Mamamia Out Loud: EXTRA: The Fight That Wasn't Meant To Be A Podcast

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello Out Louders!

Now look, Mia, Jesse and I are having a little rest over the Easter long weekend, so on these

public holidays this Friday and Monday we're not releasing regular episodes of Mamma Mia

Out Loud.

So we did think instead that we would share some of our favourite ever subscriber segments

from our back catalogue.

So sometimes we have little arguments on there that we think might be a little too raw or

honest for the main Out Loud show and that's certainly the case with this first one.

And sometimes they're just interesting little snippets that we didn't get to talk about

on the show.

We release them every Tuesday and every Thursday and you can catch up on all of them if you

become a subscriber.

There are more than a hundred in there and the link to do that is in our show notes.

But first, please enjoy this argument about where people should sleep when they have their

baby.

Out Louders!

Just to peek behind the curtain, sometimes what happens is that we get into the studio,

we have a whole show planned, we're so busy, we're three very, very busy ladies.

And we get into the studio and a little topic comes up and the next thing we know we've

been arguing for 15 minutes, quite heated.

Holly is often wrong, which you're going to learn.

It is often at the moment if you want an insight into our friendship around the topic of parenting

because Holly and Mia have advice, they have some opinions, they have some perspectives

to offer.

So Out Louders, what happened is that I came in late to the studio, which is not an unusual

occurrence and I discovered that Holly was deep in giving Jesse some advice about sleeping.

She was talking about a nursery and she was talking about...

Well, I disagreed violently.

So do you want to say how it happened?

Because I missed the beginning.

So the way it happened is because as you all know Out Louders, our Jesse is pregnant and

Mia and I, the youngest child we have between us is my son Billy, who is 10.

So basically we're Jesse's worst nightmare.

And the eldest child we have among us is the father of Jesse's own baby.

Yes, just to complicate things even further.

So we feel like we have experience and valued wisdom and Jesse thinks we're like a pair

of crazy old fashioned women.

But anyway, Jesse was telling me, because we always have a bit of a chat obviously before

the show, she was telling me about the nursery that she's thinking about.

And I said something like, well, you know, don't rush to buy a cot because baby you'll

probably sleep next to you in the bassinet for a while, which just reminds me of how

you shouldn't say things like that because who knows what you're planning.

And then Mia came in and then she was like, what are you talking about FOMO as always?

We started talking about it and it turned into a massive argument about whether or not

your partner should sleep somewhere else for a while when you come home with your baby

and you're a mother breastfeeding.

We are going to play you that argument.

Please remember out louders that we didn't know this was going to be a show.

So we do things that we try hard not to do in a normal show, which is talk over each

other swear.

I think I say, fuck that quite a lot in this episode, so apologies.

I might say, fuck you, I think as well.

So we do things that we try not to do in episodes, so it's a little bit messy.

But then we're going to come back at the end.

It's few days later because we were like, oh, that was interesting and see where we

all sit.

So first of all, enjoy poor Jessie being hijacked by us about where her partner, Luca, should

sleep.

My advice, and you know, I'm obsessed with it and everyone will ignore it and Mia will

say it's not right.

What?

I'm not getting separate beds so that he can have a good night's sleep because he's

got to go to work.

Bullshit.

This is where it all begins.

Exactly.

But this is where it all begins.

I disagree.

Fuck him and he has to get up early.

We all have to get up early.

I think that's bullshit.

We will talk about that.

No way.

We should.

I'll explain why.

It's not that.

It's that you are immediately doing what we were talking about the other day.

You are the baby person, you are in charge of the baby.

That's it.

If you're the one on maternity leave and you're the one breastfeeding, I hope you're

recording this, and you're the one breastfeeding, what is the point?

And like I hear with couples where they go, he got up with me while I breastfed the baby

through the night.

No, no.

Why?

There's no point in that.

Not that at all, Mia.

But seriously, this is it.

I live through exactly this.

Yeah.

Why the fuck should I be the one who's waking up every five minutes all night?

Because it is divide and conquer.

Yeah.

And I go, could you get me a glass of water, babe?

Could you go grab me that thing?

No.

And then he rolls over and goes back to sleep.

I'm not expecting him to sit there and watch the West Wing with me while I feed the baby.

But I would prefer the minute that you make it your job, your thing, darling, you've got

to go to work tomorrow, whereas I've got all day to just sit around.

You're exhausted.

I know.

He gets up then at five or six or whatever, takes the baby for two hours so that you can

then sleep in the morning.

It's all symbolic.

And then in the afternoon, that's ridiculous, isn't it?

There's no divide and conquer.

Divide and conquer.

Divide and conquer.

I'm really glad that the baby advice is so clear-cut.

Like it's really clear.

But I'm a weirdo when it comes to this stuff.

What's the point of you both being exhausted?

I'll tell you exactly what the point is.

You are a team.

This baby is not Jessie's baby.

But, whole, you and I are a team at work in many ways.

I don't come and sit while you do your work.

I don't sit in all the meetings that you go to.

You're being really dismissive of suggesting that I think that he should sit there while

you feed.

I'm not that at all.

Like, I would sleep with Brent and he would mostly when the baby cried in the night and

I would roll over, get the baby stick on my boob and he'd just go back to sleep, right?

I don't think that it's symbolically good for your relationship in your family for the

mother and the baby to be a separate entity to the daddy has to do daddy things.

I agree with that.

To me, it's much more about that than it is about the practicalities.

True.

And it also prioritizes, like, yes, he'll be tired when he goes to work some days when

you've had a bad night, but so will you.

And you will be absolutely wasted.

And you're going to go back to work one day and you'll still be the one getting up in

the night and feeding the baby.

I think I just love my partner more than you do.

Because I'm like, what's the point of you going to work exhausted?

I'd prefer that you were able to be really wake up in the morning fresher, bring me tea.

Not so we're both staggering around going to sleep tonight.

But no one's sleep.

Holly's point is that no one's sleep is more important than the other person's sleep.

And I've seen women whose husbands have said, I just don't function well.

I know.

Whereas I do.

I'm functioning brilliantly looking after this fucking baby after I've slept for two hours.

I agree.

No one's sleep is more important than the other one's sleep unless your husband is lactating.

If your baby's on formula, totally different story, right?

Then you are.

Is it your night or is it my night?

Or pumping.

Or pumping.

Can you pump and just like.

Or you do different feeds.

Not so much.

You could say you do the 10 o'clock or you do the one o'clock or whatever.

No, no.

I'm totally into that.

But if you're the one breastfeeding and the baby is crying through the night because

let's be honest, it's not like they cry.

You feed them and then they go back to sleep.

Half the time you then have to settle them.

They cry.

You put them in the car.

They cry again.

Jessie's face.

Oh yeah.

And the thing is, is you might want to change them.

All those things.

Yeah.

And everybody's different about that.

Some people are like, don't take them out of bed.

I prefer thinking of it as a relay.

Someone runs.

Someone rests.

Then the next person runs.

And the next, you're saying, let's be a three-legged race.

We tie our legs together and we try to run at the same time and we fall over because

we're so tired.

The women I know who wake up in the night and they go, I'm going to tiptoe out of the room

really quietly with my baby so I don't wake him up.

Fuck off.

He can wake up.

You're angry.

I am angry because women's lives are fucked because they take everything on.

So do sleep training.

That's what I did.

Well, you will do sleep training.

But you won't do sleep training.

Everybody sleeps in the night.

It doesn't work for everybody.

Can grandma pay for the sleep training?

Yes.

She definitely will.

Thanks grandma.

Thank you so much for your son, Kathleen.

The beginning of the end, this is exactly the problem that every marriage I know who

struggles with babies, it's because the baby becomes only her job.

I was in the kitchen this morning.

I could hear somebody saying, you know, he finished work early yesterday and he just

went home.

He didn't go and pick the baby up from the blah, blah.

He just went home.

And she was like, and so I got home after I'd like finished work late and went to the baby

and she's like, and I was like, what the fuck?

And he was like, well, I finished early.

This is where all this begins right back here where you're going, darling, I look after

the baby.

You get your sleep in.

Fuck off.

That's how I feel about that.

Have I made it clear?

I think that's why Brent never asked you to marry me.

That's why Brent is the best dad in the world.

That's also true.

I agree with aspects of what you say, but I'm just talking about those early three months

when it's like you're trying to work it out.

You're separating yourselves.

This is a joint project.

It's not a Jesse baby project.

It's a joint project, which only one of you can keep the baby alive with your body.

You're very practical and I'm thinking of it like literally symbolically.

This is a family unit.

I don't find sleep symbolic.

I find sleep meaningful, but he could.

And it's not just because he's my son.

Anyway, we've got to respond.

Me, it's like, I don't want my son to die.

I don't care about you.

Look at her sleep.

She needs to stay down.

Fuck you.

She's making him sleep in the bed with her.

Your problem.

You got pregnant.

You deal with this baby.

Can you say?

It's amazing how no one has any opinions about other people's baby business.

I know.

My favourite was just Jesse's face through that whole conversation.

Yeah, I didn't like the bit where he was.

Sorry, darling.

You do.

You do you.

You do you.

I still agree with everything I just said, Holland, you're wrong, but what's interesting

when I've thought about it and when I was talking about it with Luca and explaining

how you don't care whether he sleeps or not, and I deeply do, I did observe that you and

Brent have the most equal, genderless role division of any couple, I think I know.

I wonder if that's where it started.

I feel like I've been screaming into a void and nobody's listening to me for 10 years

now.

It's true.

Brent and I do have the most equal division of many couples that I know too, and I don't

want to sound like, not everybody wants that.

That's not what everybody wants.

So I'm not suggesting that that's the blueprint, but I do know a lot of women who it's a massive

pain point in their lives that their relationship is not equal in that way, right?

And if that is something that you want, I believe really passionately, as you can probably

tell from all the yelling and swearing, that it has to start at the beginning.

And I genuinely think that it did start at the beginning for us.

So that's why I do so much yelling about it.

I reckon that the point about whether parenting is a relay or a three-legged race, I was just

thinking, I want the out loudest to let us know, because definitely the way we were planning

it was very pragmatic in terms of, okay, relay, take turns.

We don't want both of us to be sleep deprived at the same time.

We'll tap in and out.

Maybe I'll do the night shift up until two, and he'll do after that or something.

Yeah.

I'm interested in people that didn't, because I know a lot of people as well that had sort

of the bassinet in their room or sort of attached to the bed, and they shared it.

And that worked for them.

I think that this is a time, and again, unpopular and not possible for everybody.

The decisions you make in early parenting that are driven by practicalities, because

of course they are, jobs that need doing, workplaces that need going to, boobs that

feed babies, all these things, practical issues.

But it is a time when those practicalities and the decisions you make are based on those

will feed into something much bigger than practicalities down the line.

I'm not saying, sweetie, you get a good night's sleep because you're more important than me,

and your sleep is more important than mine.

That's not what I'm suggesting.

But if Jessie's a bit sleepy in the day when she's home on mat leave and looking after

the baby, right?

And I assume that's what she's planning to do.

I don't know.

Maybe she's not, but if she is, whoever it is looking after the baby in the day, there

is a little more latitude around being able to, I don't know, get someone to come over

and maybe watch the baby while you have a nap or maybe having a nap while the baby has

a nap versus if you are at work, like you can't really say, hey, mum, could you come

over and just fill in for me in this meeting while I have a sleep under the desk?

I have a friend recently with a newborn who told me, well, she did have a newborn now,

the baby's a bit older, but she said she found it easier knowing she was getting up in the

morning going to work tired than she did knowing she was getting up in the morning to a day

of mat leave tired.

She actually found the latter harder.

That's true, actually.

But Holly, I just want to ask a quick question, Rich.

The two questions I'm asking every woman I know right now is, hang on, how much mat

leave did you take?

And secondly, did you breastfeed?

You know how you and Brent did six months each?

How long did you breastfeed?

Because does that impact it?

I took six months maternity leave and then Brent took six months leave and I breastfed

exclusively till about five and then we did a mixture of both after that.

But I think we could talk about this for 100 years and clearly Mia and I are going to argue

about it a lot.

So I think we're going to do another episode.

Because I took three different approaches to mat leave and to breastfeeding with each

of my children.

So I think we should definitely talk about this.

You know, I'm sure that the out louders are just going to absolutely go mad in the group

for all the questions, the parenting advice they're desperate for from Holly and Mia,

that they're going, oh, Holly and Mia, you oracles, please tell me what you did on mat

leave.

Tell us, see how perfectly it turned out.

What is the secret to sleep training?

Mia Friedman, they're going to be asking all those questions.

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.