Brittni (00:01.378)
Hello, hello and welcome in to the Resting in Motherhood podcast. How are you today, mama? How has your day been? How is your week starting off? How are you? As I was sitting down today and I feel like every time something happens that kind of correlates with what I’m going to be chatting about, but as I sat down to record today, I noticed that

There was a really bad glare on me from outside. My desk is right next to the window. And it was just a beautiful reminder of the changes in seasons, the change in seasons. The sun is a little bit lower because we’re in fall, so it’s coming in a lot more into my office. So I had to close my blinds partly so that there wasn’t a huge glare on the video for those who watch on YouTube. Also, so I could just see.

But it’s a beautiful reminder of the seasons in our life and how nothing is permanent, how everything is changing. And like little reminders like these are visual reminders of things are changing, things evolve. As I’ve shared before, I am a lover of fall. love just kind of the, I see it as freshness, kind of moving out of summer, closing out that chapter, moving into winter where we’re all gonna kind of.

quote unquote hibernate and turn inward and then we’ll get ready for spring. But I just loved that because what we’re going to be chatting all about today, if you have not already seen on Instagram, is a big shift that I’m going to be making or that I’ve already made actually within my business. But first I need to share with you how I’m currently finding rest in motherhood and it is actually this exact thing.

I am currently finding rest in motherhood by really being true to myself. And honestly, this is more of a business-sided thing, but it it rolls over into my personal life too, because I am my brand. I am resting in motherhood. That is me. And so, and I’m a huge believer in like living in aligned life, really living as who you are.

Brittni (02:21.61)
I’ve recently really got into human design. so knowing that I really need to live my true purpose. And so I have been feeling like that shifts needed to happen in my business. And that was rolling over into motherhood and my personal life. So how I’m finding rest right now is really being authentic to me and tuning into where I’m at and allowing myself to grow and change and evolve.

And it’s really interesting because I remember when Lila and I moved out of our apartment to move in with my parents a little over a year ago, I posted this thing on Instagram that talked about how I had recently read about like having like your caterpillar phase where it’s not a very pretty phase. You’re kind of you’re in your cocoon waiting, waiting, waiting. There’s not

There is a lot of change going on, but you don’t necessarily see it from the outside. And then you come out and you’re a butterfly. And I thought that moving out of my apartment kind of was the ending of our cocoon, our caterpillar phase, and I was entering into the butterfly phase. And I’m just now realizing that I think that I was in my cocoon phase. And this is getting very figurative.

But I was in my cocoon phase, I think, for the whole last year. And I think I’m just really starting to come out of that. I think that a lot of change and a lot of learning and a lot of deconstructing and shedding parts really needed to happen. A lot of ego deaths needed to happen. And so that’s what I want to chat about today.

so that you’re not like, well, what are you talking about? I’ll start from the end and then we’ll go back to the beginning and work our way to the end. But I have decided to transition away from supporting families specifically with baby sleep to really focusing on mom. And now if you’ve been here for a while, you probably aren’t totally shocked by this because I’ve talked about it in bits and pieces, but I hadn’t fully let go of sleep.

Brittni (04:38.666)
and I am fully stepping away from sleep now, specifically like one-on-one consults solely focused on sleep. I’m still gonna have my sleep courses, which you can always find in the show notes. I’m still going to have my workshops. I’m still going to be able to help families that come to me one-on-one with sleep, but my bigger focus is going to be mom. And I am stepping into a life coach.

slash mentor for moms. And really what I’m going to be focusing on is helping you to confidently do motherhood your own way and showing you how to thrive while doing so. And I want to kind of jump into exactly why that, why I’m jumping there, but I think we really need to go back and kind of get the full.

story, right? The evolution of how we got here. And I’ve talked about this in bits and pieces, but mostly it’s more on the personal side. So today I’m really going to focus more on the business side. But again, I am my business. I am my brand. So there’s going to be, some overlap. So some of this you may already know, but I think that in order to really get to the full end of this journey, you need to know like where I started and, and how I’m

I’ve gotten here, how I’m qualified to help moms in a life coaching and mentor role. So before I had Laila, I knew that I wanted to breastfeed till at least 18 months because my mom had breastfed me until I was 18 months and I really respected that and I really thought that that was amazing of her and so selfless. So I knew that but I had been gifted a sleep training book called Baby Wise which if you

haven’t heard of Baby Wise, it’s this premise of like eat, play, sleep. Specifically, they don’t want you feeding to sleep because it quote unquote creates a bad habit. If you’ve been following along with me long enough, you know that that is absolute BS. Nursing to sleep or feeding to sleep is a biological norm and it works because it is supposed to, okay? But I got this book, I didn’t know. So, and the one thing I will say that I…

Brittni (06:53.408)
that liked about this book is they were very adamant, like don’t leave your baby to cry, but they made it seem very simple. Like you feed your baby, they play, and then they sleep. And you shouldn’t be supporting them to sleep, but then again, they’re telling you not to do cry it out. And so that in itself creates an issue because they make it seem so simple. And then there’s like this schedule, like at this age, this should be their wake window and this is how long their nap should be. then, so I thought it was gonna be that simple.

So here comes Lila, my spirited, highly sensitive child who I did not know at the time had extreme ties, oral ties and a tongue tie. She had all the ties that you can have. She had a tongue tie, both lip ties, and then what are called buckle ties, which are on the cheeks. Girlfriend had them all. I did not find them until she was 13 months old when I started my sleep certification and learned all about this.

And I mean, that’s just a piece of it, right? So here she comes, I’m like, I’m gonna do eat, play, sleep. It’s gonna be so easy. We’re gonna have the perfect schedule. My life is gonna be great. And I was like proudly telling people like, yeah, I’m gonna sleep train. Now, if you’re like, well, sleep training is cry it out. You can sleep train without doing cry it out, but usually there’s some form of ignoring like biological patterns. So like the eat, play, sleep is ignoring that it is a biological norm to nurse or feed to sleep.

If you don’t nurse her feet to sleep, that’s okay too. But to me, sleep training is anything that ignores kind of what’s biologically normal, limits responsiveness or connection with your little one with the goal of getting better sleep. But anyway, so I proudly told people, yeah, I’m gonna sleep train. And then Lila came into the world.

and quickly showed me, no, you are not, because I knew I was never going to do Cry It Out. And so I was like, well, it’s easy. Like, we’ll just do, I’ll feed her, then she’ll play, and then she’ll fall asleep. Well, little did I know, I had to still support her to sleep. And it was so hard. I mean, I’ve done, I’ve already, if you haven’t listened to my sleep episode, I recommend going back to that. But, and we can link it in the show notes, but.

Brittni (09:18.319)
I

Brittni (09:21.566)
just my reality was completely different than what I expected and sleep was so so hard and I became a shell of myself. I had postpartum anxiety. I was anxious about everything. I didn’t want anyone to ask me about sleep. didn’t want to leave the house because I didn’t want to breastfeed in public and I didn’t want what if she needs to take a nap while we’re out and it was just this whole ordeal and it’s so funny because I remember that when her dad would do naps she would sleep for like

three hours on him. And I would be like, why? Like, why does she sleep this long on you and she’s not sleeping this long on me? And I was trying to fight to get her down and all of this, like get her into the bassinet or in the crib for the nap and it wasn’t working. And like hindsight is 20, 20. And I realized like she slept so well with her dad, like when he was holding her for naps and we were still married at this point because he didn’t care, like in a good way. Like.

He just was like, she’s a baby, she’ll sleep, it’s fine, no problem. And so my anxiety was also fueling our sleep struggles. And so I finally found safe bed sharing. Again, I don’t wanna go too much into the sleep aspect of it because I have a full episode on that. So just kind of some high level touch points. I started bed sharing around four months when sleep was awful. And then kind of…

four months to 12 months, I was like closet bed sharing. I was kind of afraid to talk about it, but I was learning more and more. And I started following accounts that talked about safe bed sharing and what’s biologically normal. And I started to grow in confidence in like, this is what I’m doing and it’s working for our family. And all during this time as well, I had a nine to five before I had Lila.

And then after she was born, took my, I think I had six weeks off. No, I think I had 12. Yeah, I had 12 weeks of maternity leave. And then after the 12 weeks, as the 12 weeks neared, I just knew that I could not go back to working a nine to five. I just could not leave Lila. Also, because Lila was a very high needs baby. And if you have a spirited high needs baby who’s highly sensitive, you know what I’m talking about.

Brittni (11:42.816)
This is not to like downplay parenting for other parents, but like you really don’t get it until you live it. Like I would tell people like, she’s a really hard baby. And they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. All babies are hard, but this is different. And if you have one of those babies, I’m sure you’re shaking your head yes. And you’re like, I feel seen because it’s just a whole different experience. And so when I was going to be going back to work, my mom, my saint of a mother was going to be watching Lila.

five days a week while I was at work. And I also kept thinking about that. Like, I can’t do that to my mom. Like, I love Lila, but she is a lot and that is way too much to expect of my mom. And so I knew, I don’t want to, first of all, I don’t want to be away from her that much. And also I can’t do that to my mom. And so I told them, I can only do, I only want to work 20 hours a week. And…

Then it actually I actually took it down to 16 hours a week. That’s what felt good for me And honestly, it was kind of this nice little yes It was hard to leave her but it was kind of nice after 12 weeks I wish it would have been after six months but it was nice after 12 weeks to kind of have something to get dressed up for To go have a little bit of time just by myself. I was still spending a lot of that time pumping right but to kind of get back into some sort of normalcy and

of find an identity again. Then not much longer, not much later, COVID happened and all of us were sent to work from home, which was perfect. I got to work remotely in home with Lila. My mom would watch her, but it was very, it was like the perfect setup. But then as Lila grew and we neared that 12 month mark and I was learning more about biologically normal infant sleep, I stumbled upon, well, I didn’t stumble upon because I had actually taken her

zero to 12 month course when Lila was like nine months, think. Isla Grace, Lauren now Weber, Weber is her last name. She was Heffernan, Lauren Heffernan. So I found her sleep certification and it’s an 18 week certification, the baby led sleep and wellbeing certification. And I knew, I was like, I’m so passionate about this. My first year as a mom was so hard.

Brittni (14:07.284)
I really want to help moms. want to encourage them to follow their instincts, to know that they don’t have to sleep train. I wanted to really take away the anxiety and stress that I felt in those first 12 months and really just help moms with sleep because that was my biggest struggle, sleep. And started my certification in either September or October. It was an 18 week certification. Highly recommend checking out the certification.

I will link it below as well if you want to check it out. started my Instagram page and just started posting about what I was learning in the certification, what I felt passionate about, and I grew my following. And then I got my certification in early 2021. I think I officially received my certification approval in February of 2021.

And then in March, I started taking clients, sleep clients, and I hit the ground running. And I think about this, and I’m just so proud of myself that I just had the courage to just do this, to start my business, knowing that it was all going to work out. And once I started taking clients in 2021 and around March, they kept coming and I kept growing my Instagram and it felt so good.

supporting these families. And every client I got, I learned more, right? And so it was this beautiful learning experience where I was able to help moms with their baby sleep. I was learning more. I was giving them confidence and it felt really good. And I loved what I was doing. And then at the end of 2021, I separated from my now ex-husband.

And then I had to start navigating solo parenting and what that looked like and running a business while solo parenting. And it was a lot. And I’ve talked about this in previous episodes, too. But I had to learn how to take care of myself again. I had to learn how to have an identity. My identity had fully been wrapped up in mom, business owner, wife. And now I was no longer a wife. And I was left with time when Lila was with her dad.

Brittni (16:26.902)
where I was like, what do I do? Who am I? What do I like? Also simple things like, I remember when he moved out, I was like, how am I gonna take the dog out to go pee at night with my child sleeping upstairs in an apartment? Am I gonna have to start taking my child with me to take the dog out before we go to bed? Like all of these things that I had never thought of, I had to start thinking of. I had to figure out how to take care of myself. I had to figure out how to get through a full day. I remember when we were married.

I would so look forward to that like five o’clock mark when he would come home and it was like, okay, take her for a little bit. need, I’m to go cook dinner. I’m just need a little bit of a break. And now that was gone. Now I was primary sole parent wake up to bedtime with no like waiting until that five o’clock mark when he came home. And so this was a period of huge growth.

and learning and self discovery for myself to really figure out, okay, wife is no longer one of the roles that I have. So I got to figure out how to love myself, how to take care of myself and how to thrive in this role that I’m now in. And during all of that, I continued to grow my business. I continued to help hundreds of families with sleep and I loved it. And my page kept growing and I had…

I am so lucky to have the most amazing clients. Some of my clients who I know will literally be in my life for the rest of my life. And so I was just so life-giving to support these families. I also learned a lot during that time on like how to microdose joy into my day, how to find these pockets of joy in a day where I was parenting by myself all day long, how to take care of myself when I didn’t have somebody else to call on.

in the house, how to drop balls. And these are all episodes, by the way, that I’ve done in the past. So you can go look at like my microdosing joy, my dropping balls. Those are all episodes that I have, but I learned how to do all of this. And then again, through 2022, I really continued to grow my business. Things were great. I hit 150,000 followers on Instagram, which by the way, follower count is not like this.

Brittni (18:54.472)
It doesn’t have the clout, or what am I trying to say?

It was exciting that I had 150,000 people who were passionate about my message, but I, follower count is not like the one thing that I look at, right? I wanted to be impacting parents’ lives, mom’s lives. And then in 2023, my dad went in for a simple gallbladder surgery that ended in him needing a full liver transplant due to…

something that happened during the gallbladder surgery. so 2023 was seven months of my dad being in the hospital, primarily ICU. Many of those days we did not know if we were going to see him the next day. I remember going to sleep every night and just praying, please don’t let us wake up to a call in the middle of the night. Please don’t let us wake up to really bad news in the morning. that then with that, I lost my biggest source of support, my parents.

My mom has always been an extreme help with Lila. Now she was at the hospital with my dad, 30 minutes away because he had to be flight for life down to, actually it was not flight for life, excuse me, transported down to a hospital, a bigger hospital that could save him. So then she was like at the hospital all day long and I had no support. And I’m not saying all of this for like sympathy. What I’m saying is, is this was my real life.

and I was left to either sink or swim. I could have either sat in all of that hardness, and many days I did, by the way. There were many days where I didn’t want to get out of bed, where we watched way more movies than I am proud of, me and Lila, because I just needed that break, that mental escape. But I knew I could either sit in the hard or I could figure out, okay, I went through my divorce, I can do it.

Brittni (20:52.78)
How do I continue to show up as the mom that I wanna be? How do I continue to fill my cup? How do I continue to thrive where I’m at with our current reality? And I started learning so many skills, so many grounding techniques. feel like I really, last year was really a year to like come home to myself and do a lot of internal work. I feel like I did a lot of internal work after my divorce and then I kind of had this like,

fly by year where business was amazing. I was feeling amazing. I was getting my quote unquote color back. I was really coming back to life. And then 2023 was like, boom, I’m gonna bring you really low again and we gotta see, can you make it? Can you get back? And I did, but it took a long time. And as all of that started happening, business started to feel clunky.

and sticky and hard like I was walking through the mud and I was continuing to get clients. I was continuing to make money but it just felt hard and then in 2024 I was like okay like what can I do? I launched my toddler course. Was that this year or last year?

I think it was this year. can’t even remember now. I think I launched my toddler course earlier this year, but everything just felt hard and I didn’t know why. And so finally in June, I’m like, I hired a business coach and she asked me at the beginning of our work, if you could be paid to do anything you wanted, what would it be? And

The first thing that came to my mind, I told her, I want to help moms feel really confident in motherhood. And I’m not talking about confidence, just about our bodies or our appearance. That’s a part of it for sure. But I mean like confidently embodying the empowered mom that you want to be. Confidently making the choices that feel right for your family without fear of judgment.

Brittni (23:05.984)
without fear of, my gosh, am I totally crazy? Am I doing this wrong? Which by the way, those thoughts still come, they still come to me even, but it’s that confidence that says, yeah, this feels scary, but I know, I trust in my instincts, that confidence in your instincts. And so that’s what I told her. And so then my VIP package was born because I wanted to go deeper. And that’s what I had started realizing with my sleep clients is my favorite clients were my clients that

would book a call with me every few months just to check in and get support. And those clients really started being more life coaching clients without us ever really talking about it. Like, I need help with this, I need help with this. And a lot of times it wasn’t sleep related. And so was already kind of doing this life coaching work without officially doing it. And so that’s where this, my VIP package came from is I told her, I want to go deeper. I love my clients that come back to me

every few months for an hour call here or a 30 minute call there where I’m really in their life and I’m in it with them. Because what I started feeling about my sleep consults was I would get the call, I would send them on their way, they would go try things out and then I wasn’t kind of along for the journey and then we might catch up and then we would reacquain ourselves and continue on goals. But I wanted to be in it. I wanted that high touch experience with my clients.

For me, I was like, well, I’m still gonna do sleep, but the VIP package is going to allow me to be texting them, be in the moment with them, obviously through text. It’s not an in-person package, but that started there. And then as June and July kind of blended together in August, it just still felt hard. Like I kept showing up on Instagram and I was just like, I don’t want to talk about sleep. I wanna talk about mom.

Yes, sleep is a part of that, but I want to focus on mom. And then what I realized in October, this month actually, actually I don’t know if you’re listening, if it’ll be October or November, but either October or November, but in the month of October, I just came to this realization, actually it was late September, where I was like, I think I’m done with sleep.

Brittni (25:30.518)
Does this mean that I’m not passionate about sleep anymore? Absolutely not. I am still passionate about telling families, do not need to sleep train. I am still passionate about sharing why you should not do cry it out. I am still passionate about extended breastfeeding, feeding to sleep. I’m still passionate about co-sleeping and contact napping and all of that stuff. But it’s not my biggest passion anymore. My biggest passion is taking

all of the lessons that I’ve had over these last five years of motherhood on growing in confidence, on really becoming my most empowered self, my most connected and grounded self, connected to myself and my child. Becoming this version of myself that has self-care practices built into my daily life every single day. And most of those days I am full-time mom without any childcare, right? So doing that, having those self-care moments while still being

full-time mom, how I built a business and continued to thrive, right? I want to take all of those experiences.

I wanna take all of those experiences and help you and help my clients, either my old existing clients or my new clients. And that’s what I realized is, yes, sleep can be a part of my work. If I have a mom come to me and she wants to do my one month comp, if I have a mom come to me and she wants to do my one month confidence intensive or my mama mentorship program, which is a three month program, specifically one-on-one with me and sleep is an issue.

Great, we can work on sleep, but while we’re working on sleep, I also wanna work on you, mama. I want to help you become the most confident version of yourself that you can be. I want you to thrive where you’re at. I want you to find joy and peace in your everyday life instead of constantly feeling insecure, stressed out, anxious, burnt out, like your days are constantly chaotic. And that is what I’ve realized is I wanna take you on that journey.

Brittni (27:40.532)
I want to be along for your mama journey to help you become the most empowered, confident, grounded, calm and regulated mom that you can be. I am going to help you transform into the mom that you want to be, that you’re craving to be. And that is why I’m shifting away from sleep to really focus on you. And I’m so excited for this journey and I’m so excited to bring you along for it. And what does this mean kind of moving forward? So,

I won’t be taking new sleep clients anymore. Now again, if you have sleep as an issue, we can still work together, but we’re also going to use it as a life coaching mentorship experience. why would you come work with me? Talk about what would be a good reason to come work with me. If you’re feeling insecure in motherhood, if you’re feeling like your days are constantly chaotic, like you’re trying to juggle too much,

like noise from the outside is weighing you down, like you wanna let go of that weight and really become the most confident, empowered, regulated and peaceful version of yourself and motherhood that you wanna be, come into my world, let’s work together. We can work in my one month confidence intensive, we can work in my three month mama mentorship program, they are both high touch, obviously my three month program is much more in depth, but my one month is also a month spent with me.

where we will have two calls, a one hour kickoff call and then a one hour call at the end of our work together. And then Monday, Wednesday, Friday, text support for the whole month where I’m in it with you. The three month package is we have four calls, one intro call, three check-in calls, and then Monday through Friday, text support for those three months. And it’s really designed to give you the support and guidance

and warm hug and accountability and motherhood that you are looking for. I’m here to guide you through it. And I’m really excited to go deeper with you and focus on you. And like I said, if you are just constantly feeling totally burnt out and stressed and sleep is a part of that, we can work on it. That’s the beauty now is I can, I don’t just have, I’m not just going to have only like mama mentorship life coaching. Sleep can be a part of it, but I’m not

Brittni (30:08.744)
solely taking sleep consults, if that makes sense. And then I also, if you have missed out on it, I also have my Confident Moms Collective, which is a nurturing membership community of other mamas who are confidently doing motherhood their own way. It’s a great place to come meet true mom friends. The relationships that are already being made within the collective warms my heart. I love jumping into the group chat.

The posts, there’s a phone a friend section within the collective where you can post a current struggle or challenge that you’re having and the other mamas will come help you and support you and guide you and offer suggestions and encouragement. So that’s another way to come be in my world. And the other thing about the Confident Moms Collective is I have a monthly workshop within the collective that’s included in the price of the collective. So you’re getting…

a live workshop with me once a month. The topic will vary on anything from how to thrive in motherhood. I’ll have different parenting experts coming in. We might be talking about feeding, discipline, development, sleep. I will still probably have the occasional sleep topic come up for a workshop. And then I will also do a live Q &A within the collective as well. And that happens monthly. And then I will be offering

different workshops outside of the collective. If you’re a member of the collective, you get access to any additional workshop that I host during the month at no extra cost. But you don’t have to be in the collective to do my other workshops that I will be hosting outside of the collective. So you can always keep an eye on those. And you can always just shoot me a DM and chat if you’re interested in working together and you want to see if I can help you. I will still be here.

If you are a current or past sleep client, I am continuing to hold those spaces for you. So I have lots of clients, like I’ve said, who book in a 30 minute, one hour call whenever something comes up, I will still be holding those spaces for my previous clients. So as long as you have an additional one hour call link for me that has been sent in a follow-up email, I will continue to support you in that manner. And…

Brittni (32:25.408)
I think that’s it for my big life update. One thing that I have been toying around with, and this goes hand in hand with helping you find your confidence in motherhood, is also kind of stepping into the business coaching world. I’m live launching this now. I haven’t even fully decided on it, but.

It is something that I have been considering stepping into like a business coaching role for mom business owners, specifically businesses that are centered around moms. So other sleep consultants, lactation consultants, anybody who works with moms really in that zero to six, zero years to six, zero months to six years of age. That is something that I…

may be bringing on in 2025. So if you’re interested in that, if that’s something that you’d be interested in, shoot me an email or shoot me a DM and we can talk about it. But I’m so thankful to have you here. The podcast, I will continue to show up and talk about everything that we talk about already and more. And I’m wishing you a beautiful, beautiful day and I will see you next week.