My experience with Basis

This post is sponsored by Basis.

Hi friends! Happy almost-Friday! I hope you’re having a lovely morning and I’m so happy you enjoyed yesterday’s podcast episode! I had a blast talking with Dawn and learned so much from her during our chat. If there’s anyone you’d like to hear in upcoming episodes, please let me know. (I have one coming up with an expert in HIIT training and science, an RD speaking about prenatal nutrition, and a psychologist on the way.)

Sooooooo. There’s a lot going on. The past few weeks have been extra crazy and something about last week’s full moon really set everyone off. The girls and I were all kind of grouchy, we slept terribly, and P and I were both very emotional. Last Wednesday while the girls were at school, I started crying and was weeping until it was time to pick them up. While I was at home, I had some tea and crawled into bed for a bit, and when I got up and checked my email, already feeling much better, there was an email from Basis asking me if I’d like to try their new mental health services. Talk about perfect timing, right?

Here’s a little bit about Basis, which is a totally new company:

– You pay $ 35 to speak with a trained specialist when you’re going through a tough moment or situation. The specialist uses science-backed approaches to help guide you to solving the problem and the 45-minute phone call or video chat will leave you with actionable steps and perspective.

– You can schedule the chats to fit with your schedule and do not have to buy a package or monthly subscription. You can literally “drop in” for $ 35 for each session, which to me is considered a steal for a talk sesh + help determining a plan.

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When you sign up, you can briefly describe what you’re going through and request a female or male provider. You can also pick a topic where you’d like to focus and I picked parenting.

I scheduled a call with Meagan and was really looking forward to chatting with her about the stuff that’s been going on, mostly regarding our sleep issues.

You guys. I was SO DANG SMUG when both girls slept through the night from when they were babies until they were 2ish. I read The Baby Whisperer, followed her steps, and BOOM. Perfect sleepers for the most part. Then when they each turned two and figured out they could get out of their crib (or bed), that’s when things got rough. I’ve done so much research, we’ve tried so many different things, and I can’t get them to stay in their beds for a consistent amount of time. (Usually if they do it, it’s a fluke. Or we just stayed up way past their bedtime dancing at the Greek Festival.) This is a huge reason why I love traveling and hotels so much. They sleep through the night because we’re all in the same room!

They come in at different times, flinging the door open, maybe crying, and crawl into bed with me. When Liv comes in, she sprints down the hallway, barges through the door, and basically takes me from dead asleep to fearful for my life within 10 seconds. I have a really hard time winding back down after they come in, so in the mornings, I’m dragging. [Worth noting that it doesn’t bother me that they come in, but it bothers me that they wake me up. I put them to sleep in their beds so that they’ll hopefully learn the stay there, and they can come into my bed if they’re scared or whatever in the night, but don’t wake me up.]

(Even my beloved sleep mask can’t save me from this.)

Everything I’ve seen online recommends traumatizing them somehow. Ok, I could lock the door. And I’d have two screaming, inconsolable children in the hallway and I’d never go back to sleep. I know that Liv also has anxiety, which is something that affects me, and I don’t think that it would be a smart idea to lock her out of our room.

I was really interested to talk to the Basis specialist to see what she had to say.

So, this session was very unlike therapy. She didn’t ask, “How does it make you feel?” or tell me exactly what to do. Instead, she guided me to resources online and helped me think of some ideas to change the situation. For example, we came up with the game to tiptoe like a mouse into my room. We practiced it last night (with a contest to see who could be the quietest mouse) and the girls were both so sneaky and quiet in the middle of the night. We also tried to think of some ideas to motivate them to stay in bed, the way they feel motivated to behave in church or get ready for school on time. They just know and do it.

The session was the most helpful because I could just freely talk to someone. Sometimes I use my mom or my friend Betsy as a sounding board for whatever’s going on, and I don’t always want to be a Debbie Downer, ya know? It’s nice to have a neutral outside party that will chat with you about challenging situations.

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