Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Ken John Payne. So glad you could make some time to join us today. This week I've been thinking a little more and I've actually interestingly enough had three or four phone calls and conversations with people about the arrival of a new baby and what to do when a baby is on the way.
And you know of course this is multi-layered but one of the pieces I wanted to touch on was that of creating space, was creating connection both before and after the baby arrives for other siblings that that may be in the house. So this may apply to you or someone you know pass it on if if this doesn't exactly apply to you but I thought it might be worth taking a look at this a little bit. You know when there's a new baby on the way what we want to do is to be able to to be able to communicate to the children that are at home that the dearness that I show and the care that I show and that mommy and daddy or you know mommy and mommy like whatever or grandparents or the dearness that we're showing for the new baby is the same very dearness we have for you.
That doesn't change, not change, doesn't change at all. And there is one way in particular I wanted to mention that so many parents have said to me over the years that this has been that this has been very helpful so I wanted to put it to pass it on to you and that is to make a simple little baby scrapbook not just a photograph album but a scrapbook. Now let me explain why I think this is important.
It is a way of saying to a new, in terms of the new arrival that that you are so important to us the children or child who is already you know with you and start pulling together photographs of when the sibling was little, little mementos, little pieces, little ribbons, whatever you have particularly photographs right but you might even start putting together not a scrap book but a scrap box that also works with the clothes that were worn when the big brother or big sister was a baby too and sweet little things and toys and things that they had when they were little they can go in the scrap box as well. And so before baby comes just sitting many evenings of the week just making a baby book, a baby scrapbook with all the little cutouts and the photographs and such that you normally put in a scrapbook but making those for the child when they were a baby. So what you're saying is that you were very dear to us when you were this little and you are very dear to us now because we're doing this together.
In other words you're giving a child the feeling of I'm connecting to you. All my attention is not going to the new baby every afternoon or several afternoons or evenings a week. My attention is going to you as well and my, it's more than attention isn't it? It's really connection is going to you and of course there are pages that are going to be kept for the new baby and if there's one or two or even three other children in the family they have their pages as well.
Some parents have organized it so that there are not separate pages but it's more chronological actually when the new baby comes and so there's spaces left on each page. So when the firstborn is there there's mummy and the firstborn and then the secondborn there's mummy and mummy or daddy and and grandma and family photographs with the first and the second born and then now there's a new page coming and lots of space is left and I think this is a kind of a metaphoric piece that we're talking about here because more and more space as you make these pages space is being left open which is a sort of a lovely feeling too but the but the new baby's pictures will be put into that space but they're a space that if I'm a little boy or girl my picture is there too and children are so visual like this that they can't help but get the message there's space for me, there's space for my brother, there's space for baby, there's space for mummy and daddy and grandma and grandpa and aunt and uncle all the people who are dear to us but I am not being usurped and then after the baby comes then continue the scrapbook on each and it may be you know obviously there's time time limits now but the feedback I've had from parents who have done this and countless numbers of parents have done this over the years the feedback I've had is it was probably as if not more important to actually continue the scrapbook after the new baby comes so that afternoons and whenever you can fit it in you know with all the pressures of a new baby but you sit and you still you continue to put those little mementos in the the scrap box or the scrap book and you know I know that this is not so easy these days because so much of our photographs are in our phones so it does need you know obviously someone going for you or you going to a place where they can be developed and and printed out on paper but that's a very very basic process now you can do that in myriad number of places are offering that and then just continuing the book as baby grows and you continue to scrapbook some parents have intended doing this just for the first three to six months but it's been such a joy to the whole family that they've actually continued it on which is really rather lovely isn't it and and it shows that we are together we are us now there are many other things that we can do when a baby is is joining our family but this one is a particularly dear one and it's one that probably together with just a handful of other things has probably been the one that I've had the most feedback on so this big broad heading of connecting of I'm connecting to this new arrival but my connection to you goes on and it goes on in a very dear way and these scrapbooks become absolute treasures you know as the years go on the children love them so dearly and you see them when they're much older you know sitting on a rainy day on the sofa just thumbing through the book and in one particular family one mum told me that the older child who was I think about eight nine years old would often sit and look through the book with the um with it with the baby the baby was you know six seven months old or thereabouts I think and they would look through it together and she said there was just so dear that this this eight nine year old would be chatting away describing to the baby and saying look look at this and look at that and it was really very touching this can take many different forms but a scrapbook or perhaps a scrap box or perhaps both both prior and then afterwards can give a child a very visual and very dear message that that we are us okay I sure hope that was helpful bye bye for now
