Speaker:

Hello, and Welcome to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. I'm your host, Susan Stiffelman, the author of Parenting Without Power Struggles and Parenting with Presence. I'm also a marriage, family and child therapist, a teacher, a long time parent coach, and a mom. And I'm really glad that you're here. This podcast is all about helping you raise your children with more fun and fewer power struggles. It's kind of a way for me to share some of the things I've learned in the 40 plus years that I've been doing this work as a therapist and educator and a coach. And in today's episode, I'll be joined by my friend and colleague, Dr. Tina Payne Bryson, author of several bestselling parenting books with Dr. Dan Siegel, as well as her brand new Bottom Line For Babies. I can't wait to share our conversation with you. We're going to talk about everything from what the science says about thumb sucking and sleep training to the importance of trusting ourselves.

Speaker:

No matter what we're told is best for our child, but first I wanted to let you know about some of the other ways we offer support and training to parents. If you visit Susanstiffelman.com, you can sign up for our free newsletter and you'll get all the updates and all the news about parenting events and classes, including subjects like homeschooling and helping anxious children thrive and chores and screen time. So that's all at Susanstiffelman.com and I hope you sign up because you can stay in touch with this work. And we have a very special program that we're going to be announcing next week. So be sure to sign up for all the updates so you don't miss out. Now let's have a listen to my conversation with Tina. I'll come back for the wrap up. Tina. I'm so happy that we get to talk together.

Speaker:

It's always such a treat for me to get to visit with you. So let me tell you all about Tina officially. And then we're going to jump in to talking about the babies. This is going to be such a great conversation. Tina Payne Bryson is a psychotherapist and the founder or an executive director of the Center for Connection in Pasadena, California, with Dan Siegel. She's the co author of two New York times bestselling books, the Whole Brain Child, and No Drama Discipline along with the Yes Brain and the Power of Showing Up. And we all, the three of us did a class on the power of showing up for that was hugely popular. Just remember, yes, I was so much fun. We had the three of us had a great time right now. I love it. So you're also the author of a brand new book Bottom Line For Baby, from sleep training to screens, thumb sucking to tummy time, what the science says.

Speaker:

So you are delivering into the world an extraordinary gift. I want to just say a little bit more about you, and then let's talk about that. Tina's research, explorers, attachment science, child rearing theory, and the emerging field of interpersonal neurobiology. And that sounds, you know, sophisticated and fancy. The thing about new Tina that I love is that you sort of take this research and theory from all these fields of science and you deliver it in a way that we can understand that's realistic, that's practical and really helpful Dr. Bryson's made countless media appearances. So beyond this podcast, including Time magazine, Good Morning America, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Real Simple, Redbook magazine, Washington Post, and the PBS series, This Emotional Life, you are a gift to the world, Tina and I'm, I'm so excited to read your book and to deliver some of the little jams or at least a few ideas from there to our audience today. So thank you again for being here.

Thank you so much, Susan. So sweet of you.

Speaker:

So I'm going to start with this question. If somebody gave you like a minute or 30 seconds to summarize what is most important for a baby's healthy development, how would you answer that?

Speaker:

I would tell them to go listen to the podcast you and Dan and I did on the showing up really, you know, so this book is really giving the bottom line on over 60 topics that parents get the most competing, conflicting information about and really breaks down, like, what are the main kind of perspectives or opinions on this topic? What does the science say about this topic? And what's the bottom line. And then in about a third of the entry of the topics, which are alphabet alphabetized I also weigh in with kind of my take or my opinion or a story from my own parenting because I worked really hard to make the science objective. So sometimes the signs indicated something that I actually disagreed with, or I did differently. And so I weigh in, in that way. But there is a bottom line to the bottom line, which is that question you just asked and really what's most important is that we build secure attachment with our children where they know from repeated, but not perfect experiences with us, that when they have a need, we will see it and sensitively and quickly respond to that need so that they really get built into the way their brain is wired, that they believe without a shadow of a doubt that if they have a need, we're going to show up for them that we're going to be there for them.

Speaker:

So from the earliest days with our babies building trust by meeting their needs is really the most important thing we can do in those early days and months and years.

Speaker:

And what, what can parents do that might override some of the confusion about that? Because for instance, the baby's crying and one author or expert quote says, don't respond to every you're Todd cries, you'll you'll spoil your baby. Or they might say, you know, the child has to learn to kind of cope better. How do you address some of the conflict that parents go through when, you know, maybe a mother-in-law saying, listen, we always did it this way. And, and either what they're currently reading, even in your book or their own instinct might contradict the kind of accepted wisdom.

Speaker:

Yeah. I think that's one of the things I think I love about this book is because, and the reason I chose the topics I chose are they're the ones that we do get such competing information about. You know, this was the first book I longed for as a parent that didn't exist and still didn't exist. So I was like, I have to write it, but I'm the kind of person that I really like information I want to read so that I can be really intentional about my choices, but the problem is I would read one thing and then I would read something else. And then I would talk to people and everything was in conflict with each other. So I was like, well, what's the quote unquote right thing to do here. And so I'm hoping this book, like, you know, if your, if your mother is like, you can't lick your baby's pacifier, clean, like babies need a sanitized environment, you can be like your mom read the entry on germs that actually says that letting babies taste dirt and having not an oversight sanitized environment helps them have lower rates of allergy and eczema.

Speaker:

Like it's okay. You know, like it's good for kids to have some dirt and dirt tastes like and all of that. So it can be a way to kind of tell your tell people who are giving you advice to like, be like, read this and then leave me alone. It's a good, it's a good shield world, but you know, that's one of the biggest messages. My favorite part of the book is actually the introduction and the conclusion, not necessarily the alphabetized kind of stuff. But what I really say in there is look, arm yourself by getting the knowledge, like, find out what the science says. There are things that we worry about as parents that we actually don't need to worry about. According to the science and things, we might not have thought about that we should be paying attention to like how noisy our babies sound, you know, those white noise machines sometimes are too loud for babies ear, with little things like that, that a lot of people might not know about, but the message throughout the book and both the introduction and the conclusion is there are many, many ways to be a really great parent aside from some things like putting your kid in their car seat and watching them near water and some basic life and death safety things.

Speaker:

They're all the decisions we make. Yes, they're important, but they are not the determinant of whether we're a good parent or not in most cases. And so what I really encourage parents to do and what I think this book allows them to do in just a few minutes is to arm yourself with the knowledge and then trust yourself and trust your baby and do what works for your family. And if other people judge you, you know, what I'm hoping is that this book helps parents feel more confident in the they make. And hopefully we'll also cut down a little bit on the what's called mommy Wars, which I wish were called the parent Wars. Because you know, all the decisions we make are not in isolation, they are in a context and part of an interwoven web. Like for instance, if I am following the science that says my, my young baby needs to eat every few hours, even in the middle of the night, how do I also follow the science that says, I need to be really well rested to reduce conflict in my marriage and my rates of depression.

Speaker:

Like even the science, like best recommendations are in contradiction with each other. And every child is different. Every parent is different and every family is different. And so sometimes, you know, we really have to do what works for our family and feel confident that we're being intentional about it. And then really let go of the criticism it's really hard to do, but I wish that I had had more confidence in some of the decisions I was making that went against what everybody was telling me to do. And I hope this book will infuse parents with some of that confidence. That's really great. And I'm such a fan of that when people introduce me sometimes and they say I'm a parenting expert, I just sort of shrink because I am not the expert for your child. I'm not even the expert for my own. So we just really want to support parents to having information upon which they can or with which they can make informed and correct decisions for their, that worked for them, that, that resonate with their own tuition.

Speaker:

So what's an example, for instance, I'm going to ask you a couple of things. Yeah, yeah. Thumb sucking, go for it. If babe, if, you know, if that's baby's way to soothe as long as you're, you know, and find a thumb is even dirty, according to what the silence that, you know, the bigger, the biggest issue is around dental issues. And so if you can kind of help them find other ways to Sue then to kind of reduce that by the time they're two or three that's best in terms of dental stuff. But I think that comes back to that question. You asked earlier about the soothing thing, and that is that there's so much misinformation still out there, parents, shockingly, like, I don't know how this is the case, but parents are still told even by quote unquote experts and doctors, that they should not pick up their baby because it will spoil them.

Speaker:

And that's just wrong. That was based on animal research in the fifties. And we actually cannot spoil our children with too much attention with too much affection with too much touch and holding. And so I think in some ways this book also gives parents permission to follow their instincts. We can actually even talk about what instincts are. I think that's an interesting line of conversation too, but there's a lot of misinformation, you know, parents believe or have been told that if you don't train your baby to, if you don't do sleep training, which can be defined lots of different ways. I mean, even keeping the lights low while you're changing your infant's diaper, that is sleep training too. But what people usually mean is some version of a cry it out method. Some parents don't want to do sleep training, cry it out methods, but they believe that if they don't do it, their baby will never learn to sleep.

Speaker:

And that's not true. It's actually, you know, their science was really interesting in saying that that, you know, sleep is not something you necessarily have to train kids to do. It's a developmental unfolding that happens. And so whether you co-sleep, or you do a cry it out method, or you don't do any kind of sleep training, most kids tend to be pretty good sleepers by the time they're two. So I think parents would feel forced into doing things based on misinformation from the experts. And that's what I think this bringing out the science is so important. I'll tell you another funny story about that. You know, in a lot of these, I'm obviously not an expert on over 60 topics. Like I, you know, I am not an expert on circumcision, right. As an, as a, as an example, but after I did all the science and read all the science and kind of came up with what I thought the science was saying, in terms of the bottom line, I also reached out to a lot of doctors and researchers who were experts on these topics and the two leading researchers who are the biggest experts in the world.

Speaker:

I'm on circumcision, both say the debate is over. The answer is clear. There is one right answer, but you know what, Susan, they come down on different sides, not over right. And science that bolsters our desires and that, you know, that supports what we want. And so that's actually the bottom line and that is, look, there are arguments on both sides. And so ultimately your culture and beliefs and your preferences and feelings about it should, you know, are going to be what rule of the day, because you're gonna, depending on those, you're going to pay attention to one body of research versus another. So that was really personal decision. But yeah, there's just a lot of misinformation out there as well. Yeah. And it's such an insecure time too. I remember when my son was born, when we finally were able to take him from the hospital, because there were a couple of things that happened in the first couple of days, I felt like I was running away with like, where are they going to come after me?

Speaker:

Where are they going to wait, wait, you're letting me take this unbelievable miracle. Do you know who I am? Do you know how unqualified I am to do whatever's coming? Right. Right. Well, that's actually the opening story in the book because I talk about how there were two moments that I still remember really clearly that led me to write this book. And one was with my first born in the hospital. And I just, because I'm an information person, I kept just peppering the nurse with a million questions. And, you know, a big one I had was about, you know, pacifiers. And if I give them a pacifier, is that going to give him nipple confusion? I don't know what that is, but I've heard about it. And she was like, honey, whatever you decide he's going to live. And I remember thinking, well, I kinda am going for a little more than that.

Speaker:

You know, I'm kind of hoping we do a little bit more than just survive. But I didn't, I, you know, I read a lot of books about childbirth, but I didn't know what to do in terms like, like, well, what's the quick take home on this. Is it going to mess them up if I give him a pacifier? And the bottom line on that is typically after the first two weeks there's not a lot of nipple confusion with pacifiers. So if it helps your baby go for it. And same thing, like we want to kind of have it extinguished by age two and three, and there's ways to do that that are still honoring your child's States of regulation and those kinds of things. I think, you know, that's so much of what we do is fear based, you know, and we can get really rigid about things because we're afraid or we just don't know.

Speaker:

And I think, you know, the other, and I know you, and I will probably be in alignment on this. Even the whole idea of self soothing for infants and small children is actually kind of a silly one. When you really think about how the nervous system works and the way that babies are soused is through co-regulation is through content Wars, you know, providing close proximity and regulating their physiological States, their emotional States. And the way that we learn to become self soothers through as development unfolds is from lots and lots of experiences of having someone co-regulate us, our practice, going from these dysregulated States back into regulated States. And we come to trust that I'm feeling hungry, that's really distressing, but someone's gonna give me food. My needs are going to be met. So, you know, even the idea of saying, well, an infant needs to learn to self soothe, that's actually misinformation. So, and I, and I do think there's a huge difference between an infant who is trying to work it out themselves, but they're not in a high state of stress versus an infant who's really in a high state of stress. And I really believe that caregivers need to respond to that regardless of what time of day it is, regardless of what the need is that those high States of stress that's our primary job as mammals is to regulate stressed States.

Speaker:

So cool. I mean, you're just covering everything and it's, it's, you know, and I love that it's both, you know, infused with your, your warmth and compassion, but that it's so solid that you've really done so much legwork to get scientific information and researchers to weigh in on these things that are so often controversial. So here's my last question. And it's, I don't know if it's a weird question or it's kind of interesting, but it's not something that we

Speaker:

Talk about all that much if parents or sorry, your babies babies don't really remember their babyhood, then how do we know that the way we parent matters? Yeah. That's such a great question. So important. And even a lot of doctors and experts are confused about that question because you will hear a doctor if your child's having an intrusive painful medical procedure, they'll say don't worry your child. Won't remember, I'm going to ask you the question again, because you skipped out. Oh, okay. Sorry about that. So you can just start responding. Okay. You know, I think there's a lot of confusion about how memory works. Even experts and doctors will say, let's say your child has to have a medical procedure and the doctor will say, don't worry. She won't remember it. Well, we need to distinguish between two different kinds of memory.

Speaker:

And Dan and I write about this in the whole brain child about implicit and explicit memory. So explicit memory is where we have where we're remembering something and we know we're remembering it. So you know, like when I say, you know, Susan, what did you eat for dinner last night? You remember what you had and you know, you're remembering so that's, what's ex what's called explicit memory. And most kids don't start having explicit memory until around age five or so. Usually people will have, may have one or two memories before that. But typically we have, what's called childhood amnesia up until about age five or six. But actually this thing called implicit memory is where we don't know where remembering we don't have the sense of memory. It doesn't feel like memory, but our nervous system and brain has encoded it.

Speaker:

And it's believed that implicit memory starts in coding even in utero. And so all of the experiences, our infants have become part of the collective of who they are and the brain is an association machine. And that's really what memory is, is associations. So you know, if you like, I'll, I'll my, when I took my my six month in for his well visit, you know, we, we went into the, obviously the doctor's office repeatedly for all those well visits the first year. And we had been teaching baby sign language. And I think he was about one, he was barely saying a word, maybe mama and ball or something like that. But we walked in and he started doing the sign for fish, which was like smacking his lips open, like a fish breathing. And he remembered the fish, but he didn't have it.

Speaker:

Wasn't like, he was like, I now remember that they're efficient. This office, you know, his brain had made an association where there are fish and he, he remembered that. Or like another example is, you know this is kind of a sad story, but a child who was adopted and was doing really well and develop developing the family that she had been adopted into was really wonderful and helping her kind of catch up with developmental stuff, but they they remodeled their bathroom and they changed the paint color. And she was probably five or six when this happened. And all of a sudden she started having massive regressions in her in her development refusing to go into the bathroom, started wedding herself, not sleeping. And the family discovered that the paint color of the bathroom was the same color that was in the orphanage.

Speaker:

Oh, perfect example of implicit memory. She doesn't even necessarily have memories of the orphanage, but her brain and nervous system encoded that color and being in a state of threat. We just have to remember that when we repeatedly respond to our infants with care and sensitivity and saying, I'm here, I'm, you know, even they're getting a shot or something like that at the doctor's office. And they're scary, it's scary. But we are like, I'm right here with you. That really hurt. Didn't it. I'm right here. And you comfort them. They have, they may not explicitly remember that moment, but their brain and codes, when I'm, when I'm hurting, when I'm afraid, my parent is there for me. So the, the things we do matter, they get encoded in what our children believe, who they become and not just in terms of like their character or their beliefs or their memories, but really in terms of how their brain wires to expect about the way the world works, the decisions matter.

Speaker:

But I'll say one other thing. And that is one of my favorite things someone said about this book is hard science, but gentle reassurance. And the book I'm telling parents like, look, here's what the science says, but if this does not work for you and your family, you're still a good parent and you're doing this. And if you decide not to breastfeed, because you're spending so much time pumping milk supply, that you're not spending time with your baby, you are a better parent for giving up breastfeeding and spending time with your baby. So that's why we can't judge each other. And it's really, I really just want parents to say yes, the decisions matter. And, you know, we can do it lots of different ways and still be really great parents and have kids who thrive so awesome. I really just, it's, it's gonna be a really important resource for parents to go back to in those first couple of years, I urge all of you to rush out and order bottom line per baby, from sleep training to screens, some sucking to tummy time, what the science says. Tina, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me and for sharing some of the practical and comforting and reassuring things you've said today. I know that there is sort of an endless need. So thank you. Well, thank you Susan, for being my my companion.

Speaker:

Life's work to really help parents be more intentional about their relationships with their kids. And I'm so appreciative of how much you honor this new book and for helping me share it with parents. I really beautiful. Beautiful. What a, what a gift. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that. Tina's so knowledgeable, but I love that she brings science together with heart. It's really good stuff for any of you with little ones as always. If you've enjoyed this episode, I would love it. If you'd take a second to leave a rating or a review, and of course it's great to subscribe because that way you'll hear about new episodes. As soon as they're released. And please tell a friend, if you've been getting value from our conversations, we're always keen to widen our reach. Speaking of which, if you have a parenting community of your own, please reach out to us at support@susanstiffelman.com. We love partnering with other like-minded like hearted folks doing good work in the world. And as I said, we have something special coming up that you might want to share with your community as a partner. Okay. That is it for today. Everyone remember no matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness and joy stay well, stay safe.