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Katrina Teeple is the Founder & CEO of Operation Organization, a professional organizing company, which services clients in Southern California and Dallas Texas. In addition to in-person services, Katrina teaches regular masterclasses on topics from email organization to hacking the home for optimal order. Katrina and her talented team have been transforming the way clients' lives flow from their homes to their offices for more than 17 years. She refers to herself as a Life Optimizer - one part Organizational Coach and one part System Creator.
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Key takeaways
- Moms are inundated with having so much to do and we feel like we need to be doing more all the time, which doesn't leave a lot of time to maintain order in our lives (9:18)
- Incorporating the decluttering mindset into her household early on. When you have regular conversations about only keeping what fits in the house, it becomes easier for kids because they don’t get attached as easily (12:08)
- Saving kids art and projects for the entire year: put everything in a box and go through it at the end of the year picking favorites to keep (16:00)
- To implement systems and order for kids, you need to make it easy for them - low hooks, drawers, etc. so it’s easily accessible (20:48)
- We waste so much time thinking about how to start getting organized, what we need and wanting it perfect and that stops us from starting (32:23)
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Katie Thomson is a Registered Dietitian, mom of 2 and co-founder of Square Baby. Fed up with all the fruit-heavy, sugar-laden baby foods masquerading as balanced meals, she knew she could do better. She wanted to create a solution to cut through the clutter, the confusion and the mountains of applesauce.
With Square Baby, each meal is completely balanced and the Square Meal System™ delivers 100% of a baby’s daily recommended servings of fruit, veggies, protein, and grains.
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Key Takeaways:
- What she learned about herself during her time at Starbucks and how it was helping her become an entrepreneur without her even realizing it (14:03)
- Working full-time and being too busy and overwhelmed to make baby food on her own. She also wanted to spend the time she had with her son focused on him, not making baby food (17:51)
- You’re not a good or bad mom because you did or didn’t select a certain path (26:22)
- You can prevent food allergies by up to 80% by offering allergens as early as 4-6 months (31:02)
- People aren't born with food allergies, they develop over time (32:10)
- If a child does have an allergy, can they outgrow them as their immune systems develop (36:00)
- Immune system development is most critical between 4-11 months, which is why early introduction is so important so the system can build immunity (39:20)
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Rachel was born and raised in Oakland, CA. She is a mother of two beautiful sons and resides in NY. She is an actor and graduate of The Juilliard School, a founding MIRROR instructor, doula, and lactation counselor. Rachel founded Birth Queen to combat the Black maternal health crisis. Black mothers can be confident knowing there is someone advocating for them and breathing new life into the birth world with funding, education, and support.
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Key Takeaways
- The guilt women go through when they don't feel strong after having a baby. You’re not broken, you’re just healing and we need to deal with that (6:50)
- Having anxiety attacks daily while pregnant with her second child because she was scared to have another Black son during the summer of 2020 (13:05)
- Founding Birth Queen: An organization with the mission to provide education, support, and resources to Black birthing people while also funding more training for Black birth workers (14:30)
- The background of racism in birth: Dr. Marion Sims practiced c-sections on slaves, a lot of them survived without anesthesia leading to his conclusion that Black women don't feel pain the same way as white women. Leads to both an unconscious and conscious bias. (15:10)
- All moms deserve better care than they’re deserving (17:39)
- Ways that black women are judged even during labor: wearing a ring, how they do their hair, etc. (17:43)
- How to properly do a kegel (25:09)
- Diastasis recti: most of us have at least some separation. What to do during pregnancy and postpartum to prevent it. You can be an all-star athlete or couch potato and get diastasis recti (42:28)
- Returning to fitness postpartum. Everyone is different and she has different recommendations depending on each person's experience. Won't tell anyone to do high impact for 3-6 months postpartum (46:57)
- The damage seeing images of trainers and fit people on social media postpartum and feeling like we should be able to do that too (51:05)
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Eve Rodsky is the New York Times bestselling author of Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live) and its highly anticipated follow-up, Find Your Unicorn Space: Reclaim Your Creative Life in a Too-Busy World. A Harvard-trained lawyer and former foundational manager at J.P. Morgan, Rodsky combines her experience in organizational management and family mediation with the science connecting creativity with improved mental and physical health. Her step-by-step approach in Fair Play, which helps partners rebalance their domestic workload, has been recognized by Reese’s Book Club, Good Morning America, Today, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and other outlets. Rodsky lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their three children.
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Key takeaways
- Feeling like a failure and blaming herself for not creating the life that everyone told her she could have. The idea that you can have it all and be it all is a lie (5:40)
- Our society has been built on the backs of the unpaid labor of women and it's a house of cards (8:25)
- Boundary setting means you have permission to be unavailable from your roles as a wife, mother, etc. (13:30)
- The importance of unicorn space and why women don’t feel like they have permission to take it (14:30)
- We regard men's time like diamonds and women's like sand (17:06)
- Guilt and shame is a tool to keep you quiet and submissive (20:57)
- Working together as a couple to decide what you value as a family (24:17)
- What matters to you? What life are you building? When you decide that together, neither of you can say something is unnecessary (28:33)
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Dani is a pediatric registered dietitian nutritionist, early childhood education advocate, and Mom of 3. Her mission is to guide parents through hands-on learning and sensory engagement with food education to foster curiosity, transforming picky kids in adventurous eaters. She focuses on food literacy with the integration of STEAM activities (science, technology, engineering, arts, math), sensory exploration, and food play to make everyday meals into teachable moments.
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Key takeaways
- What it was like having her first two kiddos while living in Germany. The biggest differences: seeing her doctor every visit in Germany and having an ultrasound every visit. In Germany when you have a c-section, they keep you a minimum of 5 days vs in the U.S. where they get you out quick (6:35)
- Her tips for meals when you're low on time, your partner is traveling, etc. - convenience food is your friend. We put a lot of stress and pressure on ourselves about meals. She likes to utilize prepared or semi-prepared foods as the main dish and then she’ll add other things like fruits and veggies (15:45)
- Give yourself some grace. If everyone comes to the table and they’ve eaten something, whether it’s cereal or soup or whatever, as long as they're fed and safe, you're in a good place (18:01)
- Playing is how kids learn about and experience the world around them, but for some reason not when it comes to food. An invitation to play with food is a great way to help children feel confident and familiar with foods even if we’re not talking about eating them (29:20)
- The goal of her work is to reduce barriers around food and make them fun and playful. If they taste the food, great, but that’s not always the first step. The first step is to build confidence and comfort around new food (36:44)
- How to incorporate food play into your every day so it isn’t stressful and doesn't take a lot of work or money. Think about what you’re making for dinner and how you could turn that into sensory play (41:16)
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Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children's supplements brand for over 20 years. Now available on amazon.com/childlife
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Kim McLeod is the creator behind The Best Ideas for Kids where she shares craft ideas for kids of all ages. She lives outside of Toronto with her husband and 2 kids. She has a passion for creating and sharing kids craft projects. She loves to create projects that are easy, and she incorporates recycled materials as much as she can. She is also known for her handprint cards and crafts.
Key takeaways
- Set of 8 holiday kits available at Michael’s packaged with almost everything you need so no prep time (2:21)
- Why Kim won’t use water beads: They are created to absorb water and can continue to expand if ingested and cause blockages in an intestine. If they get in your pipes they can block your pipes too (11:24)
- How to remove sticker residue: using soapy water to loosen the label/sticker and then you should be able to use your hands to get most the paper off. Use Goo Gone for the adhesive part (14:50)
- How to get slime out of anything: Vinegar. It will get slime out of hair, clothes, carpet, etc. Mix with a bit of soapy water, spray it on and rub it with a rag. Slime is made up primarily of glue, which is the hardest part to get out and the vinegar almost dissolves it (18:49)
- Crayon on the wall, floor or furniture: use a hairdryer to melt the wax in the crayon and then wipe clean. She has also had some luck with Windex (23:26)
- Cleaning up Oobleck: Let it sit out for a day to completely harden and then it breaks into chunky pieces. You don’t want to put it down your drain because it goes between a liquid and solid and when it dries, it dries hard so it can clog your drain (25:27)
- Glitter: Vacuum is the best way to go. To avoid loose glitter, try using glitter paper or glitter glue. Eco-friendly glitter is now available too (28:15)
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Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children's supplements brand for over 20 years. Now available on amazon.com/childlife
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Dr. Meggie Smith is an OB/GYN who specializes in reproductive endocrinology and infertility. Based in Nashville, Tennessee Smith is a life-long athlete who uses her medical expertise paired with her personal experiences to help women better understand their bodies. Smith strives to use relatable, practical advice with all of her patients by connecting with them on a personal and professional level. As both the doctor and the patient (she has gone through two egg freezing cycles herself), undergoing fertility treatments has given Smith a unique perspective on the physical and emotional toils of an in vitro fertilization or egg freezing cycle. Dr. Smith is a proud dog mom to rescues, Herman and Noelle.
Key takeaways
- So much of her job is dealing with emotion around infertility. The vast majority of people she sees are shocked to need a fertility specialist (6:50)
- There is a lot of grieving along with a lot of hope when it comes to infertility. Many people are angry or sad and not everyone is ready to move to the acceptance part and take next steps (10:20)
- Common tips for increasing your chances of getting pregnant: putting your legs up after sex, eating pineapple core after ovulation, acupuncture, baby aspirin, different sex positions, inserting actual egg-whites in the vagina, how often to have sex, supplements, cutting alcohol/caffeine - are any of them true? Dr. Meggie tells me which, if any, have any real chance of increasing your odds of getting pregnant (16:38)
- A lot of the things we do to try and help get pregnant are things that make us feel in control in a situation that is very outside of our control. There’s a lot that has very little downside and might have an upside so why not try (18:38)
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Courtney Killpack is a bra fitting expert and owner of Bra Fittings by Court, a professional bra fitting shop located in Layton, Utah. She has over 16 years experience working in the lingerie industry and has fitted thousands of women. In 2021 her shop was awarded The Best of Intima Award for Fan Favorite and being recognized as one of the best lingerie stores in America.
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Key takeaways
- When your bra isn’t fitting correctly, it can cause a lot of physical pain - poor posture, shoulder strain, neck tension (6:08)
- The gore (the section between the cups) should lay flat against your skin - if it is sticking away from your body, it means the cup size is too small (9:00)
- How often should you be getting fitted? Every year. Bras have a 9-10 month life cycle (15:52)
- Recommend having 3-4 everyday bras so you can rotate and extend each bras life cycle. Sports bras they recommend having 1-2, more if you’re really active (17:00)
- Cleaning your bras - hand washing in the sink is gold standard. If using the washing machine, use the hand wash cycle and hook up the back so it doesn't get attached to other clothes or the machine (19:30)
- Don’t ever put your bra in the dryer, it will destroy it (21:56)
- Top nursing bra recommendation: Hot Milk, Panache, Elomi (22:37)
- Where your bra should sit in the back: bras are like teeter-totters. Band should be lower in the back so it lifts you up in the front. If your band is too high in the back you will look saggy (27:22)
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Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! Follow ChildLife Essentials on Instagram for their 12 days of giveaways or use code: 20FESTIVE for 20% off their products on Amazon until December 15th.
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Emily is a wife and mom to two kids, a spunky and spirited five-year-old girl and creative and witty seven-year-old boy. She has moved all over the country, and most recently relocated back to Colorado after a three-year stint in Raleigh, NC.
Emily started logging her lunches online when she noticed all the lunches she saw there felt like a lot of work and quite unattainable - although extremely beautiful! So she started packing simple lunches that don’t take a lot of effort, but include lots of fresh foods.
When not packing lunches, Emily is on the board of directors for Me Fine Foundation - a non-profit in NC that serves families and children receiving care at several partner hospitals. She has served as the events co-chair for the past two (wild!) years, and has enjoyed giving back in this way.
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Key takeaways
- Having things on hand that are easy to throw in. If she’s making pasta for dinner she’ll put a little bit aside for her kids lunch the next day. Boiled eggs are really easy to have on hand. Limiting what you have to prepare in the morning so it’s just one piece of the lunch (8:50)
- Feeling pressure to have beautiful lunches for our kids and remembering what we grew up with vs them (16:45)
- Doing whatever is best for you and your family and that goes beyond food and meals (19:10)
- If you take a thermos and warm it with hot water before you put food in there it will stay warmer longer - don't put anything in that's steaming hot or it will create moisture and get soggy (20:20)
- Repurposing the leftover food from lunches on to a snack plate so there isn’t waste (22:15)
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Making simple swamps can make a big difference. For example, changing out the bread for a sandwich - putting it on a bagel, wrap or croissant makes it new and special. If you’re sending tuna or egg or chicken salad, skip the bread and just send crackers for them to dip. Small swaps make them feel like they’re getting something new and different (32:30)
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Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years. ChildLife Essentials is offering 20% off their most popular bundles on amazon.com/childlife - grab these Black Friday deals before they run out! No coupon code required.
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Simona Grace is a single mom, an outspoken advocate for women’s political empowerment and the founder of Moms in Office. Prior to founding Moms in Office in 2018, a progressive political organization dedicated to electing more moms to office and working to achieve economic justice for all women, she has held various positions in education and publishing.
A speaker and frequent commentator on women’s rights and progressive issues, her writing and work have been featured in numerous publications. She has been named the 2020 California Mother of the Year by the American Mothers Organization. After immigrating to the United States when she was 18 years old, Simona graduated from UCLA with a degree in Comparative Literature, summa cum laude. She lives in Los Angeles with her 11 year old son.
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Key Takeaways
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We see a picture of someone on social media and we decide who the person is and fill in their story without actually knowing it (12:38)
- She’s been fighting her whole life - for her education, her immigration status, against bias, for her son - so she became really good at it. Once she was in a position where she was settled, she realized she wanted to fight for the rights of other women and moms to make sure that someone gives them a voice (19:40)
- A lot of women question themselves and talk themselves out of running for office because politicians don’t look and sound like them - most politicians we see are rich, white men. How can a working mom or single mom affect change - it seems daunting (22:55)
- What do you need to run for office? Your determination to help others, your authenticity, caring for your community and your wanting your child to have a good future. That will keep you going (24:16)
- We have 535 voting members in congress, 25-26% of congress is made up of women. Out of that small group of women, only 25 are raising kids under 18. That’s 5% of congress. Moms make up one of the largest segments of the US population and the smallest segment of our federal government (29:48)
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What can women do who want to run for office, but are scared? Stop telling yourself that you can’t. We need to stop questioning ourselves just because we don’t look like the standard politician in the US. Start talking to others in your network for advice on how to keep going and you will find people who will build you up and make sure you don’t give up. The more women we elect, less women will question whether or not they are capable of doing it (34:30)
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Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years. ChildLife Essentials is offering 20% off their most popular bundles on amazon.com/childlife - grab these Black Friday deals before they run out! No coupon code required.
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Runda Ebied is a mother of two children and a pediatric occupational therapist. Runda currently works with children with various needs (sensory, emotional, academic, developmental and physical) both in school settings and within their homes. Runda also has experience working with adults in need of mental health support. Runda is very passionate about maternal mental health and children’s emotional and mental well-being.
Key takeaways
- What does a pediatric occupational therapist actually do? (10:16)
- Why we need to normalize motherhood feeling really hard sometimes - it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong or are a bad parent, it’s hard because it really can be that hard (19:58)
- What does it mean to be a highly sensitive person (HSP)? (21:17)
- A HSP is someone who feels things on a deeper level. They are often very intuitive and it's like the volume has been turned up in their ability to feel things and notice changes in their environment and with people. Empathy and HSP often go hand in hand (21:34)
- Once you discover you are an HSP, it’s easier to understand why you respond to certain situations differently than others. Movies or songs for example, can really overcome you (23:56)
- Recognizing symptoms of an HSP in younger kids: 24:30
- Tips for parenting a HSP - validating children’s sensitivity and emotions. Avoiding saying things like, "you’re too sensitive or it’s not that big of a deal” (26:33)
- Giving our kids the skills to know that they can do hard things in life is one of the best gifts we could ever give them (33:45)
- Recommendations for how to keep your cool when your child starts melting down - so easy to become dysregulated when our children are not having a great time (40:41)
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years. Now available on amazon.com/childlife
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Neily Boyd has more than a decade of experience as a math educator, working with students and teachers from kindergarten through high school. Most recently, she served as Director of Math, serving six elementary and middle schools. During her tenure, she implemented a hands-on mathematics curriculum designed to engage students in academic discussion and conceptual thinking. As a result, the schools showed some of the highest growth in Tennessee, according to several assessments.
Seeing a need to help children start kindergarten with better numeracy skills, Boyd launched Counting With Kids in 2019. Since then, her Instagram account has grown to more than 30,000 followers and she has published two e-books on early elementary mathematics.
Key takeaways
- Common core teaches methods that are designed to teach kids HOW to think about math, which is a huge shift. There has been very little support for parents on how to teach it to their kids (15:26)
- Negative feelings about math are often brought to the surface when we feel like we can’t help our kids with their homework (16:43)
- That moment when we realize other peoples brains work differently and we see that they are understanding something we aren't. This is when negative feelings and self-doubt start and we start believing we aren't wired to be "math people" (20:30)
- It’s culturally acceptable to say I’m not a math person, but what if we said that about reading? (21:30)
- Toy recommendations (40:40)
- Tiny Polkadot - ages 3-8, single best game for building number sense
- Magnetic tiles - the best for building early geometry skills
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years. Now available on amazon.com/childlife
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Holly Choi, Co-Owner/Instructor at Safe Beginnings First Aid, is a leader in childhood injury prevention education in North America. She is a nationally-certified first aid instructor, and a nationally certified Child Passenger Safety Technician-Instructor. Holly is a member of both the International Association for Child Safety (IAFCS) and Prevent Child Injury, and has completed additional child-focused safety training in child passenger safety and childhood burn prevention. Her extensive experience and knowledge in baby and toddler safety, in addition to being a mom of 2, gives her a well-rounded and unique perspective. Holly was kind enough to offer 20% off any of the Safe Beginnings courses for Mommin’ listeners with code: MOMMIN20
Key takeaways
- Safety isn't black and white. Some things will be safe for some people and not others. A huge part about safety is knowing it's ok to change your mind when presented with new information (7:09)
- Car Seats are designed to protect mostly against frontal crashes. Frontal crashes cause most injuries/fatalities. In a crash, everything keeps moving toward the point that the vehicle stopped, so in a frontal crash, everything flies toward the windshield. A child in a forward facing car seat is also moving in that direction and that’s where we see head, neck, spinal injuries (13:58)
- The differences between adults and children in CPR (30:24)
- 30 compressions, 2 breaths, doing compressions within a certain pace
- Adults: 1 or two hands, smaller children: likely just one hand, infant: 2 fingers or 2 thumbs
- Pace is the same for infants and adults: aiming for 100-120 compressions per minute. The Bee Gees Stayin Alive or Baby Shark are great options
- If you do one piece of baby proofing, anchor your furniture. It’s the most fatal risk that we have in our homes. Tip over incidents are quick and often silent because if there is a child between the item and the floor, we often won’t hear the crash. Anything that is 3 ft tall and heavy, anchor it to the wall. Most injuries around the home are survivable, this is the one that’s not. Guide to how-to anchor furniture (40:31)
- Crib bumpers, even mesh ones, are always a no (44:53)
- Parents often worry their child will get a head injury from hitting their head on the crib, but there is no data to support that. Where head injuries DO happen are when kids climb and fall out of their cribs, which they can do easily with crib bumpers
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years. Head to childlifenutrition.com to learn more!
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Jules Ong is a preschool teacher turned homeschooling mum to 3 girls under 6 - with a fourth on the way! - a play parenting coach and founder of Stories of Play. Through her online workshops, courses and membership to The Authentic Learning Experience, she helps parents tap into the magic of child-led play and turn them into learning opportunities. And as their children learn effortlessly through play, they are able to parent with more joy and less overwhelm.
Key takeaways
- Telling parents that they need to check on their own internal beliefs when they are feeling guilty about not playing with their kid constantly. We all have certain beliefs about what it means to be a good parent, what play should look like, etc. and if we don’t understand those, we won’t be able to work on the guilt (17:08)
- What is independent play? People often believe that it is the idea that our children need to be playing in a room alone and that couldn't be further from the truth. You can be in the same room, house, etc. with them, but they are playing on their own without any direction, intervention or interaction with you (21:54)
- Is it too late to get your kids playing independently if they’re older? No! How to start with an older child (32:17):
- Setting up a space where they have things to engage with
- It might be really hard to start. (33:26) Begin by modeling and if they ask for help, ask them questions and have them lead so you aren’t playing for them
- Giving them the tools to be able to come up with ideas on their own
- Once they have started, move to the couch and say you need to go do something like put clothes in the laundry, etc. something really fast, then work up to doing something that takes 10 minutes, and so on
- You should play with your child as little as required, but as much as you want (42:02)
- Play on its own is learning and has value. It’s on us as parents to understand and learn the value play brings to our children (43:30)
- We need to normalize mess. All we see online are gorgeous photos of children playing with no mess and it’s unrealistic and sets us up for frustration and failure (58:42)
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they're offering 20% off with code HAPPYKIDS21 on Amazon. Offer valid until 10/31/2021
*Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family
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Nickey Ramsey is a mother of two and the founder of Junobie, the world’s first reusable breast milk bag. After returning from her second maternity leave, she found herself unhappy with the impractical options for breast milk storage. She knew there had to be a simpler, more reliable breast milk storage option. So, the Junobie bag was born!
Growing up, Nickey had a nontraditional family, and even experienced homelessness at one point. If it had not been for the encouragement and inspiration of mentors she met along the way, she would not have graduated high school, gone on to college, and broken the cycle of poverty. Now, she hopes to use Junobie to help inspire and simplify the lives of other women and their families.
Key takeaways
- What it was like growing up with a single mom who worked really hard to provide. Experiencing homelessness as a teenager, sleeping in her car and an abandoned apartment and being scared. Barley graduating high school, but finding the courage to tell a counselor about her situation who helped her find a homeless shelter. Eventually going to college and graduate school (8:57)
- Her first child had epileptic seizures and how she navigated that challenging time - trying new diets, medications. Explaining how it was harder when her daughter was younger because she couldn’t articulate when she felt one coming on (14:02)
- Not finding out she was pregnant with her second until she was 18 weeks along and from that point on every part of her pregnancy felt rushed (16:17)
- Producing a ton of breast milk and having to pump even after her son was done nursing. Having to use thousands of breastmilk storage bags. She wanted something lightweight and reusable, but wasn’t finding anything so she started working on creating her own (13:31)
- Promoting Junobie on social media and having it blow up immediately (28:40)
- Having large companies knock her product off right after she launched their pre-order and feeling like that might be a sign it wasn’t meant to be, but letting her social media community fight for her (30:50)
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they're offering 20% off with code HAPPYKIDS21 on Amazon. Offer valid until 10/31/2021
*Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family
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Ash Brandin (they/them) is a middle school teacher in Boulder, Colorado. After years spent playing games and the way they teach players, Ash decided to dig into what makes games such motivating teaching tools. After applying it to their classroom, Ash began presenting at gaming conferences, helping families and educators see the value video games bring to our lives and how we can utilize it.
Ash believes the best way we can prepare our kids for a digital future is to give them the tools they need to have healthy, balanced lives. Ash advocates for using video games as a tool, and playing and incorporating video games in predictable, measured ways. By doing this, we can set our children up with healthy relationships with video games as well as other activities.
Ash lives with their spouse and child, and when not gaming or teaching, likes to bake, and hike.
Key takeaways:
- Being caught in a loop for years trying to reach goals they thought would make them feel good about themselves, which to them meant feeling like a woman, and the stakes kept getting higher. Feeling intense gratitude and indebtedness to their child because they never would have figured out who they were without their child (5:25)
- Gaming allows kids to have a sense of freedom and choice. There is a huge feeling of responsibility and self-determination (18:50)
- Kids want to feel validated and seen and know that their interests are seen and valued. Engaging in discussions about your kids interests to show you care (25:20)
- Whatever you decide is an appropriate amount of games for your child, it should be available on a consistent schedule (36:13). Gaming in communal spaces is associated with healthy gaming relationships (42:55)
- The criteria someone has to meet to be classified as having “Problematic Video Gaming” (PVG), diagnosis is very rare (43:45)
- If we only demonize games, we’re making parents feel guilty for letting their children play. The more we view it as part of our lives and a tool, the easier it is to facilitate (59:40)
- How to choose your child’s first game
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they're offering 20% off with code HAPPYKIDS21 on Amazon. Offer valid until 10/31/2021
*Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family
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Michal started Sex Positive Mama - her background is in human sexuality and she works to empower parents to become sex positive.
What we talked about
- Reflecting on your own attitudes around sex
- Thinking about the attitudes we wanted our own parents to have when we asked questions
- Working on your comfort level means exposure and practice
- It’s so much less awkward to talk to a young child than a teenager - it's good to set a base
- Being raised in a sex negative culture
- Not feeling empowered in your own body
- Not feeling like you can ask questions
- Taking a second before responding to your child then saying, “that’s a great question." Try asking them what they think/what they already know
- At a very young age, children explore their bodies, they aren’t necessarily eroticizing, they’re just exploring what feels good
- We tend to wait for our kids to ask questions instead of bringing answers to them, but in reality you need to be proactive
- Start by looking at books to begin conversations and the earlier the better to begin these conversations
- Teaching children that we address people how we like to be called
- Avoiding the convo of - boys have a penis, girls have a vagina
- Avoiding gender stereotypes
- There is no other part of our body that we have nicknames for or refer to as private parts, which has so much to do with our comfort level and we want to get comfortable and have our kids become empowered
- You don’t want your child to have euphemisms so they are able to fully tell you what’s going on in their lives
- Porn is the biggest sex educator and we won’t be able to prevent our kids from seeing it, but we can get them prepared for when that happens
- The average age kids see porn is 8 years old
- By the time kids are teenagers, they want to make sure they’re engaging in conversation with you about their opinions
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 20% off with the code IHEARTCL on Amazon.com. Offer valid until 6/30/2021, valid in the U.S. only.
*Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.
Follow Michal on Instagram or her website.
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Dr. Maren Locke is a board certified dermatologist who sees patients for medical and cosmetic dermatology. She also runs a YouTube channel-The Budget Dermatologist-on how to achieve your best skin without spending a fortune.
What we talked about
- The bare minimum of healthy skincare
- Cleanser-remove environmental toxins at the end of the day
- Sunscreen-need it on your face each and every day, year round, even if you’re inside
- Sunscreen with moisturizer-is it enough?
- If it has SPF 30 and IF you get enough of it on your skin, which almost nobody ever does! She recommends using a separate sunscreen with SPF 30 or above, and reapply every couple hours
- Sunscreen powder can be helpful especially for reapplying over makeup
- Brush it on like you would makeup powder, but again, probably not getting AS much coverage as you would a lotion. Try Supergoop powder
- Example of a routine for a 30yr woman:
- Morning
- Cleanse with a brightening exfoliating cleanser: L’oreal Glycolic Acid Cleanser
- Vitamin C serum: Vichy Liftactiv
- Moisturize: one that containers niacinamide
- Sunscreen
- Night:
- Gentle cleanser: Cerave Hydrating Cleanser or Vanicream Facial Cleanser
- Collagen building product like a retinoid
- Moisturizer
- Skin care products for pregnant or breastfeeding moms:
- Ask your provider about anything you’re putting on your skin or taking orally
- Look at the ingredients label to get a full picture of what you’re using
- No retinoids during pregnancy/breastfeeding
- Overlooked areas on the body to target for anti aging
- Neck/chest-use anti aging products there as well
- Hands-try Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair cream on the hands each night and keep a pair of driving gloves to block sun exposure
- Favorite eye cream: Aveen RetinAL 0.1 Intensive Cream
- Do more expensive products work better or faster? We don’t know
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 20% off with the code IHEARTCL on Amazon.com. Offer valid until 6/30/2021, valid in the U.S. only.
*Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.
Follow Dr. Locke on Instagram or YouTube.
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Jordan is a private practice therapist and mom of 2 kiddos who lives in Canada. Jordan works to support people to deepen their understanding of themselves and affirm their needs, wants, and desires as valid and deserving of respect.
What we talked about
- How boundaries encompass everything
- Paying attention to the body is so important to recognizing your boundaries
- When we set boundaries, it allows us to feel closer to other people because there is a mutual care and respect
- For those of us who aren’t used to setting boundaries, we can swing in the opposite direction and get too firm on setting them
- Some boundaries will always make us feel awkward and uncomfortable
- Physical boundaries for our kids-making it clear to family and friends that our children have the choice whether or not to give hugs and kisses
- Think about where you are feeling resentful and irritated and which relationships are causing that
- Having simple and clear statements can be really helpful
- How do we recognize when someone else is trying to set their boundary?
- It’s ok to sit in the discomfort and feelings we have about it, but need to respect their boundary
- Honoring our kids boundaries and determining when things feel unreasonable
- Telling our kids that their feelings, wants and needs are important even if they can’t always be met
- Our kids are sometimes looking to us to set the boundaries for them
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 20% off with the code IHEARTCL on Amazon.com. Offer valid until 6/30/2021, valid in the U.S. only.
*Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.
Follow Jordan on Instagram or her website.
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Jasmine Tillery is the founder & CEO of Money and Momming. She is a mom, wife, and works full-time as an engineer. She loves personal finance and has developed systems and plans to help other moms gain control of their finances.
What we talked about
- Talking about taboo topics so others don’t feel alone in what they are going through
- It’s not how much you make, but how you manage it
- Starting a budget
- How to prioritize
- Setting spending limits
- Having a balanced budget so you don’t hurt your quality of life
- Trying out different plans if one doesn’t work for you
- Having an emergency fund
- Sinking fund
- Smaller savings accounts for known upcoming expenses
- Having monthly money dates
- Sending the kids away or wait until they’re in bed
- Have some good food and drinks
- Lay out the budget for the month and discuss goals
- Come at it from what you both what, not as individuals
- Talk to each other, but don’t make it so business oriented
- Don’t put managing all of your finances on one person in the relationship
- Doing regular check ins vs once a year because so much can change
- Establish who is better at grocery shopping and sticking to the list and the budget
- Setting a realistic limit for food budget
- If you like takeout, plan for it and put it in your budget
- Tackling debt
- Add up every single dollar you owe and then deciding how you want to pay it off
- Figuring out how much of an emergency fund you want
- 6-12 months is ideal
- 1 month of expenses is vital
- Make sure your 4 walls are covered: these are most important first
- Home/shelter
- Food
- Transportation
- Clothing
- Preparing for maternity leave
- Not letting debt stop you from growing your family
- Focus on your debt and don’t worry about what other people are doing
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 20% off with the code IHEARTCL on Amazon.com. Offer valid until 6/30/2021, valid in the U.S. only.
*Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Mary Beth Ferrante is the mom of 2 and founder of WRK/360. Her company positions organizations to break the work culture cycle that perpetuates burnout and caregiver stigma, costing organizations millions of dollars in turnover, lost productivity, and unused benefits.
What we talked about
- Figuring out how to grow your family and your career at the same time
- The mass exodus of women in the workforce due to COVID
- Asking for flexibility
- Is it just you asking your manager, or is it a bigger conversation about the policies themselves
- Position it as a trial run
- When you make it temporary, it doesn’t make it as hard for them to say yes
- If it is a trial run, check in along the way so you can adapt and create something that works for you both
- If your employer/manager says no to a trial, it’s a red flag
- For people who work in fields that don’t have the option to be remote, etc.:
- Letting people swap hours if possible, or work with your scheduler to make sure your hours work for you
- How can you have a policy with some flexibility within it
- Ask the employees for the ideas that they have and want, and co-create policies that work for both
- There are systemic issues with flexibility
- The idea that men play a role in care and parenting and being allies of women in the workplace - that wasn’t the case as much 10 years ago
- We all play a role in evolving
- Glorifying long hours and always "being on," and how we can change that
- If you’re in a position of leadership, you need to model the behavior for employees
- Looking for a job that has flexibility
- Glassdoor - research a company
- Look on LinkedIn - check the profiles, see if you have any connections so you can reach out and ask about dynamic/culture
- Look at their benefits, what they're saying on their website, and ask about that in the interview
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 20% off with the code IHEARTCL on Amazon.com. Offer valid until 6/30/2021, valid in the U.S. only.
*Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Kim McLeod lives outside of Toronto with her husband and 2 kids. She runs the website, The Best Ideas for Kids. She has a book called, Fun and Easy Crafting with Recycled Materials, and she recently released activity kits for sale at Michaels.
What we talked about
- Having a traumatic birth and postpartum recovery
- Took over a year before she felt normal again and could even start thinking about a 2nd child
- Mourning the stages as kids grow up, but being excited for what's to come
- Deciding 2 kids was it after realizing her body couldn’t do anymore, but always still feeling like she would love one more baby
- Setting up a blog to share her parenting experiences when her son was 5 months
- Getting into Pinterest and creating and sharing her own crafts, and having some go viral
- After her 2nd, wondering if she could make her site be a full-time job
- Didn’t sleep for the first couple years of starting the blog
- Being approached by a publisher to come up with book ideas
- Deciding to do a book on recycled crafts and writing it in 6 months
- Being approached to develop a line for Michaels
- Going through her website to find the most tried and true crafts to develop a kit that parents can just pick up and go
- Excited about the kits because the value is incredible
- Getting your kids involved in the set-up of the craft so it extends their participation, but also gets them excited about doing it
- Her fluffy slime recipe being the most popular on her site
- Vinegar getting slime out of everything - it dissolves it!
- Starting a journey focusing more on herself and her well-being
- Increasing her exercise
- Focusing on what she’s eating
- Having her mental health be positively affected by working out more
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this depisode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 10% off with the code CHILDLIFE10 at iHerb.com**. ChildLife Essentials can also be found at Whole Foods & Amazon.
Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.*
Follow Kim on Instagram or her website.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Lori Oberbroecklingis the mom of 4 kiddos, a corporate executive, and recently released a book - Secrets of Supermom.
What we talked about:
- Getting pregnant as quickly as they possibly could with the first 3
- Her husband wanting 3 kids and her wanting 4 - agreed on 3, but he was in charge of birth control and the 4th happened
- A traumatic 1st pregnant with an ectopic pregnancy and losing a tube
- Being on a business trip when it happened and struggling with having to tell her co-workers she was pregnant and having a miscarriage
- Normalizing telling people that you’re pregnant before 12 weeks so you don’t have to go through things alone
- Having other people share their miscarriage stories and feeling comforted by their support and stories
- Going off of birth control after her third, and telling her husband he was in charge on protection - he did a good job for a couple years and then she got pregnant with their 4th
- Working at a residential substance abuse program for moms and moms-to-be after she graduated
- Always wanting to write a book, but wasn’t sure what she would write about
- Interviewing over 200 moms and hearing about what they were struggling with, and where they were thriving
- Goal was to write the book in 30 days and it took her 34
- Wanted to structure it to be incredibly easy to read - fast, easy, and takeaways that are really going to help
- Hearing from many moms that they didn’t feel like a “supermom” because it was too much pressure
- Time and balance were the big struggles of motherhood that were identified
- Feeling like even if they’re getting things done, they don’t think they are doing it well or are balanced about it
- For her being a supermom means that you feel engaged and doing enough
- Instead of falling into the "comparison trap" with other moms, look at what they're doing that you want, & use this to help decide your goals
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 10% off with the code CHILDLIFE10 at iHerb.com**. ChildLife Essentials can also be found at Whole Foods & Amazon.
Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.*
Follow Lori on Instagram or her website.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Lis Thomas is an entrepreneur working in marketing and social media management. She is also the creator of the Entreprenista Mama blog, which shares raw, real and authentic stories, interviews and essays about motherhood, and working mothers
What we talked about
- Discovering that she enjoyed working for herself the most
- The challenges a baby brings to a marriage
- Waiting several years to have a baby after getting married
- Starting her social media business and having it explode quickly in 2013
- Becoming busier than she had been when working for a company because she could never punch out
- Having to own the good and the bad that happens when you own a company
- Companies now needing to have a background and a story
- Helping brands establish their personalities
- Seeing the "light bulb" moment when companies establish their identities
- Learning to make things work during the pandemic
- Relocating during COVID to get more space
- Appreciating the outdoors and having access to activities
- No system being in place for moms when they go back to work and how hard it is
- The rarity of working for companies that provide a great maternity leave
- The crazy places women have to pump
- COVID proving that workers can be productive at home and we can keep this going
- Having to learn flexibility as a mom
- The positive impact of care providers on kids
- Watching the impact of being home during COVID on her daughter and how hard it was to not be around other kids
- Loving being able to work for herself because she can have flexibility and choose her hours so she can be the one to pick her kids up
- The challenge of bringing in new business
- Choose a career where the things you hate are ones you can tolerate the most
- Having to remind ourselves that we do annoying things too and it’s not just our spouses annoying us
- Companies trying to do too much and spreading themselves too thin
- Do less well and you’ll succeed more
- Would love to see there be more equity for women in the workplace and respect/equity in the future for her kids
- Would love to see women helping and supporting each-other
- Getting in a workout to help her mental health
- Motherhood being the most challenging and rewarding thing she has ever done
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Elizabeth Presta is a birth doula and mom of a six-month old. Her favorite part of being a doula is partnering with women to make sure they feel validated and heard throughout their birthing experience. Elizabeth is passionate about women’s healthcare and is continually learning.
What we talked about
- Doulas increasing the rate of satisfaction with the birthing experience
- Helping educate women to feel informed and part of the process, so it doesn’t feel like something that happened to you, but something you were a part of
- Hearing story after story of women saying, “they didn’t believe me” as part of their birth story and wanting to be there to help them feel heard and empowered
- Death rates actually increased when midwifery became illegal in some places
- Statistics show when a doula is present you are more likely to have a positive birth experience
- Doulas help you create a birth plan/guide so you can learn about your options in labor/delivery - provide a lot of physical/emotional support
- You are the only person who lives in your body and knows when something isn’t right - you are the best person to ask questions and advocate for yourself
- Knowing when to switch doctors when you aren’t receiving appropriate care or having doctors who aren’t listening to you
- Working as a doula is emotionally and physically draining
- Being on call for 4-5 weeks for each patient
- Not being able to travel or have a drink when you’re on call
- Having a hard time connecting with her daughter especially since she was in the NICU
- She had fluid in her lungs and was in the NICU for a week
- Going home without the baby
- Taking 2 months to connect, but loving her
- Wanting to take some time to heal from that birth before having another
- Becoming confident and sure about herself and who she is
- Never experiencing anxiety attacks until becoming a parent
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 10% off with the code CHILDLIFE10 at iHerb.com**. ChildLife Essentials can also be found at Whole Foods & Amazon.
Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.*
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Lauren Bercuson is a mom of 2 boys who lives in Miami. She is a former lawyer who changed paths and started blogging on her site, Happily Ever Elephants about reading children’s books with intention. The blog led her to become a children’s librarian!
What we talked about
- Sometimes feeling so out of her element with 2 boys and wanting to talk about something girly on occasion
- Co-parenting and being very lucky that they do a good job together, get along really well - put kids first and maintain a healthy relationship
- Her youngest son being a stroke survivor
- Had a stroke at 10 days old
- Led to her changing her career
- Being a lawyer wasn’t fulfilling and when her little one was born she needed something to ground herself
- People always asked her for book recommendations for kids
- Starting a Facebook group because she was being asked the same questions, it grew incredibly quickly to include her Instagram and blog
- Felt like she was asking so much of her little one and wanted to push herself too
- Finally filling her passion and becoming a media specialist at her sons’ school
- If you are intentional about the books you select for your children, you can empower them with such great skills and enrich their lives
- Lists on her site include nearly every topic you can think of
- Include diverse authors and perspective
- Books are bridge builders
- Tweens are an underserved market
- Reading Daniel Steel books at that age because she was reading so much and at a high level
- Mirror books and window books
- Mirror: they see themselves and their reflections
- Window books: they get a peek into someone else’s life
- Finding yourself in a book can be a lifesaver, but it’s also so important to learn about different cultures and ideas
- Books highlight so well that we have differences, but also highlight our similarities as humans!
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 10% off with the code CHILDLIFE10 at iHerb.com**. ChildLife Essentials can also be found at Whole Foods & Amazon.
Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.*
Follow Lauren on Instagram or her website.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Dr. Cara Goodwin is a clinical psychologist and mother to 3 young children. She's the woman behind Parenting Translator, where she breaks down scientific research that is helpful to parents.
What we talked about
- Going into labor on her babymoon, having her baby a month early
- Becoming a stay-at-home mom, but missing an intellectual outlet
- Provided therapy and assessments for childhood anxiety and depression, children with autism and developmental disabilities
- Learning how to read research and talk to families about the findings
- Hot button topics: sleep training, breastfeeding, racial bias
- Biggest thing we can do is model for our children
- Colorblind approach doesn’t work - talk to them about differences
- Have cross-racial friendships
- Worrying about our kids social interaction in COVID
- Research shows over and over again that a loving relationship with at least 1 adult is what leads to flourishing as an adult
- Really hard time for teenagers
- Listen to their concerns and ask what is most upsetting instead of assuming we know
- Listen and validate instead of jumping in to problem solve
- Anxiety going back to school especially for young kids. Prepare and talk in excruciating detail about what to expect
- Start small - playdate with 1 other child outside and slowly build to school because it's going to be a shock to the system
- Increased separation anxiety/social anxiety in children
- Kids are resilient
- Signs a child might benefit from therapy:
- Irritability that's getting in the way of daily living-bathing or going to bed
- Changes in sleep/eating
- How they’re taking care of themselves: i.e. teenagers not showering
- Withdrawal, isolating and losing interest in things they usually enjoy
- Nightmares
- If you're in doubt, you can always seek out an evaluation for a professional opinion
- Screen time itself isn’t going to hurt your child, it’s the opportunities they would be missing because of doing screen time instead
- Children under 2 are unlikely to learn anything from TV
- Try to choose times that are predictable to them and quality programs
- Cell phones
- We were already at such a risk of having addiction to technology pre-pandemic and now even more so
- Model behavior: no phones while driving, at the dinner table, etc.
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Priya Amin is an entrepreneur living in Pittsburgh, PA and is a mom of 2 boys. She is the co-founder and CEO of Flexable, which focuses on the problem of backup childcare, and what you do when your child care falls through
What we talked about:
- The economic impact of childcare, and how COVID helped highlight the loss of productivity when there's a loss of childcare
- Starting her company 5 years ago, and it not being differentiated enough
- Pivoted to pop-up child care at work or events/conferences
- Doing really well and growing right when COVID hit. They had to shut down - she had to let go of all her caregivers, her co-founder left as well
- She started thinking of ways to pivot and saw a lot of research about virtual childcare being needed
- Within 8 weeks they had done research and launched virtual childcare
- Scheduling blocks of time with vetted childcare hosts
- Yoga, Claymation, magic tricks, story time, etc.
- Kids get to interact with the hosts, but also the other kids who are on
- Writing an article that went viral about how her son drawing a sad picture of her working
- We discussed talking to our employers about how they can support us so that we aren’t feeling so overworked
- Never not being a parent
- Her experience being a TedX speaker
- Mr. Rogers’ wife coming up to her after her talk, giving her a hug and saying how proud Mr. Rogers would be of her
- Providing child care for a hospital system in the women's behavioral health unit, allowing new moms to receive treatment for postpartum depression
- Not having family close by when she had her first son
- Had her second child at 33 and started her company weeks later
- Her kids getting older and taking on more responsibility
- They put their own clothes away
- Walking and meditating every morning, and starting to crochet
- Being surprised by the conversations she’s able to have with her kids and how much they understand
- How amazing it is that her kids are seeing someone in an elected office who has some of the same ethnic background
- The importance of seeing yourself represented in tv/movies/public office
- Tools to help advocate for child care at work that Flexable provides
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Katy Mallory lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband and 3 girls. She works full-time and also launched SlumberPod with her mom.
What we talked about:
- Using the pandemic to strengthen her cocktail crafts
- Juggling a bunch of balls-some rubber, some glass and deciding which to prioritize
- Meeting her husband online 15 years ago on Yahoo Personals
- Decided to start their family 3 years after getting married
- Had a miscarriage when they first got pregnant, were able to get pregnant again
- Started trying for their 2nd and 2 years in deciding to seek help
- With Clomid and IUI she got pregnant with twins
- Was a lot easier going from 1 to 3 vs 0 to 1
- Her mom spent almost her entire maternity leave with her- even took overnight shifts, and allowed her to get out of the house
- The struggle to take newborn twins on errands/mom groups because of the equipment/prep to get out of the house
- Her secondary infertility experience and struggling with no control
- Her career in internal communications
- Visiting her mom during Christmas 6 years ago and sharing a room with her daughter
- Her daughter slept great at home, but awful at Grandma's
- Went home a day early because they wanted sleep
- Couldn't find a solution online
- While on her maternity leave with her twins, her mom suggested that they try starting their business - took classes/started networking
- Took 2 years putting together what they were comfortable bringing to market
- Created a Kickstarter campaign in July 2018, which was incredibly successful
- Went on Shark Tank 7 months after starting sales
- Sharks were surprised by their revenue-didn’t expect them to have that yet
- SlumberPod is shaped like a bottomless tent that can go over a crib, pack-n-play or cot. Provides a nearly black out interior, folds small enough to fit in carry on- has a pouch for a monitor and mini-fan
- Everything takes longer and is more complicated than you expect when creating a product-everything is a learning experience
- Target now selling their product in stores!
- Working another full-time job the entire time
- Balancing work and children right now because they’re home all the time, and having them understand that she doesn’t always have time to entertain them
- Mommin’ listeners can use promo code: MOMMIN for $20 off your purchase of your own SlumberPod!
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Kelly Knight is an associate professor of Forensic Science at George Mason University. She's also in her 2nd year of her PhD program for Science Education Research. She has 2 boys and has been married to her husband for 11 years.
What we talked about
- Waiting a while before deciding to have kids-being married for 3 years prior
- After she had her 2nd she started to feel something weird in her stomach-assumed it was a result of C-section
- In 2019 she showed her husband and he told her she had to see a doctor
- The 1st doctor said it was a hernia, another said it was scar tissue from C-section
- She started to feel pain and had an MRI-received an email that the mass was worrisome for cancer
- One of the most traumatic moments of her life
- Biopsy discovered it was a type of rare soft tissue sarcoma and started treatment
- Was in her PhD class when the doctor told her treatment wasn’t working-the tumor had grown so she needed to start chemo
- Had surgery in September and tumor is gone-has to get checks every 6mo
- Has anxiety prior to every scan
- Has moments where she breaks down when reliving the trauma and worrying about the future
- Graduated with a degree in chemistry with a forensic science focus
- Got an internship at a DNA lab her senior year and realized how much she loved it
- She did not have the GPA to get her masters, but got in
- Her entire academic experience changed-went from being someone who was invisible and not seen as worthy by their professors, to going to grad school and having someone who believed in her, and didn’t use her GPA to judge her
- Graduated with almost a 4.0, presented her research nationally, and had multiple offers from crime labs
- The importance of having mentors
- What she’s looking for at work when she gets samples
- Vicarious trauma that forensic scientists can take on
- You’re dealing with people who are experiencing possibly the worst day of their lives and you need to treat that with care
- Her son writing a letter to the tooth fairy asking if he could keep the tooth to donate it to his mom so she could use it to teach her students
- Saving every bloody band-aid she has to test for DNA because buying biological samples is very expensive
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Gemma Hartley is a freelancer writer, wife and mom of 3 who lives in Reno, Nevada. She writes about emotional labor, and wants to create a world in which invisible labor is valued and supported by both partners and public policy alike.
What we talked about:
- Getting married at 20 and being together 16 years
- Having severe postpartum depression with her 1st child and thinking she couldn't do it again
- Didn’t get postpartum depression with her 2nd and realized she wanted a 3rd
- Her article, “Women Aren’t Nags - We’re Just Fed Up” in Harper's Bazaar
- Talked about her personal experience with emotional labor and wider cultural implications of doing all of the invisible work
- Never expecting it to go viral
- What emotional labor is: the intersection of the mental load and the unseen work, as well as emotion management
- Constantly having to ask, keep track, delegate and monitor to make sure things are getting done, and having to ask in the right way to keep people happy
- Having huge blow ups about something that seems trivial, but it’s because of built up frustration
- Couples using her book as a way to start conversations
- The entire process of signing a contract for the book happened within one month of the article coming out
- Part of the contract was that the had 6 months to write the book
- Her book deal coincided with her husband getting laid off
- She and her husband struggling with emotional labor while she was writing the book
- Criticism about her book and pushback because it's a marker of structural inequity
- It impacts women of color and women who are poor at such a severe level
- People who work in unappreciated jobs having no safety net
- Single moms being treated differently than single dads
- Men aren’t expected to have to take care of their children
- Needing to be intentional about our language
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 10% off with the code CHILDLIFE10 at iHerb.com**. ChildLife Essentials can also be found at Whole Foods & Amazon.
Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.*
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Brooke is the mom of a 2.5 year old boy, a wife and founder and creator of The Bloom Method.
What we talked about:
- Planning a huge move, but not knowing where
- Meeting her husband when she was young and taking a two-year break to make sure it was right
- Got pregnant quickly, but had a miscarriage
- Was able to conceive again almost 3 months after their loss
- Checking every time she went to the bathroom for blood because of that fear
- Knowing they only want 1 child
- Having a home birth
- Need to create a space for women to feel supported and not judged about the way they bring a child into the world
- Her work brings her such an incredible amount of joy
- Seeing family/friends having multiple pregnancies and not knowing what to do with their bodies during pregnancy/postpartum
- People were telling her that she should turn the program into group fitness so it would be more accessible and affordable. It took 1.5-2.5 years to develop
- Wanted pregnant and postpartum women to have tons of options available
- Her goal is that women only use the app for a short period of time, but it teaches them to cue your core and your pelvic floor so you’re ready to go back to mainstream fitness
- Doctors and care providers are wonderful, but they don’t have time to work through the postpartum fitness piece
- Working on partnerships to collaborate with medical care providers
- A mental component happens postpartum that makes you want to sweat and get back in shape
- Her husband, Pete, starting to work for the business
- Deciding if they wanted to get funding and investors and they decided to do it themselves
- The problem with people following influencers and not learning the proper exercise techniques
- Women show up to workouts with an ego they didn’t even realize they had - push themselves and avoid modifications
- The importance of being true to yourself
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 10% off with the code CHILDLIFE10 at iHerb.com**. ChildLife Essentials can also be found at Whole Foods & Amazon.
Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.*
Follow Brooke and The Bloom Method on Instagram or their website.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Sara is the CEO and co-founder of Winnie: a marketplace for childcare and early education that helps millions of parents find daycare and preschool for their kids.
What we talked about:
- Starting Winnie when her first daughter was a baby
- Was working in tech at the time she started Winnie
- Had her first daughter and realized how hard it was to find childcare and do all the things that working moms have to do
- Connected with a co-worker who had 2 children and they saw a gap and wanted to solve the problem
- Her co-founder is incredibly optimistic and they built on each other’s enthusiasm
- Got married in her 20s, which is considered very young on the West Coast
- Had her first daughter when she was 30, which was so much more intense than she expected
- Decided she would be one and done because having a child shifted everything in her universe
- Realized she wanted her daughter to have a sibling
- In between having her first and second child, her husband was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, which left him infertile
- They had done sperm banking prior to starting his treatment
- Did IVF for their second and third children
- She was months into starting Winnie when her husband was diagnosed with cancer
- Her co-founder stepped up, which was what led her to realize she could have more kids
- Wanting to build a culture at Winnie that wasn’t 24/7, and would allow people to step away as the demands of their family required
- She and her co-founder both have 3 kids and need flexibility - it comes from the top down and their employees see that they are able to prioritize family and work
- Flexibility is really helpful in attracting talent - a competitive advantage
- Big proponent of hiring returners who left the workforce to provide caregiving
- Her husband being a stay-at-home dad and being grateful that their kids are seeing that having a dad at home is possible, and women can be the breadwinners
- Winnie lists every licensed daycare in the US
- A lot of places weren’t discoverable online so parents were left feeling like there were only 2 daycares in their area that had waitlists
- Daycares during COVID have really needed Winnie’s help
- Parents realizing that childcare was more than just a way for them to work, it was impacting their children and how they’re being educated
- The best part of Winnie is knowing the impact they have on parents
- Potentially keeping someone in the workforce because they are able to find care
- In many cases the families that they’re impacting are low-income families finding programs
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 10% off with the code CHILDLIFE10 at iHerb.com**. ChildLife Essentials can also be found at Whole Foods & Amazon.
Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.*
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Alex lives in Minnesota with her husband, two boys, two cats and two dogs. She is a Registered Dietitian who help endurance athletes make the most of their training.
What we talked about:
- Meeting her husband when she was 14 years old
- Both showed horses growing up and met that way
- Telling her friends and family that she was going to marry him someday
- Always wanted to have kids
- Didn’t feel like they needed to wait long after getting married because they had been together so long
- Trying for kids didn’t go as planned
- After 10 months they started seeing an infertility specialist who couldn't find anything wrong
- Started doing IVF after about two years of trying
- Successful with the first round of IVF for their first child
- Telling her mom that she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to have kids
- Not going on birth control after her 1st because she didn’t think she could get pregnant
- 14 months after her 1st she realized she hadn’t gotten her period and found out she was pregnant
- Having a miscarriage at 9 weeks
- Getting pregnant 6 months later with their second child
- Having two frozen embryos and being unsure about what to do with them
- Having to fill out paperwork saying who would be in charge of the embryos if she and her husband were to die
- Being open about her IVF and miscarriage experience to hopefully help others
- Her parents talking about medical field at dinner table & wanting to work in the medical field herself, but she is terrible with blood and needles so needed an alternative route
- Her mom introduced to the dietetic field
- Such a diverse field and areas of expertise
- Started as a supermarket dietitian
- Needing a new challenge after 4 years
- Started her own business two years ago to help athletes with their nutrition
- Doing 20 triathlons since 2009
- Wanting to help other athletes fuel themselves correctly
- Knowing how much you have to rely on nutrition to achieve your goals especially with endurance events
- Wants to be able to make people feel that their training and performance was aided by nutrition
- Loving the athletic community and the support
- Wanting to do another Olympic distance triathlon, but not being in the right phase of life
- Currently offers 1-1 coaching, but wants to offer more group coaching
- Working with athletes on everyday eating and all throughout their training to adjust meals
- You have to train your gut and prepare your stomach to be able to take in all that hydration and nutrition while you’re exercising
- Watching the Great British Baking Show with her son
- Teaching her sons to cook and getting them involved in the kitchen
- Utilizing cooking tools that are hands off cooking
- Instant Pot
- Slow Cooker
- Sous Vide
- The importance of keeping your fridge well stocked with a variety of healthy options
- Pairing a carb and a protein for a snack
- Lowering the expectations for meals and keeping it simple
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Beth is an Army Veteran who lives in Rochester, MN with her 2 children and fiancé. She works full-time and also runs the company Busy Baby.
What we talked about:
- Running on mom adrenaline
- Knowing she didn’t want to go to college and joining the Army for 10 years
- It was amazing and hard
- Got out of the army and completed a bachelors and masters degree
- Got a cosmetology license before getting her bachelors for fun
- Had family in the military
- Her mom was upset about her joining
- Her brother joined later and they were both deployed at the same time
- Things were different when she was enlisted - it wasn’t ok for women to stand up for themselves
- Being stationed in Italy and a news anchor for the military network - American Forces Network
- Being live on radio when 9/11 happened
- Was deployed right away
- Had to wear sweatpants and sweatshirt so she didn’t show skin in 100 degree heat
- Meeting her fiancé at 39
- They’ve been engaged for 4 years - will eventually get married
- A 1-night stand turned into a great relationship
- Decided to move in together quickly and got pregnant unexpectedly
- Had talked about marriage/kids but were planning to wait
- Started trying for their second when their first was 3 months old
- Got pregnant 8 months later and miscarried
- Started doing fertility treatments
- Of note: you should talk to your medical provider about any medication use and dosing
- She got pregnant and at the first ultrasound they found out it was twins - 2 weeks later they found out they had only one heartbeat
- Starting Busy Baby
- It’s a place mat that suctions and has a tether system you can attach toys to
- Can also be used for playtime where it suctions to a wall - encourages child to stand and play with it
- Raising boys who know it’s ok to be emotional and be kind
Thank you to ChildLife Essentials for sponsoring this episode! ChildLife Essentials has been a trusted children supplements brand for over 20 years and they are offering 10% off with the code CHILDLIFE10 at iHerb.com**. ChildLife Essentials can also be found at Whole Foods & Amazon.
Talk to your healthcare provider about what supplements are right for your family.*
Follow Beth on Instagram or the Busy Baby website
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Chen and Lei are Canadian moms and hosts of the While They Nap podcast. They both have 2-year old children and are also working moms.
What we talked about
- Struggling with the transition of going back to work after maternity leave, during COVID, and changing your entire routine
- Lei learning how to teach her students virtually
- Her family being a nice break and a refreshing dose of reality during COVID, but also a source of stress
- Lei on not planning her pregnancy
- Her husband was working in another province soon after their wedding and his job situation got stressful so he moved home
- They moved into her mom’s house
- 3 days after he got back she got pregnant
- It couldn’t have been a worse time, but they got ready
- Chen and her husband had multiple conversations about kids as neither of them originally wanted them
- Feeling like she was missing something after she got engaged
- On a trip to Hawaii she brought it up again and he was on board
- She got pregnant as soon as they got home
- Having a freak-out moment before their wedding and her husband being the one to talk her down
- Having feelings of doubt and worry, but feeling grateful for them because they really thought through marriage/kids
- Chen and Lei getting introduced by a mutual friend who said they would get along really well
- Chen wanted to start the podcast and kept doing trials with other people, but it wasn’t the right fit
- After two “dates” with Lei she decided she wanted to ask her to do it and Lei said no
- Lei feeling lonely on maternity leave and decided one day to try it - feeling like it would be cathartic for them and help with the feelings of isolation
- Chen going through postpartum anxiety
- Feeling like she didn’t have an outlet with her friends who had older kids because they weren’t in it
- Felt like the podcast might give her an opportunity to release her feelings and not feel scared or ashamed
- Went through a dark time postpartum
- The Caribbean community not sharing a lot about mental health so feeling like nobody understood her
- Feeling like there weren’t voices of black women podcasters in Canada, and wanting to fill that void
- The importance of diversifying your world
- Maternity leave in Canada compared to the US
- Not losing yourself in motherhood and making time for yourself to be a better mother, wife, friend, etc.
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Emily Ironi is the founder of Dairy Fairy - a bra that allows you to both pump AND nurse. She lives in California with her 8 year old daughter, her boyfriend and his 14 year old daughter.
What we talked about:
- Having one child entering womanhood and one still pretty young. Not forcing a relationship on the kids/forcing them to be something they aren't
- Always knowing that she wanted to become a mother
- Getting divorced at 36
- "Started over" and dating, etc., and realizing when she was was 38 that her window of opportunity to have children was closing
- Freezing embryos and asking her ex-husband to be a sperm donor - he said yes, but asked to remain anonymous
- Froze embryos, but goal was still to find a partner and go the more traditional route
- At 40, her father passed away and she realized that she was "wasting time", and had the embryos transferred
- Her ex-husband realized anonymity wasn’t going to be possible and they came up with some guidelines when she got pregnant
- Telling her daughter from a young age about her biological father and how every family can look different
- Meeting someone when she was 4 months pregnant. He was there for the first 2.5 years of her daughter's life, and they still have an incredible bond
- Having a vision of how her family was going to look and not thinking about all of the challenges
- Wanted to pursue something that she knew she would forever love
- Got an entry-level job at a fashion company
- Learned a ton about the fashion industry and decided to start a company with a colleague
- Started a high end handbag company called Alexis Hudson
- Had the company for 7 years, but when the economy crashed in 2008 they struggled and closed in 2011
- The company closed down at the same time she had a newborn baby
- She hated her pumping bra and wanted something better
- Working on the design and starting a Kickstarter
- Incorporating femininity into their bras
- Saw how much self-confidence women lost postpartum
- Pumping isn’t something you do for fun, it’s something selfless you do for your baby, so why not improve the experience
- Being a single mom for many years
- Managing a newborn and a new business
- There were some hard and scary years
- Launching MILKFUL for the plus size community
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What we talked about
- Always knowing that she wanted a big family
- Working a ton when they had 3 kids and her husband feeling like they shouldn't have more
- Feeling like there was someone missing-telling him if they didn’t have a 4th she would be resentful for the rest of her life
- Her 4th was more challenging than her other children-more crying, colic, etc.
- Getting laid off on maternity leave and planning to take some time and enjoy being with the kids
- Her husband also got laid off the night before their 4th was born-it was a pit in their life and marriage
- Her son wasn't sleeping and she was buying every sleep sack on the market
- One night they were all laying together and she put their weighted blanket on him and he fell asleep
- She searched immediately for a wearable weighted blanket and found nothing
- She is strict on AAP sleep recommendations and knew it had to be wearable so she called her mother-in-law to sew a mock-up
- The first night wearing it, her son slept 12 hours
- Her husband thought it was a fluke, but he kept sleeping through the night and finally started napping
- She told her friends and they all started asking for one
- She felt like this product was a chance to help other parents like herself get their lives back
- The first thing she did was look for a patent
- Was shocked that she was able to file because she assumed someone would have worked on that product
- She started research into safety and did that for almost a year
- Her husband wanted her to go back to work so they could have health insurance vs starting the company
- Using the money from her maternity leave to fund the first weighted sack without telling her husband
- Her husband got on board once she was accepted onto Shark Tank
- Being profitable their second month
- Her experience on Shark Tank
- Getting a call with the executive producer with one days notice
- Him being very interested in the product, but not thinking she was far enough along
- Her continuing to send video messages with updates-hearing she was the most persistent contestant they've ever had on the show
- Having Lori Greiner, her dream shark, invest in her product
- Her episode going live on a Friday night during the pandemic when everyone was home
- Launching the weighted blanket
- Needing to move her body everyday for 30 minutes
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on Amazon Music, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Lisa Druxman is the mom of 2 and the founding mom of FIT4MOM - a fitness program for moms at every stage of motherhood.
What we talked about:
- Being the manager of a large health club while she was pregnant - working 60-80 hour work weeks and being devastated at the thought of someone else watching her baby
- Her maternity leave being really precious to her so she came up with a workout that the baby could be a part of, and found other moms who wanted that too, which is how Stroller Strides came to be
- How her business evolved and developed over time
- Being able to share her experience - a career that supports motherhood- with women all over the country
- Nobody has everything figured out before they jump in, and just having to do it
- Failure was not an option
- Looking for help at every step
- Investing a lot in coaching and peer groups
- Having a background in psychology
- Thought she would get into counseling for fitness/eating
- Fell into a management job and never thought she would be a business owner
- Hearing from clients about how life changing the program has been and the confidence it has provided them
- Having to completely pivot their classes due to COVID
- Offering virtual classes
- Offering FIT4MOM on demand
- Trying to find what works for people in this new world
- Believing that healthy moms will raise healthy kids
- 2020 was supposed to be her highest travel year yet
- The biggest challenge of balancing work and motherhood
- Starting the business in order to be home with her kids and suddenly running a nationwide business
- Her book The Empowered Mama - which is meant to be a workbook that you take a month at a time to work on and check in on how you’re doing on your life
- A chance to check in on where you’re off balance and where you want to redesign your life to finally get you out of overwhelm
- Prioritizing what is most important to you first and ensuring you get that done, rather than prioritizing social media or tv, etc.
- Getting up early to get time for yourself
- Small steps will make massive change
- Parenting advice for people with little kids: don’t give in because you’re training them that they will win. Just stick with it. Let them be who they’re going to be and have fun along the way.
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Alaina Moulton is the founder & CEO of The Baby's Brew - the world's first battery powered, portable bottle warmer. She is the mother of a two-year old daughter and a military spouse - her husband is in the Navy.
What we talk about:
- Switching to The Baby’s Brew full-time
- Her husband being in the military for 16 years and planning on retiring at 20 years
- Adjusting to her husband deploying
- Getting pregnant the day he got home from a deployment
- The struggles of having a spouse gone, but also enjoying the support that comes with the military lifestyle
- Enjoying the military because they get to move and live in new places
- Always wanting to have kids and thinking she would have a big family
- Rethinking having a big family after having one
- Having a miscarriage
- A rough pregnancy
- Placenta abruption, placenta previa, sensory migraines, bed rest, etc.
- Loving the idea of adoption
- Always working for a start-up, but never wanting to start one
- Her previous company helping mold her into the leader she wanted to be
- How The Baby’s Brew started
- The idea came to her while she was on bed rest
- She knew that they would be flying when the baby was young since they lived away from family and wanted to have a convenient way to heat a bottle
- She miscarried and scrapped looking the plans until she was pregnant again
- Started looking into how the product would be made
- Taking courses online on how to build products
- Finding a manufacturer who was willing to try making the product
- Being broke between coming up with the idea for Baby's Brew and launching
- Doing a kickstarter and it not doing as well as she thought
- Getting enough to make their order for the first 500 and selling out within 3 weeks
- Setting the groundwork ahead of launch which helped them do so well
- Providing classes and opportunities for her employees which has allowed them all to thrive and succeed as a company
- Always wanting to teach people from her experiences and being able to help others
- Hiring all military spouses or family members
- The military spouse community doesn’t often get a chance because people know they’re going to move and not be there long-term
- Having a sterilizer coming out early next year
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Susie Allison is a former teacher turned stay-at-home mom of 3 and the woman behind Busy Toddler! Her mission is to bring hands-on learning back to childhood, support others in their parenting journey, and help everyone make it to nap time.
What we talked about:
- Meeting her husband their first night of college and getting married a month after they graduated
- Wanting to start a family and walking a long road of infertility
- At that time people didn’t talk about infertility and it wasn’t a common thing to discuss on social media
- Took 4 years, almost 5 rounds of IVF, countless IUIs
- Walking into their last round of IVF knowing that they were going to close the chapter on biological kids if not successful
- Having success and ending up with their son Sam 9 months later
- Their 2nd was a complete medical miracle and a surprise pregnancy
- After their 2nd turned one, they decided to try again and she got pregnant again right away
- Knew that she wanted to stay home with her first child, Sam
- After having her second, Kate, she was in survival mode and missed spending time with her son
- Wanting to try to do an activity each day and not finding anything that was inexpensive and easy, which led to her creating activities of her own
- Seeing a hole on Instagram for parents looking for kids' activities
- The guilt our parenting generation has around not playing with our kids 24/7
- The more they can play independently, the better
- There are a lot of other ways to connect with your child
- Her success has been a gradual work-up, now her entire life is Busy Toddler
- Working between 40-60 hours because it doesn’t stop on the weekends
- Sensory bins are ageless
- Kids learn about math, science, reasoning, cause and effect and life skills from sensory bins
- Teaches self-control, which studies have shown is a direct link to success for kids later in life
- No dumping, no throwing, no eating and you take it away when they break those rules
- Not having room in their house for having a ton of craft supplies
- Live within your means and be happy with what you have
- The process of writing her book
- A real life, moderate approach to parenting
- Wanting to put together a book that combines parenting and activities
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Lauren Stuart is a mom of twins who lives in CA with her husband and kiddos. She had a challenging pregnancy and NICU journey after her twins were born at 32 weeks. Her husband came to her with the idea for the bökee after being frustrated by how challenging it was to prep a baby bottle one handed and knew there had to be a fix. Their invention provides parents with an easy solution to allow for one handed bottle prep.
What we talked about:
- Knowing that there was history in her family with struggling to get pregnant and deciding to start trying after a year of marriage
- Reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility to learn more about her cycle
- Getting pregnant nine months after going off of birth control
- Thinking something is wrong with you as a woman when you don’t understand your cycles and what different types of discharge means
- Being shocked when she found out that she was having twins
- Feeling in her gut that it was twins, but not telling her husband
- Feeling panicked when she found out
- Her son having intrauterine growth restriction
- Being put on limited bed rest
- Her daughter growing normally
- Getting diagnosed with Cholestasis
- Getting to 32 weeks before she delivered
- Having a c-section
- Not being able to hold the babies or see them after they were born
- Being scared to see her babies once she could because of how small they were
- Pumping around the clock trying to get her milk to come in, but missing a step because she couldn’t do any skin-to-skin
- Her NICU nurse pushing her to hold her babies for the first time
- It taking a while for her to feel like those were her children and she was their mother
- Being so grateful for the NICU experience because now she celebrates every accomplishment/milestone for her children
- Her daughter coming home 3 weeks before her son
- Her son having some complications over the past year and finding a group where she can connect and talk to about it
- Where the idea of the bökee came from
- The bökee allows you to get a bottle ready with one hand so you don’t have to put baby down, but can still get the top on without losing your precious milk
- How cool it is to see people share other uses of the bökee such as the amputee community
- How the bökee brought her back to the work force
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Kate Torgersen is the founder and CEO of Milk Stork. She lives in Northern California with her husband and 3 kids.
- Her kids being at ages where she doesn’t have to oversee everything they do
- Not originally wanting to have kids, but changing her mind at 29 and getting her husband on board
- Getting pregnant on their first round of IVF the first time
- Her second IVF journey
- This round was much harder
- Realizing they needed to get a new car and save for three college tuitions all at once after finding out they were having twins
- Breastfeeding her twins for 18 months because she went that long with her first
- Breastfeeding her first child was easy and great
- Her twins were challenging - tongue ties, struggle with weight gain, etc.
- Her first 4-day business trip when she was still nursing
- Having to pump a half gallon for each day she was going to be gone on top of having to pump while on her trip and figuring out how to bring it home
- Going through TSA with jugs of breastmilk, having to get more ice from the bartender
- Being frustrated on the way home and calling her dad to tell him about the idea behind Milk Stork
- Working full-time, having three kids and breastfeeding and starting Milk Stork at the same time
- Calling her dad because she knew he could help her figure it out
- Having to advocate for yourself at every step of the breastfeeding journey when you’re a mom
- Milk Stork evolving to help surrogates provide the milk to the baby and also helping people transport their milk when they move
- The lack of education and awareness around breastfeeding
- Not bringing employees on for the first three years
- As a company, they were getting comfortable with their success, but having to pivot for 2020
- They’ve started partnering with smaller companies in childcare, telehealth, lactation, etc.
- Having researchers come to them who are doing studies on COVID and breastmilk
- 2020 has forced her to feel her feelings
- Not working at night anymore and prioritizing sleep and rest and NOT feeling guilty for it
- Wanting her kids to feel safe, but to not lose a global perspective. And to be able to look at other people’s perspectives.
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Sarah Canney lives in New Hampshire with her husband and 3 kids. She is the founder and host of a women’s running retreat called Rise. Run. Retreat.
What we talked about
- What the retreats entail and how creating the retreats stemmed from running a retreat with a women’s relay that left her feeling inspired, encouraged and gave her a confidence boost
- After the experience, she had the idea of wanting to do that again and take the magic of that weekend to recreate it for other women
- The retreat is a lot less about running and how fast and far you go, but rather how it fits in your life and teaches you that you are strong and helps you gain confidence
- Retreats are a 4-day experience for 15 people, in beautiful locations with delicious food
- Retreat is for all levels - you don’t have to be a certain speed. She encourages everyone to think of themselves as athletes
- Their first child was a bit of a surprise
- It was 2008 and their economy had just crashed, her husband was unemployed and they were upside down on their mortgage, but it turned out to be perfect timing
- Always knew they wanted three kids - the transition from 1-2 was difficult, but 2-3 was ok
- Having a lot of prenatal anxiety
- Having a pre-teen and navigating the talks of why they’re feeling sad
- The natural progression of starting the running retreats and how it came together between taking care of kids
- It’s been a compilation of little bits of time over the past 10 years
- Her family's decision to do homeschool
- Really focus on your kids feeling encouraged and if they’re feeling encouraged they will feel curious and confident
- Being diagnosed with anorexia at 18, but dieting and restrictions had been a part of her life for years
- At the end of that treatment, her struggle with bulimia started. From the outside she looked better physically, but on the inside the disorder had just morphed into something else
- Struggling with bulimia until she was 28
- Finding out that she was pregnant with her daughter was really the catalyst for her to change
- Finding inspiration in entrepreneurial moms who are kicking butt in their business
- Modern Family episodementioned in intro
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Lindsey Avery Fitzsimons is a PhD candidate in biomedical science studying the pathogenesis of congenital heart disease. She lives in Maine with her husband and 3-year old son.
What we talked about:
- What her journey has been like as she has worked to finalize her PhD
- Growing up with a non-traditional family as the oldest and always wanting kids
- Getting pregnant right away with her first child and taking for granted how easy it was
- Not enjoying being pregnant, but knowing that she wants to have another
- Struggling with the physical changes of being pregnant
- Having a miscarriage this August with twins at 11 weeks
- Having to have a D&C on her son’s birthday
- Going in for a routine ultrasound and not seeing heartbeats
- Feeling like something was wrong and that she had miscarried
- Not being able to have anyone with her during the procedure because of COVID
- Not feeling an emotionally supported during the process
- Not being sedated for the procedure and it being physically and emotionally traumatizing
- Having to have multiple follow-up procedures as a result of her D&C
- Being surprised by how much she’s able to juggle as a mom
- Focusing on surviving, not thriving
- Her academic background
- Having a background in exercise physiology
- Using exercise as a form of medicine
- Enjoyed being in the clinical environment, but it was mundane and patients often weren’t interested in making lifestyle changes
- Found a PhD program for biokinesiology (study of human movement) at University of Southern California
- Struggling to find a good fit with a mentor
- Breaking down what it means to pursue a PhD program
- What the end goal is for once she graduates
- A combination of research and teaching would be her ideal
- The struggle of being a woman in science, especially those who choose to have children
- Having people she trusted and looked up to respond negatively to her having a child
Connect with Lindsey on her Instagram
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Shannon is the co-founder and owner of Sobriety Cards. She lives in Phoenix with her husband Michael and 5-year old daughter named Sloan as well as a pup named Charger. She and her husband founded Sobriety Cards because they couldn’t find cards to recognize sobriety anniversaries that sounded like the way they talked. They wanted cards that were honest, blunt and raw so they created their own.
What we talked about:
- Not knowing if kids were going to be in the picture for her
- Being focused on her career and being single up until 35
- Meeting her husband at 38 and discussing having kids
- Dr told her it would take 1-1 ½ years to get pregnant and she got pregnant the next month at 40
- Deciding while she was pregnant that they just wanted one child
- Being her daughter’s mom, teacher and playmate since she doesn’t have siblings
- Having to reexamine everything about herself after she became a mom because her career had meant so much to her
- The negative expectations that moms are supposed to be everything for everyone
- Her husband's recovery from alcohol addiction.
- She went to go find a card for him to celebrate one of his sober birthdays and couldn’t find anything
- Starting Sobriety Cards during the pandemic
- The increase in relapse and addiction as a result of COVID
- She and her husband came up with card ideas and launched in August
- Blown away by the positive reception that the cards received
- Having friends who reached out after they launched who thanked her and shared their stories, which she never knew
- Families are all going through the recovery process together
- Going through the process with her husband when he realized his drinking had become untenable while they had their 18-month old
- Starting therapy immediately after he started the journey
- Her husband worked on his addiction and healing while she worked on herself and they finally had tools to work through challenges
- Realizing that she can’t micromanage her husband's recovery and she can only focus on herself and taking care of herself
- Getting over the fear of saying the wrong thing vs not saying anything at all
- Using therapy, exercise, reading and meditation as self-care
- Being able to let go vs keeping her daughter in a bubble
Connect with Shannon on their site, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
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What we talked about:
- Having two very active boys who love to push their limits and explore
- Struggling to get pregnant
- Getting tested and hearing that they would never be able to get pregnant
- Doing IVF for their first child and having one additional embryo
- Getting surprise pregnant naturally when her first was 14 months
- Trying for a 3rd with their frozen embryo and it not working
- Creating a comprehensive resource about how to wean a toddler and discussing the emotional and hormonal effects on a mom
- Seeing pregnant women when you’re going through infertility and feeling depressed, but realizing that we never know someone else’s journey
- Feeling she wasn’t the only mom who struggled with getting their kids to eat enough
- Made really cute lunches for her kids and starting her Instagram page to help get information out
- Never intending Kids Eat in Color to support her family and never thought she would leave her full-time job that was flexible and family-friendly
- Working full-time until 9 months ago
- The amount of work and effort that had to be put in to maintain her job and her Kids Eat in Color work
- Things had to be imperfectly done in order to maintain everything
- Her website didn’t go live until last June and no products were created until last fall
- Working 7 days a week for six-months to make it happen
- Currently working on a low-income budget recipe resource
- One of the biggest concerns she hears is that someone's kid won’t try something new and you feel guilty as a parent
- The most effective way to combat this cycle is simply telling your kid that they don’t need to eat it, but they do need to sit at the table with the family
- The child needs to be in control of what they eat and what goes into their body
- Having formal, routine eating opportunities for children is key - the child needs to know that food is coming consistently, not in front of a screen or being distracted where they are focused on the food
- We need to focus on letting our kids learn and decide when their body is full
- She serves dessert with the meal so all the food is on the same playing field
- Reinforcing that they are the expert of their body
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Tiffany Fluellen lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and 2-year-old son. She is currently at-home due to COVID. Prior to that she was working in the non-profit industry. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2008. She had two miscarriages before she and her husband decided upon adoption and eventually adopted their 2-yr-old son when he was 4 days old.
What we talked about:
- Her newfound love for theCricut machineand tapping into her creative side
- Wanting to spend the first few years of their marriage getting to know one another/traveling before kids
- Not getting pregnant right away and finding out she had fibroids and that needed surgery to remove.
- After surgery she got pregnant and miscarried at six weeks.
- They waited a year to try again and she lost her second pregnancy much farther along than the first
- Giving names to the children she lost to help her grieve
- Pressing pause on starting a family to help clear their mind and deciding on a trip that they were going to adopt
- Finding an adoption agency, getting licensed, taking classes, doing home studies and everything that came with the process including a ton of paperwork
- Having a birth mother reach out two times and having them pull out and struggling with those feelings
- Talking to their son’s birth mom and waiting to hear from her about her decision - having her call and congratulate them on becoming parents, bringing their son home at 4 days old
- Being a stay-at-home mom for the first 1 ½ of her son’s life
- Envying her husband because he will be able to connect with their son in a way that she can’t because they were both adopted
- Hating that she won’t be able to protect her son from everything that could hurt him
- Getting diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2008
- Spent a week in the hospital getting various tests while they tried to determine what was wrong before she got her diagnosis
- Choosing to make the most of her life with what she has
- Partnered with the pharma company as a patient advocate
- Telling her husband she has MS early on and having him be respond by saying it doesn’t change how he feels about her
- Learning to accept not being able do everything
- Her all encompassing love for Target and wanting to get married there but her husband saying no
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Brittany Dixon is a mom of two girls - ages 9 & 6. She is a former health coach turned homeschooling, work-at-home mom. On her blog,A Healthy Slice of Life, she shares healthy eating tips, a view into what homeschool looks like for them and helpful resources and advice, their family travel adventures and everyday life.
What we talked about:
- Being a health coach, turned stay-at-home-mom
- The development of her blog from posting info for clients to a lifestyle blog
- Having a detailed record of her kids lives archived
- Asking her kids for permission to post things when it includes them
- Being surprised by how much she likes her kids- she knew how much she loved them, but as they got bigger she realized how much she loves spending so much time with them
- Being grateful that her kids are friends and what they do to foster that relationship
- Deciding to homeschool her kids and the benefits of spending more time with them and having the flexibility that it provides
- Taking homeschooling one year at a time and how she found her groove
- Importance of learning through play
- Piecing curriculums together for her kids and pulling from lots of different places and using what fits their learning styles the best
- Using programs from The Good and the Beautiful, Beautiful Feet
- Deciding to wait a bit to have kids so they could travel and then finding out she was pregnant right away
- Feeling like she could have had 400 kids, but knowing that two would allow them to travel and do more as a family
- State of the Family - a thorough review of finances and discussion of long-term goals
- Creating an online community where people can have open and honest discussions about finances through their State of the Family Facebook group
- How she gets her kids to eat a variety of foods and try new things
- Always making sure that there is something on their plate that they like especially if she’s trying out a new food
- Choosing your values and priorities when the kids are young so habits are created by the time they are older
Connect with Brittany: website, Instagram,FacebookandTwitter.
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Joelle Oliver, and Kristy Westrom are co-founders of 2 Of A Kind Earrings. In 2018, both of their sons were diagnosed with cancer. In September 2019, they made earrings to raise money in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and loved it so much they decided to make things official. They strongly believe in the importance of giving back. For each pair sold, a pair will be gifted to a caregiver of a child with cancer.
What we talked about:
- In May of 2018, Kristy’s son who was 5 was diagnosed with T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. She had noticed her son was bruising easily and her doctor ran some tests after noticing he was a bit pale
- Joelle’s family of six was living in Indonesia when her son developed a bump under his left eye and was diagnosed with Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma and decided to come back to the U.S.
- How Kristy was a huge support for Joelle after her son’s diagnosis because she had gone through it
- They put on a fundraiser in September of 2019 for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and selling earrings was a huge success
- This led them to start 2 Of A Kind
- Being so excited to give back to a community that has given them so much
- Partnering withMomcologyto get the earrings out to caregivers
- Kristy’s son is still in treatment - his treatment will be 3 ½ years long
- The first year was very intense - Liam was constantly in clinic or inpatient at the hospital. His immune system was often dangerously low, causing him to have to be medically isolated at home while missing school and not seeing family or friends. He lost weight, stopped growing, lost his hair twice, received countless chemo infusions, over 20 blood product transfusions, and had nearly 30 days of inpatient stays.
- Kristy and her family had to grieve relationships that were lost
- Finding their new normal
- Joelle’s son Patrick was treated with 3 different chemotherapies and 27 proton beam radiation treatments in a 6-month period. She is happy to report that Patrick has had no evidence of disease of cancer since his treatment ended a year and a half ago. Long term side effects will be part of his life from his treatment.
- Feeling guilt that their other children weren’t able to see them as much or receive as much attention
- After going through their experiences, they’ve realized looking at the big picture, some little things just don’t matter
Connect with 2 of a Kind:website, Facebookand Instagram.
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Nina is the co-founder and CEO of Baby Chick, a digital media brand and pregnancy to motherhood resource. She has a passion for serving others, especially women and babies. She is a doula, pregnancy planner, teaches childbirth education, and has over 10 years of experience in these roles, helping over 600 moms during pregnancy, labor, and postpartum.
Nina lives in Houston, Texas with her family. She is a wife, mom, and currently pregnant with her second child. What we talked about:
- Her passion for supporting moms and providing great information to moms during all of the stages of motherhood.
- Recognizing that as a mom, she will never be the carefree woman she was before, but she also couldn't imagine life without her child.
- The challenges of being a working mom - feeling like she is nowhere and everywhere at the same time, but also recognizing that by working, she is teaching her son lessons she otherwise wouldn't be.
- The evolution of Baby Chick:
- She wasn't sure what she wanted when she graduated from college and met with a life coach, which helped her realize her passion for women and babies.
- Started as a baby planner, and attended one of her client's birth, which helped her decide to become a doula, becoming certified through DONA
- Attended massage school
- Became a childbirth and newborn care educator
- Noticed how the focus is often on the birth plan, but not the postpartum plan
- Owned her own doula agency
- Co-founded Baby Chick with her husband in 2015 - started as a t-shirt store and blog, but transitioned to a digital media company in 2017
- Helping moms know they aren't alone
- Growing up with a twin brother, she was never alone, but also always had to share
- He was diagnosed with autism at 3 years old
- She felt like his protector and had to grow up faster, but also developed empathy and kindness
- Her advice to parents with a child with autism is to start therapy as a family and have special dates with other children - 1:1 time!
- Importance of being consistent with discipline and boundaries with child
Connect with Nina and Baby Chick: on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Chick Chat: The Baby Chick Podcast, and the Baby Chick website
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Background on Jasmyn: Jasmyn is a stay-at-home mom to a (almost) 2-year-old daughter and a newlywed! She has a passion for mental health and has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and addiction studies as well as a master’s degree in family therapy. She’s worked with many young kids, teenagers, and adults as they confronted issues head-on.
In the past few years she has experienced many highs from graduating with her Master’s along with the birth of her daughter, but has also had many lows consisting of panic attacks, depressive episodes that would last for days, and insecurity as a mother, partner, daughter and friend. Her goal through her blog is to share her journey through motherhood, mental health and how to stay motivated. She believes we are all much stronger together rather than trying to figure it out alone.
What we talked about:
- Being a newlywed and having to shift wedding plans because of COVID
- Graduating from her masters program around the same time that her daughter was due
- The scariness of transitioning to being a stay-at-home mom and worrying about money and logistics
- Discovering her passion for family therapy
- Being aware of how our family dynamic growing up affects our relationships for the rest of our lives
- Working with teens with addiction in therapy
- Getting down to the reasons why the kids she saw were using drugs and addressing the underlying issues
- Starting a blog to help her feel fulfilled and fuel her passion
- One of the most popular posts on her site -Taking Back Control with Positive Self Talk
- Writing down negative thoughts and will coming back to them later to re-write how she could say it or express it
- Her postpartum depression journey and the main symptom she experienced - anger, which isn’t as recognized
- Not seeing many other black stay-at-home moms in her life and
- Convincing people that their decision for her to stay home was the right one for them
- Utilizing Facebook groups to find support and how finding a black stay-at-home mom group to help her feel connected to others in her experience
- How self-care is for you so it has to be something that you like to do
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Jenna is the owner of Wink & Bundle, a pediatric sleep consulting company based in DC Metro Area. She is a certified infant and toddler sleep consultant, pediatric nurse, and mother of four who loves to help tired parents teach their children how to get great restorative sleep!
She LOVES sleep, and her goal is create a non judgemental, nurturing environment for families where they can gain encouragement and knowledge though her experience and nursing background.
What we talked about:
- Working at Children’s National Medical Center as a nurse and helping families in their worst days
- The grueling and lonely times of being a stay-at-home mom
- Feeling like she was missing something and wanting to help families in their time of need
- Expecting to be able to handle the exhaustion of a newborn easily because she did the crazy shift work of nursing, but it hit her hard
- Getting certified to be a sleep consultant and talking to parents when they are at their breaking points
- The plans she has for her business and expanding
- How people often ask her if she’s done having kids because she has four and two of each gender
- The anxiety of adding more kids to her family and the fear of not being able to love another kid as much
- The physical exhaustion of parenting and how she aches at the end of the day
- Coaching parents through sleep training and how rewarding it is
- Looking at the whole picture with her clients to narrow down what the issue is and helping them identify ways to change their routine to improve sleep
- What the process of working with a sleep consultant is like
- The motivation and accountability that comes with having a sleep coach
- The most classic sign that your child is overtired
- The importance of darkness in a room - between 4-6am is your lightest time of sleep for a child and if anything wakes them during that time - including light - it will shut off their melatonin
- What age should children be dropping their nap
- How kids need quiet time even if they aren’t napping anymore
- Things to look for in kids to see whether or not they are ready to drop a nap
- Her favorite piece of sleep advice
- How she makes everything work in her family with four kids
- The importance of alone time
- Wanting to be more spontaneous and present for her kids
- Setting lower expectations to achieve a happier life
- How the minivan has been the best thing that ever happened to her
Connect with Jenna on Instagram@winkandbundleor visither site.
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Cassie Cercy has four children ranging from one to eight. She has eight years of experience working as an athlete coach for pregnant and postpartum women. She holds a Pregnancy and Postpartum Athleticism Certificate, and is ACE Group Fitness Instructor certified. She is a military wife and is used to rolling with the punches! She is a former instructor and owner of Stroller Strong Moms Savannah - a workout program for pregnant and postpartum moms.
What we talked about:
- The hardest adjustment between which number of kids and the chaos of the first six months with four children
- An absolute horror story of moving with four kids, vomiting, a bloody nose a dog
- Having her husband deployed for their first year of marriage
- What it’s like being a military spouse and being a part of that community
- Living in nine duty stations total since getting married - her 8-year-old has lived in five different houses already.
- What it’s like living on post
- Dealing with the uncertainty of the military and not having control over so many parts of your life
- Being on the same team as your spouse
- Becoming a part of Stroller Strong Moms and how hard of a workout it was - becoming an instructor, then becoming a manager to eventually buying the business
- The biggest challenges that she sees with women in pregnancy and postpartum
- The mommy fitness culture and the unhealthy focus on body after baby
- Rehabbing your pelvic floor correctly and developing different strategies to protect your body during pregnancy
- The issues women face mentally when feeling like they need to get their body back quickly after having a baby
- How the focus on the women’s body is not healthy - we should be thinking about how the mom is doing mentally and physically rather than how she looks
- Currently taking a break from the business side of women’s health and wellness, but not taking a break from the research and learning side
- Dealing with remote learning for two school children and keeping her 3-year-old and 1-year-old occupied
- Listening to leadership and motivational books to fulfill herself
- How she focuses on doing more than nothing and gives herself a high five for what she IS able to accomplish
- Giving yourself grace in motherhood because we’re all just doing the best we can
- How she likes to build habits rather than have goals
- Goals can be daunting, but putting things into two minutes feels manageable - learned from the bookAtomic Habits
- How her kids all react differently to her husband returning from deployment
Connect with Cassie on Instagram!
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Tina Haupert is the owner of Carrots ‘N’ Cake as well as a Certified Nutrition Coach and Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P). She started the Carrots ‘N’ Cake blog in 2008 and has expanded her career over the years to become an online nutrition and fitness coach. She lives in the South Shore of Massachusetts with her husband, six-year-old son Quinn and their pug.
What we talked about:
- Transitioning the Carrots ‘N’ Cake blog from being her main profession to becoming a nutrition coach and functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner (FDN-P)
- How she loves being a FDN-P because she gets more information instead of guessing what the problem is and she is essentially a “body detective”
- How she uses a macro based approach to help her clients reach their body composition goals
- Taking the blog from a side job to becoming a coach, creating fitness programs and writing books
- Her recently published “Everything Macro” cookbook!
- How she and her husband knew that they wanted to wait to have kids for a while, but a combination of being really sick with an ulcerative colitis flare and her sister having a child pushed them to decide to want to have kids
- Thinking it was going to take a long time to get pregnant, but it happened very quickly
- Still questioning whether or not they will have another child
- Having all ulcerative colitis symptoms go away once she got pregnant and having a very healthy pregnancy, but the delivery of Quinn caused things to fall apart
- What it was like being sick for 3-5 months with a newborn and breastfeeding
- Her background getting diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and the journey she has taken with it from different treatments and holistic approaches to diet changes to her current treatment
- How her son knows that she can’t eat certain foods and gets IV treatments, but doesn’t fully understand how serious ulcerative colitis is
- Tips for getting kids engaged in fitness and healthy eating
- The power of getting a good night’s sleep
Connect with Tina onInstagram, hersiteor her Facebook page.Make sure to check out her new cookbook, The Everything Macro Diet Cookbook!
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Lindsey Hein lives in Indianapolis, IN with her husband and four boys. With four children eight and under, she has plenty of wisdom to share! She is the host of the I’ll Have Another podcast where she interviews motivating and inspiring runners. In addition to her own podcast, she founded SandyBoy Productions in 2019, which includes The Illuminate podcast and The Up and Running podcast. She is also a running coach and writes personalized training plans.
Prior to launching her podcast, she was a stay-at-home mom and has slowly added in more childcare as her podcast has grown. Lindsey tested positive for the BRCA Mutation when her son was one-year-old and had a preventative double mastectomy. She shares her experiences balancing work and motherhood and the importance of taking time for yourself.
What we talked about:
- Knowing that their family wasn’t complete after two children and how she always knew they might have four kids
- Feeling like she is in two different phases of parenting because she has two older children and two younger children
- How her house is always loud with four boys running around
- Feelings of guilt about having kids in daycare and not working full-time
- Her podcast I’ll Have Another and how the next step in the business was to start her production network, SandyBoy Productions
- The fine balance with social media and knowing what your mission is in your heart, but how people can’t always see what you’re trying to do online
- Her vision was always to have a couple days a week of child care and a couple days a week of work and how she is happier when she works
- Not reading parenting books for the first years of parenting, but starting to research positive parenting when her oldest got to 4
- The judgement of other parents and family members and how it is one of the hardest parts about parenting
- Getting tested for the BRCA gene mutation, finding out she was positive, and having a double mastectomy
- How she eases into her day by getting up early and sitting in bed, drinking coffee either reading or working and lighting a candle
- Not having mom guilt to take time for herself because she knows she’s happier and a nicer person when she takes time to do things for herself
- Dreaming of picking up and moving somewhere for a year
Connect with Lindsey on her podcast, Instagram or Twitter.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts or TuneIn!
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Background on Ali: Ali Feller is a runner, freelance writer and is the host of the awesome Ali on the Run podcast. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease when she was seven years old. She’s the mom of a 22-month-old named Annie and an adorable dog named Ellie. She spent more than 10 years living in NYC and most recently in Weehawken, NJ until they recently packed up and moved in with her parents in New Hampshire due to COVID.
What we talked about:
- What it’s been like staying with her parents for five months during the pandemic and how they made the choice to leave their apartment
- Worrying about child care during COVID and balancing work with taking care of their daughter
- Having the conversation to move out of their apartment and the emotions of leaving the home where they found out she was pregnant and brought their daughter home
- Dealing with not knowing what is next, not knowing where they are going and making the decision on where they want to settle down
- Getting diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at seven years old
- How Crohn’s disease manifests in her - from having to run to the bathroom, to fevers, fatigue, and joint pain, and the uncertainty of a Crohn’s flare
- What Crohn’s was like during her pregnancy and postpartum and the lack of information available about pregnancy and Crohn’s
- If her daughter knows whether or not she’s sick and how they normalize “poop talk”
- How she changed the narrative of having a chronic illness and how she wants her daughter to see her thriving in spite of having an illness
- How many children she and her husband want to have and wanting her daughter to have a sibling, but not feeling ready for another
- Why she won’t let fear of a flare stop her from doing something in life - with the exception of marathon training and eating jicama
- How Beyonce is (kind of) responsible for the worst flare of her life that lasted two years
- Her transition to becoming a full-time podcast host. How she worked toward her dream job in college and earned it, but the environment wasn’t healthy for her, built a freelance writing career and the evolutions of her career into her current favorite place
- How COVID has changed the professional goals she set for herself in 2020
- Wanting to set up a home that is their own and the excitement of her daughter having her own room
- The jogging stroller that she loves - Thule Urban Glider 2
- Why it is so important to trust your gut as a new mom and give yourself grace. Why she believes it’s doing all mothers a disservice when we aren’t open and honest about our struggles
- Her daughter’s aversion to her husband being shirtless
Connect with Ali on her podcast, Instagram or Twitter.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please rate the show, leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe oniTunes, Spotifyor Stitcher!
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Show Notes:
Background on Jessica: Jessica is a health communications specialist turned stay at home mom (during COVID!). She is currently living in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, and moved from a suburb of Washington, DC where she had lived for the last 10 years. She is married and has two young children – ages 4 and 1-year-old. She also has a dog, Nimmy. In this episode, we talk about her pregnancies, which certainly were not easy, adjusting to life with kids, including postpartum depression/anxiety, the decision to have children and how she decided to have a second child, and her daughter’s NICU stay. We also discuss living with her parents during COVID and tips to keep her preschooler entertained!
What we talked about:
- How her and her husband decided they were ready for kids and how many they both wanted
- Hyperemesis Gravidarum during her first pregnancy
- Itchy hands and feet during pregnancy and how she was diagnosed with cholestasis
- What cholestasis meant for her baby and pregnancy, including twice weekly stress tests, and being induced at 37 weeks. She discovered that 60-90% of people who are diagnosed with cholestasis will experience it with subsequent pregnancies (which she did).
- She recommended a Cholestasis Facebook Group for support!
- She recommended notifying your OB or midwife if you have itching during pregnancy
- Discomfort during her pregnancy: nausea and vomiting, carpal tunnel, cholestasis causing itching and right upper quadrant pain
- Being induced at 37 weeks and early difficulties with breastfeeding related to this
- 5 day NICU stay for jaundice with her first baby – after originally going home from the hospital. This made her feel like she had “failed” her daughter and increased her worry about her son’s jaundice (which was fine!).
- The impact of having a baby on her marriage/adjusting to life with a child!
- Experience with postpartum depression and anxiety
- Chemical pregnancies
- Relocating during a pandemic and living with her parents again!
- How having a routine helps her and her kids.
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Background on Jen: Jen is a new mom and a brilliant communications professional living in Washington, DC. She and her husband welcomed a beautiful baby boy named Tristan on July 1st. Dealing with a delivery during a pandemic was the furthest thing from Jen’s mind when they found out they were expecting, but she managed to find the silver lining and stay positive through it all.
What we talked about:
- How she knew she wanted kids and how many children she and her husband want
- How she found out she was pregnant
- Being pregnant during COVID-19 and what it was like having check-ups at an active testing site
- Not being allowed to have her husband at her check-ups
- Getting a COVID-19 test prior to delivery
- Dealing with all the “what if’s”: if her husband would be able to be at the birth, what if she tested positive and had to have her baby taken from her immediately after birth, etc.
- Wearing a mask during labor
- Needing an extended hospital stay
- Being told that she would have to leave her newborn at the hospital and not see him again until the was discharged due to COVID
- Newfound appreciation for nurses
- How visits from family and friends changed due to COVID
- Taking newborn photos with masks on
- The possibility that her son could celebrate his first birthday still in quarantine
- How being quarantined helped her slow down in pregnancy
- The silver linings that COVID brought with pregnancy and a newborn
- Having 20 people in the delivery room
- What she’s doing for self-care
- Advice for those who are pregnant and going to deliver during COVID
- What she’s looking forward to doing with her son in the future
Connect with Jen onTwitter.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe oniTunes, SpotifyorStitcher!
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Background on Megan: Megan is a pediatric nurse practitioner and lactation consultant, living in Minneapolis, MN. She lived in Washington, DC for several years and moved back to Minnesota to be close to family and friends. Megan is the mother of two wonderful children. While pregnant with her son, she discovered that her husband and she were both genetic carriers of Smith Lemli Opitz Syndrome (SLOS), a rare but devastating disease. After their son was born they grew their family through adoption, which opened her mind and heart to the many ways people grow their family. She is currently in the process of starting her own lactation business to help new moms on their breastfeeding journey.
What we talked about:
- How and when she and her husband decided they wanted to start having kids
- What it’s like being a pediatric nurse practitioner and having friends/family reaching out as a resource and how it impacts her when her own kids are sick
- Becoming a lactation consultant and the most common problems she sees in new moms with breastfeeding
- Her own experience breastfeeding her son and dealing with his food intolerances
- Taking the leap into starting her own lactation business
- Balancing starting her own business with being a stay-at-home mom
- How her and her husband decided on adoption to grow their family
- What it was like finding out that she and her husband were both carriers of a genetic disorder - Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome
- Their journey from IVF with PGD to adoption
- Benefits of open adoptions
- How she talked about adoption with her 2-year-old son while they were going through the adoption process
- Finding out that they had been matched with their daughter
- Meeting their daughter’s birth mom
- Living in another state until they were cleared to leave with no support system and a 2-year-old and newborn while her husband was still working
- Her relationship with her daughter’s birth parents
- The guilt that came with adoption
- Advice for those starting the adoption process
- Her go to for self-care both pre and post COVID
- Trying to be more positive during COVID and finding a routine, especially as they go into colder months
Connect with Megan at parklactation.com.
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Thanks so much for listening and for supporting our podcast! Please leave a review if you liked what you heard and make sure to subscribe on iTunes, SpotifyorStitcher!
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Welcome to the Mommin' Podcast! We are so excited to launch! Motherhood is wonderful, but let's be honest, it can be lonely (and that was BEFORE COVID!). We hope to create a community where moms can come to hear real life stories from other moms-- to laugh, cry, be inspired, and know that they are not alone in this journey. We can't wait to share these stories with you!