The Tiny Big Joys

Olivia Hinge is back, and this time your questions lead the way. Part 1 covers the early weeks of feeding: the sleepy baby who drifts off at the breast, the latch that looks right but still hurts, the weigh-in that leaves you second-guessing, and the evenings when your baby wants to feed on and off for hours. NHS midwife and lactation consultant Olivia Hinge answers each one calmly and practically, and almost every answer starts in the same place: look at the whole picture, not just one moment. In this episode: ✔️ Is my baby's poor sleep because of my milk supply? Where to start ✔️ Helping a sleepy baby feed: skin to skin, no gaps, and the foot-stroke trick ✔️ Breast compressions, the most underrated feeding technique ✔️ When the latch looks good but still hurts, and what to check first ✔️ Tongue tie: why releasing it should be the last piece of the jigsaw ✔️ Assisted births, bodywork, and the gentle power of baby massage ✔️ Normal tenderness or time for help? Clear signs to know ✔️ Chin first, not nose to…

Part 2 is the "so what can we actually do?" half. Part 1 was about what's normal. This one is the practical side, with no cry-it-out and no rigid plan. Sleep consultant Lucy Bagwell walks through simple bedtime routines, day and night, nap transitions and every way there is to settle a baby. She also takes on the idea that feeding your baby to sleep is a "bad habit". Then come three real questions from parents: nursery naps for a toddler who's always been fed to sleep, the baby who sleeps in the cot until midnight and then wakes every hour, and the 8.5-month-old with false starts. She is clear that you're not mucking it up. In this episode: ✔️ What working with a holistic sleep consultant actually looks like ✔️ A bedtime routine can be four simple steps, and no element is compulsory, not even the book ✔️ Day and night: why newborns don't need to nap in a blackout room ✔️ Sleep pressure explained, and why a big day of naps shows up at night ✔️ Signs your baby is ready for a nap transition, and why you cap…

Part 1 is the "is this normal?" half. Before any tips or techniques, sleep consultant Lucy Bagwell goes back to the question underneath almost every sleep worry: is my baby actually sleeping badly, or is this just what babies are like? She covers the waking, the regressions, the "sleeping through the night" comparisons and the pressure to fix it all by six months, and she is clear about one thing: how your baby sleeps is not a measure of how well you are doing. In this episode: ✔️ What "holistic" sleep support really means, and why how your baby falls asleep isn't the priority ✔️ What normal sleep looks like in the first year: up and down, changeable, and that's okay ✔️ 80% of six- to 18-month-olds wake up to three times a night ✔️ Why babies wake so much, and why needing comfort is a valid need ✔️ Sleep regressions reframed: a heightened need, not a step backwards ✔️ "You give support because they need it, not they need it because you gave it" ✔️ What "sleeping through the night" actually means in the…

Part 2 is the honest half. Where Part 1 covered cord care and car seats, this one covers the things that are harder to ask about: the baby who wakes the second you put him down, the crying that peaks just when you thought things were settling, and the moment — home alone, exhausted — when you feel yourself about to break. Midwife Miranda Sykes gives an exact plan for that moment, and she is clear that it happens to everybody. In this episode: ✔️ Why your baby sleeps on you — and why that's biology, not a bad habit ✔️ Wake windows: hugely popular, and no scientific evidence behind them ✔️ How to swaddle safely, and when to stop ✔️ The crying peak at four to six weeks, and when crying does need checking out ✔️ The step-by-step safety plan for an overwhelmed parent ✔️ Why the visitor conversation belongs at 36 weeks — and the one-hour trick ✔️ What a partner should actually say at 3am ✔️ Building a support network from scratch when your family is far away ✔️ Baby blues or something more? The two-week rule ✔️…

Host Olivia sits down with Miranda Sykes, a London-based NHS and private midwife and lactation consultant, to answer the questions you sent in about those first few weeks at home with a newborn. Part 1 covers what to ask for before you leave hospital, what the first 24 hours at home really look like, and how much of what worries new parents is simply normal. In this episode: ✔️ The one thing Miranda would prescribe every family going home ✔️ What to actually ask for on the postnatal ward — and why you should film the nappy change ✔️ Why your newborn is a wild Tamagotchi you cannot train, and what red baby and green baby mean ✔️ Cord care, the first bath, and how you'd know if a cord was infected ✔️ Cradle cap, baby acne and nappy rash — what's normal and what needs a GP ✔️ How to dress a newborn, and the two-finger check that beats every rule about layers ✔️ Why you don't legally need a car seat to leave the hospital ✔️ The truth about newborn hats — and why nobody quite knows where the policy came from ✔️…

NEW SEASON ALERT: OUR FIRST EXPERT EPISODES DROP FROM 22 SEPTEMBER — THIS WEEK, THOUGH, IT'S JUST US. Seats swapped. This week founder Paula turns the microphone on host Olivia — because before she starts asking our experts your questions, we thought you should know she's figuring out the very same things you are. Olivia shares the first year she didn't see coming: a surprise pregnancy just weeks after getting engaged, the fear that motherhood would change her more than she was ready for, a birth that took a different route than planned, a breastfeeding start that hurt for nine weeks before it finally clicked, and a baby who woke every hour for four months. She also shares what turned out better than expected; the friendships, the joy of weaning, the confidence she never saw coming — and the best piece of advice she was given while pregnant. In this episode, Paula and Olivia talk about: — Expectations vs. reality: what Olivia imagined motherhood would be, and what it actually was — "I wasn't scared of the…

NEW SEASON ALERT: OUR FIRST EXPERT EPISODES DROP FROM 22 SEPTEMBER — THIS WEEK, THOUGH, IT'S JUST US. This week we're doing something a little different. Instead of an expert, our host Olivia sits down with Paula — the founder of The Tiny Big Joys — to go right back to the beginning. Paula spent years travelling and building a career, and had just told her partner they weren't ready for a baby. Two weeks later she was pregnant. What followed was a pregnancy full of questions nobody was answering: bleeding, cramps, and a health service that could only say "wait and see." The only reassurance she could find was other mothers chatting online at two in the morning. She also carried a real fear of birth — the kind that made her cry at a friend's pregnancy four years earlier. In this episode she shares the single private birth class that changed all of it, and why understanding what actually happens in your body turned fear into trust. That gap in information became a podcast. It went to number one in the…

NEW EPISODES COMING IN SEPTEMBER, HIT FOLLOW TO ENSURE YOU WON'T MISS THEM. In this episode, we have Dr. Tracy Dalgleish as a guest: a clinical psychologist and couples therapist with nearly two decades of experience, and the author of I Didn't Sign Up For This. Tracy brings both deep clinical expertise and a refreshingly honest, evidence-based approach to one of the most under-discussed transitions in modern parenthood — what actually happens to your relationship after baby arrives. And this conversation is exactly the kind of grounded, practical, emotionally intelligent guidance that every new and expecting parent deserves to hear before the newborn stage hits. Whether you're currently pregnant, deep in the trenches of the first year, or quietly wondering how you and your partner got so disconnected so fast — this episode is for you. From the Gottman Institute's 67% statistic, to the mental load, resentment, identity shift, interdependence, Fair Play, postpartum intimacy, the touched out nervous system,…

NEW EPISODES COMING IN SEPTEMBER! HIT FOLLOW TO ENSURE YOU WON'T MISS THEM. In this episode, we have Anne Margolis as a guest: a certified nurse midwife (CNM) and holistic practitioner with 30+ years of experience, and the creator of the Love Your Birth online course. Anne brings both deep clinical expertise and an unshakeable belief in the body's natural capacity to birth — and this conversation is exactly the kind of honest, empowering, evidence-based guidance that every pregnant woman deserves to hear long before she walks into a delivery room. Whether you're planning a home birth, a hospital birth, hoping for natural labor, or open to an epidural — this episode is for you. From the shocking gap between US maternity outcomes and the rest of the developed world, to spinning babies, the resting phase of labor, coached vs instinctual pushing, fear work, doulas, and the gentle C-section — Anne and Annabella cover everything the system rarely takes the time to explain. Shownotes and all links mentioned today…

NEW EPISODE WITH OLIVIA HINGE COMING IN SEPTEMBER! HIT FOLLOW TO ENSURE YOU WON'T MISS IT. Boobs, Bottles & Everything In Between This episode is sponsored by Lola & Lykke. Visit lolalykke.com to find out more. Feeding your baby is one of the most talked-about topics in early parenthood — and somehow still one of the least well-supported. In this episode, we have Olivia Hinge as a guest: a certified lactation consultant (IBCLC) and NHS midwife, mother of three and an author. Olivia brings both clinical expertise and hard-won personal experience to every question — and this conversation is exactly the kind of honest, practical, non-judgmental support that so many new parents are desperately searching for. Whether you're breastfeeding, formula feeding, combination feeding, or still figuring it out, this episode is for you. Show notes and all links mentioned today at www.thetinybigjoys.com @thetinybigjoys Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

NEW EPISODES COMING IN SEPTEMBER! HIT FOLLOW TO ENSURE YOU WON'T MISS THEM. Registered dietician Lily Nichols joins The Tiny Big Joys to challenge the pregnancy nutrition advice most women are still receiving — food safety rules, gestational diabetes, prenatal vitamins, iron, and why egg yolks matter more than anyone tells you. She covers what conventional guidelines get wrong, what to actually eat, and the three things every pregnant woman should start doing today. Evidence-based and reassuring. If you found value in the show, the greatest compliment is a share. Please share this to a friend, or post about it in your social media, your word-of-mouth allows us to keep creating content like this. Thank you! www.thetinybigjoys.com | @thetinybigjoys Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

NEW EPISODES COMING IN SEPTEMBER! HIT FOLLOW TO ENSURE YOU WON'T MISS THEM. Certified sleep coach Lauren Weber joins The Tiny Big Joys to challenge everything you've been told about baby sleep — schedules, wake windows, self-soothing, sleep training. She explains what infant sleep actually looks like developmentally, how to tell a normal waking pattern from a real problem, and the simplest things an exhausted mom can do to get more rest. Honest and practical. If you found value in the show, the greatest compliment is a share. Please share this to a friend, or post about it in your social media, your word-of-mouth allows us to keep creating content like this. Thank you! www.thetinybigjoys.com | @thetinybigjoys Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.