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In this episode, Jess and Scott dive into the challenges of parenting multiple children and giving each child the love and attention they need.
Inspired by a viral social media post, they explore topics like balancing attention between babies and older kids, feelings of guilt and defensiveness as parents, and how children crave connection at all ages.
They provide helpful tips for recognizing children's bids for quality time, healing past parenting missteps, and finding small moments to connect amidst the chaos of family life.
This heartfelt discussion offers both validation and practical tips for parents in the thick of raising multiple kids.
Check out the Instagram post Jess reads here. [https://www.instagram.com/p/DAUd6GDgGRB/?img_index=3]
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/] using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
We'd love to hear from you! Have questions you want us to answer on Robot Unicorn? Send us an email: podcast@robotunicorn.net.
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/solving-bedtime-battles/].
Credits:
Editing by The Pod Cabin [https://thepodcabin.com/]
Artwork by Wallflower Studio [https://www.wallflowerstudio.co/]
Production by Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/]
Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn.
We are so glad that you are here.
Okay, Jess, this episode is a little bit different today.
I'm excited about it.
Are you?
Well that's good.
So Jess wants to start this episode with a bit of a reading of I'm not gonna say poetry, but one of her posts, which are often akin to poetry.
Yeah, I thought we could try doing an episode where I read one of the posts that I've really been reflecting on a lot ever since I posted it, and then we go through some of the comments and and discuss some of the questions.
So this is a post that I did in September twenty-four, if you want to look back on it on the Nurtured First page.
Like of this year?
Of this year.
Yeah, okay.
Yep.
And I'm just gonna read it for you
A few years ago, I watched a mom on an airplane with her two kids.
Her baby sat on her lap.
Every time she looked down at him, she'd plant a kiss on the top of his bald head.
Over the course of the plane ride she gave him hundreds of tiny kisses on his cheeks, his head, his forehead.
She smiled at him, and he cooed back at her.
Beside her sat her preschooler.
He would also try to lay his head on his mom's lap.
He'd try talking to his mom.
He'd show her his coloring.
But instead of hundreds of tiny kisses, her preschooler was told
Don't be so loud.
You're gonna wake the baby.
Stop touching me.
By the end of the flight, the preschooler wasn't wanting to listen to Mom anymore.
I had three small kids of my own when I witnessed this scene.
I knew exactly how the mom felt.
Sometimes when you're with your baby, your older kids can feel like a lot.
It's easy to forget that they need tiny kisses too.
Witnessing this was like looking into a mirror.
I'd been so focused on my baby that I'd become incredibly irritable and short with my big kids.
And the less tiny moments I gave them, the more they struggled and pulled away.
They weren't being bad.
They weren't manipulating me.
They were grieving their tiny moments.
The kisses had stopped for a time.
I started wondering to myself how I could still give these tiny moments of connection to my kids as they grew.
Maybe it wasn't always in tiny kisses and coups.
Maybe there were hundreds of other tiny ways I could show my love.
Since this time, I've never forgotten the idea of giving tiny moments to my big kids.
I make sure they know they are just as loved and as important as their little sister.
This often looks like whispering, I love you tiny notes in their lunch.
making their favorite food for dinner, a smile, a wink, or simply a thumbs up from across the room.
And yes, still kisses and hugs, too.
So let this be a reminder to you too, that even as your kids grow and you stop kissing their tiny heads, hands, and feet all day long.
Remember that the tiny moments of connection still matter.
And when we do them, it often gives us the gift of feeling connected with our child too.
Very nice.
So that was the post.
And I loved writing that one.
And it's true.
I've always had this idea in my head of give babies all these kisses and this love and I see it in everyone that has a baby, right?
Just kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss all day long.
And then they become a toddler and we're just like, why are you doing this?
You know, you don't ever listen to me.
And somewhere along the way we just
we stop giving them those tiny kisses.
But I see it even in our seven and a half year old, right?
Like she still needs that.
But it just looks different.
Like she doesn't want the kisses anymore
Um well she does.
She does sometimes.
She does.
Sometimes.
She likes it when we both kiss her on either cheek at the same time and squish her face in.
But it's easy to forget how little the older kids are.
Yeah.
Especially when you have a baby.
Yeah, right.
I found, oh my goodness, I remember I still feel so guilty about this sometimes.
Like
we have our baby and then the toddler seems so old, you know, with both the kids.
And all of a sudden your expectations drastically increase for that.
Child who's a little bit older, but is not that far off being a baby still.
Like only a year or two older
Like I remember that when with our middle daughter, like she was my baby.
She was the my angel, my baby.
And then I had a baby and the next day all of a sudden she's this big toddler.
You know, it's like crazy how quick that shift happens in your mind.
Mm-hmm
So this post really stuck with me.
I loved writing it.
I loved it.
Apparently with a lot of people too.
There's a lot of comments, there's a lot of likes and whatever.
It made certain people feel different.
Some people loved it
And we're like, thank you for the reminder.
Other people felt like it justified them in making certain decisions in life
Other people were maybe annoyed by it, so we felt like it would be good to go through some of these comments and just discuss together
and one that I found that I think is good to start with.
And I might paraphrase it a little bit just to make it sound a little more complete.
But this person said that they've been there and as the older kid in the family.
It felt like
You never wanted.
You just existed and you're even kind of annoying.
It made them realize that no parents nor any other human can love their children equally, and that made them choose to only have one child because they felt like they couldn't love
more than one child enough for what they actually needed based on what they grew up with.
And there are close to forty comments underneath that one comment.
Some people debating it, other people agreeing, other people saying sorry, they felt that way.
And I felt like one person commented and I
I was thinking, you know what?
I feel like this is accurate.
We as parents, so you and I, I would say we both would say we love all three of our children equally.
Which is not a hundred percent of our time and attention, right?
'Cause we have three kids, so it's not possible to give them that time and attention that they need a hundred percent of the time.
But this person said as much as parents say that
they love each child equally, it probably won't feel that way to the kids when they get older.
The experiences of the kids will likely be different from what we would say now
So it's it's quite possible that in the future one of our daughters will think that we love the others more than we loved
them.
So I think that's a good thing to remember too, that yeah, we hadn't like let's say we have a baby and then all of a sudden the toddler and the older child
like we're not giving them the same attention that we gave them before.
And that changes.
Like now I would say we give all three of them equal attention.
I wouldn't say any one of them is left out any more than the others, but it may not feel that way.
To them.
To them later in life, when they reflect on it.
So it's I I don't know.
It how do you, as a parent, try and make sure each if you have more than one child, or should you just have one child
I mean I know the answer that we would give is no.
It's you can still love all of your children equally and a hundred percent, but you just can't give them the same amount of time and attention that you could before.
Yeah.
But is that wrong?
Right.
I feel like that's a conversation we've had when we decided to most likely be done with three kids.
Yeah.
Right?
We Yeah, that is probably the main reason why.
We had a big conversation about that and we're like, you know what?
For us, because we both also work
and there's a lot going on.
We felt like three kids, you're already pretty stretched in terms of like trying to give everybody attention and at the degree that we want to give them the love and attention
that we felt like for us three kids felt like we can still give them the love and attention that we want, but if we have more in this season of life, it just doesn't feel like we could do that
Yeah, and maybe that'll change.
I don't know.
Right.
Like at this point That's what I say.
It could change, but that's how we feel right now.
Yeah, like how how do you give them all the attention and the love that they need?
I
I think it goes maybe in stages and based on like yeah, we love them all equally, but sometimes what's fair is that other kids need more attention and love than others depending on the season, right?
And then I think it's also a tuning in with yourself, right?
Like I told you this morning, I'm like, uh, I've been feeling a little disconnected with our oldest because you've been spending so much time with her and you've been bonding with her, doing all sorts of stuff
But I haven't had special one-on-one time with her in a while.
So I'm kind of craving that and missing that.
Yeah.
And so for me, it's like I gotta tune in with that and be like, my toddler and my middle child, they always want me
So it's easy for me to spend lots of time with them, right?
Our oldest daughter gravitates towards your interests and hobbies, so I just have to be more intentional.
Mm-hmm.
And so I think it's a tuning in with yourself as a parent and also recognizing that you won't do it all perfect.
Like there'll be times like in that post when I said like, oh my goodness, I've been just giving my baby tiny kisses and not my older kids
And don't beat yourself up over that, but just be like, okay, I'm noticing that.
So now what can I do to make sure that they get some of that time and attention from me, you know?
Something that I've thought about often since we've had our third daughter.
Yeah.
Is I know that often
And maybe this is just anecdotally, like, I know this, but the middle child often feels left out.
Mm-hmm.
And I would say it's likely because the oldest child
is doing everything for the first time.
So like as parents we're trying to keep up with, okay, this is the next thing.
Yeah.
The second child, or the middle child, is like
following in the footsteps of the oldest and then your youngest is the baby.
Like you don't stop treating them as the baby because they were
the latest one to be the baby.
So it's just like they're treated as the baby and they're doing everything.
And in your mind, when it's your youngest, it's like maybe your last.
Yeah, right.
Right?
Oh it's our last gonna be in a diaper.
It's like nostalgia for the present moment, right?
It's like, oh, I just know I'm gonna miss this, so I'm just gonna enjoy it.
Right, so she's the one that I'm concerned about.
Yeah.
Is that she will have that feeling later in life?
Like only because she's the middle.
And I feel like I try and actually spend extra time with her just because of that.
Yeah.
So that she doesn't but that's the thing, like this person said.
Just because we are saying we give our children equal attention and love doesn't mean that they will feel that that's what they received.
And that's something that for us as parents
we have to be ready to receive at some point when they're adults, you know.
I think we can do everything we can to try and treat them equally and fairly and tune in with ourselves.
But there may become a point in time where our middle daughter says, you know what, I didn't feel it.
Right.
Or maybe it'll be one of the other ones.
I don't know.
Like it's the only reason I say that I'm most concerned about her is because I know
that you often hear.
Like I have heard from middle kids that they just felt like they were kind of forgotten.
And you hear from oldest kids that they have too much responsibility put on them.
And I see that in our oldest sometimes
Right, and I have to catch myself.
I'm like, hey, you're older.
You should know better.
You should you know and have to catch myself.
And then I see in the baby that they feel like their siblings were off doing their own thing and
They weren't included or you know, they were always seen as littler than they were, and I see that in our baby who's not even a baby, but we still call her a baby, you know.
They're all gonna have their own journey in life and we could do our very, very best, but I want to be open to receiving that feedback when that happens someday and have that conversation with them.
Right, so that goes back to the original comment that I I read, which was that this person decided that because of this, because they didn't feel like you could actually love more than one child enough
They decided only to have one.
Right.
And what do you feel about that?
I so support parents who decide to only have one kid.
I think that for some parents, like that's their journey, and I think that that makes so much sense for them and I respect it
I respect knowing what your capacity is and what you're able to handle and what's gonna feel right for you.
And so I don't think I'm in a position to comment on how many children someone should have, right?
Some some people can have five children and
spread their love in a beautiful way.
For us, we're thinking the number is three.
For some people that's two.
You have to know yourself and what you can handle.
And for some people it's no kids.
And I 100% support people who say
I love kids or I respect you for having three kids but I could never, it's not my path, and I respect that too.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week, our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan and he said to our daughter, thank you.
Thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurtry First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me.
Jess, if you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three, and I have taught body safety and consent education for years
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read facial cues, you'll talk about safe and unfortunate.
safe touch and you'll even teach them about their uh oh feeling.
There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff like tickling that goes too far and even the difference between a secret and a surprise
We made this course at Nurture First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak up sooner and we want that for our family, for Scott and I, but also for you.
So check the course out at nurturedfirst.
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Use the code RobotUnicorn.
And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
There's quite a few comments on this topic.
What about the comments of saying I don't know if you're seeing that because I know you're reading them right now, but I got a lot of DMs from this post being like, hey Jess
This is really mom shaming.
I feel like you're trying to make us feel guilty or like bad parents.
What would you say to the parents who say that?
This might not sound the nicest, but I feel like you can't get offended over everything.
Like in a situation like this, you're trying to
Explain the situation that you saw and what you think of the situation.
It's not like you're trying to shame any one person for doing it.
Because it's very easy to get to that point of just not remembering, hey, this older kid is not actually that much older than my baby.
Yeah, I know.
So I think when people take offense to things like this.
Which is a lot of the content I put out.
Yeah, uh people will get offended consistently and I just think
If you're getting offended by it, you really need to look inwardly at why you're getting offended by this.
Because I don't think anything that you put out there, the intention is not to shame any person for doing something a certain way.
It's to remind you, hey
This is something for you to consider because, let's say in this situation, your older child is still a child too, and they still need your love.
And sometimes being a parent is very busy and exhausting, chaotic at times, and sometimes we just need that reminder to look at our older children as children still and children who need our time and attention and love.
So I just, I don't know.
Like when people get offended by stuff that you talk about, I feel like they're completely missing the point and then immediately not
thinking logically about like what they're reading.
They're just thinking maybe maybe it's because they're so tired and they're living in that chaos, but in no world should you feel guilty about
the situation.
It's just good to remember and then okay.
Yeah.
We can move on from the situation we're in right now.
I think people's defenses go up because it's easier to say Jess is a bomb shamer than to say, Oh shoot, you know what, you're right.
Like I haven't been giving my older kid the snuggles or the quality time that they need.
That's hard to say.
And I respect that
And what I I think is like when you feel that guilt or those defenses, like let that be a messenger.
Like don't let that tell you that, oh, you're the worst parent in the world because you forgot to like
do that.
Like in no world are you are you saying that, right?
No.
So to be offended by it because people think that you're saying that just doesn't make any sense to me because that's not
If you even read it, you see like that's not the point of this.
It's to be a gentle reminder to look at your older children as children still and children deserving
Love and attention still.
Yeah, and just just treat that defensiveness or that guilt as a bit of a messenger and be like, okay, I'm feeling defensive.
I'm feeling guilty.
I don't need to sit in this.
You know, it's just a reminder that I can tune in with my toddler and just let it be that, just a reminder.
I think we guilt ourselves so, so, so much.
And sometimes
We just need to read these posts or stories and be like, hey, it's just a gentle reminder for me next time I see my toddler to give them a thumbs up or to give them a wink or a little kiss on the cheek, right?
And just let it be that and and don't sit and drown in your own guilt.
Like you don't need that.
You're busy enough.
You don't need to feel so guilty.
And that's a reminder for me too, because I I am one to struggle with with feeling guilty.
So I get that and that's kind of why I wrote the post because I was the mom in that situation that felt bad.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, so it's nice to like share a story to help others experience something similar to you but like remember it more quickly than Exact maybe you would have
I was that mom.
Like I remember, man, it was hard when you had the baby and you have a toddler who wants you all the time.
Like it's it's hard to spread your love so much.
There's a lot of comments from people and some even saying like I'm thirty-five years old and still feel this way about my family and still feel like because I'm the oldest, my parents' favorite is the youngest in the family and
I I mean it's a reminder that no matter how old you are, you do crave that connection.
You always will want that.
And that doesn't make you some bad, needy, 35-year-old kid, right?
It's
natural and normal to want to feel seen by your parents no matter how old you are.
And hey if you're a grandparent listening, maybe a nice reminder, you know, call your kids.
Tell them that you're thinking about them.
Tell 'em you're proud of them.
Yeah, and like one person says it's it isn't possible to change the past, but you may be able to heal the effects of what happened in the past as a parent, like with your kids, right?
So if like if you were a little short with them.
But you're at the same time you're giving your baby kisses and giving them love and affection.
So it's it's possible to heal, let's say, the effects of it by
having that time and connection.
Unfortunately sometimes we cannot behave fairly in giving our love and attention to each of our children, although we try to be.
So I I think they're saying similar things.
That seems honestly seems to be the the comment that I'm seeing the most in this.
I feel like maybe that's a nice place to kind of wrap up this episode.
I have one last story that I think will nicely kind of wrap up this topic.
So one day when I had our second daughter was a baby and our oldest was three, our second daughter
was kind of a needy baby.
I think she was really loud.
She always wanted to be held.
You know, she didn't nap super well.
But one it was right at the start of COVID too.
So like everything was just all weird.
Stressful and awful, you know
So one day, finally, first time ever, I got her down to sleep in her bassinet.
So she's sleeping in her bassinet.
And the first thing I think of in my head is like, I've got to clean the fridge.
It's a disaster.
Right?
So
I go downstairs, I open the fridge, and our three my three year old's there and I'm like, why don't you help me clean the fridge?
So she helps me clean the whole fridge.
We clean it together.
She sprays it with the water, we do the whole cleaning.
Then, okay, it's like 35 minutes later, she's a newborn.
She wakes back up
And that's done.
The cleaning the fridge is done.
The next day, my toddler goes, Mom, we need to clean the fridge.
I go, Oh, no, we don't.
We just cleaned it yesterday.
All right, she's fine with that.
The next day, Mom
We should clean the fridge again.
No, look, we just cleaned it, it's still clean.
The next day, mom, we really need to clean the fridge.
And I say, Hun, why do you keep saying this?
And she just has a full-blown meltdown, like, Mom, we have to clean the fridge, you know?
And as she's melting down and laying on the floor, all I can think to myself is
This isn't about the fridge.
And like my head goes back to what did cleaning the fridge represent to her?
Alone time, the one-on-one connection.
We sprayed each other with water.
We giggled and we had that time 30 minutes together for the first time since the newborn was there
And this entire meltdown about cleaning the fridge wasn't about her shaming me for being dirty, you know.
It was about the fact that cleaning the fridge represented quality time.
And I leave parents with that story because how many times are our kids having meltdowns about things and we're just like, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
when really this meltdown is about craving relationship with you.
And if we can see it as that, and when I understood, oh it's not about cleaning the fridge, it's about relationship and time with me
It shifted my entire perspective.
And so instead of cleaning the fridge with her, I found other ways to connect with her, even while my newborn was awake, and being like, oh my goodness, she's missing me
And I'm missing her too.
And sometimes our kids will remind us of that by having meltdowns about things completely unrelated to being with you.
And when we can just shift our perspective
It can really change the way that we help our kids and like that person said, we can't change the past.
I couldn't change that
having a COVID baby was incredibly stressful and I wasn't as connected with our toddler as I used to be.
You know, I couldn't change any of the past, but I could use that opportunity to change the future and try and use those tiny moments to connect with her more.
Yep.
Well what I find interesting when you're saying that story, I remember you telling me that at the time.
Yeah.
'Cause I think it was on like some work trip or whatever.
And
I notice even now, like we're moving and we're packing, and the girls are like demanding to help us pack when you would think that they would ha want to have nothing to do with it.
They want to be a part of it and
Even if they're not actually helping and they're making it more difficult, they are essentially demanding to do it so that they can be with us.
And like I've noticed that because yeah, we've probably been a little bit busier.
And so they're saying, We want to help you pack.
Like, can we help?
And then like they're handing us stuff and they're just having we're having little conversations with them while we're doing that.
And what is it?
It's not about packing.
It's about quality time.
Well, they would much rather be doing other things, but it's
It's that quality time that they I I know for a fact that that's what they're craving from us.
And your kids will crave quality time and they'll tell you they want to help you clean the fridge or they want to help you pack or they wanna be part of you cleaning out your minivan or whatever it is.
And just lean into those opportunities, especially when you're in the trenches and you have like these small babies at home too.
Sometimes those tiny moments come in allowing your child to help you with something
Like let them help you pack, let them help you do the dishes.
Sure it takes longer, but yeah, you know what they're there, they're spending that quality time with you and
That's my whole thing when I talk about tiny moments is like take those moments, take those opportunities to connect with them, even if it's not playing, and it will go a far away for you and for them.
Well I think that's a good place to end.
Yeah.
It's a nice short episode for people this week.
Yeah, I feel like I'm ready to go cry, you know.
Um always.
But I hope that this episode helped you, especially if you are that parent that's in the thick of it
We know how that feels and we know how hard that is.
And believe me, we did not in any way do things perfectly when all of our kids were little and we didn't always have those t tiny moments.
So
I hope that this will be a nice reminder for you, but also give yourself a lot of grace because those moments are are tricky, they're hard, and you'll get through it.
It won't be that hard forever.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
We are glad that you are here.
If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review.
Scott and I actually sit down together and read them all.
A five-star rating helps us share our podcast and get these important messages out there.
Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.