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The Riley Gaines Show
Motherhood Shifted Everything: Faith, Family & Perspective | The Riley Gaines Show
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Foreign. We have officially made it through the fourth trimester. Welcome back to the Riley Gaines Show. I am Riley Gaines. If you've been following me for a while, maybe here on the show, maybe back when it was the Gains for Girls podcast, maybe on X or Instagram or TikTok, then you know that I was pretty open about my pregnancy and labor and delivery. How I loved, really every single stage thus far. But I don't think I have done a recap, a comprehensive recap of motherhood and what that has been like for me and for Louie. Well, Lou, of course, he's not a mom, but what parenthood has been like for us and for our beautiful baby girl, Margo. I wanted to make sure that this isn't just a show where people come to get their political takes or to hear my political takes, because honestly, what I have found to be true is, number one, that can just be really, really draining. Right. It's exhausting. I feel like, at least speaking for myself, I consume so much political content throughout the week, I. I actually appreciate listening to shows or podcasts where that's not necessarily what you're getting. Yes, certainly I still want my conservative values and more importantly, my Christian beliefs to shine through the content that I'm delivering, the things that we're talking about. But the show doesn't necessarily have to be political in its nature. And secondly, I think a lot of the audience that follows the show, or maybe follows me, yes, appreciates the political takes. And the second thing I have found to be true, I think a lot of the audience that follows the show that follows as me on my personal accounts, yes, again, probably appreciate the political takes, probably have the same viewpoints that I do. But what I found is a lot of you are in a similar stage of life as me as well. So young women who either have kids or want to start families or curious about motherhood or how we make it work with our crazy hectic schedules. And so I want to be able to deliver to you guys in a raw and authentic way. So the fourth trimester, as I said, we have now surpassed it. Margot is four months old. And truthfully, like, I would roll my eyes when people would tell me prior to having a baby. Honestly, even when I was pregnant, I would roll my eyes. When people say time flies. It's like the most cliche thing you've ever heard, but they're absolutely right. These past four months, they really have just flown by. And it's bizarre because, again, I don't know if you necessarily can grasp this Fully, unless it's something that you've been through. So maybe the other moms out there who are listening to this or watching this, like, maybe you probably understand what I'm saying, but I don't even remember life before her. I don't even really remember being pregnant, which I know that sounds insane because you're pregnant for, like, 10 months. Which women. They lie to you, by the way. They say pregnancy lasts nine months. No, that is baloney. I was pregnant for 10 months, which I never had horrible symptoms. I never had nausea or insomnia. I didn't have much acid reflux. My pelvic pain was very minimal, so I definitely made it out relatively easy. But I look back at pictures of me pregnant, and I do look like my body is retaining fluid, if you know what I'm saying. I didn't gain a ton of weight, but I can tell my face is fuller and my arms were holding on to fluid. But I look back at those pictures now, and I don't even really remember feeling like that. I know I did at the time, but I don't remember it. And it was only really a few weeks ago that I had this revelation that I didn't really remember being pregnant. At least not for 10 months, maybe the last few weeks. Sure, you kind of remember, which I know is crazy, given that Margot is only 4 months old. How can I not remember it? But I started to, like, read up on it, and I was reading how oxytocin and estrogen and progesterone and these other endorphins that our body has naturally produces after giving birth, how it ultimately affects how our memories are stored, which is crazy. Like our brain. It's kind of like nature's little survival hack, if you will. Our brain prioritizes bonding over remembering any sort of discomfort or pain that we had, which kind of makes sense, because if we were. If women since the beginning of time were to vividly remember every single miserable detail about pregnancy, then, I mean, you have to imagine that fewer women would sign up for round two. So that was interesting to me, how oxytocin is, especially how it spikes when you hold or feed or care for or nurture your baby, and how it strengthens attachment and basically dampens any sort of negative emotional memories, which from a biological perspective, is kind of genius. We had Isabel Brown on the show a few weeks ago. If you didn't watch that episode, I highly encourage you to go back and watch it. But we talked about the declining birth rate. If women had this crystal clear recall of, uh, nine months, ten months of physical strain and labor pain and postpartum recovery, then the population growth might be even less than it is right now. All that to say, the past four months have flown by. They have been a joy. I am ready for the next baby. My husband is too. Which it's so funny because a year ago, I mean, literally a year ago to the day nearly, we had kind of just found out that we were pregnant. And my husband was petrified. Which I think, I think is what a lot of men go through. Uh, not as much women. I think the maternal instinct kicks in sooner. For women, obviously your body is the one that is changing. You feel the baby sooner. Uh, so I think that's relatively standard. But my husband was petrified. But now watching him grow into the amazing dad that he is has been really special. And you love your husband prior to having a baby, but the love that you have for your husband and watching him become a dad is like next level. It's a kind of love that you didn't even know you were capable of having for another human. So that's been been really cool. Ms. Margot at four months, she has been to the White House, she's been to Mar a Lago, she's met the president, she's met Secretary Kennedy. Maybe you guys watched the Maha Vlog that we did. If you did, you saw Secretary Kennedy holding her. She has met Secretary Hegshath, she's met the amazing press secretary Caroline Levitt and a slew of other cabinet members and just really incredible people. She's going to be super dangero dangerous at two truths and a lie one day. And now she's at the point where she's just much more alert and attentive and curious and she's reaching for things. Like we have this little rattle thing on her car seat and she reaches for it now. And so that's really sweet. It's not sweet when she reaches for my hair or my earrings or my necklaces. She's already broken a few of my necklaces. We've talked about in the podcast before how we co sleep, meaning she sleeps in the bed with my husband and I, which isn't obviously a long term plan, but it's definitely easier for us now. She likes it. I think. Truthfully, I like it. Like, if I'm going to be totally honest with you, I find enjoyment with her being close. I don't know if it's primal or like this maternal thing, but I enjoy her sleeping in the bed with us. And she's now reached this point where, like, in the middle of the night, you'll just feel her kind of reach up and grab your face or your nose or kind of like pull your lip down, but it's the cutest thing ever. And it seems so far that every single stage is better than the last. Which, um, other moms have told me, more experienced moms, moms who have been doing this longer than myself and my husband have. But it seems to be that way thus far. Like, now she's rolling over. I swear to you, she's about to crawl. Like, she will lift herself up so high, kind of like into that cobra yoga position, if you know what I'm talking about. I swear to you, she's so close to crawling, which maybe sounds crazy. I don't really know the timeline of when babies really do things, but she's kind of, like, shuffling a little bit. Maybe like military crawling, if that's what you want to call it. So I don't think it will be long before she's much more mobile. So I figured for the structure of this show, this episode, I would kind of go through a couple of the things that you guys have asked me in my messages on Instagram, or some of the things that you all have inquired about. First one being travel tips. And truthfully, Margo has been a very good traveler. I don't know if that's as much what Louie and I are doing or if that's more so her just kind of being a good baby. And I think it speaks to how God kind of just knows. He knows what you need, and he provides as a good and just and righteous heavenly Father. One of the things that I remember recalling prior to taking that first flight with her, which we took her on the first. Her first airplane at, like, four weeks old. So pretty young, which I'll get into in a minute. I've had a lot of you reach out to. Like, how do you feel comfortable taking your baby in public places like airports or airplanes or out of state while not vaccinated? I'll talk about that in a minute. But one of the things I was curious about prior to taking. Taking her was if we bring the stroller, like, the logistics of it, Right? It's pretty big. Like, the strollers aren't small. How do you go through security? Does it get gate checked? Does it go on the plane with you? We didn't know the answer to these things, and we didn't really know how to find out the answer to these things. So I'm going to Tell you what we did, what we continue to do, do with it as you will. Again, I'm not saying that this is a one size fits all, but it works for us. We do bring the stroller with us to the airport one, it makes it easier to carry and push Margot around in the airport. Uh, she's getting heavy now. That car seat, just lifting it on its own with her in it is not light by any means and it's pretty easy to get through. Tsa, we have had zero issues. Lots of you have asked me which stroller we have as well. It's the Nuna something. I don't remember exactly which one it is, but I'm going to put a picture on screen and post. So if you're watching@YouTube.com then you can see it. And oh my gosh, I love our stroller. We have like the car seat stroller combo, meaning the car seat that buckles into the stroller is the car seat that she uses in the car, which is fantastic. Highly recommend. The stroller that you see on screen, it is like, from our experience, the Cadillac of all strollers. My husband really likes it too, because he's tall. He's 6 foot 4. So you can like make the handlebar higher so he can push it easier too, which that was definitely a preference that he had in buying our stroller. The turn radius is incredible. The car seat, again, it buckles into every single car. So you don't need one of those big bulky bases, which I have found to be key, especially for traveling. When you're renting a car or you have an Uber, it's really easy. But a lot of moms have reached out and asked me if we have had any sort of damage in putting our car seat or stroller under the plane, which that's how that works. They gate check your stroller and give it back to you when you get off the plane. So they put under the plane. We have had zero problems. We don't have like one of those bags that you put over your car seat. But even so, we've had zero issues and we travel all the time. So it appears that they have been relatively careful in handling this, which is never a given. So again, stroller is on screen. If you're watching@YouTube.com and I'm not going to lie to you, it's expensive. Like, I don't know how much. I think like around 1200, maybe even more than that for like the combo stroller and car seat, which I put it on my registry, honestly, Kind of just for a way for me to remember which one that my husband and I liked in the early stages of kind of picking out some of the things that we knew we needed for Margot. And someone bought it really quick. So moms out there don't think that it's crazy to put something that expensive on your registry because someone just might buy it for you. Second thing, if you are a mom who is pumping and you bring bottles with you, which we have been very fortunate to wear, Margot does take bottles. I would love to have an exclusively breastfed baby, but with the lifestyle that we live and the travel and the here and there, I just don't feel overly comfortable myself breastfeeding in public, I don't think anything. If I see other moms doing it in public, I don't think anything of it. I don't shame the moms who do. I have seen some crazy stuff like moms literally just whipping out a tit. I. I just could never be that comfortable in breastfeeding in public. So we use bottles, which again, praise God, Margot takes a bottle, but with that, it means that I pump some. Which when we're home, she eats off the boob. So mornings when we wake up, she gets it straight from the tap at night when she goes to sleep. But on planes and in public, again, just not comfortable with it. So we bring a little cooler with us. It's like a little bottle bottle cooler. That way I can pump put the bottles in the cooler so they don't go bad. If we're on a plane for more than four hours, which we find ourselves doing often. Like, if we're going from Washington D.C. to California, that's a long flight. Um, I've also had moms ask me if we bring, like, a pack and play or a travel bassinet, which we don't. We co sleep. Uh, we've had zero problems with that. And I will say Margot with her rolling over now, we will put her on her back to go to sleep, but within, like, 60 seconds, she has rolled over onto her stomach. And I try to prevent that just for my own ease, but it's impossible. She's determined to sleep, like, face down on her stomach. Last thing I feel like I have for travel tips is the timing in which we do things to keep Margot happy, satisfied, and sleeping on airplanes, which, truthfully, I feel like I need to, like, knock on wood or something. I feel like we've mastered this. And you, like, say a prayer. Cross my fingers, because I'm going to tell you guys this as if we're some sort of professional travelers with a baby, which I know we're not there yet. I think we're getting close. I'm going to say this, and then she's going to turn into this, like, terror on airplanes. But it's worked thus far. Timing is key. Here's what we do. So typically, it doesn't really matter what time we're flying at either. If it's morning, midday, afternoon, evening, red eyes. Margot has been on several red eyes. At this point. We will typically try and get to the airport, which what we do before that doesn't really matter too much. We'll get to the airport, we'll have a few minutes to board, which I will say Louis and I tend to cut it pretty close, but we'll have a few minutes and we will go and change her diaper in the bathroom, family bathroom, wherever. Change her diaper that way, going onto the plane, it's done. It's kind of funny. We really do have, like, a checklist. If she's being fussy or if she's upset or if she's crying. There's a checklist that we go through to try and, like, deduce the problem at hand. Number one, has she been fed? Number two, does she need to be burped? And number three, is her diaper clean? And if we're good on all three of those things, then typically she's just fussy because she's tired and she doesn't really want to go to sleep. I feel like now we're kind of out of the burping phase, and maybe we're not supposed to be, but we don't really burp anymore because she doesn't really typically have any sort of gassy problems anyways. Diaper's been changed. We're on the plane at this point. If she's being good, which normally she is, we will wait until takeoff until we put the bottle in her mouth, even if she's really hungry or if she had eaten not long prior to this. I think this is a good thing because the suckling motion that they're doing with their mouth, it helps with their ears. Once the plane reaches altitude, right? You think about the times that you've traveled or you've been on an airplane and your ears pop when you're ascending or descending back down to land. It's the same thing for babies, right? They don't know how to pop their ears. So that suckling motion, I think it helps aid the discomfort of that. And if you're a mom who doesn't used bottles and you have an exclusively breastfed baby, then I would suggest maybe trying a pacifier. It's kind of like the same suckling motion Then normally at this point, Margot passes out. She sleeps, which she loves the car too. So anytime we leave our house and we have to drive somewhere within like 60 seconds, she is passed out in the back seat, which is really cute. We have the little mirror on the back of the seat and we can see her and she's like conked. So I wonder if the plane is like a similar feeling for her. I don't know. So typically she will be asleep at this point and I swore we were not going to have a screen kid. But it has become very apparent that this little girl loves dancing fruit. If you don't know what I'm talking about, good for you. I lose brain cells watching it while also kind of, kind of simultaneously enjoying it. If I'm gonna be like, totally real. If you have a baby, maybe around the same age as Margot, even younger, really, she loved these stupid dancing fruit. If you go on YouTube and you type in dancing fruit, I think it's by like, hey, Bear is the account. It's a black screen with fruit, like animated fruit. Watermelons and pineapples and bananas. And sometimes there's vegetables like a broccoli or a little radish thing that's actually kind of cute. They dance across the screen. That's it. She loves these fruits. So we actually have like a few minute long screen recording on our phone of the dancing fruit. Because sometimes on a plane you can't access the WI fi. So we have the dancing fruit on her phone. If she's being fussy, we'll put the phone in front of her, which I know, I'm ashamed, but you do what you gotta do, especially when you're in a public setting with other people. I don't mind letting her cry at home, which I thought I was gonna be more of a cry it out mom. I don't love when she's crying. No mom, no parent really does. But the whole cry it out method, I just can't get behind it. I can't let sweet baby Margot cry. Breaks my heart when she cries. But in public too, especially, you're concerned for your baby, but you don't want the people around you to get upset or frustrated. So you do what you got to do. And honestly, I think the contrast of the colors is actually good for their development at this stage. At least that's what I'm telling myself. But like I said, Margot really has been a little champ. She's been a trooper on all these flights. She hadn't yet had a tantrum on a plane, and I say hadn't until our last trip, most recent trip to California. It was a long flight, to be fair, and there's only so much dancing fruit that you can watch. And I think really what was happening was our pilot was decreasing in altitude and then, like, he was about to land and then would come back up, and he did this, like, three or four times. I don't really know what was happening, but I think it was messing with her, like, equilibrium. So anyways, she starts raising hell. I'm not even talking crying. She's only done this, like, two or three times in her entire life. It wasn't even just crying. It was, like, raging, screaming. And praise God, it was only the last 10, 15 minutes of the flight. And yes, you feel awful in those settings for the people who are sat around you, the person in the seat next to you, but what can you really do? And I'm of the mind that especially the people who are parents around us, you have to imagine they understand. Like, the moms especially, they get it. I. I had so many moms. Women kind of give me, like, the sympathy look and soft smiles directed at me during Margo's, like, tantrum. Women offering to help, like, can I hold her? What do you need? A flight attendant came by. She was super sweet. The man in front of me even was, you know, trying to give me advice. He's like, look, here I am giving you guys travel tips. This man was giving me travel tips. He was like, when my kid was a baby, we'd bring this little pillow anyways. But I wasn't overly stressed about her crying. We're about to land, right? Louis, on the other hand, he was just not vibing with this experience at all. He was so stressed. Like, the veins in his forehead and neck were popping out. His face was getting red. I do, like, reach over and remind him, like, Louis, she's a baby, and we have been so blessed up until this point. She's been a fantastic baby. Like, she doesn't know how to communicate. Patience is a virtue. Give me the best you got for the next, like, 10, 15 minutes. But honestly, that didn't really work. He was still very stressed. So that was on the way to California. On the way home from California, we were pushing our flight time. Like, we were barely going to make it if we were going to make it at all so much so that I think by the time we got to the airport to make it through security, like they had already been boarding for 10 or 15 minutes. We barely made it through security. Like the gate agent from American Airlines was calling Louie, like, hey, are y' all coming? We're about to shut the door. We were the last people people on the plane. So kind of frantically make it on, you know, diaper bags slung over my shoulder. I've got the baby too. Louie's putting the suitcases over top. We were the window seat and the middle seat. So there was a woman in the aisle of the row that we were sat on. And so she stands up to let us into our seats and she just looked annoyed. You know how you can tell? I file in first. I sit in the window seat. Louie actually sat in the middle seat. The woman sits back down. I understand her looking annoyed. You think you're about to have this whole row to yourself and suddenly this like, young coup walks in and I have this baby and they barely make the flight. I kind of understand that. Not ideal circumstances, but she pulls out her phone and it was one of those where you couldn't even help but look at what she was typing on her phone, full brightness. Her like font was like 128 point font. So very big writing. You can't help to see what she's typing. It's not like you're actively looking over her shoulder, but you happen to see Louis at least did her typing on her phone or she sends to the person to some random person. I don't know who. Actually, I do know who. Diana and Mike. She sent it to two people. I remember their names. I don't know who they are. She says, unbelievable. The last two people on the plane sit next to me and they have a baby. And I don't care who you are. I don't care how valid her angst was. When you're a mom to what you believe to be the most perfect little angelic baby to ever exist, it really makes you mad when someone says that. And I've really tried to work on how quick I am to react to something more than anything because it's biblically fruitful to be slow to anger. And I think it's natural for me to react like, you know, when you take the top off of a shaken up soda. But I'm trying to be what happens when you take the top off of a shaken up water bottle. Okay? That's what I'm working on. New Year's resolution of mine. And it's been going great. Louis, on the other hand, that is not one of his resolutions. I think he was willing to let the first text slide, that first text, Diane. But it was when she sent the text to Mike. No idea who these people are. But in this text, she says, I'm sat next to Riley Gaines. And she was expressing how upset she was by this. I have, actually, despite how, like, heated things get online, I have never had an ill interaction in public beyond, like, protesters at an event. Okay. Which. That's totally different. Actually, there was one time in the mall in Sephora, of all places, which kind of isn't really that shocking, where there was a person standing in the checkout line ahead of me and my mom. I was with my mom. And the person is how you would imagine they would look, right? Like the colored hair. I don't really know if it was a woman or a man, but they turn around in line and say, are you Riley Gaines? And I said, yes. And this person says, interesting. And then just turns around, and that was it. So that's, like, outside of events and protesters who do want to kill me, that was probably the most unpleasant interaction I've ever had. So I've made it out pretty good. And it speaks to how online is just simply not real life. I hope you guys find encouragement in that. I've had tons of people come up to me and, like, smiling ear to ear and like grown men, truthfully in tears, who just thank me. You know, I have a. A daughter, a granddaughter. Thank you for what you do. I'm so grateful. Yada, yada, yada. This was, like my second interaction that was less. Less than pleasant, that was not overly positive in real life, and Louis just was not willing to let this one slide. Now, there were a couple rows open at the back of the plane, which we could see. And so Louis taps her on her shoulder and says, hey, we're actually going to sit on the back of the plane because we know some people like you just don't like babies, and you don't really like my wife, who's a hero to many. She looked like she had seen a literal ghost, which was kind of hilarious. I don't care if she doesn't like me, because the reality is there's tons of people in this world who don't like me. There's probably tons of people in this world who don't like you for the policies that you support, the people that you vote for. So I have learned to not let that bother me at all. But Louis, he is always in my corner, and that is something that I really appreciate and value. Last thing I want to leave you guys with is some pieces of advice. First one being put your phone down. I promise you, whatever is on your phone, it does not matter nearly as much as the little baby that you're holding in your arms. You as a parent, like, I think about this often, like me and my husband and like my family, my mom, so her grandma. That's all that baby knows. Those are the only bonds that she has. That baby is dependent. She is reliant on you. So the thing on the phone, it can wait. Which I didn't really think that I was going to be this way, to be totally honest with you. But there are days when I will leave my phone plugged up, up, charging in the bedroom, or maybe I'm cleaning and I'm putting things away and I put my phone down and I don't find it for hours because I don't go looking for it. And it's not even in, like, intentional in doing that. It's just that I'm so consumed with the baby. And not because she's taking up a lot of my time, because she will literally just be sitting there sleeping, and I will find myself staring at her. Like my entire camera roll are pictures of her sleeping. And the photo is no different than the one from before, but. But even still, like, you find yourself totally in awe and amazed at this miraculous being, how amazing life is. So I've realized the things that at one point I cared very deeply about, I just don't care as much about now, or some of the things that at one point I believe to be kind of mundane, I think are critical now, if that makes sense. So being a mom has shifted my perspective on virtually everything, certainly for the better. Last thing, and I alluded to this in the beginning of this podcast, was I've had so many moms reach out asking, you know, how do you feel comfortable taking your baby out in public knowing that you didn't vaccinate her? Which I've been very upfront and honest and transparent about that as well. The vaccine situation for newborns and what we did and how we came to the conclusions that we did, which maybe that's a different episode, but of course, her safety and her health being the most important thing. Here's what I will tell you about traveling with an infant that that is vaccinated, or isn't vaccinated, for that matter, is that they're resilient. You as a parent you're allowed to breathe a little bit. And again, I'm not a doctor, but it seems to be that for healthy full term babies, which is what I'm speaking to. I'm not speaking to babies that have medical conditions or are premature or maybe you're in a high outbreak area, I can't speak to that. But what we have found, if you have a healthy full term baby, outings while being mindful are a normal and generally safe part of early life. And you as a parent, like, you have more control over these circumstances and situations than you realize. Like, you can ask people to wash their hands or sanitize their hands prior to holding the baby. You can skip visits with people who don't really feel that great or feeling under the weather. You can get a stroller cover or baby carrier in crowded indoor places which isn't airtight, but kind of like this light barrier between the outside world and your baby, you can keep your baby close to you instead of letting others hold the baby. So there are precautions and practical risk reductions that you can take. But I think for me and the type of person that I am, total isolation and being kind of locked up in your home with you and your baby, that would be really hard for on. On me, take away the baby from this equation. Like that would be hard on me as the mom and my mental health, like, I would feel like I would be anxious and truthfully, like depressed in this sort of environment. So what we have found that works for Margo is that she benefits as well as me as a mom. Benefit from safe social exposure. And if you are a breastfeeding mom, know that your immune factors are going to the baby through the milk that helps line the baby's gut and respiratory tract. And it's not saying your baby is necessarily bulletproof, but it is support for your baby. Humans weren't made to be injected with copious amounts of mercury in aluminum, which we did. Just see some exciting news from Secretary Kennedy about removing mercury from vaccines. Anyways, besides the point, our bodies were made for this. We know how to react. Again, I'm speaking to healthy babies and parents who live a healthy lifestyle. I appreciate you guys as always. So thank you for tuning in to the Riley Gaines show and we will see you later this week. And in the meantime, if you guys ever have any sort of questions that you have for me, things you're curious about, I highly encourage you guys to reach out. You can do that over Instagram @The RileyGaines show or you can reach out to my personal page. Riley G. Barker. Appreciate you guys. See you next week.