Using Neuroscience to Support Your Baby’s Brain Development with Greer Kirshenbaum, PhD

 

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today I get to hang out with Greer Kirshenbaum, which I always want to say Kirschenbaum for my fellow folks who know German tuning in. My Austrian friends will be like, hello, how are you saying her name? Greer's awesome. She is an author and a neuroscientist, a doula, infant and family sleep specialist, and a mom. She trained at the University of Toronto, Columbia University, New York University, and Yale. Greer has combined her academic training with her experience as a doula and a mother to lead the Nurture Revolution. It's a movement to nurture our baby's brains to revolutionize mental health and impact larger systems in our world. She wants families, professionals, and workplaces to understand how early caregiving experience can boost mental wellness and diminish depression, anxiety, and addiction in adulthood by shaping baby's brains through simple, intuitive, enriching experiences in pregnancy, birth, and infancy. Her book is called The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health through the Art of Nurtured Parenting. She offers resources, workshops, and sessions on her website, nurture-neuroscience.com. Y 'all, learning how to communicate with babies and the importance of it is huge because it's the foundation for attachment, which y 'all know if you've read Tiny Humans, Big Emotions, is cornerstone to how we show up in the world. Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum is laying this out here for you in her book, The Nurture Revolution. It was so rad to get to chat with her about it. It's one of those books that I have like things flagged all throughout. If this podcast is serving and supporting you, please take a minute to rate and review it. It is how we can reach more folks with free tools and support on this journey because we know it takes a village and we are not meant to do this alone. Thank you so much for being a part of this village. Y 'all are rad. All right, let's dive in. 

 

00:02:13    Alyssa

Hey there, I'm Alyssa Blask Campbell. I'm a mom with a master's degree in early childhood education and co -creator of the Collaborative Emotion Processing Method. I'm here to walk alongside you through the messy, vulnerable parts of being humans raising other humans with deep thoughts and actionable tips. Let's dive in together. 

 

00:02:35    Alyssa

Yeah. How are you doing today? 

 

00:02:37    Greer

I'm doing okay.  I had a very sleepless night. My son got, is sick and we've been so healthy for so long. It's been so nice. And he started running nose a couple of days ago and then I got it. So we were both up last night. 

 

00:02:52    Alyssa

Yeah, brutal. 

 

00:02:53    Greer

Not the best, but. 

 

00:02:54    Alyssa

Also sleepless, but just have an almost six month old. So, you know, sleepless comes with the territory. 

 

00:03:02    Greer

That's right, moms do it anyway. 

 

00:03:05    Alyssa

That's right. 

 

00:03:06    Greer

Figure it out. Yeah. 

 

00:03:07    Alyssa

That's right. She slept like her first stretch of sleep from really early on was like eight to nine hours. It was incredible. And I, you know, she's my second kid, so I was just like, it's not going to stay. 

 

00:03:20    Greer

Yes. 

 

00:03:20    Alyssa

Just enjoy it while it's here. 

 

00:03:21    Greer

Yes. 

 

00:03:23    Alyssa

And then yeah, sure enough, once she started like rolling and trying to practice rolling and all that, it was like shifted and hasn't shifted back. But actually this morning she for the first time rolled from her back to her belly. 

 

00:03:35    Greer

That's great. 

 

00:03:36    Alyssa

Yeah, and I like caught the end of the roll. It's so great for a sleep and just like fun that I was like able to see it and she did her first belly to back roll, also while I was right there, so I was like, thanks Mila, thanks for hanging on to this for me. 

 

00:03:51    Greer

That's awesome. I remember that moment with my son too, I was so excited. 

 

00:03:56    Alyssa

I tell, so I worked in early childhood for a long time and was a teacher and I tell teachers like this is never something that I think you should report home. Like that they did this for the first time at school, like they're going to do it again. 

 

00:04:12    Greer

Yeah. 

 

00:04:13    Alyssa

And you don't have to steal that moment. Parents can feel like they saw it first and they'll never know. 

 

00:04:20    Greer

I love that. I love that. Yeah. You want to be there for all those first. My son's first crawling was so funny. I just, it was one of those moments I had such strong intuition. Like he had been, you know, like playing around with it a bit, but he was also a kid who just kind of like, did something, and then like, kind of never did it again. I mean, not with crawling, he would do it again, of course, but it just things would just come out of nowhere, he would do them. And then he'd be like, alright, I did it. 

 

00:04:47    Alyssa

Done. Don't need to show off this skill. 

 

00:04:49    Greer

Exactly, exactly. But with the crawling, we were staying at my cousin's house. And I was like, he's gonna crawl, like, I'm like, I can see it. He's about to crawl. So I took my phone and like, turned on the video and put it on the other side of the room. And sure enough, he did. So I got to send that to my husband. And everyone could see the first one, which was cool.

 

00:05:12    Alyssa

Thats awesome. That's so fun. That's how I was with Sagey walking. Sagey, I was like, he would, been close, you know, obviously free standing for a bit, he'd kind of like play around with like a step and then fall. And then we were out on our deck, and it was an April day. And I was like, just like he was, He was, I don't know, there was like something about it where he like seemed more confident and I was like, he's gonna do it. And we ended up catching it on video, same thing, where I was just like, I'm just gonna pull this out and see. Yeah. Yeah. So fun. 

 

00:05:41    Greer

I love that. Sometimes you really just know when something's gonna happen. 

 

00:05:45    Alyssa

So weird, right? Greer, I love your name. What is the etymology of Greer? 

 

00:05:51    Greer

So my parents were on a trip to Los Angeles way before being pregnant. I think it was, they might've been married and they saw the actress Greer Garson at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I also don't really know who she is. Now I kind of know. I still haven't seen one of her movies, which I really just have to do, and so they saw her and then my mom just loved the name and kept it. I believe it's like the Irish, I think it's the female of Gregory. 

 

00:06:21    Alyssa

Oh sure, that makes sense. Okay, that makes sense. And then I'm gonna say your name in what, Kirschenbaum is how I would say it. How do you say it not in German? 

 

00:06:31    Greer

Kirshenbaum. 

 

00:06:31    Alyssa

Kirshenbaum, great. It's missing a C. I don't know if that's ever come up for you. 

 

00:06:38    Greer

Yes, a lot of people put a C in it. 

 

00:06:40    Alyssa

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I speak a little German here, and I actually double checked. I was like, oh, we must have spelled it wrong on our side. And I pulled out the book. So I was like, oh, no, that's correct. Yeah, and I wonder if at some point a C got dropped somewhere. Yeah. 

 

00:06:56    Greer

The C got dropped somewhere. I mean, the name's long enough. We have some people in our family who shortened it to just Kirsch, because they were like, I don't want 11 letters. 

 

00:07:04    Alyssa

Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. That's fair. 

 

00:07:08    Greer

So yeah, I guess it got dropped somewhere. 

 

00:07:11    Alyssa

Yeah. Rad. You have one little guy? 

 

00:07:14    Greer

Yes. 

 

00:07:15    Alyssa

Yeah. How old is he? 

 

00:07:16    Greer

Yes. He is about five and a half. He's going to be six in September. 

 

00:07:21    Alyssa

Okay. Sweet. Yeah. Yeah. What is that in Canada? Is that, so for us like kindergarten is like the beginning of elementary school and usually started around five. How does that work in Canada? 

 

00:07:33    Greer

There's junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten. So juniors four or five and seniors five, six. 

 

00:07:41    Alyssa

Okay. 

 

00:07:41    Greer

And then grade one, six and seven year olds. 

 

00:07:44    Alyssa

Got it. And so he's entering into grade one. Is it a different school than he's been at? 

 

00:07:47    Greer

No, he's going to be at the same school. 

 

00:07:49    Alyssa

Okay. That's nice. 

 

00:07:50    Greer

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great transition. 

 

00:07:52    Alyssa

Yeah, sweet. What led you into the like love of babies? 

 

00:07:56    Greer

Mm -hmm. Yeah, great question. A, I was always surrounded with this topic my whole life. Me and my brother were both really high -needs babies. You know and the way the story was kind of told was that there was kind of something wrong with us in some ways right like it was like.. 

 

00:08:14    Alyssa

I think it's still the story often

 

00:08:15    Greer

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like it's like oh you guys like you've never slept in the crib you wouldn't do it. You know, you had to be held all the time. You cried so much. Our sleep was really fragmented, you know, in the beginning for both of us. So certainly some like genetic stuff there, epigenetic stuff. And so and my mom showed up for it. She did hold us, she didn't resist it. She was supported by a Le Leche League group. So I always like credit their support to all of this. She breastfed us for a couple of years, we bed shared. And so I always had that story. I always like, kind of knew that was my origin story. And my mom also really influenced a lot of my interest in early life experience, I think, partly based on that. And that was kind of like, always my fascination was, what do this, what do these early years mean? 

 

00:09:14    Alyssa

Yeah. Yeah, so much. So much. Yeah, it's so interesting. I also have a love for babies. I grew up, I'm one of five kids and my mom was a stay -at -home parent and ran like an unregulated family childcare basically so that she could stay home with us so she watched other people's kids. I just grew up surrounded by kids and babies. And I don't remember a world in which I, you know, every picture of me as like a young kid, I'm like holding a baby. I feel I'm like, it's like a baby holding a baby. Like I'm so little. Yeah. So I'm always intrigued by like what leads other folks. And then actually my current nanny, who's incredible, like has never, she was like, yeah, I never babysat. I've never really been around babies. And I was like, you really wouldn't know. Like, it's just like a part of how she shows up in the world. So interesting how like some of us gravitate towards babies and some don't. 

 

00:10:10    Greer

Yeah. And I think the modeling part is so important too. Like I always saw like how my mom was with babies, my grandmother, my maternal grandmother was like a total baby whisperer, baby person. And I think you just observe it and you see, this is so important and so special. 

 

00:10:29    Alyssa

Yeah. 

 

00:10:30    Greer

Right? 

 

00:10:31    Alyssa

Very much so. And I think what's interesting, when I first started teaching preschool, I had this parent drop -off and she was like, you know, when I pictured parenthood, I'm realizing now I pictured the teen years and adolescence and I'm really excited for that. This feels so foreign to me. And she was like, it's starting to, and she said, she was like, now that they're more of a person, it's starting to feel easier. And I always clocked that language of like, yes, for her, didn't feel like this was a person when they were a baby or when they couldn't talk to you. And I think it's really common. If you haven't been around babies or really learned the language of how to communicate with a human who maybe can't talk back to you, that language of communication. I said in an early therapy session when I was postpartum with Sage, my three -year -old, I said, yeah, he's such a good communicator. And my therapist was like, well, he has a good listener. And I was like, huh, okay, sure. You're right. All babies are good communicators if we're listening. And I think that's something that's really hard. It's a skill to develop. 

 

00:11:47    Greer

I caught that so often in my doula clients as well. They're like, we can't wait for the baby to be a person. Like one day he's going to be a person. I try to address that in my book like pretty clearly, like the baby communication, understanding, highlighting how important that is for babies development and parents development, but also that just that greater idea that you mentioned, which is they're already them. They're already a person. They can tell you a lot. They can, you can have fun and play with them. Yeah, it's a whole new world for parents. I think that such a separation happens between people who have babies and people who don't. There's very little shared space and learning there that that kind of art of talking to babies has been lost in a lot of ways. 

 

00:12:36    Alyssa

I think so too. And then I think it's like kind of a shock when you're in it as a parent, and you're like, I had said something about pretty early on about how Mila, my almost six -month -old, how different her sensory processing is from her brother and just how they process stimuli and their nervous systems. And someone was like, well, how do you know that already? And I was like, yeah, wow, they just show up in the world. And then I gave like examples and she was like, oh, yeah, okay. And she started to connect things to like her kids. She was like, yeah, I guess like she did this as a baby or like this didn't bother him, but it bothers her and whatever. And I was like, yeah, totally. It's how they process the world and how they're showing up in it. And I think it's one of those things that I'm so excited to have your book out in the world because I don't think we talk enough about how to really, I'm going to say communicate again with babies, understand what is happening for them and to be able to treat them as humans. One of my pet peeves is when people pass a baby around and I'm like, it's a human. Let's pause and see, do they want to come to that person? Or they go to that person's arms and then they start to cry and that it drives me bonkers when like then that person walks away from like the attachment care and I'm like, Nope, come on back. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take her for a little bit. She needs to feel safe. And yeah, but I think like, it's this idea that like, they're not humans yet. It's like a toy. 

 

00:14:08    Greer

Exactly. Exactly. They're yet and that they also don't deserve the same kind of respect and rights as everyone else. Right? When you do, they really do. 

 

00:14:22    Alyssa

They really do. What are some of the biggest myths that influence how parents treat their babies, you think? 

 

00:14:30    Greer

Yeah, I think that, I'm so happy we're starting with that one. It's such a good one to start with. I don't even think, I have a long list of myths in my book. I don't even think that's one of them, but yeah, that myth that the baby is different than the person they're gonna become, right? My husband always talks about that with my son too. he's like, he was him. Like, he's always so amazed. He's like, he never changed. You know, like, the baby thinks he's still the same, you know? So the temperament is there, that communication is there, the need, the expression of needs is all there. But we do need to sometimes have guidance and modeling to be able to see it the same way as you shared that story with your friend, right? Like, oh, what to look for? Like, what are we noticing? Right? That's a big one. The baby passing around example, I think that brings up the myth that babies don't have emotions, or that they can't communicate, right? They absolutely can. That's really, really important. And the biggest one that I always bring up is the self soothing bit. It's by far the biggest myth out there, right? So parents right now, mostly over lots of places in the world, they have that influence of the myth that babies need to be left alone to cry to self -soothe. And that can be daytime, nighttime, all kinds of times. That's kind of my mission. You know, if we could change education around that, I feel like my work would be significantly complete. 

 

00:16:06    Alyssa

Yeah. Yeah. So let's go into this. Even looking at like my two kids now, who are just so very different humans. Sage, as a baby. He frankly didn't cry a whole lot. It was COVID. And so we were like, all just hunkered down. He's a sensory sensitive human. And I wonder if it hadn't been the time it was and we were out and about more, what his infancy would have looked like, I think, probably more tearful. But we were just like home and he was like, this is chill. This works for my nervous system. And we, yeah, we were just around a lot and not doing a whole lot. There weren't a lot of other people around. And then as he has gotten older, and we like see all how it shows up out in the world and how he shows up out in the world. For him, when he's having a hard time, if he's crying, he very much wants one of us to be in close proximity. He wants to feel validated. He wants to hear back like what is happening for him and what his experience is. It helps him feel safe and connected. He isn't a human who like generally will like cry just to like release that. Like he'll cry and then he wants like soothing support. He doesn't just like cry and then he cries and without the validation or whatever it like stops. Like he will keep crying until that like validation and connection need has been met. He'll like yell or scream to release, but he won't cry to do that. Whereas Mila will like cry. We called her yell cry, where she'll just like cry out. Like I'm pissed about this thing, right? Like I'm getting in my car seat and I'm gonna let you know I'm mad. Whereas Sage would get in his car seat and he would not stop crying until he got out of his car seat. She will get in her car seat, she'll yell at you and then she'll start talking. And she's like, I just need to let you know, not jazzed about this move. Yeah, this feels a little bit like bullshit. And then she'll just start chatting and move through. And so it's been interesting to see like, they're kind of crying and soothing. And what I think could look like her having like self soothing strategies that he like didn't have, but I don't that's not how I read it. I want to hear your thoughts on this. 

 

00:18:36    Greer

Yeah. I mean, I would relate it back to temperament more. One of the aspects of temperament is stress sensitivity, stress reactivity. And so I would guess your son was more on the higher stress reactivity and your daughter's on the lower stress reactivity, right? 

 

00:18:52    Alyssa

Yeah. 

 

00:18:52    Greer

So she's feeling stress, but it's not as intensely, it's not as prolonged, and she moves through it. 

 

00:19:00    Alyssa

Yeah. She's not a sensory sensitive human, right? So she can filter information and it doesn't add up for her in a stress response in the same way it does for him. 

 

00:19:09    Greer

Yeah, completely. I always want parents to know that distribution of temperament and stress because I think the higher reactivity temperament, it's only about 10%. This is super old research, but whatever it was, it was done 50 years ago, but they assessed it was about 10 % of the population of babies had this very reactive temperament. And so if parents have a baby with a highly reactive temperament, they might not know any other babies like that. Most of the moms I work with, they don't. They're like, what is going on with my baby? My friends are at coffee shops and play groups, and having the best time, and I'm at home soothing my baby's stress constantly. 

 

00:19:51    Alyssa

In a dark room, bouncing on a yoga ball. Yep. 

 

00:19:54    Greer

Yeah, and that was my, and I really feel for those babies and those parents, because that was me. And I am so grateful that I did have that care of, you know, being responded to. It's so critical. So yeah, it is tough. It's so unfair. It's so unfair. I always say that like for some fertility is the most unfair thing in the world. Conception is the most unfair thing. For some it's stress reactivity, for some it's sleep, for some it's eating. If people are wanting to breastfeed, we're going to get it somewhere, typically, right? 

 

00:20:32    Alyssa

Totally. Totally. But I think it can present as like, oh, she can self -soothe. And I don't think that's what's happening for her, I think. Her nervous system isn't as stressed as his gets in those scenarios. 

 

00:20:44    Greer

Exactly. Yeah. I would say the same. Yeah. 

 

00:20:47    Alyssa

When it comes to soothing, I love the wording you use around like borrowing an adult's brain in your book. And see, is this the part that I flagged a couple things in there that I was like, Oh, love. Yeah. So you talk about how babies need to borrow our brain. And in other words, in words that for our community in our village, I've often said like, that it's not a kid's job to get calm for us. It's our job to get calm for them. And it's the hardest part. That's why it's so friggin hard. But we are often expecting kids to do something we aren't in that moment able to do, right? 

 

00:21:26    Greer

Yes. Absolutely. 

 

00:21:28    Alyssa

And so I love how deeply you go into that part of it, that they aren't self -soothing. So when they do, say we see a kid where it's like, they're crying, they're crying, they're crying, and then they stop and it can be presented as self -soothing. What do you think's going on? 

 

00:21:44    Greer

I really think it's that the threat or the stimulus kind of goes away. And so, if that's like, you know, I got bit by a mosquito the other day, super uncomfortable, super itchy. You know, if I was a baby, maybe I'd be crying through that pain. But once it's had subsided, the sort of the stimulus is gone. So there's no source of that stress anymore, right? So like maybe your daughter, when she gets in the car seat, she hates that feeling of, you know, being restrained in there. But then after a couple of minutes, she's like, oh, I'm comfortable now. Like, I got comfortable in here. Like, it's like, the source goes away. 

 

00:22:26    Alyssa

She's like I want to be touching you. And now I'm not touching you. What the heck? 

 

00:22:33    Greer

Exactly. So yeah, that's what I would say there. And, you know, the term self soothing comes from a study done in babies where they looked at sleep. And it doesn't even actually describe going from a state of high stress to low stress. So it's been totally misinterpreted, this phrase. So in the original study, they observed babies, I believe they videoed them or watched them overnight, and some babies would wake up, take a look around, and rub their head against the crib or suck their thumb or touch something, and then they would fall back to sleep. So they were never in a state of high stress going to a state of low stress. Those were the ones who were called self soothers. And then there were the babies who woke up and signaled probably on that higher stress temperament, they would signal they'd say, I'm alone, I don't like this, or I'm hungry, I need something. And they were called signalers in the study. So that's the source of all of this. So actually, we've never seen a baby go from a state of high stress to low stress on their own, considering like there wouldn't be like that painful source or otherwise. So yeah, they actually really can't do it. They do need to borrow our brains. So babies have, you know, the parts of their brain that work that can detect threats, which completely makes sense for their survival, right? Like, I'm too thirsty, I'm too hungry, I'm too hot, I'm lonely, I need connection, all equally valid needs for babies. And then they will signal, they'll release stress into their body while they're signaling, and their only route to go from that state of high stress to low stress is us to lend them our brains. And we do that by providing oxytocin through our relationship with them. 

 

00:24:28    Alyssa

Okay, let's get into this. So what happens when that baby wakes up overnight and they cry and they don't get an adult's brain to borrow? And then eventually, maybe, they stop crying. 

 

00:24:45    Greer

Yeah, absolutely. So that's really, really common practice to do sleep training with that goal in mind to have babies stopping their signaling overnight. And so, you know, based on what we know about their stress system, it looks like what happens is they wake up, their stress starts, they go into a fight or flight response where they are crying, signaling, sometimes even more intense stress responses. And if we're not going in to respond, then they'll move into an even higher state of stress, a freeze state, where the behavior looks sort of like dissociating, freezing, numbing, shutting down, and sleep. So babies are actually getting to sleep, but they're going through a stress pathway versus a kind of rest and digest parasympathetic nervous system pathway. 

 

00:25:40    Alyssa

What's the fear there, if that happens? 

 

00:25:42    Greer

Yeah, I mean, the fear is that, you know, that it puts their developing brain at risk for being exposed to high levels of stress in a chronic way, right? Repeated over time. 

 

00:25:56    Alyssa

Yeah, let's break down what's the, what are the impacts of that? What is that? There might be some folks that are like, sure, and does it matter? 

 

00:26:05    Greer

Right, of course, of course. So we still don't have that, like, you know, perfect study that I don't think we ever will have where there's randomized groups of babies who are sleep training and not. There's a lot of reasons why not, we can talk about that if you're interested. But when we look at studies on the developing stress system and other ways where babies are exposed to prolonged stress and less attunement, less regulation, we see that it actually dramatically shapes the parts of their brain that will go on to make up their lifelong mental health. So to say it plainly, the risk of being non -responsive to a baby, both daytime and nighttime, is their brain areas responsible for mental health will be vulnerable. They'll have a higher chance of developing anxiety, depression, addiction, social issues, and those lead to cognitive issues. So success in school, success in work, really undermines everything we want for our babies. All those wonderful things that we wish for. 

 

00:27:11    Alyssa

One thing I'd be so curious to see is the data around like how often would that have to, like the prolonged stress period, right? So thinking of like, you know, if you have a baby who is crying in the car and you're like, and you have to bring your other kid to childcare to school, or you have to go to work, you have to bring that kid to childcare or school, and you're like, yeah, I have to drive in the car. And they're crying, really crying the entire drive until we get out, no matter what I do. And I can't stop every 30 seconds or else I'm never going to get anywhere. What is the impact? I can imagine some folks feeling really nervous at what was just said. And so I'm wondering, is there data around how often this is happening and how the role that that plays in the long -term effects? Or is it like, yeah, most babies are going to experience some times where they enter into the stress response and it isn't brought down from oxytocin and that they are going to feel the stress and going to have a little bit of that. Is that just kind of par for the course? Sometimes as a part of being alive and especially I'm thinking in families where there's more than one kid and as a parent of one child when I had Sagey, it was way easier for one adult to be able to tend to his needs at any given point than it is with two kids, you know, just by nature of numbers. So yeah, can you speak to that? 

 

00:28:42    Greer

Yeah, so many people wonder about the car because the car is super stressful for so many of our little ones. And so is having multiple children, right? You can only usually only help one at a time. So yeah, there is no data on it at all. None. 

 

00:28:57    Alyssa

Cool. Helpful. 

 

00:28:59    Greer

I think all of the space of maternal and infant mental wellness is... 

 

00:29:05    Alyssa

Under -researched. 

 

00:29:06    Greer

Very under -researched. Usually, we're asking those questions. I have an ongoing list, right? 

 

00:29:13    Alyssa

Sure. 

 

00:29:14    Greer

And I have also worked with hundreds of babies who have nurturing care nearly around the clock, and they are crying in the car, they have very good outcomes, right? So, to break it down is again, not scientific, not based on data. But I think about it, let's say your child is upset in the car an hour or so every 24 hours. We know that the way that our brains are being formed is to sort of sample what's happening the most over those first three years of life. And so if you're, you know, responsive and nurturing all the other times of the day, unlikely that that small fraction of the day is going to play a role. The other thing is that you're not totally unresponsive. You're still, they can still smell you, they can still hear you. Singing often is a good way to calm babies in the car, or even just let them know you're there. And also the intent of ignoring them isn't there. 

 

00:30:15    Alyssa

Sure. 

 

00:30:16    Greer

So the intent is, I hear you're so upset. I'm right here. You know, I'm gonna scoop you up as soon as this is over. You're not alone. You know what I mean? That intent is very different than severing the relationship to say, I am not going to get you. And I'm not, it's going to happen for 60 to 70 % of your life, right? Which is sleep training. It's a huge percentage.

 

00:30:37    Alyssa

Sure sure sure. 

 

00:30:41    Greer

So those are some ways of thinking about it. I can't also discount the fact that that could be a really difficult experience, a lasting experience for certain babies. I don't, we honestly don't know. We don't. 

 

00:30:55    Alyssa

Sure. Yeah. Bummer. Bummer. 

 

00:30:58    Greer

But you also think about the car is like such an artificial experience for a human, right? 

 

00:31:05    Alyssa

Oh, 100%. 

 

00:31:05    Greer

For a baby to be so tightly strapped in, facing backwards, moving quickly, right? Like, yeah. 

 

00:31:12    Alyssa

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. 

 

00:31:15    Greer

My son hated it. The only time he cried, the only time he cried was in the car. 

 

00:31:18    Alyssa

Same with Sage, actually. He didn't cry a whole lot outside of the car, but boy, did he make up for it in the car. 

 

00:31:24    Greer

Oh, yeah. 

 

00:31:24    Alyssa

He really got it there. It's interesting, Mila's crying in the car has largely been as she's gotten older and she just wants to connect and hang out, right? So when she was really young, she would actually get cozy and like newborn time, she snoozed. We were like, who is this kid? We like went to a doctor's appointment for her. She fell asleep in the car on the way there. And we were like, what is going on? And then afterwards, Zach and I were like, let's go grab lunch. And we went to lunch and she slept in the car seat the whole time. And we were like this. It was so foreign for us from our first experience. We're like, well, is this is this what it is? And now as she, but she's super social, and always wants to be a part of the hang. And if she hears like Sage hanging out in the other room, she cannot stop looking like and she will cry out and she'll let us know like I want to go see him and then once she sees him. She like cackles and laughs and whatever and so in the car, she's rear -facing. She can't see any of us, definitely can't especially if I'm driving and it's just us that for her is like this is my nightmare. I don't get to hang out 

 

00:32:34    Greer

You could ask your son to interact with her and see if that helps.

 

00:32:37    Alyssa

When I like him up from school then he'll chat with her  but when I'm driving to get him for school and she's in the car she's like, I hate this so much. And I was like, oh, well, here we are. And actually, if I talk to her, she's more pissed because she can't see me. 

 

00:32:52    Greer

Well, you can also, this is another trick that sometimes works. You can print out your head, like on a piece of paper, like an eight by 10, like printer, like just a giant head of yours and tape it to the seat in front of her. 

 

00:33:06    Alyssa

Oh my God, love. 

 

00:33:06    Greer

It helps for some babies. Yeah, it does help. 

 

00:33:10    Alyssa

Also just hilarious, the idea of somebody else getting into my car and there's an 8x10 of my head. 

 

00:33:16    Greer

I actually made those for my husband's 40th birthday. We had like a cut out head of him for everyone to wear with like the eyes. That could work. 

 

00:33:26    Alyssa

Love. Hilarious. 

 

00:33:26    Greer

And then for the older children question, they're, you know, you have a three year old and a six month old, they're at different places. 

 

00:33:35    Alyssa

Totally. 

 

00:33:35    Greer

Right. And so if they're both crying at the same time, you might pick up the six month old in that highly sensitive the period zero to three, and you're older, might understand, you know, come sit right beside me, like, I'm right here, or I need to help your sister first, but I'm here for you. I see what happened. I totally get you. You know, like, things can be different, right? As I get older.

 

00:34:00    Alyssa

It's just always triage. It's just always triage. Like, then there are times where she has to wait like he fell off the couch and busted his face. We went to urgent care, right? He's laying and like bleeding, she's crying because he's crying and now commotion. And I'm like, yeah, she's just gonna cry for a sec because I have to tend to this wound. And it's like, 

 

00:34:19    Greer

And I just go back to the like, what's happening most of the time? 

 

00:34:22    Alyssa

Yeah, exactly. 

 

00:34:23    Greer

What you predict is gonna be the outcome, right? It's almost always the responsive care. 

 

00:34:28    Alyssa

Yeah, one thing that I and you can dance with me on this, you might disagree on it. So happy to dance. When we're looking at like the sleep training side of things. I think mental health has to come into play. And I think we have systems that don't set us up for success there. But looking at things like the kid, I'll give you Sage for an example. Sagey, I nursed him, first of all, he hated co -sleeping. Actually, we had him in our room until he was like five months old. And then one night, I was like, let's just try it. We put him in his room and we didn't hear from him for a stretch. And he was very vocal at night. And then as he got older, we realized he was sound sensitive. My husband snored. Anytime we'd enter the room or just roll over in the bed, he would hear it. He would wake up, he would cry. And then in his own room, he just slept better. So he was in his room, but I would still nurse, gosh, he was probably 15, 16 months old and would nurse like twice at night. And then it went down to like, all right, he's nursing like once towards the end of the night. And I got to the point, mental health -wise, where I was like, I need some more sleep than I'm getting. And so I tapped into Zach, my husband, and was like, hey, here's the deal. You can do whatever you want. You can turn on the light. You can give him water. You can party at 4 a .m. if you want to. I want him to know that you're there and he's not alone. And also, I don't want to feed him. And it was one night, which I think is not the norm, but it was one night of Zach doing just that, hanging with him. And he didn't get to the point of having to turn on the light, but he offered him water and was like, I'm going to be here with you, whatever. And that was it. Then he stopped nursing at night and I was like, God, if I would have known that that was maybe how this was going to go, I would have done this a little bit ago. Wouldn't have waited until 18 months to be honest. 

 

00:36:37    Greer

When we look at it though, 18 months is the beginning of when it makes a difference. So night weaning earlier than that, usually the night wake ups don't change the frequency. 18 months is the very beginning where we actually do see night weaning, making a change, typically, it's more close to two years old, you know, or leading up to that. So your intuition was right on there. You're probably thinking, I think he's ready for this. 

 

00:37:04    Alyssa

Yeah, I'm done. Well, I was ready for this. And I was like, he has a secure attachment figure. Yeah, does he need to eat overnight to need to nurse right now this one time? Is that what's gonna like be the game changer in his health and development?  I didn't feel like it was and so for me, I was like, yeah, this is I'm gonna roll these dice 

 

00:37:25    Greer

Yeah 

 

00:37:26    Alyssa

For my mental health with him still being supported by my husband, but the thing he wanted was me. 

 

00:37:34    Greer

Yeah of course. There's so many ways of doing it I work with people on this a lot Mom can do it. Dad can do it, both can do it, right? It's there's so many ways to go.

 

00:37:46    Alyssa

Well he never took a bottle so it was always me, right? 

 

00:37:49    Greer

Oh, yeah. No, I mean for like through the weaning process, the night feeding process. 

 

00:37:52    Alyssa

Ah, ah, sure. Yeah. I tried at one point, not too far before that, and I was like, I'll snuggle him and just not feed him. And he was like, yeah, right. What are you doing? His association with me at that point was I come in and I nurse him, you know? And so he was like, what's... It was almost like I was confused. He was like, what are you doing? 

 

00:38:12    Greer

Yeah, I don't like this. 

 

00:38:13    Alyssa

Feed me. 

 

00:38:14    Greer

Yeah. I usually do like... The reason why 18 months to two is... Up to two and a half is kind of the sweet spot too is for those two reasons. One, it actually might change, it might actually help them sleep without waking or signaling. Also, I do a lot of like prep work with the kids during the day. So there's like very well explained, they know what's going to happen, they get it, they repeat it back, like through different plays or different kinds of things. And so when it happens, they're kind of like sad about it, but they're not like out of their mind upset kind of thing too, which is nice. Yeah. And when it's the right time, it actually does usually work extremely well and quickly when it's the right time. Yeah. 

 

00:39:01    Alyssa

Yeah. I'm curious to see how things unfold with Mila, just they're two totally different humans and she loves co -sleeping and bed sharing and it is she just wants to touch me at all hours of the day is her dream. And she and I both, like, she and I have very similar sensory systems. I love touch and love proprioceptive input. And so does she. And so like, it's mutually beneficial for us. And a new thing for us to navigate because we did it and Sage didn't, he still is very tactilely sensitive and like didn't. It's hilarious, like even newborn pictures of him, he's like pushing off. He's like, how can I be as far from you as possible while still being in your arms? 

 

00:39:46    Greer

It's a good nuance for parents to know too, right? Like, you know, as a rule, babies do want to be sensing you and know when you're there. But there are babies who don't want that closeness and they don't want to be touched, yes. 

 

00:40:01    Alyssa

It's even now when he's having a hard time where I said he wants us around him and to validate it. He doesn't want to be touched. He doesn't want to hug. He doesn't want to be in my lap, he will say go away, and then he'll say stay. And what he means is like move away, but stay. And so I'll ask him, like, does this feel good if I'm here? And he'll let me know. And I'll just like move a little farther away. But that touch piece, that proximity for him, is often dysregulated. Whereas for her, dysregulated. 

 

00:40:27    Greer

I've worked with some babies as well, where they have similar sensory types, and they actually wanted really tight hugs. 

 

00:40:37    Alyssa

Yeah, I've experienced that too with kids. 

 

00:40:39    Greer

Yeah, which is interesting. And that was like a big aha for the parents where they were like, they didn't want any light touch, they didn't want light hugs. But as soon as they worked with an occupational therapist, they taught them like, they want like, a tighter hug than you could ever even imagine. And the parents were so happy that they could know that they would know that, right? 

 

00:40:59    Alyssa

Sure. Yeah. He, like even a swaddle, he hated the deep pressure. He's not here for any sort of deep pressure. We did like at one point I played around with like pillow squeezes like squishing it with and he was like, I feel so, it hurts. And I was like, great. 

 

00:41:17    Greer

Yeah, like, you know, play with it. 

 

00:41:19    Alyssa

Totally. One thing in your book too, that I want to touch on here. It's on page 147. You're talking about when your baby is crying or clinging, withdrawn or melting down. This is something that I'm like, Oh, I want this on that billboard. You said you can also review with yourself. That tantrum felt overwhelming and I thought it would go on forever, but it didn't. My baby will always return to calm and I'm building their brain by being there. This is important work. When we're in it, it feels like, and this is how I felt in the car with Sagey, where I was like, oh my gosh, it feels like it's never going to end. It feels like every second feels like 8 million minutes and it is exhausting for the nervous system. And I love that reminder to come back to for ourselves, that review for ourselves of it was overwhelming and we all made it through and got to build some tools together and was worth it in the end. 

 

00:42:22    Greer

I really needed that myself. And I still need, it even though it's like lower frequency of tantrums and the big emotions, it's, it's scary. I mean, our own experiences, our past experiences show up in the moment when our little ones are being stressed. And so that whole self -examination is so important, right? Like what, what happened when I got stressed as a baby and child? 

 

00:42:51    Alyssa

It's also, frankly, stressful to be around another person who's in a stress state. Right? Like, we're gonna mirror that. And I think just like full stop, like, that's a stressful thing to be around. 

 

00:43:05    Greer

Yes. 

 

00:43:05    Alyssa

And it makes sense to want it to stop.

 

00:43:07    Greer

Completely. And I think also, like, usually, mother, primary caregiver, you know, we are typically under unprecedented amounts of pressure. The amount of work that we have to do is not fair, we have no support. And so a tantrum comes on and you're like, okay, 

 

00:43:27    Alyssa

I can not handle it. 

 

00:43:29    Greer

It's another thing. Like this is going to be so much emotional work. I know. And we might have those feelings come up of like, I can't do this. Like it's just, you know, the rest of the day is, you know, it's going to be the rest of the day. It's going to be awful. So yeah, having that self -talk in those moments is extremely helpful because you can get through them. Yeah. 

 

00:43:50    Alyssa

It's honestly, I feel like for me, the gift of the second child is the, oh, I have survived all of the first child so far, right? We survived all these things. I survived not having sleep in these early months and I survived the crying in the car and all that, that I'm like, yeah, we moved through it and he's three and he's sleeping and he's sometimes still crying in the car and, you know, right? 

 

00:44:21    Greer

He's still whining in the car still. It's one of our favorite pastimes. 

 

00:44:26    Alyssa

But it's like, oh, we do move through, it's all phases, right? And like when you're in it, it doesn't feel like a phase. And now for me, like that gift of number two is that different lens of, oh, I survived this phase before. Even her not taking a bottle. I'm like, we did it before. There were parts of it that sucked and were really hard. And we can do this again. 

 

00:44:48    Greer

Completely. I think that that bit for parents is what like in my doula practice, that was like I always taught people like nothing lasts forever. Everything feels like it's going to last forever, nothing lasts forever. Whatever it is, it will not last, I promise. And it always feels like it will. 

 

00:45:07    Alyssa

Yeah, for better or for worse. 

 

00:45:08    Greer

Yes, exactly. Yeah. The good stuff is fleeting, too. Yeah. Yeah. 

 

00:45:14    Alyssa

Yeah. Greer, thank you for this work. Thanks for loving babies and for helping us all learn how their brains work, how their bodies work, and how we can work to show up for them. And thanks for also including in the book, like, you got to give yourself grace. You have a part in there that says, give yourself grace. and I love that, that we can't have a nurtured presence or be accurately attuned at all times, and allowing that to be true and knowing that, yeah, we're not failing for that. We're not failing for those times where we aren't going to be accurately attuned, and it doesn't mean that you just messed your kid up forever. It's, I think, so much harder to do long -term damage than we give credit for. I think we've really swung a pendulum from like maybe how we were raised where they're like yeah they're fine to oh my gosh I've ruined my child. And it's I think way harder to ruin the child than we think it is. 

 

00:46:16    Greer

Yeah I think that's a great way to end is to offer that to parents too. Anytime you feel like you've lost your temper, you know you've acted in a way you don't, you wouldn't have wished, you could always repair it with your child, including a newborn baby, right, up to an adult child. Repair goes such a long way. So you can't, I love The Whole Parent, like you can't mess up because there's always repair. So just know you're a human, know you're doing your best because I've never met a parent who's not doing their best. And that's all our babies need. 

 

00:46:55    Alyssa

Yeah, and that sometimes your best is 100 % and sometimes your best is 12 % and that's okay. 

 

00:47:01    Greer

It'll look different every day. 

 

00:47:02    Alyssa

That's right. That's right. Thank you so much for this. Where can folks find you, connect with you? 

 

00:47:08    Greer

Yeah, I have an Instagram account, which is Nurture Neuroscience Parenting. And from there, you could get links to my website. I have workshops, one on one sessions, all that kind of stuff. 

 

00:47:20    Alyssa

Yeah, and your book, The Nurture Revolution, grow your baby's brain and transform their mental health through the art of nurtured parenting. Thank you so much. 

 

00:47:31    Greer

Thank you so much. 

 

00:47:36    Rachel

I'm paying Nora $5 an hour to watch Abel while I record. For people listening who don't know their ages, my daughter's nine, my son's five. So when we started this recording 40 minutes ago. Nora was like, can we eat the cotton candy in the pantry? And I'm like, sure, just split it evenly. And then I just walked out 40 minutes later to go pee. And she was like, Mom, do we have any sugar? Friend, you just ate a bunch of sugar. What are you trying to do? She's trying to bake. She baked yesterday. 

 

00:48:03    Alyssa

She can come over here and bake anytime. Also, she gets this from you. 

 

00:48:07    Rachel

She does. But like, I have this back and forth of wanting to allow her to do it. And also knowing it's going to be a mess. She's going to need my support at times, most likely. She did really great yesterday, though. She made banana bread and she cleaned up and it was amazing. Usually it's like, okay, you can do it, but you have to clean up. And she's like, okay. And then the cleanup time comes and it's a different conversation. 

 

00:48:32    Alyssa

Sure. And it's a fight. 

 

00:48:36    Rachel

Yeah. We'll see how this shakes out. And then I'm also like, is it a bad idea to pay her? Because then when I just want her to do something out of kindness for him, like if I'm just like, hey, can you grab that for Abel? Is she going to be like, can you pay me? 

 

00:48:48    Alyssa

Oh, great question. Like the external versus intrinsic sort of thing. 

 

00:48:52    Rachel

Right. Also, I don't want to be like, you have to watch him and stay away from me and not like, I'm like, if you're really going to act like a babysitter, I'm going to treat you like one. 

 

00:49:02    Alyssa

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Like it's a delineation of roles. Like when you're all just hanging out and you're just existing as a family together, that's different than when and you're like, I'm trying to work and I need a babysitter and you're filling that role now of being a babysitter. I remember growing up, so my brother Eric is the oldest, he's eight years older than me, and my brother Zach is five years younger, so there's 13 years between the oldest and youngest. And so Eric would, we didn't have babysitters because I had older brothers and they always watched us. Zach, I remember being a baby and in cloth diapers and my mom had to go somewhere and Eric being like, "I will pay you, Alyssa. I got $0 .10 for a pee diaper and $0 .25 for a poop diaper." I have full memories of this and getting paid to change those diapers because for him, it was like, I know she's not going to do that from a place of kindness. Just like, hey, will you change his poop diaper? I'm like, no. But at five or six years old, to be like, will you change his poop diaper? I'll give you $0 .25. I was like, yeah, I'm going to be so rich. Yeah. 

 

00:50:09    Rachel

Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to try this out and see how it goes. And I'm excited to talk about Greer today. 

 

00:50:18    Alyssa

Yeah. Before we go into Greer, I have just a question for you that I don't have an answer to. How do you feel about an allowance? 

 

00:50:25    Rachel

Okay. We don't do an allowance. We do, which I just started this because during the school year, none of us have the bandwidth to do this, but I made a chart of optional household chores. They never have to do them, but they are able to do them. And so there's like a chart with the days of the week and the chore options with the payment amount. And if they complete the chore, they just like write their initial to let me know. 

 

00:50:53    Alyssa

A time sheet

 

00:50:53    Rachel

Correct. But there's like stipulations at the bottom. Like one thing is like, you can vacuum without mopping, but you can't mop without vacuuming first. Or like if you clean the bathroom, the expectation is like you clean the counters, toilet and sink. So I've broken it down and then I've added what Abel and I call five -year -old jobs. So one is tidy the mudroom and the other one is pick up the toys that are just throughout the house and put them back in the bedrooms they belong in. And so his chores are not as much... He has a lower pay because his chores are easier and take less time. And so these are completely optional. That being said, Nora told me this morning that wants to redecorate and paint her room. And I will fund some of that, but I'm not going to be funding that completely because it's not a need, it's a want. Her room is really cute. I'm in it right now. She wants something different. And so we talked about the budget. And if she really wants to redecorate her room, she can use those optional household jobs to fund it. But no, they don't get an allowance. 

 

00:51:56    Alyssa

So then how do you separate that from just regular household participation in cleaning stuff up. Are they like, what are you going to pay me, mom? 

 

00:52:05    Rachel

Sometimes, but I'm like, yeah, that's just something that you need to do as part of being a human in this family, like not leaving dishes on the side table or on the floor of the living room and throwing your trash away. So yeah, there's a difference between what I expect just because you live in this house and then here are things that are typically my chores that I'm offering to you as a way to make money if you want to. 

 

00:52:29    Alyssa

Yeah, I'll outsource these to you. 

 

00:52:31    Rachel

Totally, they have to get done one way or another. And it's like, now, there was a time when Nora would have been like, I want to redecorate my room. And I would have just been like, okay, and I would have funded it. But now like, she's old enough to be involved in that. And I want her to understand that... to give context to some listeners, my daughter, Nora likely has ADHD. I've never pursued a diagnosis. But she is impulsive human. For example, she got on the Stanley train, peer influence at school, for $40. I was like, sure, if you want to save up money and buy yourself a Stanley, you can. She bought it. She used it for like three days. And since it's just been like sitting on a shelf. Knowing that that is kind of how her brain works, where she's like seeking dopamine hits, but then like quickly loses interest. I'm not going to spend a couple hundred dollars to do what she wants to her room. 

 

00:53:24    Alyssa

Also cool for her to create a budget, see what it costs, decide if she wants to do that. 

 

00:53:29    Rachel

Totally. 

 

00:53:30    Alyssa

What a great practice. 

 

00:53:31    Rachel

1 ,000 % also hilarious. So last night I was working on something. Nora had been asking for nail polish and I was like, yep, I'll buy you some nail polish. And then I was working on stuff and Cody was home. I'm like, hey, can you take her to Walgreens and let her get nail polish? They come back and he's like, babe, that nail polish was so expensive. And I was like, well, let me look at it. So she had picked out gel nail polish, not knowing that it was gel nail polish. It was $13 a bottle. Cody's like, we got to the checkout and I was appalled, but I didn't know what to do. So I'm like, all right, you have to return it right now. Like, this is ridiculous. First of all, she's not using gel nail polish because that requires like a UV light. Also, she's going to be interested in nail painting for like three days tops. I'm like, you need to go back, return it, get Wet and Wild. It's $1 .98. But yeah, So it's like the understanding of money. And then I was realizing in that conversation with Cody that that's another mental load piece that's primarily been me of teaching the kids about money and how it impacts our lives and why we budget and why we say yes to some things and no to other things. Yeah. There's a lot there. 

 

00:54:42    Alyssa

100%. And one of those things that also just hilarious to hear. Okay, I got an IUD years ago. And afterwards, Zach brought me home. It was a really hard experience for me, actually. He drives me home. I was not feeling well. And they were like, you might bleed for a little while. And so I was like, Zach, I need you to go, they sent me with some pads, but I couldn't wear a tampon. And he was like, I was like, I need you to go to the store, and I need you to get some pads. And I'm showing him what I have. And he comes back with I kid you not enough pads that like if our house flooded, I think we could soak up all of the water with the pads. So many like the largest like postpartum, but like Costco size, so many pads. And I was like, Oh, wow. Okay. All right. I was really looking for a middle ground between this and a panty liner, but we'll we'll take this. It was he was there are so many choices. And I was like, correct. And then I was like, if we have a human who has a uterus, at some point, you and I need to go to the store and talk about what all these things are so that you can also be a human who supports that child of ours, when the time comes, so that it doesn't just fall on me, and they know they can come to you. And he was like, Yeah, I'm gonna need like, he was like, I'm gonna need a visual aid. He's like, I need like a display of like, this is what they all mean. It's so good. 

 

00:56:13    Rachel

But what comes up for me is that there are so many aspects of our lives that even our partners don't fully understand. 

 

00:56:23    Alyssa

Because we've been told to keep it secret, right? Hide your tampon in your hand as you're going to the bathroom. 

 

00:56:29    Rachel

1000%. My dad was really rad about this. He never wanted to have conversations, but he's not a talker anyway. But I, in high school, could be like, hey, dad, I need pads. he'd be like, "going to Shaw's need anything?" And I'd be like, yeah. And I'd be like, yeah, I need pads. And I would like show him the container of the pads and he would pick them up. No problem, whatever. And like, I'm really grateful for that because it was never like a thing. It was just like, here's what I need. Please grab it for me. 

 

00:56:57    Alyssa

My dad would have thrown up in his mouth. "I can't I just, uh, Margaret, Margaret, when you go to the store next?" Like, just, he could not, even the word. 

 

00:57:08    Rachel

Totally. I mean, I think like, I haven't thought about it a ton with Cody and Nora because so far, you know, the things that she, she's not, some of her peers are entering puberty and she's not yet, but she's wanted to like, feel connected and belonging. So like, she wanted to wear deodorant for a little bit and she asked me to bring her and she wanted a bra and she asked me to bring her. And Cody does excel at connecting and being present and being involved. But yeah, I'm going to have to give a dissertation on all the options and it's crazy because we have girls starting their periods at 10, 11, 12, and they're having to take in this information, make choices about what feels right for their body. 

 

00:57:53    Alyssa

Meanwhile, their dad can't pick out a pad at the store. Yeah. Also, can we just for a second, and then we should go into Greer, how far my dad has come from can't hear the word pad or tampon to attending my home birth and--

 

00:58:09    Rachel

And videoing the end of it 

 

00:58:10    Alyssa

Videoing the end of it, being around for all the fluids that came after and all the terminology. And I feel like some people may have been, like grown up in my household and, I grew up in a Catholic household, pretty conservative and been like, yeah, I'm just like, I continue to hide these parts of myself. And I was like, I am going to scream them out loud in your face, because I need someone to support me in them. And that is how I'm going to get that need met. And have continued to do that. I'm like, I will say all these words to and around you, Dad, I will just be right here nursing, boobs out, like fluids out. And he's, he's come a long way. He's come a long way. 

 

00:58:53    Rachel

Yeah, I'm super grateful for my dad. You know, my dad, he's like a serious guy. He's very private. 

 

00:58:59    Alyssa

So serious

 

00:58:59    Rachel

And I mean, he, so I had Abel at home and he wasn't here for that. I think he was nervous about the idea of home birth, whatever. He was at Nora's birth at the hospital and came in when things were very much still, I mean, I like had a sheet over my vagina, but like boobs out, skin to skin, trying to latch a newborn, whatever. And it was never a thing. And I spent hours sitting on the couch and nursing both of my kids, hanging out with my dad, watching TV and stuff. And just super grateful that it was just normalized. 

 

00:59:32    Alyssa

Yeah, so rad. All right, Greer. 

 

00:59:35    Rachel

Oh, I had feelings as a parent of a baby who cried so much. 

 

00:59:41    Alyssa

Yeah. Yeah. 

 

00:59:44    Rachel

Still cries a lot. 

 

00:59:46    Alyssa

Actually, not just a baby who cries. 

 

00:59:49    Rachel

He's a human who cries a lot. 

 

00:59:50    Alyssa

Yeah, that is how he expresses. 

 

00:59:54    Rachel

And it's how he releases stress hormone. 

 

00:59:57    Alyssa

Yeah. I was thinking about this the other day, actually. I was thinking about him, because I was giving a presentation, and I was talking about when you're near tears, but you're trying to hold it together because it doesn't feel like an appropriate place to cry, and then somebody gives you a hug. I was holding back tears, and I had a grocery checkout person just say, how are you? And I just started sobbing. And it's like when you're on that brink and your body needs to release it and how good that cry can feel. Afterwards, after I cry, I'm not like, oh, I don't feel sad anymore. I still feel sad, but I needed to release that cortisol. Sometimes this comes out for kids in a scream, literally just screaming really loud. Afterwards, they're like, whew. It doesn't mean they stop feeling the feeling, but they need to release that cortisol. And I was thinking about that with Abel, where it's like a pressure valve, and he's got to release it in order to move through it. 

 

01:01:09    Rachel

Yeah. Yeah. So as I was listening to Greer, a lot of it resonated for me as she was talking about high needs babies and fragmented sleep and wanting to be held all the time and crying a lot. Hang on. My kids are yelling at each other. One second. 

 

01:01:25    Alyssa

Go ahead. 

 

01:01:25    Rachel

Hey, None, if you're babysitting, you're not antagonizing. If you're antagonizing, I won't be able to pay you because you're not following the job. 

 

01:01:35    Alyssa

You gotta be good at your work if you're gonna get paid, my friend. 

 

01:01:38    Rachel

So those really resonated for me because that felt like she was describing Abel. And when she talked about understanding that babies are people and they're born into their personhood, that also resonated because when Abel was first born, and I didn't realize yet how his brain and body worked, it thought something was wrong with him because I wasn't able to see it as a variation of normal, as his nervous system operating differently than Nora's. So all of those things, I was like, yes, yes, yes. When she talked about babies need to borrow an adult's brain, I was like, yes, our limbic systems communicate. They need us to help them regulate. All of that was like, yes. But the parts about avoiding crying at all costs were so hard for me because no matter what I did with Abel as a baby, he cried. He cried in my arms, he cried out of my arms, he cried in a carrier. If he was awake, he was crying. And nothing I did was going to stop that. And that went on for quite some time. 

 

01:02:44    Alyssa

Yeah. I think for her, having read a good chunk of her book there, I, this was one thing that after the podcast, I was like, I want to clarify this. In her book, it's not the avoiding of crying. It's making sure we're responding to cries and that they're not just like crying and alone in it and that it doesn't mean the crying stops. It's just that they know that they're not alone in the crying. 

 

01:03:13    Rachel

I was responding. 

 

01:03:14    Alyssa

Exactly. And so I think that actually that would fall in alignment with her approach and philosophy. I think that what's tricky for me is it can walk an attachment parenting line here where just the reality of if you have more than one child, and even if you have one child, but especially if you have more than one child, you're going to have to triage sometimes. And somebody is going to be crying and not necessarily responded to in that moment. Thinking of when Sage fell off the couch and busted his lip, and it's like, he started crying, Beaners is crying, and I couldn't even, my brain couldn't even turn and tend to her at all. She was safe and crying on a mat. He had blood everywhere in a hole in his lip. And so I'm in that moment, And leaving her on a mat to cry by herself while I support him and call Zach and deal with urgent care stuff and whatever, and then tend to her. And it's like, yeah, there was a nice chunk of time there where she was crying and probably feeling scared and feeling alone in it. And we were not responding to her because he had a hole in his lip. 

 

01:04:32    Rachel

100%. 

 

01:04:32    Alyssa

There has to be room for that if you got more than one kid. Like when it was just Sage. Honestly, most of his cries we could attend to. And if Abel had been your first, totally different. 

 

01:04:45    Rachel

He also would have cried less because his environment would have been different. But just even persisting now when they're nine and five, I think about last weekend when Nora was participating in a youth triathlon and Abel was dysregulated and overstimulated. And I'm not proud of this, but I'm going to share it because it's real. At one point I turned to him as he's like crying, complaining, saying he wants to go home, climbing on me, intermittently hitting me because I'm not responding the way that he wants me to. And I looked at him and I said, "sometimes our family can't be centered around your emotions. Right now, I'm watching Nora. She's doing something hard. I'm going to continue watching her. You screaming at me or hitting me isn't gonna change that." And he got pissed and I held his arm so he couldn't hit me. And he cried and was pissed. And I can't remember, I think he called me like a garbage rat or something. His insults are so good right now. We debriefed that later. But anyway, he was so mad at me. And I wish that I could have been a little bit more empathetic in that moment because I was really pissed at him. And so my delivery kind of sucked. But I just felt that in the moment of like, so much of our world does revolve around his emotions because he is a sensory sensitive human who feels so much, so often, so deeply. I just wanted to pay attention to None for 20 minutes. 

 

01:06:12    Alyssa

Yeah. Well, and I think that speaks to the self -care piece that we often can't access or feel like we can't access when we are parenting, A, more than one kid, and especially if one's sensory sensitive. Where it's like, I can't, I had a similar moment with Sage the other day where I was with both kids and Beaners right now is cutting, I think all four of her top like teeth right there. Yeah. Poor thing's been like, she'll be chewing on something and then just start sobbing and like, so she's been having a hard time. And I was just like, I hit capacity. No one to tap out to solo with the kids. And also because this is happening for Beans, I'm not sleeping great, she's not sleeping great. Sage was being three and wanting attention and connection. And he's like, Mama, I want you. I want you. I want you. And he's like next to my body. And I turned 

 

01:07:10    Rachel

You have me

 

01:07:10    Alyssa

And I was like, I literally, I turned in that tone that was like, "you have me. I'm right here. I couldn't be more right here than I am." I said it just like that, in that tone. And he like looked at me like, the heck?. And then he just went right back to I want you and I was like, Oh, man, I'm gonna lose it. I am going to lose it. And like, does he need to borrow my brain right now? Totally. But my brain right now is a disaster. Like you can't borrow my brain. Please don't borrow my brain right now. And so that was the part where I was just like, Yeah, there has to be this without shame of like, or him scream crying in the car and gagging as a baby. And I've shared about on social media and some people have commented and been like, you need to pull over and like support them and it's not okay for them to whatever and they just need. And I'm like, no, I literally would put him in I couldn't even leave the driveway and it would start and it would happen as long as we were in the car. 

 

01:08:12    Rachel

That's how Able was I literally never would have gone anywhere. And you came and visited me and tried to help me with it. Do you remember? 

 

01:08:19    Alyssa

I remember going to get his hearing test. 

 

01:08:21    Rachel

Yes. And it was affecting my life so much. And I think it's so short -sighted to be like, pull over, soothe them. No, because then as soon as I stopped soothing and put him back in that car seat, it starts again. 

 

01:08:32    Alyssa

Yep, exactly. And actually, for Sagey, if I talked, it was worse for him. Like, he would start to gag because he could hear me, but he couldn't see me. And well, didn't really want to touch me. But he was like, I need to know that I am coming out. He was uncomfortable in it. He doesn't love the proprioceptive type. It's too tight. Everything now still is too tight. It's too itchy. It's too whatever. And so being in a car seat is not comfortable for him and wasn't as a baby. And tried different seats. I was like, all right, we'll go to the convertible instead of the bucket. No dice. 

 

01:09:10    Rachel

Because you'll do anything to stop experiencing that. 

 

01:09:13    Alyssa

Correct. And ultimately, there were times where he would just scream cry and gag and scream cry, and I would just be quiet, silent, disconnected, driving. And so that came up for me in the Greer one where I'm like, from this, we need to attune to them and respond to them. And I asked her about, what's the research on how long or how often?  Because we know if a kid is in a fight -flight -freeze- fawn, if they're in that amygdala, really often we see this with ACEs. In ACEs research, those cortisol levels can have long -term negative effects for physical and mental health. And I was like, I need some like, where's that line and what's the data show? Because that was, for me, what I needed to hear of like, yeah, you didn't totally screw up his entire system because he scream cried himself to sleep sometimes or just scream cried the whole car ride not to sleep. And you didn't respond, you know, and like, I felt like I needed to hear and didn't get in this one. I was like, I need to know that data. She said she was like, there's not good data on it. So I'm like, then how can we say this is really bad if we don't know what the data shows? 

 

01:10:31    Rachel

Totally. I mean, I think to obviously couldn't respond to Abel when he was the car. But even like, there were just times where I had to take care of Nora. I spent a lot of time alone in that season of parenting. And yeah, there were just times that she really needed me and I had to respond to her and he cried and not like a casual cry. He scream cried. 

 

01:10:50    Alyssa

Yeah. 

 

01:10:51    Rachel

Yeah. So, so much of what Greer shared was like, yes. And then there was a part of me that was like, is Abel forever damaged by the amount of crying that happened in his infancy? 

 

01:11:05    Alyssa

Yeah. And the lack of, I guess, like responses. There were definitely times where I didn't respond. And yeah, just like feeling that. And I feel like, no, but there's a part of me that came up. 

 

01:11:19    Rachel

Even if I did respond, but I was disassociated. I was so fried by the crying. And also he needed such aggressive soothing and I was postpartum. So like my body was just so tired. I had to bounce aggressively, constantly. And there were times that I was just mentally in a different universe because I could not stay present to what was happening in my house. 

 

01:11:40    Alyssa

Totally. So your limbic system isn't sending him calm, safe vibes anyway.

 

01:11:44    Rachel

 No, my limbic system is saying, you're being held by a zombie. Good luck to you. 

 

01:11:48    Alyssa

Yeah. 

 

01:11:49    Rachel

Because I am bouncing him. And often was like, also had postpartum depression. So often was It's like looking away from him, silently crying in the dark, bouncing him, not sending safety signals. Because I didn't feel safe in my own body. 

 

01:12:05    Alyssa

Yeah. Correct. Yeah. There was something that you had reached out about that you were like, oh, I'm listening to this Greer episode. And there was something that had come up that I was like, yeah, I want to chat about that. And I don't remember what it was. 

 

01:12:17    Rachel

Let me look through my notes. Oh, stress reactivity. Yes. 

 

01:12:23    Alyssa

Yeah. Yeah. 

 

01:12:24    Rachel

Yeah. And so this, I, what came up for me when she was talking about stress reactivity, I was really thinking about how we communicate sensory needs to people because that word again can be so off -putting for people. And also it's helpful for me to remind myself when I'm like, why can Nora handle going to a birthday party and Abel is crying and in peer conflict and wanting to touch me and whatever. And I remind myself, like, Nora has low stress reactivity. She has since she was a baby. Abel has high stress reactivity. So yeah, exposed to the same stimulus, their reaction is going to be different. And that's helpful for me in terms of like empathy. And it feels like a simpler way in my brain than thinking about his sensory needs. If I just say like, okay, he's highly stress reactive. This makes sense. then it opens up empathy and compassion. 

 

01:13:19    Alyssa

I fully feel that. And I also think that there's the stress reactivity plus what's your nervous system response to stress of like we as a society allow and value fleeing or freezing or fawning way more than going into fight mode. And so I think of like Zach who actually has high stress reactivity, his nervous system goes into a shutdown mode though. So when he gets overwhelmed, which can happen pretty quickly from a stimuli perspective, he just doesn't lash out, he's not crying, he's not screaming, he's not fighting, he shuts down. And so it looks like he's calm. And then society accepts that more. And what this looked like for him, like his mom was just sharing, yeah, when he was in first grade or whatever, he wouldn't eat at school ever. And she was like, I kept reaching out. And I'm like, he is hungry. He's coming home so hungry. He says he's not able to focus in the afternoon, blah, blah, blah. And she came in and just visited him at lunch. And he's in the lunchroom. And it's so loud. And there's so much stimuli. He couldn't eat there. But instead of crying, losing it, he just didn't eat. He just shut down. But I think societally, we value that more. We're like, yeah, they're good. They're obedient. 

 

01:14:46    Rachel

Yeah. It makes for an easy kid. 

 

01:14:48    Alyssa

Correct. But it's, he still has high stress reactivity. Similar to Sagey. Sagey will largely, I mean, it ebbs and flows because he's three right now, but he will largely go into shutdown mode. And he did as a baby, largely, where we're like, yeah, he never really cries, except for in the car. But he would go into shutdown mode. 

 

01:15:08    Rachel

The other thing that comes up for me with stress reactivity, which you and I had voice messaged about, is my nervous system is not highly stress reactive, but I am emotionally highly stress reactive. So I'm thinking about this recent thing. Let me explain. Abel, my five -year -old, was sick for two weeks and then gagged on something because of post nasal drip and developed an oral aversion, wasn't eating solid food for like a week. And I emotionally, my reaction was so strong. Like I often compare my emotional reaction to Cody, who isn't not, he is low stress reactivity, like across the board, nervous system and emotions. And I like, can't stop crying. And I'm so worried. And because I'm like a crier, like crying is like my go -to. Wonder where Abel gets it. Nora will be like, Mom, when's the last time you cried? And I'm like, I don't know, probably yesterday. 

 

01:16:07    Alyssa

9am this morning. 

 

01:16:09    Rachel

Always crying. But yeah, like I was crying so much and having this huge emotional reaction. And so I think like, as you and I were talking, there's that umbrella and underneath it, there are like the sensory sensitive humans and then the emotionally sensitive humans. And both can be high reactive to stress, but in different ways. So yeah. 

 

01:16:32    Alyssa

I feel like, and one thing I've been thinking a lot about is the crossover between emotionally sensitive humans and having a sensitive interoceptive system. If you can pick up on the energy of the room and you can notice those feelings inside you, I think, this is not founded in research, I feel like I see this correlation between people who we would say are emotionally sensitive humans to also having a highly sensitive interoceptive system. They might enter into a space and they can appear shy sometimes where they take it all in and they step back because they read the energy of the room. They take that in. Or they might feed off of each other. Codependence can be a challenge for interoceptive sensitive humans, because they're so aware of the energy of somebody else. Whereas other humans are like, yeah, I noticed it. It doesn't fill you in that same way that it does somebody else. And yeah, I think that there's a connection here with interoception and emotionally sensitive humans. And so the high stress reactivity being from an interoceptive system. Does that make sense? 

 

01:17:54    Rachel

Yeah. Yeah. My wheels are just turning about the trajectory of codependency to interdependency and depending on stress reactivity and sensory systems and thinking about my relationship with Abel, at this age, my relationship with Nora was almost fully interdependence, and there was no codependency, it didn't feel like there was any codependency left. And with Abel, I don't really feel like that. I still feel like she - 

 

01:18:27    Alyssa

I wonder, too, how your cancer diagnosis played a role in that. There was a forced separation where she had to build skills and learn to rely on other humans outside of you at two, because you were going to chemo and sick. And yeah, I wonder how that played a role. 

 

01:18:47    Rachel

I think it did.

 

01:18:47    Alyssa

Because I see it. I see Sage as, he has a lot of codependent patterns. And it wasn't until he went to school that those started to break where it was like a forced scenario where he had to build skills outside of us being there. And I think sometimes that's it. We can see these patterns start to shift when they're kind of forced into different scenarios of like, what skills do you have to lean on? What can you build? And this is where it's so key for us as the adults to look at what coping strategies are we putting into place so that they don't just fall back on mechanisms. 

 

01:19:32    Rachel

Totally. I agree. And I noticed a big shift in Abel this past year in school, but there are still so many areas of growth, I think. And not that I'm like, I want you to be independent, get out of here, but I don't want you to not feel like you need me to be regulated. And a lot of the time, I think that he does feel that way. And I think that part of what has impacted the timeline of that is the way that his nervous system works. He's never really been a fan of being soothed by other people.  So, yeah, it's just an area of growth, and he will be going to school five days a week in the fall. So we're building skills this summer to try to help that. 

 

01:20:21    Alyssa

And I think too, I find myself, this has happened in a therapy session recently, where I was concerned about Sagey, without sharing too much about school stuff, in a relationship where he might not feel as safe to be, and not feel emotionally supported in that relationship, and to be without us during the day, and not have a safe space to land, and what if he's crying and crying and crying and can't come out of it or isn't somebody who and we went through the parts work of like, Yeah, what if? And I realized, like, I definitely play a role in this of I don't want that for him. Because I don't want that for me. I don't want to ever feel alone in my feelings. And like, I can't get out of them. And I'm spiraling and I'm alone in it. And so the idea of him experiencing that, where he's so dysregulated, he's in distress, and he's spiraling, and he feels alone in it, and like there isn't a safe person is so painful for me. And when I went through the parts work of it all, therapy, like the reality is he's gonna be okay, right? Like, he will survive that and he'll come home and he'll tell me and it's not going to be something that is forever going to change his life, I don't think. I think he's just going to continue to know like, oh, that's not a safe person for me relationship wise. And yeah, then probably have things like school resistance and not want to go and whatever because he doesn't feel safe in that relationship. But that's okay that he doesn't feel safe in that relationship. And that's the work for me is allowing that to be okay of, yeah, he's going to be with some people during the day that aren't emotionally supportive. And that's okay. He can come home and process with me and know that I'm his safe place to land and that I'm not always available. 

 

01:22:23    Rachel

Yeah. 

 

01:22:24    Alyssa

And that's a hard lesson for me. 

 

01:22:26    Rachel

It's a hard lesson for me too. And part of it is what you were just saying about like, I don't want Abel to feel like he's spiraling and nobody can help him. And part of it is like I've reinforced his belief that I'm his number one regulator because I don't want to experience the discomfort and inconvenience of trying to help him learn to accept regulation from other caregivers because it involves so much crying. So there's like the convenience factor for me, but yeah, school kind of forced me to to reckon with these parts of myself because they use a behavior chart in the classroom and it's very public and shame -based. And so he would come home and be like, I'm bad. And I'd be like, whoa, back up. Tell me more about what's going on. And yeah, I had to acknowledge, okay, he might not feel emotionally supported at school. He might mask or suppress, which is what he did. Because at the end of the year, his teacher was like, he's quiet, he follows direction. And to me, I'm like, okay, so he wasn't showing emotion. He's got plenty of them. So they were just bubbling under the surface there. And you know, he would come home and we'd see after school restraint collapse, and he'd cry and be kind of a beast to deal with. And that was just like something that I had to, yeah, work through and accept I can't protect him from those experiences where I'm not there. And I don't want to protect him. I want him to know that even if I'm not there, because I'm his fastest and most reliable regulator, even if I'm not there, he will get to the other side of it. And I can help him process and debrief when we're together again. But man, the logistics of it and the emotions of it are so hard. 

 

01:24:23    Alyssa

100%. And this is the part of when we look at the five phases of emotion processing, it's the security phase of, it's safe for me to feel this because this too shall pass, and I'm safe to feel it even if you're not there. And that's the skill he's still building of like, am I safe to feel this even if you're not there? 

 

01:24:43    Rachel

And I think what's hard for me with this is that I didn't build security in my emotions until I was an adult. So there's a part of me that's like, how can you expect this from your five -year -old son? What are you doing? It's completely possible for kids to feel secure in their emotions, but because I didn't, that part of me is like, you're harming him. 

 

01:25:04    Alyssa

Sure. Yeah. Sagey told me the other day I was talking and he said, stop talking. I need time. I was like, oh yeah. That was the security where he was like, I know that I'm not going to feel this way forever. Stop trying to solve my problem or talk to me about the emotion. I just need to be in it. And I was like, thank you for that reminder. I didn't build that skill till adulthood either. It is so cool to see how young it can form the security in emotion and also alarming. It can feel like we are building the ship as we're sailing when you're building a lot of these tools that we didn't grow up with. 

 

01:25:47    Rachel

Yeah. And I think too, my perspective is different for Abel because when Nora was five, I was super confident. Like, yeah, of course she feels secure in her emotions. Of course, she can handle this. 

 

01:26:00    Alyssa

She's also a shut down person though. 

 

01:26:03    Rachel

100%. 

 

01:26:04    Alyssa

Like if that's what Abel was doing out in the world, if when he had a really hard time, he shut down, you'd probably have that security too. 

 

01:26:11    Rachel

Right. And so it's just this like, yeah, I need to trust that he can build these skills. And now I get to see them in action with Nora. She's nine. She's been at this for a while and she's so funny. So I have OCD. She has been showing signs of OCD since she was like five,  on and off,  enough ebbs and flows, which is typical in childhood. And so one of the things that we've really been working on together over the last couple of years is like when, so like she'll get intrusive thoughts and she for a while would have to compulsively confess them to me. And I said to her, like, you know what, None? Here's the thing about, because she was like, I don't like having these thoughts. I'm like, yeah, they're called intrusive thoughts. And often intrusive thoughts are actually the opposite of your value system and how you actually feel. So when I get one, I just picture a sky and I picture the thought as a cloud and I just let the wind blow it away. And sometimes the wind is slow and it doesn't get blown away quickly. It's like sticking in my brain a little bit and other times it's fast and I can just let it go. But when you are having a thought like that, you can picture it like a cloud in the sky. And that really helped her not to get panicky or worked up about this thought or feeling that was coming up for her. And I didn't learn that strategy until I was like 25 and she's nine. 

 

01:27:31    Alyssa

Isn't it so cool? You're like, God, what's it like to grow up with these skills? I'm so excited to see what our teens are going to be able to access because they have skills like this. And just like, my teen years were a disaster in a lot of ways. I'm like, ahh, what's it like to have skills like this when you're a teenager? And I'm excited to see how that plays out. 

 

01:27:51    Rachel

I am too. But I'm also like, is she gonna, will she still like go through a phase where she thinks everything I do is dumb and like low key hates me? 

 

01:27:58    Alyssa

100%. Yeah. I don't think that goes away. 

 

01:28:01    Rachel

Yeah. I think I have to work on accepting that. 

 

01:28:06    Alyssa

Yeah. I think it's that idea of like, if I build these tools, then we'll always be in a collaborative whatever relationship. And it's like, sorry, guys. That's not how this works. I hate that. 

 

01:28:21    Rachel

Yeah, I am excited to see. And one rad thing, too, about the sibling relationship, and I'm interested to hear how this unfolds in your life. But when Nora is regulated enough, what she models for him or offers to him when he's dysregulated is so cool to see. And I'm just excited to see how that continues to shift. And of course, there's so many messy moments, like the one that is on this recording of her antagonizing him and me having to step in and they fight and whatever. But like those little golden nuggets where I'm like, this is sinking in and this is part of our family culture. And I'm excited to see how that grows as they grow and change. 

 

01:29:07    Alyssa

I'm excited for that part too. What's already been interesting is, because he's my sensory sensitive one and he's my older one, that like sometimes, if he's in a more regulated state, sometimes he can hold space for stuff. But if the cry gets too loud or goes on too long, he will like scream and I'm like buddy and he'll say it's too loud. And sometimes he'll say like I don't want her to cry and he'll be able to tell us later like it's hard for me to hear her cry like I love her and I don't want to cry. And then sometimes he will afterwards say no it was too loud my body feels out of control it's too loud. And so I'm curious to see like what that, how that's gonna pan out of him as a sensory sensitive human, continue to foster skills for self regulation, so that he can hold space for somebody else. 

 

01:30:03    Rachel

Yeah. 

 

01:30:04    Alyssa

And like, take care of his nervous system. Because when he is regulated, he's like, I'm coming right back, sissy, I'm  just grabbing a toy and I'll be right there. I know you can't see me right now. I'll be over in minute like he'll sportscast and support her emotions already like when he's in a regulated state. But the challenge for him is going to be how does he access regulation so that he can show up for somebody else. But he's got to show up for himself first. And that'll be because he's my sensory sensitive one. 

 

01:30:36    Rachel

Yeah 

 

01:30:37    Alyssa

You know? 

 

01:30:38    Rachel

Yeah. 

 

01:30:38    Alyssa

Yeah. All right. Thank you. 

 

01:30:41    Rachel

Yeah

 

01:30:42    Alyssa

Thanks for hanging with me. 

 

01:30:42    Rachel

This was a fun one to talk about for me.

 

01:30:45    Alyssa

Yeah, me too. I've been looking forward to this one. Yeah. 

 

01:30:48    Alyssa

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