Dr Kristyn Sommer on science of babies, screens and her own motherhood journey feat. postpartum anxiety, autism and an unsettled baby
This chat was so fun! Dr Kristyn Sommer has a PhD in developmental psychology where she explored how young children learn from social robots and screen media. She is now a Griffith University Postdoctoral Research Fellow exploring social robots and children again alongside her new research stream investigating the impacts of social media on parenting. This second research stream was inspired by her TikTok platform which skyrocketed to nearly half a million follows since 2021 where she translates the science of children and parenting into bite sized videos with humans, entertainment and toys. You can find Kristyn on all of your favourite social media platforms under the handle @drkristynsommer. We chatted about: - Being a robot scientist and the role of social robots and screen media in kids' learning - Her journey into motherhood laced with unsettled baby, CMPI, postpartum anxiety and panic attacks and a surprise later diagnosis of autism - The science of babies and their inability to regulate their emotions or practice impulse control- appreciating children as tiny scientists
Hey Mama, I have a Sleep Guide for you! For birth to 18 months, this guide is steeped in evidence and laced with compassion. And you can download the first chapter absolutely free HERE.
Are we Insta pals? If not, why not? Come and hang out at @mamamatters.au!
As always, thanks for being here- if you enjoy this poddy I would LOVE if you could give a rating and a review. It means the world to me.
xx
TRANSCRIPT
Fiona Weaver 00:09
Hello love and welcome to the Manage chatters podcast. If you're keen to ditch all of the parenting shoulds and want to uncomplicate sleep and parenting, you are in the right place, through honest conversations with experts and each other, we will help you to cut through all of the noise and to love the heck out of your imperfect and authentic parenting. I'm Fiona, a social worker by trade. Now supporting families with sleep and parenting through my business mama matters. I'm passionate about parenting psychology, biologically normal infants sleep and infant mental health and attachment. I'm also a parent and I am on a mission to normalize the shitshow that can be parenthood.
Fiona Weaver 00:48
I know that right now you might be trapped under a sleeping baby. Or maybe you've got your headphones in to soften the blue of the afternoon witching hour, wherever and whoever you are. I want you to know that you belong here. Now, let's have a chat
Fiona Weaver 01:11
Hello, my love's I hope you're well I am so excited today to bring you this chat with Dr. Kristen summer who you guys might follow on Instagram or even Tik Tok. She makes amazing reels. She is a scientist. Little known to me. She's actually a robot scientist, which is actually just the coolest thing in the world. We had such a fun chat, I could have kept talking for so long. And I am excited to share it with you today. So a little bit about Dr. Kristen summer she has a PhD in developmental psychology, where she explored how young children learn from social robots and screen media. She's now a Griffith University postdoctoral research fellow exploring social robots and children again alongside her new research stream investigating the impacts of social media on parenting. This second research stream was inspired by her tic tock platform which skyrocketed to nearly half a million followers since 2021, where she translates the science of children and parenting into bite sized videos with human entertainment and toys. She's also just a hoot. She was so fun to chat to. And her transition to motherhood was not short of challenges. Let me tell you, it is amazing what this woman has been through. Look, I don't know what was going on with the audio. There's a little bit of an echo, but it doesn't last too long. So I apologize for that. But hang in there because it does go away that you know authenticity and imperfection. And here I am in all of my imperfect podcasting. So I hope you enjoy our chat. And please reach out if you do I love hearing from you.
Fiona Weaver 02:43
Welcome Dr. Kristen. I am so excited to have you here on the podcast today. Well, thank you. I'm very excited to be here. I feel like you were one of the motherhood accounts I followed. When I was in the trenches with my newborn that made me feel a little bit better. So it's very was a bit yeah, you've been all backlit like you're you've got a three year old. You've been a bit of a shining beacon for a long time. I don't know how I found you could have been Shavon.
Kristyn Sommer 03:11
But yeah, on my personal page, I've been following you for a long time. That's so interesting. I didn't know them. I'm blushing surprise.
Kristyn Sommer 03:21
Well, I'm even more excited to have you here then. So let's start by introducing you. Who are you? What do you do? Who's in your family? Where do you live and all that stuff? So many questions. Okay, so I'm obviously Dr. Hurston summer, or just Kristin is so fine. That's just my social media handle and my actual full name. But I am a postdoctoral research fellow. Which essentially means I did a PhD, which is a Doctorate of Philosophy that's just a research kind of doctorate. And I did it in kids, and how they learn from technology and social robots. And then I ended up I finished my PhD had my kids so who's in my family is my husband Ryan and my daughter Sienna
Kristyn Sommer 04:06
that she is now she's just turned three, as you said. And so I had my kid at the end of my PhD.
Kristyn Sommer 04:13
Then COVID hid when she was a newborn. And then I did some research fellow work for a little while casually during COVID With my newborn, which is not a good idea. We'll talk about that later.
Kristyn Sommer 04:25
And then I had a lectureships where I was lecturing them developmental psychology. I've been teaching developmental psychology since 2015. And so I was convening a second year undergraduate university course at the University of Queensland last year, and now I'm just a postdoc fellow, which means that I spend my days coming up with wild questions about children's learning, and now about parenting as well.
Kristyn Sommer 04:50
And then I answered those questions with science. And then somewhere along the way, I also decided to do science communications, and I have multiple social media platforms where I just kind of hang out with
Kristyn Sommer 05:00
Every one I tell them what the science of kids is, anyways?
Fiona Weaver 05:05
Yeah, I mean, you have it has given me lots more questions like, Tell me about that initial research, the one you got your PhD in. Is that okay? Was that about children learning through technology and robots? Yes. So that's my actual research like field. As I sit in my office, I'm looking at a bunch of social robots on my desk. So I did a joint PhD between psychology and engineering, where we actually ended up designing a robot specifically for children that would react in an appropriate timescale to them, and also be safe. And so I did some studies on that, I then did a bunch of other studies with robots in the States. And I would always compare my robots to like iPads. So like videos on iPads and
Kristyn Sommer 05:53
humans, like as I like, benchmark, our gold standard. And in that research, in my PhD, my PhD was probably like, I want to say, a fifth of the research I did during my PhD, like my write up, which you can find online, I found that kids learn a little bit more from robots than they do from real life. But they seem to learn from screens just as well as real life. And that's a bit of a shift from previous research. So we're still trying to grapple with that now, because there's this idea called the video deficit, where kids learn poor from screens than they do from real life. And that's been around since TVs came out.
Kristyn Sommer 06:32
But a recent meta analysis, and some of my studies have been done to show that this effect is decreasing, and is in some cases disappearing.
Kristyn Sommer 06:43
And we have a running theory that it's got to do with how people use their phones and how technology is more in meshed in society than it used to be and how it's more of a social other now and a valuable source of information. But yeah, that's kind of one half of my research life is looking at how kids learn from technology and how it's improving across time, and how they learn from robots, which is currently not as good, but we're looking at ways to improve it to kind of help support kids in other ways other than just screens. So using robots means that you can help with social and emotional skills and things like that things that people seem really worried about when it comes to like having kids on screen. So yeah, that's why once Oh, that's so interesting, because I remember, and this must be the previous research that you were talking about, I remember there being a study on teaching kids language through a screen versus face to face and the kids didn't learn the language is that saying Patricia calls work. So that's looking at phonetic contrasts. So there's this phenomenon, where babies basically when babies are born, their listeners of the world, right, so they can hear every it's called a phonetic contrast, but it's just the differences in sounds, every phonetic contrast and every language around the world. So in English, we have the phonetic contrast, rat, and law. But in some Asian languages, like Japanese, there is no right and love. So while we can hear the difference between a rat and Hola, Japanese adults and children cannot hear that difference, but Japanese infants can. And what this is called is it's called perceptual narrowing. So at about eight to 10 months, infant's brain start to narrow and kind of like streamline, and they get rid of the things they don't need, so that they can use that processing power for the things that they do need. So their brain is setting them up to live in a world that has a Japanese language, or an English language. So in that period, what you can actually do, and this is what Patricia cool from the University of Washington did, you can actually have an English speaker in a Japanese babies like environment, let's just say an hour a week for four weeks, and during that eight to 10 month window,
Kristyn Sommer 08:56
just kind of speaking that language to the baby. And what you'll find is that that child will remain able to discriminate the rat lock contrast, whereas babies who didn't get that English input during that critical period, won't be able to do that anymore. And this is kind of it's kind of important. For people who want to become really native, fluent speakers, it makes it easier to learn those languages and hear the differences and speak with a more like fluent accent. So what she did was she found that you could intervene in that perceptual narrowing period and leave that sound window opened to being able to be discriminated between phonetic contrast, not in your language.
Kristyn Sommer 09:37
But then she tried to do that with a speaker on a TV. And she found that that it didn't work. So there, those infants, their perceptual narrowing period occurred and they could no longer discriminate between rat and law the same way as the babies who heard someone in real life. Now, whether that's still the case, or whether it's changed. That is a good question that study is about I want to say
Kristyn Sommer 10:00
10 to 15 years old now. I think it was 2006. And then 2013. She followed it up. But yeah, so that's that is a good question. It is one of the earlier video deficit studies and probably one of the studies that informs the screen time guidelines from the like American Academy of Pediatrics, you'll see that kind of citation there, you'll see calls work there. But yeah, so we don't really know how it's changing. Or if it's changing in all domains, my research is imitation, which is social learning. So it looks at how kids copy, it's the number one way that they learn in those early years. So in the first like two or three years of life, we just looked at whether they can copy the actions of an agent, whether it be on a screen in real life, or social robot in real life or on a screen. So for imitation that appears to be dwindling, whether that's the case of language is a good question. And it's something that hopefully someone's researching, but I'm not because I don't have any more time.
Fiona Weaver 10:56
You've got all the things does that when you say learning via screen, is it somebody teaching through a screen? Or is it educational apps and things.
Kristyn Sommer 11:06
So when I talk, when we do the experiments, we will do exactly the same person doing exactly the same actions in exactly the same environment. It's just a video like a pre recorded video. So people have actually gotten around that previous deficit by making it like a FaceTime style scenario. So people seem to ubiquitously agree that if it's something done on FaceTime, where the agent demonstrates, that they can respond to you on like, on the screen, that video deficit disappears, and kids seem to have just as good a time just as easy to time learning as though you were right in front of them. And so there was this theory for a long time that it's got to do with social motivation, because kids learn socially in those first few years. And it's screen is not social, it's a social. And by adding, like that FaceTime style of component, it will, like help children be more socially motivated to learn the information and to assume like a pedagogical stance and all of this, like fancy academic jargon. But yeah, essentially, we're not sure if we even need the FaceTime scenario anymore of children approaching screens as though they're social, because they've seen the way that their parents are interacting with them. But it's all a bunch of theories right now. And we are figuring it out.
Fiona Weaver 12:16
It's interesting, because because from a non scientist background from an attachment perspective, all life because yeah, learning happens in the context of relationship. So there needs to be some sort of relationship. Yeah, yeah,
Kristyn Sommer 12:31
you want to have a relationship and some of the research I've done, which is only just starting to emerge. So we measure what's called engagement, which is basically children, and how they navigate the space around the robot, and how they touch it, whether they have a positive or a neutral or negative effect, like what are their emotions, that kind of thing. So we measure engagement, and we correlate it to see if it affects learning. And what we find is that children who engage higher with the robot, therefore, like have a more positive relationship, or have a greater bond with the robot seem to learn better as well. So it definitely didn't kind of loops together.
Fiona Weaver 13:10
Yeah, I'm thinking of Apollo's monkeys, like other like, what do the robots look like? Are they like a steel frame? Or are they fluffy and warm?
Kristyn Sommer 13:20
So depends what social robot you're using. My social robots were actually like steel frames, but the face was like a cartoon. So you can actually jump on my website. And I have a publications tab, and you can look at like my publications. And it'll show you an image of the Ruby robot I used for a lot of my imitation studies. And she's basically why is everywhere. She's got like a screen on her belly. But she's perspex so you can see inside her, and then she's just got like a nice little like, iPad face. And it's a cartoon. The kids loved it. Like they didn't love it. And she would play with them. She would hand toys back and forth. With them. She would talk to them and sing songs and play games with them. So yeah, she was a really awesome, right, but we really liked to. Some of them are really cute. Um, she's in San Diego, so I don't get to very often I've got to fly to San Diego to do that. And I have a three year old so it's not as easy. Yeah, I spent like two months a year in San Diego. So I did like two trips a year during my PhD for three years. So to just research easy. The robots I have now a really cute, they're called a now which is ironic and a Oh, and they're adorable. But then they're also just like plastic. They're not fluffy, but some of the robot they know Ruby. No, but some of the robots they use a cold like Tigger, they dragon bots, so they're fluffy and cute. Dragon this there's so many different kinds of robots. They come from mid right yeah.
Fiona Weaver 15:00
Cool. This is like this. I did not know the conversation was gonna go here. But now I'm into it.
Kristyn Sommer 15:04
I mean, I've never shared any of this on any of my social media platforms, which is
Fiona Weaver 15:08
that you're a scientist.
Kristyn Sommer 15:11
I'm not sure people realize that I'm a robot scientist. PhD was half engineering. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She's the Child Development lady is like, yeah, I've really marketed myself that way.
Fiona Weaver 15:21
Yeah, have you stuck there? Now? Talk to me about the child development side of things like what have you researched, and where's your areas of interest in things.
Kristyn Sommer 15:30
So the child development stuff comes more from the fact that I have been teaching developmental psychology for like seven years. So I have this really broad knowledge of developmental psychology, I have a really good grasp of the core theories, the fundamental like understanding about how children's brains develop, where they're at, at different stages, what they know versus what we know. And because I design experiments with babies, I got to do it often, I am very in the practice of trying to figure out what they know, and how they know it, so that I can test it. And it's a very different way of thinking. And so when you have like all of the theoretical underpinning from the like years of education, plus this, like, developmental scientist, perspective, so something like what's your violin has to we both trained the same. We kind of just approach children in different way. And we have this really analytical way of thinking about where kids brains are at that normal people just don't often take that perspective. So I don't necessarily have a ton of research in child development beyond my imitation stuff, which is all child development. But I spent so many years teaching other students, undergraduates about those core foundational theories and about the research that exists. And I spent so much time around like, you're every different kind of child development scientists talking about their research, you get this really broad general knowledge of title development, I guess. So I have my own very specific research that I am, like, one of the experts in in the world. And then I just had this really broad developmental psychology experience. And I'm an educator. So that's kind of the stuff I bring across to, to my social media. Really?
Fiona Weaver 17:18
Yeah. So what are some of the things that stand out to you as being the biggest things that you wish that other parents knew about the way our baby's brains work? I don't know if you've just got like, way too much to choose from there. But
Kristyn Sommer 17:31
I think so I think the biggest one that like, there's a lot of people now that that try and communicate this across, because we had, so here's the thing, child development, science has changed a lot over the last century, we know, we knew very little about infants and children. Up until like the 70s 80s 90s. And then we've just kind of have this developmental science revolution, we've started realizing that children's brains aren't just like defective adults. They are this like blooming, buzzing, brilliant, scientific enigma that we're trying to unravel. And so for a long time, we just thought that we had to train them like animals, right? Like, that's the behaviorism that kind of came through, like the last 200 years. And it's taking a really long time to systematically unpack that. But over the last, I want to say two to three decades, we've really started to do that. And we've done that through neuroscience, we've done that through cognitive science, we've done that through psychology, there's all these different fields coming together to like, kind of tell us that that's not how humans learn. It's not the most effective way, and it's actually quite damaging to them as adults. So the thing that I think I harp on about the most is about taking your child's perspective. So knowing that they don't have the same level of self control, self regulation and impulse control as you do as an adult, when you think about how hard it is for you to control your impulses, when you really want to do something. Now think about a child who doesn't even have that ability to say, Whoa, nope, got to do something else first. Or when you think about a baby, and they're like telling you that you need to like let your baby cry a little bit because they'll calm themselves down. Most infants do not have that self regulation capacity that takes 25 years to develop. With the prefrontal cortex, it takes 25 years to mature. Up until like 12 years, like kids seem to be pretty bad at regulating their emotions, although they get better with age. And then there's this huge individual variation in temperament. So we've also learned a lot about temperament. We know that some children are really easygoing, the autonomic nervous system doesn't get overwhelmed very quickly. So they seem to be at this disabled baseline. They seem to sit at homeostasis for a really long time. And so those kids kind of contribute to this myth because they're the kids that seem to just be able to like put themselves to sleep to not get too pissed off, to not act too naughty to not have as many tantrums or these kinds of things in there. They don't feel like a good parent. Yeah. And they're they quote unquote, perfect children. The thing is, is that those children just have a really stable like nervous system, they're not getting too triggered, they're not getting too excited or too angry or too overwhelmed. But you also have children at the other end of the spectrum, which we classes, difficult children. And that's just the scientific terminology, unfortunately. And they're the children whose nervous systems get overwhelmed so quickly so that when they wake up, they're instantly in this fight or flight mode. And so they can't put themselves back to sleep, they can't calm themselves back down in the middle of a tantrum, they need things that help their autonomic nervous system come back down. And a lot of the time, that's co regulation with a caregiver. So things like rocking and soothing and singing and hugging or whatever that child needs. So a lot of the time, the thing I talk about the most is trying to take your child's perspective, and have a think about what it would be like for you to do that without as many of the skills that you have, because people just aren't educated on the fact that children don't just come born with the same level of skills that an adult has, without all of the knowledge. They learn a lot over time. And their brain develops a lot over time. And it's not just knowledge that they acquire as they grow. It's all those other emotional, social and behavioral skills that come with it. Yes,
Fiona Weaver 21:15
I love it. By being able to see the world through our baby's eyes is so powerful, and that ability to be reflective and to hypothesize like I wonder what you're feeling in this moment, right now, I wonder what they need from me. And then to just be able to offer something like just experiment, just try something and see how it lands. I think that's such a powerful thing that we have lost touch off. Because we feel like we need to ask the experts. What happens when this happens.
Kristyn Sommer 21:42
I don't necessarily think we've lost touch of it. I don't think we're ever granted that opportunity. I think that us as humanity may have lost touch with it as like society changed, especially Western society and changed. But I think that we weren't even given the opportunity to, to have touch with it. Because we were raised by moms who were raised by 50s moms and 50s Moms lived in a very different world, a very traumatized world after World War Two and one they had to do, there was this like, leading notion that you had to prepare your children for a cold, harsh world and wonder the world isn't nearly as cold and harsh as it was back then. But also, we know that trying to toughen up kids, makes them less tough. We don't want to make kids resilient and give them grit because we want them to know how to navigate their emotions and feel them so that they don't end up with all of these mental health issues plaguing them. So yeah, it's definitely not that we've lost touch. It's just that we would never give granted that opportunity. So now we are being granted the opportunity by shouting it from the rooftops so that hopefully our children are just inheriting that opportunity. So they hopefully never get lost. Yeah,
Fiona Weaver 22:58
yeah. I think that when we, when we think we need to create these, these really difficult, you know, lives for our kids so that they can develop grit and resilience, they are going to have plenty of opportunities to practice resilience as they grow without us, you know, as they're safe people trying to give it to them.
Kristyn Sommer 23:19
Yeah. And all we really need to do is support them through those experiences that they have. Yeah, and some families and children will unfortunately have more than others. But how they come out the other side of it depends on how you react and support them through it. And knowing that there's always someone safe, there's always a secure base for a better, better attachment term, or a safe haven. I guess that one works best and
Fiona Weaver 23:42
safe haven. So I'm really curious to hear how your journey into motherhood was. And especially in the context of the research that you have done and like what you are constantly surrounded by, how did that impact that and how did that impact that?
Kristyn Sommer 23:57
My my entrance to motherhood was a shit fight. For lack of a better word, I have always wanted kids. I've always been obsessed with pregnancy and birth and infants. I've always wanted I've never questioned that. I did an entire PhD. In one year olds and two year olds and three year olds, like I thought that I had this like, I knew I was gonna be a mother. I thought I was gonna be a great mother. Like, I was good with the kids when I was testing them. I'm just good with kids. It's fine. Like, right, I was gonna be great. I got pregnant, um, and finished my PhD within like three months of each other. I had a little bit of like a lag in my Korea and being a mother in academia is not they're not compatible. So I was having a bit of a, like crisis of conscience and like future Korea like thing during my pregnancy. I definitely had anti Natal Depression, which was interesting because I'm a very anxious person and I know this well back then I just thought I was a bit anxious. But my anxiety went down significantly when I She's pregnant, and my depression went up by a lot. So they kind of flipped. And I don't know if that's a hormonal thing, but like, whatever. So that happened. And then I had my daughter, and I had her in October of 2019.
Fiona Weaver 25:13
And I asked, Did you have any mental health support throughout your pregnancy? If you have had identified that you had depression, it was that in hindsight, you identify that.
Kristyn Sommer 25:21
So in hindsight, I identified it, I it will make sense in a minute. Everything makes sense. And I mean, at the one thing I did do, though, I got a degree in psychology, right? My undergraduate degree was in psychology, I understand mental health. So I was like, I know myself, I need to set up my supports, so that there's not as many barriers to getting help, like post birth. So I found in perinatal psychologist who like I had, like, had a session with her before I gave birth. And I was like, yep, sweet, this is all set up, she's right around the corner from my house, like, she'll be able to help me because like, the likelihood that I'm gonna get postnatal anxiety is huge, because I'm an anxious human. So I set myself up for success, right? I did, I set my success, had my baby. And instantly, it like, instantly, like, as soon as birth like happened, like, I was exhausted, like it was, it was a pretty normal labor, it was fine. But I was instantly exhausted. And like, everything, like the weight of the world just fell on me. And like, I just wanted to sleep and not handle this screaming infant on my chest. So instantly, I didn't have that golden hour. But that's fine. Like, not everyone does. And I didn't have an instant, like connection with my infant. But again, that's fine. That's not how brains and humans work. And that's fine. I started having these episodes, where every time I stood up, I would feel like I was going to pass out. So for like, five days in the hospital, like, I couldn't figure it out. I was like, oh, clearly, something's wrong. Like maybe my like, ions off or whatever, we're talking to the doctors. And they're like, no, just have salt, and all these kinds of things. And I was also feeling really nauseous every time I stood up. So like, something was off there. And like, my thoughts are really dark and like, bleak, and like, just like I don't, I can't, I can never do this again. Like, I cannot physically have another child like this is hell like whatever. That, you know, to me, I was just like, This is my normal brain, because I just I was so far past understanding, like, what is not okay to have as thoughts and what isn't. So I was just like, this is normal. Like, I just I'm in a lot of pain, like, of course, I don't want to have birth, like another child right now, da. And so those episodes of dizziness and nausea kept happening. And they got worse over the first three months. They like we were trying to figure it out with my doctor for a long time trying to figure out what's wrong. She thought maybe they were vestibular and abdominal migraines. We were trying out a bunch of different theories and things like that, because I would end up like, I went to a conference when my daughter was four months old, in Brisbane, and luckily, it was at UQ where I was raised. So I like found like a safe place. And I just had my infant screaming in my arms while I was like breathing through nausea and vertigo. And just like feeling like I was being pummeled by waves like underwater and that kind of stuff. And it was it was a fresh kind of hell. But I never even like stopped to think that maybe that was my mental health, that maybe those weren't like a medical issue. Maybe they were panic attacks. So I was dealing with that for a long time, but didn't think anything of it. At the same time. I was fearful of anyone holding my daughter because I thought that she would pull backwards and fall out of their arms. So it was really hard for me to let anyone hold her in those first three months. My I used to live in a townhouse where there were stairs. And so I would have these intrusive thoughts of me tripping down the stairs with her my husband tripping down the stairs of her knee dropping her over the stairwell, all these intrusive thoughts, which we know like a lot of women have intrusive thoughts of harm to themselves and their baby, or a bad things happening. But the frequency of them was probably inappropriate. But I just didn't even realize for a long time I went and saw my perinatal psychologist, and she just told me that everything I was experiencing was normal. And not to worry about it and you would get over it. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, so that was the first few months the first three ish months. I was afraid of leaving the house. I was afraid of going anywhere alone. Because I just didn't feel like I could handle any of it. Everything was just overwhelming. And I was just terrified all the time and my daughter she slept okay at that point. She was actually a really like good sleeping newborn. She got up to like nine hours straight at night. So that was fine. And I was doing a little bit of work on the side as a research fellow, for someone in Sydney, because she was a pretty like, intense boss who tried to blame me for the layout delay and a lot of our projects, which made me feel guilty, so wasn't a great contribution to it. But that was three months postpartum. And then she probably should probably just about to turn four months and COVID hit in a big way. So that was the first lockdown. So just as I was feeling ready to start leaving the house and being like, somebody in society, again, locked down happened. And there was a lot of fear around those first COVID lock downs, we didn't understand a lot. We didn't know a lot about it. We didn't know what it was going to do to small humans. And so we had to make a decision for our family, that we would follow the rules, which is such a bizarre thing to say. But like, you know, a lot of people around us weren't following the rules they were letting like other people like grandparents, or like, extended family or friends come and visit and be in the same house and space. And so we had to be like No, no one's coming to visit. So for four months, no one touched my child, except for me and my husband, we had no external support. We were hiring a nanny as like just before the lockdowns happened so that I could get back to work because I was meant to get back to work at four months and work three days a week, which I now no was a terrible decision to make. But we didn't get to have a nanny. So I was all of a sudden working three days a week in the middle of a lockdown with an infant who suddenly started not sleeping. And she woke every one to two hours for the next year. Because she had a cow's milk protein intolerance that went undetected for a long time, despite me asking over and over about it and being told that I should just sleep train my kid because it was a behavioral issue and a coercive behavior trap. And one doctor was even like, oh, yeah, it is CMPA when she was six months old. But there's nothing it's not that bad. You don't have to worry about it. And it wasn't until she was two and she was having significant distant digestive issues that a pediatrician said, No, I've read the notes that the NPI was so bad that I would have taken her off breastfeeding and put her on a formula as quickly as possible, because it was that bad. And I was just like, what is happening? And it took me a really long time to find that doctor, because at that point, we were still bed sharing when she was two and had to just have issues to be like, I had to call around and be like, does this doctor recommend sleep training as the first port of call? And like, the administration treated me like crap when I asked those questions, but I just had such a lack of trust in pediatricians at that point, because they are just so quick to say, Oh, is there a sleep disturbance? Therefore it's this. And it wasn't at all that. So yeah, on top of like, my already clear issues with my mental health was an infant who was now not sleeping very well. And so because she wasn't sleeping very well, I was trying to find out why. And it felt like I was a failure. And I was doing something wrong because I wouldn't sleep train her sick. The maternal child health nurse came in three days, when she was three days old and was like, nope, if she's not sleeping for more than if she's not sleeping an hour, you need to if she wakes up, you need to pat her and shush her and don't let her see your face. And I was just three days older is your problem. Like I know, there's still face experiment, like you may not know that much about infants and how they sleep. And that was my biggest error in in like researching children. I never researched that before I had my own child. But yeah, she was telling me all these crazy things and I was like, What do you mean? But then on social media, all I saw was sleep trainers and all these moms all these influences like being like I did taking care of babies and my babies sleep through the night at three months old and I was just like, What the fuck? So all of that kind of compiled on top of each other. I already had this pre existing anxiety and depression. It then got compounded by the hormones I had Dima didn't even know that I had to make to because yeah, I didn't even know I had it because my postnatal anxiety and depression was so bad it master Dima. Like I It wasn't until my depression with treated that I noticed I had Dima because now I can notice the fluctuation in my anxiety levels before just so constantly high. It was insane.
Fiona Weaver 34:33
That's so interesting. I haven't considered that before. It was it was a lot.
Kristyn Sommer 34:37
And then so I had a great GP she was really kind and understanding or trying to figure out what was wrong with me like medically with all of these like episodes I was having and then just one day I just had this epiphany. What if it's anxiety and she's like, Oh my God, yes, that makes total sense. That's exactly what it is.
Fiona Weaver 34:56
I was just about to say that.
Kristyn Sommer 34:58
Literally, that was literally What happened? It was that was the I was just like, oh my god, like, what if it's this? And she's like, Okay, what do you want to do about it? And I was like, Well, I've been anxious my entire life is obviously a really strong neural circuit. So I'm going to need help coming off that. So I think that I should probably like, take a medication. So she prescribed me, an SSRI just like any one straight off book that was safe for breastfeeding and things like that. And they're all fine. I took the first one and I had the biggest panic attack that I've ever had for five hours straight. It was hell. And what did that look like? Um, so when I have panic attacks, it's like vertigo, My head spins. I feel like I am being thrown around in the like waves like at the beach, like the surf. And I feel like I can't come up for air feels like it's really hard to breathe. Someone's sitting on my chest with their hands around my throat. My heart is racing, I feel like I'm going to vomit. It's an it just feels like agony that never goes away. And underneath all of that is just these negative thoughts telling me that it's never going to stop that I'm really, really sick. And it just perpetuates itself over and over and over again. It's really hard to stop it. So eventually, like my body just got exhausted, and I was listening to like meditation, soundtracks on Spotify, and I think I eventually fell asleep and woke back up and felt a little bit better. But I had a really bad like panic attack hangover. weeks, I couldn't be left alone with my child for weeks. I was just like having these like little recurring panic attacks, and I still get those hangovers. Now if I have a really bad panic attack. So I'm still I'm better, I'm a lot better. And I can handle my panic attacks when they happen really quickly. But if I have a big one, I can still like get those hangovers and I understand them now. But yeah, so I spent like weeks, just like my husband, like, had to do everything for us. I couldn't eat. I like all I could do was sleep because my infant was still waking all night. She was exclusively breastfed. And she's a challenging infant. She was highly sensitive as an infant, she cried all the time. So it just kind of compounded all the issues that we had. And then we had no support, no help, but I was still working. Because it was the middle of COVID it was it was a perfect storm. Um, and then I at eight months, I got an emergency psychiatry appointment because as soon as I took that first SSRI, like, and it caused a panic attack. I was like, Did it cause a panic attack? Is my body not processing something? Right? I need to like go and see someone who understands these drugs. And so I got an emergency psychiatry appointment. And within five minutes of meeting her, the first thing she said was, Has anyone told you you have autism? Wow. Like no. Like, what do you mean? Of course, I don't have autism. And I don't have
Fiona Weaver 37:57
space on the list of things that's happening to me right now for autism.
Kristyn Sommer 38:01
That was just like, What do you mean? And for a long time, I was like, How did she know? Like, she must have been just so brilliant. But it wasn't until recently that I realized that when you're that far in like a psychological crisis, that your ability to mask as an autistic person and I'm, I'm okay, in masking, I'm pretty good. Like people wouldn't know I'm autistic unless I'm, if unless I'm letting my traits show that when you were that far down a crisis, your skills at masking it just gone because you don't have any energy to mask so I was very, I was probably very evidently autistic at that point. So she might have been great, but also, my masks might have just been completely obliterated, because I was so broken. Yeah, exactly. So that contextualized a lot because with autism comes sensory issues that comes with like strict routine adherence and changes in that leads to meltdowns and there is like either hyper or hypo awareness of your into your internal experiences. And I have hyper awareness, which means that I'm very aware of everything that goes on in my body, and it triggers panic attacks very easily. So yes, all of it. All of these things. This confluence of chaos, led to a fuckup. Yeah, so all of it, all of it together, led to a really challenging first year of motherhood. That was really, really hard. But despite that, I eventually got on SSRIs eventually started recovering. I started feeling better and understanding myself more it took me two years to then go and actually seek a diagnosis of autism. That's a more recent thing because I finally had mental space to deal with it because I've finally gotten on top of most of the anxiety and depression. And yeah, I came out the other side swinging because I got really mad about the contribution of social media to the like, decline in my mental health because I couldn't get mad at COVID. It just kind of was there, I couldn't get mad at that. Couldn't get mad at my kid, because she was very wanted and she's not her fault. The things I could get mad at was social media. And so I made it my mission to correct every single piece of misinformation and myths that was perpetuated on there. And that seems to have resonated with a few people.
Fiona Weaver 40:29
Yes, holy shit, what a story like you have had some time to reflect on this experience, haven't you? You have a very, very wavy story is respect. cohesive? Yeah. Yeah, you've done the work amazing.
Kristyn Sommer 40:45
Don't I still have a lot of work to go I still, I still have a lot of challenges. I still have a lot to learn about myself and about my child and about the world and how everyone interacts with everything. But taking a scientific like approach to it. Like an approach of curiosity and wonder, rather than judgment, and like negativity has definitely helped me a lot. Yeah, I try to imbue that in the work I do, and towards my followers, and I try to never engage in that negativity and judgment and assumptions of other people on social media. Because of it, but yeah, it's interesting.
Fiona Weaver 41:23
Yeah, super interesting. So what what does your mental health look like now? Like, do you still experience panic attacks, they just don't look as gnarly as they did. Or I'm still on medication.
Kristyn Sommer 41:34
I didn't experience panic attacks, panic attacks for quite a while they've only just recently researched. And that's because when I was in Scotland, so I, my panic attacks used to be rooted in emetophobia. Like I was very, very, very scared of vomiting. And that's been my entire life. But I managed to get on top of that, when I started recovering from this. And then when I went to Scotland, I passed out randomly, one day in the dormitory when I was with my husband and my daughter, which was complicated, because we had placed to pass out and like, Get an ambulance to come and help you. But I like cognitively was like this is fine. And like, I definitely can handle things a lot better now. But my brain was like, Ah, now we're afraid of passing out. So now when you get anxiety, I'm going to give you cues that make it sound like you're about to pass out. So now you can be worried about that instead.
Fiona Weaver 42:20
And so somewhere where we can go,
Kristyn Sommer 42:23
exactly my brain like tries to do it without my like, logical like approach. So now I'm in the process of like cognitively reprogramming that and I'm doing a pretty good job of it. Occasionally, they'll just like sneak up if I'm really burnt out. Or it might, it's hard to figure out if it's an autistic meltdown, and burnout, or if it's like anxiety related or if it's both. That's still something I'm learning about. But they will go on for a really long time. And I seem to be out of whack again now, which might mean that I need to change my medication, I have stopped breastfeeding, which could be contributing to that I'm sensitive to hormone fluctuations. So I breastfed for almost three years. And the medication I was on was working really well with the hormones I obviously was excreting while breastfeeding or lack of a better word. So perhaps things now need to change. So it is a constant updating and shifting of mental health and medication and things like that when you have as many traits, as I do. But yeah, so it's, I am a lot better than I was even prior to having a child I know my body a lot better. Now. I had a lot of panic attacks that I didn't even know a panic attacks for my entire adult life, which I no longer have. I used to not be able to go out and eat meals anywhere. Because I used to believe that I had severe food intolerances. As it turns out, I just had an association with food and a panic attack. So now I can go and eat anywhere. And whatever I like. So my life has changed for the better, despite having had a bit of a trial by fire insurance into motherhood.
Fiona Weaver 44:00
Trial by Fire like, Yeah, I mean, it's a good story to tell. Yeah, it's
Kristyn Sommer 44:05
a great story to tell it's fine.
Fiona Weaver 44:06
Yeah, I feel like we just we just flipped past the Deema thing, because I think that's important to draw attention to because a lot of people have it and they don't even know what it is. Yeah, so
Kristyn Sommer 44:17
do they're like so I can explain it. Sorry. I love to interrupt. So do you. Dima is dysphoric milk ejection reflex. Now. It is poorly understood. There is only just now a little bit of research emerging on it and a lot of it and the definition is like impending sense of doom at the moment of letdown. That is not what I believe Dima is and now scientists can come and debate this with me, but we need far more research on it, because that's probably the most obvious and common type at the moment of Dima, my Dima was a spike in anxiety. So it wasn't a feeling like obviously feeling of impending doom. It was a spike in anxiety, which often triggered a panic attack. And like as I as she got older and breastfed less, and I understood it more like I then noticed I had Dima that I was able to cognitively reprogram those thoughts so that they wouldn't turn into panic attacks. But yeah, so Dima is technically defined if you google it as a feeling of, of impending doom and desperation at the point of letdown, or can be right, I think, is another pretty common presentation. And that's yeah, I don't think that's the only two types of Deema I think anxiety is definitely one of them. And it really just depends on your sensitivity to hormone fluctuations, and how your unique anatomy responds to your unique combination of hormones that make your body do the things that need to feed your child.
Fiona Weaver 45:55
Mm hmm. It's such an interesting thing, because it feels so weird that you can breastfeed a baby, you get all that down. And then you get this such a strong psychological response and physiological response, like I would get this, my stomach would just churn. And I would just feel like I'd left my baby in the car, or someone found out I did something absolutely terrible, or I was just about to go to jail or something like that. I did get that real sense of dread and doom. Yeah. And then it would just rush through mouthfeel, the tingles all the way to my fingertips, and I will get this rush and I take a big breath, I felt like I'd been holding my breath. And then I just would shake my head and despair. And then it would be done. Until the next leg down. It was just such a strange thing. I remember telling my midwife I'm like, I get butterflies when I'm breastfeeding. What's that about? Is that normal? And then she asked some more questions. And luckily, she knew about it, because but yeah, it's definitely somewhere where there needs to be lots more research.
Kristyn Sommer 46:52
And do you have a history of mental health challenges? Or if you never really suffered with mental health?
Fiona Weaver 46:58
I think I probably tend towards more anxiety. But I wouldn't say that I have had anxiety. But I was wondering about the relationship between Deema and neuro divergence, because I've heard because isn't there something about dopamine for both of those things, like a drop in, dopamine is in
Kristyn Sommer 47:16
it's possible, I mean, there's so many different hormonal shifts in things. So like with anxiety, it can be a problem with serotonin. So I take a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, which means that my serotonin gets taken up too quickly into the neurotransmitter or whatever it is, I don't really know that too much of the science behind it. And so the SSRI, like kind of like stops it from coming back until it can't until it's done its job properly to kind of like, even out the brand chemicals a bit more. And there is also serotonin receptors in the gut, which is why people with anxiety particularly have a lot of digestive issues. That's like your nervous stomach. So I people generally love like, like gastro stuff and stuff, if they're an anxious person, because it won't actively do something, it will do something physical to your body, because they said serotonin in your gut will cause your digestive issues. And so there's always that correlation. So that could be what your like your just your, your butterflies could actually be like your serotonin being released in your gut. All right, there's so many things like there is dopamine and that like or would circuit? It's such a complicated thing. I don't know enough about it. But I think that sounds like everybody does much research. Yeah. And who knows, like, I still don't really understand like, the variation in hormone expression. For people who are neurodivergent or autistic. I'm still learning about how those things interact with me like coffee interacts in a certain way with me, sugar interacts in a certain way with me in particular. People who are autistic have a 70% likelihood of also having ADHD, which is that dopamine rewards that get again, so yes, it's it's very possible that Dima becomes comorbid with a lot of those things, and makes them what makes it more likely because the system is reacting in a slightly different way than is typical. Mm
Fiona Weaver 49:21
hmm. Fascinating. Theories. Okay, theories, theories, hypotheses, science talk. So I literally could talk to you for an entire day. But I'm not going to because I have something else that I need to get to. But I just want to ask you before we wrap it up today, what do you want the world to know about kids?
Kristyn Sommer 49:42
What do I want the world to know about kids? I think you asked it at the start without actually asking that
Fiona Weaver 49:45
question. And it's the I think I got the answer at the start. Didn't like
Kristyn Sommer 49:49
Yeah, but like kids are these like curious little scientists, and they approach the world not in an incorrect way that needs to be shaped or molded or like made to do one thing Kids are approaching the world in an entirely different way. And if you stifle that creativity, you stifle the future like Steve Jobs or whoever you want to call it. Like, you've got to let that creativity fly, because just because it's not the way you would do it doesn't mean it's the right or wrong way. There is, it could be a less efficient way, but the child won't learn that unless you let them. So kind of just let your little scientist be, unless it's dangerous, or like you got to get shit done. Yeah, kind of just let them be who they are. And try not to interfere, sit back and be curious and wonder rather than judgmental and telling them that they're doing it wrong.
Fiona Weaver 50:39
Yes, I love that. That reminds us so much cycle of security stuff. And oh, my gosh, wonder program and yeah, everything should really I should really do circle of security. Oh, I don't think you need to mean, I think you're good to have it on my resume. Yeah, it's Fallon come and do my group. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been absolutely wonderful to talk to you and I would love to have you on 10 More times if that's okay. You are more
Kristyn Sommer 51:05
than welcome to pop on. Maybe we'll get you on on parenting on packs.
Fiona Weaver 51:10
Yes, you want to be talking to me about this was so long and we just set it up. But
Kristyn Sommer 51:14
we were on our trailer. We've got like our guest list.
Fiona Weaver 51:18
Or your trailer list. I thought you said trolley list like I'm just gonna track you down.
Kristyn Sommer 51:21
Maybe like You're like a supermarket full of like brilliant people to talk to like you'd be on there
Fiona Weaver 51:33
all right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Where can people find you? Oh,
Kristyn Sommer 51:38
on every social media platform that exists. And my handle is always Dr. Kristen summer. Yeah, everywhere shownotes
Fiona Weaver 51:47
to very easily go global. Which means she's a good time as well. You can get lost in her reels, especially the ones that feature her daughter is very fun.
Kristyn Sommer 51:58
Yeah, so many more coming so much. Yeah. So good. All right. Thank
Fiona Weaver 52:02
you so much. No worries. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to mama chatters if you enjoyed this episode, let's continue the conversation on Instagram at MAMA matters.au. Be sure to share this app with your family and friends. And don't forget if you liked it, please leave a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you again and I will see you next time.
