Is She Ok? - Dating Dilemmas, Scale Weight Stress & The Sleep Training Debate

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

This week, Sophie & Chans tackle your dating dilemmas and address the stress around getting on the scales, before they take a deep dive into the world of sleep training babies.

Hi everyone and welcome to the Is She Okay podcast. I'm Chans and I'm Sophie and we're here to unpack life's ups and downs and all the in-betweens. Having the conversations every woman's thinking about but rarely says out loud. Every week we'll chat about topics that really matter, aiming to answer the question we all ask ourselves, is she okay hi how are you how are you doing so eager i'm good thank you um i i'm gonna jump straight in i've had a nice weekend um i went potty painting yesterday um which was nice yeah really cute me and um one of the girls from work went and we painted um we're gonna sound like really old women painted spoon rests you know cooking that's not their name and they look like a giant spoon and you put yeah yeah so since I moved yeah just for kind of like context this was

five years ago now um I've been I like you know when you use a teaspoon or like you're using a spatula and then like I always just put it like on a plate on a plate or on like my weighing scales and it just it looks awful and yeah same me um so for five years I've been meaning to buy one and haven't so I painted and I made myself one um and I can't wait to get it back god knows what it will look like when it's glazed but um yeah it was really cute so that was nice um so that was me leaving the house very wholesome and also you've made something very useful yes um I was very proud of my choice it was between that that and an egg cup and I went for that because I was like it's just it needs okay um so yeah did

that went for a run today I have also in the last 12 hours decided that I might be a bit psychic um so okay something more basically like I I've always been very like I think I've got very good intuition um and there have been yes a few instances in the past where like I've had a gut feeling about something and I guess it's an informed gut feeling like you know the context to a situation um I don't actually think I'm psychic yeah but um and like then something's happened like I've known when someone's like I've been like oh I know someone's definitely going to get engaged like on this holiday or whatever with no real context behind it anyway I had a dream last week and I'm going to be very vague because it's actually not a happy topic I had a dream basically that someone was having an affair. And then within like three days of me having this dream,

someone has commented to me with very kind of like headstrong, informed information without me mentioning this dream to them that they think yeah has been having an affair or acted inappropriate like basically just like confirming the person that the dream was about now there is context to it in that yeah like it's based off like seeing certain interactions and whatever so it's not yeah yeah of the blue but you know when things just like are so aligned and now I'm like this isn't good gossip and I'm not gonna like no to this person about it or say like you're sleeping like with so-and-so but you know when something happens but you're just gonna talk about it on your podcast yeah for everyone to hear

that's the right way keep it ambiguous but make it like no one will know um but yeah and i'm hoping that it's not true but you know when you're like it's just like a really interesting set of events that are yeah so that's kind of that for you um and then the only other thing to report is that i watched um hiddenures last night. Love, love that movie. Such a good movie. Based on a true story as well. Do you know what?

Like, there must be so many of these, like, stories over, like, the thousands of years that people have walked through. yeah of people like achieving amazing things and kind of doing things that are just so inspirational and so kind of like against all odds and I would never have known that these women existed if it wasn't for this because the likelihood of me going to NASA and whatever but you know it's just like it's phenomenal and yeah my story is that a Kevin Costner has gone into the hot old sexy man club why wasn't he already there ever since i saw him in wasn't robin hood i always had like a weird crush on oh you you coming over to my side of the fence coming over to the old man's side yeah um it's a great place to be um um he just wasn't on the radar i don't know i don't it's more kind of like something happens and they get added to the list.

It's right. Okay. They go out of my way to pursue. But yeah, it was the, when he gave the speech and just kind of like the fact that he had such integrity, I was like,

so hot for you right now. It's hot. That was very hot. Yeah. Like a man with like a strong moral compass. I'm so into it. So yeah, it was just a really great movie and I would 10 out of 10 recommend how are you how was your weekend weekend has been very social more social than I think I've been in the last I don't know seven months we had uh two lots of

different friends over uh one on Saturday one on Sunday and it was just really nice it was you know yesterday friends we haven't seen in ages but love them to pieces came over they met my son for the first time which was lovely he was on great form then we put him up to bed and then we spent the next four hours just just chilling just all of us just hanging out and chatting and you know I could see and you know I could see he was asleep on the monitor and I was just super relaxed so that was amazing and then today another set of friends came but I'm I'm not the kind of person who could just chuck a bag of chips and a dip on a table I need to host and be a hostess so that adds extra layers of like work that come into everything so I'm knackered um socially physically yeah you know

it's just one of those situations so now I'm just like I just need to be really quiet and alone at some point uh so counting down the minutes till the kid goes to bed count down the minutes till this is over no more my son guys we're done over and out okay thanks bye um but yeah it was it was wonderful to do it all but I now just need some quiet time yeah yeah I mean like my social battery is I spent an hour and a half with two other people painting pottery some of which was in silence and I'm like done for the week guys like that's like I'm not someone that recharges around other people um that being said I do think I've noticed certain people definitely drain my battery more than others like I can go for lunch with you in

Soraya for example and can be there all day and I don't leave feeling like oh god I need to go and like yeah yeah and other people who to be fair I actually probably just wouldn't spend time with anymore like you do they're like mood hoovers and like even if it's mood hoovers yeah such a good such a good saying right it's such a good time yeah like it is interesting there how some people kind of but I think overall like just social activity leaves me feeling yeah but also you know when you get to the the late mid to late 30s stage those mood hoovers they need to go we don't have enough time to placate that in our 20s I think we probably did we're like you're a dick but you know what what else am I doing maybe they serve a purpose in some other way like the going out friend or something like that yeah exactly or they're part of a group

and you just have to tolerate them and then you as you get to our stage you're like no get out of my life yeah and not even like I think that's the whole thing I think that's one of those situations where like it doesn't even have to be like and like any animosity or like it's just something just for you and that is oh I think yeah some go of relationships whether it be friendships or romantic ones um is gets easier as you get older because it just doesn't have to be filled with drama and all the rest of it yeah which actually is a very nice segue into some audience participation so um a little kind of shout out on my stories in the week um and was just asking for any kind of like fitness or personal dilemmas that we could

delve into obviously this is not like medical advice this is not kind of like certified therapist advice it's just our opinions which I think is great um so I thought we'd go in with one with a relationship one and then we do a fitness one but um we'll just get your take on this so let's do it right um hi ladies I need your advice about my boyfriend's best friend she's a woman and they've been close since university I want to trust him but sometimes their dynamic makes me uncomfortable like they have inside jokes and can be a bit kind of like touchy-feely um I've tried to bring it up to him but he says I'm being paranoid am I overreacting or is it fair to set boundaries here?

I will own up to the fact that I have been and probably still am to a certain extent a jealous bitch when it comes to relationships. I'm awful and it doesn't take much. The poor guy needs to look in the direction of a woman and I'm like, what the fuck is going on? So thinking about it objectively, they've known each other for a long time they're obviously going to be close in jokes fine you know you just have to tolerate it while you're with them the touchy feely bit is interesting because I'd need a little bit

more like is she sitting on his lap you know is he stroking her hair are they just is she just touching his chest and when they're laughing you know it varies in degrees of severity um unless his actions have absolutely shown you that there's something to worry about i think you're gonna have to just sit this one out and just deal with it if it gets to the point where actually you feel really uncomfortable yeah then have a conversation but ultimately you i just think you can't ask someone to end a friendship yeah because the friend is of the opposite sex yeah and i should know i probably have said that a couple of times in my life and you know i regret it now yeah yeah i mean so the thing so she's

obviously oh she's tried to bring it up with with him before and he's obviously like poo-pooed it by the sounds of things yeah so this is what I would take away from it like firstly as someone like I genuinely as I've got older as I said at the beginning like I've learned to really trust my intuition um yes and sometimes a gut feeling is based on more just more than just kind of assumptions about a situation like you're basing it on your history or something like that however it can also be based on like an anxiety maybe you've been cheated before so that's a sensitive subject for you um I do think you can set boundaries. Like for me, I would look at the situation and go, if things stay as they are right now, do you want to be in this situation, this same relationship in six months to a year's time? And if the answer is no, that kind of tells you what you need to know. Because if you're not comfortable with it now, and things aren't going to to change you're also probably not going to change I also think maybe if the the thing for me is really and truly the things that differentiates

a friendship from a relationship is sexual intimacy or kind of emotional intimacy so I guess if those lines aren't being crossed then they do just have a plus or no friendship if there's a history between them and it's crossed those lines or if you know he's hiding something about the friendship it's different but I do think like if you're not comfortable with it now yeah I think it's gonna change yeah and you've got to weigh it up don't you have to go is this one thing bad enough that I should end this entire relationship is it bad enough that it should ruin what we've got going on and it's interesting what you said about you know it potentially being based on if you've been cheated on in the past or it's triggering in some ways but actually sometimes you have to look

inwards and go what's my own insecurity here yeah am I feeling this way because of how how I feel about myself which I think often in the past that's been my reason it's been maybe that I didn't have I don't know maybe enough confidence in myself so I everything was just constantly a threat when it didn't actually need to be yeah I also think that that's a two- street. It's like, yes, you might've had insecurities, but there's also a responsibility on the other person to make you feel. Yeah. And when you find that person,

you marry them. That's the point. Because I wasn't suddenly sane when I found my husband. I was still pretty crazy. He just managed to tolerate it and make me trust him. Yeah. And that's the thing right like he probably made allowances or like made compromises or acted maybe differently than

he would have done in prior situations to make you feel yeah and like vice versa so yeah I think I think there's a conversation that probably yeah needs to be had and maybe a little bit of introspection. Love that. So I'm going to do a fitness one now. So I'm just going to pull this up. So, again, these are all anonymous, so I don't have a clue who it came from. Right. So how do you deal with seeing scale changes even when you're sticking to calories and doing your workouts does it ever bother either of you um do you have any opinion on this so is this person saying when you're sticking to what you're meant to be doing but the scale isn't going down i would assume say that's what i'm gonna kind of go into myself okay um i take it as they think they're doing everything but the scale's not moving does

it yeah I mean I I you know I've really struggled to stick to routines and and change eating habits in the past I think at the moment I'm postpartum and you expect the weight to just kind of fall off as the weeks and months are going past. And it's not been that way. Obviously that a chunk disappears at the start and then you have to work for the rest and you are constantly, you know, I'm more active now than I have ever been in my entire life. I am up and down and constantly looking, carrying this heavyweight child. And in my head, I was like, I should have arms like Madonna and I should be, you Giselle right now what the hell is going on and the fact is you know you get on the scales and you're like okay they're definitely not going down um and it's because it could be something really small

it could be my hormones it could be where I am you know it could be me not thinking about how much I'm eating and portion control and all of that kind of stuff. So I think from my perspective, I think there's so many layers beyond what's the number on the scale that can affect your weight, your body shape and all of that, that actually for me, I don't focus on it too much. I have started to just focus on how I'm feeling more because the frustration can eat you up alive. Yeah. And it doesn't get you, doesn't get you doesn't get you anywhere right no yeah that's fair enough so a couple of things i would from like a coaching perspective yeah um when someone says and again i'm assuming by the tone of the message that this

is someone that is seeking fat loss um yeah if you are sticking to your calories and doing your workouts and the scale isn't moving and it's been four to six weeks i mean four weeks and the you are taking photos and like tape measures and there is no difference anywhere by a new scale no no you are not in a calorie deficit you might think but you are not like so with clients for example um i will do multiple ways of measuring for fat loss or body composition changes um because the scale tell one part of the story not the whole story um yeah so for example i've just had a client last week who her scales have pretty much stayed the same and we compared photos over a four-week period and the changes in body composition like unreal um and sometimes that's just how it works the scales will move at some point but for now

um they're not the the scales have probably dropped this week i'll see on her check tomorrow um if you are in a calorie deficit the scales will come down at some point so my answer to that is like it wouldn't bother me because I don't have an emotional relationship with the scale it's a day um and it just has you like if you're gonna weigh yourself you kind of have to get over it a little bit and just see it poorly as data one of the measurements look like like you said how do you feel what's your energy like how do your clothes fit um because if you just hone in on the scale especially as a woman you're probably only ever going to be a bit pissed off and

disappointed yeah absolutely so yeah that's my take on that um so we're going to delve into the main topic today um and this is something that i know very little about um but we're going to talk sleep training yes um and thank you for the questions that people sent in by the way it's really interesting to hear some of those um sleep training sophie and i have been talking about this off camera because it's been a massive part of my life uh as a as a new mum who obviously hasn't been getting much sleep one of the key things that every new parent needs to think about is sleep training how you know is my kid sleeping how are they sleeping how can I get them to sleep more how can I move them to their own room there's a

a wide range of things that's involved in this I didn't realize before becoming a mother how controversial some of this can be and how judgmental people can be about the methods that you you choose to to use and that goes with anything related to parenthood people will have something to say about it my husband and I had a kid who as I've said before really struggled with silent reflux that can obviously then knock on and impact his sleep um he had a dummy which he would chuck out you know 10 to 15 times in the night towards you know the last I'd probably say five months and we were not sleeping yeah you know he my husband was having to do a big chunk of the first part of the night I was starting my day at 3 a.m and we were just about muddling through but

the thought that this was going to be our lives is pretty distressing and I guess that's the thing right it does seem like there's no way out this is it for the rest of the world even when it gets better like there is it doesn't seem like that in the moment especially when you're sleep deprived and you've got a child that's not like doesn't feel healthy yeah I can't even and the internet is constantly because in those quiet moments at 3 4 a.m what do you do you're scrolling you're just kind of looking for answers constantly on reddit constantly on mom's net and everything is worse no i know all the places to go on chance but that's where you're going to find every new parent i promise you yeah and you know

all my social media was saying was if you don't sort out their sleeping habits where you're going to find every new parent, I promise you. And, you know, all my social media was saying was, if you don't sort out their sleeping habits now, you're fucked for the rest of your life. They are going to be sleeping with you in your bed, crying till they're 18. And, you know, you're constantly bombarded by this. So another friend of mine had used a sleep trainer and we got in touch with her. And prior to this, I'd had some really interesting conversations with other mums who were like I would never let my baby cry they should be you know I just can't do it and I was one of them I was like I don't think I can do that because I think the thing that I've come across in kind of like I so I follow a couple of people on Instagram who are in public health and so they yeah about sleep training they're both new mums so I've come across

it in that context and again like it's like just the stuff they post is like just completely like showing how volatile of a kind of environment it is for new mums and it is it's insane to me that kind of like a lot I guess a lot of the controversy is around the cry out method right yeah okay yeah and you know that's the the the theory is you put your child to bed and you make sure they're clean they're fed they're watered you know they've not got a temperature all of that stuff you put them down to bed and you walk away and you know you have your monitor or whatever and if they cry they cry but they will eventually learn to self-soothe and put themselves to sleep and this sounds like this isn't like yes

from what i've seen this is first kind of babies of a certain age like you wouldn't do the newborn right no you wouldn't do it for a newborn you would you know you wouldn't do it if they had severe health issues or anything like that which is why we waited till he was of a certain age until he was healthier to do it and you know it when you first hear about it it makes your heart hurt you don't want to do it you you know you no one wants to leave their baby to cry for however long but we had a really good chat with the sleep trainer she gave us various options you know one of them is you go in and you keep every few minutes or so you check in on the baby now by this point in in my motherhood journey I know my son well enough to know if I kept going in and patting him and shushing him but then I left he it would make him super distraught that would be way worse than

anything else yeah and so my husband and I decided to do the cry it out method yeah and not only that we decided to do that move him into his own room and take away his dummy all in the same night the night before we did this I cried I cried I was crying it out all night and you know the next day we were like right we've got to do this we're not sleeping it's bad for our mental health we cannot be good parents unless we're getting some sleep. Put him down, took the dummy away in his own room, changed him, gave him a nice little massage after his bath, you know, put him down and we walked away. The kid fell asleep in five minutes. He didn't notice the dummy was gone. He just quietly fell asleep.

And that night we had more sleep than we've ever had before yeah now don't get me wrong subsequently there have been nights where he has cried for for a long time but he has then put himself to sleep and he's woken up with a smile on his face and you know he is a very happy little boy nothing has damaged him but it's interesting the amount of parents that have been like no no I could never do that I could never do that and when you say actually I've done that method they go oh actually I did that too but just don't tell anyone it's like a weird secret thing yeah but you know it's sleep and you'll know this from just the work that you do sleep and being well rested

are so integral to us being healthy human beings like it's most important it's like it literally determines like how long you live and the quality of life you have and like it is just one of if not the most important foundations and pillars yeah um I remember you messaging me like getting messages from you at like three in the morning I'm like never in my life have I got a message from chans at like three four five in the morning like if I'm getting up for work no one else is up so for you messaging me I was like this and it was like you it was a struggle and it wasn't yeah and it wasn't healthy and like you've been able to enjoy being his mother yeah much more and it's not exactly I just I find it I guess there's a lot more to it and obviously some of the things that I was reading was some

of the controversy around like the sleep trainer as a person for example is it's actually unregulated yes and like I could just decide that I'm going to be a sleep trainer yeah and I get that there are those concerns and a lot of the other things were things like women actually not knowing what their options were yes exactly so women not knowing about different methods. So they think the only method is just to put your baby down and kind of run away. Yeah. And actually information and knowing about different techniques is. Yeah. And, you know, you get you get some parents who are able to kind of figure it out on their road and they go, cool, this is how I'm going to do it.

And they just go off and do it. We were not like that. We needed a level of support actually the woman that we chose had one of the reasons we picked her is because she had studied this area so much she had a variety of qualifications you know just speaking to her you could see that she really understood the nuances of sleep and it wasn't the key thing she said was it's not really about our sleep she said your baby needs to sleep that's where he digests his food and he's growing and his brain is you know doing all sorts and and she was

like that is actually the primary objective um and then and now we've got a baby who is allowing us to sleep better at night and that will that will fluctuate and change as his teething and all of that kind of stuff um but my husband and i have decided and we decided this very early on is that we're just going to be really honest about how we're parenting we don't pretend that those first few months were cuddles and and you know butterflies and rainbows if someone says to us how are they we're really honest about the fact that it was fucking shit I think that's the thing I think that like more people need to do that because I think the reason people struggle and this goes for kind of having babies and like so many things the reason people struggle is because everyone lies about the experience yeah they do but the more we feed into that narrative of like being pregnant is the most beautiful and great experience.

I know very few people, very few women that have had joyous pregnancies. Most of my friends have either hated being pregnant or just like really struggled with it. And it's just like the kind of motherhood and, you know, just people don't speak about these things enough. And it just perpetuates the cycle. And I'm not saying everyone should walk around being like, oh, God, this is shit. And I hate it. But like balance it. Talk about the positives and talk about what's hard about it as well. Because otherwise how do we learn? Exactly. Exactly. And I think the key thing is it's actually what you said, is we all, mothers, fathers, we all need to understand that you have options and none of them really are wrong. They all have their pros and cons, but not to discredit or berate anyone for their choices, because actually all parents are trying to do is the best for their kid. And yes, they also all want to try and get some sleep

so that they can be good parents. But that's what the crux of this is. And I think talking about sleep training, look, I'm not an expert. I can't give people tips. But what I can say is find the experts, find the ones that make you feel comfortable, have the conversations, and then just give it a go.

If you don't feel comfortable doing it, you can stop. Yeah, make an informed decision. But it's just another thing on the list of really interesting, scandalous things that seem to come up when you become a parent. I love that. And I love that you're honest about it. And I love that like we can have this conversation.

Hopefully it might enable people, other people to have that conversation because I think otherwise it just you feel like a terrible person and you're probably not like if your son was lying in bed and was writhing around in pain and was in danger in some way different conversation exactly exactly you would never let it get to that stage but it's like you are a guardian and I'm assuming every baby is slightly different and has different yeah I think you've just got to as a parent be able to make that call and feel good about it yeah and we do you know I am really open

about the fact that it was probably one of the best things we did um during this the last seven months and yeah no regrets at all so if anyone wants to talk about it please feel free to dm at least another 18 years to screw him up so if there's so many other ways that i'm going to screw this up let's be honest bye and on that note um thank you guys for listening and i am gonna say if anyone wants to reach out um about this don't reach out to me um this is the time where you reach out to chance at sisani because she is going to be much more well-versed um about it than i will ever be um but if you want fitness or health or nutrition advice come to me at sophiegorwich um and the podcast is now on instagram at is she okay podcast so you can follow

us there um but yeah thank you for listening and we will maybe be getting some more questions in or asking for some more questions next week so um give us your dilemmas because we would love to and discuss thank you so much everyone thanks so bye