The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Can Babies Have Mental Health? Infant Mental Health and Attachment Explained

Starting point is 00:00:00 Just before we get started, have you ever wondered whether you could earn money without having to be working every single minute of the day? I'm Dr. Marianne Trent and discovering passive and recurring income has genuinely changed the way I work and live. Whether you're a psychologist, another professional or simply someone with an idea they'd love to explore, there's a brilliant free challenge starting on the 2nd of November. It's called the Race to Recurring Revenue and it's being hosted by Sophie Foote and I'd love to. you to join us. The link for you to join for free is in the show notes or you can drop me a DM on socials. Now on with the show. Can a baby have mental health before they can even talk? It sounds like a strange question, but babies are constantly communicating, learning and building

Starting point is 00:00:50 relationships long before they have the words to tell us how they're feeling. And those earliest interactions may matter far more than most of us realize. So today I'm joined by fellow clinical psychologist Dr Charlotte Dunster Page as we look at infant mental health, attachment, bonding and what happens when things don't quite go to plan. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent and this is Psychology Actually. Hi welcome along to Psychology Actually I'm Dr. Marianne Trent a qualified clinical psychologist very excited to have along here our guest today a fellow clinical psychologist. Charlotte Dunster Page. Hi Charlotte. Hello, thank you for having me. Oh, thank you for being here.

Starting point is 00:01:35 And we are talking today about all things infant mental health. So let's dive right in. Let's, let's go first off with a quick fire round. Okay, question one. Can an infant have their own mental health? Absolutely. And I could talk probably for an hour or two about this alone. But I think one of the things that's really helpful to think about is when we, colloquially, in general, everyday conversations, when we think about mental health, we're not as a society very good at separating out mental health versus mental health problems versus diagnosable mental health problems. And yet if we think about things from a physical health kind of comparison, that is often helpful. So any of us on any given day have a state of physical well-being.

Starting point is 00:02:29 you know, we might have a cold or just feel a bit under the weather or be really tired that day. So most of us on any given day would be able to say that we feel zero out of 10, 10 out of 10 in terms of our physical health. But it has to cross a certain threshold before we talk about having a physical health problem. And then we might be under hospital or GP or something before we have a diagnosable physical health problem. So we've got that kind of scale. And mental health is the same. And so everybody, whether they're a baby or of any age, we all have a state of well-being on any given day, a state of mental well-being. And so a baby has a state of mental well-being on any given day that fluctuates moment-to-moment, day by day.

Starting point is 00:03:16 And then babies can have mental health problems as well. What we don't usually talk about is babies having diagnosable mental health problems. but there can be issues with a baby's mental well-being and so that absolutely can happen for babies. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I'm sure we'll go much deeper on lots of those areas. Let's go on with quick fire around question two. Is it possible that as a parent someone's had really quite a tricky time of it kind of mental health and developmental wise themselves, but is it possible that their child could have a very different experience and maybe not have the mental health wobbles that they've had. Absolutely. And I wouldn't work in my field if that wasn't possible,

Starting point is 00:04:00 like the work that I do, working with parents and infants in their earliest years, offering that parent infant therapy, that support, if there was no possibility of that baby having a different experience to the parent, then there wouldn't be a need for my job. So yeah, absolutely, that is the absolute aim of the work that I do is working with parents and babies to help that baby developing the way that that parent absolutely wants them to, even though that parent might have had some difficult experiences themselves. Thank you. I know a really common question, certainly from people perhaps earlier in their career, is do you have to be a parent to work as an effective clinician in this area? Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? I absolutely started

Starting point is 00:04:47 in this field before becoming a parent. So no, I don't think that you have to be. I think a lot of people would say it makes quite a bit of a difference and it helps. I personally think that you're bringing different skills and that maybe having some of that insight can be helpful, but you can get that from elsewhere as well. You can have siblings and cousins and work with babies in other ways. It's certainly being a parent gives you a certain insight into what other parents are dealing with, coping with. But I don't think it's a prerequisite at all. And absolutely, I was working with families before becoming a mum myself. Thank you. I was as well. My first job was qualified in CAMS for almost four years. Question four, is infant mental health something

Starting point is 00:05:35 that you wish was more at the forefront of people supporting those who are care? experienced. Yeah, absolutely. It's something that I wish was more at the forefront of everything, to be honest. Even within clinical psychology doctoral training, it's not part of our core training in most of the courses nationally. It is, we're talking in my field about something called the baby blind spot. So this is the idea that everything from policy and government to services within the NHS usually

Starting point is 00:06:10 don't consider the needs of babies when writing those policies, when developing those services. It's rare that babies are considered. We might think about older people, working age adults. We might think about children and teenagers, but rarely do we think about babies. And in terms of thinking about care leave, specifically, I think our attachment experiences are influenced by our parenting or our cared for experiences. So if we have that experience of being in care, then it's likely that that is going to have that impact on our well-being as an adult. And so, yeah, absolutely, I think anybody who works with babies or anybody who works with people who have experienced adversity in their early years,

Starting point is 00:06:55 which is likely to include a lot of care leavers, I wish all of those professionals were able to learn more about infant mental health. Yeah, absolutely. All right, just thinking about my own experiences of having had two children, I'm aware that the National Childbirth Trust, often called the NCT, have a focus on the first 1,001 days. Could you tell us a bit more about why that is and why it matters? Yeah, absolutely. So 1,0001 days is roughly, everybody's experience is obviously different, but it's roughly the number of days from conception until a baby's second birthday.

Starting point is 00:07:32 And what we know about why this is so important is that essentially the time that we don't remember as humans, is the most influential time in our lives. How people relate to us, how people care for us, how people treat us during that first 1,0001 days, influences who we are throughout the rest of our lives, including how we'll relate to others, what kind of job we get, our position in society, things like earnings and things like that,

Starting point is 00:08:01 our learning, our education, a lot of these things are influenced before we even turned two years old. So yes, the first 1,000, one day's a period of neuroplasticity. So our brains are most malleable during this period. We can learn really, really well and really quickly and really extensively during this period. And the reason that myself and others like me work in this field is that not only is the baby most able to change and adapt during this period, but often parents are as well, because there

Starting point is 00:08:36 is nothing more motivating than being about to welcome a baby into the world, to wanting to make changes in your own life. So it is often this wonderfully wonderful period where both parents and child are able to change things and make a difference to their lives. And it's wonderful to work with and see. So nice. And what a lovely springboard into the main topic of our episode as well. So thank you, Charlotte. Let's imagine then that someone watching or listening to this is a parent and they're starting to wonder whether maybe all is not well with their own attachment with the baby or the baby's just not feeling like they're thriving. What kind of signs and symptoms might they be picking up on? So we have kind of an idea of what that might look like in a parent

Starting point is 00:09:28 and a baby and we might ask the parents some questions. We might observe the baby. One of the things that in my field we often find is that parents who are really struggling might not be in a position to recognise the struggles. And often the parents who wonder if they're doing a good job might be the ones that actually are. I think there's an old saying of the fact that you're worrying about being a good mum probably means you are. And that's not to dismiss the challenges of the families that I work with where they really are struggling. Everybody's a bit. is bringing their own stuff, their own difficulties to the journey. But what I would say is that we all have difficulties in relationships at times,

Starting point is 00:10:14 whether that's our romantic partner, our colleagues, our friends, our children as well. No relationship is completely smooth. And if we're experiencing some challenges on a day-to-day basis with our newborn baby, with our toddler, that's probably really, really normal. being a parent is incredibly challenging. So there's an element of that, I suppose, first of all, to kind of reassure. But if a parent is really worried about their bond with their baby or the baby's attachment with them, then absolutely seeking support is really, really important.

Starting point is 00:10:49 And the earlier that's possible, then the better. And that might be the parent recognising that they aren't feeling as positively towards the baby as they hoped to. We see on the media, don't we, this kind of shiny birth with white sheets and nobody's screaming too much and everything's wonderful and clean and shiny and then the baby's placed in their arms and parents falling love with baby instantly and that can happen for some people. But the reality is that relationship is like any relationship. It takes some time to build and you don't have to fall in love with your baby the moment that they're placed in your arms to develop that positive bond with baby. the time. What we want to see, what we hope that all babies experience is attuned, sensitive care. So if a parent is able to be, to kind of read the signs of what their baby's telling

Starting point is 00:11:45 them and be sensitive to them, then the chances are that attachment is going to grow in that positive way. But it's also really important to say on that that that is not 100% of the time. there will absolutely be times where a parent is trying to figure out what is going on for their baby and can't. We just don't always know what is going on for our babies every step of the way. If you're struggling to understand what your baby is needing, that's not a problem. It's probably normal. And equally, as parents, if we, for whatever reason, cannot respond sensitively to our baby's needs all of the time, again, probably normal. But sometimes there are things in our own lives,

Starting point is 00:12:30 and whether that's our mental health, our own experiences of how we were parented when we were small, social factors, these things, if they're getting in the way of how we respond and attuned to our babies, then that might be the time to kind of see support. Yeah, really, really important. And I think often, I think back to when I first found out I was pregnant with my eldest child, actually even before,

Starting point is 00:12:55 because he was a tried for baby. I definitely had to learn how to become a mother, which meant reading pregnancy magazines, which meant taking all my nutrition just so, and very much thinking about what kind of parent I wanted to be with a very intentional way. And when I was pregnant with the second one, I noticed I didn't really do that.

Starting point is 00:13:18 And I think I gave myself a bit of a hard time about that. But at no point did I say, well, of course you don't really need to do that, because you already know how to be a mother. You've already really enjoyed mothering your eldest. So maybe just really enjoy where you are right now. Yeah, absolutely. It's such a different journey for first baby versus subsequent babies

Starting point is 00:13:40 and a different process that people go through. There's also differences with, say, it's mum and dad, if mum's pregnant and dad is not pregnant, and the differences in bonding potentially for mum and dad, that can be there as well. You know, as a, as a birthing mom, we have that opportunity to carry our babies for nine months. They're with us. They are there during our carrying on through work periods and having a bad day and chatting to the baby and on a drive and telling the baby about your day and all those things that we can do just to start and build that relationship with our baby.

Starting point is 00:14:18 And dads don't get that. So sometimes it can take longer for dads to bond after a baby's born. and that's really normal. And equally with second babies and subsequent babies after a second, life can be pretty busy if you've already got that first baby. So you might not spend that intentional time of going to antinatal classes, NCT classes, chatting to your baby that's in the womb still, because you've probably got your eldest in the car and you're chatting to them instead. So there can be sometimes less of that intentional time spent together with your unborn baby.

Starting point is 00:14:52 so it can be a bit more of, oh gosh, they're here and now I've got to get to know this baby. So it absolutely does not need to be this perfect, magical falling in love moment, the moment they're born. It's a relationship. It takes time that you build it slowly with your baby over those first weeks and months of life. Yeah, I might give you a little real life case study. I've never spoken about this anywhere publicly before. So this is our first time. But I've got two boys and we didn't find out either time. I ended up with emergency sections for both of them.

Starting point is 00:15:24 So when my youngest was placed on me, we were told he was a little boy, like, honestly, I don't think I've ever been happier in my life. Me and my husband were both completely thrilled because we wanted two boys. And I stayed on that really high cloud until the next day, I would say, when just before our appointment to be dispatched out of the hospital,

Starting point is 00:15:49 we had a junior doctor come in and do our kind of checks before we left. And it turns out that what we thought was normal post-delivery swelling in my son was an ingranal hernia. And the junior doctor hadn't experienced that before, so didn't know quite what to do. And so had said, you might have to go in a blue light to Birmingham Children's right now. so call your husband. So obviously that's quite different than Cloud 9 to there. That was like a lot of adjustment. And then, oh, it's a bit emotional, isn't it?

Starting point is 00:16:28 But I was really quite upset for quite a few days. We didn't go home for a bit because I felt like I needed to learn how to parent this baby, if that makes sense, whilst being worried he's going to die. Turns out he didn't have his surgery for eight weeks. And we obviously did go home a couple of days later. The day after that, a house extension started, which should have been done before he was born. Like, our babies are not always born into ideal circumstances. And even though we might start with something that feels like Cloud 9, things can change so quickly, can't they?

Starting point is 00:17:06 Yeah, they really can. They really can. My eldest was born during COVID, during the pandemic. And that had an impact on so many babies and so many parent infant relationships. and we really can start from everything seeming like it's okay. We can start from a position of having a good enough child experience, a good enough experience of being parented ourselves, a good enough birth experience, which unfortunately isn't that common. You know, low levels, high levels of birth trauma are not uncommon,

Starting point is 00:17:37 but we could have a good enough birthing experience, a supportive family around us, but something can change, whether that's illness or something in your baby, whether that's a difficult pregnancy. I had two very difficult pregnancies. And that was not my plan at all. I was definitely going to be the fit and healthy,

Starting point is 00:17:59 still running, still working right up until the last moment. I'm absolutely fine. Thank you very much. This pregnancy won't impact me at all sort of person. And that was not me at all. I was incredibly poorly for both my pregnancies. And I think probably because of the work that I do, I was able to separate out pregnancy and baby and still think positively about baby,

Starting point is 00:18:21 even though really disliking being pregnant. But if I'd had less support, if I'd maybe not worked for the NHS and not being able to take off that time when I needed to, if the situations around me had been less supportive, it would have been really easy for me to really struggle with bonding with my babies in pregnancy. So yeah, it really, this field, unfortunately, really can improve. anyone. Yes, there are things from our past that might make it more likely that we might struggle with bonding with our babies. So if we've had significant mental health problems in the past, if we've struggled with social support, if we have unstable accommodation and all of those things that just make life in general quite challenging, those things can impact

Starting point is 00:19:08 on parent-infant relationships. But it can also feel like it comes a little bit out of the blue as well. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So let's fast forward a little bit. Let's imagine that we've got we've got a child and their parent or parents in front of you in clinic. What kind of options have we got available to us as treatment or intervention to help this unit to thrive? So the field I work in, it's sometimes called infant mental health, sometimes called parent-infrant relationship services, which is often kind of acronym to pairs. There are not enough of them, unfortunately. There's about 50, at time of recording, there's about 50 what we call fully established specialist parent-in for relationship services nationally. A recent report said we needed 400 to cover

Starting point is 00:20:06 every baby in the country. So yeah, we are a long way of providing the service that lots of families need. But if a family is lucky enough to live in an area where there is an NHS or local authority service available or they're in a position through private health care insurance or through their own means to kind of fund an intervention, there's a range of different options available. So I often think about these in kind of three groups, I suppose. We've got the families who might have maybe not been around babies much, feeling a bit lacking. in confidence, feeling a bit like, who is this baby and how do I look after them and all of those kind of lacking in confidence things that a lot of new parents experience. But maybe if that's paired with a little bit of anxiety or a little bit of low mood and it's really impacting on a parent, then we might do some kind of psychoeducation work about how babies develop, about baby

Starting point is 00:21:05 brain development, about the importance of responding to a baby, about how actually if you are responsive and attuned to your baby in the earliest of days and years, tends to set them up for a slightly easier journey later in life. I often think about that, that actually if we are responsive and attuned to our babies for those first 1001 days, clearly, not always, there's always going to be variation, but you're likely to have that relationship with your baby that means that the toddler years to teenage years, your adult years, you can maintain that relationship throughout. It's hard work at the beginning, but it tends to pay off. But if that's feeling challenging for a family, we might talk about kind of that importance of responding. That kind of work often happens as well if, for example, I'm working with a younger family, a younger parents, and we all know that there is no time in our lives where random people, want to give us advice better than when we've just had a baby like strangers distant relatives everybody wants to tell you something about how you should parent or how you shouldn't parent when you've just had a baby and so that psychoeducation type work often is

Starting point is 00:22:17 really helpful for families either they're getting a lot of those mixed messages or maybe they're younger and they're relying on TikTok and things like that or um their grandparents who maybe parenting has kind of changed over the last couple of generations So we might do some work to kind of help them build confidence. And actually, you know what, responding to my baby really is the right thing to do. I don't need to listen to the older generation who might say ignore a baby's cries, don't pick them up when they cry, those kind of messaging. So that's one type of work that we might offer.

Starting point is 00:22:49 Tends to be quite short term. We also offer a couple of interventions that are often used, and there are absolutely variations on these. but there's a couple of interventions. One's called Circle of Security, and that's usually running a group. It's a very therapeutic group. It helps families to think about parents,

Starting point is 00:23:09 to think about their own early experiences and how they might be impacting on how they're parenting their children. So really gentle, compassionate, warm groups. We also can do work called video interaction guidance. There's another model called VIP, which, yeah, similar sort of work, this is a really lovely intervention where we record parents and babies or parents and young children

Starting point is 00:23:35 interacting and then we take it back and we do some editing of the video and we come back and we show parents essentially all the lovely moments of connection and it's such a beautiful intervention because we can i've seen so often a parent who has said oh my baby doesn't smile at me or my baby doesn't seem to want me, they just want somebody else, or I don't know how to respond to my baby. And then I'll just film for less than 10 minutes, usually about six to eight minutes we'll film. And we come back the week after and I can show them two, three. And often there's loads of clips that I could have picked, but I'll pick the kind of two, three really lovely moments where this parent absolutely does understand what their baby needs is responding. The baby is looking to their parent.

Starting point is 00:24:21 And it's just such a beautiful thing. And then we also work with families in. my field where a parents had a really challenging life, essentially. They might have had experiences of neglect, abuse in their own early childhoods, that they are relating to other people and to now their baby in a way that is not helpful for them, not helpful for their baby. So I use a model called Cognitive Analytic Therapy, Cat, so that's the model that I use to help families to think, to help parents think about their relationship patterns in general and how those are applying to their baby. But there are lots of other models that sit at that kind of long-term therapeutic level that help either with parent and baby in the room or just with parent in the room to

Starting point is 00:25:10 think through those relational patterns and start to think about changing them for baby's wellbeing. Gosh, that sounds lovely. You might well have the best job in the world there, or one of them. It sounds like you found a happy home. And I know from just before, we clicked record that you said actually this was the result of of a placement that you did. I think it was your last placement on training that really ignited your passion for this area. Yeah, absolutely. So I actually started in forensic services. So I did my undergraduate degree, my master's degree in forensic psychology. And then did my, I was a healthcare assistant, assistant psychologist, again, forensics. And it wasn't until I got onto clinical training.

Starting point is 00:25:54 And yeah, did my final placement, a nine-month placement in a nought-to-five NHS service. And my intention of going to that service was still from a pursuing forensics perspective, of I wanted to essentially see where some of the issues that we see in forensics where they started. I knew that they started very early. So that was my kind of intention of going into that service. But I loved it. And I loved the preventative element of it and how much change can happen for a family during those first. few years of life because parents are often really motivated and really want best for their

Starting point is 00:26:29 baby and therefore for themselves and the baby is so amenable to change in terms of their brain development that it absolutely it's a it's a wonderful wonderful period to work with and one of the sad things as well which I wish we didn't have to talk about but I taught with a lot of commissioners nationally is that it's cheaper as well it's a lot cheaper for society if we work with families at this pre-problem, pre-diagnosis, early intervention stage. If we can help a family, a parent to parent in a way that they want a parent in a more sensitive and attuned way, and that baby receives that sensitive and attuned parenting and goes on to achieve all of the wonderful things that as humans we're able to achieve, then that family costs the system less.

Starting point is 00:27:20 And I hate that we have to talk about it because it should absolutely be just about the human impact. So this is very much just an added bonus as opposed to the reason why we do this work. Yeah, and I think it's taking me back to when I worked in forensic youth services. And it wasn't uncommon to read the background case stories of the young people in our care, who might have been a few hours old in their baby carrier, left on the steps of the police station or the fire station whilst mum or dad went on to do a drugs run and then come back and get them later. And actually, that child was always going to have a very tough experience of life. And it's whether if we can get services like yours and like the other 49 around the

Starting point is 00:28:09 country and hopefully the other 350 coming soon to really think about holistically supporting that family or giving them viable options for helping support them in the care system to help that child and the adults to thrive so that everybody can have a better, less distressing experience of life. Yeah, absolutely. And that's my dream. That's why I always hope to create. And our work, working in psychology, working in mental health, working with people who've experienced distress, in general, it's hard. It's hard work at times. And we, but I always hold on to that.

Starting point is 00:28:54 Actually, we, and when I deliver training to different professionals and we talk about how difficult our work is, how difficult it is for families to change, to change patterns that have been ingrained throughout the generations, whether it's those families that are doing those drug steals or involved in criminal, kind of history, those things passed down through the generations. That's not one person deciding to go out

Starting point is 00:29:22 and do that. That's a family culture. And breaking that cycle, changing that way of being, that way of existing as a person, as a family, it's really, really hard work. So the people that I work with, you know, we talk on training and supervision. We talk about how challenging it is to break those cycles. but it's amazing when it happens. It's so wonderful when it happens. Yeah, I think some of that self-esteem work, isn't it? Is that the people around us, we might well take their opinion as something quite important and powerful. It's almost understanding that sometimes the advice we're given might serve the other person more than it genuinely serves our own interest. And just being able to be curious or notice that can be life-changing.

Starting point is 00:30:11 Yeah, absolutely. and I think parenting is, maybe it's just because it's my field, but parenting seems to be the time when that happens most, that actually everybody has got an opinion. Baby sleep, I do a lot of work on baby sleep, supporting families with sleep, and that is a really challenging field to be in. I'm sure people listening to this will have seen the kind of BBC news articles

Starting point is 00:30:38 and investigations over the last year about how, unregulated and unmonitored it is to work with with families around sleep and there is some quite frankly very dodgy and scary advice out there around how how to get your baby to sleep and how to respond to your baby or not while they're sleeping and so yes that can be one area in particular where parents confidence can be really undermined because their family might be saying one thing their friends who've just had a baby might be doing it in a different way. Their instincts say that actually this baby needs me. I want to pick up my baby. I want to hold my baby. But the messages from social media, from family, from friends can be quite different and quite anxiety-provoking

Starting point is 00:31:23 to think, you know, this little baby needs me so much and I want the absolute best for them. And I don't know what's best. But we are, there is no manual. There's no manual for parents and I think any, there's been so many books published and research around babies and parenthood. And it can be really tempting for people to keep writing and people and general public to keep reading about how should I raise my baby, what's the best thing for this. But it essentially comes down to what is your baby in this moment saying they need and can you respond to that need enough of the time? time. And if you're able to do that, then that's what works for you and your family. And there's so

Starting point is 00:32:13 many books that will try and expand on that and get the perfect formula for exactly what we should do and how we should respond to our babies and how we should raise our babies. But it's very much about what is happening between the two of you in that moment. That's, and that's, that's the work that I do, I guess, is thinking about how do we, how do we change things in the moment rather than this general approach. Yeah, yeah, and it's, I guess, the importance of repairing any ruptures as and when they crop up as well so that they don't just lay and fester. Yeah, like, it sounds like you do some incredible work, Charlotte.

Starting point is 00:32:53 Let's just before we finish, think about some of those shoulds and some of the shame that can come with this, like the idea that you might be thinking, I think we're going to be referred to an infant mental health service, or, you know, maybe to CAMS or, you know, to early help, social care, or even a child in need or safeguarding referral has been made. Like, it can feel like so much pressure and so much shame. Could you offer some advice, something reassuring for a family who might find themselves in this position? I think one of the things that I can say that's most reassuring, and I hope this is reassuring.

Starting point is 00:33:30 I like statistics. I like thinking in this way and I hope that this is reassuring for others as well. well is that families are not alone in this. So when we look at the original attachment research, and then we apply that to the UK, and then we can further apply that to areas of the country where we know there are lots of challenges, so families might be struggling with income, poverty, mental health, etc. Housing, we know housing is a big issue for a lot of families. We estimate, and it is an estimate, but it's a research-driven, try and have best to really figure this out estimate that in areas of high social deprivation, high adversity

Starting point is 00:34:12 for families, half of families will not have the ideal parent-in-infraint relationships. Half of babies will not be forming a secure relationship with their primary caregiver. So this is not rare. And even when we take the UK as a whole, we think it's probably 40% of babies. So this is not rare. If you are a pair, I'm watching this and you're thinking, you know what, I'm not bonding with my baby in the way that I expected to before I had children, or I'm worried about their development, or I'm worried about how they respond to me, and I think there might be something going on there.

Starting point is 00:34:48 So I know the stigma is there. I'm not saying that this simple sentence will get rid of stigma in society. I know that people feel anxious about these things, but please, please know that you're not alone, this is a frequent problem. It's a frequent occurrence. And I could talk for hours and hours and hours on how we raise children in our modern world and how that doesn't really fit with how babies are supposed to be raised. People I'm sure have heard of the idea of it takes a village to raise a child. And it literally does. Like we've done studies, the Western world has done studies where we've watched hunter-gatherer societies, the few that remain present,

Starting point is 00:35:32 have watched hunter-gatherer societies who parent in very different ways. And one of the key things that always stands out for me is that when you watch these families, a mother of a older baby and a toddler will only be holding that baby for about half of the day. The other half of the day, that baby is held by the rest of the village. And so in our modern world, we have a baby who expects to be held all the time. And a mum, usually a mum, it might be a dad, but usually a mum who's got a decision to make between, do I hold this baby all the time? Because there's nobody here in my village to help me hold this baby. And then who does the cooking and the cleaning and all of the other things that need to go along with day to day live or do I put this baby down and this baby might not

Starting point is 00:36:25 be happy about that. And so a lot of the challenges that we experience in the parent infant relationship or with adult mental health during the perinatal period are strongly influenced by our slightly odd Western way of raising babies. So yes, if you are a parent in that position, then please know you're not alone and please know that it is likely to be influenced at least in part by a lack of support that's set up by our modern Western world. That's so important to hold in mind. Yeah, and sling wearing was absolutely essential for my second one especially because I've only got two hands. Like it's really hard and I was in the fortunate position that we've got, I live quite close to my in-laws, and my sister-in-law had a lot of help looking after my children

Starting point is 00:37:19 when they were in their first year and beyond. And I remember looking at my boys and just thinking, you're so lucky, like I'm so lucky that you've got all these people around you that love you and that you love them. But I think my earlier attachment style might, have been to be in a position of jealousy and insecurity that I wasn't enough because my boys really, really valued these relationships. Whereas I regularly think now, even I love how much my kids love their grandparents and their aunties and their uncles. And I just think, gosh, they are so lucky and I am so lucky.

Starting point is 00:38:07 It isn't a competition. you know, if our children love other people, that is a sign of healthy attachment. We don't have to share it. I often think with people I work with, but also with my boys, if they're jealous, I'm like, love pie, kids, love pie. I've got a whole love pie for you, a whole love pie for your brother, and a whole other one for daddy. None of you have to share that because it's infinite.

Starting point is 00:38:32 And so you can love whoever you want and yet still love me and that's okay. And for me, that's kind of a real life thing that's really helped me as a parent. Yeah, I completely understand that. Yeah. And we are designed to live in family groups, in wider villages, in networks, and to have that day-to-day support. And so many moms in particular, but parents are so isolated. And it is really hard to just be at home with a baby all day long.

Starting point is 00:39:04 And especially if maybe you've worked previously and you're, used to interacting. And then to kind of put on top of that, this Western way of parenting, which is often about routines and structures and getting your baby to bed at a certain time, and that really can limit how able you are as a new parent to just go out and take your baby out and enjoy the world, maybe in a slightly different way to how you might have done prior to baby being born, but to still go and have the cup of coffee if that's what you enjoy doing and not worry about nap times at home. So, yeah, it's, our modern Western world has got a lot to answer for

Starting point is 00:39:44 in terms of how we're expected to raise children. It really has. And I don't want to paint some, you know, golden image of me being a perfect parent with perfect children because I'm not and have not been. It's really hard to hold all of this in mind when you're already exhausted, when you're recovering from birth. I had emergency sections with both of them. Like, it's really hard and my kids did not sleep at all for years.

Starting point is 00:40:15 And so I was bone cold, tired, exhausted as well. And it's really hard to be in a position where you're compassionate to yourself and where you are immune to, you know, the judgment of others. when you're so bone-weary exhausted, let alone all the other stuff that you've got going on with your relationship with your child and everyone around you. Like, it isn't easy? No, it really isn't. And yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:40:44 My youngest sleeps, I always say averagely bad. Most parents would probably be horrified that she works two to three times a night, most nights when she's two, compared to my eldest, who work every 45 minutes until she was two, and then move to working every hour and a half throughout the night, two to three wakes a night is fine. So yeah, eldest, terrible sleeper, youngest, average really bad, I would say. What I would say about sleep, and I do a lot of work on sleep,

Starting point is 00:41:14 is that I would really strongly advise any parents, especially if you're about to have a baby or if you have a newborn baby, to not Google things like how long should my baby be sleeping and facts like that. So most of the facts that are on the internet have, in terms of baby sleep, have very little basis in fact. Most of them were created, to be very blunt, by middle class white men in the 1950s who had a very scientific approach to parenthood, a kind of pseudo-scientific approach to parenthood. And we're very much, this is what babies should be sleeping. When we actually observe baby sleeping using video cameras, obviously with permission from parents, we generally find that babies need a lot less sleep than the internet says they do,

Starting point is 00:42:04 and they wake a lot more frequently. So, for example, when you look at research that says X percentage of babies sleep through the night by this age, in research, sleeping through the night is defined as from midnight to 5am, which is not what most parents are aiming for when they want their baby to sleep through the night. So if you see by six months old, 70% of babies were sleeping through the night, they're sleeping from midnight to 5 a.m. or sometimes for another five hour block. But then that can send parents into it, oh my gosh, what am I doing wrong? What's wrong with my baby? Why won't my baby sleep through the night? They probably are sleeping through the night. Some of them, again, not all of them are.

Starting point is 00:42:47 But some of them probably are, which just a very different definition of what sleeping through the night actually means. Oh, gosh, yeah. And that might be the three-hour period that you're wide awake worrying about something else and they're waiting for them to wake up and they're just fast asleep. Oh, it isn't easy. It isn't easy. Okay, just before we finish then, are there a couple of really nice little tips that we can do either as clinicians or as parents to support the, relationship with our baby or child. So for professionals, I would say as a, if you're a professional working with parents and babies and it might not be your entire focus. You know, you might not be a health visitor who's bread and butter this is. You might be somebody who works in drug and alcohol services or homelessness services, but you're working with parents who have young children. I think one of the biggest things we can do is to recognise the impact of having a baby.

Starting point is 00:43:45 and that is with that family but also on a more global level. So we call it the baby blind spot. When we write policies from the government, when we create services, we usually don't take into account the needs of babies. So if you are working with parents and they have a really young baby, you know, think with them really simple stuff like a 9 a.m. appointment might not be the best time. They might need a little bit longer to get there in the morning. that if they're running late and they've brought their baby with them and, you know,

Starting point is 00:44:19 it might not be ideal if you're offering whatever service you're offering, drugs and alcohol therapy service, but can you work with that? Can you do something to accommodate the fact that this parent is going through a change in their lives and has that baby with them? In terms of for parents, it really is about staying, I was going to say confident. It's hard to remain confident, but holding on to what kind of parent do I want to be? What kind of parent do I want my children in the future to look back on and think that's the kind of parent that you were? And as much as is possible, definitely not all of the

Starting point is 00:44:55 time, but as much as is possible, being that parent and kind of being that parent and responding to what your baby needs in the moment. That's what a baby needs. They just need us to be there to respond to nurture and trying as a person. not to get too worried about perfection or how it should be done or how somebody else might be doing it, for example. Really nice. Thank you so much. Where can our audience learn more about you and your work, Charlotte? So I run a non-profit organisation. I'm based up in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. So I, in terms of working therapeutic with your families, I absolutely do do that nationally. It would be via video link if they're not local to me. So if there is families watching that are worried about their parent-in-front relationship,

Starting point is 00:45:47 their bond with baby, their baby's sleep, et cetera, you're very welcome to get in touch. I also have a few resources on my website as well. So there's a blog if people are interested in hearing more. We put a lot of stuff on social media that from brain development, bonding and attachment, sleep, all of that stuff is up on my social media accounts. And then I have a webinar for professionals. So if you're a professional, a health visitor, a midwife, an aspiring psychologist, a mental health practitioner, whoever you might be that works with parents and babies.

Starting point is 00:46:18 There's a one hour introduction to infant mental health on my website. And then there's also a sleep workshop for families. So if you are about to have a baby or you've just had a baby and you're wondering how this sleep thing works for babies, then yeah, it takes two hours-ish to kind of work. through pre-recorded. So if you're wanting a kind of more personalized consultation, you're very welcome to contact me. But if you want in just a general overview of how babies sleep, then that resource is there as well. So the website's born to bond.com.ukh. And emailing me and all the social media and the blogs and everything kind of would link back from that web page.

Starting point is 00:47:01 So that's the best place to go. Thank you so much, Charlotte. And thank you for your time. talking about this really, really important area. Thank you very much for having me. Thanks. Thank you so much for watching. And thank you again to my guest for today, Dr. Charlotte Dunstead page. I have been blown away by this episode. I would love to know what you think.

Starting point is 00:47:25 Please do drop a comment either on YouTube or on Spotify for this episode. Let us know what you think. And you can come and follow me on social media and let me know. too. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere on socials. If you found this episode helpful, I think you'll really enjoy the one I did with Dr. Jade Redfern about calm parenting and endeavouring to shout less, be less shouty parent. I adore Jade's work and I hope you will too. If you are working in psychology and mental health, please do consider whether the aspiring psychologist membership might be helpful to you, which you can join from just

Starting point is 00:48:05 30 pounds a month with no minimum term. Did I ever tell you about the time I earned 300 pounds whilst I was at a Pilates class? And no, spoiler alert, I wasn't teaching the Pilates. It was money coming into my business whilst I was doing something completely different. If you've ever wondered how you might create income that isn't directly tied to your time, there's a free challenge starting on the 2nd of November. It's called The Race to Recurring Revenue. It's hosted by Sophie Foote and I'd love you to join through my link so I can support you too. The details are in the show notes or you can drop me a DM via socials. Now on with the show.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Can Babies Have Mental Health? Infant Mental Health and Attachment Explained

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