Hello my dear friends.
If you’ve spent any time at all with me on Instagram, you know that I love to talk directly to my “audience" via video. I hop on my stories several times a day to share snippets of cosleeping conversations I’m having with clients (while respecting their confidentiality, of course) or just to share a stream of consciousness about parenting outside of the prevailing paradigm.
But here’s the thing: ever since I started teaching Sacred Sleep, I’ve been trying mightily to figure out how to deliver more long-form video content. It is abundantly clear that parents don’t need more click bait and sound bites. They need to sit with —even virtually — other parents who are endeavoring to break cycles, parent with responsiveness day and night, and do things differently.
They need a proverbial campfire. And in the absence of the elusive in-person village we hear of so frequently — in the absence of wise elders — sometimes we need to sit across from other parents who “get it” and just…have a conversation.
We do this regularly in Cuddle Crew, but dads are missing from the equation since it’s a space exclusively for mothers.
A few weeks ago, I opened a question box in my Instagram stories inviting questions for my partner, and the floodgates opened: there were questions from men all over the world, asking my husband very vulnerable, beautiful, inquisitive questions about his role as a father who nurtures at night.
So on the eve of Valentine’s Day, on a cozy, rainy day in SoCal, Eric and I sat together on my mother-in-law’s couch while she hung out with our two young children and dug into the questions unrehearsed and unscripted.
We covered everything from co-sleeping to paternal mental health to relationship dynamics and Eric shared his off-the-cuff responses regarding practical advice for handling household duties, coping with parental preferences, and managing time for “self-care”.
We talked a lot about sleep, of course — the benefits of early skin-to-skin, contact naps, and babywearing, etc. and how to support mom in the early days (and by we, I mean he, because I had to try really hard to stay in my lane as the interviewer :-)).
So here it is: my debut long-form video “content”. An expression of love and solidarity to those of you parenting against the status quo every single day and night.
If you know a new father in your life, please share this with him.
Xoxo,
Britt
Rough breakdown of video in case you want to skip ahead to the parts that resonate with you:
00:00 Setting the scene :-)
00:37 First Question: Co-Sleeping
01:41 Parental Support and Communication
02:09 Balancing Parenting Duties
04:36 SupportingBabies to Sleep
08:08 Recharging as a Parent
11:19 Challenges in Early Parenthood
14:04 Parenting Roles
15:11 Coping with Parental Preferences
20:13 Final Thoughts and Farewell
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