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Today\u2019s episode covers the personal story of a mother who has been through postpartum anxiety, severe colic, and complicated family transitions. Through her difficulties, she has thrown herself into learning about perinatal mental health challenges, supporting herself, and helping other families.\nChristine Carrig is the director of Carrig Montessori School in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a master\u2019s degree in Early Childhood Education as well as a Montessori certification. Christine has trained as a postpartum doula through both DONA and Ayurvedic Mamas. Most recently, Christine founded The Family Flow, a community that offers online courses for parents of young children, with the aim of helping parents understand and support their children so they can guide them through the messy terrain of development. Christine lives in Queens with her husband and four young children.\nShow Highlights:\n\nIn 2012, Christine\u2019s first daughter was born after a wonderful pregnancy\n\nAs a new business owner of a Montessori school, Christine pushed herself too hard as a new mom and was shocked at her hypervigilance and how it depleted her energy\n\nHow Christine noticed that her daughter was extremely sensitive and easily overwhelmed by her emotions and frequently overstimulated; she also had sleep issues\n\nIn 2015, her son was born after a more challenging pregnancy for Christine, and she felt like there was a cloud over her all the time\n\nHow her daughter started showing harmful aggressive behavior toward the baby and Christine to the point she feared being alone with the two children\n\nHow Christine felt inadequate to walk through this terrain of transition with her daughter to the point that she felt like a failure as a mother\n\nHow Christine\u2019s relationship with her own mother changed and left her feeling unsupported and isolated in an extended period of estrangement between them\n\nHow her newborn son\u2019s fussiness and vomiting escalated into full-blown colic, and Christine drew strength from her husband\u2019s calm optimism\n\nHow an interaction with her sister gave Christine a new perspective on her situation\n\nWhen her son\u2019s colic settled down around nine months, she sought help from acupuncture, therapy, and learning more about her daughter\u2019s unique needs\n\nWhen Christine became pregnant again, she feared a repeat of her postpartum experience, so she took maternal mental health training and listened to the Mom & Mind podcast, trying to make a different plan for herself and her older two children\n\nHow Christine took physical and emotional space after the birth of her third child to authentically bounce back and learned to ask for help\n\nWith her fourth baby, she hired a postpartum doula to help and learned how to ask friends and family for specific help\n\nHow she made her basement her \u201crecovery cave\u201d and took some \u201csitting in\u201d time, which left her recovered, steady, and calm as a new mother of four children\n\nHow Christine helps other families through her Mindful Parenting program at her school and her online classes\n\nResources:\nThe Family Flow