Intro (0:00–2:10)
Katy: Hey, welcome to I’m That Mom, the podcast about motherhood without the pressure of perfection. My name is Katy — I’m a self-taught entrepreneur who started my baby company while pregnant and grew it into an eight-figure business as a single mom of three.
Join us as we talk about the fun, funny, and messy parts of motherhood. We’re not experts — we’re just here to support all the moms, and hopefully, collectively, we don’t completely f**k it up.
Katy: Welcome to I’m That Mom, the podcast for moms just trying to make it through nap time without Googling toddler won’t nap, help for the hundredth time. Today, I’m here with Kristin again.
Kristin: Hey y’all.
Katy: And we’re being put in the hot seat. We’re answering the questions every mom is secretly (or not so secretly) typing into Google or ChatGPT at 2 a.m.
We’re talking tantrums, toddler sleep strikes, snack time battles, potty training drama — and yes, even poop questions. No judgment here, because if you’ve ever felt like you have no idea what you’re doing, congrats, you’re officially one of us.
So grab your coffee (or reheat it for the third time) and let’s get into the real talk. ChatGPT is like my new best friend. Is it yours?
Kristin: Oh yeah, we use it all the time.
Katy: Same. I use it at work, at home… everywhere. We were just recording a whole episode about toddlers and how to get them to sleep through the night.
Kristin: Yes.
Katy: ChatGPT literally spit out ten different ideas for me. I love it.
How to get my toddler to sleep through the night? (2:41 – 7:01)
Kristin: I have a little hack for that. My son’s two going on three and he’s starting to not want to go to bed.
Katy: What’s your hack?
Kristin: This is probably terrible, but I put one of those little doorknob covers on the inside so he can’t open the door.
Katy: Oh, like a toddler door.
Kristin: Yep. Eventually he figures, well, I can’t open the door, I can’t get out, so I’m just gonna get back in bed.
Katy: He doesn’t scream?
Kristin: Very little. It worked for him.
Katy: You’re lucky. Emily once fed Weslie a stick of butter.
Kristin: I’d also eat a stick of butter.
Katy: So, I have this list and I want to go through and pick some of our favorites. We kind of grouped them into different things. These are the highest search volumes on ChatGPT — moms asking these questions. Which I’m like, did they look at your search history?
Kristin: Like this one — are mom jeans in style?
Katy: Are mom jeans in style? ChatGPT’s probably like, depends, show me.
Katy: Since we were talking about sleep, let’s start there. I like this one — the best bedtime routine for toddlers. What’s your best advice for bedtime routines, especially because you have a toddler… aside from locking them in their room?
Kristin: It’s not really a routine, it’s more of a strategy.
Katy: Yeah, definitely.
Kristin: I’ve always been big on this — and I know it’s hard — but if you can stick to it, it pays back tenfold. I’ve always kept a strict bedtime. If their bedtime is 7:30, we’re going to bed at 7:30 no matter what.
Katy: No matter what. You eat early enough, and that’s it.
Kristin: We’ve even skipped things so we wouldn’t mess with the sleep schedule. My kids sleep so well. Grace goes to bed at the drop of a hat because we’ve always been consistent. Especially when they’re between that 7:30 to 8:30 bedtime age. I know people whose kids are up till 10 or 11 — no structure at all.
Katy: There’s actually research showing kids thrive off routine.
Kristin: Right — you eat, then bath time, then pajamas, then story time, and everyone’s ready for bed.
Katy: Bath time’s a no-brainer. I know sometimes people bathe their kids in the morning.
Kristin: Or in the pool.
Katy: Yeah, or in the yard with a hose.
Kristin: Sprinklers!
Katy: Summertime in Texas for sure. We always did bath time. And since I had three little ones, we’d kind of divide and conquer as parents.
Kristin: Tag team it.
Katy: Exactly. Whoever did bath time for one, the other did bedtime for the other. All my kids were different. By the time I got to my youngest, I could just tell her, go to bed, and she’d walk herself in there — no book needed. It was amazing. I don’t know what I did differently, but it was amazing.
Kristin: The other two needed some herding.
Katy: Yep. I never laid with them until they fell asleep — it was always tuck you in, kiss goodnight, nightlight on. One of my kids loved sleeping with the Vicks Vaporub humidifier.
Kristin: The humidifier?
Katy: Yeah. I think because I used it when they were sick. Their room smelled like menthol and had that humming noise.
Kristin: You probably put something in there that made them pass out.
Katy: Melted gummies. “I don’t know how they slept through the night so well!”
Katy: So, what about how to sleep train without crying? That’s another big one. It’s obvious the top sleeping searches are from desperate moms trying to get their kids to sleep through the night.
Kristin: The key is starting early. Everybody’s different, but there’s no hard rule. I think you start before they’re ready — that’s how it works best.
Katy: Exactly. The best time to start sleep training is at four months.
Kristin: Oh, really? That makes sense.
Katy: It does. That’s when they start sleeping longer, taking bigger bottles, maybe starting solids. A full tummy helps them sleep. The top questions are always about sleep training without crying it out. Crying it out is popular — Taking Cara Babies talks about it, and so does the Ferber method.
Kristin: Is it still popular? That’s what our parents did.
Katy: They did, yeah. I think it depends on the kid. Some are sensitive — it’s not for everyone. Some cry so hard they throw up; others just fuss a little.
Kristin: You can tell if it’s a fake cry or a real one.
Katy: Exactly. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with cry-it-out; you just have to take it child by child.
Katy: The next question is about toddlers waking up at 5 a.m. every day. That’s the opposite problem — they’re sleeping through the night but waking up too early.
Kristin: So, is the goal that they don’t wake up at 5 a.m., or that they wake up but don’t wake me up?
Katy: Exactly. The dream is when they get up, grab a bowl of cereal, turn on the TV, and let you sleep another hour.
Kristin: Yeah. Now Grace gets up first, then Bro, and they’ll watch cartoons together while I wake up. It’s so sweet.
Katy: You have a first grader.
Kristin: I know — a built-in babysitter.
Katy: Not quite, but close.
My toddler won’t eat vegetables (7:35–12:41)
Katy: Okay, so sleep is always the top one. The next big category is feeding and nutrition. I’m going to read the top four, and then you tell me your favorite.
Kristin: Okay, go ahead.
Katy: “My toddler won’t eat vegetables.” So I guess they’re asking what to do, or how to get them to eat veggies. Then there’s “Picky eater toddler meal ideas.” Totally get that — every mom thinks, My kid can’t live just on chicken nuggets. But I’m here to tell you, they can. And they can grow up to be just fine.
“How much milk should a two-year-old drink?” Because some kids love milk. And then there’s “Is this poop normal?” Why do we categorize poop under feeding and nutrition?
Kristin: Well, food turns into poop.
Katy: True. And there are all kinds of colors.
Kristin: Yeah, you go through that phase of parenting where you have way too many poop pictures on your phone — ones you’ve sent to your nurse friend or saved for the pediatrician. It’s weird.
Katy: No.
Kristin: No, you don’t? McKenna’s nodding; she knows what I’m talking about.
Katy: Okay, so you want to talk about the poop one? I’m not surprised.
Kristin: Yeah, that one — and the toddler won’t eat vegetables. I’ve got a fun little hack for that. You’ll laugh, but it works. It only works once they understand what you’re saying, maybe around two years old.
If you pretend the food you want them to eat is your best friend, they’ll want to eat it. I’ll pick up a pea or a green bean and say, “Whatever you do, please don’t eat this — this is Suzy, and we’ve been friends for 20 years.”
He cracks up and immediately wants to do what I told him not to do. He goes, “You mean this one?” and eats it, and I’ll pretend to cry. Grace joins in, like, “No! You ate Mom’s best friend!” It turns into a whole thing — but it works. Every time.
Katy: That’s awesome. I’ve done that too — the whole “whatever you do, don’t eat that one” thing.
Kristin: Or, “Especially not that one — that’s Joe, and please not Joe!”
Katy: What do you do when you have a whole plate of peas? You go through your entire family tree?
Kristin: At that point, I tag Grace in. “All right girl, pick some friends. Bro’s gotta eat them.” But by then, he’s realized they’re not so bad, and he starts eating them on his own. It becomes a fun game.
Katy: Have you seen pasta made out of vegetables? Or the ones with added protein? I use those for Lila — plus she loves those little Grüns, the green teddy-bear vitamins. Makes me feel better, because the only vegetable she eats is canned green beans.
Kristin: That’s not even really a vegetable.
Katy: Like the cafeteria kind.
Kristin: Yeah, that doesn’t count.
Katy: She’ll eat the whole can though — fork right in the can. She’s almost 13!
Kristin: You know, the good thing is they change. Taste buds mature.
Katy: True. My 17-year-old, Ashlyn, loves vegetables now. She’ll eat a whole plate of them, but she hated them as a baby.
Kristin: I make veggie waffles sometimes — broccoli, tomato, shredded fine, mixed into batter with cheese. Give them some ranch, and they go to town.
Katy: When Lila was little, we made zucchini pasta. It looked like spaghetti, and she loved it — until she realized it was vegetables.
Do you remember the baby food stage? You give them bananas, and they love it. Then you give them peas, and they spit it right back out. I have videos of Lila doing that — you scoop it back up and try again, and it’s so cute because they hate it so much.
Kristin: The best is when you give them one of those pouches with all the hidden veggies, and they just down it. You’re like, “Yep, you just ate a garden’s worth of vegetables.”
How do I stop tantrums in public? (12:41–15:05)
Katy: Okay, behavior and emotions. These next questions are gold. “Why is my toddler hitting me?” “How do I stop tantrums in public?” and “My two-year-old doesn’t listen.”
Kristin: No two-year-old listens.
Katy: Right? ChatGPT’s probably like, of course they don’t listen — give me another prompt.
Kristin: Some of these questions just show people don’t realize this is normal toddler behavior. That’s what two is — they don’t listen.
Katy: Yeah. Do you remember the first time your kid had a full-on public tantrum? Like in Target or the grocery store?
Kristin: Oh yes. I was at Walmart, in self-checkout. I left everything.
Katy: You did? Because there’s no coming back from that.
Kristin: Nope. I said, we’re not doing this. You will not embarrass me.
Katy: You start sweating, and they go limp on the floor.
Kristin: Yep. We left everything right there.
Katy: And you just dragged them out.
Kristin: Oh, I did. I wanted to pull the classic move my mom used to do — she’d pinch me right behind my elbow, that tender skin. She had nails, too. I remember thinking, just please don’t do that, Mom. I didn’t do it to my kid, but I was close.
Katy: I’ve seen moms at H-E-B pushing the cart, kids screaming on the floor, and they just keep shopping like nothing’s happening.
Kristin: She probably has earbuds in. She can’t even hear it.
Katy: And part of me’s like, you go, girl. Just ignore it. But then I start feeling anxious from the screaming and I’m like, oh no, what would I do? It takes serious confidence to keep walking like that. Usually it’s over a snack they didn’t get.
Once your kid becomes obsessed with something — like princesses — suddenly every grocery aisle is covered in princesses.
Kristin: They’re everywhere.
Katy: Same with any character obsession.
Kristin: You just have to do the classic mom line — “I will take you to the bathroom.” That threatening mom voice always works.
Potty Training Tips / CHAOS (16:08–19:48)
Katy: Okay, potty training tips. Are you potty training Bro right now?
Kristin: Yeah. He’s really good at peeing, but pooping is a whole other story.
So the other day, I was cleaning the living room with his sister, and I suddenly smelled poop. It was bad — like coming through the vents bad. I start walking around, trying to figure it out, and I walk into the dining room. When I tell you it was a massacre…
He had pulled his pants down, taken a massive poop — I’m talking grown man–level — then pulled his pants back up and stomped through it in his tennis shoes. It was everywhere. The curtains, the floor, even in the grooves of the wood.
Katy: How do we not know this story? Everyone in the room right now filming this podcast looks shocked.
Kristin: It took everything in me not to lose it. And of course, Jonathan was home — he’s always home when the poop hits, but somehow never actually there.
So I walk in, trying to keep it together because there’s poop everywhere, and Bro looks at me and goes, “Mama.” Then, trying to distract me, he’s like, “Mama, look at this crayon. Look, look, I have this red crayon.”
Katy: It’s covered in poop.
Kristin: Yep. He’s holding it like it’s no big deal. Then he says, “Mama, I don’t want a spankin’.” And I’m like, “Buddy, you’re fine — you’re covered in poop, I’m definitely not giving you a spanking right now.”
It was so bad. I had to bleach the floor three times.
Katy: You did not.
Kristin: I did. And this was right before my whole family came over for the Fourth of July. So when my brother got there, I told him, “Hey, can you go into the dining room and do a quick sniff test for me?”
At first, he thought I was messing with him, but I was serious. I said, “Bro took a massive poop in here a week ago, and I swear it still smells.”
Y’all — it was the worst one ever. It was on the curtains, the floor, everything. I had to take the curtains down and wash them. It was a whole crime scene.
Katy: I can’t. That’s horrifying.
Kristin: My floors are brown, so it was hard to tell if I even got it all. I honestly wanted to just rip the floors up and start over.
Katy: Have you seen those TikToks where parents prank their kids with fake poop? They’ll be sitting on the toilet, put Nutella on their fingers, and ask their kid to bring toilet paper. When the kid hands it over, they smear a little on their hand and say, “Oops, sorry.”
The kids just stand there in shock — like, traumatized.
Kristin: Oh my gosh, I’d love to do that to Grace. She’s the perfect age for that.
Katy: You should. But honestly, I would’ve thrown up if that happened to me.
Kristin: Stuff like that doesn’t make me sick. Maybe I’m a little messed up.
How do I make time for myself as a mom? How do I ask for help? (20:24–23:45)
Katy: All right, let’s wrap this up with one of my favorite topics — mom life and mental health.
So, moms aren’t just asking about their kids; they’re asking about themselves. The top searches are things like “What are the signs of burnout?”, “How do I make time for myself as a mom?”, “Why do I feel so overwhelmed all the time?”, and “How do I ask for help?”
If you’re Googling “signs of burnout,” that is your sign of burnout.
Kristin: You just diagnosed yourself.
Katy: Exactly.
Kristin: “Why do I feel so overwhelmed?” Because you have children.
Katy: Because you have children — and you might have cleaned up poop for three hours today.
Kristin: These are easy ones. Where are the hard questions?
Katy: “How do I ask for help as a new mom?”
Kristin: Well, you don’t — because no one’s coming. (laughs) I’m kidding… kind of.
Katy: You know what, though? Moms are really bad at asking for help.
Kristin: We are. We just suffer in silence.
Katy: Yep. We feel like we can do it all — and we can — but we end up exhausted.
Kristin: Honestly, if I just told Jonathan what I need, he’d do it.
Katy: Exactly! Men can’t read minds. If you’re married to one who can, he’s a unicorn.
Kristin: He’s probably not even a man.
Katy: Totally. And don’t ever say you don’t want anything for your birthday or Christmas — because they’ll take that literally. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience.
Kristin: I saw one where a woman said, “My husband finally understands what I mean when I say I don’t want anything from the gas station,” and he came back with all the things she actually wanted.
Katy: Exactly. You can’t give trick questions to men — you have to be specific.
Katy: Then there’s “Working mom guilt — help!” That’s a big one. How do you even make time for yourself as a mom?
Kristin: For me, it was always taking a shower every night. That was my moment.
Katy: That’s just good life advice.
Kristin: It really was my one guaranteed quiet time.
Katy: For me now, it’s getting my nails done every two or three weeks. I listen to a podcast, sip the free glass of champagne — that’s my version of self-care. We work all day, then go home and it’s still all about the kids.
Kristin: You just have to find one thing that’s yours — something you can set up regularly, even if it’s once a month.
Katy: I think prioritizing exercise helps too —
Kristin: Girl, you are so full of s***.
Katy: (laughing) I don’t actually do it, but it’s a goal!
Kristin: She’s been to two Pilates classes, and now she’s a fitness guru.
Katy: Hey, I’ve gone twice a week for three weeks!
Kristin: I’ve walked on the treadmill twice since we moved into this building.
Katy: That’s mom life.
Using AI for Family Trips (24:09–26:49)
Kristin: Speaking of AI, my friend uses ChatGPT to plan her family vacations and trips — full itineraries and everything.
Katy: I did that too!
Kristin: You did? Oh my gosh, isn’t it amazing? You can tell it what kind of stuff you want — free activities, kid-friendly, whatever — and it gives you a whole plan.
Katy: Yes! But I used it for our Italy trip. My husband and I went this summer on a cruise to Greece and Italy — no kids. So it was actually a vacation. You know how it is: when you travel with your kids, it’s a trip; when you travel without them, it’s a vacation.
I went into ChatGPT and asked what to do on each island. It spit out the top tourist spots, then asked follow-up questions like, “Do you want me to tailor this for restaurants, rest and relaxation, or sightseeing?” You can fine-tune it however you want.
It got super detailed — like:
- 8:00 a.m.: Wake up
- 9:00 a.m.: Walk to the town square
- 10:30 a.m.: Have lunch at [insert restaurant name here]
It literally built an itinerary. I had a Google Doc for each port. It was amazing. You know what’s the worst? Wandering around somewhere you’ve never been, trying to find food.
Everyone used to just pull up Maps or OpenTable and scroll forever. Is that what you do when you’re traveling — look up restaurants that way?
Kristin: Yeah, I just Google it. Or ask a random person walking by.
Katy: Same. Or I’ll ask someone in a shop or a gas station.
Kristin: The gas station people always know where to eat!
Katy: But honestly, ChatGPT nailed it. You can even keep your location on, and it’ll find the best spots nearby — like top Mexican places, Italian, whatever.
Kristin: I’m telling you, this will change how moms plan Disney trips. Can you imagine letting AI plan all the rides, meals, and rest breaks for you?
Katy: Oh, 100%. It probably pulls from every Disney blog out there — all the hacks, tips, and “secret sauce” stuff.
Also, do you know you’re supposed to thank your ChatGPT?
Kristin: Wait, what?
Katy: Yeah! What if it gets mad one day and stops helping you because you were rude?
Kristin: (laughs) What if it gets vindictive? Like, “Oh, you didn’t say thank you, so here’s a 12-hour layover.”
Katy: Exactly. Always thank your chat!
Closing / Outro (26:49–End)
Katy: Whether you’re deep in the toddler trenches or just survived a napless afternoon, one thing’s for sure — you’re not the only one asking Google or ChatGPT for backup.
Thanks for hanging out with us on I’m That Mom. I hope this episode made you laugh, nod along, or just feel a little less alone.
Be sure to subscribe, share it with your mom friends, and maybe send us your own burning mom questions — because let’s be honest, we’ve probably asked them too.
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