No One Knows What They’re Doing with a Newborn, and It’s Okay: Prepare for Parenthood with Dr. Kailey Buller
No One Knows What They’re Doing with a Newborn, and It’s Okay: Prepare for Parenthood with Dr. Kailey Buller
Becoming a parent for the first time is one of the biggest emotional and psychological shifts you will ever experience. You can spend months trying to prepare for parenthood, read every book, take every class, and ask every friend for help, and still feel completely unsteady the moment you bring your newborn home. I felt the same way, and I see the same feeling in almost every new parent I work with. Even parents who are highly educated or deeply invested in evidence-based parenting feel unsure during those first days and weeks.
This is why I wanted to bring Dr. Kailey Buller onto the podcast. Her experience as a double-certified physician and as a parent to two young children gives her a unique window into what new parents struggle with. She remembers how it felt to be an overwhelmed parent, even with years of medical experience behind her. She understands how confusing it can be to navigate the early months of parenting, especially when so much advice on parenting contradicts itself.
This blog post expands on our conversation and shares the first-time parenting tips she wishes someone had told her. My hope is that you walk away feeling reassured, grounded, and more capable than you realize. These tips are not about perfection. They are about compassion, flexibility, and trusting yourself as you learn to prepare for parenthood in a realistic and emotionally supportive way.
Why Every New Parent Feels Unprepared
Even if you try to prepare for parenthood with everything you have, nothing can fully replicate the lived experience of caring for a newborn. There is no substitute for the actual night you bring your baby home and realize that you are the one they depend on. And there is no grace period to ease into it. Parenting starts immediately and intensely.
The truth is that even those of us who specialize in child development and evidence-based parenting felt insecure the first time we were responsible for a newborn. Becoming an overwhelmed parent does not mean you are doing anything wrong. It means the job is enormous and deeply human.
When I work with families at Thriving Child Center and PCIT Experts, parents often assume they are the only ones struggling. They believe everyone else is handling early motherhood or fatherhood with ease. But if there is one universal truth among the parents I meet, it is this: everyone feels lost in the beginning. Everyone feels like an overwhelmed parent at least some of the time. And everyone second-guesses themselves when the stakes feel impossibly high.
The goal is not to avoid these feelings. The goal is to learn how to move through them with compassion, confidence, and grounded support.
The First-Time Parenting Tips That Actually Help
These three steps from Dr. Kailey Buller are not clichés. They are practical, real, and deeply validating. They reflect what evidence-based parenting actually looks like in real life: flexible, thoughtful, and adaptive.
Tip One: Do Not Take Every Piece of Advice at Face Value
It is so tempting to trust every voice that sounds confident, whether it comes from a well-meaning parent, a popular TikTok creator, or a friend with multiple kids. But the first step as you prepare for parenthood is learning how to filter what you hear.
So much of the advice on parenting circulating online is not rooted in science or developmental knowledge. Dr. Buller shared that less than 1 percent of online parenting content comes from true experts. That number alone can turn any first-time parent into an overwhelmed parent.
This does not mean you should ignore advice entirely. It means you should put it through a filter. Try asking:
• Does this align with evidence-based parenting?
• Does this fit my child’s temperament?
• Does this support my mental health or increase pressure?
• Does this match our family values or create anxiety?
You will hear confident opinions about breastfeeding, sleep, pacifiers, baby gear, feeding philosophies, and developmental milestones. But confidence is not the same as accuracy. Your best support systems and your best first-time parenting tips will come from people and professionals who recognize nuance, flexibility, and the unique needs of your child.
Tip Two: Let Go of the Parent You Thought You Would Be
Most new parents enter the first year with a detailed picture of the kind of caregiver they want to become. Maybe you imagined an all-organic feeding routine, a perfect sleep schedule, or a commitment to never using formula. Maybe you felt sure you would never co-sleep, never rely on bottles, or never ask for extra help.
But life does not unfold inside a perfect scenario. Babies have their own preferences and needs. Medical issues arise. Feeding can be harder than expected. Hormones shift dramatically. Exhaustion becomes overwhelming. And this is where many parents start labeling themselves as an overwhelmed parent, even though nothing has gone wrong.
Real first-time parenting tips include permission to change. Permission to rest. Permission to make choices that support your mental health. Permission to deviate from the rigid standards you set before meeting your baby.
One of the most important steps as you prepare for parenthood is releasing the idea that the perfect plan must be followed at all costs. Rigidity creates shame. Flexibility creates resilience. And resilience is exactly what you want during the first year.
Tip Three: Expect That You Will Get Things Wrong
This may be the most comforting and important truth of all. There is no version of parenting that allows you to get it right one hundred percent of the time. You will misread cues. You will misunderstand your baby. You will choose strategies that do not work. You will make decisions based on sleep deprivation or anxiety.
And all of this is normal.
The goal of evidence-based parenting is not perfection. It is responsiveness, learning, and adjustment. Mistakes show that you are paying attention. Mistakes show that you care. Mistakes show that you are learning how to understand your child, not simply following a script.
If you never felt unsure or uncomfortable, you would not be stretching into the role of a parent. You would not be learning. Feeling like an overwhelmed parent is part of the developmental experience of becoming a mother or father. It is part of how you learn what works and what does not.
This is why the best advice on parenting includes flexibility, curiosity, and compassion. When you give yourself permission to get things wrong, you open the door to growth.
What Evidence-Based Parenting Looks Like in Real Life
Many parents assume that evidence-based parenting means memorizing research papers or applying clinical principles perfectly. In reality, it looks much simpler. It looks like:
• responding to your baby’s cues
• trusting your instincts
• asking questions when you are unsure
• getting reliable support
• making small adjustments as your child grows
• recognizing that you are learning alongside your newborn
When parents hear the phrase first-time parenting tips, they often imagine checklists or strict routines. But the heart of evidence-based parenting is adaptability. Your baby will change quickly. Guidelines change. Medical recommendations evolve. Emotional needs shift. Your goal as you prepare for parenthood is to respond to what is real in front of you, not what you imagined in your head.
If You Feel Overwhelmed, You Are Not Alone
The most vulnerable moments of becoming a parent come from feeling isolated. When you are up in the middle of the night feeding your baby, when you are crying in the bathroom after a hard day, or when you are searching online for reassurance, it is easy to believe you are the only one struggling.
But every parent I know, including the most knowledgeable and prepared ones, has felt the exact same way. You are not behind. You are not failing. You are not lost. You are becoming a parent. And becoming a parent requires emotional stretching, unlike anything you have ever experienced.
You deserve support that is aligned with evidence-based parenting, not pressure and judgment.
Final Thoughts
You cannot completely prepare for parenthood before becoming a parent. You cannot eliminate uncertainty. You cannot stop every anxious moment. But you can learn to trust yourself. You can lean on real advice on parenting from people who understand nuance. You can welcome the messy moments as part of the learning process. And you can use compassionate first-time parenting tips to guide you through the early days when everything feels unfamiliar.
If you feel like an overwhelmed parent, that feeling is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you care deeply about raising your child with thoughtfulness and intention. That is the foundation of evidence-based parenting, and it is more than enough to begin.
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CONNECT WITH KAILEY BULLER:
Website: http://www.vitalswithdrbuller.com
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[00:00:00] Leah Clionsky: Welcome to the Educated Parent Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Clionsky, and I am so, so, so excited about my wonderful guest for today because we're going to be covering an experience that you have almost certainly had or will have if you are or will become a parent. And here it is, bringing your newborn home from the hospital and realizing that even though you have taken every class and read every book and asked for all the advice.
[00:00:28] Leah Clionsky: You don't know what you're doing. How do you handle that anxiety? What can you tell yourself? That's what we're here to talk about today. So my guest today is a very educated parent. We have Dr. Kailey Buller. She's a double-certified physician in emergency and family medicine. Who has delivered hundreds of babies and raised two of her own.
[00:00:51] Leah Clionsky: She combines her medical expertise with her lived experience to promote practical evidence-based postpartum and newborn care for parents. Dr. Buller's mission is to help new parents cut through the noise, ditch the guilt, and survive the first year with their sanity mostly intact. Listen, I'm so glad you're here to talk about this.
[00:01:10] Kailey Buller: Oh, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me love this podcast and I am thrilled to add my voice to it.
[00:01:16] Leah Clionsky: Oh, I'm so glad you're here. And when I was reading that part about sanity mostly intact, I was thinking, well that's so, that's so real. It's so hard that first year with a newborn. It's brutal.
[00:01:28] Kailey Buller: It is, it really is. It's overwhelming and there's really no way to make it less overwhelming, right? If I'm being honest, it's gonna be overwhelming. It's a huge life shift.
[00:01:37] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So when you brought your two little ones home as newborns and you have all the knowledge, all the medical expertise, did you feel like really prepared? Like did you, did you know what you were doing?
[00:01:50] Kailey Buller: No, like zero. Like you, I know, I know you talk in your, in your intro too about, you know, you have 15 years of experience and you have this network and I have, I have the experience, I have the network, and it was not as helpful as you would think. That it would be like, I brought my child home and I thought, what now?
[00:02:09] Kailey Buller: Right? What? What car seat do I need? How do I know what car seat do I need? When do I flip them from rear facing to front where it's facing? What is baby led weaning and is that better than purees? Should I be doing one or the other? Should I do both? Is it still cluster feeding if they're attached to the boob like 24 hours straight, or is that just like a my kid thing?
[00:02:26] Kailey Buller: Like there's so much that falls within the realm of normal and trying to figure out. Is it normal, is it not? And even when you do know what's normal and what's not, you still second guess yourself. Right? So even if I knew what was going on, there's still that part in your brain that goes, but, but could it be, could it be this?
[00:02:44] Kailey Buller: Is it not normal? Right? Right.
[00:02:47] Leah Clionsky: this for your medical knowledge? Sometimes like, you know too much where you're like, I think that this is just like crying, but what if it is actually a sign of this horrible medical condition? Like, did that happen? Does that happen to you?
[00:03:03] Kailey Buller: It actually, that didn't happen too much, thankfully. 'cause I do know that that's a real risk of having too much knowledge. Um, I definitely, I think because I do a lot of emergency medicine, I'm, I'm very good in a crisis. But I do remember like having some complications in my pregnancy. Um, fairly significant ones.
[00:03:17] Kailey Buller: Like I had a placental abruption, which is one of the biggest obstetrical emergencies. And I was hemorrhaging, I was bleeding everywhere. Um, and to keep my husband calm, I basically was like, it's fine. Maybe go grab a nurse. We'll be okay. Right? So I don't, I don't tend to catastrophize, but I feel like it was all the not emergency stuff that I struggled with.
[00:03:42] Kailey Buller: I, I think if my child had been in danger, I would've been like, I know how to do this. Like, I got this. But it was all the other stuff that no one teaches you. No one thinks to tell you. No one remembers from when they had be. I don't know what it is, but it's all this information, there's huge gaps, and that's the stuff that I didn't know and struggled with.
[00:04:01] Leah Clionsky: You know, that's so interesting 'cause what I'm hearing you say is if it had actually been a medical emergency, your like emergency doctor brain would've clicked on and you would've gone into like MD mode and you would've known what to do. But when it got to that little bit of like. What food should I feed you first?
[00:04:18] Leah Clionsky: And there are just different schools of thought and none of these things are like clearly right or wrong. That's when like that, like anxiety would kick in for you, it
[00:04:28] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. Well, and, and everything in parenting. Like there's not a single thing in parenting I think that isn't at least a little controversial. And there's so much that I didn't even realize. I didn't like. I thought, so there's path pacifiers. I thought that they were just something that babies used, like it was just a thing a.
[00:04:44] Kailey Buller: Apparently there are people in a camp that say, no, no, sooth are bad. Never use a soother. And there are some who say, do, and I didn't know that until I was a parent that there was actually opinions on whether or not you should use a soother.
[00:04:57] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. That's so interesting, right? 'cause they're like, it'll cause nipple confusion. And then the other people are like, no, it'll prevent Sids. Absolutely use a pacifier. And then you're like, which camp am I on here?
[00:05:10] Kailey Buller: Yes. And do I have all the information that I need to make? And because of probably my background, I was like, I need to know all the pros, all the cons that I can make, like a truly informed decision. So then I go on these huge rabbit holes of researching everything. There's to know about SOS when realistically, like is it that big a deal?
[00:05:25] Kailey Buller: Probably not
[00:05:26] Leah Clionsky: Yeah, it's true. There's no like list where they're like on a one to 10 scale, how important is the knowledge base for this thing in parenting? You know, like, is this like a problem that I really need to solve? Like if I buy the wrong stroller and there was one that could have functioned slightly better, should I, like, should I freak out?
[00:05:44] Leah Clionsky: Like what is really important?
[00:05:46] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. And, and you don't know when you're a first time parent, you know, which, do I buy the safest car seat? Do I buy the lightest car seat, the most convenient car seat? Because everything is gonna be branded in a certain way and they're gonna tout all of their advantages. And how do you know which one you're supposed to pick?
[00:06:02] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. What my sister right now is 37 weeks pregnant with her first baby, and so I was at her baby shower hosting it a couple of weeks ago, and. Like she was like showing me her list of things that, you know, that she wanted on her list. And what was funny about it is, first of all, a lot of her questions I was like, it's a personal preference and it's your baby's weird personal preference.
[00:06:25] Leah Clionsky: So I actually don't know which of these bottles your baby's gonna want. Second of all, the products themselves are completely upgraded from when I had my son four years ago. So I didn't realize that. I'm sure there's like a huge industry in like getting the like best baby products around. So like even then the technology has changed in the last four years.
[00:06:49] Leah Clionsky: So a lot of the things on her list I had never even heard of because they just weren't there four years
[00:06:54] Kailey Buller: Sure. Well, and of course all of the marketing that these companies do, I, I think, I think the most. Um, interesting advertisement I'd ever seen was for like a place mat that was, I guess a travel place mat you could take. I was like, what, what place? Mat isn't really transportable, like they're all pretty, whatever.
[00:07:12] Kailey Buller: But it was a travel place mat and it said, protect your child from unclean surfaces and dangerous cleaning chemicals.
[00:07:24] Leah Clionsky: Oh.
[00:07:25] Kailey Buller: Like, it literally, it had, I was like, it basically said there's no winning. You must have this place mat because if it's clean, it could be dangerous. If it's dirty, it could be dangerous.
[00:07:33] Kailey Buller: Like that's how they get into the heads of parents really is, your baby's not safe. You must have this product. You need to be worried. Have this product's gonna make your life And like the outlet, like monitoring your kids' oxygen levels overnight, like that is, that's next level,
[00:07:49] Leah Clionsky: No, all of that is really scary. And then, um, like right when you start feeling better, then there'll be some recal of a product you've been using. Like, um, I was using. Like this, like, like little lounger and like letting my daughter sleep in it under my exact supervision. And they were like, Nope, no babies can sleep in this lounger now it, it can asphyxiate your child.
[00:08:12] Leah Clionsky: So then my second child, we did not use it because
[00:08:16] Kailey Buller: But
[00:08:16] Leah Clionsky: though it was amazing, we couldn't use it anymore. 'cause it went from being safe to unsafe and it does make everybody very anxious.
[00:08:22] Kailey Buller: at the same time, I mean everything does that, any surface that isn't a flat surface. Is potentially dangerous, potentially. So if your kid falls asleep in the car seat, what are you gonna do? Like stop, pull them out and pop open a crib on the side of the road, like you're not gonna do that, right?
[00:08:37] Kailey Buller: There are some risks that really can't be 100% mitigated, and sometimes you just have to do what's best with what you have in the moment.
[00:08:46] Leah Clionsky: I love that we decided to record this episode to make parents less anxious, and I think we are now ramping up the anxiety of anyone who is listen to us because we were,
[00:08:56] Kailey Buller: is dangerous. Yeah. No.
[00:08:58] Leah Clionsky: was so scary. Right? It was so scary for us as new parents and clearly our kids ended up okay. But like I think though that just having been in that water you, it's very easy to remember just that, those moments of like being there and thinking, I don't know what to do. Yeah.
[00:09:15] Kailey Buller: Thinking that it all mattered so much.
[00:09:17] Leah Clionsky: yeah, thinking that it was all like gonna make or break everything in terms of your child's health. So the goal of this episode is for us to. Reassure you, right? Or really for Dr. Butler to reassure you that you know it's okay, that it's okay not to know what you are doing. So what are your three pieces of advice, the three things that this new parent who we have just terrified and we now want to unter, what can we say that will feel reassuring right now as they're taking on this big responsibility that is just new for anyone who's being a parent?
[00:09:53] Kailey Buller: Mm-hmm. Really, really important question, and I think this isn't my first piece of advice, but sort of my overarching warning label I'll say is that there will be some anxiety, and I think that that's normal, and I think that maybe we should just accept that that's gonna be there as long as it doesn't run you. So it's okay to feel anxious. It's okay to not know. And the first piece of advice that I would give, which I know is super ironic, is to try not to take anyone's advice just at face value. And that includes mine and includes all of the health professionals and all of the parents, or your friend who has eight children and really knows what they're doing, right?
[00:10:30] Kailey Buller: Every piece of advice that someone gives you comes with strings attached and not necessarily like an ulterior motive. It's framed by their experiences, their knowledge, their understanding of the issue, what they think is best potentially, and even doctors, right? We do that too, right? So we'll say something like, you should never share a bed.
[00:10:51] Kailey Buller: You should not bring your baby into bed with you because it increases SIDS risk. That's a big no-no. We don't want sids. Obviously that's scary. And so we'll say it. Point blank. Don't do it. What happens is then parents wind up falling asleep on the couch or in the nursing chair because they're trying to avoid the bed, and that winds up being even more dangerous.
[00:11:14] Kailey Buller: So I think what would be better to do would be to get the information that you need. The information that's important. So knowing that co-sleeping can increase its risk, that's important. You wanna know that. sometimes when you're not sleeping, your mental health is suffering. Maybe that's something that you need to do, and you do it in a way that is as safe as possible.
[00:11:37] Leah Clionsky: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:38] Kailey Buller: Right,
[00:11:38] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. It is so interesting, like, you're right, 'cause like the experiences that we recommend to people, and this is true for, you know, child psychologists as well, is like, there's some things it's like, do not do it. Like, you're probably never going to say that you should shake your baby. Right? Like, don't do that.
[00:11:54] Leah Clionsky: That's always a terrible idea. But then there's those things that are in the middle where it's like there's, there's this ideal world and then there's the real world, and then there's the real world of you and your child and then trying to figure out what works best in there is so incredibly difficult to figure out.
[00:12:13] Leah Clionsky: And like the standards you're trying to hold might be impossible and like actually harm you at a certain point.
[00:12:20] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. And there are so few things in parenting that are universal. You should never, you should always very few things like we car seats are good car hammocks. Not so much like we know that that's universal, but there's so much in parenting where you might make a different choice and that choice might be totally okay.
[00:12:39] Leah Clionsky: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think that that's comforting and also scary because then you're like, who do you trust? And I guess who you then go back to trusting is your. Pediatrician, right. Or your doctor who's following the evidence-based advice if you get really lost.
[00:12:55] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. And I, I mean, I, I think that's important. I, I think staying away from, you know, TikTok and Facebook is maybe a good, a good idea. Um.
[00:13:02] Leah Clionsky: yeah. You gave me, I remember when we were talking earlier, you told me how much of the parenting content out there is made by experts. Can you tell me that statistic again?
[00:13:11] Kailey Buller: Yes. So of the 2.4 billion users on TikTok and Instagram, there are millions, like millions of so or so-called parenting experts, and less than 1%, less than 1% of those millions of parenting experts are actual credible. Experts, so child psychologists, pediatricians, physicians, doulas, midwives, literally anyone, occupational therapists that have some education and experience and actually have some evidence-based knowledge to be sharing less than 1% of the parenting experts,
[00:13:46] Leah Clionsky: that's scary. Yeah, because then people are like, oh, like so and so on. TikTok says this, and then they're like that, that I'm gonna follow that advice. So getting down to like some real advice from people who know.
[00:13:59] Kailey Buller: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
[00:14:01] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So the first thing it sounds like is that you need to, um. Decide what works best for you.
[00:14:10] Leah Clionsky: Like don't follow everyone else's advice. Figure out what works for you and your child. Of course, unless you're coming up against a hard limit, like don't give your baby fruit juice when they're one week old or something. That's clearly just a no-no.
[00:14:23] Kailey Buller: Sure. Well, and and maybe because actually, and I'm so glad you brought that up, um, because apple juice is actually. The best product for constipation under 1-year-old
[00:14:33] Leah Clionsky: Oh my goodness.
[00:14:34] Kailey Buller: isn't and right, like these are things that people don't know. How would you know that?
[00:14:39] Leah Clionsky: I would not know that. I would tell someone that they shouldn't do that. Absolutely.
[00:14:42] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. Of course. Right? And I don't, I don't think that everyone should be getting apple juice, right?
[00:14:47] Kailey Buller: But if you have a six month old who's just recently started solids, they're not getting enough to eat and they're a bit constipated, do you wanna give them some apple juice? Yes. Because it has sorbitol in it, which is a natural osmo osmotic, and it will help them to poop. Fun fact. Mm-hmm.
[00:15:01] Leah Clionsky: So interesting. Okay. What is your second piece of advice?
[00:15:06] Kailey Buller: Well, I think the second piece is. Something that you've actually talked about in a few um, episodes previously is most people have in their mind an idea of what type of parent they're going to be, what things they are or are not going to do when they become a parent. And my piece of advice would be to remain open to change and maybe deviating from that if the situation warrants, because I don't think you are going to know exactly what type of parents you're gonna be until you learn who you child is, right. And different children have different needs, different babies have different temperaments and things might change in your family life. So holding onto rigid, you know, hard and fast rules can make it so much harder. Yeah.
[00:15:51] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. One of my, um, regrets as a new parent, especially with my daughter, is I was terrified to give her formula and it made me miserable. Like it made me so like constantly, constantly pumping. Like if we spilled anything, I was in a really bad place about it. And if I had given myself permission to allow formula, I would've actually been in a much better head space and probably a much better parent at that time.
[00:16:18] Leah Clionsky: So there's things I can look back at that I was very like, I'm gonna be perfect. And I was so rigid in ways that didn't end up benefiting anybody. And if I could go back in time, I would've told myself to chill out a little bit.
[00:16:30] Kailey Buller: Right. And I, and I was the same. I was and I think that that holds true for so many women, right? The even we're moving away from that breast is best mentality. And I, I think a lot of women do feel that way, that, but they still somewhere see it as like a personal achievement, being able to breastfeed. And there are so many scenarios where it has nothing to do with how good you are as a mom.
[00:16:56] Kailey Buller: Sometimes that's not what's best for your child. Maybe you aren't sleeping, maybe you aren't getting enough rest. Maybe you're struggling with anxiety and it's actually breastfeeding is actually making it worse. Right?
[00:17:07] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. Yeah. Like there are times those are the things where I look back on and think, I wish I'd changed it though. I think hormones also make you even more rigid sometimes. So having supportive people around you who are not judging you is really good.
[00:17:19] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. And that's, I mean, that's a big message to anyone who's not a mom, right? A breastfeeding mother too. Is, is you need to be paying attention to some of those cues as well. And I remember my husband saying something to me, and this, it struck me. It's, I was so bad, um, and I can't even remember the exact words.
[00:17:37] Kailey Buller: Sorry. Gimme one second. I'm gonna try and remember.
[00:17:42] Kailey Buller: So I was, I was really struggling with breastfeeding my second. I wasn't able to successfully breastfeed my first, and I really wanted to, but I had no supply. I was in heart failure. I had also other complications of this pregnancy, and I literally was making like drops, drops at a time. And I was like, should we keep trying?
[00:17:57] Kailey Buller: Should we keep trying to breastfeed? And he said, well, if you don't think you can, then we'll stop.
[00:18:06] Leah Clionsky: Oh.
[00:18:08] Kailey Buller: Right. And it put all of that back on me instead of a shared decision making rubric. It was more, I mean, if you can't do it
[00:18:18] Leah Clionsky: Yeah,
[00:18:18] Kailey Buller: right,
[00:18:19] Leah Clionsky: I'm guessing as a very established position, you're a little Type A, so having someone at challenge, whether you can or can't do something is probably the worst, the worst approach. Instead of just saying, it's okay, the baby will be fine. You don't have to do it.
[00:18:35] Kailey Buller: like I can see how hard this is for you. I can see how hard you're trying. I think that at this point, right, like I was, this is, this is, this is my experience. Baby was on the boob. I had a bottle of formula tucked in my bra and a feeding tube that I had put in the the bottle, and I was tucking it in her mouth.
[00:18:51] Kailey Buller: So she was getting formula, like siphoning formula while she was breastfeeding so that she would stay on the breast while pumping on the other side. And then I would use my double electric pump in between. And then I would power pump in the evenings like it was, and I was doing all the things. Seven hours a day either.
[00:19:07] Kailey Buller: It was awful. And I was like, I was miserable. And I did that for six weeks and I still didn't get any improvement in supply. But the, the challenge, I mean, the challenge was there, if you can do it, we should do it. And I was like, well, I mean, I think if I try hard enough I can,
[00:19:21] Leah Clionsky: yeah, of course you did that.
[00:19:23] Kailey Buller: but it was, it was killing me.
[00:19:26] Kailey Buller: So, yeah.
[00:19:28] Leah Clionsky: yeah. It's like let go of that perfectionism,
[00:19:30] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. And so in that scenario, breast was not best. Like that was very clear.
[00:19:36] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. That's always tough.
[00:19:41] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. No, and I mean, my daughter's perfect, so I mean,
[00:19:44] Leah Clionsky: course, she is.
[00:19:45] Kailey Buller: she's a little demon, sometimes a little gremlin, but she's wonderful. She didn't need breast milk to be the wonderful person that she is now.
[00:19:51] Leah Clionsky: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:52] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. All right. So what's your third piece of advice to our anxious parents who we've made more anxious and are hopefully now helping them
[00:19:59] Kailey Buller: Calming down a little.
[00:20:01] Leah Clionsky: that no one knows, but it's okay.
[00:20:03] Kailey Buller: That's right. The last piece, very much on that theme is you should feel like you are getting it wrong. Sometimes it's important to feel like you are getting it wrong sometimes, because that means that you are learning. It means that you are adapting, your child is going to grow, your child is going to change, the evidence is going to change.
[00:20:22] Kailey Buller: The medicine is going to change. The stuff that your grandparents used to do, your parents used to do that may not be okay anymore and you're learning and you're becoming a better parent day by day. So if you feel like you're getting it right all the time, then either you are the most perceptive person on the planet and know what your child needs at any given moment, or you're a great parent who is learning and adjusting.
[00:20:47] Kailey Buller: Open to change,
[00:20:49] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like if you're think you're getting it right all the time, you're kind of delusional.
[00:20:54] Kailey Buller: right? Like there's just no way. I mean, one day you make pancakes for your child and they love them, and the next day they tell you to kick rocks. You know what I mean? Like there's
[00:21:02] Leah Clionsky: Oh yeah. No, you absolutely can't.
[00:21:04] Kailey Buller: You cannot get it right all the time.
[00:21:05] Leah Clionsky: I mean, you can like, you can be like, all right, I've got the newborn bath thing figured out. Right? And then they grow and they hate that bathtub and they don't wanna be in that bathtub anymore. And your whole routine is shot.
[00:21:18] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. And then you gotta start all over again.
[00:21:20] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. Yeah. It's like you nail it, like, and then they developmentally progress.
[00:21:24] Leah Clionsky: And then you're like, okay, what works for you now? What are you, or food is that way. You know, there are all these times where you just kind of have to see it as like. An experiment where you're doing your very best and the conditions keep changing, so you have to keep trying new things.
[00:21:39] Kailey Buller: It's all trial and error and the, this is it. Like you're not, you're not gonna break your baby.
[00:21:44] Leah Clionsky: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:44] Kailey Buller: You're not, you're not gonna break your child. I mean, the fact that people are listening to this podcast and want to become better parents, that's all I need to know. That's all I need to know.
[00:21:53] Kailey Buller: They're gonna do a great job because they're interested in doing a great job. They're not gonna do it right all the time, but that's what matters.
[00:22:01] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. I mean, nobody does it right all the time. Clearly.
[00:22:06] Kailey Buller: Clearly not I, no, I fudged up so many times.
[00:22:09] Leah Clionsky: Oh yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The worst thing I ever did that I felt the most guilty about ever was clipping my daughter's fingernail too close, and she started bleeding
[00:22:20] Kailey Buller: oh my. I think that's like a rite of passage. I think that happens to most people.
[00:22:23] Leah Clionsky: I'm sure it does, but the level of guilt that I experienced at that moment was
[00:22:29] Kailey Buller: yes, it's a bit devastating. You're like, I just literally cut off a little bit of my daughter's fingertips. 'cause their skin is really, it's so, yeah.
[00:22:36] Leah Clionsky: And it's so hard 'cause there's so little, and yeah, it's really, really hard. So like you do those things and then just as you said, everyone's like, oh yeah, I've done that too. But in the moment,
[00:22:46] Kailey Buller: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:47] Leah Clionsky: know, the guilt is overwhelming. But I love, I love your idea that like if you are caring enough to listen to a podcast about evidence-based parenting, 'cause you are trying to do good things and you're relying on evidence-based practice, then you are gonna be fine.
[00:23:05] Kailey Buller: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, and again, I mean, actually no, you're gonna edit that out later.
[00:23:11] Leah Clionsky: Okay. We'll edit out whatever you were going to say. Yeah, that's a
[00:23:15] Kailey Buller: Like I, I was there. The train of thought was there. This is what being a mom is like, right? Like I start saying something and then it's gone.
[00:23:22] Leah Clionsky: Oh yeah, I, I get it. I'm there too. Well, Kaylee, I am so glad that you came on and reassured all of us from the perspective of someone who specializes in newborn babies. So, I know you've written a book. Tell us a little about your book and how we can find it.
[00:23:39] Kailey Buller: Yes, absolutely. So it is called Surviving Tiny Humans. It's very aptly named, um, for both parts. They are like death and dismemberment magnets. So keeping them alive is a challenge in and of itself. And then being able to survive as a parent. A separate challenge. Um, but it is all the little things and all the big things that no one thinks to tell you that none of the other parenting books will cover.
[00:24:02] Leah Clionsky: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:03] Kailey Buller: What car seat do you buy? What is baby led weaning? It goes through all of that. What nipple size should I be using? Like it is down to the detail and it's a small, easy read because I didn't want it to be a boring, tedious medical book That sounded awful.
[00:24:20] Leah Clionsky: That would be awful. No
[00:24:21] Kailey Buller: wouldn't that be terrible? I've read, I read some other baby books and it's like, eczema is a genetic condition and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
[00:24:28] Kailey Buller: And if you think your child might have eczema, see a doctor. And I was like, that is not helpful. So in my book I have, this is eczema, here's a picture of it. This is what it looks like. Slap a lot of Vaseline on there, just like Vaseline, the crap outta that eczema. And that's what the book really is, is practical advice.
[00:24:43] Kailey Buller: What does it look like? What do you do? And it is available on Amazon and every major retailer.
[00:24:49] Leah Clionsky: Well, I'm very excited. I'm gonna send a copy to my sister. Yeah.
[00:24:52] Kailey Buller: That sounds perfect. It's a great baby shower gift.
[00:24:55] Leah Clionsky: It is, it is. Or just a great, like don't worry, I'm not right there in Massachusetts, but I can give you some advice from afar.
[00:25:02] Kailey Buller: Absolutely.
[00:25:02] Leah Clionsky: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you again so much for coming on this show. You can find links to Dr. Butler and all of her work and ways of connecting with her on in the show notes.
[00:25:14] Leah Clionsky: So thank you again for joining us on Educated Parent. Um, I'm so excited you were here and if you are feeling anxious as a new parent, I hope you feel reassured. See you next week.