S1 E4 Conversations Before Sleep Training: Maternal Mental Health

Lauren: Hello and welcome back to another episode of I Don't Know Who Needs to Hear This. My name is Lauren and I'm here with my co-host Gabrielle. And we have Natalie joining us again today. Natalie, do you just want to do a really quick intro again? And if people want to learn more about you in depth, they can watch our previous episode where you joined us as well. but I do just want to give you the opportunity to just really quickly introduce yourself before we dive in today, and then I'll take back over and talk about what we're gonna dive into today.
Natalie Bowler: Okay, sure. I'm Natalie Bowler. I am a therapist that has specialized in trauma, attachment, and maternal mental health for over ten years.
Lauren: Well, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for coming on for two episodes in a row and taking the time for us. today we're gonna talk about sort of maternal mental health and one of the solutions for that that society is sort of claiming or pushing on mothers is that sleep training is a solution or an answer to sort of some of these postpartum mental health, maternal mental health, postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, those sorts of things. So I just want to give a bit of a disclaimer that every single person has a really unique mental health journey and that it is going to be impossible for us to encompass the experiences of everyone on a single podcast and that some of the things that we're discussing in this episode are going to be heavy hitters and emotionally charged and potentially hard to hear. So definitely like a content warning, trigger warning here that we are going to be diving into postpartum depression, anxiety. We may talk about psychosis and sort of some of those medical emergencies. And the whole point of this podcast is to really talk about hard things and say things that maybe need to be said. that can serve as sort of a catalyst for change in what we know are some really broken systems surrounding women and the dyad and postpartum and parenting. So I just want to start the conversation by saying that this will obviously be a really heavy episode and we will not be perfect. And we may say some things that are hard to hear or that you disagree with or that don't reflect your own experience and your own journey. And that's okay.
Gabrielle Ferrara: I feel like this is a very controversial topic online. and that's why Natalie, I'm really glad you're here too, because I think having the perspective of two, you know, therapists that work with moms and also the three of us are moms ourselves, like we come we're coming with a lot of different perspectives and experiences and again having this conversation because We want to support moms and lift them up and support the mother baby dyad rather than separate them or break them down. we're here for moms like ourselves who have been through this personally and professionally. Natalie, what are your what are your thoughts I wan I wanna hear from you first. What are your thoughts on this? professionally, personally, what are you seeing online? I wanna pass the mic to you first.
Natalie Bowler: I mean, I will I will start with saying I had not severe mental health struggles with my first child, but I would say like significant. I had pretty significant postpartum anxiety and probably some like OCD stuff too. and, you know, what I see online quite a bit is that people will say, We have to have sleep training for mom's mental health. And I think that conversation often leaves out the baby's mental health. And I will also disclose that I was sleep trained as a baby gently for three only three nights. And I had really lifelong struggles until I did EMDR. And I know this is not the case for most people, but my issues resolved in one session. And it was very, very clearly related to my sleep training experiences. and so I think if we're going to talk about mom's mental health, I think that the baby's mental health has to be considered too. I I don't like to talk about just moms or just babies. It's the mother baby dyad.
Lauren: Beyond that, it's not moms, it's not babies, it's the dyad, but it's like the whole family unit. Like what is what is going on in the home? And I think, you gave a little bit of your backstory. I personally really had a hard time, my first year postpartum, and suffered with severe postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum rage. I had a lot of compulsions. I was like washing my hands until they were bleeding, and like we have two older children. children who have sensory issues. and so like hand washing is hard for them and they were in school and it was COVID. And so I had this baby who cried inconsolably, but I also had to bleach everything. it like it was really out of control. and he didn't sleep and I think a lot of sort of the discourse that you see online when we're talking about sort of baby's mental health, mother's and mental health, and it's sort of this chicken egg argument, like which comes first. Can a baby have good mental health if a mother doesn't? And I think there's a lot of nuance that is pulled out of that, because that is public health, right? everybody is experiencing something different. And so we can't make blanket statements and Everybody will have a reason, not an excuse, but a reason as to why something won't work for them or how challenging something besides sleep training may be for them. and so I just want to say like I'm not coming from a place of not understanding that. we have three disabled children, and our oldest, who is now 18, one of his triggers was a crying baby. And so by trigger I mean self-harm, eloping, screaming, property destruction. we were in a really scary place and we all lived in one home. And so I spent that first year where my baby cried inconsolably alone, isolated in our master bedroom with the door shut, so that our at the time 15 year old didn't physically harm himself. so I get I get the extremes. I understand that push or desire to, and for us it was for me, not my husband, but for me it was very strong because if I can get him to stop crying, if I can condition this out of him, perhaps my oldest will be safe. Like it was an actual safety concern. So I understand extreme circumstances. but I also know that there are millions of more creative, I I guess creative for lack of better terms, ways to sort of get around that. And I think that and and we can maybe put other you guys you can interject at any time. I think that when we're saying that sleep training is the solution for mother's mental health, which is what's really common out there. like what we're often really saying is that it's actually like the preservation of current habits and lifestyle, right? Like this doesn't have anything to do with mother's mental health in the way that we think it does. It has to do with like this rigidity to like preserve their current habits and their current lifestyle because it is really difficult to let those things go when those things are what you think are holding you together. And what I mean by that is There's a real resistance to go to bed early. I I need to sleep train my baby so that I can have two hours to decompress and I need that for my mental health. And then when I'm working with these parents, they're like doom scrolling for those two hours. And so can we put ourselves in the really uncomfortable position to not do that? Like, let's not sleep train. Perhaps you don't need to doom scroll for two hours and you do like let's just try it for three weeks. You go to bed early and like what like what are we protecting? Are we protecting your mental health or are we protecting this thing that you perceive to be the glue holding you together? Like are you protecting your mental health or your habits and your lifestyle that you are clinging to because you think that they are, the centerpiece of your mental health when in reality it's just really uncomfortable to sort of let those things go and try something different.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And I can absolutely relate. you know, I also struggled with some postpartum mental health stuff, mostly anxiety, O C D, maybe a little bit of like radio. I had postpartum pet aversion, which I don't think anyone talks about a whole lot an enough because I think it's I think it's more common than we talk about 'cause there's a little bit of a shame component to that too. But like my my dog was the thing that like, you know, really triggered me. So anyway, definitely been there and I had a baby who
Natalie Bowler: Yeah, me too.
Gabrielle Ferrara: would only sleep on my body. still to the I mean, he's he's definitely making progress, but still to this day prefers to be on my body, touching me physical contact two and a half years later. And so Lauren w to what you're saying, yes. For me there was like a huge lifestyle shift where I essentially had to go to bed when my baby did because he would only sleep if he was on my chest. And there's there's definitely a shift in perspective and sort of expectations like what you expected motherhood to look like, what you expected parenthood to look like, that comes along with this. And I think that's a that's a big piece of the conversation. and I want to make sure that we don't invalidate I want to go back to like the sleep actual sleep deprivation piece of it too in in the terms of mental health conversation because I think for many moms that is a huge reality is that yes, like we know point blank lack of sleep can cause more extreme mental health concerns. And I don't want to like minimize that or invalidate that. But also in my opinion, and I believe the two of you share this opinion, sleep deprivation is not something that happens in isolation in the sense that if a mom is so severely sleep deprived that sleep training feels like her only option, she needed and deserved support a long time ago. a while back. It's not something that kind of happens overnight in a vacuum. If a mom is like at that point where she's kind of saying, I am so tired, I'm so sleep deprived, I need to sleep train just so I can survive, more support and more help for that mom and the baby was needed a long time ago. and that support can look various different ways and we can talk about that more in this conversation. But I wanna like make sure we're not minimizing the sleep deprivation piece either because yes, for some babies who really are waking very frequently having lots of issues with physical stuff, sensory stuff, like th those can all contribute to true sleep deprivation. and that is definitely something that happens. And I still don't think sleep training is the solution
Lauren: I think there's this perception that because I chose not to sleep train my baby, that I am like now a martyr or am like making myself an expert or trying to convince another parent that my way is the best way. And I think I don't feel that way at all. I completely understand how we live in a society that has led parents to believe or feel or perhaps it even be true that sleep training is their only option. there are a million different scenarios out there. There are medical emergencies or the death of a spouse or all of these things that could potentially truly validate the need for sleep training. but those things should be the exception and we're living in a society that sort of offers sleep training as the gold standard. at my son's four month appointment, not even talking about sleep. I was told he's good to sleep train now. we're not talking about something that's being offered as the last resort when maybe we should be. And I think when we're talking about I'm trying to think of like another good example. if you are sick and you are taken to the hospital and perhaps you have an infection and you have to be admitted for IV antibiotics.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah, right. It
Lauren: They're gonna do a culture and sensitivity that's gonna tell them what antibiotic is gonna work best for the infection that you have. And perhaps you're allergic to a drug class. So the top four antibiotics that work for you don't work. do you feel shame when you tell the doctor, I can't take those, I'm allergic? And they're like, well, we'll go to the next best thing.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: Like should these conversations be as shame inducing or anxiety inducing as they are? what caused that? And is that really where we start? addressing the fact that we can't even talk about this because it may make a mother feel shame or are we stuck where we're stuck because we're not having the conversations that is of the problem, right? like you said, that mother needed help long before she got to that point. Everybody listening to this who's gone through that is thinking, what's the help? Like who's gonna help me? And the problem is that looks different for every single person. And so you can't say online, well be a stay-at-home mom. Like that would help you. Like that's not gonna work for everybody. But if we aren't having these conversations often, loudly, honestly, like sharply, like we've got to be a little bit bold in the conversations because really what's gonna make the change is if this narrative starts getting to people before they have children. it blindsided me. I had no idea, but we don't talk about it enough for ever to get to anybody when they're in a position where they can do something proactively.
Gabrielle Ferrara: right.
Lauren: maybe a year before you have children, you pick up an extra shift every week so that you can be paid and stay home for an extra six mont you know what I mean? Like perhaps you join a community and you like really start nurturing that community like locally so that you have a village. we don't have people that can come like we don't have a village. Like it's just us.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Right. Yeah no.
Lauren: And had I known that this was gonna be a thing, I would have tried to build someone that could like come let me take a shower into my life beforehand. but we have to first talk about
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. Yeah, right.
Lauren: We have to be able to name that this is a negative thing, right? That we are forcing mothers into like this sleep training thing and we have to be able to talk about it without everyone immediately shutting it down, saying that it's not helpful or it's producing shame and those kinds of things.
Gabrielle Ferrara: exactly. I I totally agree with everything you said, Lauren. And sleep training is seen as the default. And that's kind of what I was getting at is of like what you were saying is the it's the default path. And rather than it being, like you said, this like very last case scenario, very extreme situation sort of thing for emergencies, it's seen as the default, the gold standard, the thing that we are supposed to do. And I think that's why many moms fall into the rhythm of believing that it's the only option because it's the only option that's presented a lot of times from even before baby is here. Like you said, during pregnancy, during even growing up. Like I remember being a babysitter when I was like a teenager and I'd go babysit other kids and the parents would leave and be like, yeah, just put them in their crib at 7 p.m. and then you can walk out and close the door and like, you know, and it was very clean in hindsight now, it's very clear to me that most of those kids were probably sleep trained because now I have a kid of my own who's the same age who I would never have been able to just like put him in a crib and close the door and walk away. and so now in hindsight I'm like, those kids were probably sleep trained and like it just was the norm. I I was talking to someone recently who had an experience where they were babysitting one night as a teenager and they the baby was just like screaming the parents were like, just ignore them, like just let them cry. And the babysitter, was like, I'm not ignoring this baby and like went in and just held the baby until the parents got home. So we're just like conditioned from even before parenting is even on our radar that like this is the norm. which I think is really tough.
Natalie Bowler: something that I have seen personally that's even more concerning is we have to also realize that not everybody is equally as attuned. And I think sometimes like pediatricians will be just just say, like, it's time to do sleep training or it's time to do cry it out. And personally, I've seen situations where like the baby is really sick and
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah.
Natalie Bowler: The parents will just do something like go in and like suction their nose, get the snot out, and then just like put them back into the crib and leave them like that. And so I think it's also it's just like very like I think it can be very vague and like the pediatricians don't always know the parents' histories or like how much they know about child development too. and so that that piece can be really concerning as well.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Mm. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Lauren: Yeah, and I think for every parent that comes and says, like, sleep training saved our lives, sleep training made everything so much better for us. There is a parent who can also say, like, s I was diagnosed with PTSD after sleep training. Like it took me therapy, to sort of get through the experience that we had. And I think something that isn't talked about enough is that if you have a baby who does well,
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah.
Lauren: your baby is very different than the other person's baby who doesn't have the same temperament and maybe has some underlying medical things going on or perhaps is neurodivergent or so we just have to be really careful in the same way that we can say there's no way that we can talk about everybody's mental health there's also no way to talk about every type of baby. it's so big. Epigenetics, temperament, sensory processing, like there's no way to say that sleep training is actually what saved you, or like when you're giving that advice to another parent that sleep training would not then traumatize their baby or them. just as unique as every baby is, every parent is. And so, the the possibility of a parent navigating true trauma after sleep training is very real. just because it was very useful for some parents, does not mean that it won't be really traumatic for others and their babies.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yes, and I see that regularly. Natalie, you you you might too. Like I get inquiries from parents for sleep consultations that say to me, like, we tried sleep training with XYZ program or sleep trainer and it destroyed me or it like it killed me inside or I'm never gonna be the same after trying that. Like I you know, these very extreme statements that in what world Is that helpful for mom's mental health? If she's literally saying, like, I tried sleep training and it has destroyed me, there's that's not helping mom's mental health. That's not a solution, like that is not helping. And Lauren, yes, like you said, it's very unique to every mom, every baby, every situation, not every mom is going to have that sort of reaction, but plenty of moms are, and that's like where we need to be careful with this blanket statement. And Natalie, I know you've had this experience too with moms.
Natalie Bowler: Yeah, I definitely have. And I think one of the really problematic things is it's not just pediatricians that are recommending sleep training. A lot of people are going to someone who specializes in perinatal care as a therapist, and they're also recommending sleep training. And I mean, I think...
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie Bowler: We maybe have had this conversation before where like sometimes it feels like who is a safe therapist that I can go to that is not going to tell me to sleep train my child. Because, you know, I recently took the most popular perinatal training and was kind of shocked at some of the things that were said in it, just in terms of Like I know one of the trainers was like, please do not put your baby in bed with you. Like moms, please do not put your babies in bed with you. And like as therapists, we're not supposed to judge, but like we should not put babies in bed with us. And it was just very off putting, there was a general vibe of sleep training is the solution. And I know not every single trainer.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah.
Natalie Bowler: in that organization feels that way, but I know it's certainly a problem if I don't know of any perinatal therapists in the area where I was practicing prior to moving to Greenville that didn't suggest that. Because then it leaves moms with... you know, they're already struggling with their mental health. It's not even necessarily a conversation or if it is, the therapist is trying to convince them into sleep training. And then if a mom does that against what she feels is right inside, I feel like we're adding to the mental health challenges in some cases.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Right. Totally. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. I think the role of the mental health therapist here is huge and the scope of practice that they're operating into, most therapists are not trained in infant sleep, you know, sleep development mental health therapists, that's not part of our core training. If you want that sort of training, you kind of have to do what we've done, Natalie, where we take a sleep course or we do more education. in addition to our, you know, therapy mental health courses. And I think that a therapist who gives sleep advice when they're not trained in infant sleep is speaking out of out of scope. And that's a really big issue in my opinion, because that therapist does not know you in that regard in terms of the relationship you have with your baby, their sleep, you they don't know your baby, they don't know their your baby's medical history, like They don't know any of those things to be able to be giving that advice to sleep train your baby. and I do want to give therapists the benefit of the doubt here because I know that they're trying to help their clients and they care about their clients, they care about the moms. I care about my clients, now they I know you do too. Like we want to help the mom when the mom is our client. And if we are not trained or educated in biologically normal infant sleep or the relationship between mom and baby, then sometimes that advice may come off as sleep training because sleep training means more sleep for mom, which could equal better health mental health for mom, and it becomes this sort of like A plus B equals C equation and therapists are really trying to support their clients. And I totally want to validate that and give therapists the benefit of the doubt. But I do think it's a little bit of a breach in terms of scope of practice. and to add on to that, even if a therapist is trained in infant sleep, And they're acting as your therapist, that's still like not their scope of practice in that moment to be like giving sleep advice. So there's a lot of nuance here where I feel like if a therapist is telling a mom that she needs to sleep train for her mental health, that is a bit of a a problem and something that I think comes up a lot where a therapist is kind of giving advice that isn't appropriate or looking at the full picture. and that can be really tough, especially when mom is already struggling and in a very vulnerable spot.
Natalie Bowler: I think part of the problem is in the training and I do think we actually need Training that is more focused on the perinatal period but also babies mental health and Learn like you said earlier like the whole family that is attachment focus because I was pretty shocked when I took this training and there was not really a mention of attachment and it feels so Critical to that time period and I've noticed a really interesting phenomenon. So before I was doing perinatal care, I was a trauma and attachment specialist. I was working with adults with childhood trauma and attachment issues and all the experts in that field are very against sleep training and cry it out and think that it's terrible and we should not be doing it. The perinatal field where I hear up experts talking who in a lot of cases are not attachment experts. They are very, some of these people are very for it. And it's just, it's just interesting because they're not working with potentially what this looks like down the line and In working with adults, I have developed a specialization in pre-verbal trauma, including helping people work through their sleep training trauma. So like that is something that shows up in my office, not infrequently.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: Yeah. when we're talking about sort of like this recommendation as sleep training being the answer or the anecdote to some of these really big things, right? Like postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, like it's all driven by sleep deprivation. We know it's not. We know there's a hormonal component, we know there's like a societal component, your partner's a huge component, what are the needs of the other children in your home? and there is this huge lack of like comprehensive assessment. So we are saying as like a first line treatment, let's sleep train and get you more sleep because more sleep is going to make you feel better about all these other things going on when per perhaps and what I have seen in actuality is that it can actually make things a lot worse. in in the entire like sort of family unit. more friction in the marriage, more you know, y you've misattuned with one child and now we've got more dysregulation and you are already sort of navigating something with another child. Like it can really implode and really have a negative impact on mental health. And like I said, there are other things, many other things, and we kind of talked about this before we started, but there is a real resistance to doing other things first. Can we find and and again, like I kind of talked about in the disclaimer, obviously these things will not work for everybody, but can we find someone, a mother's helper or whatever that allows mom to take a nap? If we honestly believe sleep deprivation is the root cause of what is happening, there are other creative ways in which we can get mom more sleep. what can we do? Even if it sounds insane, what can we do to get you more sleep? and and really
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah.
Lauren: perhaps we should be thinking really creatively and getting mom more sleep in other ways that aren't sleep training. And I was talking to you, Gabrielle, the other day about some comments because I have been talking about this and I just sort of have like this compassion fatigue I feel like because a lot of the responses I get online are like, what about me? What if I wanna go back to work? What if I wanna do this? And I and like what is like blatantly missing from all of that is like what about my baby? Like what about all of these things? And like we can't leave the baby out of the mental health discussion because the number one reason that I see in practice that parents have this huge negative mental health impact from sleep training is like, I did something to my baby. And I do see like
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah.
Lauren: some sort of extreme things that come out of sleep training, right? Like seizures and like sleep chain didn't cause the seizure, but it sort of messes with that seizure threshold or like a baby who aspirated and is now impatient and like these obviously have really profound imp impacts on that parent's mental health and like now I have to forgive myself and now I don't trust myself and we're sort of in this spiral. But like we are lacking a really comprehensive assessment that is needed We don't know anything about the mother. We don't know anything about how helpful her partner is, or like, does she have like you were saying, Natalie, is her inability to nurture throughout the night, is it tied to like her not being nurtured throughout the night? Like, we need to be having conversations about the actual mental health of an of a mother because this sleep training, unless Everything is tied to sleep deprivation, it's just a band-aid to everything else. Like it it's not helping her mental health unless the only thing impacting her mental health is sleep deprivation. Like we're missing so many important pieces and it just should not be like the first. Well, you'll feel better if we can sleep train your baby. There are other ways to get a mom more rest.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it becomes this very black and white conversation of getting mom like a full night of uninterrupted sleep. When in reality, like what we've been saying, getting mom like a nap or having given her a chance to sleep in in the morning, like someone takes over with the baby in the morning and she can sleep in for a few more hours. Like these little changes that we make that get mom like some more consolidated chunks of sleep throughout the day, or, you know, first my husband used to take like kind of the first shift. Like, you know, he would hold my son. My my son would only sleep if he was held for a very long time. So I would get him to sleep, nurse him to sleep, and then my husband would hold him and I would sleep for a few hours at the beginning of the night. like we have to get sort of creative and look at getting mom like just more sleep throughout the day over the course of twenty four hours versus kind of having this black and white goal of, you know, either I'm waking all night long with my baby or I'm getting eight hours uninterrupted and like looking at it as like the gold standard. because the truth is, like we are probably not being we're not going to be able to get you a full eight, ten hours of uninterrupted sleep with an infant unless we do something like extreme sleep training. And I like to like, you know, kind of say that to parents too when I work with them. Like my goal is not to get your baby to sleep through the night. Like, I don't think that's ever been a goal that I've had with any family because that's just not realistic. But my goal is how can we help you feel better about your baby's sleep and how they're sleeping and focus on what's in your control as the parent. And I think that's the piece that's missing here too, is sleep training culture has this very intense focus on controlling the baby and fixing the baby and changing how the baby sleeps. And misses the piece where parents can focus on what is in our control as adults with fully functioning frontal lobes and kind of this ability to s to regulate ourselves and to find ways to support ourselves, we miss that piece. Or I don't know if we ignore it or or what kind of happens there. But the truth is we cannot control how our babies sleep. again, if unless we're doing some very extreme sort of behavioral sleep training. But if we're looking at sleep from a biologically normal standpoint, we're not going to be able to control how our babies sleep. So what is in your control as the parent, as the adult? What do you what can you control in terms of when you're going to sleep, when you're asking for support, how you're asking for support, things like even taking a nap with your baby instead of using that time to do the laundry. Like what can you take off your plate so that you can get sleep in these little pockets of time that might not be ideal or might not be what you expected in terms of what sleep looks like in the postpartum period, but it's what you need and being flexible in your mindset to kind of make those adjustments, focusing on on what you can control. instead of trying to control your baby in their sleep.
Lauren: Yeah. I think that had I been in therapy, so we talked about this a little bit in like previous episodes, but like the role when you guys are talking about like the role of the therapist or even like a pediatrician who is recommending sleep training and we're talking about it in regards to my mental health, right? So when I talk about like this comprehensive assessment, anecdotally, my story was that, you know, I was afraid to watch my favorite TV show. Like I didn't want my baby to see the TV. And so I was sitting in silence and tr like bouncing with him on a ball. And so did I need sleep training or did I need someone to be like, girl, turn the TV on and like like turn the TV on and binge watch your favorite shows. so we're missing. We are like missing all of these tiny little things that parents are like focused on the wrong thing that are sending them because for me
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah, right. Right. Totally.
Lauren: the postpartum depression, anxiety, I had hallucinations. and we talked about this before. I was suicidal. I wasn't gonna leave my baby. So I guess that would deem me homic like homicidal because I I wasn't going anywhere without him. like it got really, really bad. And sort of at the same time as I came out of that, I don't know if you guys are familiar with like the Lindsey Clancy. case like this mother who killed her children and then jumped out of a window and like there's a lot of like discourse around that but that was happening at the same time that I was like experiencing all of this and I could see how easy it was to get there. I was in such a bad place but it didn't have anything to do with sleep. I was washing my hands a thousand times a day.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah.
Lauren: I wouldn't turn on the TV. I had to have my water bottle in a certain spot to be able to sit down. Like so many things were going on. So when we're talking about like severe cases, I would say that I was there, right? Like I was it was it was a psychiatric emergency and sleep training was nowhere near I needed someone to be like you are having some issues with OCD. I probably needed medication. I needed someone to give me permission to turn on the TV. I needed not sleep training. Yes. Yes. Like I was convinced because nurses had told me if I brought him to my bed he would die. Like sleep training was not the answer for me. In fact, and we talked about this also, like how much of what how much of his dysregulation which was making me dysregulate it
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. Permission to co sleep, we talked about that too.
Natalie Bowler: you
Lauren: which was making our oldest self-harm, like how much of that came from sort of this sleep training crap that I was buying into, like trying to put him down, trying to make him independent, like trying to like spread out his feet. Like just like all of these things that I was doing was probably making that so much worse. And all of that is sleep training culture, right? You gotta spread out their feed so that they can sleep longer stri he wasn't sleeping any s no stretches. There were there was no stretch, right? And he needed like constant movement. And that constant movement was happening in a dark room with a sound machine because I didn't want I didn't think I could be looking at my phone because what if he saw me looking at my phone? And now like the still face thing like I was not in a good headspace and I had nothing. Sleep training was not the answer. And I feel like many other parents are in that sort of headspace and they go see
Gabrielle Ferrara: Right.
Lauren: therpediatrician or a therapist and it's like, Well, let's get you more sleep and see what that does and it just wasn't I wasn't sleeping, but I don't believe that any of that was related to sleep deprivation.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Natalie Bowler: Yeah. And I think like what you're saying too with the more comprehensive assessment, even for therapists to do, and this is another thing that I hear of a lot of therapists that specialize in perinatal care not doing is, like an assessment around like trauma and childhood history and like how that can influence like the parenting experience. So like I'm trained in mother hunger and I know that's like a huge piece and that that was a part of my story too and I think was driving a lot of my anxiety because I felt like there's a book called Mothering Without a Map and I always like use that phrase. That's what it felt like for me and it's just Like I so bad, especially with being a trauma therapist, like I knew what was not the way, but I wasn't sure what the way was. Not that there's like any specific exact way, but I think a lot of times we are missing.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Right.
Natalie Bowler: like childhood history and like how that might be impacting the postpartum period or sometimes um birth trauma like I know that when i've worked with clients who are not sleeping and they're told you have postpartum depression you have postpartum anxiety or even you have postpartum psychosis and in some cases i'm not really sure why that's being given as the diagnosis but when I take a thorough history I'll find oh this person had hemorrhage and almost like she felt like she almost died and so every time she lays down in a bed she becomes hyper vigilant and You know again, I think different things for different people but like doing something like EMDR or like some kind of trauma processing modality has been able to address that very quickly and Lauren I know like your situation sounds like you know, very different. So I'm not saying that is the solution for everybody. But I think when there's not a thorough assessment taken that you don't see these pieces that can be addressed. Yeah.
Lauren: Mm. I think too, hindsight is twenty twenty and like something for me that I can name now that maybe I couldn't then was that I had, you know, this childhood that was filled with like big T drama kind of stuff. And having a baby like all of that like ripped all of that open for me, right? Like I could see him there and I thought that I had dealt with this. I had done therapy prior to having a baby. And it still happens. Like with every stage that I see him, with every age that I see him, I am just reminded like these things were happening around me when I was like this. Like this is like my mom, like
Natalie Bowler: Yes. Yes.
Lauren: this is what we were living and like this is what I was like. Like he's almost five like it just continuously like I don't know that it will end. but like I didn't have like it was grief, right? I think. Like I think what I was experiencing was like profound grief. And like what was sleep training him going to do to fix that? Like it like I like the answer was not and should not have been
Natalie Bowler: Yes.
Lauren: that as like a first line recommendation. I think that many parents are going through grief. even if they didn't have profound trauma in their childhood, they had this expectation of what things were going to be like. And if you let that go, you experience grief. And I think that there is this resistance or sort of this expectation, which is why we need to be talking about this in a way that allows people to hear it before they have children. this is gonna change you. This is gonna rock your world. And if it doesn't, if you're surrounded by friends who have had babies and they just seem to be going on as normal, they likely have a very chill baby or a profound support system. And We don't always know, I had a friend who was telling me, like, we did baby-led weaning. And I was like, I'm gonna do baby-led weaning. And my child ended up having, you know, like a praxia of speech and swallowing issues and limapraxia and all of these things. And so that didn't work and I just like felt like a failure. And by the time my baby was doing that, she had had another baby. And I so I was like, Are you gonna do baby-led weaning again?
Gabrielle Ferrara: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: And she was like, we didn't do it. It sucked and we gave up on it. And I was just like, because I had like built up in my head, like, I'm failing because this didn't work. And she was able to do it. But she didn't tell me. Like, it sucked, and we gave up. And we're not doing baby lead weaning. We're doing like perets and we're handing him a piece of meat to chew on sometimes. Like, but like
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah.
Natalie Bowler: Mm-hmm.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Right, right, right.
Lauren: look we don't know what other people are going through and we're not getting the updates that like something sucks or their baby's not sleeping. so you really have to be careful with that comparison piece and let's talk about that in therapy or in the pediatrician's office instead of like there's just so many other things that are going on and it's not related to sleep deprivation.
Natalie Bowler: Yeah, and Lauren like I think the same thing for me when I had my son there were just like so many layers of grief and as a therapist I had done a ton of therapy before I had kids and it's so funny I have a lot of clients that I've worked with who do not have Kids yet and are like on the fence about it. They're like I just need to resolve all of my trauma before I have a kid and I'm like you know, now that I've had the experience, I'm like, it's not possible. I think it just pulls out these new layers. And I think exactly what you said, I kept having these experiences of seeing my little baby and kind of like seeing my baby self next to them and like the things that I experienced. And yeah, I think that's just a heavy experience on top of like all the normal adjustments to motherhood.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, I can totally and thank you both for sharing like vulnerable experiences with that. I know that's hard to talk about. so yeah. I completely agree. And I think the other piece that gets missed too is especially in the therapy world, like I think sometimes what I hear online or what I see online is a therapist saying, like, you know, the role of the therapist is not to convince mom to do something one way or the another. It's to like let them the client lead. You know, this is what we learned in school, Natalie, right? Like let the client lead and like support them and kind of like let them lead the way. so if a mom says like she is interested in sleep training, like it's not the therapist's job to like dissuade them or to sort of like lean them lead them in another direction. And while I agree with that, I think the therapist's role is, however, to ask more questions. If a mom says she wants to sleep train and ask Mom, do you really want to do this or do you feel like you have to? You feel like you should? You're getting pressure from other people that to tell you that you should do this. What is going on here that is leading you to this sort of decision or this desire to engage in sleep training? Because yes, a therapist's role is not to necessarily say like, no, you shouldn't sleep train, But I do think many moms, if you dug a little bit deeper and ask them like why are you actually leaning towards this decision or like why do you feel like sleep training is something you need to do. Many of them would say something along the lines of, you know, that's what I've been told I should do. That's what the pediatrician said, that's what my best friend said. That's, you know, what I feel like I need to do because I don't know how else to support myself or get sleep. Like there's layers to it. And I think if we dug a little bit deeper into those layers, even as therapists, we would get a lot more information and be better able to support those clients. they might still end up sleep training. And of course, you know, that's their decision to make, but we might also be able to get a little bit deeper. And if a mom is like, I don't really want to leave my baby to cry, but I don't know what else to do, then we can step in and the role as a therapist and say, here, let's talk together and figure out together what else can you do so that you don't have to do this thing that you actually don't want to do. so we can talk about, you know, creative ways again to get support, to get extra help, to get more sleep, and that's the role of the therapist, rather than just to like kind of sit idly back, especially with things like this, with sleep training, in particular, where the mom's mental health is at stake, the baby's mental health is at stake, the relationship between the two, like there are so many important pieces. Even the baby's physical health. We talked about this, you know, on episode a few weeks ago. Like a therapist does not know if a baby is Dealing with medical stuff that could, you know, be a physical risk for sleep training. Like, I know for me, my son had severe reflux for the f pretty much the first entire year of his life. And leaving him to cry would have been potentially very, very dangerous. I mean, it's dangerous for any baby. Lauren, we've talked about this. You know, aspiration is a risk for any baby. but for, you know, a baby like him, like I knew it was a risk. Like he had some periods where he would like you know, really be struggling with his reflux or have pauses in his breathing because of it. they're really like hard stuff. And at it would have never been appropriate for my own therapist in that situation to instruct me to sleep train because it wouldn't have been safe for him. So we're getting into like a lot of nitty gritty, potentially dangerous things here if when mental health professionals are kind of advocating for sleep training without digging a little bit deeper or looking at the whole picture.
Lauren: Yeah, I think too, like outside and I touched a little bit on this earlier, like outside of like physical risks or like missing what the parent needs, like there needs to be an assessment for like what are we actually looking at? Like, are we looking at like a a mental health need or are we looking at a parent or family that is really stuck and is really rigid around like their current lifestyle. I have a family in my life that has a new baby and they don't want to sleep train and they don't want to do child care. So dad is working during the day and mom is working at night, and this was not what they were doing before baby, and this is obviously very difficult. like both of them are sort of supporting baby on their own during their on times and they're like passing ships in the night and like This is an example of something that someone might do. it's temporary. they're not martyrs. Like they're just doing something that's temporary and it it serves like the way that they want to parent. And I think that a lot of sort of this anxiety or mental health piece is actually like being committed to a lifestyle. or habits that we are fearful of letting go of. And in some of these like comments online where I was saying like I have compassion fatigue, people like, well what are the options? And like I said, like you can't I can't tell you what the options are for you, but for us, like we moved. We downsized, I gave up a six figure career. We sold two cars. like we did really big things. So like you you are not
Gabrielle Ferrara: Mm-hmm. Yep.
Lauren: stuck. It felt like we were stuck. It was very scary. it was really scary, right? Like we moved to like a different area. I didn't know anybody. I there we lived in like a really nice area where there were a lot of like kinder music and like group activities and things like that. and we really moved to help there be space between our oldest and our youngest and Because that we determined like that was the thing that was stressing me the most, right? That safety piece. And I think we have to work with a parent to move through that fear of letting go of a lifestyle. In our case, it's more permanent because we are moved here and we'll never move again. so like, but is there like can they take a part-time job? Can they work different hours? Can they
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah.
Lauren: I don't know, like do they go to church and can someone from their church come and let them shower? One thing that I think is sort of slept on in the parenting space that I recommend to families is can you get a gym membership and not use it for the gym? Like so you can put your child in the gym child care, they can still see you, you can sit at a desk. A lot of them have a smoothie counter, drink your smoothie, sit at a desk and do your work. a lot of them have saunas, showers. So like one of the things
Gabrielle Ferrara: Mm. Yeah.
Lauren: That I wish I had done when we were living at our other house is like I couldn't shower until like 9 p.m. every night, and I have like sensory odor, like postpartum, you stink. Like it drove me crazy. Like, could I have taken him to a gym and used a gym for 20 minutes to shower? Like, so there are like really creative ways to find support. we just have to be willing to go there, and it's kind of scary. To go there, especially if it's big, like working, you working overnight while your husband watches your baby. Like that's really big.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Totally.
Natalie Bowler: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I know we had like a whole lifestyle change. We sold our nice house and I closed my group practice and I feel like, know, financially at times things have been like a little bit tighter, but it has felt very worth it.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Make yeah, I we're in the same place. We've made some decisions to, you know, that I'm at home with our son and financially agreed like some th things are tight and I know that it's temporary and I know that this is what my son needs and I think the alternative I don't know. I don't want to speak 'cause everyone's situation is different. And that's why like you know, we gave that disclaimer and I I know there's a lot of nuance in this conversation. and I don't think that our babies are responsible for what we deal with like in the adult world. And I think that's where sleep training kind of misses the mark too, is it puts the onus on babies to be a certain way, to be convenient. And that's not their responsibility to take on. So if anyone is going to be quote unquote inconvenienced, like it it needs to be us as the adults and kind of being able to take that pressure off of our babies to be a certain way or to act a certain way or to sleep a certain way. because that's not their job.
Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. And I do think like that is the number one step, right? Like people are like It sounds like you want to burn the whole system down, but like what is what are the actual steps that we can do? Like the first step is that we have to stop shutting the conversation down. we have to stop fearing that a grown adult woman will feel shamed, anxious,
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren: women are not fragile. we have been convinced that we are, but we are really capable of feeling our feelings. It's okay to be anxious. Like it's okay to feel fear. It's okay to feel shame. Like I would gladly feel shame around some of the decisions that I have made every single day if it meant we were talking about the reason why I had to make those decisions. the first step is we have to talk about it. And we can't because the second you get online and you say, hey, this is not the solution to this, you're harming an infant and possibly harming the dyad, and people are like, shame. I had to because I had to go to work. Well, let's talk about that. Like let feel your shame. Feel your shame and let your shame be the catalyst for change. Get out of the cog. You're your cog in a machine, right? Get out of it. Like let's talk about it. And let's like that's step one.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Right. Yeah.
Lauren: Is talking about it because we talked about this in the beginning. Some parents have to sleep train. There are emergency situations. There are really desperate situations where it's needed. And so we recognize that the rest of us who can make really scary big changes, like, we gotta pull out of that. We gotta demand that pediatricians stop giving this as the gold standard advice at two months old, even, and say, like, you're playing into a system like the system will keep working if you don't put your like someone has to take a stand or the system will keep working. Now I do think there are many people who are choosing nurture now and those children will likely choose nurture. So like I do think we're making slow progress, but what is the answer now? Like you gotta put your foot down. You gotta take a stand. You have to get uncomfortable. You have to have uncomfortable conversations and
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah.
Lauren: recognize that not everybody can move, sell two cars, give up a six-figure career, but you can invest in your community and you can go hold your neighbor's baby while she takes a shower. that's part of the resistance, right? you can in very small ways start changing sort of this society that is broken.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie Bowler: I just want to say for like people in different situations where both parents have to work. And it's been really interesting because You know, I've had some families that I've known that are from different cultures. Both parents are working full time. They have to. And... I think it's maybe less weird to them to bed share because it's maybe a cultural norm, but it's just like, that's a different situation and that's something that can work. Or I've worked with single moms that are finding creative solutions with like neighbors or somebody. so, yeah, I just think there are a lot of different situations and creativity is so important. And I think Lauren, with those comments you get, is like, we can't really answer the question of what else should we do? Because we don't know each individual person's situation. And then I also just think as a therapist, think as moms, we've somehow been convinced that feeling guilt and shame or anxiety is a bad thing. What I think emotions are communication. And sometimes when we feel guilt and shame, it's communicating to us, this is not in alignment with my values or who I want to be. And so really a bigger picture conversation is if if we're going to repair with our kids, we're gonna feel guilt and shame. If we don't actually do something with our guilt and shame, then we probably aren't gonna repair with our kids.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yeah. And to add on to that too, when people online are saying, like, you're shaming moms or you're, you know, making moms feel shame, nobody can make you feel shame. shame is something that you feel internally as a response to maybe something, you know, that you're reading or seeing, but nobody can make you feel shame. So if you see something online that makes you feel that emotion, it's not again something to run away from, but something to reflect on. Like, why is this bringing up this feeling in me? and what might that be saying? And again, like you said, Lauren, having the conversation about it, like not just immediately saying, like you're shaming moms, like this made me feel shame. W why is that emotion coming up for you? Like, why is this conversation hard for you? And let's talk about it more, let's dive into it more. Like, why is this bringing up emotions for you? And I would guarantee a lot of moms would then say, it's because I sleep trained for example. I sleep trained and I didn't actually really want to, and I'm feeling like really big emotions about having done it and seeing a person online saying something negative about sleep training is triggering for me and makes, you know, makes me feel shame. But it's not is never about like this targeted attack. It's not like I'm targeting this mom to say like I'm shaming you. It's a experience that this mom is having because of her experiences and it's worth talking about and processing in a way that is inclusive and compassionate. so I think that's important to remember too is like when we say this word shame, it becomes this kind of big bad monster when it really is just an opportunity for a reflection of why is that emotion coming up for you, like what's happening for you.
Lauren: All right. All right. Well, I think that that is a good place for us to end this today. Obviously, we could talk about this forever. Natalie, thank you so much again for joining us for another episode. And I'll make sure that I put your website and your information in the show notes for everybody that is interested in contacting Natalie. She is on Instagram and I'll she's got two websites, so I'll make sure that I post those. and we'd love to know your feedback or your thoughts on the show. So if you are on YouTube, let us know in the comments or you can DM any of us or all of us at the same time and let us know if this spoke to any of your realities or what you experienced. and I just want to say again, like obviously this conversation was a little bit heavy hitting and could be, you know, triggering or promote some feelings. So I just want to name that and again say that we obviously can't speak to everyone's unique experience or their unique baby.
Gabrielle Ferrara: Yep. And but we're here for you. We all offer the type of support that kind of looks at the whole baby, the whole picture, the whole family unit. so if you're ever in a position where you are really struggling with your baby sleep and your mental health and you want kind of that more nuanced, holistic, full picture approach, there are professionals out there like us and not even just the three of us, many others out there that can kind of help you navigate that situation in a way that supports your mental health. your sleep, your baby's mental health, your baby's sleep, and never involves any sort of non responsive sleep training if that's something that doesn't feel right to you. So we can we can help you on that journey and you're not alone on it and you're doing an amazing job and your babies are really lucky to have you. If you're in a place where you're doubting that, your baby's lucky to have you.
Lauren: Alright, we'll see you guys next time.
Gabrielle Ferrara: See you next time. Bye.