368. Settling your unsettled baby: How to read your child’s cues, build routines, and trust your instincts with pediatrician Dr. Golly

Dr. Golly (00:00):

Babies drink more than milk. They drink every emotion that you bring to them. And babies. Contrary to what most people think are outstanding communicators, they’re almost like animals. They can smell and sense all of your emotions. They can tell exactly when they’re being held, fed, looked after by someone who is confident, who is rested, who is assured, and they can also tell when they’re being looked after by someone who is doubting themselves or who is not, as you said, not enjoying this process and certainly not thriving. So when they’re drinking that milk, they’re drinking that emotion. And if you have a baby who’s unsettled, who’s trying to communicate with you, but you can’t communicate back, you can’t decipher their messages, you do doubt. And then you become the unsettled individual. And when you are unsettled, you can’t settle someone else.

Dr. Sarah (00:59):

Bringing home a newborn is exciting and also completely disorienting. Suddenly you’re trying to decode cries, manage sleep, balance, feeding, protect your own recovery, and sift through a million opinions about what you should be doing. It’s no wonder so many new parents feel overwhelmed and unsure of themselves. Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist and mom of two here on the securely attached podcast. I take my clinical experience, the latest research in brain science and child development, and the lessons I’ve learned in my own parenting and distill them into simple, actionable insights so you can tune out the noise and tune into your own authentic parenting voice with confidence and calm. And today I’m thrilled to be joined by pediatrician, bestselling author and global parenting educator, Dr. Daniel Golshevsky, better known as Dr. Golly. His book, your Baby Doesn’t Come With a Book is all about empowering parents during the newborn stage, not with rigid rules, but with tools that support your instincts and deepen your connection with your baby.

(02:03):

And Dr. Golly has generously offered securely attached listeners an exclusive 15% off all of his courses. So you can just use the code securelyattachedVIP15 at drgolly.com. I’ll put that in the show notes for you as well. But in our conversation we talk about how to truly understand your baby’s cues and why flexible routines can support both regulation and bonding. We also talk about how partners and non breastfeeding caregivers can play a powerful role and why trusting your instincts matters more than following any rigid script. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a clear sense of what actually matters in those early days and how to feel more grounded, confident, and connected as you step into life with a new baby.

(02:47):

Hello. Welcome, Dr. Golly. I’m so happy to see you and to invite you on the show you for coming.

Dr. Golly (03:00):

Oh, it’s a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Sarah (03:02):

Yes, and it’s so weird just talking before we hit record about the time zone difference because you are in Australia, where?

Dr. Golly (03:10):

In Melbourne, Australia. And so it’s just the beginning of our day and the end of your day. It always blows my mind that I difference.

Dr. Sarah (03:19):

I know. I’m like, what’s the lotto tickets I should buy? Because you’re in the future.

Dr. Golly (03:23):

You’ll never catch up.

Dr. Sarah (03:25):

I know. So, okay. You have such a fantastic platform and the way that you engage with parents is so just cheerful and delightful, but deeply grounding and affirming too. I am so happy that I found your work. If people are not familiar with work, your pediatrician, can you talk a little bit about your journey in this lane of working with parents and creating the kind of content and educational materials that you do for parents?

Dr. Golly (04:06):

Yeah, absolutely. My journey’s an unusual one. It’s not quite as straightforward as many medics out there, but I was actually, I fell in love with pediatrics at a very early stage throughout my medical training and was actually on a pathway to become a pediatric cardiologist. That was what I really, really loved. I was training at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, and then I had my first child and I don’t know if it was real pressure or perceived pressure, I dunno what it was, but I just assumed and thought that I had to be the perfect father. I had nieces, nephews, I was on my way to being a pediatrician. I was meant to know all of this stuff, and I was always working with babies and children. And then I had my first child and we welcomed into the world, the universe’s most unsettled baby in history, and now she’s almost 13.

(05:07):

I can now look back on that and say that this moment that I was so excited for and so ready for, and I had dreamed of when my first child would arrive, ended up being one of the saddest, most deflating and depressing periods of my entire life. And I couldn’t believe that that was possible. I didn’t understand why we saw pediatricians, general practitioners lactation. I mean, I could list the people we saw to try to settle this child and we couldn’t do it. And the long story short, it completely changed the entire trajectory of my life because I left cardiology and I did a deep, deep dive into this concept of the unsettled baby and this world of colic, which is now I look back and it was so poorly understood and so poorly treated and taught as well. When I think about the advice that I would give parents before I became a parent, it’s chalk and cheese with what I do now.

Dr. Sarah (06:20):

Yeah.

Dr. Golly (06:20):

So that is how I got to this place of specializing in unsettled babies. And I really love the fact that you can work with parents, you can settle a child, you can change not only that child, you can change the entire family. You can change the extended family. You have this really beautiful resonating positive effect on an entire family unit. And one comment, which interestingly enough I get relatively frequently from parents in this very room is because of what you did with our child, we decided to have another one. And I just think to myself, this has actually resulted in more humans being brought into the world. There is no bigger compliment. There is nothing that makes me happier than being able to have that effect. But I was faced with this quandary where I could reach one person at a time and equals one every single time.

(07:18):

And they refer to it sometimes as the doctor’s dilemma. You can’t spread that word. And that was very frustrating for me because people would reach out to me from the states or from the uk, wherever it may be, and I couldn’t see them. And that’s when I started, and this was only about four years ago when I started to develop a presence in social media. And then we expanded and built this online training platform, which is just my desire to reach as many people as possible, those who can’t see me or those just who don’t have the time. I wanted people to be able to access methods of understanding their babies, settling their babies, because this is just, this newborn period is too many people write it off as this awful period. You just have to get through and survive. And it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Dr. Sarah (08:13):

Yeah. Well, it’s such a formative time to your point. Obviously it’s formative for the child and their attachment relationships and their physiological development and all that stuff, but it’s a huge transitional and critical time for the parent.

Dr. Golly (08:31):

Absolutely. And it has far reaching consequences. We know when all of the evidence tells us that those with poor sleep, even in adulthood, you can track that back to unsettled behavior as a baby. So we are not just trying to reimagine that newborn period. We’re also trying to lay the foundations for an entire lifetime of good sleep. And I don’t need to tell you good sleep is connected with every health outcome you can imagine.

Dr. Sarah (09:01):

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I can’t help but think, and this is not even where I thought this conversation was going to go, but I cannot help but want to ask you a million questions about nervous system regulation. In those early years, parents and childs and all of the subsequent impacts it has on mental health, postpartum depression, the attachment relationship, and then also just physical and mental wellbeing in the whole family system. Because the story that you described when your daughter was born is one I know personally, I worked with so many families who have had a story in the beginning where something didn’t go exactly how they were expecting very early on, whether it was birth trauma or a really colicky infant where so either the parent couldn’t find that place of settle or the child couldn’t find that place of settle. And so because of that, there’s just no rest. There’s no moment of like, okay, I mean there is rest, but it’s hard to find and that where we’re both in sync with each other at the same time where it’s just a lot of, I don’t know, I’m not being articulate, but there’s a lot of stress in the whole family system.

Dr. Golly (10:31):

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (10:33):

It has cascading effects and I feel like it also really impact a parent’s confidence and their ability to find their rhythm with their kid and enjoy parenting.

Dr. Golly (10:44):

And what you are 100% right. And what I try to impress upon people is to understand this concept that babies drink more than milk. They drink every emotion that you bring to them, whether you are bringing it at a feeding time or a settling time or even a play time. So really, if you are as a parent, if you are anxious, if you are full of self-doubt, if you are depressed, if you are exhausted, you are bringing all of that to that feed. And babies contrary to what most people think are outstanding communicators, it’s almost like animals. They can smell and sense all of your emotions. We are the ones who tend to ruin communication by adding words to it. But they can tell exactly when they’re being held, fed, looked after by someone who is confident, who is rested, who is assured, and they can also tell when they’re being looked after by someone who is doubting themselves or who is not, as you said, not enjoying this process and certainly not thriving.

(11:49):

So when they’re drinking that milk, they’re drinking that emotion. And if you have a baby who’s unsettled, who’s trying to communicate with you, but you can’t communicate back, you can’t decipher their messages, you do doubt. And then you become the unsettled individual. And when you are unsettled, you can’t settle someone else and you talk. So I actually think you spoke beautifully about the nervous system because that is exactly what we are tapping into. And just to further that point, when you try to settle someone, it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to settle a two day old or you’re trying to settle a 42-year-old person, you employ the exact same techniques. And all of our settling techniques are all rooted deeply in this concept of returning someone to the feeling of being in the womb. Now, this is not some wishy-washy up in the clouds idea. There’s an enormous amount of science behind it, and I really want your audience to understand the most settled you can ever be in your entire life is when you’re in the womb.

Dr. Sarah (13:01):

Okay?

Dr. Golly (13:01):

You just think about it, everything is taken care of. You have no mortgage, got no bills to pay, you’ve got no stresses. You’ve got food on tap, you’re in a bar. It’s just the perfect environment.

(13:13):

Then you get born. Now we do to try to settle a baby. It’s about tapping into aspects of the feeling of being in the womb. So think about a swaddle, a tight swaddle that is the same as the lack of space or feeling like you’re being enveloped in that big hug of the womb white noise. That is something that is what you hear when you’re underwater, which is exactly where you are when you’re in the womb. When we pat babies that’s designed to remind them of their mother’s abdominal aorta tapping against the back of their spine for nine months, all of these strategies, rocking a baby, moving with them, it’s again reminding ’em of that movement. Now, if you had, I talked about a 42-year-old friend who was going through a panic attack or a big emotion. If you think about the strategy subconsciously you employ to calm them down in that moment, what do you do?

(14:10):

You run up to them and you give them a big hug and you pat their back and you rub. And in their ear you say, sh. So you’re actually employing the exact same settling techniques just modified for an adult, and they always work. So we are very, very much tapping into the neurology of a human to try to calm them down. And there is no question coming back to what I mentioned before about babies drinking more than milk. There is no question that if we can calm the parent, we can calm the child and then you feed off each other in a positive way as opposed to what we see all too often, which is a more negative cycle.

Dr. Sarah (14:51):

And it can get negative quick, and that can spiral.

Dr. Golly (14:55):

Yes.

Dr. Sarah (14:55):

Like you were saying, if you are panicking or doubting yourself or coming into every interaction with your child really stressed out, they’re going to feel that their amygdala, their threat detector is going to just sense that intense affect or flat affect the absence of affect if we’re really shut down, disconnected and it’s going to cue their own threat response. And just like our threat system is contagious, our threat cues are contagious. Our sort of cues of safety are contagious. And so we can’t control necessarily how our they’re feeling, if their threat system is going off, whatever else might’ve set that off. There was a loud noise, they got woken up abruptly or they’re feeling gassy or they just infinity reasons. We can’t always control that. But if we can understand how important our own self-regulation is as a tool, we can leverage that. But we have to do that. That’s like self-work first.

Dr. Golly (16:15):

It is. And it’s really hard because you are correct. We need to do that. But also the one universality of the newborn period is that you have no time. You can’t go and meditate for 20 minutes while your baby’s crying ready for a feed. It’s very, very challenging. And that’s why we talk about the importance of doing the work before the baby arrives, being prepared so many, we say we should raise our first child the way we raise our third. But of course, you can’t do that without the experience of number two and number three, but how different the experience is when you welcome your second child into this world. And why is that? Because you’ve got experience, you have confidence, you have, you remember certain aspects, and it’s not the first time you’ve handled a baby. So you are far more confident when you change them, when you bathe them, when you swallow them.

(17:08):

Everything is, and again, it just illustrates your point really beautifully that that confidence is something that comes from within. And what I really want to do is try to empower parents to have that confidence before their baby arrives. And it’s not something you have to, it’s not like fake it till you make it. You can genuinely empower a parent just by giving them information. So something as simple as a parent knowing what is normal and what is abnormal, what skin changes happen in a five day old so that when those changes arrive, you are not rushing to an emergency department worried your child has got some deadly disease. You just ignore it because you know that babies get skin changes on day five and oh yes, I’ve seen this in a book and I was expecting this. I’m okay, I’m confident I’m calm, and that’s really what I want to try and build up that confidence in parents.

Dr. Sarah (18:06):

And your book. So you wrote this book, your baby doesn’t come with a book and this is the book to solve that problem. But what I love about it is that it’s incredibly predigested. It’s so easy to read and it’s not shaming, it’s not overwhelming, it’s reassuring without being dismissive. I don’t know. It feels like a really good place to start and I dunno.

Dr. Golly (18:38):

I love it. I hope so. Thank you. I really hope so, because that was very much our intention from the very beginning is that when you are overwhelmed, I remember clearly when we were not sleeping at the one month mark, a very well-meaning cousin of mine delivered a box of baby books. And I’m thinking, that’s really lovely, but who on earth has got the headspace to read black and white text thousands of pages to try to decipher what is wrong with my child? Nevermind that the books didn’t answer the questions, but who’s got the headspace to do that? And so for us, we were, and possibly because of my own experience, I was very conscious that a book had to be very easily digestible. It had to be, my children were toddlers when I wrote this. I wanted picture storybook, like comic book, really easy, lots of pictures, something that you can quick reference, go back to. You can say, look, my child doesn’t have eczema. I’m going to skip that chapter and just move on. And we really wanted that something that you could almost finish in a night.

Dr. Sarah (19:43):

Yeah, and what I also really like about it is it doesn’t tell you everything you’re supposed, it’s not like a didactic book on this is the way you do it. It feels very much like an invitation to think critically about what is important and what do I let go of? And you’ll give them like, okay, this, pay attention to this, not so much. Let it go the rhythm instead of routine. I was like, oh, I love that you talk about that. Because as someone who’s a big, while, I am a very much a proponent of teaching parents about child development. And I think all of that is I really am always about what does the kid need? But I’m also about what does the parent need? And parental mental health is a big soapbox of mine. And I think giving parents a lot of rigid rules they have to follow often just results in them feeling guilty or ashamed if it’s not working. And so I like the way that you present things as like, this is a rough sketch. You need to figure out what works for you. It’s not one size fits all. And you encourage parents, which I think is also super gold star for mental health is like you need to practice the work of attuning to your kid a book. I could tell you what attunement is, and now go and watch your child tell you what they need and trust that.

Dr. Golly (21:11):

Exactly. Trust that. I was pressured for many years to write a book and I pushed back because of exactly what you said. There is no one size fits all. And I despise these programs and these practitioners out there that give you a routine and say, here, this is what your baby can do at six weeks. But they’re not giving you the tools to actually achieve that in reality. And then what I see in practice are people who come to me feeling like twice as much of a failure because my child is unsettled and I’m meant to be following this impossible to achieve routine, but I can’t do it, which means there must be something wrong with me as a parent. And then as you said, the baby’s drinking all of that, and then the entire thing falls apart, no surprise. Whereas this is teaching a man of fish, it’s upskilling that parent because that parent, if they have another child, they’re going to have a different child.

(22:05):

So a one size fits all is not even going to work within a family. And so as you said, it is about teaching the parents to really understand their children, to understand their cues, how to interpret them at the same time developing their confidence with something as straightforward as swaddling or as bathing and upskilling them about what as you said, what to worry about, what not to worry about. And as a side here is what a six week hold is capable of. If you want to achieve it, here’s how you can do it. If you don’t want to achieve it, you’re doing a brilliant job anyway.

Dr. Sarah (22:43):

Yes. So empowering. I think obviously this podcast is called securely attached because I think of a lot of this stuff through the lens of, well, how do we think about this through the impact it has on the attachment relationship? And we know so much that a parent’s, not only can I share my calm when I’m in my interactions with you, but can I delight in you? And when a parent is constantly referencing some set of rules in the back of their head, they’re not in the moment, but when we’re queuing into our child and saying like, Hmm, what are you showing me right now? I’m curious. And that parenting from that place of curiosity and trust, it really does allow us to kind of lay the environment for the development of more security in our relationship with our kid.

Dr. Golly (23:43):

And it’s so bi-directional as well. And one of the keys to having that secure attachment is having an emotionally available parent and one absolute necessity to being emotionally present and available is not being sleep deprived. So it is laying the foundation for an excellent, I mean such good foundations across the board, not only a good relationship from you to your child, your child to you, but also between siblings as well. Let’s not forget if we’re talking about a nuclear family, let’s not forget the marriage. People laugh in this room at me all the time and say, you are a marriage counselor. You saved our marriage, our relationship, et cetera. And part of that is because the stress of the newborn and raising children period is absolutely enormous on any young couple. But also because we really have to do away with these ancient approaches of the mom stays home to raise the kids and the dad has to sleep because the dad goes to work. It’s so old archaic, it’s so wrong. It very much, I could talk to this for hours, but it takes a village to raise a child, but we don’t live in villages anymore.

(24:59):

We live in silos. And so there are cultural shifts happening all the time, but there’s other areas that aren’t moving that need to as well. For example, we are educating women more than we ever have in the history of humanity. So we are educating women. We are expecting them to enter the workforce. We want them to have careers, but at the same time, we also want them to raise a family and do all of the newborn care. And so it’s give and take. And so part of my philosophy and what features heavily in the book is the role of fathers and the non breastfeeding parent in that scenario and just how much, they’re very much the secret weapon when it comes to settling a baby. And part of that is about the seismic shift we need to have in our society where parenting, especially in the newborn phase, is very, very much a shared role.

(25:59):

And we are seeing fantastic changes when it comes to corporations giving excellent maternity and paternity leave packages. I remember after my first was born, I was working in the public health system in Australia. I had two nights off, and then I was straight back to a night shift in an emergency department. I mean, it was comical. Thankfully, things have improved since then, but we have so much further to go. And even something as seemingly banal as putting the bassinet on the father’s side of the bed, people don’t think to do this. And then there’s the entire topic, which I would love to talk to about welcoming a second child into the home and role dad plays in that interaction. It’s very, very small things. They don’t seem big, but they make the world of difference.

Dr. Sarah (26:52):

Yeah, I mean, I think the micro attunement, the micro considerations, they’re the things that happen. We tend to get stuck on the big things like the birth plan and these sort of giant landmark moments in the process. But it’s the every single night, if the bassinets are on the dad’s side of the bed that has this sort of cumulative impact on their bonding, their connection does their role.

Dr. Golly (27:30):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (27:31):

And the dad’s confidence, I see this so much where I have a, usually it’s the mother. So I’ll have a mother who is very frustrated that she’s carrying the burden, the vast load of all the parenting, or she’s a highly preferred parent, and the kids will not let go of her. And we’ll talk a little bit about, well, what does your partner do? What can he do? What will the kids let him do? And what do you let him do? And the list is small, but there’s also, because to some degree, it’s because there’s anxiety in letting go of how things are done. And the kids have anxiety about allowing for something to feel different, and the parents quickly seize up and say like, oh, well, it’s not working because they’re not letting us do it that way. And it’s a little bit of untying that knot, but a lot of times it’s like in order for the partner to build the confidence to do the things, we have to let go of the control.

Dr. Golly (28:38):

Yeah, you’re absolutely right.

Dr. Sarah (28:40):

And I think starting from the beginning is a lot easier.

Dr. Golly (28:43):

It is, it is. You’re right. One of the biggest challenges that I face in practice is, as you said, wrestling control away from a mother. But I get it as well, because sometimes they might feel that dad just doesn’t do it well or doesn’t know what to do, or I can do it quicker. I completely understand. But you are correct a thousand times over, it starts at the very beginning. It starts before the baby arrives even. And let’s make no mistake, I’m not throwing dads under the bus here. We are the ones who benefit. It’s not just about, well, it is paramount that we are giving moms an opportunity to rest, recover, replenish from this ridiculous physical and emotional ordeal we call fertility journey, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding. Like there is subsequent marathons that women go through before a baby even arrives. So we definitely need to focus on their recovery.

(29:37):

But for dads, there are certain things that we are going to be better at, and I don’t want to open up a can of worms, but we swaddle tighter, and that’s better for babies. We don’t smell of breast milk. We can settle babies because they know that they’re not going to be fed. We talked about communication earlier. Dads hold a baby and they send a very clear message, you are not getting breastfed by me. And that baby will therefore not seek breastfeeding from the father. They’re more likely to settle, or you are more likely to interpret their cry and say, oh, you’re not hungry. You just have a diaper that needs changing. So you can see how we have far reaching positive consequences by involving dads more. And the funny thing, not funny, the magical thing is that talk about science. It has been studied ad nauseum that a baby is born, mother goes through significant amygdala growth, your emotion center in your brain, just it really, it swells.

(30:44):

And that is something that does not ever shrink again. And it’s a very, very beautiful and ingenious design arrangement where we become very protective of our offspring and that perpetuates the species. Very clever, well done. But what we’ve discovered is that when fathers are more hands-on and when they are more involved, you don’t need to birth a baby to have that amygdala response. RI scans will show you that dads who are as hands-on as moms have the same amygdala, or perhaps not the same degree, but they have amygdala growth. And so they can also tap into this phenomenal physical change that women go through. So it’s not only just benefiting moms and babies, it’s benefiting the dad as well. And then, sorry, you’ve got me on a topic. I can’t stop now.

Dr. Sarah (31:38):

Oh my God. Don’t stop. Keep going.

Dr. Golly (31:40):

You only have to look at the data that shows the positive effects lifelong on that child when dads are more involved because, and I do generalize here, but dads do tend to be more physical. They play more rough and tumble games, and that means that you’re going to further develop a child’s gross motor skills, their coordination, these things herald.

Dr. Sarah (32:06):

They’re social emotional development too.

Dr. Golly (32:07):

Absolutely. And then they’ve done studies on professional athletes in Sweden and looked at their upbringing and they’ve shown that these athletes had very, very involved, if not stay at home fathers. And that’s why they were always playing, always with the ball, always outside, always riding, always moving. And so they became really good at physical activity and it ended up being a career for them. That’s so interesting. The positivity. It’s endless.

Dr. Sarah (32:37):

And it probably definitely fosters, we know too more rough and tumble play with dads and children elicits more oxytocin release in both father and child, and that also helps with the bonding and the attachment relationship. One thing I always say to those moms that I’m sitting with, that I was talking about earlier, that are really stressed out because they’re doing everything but they don’t know how to give any of it away, is one fear they have is their relationship with their child looks a certain way and they don’t know if the relationship with the father will look that same way. And I’ll often say, it’s not supposed to. You don’t need to have the same parenting style, you don’t need to have the same attachment relationship. It looks different like an attachment relationship. The quality of that secure attachment, the quality of the relationship being secure or not, it’s unique to each individual relationship.

Dr. Golly (33:37):

Absolutely. Right. And your child needs different things at different times.

Dr. Sarah (33:41):

Yes. Yeah. What you were saying before I thought was so poignant that okay, yeah, dads actually create different cues, different associations, the way that they smell or don’t smell, the way they physically touch or hold or handle a child. We communicate in so many ways besides words. And so they’re developing a relationship through those felt experiences and those sensory experiences from birth. So the more they have of that, the more connection and access they have to that, the better, the deeper that relationship’s going to be. And it will look appropriately different than it does with mom. And that’s the beauty of human relationships.

Dr. Golly (34:28):

Exactly.

Dr. Sarah (34:34):

You are listening to a podcast called Securely Attached. So you probably already have a sense of just how powerful a secure attachment bond can be for a child’s mental wellbeing, from fostering stronger self-esteem and independence to building healthier relationships, better school and workplace functioning, and even lower rates of anxiety and depression. Secure attachment is linked to so many positive lifelong outcomes. But here’s the thing, parents don’t always realize. Creating a secure attachment bond isn’t about doing everything perfectly. It’s about understanding a few core principles and applying them in the natural everyday moments of parenting. And that’s exactly why I created my free guide, the Four Pillars of Fostering Secure Attachment. It distills decades of attachment research into four simple practical things you can focus on to feel more confident, more attuned, and less overwhelmed by all the noise out there. You can find the link to download the free guide right in the episode description or head to dr sarah brun.com/to get it sent straight to your inbox. That’s dr sarah bren.com/secure. Alright, let’s get back to the episode.

Dr. Golly (35:52):

So let’s talk about second child. Anyone who’s experienced this will attest. There is a very, very predictable behavior deterioration that occurs in the toddler when the newborn reaches about three months of age. And we know from studies that three months is roughly the period of time when a toddler enjoys playing with a toy and then they’re sick of it, they’re over it, they want to stick it in the cupboard and forget about it and move on to the next thing. Now, very difficult to stick a newborn into the cupboard and get rid of it, but that is why I see so often parents have come out of the newborn phase, their child is three months old now, and all of a sudden they’re dealing with massive tantrums and behavior deterioration in the toddler. Now that is entirely preventable, but as you said, you do it from the very, very beginning. And what is my approach to this? I call it cross parenting in an attempt to avoid cross parents. Okay.

(36:55):

Now, all too often what happens is if you have, let’s take for example, a setting of, again, a nuclear family where a mother is breastfeeding. And the very logical and very, very common assumption is that mom will take care of the newborn and dad will deal with a toddler, and you become single parents who happen to live together. And that’s the way it works because mommy’s breastfeeding that makes absolutely perfect sense and it is a recipe for disaster, and there is absolutely no reason it needs to be that way. And so what I try and get families to do is to completely swap those roles and crossover. So the only thing that mother does with the newborn is breastfeed. As soon as that breastfeed is done, dad swoops in and does the winding and does the diapers, and does the settling and does the walking and whatever needs to happen with the newborn is done with dad, which not only frees that mother up, as we talked about, to rest, recover, replenish from another journey through motherhood, but also it teaches the toddler, not only does it model fantastic parenting, but it also teaches the toddler and shows the toddler that mum is just as available physically and emotionally as she was before.

(38:18):

So if the toddler wants to go to the park with the mum, no problem. There’s none of this. I’m just feeding. I can’t do it now. I’ve got to be with the baby. You’re constantly referencing the baby as a reason why you can’t do something. And so that toddler feels this concept of theft. That baby stole my mom. That baby stole my mom’s breasts. That baby stole my cot where I used to sleep. That baby stole my pacifier. Everything is theft and how fantastic a relationship are you going to have with someone who rocks up into your life and steals everything that you hold dear? So it is so important to create that strong sibship and that sibling relationship from day one. And again, the father is the secret weapon.

Dr. Sarah (39:09):

Yeah, I really love that. I think I haven’t heard it described in that specific way of, it’s this very intentional cross tag teaming basically. But the idea of a child having this sense of territory protected is one of the most important things I think when you’re dealing with a big transition. So whether it’s we’re moving or there’s a new baby, or I’m starting kindergarten or whatever, these big really earth shattering environment, predictability, routine shattering transitions, understanding how to protect a child’s territory is so basic for them.

Dr. Golly (40:00):

Yeah, yeah. Really important. You don’t want to make any changes to that toddler’s world in the three months leading up to a newborn’s arrival or the three months following because we typically have our children two, three years apart. And so around that, think about what’s happening, as you said, earth shattering earthquake type changes in their world. I mean, they are transitioning to a big bed. They are toilet training and coming out of diapers and where does that co go and where do the diapers go? They go to the newborn. So we have to be very mindful of that.

Dr. Sarah (40:32):

Right. And again, it’s not all or nothing, which you are one of the best people to articulate that, but sometimes we move at the same time we had a baby because that’s just when the lease was up or whatever. But the thing is, if you understand the basic essence of, okay, my bigger kid needs to have some sense of their territory being protected, we can do that in lots of creative ways. We just have to know that it’s the most important thing how we do it could shift. And so maybe it’s, I don’t know, again, it’s like tuning into your kid, how is that getting activated for them? Where do you see them getting more rigid? Where do you see them kind of clamping down? How do we create more ownership, more control, more territory for them in that area? So if it’s mom, I’m losing mom, then your strategy of having mom be more available because the partner is taking over a lot of the tasks of caring for the newborn that allows mom not just to rest. So she’s available when she is available. So she’s present when she’s available and has energy when she’s available, but also actually minutes in the day is more available. Allowing that child to have protected time with mom is territory.

Dr. Golly (42:01):

Absolutely. And you said it beautifully. Sometimes things happen you can’t control. It might just be that the lease is up or you simply don’t fit in your two bedroom apartment. You need them, and that’s okay because if you are cognizant of these things and you are achieving them the majority of the time, your child has got far more capacity, far more tethered to be able to tolerate things that they don’t like or changes that they may not have anticipated or appreciate or want because they’ve got autonomy in other aspects of their life. And one more thing that I would strongly encourage parents to do when they’re welcoming a new baby to a toddler is to give that toddler a sense of ownership over that baby and the process of raising that baby. So when a baby’s diaper has to be changed, have a baby box for your toddler, which they have decorated and put stickers on and colors, and they’ve written the name nicely.

(43:04):

And in that box is a fresh change of clothes and diaper and wipes and anything you may need for the changing of a baby. And it’s not tokenistic, it’s genuinely used. You tell the toddler, go grab the baby box. I can’t do this without you. The toddler comes and you quite literally take things from that box. You utilize them and you’ve changed the baby. Now, not only can it actually be helpful for you, but what happens is that toddler feels like they are an indispensable part of the raising of this child. And when auntie whomever walks into the door, walks into your apartment and says, oh, that is the most gorgeous baby ever. You can do one of two things. What I see all too often is the parent who says, oh yeah, and isn’t Jack gorgeous as well? And look, Jack can smell that a mile away.

(43:59):

Just he doesn’t buy that for a second. What you can do is you can say, yeah, the baby is gorgeous. Jack helped me choose his onesie. Jack helped me change the nappy, the diaper. And what happens is when something is compliment, when something you own or feel ownership of is complimented, I don’t know why you’ll know this better than me, but we take it as a personal compliment. So for example, anyone who knows me knows that I like to wear loud shoes when someone walks into my room and compliments me on my shoes and says, oh, great kicks. I love them. I feel good about it. And the irony is that I didn’t design them, I didn’t, didn’t make them. All I did was click a button and they arrived at my house. I had nothing to do with these shoes. But someone has complimented them. And I take it as a personal compliment.

Dr. Sarah (44:58):

Right? It’s an extension of you.

Dr. Golly (45:00):

It’s an extension of you. And if you have the toddler heavily involved in that baby’s care every step of the way with bath time, with dressing, even holding hands in the car, wherever it may be, that sibling feels ownership over the newborn, and then they suck in all of the compliments which newborn babies are inevitably going to receive because they’re adorable. But you’re also setting, and as you may have gathered by now, I’m all about the present at the same time that you’re setting up for the future and you are setting the foundation for a sibling who wants to care for their younger brother or sister who wants to bring them up and help them and soothe them and clothe them and feed them and just be a part of it. So you’re raising a wonderful human at the same time as you are preventing their behavior deterioration at the three month market. It’s only positives that come out of this.

Dr. Sarah (45:56):

I love that. I am a very firm believer that the before is when all the best work happens in parenting before the meltdown, before the next meltdown. I feel like we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to have the right answer in the during or in the after, but before the next one happens is like the building up of the skills.

Dr. Golly (46:24):

But also also remember, and parents should never be worried that they’ve missed the boat or they’ve failed and they haven’t done it. Because the magnificent thing about pediatrics, and one thing that drew me to it in the first place is that kids change so fast, they’re so adaptable. And if you haven’t had your toddler involved in your newborn’s care from day one, and your newborn is three months old, don’t worry. Just start tomorrow. Your toddler will change. It’s brilliant.

Dr. Sarah (46:51):

Right? Because what you’re doing, I think, is you’re activating their care system instead of their rage system or their panic system.

Dr. Golly (47:01):

And their jealousy. That’s right. As you said before, their threat, their threat is dialed down because this is not a thief who has entered my house. This is something that it’s on me. It’s on me to raise this child. I’m part of this team. And how good do you feel when you’re part of a team and you have success as a team? It’s wonderful.

Dr. Sarah (47:22):

That belonging. There’s this field of neuropsychology called affective neurobiology, and the developer of this theory Yak Pans Gap, he talks about there’s these sort of seven core affective structures systems in the brain in all mammals, and two of them, there’s seven, but two of them are care and panic slash grief. And the panic grief system gets activated when we feel like we are going to lose connection to safety, to mom, to dad, to the family, and that’s going to activate a ton of threat and territorialness, right? Our care system, it gets activated when we are cared for and when we are invited to care for another. And so they’re sort of mutually exclusive systems. If you are activating the care system and it’s lighting up in your brain, you are not also feeling panic and grief. And so we’re sort of by activating one, we’re kind of plugging the other. Just maybe that’s what’s happening when we’re inviting these kids to be participants in the care for the sibling, is that it really dulls any sense of fear, of loss of that attachment person that’s also caring for that baby.

Dr. Golly (48:55):

Absolutely. It does.

Dr. Sarah (48:58):

Yeah. I love this. Oh man, I have so many questions for you. If you, first of all, where can people follow along in your work and get your book and just stay connected to all the great stuff that you are creating.

Dr. Golly (49:17):

So I put out as much information as I can through my social, so Dr. Golly, DRGO, double LY, follow along, send through questions if you have. As you can tell, it’s my greatest pleasure to talk through these things and help families. The book is focused on the first four weeks of life. My online programs go all the way through to five years, and it covers much more because sleep doesn’t exist in isolation. There is this undeniable connection between sleep and nutrition and behavior, and there are so many different aspects to it. And the online programs really, we have an opportunity to really branch out and cover so many more things. So I encourage your audience to go check them out, and we’ll give you a code for you to distribute as well, so everyone can enjoy a discount on that. That too, because I really want to spread this message.

Dr. Sarah (50:17):

Amazing. Well, I’ll link all of that in the show notes so that it’s easy to find too. And I saw you because when your book launched in the US you were in New York, and I was like, oh man, I missed you. Next time you’re in New York, you have to let me know.

Dr. Golly (50:35):

I would love to. It was a very all too brief visit, and it was quite wild running around between all the different famous sites and bookstores, and we had a wonderful installation in Times Square, which is really, really, it’s an odd feeling.

Dr. Sarah (50:54):

Yeah, you were on the billboard in Times Square.

Dr. Golly (50:57):

It’s very strange. And do you know what’s frustrating? I have to say, I got back to Australia and it was so surreal. It was so wonderful. And half the people who saw it came up to me and said, was that AI?

Dr. Sarah (51:13):

Oh, no, it’s stealing. The excitement of it, the real magic.

Dr. Golly (51:20):

It was not ai. It was up in lights, and it was wonderful and terrifying. And yeah, I love the states, and I really loved my time there. I loved the reception, and you know what I really loved? I love that. I find that you Americans are really astonishingly positive and encouraging, and it’s really, it sits well with my mentality and my approach. I’m not blindly positive. I really believe that people can enjoy this period, and people can thrive and people can say, I’m looking forward to this baby arriving. I’m looking forward to this newborn period. And the book has been received so well in the States, and I’m really, really proud, really happy and really grateful as well.

Dr. Sarah (52:13):

Yeah. Well, it’s a great resource for parents, and I hope this episode is as well, and I’m really grateful for you coming on.

Dr. Golly (52:22):

Oh, it’s such a pleasure.

Dr. Sarah (52:33):

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