Katie Forrest. Ep 78

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode seventy eight. We'll be talking with our guest Katie Forrest today. Katie comes to us from the UK, where she is a criminal defense attorney who is running a busy practice there. She is also raising a special needs daughter, some very profound challenges with that. Her daughter's about ten years old, so we're going to be talking about that and also how she makes time to write novels on the side. So a lot going on. I We're very excited to talk to Katie. But first our introduction here, Sarah is saying that she wants to be thinking about superficial things we should do. Another episode perypes maybe in the future. Yeah, one of our more popular topics. Honestly, it was. It was true, I know. So I mean, I'm finally like back to my quote unquote normal post baby. So I am super I don't know, into reinventing my clothes because I realized that many of them are basically be moved. And I open this box and the box was like closed from pre pregnancy with Genevieve. So I guess that was from like, you know, end of twenty sixteen, early twenty seventeen, because it's funny pregnancy and recovery from pregnancy like that takes a long time because we're in twenty nineteen now. And while I was like, yeay they fit, I was kind of like some of that stuff was from several years prior to that, and it's like not super InStyle anymore. Yeah, so I think I'm like excited to go shopping because like I found a pair of low rise like corduroys and they were cute, but then they were like super low rise and like nobody wears this anymore, and also it's not doing me any favors. So so I get a shop. Where are your go to places? Well, I used to really love Boden. I think I am going to invest in. I've just every time I talk to anyone professional, it's like theory pants, theory pants, theory pants. I love my theory pants. I've never tried on a single pair of theory pants, but I feel like I'm in my normal ideal place body wise, So I'm going to get some theory pants and try them and see if they're actually as good as everyone says they are. And you buy petits usually, right, Yeah, I don't know if theory makes pettit. I mean that's the first question. I say. You have to find like retailers that have a really strong because Boden does. Like their petit dresses fit me super well, which is great. Anthropology has some petits. I wear a lot of made well, which they don't have a ton of petits, but somehow they seem to work. So yeah, I don't know about theory. I feel like they do though they must because people are just so adamant that they seem to fit everyone the best. Well. I have a pair of black theory pants, so yeah, I've born them many many times. So there you go. Uh, they're just pretty There we go straightforward black pants that that work. And so when you find a pair of black pants that work, you tend to keep wearing them. Well, I had the J Crew mini pants for a very long time, but that was like a style that they had for a long Okay that they even still had it, because again I've got this weird gap of like pregnancy covering all that. But they were good. But they were dry clean only, and I cannot handle that. So I don't know if the Theory pants are all dry clean only. I'm not sure I'm on board. Yeah, they maybe I'm dry clean mine. I mean, well, it's really hard to do dress pants that aren't, though I mean I know there are some. I have a pair of m and Lafleur that you can put in the wash and then just don't put them in the dryer, although sometimes I mean the thing is when we do our laundry, like my husband and I are both whoever is there will move it. So I have to put a big post it note on the washing, you know machine doors put my theory, but do not put these in the dryer. But it's a yeah, I'm not sure how big the post it note would have to be because I put everything in the dryer, and I just like whatever, it's yeah, yeah, I don't know. So I'm not been into clothes so much lately. I probably need some new ones. Maybe it's just I'm tired with my wardrobe. Oh you showed me beautiful stuff that you got for your well, that's more fancy stuff that you got for your birthday, that's true. I went out and bought a pair of a Saint John's dress, which is not cheap at all, but I super classy and look great on you. Classy. I like Saint John. There if anyone who watched my Ted talk, I'm wearing Saint John blue shell knit on on top and black Theory pants on the bottom and like that. But but I like Saint John. And it was just sort of a nice shopping experience. And I was the only one in the store and they were, which is in the crowded King of Prussia. Mall right, wow, I guess I figured, if you move the price point high enough, the place to yourself a lot of personal attention, a lot of person and then if you end up with just one or two things that you end up loving and wearing forever. I mean that's also the whole like slow fashion movement, which I find intriguing as well. Yeah, and I mean I've already worn this dress and I will will wear it again, I'm sure, so that's a good thing. I don't know. I mean, I've ever wrote in the notes that I probably should get some new clothing in the sense that I weigh more now than I ever have in my life when I wasn't, you know, six months pregnant plus and so I've been pondering that, you know, because it's not I don't really feel like I Yeah, that does not make you want a shop. I mean, that's partly why I had no desire like postpartum. I mean, not only was it like, well, I know my body's probably gonna change, but it's also like, wow, it's not so appealing to dress a body that you don't like love or Yeah, but I'm trying to decide what to do it if I should just decide to love the body I'm in because I'm not really sure I feel like putting the time and effort into making it different. And so that's then you just need new clothes. So I guess we'll figure out which way will she go? I don't know. All right, Well, if you have requests for superficial topics for a future Superficial Things part, please let us know. Yeah, all right, well let's go ahead and dive into the Katie portion of this interview. All right, well, Katie, thanks so much for joining us on best of both worlds. We've been having all sorts of technology fun this morning. But we know that you are used to, you know, making things work, So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, both your you know, what you do professionally and personally, and how you got where you are. Yeah. Sure, So professionally, I've got a couple of different strands of things, the first being I have a law firm myself for my husband's set up her own law firm back in two thousand and nine, and for a criminal defense firm. We do prosecutions as well, but we only do criminal work, so very stressful, we're very very interesting. And then as well as that, I am a writer as well, so I do mainly fiction writing around the law firm. The other main thing that's going on in my life is that I have got one child, a daughter who's nearly ten now, and she's got quite complex special needs, So why don't you tell us a little bit about her special needs just so we can get a good picture of it. Sure. The first thing that was kind of identified was a numbrella term, which is global development delay. I don't know if that's a term that you guys have over there in England. Yeah. Here in England, it's pretty much a catch or phrase when a child is not meeting the kind of developmental milestones, and the doctors don't really know why they would say our child has a global development delay. So that's how it all started. When she was nearly young, probably about two years old, I think was when things are noticed. Since then she has been diagnosed with autism and also pathological demand avoidance, which is about as much fun as it sounds like. Really, what it means is that her kind of ingrained first response to any demands that are made is for her to avoid that demand. And by demand, it can be anything that's pleasant, so it's it's not kind of tidly your room as a demand. It can equally be why don't we go swimming, which is something she loves, up to her as a demand that presents a huge amount of anxiety. So her first response would be to say there and to avoid that demand. So it makes it makes things on a day to day basis quite interesting. I would say, so, how do you how do you deal with that? I mean, I'm sure you've come up with something, So how does how does that? How does day to day things just happen if she automatically says no or fights anything. I think it comes down towards choosing our battles, getting to understand her and what's motivating her. And because we started this journey several years ago now of knowing that she did have some additional needs, we have I think over time just growing these additional skills in terms of being very patient. We can't parent her in the way that you can pair into typical child, so discipline very often doesn't work in the regular way for her. A huge issue for her is her self esteem and her anxiety level. So it's trying to manage those with a lot of patients, a lot of positive reinforcement, recognizing that we're not going to get a typical response from her. So if we do somethings that we think is going to be hugely enjoyable for her, she will enjoy it, but not in way that you might expect a regular child too, And very often things that are really enjoyable stressful as well at the time, and they're almost better afterwards when we're reliving the memory and looking at votographs and we've just kind of helped to make out peace with that and accept but in that moment things aren't going to be as straightforward and enjoyable as we might hope. So that's interesting. So she will enjoy something but then not remember that she enjoyed it, or not be able to have that knowledge that previously I enjoyed this. It still creates the anxiety for her. Yeah, definitely, yeah, Oh that's interesting. Yeah. And with the autism, what sort of level of functioning is she with that? Well, she's definitely low functioning. So she's an early ten now and she can't read all right yet, so she's very very behind her peers academically. I think the typical signs of all so things like needing a routine and getting anxious about change. If we've spoken a year or eighteen months ago, I would have told you that they weren't weren't issues for her. That's actually changing as she gets older. Things like that are becoming more of an issue. So that's the thing as well for anybody in my position. You can't kind of imagine that the need of your child has got or setting stone, and we're finding that they are changing all the time. So yeah, you think you know what is motivating her and what isn't and then it all changes. Yeah, exactly. Sounds challenging, but I mean it sounds like case giving up some strategies, even the one about taking pictures and looking back and saying you know what, Even though that was incredibly hard, that was a positive experience in our own way. Do you get a lot of tips from other parents or community support groups or the school? How has your how have you learned about how to deal with this challenging situation. I think mainly trial and error. I'm very, very lucky that my husband is incredibly supportive and we are on the same page with all of this. That makes a huge difference. We have not turned to things like support groups and community groups or anything like that. It's just not something we want to do. My daughter having additional leads is a big enough part of my life as if I'm not going to go and spend my sair time in that kind of environment. Talking about this no criticism to people who find that helpful, but I personally wouldn't, So it's really been trial and error. We have reached out as to professionals, so we've had various professionals involved with her on a kind of private basis. We've obviously got the NHS over here, but they don't provide everything, so we have gone out and we've found our own experts and had them work. Because of the school, that's been really helpful. We've been very, very lucky that her mainstream school has been amazing, but a lot of it has just been kind of finding our way. Well, let's talk about school, because you know, for people who are caring for older children with special needs, I'm sure the school situation is a big part of it and figuring out how their needs can best be served with that. So, how have your interactions been with the school and what's what's involved with that school? Have been amazing. We've been really really fortunate with that. They have taken on board our involvement and we are fairly involved as parents, so they've been happy to listen to us and work with ours equally. They are very very happy to make the adaptations that are needed and do whatever is necessary. Things are a little bit up in the air in that regard at the moment, my daughter has been in mainstream school up to now, and that really is discoming. It's not a situation that works anymore for anybody, for her or for the school. So we are at the moment looking for kind of a special needs school for her with gon through that process right now, it's quite it's quite complicated and a little bit intimidating because there's so much that is unknown at the moment. So's she's gonna you're looking into specialized schooling now for her? Yes, definitely. She's got to the point at her mainstream school where she's becoming unhappy. The school are just not able to cater for her needs anymore. And as I say, it's the fact that her needs are changing all the time, so she's not the child she was a year ago. Her needs are not the same. So it's reached the point where we have got to look at alternate settings. The way that works, certainly at least over here, is that there are schools that are special provisions and you have to go and visit them. You have to see if you think that they are appropriate, and then they have to come out and visit the child and decide if they can meet that child's needs. Moment we know the school we want to get her into, I'm pretty sure that school can meet her needs. So it will be a case of finding out when there is a space there and what we can do to get her there as soon as possible. Right, well, that's going to be quite a challenge and change for everyone. And what's you've been doing all this while you and your husband are running this legal firm as well, So talk a little bit about your your professional worker criminal criminal defense. It's as you said, probably never dull, definitely, never dull definitely, which which is good. I often say to people that if we didn't have our own business, that's when I would really struggle because I would be completely unemployable. My daughter, because of her needs, can't access out of school clubs, she can't access typical childcare. So having our business means that I've got the flexibility of working for school hours and working term time, so I prepare the cases at work. I'm office based. I leave every day to do the school pickup pretty much, and then I'm pretty much assumed to be out of work for all of the school holidays, and so what kind of cases though? Are you doing your all kinds of criminal defense? My casework is pretty much focused on sexual offenses, which I really really enjoy. Several years ago, we debated whether we wanted to do sexual cases, and I was quite passionately fighting that we should do them. I think for those kinds offenses, if you are falsely accused, you really really need somebody to fight for you, and that's what we've tried to do. So the majority of my work is sexual offenss. What drew you to that? You just thought it seemed really challenging area. Yeah, I think very often in our life kind of work, we see men who find themselves falsely accused for various reasons, and as soon as that accusation is made, they lose everything. So they will lose their families very often, they'll lose their access to their children. They'll usually lose their jobs. If they're professional people, their whole careers might be at risk, and that's as soon as the allegation is made, before they find themselves in court and have their chance. So I really felt those people need somebody fighting for them, and that's what we try to do. Wow, your job, I don't think I want your job. That's incredibly and complex, And hats off to you for making it work and doing it as a business with your husband. I mean, you say you're unimployable, but if you were working for a bigger firm, I guess you just would have to It would be a different situation. You'd have to figure out something part time. But I guess tell me, is it the fact that you're with the business. You don't feel like it hurts you professionally that obviously, since you're working with your husband to have this kind of split between your your daughter's needs and work. Yeah, And we've got we've got a really good team at work, so I know that I can be out of the office. You guys will know your work doesn't stop when you're not physically somewhere, So you know, if you've got your phone, you can always be answering emails and messages. So I'm always working. But when I'm physically not there, I know I've got a really really good team in place who can handle pretty much anything that calls in. That's that's wonderful. And you also have a fascinating side hustle which Katie writes books under a pseudonym which we are not going to tell you, but to keep to keep the pen name truly as a pen name. But how did you start doing that? And I'm sure everyone's wondering where on earth do you find the time? I think it shows how much time I used to be wasting on Facebook. To be honest, I've always wanted to write with the geeky little girl who always had a notebook with her, So it's nothing new for me to want to write. I got to the point where I realized I need to stop making excuses and try to do this, and I quite liked the idea of having something that was just for me at that point. So how I did it was waking up earlier doing all of those things but really aren't very glamorous, and just just becoming better organized with my time. And so how you know, talk through like when so you'd write in the morning, you'd write in spare time on the weekends. And also it's a little space though too right, I mean as a writer, I would say, you know, the prem is it can be all consuming and I'm sure that criminals, friends can be all consuming, and as can caring for a child with many needs. So how do you personalize the mental part of all this? I think really it's getting up and getting it done first thing. So as often as possible, when my husband is around, I'll wake up at kind of five o'clock in the morning, get myself ready and leave the house. That's the crucial bit. If I'm still at home, even though I have got a study at home, if I'm here, when my daughter wakes or she will know, she will kind of, you know, sniff it on there or something, and then that's it. My time is gone. So I leave the house get a good few hours done first in the morning. One thing I have had to accept is I just do not have any mental head space in the evening to do anything. By the time my daughter goes to bed, nothing productive is going to happen for me at all. So I've tried to fight that over the years, and now I've just accepted it's not happening. So first thing in the morning, that's when I'm at my best. Here. It's very time black dependent, which I feel like is gaining favor as a strategy. You know you're going to be writing from maybe five to eight, and then your brain is like writing time is over. I am now a lawyer, and you do that until it's time to pick up your daughter and then your mom, and then you're resting, and that's pretty much how it goes. Absolutely, Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Do you guys have any Have you managed to find any support at home as well, like I mean with your daughter, have you been able to find a babysitter who can help so you and your husband can do stuff together. Yeah. We're really really lucky with family. We've got a really close family on my side, and my husband's family are great, but we're a little bit for a wife, whereas my family are literally a couple of miles away. So they are very very present, very involved, very keen that we get to go out and have some time just for ourselves because they see how it's like living on a roller coaster basically, which means we have we have some wonderful, wonderful he eyes, but there are definitely some crashes down and some lows, and they see that and are really very dedicated to doing what they can in terms of giving us the adult time together. I wonder if you could talk about one of those highs, like with it being a roller coaster, because I mean, obviously, listening to it sounds like there's so many challenges involved with your daughter, but I'm sure when there are breakthrough is it, it's amazing. So can you talk about a recent high? Yeah, of course. I guess one of the things is that at the moment, she's really really keen and wanting to go out to eat in a fancy restaurant. And I think she's got that from watching the film rather two we I don't know if you guys have seen that, but they on her wish list at the moment. He is going out to a fancy restaurant. And we've got a college nearby where they have kind of a really nice, high end restaurant, but it's the college students who are working in there so that they're getting experience for their qualifications basically. So I reached out to that restaurant recently and I said, we'd love to come. My daughter wants we find dining experience, but she might not be very quiet, she might not be great at waiting. Can we make this work? And so the manager replied to me, and she was absolutely wonderful. She said yes, absolutely. If you come on such and such a night, that's the quieties night, so that should be est. And what we'll do is give your daughter a guided toward the kitchens as well, so sometimes you go, it's amazing. So we're going there in about two weeks towards the end of January and she'll get to have her fine dining experience. So that's really really cool. That is awesome. And you know, I'm sure a lot of our listeners who maybe have have younger special needs childs and children and are looking forward to the future and what this would be. What sort of advice do you have for your younger self as you look back and you know, Katie, when your daughter was much younger, what do you wish you'd known. I think what I would say is, in my experience, it's been a free stage process. So it starts with suspicion, and that is you as a parent thinking these milestones aren't being there, these points just aren't being reached at the time they should be, and that's you starting to get an idea that something isn't quite right. And the difficulty in that period is that the professionals may not be listening to you. So if anybody listening is in that point, I would say just keep talking, keep talking to the professionals, keep records of what's happening, and make sure that you are being listened to. I think sometimes as parents we don't believe that our own knowledge is valuable, and I would say it is, so you know, best keeping it. The second stage would be the diagnosis if it comes, and that really for me, was the point where it became a grieving process, because nobody goes into having a family expecting that they're going to be going down this road. So if anybody listening is finding themselves in that grieving process or this isn't there, or anger, that's absolutely fine and you will come through the other side, would be what I would say at that stage. And then the third stage, which is where I think we are, it's it's adjustment, So it's having to adjust your day to day life, having to adjust your expectations for what this period of your life is going to look like. And then getting a practical help you need with things like extra help at school, that is very valuable. I think I'm sure there are many listeners who are really kind of happy to hear that there's a roadmap and that you know you've you've found your way through and that you're managing to you know, thrive in many aspects of your life even with this this big challenge and enjoy pieces of it because it sounds like they really are really meaningful and wonderful parts have your experience, there definitely are, and I think, certainly in my case, the reality is that my daughter is going to stay a child a lot longer, and that certainly comes with some difficult moments, but it also comes with some wonderful, wonderful moments. We you know, we've we've taken her to Disneyland and she knows for a fact she has met the real making out. You know, there's no doubt in mind, and I'm sure for many many years you will continue to think that's the case, so that those magical childhood moments will last for a lot longer. But there are definitely a lot of positive that's wonderful. Well, So Katie, we always do a Love of the Week, which Sarah and I can go first, so you can think of one. So Sarah, you want to start us up off. Mine is like a little simple pleasure today. So we did recently move and I had to go shopping for like new products and I think I'm really late to the to the bendwagon on this one. But missus Meyers soap, they smell amazing and I bought like five different scents and I love them all and I don't know why it took me so long. So yeah, the lavender is amazing and the bluebell I highly recommend. Yeah. Well, with that mine, I decided to do a simple one too, so that the fact that my shower hat is now functional. We did a renovation and I guess it had been bad before and then after it seemed even worse, and so I called the people back up to have them see what they could do. It's just this trickle and it was making showering like bad, and your morning shower is bad, like the day is just bad. It's not a fun way to start to day. But it's fixed and it's now like you know, the water pressure is magnificent. So I'm I am massively enjoying that, Katie. How about you? Well, just to count to you guys having kind of every day once, mine is a bit of a grand one because I got home yesterday from Bali, which is ridiculous. Eighteen hour flight. So my love of the week is upgrading to business class, which I did myself too, and I am so glad I did. Yes, eighteen hours and coaches is no fun. But so no, I have yet to ever fly anything other than coach, So I look forward to the day that I can enjoy that. That is amazing. You will love it, You'll love well, Katie. Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. And we would tell our listeners about your novels, but where to find the book? Since we pledged to keep your pen name silent, I will just say that you should check them out. You'll just have to use your sleeping skills to figure out what they are. But thank you so much for joining us. Thank You's been fun. All right, Well, that was a great interview. So today's question comes from a listener who wants to talk about sleep and how that intersects with her career. So she wrote, and she said she is a teacher and aspiring school leader and she's finding that a lack of sleep is a major impediment being productive and successful. But she doesn't sleep enough. Her head hurts her motivation to do anything is low, desire for caffeine and sugar is high. Feels a low level of anger brewing underneath a forced cheery mood, forced because she works with kids and it's not their fault that she's not sleeping. I love that anyway. She appreciated our podcast with the Sleep Expert, but because of the number of illnesses her son has caught at daycare, we haven't had a good open stretch to implement any of the advice. So what I guess I'm wondering is if how you negotiate night duty and a fair sleep situation in a dual career marriage. She thinks that her husband and her set up habits during her maternity leave since she was the one who had to get to go to work the next day, and now that she's working too, and has been since her son was three and a half months old, it's challenging to make it swing the other way. Her husband works in finance, so the unspoken point is that his clarity and focus matters more because he brings in a larger share of the household income. But the reality is that at fifteen years into my profession, my income is not inconsequential either, and most importantly, she likes her job, wants to continue to grow and move into school leadership, which sometimes feels like an impossible goal while sleep deprived. They've also been discussing having another kid, which it so that discussions on the table, but she feels it would be a hit to her career to have another year or two working on low levels of sleep. So she says, I'm sure an uneven split of sleep motivates many women to opt out of their careers. So I'm guessing your answers would resonate with many in your audience. Any advice would be appreciated. Well, So, Sarah, Yeah, great question. And I think you know there's some nuances depending on the child's age and everything, but I do think Laura and I are pretty much on the same page. I will tell you. I mean, I you didn't mention exactly how old your child is now, and I don't know if you're still nursing, because obviously that can change things a little bit. When I was doing that, I did a lot of the night duty, but once I was done with it, or if there were opportunities where she was up and I knew she didn't need to eat, then it was a much more even split, if not slightly skewed to my husband, because I was doing so much more during those nursing periods. I firmly feel that this is the responsibility of both parents, particularly if you both work, but even if only one person is working in a traditional job, because if somebody else is caring for kids all day, unless unless it's just like one baby who naps and you can nap, I mean, really, it's going to make you crazy if you could never have a reasonable night of sleep. And there's got to be a way that things can be shared so that you each can have some compromise, but that you both can remain functional. I mean, from my residency experience, I got to say, like you can have some like two or three terrible nights of sleep in a week and kind of be an okay human being, but you can't have six to seven So the two parents, and therefore, I think this needs to be like logistically figured out so that you both can share some of this responsibility, whether that's alternating nights or maybe one of you does kind of like one of you goes better early so that the other one would deal with any wake ups from like nine PM to one am and then the other one deals with kind of like the early morning wake ups and then that second person sleeps in, so kind of splitting the night that way, Like, I don't know that there's one right way, but's something and I think i'll let you talk in a second. Sorry I'm on a soapback, but I was going to say, well, your husband, I wrote that you cannot be a good parent, person, partner, or professional if you are sleep deprived every night. So this has to be a shared burden. I agree with that. I'm a fan of splitting nighttime or early waking duty. Like you said, there's two options, or there's really more than one option. So when Michael and I, when we were dealing with Alex, who was not sleeping well for a long long time, we would alternate nights of who got up in the morning with him, and so you know, one on then the other, and that way you which one night was yours and which you could really sleep and it would be a particular treat on it a night when I knew that I didn't have to get up early to even go to bed early too, so I could just like max out sleep that yeah, nine hours, if I could get it, knowing that it would be really disrupted the next night. I posted that on my blog and somebody wrote in that I think she may have been looking at some sort of sleep research or sleep cycles that possibly even doing two days on and then two days off is better holistically for your sleep. I think, you know, you could figure that out if that's something that would work for you. The alternate is, I've said, if there's a lot of middle of the night wake ups, so it's not just like early morning or having trouble going to sleep, then you could do a split of Yes, one partner takes any wake ups that happened between say, eight pm and two, and the other is between two and eight or whatever sleep you know, split you want to do, and that way, each partner is guaranteed a six hour stretch each night, which for most people, if you can get six uninterrupted hours, you're great. Now, obviously, maybe in the morning you have to get up before eight, so that doesn't work. But you know, if she's working at school, that's probably actually part of the thing that might be happening here is that she has to get up early because school schedules tend to be developed in maybe the dad doesn't. So maybe the dad doesn't, in which case, you know, if he has to be there, you know, right before the market opens or something like the aren't market open nine thirty, Maybe he only has to start work at nine. Maybe he could take more of the morning. I don't know, but you work it out in a way that they can do that they can take terms napping on weekends, that is definitely a time to add that in. You know that each of you gets at least an hour nap during the day on weekends, that can help add it up, you know, and particularly if the baby's napping, that's a great time for both of you to nap. Like, don't do chores during that time. That is definitely the root of madness. Going to bed as early as possible as you can. You know, we all crave me time, but and so we tend to stay up late in order to have me time after the kids have gone to bed. But the honest truth is, if you're in the stage where there's a lot of sleep up heer occurring because of a baby's wake ups, and you are trying to advance professionally, probably just need to like deprioritize the you know, reading and web surfing and all that for a little bit, knowing that it'll come back in your life later when the kids are older. But you know, I agree with Sarah too get on the soapbox here, that I would nip any assumption in the bud that your husband's sleep is more important than yours because it isn't true. And I know that a lot of couples fall into this pattern during maternity we leave again because he's the one who's getting up to go to work. Although I'd say you're caring for a baby that's just as important, Like that's not His work is not important more important than yours. And even if he is earning more, as you said, you're not insubstantial amount of it. And that's just also, I mean, what does that mean? Is mean everything he does is more important than you because he earns more. I mean, you can't have a couple that way, and he wouldn't have that nice ability to work the more flexible hours and earn more and all that if it weren't for you. Like that we forget that part. Yeah, yeah, So I mean I would definitely have a conversation with it. You don't want to have any sort of fracked conversation with like you're a terrible person and the only reason you're doing this is because you're a horrible person. Like, That's not the way to approach this conversation. You should go in assuming the best that he you know, maybe assume he feels terribly guilty about this or didn't even notice it, like, you know, whatever it is. Story you need to tell yourself going into the conversation that it's not that he's a horrible person, which is why he's not doing a share of the nighttime wake ups. So go in and say, like, you know, I've noticed this. I am not going to be able to continue functions. So here's a schedule I propose for us each taking a night time. Do you like this schedule or do you have another one you'd like to propose? You know, so that it's not like do this or die, it's just like, which schedule do you like or do you have a different schedule you'd like to propose? But which one should we do? That's workable? If he balks, you have a very different conversation to have. But that that's sort of outside the scope of this. But and then the one last thing I'd say She mentioned that a lot of this is related to illnesses with daycare. One of the reasons we wound up switching to a nanny from daycare years ago is because of the constant illnesses. And it was starting to hurt me professionally because you know, I was the person who was working at home more often. And you know, we had arguments about this as well, but you know, either I could have, you know, and so I sometimes I would say, you know, my husband had to stay home with it, maybe because I had to do something. I would go work in a coffee shop all day. But it was just sort of hard to bring him on board with that. So what we wound up doing a solution is hiring a nanny so that the illnesses were less frequent. B If the kid was stick you know, low grade fever, whatever, the nanny could still be there working and that solved some of those problems. And the strategy only works when you have one kid though, because like we're actually like with Genevieve, she has not been sick a lot, because I assume the other two are sort of past that point where they're I mean somewhat past the point where they're sort of like snotting all the time. But Cameron was home and he was just as sick as animal was because she was bringing stuff home from preschool. So yeah, but they, I mean, they have one kid, that's what they have. In their case, it actually would have a measurable effect, I'm sure. Yeah, So just something to consider for them. You know, lots of lots of things go into childcare choices, but certainly a downside of daycare is that illness and then its effect on sleep and the like. Well, anyway, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking with Katie Forrest about parenting a special needs kid. Obviously many challenges involved in that and also, as she said, some real highlights too. So that was a great interview talking about how to split bad sleep among a couple. And we will be back next week with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoe dot com or at the Underscore Shoe Box on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.