Two Doting Dads with Matty J & Ash - #254 Dr Golly & The Life-Saving Rule Every Parent Should Know

Episode Date: August 23, 2026

This week the guys sit down with the baby whisperer himself, Dr Golly, Baby Bunting's newest ambassador. Dr Golly has spent the last 20 years as a paediatrician, but he said it was becoming a dad himself that gave him his biggest lessons in the job because he realised just how hard babies can and how much they can shake up the entire family dynamic. So, for the past decade, he’s gone deep on baby sleep and helping families work out what to do when nobody’s sleeping. This is a must-listen for any parent who’s ever stood over a sick kid at 2am wondering, “Do we need the hospital… or are we being dramatic?” Plus, Dr Golly puts the guys through the ultimate mental load test to find out whether they’re actually sharing the load at home… or just think they are. And Dr Golly is giving $20 off all his online courses, use promocode: 2DOTINGDADS20 expires 31/12/2026. _____________________________________________________________________________ If you need a shoulder to cry on:  Two Doting Dads Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/639833491568735/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTwoDotingDads  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twodotingdads/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@twodotingdads  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt, I have a funny feeling about this next guest, and they're going to know a lot more than me, and potentially you, even. Look, I've done a little bit of research. When I say a little bit, a lot into Dr. Golly. He's, I guess for today. And just on every single level, he's better than us. I know.

He's gorgeous. He's soothing. Look at his skin. He's such a soothing tone. His voice is just angelic. And I think in the hierarchy of jobs, if you're a pediatrician, you just, that's like, does it get any better? I don't think so.

Especially he's dedicated his whole life to the cause, which is sleep settling and a broad range of paediatrics. I think of my wife, heaven forbid, was to have an affair with anyone, Dr. Gulley, I'd be like, I get it. As long as he gets to move in. But he spent the last two decades as a pediatrician and the last decade helping families settle their babies to sleep. He's also a dad of three, age 9, 11 and 13,

so you know he's got the good information. It's a bit like when you meet a physio. and you just like constantly hound them about the little niggles that you have. They're like, I've had the same ones. I've got all the parenting niggles that I need to get his advice on. Before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by Baby Bunting. It's not just a baby store. It's your go-to for expert tips, unbeatable deals,

and events worth marketing in your calendar. I got my car seat from Baby Bunting. Me too, both of them. Did you? Yes. Like us, Baby Bunting is on a mission to cut through misinformation and provide parents with expert opinions on how to make life with their bub a little easier. For events, information,

great value deals, go to babybunting.com.com.com or come in store for a chat. Let's get into it. Welcome back to three doting dads. I am Maddie J. I'm Ash. And I'm Dr. Gully. And this is a podcast all about parenting. It is the good. It is the bad. And the relatable. And this is one of the times that we say, prepare yourself. Advice will be given. Dr. Goli, we don't give advice. We would never dream of it. We don't. You are one of the, I mean, even before we were recorded. I was like, just tell me everything you know. That's, yeah. I was like, what's this? Should I be worried about this on my leg? Get all the information. I was like, upside down. You're a wealth of knowledge. But you know what? I gained so much knowledge from becoming a parent.

So people used to say, oh, you're a pediatrician, you know everything. The best way to prepare to be a pediatrician is to have your own kids. So they go kid first, then become a doctor. That should be that's what I'm doing. Should it be easier for a job. They should be like, you know, do you have your degree? Yes. Are you a parent? No. Sorry. Come back, come back. Knock someone up first and then come back. A couple of kids and then come back. We are going to speak to you about your medical expertise before we do that. We like to get to know the guest a little bit and understand,

do you recall the most amount of trouble you got into as a child? Yes. You're smoking at me before I even got through it. N equals one. So my mum was a teacher at the school that I went to in primary school, which meant I had to always be on my best behavior because everything will get back to her. And it helped that I was like a teacher's pet and a bit of a nerd as well.

Was she ever like in your classroom? No, she wasn't allowed to teach me. She wanted to, but she wasn't allowed to. That's a win. I think so. I think so. So this one time we had a swimming gala and I was walking past the head of sport and I thought how funny would that be if he went for a swim?

Oh. It wasn't that. I mean, I thought it was funny. Sheiky bugger. Did you get a run up or did you just nudging me? It was a hip and shoulder. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Assault. So no one else found it. funny. I would have found it funny for the record. Where were you at the time? Sorry. So roughly how old were you when this happened? Oh we're talking nine. Okay so that's like on the cusp of probably knowing better. I've heard that's where the life of crime starts. Yeah, it's certainly nine. Well thankfully it ended there. Oh good. Yeah. And your mom's like where's my young boy? Did you get any detention or anything? Like everyone was just shocked and it was you do we discipline him or do we join in the humor? And luckily

the sport teacher joined in the humor. Oh good. Okay. So. So, It was, I mean, I was appropriately reprimanded. You could always play the light. I tripped. It was an accident from three meters away. I tripped and sheltered you into the water. I don't know.

What happened now? I don't know if that's a male thing just when people are standing at the edge of a large body of water. It's the fake. It's an imitation. Yes. It's not our fault. It's instinct.

I think it's the victim's fault. What? No comment. Seriously. step away from the pool it won't happen Dr. Golly, I'm intrigued to know what came first and also do I call you a

is a pediatric cardiologist? No, no, so I had a big sliding doors moment when I was in my training. I was on the way to becoming a pediatric cardiologist so specialising in hearts with kids. That sounds fucking impressive. We're going to have to throw this out because all the questions about hearts.

I then did this thing called becoming a dad. So during my cardiology training, I became a dad. And let's just say my entire world crumbled fell apart in not a great way. And everything shifted. So I was on the path to become a pediatric cardiologist and then had this experience of a very unsettled baby and realized that it was not really being addressed by pediatricians very commonly. I didn't think it was being done very well. And so I just completely pivoted my career.

I mean unintentionally, did a deep dive into this space of unsettled babies and the why and what you can do about it. And that flows on to sleep. And then, of course, we're not talking about baby sleep. There's toddler sleep and adolescent sleep and then adult sleep, of course. So I'm not a sleep specialist, but I definitely focus on the unsettled baby. And then it has flow and effects. Gosh, every parent you must meet, they must, like, at a social event, just be like, tell me fucking everything.

Why did you want to get into pediatrics? I had this problem when I did medicine that I loved every job that I did. So when you are training, you spend a few weeks in this area and a few weeks in that area and then you become a doctor and you spend six weeks as a junior in gastroenterology

and nine weeks in neurosurgery and you do everything, which is a really nice way to get exposure and you sort of get a taste and you say, oh, I like that or I like that person, I want to emulate them. I loved everything that I did. I wanted to be everything.

that I did, which made it really hard to choose. And then I had a pediatric rotation, and then I got it. Can you be a doctor of everything? Look, a general practitioner, a GP covers everything. I think that's one of the hardest jobs in the world. But when I stepped into pediatrics, I realized that that was exactly where I wanted to be. I loved it. I loved the people.

What did you love about it? You're dealing with two patients all the time. You know, there's the patient and the parent. There's this interplay that's really fascinating. and challenging and it's enthralling, and you can make a difference to an entire family unit when you fix a problem. Very true.

It's amazing. It really is amazing. And also just the people you work with, the nurses, the doctors, the allied health, the orderlies, everyone in a children's hospital, you can't be a grump. I mean, go to an adult hospital, and it's a pretty tense.

It's grumpy. It's not a happy place. Majority of the time. Yeah, go to the children's hospital in any state, in any country. And it's like everyone's trying to be fun. Everyone's trying to be light. Everyone's trying to counter the difficult realities we're dealing with.

So it's a pretty good mood. It's a good environment. And people often say, how can you work with sick kids? It's actually the opposite. It's much more fun and you're a bit more silly. And you walk into a room. I mean,

a ward round on elderly patients or adults, not so much fun. It's stinky too. And it doesn't look good to blow bubbles in the room. Yeah. It doesn't work. I wonder if those adult patients are like, I just want a bubble blown to my face.

Just send it cloud in or something. They really do. And that's the funny thing. They've done studies on this actually where they've brought clown doctors into adult and, you know, everyone's happier. Yeah, people discharge home earlier. It's a miracle. It is. Go figure.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Like, because I'm probably one of those people that think, oh, I could never work with kids because I would just feel, feel for how innocent they are. But I suppose your vision there is, it's actually really fun. And I get to like. And the best part is that the kids.

don't wallow. So if you've got an adult who feels bad for whatever symptom, whatever reason, and you remove their symptom with pain relief or nausea relief, whatever it is, they still, they're grumpy, right? They're in hospital. They're not happy. If you take a kid and you give them 15 seconds of feeling good, they are going to run. Yeah. Very true. So they don't sit in the mud. They just, they want to be happy. Give them an opportunity. Take away their symptoms and they are happy. And there's, there's no better environment than that. It's like, that's a great way to live your life. Also, I think it's one of those professions where if you're at a party and someone's like, what do you do? It is just, that's top of the food chain.

Yeah, all of a sudden. I help sick kids. Yeah, Timmy's like, oh, it's my birthday. Show on for me. There's a doctor here. A doctor of children. That and like an astronaut, I think, a doctor astronaut. Yeah, can you fly?

I'll look into it. That's next. Next time I'll have you wanted to be in a day. Don't come back until you can fly. We'll dialing in from the moon. Sometimes I'd love to just steal some of your scrubs and just walk the streets to see what we're just to get the phrase Do it do it then you have to say I'm a doctor Stolen bell up and start helping people I know people like we know you're a podcaster

So then you must have thought when you were deciding to have kids You're like well this is you know I've had so much exposure to children this will be a walk in the park I thought so I was wrong I also had nieces and nephews So I'm the youngest of three boys so I was around kids for a very long time. I thought I know everything. This will be fine. Like, I really wanted kids for a long time. And then I also had this, I don't know if it was an external pressure or just my own sort of assumed pressure, but I thought that I was meant to be good at it. I thought that I was meant to know everything and solve everything. And as you said, walk in the park. And when my daughter arrived, it was quite the

opposite of a walk in the park. It was like a bad somersault through a tornado. She, she was unsettled. She was totally healthy and remains so. She's now 13, but she was the definition of colic. Now, what's interesting in pediatrics, you don't really learn about colic. I mean, you know what it is. But you don't spend too much time being trained in it or working with it because the baby's not, you know, quote unquote sick. So it's a bit situational.

It's a bit... It's a life-threatening. It's not life-threatening. But what I discovered the really hard way is that it is completely... life changing in a really bad way. And anyone who's been through the process of a child with colic understand, like it is quite literally a form of torture. Oh, the poor thing. I just remember the screams like you were too, like that specific gurgly, gurgly scream. Yeah, it's awful. And so everything for me just fell apart. Like everything that I thought I was, everything I wanted to be,

I felt guilty for my daughter. I felt guilty for my wife. What was meant to be the greatest time, I built this up to be the greatest thing. I was so excited to be a dad. And then it arrived and I wasn't. And I couldn't talk about it because I was meant to be the opposite. And I was training at the same time with work. I was working night shifts. You know, it all hits.

You know, you've got your mortgage and work pressure and baby arrives and everything. And I'm not, woe is me. It was just my experience was not what I thought it would be. Yeah. It was really, really painful. But now I look back and say it was. the greatest thing that ever happened to me because it did. It changed the trajectory of my career because I turned around and said, this can't be normal. This can't be dismissed.

Because I was dismissed. I went to see a pediatrician. As a trainee, yes. Absolutely. In number one rule, don't look after your kids. So I was dismissed. Can I ask? Because I feel like it's thrown around a lot. What were your symptoms for your daughter to think that something's not right and it could be constantly unsettled, unable to be put down not sleeping long stretches, feeding frequently, just miserable. Just miserable. Like you said, that cry that, you know, it's like nails on a chalkboard. You just want to help them.

Yeah. And nothing works and you get advice and you go down that path and something improves. And then eight hours later, we're back. So you change tack. And everyone, you know, this person tells you, oh, it's this reason. So you try that. And then someone else, oh, you've got to go and see that person. You try everything.

And so what I did is I did a deep dive into this. concept called the unsettled baby. And I don't want to say you have to go through it to be able to manage it, but boy, does it help? It really helps because you can relate. I know, the relating, like us now doing this for a job where we do nothing but talk about parenting, all sorts of stuff, and then talking to my friends who might have a newborn or something like that.

Or someone who's got a pet and they're like, I'm also tired. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. But it's like, it's, for me, it's nice when I can provide some, even just some reassuring. be like, Oscar was like that. Yeah, relatable. Yeah. Yeah. So what was the reaction when you first went to a pediatrician?

The baby's healthy. It was just very, and he's an amazing, narrow-tied, an amazing pediatrician, amazing. He was a mentor of mine. And I love and respect him. Got to be tough. It was very simple. Your child's either sick or your child's well. Your experience of the early childhood period was not raised.

Like, are you having fun? Are you enjoying it? Are you getting, it's not important. your child's sick or your child's well. That was it. Now, that's okay. That's fine. But I said, that's not me.

That's not how I want to practice. So if you come to me with a six-week-old baby, parents often remark that they're quite surprised how quick the baby bit is, the examination, the fixing the problems, sorting that out. There's so much smaller. Oh, exactly. Small baby, small problems. And then I turn to the parents and it's like, okay, let's begin.

This is where we start because I want to know what. And it's not, you know, wishy-washy. you know, how are you feeling? Maybe it gets to that point. But for me, it's about the parents' experience. Because in some ways, it's all about the parent experience. If you come to me and you say, my baby feeds every three hours and you're very happy with that, you win.

Nothing needs to change. But if you say, my baby's feeding every three hours and I'm about to break, then we can fix that. Yeah, because also as well, like, they pick up on you as well. Oh, yes. And like, do you have any experience where you think, like, having a lot of you? a conversation with the parents that you might think, it's hard to say to someone,

hey, they're picking up on your energy too. I have this conversation every day. Oh, really? And every day it's hard and it never gets easier and it's delicate. Yeah, I'm in a privileged position to be having these conversations and it's hard. Sometimes you can't say that the first time you meet someone. Yeah.

You have to establish a relationship. But ultimately, what I want parents to understand is that babies drink more than milk. Well said. They drink every emotion that you bring. to that. I was like water? I got chills, bro. I got chills.

Yeah, you were good. You got goosebumps. Literally. I'm a little bit cold. So if you are anxious, if you are worried, if you are second-guessing yourself and you go to feed that baby, you think about it. You're a baby, completely helpless and being held by someone who is clearly telling you, I don't have this. I'm not confident with this.

They're not going to settle. No, no way. You wouldn't settle. Imagine going on an aeroplane when the pilot gets up and says, listen, guys, first time, all right. I don't want to be here. I don't know what that button does. Is it a thrill?

You wouldn't feel comfortable. That's why I say I spend so much time dealing with parents because the more I can empower them and calm them and give them confidence, the baby then drinks that up and the baby responds with being more settled and then that feeds back with a positive loop. So who empowered you then in your situation? Lots of people. lots and lots of people. There are lots of people who did the opposite as well, not intentionally,

but I got a lot of advice from my mum. I got a lot of advice from midwives, a lot of advice from family, friends, cousins, you know, lots and lots of people, community, you know, we live in concentric circles of family, community, etc. So when you can lean on people, friends, family, neighbors, whatever it may be, it's invaluable. Is there anything that really helped with your daughter? The thing that was making my daughter unsettle was the fact that she wasn't burping. Yes, the burping. The burping. Forgot about the burping. It comes back, doesn't it? I burp all the time. So burping was her big, that was her Achilles. And when we learned how to wind her and changed our approach and changed our mentality, it changed everything. And then we took

that learning through our experience with our son and then with our third child. And it changed a lot. So that was, you know, people say, how do you settle a baby? Well, it's like there are too many variables. It's very specific. There's lots of little things and it's baby specific. So for me, it was winding. That was my focus. You mentioned before it's like the confidence, okay, for these parents. And like, it's not fair that we've, that you have a baby. And then we as a society, especially moms, they put so much expectation on themselves. And then it's not going right because they've got colical or unsettled. And I can imagine that. that compiling. So I'm sure that you probably get a lot of like mums in there and then you're like

get to the point where you're like, you're actually need a bit of confidence here. You're right. Everything you say is right. Society's working against us. Yeah. As new parents. Yeah. Social media shows you, I mean, you know all this. Social media shows you all the pretty parts. Yeah. And not the rough bits. And moms are under extraordinary pressure. Yeah. I don't even, I mean, I don't need to tell you guys how much on a back foot women are when the baby arrives. Oh, yeah, me. Now keep a human alive and recover from delivery or, you know, however you delivered.

Make it look like you're having fun. Yes. And look good while you're doing it and, you know, get your body back. Everyone else is doing this. So you should be doing that too. And look at this celebrity. You can do that. And it's like, it's crazy amount of pressure.

You also have to have the perfect baby. So if you don't have one, it'll be it to look like you have one. It's just, it's crazy amount of pressure. Dads are under increasing pressure as well. all of this, what it does is it turns the volume down on this innate parental instinct that we all have. It's all inbuilt. And we used to as a species be much better at listening and acting on it, but it's getting harder and harder. So what I try to do when I talk about empowering a parent, I try to turn the volume up. So if someone walks into my room, I don't care if you bring me a nine

year old or a 19 year old, one of the first questions I ask is, what do you think is wrong? Yeah. I hate to, whilst you're in the chair, it'd be like, I've actually got a problem that I'd like you to try and diagnose. But whilst you're here, it would be a room. Is it a rash? Do we need to turn off the cameras? It's not, it's sexually transmitted.

I always think back to Lola when she was a newborn. And I was very lucky that Marley was an easy newborn. It was great. Laura and I used to look at each other and be like, why do people complain so much? Because, you know, we're relaxed. It's a trap, Matt. Right? And then Lola came along and just really flipped it on its head.

It was one of the darkest parts of our parenting lives. We look back and we're like, that was hell. And I love Lola so much. And it gives me to say that that phase of life was so hard because of her. But unfortunately it was. And we always kind of sometimes look back and think, we don't know what it was. A, was it B? We think she had reflux.

but to paint a picture, she really struggled with feeding as a newborn, right up until three, four months, just couldn't get her to settle afterwards, would only ever sleep on Laura's chest. I couldn't settle her myself, and I can play you, that may be triggering for any parents who are listening.

Laura and I used to get anxiety at nighttime because we knew we were just up for an evening of no sleep at all, because Lola would sleep maybe an hour, hour and a half then she would wake up we'd try and feed her she wouldn't feed she would then scream for an hour yeah eventually get back to sleep and that was just the cycle until seven in the morning and so it was like even talking about now I'm like man I'm going back into those trenches that pre-bed anxiety oh that I felt that when you said that and it means you can't sleep yeah so like

it's similar like exact same scenario is what matt's talking about I had it first and then a better one second but yeah that good on you for going for the same yeah a lot I hear that every day people say i can't do this again it took a little while just get me on board because yeah like i just remember the pre-bed chat be like oh you got you ready for this i'm strapped in i'm gonna play you the cry okay i've recorded it this was taken back in march 2021 at 2 a m this is what she sounded like i don't know if it helps for you to diagnose what she may have had you know it's used as a form of torture that noise yeah in the military they use it sleep deprivation and the sound of babies crying

because we're actually built as humans to not tolerate that sound as a protective mechanism. Right. So when you play that, like you and I, in fact, we all did. We all instinctively shudder. To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be so loud. And I was like, oh, but then once you hear that. I could never settle her.

I just couldn't. Yeah, so you can't, it always reminds you this episode of The Simpsons. I watched a lot of Simpsons growing up. Good for you. Do you know Uncle Herb who made the, the baby translator. Yeah, that's right. I'm a destroyed his car business, so he invented a baby translator.

I wish I could make one. They don't exist. All you can glean from that is that I'm unsettled. I'm unhappy. And, you know, I hate the word colic. I hate it because it's an adjective. It's useless, right? It's like you being in pain, going to an emergency department,

and they turn around to you and say, you've got pain. Thank you. Excellent. Yes, a bit diagnosed. See you tomorrow. So colic is just an adjective. It doesn't help. So when someone says, oh, your baby's got colic, it's like, okay, great.

I knew that. That's why I'm here. What are we going to do about it? So there's no point in telling someone their baby has colic if you're not going to look for the reason why and then solve it. So I would have loved to have sunk my teeth into this scenario when she was like four or five weeks old. So there are so many possible reasons as to why I can tell you that the most commonly missed thing

is that trapped wind problem, which was the issue for my daughters, my daughters and my son. The second most common scenario is that people get diagnosed with reflux. Now, reflux is this big topic, and there's a long history as to why people talk about reflux, and it's got to do with pharmaceutical companies, pushing product to GPs in the 80s. Basically, babies can bring things up. They've got a very lax sphincter. It's like the lid on the top of a food processor, a smoothie maker, and things come up. And because they often drink and then lie flat,

I mean, same thing would happen for us if we drank a huge amount of milk and then lay flat. You wouldn't feel great and it could come up if you had a lax sphincter. So people say, well, that must be it. But it's not, in fact, it's very uncommon to have true gastroosophageal reflux disease. It's quite uncommon. And the big problem is that if you go and see someone, GP, pediatrician, maternal nurse, anyone, anyone at all, And you present them with an unsettled baby and they don't know why. It's very easy to say your baby's got colic or your baby's got reflux.

Oh, but my baby's not spitting up. Oh, okay, we'll call it silent reflux then. That's what happened to me. That's what happened to what. Yeah, so that infuriates me because what that means is these are two, they're just, they're rubbish terms. Well, reflux is not rubbish. That happens, but not commonly. It's in this situation.

The word reflux is very throwaway. Very, right? I see it as a euphemism for, I don't know what's wrong with your. baby. You gave us the medical term for reflux and it's like, my baby didn't have that. It's like, I mean, these babies, true, reflux disease, they're vomiting blood. They can't put on weight. Like, they're very, very unwell. And these are the babies I admit to hospital. Yeah. I don't send them home with a little bit of medicine. And no surprise that so many people who come to me at the six week, eight week mark say, we tried that medicine,

it didn't work. Or we tried it, made things worse. Is it gripe? Gripe water. Yeah. Yeah, there's less mebental, symmethicone. There's so many things that people try, but if you don't get down to the reason or group of reasons, you won't find a solution. Tell me if there's a long list that would be far too time-consuming to try and go through, but is it like the checklist of it could be gas, it could be burping? Yeah. That's my job. That's what I would do in a consult is honing on every single one of those and it's often not one thing. It's a few things and you tweak three or four things and then everything changes overnight.

It really annoys me so fucking much that I'm like, we went through hell. Like it really almost broke me in Laura to the point where we never wanted to have more kids. And I think if only we had found someone decent at the time, instead of just suffering and being dismissed by other doctors. It just doesn't have to be like that. Yeah. Like we had a similar situation and like looking back now,

all these things that are coming up, like, you know, refluck, throwaway. But yeah, you're right. It pretty much put my wife in a mental hospital as well. did the exact same situation and it was silent reflux i remember i remember the first day going into this it was like a mother and child ward section of this particular mental hospital they were amazing and i remember walking in there with oscar who was this sounded exactly like that and i remember they he was laying in that little clear bassinet thing they turned him on his on his right side and put a rolled-up towel on either side bang he went to sleep and i was like what

And she was like, well, what's happening is it's like when he's trying to sleep, he's getting uncomfortable so it's coming up. Like, you need to turn him on this particular angle. He slept like a baby. You slept like a proper baby for like hours. So that's the exact reason. And that's why the advice you get from the older generation is you've got to be really careful with it. She was quite an older midwife.

Well, the older generation is in our parents. We were slept on our stomachs. That's right. So when SIDS came in, SIDS's awareness and, you know, red nose and all of this awareness, you know, back to sleep campaign, we saved hundreds of thousands of lives over the years. Like it's been one of the most successful public health interventions of all time. Just the...

Just putting babies to sleep on their backs, right? However, we replaced cids with colic and flatheads. Yeah. Back of the head, yeah. Yeah. So those two things are very, very problematic in our generation, but not for our parents. so often people will come to me and a grandparent comes who might be helping or offering advice whatever might even be an ex-midwife's oh we never had these problems you know that generational

advice you love throwing that out there yeah the internet did this yes but you can tell them it's not the same world it's a different society so yes you definitely want to replace cids no question but we then have to deal with these issues do you have this is a very hard question to try and answer. So I apologize for putting you on the spot. But do you have a list of the most common mistakes parents make when it comes to sleep routines? Yeah, absolutely. Go on. How long do we have? Just give us a couple of, give us a couple of good ones. I think to begin with, you've got to have the right idea. Like, you know, for me, a baby who is six weeks old and more than five kilograms can sleep through the night. But don't expect that to be 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. So it would be, say,

for example, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. So don't have. So don't have. a four-week-old and think you're a failure because they're not sleeping through the night. You've got to have the right expectation. That's the first thing. An age-appropriate, development-appropriate target and then try and meet it. The next thing is, and it's not a mistake, it's parents are given a lot of bad advice. There's a lot of, quote-unquote, sleep consultants. There's a lot of generational advice. There's a lot of neighbor told me this, workmate told me that. Is there anything that you hear that you're like, no! That's like, reflux. It's reflux. I hear it all the time.

And it's not. It's just so commonly misdiagnosed. And what it does is it stops you looking for the reason. Very true. There, baby's got a reflux. I've just got to write off the first six months. I hate that. Is it?

Because I think everyone's gold standard is their child sleeping through the night. Yes. I heard myself. On the grapevine. This is what I heard on the great vine. That a common reason they don't sleep through the night is because they're hungry. So you need to try and feed them. more solids, like poppy's now 11 months, so she needs to have a decent amount of solids

during the day and also as a last feed at like 5.30. And if she's full, then she'll sleep to the night. Is that true? There is true to that, but it's full of what? So specifically, they need to have a lot of protein. And you also don't want to have a huge amount of protein before bed, so you want to make the lunchtime protein serve as much as possible. But then there's so many other factors at play. Your two-year-old might be waking because it's cold at three in the morning. I'm from Melbourne, three, four in the morning, a lot of babies waking up from being cold. It might be a one-year-old who's pushing molars.

Like, you've got to think about, this is what I mean about setting yourself up for success. You've got to know what to expect at what age. So bring me a five-month-old who used to sleep beautifully through the night who's gone through the quote unquote. This is another thing that infuriates me. The four-month sleep progression. There is no such thing.

It's banned in here. I never use it. I hate that word. I hate it because it doesn't need to happen and because there's so much negative. It's very backwards, the word, the thinking, it's wrong. It's a progression that's happening. But if you don't read your baby, you're going to miss the sign. So most four, four and a half month olds, they're hungry.

And then you read a book that says start solids at six months. So you're delaying and you're actually delaying something that they're very loud, clearly. This is Homer's, Uncle Herb's translator. I want solids. And parents, that's the most common thing I see. At four, five, six months, they're not giving solids when the baby's ready and asking for it. Yeah, because I mean the book would say, yeah, the six months, but they're all different. Not your book.

But they're all different, right? So I think that's another problem too. Which is about upskilling the parent to read the child. Don't listen to me. The answer isn't four months. The answer is start looking for signs of readiness from four months. And your baby might show them at five. They might show them at three and a half months.

Yeah. Every baby's slightly different. Another question that I've also heard. You've got you. You're ear to the ground, Matthew. And I think it's partly because I'm in the thick of it with Poppy. But I heard that you shouldn't let a baby cry for an extended period. I saw something somewhere.

Like cried out? That it actually causes psychological long-term damage. I think it causes damage to us as well. I don't use cry-it-out. I don't believe in it. It's not healthy. There are studies that show that. is terrifying. And again, you might just be missing the reason for them crying in the first place.

The whole concept of just let them exhaust themselves until they pass out. It doesn't seem very nice. No. You know that you say it like that. Yeah. Well put. I like what you said there though. You kind of got to take a step back instead of just in the moment being like they'll be fine. Yeah. Take a step back to say, okay, what's the reason? Now there is a balance. You're 100% right. but sometimes there might just be a little bit of an objection. I don't really want to go to bed now, Dad. Yeah. And then 90 seconds later, oh, right, fine, I'll go to bed.

So you can have, it's not cry it out, it's more give them a moment, listen to the cry. So there are, I lied before, there are some times when you can interpret the cry. So the cries that are sort of getting softer or the gaps of silence are growing in between cries. Those ones you can leave. That's what I call it, de-escal. letting cry. And if you've got one where you hear it and you know that's not going to stop, then don't wait 10 minutes. Because sometimes when Poppy wakes, my initial reaction is like, I'll go get her. And then I'm like, wait, am I going to give her this bad routine of as soon as she

makes a noise, I'm in the room. Correct. And we did that. Damn it. The routine that I fell into with my other children was that whenever they would wake up in the night, I would just give them a bottle because it would settle them. But then I had this awful situation where they would have six bottles in the night. Yeah, it's a sleep association. And then they weren't eating during, like, they wake up in the morning. They wouldn't have a bottle for a couple hours because they were like, I've just had. And they've had the bed every second night.

I remember that. Is there any tips? And I know it's so circumstantial. But if you've got, say, an 11 month old who's waking up, what is your tip to settle? Great question. Set yourself. The day determines the night. So again, give them all the tools they need during the day.

Give them good sleep during the day, good day sleep sets you up for good night's sleep. Give them protein during the day. Make sure their sleep environment. So this is all the things you do before you get to bedtime. Their sleep environment is right. Is the room too light? Is the room too cold? Is there white noise playing?

All the little things. Okay. And then when you put them to bed, are you putting them to bed too late? Are you putting to bed an overtired child who is not going to have good sleep architecture on the way and not going to be able to link sleep cycles. There are so many questions. And often when you just tweak those little things, the thing that parents are surprised by the most is that they actually don't need to do sleep training often.

Sometimes yes, it depends on the temperament of the child. But often you just change those things and then when you put them to bed, they sleep through and you turn to your partner in the morning, did you get up? No, did you? I thought you got. The panic in the morning, check the polls, check the pulse. It's funny. A lot of new parents do this.

they go, they get it right, they're one night. And they're like, let's do exactly what we did last night. And then it goes wrong. But kids are like a badly built toy where one day the battery runs out. The next time the lights aren't working, the wiring is all stuff. It's riddled with technical issues. And that's where you have to add in a little sprinkling of just, you know what? Shit happens.

Yeah. Not every day's the same. And the better your baseline, not only you have an increased tether to deal with shit nights, because teething happens and sickness happens. and neighbour's dog barking happens. But if you've got a good baseline, you can deal with those little hurdles. And if your baby has good baseline sleep, you can deal with that illness or that disruption from a holiday

and get straight back to the routine when you're back. We get a lot of parents and stuff like that. The first reaction when something we think something's really wrong is to go to the ER. Do you have any advice to parents out there that are thinking, should I be going to the hospital for this or should I not be going to the hospital? It's a great question. It's hard.

There's this joke amongst doctors that. Oh, a doctor joke. Go, go, go, go. So when there's like an overhead page for an emergency call, you know, you drop everything and you run in a hospital, you go to the room and the joke is that the first pulse you need to check is your own. Okay. Not the body.

Right. And that's because if you arrive, and we sometimes see this with new doctors, young doctors, they'll run. Okay, if you arrive at an emergency and you are out of breath and you are tachycardic and you are flustered and panicked, you're not going to help the situation. The calmer you are, the more you're going to help. People often say to me when I come to an emergency delivery, like, wow, you are so relaxed.

Now, yes. I see that. But also, underneath the surface, there might be a little bit of concern, a little bit of adrenaline going, but the key is just to on the outside be relaxed. And what that does is it makes everyone else drinks that and they just calm down a bit. And I have this method, it's not even conscious, where in a room when there's lots of people shouting and screaming and beeping and everything, I actually talk a little bit softer. And I say, can you tell me this and could you pass me that? And what it does is everyone can't hear me.

So everyone shuts up. And it really helps. I'm going to try that with my kids. This is genius. Sometimes when you actually just talk a little bit softer and makes everyone just go a little bit softer and listen a bit harder. And when you listen harder, it helps. It helps with kids. it helps in stressful situations.

Now, back to your question, when do you know? I've got to be honest, I've had that, I don't know. I've had that three in the morning. You know, my son had croup multiple times. Do I go in? It's scary. It's scary, right? And then I'm thinking, on layered,

I'm thinking, am I being too laissez-faire? Am I actually waiting too long because I think I'm okay or, you know, I'm a doctor? Like, what difference can I make? I need tools, I need drugs, I need an emergency department. So it is stressful. So take the pressure down, as in don't be too hard on yourself. The one thing parents need to know is that we will never make fun of you for presenting to emergency. Yeah, it might be the case where it's like they might be a bit self-conscious about it being absolutely nothing and being ashamed for it.

Because it's so much better for us if you come in and the child isn't sick. It's better for us than if you wait another four hours and you bring us a child and we've got to play catch up with a really bad asthma or crew. or whatever it may be. So don't hesitate. If you are really unsure, you err on the side. Like, we live in a great country, just err on the side of going in. For sure. When you are not sure whether it can wait till morning,

I teach parents that the three Bs and the three P's. If it's got to do with the three Bs, three P's. When you said that, I felt Matt's ease go up. I physically felt him go, oh, yeah. So if it covers any of these six things, go in. or if you're worried about these things. So the three Ps are pain. So pain you can't get on top of.

And kids are pretty honest when it comes to pain. So pain, pee, poo. All my favorites. Affecting any of those areas, like if your child hasn't passed urine. So that covers a lot of things. Okay. So if you've got a child who's got gastro, for example, and you're not sure if they can be managed at home or not,

if they're not making urine, you need to go in. Yeah. Oh, man. Because especially gastro, it could get mixed. up real easy. Absolutely. So those are the three P's and when it comes to the three Bs, it's breathing and I'll talk about that a bit more in a moment, it's behaviour. So if they're just not behaving in a way that is normal, if they're unusually sleepy or like I said, they're not themselves. Yeah. That's a question we ask a lot. It's an odd question. How are they in themselves?

And really only the parent would really know. They're not quite themselves. Yeah. And so breathing, behavior and then bottle breasts, which means feeding. So has the feeding, dropped off, especially with younger kids. If they're not feeding, go in. And the breathing thing is really interesting because a lot of parents say, well, how do I know? How do I know? We talk about work of breathing. What is work of breathing? Okay. In and out. Yeah, but what is like, what's dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. So what I tell parents is, imagine you went for a run and I caught you on the finish line of this marathon and I looked at you and you were like huffing and puffing, which it makes total sense because you've got a marathon beer. Yeah. If I saw you sitting on the couch, beer in hand, watching

sport, huffing, puffing like that, that doesn't look right. There's a mismatch there. So if your child is sitting there, lying there, and breathing and tugging away really hard, that's not right. That's called increased work of breathing, and that needs to be dealt with. So if you're not sure what's normal, what's abnormal, just take a video of your child, top off when they're breathing normally. And then look at that video, compare it to what you're seeing now at three in the morning. And if it doesn't look the same, go in. I'm going to do that as soon as I get home. come here? Yeah, it's such a small thing can make such a big difference. Exactly. How long have you been a doctor for? 20 years. Wow. Have you seen a difference in the span of

that 20 years in the dynamic of parenting with moms and dads? Massive. Like a seismic shift in the right direction. Good to hear. Even like on socials, I've seen a change. You will see this as well. Like, I mean, the fact that we're sitting here talking is a change, right? Thank you. I'll take that. I mean, like, you know, 20 years ago, obviously we didn't have podcasts, but how many dads groups were there? How many dads were having these conversations? How many dads were involved? How many dads knew enough about what was happening with their kids to actually contribute?

That's been a big change. Like when I started on socials six years ago, I had, you know, 1%, 2% of my followers were male. Now it's like double digits, 20%. It used to be that mums would come and say, oh, are you Dr. Goli? and now it's dad's stopping me. Wow. Oh, really? Yeah, it's great.

It's great to see. And we need to see more of it. Sometimes dads will come up to me and like ask me questions and it's like, okay. I'm new to all this too, but it's funny that you say that that you've got to witness it over so long that it's now starting to be, the mental load is starting to be more evenly shared. Exactly. What we need to move away from is this concept of dads helping. we're not helping. It's like this is not Ashes podcast and Maddie's helping. He's a good help.

Is it good help. But that would be offensive, right? To you. And that's exactly the same way we should look at parenting. This is not mums raising kids and dads helping every now and then with a chopout. That's not, that used to be society. Okay, no judgment. And there are some families who still work like that. That's one thing, one caveat I have to say, there's no judgment ever. So if that's how you do it in what people used to call traditional nuclear family, that's fine. If that works for you, fine. But society has moved a long way, away from that. You know, we've got dual income family. So mums have now got the added pressure of expecting to be tertiary educated and having a career and supporting the economics of the house 50-50,

but we haven't had the equal reduction in expected household duties and child rearing and as you say mental load. So it doesn't add up. It's probably, I think, the most common issue that we have whenever we speak about, what does the audience wish that their partner knew more about? And 99% of the time, it is mental load. If there are any dads listening who are unfamiliar with mental load and how it can impact their partners, why is it important to prioritize?

There was an amazing study released recently that showed 78% of families have the mental load primarily falling on mum shoulders. Now, we talk about supporting mothers and we talk about sharing the load. What that does is it helps the entire family unit. So what you need to understand if you're a dad is that your child will sleep better if you know more about their activities, their routine, what's happening, what they should be doing, etc. It will benefit them when they're older if you are more involved in their sport, their timetable,

signing them up, taking them to training. It just helps the entire family unit, the children, the father, the mother. If you are in charge of, you know, school communications, if you are across dentist appointments, if you are the one who's in charge of haircuts, you know, this is something that people sort of, it sounds odd, but it just naturally falls more on mums and it doesn't have to be that way. And again, for dads that don't have a complete appreciation, for the mental load. Are there any questions that you can ask to allow them to understand it in more detail? This is not an exercise in making dads feel guilty, right? It's just more,

when you actually stop and think about it, you can be quite shocked at how much your partner carries. This shocks me every day, every day. Like sometimes I think to myself, you don't know how complicated tax returns are and I've got to do best statements and this and then I stop myself in that thought and think I am not even coming close to the things you are managing and sorting out and carrying and there are things you can't even measure like emotional load when kids get older teenage angst etc etc so let's do a quiz let's do a challenge with you too and again this is not a judgment yeah it's a safe place do you want to be a millionaire music but it's not it's not a judgment it's more just you know it serves as sometimes a little bit of a shock that you realize wow I actually

don't carry much of the mental load. All right, quick fire, Q&A. Do you know your children's shoe size? Yes and no. What does that mean? I know Oscars, the oldest, because I just bought him soccer boots. And Macy, I'm going to guess she's a six or seven. I'm going to go European size, just to mix things up.

Fancy. Fancy. Are they all in loafers? I had to buy some school shoes recently, and at the same time, there was a sale on. So I was like, well, I'll get some for both kids. And Lola's a 31 and Mali's in 33. Good.

When did your children last get haircuts? I know this one because I cut Oscar's hair, which was two weeks ago. And Macy was early this year for the first hair cut. Lola had one recently. Bob cut two weeks ago and Mali is due to have to book her in. But after she has her final dance recital, because if it's too short, but too hard to put into space buttons. You guys, I'm preaching to the wrong crowd.

I like this. Don't jump the gun too early. There's only two questions. What is something that they need to bring to school this week? Paint shirt. The smock. The smock. We have the book parade tomorrow.

So Lola is going as a Cinderella and Mali is going as a character that I can't remember the name of, but it's from a book that she's reading, so it's a striped shirt. Excellent. Where's Wally? Can you name three friends of your kids? Do you want full names? Yeah. Lenny Hunter.

Kyle Lewis. Full name. Yolly. That tall one. A tall one. A tall one. And echo. Echo.

Echo. What is the date of their next birthday party that they're attending? Oh, fuck. Every weekend. I don't remember the exact birthday. It's coming up. It's going to be... I think at the moment we're in the clear.

with no invites on the table. But I could be really wrong. Could be wrong? I have two invites. I don't know the dates. One is this month. One is October. Okay.

I think. Look, I'm going to check the calendar. What's something they will refuse to eat in their lunchbox? Butter. Don't laugh. Butter for sure. Something they refuse to eat would be...

I've seen those lunchboxes. They're pretty extensive. I'd say both kids at the moment, it's frustrating because they used to love it, but now they hate yoga. They won't have yogurt. Yogurt's a waste of money right now. Wow.

The yogurt always... That's a big out. Yeah. Actually, so it's worked out financially great. Do they have any allergies? Oscar thinks he's allergic to pineapple, but you got a rash once. I don't know. No, I'm pretty sure no.

No. Last question. What's each of your child's next activity? What day we are? It's Tuesday. Oscar's got soccer training on Thursday. Both kids do a Spanish lesson. in the morning at school on a Friday morning,

and then Marley's got dance recital at the Opera House, the big finale for dance on Sunday. So you guys have demonstrated how dads should answer these questions, but a surprisingly low number of dads can actually answer that. And there's this test that I do, a very unofficial test. So when I examine a newborn, call it a one-month-old, six-week-old, and finish the examination, if I've got both parents in the room,

I'll very purposefully give the baby to the dad. And then I watch. What do you look for? Well, what does that dad do? And again, this is not throwing dads under the buses. Yeah. Do they hold the baby with outstretched arms? Do they immediately palm the baby off to mum?

Do they stand up and start settling the baby? Do they, you know, try and swatling the baby? Do they just take over? You know, when I ask questions about feeding and about sleep, et cetera, who's answering? And there are some situations where mum is, is just answering every single one. And other times where, you know, mum doesn't have to talk because dads across it,

dad's over at all. That's what we should see. We should see a complete sharing of the load where you know everything about activities and sport and shoe sizes and haircuts and what they like and what they don't like. And it shouldn't all just fall on mums. That's where we should be.

That's true sharing of the mental load. Do you know the shoes size of your children, Dr. Goli? I do. Not to put you on the spot. Yeah. What about that? Oh, no reverse. Look, and all we can ask is that dads try.

You don't have to nail it. And don't feel bad if you don't know the answer to me those questions. It's not about knowing it. It's not about getting a dad and making them feel bad for not being involved or guilty. Now, I don't want to move maternal guilt to paternal guilt. I want to get rid of it all together. It's just about wanting to know. Yeah, I remember April would always, and really help me,

she would always say, look, you're so hard on yourself. doing just the basic thing because I was trying to teach myself to be better. And she's like, the fact that you're standing here doing it, that's effort enough. You know, you being so hard on yourself, it's like, just take a deep breath and try again. But also, netball almost broke me. I'm the primary contact for netball. And we're three weeks in. The logistics of netball.

Yeah. And if you're doing that amongst everything else, I do not know how moms do it. Children's sport is intense. Yes. We've done like three weeks worth of this. We need to just remove sport. I know. Just wait until they get older.

Oh, God. Oh, yes. Oh, great. Those 10 questions went really fast. Yeah, I'm also kind of happy. How well we did. We actually have an award for you. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Golly, I've been following you on social media for a very long time. So it is an absolute pleasure to have you in the flesh and to pick your brain, your very intelligent brain. So thank you. Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. And actually, you know what, sometimes, sometimes I don't ask the expert this question, but I will ask you this. I'm intrigued to know your answer.

What is the one thing you would like your children to remember about the house they grew up in? That's such a good question. I want them to feel that it was always warm and that as a father, I can only speak for myself, that I really tried. And I want them to know that I sometimes fail. Yes. And that's okay. But I try and learn from those failures. I try to get better.

I acknowledge the failures. You can break. You can snap. You can yell. You can be a bad dad sometimes. But it doesn't matter because it's not about falling down. It's how you get up. And that's what I want them to see.

If I just try and give off this air of perfection, then they don't learn anything. And it's false. It's lying. So I want them to see that I'm really trying and I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. That's what happens. You learn and you try and grow as a human. That's what I want them to learn.

The pursuit of progress. Very good. Thank you so much for spending. Every time we do an expert episode, I'm like, I'm not going to learn anything. Learn so much. Have another baby. Got to get the sex to be reversed. Do you do that?

It is possible. No, I'm good. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Golly. Pleasure, pleasure, guys. One word, Matthew. Wow. It was very good.

Very good. Look, honestly, I think I did pretty good with the mental load test. It was a tie. It was a tie. It was a tie. Ash, I want to say, actually, I mean this. Well done. Yes, you too.

You did very well. And I think my lens of parenting and what other dads are contributing to the family is very much based on you and a couple other dads. And I forget that there are so many dads out there who need to lift their game and do so much more. In my mind, I'm just like, well, everyone's like you and the other dads that I know at Bondi. And like DeGolly was saying,

just a couple of steps that you can take to help lighten the load of your significant other. You know my only regret in life, Ash? What's that? That I didn't meet Dr. Golly sooner. I was thinking the same thing. Imagine if we had our own Dr. Golly down the road when we had newborns. Imagine the amount of sleep I could have saved myself. I know to all the people out there who have him as their own pediatrician.

You don't know how good you've got it. I know. Hold on to be in tight. Don't let him go. Because we're coming for him. That sounded terrible. But anyway. I do want to say a big shout out once again to baby bunting for making this

episode possible. It's not just a baby store, Matt. It should go to for expert tips, unbeatable deals and events worth marking on the calendar. Baby bunting is on a mission to cut through misinformation and provide parents with expert opinions on how to make life with their bubub a little easier. For events, information and great value deals, go to babybunting.com.com. Or come in store for a chat. If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review. Five stars, perhaps you can do that on individual episodes on Spotify or, as a whole, one big one on Apple. Or you can join us on social media.

Where? Matthew? You can find us. If you go into your little search bar and you go to Dirty Dance, then we will pop up and you will follow us. Just like that. And we will be there. Every time you go open your social media,

we'll be there. We'll be there. Doesn't that sound lovely? Yeah, yeah. I mean, what a dream. Yeah. And if you subscribe, then we will come to your house.

As a thank you. We'll knock on your door and we'll personally deliver a thank you message. for supporting the podcast. We better get moving because we've actually got to get to get to 24 in New South Wales and then we fly to Queensland to do 53. Actually, yeah, it's... All right, we better go then.

Okay, bye. So yeah. Two Doting Dance podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and the connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode was recorded. on Gatigal Land.