Self Regulation and How It Helps Your Baby with Amanda Armstrong

Today’s solo episode of the Baby Pro podcast, Shelly tackles the power of singing lullabies to babies. She mentions an interesting study that discloses how singing strengthens the bond between parent and child and boosts the baby’s development. The study focused on infant-directed singing, which includes songs with identifiable melodies, tempo, pitch, and repetitive elements. Shelly encourages parents to continuously use singing as a sleep cue for their babies. 

 Later in the episode, Shelly interviews Amanda Armstrong, an anxiety and depression coach and a founder. She created Rise As We – a neuroscience based, integrative, and trauma informed coaching practice that helps heal anxiety and depression through a lens of neuroscience and lifestyle design, providing tangible tools and a personalized approach. Mental health looks different for everyone and so will the solution. 

 Amanda talks about self-regulation and how it helps both parents and babies. Stay tuned so you won’t miss this insightful episode!

In this episode, you will learn the following:

•  The significance of feeling supported and connected to a community as a prime factor in developing resilience and lessening mental health challenges.
•  The concept of parenting through a nervous system lens, giving a new perspective on understanding and handling overwhelming feelings. 
•  The importance of seeking help and support to learn the coping skills and techniques for parenting and not trying to navigate parenting alone. 
•  Hiring someone, like a parenting coach, can cause a highly impactful effect on improving one’s parenting skills.

Connect with Amanda:

Instagram: Instagram (@amandaontherise)

Website: Rise As We | Anxiety & Depression Coaching

Connect with Shelly: 

Website: Massachusetts IBCLC | Lactation Consultant – Shelly Taft

Instagram: Instagram (@shellytaftibclc)

Resources Mentioned: 

 Article: Lullabies promote bonding with baby 

Lullabies strike a chord: Singing to babies strengthens Bonds and boosts development

Transcript:

Amanda Armstrong 0:00
It took us probably eight or nine minutes that feels like eternity as a busy parent, I had a million other things to do than like to handle this banana situation. But he got to the point where he was like, can you get the banana out of the freezer all eat the broken banana. And I was like, Oh my gosh. And then he goes, thanks for helping me with my feelings Mom.

Shelly 0:22
Hi, I’m Shelly And I’m Maria. And you’re listening to the baby pro podcast, where we talk about everything in anything related to pregnancy and through the first year of your child’s life. Every episode we will discuss an interview experts and all the answers to the questions expectant and new parents want to know, such as creating the perfect birth plan, infant sleep, and tips and tricks for parenting a newborn and welcome to the show.

Shelly 0:45
Hey, friends, is Shelly and Maria is traveling to see family this week. So it is just me, myself. And I I did want to talk a little bit about a couple of things. But first, our guest this week is Amanda Armstrong and she is going to be talking to us all about self regulation and how helping yourself regularly helps your baby regulate as well.

Shelly 1:10
But first, I came across an interesting study. And this study reveals that singing to babies, especially lullabies, strengthens bond and boost development. And I just thought that this was so cool. And one of the most common sleep cues that a lot of parents will use is singing. So if you are using singing lullabies to your baby as sleep cue, keep doing it because this stuff is great. Now the study focused on what they call infant directed singing, which includes songs that have a melody, with an identifiable tempo, pitch and repetitive elements. With or without lyrics. Typically, these songs were low or slower, and at a higher pitch than ordinary songs. Even if parents were singing on a regular song that you might hear on your playlist, they would typically slow it down and maybe raise the pitch a little bit when singing it to their babies. So the study was actually a systematic review that included 21 studies. The median sample size in these studies was relatively small, at 31. Moms babies. And in almost all the cases in the studies, the parent involved in singing to the baby was the mother of the baby. Some of these studies had as little as four families, Mother diet couples, and some had almost 400. So there was a wide range. And what they found based on body movements, sounds that the baby made attention the baby’s mood was that when parents saying to their babies, babies became calm, they went to sleep, or they were distracted from something that was previously bothering them. And so these type of alibis or melodies typically reduce the body activity, and induce quietness, and, and resulted in more smiles in some of these studies. And so the bottom line of this systemic review was that singing your baby lullaby is natural, we all tend to do it. And for good reason, it does help them regulate, it does help them calm, it does help you bond with your baby. So keep singing those lullabies.

Shelly 3:28
And next, I have our question of the week. So this week’s question was submitted on Instagram. And the question is, how do I stop my teething of my nine month old baby from biting my nipple while breastfeeding? This is a tough one. And I think most parents who breastfeed until their children get started to get teeth have questions about this? The thing to remember is, if your baby is breastfeeding the way that they should, they’re moving their tongue correctly, they’re latching correctly, teething shouldn’t be an issue because their tongue comes forward and covers their lower gum line and protects your nipple against the new teeth coming in. Now, sometimes, babies will bite down on the nipple as a way to soothe themselves from the teething pain. And when this happens, our first instinct is to kind of pull the baby off and say, oh, and yeah, we want to try to avoid doing that as much as possible. I mean, sometimes you can just avoid having that reaction. But the problem with that reaction is if you’re pulling your baby off your breasts because they’re biting, it’s going to cause more damage to your nipple. And then if you’re yelling like oh, and in pain for some babies that can startle them and frighten them. And in some cases, they’ll even refuse to nurse for a little bit after. So one of the best responses that helped me when when my babies were teething while I was breastfeeding them is if you can if you can remember to do this when they bite down instead. of pulling them off the nipple, pull them more into the breasts so that their nose and their mouth is completely covered, then they’re going to let go of the nipple so that they can breathe, right. And then you just firmly tell your baby, no biting firmly, but very gently, and stop nursing your baby for a few minutes. Your baby will learn fairly quickly that if they want to continue to nurse, they can’t just bite you. Other things that you can do is make sure that they’re comfortable from the teething pain. So I always found that offering a cold tea there before they’re ready to nurse was helpful. I’m trying to keep them as comfortable as possible. That strategy that I just talked about worked really well with my first two now with my last my son, when I said, Oh, we don’t bite, he thought my reaction was funny. And so then he would try to purposely bite here and there but to get that reaction out of me again, and giggle and laugh the whole time. I will say that when he was doing that he didn’t quite bite as hard because it wasn’t really an intentional, I’m gonna bite down it was like what happens when they do this? I want to see that reaction again. So those are some tips that you can try if your baby’s teething and therefore biting while feeding. And if you have a question that you’d like Marie and I to address in the podcast, you can message me on Instagram, actually tapped ibclc.

Shelly 6:22
And next up, we will be speaking with Amanda. This week, we are speaking with Amanda Armstrong all about self regulation and how that helps your kids to self regulate too. Amanda is a neuroscience and trauma informed anxiety and depression coach and founder of rise as we in mental health coaching space. Her experience in education has led her to create a unique research supported and whole human approach to healing through personalized lens of neuroscience and lifestyle design. From completely personalized coaching to the most comprehensive mental health membership out there, rises, we offers the programs and support Amanda wishes she would have had on her healing journey. Hi, Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today.

Amanda Armstrong 7:09
Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Shelly 7:11
I love this topic. I could talk all day about it. And you know that I often think about how I need to regulate myself and I’m still it’s always a work in progress. Do you feel that that’s true?

Amanda Armstrong 7:21
Oh, forever. It’s a work in progress, especially because just when you think you’ve figured it out with one kid, the next kid is different and has different needs and also triggers you in different ways. And so you have to kind of up your self regulation game as a parent, because I think for me, there has been nothing more healing than motherhood, but also nothing more triggering than motherhood

Shelly 7:45
100%. So So you have tell us a little bit about yourself. You have kids yourself.

Amanda Armstrong 7:51
Yeah, so I have two, I have a three year old little boy. And then I actually have a real fresh one. He’s about six weeks.

Shelly 8:01
Oh goodness, that’s a three year old and a six week old. And how is the three year olds adjusting?

Amanda Armstrong 8:06
Honestly, he’s the riving as a big brother. And I think we did a really good job of providing him like a lot of time and a lot of context for baby brother. And I think three so little backstory in between, we tried to have a smaller age gap between my first and my second we actually had four losses. And so that took a little bit time. But we ended up doing fertility treatment, because we just couldn’t get answers as to why we continued to miscarry. And so that’s what gave us this little ball of joy. But I think three years was the perfect age gap for our family at least because he Cade is the name of my three year old, he has so much more ability to like, talk and articulate himself. And so I don’t feel like there’s as much competition between the two because Kade can clearly articulate and we can meet his needs. And so the baby is seen as kind of this fun thing. And I’m breastfeeding, but I’m pumping just enough that like Kade can feed him a bottle every couple of days. So he feels like he can participate. And I also just, I think, got really lucky I have a kid with a pretty helpful disposition. And so it’s just fun. Can you help get a diaper? Can you help change him? Can you so any as much as we can include him, but he will tell everybody about his his baby brother and that he’s a big brother. And it’s been really fun to watch him kind of on that roll. We’ll see that may change when Locklin can crawl and like get to his toys and stuff. But right now while he’s like contained to the place we put him, my son is thrilled and loves being a big brother.

Shelly 9:46
So it seems like everything’s really just going well for you in the postpartum period that I know that that can be like a really stressful time for a lot of families. And you’re kind of like the expert on self regulation and in reducing stress in your life. So have you found that having that background has played a huge part in helping this transition go smoothly?

Amanda Armstrong 10:09
I think it’s been absolutely essential. So just so that, I know that you do a kind of a formal intro, but so I’m a nervous system based anxiety and depression coach. And so having an understanding of like, the things that help our nervous system to feel safe and calm, are not only so crucial for like me as a parent to help my kids developing nervous system, but also, for myself, like in motherhood, I also, we had a pretty traumatic birth. So I was trying for VBAC. And I had a uterine rupture, which is like less than 1%. Yes, attempted VBACs. Yeah, it’s like, it’s a big deal. And the good news is, it was kind of the best of a worst case scenario, myself, the baby like we made it out, healthy and well. But it’s still a scary thing. And I actually on my podcast, did an episode basically, you know, what does it look like to be in kind of a traumatizing experience something like that? And to not walk away traumatized? Like, what are the things that we need? And why I think I was able to walk away from pretty extreme birth trauma without holding that trauma in my body. And it was a I think, the previous regulation work that I’ve done, right, I came in there with a really regulated baseline, I very intentionally before I went into labor, like, kept my stress levels down, like did very, you know, a lot of vagal, toning practices, lots of breath work practices, etc. But the other two was to create a sense of safety. So what can you do so that you feel safe in the environment that you’re in the people that you’re around, etc, right? And as parents, that’s something we can also give to our kids, right? How do you become that safe space? Is there like a safe space in the house when your kids absolutely tantruming that you guys can go into together. And then the third, which I think made the biggest difference? For me in this like, newborn phase, this time around was support. Right? My first baby was born May, or April, April of 2020, right? We were alone, we were all isolated, we didn’t have a lot of family support. For this one, my mom was here for almost six weeks, the church that I’m a part of was bringing me meals, I have a neighbor who was checking in with me. And so the transition from one to two has just felt like a dream for me because of how much support I had around me. And when you feel supported your ability to self regulate, it’s so much easier. And it just I had Malta, honestly, I think what made me the most kind of sad during this was that, like, I realized that not all mothers have support like I had making this transition, because I have some friends who really, really went into dark places, going from one to two babies, because now you have a toddler and a newborn, and you’re healing, how do you meet those needs, etc. And when you’re so overwhelmed, it makes that period so much harder.

Shelly 13:00
Yeah, and a lot of parents, you know, they’re single parents, they live far away from family, you don’t have a lot of friends. And it can make it a lot harder. That’s one of the first questions I asked families when I’m working with them is, you know, tell me about your support system. Do you have a strong support system? And a lot of times the mom will be like, oh, yeah, my husband’s off for work for four weeks, which is great. But who’s supporting him? Who’s supporting the family as as a unit? Is the question that I’ve been asked?

Amanda Armstrong 13:29
Yeah, and not is, and there’s a lot of research around that too, right. So the access you have to support and also your your purse, your just your self perception of being supported, or part of a community is one of the number one markers for mitigating things like anxiety, depression, trauma, etc, it increases our resilience, more so than almost any other intervention is just this idea that you feel connected and part of a community and like you have a support system that can kind of take care of you. And it’s it is literally one of the strongest markers of kind of resilience and resilience being our ability to just bounce back from from hard things, and stay regulated as we navigate them.

Shelly 14:17
So I wanted to go back because you said a couple of interesting things when you’re talking about your experience, and I want to go back to them and and have you talked about them in more detail. You said that you were a nervous system coach, and then you you mentioned Vegas tone. So can you explain more about what those what does it mean to the nervous system coach versus a different type of coach and what is vagus tone? If someone out there doesn’t?

Amanda Armstrong 14:38
Yeah, yeah. So I am a nervous system, nervous system focused nervous system based anxiety and depression coach. And so what this means is that I look at anxiety and depression, not as these kind of separate diagnoses not as these things that you’re born with, that you have to just manage your whole life, but that they are actually symptoms. of survival mode. So when we look at our nervous system, right, we kind of have three states of our nervous system. And this applies to both our children and us as adults, we have a state of regulation, this is something called our parasympathetic nervous system. And for those of you who are like, whoa, even even simpler, like what is a nervous system, your nervous system is essentially that when we say like mind body connection, that’s what we’re talking about. And you have something called your autonomic nervous system. And this controls all of your automatic body functions. So your heart rate, your respiration rate, and it is hard wired for survival. Your nervous system will always prioritize survival over wellness, every time. And so we have these kind of three states of our nervous system when we look at it through something called the polyvagal theory, which is something I’m trained in. And we have a state of regulation. So this is when you’re feeling calm, you’re present, you’re in a parasympathetic state. So physiologically, what’s happening in your body is everything’s working well. Your digestion, your heart rate, your breath rate. And then whenever we sense a threat, or there’s a stressor in our life, our body’s preferred response is activation. So right, you’ve all heard of fight, flight, or freeze. This is your fight or flight response. This is when you are priming to take action to do something to fight or to run from that stressor or that threat.

Amanda Armstrong 16:26
And so this is a really activating state, and things change in the way that our body works, we get really tunnel vision, we deprioritize anything that doesn’t help us to fight or flee. So our heart rate changes, our breath changes, our blood goes to our extremities. Now, if a stressor or threat gets too big, or it lasts too long, it becomes too overwhelming, then we go into a shutdown state. Right? So that’s where depression lives, right? Anxiety is really activated thing. We’re very hyper vigilant, we’re overthinking our brain runs fast, our bodies running fast. And then we have our shutdown state. And this is where we kind of experience depression. And our physiology changes. And when we’re so overwhelmed, our body’s kind of like either A, we need to reset, we need a break, or what’s the point, right, and this is where it disconnects you to decrease the level of pain that you’re experiencing in this situation.

Amanda Armstrong 17:24
And so, where, how this, what this looks like, in, in the work that I do with anxiety and depression is now we say, oh, like maybe this is actually there’s nothing broken about me, there’s nothing wrong about me, when I can look at my past lived experience, my current stress load, the current situation that I’m in, like maybe being in a state of activation or shutdown, like actually makes sense. The load that I’m carrying is so heavy. I’m so overstimulated for my parents I hear all the time, like I’m so touched out, the mental load is exhausting. And we also kind of, do, we get to a place where we have default responses. And so for somebody who experienced maybe a lot of like childhood trauma, now as an adult, may default to that shutdown state, right, because activation is not an option. It’s not really an option as a kid to run or fight off your caretaker.

Amanda Armstrong 18:20
So if there is, if it’s not a healthy situation, what tends to happen more often is you default to kind of that freeze or shutdown state. And so you just kind of disconnect. Same thing, right? A single mom or a stay at home parent, who is in the home all day with young children doesn’t feel like she has a support system. Right? They feel they often feel trapped. And so it’s like, well, I’m not about to like, fight my kid, I’m not going to I’m not going to leave my kid. And so sometimes that can become a default state to to a really overwhelmed parent is to just disconnect. And we do that in a ton a ton of different ways. And there’s nothing and I think the most beautiful part about understanding parenting through a nervous system lens or anxiety, depression through the nervous system lens, is we can strip away any of that, like shame, blame or guilt. Like, of course, you’re spending six hours a day scrolling on Instagram, and disconnecting, you’re so overwhelmed. Your load is so heavy and like nobody taught you. Nobody taught you how to manage this in any other way than to disconnect.

Amanda Armstrong 19:26
And I think it takes away this narrative from there’s something broken about me, too. Oh, no, like, I’m just dysregulated and I don’t have the coping skills to navigate what I’m experiencing right now. And for me, in my parenting world, this has been crucial because I am not an intuitive, regulated parent-er I almost every day, right? My default is to want to yell it’s to want to throw my three year old in his room and tell him he can come out when he’s calm. Because I have, I would say probably two really great parents, they were loving, my needs are met, they did the best they could. And my emotional, I was not taught emotional regulation skills as a child, I was often told, it’s not that big of a deal. I think my emotions were then or they were placated. It was like, Oh, you’re gonna be upset, if you don’t get that thing. Here’s the thing. Or I was sent to my room and was like, Okay, come down when you can be calm. And so as an adult, I have a pretty low threshold for emotional regulation. And we always default to what we know. And what we know is often what we experienced. And so I’ve had to do a lot of work to get to a place where I can keep myself calm when my toddler can’t, because that’s really developmentally appropriate for him to not be able to regulate himself. And so much of that is because of my understanding of the nervous system.

Amanda Armstrong 20:53
But occasionally, I will lose it. I’m totally an imperfect parent, like the rest of all of us. But I can walk away from those situations, instead of shaming myself and saying, like, man, you’re such a crappy mom, like, you did this. It’s, oh, you’re really dysregulated mom right now your stress bucket is super full. So of course, you yelled, now, what do you need to do to get back to a place where you can be in control of you so that you can repair this with with your kid? Because that’s still your job. Your job as a parent is not to stop your kid from tantruming your kids get a tantrum. It’s your job as a parent is how can you be self regulated enough to be calm when they can’t?

Amanda Armstrong 21:35
And then vagal toning kind of that other question you asked. So we are their vagus nerve, it is our 10th and our longest cranial nerve. And it is one of the most impactful things for our nervous system when we can learn how to kind of pull its levers. So your vagus nerve, its exits kind of at the base of your skull, out your brainstem, and then it is a nerve that innervates almost all of your main organs. So it goes to your lungs and your heart and your your gut. When we talk about kind of mind gut connection, we’re talking about the vagus nerve, and 80%. I’m going to get a little bit nerdy and sciency for a second, but I think education is so empowering.

Shelly 22:16
Do it, please.

Amanda Armstrong 22:17
Yeah. So 80% of the nerve fibers of the vagus nerve are parasympathetic fibers, right? So if you remember a little bit ago, I mentioned that your parasympathetic nervous system is activated when we’re in that regulated state that rest and digest when our body is optimal, but also, right, I say often your state determines your story, the state that your nervous system is in is going to determine the kinds of thoughts that you’re thinking. And so our vagus nerve, 80% of those nerve fibers are parasympathetic. So when we activate our vagus nerve, we are pushing our body towards regulation, we are activating our body’s relaxation response. And there are some really simple ways that we can activate your vagus nerve.

Amanda Armstrong 23:01
So the vagus nerve innervates, kind of up into like up through your neck near your vocal cords and behind so if you like kind of turn your head to the side, there is a chunky muscle that kind of starts at the base of your ear, and then comes down and attaches at your your collarbone. And so the vagus nerve runs kind of parallel to that near your vocal cords, and kind of up into your ear. And so there are a couple manual ways you can activate your vagus nerve. And so you can kind of take your pointer finger and put it in the little valley of your ear just outside your ear opening and do a couple circles. And you’re not trying to like deeply massage, but this ear massage just kind of like moves the skin and is a tactile and manual way that we can activate our vagus nerve. And I’m doing it now the podcast and I just yawn. So yawning is an indicator that you’ve gotten kind of a parasympathetic reset. So it’s one of the ways your body says like, Oh, yep, we get it. We can we can down. We can put pump the brakes a little.

Amanda Armstrong 23:58
Same thing if you kind of come down and squeeze or rub this, this neck muscle here. Things like gargling humming or singing laughter things that like vibrate our vocal cords can activate the vagus nerve. Exercise, cold exposure. Taking like having improving your gut health improves your vagal tone. So vagal tone think about like muscle tone, right? When you have high muscle tone, we think oh yeah, you’re more fit. Your muscles are healthier. low muscle tone, your muscles aren’t as strong. I vagal tone is Yeah, your vagus nerve is optimally operating. It’s really healthy, low vagal tone is not so much. And so one of the metrics that we have to measure kind of vagus nerve health and vagal tone health is something called heart rate variability. Now if you have like an aura ring or an Apple watch or Fitbit, heart rate variability is one of the things that they’ll typically give you and I would avoid anybody to go online and be like What is an ideal heart variability because it can vary so much between people. When you are like, yes, I want to improve my vagal tone, I want to have a nervous system that has more capacity for dysregulation because I want to be a more regulated parent, I don’t want to snap at my kids as much. I want to get into the physiology stuff. We’re just looking for improvement over time.

Amanda Armstrong 25:18
So wherever your current heart rate variability is no big deal, you just want improvement over time. So heart rate variability is just it’s measuring kind of the distance between your heartbeats, and it’s one of the most accurate measures, we have to say, well is your vagal tone higher or lower is your nervous system, more resilient to stress are more susceptible to being stressed. And so what we know is that the higher vagal tone you have, the more resistant to stress you are and the faster you bounce back from stress. And I don’t know that there’s any skill that I need more as a parent, than the ability to rebound from stress quickly. There’s no way we avoid stress, our kids are going to stress us out, life is going to stress us out, they’re gonna get sick, we’re gonna get sick, the microwave is gonna go out on us like whatever feels stressful in our life. But having not just the psychological resilience to stay in kind of a positive mindset. But actually, a physiological resilience to the stress response that happens in our body is so so important as well. And so the vagus nerve is actually like one of the most like trending wellness topics right now. And we’re, which is awesome when was one of the awesome things about social media is like as a trend, kind of, like takes off there. I think it makes the education more mainstream for everybody. But it also drives some of the behind the scenes research. And so there’s a lot of really cool research being done about nervous system, neuroscience, vagus nerve, etc. In regards to kind of like self regulation, nervous system, health, mental health, all of it.

Shelly 26:51
I love this. And I learned a lot about this, like the poly be eventually reading the book, the Poly, the vagel theory, right now. It’s a little dry, so it’s taking me a while to get through it.

Amanda Armstrong 27:03
It’s hard to get through, there’s good stuff in there. But yes,

Shelly 27:06
there is a lot of good stuff. And I love how they talk about how that vagus nerve integrates into the vocalization and actually helps you when you’re looking at your environment, socialize to figure out, okay, is this even a threat? Is this even something I should be? And there’s a lot of research around babies cries, and how different pitches of Cries can indicate whether they’re in a high, they have a high vocal, vagal tone, or a little vagal tone? Have you heard about that?

Amanda Armstrong 27:35
I haven’t, that’s really interesting. I did a lot of research around, like when I was pregnant with my son, you know, because essentially, when you’re pregnant, you You’re responsible for two nervous systems now, because your baby’s nervous system is developing in you, they are responding to your body’s stress levels, and your self regulation skills, etc. And so I do know that babies can be born with kind of a higher or lower baseline, depending on mother’s stress levels, during pregnancy, etc. And for anyone listening who’s like, oh, no, like, I’ve ruined my child for life. I was so stressed out during that pregnancy, they were born with low vagal tone. The answer is no, you have not? No, you have not. Our nervous system is incredibly plastic. It’s incredibly malleable. It’s incredibly resilient. And so that maybe, right, and this is where I always I help my clients get regulated, so they can access that place that like curiosity, through also a lens of self compassion. But maybe if the baby that was born, when you were really stressed out during pregnancy was just kind of a little bit of a more finicky, baby, etc. =Maybe this makes sense. Why Oh, interesting. And so they might need a little bit more of my patience of my care of my example of my self regulation in these early developmental years. Right. Both of my sons were traumatic birth experiences, right? Those births weren’t just traumatic for me. They were also traumatic for these newborn babies. Right. My first son, I went, I started to go septic, and he wasn’t moving. I have big babies with 90th percentile heads. I’m a small body laborer wasn’t progressing. He was getting stressed out. We had a C section but because I started to go septic, I had to be on a bunch of antibiotics and he had to go to the nursery for monitoring which means, guess what the first two hours of my newborn’s life he was not with his mom, that is as unnatural as it can possibly be for a newborn baby. And you know what? It’s what needed to be to make sure he was as healthy as possible and I was as healthy as possible.

Amanda Armstrong 29:45
And I carried with my first son, I did have a lot of postpartum anxiety and I carried so much guilt over that guilt over something I didn’t. I didn’t control I didn’t really have a say in it, right. But I I navigated and same thing, same thing happened, my uterus ruptured, I was in no condition to be caring for baby for the first couple hours. And so he again, he was in the nursery and dad was there and I went and made sure that I was healthy. But for both my kids, right, it wasn’t just my birth trauma, it’s also theirs. And so I and I also know the science, that babies who are born via cesarean don’t get a certain kind of boost to their gut microbiome, their immune system, that babies who are birthed through, you know, vaginally do.

Amanda Armstrong 30:33
So again, this isn’t for me to feel guilty about, it’s just the situation. But this education, and this awareness gives me some choices now. So I take extra care with my five week old and I have with my three year old to give them some extra self regulation skills, because they also experienced early developmental trauma, actually, the first hours of their life are traumatic. And then I also take a lot of care for their kind of vagal tone and gut health and immune system because they were not born birth vaginally. And so I know that and so this is where it’s so much why I get kind of so nerdy why I do go into that education, is because I think that that can be so empowering, when we can take that education, and process it through a regulated system and not a system that wants to shame, blame and guilt us for things out of our control, which I think we just so often to as mothers, especially

Shelly 31:28
100%. And then something that you can apply to a lot of areas, like if I’m doing a prenatal console with a parent. And you know, I want to explain if you have a C section, it can impact breastfeeding in this way, in this way. And you know, these kind of more negative ways. That doesn’t mean that if you need a C section, you shouldn’t get one. You know, we’re like, we’re very grateful to live in an area of the world where we can, we have access to those life saving interventions. And it doesn’t mean if you end up with the C section, you should feel guilty about it. But if you go in knowing, okay, if I haven’t C section, my milk might be delayed coming in. So I know that I can watch my baby’s diapers, I can watch to see how they’re feeding the breasts, and we can stay ahead of any potential complications that will come up. So it’s like I’m not telling parents this to make them feel bad if they have a C section, but I’m telling them this that if they have to have one, because it’s gonna save their life, of course, these are things that we can look for.

Amanda Armstrong 32:24
Well, and I like so this comes back to that. That topic of support. Like I can’t tell you how desperately I wish I would have had a you before the birth of my first son. Right? Because I went into that I had done a hypno birthing class, because I was like, I know how important like mindset is and relaxing the body, etc. But the reality is without I’m like somebody who looks at those, like water births in people’s basements, and I’m like, I want that so bad.

Amanda Armstrong 32:52
And that’s never going to be my story. It’s not, if I had babies 100 years ago, I would have been the woman to die in childbirth, I needed and my babies needed that level of intervention. And there’s part of me that like, hates that I did. Right. I hate that I needed that. I don’t hate myself for that. But I hate that. Like I didn’t get what I wanted out of this birthing experience. And yet, I am choosing very intentionally to write a story that is more helpful than that, that it’s like, I’m so grateful that we had access to this. But I felt so lost postpartum. I hadn’t even fathom the idea that I could end up in a C section. Like I knew that other people did, but I wouldn’t. Of course, I knew too much about my body, I’d done too much to prepare, I knew all the things. Well, guess what, you still don’t control that your baby gets stuck. And that you start to go septic, right, like, and so having had somebody beforehand, just say, Hey, I know this isn’t the plan. But just in case, this is how it goes. These are some things to expect. And I’m here for you afterwards to help you navigate it.

Amanda Armstrong 34:05
And so I think that that is such a beautiful gift that you give to parents is this, like, Hey, here’s this pre consultation and whatever comes up, I want you to know that you have a safe space to come and get answers. Like you don’t have to navigate that alone. And so that’s, I think an amazing conversation that you have is like, hey, this isn’t the this isn’t the path that we’re working towards. But if it happens, and it needs to happen, it’s okay that it does. And here’s some things that you just need to put on your radar so that you can navigate this in the way that’s best for you baby and family.

Shelly 34:44
Yeah, everything you’re seeing is really resonating with me with my third pregnancy. He was he’s he was a rainbow baby. So you know when you you’re pregnant again, you get really anxious about what’s going to happen this time so I was already anxious than going into the party. didn’t see. And then I happened to separate from my husband in the pregnancy. So my stress level was so high, that entire pregnancy and the birth was great. But he was a tough baby, he cried all the time, I could not put him down. He, he just had a really hard time regulating. And he especially like to screen from 2am to 5am, every night for like, and I would I just remember, like, you know, you have those vivid memories that you can almost smell what the smells wearing. And one of those vivid memories for me was sitting at the upon the bed at 2am. And it was just me and him. And he had been screaming and screaming, and I’m just holding him while he’s screaming and like the tears are just pouring in my face. And he had woken up my second child, she came in to the bed and she just sat up next to us and then just started crying with us. It was just like, all three of us just kind of like crying. And I remember learning about like this, you pass the stress onto your baby in utero. And the guilt that I had was immense, because I’m like, this is why this is why he screams all the time, because I have totally stressed him out. And I remember my mom saying like, well, who can who can go through a separation without being stressed? Yeah, the hurt. How is that in your control? How could have that been possible? If you could go back in time? What would you have done differently? That would have made you not as stressed like it’s not it’s not possible have no stress? Yeah. And now he’s 13. And he is like, the sweetest kid ever. He has no problem regulating he’s so chill and laid back. And I think that part of that is I did like a lot of movements with him. I wore him a lot. I worked on breathing exercise. Like once I figured out like breathing exercises. And I talked about with the families I work with all the time, like babies cannot calm themselves down. They are co regulators. Right.

Amanda Armstrong 37:01
They are co regulators. Like into the into teenage the teenagers. Yes, you don’t even have the teenagers can regulate themselves better than a three year old can write because the skills layer with development, but also with modeling. And so a 13 year old who has a parent who modeled self regulation and emotional regulation, etc, is going to be a much better self regulator at 13 than a 13 year old, who didn’t have access to those things. But a 13 year old, even with the perfectly modelled self regulation skills, still is not in a place where they are developmentally capable of being a perfect self regulator. I mean, we never get to a point where we can perfectly self regulate even as adults, but they still have a developing brain that is very emotional.

Amanda Armstrong 37:52
Remember me at 13 Holy heck, I don’t know how my parents made it through. But if I if a friend, like didn’t call me back, it was like, it was the end of the world. It I was it was not a super chill teenager. It was a mortal wound, it was a rejection. Right? And that it’s, I think teenagers can be especially hard, because as parents, we see them as being kind of like pre adult in some ways, right? We expect them to be able to regulate their emotions in the way that an adult is. And yet we understand that they aren’t adults yet. But we put adult expectations on them developmentally in a lot of ways, right? Because we’re like, Well, you’re not three, but you’re acting like a three year old, like how often do we tell teenagers like you’re acting like a child like they are in very many ways, and the way that their brain is still developing, still a child. And so I think one of the best things that we can remember as parents is like, no matter the age of our child, it is our job to be able to remain calm when they can’t. And if we can’t, it is our job to walk away, or a moment, get our crap together in whatever way we can to be able to come back as infrequently as possible. And we don’t want to invalidate their experience, right? Because even though a friend not calling you back, right, or my kids broken banana, the level of meltdown that happens for a three year old when the banana breaks is unreal. And every time I just want to be like, Oh my gosh, like this doesn’t matter. Eat the banana.

Amanda Armstrong 39:41
But the thing is to him it does to him it feels really big to me at 13. That friend not calling me back felt like total rejection. And so to be able to show up, and even just say I can tell this is really hard for you. You don’t have to sit there and be like this is a hard thing because you as a parent do Don’t think a broken banana is a hard thing, right? So why? But you can you can say, I see this is really hard for you, I just want you to know that I’m here for you. What would you like this to look like? Do you want to play walrus with your bananas? Right? Or again, remember how I said I was raised my default to help my kid feel better is when there’s like seven other bananas on the counter. Do you know how easy it is for me just to be like, well, here’s another banana. Right. But what I and sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t have the capacity for anything else. I’m like, there’s another mother tracking banana. But what I’m trying to do, because I’m realizing that my default pattern is to placate is to kind of fix the thing that’s making him upset. But every time I fix the thing that makes him upset, I robbed him of an opportunity to build capacity for disappointment to build capacity for frustration. And we had a huge win just last week over a broken banana. You know, where I just kept saying, you know, we can put it in the freezer, and we can make ice cream out of it later or put it in a smoothie. But if you want a banana, this right now, this is the banana that you’re you’re going to eat. And he saw the bananas on the counter. And he was like, I want another one. Right? Any parent is like, yeah, we know we’ve been there.

Amanda Armstrong 41:16
So I just stayed calm. And I continue to repeat myself. Like, if you want a banana, this is the banana. And it’s still yummy in two pieces. Do you want me to put it in the freezer and you want me to put it in the freezer, so put it in the freezer. But he thought that by putting it in the freezer, he would then get another banana and I was like nope, if you want a banana, that’s the banana that that we’re going to eat. And it took us probably eight or nine minutes that feels like eternity as a busy parent, I had a million other things to do than like to handle this banana situation. But he got to the point where he was like, can you get the banana out of the freezer all eat the broken banana. And I was like, Oh my gosh. And then he goes, thanks for helping me with my feelings. Mom. Oh my gosh, I feel like I want a trophy. Right?

Shelly 42:06
It’s all worth it.

Amanda Armstrong 42:07
It’s all right. Because what happened in that situation was I basically just said, it’s okay to be mad about this, and I’m here for you. But also, this is this is it. Like if you want the banana, you’re gonna eat the broken banana. And his little three year old brain it took a while to for him to figure out right that like, Okay, I either don’t have the banana or I have the broken banana. And guess what, three days later has banana broke. And he looked at me and he goes, broken bananas are yummy to mom.

Shelly 42:34
Aw.

Amanda Armstrong 42:36
And so this is what happens when we can help our children kind of ride out that full stress cycle in situations. And so when you think about a stress cycle becoming dysregulated, right, we’re regulated. And then something that upsets us a stressor, a threat comes in and we activate. And then that stressor, that situation that passes and we regulate. But what happens a lot of times with kids, when we either placate right, or we send them to their room by themselves to you know, calm down, they don’t calm down, this shut down. And it’s okay if sometimes you need to have your kid there and you there because if your kid isn’t in the room by themselves, you’re gonna yell or you’re gonna hit or you’re gonna fight if you’re trying to break patterns of dysregulation yourself, look, we’re trying to take baby steps, there’s there’s no way that I’ve never walked out of my kid’s room and left him there screaming by himself, you bet I have because it was more important to me to give him a moment alone than for me to be the parent that screamed back.

Amanda Armstrong 43:40
And everything in me if I didn’t step outside, I’m getting better at self regulating in the room with him. But sometimes I can’t. And I have to leave the room to self regulate so that I can then show back up into that room and not be the parent that screams back. And so when we can get them to a place of calm. And then say, hey, let’s talk about it. You were upset. And now you feel better. That becomes a situation for them. That now is manageable. And almost every single time I’ve been able to ride the wave and it’s inconvenient. And it’s frustrating and it takes time. But I’m able to ride the full wave of situation to resolve and then to repair where he’s like, Can I have a hug mom like, I feel my feelings are small now, right? We have our own unique family language as we go through this.

Amanda Armstrong 44:41
The next time the same or a similar situation happens. Sometimes there’s still a tantrum, but it went from 15 minutes to five. And if we can do the same process with the five, it’s then two, and by the next time it’s like a non issue. And I’ve seen that pattern over and over and over again. When I can self regulate enough that he can just go through that process. And I’m finding the balance of how to my kind of motto and parenting right now has been firm, but kind, firm, but kind, we don’t hit the door, when we’re angry, that’s been his new thing is throwing his body against his bedroom door. And so, or we don’t hit mom, I won’t let you hit me. So if you can’t keep your hands to yourself, I will leave the room. And I’ll sit outside the door, so you know that I’m there. But it’s my job to protect my body. Right. And so, figuring i Same thing firm, but kind, I’m not going to give you another banana, if you want the banana, this is it. And I can only be firm and kinda at the same time, when I have the capacity myself, to be a self regulated adult. And to not expect my child to be self regulating, because it’s not possible. It’s not possible for them.

Shelly 46:01
So it’s so hard if you are a parent that was never taught those skills growing up. So you’re trying to learn them at the same time that you’re trying to teach your child about them and model them for your child or your baby. And I just really feel and that is something that you know, I grew up in a household that yells yellers. And it keeps me and I still yell sometimes, but I’m a lot better than it used to be.

Amanda Armstrong 46:28
But that’s, that’s, I think what I need all of your listeners to hear is like, you’re doing so much better than you think. Because if you’re listening to a podcast like yours, or podcasts like mine, it means that you’re seeking answers, it means that you are not afraid to be the parent who’s like, I try hard at parenting, like, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like I have it figured out. But I’m also proud that I’m trying, and I’m trying to break those patterns. I’m trying to learn these things. And it’s okay that you can’t do it on your own right. That’s why you exist. That’s why there’s parenting coaches. That’s why I exist, right for anxiety and depression. So much of what comes up with if the clients that we work with our parents is regulated parenting, right, so much of why I think mothers or fathers struggle with anxiety, again, if we look at it through this nervous system lens, because you have a billion stressors being added to your nervous system, in your role as a parent on top of paying the bills, and working and your own friendships and family dramas, and etc. And so it’s like, of course, like that all adds to the load on your nervous system. And these skills that help you to regulate your nervous system that also helps you to kind of reclaim your life from anxiety and depression also help you to step into being a more self regulated parent, and to become the, that gives you the capacity to be a more present parent, and authentic parent, for your children, which is like the greatest, I tell people, the greatest gift you can give your kids is your own regulated nervous system.

Amanda Armstrong 47:58
And if you don’t know how to do that, again, of course you don’t, of course you don’t. It’s not because you suck. It’s not because of any personal failure. It’s simply because nobody taught you how. And if you need help, in being taught how there’s no shame in that. If I went to a tennis court right now, it would be embarrassing, because no one’s taught me how. But I would never feel like the shame or guilt around sucking at tennis that I do. Sometimes it’s sucking at not yelling at my kid. But it’s still a skill and nobody taught me how and the same way I wouldn’t have shame about hiring a tennis coach. I cannot emphasize enough like this isn’t just because this is this is what you do and what I do. But the impact that hiring somebody to help me learn how to do these skills was impactful. And not everybody has the financial resources to hire, I understand that too. But again, that’s why you do what you do. People don’t realize how much it takes to put a quality podcast out into the world. It’s a lot of work. But you and I are so passionate about not just providing this information to people who pay us but putting this information out in the world for everybody, completely free of charge.

Amanda Armstrong 49:11
Because you and I are those parents that at many points in our life, we didn’t have the financial resources to invest in getting this support. And so and I’m kind of speaking speaking for you here, I don’t know your full story, but at least for myself, right. And so there’s nothing that I teach behind a paywall that I won’t teach for free on my podcast about self regulation and nervous system regulation that I won’t give to you and your listeners for free here because these skills and these tools not only change our lives, but they change our children’s lives. And then their kids lives and because each generation we’re just getting a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better and like so there’s no room for you’re going to feel a little guilt because because we’re moms right but don’t allow that to Be the consuming emotion. Because the truth is, you need self compassion as a parent, because Damn, this is really hard. This is really, really hard,

Shelly 50:10
and especially in the US

Amanda Armstrong 50:12
yeah, especially in the US, where we are not supported by our systems at all. And I just like I, I can teach all the self regulation like tangible skills in the world. But I think the biggest takeaway from this conversation is just like, you have to have self compassion, you’re not a bad parent, you are dysregulated one, and you’re not dysregulated because you suck, you’re dysregulated because nobody taught you how. And unfortunately, it is your job now to teach you how nobody else’s an adult is going to come in and teach you how. And that’s the best gift that you can give your kid your kid doesn’t need a perfect parent, your kid needs a trying parent. And if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re trying parents, right, like full stop.

Shelly 50:58
You had mentioned one already of rubbing your ear.

Amanda Armstrong 51:01
Uh huh.

Shelly 51:02
Are there other like, quick things that parents can do like that, to lower their stress level. I personally love breathing exercises. During periods of stress, I’ll do like a 4474, or box breathing. And I feel like that that’s helpful. So I just wondering what tips you have.

Amanda Armstrong 51:21
Yeah, so to speak to the breathing really quick, because I know you’re at least gonna have one listener who’s like, if anybody tells me to take a mother tracking deep breath, when I’m feeling angry one more time, it doesn’t work for me. And again, I’m gonna get nerdy and sciency really quick and tell you why.

Amanda Armstrong 51:37
So breathwork is one of the most powerful levers you can pull to down regulate your system, no doubt. And it’s not always the most appropriate first place. When you’re angry, when you’re anxious when you are on the edge, right, your body’s in a really activated state. And if you try to take a really slow, deep breath, your nervous system is basically going to flip you the middle finger, it’s gonna flip you the bird basically big, you don’t get it. There’s a tiger in the room right now, because your body doesn’t know the difference between a screaming child and a tiger, it just knows that it’s activated, our stress response is universal. You don’t get it, and it’s going to reinforce your need to stay dysregulated.

Amanda Armstrong 52:19
So when you are like at your peak, like you’re about to yell you’re about to hit you’re about to scream like you’re about to have a panic attack, whatever it is for you, I would not recommend breathwork I actually would recommend movement of some sort. So leave the room, go sit outside or walk outside really quickly. Come outside. And actually there’s something called somatic shaking. So if you just like shake your hands, like you’re flicking water off your hands or wiggle, that helps to discharge some of this activated energy in our body. All sometimes just stand outside a door, I’ll do a quick shake, and then I’ll sway swaying side to side, think of how you see the baby. And at one point, you were a baby and your body has body based memory, that this repetitive swing movement is soothing.

Amanda Armstrong 53:05
And so so those are all things that you can do if you are feeling really activated. Honor the fact that your body is an immobilized state and ask it to move. Another thing you can do right and activated state is an intense state so you can kind of meet your body in that intensity as well. And so that can look like temperature, what some of my clients will do is they will go grab an ice cube and they’ll hold it in their hand, it’s really uncomfortable to hold an ice cube in your hand for 30 to 60 seconds. And that intensity of that cold sensation can kind of help cool to like pull you out of the intensity inside your body because there’s an intensity outside your body. When it comes to activating your vagus nerve. If you take a cold pack and you put it kind of on this neck area, either kind of the back of your neck or the front that can also activate the vagus nerve and so cold is something especially for parents that are at home can be really helpful because it’s really accessible. We have freezers right there and most of our homes, so holding an ice cube, splashing cold water on your face. One of the like research supported ways to activate the vagus nerve is called a face plunge. So you just get a big salad bowl, fill it with ice water, the breath put your face in 5-15 seconds come back up do that one or two times that can really take the edge off but I don’t know any mom who’s going to have a kid tantruming in a room who’s going to fill a salad bowl with you know, but but a mum could go grab ice and so if you’re feeling really activated a way to kind of self regulate is honor that movement and that mobilize state step outside

Amanda Armstrong 54:42
Or I’ll sometimes kind of stand up in my kid’s room and sway like if you could watch my nanny cam you’ll see if my kid is by the door which is always by the door because he always wants out when he’s like losing his mind. I am on the either sitting on the bed kind of swaying back and forth. You’ll sometimes see me doing that ear neck massage, while I’m trying to breathe, or if it’s getting kind of too big before I have to exit the premises, I’ll stand up, and then he gets mad because I’m standing up because he didn’t control my movement, because he’s three and a monster. But I’ll stand up and all sway and I’m like, if Mommy’s gonna stay in the room, like she’s taking care of her feelings right now. And I just, I very calmly just tell him, you know, I’ve got to take care of my feelings, I’m feeling frustrated. Um, so those are all things that you can try. And then breathwork, I found when I can catch my activation earlier, that is definitely probably my favorite tool as well. And so and I find that like, the 478, or box breathing for me, I’m like, too complicated, too much. So either deep, slow breaths, or an extended exhale, breath. And so where you just make your exhale longer than your inhale, and that what that physiologically does for your body is that longer exhale, triggers your relaxation response a little bit. And so if you can catch yourself kind of getting worked up before you’re at a 10, I think that a few deep breaths are really helpful. And then the last kind of tangible tool that I’ll give. Again, my specialty is like really working with our body’s physiology. And when we can shift our physiology, our brain follows all the time.

Amanda Armstrong 56:23
The only reason why anxiety is such an overthinking is seen as kind of an overthinking disorder is because our body is super activated, our brain has to overthink to prepare for everything. If you, you will never be able to solve an overthinking problem with changing your thoughts any more than you’re going to be able to solve an over drinking problem by changing your drink. Right, you have to come to the root and the roots always in the body. So one of the things that happens when we’re in that activated state is our pupils dilate. And we get really tunnel visioned. And so I work with clients on something called Color spotting. So basically, you just choose a color. So let’s say my clients colors orange, when they would feel themselves getting really activated, they would look around the room, and count or name all of the orange things that they can find. And what you’re doing when you do that is you’re taking literal tunnel visual vision that you’ve gotten. And when you look around the room, you’re you’re expanding your vision field, which again, signals to our nervous system that we’re more safe. When we scan our environment. It’s a safety cue. And it helps us to kind of Rev down that activation. And it opens up our peripheral vision because we’re looking for something specific and it kind of distracts from that intensity.

Amanda Armstrong 57:41
And so I think just knowing, and I will say to a lot of times parents won’t catch themselves in activation, they’ve been scrolling on Instagram, for 45 minutes, right? They’re in full on shutdown, because they’re touched out. They’re overstimulated or their kid has been kind of yelling for who knows how long and they’re just cluing into the yelling, and then they’re like, guilty, how long is my baby been crying? And I’m just now hearing it because I was on freaking Instagram, like, What’s my problem? Right?

Amanda Armstrong 58:14
So again, through this nervous system lens, when you’re in that shutdown state, what you need is to kind of judge your nervous system, what you need is to bring in movement. Now the worst advice I think you can give somebody who’s truly struggling with depression, is to go exercise. And I don’t say that because exercise doesn’t help depression, exercise does help depression, there’s a ton of research for that. But if you’ve ever been somebody who can’t get out of bed in the morning, telling them they need to go exercise, they know. And if they could, they would, but they can’t. And so again, the same way that when you’re activated, you meet yourself in that activation, but you need to calm down. When you’re shut down, you meet yourself in that low state, but you need to bring yourself back up. And so that’s where I find that just changing the environment. Can you put the phone down and just go get yourself a glass of water? Can you take your crying baby from the couch to the porch? Right, that moving? Getting into a different environment? Can be the thing that kind of reverses that shutdown spiral as well.

Shelly 59:20
Yeah, absolutely. I remember sitting on a yoga ball with my son when I was stressed out and he was crying and just holding him and we would both just gently bounce. And that was one of the few things that would work keep calm down, I’d come down. And also the the porch trick I would teach my newborn care classes like if your baby is really upset and crying, try stepping outside with your baby, even if it’s a little chilly out because that change in temperature just seems to like oh, what’s going on? And they

Amanda Armstrong 59:48
add sunlight is,

Shelly 59:50
yeah

Amanda Armstrong 59:50
Incredibly beneficial for both babies and parents when it comes to self regulation.

Shelly 59:55
So these are things that you can even do with babies who can’t talk yet and can’t understand And you know, some of the vocalizations that you would do with a, like a toddler, but you can use rhythmic movement, you can use that change in temperature and environment,

Amanda Armstrong 1:00:11
because it all impacts their physiology, stress response, self regulation all happens in the body long before we get to any kind of regulation of the mind.

Shelly 1:00:20
And I think if you’re a parent out there that has been working on this has recognized that you were never taught to manage your emotions and are now trying to break that cycle to change the generations going forward. Give yourself all the credit that you be gentle with yourself, treat yourself to something nice, because it’s it’s a tough job. And it’s a big job, but it’s an important one.

Amanda Armstrong 1:00:43
Yeah, absolutely.

Shelly 1:00:45
So where can families find you if they want to connect with you and learn more about

Amanda Armstrong 1:00:48
you? Yeah, so I have a podcast it is called regulate and rewire and anxiety and depression podcast. And then on both Instagram and Tiktok, Instagrams, by far kind of my default platform, that’s where I do a lot of education. That’s where I show up, you get to know me, my handle is Amanda on the rise. And then my mental health practice is rise as we and so if you go to rise as we.com, you can learn a little bit about our one on one anxiety, depression coaching, I have a monthly mental health and nervous system healing space membership. And so those are kind of the three places I am my podcast, Instagram, mostly, and my website as well.

Shelly 1:01:27
Amazing. I will link to those all in the show notes.

Amanda Armstrong 1:01:30
Awesome.

Shelly 1:01:31
Thank you so much for joining us today.

Amanda Armstrong 1:01:33
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Shelly 1:01:35
Thank you for joining us this week on the baby pro podcast. Make sure to visit our website ShellyTaftibclc.com where you can check out more options for support to pregnancy and beyond, including the baby pro se group, our parenting community. You can also follow us on social media actually tap ibclc on Instagram. If you love the show, please leave us a rating or review on iTunes to help our episodes reach more parents like you. Thanks for listening.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai