The Whole Parent Podcast
The Whole Parent Podcast
Adding a New Baby #007
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You're about to face the daunting task of introducing a new baby to your already bustling brood. I'm here.
Your journey through the rollercoaster of emotions and sibling dynamics that come with a new family member is about to get a whole lot smoother. Our latest episode of the Whole Parent Podcast is packed with heartfelt guidance and practical tips, addressing everything from managing toddler aggression to nurturing the bonds that will tie your children together for life.
This episode is a treasure trove of insights for any parent juggling the demands of a newborn with the needs of an older child. We tackle the guilt that often shadows the joy of expanding your family, offering strategies for giving each child the attention they crave and deserve. With real questions from parents from our community, we ensure the advice is as relatable as it is practical. Learn how 'supercharged attention times' can make all the difference, and discover the profound impact of validating your child's emotions, all while navigating the chaos of the 'fourth trimester'.
As we wrap up, we're reminded that while parenting multiple children can be overwhelming, it's also filled with opportunities to create a harmonious home. By sharing our personal experiences and the wisdom of experts, we hope to empower you to embrace these challenges with grace and to pass on your newfound knowledge to others in the parenting trenches. Tune in for an episode that not only offers solutions and support but also reinforces the message that through mindful parenting, we truly can change the world, one family at a time.
So there's two ways to fill a cup with a child for their attention needs. There's the way where you just kind of splash water in over and over throughout the day and as time goes on, some of that gets drained Out and you just, you know, always splashing a little bit of water. There's another way which is way more effective. It's just you. You put the cup under the tap, you open it all the way up for a much shorter period of time. Your kids would much rather have all of your attention some of the time than some of your attention all the time. So just do that. It's a brand new day. Hey, wake up every morning and say it's a brand new day. Take a good day. Make it great. Okay, hello, and welcome to another episode of the whole parent podcast. My name is John, aka whole parent.
Speaker 1:On social media, wherever you go to consume your short form video content, whether that's tiktok, instagram, even Facebook although I'm not super active over there, I still cross post my stuff over there and, of course, the guy who makes the whole parent podcast. And On this episode we're gonna just jump right in. We're talking about new babies. So how do we Bring a new baby home? How do we bring them into a family and an established family? I want to specify when we're talking about new babies today, they're in the context of sibling relationships or sibling dynamics, and so we're not just talking about like, okay, the first three days that you have or the first three months that you have A new baby at home and it's your first child Although that would be a great podcast episode, if people have questions about that Just doesn't tend to be the people who know me from social media, because I tend to talk about older kids.
Speaker 1:That would be a great podcast episode. I'm sure that we could find amazing things to talk about, but in these three questions, these are new baby questions for parents who are they already have a child. There there might be an age you know, a toddler and a newborn, or even a grade school and a newborn, and there they have questions related to that. And so we have three questions from real parents. The first one comes from Parker, and before I answer this question, I always forget to say in the middle, at the very top of the podcast, that if you have not yet done so, I know that we had a ton of people do this right away, but we have not had a lot of people doing this more recently and we need to keep this trend going.
Speaker 1:If you have not done so yet, go into whatever podcast app you're listening to this, whether that's Spotify, whether that's apple podcast, google podcast if you watch this on youtube, and if you have an opportunity to rate this show, go ahead and give me five stars. I'd really really appreciate it. If not, that's okay. I would just love to hear your feedback anyway. And and then, yeah, do that as well. Give me some feedback.
Speaker 1:So go go in if there's a place where you can write a written review of hey, what are you learning from this podcast? You know, do you have multiple kids? Do you have one kid? What do you take? What are your takeaways from the things we've talked about thus far? If you can do that, if you can go into your podcast app and actually go and physically do that, even if you have to stop this episode. If you've been kicking yourself because you've listened to other episodes and you've heard me say this before, but you haven't done it yet, just pause right now. Go into that app and and do it.
Speaker 1:And the reason that I need you to do that is because the the number one way that I get out, that I am spread to other people, other parents who might be looking for a podcast to help them to raise resilient kids with confidence. Those parents, the way that they find me is through the podcast's own Pushing me out. So when somebody searches parenting, they might not see my podcast. If they search my name whole parent they probably will. But if they just search parenting or parenting advice or parenting how-to or whatever like that, the, the way that Apple or Spotify or Google knows to give them this result is hey, this, this is a podcast that's gonna help you parent better is by your reviews and your ratings and by continuing to tune in, engage, listen to these episodes. That's how they're gonna know downloads all that stuff.
Speaker 1:So if you haven't done that yet, I am gonna get to this episode. I promise is not like just gonna be an ad the whole time. I am gonna get to the episode. But if you have not done yet that yet, please pause right now. Go in and go ahead and do that, because you have no idea how helpful that will be to me and that will allow me to keep doing this. I should say that too. I can't continue to make content on any of my social platforms if it's not landing and if it's not being engaged with it. It's not a valuable use of my time resources, it's certainly not valuable to you if you're not engaging with it and connecting with and learning from it. And so this lets me know. Hey, you should keep making this podcast, which I love doing, by the way. So I really want you to do this. Maybe I'll do it anyway, because I just love doing it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so our first question comes from Parker. Parker is someone who is part of the whole parent membership and he has a five-year-old, and so this question actually came up in the membership. So, parker, you've already heard this, but I'm more than happy to answer this question, because the reason I brought it in here of course with Parker's permission is because this question, I feel like, is so, so important, so so good. So Parker says I have a five-year-old, we're about to be welcoming a new baby to our family, looking for any tips and advice on how to do that During the first couple of months when we're getting acclimated to our new boy. Amazing question, parker, and the first piece of advice that I have is that we are going to have to embrace a certain level of suck, and what I mean by that is that Is that when we bring a new child into our home, whether it's the second sibling, the third sibling, even the fourth sibling, there is a level where it's just not going to be Perfect, it's not going to go. Everything is not going to go as, according to plans, as you expect it to.
Speaker 1:You have a five-year-old right now. That means that you have been a parent for five years. For five years, you've been figuring out how to raise one kid, and my guess is Parker, you're pretty, pretty stinking good at it at this point. The problem is Now you're going to be parenting in a completely different way. Your attention is going to be divided. Obviously, your partner I shouldn't say obviously in this case your partner is still going to be recovering from childbirth, and so you're not going to, you know, immediately have as much help as you normally have. You're not going to have as much help Ever again, because you're going to have a five-year-old and a new baby now not, so, it's not just one. So instead of it being two on one, it's going to be two on two, and it's just going to be a little bit more challenging in that way, and so you're going to have to embrace a level of Imperfection and mistakes and exhaustion that is just that comes with that initial stage.
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of our issues when we bring home a new child is actually not even related to the new baby, although I'll get to that in a second. That fear you know when am I gonna love my new baby as much as I love my current child? I'll get to that fear in a second. But many of our issues come from the fact that, all of a sudden, parents who care so much about parenting and I imagine if you're listening to this right now, whether you're welcoming a new baby to your family or not, you probably care a whole lot about parenting to be listening to a parenting podcast and so those of us who care so deeply and so profoundly about raising our kids, well, we have to give ourselves so much more grace, give ourselves so much more forgiveness and compassion and understanding, because the new child coming into the home is going to mean that the way in which we engage our older kids is going to be different, at least temporarily. And so embrace that madness, try and take it slow.
Speaker 1:You know, babies grow really, really fast. I know that people have said that you know about kids of all ages. Your kids grow up too fast, but especially newborns, they grow really, really fast. It will not be like this forever. Even the first three months will be very different than months three through six, and so give yourself so much grace in that process. If you have to watch a couple episodes of Bluey or whatever when you don't normally, if there's just, you know, a little bit more whining or complaining, if you forget, you know, somebody eats chicken nuggets. Or if your five year old eats chicken nuggets every single meal from now until you know two weeks from now, that's all okay, it's all gonna be okay. It is hard to welcome a new baby, and so my first piece of advice is that you have to embrace that. The second piece of advice that I have is that, in the spirit of having two parents or in this case I'm just gonna say, because in Parker's case he has a five year old and a newborn but even if you have, you know, let's say, three kids, four kids, one parent, and this is just kind of a piece of advice that I've taken on because this was what worked for us, and so don't hear this as like there's no evidence to support this necessarily, but I think it works really well.
Speaker 1:One parent identify. Usually it's the mother. Because of the biological factors she's still recovering from childbirth. If it's a biological child that's being born into the family. Also, if you're breastfeeding, the mother is just a little bit more hands-on with the baby usually than the dad. That's just a natural part of life. Not to say the dads can't do things like skin to skin and holding for naps and all that other stuff. But mom is going to be a little bit more necessary, especially in those early days, than dad. And so you know how do we support mom? That's a big question. But in this, for the older kids, one of the best things that we can do is we can say hey, I understand that my partner, in this case my wife, is not gonna be able to be as present as one-on-one, as engaged with my five-year-old and so I'm gonna take on that responsibility of being a little bit extra for those older kids. And it's not to say that you're gonna ignore or neglect or knock at that cuddle time with baby. It's just to say you gotta kind of take accountability and say hey, or take responsibility. I should say that's the right word Take responsibility for those older kids and say, hey, I'm gonna take them out for a dad date or whatever. I'm gonna go out, we're gonna go hit the town, we're gonna go bowling or whatever.
Speaker 1:And those special one-on-one times that you can build in with your existing child, the child that who's already here I say existing child what a weird way to say that With your older child, with your existing child, with your older child, those times you can actually it can often become, even though it's a disconcerting time for the child for sure, because there's this new sibling in the house and it's exciting, but it's also a little bit nerve-anxiety producing and you're not getting as much time with mom as you might like. Those actually can become amazing memories because those can be the times when dad really showed up and showed out. So and it doesn't have to be dad, it can be mom If it's like you know what I really need some time, one-on-one time with my five-year-old. Two weeks in, I feel decently recovered. Obviously, that process is a years-long process to recovering from childbirth, but I feel decently recovered and I wanna go and do that Dad then be the person who shows up and is gonna be all hands on deck for a newborn don't get me wrong but in this case, for the majority of the time likely just because of the biological factors at play being able to show up in a huge way for that child who's older, they can look back and go oh man, that was a really exciting time when my little baby sibling was born. I got to do all this fun stuff with dad and that's building really, really amazing positive association between the you know, bringing on of and this is balancing out that right, cause we're gonna embrace the suck right. We're gonna realize that it's not gonna always be perfect. We're gonna give ourselves a lot of grace, we're gonna give ourselves a lot of forgiveness, we're gonna learn how to repair well, right, like all that stuff. That's on one side of the equation. The other side of the equation is we're gonna really balance that out with a lot of positive experiences surrounding the new child who's coming into the home. And so by doing that, not only do we balance that out, we also create positive association between this new baby coming into the home and not losing attention, which is always the fear.
Speaker 1:Am I gonna start neglecting my child? No, absolutely not. You're not gonna neglect your older child. They are gonna have to learn a certain measure of patience and you know what that's gonna be really good for them. In the process, they're gonna have to learn a certain level of independence that they perhaps didn't have before you know what that's gonna be really good for them long term.
Speaker 1:So those are my first two tips and I wanna hit one more here before I move on, because I know that I'm spending a long time on Parker's question. But I think you know, if you're just when you give me a question like open ended tips, I'm gonna take it and run with it, because I can kind of highlight a lot of the things that I've talked with so many different parents throughout the years of welcoming. This is one of the most common things that comes up, whether that's in a group coaching environment with me or a workshop that I'm doing, or even, you know, just interpersonally families, family members who are welcoming a new child. This is one of the first things that people say hey, hey, how do I do this? Well, so I have another really good tip here.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, I'm spending a little longer on my first question than I normally do, and the reason for that is because I really do think this is really critically important and it kind of I'm gonna cover a lot of things here that then we'll apply to the next two, and so my last tip and this is a really, really big one, and so I'm gonna sit here for a minute is that you cannot force the relationship between the older child and the younger child. What do I mean by that? What I mean is that you literally cannot force them to engage in any way. If you do that, if you start forcing it, then what's gonna happen is you're gonna create additional issues that are just unnecessary. So just don't force it. Do if you bring home your child and your five-year-old has no interest in engaging with the new baby which, by the way, absolutely happens. Don't force it If your five-year-old comes to you and says something that feels really off color or really problematic, like, oh, I wish that my sibling had never been born, or I wish that they would just go away, or I wish that we could give them back.
Speaker 1:Don't balk at that. Be understanding and accepting of that. We're going to talk about that in a little bit here with some of these other questions. But don't try and force the relationship of, hey, you need to hold your little sibling, we need to get a bunch of pictures. I understand my wife's a newborn photographer. I understand the desire to get the pictures of the older siblings and the younger sibling together. But, you know, bring that to a try and do that in a short amount of time as possible. Don't be constantly trying to, you know, at every turn. I know the impulse to want to do that at all times, but don't do that and just be willing to approach the relationship on the terms of the older child. Be willing to approach the relationship in the terms of the older child.
Speaker 1:I have kind of a personal anecdote about this, and that's that when my second child was born, so when my oldest went from being an only child to an older brother, he was about three and a half or maybe even four, but almost four I mean. But he acted much more like a four year old or a four and a half year old. He's always had some places where he really excels and other places where he doesn't, and so in one way his intellectual capacity has always been a little bit advanced and so intellectually he was like a four or four and a half year old the types of conversations we could have. But emotionally he was still three year old, right, and that's just developmental, that's just what happens, that's just how his brain was growing. And so we bring home his little sibling and, I kid you not, I felt like for the first six months of his little brother I mean like the day his little brother came home or was home. He was born at home the day that his little brother appeared, that next morning. For my oldest that was an exciting day. Sure, we like talked about baby Oliver and we did that all thing. But then, very shortly after that, we were on to ignoring him and I swear he ignored him for like months, like six months almost, and I think a lot of people would have taken that and been like, oh man, like that's really problematic. We should, you know, we got to do something about that.
Speaker 1:But we really went in this aspect of our parenting child led and we just allowed him to allow this relationship to foster on his own terms and by doing that he didn't feel threatened that he had to incorporate his little brother into our family, that he still had his mom and dad, and it was a much more gradual transition, and in that gradual transition what actually wound up happening was that he developed a really positive relationship with his little brother, and so they didn't have a lot of the sibling rivalry stuff. I mean, they absolutely do have that to this day, right. Like all kids experience conflict. These kids have to live in the same house, right? They know each other's triggers. They are overlapping at all times. The conflict happens, absolutely, that's an episode for siblings later. But a lot of the negative things that we have identified, those didn't happen with them. And that's just because we were really, really intentional right off the bat to not force the relationship, to allow the relationship to develop on his own terms, and so we allowed him to be the one driving. And by doing that, by having him be the one driving, it fostered all sorts of really really positive association and felt much less threatening, much less anxiety producing for him because we weren't forcing him into this relationship. And so those are my three tips. I'm going to try to run back and run him back really, really quickly.
Speaker 1:Just to summarize, number one tip is embrace that this is going to be a challenging time, that it's not going to be perfect. You're going to suck to a certain extent. You're not going to have as much sleep as you want. You're not going to eat healthy food. You're probably going to get door dash or grub hub or whatever, like four times a week. Maybe that's not what you like to do. You might not be eating the way you want to. You might not be going to the gym as much as you want to absolutely still practice all the self care that you can. But this is not the most happy, starry eyed time of life for most of us.
Speaker 1:The first several months of a child. It is just challenging. That's why we call it the fourth trimester. It's like being pregnant, but you have a child on the outside right. It's not an easy time. Embrace that and give yourself so much grace. Forgive yourself for your shortcomings, especially with your older child. Number two do the best that you can to positively associate this by giving your child extra attention. As the off parent, the parent who's not taking care of the newborn, give that five year old extra attention, extra time. Do some fun things. That'll really help. And number three don't force the relationship. Those are the three, and now I want to move on to Rachel.
Speaker 1:Alright, so our second question comes from Rachel. She says Hello, this is Rachel. I have a toddler, mel, who's two years old, who recently welcomed a new baby, lucy, into the family. Mel has been displaying physical aggression towards her little sister, like hitting and pushing, whenever she feels like she's not getting enough attention. Good identification, rachel. I'm concerned for the safety of both children. Can you provide guidance on how to mitigate physical aggression from a toddler towards the new baby and help them develop a more positive sibling relationship? Yes, absolutely, rachel. I really like that you've identified.
Speaker 1:I kind of interrupted your question there to say I really like how you have identified that this is probably around attention. That's usually where the place for a toddler to have aggression towards a newborn comes from. It is a feeling of hey, here I am, I still need mom, I still need dad. Especially when there's only one caregiver in the room, I still need mom. And here's this baby who's taking away mom's attention and time. And so I think two things that you can really do beyond I'll just reiterate the advice that I give to Parker, which I don't. I'm not saying that you did this, rachel, but if you did, stop doing this, which is trying to force the relationship. So don't try and force Mel into interacting with Lucy in some positive way At this point. That's not going to be effective right now. Eventually we'll get to that for sure.
Speaker 1:I don't want siblings to just coexist, I want them to be friends. I think ideally that's the model you want your kids to be, lifelong friends, right? And there's a lot that we can do, especially in childhood. But in toddler years it's not super essential that you build and do all of this work, right? So the saying is Rome wasn't built in a day. Relationships are not built in a day either. Your relationship between Lucy and Mel is going to develop over time. So that's number one, right? So I guess it's three things. I'm giving everybody three things today. I hope I can give three things to the next one.
Speaker 1:Number two is as much as you can, we want to redirect the physical aggression and, you know, in tandem with making sure that we keep Lucy safe as much as possible. So if we see the physical aggression beginning, we want to try and redirect that and just say things, use language related to, you know, telling Mel how we would prefer that Mel behaves rather than demonizing her physical aggression on its own terms, right? So if Mel is like pulling back her fists, like she's going to hit Lucy, then you say we engage Lucy or we, you know, we touched Lucy with gentle hands. And I know that that sounds like so Instagram and so cringy, but it really does work with kids to tell them what you would like to see rather than what they are doing is wrong. So just constantly redirecting we engage Lucy with gentle hands, we touch with gentle hands these. This is the kind of communication that tends to work with two year olds.
Speaker 1:What people like to do with two year olds, which doesn't tend to work very well, is they try and bring in empathy right. So they try and say you wouldn't like it if somebody hit you, and a two year old doesn't really usually possess the capacity to actually do that type of perspective taking. So it's much better to just say we, we use gentle hands and then if she's going to pull back and hit her anywhere or she goes to push her anyway, just stand up with Lucy, pick her up, make sure that you have enough support to do this right. And I know that there is going to be times when we'll get to that in a second, but there is going to be times when there's just going to be conflict and there's going to be hitting and fighting Bye three-year-old. Right now we were really sure that we were out of the biting phase with my two-year-old and then yesterday, in a really, really blown-up conflict that I could have maybe intervened sooner on I can kind of blame myself for that to an extent. My two-year-old bit my three-year-old and he we have been so long since he's Bitten anybody that we weren't even anticipating it and he actually got him in the face. So my two-year-olds totally fine today. But in the moment afterwards You're like, oh my god, I let my kid get bit in the face by his brother, right? So like that's gonna happen, that's gonna keep happening.
Speaker 1:You have to give yourself a little bit of forget. Well, you have not a little bit. You're not to give yourself a ton of grace and forgiveness with siblings. They're gonna hurt each other. Lucy's gonna hurt Mel, mel's gonna hurt Lucy. Toys are gonna go flying across the room. Sometimes the pain is gonna be totally inadvertent. You know we're playing in this rough way.
Speaker 1:Fighting Happens. It's not great. We obviously try and redirect it. We try and come up with better conflict mediation. We process it afterwards. But fighting happens in families. Kids hurt each other. That just happens. We just prevent the really really bad as much as humanly possible. We prevent the really really bad things, right. And so we make sure that you know Mel does not. Mel is carrying something heavy around. Now we're gonna be much more conscious of what's going on. So when, if, if and when she does attempt to hurt Lucy again, just pick Lucy up and say I'm sorry, we have to, we have to move Lucy away. We have to be gentle with Lucy. So just tell her what you're doing and explain that, not to shame or punish, but just to say we need to, you know, be constantly redirecting what we're looking for out of the relationship, what we're looking for out of Mel.
Speaker 1:And then I had a third one, but I'm forgetting now what it is. Man, I should take more notes. Okay, I'm gonna leave that one where it is for now, and if I think of it I'll come back to it. Seem reasonable to everybody. Not that you can respond, because this is pre-recorded, but I'm gonna assume that you're all nodding along, okay, and if you did physically nod right there, good on you for feeling like we're really in this together, because that's how I feel when I record these, I imagine that I'm literally talking to you, parker, to you Rachel, and then now to Katie. But before I get to Katie's question, I want to say one quick Call out, which is that.
Speaker 1:But before I get to Katie's question, I want to give one quick Kind of mini advertisement here, which is just to say that if you are not yet on the email list for this podcast, but just in general for the whole parent platform, you need to be on that. I am announcing something, literally this Thursday, so in two days from now, I am announcing something on that email list that you want to be on. It's an awesome opportunity that we have. So get on that email list right now. You can do so in the link which is in the show notes below. Just head over to my stand store. You can just click right there. It'll give you a little box to put in your email and you'll be all set. If you already on me, my email list great. You already know the amazing content that we send out every single week.
Speaker 1:So on Thursday we send on an email. A lot of times it will be related to the podcast. That's what we've been trying to do for the this first part of the year, as we've been putting these podcasts out, so it might be like an auxiliary thing or like additional tips or something like that, something supplemental also. It just reminds you to listen to the podcast and and then I also just tell stories in there. I give tips, I give tricks, I will Share anything that's happening with whole parent outside, whether I'm doing like a Q&A or a live Workshop or something like that or a live training. All that's where you can find out about all that stuff, and I have an upcoming book and so if you are interested in that and learning more about that and how you can be the first one's, first person to have that in your hands, that's the place to be. The email list, which again is linked in the show notes, it's in my stand store Join that email list, open the emails, make sure that you add me to your context wherever, so you're actually getting those. It's it's some of the best stuff that I put out and it's completely free, okay.
Speaker 1:Last question is from Katie. Katie says I recently gave birth to a new baby, colin, and I have an older child, elijah, who's four years old. I'm feeling overwhelmed and guilty because I can't seem to give Elijah the attention that he needs and wants. Oh my gosh, I remembered what I was supposed to say to Lucy I mean to Rachel about Lucy and Mel. Stay tuned. This is what it is. Okay, I'm feeling overwhelmed because I'm guilty that I can't seem to give Elijah the full attention that he needs and wants. I'm constantly exhausted and I have my hands full with Elijah's baby care. How can I manage these feelings of guilt and ensure that Elijah doesn't feel neglected during this challenging time of adjusting to life with a new baby? Here is the advice that I was supposed to give to Rachel and I'm gonna give it to Katie and I'm gonna give it to Rachel at the same time and that is that your child, in order to adequately give attention.
Speaker 1:I kind of references a little bit with Parker at the beginning, where I said you know, have that special one-on-one time to balance out the. You know the both sides of the equation. When you bring home a new baby, there is gonna be less Attention for the older child. So just kind of show up and show out when you can. I'm gonna go one step further here and say there is absolutely going to be times when you are going to when your child is going to feel, in comparison, a little bit neglected. They're gonna feel like man.
Speaker 1:This new baby came around and Now what do I do? And I have two big tips. The first one goes for both Rachel and Katie, and that is that giving your older children a spatter you know whether it's four or two, or even, parker's case, five giving them targeted attention for shorter periods of time when you're able to give them a hundred percent of your attention, rather than giving them, you know some, okay, okay, yeah, I'll be over there in a second Type attention. You know some, you know half attention, divided attention For all the time is much better. So it is better to tell Elijah and even Mel right, who's two years old hey, I need to take care of your little sibling right now. In one case, it's a little girl, a little boy. I need to take care of your little brother, your little sister right now. But when I'm able to, I want to fully engage with what you're saying. I want to see what you, what it is that you're doing. This is so, so transformative, because Actually, most of us don't give our children as much or as full of our attention as past generations.
Speaker 1:So we have these amazing little light boxes in our pockets that can do all sorts of fun things. They're called cell phones and they take up a lot of our attention and oftentimes you know, in the blurring of work life, boundaries. Where you're on your phone, whether that's for work stuff or your texting, or you're watching one of my videos on social media, and your kid comes up to you, it's really natural to want to give them about half of your attention. Just go, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, whatever you say, or when you're cooking, or when you're doing chores, or, yes, when you're taking care of a little sibling, it can feel natural to want to give them half your attention. I'm not saying that you can't do that. I'm saying that the way that kids feel connected and like they're getting the attention and and what's the word attachment and their attachment needs met, is by targeted intent, an intentional, targeted attention.
Speaker 1:That is, you know what a Lisa pressman, in her book five principles parenting, which just came out, calls a delight time, and so so, basically, what we can do is we can say, hey, I'm gonna set aside five minutes a day to play, and literally could be five minutes. I'm gonna give you kind of a cheat code for how we can do this in nine minutes, super, super effectively in a second. But just five minutes a day, or even just a couple five minutes spurts. But but lock that down and say, for these next five minutes I'm not going to do anything other than play imaginatively with my kids. And so imagine if play can look like a whole host of things. It doesn't have to be Playing pretend. It can look like playing with little figures, it can look like dress up, it can look like playing kitchen, it can look like playing restaurant.
Speaker 1:But the the two keys here number one they have your full and complete attention. Right, you're responding to them. If they're, if they're doing something, like they're showing you something, react to that, don't just like blow them off. So number number one to put your phone away. Just just take that and just say put, put that away, stop listening to the podcast of me or whatever. Put that away. Give them your full and complete attention. That's number one, for a set period of time, whether it's five minutes time, it's whatever. And then, number two allow them to be the leader. So, whatever they're playing, whatever they're trying to show, you just go with it. Oh, I whacked my microphone there. Just go with it. So don't try and fix it, don't try and make the story work. It's really hard for many of us who get into the play and then we try and take over and lead and drive a little bit. The play may not work, but just let them feel like they're guiding you through it.
Speaker 1:This can be such an amazing Kind of attachment thing. It can be kind of a cup filler, right. So there's two ways to fill a cup with a child for their attention needs. There's the way where you just kind of splash water in over and over throughout the day and as they're kind of as time goes on, as they're Getting heard, or whatever they use, some of that gets drained out and you just, you know, always splashing a little bit of water. There's another way which is way more effective. It's just you, you put the cup under the tap, you open it all the way up for a much shorter period of time.
Speaker 1:Your kids would much rather have all of your attention some of the time than some of your attention all the time. So just do that, give them that targeted attention. And then you know the other piece of this beyond that, beyond that target attention and this is going to be more effective for Elijah and I'll go all the way back to Parker with a five-year-old and maybe this would be helpful for for Rachel and Mel as well is that as the baby takes up space, we want to allow for your child to express however they feel about that Fully. And before I get to this man see, I'm all over the place today I forgot about the nine minutes. Okay, so there's also some research from Jack Jacques Pankstaff. So maybe I'll cut that part out, maybe I won't, maybe I'll just let you guys hear me ramble around.
Speaker 1:But okay, so there's also some research from Jacques Pankstaff, who is a Psychologist, from our behavioral neuroscientist not a psychologist, a behavioral neuroscientist who who came up with this idea or this hypothesis that he then later proved that if you give children Targeted attention at very specific times throughout the day, that they feel that those times in the day can kind of be supercharged, detention, so you can give them three minutes of attention at these three different times of the day, so nine minutes total, and those three minutes of attention at each of those times is Feels to the child more like 15 or 30 minutes of attention, and those three times are number one, right when they wake up. So if as much as you can give your child your full and undivided and complete attention to snuggle, cuddle, whatever, right when they wake up, right before they go to bed. So whatever your bedtime routine is, make sure that for that older child, your bedtime routine for them is just for them, so you're not going off and doing this with with the baby. Figure out a way where that works right. As much as you can I know it's sometimes impossible, but as much as you can give your child, at least you know, three to five minutes at the end of the night where you are a hundred percent there's, and then either when they wake up from nap or when they come home from an activity or school, so when they read, reunite, when they reconnect those three times before they go to bed, after they wake up in the morning and after they either wake up from a nap or reconnect with you throughout the day during the day, those are supercharged attention times where that attention is Kind of the, the it's, it's exponentially it's, it's received exponentially more, and so that is the basis of attachment, that actually parents, working parents this is good news for especially Parents who were away from their children much more than they wanted to be, could give their children that nine minutes and it would totally, totally change the dynamic for their children. So that's really, really good advice.
Speaker 1:But I want to get to this last piece here because we're running short on time and that that last piece is what do we do when our child comes to us and has negative feelings about their sibling? Right? So, whether that's Mel, whether that's Parker with his child, whether that's Katie with Elijah, when your child brings to you negative feelings about their, their sibling, as much as you can that your goal as a parent should just be to receive, listen and say wow, that is so hard and validate, not to redirect. And it's really really hard for us as parents because now you have a person, even if it's your own child, saying something hurtful or negative about one of your other children, and so it can feel natural to feel defensive, right? Hormonally we're charged to feel defensive when somebody says why don't like my little sibling and I want them to die, or I want them to go away, or I just don't want to see them anymore, and that can feel so, so intimidating to us. And just because that feels intimidating or that feels exhausting. Don't fall into the trap of then kind of turning on your older, the older sibling who's just expressed something, a really, really big feeling to you, and biting their head off about it. And if you've done this before, it's okay. We can repair, we can do better in the future, it's okay. But it's really natural. I've done it for sure.
Speaker 1:But as much as we can, we want to try to not know their feelings. So when they say I really don't like my brother anymore. So if this is Elijah, I wish that you would just give Colin back. There's never enough time for me. I wish he would just go away forever and we would never see him again, instead of saying no, he's your brother, you shouldn't feel that way about him, or don't say things like that about your brother. That's not nice or that's not kind or you don't really mean that, instead just say wow, wow, those are really big feelings, bud, I'm hearing you. That must be so hard to feel like you're not being given as much time since Colin came around. That must be so hard to feel that way.
Speaker 1:I know those are big words, those are big feelings, and by yesing those feelings. We actually give them their permission to feel well. They do feel seen and heard and valued and understood and validated, and then they have the permission to then turn and go. You know, actually they're not so bad. And if you think that that's only for young kids, when I tell you that one of the best books about siblings that's ever been written, called Siblings Without Rivalry, is where I learned about this principle. And in that book, siblings Without Rivalry, she's talking about like a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old who are saying this Yesing, the feelings never changes. I'm going to talk about this in the Siblings episode, when that eventually comes along. So just understand that that never changes. But as much as you can say yes to those feelings, and the result of that, combined with everything else we've talked about today, is going to make welcoming a new baby into your home and into your family so much smoother. Is it going to be perfect? No, or is it going to be rough? Absolutely. You're going to have to embrace the suck. That's what we started the whole episode with. It is not going to go the way you think it's going to go. It is going to be hard. However, if you do this stuff, the result is going to be much smoother and, in the long term, connected children not only to you, but to one another, and that is our ultimate goal. All right, that's it. That's all we have for you today on the whole parent podcast.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to let you know one more time If you are listening to this, go ahead and like, share this with somebody else. I almost said like and subscribe. Yes, if you're on YouTube, like and subscribe. If you're anywhere else, make sure you rate the podcast or send a review.
Speaker 1:And, yes, if you have somebody in your family or friends or who goes to the same faith community as you or same school as your kids and they're welcoming a new baby soon, send them this podcast. Just go ahead and send it to them. I know it might feel like unsolicited advice, but just say hey, this is a guy I follow. I think that he has really amazing things. I know you're welcoming a new baby soon. Maybe this will be helpful to you. That, among all other things that we've talked about today, that is one of the best ways that you can spread this message to the world, and I truly believe if we continue to spread this message, we can change the world through parenting. So go ahead and share this with somebody you know who's expecting a baby, and I hope that you have a wonderful day.
