Moms Talk with Dr. Varisa Perlman [Episode #18]: Summer Break with Kids

Cecile: Hello, everyone. Bonjour! This is Cecile from La Petite Creme, and we are live for Episode #18 of our series, Moms Talk with a French Accent. So, hello, hello. Thank you for joining. Hi, everyone. Thank you, thank you. Let me add in my co-host, Varisa Perlman. There you go.

Hello. Nice to see some familiar faces here. Hi, Zelda. Is it Zelda or is it Deborah? You have both of your names in there. Tell us. Hi, Varisa.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Hi, how are you?

Cecile: Hello, Sophie. Hi. So it's only me today because Fanny is— Hi, Deborah. Fanny is applying today's topic very much because we are talking today about summer with kids, and she's just spending the summer with her kids today, so she took the assignment to heart. So hello, everyone joining. Hello, hello. So, as I was saying, I'm Cecile from La Petite Creme. You usually see me with my partner, Fanny, but she's not here today. And I am joined with our favorite pediatrician, Dr. Varisa Perlman. Hi, Varisa.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Hi.

Cecile: Do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Sure. I'm Dr. Varisa Perlman. I am a holistic pediatrician who is also working as a health coach, and I'm based in New York. This is a great time of year because it's hot in New York. I know it's always hot in Miami. I know it.

Cecile: You probably have a better sense that it is summer for you where you are than us in Miami where it feels like it's unbearable right now. So it's summer all year round, and it's very hot in the summer.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yes.

Cecile: So that's why we came up with this topic. So I am a mother of two. You happen to be a mother of two. Fanny is a mother of two. We have kids that range from two years old to—How old is your oldest?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: 21.

Cecile: 21. So we cover a wide range of kids and parenting experiences and we all know that the summer is dictating an important part of our life, which is that summer break. So depending if your baby is a newborn or all the way to their 20s, the summer has this particular taste to it because it's usually tied with either a daycare being closed for a couple of months or school being off for a couple of months or the weather being different for a couple of months.

So, assuming you live in the same hemisphere as we do, you're not in the dead of winter for you, you're actually in the in the summer But everything we say can be applicable whenever your winter is. So thank you for everybody who's joining.

So the topic for today is what to do in the summer with your kids. If you want to start typing in the comments what your plans are for the summer, why you're excited for the summer, what are your questions about the summer. Hi Melissa. We'll be happy to answer.

And I remind you that we're gonna have a giveaway today during the call, so you're gonna have a chance to win La Petite Creme Baby Shower Set, which has our favorite—I see all your little hearts around. So you have the diapering lotion, the smaller one for your diaper bag if you plan to go on a trip with your baby for the summer, 50 of the cotton pads, and our famous diaper balm. So stay on, and at some point, we're gonna just ask a question and whoever is here gets a chance to participate and win this.

So, summer, Varisa, what do you have for us on summer? What are your memories of summer with kids?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: [laughs] You know, it's funny because you say summer break, but I think it should be named actually summer scramble. I think summer scramble is actually a better term. I think that for parents—and you think, "Oh, wow, your kids are older. This must be a distant memory." No, not at all. I think maybe it was so impressionable.

I feel like summer, there's a little bit of a panic because you have a routine. If the kids are in school, there is a rhythm to your day. And it is good to kind of mess with the rhythms a little bit, but week by week by week, whether it be you're traveling, or they're in a camp, or they're in a different camp, or are they swimming this week, or are they sailing, or are they going to basketball? It's like every week is like a new adventure. [laughs]

And besides the fact of physically and emotionally having to prepare differently every week, there's cost. I mean, I know in Miami, I remember some of these camps per week were just astronomical. So you kind of go from a space where you know what the cost is going to be for school to being like, "What can I do with my kids so that we are just literally not blowing the budget all summer as well?"

Cecile: Exactly. And it's also before school, the daycare phase, when you have a baby. Sometimes the daycare also changes their rhythm for the summer and maybe not necessarily their time, but sometimes it's also the time that they accommodate for the care of your baby, but also just the type of activities they need. And I remember with my children, it's like, oh, now it's water day. Now it's swim day. Now it's zoo type of day. And you're like, "Okay, it's just different."

But I think you point something important, which is the change in the routine. So here in the previous episode, we've been talking a lot about how routine can be good or bad. It's good in a sense that kids need that to grow and develop and feel more able to self-control their life in a sense. But changing the routine sometimes is nice because it kind of gives them a chance to explore different things for you and for them.

What would be a positive impact of that routine change for those of us who are watching, who are wondering like, "Okay, how do I face that change?" What's the positive of that change from your professional point of view?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: You know, it seems to me that the thing that we want our kids to be ultimately, whether we realize it or not, and because I think that we also realize what the world demands of us as people, is to be flexible. And I think that a lot of times, there's always this fear that if I—Yes, we do talk about morning wakening time routine, the bedtime routine. I'm not really talking about messing so much with that. It may get messed up if you're traveling, but when you're in a different place where they have a different drop-off, where they have a different pickup, you want kids to get to the point in their maturity that they're like, "Yeah, okay, let's do this. That's cool." "Oh, okay. This week we're swimming. Okay. I'll do that. That's not a big deal."

You want them to get that challenge that they may not get in a school year that has that standard one. And you say, "Oh my God, but it's so hard." Yeah, it's hard, but there is good things to it. There's actually a good thing to it that everyone gets shook up a little bit.

Cecile: But it takes time to get there, right?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Totally.

Cecile: For those who are going through that. Again, my kids are old enough, but I remember when they were little, I would—for the first few years, I couldn't envision changing my routine because it was my safety. And I felt like all the things of like doing something different felt overwhelming. So I think it's very appropriate to mention that today to people who are watching. If you don't want to change your routine, you don't have to. Don't feel like you need to do it just because we're saying it could be beneficial. You have time to do that later. It's not because you don't do it when your kid is one year old, that it's forever.

But when you start changing that, it takes some back and forth with your children for them to accept the change because they also feel comfortable in what they know. And at first, I remember those moments where you're like, "Okay, I'm gonna do something spontaneous and do something different. And for once, I'm gonna be the fun mom who's gonna just bring something up." And everybody is miserable because nobody's really prepared for it and then it's not the right timing exactly, and then the baby's like, "But why?"

You are expecting this like you're feeling that you are the one holding the spontaneity, at least that's how I felt, and when I was trying to implement it, it came back in my face very hard. So is that something common? Was it just me?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yeah, I mean, listen, there's always growing pains. They don't call it growing tickle. It's painful. To me, I feel like the most cogent view of that is traveling. I think that traveling, the first couple times you do it, it's like, "Why are people traveling with children? Why would you have to pack for a one-year-old? Why are we even making ourselves do that?" And then you start to kind of have a feel. Like, "Okay, well actually, this is what we need. We don't really need this."

But if you don't do it, if you only do it once a year, for example, you're just never gonna get the hang of it. But if you make little trips here and there, and you get used to this idea of like, "Maybe I don't have all my things with me all the time. Maybe I have to use this instead of this." And sometimes there's a little bit of joy in that. Yeah, sometimes you're like, "Oh my God."

I remember being in New York, being so silly, and having a double stroller, like side by side, double stroller, and being like, "I can't even get in the door. What am I supposed to do with this?" So there were a couple of disasters where I was like, "Okay, I clearly got schooled on that." But at the same time, I went back to it. And so the next time I would be—

I always joke with my husband, if they had Olympics of how to get through security with a one and three-year-old, I'm like, I would be—I think that our team would be—I always wanted to wear t-shirts. I'm like, "We would beat anyone." I remember we looked over and there was one guy traveling by himself. And I was like, I'm going to show you, all four of us are going to get through it before that guy." That's how fast we got. [laughs] I had a whole system. But it was that kind of thing that's only because it was something that I felt was important to me.

And maybe, again, like you said, it's not a priority for everyone, but to me, I think that's a great skill to push yourself. And summer break is that time to experiment, jump in, jump out, see if your kids can experiment, push them a little bit. Sometimes there's something amazing that comes out of it that you didn't realize before. Whereas if you were doing the same thing every day, you may not come across that discovery.

Cecile: And there's something amazing I found is you can build that up after the fact. So one of the tricks that I found for myself in the couple of trips that—As you said, sometimes it's overwhelming, it's too much, you can't be content. As a mom, I have a hard time just pretending that everything is fine when it's not. But the beauty with young children is that they learn from the moment, but they also learn from everything you tell them because their memory kind of fades quick. So if you keep referring to that trip with all the good parts of it, and if you turn this into an adventure, "Remember when we lost whatever, it was an adventure," then for them in their head, it was a great experience, no matter what it was in reality.

But you can turn that into something positive, so next time there is something that comes up, you can refer back to those moments that you have kind of reconstructed as a positive experience or as a learning experience to build up with them toward making it more comfortable.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yeah, I think that's totally on point with learning from your children and that idea of them healing you as they grow as well. I remember coming from Michigan to Miami and we were there for just the weekend. I remember it was the 4th of July weekend. We were just there for a weekend. So me and the kids were in one bag and my husband was another. Just the reality of traveling with the family. It was the three of us and him. And whose bag gets lost? Our bag, the one that has the three.

And I mean, when you're coming to Miami, as you know, I had jeans on. I mean, you're gonna die. You're in July, you're gonna literally just melt before you even hit the taxi, you know? And I am just like, almost having—I'm hyperventilating, I'm just so upset. I'm so upset. And I remember. We're waiting in the baggage claim area. I look over and my kids are jumping in and out of the door [laughs] watching the door open, close, open, close. I mean, they were like, "I'm already having fun. I've already moved on to the fun thing. Whatever." It's not like the middle of Sahara. Even then, they'd probably sell t-shirts there anyways. What's the big deal?

And I felt like it was a learning experience for me. I learned a lot about myself. And I think that that's absolutely true. It kind of forces you to model. If you're the one who's like, "Oh my God, you're going into this camp. It's totally new. I'm so scared." I guarantee you, the kids are like, "Oh my God. Where are you sending me? This is awful." But if you are mindful and you're like, "You know what? I'm a little anxious about this. Let me just kind of work through this anxiety and use this as an exercise to push myself a little bit more." I feel like summer break is that moment to just kind of push ourselves. And it's a really great moment to reflect on the year, to see like, what did we learn? What can we get better at? As you set yourself up for the school year.

So having that break, it's relevant. You do need that kind of break in a lot of ways of your routine. I think that's really important.

Cecile: So the break in the routine is also somehow less of a break for the parent and mostly for the mom. So that word, as you said, summer break, it's not a vacation necessarily for all the members of the family, if we're being honest. Because if you have your baby at daycare, for example, or if you have your child who is taken care of by a nanny or something, if that person is not available, that system is not available, all of a sudden you're facing your child a lot more than you used to.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Totally.

Cecile: And maybe it's something you don't talk about. I know personally, I had an issue with that. I had a hard time being a full-time mom when I was forced to be. I think the component of it being imposed on me was sometimes difficult. And I felt guilty for it 'cause I was like, "Oh my God, am I a bad mother?" Is that something that you can relate to? Is there anybody here who feel like they can relate to? Because the perspective of spending a month alone with a newborn can be something that's frightening. [laughs]

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Well, I was literally just gonna say, here we are talking about things to do, what to do, how to do. And I'm always talking about how to unschedule. And I think that equally, summertime, yes, is a busy time. It can be a busy time. You make those decisions as to what activities you have. But it's also a moment that you can also have slower times where they don't have to go to something. Take advantage of that. Maybe alternate the weeks where it's really busy and then the weeks where you're like, "No, let's have a week of just chilling at home."

That's a big break in your routine. I mean, most of the time during the school year, just modern-day culture. There's a lot of activities after school during the school time and then come home, get ready, pack up, ready for it again. Do it again, do it again, do it again. You just feel like it's like this weird cycle, but summertime kind of allows for maybe some large breaks in time that you can chill.

So if you are at home and you're all of a sudden feeling like, "Wow, it's just me and the baby," it is important to craft a little bit of a schedule, to kind of craft time that maybe when the baby is resting, you don't run around doing all of the errands. You know, say, "Hey, you know what? If the baby's gonna rest, I think that it's time for summer nap time. I'm gonna rest too. I know I'm a grown person. I know that I don't usually nap, but you know what? I think I'm gonna nap too."

And I think that kind of rhythm and allowing that rhythm to take over your days in the summer is nothing bad either. It's kind of great too. So I think there's a lot of possibility when we talk about summertime for both you and your kids. Because we tend to get into the grind, we get into the routine, and all of a sudden, we blink and look up and we're like, "Wow! It's six months later. How the heck did that happen?"

I think if you can somehow create moments during your days that you are with your kids maybe more than you usually are, it's always good to schedule rest time. There's no reason that you have to be like super summer person, super summer camp. And that really does force kids to make something out of nothing. There's a big push right now to kind of allow kids to get bored so that they can have that self-initiated learning, they can kind of learn on their own, as opposed to having things pushed in their face. Try to live some of that. Take walks with them where there's no video or no nothing and basically they have to amuse themselves with the sky [laughs], with what's walking by, what they're seeing. Those are small moments that don't always exist in the school year.

Cecile: And summer has a lot of that to offer because the days are longer. Again, back to when I was in France, the seasons were something that exist. It doesn't exist here in Miami. The days are longer, the trees, the flowers, the smells are different. The outdoor has a lot to offer. Whether you're in the city or the country or whatever climate you're in, it does have a lot of opportunity to just be outside and look and sit and explore without having to perform for something.

I know you mentioned a lot the performative parenting.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yes.

Cecile: It is also one of those expectations that, "Oh, what are you doing for the summer?" Where you could be like, "I'm summering. [laughs] I'm just going through and see," because it's a moment of—As you said, you need to also recharge before you face those months. Again, not necessarily the school year because not all the kids are going to school yet, but the fall that is coming, the winter, which are months that are more draining because of the natural activities of life. So summer is a moment to regroup and think.

I found that one of the tips that I used in my summers was that even though let's say you're a stay-at-home mom and the summer is like—it doesn't change so much and you would like to take that break. There are a lot of people that are free in the summer that are usually busy doing things. So whether it's other family members that are on vacation or school, like teenagers, or any other older kids that are on vacation, or other parents who happen to be taking care of their kids because they took the time off. Maybe it's the time for you to rely a little more on your circle and your village so that you can also take that time off.

Because otherwise, as a mom who is at home with your kids, you may never have that time. Summer might not feel like summer if you don't use that external realm of people to help you get that moment where you can take that nap, you can take that shower, you can take that walk on your own. Maybe you can't really do that on your regular year.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yeah. We talk a lot about different concepts that I think are a little bit more generational. And I think that in our past generations, even taking a night out with your partner so that you can recharge was a new idea this generation. I felt like my parents' generation was like, "I don't understand, why would you need that? You're supposed to be a shell of a person by the time you finish your children, that's all understood."

And I think that women particularly are not very good at compartmentalizing and saying, "You know what, I'm gonna do this for me." I had a conversation with a mom recently. She goes, "Yeah, I have a nanny, but if the nanny's around, she takes one kid, I take the other kid. And that's it." And I go, "Does the nanny ever watch both kids so that you can go out?" And she's like, "Hmm. Well, I just thought it was good to have one-on-one time." I'm like, "Why don't this week take an hour? Just one hour this week where the nanny watches both kids and you go out for a walk and your kids can see that mommy needs her all the time too."

Cecile: But it's difficult at first. I have to admit that at first, it feels like you have that guilt. So that thing that you get when you have children that you're being gifted and you don't know it comes as an add-on, it's that guilt. So whatever you do, you have the guilt of being like, "Oh, because it's the summer and because there is all this anticipation around summertime, I should be the one spending a lot of time with my children." And maybe it doesn't have to be 100%. Maybe they're going to have a fantastic time with the nanny for an hour while you go take a walk and then enjoy you being refreshed after you come back from that walk.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yes. It's quality, not quantity. So I would much rather you be 100% during the time that you're with your children versus being 50% and being with them 100% of the time. Do you know what I'm saying?

Cecile: Yeah.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: You being present is more relevant to them. And you know, it's interesting because this person, we worked over a couple months to convince them that they should go out and exercise for an hour. And at first, their kid would be like, "Where are you going? Where are you going?" And she'll be like, "I'm going to exercise. I'm great." Each time, it got a little bit easier. She would come back sweaty and she just would look—I mean, kids can tell when you're happy. She'd come back and the kids would be like, "Hi, Mommy. You are sweaty," and you just came back from exercising. And they like that. They like to understand where are you going. They're really sometimes just asking, "Where are you going?" They're not even that crying. But to us, we hear it as like, "Where are you going?" They're actually just asking where you're going. They're not trying to do anything at that moment either.

And it's that kind of thing where because we're so laden with the guilt, we feel it. And so now, she's like, "I'm going to exercise." And they're like, "Have a good time, Mommy. Come back sweaty." The kid's fine. They're fine. But what you're modeling there, which I think we have to understand how relevant modeling is. We are modeling exercise is important. When you say, "I'm going to go for an hour and mommy's gonna go read in a cafe, " it sounds ridiculous, right? But they're like, "Oh, reading is important. That's really nice. Go for your walk and go reading. That's really nice." Like you have a space or a time that you exist when you're not my mom, when you're not my wife, when you're not my partner, when you're not a job, that you exist outside of your roles.

It's so hard in the beginning, just like how we're talking about changing routine, it's really hard, but to me, a goal for me, for the people that I work with is to kind of make it as normal, as going out to do errands, going out to do groceries. Go out and exercise. Go out and take a walk and be on your own for just a little while because it does allow us to be more present. In the end, that's what the kids really want.

The kids actually don't respond well when a parent is sitting there, they look exhausted. 'Cause I've watched these kids by the way. The parents are not aware. They're distracted. I live in the Upper West Side. People are walking everywhere, and school pickup is a busy time. And I've been that parent. I know what it means to be like, "Okay, we gotta pick you up, we gotta get you on the thing. You gotta go." And I've seen this parent dragging this kid. The phone here. "Come on, come on, we gotta go." And the kid's like, "But the bird, the bird flew over." The kid's like, "Why can't we be like now?" They really want to be present. They want people around them to be present. And that's the hardest part of it.

So as you go into the summer, like you said, the quantity of time that you might be with your kids may have increased, but make sure that you take care of yourself so that quality is there too because that's really important for kids in terms of them feeling comfortable, enjoying themselves, being creative. It's a great creative energy time. That's what you want when you come through the summer.

Cecile: Yeah. So on that note, I think we'll do the giveaway now. And I think I found the perfect question for the giveaway. So I'm gonna piggyback on what you just said, and I'm gonna ask you, whoever's watching. I'm going to ask you to write down what is the one thing you're going to do for you this summer. And I can't wait to see. So write in the comments what is it that you're going to do for yourself.

We said summer with kids and the question is going to be about you because you are the foundation of the well-being of your child. So, Melissa, Deborah, whoever is here, write down the one thing you're going to be doing for you that's going to eventually help your family. So one thing you're going to do for yourself over the summer. We'll give you a few minutes as we continue talking.

Melissa says, "As a new mom, this has been the hardest thing for me, but going to try harder to find more time for myself." Wonderful, Melissa. We love hearing that. It is important that we start doing that. And why is it important to do it early? Because I feel like it's hard when you just had a child or you're having a baby or you have multiple kids to look at the big picture because you're so into it. But if you could do one thing, is look back and try to look at what you would want your kids and yourself to be in 5 years or in 10 years.

Where my kids are right now is a fantastic stage where I can see the independence, I can see the sharing of ideas back and forth, I can see the flexibility of being able to travel together. And I think that vision of where I wanted to be ideally in our dynamic has helped putting one step at a time toward that goal. So as you were mentioning earlier, yes, it takes practice because you said traveling was important for you, so you maybe naturally said, "Okay, we're going to try small and do a trip to the next city." It doesn't have to be a giant trip. But if you manage to find some time to look at a 5, 10 years perspective, then you know where to put the energy so that you can grow toward there.

Because it's not when your kids are 5 and when they're 10 that you're like, "All of a sudden we're going to start traveling." It's not going to happen if you haven't built to it because that resistance and that fear are going to be higher, right?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yes. Well, I mean, I like what Melissa was saying, was taking more walks and she's 23 weeks pregnant and with her second. She's gone through this. And the idea is that you start earlier because it may not look perfect in the beginning, but if you just start the habits for both you and your children and really flagging it as something that's important and seeing how the kids grow into it as well, it becomes kind of this exercise that becomes habit. You don't form habits overnight.

I love this idea of really stepping back and having overarching goals. And I know that seems so overwhelming, but sometimes we do lose the forest for the trees. We have no idea. Sometimes I felt like there was a big corkboard with a bunch of holes and I was literally putting my finger in all the holes. But when you have time outside of your kids, outside of your family, that you can kind of just say like—And it doesn't have to be three hours, it can be 10 minutes where you're like, "This is gonna be—"

I remember when I was with my kids, and especially when they were very young, I would sometimes feel that resentment. I'll be honest with you, I could feel that brewing. I would feel that brewing. And it would be a point where I was like, "Today, for 10 minutes, I'm gonna do this just for me." And that's kind of what you're asking, is that what are your things? What can you guys imagine? Because the summertime does give you more time.

So say you start during the summer and you're like, "You know what, for 10 minutes a day, I'm going to do X." Then you're like—

Cecile: You can walk like Melissa.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yeah. "I'm just gonna do this. I'm gonna focus on just me for like 10 minutes." And you might say, "This is a summertime thing." But you know what, what I would love is that when the school year starts that you're like, "You know what, that was kind of awesome. I really enjoyed that. I'm going to somehow find that in my day now that the school year has started."

And that's the joy of the summertime, is to just experiment with new things, new ideas, and see how it makes you and your family feel. Because a lot of times, we, again, just jump right in. I mean, as a pediatrician, you just start to see it. In Florida, school starts early. We're like the second or third week of August, and we're just right in it. Everyone in Miami travels until the very last moment, and then they swing in and it just goes from like 0 to 1,000. And everyone's just getting ready for school and in school and getting the routine.

Sometimes things just sweep over. So it's really good to have something in place for like, "Yeah, but this was really cool that we did during the summer and it seemed to calm everyone down." I am a big walk person. I mean, I know it's hot in Miami, so I know that people in Miami are like, "Really? Did you really walk?" But I will say that I feel like just being able to be out in nature I think really helps both the kids and yourself. But if you can take those walks on your own, that's even more special because it's movement, but it calms you in a way that I don't think much can. It's a very specific, special idea.

Cecile: It's very minimalistic. Walking is the most primal way of, I would say, passing time because you're kind of in movement. You can look around. It's a free movie going around you. No matter where you are, just looking at different details and stuff. Walking is great to get your brain out of everything without having to focus too much on what you're doing.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: I'd like to believe that whatever higher power there was that created the world kind of dropped us on the Earth with everything that we needed. And when you look at the sky, your eyes start to beat in a very specific way. And that actually is just an in-place calming mechanism I'd like to think placed for a reason. There are things that are out there to tickle your imagination. A breeze goes by, you smell something that smells good, you see something that's funny, you see something that's weird. It's just inexhaustible.

Cecile: And it brings a lot—You mentioned seeing something funny, something weird, seeing an animal, anything, whether you work in a very dense city or in the middle of nowhere. That also brings some food for conversation for later because sometimes you feel like, "Okay, I don't get out of the house. I feel like all I have is this at-home environment." But if you see a squirrel going around or if you see something funny, that also brings something that you can talk about when you talk to other people and be like, "I saw that in the street the other day. I saw this guy doing this weird thing." In Miami, we see a lot of weird stuff on the street. That's free entertainment.

But it does bring an element of something new that comes to you without you having to go fetch for it, which is beautiful as well.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Tell me a little bit, because of course I have a very romantic view of France. And I don't know if people know, but in Europe, summer is sacred. I mean, people are gone. The Olympics are in Paris now but don't be in Paris like in the summer because whole places are closed down.

Cecile: So in the French culture, first of all, the system is very generous to where there is a minimum of five weeks of vacation time during the year for anybody who works. Some companies, it goes all the way to like 11 weeks if you add up all the different exceptional PTOs and stuff like that. So it is it is very generous into like the vacation time. And the summer, you wouldn't see anything really working in France between July 15th and August 15th. It's a dead time.

And there is a real respect for vacation. If you're on vacation from work, nobody's going to call you. And people are going to wait for you to come back because you're off. You call a company like this person, oh no, vacation for three weeks, for a month. And you're like, pull back. So there is that element where vacations are sacred from the system, which is a blessing. There is nothing you can do individually for that. It just happened to be there.

And yes, summer is really seen as this moment of joy, eating a lot, being outside a lot, taking it slow, and having that moment that cannot be invaded by work or constraint or negativity. So there are a lot of planning that goes into summer, for sure.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: And I mean, I have some French friends, and if you see the feed that's coming in from Fanny. You can feel the leisure. Fanny, usually you two together, Fanny's usually yawning because one of her kids probably kept her up all night. And to see her really enjoying and having dessert and having some wine and being outside and just knowing that, I see her brain is moving to a different level, it's a completely different space.

We just went on vacation, and it's the longest that I've ever taken. So it was 10 days. That's the longest I've taken in like 20 years. That should not be it, but that is the truth.

Cecile: Yeah, it's the reality, right?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: When I was in that transition, there's only one other time in my life when I was in transition, I took two weeks on my honeymoon. And then when I came in from residency before I started working, I spent a month in Thailand and Asia, so that's the longest. But for the last 20 years, the longest I've gone is like maybe 10 days. I've never even gone for two weeks.

Cecile: Wow.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: And so we go for 10 days. My husband is a lawyer. He's very connected, always has his phone, always replying, and he had to do some work. But literally, I kid you not, it took him five days before he could shift in the sense that he wasn't checking his phone all the time.

Cecile: That's why that's why France is on a lot of time off because they have been proven to be more beneficial because if you spend like three weeks, the first week you're just trying to get stuff done, and then you have a full week where you can actually rest, and then the last week you're trying to catch up to get back to your regular life. So having a long stretch of time is really something that you need if the system allows to. It's unfortunate that here, you can't really afford that because it's just the way the system is built.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yeah. When you talk about summertime and summer takeaway, to me, the thing that was stunning was that literally after the 10 days, he was like, "I have—" He gets this weird insomnia where he'll fall asleep and then wake up at midnight and then can't fall asleep until 3:00. It's like the worst insomnia possible. And he would get that once a week. So he was expecting once or twice a week and he would get it very often. And after the five days, literally the rest of time, he never got it again.

And that was real. My husband's not someone who complains all the time or whatever. And I was like, "Listen, we have to replay some of the things we did. We did a lot of walking. We did a lot of beer gardens. " [laughs]

Cecile: That cannot hurt.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Yeah. [laughs] That seemed to help. I don't know if that helped or not. But it was that kind of thing where I'm doing what we're talking about. We're like, "Let's use the summer to shift up our routine and then take a piece of it."

Cecile: Yeah, bring that to the rest of the year.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: We can continue that because I don't believe— In Michigan, sometimes there's this whole mentality of we're like, "I'm not going to do things for myself every day, but when it's the summer or when I go on vacation, I'm going to be happy." No. I always would say to people, "Well, what if you got hit by a car in the middle of December? That's not a good way to live. You should enjoy life every day."

Frankly, it was one of the reasons why I actually loved Miami. I felt like people in Miami would be like, "Look at the sky, look at the sun, oh my gosh, let's go take a walk." I mean, people wanted, they were aggressive about trying to have fun. And then as time goes on and you're working all the time, it's harder and harder to remember that mentality, to gain that back.

So I really think it is hard when you're running around, you're pregnant or you have a little kid or you're about to. Things get chaotic, but take pieces of what you learned during the summer, where you do disconnect. And it's funny because, again, unless you've been to France or you've been to Europe during that period, people are traveling and things are shut down.

And I know that custom, so I know the time is coming. You're going soon. And I'm just like, last minute, I'm like, "Okay, just—" because I really don't want to—I don't want anything. I don't want anything happening, and I think that technology follows us and makes that disconnect so much harder.

Cecile: Yeah. That's why the walking is a fantastic example of taking—'Cause you can hardly walk with a phone in your hand without hitting your head or stumbling onto something. So I think walking is a very good way to innately disconnect you from everything except from your surroundings. You can actually look at people and say hi and just engage by acknowledging other people walking by or walking their dog or anything like that. So it does have a big element of like connecting and disconnecting. Disconnecting from the usual stuff and connecting to new stuff.

So let's announce our giveaway winner. I have the gift right there. I'm gonna show you one more time so that you know what you're about to win. So that's our La Petite Creme Baby Shower Bundle. So it has your favorite diapering lotion for changing diaper without baby wipes the French way, the smaller version for your diaper bag, 50 cotton pads disposable to get you started, and our travel-size diaper balm. Thank you for all the little hearts.

So the diapering lotion, the small one, and the balm are TSA-approved. They're under 3 ounces, so you're gonna be able to take them on a plane if you go on a plane, and then the bottle will stay at home, but it can travel in your car if you go somewhere in the summer by car. You can take it on your walk. It's easy, look, you can pack it.

And the winner of today's giveaway is gonna be—drum roll. It's all about special effects. Melissa. So @lahaye_melissa, you're going to be the lucky winner. And we hope that you're going to enjoy your walks during the summer. And for everybody else who entered, we hope to see you soon for another one. Sorry you didn't win this time, but you can find this bundle on our website. And if you go on Amazon today, it's also there on Amazon Prime and there was a coupon there.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Oh, yes.

Cecile: Oh, you're welcome, Melissa. We're so glad you got with us today and that you're gonna get to enjoy some French diapering so your little baby is gonna have a beautiful little bum. So we'll contact you after this and take your information to send you your prize.

So, summer, let's wrap it up on this. Any last word of advice as far as health? Because you're a pediatrician. I always pick your brain about health because it's a valuable piece of information that we can have there. Anything to be on the look out for? Anything to be—we don't like the word worry, but anything to be looking for, positive or negative, for the summer when you have a baby, especially a tiny one.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Okay. I was saying I kind of needed a hot stack for that. Let's just do basic heat. It's hot. Okay. So, with the babies, obviously, we don't do a lot of water, but for you, if you're breastfeeding, you definitely need to be getting your electrolytes in. So I like a Smartwater. And Smartwater doesn't have a lot of stuff in it, but it's like an electrolyte water. So for kids, and I don't really like all the Gatorades and all of that stuff for the kids. So something simple like that.

But it is hot out there. So look at your calendar before you go outside. Try not to go in the middle of the day when it's really hot. I just came in from outside and I came in, I was just melting, you know? Coconut water is a great electrolyte solution. And just really keeping yourself as cool as possible, like little baths. The water is your friend in terms of evaporative loss. So what it does, just kind of pulls off the heat sometimes.

Dress cooly because this climate change thing is pretty intense. We were in Seattle and in Vancouver and it was in the 80s the whole time. You would just look at all the people who live there and they're just like, "I don't know." And I'm like, "Why is it so hot?" There's not a lot of AC because they don't usually have heat.

Cecile: It doesn't get, yeah.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: So they're like, "We don't know what this is." So it is very real. We're living in a different time, so just know that the summertime is going to be hot.

Cecile: And the water is also a great play time. If you have a little bathtub that you use usually inside, you can take it outside and then put your baby with the hose. Be careful with the hose. Make sure the first water that has been sitting in the hose has been cleared out, so you don't want the water that has been warming up in that hose. But after a while, you can use that and sprinkle it on their feet, on their head, and have them touch and feel the water in the outside. It's a different environment than doing it inside. So it's also great—

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Totally. And just to piggyback on that, water safety. I mean, there's a lot of swimming. Miami does tend to swim more during the summer. Most places do too. Most Miami people don't really swim in the winter. We're very weak like that. If you guys are at a party and there's a lot of people and you have a three-year-old and you have a pool in that backyard and you're not used to that, everyone has to be very careful to not lose sight of that three-year-old because drownings are real.

And I think that there's a lot of concern about dry drowning where they have issues where they're learning to swim and they're inhaling the water, but drownings themselves happen much more frequently than dry drowning.

Cecile: And it goes very fast even with people around. I can testify of that personally, that even if you have a lot of adults around, nobody pays attention if multiple people are paying attention. So make sure there's always one dedicated person per kid.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Exactly. And they just tag off because there's a lot of like, "Oh, well, I thought you were watching." So that's kind of a place where that cannot happen. So watch that. There's a lot of talk, especially when I was practicing, about dry drowning, this whole idea that when they're kind of first learning to swim, they almost like inhale a lot of the water and then they get waterlogged. They can have issues later.

It's a terrifying idea because there's this whole concept that all of a sudden, they're kind of choking. The truth of the matter is that if you have a situation where—The truth, when you really do see it, it's not as from zero to nothing. These kids do look not well throughout most of the afternoon after they've been swimming. Does it make sense? So everyone thinks that they just look fine.

I will say that if you're in a situation where you're going from party to party and they're swimming and they're like—just calm down the day because you can tell when your kid is not feeling well.

Cecile: So dry drowning is when your kid is in the water.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Right.

Cecile: Sorry, I'm gonna explain it for the very basic, from zero to—So your kid is in the water. So there is water involved. It's not entirely dry like they're drowning in their living room. They're exposed to water, but there is no active sense of them being underwater. It's just that they might have swallowed water without really being under, right?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Almost like inhaled it. It's hard to tell because kids kind of like—sometimes splashing, but it's more of like, like you said, they didn't really go necessarily even underwater, but they're inhaling it more than they should. Kids drink the water in a pool, it happens.

I think my caveat to that is that I see people, especially in Miami during the summer, they go from pool party to pool party to pool party. And the kid, any kid, any person would be very exhausted. Water into the lungs, So it's a little bit of an aspiration, in the sense where it's there and it's irritating, but sometimes, that inflammation doesn't show up until later. It doesn't get worse until later. And what people will describe is that they went to bed, they were really tired, and then they became more ill over the night.

What I will say is that don't over-schedule yourself. This is one place where I think if you have your kid and you do an activity with them, that's it for the day. Don't go to three more of them. Because then you can't tell, are they tired because they're just tired, or are they tired because they're getting sick? It's a very subtle difference sometimes. And so don't overdo it.

But, again, I want to emphasize, because this became kind of a session and a lot of people got really—I would see a kid that had splashing a week ago and they're like, "Oh, I think they're having dry drowning now." And it's like, "No, no, no, no." These kids do look sick. It's not like they look well. They look sick. But sometimes, I will say that, especially when I see in Miami during the summertime who just overdo it for the kids. So they are gonna look really, really—If I've gone to three parties, I look like crap too. So you're not gonna be able to tell if your kid's sick or not.

So try to keep it even. Don't overdo yourselves. If you go to a party, realize that. I have to tell you, people in Miami are like, "Oh, you want to come over for a barbecue on an afternoon on Sunday? We'll have some drinks." Literally, I say yes, but I'm really scared because I know Monday, between the dehydration and some of those drinks, I am literally going to be like nothing on Monday.

Cecile: And also, even if not in Miami, the days are longer in the summer, and if you go to a party, inherently, it's going to last longer, The kids go to bed later because it's still light outside. So you can overdo it even if you do only one thing, but you're like, "Oh, we're going to go until it's dark," but being dark was 6 o'clock in the winter and all of a sudden, it's 10 o'clock and you're still out doing stuff around. The kids get exhausted that way too, right?

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Totally. So I think that really realizing they have to be hydrated, they have to have times when they're not out in the elements the whole time. Look at the fruits. There's a lot of good absorbency of all the bioavailability for the fluids in the watermelons and in all of these kinds of fruits that I feel like nourish you in a way that sometimes water can't as well. But like the electrolyte fluids, kind of keeping up what they're eating. Sometimes kids go through the whole day without eating because you're just having such a good time and they're running around and they've been swimming all day.

More is not better necessarily. I want to keep our kids active, but especially with the parties and kind of going over to people's houses and just losing track of time, that can be really overwhelming in the summer.

Cecile: Okay. Well, happy summer, Varisa. I think it's the perfect closing to this session. Happy summer, everyone who was watching. Congratulations again, Melissa, for winning today's prize. And we wish you all a fantastic time over the summer. As Varisa mentioned, I'm gonna take off for a few weeks to France, so if you follow us on social media, you'll see a lot of French pictures. We're going to try to share some of our outing with you guys to make you travel a little bit. Thank you for your happy summer wishes, everyone. And we'll see you when we come back after the summer for another episode of Moms Talk with a French Accent. Until then, Au revoir! Bye.

Dr. Varisa Perlman: Bye.

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Watch other episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1dpfz3OiZoOwHuST-GmH9sTD0TfF3rIp