Biological Sleep + Reclaiming Parenthood without Fear (plus EC!): An interview with Taylor Kulik

This is Episode 170. Welcome. I'm interviewing Taylor Kulik today, who is a very special guest. We'll be talking about biological sleep and how that is parallel to biological pottying, and also how to reclaim your parenthood without fear. Enjoy this interview and you can read the full transcript and see all the links, be able to find out where Taylor lives over on Instagram as well. Everything is linked over on the show notes at Episode 170, that's godiaperfree.com/170. We'll see you over there for comments at the end and any questions you might have. Enjoy the interview.

Andrea Olson:
Hello. Hi. How's it going?

Taylor Kulik:
Good. Good. How are you?

Andrea Olson:
Awesome. I'm doing great. Yeah. Things are crazy, but always with five kids.

Taylor Kulik:
Oh, yeah, I can imagine. I have two and things are always crazy.

Andrea Olson:
I remember those days. Then you get out numbered with three. It's like, "Oh.. what do I do...no idea."

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
We can just dive right in. First of all, thank you so much for coming on the show. This is for my podcast. For YouTube, we double post to that and Instagram. It'll be everywhere.

Taylor Kulik:
Awesome. Thanks for having me.

Andrea Olson:
Absolutely. I'll probably start about here. A bunch of my followers just begged me to reach out to you. They were like, "You have got to talk to Taylor. She is who I follow for sleep for my baby. She's amazing. She's a lot like you in a lot of ways, et cetera." Thank you so much, Taylor, for being on the show with me today.

Taylor Kulik:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored.

Andrea Olson:
You have two kids.

Taylor Kulik:
Yes.

Andrea Olson:
What are their ages?

Taylor Kulik:
My daughter is 4 and my son is 18 months.

Andrea Olson:
You did early potty training with him, right?

Taylor Kulik:
With my daughter, we tried a little bit. I didn't really know about elimination communication. But we did start putting her on the toilet from six months old. We did a little bit. But she was still in diapers full-time. But we would just do potty learning and modeling and a lot of opportunity. She actually wasn't fully potty trained until three, because we didn't push her. But I think we set her up for success that it happened so quickly. It basically happened overnight.

Andrea Olson:
Wow. It made potty training a lot easier to expose her to it from six months on?

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. Now I tried that with my son. We were also in the middle of a move when he was five, six months old. It was just chaos for six months. Because we were staying with my mother-in-law, and so I really didn't get to put him on the potty a lot. I've tried and he's just not into it at all. He cries on the potty. I've backed off. It's been a totally different experience. My son, I'm not doing any of that with right now.

I'll give him the opportunity. Sometimes I'll go see if he wants to sit on the toilet, but he usually doesn't want to, or he just gets right up. I don't want to force that.

Andrea Olson:
We have that. That's probably I would say the number one problem with anybody doing EC. I teach it from 0 to 18 months. Then usually after 18 months, we do a potty training experience. It's super cut and dry. Like, "This is what we're doing now, kiddo." Usually takes about an average of seven days without pressuring or bribes or anything. But with the EC stuff, kids often will just freak out on the toilet because they actually need privacy.

This is really weird counterintuitive thing. I think you need me to pick you up and not make you do this. But sometimes they just want us to leave the room, which is hilarious. But I'll leave it at that.

Taylor Kulik:
That's interesting.

Andrea Olson:
It's so interesting to think about that. But I want to know a little bit more about you. Everybody said they come to you for sleep. What exactly and how do you teach this that's different from other people?

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. I would say it is entirely different because it is a completely ... we're basically approaching sleep from a completely different framework than what most people are approaching sleep from based on what they've heard from their friends or the popular sleep trainers or consultants that they follow. The way that I approach sleep is really at the foundation, just unlearning and then reeducation about how babies and children are meant to sleep.

That's the very first step because I think most people, especially people that live in the Western world, the US, Canada, a lot of places in the world, but especially the US and Canada, go into parenthood with a very flawed idea of how their babies should be sleeping. We think, well, sleep might be rough the first few weeks, maybe the first couple of months. But then my baby's sleep should start consolidating, and they should be sleeping independently in their crib.

Then parents, a lot of parents come into parenthood, and they find that that's just not the reality of how their babies are sleeping. Some do. That's great. Some do. There are definitely babies that are quite easy going. That can really sleep by themselves. But that is just not the norm. Parents are really confused and lost. They feel like, "What am I doing wrong? What's wrong with my baby?"

I think that can be really devastating, actually. Because when we are set up with these high expectations for sleep and then they're not met, we think of it as a failure for ourselves. That is the biggest thing. For me personally, that contributed to my postpartum anxiety and depression. I've worked with and spoken with a ton of parents who had the same experience. It wasn't just the lack of sleep that caused the postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety.
It was the feeling of failure, the feeling there was something wrong. The way we approach sleep is really reeducation. Let's talk about how babies are meant to sleep. They're meant to be close to us. They're not meant really to sleep on their own, or for long periods of stretches. Then from there, as needed and as developmentally appropriate, we can come up with expectations that are reasonable for the child's age and developmental stage.

We can work with parents to find solutions that work for them. Also a big part of this is why? If your baby or child truly has sleep challenges, because some do, why? Because sleep training, conventional sleep training is very rooted in behaviorism. How do we modify this behavior? How do we stop this behavior of crying? Usually, that is some nonresponsive sleep training approach, which could look differently depending on what approach you're using.
But that is often just leaving your baby alone for maybe, it's a minute, maybe, it's 5 minutes, maybe, it's 10 minutes, maybe, it's full on extinction, and you're just leaving your baby to cry. But if your baby truly has something going on that is impacting their ability to sleep, there's a reason for that. Nonresponsive sleep training approaches don't actually address that underlying reason.

Sleep is so holistic. Everything has the potential to impact sleep. What I do when I work with families is find out what is the root cause of this sleep. That takes some experimentation and work and exploring. Can we change the environment? Is it that my child is really needing more connection for me? Are they feeling disconnected going into bed and we need to do something to help with that?

Is the separation anxiety too much? Have they not been able to move as much as they need to during the day? There's so many things that can impact sleep. When we're approaching sleep holistically, we have to look at all of those things. Otherwise, we're just sticking a Band-Aid on the issue and calling it fixed with conventional sleep training approaches. It was a very long winded ...

Andrea Olson:
No. I love it.

Taylor Kulik:
... answer to your question.

Andrea Olson:
Well, you go. This is your thing. I can tell you're super passionate about it. But you've also actually been helping parents get rid of all that guilt, and all of that. Well, they lose connection with their intuition, right?

Taylor Kulik:
Right.

Andrea Olson:
Because of ... You actually named it a couple of days ago, one of your Instagram posts, which my assistant sent me and I was like, "Oh, my gosh. I love this so much." That, well, I'll just say that some of what you put was medicalization of parenting and how it causes moms to not trust her intuition, and to feel really ill-equipped, and to second guess, and doubt themselves.

I want to know. For those of us moms who are going against the grain and doing things like you're saying, try and going ... I don't actually think it's me. It must be the advice I've been given or something else. I'm going to try it this other way that most people I know aren't doing it. What is the solution for those of us moms who want to do that? Given that we're being ... We're basically being spoon-fed all this stuff from our pediatricians about how we are supposed to parent, but it might not actually be working.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. I think this is where you have to try to be open-minded. I think this is the hardest part for people, because we have been raised ... I mean, from childhood, from infancy, we're told we need to trust the experts. We need to trust our doctors. We need to listen to the authorities, whoever that authority is. I'm not saying that our pediatricians don't have great, valuable information to share with us.

But they're not always right. Specifically when we're talking about parenting, doctors, just as an example we're using pediatricians, because I talked to a lot of parents who really feel like they're failing because of their pediatricians have told them to sleep train or their baby needs to be sleeping through the night.

Doctors have really been put on this pedestal, specifically pediatricians of the authorities of how we should be raising our children, including how we should be parenting our children. Really, that is just not a role that they deserve.

Andrea Olson:
It's kind of none of their business.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. It isn't their business. I don't blame them. I don't think that it's doctor's fault at that. I think it's just a series of events have happened and parent ... I think somehow we've lost touch with our intuition and the wisdom from our mothers and grandmothers and aunts. We've lost that, that connection. We're seeking to find that information from somebody else. Somehow that's fallen on our pediatricians.

Andrea Olson:
Maybe we've given that power away over generations.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. I definitely think we have, definitely. I think the first part is just realizing that your pediatrician doesn't have all the answers when it comes to parenting and sleep and breastfeeding. Most of them are not really trained very much at all in breastfeeding. Sleep and breastfeeding, if you are breastfeeding are so interconnected. To be giving sleep advice, without really understanding fully breastfeeding is really quite dangerous, actually, especially for young infants.

I think it's just being open that your pediatrician might not know everything. Your mom might not know everything. Your sister might not know everything. It's okay to really listen to what your heart is telling you. If you're given a piece of advice, and you're not feeling good about it, and somewhere deep down in your gut, your intuition is telling you I don't think I like this, I don't feel comfortable with this. You can trust that.

Not even just trust it, but just lean into it a little bit and start exploring. Why does this not feel right to me? I think that's the first step is just open mindedness and realizing that you can trust yourself. You are equipped to parent your child. When we're talking specifically about parenting and sleep, you don't need permission from anybody to hold your baby to sleep or nurse your baby to sleep. These are biological norms. Our babies were designed to nurse to sleep.

What I find so problematic is that not only ... It's one thing if a parent just doesn't want to nurse to sleep anymore. If a mom doesn't want a nurse to sleep, that's her prerogative. We can work on that. But what I find happening most often is that moms simply feel guilty, like you said, for nursing to sleep, or feel like they're ruining their child, or they're creating these bad habits. There's this fear.

We're parenting a lot of times out of fear. This fear response of what will happen a year from now if I'm doing this? What will happen five years from now? What will happen 10 years from now? Will they still be in my bed? We don't have to parent out of fear. We can just parent the child that's in front of us in that moment, following our heart, following our intuition. Things will resolve themselves. They usually do if we just allow nature to unfold.

Andrea Olson:
They do. Our babies are designed in certain ways. I've potty trained all of mine from birth. It's not potty training EC. It's very different. I've never known anything else. I do teach potty training also for people who find me later. But honestly, if you ever try and most of the people listening to or watching this show will know because they've caught a pee in the potty and they've got a small child. They're doing EC with them.

That babies are designed specifically to tell us that they need to go to the bathroom. They'll pop off the breast. They won't go to sleep or they'll wake up. They'll be dry and you try to get him back to sleep. Then they're wet. It's this big cycle to where what you're saying is absolutely true. When you go to somebody for advice, you're not looking at the holistic, the whole picture. Sleep and breastfeeding are very connected.

I would go so far as to say that pottying is also connected. We have breastfeeding issues that are unresolved because they don't know that the baby needs to go to the bathroom, and has a really strong instinct to not want to go on themselves. Even our hormones, you wake up and you need to pee in the morning. Everything wakes up and they need to pee because of hormones. This hormone wears off, our bladder fills up and we have to pee.

Giving our children that opportunity, it helps with behavior, it helps with so many things. But we often have a lot of night waking happening because a baby needs to go to the bathroom and doesn't know how to say that they do. We also have a lot of breastfeeding issues. I think I completely agree. If we add one more dimension ...

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
Can we really get a lot of confidence as a new mom and just be like, "I got one of these three right." I'm like, "It is informing the other two and I'm like, no." You know even if it looks sloppy, and it's messy, but you feel you are not just behind the cart, but you're leading the cart now in your powerful position, right?

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. I love that. That's so interesting. That's one aspect I don't know a ton. I know a little bit about elimination communication, but not a ton. That's something I'm so interested in learning more. Maybe if you're willing, I'll have you come on my podcast and talk about elimination communication and how going to have pottying has to do with sleep, because that is so interesting and that's an area that I haven't really dived into too much.

Andrea Olson:
Likewise, I've admitted this on my show so many times. I am terrible at sleep with my babies. It's been my biggest challenge area. Nothing else has challenged me more than sleep. I had one baby. I was just talking to him inside. He's four and a half now. He would not sleep from weeks two to seven. He just wouldn't. My first baby wouldn't sleep without being attached to me for two years.

It was super hard for me to also get over that guilt of, "Okay, I'm done nursing to sleep, 17 months," but I kept doing it. It was just really hard. There's so many things to be balanced. There's so many parts of the picture. I would love to come on your show. Absolutely. Teach your people about EC. Because what we do also is it exposure techniques. At the very minimum, just exactly what you did with your daughter, actually.

At six months, some people do it right at birth is when we offer that potty, we learn one more piece of the puzzle. That could be something that solves sleep issues or breastfeeding issues and even eating solids. I had Katie from Baby-Led Wean Team on the show a few months ago. I learned so much about baby-led weaning. It was super exciting, because I had done it. But apparently, I was half doing it, which is fine. I did what I did.

But I'm like, "If I ever have another baby, I'm totally going to try." She's the expert on that. You're clearly expert on, "Hey, here are all the sleep options. Let's pick one that's for you." Then my department is totally potty. I don't care what parents choose. You can just potty train at two if you want to. You can potty train at three if you want to.

But if you want to know the options, and how it can help, oh yeah, some babies sleep better if they're pottied in the middle of the night, some toddlers do, too. They'll go back to sleep in really subtle. I'd love to help educate each other's audience on this.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. That's so interesting.

Andrea Olson:
Yeah. I really want ... Oh, my gosh. I love your approach. I love how it is. I wanted to see. Because when you were working with your daughter at six months and onward, did you find that any part of that potty exposure helped your baby at the time sleep habits, or maybe made sleep a little more difficult? Did you notice any connection? Looking back is always hard. But did you notice anything at the time, you think?

Taylor Kulik:
I don't think I did. We didn't ... I'm trying to remember now. I know we had some periods where I wasn't as good as being ... sticking her on the potty routinely. But then we had some good periods where I would try to ... I didn't know all of the EC stuff. I didn't know to look for cues. What I did was I would stick her on the potty during diaper changes. It wasn't I was following her cues.

Andrea Olson:
Yeah. That's one of the four EC catches. That's awesome.

Taylor Kulik:
I don't recall. Honestly, six months was such a rough sleep time for me. That's when we started bed-sharing because we had to. That was the time that I got into learning about biological sleep and bed-sharing and all of that because of my own situation.

Andrea Olson:
Love it.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. I don't recall that it really made a difference. But I'm sure if I was doing true EC, I might have noticed a difference.

Andrea Olson:
Yeah. Maybe. We always say, "Well, I wish I would have met you. I wish I would have met you several years ago, 10 years ago when my first child would not sleep." I had to go on these hour and a half walks in Berkley with a MOBY Wrap on, with him on me just to get him to nap. It was exhausting. I had postpartum depression, didn't even know it. I had it for two babies and didn't know it till the second one and was like, "Why am I so edgy?"

I would walk so far, get myself this Indian rap. Walk all the way back to the house. Try not to drop it on his head and wake him up. It was so terrible.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
I think that anybody who can get help with this and whatever that looks like is going to save their sanity. But also I hear what you're saying. It's not just the lack of sleep for you and the baby that can cause postpartum depression. But it can also be, you feel like you're failing. I definitely felt that way. I was great at pottying my baby. We were super connected on that level. My breast had so much milk. It was breastfeeding was great.

But when it came to sleep, I felt like a total failure. Can you say more to that and its connection with our mental health? Because I know you do a lot with postpartum wellness as well.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. There are so many factors when it comes to mental health. I think that, for the most part, the mainstream mental health world and women's health world really focuses on sleep deprivation as a contributing factor. Sleep deprivation is a contributing factor. But it's not the only factor. We don't focus as much on all of the other holistic factors that go into play when we're talking about mental health.

One of the problems that I see often is that a mom is struggling and she goes to her doctor or she gets referred to a mental health professional, a counselor, a psychologist, whoever. A lot of times what happens is they say, "Well, you need to night wean or you need to sleep train your baby, because you are suffering because you're not sleeping." That mom might not want a sleep train.

A lot of them don't want to sleep train, because it goes against every fiber of their being to hear their baby crying and to night wean their four-month-old or however old their baby is. What impact does that have on if a mother is struggling and she goes to see somebody who she supposed to trust, who she believes will help her and they say, "Well, you need to sleep training, you need night wean.

We're not thinking about the impact and potentially the trauma that comes with a mother being encouraged to do something that she is just not comfortable doing. That goes against her intuition. That too, is a huge contributing factor to mental health. But then also just this whole sleep training culture in general. I will give you a personal example with my daughter. She slept pretty typically ... She wasn't a great sleeper. But she wasn't a horrible sleeper until she was four months old.

We even had nights, I remember two months where she was sleeping in a Pack 'N Play at the foot of my bed. She would wake maybe once or twice. I would nurse her. She would fall right back to sleep. I could transfer into the Pack 'N Play. Pretty typical. Then four months hit, four or five, six months, that period was rough for us. That is a common period that is really rough for baby to sleep.

Eventually, long story short, I had to bed-share starting at six months because she would not sleep away from me. She would not go back in the crib. She would not sleep independently at all. I had to support her so much. At that time, I wasn't the most sleep deprived I've ever been at the time I was. But I had severe postpartum anxiety and depression.

That really went away when I started bed-sharing and realize, "Hey, I can trust my intuition." Fast forward to my son who I thought for sure nobody could be a worse sleeper than my daughter. My son was born with oral ties. I actually had them released. My daughter's I didn't have released because I didn't know about them at the time. I had his oral ties released. Breastfeeding was awful.

He had nursing aversions. He had reflux. He had food intolerances. He was the worst sleeper. He literally for the first four or five months of his life, he would only sleep on my chest and even then he would be very restless waking every 30 to 40 minutes. I was incredibly sleep deprived, more sleep deprived than I've ever been with my daughter. But I knew so much more. I never felt pressured to sleep train him. I never felt pressured to put him in the crib.

I didn't even try to put him in the crib because he was such an awful sleeper. It was a very hard time because I was very sleep deprived. I needed a lot of support. But I was not depressed. I was not anxious. Some mornings, I was like, "Man, I just need a few hours of sleep." My husband would give me that. But I couldn't like make it through. I didn't feel like a failure. I knew that he had medical issues. He had feeding issues. I knew that we would overcome them.

But in the meantime, we were doing all this body work in rehab. But in the meantime, I knew that it was going to be really hard. But the best thing that I could do was to support him and be there for him through it. Just knowing that, knowing that I was doing the right thing, and I wasn't failing him and I was doing exactly what I should be doing in that moment by supporting him, I avoided true mental health struggles.

Andrea Olson:
I totally get it. I completely do. I mean, you know what's crazy, is I think that three of my five had lip and tongue ties. I didn't know it. My fifth one had when I posted something on Instagram. One of my coaches that I trained said, "Oh, she's got a heart shaped tongue. That is a sign of a lip tie or a tongue tie. You need to get it checked out."

Sure enough, I pulled her lip up. She had a double lip tie, five out of five, very bad, and then an inverted tongue tie. I got them resolved at nine weeks. We did all the exercises. It was painful for me. But I also didn't feel the depression. I felt like, actually, I've got this and I get it and I don't feel like a bad mom. This is totally something that is a gift that I was just shown. Now I can resolve it and move on.

She became a good nurse or ... I mean good at nursing good at sleeping and all that stuff. Good enough to where I wasn't. I mean, I was like, "What is wrong with you? I put you down and you freak out and cry." It was that there was that much gas in her belly. I get that, too, because the contrast between my fifth and having that awareness. My first probably had one. I couldn't think of any other reason why you'd cry every time you're put down, unless you were extremely gassy.

I tried food diet changes everything. The crazy thing is, for everybody listening, you don't know what you know until you know it.

Taylor Kulik:
Right.

Andrea Olson:
There's no way to have gone back and go, "Oh, I wish I would have." You couldn't have. I think as we gain confidence as a parent, it's like, "Okay. What is my gut saying? What do I think should happen?" That's First place to go for me now, as a parent of five. What do I think? I have to confess. I did co-sleep with all five of mine. But I only did it till month four with the last four of them, because the first one was so full on.

It was nursing him every 2 hours 24/7, for 2 years. I was pretty done by the end of that.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
But I did do ... I don't believe in cry it out at all. I don't condone it. My book specifically says, "I highly encourage against that," because my sister did that. I had to participate when I babysat once and I just took her to the couch and laid with that baby and slept with her. That felt right to me. I've done limited crying where I would just let him just fuss for a few minutes, go back in. Then after five nights, they were sleeping, and it was fine.

Actually, maybe I'm not that terrible at sleep. It's just been the biggest growing edge. But I do have to confess that I did that. I've done it both ways. What I love about you, and the way you're talking about this is that you're accepting of it doesn't matter how we choose to do it. What matters is that we reconnect with that intuition and do what feels right. You mentioned biological sleep as the basis of what you're teaching.

Do we have the facts about how babies are created and how we're meant to work in unison and be responsive to their needs? At what point are they to be independent and to be learning the ropes with certain things? What is biologically normal? I do the same exact thing with potty training and with hygiene for babies. What are the facts of human beings and mammals, and how do we adapt to that and jive with that and be as responsive as possible?

I also resonate with what you said about fear-based parenting. I just want to share this with my audience, specifically. When we listen to the messaging about potty training to wait till your child says they're ready to potty train, we are actually listening to fear-based advice. We are being told to be afraid that if we pressure our kids or potty train them too early, or if we potty train them too early, we are pressuring them automatically, and they're going to be psychologically damaged forever.

That has invaded our culture over the course of two generations. The potty training age has doubled. In the '50s, 92% were done by 18 months. Our babies are biologically exactly the same, for the most part. It's only two generations because the disposable diaper companies wanted us all to use diapers for longer and longer. They did a fake study. This pediatrician has told everybody how to parent ever since 1961, or 2.

You basically have this massive drive to be afraid parents, listen to us, and give us your money. That's basically what happens with almost every part of parenting formula. You've got ... The crib market is super ... I mean, my crib was very expensive. There's all these things that we think. We have baby swings and jumpers and bouncers and all these things, when really all they need is us and for us to pay attention and to be present with them.

I just want everybody that's listening to realize that when we do EC, or early potty training, or potty training, as long as it's on our agenda, we decided we're not being led by fear, by "Oh, I'm going to damage my child." Because if that were true, then every single baby of all of human history up to a couple 100 years ago, when cloth diapers were invented, would have been psychologically damaged.

My babies, all five of them, would be psychologically damaged. I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous. Those of you who follow me know this. This is not possible. It's interesting to know that a lot of the sleep training stuff out there is also based on the fear. If your baby doesn't sleep exactly this way, and you're not getting them to sleep through the night by six months, there are going to be problems.

I strongly disagree. I absolutely have loved co-sleeping. I feel like it reduced the anxiety completely. I felt I could hear and breathe and be with my baby and nurse on demand and do all the things that felt right in responsive parenting. I think we have a lot in common, you and I. This responsive parenting is at the core of this and also what feels right to you. The only judgment really that matters is that coming from yourself to yourself.

If you judge yourself and you think you're a bad mom for whatever, tune everybody else out and just know that you were created to parent this specific baby. All you have to do is just listen, and then get some advice from people who know what they're doing with certain topics. Sure. But not somebody who you're just going to give all your power to. Don't give your power to me and don't give it to Taylor.

I do want to know, on that note, so we can wrap it up where people can find you, because I feel like you're just a treasure trove of information, but also more importantly, encouragement. I want you to give everybody listening your biggest tip about sleep. Where can they find you and learn more. I know you have courses and other things and what's your biggest tip for them?

Taylor Kulik:
Okay. You can find me at www.taylorkulik.com is my website. Then my Instagram account, that's where I normally am on social media. My handle is Taylor Kulik. I'm on Instagram sharing free posts. I try to do a weekly Q&A in my stories where I answer questions. I do webinars. I have e-courses. You can find all that information on my Instagram and my website.

Then I also have a podcast called, Let's Sleep On It: Reclaiming Parenthood, which hopefully I'll have you on one day soon. Then my biggest sleep tip. I mean, I think the biggest one is just tune out the noise and trust yourself. Also that you don't have to fear, you don't have to make changes right now, if you're satisfied with what you're doing for your baby. Like we were talking about, you don't have to make changes right now out of anxiety or fear of what will happen in the future.

Parent the child that's in front of you. Support the baby in front of you with sleep and what they need right now, because that's going to change weeks from now, months from now, definitely years from now. It won't be this way forever. Just try not to think about what's going to happen two years from now and just parent the child in front of you.

Andrea Olson:
I love that. You guys listening, can we please apply that to EC as well, because EC ... changes every single day or week, you're just like, "Oh, I totally mastered it. I got it. We're doing great." Then all of a sudden, everything changed, because they got a tooth or they started crawling or started rolling, or I got a cold or whatever. It's like, no, you have to be mega present. That is literally all that's required of us.

Be present and responsive and do what feels right in the moment. I love that you're talking about don't be focused on the future. Definitely not beat yourself up over the past. Because we can only know what we know when we know it. Then we can choose based on that. Now, I have a question also. Are you going to have another baby?

Taylor Kulik:
I don't know. We love the idea of having more. But my children are very high needs and very touchy contact. Breastfeeding forever babies. I think that if we do, we'll have to wait a little bit longer in between the next two. We'll reassess maybe in a year when my baby's two and a half.

Andrea Olson:
Awesome. Well, if that time ... Meanwhile, I'll be on your podcast. People can be like, "What is this?" If you do have another one, I would love to be your personal coach on EC from birth.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
That is mind-blowing. I can't wait, if you do that to learn and also just hear from your clients. How knowing about sleep, and knowing about breastfeeding, and knowing about natural infant hygiene, which is easy, can all marry together to be a really fulfilling new mom, new dad experience.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
That's the key. That's the trinity right there.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. That sounds great. I would love to learn more about that. I really had high hopes to learn more from my son. But my newborn days from both of my kids have been very, very difficult. It was too overwhelming for me to think about it.

Andrea Olson:
Absolutely. I know.

Taylor Kulik:
Maybe the next one.

Andrea Olson:
My goal is totally to take one thing off of new parents' plates, and that's changing out blowout diapers and poopy diapers. Yeah. A lot of people don't try it. Then when they get on their third or fourth baby, they're like, "Okay. I'm ready to try this, because this baby's not totally taking everything from me and I have an EC baby for once." They'll try then or whatever.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
I love that you followed your intuition. At six months, you started putting her on the potty. Then you had a one day potty training experience that was super smooth. That's what I want to hear, because that removes the fear from everything. I really want to encourage you next time you put your boy on the potty, put him on a toilet seat reducer on the big toilet, and then leave the room.

Taylor Kulik:
Okay.

Andrea Olson:
I forget my hairbrush and go get something and then listen around the corner. Now sometimes I do line the toilet with pillows or blankets or something the first time, because sometimes they're like, "I want to dive off." But 10 times out of 10, you'll go around the corner after you leave the room and you'll listen and they'll be peeing in the toilet.

Taylor Kulik:
Interesting. I've been doing the potty, the little potty that sits on the floor. Is that a no, no? Is it better to do the actual potty?

Andrea Olson:
It's just like what you say about sleep. If it's not working for you, then it's probably not the right tool for that time. But in the future, totally could be the right tool. How old is he again?

Taylor Kulik:
He's almost 18 months, be 18 months. Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
Almost 18 months, awesome. I have a really short mini potty. I would be happy to send you ... I don't see one near here. It's way over there. That also makes it easier because they can really get on it and get low. But if you're using the mini potty, go in the bathroom together. Get his bottoms completely off, and then say, "Put your pee in that potty." We don't ask. We just say to do it, because it's very natural process. They want as low pressure as possible.

We don't want to ask and that puts them on the spot. Put your pee in that potty. Then you turn your back and start picking your teeth in the mirror. Totally divert your attention. But you have the bathroom door closed. You guys are just there.

Taylor Kulik:
Okay.

Andrea Olson:
Just hang out and really busy yourself with something else, which gives him privacy.

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
Try that. But the other thing you can try is stick them on the big toilet. We don't watch movies here. We don't do any screen time at all. Well, like once a week we do Little House on the Prairie. I'm that kind of mom.

Taylor Kulik:
I am too.

Andrea Olson:
Yeah. I'm like, "Can I protect you from screens?"

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
It's like screens and obesity are the two things I'm protecting you. I want to get a silly toilet seat reducer that has Elmo on it or something, even though they don't know what it is. All right. Let's go pee on Elmo and set them on it. Then, "Oh, I forgot something." I genuinely forget something in the other room and go get it. That usually is enough privacy. Every one of my babies requires a certain number of feet for me to be away from them, for them to feel that privacy.

Twyla, my youngest, it was two feet. She wouldn't try to dive off. She just wanted me right there two feet away. I felt like there's a parallel with sleep, too, how close do they want you to be and at what stage of their life?

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
But it's fun to experiment. All you're going to learn is something new. That's all there is to it. If you're relaxed, he'll be relaxed about it. It's just a learning process. It's fun. If you want to, you can also do a potty training experience at this age with my other book, and I'd be happy to give it to you. It's totally non-pressure. We don't pressure children. We just say, "All right. This is what we're doing," like grandma did.

Kids respond in the potty training world. I don't know how asleep is. Kids respond by going, "Okay. This is what we're doing now." It's that simple. With Montessori, 12 to 18 months is the absorbent period of potty learning. Once they get that mastered, which is supposed to happen during that phase developmentally, then their brain and their body is freed up for other learning. Their behavior becomes normalized.

It's truly a gift. Again, I'm not pressuring you. But that option is out there. It's super effective. I have all the tools I'd be happy to ...

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah. That'd be great. I'm open. I'm open to learning. Maybe this is the time. I haven't had the time. Now I have the time to learn and hopefully not go to age three changing diapers again.

Andrea Olson:
You would probably be a couple more weeks in diapers, maybe a week. It just depends on when you do this. Once we do the thing, we don't ever go back to diapers. Someone's like if you couldn't buy diapers, like last summer, we couldn't buy diapers. What would you do?

Taylor Kulik:
Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
You think about that. What would I do? Well, I would help my child learn how to use the toilet and there really wouldn't be another option and we work together. That's the way I come across it.

Taylor Kulik:
I love that.

Andrea Olson:
You let me know, DM me, I will send you whatever you need. You guys, it's
Taylor Kulik, right?

Taylor Kulik:
Yes.

Andrea Olson:
K-U-L-I-K, T-A-Y-L-O-R, K-U-L-I-K. That you should definitely follow her on Instagram and everywhere else and listen to her podcasts if you're having issues with sleep. Taylor, thank you so much for being on my show.

Taylor Kulik:
Thank you for having me. It was great. It was great talking to you.

Andrea Olson:
I really enjoyed it. We'll talk to you soon.

Taylor Kulik:
All right. Bye-bye.

Andrea Olson:
Wasn’t that amazing, you guys? Thank you so much, Taylor for being on my podcast and sharing about all the sleep things. Thank you so much. This was super eye opening. I hope you felt the same way.

Again, you can check out the full written transcript and links to everything that we mentioned in today’s show over at godiaperfree.com/170. I look forward to seeing your comments and questions over there!