Parenting in a Pandemic with Pediatrician Dr Kelly Fradin

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and sixty six, which is airing in early October of twenty twenty. We are interviewing Kelly Freden, who is a pediatrician who is the author of a new book called Parenting in the Pandemic, and she is going to share her thoughts on how we can interpret risk and headlines, and what she's doing with her children and the advice she gives her patients about how to manage life and parenting in general during the pandemics. So, Sarah, where have you been getting your news about pandemic related stuff? For the most part, I would say my daily news brief, but then that's not necessarily so great to figure out sort of like cases and complication rates and those kinds of things. So actually, I'm very lucky that my institution has had kind of a COVID journal club monthly where a couple of infectious disease and immunology experts actually present some of the latest articles, including you know, sharing the tables and figures, and that's been really helpful because, as we speak about later in the interview, first of all, let me just say I am not one of those people who are anti quote unquote mainstream news. I enjoy the New York Times, I love NPR, I love both of those sources. But sometimes I don't know that the news most journalists are not scientists, and we'll imagine that like, oh gosh, this is I mean, I go into a monologue later in the interview in this and I don't want to go to a monologue on this now. But let's just say that statistics is not many people's strong suit. Yeah, and I do understand why an article or a news story is going to be more exciting if it has you know, it's gonna get more clicks if there are if they're emphasizing you know, what's scary about something or what we really need to watch for, but it does tend to ask you away from balance a little bit. I do want to say as kind of an intro to this episode that our thoughts and interpretations of risk are individual, and I really do feel this is a time to focus on not shaming. If I have a neighbor down the block that does not feel comfortable sending their kids to school and feels comfortable just kind of staying on their own for right now, and they're happy and well adjusted doing that, like more power to them. There is like no shame in that, And in fact, like you know, the more people that are happier doing that or feel comfortable doing that, the less this virus will spread. So like that's great, But I also don't think it's appropriate to shame others who have weighed the risks and benefits for themselves and their families and are making choices within the guidelines of rules that are set out in society right now whatever they may be, and are doing their thing, like for the fact that I am sending two of my kids to in person school right now, and I hope that we don't get too much. Well, it's okay if we get conversations related to this episode. But I guess my number one message would be I hope that we can show kindness on both sides and respect for other people's interpretations of risk. And it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to understand what the risk look like better or sort of compare to risks that we understand. I know that sounded weird, but for example, comparing illness rates and complication rates to other infections that we sort of had a grasp on, like RSV and the flu can be useful for some and so it may be worth filtering our choices through well, what did we do before, what are the risks relative to that, and what do we think the risks are now? I don't know, I'm talking a little bit in circles, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, but I think you know. And the one of the things we've stressed with best of both worlds is that you know, there's a lot of judgment about people's choices out there, and pre pandemic, there was certainly a lot of judgment about women's various lifestyle choices in terms of work and parenting, in terms of how they handle discipline or you know, screen time, or you know what sort of kind of even like how you feed your babies. There's a lot of judgment and shaming out there, and for the most part, that is not very helpful for anybody. And so we certainly don't want to create environment where we would do that for women's lifestyle choices on work and family and things like that. And that's one of the reasons we have best of both worlds, and so I think we need to remember that mindset for you know, how people react to life in a pandemic, the risks people are willing to take, or you know, in how they view that because you know, sometimes things are viewed as risks because it's new again and it may not be compared to what sort of background risk is in general. I mean, you know, meteor could hit the planet at some point, you know, it's there are real risks of other things that we sort of just don't even deal with on a day to day basis. So keeping that in mind, we just got the news yesterday that our district is in fact moving toward reopening, which is wonderful. It's certainly time in terms of our caseload here is relatively minimal, and children's activities have been up and running for several weeks with minimal fallout in terms of, you know, any breakouts or anything like that. So they're looking at opening for a hybrid model. I wish it was full time, but we'll take partial. And they've already brought back the high needs special education students. They opened the buildings up for them, like pretty much a week after school starting. They decided that there was no way to equitably do appropriate education for those children, so they've been back in school. Then they're going to open it up for kindergarteners I think next week even and then first and third graders within first to third graders within a few weeks after that. No, obviously this could all change, and one of the reasons we put Alex in a private school that was committed to opening is that I didn't want to take the risk of you know, getting set back and anything else. But it's a very encouraging sign. My children are incredibly excited about going back. They were all very responsible about wearing their masks and things like that. So you know, fingers crossed that our district will be back in that back in that place soon. That is amazing. Yeah, we'll see. They keep saying like we have to be at this certain point to consider it. I don't know. But then I've also seen headlines which god knows what that means, that are like schools might open soon, and it's like it's very confusing. But at this point I'm resigned to whatever, mostly because my only child doing virtual school is doing okay, although she does wish and hope to see her friends in person again. Yeah, well, I mean this is sort of you and I have both made a decision that would make daily life doable. Right that we looked at what was going to happen and sort of sussed out triaging that like our little boys were going to have the most difficulty with online learning, and so we needed to make other choices for them that would allow them to enjoy learning and not have a lot of the negative fallout that we had seen in the spring. And that's what everyone's having to do is make choices that are appropriate for their family. And so our guest doctor Kelly Frayden, is all about making balanced, nuanced choices, looking at the research, seeing what it says, and being calm so we're really excited to bring her on. Well, Sarah and I are really excited to welcome Kelly Freden to the podcast. She is a pediatrician. She is also the author of a new book about parenting in a pandemic, which is of course what we are all doing at the moment, and is known on social media with the handle Advice I give my friends, and so we are of course all very excited to hear about the advice she gives her friends. So, Kelly, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about your career journey, you know, how you came to your current position, and a little bit about your family as well. Sure. So I went into pediatrics pretty much. I went straight through from college to medical school and pediatrics. Did my training in the Bronx. We live in New York City, and I wanted to work taking care of children with complex medical issues. That's really where my passion lies. I worry so much about those families handling so much stress. So my first job was a big one. It was an academic job, taking care of children with very specialized medical conditions in the hospital and out of the hospital, and I'm sure you can imagine that when I had my kids that was harder to balance. There was a lot of weekends and emergencies and holidays. But it was absolutely for that reason, looking for a better balance that I took a step back. It was, you know, a Thanksgiving and Christmas both got kind of spoiled one year by my work responsibilities, and I was like, Okay, I have to make a change. So I switched to school health at that point, which is a great fit schedule wise, since I get summers off and I can be around in the afternoons for my family. And now I've started doing more writing and media work because you know, I've found that it's such a wonderful way to reach people in an unconventional way that I can still like help families even though you know, it's nighttime and I'm in my pajamas. So with school health, and I definitely don't need specifics obviously, but do you work for younger kids or are you doing more like college student health type stuff adolescent? Right, So mostly I've been it's a public health position in the South Bronx taking care of the kids with diabetes and asthma. So we have a list of like who's missing the most school or in the hospital most, and I try to reach out to those families. Obviously, it's really challenging while schools are closed, but we do the best we can to try to make sure there's people are plugged in. It can be you know, difficult to have a good provider team and a good plan for in school and out of school. That is amazing. We have something similar. It sounds like one of our we have what's called a safety net program down here, so it sounds sort of similar to that's that's what a great opportunity and a meaningful position that it sounds like also gives you a little bit more bandwidth to do other things like, you know, write a book during the pandemic. Yeah exactly. Yeah, why don't you tell us about the logistics of that since a lot of folks feel like there's a zero extra bandwidth. How did you pull that off? I know, So I was trying to do it all between March and June, you know, watching my two and a half year old, helping my son with Zoom kindergarten and working part time from home, like four hours a day, and it was really difficult, and my little girl started carrying around a toy phone and saying, I'm on a work call, mommy, and I was like, okay, something has to change. So in June I took a leave of absence. Normally have the summers off every anyway, but I went out a couple weeks early, and in July I started to send out a newsletter and I compiled everything I had written about coronavirus, just in bits and pieces on Instagram captions, and it was fifty pages. And I said my husband, like, it's like a lot of content I've already written, Like maybe I should do something with this, and you know, he said like, yeah, you should. You know you have. My background just fits really naturally with the topic, Like I did my college thesis about stress management in psychology, and then in residency I did research on Kawasaki disease, which is kind of like misc and I did, you know, I know more than the average person about complex conditions. And I published also on when you have respiratory illnesses and you're hospitalized as a child. So it just felt like kind of destiny that I should try to compile a resource to help families. So I did it in a month, mostly like from eight to midnight and sometimes in the morning, and it was really fast. And I think one of the things that I learned from the experience was how important passion is professionally, because when you get a project that you think is really important, and when you believe in something, you can just you make it work. I hadn't had anything that I've been like so excited about and committed in a while, and so that was a nice experience to remind me, like, why why we do what we do? It sounds like you were perfectly positioned and was that you did a conventional publishing deal. Writer is itself? pH I did everything myself, so I've learned. I've tried to learn a lot about like covers and book layouts and audiobooks. I recorded my own audiobook in my closet. That's about how we do podcasts over here. So totally with you on that. And you've been writing about this for other places too. I mean, so Sarah and I saw what you had written an Emily Oster's newsletter. Of course, she is a previous podcast guest. She's the author of a couple of books like Cribsheet and Expecting Better about you know, the actual research and what it says on pregnancy and child raising and things like that. And she has sort of a very balanced, you know, approach on risk and such like that, which sounds like it fits a lot with your philosophy as well. So can you talk to our listeners a little bit about what you wrote for her newsletter about about COVID right, You know, I was so happy to connect with Emily Oster this this pandemic because us, you know, it's been a rapid fire Some scientists say it's like we're getting hit with a fire hose of like information about coronavirus because it's so new and everybody is thinking about it and talking about it. There's so much data to take in and analyze. But I was so happy and reassured to see that when we all read all of the studies we kind of interpreted them in a similar way with regards to children's health, which is that while we don't know everything, everything we do know so far is on the more reassuring sign regarding children, regarding the severity of illness being more similar to other respiratory illnesses like the flu and RSV that you know for children, that coronavirus doesn't seem to be worse than other viruses. Now, you know, I think is important for a general audience that I emphasize that these these regular respiratory viruses we see are a problem for children. You know, thousands of children are hospitalized every year for RSV and flu, So I'm not trying to dismiss or minimize their risks. There are children who have died of coronavirus and it's a tragedy, but I think it's also important that we take it in context as we make our decisions, like what's different about this or what's new about this, and how does it affect our decision making as parents. So what I tried to address for her newsletter was about how worried parents should be about the long term side effects of coronavirus for children, because there's been a lot in the news about long haulers, adults and children who have prolonged symptoms from coronavirus. So we obviously have a lot to learn about this because it hasn't been very long. But I tried to give my best guesses as a pediatrician about how to put this in context for families because statistically, you know, for example, the misc which is the sort of immune system overreaction that some children have from coronavirus that lands them in the hospital. It's a scary disorder, but thankfully it has been rare and treatable. So while awareness about it is important, I don't think it's the kind of disorder that has to change parents' opinions or keep them up at night worried about it because it is it is so rare at this point. So while there certainly may be some long term side effects from coronavirus, I think parents can leave that to doctors to worry about and research and learn about, and not worry about them now because I don't think we have evidence that they exist in a meaningful way that should alter your decision making. Now. Yeah, there's a certain thing of risk, and I'm sure you see this all the time in your work, that when something is new, a new risk, people perceive it as far scarier and bigger than existing risks that we have already priced into our behavioral model. So we live through flo season every year in which children are hospitalized, children die of influenza, children babies die of RSV. You know they're hospitalized. You know Alex was in the hospital with RSV when he was a baby. But you know, we've priced that in to our behavioral model, whereas this novel coronavirus we see as new and so people have an inclination to see it as very scary beyond what you would you know, with these other things that are already priced in. I mean, so with that in mind, I mean, can you tell us about the risks that you are concerned about a lot with Oh, sorry, Sarah's telling us we need to take an ad break. We'll get back to risk in one minute. So we're back with Kelly Freden and I was just going on to a monologue out the nature of risk, our interpretations of it. So I'm going to let Kelly talk about how we should think about risks and the risks that kids are facing from some of what we've done to counter the coronavirus. Yeah, you know, that's just it. So when I think about overall children's risk, I have to think about the fact that the direct impact of coronavirus for most children is small. Most children who get coronavirus will be asymptomatic. There are children who are at higher risk, you know, babies or children who have chronic medical conditions, you know, like diabetes, heart disease, asthma maybe, But for the most part children, the biggest risk is the secondary impacts. So children who may miss health care maintenance visits and vaccinations, children who may have increased mental health stress, or miss out on friendships that can be really important for them. You know, these secondary impacts are real too, So as parents, we we have to balance when we think about our children's risk, you know, the direct impacts and the indirect impacts. But then it's even more complicated than that, because we also have to think about how our children are. The decisions we make for our children impact the other people in our family. If we live with high risk individuals or if a parent has a high risk condition. We also have to think about our bigger community. You know, how can we be How can we be responsible? Because we know that children can transmit coronavirus, and we we have a responsibility to play and an opportunity to teach our children that our actions matter and that we have to do things even if we're not terrified about getting the virus ourselves. We have to be we have to be responsible members of our community and protect our teachers and our other families in our communities by wearing our masks and socially distancing and making responsible choices. So I'm going to get a little juicy because I am sure that your patients ask you this on a daily basis, as do mine what risks are you personally comfortable taking right now? If you're willing to share what choices you've made around school and social events and try and all that, absolutely, you know, So I have to preface it by saying that we're we're in a good situation here in New York for a while now. You know, we had a terrible run of it in the spring, but for a while now we've had tight control as a community. So you know, we're talking about like only zero point seven percent of tests being positive for coronavirus in a city of like eight million people, there's like five hundred that have coronavirus, which is low, really low. So I also have a low risk family, Like my family is healthy. I don't have a newborn or a grandparent living with me. So in that context, I've been able to choose to send both my kids back to school in person, the schools are making the kids mask. My daughter's only two when she's masking all day and doing okay with it. So the schools are cohorting tightly and masking and making attempts to socially distance the kids. Like my son when he does pe, they're like twelve feet apart doing their little drills. So you know, the schools are being really responsible and proactive, which helped me be more comfortable with it. I do let my kids go to pretty much anything outdoors in terms of playgrounds or play dates. I try to keep with the same cohort as much as possible as a precaution, because you know, it's always possible that coronavirus will sneak in somehow, and we'd rather have one cohort shut down than have exposed many different families. So we still keep our circle kind of small, but we have this period of good control, and I think for us it's been important to kind of be out and get those social contacts in. While the weather's good in the control of coronavirus is good because it make it worse. Right, That's a really nice way to look at it, like take advantage of when you know the risks are less sizable, because they may go up again and that may change your behavior, and that's okay because we do have to kind of keep a mindset of fluidity right today maybe different from December, which hopefully, you know, by some point in time, maybe the risks will overall be lower, which will be wonderful. But you're right, it does vary, and I love that take on things. I'm also very jealous that your playgrounds are open. Although we certainly have not approached a zero point seven percent positive rate down in Florida as of this recording. Anyway, maybe maybe by the time it airs, that'd be great. Fingers crossed. So who do you turn to for news, Kelly, Like, when you are trying to, you know, interpret the stuff that's coming out and would prefer not to be reading headlines that are more harmful than helpful. Where do you get your news about all that's going on with the pandemic. Yeah, that's a great question, because it's hard to find reliable, not fear mongering news right now because every day you'll see even major mainstream publications, you know, taking one number kind of out of context because the news is trying to sell the news. You know. I think that the New York Times coverage about coronavirus and their Parenting newsletter has been pretty responsible. I think that's one of my favorite sources for parents. You know, as adoptor, I try to go straight to the source as much as possible, like the bigger journals, like the Lance in the New England Journal. It's funny though, because even in those publications I've seen bias, Like there are some big journals in medicine that have taken much more conservative opinions about what they've published, and so it's kind of it's definitely been a challenge. Yeah, I know a lot of people are concerned about that and you know, hoping that research can be presented responsibly like that. It's not you know, one result does not in and of itself like mean anything in terms of long term results. It has to be a preponderance of data exactly. It's a new thing, yeah, right, And when I was you know, back in May, we started to get data from other places in the world that you know, had taken different approaches, like we said, so we saw like that in Australia and New Zealand school transmission of coronavirus wasn't as bad as we expected, and so we had to like kind of wait and see, and then we see in Germany they also had a pretty good experience. And then it came out that health Finland and Sweden these places have been able to navigate school reopenings well. So it's not when we get the first study that we feel reassured or informed, but when we start to see that, Okay, like seven countries out of the eight who have reported have reported relatively reassuring information that I feel more comfortable as a doctor being like, yes, the bulk of the evidence looks this way, and sure more evidence can come out, but at least we have a trend. I think it's important to always remember to look at the denominator with research, because man, those headlines love screaming the number of cases or number of positives, and they often leave out out of what which is so incredibly important as we're assessing risk. Right. Oh, it drives me crazy. There was one that is like it looked at children who came to the emergency room and tested positive for coronavirus what their odds of being hospitalized was and it was like six percent, And the headlines were six percent of children with coronavirus need to be hospitalized, And it's like, wait, wait, I no, that's six percent of children who were sick and came to the emergency room because they were sick and needed coronavirus. So really, you know, you have to remember that eighty percent of more or more of children don't have any symptoms, so really six percent number is probably closer to like zero point three percent, and that's really different. So we have to we have to listen to numbers and think about the numbers, but we have to have that context exactly. That context is so key, and there's when we're recording this, there was just a headline that was making the rounds about school teachers dying of COVID. The way the headline was written, it made it sound like back to you know, they'd come back to school, gotten stricken with COVID and died. But no, no, they they got it over the summer and spring when they were not in person at school. And obviously it's horrible that anyone dies, but it was not that they had started up school and you know, been struck down in the hallways the way the headline implied. So there's just a lot of alarmism going on with this. And one of the you know, problems with that then is is you know, because people are taking the actions they are, I know, you deal with the mental health issues, right that that is something that you have really studied. So for you know, families who are dealing with this, what can we you know, what are some of the things you're seeing in terms of mental health with kids and families that we should be on the lookout for in our own families. And if there are signs that we need to take action, what should we be doing. That's a great question. So the recent data that came out from the CDC about what's going on this pandemic with mental health is really just staggering, especially you know, young adults. We're reporting really high rates of anxiety and depression. You know, huge numbers like almost three quarters of eighteen to twenty nine year olds who are reporting clinically significant symptoms. So I think it's really important that we take care of ourselves as parents, and if we're having problems ourselves, we take care of those because I think parents are under so much stress right now, it's really just inable. Especially I've been so worried about the parents on the West Coast who are dealing with the fires on top of a pandemic. We have to find ways. This isn't just like a two week lockdown anymore. This is a long, a long term that we're dealing with, So we have to find ways to protect and promote our mental health. So for adults, you know, I think sometimes that means lowering our expectations of what we can get done realistically, you know, and asking for more help. I think prioritizing the basics like exercise and sleep. Those basic things are so easy to try to skip when you're crunched, but they really can make such a big difference in how you feel and help you feel more prepared for all the stuff that you have to deal with. Then, with regards to our children, parents to obviously worry so much about our children, but children are, for the most part, really resilient, and I think it's natural that children will struggle during this time. Their routines and their support structures have been disrupted too, So I think the first thing I'd say to parents is not to feel guilty if you see your child struggling, and not to you know, we have an opportunity to normalize it for our child and be like, yeah, it's hard, it's a hard. Time and it's okay to struggle, and then we can work together to build our coping skills, and that experience may actually help our children down the line too, because this won't be the first time they struggle in their life, you know, unfortunately, like they'll probably have setbacks, whether it's professionally or personally when they're older. And maybe you know, right now, we can teach them how to be mindful or how to find flow and in an activity you enjoy to help relieve your stress, or you know, how to prioritize connecting with friends or deep breathing exercises. There are ways that we can work to help our children before even leaving the house. And then, I think, especially for younger children, it could be confusing to know when they're struggling. So parents with kids under ten, you might see unusual signs, like maybe they're complaining about tummy aches or headaches, but you don't think they're really sick. They can kind of samaticize or have those sorts of complaints when they're feeling anxious or sad. I think tantrums and clinginess and sleep disruptions. Sometimes those just happen because of developmental changes, but sometimes when they don't go away for more than two weeks, it might be a sign that it's more a mental health related and pediatricians can help connect families with resources, whether it's books to help or professional help from a therapist. Because it can be hard to find those resources, sometimes I encourage parents to look for them earlier because if you say, like, this is my child's having a hard time, but maybe I'll just see how it goes and wait. Then later, if they're really having a hard time, then you're going to start the referral process, and it might be a month or two before the appointment. So if you're on the fence about it, sometimes just making the appointment and getting connected with the resources can be helpful. And then if after a session or two your child learns something and you don't think it's necessary, then you could always stop. Something I learned recently is that you know, you might have a young kid who's like three or four and think, oh my god, like, how are they gonna, you know, go to therapy, But actually there are therapists who specialize in kids that are really young, and a lot of what they do is working with the parents to help you, you know, find strategies to help them cope. So I thought that was really interesting that you shouldn't just write off the idea of getting helped just because your child is on the young side. Absolutely, it's really amazing some of the ways that they use play and art therapeutically for young kids, and it can be really helpful for children and it can be kind of fun for them to you, So it's not always the same as we would imagine it to be. Well, very cool, Sarah, Did you have any more questions, sir No. I thought that was great, just nice and balanced. And again, we are not at all trying to quote unquote minimize this pandemic. This is you know, obviously has caused a lot of a lot of suffering, a lot of death, so please don't this discussion is not meant to minimize that suffering. But at the same time, everything has context, and I think it's important to make sure that it's there. And Kelly, doctor Brayden, is one of the people who I think is doing a great job at taking it seriously but also providing some really important background in context so we can think about things logically. Thank you. It's a lot harder to oh, I was just going to say, I think it's as soon as it's a lot harder to dig into the nuance because it's more complicated. It's easier to say just stay home and do nothing and protect yourself because that's the most surefire away that you won't get sick and you won't encounter risk. But I think, especially given the duration of this, we have to really dig in more to how we can preserve our lives as best we can safely for our family and responsibly and find that middle ground that it's not always black and white, that there's like some gray where we can still enjoy what we enjoy about life during this difficult time. Well Son, so Kelly, I was about to say that we always end with our love of the week, which is something that we're really happy with right now, and Sarah and I can go first to give you a minute to think about it. So mine this week is you know, my older kids are in virtual school. That's how our districts started. We made the decision to pull our kindergartener out of the public schools and put them in a private one that was meeting in person, and it has been the best decision I am. I am thrilled with his in person schooling, So that is that we just started. When we were recording this, we had just started last week, so this has been his first week of it, and it is it has been wonderful. So that is my love of the week, Sarah, how about you? Oh, mine has nothing to do with that, although I'm also very happy about in person school thus far for my first grader. But Mochy Things m O c h I t h I n G is a Instagram targeted ad that totally sucked me in the other day and it's a beautiful stationary shop with mostly international offerings, so obviously very very up my alley. But if you just want some soothing Instagram promoted browsing, you should check it out. Mooky Things awesome. Kelly, how about you? Yeah, same as what you've said. Really, watching my kids start back to school, you know, after an anxious time and being so isolated, you know, you worry about your child losing social skills or forgetting how to have fun with their friends. And watching a couple of boys run around in the park, I mean they were masked, but they were so delighted to view together again the classmates. So that was really nice seeing them play and seeing them still experiencing a little joy. Wonderful. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for joining us, and people can find you. Can you share again your social media handles where you're giving the advice you'd give your friends. Yes, so I give parenting and pediatric health advice on Instagram and Facebook at advice I give my friends, and I have a website with that name. To advice, I give my friends dot com where I have the monthly newsletter, and then the book Parenting in a Pandemic how to Help Your Family through COVID nineteen is available wherever books are sold basically online as an audiobook, paperback, and e book, and I'd love it if people would check it out and let me know what they think. Please do that. I'm sure a lot of our listeners will be there very sore. All right, thank you so much for joining us, Kelly. Okay, thanks so much. All right, Well that was a fantastic interview. I loved speaking with Kelly. What a great resource and perspective that she has. So this Q and A. I think I'll read it because I actually wasn't even sure if it was for this podcast. A little more anonymous, but that's okay. This person is super in love with planners. And she said she had her first baby around the same time as Laura had her fits, so he's eight months old now. She says, the baby is not more difficult to take care of than an ordinary eight month old. But we are just floundering on most fronts. Things are falling through the cracks. I'm unwittingly ghosting friends, missing appointments, and my lists are constantly out of date, especially on the home front. At this point, I feel like even if I got a whole day to myself, I would probably just tinker around the edge of is because the enormity of trying to see all of the fallen down pieces of my former life is too much to handle. And then she puts in parentheses and maybe over dramaticize it. Anyway, not having time to plan like I used to makes me anxious and bad tempereds so it's not good for anyone. I think I need to create some sort of mini version of a ritual that is achievable. What I wanted to ask you was a can I get some sympathy because my husband does not understand why it's so important to get to inbox zero or keep my bullet journal in order and be if you were in a life situation where you have very little free time, what are the bare bones of your planning system that you could do in a short time window and still achieve most of what you wanted to do? And then she wrote, anything else you have to say about this time in your life would be appreciated. And she also said that what we mentioned on a best of Both Worlds episode recently, that the baby year is just about surviving, she felt a huge sense of relief. So yay, I'll answer first, cause I think Laura has a more valuable answer being in the thick of it right now. Well, actually, and I have another thing to add, which is that when I was in that post baby period, I actually switched planners, which is really odd thing to say, but uh, or do maybe. But you know, I normally use this detailed hoe bunichi thing that has a page for every day, and I'm feeling the stuff to do and I was like, that is just too much base because I can't do that much and it's like disheartening to see an empty page of things when I don't have the bandwidth to do all these things. So I did switch to a weekly planner so that if there were only three things on that page and they got checked off, it looked better than an empty pitch for the only three things in it that got checked off or one thing. So you may want to consider not using a bullet journal, or you know, making the space for each day a little smaller to acknowledge the fact that you do have less ability to get things done right now. And that's okay from a concrete standpoint. I hope that you have enough help. You mentioned that your husband is staying home. I hope that he is giving you the same kind of courtesies that many stay at home mothers give their working partners, like hopefully he's helping with meals and like, you know, giving you a little bit of time, all that kind of stuff. And if you have the ability or need to get some help in addition, that that could be something to consider. If that feels right to you. I will say that things will improve with time, and I think Laura's going to get more into that. If you are pumping, and I don't know if you are, but you have an eight month old, well, I got to say in my experience those months were like the worst. It was just survival mode. Laura thinks I'm crazy for putting in the effort that I put in sometimes, but I'm still I don't really regret it, but I will say I didn't get much done and I was not the most happy human being or productive during those months. And then if you could just carve out a little time for you, maybe negotiate with your husband a very specific window to do that bare bones triage, Like you don't have to get to inbox zero, but at least you can make a daily to do list and look at what you have going on, you know, each day. That might help to give you the damage control and explaining to your husband or partner like how that has a mental health benefit for you, not just concrete productivity benefit might be helpful. Yeah. I mean, Sarah had pasted this email into here, and one of the things she had said is, you know, some of listening about planning and stuff just makes her sad. And I want to stress here that I'm just surviving too, Like, let's be honest, I mean there are drop balls all over the place, Like I get an email pretty much daily from somebody being like, hey, weren't you supposed to do that? And I'm like, whoops, I guess I was didn't. Sorry. Somehow, the important ones they just make their way back to you, though, and they may get back the person follows up, usually her calls, and I'm like, oh yeah that. I mean, you know, best of both worlds. We love babies. This podcast loves babies, but babies are also incredibly hard, and the transition to parenthood is especially hard. I mean, I at least have the benefit of having been through this five times, so I sort of know how it goes. You know, this listener has just had her first and so she's gone from a world where she probably had it together. Now she doesn't. Words, I was a mess long before this, like thirteen years, so it's okay, you know, I'm there wasn't that much of a change, so, you know, I think think just in terms of planning, having, as she said, want a set time or at least a ritual of it. Like maybe not a set time because it's hard to do with a baby too. But I Friday, I make my list for the upcoming week. These are the things that have to happen. Some of them are things that are going to happen anyway, Like kids start school, that's a priority for the week. But sometimes even just naming them as a priority reminds you that it does matter, and they're supposed to have some mental bandwidth, and so you can give them the attention they deserve. And then see, oh, well, if I've got this big thing going out, I probably shouldn't schedule other big things because there is something that's going to require a lot of mental bandwidth. But just just choose a couple top priorities professionally, personally, relationships and see roughly where those can go. Don't assign yourself too many things for each day, leave a lot of open space. I try to have nothing on Friday because I know I will get behind from the other stuff during the week, and by having Friday open, that's where it can all go. And that helps with it too, So you know, and just sort of embrace the more flexible, live and let live side of your personality at this point that I think sometimes the transition for parenthood is hardest for people who are accustomed to having things be absolutely a certain way. And that's fine. I mean, it's often possible to be very high achieving in life if that's you. But it's a little harder to make that transition than when your child doesn't do what your child you know, is supposed to do at X time. So yeah, that's what i'd say. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been mostly talking COVID and risk and how we should interpret those risks with Kelly Fraden, and we will be back next week with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both Worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.