Understanding Your Baby: Essential Parenting Pearls with Sharon Mazel

Join us for an enlightening conversation with Sharon Mazel, an internationally recognized parenting and pregnancy expert with over 25 years of experience. As the author of Bite-Sized Parenting: Your Baby’s First Year and former contributor to the What to Expect series, Sharon shares her insights on modern parenting challenges, from information overload to social media pressures.

Sharon discusses how to understand and respond to babies' hunger and fullness cues, the importance of weight gain and diaper contents, and offers practical advice on supporting a baby's sleep patterns and sensory development. She covers key topics such as nonverbal communication, tummy time, soothing a crying baby, and establishing routines.

About Sharon Mazel:

Sharon’s writing and guidance have also been widely published online and in numerous publications including WhatToExpect.com, EverydayHealth.com, Parenting Magazine, BabyTalk Magazine, The Washington Post, and other publications.  Sharon’s social media is a top resource for new parents.

Key Takeaways:

• Modern parenting is overwhelmed by information overload and unrealistic expectations.
• Understanding hunger cues in babies is crucial.
• Digestible parenting resources empower parents.
• Flexibility and grace are essential in navigating newborn challenges

Chapters:

00:00 - The Challenges of Modern Parenting
03:05 - The Impact of Social Media on Parenting
07:27 - Empowering Parents Through Knowledge and Information
13:34 - Understanding Baby Cues and Signs
27:24 - Understanding and Responding to Baby's Cues
38:29 - Dealing with a Crying Baby and Tummy Time
43:14 - The Importance of Tummy Time and Baby Massage
49:03 - Transitioning to the Third Month: Establishing a Routine

Connect With Sharon:
sharonmazel.com IG: @sharonmazel FB: Sharon Mazel

Transcript

0:00

Good for you. Like, don't look at that as a mistake. Look at that as a win. you you Super Daddy Club podcast. I'm your host Lendo. Today we're very pleased to welcome on the show Sharon Mazal. She is an internationally recognized parenting and pregnancy expert, author, journalist, speaker, parenting coach, and mom of four with over 25 years of experience in the field. Sharon is the author of Bite Size Parenting, Your Baby's First Year and was previously with the What to Expect book series. Sharon's social media has been called one of the most educational IG accounts for new parents and one of the best Instagram accounts for new moms. Sharon's writing and guidance have also been widely published in online and numerous publications including WhatToExpect .com, EverydayHealth .com, Parenting Magazine, Baby Talk Magazine, The Washington Post, and other publications. Learn more about Sharon on her website, www .sharronmazzell .com. Welcome onto the show, Sharon. It's such a pleasure to have you on. Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our chat today. The first reaction when we go onto your Instagram page is, whoa, this is really cool. Really resourceful, really simple, and just very beautiful. Well, thank you for saying that. My mission really as a parenting expert is to bring information to parents so that they have the knowledge and the know -how, but also to do it in a very digestible way. so that it doesn't feel overwhelming because parenting today is so overwhelming and there's so much information out there. So if I can do it in a way as I do on my social media through infographics where it's bite sized and in my book, Bite Size Parenting, where it's also very digestible that it helps parents get the information that they want and need, but without feeling like overloaded. So my first question with 25 years of experience, can you tell us about the parenting landscape when you first enter into the field and what were some of the things that or at least problems that you noted that you're like, hey, these need to be addressed and kind of like got you going as well. You know, the parenting today is very different than parenting 25 years ago in so many ways. And I think that so much of what parents have to face these days is, as I mentioned, the sense of overload because there's so much information out there. If you were a parent 25 years ago, there was no internet, there was no, or that was just the beginnings of the internet. There certainly wasn't social media at the time. And today, when you're a parent and you need some information, you have a question, you can go onto the web and Google and you get 45,000 hits and that's overwhelming. Or then you go on social media and you can scroll through hundreds of parenting influencers, mommy and daddy influencers, or you can go look on social media for experts like myself and there's just so much. Or you can go back online and read some blogs and then you can look at parenting books. I have a bunch behind me. there's just so much information out there. And in the olden days, 25 years ago, 50 years ago, without social media, without the internet, really, your sources of information were just much fewer. You had a few books, you had your pediatrician, you had maybe your mom, your dad, some neighbors and friends. So when there's so much information out there, it becomes so overwhelming. It becomes almost like this cacophony of noise that you start to tune out because some of it's conflicting, you don't know who to trust, you just feel like, well, this person says that thing and that source does another thing and my God, like, who do I listen to? Who do I, how do I find the answers that I need? And so that's very, very overwhelming, I think, for parents. And as I mentioned a second ago, that's really why I'm focused on trying to cut through the mountains of information to give knowledge to parents. without them feeling like, my gosh, I'm burdened and bombarded and being buried under three B's there, under so much information. So I think that's one thing that really has changed, this overload of information compared to parenting in generations prior. I think also, and I mentioned social media, there's some wonderful things about social media. I mean, I'm on it every day. I interact with people every day. So it's great, right? There's ways to get information. It helps you as a parent feel like you're not alone, right? You see other people going through some of the same things that you're going through. So that gives you a sense of community. So those are the positives. The negatives are that there's a lot of unrealistic expectations that are presented to you because you see all these curated feeds of moms and dads looking perfect and the house isn't messy. And you're looking at your own house and you're like, my gosh, I have toys everywhere. Like why does their house look so neat and mine doesn't? Or why is she fitting into her skinny jeans and she just had a baby and you know, I'm not. There's these unrealistic notions of what parenthood may look like. And if yours doesn't look like that, if your life and your house and your family and your child isn't sleeping for the night or whatever, but somebody else's, it could make you feel a little bad, right? Like what's wrong with me? Why do I feel shame that my child isn't eating like this or? crawling like that or sleeping through the night yet and their child is. So that also adds to some of the overwhelm that parents feel. And I think that that's a very big change from generations prior. And I think the final one, well, I would say two more, one which is sort of similar to what I'm talking about. There's also this overwhelming amount of products that we have these days that we didn't have 25 years ago, 50 years ago. Yeah. Many products we don't need, right? You need just the basics. Babies are little and they don't need much, but we feel the pressure. We have to buy a diaper wipe warmer because everybody else seems to be getting that. But does a baby really need a diaper wipe warmer? Probably not. But we buy into the marketing hype. So that makes everything feel different and more overwhelming than in previous years. And finally, I would say this last one, this culture of comparison sort of dovetails with everything else that I've just described. Because we're seeing so much online on social media, we're seeing how other families work, what their philosophies are, how they parent, and we're seeing so many. And so we're comparing. In previous generations, how many families would we see? We would see our neighbors, we would see kids in preschool, we would see if we did like a parent and me class or daycare, that's when we would see other kids, but it was somewhat finite. And these days it's an infinite number of babies out there that we're seeing every moment of, you know, if you're following somebody on social media. And so we're comparing a lot. We're comparing a lot, as I mentioned, these unrealistic expectations, but we're also comparing our babies. That baby is taking their first steps and my baby's barely sitting. Like, what am I doing wrong? What's wrong with my baby? And so that also, I think feeds into this sense of anxiety and overwhelm that parents today feel. And. And I think it's unfortunate. And I hope that the efforts that I'm taking part in really helped to reduce some of that because this is the change that I've seen. And so I feel like we kind of need to get ourselves back to a little more relaxation when it comes to parenting. Yeah, I really, there's so much there because I also remember scrolling down people's Instagrams and for all of our listeners, you've never seen me post things with my baby on our Instagram and our houses, cause it's messy. And every time I'm like, maybe this is a cute move we should put out there. I'm like, I look at it and I'm like, wow, like our house is a mess. But then as a parent, you're doing so much that sometimes it's like food, hygiene, you have a certain order of things that you got to get through. Right. And so the realistic expectations of things. And the other thought that I had is that it is the hallmark of an expert to be able to take something that is complex, something that is convoluted and really explain it in a very simple, neat packaging. And. that is bi -size parenting. I'm looking at it and it's okay. You can like look through the pictures and get a good sense of what's going on, but then you can also dive deeper into it. And one of my favorite part was you go into a lot of the whys and that is so important. And please let me know your thoughts on this, but I feel like one of the areas where fathers or even mothers may get stuck is that, especially during the first year there, if we think about the experience of The father in a sense, mother is usually on mad leave. She spends extensive amount of hours throughout the day with kiddo. She's seeing all the minute little changes that are going on. Baby sleeps maybe like 12, 16 hours a day. Please correct me on the number exactly. But then as a man, you come into the house after eight hours of work, 10 hours of work, baby sleeps 16 hours. You've already missed so much and you're playing a supporting role and you only have so much time. You got to perfect your craft and skills and little things within the small amount of time that you have. That's kind of like where we're picking up from most of the time. That's why I thought it'll be really interesting to dive into why are some of these things important to do? How are they affecting the child? And what are your thoughts about that as being a challenge that parents encounter? I love so many of the things that you just said. I want to just. rewind back to one of the first things that you said about your messy house. And I want to tell you that you're not alone, that most parents' houses look like that. So don't feel bad about that. But back to the book and your perspective specifically about a working father, and it would apply to a working mom as well if she's the one that's out of the house during the day. It is very overwhelming. And when you don't really understand what the baby's going through, what you as a parent is going through and some of the basic needs of a child, then you feel like kind of disconnected. And so, You're 100 % right. What I set out to do in bite -sized parenting, I call it like a choose your own adventure kind of book because I wanted to really meet parents where they are today. We talked about why they're so overwhelmed. So I'm setting out to create a digestible book. But I also understand that life gets in the way of life. And so most of the time, and as you mentioned, you're dealing with very little sleep. You're dealing with if you're out working all day, then you have very little time with the baby. You're trying to get it all done within this short amount of time. time and do it right, whatever right means. But you also need answers, right? The baby screaming, you need answers. The baby you're trying to elicit a burp, you need answers. You need to play with the baby, but you're not sure what to do. You need answers. But you have like two minutes to figure it all out. So if you're going to go onto a website and read a blog, that's going to take too long. So what I did in bite -sized parenting was for every topic and it's organized by month, month by month for every month in the first year. And each chapter goes through. all of the topics that you're going to need or want to know as a parent, feeding and sleeping and stimulating your baby and baby care and so on. So let's say you have a question about how to start solids with your baby and you need to know right now because the baby is sitting in the high chair, right? Or let's say your baby is crying and you need to figure out immediately now what to do. So the first choose your own adventure option for you in bite -sized parenting is my infographics, which... are very short, digestible, boom, boom, boom, boom. Here are your actionable strategies. This is a digestible way for you to figure out or to try some of these options for you, or here's some answers for you. And that's it, you get the answers in two seconds. But then when you have more time, let's say the baby is napping or you have 10 minutes of time, you're able to go into what I call a closer look as you described the why, it's the how. It's the deeper understanding as to why we're talking about tummy time or why we're talking about. purées versus finger foods or why we're talking about baby massage. Because once you understand the why, the how, the more nuanced, the deeper underpinnings of these recommendations, of these pieces of advice, of these strategies, then it helps you feel more empowered as a parent. Because not only do you have the strategies at your fingertips, but you also understand why these strategies work or what the end goal is. Let's say you're reading about establishing healthy sleeping habits. and reading about it in, I don't remember what month it's in, maybe month three or four. We're not thinking about how to get the baby to sleep through the night just quite yet. But here are some strategies to help start the process of getting your baby into healthy sleep habits. So here's some strategies. But now you have to understand why, like what's our end goal? Why are we working to establish these healthy sleep habits? Why is sleep so important for a baby and so on? And so once you understand the underpinnings of these digestible strategies, then it helps you feel more confident in the choices that you're making as a parent because you're like, I'm choosing to do this because ultimately this is why I'm choosing, this is what's gonna happen, this is the end result, this is the goal and so on. So I think that bringing it back to dads who are working outside of the house and then coming home and having that short amount of time with their kids, if you understand the why and the how, then it empowers you. to do the stuff that you're doing because, I get it. I understand why I'm doing X because ultimately it's going to mean Y for me, for my baby, for my family. And so I'm all about empowering parents. That is great. That is great. Starting from day one, starting with kind of like the understanding of baby's hunger. One of my thinking is that at first babies are not even able to feel whenever they're full. And I don't know if that's correct. What can you tell us about like how... hunger is processed to them or at least the signs of it, how are they manifested? So it's a great question. And what's amazing about the answer is, and I'm going to correct you because, is that babies, even from day one already are able to recognize hunger cues and also recognize satiety or feelings of fullness with satiety cues. And they can do that early on. And that's what's amazing, right? We think that these babies, these newborns that were handed. are blobs, they don't know what's coming or going. And for the most part, they are blob like, right? But they're really smart. Even from day one, there's some fascinating research about how literally moment one, how if you just place a baby after the baby's been born on the mom's stomach, right? Skin to skin and just leave the baby there, that baby will actually creep up towards the breast to reach the source of food. Most of the time this doesn't happen. We don't have that much time. But if you do do that, you could, I mean, there's videos on YouTube, you could watch that and it's fascinating. So babies are biologically primed to find their source of food, to eat, to let you know when they're hungry, but also to stop eating when they're no longer hungry. And that's what's fascinating. And again, that's part of the why that we were talking about or the how, or some of the nuances and the details. Once we understand that as parents, that Babies will tell us when they're full and certainly when they're hungry, that then we can trust in our baby and say, okay, the baby is showing me these signs. What are these signs? Now let me listen to it. So I'll go through some of the signs, right? What are the signs of a baby who is hungry? So before I start with the signs, I will say this, when you're talking about a newborn, let's say six to eight weeks is really what the newborn stage is. You want to feed on demand and what on demand means is that whenever your baby demands to be fed. And so that's why we want to look for these clues because a baby will demand to be fed in numerous ways. And so even though we're feeding on demand, we also want to make sure that we're kind of keeping one eye on the clock as well, because in the early weeks, we want to make sure that your baby's being fed around every two to three hours because babies' tummies are tiny. I mean, tiny, tiny, tiny. So they fill up. quickly, but then they also empty quickly. And so we want to make sure that the baby's stomach is being filled up on regular intervals. So watch the clock a little bit every two to three hours, two to four hours as you get closer to the six to eight week mark, but also feed on demand. So how does a baby demand to be fed? Well, there's early hunger cues, there's active hunger cues, and then there's late hunger cues. And so ideally we want to be watching for all these cues and try to get that bottle or that breast ready. when we're in the early stages or at least in the active hunger stages. So you'll see babies licking or smacking their lips. It's the cutest thing, but they'll do that. Opening or closing their mouth, they'll look like little fish, little guppies, or even putting their fingers or their hand in their mouth. And those are usually early hunger cues. They're letting themselves know, but also us know, hey, I'm ready for something in my mouth and I'm, you know, priming my digestive system for what I'm assuming is going to come. Then comes the active hunger cues and the active hunger cues are going to be fussing a little bit, squirming. Some babies will read really fast. I mean, they're always breathing faster because they're babies, but you'll hear them like sniffing a little bit and breathing a little faster. And then this amazing biologic reflex called the rooting reflex is when babies will turn their head towards the source of food. And you can elicit that rooting reflex with your baby just by touching their cheek and they'll turn. that way toward the side that you're touching, which is so cute and adorable. But they'll do that naturally anyway. When they're hungry, they'll start like kind of looking for the source of food. And so when you see those signs, that's when you should start getting the bottle ready, bringing the baby to the breast. You want to be able to capture the hunger cues so that your baby starts to learn. When I show these cues, I get fed late hunger cues. And we kind of want to get the feeding started before these late hunger cues are evident. would be frantically moving their head side to side, or they're searching for a food source, and also crying. When your baby is crying hysterically for food, obviously that's a late stage hunger cue, but it's also much harder to get your baby to calm down enough to latch onto the breast or onto the bottle and to feed effectively and efficiently. So ideally we want to get our babies eating before their hysterical crying. Now it doesn't always work out perfectly, right? We're human and sometimes we just can't get to the baby in time or we miss some of those early hunger cues. And that's okay too. It's fine. This is, you know, your baby will hungry babies will eat and they will eat to their satiety, but they will eat when they're hungry. And so your baby is crying and that's the time when you get the bottle to them or the breast to them. That's okay too. And I'll say one other thing about crying here is that not every cry, is a hunger cry, meaning that babies cry for all sorts of reasons. They cry because they're bored. They cry because they're overstimulated. They cry because they're tired. They're cried because you are holding on too tight or because they're too hot or because they're too cold or whatever it is. So we shouldn't, as parents think that my baby's crying again, therefore my baby's hungry again. So that's why these hunger cues, everything else that I talked about are even more important than the crying in terms of determining when it's time for feeding. Thank you for that correction at the beginning there because. Just from like that new parent perspective, again, not knowing really what I'm looking at. My cue is, okay, feed him, but just be careful. Cause if you feed him too much, he may vomit. And in a sense, that was like not the best cue, but that was like my measuring bar in a sense. But so they know when they're full, like how do they indicate that if they do. Another great question. I will say this about your worry about the throwing up. So let's differentiate between throwing up and spitting up. because most babies don't throw up, they spit up. And most babies spit up all the time. And many babies spit up a lot. And spitting up in and of itself is not anything to be worried about. As long as your baby is doing fine in all the other arenas, if your baby's spitting up and you're like literally going through clothes or burp cloths by the gallon full, it's fine. And as long as your baby is gaining weight, it's really fine. Babies will spit up because they have immature digestive systems. The flap between the esophagus and the stomach is underdeveloped in a baby, especially in a baby younger than six months old. And so food will inevitably back up, which turns into spit up. Remember, an older eating is a liquid diet. So it's just a lot of liquid sloshing around in there. And spit up is very common. Doctors will say it's a laundry problem, not a health problem. And spitting up does not indicate too much eating. You can cross that worry off your worry list because. Sweet. Exactly. Obviously, if your baby is throwing up projectile vomiting where literally there's vomit that's going clear across the room, that would be something to ask your doctor about. But if your baby is just spitting up and it seems like a tremendous amount, I promise you it's not a tremendous amount. I actually have a reel on my Instagram that talks about this. It shows a teaspoon of milk and I pour it onto the counter and it looks like a huge amount, but it's just a teaspoon. And that's sort of the same thing with spit up with a baby. It looks like. my God, they just spit up their entire meal and I promise you it's a tiny amount. So don't worry about the spit up. And that would not be a sign that they're full. The sign that they're full is that they'll turn away. They'll stop sucking. They'll fall asleep. So those are signs that they're full. And so those are going to be much better indicators. I mean, not all the time, especially if it's a sleepy newborn, sometimes falling asleep is not a great indicator, but certainly if you know that they've nursed or taken a bottle for a typical amount of time or ounces that they usually do, and then they fall asleep. That usually means that they're full. And so we should honor their cues that they're giving us, their satiety cues. But there are also ways to know that they're getting fed adequately. Certainly in the newborn stage, the first couple of months, we want to make sure that our babies are getting enough to eat. And if you're bottle feeding, it's easy to see that they're getting enough to eat because you know, you put in two ounces, you put in four ounces, they drink the bottle and you know, okay, he's gotten four ounces. He's had three and a half ounces. If you're nursing, you're not going to know because how would you know? So. There are things to look for in a baby, certainly a nurse baby, but even a bottle fed baby to know whether they're getting enough to eat in that newborn stage, the first couple of months. And again, we could trust our babies and also look for these signs. So the most important sign and what I always tell parents, you know, I do a lot of parenting coaching and so many parents will say to me, I'm worried my baby's not getting enough to eat. And I first question to them is always is your baby gaining weight. And in the first month, we're looking for around an ounce a day of weight gain. And then after that, it's going to be different, obviously, for every baby. So the most important thing is weight gain. And it's not just weight gain. It's weight gain along your baby's curve. So if your baby was born really small and they're still small, even a month or two later, that's fine because if they're fifth percentile or 10th percentile at birth and they're following their curve and they're staying at the 10th percentile, that's just the baby, right? And the same thing would be if the baby starts off with the 90th percentile. But as long as your baby is following that weight, and gaining weight according to his or her curve each month or each baby visit that you do with the pediatrician or whoever your practitioner is. The lactation consultant will probably come in way. If you have a scale at home, you can see as long as your baby is gaining weight, then that's all you have to worry about. As soon as you see the weight growing up, then that just shows that your baby is getting enough to eat. And that's really the first line thing to look at. There are other. signs and I can run through them quickly, but I always will tell parents if your baby is gaining weight, take a deep breath. You're doing great. You're feeding your baby. Well, your baby is getting enough to eat and it rhymes. Yeah, right. So it seems simple, right? But we still worry because parents still worry, but there are other signs to look for. So if your baby seems happy at feedings or at the end of a feeding, right now, obviously babies cry a lot, but if your baby seems satisfied at the end of a feeding and is happy most of the time when she's not overtired or he's not bored or overstimulated or whatever it is. That means your baby is getting enough to eat. An easy way to see besides looking at the bottle, if it's a bottle is to watch for swallowing and gulping. This is especially helpful if you're nursing, if you're breastfeeding, because you can see or hear the swallows. And that means that the baby's swallowing something so that your baby is getting enough to eat. Probably another great indication, right? Weight gain is probably the best indication. The second best indication is to look at what's happening in the diapers. So what goes in must come out. So if your baby is taking enough. food in, then the diaper contents will be plentiful. So you're going to look for three to four large poops in the beginning, starting at, let's say, day five, day five or six, and then continuing on through the first six to eight weeks. So a lot of diaper changes when it comes to poops, a lot of diaper changes when it comes to pee, you're looking for around six to eight wet diapers in the early weeks. And of course, that pee should be colorless. If it's dark yellow, or if you get like crystals in the diaper, then that means your baby's getting dehydrated. So these are signs to look for in the early weeks to know that your baby is getting enough to eat. And then once you pass that newborn stage, you'll understand your baby's patterns. You'll feel more comfortable knowing that even if you're not sure how many ounces the baby's getting, that your baby is growing, gaining weight, producing diapers and things like that, so that you'll feel a little more comfortable about, okay, I don't have to worry so much. Is my baby getting enough? Is my baby hungry all the time? Is my baby full? trust your baby and trust these signs that I've just listed to know that, yep, my baby is telling you when he's had enough. She's telling me when she's hungry and I could see the results that my baby is growing in a healthy way. Thank you so much for all that information. You know, it reminds me that at stage when they're getting fussy, it's just like whenever we're dealing with sleep, they go through their sleeping at that early, early stage. Yeah. So babies are going to sleep a lot, especially in the newborn stage and they're going to be sleeping in short bursts. in the beginning, but we're going to try to elongate those to longer naps. But in the beginning, you're going to get short bursts of sleep. But if you add it all up, we're talking about, like you said earlier, at least 12 hours a day, certainly, probably closer to 16 to 18 hours in the early weeks and the early months. That's a lot of sleep because babies are doing a lot of growing, physical growing and brain development. They're learning about the world. They're stimulated. They're bombarded with sights and sounds and smells. So they need to process all of that. And that's why sleep is so important for babies. And so they're going to be doing a lot of it. In the newborn stage, there's not going to really be so much of a pattern of when they're sleeping and when they're eating, right? We'd want to feed them every two to three hours and they're going to be falling asleep at feedings probably. But as you get closer to like two to three months, you'll start to see some patterns develop. And certainly by three to four months, you'll be able to really. naturally fall into a eat, play, sleep type of pattern so that your baby is eating, then your baby is playing, right? And depending on how old the baby is, there's going to be a certain wake window, which is the time between naps. So let's say at three to four months, you're talking about a 90 to 120 minutes, an hour and a half to two hours wake window. So that's how long a baby will be up. And that includes the feeding time, but then you'll have them have time to play. And then you'll start to see sleep cues, right? They'll rub their eyes. They'll start to yawn, those sort of things. And then you'll want to get them in for a nap. And as your baby gets towards the middle of the first year, the ideal would be, and this is not going to work for every baby, but the ideal would be to get to naps that are longer than 45 minutes, because a sleep cycle is 45 minutes. And we really want babies to get through that full 45 minute sleep cycle. So we're going to try to be encouraging longer naps and those sort of things. And these are. all the type of things that I go through in the book, bite -sized parenting, step-by -step, and how to help elongate those naps, what to do if your baby's waking too early in the morning, obviously how to get your baby to sleep through the night, which is later on in the first year. But certainly in the newborn stage, what's more important is the overall amount of sleep that a baby is getting and less about how long is a baby sleeping right now, is the time to feed again. As I said, we're feeding on demand in those early weeks and we're also sleeping on demand when it comes to the baby. I try to remind parents not to get too caught up in the newborn stage. I have a newborn course and I spend a lot of time on, I have a section on feeding, I have a section on sleeping, I have a section on getting to know your baby, some of the things that we're talking about now and looking for those cues. And it's probably one of the hardest things for parents, right? Figuring out the whole sleep thing and figuring out like when my baby needs to sleep or how long my baby needs to sleep. And there's certainly a lot of guidance that we can get. And ultimately though, it's about understanding our baby's patterns. and responding to them. helps us create content that celebrates and supports dads everywhere. Until the next time, stay super. Yeah, very much. Now, how are they processing the world around them? Like the sensory development within that first year. What are some key points that parents should be aware of? Yeah, it's again, I find this so fascinating. This is what I do, but I'm amazed at how much a baby can take in even in those early weeks. At birth, a baby... recognizes his parents' voices because he's heard them in the womb. She recognizes smells, so a baby knows what her mother smells like. These are incredible things, right? You think a two -hour -old baby would have those sensory abilities, and the truth is that they do. But then there's ways that we as parents can help develop and encourage those sensory developments and the simulation and the brain development that we want for our kids. And so, first of all, our presence as parents. is going to be one of the most important things, right? Just being there for our kids, even as newborns, so not ignoring them. But there's plenty of things that we can do even in the early stages, in the early weeks and months, that really will help enhance development. So newborns, babies, let's say in the first, again, six to eight weeks, love to look at faces. Again, they're primed biologically to be able to recognize faces. So, you know, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, this is what they love looking at. So, Get in close. I always tell parents, get in close. You know, the baby can't see that far. Nine to 12 inches is really what we're looking at in those early weeks. Get in close, smile to your baby, even though the babies won't smile back yet. Let your baby see you, your face. We don't want to get too close when we're talking about outside of the family because of germs in those first few weeks, but as your baby grows, like, you know, expose your baby to lots of different faces and people because that's great for brain stimulation. Also in the early weeks, focus on high contrast patterns. So black and white patterns, big bold patterns, primary colors, because baby's eyes recognize that much better than let's say soft pastel kind of blurry images, because a baby won't really recognize that early on. Obviously as they get further along and their eyes develop more, they will. So certainly we can be looking forward to that in the later months of the first year. But in the beginning, think black and white and you can. read books even to a baby. They won't understand what you're reading, but if you get a black and white high contrast book and just turn the pages, they'll be fascinated by the images, by the pictures. And if there are words on the page and they hear your voice, they're going to be stimulated by your voice. So people always say, when can I, I have to wait till they're like six months old to start reading books. I'm like, no, you can start at a month old, right? Even though they're not going to really know what's going on. There's no harm in doing that. And also it helps to develop a sense of. or a love for reading eventually. It becomes part of the schedule of the day, the routine that a baby will look forward to. So reading books, exposing your child to lots of images early on. We talked about talking to your baby when you're doing it. We naturally, as parents, talk in parent ease, which is a high pitched, look at the baby, right? Our voices go up and that's biologically, cause babies hear higher pitched sounds better. So we naturally do it and even though we feel silly doing it, we should continue doing that because that's great for brain stimulation. Music and singing, even if we can't carry tunes, that is great for babies. They love rhythm. There's been so many studies that have shown that babies will recognize music that they've heard when they were still in utero and that's played off. And so fascinating stuff. So definitely play music as your baby starts to coo. make those adorable noises respond to your baby so that your baby understands what a conversation means, even if they don't understand what a conversation means, but they get to understand what communication is about. So all these like little things and obviously toys, right? Eventually, as your child is able to start grabbing onto toys to start hitting toys, let's say from a hanging bar, we can offer that to them so that they can start learning all about hand -eye coordination, about, you know, manipulating objects. bringing objects to the mouth that happens later in the first year. So there's so many ways that we can help stimulate our baby and develop that amazing growing brain, even from the first weeks and days of life. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because communication, I can't remember the percentage, but a very high percentage of our communication is not verbal. And there's that reciprocal aspect of what we do where it's like, yeah, they're making sound, we're making sound. And you make this high pitch sound or we modulate it as well. And. It also made me think how the book, Good Night Moon was one of the first book. And I don't want to say one of the only books that I had that had that black and white. And I never understood why. Yeah. You had the black and white. So yeah, it's also very bright colors. I believe that there's a lot of red and green in it. It's these bright primary colors. Yes. And it does also have the black and white. And that book's a classic also because of the cadence of the words in the great green room. Like, you know, we've all read it to our kids. We know it by heart. And there's this cadence and rhythm and that's why babies respond to music and also to reading, which is different than talking. So all forms of communication, and you're right, certainly the nonverbal communication is so important for baby. I mentioned just getting your face in there, smiling to your baby. One of the first social cues that we get back from our baby is that first social smile. So if they're not seeing you smile, which is a nonverbal social interaction, then they won't necessarily know. when to smile back. But if you're smiling at them, you're talking in that high pitched voice, you're cooing at them, then they're going to say, this is what human interaction is. There's facial gestures and then there's vocal gestures. My eyes will start to crinkle and happiness. So and eventually laughs and giggles. So all these things are crucial for that language development and those kind of nonverbal communication that you're mentioning that we help elicit and develop right from the start. Yeah, absolutely. And now if we kind of like transition into the second month with our interaction with our child, how does that evolve within the second month there? Because now they're more aware, a little bit more aware. Is that where we can start even looking at more regularity with their behaviors and whether it's feeding, sleeping. Can you take us through a transition to the second month there? Yeah, so the second month was still the newborn stage because the newborn stage goes with first and second month. So I would say usually around month three, when the baby turns month three is when you're going to start to see more regularity and you'll be able to see more interaction and more response from your baby. So we go from the blob stage of the first two months, the first, let's say eight weeks, and then you get to the more interactive stages. I always tell parents that my favorite time of the first year is four to six months because that's when they're not. quite moving yet. So you could put them in one spot and they'll stay there. But they're much more interactive. They're very smiley. They're very happy for the most part, right? Obviously they're not always going to be happy and they're just responsive. And so you feel like all this work that you've put in, in those first two months is kind of giving you dividends now because it's very hard, right? Those first two months are really hard because you're just giving and giving and giving and you're not getting much back, right? Because your baby is not interacting with you, not cooing necessarily just. asking, asking, asking, I need to sleep, I need to eat, I need to sleep again, I need to eat again. It's difficult for parents, but once you get to the third month, third and fourth month, you're getting a more interactive and more responsive baby. And that's when you could start doing things like tummy time, right? I mean, you could start tummy time, for example, right from the start, from day one, you bring your baby home from the hospital. So let's say day three, and then you could start with tummy time. And we were talking a lot about. the brain stimulation, the language stimulation, but we didn't really touch upon the physical stimulation. And that's what we want to do also in certainly in the first two months, but obviously as we get more into month three and month four tummy time, because our babies can't always be in our arms all day and they certainly can't be on their backs all day. So we also need to put them on their tummies and also on their side so that they get experience in all different positions, right? Even propped up a little bit, let's say in a bouncer seat, tummy time is so important because. It helps your baby develop those muscles that they're not developing when they're on their backs. They're sleeping most of the day, so they're on their backs most of the day. We need them to develop their head and neck muscles, their shoulder muscles, their core and back muscles, their chest muscles, because they need to be able to push up on their hands so that eventually they could sit and crawl and pull up to standing and then walking. So there's a progression of the physical development that we want to help encourage our kids. to experience as well. And if our baby is constantly, let's say in a sling or a baby carrier or constantly on their back, whether it's in the stroller or in the bassinet or crib, they're not going to be getting that physical stimulation. So that's something that as we transition, just to bring it back to your question, as we transition from the blob stage to a little more interactive stage, we also want to make sure that they're interacting in different physical positions throughout the day so that they're able to learn, right? Babies who aren't exposed to things and won't necessarily learn how to do things. And so we want to be able to expose them to those different positions, physical positions, so that then they could reach those physical milestones. Very important, very important. Yeah. I was also thinking about just kind of like playing with their hands and like letting them feel things. Yeah. Yeah. Now we've touched a little bit of this, but what about like baby crying? One of the things that I've been learning is that particularly for men is that we have the anger response to... either baby crying or just like that frustration manifests itself. And I was thinking of if we can have some strategies on how to approach a crying baby and what's going on with a crying baby. And if we've gone past the sleeping time we've gone past, we've gone to the late feeding signs. How should we approach a crying baby? Because that is probably one of the tough things other than sleep deprivation. Exactly. Yeah. The top thing is going to be sleep eating and crying. Crying is really. difficult because we don't always know why the baby is crying. The baby doesn't know how to communicate except through crying. And so figuring out what the baby wants is going to be a lot of trial and error. We're not going to always get it right. And I think that as parents, we should accept that and give ourselves grace and say, it's okay that we're not going to figure it out. The more time you spend with your baby, as your baby grows, you'll start to hear the sounds a little different. You'll know when it's a pain cry versus a hunger cry versus an overtired cry. So we'll learn about our baby and therefore we'll be able to respond differently. But sometimes we won't figure it out and we'll just have to go through five different things until we get it right. Or maybe we won't get it right and the baby will just stop crying because that's what babies do. When the baby starts crying, you can go through a checklist. Is it time for a feeding? If the baby just ate half an hour ago, it's probably not time for a feeding and the baby's probably not crying out of hunger. So we can cross that off. Often babies cry because they're overtired, right? We sometimes think that... Overtired babies will sleep more easily or rule. They're just so tired that those fall asleep. But the truth is with babies, it's the opposite. An overtired baby will sleep less well and will have a harder time falling asleep because they are just so overtired and they can't settle down. So a lot of times crying, which is also a late stage sleep cue is this baby saying, I can't get myself to sleep help. So sometimes a baby will need rocking. Certainly we're in the beginning stages, right? We can rock a baby, try to figure out, you know, how to settle that baby down. You can use a pacifier when a baby is crying because some babies love to suck on the pacifier. Not all babies do and you don't have to push a baby to take a pacifier. But if your baby likes to suck, my kids love the pacifier. So pacifiers are great. It pacifies, right? That's why it's called that. It works. Babies have this instinctual need to suck and it calms them down. And so, Whether it's a baby putting a finger in their mouth or you could put your finger in the baby's mouth or give them the pacifier. That's a great way to troubleshoot when a baby is crying. Sometimes babies will calm down when you start to sing to them. Again, even if you can't carry a tune or if you say shh, shh, that's something that could be comforting for baby. Similar to the shushing sound is white noise. Some babies love white noise. So put on a white noise machine that can calm a baby down. Sometimes babies need a change of atmosphere. So if you're inside, bring them outside. If they're outside, bring them inside that sometimes put a stop to the crying. Some babies love to be skin to skin. So take off your shirt, put your baby inside your sweater, whatever it is, get your baby physically close again. We're talking about little babies that can be very comforting. Sometimes just the feel of your heartbeat. And this is for dads and moms that can be really soothing for a baby. Some babies love to be massaged and that's very calming. And so that's a great way to deal with. crying. And of course, the baby needs to go to sleep, put them to sleep. If a baby is hungry and crying because of that feed the baby. So you won't always know what the baby needs. Because that's just inevitable, right? We're not we don't have crystal balls. And our baby can't say right now I need X. A baby is just going to cry. But the more you get to know your baby, the more you get to know the routine of the day, the more confidence you have in yourself as the expert in your baby, you'll be able to respond. And you'll be able to say, okay, this is what my baby needs now. You know, a little more shaking and rocking. And then there will be times that I want to really say this clearly, there will be times when your baby will just cry. Period. Full stop. There's nothing that you can do to stop that crying. And that's just the reality of babies. And so I don't want any parent to feel like I'm a bad parent because my baby is crying. All babies cry and you're not going to always know why. And you're not going to always be able to figure it out and to fix it. And that's okay. because your baby will survive. One of the things that I like humming, like, cause I can't sing. So I just like hum my childhood tunes. I started doing very early with my son and it does help him calm down. And the other thing too, yeah, changing scenery, even just like moving to a different area of the house that helps so much because it just forces their attention towards something else. And they're always looking at what's around them. So that one works really, really well. What are some cool strategies for tummy time that you'll be able to share with us as well? Yes, sure. We talked about tummy time and why it's so important and it is really important by eight weeks, the end of the second month, you want to aim for around 15 to 30 minutes a day cumulatively of your baby on tummy time. So if it's five minutes here and one minute there, you know, like spread out throughout the day, as long as it's getting up to like 15 to 30 minutes. And by the time your baby is like four months old, we're looking for almost an hour a day of tummy time. Most babies don't like tummy time. And that's why you're asking the question of how to make it more fun because it's hard. I mean, that's the whole purpose of tummy time, right? I mentioned before it's to help strengthen all those muscles, but because the muscles aren't strong, it's really hard for a baby to lift his head up. So most babies will get upset in tummy time. And so we don't want to keep our baby like really miserable in tummy time. But I also want to say when a baby protests for like two seconds, just let them sit in it. It's okay to be a slightly uncomfortable for a little bit. We don't want them to be miserable, but if they're like, eh, it's okay, right? That's them pushing through and working through some challenging times. And that's what life's about. So you can start teaching your baby that. And so if there's small protests, keep your baby in tummy time, take them out if they're really screaming and horror. But while the baby's in tummy time, there are ways to make it more fun or more enjoyable or less miserable for the baby. When babies are really young, you can put actually a rolled towel or a pillow underneath their chest, like under their arms. which helps them, especially when they're very new and their muscles aren't strengthened yet, it helps lift them up. That makes it a little easier for your baby. Leaning back yourself with your baby on your own chest is still considered tummy time. So even if your baby is not flat in the floor, if the baby's still lifting his head, even, you know, on you, that's still considered tummy time. And it's definitely more fun for your baby because he sees you interact with you do a lot of the things that we talked about before. That's another way of making it fun. When you do have your baby on the floor and tummy time, make sure that you're giving your baby something fun to look at a mirror so they could see themselves. They're not going to know that like your baby's going to not look and say, that's me. But she'll see something, right? She'll see a face. And we talked about how faces are so exciting for babies or put some interesting toys, some black and white toys, or some high contrast color primary color toys in front of them. And this will give them something enjoyable to look at. I mean, you could do tummy time on an exercise ball. So again, they're not just flat on the floor. Yeah. You can massage your baby when your baby is on his tummy so that it gives a little more enjoyable, especially if your baby likes massages. So there are ways to make tummy time more enjoyable. And I go through this in bite -sized parenting with lots more tips and some suggestions of how to make it fun, but it isn't a really important exercise for your baby. So, make sure that you're doing it every day. Yeah. It's interesting because I fed into the frustration of baby and that was one of the mistakes that I met or errors and. I felt like he was used to mommy's chest. And so when it comes to my chest, it's just this rigid thing. So I'll put like a soft blanket in between just to try and work around it. But that's what I love the idea of the bouncing ball even. Kind of like just balance them on that. That's really good. Yeah. It's fun. And I don't want you to say you made a mistake because first of all, parenting is all about making mistakes and then of course correcting, but it wasn't a mistake because you were working with your baby. You were responding to your baby. You felt that he needed a little more comforts, right? On your chest, let's say. So there's nothing wrong with putting a blanket there. So you did everything right. That wasn't wrong. It wasn't a mistake. You did everything right. And he gained so much from that. He gained time with you. He got to see your face, all those communication, nonverbal and verbal communication and tummy time. So it's like win, win, win, win. So good for you. Like don't look at that as a mistake. Look at that as a win. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. And on that, you also mentioned baby massage. I mean, we may rub their back, but like, tell us more about baby massage and how they react to that and why it's so important for them. Yeah. So I mentioned it in the book. I talk about it. I give tips on how to do it. Baby massage is a great bonding experience for parents and their babies. It's a way of mental stimulation, the verbal stimulation, the physical stimulation. This is a sensory stimulation, which is also important for babies. So when you're massaging them, when you're putting your, you know, you could do it after a bath, let's say with lotion, with moisturizer, which, you know, it's good for the baby anyway. So having that sensation of hands being laid on the baby through a massage is a great sensory experience for your baby. And for many babies, it's very comforting. Not all babies, right? Again, you have to know your baby and some babies are like, I don't like this, you know, get your hands off of me. But many babies are calmed by it and they feel that sense of connectedness with you as the parent. And so there's also like physical benefits that studies have shown. It reduces heart rate, it calms down cortisol levels, that sort of thing. So. There's lots of benefits to it and it doesn't have to be formal. You know, you can do formal massages if you want. There are certain techniques to do in terms of circular this way or the foot this way, but you don't have to be so formal. You can, like I said, just rub on lotion after a bath and you call it a massage. So it's about figuring out what works for you and your baby and the timing and then saying, okay, this is just another sensory experience that my baby is having that I'm exposing my baby to and baby's getting moisturized also. So that's good for his skin. Yeah, absolutely. Man, there's so much information to go through. Even I feel like we've, for the most part, got through like the one month, diving to the two months a little bit. But with the time we have, take us to the transition to the third month of baby being with us. Yeah, absolutely. By around three to four months, you can start establishing some sort of routine. I don't want to call it a formal schedule, but some sort of routine throughout the day. So that first of all, it's. easier for you as a parent, because you know what your day is going to look like for the most part. But you can transition into routines that make sense. So we're looking for naps, again, longer than 45 minutes. Ideally, we want to get to an hour to two hours. It's not going to happen overnight in terms of getting your baby to sleep longer. But that's the goal that we're going to be looking for. Feedings are going to be spread out a little more. You're not going to be feeding every two hours for the most part. You're going to be feeding, let's say every three to four hours, three and a half hours, four hours between feedings. There's going to be longer wake windows. So your baby's going to have much more time in terms of playing. And as we talked about before, your baby's going to be much more interactive. So playing will be more fun for you and for your baby. And you're going to start to see longer stretches of sleep time at night, hopefully, right? By the time your baby is getting closer to four months old. So maybe a baby can go five hours at a time between feedings at night, and maybe you'll get a little more sleep. I mean, and every baby is different. And that's really an important thing to mention here. Every baby is different and it's going to be on a different schedule and different time frames in terms of when they're going to sleep and when they're going to start sleeping through the night. Potentially. I usually like to say you could start doing some sort of sleep teaching closer to four to six months at six months. You're going to start to see more. physical developments, your baby's going to start to sit around that time. You're going to start transitioning into feeding solids at around close to six months, so five to six months. Then you're going to start seeing crawling close to eight months, nine months, then pulling up and cruising. And as you get to that one year mark, you may start to see some steps. So there's so much, like once you're transitioning out of that early blob stage to the somewhat interactive stage of three to four months. So the really adorable interactive stages of six months and beyond. And the first year is just so magical because there's so much change. When you look back at the end of that first year and you look back to what was just 12 months ago, you're going to be amazed at how much that baby has grown physically, of course, but also emotionally and intellectually. And it's just an incredible, it's an incredible year. And this is why I love writing about it. It's why I love talking to parents about it. And. And hopefully through my book, Bite Size Parenting, it's made that first year for all parents much more manageable. You get to know what you can look forward to each month and what to do with all the different stages. Yeah, absolutely. I love the, when you're talking about what to look forward to for each month, because again, in the context of that parent who's not there for the whole day, there's a lot of things that you're missing out on and you don't realize it. And so that was a really cool element to add onto that. One of the very important things that I find you do in your book is just reminding parents that it's okay. And you've done it on the show with me here. And I want to highlight that because our newborn is just a little over a year old. And yesterday, me and my lady were having a conversation and she's like, I don't feel like I know what I'm doing still. I'm like, it's okay. It was because I read it. I'm glad. I'm glad you read it. But you know, it's really true. We get very caught up as parents in the day to day details, right? Is my baby eating enough? Is my baby sleeping enough? I don't know what I'm doing because my baby is crying or because I can't figure it out. But the truth is, is that it's okay because there's not much that we can do to ruin things as parents. We feel like there's so much like riding on us. But the truth is, is that there's so many different paths of parenting. Aside from health and safety issues, right? We're talking about Safety things, always put your baby in a car seat when you're in the car, put your baby on their back to sleep, you know, with an empty crib, no bumpers or blankets or pillows in that first year. Those are like safety things, right? We have the data. We know that this is what's most important for our child and we have to really follow that. And then of course the health things, make sure that you're bringing your baby to the doctor, following the doctor's recommendations when it comes to health. Aside from those things, there are really no absolutes in parenting. It doesn't really matter what you do or what you choose. So you as a parent can choose to, feed your baby solids in one way, right? You could just do purees or you can do it another way, which is the baby -led weaning method, which is finger food starting at six months, or you can do both, purees and finger foods. And it doesn't really matter what you choose because you have to choose what works best for your baby. Your baby is going to learn how to eat. If it feels right for you as a parent and for your baby, then it's going to be the best thing for your baby. So it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter if you choose to sleep train. or not sleep train. It doesn't really matter if you choose this toy or that toy. It doesn't really matter if you burp your baby this way or that way, right? Ultimately, your baby is going to be fine because there are many ways to get to that fine place. There's no perfection and there's no one right answer for parenting. And so when you're feeling or your partner is feeling, I don't know what I'm doing. first of all, you probably know a lot more than you think you know, just because you've gotten through that first year. And probably when you take a step back and look at what you've accomplished as a parent, you'll be like, you know what? I actually do know what I'm doing. Or I know a few things. There's always more to learn, but I know a lot. But as long as your baby is thriving and you're there for your baby, that's really all your baby needs. It's that love and attention and your presence and you'll figure the rest out and your baby will figure the rest out. And there is no one perfect way that you should have done it. Because if it works for you and it feels right for you, then that's the best thing for your baby. thank you so much. All this went too fast. There's a lot to talk about. This is why I wrote a book, right? There's a lot that happens in just the first year. But I'm glad we had this chance to chat. No, absolutely. It was very informative. And even for us, like if we can just keep having these type of conversations, that would be super duper beneficial because I sent a picture of the book to one of my friends, which is gave birth. And I told her I should have read this book twice, literally. It would have been that helpful. And it's easy to read, right? It's a fast read. It's easy to read. It's not overwhelming. So it's really perfect for parents today. Yeah. Well, again, thank you very much for coming here onto our show. And if you could just let us know what's next for you and where people can find your work. We did mention at the beginning, but yeah, what should we expect from you in the near future here? So you can find a Bitesize Parenting, my book Everywhere Books are Sold on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and bookstores. So definitely check that out. You can find me on Instagram. I'm at Sharon Mayzell. I'm there nearly every day answering questions and interacting with my followers. And you could also find all my resources, my coaching, my eGuys, my courses on my website, SharonMayzell .com. So I'm easy to find. Absolutely. Well, that's it for folks. Thank you all for tuning in and we will see you all on the next one. Sharon, thank you again for being here with us. Thank you so much for having me. That was great. Yeah.