Meg Faure on Unlocking Sensory Personalities

Hey you guys. Welcome to today's show. We are talking with a very special guest today, Meg Faure. She is the author of Baby Sense, Feeding Sense, Weaning Sense, and Sleep Sense and so many more. And also the creator of the Parent Sense app, which I highly recommend. We'll talk about that during the interview today, but basically what we're going to be discussing is the baby sensory world and how that impacts sleep, feeding, development and more. And we talk about baby's sensory personalities that were very interesting to us because we were able to correlate them directly with how your baby does elimination communication. I cannot wait to share all the things we unveiled and I hope you dig deeper into Meg's work.

You can find the show notes to this show, including a full written transcript and links to everything we talk about today at godiaperfree.com/186. Enjoy the interview.

Andrea Olson:
Hey, you guys. I am so excited to have another interview on the podcast and also this will be on our YouTube. This is such a cool topic. Well, we're going to hit a couple of topics actually. So I'm not going to tell you what they are yet. You'll just have to keep listening. But I have Meg on the show, Meg. She is an occupational therapist from South Africa, although she's currently in France. She's an infant specialist and the author of eight parenting books. And I want her to take over from here and tell you a little bit about herself. Welcome to the show, Meg.

Meg Faure:
Thank you so much, Andrea. It's awesome to be here with you. So a little bit about my background, I'm an OT. I actually did most of my specializations in the States. I lived in New York for a period of time and then returned to South Africa. And my passion has always been around the baby's sensory world. I think that if we understand how babies develop on a sensory level and how the sensory world affects them, we can really impact our parenting.

And so going down that journey, I actually authored eight parenting titles, but every single one of them has been to do with the sensory world. So sleep sense had to do with sleep and sensory, weaning sense had to do with weaning your baby from a sensory perspective. So it's always been around the baby sensory world.

I founded an app many years ago. Actually, it was one of the first apps on the app store in 2007, like going back a long time and now, have more recently got a new app called Parent Sense. And that's what takes up most of my time now. I do have a clinical practice and I work with moms with sleep problems predominantly. So that's a little bit about me and kind of what I've been doing in the last few years.

Andrea Olson:
That's wonderful. Well, welcome to the show. I can't wait to educate our audience. They're all here to learn about infant potty training and elimination communication or EC from birth. And I think that knowing our babies on a more holistic level is always going to help inform the EC practice. It's going to help us be more confident moms, easier on ourselves because we don't just automatically know how to do all this stuff.

And I certainly don't know a lot about the sensory world other than I do have a background in dance. I'm very body centered and with my kids, I'm very body centered. So maybe that's something innate, but I think that's kind of unique to me. I don't think that there are a lot of our audience who are already attuned to this. So I'm going to ask you to explain that in a moment. But first, you already know about EC just a little bit. Can you tell us because there's like a little bit of overlap. And you guys, I'm going to be on Meg's podcast soon as well to talk about EC to her audience, but yeah, what was your exposure to EC already?

Meg Faure:
Yes. So my co-founder of one of my businesses, which is called Play Sense, it's a playgroup program. She did EC with her three little boys and I was along for the journey with her third little one because we'd already founded our business then. And that was really my first exposure to it. And I was completely blown the way that Laura, with two older toddlers, actually managed to really read her little one.

And I think what blows me away, and I know it's not for everybody, but what really blows me away about EC is that it is probably the highest degree of kind of reflective parenting that you can get in the early days because you've really got to be attuned to your baby. And I think that's what really impressed me about it. I don't think I would've been a very good EC mom myself, although I do think I was a good reflective mom. But that's kind of really my first exposure, and Laura did an amazing job with little Timmy as he kind of did EC bathroom birth.

Andrea Olson:
It's so wonderful, as everybody listening who might have also heard about EC and gone, "Oh man, that sounds great. But something that I probably couldn't do." Once they try it once, they're completely blown away because it's not just a technique that a lot of things that we learn are techniques, and that's good. We need tools in our tool bag for sure. But this one is so based on the baby's innate instincts that every single mom who says what you just said, they're so floored. They're so surprised. They're like, "Wow, this actually worked the first time and I hardly did anything and I have no idea what I'm doing."

Meg Faure:
No, it's amazing.

Andrea Olson:
It's amazing. If we could rewind a little bit, I wonder if it would've worked. And I also think that that's where I come into is I give a lot of support. You say you spend a lot of time on your app. I spend a lot of time on all the things that we do here at Go Diaper Free because it's not innate. And I think, so can we tell everybody your app is called Parent Sense, right?

Meg Faure:
Correct, yeah.

Andrea Olson:
And you've got 51,000 users on it right now.

Meg Faure:
61,000. Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
61,000.

Meg Faure:
Yeah. So, that's just gone up since we last sent that to you.

Andrea Olson:
That's amazing.

Meg Faure:
Yeah. So we've had 61,000 people download and start using the app. On average, we have 10,000 monthly active users. So people are on and off it all the time. It's an app that covers really kind of the four main domains of early parenting, which is sleep, feeding, health and play. And so for instance, in the play section, there's an activity for every single day of the baby's life.

Andrea Olson:
Which is so good. Ah, I had no idea how to play with my baby. When my first one came, I took two classes on it. I was clueless. You guys, this is so amazing.

Meg Faure:
And it's based on, because I'm an occupational therapist and I've worked with little ones with developmental delay, I know what you need to do in order to make sure your little one develops optimally. And so that's the play section. The feeding section is developed with myself and a dietician who works on all of my dietetics work with me, Kath Megaw. And we go through how to wean your baby but making sure that you're not going to develop allergies and that you're not going to have a picky eater because there's quite specific things that you introduce at different times. So those are just two domains and it's a really exciting product.

Andrea Olson:
I would love to add and see another domain added at some point of an optional EC domain, because what comes in goes out and how do we deal with that too?

Meg Faure:
Andrea, I think that is a brilliant idea because actually, we're launching our courses section of the app this week. It's actually going to be launching, coming up soon. And if we can put an EC course on there where you can hold mom's hands and take them through it, I would love to do that, really.

Andrea Olson:
I would love to. And even in your app just saying, "Hey, did you know that some moms decide to potty their babies from birth and they avoid potty training?" You could check it out because I think that pregnant women especially, we're so overwhelmed. We're just like, there are so many things that we've gotta get right. It's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of information out there. It can be so overwhelming.

And then once you have your baby, then that's like 24/7 and you're figuring out all the things. But if it comes across just their attention, they're like, "Oh, that's a possibility?" It could actually make parenting a lot simpler. And we'll talk about that when I come onto your podcast because it simplifies things. But I really want everybody listening to just remember what it was like when you first had your baby, if somebody had gone, "Hey, you can also do this thing and avoid poopy diapers." You might have been like, "Oh, cool." So, we definitely want to get in front of pregnant moms as much as possible.

But this app is so amazing. I downloaded it. And I put in that I'm pregnant, which I'm not, but maybe someday, God willing, we'll have another baby. I really loved how it just was so encouraging. The whole feel of it was just like, "I've got you," like Meg's got you. So you guys should definitely get the app right now.

So, let's move on because I'm just tooting your horn because I was so impressed. It's such a really great job, Meg. It's so good.

Meg Faure:
Thank you, Andrea.

Andrea Olson:
You're welcome. So I want to talk about the baby sensory world and how that impacts sleep, feeding development, et cetera. You have an episode on baby sensory personalities that might be interesting to my audience. And I'm going to link to that in the show notes so that they'll be able to fully read that or listen to that on your podcast. But tell us what ... Well really, I know you're an OT, so I understand how you got to be interested in the sensory world. But why is this so important, and what should parents do about this?

Meg Faure:
Yeah, it really does hold the key to so many aspects of parenting. Newborns are born with the most incredible capacities. In fact, their sense of touch is a hundred percent developed right from 12 weeks gestation amazingly. Their sense of hearing is fully developed at 24 weeks gestation. And the last half of the pregnancy, your baby's actually learning through their sense of hearing.

So by the time they're born, they can actually recognize their mother tongue or their home language. They can recognize your voice. The only sense that isn't very well developed is the sense of sight. And that obviously develops very, very rapidly after they're born. They are born being able to see. The miracle of life is that they can see exactly 20 centimeters, which is a distance from your breast or your nipple to your eyes.

So your baby can see in perfect vision, the perfect distance from a breast to your eyes. So it's just the miracle of life that babies are born just so perfectly. What happens though is that we have this womb world where little ones are taking in an enormous amount of sensory information from this womb space. But almost all of the sensory information that has been taken in is actually quite regulating sensory information.

So I love the fact that you said you were a dancer and you've got a very high sense of your body. Now that sense of your body is something we call proprioception, which is a receptor that's found in your muscles and joints. And your proprioceptive sense is your most powerful calming sense. It really is a high regulator, and babies are born with an absolute overdose of that because the intrauterine space is so tight that little babies are moving against this kind of elastic wall all the time.

And so this intrauterine space is absolutely perfect. It doesn't have a lot going on visually. It's got the white noise of your body. It's got the lulling movement of the vestibular system. It's got high doses of proprioception from the pressure of the uterine walls. It's got sweet tastes and neutral tastes in the amniotic fluid. And tastes of the baby's own body as they suck their hands. And so here's this absolutely perfect uterine space for development. And of course, what happens is in a split second, just like our blood has to change direction when moving through our heart and our lungs, in a split second babies are kind of presented with the absolute inundation of our sensory world, which is busy and noisy and bright, and there's just no deep pressure. And one of the things that I encourage parents to try and think of when they're thinking about calming their baby. So let's start at that point after the baby's born, is to go back to the womb world because the womb world holds all the secrets.

Andrea Olson:
Yeah. The first thing I'm thinking is swaddling or baby wearing.

Meg Faure:
Exactly.

Andrea Olson:
The Moby Wrap. Holding skin to skin, all of that.

Meg Faure:
Exactly. And you've literally listed everything I would've said. No, it's perfect. It's absolutely perfect.

Andrea Olson:
I've had my babies. At least by now I know. I'm glad I'm going to pat myself on the back.

Meg Faure:
And you're an instinctive parent. So yes, absolutely. The thing that we can do is swaddle our babies because it puts them back into that kind of womb space that's really tight and cuddled. We can have lots of white noise going on in the room when we are trying to help them sleep. Absolutely, baby wearing. And in fact, in the early days, skin to skin right up against your chest naked on your body is the best place for your baby that really reenacts that womb world.

And so you can see in this little illustration, when we talk about the important implications of the sensory world, you can see that in those first six weeks, first 12 weeks, the fourth trimester, so the first three months after the baby's born, a lot of what we should be doing in terms of the principles of nurturing our babies must be based on the sensory world of the womb. So right from that point, we can see how important understanding the sensory world is.

Andrea Olson:
I love that. And I also love how you say that babies are born perfectly. There is, I mean, the design of the human is, it just blows me away. As for all the physiology I've studied as a dancer and also doing movement therapy, which I did for some time, without babies, before babies. And then all the work with EC, because right when they come out, they instantly have sphincter control. They instantly can start to look to you for help going to the bathroom, not on themselves.

And their sensory systems are so ... Well, if they're only able to see as far as they need to see. So they've got just enough of everything they actually need. Now, a lot of the medical textbooks will say they don't have sphincter control until 18 months, but those written by the Pampers Institute, which they obviously have a little bit of money in the game.

So we also have this sensory system of the bladder filling and these signals going to their brain and then the crying and the fussiness. And you also specialize in a little bit of colic and early infant crying that some of that, and I would say, we've estimated about a third of this unexplained fussing is because they need to go to the bathroom and they don't want to go in their diaper because of those really strong instincts to not soil themselves, which all mammals are born with.

So there's like some links that I'm kind of pulling from what you're saying also related to what we're doing. And we all, I think, we all baby wear. Everybody listening, baby wears, right? You do, right? Most everybody who does EC does, because we also get better signals from the baby for sleep, eating, peeing, needing to poop. All of that stuff comes much more strongly when we're tightly wound with our baby. Would you say the same thing from your experience of responsiveness?

Meg Faure:
Yeah, absolutely, no doubt. I mean, baby wearing for me is one of the most important things we can do in the early days. And there are a number of reasons. You've mentioned one of them that we are more tuned to our babies when they're on us. And I've always used to say that those strollers that face away from you and you're pushing your baby and they're kind of facing towards the world, it's the saddest thing because you're seeing none of your baby signals. You're not responding to what they're needing and to what they're trying to engage with you.

If you are going to use a stroller, it must face towards you, but preferably pop your baby up against you. It's incredible what babies learn about socialization that way. They reference the way that you speak to another human being. So when you meet somebody, your response to them, your joy for meeting somebody new, they get that. And that wires them for being social.

Andrea:
They're literally absorbing your social skills.

Meg Faure:
Completely.

Andrea Olson:
And does it also calm and regulate and center their behavior?

Meg Faure:
And it does.

Andrea Olson:
For their wellbeing?

Meg Faure:
Yeah. And the other two very important aspects. So one is that the vestibular system, which is based in the inner ear and actually develops alongside the hearing system. So it's fully developed at 24 weeks gestation. That system is a system that really triggers calming, really accesses calming for little ones. And that's one of the reasons why when the mom is busy during the day, when she's pregnant, her baby sleeps. And then when she lies down to go to sleep in the night, her baby wakes up because-

Andrea Olson:
Right, that's so annoying. You're like, "Wait, I need to sleep. And now you're kicking me?"

Meg Faure:
Exactly. And that's because the lulling movement was so calming. So we know that for babies who are fractious and who are irritable and who won't settle to sleep, the vestibular system is great for that. And then the third massive impact of the vestibular system is that it impacts on our motor skills. So there's a connection between the vestibular system and the muscles that goes down what's called the vestibular spinal tract down the spine. And it gives little signals to your muscles and those signals build up muscle tone. And that muscle tone provides the basis for equilibrium reactions and other balance reactions, and eventually, gross motor coordination.

So our little ones who are worn and have all that little bit of vestibular rotation and movement all the time are actually more robust on a motor level. So for instance, when you put them down on the mat on tummy time, because I don't like putting babies anywhere else but on the mat if they're not in your arms because they need tummy time-

Andrea Olson:
I agree.

Meg Faure:
They're more likely to lift up their head and actually start to develop their extensor muscles and then roll a little earlier, and they're more likely to crawl. So it has a real impact on motor development as well. So on three levels, social, and then also obviously emotional. It's calming. And then also obviously, the gross motors. It's very helpful.

Andrea Olson:
That's amazing. So which baby carrier do you love the most right now for mom?

Meg Faure:
I think there's only one baby carrier and I'll tell you why. I don't know if you can get it in the States. And I hope that you can. It's called the SnuggleRoo carrier. I know that you can get it on Amazon in the UK, and I'll tell you why I love it. Well, the reason I love it is that it's like a wrap carrier. So the Moby Wrap is the one that you love, which I also love. And that's a long strand of fabric.

Andrea Olson:
Very long, very hard to put on.

Meg Faure:
Very long. It's hard to put on. And so what SnuggleRoo did, and it's just the cleverest product is they took exactly the same fabric. It wraps and it has exactly the same functionality. If you looked at it without seeing the back, you would go, it's a long wrap carrier.

Andrea Olson:
I see it. Oh, my gosh. Okay, we're going to put a link for this. Wow, it looks like it, but it's got clips in the back.

Meg Faure:
It's got clips in the back. So it fits over your head. And it's just the most astounding product. It was developed by a physiotherapist and a very, very serious attachment parent herself. And she actually wore her babies in that naked for a while. They were naked so that they could be naked on her chest.

Andrea Olson:
Love it. And the dad is wearing the baby. Oh, I love it.

Meg Faure:
So it's really an awesome product. So, you asked me, that is actually my favorite carrier.

Andrea Olson:
Well, so I don't think they carry it in the US. It looks like they do have it in the UK, Ireland and France. Well, maybe I can convince them to let me carry it. We'll look into that because that looks like an awesome carrier. The best of both worlds. I like the Beco Carrier, because it's convertible for many different ways of wearing your baby over time. And then the Ergo is maybe my third favorite. The Moby is my second, but-

Meg Faure:
When they're a bit older. The Ergo is great when they're older.

Andrea Olson:
I agree.

Meg Faure:
I love that. Nine months onwards, definitely an Ergobaby Carrier, no question. But under nine months, you want that soft fabric. It goes back to that sensory world. It needs to be soft. It needs to be-

Andrea Olson:
And it's stretchy too. So you're basically being held with it. So there's the Moby. And then I've also ... I'll link to the other one that I have. Oh, it's the Baby K'tan. That's another one that's really stretchy that looks kind of like this one. And then, yeah, we'll see if we can get one of these. We need this in the States.

So, everybody who's listening who does not baby wear, or maybe you feel guilty now that you've heard all this information, because this is such good information about why you should baby wear. Maybe today's the day that you put on that baby carrier that you've been avoiding using because you've been trying to get a break and wear your baby and see what happens.

The other thing that relates to EC is when they try to escape their baby carrier, or they start to feel uncomfortable in it moving around, instead of shushing them into comfort, as an ECer, I would recommend you take the baby out, potty the baby, put the baby back in and it's like magic. They settle down. They're comfortable for longer. They sleep better. And they can really relax because they don't have the urge to go to the bathroom.

They used to do that. So I have two stories, really quick ones. In Infant Potty Training, which Laurie Boucke wrote, which is like an encyclopedia of all these anthropological studies of EC over a lot of recent history but mostly other places in the world, she learned that babies would be taken out of the sling and aimed at a bush. They say ... or they just aim them and they start going, and they go on the bush and they put them back in the sling.

So it was very much like a convenience thing too for nomadic people and people who are very busy with their hands all day. And the second thing I wanted to share was I was in Africa, in Ghana, West Africa for a dance in the year 2000. And I did not have any awareness about ... I didn't want babies. I didn't want babies until I learned you could avoid poopy diapers, to be honest. I didn't want them because I was like, "That is disgusting."

But when I was there, I didn't really pay attention but none of the kids were in diapers obviously. And I saw babies wrapped onto their mom's backs, brand new newborns with no neck control at all. And these moms were dancing as fast as possible. The baby's head is flailing all over. And I was like, "Is that okay?" And then I looked at the little ones and they were all so mobile. They were all so confident and steady and none of them were crying ever. I never saw a crying child in 30 days, and we were surrounded by children all the time.

So it just made me wonder, and then seeing babies worn in that way, a six, I think it was like three yards of fabric just wrapped around the mom with this baby on the back. It makes me wonder how ... I mean, I'm not advising anybody to be wild with your baby, but how they are already so equipped to be in this world. And they're constantly absorbing that information on how to be mobile and they're building muscle mass even from that system, which just blows my mind.

I've just learned so much from you just in the short minutes we've been talking and I just want everybody who's listening, if this is interesting to you, try it out. Let's put it into action because this is really, you know?

Meg Faure:
Yeah, you really should. I mean, I was born in Africa. And so in Africa, we call it where you put a baby on your back and you actually just take a large towel and you wrap it around the baby really, really tightly. And the baby's legs kind of wrap around the side of the moms, which by the way, is the best position for hips because it actually prevents hip dysplasia. So it's quite amazing.

So, they would wear their babies like that. And all three of my children in Africa, we often do have nannies. We are very lucky we have nannies in our homes to help us look after our children and the nanny who brought up my children is the most incredible woman called Nancy. She's still one of my very good friends and she used to do it with my little ones.

She never used my sling. I always had a sling for my little ones and those days, I hadn't discovered the SnuggleRoo carrier. So I had my sling and my babies lived in the sling. And in fact, to the point, when you say that some parents don't do it, my husband would not let me walk out of the house if I was going to the shops, unless I'd left him with a sling to look after the baby, because he knew that if he had a sling, he would be fine because all three of my babies would be absolutely fine the minute they were in the sling.

And so I put gorgeous photographs of him dressed up as a pirate playing pirates with my seven-year-old son with our third baby in the sling, like three days old so that he could actually give me a little bit of time to sleep while he played with the kids and looked after the newborn.

Andrea Olson:
Can we just take a moment to thank all the dads because I know we have about 5% dads who listen. But they also help with potting the babies because they don't really feel like they can help breastfeed. And there's a lot of stuff. There's just like that baby wants mom. She wants you all the time, but if you wear your baby dads, oh my gosh, there's so much bonding that happens there.

Meg Faure:
So, so much.

Andrea Olson:
And the baby's happier.

Meg Faure:
Exactly.

Andrea Olson:
So let me ask you also then. So how does the sensory world impact feeding and then I want to talk about development, and sleep as well. We'll just hit on these just a little bit because I want them to go and look at your information, your books and your app to learn more deeply. But how does this interrelate?

Meg Faure:
Babies are all different and you've got five kids, Andrea, right?

Andrea Olson:
Yes, I have.

Meg Faure:
Okay, right. So you know that each one is completely different. And I mean, there's some great twin studies that show that even biologically almost identical genetically babies are also very different. And the reason why they're different is that they have different sensory personalities. And for a lot more information, people can go and listen to the podcast, but where I go into it. But just in a nutshell, these four different sensory personalities, some babies are very settled babies. A lot can go on in their world without them noticing it because they have high levels of habituation in their brain.

Some babies are social butterflies who really need a lot of sensory information. They seek sensory information all the time and they're actually quite unsettled if they're not being stimulated and having something fed into their systems on a sensory level and they tend to be very busy as toddlers. The third type of baby is slow to warm up. They are suspicious of new sensory information. They're not sure if it's safe and it takes them time to warm up and engage. And my third baby was one of those. And then the fourth type of personality is our sensitive baby, who is really a threat to them because they've perceived it as painful.

Now you can imagine those four different sensory personalities will feed very differently. So let's take for example, my heart always goes out to moms who battle to breastfeed because I think most moms start off with an intent of, I really do want to breastfeed and some of them just don't, it doesn't happen. And there's a lot of blame and shaming that happens for those moms.

But sometimes, it really is that a little one is so sensitive that that sensory world of being up against a mom, being against her skin, and then having to deal with changing flavors and changing speed of the breast milk coming out, because that's very different to bottle feeding, is too overwhelming for them and they actually can't settle into breastfeeding. So they're really tricky feeders from that perspective.

Now those babies often go on to be very tricky feeders on solids. So they gag for a long time. They don't like new flavors. And so your sensitive feeder or your sensitive babies tends to be a really tricky feeder from the get go. And in fact in my clinical practice, a fair amount of the babies that I saw were actually babies who were failing to thrive just because they couldn't tolerate food. The texture and the flavor was just so threatening for them.

Andrea Olson:
So, for them, is bottle feeding better?

Meg Faure:
Not necessarily better because what happens with them is when you start to, when they eventually do take to breast milk, they're great breast feeders. But if you try to introduce a bottle, they won't take the teeth. So it's not so much that anything's better or worse. And obviously, the actual nutrition in breast milk is arguably better than formula.

Andrea Olson:
Of course, I was thinking pumping breast milk. So, you would want to get them used to it and get as much support as possible to get them used to it?

Meg Faure:
Yeah, to get support, exactly. And something interesting like swaddling, and I speak about this in one of my books. Swaddling is amazing for those babies. They tend to feed better when they're swaddled, because what swaddling does is it actually almost forms a barrier around the baby so that they're not having as much input from the rest of the world. And so they're actually better able to feed.

Andrea Olson:
It's like having a weighted blanket. It's like having a weighted blanket for an autistic child. I have one child who has Asperger's, and I would put him in that sensitive category for sure. Not that predicted that, but it definitely pretty much goes hand in hand with his current habits. But if I put a heavy blanket on him or wrap him in some ... Oh, he's so happy. He's 11, he's still happy when I do that.

Meg Faure:
Yeah, exactly. So then another personality, just as an example, and I'll only just give one more example of how sensory personalities impact feeding would be your social butterflies. So I described how that baby is, A, very social, but B seeks out sensory information all the time.

Now what happens with them is when they go onto solid food, they are like in heaven because up until now, everything has tasted the same. It's been the same color. It's been absolutely boring. And now suddenly there's like the smorgasbord of color and texture and flavor. And you can just imagine that they are like, "Yes, more." And so they tend to wean really easily. But then after a couple of weeks, if you leave them on very bland solids, you actually end up with quite a fussy eater. So they kind of particularly if you start them on, for instance, rice cereal which is the old fashioned style of ... People used to recommend rice cereal as your first food, which we don't anymore at all.

Andrea Olson:
Yeah. I don't.

Meg Faure:
No, no, we definitely don't do that.

Andrea Olson:
That was like the '80s and the '70s and '60s.

Meg Faure:
Yeah. Even around like the '90s, they were still doing it. I can tell you, yep, because my third born was ... My first born was born in the very late '90s, right at the end and in those days it was rice cereal. And anyway, he's a social butterfly.

So he started very happily on rice cereal because he was so excited that it wasn't milk. And then after a week, he was like, "I'm bored with this." And so when you're weaning those babies, you want to wean them quite rapidly with bright flavor and bright texture. And something like baby-led weaning is really great for them because they can control it, they can explore, they can mush it in their hands. They can smell it. They can, you know.

And so you can see just in those two little illustrations that I've spoken about, how their sensory personalities really impact feeding.

Andrea Olson:
And I interviewed Katie Ferraro of baby-led wean team. And so I'm going to link to that episode as well in our show notes so people can look at that interview. But we covered so many things about how we introduced so many. I thought I was doing baby-led weaning, but I wasn't even close. It was definitely ... And now I'm thinking back and I'm like, "Okay, I definitely ..." My three-year-old is probably raiding the cabinets right now as we're on this interview because she, all day every day is trying ... She is so busy and she is literally tasting life through food all day.

Meg Faure:
Yeah. And she's probably a social butterfly, isn't she?

Andrea Olson:
She is, totally.

Meg Faure:
Yeah, exactly.

Andrea Olson:
It's so interesting.

Meg Faure:
And so you can see how, if you understand your baby sensor personality, it just makes parenting so much easier because instead of thinking, "I've got a fussy eater," because he doesn't want dry cereal, if that's what it is anymore, you're thinking, "Oh no, he's gregarious. He needs something more interesting." And so it changes the way you parent your babies when you understand their sensory personality.

Andrea Olson:
I love that. And I'm wondering, so I'm going to look more into this and I'm going to listen to this podcast on sensory personalities and kind of analyze my own kids, but also compare it to their or potty style because some of them preferred different potties in different orders. Some of them wanted a variety of potties. Some of them would only ... My second would only use one potty that has Dora the Explorer on it. She didn't even know who that was. And I literally had to put that in my diaper bag. I had a giant bag that I just had to fit the potty in because she wouldn't go on any other seat anywhere ever.

So it's interesting, and you guys listening, I'm probably going to have to look into this and make a little study of this parallel, because if you're thinking that you're just doing poorly at EC or breastfeeding or sleep or any of that, you're probably not. You definitely are not. It's just that your baby has a different temperament with a different personality and then different sensory needs. That brings it down even ... That's even more sensible than, "Oh, their temperament is just different," because then you're like, "Well, I have to deal with this temperament their whole life? But I don't understand it."

So I see where this can unveil a whole other level of understanding so that we can give our babies customized what they need.

Meg Faure:
Exactly. And Andrea, I'm going to share with you. I actually did a talk last night, interestingly, on potty training. So this was for parents who had not chosen EC, they had chosen to potty train.

Andrea Olson:
Which is most parents ... Great.

Meg Faure:
Which is most parents, yeah. And I started the talk, but with the sensory personalities, because actually the sensory personalities potty train very differently. So, with your settled baby and your social butterflies, they tend to have quite high thresholds for sensory information, which you'll learn about in the podcast. But what's very interesting about that is that it means that they don't get the same degree of signals from the interior sectors, which are the pressure organs around the bladder that indicate that, "I'm full, I'm ready to go." They don't get the same signals.

And so they tend to take a little longer to potty train because they just have a lot more little mistakes. And I would be interested if it isn't the same with EC that your more sensitive little one, like maybe of your five kids, your more sensitive little ones or your, the slow to warm up we also call them, they have a lower threshold for sensory information. So they might have actually perceived those signals earlier and also signaled them more overtly to you like, "Okay, I'm ready."

Whereas maybe your settled baby, I don't know if you did have a really settled baby, the very laid back babies, they don't always perceive the signals and they also don't always signal themselves. And so they might be a little bit more tricky to EC as well.

Andrea Olson:
Yeah, and what was the fourth one? So there's settled, social butterfly, sensitive ...

Meg Faure:
And slow to warm up. So the slow to warm up, they will engage with the world. I don't know your little ones, but your Dora Explorer story does make me think that she might be a slow to warm up because what they tend to do is they like to control their world. They like to have predictability because it makes their world feel safe. And so they tend to be a little bit more specific. So they like to wear certain clothes if they're toddlers. They like to do things in certain ways. When they're toddlers, they don't like carrots touching potatoes on the plate. They just like things to be just so, those slow to warm up.

Andrea Olson:
Oh, this is so interesting. So I have the really laid back. Cooper, my third, was settled, and he was the hardest for me. I could have taken him out of diapers at 12 months but I would've had to have relied so much just on transition times and his timing and not expected any signals. I waited until 17 months to take him out of daytime diapers, but he was pooping in the toilet since birth. So, all of them were pooping in the toilet from birth because that's easy. But I definitely saw that with him.

And then the social butterfly, which I would think was Twyla, my fifth. She sometimes will pee in her pants just a tiny bit and then come and say, "I need to pee," and then go pee. And then she's like, "I need new pants." So, she's very busy. And I think a lot of people listening are like, "I have a really busy child who pees a little bit and then just keeps playing."

And then I've got ... My sensitive one would be Kaiva, my first, absolutely out of diapers at nine and a half months, telling me every time by 17 months very, very specifically like, "I am not okay with this. This is happening. I'm telling you right now."

And I had, my slow to warm up would definitely be my second, Isadora. She definitely likes predictability. She is a planner. Oh, she's eight now. She's like, "Okay, so Saturday, this is happening, then that's happening. Did I get that right? You know?" And I'm like, "Could you just chill about all that, like everything doesn't need to be planned out."

Meg Faure:
She's making her world predictable, exactly.

Andrea Olson:
And she's very specific, and has her preferences. That potty was like definitely, when I figured that out, it was like, "Oh, okay, I've got this." And I have a fifth child who, Branson, number four, he's just got such a temper. Where does he even fit in? He's not settled. He's more sensitive. He's more sensitive. And so I took all of them out of diapers around 12 months except for Cooper, and Kaiva was earlier at nine months. But the sensitive Branson, I just was like 12 months, let's just do it. And he completely synced up and it worked great. And he's definitely sensitive like his brother Kaiva.

So you guys, this is hugely informative. And it's not that, and then we take it from potty training. Well, it's not going to be as easy. It's going to take longer. Are there any many signals? With EC, we have four ways and I'll cover this when you interview me. But there's four different ways that we can do EC by the signals, which not all babies do and they definitely don't do it during certain periods because if they're in a tribal situation, they could just go out and pee outside. They don't need you at a certain point, so they stop signaling. But then they start again once they're walking.

But we can rely on natural timing, transition times. Hey, when would a three-year-old need to go? Let's just remind them. Let's just take them when they wake up. Let's take them before they sit down for food so they can settle longer. There are different ways to do EC based on our intuition too. So it doesn't all have to be around signals. And I would have to say the difference between potty training and EC is that EC can be done without any signals or verbal language from the child, including with developmentally delayed children and you still get the same result.

And some of them do take longer though to initiate the process, but we also are already done. We're just supporting them as an individual until they get to where they are, okay, I'm going to tell you now every time, which is it varies. And you guys, I think it varies based on these personalities. This is the closest I've ever seen to explaining what I've seen over the last 12 years. I'm so excited. I'm talking so fast. There was a lot. I'm so excited. This is great.

Meg Faure:
Wonderful. You're definitely going to listen to the podcast because what we do and what I do in the podcast is I go through all of the personalities and why they're actually, on a neurological level, what's actually going on with the little ones as well.

Andrea Olson:
Beautiful, I love that. And maybe I'll do a little follow up to this someday soon that has a better analysis of that and what to do if you have this personality, then what you might need to tweak or rely more on with EC so that it's less frustrating for both of you. And then I'll share that with you and you can share that with your people.

Meg Faure:
Love it. I love it.

Andrea Olson:
I love it. So, was that enough? Do you think it kind of introduces us to the sensory world for sleep, feeding, development, or do we want to touch on sleep and development at all?

Meg Faure:
Yeah, I think that's enough. I mean, I think it does impact every single area of our parenting. One thing that I would like to say is that when you're starting to understand your baby's sensory personality, you're doing what we call reflective parenting, which is understanding that there's a state or an intent and a personality behind the behavior. And I think that's just so important for parenting and for all parenting, where it prevents you from just reacting to behaviors, which is really not a great way to parent, to say, "Well, that's naughty or that's bad."

When you stop and you go, "Okay, so it's not naughty, it's not bad, it's not difficult," and difficult is the word people often use or tricky, that's you. And I'm recognizing you, I'm recognizing your state and I actually interpret it for you. And when parents start to do that, they really are helping their little ones to learn to self-regulate, which is obviously a very important life skill.

Andrea Olson:
Because they're modeling that for their child.

Meg Faure:
Yeah. So for instance, if you've got a little one who gets overwhelmed, your slow to warm up and your sensitive little ones, they get really overwhelmed. Like you take them to a birthday party and within an hour of being there, there's going to be some behavior like they're going to bite somebody or they're going to push someone or they're going to have a temper tantrum.

Andrea Olson:
Yeah, completely. Yeah.

Meg Faure:
Yeah, and it's really tricky. And instead of going, "Ugh, you such a difficult child," you're rather going to go, "I think you might be feeling itchy in your skin or I think you might be feeling like you're just tired and want to go home." And when you start to give them the words for what's actually going on for them, they can then start to articulate that for you at a later stage.

And that's part of behavior and actually the root of discipline because effectively, discipline is ... I mean if you're getting it really right with your little one, it's them being able to actually reflect for themselves before they do the behavior that is undesirable or whatever it is.

Andrea Olson:
Oh, I love that. That's way deeper learning than just saying, "Don't do that."

Meg Faure:
Exactly. Yeah.

Andrea Olson:
And when you give them the words for things and with EC, we also give them a language for everything. We give a sign, so this is the "need to go potty" sign, which I just saw a video of a baby who was not, just a few months old doing this sign. And about eight months old, they can do that and they can give words to what's going on. So we name what's happening when it's happening like potty training a puppy. You say, "Go pee pee," when they're going to the bathroom.

So we're also in the emotional social state noticing you're saying in this reflective parenting what's happening depending on your child's personality, then giving them the words to understand that, which helps them learn how to identify that in themselves ahead of time eventually and self-regulate.

Meg Faure:
Exactly. So, one of the talks that I'm often asked to do is on behavior and discipline. And I have this little strategy, and I know we don't have the whole day to talk but the strategy is what I call the ABC strategy. And A stands for acknowledge, B stands for boundary, and C stands for choice. And that acknowledge, and this works for everything, for temper tantrums. It really does unlock a lot when it comes to discipline.

And the A is the acknowledge, and it's acknowledging the underlying state, the behavior or the intent. So, I know that you want another cookie. And just giving them the words, or I know that you're feeling tired and grumpy right now, just that acknowledgement. And then the B is the boundary, the thing that they cannot cross. So, but you can't have another cookie before supper or, even though you're tired, you can't push your brother, or whatever it is. And then C is for choice, which is you must never corner a bear. Make sure there's always an out. So, you can do this or you can do this, and you kind of choose two options that you are prepared to live with.

But that basis to behavior and discipline is amazing because it really does help little ones to understand why they are about to push their friend or bite their friend, or do whatever they were about to do because you have identified that emotion and that intent. And you haven't taken that away from them. You've told them. "Yep, I know that. I understand it, but you still can't cross the boundary."

Andrea Olson:
Right, and I love that so much. I have one child in particular who throws massive tantrums, has done it since he was 16 months old like every day, every single day. He did it today. He's five. He just turned five, and it is so hard. What's hard for me is having around five different children all the time and having the pressures of, I recently got divorced and I also have a business to run and there's a lot of things. And I have a lot of support, but it's still a lot of children. I'm outnumbered. And to be able to prevent things is pretty much impossible. I can kind of sometimes sense that something's about to happen and intervene. Oftentimes, they work it out themselves if I just stay out of it.

But when there is some kind of danger to another person which happens quite regularly, you've got two who love to wrestle all the time. And they get very physical very fast, because they're about 18 months apart and they're both boys. But we have this, we're building an understanding. So even though it's not happening as quickly as I'd like because he is definitely the sensitive personality, it's not happening as fast as I want it to. But he is developing the little blocks of language to identify himself. And he'll often tell somebody else, "You need to take some deep breaths, you know?"

Meg Faure:
I love that.

Andrea Olson:
But as a parent, I just want to resonate with anybody listening, who feels like, "Well, the ABC method sounds great. And I'm a little bit overwhelmed. It's hard to implement," just stay with it because it does pay off and it does help. And it's a long learning process for some kids, wouldn't you say?

Meg Faure:
Yep. And for your sensory sensitive little ones, they really do battle to regulate their emotions, and that's a whole other thing. One of the building blocks in the trajectory towards self-regulation, the second building block actually is sensory regulation. So if you are very sensitive, it's going to impact your emotional lability. You're going to be much more emotionally labile. And then you're going to be ... And that in turn impact on behavior, which comes on the next level up. And so you are going to then act it out. And then the final level up is your cognitive regulation. So that's the way regulation moves.

But the building block, the very bottom one, well, actually the second level because there's physiological under that. But the second level is sensory regulation. And so if you are dysregulated and very, very sensitive, or for instance on the spectrum, as an example, you're going to battle to have the foundation for then the next level which is emotional regulation.

Andrea Olson:
Oh, I love how that builds. Is there somewhere that you have that? Is it like a pyramid or something?

Meg Faure:
It's a pyramid. Actually it was in ... I can send it through to you and you can pop it in the show notes if you'd like to.

Andrea Olson:
I would love that, yeah. Is it in one of your books?

Meg Faure:
It's actually not in one of my books. I do professional lectures to therapists around the world and that is actually in that. It's in my course for therapists. But I can send it to you. It's fascinating and EC fits right into it because the very bottom level, so under sensory regulation is physiological regulation, which fascinatingly begins to develop at 34 weeks in utero, 34 weeks gestation. And by two weeks, most babies have actually established quite high levels of physiological regulation. They can regulate their breathing and their body temperature and so on. And it's that basis of good physiological regulation that then goes on to form the basis for sensory regulation, the basis for emotional regulation, behavioral, and then-

Andrea Olson:
And you know what? I wonder if that gives babies who are pottied from birth, which has happened for all of human history except for the recent couple hundred years. This is what babies have always been, how they've always been raised with regards to their hygiene. It makes me wonder if that makes that foundation stronger because we are not shushing that part of them and to go, "No, no, go in this diaper even though it's against everything in your being. Go in this diaper and you're okay. Just do that for now and for the next three years."

It goes completely against the way that we're built, but it also probably messes with that foundation a little bit because, I mean really in 1957, 92% of all children in America were potty trained by 18 months. And now the average, which is the central age, is 36 months. And that's only two generations and it's because of diaper companies. And I've talked to diaper executives, it was intentional.

So we think about this physiological regulation block as the bottom of the pyramid, you guys. That's where everything starts. So, doing even once a day of offering your baby the potty as an alternative to the diaper is going to help build that foundation.

Meg Faure:
Yeah, absolutely. And especially if you're doing it in response to their signals, which is what you're doing, because you're then hearing your baby. And it's really interesting in my book, Weaning Sense, which is my seventh book, which is one of the two or two of my books that are bestsellers. That's one of them. But in that book, what's really interesting is if we talk about intuitive eating and this freaks moms out, because intuitive eating is giving your baby complete control over the quantity that they eat. And for the control freak mother that I certainly was, and there are many of us in the world, it's like, "How do I give my child control for how much they can eat?"

But the reality is that babies are intuitive eaters and they will fill their tummy as much as they need to if, and there's two caveats to that. The first is that you have to give them wholesome food. So if you're giving them sugar and you're messing with the insulin levels or highly processed carbohydrates, then you can't trust their instincts because they're messed with already. So you've got to have whole food. It's the one principle.

And the other principle is that you have to control when they're offered food. So, the mother ... And in my book, Weaning Sense, we talk about that. That moms and dads, you control the what, where, and when, and then the baby controls how much. And that sort of aligns little ones to really listen to their own signals and validate their signals, which is exactly what you're doing with EC that is so important. And it leads to healthier eating habits, long term.

Andrea Olson:
Absolutely. And also when you're also determining when, and Katie brought this up with baby-led weaning as well. Instead of forcing them, you're saying, "No, this is what I'm offering. And it's a bunch of whole foods and varieties of colors and flavors. And this is when we're eating," but there's not that pressure. They are then allowed to control that decision. So we definitely went over that. And you heard, I think you might have.

Meg Faure:
I listened to the podcast. Yeah, it was lovely.

Andrea Olson:
You listened to that one, yeah, because the picky eaters are opposite. So that in addition to, okay, when we offer a pottytunity, which is an opportunity to use the potty. Sorry, little lingo. And it's not that the baby has to go. It's that at this time, every day we're going to offer this to you. And actually it's not even a time of day. It's part of the rhythm and routine of the day. After you get down from the high chair, I'm going to offer this to you. Before bedtime, I'm going to offer this to you.

And also playing on the antidiuretic hormone that wears off when all mammals wake up, I'm going to offer you the potty in the morning because all mammals need to go after they wake up. So we're aligning with that. If somebody is listening, "Oh, but I don't have any signals. Oh this isn't going to work." But it does and it can, and it will. And signals will come and go, but what's definitely consistent is as a mom, when am I going to offer?

And then the baby really literally gets to choose if they want to go then or not, do they have to or not? And it becomes, there's no power struggle in it, which is also what I'm hearing with your Weaning Sense book. We're not trying to make a power struggle happen. We're trying to raise autonomous, sovereign children who are really owning their own bodies.

Meg Faure:
Absolutely. I love that.

Andrea Olson:
Yeah. I love all this so much. Okay, is there anything else you would like to enlighten us about? Because I just can't wait to just refer to everybody. Send me, I have some of your books written out, but like I want everything. I want to know where to find you. But are there any final comments before that?

Meg Faure:
No. I mean really, it's been very, very wonderful speaking to you. I think that we are so aligned with getting moms to understand that they can read signals and that there's an intent behind the signals that babies are giving and it's huge. And whether or not you choose to do EC or not or follow baby-led weaning, that's what happens on the outside. But what happens on the inside is your relationship. And that for me is the most important thing.

Andrea Olson:
It really is, yeah. And I just want to further define signals also, I take it as signs. You get tell-tale signs, they're not looking at you and saying, "I need to go potty or I'm hungry," but you have signs that the baby is giving off. The baby starts to yawn and starts to rub their eyes, you get the sleep signal.

Meg Faure:
Wriggle.

Andrea Olson:
Or just wriggle, just a wriggle is a signal.

Meg Faure:
Yeah. That's what I'm talking about when I talk about signals. And I can remember that very well from my experience of EC with Laura, that I was at her home with her six-week-old Timmy. And he started to wriggle and she said, "Oh, he needs to potty now," and it was just, and he did. And she said, "That's how it happens." She said, "I knew that was his signal because I've been watching him for the last six weeks. And when he does that wriggle thing, that's his signal."

Andrea Olson:
We learn it. We make a study of our babies and we learn it. So we learn how to feed them. We learn how to give them sleep so that everybody's wellbeing is heightened. We learn about their development, so we can give them the correct opportunities for play at the correct times, which I cannot wait to look at all of your play information too.

And then we learn when they need to go to the bathroom. We do a lot of observation. That's what my new app The Log is about. We're logging and observing for signals and signs and things. I mean, you could even log all of this stuff in there. It is really basically learning what are the rhythms of your baby and how you can be a good reflective parent. There's just so much connectivity there where you're trying to sync up with your baby and provide what they need when they need it.

Meg Faure:
Absolutely, yeah. And I guess the best way to finish this off, because we've spoken about so much gold standard stuff today and we know that that's not parenting.

Andrea Olson:
It's not possible, yeah.

Meg Faure:
And I always love, I think it's Tronick's work that talks about ... In fact, it's not. Is it Bowlby? I've now forgotten. Winnicott, it's Winnicott. He talks about being the good enough parent. And the good enough parent gets it right like 20% of the time.

Andrea Olson:
It's not that often, yeah.

Meg Faure:
It's not that often. But when they get it wrong, they repair afterwards and little kiddies are absolutely fine with that. And I think that's an important message for moms. There's so much pressure to do things perfectly. And if you're just getting it right 20% of the time, you're doing a great job and that's an important message.

Andrea Olson:
Absolutely. You guys, listen to that. Do you hear that? Please stop trying to be a hundred percent all the time. This is a gold standard. We're talking about in a perfect world, if we could do all the things perfectly, this is what it would look like.

But also, I feel like the reason that we're sharing this today and that I'm so glad that you're such a wealth of information, Meg, it's because there's going to be something in this episode you might want to re-listen to it a couple of times just to get, what are the one or two things that you're going to take those and go, "Okay, I'm going to baby wear more. I'm going to do EC once a day. I'm going to ... What are the things? I'm just going to get the app and check out and see what Meg suggests about play."

Whatever the one thing that stood out to you in this episode is good enough. And if we can give that to each parent listening during this episode, then I feel like our work has been done. Do you agree?

Meg Faure:
I agree, Andrea. I really do. Yeah. It's been super chatting to you.

Andrea Olson:
Lovely, yeah. Thank you. Where can we find you on Instagram, Facebook?

Meg Faure:
Meg Faure. Meg Faure is on both Facebook, Instagram. I've got a TikTok account that's just been started up with a little bit of content on there. And in my podcast, which is called Sense by Meg Faure, if they're looking for that.

Andrea Olson:
And Faure is spelled F-A-U-R-E. And that's why I didn't say your last name in the beginning because I was like, "I don't know how to pronounce that." Meg Faure.

Meg Faure:
Correct. That's it.

Andrea Olson:
We will look you up. And then there are books called Baby Sense, Feeding Sense, Weaning Sense, Sleep Sense and more. And we will link to all of those in the show notes. Meg, thank you so much for being here.

Meg Faure:
Thank you so much. It's been wonderful, Andrea. We look forward to chatting again soon.

Thank you for listening. I hope you found that to be incredibly helpful. Again, go see the show notes over at godiaperfree.com/186 where you can leave a comment, ask a question, share your biggest epiphany, whatever you like. And over there, you can see links to all of Meg's stuff. I hope you'll definitely check her out. And we'll see you next time.