Transcript of “Every Child, Even a Tiny Baby, Deserves Time On Their Own (with Hari Grebler)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today it’s my great pleasure to host my very first parenting teacher and mentor, Hari Grebler. Hari’s parent-infant class, there’s no other way to say it, it changed my life. Gave me a whole new way of seeing, brand new direction, that eventually led me to train with Magda Gerber and find my passion in life, which is sharing this approach that’s made parenting so much richer and enjoyable than I could have ever imagined.

Hari studied with Magda many years before I did, and she still shares her wisdom and her encouragement about listening to and trusting our babies in her parent-infant classes. But recently she began sharing more online, on Facebook and on her Instagram page, Hari’s RIE Studio. For those who haven’t heard me mention this, RIE stands for Resources for Infant Educarers, which is the nonprofit educational organization Magda Gerber founded in 1978.

I’ve asked Hari to share with us today about a core element of Magda’s approach: developing safe play spaces for our babies and toddlers that help us to encourage their play beginning as early as possible. You’ve heard me refer to these as “yes spaces.” And first we’re going to discuss why nurturing play, beginning even at birth, matters to our children and to us. No one understands and can explain this better than Hari.

Hi, Hari.

Hari Grebler: Hi, Janet.

Janet Lansbury: This is such a treat getting to speak with you. As I introduced you, you didn’t hear that part, but you were my introduction to my passion in life. I can’t imagine why it’s taken me so long to have you on the podcast because wow, you are such a wealth of information and inspiration to me, to so many people that you’ve mentored. And thank you, I want to start by saying that.

And I love the work that you’re doing on your Instagram page, which really stands out to me. I mean, it’s interesting, you don’t have a lot of followers yet, but you are the one that’s out there saying really important, unique things. And I don’t find that on a lot of the biggest pages, there’s a sameness. And you are coming in very boldly with this perspective that I think is much needed. So I want to encourage everybody to follow you. And just, thank you. I have loved the content that you’re putting out there and the ideas that you’re sharing.

Hari Grebler: Thank you so much. That’s really sweet. I wanted to say when you were saying that about being bold, I mean, look who our teacher was.

Janet Lansbury: Magda Gerber.

Hari Grebler: So she was very bold.

Janet Lansbury: She was.

Hari Grebler: She said what she thought and we could say what we thought as well.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And she was kind.

Hari Grebler: Yes, she was.

Janet Lansbury: She wasn’t trying to be bold, but she just was because she was fearless.

Hari Grebler: And she really believed. She was the ultimate baby defender. My friends call me that sometimes. They’re like, “Uhoh, watch out! Here comes the baby defender.” Probably happens to you too.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, but you don’t do it defensively. You do it with such love for babies and care for the people that are taking care of them. Just like with Magda, it’s not that you’re trying to be controversial or abrasive. You’re just saying these truths that people don’t understand, and that will make our lives so much easier as parents when we do understand and embrace some of this perspective.

What I want to talk to you about today is creating a safe space for our children to play in safely and freely, without interruption if possible. And all the benefits of it and how we start this from the time that children are just a few weeks old, that we start creating this space and cultivating this time for them. Do you want to talk about some of the reasons it’s important?

Hari Grebler: I want to say this: When I had my first child, I noticed how much that he played from the very beginning, like in the hospital. And I remember saying that to a friend, a mom, and she said, “God, I never thought to put them down. I wouldn’t have even known if they wanted to play because I never put them down. I didn’t know I could.”

Janet Lansbury: And how did you recognize this? This was before you were introduced to Magda?

Hari Grebler: No, I taught for years and years and years before I had my own children.

Janet Lansbury: That’s right, I forgot that you taught long before you had your own children. Because if we don’t know that’s possible, how are we going to notice it, right? We’re not. I didn’t notice it until I started taking your class and then working with Magda and realizing. Well, actually, I realized the very first time I went to your class with my baby who was three months that, wow, there is so much going on there that I wasn’t giving any space to or allowing to happen with my daughter. With her thoughts, with her interests, her deciding what activities she wanted to do, which were just basically lying there and looking around on her back. But how we don’t know that, right?

Hari Grebler: I mean, I learned and studied. And I think when people come to my class, I just have to remind them that there’s no way they could have known this, because it is so counterculture. What Magda did and what Dr. Pikler did, it just really goes against the grain. So no one should feel like, Oh, I should have known that. Well, why didn’t I see that? Oh, a good mom does this. It’s not true. And I feel like what’s great about our classes is that we talk about not moving into automatic, not just doing what they’re doing and what was done to us and what we see everybody do with babies. That’s what people do, we just kind of do what we see everybody else doing. So I think RIE really helps you step back and notice. And how do you notice? Creating the safe space from the start is what helps you notice.

And also having the permission to put your baby down in a safe, cozy place. And there’s a progression. We don’t put an infant on the floor to play. There’s a progression to that. First, a cozy bassinet where they could play. And then they can move to a crib when they get too big for that. And then after the crib, that’s going to be around three and four months, and they can move to the floor, to a safe space that you create. It starts right from the beginning that we have to start a rhythm.

And that’s the other thing, babies that have grown up this way have this inner life. They discover what they love, they discover themselves, they discover their bodies, like their hand, What can I do with it? And that’s a really big deal, I think.

And I never can explain in my classes how my kids have always, how they wake up and go play, and I’m still asleep. And people sort of think I’m just lucky, but I’m not. I worked hard at that. And you probably had that too. And to this day, my kids are teenagers, they want their time by themselves in the mornings or whenever. The oldest one wants it all the time.

Janet Lansbury: And it’s such a strength to have that capacity for being with yourself, tuning in to who you are. Interestingly, I am also reading a book by Sherry Turkle called Reclaiming Conversation. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. It’s about technology and how that’s affected children growing up with empathy. And the part that I’m reading is all about nurturing our children’s capacity for solitude. She says this “is one of the most important tasks of childhood, every childhood. It’s the capacity for solitude that allows you to reach out to others and see them as separate and independent. You don’t need them to be anything other than who they are. This means you can listen to them and hear what they have to say. This makes the capacity for solitude essential to the development of empathy.” I really thought that was interesting.

Hari Grebler: I love that, I want to read that.

Janet Lansbury: It’s really worthwhile so far, and this is only the first section. “Solitude is where we learn to trust our imaginations,” she says. “When we let our minds wander, we set our brains free.” And interestingly also, she said, “today young people become anxious if they are alone without a device. They are likely to say they are bored. From the youngest ages they have been diverted by structured play and the shiny objects of digital culture.” So there’s that element to what she’s sharing.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, the bored part, I take issue with all these posts about boredom. So many of them show, like, a field or a lake. Why don’t we just let kids be bored? But we’ve created it. The adults are annoyed by it, right? But we’ve totally created it. It’s just like giving a kid a pacifier and then deciding that, Well, now you don’t have it anymore and I just take it away. And I don’t consider your emotional state, let’s say.

Janet Lansbury: Right, and the dependency, yeah.

Hari Grebler: The boredom thing is all about this… And then it also is about devices later. But before that, even. It starts so early where they don’t have a safe space. The child’s always getting interrupted, let’s say. No, you can’t do that. And no, you can’t do that. They have to move them away. So they can’t really get involved, it’s hard.

Janet Lansbury: Right. Or, Let me stimulate you, like I thought I was supposed to do with my baby. Because again, we don’t know that they can do anything on their own. We don’t know they’re capable of anything.

Hari Grebler: Right. And the stimulation is either talking to them constantly or showing them things or going places. And even going places, to activities, from really early ages. Sometimes people call me and I’m like, I used to have this question on one of my forms a long time ago. And I’d ask them, “Do you take any other classes?” And some of them, at eight months old, were in five classes. And I just said, “Could you wait and take my class when you don’t have so many classes?” So kids, they don’t have a chance to play free and safely, and they have a lot of activities. And then one day they wake up and they’re saying, “What are we doing today?” And it annoys everybody. “I’m bored. I’m bored.” Because they’ve gone to all these classes that have activities, not just gone and played outside or gone to the park to play, right? But they’ve gone places where there’s everything there and like you said, stimulation.

Janet Lansbury: And they’re just reacting and responding to it instead of creating it. Yeah.

Hari Grebler: It’s not fair to the kid. And also there’s a lot of kids that don’t have a yard. A lot of kids can’t go outside and all that. And I think that’s another reason why it’s crucial to set up a really great space for them to have for themselves. Some kind of playroom or playspace, if you have the space.

Janet Lansbury: Absolutely. And something interesting about this too is this idea of tuning into yourself and being with yourself and comfort with yourself. Studies show, and Magda knew this a long time ago, that it’s nurtured by not just leaving your child alone. It’s not about being alone, solitude could be with people. But it’s being allowed to be in yourself, in your own thoughts. And that it’s actually nurtured through this relationship of just what Magda said, the “wants nothing quality time.” Where I’m with you in your play space, and I am just observing, learning all this stuff about you and discovering you. And you’re knowing that you can flex your imagination and be yourself completely, with not losing my attention, with not losing me, my presence. And that’s actually how you nurture it, and that’s how it’s different than loneliness. Healthy solitude is a feeling of joy.

Hari Grebler: And the adult witnessing their babies playing independently can bring so much joy to the adult. And the knowledge of what their child likes, how long they play, are they tired. The other thing is you’re going to know their cry, you’re going to know what that means. And a lot of parents that I talk to, they don’t know that. And I feel like one of the ways to get to know your baby is exactly what we’re talking about, is creating this space. And where we coexist in that space or beside or close by or we have things to do. And sometimes we’re there, really just focused on them. But sometimes we’re just in that same area, let’s say. I mean, I remember as a parent, I’m doing some things, sometimes I would bring laundry in. Sometimes I was also getting things done, and there were times where I was just sitting.

But the simplicity of it is that you get to see so many signs, like when are they tired? And you don’t have to wait until they’re yawning and rubbing their eyes. After a while, you actually really know that they’re tired. They’re playing, playing, playing, and all of a sudden things aren’t just going their way so perfectly, right? Because people are looking more for that physical sign, a yawn or like I said, rubbing the eyes. But it’ll be more subtle. Did you experience that too?

Janet Lansbury: Yes. Because I didn’t like what you said about we don’t understand their cries. That was totally me with Charlotte, my first baby, that I brought to your class. That was another area where I felt, I am a terrible parent because I don’t know what these cries are. All I know is that I want them to stop right now, immediately, and they’re ear-splitting and they’re making me feel terrible. So it was very much my problem. Her feelings were my problem to fix, instead of really something that I could learn about her. And so it took actually a lot of time, because she was my first, it took time in your classes and learning about Magda’s work to be able to calm myself enough to start to see and discern.

But it was helped along by being able to observe her with all these other subtle things she was doing in your class, and see that she had thoughts, that she was nuanced, that she wasn’t just this one-note, simplified being. That she had all these levels and different things going on with her that were fascinating. So it’s about seeing them as this full human being, a person that’s not just a needy thing that we have to fix.

Hari Grebler: And I like what you said. You say, calm yourself, and I always say, get quiet inside. For me, automatically, just being with the babies, I just empty out. I don’t know, it’s just a thing. It’s always happened for me. I’m just right there, right present. I think that’s partly why I do what I do.

Janet Lansbury: I think it’s a practice though, that you, probably, because I do that too now.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, but I did that. I was always like, it just helped me. Well, before I started teaching, I taught nursery school, so I already had this experience with kids. And that’s what I loved about it, I always felt very present because you know me— personally, I’m not that quiet, I’m not that calm. I’m pretty impatient, I’m pretty hotheaded. Right?

Janet Lansbury: I guess. You’re not a picture of serene, no.

Hari Grebler: No. And nor was Magda. It just wasn’t like that. I mean, we are who we are, and that’s fine. And my kids know me, they do. But when they’re little babies, it’s so important to set ourselves aside, to quiet ourselves down. And like you said, calm ourselves. It really is. Or we won’t know anything about them otherwise.

Janet Lansbury: And we’ll get stuck doing a bunch of things that aren’t helping.

Hari Grebler: And nobody feels good. They’re just going through the motions. I had a funny experience with my son. I noticed he would suck two fingers on one hand and then two fingers on the other hand. Same two fingers, but some right, some left. And one day he sucked, I don’t know, it was either the right or the left, and I thought, Oh, he’s tired and I’m going to nurse him. Because he’s going to go to sleep and he might get hungry. It’s not really his nursing time, but I’m just going to do that. So I went into the bedroom, went to nurse him, and he moved off, pulled off and put his other hands in his mouth and leaned back to go into the crib.

Janet Lansbury: Wow.

Hari Grebler: And then he went to bed. And I called my mom and said, Is that even possible? And he did that a lot. And it really taught me, I can’t work on automatic. I used to call him the all-knowing head, you know what I mean?

Janet Lansbury: Yes.

Hari Grebler: Because he can’t move his limbs so much, but he could go, like, Get me in the crib! with his head. He did. So bizarre. Anyway.

Janet Lansbury: Wow. And that was something unique to him, that your daughter—

Hari Grebler: Oh, yeah. She did not do that.

Janet Lansbury: Your daughter didn’t do the exact same thing.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, she did other things. Yeah, they were totally night and day. But I got to witness that because of what I learned and how I could be in that moment and how he became more important, at times in the day, than me.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. I would notice with my second that, when you were saying they get tired in the play space, that’s normal. And they start to whine a little or fuss and tell you that they’re tired or they’re just showing you those signs, those early signs, which hopefully we get, like they’re kind of spacing out all of a sudden or whatever. But what Madeline would do was fall asleep in the play space, if I didn’t catch it very, very early. Especially if it was at my little outdoor play space that I had, she would fall asleep. But it just looked so blissful to me.

Hari Grebler: Heaven.

Janet Lansbury: It was like falling asleep on the beach when you’re lying out, having a good time, and you just fall asleep.

And so I tried to take a movie of her going to sleep because she would do it also in her bassinet. She would turn her head sort of from side to side. She was not expressing any discomfort, but to my previous lens, it would’ve looked like, I better put her to sleep now. She’s turning her head, and maybe that’s not good for her, or something. But she was calming herself. And I tried to get it on video, and every single time I tried, she would outlast the battery of the video in how long she went. She would just keep going. And again, she wasn’t stressed out at all or showing anything like that, but it just would take her longer. And I finally thought, okay, this is too private a moment. I’m not supposed to capture this, so forget it. I’m just not going to try. Because she would always outlast me in her process.

Hari Grebler: I love that because that’s what they want to do: enjoy their process, if we could just give them opportunities. And I feel like that gets so misconstrued out there. I did an Instagram about it and I said, what if we did give them these little micro-opportunities to fall asleep when they were ready? To play first, but not meaning that we have to let them cry or be alone.

Janet Lansbury: Right. You’re opening up space for what they actually want to do.

Hari Grebler: Yeah. What they can do. Can I give you one example of that?

Janet Lansbury: Yes, please. Because I honestly think that all of this has to do with the play space. Learning to observe and just allow our child to be who they are and how that helps everything. It helps their sleep, it helps their learning for sure. It helps their imagination, helps them develop this sense of self and ability to be alone with themselves and all of those things. So this is just another thing, but yeah, tell the story.

Hari Grebler: So when we came home with our baby, I thought to myself, wow, our baby, he’s heard Shlomo and I talking all these nine months. They hear you, we talk so much. And I thought, let’s put him in the bassinet. And we did, we put him in the bassinet. And then I invited Shlomo, here’s a chair, and I laid on the bed, and we just chatted. And within the chatting, he just sort of played. And then he got tired and fell asleep. And I didn’t do it to make him sleep or to get him tired or anything like that, but I just thought we could just be together like this. He could be there, we could be here, he can hear us. And then I feel like from that moment, he loved to play with that around him, us talking or people in the room, but not focused on him. I don’t know if you remember falling asleep in the car and people are still talking, when you’re little.

Janet Lansbury: Oh yes, I used to love that. Or in the house just relaxing and sleeping and you hear the voices. Or my parents would be having a party, a gathering, and you’re kind of like, Ahhh.

Hari Grebler: Exactly. And I call it a micro-moment. There could be so many of those because it’s a process. It’s not like, “Oh, does your baby sleep through the night?” No, it’s not that. It’s discovering what it is together and not alone.

Janet Lansbury: And being open. Being open to your baby’s abilities that they’re showing you, not what you’re trying to make them do.

Hari Grebler: Yeah. I feel like so many things have gotten, they took the fun and the beauty out of them. So sleep is a sound machine, a blackout curtain. It’s at a certain time, a certain way, or it’s being held or being wrapped. Even that, right? Even both extremes are still these automatics, to me. And all I’m asking is, just give a little micro-moment in between these things. And Magda didn’t really talk about that. It was something I sort of discovered, just about us talking and him being there and feeling comforted by our voices and our presence. But it doesn’t also mean that I have to be holding him all the time for him to feel secure.

Janet Lansbury: Right.

Hari Grebler: Hearing the sounds of the home is comforting. That’s what I’m saying about taking the beauty out of sleep. Let’s make it so quiet. Let’s put this sound on. Let’s make it so dark. Wrap them this way. Let’s wrap them that way.

Janet Lansbury: Right, it’s a totally adult-directed process that’s just a chore. It’s just another chore that we have to do in the day.

Hari Grebler: And they can watch me wash the dishes from their bed. They can hear us talking. They can hear a party or whatever it is. So anyway, that’s just my little rant, my micro-rant.

Janet Lansbury: Well, I wrote down here something that you said about observation. Well, first of all, I love this comment that you make, I guess it’s one of your central quotes that’s very Hari and I love it: “Babies are worth getting to know.” I love that. And then you say in another post, I think it is: “To observe. Clear your head, step into the present. What can my baby do? What does my baby want to do? Can I detach and sit simply? It is a practice that we all can learn.”

So I think we’ve talked a lot about the beauty of the space, why it’s so worth doing. What do we do? How do we make the space?

Hari Grebler: Because you saw that post of the safe space, I got a question, a really good question. What to do with the baby before the play area? At what age do we start this play space and what should they do before? And that’s such a good question. Then I just wrote back, there’s a progression of the play area. The first play area would be the bassinet because it’s warm, it’s cozy, it’s inviting, and it holds the baby. They can only last so long in a bassinet, and then I would move them to a crib with a firm mattress. The baby should never be on a cushy kind of sunken-in thing, although it looks nice.

Janet Lansbury: No, definitely not.

Hari Grebler: It’s hard for them to move. So then it would be the crib. And then there could be a playpen or, around three to four months, when they start being interested in the world and other objects, that’s when I would have them come down to the floor. And the floor space evolves as their capabilities grow. The rule of thumb is they always need a bit more space than they might actually use. And we do that so they can be inspired. Inspired to move a little farther, inspired to go get that over there.

And it’s always better if a small space gets bigger than taking a big space and making it smaller for the baby. So if a child has already crawled all over the house, it’s harder to then make a smaller space. Not impossible, but just more difficult. So that’s the progression of the physical part of the space.

And you can take a piece of your living room, a bedroom. I personally took my living room/dining room. We have a little, little house, but that was one room. And I was able to gate my kitchen. That’s something real crucial in RIE, but a lot of people don’t want to do it. Magda used to talk a lot about gating the kitchen. Well, why would we gate the kitchen? Well, there’s accidents that happen, but also so we can go and do something fully and focus on. So when we go in the kitchen, we can cook. We don’t have to, Oh, there’s someone over here or rolling over here, or I’m worried about that and I have to tell them what to do. And it’s not like they can never come into the kitchen, when you have time to show them around. So I love the gated kitchen. I really think that helps.

The reason I did my dining room/living room, I wanted it to be like a family room/playroom kind of place where we gather. I could be on the couch and my children could be playing. And my room changed more than 50 times. I mean, that’s how much I’m about the kid. I’m not saying people should do this or everybody should. I’m saying this is what I did because I’m a total nerd in that way. I really wanted to put all this into practice, because I had been doing it for so long. I wanted the space, I wanted them to be able to crawl and do all the things that they did and I wanted to watch and I wanted to be comfortable.

Janet Lansbury: So what if people aren’t able to gate off their kitchen, which a lot of houses, unfortunately, that is difficult. I mean, I was able to gate off our kitchen and have a gated-in space, but I had to have these bookcases, very heavy, like standup bookcases, that I attached a gate to, and I had to form a space within this bigger space in my family room. Probably you would know how to do all this better than I did, but it worked for us.

Hari Grebler: That sounds perfect.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. And so interesting, it remained the place—way after the gates were gone and all that—that remained the place where the child wanted to be playing or reading or whatever. They really bond with their—actually, I think it’s bonding with themselves, but within the comfort and familiarity of those spaces.

Hari Grebler: Yeah. I mean, my kids loved their room and I really let them do anything they wanted, practically. I think what you did was perfect. And that’s what I always say. If it’s a big space and you can create it like a little room within a room. Outside, we did it once with a gate to the couch. I didn’t want them when they were really tiny to get into the small flower garden I had. So I had a couch and then I gated that from there. So there’s so many creative ways to do it.

Janet Lansbury: But you agree, I’m sure, with Magda that establishing those parameters are important before the child’s able to move through them. Because then that’s just part of their play space. People say, Oh, it’s a jail and stuff. It is if you treat it that way and like, Okay, now I’m going to put you in this place while I go do something. Instead of, This is part of our routine. Every day after we do this, this is the time that you usually spend in there. I mean, it doesn’t have to be every day, but most days this is what we do. And as Magda said, a matter of course, it’s just a matter of course. And you still might not like when I leave and go do something, but you know underneath it that you’re not being abandoned, you’re not being punished. This is your space and it’s freedom for you, actually. And then children do, I mean, I’ve seen that with my own eyes that children totally believe that.

Hari Grebler: Definitely. When I was in Hungary, when I went to the Loczy to visit, when it was the orphanage, I had studied for I think about 10 years before I went there, and then I went there and studied. What I noticed was the way we learned about doing the caregiving and being fully present for the caregiving, for babies, the more the same it is, this is how they don’t get bored. How they really have that inner life and count on it. I have to say, even in the morning, if I get up and my daughter’s up, she’s just like, “I need to be alone.” You know, if it’s too early. She needs that thinking time.

Janet Lansbury: She’s how old now?

Hari Grebler: Thirteen. She’s not happy to see me. She’s happy to see me other times. But in the morning, they’re really used to having space in the morning. And why it is is because we had a rhythm, a very, very strong rhythm. And that was: you wake up, you care for them, you change their diapers, maybe get them dressed or maybe not, feed them, nurse them. And then you’ve given them so much, and this is what I saw in Hungary, which is by the end of that caregiving, they don’t want you to talk to them anymore. Those babies, they’ll look away, they’ll put their fingers in their mouth, whatever. It’s like, Okay, I’ve got everything I need and now I go to the floor to play.

And then what I saw is when they pick up those toys, and I know you’ve seen it too, is they really see what they’re looking at. They look at the object the way they were just looked at, if that makes sense. And it was beautiful. I was just so blown away by that. And understanding what it means to be filled up, to then be able and have the desire to do what you want to do.

And I think I must’ve learned it in Waldorf, this idea of breathing in and breathing out. The breathing in being the caregiving thing where you’re asking them and telling them and expecting cooperation. And then it’s this, Ahhh. I go down to play. No one’s talking to me. I can play with this or that and any way I want to. And no one’s going to interrupt me. So there’s a balance to what we’re talking about. One cannot happen without the other. Independent play and wanting to be in your play space can’t happen if you don’t feel filled up.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. And I was also thinking when you were saying that, as slow as we try to maybe aim to be with the caregiving time and talking to them and listening to them and having that be a mutual experience, when they get to play, time goes even slower. When we’re alone in our thoughts, that’s when we can really slow down to our pace and commune with that. I mean, I crave that. I’ve started doing where I don’t go on my phone until after I’ve done this whole bunch of things in the morning where I’m just on my own in my thoughts. I’m kind of doing things and then I meditate. But I’ve put off just looking at my phone right away because I need more of that time, with the work that I’m doing right now, to get ideas, to have more space. I mean, I really couldn’t get enough of that, personally. Really, I want to go to the phone. I want to go to the distraction like anybody else, but I’m just doing that for myself, to fuel myself.

Hari Grebler: I think that is exactly what happens when we create this space for the baby. We give it to ourselves. It’s a gift as a parent that you give yourself. Here, I gave you everything during this time I was just with you, and now it’s your time to do this and my time to do this. And when they can know and expect, because you do it the same every time. That’s why I think that’s so important. I mean, I don’t want it to sound like, Oh, I can’t ever deviate, because of course you can. That’s life. But when they’re little, it pays for both, for the child and the adult. It’s a gift for both. Oh, I can go into the kitchen by myself to make something, right? I can take a shower because I know they’re completely safe and content.

And sometimes people say, Oh, they don’t want to be in there anymore. They don’t want to be in there anymore. You have to commit to the space. That’s really important. You have to commit. And that means when they’re needing you more, let’s say, go be with them. Go be with them, but don’t bring them out of the space. So that’s the mistake people make. They don’t want to be in there. I take you in my arms, I take you into the kitchen. I cook, I’m stirring. It’s interesting. You like being up. And then when I put you back in your space, it’s not as satisfying anymore.

Janet Lansbury: And even if we’re in the space with them and they’re kind of struggling, first maybe seeing, just while I’m sitting here, I’m going to hold you in my lap. Instead of, okay, we’re getting up. Every time there’s something wrong, now you’re getting lifted up and changed.

Hari Grebler: Or sat up.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah.

Hari Grebler: That’s what a lot of people… they start getting fussy in their place, and when you do that, you sit them up, you can get maybe 15 more minutes of play. But usually they’re just tired, if they’re used to this. That’s what I was trying to say before. If you don’t do all the things and you commit to this simplicity, it’s sort of raw because it’s just you and them, right? There’s not a swing or a this or a that to fall back on, in a way. You can even lie down in their space. They can even crawl over you on those times.

Janet Lansbury: Oh, I do that. Yeah.

Hari Grebler: Right. It’s fun, you can get your little massage.

Janet Lansbury: What you were saying about setting it up for ourselves… It may seem like this is such a chore or I’m being so giving, having this connected caregiving time, but this is what’s going to empower us, empower our child to be able to be separate. And then yeah, when they’re expressing things, I mean, this encouraged me to leave my fix-it mode that I was in with my first. I want to find out what they’re expressing. I don’t want to just try to change it. I want to know what’s going on here. And that takes a little longer and takes us not making those rash moves to just pick them up and rescue them out of the situation or whatever.

Hari Grebler: And when you really come down to it, there’s not that many things that the baby could be bothered by. They could be hungry, they could be tired. And you’re going to start to see what that tired means to your baby. Hungry, you’ll think, oh, I fed them. And yeah, they probably are, let’s see. Or maybe they want their diaper changed, they’re not comfortable. Or their clothes aren’t comfortable, even. Sometimes it’s bunched up and that could bother them. So you can always check those things. And then things get more simple. Kids are able to eventually let you know what’s bothering them.

Janet Lansbury: Because they know you want to know and they understand that’s your interest because it is.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, they’re valued in that way. And a lot of people say, Oh, well they’re just getting bored now. And no, I don’t accept that. I just don’t. That’s an adult idea. So then you do all these other things, and then that’s the way we create them needing to be set. Because once you start sitting your baby up, they’re not satisfied anymore laying down. It doesn’t take that much, too, for that to happen.

Janet Lansbury: But just so people know, and I know you know this, you can change anything. If you’re aware of what you’ve done and what it’s caused and what’s going on and you want to change it. Maybe you don’t want to change it, that’s fine. But if you want to, all you have to do is understand that they’re going to express, Hey, why aren’t you doing that thing anymore? And they have a right to. Try to welcome that.

And I always admit, or encourage the parent to admit, Yeah, I was sitting you up and you’re used to that. You’re probably wishing I would do that right now. But I realized this is healthier for you. So you can tell me how much you wish I was doing that and how mad you are at me. That’s okay with me. I always want to know how you feel. That kind of attitude. You don’t have to say all those words, but that welcoming and honesty about, Yeah, of course, not just, Oh, shh. It’s okay. I’m not doing this anymore and now we’re going to do this. Really owning it, because otherwise they feel almost gaslit.

Hari Grebler: Yeah. I want to add to that, too. So if I was going to change a habit, and I do believe wherever you step into these ideas is the perfect place, just like you said. You can change, it’s not like a make it or break it situation. But if I did do something like sat them and then I decided to not sit them because I learned, I would start out like that, on the back, let’s say. But if the baby got too upset, I would also not stay in that. I don’t want them to get too upset at first. But I would always start like that. So then the next time I would start again like that on the back, I would start again and again and again. And leave a little bit more time and a little bit more time.

Janet Lansbury: While you’re communicating with them. And then picking them up and holding them in your lap and not just swooping them up.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, all the things you said. I just want to add that I would do it little by little. So if I was going to change something about sleep, let’s say. I would start out the way I would like it to go, but they were used to something else. Okay, we do that something else, but start out first the way I want it to go. Little by little, longer and longer, for them to get used to it without them having to be too upset about it.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah.

Hari Grebler: Because we did it. It’s just like, okay, I’m a cigarette smoker, let’s say. I’m not, but let’s say, and then somebody just takes it from me and they decide I’m never going to have one again. And they decide how it’s going to go.

Janet Lansbury: It’s like the boredom thing, yeah. Okay, now you’re going to be bored.

Hari Grebler: You need to collaborate with me now a little bit. I need a little collaboration, a plan, how this is going to change. I can’t just change on the spot because you who gave me the cigarettes in the first place are now going to take them away. No, it’s not fair.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, I feel like it’s more, and maybe this is what you’re saying, but with sleep especially, I feel like it’s more being aware of where I want this to go. Because maybe in the beginning it’s just easier for me to do it this way, but I’ve always got my eye out: This is how I want sleep to go, because this is what I need and what we’ve decided for our family, and this is what I would like to happen. And so I’m going to keep being open to that direction, but not necessarily trying to even take a step there in the beginning if I’m not ready and I don’t feel like my baby’s ready. So it’s not like I have to start doing incremental things, but just knowing. And being open to what my baby can do, which that observation in the play space, again, teaches us.

I also just wanted to comment, you had talked a long time ago, wonderfully, about the physical thing of setting up the play space from the time that they’re infants and how that starts in the bassinet. And I would say also, especially based on my own experience, Charlotte, she first played in your amazing class that changed my life. My younger ones, I had to be open to them being able to do this, entertain themselves, and notice when it happened. Like you said in the hospital with your boy. In the bassinet one time, I came and she was waking up and she wasn’t looking towards me or anything, so I didn’t say, “Hi, time to get up!” She was looking to the side and I just let her look and was careful not to say anything, because I was holding space for this to happen. And with my son, it happened on the changing table, that we were going through it and I was helping him. And then all of a sudden he sort of looked off and he was just doing something, thinking something. And I let it go on for a while because I didn’t have to rush and be somewhere anyway, but I thought, Oh my gosh. So we want to notice those, so we can encourage them. It’s so easy to squash it all and not let it happen.

Hari Grebler: That’s called collaboration.

Janet Lansbury: Yes.

Hari Grebler: I’m doing something that needs to get done, but you’re interested over there. So I’m going to stop for a minute and be interested with you. It’s beautiful. Sometimes I’ll do snack, and you’ve done it a million times, and everybody’s looking at something else. And I don’t say, “Here, well, doesn’t anybody want some? Oh, here I am with the banana.” I look at what they’re looking at. We can all be so interested in it. It’s such a beautiful moment that it doesn’t need to be filled. And that is a collaboration.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And it’s also noticing that play happens all the time, if we want to call that play. It’s happening anytime.

Hari Grebler: It’s true. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: So I also wanted to share, this is another one of your posts on Instagram. You say: “What do I mean, don’t introduce your child to boredom?” This is what you were talking earlier about boredom, I guess, and these are the ideas that you shared. It’s all about what we’re talking about today. “Let life unfold slowly and naturally. Don’t think you have to entertain them. Do age-appropriate outings, once in a while. There’s no rush to show them all the things. Let them notice and you can notice what they notice. Give them time to have their own thoughts. Give them plenty of time to putter around.” And then you say, “It’s unnecessary to rotate toys. It’s okay to bring a new one in here and there. It’s more a matter of providing open-ended.” There you go. That’s great advice right there.

Hari Grebler: Yeah, thanks. It sounded good how you read it. You read it too nicely. I’m like, I’m so intrigued.

Janet Lansbury: Who is that genius?

Hari Grebler: I know! Who wrote that? It’s just so nice, you know? I want people to see how sweet this is and simple it is.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. All this sort of simple wisdom that helps our children, helps us. And we only did the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the benefits of this. I really hope people will follow your Instagram page and your website, which is Hari’s RIE Studio, harisriestudio.com, and you can discover all the resources that Hari has to offer and be eye-opened by her perspective, which is just very sharp and unique. I don’t know, I think it’s a breath of fresh air personally, and I love it. So keep it up.

Hari Grebler: Okay! Thanks, Janet. This was really fun.

Janet Lansbury: This was really fun. Thank you so much.

Hari Grebler: Thanks for asking me.

Janet Lansbury: Bye.

For more on play, there are a ton of resources on infant play and toddler play on my website, janetlansbury.com. So please check those out under the topic category “Play.”

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Every Child, Even a Tiny Baby, Deserves Time On Their Own (with Hari Grebler) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Struggles with Independent Play”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to be doing something it feels like I haven’t done for a long time, which is talk about children who are, in one case, an infant, and then coming out of the infant stage into the early part of the second year. And so while this is focused on younger children than many of you have, I believe that some of the ideas I’m going to bring up will apply to toddlers, preschoolers, and maybe even older children, because this will be about boundaries around the attention that we’re able to give to our children. And as early as possible, I recommend starting to take care of ourselves in this relationship with our children so that this becomes normalized for them. And also so that they have the space they need to flourish as children who can entertain themselves, who learn through play the way that children do, enjoy their discoveries, their me time, getting to create their own activities. All things that serve our children well for life.

I have two questions that I received from parents around play and establishing play in the beginnings, or at least around the end of the first year and beginning of the second year, and the issues that can come up that seem to get in the way of this working and what we can do about them. What we can do to cultivate this time for our children, this really important time for them to spread their wings and have a healthy sense of control and agency in their world, following their interests.

Here’s the first email:

Hi, Janet-

I have a question regarding my eight-month-old’s independent play. When I am in the same room, even if I’m just observing, folding laundry, or reading a book, he excels at independent play and can entertain himself for long periods of time without intervention from me. I have observed him creating a challenging task for himself and focusing on accomplishing it for upwards of 25 minutes. Or standing at his window, observing the nature in the front yard. Or getting curious about tiny details in his room, like the door hinge, and returning to them repeatedly to investigate.

It’s a delight to watch. His room is a thoughtfully designed Yes Space with low shelving and a few toys on each shelf. When he was younger, he would stare at a mobile or out the window for up to 30 minutes sometimes while I did a few quick chores— while watching him on the monitor, of course. Now if I leave the room, he stands at the gate and screams and cries even if he can see me and we are chatting. I acknowledge and accept his feelings when this happens.

My question is, is he just not developmentally ready for me to leave him alone in this Yes Space to play for a bit while I do some tasks and will he grow into this and one day be fine with it? Or, should I work on doing some exposure therapy, so to speak, leaving the room for short periods of time, even if it is just to do laundry in the hallway where he can still see and hear me, knowing he will hate it and being ready to gently support him as he rages? I’m fine with holding that boundary and giving him practice dealing with those feelings, if it is a developmentally appropriate expectation that he be able to play alone in a gated room, and a skill he should learn.

Thank you.

Okay, so this parent has made this incredible discovery—important discovery, I believe—that her infant son has his own interests, his own ideas about what he wants to explore. He’s making all these discoveries and she’s learning that she can do a lot less than a lot of us think that we have to do with a baby to entertain them or keep engaging with them, getting them to engage with us. When we do that constantly, children don’t have this kind of time. They don’t have this space to express themselves and their own interests and develop important skills like attention span, creativity, their unique take on things. So she’s already done the most important, biggest thing here by valuing her child’s inner direction, his self-directed play, and wanting to nurture that. That’s the first step. So she’s done that.

And she sounds like she set herself up, and this is in I guess his bedroom or his nursery, she created a Yes Space. Yes Space is my term for the 100% safe, gated-off or enclosed somehow spaces that children can feel free to explore in. They’re free of us stopping them, interrupting them, saying no to this, no to that, and we’re free to be able to leave for short periods of time with the secure feeling that our child is safe. That’s freedom for us and freedom for our child. So, she’s designed this and now she’s running into trouble because it seems like all of a sudden, her child is having a hard time with her not being in this space with him.

To try to answer her more completely, I had some questions, so I wrote back:

What a wonderful setup you have. Could I please ask you a couple of questions?

1. Can you please describe in detail what this is looking and sounding like when you acknowledge and accept his feelings?
2. Is the gate closed or open when you are inside the play area with him?

I have some ideas for you and I look forward to sharing them. Sounds like you’re doing great.

This parent wrote back:

Thank you so much for your response.

1. While he is expressing his feelings, I calmly say things like, “Wow, it sounds like you’re having some big feelings about me leaving the room. You really wish I could be available right now for you and I’m not. The problem is that I have a few tasks to get done and I don’t want to carry you around while I do them because you need more time to play. I know, you really wish you could get to me and there’s a gate up. That gate is to keep you safe. Your room is a safe place for you to play while I work. I hear you. You’re feeling angry/upset/frustrated/sad about having to stay in your nursery. I have some other responsibilities right now, but I will be right back to check on you. Thank you for telling me how you’re feeling,” etc. All in an empathetic tone. I stay close enough to continue to talk with him, acknowledge him, and reassure him while I’m working on other things within earshot and usually within eyesight.
2. I have been intentionally closing the gate most times when I’m in the space with him to get him used to it. He either ignores it and plays in the room, or he treats it like a fun challenge, pulling up on it and trying to figure out how the latch works, trying to leverage his weight to move it, etc. He’s not upset by it.

For added context, we did have some very severe separation anxiety starting at five-and-a-half months and peaking about six-and-a-half months, in which he freaked out even if I set foot in a different area of our open-concept living space—for example, getting up to throw away a piece of trash—or if I was out of his sight for a second. We have mostly moved past that now that he is crawling proficiently. I can work in the kitchen and he is totally content playing out of eyesight in the dining room and crawling around to explore. I can tell him I’m leaving to do laundry in the hall and he will usually follow behind contentedly.

The issue is when he’s unable to get to me. I have the same issue if I put up a play yard fence as a barrier to something in the main part of the house. He’s fine as long as we’re both on the same side of the barrier. If I step over it and he can’t follow, he gets mad. These reactions sound much more like anger and frustration than the terrified cries a couple of months ago.

If he’s going to outgrow this the same way he outgrew that, I won’t make a concerted effort to get him to be okay with the situation and we’ll just wait it out. However, since it’s anger and not fear, I think, I am more okay with practicing, if this is a skill he can learn and not developmental.

Thank you so much.

Okay, so that was helpful that she gave all that information. Again, she’s very much on track here, I just want to help her with a couple of thoughts.

First, she gave a lot of examples of things she’s saying to him when she’s acknowledging and accepting his feelings. And I don’t believe she’s saying all these at once, but this is a lot of verbiage for somebody eight months old. He’s not going to really keep up with any of that. It may be that she’s kind of saying it for herself, to bolster herself that what she’s doing is okay. And that makes sense, but I would recommend being much simpler in the way that she talks to him. Really just focusing more simply on his side of this. So, less about what she’s going to do and how she needs to do this and keep him safe and all that. That’s a common thing that we do as parents is that we want to share a lot about why our child shouldn’t feel the way they do, rather than, You’ve got a right to say no to this, and I want to hear that. Almost like, Thank you for telling me you didn’t want me to leave.

So, much more in-the-moment, less explanatory. A simple explanation: “I’m going to go do this and I’ll be back in a few minutes. Can’t wait to see you again then.” That kind of thing. And then from there, mostly focusing on, “Wow, you’re not liking this. I hear you. You’re saying no, you don’t want me to leave you ever, right? You want to be on the same side with me.”

And these reactions he’s having make sense for several reasons. First, I have the sense that he is a child with a stronger type of will. I have a special love for that type of child, my first was like that. And one of the things about them is that they tell you everything and they tell it to you strongly. Obviously at eight months, he doesn’t have words yet to explain. So with infants, when we have a child like that, it can sound like they’re deeply upset about everything, when they just are being emphatic. They, again, express a lot more than a more passive-type child.

So it can be tougher as a parent to assert ourselves with those types of children, especially when they’re this little. And he is just a tiny baby, but he’s kind of raring to go here, he’s giving it to her. He’s telling her in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t approve of her being the one to decide to separate from him and have a gate between them. It’s okay if he separates from her. As she said, he’s in the dining room and she’s in the kitchen and he can’t even see her, but he gets to decide whether to go see her or not. And now he’s crawling. So it makes sense that this started coming up before he was able to crawl. He didn’t even want her to be away from him. 

Because what happens is children get to this age—and he got to it pretty young at five-and-a-half months—that they realize, Hey, sometimes you go away and I don’t have control over you, and we’re not sort of the same person. You’re this separate person that can be away from me and I don’t decide that. I don’t like that. And separation anxiety is actually more common for the age he’s at now, it’s usually like eight months through 12 months, but maybe he started having it a little early. He has strong feelings about it and he wants to share. It’s hard to see that as a positive, but that’s one of the keys to being able to put it into perspective.

So, strong-willed children express themselves more strongly. And then with separation anxiety, we want to be sensitive to it, of course, so we’re not going to go off for a long time to show him or try to teach him a lesson, making him upset. We want to be sensitive to it, but we can’t let ourselves be completely ruled by this and still do something that’s super important, which is holding space for ourselves in this relationship. That’s the most loving thing to do, not only for us, but for our children. For them to learn, in this age-appropriate manner, that we are a separate person and that we have needs too. And yes, we subvert a lot of them to be there for our children, but we can’t erase ourselves in this relationship, or it’s going to be harder for us to manage the day and our feelings about our child too, to be honest, and much harder, therefore, for him.

To answer more directly some of her questions here: Is he just not developmentally ready for her to leave him alone in this Yes Space to play a bit while she does tasks and will he grow into this and one day be fine with it? Children like this, they’re almost never fine with just letting us go. So that’s a hard pill to swallow, but that goes with the territory. They’re not going to say, “Oh, go have some nice time off,” or “Go do the chores and I’ll just be here, I’m totally fine to hang out.” Oftentimes there is a bit of a complaint, at least. But is he developmentally ready to be left alone for a little bit? Absolutely.

And it’s much easier for him and for us to get comfortable with this the earlier we start it. Having some times away from our child, even when they’re just a few months old, being able to go get ourselves something to drink or go to the bathroom alone. Starting that not to train children in some artificial way or to even, as she says, do some “exposure therapy.” No, I wouldn’t consider this some kind of structured plan or therapy that she’s doing. It can be a natural, organic way of taking care of ourselves in the relationship, taking our space. Trusting that our child can learn this and handle this. We’re not trying to force a lesson. It’s just the way that relationships go, that we have needs that don’t always match our child’s wants.

He’s getting his needs taken care of, she’s not abandoning him. She said even if she’s right there, but there’s just that gate in between them, he’s still getting mad. Yeah, because he’s saying, Hey, wait, I can’t get to you right now. I can’t control this part of the situation. And I guess we have to decide how we feel about if he should control that part of it. But then when do we ever get to establish ourselves and have personal boundaries? That’s a question we have to ask ourselves. Because actually, it gets harder later when children aren’t used to this and it’s a new thing that we try to spring on them at age two or something. It’s much harder for us and for them.

So I would trust your needs and trust his right to have his own reaction to that— Hey, wait a second! And see that as strength in him, not something pitiable or terribly worrisome. It’s very typical and very healthy in a child like this. She’s got a live one here.

The bottom line is, for this or any kind of boundary that we’re going to set, ever, with our children or anyone, the more comfortable we are with setting the boundary, the easier it will be for that other person, the more settled they can feel around it. Not that they’re going to be comfortable and love it, but they feel that conviction coming from us and it’s much more comfortable than if we’re ambivalent, we’re wavering. Then they get stuck there, now they’ve got to keep asking and pushing. It’s like they’re reaching for a boundary and it keeps moving and they can’t get a handle on it. So that’s not really doing them any favors. Our comfort is always going to be the baseline for our children’s comfort in any situation. It’s especially true when we’re kindly and lovingly setting a personal boundary.

And the most challenging part is to find a place of okayness—I’m not going to say “comfort,” because that’s way too much to ask of ourselves and unnatural to be totally fine with our children expressing their discomfort. But okayness with it is vital, because it’s that okayness that gives us the conviction in our decisions to take care of ourselves, without having to supervise our baby 24/7, as in this case. To go to the bathroom by ourselves, to be caring to ourselves, and consider the household, that we have to get food ready for him, we have to do whatever it is. It’s all in his best interest and we need to do it. Finding that okayness so that they can feel settled in their rejection of our decisions.

Now I want to offer some ideas for helping this parent feel more conviction and comfort, and her child as well, with this situation. And encouraging his play the way she wants to do, which is such a great thing. It’s a gift that keeps giving, seriously. One thing I want to offer her is routine, routine, routine. So it sounds like sometimes she’s in there with him, sometimes she lets him wander now that he’s crawling. And I’m wondering if she has any kind of routine around this because that will help her and her child a great deal to get more comfortable with this. For her, setting the boundaries; for him, accepting her boundaries. So, routine, routine, routine means we develop something that works for both of us, keeping his energy for play in mind, which for most young children is earlier in the day when they’re the freshest. That’s a time that we really want to take advantage of because that’s when they have the best energy for that kind of play. But it can be other times in the day too.

And she mentioned him outside. I don’t know if it’s possible for her to create a safe play yard for him outside. Yes, he will still complain when she’s on the other side of it, but that could be a part of his day, when it works weather-wise. A lot of people don’t have outdoor area available like that, so that becomes a park or something else where the parent does need to supervise. But if you can have a less-supervised area like that, that’s going to be easier for us.

So a routine might look like, she takes care of his needs in the morning when he gets up, breakfast, nursing, diaper change, however that looks, giving him her undivided attention then as much as possible. And then there’s playtime. And maybe in that first morning playtime, she’s with him for a short period and then she gets up. She communicates she’s getting up. That’s another thing I forgot to ask this parent, if she’s letting him know. Because sometimes we don’t want to say, we just want to kind of sneak out. It sounds like she’s very communicative with him, so I imagine she’s saying, “Now it’s the time I’m going to get up and go do this, and then I will be back.”

And with a child who’s reacting the way her son is, I might even say, “And you get to be mad at me if you want to. And I will come back, and then you can yell at me when I come back, if you need to.” That’s for him, but also for myself. To feel that I have actually written that into the script here, I’ve written that into the play. So that means I can expect that that’s very likely going to happen, and I’m giving him permission and I’m giving me permission for that to happen.

But we don’t have to say that part. We can just say, “And then I’ll be leaving.” And maybe we even say that as playtime’s starting: “I’m going to be sitting here with you for a bit, and then there’s going to come a time where I’ll let you know that I’m getting up.” And of course we want to let them know, because otherwise it’s much harder for them to get involved in their play when they’re kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop and we’re going to go. The clarity and the consistency of the routine can be really, really helpful.

So now we get up and we go. He knows that we’re going to come back, because this is part of our day that we’ve set up. Maybe we want to set it up that we’re not staying with him in that first morning period. That that’s when we say, “Okay, after I’m done with this diaper or after we’re done with this feeding, I’m going to place you in your play area and I’m going to leave. And after I do some chores, I will soon come back. And you can yell at me. I’ll hear you, wherever I am. I know, you’ve got a right to do that, right? You don’t like me to leave. I will be back.” And then there’s other periods in the day that we have this regularity.

And some people, they want to be spontaneous all the time, I know. It just makes it a little harder for children, who are newer to the world and really kind of like those guidelines of being able to predict what will happen next. It’s confidence-building and it makes it easier for them to let go of us. Which doesn’t mean they do it calmly, without complaining, but it’s easier.

The other part of consistency is to have that gate in his play area always closed when we’re in there with him, if possible, so that that really gets established. It sounds like she does that. But sometimes people will want to leave it open until they leave and then they close it. And it’s understandable that a child like this, he’s very excited, he’s crawling now. That’s cool, but wait, now I’m crawling and now they’re stopping me and putting gates up? What’s going on with that? That’s not very encouraging, right? So if it’s part of his play area, as his parent is making it, it sounds like, then he does explore it the way she describes. And I asked about that to try to figure out if that was part of this or not, that maybe she was just closing it on him when she was leaving.

And also sometimes when children are up at the gate, they’re pulling up to stand and they’re very excited about what they’re doing and exploring the gate like she described. I mean, she’s very insightful here about what’s going on with them. She’s obviously a practiced observer, which I recommend, and she’s noticing that he enjoys figuring out the gate. But it can certainly appear as if, Oh no, my child just wants to be at the gate the whole time while he’s playing, and that means he wants out. And that’s not really true. They’re as interested in a gate or a bit of fencing as they are in anything else. They’re exploring all of it. So that is part of the consistency and the routine. That gate is established as a closed gate while he’s playing.

So anyway, now let’s say that she leaves and he’s upset. That’s when I would say, as she does, but I would say it simpler: “I hear that. You don’t want me to go, you don’t want me to go do this. You’re telling me no.” And then I would do whatever it is I have to do, and in another 30 seconds or another minute, I would say from wherever I am, “I hear you. You’re still not liking this. You’re in a hurry for me to come back, it seems like. I’ll be there soon.” And because I’m expecting this as a parent, because I know that this is a good sign of my child’s expression of himself and his wants, and it’s a very strong position to be in, to be able to kind of be the boss saying, Hey, I didn’t give you permission! So that’s not as intimidating when we get perspective on it. He’s not abandoned. He knows quite well that you mean what you say because you’ve always shown him that you come back. And especially if you’re there right in front of him, he knows you haven’t done some terrible thing to him.

He’s shown that he loves play and he’s very into his time and doesn’t need you every second. But he wants the option that he has you every second. That’s the difference. He’s not in pain, he’s not desperate. So we can respond in a welcoming way, not pitying, not trying to explain it away or convince him not to feel the way he does. Allowing him to vent. And oftentimes when we come back, then children really vent on us, and that’s when we can say, “Oh, I’m back. That was hard for you. You didn’t like that at all. I always want you to tell me. I always want you to tell me how you feel. When you’re mad at me, when you don’t like what I do, you can always tell me.” I would try to see it that way. I mean, that’s a wonderful setup for life, right? Letting him know that we’re okay with his communication no matter what it is and his feelings, even if they’re angry feelings towards us. We can hold space for that, we can handle that. We can handle him.

Sometimes parents will tell me that they felt like they were too much to handle, they were just too much as babies. And oftentimes that’s because the parent was afraid to set boundaries because of the reaction they were getting, or for other reasons, very understandable reasons, couldn’t handle those reactions and got mad at us for them, as babies or toddlers. So we get that message, because our parent’s exasperated: “Okay, I’ll come,” or “I’ll let you come with me.” We feel like we’re too much because we know that they’re doing things they don’t want to do, because of our reaction. They can’t handle our reaction. So we can do something much healthier by welcoming these, along with every other feeling that our child has. Anger directed towards us is probably the hardest one of all, right? So, welcoming the feelings, saying less, trusting more.

Okay, so here’s a different issue that another parent asked about:

Hello,

I’ve loved listening to your podcast and try my best to follow your philosophy of respectful parenting. I am a mama to a strong-willed 14-month-old-girl who is always on the go. It seems that she becomes bored easily and nothing seems to hold her attention for more than five minutes at a time. I would love to encourage more independent play but, more often than not, she starts repeating the word “done” over and over again, only minutes after starting a new activity. She will throw her hands in the air and continue to be upset until I pick her up. This “done” repetition has also started when she’s in her car seat, right after leaving the house, or in her stroller on a walk. I want to encourage the use of her words, but sometimes we simply can’t be “done” with the activity.

I acknowledge that I have heard her and explained that we’re not done until we stop the car or get to our destination in the stroller. She just keeps repeating, “done, done, done,” louder and louder until she starts crying. Do I keep acknowledging her every time she says “done”? Or is there a point where I should just let her keep talking without a response?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Okay, so this is a little more unusual, but one thing that I do hear commonly is about children who don’t seem to have a long attention span, they’re going from one thing to another, they can’t seem to settle down. What I would do generally is trust that and see that as just where they are in their process and not worry about it. Because it’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with doing that. And sometimes if children feel that we’re uncomfortable when they’re doing that, it kind of keeps them stuck there. Like everything we feel uncomfortable about, children key into that and keep exploring it on some level or get stuck there. Especially strong-willed children, right? Because they’re sometimes extra-attuned. So I wouldn’t worry that she’s bored, she’s just doing it her way.

But this parent still can encourage more independent play with some of the ideas that I offered this other parent: the safe play area; the routine, routine of when we’re with them, when we go do stuff, that this sort of happens the same way every day; that we’re putting their communication, their reaction in perspective. And that’s a big one here, because this little girl’s saying, “Done!”, and it seems like maybe when she said this, the parent felt, Uhoh, that means she can’t play anymore. What I would do is practice when you’re with her in her play area—I don’t know if this parent has a safe play area for her daughter, but I’d recommend having one if possible—but even if she doesn’t, being present, just sitting there. Not worrying when she’s going from thing to thing. And when she says “done”: “Oh, you’re telling me that you’re done playing right now. Okay, you can come sit with me.” So we’re not picking her up and taking her out of this situation. We’re doing less. We’re letting her come to us and be with us.

This is just part of her play, it’s part of her process. Every child has their own process around play and learning. Now she says, “done, done, done”: “Okay, you’re done. We’re just going to hang out in here until it’s lunchtime.” And then if that’s usually what happens, that will help her get used to that. But not seeing “done” as some urgent thing we need to try to fix or rescue her from, or a command that we have to follow. It’s an expression that, You feel like you’re done playing. You’re done with all those things right now. Okay, you can take a break. We’re just going to hang out here then. And if she says, “I want to leave. I want to leave”: “We’re not going to leave right now. In a few minutes we’ll leave. But for now we’re here.” Just being comfortable with that boundary. Because she’s not harming her child, she’s right there for her. She’s just not jumping into action to her child’s expression of “done.” And it seems like maybe this child has gotten used to mom feeling that, Uhoh, oh no, she doesn’t have a long attention span. Or, Oh no, I’ve got to do something now and get her out of this. She’s telling me she’s done. I would try to reframe “done” as just she’s done exploring those toys or whatever it is.

Throwing her hands in the air seems to suggest that she’s used to pick me up now. But let her be upset with you while you’re just sitting right there, because it sounds like she’s sensed the power in this word now. She’s discovered that this word gets people jumping for me. And so now it’s exploding all over the place—in her car seat or in her stroller, she’s saying “done.” And she’s wondering if that’s going to have the power to change the situation. So allowing her to explore this while you’re there for her with play is the best way for her to start getting a different message about this.

And I’m wondering about this little girl’s definition of done, if it’s even the same as ours, or if it was the same when she first said it and now it’s taken on this kind of command thing. It’s so easy to fall into this as parents with our children because we’re excited they’re saying words and now we feel like, Oh gosh, that means I’ve got to get her out of this because she said she’s done. So dial this back for yourself and let her say “done” in the car and say, “Oh, you’re saying you’re done with sitting there in the car seat. Yeah, you don’t want to be there anymore, maybe. I hear that.” And let her be mad about that. And it may be kind of loud the first couple times, but your calm, your conviction that you’re not doing anything wrong by not rescuing her there or helping her be done will help her get settled in very soon.

But what is the key? Our conviction, right? Having that conviction that this isn’t something I need to be alarmed about, it’s really okay for her to say this. I don’t know what it means to her when she first said it. It’s safe to just let her have this, and every, feeling and not try to explain why she shouldn’t, and it’s not okay to be done here. And if she keeps repeating it louder, louder, louder—which I’m sure she will at first, because now this is a thing—you don’t have to acknowledge her every time. You can let her keep talking. I would nod your head, look at her if she’s making eye contact. Just nod your head, “Yeah, you’re still feeling done, you’re feeling like you’re over this. I know. The thing is we’re not there yet, but I hear you feel done. You’re ready to move on.” Not being afraid to acknowledge that truth of what’s going on with her, while you, as the parent with conviction, hold those boundaries.

And the boundary could be that we’re not home yet, so we’re not done with the walk, which should be easy to believe in, right? Or that we need to still be in the car right now because we’re on the freeway. But the play one as well. For children to feel comfortable at all with boundaries or get used to them, they need our comfort and conviction in them. Our okayness with their not okayness.

So I really hope some of this helps. And I just want to say again, I’m totally behind cultivating play for children. I feel like it’s one of the best things that we can do for them as parents and do for ourselves. But it’s not going to be seamless. And even when we think, Oh, they’re so settled and play is working great for them, there will be bumpy parts where they need boundaries, they need our sensitivity. Maybe they need to be with us more certain times, but we still feel clear and comfortable with our boundaries. That we’re doing the right thing, that we’re doing the most loving thing, because we really are.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. And my books, No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame, and Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting, you can get them in paperback at Amazon and in ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and apple.com.

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Transcript of “Mental Health Starts in Infancy (with Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m hosting infant mental health and infant-parent relationship expert Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon. Angela’s also a fellow RIE Associate and now serves on their board, after serving a long tenure at the nonprofit Zero to Three. Dr. Fisher-Solomon has worked on national projects on home visiting, family childcare, Early Head Start, and more.

Today we’ll be discussing what infant mental health really means. It might not be what you think. So, what is it? What is it not? Why is it important? And what can we do to nurture it? Which includes understanding secure attachment, stimulation, infant emotions, and a lot more. I’m really looking forward to this.

Hi, Angela. Welcome to Unruffled.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Good afternoon, Janet. Thank you so much for having me. It is such an honor to be able to sit and chat with you on one of my favorite topics.

Janet Lansbury: Well, the honor’s completely mine, let me tell you. I’m so thrilled to be able to share your wisdom and many years of experience with my listeners. So thank you for taking the time to be here. Like you said, I love this topic. It’s one that isn’t a part of the conversation in parenting as much as a lot of other topics. Why do you think that is? Do you have any thoughts about that?

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: I think families, and particularly parents, often they shy away from the terms infant mental health because people often think about mental health as, Oh my goodness, if you say infant mental health, does that mean that something is quote unquote “wrong” with my baby? And it does not mean that at all. Infant mental health has what we call synonymous definition, which simply means social-emotional development in babies and toddlers, and that’s all it means. It is really just the capacity of a baby or toddler to experience, regulate, and express their emotions. It’s also their ability to form close and secure relationships and really to explore the environment and learn. All within the context of biology, relationships, and culture.

And so, on one hand, that’s a big definition in terms of the field. But to parents, when parents ask me, well, what exactly is infant mental health? I often just simply say, think of it as, how is your child developing their social-emotional skills? And then that leads into attachment and what does that look like? And basically, just how is your child’s overall emotional wellbeing, what does that look like? And then as an infant mental health specialist, we break that down.

Janet Lansbury: So what are some of the important practices that parents should consider engaging in with their babies and what signs from them are showing us that we’re on the right track? Can you talk about that?

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Infant mental health, I have found, and in my research, really I link it back to what is happening to the baby in utero. Because infant mental health doesn’t just start when the baby is here, right? After the baby is born. It starts with the connections prenatally. So I often like to tell parents it starts there. What kind of pregnancy did you have? How did you feel about the baby? How were your emotions? Because we know that emotions during the journey of pregnancy are sometimes up and down, right?

Then once your beautiful baby has arrived, what is the connection? Because as soon as the baby is born, infants come into the world, as you know, seeking the connection of another human face, particularly the mother, father, or whoever is going to be that primary caregiver in the child’s life. And it often starts out with something as simple as the earliest connection, making eye-to-eye contact with the baby. Touching a newborn is like heaven. And making that up close, eight to 12 inches from the baby’s face so that they know by smells and using their other senses, they know who mom is. And a lot of research says they also know who dad is, particularly if the dad has been able to talk to the baby in the womb on a regular basis. So parents ask, how can I help my infant have a strong social-emotional capacity? I tell them, by building a healthy, secure attachment relationship, which in turn builds trust and security.

And in my research, which looks at confidence-building in babies, it’s really this —and we know this, you and I often talk about it in many different scenarios— the importance of going slow with an infant. Your language, your eye rapid movement, the tempo of your body language, babies pick up everything. And what we consider to be small nuances of how you interact with a baby, how you observe the baby. And that consistency really in fact is building the necessary skills for strong social-emotional capacity, which ultimately means you are building strong social-emotional skills, which lead to strong cognitive skills and so on and so forth. Because it is strengthening that particular developmental domain and the baby’s brain.

Janet Lansbury: Because it’s giving them that sense of calm and security that allows them to—

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Regulate.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, and then therefore have the capacity to develop cognitive skills and these other skills.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Absolutely. I mean, everyone wants their child to do well academically. Even if a baby is, let’s say two, three days old, it’s natural for a parent to think, I want my child to be able to read before they get to kindergarten. Or, what should I do? How can I make them and help them to have strong cognitive skills? You know, we as adults, we have societal pressures. So as parents we can’t help but start thinking further ahead. And you know, Magda Gerber used to often say about being in the moment, but it is understanding, and in the world of infant mental health we zero in on: to what degree is slow. Observation, being able to understand the developmental cues, being able to identify them, being able to read them consistently, and being able to meet the emotional needs of the baby. 

An example is, when we talk about regulation, if your baby is crying and you may come close, you have the best of intentions, but in fact the baby already could be overly stimulated and it turns its head away from you because it actually needs to shut down and have a little quiet time. So infant mental health is about helping parents to identify those cues and come alongside the baby, in a sense, so that the baby is dictating what it needs and the parent is better able to give them that.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. And that example of overstimulation, that’s one that’s I think so commonly misunderstood. And there are so many products that we’re offered as parents to maybe make our child smarter or learn faster or be less bored or whatever, that actually are very overstimulating. And I know that this idea of how sensitive babies are to stimulation, that got away from me a lot, even with my third baby. Because we can’t gauge that on our own stimulation needs, they’re so much more sensitive.

And it’s like what you were saying about slowing down, too. We can’t be with a baby in a way that’s really going to be helpful to them if it’s on our adult pace. Magda Gerber and Pikler talked about this a lot, and Heidelise Als, who did so much research with preemies, talked about how jarring it is for them when we’re on an adult, more rapid pace in the way that we talk to them or handle them. So I feel like those things, maybe there’s not enough information and support and reminders out there that babies are… their newness to the world and all this incredible learning potential that they have, they’re so open to the world and yes, everything is more to them. They need so much less than we think.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: You know, infants, their right brain develops much earlier than the left side of their brain. And the right brain is what controls their emotional development. Yes, they come into the world with over 70 billion brain cells. So they come into the world very, very smart. Their senses are heightened. But to your point, the one thing that is not always considered is, although they are simply brilliant and competent little people, their ability to take in information, it must be slow.

You know, parents often wonder, Why do I have to repeat myself, even to my toddler? I explained to them, because it takes them probably around the third time, sometimes the fourth time for it to register. You know, let’s say if it’s a toddler who is only speaking a few words, but if you are using hand gestures and you speak slow enough and use eye contact, even an infant, they’re going to understand you.

And I’ve had parents challenge me, that there’s no way my four month old can understand me and I give them little experiments. Yes. Why? You know, you speak to the baby in a certain way and then I begin to show the parent, Look at her eyes, look at her hands starting to open and close. Her breathing is increasing. She knows I’m explaining something. Parents sometimes think that they’re just little nuances, but they in fact have great meaning.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. That’s what I say to parents too because I often get that, Oh, what’s the point? And, They can’t understand. And I suggest, Try it. And people have come back to me and said, Oh my gosh, okay, I saw it. I saw my baby registering what I said, or I saw them responding in a way that proved to me or seemed to prove to me… It’s still freaky, right? They understood what we were talking about.

About stimulation… I was just imagining, for us it would be we’re in a stadium, really noisy, there’s all this stimulation, all this stuff going on. Which is I think how babies must feel just being there in the world. Because they’re taking everything in—every sound, every sight, everything all at once. And then yes, if we were in that stadium with all of that stimulation and all that sound and all that sight, then it’s going to take a little while for you to communicate with us because we have to tune some of that out just to be able to focus on what you’re saying. I don’t know if that’s a proper analogy, but that’s what came to my mind.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: It absolutely is a wonderful analogy. And I teach on infant brain development to college and graduate students and I often say to them that, there’s understanding brain development, you’re neuroscientists or something like that. But for a parent, they don’t necessarily need to know it to that degree. They need to know how a baby’s brain works, in that a baby’s brain literally depends on the social interaction in order for the right side of that brain to flourish and for the neurons and the connections to get strong enough. And to understand, to your point, that quieter environment, it gives the baby the opportunity to regulate itself. It’s hard, even for adults, for us to regulate our own emotions and our bodies and our senses if we’re, what did you say, in the middle of a stadium. You know, our ability as adults to be intentional, physically, emotionally. Why do we think infants are any different?

And if anything, because they haven’t been in the world that long. They’ve been inside the womb, this really safe, dark but comforting place where only they’re really dealing with their mother’s heartbeat. Even if it’s a water birth, however the child enters the world, it is still a shock. Because now they’ve got lights and they’ve got people moving around, they can’t really see clearly. So it’s a lot for their brain. And again, the right side is much more developed than the left side. The left side holds cognitive and language skills, it doesn’t really develop until closer to age one. So the right side is working a lot and babies need consistent but quieter sounds to begin to allow them to kind of regulate and get their own body rhythms. And we talk about, from Magda, telling a baby what you’re going to do before you do it and pausing and waiting.

All of those practices really help babies, it gives them time. And parents often find that if you give your baby that time and that consistency and you’re going slowly, you literally are helping them to build their social-emotional capacity. Because as they grow, everything is going to start to increase, right? And become a little bit faster. There’s such a big difference between an infant, a toddler, and then a preschooler who’s running around and jumping and going from one thing to the next because they have the capacity to do that. Between age four and five, Oh, he can sit and listen to a preschool teacher. Or the things where when you need them to wait, well, when you go slow in the beginning you’ve been building their social-emotional development, a.k.a. their mental health, they are better able to regulate their bodies. And typically it affects their sleep schedule, their sleep cycles, their feeding cycles, and their play cycles with their loving parents.

Janet Lansbury: Yes.

I wanted to ask you about something because when you brought it up, I got a little feeling of uh-oh, and I’m sure other parents worry about this. You talked about how our feelings around our pregnancy, and of course we all know —and some of us have experienced— postpartum depression, or that anxiety as a new parent or just after the birth of a baby. Well, we can’t help how we feel if we’re depressed during pregnancy, right? I had a very difficult third pregnancy. I think I was maybe too old to be having a baby, I don’t know. But I had a lot of negative feelings.

You know, there’s very extreme things that parents go through. And there are also situations where of course babies are premature, their brain hasn’t finished fully developing as a full-term baby’s would. And then there are situations where there’s adoption and the baby has, I believe, a sense of loss of leaving the person that smelled and spoke like that, that they heard in the womb, and going to someone else. What do we do if that was our situation? How can we help our babies to process that? Is it just being even more sensitive the way you’re talking about? Or can we expect certain things from them that we might not expect from a full-term baby where everybody was emotionally healthy all through it?

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Sometimes parents are not able, they don’t necessarily arrive in the best situation. Or to your point, if in this case that there is a mother going through postpartum and she may not have the capacity to give her child the nurturing that it needs. That’s why this field is so critically important because a mom or a family needs support, no one can parent in a vacuum. And if someone has gone through various levels of postpartum depression or other adverse experiences that impede their ability to parent in a healthy manner for their baby.

Babies, unfortunately, they don’t really wait. You know, they grow every day. But they are incredibly resilient. And in the families that I work with, I often explain that you meet your child where they are. There’s no such thing as a perfect parent, we all make mistakes. And whatever the situation is, if you are able to get some kind of support, like if it’s postpartum, they have the amazing Postpartum Support International, that’s doing some amazing work around the country for not just mothers, but they have family groups, they have groups for fathers, they have LGBQT groups, different cultural groups.

Because, you know, you could have one vision for how your family’s going to look when you’re getting ready to welcome a new baby or a child into your family, and it may not turn out that way. So there are many different groups that I try to guide parents to. If I’m not mistaken, there’s probably infant mental health specialists and organizations in almost every state in the country. And many times those resources are free of charge.

And then if you ask, How does that affect the baby? You can only hope that there could be someone there, even if it can’t be the mother or the father, that it could be someone who could still give that infant a nurturing experience until the parent is ready. And when the parent is ready to create the bond, it’s still going to continue to have a major effect on the child’s life. If it can be in utero, if it can be from day one, that’s fantastic, but it might not be until age three.

I tell parents, you do the best that you can and if you’re trying to strive to get better, then a child’s brain is incredibly resilient and flexible. So it is not to think that just because there’s extenuating circumstances, that Is my baby just lost if I can’t provide this slow, nurturing, comforting? No. I would encourage parents to try to get support and resources. And in the world of infant mental health, we have something called prevention and promotion because of course if we can help offset some of those challenges, it’s going to be better for the baby and it’s going to be better for the parenting journey. So earlier is always helpful. Not always possible, but wherever you get the help at whatever time, it’s about the health and wellbeing of both the adult, of the caregiver, and the baby.

Janet Lansbury: That’s very helpful. So let’s say, in my situation where I had a lot of dark moods during the pregnancy, but then once I had my baby, I actually felt really guilty about the dark moods because he was just so vulnerable and adorable and, you know, there was no way I was not going to love him. He had a lot of crying, whatever that was. Colic, I don’t know if it was his digestive system. Not during the day, but in the night he would have lots and lots of crying and I tried a lot of things, a chiropractor, my diet, all of these things.

But I sometimes wonder if, do babies express those feelings that they absorb from us in the womb or maybe in the early days after birth if we’re depressed? Are there different ways that babies express that and process it out of their system with us? Or is that just as variable as all the different types of children there are, with their different capacities? Or are there some themes? An adoption situation, maybe, where they had that loss and now they’re in this really positive situation though? Is there anything that that looks like that we could look out for? Or is it just very individual for each child?

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: You know, I get asked that question a lot. And one of the reasons I chose developmental psychology is because my outlook on babies, it’s from a scientific perspective, yes, but it’s also from a holistic and a spiritual perspective. Babies do because of genetic makeup, right? And stress that’s internalized in different hormones that we absorb in our bodies and so does that then get passed to our babies in the womb? Or if it’s an adoptive baby, is that baby coming with a genetic pattern for its emotional framework? In a sense, yes, the science has shown that babies do come, in a sense, with a genetic blueprint. And that’s under the realm of biology, right? But then there’s nurture. And the research shows nurture —which is, again, giving your baby the support it needs once you’re able to identify some of the issues— is stronger.

And so let’s say with you, your son may have had these issues. Or if it’s an adoptive child, they’re going to have some residuals because they had a birth mother at some point. But what I tell parents again is that the power of love is at the core and the center of babies. I know it sounds simple on one hand, but it does have the ability for recovery. If you’re the birth parent, if you have sad feelings that heighten your level of cortisol in your brain and the hormones or stress hormones, and your baby is born extra-irritable, it just seems incredibly tense and it can’t seem to regulate. There are steps in infant mental health in identifying what’s happening. Why is the baby tense? Is it muscle tone, is it irritable? So there are different screenings. And once those are identified, then we can come up with a plan to help a parent bring the stress level of the baby down.

If babies who’ve suffered, let’s say with alcohol syndrome, they recover. It takes work, but they recover and they begin to thrive. So yes, it’s an individual’s situation for both the adult and the baby, but just because it’s not an ideal situation doesn’t mean that the baby has to be quote unquote “stuck”. Does that make sense?

Janet Lansbury: It totally does, yeah. I love that.

You brought up cortisol. What should parents know about cortisol? I know there’s a lot of mixed advice put out there around if your baby cries or if your baby cries for too long or too often, that’s a dangerous thing because of the cortisol. What is the science on that?

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Cortisol is a stress hormone. We have it, it’s in our bodies, and it’s there for a reason. It’s kind of a measuring stick and it helps to regulate other functions in our bodies. I agree with you that parents don’t quite understand about cortisol and crying in particular. But for babies, crying is healthy. It’s a way to express emotions. The challenge is understanding, where is it coming from? If all the basic needs have been met, sometimes there’s not going to be anything that you can do because the infant is also sometimes trying to regulate itself. However, as a parent, if you feel that, okay, I’ve done everything and my baby is inconsolable, then I would say call your pediatrician to make sure that there’s not anything going on internally. But crying in and of itself, again, once all of the babies’ needs have been met…

And sometimes parents aren’t quite sure as to, When should I hold my baby? Should I rock them? Should I do this, should I do that? To keep them from crying, you have to try to help the baby to regulate. And sometimes it’s taking your baby’s clothes off, warming up your hands. I’m a certified infant massage educator and what we do is called holding sacred space, speaking very quietly in your baby’s ear, looking at them in eye contact. I know you’re upset. I know it’s hard, but I am here for you. And same repeated soft motions that are rhythmic. Typically I found they work, bouncing and all of those things. If the baby is already overly stimulated, then bouncing them is sometimes only going to make it worse and then the crying becomes elevated. So the cortisol level in terms of stress has more to do with prolonged crying and not giving an infant acknowledgement or recognition that someone is there.

Janet Lansbury: And hopefully someone that can be as calm as possible, right? So we’re not adding to it with our own emotion for the baby to absorb.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: And you brought up an excellent point because when you know you’re stressed. In some of my parent-infant classes, I will say, It’s okay. Step over to the side, count to 10 or 20, take deep breaths. And I’ll give them a mindfulness exercise. And then come in. Because if you’re not regulated, it’s only going to add to the baby’s stress. If you’re stressed, then the baby’s going to be stressed. And if their baby’s not stressed, the baby will then become stressed. They basically mirror you and they mirror your emotional capacity.

Janet Lansbury: I love that you teach that in your classes. Can you talk a little about this tool that you’re developing? The FIOT, the Fisher Infant Observation Tool?

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Called the FIOT, it’s been a baby of mine for the past 20 years. I was inspired by Magda’s work in talking about confidence and then there’s some other theorists that I researched that also talked about confidence, and Dr. Pikler. I was inspired and I wanted to look at confident behavior as an action verb.

So I looked at adult insecurity. They didn’t just start that way. We always go back into the world of infancy and early childhood. And so what I did was I studied insecurity and fear. Where is it rooted? What are the elements and the factors that contribute to confident and insecure behavioral patterns? And that is the FIOT. So it is a paper parent observation tool. But I created it to empower parents because for me I said, well it’s great in psychology and nurses and pediatricians, we get all these different screening tools and most of them are not culturally sensitive. So I created the FIOT.

Janet Lansbury: You created one that is.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: I had some amazing mentors who I think are far more brilliant than I am and more experienced. And we did the research and looked at, what are the differences in parenting styles, the differences in how we see babies and what does that look like across various cultural groups? And how can we ultimately bring this into the hands of parents to empower them? So the goal is to empower parents. It’s not a measuring tool, it’s more of an identifier. If your baby scores a particular number, here are some strategies to help you at home.

So if your baby is starting to show some insecure behavioral patterns, this helps you to offset that behavior. So you don’t have to wait until your child is three to start to wonder, Why is my child so fearful? Other than separation anxiety and stranger anxiety, which are all typically developing behaviors. So the FIOT begins to identify what that looks like. And it has gone through two levels of scientific testing and it has very, very strong scores. We are now in the final phase. We’re constantly looking for funding and perhaps partners at some point, because now it’s ready to be taken around the country. It needs a larger sample population before it’s ready for publication. But ultimately that is the goal.

Janet Lansbury: Wow, you’re amazing.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: It’s been a long process.

Janet Lansbury: I mean, congratulations. Especially because it’s been a long process. So does this also help parents notice if there’s neurodivergence or other issues like that? Can they notice anything like that at the infant stage?

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Absolutely. Even though it is created for typically developing babies, people have asked me, would this be a tool if my child was on the autism spectrum? Just as an example. And what it has shown, because of the identifiers, so far is that it picks up on things that are not consistent, which in turn propels a parent to be able to wonder a lot sooner than later. And it has the chart, you know, typically developing should be doing this. And it also gives room for varying cultural groups. So how a particular culture, what their outlook is on parenting practices. It can be tweaked here and there to make room for that.

Janet Lansbury: It sounds like it might also do something that— this was one of my favorite gifts from Magda, she taught us to see this ourselves and help other parents see this. That it’s not just, My child isn’t doing this yet, it’s, But look what they are doing. They’re doing this. You didn’t realize that was a thing. Well guess what? It’s a thing. They’re sustaining attention on something. Or the way that they’re shifting their body. They’re maybe not rolling, but they’re preparing themselves to be able to do that, moving their head, extending themselves, turning on their side. You know, I love how we’re able to show parents in the classes and ease their mind that your baby’s really making some good progress here. Look at all the things they’re able to do that you never even thought meant anything.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Absolutely. And the FIOT doesn’t make a comparison and it allows parents to, you know, you don’t take it just once, right? You could take it more than once. So to your point, it’s not as though you’re looking for anything. It’s really training parents on how to observe without judgment. It’s almost like writing in a diary. You know, if you’re anyone that’s trying to lose weight, you weigh yourself and then you might weigh yourself again two, three weeks later. Then if there’s a big enough difference, it gives you time to pause and possibly correct if you need to correct something. And so it’s really the awareness and the awareness early on would in turn help babies and toddlers before they get to preschool. So prior to the age of three, to be able to offset. So it’s the awareness, empowering parents and then allowing them to make their own informed decision. The FIOT will give parents the opportunity and the ability to identify their own baby’s cues.

Janet Lansbury: Wow. Well, I’m excited for this to come out. So keep going.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: I will be sharing it at the World Association for Infant Mental Health in Dublin. I don’t share the tool, but I will be sharing different posters about the research and all of that.

Janet Lansbury: Wonderful. Well thank you so much for sharing so many wonderful tips and your perspective and insights. I really, really appreciate it. And I of course personally enjoy talking about one of my favorite topics with an Associate.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Yes. And if anyone wants to learn more about the FIOT, they could visit fiotbabiesconsulting.com.

Janet Lansbury: That’s F I O T babiesconsulting.com. Great. And is that where we can learn more about your work personally too?

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: There are small-group classes, you know, similar to RIE classes, Resources for Infant Educators, but these classes deal with a lot of psychology, things that might come up for parents, as well as deepening cultural differences in how they see their children. So yes, there’s a whole series of components. The screening tool is just one of them.

Janet Lansbury: I want to take one of those classes. Maybe with my grandchild someday.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Listen Janet, when we get to the next level, you would be an honored guest.

Janet Lansbury: Wow, thank you. Good luck with all of this. I feel like you’re on your way to helping even more parents than you’ve already helped and more babies. A whole generation.

Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon: Thank you so much.

Janet Lansbury: Thank you.

You can learn more about Angela’s work and resources at: FIOTbabiesconsulting.com

And please check out some of my other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in.

Both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon, No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame, and Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting. You can get them in e-book at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or barnesandnoble.com and in audio at audible.com. And you can even get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the LINK in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Mental Health Starts in Infancy (with Dr. Angela Fisher-Solomon) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Our Fears as Parents – Real and Imagined (with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today it’s my great pleasure to host psychotherapist and brain researcher Dr. Tina Payne Bryson. Tina has written a whole series of bestselling books with psychiatrist and educator Dr. Dan Siegel. I’m sure you’ll recognize some of these titles: The Whole-Brain Child, No-Drama Discipline, The Power of Showing Up, and The Yes Brain. All classics. Tina and Dan’s perspective has informed and inspired a whole generation of parents, and it appears more generations to come, as parent coaches these days frequently reflect Tina’s and Dan’s work in their advice. Unfortunately, not always crediting them as their sources and as the true groundbreakers, which is a disturbing trend I’m hoping will shift soon. But that’s another story.

Today, Tina and I will be discussing how to navigate our fears as parents. I’m excited for her to share some of her thoughts and wisdom with us.

Hi, Tina. Welcome back to the podcast.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Thank you so much for having me. You’re one of my favorites, so I’m always so honored to come and chat with you. It’s like, I don’t even know if anyone’s going to listen, I’m just here to talk to you. I’m so excited!

Janet Lansbury: Aww, well I hope some people listen because I don’t want them to waste this opportunity to listen to you. There’s about a million different things that I would love to hear from you on and talk to you about. Your work has been life-changing for a lot of people, including me, so it’s really hard to narrow it down. But I heard you, actually it was on your Instagram, I saw a reel that you did where you described so amazingly —I’ve never heard it sort of broken down this way— you described a thought process that we can use as parents for something that almost every parent I know has, and that’s fear. Fear about our children taking steps towards independence in different ways. Fear about them taking risks.

I guess a few months ago there was an article in The Atlantic by Erika Christakis about sleepovers and how this is something that a lot of parents are avoiding these days and the reasons why, but also the reasons why there were benefits to allowing children to do this. So that’s kind of where you started off, and I think that’s probably one of the more complicated risks for parents to consider for a lot of reasons. But you offered this wonderful thought process to figure out what are the benefits, what are the drawbacks? So how do we navigate all these kinds of risks?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: I think the first thing to think about is why do we feel fear as parents? There are studies that show that when we become parents, our brain changes in many ways. And one of the ways that it changes is that it makes us more hyper-alert to danger. It makes us more sort of scanning the environment to watch for any potential threats. And so biologically we can become more sort of savvy or sensitive to fears. And this is really a good thing. This allows us to be protective of our young, to help them survive and do all of these things. So fear itself is an emotion and emotions are important. Emotions tell us things like, Pay attention to this. Something is relevant here or something is worth paying attention to.

But fears often can be irrational. I mean, any kind of emotion can be irrational. And so they definitely should have a voice. Our emotions, and particularly our fears, should have a voice. We don’t want to vilify them. They’re important. However, they should not be the decision-maker.

So when we think about our children taking risks and we feel fear about those risks, and obviously that changes so much over our child’s development. When they’re really little, you worry about bumps and bruises or choking or water safety, those kinds of things. And as they get older, we have fears about their social relationships and we worry about sexual abuse. As they get older, we worry about them driving or being in other people’s cars and we worry about alcohol. And I’ll tell you, my oldest is now 23 and he’s an adult, and I have another adult who’s 20, and still a 16-year-old. And the fears don’t stop, you know, even when they’re adults.

So I think what’s really important for us to think about is we want autonomy to be the end result, we want to raise our children to be able to leave us and to be able to navigate the world. But yet our fears often make us, as parents, fight against supporting our child’s autonomy. And it’s not that we do it intentionally. It’s like, Oh, I don’t know, I think that seems too risky. Or, I don’t know, I’m too anxious about that. Or, That just seems like a bad idea. And so we often stop them from taking steps towards autonomy. And sometimes that’s the right call, but other times it’s really our fear that’s in the driver’s seat. So that’s sort of the background around the role that fear is playing.

Now, how do we navigate it? Well, one other thing to keep in mind is that when we feel fearful, we’re worried about a risk our child is taking or that they’re being in a position where there’s something that’s outside of our control. It’s a really uncomfortable feeling as a parent to know that we can’t control a hundred percent of our child’s safety all the time, and that’s true for the rest of our lives, even when they’re parents themselves. But when we become fearful about something, it makes us, I think the word is myopic, I don’t know. But it really makes us focus in on that fear. And what happens is that we often lose sight of context, or in this case other things that we should be paying attention to. So our fears or our emotions make us really hyper-focus sometimes.

When we take away opportunities for our kids to take risks or to problem-solve or to experiment with failure or having to be uncomfortable in a situation, when we become so hyper-focused on preventing a risk or something dangerous or tricky or uncomfortable from happening, we lose sight of something else that’s a risk. And that is that they are not getting the opportunity to move toward autonomy and confidence. You know, I always say the resilience formula is a challenge plus support equals resilience. A challenge without any support leads to fragility. But that’s only for big-time challenges and adversities. What I would say is that the way we become resilient is by practicing dealing with difficult things.

For example, I remember the first time I sent my son off to sleepaway camp and I was terrified. I was worried about so many things. I mean, I was worried about everything from ticks to sexual abuse to homesickness to bullying. I mean, I was worried about everything. And I remember that moment and walking him through the airport and knowing that he was feeling uncomfortable, he was leaving us for a long period of time, like two weeks, the longest he’d ever been away from us. And then I remember going, You know what? I don’t know why I’m acting like my child being uncomfortable is a bad thing. Because I know that a little bit of feeling of anxiety, or What if I get homesick?, or What if something happens and I don’t have my parents there?, that sitting in that discomfort —knowing that there are people around him to take care of him and he’s in a safe-enough environment— that that discomfort is actually one of the best things for him.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And then how did you know, like in that instance, what gave you the confidence that he was even ready for that challenge in the first place?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah, I mean obviously every kid is different. So we need to really know our kids, tune into them. And I won’t get into all the fancy terminology and child development, but I think that the idea’s sort of the Goldilocks. You want experiences to be a challenge where it’s not so much that it’s going to be traumatic or overwhelm them where they go, Oh, that was such a huge step. That was so terrible, I’m not taking any chances. Right? Because that’s counterproductive. But if something’s easy, then they may not gain as much from it. So we really want the just-right challenge, where we trust that our kid is going to be able to navigate through it.

And for some kids they can go headfirst into something they’ve never done and they do great. Other kids, like my firstborn, he really needed scaffolding. When he was really little and he didn’t want to walk up to a group of kids at soccer practice, he did better getting there first and then greeting kids as they came. But over time, as he had practice sitting in uncomfortable situations, he had the ability to know, Oh, I can handle this. Right?

Janet Lansbury: Right. But I just want to point out, so what you didn’t do, you didn’t walk in with him and say, Oh, here’s all the kids, and Everybody, can you say hi to him? And you didn’t scaffold that way, that would’ve been too much, right?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: That’s right. And I think that the thing too is— let’s say it this way, the brain is an association machine. So when we have repeated experiences, or reps, that are positive, we want to do more of it. If it’s negative, we often want to stay away from it, we avoid it. And so what happens is we want to give our kids these experiences, say going to soccer practice, where it’s positive enough. So he felt really tentative walking into a group of kids. So I’m like, Okay, well let’s take a couple steps closer. Or we got there early enough that he wasn’t just having to walk into a whole crowd. And this is when he’s like five, he’s really little. And then he’s like, Oh, I kind of like these kids, or This is fun and I want to go back. And then he’s like, I could handle walking up to bigger and bigger groups. So we want to think about these repeated experiences we give our kids, knowing that the reps that they’re getting are really wiring their brains.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, for sure. Just going back to the question I asked you about, how did you know he was ready? So I don’t know if this is naive on my part or I’ve just been lucky with my three kids. My oldest is 30 by the way, and then I have a 26-year-old and a 21-year-old. Because I had sort of trusted them all along to make choices, even as infants, I trusted if they expressed a desire to go to sleepaway camp —and they did, and my oldest one did way younger than I really thought she would— that was a sign to me that she’s ready, she wanted to do it. I didn’t have to talk her into it or try to make it sound fun for her or make it happen. She wanted to go. And I was able to listen to that and it was a sign to me that she was ready.

And I think your son being on that team, I’m sure he wanted to do it. That’s the biggest hurdle, that your child is sensing that they are ready. And then from there, you were able to have the presence of mind to realize you could get him there early and that would ease the social part of it and everything else. But yeah, I trust that it comes from them.

You know, when I was listening to your talk about navigating the fears, I was thinking, okay, dialing it all the way back, the population I work with often is babies. I do parent-infant classes and people bring their children and we just watch them play. And the floor is wood and the babies are moving and they’re rolling. And oftentimes, and I remember this myself as a parent, it’s scary when your baby’s rolling and they’re going to bonk their head on the wood floor. It’s hard for parents to let that happen. But what happens is, you know, you were talking about the autonomy and the autonomy comes from what they’re learning, right? So yeah, they do bump their head a little bit, but then you see the next time they do it, or maybe they decide to bump it one more time a little bit more softly. But then you see the next time, and we can point this out to parents in the classes, they’re lifting their head a little and they’ve already learned how to navigate that.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah.

Janet Lansbury: But if we never gave them the opportunity, they wouldn’t learn that. And then the first time they went down, maybe older, now they’re on their knees, they’d hit their head much harder because they didn’t have that opportunity to learn those things. We didn’t let them have that opportunity because we were too scared.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: And we know that children learn best —we have decades of research— by doing it themselves. Of course they learn from what’s modeled and what they observe. They’re incredibly perceptive, even our babies and toddlers are incredibly perceptive. But what’s so fascinating when you really tune in and do the kind of amazing work that you do and you watch it and you can really observe at a place of curiosity, and you see those micro-moments of learning unfolding in front of you. It’s not just the lifting of the head in your example that they’re learning, but there’s also so much implicit messaging that goes on in how we parent.

And one of the ways I talk about that is that we’re meaning-makers for our children. So let’s say the baby rolls over and bonks their head and the parent gasps, Aaah!, and runs over and is like, Are you okay? And brings all kinds of big anxiety emotions to that. The child has learned in that moment, Oh, that must have been terrible. That caused a huge reaction in my parent that is frightening. And so we create meaning around that. Whereas otherwise, if we say, Oh, you bumped your head, you know, you hit it there, and we are not overreacting and maybe we help them make sense of that moment. Or we don’t even narrate at all.

Janet Lansbury: If they’re fine, yeah, if they’re fine, we don’t have to. If they have a reaction, then yeah, I would for sure say something. Yeah.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yes. They really are genius, even in their early, early months, in how perceptive they are about their own bodies and about what’s happening in the world around them. That idea of allowing them to take risks is what allows them to learn.

You know, I’m thinking about, there’s this amazing book called Wildhood, it’s about adolescent animals in the wild, by Natterson and I think it’s Barnett. But they talk about how there’s shark-infested waters in northern California that all the animals know not to go in there, except some of the teenage seals and otters go into these shark-infested waters. And what happens is the ones that survive are actually far safer than the ones who never ventured into that, because now they’re more predator-savvy. So what that tells me is, as our kids have bumps and make mistakes and have moments of failure, and as they have trial and error, it makes them safer and allows them to be more savvy about everything in the world.

And so I think this takes us back to what we know is so important about what we are bringing in our own state, our own nervous systems, to these moments, right? We’re watching, Is my child ready? And sometimes kids have their own fears driving it and they’re not saying, I’m ready to go, or I want to go. And we really sometimes have to tune into, What is the right thing for my child in this moment? We want to be child-led as much as possible, but if you have a child who’s anxious and who may not want to take risks. In The Yes Brain, Dan Siegel and I talk about pushing and cushion, that sometimes we have to encourage our children to take a step toward or to try something or something like that. And then other times they need a little bit more nurture, although we want to be nurturing in all of it, but they might need a little bit more comfort or a connection in order to do those things.

Our own internal states are so influential in these moments. So here’s one of the things, Janet, that I try to hold onto as I’m trying to decide, Is my child ready for this? Or, Is this a risk that is worth taking, is this safe enough? Is this okay for me to have them do this? And the question I often have to ask myself, and it takes a lot of self-reflection, is to say, Am I wanting to say no to this risk for my child’s best interest, like truly for their safety? Or am I saying no to this risk or this decision because it makes me feel less anxious?

And if I’m honest with myself, oftentimes I’m saying no or I’m blocking a movement toward autonomy or letting them fail or take a risk or do things by trial and error instead of stepping in and just doing it “right” because I don’t want to sit in the discomfort of my own anxieties or fears. So sometimes we have to sit in discomfort for our child’s best interest. And what’s often in their best interest is to allow them to make mistakes, to try things on their own without our interference.

Janet Lansbury: Right, because our discomfort that we have to sit in often is the discomfort of their frustration, or their upset that they didn’t get the result they wanted. You know, that’s another discomfort that’s really, really hard for most of us when our child is expressing it.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah. I mean, I think about when I was a kid and we would ride our bikes around the neighborhood for hours and we didn’t have cell phones. My mom didn’t know where I was. I mean, I was supposed to stay in the neighborhood and probably most of the time I did. But by the time I had my driver’s license and could leave, she had practiced herself sitting in the discomfort of not having eyes on me every second and not knowing exactly where I was and trusting that I could handle what came up. And I think a lot of times as parents, we don’t have a lot of good practice sitting in the discomfort of allowing our children to move toward autonomy. And a lot of that is because we’re uncomfortable with our children’s discomfort. But we all have to get comfortable with the whole range of human emotions, which includes discomfort.

So, is this really for my child’s best interest or is this really more about me not feeling uncomfortable or my child not feeling uncomfortable? I think that’s such an important thing because, back to what I was saying a minute ago and I don’t think I actually fully made the point, is that there’s this implicit messaging behind everything we do as parents. So if I’m like, Hey honey, it’s chilly outside, grab a coat. And he’s like, No, I’m fine. I remember having this battle with my kid when he was like six, my oldest, and I’d be like, No, it really is cold. You’re going to really need a jacket. And he’d be like, Mom, I’m fine. And it took me a few times to finally realize, you know what, first of all, we live in Southern California. If he’s chilly, he’s not going to be harmed, right? He’s not going to have frostbite. And what I was saying in insisting that he take a coat was, first of all, because I get chilly and kids run a lot warmer and I wasn’t really honoring what his system needed. But I also didn’t want him to feel cold. And that would’ve been totally fine. And then that would’ve taught him the lesson far better than me constantly being on him.

But here’s what was really happening. He was getting the message from me that, I don’t trust that you know what you need. I don’t trust that you can handle when things aren’t perfectly bubble-wrapped for you. So I was sending all of these implicit messages, that he couldn’t trust his body, that he couldn’t trust that he could handle whatever challenge came from him not taking the jacket. Now obviously I’m being dramatic around this, but I think the babies are learning much more than, Oh, I’m going to turn my head a little bit so I don’t bump it. They’re also learning that, My grown-up trusts that I can handle my body.

Janet Lansbury: I can figure things out, I can learn myself, I’m able, I’m competent, I can problem solve.Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah. And I actually think it’s a huge contributor, that very point that you just made, it’s a huge contributor, in my opinion as a licensed mental health person, to some of the really very frightening statistics we’re seeing right now about anxiety in kids. And I think part of that is parents treating our children like they are fragile and basically bubble-wrapping them so much that they don’t develop a sense of competency or confidence that they can solve problems, that they can navigate whatever comes their way.

You know, the pandemic was very difficult for everyone, and part of that was because of the unpredictability of the way life was. And unpredictability our brain reads as potential threat. So we really love predictability. Which is one of the reasons I love your podcast title, Unruffled. Because to me that’s such a goal, to be that grounded, connected. You can have big emotions, you can fall apart, and I’ve got you. And it’s not going to ruffle me because I feel confident that you can navigate this challenging situation or these big feelings and I’m here to help you and be there with you and be present with you while you figure it out.

Janet Lansbury: Some people mistake it as, we just act that way. But the whole point is that it’s not pretending, it’s not acting. It’s that trust that we build step-by-step, from the baby rolling over to letting the baby crawl away from us in a safe play area without following them. Being the secure base, literally, and allowing them to come back and forth as the free explorer. Letting them go down the slide. We can spot them as they’re climbing up and we can spot them as they’re coming down. But all those little risks that we take and each time now we’re trusting our child a little bit more. That’s the model that has helped me, that I am trying to teach other parents or help other parents with. These little steps are important because they build on each other and they color the way that you see your child.

You start to perceive your child as capable, they start to feel capable. And then it’s a little bit easier to be unruffled. And also know that they’re going to… You’re such an expert in what happens with the brain when we’re dysregulated and all that— and definitely knowing that that’s a big reason. When children are not at their best, it’s because they can’t be. They’re literally doing the best that they can. So knowing that, too, helps us be unruffled. But anyway, it’s not something to wear, it’s something to feel from the inside out.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: It’s a way of being, really. You know, I mentioned my son going away to sleepaway camp. He was nine at the time when he did that. We did our due diligence, we checked out the camp, we listened to our fears, we mitigated risks, we prepared him. You know, those are the things I say in the video, Pay attention to your fear, listen to it, but don’t let it decide. Do your due diligence. Check out, make sure it’s a safe-enough environment. If it’s a play date, you might want to ask about the family’s rules around things or whatever you feel worried about. And then we want to empower our children so that they can know that they can solve problems and protect themselves in lots of ways.

And I just have to share that the first couple of letters that came from my son when he left were like —and he’s like this athletic kid who’s very private, not really gushy with emotions— but his letters were like Emily Bronte had written them, you know. It was like, I’ve never been more homesick in my life. I’m so sad. And he would, like, he circled a tear on his letter. He’s like, This is my tears, I’m falling asleep. It just destroyed me, right? I didn’t feel unruffled. But he came home after the two weeks and I said, Oh sweetie, your letters, you sounded like you were having such a hard time. And he said, Mom, that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I really missed you guys. And then he just got this little smile on his face, this little, like, smirk. And I said, What? And he said, And I did it. And there was a confidence that came from him overcoming that and walking through that. And I’m feeling emotional even as I’m saying it, because it allowed me to see him in a different light. It’s like you were saying, that builds that trust and that movement toward autonomy.

Janet Lansbury: Oh, sorry. I just want to say, wow. The fact that he was able to express those vulnerable feelings to you, that’s what allowed him to move through them and manage being there. And if he wasn’t able to express to you, at least sitting in his own feelings at night, maybe, when he was alone, I’m so homesick. You know, I encouraged my children when they went to college, Let yourself cry. Of course this is hard. Of course you’re homesick. And the fact that your son did that is such a sign of how you raised him to feel safe, even though he wasn’t that type of guy, quote unquote, he felt safe to be that side of himself. I mean, that’s a risk too. But that balance was I’m sure what allowed him to thrive in the camp.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: And it’s a reminder to us, our children internalize the relationship we have with them. Even though he couldn’t see us, he had something felt inside of him of, I know that they’re there and I’m going to see them. This is some of the thing around separation anxiety is that, as development unfolds, they begin to internalize and remember that we’re still there and all of that.

You used the term “secure base” earlier and then what you said just a minute ago is more of a reflection of that. That comes from the attachment literature, I know you know. But the idea of a secure base, I think that secure base is misinterpreted as constantly providing your child with security. But what the attachment literature shows us, and this is 70-plus years of cross-cultural research, it shows us that a secure base where our child knows they can come to us and that we are going to be there for them is also a launching pad.

So when our kids are really little, they may crawl away from us and then look back and make sure we’re still sitting there. Or they may come over and put a hand on our leg and kind of have a little touchpoint, and then they go out and explore a little further and then a little further. And as they get older and more confident and all of that, they know that we are there. And so it’s not supposed to be smothering or holding them close to us to give them security. That’s actually intrusive. Because true security in a relationship between a parent and a child is definitely a launching pad that allows them to feel safe enough that they can go out and explore the world. And so we should not be getting in their way, right?

We want to be communicating to them, with our unruffledness, that, I trust that you can handle this. And when we’re talking about our kids being taken care of by other caregivers or in other families’ homes, that we want to give the sense of, I trust that other people will take care of you, too. It’s not all on us. And when we don’t do that and we get in the way of their autonomy or we freak out about risks or we don’t allow them to problem-solve, what we’re implicitly communicating is, People can’t be trusted. The world is a dangerous place. You know? And so we’re giving so many messages underneath our actions and the words that we say.

Janet Lansbury: Right, that are disempowering and actually get in the way of what we want to teach them, which is that they are safe, they are secure, that they can believe in themselves. One of the most fascinating things to me about parenting is how we’re teaching all the time and often not what we’re trying to teach.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yes. And you know what? That’s good too, right? Again, it’s back to the idea that sometimes the struggles are our best lessons. And as parents, we’re going to mess up at times. But we know that once we make the repair with our children, it’s actually better for the relationship that we’ve walked through the messiness of those moments.

When I’m trying to make a decision about whether or not I’m going to let my kid do something or I’m going to give them the space to wrestle with something or problem-solve or take a risk in some way. So what I walked through in that Instagram video, one is listen to your feelings, but don’t let them decide. Do your due diligence, make sure that you’ve checked out the actual dangers. And then prepare your child, and then feel confident that they are problem-solvers. So I guess another piece I would add that I didn’t say in the Instagram video is to trust your child and trust your child’s development.

But then even when I walk through those steps, sometimes I stay afraid. And so here’s one other thing that really helps me. Often the stuff that I worry about is like, my kid keeps messing up in this way, or they keep having this problem, or they keep having this behavior. And I feel like I’ve already taught them this, why does this keep happening? Will they never learn? And is there something wrong with them? If I will pause and reflect, and let’s say it’s my child is having difficulty being gentle with other kids or something like that, younger kids. That they’re being aggressive on play dates or things like that. If I will say, Okay, let me think back to three months ago or four months ago. And I think back to a good chunk of time, not a day ago, not a week ago, not a month ago, but maybe a few months ago. And I ask myself the question, Is my child having less of this struggle or this challenge or this behavior than they were a few months ago? And usually when I do that I go, Oh, okay, we’re moving in the right direction. I can trust development.

But that’s not an always. I have to say, you know, I think one of the biggest challenges for the work that we do —and I know that you have got to experience this, we might have even talked about this before— development is not linear. For example, when kids are in the four- to six-year-old range, particularly around age five, it’s really common for them to have another burst of separation anxiety. And it seems like a regression, it seems like, oh no, they were having separation anxiety, then they weren’t for a while, now they are again. And we start really worrying. Are they being bullied at school? Are they sick? We start worrying about all these things. But it’s actually not a regression, it’s a progression, because development’s not linear.

It’s not symmetrical either. Meaning they might have a big burst of cognitive development without the emotional development that goes with it quite yet, right? That piece may be lagging in terms of their development and maturity. So what happens for kids in the four- to six-year-old window is they have this amazing cognitive burst where they are now able to imagine scarier things. They have scarier monsters that they can imagine, or they might even be able to start comprehending things like, Well what happens if something happens to my mom or dad? or whatever. So they can start imagining, because of their cognitive burst, more difficult things, but they don’t yet have the emotional development to handle that kind of information or to navigate it well or to be regulated around it. So I think it’s really important to say we should trust development and we hope our kids are moving in the right direction. And usually that’s the case, but sometimes it looks different. So we sometimes have to have an even wider view because development is full of surprises and it’s not always what we expect.

Janet Lansbury: Right, and it makes sense that every step towards more knowledge and more autonomy is also scary, you know, for a child on some level. When a baby is learning how to crawl, then all of a sudden they’re waking up in the night again. Or learning how to walk suddenly, you know, they go through that classic separation anxiety period, Wow, I can get away. I am able to do all these things. I am a separate person. Yikes. That means that I might lose this other person and they might be separate from me. It’s that maturation that creates the fear and it’s par for the course. We don’t have to be afraid of that, but understand it and be sensitive to it of course. But not be ruled by it, like, Okay, I’m going to strap you to me every second because it’s hard for you to be away from me. Maybe I’ll just be away from you shorter periods or I’ll, you know, whatever it is. So yeah, I mean it does make sense. I think that the more they develop, the more there’s a part of them that wants to run back. I mean, I feel that myself as an adult.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: I mean, that’s an attachment need. It really is. When something is a big emotion, whether that’s positive or negative or something’s challenging or something ruffles us or we’re stuck on something, I need my attachment figures. You know, I want to go back to the secure base with my husband or my mom or my best friend or whatever. And that’s an attachment need. In the book The Power of Showing Up, Dan Siegel and I talk about the four S’s, helping kids feel safe and seen. Where they feel understood, soothed, like I’m here to comfort you. I’m going to show up for you. And then over time, when they feel enough safe, seen, and soothed, they develop a security in knowing that even at their worst we’re going to, and I’m going to use your terminology now, we’re going to be unruffled, we’re going to really be there. And that they can count on our presence.

And knowing too that when we’re ruffled or when we become the storm instead of the eye of the storm, those are again opportunities to go and reconnect. I really wanted to teach my boys that they’re responsible for their own behavior no matter what anybody else did, which meant that my apologies couldn’t blame them. And I noticed that I was doing that. I would get really mad and I would yell and then I would say, If you guys had listened and stopped fighting with each other, this wouldn’t have happened. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m just totally blaming my behavior on them. And not only is that manipulative and damaging, but it’s also not what I want to model. So then I had to really be careful and pause before I would apologize. To say something like, I got really angry. I didn’t handle that very well and I didn’t handle that the way I wanted to. Will you forgive me? And I could even state the fact like, You guys were fighting. I felt really angry and I didn’t handle it well.

And even that moment is kind of a moment of sort of messy emotion, right? They have the experience of, Wow, that doesn’t feel really good right now. My mom’s angry or she’s reactive and that doesn’t feel great. Because over and over and over I’ve made repair, they also sit in the security of knowing, Oh, she’s going to come make it right with me. So it actually creates resilience. So anytime we allow them to do things on their own, walk through struggle in an appropriate way, what’s age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate, those are beneficial moments. But I know our instincts are like, Oh, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.

Janet Lansbury: Right.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: My husband is so much better at stepping back and allowing, allowing them to find their way. And I really have to work against my nature to decide every day to choose to not be what is, honestly, intrusive, to step into their story. I’m part of their story, I’m foundational to the story that they’re building. But it’s their story. It’s hard. I mean, I really have to be intentional all the time.

Janet Lansbury: And finding that healthy separation between us where we’re not taking on responsibilities for feelings of theirs that don’t belong to us and then not asking them to do that on the other end. I was thinking, I recommend everybody follows, if you’re not already following, Tina Payne Bryson on Instagram, you absolutely should and watch this video and all of her videos. She does this wonderful, what is it, Monday Mistakes?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yes. Mistake Monday.

Janet Lansbury: Mistake Monday. She’s just a wealth of wisdom. I wanted to say though that in regard to the one about the sleepovers and fears, and we didn’t really talk about sleepovers in this podcast. You can listen to what she has to say there. And you got a lot of pushback, which I was expecting because people have had bad experiences or they’ve heard of horrific things happening on sleepovers and it’s just not worth it to them. And I just want to say, as devil’s advocate in a way, that the important thing is the awareness that you talk about: Is this my fear of my own discomfort? Or is this really a fear of the actual risks? Is this just too uncomfortable for me?

And I think sometimes, to be devil’s advocate, we might make the choice, You know what? This is about me and forget it, I’m too afraid, I’m not going to do this. I think that’s an okay choice to make as long as we know that it’s about us so that we can consider, Well maybe this other risk, this one I’m going to allow because I know that I had to do that other one for me and I’m going to allow this one to be my child’s, you know, my child’s education, to build their confidence. I think it’s just the knowing. It’s not that we won’t always give into our fear, but it’s what you said, which is the understanding, the awareness. I feel like a lot of the times as parents, that’s everything, that we’re aware.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Totally agree with you. I mean, I couldn’t agree more. You know, sometimes we may look and go, You know what, I can’t tell if this is in my child’s best interest or not, but my instinct is telling me this isn’t a good idea. We should absolutely listen to that. Sometimes we’re going to decide it’s too big of a risk or it’s not safe enough or I don’t have enough information to know if it’s safe and I’m going to err on the side of caution.

Janet Lansbury: Right. Or, I don’t have the bandwidth to handle being this afraid right now for my child. I mean, that’s valid.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah. And to say, I’m too anxious. And we matter too. Every decision we make is not in a vacuum. If I make the decision to let my kid go, because I’m like, Oh, this is my fear, but I’m so afraid that I’m not sleeping all night and then I’m an angry, reactive parent for the next two days to all my other kids. We have to think about all these things. I think we absolutely can make decisions for ourselves, and you’re exactly right.

I think the key is to do it with intention. We’re making a decision as opposed to just letting our fears decide. And we can let our fears be the call, even, at times. But we have to be intentional. We have to really choose. And I think it’s so hard when so much of the time it feels like we’re just surviving because life is so full and we have such big mental loads. And I want to give all of us permission to not give an answer right away. And I often tell parents that in the discipline moments too, I want to give you permission to say to your child if they’re old enough, I want to think about how I want to handle this. Take a pause and to really go let yourself sit in it.

Janet Lansbury: That’s great modeling. But what about changing your mind? I mean, we kind of did that with our daughter going to parties in high school. The first one, we said no because we knew there was going to be alcohol there, we were afraid. But then as I thought about it, I realized, Okay, so this is high school, like we’re going to keep her home? I mean, what’s the option here? Is that really going to work? And we realized we had to educate her as much as we could and trust her. And it was tough.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: I love that you talked about changing your mind because you know, the sort of less-informed, kind of old ways of doing things was like, If you lay down the law, you can’t change your mind or they’re going to know you’re not in control. Well I have a problem with that whole sentence. Because if you’re going to use threat and power and control to control your child, you’re eventually going to lose.

There’s a huge difference between giving in and changing your mind. Lots of times my children have had great arguments and things that I hadn’t thought about. Well, did you know that the parents are going to be in the house and we’re just going to be in the backyard? Okay, well I didn’t know parents were going to be there, right? That’s more information, I can change my mind. And I’ve often said to my kids, You know what? I’m changing my mind. I’ve thought about it some more and I think this is something that you can handle.

I often would say to my boys too, I know you know what I’m about to ask you, so why don’t you do the mental legwork for me? Because they’d say, Can I go here? And I’d say, Well, who’s taking you and what time does it start? And so I stopped doing that and I started saying, I bet you can imagine all the information I’m going to need in order to make a decision. So why don’t you go do that thinking and then come back?

Or if I started to lecture about something they didn’t do the way that they were supposed to, instead of me lecturing, if I could say, I bet you know everything I’m about to say to you. So why don’t we reverse roles? Why don’t you tell me what you think I would say? And what was amazing about that is they almost always would say everything I was going to say anyway. And I felt a sense of peace inside because I was like, They’ve really been listening, they’ve really been internalizing. And as they say it, they’re internalizing it even more. And it gave me confidence that they really can handle a lot more than I think they can. You know? And they really do have wise minds. And they’re going to make mistakes and the mistakes can be valuable.

And so again, it’s back to that idea of trusting. Trusting ourselves to sit in discomfort as needed. Trusting our child to navigate the world even as it has its challenges. Trusting that other people will show up for our kids too. Trusting development. I guess in a way it’s kind of an optimism about development and about who our children are becoming. I often think about times where I was worried about something with one of my kids and when I think back about it now I’m like, that was a lot of misspent emotional energy. I really believe we can trust development. Regardless, even if we have kids who are neurodivergent. I really believe development is amazing. And if kids are given opportunities to learn and grow, try things and problem-solve, that their brain does so much amazing work and they become amazing people.

Janet Lansbury: I love that. I love that story about your son. That’s wonderful.

Well, thank you so much Tina, and once again, so much encouragement, so much wisdom. You’re very comforting to listen to. I want to agree that unruffled is flexible. It’s not rigid, it’s a model that’s very flexible. We can be free to be ourselves in this relationship, figuring it out with our child.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Yeah. White-knuckling something isn’t really being unruffled, no. I think an underlying current to everything we talked about is ongoing reflection as a parent. The way we become unruffled or move toward unruffledness is to tune into ourselves, to reflect, to make sense of the times we’re not practicing to be the parent we want to be. To say, What was that about for me? And how can I be the parent I want to be in the next moment? I think it’s such an important part of that flexibility and that freedom to really enjoy our relationships with our kids, trusting them, trusting ourselves, and continuing to reflect and grow.

Janet Lansbury: 100%. Thank you so much, Tina.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: Thanks for having me.

Janet Lansbury: Thanks for all that you do for parents.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson: You too, Janet. Thank you so much.

Learn more about the resources Dr. Tina Payne Bryson offers at TinaPayneBryson.com and on her Instagram page: TinaPayneBryson 

Please check out some of my other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. They’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. And both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon, No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame, and Elevating Child Care: A Guide To Respectful Parenting. You can get them an ebook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or barnesandnoble.com and in audio at audible.com. And you can even get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Our Fears as Parents – Real and Imagined (with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I’m welcoming Eileen Henry to the podcast. She’s a longtime friend and associate, a fellow RIE Associate. She was one of the first child’s sleep consultants in the US and now she has well over 20 years of experience helping families all over the world achieve peaceful and lasting sleep. She uses a unique, individualized approach rather than a prescribed method. And her main goal is to assure that parents and child maintain and strengthen their bond.

Sleep discussions are always the most controversial. Everybody’s got a strong opinion, but I can’t think of a better qualified guide than Eileen Henry for a discussion on sleep.

Janet Lansbury: Hi, Eileen.

Eileen Henry: Hi, Janet.

Janet Lansbury:  I’m so glad that we’re finally doing this.

Eileen Henry:  I know, I am too. This is great.

Janet Lansbury:  I’ve known Eileen for a very long time. We both studied with Magda Gerber. What made you kind of veer into this? You were one of the very first sleep consultants that there were, right? You sort of invented this job.

Eileen Henry:  Yes. The first thing that veered me into sleep was what I call the gift of desperation. Coming from a history of my own sleep issues. When I had my first child, I thought, Wow, if I don’t sleep and he doesn’t sleep, this is gonna be very difficult. And it was really his dad, my husband at the time, he came to me with an article from the Wall Street Journal. There was one person, Jill Spivack in Los Angeles, doing sleep and he said, “There’s an eight week wait time for her.” He said, “Eileen, you need to do this. Someone, someone could get hurt in that eight weeks if they’re not sleeping.” So that’s how it started.

Janet Lansbury: So then you did all the research and…

Eileen Henry:  Yes, I had already done a lot of research at that time, and I was working with Hari, our friend Hari Grebler. She was my mentor, and we had talked about doing sleep together, and I loved her take on sleep. She’s like, “I want to call it ‘the beauty of sleep.’ There’s so much tension and there’s so much angst around sleep, and it’s really something that is beautiful.”

That’s always stuck with me.

Janet Lansbury:  What is the key to sleep? Well, let’s not say one thing because whenever someone asks me “what’s the one thing?” my mind goes completely blank. So what are a few or one the most important things that you try to communicate to parents about sleep?

Eileen Henry:  Yeah. So the elements of that rest in what is called the rest and digest system, the parasympathetic nervous system, and coming to a place of relaxation.

I think it really helps parents to realize that sleep is something we’re going to touch and nurture throughout development, focusing on that piece. And that’s relational, that’s a relational nurturing because as far as in children development is what affects sleep the most — gross motor development, verbal development, ooh, my goodness, the verbal toddler. All of these interrupt sleep, but life itself interrupts sleep. And so returning to the nervous system, returning to the rest digest system and relaxation. So working on… parents working on their own self-regulation. I think is what is so transformative about this process.

Janet Lansbury: So yeah, it’s like everything about parenting is not about how can I help my child sleep better? It’s about how can I work on my perceptions and trust this experience more?

Eileen Henry: Yes, trust. I often quote you in two things that constantly come back that parents really relate to… One is being that emotional anchor for our children. And to be an, an emotional anchor for any human being, we have to be fairly regulated. And then “confident. momentum.” I love that. The confident momentum to me is an embodied piece, leading our children and leading from a place of rest and relaxation and play. Really, I use play, play story language very specifically, especially for 8, 9, 10 months through toddlerhood. I think that’s a key element.

Janet Lansbury: How do we get there though? Let’s say we’ve had experiences where our child didn’t fall asleep and we panicked and we did all these normal things that I did, focusing on it so much, like, Oh my gosh, if this doesn’t happen. And then we worry, how am I gonna function?!

I remember with one of my children I felt like I can’t go another day. I’m not going to survive this. I’m not going to make it if I don’t sleep a little bit better tonight. What do we do with that? What do we do with all those feelings? How do we calm ourselves down? How do we find a different place in ourselves to approach sleep with?

Eileen Henry: That is one of the compassion pieces, and if parents can realize this is temporary, that you’re not locked into anything here… It always brings me back to that beautiful Magda quote that we can change anything we’re doing with our children at any time.

We have to have the awareness. Then we look at the child and share the truth with them, which they probably already know, which is, “ah, I can’t do this anymore here. I’m going to show you how. I’m going to show you a new way.”

So that newborn infant phase, we’re feeding them a lot in the night. That’s just something that we do have to get through. And we have these amazing brain chemicals that help us do that. The falling in love drugs, the oxytocin, it keeps us able to do that, but that starts to run thin coming into five, six months, and that’s the real point where we can make some changes to get more regulated sleep.

Janet Lansbury: And what are some of the components to that that you recommend to parents? What are some of the basics for an ideal countdown to sleep or for getting ready for sleep? What does that look like?

Eileen Henry: So the newborn phase really is a symbiotic state. The infant doesn’t know where they end and we begin, and they’re not supposed to. There’s a period outside of the womb where they’re still doing a lot of developing and their brain is organizing. So for that piece, I recommend, “Yeah, bring them in, be close. Do what you need to do.” And so I tell moms and fathers, “Do what feels right and the most comfortable for you.” That’s when we really want to get in touch with our intuition. And we give birth to these little individuals — one might come in with reflux or crying a lot and be really hard to soothe, and those babies need more body contact. Their nervous system needs more calm, relaxed, grounding. So getting through that phase.

Then there’s a brain wake up that happens around the fifth and sixth month, and it can happen even sooner, like four or five, six months: that moment where they look up at you, it’s, it’s just unforgettable for parents. That moment when they look up at you and they smile and they get the other, they’re relational.  Allan Schore calls it “core relationship.” When core relationship comes, and there are some other things that are happening, some infants are starting to experiment with solid foods at that time, we can start organizing the night to meet that relationship.

And I think this is why I love the RIE philosophy and the RIE approach, the dependable, predictable routines that tell the infant: This is where we are. This is what’s happening. A routine of the day built around the basic needs, because the feeding relationship and the sleep relationship, there’s still some overlap, right? They’re still getting fed in the night. Most six-month-olds are having one, maybe two feedings, but there’s, we’re starting to come into a place where we can do a focal feed that meets the authentic hunger need of the infant in the night. So working at around five, six months, I help parents to discern that. And from that place, a lot can happen as far as bridging sleep cycles But the cornerstone of sleep is falling at the onset of the night without too much sensory input and fixing of the caregiver, the parent.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I just want to clarify… because we started off talking about our self-regulation and just to acknowledge that our feelings have such a huge effect on our babies, obviously. So, you know, we’re dictating the whole tone of an experience. That’s why it matters how we feel.

Eileen Henry: Yes.

Janet Lansbury:  So how do we keep ourselves calm if our child seems to be struggling to fall asleep? And maybe we know that if we could, you know, just, I don’t know, move that baby around more or whatever, that maybe we could help them get to sleep faster, but we want to try to give them more of a chance. What does that feel like to be in the middle space?

Eileen has a book called The Compassionate Sleep Solution, Calming the Cry. And you say:

“There are two major camps on getting babies to sleep through the night. These methods are hotly debated, and their oppositional ideas can leave parents feeling frustrated and confused. 1. Cry it out! – Deal breaker for many parents. 2. Do whatever it takes, all day and all night long – Deal breaker for those of us who need to function in the real world.”

Then you say:

“There are other approaches that offer the much coveted “No Cry” result. The “no cry” unicorn baby, sorry to report, is a mythological creature. The Compassionate Sleep Solution is a gentle, honest and realistic approach. Since crying can be a part of that reality, this method will teach you how to calm the cry. Your child can sleep and feel safe and secure.”

Eileen Henry:  Yes, I still stand by that. So the middle way, I like the middle way, the “this, and.” The middle way really is a line that we dance throughout parenting, I’d say until probably, in this house, 17 years old, <laugh> that line that we go down. How much struggle and challenge am I going to let my child experience so that they’re resilient, capable, competent, un fragile? Because development is an un fragile state. We all go through it. And we are hardwired to have struggle and it’s inherent in development.

That struggle of rolling from the back to the belly to the back again. Oh my gosh, in RIE class, that’s one of the most beautiful memories to me of watching infants navigate that one gross motor move, that one move that they could take months to master.

So how much struggle are we going to let them have so that they’re resilient, strong, capable, competent beings? And how much support, reassurance help, and sometimes fixing? Off and on, we’re going to fix things for our children so that they know that we have their backs, they know we’re there for them, we’re supporting them. That’s a personal line for each parent. And also it’s different per child, so it depends on the child.

A lot of times, I start with discussing that I’m very much into building rituals, sculpting the physical and the emotional environment. Those are the first two places we go to. And the ritual is both. It addresses the physical environment and it addresses the emotional environment.

So after we have a very connected, loving, intimate ritual, and we put our child into the sleep space, that’s where the struggle begins. The infants self-soothing mechanism, it comes online anywhere between four to six months. It’s coming into stability. There’s a mechanism in the cingulate cortex, and it’s a self soothing mechanism. And I teach parents a process that helps to discern all cries are not dysregulation and a, a suffering state that some cries or struggle. And usually parents, once they discern that, they’re like, Oh, okay, a little struggle. I can deal the struggle. Suffering, we go towards it. That’s the relational piece: going towards the cry and being in relationship and present with that disturbance.

Janet Lansbury: And we’re still present with the struggle, but we’re present in a supportive empathic, I’m here for you way still. We’re not saying, Well, you do the struggle thing on your own. Just as with the baby rolling over. We’re not saying, Well, when you’re struggling, I either have to fix you or not care. I think that’s what people maybe are concerned about.

Eileen Henry:  It depends a lot on the age of the baby and what the parent is hearing. And like you said, being present with that. Families that I work with said, “I want be present.” They say, “I want to be present for struggle and suffering both. I want to be here and be present.” So some parents sit down, or pick up the baby and hold. If our child is really crying intensely, a lot of sleep consultants say, “Don’t pick up the baby.” And I’m like, “No. Oh gosh. Pick up your baby. Hold your baby. Just be very clear, ‘Oh, you’re calm now. I’m gonna put you back in bed to sleep.'” And if that starts the crying up again…

Janet Lansbury:  I think it is challenging. I mean, as parents, especially if when we’re first time parents, we feel so much like we’re out at sea anyway, that we want to have some rules to hold onto. But what Magda Gerber’s approach and what you are talking about with everything is the nuance. It’s about this in-between, and being open to what life and relationships and everything is really about, which is not having the answer all the time. You know, this brave openness it takes as parents for us to really see our child and be with our child in all different states that they’re in, supporting that and being open to wanting to understand more and wanting to see things through. And as you said before, we won’t always be in that space. And that’s fine. If we feel like I’m going to bounce on a ball or I’m going to put my child in the car in the middle of the night or whatever, that’s okay. Sometimes we need to do that, right?

Eileen Henry:  Oh yeah, absolutely. And that comes into it as well. But it’s that moment where we look at another human, we look into our baby’s eyes, it’s face to face. And really the question is, “Can you tell me more? Tell me more.”

I had a dad recently who described his experience and recounting his words I have a body reaction in my throat, in my heart, and in my gut. He said, “I held her. I held her and looked in her eyes and it was as I was breathing and remaining present with her, very quietly just holding her, I watched her go from being in pieces to becoming whole again.” And it was so profound for him. He said it was transformative. “It’s forever changed the way I will relate to my daughter when she’s disappointed, when she’s sad, when she’s struggling, when she’s frustrated.” And he named all of these words before he even got to the word suffering or the things that we immediately jumped to when we think our child’s suffering. I mean, I thought everything was a suffering cry. I would have like a visceral panic attack when I heard my little ones cry —

Janet Lansbury:  That’s very typical, isn’t it? We’re built that way, right?

Eileen Henry: Yes, we are. And their father, fortunately, he was just enough calm and “it’s okay, she’s just angry.” He could hear anger before I could hear the angry cry. “It’s okay, give her a minute.” And then it would calm. So the coming and going, really we are coming and going and supporting or staying present if that’s what a parent chooses. But the coming and going is with an infant who understands object permanence. They know when we leave we don’t cease to exist. So they’re not coming up with an abandonment scenario in their crib. They have enough experience and data of us coming and going to know we always come back, We go, we come back. And in those moments of coming and going, there are some beautiful reunions that happen crib side. You know, when we come up and look over the crib and our baby’s smiling and flapping their arms and legs. Those moments, I wish we spoke to those moments more in the fear of harming attachment with infants who are in cribs. Those the moments are like watching the arrivals gate at the airport. I just dropped my partner off at the airport this morning and one of my favorite places are arrivals, seeing people reunite. It’s so beautiful. And we get to do that so many times in the day with our little ones, the ones that are in cribs.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. But I think that some people might see that as like total relief and desperation that they have to try to win you back now because they lost you and you left them. It’s a touchy, touchy subject.

Eileen Henry:  It is a touchy subject. And fortunately a client of mine introduced me to Gordon Neufeld’s work. And she said, Your program is so similar. His process is so much the same of the connection that we make before we put the child into separateness, where they must confront those natural feelings that arise when we separate from our beloveds and how to bridge that separateness. And that’s the key element to me. Bridging that separateness isn’t as difficult as we think, especially if a child understands object permanence. They’re starting to have some language reception, but what they’re understanding is tone, the tone of the voice, the facial tone, the body tone, the emotional current of the household.

Then when we go to put an infant down we stay on top of the check in. We don’t put them down and say, you know, work it out, get back to me when you figure this out.  Instead it’s, “I’m gong to go brush my teeth and I’m going to come back and check on you. I’m going to go do the laundry.”

I had a very handy washer and dryer that was in a closet between the children’s bedrooms and I would sing and fold laundry. They could hear me out there and my daughter would yell out, “Are you done? Are you done?” It’s like, “No, I’m going to be done a little bit. I’m going to come and check on you. I’m going to come poke in.”

I always have three more kisses in me, or five more kisses or whatever. I always have one more hug in me. “Where do you want it?” And she’d hand me her lovey and I’d hug her lovey and kiss it. Just keeping that lightness of “I’m right here, I’m gonna come back, I’m over here, I’ll be back. I’m sitting on the couch with dad, We’re listening. I’ll be back.”  So that they don’t have to work so hard. They don’t have to pull on us: Get back here, get back here. Where’d you go?

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah, that makes sense.

Eileen Henry:  Gordon Neufeld talks about going from work mode to sleep is very difficult. Think about adults, you know, if we’re in a heavy work mode and then we try to go to sleep, ugh, no go. We have to go into a play mode. Something light, something sweet, you know?

Janet Lansbury:  Right. Because sleep, even as adults, it’s about separation. Separation from life.

Eileen Henry:  We separate from our own consciousness. We go into the subconscious and the unconscious. We go into the shadow material. It’s great. I forget who called it “the best…” Oh, the guy that wrote the book, Why We Sleep, he says, “The best free therapy on the planet is our dream state and our sleep state.” So confronting those natural feelings and allowing our children to go: Yeah, I know, the night is dark and full of terrors. Yeah. Turns out that’s true. How are we going to approach that?

Janet Lansbury:  I get so many questions about sleep, and it’s not my specialty. I honestly, I get intimidated by the camps that you talked about, because I don’t believe in either of those camps. And whoa, it was a hard enough place for me to navigate as a parent and to try to help other parents navigate it. I don’t have that in me, but I love that you do.

Eileen Henry:  The one thing I do love about the camps is that I like to challenge myself and my own program and my own thinking and my own beliefs and my own experience and all of that. So they do keep me, they keep me on my toes and challenging myself and challenging my program. How am I gonna synthesize this into something that’s a middle and doable way for even someone who’s in one of those camps that comes to me and is desperate?

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah, that’s a hard place. I feel for the parents that need help and and are feeling the judgment of the camps out there, even in social media, everywhere. You can feel so much shame, even just, forget about commenting, just reading this stuff, these strong opinions that people have.

Eileen Henry:  Guilt is a part of this, but when it goes into the deeper, you know, shame and its shadow, pride. Oof. That’s some tough stuff to balance. So yeah, bring on the question. Let’s talk.

Janet Lansbury:  I would love there to be an open environment for people to explore this, and every aspect of parenting, and not be labeled and told you’re this or that and that you’re wrong.

Okay, so here’s the question:

I have a question about sleep for a toddler who’s overall quite anxious, particularly at night. My three-year-old son has been having a hard time sleeping since he was about two years and nine months. He says he’s afraid of various things that change each night. Sometimes bears other times, bikes or sleds, or our very friendly neighbors.

I’m sure that a large part of it is that this began around the time he went through a lot of life transitions that would certainly be stressful for a toddler. We moved houses in towns. He transitioned from a crib to a full size bed. He had a little sister and decided he was ready to be potty trained. Our family life has remained very stable, but I’m sure this was a lot for him.

We have tried every strategy I can think of to help him feel safe. He sleeps with a little flashlight. We check the room for scary things before bed. Our dog sleeps in the room with him. We sing him a special song our pediatrician recommended about how scary things do not live here, and we’ve experimented with laying in his bed until he falls asleep. We also got him a clock that lets him know when it’s an appropriate time to wake up.

Our issue is not that he doesn’t stay in his bed, He stays in there from about 8:00 PM until 6:30 AM but we know he is spending at least some of that time awake. By the time he eats breakfast at seven, he already looks incredibly tired with dark circles under his eyes and staring off into space.

I’m up early. So it really wouldn’t be a problem for him to be up early if he was getting sufficient sleep. I’ve read so much about how important sleep is for brain health and development, not to mention behavior. So I’m worried about him, but not sure how to help him. Would love any insight you have.

Eileen Henry:  Aw, that’s beautiful. I love, I love a lot what they’re doing.

Janet Lansbury:  There’s a lot of attunement in this.

Eileen Henry:  Lots of attunement.

First of all, I want to address the last piece, which is the fear piece. There’s been a lot of that propagated online about the fear of, “oh, their brain development, they need sleep.” They do, and they will get it. Their bio rhythms, they naturally will find sleep. This child who clearly knows how to sleep will get enough sleep.  The child, especially at this age, they can handle way more interruptions and even wakeful periods in the night that we can. So just to take that fear away. And I’d love to know if he naps every day because he will make up for it in a nap, probably. At this age, if he’s missing a chunk in the night, his body will find it in the daytime.

So given all of the changes that happened, and this is another thing, you know, human beings can handle the most amount of change and novelty and newness from about zero to 26 years old. That is an open, novel-seeking, innovative brain state. But it is astonishing that that one piece of a new sibling, I find really affects toddlers. I will get in a month, several toddlers that have just had a new sibling, many toddlers. And it’s common they start dreaming about apex predators. They will dream about sharks. It’s like, oh, it’s a little shadow material coming up with your feelings about a new sibling. It comes up in the dream phase.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. It’s very threatening

Eileen Henry:  Toddlers at this age. They’re dealing with so much. So they’re dealing with separation anxiety and they’re dealing with a brain that they’re starting to kind of freak themselves out a little bit with language and make-believe and imagination and all of these beautiful qualities of the creative brain of the toddler. And a lot of this can fall right into the separation anxiety.

So what I do is go right to the anxiety, right to the tough spot. There was a study done at Harvard on anxiety and sleep and, and in the study they quit working with the children and just worked with the parents. And instead of trying to prevent the anxiety of the toddler, kind of normalizing and helping children confront their anxiety. Do you know Dr. Sarah Bren?

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, I know who she is. Yes.

Eileen Henry:  She’s an attachment therapist. Really Great. I like Sarah a lot. She calls it “early creative visualization.” This is the creative connection that we help the child with going into the night. “Ooh, bears. Yeah. Scary stuff.” And we can relate to the child how we know what it’s like to go into the night and have bad dreams, the scary things that come to us in the night that we meet the monsters.

Because any monsters that we meet in the dreams, they belong to us. They originate in our brain. They’re our monsters. How do we befriend them? What do they want? Do they want love? Do they want attention? Do they want regard? Do they want to be noticed? Do they want something?

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I was thinking that when she said the bears, I want to know what those bears look like. What kind of bears? Is it a teddy bear? Is it a big grizzly bear? What does it say? What would it do to you that you’re afraid of? I would go to all those places.

Eileen Henry:  Human beings have used storytelling and mythology and these practices since we started drawing things on cave walls. There’s a little girl I remember who had an alligator under her bed, and the mother asked her, “Huh, I wonder what that alligator’s hungry for? I don’t think it’s hungry for little girls.” Together they came up with, “Oh, that alligator wants love.” And so her daughter, she was three-and-a-half, she cut out little hearts and put them in a dog bowl and put them under the bed. And this alligator became part of her play world.

Janet Lansbury: Aw.

Eileen Henry:  She integrated it. So to me, these situations, I think integration is the middle place. So coming from, Oh gosh, what do I do? I’m worried about my child and their health to how to work with it creatively helps to integrate. And that’s the transformative piece.

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah, exploring it. It seems like from this note that maybe there’s been times spent following a recommendation to sing a song about how there aren’t any scary things here. And that’s, to me, just imagining that as a child, I feel like, why are we singing that there aren’t any scary things here if there aren’t any scary things here? It’s kind of like: Let’s not think about it. Everything’s fine. Nothing’s really happening. That usually doesn’t make someone feel that comfortable. It can be the opposite. So it’s interesting that she got that advice.

Eileen Henry:  Yeah, I like going right into the fear, right into the cry, right into the disturbance and doing some creative parts with that.

Janet Lansbury:  And it’s similar to how Magda taught us to go right into the feeling instead of saying, “Oh, it’s gonna be okay.” Instead saying, “Wow, what is that about? That’s real for you.” And really being open to leaning into those things that we’re not supposed to talk about. You know, that a lot of us grew up with the message: let’s just pretend everything’s fine, let’s not go there.

Eileen Henry:  Yes. And the confidence that they can handle these feelings with our help, they can handle this. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  And really that’s true for all sleep, right? It’s having that attunement to them and that relationship between us that has a lot of trust in it. And also, I’m here for you.

Eileen Henry:  Yes.

Janet Lansbury:  That is so helpful, Eileen, and inspiring. Thank you so much. I want tell everybody that amazingly, Eileen Henry offers free 20 minute consultations if you go to her website, Compassionate Sleep Solutions.com, and she has her wonderful book, The Compassionate Sleep Solution. Check all her stuff out, take advantage of her free consultation. As you can tell, she’s just a wealth of wisdom and encouragement and support and bravery really going into these in-between spaces. So thank you again, Eileen.

Eileen Henry:  It’s a vulnerable place, but it’s cool.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. Well, you’re a great navigator for it for any parent, so thank you for doing this work. I love that you’re doing this.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, JanetLansbury.com. There are many of them and they’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in.And both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play or barnesandnoble.com, and an audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post The Beauty of Sleep (with Eileen Henry) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “Is ‘Gentle Parenting’ Too Extreme and Impossible?”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Okay, I admit I’m a little more nervous than usual about this podcast because I feel it’s going to be maybe more personal and revealing than what I normally share.

The impetus for this episode came in a recent Facebook exchange that I had with a parent, and the parent concluded “this ideal of gentle parenting is feeling more and more toxic and gaslighty to me.” In response to her comment, I finally had the chance to ask a question that I’ve been wishing to ask for a while now in light of this recent flurry of complaints in the press about gentle parenting. Maybe you’ve noticed some of them. And then I really, really appreciated this Facebook parent’s candid response to my question — my question that was in response to her comment.

I’m going to be sharing these exchanges and some of the thoughts that they’ve brought up for me. I really hope you’ll find this clarifying and encouraging.

The Facebook exchange happened in response to a post of mine from several years ago actually that I reposted called “This May Be Why You’re Yelling.” It describes some of the things that as parents might lead us to yell. Number one is: “you aren’t taking care of yourself.” It talks about self-care, not just the wonderful bubble bath or getting away with friends or a spouse type of self-care, but something more basic and crucial, which is knowing our limits and our personal needs and setting boundaries early, starting even with speaking directly and honestly to an infant.

I give examples like: “if you’re a sensitive person who can’t sleep deeply with a baby or a toddler near you but you’re co-sleeping because you think you should, maybe you’re not taking care of yourself.” Or, “if you want to wean your child or limit their nursing, but you feel guilty about that, then you’re not taking care of yourself. If you need to go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, but you’re afraid to leave your fussy baby or screeching toddler, you’re not taking care of yourself. In fact, if you feel guilty about any self-care moment, you’re probably not taking care of yourself.”

I conclude: “we all give up much of our lives for our children, but it’s unhealthy for us and even less healthy for our kids to become an egoless parent, neglecting our needs and virtually erasing ourselves from the relationship. We need personal boundaries and our children need us to model them. This is what it means to have an honest, authentic, respectful relationship that will make limit setting in the toddler through teenage years clear and simple. Notice I didn’t say easy because it’s hardly ever easy.”

Oh, and one of the things I share first in that post is I say: “My sense is that we often end up yelling because we’ve actually made the very positive decision to give our children boundaries with respect rather than using punishments and manipulation. We’re working really hard to remain gentle and kind, and yet our children’s testing behaviors continue. Maybe we become increasingly frustrated, even fearful, feeling like we’ve lost all control without any way to rein our children in.”

Anyway, it’s a pretty long post, and I’ll be linking to it in the transcript, or you can look it up. Here’s the comment that I got on Facebook. She said:

This all sounds good on paper but doesn’t really apply in the real world. In the real world, taking a break to the sound of a screaming toddler is anything but a break and will leave you more frazzled. In the real world, tantrums are horrible to be around on a visceral level no matter how many books you read about childhood development. In the real world, many parents have little to no support and no amount of telling ourselves we are capable leaders can curb the sheer exhaustion we are feeling. This ideal of gentle parenting is feeling more and more toxic and gaslighty to me.

Before I share the question that I asked her, I want to talk a little about the press articles that have come out recently. They’re in pretty major publications. Assuming that they’re all written sincerely and not as a pile-on to a trend, I took them quite seriously, like I take everything. They all mention me as part of the problem, and they’re basically bashing the idea of gentle or respectful parenting, that it’s impossible. One of them even implies that there’s this harsh dark side to it all. A couple of the authors who are also parents, it sounds like they’re trying it, but they don’t feel like it’s working for them and they’re saying, “This is too extreme.”

Now, when I read these pieces, the first feeling that I had besides feeling a little attacked, the first feeling I had was I relate to what these people are saying. I totally relate to them. I remember feeling some of the feelings that they’re describing: that I just couldn’t possibly do this, that it was unrealistic, that somehow there was this expectation on me that I couldn’t live up to and it just made me frustrated and want to throw in the towel. I wanted to throw it away. I’m going to talk about the couple of those instances where I felt that way, but I felt like what I’m relating to, and I could be wrong, is this pressure that we put on ourselves as parents.

Some of us are more inclined towards self-judgment, and perfectionism, and it can get in our way when we’re learning challenging things. Learning a different way of parenting than the way that we were raised, breaking those generational cycles even in small ways is very, very challenging. It’s so courageous to even be trying, in my view. And it sounds like this commenter on Facebook was coming from that place too. This is just impossible. You’re expecting unrealistic things.

In these articles in the press, if I was to take a very unnuanced extreme take on those, I could feel this implies that they were maybe suggesting that it’s better to physically punish your children, and lash out at them when you’re frustrated. I don’t think that’s what they were saying, but I wasn’t sure what kind of alternative they were suggesting.

And so, that’s why I was happy for the opportunity to ask this parent on Facebook this question, “What would be helpful?”

Because believe it or not, and I didn’t say this on Facebook, believe it or not, all I’m trying to do is help. I’m sharing an approach to parenting that inspired me and helped me beyond measure. That’s what I’ve been doing since 2009, sharing what I’ve learned from all the classes I’ve taught with parents and children. When I get a little lost in what am I doing? Why am I doing this? What’s my purpose here? I often ask myself that question to focus me and give me the perspective that I need to know what to do next: How can I help? What can I share that might be helpful?

There’s no implication in what I’m sharing that if you’re not doing it this way, there’s something wrong with you or that I expect you to do it this particular way. It’s a very specific way that I’m sharing. I started calling it “respectful parenting” because I didn’t think people would know or understand or want to understand what RIE parenting meant. And also because I was using a lot of my own experience to interpret Magda Gerber’s RIE approach, even more for toddlers than she did and for older children, and all these details that I learned through working with parents.

So, I thought: well, if I say respectful parenting, which is about treating even a newborn with respect, maybe if I use this term, then it will make more sense to people. That’s why I started using that term. I’ve never actually used the term “gentle parenting” to describe what I do, but I noticed that I seem to be part of a catchall of gentle parenting. That’s how people are seeing this, that I’m one of the many people sharing about gentle parenting. I’m assuming that just means this non-punitive, not harsh, not lashing out type of parenting.

Anyway, I asked this parent, “What would be helpful?” And I said, “I’m also interested in the concept of,” quote, ‘gentle parenting,’ which is not a term I use. What does this mean to you?”

I thought she gave brilliant responses that were very enlightening to me.

First, she said:

Gentle parenting to me is the ethos of teaching and disciplining in an empathic way that is never punitive or emotionally reactive on the parent’s part. It sounds so lovely. It’s a beautiful idea to aim for. It’s also crushing to never be able to live up to despite having all the tools and knowledge because we are human and we are wired to be uncomfortable around screaming. We all want to do better, and we even know exactly what to do thanks to the many sources of information out there for parents and yet so many of us are stuck. I’m thinking about your question, what would be helpful? Maybe it’s just permission to be gentle-ish, capable-ish.

Wow. She really says it all there, and it helps me understand that I’m coming across as this voice of authority that’s telling you you should do it this way, and if you’re not, there’s something wrong with you.

Well, I’m a very imperfect messenger, no doubt, and I also have the problem of… Well, it’s not a problem. It’s a positive thing, but I forget that I’m not still this underground voice sharing for the couple hundred people that would follow me in the beginning where I could really speak my mind and be a little bold and share unique ideas without it being taken as that I’m any kind of voice of authority.

Well, to my surprise, a lot of these ideas that I’ve shared that were very weird to people, in the beginning, are now almost mainstream, almost conventional. Not because I did it all, but I think I had a part in it and it’s just happened that way. That is amazing to me, that ideas like you talk to a baby like a person, that you allow children to have all their feelings, that you don’t try to fix or squelch them, that a child can have ideas about what they should be doing in regard to play or exploring or spending their time even as an infant… Not all of these ideas, but a lot of them are now accepted and that’s fantastic. With it comes a responsibility that I don’t always take, which is, oh, so I actually have the power for someone to feel like they’re not living up to something that’s just supposed to be this way.

I also want to say though that everything this parent said in her comment and a lot of the things in these articles as well, I personally have felt in my early days in learning this approach.

This is one of the benefits of getting older. Between just aging and the work that we do on ourselves or even work that naturally evolves on ourselves, we become much more self-forgiving. I do, and these really strong judgmental voices that were always in my head when I was younger have very much weakened. They still have their say, but it’s not overwhelming, and other voices will usually win out.

I started taking RIE classes with my daughter when she was an infant. When I was first learning this, everything I was being taught was different than what I’d been doing pretty much. I took all of that as oh, I’m wrong. I’m wrong. I’m wrong.

Here I was putting everything into trying to be a new mom, and now this must mean I’m failing, failing, failing because I’m learning all these things that I could have done that I wasn’t doing. There was that to get over. At the same time though, I was so compelled and inspired to stick with it, and luckily that won out.

And then later on when my daughter became a toddler, I remember… Okay, this is 28 years ago, so we know that this had a big effect on me because I can totally remember the moment. I said to my teacher who wasn’t Magda, but another teacher who will go nameless, I said, “What do you do when you just find yourself yelling?” And my teacher said, “You’re yelling?”

And the way she said it, I believe she was probably just surprised. She didn’t have children at that time, so maybe it didn’t make sense to her, but the way it felt was so mortifying. I felt so ashamed. I broke into a million pieces, and I was never going to bring that up again. But what it did was help me to get a perspective: yes, I have a very precocious, strong, powerful toddler. She wasn’t even two yet, but still, why would I yell at this tiny person? What is threatening to me? What is overwhelming to me? How am I not taking care of myself with my boundaries with her that I’m getting to this point?

Once I got over the shame and brokenness I felt, or at least start to get over that, I was able to look at where I needed to grow because I didn’t want to be a person yelling at a not-even-two-year-old. I knew it wasn’t the parent that I wanted to be. It didn’t feel good to me.

So, that happened. But all the voices came to me in that brokenness, in that shame: You can’t do this. There’s something deeply wrong with you. This is impossible. I wanted to throw in the towel, and I feel like throwing in the towel still a lot when some kind of situation feels too challenging. I don’t like feeling uncomfortable or inept less than other people or that I’m not living up to some kind of expectation.

But the expectations weren’t coming from my teacher. They weren’t coming from Magda Gerber. They weren’t coming from anyone but me.

I’m not saying that’s what’s going on with all these people that are complaining about gentle parenting, but that’s my experience. I’m so grateful that there was a stronger voice in me that said: Don’t let those voices win. This matters too much to you. Don’t give up on yourself. Maybe you can do this.

Now in terms of everybody else though, maybe what I’m teaching isn’t what inspires you or feels supportive to you. This is just one style of parenting. It’s not the only one that works. It’s not maybe even the best one for you. These are only suggestions, not rules or meant to be taken rigidly. We have to look out for ourselves in this tough journey, find sources that feed us, nurture us, that make our lives easier and more joyful as parents. We deserve that.

I understand feeling stuck and I understand feeling crushed that I’m supposed to live up to something. At least when I was learning this stuff, it was very unique. It wasn’t so popular. So, it was clear to me that I was wanting to live up to my own goals.

Now I realize that might be less clear and that’s harder, and it’s something that I want to take responsibility for as much as I can.

Yes, tantrums are horrible to be around. It’s really hard to let another person have their feelings. That’s why I’ve written and podcasted about that topic so many times and noted that it will always be challenging. It will never be reflexive for most of us. It just won’t.

But only we can give ourselves permission to be in a process and not perfect at every aspect. In fact, not even close to that.

Here’s the response that I shared with this parent after her comment, which I really, really appreciated. I said:

I hear you. I really do. As I was reading your comment, I was thinking exactly what you said at the end. I was thinking, where is she getting the idea that respectful parenting means never punitive or emotionally reactive? Where is this never coming from? People like me also talk a lot about repair and self-compassion and imperfection. I share what I know helps build relationships and lessen challenging behavior, and I try to share a perspective that can help us feel less reactive. But there’s no implication coming from me that if we don’t live up to this every moment or go through periods where we just can’t at all or don’t want to, we’re failures or doing something wrong. Gentle-ish, capable-ish is exactly where most of us are most of the time. The good news is that gentle-ish, capable-ish is enough to be a great human parent. I understand perfectionism and bagging on ourselves. I can go there myself, but those feelings don’t come from parenting advisors or other messengers out there. Mine come from me.

I want to talk a little about the ideals that she’s talking about living up to. I appreciated Magda Gerber‘s approach and its idealism because I started to see those ideals as signposts. They weren’t a destination even. They were just helping me go in a direction, baby step by baby step. If I didn’t have those signposts, I couldn’t be assured of the direction that I was taking.

But it wasn’t about achieving those signposts or not. It was about the journey, the process.

Yes, there are going to be frustrations and feelings of giving up along the way. Absolutely. But if we keep following these sign posts, maybe there’ll be less of that. There was for me.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with being frustrated. It’s that it doesn’t feel good and it’s not the way most of us want to be with our children. It doesn’t feel good to us, but there’s no judgment on the feelings that we have in a process. They’re all just right, because they’re all our feelings, just like children’s feelings are just right. That’s what they feel.

This is definitely not about being robotic or stifled or I’m just fine all the time. No. Our children want a relationship with us. With all of our sides.

Speaking about frustration, maybe it could be helpful to let out frustration at children sometimes. My mother, I don’t remember her really yelling at us, but she would get very judgmental and angry about certain things, and there were two things. One was if we tried to tickle her… Whew! Or if we’d walk in on her in the bathroom, she made it very clear with emotion that those were boundaries that she was not going to allow us to cross, and we didn’t because that was scary.

So this isn’t to say that letting out our emotions on children is not productive. It can be in the short term, I think, but for me, it was helpful to know that we don’t need to do that. We can set the boundary without creating fear.

If gentle parenting is what this parent beautifully describes, which I would like to think, I love that, then it will only work if we have very strong boundaries. Very strong boundaries. I think maybe that’s missing in some of the conversations about gentle parenting, I don’t know, but maybe that is a problem out there that people should rightfully complain about because it’s just not going to work and it’s not going to help those children. Children need boundaries.

I also want to share one more story from my learning days. I’m still learning for sure. But in the early days when I was training with Magda, there was a conference coming up and this other parent and I were going to present a workshop at the conference from a parenting perspective. Most of these RIE conferences, they’re mostly attended by early childhood professionals rather than parents. But we wanted to do one for the few parents that might be there.

When we were talking about this with Magda, I said, “Well, what should we call it?” And she said, “Parenting Made Easier.” Immediately that came right off the top of her head. I’ve got to admit I was taken aback because that wasn’t the first thing that would come to mind for me about this approach that I was learning from her. To me, it was very thoughtful and careful, deep and challenging in many, many ways. But when I thought about it, I could see what she was saying.

And then a few years later when I had a three-year-old and then two other children after that, oh yeah, it totally made everything easier. When I would compare myself to the struggles other parents were having, all this care and thoughtfulness and mental challenge and emotional challenge that I’d faced learning this really paid off. This doesn’t mean it’ll pay off for everyone, or that this is your way, but it did for me.

When I hear people saying, “Oh, this is this impossible thing, and we can’t do it. It’s somehow judgemental of people that aren’t doing it,” I think of that. I think of how much easier this makes everything and therefore more enjoyable. Because if we’re struggling, we’re not enjoying being a parent. But it’s like moving that rock to the top of the mountain so that it can roll down the other side. It does get so much easier. It does.

Whether you follow some of the advice I give, follow advice other people are giving, whether you decide you want to do this non-punitive parenting thing or you want to find your own way that’s different, take a little from this, a little from that, this is your journey. My feelings about parents are all about trust. Just like my feelings about children. Trusting their process, trusting that you will find your way.

Am I the right person to help you? Maybe or maybe not. I trust you to know what works for you.

I think I would love to change the name of this podcast to Respectful-ish Parenting, Unruffled-ish. I’m going to consider that because that’s what I have learned to expect of myself and the best that we can hope for. It’s always an ish. It’s always a journey. Some days we feel it, some days we don’t.

So, I really, really hope that you’ll be good to yourselves and kind to yourselves and trust yourselves and definitely not give up on being the parent that you want to be because we really can do this.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, JanetLansbury.com. There are many of them and they’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in.

And both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play or barnesandnoble.com, and on audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thank you so much for listening and for all your kind support. We can do this.

The post Is ‘Gentle Parenting’ Too Extreme and Impossible? appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I’m going to be sharing a success story that I received that exemplifies several important aspects of the parenting approach that I teach, and describes how these ideas are benefiting this family in some surprising ways. The letter talks about trusting a baby as a capable person and accepting their feelings. In short, we could say it’s about, in my mentor, Magda Gerber’s words, doing less, observing more, enjoying most.

The sponsor for today’s episode is JLML Press, which is the company that produces this podcast and also publishes my books, No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  They’re available in audio at Audible, in paperback at Amazon, and in ebook at all of your favorite ebook distributors. I’d love you to check them out and let me know what you think.

Okay, here’s the note I received:

Dear Janet, I grew up believing, and still largely believe, that I had the best childhood ever. There hasn’t been a day of my life that I didn’t know I was deeply loved and delighted in. However, I was raised in a conservative, evangelical community where spanking was the norm and sin nature was the engine behind all undesirable behavior, and the goal of parenting was to eradicate behaviors based on that behavior’s desirability to the parent. As my own faith evolved or devolved, depending, I knew what I didn’t want to perpetuate. But that alone did not give me positive alternatives and new tools. I felt like new wine in old wineskins, to borrow the analogy. I tried Attachment Parenting, but it was very overwhelming and seemed yet another impossible standard, another burden falling disproportionately on the shoulders of, in my case, the woman. How could the goal be to have a child that never cries? How can I be human and meet my own needs when I am the be-all-end-all for someone else’s needs, and sometimes multiple someone else’s?

I had read a bit about RIE during pregnancy, but so many articles just focused on: “you have to ask permission to pick up your baby and that’s ridiculous.” I missed the message. When I really dug in, it was truly a revelation. I really got into it before a cross-country flight to see my parents, and I was so concerned about how I would entertain, placate my baby for that long. Your podcast gave me all the tools and confidence I needed and helped me set appropriate expectations, not just for my baby, but for myself as well. And we had a sublime flight. I observed and let her explore and experience her surroundings, and was blown away time and time again, how long she would spend examining something as simple as the seatbelt buckle or tray table, or overhead lights.

Beyond that, it was the final piece in my faith journey because it gave me a developmentally appropriate lens through which to view my child. It has challenged me to better understand, manage and express my own needs and emotions, which, of course, makes me a better friend, spouse, coworker, and human. It has allowed me to be more compassionate. Even the conversations I had with my daughter when she was screaming in her car seat (“It sounds like you’re frustrated. Maybe you don’t like being stuck in your car seat. It’s hard to feel restricted or have to stay in our seats when we want to get out. As soon as it’s safe to do so, I’ll get you out. Until then, you can keep telling me how you feel about being in your car seat. I am a safe place for you to share your feelings, and that means I won’t be swayed off course, controlled, or angered by your feelings. You can always share them with me.”) Obviously, I’m saying this to her to reinforce it to myself. But having these little conversations has helped me regulate my own emotions and help me stay focused on the end goal, not the momentary frustration or that every-cell-in-your-body-is-screaming-to-“fix”-the-problem-when-your-baby-is-crying thing.

The difference between seeing tantrums as a behavior to punish versus seeing it as an outcry of emotion or overwhelm that is deserving of our presence, love, and compassion… that’s a paradigm shift, the positive implications of which are limitless.

You and Magda have given me such a gift: the ability to enjoy parenthood in a way I would not have otherwise been able to. And not only that but tools to care for my own childhood self and the tools to cultivate my own emotional maturity where it was lacking. This has benefited me, my child, my marriage, and all my relationships. It has also become a great way to connect with other parents. “Oh, you listen to Unruffled too?” Immediately, we’re at ease, knowing we don’t have to do “performative parenting” because we’re coming from the same philosophical starting point and won’t be judged because we aren’t running after our toddler constantly, but rather letting them explore at their own pace, navigating their own social dynamics in a safe but not micromanaged way. I could go on and on, but I feel I’m already past the point of TL;DR! Thank you again.

I am deeply touched by this note and so grateful to this parent for taking the time to share with me, especially these details, which I hope will be helpful for other parents listening.

The first thing I want to do is clarify a misconception that she brings up. I try to understand where this comes from. It’s such a common misconception that comes up all the time in various articles. It’s this idea that we are suggesting to ask permission to pick up a baby or ask permission to change a baby’s diaper. She wrote, “You have to ask permission to pick up your baby and that’s ridiculous.” And yes, it is ridiculous because a baby cannot answer that kind of question. And that’s not at all what we’re saying.

What we’re saying is to give your baby a bit of warning, to open up to them the invitation to participate in every aspect of their life. So I’m not just going to pick up the baby, I’m going to let my baby know and maybe ask if they’re ready, but not expect I’m going to get some clear answer. I am going to let my baby know, at least, “Hey, I want to pick you up now.” And I’m putting my hands out to them. “Are you ready?”

And why do I offer these questions? Not because I expect an answer, although babies do start to give answers once we’ve opened this door, but because I want my baby to know that I’m interested in their point of view. I believe they have one as a human being. From birth, they already have a perspective that’s worth considering. And I want them to know that I am interested in a relationship with this other person and that I want them to be an active participant in their own way when they’re ready. When they can. Children can’t really do that if we don’t open the door first and communicate with them with this respect and politeness. And empathy as to what that person might be feeling or thinking or ready to do right there.

As I said, I’ve thought a lot about how this misconception comes about, because it is very common. A lot of people think this about the RIE approach. And of course, they close the door on it. It’s so hard to imagine, and I remember this myself at first, it was so hard to imagine that a baby is an actual aware, sentient person. It’s so hard to see that and believe that. When someone suggests it, we only jump to what we know, which is, well, an adult’s a person, so you’re saying to treat a baby as an adult. That’s not what we’re saying at all. A baby is a baby. But because it’s challenging to accept babies as people, we jump to an extreme idea like we would expect them to act like an adult and respond in an absurd way that they cannot — giving permission for a diaper change.

A child is a person. They shouldn’t need to be treated as an adult to be treated as a person.

And as a person, we understand that they have their own unique interests that we should trust. Because we don’t know them. The only way we can know them is through one of the core practices that I recommend, which is observation, sensitive observation, noticing what our baby chooses, noticing what they’re looking at, what they’re interested in exploring. That takes us letting go of an agenda to entertain, to keep a baby constantly occupied, and ameliorate any kind of effort that may appear to be a struggle. It takes more of an open mind and believing in that baby, trusting that they are capable, that they have basic competencies. That’s what this parent does in the airplane example.

A baby’s a person with this innocent beginner’s mind and this incredible ability to learn and explore. It’s this wide-open, fresh perspective on the world. What that means is that they’re seeing everything for the first time. They don’t need a lot of entertainment. They don’t need us to wave toys or point things out to them. They are able to take in their surroundings. They have what researcher Alison Gopnik calls lantern attention. They’re taking in everything very capably, working to understand their world, exploring. They’re interested in understanding all these details that we ignore and take for granted.

The downside to that is that they’re very easily overstimulated because they’re absorbing everything without a filter, these filters that we develop as we mature. We’re less aware than a baby because of these filters. But the baby doesn’t have them so they get very overstimulated easily. And a lot of times when we do something with them, like take them on a trip, there’s all this novelty, but we want to keep them occupied, quiet on the plane, all of those things. And so we’re keeping them busy, we’re adding more and more stimulation when they’re already getting a lot.

What this parent did is she trusted. So she did less, but she says she observed and let her explore and experience her surroundings, and was “blown away time and again by how long she would spend examining something as simple as the seatbelt buckle.” Yeah, seatbelt buckles are pretty amazing if we consider seeing them for the first time and trying to figure them out, or a tray table or overhead lights. The parent had a sublime experience because she trusted her baby. She did less and she observed more and enjoyed seeing these things anew through her child’s eyes.

When we trust babies this way, what happens is that they are actually able to dictate just the right amount of stimulation for them. If we’re not adding it in, they’re not forced to take in more, and they’re going to take in just enough. So we won’t have those crying jags from overstimulation. They’re so common, especially in the first year. Gauging stimulation with our adult view is going to be difficult, and we’re going to be likely to overstimulate.

This is also why, with the RIE approach, we believe in simple toys and objects. We believe that those are the most encouraging to babies who want to learn and understand their surroundings. So, even though I know this is a small detail, just to give an example, we don’t put a mirror in their play area because they can’t understand a mirror yet. Studies show that children don’t really understand until closer to two years old that that is their reflection. So with the RIE approach, we don’t want them to be distracted by something that they can’t actually learn from. We want them to be able to feel that sense of comprehending their environment, mastering, discovering everything an object can do. That encourages them to seek more knowledge, to understand more. Instead of feeling overwhelmed that oh, there’s so much in my world that I can’t possibly understand.

So this parent’s note also mentions at the end how she trusted her child to be a capable explorer, physically, cognitively, creatively, and socially. She says, “We aren’t running after our toddler constantly, but rather letting them explore at their own pace, navigating their own social dynamics in a safe but not micromanaged way.”

What a relief that is for parents, right? We can trust that they know how to learn, that they are self-learners who will seek out enrichment in their environment. So we don’t have to be the ones to always come up with it and figure it out. And what do they need now? And what should we put there? And how do we stimulate them? How do we keep them from being bored? If you imagine really being a baby, how can you be bored? Everything around you is new and interesting and weird and different. But children do get overstimulated and overtired and will cry for that reason. And sometimes misinterpreted as boredom.

Through this practice of observation that this parent says she’s using, we’re able to see the world through our child’s eyes. That’s how we gain more empathy for our children. That’s how we understand them and feel compassion for them, understanding them better and understanding ourselves better. As this parent said, most of these ideas apply to all relationships, understanding where that other person is coming from. So as this parent said, these tools helped her to have the confidence she needed to set appropriate expectations, not just for her baby, but for herself as well, challenged her to better understand, manage and express her own needs and emotions, allowed her to be more compassionate.

Then she talks about the conversation she had with her daughter when she was screaming in the car seat. And I absolutely love this. Not that I would expect or would even suggest a parent say all of those things to a child at one time. I mean, maybe just one of those sentences, “Ah, it sounds like you’re frustrated. Maybe you don’t like being stuck in your car seat.” And maybe we would add, “I’ll get you out as soon as I can. But until then, yeah, I hear you.”

This parent said a version of that. But what I love is that she recognizes the self-talk here, because I believe it’s crucial to being able to do this huge task. This parent acknowledges the huge task of allowing and accepting and even encouraging our child to express their feelings without putting a stop to them ourselves. It’s a huge task.

And what this kind of self-talk does: “I’m a safe place. I won’t be swayed off course, controlled or angered by your feelings. You can always share them with me” is it helps bolster us and helps focus our intention on something helpful. It’s a relationship dynamic that will carry us through our child’s adulthood. You have a right to feel what you feel. Your feelings are not about me. I want to hear them. I want to understand them. I want to be that person for you, but they’re not mine to change. Obviously, I will tell you honest things that might reassure you like that I will get you out of there soon, out of that car seat. But we’re not trying to shut down our child.

A lot of times parents will say things that are acknowledging, but they’re saying words when what they really mean is: okay, I hear you, now please stop because this is so hard for me. And I understand it’s hard. It’s hard for me too. It’s still hard for me. But I know, and I’ve seen, time and again, how important it is, and how letting the feelings flow is the right thing and the best thing that we can do. Often, the only thing that we can do. To accept, to trust that it’s okay for our child to feel how she does. I mean, she has a right. She’s in a car seat. She’s stuck. What is there to like about that? Nothing. So yeah, I want you to tell me that. I agree with your right to feel that. It’s understandable to me.

Accepting, acknowledging, encouraging, trusting.

And feelings won’t always be understandable to us right away. Usually, they will later on… we’ll figure out what that was about. But following our instinct to try to put an end to the feelings often results in more frustration and disconnection for both of us. Instead, what this parent focused on, and what I highly recommend is: I am a safe place for your feelings. And that means ultimately my own as well.

I hope some of this helps. And I want to thank this parent so much again for sending me her note, and all her brilliant examples. I’m thrilled that she’s made a huge paradigm shift and most thrilled of all that she’s gaining exactly what I did from this approach, from this way of being with children, the ability to enjoy parenting in a way that I would not have been able to. That’s the exact reason I’m here, podcasting, writing, sharing with parents: to try to help make your experience more enjoyable. Parenthood is really, really difficult. We deserve to enjoy it as much as possible. And Magda’s teachings were also, for me, a paradigm shift that changed everything — gave me clarity, helped me feel freer with more ability to enjoy the day-to-day and the long term as well because of the relationships that I’ve been able to build with my children.

I really hope some of this helps. We can do this.

(The tools for traveling with babies that this parent refers to are here in Traveling with Babies, Toddlers, Preschoolers)

The post Surprising Benefits of Doing Less, Observing More, and Welcoming Feelings appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “A Holistic Approach to Baby and Toddler Sleep (with Grace Koinange)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I have a great guest to share with you. Her name is Grace Koinange. She’s a pediatric sleep consultant and a lactation-trained newborn care specialist. Grace works privately as a concierge sleep coach. She prides herself in solving almost all newborn sleep challenges from infancy to two years. While I actually know many sleep consultants that I can recommend, I had the opportunity to meet Grace recently when we were working alongside each other. And I was so struck by her intuitiveness, her gentle, calm presence, and how she was able to read a baby’s gestures and signals. Also, her overall approach to sleep. Some of which was surprising to me. I’m learning a lot from her. I’m excited to share Grace and her knowledge with you.

Hi, Grace. Welcome to Unruffled.

Grace Koinange:  Hi, Janet. I’m so glad to be here.

Janet Lansbury:  Well, as you and I know, I happened to be in the situation where I got to work alongside you, and I was so impressed with your ability to understand babies and what they need and their cues, which I always had a difficult time with. You’re just a wealth of knowledge and intuition about everything to do with sleep and helping children develop the healthiest sleep possible. I would love to hear a little about your background in terms of this work and how you developed your expertise around sleep.

Grace Koinange:  As a parent, nobody prepares you for what’s to come. I had no idea the things that I did not know. I am a trained doula and wanted so much to help my son who was struggling with sleep.

Janet Lansbury:  What was going on with him? What was the problem for you?

Grace Koinange:  There were a lot of sleep struggles. He was waking up at night every hour. He was breastfeeding. There was just a lot of me going back to put the pacifier in. And it just was quite destructive for both of us. As an adult, I could not function. And so I knew that there was information out there that I could get to be able to help him become a better sleeper. And also I needed to sleep because I felt like a zombie.

I braved myself enough to go to Google and search all the sleep techniques that were there. There was the cry it out. There was the extinction method. And just so many more that I kept finding myself getting confused about what to choose as a mom, because knowing my parenting style, I needed to choose something that was kind. I needed to choose is something that would help parents as a doula.

So I read sleep books. I took two sleep training courses. I researched and researched and through that research, I became curious enough to see if newborns could actually sleep or organize their sleep without much crying. And that was quite interesting for me. And this is how I discovered Magda Gerber. She founded Resources for Infant Educarers, and I loved everything about what she talked about. Competent, confident, curious, which is what I was. And I needed to incorporate this whole concept into sleep training. So I graduated and became a pediatric sleep consultant, and I incorporated some of RIE literature to help with my sleep science.

Janet Lansbury:  You said something when we met that sounded very similar to what Magda always said. I think the way you said it was that sleep is actually about eating and play, even more than it’s about sleep. Magda Gerber used to say that sleep is about the entire day that a baby has and the rhythms of their day.

Grace Koinange:  So yeah, the whole process taught me that there was no cutting-edge sleep science with training my son. Magda taught me that it is not about the baby waking up at 3:00 AM. It is truly about what happens the whole entire day from when the baby wakes up at 7:00 to when the baby goes to sleep at 7:00. It is the in-between because that’s what determines developmentally what the baby is doing. That was rich information for me to take. That was information that I wanted to use for my son, which I did.

At nine months, one of the things that was really important for me was, I never put my baby down. I never observed his play. He was working through a few struggles and I never thought that I could just watch him instead of pushing a toy to him. And so I helped him a lot in a lot of his play.

Magda taught me how to wait, just wait and see what happens. And I discovered that through sleep, that we have to wait for the infant to see what happens developmentally. So the secret for me was to just silently observe. That was the secret sauce of sleep training that I use right now and I also used for my son. It’s doing less, being present 100% on the floor with him, understanding that he’s going to work through that problem during play because that’s the same problem that’s going to develop at night.

Janet Lansbury:  Were you observing that he was capable of doing more in regard to sleep than you thought?

Grace Koinange:  Absolutely. The whole observation for me was that I realized that he was an excellent explorer. There was a consistency in how he played with his hands and what he was trying to do with his legs as a newborn. And I realized that allowing him to be on the floor and to experience his natural curiosity would help him do the same thing in bed.

Janet Lansbury:  You realized that your son could be capable as an infant in terms of play if you just calmed yourself, right? And waited a little and you were still present. You didn’t distance yourself from him; you were still very much in it. I’m sure he felt your presence because children do. They’re so aware when they’re babies. So being able to see that helped you see that he’s maybe capable of more than you thought in terms of sleep. That you didn’t have to try to make sleep happen so much, which I think we all get stuck doing.

Grace Koinange:  Exactly. I think my sleep training as you said, it was very practical. It’s like, let’s see what happens during play because this will come up during the night. But at the moment, I would tell myself the story: he’s waking up at night, I am sleep deprived, I am struggling as a parent, and I need to create structure. Is he eating enough?

So there were a lot of questions that I would ask myself to try and adjust to what I’m looking at and thinking that my baby is doing. I became introspective and I started understanding that it is truly not in my power to understand that, but to observe, and then take notes. I would observe and take notes and see… what is he struggling with during play? And as a parent, I found myself helping. I would push a toy, not allowing him to make his own decisions.

I was engaging in his play, which meant that he was going to call for me at night so that I can also engage in his sleep. And so that was important for me to know that I should let him carry his burden as a newborn. And how do I do that respectively? Because I did not want to do the cry it out. I thought this would happen during play.  And it was quite experimental and accidental, to be honest with you. It was trying to figure out: if he’s failing at this task, which is whatever he was doing at the moment, then he’s going to fail at the task of sleeping. And I was building expectations for myself and for him, which were not going to be achievable.

So because the cry it out was not attractive to me, I was going to be patient enough to do this with my child. And I was going to be patient enough to sort of understand: what is it that I need to gain for myself?

Most sleep books would tell me, they would say, wait three minutes or a few minutes if the baby wakes up, which is great. It’s a great concept when you think about it. We want them to develop a place where you’re not going in too quick to get the baby when the baby wakes up. But I thought to myself and I said: what if I could change this to waiting to three minutes before I could intervene in his play? What if I could wait a little bit before I could decide that he was doing something in my head that he wasn’t doing?

And so waiting for three minutes helped me understand that oh, he’s actually doing the work. He’s actually working on something. And so this was a sleep giver for me. It was looking at the solution and allowing the process to foster that helped me understand that setting goals and expectations really needed to happen during play so that he can transition to sleeping.

Janet Lansbury:  And was there crying involved when you started to give him at nine months more opportunities to help himself to sleep?

Grace Koinange: There was some struggle. There was some crying. I was uncomfortable as a parent because I was like: okay, he’s uncomfortable. And so I really feel uncomfortable. But let’s wait another minute and see what happens. He would experience whatever he was experiencing. But what was really beautiful about this is like when I gave him the space to experience these natural changes, it helped him figure out for himself, and we were able to see that some things were really tricky, and if he was rolling over in bed, he would experience a hardship. He would cry. But if I waited a few minutes, he would figure it out or he would start playing more as he did during play.

This was huge for me to just watch him on camera. And if he was struggling with something and he would roll over and then he would start clapping his hands or he would start bringing his hands together or he would just sit down and play with a toy that I had put in the bed, which is what he did during play. So that made me pause. That allowed me to have an experience that was different than cry it out.

Janet Lansbury: Technology is very helpful in this instance, isn’t it, the new technology?

With my second we only had the sound monitors, but I didn’t even use that because I had gotten so confident in her ability to call for me versus talking to herself and all the other things that she did. And I told her quite early, “When you want me, you call “Mom!” like that.” And of course, she didn’t say “mom” when she was a baby, but she made a sound that was very similar to that. It blew me away. And so I was able to trust that she would let me know.

It is challenging as a parent, especially with your first to feel comfortable with any sound that’s less than contentment and happiness and giggling. It’s hard to hear because our mind goes to all the worse-case scenarios. They’re feeling abandoned if I don’t immediately pick them up and rescue them from this situation. They feel like I don’t care, that I don’t love them or all of those things. It is challenging.

Grace Koinange:  It is very challenging. And I also think that we prioritize their needs in terms of what we think in our head. And so taking care of myself first and taking care of my body to understand… Let me just slow down a little bit and see and observe was really great. What I like about newborns and toddlers as well is that they’re actually organized in whatever disorganized world we think they’re in. We rush them developmentally into what we want them to do. But if we stop a little bit to see what they’re working through, we can follow the steps into how they transition from one place to another. I had transitioned my son from my room to the crib, and that was also another transition that he needed to face and go through. So just waiting and supporting him through that transition was important for him and also for me to sort of say: I need to hold onto my feelings. And I also need to know that he’s in a safe place.

Janet Lansbury:  I think one of the reasons that people have such a strong negative response to the idea of a child crying, especially at bedtime… or having them be in their own room or sometimes even in their own bed… one of the issues is this idea that children will feel abandoned. The parent feels that this separation is very negative for their child and that their child feels abandoned. And one of the things that struck me about your approach and your knowledge is that you sort of reframed the issue of separation in a way that I had really never thought of in terms of going from breastfeeding straight to bed, or going from feeding straight to bed. That separation can be an issue, but it’s different than the way most of us think about it. Can you talk a little about that?

Grace Koinange:  Absolutely. When you think about attachment and you think about how the baby bonds with us if you’re breastfeeding or feeding… Once they’re comfortable in that position, they tend to fall asleep. And then the next thing that happens after you feed, is you place your baby in the bed, and you walk away. And so you do not give them time to transition into understanding that you are leaving, right? And so they cry.

So the thing that I discovered through sleep and through working with parents is that if you feed before, then give an infant an opportunity for play and then place them in the crib, you’ve built neurons in the brain where they understand, okay, this is a transition that happens. I will be feeding. And the next thing I will do is play, which is excitement. They don’t go from feeding to sleep immediately. Because that is when you have problems placing your baby in the crib and you can’t walk away.

The books don’t necessarily tell us the methods of how do I put my baby in the crib and let them fall asleep? We talk about self-soothing. We talk about not letting them fall asleep on you, but how do you do this? And the way you do this is by allowing that child to have the space to play before you can place them in the crib and walk away.

Janet Lansbury:  So then you’re working towards the rhythm of: Your baby is sleeping, your baby wakes up, then soon after that you nurse or feed. And then they have some playtime after that before they are placed in their familiar, comfortable bed or entering into that bedtime routine, which you’re also a big fan of I know. That’s one of Magda Gerber’s basic recommendations: have a predictable routine and low stimulation.

Grace Koinange:  Giving them an opportunity where there is not too much noise and there’s not too much intrusion allows that child to take five minutes to understand the environment, understand their body, understand exactly what you’re communicating to them. And so this becomes a process. It becomes a routine for both of you that the baby loves and enjoys.

And they discover that this is how I fall asleep. I do not fall asleep on a warm body and then transition to a crib. I fall asleep the same way every day. You walk into the room, close the curtains, change the baby’s diaper, get the baby comfortable in their pajamas or sleep sack. And then from there, you place the baby in the crib and you say goodbye.

There’s a process and it takes time. And the process doesn’t change at all even when they are a year old. It stays the same. And so if you give them that information, I call it the university of sleep. So we start gently as we grow. And as the baby grows with you, they understand that this is how life transitions from awakeness to sleep.

Janet Lansbury:  And the other thing we commonly do or I certainly did in the beginning before discovering Magda’s work is the baby falls asleep with us and on our body or on the breast or whatever and then we place them in bed. Then they wake up in a place that they recognize, but they didn’t know how they got there. We don’t think maybe that it matters with a baby, but if you consider that they have actually higher awareness than we do as adults, it is something. It’s a thing. It’s a feeling of okay, I don’t really quite know what happens to me. I’m not a part of this so much. It’s a subtle thing, but …

Grace Koinange:  It is. It is part of the process, and it’s also part of how the brain develops, understands, and consumes sleep.

I think parents, in the beginning, tend to think that sleep is always the number one thing. But the confusion of sleep and why your baby’s not sleeping is actually food and inconsistency on feeding routines and where we feed and how. Feeding at the same place, sleeping at the same place, and sleeping when they’re awake so that they can understand the environment.

I mean, it would be hard for me to wake up in the morning in somebody else’s bed. Waking up with the same invitation to begin another new event or another new day, because for babies, every time they wake up, it is a new experience for them. And so if they learn that this is how they wake up every day, they gain this knowledge. They are able to regulate their body. They’re able to understand that this is the process, which is really, really huge. Babies like to know. Babies like a really, really good plan. And they like the same plan. So it is really important that when we are caring for an infant or caring for a baby, that we give them this opportunity to learn that we are confident caretakers, and we will walk through the process the same way because this is easier for them to be able to learn and gain knowledge of how we care for them.

Janet Lansbury:  Yes. And I mean, if we think about it, the world is so confusing and overwhelming to them. This new brand new world they’re born into. And it’d be like us going to a foreign country, maybe going to a different planet and not knowing anything. And we really want those parts of our day that we can hold onto and feel solid and depend on. It really helps to build confidence that hey, I can fall asleep. So creating that environment.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  What are some other things that get in the way as we’re trying to establish healthy sleep with our children?

Grace Koinange:  I think the number one thing that gets in the way is the parent. It got in my way, sleep training my son. I love this slogan about the airlines when they say secure your own mask or your own oxygen mask before securing your child. If you’re taking care of a newborn, take care of your own body. Getting to understand that I will go get a snack or I will eat properly before I attend to my newborn. I will make sure that I’m in the right mindset. So giving yourself that minute before you walk in to be able to be present, 100% present with a newborn and you’re not doing other things is really, really important.

Also knowing as an adult, this is a really, really good time to activate your executive functions. I find most parents that I work with talk about how they were functioning adults before and now their baby’s here, and they feel helpless. And so activating your own executive functions to sort of plan ahead. If feeding is a struggle, I will maybe consult a lactation consultant.

I would also make sure that if I am struggling with feeding, sort of understanding, do I need to space the feeding so that baby is not feeding every hour? Maybe give an opportunity for a day to say, I’m going to feed every two hours and see what happens. Because feeding every two hours will help the baby sleep longer.

It will develop some sort of pattern for the baby so that you can be able to look through the data of your day and say, oh, this is where we are going, and this is what’s happening. I can build on this. That’s really important, to understand that we have the skills to do this and we can fix it.

And we do not have to fix 24 hours with a newborn. I say this to all parents. “Let’s fix 9:00 to 12:00, and then we can work on the other part.” So it doesn’t have to be a whole day. Because newborns also don’t have the same sort of organization during the day. But you will find that they will repeat what they do between 9:00 am and 12:00 pm. They’re going to repeat it tomorrow and the next day and the other day and the other day. So if that’s what you work on, then that’s your winning point.

The other thing is to follow through. If you’ve transitioned, let’s say you have a toddler or you have a child who is older and you’ve decided that this is the transition we are going to take, follow through. Follow through in whatever plan you have. And it doesn’t have to be follow-through for a week. Let’s do three days. Three days is enough for a transition to stick. I like to look at the results and see if they’re working or they’re not. So having some measurable accountability that helps you understand what you’re doing, which is what doulas do, and sleep consultants, right? This is what we do. We have a measure. “Let’s try this method and see if this works. And if this does not work, we ditch that and go to something else.”

The other thing is staying organized within your routine. You cannot do one thing today, and then tomorrow you skip it, right? If you’re going to do a sleep routine: bath, book, some sort of a song, and then you lay your baby down, the baby’s waiting for the song. So let the practice be the same routine over and over. It might be boring for us, but it is quite entertaining for the infant to say: I cannot wait for that book. I cannot wait for that song.

I also advised parents to read the same book over and over, just the same way you read it with enunciation, the way you get animated. It’s really, really exciting for an infant’s brain to stay organized within that play.

Janet Lansbury:  Exciting. But it isn’t it also that it helps them to naturally wind themselves down.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  And prepare for separation because they know: okay, here’s this part. And then there’s this one more thing that happens. And then I go in my crib or I go on my bed and that’s when I go to sleep. And my parent is not going to be there while I’m sleeping. So yeah. It helps them to wind down if we have a gentle routine like that.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah. And we also have routines. We don’t go straight to bed. Brush your teeth, you get in your pajamas. You check a text message or two, which keeps you up. These are routines that everybody follows. So it’s important to keep the same routine for children to wind down as well.

Janet Lansbury:  And then for the whole day. Like you said, it’s not just about the wind-down routine. It’s their routine for the whole day.

Grace Koinange:  Absolutely. Absolutely.

Janet Lansbury:  I understand when parents say, “I don’t want to be on a routine all day.” It’s hard to keep that perspective that this is just for a short time and it’s going to actually serve you so much better in the end because you’re going to know, oh, I have this break between 1:00 and 2:30 in the afternoon where I usually… We can never count on it 100%, unfortunately, but… I’m going to have this break where I can do my thing. It’s such a benefit to us, and it doesn’t mean that you never break the routine, but you know that okay, well, I broke the routine, so now maybe I’m going to have a couple more difficult days, but we’ll get back to it.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah. And it is truly just staying consistent with the nap times. Those are the ones that are important because if you’re putting your baby to sleep at 9:30 and 1:30 every day, trust me, there’s going to be at some point that child at 9:30 will start rubbing their eyes. Their body’s going to be ready, and you will just pick them up, scoop them up, do your routine, place them in bed. And they will sleep because then you’ve activated their circadian rhythm, which is a huge thing for sleep. And so exercising that and remaining flexible, remaining curious. I always say to parents “just let’s remain curious for a while. Let’s just explore.” When I have a parent who calls me and sleep is not happening and nap is disorganized and she’s waking up and it’s so fragmented. And I always say to the parents, “Let’s stay curious and see what’s going on. Let’s have a plan. Let’s make a plan for the morning. Let’s work on naps.”

And she will say, “I’m looking to sleep through the night.” And I say, “Let’s work on naps because it’s really, really important for you to work on the small wins, which is naps, other than working on the night.” So if you work on the naps and the naps develop in a way where you get to learn when you’re alert, and it’s not 3:00 AM in the morning when you’re exhausted and tired, you will get to understand your baby as well.

The routines really, really are important. Not necessarily reading a schedule and knowing, yes, this is going to hold me down and I don’t have a life and I have to stay home. But it’s being in a place where if I stick to this, the 9:00 or the 9:30 nap, I will be able to help my baby through the night. It is a win for the night if we stick to the routines and we prioritize their sleep. The fun will come later. You will have so much fun if you know my baby’s sleeping at this window and I can be able to take a shower at this window. Right? Just the simple things.

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah. Simple things that we take for granted.

So now I want to ask you a couple of questions that represent common questions that I receive. So here’s one from somebody with an infant who is two and a half months old:

I’m writing to you for advice on sleeping. How do I set my child up for success? I have a bassinet next to our bed, but when I lay her down in it, she wakes immediately or only sleeps for 15 to 20 minutes. I try to rub her gently to help her get back to sleep or offer a pacifier. It sometimes works for a short while, but then she fusses too long or cries and I pick her up and hold her for some time, and put her back down. But neither of us gets to sleep much. I have her in a SleepSack with arms up for now. She seems to like that. Sometimes I take her out of that and lay her next to me in bed and we’re able to sleep for two to three hours at a time. Is this the right thing to do?

I read that you should put your baby to sleep in the crib for naps and nighttime, but she sleeps so much and is only awake for short times. That would be a very long time spent in a crib. I also want to be sure she is getting quality sleep because sometimes she doesn’t sleep so well being held and then is overtired and struggles to fall asleep. I just want to be sure I’m doing the best possible thing because sleep and having the ability to fall asleep, stay asleep, and have good quality sleep is so important. And that is something I’ve always struggled with myself.

Grace Koinange:  That is a loaded question. I love it. So as you are reading, as I get to understand what’s happening with the baby, I actually know what the struggle is. And the struggle is actually not sleep. The struggle is food. If you’re not feeding the right amount to the right weight, then the baby struggles and wakes up. And you find that you have to replace a pacifier. And this is a big deal for parents. If your baby is full and they are able to settle themselves down, then they do not require extra support from us. They do not require a pacifier. They do not require any rocking or any interference. They can be able to settle their body down.

Assuming that this baby has not eaten enough and so will not be able to fall asleep, what I would say to this parent is let’s look at the food math. Let’s look at how much the baby is feeding depending on the nap times and how the baby is feeding in a 24 hour period. We should feed our babies at the right weight. So for instance, if your baby is 12 pounds, they need to have 24 ounces of milk in a 24 hour period. And then you break that down into different feeds. And that really helps babies, whether it’s to settle down or to sleep through different feeds so that you can, if you’re breastfeeding, you can be able to replenish and make milk, or you can be able to rest. So this is a feeding question and not necessarily a sleep question.

Janet Lansbury:  Sorry, so you said 24 ounces because it’s a 12-pound baby. So it’s double, but it’s in ounces.

Grace Koinange:  Yes. Double the weight.

Janet Lansbury:  I don’t have to give 24 pounds.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah, don’t give 24 pounds of food. It’s 24 ounces of milk, whether it’s formula or breast milk. And that begs the question: If I’m breastfeeding, how do I know how much my baby is having? And this is a simple thing that you can do. If you have access to a scale, a baby scale, that would be great. 48 hours is enough for you to know how much your baby is having in a 24 hour period, because then you have two days to compare. I would weigh after every feeding for two days and, every feed, I will write it down so that I can know how much they’re having. If you don’t have access to a baby scale and you have access to your scale in the bathroom, just weigh yourself first, then step on that scale and weigh the baby. And this is going to be just a lot of math of you just subtracting. But I will tell you this, doing the food math gives you perspective in understanding: why is this baby not settling? It’s because they’re not having enough, but nobody tells us what is enough. Enough is just double the weight. Make sure they’re having double their weight. And the baby will be able to settle.

When you read that question, my brain triggers food, food, food. I would not even touch sleep because sleep is going to be a byproduct of whatever we do, which is as we feed the baby and they’re little enough, they will be able to settle back to sleep because they know how to put themselves to sleep.

Janet Lansbury:  That’s amazing that you got that from this note. I would’ve been much more confused. And then how about another question, which is very common about transitioning a toddler. Let’s say like a two or three-year-old, maybe younger, maybe a little older, from bed-sharing or co-sleeping to sleeping in their own bed in their own room, and the child is resisting and doesn’t want to do this. How would you approach that?

Grace Koinange:  So the first thing is making a plan, making sure that as a parent, if this is what you’re going to do, a plan that would comfortably allow the child to understand the decision that you’re making. Because it’s hard for a child to emotionally disengage from not sleeping in the same bed with you. It does become an emotional task for the toddler. So letting them understand: “We are going to have a separate bed for you. We have decided this is what the bed looks like, and it’s a toddler bed.” And you show them the pictures and you get them involved. “We are going to paint your room and we have two colors that you can choose from. I know you like pink, or you like purple, you like blue or green.” And so the child becomes part of the process. That’s the first thing that you do.

The second thing that you do is pick the day. If I am going to approach my two-year-old or my four-year-old, who is going to be sleeping alone, or my six-year-old and sometimes an eight-year-old, I would approach them in terms of telling them, “This is happening in four days.” Make it as tangible as possible for them to understand the timing because children don’t understand next week, or in two weeks, we are thinking about this. So just make it as short as possible. It’s going to happen in four days because you’ve been working on it as a parent, and then mark your calendar.

And I like to bring this conversation up before dinner happens. Your child is asking you so many questions, and they’re impatient about the food. This is a good time to bring up a conversation about, “Hey, we are thinking about your room. I know we’ve talked about this. Today is day two, day three or whatever.” And point to the calendar. So they get engaged. So when they’re eating, they can ask more questions. And when they sit down at the table, you give an opportunity to sort of think about this before bedtime. So if there’s a position for them to think of something else as you’re walking to bed, or as you’re doing your bedtime routine in your bedroom, you can say, “And tomorrow or on Thursday, we’re going to start transitioning into your bed. And the sleeping routine will be the same. We’re going to do bath. We’re going to read a book. So this is all going to remain the same. The only difference is you will have your own big bed.”

So make it as exciting as possible because it is part of the process. And when you make children part of this process, they become sold in so easily in the choices that they make.

Now, the biggest challenge is you can plan, you can paint, the bed is ready and everything works, and then the day comes, the child is obviously going with the plan and then falls asleep, but then wakes up and walks to your room and keeps walking back and forth. And so this is the big one. This is when we decide if we are two parents, who is going to do the work? Children at 3:00 AM are great negotiators. This is a point where you have your script and the script can go something like, “I am going to walk you back to your room. I will tuck you into bed. I will walk out of the room and I will say goodnight. And I love you.” You know, just however you talk to your child.

If it was my child, I would say, “Hey, Devon, I’m going to walk you back into the room. I’m going to tuck the bedsheets. I’ll give you your stuffy. I’ll kiss you on your forehead. And I will say goodnight, and I will see you tomorrow.”

Right? So that’s the process, but it’s the same thing over and over. So in case they’re talking over you and saying, “But I want to come and sleep back in your room. And I want to do X, Y, Z,” you’re listening kindly, but you’re responding back with the same answer. Whatever script you have, it has to be the same tagline all along as you’re doing it. And as you’re walking out of the room, don’t linger. Parents tend to linger because it’s an emotional place where you feel like: Oh, maybe this wasn’t the right thing. Or maybe they’re not happy. Or maybe X, Y, Z. If you’ve made a decision, this is a decision you’ve made because you want to care for your own body or because you’ve not been sleeping well and they haven’t been sleeping well, then this is the right decision.

And once you’re in it, let’s work through this struggle. It’s been gentle. It’s been kind. And not having a timetable for this, not being angry that the process is taking too long. You’re going to have three bad nights, for sure. If you have a toddler, you’re going to have three bad nights where you walk back and forth.

And also as you make your plan, let’s expand the plan. “So I’ve walked them into their room and I’ve said, goodnight, and I’ve said all this, the tagline you’ve given me. Then what do I do?”

So the next thing is planning to say, “I’m going to stay here until you fall asleep. Tomorrow, I’m going to be halfway through the room until you fall asleep. The next day I’m going to be outside the door.” So giving them the exact information of where you’re going to be and what you’re going to do within this time.

The other thing I also talked about is having just that one parent. One child will ask where is the other parent. And they might just be calling their name or just asking for them or screaming for their name. And you will remain calm and say so-and-so, maybe, “Dad is not available right now. Dad is sleeping because it’s at night and I am going to sleep and you’re going to sleep.” And helping them through that process.

And if they are not moving or they are not doing what you want them to do, just pick them up gently and say, “I am going to help you through this process and I’m going to take you back to your room, and I will pull the covers.” Whatever the script is, just repeat that script as you’re helping them through there.

Children understand the process. They really do. The people who don’t understand the process are the adults. Because the child will say, “Oh, I am thirsty.” And then you walk to the room to get the water. And they’re like: oh, okay. I can definitely ask something else. “Oh, I am this. And I am this.” So you are running, getting stuff for the child. And the child is also building information and saying, this is not an adult who is firm on the decisions they made.

So just being firm and understanding that I will just keep saying the same thing, repeating the same script, but also preparing yourself. If you know your child is thirsty, bring a bottle of water. If you know your child sleeps with the stuffy, you bring that stuffy. Don’t bring noisy toys. Don’t bring trucks and things that are going to be destructive. Bring soft things that will not be destructive towards you and their sleep. And so, again, repeating the process helps and knowing that this is short-term for long gains. Don’t give up. Just stick to the process.

Janet Lansbury:  I love that. There are so many great messages there about the child being an active participant and having ownership of the changes that we want to happen, as they want to have ownership even from birth, in their life as much as possible. Communicating with them honestly.

And then also I loved what you brought up about something we all feel as parents that… it’s separation again, but it’s our separation hiccup, not even our child’s so much. It’s us having those doubts seep in because we want to separate in this wonderful, loving, easy way. We don’t want to feel all our doubts coming in about, oh, my child doesn’t feel loved enough, or they can’t do this, or all those things. And understanding that we’re going to be inclined to have a little separation issue with a change like this.

I also loved what you said about the negotiating, because when they say, “Now I need another thing.” Again, being prepared in advance like: “Here’s the water. How many hugs should we put into the routine?” Because when they ask for another hug then we can at least feel a little more confident saying: “I can’t wait until the morning, I’m going to give you another hug. And that will be a wonderful time for me.”

But not getting engaged in the negotiation. For me, I had to see it as I’m really not helping my child there at all. It may feel nicer to me, but I’m actually not being as nice to my child to prolong this and make them feel my doubt and have to make it okay for me, have to make me feel better about this.

So yeah, it’s a lot of reframing of ideas.

Grace Koinange:  Absolutely. And it reduces confidence they can see. And so at 3:00 AM, knowing I am confident and this is what’s going to happen. I won’t waver, and it’s through love and support. And I think children, once we are consistent with the message and we are confident about what we are saying and what we are doing, they feel supported. They feel loved. They feel like you got this.

Janet Lansbury:  Right.

Grace Koinange:  So when we waver back and forth, it becomes confusing. And they’re like, are we communicating this? Or are you saying this? It’s like having a relationship with a couple arguing about, “I hear you say this, but you’re doing this.” Right?

Then the child is really telling you, “You’re not saying what you’re doing.”

So staying confident within what you decided to do. And that’s why… Take time to think about the process. Take time to think about what we want to do. Children love anybody who can exude confidence because they are confident humans. They are true to themselves. They know what they need, and they need an adult who is unwavering and makes them feel safe and who makes them feel like you got it. I don’t need to worry about it. I don’t need to worry about my bedtime because you have it.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. Because if we’re wavering, how are they supposed to approach this challenge, whatever it is, with confidence? We’re shaking their confidence, in other words. But yeah, I’ve spent a lot of time telling myself all these things, whenever I had to do anything that my children might have not totally signed on to. So this is all wonderful.

Thank you so much. You’re such a gift. You really know this topic inside and out, and I really appreciate you sharing so much of your wisdom with us.

Grace Koinange:  Thank you so much, Janet.

Janet Lansbury:  Thank you. And I’ll be posting Grace’s contact information and her website for anyone who would like to contact her about consulting. I’ll have all that information here in the notes on this podcast and also in the transcript. So thank you so much again.

Grace Koinange:  Thank you.

You can learn more about Grace’s consulting work and contact her HERE.

Also, please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. There are many of them, and they’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. Both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or barnesandnoble.com, and in audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thank you so much for listening and for all your kind support. We can do this.

The post A Holistic Approach to Baby and Toddler Sleep (with Grace Koinange) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury, welcome to Unruffled. Today, I’m going to be responding to a note I received from a parent via email. The subject line is “How to stay unruffled when I’m angry or sad.” I’m fascinated by this topic. It’s one of my favorites, and I’m thankful for this opportunity to explain some misconceptions about the title of my podcast and what it really means to be unruffled. And how do we get there in a way that isn’t also stifling our own emotions?

Okay, first of all, you may have noticed something going on with my voice. I’ve had this really intense laryngitis for a week now, and I’m just kind of starting to come out of it. So I hope it’s not super annoying to listen to. I’m going to do my best. I’ll read this note that I got from a parent.

Hi, Janet. I’m hoping you can clarify something for me that I’m struggling to understand. I know as parents, we should appear unruffled and be the calm, confident leaders for our children as you’ve stated many times. I understand that this leads to them feeling stable and secure. I’ve also understood that it’s beneficial to let children see when we are dealing with strong emotions rather than to try to hide them and pretend that we’re okay. That it’s helpful to know when we are sad, disappointed, or frustrated, for example, as a way to model that everyone has these feelings and to show how we handle them. What I’m confused is what to do when those emotions are caused by our children.

For example, if my toddler does something that makes me feel angry or frustrated, should I hide it the best I can so that she can feel secure knowing she can’t do anything to ruffle me? I find it extremely difficult to do this sometimes, especially when someone could get hurt or something could get damaged. I can’t help reacting angrily, but I try to take charge of it by explaining to her that I need to step away for a moment to calm down. Or sometimes I let her see me take a big breath and try to regain control. After I feel calmer, I go to her, bend down to her level and assure her that I love her and that it’s okay for her to feel angry or silly, but I can’t let her scream in my face or throw books or do whatever it was that’s unacceptable. Is that the wrong approach?

I’m trying very hard not to lose my temper and stay calm, but my emotions often get the best of me. So handling it this way has become my way of at least not letting it escalate, acknowledging my emotions to my child, and trying to repair any damage I may have done from my initial angry response.

My question also applies to other emotions. For instance, I understand that it’s considered okay to let our children see that we’re upset if something sad happens. But what if we are sad because of them? My daughter is sometimes very affectionate, but most of the time these days she doesn’t want to be hugged or kissed and is constantly rejecting any affection I try to show her. I’ve taught her to clearly state when she doesn’t want to be touched. And I always respect her wishes, but sometimes I find it hard to hide my disappointment at not being able to connect with her in that way.

Is it bad to let her see that disappointment? I’m not trying to purposely make her feel bad. I simply say something like, “No goodnight kiss tonight? Okay.” But my tone usually gives me away. Should I be trying to hide it more? I want to be as authentic as possible with her, but I do understand that I need to project a calm demeanor, at least when it comes to how I respond to her in order for my daughter to feel secure. These ideas seem to be at odds though. If you’re able to shed any light as to what I may be doing wrong or misunderstanding, I would very much appreciate it.

Okay. So… yes to what she said about clearing up a misunderstanding, because this is what I want to start off with. I would not be doing a podcast called “stuff your feelings, hide your emotions.”

If you do listen here, then you know that I’m all about the opposite. I’m all about encouraging normalization of emotions, all emotions, having a curious attitude about them, encouraging our child to express all of theirs — no judgment on emotions. And yes, we do need to do that for ourselves as well and model.

But when I speak about being unruffled, what unruffled really is, is an understanding of our child and child development and behavior. What causes children to do these kinds of things that this parent shares about? Screaming in her mother’s face, throwing books, saying she doesn’t want to be hugged or kissed. Those are the only actual examples that she gave, but I can picture a lot of things that children this age do. So why did children do this? What’s going on with them? When we understand that and can connect with it…

We’re still not going to be perfect. Yes, we are going to get triggered or have an emotional reaction to certain things, but not as much. And the more we practice what we’re seeing here, which is, in all of these cases, maybe not quite the affection one, but I’ll get to that. But in these cases of behavior that, yes, could make us angry or annoyed, the reason our child is doing that is impulse. Impulse that comes from dysregulation. Their emotional centers, they’ve gone into fight flight or freeze. They are in what Mona Delahooke calls the red zone. They’re not using their brains and their reason to do what’s right, what they know in the frontal part of their brain is right. That part is getting hijacked by their emotions. And Tina Payne Bryson, and Dan Siegel, talk about children “flipping their lid.” Well, that sounds very extreme, like something we would definitely notice. If my child was just going off completely, sometimes that does happen, we notice that.

But there are all these other subtler forms of it. Things like… Here’s one that maybe we can relate to as adults… Maybe I’m on a diet and I’m cutting sugar out, but you, my friend, see me… there’s a candy bar there and I grab it, tear the wrapper off and start taking bites.

Am I super upset there? Am I flipping my lid? Not really, but I’ve done something impulsive that I don’t want to do. And so my friend telling me, “Janet, you shouldn’t do that” wouldn’t be a helpful thing to say, because I know I’m not supposed to do it. And I did it anyway. An impulse made me do it. Maybe I was just a little tired and I wanted that pick me up, and I just felt I needed a little sugar energy. Or, emotionally, things are going on for me and I just wanted to change how I was feeling.

So there are all different levels of dysregulation and almost all behavior that toddlers have and young children have, and even older children have, almost all of these concerning behaviors are from some level of dysregulation or impulse. So when we practice this understanding and we actually try to train our lens to see our children that way, we’re not always going to be able to do it. Sometimes they will just look like they’re being horribly mean to us and just such awful people. And how could they do this to me after I’ve done all this stuff for them today?  Then we realize all that stuff we did together today made them tired, but it seems really unfair. It seems all of those things. So please don’t anyone beat themselves up for having normal reactions.

But we can also train ourselves to have less of those through practicing this different lens.

It’s that expression, “my child isn’t giving me a hard time, they’re having a hard time.” Janet didn’t grab the chocolate because she thought that was suddenly good for her, but because she was having a bit of a hard time in that moment controlling herself.

So point being, the way that we perceive affects the way that we feel. It actually is the only way that I know of to change our feelings about something in a healthy way: to practice the way we’re perceiving it. There’s no other magic wand that does this.

This parent is right that stuffing her feelings and pretending is not a healthy thing, because what happens if we do that is there’s a buildup and we just get madder and madder inside trying to stuff it down, trying to stuff it down. And then we explode. So that’s not going to help us and it’s not going to help our child.

But what does help them and us and our relationship is to see them, to see them for what they are, their place in our life and ours in theirs. We’re their whole world. So when we do have an emotion, it is jarring for them. That doesn’t mean that we, again, that we want to stifle all emotions, as this parent really does understand very clearly. She actually understands a lot here. I think she’s just getting a little stuck in that lens, taking it all a bit too personally. It’s really easy to do because our children seem so capable to us. They seem so mature a lot of the time. And then there’s these other times when they’re really not, it’s not their fault. It’s not our fault, but depending on how we see it, it can make us reactive.

Or, alternatively, it can make us feel: wow, I better put that stuff away because sometimes when she goes off, she starts throwing the books or screaming in my face. She really needs to share this feeling with me. And I’m just going to put my hand here so she can’t get right in my face. I’m just going to hold her back a little bit. But wow, that’s some powerful stuff coming out of my child. It’s not about me.

Now I also understand that we have triggers. We have traumas. We have different ways we were handled as children that will get touched off in these situations. For example, if anger wasn’t acceptable to our parents, which a lot of parents I talk to it wasn’t, including myself… Then our child showing that emotion does tap into our own suppressed anger that we had from childhood. So that can happen. That’s why, again, self-compassion. You’re not going to be perfect, but our odds will improve on being able to be authentically unruffled or less ruffled if we practice perceiving.

And that’s why so much of what I try to share is about perception and perspective — understanding what’s going on with our child and this type of behavior.

The way this parent is actually handling this sounds really, really helpful and healthy to me. The only part of it I think that could work better for her is the way she’s feeling inside when she’s doing this. But her actual actions sound very respectful and positive. She says she moves away. Yes. “Step away for a moment to calm down.” If that’s where we’re at… Again, we want to try to work on that happening less, but it’s going to happen. No guilt here. No shame here, but that’s the perfect thing to do. “I just need a minute.” And then taking a moment to pause, breathe, to say: Oh, this is coming up for me. This is getting tapped into in me. These old wounds, these old feelings are getting touched off. I’m getting angry about this.

Again, the more a child does sense our dysregulation, the more this behavior happens, unfortunately. Which again, isn’t for us to feel bad about. It’s for us to understand… that if we’re getting a lot of it, it could be that our child is reflecting back to us, which is often what happens, our own feelings and ones that probably when we were children that we didn’t get to let out, so they’re coming up now.

And what are they doing with those feelings? It’s vibrating through their body. It’s making them throw, it’s making them scream. They’re showing us our insides.

But back to the way this parent is handling this, she says, “Sometimes I let her see me take a big breath and try to regain control. After I feel calm, or I go to her bend down to her level of assure her that I love her and that it’s okay for her to feel angry or silly.”

Yeah, I would more there just… “Sometimes you feel like throwing books. I want to know about that. Where does that come from?” Or maybe we know that it was in response to something specific that happened and then we can say that.

She says, “But I can’t let her scream in my face or throw books or do whatever it was that’s unacceptable.”

So yeah, “I can’t let you get that close in my face when you scream, let’s go over here where you can scream because I know you feel like screaming right now, I see that. It’s not safe to throw the books, I got to stop you. Ah, you really want to throw, you want to do all this stuff right now.” Trying to connect with our child’s feeling.

But that may come later. In the beginning, just working on our perception of our child in these moments.

So if we’re noticing. like this parent is. that it feels like our child is making us angry, our child is making us frustrated. Again, it’s not about that we just put those feelings away. It’s something to take a look at in ourselves. Maybe not in that moment, but when we can, with a mental health professional, maybe, or a counselor, to look at what’s happening to us when our child is doing these very typical normal things. Take a look at that so that we can process what we know and understand it. So we can separate it out from our child and it becomes about us.

Just like our child’s feelings were about them, our feelings are about us, and we want to have that same curious attitude towards ourselves.

So this parent says, “Is that the wrong approach?” No, again, I think her approach is spot on, but the way she’s feeling, the kind of simmering that’s going on, it can’t help but be disconcerting for a child and create, maybe, more of this kind of behavior. So just on a practical level, it’s not going to be helpful. That’s why we want to look at that. And just for our own comfort, we want to look at that.

Then she says, “My question also applies to other emotions.” And she describes how, even though her child gets to decide if she’s hugged her kissed, that when her child makes this decision not to be affectionate, that the parent feels rejected. Which again is very understandable. But it’s not actually what’s going on here that the child is saying, I don’t want to be close with you because I’m angry with you or I don’t like you.

It sounds like this is about you told me I could do this so I’m doing it. And I’m also sensing that this is uncomfortable for you. So that can be curious for a child. Why would they tell me to do this if when I do it, it makes my mom sad?

And whether we’re saying we’re sad or not, children are feeling that from us usually. So it’s an interesting kind of uneasy place for her that she may be getting a little stuck in. This is so curious. She said to say this, so now I’m saying it and she’s taking a personally.

Which again, I understand. Our days are long as parents, toddler years are… every parent deserves a medal for getting through each day. Emotions are all over the place. Behaviors is all over the place. They’re so easily dysregulated with all the changes that are going on inside them, and then all the transitions and stressors on the outside. That’s just life. So yes, of course we want our little reward at the end of the day, especially if we’ve gotten angry at our child that day, we want to feel better.

Unfortunately, our child can’t be that person for us. They just can’t. No one will ever love you as much as your child does, but they can’t be our nurturer and comforter, unfortunately. That’s just not a position they can be in. Sometimes they will do it and they’ll amaze us and we’ll be so touched and grateful, but that’s not their role.

Understanding where our child fits with us in this relationship, what they’re capable of, what they’re not capable of, will help us to see it differently and therefore feel differently about it. It’s not about her deep feelings for her parent, I can guarantee you. This sounds like an exceptional parent, so loving. This one adjustment I think will really, really help.

So what this mother is saying is, “‘No good night kiss tonight? Okay.’ But my tone usually gives me away, should I be trying to hide it more?”

No, don’t try to hide things. But if we’re expecting that our child should, of course want to kiss us good night every night, and if she doesn’t, then she’s mad at us or doesn’t like us, or we’re doing something wrong, then we’re setting ourselves up for the way this parent is feeling.

If we know that we taught this lesson and that our child for sure senses that we’ve been vulnerable around this, then they need to check that out. And that’s what she’s doing, that’s all. She’s just interested in what’s going on here with her sweet, wonderful mother.

And the place you want to try to get to, I know you may not be there yet, is a response that takes it all sort of lightheartedly because you don’t take it as this heavy rejection. You’re seeing it for what it is. And so you might say something like, “Okay, well I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Maybe tomorrow will be my day to get that hug.” Or something, but it doesn’t really matter what you say, but how you feel about it.

Just quickly along these lines, a note that I got on Instagram in a message, and it’s a very unusual situation. It won’t apply to very many people, but it actually blends really well with this topic. And I thought it was interesting. This parent says:

Hi, Janet, I have a nine month old daughter and something I struggle with is that I cry when she cries. Not because I’m overwhelmed or frustrated, but because I really feel for her, I generally cry very easily and I’m not bothered by, ashamed of that, but I don’t know what the right thing to do is here. Should I try to hold back more? I don’t mention or address it for example, oh, look, I’m crying too. But I just let the tears flow silently while giving her a hug, talking to her, but still I have this doubt that I’m being self-centered and am making the situation about me. Am I taking away from her by crying as well?

So I didn’t have an answer for this right away. I thought it was so interesting and sweet that this mother is feeling with her child. Then I started to think about the baby’s perspective. And we also need to understand this with the toddler in the other story and any child.

So a nine month old or a toddler’s perspective is that these people that are caring for me, this is the biggest, most important part of their world. And now when I’m, as a nine month old, I’m expressing feelings, I’m sad or I’m tired or I’m overstimulated or something, I’m having a feeling and the world is having this feeling with me. Does that feel comforting or does it feel a little scary?

I’m guessing for a baby it feels a little disconcerting that if I’m kind of crumbling and my world is crumbling around me, it doesn’t feel like I have a safe place held for me to have these feelings.

So yes, I would look at that and I would look in herself if she’s feeling really sorry for her daughter. Again, feelings we want to encourage as a strong, powerful thing, actually. A positive thing, not something that we feel sorry for. That’s the healthy attitude for all of us about our emotions. This is information. This is telling me something about what I care about, or what’s happening in my day or how I feel. It’s a positive thing.

So that’s what I would look at there. Again, I just thought that was a very interesting, unusual situation. Thank you to this parent and thank you to the other parent as well for sharing and allowing me to respond. And I really hope some things that I said brought some clarity and thank you so much for listening.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, JanetLansbury.com. There are many of them and they’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in.And both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play or barnesandnoble.com, and an audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thank you so much for listening and all your kind support. We can do this.

The post Can We Be Angry or Sad and Still Unruffled? appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I’m going to talk a little about YES spaces. YES space is the term that I coined for Magda Gerber’s concept for cultivating your child’s learning and creating through play by offering a 100% safe space.

First I want to give a little background. I first used the term YES space … Actually, I called it “yes place,” I think, in my post in 2010 called Baby Interrupted, which was about how we can encourage a long attention span and encourage play and encourage learning by being careful around interrupting children beginning as infants. It’s a normal thing that we all do, that I did before I learned about this approach. We don’t consider that babies or young children are doing something of great value. So when we want to show them something, tell them to look over here, or we just want to say hi, we tend to interrupt.

And one of the ways that we interrupt children playing is when they are getting into inappropriate things or doing something unsafe. What Magda Gerber said is give them a 100% safe space, which means enclosed. And a lot of people don’t realize this part. Maybe they’ve heard the term YES space, but they don’t realize that that actually must mean the space is enclosed, so that a child can’t wander out of it into an unsafe situation.

So with this kind of space, we set children up for success, for them to explore as extensively as they need to, within reason, of course. If it’s long after lunchtime or there’s another reason that we need to interrupt, then we do. But as much as possible, we want to give them free rein to do what children do best, which is explore, learn. They are the masters at this. So we trust them to develop their skills and follow their own interests in this safe space, where we’re not having to say no, don’t do this, don’t do that.

When I first came online to share about Magda Gerber’s approach to parenting, also known as the RIE approach, and I termed it “respectful parenting.”… When I first started doing this, it was late in 2009, and the climate online at that time was very much Dr. Sears and Attachment Parenting. And it was really more mommy blogs than early childhood education websites. Mostly what was talked about was babywearing, breastfeeding, bed sharing. Everything was about physical connectedness, and there wasn’t any talk about babies possibly being able to initiate their own activities and have that agency. And so there wasn’t information out there about encouraging self-directed play or about parents taking a break from their child and having a safe place so they were able to do that. That just wasn’t part of the conversation. And in fact, if a child was placed down, a lot of the attitude was well, they should be able to be free inside the whole house.

I remember when I would bring up the enclosed place space with a gate, that was thought of as a jail, a prison, a cage that we would never do to a child. So when I was presenting it in Baby Interrupted, this idea, I wanted people to see the positive —  that actually freedom is not having run of the house when your parent is needing to interrupt whatever you’re doing. You’re naturally as a young child going to get into those places to see if this thing is allowed and that thing is allowed. That’s just part of your job as a learner. What are the rules here? What gets my parent excited? What gets them upset? What brings them to me? So children are naturally going to be driven to do that. And it’s not as freeing for them, or as freeing for parents to be told, “no, no, no, stop. You can’t do this. You can’t do that.” And have your parent naturally getting impatient, getting frustrated, getting annoyed. That’s just going to happen in that dynamic.

So anyway, that’s why I framed it as a YES space, because I was wanting to communicate this idea that this is a freedom place for children and for parents to enjoy their children. Because we don’t have to say no. We don’t have to get up and stop them doing this or that.

We can also have a place where we can leave to go do something in the kitchen, to go to the bathroom. And we don’t have to bring our child with us so that we’re trying to do things with one hand, holding a child, sometimes unsafe things in the kitchen. We can step away with peace of mind because we know that our child is in a safe place.

And Magda Gerber’s requirement for a 100% safe place was: if for some reason the parent or the caregiver got locked out of the house for four hours, the child would be safe. The child would probably not be happy. The parent or caregiver would definitely not be happy about that, but they would be safe. That was her standard, because safety is always number one.

So that’s a little background.

I noticed that this term is used widely now and that’s very exciting, that people are understanding the importance of encouraging play by setting children up for success. I only wish that they would at least credit Magda Gerber for the concept, if not credit me for the term. But anyway, ultimately I’m happy that this is becoming widely understood and advised.

So another less known fact about YES spaces is that they need to be part of a daily routine for us to really be respecting our child in them. We can’t expect that we can just use it as a drop off place. Oh, now I’ve got to go do something. I’m going to put my child in this place. Children are not going to accept that happily, nor should they really.

YES spaces are places that children love to be in. This is their place. This is where they have their “me time.” This is where they get to be trusted and enjoyed by us when we are there present — fully present sometimes, just interested in what they’re doing, not trying to get them to do more or less or different, just being with our child and our child getting all those incredibly accepting, empowering messages as they get to be agents of their own learning and their own interests and their own life.

So these are very positive places. We are there in a comfortable seat. What we do in the parent-child classes at Resources for Infant Educarers is we use these things called backjacks that are kind of floor seats. Maybe you already know what those are. So we’re sitting on the floor. We’re available to our child. We’re not with our phones or distracted in those times. We’re just there. We’re present, no expectations. If our child chooses to spend that time on our lap, we let that be as well. We don’t try to engage them. We don’t try to set up special play and get them to do it. We just use it as time to be.

And children will play. They will seldom just sit with the parent unless they feel that the parent might get up and leave any moment or isn’t otherwise really paying attention to them. And then they kind of feel like they have to draw that parent in and keep them a part of it. They can’t let go of us until they trust that we’re going to be there for a bit.

We want to have this as part of our daily routine. Children will naturally prepare themselves when they know what’s going to happen next. And we can also communicate it verbally to them again. We can say, “Okay, after we had breakfast, then we’re going to change your diaper.” And I would do this with an infant for sure. “Then it’ll be time for play. And I will be with you for a while, and then I will get up to leave.” And so our child knows that after breakfast, after diaper changes, there’s playtime and my parent’s with me. And then after a certain amount of time, perhaps my parent gets up, my parent tells me they’re getting up. They don’t try to sneak away because then I’ve got to be sitting on them or totally focused on them because they could just disappear.

So we want to be honest. And if they say no, we don’t want you to go, or they have a feeling about that, we want to acknowledge it. “I hear you don’t want me to go to the bathroom right now. Yes, I get that. I’ll be right back.”

And we still go. We don’t go for a long time if our child seems distressed, but we still go for a minute and do at least some part of what we wanted to do, and then we come back back and say, “Oh yeah, that was really hard for you. You didn’t want me to go.”

Instead of saying “Hey, I just went to the bathroom, it’s okay. I’m back.” We want to remember to lean into the feelings and feel safe about them ourselves, because they are healthy. It’s wonderful for children to be able to say. “Hey, I don’t want you to go.” Why would they want us to leave?

We want to come back and say, “Yeah, that was not fun for you. You did not like me going to the bathroom. I hear you. Now I’m back.”

If we start this quite early, children will actually get used to and revel in this time. We will be able to leave without them being upset a lot of the time, unless they’re going through sensitive periods, separation anxiety, they’re tired that day, and then we do our best to adjust to that. But we still take care of ourselves when we need to, and we just don’t prolong it.

That’s how to cultivate these ideas working. We’re with our child, and then we are also allowing them to be in the space while we do other things.

And we want this to be in a place that’s very convenient to us, so it’s next to the kitchen, always within earshot. We always want to be able to hear our child, even if there are in a 100% safe place, we want to be able to hear the sound that they’re making if they need help and have it be, again, as convenient as possible.

For a very small baby, it can be a crib or a playpen. And then as babies become mobile and need more space, it can be a small part of a room or even a hallway people have used. We used to use … It wasn’t even quite half of our family room playroom area. We had a bookcase that was like a standing bookcase, not too tall, so it was safe. It couldn’t be knocked over. And we had that dividing the room. Then we also had a gate that was partly hooked into that and then hooked into the doorway.

So even when children don’t need the gate part anymore, they’re two years old or more than two years old, and we feel safe about having them be in and out, they still love the same space. Mine did. That was their play space, that was where all these magical things happened. That’s the way that we want to present this.

And then here’s another little known fact… When we are with our child in the safe place, in the YES space, we want to have the gate closed or the door closed, not having it open when we’re there and then closing it when we leave. We want to establish this as early as possible, ideally with our infant, who’s just starting to play and maybe they’re not even moving yet. We want to establish the space as an enclosed space, so that it’s not a surprise and a message saying now I’m leaving, so I’m going to close you in. Children will naturally object to that. And it makes sense because they’re very sharp and they’re taking in everything in the environment at all times. Alison Gopnik called this their lantern attention, as opposed to — as we get older, we have more of a spotlight type attention where we’re focusing on one thing and we’re not noticing the rest of it. Well, young children actually cannot do that. They will take in everything.

So establishing that enclosed area. That’s what a YES space is. And enjoying the yes factor as parents who can relax and be in the space and not have to get up and worry, and we can just stay in one place and enjoy whatever our children are doing. We’re not always silent. If our child is looking to us for a response or verbalizing something to us, then of course we respond, “Yes, I was watching you do that.”

So we take interest in, sometimes it looks like nothing, but if you really are looking, they’re doing something. A lot of people have said that they’ve noticed that their child was actually looking into a beam of light coming from a window that the parent didn’t even notice, but then finally did, or they took a picture and then they noticed. Children are always thinking and learning and doing interesting things. If we can bring ourselves down to that slower, more beginner’s mind pace that they have, it’s wonderful. We get to see through their eyes, the world and all the little miracles that we tend to miss.

So now the fun part, what is inside the YES space. There have been studies about less toys causing children to want to play longer. And what Magda said is “simple toys,” so that the child is busy learning and creating and exploring and understanding everything they can about that little stainless steel cup, rather than pushing a button, a song plays and then they can’t really understand how that works ever. They can’t really master that. They can’t use it in a variety of creative ways. They are more passive to those kinds of toys. And therefore, those kinds of toys are less encouraging for them. They don’t have that sense of confidence in their ability to understand something in their environment.

But if they can turn it every direction, put it on top of things, under things, around things, put it on their head, put it in their mouth, which they all do — in the first year at least they’re putting everything in their mouth to feel it. So we want to have the toys ideally be encouraging for learning, encouraging for mastery.

And what we’ve noticed in our parent infant classes and toddler classes, because they basically take place in a YES space, where the parents are sitting there on the floor, just paying attention. Sometimes we’re talking as well, but other times we’re just observing quietly what the children are doing. That’s the most fun part to me. What we notice is that what children will do is use those same items that they used as infants in different ways that are valuable to them as they get older.

So again, going to that stainless steel cup that I recommend, it’s like a condiment cup, they’re very inexpensive. I’ve linked to them on my website. That baby might hold it, feel that on their lips and their mouth, maybe drop it and see how it kind of spins.

Then as the child gets older, they’re pretending to drink from it and giving the parent a drink, saying “I’m making coffee” or stacking them in different ways, putting other toys inside them, making rows of things. There’s a never ending amount of things that children can do with simple toys.

And often a child will do something totally unique that I’ve never seen before, after teaching for 20 years. It’s pretty amazing.

So this is one of the differences in this approach… We don’t recommend switching out toys — that we take away the toys that were there and put out all new ones. Why? Because we don’t feel that’s as respectful to a child who loves to predict, loves to know their environment, feel that sense of confidence of knowing, and maybe wanting to use that item again and not able to tell us that. And then they just notice, oh, that’s not here.

So we believe that it’s more encouraging and respectful to not be moving toys in and out of the play space as a choice that the parent makes. And if we do want to take things out, it’s nice to say to your child, “You know, it seems like you don’t really use these. So I’m thinking that we’ll put these away for a while, or we’ll give these away,” to give your child that heads up.

Another thing is, as much as I love the aesthetic, personally, of all the beautiful wooden toys, those are fine for one child, but you don’t want to have big heavy things that a child could hit another child with accidentally or could be harmful. So sometimes the most beautiful toys are not as freeing for children or for us as the ones that are plastic. Be sure to get the non-toxic plastic. They are lighter.

I remember I used to go into Pier One Imports or one of these import stores and be picking up interesting objects. And I would sort of knock them on my head to see how hard they were if they were to hit a child on the head. That was to ensure safety with group play.

And also with group play, you want to be able to wash the toys easily. So that’s another reason to maybe choose more of the lighter, more plastic-y type things than the heavy wood.

Here’s another difference in this approach… We want to have, ideally, different types of objects or toys in the environment. And maybe if we’re trying to minimize, just one or two of each type of toy. So we want to have something for their gross motor skill development. We used to use these big square cubes made of wood that were hollow on the inside that a child could crawl through, they could pull up on. Later, they could climb up on and even stand on and jump off. There was something that they could grow with and use in a lot of different ways.

Also, you’ve seen me share, it’s called a rocking boat, but it’s actually better used, especially in the early months, as a step climber. It’s arc-shaped. And so it can turn over to be this rocking boat, but it’s made of wood and you can pad the floor around it if you’re worried. You want to be attentive maybe in the beginning to see how your child does with it. You don’t want to help them up or help them down. You just want a spot so that they don’t fall unsafely. But we don’t want to give them a false sense of balance by grabbing them off of it or putting them on it or helping them do it. It’s really important for children to find that balance in themselves. It makes them so much safer. So we like to trust them to use it however they’re ready to.

Also, you could just use a coffee table that’s safe, where children could pull up and use that to cruise on. And there are foam pieces, also, that you can use.

So anyway, something for gross motor, and then for fine motor, you can get manipulatives, which are basically like a bunch of one type of thing that are smallish. You don’t want to too small for choking, but we used to have these little nuts and bolts that were made of hard plastic that would all be in a bucket together or a colander, or they might even be Duplos or Legos as children get older. So having those types of manipulative toys, where there’s several of one of the same thing together in a bucket, and then children can use that different ways. They can shake the bucket and make the sound. Anyway, there’s endless variety of things they can do with those as well.

So that kind of toy for fine motor, then things that are firmer like stainless steel and the wood, and also soft toys, like maybe there’s a stuffed animal or a soft baby doll. And then there’s also maybe a harder material, baby doll, a more lifelike baby doll.

So hard, soft, maybe a soft area that has big pillows around it. And then maybe there’s a little basket of books there. Although books are kind of a separate category because you can’t do everything with a book. Well, you can, but it’s not great for babies to put books in their mouth and chew them and throw them around, so that we kind of want to keep separate. But in a home, it could be nice to have a little basket of board books there that we just keep more of an eye on children using those appropriately. Or we have the books up a little bit and we don’t have them in the free play area.

Balls, can’t get enough balls in a play area. Different kinds of balls are nice to have, different sizes, different materials, soft ones, harder ones, lighter ones, ones that are a tiny bit heavier, maybe, they’re still safe. So a whole basket of balls is wonderful to have. A lot of learning and play happens with balls.

I’m going to share at the end of this, a whole bunch of resources for the types of toys and videos, where you can see a play space set up and children playing in them. But yeah, it can be a lot of fun as parents, and this is our creative contribution to play, ideally, that we get to choose the items and set up the play area.

Then from there, we have a big challenge of letting go to what children are doing. If they’re turning the rug over to the wrong side, we let it be. And there’s just a fun kind of letting go and trusting everything they do is perfect as it is. It’s all about them and their choices and what they’re choosing to learn. It can be such an educational experience for us in knowing our child. And again, the messages they receive from this are just so empowering and loving and accepting and easy to give, really. We just have to set it up and let go and trust them.

The last thing I want to say is outdoors is also wonderful. It’s never entirely safe. We always have to keep somewhat of an eye on outdoor play because we can’t control some of the elements, even if we have a gated area set up, which I did with my young children when they were babies. But wow, if you can have a window where you look out and your child is there and then you can easily step out if you need to…! And then you can make your life outdoors as much as possible. Magda Gerber highly recommended that. She said to have a table outside where you have your coffee. In the old days we had newspapers, but you could have your laptop maybe out there. So having time where you’re just doing your work or having a snack and enjoying your child in their play space that’s near you, or you are sitting in there with them.

Children play usually much longer outdoors and they love it, helps them sleep better, eat better. It’s wonderful for us as well. Just really elevates the whole experience.

So anyway, that’s a little about yes spaces and I hope it’s helpful. Let me know if you want to hear more or on certain aspects, I will do another podcast on this. So thank you! and hope it helps.

Also, please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, JanetLansbury.com. There are many of them and they’re all indexed by subject and category, so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in.

And both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play or barnesandnoble.com, and an audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thank you so much for listening and all your kind support. We can do this.

(Large photo is of wonderful Isabel courtesy of her mother Yeni )

More YES Space and play resources:

The Best Toys for Babies Don’t Do Anything and Selecting Toys for Infants by Magda Gerber

What is Play? by Lisa Sunbury Gerber

Setting up a Play Space by Kate Russell

Creating a Safe Play Space by Christina Vlinder

From me on this website:

7 Gifts That Encourage Child Directed Play

Infant Play – Great Minds at Work

How to Create a ‘Yes Space’ Outdoors When You Don’t Have a Yard 

Play Space Inspiration and Outdoor Play Spaces (I can’t vouch for the safety of these parent-submitted spaces, but they’re great for ideas)

Baby-Led Adventures — 5 Reasons Babies Need to Lead 

Better Toys for Busy Babies

Creative Toys Engage Babies

Colander Girl

Shhh… Babies Playing (Scenes from a RIE Parenting Class) 

Fearless Baby, Empowered by Risk 

You may also wish to check out my recommended toy section and the many videos on my YouTube Channel

The post YES Spaces – What They Really Are and Why They Matter appeared first on Janet Lansbury.