Not Alone, Not Broken: What Happens When Parents Know They're Not Failing
Well that low sleep needs article escalated fast
Hello there!
It seems last week’s article on parenting low sleep needs kids really struck a nerve! As much as I don’t like Instagram, the few paragraphs I posted have been shared over 3500 times and a whole bunch of you have found your way here to my newsletter, which is cool. Considering my account had a following of 4.3k when I clicked “publish”, the response has been pretty ridiculous!
It’s surprising in a way, and also not surprising at all. The conversation around sleep and child temperament needed (and indeed still needs) to be had, and yet I rarely, if ever, see it discussed in the public arena.
How is it that “mothering” or “parenting” are treated as a monolith when children’s needs are so variable, even amongst many of the people and professions who claim to be “experts”? That this largely goes unchecked says a lot about the respect our profit-oriented society gives (specifically, doesn’t give) to the lived experience and concurrent requests for support of caregivers.
I digress. The comments in response to my post generally read like this:
Sentiments like these pretty much sum up exactly why I write this newsletter, why I wrote my book, why I host a podcast and pimp myself out to every other podcast that will have me.
It’s also why I’m reaching out to early learning centres to do workshops with their parents and educators (if you’re within an hour or so of Toronto, NSW and want me to come chat to your centre or workplace, please drop me a line). It’s why I host community gatherings and circles (details on the next online one at the bottom of this email), and why I do early and extended postpartum support calls.
Because if mothers and parents know they’re not failing, they can get on with the job of assembling the support they need. This enables them to parent according to their values and what works for their families, both ending the demoralising search for an elusive, silver-bullet style “solution” and pushing back against the unspoken social rules of what it means to be a “good” mother/parent.
So I guess what I want to say today is thanks heaps for reading, getting the word out, commenting and being here. I do plan on doing an audio version of that post to make it more accessible too, I’ll let you know when it’s up on the pod.
Comments like those above (and the more extended ones on the article itself) give me the boost I sometimes need to keep plugging away with sharing this message. The irony that almost all of the time I put into this article was while my second, average sleep needs toddler was boobie-napping is not lost on me either!
While we’re on the topic of sleeping and non-sleeping children, I wanted to share a few other resources with you. These weren’t linked directly in last week’s newsletter, so I’ve included them here.
Parts one and two of my interview on the Beyond Sleep Training podcast, where I shared our sleep journey with our “little sparkler” from newborn to age 3, which as you can imagine was tumultuous.
Why haven’t we moved beyond sleep training? One of my favourite Anna Asks podcast episodes I’ve ever recorded! Carly Grubb (who interviews me in the episodes I linked above) gives us a history lesson on how sleep training culture came to be, how it does parents a disservice, and why it’s so hard to dismantle. Carly speaks with compassion for parents who (like herself) have tried various sleep training methods, and discusses what needs to happen for our society to reorient towards nurtured sleep for babies and the people who care for them.
CIO and Attachment: Is This What We Should Be Looking At? This article by Tracy Cassels, PhD, always comes to mind when anyone suggests sleep training is harmless because it seems not to impact immediate attachment.
The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health through the Art of Nurtured Parenting. Written by neuroscientist, doula and NICU-mum Greer Kirshenbaum, you can pretty much throw away any parenting book ever written for children aged 0-3 and read this one. You can get the TL;DR version by listening to Dr. Greer speak on this episode of Dr. Sophie Brock’s The Good Enough Mother podcast.
Hope you love wrapping your ears and eyes around those texts.
I’ll be back with another article next week. Some of the drafts I’m working on are about
The myth of limitlessly expanding capacity as mothers/parents
What I learnt by explaining myself to my child every time I got angry with them
Why well-meaning birthies and doulas are being pulled into transphobia without even realising it’s happening
Kindness as activism: How the small contributions we don’t even realise we’re making help rewrite the social “rules” of motherhood/parenthood
The flow on effects of obstetric violence on health care access
Why a birth debrief with someone who was there doesn’t always help you move on
As you can see, I have plenty of ideas and not much time in which to execute them!
Writing aside, I’m very much looking forward to our upcoming get together. I’d love to invite you to join our online Default Parent circle this weekend. Usually our online community events are on the first Saturday of the month, but January was a bit topsy turvy so it’s happening this Saturday 20th Jan at 4pm AEDT.
It will be 75-90mins duration and follow the same format as usual - some guided relaxation activities at the start, a series of journaling prompts to unload onto the page, and some facilitated talk time to reflect on recent challenges and recalibrate for the month ahead. That said, there’s no pressure to share - you’re welcome to speak as much or little as you like.
This is your link to register.
I’ll send out the zoom details to everyone who has RSVPed by email on the morning of the circle so it doesn’t get lost in the depths of your inbox (anyone else with 2000 unread emails? Nope, okay, just me then).
One-off tickets are $15, or it’s included in your paid subscription here on Substack for $6/month (no lock-ins) or $60 annual. The code to take your ticket price down to $0 at the checkout is below.
Considering joining our community as a paid subscriber? A paid subscription supports my work and allows access to private posts, monthly online get togethers and workshops. Our upcoming events are as follows:
Sat Jan 20, 4pm AEDT- Online mothers’ circle. An opportunity to relax, recharge and connect, facilitated by me.
Sat Feb 3, 4pm AEDT - Create and chat social/coworking zoom session. Use the motivation of the group to craft, write, cook, create, declutter or work on any other project, while also getting a chance to socialise, vent, ask questions of me and lean on the wisdom of the group.
Sat March 2, 4pm AEDT - Book club - “I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jennette McCurdy. A call to discuss McCurdy’s powerful, engaging and darkly humorous memoir.
Thanks again for your support of my work. How nice it feels to know I’m not talking to the wind!!
Speak with you again soon,
Anna x
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Default Parent Project with Anna Cusack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.