00:00:00
00:00:01
067: Life admin for new parents
765 Plays2 years ago
In this ep, Mia and Dinah share their experiences and top hacks to streamline life admin for new parents. Conventional wisdom recommends parents-to-be focus their discussions and planning on housework and parenting. But there is a third dimension of domestic life to discuss and organise: life admin. Life admin explodes when you have a baby, just at the time you are sleep deprived and learning to care for a new member of your family.
In this ep, Mia and Dinah discuss:
- that before you have children you have more leisure time, physical and mental energy and life admin is done independently or designed around two people. When a baby enters your family life admin systems need to accommodate another person.
- When the baby is first born it's really important to prioritise what life admin you need to do. Prioritising is about deciding what you won’t do, getting clear about what’s truly urgent or important and letting go of the rest
- that in different-sex couples there is a tendency for stereotypical domestic roles to kick in and that it's essential to have the negotiation early with your partner about who will do what in terms of housework, child care and life admin. It's important to get good at having this conversation as the discussion will need to be had again and again as the baby develops, its needs change, parental leave finishes and paid work resumes.
- Some of the life admin you can attend to before you have a baby:
- choosing your healthcare provider and managing appointments
- adding your baby to waiting lists for childcare
- meal preparation - planning for sleep deprivation
- creating a checklist of what to take to the hospital
- setting up a keepsake system
- securing all the baby equipment and supplies you will need
- updating your budget to reflect your new circumstances and be confident about how much time off from work you can take
- preparing or updating your will including identifying guardians for your children
- reviewing your life and income protection insurance
- identifying options for online shopping and meal kits for the first few months when leaving home can be challenging
- planning a babymoon!
- After the baby is born and you are on parental leave, the day and week lack the normal structure that work once provided. It can be helpful to create a schedule for the housework and life admin tasks and a daily routine for yourself and baby.
- When you return to work, routines and schedules support the smooth functioning of your household. As the baby develops your daily routine needs to shift as eat, sleep and play times will change from month to month. You need to embrace the idea that you need to redesign your life every three-six months as their needs change.
- Some of the other life admin hacks for after the baby is born include:
- lists! - checklists and to-do lists that are shared with your partner
- registering with Services Australia for the parental leave payment
- decluttering - developing habits to declutter as you go
- meal planning and bulk cooking - particularly when your baby starts solids
- keeping track of health appointments in a shared digital calendar
- starting a cloud storage system for filing important documents
- adding your baby to your private health insurance policy if you have one
- planning your social Life - hard but important - people priority vs event priority - lots of changes - need to be deliberate.
Transcript
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Introduction to Life Admin Podcast
00:00:30
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Acts, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips, and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money, and improve your household harmony. I'm Dinero Roberts, an operations manager, and it was my second child that pushed me into life admin overwhelm. I'm Mia Northrop, a researcher and writer. We found having kids an unfathomably immense shock to my head there to organize life and manageable domestic responsibilities.
00:01:00
Speaker
In this episode, we'll take you through all our top hacks for new parents. Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks. We want to have a shout out to our long time listeners. Hello, we hope you're doing well. And hello to those new to the show as well. Diana and I are thrilled that you've made time for us today. And we want to thank also one of our latest reviewers, Joanna Pilates. I love the names that people put for their reviews. Joanna Pilates on Apple Podcasts, there was five stars and said, this is the best admin advice.
00:01:30
Speaker
It simply changed my attitude to life admin. It saved me time and money by the book. It's an excellent reference tool. My life is finally getting sorted. Gerona Pilates, we're so thrilled for you.
00:01:41
Speaker
obviously found time to do Pilates which is you know there's a win right there. Thank you for leaving us that with me.
Challenges of Life Admin with a New Baby
00:01:48
Speaker
So we love getting episode requests from listeners and a little while ago we received a request from Cynthia which is who's from Sydney and that's what really has inspired this episode. So she wrote to us and she said she'd recently discovered our podcast and she's been enjoying the past episodes. She says I understand you're both mothers
00:02:06
Speaker
And I'm wondering if you might do an episode on your experiences adjusting to life admin with a baby. I have a six month old and between the regular house upkeep and enjoying time with him, I sometimes struggle to prioritize all the other stuff. Well, you're certainly not alone there.
00:02:24
Speaker
such a good time. We are very happy to talk about this because as Diana said in her intro, it really was having kids that takes life admin up a level. So, you know, we will talk about this today. We also want to acknowledge that we've got a few other kid-related episodes if we want to dive deep on this. In episode 26, we talk about optimizing kid admin. In episodes 45 and 51,
00:02:49
Speaker
Tracy Spicer and Michael Gross, parenting expert respectively, talk about upskilling your kids to contribute more at home. And in episode 54, we talk about daycare and school transitions and how to prepare for them. And in this episode, we're really going to focus on, you know, when you're preparing to have a baby, when you're pregnant, and it's about to happen. And then that first year where, you know, life is never the same.
00:03:12
Speaker
And I think, you know, we talked a bit before about how life admin explodes, but we actually, when we did that survey a little while ago, we found that parents do about one third more life admin than non
Impact of Children on Life Admin
00:03:25
Speaker
-parents. And when you think about it, okay, all of a sudden you add parenting responsibilities to your life. And on top of that, your life admin increases by a third. So no wonder everyone feels super overwhelmed. That's it. So before you have a kid, you know, you just have ample leisure time.
00:03:42
Speaker
You've got physical energy, mental energy. You might have multiple incomes coming into the household. You've got more physical space. You've got more head space. And, you know, life hasn't either done independently or it's designed around two people. Afterwards, your leisure time plummets. You've got less physical energy, less mental energy. Your income might have dropped if both or one or both of you have left the paid work for a time.
00:04:09
Speaker
you have more expenses and you've got less space. And the life admin increases because now you have to accommodate another person and the housework explodes as well. So if you think about that little Venn diagram that we talk about that's encompassing all of your domestic responsibilities, you've got one little circle that's housework, which is traditionally the cleaning, the cooking, the laundry. You've got one little circle that's life admin, which is all that personal and household admin. And then you have this whole new circle of parenting and your life admin circle,
00:04:39
Speaker
and your house work circle both got bigger. So it's hard. You know, in Cynthia's little request, she said, look, how do you prioritise all the other stuff? And it's worth remembering that prioritising is really about deciding what you want to do.
00:04:57
Speaker
and getting clear about what's truly urgent or important and letting go of the rest. So I would take the all out of prioritising all the other stuff because having a kid is definitely an exercise in trying to let go of some things and getting crystal clear about what does deserve your energy and your attention and your time.
Mental Load and Sharing Responsibilities
00:05:15
Speaker
I guess one of the most important things to be thinking about when you're becoming a parent or if you already are a parent is to think about this concept of the mental load. And I think that Emma cartoon, if you haven't already seen it, make sure you look it up. She's a French comic and she created this comic about the mental load. And it really does particularly for in there's a partnership, if you're in a different sex couple and in the traditional role of
00:05:41
Speaker
a woman who might take a much longer parental leave from work. What tends to happen is that you're at home and you're doing a lot of the parenting and then you take on a lot of that mental, the thinking, the planning, the scheduling.
00:05:54
Speaker
to make everything happen. So it's really important to really think about starting as you mean to go on. So setting up those systems very early on that allow you to share that load. It is this huge shock to realize this new level of responsibility and attention you have to give to your child.
00:06:13
Speaker
and all of a sudden it's this personal time shrinking. So really starting as you mean to go on is incredibly important. So thinking about how you're going to have those conversations about sharing the load because this is a conversation that will keep happening throughout this child's life and also getting in place those foundational life admin systems that really make it much easier to share a lot of those tasks.
00:06:38
Speaker
And that conversation is, you know, you have it before the kid comes along and you'll have it pretty soon afterwards too, once you realise, oh my God, is this what life is like now? And then you keep having to have that conversation because as the baby develops, its needs change. It's going to sleep more.
00:06:55
Speaker
It's going to, you know, there'll be eating, there'll be playtime. Suddenly it has a social life, its own extracurricular stuff. And as it changes, as it goes through these little developmental milestones, your amount of time and attention that you need to dedicate to it changes, which means you have less time or more time for other things. Then, you know, when, if you're thinking about going back to the paid work, again, you know, your life is going to change. You have less time.
00:07:21
Speaker
your responsibilities will be sitting elsewhere. So you'll need to have a conversation again, pretty much every quarter, every six months, every year for the rest of its life. It doesn't go away. Hopefully you just get really good at it at some stage. But it is a constant vigilant act to be talking about how you're sharing the load so that there is that feeling of equity in the partnership and things feel fair. And at the end of the day, it really goes down to supporting your wellbeing.
00:07:50
Speaker
because you know it's disheartening how many conversations we still have with new mums where they are shouldering everything, they're stressed out, they're tired, they're resentful, they're getting angry, they can be spiraling into anxiety, you can get very depressed because it can be very isolating and exhausting. So it is do take it seriously and make it a priority to to start with those conversations.
00:08:15
Speaker
Sure, we get started and talk about some of the administrative tasks you might want to think about when you're having or planning a family mayor.
Preparing for a New Baby
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting because when you read baby books, or you talk to
00:08:28
Speaker
experts in the area, like maternal health nurses and people who are supporting you through your pregnancy. Conventional wisdom recommends focusing discussions on housework, like how you're going to share the cleaning and the cooking and the shopping and the laundry, and having discussions around parenting. So you might have discussions around childcare and
00:08:49
Speaker
who's going to help feed and clothes and do the nappies and keep the bath and get them to sleep and he's going to take them for walks. You probably have a conversation around paid care like whether you want to have a nanny or daycare or you know have relatives or family daycare involved. You want to have a talk about parenting styles and your values and principles and also how you're going to have some time as a couple and individual time and family time. There are the things that very normally get talked about
00:09:18
Speaker
before you have a baby. But as we mentioned, there's this third dimension of domestic life, which is all the life admin stuff. And there is definitely a lot of paperwork and admin to do before the child is even born. Yeah. And I mean, my kids are in high school and I still have
00:09:33
Speaker
I do more life admin for them than I do for myself. So it's definitely something that doesn't go away. So really getting on top of it, having great systems and figuring out how to share the loads important. So if we think about right, even before the baby's born, you know, one of the things that really surprised me was finding an obstetrician. Like that was a life admin task in and of itself. And it wasn't simple. Was that a simple thing for you?
00:09:59
Speaker
Oh gosh, I asked friends, who did you lose? Who did you like? And I just went to one that was close to what someone recommended. So yeah, I did decide to go into the private system to have a baby because I was terrified of the whole thing. And I wanted to be, there's a maternity hospital that's near where I live and I wanted to just go there because I was familiar. I visited friends there and I just, it gave me reassurance. And I had private health insurance and I thought, this is what I think paying for, I'm going to use it.
00:10:29
Speaker
So I just asked some friends who they had used at that hospital and ended up going in and meeting with them and off I went. But obviously if you're going to the public hospital through the public system where you have very few costs, you still need to understand how it works. Usually you'll go in and you'll say doctor or midwife and you need to get familiar with what kinds of records you're going to be keeping all the appointments.
00:10:55
Speaker
there's a lot of appointments and they get more frequent as you get closer to having the baby. So having that digital calendar in place to schedule all of that for your partner, if your partner can come along with you, they're all really good things to organize. And I think it can be kind of a time consuming process, like exploring all those different options of obstetricians and midwives and understanding what the options are out there and then making sure that you select the one that works for you. So
00:11:21
Speaker
It is something to get on to and research quite early and ask lots of questions and be curious about what your options are and understand the implications. So certainly know that sometimes if you're in the public system, you might not be able to choose who you use, who you're seeing, and you might have longer waiting times.
00:11:37
Speaker
But that might be fine for you versus, you know, some of those other decisions you talked about. So really thinking about deciding what's important to you. I had that thing where, you know, I went and had my obstetrician and I saw her for nine months. And then on the day of the birth, she was unavailable and substrate to deliver the baby. So, you know.
00:11:55
Speaker
You never know what could happen today. No, you don't. You don't. OK, so if you've you've figured out where you're going to have the baby, hopefully, then something that people do quite early these days is often book in for childcare. So reserve a place, particularly if it's a high and demand community center, they're trying to get their child on the waiting list for. So, you know, you need to be mindful that other people are putting their children's name down before they're born. And so
00:12:22
Speaker
You kind of have to match what they're doing if you want to secure a place in the centre that's perhaps most convenient, almost desirable for you. Yeah, this is not something to do two months before you're returning to work. I remember rocking up to the daycare centre.
00:12:36
Speaker
that was near us, like heavily pregnant and having to write, you know, baby Northrop on the form, thinking it was ridiculous, but being so relieved because when I did go back to work, you know, the place was ready for her. And I've had other friends who are ready to go back to work and they're literally scrounging around trying to find somewhere to send their kid. So hopefully you don't live somewhere where that's the case. But if you do start visiting those childcare centers and filling out the forms,
00:13:02
Speaker
And I also think it's really important to think about early on understanding your financial situation. So having a think about how long you might be wanting to take off work, understanding what parental leave you might be eligible from your employer or from Centrelink and really thinking about how that budget's going to work so that you can work out how much you might want to save during those months while you're pregnant. So you're confident about, you know, how much time you can take off and how your budget's going to work while perhaps you reduce down to one income.
00:13:31
Speaker
And obviously there's in Australia, our service is Australia, you get paid parental leave as well. But at the top of any parental leave, your employer might pay, but that doesn't kick in obviously until you've had the baby and can't apply until you registered the birth.
00:13:45
Speaker
So something else that I guess we're both huge advocates of that we recommend you really think about early on is meal planning and thinking about perhaps even before the baby's born, having some meal preparation done so you can stash away some meals in the freezer so that makes it much easier for those first few weeks, which are likely to be very sleep deprived.
Meal Planning for New Parents
00:14:06
Speaker
Was that something you did, Mia?
00:14:08
Speaker
I remember eating slab after slab of lasagna and being so damn happy every time I got it out of the freezer in the morning. So my ex-husband makes an amazing lasagna and he made a lot of it. And I lived on it. I lived on it for about six weeks. And then anyone else who said, did you want any food? I was like, lasagna, lasagna, bring the lasagna. That's so funny. How about you?
00:14:36
Speaker
I think that because I, when I had my first baby, do you remember this? I actually was living with my parents. Do you remember that? Because I moved back from overseas and I stayed with my parents. I was basically being booked after by my mum for the first six weeks.
00:14:54
Speaker
Yeah, no, so I came back to Australia and I had the baby here and then I stayed with my parents for the first six weeks of her life. So I basically just got weighted on hand and foot. And as much as that's kind of weird, spending the first six weeks of your child's life with your parents, highly recommend it from a meal cooking point of view, particularly because my mum's a midwife. So I had like, you know, good quality help at hand. So highly recommend.
00:15:19
Speaker
Well, that's how it used to happen in the olden days. I wish that we had that idea of confinement where you just stayed home and family looked after you for 40 days. That's how it should be. That's still how it should be. So I think that the key advice here is just plan to be sleep deprived. So think about what you can do to make those first few weeks easier when it comes to food, which is really important. Another thing to really start to lean into is checklists.
00:15:45
Speaker
I think this is very early on where you can establish a hospital checklist of the things you might want to be taking to the hospital with you and start to think about other checklists you might want to establish. Again, making sure that you've got the right app that you can share with your partner. If things happen a bit sooner than you thought, if you've got a checklist that you can both get your hands on really easily and that you can
00:16:08
Speaker
find and add to things as you think, add items to it as you think of it. It's a really good way of starting that start as you mean to go on. When thinking of all the sort of the baby forum and the baby book apps as well, like the what you can expect when you're expecting, all of those places often have their own apps with their own lists. But yes, it can be a good habit to start your own checklists in an app that you can use into the future.
00:16:35
Speaker
So keepsakes, keepsake system. This is something that also starts very early on. I still have, this grosses my children out, amazingly. I still have the pregnancy tests of when I found out I was pregnant with both of them. They still have the little pink line. Well, you know, 12 years later. That's so weird. I showed them that and they just were like, oh my God, Mum, TMI. Thinking when you start collecting the ultrasounds and
00:17:03
Speaker
there's a lot to keep on top of. So having a keepsake system, which is either going to be a box or hanging files or whatever works for you, are somewhere to start storing all of this stuff into prosperity. Yeah. And have somewhere where you can, it's really convenient to add things to. So don't store it at the top of a cupboard where you have to stand on a ladder to add things to it. You're going to be adding to it frequently.
00:17:27
Speaker
particularly over those first few months. So really make sure it's somewhere that you can easily add things to it so that you don't lose them or they don't sort of clutter up your home.
00:17:37
Speaker
You've got the little bracelet that the kid will wear in the hospital. You might want to keep a little bit of umbilical cord that falls off, but whatever, you know, whatever takes your fancy. Let's talk about shopping. Let's talk about all the gear that you need, Dinah. Yeah, so I guess that's another checklist that you might want to establish is as you're reading and talking to people, you know, put down a checklist of all the things you might want to get.
00:18:01
Speaker
And then you can start to think about, you know, you know, what you might be able to borrow from other people, what you might be able to get secondhand and also things that you might want to buy new and making a plan to do that over time, because there's quite a lot of stuff you're going to need. So you don't want to have to do it in one big bang. Yeah. We're talking about the clothes. We're talking about little toys, like the things they chew on and the little mobile they stare at.
00:18:25
Speaker
bedding and all your equipment, the, you know, the cots, the child carriers, the Harries that you wear, the car seats, the high chairs. It just, it's amazing. I didn't have a checklist for this. I had, I had a spreadsheet diner and you know, I don't really like spreadsheets because there was a lot of stuff. And I was lucky that a friend shared a spreadsheet that she'd been gifted by someone else. And I literally shared, it was like a Google.
00:18:55
Speaker
Google Sheets spreadsheet. I can't tell you how many people I've shared that document with. I think it's made certain rounds with parts of Melbourne. It's the same spreadsheet that has all of the things. Notes of people trying different brands of things and how many to buy, how many
00:19:12
Speaker
those bluey sheets do you put on your nappy change table and how many of those little cloths do you need to wipe up all the spit up like it was just so useful to have that and just work my way through. Definitely and I do think it's an area where often you do get given things by other people and I think it can be easy actually then to end up with too much stuff and certainly I had that experience of being given lots of things and then I ended up with so much and really thinking about how many you really need and sort of decluttering early so that you don't have
00:19:41
Speaker
so many size triple zero jumpsuits that they sort of balloon into your house. If you've got a checklist and you think, oh, actually I need 10 of those, pick the 10 nicest ones and hand on the rest right from the beginning so you're not overloaded with too many things.
00:19:59
Speaker
A couple of practical things you might also want to think about before the baby's born or early on is thinking about getting your will updated.
Post-Baby Financial Planning
00:20:07
Speaker
So if you haven't got a will, you might want to get one so that you put the financial security of your child. But also at that time, think about, oh, who might be the guardian of my child? Should my partner and I both pass away in that event? That's kind of an interesting conversation to have when you start to think about who you might
00:20:28
Speaker
trust, but also who might be capable, you know, who's in the right season of their life that they could take on the responsibility of another child. It is a tricky conversation. We have a separate episode on that to talk about, you know, the different elements that you have to consider and how to find a lawyer to do that for you. But it is pretty important. The other thing on the same kind of vein is to think about your insurances, life insurance, income protection insurance.
00:20:54
Speaker
especially if you have debt, if you have a mortgage, if something happens to you and, or, you know, you can't, you know, if you pass away or you can't earn an income and there's long-term debt and someone has to look after the kid and all the kids expenses, that's where insurances can be really important. So step up and have a look at whether the yours need to be updated or if you don't have it, whether it's something that will give you peace of mind.
00:21:20
Speaker
And finally something practical, but highly fun is a baby moon. I do think it's one of those things that it can be easy to actually not plan it because you have to really fly before, I think, do you have to fly before 32 weeks? I can't remember.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah. So this is a little holiday that you have before the baby comes, because you're recognizing that after the baby comes, it ain't going to be a holiday. So where did you go? Did you have a babymoon? I didn't for my first baby. Actually, as I said that, I'm like, did I have a babymoon? We went on holiday, but it wasn't actually a babymoon. We ended up, we went to China. You know what? I had to go to a conference. I'm just remembering now.
00:22:04
Speaker
I had to speak at a conference in China and I was five months pregnant. It was good to get away, but it wasn't exactly a very relaxing trip. It was nice to get away. Before I had my second child, I had an actual baby moon where I went on holiday and just chilled by a pool for three nights and ate club sandwiches. I just, you know, I had my second baby when my daughter was 18 months old and I'd only, I'd gone back to work.
00:22:34
Speaker
And I just needed three days by myself to just be by myself and not have to run after anybody. I just needed to sleep and it was great. I came back feeling very refreshed and ready for the, for the next ride on the roller coaster. What did you do?
00:22:51
Speaker
So before our first child was born, we went on trip to Turkey. So I think that's why I was thinking we had to fly reasonably early because, you know, it was international travel. And we really sort of deliberately chose that as a place. We'd been really wanting to go and thinking, oh, probably not the best destination to take a baby or a toddler. So it was really, you know, knocking something off the list that was going to be fun with a bit of relaxation and a bit of adventure. And we did actually also slip in trips before our second child was born. We disappeared off to Jordan, knowing that
00:23:20
Speaker
Taking one child to Jordan was going to be doable, but a second child, maybe not so much, but, you know, really planning that in advance to make sure that we did it before I was too advanced in the pregnancy was really important. And I love all the photos of you where your daughter's just strapped to your chest. Look really happy. We had great trips with one child, super easy. Once we had the second child, all of a sudden I realized, oh, this is not as easy as it was with one kid. When you're man on man, it's really tricky.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, I'm very admiring of people who travel with young children. I couldn't do it. I was just a nervous wreck. Anywho, moving quite along. So let's fast forward. You've had the baby. It's six months in and you're in the, this is my life now. How do I do all of the things that need to be done? Because it is such an intense period. It's truly one of those things that you can't really imagine how it's going to be until it happens. And then you're like, oh, this is what everyone was kind of talking about.
00:24:18
Speaker
Where should we start, Diane? Yeah, let's kick off the schedules because I think that like that's kind of something that's really underpins in terms of inability to plan, but an importance of having a rhythm to your week. So kind of getting that balance right. Yeah. And here we're not talking about like routines for the baby, like schedules for the baby where, you know, some of those books is like sleep at this time and then feed them for 35 minutes and then do this. We're not talking about baby schedules.
00:24:44
Speaker
talking about life admin and household admin schedules. So it's useful to actually distinguish here between like a schedule for the week where you know like this is the day that laundry happens, this is the day where I meal plan, this is when grocery shopping has to happen and just knowing that overall rhythm and then the routine for the day for yourself like when are you going to shower, when are you going to meditate or whatever it is you're trying to do when you're trying to squeeze in some exercise
00:25:12
Speaker
having a think about having that kind of structure. So you don't have to make a million decisions every day. You kind of got a week that's planned out. It has all those foundational tasks so that you can just operate a little bit on automatic pilot. And it's funny because often when you go on maternity, if you've been in paid work before, then your day sort of has a bit of structure around because you've got to get yourself to work and it'll be your work mode and then you come back.
00:25:41
Speaker
And then when you go on maternity leave, it's like, you know, all of the normal structure that work once provided is gone. And then once you actually return to work when it's part time or full time, those routines and schedules, they need to be highly structured to support that smooth functioning of the household, because there is so much that needs to be squeezed into each day or the week. And then as the baby develops, your routine will change, you know, as they need to eat and sleep and play at different times.
00:26:09
Speaker
It'll change from month to month, but having that shared digital calendar of your partner across your household so everybody can see where everyone needs to be, what needs to happen on certain days is going to be a really great framework for you to lean on. Yeah, definitely. And really starting to have that option of being able to schedule in some time and your partner understanding, oh, you know, this is going to be my turn to look after the child. And so therefore really getting that established really again, coming back to my favorite things.
00:26:38
Speaker
starting as you mean to go on. We've already talked about checklists a bit about before the baby was born, but you know, checklists will continue to become your friend. They are great to have as a list of things, like, for example, a checklist for leaving the house so that you don't forget the important dummy or the formula or the, you know, three spare nappies or whatever it is. And if you've got those checklists well established and your partner can access them,
00:27:03
Speaker
that makes it way easier for you to have that freedom to leave the house without having to feel like you need to give a complicated list of instructions about what needs to happen when you're not there. I had so many packing checklists. It was like I had a checklist for what to pack in like a bag. What's the bag that you carry around called? Baby bag. It's a dot nappy bag. Nappy bag? I don't have mental bag there. I have a list for that.
00:27:27
Speaker
Because it's like, oh, I need to take my breast pump. You know, once they start eating, there's all the little bits and bobs. Just the creams. Oh, so many creams. I had a check list for if I was going, you know, if someone was looking after the baby. Checklist to what to pack to go to daycare. Checklist for what they need to go for swimming lessons. Just list after list after list. And then there's also the to-do lists because, you know, the sleep deprivation, you're not thinking,
00:27:56
Speaker
particularly clearly for some time. And I found it even more important to capture things and write them down. Otherwise I had no chance of remembering them. Yeah. Having those checklists, the to-do lists, have your system optimized and shared. You know, that's something that will continue on. I've just established a new checklist for my son's just done a new sport. He's 13. Now we have a checklist for that, which I share with him.
00:28:20
Speaker
So I think if you can establish those systems, they'll stand you in Goodstead for many years to come. I attempted to do that with my daughter recently, a checklist for her to get out of the house in the morning. And I did it on my phone and I sent it to her. But one of the things that she forgets to look at is her phone. So we went to bed.
00:28:40
Speaker
So another important thing to really get on top of is decluttering. So I think this is where developing habits to declutter as you go very early will stand you in good stead because the reality is your child is going to grow out of things, the toys are going to move on. And so there is going to be a lot of things that you need to either put away if you're planning to have more children or give away if you're not planning to have other children.
00:29:07
Speaker
knowing where you're gonna stash it. And it happens astoundingly fast. Like, you know, when you have a baby, one week to the next, they'll grow out of literally all of their clothes, they'll be into the next size. So you need to wash those items, bag them, scribble what size they're on, and know where that's going, as you said, either having a cupboard in your house where you can start relegating this stuff, own your favourite op shop where you can dump it, have some friends or family who you know will be appreciative of those hand-me-downs.
00:29:37
Speaker
and just get that little decluttering machine going. Meal planning, if you didn't embrace it before the baby, you'll be embracing it now.
Ongoing Meal Planning and Shared Responsibilities
00:29:46
Speaker
Especially once your baby moves onto solids and you need to think about what you can cook that's gonna feed the grownups as well as get pureed or mushed into something that the baby could eat as well. And again, it allows you to share that responsibility. Everyone knows what's happening for dinner at different nights of the week. Someone else can shop for that. And then other, you know,
00:30:07
Speaker
multiple people can prepare that. Bulk cooking is your friend, having some time during the week or on the weekend to make a massive batch of something. I did this for my lunches. Actually, as I'm saying that, I was going to say I did massive batches of dough until I realized, because I was breastfeeding my daughter, that I was having all sorts of revolting consequences for her.
00:30:32
Speaker
but making big batches of whatever it is that can sustain you for your lunches or snacks or for dinner or whatever it might be. It's just little things that are going to help you save time. And also batch cooking snacks for the kids. I feel like I'm feeding my kids little banana cakes from the minute they could eat solids. And they've been, I think, batch cooking banana cakes every other week for their entire lives. They're very sick of banana cake, but oh, I love it.
00:30:58
Speaker
I mean, it's been a massive time saver for me. And I think it's also one of those things where if you, you know, if you don't want to do the grocery shopping, you can split those duties. Like someone can do the meal planning, someone can do the grocery shopping, someone can do the cooking. So really thinking about which part of the job do you hate the least and seeing if you can negotiate to keep that part of the job and share the other parts with your partner. And also online shopping, it's worth mentioning the online shopping, just setting up those master lists.
00:31:26
Speaker
You know, with some of the online in stores now, you can have a subscription for the delivery, which means you can get it delivered as much as you want, and it does cost one flat monthly fee. Sign up for that just to save yourself another trip to the shops. So trips to the shops for small babies can be very dry. Just, yeah, get it shipped in if you can. And also the meal kits, the Hello Freshers, the Marley Spoons, the yearbook cakes.
00:31:52
Speaker
I have vouchers for all of that stuff if anyone wants one. Get onto one of them, that will help you out a couple of nights a week or three nights a week if you want as well. And now most of them extend into supplying ready to eat meals and soups and all.
00:32:06
Speaker
all sorts of extra bits, fruit boxes, all of that stuff that can be delivered, free up your time. So another thing to really think about, and if you can afford it, is to think about, okay, particularly of those early years of having a baby and a toddler where you're in a really season of your life's very busy, thinking about what you might be able to outsource. So perhaps you haven't had a cleaner in the past, it might be time if you can afford it to think about getting one,
00:32:29
Speaker
can be a great thing to ask for as a gift. If you've got, you know, you're leaving work, like maybe you can get a voucher for, you know, a clean, even just one clean in those first few weeks of a baby's life can be really sort of a godsend. But you can also think about asking for help. So what tasks might you be able to get other people to help you with when you're having that busy season of life around?
00:32:50
Speaker
maybe walking the dog or you know some things like that which might fairly tip you into overwhelm. Yeah and the final thing we want to talk about is your social life because friends and medicine it is a strange period of time where your social life kind of shrinks in one direction because you might not see all of your old friends as much unless they've all got children the same age as yours and you start
Adapting Social Life After a Baby
00:33:17
Speaker
hanging out with a whole bunch of other people, usually people who will be close to you that you've been plunked in a mother's group with, and you all have babies the same age. And it's a strange transition as you realise you have less time to socialise, the way you used to, the things you used to do, just seeing more of other people that you might necessarily have a lot in common with, sort of as friendships of proximity. It's one of those things where you have to be quite deliberate to maintain friendships
00:33:46
Speaker
with other people because your life has changed and you might not be in the same season, in the same gear at that time. So it's really a moment to think about what we talk about in the book is friends and social activities where there's like a people priority, where it's all about hanging out with certain people that you want to see versus an event priority.
00:34:08
Speaker
which is all about activities you want to do and you don't really mind that much who you do it with. So with people priority, you know, you might just want to hang out with Caro because she's fun and you don't care what you do.
00:34:19
Speaker
With an event priority, it's like, I want to go to the movies, I miss going to the cinema, and I really don't get it comes with me. So these are the sort of things you need to learn about yourself and think about how are you going to accommodate both of those things. And it's so important to really plan for it, to make time for it and to think about how much you want to prioritise social life as a family. So you and your partner and your child or children versus the things you want to try and do on your own.
00:34:47
Speaker
And getting that balance right and being realistic about, you know, you don't want to be out seven nights a week. That's just not going to happen. Being realistic. And when you do get to go out, it's precious. So you really want to make the most of it. So really thinking about using that time really deliberately to spend time with the people that are most important to you. And this is where, you know, babysitters become crucial when you can start thinking about who in your circle can babysit, when your family babysitting for other people in your mother's group and doing that sort of reciprocal thing.
00:35:16
Speaker
I had a babysitter that I lined up for like a year in advance. We set out all the dates once a month so that we could book restaurants and prepare and be a bit organized about it. Otherwise it was really hard. It was really hard to sort of to define a babysit when we needed it. When we realized, oh, we have a window, we should go do something and then not be able to find a sitter. So that was a nice way and something to really look forward to as well.
Self-Compassion and Prioritizing Family Time
00:35:42
Speaker
So we've covered a lot of ground here.
00:35:45
Speaker
know that idea that the days along with the years would go fast when you have a small child is very true and it can feel really intense trying to squeeze in so much but the first thing we would say is just bring some self-compassion to the situation, realise that you're in a very special season of life and that the time with your kid is incredibly precious when they're that little so you just let go of the life admin that you can there's a whole bunch of stuff that can be parked
00:36:14
Speaker
There's a whole bunch of stuff that can happen less frequently. Hopefully you can still embrace that hour of power to do the things that are actually important and urgent. But there are a whole bunch of things that can simply wait. So hope you've enjoyed this episode. We hope that these hacks will make dealing with your life admin as a parent that little bit easier.
00:36:34
Speaker
Our top hacks are have the conversations with your partner about sharing the load. This is going to be a regular thing. So get good at having that conversation. Lean into schedules and routines so you've got a good rhythm in your household and things hum along nicely. And finally, embrace decluttering and meal planning. We think they have the biggest impact on an ongoing basis for family harmony.
00:37:00
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeagminlifehacks.com. And if you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
00:37:19
Speaker
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