Taking home baby to new siblings brings a whole new layer to your postpartum life. I love the advice that Hannah and Kelty gave us about what we can do to make that transition a bit more smooth (and perhaps be more realistic about what to expect).
Today’s guests are twins, coaches and speakers behind the parenting movement Upbringing. Certified in Simplicity Parenting, Positive Discipline and trained in NVC and Foundations of the respectful parenting approach RIE, Upbringing empowers parents in over 100 countries to show up + grow up alongside their kids when it comes to daily discipline. Hannah & Kelty’s top-ranked podcast, Live Q&As, courses + guides call parents in with humor and honesty, giving them permission to align their personal values with their parenting practices in the name of sanity + social change. Hannah & Kelty co-parent on an organic veggie farm outside Portland, OR that they share with their partners and kids, ages 4, 5, 6 and 7. I found them on Instagram.
Check out their Right from the Start Course and their FREE Right from the Start Roadmap
This episode was inspired by
Big thanks to our sponsor Family Routines — by getting into a routine you can make having a new baby SO much easier! By getting into routines before baby is born — you’ll thank yourself!
In this episode
Our mindset in bringing baby home
How a new sibling can change their lives
How we can prepare the older child(ren)
How we can give them time
Realistic idea of expectations
Other things that might interest you
How old does a child need to be to babysit?
Siblings without Rivalry Cliff Notes
Producer: Drew Erickson
Check out my other parenting podcasts:
Transcript
[00:00:00.000] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on episode 115, we are talking about bringing a baby home when there are other siblings who already live there. It is so complicated. Let’s untangle it.
[00:00:24.570] – Hilary Erickson
Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson. The curly head behind the Pulling Curls Podcast. We untangle pregnancy, parenting, home and even travel. We know there’s no right answer for every family, but hopefully we can spark some ideas that will work for yours. Life’s tangled, just like my hair.
[00:00:48.450] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, guys, you know, what makes me super jealous is when I see all these other people with all these reviews, and then I have, like, not as many. And it makes me super jealous just like a sibling. So could you leave me a review? I mean, I think that would really help me like, you know, thanks.
[00:01:04.900] – Hilary Erickson
I am super excited to have today’s guests on. They are the cofounders of upbringing, and they are certified. I love how it says this. Usually I don’t read people’s BIOS, but I love this. They are certified in simplicity, parenting and positive discipline. I mean, I should have gotten certified in that. I feel like it’s too late. But if I was going to get certified in something that probably would have been the smart one. So I want to introduce to day’s guest Hannah and Kelty from Upbringing.
[00:01:35.080] – Hilary Erickson
Are you overwhelmed by all there is to do around your house? As a new mom, I felt overwhelmed at every turn. Fortunately, I turn to systems to make a change, whether it’s mornings, dinner time, or even just to climb out of a pile of kids clothes. My course, Family Routines can save you. I hold your hand as we smooth out these rough patches, making every day easier so we can more easily handle when you’re preschooler tells you they can use their urine like a lightsaber. Parenting is always going to be a wild ride. Routines are just your seatbelt, and they can support you. Use coupon code UNTANGLED to save 15% at checkout, link in the show notes.
[00:02:12.340] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, guys, welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast.
[00:02:14.650] – Hannah and Kelty
Hi! Happy to be here.
[00:02:16.930] – Hilary Erickson
I oh, this is something I struggled with so much, so I’m so excited to have you guys on. We actually did a live, Hannah, Kelty, and I on Instagram, and it was so good. And I was like, we totally need to do a podcast together because I think this is something parents might even want to listen to and then maybe drag their partner and to listen to as well, because this kind of information for everybody. Yeah.
[00:02:36.330] – Hannah and Kelty
So I’m excited to have you guys on excited to be here talking about this. This is such a strange kind of finite period of time when this type of thing happens. And so it feels like very unspoken this whole break, bringing a new baby home and expanding the family. So we’re excited to chat.
[00:02:52.290] – Hilary Erickson
Okay, so why is it hard?
[00:02:54.270] – Hannah and Kelty
Oh, my gosh. Where do we begin? Where we go to start?
[00:02:57.770] – Hilary Erickson
Why isn’t it hard? Right.
[00:03:00.290] – Hannah and Kelty
Well, I think it’s like, at least for Kelty and me when we bought our we have two year old daughters when our sons were born, and we work with so many folks in our upbringing community. I think that we know things are going to change, but we don’t quite know how and how it’s going to play out what it’s going to look like. And I think there’s an incredible amount of anxiety present for us as parents, and then also for our kids. We want our family to feel good to be successful through this transition.
[00:03:25.950] – Hannah and Kelty
We’re excited about this baby. And so I think oftentimes a lot of folks are like, oh, my gosh, it’s gonna just be more. It’s gonna be more cuddles and more family members and more laughter, more love. But I think in the back of a lot of our minds or what a lot of us experience, whether we anticipated it or not. Is it’s also gonna be a lot more crying, a lot more conflict, a lot more logistical stress, right. A lot more wear and tear on everyone in the family and not to scare folks who are having a baby, a baby to be like, oh, my gosh, is gonna be hard, but it is in some ways, it’s a beautiful thing.
[00:04:01.800] – Hannah and Kelty
And it’s also kind of like a trauma for everyone in some ways, you know?
[00:04:06.050] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. I would say that dropping my kids off, I needed an epidural for that before I would go to the hospital just because I was like, everything’s changing, and you literally have no idea how crappy your life’s gonna be the next time you see me.
[00:04:18.960] – Hannah and Kelty
Yeah. And I think I remember feeling just this great sense of loss, but I was losing my daughter in bringing home my son and just feeling like I missed her, and she was really clingy and wanting to be with me. Kelty’s daughter rejected her, and she was really struggling. So I think that it’s a lot for everybody. And that’s why we love normalizing this and talking about it and thinking I proactively about, okay, what are our instincts? Okay. What are our actual goals? And then how can we actually make change in a way that’s going to help prepare all of us as best as possible?
[00:04:51.140] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. Okay. Let’s start off with the things we shouldn’t do. What are some mistakes that parents make? And then we don’t worry. We’re going to jump to the things that you should do. But what are some things that we should try and avoid about being you may be home.
[00:05:02.410] – Hannah and Kelty
Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that so often we try to keep everything exactly the same right before baby comes, because we just want to keep our life that has it was before, say, stable, Batten down the hatches. Right. But that can make it really hard for kids to understand and kind of contextualize and prepare for the life that they’re going to be. Living in. The environment is a huge part of that. And the new baby can just be a huge bomb for kids. And when it’s paired with a lot of other changes happening simultaneously, it can just be extra.
[00:05:33.580] – Hannah and Kelty
So I think that overlooking those other changes can be a little bit problematic. Sometimes if we don’t think about the ways that the environment will change or consider the ways that our kids routine will change around, like meals or mornings or bath times, or who’s gonna be picking them up from daycare or all those. Right. And I think that when we share, whether we have a toddler or a kid or an older child, about what’s gonna happen with a baby very often, I found myself going into kind of, like, cheerleader matchmaker promotional mode.
[00:06:01.790] – Hannah and Kelty
In the back of my mind, I was like, oh, gosh, this is gonna be really hard. So I’m gonna just talk about all the great things about it. I’m gonna be like, oh, you’re gonna be the best big brother make sister. Oh, my gosh. It’s gonna be so fun to have a new baby in the house. We always talk about the Faber favor and Nazish quote from siblings without rivalry, where they give this example for us to picture as parents. Like, what if our partners brought another partner home without asking our consent without agreeing to it, essentially. Surprise.
[00:06:31.390] – Hannah and Kelty
This is gonna happen. Oh, my gosh, you’re gonna love it. It’s kind of a form of gas lighting in some way. Just be like, oh, and she’s gonna be really cute. Like, you used to be a you guys are gonna be best friends. And I’ll be spending less time with you because I’ll be with her a lot. But it’s gonna be great. You’re so mature. You’ll be fine on your own. You’re such a big girl now, right? Like that would rock our world as adults and thinking about our kids world being rocked in that way and how invalidating we can accidentally be in not talking about the baby elephant in the room, so to speak, not validating the feelings and questions and the reality that they have, which is incredible kind of powerless feeling, I would say.
[00:07:13.130] – Hannah and Kelty
And then I think the last mistake that we also easily make is not recognizing our kids behavioral challenges through the transition and basically stress responses to the new baby being home. It can be, for sure developmentally appropriate behavior stuff. It can be just missing mom. It can be resentment about the baby. And it can come out in all of these really interesting, wacky, strange, new and terrifying ways. Really. You know, I think we can really easily lean on those older kids. When we have a new baby and say, you’re older, you should be pulling more weight, not leaning more on me.
[00:07:49.970] – Hannah and Kelty
You should be be behaving better. You should be treating your sibling better. And so we put even more pressure on our kids. And we see that challenging behaviors of those big feelings from them as kind of obstacles to this family harmony that we want to keep. All of these, Hilary, are so natural for us to kind of experience, you know?
[00:08:08.750] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. I had a friend when I had my second, which do you guys think the second is the worst for this or it doesn’t matter.
[00:08:14.720] – Hannah and Kelty
I don’t know. We actually work with a lot of parents who are like, okay. I just brought my fourth child into the family, and I thought the other kids, each one of them has one more child of experience having a new sibling, and all of them are still struggling in their own ways. I thought, especially my oldest gosh, this is their third sibling. They should get what it’s like now and be okay with it. Right. And they’re actually some of those oldest kids are struggling the most with every child that’s added, they have so much more awareness.
[00:08:44.210] – Hannah and Kelty
They have so many different needs that younger kids, like an 18 month old isn’t necessarily aware of. So it challenges us just in different ways. It’s like, oh, yeah. All of the different types of challenges, no matter how many kids they have, no matter what the age gap is, there’s no perfect way to add a baby to their family, right?
[00:09:01.310] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. Well, and older kids probably might carry some feelings from the last kid. They already might have trauma that they’re Holland as the next kid with them.
[00:09:09.370] – Hannah and Kelty
Oh, my gosh. That’s so true.
[00:09:10.460] – Hilary Erickson
I so I was saying I had a friend who was like, You’re going to feel like you constantly want to yell at the other kid and she’s like, and try not to. And I was like, that was actually really good advice, because you do feel like you’re like, get it together. I have the baby. And so that can be really hard.
[00:09:28.330] – Hannah and Kelty
Yeah. And just by sheer necessity, you’re usually sitting holding the new infant. You’re often trying to just control your older child or children with your words. So it comes out and yell whether you’re not even kind of feeling that heat behind it. It’s just like, go, put your shoes on or would be nice to each other. What? I think beyond just these momentary stressors that all of a sudden come up when we have a new baby. I think it’s also just in the back of our minds.
[00:09:57.010] – Hannah and Kelty
It’s not just the momentary inconvenience of this transition. It’s also these fears in the back of our mind being like, oh, my gosh. The way my older children are responding right now to this new baby says something about their relationship. It is foreboding. And it is very concerning to me because, oh, my gosh. If my older kid is hitting the baby, saying mean, things about the baby refusing to help me with the baby doing all these things. Oh, my gosh. They’re not gonna give speeches at each other’s weddings.
[00:10:24.860] – Hannah and Kelty
We kind of catastrophize a little bit. They’re not going to go on a family camping trips. Thanksgiving is going to be ruined, like, it’s gonna be hard. And I think something we talk about and we’ll bring that into these kind of three things we can do is remembering that the transition is really hard. It’s going to be tough on everyone. Kids are going to express themselves in the best way. They know how based on the skills that they currently have, and it’s not directly related to the relationship at they’re ultimately going to have the thing that’s actually gonna be pertinent and kind of shaping that relationship that our kids eventually have as they grow older is us.
[00:10:59.290] – Hannah and Kelty
It’s not the conflict they have in the early years. It’s how we want to show up, how we support them when they’re going through these tricky tunnings. So yelling less would be ideal if we can.
[00:11:10.540] – Hilary Erickson
I threw a lot of burpless. I think we think it says something about us, too, right? We didn’t prepare them enough. We aren’t doing enough instead. It’s just like, this is how it’s gonna be like, we’re kind of in war right now. We have different standards during more time.
[00:11:25.000] – Hannah and Kelty
Yeah. Yeah. We get into a really binary shame and blame situation where we’re, like, my child is ruining my life in this new family situation, or we go to shame. And we were like, I am ruining our life and our family by bringing this new baby home. So that’s why these conversations really are so great, though, because people don’t often talk about it. They’re like, oh, the new baby is so great. Oh, thanks for the casserole. This is wonderful. Everything’s fine. A lot of people just don’t talk about how it’s hard.
[00:11:51.550] – Hannah and Kelty
It’s supposed to be hard, and it’s okay. It’s hard. Yeah. Okay.
[00:11:55.540] – Hilary Erickson
So let’s get into those three tips for parents bringing home a new baby. And then you guys have a course, too that people can go to learn more about bringing home a sibling and more like that. Do you get anything you want to say about the course before we get into these three tips?
[00:12:08.220] – Hannah and Kelty
Yeah. Thanks. It’s a cold right from the start, which obviously not right from the start, is an perfect from the start, but it’s a course we did with our cocreator Jen Luman of your parenting mojo to help parents in the first year of their first baby or their fifth baby. Figure out how to deal with the juggle, how to see to everyone’s needs, how to just thrive and not just survive, right? How to figure out what’s my baby’s responsibility, what’s my responsibility so that I can see to those other kids, I can see the partner.
[00:12:34.120] – Hannah and Kelty
I can read a book or put my feet up right. And a huge module of the nine modules in the course is about supporting those siblings. So I would say that the three things that kind of are like the flip of what we just discussed with you, Hilary. I think that it’s really we like to say that it’s show, tell and love. So those are the three things that we want to be doing to prepare our kids and ourselves through this transition and a little bit more smoothly.
[00:12:59.020] – Hannah and Kelty
Right. We’re never going to be able to prepare perfectly our goal, though, in this idea and this investment of preparing is saying our goal as a family isn’t, you know, harmony and happiness and having everybody be happy all the time. The goal is connection. And the best way to connect with everybody in our family through this tough time is to create security. So show, tell and love all create security for us, for our kids, for our partners, so that we can kind of move through this transition and stay in one piece altogether.
[00:13:29.170] – Hannah and Kelty
Do you want to dive into the first one? Help? Yeah. The first one is show. And it’s really where we kind of think about the ways in which we can be easing our kid into this transition and not have have it all in one lumped moment. Right. When the baby arrives. So it’s so easy for us to think, like Hannah had said before, that we should just keep everything stable and the same. And to a degree, that’s true. But thinking about the things that are going to change is the place to begin.
[00:13:51.970] – Hannah and Kelty
So we make a list of what’s gonna change logistically in our kids life in their routine. What might happen for mornings? Are we still going to do the same split? What might happen now that we’re dividing and conquering with one added child? What’s gonna change about their daycare pickup situations when we think about the environment, what might change about our space? Are we gonna add some baby changing tables? Will we have a crib in the room now? Are they gonna be sharing a room with their other sibling and start thinking about these things, make a list and see how we can start slowly and with no pressure, begin to integrate them into their routine and environment now.
[00:14:25.620] – Hannah and Kelty
Right. So it’s not all stacked, right. When the new baby comes home and it’s like and our kids are have a new morning breakfast person and they have a new dropoff person at daycare and they have a new roommate. All of that can feel like a lot. Right.
[00:14:39.460] – Hilary Erickson
That makes so much sense. So there’s a lot that we can just do with schedules and routines ahead of time so that we know this is going to switch, even just talking about it, right. Because maybe partner can’t do the breakfast routine because they’re not home, but they will be after the baby and just saying no after we have the baby. It’s going to be so fun when dad does breakfast time.
[00:14:57.070] – Hannah and Kelty
What do you think he should make exactly when that moves us into number two, which is tell. And I think so much about it. Besides building that context and understanding for our kids visually, because kids learn so much visually, we can also connect with them through our words and tell them about what to expect. And I think we could really easily give them warnings, like, you know, you’re not going to be able to be on my lap. And, you know, you’re not gonna be able to be up on the table like that with be loud when the baby’s napping, right?
[00:15:22.480] – Hannah and Kelty
Right. Or you’re playing in the stroller right now. But the baby’s gonna be in there, and that can add more pressure and stress. So instead of musing and saying How’s it gonna be, what’s it gonna be, what questions do you have? How can I create security and talking and processing verbally, what’s going on for you and what’s showing up for you?
[00:15:38.340] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah.
[00:15:38.820] – Hannah and Kelty
So letting it be kids led, too. I think oftentimes we’ll be like, telling them about our work. Changes that are going to happen are like different things that are not relevant to them. And kids are so beautifully kind of egotistical and self involved in that they just need to know what’s relevant to their lives. So I think just following their lead with the questions they have, thinking what really pertains to them. Let’s go with talking about that. And we can even create a little book to put that information and draw some pictures.
[00:16:05.890] – Hannah and Kelty
What’s the baby poop gonna look like? Engage them in a way that’s at their developmental level. What do they like talking about? What are they thinking about? What are they needing to know that’s going to help create that security for that pre process or process once it’s happening? Yeah, totally. You know what?
[00:16:21.190] – Hilary Erickson
You guys were talking. I was thinking that a lot of times people are just, like, birth so amazing. You just have that baby, and there’s so much love and how much better people are when you’re prepared to be like, your bum is really going to hurt after or you might not feel a lot of love for that baby. And that’s okay. You know, really talking about, honestly about how things are gonna go extend pregnancy, baby teenagers.
[00:16:42.490] – Hannah and Kelty
Oh, my gosh. Exactly. I mean, aside from giving them the logistical information about, like, oh, there’s a baby in my tummy. What size is it here? What day or what month is this gonna happen? And all of that, we can provide emotional information and safety and saying, wow, call out that baby elephant in the room. Our kid isn’t gonna approach us and be like, Mom, I’ve got some big feelings about this baby, and I just wanted to put it out on the table and connect with you.
[00:17:07.180] – Hannah and Kelty
Our kids don’t have that awareness yet we have to be the ones that bravely, bring that up and engage with it or respond to our child once they said a feeling that’s like, I hate the baby already or or they’re like, no, no, baby’s not gonna come on. But whether they bring it up or not, those are moments that we can bravely lean in and say, things are gonna be different. Sometimes they’re gonna be hard. We’re gonna be together through at all. Or if they ask a question that we don’t know the answer to or that terrifies us, we can say, you know, that’s a good question.
[00:17:36.850] – Hannah and Kelty
We’re gonna figure it out together. I’m not sure. So even in those moments when we don’t have an answer or word, we’re confused about how to answer it. We can just be creating security. Oh, that’s good.
[00:17:46.930] – Hilary Erickson
Because a lot of time they’ll bring up a question that you’re like, I don’t know. I haven’t thought of that is stressing you out too.
[00:17:52.770] – Hannah and Kelty
Totally. Totally. And then the third thing I love is like, well, of course we love our older kids, of course. But I think very often we can fall out of love a little bit for them when they push us to our limits. When we’re juggling so many people, we can kind of forget that little bit baby is still inside our older kids and that that little baby still needs our attention and our support. Even if they’re older than the baby, it doesn’t matter what age they are.
[00:18:17.380] – Hannah and Kelty
They still need us. We’re still their parents. Right. And so I think that one of the biggest things that we’ve uncovered with with folks that we support and join the right from the start community, of course, realized, oh, my gosh, my kid isn’t even talking directly about the baby. They’re not saying mean things. They’re not hitting the baby. I’m not even having to do anything directly. It’s all this indirect stuff that I’m realizing is because because of the baby. So they’re having, quote, unquote regressions where all of a sudden they’re not toileting like they used to, or all of a sudden they can’t fall asleep alone or all of a sudden they need you to get them dressed completely.
[00:18:50.770] – Hannah and Kelty
And they’re like, four years old. So things that they didn’t do before all of a sudden they need more help with. They can also just show anger and more resistant. They can just have bigger meltdowns. A lot of folks come to us and they’re like, my very, even till child is now going from zero to 100 and throwing things like, WTF happen in general. Right. And so something we encourage folks to do is to continue to look beneath their kids behaviors and remember that every child has a different stress behavior.
[00:19:18.700] – Hannah and Kelty
So just like, we all have our love languages as adults and kids, what makes us feel secure and happy and love and see, we also have our stress languages. So I get really snippy at my husband and I poke and I get kind of passive aggressive and other people we know they cry or other people have those things that our kids have their own stress language so they may not be able to process and communicate what’s going on to them about the baby directly, but indirectly, they’re gonna show you that they’re struggling and that they need help, and it’s gonna look really wild and frustrating and scary at times.
[00:19:50.050] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. You know, as you were talking, I was thinking about how we still need to love ourselves, and it can just be so overwhelming because you don’t feel like you’re getting anything that you need, and then your kids need all these different things. So a lot of times, what I would recommend is that parents look at their life before baby and see how they could do some special things with their kids that also get, like, stuff done. Could they fold laundry together? Could they go to the grocery store with the oldest?
[00:20:12.280] – Hilary Erickson
Could, you know, like, how are you gonna fit in time with them while not really taking away time from you or sleep time? Sleep time?
[00:20:19.020] – Hannah and Kelty
Yeah. I love that. I think oftentimes we can get really fancy with, like, mommy daughter dates and really big things when our older kids really just need us to see them and pay attention to them, even for five minutes in the morning and be like, I see you right. Or in those moments that they have a challenge, that’s when we can show up for them with our arms wide open and understand standing look on our faces, just say, this is hard. I see you struggling. Oh, my gosh.
[00:20:42.050] – Hannah and Kelty
Thank you for sharing that’s totally terrifying thing with me, but I’m here to support you, right. And I think also showing them, too, that, yes, we’re responsible for the baby, but the baby is not our number one. We are still their parent, and we see them, and we can put the baby down. Sometimes we can let the baby fuss for a minute on their changing table to say, hey, I’m gonna head to this older child. I’m showing you that I can beat with you, too, and that your knees matter.
[00:21:07.120] – Hannah and Kelty
Really? Yeah.
[00:21:08.510] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. I think it’s so important that especially because the baby doesn’t have feeling it will live if it cries for five minutes before it gets fed, Where’s your older child constantly feels like you’re always putting the baby ahead of them so that can feel hard. I wouldn’t want my husband to do that to as extra spouse. Apparently.
[00:21:24.640] – Hannah and Kelty
Right. Exactly. So, I mean, there’s no perfect way to do any of this. This is just a balancing act. And I think these three things show, tell and love are just awareness raising opportunities for us to consider instead of controlling our child when they’re struggling with this, his transition, what can we be doing behind the scenes. And how can we be showing up to create that security? Yeah. And how can we continue to show tell in love once the baby is here? It’s all an investment in keeping our kids safe.
[00:21:50.420] – Hannah and Kelty
With those loving limits, though, stopping the hand if they’re gonna hit the baby, keeping the conversation going about how things are hard instead of pretending it’s not happening and continuing to try our hardest to look beneath the behaviors to what they’re needing, what they’re struggling with and remembering that they just are stressed needing help.
[00:22:08.870] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. And I feel like this sibling thing happens forever. We just had all three of our kids. My oldest is going to be 21, and you’re still just always juggling the needs of these three people that you brought into your life, you know?
[00:22:21.300] – Hannah and Kelty
Absolutely. It is an investment through any transition your family goes through. This is bringing a baby home is like one of the first really big challenges that you and your family can invest in and work on. And then there’ll be another transition. Maybe you’re moving homes, maybe there’s a medical situation, or maybe there’s something else that goes on. And the idea is that we’ll have built those skills and that awareness to get through anything together. And I love that you said to Hilary that it’s just a juggle.
[00:22:49.720] – Hannah and Kelty
The juggle doesn’t end through infancy with your newest child. The juggle continues. And that’s what’s so tricky about it. And that’s why we began the right from the start course, too, is just our partner generally created it for the first time, Moms, because you remembered the stress, the indecision of not knowing the most relevant research, not having these troubleshooting tips that are gonna see her through the feeding, the sleeping, the big feelings, the diapering dressing, bathing, all of those things. But we really created it for the second 3rd 4th time.
[00:23:16.750] – Hannah and Kelty
Parents like, how do I do this juggle? How do I see to the needs of this infant baby? How do I see to the needs of my child and older child myself, my partner and relationship of marriage. How do I do this juggle? And I think so much of the course is really about simplifying our role, figuring that out. When are the times we can step away? When are the times we want to lean in and focus with that infant it or with that older child so that we can, like you said, Hannah, who do something else?
[00:23:42.510] – Hannah and Kelty
Relax and know that we’re not alone in this, too. And that’s why we love your podcast, Hilary, I think it helps parents remember that none of us is alone. We don’t always talk about all these things, but it’s out there. There are other parents out there experiencing that, and that’s what’s in the right from the start course. There’s also an eightweek community that goes along with it, so you can connect with us, their parents that do by monthly coaching calls with Jen and Kelty me to just unpack all of this and express and listen and learn and just feel in community and in relationship when if you feel really lonely just in your home, you know?
[00:24:14.660] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. I mean, in the end, it’s just baby steps that you’re getting better. I think all those things there’s that mom at the park that has her kids, and she just does such a good job. But again, this isn’t the day she’s coming home from the hospital. She’s had some time to learn how to figure out balancing it all baby steps. It’s also baby steps.
[00:24:31.730] – Hannah and Kelty
Yeah. And then she’s probably gonna go home and totally lose it or struggle as well. I mean, Kelty and I have a big Instagram community, and I mean, you just see these people who have these seemingly perfect lives on there, and you’re just like, what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my child? What’s wrong with my family? And that’s just not the reality for anybody. All of us struggle and normalizing that and seeing it as an opportunity, all of these conflicts that our kids have with each other from birth, essentially.
[00:24:58.760] – Hannah and Kelty
And with us, our opportunity tunities to grow together. Families don’t just grow in number by how many kids are there, they grow through challenges, right?
[00:25:07.700] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. So much good advice today, ladies. And I am here to guarantee now that I know a lot of the Instagrammers they are not doing great the other 3 seconds after that shutter happened, right?
[00:25:19.810] – Hannah and Kelty
Hot messes.
[00:25:20.660] – Hilary Erickson
Yeah. Just looking good for a photo. They are hot. Looking good for one photo.
[00:25:25.130] – Hannah and Kelty
All right.
[00:25:25.580] – Hilary Erickson
Thanks for coming on, ladies. I hope you guys get some good tips from this and definitely check out the course, I will put it in the show notes. Thanks for coming on, you guys.
[00:25:32.450] – Hannah and Kelty
Thank you so much.
[00:25:33.380] – Hilary Erickson
Okay, so definitely check out their course and check out their Instagram. I would totally follow them because they just give lots of good tips. They’re very normal. And I love that we’re bringing up things that people don’t normally talk about while I was talking to them. I was like, yeah, everybody kind of knows that it’s going to be weird after the baby comes home. But people don’t really talk that your kids, maybe one hates the other or it’s just not going like you envisioned or all those kinds of different things.
[00:25:57.380] – Hilary Erickson
So let’s talk about it. Let’s get it out in the open so that we can help you each other and make it easier and realize that. I think I don’t know. I think all families go through this, and it’s just baby steps to getting better every day.
[00:26:08.570] – Hilary Erickson
Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. We know you have lots of options for your ears, and we are glad that you chose us. We drop episodes weekly, and until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.
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