Nurturing the Infant Brain
Episode 22: Nurturing the Infant Brain with Neuroscientist Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum
Join Rachael and Neuroscientist, Doula, Infant Sleep Educator, Author and Parent Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum, whose mission is to teach the science and support the art of nurturing infants.
In Dr. Greer's new book The Nurture Revolution, she discusses the act of "nurture" for our children as a revolutionary act, and discusses how nurture is a preventative medicine against mental health issues. She challenges the idea that the way to cultivate independence is through letting babies cry it out or sleep alone; instead, the way to raise a confident, securely attached child is to lean in to nurture, to hold your infant as much as you want, support their emotions, engage in back-and-forth conversations, be present and compassionate when your baby is stressed, and share sleep. Research has proven that nurturing experiences transform lives. Nurturing is a gift of resilience and health parents can give the next generation simply by following their instincts to care for their young.
Rachael and Dr. Greer discuss how to nurture the infant brain and foster healthy attachment, sleep and sleep training, repairing with our children and so much more in this powerful episode.
Nurture Neuroscience Parenting IG page: https://www.instagram.com/nurture_neuroscience_parenting/
Check out “Nurture Stories” series on her IG page, members of her community submit their nurture stories and talk about the value of nurture in parenting.
Rachael is a mom of 3, founder of Hey, Sleepy Baby, and the host of this podcast.
Listen to the full episode
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Welcome back to the No One Told Us podcast. I'm your host Rachel and today I'm so so excited to be talking with Dr. Greer Kirshenbaum, who is a neuroscientist, doula, infant and family sleep specialist, author and parent, whose mission is to teach the science and support the art of nurturing infants. And I just want to apologize to everyone for my voice today. I am recovering from COVID, but I did not want to cancel this interview because this topic is just everything. It's so important. Like if we don't talk about the importance of nurturing infants in those first three years, like nothing else matters. So it's just so important and I'm so happy to have you here and I'm excited to talk about the book here, it is right here, The Nurture Revolution. Dr. Greer, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for having me. As soon as I saw you had a podcast, I was like, I need to be on your podcast. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, we've done some Instagram live conversations before and people always really love hearing from you and I hope that you know many people out there have already read your book or if not that they will add it to their list. Let's just talk a little bit first about the book. It's called The Nurture Revolution and you can also I would love for you to go a little bit more into your background if that makes sense, but yeah, it's called The Nurture Revolution and it's all about obviously nurture and how important that is, but my question for you is why is nurturing infants revolutionary? Why should that be such a revolutionary action that is like our baseline? So I'd love for you to speak to that before we kind of dive into the content.
Oh my gosh, yeah. It's amazing that nurture is revolutionary because it's the way that all mammals on the planet parent their babies and we are included in, you know, in the mammals on earth, you know, the way that our intuition guides us to take care of our babies and so actually, you know, reintroducing it back into society is what's the revolutionary part. It's taking this really innate old way of parenting and taking care of each other and bringing it back into society because, you know, the past couple hundred years, there's been so many forces that have been sort of banishing nurture, shaming it, making us feel bad about, you know, that intuition.
That instinct we have to nurture our babies and so there's so much, you know, cognitive Information I'll say that's sort of been infiltrated into our society that bashes up against that emotional, you know, that emotional instinctual kind of feeling we have and this is really a revolution both in the science, which is pretty much brand new, you know, in the science world, hot off the presses is like 20, 30 years, the past 20, 30 years of science has really shown us how important nurture is for our biology, our well-being, our mental health, but it's also revolutionary because it's connecting us back to that emotional feeling we have to take care of babies and to really, you know, banish all of those myths and those voices that are kind of telling us not to.
Yeah, it's so true. I mean, something that I see in my work all the time is like, why do these moms, parents, why do we need this like permission almost to nurture and to respond? It's like, you know, I hear it time and time again, parents are like, oh, thank you so much for like, you know, just showing me that it's okay to rock my baby to sleep or whatever it is and just like, she's like, we've gone so far, of course, that people feel like this is something that they're doing wrong. Did your work as a neuroscientist or as a mom more inform this passion of yours and this mission? Or was it?
Yeah, it's a combination of my experience as a baby. I was extremely high needs as a baby and I was nurtured. My mom was really revolutionized. She was supported by La. League. That was kind of like the place that helped her. I always want to mention them because I'm like, none of this would have happened without that influence, right? So me and my brother were both really high needs. Really, you know, there must have been a lot of things going on with us. Like,we would sleep very short amounts of time across 24 hours, you know, really need to be attached physically to my mom and she did show up for that. She's really passionate about it. She was revolutionary at the time. No one around her was doing that and that always stayed with me. My mom always talks about it and I saw how she was different and I saw, you know, the impact firsthand. That actually led me into my neuroscience career, into that interest quite a bit. Oh wow. Because of that idea, mY mom planted that seed in my mind as well, right?
That the early life experience really does matter for mental health and for shaping the brain. And that was my focus in my neuroscience studies and my work. But the nurture science, let's say, you know, I call it like the nurture science, that really came out really strongly in my neuroscience career. Really started in the 90s with like Michael Meene at McGill. I was so attuned to it that I would just be paying attention to all the papers that came out over sort of my 20 year career in neuroscience and it just the evidence just built to this, you know, staggering amount that it was just overwhelming and, you know, there was no contradictory evidence that, you know, nurture is so important in building the brain and mental health and physical health that goes along with it.
So those two combinations and so I was really sure about the science and the approach and then, you know, my experience after that was as a doula and a mother, nothing changed. It just all got confirmed and heightened and kind of, you know, confirmed in my body as well, right?
As like my own experience. So many people were like, when you have a baby, you're gonna, you're gonna say it different or it's gonna be different. I was like, no, it wasn't, it really wasn't. It was, it made my parenting easier, which I also hear from other parents. I was like, I just know what to do all the time. I know what to expect, you knew to just prepare for them needing and wanting that closeness, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so you say that there is overwhelming evidence. There's now a couple of decades of research about this and science about how important nurture is and how important attuned care is for babies.
Why is it taking so long for society and our culture to catch up with that? Like, there's still so much out there that seems to contradict that. So I would love to hear what you think are like the strongest pieces of evidence for nurture, in favor of nurture. And then I'd also love to hear why you think we're so slow to kind of accept that science. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I was blown away. You know, I had this point in my life where I was like ending my time in science. A lot of my friends were having babies. And I was starting to communicate the science to them. And I was just in awe. I was like, oh my gosh, no one knows this. No one knows this stuff. And I think one part is there hasn't been a big voice for it.
Right? There hasn't really been a strong voice. And actually, I think that that's changed quite a bit. Like I think for all the things social media does good and bad, there is a huge community now that is talking about this. And that is not what was happening. You know, eight years ago, when I kind of made this transition at all, which is incredible. I think a lot of the people who knew this information were in academia and not writing books, not really out there. Oh, there's some, there were some people doing it. But I also think it's, I was at the Burr-Appa Burr Psychology conference a month ago and someone stood up and said this. They were like, you know, sleep training and, you know, the harsher parenting kind of styles. They have such great marketing. They really do. You're so good at it. And they're like, we're not good at it because we're like, really gentle and peaceful. I feel bad selling our stuff.
Exactly. I know. And they're like, we need to also be marketing, you know, sad, shameless. Yeah, no, it's true. I say that all the time. It's so true. Yeah. Yeah, completely. But it's growing. I think it's growing for sure. I mean, the other piece that came to that came up when you asked that question for me was the society we live in. Yeah, really pushes people to, you know, adopt sleep training, adopt some of those sort of more distant, separated parenting that's been around, right? That's, you know, the way that our work and societies are set up.
Like that's when this stuff all started. It was kind of like, oh, babies needing a lot for a while. Like how can we, yeah, like we've changed that so people can work more and not, you know, do that. And so, yeah, I think a lot of the parents, you and I are supporting and, you know, people in this work are supporting, they are nurturing their babies in spite of this society that we're in, which makes it even harder, right? We get depleted, easier. What would you say as far as like parents who are just not really short? Like they maybe were raised in a different way. They see it is very difficult to raise their babies in this way.
What would you say to them? To kind of like convince them, like, no, this is science, this is real. Like this is the most beneficial way. Like babies do need to be nurtured. You're not coddling them. You're not spoiling them. They really do need this. Such a good question. I think, you know, this comes up for families who, I meet, who even are like, we love this, you know, but they're always like, but what about this doubt in my mind that's been there forever and what about what my friends are saying? And so we all kind of need it. I think that the answer is I kind of bring people back to like, what are your goals in parenting? Like what, what do you wish for your baby? Like what are deepest wishes for them, right? Because I think all of our parenting comes from that motivation, right?
And people say, obviously I want them to be grow up healthy, happy, fulfilled with lots of great friendships and relationships and great, you know, work and just joy and, you know, love and laughter, you know, all of these things we want for our children. And the harsher parenting makes all of that harder for people to achieve, right? We know that from the science, right? It's,
it creates barriers to all of those wishes that we want, even though people are sold the opposite. They're like, oh, if you want, your child to turn out with all of these wishes granted, sleep train them, keep them separated, teach them independence, young, you know, all these kinds of things, it's actually doing the opposite, right? And so to answer the question really to say to parents, you wish for these things for your baby. And, you know, the science is really showing us that when we are nurturing, when we are interdependent with them, we provide lots of co-regulation, lots of communication and play in these early years, responsibility, that is what is really growing their brain to be the most resilient, the most able to handle life, handle stress, succeed in all the things we wish for.
And it sounds counterintuitive, I guess, because we are really, you know, really, really, you know, like I say, interdependent with them then, that is what creates that success. And I don't even want to say independence, like the ability for independence later, but, you know, humans are interdependent species. And we actually do want to set them up to be interdependent people when they grow up too.
Absolutely. That is one of my biggest, biggest top paves is when people act like they want to prepare their child to just like go live on a desert somewhere, like a desert island and just like, never need anyone, never, you know, get close to anyone, like that is not the goal. Like I want my kids to be able to make their own breakfast someday, but I don't need to prepare them to like live completely void of relationships or needing other people. Like we all need other people. Yeah, I mean, sure, right? Like, you know, so many people say that, like, well, when will they not need me? Like when will they be this, you know, independent, you know, person? And I say, I would never wish for any human on earth to think that when they are in trouble or stressed out that they have to go curl up into a ball alone and deal with it. Right?
Like that's a very unhealthy way to handle stress. We want to go find someone we love and share what we're going through and get, you know, that support, like that's we're social animals, like that's what we do. Right. And I hate the messaging. You need to like push them, you know, to do things that are comfortable or then that developmentally ready for in their infancy because of the spear that they'll never be independent or they'll never learn or they'll never be resilient. And I think a lot of times people take these ideas that maybe relate to children or adolescents, like, oh, they need to, you know, learn how to make mistakes. They need to learn how to fail.
They need to learn all of this to be resilient. And it's like, sure, but can we not apply that logic to a six-month-old baby? Like, it's not the same thing. But I know that you kind of define infancy as the first three years, right? Yeah. So I think that's another huge misconception is that like babies hit 12 months and they should just automatically be like in toddler land and not needing as much and not as attached to their parent. And, yeah, that's not true. Yeah. And I used to feel like so guilty. It's like people because the cutoff is so, it's like a drastic change in expectations, right? The cutoff is so young. Right. Like some people are like, oh, four months. They should be alone all night, sleeping all night or six months or certainly 12 months, right? Is another big one. You know, we define it has zero to three years based on the brain development of the emotional structures in the brain.
And when we look at our babies, their emotional needs remain that high for the entire three years. At least. Right. And at least, right? I mean, it's really fine. Like, it's a college. I have a couple of very emotional four and six year olds that still need quite a bit. Absolutely. Yeah. In psychology, I believe infants use to find up to five. Okay. I don't know enough about it to speak more on it, but I see that in my child. So I get that. But, yeah, from zero to three is really special in terms of the incredibly rapid brain development and our influence on genetic expression, brain connectivity, all that kind of stuff. But, yes, they're absolutely emotionally babies for those first three years. Yeah.
Probably up to five and also needing us past that too. They're all. They need that. Of course. So what would you say in the first three years are the most important things for parents to keep in mind? Is it like lots of socialization, lots of extracurricular activities? Like, what are the most important things that parents should prioritize for healthy brain development? Yeah. I think the most important thing that parents can focus on in those three years is the relationship with their baby. And, you know, babies really need at least one incredibly present, reliable, safe person to go to and all their emotional states. Right? So in my book, I call this concept nurturing, having a nurturing presence.
And it's really having the stance that all of your babies emotions are welcome, all of their stress is welcome. And we're there for all of it, right? We love them in all their states and all the places that they're in and all the, you know, the things that they do and we can really support them and love them unconditionally. And that is the most important thing for a baby, right? To have it with one person at minimum, to have it with lots of people, even better. That is so key. I think sometimes parents hear that message like, oh, well, your baby needs is you and like all that matters is your relationship with them and it sounds so easy, but when you're when you're deep in it, especially if you're dealing with like any kind of postpartum anxiety or postpartum depression or something like that, sometimes it's a lot easier said and done.
Yeah. So what would be your advice to a parent who's maybe struggling with without relationship or with being that safe person for their child? You know, I would say first of All, it is so normal to struggle with it because of the society we live in, right? We most of us haven't even touched or seen a baby until we have our own. And historically, that is not the case. Historically, we would have been present at many births like starting from our own childhood. We would have been caring for babies around babies, comfortable with babies, really understanding all things baby, right? And so it is so typical, normal, whatever, for us to struggle, just to sort of say, wow, I'd never really seen a baby. I don't know how to communicate with a baby or connect with a baby.
And so, you know, a few tips I like to give, I think one is like inviting a baby whisper into your life is so important, that kind of mimics like maybe what would have been happening, you know, before and before times, whatever. And so like a postpartum do less fantastic to have in your home or like your grandmother, your aunt, your best friend, like someone who's just like, oh, that's the person in my life who's really great with babies. And inviting them over in those early days and just having the model a little bit, you know, that's what we do as postpartum do us. So much of our work is really showing, you know, modeling how to communicate with the baby, how to, you know, understand them, respond to their stress, help them with their sleep, you know, all these things. We can learn so much from others, even like, it is not like a one-to-one example, but in, there was like a story in a zoo where a mother gorilla wasn't able to breastfeed her baby.
And then they brought in a bunch of breastfeeding humans, mothers in and she watched them and then she learned, and then she breastfed her baby, right? Yeah, incredible, right? That's basically the idea. It's really important and we can get it from a lot of different places. There was one other thing I was going to say, yeah, if people are experiencing postpartum anxiety and depression, it's also really, really common. And, you know, knowing that you, with support,you can, you will get through it is so important. And that those first three years are, it's three years of flexibility, right?
To grow your baby's brain. And so catching it as early as you can is so important. And, you know, getting the help you need, so important. Your baby can have beautiful interactions with you, even during that time, and also with others, right? While you're while you're getting help.So we have talked a little bit about sleep and sleep training. And you have a whole section in your book and we've talked about this on my Instagram as well, but I would love to kind of just talk about like the nitty gritty of sleep and sleep training because you are so eloquent in the way that you speak about it.
And it's just like not a judgment thing. It's, you're trying, like me, you're trying so hard to just distill these myths and to make them just go away forever. So can you just share a little bit about your perspective on sleep training? And when we say sleep training, let's just define it because it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So when we say sleep training, we're not talking about like having a bedtime routine or using wake windows or, you know, general sleep hygiene things to us, like to me at least, that's not sleep training. So what we're talking about when we say sleep training is more of like a further style or a cry it out where you're kind of intentionally miscuing with your baby or you're intentionally ignoring their bids for something.
So it's like that non-responsiveness, that separation based. What are your just like general thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, to be really honest, I feel like my 2024 goal, like I'm like, I'm just gonna be really off that dick this year. I know. I know. It's just like the crap, right? Like honestly, I think it's potentially a huge huge source of mental health concerns in our society. Like what I believe but cannot prove is if we stop sleep training babies, we would see a drastic improvement in mental health. It's certainly not affecting every single baby. It's not a deterministic relationship, but I do think the way that it acts in the brain is putting babies brains at risk to developmental health struggles and making them people vulnerable, really vulnerable to stress related illnesses.
Yes. Okay. I love that you're just saying it out there because it is such a hotly debated topic and unfortunately there's been some studies that have caught traction even though they're pretty poorly done. And they have been kind of like a flagship or like a cornerstone in the argument for sleep training. Like doctors talk about it, psychologists will talk about it. Everybody talks about it in this way and kind of sites these studies as like proof that it's not harmful. It's not going to harm attachment. It's not going to harm mental health. It's completely safe, completely effective. That's of course what parents want to hear because the parents that want to sleep trainer that really feel like they need to sleep train to be able to function.
They of course don't want to believe that they're harming their baby or that they're potentially harming their child like no parent would want that. So what are your thoughts on like the research that's out there and do you think that we'll ever have like a clear answer on what is actually happening? Yeah. I hope we do. I hope we do. I mean, I think the studies that are out there do not show that it is safe. There still is no evidence that it is safe or even that it's effective in changing sleep. I really think parents need to know the truth in order to make a decision and again, people can make whatever decision that they want but I think that they do really deserve to have true informed choice and making that decision.
In some families knowing that sleep training does, potentially, we'll still say potentially because we don't have that smoking Gun study. We just have lots of studies on what early life stress does to the infant brain and we have some studies showing that sleep training is stressful and separation is stressful. You know, loads more that do suggest this but we don't have that definitive kind of thing.
But for families to know that there is a lot of evidence, you know, myself, Gabar Mate, I was trying to make a list of the people who've come out to say this. I know Sarah Aquil Smith has talked about it. There's an Australian Infant Mental Health Foundation that has made a statement against Sleep training. Yeah. For parents to just know that there is a lot of experts who really understand the literature, you know, are concerned about it and also to know that it doesn't significantly, like, increase the amount of time a baby is sleeping or their quality of sleep or any of these things that sleep training is promising.
Having that information and knowing, okay, so it possibly introduces vulnerability into development and it's not going to actually change the baby's sleep. What it will do is potentially because I think it's only depending on the study, 20-ish percent of babies do extinguish their signaling from sleep training. If it works in that way, the baby will stop signaling for a time and the parents will probably get better sleep, right? That is truly what it's doing. Yeah. Parents can make a true informed decision there. They might say, hey, listen, I have a mental illness where if I don't actually get 10 hours of sleep straight, I'm vulnerable to psychosis, this is a better choice for my family, right? So maybe that's like a true informed choice, right?
Or there's a lot of other reasons why it might be a true informed choice. You know, the other thing they might say is, oh, you know what, I'm really vulnerable, but my mom can move in and she's willing to do the baby night time care or my partner's willing to do it or maybe we'll set up some other kind of arrangement because now we have this Information and we want to use, you know, a true informed approach and other people might say, oh, well, I want to try another way or I'll try another way for a time or, you know, there's so many different ways to respond. Yeah, all to say that. Yeah, that's what I wish for families to have that informed choice.
Yeah, to just know. And I think temperament has a lot to do with it too because you do, one thing I also wanted to ask you though, because you do hear about those babies that, you know, might whine or flesk, they're not even really escalating for the first, you know,couple of nights and then they're sleep trained or, you know, they start to sleep through the night and you hear those success stories so much that I think everybody assumes that that's going to be their baby too. Not realizing that that's probably a super easygoing baby and then a baby with a more sensitive temperament is probably not going to react that way. What do you think about that and about like what is actually happening? Like when the baby cries, you know, maybe 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes the first night usually is longer and then, you know, it decreases over the first few nights and then after a week, maybe two weeks, they're quote unquote sleep trained.
What is actually happening here because sleep trainers will say, oh, well, they've just learned that they can put themselves to sleep without help or they've learned how to self-soothe. Is that actually without them? Yeah, absolutely. Or not or do we really not know? Yeah, it's a great question. So I mean, we, the studies that have videoed babies, they see the babies are still waking up but not signaling, right? So they're not sleeping more, right? We already mentioned that. Right. Are they self-sluiting?
That's the Other question. You're right. It might have something to do with temperament for sure. But why not? And we see what is happening in the process of sleep training as the question, right? And I think sleep training is using a survival mechanism in babies. You know, essentially what it's doing is pairing this very specific environment because babies have to be in the same environment every time right for it to work as well. So they're preparing that environment with the information that when you cry, no one is coming, basically, right?
And so, you know, the first night babies will have very big stress responses, you know, at first, sort of a fight or flight response. You know, babies have some huge responses there, right? Vomiting, diarrhea, like all kinds of like giant stress responses. And what the nervous system will do after a fight or flight response is go into sort of dissociate, freeze, shut down, sleep response, basically, right? So on that first night, that's that's essentially what's happening, right? They're first going to fight or flight and then going into freeze to then fall asleep.
And then, you know, the second night that will happen again,but it's shorter, possibly because it also survival wise doesn't make sense to be screaming and calling attention to possible predators, right? If if no one's going to be coming. And then after that, it's really then the, you know, it often doesn't take three nights. It often is like two weeks or a month or like even, you know, right? Some of the stuff that you were starting showing it was like 40 nights or yeah, yeah,
I've been in homes where babies were crying to sleep every single nap and every single night for about whole three years. Yeah, and parents just get used to it. Like becomes their sleep association that like they just cry. I used to babysit for a family where, and I didn't know anything. I was young, but they I would put the baby to bed and her crib and they'd be like, yeah, so she usually cries for like 20 minutes and then she'll fall asleep. And this was like every single night she was four years old since she was a baby. They just kind of like changed themselves to just expect that and and know that that was going to happen every single night. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I mean, I get like a not in my stomach talking about it.
It's really tough. And you know, when I say like it's the survival mechanism, you know, you imagine like a baby, you know, in one more hunter gatherer society, an emergency happens. A baby's like stashed under a bush or something to try to keep them safe and then they might cry for help, but then no one comes and then it makes sense for them to go down and shut down and sleep, right? That's that's a survival mechanism, right? And it's it's very similar to what's happening here because our babies don't know that they're in a safe home. They don't know that we have locks in our doors or alarm system or, you know, anything like that. They're just like, I'm alone. And no one's coming. And this is terrifying. Yeah, right?
Yeah. So do you think that then babies can learn to like manipulate parents where they're, you know, crying out, they realize the parents going to come get them and, you know, the parents going to bring them into bed or something and then they're, you know, getting what they want is that manipulation on the baby's part or our baby is not capable of doing that. Yeah, well, babies are really aren't capable of manipulating their capable of communicating their needs, right?
And I think if they're asking, I need closeness, like, I need closeness and, you know, that relationship is a very fundamental need for babies, right? So like their survival needs are, you know, all equal, water, nutrition, temperature control and relationship. It's all, they're all even. They need a relationship just as much as they need water to survive. And so they communicate that they need that,right? It's not manipulative. They will get very clever about getting that need met because it is a really, you know, a really important need for them, right? to survive, right? So they can, they can do all kinds of, you know, both hilarious and also, you know, really desperate things, right? To get that close.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think this idea that like babies are just manipulating you or something like that, it's like, no, that implies that they're doing this with like some kind of malice where they're, you know, they're trying to do something wrong or get away with something. It's like, no, they, this is what they need and they're trying to get their needs met, like how much you blame them for that, right? Yeah. It's like based on that premise that there's a problem, like there's like them needing to be close is a problem. It's like deviant behavior. It's shameful. If you let them be close, right? And there, there's like an evil little being that's going to like to do whatever they need, you know, manipulate and whatever, just to get Close to you.
And like you can't let that it's it's so wild. It's so wild. It's so wild. But it's like I get it's why your book title is so appropriate. It's so genius because it's like, yeah, like this actually is kind of a revolutionary way to think these days, which is, wild. Well, every time I mentioned the sleep training and like how I see the reality of it and science kind of suggesting the reality is I also want to always say to parents out there who have done some sleep training or you know, have an older child who had been sleep trained to know that like, yes, Those experiences between zero and three are significant, but we can provide repair too. And so if you have a young baby, like who is still under three, you can make a lot of effort to make sleep feel safe again and start responding again. It's never too late to do that.
And any amount that you do under three, like will be reparative and you know, work in those emotional systems. And for older kids, right? Like a lot of babies and people who are sleep trained will then have a lot higher sleep need when they're older, like more insomnia, more need to be close, you know, more waking, all that stuff. And you know, we can do that repair then as well too, right? And for people to also just to say, it's always so important to say like it is the status quo to sleep train a baby in society.
Like it's like assumed that you're going to do it. And so like, please, like don't feel bad, don't Like beat yourself up about it. If you're feeling bad about it now and have this new information, it's it's what is expected. Yeah, I mean, I talk about it all the time on my page like I did it with my first and you and I have talked about this too. And I regret it so much, but I also just hold so Much compassion for that version of myself who was really just trying to do the best thing. And I was unfortunately sold this program that told me that this was good for my baby and that they needed it. And that it was like a gift to them.
So like, of course, how would I not want to do that? And like, now I see how backwards it is. But yeah, we do have so much compassion for people who decide that that is something that they need to do or that, you know, they just kind of fell into because everybody was doing it or their pediatrician told them to do it and now they regret it or even if they don't regret it, you know, it's like you said, it's never too late for repair and just be kind to yourself for what you know or don't know at any point in time because we're all just doing our best. Okay, so to wrap up, Dr. Greer, what is something no one told you before you became a parent that you wish you hit known? Good question.
Oh my gosh, I think what I was not told, I think maybe not seriously, I thought, was that I needed to make so much of an effort to be taking care of myself in the early days with a baby and really to have Made that a priority. And that is something I wish for all new parents now, right? And if it that means like hiring someone to come over, you know, figuring it out with a friend or family member, it is so vital and important to any sort of rejuvenating joyful, you know, regulating practice for yourself because I didfully burn out and did not did not take care of myself in those early days.
Yeah. Yeah, I think so many of us fall into that and you're told like, oh, self-care is so important and you're just like, okay, whatever, like I don't actually have time for that. But yeah, any little thing that you can do or that you can hire somebody to do or tell somebody to do for you is going to make a huge difference. So I love that advice. So again, the book is called The Nurture Revolution.
It's absolutely fabulous. I recommend it to pretty much any new parent. It's so good. Where can people find your book and your other resources and find you online? Yeah, thank you so much. My Book is available everywhere. Books are sold, all the online places and your local bookstores. My first choice, ask them to order it and if they don't have it. And you can find me on Instagram at Nurture Neuroscience Parenting and my website is nurture-neuroscience.com and all my offerings are right there. Okay, perfect. I'll put all of that in the show notes for everybody Grier, thank you so much. It's always such a pleasure to talk to you and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you so much Rachel
