The Netmums Podcast - S12 Ep2: Brushing up on parenting with Emily Andre

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

This week on the Netmums Podcast Weny & Alison are joined by Dr. Emily MacDonagh – NHS doctor, columnist, author, and soon-to-be mum of three alongside her husband, Peter Andre. Covering everything from the trials of parenting through winter lurgies to the importance of dental health in children, Dr Emily shares her personal journey through motherhood, and how she navigates the complexities of a blended family.

You're listening to The Netmums Podcast with me, Wendy Gollich. And me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... We do talk openly, I think, because I always say to the kids, nothing's going to embarrass me. No question you ask me is going to embarrass me. I would have heard it before. I always say, people ask me embarrassing questions at work all the time,

and I don't mind. So they do ask me things and they'll tell me things. But I've actually sat down with Millie and read it. We read it together, the girls' book um and it was so helpful I I've sat there I read obviously I knew what was in it because I wrote it but I sat there and read it with her and I thought this is great but before all of that this episode of the netmamas podcast is brought to you by fairy non-bio the number one laundry brand for sensitive skin. They've partnered with Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity to

support seriously ill children and their families. With every Fairy Non-Bio pack bought from Home Bargains, Fairy Non-Bio will donate 5p to GOSH Charity with a minimum donation of £100,000. I know where I'm going after this. Now, on with the show. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Netmums podcast. Now, I need to talk to you and to my lovely co-host and to our guest about winter lurgies. I actually missed a podcast recording last week because I was too poorly to move. My children are playing what I have kind of coined snot ping pong, where one gets it and then just as you think you're at the end of it, the other one gets it.

And Alison, you've got three of them. Tell me about snot ping pong. Oh my goodness, it has been so much this weekend. I'm currently a bit lurkied. So if I suddenly disappear to blow my nose, you know what I'm doing. And also this weekend, myself and my husband, we've been playing that game

of who's kind of feeling worse. So in other words, it's like, can you go and run the bath for the kids? Because I'm feeling really bad. And it's, can you go and make their dinner? Because I'm feeling really bad. And it's just like competing. You do bedtime because I'm feeling really bad. It's just like competing. Yeah, you do bedtime because I'm really...

Exactly. Frawly. Yeah. Well, we couldn't actually have a better guest for this. So do your showbiz intro. Well, we're joined today by Dr. Emily McDonough, NHS doctor, writer of OK! magazine's health and parenting column and author of Growing Up for Girls and Growing

Up for Boys. She's also a mum of two with another baby on the way with her husband, Peter Andre, who we've had on the pod and he sang her praises to us. Dr. Emily, welcome to the podcast. Oh, thank you for having me. You're so welcome. First of of all can we say huge congratulations thank you thank you so much it's feeling more real now i think when you start telling people it does feel a little bit more real doesn't it yeah yeah well see it felt real when i started throwing up out of my nose sorry everybody am i right emily you're a junior doctor yeah um i guess technically until you're

a consultant you're a junior doctor it's yes probably then yeah i don't really think that's it like that but yes i probably am you guys are absolute heroes tell us about your work i love my work i feel really really lucky I feel lucky to work to you to be part of the NHS and to work for the NHS I work in mental health so you know we're we're busy um but it's a privilege every day to be honest I know that sounds like a cliche but it really is you get people sharing you know such personal things and yeah it's a privilege I do love it I do love it what's it like juggling that work as an NHS doctor with media work doing podcasts like this doing glitzy red carpet events with your husband

does it feel like going from one extreme to the other it can do sometimes we sometimes I'll literally finish work and then we'll whiz off and you know we'll go and do get dressed up for something not that often actually we do tend to stay at home quite a lot these days. A little bit boring. But it's more kind of juggling the kids, I think. That's where, you know, between us, with Pete's work and my work, we kind of just try and do it between us as best as we can. But it's like any working family, I guess.

It's just the juggle constantly. All the driving around. It's when I regret signing them up for so many clubs. Oh, tell me about it. Are you through of yours at secondary school yet not yet they're both still primary um millie's in year five fear's in year two i've just entered the secondary school fray and i've realized that the juggle just gets even busier because there's like oh i've got this club and that club and i'd like to go to costa with my friends will you pick me up and there's like oh I've got this club and that club and I'd like to go to Costa with my friends will you pick me up and I'm like oh Christ I've turned into mum's taxi we're not

at that stage yet luckily but Dr Emily do you know what's actually quite good is when you do get the secondary stage I don't know I don't know what it's like where you live but we live somewhere quite built up and my 13 year old can walk to her friend's house and she can walk to her dance class and it is it's actually quite good it's like off you pop you can just take yourself off it's not all bad oh see i'm in the sticks can't do yeah what i can i just interrupt before i ask the question i love the fact you're doing what I did with Dr. Range and you're calling Emily Dr. Emily. Emily, would you like to be called Emily or Dr. Emily? It's totally up to you.

Whichever feels easier. My surname is quite difficult to pronounce. At work, I quite often go with Dr. Emily because I think it's too hard otherwise. Yeah, whatever you prefer. I'm happy. Is it true that you and Pete first met because he had kidney stones and was treated by your dad? That is true, yes. It's a really long story, which I won't bore you with.

Yeah, that's essentially what happened. And then we became friends. Our families became friends after that. And then it was, yeah, a few years down the line. So, yeah, thank goodness for kidney stones. it's a weird thing to say romantic so romantic that's what you can have all your anniversary cards kidneys do yes memories um do you think that being a doctor makes you like worry more about your kids health i mean obviously you work in mental health so i'm imagining that you'll you're thinking more about that side of things but do you worry about things

more knowing all the things that can go wrong and seeing all the problems that are out there or do you worry less because you kind of know how to handle those sort of conversations I think a bit of both I think sometimes knowledge doesn't always help because you know what can go wrong and you know what, I mean, ultimately we see the worst case scenarios, don't we, you know, in the job that I do. So part of me does worry about that. You know, if they get a rash, I'm thinking, oh, you know, what's this to do with, you know, but actually as well, then the knowledge kicks in and you go, well, actually, no, I know that's not a meningitic rash. It's a such and such, you know what I mean? So I think it's probably a bit of both.

Generally, I'm quite calm, though. I generally just try and stay calm. And I actually just take them to the GP. I try not to make decisions myself at home because I think it's too hard to do that when it's your own family. So I actually just take them to the doctor like everyone else does and then hand over to them and they can make the decisions a lot more efficiently probably than I can. So what has been, with Millie being in year five and getting older, what's been the high and low points of your 10 years as a mum? Gosh, that's a really good question.

I think I feel really lucky in general. I think they're both very well behaved. They're very sweet. We haven't really had any kind of like issues particularly with school or you know anything like that I've been really lucky obviously we have the normal parenting stuff and I feel tired all the time I think that's fair to say but I actually really love I love their company I love being with them I just take them with me to do stuff all the time um yeah I don't know about lows I don't know if I've really had any like real lows with them um but I guess I feel like I'm learning all the time as a parent I feel like before you have kids you think you're gonna know what to do and you think it's all gonna come to you naturally and that for

me that certainly didn't happen I just constantly learning as I go along and doing your best and I've definitely made mistakes and sometimes I'll say that to them I say you know what you know I'm really sorry about such and such and I should have done it differently or whatever um but no I love it I love being a mum obviously dynamics going to change soon as well again so looking forward to that well yes that's gonna be interesting i feel like i feel like wendy you and i are like the the kind of our kids are just getting into that teen hormonal thing and all the parents who come on here who put young great kids were like just you wait i know and i swore i wouldn't be that when i had like little kids and they'd be like oh enjoy the toddler years because

the teen years are awful and i'd be like no i, enjoy the toddler years because the teen years are awful. And I'd be like, no, I don't want to hear it. And now I've turned into that person. I've got to shut up. I would take teen years over toddler years any day. Honestly, I just think. Emily, you did a post for, I think it was like Mater mental health week or something and you were reflecting back on a time when I think your son was a very small baby and it's your daughter's third birthday

was that kind of like a tricky time for you or do you feel like I look back and think you know obviously you are going to go go back and do it all over again but do you kind of like are you kind of like stealing yourself for those kind of hard moments again yeah I think it was Theo was he was a tricky baby he was like very unsettled and um you know he had kind of the colic diagnosis and reflux diagnosis he just was he just was an unsettled baby um and yeah it was tough I think I didn't get much sleep at all for months. I mean, he literally just would cry all the time. But I think I would know more what to expect now. I think if we have another baby like that, I think I'll know more what to do. I developed some kind of coping strategies, I guess, and ways to help manage it.

I think I'm hoping anyway, this is what I'm telling myself, guys. I'm hoping that I'll just have some kind of ways to to cope with it because Millie was so good she slept through the night six weeks old oh that's easy this is easy I can do this again and then along came Theo I thought oh no one prepared me for that I think that's the hardest bit you never know what that particular baby is going to be yeah you know they're going to come out and are they going to be a screamer or a sleeper? Who knows? Well, I've had one screamer, one sleeper. Do you prefer babies or toddlers?

Because I reckon most people, I'd have a thousand newborns, but I can't have another toddler. I love the newborn stage. I just love it. You just had a little wobble. I'd like to have the newborn stage, but without all the hormones going on in

my body and all the sleep deprivation i'd quite like to have a yeah the sleep yeah so you mean you'd like a newborn and a nightmare that's what you're saying is that all right um no obviously talking about like the teen years coming up emily you've written books for kids about puberty and growing up. Have you casually passed the girls' books in Millie and said, come back if you've got any questions? Or are you actually the kind of household where you talk really openly about puberty and bodies? We do talk openly, I think, because I always say to the kids, nothing's going to embarrass me. No question you ask me is going to embarrass me.

I would have heard it before. You know, I always say people ask me embarrassing questions at work all the time and I don't mind so they do they do ask me things and they'll tell me things but I've actually sat down with Millie and read it we read it together the girls book um and it was so helpful I I've sat there I read obviously I knew what was in it because I wrote it but I sat there and read, obviously I knew what was in it because I wrote it, but I sat there and read it with her and I just thought, this is great because she actually took it in, I think on a different level, having it there in the book. So yeah, it sounds so silly to say, but I just sat there, I thought, oh my gosh, this is great. I really love it. And I was so pleased with it at that point in time. So yeah, we have, we've read it together. We kind of pick bits because she's only nine. So we, you know, we pick bits out that are kind of relevant to her at the moment

whether it's like friendship stuff or you know some puberty stuff that type of thing but yeah it was brilliant i wonder whether the key is because kids kids seem to go through um like when they're younger they don't get embarrassed about poo or bodies or whatever they just they haven't learned to you know have that kind of embarrassment I wonder whether the key is to get a book like yours and read it to them when they're like six or seven when they're not embarrassed and then again when they're a bit older and maybe that will help it go in a bit I don't know yeah I mean the book's aimed at sort of eight to eleven so you know for me personally I waited until she was starting to

bring up some of the things where I thought actually I know that's in the book and then we would sit down and read that bit together but you know I think it depends on the child you know if it's slightly older child you could just give them the book and they can read it they read it themselves but I do try to I would say it's not a silly question you can always ask me anything because I think then when they really do need you for something, they'll know that they can come to you. Obviously, there's some things they're not going to want to ask me, isn't it? But we try and keep it open.

I guess also you've got older teenagers floating around the house with Pete's kids as well. You guys, obviously not everything you see on social media is real, but you seem to have got this blended family business absolutely nailed. Have your little kids got a good relationship with Pete's kids? What's the key to making that run smoothly? I don't know. I think they've got a lovely relationship, just a really, really lovely relationship.

And I don't know what the key is actually i think they just they just get on they're just lovely that the like dynamic between them all was really really nice um and i feel really lucky for that i think that all the time you know so lucky that they do all they do obviously they do argue don't especially millie and theo just bicker they just bicker all the time it drives us totally nuts um but no in general I think they just care about each other or you know all of the kids and yeah it's very sweet it's very sweet that's nice that's nice I know when Pete was on the podcast he chatted to us about how it was your decision rather than his to hide the kids faces on social media and I did the same with my kids on social media so we probably have quite similar reasons for it but what are your feelings on it? So I think for me I always think this you

know I don't know that I make the right decisions as a parent and I just try and do what feels right for them at the time and I just felt that actually once you do it you can't kind of take that back so I just wanted to give ourselves time to kind of think about what felt like the right thing for them. And it's just felt right that we kind of keep their life a little bit more private. But I've always said the point may come where we change that or the point may come where they're old enough and they understand a little bit more about what it means, kind of social media and that type of thing.

And they may want to bit more about what it means you know kind of social media and that type of thing and they may want to to be more involved in it and I think at that time I'd have that conversation with them but for now I think it just it just felt right for me as a mum kind of for us as a family and I think you've got to have quite thick skin for sort of social media and those type of things I think it can be quite a difficult world and certainly while they're little it makes me feel comfortable at the moment anyway to kind of just keep them out of that a little bit and like I said having those conversations when they're old enough to understand and talk that that through with me so that's kind of I don't know if that makes sense but that's sort of where my rationale is for that um just

I guess as I said once you do it you can't really go back so I'm just giving that time for them to understand it a little bit more and do what feels right you know what feels right for them rather than me just just deciding on their behalf that yeah you know it's fine you can you can be online they might get to 15 and go actually no I don't want that I just you know I'd rather I'd rather not so that's sort of where I've got it from it's in it with a 12 year old these conversations are just starting to happen now and it's i think it's i sometimes wish i could um teleport back to the victorian age and not have to deal with all of this or even the 80s wendy doesn't have to be victorian yeah that's true well no but i quite like the dresses it's funny because even victorian fox to dental health no go on sorry i don't need to try i was

going to say even for me growing up it wasn't an issue at all i mean i didn't have a mobile phone so i was 16 or 17 so you know and i'm getting old but i'm not that old yet and you know so it's really been i didn't have one till uni so that's how old i am it's such a rapid change and i think for parents it's really difficult trying to navigate that because it's not something we've had experience with like we're talking about puberty you know we've all gone through puberty we can kind of have those chats with them but i don't really know where to start with the social media stuff a lot of the time or mobile phones because it just wasn't wasn't a thing when i was growing up I don't have that experience yeah it's hard to imagine how stressful it is for families when

their child is seriously ill but Fairy Norn Bio has partnered with GOSH charity to provide some comfort that's right Wendy one of the areas that GOSH charity funds is free accommodation for families located close to the hospital while their child is receiving treatment. Being able to stay close to their child and not worry about the cost helps ease the stress during what can be an extremely difficult time. Between now and the 31st of March 2024, for every pack of Fairy non-biodetergent, Fairy fabric softener or Fairy in-wash scent boosters that you buy in home bargains fairy will make a 5p donation to gosh charity which means that you can show your support as

you shop now back to our guest now i wanted to talk to you going from social media to dental health which is a slight segue but anyway I have always kind of struggled with the getting my kids to not so much to brush their teeth but to brush their teeth properly and as they get older they really don't want you standing over them saying do this bit do this because mine tend to just stand there and do one side, just like looking out the window. It's become a real problem, dental health with kids, hasn't it? Definitely. I think oral health crisis is probably an accurate way to describe it. And there's lots of reasons for that. But that's kind of why I wanted to be here today was to talk about the importance of kind of maintaining oral hygiene in kids and how

we can do that in a way to encourage them and make it fun. Because like you said, it's not always easy. I've had the same with my kids. I don't think there's any kids out there who actually love brushing their teeth. So I think it's definitely a challenge, but I think it's so important, something that we really need to talk about more, you know, as a society, I think. Yeah. So how do we get around it? us you're the pro tell us i think so for me personally i think it's about it's a kind of a combination approach i think the first thing for parents to try as much as possible is the food the diet side of it in terms of trying to prevent things like

dental cavities by avoiding too many kind of sugars. So things like obviously chocolates and sweets, things like that. Also fruit juices, you know, things where there's kind of sugar exposure in the mouth for a long, long period of time. So that's one thing. Obviously then brushing teeth twice a day for two minutes and trying to make it fun. I think that's probably the best way to do it. That's what I try do with my kids we've got like a time you know like a little egg timer at home and um you know trying to make it as fun and enjoyable as possible kind of play games around it or it but it is tough it is tough i think i guess it's another thing to think about as a parent isn't it and there's really lots of things to to think about and do but you know it's the number one reason for kids getting admitted

to hospital so five to nine year olds number one cause of hospital admissions is is you know central cavity so it's actually it's not just you know to be a nagging parent we're actually thinking about preventing children having to be admitted to hospital or go under general anesthetic to have teeth removed it's like a serious the complications are serious so it's important but i didn't before we prepped for this podcast i didn't know that fact and that is so shocking to me i i imagined the number one reason kids ended up in hospital was breaking back or falling off of trampolines or whatever the fact that it's their dental hygiene and their oral health is insane to me that blows my mind yeah and i think it's easy as well to underestimate the impact of having sort of poor oral hygiene on a child so your teeth are obviously

there for a reason obviously biting you know chewing your food but also speech and language development even just their confidence so you know being confident to smile avoiding getting bullied you know i think lots of teachers have reported that children are getting bullied for for not you know for their teeth and they're all hygiene or having cavities so it's so important for their development for even mental health i would stretch it that that far as well in terms of you know just feeling confident about yourselves avoiding being avoiding being bullied and all missing school days I think two and five parents have said that their kids have missed a day of school because of all health issues or concerns which is you know it's huge isn't it in terms of things like education yes massive um so it's rushing enough should we be doing more with our kids like flossing

or a mouthwash what's the best thing to be doing with them the most important thing is brushing so twice a day for two minutes um obviously using the right toothpaste and toothbrush for the age range because there's varying contents of toothpaste that are different for different ages um for example for much younger children the fluoride content can be a bit lower in the toothpaste because obviously babies or toddlers may just swallow the toothpaste. So, it's about getting the right toothpaste for the child for the age. Starting really early, I can't say this enough, and getting kids used to having their teeth cleaned as soon as their teeth appear. So, we're talking probably younger than a year. And I used to have the little silicone toothbrushes,

you know, the ones that just go on the end of your finger with the little tiny bristles on them and just getting them in their mouth. And when my kids were younger, they were kind of like, what on earth are you doing? They'd be half like chewing my finger and or, you know, like just not really cleaning the teeth, but just getting them used to it is so important.

I can't say that enough. And then I think, you know, if you want to do extra things extra things on top again as long as you're getting the kind of age appropriate products great but I would definitely focus primarily on brushing you know and doing it doing it really well good quality brushing twice a day and it's also not having kind of things in bottles for too long as well isn't it yeah am i right about that because it swishes around your teeth am i talking no no no not at all so from about a year makes a change no no not talking nonsense at all from from about a year um you would want kids to be having kind of a sippy cup rather than a bottle um and i think as i said earlier

kind of things like fruit juices pretty much try to avoid them as much as possible and certainly having fruit juice in any kind of like a bottle like you said because it will kind of slosh around the teeth for longer so it's much better to have it in a in a sippy cup but milk and water really pretty much the two drinks to stick to I don't know, I guess it's different in every family, but because I've always done that with my kids, they've only ever had milk or water. That's just kind of what they're used to and they don't really complain about it.

If we go out for a meal, I might let them have an apple juice or something and then it's like, oh, you know, special treat. But in the day to day, they never actually whinge about it because they're just used to it, I guess. I failed with my twins. I've got five-year-old twins my eldest who's 13 just had milk and water for years and now my twins it's like they want fruit shoots they want swash and it's like oh no I've failed definitely it's not it's not a failure because I think it's so hard you go in the shops

and there's all these like very colorful attractive looking drinks right there on the shelf and you know i say this all the time you can't do everything perfectly all the time you can't you know never have sugar in your diet or you know it's that but i think it's about moderation isn't it and then if you're having those sugary things making sure you're cleaning your teeth really well trying to avoid having them in between meal times as well so if you're going to have it you know they're going to have an apple juice orange juice or whatever have it with with a meal um so that you're kind of minimizing the amount of time that your teeth are in contact with the sugary stuff could that make sense that's to do with like the ph balance isn't it so that the ph balance of your mouth can return to normal is that is that why they

have too many snacks so i think it's to do with the amount of time that the sugar is in contact with the teeth. So the sugar in contact with the teeth and the bacteria that are on the teeth is what can then fester and create cavities. So by keeping it to meal times, you're avoiding having then sugar in contact with your teeth for a lot of prolonged periods in the day. But there's something around the pH as well. Because if you have, for example, if you drank an orange juice which is quite acidic you don't want to clean your teeth straight afterwards because then you can actually damage the enamel of the teeth um so it's things yeah there's it's a whole minefield of dental it is isn't it yeah yeah you're not but i am i i read a really good fact which was um this is why the freds eat cheese at the end of a meal, because eating the cheese can, I guess, clean their teeth in a certain way, or get rid of the sugars in their mouth. So maybe giving your kid a block of cheese after they've had a yogurt dairy, it's got calcium, low in sugar.

Cheese is one of the great foods for your teeth. So, yeah, tick for cheese on the dental health. Big fat cross for raisins. Oh, no, not raisins. The worst. I know, dried fruit. Everybody thinks those little pots of raisins are great toddler snacks. And they are great toddler snacks but it's that like they just

coat the kids teeth and yeah and and that's a really difficult thing for parents because you think something like dried fruit is is good for your kids you're like great i'm giving them fruit dried fruit because they're quite sticky they can stay in your teeth and then you know then as i said it's talking about like the prolonged um exposure to the teeth of the sugar so you know now before we let you go Emily I know that we touched briefly on the fact that there's a new edition coming but you have another new edition coming in the form of a new book am I right yes I do and I hope one easier to give birth to than the other yes yes I do I do have another book I've just yeah just finished just finished writing it I'm really excited about it more on a mental health um side this time for

kids so yeah I'm really excited actually and when does it come out oh that's a good question I think I don't know we've got the date finalized yet think around january time yeah january i'm getting yeah i think i look on amazon i think it was january it was uh it was coming out um emily thank you so much for joining us today it's been so fab to talk to you thank you so much i was just going to say if anyone wants more information the aquafresh website so i'm partner with aquafresh for this for this campaign and it's a fantastic campaign they're going into schools and giving educational material for teachers and parents all around aura health and just trying to get that message out there from from an early age for kids so yeah please do have a have a look on their website um for for any more information about the the dental

health side of things and thank you for having me it's been really lovely thank you and good luck with the coming growth thank you just getting the coming that that sounds awful good luck with your burgeoning belly thank you i love that is that even worse she's like get this woman off cut cut cut cut lovely to meet you thank you very much thank you so much for having me just a reminder that this episode was brought to you by fairy non-bio who have partnered with charity whose registered charity number is 116 0024 fairy will donate 5p to great ormond street hospital children's charity for every pack of fairy non-bio detergent, Fairy fabric softener or Fairy in-wash scent boosters purchased in home bargains between now and the 31st of March 2024 with a minimum donation of £100,000.