Part 2 is the honest half.
Where Part 1 covered cord care and car seats, this one covers the things that are harder to ask about: the baby who wakes the second you put him down, the crying that peaks just when you thought things were settling, and the moment — home alone, exhausted — when you feel yourself about to break. Midwife Miranda Sykes gives an exact plan for that moment, and she is clear that it happens to everybody.
In this episode:
✔️ Why your baby sleeps on you — and why that's biology, not a bad habit
✔️ Wake windows: hugely popular, and no scientific evidence behind them
✔️ How to swaddle safely, and when to stop
✔️ The crying peak at four to six weeks, and when crying does need checking out
✔️ The step-by-step safety plan for an overwhelmed parent
✔️ Why the visitor conversation belongs at 36 weeks — and the one-hour trick
✔️ What a partner should actually say at 3am
✔️ Building a support network from scratch when your family is far away
✔️ Baby blues or something more? The two-week rule
✔️ Intrusive thoughts, and why almost every parent has them
✔️ Why not feeling instant love is more common than anyone admits
✔️ Grieving a birth that didn't go the way you hoped
✔️ Why recovery takes closer to a year than six weeks
✔️ Why the tracker apps might be doing more harm than good
No fear, no pressure. Options to consider, not the way you have to do it.
About our guest: Miranda Sykes has worked as an NHS midwife for over a decade — her NHS role is as a specialist midwife in mental health — and founded Midwife Miranda in 2021 to offer families a hybrid model of care alongside their NHS care. She added her lactation consultant qualification a couple of years ago. Much of her work, privately and within the NHS, is what she calls demystifying your newborn.
Missed Part 1? Skin to skin, cord care, what's normal and what needs a GP, the car seat myth and the hat myth — listen first if you can.
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The Tiny Big Joys: Pregnancy & Birth — Questions from Parents Like You is out now on Amazon. Created by founder Paula, it brings together real experiences, expert guidance and some of the most loved conversations from the original podcast series — honest support without pressure, fear or overwhelming advice.
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