Unknown Speaker 0:10
Hello love and welcome to the Manage chatters podcast. If you're keen to ditch all of the parenting shoulds and want to uncomplicate sleep and parenting, you are in the right place, through honest conversations with experts and each other, we will help you to cut through all of the noise and to love the heck out of your imperfect and authentic parenting. I'm Fiona, a social worker by trade. Now supporting families with sleep and parenting through my business mama matters. I'm passionate about parenting psychology, biologically normal infants sleep and infant mental health and attachment. I'm also a parent and I am on a mission to normalise the shitshow that can be parenthood. I know that right now you might be trapped under a sleeping baby. Or maybe you've got your headphones in to soften the blow of the afternoon witching hour, wherever and whoever you are. I want you to know that you belong here. Now, let's have a chat
Unknown Speaker 1:12
Hello, everyone. Today I am having a chat with Beth Ryan, who you might know as birth with Beth Beth is a registered midwife childbirth educator and mom in her role she has had the privilege of supporting many many people during birth and beyond. Beth is the owner and creator of power birth courses are a series of educational resources designed to make parents feel confident and excited during the season of life. Beth and I have somewhere along the way connected on Instagram. And we have an incredible chat about Beth's experience of having a baby in the pandemic. The confronting reality of working as a midwife in a tertiary hospital whilst pregnant. And having follows along for the ride of her motherhood journey. We chat lots about the pressure to perfect sleep and how easy it is to become consumed. And Beth shares how she broke free of these same expectations. I am so sure you will love this conversation. And I would love it if you could leave a rating and review if you found this episode helpful in any way. For the month of June all reviews left will receive a thank you gift in the post because it is so so helpful in helping me to get this podcast out to the greater community. So here we go. Good morning, Beth. Thank you so much for coming on today. I'm so excited to talk to you. We do have a mimosa in hand today.
Unknown Speaker 2:32
We we do I'm not sure who instigated but we both wholeheartedly agreed that it was necessary.
Unknown Speaker 2:37
I think that when we scheduled you in I think one of us might have said and I don't know who's guilty because we're probably both as guilty as each other. But one of us said oh damn, it's in the morning. We can't have a drink together. And then we remember that that is a breakfast drink.
Unknown Speaker 2:53
If there are no rules, you can pour yourself a drink at any time of
Unknown Speaker 2:56
the day. salutely that was embarrassed to see when I tried to order some champagne on Jimmy brings the delivery service. I said Cool your jets. Start driving till 1030
Unknown Speaker 3:09
That's almost as bad as me rocking up to the BWS at 9am with my tri band totally getting this little mini bottle of champagne.
Unknown Speaker 3:20
Yeah, it's Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I'm like, this is for tonight. This is for a party. Yeah. I mean, we already had a flat tire to deal with this morning, missed my daughter's doctor's appointment. Just one of those mornings. So I feel like I deserve it. And you deserve after the week that you've had to.
Unknown Speaker 3:43
Yeah, we've just come through the other side of the flu. I managed to dodge it. I don't know how I felt like a sitting duck and still kind of do to be honest. But I still don't feel safe. Yeah, very nice. I don't feel safe at all.
Unknown Speaker 3:58
Nobody's safe. No worries. So
Unknown Speaker 4:01
yeah, but you know, everyone's on the app. So that's all you can ask for really?
Unknown Speaker 4:05
Yes. That's good to hear. Okay, so I am very excited to talk to you because I am really keen to chat with you about your experience. Particularly you've got Poppy, who is how many months? She just turned 10. She's almost 10 months. Yeah. I'm really keen to hear about your experience having a baby pandemic, being a birth worker being on Instagram and all those sorts of things, which I'm keen to talk to you about today. But do you want to start off by telling us about yourself and where you come from? Who's in your family and what you do?
Unknown Speaker 4:37
Yeah, sure. So, um, my name is Beth and I am midwife and I was in Melbourne. I have always worked in the hospital setting as a midwife. And during the first lockdown 2020 Was it Yep, it's all a blur. I started an Instagram page just it in the hopes that I might reach a few people and bridge the gap. Because we were no longer seeing people in the hospital setting. We were doing all of our appointments over the phone. And it was such a drastic change like now I think we've kind of normalised that kind of care. But at the time, it was like, What do you mean, we're not going to come into the hospital? What do you mean, we're just gonna have a phone call. And the the angst was palpable, and I was, you know, we were at home with so much time on our hands. And so I'll just, I'll start posting some information on Instagram. And that kind of evolved into offering antenatal classes on Zoom. And that was, you know, it just kind of took off. It's snowballed into a childbirth education business, which I'm so happy and excited about, because it's not something that I necessarily set out to achieve. But it was definitely the right decision for me, because it's now a little business that I love money. And it's been such a fun, exciting couple of years to kind of learn on my feet and figure out how I can serve people and how I can share midwifery knowledge in a really accessible way that helps people kind of debunk myths, but also just feel excited about this time and not daunted, and overwhelmed. So now I have a couple of online courses. I'm preparing to take the workshops, face to face, which was so exciting, it kind of feels like we've come full circle, and like I've never been able to connect with people face to face. So I'm thrilled about that. And amongst all of that, I had a baby birth to baby girl in July of 2021. And so I became a mum in the pandemic, as well as kind of learning to run my business and, and building a beautiful online Instagram community. So it's been a good couple of years, but I wouldn't change a thing. It's been incredible.
Unknown Speaker 7:03
Yeah, that is a big couple of years. And I actually didn't know that you started birth as best, as you know, to fill that gap of seeing women face to face.
Unknown Speaker 7:15
Yeah, like I had no, I had no goals or plans is perfect. Like I was literally sitting in my living room one day, and I was like, This is madness. Like, everyone, there was this energy in the air of like the midwives, the doctors, the women, like everyone was just terrified. We did not know anything about COVID. You know, classes had been cancelled. Women were not coming into the antenatal clinic, there was no hospital tours happening. Visitor restrictions were like changing every day, there was talk of partners not being able to come into hospitals. Like this was such a scary time for women, for pregnant people. And so I literally just put it out there, I shared it on my personal was okay, like, I got this, I typed in a few different names. I just saw whatever one was available. I didn't ever envisage that would be my business name, probably wouldn't be something different.
Unknown Speaker 8:10
is hilarious to hear what the other ones were they?
Unknown Speaker 8:15
Gosh, I can't even remember now like, I think I tried like, Baby Brain education. And like, I was just like typing in a whole bunch of like, obviously everything to do with like, Baby Bump beyond, like it's all been taken. And so I just typed in like birth, birth and then an underscore, because I think there's another birth with this. Who's like $1 or something in America. And because I just didn't ever think it would become anything. I was like all the time. It's no big deal. Cool. We'll just show them. And yeah, I'll find one. And I think I just I never anticipated. I think I shared one photo of my face to be like, Hey, I'm the Midwest behind the page. But I've never really anticipated that it would evolve to kind of include discussions around motherhood and like a little bit of a peek into my life. That was never really Yeah, I didn't really have any intentions or goals, as I said, but it has kind of organically gone in that direction. And it's been so beautiful and the connections I've made with people and other health professionals and it's challenged me in some ways to think about like, how do I want to work? How do I want to reach people? What do I have to offer? And so yeah, it was maybe a little bit of faith just kind of stepping in and I launched at the right time, I think
Unknown Speaker 9:35
I love watching your space grow. And I think that we can hear lots of negative things about the Instagram space, but I relate to that as well. I love that community. Like if I have some time off social media, I really look forward to coming back and connecting in some way or another because it's just such a beautiful thing to connect people to each other as well and to connect like minded parents in the same sort of Hasan,
Unknown Speaker 10:01
totally unlike I think Instagram is what you make it. Obviously, I think we're all feeling it at the moment, Instagram is changing a lot. And it's changing, you know, even from two and a half years ago when I first started the way that Instagram like, show people, your content, and all of that is really, really different. But I think what stays the same is that you have the ability to curate who you connect with, like, you don't have to follow anyone. As pesky as the algorithm is, it also connects you with lots of accounts. It sees what you're looking at, it sees what you like, it seems like your favourite topics, and it hands it to you on a platter. And it's like, Hey, have you seen this account? Or did you want to reach out to this person. And if you're intentional with the way that you use it, you can end up it can be a really nurturing nourishing space. But I completely also understand the flip side in that. Especially with motherhood and birth topics, it can get a little bit dicey. And it can also be maybe a source of like overwhelm. But I'm like you I have done that it's been a really positive thing.
Unknown Speaker 11:06
Yes, absolutely. Like as a creator, I see a lot of positive, but I also see as a consumer, and I'm a consumer as well as a creator. But as a consumer, if you are in the thick of it with baby sleep or birth, something like that, and you're already feeling very anxious and overwhelmed and inundated with all of this conflicting advice, then the bloody algorithm sees that you are anxious and Googling all these things, and then they throw some more things at you that just continue to drown you. So I think like you said, we really need to use it intentionally and curate our own space, and mindfully scroll. And you know, recognise if something is making us feel shitty, then get rid of it. Because we don't need to be. We don't need to have that
Unknown Speaker 11:53
totally, like don't be afraid of the unfollow. But no, like no one. You know, the creators don't know most of the time, like unless they are anxiously checking on followers, which I don't know anyone who has time to do that. Like they don't know that you're disengaging. And if they do notice that you're disengaging, they don't know why. And they probably don't go back. If you are thinking like artists, I'm feeling really agitated when I see this or like that makes my heart rate rise. And I'm clearly quite triggered by some of the themes that this person is seeing that I'm following, like go in a different direction. And the algorithm will recognise that after a few days, and you might get to move into a space that feels more like, you know better for you at that time.
Unknown Speaker 12:38
And your unfollows aren't permanent either. And like you said, nobody sees you on follow. I don't look at my own follows at all. Somebody asked me some day, every now and then somebody will ask me how many unfollows you're getting us? I don't look, because my wise mind knows that. The more unfollows the more I'm aligning with the right people. I you know, it's not personal. And I encourage people to unfollow if things aren't resonating for them. But my emotional mind would probably get hurt feelings. So I just don't go there.
Unknown Speaker 13:07
Yeah, and like you said, we're both we're consumers and creators, and we're humans. So there is an element. When you think, oh, like my phone hasn't grown much in the last month. Maybe I'm not doing something like that, then you have to remember that. It's like, No, but look at your DM engagement. Look at, you know, how you're making people feel? And does it really matter if you're not, you know, having lots and lots of growth?
Unknown Speaker 13:30
Yeah, that's right. They look after the people that you do have. Exactly, yeah, for me when I'm not growing. It's because I haven't shown up like I just disappear all the time when I'm not feeling creative. I just can't show up if I'm not in the zone.
Unknown Speaker 13:45
Yeah, I find that too. And if I'm feeling vulnerable in myself, or just as a person, I just know that it's my even if I do put stuff out there, it's not the quality or the vibes that I want the one I'm better to take a few days away and then show up the way that I want to. Yes, that means less growth. Because I'm inconsistent. Yeah. And Instagram doesn't like that. But I would rather make sure that like when I am popping my face into people's face. Mike was just said like intentional and mindful and
Unknown Speaker 14:18
with purpose. Yeah. And it's absolutely so much more authentic that way as well. And people connect with authenticity. So I'm really curious to hear how that was having a baby whilst already being a birth. Can I say birth work or just midwife? Being a midwife? Yeah, because I started my Instagram when my second child was almost one. So I was feeling like relatively, I mean, whenever confident outweighed whenever you're moving into the next space, but you know, find your feet Yeah, I feel as though it would have looked a lot different if I had started that when I was just having a baby.
Unknown Speaker 14:59
You Yeah, so look, the pregnancy stuff didn't throw me like I feel. I think the benefit of being a midwife, and my personal philosophies and values around pregnancy and birth, I was actually super calm. Like I was super chill, and I didn't. I didn't find Instagram to be a very overwhelming place. During that stage. I found with my workplace more triggering. Social media like that was a little bit tricky. Just because I work at a big tertiary hospital. We see a lot of complexity. And in the past, I've thrived on that. I love it. I love problem solving. I love like, I hate to say it, but sometimes, I think people who work medically that kind of enjoy the occasional adrenaline rush and thinking like I can solve this problem, I can work quickly. I know what to do. But in pregnancy, I found it way harder to just be clinical. And there was a few weeks sort of late second trimester, I think, well, I was like this. I'm finding it really hard to like, disconnect. And not think about the fact that like, I've got this I've literally got a baby in my belly right in front of me. She's like, I didn't know who it was a che. And that's the time but like, this baby is so connected to me, and I'm doing things and seeing things that pregnant people probably shouldn't be seeing and doing. So that was really, really hard. And I had a big cry to my midwife. She went one day with just like, how are you? And like, how do you feel about your upcoming birth, and I was just like, oh, my gosh, not good. And just cried. And then once I sort of acknowledged what my fears were, I felt fine. Again, like it was just this weird wobble. And it's like, I had to own it. And we work I am. I am nervous about X Y, Zed, and this is making me feel really yucky. And then once I got that off my chest, I was like, cool, like, I'm alright, I trust I trust this process. I trust my body, I trust my midwife like this is going to be great. And yeah, I, I was pretty inconsistent in the way that I showed up on social media during that time, like true to true to form I didn't feel and to overly Share, Like I shared a little bit that I thought would be helpful for people. But I kept a lot just to myself, because I think I knew that. It was Yeah, finding that balance between like sharing and being open and vulnerable is really important. But also being like, this is your life, you don't have to share everything if you don't want to. And so I think that was kind of like my approach in pregnancy. And I would say it wasn't until after the newborn phase had come and gone. That's when I found that social media became a little bit more dicey for me, because that was the unknown. I've never had a three month old baby. Pregnancy and newborn makes sense. To me. It's my job. I can apply, like logic and knowledge to those situations where it's like a three month old baby. I've never spent more than a few hours. And so that was when I started to go like, I feel I feel
Unknown Speaker 18:16
wobbly. Again. When you say wobbly, what do you mean by that?
Unknown Speaker 18:22
I don't think I trusted myself as much as I thought I would. And I feel like I was putting pressure on myself to do it. Like, right and then making like quotation marks. We were really isolated. Like looking back, I think we were keeping our head above water. And we felt okay at the time because we we were running on this like weird lockdown energy that we'd had for so long now. But the borders close between my family from New South Wales, and we live in Victoria. And the border is closed again. When I was 37 weeks pregnant, we thought that they were going to be open. Yeah. So they'd opened. And we were like planning for my mom and dad to come down and stay with us for a little bit and drop the freezer and just like do all of those postpartum things that we encourage people to have in place. And then the borders closed and they opened two months later.
Unknown Speaker 19:26
Oh, wow. So you have proper Yeah. Isolated.
Unknown Speaker 19:31
Yep. So I think that that three four month mark were like it coincided with the end of my knowledge, like my knowledge kind of mana.
Unknown Speaker 19:42
That's such a medical perspective, isn't it? Like? This is the knowledge I have work in real life and then yeah,
Unknown Speaker 19:51
totally. Like I was such a midwife in the first six weeks like nothing stressed me. I was like, Cool. Like, I know how many nappies she's done. cuz, like, you know, I know that my breasts are draining. I love to that stage, I felt so confident and chilled and like we just fully leaned into it. And then, yeah, so I think that three four month mark was like, it was way too long to be away from family and friends. My Yeah, my medical midwifery knowledge was expiring. And your baby changes at three months, like they become a baby, not a newborn. And that, you know, everywhere you stop, people stopped thinking or you've just had a baby. It's like, that weird time where it's like, oh, yeah, that happened. I'm sure you found your fate now, because you're a few months in. And, like, I think you'll relate to this, because a lot of your clients find you through this way. But it was sleep that got me Well,
Unknown Speaker 20:52
I think there's a real social pressure around this three to four month mark. But if you have a newborn, yes, by all means, you know, baby wear and, and have context naps, and breastfeed to sleep and all these things. Because your newborn just, you know, the fourth trimester, it's really beautiful. When you get to three or four months, and they're like, Whoa, you're still doing that. Now you've stuffed everything up. And now you have to make changes before this four months sleep regression. There's this time between newborn finishes three months to four months, that you need to get all of your ducks in a row and all of these things to put good habits in place.
Unknown Speaker 21:28
Yeah, and I didn't even realise I was being influenced, like, the sneakiness of the sleep conversation. I think, like, I am someone who I thought I was really educated, and across babies and. And I'm also like, a really, I'm a bit of a, I've got your personalities. I'm a really control freak in some aspects. But I'm also quite relaxed, like nothing really bothered me in pregnancy. Even now, like, you know, Puppy calls all over everything, she bumped her head. Occasionally she put things in her mouth like that stuff doesn't really stress me out. So I think it caught me off guard, like how much I wanted to get a handle on sleep, like I was just like, if I can just sort it out, and I'm not going to her all day, and she's not up all night, like everything else will be fine. So we find that I haven't seen family, it'll be fine that my partner is back at work. It'll be fine that I'm you know, well and truly the first one out of my friends to have a baby because everything will be sorted. And I think that's the lie that we get told, right? Like, if you can get your ducks in a row, everything else will be fine. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 22:35
yeah. And you just have to do X Y Zed to get them sleeping. So if that's not working for you, you're not following the plan properly, or you're missing something. So it sends you into this spiral of self doubt and shame and guilt and obsession. Like I don't know that there's many mothers who have escaped this sleep obsession because it's so noisy in this industry.
Unknown Speaker 22:58
I think my key word you've said is obsession. Like I've never had an issue with Instagram, even as like a teenager and a young adult. You know, I know a lot of people go through stages of like comparing and wishing they looked a certain way or looking at aspirational lifestyles and being like, Oh, why isn't my like that, like, that's never been me. But then I became obsessed with puppy sleep. It became like my full time job. And it's so hot like good and hard to hear you say those words like if you're not following the plan, it's because you're not doing something because that's what I was told. Like you must be consistent and ours or she must be dozy on the rest because that's why she's not so settling for keep her awake on the breath. And like it's so hard to look back on that time and be like, like actually have to laugh a bit and be like, How bizarre that you were told to like rattle like a rattle in her face. Yeah, like they've like get like a bottle get like a rattle, like rattle it in her face so that she's not falling asleep on the boob because that's when you know, then you'll put her down in a bassinet and she will not settle for you because she already had had a timeout. And now I'm like, I faded asleep but most of cups and I just, she just gets delicious and Dopey and I just hunker down and she you know religious and
Unknown Speaker 24:21
Dopey I love that.
Unknown Speaker 24:24
Thank you. So look, I think it's like it's that weird time when you come out the other side of being really proud of yourself for finding your feet but also trying not to feel guilty about and trying not to be hard on yourself or going down that rabbit hole because there's one that I didn't really think I would go down and I also feel like I should say like I'm it's maybe a bit controversial but like I'm not completely anti free training because I do think that some aspects For what we did, did really help. And I look at my life and our life and our family. And it's like, well, we don't have any family in the state. My income is a small business that I run on my own. There are times that I need Poppy Taberna isn't on me. And so there was elements of what we learned that were really like they were beneficial. But then there was like these sticking points where clearly what we were doing wasn't working. And then we had people saying, just keep going, she'll get the hang, you know, just keep on the note. Like, you've just got to keep being consistent. She'll come around, and I wish I had just said, like, this is not working really like, can we just call timeout feeling? Yeah, it's not feeling good. And there was one night that I just said to Trish, I just said, I'm not doing this anymore. And you know, when I picked her up, and we didn't look back, I just said, it was like, I knew I'd reached my limit. And I was like, no, like, we are completely changing tact. And he was like, Yeah, whatever feels good for you, like, I'm happy. And since then, we've had big ups, big downs, but I feel like time is doing its job. And then we're getting there.
Unknown Speaker 26:12
Yeah, that's awesome. I think that's really important to speak to as well, when you said that you're not anti sleep training. I think it's such a shame in this culture that, you know, people think there is either use Sleep Train, or you don't, either you are for sleep training, or you're anti sleep training. And I would be really offended if, if people thought that I was anti sleep training, because sleep training is such an umbrella term in such a broad term. For some people, it might mean control, crying and leaving your child to cry all night like that, that sleep training. Sleep training, might also be keeping an eye on awake windows and having a bit of a rhythm to your day. And, you know, using a sleep sack and white noise, and you're trying different ways of getting to sleep, or it might be transitioning from those contact naps, because they're not feeling sustainable, to supporting them to sleep in their car. So sleep training can look so different for so many families. And I think it's really important that we open up that conversation and be open minded to one another, to reduce that dichotomy, because it's not serving anyone.
Unknown Speaker 27:17
Yeah, and I also think, like, we have to look at the reason why, like, the context in which sleep support and sleep training as an umbrella term exists. Like, it's so lovely, the sentiment of a village and a community and baby wearing all day, you know, God having our baby against us as we go about our day. All of that is beautiful. But if we look at the way that our society is structured, we usually have a full parent at home. Life is super bloody expensive. So you've got usually two adults in the home that need to be earning a living, it's pretty normal to live away from family. And there's definitely, it's not as normalised to lean on your friends in the way that we really need to. And so when we might put all of that in a melting pot, no wonder, we all need at some point our babies and children to be sleeping in in somewhat of a sustainable way, because we don't have the time space or like the lack of pressure that we need to give our babies time. And so I think that's something that I've made peace with it's like, and we didn't like to put it out there. We didn't do cried out or anything like that. But there was crying involved. And it just got to the point where it helps. But we found that like the the white noise and awake windows and just keeping an eye on things throughout the day, that was the bit that I'm like, You know what I would do that, again, that's been really, really valuable. Yeah, keep that. But that's helped me be less hard on myself to look at like the factors like in a really logical way and be like, be kind to yourself, like, there's all this other stuff going on. And like all you're asking for is the ability for like a couple hours a day to put your baby in the bassinet. Like when we break it down, like you're not you're not doing anything wrong, you're just feeling it out and figuring out, like what feels right for you.
Unknown Speaker 29:19
And sometimes you just have to go through the shit to realise what feels right for you to find your feet and find your own way of being in relationship with your baby.
Unknown Speaker 29:30
For sure, and I'm such a solution oriented person like I'm in all other aspects of my life. So I think I and I chatted to a lot of other moms who feel this way but like I needed to do it to know that it wasn't to me like I needed to go to that end of the spectrum and then gradually pull back until I found that sweet spot because had I not explored you know, x y Zed. I might have been months wondering well what if what if what if and I think If you're in it now and you're listening to this, and you're like, I don't know what to do, just like, try to listen to your gut and that feeling in your chest because it will tell you, like I said, I just had this night and I was like, nope, not anymore. Like, I just feel it. We're it's all good that we've done it, but like, this isn't working for us anymore. But up until that point, I hadn't felt like that. So you like, try to tune in? I guess to that little, that little voice that's like your, my, my voice? It's like, yeah, I don't know if any of that's making sense.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
