How do I Know I am Bonded with my Baby?

Stefan Molyneux

A listener writes: "how do I know if I have a strong bond with my 13th month old son? What can me and my wife do about his sleeping schedule since he still wakes up 3-4 times per night to feed. My wife doesn’t want to sleep train him because she fears the bond between her and him will be negatively impacted but she hasn’t had a full nights rest in 6+ months. Thank you."  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00All right. Great question from a listener. How do I know if I have a strong bond with my 13-month-old

00:05son? What can me and my wife do about his sleeping schedule since he still wakes up three to four

00:10times per night to feed? My wife doesn't want to sleep. Train him because she fears the bond

00:15between her and him will be negatively impacted, but she hasn't had a full night's rest in six or

00:19more months. Thank you. Well, a difficult and sensitive topic. I will, as usual, ride rough

00:29short all over it. No, I'm going to do my best. This is a delicate and sensitive subject,

00:34and I myself received and took to heart a lot of criticism back in the day. My daughter is going

00:41to be 17 next month, but way back in the day, at the beginning of these things, the beginning of her

00:48life, she was not a sleeper. I remember in the hospital, I remember the first night she was with

00:58us. She slept beautifully, and we heard all of the other babies crying, and she slept really nicely,

01:07and then that was it. That was all, and there was no more sleeping to be had after that. And she

01:17never liked going to bed. She never liked being alone, and she always wanted to be held,

01:26to be chatted with, and to be read to, and to be cuddled, and she was just, I mean, say ferociously

01:32bonded, but that's kind of an oxymoron. But my daughter was not a sleeper, and she's never been

01:39much of a sleeper as a whole. And my wife, of course, was breastfeeding, and so she would be up,

01:51as you say, a couple of times a night at least. And as she colloquially put it, throw a poop at her,

01:57so that my daughter would feed and go back to sleep, and all of that. Now, I did my best. I would

02:04obviously take care of my daughter during the day, and give my wife the chance to nap, and get her rest

02:13in. But it was, it was, it was not, I mean, obviously, we were thrilled, and overjoyed, and

02:19happy to be parents, but it was not, it was not good as far as sleep went. But what we did, and I'm

02:29sure you've done the same thing too, but just for those of you who aren't parents, what we did was we,

02:33we read, right? When I have a challenge or a problem, I, I go to book. I go to the book.

02:41That is how I roll. So, going to book, for me, means cracking everything that I could possibly find

02:51with regards to sleep issues with babies. And one of the books that had a further profound

02:59influence on my family was called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, or something along those lines.

03:06And it said then, I remember this sort of very clearly, it said that if there are babies that

03:13have sleep issues, and they don't resolve the sleep issues, they don't figure out the sleep issues,

03:20then those babies will end up, and the last thing I think they studied them up to was like college age

03:26or something like that, and the baby still had issues sleeping in, in college. They still had issues

03:33getting a good or full night's sleep. And we then hired a doula, which is a sort of baby

03:40sleep expert who guided us through how best to have our daughter learn to self-soothe, learn to sleep

03:48through the night. And, oh, it was, you know, it was beyond horrible. I mean, it's, you know, I've done

03:54some tough things in my life. And that was, that was one of the tougher, if not the toughest.

04:04Because, you know, your every instinct is to go in and, and be with your child and comfort her and

04:09she's crying and she's helpless, right? I mean, that's a horrible thing. Of course, when you're a

04:14kid, you're a baby, you're helpless. Because, I mean, you can't get out of your own crib. I can't

04:21remember exactly how old my daughter was when we did the sleep training, but she was very,

04:28very young. Definitely, I think it was before eight months of age. So, it took a while, not

04:38savagely long or anything like that. And again, my wife would know all of the details, but it certainly

04:44was not more than a week or two before my daughter was sleeping much better. And we got

04:52sort of back on track into some sort of saner family existence. And some of the thoughts that

05:01I had about it was that, look, you have to enjoy parenting too. And if you're exhausted

05:07the whole time, you're not really there as much for your, your kids as if you're rested. Now, again,

05:14you understand that, and we all understand that it's a, it's, it's going to be tiring and odd

05:20for the first while. And, you know, that, that varies. I mean, some, some babies sleep very well.

05:26My daughter was just unusually active, I remember, even when she was crawling. When we would go,

05:33we would go to the library, uh, to, to sort of chat with other parents and to meet people. And

05:38there were bubbles and story time and so on. There was sort of a, a gathering together at the library.

05:46And I remember, uh, I remember being tired to the point where I shouldn't laugh. It was a little

05:54funny. There was, um, a little, uh, Arabic toddler there and he was building up these towers, uh,

06:02of blocks and knocking them down. And I'm like, Oh, your son really likes knocking those towers down.

06:07And of course it being a sensitive subject, um, I got a look and you know, what am I going to say?

06:12I mean, it was not the most delicate thing I've ever said in my life, but obviously I meant nothing by

06:17it, but my daughter, when we would go to these library afternoons, uh, literally every single

06:25child. And, you know, I, I, a lot of parents say, well, my kid was exceptional or unusual or different,

06:30but I'm telling you, like, I mean, we have video of it somewhere, but every single child

06:35was sitting babies, toddlers, uh, all the way up to about four or so. They were all sitting

06:42very nicely in their mother's laps. There was an occasional dad there and listening to the story

06:51and maybe playing with their feet a little and you know, that kind of stuff, yawning a few of them

06:56sleeping, of course. Uh, but not my daughter. Uh, my, my lovely, charming daughter was doing

07:01none of that, had no interest in that whatsoever. She would crawl all over the library room. I remember

07:07she climbed up and she was playing with the taps in the sink, uh, and, uh, just, you know, uh,

07:14wanted more bubbles. And if there was a balloon around, she would play with the balloon, almost no

07:19interest whatsoever in sitting with the other kids at the babies, the toddlers and listening

07:25to a story. Now she liked stories. Uh, I had a book of, uh, fairy tales that I read to her that

07:33she very much enjoyed. Uh, she loved the, you know, the big bad wolf, huff and I'll puff and I'll blow

07:38your house down. She loved my fee-fi-fo-fum, jolly green giant. Oh no, sorry, not jolly green giant,

07:45fee-fi-fo-fum, jack of the beanstalk, all that kind of stuff. And so she did enjoy stories,

07:51but just not, not those stories. Uh, and again, I mean, I shouldn't say again, but the woman who

07:57was reading the stories was, you know, she was fine at it. And, uh, she, you know, she wasn't

08:02quite putting heart and soul into it in the way that I was, but, uh, my daughter just didn't have

08:07any interest and she was just always active, always curious, always exploring. And it is,

08:15very, uh, funny and it is a source of almost endless delight to me, even up until now that

08:23if I've said anything that remote, remotely contradicts what I'm saying now, or if I've

08:28ever acted in a way that is not fully supportive of what I'm talking about now, she puts those

08:33two wires together in her brain. And I asked her this just the other day, like, does that

08:37just happen for you? And she's like, it just happens for me that she puts these, this wiring

08:41together in her brain and she can sniff hypocrisy from about 12.3 light years away. Uh, the only

08:48thing that travels faster than light is tachyons and my daughter's capacity to process hypocrisy

08:53and, uh, so on. It really was delightful. I mean, I've been having this debate and I've been

08:59talking to her about this debate of, are things true if you just accidentally say that they're true?

09:05And I was claiming something was true when I had mistaken something and she's like, ah, but your

09:11whole debate has been, you know, and she's totally right. It was, it was very funny. It was very

09:15funny. So she was a very active, very, very curious, didn't sleep, didn't like to go to bed.

09:23And I mean, I remember saying to my wife, like, that's a, that's a compliment to us, right? To

09:27mean that she's enjoying time with us. You know, the last thing you want is for your kid to be like,

09:30oh, I'm bored. I'm going to bed. You know, whatever you want to, you want them to want to

09:34stay up with you and spend time with you and so on. Right. But you know, the, the downside of being

09:40an engaged and fun parent is your kid never wants to go to bed, never wants to go to sleep. And listen,

09:46I'm not, I'm not going to complain about this because I can't complain about this. So there's

09:53two things I almost never experienced in this life because, you know, let's make it about me,

09:59but there's two things that I almost never experienced in this life. Number one, feeling

10:05full. I never experience feeling full from eating. I just have to say to myself, stop eating. And I

10:16don't know if it's because I grew up poor and hungry. I don't really know, but I just, I do not like,

10:21I'll, I'll experience physical fullness, but I never experienced like, like, you know, when you say,

10:27I can't eat another bite. I mean, I rarely eat to that degree. We had some people over for dinner

10:31last night and I did actually eat a little bit too much, but then we had a woman over who's

10:35studying baking and she made this amazing almond dessert. And I had two instead of one. I normally

10:42don't have any dessert, but I had two instead of one. Anyway, so I recognized, you know, sort of just

10:47based on physical, you know, Ooh, I'm full, I'm full. Right. But it's only because I can feel

10:52the fullness, not because I feel satiated. I can always eat more. I can always eat more.

10:58And so I have to tell myself to stop eating. And, uh, it's, I wouldn't say it's a big challenge.

11:04I'm kind of used to it by now, but yeah, so I don't experience being full and I almost never

11:09experience being tired and wanting to go to bed or needing to go to bed. Now, occasionally I will feel

11:16nappy. Uh, I'm was, was watching something with my wife earlier tonight and I dozed off for a few

11:22minutes because the couch was kind of warm and comfy. And that's the, but I'm never like, Oh God,

11:29I've got to get to bed. I'm so tired. And then I close my eyes. My wife does that. She's like, Oh my

11:33God, I got to go to bed. I'm so tired. She closes her eyes and falls asleep. Well, it's because she has

11:36a clean conscience because she's perfect. My angel. It's true. She is an angel, but I don't experience

11:43that. I have to, I go up and, uh, you know, when you get older too, like getting to bed, it just takes

11:48forever. Right? Like I have to brush my teeth. I have a little special toothbrush because I'm missing

11:54two teeth. So I've got to brush around the gums and then I've got to clean my night guards and bathe.

12:00And then I've got to, uh, I sometimes shave at night and I've got to moisturize. Oh, it just goes

12:06on and on. It's just like this endless, endless thing. But I don't experience being full and I don't

12:13experience being tired and needing to fall asleep. What happens is at some point I'm like, gee,

12:18I have to get up in eight hours. I should go to sleep. And I, you know, I, I put on, I have a,

12:25wear a sort of headband with, with little speakers in it so I can sort of listen to some sort of,

12:30some sort of calming audio book and then, uh, and, and, you know, I'll go to sleep, you know,

12:34I'll sleep, but I don't feel tired and have to go to bed. So I don't experience being full.

12:41And I don't know if this, I mean, it's probably not that interesting to you, but you know,

12:45a little, little slicey tidbit of my non-podcasting life. I do not experience being full and I do not

12:51experience being tired. I just stop eating and I go to bed because, you know, I need my sleep and

12:59not because I'm feeling tired. So my daughter, uh, she does, uh, experience feeling full, but she

13:07doesn't, uh, doesn't generally get tired, you know, yawn and want to go to bed, right? That is not

13:13what she does. She doesn't experience it. She doesn't do it. And certainly that was the case

13:19when she was a baby. So putting all of this together, my sort of decision process was this

13:26regarding sleep training. And please understand, obviously I don't need to say it, but I will,

13:31uh, none of this is advice for you and your family. I'm just talking about my reasoning and

13:35my experience. Individual results may vary, blah, blah, blah, right? But my sort of thought process

13:41was something like this. Um, it's dangerous to drive tired, right? It's tough to be as present

13:49and attentive and lively for your children, or in this case for our child, if we're exhausted.

13:58It's also bad for your health to be tired all the time. You need good sleep to restore brain

14:05function, to restore immune system function, to, you know, to keep you healthy. You need,

14:10you need good sleep. Sleep deprivation, as you know, is a form of an, and a pretty serious form

14:17of torture. So parenting should not be torture. Now, again, I understand that doesn't mean that

14:22you don't expect your cozy seven or eight hours when you have a new baby, but month after month,

14:29like you, you, you can't, uh, function very well. Your immune system gets compromised,

14:36your quality of life crashes, and you're not happy, and you're not as attentive or alert

14:44with regards to your children and all that kind of stuff, right? So it's not good. Now, I, and of

14:52course, my wife is, again, it's an angel, perfect angel. So she never got resentful, and my wife

14:57functions better on less sleep than I do. Uh, she's, uh, amazingly even-tempered. Well, a mental health

15:03professional, you'd, you'd kind of hope so, right? So my sort of case was, it's dangerous.

15:12You know, sleeping, uh, uh, driving while exhausted is, is a bad idea. Quality of life goes down.

15:19Enjoyment of your child goes down. Your child enjoyment of your life goes down because you're

15:23just tired all the time. And to my daughter, like, she, she would not only not go to bed,

15:28that she, she would, um, we had, we had a whole song. We are dancing, dancing with Isabella.

15:35And my wife would be, uh, carrying, my, my daughter didn't even like to be carried,

15:39like, facing inward. She never did the baby sling. Uh, she just fought like a terrier to get out of

15:44that. Uh, she always wanted to be facing either our faces or outside and have things shown to her.

15:49And my wife would be, like, two o'clock in the morning, like, dancing for an hour to try and soothe my

15:54daughter. We found that white noise helped a bit. I had an old computer that we would play white noise

15:58and that helped. And white noise is sort of like static or something like that. And that helped

16:03my daughter to, um, soothe and, and sleep and so on. But she just, just woke up. Now, my daughter

16:11in general, uh, woke up in a happy, positive, good mood. You know, like, uh, when she was older and

16:18standing in her crib, I would go in, in the morning when I'd heard her be, heard her be up. And

16:23I would, you know, she'd smile and, you know, big, big hugs and, and reach to come out and,

16:30you know, looking forward to her day. It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And a great,

16:35a great treasure. Like the, the simple trusting heart of a child is one of the great gifts of

16:40the universe to the occasionally scurvy human existence we call life. So we, after doing research,

16:49after talking to experts, after hiring a doula and getting feedback, uh, we did decide to sleep

16:56train. And it was at a time when my daughter could sleep through the night, right? You know,

17:01when they're young, they can't, they need their food. But, uh, again, we checked with the doctors,

17:05we checked with the experts, we got a doula and a doula and we just went through and, you know,

17:09we just let her cry it out. And yeah, it was tough. It does go against your instincts,

17:15for sure. For sure. But it works. Now, I mean, you say, I understand, well, but the child is,

17:24is, is scared. She's angry. She's upset. She's crying. Uh, and it's not just tears of sadness of

17:29also anger. Like, where are you? And all of that. And I, again, fully appreciate it. You know,

17:33tore my heart in two, like Velcro strips on a set of sneakers. But what happened was, uh, she,

17:40uh, quite quickly, and it was quite a rapid process, uh, was able to sleep through the night.

17:44In other words, she learned how to self-soothe, right? So when babies are born, right, they don't

17:49really have the ability to self-soothe. They require their parents to soothe them. And at some point

17:58over the course of our life, we have to learn how to self-soothe, how to manage yourself, how to talk

18:04to ourself, how to talk ourself down from, uh, stress or anxiety or anger or, you know, something

18:11that's helpful, but not productive. And it really was a challenging transition, but it worked really

18:20well. I mean, just again, my family's experience may not be yours, but it worked really well. It was

18:26very tough, but my daughter very rapidly learned how to self-soothe and learned how to put herself

18:33back to sleep when she woke up and slept pretty well and has since those, since that time, you know,

18:4316 odd years ago, uh, she has been a good sleeper. Occasionally, because I have to kind of judge how

18:52hungry I am without a particular cue of hunger. I don't even get particularly hungry. Like what was

18:59it last week? I, I didn't eat for like 24 hours and it was like, yeah, it was okay. You know, I don't,

19:05you know, my, my body wasn't like, oh my God, we're going to eat. Right. So it's just not a cue that I,

19:09I get in particular is, is hunger or social caution, but that's no, that's, I do get social

19:17caution. I just have to sort of grit my teeth and tell the truth and do the right thing, regardless

19:22of social caution. It's funny because, you know, British empiricism also comes with British, oh no,

19:28I don't want to offend people or upset people, but the empiricism has to win. And that's just the way

19:35to, so the people who are the most empirical also tend to be the most socially cautious,

19:40which is one of the reasons why empiricism has a tough time spreading because people get mad at

19:45empiricism for obvious reasons because they've got false beliefs. And so gritting my teeth and

19:51taking my sort of British empiricism and overcoming, you know, the natural British reticence to upset

19:57people, uh, and just saying, well, you know, like, I'm sorry that you're upset, but it's not my fault

20:01you've lied to. Like it just, you just have to reason your way through it. And, uh, I'm like,

20:05I'm sorry that you're upset, but it's not my fault. These are the facts, right? And they're

20:09important. So how do you know if you still have a bond? Well, the way that you know, and 13 months,

20:18right? Again, it's different for every kid. Sorry to keep repeating the obvious, but I don't want

20:22people listening to this and having this some sort of blueprint for their own lives, right? This is

20:25just my experience. But the way that you know that you're bonded with your kids is they really want to

20:34spend time with you, right? If they're indifferent to you, not that this would happen to my lovely

20:38listeners, but if they're kind of indifferent to you, uh, that's not great. So, you know,

20:44my mom wasn't just, uh, it was yesterday. My daughter was like, Hey, we should do a day in

20:47Toronto. And I'm like, yes, we should. Right. Cause she went to Toronto with some friends not too long

20:52ago and had a great time. And so I say, uh, yes, let us go. So, you know, the fact that she wants to

20:59go and spend a day, beautiful, you know, love it. Uh, it's like a treasure. And, you know,

21:06if I picked her up from somewhere and we're having a great conversation, she's like, Hey,

21:11can we just drive around a bit? I'm like, I normally don't because, you know, oh, gas expenses,

21:15but you know, we'll do it. Right. Cause we're having a great conversation. And sometimes,

21:19you know, sometimes the car, like you break it and you go in the house and it's just not quite the

21:22same. So you just keep it going. So, you know, obviously there doesn't help if you're, you know,

21:28sleep training a kid at 10 months or whatever, but in the morning, right. Or, you know, you,

21:33you, you make some concessions, right? So if the kid is sleep training, uh, you know,

21:38we didn't give my daughter more than six hours, I think, uh, in general, cause if she was up,

21:43right, then she's up and she's not, hasn't needed a huge amount of sleep for a lot of her life.

21:49Uh, unlike me, I need my sleep, but so, uh, in the morning, uh, are your babies and toddlers,

21:57are they happy to see you? Uh, is there the big smile? Is there the reach out? Is there the

22:02comfortable settling into the crook of your arm? Is there chatting and, and pleasantries and

22:07positivity and enthusiasm and happiness, right? That, that's, that's where the bond is.

22:13And children, like when they're toddlers, they don't know, they don't know prior to doing

22:22something difficult, how good that feeling is of mastering something difficult. They just,

22:27they don't know how good that is. When they learn to master things, they feel good, they feel

22:34positive. And then they have that excitement and that concentration. And now I got this, I'm gonna,

22:39I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna do it. Or as I famously said, there's a baby, leave me with

22:45what I'm doing. I was a very focused on solving problems on my own, which, you know, has, I think,

22:51stood me in fairly good stead over the course of my life. So when babies are babies, they don't know

22:58how good it feels to figure things out on their own. So when babies are babies, then they don't know

23:09that they can put themselves back to sleep. They don't know that they are now old enough that they're

23:16not going to be injured or sick or die or starve if they don't see their parents for six hours. I mean,

23:23then babies are newborn, right? They need to be fed every couple of hours. And them crying is like them

23:27trying to help you by reminding you of their need to feed so that they can stay alive and be healthy.

23:34So when babies are born, right, they follow those instincts. And those are good instincts to follow

23:38and necessary and helpful for the parents. But they don't know when that process ends.

23:44But when they can sleep for six hours or seven hours or whatever, and be fine, they don't know that.

23:51So given that they don't know that they can do it, is it okay to let them learn that they can do it?

23:59Right? Because you can't verbally explain to a kid who's pre-verbal by definition, right?

24:04Sorry. Again, I'm sorry to be so obvious about this stuff. But you can't explain to a baby,

24:10oh, you don't need to be fed every couple of hours anymore. Like, you're fine. You'll wake up.

24:17You're perfectly safe. And you don't need to eat or drink. You're in no danger. You can go back to sleep.

24:27But babies are so used to being comforted and cuddled and fed by their mothers, obviously, particularly at night,

24:32that they don't know that they'll be fine without that. They don't know that. So they cry, of course, right?

24:40And then their parents don't come. And eventually, they go back to sleep, and they wake up, and they're

24:47fine. Now, it might take a couple of days. It might take a week or two. I don't know. It really varies,

24:52I suppose. But at some point, they're like, they wake up in the middle of the night, and their brain

24:57pattern recognition system has kicked in to the point where they say, unconsciously or non-verbally,

25:02they say, oh, well, we've done this a bunch of times before, and we've been fine, right? I am not

25:08in danger. I will be fine in the morning. My parents still love me. They're around, right? I'll be fine.

25:17And again, you can't explain that to a baby. Maybe you could explain that to a toddler. But a baby

25:23can't have that communicated in any way that the baby's going to understand. So maybe, in this case,

25:30the baby has to learn empirically. I'm really scared and upset when I wake up at night,

25:36but everything's fine. I will wake up. I'm not actually that hungry. I'm just used to eating at

25:43this time. And I am awake. I'm used to having someone there. I'm used to people coming when I

25:51cry. They're not coming. And I panic the first time that happens, and I'm upset. And then you just

25:58grit your teeth, right? Because if you come in after 45 minutes, you're just training your baby

26:04to cry for 45 minutes, right? You really just have to lock in, double down, grit your teeth.

26:11And baby wakes up, very upset, crying, dark. They're scared, anxious, nervous, whatever, right?

26:18And they cry. And then eventually, they go back to sleep. You can't cry all night, right? Go back to

26:23sleep. And you wake up in the morning, and your parents are there. And everything's great. They

26:29love you. You have a great day. You're happy. You get your breakfast, you know, whatever, right? And

26:33you have your fun day, right? So, what happens to your baby's sense of, I can do it, if and when they

26:45go through this process, and they realize that they can put themselves back to sleep. They aren't in

26:50any danger. Their parents still love them. They still have these wonderful days together with

26:55their parents. And their health is good, and their strength is good, and their parents love them.

27:00And it was fine. That is a real accomplishment. You know, is it Charles Murray has a sort of thing

27:09with his kids? I don't think he's actually done it, but he sort of got this idea, you know, you should

27:13just go to a foreign country with like a thousand bucks in your pocket and just figure out how to make it

27:16work. You know, figure out how to get a job, you know, travel or, you know, do something useful or,

27:22you know, and just realize that you can handle things. And that's really important in life,

27:26just sort of realize that you can, you can handle things. That there's really, there's really not

27:32that much to be scared of in life. And how do you get that feeling? Well, you get that feeling by

27:39overcoming obstacles, right? And, you know, I don't mean to sort of bang the same drum, but hey,

27:45it has been 20 minutes. But why is it that kids are anxious and insecure and so on? Well,

27:54I think it's because, and maybe it's a boy-girl thing. I don't know. I can only speak from the

27:58boy standpoint, although it's worked pretty well with my daughter too. But from the boy standpoint,

28:03how do you feel good about yourself? Well, you master difficult tasks. And the more you can do it

28:10on your own, the better. You master difficult tasks. Whereas for girls, a lot of what they do

28:17to feel better, you know, sort of traditional, tons of exceptions. But for girls, what they do

28:22to feel better as a whole is they enjoy being praised. Good job. Well done. That's a pretty

28:30picture. That's a beautiful painting. That's, you know, good, you know, well, well done. They,

28:35they experience praise and praise. And this is not to say either one is right or wrong,

28:40good or bad. It's nothing like that. But it is kind of a pattern that boys overcome caution or fear

28:48or anxiety by mastering difficult things. And girls overcome negative or anxious feelings by being

28:57supported in what they do, by being praised, by being supported. And again, no shade, nothing wrong.

29:03Both men and women are beautiful. We are complimentary, but this is a kind of a general

29:08pattern that I've noticed. And so, but you can go too far with the praise. Like the praise is for

29:15early childhood. The praise is for early childhood. It is not for later on. The praise is for you draw

29:25some lollipop, some lollipop little figure with a tie on and you're two and you're like, yeah,

29:32good job. Right. But not when you're 22. Right. And you don't say good job because you have to,

29:37at some point, get out there in the world and be around people who aren't your parents. Right.

29:43The secret diary of Adrian Mole. Right. I only got one. I only got one Valentine's card,

29:50but it was with my mom's handwriting. So it doesn't count. So I get that, you know,

29:55I said the praises for when you're very young. But I do think that allowing babies and toddlers

30:01to figure things out on their own, because, you know, your temptation as a parent is to do things

30:06for them so that they don't get frustrated and upset and so on. Right. But learning how to deal

30:10with frustration is really important. Learning how to deal with anger is really important.

30:15Learning how to deal with fear, with anxiety, with rejection is really important.

30:20And the more that you do and survive, the more you know you can survive what you do.

30:28The fewer disasters that end up manifesting, the more risks you can take. Right. Because you get in

30:36this, oh, my gosh, I've been here before. Oh, my God, I thought this was going to be a disaster. I

30:39thought that was going to be a disaster and so on. Was it a disaster? No, it wasn't a disaster.

30:44It was fine. Right. And the more you take on risks and learn how to, you know, skate, you know,

30:53what speed skaters do. Well, they skate as fast as they possibly can without falling. Right. So

31:01it's easy to not fall as a skater. Right. All you have to do to not fall as a skater is, you know,

31:09cling to the railing and don't don't skate much. You won't fall over. But of course, you have to

31:17skate. And it's like skiing. Right. If you stay on the bunny hill. Right. There's a really,

31:22really beginner hill. Well, you're very unlikely to fall down. I can do single diamonds. I think

31:29it's a bit risky for me at this point in my life in particular to do double black diamonds. I can do

31:33single diamond skiing, but double black diamonds. My daughter doesn't, but I don't. It's to

31:39the cost benefit is is no longer no longer effective. So in life, right, you want to take

31:46on the maximum risk that you can without a catastrophe. Right. You want to sell if you're

31:56a manufacturing concern, you want to sell the maximum products before you can't fulfill the

32:00order. You can't get the raw materials away. You want to sell the maximum. Right. So the fact

32:06that I have done a lot of edge skating over the course of my career, like right to the edge,

32:12but not quite over. Right. That's because I learned how to do this as a kid with with with biking,

32:20with sports, with running, with skating, with skiing, all these kinds of things. Right. I learned

32:26how to manage the edge and the way that you learn to manage the edge is you have to go over sometimes

32:36so that you know when to pull back. Right. And I've got pretty good instincts. I think I think

32:40I've got pretty good instincts having spoken, you know, I think I think more truth, particularly as a

32:48white male, having spoken more difficult and dangerous truths over the course of my career

32:53than just about anybody else. And, you know, still standing and still broadcasting. And yes,

33:02of course, it's to a smaller audience. And it took a bit, I took a big financial hit and so on.

33:08But I mean, honestly, there's nothing better than a good conscience. There's no amount of money that

33:13would have me not like there's no amount of money that that would make up for having a bad

33:18conscience, like walking around with a bunch of goodies in some giant mansion would not would not

33:26be good, would not be a fun or positive thing for me. And I'm not saying that's true for everybody.

33:32I'm just saying that for me, having a good conscience is really, really important. And when

33:37you're given a lot of gifts, you do have to manage those gifts for the betterment of humanity,

33:42because it's, you know, my body, your body, our brains are a collective endeavor. So I think that

33:50learning to overcome these particularly big challenging obstacles is really important.

33:57And if your children sleep well, fantastic, right? But if they are, you know, really sleeping badly,

34:05and it's month after month, and it doesn't seem to be changing, and you got to drive and it's

34:09dangerous, and you're tired, and it's unhealthy, and your exhaustion level is there, and you can't

34:15really have much fun with your kids because you're too tired, like, at some point, it's like, okay,

34:20kid, I'm afraid you're going to have to learn how to self-soothe. And I know you can, right? I mean,

34:27nobody's talking about sleep training when the baby's a week old, that would be horrible, right? And

34:31dangerous. But, you know, if the kid can, if the baby can sleep through the night, again, I'm not

34:37talking like 12 hours, right? If the baby can do six, seven hours, let's just say six hours. If the

34:42baby can do that, then the baby can learn. And it's, you know, again, check with your doctor, you know,

34:49check with your specialists and all that. But if the baby can do it, then if the baby does do it,

34:55the baby gains confidence. And my daughter has good confidence that is realistic, right? It's not

35:02overconfident, which may be an improvement. It may be an improvement on me to some degree. I'm

35:09perfectly willing to take that possibility under advisement. But yeah, she's very confident, and

35:15she does really cool stuff that blows my mind. And, you know, does that go back to sleep training?

35:22I don't think it's the opposite. I mean, obviously, there's a lot else that's gone on since then.

35:26But I think it goes back to that. So I would say, certainly look into it and, you know, check with

35:33your healthcare provider. But if your healthcare provider says your baby can now make it for,

35:39you know, six hours without food, and you're exhausted, and it doesn't seem to be getting

35:43better, I think it's certainly a reasonable possibility and something that I think should be open to

35:52consideration, if that helps at all. All right. Thanks, everyone. I hope this helps.

35:58And we'll talk to you soon. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. Bye.

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