The Honest Mom Podcast

Dr. Amy Conrad is a board certified pediatrician and a working mom. She is the founder of Kinder Digital Pediatric Clinic and the host of the Ask Doctor Amy podcast. Dr. Amy is on a mission to help families raise healthy and happy kids by paving a more simple and natural path to parenting.  We live in a culture of wanting to optimize each part of parenthood and childhood, but this often leads...

Learning to support ourselves in our postpartum journey can be a struggle. Especially when we are battling the stigma that moms are being selfish for wanting (and needing!) more than to just be with our babies 24/7. We often try to do it 'all' and then feel like we have let someone down if we can't.  There are many factors that can lead to this idea of disconnect from our feelings and our own...

Time management and motherhood! It seems those two things will never be inclusive of the other. But that doesn't have to be the case. Before starting her own business, Megan Sumrell worked for over 20 years in the software/IT space as a Quality Architect, creating systems and processes to turn chaos into harmony. And she was good at it! But once she became a mom everything she knew became foreign...

After a traumatic birth experience, including an unplanned c-section, Cat Gieser struggled both physically and mentally after the birth of her first child. She found a lack of support for maternal wellness and when she confided in her OBGYN about her postpartum struggles she was simply dismissed and offered drugs without any thought to what else could be done. After her experience, Cat knew she wa...

Sleep. It's one thing we can't do without (at least not gracefully) and the one thing that seems to elude us after becoming a parent. Thanks to people like Meredith Brough, there are solutions out there that can help restore sleep for both you and your baby. Meredith is a mother of five and the owner of Sweet Slumber. After struggling to get her first child to sleep, Meredith knew she had to do th...

Erin Quick is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of PairTree, an app and website dedicated to making the adoption process easier for both expectant mothers and hopeful parents. As an adoptive mom of 2, she has first-hand experience with the challenges and emotions that surround adoption. So much of the decisions surrounding birth moms and families wanting to adopt are rooted in sadness, wi...

Do you feel a pull to be both a mother and pursue outside interests? Maybe it's starting a business. Maybe it's working for someone else outside the home. Maybe being a full-time SAHM is exactly where you want to be, but you want to carve out some time for your personal interests and hobbies so you don't lose yourself in motherhood.  In today's episode, I spoke with Camille Walker. Camille is...

Once upon a time I made a vow to myself that I would never live anywhere other than the great city of Chicago. I LOVED Chicago! I planned to live in the city forever, raise my kids there, and never, ever leave. Well, "never say never" because life has a funny way of making us eat our words. What was it about the suburbs that had me leaving the city kicking and screaming? What was it about what the...

"MOMMY NEEDS WINE!", "Mommy Juice", "It Takes a Village, and a Vineyard", "Time to Wine Down".  The amount of t-shirts, mugs, wine glasses, and other memorabilia may seem clever and cute at first. But is it? Normally I'm not a party pooper and I'm far from a "Karen", but lately this movement of mommies coping with booze is really affecting me. You probably listened to my solo episode surround...

"So often we wear busyness as a badge of honor. Or glorify productivity to the point where we don't even know what we're pursuing or why we are chasing down that goal anymore. Busyness can rob you of fruitfulness. The pressure to be productive can rob you of peace. Breathe. Regroup. Thrive." -Susan Narjala Do you find that when someone asks how your'e doing, your natural response is, "I'm so busy!...

We've heard the term "She gives zero F's" like it's so easy. It's not. That's why women write books like this. I'm here to introduce you to Gianna Biscontini. She's a Behavioral Analyst. A Scientist. She also brings strong coaching skills to women, like you, who are tired of the limitations that you may not even be aware of. In her new book, Fuckless. A Guide to Wild, Unencumbered Freedom, she wil...

How many times do you want to ask a difficult question but are afraid of the answer? Do you find yourself wanting to have a discussion, only to pull back for fear of what the other person may say? Are you afraid to ask your child if they've ever felt sad, or even depressed? Even more powerful, are you terrified to ask and acknowledge your OWN feelings? (Yes, they are inside of you!) As a podcaster...

You sit in your bed at 4am, propped up by pillows, baby sucking your last bit of energy out of you, and as you gaze to your right you spot it. No, it's not a spider. It's not an unidentified brown stain on the sheets. It's your partner. Sleeping. It's then 8am and your partner grabs their bag, their Starbucks card for their glorious drive thru order, and smooches you on the cheek with a "HAVE A GO...

I was too ashamed to say it out loud, or even admit it inside my head: "BEING A MOM CAN BE F'IN BORING!" I didn't want to tell my husband or complain because, well, that's what I was supposed to be doing. Being a mom. It's every woman's dream right? It seems to be a blanket statement for motherhood. But what if you're starting at your baby like Tom Hanks did with the Wilson volleyball in the movie...

Disclaimer: This isn't an episode for you if you don't have the choice to have more children. Just simply skip this week and return back next week!!  Today's episode is for you if you have decided to not have any more children but question if the decision you've made is the right one. Perhaps you have people asking you, "So are you SURE you're done?" or "Are you SURE he wants a vasectomy?" I...

Should you go back to work? Should you stay at home? Work part time? Start a new passion or hobby? You've arrived home, survived your maternity leave (because that's ANYTHING but a vacation!) and question, "Do I want to go back?" Or maybe you left your career and wonder if you need something beyond motherhood? Maybe you don't but you still over-analyze and question your purpose? For me, I was ALL...

I always had this label of being "laid back" and "chill" in my mind before I was a mother. What I didn't realize was that I had my own internal perfectionism that actually came out when I became a mother. It's made me realize that growing up I had a lot of pressures I put on myself, personally, academically and in my career. I carried perfectionism with my personality as well. You may have listene...

You all know I am a #spiritualgangster at heart and I've loved bringing spirituality into my mental wellness journey as well as my motherhood journey. We aren't talking organized religion in this episode, although that may be YOUR spiritual soul driver where you will still connect with today's episode in so many ways. Our total wellness embodies so many different pillars: nourishing foods, daily m...

We see photos, hear stories, watch friends hold their new babies, and have this message ingrained into us that we will be immediately in love with being a mom. And being immediately in love with our baby. For some, this does happen. And that's OK. For others, like me, this doesn't happen. And that's OK too.  It can be hard to be immediately IN LOVE with something that can be so challenging, d...

I replay this line from the movie "Mean Girls" inside my head: "But I'm the fun mom! I'm the cool mom!" and realize that this need to be exciting and interesting wasn't flooding my mind as a mom of a teen like in the movie. It was as a mom of a newborn, then a toddler, then kindergartner, and I still struggle with this even as she starts 4th grade in the fall.  We've talked a lot about the wo...

The kids are annoying, the laundry piles up, your toddler is screaming, dinner hasn't been made and you just walked in the door from work. It's "Wine Thirty!" you say as you pour yourself a glass of red, escape and breathe a sigh of "God give me strength." Another day you're overwhelmed by the to-do list, you feel like an Uber driver, the day ends and you pour yourself a glass of Pinot Grigio to t...

The Body Positivity movement is probably something you've seen on social media or in conversation as a new mom. The "get your body back" focus is not only unrealistic, but harmful for our mental health. But what if no matter what affirmation you say, no matter how many people tell you that you look amazing for "just having a baby", you still don't feel proud or connected to what that amazing body...

Today we are joined with the incredible Abbey Williams of The Mimosas with Moms Podcast. I was fortunate to be a guest on Abbey's show during her first season and as I started my honest motherhood journey to where she was at the forefront of my mind with who I wanted to be on the other side of the mic during my first season.  Abbey and I will be chatting about blended families and coparenting...

Today's solo episode is giving you some updates on something I've been talking about for ummmm...coming on 4 years! Why am I putting this out there? Because it's something many of you have been encouraging me through, supporting me, waiting for, and wondering how the process has been going. I can't leave my biggest cheerleaders hanging! Another theme throughout this that I want you all to remember...

I was 35 when I became pregnant and 36 when I gave birth to Brooklyn. In medical standards, I was an "old mom". Even in society's standards I was considered a "concern" as people asked me when my husband and I were going to have a baby. I wish I had Bethenny Frankel's "Get off my jock!" quote near to me during that time as a family member would ask why we were waiting or my OBGYN tried to instill...