Today’s Podcast

Episode 143 Katy Widrick is a mom of two beautiful daughters and online marketing consultant and strategist, as well as a multimedia producer for a national brand.

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Katy Widrick

The more that I think we can be kind to each other and keep in mind that we were new to different things too And this is just one of those new experiences that we have to encourage each other and teach in a way that is not in your face that we can talk about abreastfeeding  in a way that is not devisive. I also think that this is pretty simple.  This is how my children eats.

Her Story.

Katy Widrick is a mom of two beautiful daughters: Audrey, born in 2012 and Remy, born in 2015. She lives and works in St. Petersburg, Florida as an online marketing consultant and strategist, as well as a multimedia producer for a national brand.

Katy and I began today’s show talking about the need to educate the public about the basics of breastfeeding. We agreed that it is more than likely the lack of knowledge about how breastfeeding works rather than judgments that gets in the way of the public having patience and tolerance for the breastfeeding mother. You do you. I am going to worry about me and let’s just be kind and supportive of each other.

Katy Widrick FamilyBackground history: She was born in New England in 1980, and says that she is Katy with a Y. She is the first child of 2 as she has a brother who is 3 years younger then her and has wonderful parents who are still married and who are wonderful grandparents. Her father is in broadcast journalism and they moved around a lot for his career. Katy has lots of memories of moving around a lot and being in different schools. She was always close with her mother, but she tells us that everything changed when she had her baby. She leaned on her for advice and wisdom and to cry on her shoulder. She also understood that years before she became a parent, that her mother had gone through every emotion she was going through now. She now lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, close to the beach with her husband and 2 beautiful girls.

Her career: Katy does not remember a time when she does not remember wanting a career in journalism. Her Father was an on-air anchor and reporter for most of her life. She grew up watching him doing the news and she would see him on screen almost as much as she saw him in person. She loved to write and loved sports. When in High School, she was producing video stories and doing some on air work and fell in love with it. She went to Syracuse University which is one of the top broadcast schools in the country. She thought she was going into sports journalism and be on air and be the newest ESPN anchor. Fairly early on in her She realized that her skill and passion was not to be on camera but to be the boss behind the scenes. She now works in journalism but in TV and radio and is a producer, which is the boss of the show. This is the person that puts the stories in order and does the majority of the writing and makes sure things go smoothly. She thrives on deadlines, loves the fast paced day and likes breaking news and describes herself as a news nerd. The more headlines, the more news stories, political debates and loves it all.

She credits her mom for helping her to realize that she could do this. Her mom was in the theater major and was a radio host. Her parents made a decision that when they started a family that her mom was going to put her career on the side to have and raise children. She left the theater world and the broadcasting world and stayed home with her for a year then stayed home with her brother. She worked out of the home. Katy says that she would love to interview her at one point about this topic. Her sense is that she did jobs that she liked and did work for people that she liked and was very happy.

The career path her mom took was a conscious decision to stay home and be the primary parent raising children Her father, on the other hand had crazy hours and worked the overnight shift. Her mom was home for bedtime and bath and dinner. Now seeing how hard this is physically and emotional. she is particularly grateful that her mom encouraged her to Her father is and was a very active father,, but the reality is that the day to day family stuff fell on her mom and put her career on the side to do so.

Was Katy Breastfed? She was breastfed for a year. Her brother was breastfed for a a year. Her mom practice babywearing and practiced more hands on parenting approach.

Breastfeeding experience: Katy is a Type A and spent a lot of time preparing for her pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and parenting. She found The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding was the best book she read. She attended a breastfeeding moms support group and watched you tube videos, all to prepare for breastfeeding. She did not have a community of other mothers who had babies to hang out with. After her daughter was born, she attended a breastfeeding mothers group, where there were two lactation consultants in the group who would be able to help out. Mostly it was a place where she and other new moms could sit and talk about their new life as mothers. While breastfeeding came pretty easy for her, she does not think that breastfeeding is always easy. She did have many of the concerns that new mothers have. Her daughter spit up after almost every feeding. She was anxious about this and going to the group helped her to keep calm. Other moms gave her some valuable tips and just knowing she was not alone, was helpful. Katy highly recommends mothers attend a new mothers group as it helps with isolation, it is judgment free and helped her be more comfortable getting out of the house.

We had a nice conversation about instincts. Lots of moms are told to trust their instincts. Katy tells us that it took her a while to build up her instincts and feel confident in them. She needed people around her to give her some valuable tips and advice, while she was waiting for her instincts to kick in! As a new mother you are unsure if the amount of milk she was vomiting was normal. As a new mother, you are frightened to take your baby out in public, or for a drive in the car and other activities.

Katy talks about the difference between mothering her daughters. Her breastfeeding experiences were quite different. She returned to work when her first daughter was 12 weeks old. She went from exclusively breastfeeding her to pumping during the day and giving daycare bottles. She received bottles when she was separated from her and breastfed her at night and weekends. She says that her first baby was easy going and quite and is the sensitive one. She slept through the night at a few weeks old. She breastfed for 22 months.

With her second daughter she has worked from home and hardly pumps. This daughter is a fireball, is clingy, and does not sleep at night at 13 months old. Everything about her second baby has been different and whatever she thought she knew about being a mother with her first baby, she had to throw out the window because it was so different.

Even breastfeeding has been different. With her first, she thought about it all the time. Between pumping, and storing and washing her parts. She always had to make sure she had enough milk and had to bring it to daycare and there was so much to think about. Now, with her second daughter, she stays home with her and even though she breastfeeds her more, she just does not really think about it. She nurses her when she is hungry or fussy or clingy. It is part of their every day life and yet she just does not think about it too much.

Having said that, Katy does say that it is a bit of a double edge sword in that she feels like she is always on call. Things have become a bit easier as she now takes organic cows milk and this allows her some space. However, just because she is so different, even in the fact that she does not sleep through the night, Katy finds that being a mother to her second daughter has been just as rewarding and yet quite different than with her first.

Words of wisdom to share with a new mother: If you feel like you are overwhelmed and struggling, don’t stay silent. Reach out to your healthcare provider, family or friend. Some days it can be hard and her words of wisdom for the next mother is to truly recognize that you need to take this one step at a time and not think so far in the future. Sure it does get better, but as a new mother, we need for someone to tell us to take it one day at a time. She also wishes that she had taken off more time, more maternity leave with her first baby. Try hard not to be in such a rush to get back to work so quickly.

Her husband was helpful and she is grateful for this: He cooked and for this she was so grateful. He always made sure she had a big bottle of water and some snacks. It was because of her husband that she did eat and hydrate during the day. Having her husband helping with her older daughter as far as playing with her and bathing her and all the daily things, really helped her focus on the new baby.

It is important for moms to ask for help. Our partners may be very happy to help out and yet may not be thinking about what you need. They need for you to tell them what you need. If you wait for them to initiate getting you food, doing the laundry, taking care of dinner, etc. it might not happen.

Her current business: Katy launched her own business when her baby was home with her. She builds websites and builds marketing strategies. She helps with social media management and calls herself an online marketing fixer Katy really loves helping with female entrepreneurs and bloggers who want to tell their story and get bigger audiences. She takes a look at what the business owner is doing and figures out a way how to make it work better and faster. She takes pride in that she is able to individualize what she offers each client.
She loves the tech part of her business. She takes to figure out how to fix things that are broken. Katy loves to take the stress away from her client and enable them to do the parts of their business that they enjoy and are good at.

Contact Info: makemediaover.com
bugchild.com
kwidrick@gmail.com
@kwidrick on all social

Lori J. Isenstadt, IBCLC

Lori j Isenstadt, IBCLCLori Jill Isenstadt, IBCLC is a huge breastfeeding supporter.  She has spent much  of her adult life working in the maternal health field. Once she became turned on to birth and became a childbirth educator, there was no stopping her love of working with families during their childbearing years.  Lori became a Birth doula and a Postpartum doula and soon became a lactation consultant.  She has been helping moms and babies with breastfeeding for over 25 years.  Lori founded her private practice, All About Breastfeeding where she meets with moms one on one to help solve their breastfeeding challenges.  She is an international speaker, book author and the host of the  popular itunes podcast, All About Breastfeeding, the place where the girls hang out.  You can reach Lori by email at: aabreastfeeding@hotmail.com or contact her via her website:  allaboutbreastfeeding.biz/contact

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