SYPM 016: Getting it right from the start with a new baby

In this episode we do something we haven’t done before - talk with podcast listeners who aren’t parents yet!   Kellie and Jon are an amazing couple living in Tennessee.  Kellie is a bit of a planner (by which I mean that during her Ph.D program Jon noticed Kellie was getting stressed about when they were going to have a baby, so she led them through a four-hour planning session factoring in the baby’s birth and ages at likely dates for her to enter post-doctoral programs and fellowships and landed on February 2021 as the optimal time to conceive - so they started trying in February and she got pregnant in February!).   Jon, by contrast, is a go-with-the-flow kind of guy.  He’s the kind of person who just knows everything is probably going to turn out OK without needing to worry about the details too much.  He already knew Kellie was going to be a great parent, while she was much less convinced - although now she knows that babies drink milk rather than water, she’s off to a running start!   Kellie devoured all the pregnancy podcasts she could find (my favorite is the Pregnancy Podcast - host Vanessa basically does the same thing I do here at YPM for the pregnancy stage) and then moved onto the child development podcasts, which is how she found YPM - and she was drawn to the research-based information she found here.   Jon describes the whole experience as an “uncertainty sandwich” - there was a lot of uncertainty in the beginning about whether and when they’d be able to have a baby: “and then it really certain really fast!”  And after that it became uncertain again as they looked to figure out what life with a baby would be like.   If you’re expecting a baby or have a child under the age of one, the Right From The Start course can help you to find the right path forward for you.  We’ll help you navigate sleep, feeding, play and development, what we communicate to our babies through the ways we interact during routine activities like diapering and dressing - and so much more.   But beyond the knowledge, you’ll also find an amazing community of like-minded parents who are on this journey with you - so you’ll feel less alone, and more able to cope with the challenges you face.   Click the image below to learn more about Right From The Start. Get notified when doors reopen.           Jump to highlights:

• (01:00) Kellie & Jon are expecting parents who have just went through the Right From the Start Course
• (02:25) Kellie and Jon’s background: Jon grew up in a home where he had older women in their family that looked after him and younger nieces that he was also a caretaker of, and Kellie grew up in a very structured environment that revolved around school and gymnastics and things being planned out
• (07:05) Planning out when to get pregnant with the least amount of distractions to when Kellie works on her doctorate and the Uncertainty Sandwich
• (11:02) What were your thoughts when the point of certainty has passed and you're getting into the moment where there was a lot of worry and anxiety?
• (18:01) Jon realized that to truly support Kellie in their pregnancy meant supporting her in a way that makes sense for her
• (19:27) How the podcast helped Kellie and Jon
• (20:33) What made you decide to take the Right From the Start course?
• (22:38) Joining the group class was the first time I actually felt excited to parent as opposed to just feeling like nervous and anxious
• (26:35) “I had not thought of parenting as this potentially really diplomatic, really egalitarian loving process”
• (31:31) We don't have to know exactly what's gonna work best from the start but we can figure it out together
• (34:24) I feel like we're not just going to be okay, like we can actually thrive and that our baby can actually thrive

  Links to resources:

• Right From the Start Course
• Your Parenting Mojo Facebook Group
• Upbringing with Hannah and Kelty

  [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan  00:02 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. We all want her children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research and principles of respectful parenting.   Jen Lumanlan  00:29 If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released, and get a free guide called 13 reasons why your child won't listen to you, and what to do about each one, just head over to YourParentingMojo.com/SUBSCRIBE. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us.   Jen Lumanlan  01:00 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. I think today we're going to do something we've never done before. We're talking with people who aren't parents yet. So here with us are Kellie and Jon who have just been through the last round of the Right From the Start course which I run with Hannah and Kelty of Upbringing. The course is designed to help people who are expecting and who have children under the age of one to get it right from the start. And of course, by that we don't mean there's one right way to parent and we're going to teach you how to do it, but that we're going to help you to find the right way for you. The Right From the Start course is open for enrollment right now through Wednesday, November 3. So we can start as a group on Monday, November 8. We'll cover nine modules of content over eight weeks, that includes all the practical stuff like sleeping and feeding and how not to lose yourself as you become a parent. Parents who have been through the course say they signed up for the information, and yes, they found the research-based content to be useful, but what they most appreciated was what they didn't know they needed the community of parents who are all figuring this out together, and the conversations they've had with Hannah and Kelty, and me on four group coaching calls during the course. So if you're expecting or have a child under the age of one, we'd love to see you in the Right From the Start course. You can sign up right now and sliding scale pricing is available so you can join no matter what your financial circumstances. And without further ado, welcome to Kellie and Jon, I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about who you are, where you are in the world and what's going on in your lives.   Kellie  02:25 I'm Kellie. I am currently seven months pregnant. I'm originally from Kansas City, but right now we're in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm a student working on my PhD in Neuroscience. And... yeah!   Jon  02:39 And I'm Jon. I'm originally from outside Chicago but now also here in Nashville, as you can see working on finishing up my Master's in Community Psychology. And yeah, we're really excited to be here. Thanks for having us.   Jen Lumanlan  02:53 Yeah, thank you. And so what kind of families did each of you grow up? And what was it like growing up for you.   Jon  02:59 So I grew up mostly with my mom, my grandmother, my sister. And then as I got a little older, and my sister came back to live with us, my four nieces. So it was me and the ladies in the house together. And I had a lot of, you know, cousins around and friends and stuff like that. But I think that growing up with women who are both older than me and caretakers, and both women who I had a hand in taking care of young women who are at hand and taking care of and rearing definitely made an impact on you know who I am as a person.   Jen Lumanlan  03:35 In what way I'm curious about both the older people in your life and also the younger people in your life. What How did that impact you?   Jon  03:42 Definitely, I think that I've always kind of wrestled a little bit with what it means for me to be a man and like what manhood means relationally. And it wasn't really until I say that my niece's get here that I started to think a little bit differently about what kind of man I want it to be and what kind of caretaker. What kind of examples am I say? How have I been socialized? And how is that affecting now how my nieces are coming up, versus how I would maybe want our children... you know, at the time I didn't thought of Kellie's so I thinking my kids to be socialized . And so it really just started a lot of self reflection into what I was doing, how I was relating to people, the power that I held, privileges that I had, and how I could sort of, I guess, detoxify some things that I have internalized over the years. Yeah, I think that I'm now in a much better place than I was when I was 16. Although I feel like most folks can say that.   Jen Lumanlan  04:43 Yeah, Hey, I know the feeling. And so Kellie, what was your life like growing up and was it similar to that in some ways or very, very different?   Kellie  04:54 It was pretty different. I mean, I grew up with my mom and then two younger sisters primarily in the house. Dad occasionally in the picture, more so as I get older, but mostly growing up goes, just as for ladies.   Jen Lumanlan  05:08 Aha!   Kellie  05:09 So I guess in that way there's a lot of women in the house but I know them. And so me being the oldest of the three kids, my two younger sisters are very close in age to me where there's only three years total between the three of us with that, you know those, I guess I kind of also felt like a caretaker. So maybe similar in that way too where a lot of the responsibilities of kind of taking care of my sisters and things fell to me because my mom was, you know, busy taking care of us. And that way it was similar and I think pretty different in that you know, our lives revolved basically around going to school and then all three of us did gymnastics. Basically every day was go to school, go to the gym for four hours or so, and I come home: dinner, homework, and that was repeat. That was kind of our lives, we're very much entrenched in that identity of being gymnasts and this idea of strength, I think was a really big one for us. You know, we'd like to prove we were all stronger than all the boys and everything like that physically and mentally.   Jen Lumanlan  06:20 But that's still going on today. It looks like the eyes that I'm getting from the other side of the screen. And a lot of discipline, it sounds like right? This is a really disciplined lifestyle. This is what happens at this time and every day and things are gonna happen the same each day. And do you see that still carrying through to your life today?   Kellie  06:36 I think so. I feel very much like schedules, I like plans, I thrive on knowing what to expect next.   Jen Lumanlan  06:47 Ahhh. And so at some point a decision was made, or maybe a decision wasn't made, but something happened and a baby came into being. And all of a sudden there was a whole lot of uncertainty. How did that play out for each of you? What was this process like?   Jon  07:06 Well, actually, it started out it was like an uncertainty sandwich where it started out with uncertainty. And then it got really certain really fast and working out very well. and then the uncertainty started moving again. So you know, when we had decided that, I guess we really, really liked each other. At some point, we started talking about a future together and what kids would look like and all that stuff, we started, well, we got engaged, we got married, and we were now living in Nashville. This is around May of 2018. And Kellie, loving plans, it's like, alright, so you know, this is what I plan to be done with grad school, I need to get a postdoc at this point. This is the ideal window for me to apply to these fellowships, and I don't want to be super pregnant or like, you know, on leave when I'm doing these things. So how are we going to optimize this baby situation? And I was like, you know, it was just whatever happens, it happens, you know, it's just whenever you're ready. Just holler at me. Up until about a year ago, maybe June of last year, this past summer, Kellie was very upset and stressed out, I noticed for like a couple of weeks consecutively, more stressed out than normal, like being in grad school and stuff like that. I was like, baby, what's wrong? And she's like, I'm just trying to think about finishing up my work and everything that's going on, and it's a pandemic, and like, when are we going to have a baby? And so all that. And so I was like, okay, as someone who did not have nearly as much structure and regimen and is very cool with just go on with flow. I was like, Alright, you know what, I see that you need this, maybe this will be good for me, too. Let's just sit down and let's plan it all out. And we sat down for like four hours, and then we brainstormed what would be the ideal time to start trying such that the delivery would come at certain times such that the baby would be old enough, such that when we're moving and she's going into her postdoc and applying for fellowships, there's the least amount of distractions and other things as possible. And we settled on starting to try in February and she got pregnant in February.   Jen Lumanlan  09:17 Was it 9:02pm on a Friday or whatever, in February?   Jon  09:20 I think it was on a Wednesday, right?   Kellie  09:22 Yeah, yeah. It was.   Jen Lumanlan  09:26 Kellie, tell us more. What was this like for you?   Kellie  09:33 No I mean, I think he hit all the highlights. We recognized that we couldn't actually plan everything but having an idea was really good for me because it also gave me time to prepare ahead of time, set this in place like I said last summer in 2020. So then I had several months to try to find resources and mentally prepare for this. So I knew I wanted a family but the process of going from not having a family to family like that whole interim stuff is terrifying to me. I didn't know anything about pregnancy or...   Jen Lumanlan  10:08 But then there's a fun part of the beginning, right? Most of the time.   Kellie  10:13 That's true. I had a pretty good handle on that.   Jen Lumanlan  10:15 Okay. So that was the middle of the uncertainty sandwich. And then the the rest of it came afterwards. Is that right?   Kellie  10:24 Yeah. So once I got that, you know, positive, all right, this is real, like this is happening. And then that's when the whole uncertainty - other piece of the bread - came to the... really hit me anyway of recognizing that, wow, I have very little control over this process. Little to none. And I'm just here for the ride. So I mean, they're obviously you know, things I can do take care of myself, etc. but there's so much that's just very out of our control.   Jen Lumanlan  10:57 Pat on the shoulder, it looks like other people are here for the ride too. So I wonder, Kellie, if we can start with you and just kind of talk through what this has been like, and then Jon's perspective on what we hear. So I can imagine that for a person who grew up in a very structured environment, and who thrives on that structure and that sense of control that once that moment of certainty has passed, and you're getting into that *sharp inhale* moment that there's a whole lot of worry, and anxiety and other stuff going on. Like what kinds of thoughts are going through your head? What stories were you telling yourself? Were you're getting reassurance from other people or were other people, and I'm not necessarily looking at the person sitting next to you, but other people in your life, or you know, what, how did that play out?   Kellie  11:42 I feel like it was a whole bunch of conflicting narratives all, all hitting me at once. Because on the one hand, Jon, and you know, some other people in my life, there's a couple of other students in my academic setting who have become parents who were, you know, reassuring, like, it all works out, like, it's all fine, things are going to be great warring with my own internal voice saying, I don't know what I'm doing, I have no idea what to expect. I can't, you know, plan out my timelines of when I want to get things done, because I don't know when anything is going to happen. Also, this hasn't been particularly smooth pregnancy, I mean, like, generally healthy, but like first trimester just feeling awful and just like generally been struggling with like my identity of, like, I'm this person who gets things done. And now I just like physically and mentally can't, and worrying that now this is my permanent identity. And I'll never be able to get anything else done again, at the same time hearing some voices: academia is a weird mix of very supportive and very unsupportive for parenting.   Jen Lumanlan  13:04 In what way? What, what kinds of ways do those two things intersect?   Kellie  13:08 It's very person-dependent. Like there's a lot of structures and people in positions of power, who have expectations, or I guess, outdated feelings about, you know, women in general and about women who have kids and trying to be productive. And then at the same time, this narrative of a lot of, you know, females, or women in science who have kids who have promoted this narrative of, you just work super, super hard, and just like work yourself to the bone, and it's like this competition of who can get back to work the fastest. Like, I've heard many a story of like, Oh, well, I came back to work a week later, oh, I was back in the lab two days after giving birth and it's like this...   Jen Lumanlan  13:58 It's gonna be hard to beat...