Ep. 81 | Bedtime Battles and Toddler Meltdowns: Why Play Works Better Than Bribes with Dr. Kim Van Dusen

Okay, listen... if bedtime, bath time, or getting shoes on in the morning feels like a nightly negotiation in your house, this episode is for you.

I'm joined by Dr. Kim Van Dusen, licensed marriage and family therapist, registered play therapist, and author of the brand new book Parenting Through Play. Dr. Kim has spent 2...

Ep 80 | What Your Baby's Sleep Position Tells You About Their Body

Have you ever noticed that your baby always ends up in the same position? Head turned the same way... one arm always up... or sleeping with their head tilted way back, chin up, like they're looking behind themselves?

You're not imagining it. And it's not just a quirk.

Your baby's body is always moving toward comfort and away from discomfort. So the position th...

It's 2am, roughly 11 years ago, in a small apartment in Park Slope. I am on a therapy ball, bouncing hard, because vigorous is the only setting that works. My son will only sleep on my body, and the second the bouncing stops, he wakes up...

Sound familiar?

In this episode, Kaili takes you back to that ball and teaches you what she wishes someone had taught her then... how to actually look at an unsettled baby instead of just survivin...

You were told to rest for 6 weeks. Then you were "cleared." Back to normal.

Except your body doesn't feel back to normal... and nobody explained that a C-section is major abdominal surgery, that 7 layers of tissue were cut and sutured back together, or that the connective tissue in your abdomen takes the better part of a year to remodel. You went home 48 hours later with a newborn and a healing body and an impossible set of demands.

...

Your baby brings their fists to their mouth constantly. They only settle when they're held a very specific way. They clasp their hands, mouth everything, root even when they're not hungry... and you've probably wondered what it all means (or been told not to worry about it).

Here's what I want you to know: none of it is random. All of it has a purpose.

In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on something I talk about with my cl...

10 Baby Signs Dismissed as Normal

If you've sat across from a doctor, a mother-in-law, or your mom group and heard some version of "it's fine, babies are like that, you're probably overthinking it"... this episode is for you.

Okay, listen. Not an emergency and nothing worth addressing are two completely different things. And both can be true about the exact same symptom.

In this episode I'm walking you through 3 of the 10 signs in rea...

If you had a C-section and left the hospital with a list of things you can't do and almost nothing about how to actually heal — this episode is for you.

Kaili sits down with Janelle Fontaine, a registered massage therapist, postpartum doula, and cesarean recovery specialist based in Vancouver. Janelle created the Caesarean Recovery Guide specifically because she kept meeting mamas who had no idea that a C-section is major abdo...

If you've been following along this month and thinking, "Okay, I get it now… but what do I actually DO?" — this episode is your answer.

In Ep.74, I'm pulling back the curtain on baby bodywork. What it actually is. What a real session in my clinic looks like, start to finish. And why so much of this work can be done by you, at home, without any special equipment, without clinical training, and without putting your baby t...

If feeding has been persistently, confusingly hard — and you've already done all the things — this episode is for you.

You've seen the consultants. You've tried the positions. You've adjusted the latch. Maybe you've even had a tongue-tie assessment, or a release, and feeding got a little better but not all the way there. And you're still sitting with that quiet, nagging feeling that something is being missed.

You're not i...

Your baby can't say "my neck is tight" or "this position hurts" — but their body has been telling you anyway.

The arching during feeds. The one-sided head turn. The baby who will only settle if you hold them just right. These aren't quirks, and they're not things your baby will simply grow out of. They're communication. And in this episode, Kaili teaches you how to finally understand what your baby has been trying to say.

In he...

You had a picture of what motherhood was going to feel like. Maybe it was vivid. Maybe it was just a warm, hopeful blur. And then your baby arrived — a whole person, with a whole nervous system and a whole set of needs that are entirely their own.

In this episode, Kaili sits down with you for an honest, no-pressure conversation about the gap — the space between the motherhood you imagined and the one you're actually livi...

What does it actually feel like to run a sold-out mom and baby class series — not the highlight reel, but the real version?

In this episode, Kaili pulls back the curtain on her years of leading Babies at Play classes and shares the honest, behind-the-scenes truth that nobody told her before she started. From the beautiful exhaustion of holding space for an entire room of mamas and babies at once, to the butterflies she still g...

Have you ever left a professional appointment with your baby feeling like something was missed? Like you could see something was off — but no one else could?

In this episode, Kaili takes you inside her clinical eye and walks you through exactly what she's looking for in the first few minutes with any baby. The things that aren't on standard milestone charts. The things that don't get flagged at routine checkups. The things mos...

Ep.68 | Why Your Baby Won't Settle (And It Has Nothing To Do With What You're Doing)

You've tried the routine. You've tried the swaddle. You've tried the white noise, the swing, the side-lying feed. And still — your baby is fussy, unsettled, or just working so hard to get through the day.

Before you blame yourself (or their "difficult personality") — there's something almost nobody is telling you to look at. And once you ...

Kaili Ets, mom of two and pediatric occupational therapist, shares a real-life look at what nervous system regulation actually looks like in early motherhood. It’s not about staying calm all the time—it’s about what you do when things feel hard.

She walks through a moment many parents will recognize: coming home after a full day to a house that feels overwhelming, plans that didn’t happen, and a nervous syste...

Kaili Ets introduces the Mothering From Within podcast and explores something many parents don’t hear enough—you need safety too. In the early years, parenting doesn’t just shape your baby’s nervous system, it deeply impacts your own sense of calm, confidence, and trust in yourself.

She explains how, as you begin to feel safer and more regulated, your baby often starts to settle too—not because you&rsqu...

If your baby only sleeps on you…
wakes the second you put them down…
arches, pulls off during feeds…
or just feels tense, uncomfortable, or hard to settle…

This episode is for you. 💜

Because what if this isn’t about bad habits…
or something you’re doing wrong?

In this episode, I’m walking you through the missing piece I see over and over again in my work as a pediatric ...

How do you know if something is actually helping your baby…
or if they’ve just gone quiet?

In this episode of Mothering From Within, Kaili walks you through one of the most important (and often misunderstood) parts of baby development:

👉 the difference between a baby who is truly settled
and a baby who is simply quiet from overwhelm or exhaustion

Because those two things can look very similar on the outside&hellip...

Ep. 63 | Slowing Down So Your Baby’s Nervous System Can Catch Up

In this episode of Mothering From Within, Kaili reflects on something she’s still actively practicing in her hands-on work with babies: patience.

Our adult brains move quickly—we’re often thinking about the next step, the next task, or the next thing to try. But babies experience the world very differently. Their nervous systems process sensation...