Dr. Harvey Karp Answers Your Questions

first five years of life. It's such a weird title, Happiest Baby Guy, but it's really for the first five years. So sleep from from five yeah, yeah, wow, okay, um, Amazon, get ready for that purchase today. But just to start us off, and just so I understand, yes, I know it's a loss. Landel is filmed in that next room. Is that right? Is this this? This is the main studio.

This is also a studio a lot. Now, this is one in my house and this is one of the room I usually at about five pm in this playroom, Albie plays and I drink wine and then I invite over other mommies that have babies or kids of any age. And they literally tear the room apart while we doing wine. Mother's juice, Yeah, mother's juice exactly. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. So I'm a pediatrician, and that's what I do. I mean,

for decades, I was the neighborhood doctor. And what happened was I kind of observed some things that hadn't really been written about before. I'm always interested in problems that haven't been solved, and so I was interested. Babies cry, and you would be told, oh, babies just cry, there's nothing you can do about it, or sleep babies they don't sleep well in the beginning, and just suck it up and deal with it and sooner or later we'll get better or let them cry it out. And that

stuff never made sense to me. So um so long long time ago. I came to realize that people in other culture is much more successful at calming their babies. You go to some some you know areas in the world you never hear a crying baby, and and they're they're not like genetically different babies. I mean, it's the

parents doing different things. So that got me interested, and I started to study that and then I did it on thousands of babies to really perfect my techniques, and that's when I wrote the Happiest Baby on the Block video, And those five s is exactly right. The five s is are literally like the most famous thing of all time, like everyone knows, like in my group of friends, it's a lifesaver. Can you explain to people what the five

uses are for the fifty billion? Well? No, I mean I love it because it's just so empowering to parents. So five us so well. The first key concept is babies are not ready to be born after nine months. Horses are ready. Cows are ready. They can run. A horse doesn't get stuck by its head. It gets stuck by the body. And the body is as strong as it can be, so it can run that first day because otherwise it'll get eaten exactly exactly our babies, and

we survived because of our noodles. And so the brain is as big as it can be and still get out and it's a tight fit. I don't need to tell you that. So um, and what happens I kind of think of it like these James Bond movies. You know, James Bond is on the motorcycle and he's rushing out this underground parking lot and the metal door is coming down, and he's rushing in. The door is coming down. He's going to be locked in there. And at the last

second he puts the motorcycle down. No, he lies it on the ground and slides underneath just as this thing is closing. That's our baby's heads exactly so. And if you miss that opportunity, then that's why we do ces arean sections, and we're lucky we can do that because like my wife's grandmother died, I mean, that wasn't that uncommon. So because the head is so big and we get

out earlier than say other mammals do. We have this thing called fourth trymester exactly right now where the baby really should still sort of be mimicking the world in which it was in the womb, because it feels unsafe. It's such a huge transition, and this is why it's so tough for new parents because the next four months or five months, you are one big walking uterus. I mean inside you're holding your baby NonStop. You're rocking every time you breathe, and every time you walk, your baby

is being rocked and jiggled the sound is. Actually it is, except babies are underwater, so when you're underwater, you can't hear the high pitch. So it isn't that that they hear what they hear and your voice and other things like that, but it's because they're underwater. Wow, So then

it's so shocking for them to be out. I mean June Refuel, who is a wonderful actress and a dear front of mine, she was on Katie's Crib the first season and she said the first three months she calls the dark days of your But basically why is because it's it is you are essentially still providing a wound for your kid, but it's just now so full on because you have to consciously carry them around, consciously make those sounds, consciously make them feel safe close to you,

which is hard. But you're doing it fourteen hours a day and you used to do the twenty four hours a day. From the baby's point view, it's a rip off, right, It's like whoa Bayton switch? And from our point of view, it's like, are you kidding me? This is NonStop? But this is the big lie because today if you have a nanny or a night nursey. You know, you're pretty well off if you have two nanny's. I mean you're like really well off. Who the hell has that? But

like what no? Okay, so I mean you don't have that. However, up until a hundred years ago, everyone has five nanni's. Right, your grandma, you're yeah, your extra neighbor's older daughter. Can you held the baby for you? Okay? So, I mean the mother was babied as much as the baby was babied. In fact, in many cultures they have a hundred years, a hundred days ceremony where for the first hundred days you don't leave the house. You are taking care of.

You were bathed, you were fed, you were pampered first forty days. But I didn't know the first hundred days. Yeah, so many many Asian countries, guys, you hear it here on Katie's Crib. First, can we start a sucking movement called the first hundred days where the mom and the baby are just totally taken care of for a hundred days, Like, why can't that be happening? And you know, we just

came back from Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, all you Katie's Crib listeners and viewers, but there was a six week old baby there, and I think she had a wonderful weekend because every time the baby was like fussy or communicating, the baby got passed around to grandma too great grandma, to aunts, to uncles, two cousins, and so the baby was always like I was getting new someone who had energy when the mom is so tired, like I can't be holding the baby and I know the baby wants

to be held right now. No mother in history ever did that. And women, this is one of the things that so upsetting to me because women are told, hey, listen, you decide to have a baby, so this is your responsibility. Now it's your problem, and don't complain about it because you wanted to be a mom. Well I did want to be a mom, but I do have to sleep also, and everyone's different. Some people do fine without sleep, other

people it's total torture. Well, I understood for the first time ever why sleep deprivation is a form of torture. More times, I was like, if I got behind the wheel of a car right now, I might drive off a cliff that I can't do only four hours of sleep. I can for a week, but I can't do it four weeks well, and even the four hours, it's broken up in little pieces. It's not even continual sleep to get as a new mom, and that makes it even Tougher.

Studies definitely show that if you get six hours or less, you're essentially equivalent to a drunk person. You get into car accidents the way drunk people can take constance. You do you're kind of disoriented, and some people, again are much more sensitive to that. It's not even six hours, it's broken up little pieces of six hours. So the fourth fourth just wanting to follow up this one point

about being drunk. Yeah, besides momagers, um we um. It's a really serious issue because so many mothers accidentally or intentionally fall asleep with the baby and and you'll read, oh, well, in other cultures they do that and it encourages breastfeeding, and and there's some truth to that. However, you would never bring your baby in bed with you if you were drunk, Well, why would you do it? If you're

so exhausted, you're the equivalent of drunk. And video studies have been done that show that mothers, you know you're not you just you think you have one eye open all night long. But you own you're so tired that you fall into a deep sleep and you can pull the blankets. Over seventy almost four thousand babies die each year in the United States in the first year of life in their sleep. Of those babies die in bed with their parents or in another unsafe place, like on

the sofa with their parents. Things like that. Terrible say I did. It happened to us once when Albi was really little, like maybe six weeks. I was so tired. Adam went out for one thing for the night for a couple of hours, and I was I never took him in bed with me. I always breastfed him in a chair in his room, but I was like, I'm going to try it, and I breastfed laying down in

my bed. And the next thing I knew, Adam came in and he was like Katie, Katie, And I was like what, And he said, Albie's head looked really weird. He had gotten himself now a blanket wasn't over and he had gotten himself in a position. And I fell asleep and I didn't even realize, No, no, you don't And I don't know for how long, and I don't know me you know, Harry, there's something called micro asleep. This is a little a little science here. So we go to sleep, we think, okay, and now I'm going

to go to bed. I put my head on the pillow and then I fall asleep. And you think that you're kind of aware when you're allowing yourself to fall asleep. But actually there's something called microsleep, which is when part of the brain goes to sleep before all of the brain goes to sleep. And this is what happens when you're driving and you know you're tired, and your eyes are rolling around a little bit, but you're still awake,

and then suddenly you fell asleep. When you have microsleep, the brain is so close that boom, just in a second, the lights can go off, I mean in your head and you can fall asleep. And that's what happens with the baby because it's cozy and swede and I freaking tire. Yeah. So just the five s is that are a savior for women, especially in this first three months where a baby can be really, really fussy, because like you said, they're not really ready to be outside of their mom yet.

They have to scientifically and physically. But the five S stand for it. Right, So the five s is are five ways to imitate the womb. And interestingly, they don't just make the baby nostalgic. Oh cool, this is where I used to live. It's not like that. It's you're actually turning on a reflex, a response that's built into the baby. So babies are are okay learners, but they're not great yet, right, It's gonna take a few years to get great. But they do learn things in the womb.

They're learning to recognize flavors, recognize your voice, recognize the sounds around them. Um. But mostly babies are built on reflexes, which is built in software. So in other words, when you buy a computer already has stuff there that allows you to start using it right away, babies have stuff in there that's pre programmed. So sucking, you don't teach your baby how to suck, how to cry, how to swallow, how to blink. That stuff has to be there for survival.

Even even you know, there are ancient reflexes that are there. Like you put something in the baby's hand, they grab on you. You put something in the baby's foot, it grabs on you. Is that you know? That's an interesting one. So um. It turns out that what's the new information and Happiest Baby is this idea that babies actually have a reflex we never knew about before, which is like an off switch for crying in an on switch for sleep.

It's not really a switch, but it kind of gets them there if they're if they're ready to like, if the baby is super hungry, you can do the five s is. It's never gonna it's never gonna work because they need something else. But if they're you know, kind of not hungry and they're not in discomfort, it'll ease them into into sleep and sometimes it will calm crying in seconds. Oh I've seen you on the video but there there you go. It's like you guys the great

How long is that dvd? And half hour? There's a half hour dvd Happiest Baby on the DVD and they they hand you screaming babies and it's Adam, and Adam would always do an imitation of it where like you know, they just go like livet in their arms. It's absolutely incredible. Well, and my my publisher hates me to say this, but I really really recommend. I mean, the book is a really interesting books read the book, but the only baby book I read, actually I did. I tried pregnant to

make it through a lot of books. I really tried, but I was really tired and I would get through stuff. But yours, I actually read the whole thing because it's it's it's my type of book. It's broken up in chapters, so it's very goal oriented for me. Yeah, like it's very and it's not like huge or you know, it was just but anyway, the way you learn the techniques, it's really by watching, and so I encourage people to watch the video, kind of like learning how to tie

your shoelaces. You can learn it from a book, but but it's better to see it. Yeah, and especially for guys, because men actually are great at it. They're the best in the family. Men are terrible at breastfeeding, but men are really really good at baby coming. Um. They swaddle, snugger, they jiggle more jiggling. It was horrible, it's horrible. Well anyway, so the five is stand for our five ways of

imitating the womb. Swaddling is the first is the cornerstone arms down actually's best um and there's people get confused about that, but it's really, that's the way it works, even though it looks weird and like you would hate it. But babies don't get the vote. And this is an important thing everyone. Some people go, my baby doesn't like it, because kids, when they're upset, they'll struggle and fight you, and you'll think that the baby doesn't like it. They

need it. They need it. They don't know it's best for the swaddled for months and then when he got out of we slowly decided at like around three or four months two. Then he spent time unswaddled just one arm, and then like weeks later he got the other arm and we only swaddled the legs, and then weeks later he got the legs out because he slowly introduced him

to freedom. Right, No, that's right for whatever they can handle. Yes, you know so, um so that's swaddling and swaddling offen Tis most of the time doesn't turn on the calming reflex. In fact, sometimes they cry more, and that's what makes you think that they don't like it. But they have

to be swaddled. It makes everything else work better, and then it also allows them to be calm or longer because they're not upsetting themselves with because if they're not swallowed in the middle of the night and they go like that, they wake themselves up. We're crying, We're here all over again. But if they have that thing but they feel like they're in the womb and it's still constricted, that's right. They're not wagging themselves in the face now.

So that's the first step, and then you layer on the other four things. So then it's the side or stomach position. The back is the worst position for calming a baby. It's the best position for sleep, the only safe position for sleep, So side stomach is never for sleeping, only the back for sleeping. But the back is the

worst because they kind of feel like they're falling. The third is um is sure in your arm, you put them on their side, or you put them on their stomach, exactly right, so they call that the football hold or up over your shoulder where they're leaning forward. Um. The third S is sure or white noise, but it has to be we'll talk about this maybe in a minute. There's different types of white noise. Some work better for crying, some work better for sleep. The third S is swinging

or rhythmic motion. UH. And the and The fifth test is sucking, and every baby is different. They all need swaddling. But some babies you swallow them and do the sound and their golden. Other babies should swallow and do the sound. It does nothing until you have the motion. Other babies need this sucking. Some babies need all five at the same time to turn on the reflex and even vigorously like and once you get them calm and again, if

you do it right, oftentimes it happens in seconds. Then you kind of slow it down and kind of gradually get them to kind of downshift into into sleep. Um. We have to talk about this new which we used like crazy um and was like having what you would say a night nurse or a nanny or any of your cousins. That's kind of doing it itself right. So here's the thing. You should have your older sister with you and she would come in and say, you know, Katie, you guys sleep. I'm gonna hold rock and shush the

baby all night long. The baby gets upsettled, jiggle and shish a little more. And if I can't come the baby down, I'm getting you to feed the baby. And what happens is that when babies wake up in the middle of the night. Number one, if you just put the baby in a regular bassonet, they're lying there. It's so different than the world inside. So that's why they don't sleep well. You could sleep on the on the

cement floor if you had to. You're not gonna sleep well, but you will sleep because you're gonna be so tired. Babies will sleep on their backs in a quiet, still bead, they're just going to wake up more so if you swaddle them safely and you use the type of white noise and you use the right type of motion. So for babies who are asleep, of course, it's just natural, right,

it's just general rock feels like they're still in there. Yeah, exactly, because even all night long when you're pregnant, every time you breathe, your diet fragm is moving and rocking your baby. So so they expect that they Why take away everything that I love and I need to sleep? I just guys, born,

why are you taking it always from me? Then? What snow does, in addition to rocking and shishing all night is that it hears when the baby cries and responds with a little bit more jiggle and shish well, you know we built it, uh my initials super chice looking thanks like just Google snow. We'll put a link to it on on we of Katie's crib notes below every podcast. But it's beautiful, Like it's so beautiful. We're the most awarded baby product in history for innovation, technology, of ge, safety,

and design. It's in three of the leading art museums around the world. We loved it because I was a bad swaddler and so this new comes with a really beautifully tight zip up a bowl sleep sack sort of thing that you put the baby in, and it is a swat. It's a swaddle, but I'm not doing it with all this material that he's getting out of it. It's terrible. Um. And then it has was it four different levels, so it's four different levels of sound in motion and then the baseline which is where they sleep.

But it has an app because some kids need a little yea. The app also every day you can you get a download graphic of how your baby slapped and how how it's changing over the last week. It's the biggest deal. Lever like Beyonce uses it. We have a lot of a lot of I'm saying I heard that

Beyonce used it. It's beautiful, it's amazing, and it's really as far as yes, it is a pricey crib, but you're not paying for a night nurse which is like two thousand dollars a week, and you can't pay for sleep, which is literally the only most thing you need that you would so here for Here's there are two There are two questions that people have about snow when they

hear about it. Uh, two big ones. One is, oh, my god, my baby is going to get used to it, and then my baby's never going to get my baby off of it. And it turns out it's a piece of cake if you wait for five six months, because then your baby is mature enough to move out. So it's kind of like eating food. You give your baby milk for every meal for the first six months. You don't worry. They're never going to eat food, right, I mean,

you know they will when the time is right. And the same thing happens with sleep once they get into a really great sleep pattern. So snoop by the motion and sound, trains babies to be better sleepers. It immediately adds an extra hour to two to a baby's sleep and usually by two three months, or sleeping seven eight hours straight, I mean dream the same thing happening and he's seven to seven now and we trained them out of it. No problem, there you come. So that's the

one thing. The second thing is the price. It turns out though that I mean, we have sales all the time anyway on the website, but it's which is pricey for a baby bed, but this is a gorgeous bed, the most sophisticated, white noise machine, the safest swing. The baby is swaddled and attached to the bed so they can't roll to an unsafe position. So it's the safest bet ever made. It's extra sleep for you and the baby, and it's twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,

an extra pair of hands. You're going to use it for months. If you have another baby, you'll use it again. I want to get to some questions because our listeners are like, women are just struggling. This is really hard and it's wonderful that you are providing help. From Chelsea Gambino on Instagram, what is a realistic expectation for a baby to sleep through the night and have you noticed

the difference between breastbed versus formula fed babies. So it depends on how you define sleep through the night um in different studies. Some people to find is five hours straight, some people to find it is eight hours straight. So it kind of depends. What we see with SNOW is that babies usually sleep um seven or eight hours straight in a segment, usually by two months, and that's really advanced compared to a baby who's not in snoop. So, but if you're using at least you're swaddling and the

white type of white noise. Yeah, those two things together are big help as well. And um, so you would. Of course, some babies are great sleepers, they'll do it really right from the first month or so, but for the most part, it takes really three or four months to get that good solid nighttime sleep. Do you notice the difference between breastfed babies and formula fed babies. Yeah, so breastfed babies usually need to be fed more frequently,

and so they're waking up, they're waking up more often. Um. Breastfeeding mothers, however, interestingly, actually sleep as much or more than formula fed. Is that fading mothers? Yeah, I know, it kind of sounds odd. Isn't it. But but that's with this study show Wow, um from Joy, how do you get a teething baby to sleep through the night without using drugs? This is a really big question. I have to because I'm really careful about the amount of motor and and tail and all. Like I'm so I

rarely use it. It makes me I don't know. Um, I try basically any other thing, and he's getting all four molars at the same time. When a baby is super screaming and uncomfortable, I give a motor and I'm like, if I had a splitting headache and I couldn't sleep, I would give myself bill. So fine, Um, but how do you do without using drugs? So a couple of things. So some baby it's just teeth, that's no big deal for them. Other babies really seem to go through, you know,

angst and and suffering. So one simple thing you can do is elevate the head of the bed just a little bit, just a couple of inches, because when you're lying back, the blood kind of fills the area. Everything gets more swollen, you know, your nose gets more stuffy. If you elevate your head, it's easier to breathe a little bit and the gums are a little bit less swollen and throbby. So just elevating the head is one

good thing. The second thing is you have things on Amazon, for example, like that you go put under the mattress. You know, I used to use it when you get cold too, so that like the boogers and everything would sort of like drain the other way. But it's like a wedge, right you put or I guess you could just put a book right, yeah, I know you can, or a little something under the feet of the crib. Yes,

you'll see. If you have a baby moves around a lot, then they may end up outside down in the other direction. So I mean it's one thing you can do. The second thing is using a strong white noise because when the white noise, when you wake up in the middle of the night, it's totally quiet, and you've got golob

throb throb. You know, it bothers you more. But if you wake up and there's some things going on, you don't pay as much attention to what's going on inside because the pain is not really that much pain as much as it is a nuisance and awareness. So but the last thing has is what you said about using. So there are homeopathic drops and haven't I haven't been impressed by them. Yeah. Um, but motion is a really great tool, much more than taile and all because it's

going to last longer through the night. But here's the trick with motran everybody likes to kind of give a little less and it says on the label, actually speak to your doctor about it because the label underdoses, and so you really need to speak to give him the right dosage because I'm always like, well, he's lighter weight, you know, under the year. It's at one point seven five because he's over a year old. But for the weight thing, he is on the lowest end of the

weight for a kid over a year. So I'm always like, well, I'll just give him the dosage for like a baby baby. Yeah. Yeah. And the weird thing about motrin or Thailand, all they underdose just to cover their but you know, just to be super maybe maybe, but um, but when you underdose, it's like you may as well not do it. So there's a threshold you have to get to a certain dose level for the effect of it, and usually for for little kids, we recommend ten milligrams per kilogram, which

is like five per pound, five milligrams per pound. But speak speak to your doctor. Of course, it's with drugs. We always want to be really safe and whatever. But um, guess what, alb you're getting one eight seven freaking five the next time you're teating in the middle of the night. Um from Tammy, a mom who's read your book, followed all of your methods. The one dirty little secret for almost all of the new parents I know this includes pediatricians,

is that a lot of breastfeeding moms co sleep. What's your stance on co sleeping and hasn't changed at all given how other cultures and American culture secretly cold sleep, right, So nowadays in our culture, so there's co sleeping and there's bed sharing. Co sleeping means the babies in the room with you, hopefully right next to your bed. Bed

sharing obviously is they're in the bed with you. Um. Bed sharing has clearly been associated with a higher risk of infant sleep death, even in breastfeeding moms who are not smoking. And you're not drunk because like I said, you're kind of drunk anyway, just from exhaustion. So what you want to do is have your baby right next to you, because that makes it cozy and nice, and you can attend to your baby's needs and breastfeed easily,

but not in bed with you. So you can have a co sleeper, you can have a bassonet next to you, or a snoo right next to you. Those are the things that you want to do. The um having said that, about sixty or seventy of breastfeeding moms will fall asleep with their babies in bed with them, and you almost you almost can't help it. It happens, but you really don't want to do that, UM, and so it's it's worth kind of making a pact, like you've made a

promise to yourself. Not that it never happens, of course, you're just a human being, but you're really it's such a terrible, terrible ruined obviously the terrible death of a child. But I've spoken to mom's who lost their first baby, and you're like, if your baby is in bed with you, your life is ruined. You will never ever escape that. Oh my god, I mean, I can't even um from Priscilla. Priscilla's mom has been a very present caregiver for her almost three year old and when it's just the mom

and the toddler together. Her mom mentions he's very affectionate and acts normal. However, as soon as the mom shows up, like dropping him off at the house, he'll actually hit or kick her, not hard but a swat to show his displeasure. The mom's theory is that he doesn't want to get excuse me. Priscilla's theories that he doesn't want to get dropped off. She doesn't know why he why he'd do this when it's time to pick him up,

She has no reason to suspect abuse. When he plays with toys, he's always includes a grandma role for a toy or stuffed animal along with that for a mom, dad, and baby. And he will tell me outside of grandma's presence that he loves grandma. So what is and on? How do I get him to stop? His teacher says

he doesn't hit other kids at his tyler program. Um, super fantastic question, fantastic fantastic question, and fantastic way of think about it, because kind you know how the the the the frontier guides would lead you through the forest and they'd be looking for a broken twig or a footmark and that would they read the signs to figure out how to get through the forest to the other side. As a parent, you learned to read the signs and um.

And what was so intelligent and that question is, hey, is it possible that my child is being mistreated in some way? You hate to think about that, but it does happen. I mean we read about in the newspaper every day. Um. And so she thought very carefully about what other signs would I see if my baby were

being mistreated? Um? You know, more temper tantrums, more bedwedding, more toilet accidents, more nightmares, more acting out behavior in school more um um saying of course you you think you could ask a three year old, he's pretty talkative, did somebody hit you? You know, we kind of do that in that earnest question. But they don't really have the ability to answer direct quest. I mean, of course they can know that they might not. So the way you often do, the way you open the door into

a child's mind oftentimes is through play. And so you have the puppets, and you have oh, here's grandma Doggie, and he's you know, little boy dogging hi Grandma, Grandma. Oh uh, a little boy, doggie, what why do you want to ask grandma? You know, say grandma, please don't what you know? And then you, I mean, you can leave the witness a little bit and he's going to play with grandma differently exactly. Have some sort of feelings come up about that now if he doesn't, and she's

sort of done that sort of investigative work. So here's is this separation anxiety? Is this? It's probably more like there are too many things going on in his life. He's tired at that point in time. He's a little hungry. It's he's nappy, needs his nap or whatever, and he's on the ragged edge. And so we know about the terrible twos, but the terrible twos, which are out more outburst behaviors, it doesn't mean when you're two years old it happens. It means between eighteen months and two years.

That's when you have that imbalanced period. Usually once you get over to it's getting much better. And then there's another one that happens between three and three and a half. Hello God, But that's where happy is Toddler helps you out, Yes, because those two I've read, but I have not yet read the Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep. I mean,

and that's not only about sleeping. I mean because I that's really where where I'm heading into with a lot of the moms and my mom crew were going through this, like when are we dropping one, you know, two naps to one nap? And when is that one nap during the day? And now we're introducing nursery school, and how are we dealing with sleep? Then? Um, wait, we have a couple more questions. How do I know when it's time to start potty training? Will my toddler give me

any signs? What are the best methods? So there are these kind of events in life, right, and potty training is like this. It's like on the barquee and the bright lights and stuffing time, um and um. People stress out about that. Um. Usually it's actually pretty simple and straightforward. But you do have to read the signs. So where do the signs your child is ready? Um? Well, there are a few. Number one, they don't say no every time you ask them to do something. They're not oppositional.

Number two, they have a word for p and poop. Number three, they are willing to sit in one place for fifteen seconds, you know, because yeah, exactly, UM and UM number four, they like to imitate you. And so when you're washed dishes, they want to wash dishes, or when you're picking things up, they want to do it.

So they're in that imitative phase UM. And that usually comes around two two and a half, usually sometimes maybe three UM, but usually all when all those things are coming together, that's when it's opportune to start teaching them to have control over their vowels. Because when you think about it, here's the challenge with with peeing or pooping on the potty. You have to do the up to opposite things at the same time. You have to squeeze

your stomach muscles but relax your anus. So it's challenging, right, I mean you'll talk um. So anyway, so the so and here's the here's the biggest mistakes people make with toilet training. Number one during the rush because they think that the earlier they do it, the better, you know, boarding school, your child will get into or something. Um. The second thing is that they're told they should make a big celebration when the baby peas or poops or

that kind of a thing. And actually, you don't want to do that, Yeah, you what you you do. You can celebrate the fact that they sit there for fifteen seconds, so you can even have a timer, and you read a book. You know they're sitting there. You tell the story, you read a book, you sing a song, whatever it is going to be entertaining for your child. And when the dinger goes off, yeah, dingers over, here's a sticker,

good job. And then you do the happiest toddler technique is called gossiping, where you pretend to talk to Grahama on the phone. Later on Grandma Bobby said blah blah blah, and he's listening in Mr Big Ears and feeling like, oh, yeah, I did such a good job. So you can say it directly, but then when you say it again, it like makes it five times more trusted. When we overhear things, we believe it more than what's still directly to us.

So but here's the thing. You can celebrate that, but when they peer poop, do not celebrate that, you know, a good job. I mean, you'd be positive. But so here's the reason why when when your child is upset with you and wants to get back at you, they're going to they'll withhold something that you want, and so if it's pine and pooping that you love, you know that then you love mommy. Well, I'm not going to give it to you. You don't want to get into

that kind of power struggle. So here is another question from Laurent. Please excuse me, Laurent if I'm completely butchering your name. Um, But Laurent says, our three months old sleeps in his crib both day and night with the help of a swaddler, pacifier, white noise machine, dark room. We always lay him down drowsy but awake, and he

falls asleep on his own with the pacifier. He has a consistent bedtime routine and is sleeping from seven thirty pm to six am with no nighttime feetings most of the time, and takes three to four consistent naps per day, ranging from one hour to three hours max. Everyone's hating Laurent. When is it appropriate time to sleep train in terms of getting rid of the swaddle, pascifier, etcetera, so that

he can start to sleep independently at night. Currently, he wakes up in fusses three or four times a night, and we usually pop the passifire back in to help him fall right back asleep. What should we get rid of first? We don't want him to become reliant on the pass fire, but it's been a really useful tool so far during the day as well as night. Okay, so a bunch of questions there. Yes, um number one. Um,

that's pretty good sleep obviously. Um, we all need We all have little sleep cues that help us sleep normally. You have a pillow, you have a bed, you have a comforter. Some people have their special pillow or their special sheets. Adam is a sensitive guy, he is, and he really likes his pillow. So, um, well, babies are

the same way. They have their things that really help them to sleep, and each one is an individual and they have you know, however, interesting thing is that if you give a little bit more one thing, oftentimes you can help them not need the other thing. Um. So kind of like making a stew. If you don't have potatoes, but you're put in a little bit more carrots and turnips,

it kind of works out. And so um for the problem with pacifiers, as they fall out and then you got to put it back in the middle of the night. So the first thing you do is you teach your baby to keep it in the mouth longer, and the way you teach them to do that, this is a technique in the Happiest Baby book. It's called reverse psychology. So most people to keep the pacifier in there, kind of pushing it in and holding it in. Actually you want to do the opposite. You want to pull it out.

When your baby is sucking on something, and then you pretend to take it out, the automatic reaction is to suck in more. So you might experience that, like when your breastfeeding or bottle feeding. They seem to fall asleep and you go to take your breast out and suddenly they decide they wanted more. So if you do pull it out, it's kind of like fishing and pulling back

on the line. And if you do that times they start to learn to be able to use their mouth muscles better and when they feel its falling out, they start to suck it in more so they can keep it in longer. So that's one thing you can do. The second thing is to make sure you're using the right type of white noise, and for a three month old, if it's too too monotonous and kind of um honey um, it's not as effective as a multi frequency sound like a rain on the roof sound, or even a vacuum sound,

that kind of thing. So play around with the type of white noise and make sure it's loud enough. It should be about seventies seventy, about seventy decibels six to seventy decibels by your child's ear, So you don't put this sound by the ear, but you you can get a little decibel meter on your telephone and measure the sound at the level of the baby's ear to see that you're not having it too high and too loud.

And then um. For swaddling, what the Academy Pediatrics recommends now is that we stop swaddling at two or three months of age because we don't or when babies can roll over, we don't them rolling over swaddled, and so um. So the best thing is filled a wrong to speak to her pediatrician and get her pediatricians advice. Um. What's hard is that a lot of babies do well with swaddle, need the swaddling for four or five months, even six months, and and yet you don't want them rolling over swaddle,

So it becomes a real dilemma for parents. It's one of the reasons that we made snow is because once they're secured in place, they can't roll over. And then the snow sleep sack that you were talking about. And actually now we have a swaddled blanket called Sleepy, which is the same sack, except it doesn't have the wings that attached to the bed and it's an award winning swaddle. We caught the five seconds swaddle because literally boom five

seconds and it's done so um. So what happens with that swaddle is that their little armholes and so um. When your baby gets to be four or five months, you can let one arm out, well, that's exactly what you did with Albie. One arm out, then let the second arm out, and so you wean them off of the swaddling gradually. The white noise should be at least for the first year and really more than that. A lot of adults sleep with white We do every night.

And sometimes I get in a fight without him about it because my husband is he has his pillow and he has his white noise. He's exactly like my son. My son has his thumb and he has the white noise. Um. He's a big thumb sucker, which by the way, when does that? Like, I don't care like he it's been a blessing because we never gave him a pacifier. Okay, he found and he had his thumb. Um. He doesn't

suck it at all during the day. It's just when he knows it's naptime and I pick him up and he puts his thumb in his mouth and puts his head on my shoulder And he doesn't do it throughout the night unless he wakes himself up. Then he sucks as them to put him back to sleep, which is okay, good best. Yes, he's self sufficient that way. And that kind of gets the Lam's question as well, which is like, when do I stop the pacifier? Yeah, So, in general, we wean kids off the past for meaning we take

it away, usually around six months or so. In the deal world, you'll try to do that, however, and with passifiers you don't want to start them until the breastfeeding is going really well, So we usually like to wait a week or two weeks at the most before we use the passifier, right, which doesn't happen for most kids, but occasionally it's really a problem. Same thing for bottles. You'd like to start a bottle at a week or two weeks, but not really before that because of you

don't want the confusion child. Now here's the interesting thing about thumb sucking and passifier sucking, which it's really weird. This is not not written. I'm I haven't seen it written anywhere, but it's been my experience that it runs

in families. And if the mother or father or a couple of the siblings of the mother or father really loved sucking their thumb or a pacifier, or how a teddy bear or security blanket that they really glombed onto, then there's a high likelihood that your baby is going to love that as well. Now, you'd much rather have your child sucking a pacifier than sucking the thumb, which

sounds odd because the thumb is always there. So it's like, well, they're going to find there's thumb more easily to quit, but to quit it, yeah, you don't have control over that. It's much harder to quit, and it causes much bigger changes to the palate and the and the teeth, so it's much more likely to cause you know, significant orthodontic issues later on. Once they're doing the thumb. It's kind

of very hard to get them to stop it. So I if I see kids starting to use thumbs a lot, I really try to kind of keep up with the pacifier so that they kind of stick with the pacifier rather than going to their thumbs. Um. And here's the thing about pacifiers. If you look at people in other cultures, more basic cultures, they're nursing their babies till three or four years of age. Sucking is a normal thing for three year old and a four year old. So it's

no sweat, it's not a big deal. If I don't want kids walking around all day long, they've got the past seed plugged in. But if you only use it when you're sleeping or when you're really upset or sick, it's it's a friend, and so it's not a bad thing. And then by you know, three or four years of age, it's much easier for them to give that up. Right. UM, I think this is our last question. My child refuses to sleep in her own bed, What are some tips

for getting her to sleep on her own? So this is really what the Happiest Baby guide to great sleep. You know, birth to five years um is one of the things that talks about so if your child wants sleep in bed, meaning that you put her in bed and she keeps coming to your room, or she want to let you know every time you try to leave the room, Mommy, I need I need a glass of water, I need a kids, I need a pp I need you know, I mean they call it curtain calls familiar

to you coming for us around the corner. For sure? Um so, because ultimately think about it this way. Who is to sleep by themselves and a dark room all alone when the party is happening in the other room. Yeah right at a certain point. Yeah so okay, fair enough. But kids don't want to There was a time in your life when you didn't want to miss the part, no,

thank you? So um So. Parents are taught you should let your child cry it out, and that is a tough love way, and it can work, but it can totally backfire and your kids starts vomiting and screaming and ripping the room apart. It can be a real travail.

So there's a technique in the Sleep book called twinkle interrupt us and it's a very very effective, like or so effective technique to get a child over eighteen months to two three four years of age two, stop the fight and give up and just sleep in their own bed. And there are a couple of principles involved in this. First is the Happiest Toddler technique, which is called patient stretching. So the Happiest Toddler book and DVD t or streaming video teach how do you teach patients to a one

year old? And you do it kind of the opposite way that you think you should do it. In other words, we think that we say, you know, your child comes to you and says, mommy, mommy, do this, and you're doing something else and you say, honey, wait one second, mommy is gonna be right with you. Uh, that's not what you do. You do the opposite. You immediately go to your child, Oh, show mommy what you have, and just as they start to show it to you in that second, then you go, oh, honey, wait one second.

One one second, sweeter one second. You turn away for like three seconds, pretend to do something, to turn your back, pretend to and they've already moved on. No, no, no they haven't. They're waiting because your finger is up saying one second, one second. After three seconds or five seconds, you turn back to then and go good waiting, sweetheart, Show mommy what you have. Wow, so you do that? Want to do this for me? No pay? You do

that five or six times a day for different things. Cracker, mommy, cracker, Okay, sweat er, here's your cracker. Oh wait one second, one second, over and over again. And then you increase it from three seconds to five to ten, to fifteen to thirty. And then here's the trick. Once they're waiting thirty seconds, sometimes you only make them wait three seconds. In other words, they're expecting to wait longer. Oh my god. Sometimes I don't even have to wait that long. It's like, this

is so cool. It's like what they do to us with slot machines. Every once in a while you suddenly win, and then you keep thinking I'm gonna win next time, and then you know. So you teach patients that way. You do that for like a week, to teach your child to when you go one second, one second, they know they're going to get what they want, but they do have to wait a little bit. Then you have a nighttime routine, reading a book and stuff like that. Then you have a little teddy bear or a blanket

and you have white noise in the room. You need all of those ingredients for a week. Then when you put them to bed and you ring read the five story Worries in the middle of the sixth story, you go and then the little boy bunny Rabbit said, oh, honey, wait one second, one second, tweeter one second. Mommy just has to go see daddy. Or if your child won't let you leave the room, I just have to go

on the other side. I just have one thing over there on the table, and you go there for five seconds and come back and snuggle up and start reading again. And then a minute later, oh, one more second, one

more second. And after two or three nights, you built that up to where you're going out for a minute or two minutes and you say, here, hold onto your teddy bear, Mommy's going to be right back, and they're clutching the teddy bear, the white noises on, they're cuddled up in bed, and usually by the time they're waiting two minutes, they just fall asleep on their own. And um, really, it's really cool because it's not screaming, it's not fighting.

They feel like they're getting what they want. I can't I'm not I have to do that because I'm like, no, I cannot. I'm not good with him crying. Yeah, I just not well, you know something, Um, this is a kind of a good trick. Sometimes it doesn't work, and you do have to kind of decide what you're gonna do, but you don't have to cry it out. Sometimes you'll put a little bed next to your bed, you know, and say, honey, honey, this is mommy daddy's bed, and

this is your bed right next to right. So you can sleep there on the floor and you're cute, cuddly mattress and be right next to mommy and daddy. Or you can sleep in the room with your child and then gradually move your bed further and further away. I mean, there are different techniques described in the book. But I love Twinkle interrupt this because it works so well and it and it's teaching your child a good thing, which is more patient. No one did that Twinkle interrupt. This

was not given to me as a child. This was so informative. Again, we could talk for like a hundred thousand hours, and I hope you guys found this to be like just so informative. The books are incredible. The DVD, the streaming video. The streaming video for the five s is was a game changer for us. And so is this new. Thanks and that's all on Happiest Baby dot com. Oh, actually, you know what we're doing with snoop. We've started this year.

We're renting Snooze to corporations. So if you have a big if you work for a big company, tell your benefits department. So Hulu, Activision, Snap, Google, Facebook, WelCom here they all now give it as a free rental to their employees to say we love you, we want to take care of you, want to get works. Wow, that is that's brilliant. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you, Thank you guys, love you now. Thank you

guys so much for listening to Katie's Crib. And be sure to check out Shonda land dot com where you can find every episode of Katie's Crib. And we've got crib notes for each episode where you can find out more about our guests and links to some of the resources we talked about on the podcast. And last but not least, subscribe. We're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher basically like wherever you at your podcasts want