Dr. Stacey Simon PhD, a scientist who researches sleep. Ep 63

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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 position 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 sixty three. We have a great interview for you guys today with Stacy Simon, who is a sleep psychologist, and we'll be talking a lot about healthy child sleep, but in a very non judgment away. Don't worry. I know there's a lot of controversy about that and angry posts on blogs and forums, but not from Stacy. She's very reasonable and wants to give us some advice that will hopefully help all of us sleep better. So yeah, we're looking forward to that. Which Sarah, how's sleep going for you and how's that tying into the rest of your life? Right now? Sleep is still not quite there. I thought we were turning a corner. We were, we had several nights with like a ten hour stretch, But then in the past week, and not so wonderfully coinciding with a rougher work week, she's been up a couple of times the night again. So I feel like we're making gradual headway, but I'm sort of resigned to the fact that sleep consolidation may end up just being something that has to wait until we are done with the whole pumping reliant on breast milk kind of a saga. Yeah, well, and that was part of the reasons that I mean, we were going to talk in this opener about going to conferences and work travel, you would I mean, you just decided it was too much to try, And yeah, I just I decided that. You know, it's not it was just my decision, not the right decision, but I just decided, and you know what, it's my last baby, I really want to keep doing this. It's kind of a priority for me this time around. So I'm just not going to travel until the end of the year because that's such a fine nite time. And then that kind of leaves me with the doors wide open. In twenty nineteen. So I actually like I'm living vicariously through next year's calendar to some extent, and I'm already really excited. Like I picked the academic conference that I'm going to. If anyone's going to Pediatric Endocrinciety in Baltimore in twenty nineteen, let's hang out, it's gonna be yeah, and uh, probably another one for my program director stuff. I don't know, I'm just kind of really I am exciting, excited for the idea that you know, evening work obligations sometimes they're fun, but for this past year, they've really just been every single time I get invited to something or to do something, it's been like, oh, and I'm really excited for that weight to be lifted because there are opportunities that I'd like to pursue. And yeah, I think setting that clear boundary for me is helpful. And I like that it's at the end of the calendar year two. Yeah, so yay twenty nineteen. I love the idea of you getting excited looking at your twenty nineteen planner. That's so, that's so how we are here. Have I you know when you're not when you don't have a bait. Since this episode is all about sleep, you sleep personally, like if you didn't have a nursing baby, sort of, what would your sleep look like. Yeah, so hmm, I tend to be an early riser, so I tend to go to bed around nine thirty to ten and get up a little bit before five. So I'm actually kind of okay with about seven hours typically, and then I do tend to make up for it on weekends because I don't want to get up that early on weekends, so maybe I'll go to bed at eleven because we're out somewhere, or maybe ten because we're not, and then I'll sleep till like seven or when the kids wake up. So yeah, seven most days, and then some rare makeup days of like eight to nine, eight to nine, okay. Yeah, Well, because I track my time, I know that my my number is like seven point four hours per day, not everything, not every day, not every day. So what that means is that averaged over a long period, like multi month period, it will come out to seven point four. So it doesn't mean seven point four per day, it doesn't even mean fifty one point eight per week. I've looked at my logs and it tends to range between forty six hours per week to fifty six hours per week, which probably makes sense that then you'd hit right in the middle is like fifty. I wonder if you could like graph your productivity and mood for the forty six hour weeks forty six hour weeks for verstuy six hour weeks, and I wonder if there would be a I suspect there would be a correlation. It's pretty hard to preserve, like the fifty six hours a week is. It's very hard to hit for me because I know that my number is seven point four. So as soon as I go over it multiple days in a row, it's like if there's been a lag before that, you know, a couple days of more than that, will we'll make up for it. And then I can't sleep more than that, you know, I will, I will pop up or I will not fall asleep at night. It usually is more popping up in the morning, which I'm yeah, me too, me too. I'm like tired at the end of the day no matter what. But if I've gotten enough sleep, I'll find myself being like, Okay, it's five forty five on Saturday. Interesting, Yeah, so I'd say, the fifty six hour weeks are pretty rare, so I'm not sure that that would be a you know, positive correlation with my productivity because that could also be a week I was like sick, which is why it would be high. But I think that the ones that are forty six are not that great in terms of productivity either. I think it's probably you know, which would make sense that my peak productivity would be right about when I am every night getting what my number is. That would make sense. Well, I'm going to go with my fantasies that I'm going to be super well rested and therefore next year is going to be like turbocharged. It sounds awesome. All right, Well, we're getting ready to talk about sleep here. Well, we are very excited to have Stacy Simon joining us for the podcast. Stacy, can you introduce yourself? Yeah? Absolutely. I am a sleep psychologist at a children's hospital, So I I work within a pediatric sleep clinic and I see infants up to adolescents and their parents for a variety of sleep difficulties. And then I'm also a mom to three kids. I have twin boys that are five and my daughter is three and a half. So she is right in the sick of it with little kids. How did you become interested in sleep, because presumably you were interested in child sleep before you had your own children, and whether or not they sleep. Where did the interests come from? Yeah, So I first became interested in sleep in graduate school. So I went to school for clinical and health psychology and began learning more and more about sleep and had some great teachers. And I personally enjoy sleeping myself, so found it really interesting. And I know that if kids aren't sleeping, then parents are not sleeping in the family, So it's just really important for the whole household. So what does a sleep psychologist actually do? I mean, what's usually the reason that somebody has come to see you? And then and then what do you do with them? Yeah, So for the really young kids, I often see families because they are having difficulty falling asleep independently or waking up a lot during the night, they might have fears about going to bed, or just some general bedtime resistance. And then for the older kids and teenagers, insomnia is really common, as is something called delayed sleep phase, which is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder. So a disorder of our body's internal clock, where kids are not able to fall asleep until really late, and they'd prefer to sleep in very late, but often can't because most high schools start pretty early in the morning. And so if those families came to you, what would you what would you do with them? Then? Yeah, So some common and recommendations that we'll talk about include sleep training, so for the younger kids, helping them learn how to fall asleep and stay asleep on their own. And then for the older kids, we use a lot of cognitive behavioral strategies for insomnia, so targeting some of the behaviors but also the thoughts and cognitions around sleep that can get in the way, so for example, having them use the bed just for sleeping, things like that. And what does sleep training actually mean? Because I know that a lot of people have read various things online or angry discussion for them what have you? So, what what do you particularly mean by sleep training? Yeah, so I really encourage families to think about sleep as a developmental milestone, as a life skill. So it's another piece of learning that kids have to do, just like walking, talking, potty training. So parents can really help set their child up for success by having good sleep habits from the start. But if kids get into some habits where they really rely on a parent in order to fall asleep, or they require being nursed or bottle fed in order to fall asleep, and we have some strategies to help them to learn how to sleep more on their own. For infants, really helping them to maintain sort of that eat place sleep schedule to avoid having a baby learned to fall asleep while eating or being rocked can be really helpful. Practicing putting an infant to bed while they're drowsy but still awake, and trying to gradually, over time get them on a more regular schedule, so having kind of approximate times for naps and bedtime and wake up time. And then if that isn't quite enough, there's still having a lot of wake ups in the night and really requiring parents to intervene to get them back to sleep. There are some different strategies like ranging from what parents have probably heard cry it out to much more gradual strategies. So thinking about just gradually withdrawing the parent assistance to help kids and babies fall asleep. So in the beginning, if kids are used to being rocked to sleep. It may be putting them in the crib while they're still awake, but still giving some support like patting their back, but gradually taking some of that assistance away as they gain the skills to fall asleep more and more on their own. Well, it's interesting you say that sleeping is a skill, because it would certainly seem that our bodies should just know how to sleep, like we know how to breathe. It's something that you need, and yet you're saying that that's actually not the case. It's very differ mindset that it's a skill like any other that you have to learn. It's a skill more like potty training than a skill like breathing. Well, it certainly is something that we all do, and everyone is different, so we know that everyone has different sleep needs, and some kids certainly are easier than others in terms of sleep. But I do think that, you know, all kids can learn how to sleep. It just may be a little bit more challenging for some than others. Hi, can I ask a question with my weak baby who has not learned to sleep? Right now? Hi, Stacy, I don't know. We didn't tell our listeners, but oh, Genevieve said, hi too, But the reason I'm mute it is because I was trying to put her for a nap and it didn't work very well. So I will admit to having done wrong on the nursing to sleep front. I was wondering, I mean, if someone is as many of our listeners do work outside the home and are trying to breastfeed again, as many our listeners have attempted, how do you see that influencing the whole sleep training Because my sort of thoughts have been, like, well, from an evolutionary perspective, you know, if my baby's not getting off during the day, probably her answer to that would be to wake up more at night, and that kind of keeps things regulated, which has led me to feel really not against it. I think it works in certain scenarios, but feel like it's not a good fit for that situation. So I would love to hear your take on how those areas intersect. That's a really good point. So you know, if parents want to restfeed yet have to go back to work, sometimes that can be really challenging with pumping and supply, and so during the night, those night feedings may be some of the few times where you actually get to nurse the baby. I think as those get older, so infants get older, they are more and more physically capable of getting most of their intake during the day and not needing those night feedings as much. And obviously that'd be something to talk with you're pediatrician about making sure kiddos are on their growth curve. But I think that there is definitely a way to promote good sleep habits while still maintaining that nursing relationships, So at bedtime, trying to just move nursing a little bit earlier in the bedtime routine, so still being able to have that closeness and that nice night feeding, but then after that trying to have another activity, whether it's you know, doing a diaper change or reading a story, something to separate nursing from falling asleep directly, so that you can again practice putting babies into their cribs while they're ideally drowsy but still awake. And then in terms of those night ways, I think that it really is a personal decision based on a lot of different factors from growth and supply issues, but it may just be that it's not the right time to start any sort of formal sleep training until you've decided to move on to formula feeding or introducing milk. Yeah, that's kind of my good feeling. Now, that's so funny you say that about the you know, it's like for me, nursing is like it's like a sleep button, so you know, they fall asleep. So it sort of seems counterintuitive to be like, Okay, wake up, we're going to change your diaper. But I also yeah, but I also I also get that that it doesn't it sort of teaches her to associate the two. And it's sort of laughable about the growth curve. I mean, she's like nine years percentile or something crazy twenty one pounds in nine months. But whether her growth could support it is one question, and whether my supply could support it is completely a separate one. So I like that that maybe it's just a ma of readiness. And you know, since we've set twelve months as a goal, that will probably be the time that we will go into high gear in terms of really trying to remodel those nights. Do you find that people have a harder time kind of raining older children compared to younger or do you see that you know, that there's no one size fits so there's definitely no one size fits all. I think it really just depends a lot on parent preference and then child temperament, and everyone knows their own baby the best and what they're ready to do. So I think waiting till you know you feel comfortable trying some other strategies. And again, it may not necessarily be a really intensive sleep training that has to happen. It could be just gradually introducing some good sleep habits and helping kids have those cues to fall asleep that don't necessarily require a parent to be so involved. I like that. Yeah, do some kids need less sleep than others. We've mentioned that, you know, every family is different, every kid is different. Is that true or so you can talk a little bit about that. Yeah, So sleep needs vary by age, of course, and then individually, So infants and newborns are going to be sleeping a majority of the day, and then by the time kids are school age they need a little bit less sleep. So school age kids, the recommendation is that they get between nine to eleven hours of sleep at night, and then our teenagers are recommended to get eight to ten hours of sleep at night, and so some kids are going to be able to be sort of at that lower end of the recommendation, where other kids really need the higher end to feel like they're functioning well during the day. Occasionally we'll hear about people who are much short sleepers, who feel like they can function very well on much less sleep, But for the most part, the majority of kids are going to fall within that range. Yeah, that's a pretty big range though. I mean nine hours for an elementary school student, if they start school, you know, nine in the morning. They could be waking up at seven thirty, Like that's you know, going to bed at ten thirty, Like that's that's not exactly a you know, I've always been fascinated by a family is where the kids sleep for just hours and hours. It was always better, And sometimes I feel like there's this value judgment, like you're better if your kid sleeps thirteen hours at night. There certainly seems to be some individual differences within a range, and the range is helpful to know. Parents need a break, and so they're like, you're going about at seven thirty regardless of whether the kid needs it or not. It's just that they've decided to do that, although I think part of you know, for older kids, Stacy, what do you sort of recommend for them learning to have good bedtime routines? I mean, certainly as you get past the the feeding and the diaper changes and all that. Like, how about older kids? What are good night time routines for older kids? So for school age kids, having that consistent bedtime, ideally avoiding screens, videos, or tablets before bed, and then having just a few consistent activities, so in addition to things like changing into pajamas, brushing teeth, it may be reading some books or listening to music, just some consistent kind of wind down activities that can help prepare their brain and body for sleep. And then for older kids and teenagers, they're going to want to have a little more autonomy over their sleep, but it's still really helpful for parents to maintain some limits. I really recommend setting a bedtime for their electronics, so a time where all cell phones and tablets and things turn off. It can also be really helpfull to have a family charging station, like in the kitchen or living room where everyone puts all their electronic devices to keep them out of the bedroom. And this can be helpful for us parents too, so that modeling is important and it's easy for us as parents to get sucked into our self sense as we're laying in bed at night. But for teenagers especially, really trying to help them to have enough opportunity to sleep, which can be really challenging. Especially as kids get older, they're more involved in extracurricular activities. They might be playing sports or have after school jobs, and then they have a lot of homework, so it can be challenging to get to bed at a good time. And then again, a lot of schools do start fairly early, so it can be hard when they have to wake up so early in the morning. Another thing for teenagers is trying to avoid what we call this social jet lag. So a lot of times teams on weekends like to sleep in really late, but then they have a hard time getting back on track Sunday night so that they can get up for school Monday morning. So it's like the equivalent of flying cross country every weekend, and that can be really challenging. So again, I know teenagers like to stay up late and sleep in, but trying to encourage them to maintain a bit of a consistent schedule as much as possible. I mean, they're probably not going to wake up at six thirty on Saturday morning, you know, yeah, within it, within an hour or two. I mean, what are we talking about? Trying to be reasonable here. Yeah, generally I recommend within an hour, so keeping bedtimes and wake up times within an hour of the usual school time. But really, for it's important that teenagers aren't, you know, sleeping until two in the afternoons. So you know, using the weekend is a time where maybe they can sleep in a bit more and get some extra sleep. But you know, when and kids are really sleep deprived during the week, it's just not possible to completely make up for it on the weekends by sleeping in all day. So really the idea is to try and have that consistency throughout the week and aiming for a good amount of sleep every day. How are your kids when it comes to sleep, Sacey? Did you get good sleepers while you were so? I think that I got lucky. My kids are pretty good sleepers. So I have twin boys, and so we were pretty rigid with their schedule when they were infants, because otherwise we would have been up all night long feeding one or changing one. So we were pretty strict. If one woke up to eat, other one had to wake up to eat, and so I think that that may have helped them get on a pretty good schedule. And then, of course with twins, you know, it's just not possible to console two babies at one time all the day time, so maybe was a different experience than if you just have one baby first. But yeah, we were really lucky. All of our kids ended up sleeping through the night at around four and a half months. We never did any formal sleep training, but just tried to really practice those good sleep habits from the start. And how do you feel about co sleeping because I know we have some listeners who are who do that with their young children. Yeah, so I think sleep is one of those issues that can be really emotional. People have a lot of strong feelings about sleep or I think you mentioned this already about feeling judged for choosing certain ways of sleeping. So my feeling is, you know, no judgment whatever works best for your family, whether that means doing some sort of sleep training or choosing not to. So there's really no right or wrong with co sleeping. There are definitely, at least some families who choose to have like a family bed and sleep together with their children. They feel like they just all get better sleep that way, or it may just be temporary when they're in survival mode, it might just be the best way to ensure that the whole household gets the most sleep. And so, you know, again, I think that's a personal choice. And really the only time when we really discourage co sleeping is for newborns and infants. So for our newborns and really young babies, we want them to be in a safe sleeping environment. So rather than having them in the parents' bed, making sure that they have their own safe sleeping space. So there are like co sleepers that go next to the parents' bed, or like a pack and play that can be right next to the parent's bed so you can have easy access to sue the baby and feed them in the night. But it's much safer for them to be in their own sleeping space than in bed. So, Stacy, you as you have a busy professional practice and three young kids. Our listeners love hearing about people's life logistics. So how does your day work? You know, do the kids go to daycare, our school or nanny? And like, how do you guys make things work in your house. So we actually have an O pair that lives with us for child care. So an O pair is international student that comes to the US for an exchange experience for a year and they are able to take care of the kids and live in our homes. So it is really nice for us. We've gotten really lucky with some amazing OH pairs that now feel like part of our family, and it gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of childcare and we can kind of shift our hours depending on our needs in a particular week, and then also don't have to really worry about rushing out of the house and getting everyone dressed and ready in the mornings. So my husband has a longer commute than I, and so he usually leaves pretty early in the morning, around six point thirty so that he can beat some traffic. So it's usually that I'm home in the early mornings with the kids as they wake up, but are O pair is also up and helping to get the kids breakfast, helping them to get dressed and ready to go to school, so that we can all get out of a house in a reasonable time. What hours do you tend to work, Like, what would a sleep psychologist hours? Because I imagine, you know, parents working, parents want to bring their kids. It can't just all be between nine and five. Do you ever do later hours or how do you set that up? Yeah, so my clinic is between eight and five, and so you know, we always have to laugh. The poor families who are sleep deprived and have to make it in for that eight am appointment. Just doesn't seem fair, but yeah it is. It is a pretty typical eight to five position. So I do a sleep clinic one day a week, and then I also do some sleep research, so I spend time working on research studies and with research participants. So my research is on the negative health effects of core sleep and teenagers, so especially the impact of not getting enough or going to bed too late on things like our weight, diet, insulin sensitivity. What's one of your favorite findings so far from your projects. Well, basically that if we are going to bed too late and not getting enough sleep, it seems that that might affect our dietary intakes. So we may prefer sweet dessert type foods and eat more calories than when we get a good night of sleep. So just another reason to get that good sleep. Anybody who takes call can roberate that evidence. I mean, I guess there's a mental piece of it too. But never are my junk food cravings, never were they stronger than after those like overnights during residency. You feel entitled to everything and you want it. But I love that, I mean that needs that. You know, as that gets more and more published, that's something to you know, pass on to patients. That's a great that's great research. And so say, say two more questions for you here. First, how much sleep do you need per day? So I love sleep and I aim for about eight hours. So the recommendation for adults is seven hours or more per night, and I am a person that really does best with around eight hours of sleep. I am also definitely a morning person, so my husband and I take turns going to the gym in the mornings before the kids get up. So I often will wake up at four fifty to get to the five point fifteen class at the gym, and I just feel like it starts my day better if I can get to the gym and exercise before getting to work. But because I really want to get a good night to sleep, I often end up going to bed at like nine, nine thirty, and it is well, there is no shame in that. I definitely do that. Yeah, the most exact same time people like gets harder though with older kids. I got to say, you know, because they're we're working, can I trust them to go to bed if I go to bed, because of course I want to get up and use my mornings and run or do whatever before the little guy wakes up, and he of course goes to bed earlier than the older kids. So we're experimenting with that. We will report back. It's It's definitely a whole other life stage that I have not yet experienced, So that will be interesting when my kids want to stay up later. For now, we're still able to get them down for an early bedtime because I it's nice to have a little bit of adult time to you know, watch some TV and wind down ourselves after the kids go to bed. We'll pencil you in for twenty twenty three. Great on how that gets. And we always ask our guests a love of the week questions, so things that are you know, really working for us right now? We were going to do a sleep themed one, So Sarah, what was your favorite sleep related Yeah. Mine, Well, this is a perennial favorite, the Halo sleep sacks, and I use the version with the swaddle until the kids are about four months old or so, and then I just switched to the sacks. And I don't know if it's I mean, you're not allowed to have loose blankets and an infant's crib, but because they're kind of in a bag, I think they feel like a little bit more cozy. And it's also kind of a sleep association that I build with them that I think kind of helps them know, yes, genevieve to be in that nighttime mode. And I have fond memories of Cameron would like climb out of his crib wearing it so like you know, he had a bag on his feet, but he still managed that that because that's like his style is awesome. The kid can climb out of the crib in a sack like that, that's you know, it's a whole different ballgame from like a kid who's like, I'm content just sitting here, because there are kids who are like that, and then there are others who are going to be up on your roof, so you know, not that you've have any experience with that what soever. Oh, none at all. Yeah, but yeah, sorry, safety. I was just gonna say those sleep sacks can be really great as an alternative to using loose blankets and things in the in the crib. And it's nice that once kids are able to roll over, you're no longer supposed to swaddle their arms. But they have those sleep sacks where you can either kind of swaddle underneath their arms so their arms are still free, or just use the regular sleep sacks. And we use those until our kids were, oh gosh, a lot older, and it does it serves us a nice bedtime queue for kids. Yeah, that's I was gonna say. My love of the week was also we had the swattle blanket that looked like a hippo and it's just like the cutest thing ever because your kid like looks like this little hippo in it. But you know, it doesn't work well once the kids won out, which which my kids have never really many of them are not that into sleep, which is its own separate thing, but some of them are. It's it's curious to see the personality differences within a family. The upside of that being that I you know, know, it's who they are. It's not that I did anything different, so you know, but what about you, Stacy, what what do you have any particular love of the week, something that's really you know, rocking your boat right now. Well, for sleep, I really love white noise machines. So we have always had white noise machines in our kids bedrooms from the time they were newborns. And again it's another positive sleep cue. And now if we forget to turn on the white noise machine, my kids will tell us you forgot we need to have this on. But it's really soothing and can just block out any extra noise so that they aren't waking up as much. And I also enjoy the white noise now I really need it to sleep myself, So yeah, I would say I would also throw a shout out for Max earplugs. For whatever reason, that's the brand that I wound up originally wearing. And I realized that my lovely boyfriend now husband possibly snores. It is his own separate sleep issue. But anyway, well, thank you so much Dacy for coming on to talk about sleep. Can our Is there someplace our listeners? Can you know any resources you direct our listeners to learn more about kids in sleep. Yes, so there are a couple great websites. One is babysleep dot com and they have articles and videos about sleep issues arranging from newborns all the way to three years old, and so that's a really helpful resource. You can also find sleep centers in your area. And then Behavioral sleep dot org is the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine and they have a searchable database of sleep specialists. So if families are feeling like they would really like to talk to a professional and have more of a one on one to get some sleep tips, that's a good way to find somebody that's local to their area. Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. This was fun. So today's listener question is from somebody who says she loves our podcast, has been reading our blogs for years, and she wants she has a bit of a difficult situation that she wants our thoughts on trying to have the best of both worlds. So she works for the largest employer in her region and she has been at her current job for several years and has been constantly telling herself that her job is going to get better, but it hasn't. Her employer is a mess with various scandals, reorganizations, poor outcomes, et cetera. In her role, she feels that she isn't being used for her particular skill set. She doesn't have enough work to keep her busy. There's been a lot of leadership changes, so she doesn't have champions sort of in the higher levels, since the many of the people she worked for is gone. So unsurprisingly, morale not that great at work, so she's not feeling all that happy about it. Of Course, when she actually has work related to what she was hired to do, she loves it, but that is rarely the case since in those days, she's not that happy about her job. She says, just for reference, In her previous position, she was supervising a rather large team seeing overseeing multimillion dollar projects. In this current role, she isn't supervising anyone. Her projects are much smaller. However, the big butt My job works great for my family and personal life. The job pays very well, especially given how little work I have. She's got great benefits, lots of vacation at sick time. She's also part of her state retirement system, which is a particular issue because she's been with various employers that would have into this state retirement system for seventeen years, and so if she stays for another thirteen years, she could retire her with thirty years of service at fifty five. You'll get a very good pension with that, She says. She also has significant flexibility with her hours, which allows her to pick up her elementary school kids from school in a ten school event. So the question, do I stay at my current job because it works well for my family and has great pay and benefits knowing I can retire young, or is it time for me to look for a new job. She's worried that she would not find another job in her region that pays as well or has as good of benefits. And that's kind of an issue because they move to that area to be close to their families, and so they really don't want to move out of it because they're around a lot of extended family there. So should she stay in her current job, and if so, much strategy should she employ to make her work days more enjoyable and tolerable or should she try to find something else? So how does she have the best of both worlds? All right, Sarah, what's your take? Yeah, so we thought this would be a fun one for Laura and I. Actually not a lot of times, you know, behind the scenes, we share our notes prior to these episodes. But I thought i'd be interesting to get like totally two independent takes. And actually, I'm not sure what Laura's gonna say, perhaps especially because I really debated about what I thought about this, it's a tough question. My first question is is this job really secure? Because you know, she talks about staying there for thirteen years, but then she also talks about rounds and rounds of layoffs and all this kind of tumultuous stuff and how she's had less and less work, which to me could be a red flag that maybe maybe thirteen more years isn't even gonna be a potential option. So I guess I would really take a hard look at is that an issue? Now? The way this is written makes me feel like she does feel confident, like maybe she does something very specific that it would be incredibly hard to replace, and that is very pivotal for this company, even though she's doing it in a smaller way than she previously was, So let's on the assumption that the job is secure. I kind of think there's a lot of positives to this job, and I'm wondering if there's any way again to have a little bit of best of both worlds, keep doing her sort of minimal stuff that she needs to do and meet with people and see if she can kind of take the Google approach of having eighty percent be her traditional job responsibilities in twenty percent being like, you know, interesting projects that might not go anywhere but fascinate her. Because it does sound like she's had she has this, certainly has the time to do that, and it certainly seems like from a you know, retirement and practicality and like location, which I think is a really big part and kind of family situation standpoint, she's in kind of a sweet spot and I'm not sure if she's going to be able to check all those boxes necessarily doing something else. So if she does feel that her position is secure, I think my vote would be to really see what she can do with the position she has to make it more favorable, and then you know, our We've mentioned this strategy before, but you know, what would her dream week look like at the job, can she get the stuff that she's supposed to do it's not that exciting done in two and a half days, And can she think of something that she could do in those other two and a half that you know, might be maybe she could like learn a new skill, learn a new programming language if she's in tech. I'm not exactly sure what she does to find something to make it more fun. Yeah, so that's that's my take. I'm so interested to hear yours. Yeah, learn a language, or you know, write a novel. I don't know. If you have a job that's paying you for five days and you're really only working like three, you know, if you could get away with it, I don't know, it could be an interesting thing. I also was wondering if it was as secure as she thinks it is. I may have done a little bit of sleuth work to figure out I think probably is secure based on what it is that said. I would never want to say, like, definitely say for thirteen more years and something you're not liking just to get your pension, because there is the way of madness when the rules change, right and you never know. It may be that her pension is in retirement system is absolutely secure. A lot of people have found out that it isn't. And then you'd be really better if you stuck with something for thirteen years and then learn that actually they're not going to let you retire fifty five anymore. You know, now it's fifty eight, or now it's sixty two or something. I guess, you know. The key thing for me is not viewing this as sort of only two choices, like stay in a job you hate because of the good benefits, or find something that's not going to pay well or would require moving or you know, would be a lot more hours. These are not You don't one hundred percent know that you will never find another job that pays as well and would be in your location, like unless you are the absolute top paid person in your city. Like that's somebody has a job that pays more than yours. Maybe it's not something you are qualified for, but maybe there are other things you don't know about, so you know you can look around. You can do this while you're still employed, right, you are always better off for getting a new job while you're still employed somewhere, so you don't have to do anything. But you can also start putting out lots of sort of things that can bring opportunities to you. So lots of networking, lots of taking little projects and as you said your twenty percent time, one thought I had is that she should really start gunning for a promotion within this organization. Like she's got to identified a lot of things that are problematic about the organization. Maybe she could change them, right, maybe she could fix them. So if she was able to, you know, make a good case for getting more responsibility within the job, she could potentially change the whole department that she's working in and or you know, find a different part department within that large organization that she could make a lateral move to somewhere else if it's a particular problem with the department she's in. You know, there's lots of things that could happen too. I mean, she might find a job with an employer that's somewhere else, but that they might be open to her working remotely and just coming to headquarters maybe one week of the month, and she might be decided that that was a trade off she was willing to make right, that she could work from her location where she's by extended family for three weeks a month and then one week a month fly to this employer. In other places, maybe that would be something she could do. But I think the key thing is is, yeah, not not viewing this as just two choices of job I hate that pays well or job I like that won't, because probably there are other possibilities and it's about trying to say those. Ooh, I really like that, especially the you know, casually looking around without making any grand plans, because you're right, I think so often we put ourselves in this place where and we've talked about this before. Oh my gosh, I'm in an aha moment, and I have to do something rash and like a lot of times, you don't. You can do something without it being something that you know takes away potential options, whether that be staying where you are, crafting what you're doing. So yeah, I like that, And I mean, certainly, if she's considering putting thirteen more years into this employer, like give yourself a one or two year horizon to see what else is out there and what other skills you know might be important for you to have, or you know, other employers there or elsewhere, or maybe if you wanted to do something entrepreneurial. I mean, I know that would be far more risky, but it just if you start thinking about all these different options, and I think the situation will start to look a lot better, particularly if you give yourself a one or two year time horizon and not like I need to do something tomorrow. And what a great question. Guys, keep these specific ones coming. I think they're really fun to talk about, really fun to you know, put ourselves in these scenarios. And sometimes it's just helpful to hear others, you know, my very unprofessional opinion in another field. But and Laura's you know, she's gotten a lot of details about a lot of people's work lives. So we hope you appreciate our take. But we also we really, we really like thinking through these, so thank you. Yeah. All right, so this has been best of both worlds. We've mostly been talking sleep today with Stacy Simon, our guest, and then also looking at a question from a listener who is trying to figure out whether to stay in her job or not. This. We will be back next week with more making work and life fit together, so please tune in. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoe box 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.