The Modern Moms Roadmap to Balance Podcast

Episode 18: Crafting Peaceful Parent-Child Sleep with Special Guest Kim Hawley

• Kayla Nettleton

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When the soft breathing of your sleeping child syncs with the night's calm, there's a harmony every parent knows. This episode cradles that tender topic as Kim Hawley, a holistic sleep coach and lactation consultant from Intuitive Parenting DC, joins us for an intimate conversation on bedsharing and responsive family sleep. Together, we peel back the layers of cultural norms, personal journeys, and the often conflicting health guidelines that shape the choices parents make for their sleeping arrangements.

Navigating the parental tightrope of nighttime rituals is no small feat, especially when society casts a shadow of doubt over practices like bedsharing. Kim and I candidly share our experiences, from the warm cocoon of shared slumber to the tug-of-war with societal pressures and the search for a balanced definition of "healthy sleep." As we traverse the landscape of infant and toddler sleep, you'll gain insight into the complexities of making these intimate choices, armed with research and a broader perspective on cultural diversity in parenting practices.

No parent is an island, and our conversation takes a heartfelt turn towards the evolution of parenting within the nuclear family. We ponder the biological need for a supportive community—a village we often find ourselves without. But fear not; Kim's treasure trove of resources, stories of shared parenting responsibilities, and the occasional night-time shuffle bring a beacon of solidarity to the forefront. Tune in and feel the embrace of a community that understands in the still of the night, every whisper, giggle, and sigh is part of the beautiful symphony of family life.

Helpful Links:

https://intuitiveparentingdc.com/

Social Media Links:

https://www.instagram.com/intuitive_parenting_dc/
https://www.facebook.com/intuitiveparentingdc

Articles Discussed:

La Leche League Safe Sleep Seven

Thank you so much for joining me this week on today's episode. Be sure to follow me on IG @therapy.with.kayla

I love hearing about your insights and aha! moments from the show. 

About the Podcast Host
Kayla Nettleton is a TX-based licensed therapist, business owner, and mom of 3.

In her private practice, Kayla helps women break free from cycles of anxiety, perfectionism, and people-pleasing. Her holistic approach guides clients toward authentic, fulfilling lives by reconnecting with their intuition, setting boundaries, and building confidence.

Kayla also works with couples, especially parents balancing marriage and family. She offers both traditional couples therapy and focused intensives (6 to 18 hours) to help partners address key issues like communication, trust, and intimacy.

Through empathy and effective therapeutic tools, Kayla helps couples reconnect, thrive, and create healthier, more supportive relationships. Her practice transforms self-doubt and disconnection into growth, healing, and lasting change.


Find Kayla on

IG: @therapy.with.kayla

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YouTube: The Modern Mom's Roadmap to Balance Podcast

Email: kayla@kaylanettleton.com

Free Consultation: Schedule a Free 20 minute therapy consultation here.

Speaker 1:

Hello everybody. Our guest today is Kim Holly. She is a holistic sleep coach, lactation consultant, peaceful parenting educator, mom and the owner of intuitive parenting. She helps tired parents bring together developmental knowledge, sleep science and their intuition to improve family sleep. Her specialty is holistic, responsive sleep for support for babies, toddlers and nursing families. She's the founder of responsive family sleep, an online sleep support program for parents looking to support sleep without sleep training, and she's also the host of the new podcast, the responsive family sleep podcast. Thank you so much for joining me, kim. How are you doing today?

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me. It's always like a little ooh sounds so professional. You're so many regions by now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I always struggle with, like, what to put in my bio. Yeah, me too, especially when they're short. I mean, I guess anytime I have to write my own bio, because you know, people always ask us to write our own bios and I get it, of course, because we know ourselves best but it can be nerve wrecking just to write everything out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1:

So I am very excited to have you on, because this was a topic that I wished was talked about more. When I was, when I first had my first baby, we bedshared with all three of our kids, and we still have one in the bed right now. He'll be two in January the youngest and so that was something I was excited that you have knowledge on and experience and work to de-stigmatize bedsharing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have a special love of working with bed sharing families. It's certainly not, you know, not all the families I work with are, but I love it and I mean I bedshared with my kiddos and it's just. It's a lovely tool and it's so normal and yet it's so stigmatized in the US, you know, in particular, we're so hardline on it.

Speaker 1:

And there's almost. Now it's better, but it felt like there was no support, at least when I first started. And now when I found you, I was like, oh, this is so awesome that parents have this now and there's more research on the benefits of bed sharing, if that's something that you choose to do, especially if you're a nursing family as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. I remember my oldest is 10. And I remember looking for resources just in general about developmentally normal sleep and what's normal and just all of that and just coming up with very, very little. And I was kind of fighting bed sharing with him in the sense that, you know, it felt really right and we were kind of doing it. But I also was at the time working as a public health officer on a program that dealt with infant mortality reduction.

Speaker 2:

It was very AAP right. All of our AAP guidelines Don't advise that as an environment to become a parent for the first time. It's kind of stressful, even if you also have a lot of awesome, knowledgeable people around you.

Speaker 2:

But I remember the first time I found like legit resources on bed sharing thanks to a lactation consultants and it was like binge reading all the research on it. It was a slow time at work. I was like I'm just going to read all the articles I had, all the research I had, and I was like, oh my gosh, just so much out there and now it's so much more accessible.

Speaker 1:

Because it used to be that the average person didn't necessarily have that access to those articles, because a lot of them are blocked, not price blocked, there you go, but you would have to pay to even access these articles, and so that is one of the downsides of that, which I completely understand. The people doing the research want to be able to benefit from their research, but then it makes it hard for the average person to access that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and now I mean there's the Academy of recipe medicine protocol that's publicly available. There's the Lettuce League International, like Safe Sleep 7 and Sweet Sleep. There is so much on baby sleep info source out of the UK. I mean, there's Kelly mom. There's so many resources that have really good bed sharing and cold sleeping info that I mean it's all that wasn't out there before. And then gosh is James McKenna's book on safe infant sleep. There's just so many now, oh yeah, and how did you so?

Speaker 1:

you spoke a little bit about when, with your first child, you were working on this research and then you started looking more at what's the research out there on bed sharing. What were you nervous about in the bed sharing? For me I know it was. The doctors would ask the question in a way that you had to say yes, so baby has their own bed. And they smile like oh my gosh, to say right, like sure.

Speaker 2:

So our pediatricians office, at the time with my oldest, had these forms you filled out every time you went in and you would like check yes or no. And my husband, I cracked up because the yes and the no switch sides. But there was the good parents column and the bad parents column, as we jokingly called it because they're like do you hold your baby while you drink cop averages? Oh, check in the bad parent column. Yes, I drink my coffee with my child.

Speaker 1:

That was a question like something like that.

Speaker 2:

But actually our pediatrician was amazing. I loved her. We had her for the first two years. I would go back to her at a heartbeat if for the fact that I don't really want Kaiser insurance again. We had it and it was fine. But we have different options now and I love her. I get clients local to me who have her and I'm just like I'm so jealous you still get her. She's so amazing.

Speaker 2:

So, for me it wasn't even her, because she really treated me like an equal. She knew, like my mom is a pediatric nurse, she knew I had a public health background, she knew I did my research and she was comfortable going thoughtfully off recommendations right Like off of guidelines. She could really think and have a discussion and respect her parents in a way that I don't think is very common. For me it was just, you know, I am working on this public health program that is all about infant mortality reduction and part of that was very strict AAP guidelines. So everything I did with my grantees was like what percentage of their families are bed sharing? And that was a bad thing, right, was like looking at that, are these babies sleeping when they're supposed to be sleeping? And so I was set up well for bed sharing.

Speaker 2:

I knew that I slept in my mom's bed for years, like I think three, I mean that's just when I weaned it, I don't know, but I bet you with her and I knew it, and I also have a cultural anthropology background. So I also knew that globally people bed share, right, that's just a norm. But man working on like infant mortality reduction stuff, again, it just kind of puts out fear and anxiety into you. You know I should be following the AAP guidelines because that's what a good parent is going to do. And then, like I said, chatting with this lactation consultant when my son was four months old and she was like there's so much research out there on bed sharing. Let's unpack these guidelines a bit. And I can't tell you to do it, and I'm not because you know I can't, but she's like go look at Helen Ball and James McKenna and you read the research and see what you think is a public health professional. Like nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Like guidelines are going to start to shift, to be more accepting.

Speaker 2:

And she's right, they have in the UK and they have in parts of Canada and Australia, not so much here, but in other places they have shifted to more about risk reduction and accepting that it's normal versus kind of our abstinence only approach right Like just never do it yeah yeah, and that abstinence only approach.

Speaker 1:

actually I was scared to bed share, and I also. My mom is a nurse, so she was also very much against bed sharing to the point where I told her, but I didn't. I didn't feel comfortable telling her what I was doing, only because I didn't want to hear, I didn't want to feel reprimanded for it if that makes sense and so because of that abstinence only take on on bed sharing I felt really wrong.

Speaker 1:

I felt like I was a bad parent, that this is not what I should be doing, or that I wasn't strong enough, like strong enough, to leave my baby in the crib by themselves. So all of that stuff came up for me. But for me I was a I'm still a nursing mom, and so that worked best for me. I didn't have to wake up to nurse, I mean in the sense that I had to make bottles or pump or any of that. I didn't have to get up to get the baby. He was already right there, so it made it so much easier. But it I feel like until he was at a certain size and I can't even remember when I was still in fear and I was going to, I had that. I'm going to get in trouble. You know, I'm going to get in trouble feeling all the time, which I didn't help in terms of getting good sleep.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I remember the first time I mentioned that work that I was bed sharing with my oldest and I think it came up because one of our co-workers had gone, she'd retired but she'd gone overseas for some sort of conference, I forget, and was coming back with all sorts of good info that was including a lot about skin to skin and she had been talking about something about co-sleeping. It came up by somebody else and I was like, oh yeah, it's totally not. Like I made some comment about it being globally normal and that something about us doing it, and I got this like I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I was like you know, and I was just like, oh you know, not one of my words to get into, but also I opened my mouth, so it was a little bit my own fault. But with my daughter I remember that question around. Forget how they asked it. It was something about where was she sleeping? And at this point I was a sleep coach and this wasn't our regular pediatrician because she was on maternity leave. She had a baby a few weeks after my daughter was born.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And it was some whatever nurse practitioner filling in. I'm like, oh, we have a sidecar set up, which we did. She just didn't sleep in it and I got lying. We do have a sidecar set up, and we did. And you know, looking back, I'm like, you know, I probably should have been the one to be like we're bed sharing and I would have gotten a lot of, you know, pushback on that and I knew exactly the person who should say it, because I can like, actually, you know, this is my professional background in multiple ways and I talk the safety to you, you know more knowledge within you, but I was like I had a new mom, like a six day old baby. I don't want to talk about it with her, like I'm not interested in her opinion, and so I didn't really want to go there, so I dodged it.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, yeah, With all of my children. Again, the youngest he's going to be two in January. I didn't tell any of the doctors, I didn't tell any of the pediatricians that I bedshared because I really didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to hear any of the pushback from it and at that point I was already really comfortable but still wasn't prepared to have that conversation with the medical professional.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, one of the professors who I did some peer lactation support with. She's a public health professional, like a professor, she had her PhD and she openly told her pediatrician that she bedshared and they were starting to lecture her. And she's like, excuse me, like I have my PhD in public health. Like you don't think I know the research and how to analyze research, Like let's not go there. And I was like that's amazing, that's so impressive to just kind of waltz in there and be like yeah, no.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But I'm not going to hear it.

Speaker 1:

For both of us. We're both pretty comfortable with our decision, and you had a background in public health. Why do you think moms need to hear, to help them recognize that, yes, this is the right decision for them?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I guess part of that is acknowledging, right, it's not the right decision for everyone and that's okay. I always like to acknowledge that but to remember that our brains amplify risk when it's something that we've kind of culturally defined as risky, right? So a lot of people feel like bed sharing is super risky, but wouldn't think twice about falling asleep, sitting up with their baby or putting a two-month-old baby in their own room, both of which are objectively not safe, right? As opposed to bed sharing, which can be done safely, just like crib sleeping can be done safely. It can be done unsafely, just like crib sleeping can be done unsafely. And so we are culturally predisposed to really amplify the risks of bed sharing in comparison to other unsafe like actually unsafe sleeping environments. And I see this with some of my clients not usually my ideal clients, I'm not usually like the ones that are like super aligned with me, but you know you work with people who are kind of along the edges of who you typically work with and I'll see that sometimes and I'm like you know all I can do is educate. What parents do without information is out of my control, but you know it's scary to bed share and so they're sitting up and they're falling asleep with their baby and like this is clearly like this isn't safe.

Speaker 2:

But I think there's a lot of that cultural anxiety that we create around it, even if you're not a super anxious person. And then there's that guilt, that like is this a healthy thing to be doing? Am I getting in the way of my baby's independence? Because we're so obsessed with healthy sleep equals independent sleep. You know, 12 hours by yourself in your crib with no support, it's like actually healthy sleep for babies.

Speaker 2:

But that's what we are culturally told. That's a narrative that is constructed around healthy sleep Really narrow definition as opposed to flipping it, being like okay, bed sharing may not be for everyone and some people may have risk factors. That makes it not a great choice. But it's the biological norm, it's the cross cultural norm, and people bed share in countries that have much lower sleep related deaths than we do in the US, and so I think that's a really important like perspective. But ultimately, if you're super anxious, you're not going to get all the benefits of bed sharing because you're not going to be able to sleep as well, right, and so there's that piece like do you feel comfortable enough to really own that decision or are you kind of doing it but really, really anxious about it? And you know, sometimes that's not something that we can information or reason with that level of anxiety, you know.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I don't know, did that actually answer your question there?

Speaker 1:

I don't know if I kind of so what I'm hearing is for one, look at the research. There's a lot of research out there that there is a safe way of bed sharing. If you feel like bed sharing is the right choice for you, this is not a choice everyone can make. Not everyone is going to feel like they're getting restful sleep if they're bed sharing. I know friends who have told me no, I cannot sleep if baby or anyone is in the bed. I need to have my space. My husband is kind of the same way. He is like don't touch me, I don't want anyone touching me. So luckily our bed is big enough to where, for the most part, baby doesn't kick him or hit him. For the most part it happens.

Speaker 2:

I can say you have an almost two-year-old who isn't like putting their feet in everyone's face.

Speaker 1:

Just my husband's, not mine, just my husband's. He always gets kicked in the ribs and so, but for me I got my most restful sleep. We did transition, like the bigger two, into their beds. I feel like I slept worse because I didn't have them next to me, and there have been periods with the youngest that I've tried to put him in the crib to see how he would respond if anything changed, but then I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep without him because I'm used to it. I'm used to having the little warm body there next to mine that could love against me and I absolutely love it. But I know there's other people out there who like their space.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean that's what was with my daughter. We didn't even try to not bedshare from day one because I was like I will be less anxious, knowing she's right here than separate from me, and so we didn't even. I didn't even put any effort into it. It wasn't something I was even interested in pursuing for me, right, and she's the kind of baby that I might have been able to, but I didn't really want to.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, and so I was 23 when I had my first baby, and so I tried to follow the quote unquote best practices right, and I put him in the crib and he was so tiny. He was so tiny and I just put him in the crib and the crib just looked huge. It just looks ginormous. And we had probably a smaller sized crib compared to the norm, but he just looked like this tiny little thing in the middle of this big, ginormous crib. I thought to myself I can't, I just I couldn't leave him there.

Speaker 1:

And my husband boyfriend at the time was like he'll be fine, I was fine, I was finding the crib. My mom said she put me in there day one and I never wanted to sleep with anyone again. I'm like I don't, I can't do this, I can't just leave him there. So from I think it was just that one time that I tried putting him in the crib and then never again. We actually just got rid of the crib yesterday and so it really didn't get used. Only only a few maybe, maybe at the most a few weeks of all of my children combined that this crib got used. But we, finally, a front of ours, were having family over and they needed a crib and I was like, oh, you can take ours out of the way, it's just taking up space in a room.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. And when you were talking about the cultural expectations that we set, what came to my mind also was oh, if you have they're in your bed, you're never going to get them out.

Speaker 2:

And oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:

It's like you're going to have this teenager who doesn't want to leave your, leave your bed, which is just silly. That's not going to happen, but it's. I mean yeah. So I'm saying like that's not going to happen, but I actually loved sleeping with my mom. My dad would travel for work and that would be something that I would do. Like me and my sister would be excited or at least I can't speak for my sister and I would be really excited, like yes, that means we get to sleep in mom's bed. So that was actually kind of a norm for us too, even though she didn't bedshare with us as babies.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I remember some post and I don't remember who was some post that went viral on Instagram or Facebook by somebody or another and I've seen it go around a couple of times and it's like you know, we say you'll never get them out of your bed and all this stuff about like needing you at bedtime. And it goes through the story of this, like 15 year old who had their first crush and got their heart broken and comes in and snuggles in with the mom's bed They've been really irritable and wouldn't say anything about it comes in, snuggles in and like opens up, snuggled in with the mom in bed and it's like you know why would why are we afraid of this? Like essentially suggest and I think that's just really powerful Like we, we show up for all these ways when they're little and plant those seeds through when they're older. Right, if we want them to open up to us, if we want them to feel like we'll support them around those hard moments and things come out at bedtime with big kids that won't come out at any other time.

Speaker 2:

I then we're planting those seeds when they're younger, you know, but I hear that all the time Like I don't I mean I'm far with bed sharing now. But oh my God, my sister-in-law's, you know, brother's kid is like six and still in their bed. That's just, that's just so awful and I'm like well, actually, you know, that's culturally normal Some places.

Speaker 2:

One and two your baby, six months old. There's a big difference between six months and six years and many opportunities where, with the right support, you can make that shift, even if your kid doesn't want to do it on their own. You know, shifting a toddler or preschooler out of your bed is very different than a baby who really needs that contact to sleep. You know you have so many more tools and it's there's so much more ready to be independent and sleep separate from you.

Speaker 1:

That's what actually helped.

Speaker 2:

Oh sorry, go ahead I was gonna go ahead.

Speaker 1:

I said that's what actually helped transition our oldest into his own bed. In my mind I had it a whole three sounds like a good age because he'll be able to understand and he was really ready and able to understand what it meant to sleep in his own bed. And I'm not saying that there was not a transition or that he wasn't a little bit resistant, but it was very smooth and he is a great sleeper. He's eight now but he's a great sleeper and he will fall asleep as soon as he closes his eyes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when they can understand like you have so many more tools, you've so many ways to scaffold them through that transition and support them and help them feel confident and still connected to you even as they're separate, because they're more ready for that together while apart, like holding on to that closeness while apart. They're just more developmentally ready for it at those ages than you know, baby, that attaches through their senses and proximity versus like an older kid, you wanted to talk about safety, and so we go through that, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I'm loving this conversation because I think it's helping to normalize that. Yes, this is the thing that you can do safely. Yes, this is the thing that you get to choose to do, because, unless you're looking for it or I'm trying to think like I get pushed stuff in the algorithm of social media because of the content that you're putting out, but I know that's not always the case. Like there might be some moms out there that are listening and have felt alone in their bed sharing because maybe people around them don't bed share, maybe they are in a family who didn't believe in that or doesn't think it's safe, and so I think talking about the safety side can be also really helpful as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh my gosh, the algorithms. It's so funny because obviously I follow a bunch of holistic and responsive sleep folks because they're colleagues and friends of mine and so all I see is sleep lactation, sleep lactation, sleep lactation. There's a pediatric PT or OT and there's a therapist and it's like, and so I hope to remind myself that, like my clients, the families that I work with are not seeing that like not all of them. Some of them are falling some of the big accounts, but some of them have no one else they have found. And it's funny way the internet, like those algorithms, kind of make you be like isn't everyone seeing this? And it's like no, everyone isn't seeing this. Sometimes you forget like everyone isn't seeing the same stuff you're seeing.

Speaker 1:

Because even in like my networking efforts of just letting people know about my practice and the podcast, I still get get people that are telling me wow, this is so needed. It's really hard to find resources in this, but when I'm scrolling through social media, that's almost all I see are these resources, but that's because it's being pushed to me Exactly.

Speaker 2:

I think that's something good to keep in mind for moms. If you're like feeds are filled with all my babies are sleeping through the night and like you know, maybe parenting or sleep advice that doesn't feel like it resonates, doesn't feel right, like it's not that that's the only thing out there. It's simply how you know Instagram or TikTok or whatever is algorithm is kind of serving you that information and so I'm going outside kind of what they're pushing to you to sort of get those other resources will start to shift that. But I think just knowing that like it's creating this little pocket of information around you but it isn't, it isn't everything, it isn't an equal, just like distribution or representation there's the word.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Oh, what's out there but safe bed sharing, I love to just sort of start with the La La Chile International Safe Sleep 7. And if you Google, like the La Chile International Safe Sleep 7, you get a really lovely article. And I always say that if you're gonna look at one thing on bed sharing, that's probably the best, just like comprehensive one source the other ones that I love, but like that one just has. It kind of touches on all the bases and it has citations. But basically, when we're thinking about particularly babies under a year and we want a nursing, sober and non-smoking parent, right and sober isn't just hey, did I have a glass or two of wine with dinner. It's like any medications or substances or things that you're taking that would make you sleep more deeply and therefore be less aware of baby in bed. So anything that has like drowsiness as a side effect. Also, having less than four to five hours total sleep in the previous 24 hours has you neurologically impaired. I always tell my doula friends this and they don't really appreciate it. But when they're driving home from being at birth, but yeah, anyway. So that's kind of on the parent side for a baby. We want a healthy, full-term baby on their back when they're not nursing right, a baby on their side, sidelined, nursing, is fine and lightly dressed and not swaddled. And so you know, with the parent the risk factors are around cigarette, smoke exposure and medications and alcohol consumption, and for the baby it's things like being premature, low birth weight, ending up on their tummy, overheating, not having free access to their hands, because that's part of how they know what's around them, their environment. You know, if a sheet were to get pulled over their face they can. Even a newborn baby can bat a sheet off their face. And so from those factors and you know we just don't have the research to say when, like a premature baby or a low birth weight baby, like when does their risk even out to a full-term baby? We don't know that, we just don't have the research to say. So that's just kind of one of those, you know, unfortunate research gaps. And then that you're sharing a safe surface and of course, adult beds aren't designed for safety for babies, and Western, you know, beds particularly, you know, in America we have high beds, we have beds full of lots of soft mattresses and pillows and big, fluffy comforters, and so it is something you have to think thoughtfully about versus cultures where they have low, firmer beds with less soft stuff all over them, so generally.

Speaker 2:

But you want baby at chest height. So basically, if you, if you, sideline nurse, it's a sideline nursing position but it's it's also called the cuttle curl. You know, babies at chest height, right where they would nurse, your one arm is above their head, they're kind of under your tricep and that's kind of blocking them from getting up into a pillow that you might have. And then your knees are pulled up under baby and you make this, you know, c shape around them and that keeps them close, easy nursing and that area right around baby we keep free of bedding. And then of course, you need a firm mattress and you need to make sure that baby can't like roll and get wedged.

Speaker 2:

You have to pay attention to the perimeter of your bed. You know if you have a really high bed, you know that's something to be cautious of in case baby was to roll out, and really heavy covers should be off the bed. Access pillows should be off the bed unless it's, like you know, tucked behind your back for comfort or between your knees. And so, really being mindful of you know that we have to adapt the bed to to minimize risk. So that's kind of like the big, big review. No pets in the bed, that's another one, no other. No older siblings should be near baby, you know, and that's kind of like the big picture. And babies younger babies of course are more vulnerable. Once they can really roll both ways and push themselves up, they're much sturdier, they're much more resilient. And even with toddlers we should be mindful of falls and you know places they could get wedged, so kind of that perimeter check and awareness, even for younger toddlers, when little less concerned about bedding and such, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I mean our. Our baby fell off the bed a few months ago.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it happens.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think he was crawling around and just went over the edge.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, like, technically, the gold standard is to make your bed a floor bed, right to pull out the mattress off the frame and drop it to the floor. I work with lots of families that didn't do that. I did not do that with my own kids, but I mean, technically that's. The gold standard is to, you know, to create a low bed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what about so shifting to the benefits of bed sharing? I know we touched a little bit on it when I was talking about how it was. I felt like I got more restful sleep, especially because I was nursing, so I didn't have to get out of bed every time I needed to nurse. Are there other benefits?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it really does facilitate nursing. Bed sharing babies nurse a bit more and they help maintain your supply better and you don't have to get up, right, like you said, so exclusively breastfeeding. Bed sharing families actually get the most sleep and research, because you're synchronized, right, you have. Well, you have the nursing hormones, help you go back to sleep more quickly, all that oxytocin release, and then when you sleep near your baby, your sleep cycles and sleep states are more likely to overlap, so it's like your in lighter phases of sleep together. So it's easier to facilitate that feeding and getting back to sleep.

Speaker 2:

Babies are getting all that touch and contact which you know. I feel like the more we learn about neuroscience and all that, the more we know that the more we touch babies, hold babies, cuddle babies, the more we wire their brains. You know if we're resiliency and why are there stress systems to be more resilient? And yeah, so we have that regulation of them. We have all that good touch. We have generally less energy and effort on your part and you know the support of nursing. I don't know if you're familiar, if you've heard the term breast sleeping before.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, I'm trying to think Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a term coined by Dr James McKenna, who I love. He's amazing, he's a biological anthropologist and he's one of the leading maternal infant sleep researchers in the US, and coined it with another researcher whose name I don't remember right now. But it's basically just to illustrate the interconnectedness of bed sharing and sleep and feeding Right, that they're part of an integrated system and when we're sleeping near our baby and we're nursing, we get that whole interplay really playing out as part of that interconnected system and the way it's biologically meant to be. So it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

When I was pregnant with the first, I was working. I'm trying to think. In the place I was working there was a woman who had two children and she also breastfed them, and one of the things that she had told me was yeah, it's so nice Now that I'm thinking about it. She's one person that I knew of that bedshared. I am just making that connection right now, but because I was in, so my internship was in Toledo, toledo, ohio, and I moved back to Texas after I graduated from grad school, so we weren't around each other after I graduated, so I'm just making that connection.

Speaker 1:

Well, I remember her telling me a story of how her baby was just able to find her breast in sleep on her own. I didn't even have to do anything, he did it all. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. And that wasn't necessarily my experience with my first child, because then I kept remembering that story. I'm like, oh, that's not how it worked for me. I actually had to show him where it was. But the consecutive kids my second and third they were all able to find the breast on their own and they would just latch on in the middle of the night on their own and just thinking about it.

Speaker 1:

It's so cool that they're able to do that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is, and I like that because it is true that sometimes happens. It doesn't always happen. Sometimes it'll happen in some phases, but not others. Sometimes parents will sleep really well and sleep breast sleep really well when they have a baby, but then when they're toddlers, suddenly it's like you get that nursing version and all the pinching at you and poking at you and it's just like skin crawling and I think that just speaks to. It is not one way that bedsheering unfolds, just like there's not one way that sleep unfolds. There's not one way that parenting unfolds and there's a whole range. Just because maybe it isn't restful anymore or you didn't get that magic sleep latch doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong, right? It's just part of that whole experience.

Speaker 1:

And it's I mean, just like you said, everyone's experience is going to be different. I don't think any two bedsheering experiences are going to be the same, and that's because our temperaments are all different.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. I was always amazed at what my husband could sleep through. I'm like, how did you not know how many times our kids are like he's just sleep, sleep like right next to them? I'm just like, oh my goodness. But it was also good, because when I was nursing my kiddos, I fell back to sleep very easily, and so it was easier for me to be woken up more than for them, and if I ever needed him like oh my God, I can't get this kid back to sleep, he would be happy for me to wake him up and take over. And so it was like I was glad he wasn't being woken up. But also it was kind of funny to me that I'm like, how did you sleep through that, you know, when they were in one of the more disruptive phases of sleep and bed sharing.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, and even when. So the way we have our setup now is, our youngest is bed sharing and our middle child, she'll. She's three, she's a later three and basically my husband is in charge of her. So if she gets up in the middle of the night, he will put her back in her bed, or or he'll have her stay in our bed. He makes that decision, and so when I was able to finally fully let go it didn't happen immediately. At some point I finally let go of. I am not in charge of her when he's here. He's there most of the time. I'm not in charge of her in the middle of the night. I will oftentimes not hear her or even feel her when she comes into our bed but, I will always feel the little one.

Speaker 1:

It's like it was a relief to have that help and it's so nice that that could happen, because I didn't think that I could get there when I wouldn't be able to like fully turn that piece off.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's. I love that you could kind of relinquish that responsibility to him but still be really dialed in and attuned to your other kiddo.

Speaker 1:

It's pretty cool. I wonder if other people experienced that. I know that's not. I feel like that's an outlier thing.

Speaker 2:

I don't know. I'm thinking back, I'm thinking back. I'm thinking back for five years apart. I'm thinking when, like you know, when I was like, okay, if our older kiddo needs anything in the middle of the night, it's not going to be me anymore. You know, when we started to really make that shift ahead of my daughter being born, and I feel like I did some of that as well. You know, some of that letting go, so I think I don't know how common it is, but.

Speaker 2:

I don't think you're the only one either, and I just think it's a really cool way that we sort of attune our nervous system and our ability to know what's going on into what we kind of need to you and kind of filter out what we don't.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and when you have a partner who is helpful in that took some time to get there. That's also a benefit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's hard to be in charge of multiple kiddos at night time needs out to support, right, like we really need that support because we weren't. I mean, we biologically we're not really speaking, we're not supposed to be in nuclear families, we're supposed to have way more adults around to be helpful. Like we're supposed to have big, sprawling support systems, including intergenerational homes with multiple adults, so that there are other people besides just you, you know, as a parent, able to help support some of those nighttime needs, and that's not most people's reality anymore. And so it's like it's hard, because it's hard, but also it's less hard when both parents are helping out in some meaningful way, even if it's not like exactly even or anything like that, just feeling like they're both pulling weight.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much, kim, for coming on. If someone is wanting to reach out to you, what is the best way of getting in contact with you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I'm on Instagram at intuitive, like underscore parenting, underscore DC my website. I have a lot of free content on my blog and my podcast is linked there as well, and that's intuitive parenting DCcom. And so those are most of the places that I'm hanging out, unless I am, you know, actively working with parents, which I do both one to one and in a group setting Awesome.

Speaker 1:

And I'll be sure to link all that up in the show notes. So if you're driving, don't worry about trying to write that all down. It'll be in the show notes when you need it. But thank you so much, Kim, for joining me today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks for having me.