[00:00:00] Dr Renee White: Knowledge is power, and we are all about empowering the mamas of the world. In each episode, we will unravel and interpret the latest research and evidence based practices for pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood. As mums and researchers ourselves, we have experienced firsthand the overwhelming complexity of information, myths, and those classic old wives tales.

[00:00:27] I'm Dr. Renee White, and this is The Study. Hello and welcome to episode 150 of the Science of Motherhood. I am your host, Dr. Renee White. so much for joining me today. We have got a guest who has been on this podcast a number of times now. She is one of our resident experts on sleep and she, like myself, is an avid researcher and that is why we continue to have her back on.

[00:01:02] She definitely epitomizes the Science of Motherhood in so many different ways. You might have caught, um, us back on the socials last year when I made a trip out to Japan with my family. We caught up with this amazing guest and my husband and I met her for lunch and she took us to the most amazing tempura restaurant I have ever been to.

[00:01:29] My husband still talks about it and he is one of the pickiest eaters known to mankind. So it was so lovely to finally meet Dr. Laura Gainche in real life. For those who haven't heard her previous episodes, which were episodes 46 and 54, jump back into those to listen to Laura's, I guess, you know, origin story in detail.

[00:01:57] But for all those playing at home, she is a French Chilean mum of a daughter and two kitty cats. Um, she's a scientist, she's a holistic sleep coach, a wife in a multicultural family. She married a Japanese um, man and i think most of all, Laura is just a huge advocate for empowering other mums and women across the globe with education around sleep and how it doesn't have to be about sleep training.

[00:02:30] As way of background, Laura was originally a geneticist, uh, a lady after my own heart. I thought I was going to be a geneticist as well, but you know, biochemistry caught me instead. Um, interestingly enough, she did her PhD in the same town as I did in Melbourne in, um, human sleep physiology, but after becoming a mum, she found like a ton of conflicting information on science and baby wellbeing.

[00:02:58] And you know, in her previous podcast, she talks about how triggering that was for her. And essentially she wanted to embark on a journey where she could you know, empower and inform other women and mums to make the right choices for their specific needs. And that is where her business kind of evolved as a holistic, um, sleep specialist and essentially trying to just squash this mainstream sleep training and crying it out phenomenon.

[00:03:30] So she founded the business science for all women. Which is amazing. As I said, you can hear more about that in detail in the other episodes, uh, episode 46 and 54. But in today's episode, you'll hear that Laura and I try to start and embark on a journey where we kind of, you know, keep to questions that we were hashing about, you know, offline, but as usual, our chats always evolve and come back to research.

[00:04:01] And Laura is just so she got the finger on the pulse when it comes to sleep research. And some of the discussions we talk about are absolutely fascinating. And I just love, love, love, love how deep dive she goes into it. So yeah, I guess, you know, as an umbrella, we talk about, you know, what mamas can do in preparation, you know, when they're still pregnant, you know, what they should be buying, if anything, and like, you know, sleep environments and putting that together.

[00:04:35] But ultimately, you know, it is just the weaving in of the latest research, which as I said, Laura has a fantastic handle on. So I really hope you enjoy this chat with Laura about the latest on sleep research. Here is Laura. Hello and welcome to the podcast. Dr. Laura Gainche, how are you?

[00:05:02] Dr Laura Gainche: I'm good. I'm so glad to be back. It's been too long. We have so many pieces that I'm missing from the previous podcast and now we're gonna fill the blanks, I guess.

[00:05:13] Dr Renee White: Yes. For all those playing at home, Laura was on twice already, uh, on our previous episodes and we just conferred episode 46 and 54 where we were talking about throwing out the wake window time schedules and they were fantastic episodes. I can't even remember how we connected in the beginning. I was trying to think about this the other day. It was probably social media. I probably saw something of yours and I was like, Oh my God. And then for all those playing at home, uh, you'll hear that Laura has a French accent, but she is going to blindside you because she's French Chilean and she lives in Japan and we met up last, is it last year?

[00:06:02] Dr Laura Gainche: Last year.

[00:06:02] Dr Renee White: Last year around, uh, Easter time. Yeah. And um, Laura took myself and my husband to the most amazing tempura restaurant ever, Grayson still yabbers on about that place. He absolutely loved it and I still remember you, you had this beautiful gift for my daughter. Those beautiful gorgeous strawberries that she was, she was trying to ration the entire trip, Laura. She was like, Oh, they're so beautiful, mum. I can't eat all of them. And I was like, that's okay, darling Laura will understand.

[00:06:44] Dr Laura Gainche: Oh, that's so cute.

[00:06:46] Dr Renee White: And that was a magic trip for us.

[00:06:48] Dr Laura Gainche: You guys went to Disneyland Tokyo and then because I sent you some little insider info so you would, uh, you would, uh, beat the crowds and yeah, I'm so glad you came over. Like it's so nice because you make really deep connections through social media, especially in your own, you know, like there are not many sleep people in Japan. I'm a bit lonely over here. And so when I can actually meet my colleagues or my friends, like you, um, in real like it feels it's unreal it's like oh my god you know.

[00:07:26] Dr Renee White: You exist, you exist in real time but we were so lucky because um japan had just opened with like the whole covid lockdown thing and it was yeah it was such a nice opportunity to just sit and chat and as you say connect because you know, despite Instagram, there's real people out there with real families and yeah, it was really, really lovely.

[00:07:51] But before we dive into today's episode, obviously we're going to be talking about sleep. We're kind of, it's almost like, I feel like stop gap of all the things that we wanted to talk about in those previous two episodes, but didn't get an opportunity. So as I kind of said offline, you know, it's a bit of an overarching topic of sleep, but I feel like these are like really important questions that parents continually ask. Um, so we're going to be going through a few of those, but first of all, did you just want to introduce yourself to the listeners for those who haven't listened to those previous two episodes?

[00:08:30] Dr Laura Gainche: So, hi, I'm Laura. I'm originally a geneticist turned sleep scientist. So always kind of in the neuroscience field. Uh, and I then became a sleep educator because I got pushed into it by, you know, mummy groups when I became a mum and they were like, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. And so most of my kind of content is on Instagram. Uh, but I just, you know, you have this thing now on Instagram where you can write some kind of header or heading.

[00:09:02] Dr Renee White: Oh yeah, that little bubble thing.

[00:09:04] Dr Laura Gainche: And I wrote. I post sporadically, but it is quality content.

[00:09:11] Dr Renee White: Quality over quantity, everyone. I can assure you of that. Yeah.

[00:09:15] Dr Laura Gainche: And so I still take clients here and there, but, uh, right now really focused on kind of digging. I'm actually doing some juicy, juicy, research, sleep research, uh, for a YouTube video that I'm making. Oh, keep an eye on that. I don't think we'll talk about that today. Maybe we will.

[00:09:34] Dr Renee White: No, let's not talk about it. We'll have you back on the podcast for another one of those, um, episodes for sure.

[00:09:42] Dr Laura Gainche: But yeah, so yeah, I'm a sleep educator now, um, mostly with families. I sometimes also talk about adult sleep since that was originally my, my expertise, but all sleep, all fun, no mum shaming, uh, a lot of tolerance, a lot of science. Um, so yeah, join us, um, on the podcast and on Instagram, YouTube, wherever.

[00:10:05] Dr Renee White: I have to say, Laura, I'm going to completely just embarrass you probably, but I just wanted to mention, uh, I received I sent this to you. So, you know, about this already. I'm not going to throw you under the bus. I received 1 of the nicest messages the other day about you on our podcast. So for anyone who's like, Oh, I don't have time to go back to the other episodes. Please do because, um, a listener DMd me and I was asking her specifically, she's pregnant again. I said, what are the types of episodes? What types of things you want to know about? Because, you know, I'm on the hunt and I'm looking for topics.

[00:10:47] And cut a long story short, she was just talking about, you know, the different topics she was hoping for but then she made a note of saying, I also loved your episode on sleep with Dr. Laura Gainche, it has literally changed my life. Okay, so anyone who's on the fence about listening to Laura and all of her wisdom, sign up. Pick the follow, get on board, people, because it is life changing, these discussions.

[00:11:18] Dr Laura Gainche: And also, people, don't hesitate to send those messages or DM, like for both. Me and Renee, because it's really hard sometimes you feel like you're screaming in a void, trying to make a change, you know, and when we receive these messages, trust me, we're all like screenshotting them, putting them in a folder because sometimes it's really hard.

[00:11:43] And, um, as much as, you know, we work with families and we have amazing reviews and testimonials in private, sometimes it's, it's hard to know that, this is important, this worked for you, or you want to know more about this, like, um, and actually Renee, I'm not sure I told you, but a colleague of mine from the University of Melbourne worked with one of your doulas.

[00:12:07] Yes! And then she came and she was like, and then through the Doola network to have her child, she found the podcast and then she found me and she was like, Laura, we did work together. And she was also raving about your services. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm so glad to know that, you know, some people actually hear about what the amazing work that you do. And, you know, It's, it's another part of the mothering journey that is so important. So yeah, please continue letting us know about it.

[00:12:41] Dr Renee White: Thank you for that. It is, it is like when I received that message, I was having a bit of like, you know what, you know, you have a rough week and you're just like far out, nothing's working, you know, tech things are going wrong.

[00:12:53] And I'm just like, Oh, what is happening to my life? You know? And then you get one of those and he's just like, everything is happy again. But you're right. You know, we, especially because I do these check in Tuesday episodes, which is, you know, every second week and I, it's just me talking and I'm just like, okay, I'm talking to the microphone.

[00:13:14] I hope one person out there finds value in this, you know, just kind of like moving along. So it'd be so nice to read reviews. It's so nice for people to jump into the DMS and just be like, hey, you know what? That was awesome. Thank you so much. Like, it's just, you know, a little pick me up for the week.

[00:13:33] Dr Laura Gainche: And another bit because again, we don't shame here. So, like, I get a lot of families that get amazing results from consults with me and stuff and then I don't hear from them and then they pop out two years later. Like, actually, recently, I got a return client from years back who wanted help with their other child. And I had never heard from them in terms of the testimonials or anything, but they came back. So I'm guessing it was good.

[00:14:02] Yeah. But that's the thing. I also understand that you're a parent and you really have more to do than send messages or testimonials or something. So if you feel like it on that moment, don't push it away and be like, oh, I'll just say I love it something small. It makes all the difference.

[00:14:19] Dr Renee White: It does. It absolutely does. Thank you for that.

[00:14:23] Okay. Let's jump into some of these topics. We've got a list of things that we're going to get through in today's episode. So, um, if any of these resonate with you, uh, you know, please feel free to comment. If there's something that we miss out on this topic as well, like send us, send us a DM and be like, Hey, Hey, Hey, can you like tell us about, you know, this or more about that? So our first question, I love this. This is kind of like a little mini rapid fire, best baby sleep environment and what you, and we're doing bunny quotes here, people, what should you buy? If anything, I saw this the other day, there was a mum who, uh, it's kind of long time between drinks, let's just say between her second and now pregnant with her third, and she was kind of doing a bit of a call out and like, Hey, you know, what's, what are the latest gadgets and things that I need to get for this new baby? And like, you know, there was a couple of people suggesting things and I threw my hat in the ring and just said, depends on the baby though, doesn't it?

[00:15:27] Are we on the right track, Laura?

[00:15:29] Dr Laura Gainche: We're absolutely, you know, you know, we are. Um, so, you know, besides even just buying something, people will organise an entire bedroom for the baby who's not even born and I feel like, you know, tell me if you, you disagree, but I feel like when you have a baby, the first thing that you think is nursery, like the first thing that you're like, well, that's what I have to do. Like, you don't think about taking care of yourself during pregnancy. You don't think about, you know, what kind of exercise you're going to do if you want to continue exercising. It's like, you don't think about that. No, it's just like baby equals nursery, which means that the marketing of, you know, the world is working very well, but that's where I want to stop first is like, I want to know.

[00:16:21] And I started answering this question recently in a post, how many babies can sleep in a separate room? Like you're wasting your time already during pregnancy, organising a room because the likelihood that your baby is going to sleep in a separate room or use a separate room is already slightly unrealistic.

[00:16:40] So why you were saying it is, is so good. And it's, it's, I was actually writing down this number, which I think is like 70, 000 billion, something there's, there's like three, three, three, there's like 12 zeros. So I think it's like 70, 000 billion, about 70, 000 billion is the number of, um, genetic possibilities of humans.

[00:17:10] Dr Renee White: Right.

[00:17:11] Dr Laura Gainche: In theory. So not that this exists. It's just a possibility. Yeah. So, um, with this amount of possibilities of genes, we're all so different, you know, it's like, there's no way that we're going to have that many people and then that we're going to have copy of each other who have the same needs who have the same preferences and this is just one way to illustrate that.

[00:17:37] You know, 1 thing is going to work for a person. 1 is not going to work for a person. So what you're saying is exactly where I wanted to go, which is. It depends on your baby, first of all, and so to make it easy, and then we'll talk about the crib. I also put the quotation here just for people to know the infamous crib.

[00:18:00] I always talk about it just with a stroller. So I feel like that's one of the most common question on, on mum groups, on Facebook, if people still are on Facebook, wherever mum groups are, what's the best stroller, which one's the best stroller. And I still remember to this day, one of my best friend, when I was a parent had that stroller, that was amazing. She was like, Oh, this is the best stroller. This is the best stroller. And eventually I bought the same stroller, which made so much sense for me cause I was always in the bus on the train and I needed something sturdy because I was walking a lot, but really kind of narrow to enter the bus and be on the bus with crowded people, but it still couldn't be like one of those, you know, many wheels kind of thing.

[00:18:45] And so I got that stroller, it changed my life, my daughter actually slept in it a few times, which if you remember from previous episodes, that doesn't happen, sleeping outside is not a thing for a family. And then she, this, this other mum who had that stroller and who was raving about it, she had to go on a travel.

[00:19:06] She got another stroller for traveling. And then she was like, Oh my God, actually the other stroller really sucked. Oh, for her situation because she was driving around and that big ass stroller that was heavy to put in and out of her trunk all the time did not make sense. And then when she found another stroller that fit her situation better, she realised that the other one was actually impacting, you know, the easiness, the daily life and stuff like that.

[00:19:35] And it's really stuck to me because everyone's like, what's the best stroller? What's the best stroller for what? Exactly.

[00:19:41] Dr Renee White: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, we were the same. We had like the big chunky stroller and then once once Eva kind of, you know, grew up a little bit and we started traveling a bit more, we got one of those ones that you can fold up and throw on the plane. And you're right, I thought, well, I didn't think my stroller was amazing in the beginning. I thought, I thought it was the best option we had at the time in terms of budget and things like that. But then when I, we got this travel stroller, I got rid of the old one because I was like, oh man, this one I can navigate with like one hand.

[00:20:19] I can like pack it up, throw it in the car, put it in the overhead. It was amazing like, yeah, absolutely. You don't know what you need until you work out what to do. The actual situation is, and it's your baby that's the situation, right?

[00:20:36] Dr Laura Gainche: Exactly. Exactly. And I think it's really the same for baby carriers, for example, from what I hear, we were quite lucky in terms of the ones we had chosen. Um, but first of all, first of all, please read the manual or go to a class, please, for baby wearing, because this is driving me nuts. Second of all, for safety reasons, for safety reasons, please inform yourself before.

[00:21:02] Dr Renee White: Yes, or you can while, while we've got everyone, you can just jump into a episode. Oh, my goodness. Where is it? I think it's 120. Um, where we talk about baby wearing. Yes. 120. Jump into episode 120.

[00:21:20] Dr Laura Gainche: I don't know if you've seen this in Japan, there's lots of baby wearing, but I'd say 99 percent of people wear their baby completely wrong. And it's, uh, gives me a heart attack every time, even though I see it every day. And I'm like, please just read the manual. Like you're hurting yourself. You're hurting your baby. Nothing is going. But what I want to say is that some babies really have strong preferences for the type of material, the type of position, if it's on the side, if it's on the, on the front, if it's like facing forward, which, you know, is somewhat also controversial.

[00:21:52] Um, but basically, My answer is if you can buy nothing, if you can buy nothing and then experiment with your baby, if you can rent something, you know, you can, you could even rent a crib before buying a crib and be like, Would that work for me? You, there's lots, lots of baby carrying kind of services where you can rent stuff or experiment or ask your friends, um, to experiment with it because maybe it's not going to fit your body it's depending on your height.

[00:22:24] It also affects a lot from what I understand. Um, and, and yeah, so one thing that I told, cause I got two Uh, mums to be consults recently, which I had not had before. And I said, uh, if you really have a separate room, like if you are in one of those countries where you have a separate free room to put the baby in, put a mattress on the floor and experiment first like that and then maybe rent a crib. See how that works. Is your baby a crib baby? I'm gonna say those are very rare. Like most cribs end up just piled up with clean laundry. I hope not dirty.

[00:23:07] Dr Renee White: Or just boxes of nappies and like clothes and yeah.

[00:23:12] Dr Laura Gainche: So if we get into the science a little bit, cause I was like, okay, crib, crib, crib, let's, let's find out a little bit more about it. And I decided to look at the statistics specifically in the United States, where I believe is one of the strongest country promoting independent sleep strategies.

[00:23:29] So separating your child as soon as possible, right? So I was like, if, if those have the strongest, the strongest philosophy, probably they have the least amount of bed sharing. would be my guess. Um, and so I looked at a few studies and I found two big ones where the amount of people asked was quite large. So one sample was 34,100 parents.

[00:23:58] Dr Renee White: Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:24:00] Dr Laura Gainche: Under 6 months old. Yeah. That's what I was going for cause I was like, let's, what is it all about? Like how many people use, you know, how many people don't use cribs So under six months old and was from 31 states of United States and then the second one was a sample of 1,500 parents under 12 months old. And this was from all regions of the United States. I think they didn't mention exactly which states and the results were in the first study. So the bigger one, 58. 9%, that's three out of five babies were room sharing and bed sharing at least some of the time. Okay, so if it's almost 60%.

[00:24:44] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:24:44] Dr Laura Gainche: And in the second study, they found a bit lower. That's normal in science. Yeah. You don't find same results in in different studies. 36%. So one outta three babies of parents of under three months old reported bed sharing at least some of the time. So this, for me, was fascinating because I was expecting maybe 20, 30 percent would already be very significant in terms of the resistance of, you know, again, you were told at the maternity by your doctor, by your midwife, by your gynecologist, by your pediatrician, that you should separate your baby really early on in a crib.

[00:25:21] And knowing that that many people somehow can't. It's like, Hmm, what's going on there? You know? Yeah. So you have more experience in that, like, what do you think about that? What do you think is going on there?

[00:25:36] Dr Renee White: Well, I mean, I guess firstly, here in Australia, the recommendations are that you share a room with your child for at least the first six months. There's, you know, the organisation Red Nose who were instrumental in campaigns for SIDS and things like that. And I think for a really long time, co-sleeping got a bad rap. But they now, uh, you know, have specific guidelines that you can get on their website around how to co-sleep safely.

[00:26:12] Because I think what's happened now is people were like, let's stop, you know, pushing this taboo subject of co-sleeping under the carpet and let's flip the flip it and go, okay, we acknowledge you are absolutely going to be doing that because P. S. It is so much easier to co-sleep in in some households. It was in ours um, it still continues to be like, you know, easier in our house. Like if my daughter's sick, you know, or like, you know, something like that, it's just easier to co-sleep. Like it just is um, and so, you know, Red Nose, for example, have got the guidelines and they're like, right, okay, let's just teach everyone how to do this safely instead of just not talking about it anymore.

[00:27:01] But I do find those statistics really interesting. So it was a 60% was it sharing the same room or was it sharing the same bed surface?

[00:27:11] Dr Laura Gainche: So same room. So that's where, uh, unfortunately I couldn't have everyone. So the data, like, Oh, I fought with this table so much. And I was like, how do I extract exactly the data I want? So this was among the people who room share.

[00:27:30] Dr Renee White: Okay,

[00:27:30] Dr Laura Gainche: 60 percent bed share also. Which I'm glad that since that one is under six months old, I'm glad they room share. But from what I understand in the United States, um, a lot of people will separate from birth, uh, their rooms and, uh, just, you know, we didn't mention that, but I have kind of a part on safety as well for today if we want to discuss that more. But when we say that you need to room share it's for nights and naps, your baby should not be left alone and the baby camera is not enough for promoting safety and them feeling that there's another body in the room and reacting unconsciously in their sleep and, you know, lowering the risk of SIDS for sure.

[00:28:21] But still, I think that 60 percent among people who room share is a lot for a country that's so promoting. For me, it really shows that trying to promote independent sleep systematically, um, again, I'm not saying those babies, those crib babies don't exist. I'm just saying that they're not very common. Um, but it really shows to me that they, these parents, um guiltily do this because they can't do anywhere around it. By the way, that doesn't even account for all the people who lie and say that they don't get shared.

[00:28:58] Dr Renee White: Exactly. Yes. I think there is like some other like alarming, not alarming statistic, but like, it's almost like a false negative. Like so many people were like, Oh no, I don't co, I don't co-sleep at all. And it's like, Hmm, Yeah, you actually do like, you're just not saying it, but interestingly, so, you know, we've got friends who have just recently had a baby. I think he's about four weeks old now. And, um, I was talking to, you know, the dad the other day, and he was just saying how, um, you know, Bubby's unsettled.

[00:29:35] When then, when he's not being held and you know, people were saying, just put him down in the crib, just put him down in the crib. He'll be fine. Just put him down in the crib. And you know, he said to me, he was like, I've literally just had to say to them, he prefers to be held. It works better for us because he sleeps, we sleep, you know, Like it's just how it is. And it was really interesting, like how he's had to defend his case. And I just looked at him and I said, you know, that's really normal. You know, that your baby actually hasn't realised that he's out of the womb in those first four weeks and that's why he's unsettled. And you can kind of see this like light bulb mument for him and almost like, Oh.

[00:30:23] Yeah, I like, I don't need to justify myself to you. So I think that's another misconception that people like, uh, like feel like they're failing because they're like, oh my God, why is my child so unsettled when I'm not holding them?

[00:30:40] Dr Laura Gainche: And then again, the world marketing, I'm going to say that widely will create cribs, automatic cribs, some kind of robots that actually hold your baby for you.

[00:30:56] Dr Renee White: Hold your baby as if its you.

[00:30:58]

[00:30:58] Dr Laura Gainche: You shouldn't hold your baby, but here's a robot who will hold your baby and shake your baby. Yeah, like you actually acknowledge the need for babies to be held.

[00:31:11] Dr Renee White: Yeah, it's a bit, if it's a, it's a bit of a kind of oxymoron, isn't it? You're just like, Oh, okay. I mean, I see the point of those things in the sense that like the marketing is, will enable you to get more rest overnight. Right. But then like, I would argue that it goes against the evolutionary biology of a child because they need to be held.

[00:31:43] There is, there are, you know, you know, Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum, like, you know, I talk about this ad nauseam. The biochemical reactions that are occurring when a baby is held by, you know, a parent, a caregiver, are just immense. That can't be replicated by a robotic crib. So I just don't see how it's doing the same thing for me, you need to harvest a kidney to pay for one too, by the way.

[00:32:23] Dr Laura Gainche: Absolutely. Me, it's also, uh, my belief, and I talked about it in the other episodes is that the more you co-regulate with your child, the more you help the development of their nervous system and their ability to regulate themselves later. So for me, if your child has been raised by a robot, there will be a time where there will be some kind of lack of support and learning to be like, okay, so what do I do now?

[00:32:52] How do I, you know, go from dial up to dial down? Yeah. I have never felt that before or if my dial up has been muted, you know, or prevented or whatever those beds do to certain babies. I don't know. So for me, yeah, the, the, the importance of the, the attachment in general, but the corregulation, and I've seen that in personal cases and, um, And we talked about a few cases also in the other podcast, but where when the child understands the benefit of the co-regulation, it's, it's such a kind of steep improvements in terms of behaviors, allowing them to express themselves and then allowing them to understand how they can feel better. And again, this, this up and down, and then when they become ready, emotionally, physically, anatomically, then they can do it as adults themselves. So I feel like there would be a letdown eventually in time if, you know, your baby is always raised by something or someone else.

[00:34:01] Dr Renee White: Yeah, I agree.

[00:34:04] Dr Laura Gainche: But then the question is, if we go back to the crib, those families who, who have the crib, who have the nursery, who have everything ready, who have any kind of gadget that you, they need, uh, why do they end up having to bed share? And it's, it's, it's quite simple. First of all, babies wake a lot for so many reasons. I actually have a new reason. That's so interesting. Uh, cause I was diving into night terrors recently for a question that I got. And I was like, okay. Um, it's a Facebook book group and this mum asks a lot of questions.

[00:34:42] And so I always answer in this Facebook group more so for all the other mums who are going to go after and read all the messages.

[00:34:49] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:50] Dr Laura Gainche: There's always reliable information. Um, but one thing that triggers, uh, night terror is actually the distension of the bladder. Because it triggers the autonomic nervous system, I'm guessing it depends on the sensitivity of the baby. It might depend on if it's a baby who will wait until their bladder is full before they pee or, you know, again, you can look at, you know. It's the fact that some babies will wake up when they pee at night. Some babies don't care at all, you know, and again, such by variation, variation and diversity. But basically night terrors can be triggered by that because then you have this kind of reflex of panic, uh, elevated heart rate, elevated breathing, and all these kinds of things that go with the night terror just because the bladder is distended. And you're like, Hmm, I wonder how that affects babies when they. are not physically able to have a night terrors, or maybe they will never do. But of course, some babies will wake up screaming if their autonomic nervous is like, you know?

[00:35:55] Dr Renee White: Yeah, that's fascinating. Is that like, is that latest research or you?

[00:36:01] Dr Laura Gainche: Uh, no, not even. That's actually because, uh, I didn't have that much time. Again, that was for a Facebook post. I'm, I'm, I'm going to put that into an Instagram post since I already have all the data now, because I just wanted parents to really be like, does this look like night terrors? Yeah. To be like, yes, no, yes, no. Yeah. And so I I, the other, uh, the other triggers are quite easy if it's stress, if there's a bit less sleep than usual. Yeah. Um, there's, there's a few things. It's not just a distension of the bladder, but it was from a textbook. But sleep medicine, us, pediatrics, kind of really the basics. Okay. So old stuff, not new stuff.

[00:36:41] This is kind of basic knowledge of, of, um, of night terrors. Um. But I thought that was really interesting because babies wake not just because they're hungry, but for all other sorts of, um, of stimulus that might happen during the night. And I'm actually, okay, let me give you a little bit of what I was talking about in the YouTube, but I, I'm digging on the thermal regulation. So the temperature regulation of your body. Cause I was like, um, how does that work throughout sleep phases? And what's the optimal temperatures throughout sleep phases?

[00:37:18] Dr Renee White: Oh my god. Yes. As someone who obsessed over this Laura, I have one of those crazy little light things and it would change color depending on the temperature of the room. So like,

[00:37:32] Dr Laura Gainche: Ooh, that's good.

[00:37:33] Dr Renee White: Yeah, it was great. But then like, it sent my OCD into like spiral. Um, because I was so in tune with this light. And we had a really like when we had Eva, when she was newborn, we were living in a rental and it had these really horrible, like old window frames and they weren't sealing properly and it was so cold. We had a, you know, end of August, it was freezing and so I became obsessed with the heating or cooling.

[00:38:05] Dr Laura Gainche: Makes sense.

[00:38:06] Um, so yes, please tell me about this because I'm sure you're going to. I'll tell you a little bit, cause I'm still putting the research together and this will be in a YouTube video, but it took like weeks of research because it was, It's, it's a puzzle, but basically throughout your sleep phases, there's some phases and I'm going to stay a little bit vague here to leave a little bit of like, oh, I'm interested in it.

[00:38:35] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:38:35] Dr Laura Gainche: Um, there are some phases where we. our temperature regulation is the same as when we're awake. So usually if you're cold, you start shivering. If you're hot, you start sweating. There's a few other ways, but to make it easy to understand, and this is, um, unconscious, but there are some phases during sleep where we do not have any temperature regulation zero.

[00:39:00] So it means that there are times during sleep where we are cold blooded. How crazy!

[00:39:08] Dr Renee White: Wow.

[00:39:10] Dr Laura Gainche: Okay. This is so fascinating for me because, you know, if you have to be, you know, you hear about this cold to fall asleep because your core temperature goes down and that's how sleep evolves, uh, at the beginning of the night, what temperature would work for you not to wake up when you're in this cold blooded state? Because if it's too cold, aren't you going to wake up?

[00:39:36] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:39:37] Dr Laura Gainche: And then kind of finding the balance. And I was like, Ooh, you know, this is something important. I've had families where once they put a carpet under the crib of their baby, their baby slept through the night.

[00:39:50] Dr Renee White: What? Okay. Hold on a minute.

[00:39:53] Dr Laura Gainche: There was some like, there was some, so it was, it was

[00:39:55] Dr Renee White: Like a draft or something going on in the room?

[00:39:58] Dr Laura Gainche: They had, um, how do you call that? That kind of travel, uh, baby bed. That's what they were using.

[00:40:05] Dr Renee White: Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like those folding ones. Yeah, we had that. Like a travel bassinet type thing.

[00:40:12] Dr Laura Gainche: It's not like a proper mattress where it's like thick. And then, you know, so I think the air could go under. And so eventually it was like, okay, can we experiment with this? Can you put a blanket under the, you know, and the baby started waking much less. And basically there was a sensitivity to temperature. Again, it's not all babies don't start being OCD with temperatures all the time. If your baby sleeps fine, like it is, but yeah, that was really, really interesting and I was like then when I found and also and this is the last piece of the information that I'm trying to add in the research for this YouTube channel because the YouTube video is mostly about adult sleep, but I wanted to add in the kind of child sleep into it as well because of course there's not as much research on thermoregulation on babies, but from an old and that's from memory, and I couldn't find a reference yet.

[00:41:06] So don't quote me on this. I need to do the research, but from old research I had done at some point, the thermal regulation process can develop very late in kids. So, then how does that work for them? You know, like, how do you manage a kid who doesn't have the thermal regulation yet? Do they still need this cold to start the night or, you know, and again, you also have all the kind of safety measures and yeah, and all these things. So it's it's not like I'm not putting out there this information to be like, uh, here's a checklist. Yeah, of the things you have to do, but it's something that if you know about it and you're like struggling and you're like, wait, my baby is actually fine. You know, you know, this, we talked about this before this little things.

[00:41:54] It's like. My baby's hungry. I can tell. My baby, my baby has a wet diaper, he hates it I can tell, but if something happens and you're like, I'm not quite sure. And you have this in your mind and you're like, maybe I should experiment with temperature then experiment with temperature. But, um, I like to dig in more and be like, Oh, how is this? But this thing where I, when I read that and I was like, wait, where, sometimes cold blooded. I was like fascinated.

[00:42:20] Dr Renee White: I am very keen to hear more about that. I think as someone who, as I said, obsessed over room temperature and also um, TOG, you know, standards on the sleeping bag, like it got so cold and I got so paranoid that she was going to be incredibly cold. We ended up investing in a merino wool sleep suit bag thing for her because like she is and to this day she is she will kick and kick blankets off and you know unless it's zipped onto her not interested. Like even God, I walk into her bedroom in the morning and I'm just like, how are you not freezing?

[00:43:09] She's got blankets everywhere and she's other end of the bed. Like she's just, that's just how she works. So

[00:43:18] Dr Laura Gainche: I remember, I remember you were talking about that, how she's, uh, she's moving a lot. So one reason why families bed share it's because babies wake a lot. And this is, again, there's such a, a range, you have families who will have babies who wake two times a week, a day, a night, and some babies who will need way more feeds. All of it is normal um, and then you have babies who need more comfort, who need more co-regulation just because they have nervous system that dial up faster. This is also normal, and then when we put in the adults needed in all that, especially mums. Um, you end up with mums who do, do not want to go back and forth to the crib.

[00:44:04] Dr Renee White: Oh God, yes.

[00:44:07] Dr Laura Gainche: It's just as simple as that. It's like survival for the parents as well. And I've heard recently a lot of people being like, well, you just have to put the baby back in the crib and put them on their back and then they can force. No, it's not just, it's not just for most of us.

[00:44:24] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Oh, 100%. So, you know, when, uh, when Eva was older and she was sleeping in a separate room, you know, that, uh, this is like one of those moments, like mum moments for me, if I see a dressing gown, like, um, just laying on the edge of a bed. That is a triggering thing for me because I would get up. I would, you know, get my dressing gown, I would put it on, I would walk into her room, I would feed her back to sleep, you know, all the things. And then I would then I would, you know, get back into bed, take my dressing gown off, drape it over the end of my bed so I would know where it was.

[00:45:10] And so now I can't actually have a dressing gown draped on my bed anymore. Like it has to be hung, either like on the hook on the back of the door or in the wardrobe or whatever it is, because as soon as I see that, I feel like just this, oh, it's like the creepy crawly type thing for me because the sleep deprivation almost killed me. It was so funny. My husband and I were talking the other day, you know, friends of ours, obviously I said, have just had a baby. And he said to me, you just, you don't think you're going to get through it when you're in it. It's so hard and there's just no light at the end of the tunnel, particularly with the first time parents, right?

[00:46:00] Because you're just like, is this it? Like we've been running on adrenaline and now we've got nothing left in the tank and, and you're just like, oh my God, like how much longer is this going to have to last? Like when do we get a reprieve? Because it's that compound effect, right, Laura? Like it's just, you know, you go out when you're younger and you have the all nighters and you're like, Oh yeah, this is great. Because like the next day you can sleep in, sit on the couch, order Uber Eats and watch Netflix. But when you're a parent, it's relentless. Like that, like life goes on and you're just like, no, I want to get off the carousel now, please.

[00:46:41] Dr Laura Gainche: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:46:43] Dr Renee White: I want to talk about, because I've noticed we've got something else down here and I want to talk about another triggering thing for me, which absolutely did my head in. This 12 hour night myth or reality? Because I've been very vocal before on this podcast about the fact that, um, you know, we had two different sleep specialists come in and, and try and assist with Eva's sleep because I just didn't, I just kept getting told that she's broken essentially and that we had to do something to fix this.

[00:47:17] Dr Laura Gainche: Of course.

[00:47:18] Dr Renee White: Um, and so, you know, we were given these very regimented sleep schedules, which always included, um, you know, bed at 7.00 PM, they should rise at 7.00 AM and inevitably my child would rise at like 5, 5.30, if we were absolutely lucky 6 o'clock and I'd probably be going in there to make sure that she was alive, to be honest. Um, You know, I now know that she's one of those children that is on the kind of low end of the kind of, yeah, low needs, um, sleep needs spectrum and so the 7 to 7 was

[00:48:04] Dr Laura Gainche: Never going to work.

[00:48:07] Dr Renee White: I was setting myself up for a fail. Can you please tell me, am I an N equals one, and this is just me, or are we talking about a more broader, um, data set? Don't fit into this 12 hour window, that magical window that everyone talks about.

[00:48:25] Dr Laura Gainche: So this, the 12 hour and I have a YouTube video on it. I think I have an Instagram post or a real something about it, but, um, I went down the rabbit hole cause I saw a popular sleep trainer post. 76 percent of children under three year old don't sleep enough. And I was like, already there. It's like, you know,

[00:48:49] Dr Renee White: Oh my god, especially as a scientist,

[00:48:54] Dr Laura Gainche: No, but it's like, wait, if majority of the population does it, then, you know, first of all, start questioning that maybe that's the norm, you know, starting with the conclusion, but that's where it's like, okay, what is this post? Is this real is this based on fact, or is this fear mongering to sell some products because fear mongering is just so F'ing popular on those social media. But the thing that you hear on social media is, uh, usually attached to that, right? Your baby won't develop properly. Your baby's cognition, intelligence will be affected. You're hurting your baby. You're compromising your baby's health. You know, all the that's what

[00:49:35] Dr Renee White: I got told. Yeah. Point blank. I hear that. That, that sleep is as important as, as food. And if you deprive your child of sleep, their development will be delayed. That's what I was told. Okay.

[00:49:51] Dr Laura Gainche: Right. And it's all your fault.

[00:49:53] Dr Renee White: Yes.

[00:49:53] Dr Laura Gainche: It's not just that.

[00:49:54] Dr Renee White: I'm in control.

[00:49:55] Dr Laura Gainche: It's all your fault. Renee,

[00:49:57] Dr Renee White: You're a terrible mother because you cannot teach your child to sleep. That is the narrative.

[00:50:05] Dr Laura Gainche: Yeah.

[00:50:06] Dr Renee White: We just put like a big ba bow on that.

[00:50:10] Dr Laura Gainche: And we're laughing, we're laughing, but this is just not funny because

[00:50:13] Dr Renee White: It's not funny. I know. It's so real.

[00:50:17] Dr Laura Gainche: Right at this minute, the number of mums Who feel that way, who feel the guilt, the pressure and truly believe those things is like, again, I really feel like we're shouting in a void, but basically, when I saw this post, I was like, wait a minute, let me have a look, found the data. So the data was not that the data was 70 and by the way, questionnaire data, um, French sample, it was 250 parents. The data was 76 percent of under three year old sleep 11 hours or less at night, that was the data. 11 hours or less.

[00:50:57] Dr Renee White: Oh my gosh.

[00:50:57] Dr Laura Gainche: And this person changed it into don't sleep enough, meaning kids need more than 11 hours per night. Okay. But already there, I was like, wow, the shift, you know, it's like, Ooh, this is juicy data. Let me tell me. All right. So then I was like, So I was on the hunt to find data with enough participants, enough babies, you know, and actual data. So I found something and I was so glad because it was quite recent and a big sample. So this is a paper, uh, can't remember the date, can't read it there, but basically it was on six months old, 300 full term.

[00:51:44] So no, uh, no premi's or anything. Okay. Great. It was measured with actigraphy. So again, just a reminder, it's like a little apple watch that you can wear on your wrist and you can measure movement. So that really helps to objectively measure if someone's awake or asleep. And here's what they found. The maximum, maximum, absolute maximum that a child would sleep at night was 10 hours and a half, six months old we're talking,

[00:52:16] Dr Renee White: But not in one stint though, right?

[00:52:20] Dr Laura Gainche: Um, I think they didn't calculate the, uh, the, they didn't account, so this could be with awakenings. Yeah.

[00:52:29] Dr Renee White: So it's not like a 10 and a half hour, like door to door.

[00:52:34] Dr Laura Gainche: No. So that's just like the longest night's sleep that they would get with or without night wakes. Probably nightwakes.

[00:52:43] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:52:43] Dr Laura Gainche: Um, the average, that's, that's where you're going to feel better about all your trauma.

[00:52:48] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Tell me, tell me Laura, what's the average?

[00:52:51] Dr Laura Gainche: Eight hours and 46 minutes.

[00:52:53] Dr Renee White: Oh my God. I would, like, if we got that when Eva was six months old, I think I would have like. Freak out. Oh God. I would have streamers I would have party poppers. Like it just, It didn't happen.

[00:53:10] Dr Laura Gainche: She would have less than eight hours and a half you think of sleep or night? Um, cause the thing is when you have the wakefulness, sometimes you don't realise.

[00:53:20] Dr Renee White: Yeah, you're probably right. It just feels so long.

[00:53:25] Dr Laura Gainche: Yeah, and you freak out because you're like, that's, that's what an adult should sleep, right? And you're like, yeah, but you don't account for the naps. You don't account for, you know, little chunks of sleep, but I found that I was like, wait, the average sleep for a six month old is not even nine hours per night. Um, of course we don't have the circumstances we don't know who these babies were, but 300 babies that's a lot.

[00:53:54] Dr Renee White: Yeah. That's a lot. That's a lot. Look, you know what? I reckon like she probably would have been close. Uh, let's say it would have been eight hours. I reckon. Do you know what I actually found? Cause this is how neurotic I got like, I was seriously off the edge. Tell me. I used to record her sleep and her feeds in like a spiral notepad, Laura, that's how bad it got. Because I tried to.

[00:54:21] Dr Laura Gainche: I have my daughter's sleep, uh, not feeds cause it was just, well, probably I had it for three years. I have my daughter's sleep probably recorded for six years.

[00:54:31] Dr Renee White: Whoa. Okay. On my own. You're much more of a researcher than me, but I had like, I had like Russell Crowe, beautiful mind moments where I was like trying to look at the data and I was like,

[00:54:42] Dr Laura Gainche: The patterns

[00:54:42] Dr Renee White: Yeah, what do we do that day? Well, Oh my God. And then she had this amazing stretch of like, and do you know, do you know what my issue was? Because she was sleeping really well, uh, during the night in the beginning. And then she was doing the 45 minute cat nap things, right? Which P. S. everyone is totally normal. If anyone can do any different.

[00:55:11] Dr Laura Gainche: You just have to adjust the number of naps. You just have to adjust the number of naps if you have a short nappers. It's just don't follow the three hour nap, nap schedule.

[00:55:22] Dr Renee White: Correct.

[00:55:23] Dr Laura Gainche: On a 45 minutes nap break.

[00:55:25] Dr Renee White: That is what happened to me. And so, inadvertently, I flipped her brain upside down and we were trying, we were striving for these like two, three hour naps during the day, like multiples, and then wondering why she wasn't sleeping at night. And it's like because, everyone get your pen and paper down, you need to look at their sleep as a 24 hour window. And it's like, what does that window look like? So if you take all this sleep during the day, like if you and I, if Laura and I had like a five hour nap during the day, we're probably not going to sleep our normal sleep overnight, right? We just don't have the sleep pressure there. So if you're

[00:56:18] Dr Laura Gainche: Especially, especially if you had a low sleep need, it means that by doing that you were definitely taking some of her sleep that maybe she would do at night. Yep. During the day. So there are some kids again, I've had, I've had a 20, 21 hour baby sleep sleeper in my, in my consult, which, you know, there again, those are very rare, like

[00:56:43] Dr Renee White: Unicorn babies, everyone.

[00:56:46] Dr Laura Gainche: Even those, the mum was like, is my baby sleeping too much that we cannot win. We cannot win. Um, but it, it really depends on that. And that would be the first thing I would do is like, look at this 24 hours window that Renee was just mentioning, because likely your baby will have around the same amount of time per 24 hours. And if you know, their amount of needs of sleep for 24 hours, not from someone who told you how many, how much hours, but from your baby, then you can be like, okay, how can I rearrange this? Yeah, that it might work with my schedule. And of course, if your baby has wake windows or, you know, has some preference kind of, it's a, it's a lot of experimenting, but having already an idea and you can do that on yourself as well.

[00:57:33] I tell that because when I go to networking, people are like, Oh, my sleep, my sleep. Actually, so I do that with adults too the first thing I always say is, first of all, over the weekend, when you do not have your alarm clock, how much do you sleep? So that you can be like, okay, if I'm free sleeping, um, of course, this doesn't work if you're already really sleep deprived, because you are going to recover over the weekend. But if you're having a ok rhythm and then you look, how much sleep do I sleep when I don't have, um, you know, an alarm clock or something that's going to wake me, you can know your own sleep needs and, and not freak out as well because everyone's like, it's the same for adults, right?

[00:58:15] Eight hours, eight hours, eight hours. And it's like, for the people who can't sleep that much or who need more. Again, you're like guilt tripped into thinking you have a problem when the norm looks like a bell and the people on the side of the bell, they exist.

[00:58:33] Dr Renee White: Just in smaller numbers, people. And your baby could fall into that as well. Like it's just. Yeah, you've got to, I know it's hard in the beginning, but like, I, I, I distinctly remember being very in tune with Eva's sleep before someone told me she was broken and it was really funny because I was like, I was like, oh, I'm seeing this pattern where she'll start to kind of. You know, I can just see her eyes and she'll start to get a little bit tired around like the one hour mark.

[00:59:10] And then I'll be like, okay, she probably needs to go down for a sleep now. So I put her down for a sleep and then like, and then I kind of gathered, I was like, oh yeah, it's about 40, 45 minutes that she's taking to have these sleeps. And I'm like, okay, well, let's just see how we, and then I remember. I think I told that to someone in my mother's group. And I was like, yeah, this is like a really cool pattern that I've noticed. And she was like, Oh my God, that's catnapping. You need to sort that out straight away. And I was like, what, what are you talking about? And she was like, our babies don't know how to sleep. You need to train them. You need to teach them.

[00:59:43] You re you really need to stop this now because otherwise they'll never sleep through the night. And I was like, alarm bells were going off my head because you know, that classic thing where it's just like. You're trying to be the best mum in the world for your kid and all of a sudden someone is telling you that the decisions you're making could possibly have this long term effect on their health and development.

[01:00:11] And so you just, like, it's like, It's like she walked into my kitchen and just flipped my kitchen table over with like that type of statement. And I was just like, Oh my God, what am I going to do? And I contacted a sleep consultant like the next day. And I was just like, Oh my God, what do I do? What's happening? What's going on?

[01:00:32] Dr Laura Gainche: Don't you find it interesting that, and, and I, I want this to be humbling and for people to understand how normal it is, which is why I don't shame people who do sleep training, but don't you find this interesting that us scientists, you and me got, we, we got got, they got us, like they got us, even if it's temporary, they managed to get us and we didn't even question, like, I questioned it.

[01:01:02] Dr Renee White: Do you know why though? I, because I have, I have seriously thought about this because it really bothered me because without sounding like I'm blowing smoke up our ass, Laura, I thought to myself, we are researchers. We've got, you know, tons of training as academics, how to analyse data. You know, people are constantly throwing information at us all the time and we have to critically analyse it as scientists. But all of a sudden we became mothers and something happened to our brains and our ability to critically analyse rationally went out the goddamn window. And I like, it's, it's very, very interesting because, and I like talking about research and I haven't actually dived into it yet. Um, and by the time this episode airs, my research analysis will be out on this, but a new publication has just been released in nature neuroscience and they have, uh, they have mapped over pregnancy before pregnancy throughout pregnancy and postpartum. The changes in the maternal brain now previously, all we had was like pre pregnancy. Maybe one during pregnancy and one data point after the baby arrived, but they have mapped the whole thing. And there's some very, very interesting changes that go on in our brains. And I think part of that is that we, it's well, we level up on a number of like facets, but also I feel like we make room for other things and speaking of like thermoregulation and stuff like that, we become like sponges and sieves.

[01:03:09] We're constantly letting all the information in and we lose our filter. Like I felt like I lost my filter and I was letting in all of this information that I would normally have turned around and gone, it's BS. I don't think so and walk away. Whereas I was like, Oh, that's, Oh, that must be true and like, it was almost like I had. I'd let go of my, my bullshit raidar. Is that what you found?

[01:03:38] Dr Laura Gainche: I think that it also depends on your experience. I'd say as a woman, in terms of how you grew up, and we talked, we talked about that in one episode where I was like, you know, when I reconnected to my ovulation and feeling ovulation for the first time, I feel like it opened up some connection in my body and then helped me connect with my daughter later. But if you have been inhibited from the beginning to feel these things, and then if you've accepted the BS from gynecologists telling you, you know, no problem here, take the pill, and then yeah, you find out 20 years later you have PCOS or end Yes. Endometriosis. So, yes. You know, uh, there's also this level of personal experience with the medical field.

[01:04:30] Mm-Hmm. And, you know, people telling you, and you try to be like, those people are experts, you know, like, yes, they're supposed to care for me, and, and, uh, not to have this conspiracy, but these days I really find that the percentage of of, medical professionals who actually care about you is minimal. And the thing is, if you are naive, I'm super naive. I'm super naive. I will, I will trust you. I will think that you have my best interest in mind and then it's not the case. Um, I think my case was also that because I was in the sleep field, uh, scientifically during my PhD, and even if it wasn't my field, cause I was working on adults at that time, the knowledge that the sleep training was winning the war in, in scientific articles, I still knew that okay to some level.

[01:05:27] So for me, I went into it being like, Obviously, um, there's a point where it will have to be done because scientifically and that's such surface level again, I, I didn't think at that point, wait, I'm not an expert on this maybe I should go dig those publications and find out all the holes that they contain. But I think those two things, it's like one, I used to trust medical professionals and so. Again, for me, this is the basic when you become a mum or when you get pregnant is. If you don't have a good vibe with someone, if they don't answer your questions, if they don't take seriously, bye, goodbye,

[01:06:10] Dr Renee White: Bye Felicia,

[01:06:11] Dr Laura Gainche: Exactly. And so it's the same for, for a sleep consult. It's like, is the person listening to you? Are they answering your question? Are they answering your concerns? Um, but this is something I had to learn way more recently to be like I'm the, I'm a client, you know, even for a doctor, I'm a client. I matter. Like you have to listen to me. You shouldn't just give me orders. Um, but yeah, that's also what I hate on social media in terms of the sleep environment, where it's like, um, are you doing this? It's bad. You're hurting your baby. And they say it with so much confidence. And I'm like, I wish, I wish I was that ignorantly. You know, confidence, to be honest. to be honest, that's, uh, like I kind of envy those people, but I wish they weren't so loud. .

[01:07:05] Dr Renee White: Yeah, it's kind. I think it always comes back to, um, I saw this, uh, like in marketing or whatever, and. Like obviously people sell products and services through pain points, but someone else, someone, um, I worked with was just like, you know what pain points are totally not our jam. We are all about passion points and it's about, you know, where you can provide, um, like they're an actual marketing firm and they would just like, you know, there needs to be a focus on the joy that you can bring your clients. And as you say, if, if your default is fear mongering and, you know, making someone feel guilty and. I mean, I can tell you right now, after those sleep consultants coming through, like, my mental health went out the window, you know, like, if the person that you're working with that you're getting advice from is making you feel those things, they're not making you feel like the best person you can possibly be, it's probably not for you.

[01:08:18] Like it really isn't and it's not worth it because as someone who continued on that journey for so long, because I just kept thinking to myself, it's got to work, like it's got to work. And then one day I'm going to feel amazing. And it's, it's got to work sooner or later because you know, they've told me that if I do this, if I do X, Y, Z, I'll get the result, A, B, C, you know, at the end of the day, B, as we've said. Babies are all different. We're all different human beings and one size fit all is not, maybe not suitable for your kid.

[01:09:01] Dr Laura Gainche: I, um, I had a, um, a prospective client contact me recently and the baby was less than one month old, which is already like red flags. Wait, what? And the mum, uh, and again, no shame on the mum, but it's just that I could see that there was no reaching out. Like I couldn't get to her. I couldn't make her see. Um, but, and to some extent I understand cause the mum, she didn't have to work, but she felt that if she didn't, she would be not as good of a mum. So she wanted to go back to work as soon as possible. So like baby was three months and she wanted to go back to work. Um, and there's a lot of things there where I'm like, again, I'm not going to shame mums who want to work, but a lot of the time, if you're avoiding being with your baby, there's something else there that needs to be, you know, addressed. If you're escaping, you know, if you want to be away, um, and, and just to summarise, I understand the fear of this bond and this attachment and this responsibility.

[01:10:12] I get it, but the mum was like, can you promise me if we do this session that at three months old, I'll get, I can't remember what she said, six hours of sleep, stretch or something like that. And, and we had like, I had, uh, I think 45 minutes free consult with her and I explained all the things, you know, the biology, the developmental readiness, all of the information. And then, um, we, we leave on that and I'm like, okay, And then she sends me an email and she asks me again in the email, all the questions of typical sleep training. Will my baby be able to self soothe? Will my baby? And I'm like, I could tell that I couldn't reach her. And as much as I wish I could, you know, it's like asking people to go to therapy unless they decide to do it themselves.

[01:11:05] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[01:11:05] Dr Laura Gainche: You know, there's only so much you can do. And it's, it was hard when I started doing this work being like, I want everyone to know, but not everyone is ready to know, unfortunately.

[01:11:14] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You've got to be in that place. And unfortunately, like, it'll be someone like me, who's like, yeah, we try two different people. And this really hasn't worked for me and my family. So, um, what else have we got in the toolkit? And then someone like you or, or Hannah, kind of comes along and you're just like, oh, hey, did you know that there's like a completely different way of looking at this? And we look at your whole family and not just your baby, and we don't give you like this rule book of like have tos. And, and then I sit there and I go, oh, oh. And then I have little, that's why cry because I feel guilty. 'cause I'm like, oh my God, I didn't know that there was like another way of like, you know, putting this puzzle piece together and all the rest of it. But, um, yeah, there's, there's always another tool in the toolkit, I say.

[01:12:05] Dr Laura Gainche: It's, it's why it's important to have people like you in the community, in the mothering community, but also the sleep to be like, you know, I did that. I tried it and be like, I can tell you I'm on the other side and it's

[01:12:19] Dr Renee White: I'm one of those people that it didn't work for. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there that it did work for, but like, you know, for those, for those mamas who've got babies who are just super content on having like low sleep needs, you know, there are alternatives.

[01:12:38] Dr Laura Gainche: Yeah, absolutely. So a few more statistics. This is an older study on 101 infants. But what's important about this study is that they mixed, um, Uh, mixed feeds, breastfeeds and formula feeding and basically there was no differences between the three groups, but only 10 percent could sleep five hour stretches at one month old and less than 50 percent could do five hour stretches at three months old. So again, going back to the 12 hours a night, that needs to give you perspective because five hour stretch is already too much expectations pretty much for most, for most babies. And again, I know it's hard, but what we were saying before also is that. Um, when everything goes crazy and you're sleep deprived and your postpartum and your body's recovering, um, there's lots of other things you can do that's not about sleep and that will have a huge impact on you.

[01:13:44] Um, we tend to blame the sleep for everything. We tend to, it's, it's like dieting. It's like, Ooh, when I'll be skinny, my life will be happy. It's like the diet. I've been for so long. I'm going to be able to put them on. Sleep is the diet of the, the parenting. It's like, this is the solution. This is the one problem.

[01:14:06] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Take this pill. You'll, yeah.

[01:14:09] Dr Laura Gainche: Yeah. So, uh, it's, it's way more about other things and the families who actually, you know, contact me or other of, of, of, my wonderful colleagues and they start to do the little things or maybe spend more time with their babies or maybe just look more at their babies or maybe just, you know, what, what Renee was saying, like you had found the rhythm of your baby. It didn't matter what anyone else said. And that's where we always say, right? If there's no problem, why try to fix it?

[01:14:44] Dr Renee White: Yeah. 100 percent Also. And then, yeah, like, I mean, for us, it, it was, um, you know, catch the, catch the, sleep while you can during the day. And I know this is going to really polarize some people, but I am a huge advocate for sleep when the baby sleeps. I know people think it's bananas, but I also kind of feel like, you know, people like, oh, well, you know, I'll do the washing when the baby does the washing. And I'm like, Yeah, you can. So what you do is, because I'll give you the playbook on that, you sleep when the baby sleeps and then you actually feel better and then you have energy for when the baby is awake.

[01:15:29] You can pop them in a carrier or pop them in a bouncer or whatever it is, whatever your jam is, and do the washing together. Like that's, that would be the way that I would do it again. Instead of running around like an absolute hooligan as soon as I put my baby down, You know, busting,

[01:15:50] Dr Laura Gainche: hoping for the best.

[01:15:51] Dr Renee White: I was like, I got 45 minutes, I'd race downstairs, I'd throw the washing on, I'd tidy up the kitchen, I'd jump in the shower, and then, yeah, 40 minutes is not a long time. And then my baby would wake up and I would be twice as exhausted as when I had put her down the first time instead of catching a break while I could and I should have just thrown her in the carrier and gone hey we're gonna like do the dishes now and you know whatever it is and we'll both feel better about it. So I'm just Anyways, that's the high horse that I'm on.

[01:16:25] Dr Laura Gainche: I agree. But I also feel like this is a lack of education, right? Because this is what you should plan for. How are you going to make that work when you're in postpartum? Because thinking about this strategising when the baby's there is tricky, right? Because again, as you were saying, your brain is mush. Yeah. Thank you. The latest data. Hundred percent. Um, and so it, it's really, it's the kind of talk that you need to have prenatally, not the F'ing nursery. You need to talk about what am I going to do you know, with this rhythm, what are, what, you know, what can we make easier for food?

[01:17:07] Like one of my grail was this entire book of one pot pasta. And again, be realistic, like you need to feed yourself good stuff. Um, by the way, I still can't believe I forgot to ask you to bring me one of your cookies when you came. I don't know.

[01:17:27] Dr Renee White: Would, would they have let me in? I don't know. Oh, I wonder. It depends. Yeah. Maybe I'll just send you, maybe I'll just send you some packets.

[01:17:35] Dr Laura Gainche: I'm still like, I see, I see all the mummies being like, Ooh, we love this cookie.

[01:17:40] Dr Renee White: You know, I still eat our cookies. Like I'm seven years postpartum. I'm still eating them because they are so good. Cause they're so high in protein and like, I just grab them if I'm bolting out the door for something or it is my classic, like 3.00 PM snack now, not 3.00 AM snack. Um, but my 3.00, PM snack now, um, like I'll just grab one of those because although it's still a cookie, you know, I love Tim Tams, I'm not slagging them off, but my blood sugar will be a lot more stable with one of our cookies rather than a Tim Tam, but, um, yeah, I'll put some in the post for you, Laura.

[01:18:23] Dr Laura Gainche: This is so important for parents to plan in advance, whether it's cookies or I don't know, pre made smoothies in the freezer or any kind of

[01:18:31] Dr Renee White: Yes, maybe dump bags.

[01:18:33] Dr Laura Gainche: So it's, it, but it's hard to strategize after the baby's there and be like, what am I supposed to do to plan everything and be like, can my partner help? Can my family help? Can I have a nanny? Do I have, can I have a postpartum doula or whatever, whatever you can. Yeah. Surround yourself, find the support and otherwise find some strategies to make your life easier, not harder. And that's true. And that's true for sleep too. If, and that's, you know, we were talking about bed sharing and cribs, cribs often make life harder for the parent. You will be more sleep deprived. You will struggle more. You will be fully awake and struggle to go back to sleep. Um, and. You need to think about this as a long race and you need to take care of yourself every single minute of the day and be like, what can I do to make myself feel better, survive better, and you know, parent better and everything, everything else.

[01:19:32] Dr Renee White: Uh, I swear that we didn't organise this offline, everyone, but if anyone else is sitting there going, yeah, that's what I need to do. We actually have that as a service, Laura, it's called Prep for Fourth, and it's a one on one chat with me. We sit down for like two hours, um, me, mama, and, you know, non birthing person, partner and we game plan exactly that. How are you going to thrive, not survive? We talk about nutrition, sleep, boundaries, changes in relationships, transitioning toddlers, like the whole, like the mental load of the house, chore, division, the whole kit kaboodle. Um, so people can actually jump onto our website. Um, which is ifillyourcup.com and if you go to the offering section it's under planning and it's called Prep for Fourth. So if anyone wants and we do it worldwide because it's zoom. So we can do it.

[01:20:35] Dr Laura Gainche: And I love that because it's always easier to have a plan and then troubleshoot. Yes. Same for giving birth. It's better to have a plan and then troubleshoot and be informed than arriving baby's there and like what am I supposed to do with this thing.

[01:20:52] Dr Renee White: Yeah, exactly. Sleep deprivation.

[01:20:54] Dr Laura Gainche: I love that. I love that. And I saw that you also have, um, am I mistaken? Do you also have the thing with, um, Possums? You still have this?

[01:21:03] Dr Renee White: No, we don't. No, possums, unfortunately, um, no longer exist, but what we do have in lieu of that, it's called the Full Cup Village, which is essentially our first online educational platform. And it's got a whole bunch of experts in there that you can learn from. So, um, that's a village that people can join up to, I think it's, it's 10 a month, you know, and you get access to. That's great. Amazing, amazing experience because we were just creative. Yeah, we were like, like you, like you sit there and you're like trying to Google all this stuff of like, is this normal?

[01:21:39] What do I do with this? How, you know, how do I know my baby is fed enough? You know, blah, all this stuff. And it's like, yeah. And then you, you know, you see these posts on Instagram or like, you find something on the internet. You're like, do I trust this person? Who are you? What are your credentials? Like, are you just like some random person? Um, you know, So yeah, that's why we've kind of created that, um, so all of our, yeah, all our families that we work with, our doula services get access to that as part of their package, but it's also something that, um, anyone across the world can sign up to as well. So you can have access to, I think it's eight experts.

[01:22:19] So, yeah. Hey, we've, we do this every time. Yeah, right out of time instead of topics, but we're going to do it again. We're going to do the quick rapid fire, which we do with all of our guests at the end. Um, I don't know if you remember what you said in your previous episode, we're going to try it again. Okay. Are you ready? Yes. Top tip for mums.

[01:22:42] Dr Laura Gainche: Oh my God. My brain is blank. I think, um, because I've worked with mums to be now. Because it's a completely different experience. Um, it was amazing to be able to tell them positively how to prepare again. And we go back to what we were saying just before, but, um, you know, actually one of my friend is probably giving birth right now, as we speak back in Brussels. Um, but. It was so amazing because she told me, she sent me a message and she's like, I've been in pre labor since Friday. And I was like, you know, the number of mums who have no idea what pre labor is or how long labor can take and all these things. And she was just telling me this as an informed first mum to be.

[01:23:33] And I'm like, this is what I wish for mums. I wish mums to have this knowledge and be able to be like, Oh, my labor is, is five days long and it's completely normal. Um, so really kind of thinking about what you want to do, uh, talking with your partner, um, Aligning with your partner being demanding with your partner. That's that's the tip. Um, and, uh, and prioritise yourself.

[01:24:06] Dr Renee White: Okay. I love that. Um, do you have a go to resource, um, that you would recommend for mums?

[01:24:15] Dr Laura Gainche: Um, these days, I'm circling back to the, the, the basics of that book that I know you love the whole brainchild. Yes. Um, I've had to talk about it with a few people lately, and again, more for kind of, uh, I, I think one of the things that I get a lot these days is kind of conflict between the two parents. Okay. Where it's like one parent doesn't understand the difficulty of the other and they can't get you know, aligned or like, or like understand the mental load of hanging out with your baby all day and managing all their emotions and co-regulating. And so I feel like if we can get more parents, both parents read the whole brain child, it can help with the mental load of the primary caregiver.

[01:25:03] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[01:25:04] Dr Laura Gainche: Uh, so highly recommend that.

[01:25:06] Dr Renee White: Okay. Love that. Um, And the question we ask everyone that we borrow from Brene Brown, what is on your bedside table?

[01:25:18] Dr Laura Gainche: A mess. A mess right now. Uh, what's on my bedside table? At the moment, my Kindle is my lifesaver. Yes. Uh, I think since Covid I really started reading a lot and, um, you know when you have the choice between your phone and the Kindle and you're like, which one? Which, but you know that if you pull out the Kindle, you're gonna fall asleep really fast.

[01:25:49] Dr Renee White: Correct.

[01:25:50] Dr Laura Gainche: And I think this is like, it's, it's my greatest tool to fall asleep basically, but I have to make the choice, you know, and it's always like, did I have enough me time today? Or am I going to stay online for too long and then regret it tomorrow? But, um, I think one of the, the thing I've learned, cause I, I've grew up, uh, not a big reader because I felt like you were supposed to read certain books. And when again, I made life easier for myself, prioritise myself, focus on my, my preference and my needs, and just started reading whatever the hell I want. Suddenly I want to read, I want to be on my Kindle and it replaces all the waste of time, not waste of time. I, I don't blame procrastination. Procrastination can be very good, but sometimes you have better things to do than be scrolling on your phone. So yeah, Kindle, your favorite book, find, find, I don't know. I, and now I don't feel guilty if I start reading a book and I'm like, no, pass, read something else.

[01:26:50] Dr Renee White: Yes. I'm the same. I feel like we're soul sisters. I was not an avid reader either because, you know, society said that you're this age and you should probably be reading X, Y, Z. And I was like, I don't know. That doesn't interest me at all. And then, um, you know, I've spoken about this on the podcast before I read fourth wing last year. Um, and so now I'm like a massive, um, romanticy buff to the point where I've even got a tattoo with dedicated to my favorite series by Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass. Um, and it's got

[01:27:32] Dr Laura Gainche: We have other things to talk about.

[01:27:34] Dr Renee White: Yeah, we do have other things to talk about. And so I'm just like a massive, um, Kindle like, you know, person now. And the same, like, I, I'll just be like, oh yeah, I could pick up my phone and I could just doom scroll or I could just jump on my Kindle and feel good about myself because it's all about like that oxytocin and serotonin and dopamine, all that fun stuff. Whereas I don't feel like I get that when I'm scrolling on my phone.

[01:28:02] Dr Laura Gainche: And I also feel like, um, yesterday I was working too late and I try not to these days because I really struggle to calm my nervous system. And I know I need a certain amount of time to kind of go back down. Uh, and I started reading really feeling like you know, like, no, I, I won't sleep fast. Well, I passed out in probably less than 20 minutes. So the reading and reading something you really enjoy is magical. Like it's, it's so,

[01:28:31] Dr Renee White: Yeah. I love that. Thank you so much again for coming on. Um, I feel like I could almost do like a Joe Rogan style episode with you and just talk with you for about three or four hours.

[01:28:44] Dr Laura Gainche: Um, I'm glad we chat a little bit before the episode.

[01:28:51] Dr Renee White: Yeah, for all those playing at home I think we chatted for like 30 minutes before we even started. I was like, Oh my God, we need to hit record. Otherwise we're going to be here forever. Um, but thank you again. It is always such a pleasure to chat with you. And Oh my God, I'm so, I'm so thrilled when you come on because I know that you've done your homework, like the research that you do and the deep dives. It's so fascinating. I can't wait to see what you're going to tell us about that thermodynamics kind of, um, regulation stuff. That's going to be so, so interesting too.

[01:29:22] Dr Laura Gainche: Me too. And I have to not hype myself too much. Otherwise I'm going to freak out and be like, Oh, I can't do it anymore. But I've yeah, no, it's, it's really cool. It's really interesting, I think. And it's great because I like doing these videos where. Professionals are also interested, not just parents, you know, and it's like, oh, if I know more about this topic, I can help families better. So hopefully, hopefully it will be a good one.

[01:29:45] Dr Renee White: Oh, it's going to be amazing. I'm sure. All right, everyone. Until next week, we will see you. Bye.

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[01:30:09] You've just listened to another episode of the Science of Motherhood proudly presented by Fill Your Cup, Australia's first doula village. Head to our website ifillyourcup. com to learn more about our birth and postpartum doula offerings, where every mother, we pledge to be the steady hand that guides you back to yourself.

[01:30:30] Ensuring you feel nurtured, informed and empowered so you can fully embrace the joy of motherhood with confidence. Until next time, bye!