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Morgan Patryn | Motherhood & Baby Sleep

@morganpatryn

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infant sleep & motherhood in flow
helping mothers trust their bodies & babies
& burn the rulebook that told them not to.
↓ book 1:1 sleep support

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motherhood has a way of making us open and more feral at the same time.

more tender & instinctive. easily moved but willing to protect what matters.

it softens our edges in some places, but sharpens them in others.

we are the tenderness and the teeth. 🐺

follow @morganpatryn for motherhood that is equal parts softness & fire. by @morganpatryn

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a day ago

this has come up a lot this week while i’ve been talking to families about their babies sleep so i thought it might be helpful to share a reminder that varying stretches of sleep are SO normal.

it’s also really normal to wonder what the heck is going on and to assume there is a “problem” when the internet will have you believing that every single month your baby ages, their sleep should be improving too. and it is...in some ways.

sleep consolidation (the gradual development of longer, more continuous stretches of sleep) is not a straight line.

your baby’s brain, nervous system, circadian rhythm, and sleep needs are continuously developing. and that development doesn’t happen in isolation from everything else they’re experiencing.

that means sleep stretches lengthen and then shorten again.

and while frequent waking can be biologically normal, that doesn’t mean every sleep disruption should be dismissed as developmental. discomfort, breathing difficulties, feeding challenges, and other underlying concerns deserve attention and so does how you feel at the end of each night.

my goal is never to ignore sleep challenges, but it is to understand what’s happening before deciding something needs to be fixed.

your baby’s sleep doesn’t have to look the same every night to be healthy.

if sleep is feeling unsustainable for your family, comment DREAM and i’ll send you a link to my Nurtured Sleep Consults. personalized infant & toddler sleep support, without sleep training. by @morganpatryn

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3 days ago

someday, we will look back on the sleep training era in disbelief.

we will have so much reverence for mothers and their babies that encouraging this behavior will be unthinkable.

if sleep training already feels like a dystopian practice you can’t get behind, but you’re struggling every day with your babies sleep, comment DREAM and i’ll send you a link to my Nurtured Sleep Consults. by @morganpatryn

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4 days ago

we want children who know how to ask for help.

who feel safe expressing their emotions.

who trust that they don’t have to navigate difficult things alone.

But those expectations have to start somewhere.

that somewhere is in infancy, when a baby’s earliest experiences of distress are met with connection, comfort, and care.

we cannot separate the emotional health we hope to see later from the relationships we’re nurturing now.

follow @morganpatryn for attachment focused parenting by @morganpatryn

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5 days ago

i posted a few weeks ago about how low my internal battery was feeling & i am happy to report that while i might not be fully recharged, i am feeling SO much better.

but not by accident.

i’ve been really intentional about creating little pockets of restoration, because i know that burnout isn’t something i can just out-supplement or push my way through.

so here’s what’s actually been helping:
01 • keeping the foundations foundational. sunlight, hydration, nourishing foods, sleep, movement. boring? maybe. but you can stack all the wellness trends in the world and if these needs aren’t being met, you’re a fish out of water. (see my previous reel on this!)

02 • making room for intentional self-care. i don’t have endless hours of free time lying around (I’d love to meet an early mom who does) but i’m getting better at recognizing the little windows that DO exist. an hour in the sauna after work. five extra minutes doing skincare. stretching on the floor. sometimes just lounging without finding something productive to do.

03 • herbal support. tinctures & teas are my go-to because they’re easy to incorporate into my day. i’ve been drawn to my mushroom tinctures lately as part of my stress support routine.

04 • letting myself have nice things just because. buying myself flowers. spending a little extra on foods i genuinely love. buying more matcha than any one person reasonably needs. eating the cake. if i want something simply because it brings me joy, that gets to be a good enough reason.

05 • resting WITH my baby. my favorite - obviously. i’ve been taking every opportunity to cuddle, nurse, or sneak in a nap together. i don’t need a break from him. i need a break from everything else. the warmth, the stillness, the oxytocin. all of it. it really fill my cup.

and that’s the point. i’m not just trying to make myself more resilient so i can keep carrying the same load. i’m actively paying attention to what actually fills me back up, making more room for those things.

getting back to building a life that nourishes. by @morganpatryn

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6 days ago

responsive parenting & supporting a baby through sleep is no joke.

supporting a baby with low sleep needs can be even harder.

being exhausted, overwhelmed, desperate to try something new are not reasons to resort to sleep training.

but they are all very good reasons to get really curious about your baby’s sleep, what is biologically normal, and how to better support them and yourself through this season of life.

you do not have to suffer through exhaustion to protect the attachment you have with your baby.

there are people who will help you find ways to get more rest without asking you to compromise the way you want to mother.

and despite what the internet might have you believe, you are far from alone in wanting both.

i am one of them.

comment DREAM and i’ll send you a link to my nurtured sleep consults. by @morganpatryn

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7 days ago

i spent so much of my life thinking awe was somewhere else.

in the places i hadn’t been yet. in a deeper version of myself i hadn’t become yet.

and then i became your mother. suddenly the most ordinary things became enormous.

the weight of your sleeping body against mine. your hand reaching for me without opening your eyes. watching you learn something that yesterday you couldn’t do. the sound of you laughing from another room.

there is an entire person unfolding in front of me & i get a front row seat.

motherhood has made my world smaller in a thousand ways.

and somehow, infinitely bigger.

Use code 88V0G5ZA for 20% off your @pococo_store galaxy projector - link in bio. by @morganpatryn

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10 days ago

the paradox of motherhood: trust yourself deeply while remaining open enough to listen.

intuition should never stop us from curiosity.

it is a dance. a balancing act.

committing to staying the student is what keeps us in constant relationship.

tending. leading. observing. responding. adjusting. trusting. always.

responsive caregiving is inherently reciprocal. we shape our children - of course - but if we are paying attention, they are shaping us too.

you can trust that you will find the way while still staying open to their experience.

our kids aren’t here to validate our parenting philosophies.

they are here to be deeply known & held by us.

part of trusting ourselves as mothers is trusting that we can keep learning from them too. by @morganpatryn

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9 days ago

what more do you need from me?

i have grown men from scratch.
i turned blood into milk.
i built a nervous system inside my own.
& became someone’s entire world before
find my own footing.

i am not a machine.
i am greater. by @morganpatryn

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10 days ago

if this is you, hi. you’re exactly who i’ve been looking for.

the moms who are exhausted & still don’t believe the answer is to stop responding to their baby.

the moms who know something about their babies sleep isn’t working, but also know that crying alone isn’t the kind of “working” they’re looking for.

the good news is, there is so much space between:
“just wait it out, sleep is developmental”
and
“you need to teach them how to sleep.”

we can actually get curious about what’s making sleep hard.

we can look at their sleep across 24 hours. their sensory needs. temperament. feeding. development. sleep pressure. environment. connection. nervous system. what happens before the wake, during the wake, and what they need to get back to sleep.

sometimes there ARE things we can shift.

and sometimes the biggest shift is understanding what’s developmentally normal, letting go of the things that were never actually problems, and finding ways to make this season more sustainable without asking your baby to stop needing you.

you don’t have to choose between being exhausted & sleep training. 🫶🏼

there is a whole lot of support for and your baby in between.

comment DREAM and i’ll send you the link to my Integrative Infant Sleep Consults. by @morganpatryn

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12 days ago

it is your birthright to have a motherhood that feels easeful.

not easy. easeful.

you will be stretched. be asked for more than you think you can give. be broke open, rearranged and humbled again and again. you will be woken up all hours of the night and be asked to show up the next day like you weren’t.

but you shouldn’t have to fight yourself the whole way through.

you should feel supported enough to listen to what your body & baby are telling you. to ask questions. to not ignore your own instinct because someone else’s sounds more certain.

you might not always know what to do. none of us do. but my hope is that you stay in relationship with yourself & your baby while you figure it out.

follow @morganpatryn if you’re ready to trust yourself more deeply in motherhood. by @morganpatryn

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12 days ago

the internet is swirling with conversations about consent.
my feed is overflowing comments on men doing better and moms having conversations with their sons and daughters, and i’m really glad we’re having them.

AND i think we have to widen the lens a little because consent doesn’t start on the playground.

our boys are learning about boundaries long before they know the word for them. they are taking notes from the day they are born and they’re learning through their bodies in the way we hold them, touch them, talk to them, feed them, and answer them when they cry.

as mothers, we get to model respect in hundreds of seemingly very small moments.

it sounds like telling him what’s about to happen before we do it: “i’m going to pick you up now.” or “i’m going to wipe your nose.” it looks like pausing a diaper change when he’s thrashing and giving him a breath before you keep going.

it’s stopping tickles the moment he says stop, even if he’s still giggling, and believing him when he says he’s full.

it’s letting him wave or give a high five to a family member when he doesn’t want a hug or a kiss. it’s holding the boundary for him (despite awkwardness) when he doesn’t want to be passed around at a gathering because an adult wants to hold him.

it’s letting him cry, and feel big things without hearing “toughen up.” or “big boys don’t cry.”

long before the hard talks at 4 or 12 or 16, small acts teach his body what respect feels like.

raising men who listen starts the day they are born. by @morganpatryn

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15 days ago