A South Carolina mom sleep-training her youngest daughter could barely believe her ears when she checked in on her via the baby monitor.

Karli Paradise-Sabecky is a school psychologist, mom, stepmom to four girls, and owner of Full Bloom Family Consulting, LLC, based in Charleston.

Through her business and social media profile, @fullbloom.parenting, Paradise-Sabecky says she shares “practical child-development support alongside the realistic, funny, and occasionally unhinged moments of raising children.”

“A degree may help me understand why the chaos is happening, but it does not make my own children stop creating it,” she told Newsweek. “I want other parents to know that parenting is messy, even when you have professional training in child development.”

One video captured on her baby monitor a year ago while sleep-training her youngest daughter is a case in point.

Sleep deprivation is a stark reality for many new parents. A 2019 study published in the journal Sleep that tracked more than 4,600 German parents found that sleep satisfaction and sleep duration dropped sharply after childbirth, reaching their lowest levels during the first three months after a baby was born, with mothers experiencing a significantly greater impact than fathers.

Worse still, the researchers found that, for first-time parents, sleep quality and duration did not fully return to pre-pregnancy levels even up to six years after the birth of their first child.

Little wonder, then, that many turn to sleep training, a method of teaching babies and young children to fall asleep independently and self-soothe when they wake during the night, with the goal of improving sleep for both the child and their parents.

Paradise-Sabecky was sleep-training her youngest daughter about a year ago when the incident in question unfolded late one night. Young children often cry out during the sleep-training process. It can be a difficult but necessary step in helping them learn to self-soothe.

On this particular night, Paradise-Sabecky’s daughter was crying. At that point, however, all Paradise-Sabecky wanted to do was sleep. “She has always been very verbal, but at 11 p.m., all our exhausted brains registered was, ‘Why is this girl still screaming?’” she said.

Though her daughter eventually settled down, Paradise-Sabecky decided to review the baby monitor footage the following morning to see what all the fuss had been about. That was when she heard what sounded like three very distinct words.

“We were shocked by what we thought we heard,” Paradise-Sabecky said. “We kept replaying it and wondering where on earth she could have learned that phrase, especially since we do not walk around our home telling people off in that manner—and she attends a Christian daycare.”

At first, Paradise-Sabecky was convinced her toddler daughter was shouting: “Hey, f*** you!”

However, after listening more closely, she realized her daughter was saying something altogether more wholesome—but equally shocking.

“It took us a while to decode that she was actually yelling, ‘Hey, back here!’” Paradise-Sabecky said. “She appeared to be calling us back into the room, and she said it again when her dad went downstairs.”

Paradise-Sabecky and her husband could not help but laugh when they realized what she was actually saying. That did not help matters, though.

“Our reaction only encouraged her to repeat it more often,” she said. “It became slightly more horrifying when she started yelling it in public places, including grocery stores and her grandparents’ house. Context did not help us nearly as much as we would have liked.”

Paradise-Sabecky ultimately decided to share the baby monitor footage online to highlight “the good, the bad, and the ugly of parenting.”

“I hope parents see that even professionals with degrees focused on helping children still experience the everyday chaos of parenting. Knowing about child development does not mean your home is calm, your children always cooperate, or that you immediately understand what your toddler is screaming through a baby monitor,” she said.

“Mostly, I hope the video gives people a laugh and reminds them to appreciate the funny, ordinary moments. The things that feel ridiculous at the time often become some of our favorite family memories.”