Pod158_Julia_10Months
[00:00:00] Meg Faure: This week I sit down with our regular guest, Julia, and we dive into the ever evolving world of baby Aurelia. At 10 months old, she is facing teething, developmental leaps, and some sleepless night, which is leaving Julia exhausted. But don’t worry, we’ve got some practical solutions to get everyone back on track.
[00:00:19] Meg Faure: So what are you gonna learn from this? Amazing episode. First of all, we are going to crack the sleep code. Um, I’m going to talk about how illness, teething and naps can be affecting your baby’s sleep and that there are simple adjustments that you can make that really will make all the difference. We also go through milestones and comparisons, and we look at how every baby develops completely differently and how actually slowing down milestones can actually set them up for success.
[00:00:45] Meg Faure: If it sounds counterintuitive, you do need to listen. Julia opens up about, um, her work life balance, and it’s just an amazing, um, kind of enlightened conversation for any mom who’s battling with work life balance at the moment for those working moms. And then right at the beginning of the episode, you’ll hear us get into the school system and how to choose schools for little ones and the differences between private schools, expensive education, and actually choosing something that really fits your little one.
[00:01:13] Meg Faure: So if that’s a. Conversation that interests you. That’s something you really don’t want to miss. And we talk a lot around how listening to your gut is really important in in these decision making processes. So whether you are knee deep in sleepless nights, debating milestone timelines, or you are navigating the schooling maze, this episode is packed with expert insights and real talk and sense from one mom to another.
[00:01:37] Meg Faure: Tune in now.
[00:01:38] Bailey (Voice Over): Welcome to Sense by Mac Fora. The podcast that’s brought to you by Parent Sense, the app that takes guesswork out of parenting. If you are a new parent, then you are in good company. Your host, Meg Forer is a well-known OT infant specialist and the author of eight parenting books. Each week, we are going to spend time with new moms and dads just like you.
[00:02:02] Bailey (Voice Over): To chat about the week’s wins, the challenges, and the questions of the moment. Subscribe to the podcast. Download the Parents Ins app and catch Make every week to make the most of that first year of your little one’s life. And now meet your host.
[00:02:23] Meg Faure: Welcome back, moms and dads. Um, to Fence by Meg Bora. Um, and today we have our regular guest, um, Julia with us. Julia is mum to two little ones, Santi, who is almost four, I cannot believe. And, um, tiny little Aurel who’s not as tiny as she used to be. She is now nearly 10 months old, so 42 weeks old. Um, but welcome back, Julia.
[00:02:45] Meg Faure: Lovely to have you.
[00:02:47] Julia: Thank you. Meg. I saw, I know I’ve said it before, but every time you describe me as the mom of two, I’m like, who are you talking about?
[00:02:54] Meg Faure: But at night when you get into bed, I bet you feel like you’re a mom of five. Yeah.
[00:02:58] Julia: Yes, exactly.
[00:03:00] Meg Faure: It is exhausting, isn’t it? Especially that 4-year-old. The, it’s a hell of a journey.
[00:03:04] Meg Faure: That one.
[00:03:05] Julia: Yeah. He, he actually turned four yesterday. Um, we had his party on the weekend. Oh. Yeah, thank you. It’s, um, it’s always a funny time. I’m sure other moms have this as well. You get a bit like sentimental and nostalgic and, you know, I spend half an hour scrolling back in my phone looking at all the pictures of him when he was born and, and beat.
[00:03:24] Julia: And I actually lay in bed together the last night looking at old photos of him and. Oh, it’s just, yeah, it’s crazy how time flies. That whole thing about, um, you know, the days being long and the the years being short is, is so true. I mean, in my case, the nights were long too, but, um, it’s, yeah, I don’t know.
[00:03:40] Julia: Oh gosh. It brings up a lot of feelings and a lot of thinking about how different they are.
[00:03:44] Meg Faure: Yeah. And it’s such a interesting age because, you know, until four years old, they are, and this is what I experienced with my kids and I’ve seen it with other people as well. They are so. They often feel so much like the artist center of the world.
[00:03:55] Meg Faure: Their confidence is high. They taking risks. They, they’re not thinking about the future or about consequences. And you know, I, I’ve often looked back on my, um, youngest and she’s a very introspective child. I mean, she’s an, she’s 19, so she’s not a child anymore. But, um, and she will often talk about, she wonders when it was that she lost her back.
[00:04:19] Meg Faure: Her confidence to just go out there and be anything, do anything. And when I look back at pictures of her, I feel like it was somewhere around about this age, you know, that the world kind of suddenly becomes a reality and you almost want to protect them from that and make sure that they still feel invincible for their whole lives.
[00:04:34] Meg Faure: You know, it’s, it’s a very interesting age.
[00:04:37] Julia: Yeah, it is. And it’s funny because, you know, the last few weeks actually is the first time that I’ve noticed him. Doing any kind of acting out, um, whether it’s to do with Aurelia or not, I don’t know. It might be coincidental, for example, with her starting to crawl, she, we sort of have to focus on her a bit more than perhaps we had to before because, you know, we try and make sure she doesn’t kill herself.
[00:05:02] Julia: So, um, there’s a sort of diversion of attention there. The reality is he gets so much one-on-one attention more than her. I’m completely frank. I mean, she, she’s quite self-sufficient and looks after herself. We do. Much more, you know, directly with him. But I think he does start to sort of feel the lack of, of attention a bit now and, and certainly over his birthday weekend when he was a center of attention, he was a much happier little boy.
[00:05:24] Julia: So, sort of was making me think about that a bit as well. And oh, how to manage it. But I mean, isn’t it just like, it’s the constant juggle I.
[00:05:30] Meg Faure: Yeah. And it’s so interesting you say that because I’ve always felt when you talk about Santi, that my experience with my first born James and he was my only boy, my, my eldest was very similar to Santi in many respects.
[00:05:41] Meg Faure: Like, it felt like an annihilation that first year. Um, I had to work hard. He was busy. What just wasn’t as easy. And my second little one was just like Aurelia. She’s, to this day, the most chilled, laid back kind of, um, just a pleasure to be around where James was, was quite a lot of hard work. Um. I mean, he’s, he is exceptional.
[00:06:00] Meg Faure: And so I do think that, you know, people who are exceptional later in life come with a lot of busyness, curiosity, mischievous kind of pushing boundaries when they’re little. And James certainly did do that, but I can remember at a roundabout four years old saying to my husband, I think he should have just been an only child.
[00:06:19] Meg Faure: Like, he might have just been happier because. He loves his sister, but gee, he was, you know, he’s always been the center of the world for himself, you know, so, um, and he is wanted that from everything else. So he, it’s, it’s very interesting to watch their, how their personalities progress. Um, and yeah, and I think also the schools you choose for your kids, and know, I’ve often said this and I, there are very few things in life that I wish I could turn back the clock on, but one of them is potentially the schools that I chose for my kids in the, in the primary school years, I.
[00:06:51] Meg Faure: School system can really stifle the, that human spirit. I, I, I think it’s problematic. The primary school system, high school, not as much, but the primary school system is a c cookie cutter approach that sticks everybody into a mold. And I, and I just feel like, you know, with these, with these, this human spirit, you need to be so careful about not squashing it.
[00:07:10] Julia: Yeah, that’s so interesting that you say that. ’cause it’s something I think about so much. Um, you know, it was a different time, but I, I, I reflect back on my school experience. Um, I. I, I think I’ve alluded to the fact before that, uh, my birth was quite problematic for my brother, my twin brother. Um, so he had what was called in the eighties learning disabilities.
[00:07:31] Julia: Um, what sort of came out in the wash was that he actually just learned very differently and very atypically from the traditional kind of education set up, certainly in this country. Um, certainly in the eighties and nineties. Um, he went on to become the most highly qualified person in our family, which is incredibly ironic.
[00:07:48] Julia: Um, you know, we, he went and got a degree while the rest of us, you know, were, were much more high diploma and dropping outta varsity types. Um, and he, but at the time he, they tried to keep him back in, in first grade. Um, and my parents went and looked at some, um, schools that kind of were designed for children with disabilities and with learning challenges, and the children at those schools were genuinely.
[00:08:12] Julia: Um, you know, troubled and they, my mom and dad really felt like that wasn’t the case. And anyway, long story short, he landed up staying in a, in a complete, um, traditional school and not thriving, but managing and getting through and he had extra tutoring and so on. But it was very much the structure of that.
[00:08:28] Julia: Um, system that, that I think really held it back, whereas I was naturally kind of academic and I found school very easy and straightforward and kind of sailed through and I was quite social. And, um, so it, it does make me think a lot about that exact thing of, of how do you determine what’s right for your child?
[00:08:44] Julia: You know, how do you even know when you’re sending them into first grade if this is a school that’s gonna suit them? And, and how do you monitor that? It’s, the whole thing is quite complex, to be honest.
[00:08:53] Meg Faure: Yeah, and I mean, it kind of comes around to listening to your own gut feelings about these things. Not that we can always hear our gut, because sometimes the science is so overwhelming and the noise is so noisy that we don’t, we can’t even hear what our gut is.
[00:09:07] Meg Faure: But I mean, I do remember when James was very little. I put him into a playgroup just down the road from us. Um, we lived in Nook and they were, it was small. There were only 15 kids in the, in the school. And he screamed and cried and held onto me every single morning. And he cried. Was still seemed to be crying when I picked him up.
[00:09:23] Meg Faure: And after about two months of that, um, I decided this is not working. And I, that’s when I started the first place in school actually, um, which was six children. I approached six of my friends, five of my friends, and I said, come like-minded people. I’ll hire an or pay, I’ll give her a program and, and we’ll homeschool our children in my home.
[00:09:39] Meg Faure: And I then, I did it for James and Alex and Emily. And to this day, all three of them look back on their pay since days as the most wonderful experience. And, and they all had that until they went to formal school, which was grade R in those days. Um, the sad thing is that so many people now are sticking their children into.
[00:09:56] Meg Faure: Formal schooling settings at a very young age, um, and also into schools that are so outcomes driven, driven for primary school, that there is only one measure of what is success and, you know, and, and, and that for me, I, I have a real problem. I, I think education is failing our kids and, you know, so to be able to listen to your gut feeling, I did listen to my gut.
[00:10:19] Meg Faure: On that preschool. Um, I didn’t listen to my gut on the, on the primary school because there was this thing of, you know, we need to get our children into the Bishops and Herschel and the private schools in primary school, otherwise they won’t get into high school. I mean, my biggest piece of advice to any mom who’s listening.
[00:10:35] Meg Faure: Who’s feeling this pressure to get your kids into a private school system in primary school is, don’t do it like it’s a waste of money. And, um, it’s, it’s expensive and they will get in when they get to high school. You know, high school’s a different story ’cause high school is your exit university. You need to have a certain grounding.
[00:10:51] Meg Faure: But primary school. Actually the best thing that they can have is a quite a bit of free time, uh, very little homework and just the foundation’s been done through, you know, an engaging teacher and an engaging curriculum. You know, so yeah, I mean, you really do need to listen to your inner voice when it comes to primary schools, I think.
[00:11:10] Julia: You, I mean, you are absolutely speaking my language. Um, and it’s funny ’cause I, I feel I really am going against the current with that, that’s exactly how I plan to approach their schooling. Um, because I watched so many of my friends with kids that are a little bit older than San or even actually children who are san’s age, who have been swept into grade A and grade R.
[00:11:31] Julia: In private schools because the parents are terrified, they’re not gonna get them in. Um, and then they’re gonna be in that private school system from, you know, the age of three until matric at 18. Um, and I am just a, that’s an obscene amount of money and b uh, I’m not playing that game. Like I, there are absolutely fantastic public schools near us.
[00:11:51] Julia: We’re very lucky to have them. The kids can go there for junior school, be exposed to all sorts of different people from different backgrounds and different cultures, and learn about the real world. And then, you know, like you say, they can have their formalized education from, you know, grade eight. That’s, I think that’s more than, than enough for them.
[00:12:07] Julia: Um, but there is absolutely a, a, a, a kind of. There’s a, a machine at work that is trying to, to catch these kids at, you know, at this very, very young age and, and suck them into the system. And, um, I think, uh, yeah, my plan is to, to buck that as much
[00:12:22] Meg Faure: as I can. Yeah, and I mean, talking about that machine, I mean, we are getting into all sorts of deep stuff here, but there are two machines.
[00:12:28] Meg Faure: So one has a commercial machine, which is that education. Um, companies have realized that they can monetize this and be hugely profitable and. Profit means you, you need to have as many heads in at the highest price possible, and then you, you know that that’s basically your revenue. Um, and so yes, that machine pushes you and pushes you from earlier and earlier.
[00:12:48] Meg Faure: I mean, I can remember when one of the big school groups in South Africa started under their same name of their school. A nursery when I talk about that, like I think for four month olds. And, um, they in fact shut down because they, they managed to get 30, um, newborns in hospital just about with the, with the rotavirus of some sort.
[00:13:07] Meg Faure: I think it was rotavirus time or RSV, I can’t remember, but it was really like. It was exactly case in point. Little babies are not supposed to be in, in big classrooms. Um, so that’s the first agenda is of course the commercial agenda. And the second agenda actually is what feeds on parents’ fears, which is that there’s this education system that is like, this is the only route to success in the world.
[00:13:29] Meg Faure: And I mean, we know that this is not to be true, but it plays in our fears because we think, gosh, if my child falls behind it, four years old. Then surely they’re never gonna catch up or never gonna get in, and they’re never gonna, you know, get that PhD. But I love the story about your brother because unconventional has more degrees than the rest of you, you know?
[00:13:47] Meg Faure: So it’s not a measure of success, not that a degree anyway, is a measure of success. But, um, yeah. So,
[00:13:54] Julia: yeah, no, I suppose we could go on forever about that topic, but it is, it is, it’s a very hot topic, I think for people with children, my children’s ages. Um, because it, we, we are at this crunch point where people are having to make a decision and, you know, uh, I do think that it is, it’s parents are so vulnerable at this stage and they just wanna do the best for.
[00:14:13] Julia: Kids. And unfortunately, you know, I might be cynical, but I think that there are people who prey on those vulnerabilities, unfortunately. And maybe a system that that does, whether it it’s, you know, wittingly or not. Um, but anyway, so yeah, the, these are the conversations I’m having with the other moms.
[00:14:29] Meg Faure: Absolutely. So interesting. And if we like kind of rewind in life back to the life of a nine, 10 month old, how is Aurelia doing?
[00:14:38] Bailey (Voice Over): This episode is brought to us by Parent Sense, the All-In-One Baby and parenting app that help you make the most of your baby’s first year. Don’t you wish someone would just tell you everything you need to know about caring for your baby, when to feed them?
[00:14:54] Bailey (Voice Over): How to wean them and why they won’t sleep. Parent Sense app is like having a baby expert on your phone, guiding you to parent with confidence. Get a flexible routine, daily tips and advice personalized for you and your little one. Download Parent Sense app null from your app store and take the guesswork outta parenting.
[00:15:18] Meg Faure: And if we like kind of rewind in life back to the life of a nine, 10 month old, how is Aurel doing?
[00:15:26] Julia: I’m very tired. Um, we’ve had a, a kind of, I guess, a kind of unfortunate confluence of events, I suppose. Um, I, I’m not necessarily a hundred percent sure what it all is, but I suspect it’s a combination of. So she’s been sick pretty much consecutively since the last time we spoke with, um, some version of a cold.
[00:15:50] Julia: I mean, a lot of people talk about, and, and I know certainly for adults, we are all getting these viruses that we’re struggling to get rid of completely. Um, certainly they take a long time to, you know, look for coughs to clear and things like that. And I think it’s something like that with her when she’s had a little bit of a cold and it hasn’t really cleared properly.
[00:16:05] Julia: And then she’s been hit with some other kind of little virus and, um, they were both man down on Sunday. With, uh, temperatures and, um, not feeling a hundred percent. They’re not terribly sick, but not great. So her nights have been disrupted because of that. Um, so managing temperatures and having Ty noses and perhaps being in a bit of pain.
[00:16:24] Julia: Um, the mouth has been absolutely pouring, so I suspect there’s perhaps another tooth on the horizon. Um, she, uh, also is going through a developmental leap essentially because she’s kind of. Busy transitioning from crawling to walking. Um, she’s pushing her, her walker, um, along the ground. She loves that. It was actually funny ’cause what it was making me think of was how different Santi and Aurel are as babies.
[00:16:50] Julia: And I don’t know if it’s as simple as just boys versus girls and maybe part partly to do with that. But I remember when he was crawling. He could not be stopped. He just wanted to motor around the house. From the minute he learned how to crawl, he was just rushing around the house. Whereas her, her main motivation for calling is to crawl to something she can pull up on so that she can stand and bounce or potentially push it around.
[00:17:12] Julia: So she’s not quite as busy, I suppose, as he was. And I said one of the things that I noticed is quite interesting. I mean, it’s quite nice for me. But, um, she, yeah, she, she’s very much, uh, wanting to, you know, stand up in the cock and stand up in the bath and, you know, is getting quite dangerous. Um, so there’s just lots and lots going on and I think that the, the elements of that are all kind of playing into not great amounts of, of sleep.
[00:17:36] Julia: And, um, I think the last time we spoke, we had been struggling with very early morning wakings and kind of as I predicted, those were replaced quite quickly by. All of this stuff. Um, and it’s been a combination of night wakings and um, sometimes going down quite, um, badly at bedtime and I struggling with that a bit.
[00:17:53] Julia: Uh, so yeah, it’s been a, a, just a lot of disruption and it really starts to, to add up after a while.
[00:18:00] Meg Faure: Yeah, so very interesting. And before I jump in, ’cause I’ve got quite a few things that I’d like to give you as tips and a few other ideas as well. Uh, but before I do, when you are talking about bad sleep, can you just sketch what her day and night’s sleep currently looks like?
[00:18:13] Julia: So, um, she’s up for the day around six normally, and then her first nap is usually half past eight, maybe nine o’clock. Um, that nap, unless it’s disrupted by something like pain or fever, uh, it’s normally about an hour and a half. When she’s like, now she’s been sick. It’s been more like two hours, but that’s not really normal.
[00:18:36] Julia: Um, and then she has another nap, um, kind of around lunchtime or just after lunchtime. Normally about, sort of half past 12. Um, and she’ll sleep for never, I normally try and get her up after an hour max. Um, and then she goes down for bed at between six and half or six normally. Um, and, and she goes down to the day naps usually.
[00:18:56] Julia: Okay. Like I say, unless she’s kind of feeling unwell, she, she normally does sleep nicely. Is she fighting bedtime? Um, a couple of times she has, um, literally two or three times in the last three weeks, but largely bedtime. She’s pretty good at, um, she’ll go down quite nicely and what we struggle with is if she does wake in the night, if you know it, it used to be, you know, more than few weeks ago that she would just have a little bit of water and normally kind of goes straight back to sleep or she was sleeping through.
[00:19:23] Julia: Um. At the moment, it’s a bit more of a struggle to get her down. Or we’ve had some nights where she’s like, wide awake. It’s time to party, bounce, bounce, bounce, wants our attention and we, I have to like, try and sit in the room. It’s like my back to her. Try not to make eye contact. We’re not playing, it’s bedtime now.
[00:19:39] Julia: So we, and that’s sort of, I can take like an hour to get her to go back to sleep. So that’s a little bit of a nightmare. Um, so yeah, it’s a sort of mixed bag. And how many times does she wake at night? Um, oh, usually one. But last night was like. Three times. But, uh, yeah, I don’t think she was happy last night.
[00:19:56] Julia: I think she was still feeling a bit sick. So, um, normally I would say it’s, it’s once that’s, yeah, but it just, I suppose it’s, it’s the degree of effort it takes to get her back down. That can vary.
[00:20:05] Meg Faure: Yeah. Okay. All right. Well let, let, let’s break it down into four different buckets in terms of sleep. So I always like to look at the basic needs.
[00:20:12] Meg Faure: I like to look at the sensory. I like to look at, um, the, the developmental and then also of course the habits. So I mean, in each of those buckets, the absent basic needs are always the most important thing to rule out. And you’ve mentioned the illness and that can definitely have a bearing. So that would be the first place that I would start.
[00:20:31] Meg Faure: And you know, often when little ones have had a snotty nose, they actually get what’s called gl ear, which is basically the fluid from the nose, which is really liquidy and mucusy when it’s. Fresh filters when they’re lying down, filters down through the eustachian tubes into the inner ear. And then what what ends up happening is that it gets, it thickens up and it becomes gunky and it can’t flow back out.
[00:20:53] Meg Faure: And so while it’s not an infection, it’s what we call glue ears. So it’s just a congestion in the ears and it actually causes pressure behind the eardrums, which then actually wake them up. So, um, very first thing she’s been pulling on her ears. Meg, that’s very useful. Yes. So I, the very first thing I would look at, and you don’t even need a doctor’s appointment.
[00:21:14] Meg Faure: I mean, most pharmacies have got somebody who can look with the stethoscope, uh, an ear thing inside the ears, and they just look for a little light reflex bouncing off the tim of the eardrum. And then they can say to you, this is clearly or not. It’s as simple as sorting it out with a little nasal decongestants, which we don’t like to use in little babies or for too long, but otherwise some saline solution.
[00:21:33] Meg Faure: And so I would definitely start off there. So, so just get those ears clear and make sure, um, particularly if she’s, if she’s having that, you know, long patches of waking or lots of wakings. Also currently rife in South Africa’s foot and mouth disease. So that’s, um, the cos AKI virus. Um, and it’s, you know, I heard it on the news the other day and I was like, why are they announcing how many cases of cos AKI virus there are?
[00:21:56] Meg Faure: Because every, every kid gets it, I’m sure every year. Thousands of children have it. But now there’s this announcement on the radio that X amount of children have got kki virus, like its measles. I don’t know. It’s, it’s not, it’s not dangerous. It does cause some irritability. They get, um, they, they kind of get miserable for a while.
[00:22:13] Meg Faure: And then these little, um. Kind of, uh, almost like little souls come out on the soles of their hands, blisters that come outta their so soles and their hands, and then also blisters in their mouth. And often if they’re drooling a lot, that can be something so worth just checking out. Nothing you can do about it.
[00:22:27] Meg Faure: It is a virus, but it, it, it also could be so, so that
[00:22:30] Julia: I suspect that’s exactly what Auntie had and in fact it’s probably makes sense that he gave it to her as well, so, okay. Right. First you out the box. You got it.
[00:22:40] Meg Faure: Right. Definitely worth checking out the basics. Always kick off there. Especially, you know, and, and moms listening to you and following your journey, have known that Aurelia is a very easy baby.
[00:22:48] Meg Faure: And when we get easy babies and they disrupt themselves, nine out of 10 times it’s gonna be health and they’ll do it because they will get disrupted by health and because, you know, they’re miserable and whatever. But yeah, just treat it symptomatically. Maybe see somebody and get those two sorted out.
[00:23:04] Meg Faure: Also fitting into the basic needs is nutrition of course. And, um, another thing just with this age children is that you want to make sure they’re getting enough iron. ’cause their iron stores from birth disappear by six months. Unless they’re on a fortified cereal or a formula, they’re probably not getting additional iron.
[00:23:21] Meg Faure: Um, and so it needs to be given to them in a good whole and diet, which means red meat, leafy vegetables, dark green veggies, that type of thing. So. I would definitely be having a look at your, um, and, and what’s quite a nice thing to get that in is there’s a recipe inside the Weaning Sense book, which, which has, it has spinach and quinoa in it as the savories and then as the sweet, it’s got the berry and banana and it is just a fabulous smoothie.
[00:23:45] Meg Faure: They love drinking it and because it’s got the vitamin C with the berries and the, um, iron in the spinach, it’s a really good way to get your iron stores, um, in your iron nutrition in, in a natural way as well. Otherwise. You can pop onto Fluor Liquid Iron, which is a nice, soft, um, iron supplement, which also works well.
[00:24:04] Meg Faure: So that would be the nutrition piece that I would definitely be taking care of. Then moving on into, um, and just a little bit around sleeps. Um, this is, there are two times when we get a sleep, um, regression associated with too much sleep in the day. The one is at nine months and the other one is at 12 months.
[00:24:22] Meg Faure: And the reason is that at nine months they need to drop to two sleeps and at 12 months they need to drop, or 12 to 14 months they need to drop to one sleep. Now she has dropped to two sleeps, but she’s having quite a lot on a day that she has a two hour morning and more than an hour lunchtime, she probably will wake up at night because she’s effectively getting a good three hours during the day.
[00:24:43] Meg Faure: The classic amount that we would normally expect from nine months and she’s now 10 months onwards, um, would be. You don’t have to stick to the times, but we would be looking for 45 minutes in the morning and a maximum of an hour, an hour and a half in the afternoon sheet. They can swing it around the other way so they can do 90 minutes in the morning and 45 in the afternoon.
[00:25:03] Meg Faure: But if she’s had a good 90 to two hours in the morning, I would probably wake her after 45 or an hour in the afternoon, um, and see if that helps. So just pull back those day. Sleeps a little bit. And moms, if you are listening and you still aren’t, three days sleeps. Between nine and 10 months, definitely drop that late afternoon sleep.
[00:25:20] Meg Faure: Your little one will be fighting it anyway, but um, it is worth dropping it because that can also, I. And then in terms of the sensory, um, the sensory, one of the things that I definitely think is that they need a lot of vestibular input and what’s interesting, and that’s movement input in the afternoon.
[00:25:37] Meg Faure: What’s interesting with those little ones who don’t love to crawl and get up on their, on their legs, what they’re often doing is they’re bouncing quite a bit and they’re almost seeking that prop perception. So you wanna make sure she’s getting lots of prop percept and lots of vestibular as well. So popping her on a swing in the late afternoon would also be a really good idea.
[00:25:55] Meg Faure: Um, and then your developmental leaps. She has got two that she is going through. The one is that she is now progressing through a milestone, so either becoming swift crawler or moving on into practicing walking, definitely interferes. And nothing you can do about that though. That is one of the sleep things that you just have to bite your time and move through.
[00:26:15] Meg Faure: The other one that is classic at this age of separation anxiety, where they just wanna know that you’re there. So they call you back because they wanna make sure that you still exist when they can’t see you. Um, and for that it would be playing lots of separation games in the day. Lots of peekaboo calling behind the couch and calling her to find you always saying goodbye.
[00:26:33] Meg Faure: So if you leave the house, leave the room. Don’t try and sneak out. Say goodbye. I always say with moms who working or having to leave, like you’re gonna go and fetch Santi from school always starts with very small increments. So say goodbye to her and go down the passage and come back five minutes later.
[00:26:49] Meg Faure: So she starts to associate a separation with the reunion quite quickly while it’s still in her mind. And then when you have an extended time, like 45 minutes to go and. Five hours because you’re at work, you then, um, you know, she, she then understands that you do come back when, when, when she doesn’t see you.
[00:27:04] Meg Faure: So those are just some of the absolute basics. And then other than that, it’s all the behavioral stuff. So, um, she doesn’t need any sleep training for certain. Um, I would just be going through these steps. But for moms who’ve got habits like their baby’s being fed to sleep or rock to sleep or waking for 15 dummies, they would then need to do the behavioral.
[00:27:23] Meg Faure: So that’s kind of sleep sense in five minutes. There you go.
[00:27:28] Julia: Mm. Yeah. All, all such good advice. I’ve actually even been writing it down. I find myself that often, you know, we record these episodes and they come out so a few weeks later and by the time they either listen to them again and I think completely for, forgot about that thing that Meg told me.
[00:27:42] Julia: I really must do that. So now I’m taking notes because I know that by the time I listen back to this, I’ll be like, oh, I wish I had remembered that at the time, but it made my life so
[00:27:50] Meg Faure: much easier. Excellent. Yeah, well hopefully, we’ll you’ll, you’ll get that sleep sorted quite quickly. And, and that’s the good news is that first of all, good sleepers return to be good sleepers.
[00:27:59] Meg Faure: And second of all, any mom who’s worked to sleep once can just go back to those principles again and they become, they almost become life skills for you, um, and for your little one, but life skills for you to be able to deal with the next sleep pickup, which of course will happen again.
[00:28:13] Julia: Exactly. Yeah. And it’s as the, the gift of having, you know, of, of being on your next child, your second or third child, is I think that you really do know that kids move through these phases really quickly.
[00:28:27] Julia: Whereas in your first child, you think you’re going to die. In the moment at four o’clock in the morning when you’ve been awake for two hours and you think this is going to kill me. Um, it’s, it’s much easier to have a little bit of perspective even though, uh, you know, that’s not to say it’s not tough at the time, but, uh, it’s, uh, it just, it is easier.
[00:28:43] Meg Faure: Yeah. And that’s so interesting because I think often when people are a little bit judgy on social media to say, um, you know, just kind of, you know. They, they’re little for so short, don’t spoil, you know, don’t worry about spoiling them like, you know, break rules, but they don’t understand that actually when I’m the mom at the Rock Fest, I do actually need some sort of, um, normality.
[00:29:01] Meg Faure: You know, they say, don’t worry if they wake up 15 times and night, just get up for them. It’ll be over in a couple of years. Well, you, you feel like I might not survive. I’ll be dead by then. Exactly. Yeah. No, absolutely. I feel your
[00:29:13] Julia: pain. It’s enough to incite a extreme amount of rage. Yeah. That, that, that whole narrative, I must say, I, I’ve wholeheartedly reject.
[00:29:20] Julia: It’s, um, the idea that, that you should somehow at, in the sort of thick of night when you’ve been doing this for 10 months in a row, somehow find some miraculous gratitude that is going to make you not feel absolutely exhausted, is just entirely absurd. So. Um, moms, if you are also absolutely knackered and you really don’t like your baby in the middle of the night, I think that’s normal and it’s okay because the thing I always tell myself is tomorrow’s another day when I spend the night when I am just exhausted and I can’t stand my child, or I end up shouting at Santi about something I shouldn’t have.
[00:29:59] Julia: I just tell myself that tomorrow is a chance to try again and do better. That’s the only thing you can do.
[00:30:05] Meg Faure: Exactly. A hundred percent. Absolutely. And other things. Tell us what else is going on because I was just quickly popping into the app. Um, the parenting app, and I, of course I have Aurelius’s Pro Aurelius’s profile on my app.
[00:30:15] Meg Faure: And one of the things for today is that the developmental outcome for the period is pointing with a finger. Has she started pointing with a finger? Like if you put some Cheerios or pip, uh, or peas down, will she start to scratch at them or point.
[00:30:28] Julia: She not exactly. Although the other day I was, you know, sort of et phone home thing, like I was pointing my finger at her.
[00:30:36] Julia: Then she would touch her fingertip to mine and sort of, I think that’s kind of maybe the first step towards getting her to point, to kind of be aware of her fingertips. So I suppose we’re getting there. She, she is doing a lot of, um, kind of mimicry, I suppose. So the other day I also, I was, I was feeding her and uh, I was doing, I’m making a funny noise with my mouth and she sort of looked at me with these big eyes and then she went.
[00:30:59] Julia: And did it straight back at me. It was so cute. Um, so there’s a lot of that kind of thing going on, which is really sweet. Um, and it just feels like every day she’s learning some new funny noise to make or gesture to make. Um, I’ve been trying to teach her as I’ve been feeding her. Um. I guess a kind of a sign for all done.
[00:31:18] Julia: Um, which is something that I did with Santi. And you know, funny, I, I know that this is gonna sound like an insane thing to say and it’s probably just like my, you know, slightly biased mothering instinct. But when I was saying to her last night, um, doing the kind of gesture of, of shrugging and putting my hands up and saying, all done, and she literally just went, all done.
[00:31:36] Julia: I was like, what? She, she just. Of course you didn’t do it again after that, but maybe I hallucinated the whole thing. But, um, there’s some kind of, of, uh, of mirror neurons firing. I’m convinced.
[00:31:49] Meg Faure: And you definitely do get it. And those are some of my favorite videos that you can actually find on YouTube when a baby way before the talking age actually mimics the word so closely, um, that it actually, you, you know, that they, that they were actually trying to say that.
[00:32:02] Meg Faure: I mean, there’s a video of a gorgeous little girl. She’s four months old sitting on her dad’s lap. And she, and she said, he says, I love you. I love you. And he keeps repeating, I love you. And then she does. She says, I love you. I mean, she’s four months old. She’s clearly not saying I love you. That’s a three word sentence.
[00:32:18] Meg Faure: But it was just like, and I’ve watched it so many times because I use it for teaching purposes when I’m teaching my um, therapist. And um, it is amazing. But what she was doing was, of course, first of all serve and return, which is taking a turn and responding. And second of all, yeah, that imitation of sounds, not necessarily words and yeah, she won’t do it again for a while potentially, but that was technically her talking.
[00:32:40] Meg Faure: I think she’s genius.
[00:32:42] Julia: I mean, I have to agree with you. I, I, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s not only the most beautiful baby in existence, but also the smartest baby in existence. Although Titi does keep saying to me, she’s very, very smart. ’cause she keeps talking about all the kind of serve and return that she lands at being with her in the day.
[00:32:56] Julia: And the fact that she’s my mother-in-law tells me that my husband started walking at nine months, which I don’t believe for one second. Um, but now that I’ve actually seen it in action, when you know she is. Really actually quite close to walking. I can see how that actually is a possibility. Um, you know, whereas Santi was much more, you know, on the nose of 12 months he started walking.
[00:33:15] Julia: Um, but they always say girls are a little bit quicker in their development as well. So maybe it’s that as well.
[00:33:20] Meg Faure: Well, I’ll tell you something very interesting. So it’s very interesting that you say that. Um, because my firstborn did actually walk at nine months. Um, he, um, yeah, so de kids definitely do, do it.
[00:33:34] Meg Faure: Um, and at the time I was like, this kid is going to be a spring box something, because he’s clearly, his gross motor skills are so advanced. What actually transpired was, I mean, he was walking by nine months, running by 10 months. Impossible. I mean, it was the most. Like frightening experience of my life to have this, this very underage child with no boundaries, you know, so stable and running.
[00:33:56] Meg Faure: But what actually happened was his gross motor milestones later on were not as good as other children. And actually he will even tell you that he was very uncoordinated. He never was a fabulous, um, swimmer, cricket player. There’s a reason for that. And that is that the longer children take with foundational milestones, the more they consolidate for later on.
[00:34:18] Meg Faure: And so you actually find, and I mean bizarre story, but my sister’s middle child only walked at 18 months. I mean literally 18 months. I was starting to panic, um, you know, inside myself. ’cause I was like, I know this, this can be normal. But now he’s my nephew. So now actually, um, you know, everything I tell mom suddenly takes on another meaning.
[00:34:39] Meg Faure: He is going probably be a spring. He is. He is the most coordinated cricket imaginable. He’s, he goes international cricket.
[00:34:49] Meg Faure: The point is that consolidation of milestones is very important. So when you were talking, I actually wrote it down, ’cause you said to me right at the beginning of the conversation that Santi crawled for forever or very fu and speedily and that was his motive of, of locomotion. And of course Aurelia is.
[00:35:06] Meg Faure: Is not doing that as fast as much and is getting up onto your feet quickly. And you probably will find, and I’d love to touch base with you in four years time, that he actually is more coordinated than she is long term. And so that’s, and it’s one of those illustrations that are often used to say to moms, don’t try and rush those milestones.
[00:35:23] Meg Faure: ’cause slow consolidation bears way more fruit later on than swiftly moving through things and not getting a consolidated properly. Um, and there is neuroscience to actually support that as well.
[00:35:36] Julia: Well, there’s a part of me that’s quite, I mean, it’s probably an entirely sexist thing to say, but I’m quite relieved that, um, that bodes well for Ante’s sporting career.
[00:35:43] Julia: But a Ray’s gonna be beautiful. She doesn’t need to be a spring book.
[00:35:49] Julia: She is beautiful. That’s what I tell myself. I wasn’t particularly coordinated either. I actually asked my mom when I started walking. She’s here. I’ll ask her now. Um, because that would be very, very interesting. I was actually asking her about the two of us and how well, how our milestones compared actually.
[00:36:03] Julia: So I’m sure that’s kind of fascinating too.
[00:36:06] Meg Faure: Well, we have touched on everything. I mean, we on wide of. Um, especially in the long-term journey of a child. You know, I loved our conversation around education, um, and a lot of what we’ve spoken about is actually spoken to slowing down as well. You know, like not necessarily putting yourself, your baby, your life on a, on a rollercoaster, and rather just actually going through the consolidation and, and, and getting a good match for your little ones.
[00:36:33] Meg Faure: So
[00:36:34] Julia: I know we’ve spoken a lot about the, um. Challenges of being a working mom. And I certainly struggled last year with finding a balance of any, any kind. Um, and I did say that I was gonna make some progress around trying to pull back on work a bit. And I have over the last month, and I can’t actually tell you what a huge difference has made to have.
[00:36:57] Julia: I’ve basically got an extra set of hands to help me at work now. Um. And the difference in my capacity as a parent, let alone the other, you know, changes to my mood and the stress levels and so on, has been quite profound. So, you know, you’re talking about slowing down. I really do. I’m a huge advocate for that.
[00:37:17] Julia: I, I couldn’t do it last year. The, the system wasn’t set up for me, but now I, I feel like I, I can, and it’s in place and it’s hugely beneficial. So, yeah. Here’s the
[00:37:28] Meg Faure: thing down. Yeah, absolutely. There’s a wonderful book that I read, uh, many years ago now, and it was one of my favorite books at the time, and I, it actually, I used it to inform some of the work I did at, but the book was called In Praise of Slow and it spoke about child development as well as the rest of our lives.
[00:37:45] Meg Faure: And it really is a book that’s worth getting your hands on. And, um, yarn hats off to you ’cause sometimes. Slowing down is really hard. I mean, I recently had to do it with a team member of mine where I could see the wheels were falling off, um, in her home life. And I said to her, you know what, you, you are going to need to just take a little bit of a breather for a couple of months.
[00:38:03] Meg Faure: Not, not, not leave work or anything, but just take a lower load. And, um, I hope it will be a fruit for her because I think a lot of people feel like, oh, you know, if I don’t, if I take my foot off the pedal, I’m gonna go backwards. But actually you’re still moving. Just not necessarily as frenetic as you were, so maybe you’re consolidating, which is a good thing.
[00:38:21] Julia: Yeah. And my, you know, again, it does come back to privilege. I’m lucky enough that by taking my foot off the gas, you know, I have had to have conversations with Vito about what that means from a financial perspective for us. Um, and it’s, it’s okay. It’s manageable. So it me for the time being, um, not everybody has that privilege.
[00:38:39] Julia: Um, but you know, I suppose it isn’t necessarily also always just about that there are other ways to, to find presence of mind to find. Time to make time. Um, I do believe in that, you know, we talk about busyness in the society a lot, and it, it has been historically overvalued, I think now that the balance is shifting.
[00:38:56] Julia: But, um, I do think that, that there are lots of ways to make time for things that are important, like rest, like connection. Um, so it’s, but it just takes, it takes effort and it takes some, some decision making.
[00:39:09] Meg Faure: And
[00:39:09] Julia: sometimes
[00:39:10] Meg Faure: it’s not as much about privilege as it is about priorities. And somebody recently said to me, you need to think about how much is enough.
[00:39:18] Meg Faure: Because we were always, you know, what is your priority and, and and, and what is the cost? And, um, yeah. And amazing to you for doing that. ’cause I think there’ll be a lot of moms who’s sitting, listening to this thinking, gosh, I, I know that I’m, I’m just holding on, on a knife’s edge, so maybe it is time to slow down a bit.
[00:39:35] Meg Faure: Wonderful. Thanks Julia. I really appreciate the chat and we will do it again. Cool. Thanks Meg. See you next time.
[00:39:43] Bailey (Voice Over): Thanks to everyone who joined us. We will see you the same time next week. Until then, download Parent Sense app and take the guesswork out Parenting.
Podcast
