Friendships: Finding Mom Friends, Friendship Breakups, and Modeling Healthy Friendships for Kids

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Welcome to No One Told Us, the podcast that tells the truth about parenting and talks about all the stuff you wish you knew before having kids. I'm your host, Rachael Shepard -Ohta, and today I'm speaking with Dr. Miriam Kirmayer, who is a clinical psychologist, leading friendship expert, and an influential speaker on human connection and social support. With over a decade of research on the science of friendship, Dr. Miriam is revolutionizing the way that we show up for, mentor, and connect with. with each other. She's one of the first and only clinical psychologists to specialize in adult friendships and shares guidance on navigating friendship and relationship challenges with tens of thousands of people throughout her popular online community. And she's also a mom of two herself. So thank you so much. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so happy to have you.
Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.
I'm really excited to talk with you about this. And we've chatted in the past. I think that this is such an important topic and one that people are kind of like, embarrassed to talk about, just judging by what people tell me on Instagram and what I've gone through in my own life that making friends and keeping friends, especially in those initial years, postpartum can be really challenging and can feel really lonely. So I'm so glad that you're here to talk with us about this.
Yeah, I appreciate you drawing attention first and foremost, that that piece of the shame that can accompany this because on the one hand. We will all Have and be a friend at some point in our live. Hopefully throughout our lives right but the challenges that come with that of making new friends and meeting new people and navigating the ups And downs and losing touch with a friend. These are all Relationship experiences that again inevitably so many of us will go through and yet so few of us are talking openly about and the really interesting thing that the research is certainly showing us and that a lot of us in this space are talking about is human connection, our need for belonging and for friendship and for acceptance.
This is a fundamental biological need that we all have. And in many ways, it's just as important as the other biological needs that we have. And yet we don't have that same shame when we feel Thirsty when we are hungry. There isn't the same shame that accompanies that and for all sorts of reasons when we feel lonely, When that's our bodies and our brains sign that we are in need of connection, There is this sense of shame that can come Up and the problem of course is that shame is a silencer. And so then we end up not reaching out for the connection that we are so in need of and it can become a vicious cycle for so many people.
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And so what really got you started in this work and in this specialty? Because like I said in the intro, there's not a ton of people doing what you do or talking about this in this way. So what kind of made you interested in taking this kind of as a specialty?
Yeah, there were there were a few contributing factors like anything. It's always a mix of you know, a bit of a personal bit of the professional. I was involved very early on in my training with clinical psychologist by training and very early on I was working closely with children and with families and for the most part in the Academic literature and in clinical practice and just in our kind of everyday approach to parenting there is very much an explicit emphasis on helping kids to build friendships. And there's this overall recognition that it's important for children to learn those pro -social skills. We place so much emphasis on helping our children learn how to share and to tell the truth and to be kind, right? And so all of those skills are really in the spirit of developing close, healthy friendships, which are the first relationships that we have with other people very often, and then future healthy relationships.
And so there's a lot of support and talk in place for helping kids and teens to navigate that. But one of the things that I was noticing is that there was very little information about the challenges that we experience as adults, as young adults and beyond in our friendships, and there were very little systems of support available. So I kind of took it upon myself to start researching adult friendships, to start answering some of those questions of, well, why are they so important, but also the how? How do we actually build new connections? How do we actually maintain our friendships when we are entering different life phases or stages and to start sharing that kind of information first online and through the media and of course through the work that I do as a speaker and consultant in this space.
I love that and you mentioned that there was also maybe a personal aspect to it too. Can you share a little bit about friendships that you've had that have changed or shifted or ended and how that kind of informs what you share with clients and online.
Definitely. So it's interesting. Sometimes the personal piece is only apparent in hindsight. And in the moment, we don't necessarily realize that that's guiding us in a certain direction. But when I look back, I can see how not only have the friends that I've had at particular points in my life been hugely important and provided me with the sense of support and connection that made certain life challenges possible and others much more meaningful. I can also look back and recognize moments where I was in unhealthy friendships and it took me longer than I cared to admit to let go or more often, you know, more commonly was the experience of having a group of friends or having specific friendships that for one reason or another just faded over time. and being left with a lot of conflicting feelings about that, feeling guilty. Did I not do enough to hold on to those friendships? Feeling like I failed in some way, using air quotes here, we should hold on to every friendship that we've ever made.
And of course, now I know that that's so untrue. But those are just some of the beliefs that I noticed coming up in myself. And-- started hearing in other people as well. And so the more I could tap into my own internal narrative about what it means to be a friend and to have friends as adults, and the more I was hearing echoes of that in other people, the more I realized that these are things that we really do need to be speaking about. And I hope that I can use my personal experience to lessen some of that shame and isolation that people feel because if I as a psychologist, right, we're supposed to have our shit together, which, of course, we can always, but if I, as a psychologist and if I, as someone who is very familiar with all the research, have all of this information, then why is it that I'm still struggling? And it's because these are human struggles, that these are things that, again, we will all go through. And it doesn't mean that we are bad friends or not worthy of meaningful connections. It just means that there's all sorts of challenges that can stand in the way of making and maintaining those close connections.
That makes total sense. At the very beginning, you talked about how the need for connection and the need for other people is like this biological need, right? It's our need to attach to other people. Do our attachment styles and like the way that we were raised have anything to do with the way we navigate friendships and relationships later on in adulthood? And how does that show up?
Yeah, there's a lot of interesting research in this space. And if anyone who's listening is interested in learning more specific about the link between attachment styles and friendship, well, two books that I have to recommend. One is called "Attached," which is all about the science of attachment and how that links up with our romantic relationships and love. But there's also "Platonic" by Dr. Marissa Franco, and that's a great book as well.
So there's a few things to speak to here. One of the things that's very clear is, yes, of course, our early sense of attachment. And so that is really talking about the attachment that we build typically with our primary caregiver, who's often a parent, that can inform how secure we feel in our relationships later on. And that includes our friendships, that includes our romantic relationships later on in life. And so we know that people who are securely attached tend to have more securely attached relationships of all kinds later on in life.

But one of the really interesting things is that our attachment styles can vary depending on the type of relationship in question. And so it's certainly possible and I've seen it, people who are securely attached, had a secure attachment when they were younger, who would report being very securely attached in their romantic relationship can still struggle when it comes to our friendships, because they are just a different type of relationship. The other thing that I think is important to point out is our friendship history. This is what I call those early experiences of friendship, the friendships we had when we were in elementary school, in high school, that that in so many ways can pave the way for later friendship success or later friendship challenges and difficulties.
And so really interestingly, the friendships that we have, for example, as teens, in form, yes, of course, are well -being at that very moment and our sense of connection at that very moment,
but are also predictive of later well -being and later relational success and actually later professional success, even. So there really does seem to be this very strong connection between the quality of our connections and our well -being and relationships, both in the immediate and long term.
Wow. I would love to talk to you about that in more detail about how we can support children's peer relationships and things like that, because like you just said, it's so important for them lifelong. But first, I'd love to focus on us as the adults, as the parents. Like I said earlier, it's so hard to keep friendships and to make new friendships as not only as an adult with, you know, our busy lives and everything we have going on, but particularly as a new parent, there's just there's so many barriers it feels like to maintaining friendships, even when we really want to. Why do you think that is? And are there other things that we should be doing in the, you know, pregnancy or postpartum or early parenthood stage to maintain those relationships?
Yeah, these are great questions. So let's talk about that first piece of why is it so challenging? The truth is that no matter our life stage or experience, it can be challenging. And there are all sorts of reasons why. Of course, we know that maintaining friendships and building friendships is a significant investment of our resources, of our time, of our energy, of our emotional energy. We need to be comfortable with a certain level of openness and vulnerability and reciprocity that can be very taxing on our systems, especially when we already feel taxed.
And so that demand of resources resources is one of the common complaints that I hear of Miriam, I just don't have the time to invest in building new friendships or I already feel so tapped out and touched out when it comes to caregiving for my children, for my family, for my partner, I don't have anything left to give to pour into anyone else. And so that's certainly a common theme that comes up here. The shift that I often invite people to make is it's very easy to see our friendships as being an expenditure of resources, which again, they are, there's truth to that. I get why that comes up.
But we need to be very mindful about balancing that with the reality that we also receive a tremendous amount of energy and of again, that sense of belonging from investing in our friendships. And so if we only look at it from the outside, from one direction, if we only see it as an expense, then when we're doing this cost -benefit analysis which our brains are doing all the time, even outside of our awareness, then it's very easy to convince ourselves that we don't have the time, that it's just not worth it, that we don't have the capacity right now. If we can push back against that just a little by remembering that we get so much from investing in our friendships.
That's support, that sense of belonging, that connection is crucial when it comes to our mental health, our physical well -being, our ability to cope, postpartum. We get a tremendous amount of wisdom that helps us to be more confident and comfortable in our parenting practices. And so if we can really tap into that side of things, then it makes the energy expenditure a little bit more tolerable.
Yeah, it makes it feel more worth it, right? When we feel like we are going to be getting something back. What advice would you give to someone who's struggling to make new friends? Maybe they're, you know, kind of isolated. I feel like that's a huge problem in our society right now is that we culturally are just very isolated, very into individualistic. But then especially as, as new moms, we're very isolated from community. So what would be like a piece of advice that you would give someone who's maybe not really connecting with people that are close by them or, you know, their friendships have faded away and they're looking for new friends or looking for mom friends, you know, a group of other parents that they can be friends with, what would what would you tell them?
Yeah, honor that inner yearning. Give that voice a megaphone. There's a part of you that is clearly in need of connection. And of course, you are that makes so much sense and it makes sense why that is showing up in that moment. Parenthood is wonderful and beautiful. and also incredibly messy and incredibly lonely. And it's hard sometimes to recognize loneliness for what it is because we are constantly surrounded by someone. We have someone, something attached to us at every minute of the day of the night. And so to some extent, it's hard to reconcile the sense of loneliness that we feel because we're not necessarily socially isolated in the way that we might assume loneliness Companies itself, but so I think recognizing that honoring that voice and being intentional about Expanding your network and so the different strategies that I often recommend one is of course Turning to community and that community can take so many forms.
I think that right the community you've built online is one example of that where people can feel a little bit less alone can connect with Other people who are in a similar life stage can have their experiences heard and questions answered. There are also tons of apps and platforms available now to to help new mom connected each other things like peanut- Which is an app for helping moms connect with new friends and of course again provides a little bit of that support and Psycho-education about some of the challenges that come up, but that's but, you know, a step, go a step even further and take it offline and take it into your everyday life because we know that online connections are helpful and can be a starting point but aren't enough to really fulfill that need for connection and belonging.
And so see what resources are available in your neighborhood. Sometimes there are local shops or community centers that will offer events or workshops or weekly classes or drop -ins for parents. And that can be really helpful be another great place to start. We can also leverage our existing community and social network. This is one strategy that feels really vulnerable, but doing a little bit of an open call to people, whether it's on your own online community or people that you know, let them know that you're looking for new friends. You're hoping to meet new people. You're hoping to connect with fellow parents. People are very willing and happy to set us up and connect us with people. Usually far more than we expect them to be
Yeah, even if you just like I mean, I'm just thinking out loud if you you know had one or two Friends or people in the neighborhood, you know and say hey like let's get a book club together. Like a mom's book club or something and then each person could invite a couple people and like next thing You know you have a whole group that can get together for something, right?
Absolutely. Yeah, you can of course look for events like that as I said through community spaces through through online platforms, things like Meetup and Facebook will post various groups and activities that you can be a part of. But I love the idea of being an initiator and a self -starter and start the group that you wish you had and people will be forever grateful for that.
For sure, yeah, I love that idea too. So do you think or is there any research on if this is cultural? 'Cause I know there's been pieces written about. the loneliness epidemic or different things like that within our culture here in the United States, at least. So do you see that this is a problem elsewhere? Is it universal or is it kind of us in a bubble here?
It's an interesting question. So the first thing that I'll say is that the research on adult friendship itself is so scarce. And we really do need more work being done in that area. So I'm always. appreciative of people who are really working to answer these questions empirically. And nowadays, we also can't separate out the impact of the pandemic, right? That has had a tremendous impact on how connected people feel, the opportunities to connect, the opportunities to do that in a way that feels safe and aligned with our personal values and unique situations. So rates of loneliness are increasing and I hesitate because depending on the research it's slightly nuanced, but people are certainly lonely and social network sizes are shrinking and the quality of the connections and the overall sense of community that people experience is diminishing.
And that is something that we are seeing in all sorts of communities and cultures. I think you touched on something really important earlier which is this idea that the individualistic society in which we live, primarily in North America, really does us a tremendous disservice in a lot of ways. And I'll also say, so I'm actually located in Canada, but this is where there is a difference between the US and Canada, because here we have a very different system for maternity leave.
And that is so very helpful for all sorts of reasons, but it's also helpful from the standpoint of social connection that you can really take that time to nurture your relationships and friendships with other parents and build in that community early on that is helpful not only in those early days, but throughout the ups and downs of parenthood. And it is very difficult when you are a parent who needs to, a new parent who needs to return to work so soon and switch gears immediately and you don't necessarily have the time to invest in nurturing those connections. That is something that is a tremendous challenge and I feel for anyone who's in that situation for all sorts of reasons.
Yeah. That's so true. Okay. We're going to be right back. O
kay. We're back with Dr. Miriam and now I'd love to hear your thoughts on struggles and conflicts in friendships because another thing I hear a lot in my online community is this idea of while my friend doesn't agree with the way that I parent or I don't agree with the way that my friend parents. So how can I still be friends with them? Or this is causing a lot of friction or awkwardness in our conversations or in our relationship. What advice would you give to somebody like that? Do you think that you have to parent the exact same way in a whole - all those beliefs in the same way to continue a friendship? Or what do you do when those kind of awkward conversations come up where you don't really see eye to eye?
Oh, I love this question. Here are a few thoughts that are coming up for me. Do I think that we need to parent in exactly the same way as all of our friends? No, and I don't think it's realistic to assume that we will, that even friends where we are, for the most part, very aligned in terms of our approach to parenting in our community. values and our perspectives, our practices will differ moment to moment, and they should because we have different kids, right? And how we parent both of our children, how I parent both of my sons is a little different because they are different people. So it's not realistic to assume that we will always be aligned with our friends.
And so this is actually a situation that we will all encounter in our friendships when we are parents. I do think that there's value in having a friend, at least one, who we feel aligned with most of the time. And the reason is because that is, again, a tremendous source of support. It's a source of informational support. We can turn to that person and say, what do you think I should do here? What did you do in a similar situation? And let's face it, we all need that from time to time as parents. It's a tremendous source of validation.
We want someone that we trust to be able to say you are doing a good job. I would have handled it exactly like that. Keep it up. I know this is hard. And when that's coming from someone who we feel, again, aligned with, it can carry a little bit more weight. So I do think it's important that we at least have a friend that we can turn to and that we feel connected to on that level. The other idea that I think is important to drive home here is that it's OK to set boundaries and limits about the kinds of topics that get discussed.

And sometimes those boundaries need to be made explicit. And there's a way to do that with tact that doesn't necessarily lead to greater conflict in the friendship. So for example, if you and your friend really differ when it comes to sleep training, I'll use that as an example. 'cause I have a feeling that will resonate with a lot of your community here, right? You can frame this as, you know, I'm noticing that I tend to get really anxious actually when we're talking about that.
And so I am noticing that for my own well -being and peace of mind, I love to focus on this other area. And maybe you choose to make it explicit and focus on it an area where you really are aligned find those commonalities, find those points of connection, and give those more space and then turn to the people where you do feel a little bit more aligned With to to talk about those other difficulties and the last piece of advice that I would give is Sometimes we really find that challenging because we're looking for external validation.
We want that friend to say to us You're doing a good job. I would have handled it exactly like that. We can send those same messages to ourselves. And in moments where we don't feel aligned with the person that we are connecting with, I think those are the moments where it's even more important to check in with ourselves and really show ourselves that compassion.
That is such great advice. So then how would you know if friendship is actually not really serving you or is not healthy anymore? And how do you navigate-- I feel like this is even harder than a romantic breakup sometimes. How do you handle that friendship breakup?
Yeah. So that, that comment that you just shared of a friendship breakup in a lot of ways being more painful than a romantic breakup, that is something that I hear. And of course, I have a little bit of a bias here, right? Given that this is what I, what I speak about all day, but having worked with couples as well, there is something particularly painful about a friendship breakup. And part of the reason why they are so painful is because they tend to be unexpected. And because they tend to not be spoken about openly. When we break up with a partner, very often our friends rally behind us.
And there's a whole host of almost rituals that take place to help a friend cope with that kind of a loss. But friendship breakups often go unshared and unheard. And we aren't open about the pain that's there. And so we end up feeling even lonelier. And there's this other piece, which is really important to emphasize, which is that our friendships are voluntary in many ways, more so than any other relationship that we have. We choose who our friends are, and we choose on a daily basis to stay connected. And that's why they're so powerful and important for our sense of being and our sense of self -worth.
But it's also why it's so painful when they end, because we internalize that and we personalize that and we start to believe that that's a reflection of our worth, our worth as a person, our worth as a friend. And it can just be tremendously painful and isolating. How do we cope with this? This is a really important question. And I think you also asked the question of, well, how do we know when it's time, which is maybe an even more important place to start.
So my best advice is to pay attention to patterns, that yes, of course, there are friendships where for one reason or another, there's been some sort of massive shift or betrayal and that particular moment just sparks the end of that connection. But more often than not, it really is this gradual growing apart. And when you start to notice that when you spend time with this friend, after you've spent time with this friend, when you are about to spend time with this friend, or you see they sent you a message or they're calling, you just feel that sense of dread, that sinking feeling of, "Oh, I don't have the energy to do this. I don't want to do this. I'm not ready." If that is coming up more often than not, if that fear that there'll be a sense of disconnection or pain, if that is showing up on a regular basis, that's a good clue that there's something going on in that dynamic that is not healthy.
And so, while I'd love to give one clear answer of, this is when you should let go of a friendship, that subjective experience of how do I feel when I'm around this person, that's actually the most predictive response to when we should let go of a friendship. The other piece that I do want to just bring up here though is the receptiveness to feedback, which I think is something that really often gets missed, that when we start noticing that we are feeling a certain way in our friendship so that we're feeling unfulfilled.
We almost have this expectation that, well, I guess I should just cut and run. I guess either I stick it out and I suffer and hope that things will change or at least avoid an awkward conversation or I just need to put an end to this friendship because it's no longer healthy. And I don't know why we are so quick to do that all -or -nothing thinking in our friendships because we don't do that in our romantic relationships.
If things aren't going well in our romantic relationships, we might think, well, have I spoken to my partner about what's going on? Do we want to try couples therapy? Can I turn to a friend and ask them for advice? But we don't really approach our friendships with the same level of intentionality. And I think that's doing it a disservice because there are friendships where with a little bit of intentionality, a little bit of effort and openness to feedback on both ends, they can be salvaged and they can actually come out even stronger.
That's so true. I feel like a lot of what I hear is more of this like ghosting mentality where you just kind of stop responding, stop, you know, hanging out with them and it just kind of like slowly fades away instead of ever having like a breakup conversation or like you said, trying to figure out if you can salvage it. It's very funny how it's, it's so different the way we handle it. And I think probably a lot of that is like societal expectations, right? You have this idea that your friendships are supposed to be from childhood to death. Like you're just supposed to have the same group of like core best friends and lots of them for your whole life, which is, I think, really more probably rare than it is the norm, right?
Very much so. Does it happen? Of course. Is it beautiful when it does? Yes, I love hearing those stories of lifelong friendships, but there's some really interesting research that shows that we actually as adults replace half of our friend group every seven years. And so what that means is that each of us is going to be tasked with both letting go of certain friendships and navigating that appropriately and building new connections.
This again is an inevitable human experience. And when we can tap into that, it really helps to normalize it and put it in perspective and also put the honest on us to think about, well, how am I actually going to go about navigating that?
Sure. Oh my gosh. That's fascinating. Okay. We're going to take one more quick break. We'll be right back.
Okay. We are back with Dr. Miriam. And I would love for you to tell us just a little bit about, because it's mostly parents that are listening. And so, of course, we're thinking about our own friendships and, you know, people in our own lives. But then we also want our kids to have healthy friendships and relationships. And I know that your focus is on adults, but you also mentioned at the beginning of the episode that, you know, how we navigate friendships in our early life can impact us later. So what would be some pieces of advice that you would give to a parent on, you know, modeling good friendships and maybe explicitly teaching our kids how to be a good friend?
Yeah, well, you hit the nail on the head with something that you said there. My first piece of advice for you is is to be a good friendship role model that very often we are again thoughtful and intentional, or at least we try as best as we can to be, to model healthy relationships, healthy romantic relationships. We want to demonstrate certain level of intimacy, of closeness, of trust, of communication, of collaboration, and children who have those types of relationship role models in their life tend to go on to have healthier relationships as adults.
And that's true of our friendships as well. And so, again, this is one of those spaces where we might think that investing in our own friendships is taking time away. It's taking time away from us being a present parent, from being able to teach our children all the wonderful things that we want to teach them about what it means to have and be a good close friend. But letting our children see that we prioritize our friendships and that sometimes we might not be around because we're going to catch up with a friend.
That sometimes we are initiating plans to get a group together in our own home, in our own space. And that our friends see that our friendships are at the center of our lives in many ways. That's actually one of the most powerful things that we could do.And sometimes it carries far more weight than giving some kind of a lecture about the importance of friendship.
Children are very sensitive to hypocrisy. And so if we are walking around championing the importance of friendship without modeling all of the effort and intentionality that goes into building and maintaining those close connections, that doesn't sit so well with kids, even kids of a young age. So that's the first piece of advice is to invest in your own friendships and to make that visible and to recognize that that's a great gift that you are giving your children.
I do also think coming back to what we were talking about talking about before, the subjective experience of feeling close and connected and feeling good when you're around your friends, that that's a seed that we want to plant early on. And we can do that by asking our children questions. What do we say? We say who did you play with today? Right? Who did you who did you play that if we're lucky, maybe they'll give us a name or they say no one. But in addition to asking that question, we want to start asking questions like, well, what did you feel like when you were playing with them? And did that make you feel good? And how did they show you that they were being a friend to you?
And how did you show them that you were interested in playing with them? Those types of questions and reflections can really help children to start understanding what does it mean to be a friend? What does it mean to have a friend? Because it's not... just about that parallel play that we see early on in life. It really is about that good feeling that we are all in search of. And even young kids can really start to understand and appreciate that nuance. The last thing that I'll say here, I'm happy to continue talking about this, is we also want to give space to the more challenging parts of friendship.
And very often what we can do is we want to make sure that we are all in the same place. We want to make sure that we are all in the same place. it hurts so very much to see our children in pain is that we're open to hearing the good things and we want to hear who did you play with and how did that make you feel and that felt great wonderful. But sometimes our children will feel excluded and not sometimes this will happen many times over the course of their lives and it hurts so much to see that as a parent.
And what we really want to do is just offer a non -judgmental space where children can process that, where they can sit with that, where they can learn to sit with that, and to be gentle with themselves as opposed to feeling as though that's a feeling that shouldn't be shared, that there's shame surrounding that, that it's something to just be squashed. The research tells us that the experience of social exclusion, that that actually activates the same areas of the brain as physical pain. And so the experience of feeling excluded by a peer, by a friend, it literally hurts. It hurts our children. It hurts us as adults and it hurts us as parents to see our children in that pain.
And so showing up in those moments and offering that safe space to just be in that with them, that is so very helpful as well.
Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you talked about that. We're dealing with this right now because my son just started kindergarten this year and he's doing so great. He's super happy at school but my husband came home almost in tears last week after dropping him off because he said he approached this group of kids and they just kind of turned their back to him and my husband was crushed by that and he stayed and watched it a little longer and said you know he like eventually went and found a different group and he's totally fine going in but it's true it really does hurt and I think we as parents get so afraid of those things happening that we we almost make it We like unnormalize it right we make it seem like this like shameful thing to be rejected or to be ignored or excluded and We almost make it like too big of a deal. Maybe I don't know.
Yeah, it really can help to just as you said normalize it just offer a space to talk about what that's like Sometimes that problem -solving can be helpful helpful in terms of, well, what did you do when they turned your back to you? What could you do? Sometimes a really helpful in there is sharing a little bit about your own experiences of social isolation as a child or exclusion, not only again, helping to normalize it, but it just brings the conversation to a level where children end up feeling heard and connected and not as though they're being spoken down to.
So there are all sorts of strategies that can help there, but-- but I think for starters, having the conversation and being willing to have that conversation and helping children to come up with other explanations. I think that that is actually a really important thing that we don't talk about quite enough that when children turn their back to you does that mean that they don't like you or is there something else that's going on there? Is there another way to make sense of it? Maybe they just weren't interested in the game that you wanted to play. Is there another way? Is that possible? Maybe they didn't hear you ask if you wanted to be a part of the activity.
Can you generate as many possible explanations as you can in an effort to push back against our brain's natural tendency to personalize rejection?
Oh my gosh, yeah, that's such a good tip. And I think that's harder for little ones who don't have that skill of perspective taking yet. But yeah, my son is so funny because he loves talking about all these dynamics of his friendships and how they're changing throughout the year. He says, you know, the people who used to play with me all the time don't play with me anymore, but now I play with kids that I used to not play with. And so you can just see the wheels turning at this age with like, how does this all work? And it's so fascinating. And yeah, we've started to kind of talk through things like that, like, well, you know, this person doesn't want to play with you. So does that mean they don't like you? They're not your friend anymore? Or is it just that maybe they don't want to play that dragon game for the 100th day in a row? Maybe you want to switch up the game that you're offering or ask them if they have an idea. It's hard though. It's because it does bring up a lot of our own stuff from childhood too as well, right?
Absolutely. Yeah. And that's, that's again, I appreciate you bringing that up because that's another one of those points of connection. And just as we can use our friendship history and our current connections to model appropriate, healthy connections, I often hear when I'm working with clients, how caught off guard we can be that our children will bring up past memories or experiences of exclusion in a way that is surprising and that we thought we had made peace with. And so the same way I'm encouraging people to be gentle with your children, be gentle with yourself that these kinds of conversations can be triggering. They can make you feel incredibly vulnerable and sometimes revisiting your friendship history and current connections is a necessary part of being able to be a present supportive parent.
For sure. Dr. Miriam, this has been such a rich and helpful conversation. I feel like I wish we could talk for hours. Where can listeners, or actually first, sorry, I would love to know, this is something that I try to ask all parents. What is something that no one told you before becoming a parent that you felt completely unprepared for? or that you wish someone had mentioned before you had kids?
Oh, that's a great question. What is something no one told me? I don't think I was quite prepared for the amount of sensory overload that parenthood brings with it, especially because there really is this stark contrast between moments of intense quietness and loneliness and other moments of just silence, complete overwhelm and chaos and oscillating back and forth between those two extremes was quite unfamiliar to me. So that is something that I didn't quite feel prepared for and had to do a lot of work around in terms of self soothing and self regulation to be able to do the co -regulation work that is so very necessary as a parent. So that's that's one thing that that comes up for me.
So true, oh my gosh. I think most of us can probably relate to that one. Dr. Miriam, how can listeners connect with you and find your valuable resources?

Sure, so if you visit my website,I have loads of free resources there in the form of podcast conversations like this one here articles, interviews, they have a free resource guide that's there, five ways to create connections. that count. That's a really great starting point with actionable steps and mindset shifts to take to really strengthen the quality of your connections and friendships. So I would recommend starting there. I have my newsletter that I sent out monthly -ish. It's called Friendly Advice. And then I'm also on all of the social platforms, especially Instagram @miriamkirmayer.
Okay, amazing. And you have a new course coming out confidently connected. Can you tell us a little bit about what that's going to be? to be like and where can people find that?
I do. Thanks for asking. So that is actually launching well next week. So February 5th to the 11th is registration week. And this is a course that has been in development for well over a year. I cannot wait to share this with people. It's all about building meaningful friendships in adulthood. So yes, of course, it covers that background information. Some of what she spoke about today in terms of why are they important and what is a healthy quality friendship really look like? But more than that, it's a practical how -to guide of everything from where do we actually go to meet new people, has customized apps and communities and platforms, but how do we approach people that we are interested in getting to know?
How do we actually move from an acquaintanceship to a close friendship and how do we carve out time and more meaningful conversations to be able to strengthen those relationships over time?
And I'm really looking forward to sharing that. So thank you. self -guided and it opens next week. And yeah, I think it's gonna be a really, really exciting offer.
Okay, amazing. That sounds so great and so needed. I will make sure to put all of the information for people in the show notes, 'cause I'm sure lots of people after hearing you speak are gonna be like, "Give me more, please, help me more." Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Have a great rest of your day.
Thank you, same to you.
No, thank you for having me. I've been in your comment section like pick me, pick me, like I've got to come and talk.
Well, it was an easy thing, but you know, you just got to shoot your shot. No, it was an easy choice. You've actually been I mean, I've been like planning and launching this podcast for almost a year now. And you were on my original list of guests that I would love to have. So I'm so glad that we're finally able to make it happen. And I, a lot of people also did request you and request this topic about birth trauma, which is what we're going to talk about today because it is so, I don't know, it just, it seems like something that we're not allowed to talk about. Or when we do talk about it, we're kind of gaslit. Um, so there's not a lot of safe spaces to dive into all the things that can go on with not only birth trauma, but pregnancy trauma or trauma with postpartum experiences or things like that. So I'm really excited for people to hear what you have to say today. Because I think a lot of times too, people don't even realize they've been through a trauma until after and I'm sure that's a big part of your work too. So can you just first share a little bit about you? I know I just introduced you, but I would love for you to introduce yourself and talk about, you know, what kind of brought you to this work in the first place?
Yeah, so I have two children now. My daughter is five, and my son is 20, 20 something months, you know, second children who remembers anything but basically he's just over 20 months. You just never know. And I, yes, I'm a midwife, I'm still a registered midwife, I just don't practice clinically. I was working and had my daughter and the circumstances that for me were just not in the least bit positive and it kind of impacted so much in the postnatal period but also how I was able to show up and do my job. Meaning that after returning from maternity leave, which here in the UK is nine months to a year when you work for the public sector, um I found it very difficult and basically quit. One day was that I just couldn't do it. I was in a situation where I sort of froze and I found myself really kind of thinking I can't be complicit in harm and I can't see what was done to me being done to others.
And what I could remember about my own birth was the faces. It was something that was very kind of you know, pertinent. I saw the faces really clearly. And I just felt that I don't want to be the face that someone remembers in their trauma. And yeah, so I was like, you know, I'm just not going to do this. And then the pandemic hit. But two days before the pandemic hit, or like before, like we were starting to get locked down, my husband was like, I've got to go to Spain to work for a bit. I was like, no, don't go, you're going to get locked down, don't go. And he was like, no, no, no, I'm going to go, I'll be back. Four months he was locked down for. And he was in Spain and I was in England.
Yeah. And I was like, um, so there were no flights, there was nothing. And I had, I see our daughter who was 17 months at the time. And I was like, um, okay, but luckily enough, I was living with my mom and my sister had come back from uni because her university had shut down. And we had a great four months.
Did you want to kill him for leaving? I would be like, I would never forgive him. Oh, my God.
I mean, I'll bring it up now. I will bring it up now. It's like, oh, you're not taking out the rubbish. That's because you left and you didn't listen to me.
He will pay for that for life, I hope
he will. He will. You know, it was one of those things and I was like, what am I going to do? Because obviously I had to quit my job. I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. And then I was like, I'm going to start blogging. And I can remember it so, so distinctly. And I was sitting on the stairs at my mum's and I said to my sister, what should I call it? What should I call it? And I had all these funny names, Mum Tribe, Mum Club, this that and the other. And I was like, what about mixing up motherhood? It's all like, you know, it means that I just give myself the freedom to speak about what I want. So I started that and it really took off. It was over the source of George Floyd Black Lives Matter resurgence. And that kind of, you know, was a lot. And also from someone who was speaking about the perinatal space, speaking about the fact that the maternal mortality for black women was significantly higher than their white counterparts was also something that I was very vocal about, which I think kind of propelled my platform.
But underneath all of that, there were lots of people that were sending me their birth stories, and I was advising them and supporting them and all of that. And by September, I was like, do you know what? I think, why don't I see if I can offer it as a service? I still hadn't started a new job. And in the first couple of weeks. I had like one to two appointments. But by about four weeks in, I had a six week waiting list. So I clearly kind of tapped into something that didn't exist. And I think because it because it happened so organically, like I didn't start social media for money for business, you know, it was just like, Oh, actually, maybe I'm okay at this.
Let me see what happens. And it really worked. And I've been doing that now. for just over three years. Um, I do that full time. Um, so that's how that happened. Um, and then my book got commissioned, so my book is called The Birth Debrief. If you're in Canada, you can get it. If you're in the States, you can get it. If you know someone in Canada who can post it to you.
Well, luckily for me, I do have a lot of friends in Canada, so I can get it on over here. Um, because I do... do, I want to be able to read it and have it in my hands and share it because it's really something to be proud of. And again, I think it's something that just like with your Instagram, it's just you clearly tapped into an unserved or the very least underserved subset of parents and moms where they weren't feeling like there was anywhere to talk about this unless they could shell out money for therapy or, you know, find a group or find a friend. But you just like to hold that space for them, which I think is so important.
So let's back up a little bit. And how, how would you even define birth trauma? Right? Because if you follow anyone, or if you've ever been to a therapist, there's so many different ways to define trauma. There's so many different ideas about what counts as trauma, a little T trauma, there's big T trauma, like there's all these ways to think about it and to talk about it. So how do you define a birth trauma? And how would somebody know if they did go through what could be considered traumatic?
Yeah, so for me, I really, I often try to like, move away from giving something a title before we've explored it. So I go backwards, I'm like, talk to me about your feelings. And once we talk about the feelings, then we can put a title because whether or not we like it, we already have a preconceived notion of what trauma is. So this is something that inhibits for people from speaking about themselves or describing their experience as traumatic, because perhaps it's not traumatic enough, or it doesn't meet the sort of requirements of that predisposed idea of what trauma is.
And so I'm always like, tell me how you feel. Let's talk about it. And sometimes they'll say, I feel traumatized. I'm like, cool, let's explore it. And other times they say, I feel disappointed. I feel upset, I feel angry, you know? And it's like, let's talk about it. And once you get, you have that conversation about the feelings, it's like, aha, okay, now we can kind of work towards a title, but it's not boxed in, you know? It's like, actually, if we look at trauma, trauma is an internal response to an external situation. And so it's like, actually, I just feel how I feel, I felt how I felt.
And I get to decide what that title is. Now, regardless of if I call it trauma, or if I call it disappointment or anger or frustration, doesn't really matter. So I try and get people sort of move away from this idea that I've had had birth trauma because Maybe they don't feel traumatized and I also really don't like to put on people So you're traumatized because they might not be but then when you say oh Are you you're traumatized? You're kind of planting a seed and they're like what should I be could I be and it's like hold on Let's do this the other way. I want this to come organically from you and you tell me how you feel So I tend to kind of of move away from sort of, you know, distinctively saying you're traumatized or have you had birth trauma.
However, birth trauma would be described as sort of a, it's basically like PTSD symptoms of PTSD. So around the perinatal period. So you will have symptoms such as intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, night sweats, palpitations, you know, all of those symptoms of PTSD but associated with a perinatal experience. So, that's anything from preconception all the way to kind of postnatal, well into the postnatal period. I've seen people from like six weeks postnatal to 10 years postnatal. So, it's not really a, you know, there's no kind of, we don't stop being mothers.
So this means that we don't stop having the trauma that we hold in our bodies. So by saying to people, you can be seen up to 18 months post natal is like, well, that's unfair, because I don't suddenly stop, I don't suddenly lose the need. And what I tend to get is people coming to me around 18 months to two years, because at that point is when they're getting a bit more independence and a bit more separation from the child for whatever reason. Maybe I've stopped breastfeeding. Suddenly their mind goes, hold on, how am I? And so, you know, there's no time limit on it.
Do you find that a lot of people are coming to you to talk about the birth itself and how it may have gone left or maybe they just weren't feeling heard or do you find that it's more people that are just kind of struggling to process it in general? Like what are most of your clients coming to with wanting to process through?
A lot of the time it is what they think is the birth experience and I say what they think not to diminish what they think they're carrying but because in many ways we often see things as happening in isolation and nothing happens in isolation. Everything is connected. So when I'm starting a debrief, I'm like, talk to me about the journey to conception. Because if you've had a difficult journey to conception, and then perhaps you've had miscarriages or you've had losses, and then maybe you've got sick in your pregnancy. So that was the following question, how's your pregnancy? And then maybe your mental health was suffering in pregnancy. And then how was the birth? And then how was the postnatal period?
And we always kind of loop it and go, well let's look at how these things are connected and I think for a lot of people it's like they haven't done that because someone will say oh the birth really bad and I know actually the birth was fine but I just feel and it's only when you kind of start to explore other experiences with them that are all along that perinatal period that they then go huh yeah actually my
pregnancy was terrible and that's really impacted my postnatal period you know and so it's like they think they're coming to me for one thing. And by the end of it, they're like, what? That's all of it.
Or what? I didn't actually think that maybe this was connected to this. And so, you know, I always say to people, you know, at the end of a session, they're like, Oh, my gosh, thank you so much. Look what you've done, you know. And I say to people, because I'm always like, remain humble because you are doing that, you know, this is, this is not you're not fixing people. And I stick to the kind of mantra of I'm just showing you yourself, like this is all within you. And you've just needed a safe space to explore it, and then it put back to you. And then you go from there.
So it's like, you had this, and you had all of the kind of, you know, the capacity, but you didn't necessarily have the support, didn't have the words, didn't have the tools and so it's like I show you yourself and then you can go forth Whereas otherwise, it's like I never want people to feel like they rely on me to fix them because Then they keep coming back and coming back and coming back because they don't trust that they can do it on their own Which is often part of birth trauma.
The autonomy agency is gone. So the idea is I'm giving you back your agency. You've got this come on And you know, it's it's really quite beautiful to be able to facilitate that for people and without taking credit for doing anything sort of out of this world.
But you are like, that's the thing is that you are, again, like just holding this space and providing this container to feel for people to feel so safe and to explore these feelings that they might have just buried forever otherwise and never talked about or never had validated or acknowledged. And that is a huge deal. And so you were working obviously at a hospital as a midwife. So do you have any tips for people, especially like you mentioned earlier here in the States, black women are unfortunately at a much higher risk of birth complications, birth traumas. Are there things that you tell clients like maybe they're getting ready to conceive again or go through this process again? Are there things that people can do to help avoid these traumas from happening in the first place?
Yeah. Yeah. So once upon a time, when I first started working, I would say to people, you know, do this, do this, do this, do the other. And now I'm like, come see me. Come see me. Let's hash this out. But the reality is, it's only because and the reason I say come and see me is because when you talk to someone, it's like your brain stores it in a different way, rather than it's like, I thought about this on my own. And then it's like, you know, life is moving rapidly, particularly if it's a subsequent pregnancy, you don't even have time to sit and think about lots of things. And so something may have occurred to you, but then you've got it, and then you've moved on. But if we think, and you know, what I think, where I think a lot of birth preparation perhaps does a disservice to women is, is giving them this idea that they are in control of everything.
Because what happens then when things don't go the way that they planned, but they were told that if they did this, this, this, here's the solution or here's the kind of the sum, the equation to get it right. And then it doesn't go right. Well, then you turn the blame inwards because you're like, I should have, I could have, I would have. And it's like, no, we're not gonna do that. What I always encourage people to explore is,
what is within your control? And often the only thing that is within their control is how they respond to what they're presented with.
And I'm not talking necessarily like a clinical situation because again, we don't know. But I'm saying, how are you feeling? What are you gonna do about it? You know, what are you gonna say? Where are you going to place yourself? These are the things that you are in control of. Now, when we start to look at things like that and we say, but what are the things that I'm in control of? And you implement those, I will tell you now, I'm not a betting woman. But if I was, I'd be rich because it does work that you become quite you don't necessarily care so much anymore about the mode of birth,
you care about how you were made to feel, how you asserted yourself, how you used your agency, and how you advocated for yourself.
So if you're like, repeat that, I don't understand, rather than being like, okay, yes, fine. Like we do the latter, you come out of birth and you're like, why didn't I say this, I should have done this, I should have done the other. Whereas instead, it's like, actually, I'm going to say what I need to say because I want to come out of this going, I said what I needed to say and that you are in control of.
Yes, I love that.
I say to people all the time, "All I want you to do is think about the memory that you want to have." When you think about this birth, because us as professionals, like... like, I've seen thousands of women in my career. I can tell you now, there are very few of them that I remember. Not because I don't care, but because you have to be particularly memorable if when working within a system that's like a conveyor belt, you stand out. So, if you say, for example, "I'm a stranger." and I come in and I say, well, you've got to do this and you've got to do this and you've got to do this. And you say, okay, fine, even if you don't want to, you've allowed me to determine what you're going to do. I'm someone that could walk past you in a supermarket and not remember you.
Me to you, on the other hand, you will remember me because you would have said, I let this woman tell me what to do and go against my guts or not use my agency and she doesn't even remember me. She doesn't remember me but I remember and so it's like if you constantly think what do I want to remember you won't let people start to take things from you and dictate to you you'll start to think hold on I carry this memory for life they've got this for 10 minutes what do I want it to be?
Oh my gosh, that is so powerful. So do you even recommend that people make a birth plan? I know that that's kind of like a divisive topic. There's lots of people that have lots of thoughts about birth plans or like doulas. How do you feel about stuff like that for improving birth outcomes?
Yeah, so I again, I'm very much like you do you boo, you know, like it's I honestly do not care. I'm not some type of like home birth pariah. I'm not against C sections. I'm not, you know, I don't care if you're on your back if that's where you want to be. I don't care if you're epiduraled up to your eyeballs. It makes no difference to me because you chose it and you're living it. So if you say to me, I've got a 15 page birth plan, I'm going to say to you, well, okay then if that made you feel comfortable, if that's what you wanted to do, then I'm here to support you to do what you want to do. That's all my job is. And I wish that more health care professionals understood that.
That is that I'm here to support you in doing what you want to do. We're working collaboratively. You know, it's not that I am your boss. This is me and you as a team.
What do you want to do? How can we do it? So for me, a birth plan, I'm neither here nor there. Now, I definitely, so in my book, I speak about a birth plan and I remember sending it to my agent, to my editor and she was like, is this it? And I was like, yeah. And the template in my book is literally, who are you? Who's your partner? What do you want the name to be, like what do you want to go by? What do you want? What do you categorically not want and what is important to you?
Now, when it's so simple, when you scale it back and you're quiet in the noise, yeah, actually, because this means that you don't start getting into, well, I'll only have a forceps if it's desperately needed. And I'll only have a section if the baby might die because it's like, well, that's, that's clear. That's fine. Obviously. Yeah. What we say is what's important. It's obvious, right?
If we say it's important to me that my choices are well communicated, it's important to me that I'm offered a range of pain relief options and I understand what the implications of taking them are. It's important to me that I'm offered a range of pain relief options and I understand what to say when I'm mobile. It's important to me that I'm given agency. It's important to me that you don't refer to me as honey or as darling or that you don't speak in my space.
I go by the name Ilyin, please refer to me as such. My birth support goes by the name of Harry. Please refer to him as such. Don't refer to him as dad. He is not your daddy. He is not my daddy. Okay, so we can refer to him as his name and we can also bring him into the conversation because it's important Yes. You know. Yeah, if we if we really stop and think it's like what matters to me because so many people Google templates and the template says do you want vitamin K? Do you want vaccines? Do you want a golden hour? Do you want skin to skin? Do you want it's like I don't bloody know?
I don't know if I'm going to be out of it. I don't know if I'm going to feel like I'm capable. I don't know what state anyone's going to be in. And what I don't want to do is be like, look at all the things that I didn't achieve on this birth plan that I really did. So it's like, actually, I'm just going to scale it back. I'm going to just look at what's important. So, you know, if it helps you, then it helps. But do it because you want to don't do it because it's trending. Don't do it because someone's told you that you're supposed to do it and you're supposed to have all of the answers. If you're struggling to write a birth plan Put it to one side, but it's all. It doesn't matter. Just be like I just want to feel held. I just want to feel heard. I want to feel safe And and that could be it that could be your birth plan.
And within that, lots of different things can happen. But you leave it essentially open. But the focus is on the feeling. In regards to doulas, totally, if you want one, I mean, I mean, I definitely feel that they have now been like promoted as being like the savior. And, you know, this will be the difference between a good birth and not so good birth. And you say to someone, I had a crap experience. and they say, did you have a doula though? And it's like, no, but what?
Well, no, I didn't have the extra like $2 ,000 laying around for a doula. I mean, they are like-- - Yeah, exactly. - I had a doula for all of my births. I absolutely loved them. They were so amazing. And for me, they did make a huge difference, I think. But yeah, like they're not free.
And they're not for everyone. Some people are like, no, I don't feel like I need that. And it's like, this is what I mean. Like, I have so much respect for them and the work that they're doing. But I don't promote anyone as being essential other than you. In your birth, the only essential thing is you. And so it's like, right now we can look if we want to widen the circle, if we want to have more people, if anyone else feels essential. But is it essential to you? Or is it essential because everyone else is doing it? And, you know, I always say to people, get a postnatal doula, because I think they're worth their weight in gold if you can get a good postnatal doodle.
Oh my gosh, yes. That's one thing I did wrong is I never did one of those and oh my god, they would be worth their weight in gold, especially for subsequent births where you have another child to care for too. It's like, oh my god, would be so worth the cash. Yeah, just help me.
And it's exactly and it means that you're kind of looking beyond the immediate of the birth like if we really break it down, birth is like the shortest bit. Like right, I know he's really long and postpartum is really long. And so I'm not going like my son is obviously like however old he is. And I'm like, I still feel broken. This still feels very important. And you know, it is one of those things. things that we have to do so much work for with my son. So he was born three months after my mum very suddenly passed away. And we had a family friend who was a doula and she was based in Cape Town.
And we'd been on the phone, so my mum died on the 26th of December and we'd been on the phone on the 13th of December, basically having said, you know what, actually don't come because flights are being canceled and lockdowns and blah blah blah so you know what i'm just going to interview someone else and see how i go and um obviously then my mum died and i called her in the january and i was like i just feel like i need you here and she was like i have the same feeling so then we were like cool let's do it so she came for his birth and she stayed for three weeks after his birth who kicked my husband out and she slept in in my bed and she would take the baby.
She'd pass him to me to feed and then she would take him and she'd put him back to sleep. She'd give me like sits baths. She'd honestly bring me breakfast in bed like honestly. The difference. I know it was beautiful. It was beautiful. And then my husband was able to take care of our daughter 'cause I was being taken care of, you know? It was just a doula who doesn't necessarily have to be for you, but it could be, you know, you use it however you, however, serve you.
And, you know, it is about you, it is about thinking what serves me in this moment, because the impact of what is serving me in this moment extends much further beyond this moment.
So true. That is so beautiful that you had that. And especially, I'm so sorry about the loss of your mom, and that must have been really Wonderful to have somebody holding you in that way when you're so like fresh and vulnerable postpartum and after that huge loss. You mentioned your husband also just like partners in the birthing room in general. So I would love to hear what some tips from you would be about Just like how to involve our partners and maybe if we are feeling like we have some birth trauma or we have some negative feelings around how our birth went or any of that postpartum, how could partners support us through that? Or how could we open up that conversation with our partner?
Yeah, so this thing, right? So let's say you've had a traumatic experience. Your partner has lived that experience through a different lens. One that is deserving of space as well. Now, without you saying that he's a competitor, he is not a competitor.
Do you sometimes find it sorry to interrupt you, but you just brought up such a good point. Do you find sometimes that there could be the partner that's traumatized even if the birthing person is not because of what they saw or experienced themselves?
Okay. Yeah. Exactly. You know, if we have settings such as mums needing to be under general anesthetic to have the baby. They don't recall that and perhaps do not feel traumatized by it. But for the partner, they are watching and they're told to get out of the room. It's an emergency. They don't know what's going on. And immediately, because in those settings, there's quite poor communication, they have catastrophize.
And even if it is just for about three seconds, they are thinking that the person or the people that they love most. in this world may not be here anymore. If we look at what PTSD is that is thinking That someone you love or yourself are going to die. That is one of the main causes of PTSD. So if we think for a partner particularly a male partner, and I don't say this because female partners don't feel things. But it's different for a male partner who's I'm often, you know because of toxic masculinity, but they definitely feel I'm the protector. I'm the server.. I do everything I save. And in that moment, that level of impotence can manifest itself in a deep rooted trauma that because they didn't experience birth gets very little attention.
And people don't think about how that manifests itself. So when they look at their partners postnatally, they're like, he's just not engaged. He's just not helping. What an asshole. And it's like, hmm, is he not helping? Or is there something underneath this? Or he's really angry all the time and he never used to be and I don't know what's wrong. He's really distant or he's really panicky. Well, he's sad. And it's like, maybe you could just talk to him and be like how do you feel without telling him how he feels and without talking about how you feel, asking how he feels. And if he's like he's not, he's not chatty, you know, there's lots of men who are like, stop talking to me about feelings, I don't want to have conversations. And but we say, if you had to describe the birth in three words, what would they be? Give it to them like short and sharp, easy, they can engage in short and sharp, more than they can engage in like getting into the fields.
And they might be scary, overwhelming, and happy, these things might exist together. And you say, Oh, what, what scared you? Really? That's amazing. What scared you? Open questions. Not were you scared? That's just a yes or a no. It's like, what were you scared of? Leave space, leave space for the conversation to be whatever it needs to be.
Now, when it comes to birth partners, I don't know, here, we're so kind of romantic about the notion that men have to be there. And I think it's definitely reinforced by, like, television, and this kind of idea of like, faux equality, which is like, if I've got to live it,
you've got to live it too. But it's like, yeah, that's not really it. Like, they're not gonna going to live it. So, you know, you know, never is kind of not going to have the desired effect. So, you know, it kind of feels a little bit like, okay, cool. And I completely again, as like a theme, you know, I completely respect if you're like, yep, I want my partner there.
Like, he is my guy. Like, he is my advocate. He is my safe person. I think that for a lot of people, that's what that person is. This conversation and this choice has to be consensual. They have to want to be there and understand their purpose in that space. You are not here because you have earned it. You're not here because we're married. You're not here because you're the dad. That's not why you're here. You're here because you have a job and that is to be my person, to be my voice if I need it, to be my security if I require it, and to be there to pick up any pieces that I might drop along the way. That's what your job is. And if you're not gonna be able to do that, that's cool, but tell me. Tell me you can't do it.
Yes, beforehand.
I'll give you the out. I'll give you the out, you know? And with my daughter's birth, my husband was there. Remember him saying to me. "I don't really wanna be there." And I was like, "Shut up, you're definitely gonna be there." And he was quite absent, like he was really struggling, like hates blood, you know, he's like, "Why am I here?" And I remember they were taking me in for a C -section and I was like, "So, you're coming?" And he was like, "You know what? "Your sister -in -law can go instead." I was like, "Shut up." You're coming again like me being like This is what I'm deciding. I want I'm not listening to you and right He's Spanish and we were in England and he couldn't advocate for me because he didn't have the vocabulary meaning that actually he was He was like he was as useful as a chocolate teapot.
You know, it was like, okay You're not really serving the required purpose. So when I came to my son's birth I was like what do you want to do? And he was like, I don't want to be there. I was like, I don't want you there. I was like, this is incredible. I love this for us.
Same page.
It was great. You know, it didn't have to be this awkward thing of me kicking him out. And it didn't have to be this awkward thing of me forcing him, or him forcing himself, sorry, to be there.
Yeah.
I had my sister and my doula and honestly, the most empowering space. It was absolutely incredible. And, you know, I had a home birth after a Cesarean section. So first Cesarean section, second was a home birth and he was born within like, I don't know, maybe three hours of active labor.
That's amazing.
And it was just absolutely out of this world. But do you know why? Because I looked at how I felt, and I counted it. I answered all of those questions. How did you feel last time? Who contributed to those feelings? Who's welcoming your space? How can you combat those feelings? And when I did that, it was like, this is going to be the way it's going to be. And he has been an absolute joy ever since, because for me, the way you start things is the way that they continue. So if you're thinking, how am I going to do this? That thing is important. How you start things will often help to determine how you are able to overcome even difficult things because you're starting at your peak,
you're starting strong. And so it's like, okay, cool. Whereas with my daughter, I started on the floor while I had to get up. Like that was no lower to go. It's like,
right. Right. Well, and I loved that you were so honest with each other about that and honest with yourselves. Fuck what people think we should do. Like, you know, this idea that a certain person's supposed to be in the room has to be in the room has to be this support person. Like, I just love that you kind of said, no, that's not going to work for us. We're going to do something different. And you had an amazing experience. And so does that mean that he was then able to be available for your daughter while you were giving birth? Was that kind of his role? Okay, perfect.
Yeah. So he took my daughter to my dad's and it was just important to us that he was there when the baby was born. So literally, I remember I gave birth and I was on my hands and knees, the head came out and then I kind of threw myself back and I was sort of sitting on my heels and I picked him up from between my legs and when I was pushing the head was out and I said to my sister get my husband get Omar get him like this and I lifted him up onto my chest and I remember turning and there he was in the doorway just as I'd lifted him up
oh my god
it's a boy so it was like he was there for the moment that I was like it was so intense that it was incredible. It was amazing. So yeah, it was it was really quite special and you know, he had energy and he felt like he'd serve the purpose that I needed him to when we start to look into our relationships and I'm going to sort of touch on relationships like postnatally, when you allow someone and encourage someone to serve the purpose that you need them to, it will only serve your relationship. It only serve your parenting journey because you say, right, these are my needs. You need to fulfill them. You don't give them vague answers.
And they don't give you a half -assed effort. It's like, don't say to, don't say to someone when they say, what do you need? And you say Everything. Oh, how do I do that?
I think there's this idea that we have to have our partner fulfill like every single one of our needs. And they have to be our like everything all in one person. And that's probably pretty unrealistic.
Yeah. It's hard, bloody work. You know, it's definitely not easy. And I think one of the things, and it's again, it's in birth, it's in pregnancy, post -natal is what happens to us when our expectations aren't met. This disappointment, this kind of festering of frustration, resentment and anger. And it's like, okay, you have an expectation, have you voiced the expectation?
Have you shared it? Have you explored it? The expectation that you have placed on this person, do they have the capacity to fulfill it? Let me give you an example. I've said for years, my husband and I have been together, I think, you know, 13 years or something. And every bloody birthday, I'm like, "Hun, surprise me." I just wanna be surprised. Like, come on, throughout the year, I was like, "Okay, well, that's what I'm gonna do." be like oh I like this thing and I'm thinking you're gonna write it down because I know this is normal exactly gets my birthday present is always shocking absolutely shocking and I'm so disappointed.
Now I have to explore the expectation that I was placing on this person and because it didn't it was like I'm saying come on on and each year I was disappointed. Now there were two things that were at play here was that one he wasn't really trying to meet my expectation and two the expectation wasn't necessarily just and so this year I was like I want this, I want this, I want this and what happened? I got it all and I was really happy. The expectation was met. It was like, Oh, there was just a clear understanding, you know, Hollywood has fed us absolute bollocks. It tells us about this man who just gets it all on. He just understands everything. And like, who is he? He's a unicorn.
So, you know, when it comes to all of those experiences, how, how we are, how we parent, we have to explore our expectations. Now, we don't necessarily have to lower it, but we have to apply it in a way that is applicable to the situation into what you're being presented with. In fact, never lower your expectations. Never lower your expectations because actually, there's not a problem with your expectation in terms of how you want to feel and want to be treated and what you expect. And when you start to lower it, you allow people to treat you like shit. You allow yourself to be constantly in a cycle of disappointment.
But be fair in your expectations. So if you know that, I don't know, the hospital that you're going to has a C section rate of 99 .9 % saying, I'm going into this hospital, and I'm going to have a vaginal birth, and I'm going to do this. Is that really fair for you to place it on yourself? Probably not going to get met. You know, so you perhaps need to think, is this the place, as you explore that expectation, is this the place that can facilitate that? What do I need to facilitate that? Who do I need to facilitate that? Where do I need to go so that you can move the expectation and apply it somewhere where it sits comfortably?
Exactly. I love that. I talk about this all the time with um, with regard to sleep and with our clients. I mean, sometimes my team members and I will talk about like a client intake that comes in and the parent's goals are just like completely unrealistic and just like crazy. And we're like, well, you know, we love that dream for you. But let's talk about all of the reasons why this might not be possible at this time. And yeah,
and it's not necessarily lowering your expectations. but it's just being realistic. I love that.
You know, even on the topic of sleep and the expectation, it's kind of like, again, we are fed this idea that we can fix things that, you know, this baby's gonna do all of this because you had a good birth, because you had a doula, because you had this meow or all that. And it's like, hmm, babies don't really care.
Yeah, so, and a lot of people don't really care. disappointed. And they turn it inwards again, or they put it on the baby or their partners. Why can't you put the baby to sleep? Like, come on, you're not trying hard enough. And baby, why don't you sleep? You're just bad. Like, you're just a bad sleeper. You're just a bad whatever. And why can't I get my baby to sleep? Now, a lot of the time when I explore things like that,
if parents say things like that to me, I'm like, how did you feel at birth?
You know, how did, you know, because what I'm getting from you is that it felt out of control. It felt like you couldn't kind of get a grasp on it. And I'm also getting that perhaps you didn't feel that your partner supported you in this. So that extends into other vulnerable periods, such as sleeplessness. And you have these resentments and these things, and you're, I can't control this, I need to get, I need to get it.
So you try sleep training, you try all of this shit you take into every doctor. I think there's something wrong with them. Is it colic that gives them every drop under the sun? Is it this? Is it reflux? And like, I'm going to, I'm going to control this. I'm going to fix this because I didn't control that. And then your partner like, and you're, you're sitting there looking like a lemon, you could help blah, blah, blah, blah. And the partner's like, I don't know what to do.
When you connect the dots, you're like, what's going on here? You know, what's going on here? What's wrong with the expectation? What needs were not met? What has happened outside of this immediate issue? And is it actually an issue or are your feelings around it the issue? And can we explore those?
Right. Is it really about what it's about? Is it really about sleep or is it really yeah? Do you find that babies who have been through a traumatic birth have any like common common themes? Like parents ask me sometimes, you know, I had a traumatic birth and I just am wondering like if that's why my baby is doing this or why my baby is this way. Do you find any common themes or is it babies are just going to be babies?
Sometimes it is just, yeah, sometimes it is just the card that you've been dealt and that baby is a bit unsettled. Other times there can be a sense of unrest or unease in these babies, they can be quite like, nervy babies, you know, kind of what would be classed as like a challenging baby. But I actually think if we start to look at because of my, you know, if you'd have asked me in the first sort of few weeks of my daughter's life, I would have been like, what the hell, like she is a problem. I don't know what this child is, send her back and send her back. Exactly. And what was actually happening was, I had so much pent up sort of fury and difficulty was that I was really struggling to submit to this process of just taking my child.
And I remember the day that it came to me to just kind of drop my shoulders and give in to what I was doing and being presented with and I was home alone with her for the first time because I'd had all my family around my sisters were there my mom was there everyone was there my husband had gone back to work and she just wouldn't chill out and I was like babe like what's going on and under the stairs I had
this sling that I'd bought and I put the sling on and for the first time she just went quiet and let me tell you- that child didn't leave the sling for 18 months.
You know, she was in it all the time. But I just was like, "This is clearly a child who has these niche -y wants to be close to me." And actually, because of how I'm feeling, I'm struggling to meet her there. And no one is telling me that that's what I need to do. Everyone's telling me, "Go to the doctor, try this, try that, do -do -do -do -do -do -do -do. Leave her to cry." So it's not because I'm saying it's your fault if you have an unsettled baby, there are going to be unsettled babies. But if you have any type of traumas or residual kind of emotions that your body is holding on to, that can very easily manifest itself in how you are with your child.
And they just mirror you a lot of the time, or you find the opposite where these children just aren't there. really do much like they're just quite quiet quite like you know yeah they're sort of landing you know so yeah you know my advice is to always take some time to explore your own feelings about what happened and again once we start to connect the dots you'll be like mmm maybe I could try something else. And maybe I am strong enough and maybe I am powerful enough and maybe I am capable enough and I just need to, I need that to be validated and reinforced and that is an absolutely valid need and one that I sort of insist on meeting when people come to see me.
That's so important. Before we wrap up, what is, I mean, I love that you've shared so much about your own journey. What is one thing that you feel like no one told you about parenting? Before you became a mom for the first time, what's something you wish someone had just been like, "Hey, just so you know?"
I kind of wish that someone had told me how forever it is, how that sense of forever can actually be really scary that your heart is irrevocably changed and it just kind of moves position. So, you know, when they're babies, they're fragile, you don't want to drop them. And then when they're toddlers, you don't want them to hurt themselves. And then when they're older, you don't want them to go to their friends alone. And, you know, that kind of forever sense of like, oh, my God, like this is like, I'm constantly going to feel that there is a bit of of my heart outside of my body. And that unease that comes with that, um, that is a forever thing. Um, yeah, I reckon my children will be like married with kids of their own and I'll still be like, ooh.
For sure. Oh my gosh, of course. Oh, you keep giving me chills. But that was, yeah, that's such a good answer because that is true. And just to prepare yourself for your, for your heart to change forever and know that that's okay. Where can people find your amazing resources or maybe book a session with you or where can they find your book? And I'll put all of this in the show notes too.
Amazing. So, you can find me at mixing .up .motherhood. You can find my book on Amazon, anywhere in the world. Most places in Europe can get it, like I said, Canada can get it. And, if you want a book with me, all of it is over zoom, all of my sessions are over Zoom, so it's international, it's anywhere in the world. We just figured out the time difference, and I'm there. And you can do that via my link tree or via my website, www .mixing up motherhood .com. You are more than welcome to come and see me, and we'll hash it out, and it'll be good.
So amazing. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope that this conversation will help other people out there. You've been listening to No One Told Us.
Jamie is now recently, right, dual certified in the U .S. and Canada, in child passenger safety, in both, like I said, the U .S. and Canada, and you're based in Denver, Colorado. So Jamie, thanks for coming on the pod.
Jamie: Howdy. Thanks for having me. Nice to chat in person. and not via Instagram DM.
Rachael: I know, I know. We were both kind of like living over the summer for, because like I said, you're a Swiftie. We both went to the Eras tour. And so at the top of the show, I just have to, we're recording this in November, by the way. So right now there is so much hype around Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. So before we dive into the baby gear stuff, I have to know your thoughts. Is it PR or is it real? Or is it both?
Jamie: Any relationship like that is going to have some kind of like PR component to it because they're remarkably extraordinarily famous people. But I do think it's real. I really do. And like, you know, I'm not as much of a Swiftie as I am. Like, I'm not one of like those Swifties that like analyzes every single thing that she does.
Rachael: No we're not crazy.
Jamie: But this is one of the first times I've seen her publicly acknowledging her partner really like she is right now and I think that says a lot.
Rachael: I totally agree and I think it's also so cool to just see her in this whole new light where she doesn't have to hide the relationship. I think it's just she's having so much fun being able to kind of flaunt this hot guy. I just absolutely love it.
Jamie: She just seems very happy and like when I, because I was at opening night of the concert tour in Arizona.
Rachael: You did opening night. Oh yeah, I was at opening. Oh my god,
and jealous.
Jamie: It was wild. It was wild opening. And we had like 10th row floor seats for it. So we could like see her very well. But she just looked happy. And it, one of the craziest things, because I've been fortunate enough to see the tour twice already, and I'm going again in Miami, but it's, she just doesn't look like she's working. Like, you can tell she's up there having a blast. She's barely sweating. And I think she's hit this stride in her career, where she's just like, it's kind of like Meryl Streep where now she can just do what she wants and have fun with it and do different kinds of roles and do whatever she wants. And it's, I love it.
Rachael: So so true Yeah, it's like she's big enough now or she knows her fans love her so much no matter what she can just do whatever she wants and have fun I absolutely love it. Thanks for indulging me in that question.
Jamie: I'll always talk about Taylor
Rachael: We could just go on and on I'm so happy that she's back on tour now though because the lack of tick tocks was really really upsetting to me for a Couple months there.
Jamie: Do you watch the live streams?
Rachael: Obviously when I had when the time zone works for me because I all have three small children and never sleep. So yeah, but when it works for me, I definitely am on what are the secret songs, post something, please.
Jamie: I love, I don't watch all the streams, but I watch the first one in Argentina. And it was like the energy was needed for those rainy livestreams. And so there is something so comforting about being in the stadium, but it's just like the energy that that tour puts forth. And like, I would, you know, at both shows, I got recognized by a lot of moms and like other Swifties from TikTok and like all of this stuff. But the energy is so happy and welcoming and safe.
Rachael: Yeah. And like, I've never felt safer as a woman in my life.
Jamie: It was wonderful. And like, you know, I'm a 45 year old gay man and I had the time of my life there.
Rachael: And why wouldn't you? You're surrounded by your people.
Jamie: Happy, happy people.
Rachael: Yep, I know. It's just the best.
Jamie: After years of chaos and misery, it's nice to be happy again.
Rachael: It's the best. And if you can't swing going to the concert, like most people obviously are not gonna get to go to the concert, which is why I think it's so incredible that she has put this movie out. So do yourself a favor and get a babysitter, give the baby to your partner and do something to get to go see this movie and just get like a boost of serenity.
Jamie: The movie is so more thrilling. I saw it three times.
Rachael: You're putting me to shame.
Jamie: I when I was in Vancouver, I went and saw it with a friend of mine and we considered ourselves international swifties because we'd now participated in Taylor and in two different countries. So you know, it's, it's elegant..
Rachael: I'm not going to lie. I was looking at the tickets for Paris and also for Scotland. Like, how can I make this a vacation that I also get to go to the concert again?
Jamie: We're planning, we're planning some things.
Rachael: I will live vicariously through you. OK, speaking of TikTok, because you've recently kind of blown up on TikTok, what kind of inspired you to get into not just the car seat and safety space, but what encouraged you to get into this whole like social media thing and do it on there? Because you don't necessarily have to do that to do your job, right? Or do you think?
Jamie: I was very hesitant with TikTok specifically because with my with my social goodness, I built Twitter first and then built I was one of the first Facebook brand pages because when I built my Facebook page brand, it was just allowed for companies to have pages on Facebook. So I was kind of there since the inception of it. When Facebook's really started growing and Facebook is still probably my most, somehow I get like three to four million reach a month on Facebook organically.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
We just did our insights and I hit 30 million people this year on Facebook.
Rachael: Oh my gosh, we're going to need to talk because I neglect Facebook thinking that young people are not like moms and stuff are not there anymore, but maybe they are.
Jamie: They are a little bit, but that's what made me get on TikTok because Instagram is fine. But I actually had a long discussion about this last night actually. So this is very fascinating for me. So when I got on TikTok, I was like, I'm not going to do these stupid TikTok dances and like cute edits. I don't know how to do that. I don't have time to do that. But I got on TikTok and then abandoned the platform for like a year. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to get back on here and see what happens. And a few of my videos really hit and took off. And that's when I realized. I looked at my age demographic and 56 % of my audience on TikTok is 18 to 24 years old.

Rachael: Wow, really?
Jamie: And the 18 to like 35 age demographic is probably 70 % of my audience on TikTok. Like it's a very young, parenting age, whatever that means, audience. And... And there's a serious need, as we've now learned, for car seat safety information over there. And I find it very exciting to kind of answer questions over there and the energy is chaotic. And it's also, it is work, but it's not as hard as filming a reel and editing it together and dealing with all that. Like I have 29 car seats in my front room that I can just pull off a shelf and answer questions about. It's needed. A lot of car seat brands aren't even on TikTok.
It's a good way to get safe, correct product information out over there. I love it. It's like a chatroom version of Instagram.
Rachael: Yeah, it's a little less formal.
Jamie: Way less formal. formal. Yeah, and it's just conversation. You just use talk with people on tik tok. I love it
Rachael: Yeah, tiktok I have such a love hate with because some people can just get so unhinged and nasty and you never know Like what you're gonna get when you open that app. Like you said it's this way to connect to like a whole new audience and Really to a new demographic of these newer younger parents who are are utilizing TikTok maybe more than Instagram. So, yeah, I love that you're on there and that you're reaching people because sometimes, as you often will make videos about,
you see these like hacks or like little tips and tricks people try to post about like things to do with your car seat or, you know, their stroller or something and they're so unsafe and those videos go so viral. It's terrifying
Jamie: Just I just had one this morning sent to me and I made a response right before I logged on for this and it is wild this woman has 13 children and You know bless bless But they use a school bus for transportation and there are things in the bus that she's doing She has harnesses in the seats for some of the smaller kids like she's she's doing some right stuff. But then above two of her rear -facing children, she self -mounted a flat -screen television so that her kids could watch that and it's barely hanging on for its life. And like, if that TV fell into her kids, like, and I get it, like, traveling with, like, any kid is not easy, let alone 13.
Rachael: But yeah, I mean, and some things are just not worth the risk, right? - Yeah. - So you just mentioned something actually, we got a question about it. So I'll wait till the end. But what are your general thoughts on like, I know there's a huge debate on social media, which I don't really understand, but there's like the rear facing versus forward facing. Do you max out the age or the weight? or do you, you know, forward face from whatever you want to like, what is your take on that or does it depend on the seat?
Jamie: So we go by what's called best practice with car seat safety. And that's not necessarily the law, to be honest. But by doing best practice, you will always meet the law minimums and then go above that. So, you know, in most states right now, it's still one year and 20 pounds is the law for when you can forward. Mm -hmm.
Rachael: Well, my eyes just bugged out of my head because I have a one -year -old and I cannot even imagine putting her.

Jamie: No way. No way. And, you know, some states the law is two years, but a lot of these car seats now, height ranges are always a little bit different on car seats, but a lot of car seats go 40 to 50 pounds rear facing now. now. And so you can rear face, we want to at least use two years old is that like bare minimum of rear facing. And then I always told people like anything above that it is kind of like icing: three years is great, four years is wonderful. You know, in Europe, there are car seats that rear their children, five, six years old, seven until they go into a booster seat. Oh, I have one in my house. and it's wonderful. So the whole idea of rear facing, I think what a lot of people don't understand is that when a baby is born, about 25 % of their body weight is in their head. Their neck and their spine is not strong enough to support this extra weight.
It's not stabilized yet. So in a rear-facing seat, if you were in a crash, that shell of that seat is going to move in relationship with your child. and it will stabilize and support their spine and their neck properly and Really take the like bulk of that impact and if you forward face too soon The only thing that's gonna really hold your kid in that car seat is the harness.
So this will be held back and then a head will snap forward and it can lead to some pretty nasty Injuries
Rachael: okay. Yeah, so just don't do it if you don't have to like I never understood that why it's a debate, why people just wouldn't... If it doesn't hurt anything to just keep them rear -facing, I don't get it.
Jamie: And there are things sometimes when we do seat checks that are not ideal with what we have to do to help caregivers leave better than they were. And that's why we kind of go by a good, better, best in how we work with people. And yeah, there have been times we've had to have a check forward facing earlier than what I would want. But it is not my job to make the decision for caregivers. I educate them. I give them my thoughts that help them learn how to do things safer. Go with God.
Rachael: Yeah, truly. I mean, that's kind of what I do with sleep too. I just like, you know, give you the options, tell you what to do to make things as safe as possible. And then really, it's up to you as the parent to make the best choice for your family and what one family chooses is not going to necessarily be what somebody else would choose, but we have to just give parents the information that they need to do their best, right?
Jamie: You know what's interesting? Actually, the post you put up the other day, I was going to comment on it about the play yards. Do you know the sitch up in Canada with play yards? Or like travel cribs and stuff? No.
Jamie: Travel cribs and play yards. So, Health Canada, and this makes no sense, but Health Canada most play yards and travel cribs like that on the market are not approved for sleep.
Rachael: No way.
Jamie: Yeah, you're not allowed. They say like, if you have to travel with something like, here's a safer way to do it. But as a blanket statement, most play yards and travel cribs are not approved for overnight, like unsupervised sleep.
Rachael: Wow. I mean, I'm not even that shocked. We are always kind of behind on this thing in the US, like where, you know, like the rockin' plays and the loungers and stuff like that, like that's all been recalled now. But certain things like weighted sleep sacks, for example, are still allowed to be sold. And they're so unsafe. And yeah, so that doesn't shock me. I mean, when I have used them and when I've tested them, they seem safe to me because they're so firm. Like my kids won't even sleep on them because they're so uncomfortable.
Jamie: And people always ask me to buy extra mattresses and I'm like, you can but you do not. You know. Yeah.
Rachael: And that's I think a big problem with them is that people kind of compromise the safety of them because they have to add all these extras or think they do and yeah, that's really not good because then it's completely unsafe. Like putting blankets in there to thicken it up, putting thick cushy pads. or something like that.
Jamie: Yeah. I mean, companies make mattresses specifically for pack and play. It's like, it tells you only instructions do not use them, you know?
Rachael: I know. It's so, it's so scary to be apparent these days because all of these things are being marketed to you and you just assume that if it's on the market, if it's allowed to be sold, that it's safe and it's not always the case.
Jamie: I look back at my time working. at Bye Bye Baby when I first started and things I sold to parents and things I told parents because at the time, Bye Bye Baby didn't train any of us. I was self -trained on everything and that's how I built my knowledge set. I would read, I would watch videos, I would go to other stores, I would play with everything I could but it is one of those things you assume if it's on the market, it is fine and I sold so many people Aftermarket car seat accessory inserts and strap covers and all this and now I'm just like No, no.
Rachael: Yeah, and I mean, you know better and you do better like you can't beat yourself up for that But it is I do obviously wish that there was more strict Like regulates regulations for these things to actually come to market. So what are some things that you would say to a parent just talking about car seats and stuff? What would you say to a parent who's trying to figure out which car seat is the best to buy? Because there's the infant bucket seats, there's the convertible, there's the ones that swivel, like, is there actually a best car seat? Is it like the most expensive car seat is automatically the best? What are the most important things to remember when they're picking one for the first time?
Jamie: So all car seats on the market have to meet minimum standards. And these are like, it is a self -tested situation and NHTSA does pull seats and test them and if they fail, things happen. But we operate under the assumption that every seat will be safe when used correctly. So the safest seat technically is the one that fits your car, that fits your child, that you can use correctly every single time. But you also need to take into consideration. your budget. And, you know, I know enough about car seats and car seat installation where I would have no problem using a lower price car seat with my child, a $60 car seat I would use with my kid.
But when you start going up in price, you get different features for ease of use and installation. And those can be very, very helpful specifically for people like we look at the revolving car seats now. Those are wonderful tools. And that's, that's what I always refer to the rotating seats as they are a tool for people who have, you know, limited limb mobility, who use a wheelchair for people who have arthritis, you know, anything that's going to hinder them from being able to lift a child into a rear -facing seat. So I do love, I love the revolving seats. I think not all of them are equal to be honest in terms of how easy they are. But, you know, you just have to get a seat that you can use correctly.
And if you want to start with an infant seat, that is great. It is an ease of use feature. And sometimes you will get a little bit better fit for a little bitty newborn. But I always tell people at my speaking events, I'm like, you know, if you are the one buying your stuff, if you're not having like some big baby shower or whatever. and you're going to have to buy your car seats, you have to remember an infant seat is maybe like a nine month window, eight or nine month window, maybe 10 months, maybe you'll get a little more than that. But even though they go to 35 pounds, a lot of them you're not carrying a 35 pound child around in a bucket. It's outrageously heavy and you're going to be using your convertible seat for years. So, really... invest as much as you can in a really good convertible seat that you're going to be comfortable using. And if that means you can budget a little bit more money to make it more user friendly for you, absolutely 100 % do that. You just lose the travel system ability, you know.
Rachael: And honestly, that doesn't work for every baby anyway. Like my, I bought an infant seat thinking like, oh, I want to be able to, you know, if they fall asleep in the car, I want to be able to click them into the street. stroller so we can go for a walk while they finish their nap. Are you kidding me? Like they're waking up the second you unclick those little things and pull like there's just no way. So some babies maybe maybe as a newborn when they're like not waking up for anything, that'll happen. But after a couple of months, that's not happening anyways. So yeah, I agree. The convertible seats are great. And we, we have both just because we have so many damn kids, but we started with just one convertible seat. We have the Clec Foonf and yeah, I still love it. My kid just turned six and he just switched over into their booster. So that convertible seat lasted us nearly six years with him fitting in it and he's a huge kid.
Jamie: My nieces, my nieces were two of the first kids to have that seat.
Rachael: Oh, cool. I love it. Yeah. Actually, we had a really gross incident with it last week because my daughter got sick in the car. She made it to the garage but couldn't make it all the way into the house. So, my next question was going to be about cleaning car seats and storing car seats and things like that because I've heard, you know, different claims all around social media about how if you clean it with the wrong product, it's compromised. Or if you store it a certain way, it's totaled. So what do parents need to keep in mind as far as making sure that their car seats are going to last and be safe?
Jamie: When it comes to cleaning, I think some people overthink this quite a bit. And they're like, if you write on the shell of your car seat, it ruins it or whatever. But we need to just follow the instructions. And, you know, some car seats, you can take this, the upholstery off and put in the washer and the dryer, some you can't, some you can just wash and you have to let air dry, some you have to hand wash everything, some you have to spot clean. So every seat is going to be different, but one of the best soaps that you can, you want to use like as gentle as possible soap, like we're not using vinegar on things, we're not using alcohol based cleaners. Dr. Bronner's baby, the Uncended, the Castile soap is very, very, very, very gentle. And you could just use that to spot clean. Like if you get vomit on the straps of the car seat, which happens frequently, you just wanna scrub that out with like a toothbrush and like put it in the sun and that will help a lot.
Jamie: And if it's really bad, you can always call the car seat manufacturer because more than likely you can get it them replaced.
Rachael: Oh, wow. Okay, that's good to know. So you shouldn't like take it off and put it in the washing machine.
Jamie: No, you never with harnesses specifically, you never want to submerge them and get them soaking wet. Ever. Okay. That makes a lot of sense.
Jamie: So the TikTok bathtub videos, you don't want to do that. No, no. I get tagged 500 times a day in them.
Rachael: I had a feeling that that was probably a no -no.
Jamie: when you're, and it's not just the harness, like you're so soaking, like, the foam in the shell of the car seat and that will ruin it.
Rachael: Right. It should be a no -brainer, but somehow it's not. What about, like, how long you can keep a car seat for? Is it just based on each individual car seat's, like, recognition or is there a certain number of years? Okay.
Jamie: Yeah, they expire, and usually it's six to eight to ten years. We didn't talk about storing your car seat, so storing 'cause you did bring that up. Let's go back to that. sidetracked a lot. But storing your car seat, you do want to keep it in more of a climate controlled situation. So if you live in a really, really hot area, you don't want to like throw it in your attic or keep it in your garage in the same with very cold. You don't want it in like very, very cold temperatures for prolonged periods of time.
Rachael: Okay. Is that why they say that when you travel with a car seat, if you check it, it gets ruined because it's too cold? Or is that another, is that a myth?
Jamie: Um, that basically checking it. So there's mixed, there's mixed ideas on checking car seats when you fly. And some companies now are okay with checking car seats, but the problem is, I fly a lot, and I take photos of what I see. And I have witnessed car seats getting thrown from the ground up into the cargo area I've been falling off on the concrete. I've witnessed them come down the, you know, luggage carousels and like a giant Samsonite lands on top of it. And like, I'm one of those people that, even though I know it's not mine, every time I see a car seat on the luggage carousel, I take it off the carousel immediately because I noticed that case is gonna hit it.
But the problem is you don't know what has happened to your seat when it's out of your sight. And if something... something happens and that shell gets cracked and the foam gets damaged, there might be destruction to the seat that you physically cannot see or would not be aware of. And that would compromise its safety features. Just try to try to take it on the seat, plane with you.
Rachael: That's a really good tip. What are some things that parents would want to look for that might not be super obvious? That would mean that they either need to like upgrade their seat, get it, you know. or replaced.
Jamie: I think just removing the upholstery, if you can, easily to just look at the foam in the seat and see if it's still intact. Some seats are more prone to this than others. If you see white or gray stress marks in the plastic, like the plastic has been bent or warped, that can compromise, and this is likely not going to happen. like on a fly. But if you see fraying in your harness at all, even with your seatbelt in your car, if any of that starts to fray, you have to get that replaced because it can shred and not be effective. And I actually have friends here, they were, their baby is like a year and a half old now. And I was helping them with their car seat and get it installed before their daughter came. And I was in their back seat, like walking them through everything. And I was like, y 'all, what is wrong with your seat belt? And they're like, our dog got a hold of it. You can't use this seat, even as a human adult, nobody can use this seat belt. It's not safe. You have to go get this replaced immediately. Certainly couldn't install a car seat with it.
Rachael: Okay, that's really good to know. Since you're talking about installation, this has been like one of the biggest parenting points of contention between my husband and I because he is on car seats. Like I don't know that much about our car seats. I don't really know how to install and uninstall them. I'm not proud of this. It's just like the one parenting thing that he has totally taken over since I do so much of the other stuff. And he's had to kind of teach himself, which is fine, but it's been very frustrating at times for him to learn how to properly install everything. What do you recommend for new parents? Do you think that a course is the most effective way to learn, YouTubing instructions, someone in person with you? What is the best way to learn how to do it safely?
Jamie: I think everybody learns differently. If you can take a course or go to a seat check from someone in your area, like... typically hospitals do them. You know if you go to safekids .org You can find a seat check station near you and normally they happen like once a month in a lot of cities And basically what happens is you pull in with your car seat and it can be brand new. It can already be installed, But we kind of go through on our sheet because we have to document everything. It's how we're covered for liability purposes. And so we go through to get the serial number of the car seat, the model, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If it was installed, where it was installed, how it was installed, what errors we see right off the bat looking at it, if any. And then we uninstall it. It's also a great time to clean your vehicle. And if you have a little dust buster, bring it with you to a car seat check because there is food in your car seat.
And when we take it out, you got goldfish and crap everywhere. So zip zip.
Rachael: Good point.
Jamie: But then we go through and, you know, assess the needs of that family and figure out where in the back seat it will install correctly and allow them to use it properly. And then we install it and then guide the caregivers through installing it. And we are not the last person to touch the seat. It has to be the caregiver so that they know what they're doing and also just from a liability standpoint.
Racahel: Okay.
Jamie: But that's a really good way to do it. Some people do have courses as well, and that's something I have been putting off, but I will be filming a car seat course.
Rachael: Yay. Oh my gosh, I'm excited.
Jamie: Chaos. Chaos.
Rachael: Yeah, building a course is a lot of work, but it would be amazing if you did. Yeah.
Jamie: And there are other people. You know, you've got like my friend. Holly and, you know, other CPSTs who do sell courses, but Holly's been on my back about it for quite some time and she's like, "You need one." Yeah. And like, I do all my in -person stuff, but it's different when you can like sit with me in a video and a slide show and I can walk you through things.
Rcahael: Totally. Yeah. It's just overwhelming and I think anything that can just kind of show a parent, okay. "Okay, relax, step by step, here we go," is what's needed because, like I said, there have been so many heated, we'll say, conversations between my husband and I during these new installations and I'm just, you know.
Jamie: Isn't it wild? I think the three most anxiety -producing moments of parenting is car seats, sleep and feeding.
Rachael: 100 %
Jamie: Like that's it. There's nothing else that is that chaotic. - No. - And like, you know, it's, you just, it's too much.
Rachael: It's too much. And one thing that I think about with this too is like, okay, my husband and I are on the same page with car seat safety. Like we feel very strongly about, you know, our seats being properly installed and using them correctly and all of that. But then what if you have other people who are also. also driving your kid? How do you make sure that they are taking the right precautions and installing their seats properly and stuff like that? So that adds like a whole another layer for people who have help with their kids too.
Jamie: Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. And like that's one of the things I get tagged in a lot.
And I actually, I made the mistake of getting back on cameo and people get me to make cameo videos for their family members to be like, Hey, just so you know, this kid still needs to rear facing when you pick them up. Oh, oh, it's absurd. And I don't do a lot of them because I don't promote it. Because like, I don't even know who did that. People find me and they send me videos and I'm just like, this is what's wrong and this is what's wrong and you need to adjust this and you need to fix that. Here's a website for you to go look at
Rachael: hysterical. Oh my gosh. I love it. How genius that way
Jamie: They're so weird and and it's also like not as public is like Tiktok responses,
Rachael: right like calling them out online. Yeah. Yeah, that's so funny. All right, we're gonna get to some listener questions now. We have a couple of really good ones
QUESTION 1: Hey there, so my question is about car seat safety in winter so I have a 10 month old and we live in Canada. So it gets really cold here and very snowy. I just don't know how to do winter and a car seat. So like I know you're not supposed to have a big puffy jacket or snowsuit or where to have you. So how do I get the baby from my house into the car? Oh also we live in an apartment. So we have street parking. So the car isn't always like two steps. So do I like put the baby in his snow suit? and then undress him? But the car isn't warm yet because we don't have a starter for the car. So it's cold. I just don't know how to do winter in a car seat. Please help. Thank you.
Jamie: So cold weather in car seats is always a problem. It's not easy. We don't want puffy jackets undercoats because of the extra air and there are some kind of puffy coats that we call packable coats like like, you know, you can get an REI or whatever that compress into little bitty bags for travel. Those tend to be a really good option as to, you know, fleece pullovers, hoodies, things like that, like thin form fitting layers.
The problem with a puffy jacket is, even if you get it as tight as you think you can, the G forces in a crash. will make that compress even more. And you will have sometimes two to three inches of extra slack in that harness, which means that it can slide off your kid's shoulders. They could be ejected. But also it keeps the harness from doing its job as quickly as possible. And that's the whole idea. There are three stages of a crash. There's vehicle collision. There's passenger collision inside the vehicle. Hopefully that's a passenger into a seatbelt or a five -point harness. And then there's the internal collision of the organs against the bone.
And so with a harness that is properly tightened, that means the harness is going to do its job faster by limiting how far forward the body moves and limits the internal organ movement as well. So if a harness is loose, you have more room to hit that harness for it to do its job, which means your organs will be traveling more and hitting your bones harder. So that's why harnessing is so important.
One of the reasons it's so important. But, you know, thin layers, when they get in the car, you can always buckle them properly and put a coat on over them backwards, or a blanket, or a car seat poncho. There are a couple coats on the market like one kid road coat and a buckle me baby coat. And those are both, I have a lot of personal experience with both of those coats with my nieces and nephews.

And they are both very good. But it is one of those like, you know, if you get it and it doesn't fit your kid properly and you're not able to get the harness correct, like it's not a good fit for you. So you still have to make sure the harness works. But yeah, winter is no fun.
Racahel: Yeah, winter is no fun. I don't miss the winter at all. I would, if it were me, I would probably keep like a little stash of blankets by the front door and a little stash of blankets in my car. And then that way I could just always have a blanket to like wrap baby up in to go back and forth and call it a day because
Jamie: you also don't want them to overheat and overheating in a car is also a big problem.
Rachael: I was going to say the same thing. Like you think that you want them to be super warm, but actually it's better if they're not too warm, especially if they're going to be in the car or sleeping for a long period of time. It can be a really big risk.
Jamie: Yeah, we don't, we don't get sick from being cold. Right.
QUESTION: Hi, my 12 month old hates getting into the car seat. But once he's in it, he's fine. But I just wanted to see if you have any tips on making this process better. Thank you.
Jamie: There's really not. Yeah, every kid is different. Like yeah, some people will bribe. bribe their kids, you know, but it's one of those things like it's an adaptive process sitting in a seat and a 12 month old. This actually just came up yesterday or the day before two days ago, somebody asked me about their baby hating their car seat. And this is very common. But also as kids go through growth spurts, specifically if they're still in an infant seat and at 12 months old, there is a chance a small small chance this child could be. So I'm just going to assume that this child is in an infant seat. You have to remember, as kids are at six months, typically they are sitting unassisted and able to sit up. And if they're being restrained into a seat like this, instead of a convertible, like reclined, I always forget podcasting, not a visual medium.
Rachael: I was just making hand gestures of being reclined and reclined. being upright.
Jamie: To recline. (laughing) If your kid is to recline, they're not going to be comfortable in the seat because they want to be able to see what's going on. So you may just want to put them in a convertible seat if they're not already and see if that helps. -
Rachael: Exactly, I have a car highlight on my Instagram page on HaysleepyBaby. So many people have said like, once they switch to a convertible seat from the infant bucket seat, things got so much better. - Game changer. Game changer. - So much more comfortable, so much more comfortable. more happy, depending on how verbal or how old your child is to like just kind of talking them through it. Like, yeah, I know, like, you don't have to, you know, make it this huge thing. Like, Oh my God, I know you hate the car seat so much because that's just gonna piss them off more. Right. You can just say, but it's also,
Jamie: it's kind of like my nieces when they were little, they would unbuckle their chest clips. My sister would pull over and she'd get me on FaceTime and I would talk to girls like why "Why you have to keep those clipped? Why are they important?" And not everybody has the option to get on FaceTime with Uncle Jamie, the car seat guy.
Rcahael: Can I have your number? Because we're going through that with my three -year -old right now and I don't know what to do.
Jamie: You don't. I will tell you there's a couple things. If you keep drawing attention to it, they are more likely to do it.. So if you just address like, "This is why it's important. It just needs to be here." And really talk to them. It doesn't have any to do with like the clip being too high or being too low and hurting your kid. It has to do with the harness positioning it on their shoulders properly. And so it's a pre -crash harness positioning device. And so other countries, they're not even legal because they have different standards and things are a little different.
Here we use them just to keep that harness here. And if it was too low, the harness would slide off their shoulders. So if you just talk about like the physics of it, um but there's also a trick called the Houdini shirt trick that you can Google once we're done.
And basically, you want a button -up shirt that might be only worn, you know, for a little bit in car trips until they get over this. But basically, you put it on the kid unbuttoned, harness them up, make sure everything is good, and then pull the shirt over the harness so that they can't get to it as easy.
Rachael: Okay. Okay. Yeah, because buttons were still working on buttons. So that might buy me some time. Yep. It is Jamie, like she's, she's just in a really tough phase right now in general, my three year old, but we had a really scary incident a couple weeks ago where we couldn't see her in the back of the car. We have a van. We thought we had left her where we were at a farmer's market. We were like, Oh, my God, where is she? We left her there… flipped out. She had unbuckled herself so silently and crawled into the back seat, or the trunk while we were driving. I can't even tell you how much we lost our minds. And we're like Googling, like, "Is there a safe way to lock your child's carseat?"
Jamie: There are a couple options for children with sensory processing needs. And, you know, as children get older, they're not approved for every car seat, unfortunately. Okay. But it's basically a chest clip that you replace on your harness. Okay. And it locks. But not every car seat will allow them. But the shirt will help. And like, that's a really good idea. The thing is, things happen. And, you know, this is just me playing devil's advocate.
Those of us who are very immersed in this, space, we understand that if your harness is properly tightened and it is done correctly, if something should happen where that chest clip is unbuttoned or something, that harness is still going to do its job. But unfortunately, a lot of people just don't harness correctly. And like mistakes happen, like your kid got out, when my niece's were babies and they were still in infant seats, this is my job. I've been doing this for almost 20 years.
And we went to Target once because when my nieces were born, I moved in with my sister and her husband for six months, helped take care of them. It was chaotic. I've never been so tired in my life, but it was the best time of my life. But we went to Target. We had them in the bucket seats. We're putting them back in the car. Everything is great. We drive from the Target back to Egan, Minnesota. And we get out of the car and I had not even buckled their harnesses on the car seats. We were so tired. Oh my god. You know, and I think that's what people don't understand is like in the beginning, you've never been more tired in your life.
And there are studies out that do suggest an overtired parent, it's like driving drunk. Yeah. You know.
Rachael: Well, and you hear these stories about like babies being left in the car because the parent just forgets that they're even there, they go to work, they forget that their baby's there, they didn't drop them at daycare, and they don't want to go to work, they don't want to go to work, they don't want to go to work. just completely forget. So yeah, I mean, it doesn't make you a bad parent when stuff like this happens. It's just, yeah.
Jamie: And I hate that people are villainized when that happens because most people do actually want the best for their kids. And like God forbid something happens like that. Like you are overtired. Your mind is a thousand different places and you have this new human in your house that you're getting used to and getting to know and your life is having to adapt. Like you have to give yourself some grace.
Rachael: Yeah, 100%. So yeah, even the quote unquote experts make these mistakes, you guys. So please don't beat yourself up. I could go on. I have a million other stories about car seat mishaps and just parenting in general mishaps. So you are not alone. But Jamie, thank you so much for getting us some really great things to think about and some great tips.
And I know that you are going on a little tour in 2024. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Jamie: Yeah. So prior to COVID, I was constantly on the road. I was doing anywhere from like, I think the most amount of speaking gigs I did in one year was 49. Mm -hmm, mm -hmm, 49 in one year.
Rachael: Oh my God.
Jamie: So, Cocoa hit. Hits, Cocoa Head Plans and all of my speaking gigs disappeared. So, we started a virtual event series called Baby Registry Lab. I don't know how much we've done now. It's several, like we did like three one year, I think four or five or six one year, whatever. But then we partnered up with this like small boutique baby event called Babies and Bumps that's based out of Rochester and And I flew to Ohio when Bump Club announced Gira Palooza was over.
She saw that and she'd always wanted to work with me. So she got on a call with Lainey, my co -worker and dear, dear, dear friend, sister, family, got on a call. And I was like, I want to go see this event before we agree to partner. Because obviously to take this very seriously, I've done 300 to 350 speaking gigs over the years. I've done a lot.
So, if I'm going to partner, I'm going full throttle. And so, I went to check out the event and it was all, you know, local like consultants and doulas and OBGYNs and it was all very education driven, which is what I prefer. And I agreed on the spot. So, basically, we contract with brands where we have a booth for three hours at the event and we pick all the products specifically for different reasons, price points function, you know, whatever. And Lainey and I are both CPSTs. So people come into the booth, they get to see everything. And then I have an hour-long seminar at the end of the day on things like car seat safety and strollers and all of that shenanigan. And we have 13 of those in 2024. And they start in April.
Rachael: Yeah. Amazing. All right, well, I'll put that info in the show notes so people can come because that's really, really fun. Yeah, I would have loved to have gone to something like that as a new parent. So love it. Jamie, thank you so much for joining us. It's been really fun. I will look out for you at the next era's tour.

Jamie: Yes. Yes, you never know where I'm going to pop up at a Taylor Swift concert.
Rachael: Exactly. So if you have era's tickets, look out for Jamie because he's always going to be there.
Jamie: I will have a friendship bracelet or two. I go blind making friendship bracelets before the concerts and then your fingers hurt. Oh, man.
Rachael: It's a lot of work. I put my kids to work. I had my own little shop go in here.
Jamie: I had bracelets custom made. Did you see 'em? - Of course you did. - Did you see 'em? - I did, of course. - The purple ones, They're the best.
Rachael: Well, if you're lucky enough to get one, if you're listening, send it to me, please. Thanks, Jamie.
Jamie: Thank you.

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