Ep. 2

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[00:00:00] You know that moment when your baby won't sleep and you're sitting there thinking, is it supposed to be this hard? What am I doing wrong? So many of us have been there, including me today, Rachael Shepherd Ohta from Hey, sleepy Baby is back to talk about why sleep struggles feel so personal and to remind you that you are not broken, your baby's not broken, and you're not doing anything wrong

I remember rocking my first baby at 3:00 AM for what felt like the hundredth night in a row. My whole body ached. I was exhausted. I was desperate. And honestly, I was a little bit angry at myself, at him at at the fact that nobody told me it could be this hard. I had Googled everything, things like how to get your baby to sleep longer, with the tears running down my face, hoping [00:01:00] that there was some magic answer that I could learn at 2:00 AM.

Now, a few years later, my kids still don't sleep much. They're just not wired that way, but we've found our rhythm. What changed, wasn't their sleep. It was my mindset and part of that shift was learning to let go of the pressure, the comparisons, and the belief that I was doing it wrong.

Rachael Shepherd Ohta is back with me today. She's a mom of three, the host of the podcast No one Told us, and the founder of Hey Sleepy Baby, where she supports families with gentle attachment focused sleep tools.

And she's someone who knows firsthand what it's like to feel crushed by sleep struggles and to carry the guilt that comes with it

In this conversation, we unpack why sleep feels so personal, how the good baby myth messes with our confidence and what it actually looks like to protect your mental health when sleep isn't going the way it's supposed to.

This episode is honestly so compassionate and feels like a huge exhale for any mom who's ever wondered if it's her fault that your baby's not sleeping.

Krissy: thanks so much for coming back with us today.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): Thank you for having me back.

Krissy: I [00:02:00] am so excited to dive into sleep because as a new mom, my life was completely rocked by not knowing like what was going on, and my child was just not sleeping. He still doesn't, but I figured it out by now that that's just him. But when you're in it and you're sleep deprived, you feel like you're failing.

We have a lot of these like norms that we've internalized and be, and. It's tied our success to. So can you talk about how and why moms feel like their success is tied to how well their baby's sleeping?

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): it's one of my biggest pet peeves. And it makes total sense. Like about when you meet someone new or you're walking down the street or something like that with your new baby. One of the first questions people like to ask you is, oh, how are they sleeping?

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): they a good

Oh, are they a good baby?

Which by good baby, they mean a baby that's quiet and that sleeps so. course if we answer, actually no, they're not sleeping that great. It feels like we're giving the wrong answer. [00:03:00] It

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): better to say. And so, um, yeah, it really does start right from the very beginning where we tie our worth as a parent and our efficacy as a parent to. How our baby is sleeping, which is largely out of our control. There are

do to help of course, and

Krissy: Right.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): good sleep and to have healthy sleep hygiene and all of that is super important. But again, at the end of the day, that baby is own unique person and a lot of what they're gonna do as far as sleep goes is completely unrelated to us and has nothing to do with us.

Krissy: Right.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): Yeah,

Krissy: really is wild to think about that of how many people ask us constantly, how are babies sleeping? Are they sleeping through the night yet? And I, I, I think it comes from a place of caring. They wanna make sure that you're doing well. But do you think that previous generations maybe like. Maybe it's the monitors, maybe it's the fact that we have video monitors all the time, that we are now just more aware of our children.

And so maybe [00:04:00] that ability to kind of cut ties helped. Like what do you think is part of this conversation?

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): I mean, the generational thing is so real. Like I see comments all the time from people in the boomer generation who say things like, oh, we put our baby in their own room from day one, and they just started sleeping through the night. It's like, well.

Krissy: Yeah. No, they didn't.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): didn't. I can almost guarantee they didn't, you just didn't hear them. Um, and, you know, memory also, I

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): first was born eight years ago and I can't remember everything that happened. So imagine 40 years from now, I'm not gonna have any idea.

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): and you're right. I think a lot of times too, it does come from good intentions. I remember my

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): adore, asking me every day.

Krissy: Yeah,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): I

day. Um, how many times was he up last night? Are

Krissy: yeah.

Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): just like, pity, give me this pity and

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): you know, that made me feel like, oh,

Krissy: Right,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): and I [00:05:00] didn't wanna feel pitied. I know that it was just because she was concerned about me not getting enough sleep and making sure that I was okay and that my mental health was all right. So I do understand it to that, to that degree. But I think there are other ways that people can ask

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): in that don't make you feel like you're failing a test if you don't give them the answer that they want.

Krissy: Yeah. So we can't control what they ask, but we can control what we answer and how we drive the conversation. Do you have any good talking points?

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): Yeah. So I usually would just shut it down.

Krissy: Hmm,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): if

wanna engage, and it doesn't mean you have to be rude,

Krissy: sure.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): don't

that conversation, you can just say like, oh, I have no idea. Or, oh, who knows? They

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): Something like that. That's just super, you know? but not, you know, rude or aggressive.

Um, but that kind of sends the message like, I'm not gonna engage in this conversation. Like,

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): I

And then you can just shift the talk, shift the topic. How did you sleep last night? How many times did you wake up last night? Um, that's [00:06:00] usually something that works pretty well to shut it down pretty quickly.

Krissy: a great point because I feel like def, we know this as we get older, we wake up more often in our sleep anyway and sleep be, so maybe it's some coming from a personal place, like I hope you're sleeping more than I am, so

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): Totally. Totally. I mean, I woke up probably twice last night to go pee, so

Krissy: Yep. I.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): none us truly sleep through the night.

Krissy: Exactly right. So, but when you are in it, and if you have a baby who's having trouble sleeping, it adds so much to feeling like you're failing and feeling like you're not doing enough. And it makes it hard to connect with other moms who may not be having that challenge because you hear so much of like, well just tell them or just put them to put them down.

Just stop holding them. Just stop doing these things.

Um, so how can we start to battle that resentment or that. Judgment and that shame when we start to interact with people who are having miraculous success stories.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): I think that's such a good point. And usually where I direct parents first is to educate [00:07:00] themselves on temperament and on sleep totals. So those are two things that are backed by decades of science and research. Um. And they can help us kind of make sense of why my baby might be doing things so

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): have anything to do with how good of a mom I am or how good of a mom that friend is, right?

So

our best. If there were one perfect way for a baby to sleep. Everybody would just do it and

Krissy: that would be the end of it.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): be like this billion dollar industry of sleep training and

Krissy: Snoo's and

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): you know, all of that stuff to get babies to sleep, right? So that's just something to keep in mind is that there is no one perfect answer, no one perfect approach, no one thing that works for everyone.

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): so understanding temperament, which is a baby's just kind of like the way that they react and respond to their environment and their internal world. Understanding how that impacts sleep everything. And

Krissy: then also understanding that sleep is a spectrum and

their average [00:08:00] sleep totals for each age group.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): That can vary by hours. So if you're talk, if you have a newborn and you're talking to another newborn mom and they're saying that their baby sleeps 12 hours a night and takes three hour naps and yours does nine hour nights and maybe an hour long naps.

Those are both probably within the normal, normal range.

It's

not fair.

Krissy: Right, right, right. You hear those people who have the baby sleeping from seven to seven, and I'm like, um, I'm lucky if I get 10 to seven. Like,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): And a lot of

Krissy: yeah,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): genetic. And you said that

Krissy: yeah. Yep,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): is the way,

Krissy: yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): total

so yeah, so that's just something that I think helps just ease parents' minds a little bit because I

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): think we need to just search. We need to just look

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): the And it's unfortunately not that simple. Um, but I think just knowing that can be freeing at the same time.

Krissy: Right. It's so interesting you brought up the [00:09:00] industry because I mean, you're a part of this industry that people are desperately looking for answers for. I mean, I've tried a few different things when my, I. You mentioned the snoo I use, I got a, you know, a cheap SNOO on marketplace that we just used it. I called it Robo mom.

It was just, I just had it on jiggle mode. It wasn't on like the full, all the full settings, but it bought me some time every now and then, and I was very grateful for that. Um, and then sold it for more than I bought it for. So I'm very grateful. Um. To my snoo, but we, we come up with all of these different things to try to help us and we grasp at straws and, and sometimes we miss out on some of the most obvious answers.

Like for me, with my second baby, I went deep into learning about safe co-sleeping and bed sharing, and I just went with that. So can you talk about what things we might be missing when we are looking at the big picture of trying to solve this problem?

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): I'm so glad you brought that up. 'cause I did that with my second and third two

Krissy: Yeah.[00:10:00]

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): felt chronically exhausted

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): like I, with my first, I mentioned, um, in the last episode I mentioned that, you know, he was actually sleeping pretty normally, but I was still really anxious and really exhausted. And that was because I was getting up and going to resettle him in his room

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): you feeding him. all the things to get him back to sleep, putting him back down, getting back into my room, and then just ruminating with anxiety about when he was gonna wake up again. And

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): on

of sleep per night because of that.

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): co-sleeping or bed sharing, your baby's right there. At least for me. I didn't have that same. Anxiety about

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): up

was just so easy to respond to 'em and feed them when they were right there. bed sharing, co-sleeping is definitely not for everybody.

Krissy: Nope.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): to be able to follow.

Um, and not everybody wants to, and that's

Krissy: Right?

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): But I

offering it as a valid choice is

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): need [00:11:00] do a better job of in this country. Other

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): That abstinence only approach kind of off the table. And they've said, Hey, we know most parents are going to bed share at some point in time, so let's give them the information they need to do it more safely.

And they've seen really great results by

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): And I

America we tend to think our way is the best way

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): we sometimes be looking to other places and other cultures to see how they're making it work.

Krissy: Right,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): like. The way that we think about it is really not a thing in most of the world.

Krissy: right.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): world

Um, and even if they don't co-sleep, they don't freak out about sleep the way that we do. They don't try to hack it. They don't try to, you know, get around it. They just kind of accept that it's normal in the first couple of years of parenthood too.

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): your baby.

That's waking up.

Krissy: Right.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): know, as hard as it is, and again, there are lots of factors, why it's harder for us in America to deal with that. I do think that our expectations and our mindset play a huge role. And if

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): and a, a [00:12:00] mindset that is normal, it's

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): will pass.

I think that, that, that really does help our mental health.

Krissy: Yeah, we want children to act like many adults. A lot of the times, and we talked about this in the last episode a little bit where if you sleep, I, I just wanna mention it again 'cause I think it's important. If you are one of those parents that did sleep training, cried out with your kid, you, it probably worked for you and did no damage and you are totally fine.

You didn't do anything wrong if. You're like me and you tried it and it literally hit you in your nervous system and gut how terrible it was and how bad of a match it was. You probably made a change and, and that's great. I, I don't think there's any wrong way to do this. It's just about being responsive to your child and I wanna talk about that anxiety you brought up about how co-sleeping is not for everybody because I get it, I get if that's something you bed share, you never wanna do, but I think every family.

Should at least learn the safety because you are gonna fall asleep with your baby and you're, or you're gonna wake up and you're gonna be like, they're still [00:13:00] there. Or are they, did they fall off? And you don't wanna do it on a couch or in a chair. You wanna do it in a bed. So take the time if you have a newborn in your life or somebody with a newborn to learn about that.

Now the next thing I wanna dive into is when we get. We feel good. We feel great. Like our baby's doing the thing. They are sleeping. Maybe they're older now. Um, because that's even worse. It is when you're in a rhythm and then it changes. A sleep regression, daylight savings time. You stayed out all night going to a friend's house.

Like anything changed in their environment. How do we not then spiral?

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): It's so hard. Someone

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): me um, and they were like, oh my gosh, Rachael, we just traveled. We just got back. My 5-year-old or 4-year-old has been waking up at 3:00 AM I can't do this. What do I do? And I said, well, okay, how, how long has this been going on? She's like, two days. And I was like, okay, you need to give it some time.

I know that's a lot easier said than [00:14:00] done when you're

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): You know, three, 4:00 AM That's not me. I, it's easy for me to say, just give it time

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): get

honestly, most of it with sleep regressions, with travel, with daylight savings, all of that kind of stuff, most of it is honestly just giving it time and trusting the body will catch up eventually. So for things that have to do with like time changes, traveling across time zones, daylight savings, things like that, really the best things that you can do are using light and dark. To your advantage to kind of signal to the brain that it's time to be awake or that it's time to sleep. So I usually recommend lots of natural sunlight during the day and then dim, calm as few screens as possible, uh, in the evening hours when you'd rather them be asleep. Um. again, it can take up to a week, sometimes a little longer for them to adjust depending on how dramatic the time change was. But honestly, just giving it time and trying to not freak out, um, is really, really helpful. And then. [00:15:00] Getting back into your bedtime routine again, as soon as, as soon as possible.

So if you have a really strong, consistent, predictable bedtime routine, this is based in research to improve sleep and it's dose dependent. So that means that the earlier you start and the more consistent you are, the better it works. So a big fan of a nice, simple bedtime routine, and anything, something kind of goes off track.

You just always come back to that as like your guiding star.

Krissy: That's such good advice of just have these basic things and sunlight. If you can get into it and let it work with you, let it work for you. Now, we are in October. If you're listening to this, when it's airing, and if you're not, I'm sure there's a daylight savings time change coming up for you now. How important is it that we prepare or do something different for this?

Or is it important?

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): really not. I

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): have, blog posts on both of the time changes, both for spring and fall. So

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): I dunno if you

those in your show notes,

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): I [00:16:00] basically talk about three approaches. One is, you know, or so before you start, kind of inching your clock or your bedtime, either forward or backward, depending on which time change it is.

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): adjust by, you know, 15, 20 minutes or so. And then by the time the change comes, you're already on that new schedule and you're good to go. It's not really realistic for everybody though. Like people have to get up at

Krissy: Yeah,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): times

school, daycare, whatever it is, so you know, you don't have to do it that way.

Maybe just two days before you adjust by 30 minutes or so.

Krissy: yeah,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): And then that's fine. You could do it. Like me. We don't really do anything.

Krissy: yeah. I don't either. Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): it out. And like for, um, for example, uh, you know, in the summertime we actually prefer our kids going to bed

Krissy: Mm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): So

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): it's the spring one and we just let them start to stay up later.

We're traveling a lot. I'm

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): coast, way a lot. It just makes sense for them to stay up later. So,

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): you could also just do it that way where you are just flexible with your bedtime [00:17:00] and um, and you don't really think about it or stress about it too much.

Krissy: really great advice because I think mom, we, and we talk about mom guilt all the time. You hear it all the time. It's everywhere. And this is such a big piece of it. If the shoulds, I should be doing more, I should be preparing for this, I should be changing things. But you don't necessarily have to, I don't think there's,

big message here is there's no wrong way to do it.

Like for my second baby, I wore him. For every single nap or napped on the couch. And he's sleeping by himself now and he's fine. And even now I am no model parent for bedtime. We don't even do bedtime anymore because my boys were, are just so wild. That would just run around no matter what. And I was losing my freaking mind.

I would be like, just like. Raging because they wouldn't stop running. Like they wouldn't listen to the book. They wouldn't take the the, so we did fam. One night I freaked out and I was like, we're doing family movie night, we're watching Moana, and we all snuggled on the couch and they fell asleep within minutes.

And now every night we just do family movie night. And I, for a long time [00:18:00] I felt like this is. Horrible. Like, I am not, and then I thought, you know what, they're gonna be teenagers, they're gonna go to college and whatever sleep hygiene I give them, they are gonna ruin, they're gonna do their own thing anyway.

They're gonna be up all night playing video games. So like I, my job right now is to just make sure they're healthy, make sure they're rested, and make sure they're loved. And, you know, lots of other things. But what do you say about the, the mom guilt that we experience when we don't feel like we're not doing the right thing?

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): I think you're even worried about that, like if you're even worried about messing up your kid or meth or like, you're probably doing fine

Krissy: Right,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): bad parents don't worry about that or don't care about that. Right? So I think even just checking in with yourself and being like, Hmm. feeling worried about this.

I'm feeling guilty for this. this something that I think my child might need therapy someday for? the answer is no, you're [00:19:00] probably fine.

Krissy: Right.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): would bet you a million dollars that when your kids grow up, they're gonna say one of their favorite memories is snuggling with you on the couch and

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): before

Krissy: Right.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): that's a win. That's a net

Krissy: Yep,

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): If it's affecting their sleep, if they're not getting the rest that they need,

Krissy: yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): you know

whatev whatever, then maybe you make a change.

Krissy: Right.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): think we put so much unnecessary pressure on ourselves to be perfect and nobody's perfect.

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): you are listening to this and if you are raging at your kids every night, you're yelling. You're going to bed feeling awful because of how bedtime went and throwing on a show or a movie or doing something like that makes everybody feel calm and connected at the end of the day. Instead, then do that.

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): It's so much more important. I, yeah, I just, I really, I think social media is so wonderful so many reasons, because it can connect us and educate us, but it also has this. Negative side, where [00:20:00] we're comparing ourselves to these quote unquote perfect parents

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): doing in their homes for real.

Krissy: Right.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): try not to compare yourself and you know, try to just stick to what's important. And what's important is, like you said, just making sure that your kids are healthy and that they are feeling loved and connected.

Those are the most important things. It's proven in research

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): that's the biggest indicator of how a child grows up, is how. attachment is with their caregiver. So if you're feeling guilty or you're feeling like you've messed up, like just always go back to that

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): if connection is there and if that attachment is strong, then you're doing great.

Krissy: I think that sleep and feeding and tv, maybe screen times are like the dirty little secrets of every family. Somebody's got something that they're doing that they don't wanna advertise everybody else because it feels icky, but, but it's working and it what, what you said, you just wanna make sure those kids are leaving with a great [00:21:00] experience and that they're gonna be successful.

Eventually on their own or not in therapy, they'll probably be in therapy, but not because of, hopefully not because of anything we did,

um, to

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): before bed.

Krissy: Right. Definitely not because of Moana. So how do we support ourselves emotionally? When we are tired through it, when we're leaning into the baby sleep that isn't happening and we're just letting it run its course.

How do we support ourselves through that?

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): Yeah, I think one thing is, this sounds impossible when you're going

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): but getting as much rest and sleep yourself as you can. And that's gonna look different for everybody, and it's gonna depend on your sleep approach with your child, and it's gonna depend on your support system and your

Krissy: Mm-hmm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): of I think one thing that I really recommend for new parents is taking shifts with

if you have one. So. You know, [00:22:00] shows that four hours of. Uh, uninterrupted sleep can be really restorative and can

Krissy: Mm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): help

your mental health, even if it's only once or twice a week. So maybe that means you hand the monitor to your partner, you put in some headphones, you put on an eye mask, you blast the sound machine, you get into your clean sheets and you just conk out. You know, for four hours at least. So maybe it's that first shift where your baby is maybe doing a longer stretch, or maybe your partner can, can hold them for a while. So you're gonna get sleep from like eight to midnight

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): takes a turn. So doing that, even just a couple times a week, can make a huge, huge difference if you're getting really, really broken sleep with your baby. Um, another thing is obviously therapy,

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): accessible to so many people. I wish that it were universally paid for and available to everyone. Unfortunately it's not, but if it is something that you are well resourced enough to have access to, just talking to [00:23:00] someone can

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): This

uh, interesting stat that came out of a study that they did on infant sleep training. So they looked at all these different sleep training techniques. They looked at all these parents that were, you know, going through a certain sleep training, uh, program or, or regimen. they found was that so in addition to that, I should give more context, in addition to the sleep training. They also gave every family a nurse that

Krissy: that they could call and talk to and so that they could, you know, troubleshoot with this person and kind of just talk about what's going

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): on At the end of the study, the intervention or the sleep training technique, or whatever you wanna call it, that was found to be the most helpful was talking to someone.

Krissy: Mm.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): It wasn't any one sleep hack or sleep training program or book.

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): having someone to talk to. That was the thing that most parents, I think it was 96% said, was the most helpful thing. [00:24:00] So whether

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): a whether that's a friend,

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): online, like your partner, whoever it is,

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): talk to someone and, and it'll make you feel so much less alone.

Krissy: So much less. And I wanna point out that there's postpartum support International that has free hotline. You can call and text anytime that you have that. So if therapy's outta reach, you can hopefully text somebody. And that's a really great resource to have too.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): They've got like

Krissy: Yeah.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): things like that too,

Krissy: Yep.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): partners. a really great one.

Krissy: Yeah, and I wanna share too that it's not just the baby phase, right?

Your 4-year-old, your five-year-old, your 8-year-old is gonna be up all night for a couple nights in a row. Sometimes maybe they're sick, maybe they're just going through something. Maybe there's a lot of anxiety, and I don't know about you, but I think it's worse. I. When they're not babies, when you lose one or two nights of sleep because your body isn't in survival mode anymore, you're like used to it, but all these same things are true.

It repeating a mantra of, I'm resting and rest [00:25:00] is important. Rest is also restorative, like telling yourself that it's okay that you're not sleeping right now, and taking those shifts, going back to the basics. Pull out all those resources that you've had from before when you're really in it, when you're not sleeping.

For sure. This has been incredible. I feel like I have the tools to leave and support my children's sleep in whatever way I, um, feel is best. I feel like I have your permission slip to just go forth and make it happen.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): You do definitely.

Krissy: Thank you so much. So tell us about the supports that you offer families and where they can find you.

Rachael Shepard-Ohta (she/her): so I'm on social media at Hey, sleepy Baby. My website is also just, hey sleepy baby.com. I've got lots of free info on there, so free guides. You can download tons of blog posts with tons of great information. I also have a podcast called No One Told Us, where I have experts that come on and talk about all different things, not just sleep. Um, and we offer courses and workshops as well. So if you're going through something like [00:26:00] to move on from co-sleeping, wanting to get your child in their own bed, you're dealing with bedtime battles and you don't know why or what to do. I have courses on that. And then I also have consultations, so I have a whole team of Inc.

Credible practitioners that will help you if you are really just stuck and want some handholding and want someone to tell you exactly what to do. And to also just give you like the support and kind of like what we were just saying, like just someone to talk to and vent to, and someone to reassure you that it's gonna be okay, that you're normal, that you'll get through it. Um, so yeah. So all of that is available at my website too.

Krissy: And your resources are so powerful. I, I took your sleep temperament or I just temperament workshop when my first was little and that was life changing. It really changed so much. And, um, I think I have a floor bed guide that I did at one point, a crib guide. So very, very realistic. Like you can open up the guide.

It's not gonna be like 50 pages that you have to weed through. It gives you exactly what you need, when you need it, where you need it. So check out those resources. Rachael is such a a gift. Thank you so much [00:27:00] for being here with me today.

you. Thank you so much for having me.

In the next episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on something that's been over a year in the making. After interviewing and working with dozens of moms about how they found themselves again in motherhood, I took all that insight and created a step-by-step method to help you do the same. It's called the Reset Method, and it's designed to guide you back to your joy, your identity, and the person you're becoming.

You don't wanna miss this one.

There's a version of you that feels grounded, joyful, and more like you. The Mom Moment memo helps you take steps towards her.

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