Oh, you did it again. Here we are, the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. Well done for carving out another little patch, another little 10 minutes or so of your week to tune in.
This week I wanted to talk about when a new infant joins a family, a new baby comes. Earlier back, I think it was around 149, something like that, that episode, we talked a little bit, I gave a few ideas around that and I wanted to pick this up again now of help, but particularly through the realm of helping siblings when a new baby arrives and is about to arrive. We all try to be mindful and we all do our level best when a new baby comes into the home and there's an older sibling and to try and help them not feel in any way displaced by this new arrival, but just the simple reality of it is that a parent or parents are going to need to spend time with this beautiful, delicate little being that has come into your home and how can one also secure an older sibling in the moments when a new baby arrives.
Now there are there are lots of layers to this, but I just want to take one particular layer and just sort of walk around it a little bit. When a new baby arrives, there's a lot of touch, there's a lot of skin contact, skin to skin contact, a lot of touch, a lot of holding of the new baby. So therefore, I think it's very important to continue and be kind of be intentional and lean in to the amount of touch that the older sibling has.
You might build up a rhythm of nighttime little massages, simple little massages, morning wake up touching and scratching of the scalp and of a simple little massage. I actually talk about that in an earlier podcast too, if you're interested in that. But there's the amount of touch, the amount of physical touch needs to also be very intentional when a new baby comes, because just by default they receive so much touch.
So I think we can pay real attention to cuddling, cuddle time, little wrestle times, massage times, and just when you walk into a room and you have the baby that is clearly, you know, you're holding, it's close to you, it might be in sling or you might be holding it or just bouncing it a little bit. With your other arm, just go over and stroke your child's hair and just stroke it a lot. Just sit there for a minute or two, just stroking their hair, giving their shoulder a little squeezy hugs, baby in one arm holding, touching, needing you to hold and touch, and the older sibling also receiving that touch as well.
A couple of other ideas as well that I've gathered from parents over the years. I was really interested in when one parent spoke to me how they had taken up this one of my favorite strategies, you hear about it a lot on these podcasts, which is I remember when stories. But what they did is that they really stepped up the number of I remember when stories and were really recollecting when the older sibling was a baby.
And so they were recollecting all kinds of moments, you know, when you first came home, oh gosh, I remember when we had to, we had a big old clear out we'd been wanting to do for a long time and we built you such a cozy corner. You know, I remember when you took your first little step and we all were so pleased. We clapped and hooted and you got so surprised.
You sat right down on the ground and you didn't walk for another several weeks. Actually, I'm not making that story up. That happened with my older daughter.
But lots of I remember when, when they were little. And what it's doing is it's saying to a child, you know, obviously, you are still in my heart. I remember when you were this age too.
And I remember and you're also sending the subtle signal to a child that we took just the same care of you as we're taking of your new baby brother or sister. So that it feels fair, because, because, you know, you're giving that that subtle message to a child. Another couple of ideas is being able to secure a child in, in, again, their senses, just while we stay with their senses.
One of the most we talked about touch, but one of the very primitive senses is that of olfaction is that of smell. And, and the baby is receiving so much of a parent's close contact, that you can do things like pick up the older sibling, make sure they they are with you, and they you can almost feel them snuggling into you smelling, you know, that olfaction, that aroma. Even things like taking off your pillowcase that you've had on for a few nights a week or so when you would normally wash it, but just before it would need a wash, pop it on on your child on the older siblings pillow, and put that pillowcase so that he she they go to sleep, smelling the safe aroma of mommy or daddy on their on their pillowcase.
That that kind of that kind of closeness can be done in that way too. Now, another aspect of when a new baby comes into a home, is that of keeping the rhythms keeping the family rhythms for a child as much as you possibly can. Now in order to do this, sometimes it might be wise, if you're still pregnant, to to if a family is pregnant to actually understand that there is going to be a new rhythm coming into the home.
And, and start anticipating that. So that if there are nursing rhythms, you know, if you have decided to nurse rhythmically, with personally, I think a great way to to feed a baby is rhythmically, but with on demand, when, when it's very clear that that a baby is hungry or needs settling. But the the rhythmical nursing with an on demand component seems to me to be the middle ground, because there's some debate between the two, right? Do you feed on on a schedule? Or do you feed on demand? I think it's it's kind of neither and both.
It's feeding rhythmically, nursing rhythmically, so a child can start to acclimate their body clock, their bio rhythms, but when they really need it, and it's very clear to you, instinctually, they do or somewhat clear, then of course, you don't say well, no, nursing is not for another 45 minutes. However, getting back to rhythm. Um, if there's going to be a new rhythm in the home, it's good, and there will be, it's good to anticipate this and already be shifting towards that before the baby arrives.
But after the baby arrives, it's it's as much as we humanly can do, still have the big clock rhythms be somewhat secure, like the waking up times, the breakfast times, the meal times, the going to bed times, all those all those big rhythms, the macro rhythms that I've talked about in a previous podcast, can stay in place, and it's very securing for a child. Likewise, the micro rhythms, the little ones, those micro rhythms, also, all the little rituals that you do with a child, the where they sit, the bowl that they eat from this, their favorite spoon, the thank you to the farmers, the candle lit the property the other way around the candle lit and a thank you to the farmers or a verse or a prayer, all those little rituals, guard them jealously, hang on to them, make sure they don't start to wobble, because that's what gives a child a feeling that all is well, that I'm safe. Not everything has changed.
The way I brush my teeth, the way I have my nighttime bedtime stories and my little massage, the way all those little ways, very much help. Some parents in a two parent home will have one, one parent, who's going to be doing the nursing will step out a month or two before the arrival of the baby. And the second parent actually takes over some of those macro and micro rhythms, so that so when the baby comes, mommy doesn't just disappear.
I'm used to my other parent doing that, you know, helping me into bedtime, because when baby comes, and all of a sudden, mama is not no longer reading a story that sends a pretty, that sends a strong message to a child of displacement. Okay, so the last couple of things while we're talking about rhythm, is establishing a little nature table, even if you don't have one, and going for a walk with the sibling and collecting the great sort of the movement of the seasons, you know, having a little nature table, like a coffee table or a counter or a mantelpiece, collecting things and putting them up there. There's this feeling that of the world is still turning, the world is still good, that I'm secure in these seasons.
Last couple of things is these wonderful books of Susan Perot, P-E-R-R-O-W, Susan Perot. Susan's stories that you can read to children are specifically about times of change. You'll see sections there about transition, times of change, a new baby arriving.
Susan's stories are wonderful, and I highly recommend reading those both as a lead up and also when the new baby arrives. Now to come full circle, back to the securing stories of when a child was little, I wanted to end and bookend this by suggesting a scrapbook, so that as a baby is arriving in that month before the due date, you have a scrapbook where you start to collect even a scrap box, a shoe box or such, where you start to collect all these treasures if you don't already have it. And then you can get these big old scrapbooks, they're not expensive at all.
And in the month or two ahead of the baby arriving, you start to paste in all the funny little things, the little tokens, you glue in an envelope and in that envelope is a lock of hair cut from the sibling's very first haircut. And there's that lock of hair and there's that photograph when Nana visited you when you were just one hour old and there is and there is and there is. And you build up a scrapbook so that when the baby arrives, you just continue right on scrapbooking, you know, you just continue and that's a little ritual and you might have a rainy days or Sunday mornings or whenever it is.
But the child, the older sibling has that feeling of I have a place in this family. You might even go back and have some pages of mummy and daddy when they were babies and or grandma and grandpa when they were, you know, pictures of them in their lives and great grandparents in their lives. Because it gives a feeling of that continuity and a new baby has come into our world.
But the flow of our family continues and I am a part of it. Okay, as always, I hope that's helpful. Bye bye for now.
