women.

And if I could take one stroke that I think would help, it would be that one. Why do we allow so many people not to have equal pay for equal work. We fought for paternity leave. Most men don't take all they're entitled to. And why? Because they earn more than their wives and the paternity pay is much too little. So the household can't afford for them to take time off. In a way, it's sort of simplistic. Yeah. And I suppose as well, they worry about the impact it will have on their career. And interestingly, because of the cost of childcare, 54,000 women in the UK every year are having to leave jobs

because their jobs don't pay enough to justify the childcare costs. So it's interesting with the current cost of living crisis and the fact, you know, we're in this recession that it is, well, people are saying that women are kind of going back into the sort of like 60s and 50s or, you know, whatever era it was because we're being forced into that, forced into that role and in a way it's worse i think because you know when i was a first-time mom i was largely at home for the first year anyway but so were lots of my friends you know and if we went pushing buggies in the park there'd be a whole gang of us now you may be the only person

in your street who's at home with a child I mean I think being as keen as I am on on babies and young children and the importance of them trusting us and being in warmth. People assume that I would think it would be bliss to be at home with a baby. Actually, I think it's lonely and boring a lot of the time. Yeah, I have to say I'm incredibly envious of a lot of the Scandinavian countries for how they have affordable childcare, good paternity leave, and also more of an understanding, I think, of the pressures that we face. So Penelope, obviously The Independent describes your book as the child rearers Bible. What are some of the most kind of not only common questions, but common misconceptions about child development that you find not only

well i guess all the way from newborn but toddler because i'm sure there are lots of people who are similar to me sleep deprived feeling pressure to feed a certain way feeling pressure to you know not give their children screen time what what advice can you give from a sort of professional perspective the trouble is there's no single way to deal with the different issues i mean if you take the question of screen time for a minute at any age from you know birth to five i could and would argue that it's a pity if very young children spend a lot of time with screens because they do most of their important learning from face-to-face interaction with real people. But how much is too much screen time does depend what the alternative is. And if the alternative to watching the screen is being bored and having nothing to do, then a screen may well be a better

option. Do you see what I mean? Does that make sense? So if you can find the time and the desire to play, to talk, to be with your child, that's lovely. If you can't, I'd much rather he was using the screen than hanging around you moaning and driving you around the bend. I find my child actually has learned so much from screen time, which is why I don't feel too guilty about it. And I often interact with him with the screen, but he can count pretty much to 100 now and he's not even two because of the repetition of, there's a song and it's like,

let's count to 100, counting so much fun. And we go through it and because she does the dance and she does it all on her hands, he's now fascinated. So we do it together and he tries to he tries to do his fingers all the way to five but he loves it and i feel like

the months of the year he knows the months of the year from may through to december again that's the repetition of song on so i i do i do feel like there is a lot of pressure to not give them screen time, but I love it. And I love it as part of like an interaction with him. Clearly you're using the screen stuff as part of your relationship. So that's great. But I've no patience with the, quite a lot of psychologists who say under two shouldn't ever see a screen because I think that's not real in

our society. They're going to see adults using screens all the time, using phones all the time. I think we have to keep our children in the real world of today. If you had all the time in the real world of today, if you had all the time in the world to talk and play and dance and sing, then you wouldn't, any of you need screens. I mean, the same would be true of adults, wouldn't it? You touched on the fact that it's a balance between you wanting to explain the science, whether that's sleep or screen time or discipline or whatever it might be, but not wanting to make anyone feel bad or make anyone feel like they're doing it wrong. How do you navigate that? Because I went into my first experience of motherhood with Alf being like, I want to do everything that's right for him. So I breastfed for a year up until the point that he was biting

so much that I couldn't get the phase and it was making me not aggressive towards him, but it was making me so unhappy. That's when I decided it's best for him to stop. But in this pregnancy, I'm going into it more of a balance between what's right for her as she will be and what's right for me. And I feel a bit more confident to make decisions that aren't necessarily the right thing for them but potentially will save my sanity um because i mean which will be right for her of course yeah let's remember you know if if your sanity is not saved that's not right for her, whatever you're doing. Because when you were a mum, were you an expert in child development at that stage?

And did you find yourself putting an unnecessary amount of pressure on yourself? Yes, I did. Yes, I did. What I did find, though, was with my first baby that I knew an awful lot of things which my pram pushing friends didn't know because they weren't in the field, which is how I came to start writing. And so I do think the science can be downright useful. I mean, a good example is not me, but a psychologist called Mary Brazelton, who did the first major study of the timing of potty training. This study showed, and still does show, and it's still the case, that if you start at around two, your child will be clean and dry at exactly the same time as if you'd started at a year. There's absolutely no advantage in starting earlier because they just aren't ready to pick it up. So we didn't know that then. This study was the first indication. That's how long it's going to take no matter when you start.

And people were amazed. I mean, they wouldn't be now because now, on the whole, the advice is to start at around two. But there are still people who hold their babies on potties at three months. So one has to keep on plugging at it. Yeah, I suppose that's really interesting, isn't it? Because there is this idea of, oh, my child's doing this by this time. And that's a perfect example of where you could use science to actually take the pressure off yourself a little bit.

Because, yeah, I mean, I haven't even started to think about potty training yet, although I do have a potty in the playroom. But we're not really putting pressure on it yet. But we're kind of explaining it's a potty and that's where you do your wee-wees and your poo-poos. But it's not, I suppose, yeah, being equipped with that knowledge. And that's what I think around sleep and feeding it's like having the knowledge but then being able to make that empowered decision of like okay well that might be what's best for them but what's best for me but at least well go back for a minute to your particular sleep problem which you've kindly generously

shared with us all what you're really saying to me is it's all very well understanding it. It's all very well being assured it won't last for long. But how do I get through now? Is it normal for a child of his age to be waking up from a developmental point of view? Because that's what I find overwhelming. All the information telling me of what I need to do to fix it, which all feels quite contradictory. Let me ask you, because otherwise I may be giving misinformation, but how does he feel about being in his cot on his own? Because it's not the waking up that is the problem, it's the not going back to sleep, isn't it?

Yeah, he loves his bed. He actually asked to go to bed at night. We switched to a toddler bed. Well, originally he co-slept for a year and then I would rock him to sleep and then he got to a point where he was too big to be rocked, but he still likes his back rubbed.

And we've always made sure that he feels very safe and secure to go to bed. And I think as a result of that, he loves going into his room and he feels very safe. He's never once been left to cry. Like, you know, it's not an unsafe environment. So now even when he wakes up, he's not overtired or stressed. And he's actually just really excited to start his day, which is lovely. But obviously, I would like that day to start even at 5 30 or 6 and um

even though we try to put him back down we just can't seem to get his get him back into the frame of mind where he wants to sleep and he like he just fought he fights it so whether that's him like wrestling to get back out of the bed or kind of lying there for a bit but then just constantly being like up up up up so then we kind of give up after an hour and a half because we think well what's the point he could just be downstairs with him yes quite you've presumably tried other ways of making that being awake alone in his bed. You know, a little snack left on the bedside table, that kind of trick.

Do you know what? We actually haven't put a snack in his room, mainly because I guess like from a safety aspect of would we want him eating? Like, is he old enough to eat and not have a choking race but we do try and put milk by his bed but i don't know if he's made the connection yet between maybe being thirsty and knowing that there's a drink there that can quench his thirst i don't know where he is in development if he would make that connection or not and then we've been told about something called a grow clock or

something where you know it lights up a different colour when it gets to a time that's acceptable to get up in the morning. But I still feel like he's a bit young to kind of put those pieces together. I think he is. And I think you're right over the eating alone. He's, you know, it wouldn't be a good idea to be eating biscuits alone, he's, you know, it wouldn't be a good idea to be eating biscuits alone, but it might be quite a good idea for him to know that when he wakes up and you tell him it's too early to get up, you can give him a drink or even a nibble of something as part of going back to sleep or playing on his own,

even for half an hour would help you. I mean, possibly you need an assumption that it's the middle of the night. Would you deal with it differently if it was 2 a.m.? Would you let him get up? Well, so we actually did have this on was i think it was friday night he woke up at 1am and again we tried and tried and tried my mother-in-law who's amazing was actually here and she tried from one till three and i tried from three till five but he's he's a really determined little character i don't know where he gets it from, but we honestly,

and that's the thing, maybe we are doing something wrong, but he's also had a cough and his molars are also coming through. So it's also that confusion of, obviously, he's too young to tell us if there's something wrong, but yeah, we just don't seem to be able to get him back down. And I don't know if giving up after an hour and a half is giving up too early or if it's just kind of being like, well, yeah, what else can we do? Because it's quite stressful trying to contain him in a room that he doesn't want to be in.

Of course. Horrible. I agree. But I quite see that there's no point going on trying to put him back down at half past four, because in an hour it'll be an acceptable time to be up. Which is why I was wondering what you did when it was genuinely the middle of the night. I mean, I suppose I'm suggesting that you maybe aren't conveying to him strongly enough that this isn't acceptable to you i mean not to the world do you mean that from a discipline point of view because no i mean it from a your survival point of view but how would i convey that because i obviously say it's very late it mummy's sleepy alfie go to bed and to be honest we've even tried to get him to co-sleep but he will not for love or money stay in the bed with us like you know and then you obviously you can't like cling on to them but it's funny because in that first year when i co-slept and i was being

told left right and center that i was creating bad habits and creating a rod for my own back i honestly believe the only way i got through the sleep deprivation of the first year was because he was next to me and I had essentially my boob out for him to graze on throughout the night. And now, yeah, I would love it if he would come into our bed and go back to sleep. I wondered whether you tried that. That's obviously not what he wants. I mean, it does sound as if he doesn't need that last two, three hours. And there's not a lot you

can do about that. I mean, certainly keeping him up longer the night before isn't going to work in my experience. He'll just be overtired instead of tired. Yeah, I noticed you have a chapter in your book about being overtired because this is another thing that I find confusing with the amount of information out there that some sleep people will say put them to bed later. Some say put them to bed earlier. Some say cap their nap. Some say let them sleep as long as they want is there a sort of rule from a child development point of view there because i am if i'm honest i feel totally like i don't know what's right for wrong anymore whereas i used to just let him sleep when he needed to sleep and we never had problems you

know he'd sleep in till six or seven so this is quite a new development that now I'm overthinking sleep. What is the sort of like development side of it? And is it like a phase because of his age or what can we do? There isn't a rule. And I wish I could give you a magic. You know, I really do. I can't. The nearest we can get is to say that at his age and stage,

he probably needs not less than 12 hours in the 24. But he's probably getting that with his daytime nap, is he not? Yeah, I mean, at at the moment he's napping i mean obviously today he was up at three so he ended up going back down at 8 30 and again lots of people say no you need to make sure they don't nap until 12 30 but that's quite a hard thing to manage as well how do you do that shaking to keep him Yeah, so that's where I find it all overwhelming and confusing, I think. Well, I think it is overwhelming. I absolutely accept that.

But I think it's one of the inevitable aspects of being a very small child instead of an adult. He doesn't have any idea what he's doing to you. It will pass, but we've got to get your second baby out and maybe this will fade away because of course she will be demanding through the night the beginning so it may seem easier for you in a way i suppose suppose I'll be up anyway, won't I? That's what I mean, yes. If you're breastfeeding her, you can be chatting to him. I'm sure as parents, we all know how messy things can get, whether that's around the house, during mealtimes, and even when it comes to our

little ones themselves. When it comes to wiping Alf's messy face and body, I want to be sure that what I am using is the best choice for his skin. With baby eczema and nappy rash being common conditions, using wipes for sensitive skin is a must. We've both been loving water wipes. We've actually used them since Alf was born, and they gently clean and help protect delicate newborn and premature baby skin they're made of just two ingredients so 99.9 water and a drop of fruit extract that means they are the best wipe choice for sensitive skin alf loves them and i even find myself using them how would you recommend because i know there'll be lots of people listening who you know have toddler like me or maybe getting to the toddler age how would you recommend we navigate the sort of dreaded toddler tantrums like because i do feel like there is a

pressure around you know they're being naughty they're being naughty. So what's your kind of experience and professional advice there? My take on that whole area is that at this age stage, there's very little that children can and will do that is naughty in the sense that it isn't done to drive you round the bend. It isn't done to tease you. It's done because it occurs to them to do it. So they do it. And then they're amazed if you're cross. It's all part of trying to force children into our mold. I mean, your toddler tips his dinner off the edge of the table,

and that's maddening because you've got to clear it up. And anyway, you cooked it and so forth. Doesn't mean it was naughty. It means it was ignorant. So how would you react to that? Oh, I would say, not a good idea. Don't do that. But I wouldn't say more than that, because there's no point. He isn't going to understand it. Now, if he tips the plate over while looking at you sideways, then you've got some indication that perhaps he is teasing you. And that's part of growing up too. And you have to acknowledge that. And then you begin to say, you're not to do that. And not give the plate back, perhaps.

You've obviously had enough. It is the tendency to believe that unacceptable behavior is naughty behavior can take people down the wrong track. That's what I'm trying to say. Unacceptable behavior is not acceptable, but that doesn't mean it's naughty. And very often it can be avoided. I mean, I was the other day with a young couple whose toddler had just learned to crawl mainly. He was only just walking to the fridge and opened it because he liked the light coming on. Yeah. And they were going out of their minds.

Now, what's the point? He wasn't going to stop doing it because they yelled at him he was going to stop doing it if they took him away and totally distracted him with something else at which point he would forget about it at least for the moment and you know that's so often the case. Something like time out and naughty steps. Very often children get a time out when what they needed was a time in. And the typical thing is a meal table, perhaps a Sunday lunch, and maybe there are grandparents there. Anyway, a pressure for everybody to sit and have a nice meal.

And the toddler gets utterly bored and fed up and begins to behave less and less well. He doesn't need putting on a naughty step by himself. He needs to come and sit on your lap and get involved in the conversation yeah that's a nice way of thinking of it actually that they're just bored it's true and time in is almost always more useful than time out is there any parting advice you would like to give to parents listening especially if like, they're feeling a bit overwhelmed. Not advice really, but just to remind people that you are the centre of your child's life and that you can't get away from that. That just is the case. And therefore, it's something to try and value and be proud of, even when you're exhausted. In other words, it's worth doing. And going to your child when he's upset or sad is worth doing

because you are that important. I think we underrate, perhaps particularly mothers, their importance is huge. And it starts even before birth. I don't know if people realize that stress, various kinds of acute stress in pregnancy are actually bad for developing babies inside there. It's important that you should be reasonably calm and happy. A relaxed pregnancy is every child's right, let's put it that way. So what I'm really saying is value yourself and you'll get through eventually though you won't feel very good about it in the meantime if it's two in the morning and your child insists on getting up thank you so much I feel like that's good advice along with the remembering to communicate and try and create equality in parental roles and obviously hopefully we can continue to advocate for

better child care and paternity leave through petitions and all of those things that I'm sure will help as well but Dr Penelope Leach thank you so much for your time and wisdom and like I said I have my copy of your baby and child um so it covers from birth to age five but I can't I genuinely can't wait to read it because I think you picked up on something really important that sometimes knowing the science can be empowering, whether that's potty training or feeding or sleeping. And then from there, we balance that with our own needs and requirements and can make empowered choices. And you're definitely correct that there is definitely an overwhelm of a lot of information out there now so thank you for putting it all into here so that we've got somewhere to go to to look for solid advice from a professional good thank you and i've enjoyed

talking with you i love what dr Penelope said there about how children aren't naughty and that they're the center of our worlds and she said something along the lines of you can't love a child too much and do you know what my mother-in-law Tommy's mum she defies all stereotypes of mother-in-laws I love her and she also raised really secure, confident children, obviously Tommy being one of them. So I've always really admired how she raised her children and she always says to me, you can never love a child too much. And I feel like that looks like something different for all of us, doesn't it? But it gave me such reassurance in the days where I was being told I was creating bad habits or creating a rod for my own back and essentially listening to my intuition. I really clung to those words. So I'm sharing them now,

but I love that they were echoed in Dr. Penelope Leach's chat and her book your baby and child like i mentioned it touches on from birth to age five but looking through it there's a whole section so they she's got a section on the newborn the settled baby the older baby the toddler the young child but in the top toddler section there is lots on sleep and crying and comforting and i love what she mentioned about the potty training as well because I do feel like there is that pressure to kind of achieve things before other kids or achieve things early so yeah I found it really reassuring and what I love about knowing the science or knowing the scientific research is being able to make empowered decisions because I feel like there's a lot of like judgment on mums um I know that well but parents in general but

especially mums you know whether we breastfeed or not whether we sleep train or not how long our baby's sleeping and it's sometimes easy to feel like a failure if your child is not this like stereotypically perfect easy breezy baby and I guess some babies naturally are and some aren't and of course there's lots of that we can do but I do feel like there is this overwhelming pressure for us to be perfect and do everything perfectly and without I definitely focus so much on the science and on the brain development but not thinking about how important it was to keep me happy as well um so you know yes I breastfed for a year and I'm really proud of that but actually would it have potentially been better for my mental health to have kind of

like given that up slightly earlier so I suppose my point is knowing the science and knowing what is right developmentally for your child can help drown out the noise. But it shouldn't make us feel guilty for our decisions because obviously we don't live in a utopian world. Like we are lots of us trying to juggle multiple pressures and the fast paced society and trying to maintain friendships and relationships you know like like um dr penelope mentioned we're not in the days of the 70s where mums with the standard stay at homes and the dads are out working we are trying to do it all so with my new baby even though i really hope she sleeps and isn't fussy and all of those things I feel like I'm going to be more open-minded to remembering the importance of happy mum happy baby and with that I wanted to share a voice note from one of you lovely lot thank you as always for getting in

touch I wanted to share this one hi Ashley I'm sending this message now as I've just finished your latest podcast with Laura and just wanted to say thank you for both being so honest I massively struggled with a lot of mum guilt after giving birth to my son last September I had a really traumatic birth and it's taken a long time to process that so just hearing you both speak so openly um was really refreshing for me and I actually just listened back to um a podcast a couple of weeks ago or it might have been actually before that so I'm sorry if that's wrong but just where you mentioned about getting a birth debrief um and this is something that I've actually looked into now as I've realized that my birth wasn't ordinary it was very traumatic I was left in a lot of pain and had a lot of questions afterwards that just weren't answered I think it's something that you

and Laura did touch on in your podcast as well that actually the care just isn't there for mums after birth which is so sad and it is really upsetting and no wonder so many women feel failed by the system um it's always how's your baby how's your baby how are they doing how are they feeding how are they sleeping yet no one really asks are you okay as a mum and I felt massive guilt for that for just wanting someone to ask um how are you and I can't believe that that's something I even felt guilty about now um especially listening to podcasts like mum's a word where it's spoken of so much more um and just so frankly that it wasn't an unrealistic expectation it was just a need a need for someone to check in

and just check that I was okay as well. Because if someone had asked, I would have just gone, actually, no, I'm crumbling. I just wanted to mainly say thank you because even just over a year on from the birth of my son, I finally feel not alone in those feelings that I felt. And I think that's really important for women. So thanks for what you're doing thank you so much for getting in touch and also I agree it's like

the lack of not necessarily the lack of care for new mums but the fact people forget to ask how we are but also that I know so well those feelings of feeling like you're alone which is the main reason that I wanted to start the podcast so that we can have these conversations and by the way I do feel very conscious of the fact that the last few episodes have been very heavy around sleep and probably if your baby or toddler sleeps you're like okay boring now but that's the thing isn't it we forget how how things like this can just take over your whole world whether it's sleep deprivation or teething or fussy eating because it is easy to get trapped in feeling like you're the only one and everyone else's babies are you know doing it perfectly or all the other mums are doing it

perfectly and i love um chatting with experts and also mums about their own experiences and so um thank you so much for getting in touch to say that the podcast is helping you feel less alone because that's what it does for me as well so um i would love to continue to hear from you guys so get in touch on whatsapp you can do it anonymously like that lovely lady um or you can let me know your name it's 07599927537 or of course you can send an email which is askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com and if you leave an apple review then i can find that as well and um yeah it's always so nice to hear from you and to hear feedback on episodes or if there's any topics that you'd like me to cover maybe you just want me to want to tell me to shut up about sleep trust me I wish I could but I will be back with another

episode same time same place next week I'm sure as parents we all know how messy things can get whether that's around the house during meal times and even when it comes to our little ones themselves when it comes to wiping Alf's messy face and body I want to be sure that what I am using is the best choice for his skin with baby eczema and nappy rash being common conditions, using wipes for sensitive skin is a must. We've both been loving water wipes. We've actually used them since Alf was born and they gently clean and help protect delicate newborn and premature baby skin. They're made of just two ingredients, so 99.9% water and a drop of fruit extract. That means they are the best wipe choice for sensitive skin. Alf loves them and I even find myself using them.

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