319. What I Don’t Stress About Anymore as a Mom of Nine + More Q&A

But if something came up we're out and about, I am not going to ruin the day by, you know, not eating or saying we can't go and enjoy something fun because we would have to eat something that would be not good for us. I think that the 80-20 rule very much applies and just looking at the amount of worry and anxiety and how much works all of that is for health, I think so many of these things you just can't control. My name is Lisa, mother of nine and creator of the blog and YouTube channel Farmhouse on Boone. On this podcast I like to talk about simplifying your life so you can live out your priorities. I help you learn how to cook from scratch and decorate on a budget through this podcast and my courses Simple Sourdough in the Simple Sewing Series. I also help people reach their goals from home through my business course YouTube Success Academy. I will leave links to these resources in the show notes in the description box below. Now let's get into the show. Welcome back to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Today I'm going to be taking more of your questions over on the Google sheet. I have Miss Miriam in my lap again because that's how podcasts are done these days. So first we'll start with a little bit of a house update. The house was on pause for about two or three weeks. I knew it could probably run into a situation like that with our windows but because of when the electrician came and all of the things that go on behind the walls took a little bit longer as well. There was really only about two or three week pause with the house build which was great because I kind of thought it would be a lot longer. The second set of windows, we basically ordered our windows in two different parts for various reasons but the second set took quite a while because we decided to go with Linced Oil paint and so there was some extra prep work when it came to that but they are finally in and now there's really nothing else that we have to be waiting on to move full steam ahead on everything. So by the time this episode comes out we'll be in the middle of insulation maybe even beginning on the drywall paneling all that kind of stuff. So I think that we'll be moving really quickly. I'm excited to move inside. We have not done anything inside yet except for the electrical and all that kind of stuff but it still looks like a house with studs and soon that won't be the case anymore. Things will actually start feeling real. Luke and I decided that we both kind of feel like moving in like a hypothetical thing. It doesn't feel real that we're ever actually going to live there just doing this process for so long. I know it's really not in the grand scheme of things very long at all but it feels like we've been in the middle of it for a really long time. It seems crazy that we actually could be moving in in the next I don't know three months. Is that naive to think if we are doing insulation here in the next week or so? I don't know we'll see but we are moving ahead on all of that and I'm excited to pick out the interior things. Those are things that I really thought about a lot at the beginning of this process. Started making pincher sports all of that and then realized oh this is way too soon. It's not time for this. So I've totally put it on the back burner completely out of my brain but I'm going to have to get my brain back excited about all of that because I wasted a lot of energy on that upfront thinking oh we're building a house. I need to know the paint colors and really that's like so far down the line if you are planning to build a house. There's a lot of things to consider long before you think about what kitchen faucet and paint colors you're going to put on the cabinets. In a few weeks my friend Ann from storied underscore interiors over on Instagram is going to be in town and she's going to come over and help me pick out colors because I've told my sisters this many times but I have a certain style that when I see it in books when I see it online on Pinterest I really gravitate toward it and love it but then I end up choosing colors and different furniture pieces and art and all of the elements that make up a beautiful room. I end up kind of choosing familiar things, safe things, easy things that don't really actually contribute to that style and I feel like Ann really does a good job of putting together a room in this kind of relaxed country look that I'm going for, very collected and I want to have someone talk me out of choosing like just blues and greens even though those colors are beautiful I know that that's I'll just end up making the same room that I've always made and I I want to there's like a different style that I'm trying to capture and I know it'll take a lot of time but I also would like a little bit of help achieving that and Ann's really good at it and she lives somewhat close in her brother I believe lives near where I live and so she's going to be in town and it's going to be perfect timing because as of right now it all feels very abstract to me and I know I can picture it I'm pretty sure Ann can also picture it as well but it'll be better when we actually see the wall material up and considering the colors through that lens so that's going to be really fun I'm going to try to share more about that on my YouTube channel and on here the whole process of creating our new old house if you're new to this podcast and you want to catch up on the whole new old housing you can go over on farmhouse on boon the YouTube channel I recently shared that I went and got a bunch of architectural salvage for our home I also did a walkthrough of the entire property on a different video recently shared a lot of building updates and then if you scroll all the way back to when we first started building and I shared the design plans it's really fun just to see kind of where it started and then the whole process of how it is where it is now nowhere near done but we are working toward it okay let's jump into some of the questions I glanced over these briefly before starting this episode and this one stood out to me it's something I think about all the time as a mom who is 40 years old I have a range of children from 17 down to just three months I have been a mother of small children in a lot of different environments as far as the culture the world the internet and there are so many differences and it's hard for me to fully understand what it would be like to first be a mom in this day and age because although I am a new mom to a new baby not a new mom but though I do have small children as well I have a four year old a two year old a baby so I'm kind of in the trenches with all of that I also have the perspective of becoming confident in my motherhood through a time when we didn't even have internet service at our house didn't have smartphones I relied on the wisdom of people I can ask around me books and that's about it now of course blogs came around a few years into that but trying to figure it all out with this sea of information has to be just so wild so let me read the question hi Lisa I've so enjoyed your podcast since becoming a mom thank you for all you share and your encouragement since my baby was born I've struggled with some anxiety and potential OCD realm worries about all the toxins in our lives from food ingredients to EMF to tick bites to hazards of lead or PFA's how do you keep it all in perspective on a related note my husband and I just moved to a lovely home that had some architectural salvage items which we learned were unfortunately very high-let it really triggered a lot of my fears for my baby we are working to get rid of it all and I wonder if you've had this concern with any of your beautiful salvage items in your new old house thanks and God bless you and your family so I think the way that I'm able to put it into perspective is actually just practically looking at what life has looked like for the last 17 years since becoming a mom now some people call this survivor bias so take it for how you will it could just come off as dismissive but when you've had a child that you didn't know about any of these things now of course we've known about lead for a really long time I believe our first house we might have had it tested for lead but it was an old house as well but so many of the other things you mentioned we didn't know about like I did not know about PFA's or didn't really understand that there was any concern with EMF and tick bites that's just something that you know as a Missouri person my whole entire life ticks are just a common thing that you that happen all the time so I just kind of approached it practically you know we check the children for ticks before bed when it's summertime there's occasionally one that you look through their whole body and you miss one and you realize oh no that's been on there longer than I'd hoped it would have and you just pray that there's nothing that happens but then the survivor bias part that comes in is so far we haven't had really any issues from that and we have healthy kids so on another example something I used to be really worried about was use of antibiotics now I'm not saying I'm okay with using antibiotics but there was a situation recently where it was actually already been probably a year and a half maybe even close to two years ago now maybe more than two years I can't remember where my oldest daughter after having her wisdom teeth removed and we didn't do the antibiotics for that but about a month or two later she developed an infection in one of the spots where she had the wisdom teeth removed and it was you know her face was swollen she had a fever it was obvious that it was an infection that we needed to use antibiotics like those are things back in the day which back in the day you didn't have your wisdom teeth removed but if you got an infection way back in the day you just died so of course you know we use the antibiotics and as a mom who is very busy has a lot of things going on I didn't really give it very much thought whereas when I was a new mom that would have been kind of an all-consuming thing like oh no I've just ruined her gut for basically forever now she's going to be so sick it's gonna mess her up forever and it's something that you know you knew you had to do and she took probiotics for a little bit afterwards but we haven't seen any effects from that she's not sicker she doesn't have any digestive issues we still have her on a healthy diet that all of our family is on food from scratch lots of whole grains raw milk sourdough all that kind of stuff and she's she hasn't had any issues at all so I think ultimately you do the best that you can and worrying doesn't add what does it say in the Bible like a qubit to your stature or a minute to your life or something like that so practically it doesn't make sense to worry about things you can't control tick bites you can't control outside of just not going outside which has to be way worse in every way possible for your mental health for physical health but that would be the only way yes you can wear long pants yes you could use some kind of natural bug spray but even still if you live in areas that have a lot of ticks and you're outside you're going to get a tick bite and so it just doesn't make sense practically to worry about that to worry about pfa's regarding the pfa's and I think pfa's are like are we talking about oils or that's poofas polyunsaturated fatty acids I don't know so I think that's what you're talking about there but so our take on anything like that is we cook healthy at home and if we are anywhere else we don't worry about it so if we're out and about and I didn't pack lunch which usually when we're out and about I do pack a lunch but if something came up we're out and about I am not going to ruin the day by you know not eating or saying we can't go and enjoy something fun because we would have to eat something that would be not good for us I think that the 80-20 rule very much applies and just looking at practically the amount of worry and anxiety and how much worse all of that is for for health I think so many of these things you just can't control and it takes so much of the joy of motherhood out when you're worried it when I was a young mom we didn't have I didn't know about pfa's take bites I don't even feel like I worried about that until many years later probably because we heard so much about it online but before that I don't even know if I check the kids every night but the last several years check the kids every night I definitely have way more anxiety about it now than I used to but back when my first was born I don't think I even worried about that for so many years I definitely didn't worry or have a clue what pfa's were EMF we had our own things to worry about I remember being worried that if I didn't get her on a certain sleep schedule she would never sleep on her own and there's a lot of perspective that comes from having older children and seeing okay I did this this time I did this this time and turns out they both sleep fine by H2 pretty much no matter what I do and so when you have that perspective it is really so life changing so if you have any older mothers around you that you could you know ask if they had any advice or could pour into your life I think that's another valuable thing now something that I did when I was a young mom and a lot of young moms tend to do is not humbly seek that kind of advice like when moms would tell me when my oldest was a baby oh you can't spoil a newborn I really literally just thought that they were wrong it's like well yes you can because if I pick her up every time she cries then I'm going to teach her that you know you have these like silly things and if you're an older mom and you hear a young mom say that you're just like seriously so if you could humbly approach a older mom locally that you could actually connect with in real life who has been there who could give you that perspective when you don't have perspective yet I think that could help a lot because you'll find that there's just so much to worry about these days and a lot of it just probably will make almost no difference now with that being said of course I'm a mom who believes that what we cook in our homes what kind of toxins like that we can actually control I think that's all great like I don't want to fill the air with harsh cleaning products we don't use anything scented I have unscented candles unscented shampoo and conditioner I do what I can we cook from scratch I mill grains we like sourdough all that kind of stuff but for the things you can't it just it's going to take the joy out of it and it probably won't even make that big of a difference if the core things that you're doing the whole 80-20 year old thing are things that you are actually prioritizing best resources for learning to use a woven wrap I've used a stretch your wrap for my babies but want to expand to woven also have you ever dealt with oral restriction slash tongue ties with your babies and had to address nurse nursing issues related to them okay so the woven wrap to be honest I only really do one type of tie and it works fabulously all the way until a baby won't go in the wrap anymore so I use it pretty much around the clock when my babies are between you know zero to around seven or eight months I start getting them down for some naps and then when we're out and about beyond that all the way until they're about 18 months depending on the baby and the temperament I can get them asleep in a woven wrap if we need to like in a pinch if we're out and about and they have to have a nap whereas like my two year old right now he is okay if we're out and about all day to just not do a nap at all he might you know fall asleep for a few minutes in the car something like that but he can make it whereas when you have like a one year old up to 18 months they have to have that nap the woven wrap looks great for that so it's actually a very simple tie it is reverse of a stretchy wrap so if you've used a sally or a moby or a boba you will put that middle panel around the center and then tuck in the ends of it the long ends behind it and then tie it all around you like wrap it around your back tie it and then put the baby in whereas with a woven you put that middle panel over and then you put the two long tails instead of tucking it in they go over then you put the baby on before you tie it the rest of the way and the reason I love this about a woven wrap is you adjust it to the size of the baby so you get the baby in that center panel and then you start pulling the two long tails up over your shoulder until it's very tight on the baby so it adjusts to what size the baby is whereas with a stretchy wrap the goal is get it as tight as you possibly can before putting the baby in because they stretch it out and then they sag down and if you ever find that you're unable to get things done with a stretchy wrap you just have it way way way too loose you have to tie it way tighter than you think you need to the cool thing about a woven wrap is you figure that out because the baby is in while you're adjusting it and then you tie it on the rest of the way while the baby's in there so another thing about the woven wrap is unlike a stretchy wrap where I wear it as my shirt almost the entire day I never take it all the way off because you tie it completely before putting the baby in I take it on and off so I might wear it for a few hours for the morning nap and then I will hold the baby or you know one of the siblings will hold the baby and talk to her while she's awake between that time so I like it for that I like it because it's more supportive it works very well even if you have a very large baby it doesn't stretch out it's very comfy and soft and it feels you know it conforms the baby but it's not stretchy so I like that they are very adjustable for like you can use it on your back and that's a really great advantage of a woven wrap but that's not something I've done a whole lot of I have done it but if you asked me to do it right now this exact moment I wouldn't even remember how to do it I have to look it up whereas that front carry I think they call it a front wrap cross carry something like I don't even know but it's just like the basic tie I use it over and over again they're so cozy in there you can tuck their little head in on one side panel so they can take their nap I usually try to switch their head around so that they're not always facing the same way and you want to avoid that but other than that I love it that's the only wrap I'm using this time around I get a lot of questions on YouTube of like a lot of I must be older people because I feel like if you had a baby you would know the answer to this question but I always get people who say well why don't you put the baby down like while you're cooking and while you're doing things around the house why don't you put the baby down so many reasons one is babies don't like to be put down I mean I know some babies do people are like well my baby did yes some babies I've never had one all of my babies like to be held I think most babies do if you have one that likes to be put down I think that's probably more the exception to the rule I think most people it's a struggle to get you know cooking done laundry done playing with the other kids getting other kids dressed taking other kids to the bathroom there's all kinds of little things you have to do with a toddler that you need to you know be able to do while also having the baby and a lot of babies won't let you put them down and so you feel a little bit trapped like I can't do anything well the wrap takes care of all of that you tie the baby on and they get to go about your day and it's a very great learning experience because they get to interact with all the things that you're doing here you talking you know I think it's a good thing I think that's why babies kind of demand to be held it's because they need it another reason is practical the way our house is currently set up our kitchen is very set apart from the rest of the house it's there's like a hallway a way from the kitchen to the dining room and to the library and then you have to go all the upstairs to go to our bedroom so there would be nowhere in the kitchen which is where I find myself most often to set the baby and then if there were I would have to constantly move the little thing whatever it would be if it was like a swing or a pack and play one it would be majorly in my way because we have a tiny kitchen so I need the baby kind of like out of the way of the children running about everywhere they'd step on her and then too I don't have to constantly move like baby holding apparatuses throughout the house and so just for so many practical reasons in this current stage of life with the age that the baby is just to put her in the wrap now I do also have several siblings who love to hold her primarily my 12 year old son he is like the current baby holder right now with the last child it was somebody else but this time that's who it is and so a lot of times when she's not in my wrap either my 12 year old son or my 10 year old son or my 17 year old daughter love to hold her they all do so it's really just practical to carry the baby around now when they are around five months and I can start putting them on my back fabulous because then they're getting bigger so they're kind of in the way of you standing at the stove standing at the countertop at the sink instead they're on your back and they can see around and almost even see more on the back so I'm looking forward to that time but right now this is what works easiest for us to get done all the things that we need to because you know there's that saying that goes around of babies don't keep which I agree babies don't keep and you know what happens even if you take every moment save her every moment they still don't keep and it's sad it's terrible and I love it night when I start laying in bed after getting the little kids in bed the teenagers are all just doing whatever they're doing around the house but just sitting there with the baby not in the wrap doing nothing else I love that but people will say you know leave the laundry leave the dishes leave the cooking for another time that would work if you had a very short phase of babies being babies but in our family we've you know this is just how it's worked out for us we have a 17 year age gap between the oldest and the youngest so I can't imagine what kind of disarray there be by now if we just neglected everything for 17 straight years and so because of that you know there are things that we have to take care of the other kids and they're just happier in the wrap most babies some some aren't that way but most are okay so that was a long explanation on why I love the woven wrap so much and I'm sure there are some really great little tutorials on the let me just double check that's what it's called yep F W C C I'm right front wrap cross carry look that up that's what I do I think the more you do it the more you figure out like how to get them really comfortable how to get them tight and secure so if the first time you do it you don't have them tight and secure just carry on also if you find that your wrap is not as comfortable it's scratchy just know that woven wraps get more soft and just comfy the more times you wash and dry them so just continue on I'm convinced you'll love it anybody I've introduced to it in real life personally loves it as far as the tongue ties um I have interestingly I dealt with it for four kids in a row so first four nothing then four more all tongue and lip ties and then marry him nothing I have no idea why I'm sure it's probably one of those like health things that I'm ignoring there's probably some reason I'm to blame like we were talking about earlier there's always a reason for everything and I think that's what makes everything so stressful is there's always a reason for everything with moms these days my sister was telling me the other day that the reason you would have a more strong willed like defiant toddler is because if you had a more traumatic birth that's something that's going around these days I just I know it's anecdotal I know but the one that I find to be like the most difficult toddler of all the toddlers and my entire nine kids even though I can't say with Miriam yet because she's toddler yet so the most difficult toddler of the eight super easy relaxed birth like pain-free birth so anecdotally not true for me you don't have to blame yourself for literally everything like if you have a toddler that's you know toddler-ish so they throw fits we just don't blame yourself if they're a toddler that's just normal like toddlers they're smart because they're no longer babies and they know what they want but it's always a bit like what they want is usually a bad idea because they're also not smart enough to make their own decisions so I don't live by themselves and there's just that tension there of like I want what I want and I know best and then the parents like no I know best and that's just part of toddler life and if you have a defiant one it's just normal okay that was a that was a distraction there from the tongue tie thing so again I'm sure there's some deficiency that I had for those years that I had those four kids because it is kind of weird there's four that didn't four that did and then one that didn't I don't know I'm sure it was some divide them in deficiency or whatever but all those kids are fine and we did do the reversals on all four of them now I know that's also controversial but at the time it's just what my midwife recommended the first time around when we first had a tongue tie on that fifth born child we took him to a local place that like it was just so much worse than the other time so that they had this thing where they like laser it and then you have to stretch it it was absolutely awful the three after that the I switched midwives and this midwife just snipped it really quickly I put them on the breast they nursed wonderfully and I never had to stretch it or do anything else and the nursing was fine so it was like one was like such a big deal and then the other three were literally no big deal it was just done in my home I didn't have to do any extra stretching or anything and so I if we ever dealt with a tongue tie again that's just what we that's what I thought we would do with Miriam because I just assumed because of the four before her that she would have a big issue too I think my one prior to her had a tongue and a lip tie and we did reverse both of them but with Miriam I just assumed we would and I assumed we would just do that thing where she just quickly cuts it I nursed her it's no big deal but she didn't have any issues at all I am definitely an advocate of nursing I think that you know it's easier on the mother because it's convenient it's always right there it's obviously healthy it adapts to the different ages of the babies and what they need and so when necessary I you know I'm sure there's a lot of opinions on this very strong ones sometimes it simplifies things just take the advice of a provider you trust so I had a midwife I trusted and that's the route we took for those four I would definitely not go back to doing the whole thing we did with our fifth born that was just like way too much now I have had a lot of nursing pain with all but two of my children and it didn't always go with tongue ties because sometimes it wasn't a tongue tie one that I had nursing pain and then with Miriam she had no tongue tie at all she is so like her tongue goes all the way up I'm like wow you have literally nothing under there but she the first two weeks were extremely painful for nursing and you know that it after that those two weeks everything's great but that's been my experience almost all my kids tongue tie or not the first two weeks is very painful and then after that it's it's no big deal so that's been my experience okay hi Lisa I would love to hear you talk about newborn life I recently had my second and keep thinking I've at least I has this all down to a science after nine kids I know you baby we're nearly all the time do you pay attention to wake windows during the day do you wake your newborn up to nurse during the day or wait for them to wake on their own I'm assuming you coast leaps since you said you didn't bring a crib to New York we're trying to be for the first time it makes me nervous but it feels like the only way to get any sleep right now when do you typically transition them to a crib or best if ever I remember you saying you sleep train around one year old I'd love to hear any newborn rhythms you found to work well for you the newborn season just feels so chaotic and overwhelming to me okay well I wouldn't say I have it down to a science at all because it actually is just very intuitive you ask do I do wake windows I don't pay any attention whatsoever now with my first I did like I mentioned earlier I kind of ruined the first year of life um not I didn't ruin it but I don't have the fondest of memories with my first because I worried about all of those things and I know now after nine kids that you don't have to worry about them at all they will sleep you will not mess them up now it all depends on how serious you want to get about it at some point because at some point you want to sleep train but it takes a couple days so you have to worry their whole like first year of life about doing all of these things because I've seen people who get their kid on a really great schedule and then something changes and then they have to do it all over again and it's this big stressful thing and I've done it too or you can just not do it at all and then when they're old enough for it to not go back and forth you can kind of just do it and that's what I've always done and it's worked fabulously so I don't pay any attention to wake windows I never wake a baby to nurse now if you have a really tiny baby or they have jaundice or some other condition I would just go with your pediatricians recommendations on that but once they're passed like two or three weeks usually all those things are ironed out no never ever even consider it I just put her on the breast anytime she's fussy is what I do so they're in my rap sleeping and then when they get really fussy and they start wiggling a lot I assume they're hungry and then if an hour later they're fussy again I'll just nurse again there's no need to think like oh it's been one hour it's been two hours I remember with my first daughter like having keeping track of like which side I nursed her from and how long has it been and did she have a wet and poopy diaper never worried about that beyond her I think there was like a product when she was little that people were like you should get this watch where it tells you what side that's over thinking it for most kids now I know somebody's gonna say oh we had this certain issue where if we didn't do XYZ but for most kids at least for all of my other eight kids this is worked this work just fine so just put them in the rap when they're tired if they're fussy just nurse like this whole podcast episode I'm just gonna nurse her because I can't be up and around in the rap which would be keeping her asleep because I'm sitting down recording a podcast episode so because of that I'm just gonna need to latch her on the entire time but that's totally fine and then when I get up from this I'll probably put her in the rap or if I have a little bit more computer work to do all this keep her latched on and then if she wakes up about an hour after being in the rap because she's half sleeping right now half nursing then I will just nurse her again it's you can't over nurse no she does sp it up some but that's okay that's like the biggest consequence of her over nursing um let's see here yes on co-sleeping so that's something again like co-sleeping is one of those things where I am very confident very comfortable with it I've done it for nine children actually no that's that's not true I've did it for eight children my first I thought you know I just followed all the recommendations and I know there are those out there every time I talk about co-sleeping who are adamant that it's always always a bad idea and so I just want to give the disclaimer that it's not recommended and so you have to be comfortable with it I know one of my sisters was very uncomfortable with it but she discovered what you discovered that she could never sleep if she didn't do it and she read a book and I need to ask her what book that was on co-sleeping and how to make it safe because she was very very nervous about it she had always been a very heavy sleeper and so she read a book and this book convinced her that it was very safe under certain circumstances so you know certain types of blankets certain conditions like do not be drunk and co-sleep do not be super like there's a certain weight limit you should if you're over a certain obesity metric then it's not really recommended to co-sleep there's certain blankets you shouldn't use you know find some resources like that that will make you feel more confident but if you're wondering what I do yes I just put the baby in bed with me that's what I've always done and it it just really like doing all of these things makes the newborn phase feel easy truly like the toddlers don't feel easy but the newborns do and I had someone in my comments when I shared that Luke and I went to New York City because he surprised me with the 40th birthday trip that said like if if your newborns hard you know in your experience isn't like this just you're not alone and that I understand that like there's not everybody has the same experience but this has been my experience the eight times after how I did my first it was night and day difference and so I just have the the perspective of worrying about all of these things and then just kind of spoiling the baby for lack of a better word doing exactly what they want nursing them whenever they want wearing them whenever they want and holding them all the time seems like that's just what babies kind of want and I know with my first I worried that it would be impossible to ever get her to sleep if I did those things wrong and I know now that I was wrong about that and so when do I start putting them in a basket or crib usually it depends on the temperament of the baby so I've had anywhere from six months up to I'd say about nine months is when we start with naps and there is some crying when I lay them down there's some crying but they're old enough to need that sleep so usually what happens is at some point they stop sleeping very well in the wrap for me and for one of my sisters that's a very later date her baby sleep very well in the wrap all the way till they're one whereas mine started to get squirmy and curious and they no longer want to sleep in the wrap and so they're not getting enough sleep and it's just there becomes that time where it's like okay you need to lay down and sleep usually about two or three times to putting them down for an app they understand that when I get laid down here I need to go to sleep and so once we learn that it's pretty smooth sailing and then a few months later we do the same thing with overnight and the reason I wait until one is because if I go any kind of back and forth with nursing them overnight they start pushing it earlier and earlier so what I always what I thought would work earlier on with some of my babies is oh I'll I'll just only get them after say four am or something like that well they would then go to three a.m. two a.m. then they'd be back in my bed like after you know they keep pushing it back until they were just in my bed all night so I wait until one because I want to make sure that they are able to sleep the night through without nursing because I neither need to go all or nothing and I also have to be mentally ready for it if I go back and forth it makes it even harder it makes it to where we we we do it one night that we don't do it and that's just terrible because if you do it one or two nights it's done and they sleep through the night after that whereas if you go back and forth it's confusing it causes more crying it causes more stress and so for me if I can just wait until I know that they're old enough and they're okay not to nurse throughout the night we can kind of move in that direction that's what I did with all of my kids I know another thing that young moms really worry about and again I hate giving advice on stuff like this but I know it's so needed because I get asked about it constantly like the amount of DMs and emails I have about sleep because when you're in the thing of it it's like the only thing that you can think about because it's so hard but I hate doing it because I know that there are such controversial opinions when it comes to this but I did it but people will ask me like you know do you have do your children like hate you now are they traumatized because at some point you sleep terrain to them and my 17 year old and 15 year old aren't traumatized like they and of course there's probably like these little hidden things I don't know about and all this kind of stuff but they seem very emotionally regulated I think is the word we use these days they seem confident happy and connected and so for me this is definitely something I don't regret doing and it's something that is practical because at some point kids and parents have to sleep and so if you still have to nurse like I'm that people have different levels of their tolerance for this but I'm unwilling to still nurse a like three year old to sleep or to lay down until a three year old to sleep at that age you know I always have another baby and so I just at that age they need to be able to lay down in their crib of course we do books and we kiss them good night and all this stuff and they're they're happy and they know that we love them but I'm not going to like lay next to them till they are sound asleep quietly roll away when they are that age I'll do it for till while they're little babies and they don't know any better and they don't have object permanence and all that kind of stuff but then at certain point I'm just I'm just personally I think it's good for us if the baby or the child learns to fall asleep on their own so that's my little take on all of that I gave way more than you asked I keep seeing your blog course mentioned but cannot find it even in the newer videos is it still available I am so sorry we forgot to change the intro for this podcast for a really long time and I actually do not offer the blogging course any longer the reason for that is it was way too difficult to update it so much has changed in the blogging world and I simply do not have the time to basically remake the entire course and so I stopped offering it we're actually working on soon we're going to be phasing out the youtube course as well and I'm just going to be doing my homestead type courses so we have a sewing course a freshly milled grains course sourdough and fermented foods those don't really change I can add to them as I learn more things but I don't have to go back and redo them and that is just what I need in this phase of life so we're going to be phasing out all business courses because of that okay highly say no organic foods are important to you but do you ever buy non organic foods for example if you're in a pinch and there's not an organic item stock or if there are some foods that you like but they're not organic you mentioned having cravings for hot and ice cream in your recent podcast so you will find that I definitely will buy non organic in a pinch like anytime well a lot of produce if it's not in the summer and somebody has it locally at the farmer's market or something that's really the only way for me to get organic where I live as far as produce now Azure standard I can get it from there as well but do I sometimes forget to order enough for the monthly order and have to get it from Walmart yes of course and so I do I do not worry about that now I do try to get it from Azure standard but if I forget to place my monthly order or if I run out of something it is yeah I'm not above a non organic food I do try to choose it when possible and then like you said hoggendas yeah I don't worry about that that stuff it has good clean ingredients other than the non organic aspect of it I will take one more and I'll save the rest of these for another sole episode how do you do bedtime with multiple littles without taking hours I have three three and under and a seven year old who all need assistance going to sleep and or waking up multiple times in the night okay so the bedtime routine part we do as groups so the oldest four I'm referencing them as I'm referring to them as the teenagers but really the youngest is 10 in that group and then my son is almost 13 and then we have 17 and 15 they don't really have a bedtime routine anymore they kind of like it's way different for them so then we have eight six four and two they're in a group and it was me handling that before I had Miriam this is what typically happens for us it's not like the spoken thing like okay now you get bedtime routine but it just kind of happens because usually it'll be the time of night where she will need me to just lay down and nurse her I find that a lot of my kids there's a certain time of night where they no longer want to be in the wrap they just want to be in bed but they need assistance with that and so when that happens typically Luke will take over the bedtime routine with those other four and I will handle the baby but before that before I had Miriam over the summer I was handling that just because I enjoy it I will sit down with those four and read a book to them or several books depending on how early we get to the bedtime routine now if it's too late I will tell them this is not a booknight we did XYZ instead so they know you know if it's an hour past their bedtime because we did XYZ we were at so-and-so's house and we had a fun time also this is just isn't a booknight because you know we already had the fun and now it's time for you to go to sleep but if we get up in a certain amount of time and we can spend 30 minutes reading through some books or a chapter of a book that they like we'll do that a lot of times the two-year-old will start to become you know jumping all over us and he's tired and needs to go to bed so in between you know one book and the next we might put him in his spot and then continue reading to the other three and then that's about it that might take 30 minutes to put on the jammies brush the teeth if we need baths that usually we'll start that earlier read the book and then walk out of the room but like I mentioned earlier I'm unwilling to lay with each child until they fall asleep and we're pretty strict I'll say we're strict but this has been back and forth ideally we're really strict about them staying in their beds especially the four-year-old so the four-year-old and the two-year-old were strict about them staying in their beds the older two the eight and the six if they get up you know to do something they're still able to put themselves back in their bed and go to sleep whereas the four-year-old if he comes out for something we can eat water or something like that then you know I need to put him back in his spot and cover him back up and fluff the blanket and all those little things that toddlers come up with so usually what I will do is I will say okay we did the water we did the teeth we did the jammies we did the book now it's time for you to stay in here we've done all the things and now you need to stay in your bed I don't wait until they're asleep because you know you got other things to do if you have all little kids you're in the season of life where you get to put kids down nice and early whereas when you have older kids and teenagers there's always people up which is fine because they can take care of themselves but those quiet moments that you have alone right now at bedtime that's a fleeting season of life and yeah I would just I would just have them go to bed on their own um I'm not willing for bedtime routine to take hours I don't think it's necessary I don't think it's a bad thing to be able to tell children that you know they just need to go to sleep they don't need to learn to self-soothe I think part of the reason that um kids well I don't know about kids I know the reason why babies wake multiple times a night because they fell asleep with me getting them to sleep and they just sort of stir and realize oh she's not there anymore and they cry and I imagine kids would do that too if we are getting them to sleep as opposed to having them fall asleep on their own that could be the reason for that it's definitely the reason for babies and it's something that I deal with all the way until they're one because like I said I wait until one but we have some really rocky months between about eight months and one because of that whole thing like they're no longer co-sleeping that great but they need me to fall asleep and at some point you have to teach them to fall asleep on their own and if you don't they're gonna need you all throughout the night every time they notice they're a little tiny bit awake like where's mom where's mom she was here whenever I fell asleep where is she now and so I think it will really help if they learn how to fall asleep on their own and I think moms these days feel really guilty about that and I don't think that was a thing back in the day like I think moms were allowed to just go put the kids to bed and then move about their day or their evening or whatever not their day but their evening seven eight o'clock you know when you put the kids to bed I don't think people felt like they had to like actually get them to sleep and I think these days we're so worried that we're going to ruin them if they're ever upset like at all that um we think that we we have to have this really long drawn out bedtime routine and we just don't do it in our home so all right well as always thank you so much for listening and I will see you in the next episode of the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast. Thanks as always for listening to the Simple Farmhouse Life podcast my husband Luke and I and our kids worked together side by side on our little homestead and use our blog podcast and YouTube channel to reach other home makers home cooks and home setters with practical recipes and daily family life for everyday sourdough recipes make sure to check out our blog farmassambune.com and to dig deeper we do also offer a course called Simple Sourdough over at bitbitbit.ly forward slash farmhouse sourdough course that's all one word bit.ly forward slash farmhouse sourdough course if you're looking to learn how we earn it in come online check out my youtube course at bit.ly forward slash farmhouse youtube course all one word.