Finding Your Voice In Parenthood with Tracy Gillett | #17

I remember as a new mum, just really feeling like how we're told to parent is so that adults can get what they want rather than babies get what they need.

Hi, I'm Greer Kirschenbaum and welcome to Spoil youl Baby. As a mom, neuroscientist and a longtime expert to parents, I want you to know that almost every expert has it wrong when they say don't spoil your baby. Up until the age of three, your only job is to spoil your baby with affection, attention and protection. And I promise you that it's the best path to the long term mental health and success of your child. On my podcast, I will interview leading experts to explain why you need to spoil your baby as well as those that may disagree for a spirited debate. I will also give you the most up to date science backed tools and tips that will help you raise your baby for lifelong health and success. Welcome to Spoil youl Baby. Hello everyone. Welcome to the podcast. Today I am so excited to have Tracy Gillet here from Raised Good. Tracy is a wonderful friend and colleague. So welcome Tracy.

Thank you Grea. I'm so honored to be here. I'm just. Yeah. So looking forward to our conversation. Me too.

I look forward to all of our conversations.

Me too.

Why don't we get started with you telling everyone, listening a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Sure. So I'm Tracy. I am the founder of Raise Good. If you haven't heard of that, it's a. I call it a natural parenting platform that it really started out as a blog and it was me tapping away blog posts on my phone when I was contact napping beside my son and I was as a new mother, I remember my. Well, my midwife said to me when I was pregnant, we were talking about sleep and I just ordered the crib and was getting that set up and had gone into great detail to make sure that I got something that was non toxic and all that kind of good stuff and the cute little crib sheets and all those things that go along so you feel prepared and, and I remember her saying to us, no, he's going to sleep with you. I was like, what are you talking about? And she was like, no, he's going to sleep with you. I can tell. And she was very confident and very English and. And I was like, you're, you're. You're crazy. I'm not sure what you're talking about. But she had really aroused my curiosity and so I left that appointment and started to dive into the world of attachment Parenting and co sleeping and Jim McKenna's work and all sorts of things that just were blowing my mind. And as soon as I read about co sleeping and the way that, you know, we're meant to hold our babies close and that's what they're born expecting, suddenly I think it kind of opened this world for me where I was like, I thought I knew how parenting was going to go and I thought I knew what I was supposed to do, but now it suddenly seems so much more exciting because you go to a movie not to know what happens at the end. Right. You read a book not wanting to know what happens at the end and so you get to write it yourself. And then when my son was born in the hospital, I remember seeing the sign on the wall that said, you know, the baby needs to go in the clear plastic bassinet, you know, that iconic crib that's in the hospital rooms, and I put him in there. I said, I better do what's what, you know, what it says on the wall. Just while we're here. Yeah. He lasted in there for all of about two minutes. He was fine. But I was. We'd gone through a three year fertility journey and then I'd gone to 42 weeks of pregnancy and I was like, are you kidding me? Like, I have waited all this time to meet my baby. What an anticlimax that he's over there and I'm here. Yeah. So I picked him up and I brought him into the hospital bed, which now that I know about safe bed sharing guidelines, wasn't too safe. But he, he came into bed and he didn't leave. And it really, I think once you peel back the layers, you start uncovering these, these truths that were these sort of cultural conditioning for what we're told we're supposed to do in parenthood, what a good mother is. Once one shatters, they all start to shatter. And it really started to give me the permission to write my own journey when it came to mothering. And I was just so happy as a new mom, I was exhausted. I'm not like rainbows and unicorns, kind of like really overly, you know, positive person. But I was so happy as a new mum and other mums were noticing and they were saying, what are you doing differently? Like, what's going on? Why are you looking so happy? Yeah, like it's all oxytocin. So I started writing and I wanted to share what I was learning because it was so incredible. And that's where raised Good started as a blog. And More than a few people read it, and it started to reach millions of people, and it really created a life of its own. And it's something that's become such a passion for me. In a previous career, I was a veterinarian, and I became a vet because I really wanted to be a voice for those that couldn't speak. And when I was a teenager, I was very passionate about animals, and I still am. And then when I became a mother, I realized that babies needed a voice, and young children, and they're very misunderstood. And then I also realized that mothers needed a voice, that parents needed a voice so that they could really enjoy parenthood, as hard as it is to enjoy it and to write their own story instead of being told how to do it by someone else. I love that.

I love how Raised Good was born. Just from your heart, right. Just from your experience and your love for your son and. And you were able to follow your intuition there.

Yeah.

In all of those places. Right. It's beautiful.

So beautiful.

Yeah. It makes me really sad, the status quo for babies and moms and babies need a voice. They really do. You know, so many of my own explorations into my own experience, I always come back to that. And they are speaking in so many ways. They're communicating in so many ways, and they need us to be able to acknowledge and understand. And they also need people to speak for them because there's a lot of people speaking for them against what they actually need. So they really need us to be speaking for what they truly need and what we know they need.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think the prevailing. I remember as a new mom, just really feeling like how we're told to parent is so that adults can get what they want rather than babies get what they need. And what I found was that when I got in flow with what my baby was born expecting and with what his needs were, you kind of get into that river, like that flow, and it just becomes easier. And yes, there's going to be, like, there's going to be rapids and there's going to be an occasional waterfall, but you're at least going in the same direction as your kid.

You're not trying to paddle upstream.

Yeah, yeah. You're kind of paddling upstream with society, but you got to make a choice between the. And if you go with society, then you're going against your child. And then I think it makes things so much more difficult. So, yeah, I think it's so much more fun to parent in a way.

That your kid's expecting I love how you said that. How the ending, you didn't know the ending. You didn't know what to expect. There wasn't prescriptive laid out for you the way that a lot of modern parenting is. And it's true because you grow and change so much in that relationship with your baby. When you have a natural parenting style that you're surprising yourself all the time, you're like, wow, I have this new skill.

Wow.

I have that new skill. Wow. I can read my baby's mind.

Wow.

I can calm down from stress. I can be in the presence of someone in pain in a beautiful way.

Right.

There's so many incredible things. Yeah. Yeah. And I thank you so much for your work, your. Your blog and all of your, you know, your new ways that you support parents are so, so necessary in this world. And so many parents just know that one way, they just know what the mainstream way is. They don't believe there's any choice in it. And I had this discussion with a colleague a long time ago. It's like, what do we give new parents to just open their eyes to all of this?

Right.

And so your blog's off top of that list.

Thank you.

All of your work, top of that list. James McKenna's book. You know, like to think my book can help people as well. There's a. There's a nice list. Right. I actually have something on my website that has a bit list of books and a list of websites. That is a place to start, Right. Just to be open, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

It's so important. And like you said, like, you didn't know how to sleep safely with your son in the hospital. A lot of parents don't. But now your. Your blog's there. We've got, you know, co Sleepy. We've got, you know, James McKenna stuff more widely known. We have Joey Band, which is a great product that can help.

So.

So that stuff is luckily there. And. And when my son was born six years ago, there was none of that for me either. It's. It's really very recent that this beautiful explosion of knowledge and resources are out.

Yeah. Yeah. We're gaining momentum.

Yes.

Awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, completely. So along with that, with sleep and all the support that parents get, I wanted to talk to a phenomenon that just keeps coming back to haunt us. I kind of like have this wishful. Because I am an optimist, I like, I have this wishful thinking. It's like, oh, we've made so much change. Like, things are so great now. And then you Just get pulled down with this, like, you know, with the knowledge that parents are really being put in positions where they have to separate from their own intuition, separate from their baby in some cases, in a way that causes lifelong ruptures in relationships and in health.

Right.

It's very serious. Recently I had two babies in my life around three months actually today. Heard this news twice today. Babies at three months going to their pediatrician, the pediatrician saying, oh, your baby must be in a sleep regression right now. Time to get out the sleep training instructions and printing out a generic extinction or fervor protocol from their PDFs and sending the parents on their way. Tough stuff.

Tough, yeah. Heartbreaking. And all too common. All too common. And like you, sometimes I think I get into my own little bubble and then occasionally it'll be burst by somebody sending in a message like that. And I'm like, seriously, is that still happening?

It's 2025.

How could that be happening? This is not 1925, but, yeah, a lot. You know, that's when it originated, wasn't it? Like, we. We talk a lot about the history of sleep training, you know, early 1900s, that thinking still exists. And, you know, I talk to new mothers a lot about. I think new parenthood is often the time when we suddenly find our voice and we suddenly have something that we need to stand up for. So many of us are raised to be people pleasers and to pay attention to authority for some reason. I've never really paid attention to authority. I do, yeah, I do, but I'm happy to question it, but that's often the first time when mums need to question it. And I think pediatricians, doctors can still be up on a bit of a pedestal in terms of their authority. And I think that can really undermine a mother's confidence when the pediatrician's saying, now it's time for sleep training. I think to the extent that a lot of parents think that sleep training is just something inevitable, that they have to do that, it's almost rite of passage. And it's so sad because it starts to instill this idea into parents that your child's broken and something needs fixing and here's the solution. So, yeah, it's obviously absolutely not what they need.

And it's. It is surprising now that, you know, you see so clearly that unless a doctor has taken a course in infant mental health and. Or breastfeeding, lactation, they are completely speaking out of their scope by giving their patients information on sleep and feeding. That's one message today is Please trust your doctor and everything that is in their scope. Obviously, ask questions, obviously ask for alternatives, do your research, get second opinions. All this kind of stuff is important. But do we know what doctors are trained in?

Yes.

And it is not infant sleep and it is not infant feeding.

Yes, you know. Absolutely. Absolutely. And. And I feel for doctors, too. I know from my days of being a vet, you know, people would come in and they'd think that I know everything about animals, like, every. And I'm like, no, no, that's not what I learned. Yes. But I think. And so I feel for doctors if they are being asked about everything, but often it's not necessarily that they're being asked, they're just volunteering. That's right.

That's right.

And so it's this understanding. I go to my medical doctor, I just see my medical doctor as part of my healthcare team, and I know what's in their toolbox, and I know what's not in their toolbox. They're amazing for diagnosis. Like, they're amazing for emergency care. If. If I get hit by a bus, I don't want some homeopathy. I want to be taken to the ER if I have a broken leg. So if your child has a medical problem, then that's fantastic to go there. I also go to a naturopath, or I go to a homeopath, or I go to a physiotherapist, and each has their specialty. But doctors very much are not specialists when it comes to sleep or breastfeeding. Yeah. And there's a long history within pediatrics, with formula companies and all of that kind of stuff, which I think still carries on today and influences some of the opinions that come through. But, yeah, I would just really encourage mothers to take it with a grain of salt when they're given any kind of advice from their pediatrician when it comes to sleep and to step up and say, you know, no, you know, thank you so much, but I really don't need any advice on. On sleep.

We've got it.

Yeah. And talking to someone like yourself, it's.

A lot to ask, right? I think it's too much to ask of doctors. And my. My plea to doctors is, please, just say, when something's out of your scope, just please do it. If you are not very well educated in the subject, just say, sleep's not my area of expertise, or breastfeeding is not my area of expertise. Here's a lactation consultant or here is a sleep doctor. Hopefully somebody that has taken a training like mine or the other ones out there that are supportive of infant sleep to teach parents based on the science of sleep, which is really, really important. So that is my plea for doctors and for parents is have that confidence to not be a people pleaser in that situation, to be your baby's protector in those situations. And exactly like what you said, like, you know, say respectfully, I'm hearing you. That's it.

Yeah.

You don't have to say anything else. My doctor at 6 months told me, she's like, oh, is your baby still waking up? I was like, yeah. And I just feed him right back to sleep, no big deal. And she's like, he doesn't need any more milk any night. And I was like, okay, that's your opinion. Never talked about it again. I was like, cool, got it. Yeah, yeah. I don't, you know, but you know, I think along with that there, I want to talk about why there's that three month sleep regression and like why we expect it and what, you know, what is the truth about it. But before we go there, I think it's important for parents then to have the right people supporting them in these decisions too. Right?

Absolutely.

To support the sleep, just to keep breastfeeding going as long as they is good for them. Because we really need that. We can't do that alone.

No, we can't do it alone. And we were never meant to do it alone. There was meant to be a village and there's been a rupture in that transfer of information from, you know, maternal elders. And so I wish that no one would need to read a parenting book or seek out an expert or go to a psychologist or all those things. Like, yeah, but we need that. That is now our village of support. And we're trying to like relearn so much of what we already know. Like what you and I both teach is, is nothing new. It's ancient wisdom that's been. And, and I think this is where it's so powerful. When science can, in the modern times that we're living, when science can confirm what our intuition is already telling us. And when those two things come together, when you can really understand why and it feels right, then it's a very powerful force to be able to say to your doctor, you know, I really appreciate that you care. I appreciate that. Concerned about my sleep and my well being and my health. But my job right now is to look after my baby, to look after myself as well. And, and for me to be able to feel confident in that, I, I need to be Able to follow what I know, what's right for me, and to not have that undermined by somebody else. Yes.

Because that can happen.

So real relearning. Yeah.

Yeah. Some people come back to me and say their doctors told them so if their baby's not sleeping through the night by nine months, or doctor's like, you caused this, you're a bad mother. They'll go to that length to say, you are a bad mother, you failed your baby, you didn't sleep. Train them at three months old. Shame, shame, shame. Just crazy. Just like, get out your pad and write a prescription for postpartum depression. Like, get severely depressed. Here you go.

Yeah, I know.

Tragic.

Yeah. And I'm no ex. Like, I, I wouldn't even try to venture into the world of talking about postpartum depression, but I felt very strongly when I was a new mum and, you know, and I have a blog post on my website from a mum who experienced postpartum depression. And Zelma Tolley, she's from Australia and she's beautiful writer and she really helped to bring in that link of she was being forced to separate from her baby. You know, the sleep training clinics that exist in Australia, all that kind of pushing, all of that stuff. And I can't help but think, you know, these hormones like oxytocin and prolactin, all, all of these things that are meant to be protective for mums, and then we're taking that away. How can that not have an impact on depression and anxiety when these things are protective?

Moms and babies are one physiological organism. They, their hormones are connected, their states are connected, and if we separate them, it's potentially very harmful for both.

Yeah, it really is. Absolutely. Yeah. So let's tell us what happens at this three months.

Yeah.

Let's clear the progression.

And then we're gonna give people a really good resource. Too many. A few. Yeah. So for me, sometimes I smile when things are very painful and uncomfortable. That's like one of my.

I do that too sometimes.

Okay. So I'm probably gonna smile through this. I'm gonna try to like, let's be rooted in the truth. It really, really is deeply painful to me to hear this. To the three month olds, their sleep's in this regression, which means that they're waking up more frequently than they probably previously did. A lot of babies sleep very well between two and three months. Some will sleep 10 plus hours or, you know, a very, very long stretches. It's like this really nice lull. I remember my son did it once we were staying in Joshua Tree and I woke up, I was like, oh my, what the heck? He did not wake up last night. I was like, okay. Didn't happen again until he was two and a half. But then, you know, somewhere in that three to four month time, babies will, you know, not all of them. He actually didn't do that either. I don't know. Did your son do that occasionally?

Okay, yeah, yeah.

So I didn't, I didn't experience the sleep change at three to four months. My son had other ones, right? Yeah, yeah, but not at that time. But it happens for a good proportion of babies, Right. I think also more for babies who are doing solitary sleep than are bed sharing or close sleeping as well.

Yeah, I remember there was definitely. Yeah, I remember around four months and then around eight, nine months. Yeah. And that, and that sort of. Remember those periods of time when it was like he was just waking up to nurse like every 45 minutes or an hour. What's going on here? You know? Yes. And then it changes. Yes.

And so that's it.

Right.

So in, you know, sleep development, there's a major change for babies in sleep, their circadian rhythm system in their brain, where they know when the sun comes up, it's 12 hours of awake state in the brain and body. When the sun goes down, it's 12 hours of a sleep state in the brain and body that all just begins to unfold at 12 to 14 weeks for babies. And same with their melatonin system, their, their own production of melatonin also starts to come online around 12 to 14 weeks. So they're really going from this newborn phase where it doesn't make sense for them to have a 12 hour wake and sleep time because they actually need to feed all around the clock to keep everything healthy and growing. But then they do make this switch. Right. And so sometimes when that switch happens, they will have these wakings through the night. It's sort of like the old systems coming offline, the new systems coming online. It's temporary. It's usually for some babies it's a few nights. For some it's up to two or three weeks. Sometimes it is. Yeah, it is, but it is temporary. And then they move through it and the sleep changes.

Right.

Sleep for babies goes all up and down. So it is completely inappropriate and inaccurate to say when this sleep change happens. Your only solution is to sleep train your baby. It's at a time where they actually need extra support and does not indicate any sort of problem or issue.

No. Right, absolutely. And yeah, from, we can't go into all these. There's so many directions that this goes into. Right. Like, we know that sleep training doesn't change baby's sleep. It's for parents sleep. It's. Yeah, by, by just. Yeah. Putting, putting your baby in a room and not responding. That's. That doesn't change anything to do with sleep.

They're so vulnerable.

Development, brain development, it's all of these things. And, and it's hard when you're in that two or three weeks, it can be easy to catastrophize. And when you're sleep deprived, it can be easy to think, oh my God, this is going to last forever. But it doesn't. It doesn't. And parenting is this long game. And I always tried to keep in my mind of like, I'm trying to make nighttimes a safe place for my son. I'm trying, you know, where do monsters under the bed come from? And you know, fear of the dark and you know, insomnia rates, like going up and up. Like, we want nighttime to be a safe and nurturing place and long term. I, I always just believed like you, you start as you mean to go on and, and if we can provide that for babies, then our children are going to have so much of an easier time with sleep. Yes, absolutely.

So that's our take home today. Have the confidence to know that you do not. Your doctor's opinion is not the only one. And you could just smile and nod and walk out of there and keep doing your beautiful thing. And the other one is that it is a total myth, a total outright lie that this regression is this time where you must be taking control of sleep and sleep training. And there's a third thing which is it is hard to do it alone. And so Tracy has a beautiful community of mothers and herself and other experts. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I feel like after hearing all this, parents are going to be like, yes, I want to be in this community. I need this.

Absolutely. So the community is called Gather. And I started it two years ago as a, you know, I have a Facebook group that's got like 20 something thousand people in it. I'm way more. Greer probably knows by now I'm way more of a one on one kind of person. I like to go deep in relationships rather than wide. And I think we really need that village of parents around us. And so I created Gather to educate. So we, you know, have guest experts coming in and talking to us. I give workshops on topics that I'M passionate about and that I'm knowledgeable on and cheat sheets and guides and things that can help parents get through. We have listening circles in there to come and, you know, share what's going on for you to get support. Greer comes in and we do sleep support sessions for parents. All sorts of things. A community where we can really just say, me too as well. And sometimes that's all you need is to know that like, yep, my baby's still waking up. Yeah. My toddler had a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket today. Yeah. My kid won't eat anything that's not beige either. Like, whatever. The thing is just to know that you're not alone and that your kid's not broken and. Yeah. So that's, it's, it's a magical place and I just love the mums that are in there. We know, we know where each other's, you know, I know where the mums live. I know their, their kids. We had a, we had a book club last month and we, we got together yesterday for a, for a book club discussion. Dr. Vanessa Lapointe's book, your book is on the list. So, yeah, we do lots of fun stuff. It's the community that I wished existed when I was a new mom. Yeah.

And this type of parenting can be very lonely. And when I do one on one sessions with people and they bring this up, I always say, join Tracy's group, you know, get into some Facebook groups in your local community and say, I'm, you know, bed sharing, breastfeeding, responsive, whatever, whatever you describe yourself as. Who else is out there and connect with someone who's doing it the same way. At least one person or a beautiful group like yours. It's so important in those days.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep. And there's, there's no one size fits all. You know, there's no rules in the group. If you don't breastfeed, if you can't breastfeed, if you don't babywear, there's no like, there's. Everyone belongs. What connects us is that intention, that priority prioritizing relationship and connection with our kids. And you can do that in so many different ways completely. So it's not.

I didn't mean to say that either. Nurtures hooks a million. I, I just want so many different ways.

Yeah.

So many different ways. Babies that you can sleep in their own space, you can feed them anyway. But. Yes, exactly. We want, we want to keep the connection.

Right.

The emotional connection.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beautiful.

Well, thank you so much Tracy, we'll put all your in the show notes, and we'll do this again soon, I hope. Yeah.

Sounds awesome.

Thank you, Greer. Thank you.