Q&A: what we'll do differently with baby #2, parenting style differences & our #1 goal for 2026

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1:02Happy New Year. Happy New Year. How do you feel? The exact same. I always love when people are like, New Year. As the words come out of your mouth, it is crazy to me that this podcast only started in 2025 because it just feels like we've been doing it for so long. Yeah. The end of January, February 1, 2025? Jules, what was the launch date of two parents? I think it was January 26th. That was the top of my head. Okay. Just a random Jules thinks it was January 26th if she was guessing. Well, she got it tattooed on her. Now I gotta look it up, but I do think that that's right. Okay. Well. I'm wrong.

1:49Wrong. January 30th. January 30th. January 30th. So we're not at a year yet. Which is the air week of January 26th. Good job, Jules. Never misses a mark. Never misses a mark, that Jules. Okay, cool. Well, today we're doing a Q &A episode. And we talked about this last episode, but where our minds are in the new year is get things in order because baby number two is coming. And the runway is not that long now. Get the base as high as possible. We got three and a half months. The foundation. and and then it is we are two under two and two under two is very different than one 15 month old those are two different ball games so a lot of the questions you guys ask had to do with that um and we're just we're gonna roll through the questions let's do it okay number one do you rotate who gets up with tate in the morning and who does bedtime routine and the answer to that is no, we do not rotate.

2:54We just... Well, that's a two-part question with two very different answers. Yeah. You do bedtime routine. Yes. I would say 90 % of the time. Harrison does bedtime routine. He loves to do it. He wants to do it. When it comes to waking up with her in the morning, whoever, I would just say, it used to be predominantly Harrison when I didn't feel good. But now that I'm feeling good again, if I'm up, I will just take her. Because here's the thing. Mornings are the best with bubs. So you want the slot, but not if you didn't sleep well. So we just take turns. And what we say, and I love that we do this, is we don't keep score, but we do acknowledge.

3:31So we never say, like, I've had her five days this week. We don't say that. We just say, hey, thanks for getting her. I noticed that you did that. Yeah, that was the most important part of this question that I wanted to hammer in on, is it goes and ebbs and flows. It goes and ebbs and flows. Yeah. And the one thing that I'm most proud of in it is the habit we built on showing appreciation and not keeping score. And I think the mornings are – you may have kind of just said the opposite, so I do want to clarify. I think the mornings are a lot harder than the night. Like I think the work is the morning.

4:13It's like who's getting up early? Like the night, just to kind of put that down. the reason why I like doing the night is because it is a six minute process it is such a routine it's a rinse and repeat it's a special moment but like we have a program down but some people's night time routines are a lot longer you build your own night time routine ours just isn't that long I don't think putting her to bed is like any form of real work the work I view is the morning but when I said but the mornings are more fun at night she's sleepy in the morning like she yeah it's a lot more work but she is so dang cute in the morning for sure but if it's 5 a.m like that that's that's real lift and and whenever you know but if i sometimes i go to bed at eight now and i pre every time you get her i'm greatly greatly appreciative of it and um to what we talked about i guess it was two episodes ago just like not keeping score.

5:14No, it's just thank you for getting her. And like, like when we were in Montana, for example, I think I got her the first two, you got her the last three. And that was just, it does change because listen, the first I got her the first two, guess what? Then I had slept less. So then I wanted to sleep in more, but Harrison got his good sleep. So we were able to trade off. So we just, just kind of earmark it like that. But listen, I was sick for 18 weeks. He got her every day for then. Yeah, but you were doing something way more important over those 18 weeks. I was baking. Exactly. Baking a baby in the oven.

5:49So, yeah, no, we don't rotate. We just, like, I don't know how to explain it. Just kind of look at each other and wink. Like, I got it. I got it. Yeah, I think that what I've seen now is the wake-ups are changing on like a week by week basis based off of like who's got the fire in them. And when Harrison does do bedtime, I'm typically putting the dishes up from dinner. Like I will say I do like grab a task. Yeah, for sure. I also like, I think that we're very lucky on this bedtime thing where it's really quick. Okay, question number two. But I do love, like I actually want to re-pivot that. Like I love putting her to bed.

6:34no you like I would rather you flew home to put her to bed I actually I don't know if I if I nailed the point like waking up with her is effort putting her to bed I like want to do every single night like if you like asked if you were like hey I'm gonna put her to bed tonight I'd be like of course but like I'd be a little sad no you I think the best way to put it is you came home I view them very different from Chicago I view them very different because I wanted to put her to bed you flew home on an earlier flight to put her to bed We talk every night and we'll put her but it's also like it's efficient.

7:08We're very lucky how efficient it is. You just wanted the bedtime routine. I was like okay. No problem. You got it dude. So yeah. I say the same thing to her every night and I think that it could be a really cool thing to maybe do one day. I literally say the same thing to her every night. Pull it from the nanette. We can pull it from the nanette and there can just be like hundreds and hundreds of days. On her wedding day, she can monogram it for you on something. What do you say? Do you want to tell us? Not a chance. Between you and her. And that. Between you, her and the guy that programs the nana.

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9:09Okay, the first one that we will do differently with baby number two is I will most likely not breastfeed for a year. Okay, so why is the question there? mentally I never felt like I was myself until I was done breastfeeding and then lo and behold I was pregnant again so I really do feel like it's been a constant hormone shift for me since but since I became pregnant with bubs like I was pregnant then I was breastfeeding now I'm pregnant again and it's just like that's been a lot on me mentally and physically but mainly mentally so I also with bubs put so much pressure like I was like okay I want to try and do breast milk for the first six months.

9:53So like I would pump at meetings. I would pump on planes. I would pump in the morning. Like that. It was like, Ooh, that I'm glad I did it. I have no regrets and I'm really proud of myself. Well, baby number two, I'm gonna do it differently. And I'm going to do 80, 20, 80 % breast milk, 20 % combo feeding. I'm very happy with that. And how long I will breastfeed and pump for, I don't know, but I do not believe at this point it will be a year that can change but i don't believe it'll be a year and then what's the second oh i just encourage you to give yourself grace and thank you you're very supportive um and i listen i'm gonna be a lot better like i'm i want my postpartum journey to be different like i do and i'm excited about that yeah so and i one thing i'm very good at and one thing harrison's good at it's like i'll just go to him and be like this is what it's gonna look like and he's like cool and I just say like this is what I'm feeling when it comes to because the breastfeeding thing is very personal to the woman.

10:54Totally. But Harrison, you're very good at making sure that I'm taking care of myself and you encouraged me to do that, so thank you. But I came to him and I was like, I'm thinking 80-20, and he's like, perfect. Whatever. Let me know. Just let me know. Whatever feels right. He's just washing bottles. My encouragement is to give yourself grace and to trust your instinct. And I know that it'll all work out. Thank you. I'm excited. I mean, the thought of putting a pump on makes me shiver. But I know when he comes, I will come around to that, just like I did with Bubz. So I'm excited about it, but I'm going to make it fun.

11:36Okay, number two. So Tate slept in our room for six months. I don't think this boy will. I think he'll sleep in our room for two months, three months. I have no idea. Yeah, I agree. I do not think that baby two will sleep in our room as long as he did. Yeah, I don't think that'll happen. And then the last thing we will do differently is we simply, you know, we won't travel nearly as much because we will have bubs. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that we will only be on planes as a family for family occasions. I think that all of our trips over the 12 months of him being born will be to either Oklahoma City or Vancouver.

12:24Yeah. And I think, yeah, everything else will probably just be you and I would be my instinct with maybe like one caveat and exception of like, a family vacation somewhere else. Or you take him. Because flying, you know, and then Bubz goes with a grandparent somewhere. Because flying with... Oh, interesting. I didn't even think of that. You know, like, we could do that. But it's a family of four. But it still won't be nearly as much because that right there is so much left. It requires either one of the grandparents coming into town or us... Dropping off a kid or... But here's the thing, because, like, flying, how many...

12:59We did this math. A lot. Tay was on a lot of flights, but flying when you fly with the baby that sleeps on a plane, it's easy. You're schlepping more stuff, but like they're asleep. But now Bubs, I mean, she was riding a horse yesterday on that flight. I was, my legs were cramping. It was like, there's a lot. And then to have, and then to have your hands full with the baby or vice versa. We could trade off. It would just be, whew. Yeah. There was a family on the flight from Seattle. We connected in Seattle from Seattle, Vancouver. And like. Two twins. How old were they? Two years old? Yeah. It was three kids.

13:31And the dad had two of them. and the mom had the one and they did an unbelievable job. They were incredible. They were dialed in and all I was thinking was like, wow, like you literally have your hands full and what a different experience it is as you had. They were cute. It was three under two is what it looked like. They had two twins. They had a girl and a boy twins and the dad had, he had the luggage cart with their bags piled up on it and the two twins sitting on top of it and the mom had the newborn and the doona and I was just like, you guys rock on. Yeah, so. But yeah, but listen, they're doing that for the holidays.

14:08Yeah, they said it was a family trip. Yeah, so that makes sense. So those are things, those are some couple things that we will do differently with baby number two. I'm trying to think if there's anything else, but no, that's, that's, I mean, the other question is things you'll do the same. So, okay, we'll do that now. Things you'll do the same with baby number two. Um, first thing I can think of is start solids at six months. I loved that. We'll do baby led weaning. That was great. I loved her eating program, loved her eating program and, and love where she's at today. Yeah. So, and I think that, that it obviously all, all ties together.

14:47Um, I think we'll do the same screen time approach with baby number two, which is in the first year they, they won't, I mean, listen, will they, will we turn off a TV when they're in the room? No. But like, will we do screen time with him in the first year? No, I loved the way we did that with Bubz. Very happy at how we managed to occupy your time. So that'll stay the same. Sleeping. We get a lot of questions about sleeping. Now, remember with Bubz, we sleep trained on ChatGBT and then we went back on it and we were like, we're not going to do. Well, let me jump in here. Okay. I think what we'll do the same of for sure is the SNU for the first six months.

15:25Totally agree. We love the SNU. If he likes it. If he likes it, but we love that snooze. I think we're going to definitely go with the snooze again. And then post-snoo. We got to see. It's baby to baby dependent. I totally agree. That's the thing. I totally agree. So a lot of people, these are the questions people ask us all the time. I mean, I get so many DMs about, do you sleep train? Do you not sleep? We didn't follow a real method with bubs. We got lucky. We tried the 5, 10, 15, but like. It worked a little. I think we got to say we got lucky with Bob's and how quickly she goes lights out.

15:58But she also gets up really early. So there I mean, Bob's Bob's is not afraid to make up before and be up for the day. So but we just like we're just like, OK, we'll just do it. And I know people say like you can just let it go back to bed. Like she's when she gets up the way we know she gets up. I guess we're defending is she stands and she just stands and yells. So it's not like jumps and she won't stop. so and we'll watch her on the nannit like it's very clear when she's awake and wants to start her day versus like when woken up when she like is is in yeah yeah in the middle of a still sleeping and gonna go back to bed totally totally so sleeping we just we take it as it comes we're really like i couldn't i can't like recount what we did there it's like we tried to sleep train the 5 10 15 works and she had a sleep regression then we were like okay we don't want her to sit there cry for five minutes so we changed on it like we're all over the map on it but bubs is a good sleeper i have one more thing that we're gonna do for baby two what continue to prioritize our relationship yes that's a really good one yeah it's a really really good one i think it maybe even more so with two kids yeah yeah like and and like i don't say that in a joking manner at all like the amount of time and energy and effort that we mutually spent on making sure that our relationship wasn't as good of a place it can be, I think is a massive driver of why we are so happy right now as a collective family.

17:29And so I don't want that to change with number two. Yeah, the minute we can go back to our Thursday date nights, it'll be great. Yeah, but even in beyond, like I totally, and now you're, ever since you like said we're not doing the date nights on Thursday, I actually don't think we've done one, but I do want to give us a lot of credit is how we've managed how we've managed to prioritize our relationship in other ways. I agree. No, I really agree with you. And I do. I think I feel good enough now that we can do Thursday date night. Oh, that made me so happy. And it would actually be a really good thing for us to implement before this next baby comes.

18:09That made me so happy. like our it's funny though because it's when you have the baby you do like there is a postpartum period for me there like i will just be like down yep and you'll be with but like that's gonna be so crazy with two kids we got it i know we do it's just gonna be crazy yeah um okay question number three starting to get nervous with giving birth best advice so i get being nervous to give birth because it's scary and if you've never done it before it's completely unknown and a lot of people say it's the hardest thing you'll ever do physically for me i think i had a pretty bad birth experience my epidural didn't work i pushed for six hours um i i know there's a lot worse stories than that i know there's a lot better stories than that and here's what i'll say i would the moment she came out i said i will do this again i want to do this again and your body just knows what to do so i think being nervous is always fine because it's something that's unknown but just know like your body and the doctors they will take care of you and the reward at the end is like the most beautiful thing on the planet and everyone told me that i was like oh please like you're so full of it it's true once you're on the other side of it, I think you'll say the same thing.

19:26So. And to the male listener, my, um, my thoughts are it is not your day and do everything in your power to support your partner as best as you can and put all of your energy and all of your love and all of your attention on them and giving them anything that they need that you can help with. Because they're having an out-of-body experience. It is so much more grand than you can ever imagine. You can't imagine it. You just have to go through it. You try to be so careful with the words there. Whatever. It's unimaginable. It's great. So now I'll say this. You always say like you will never get it.

20:21You'll never know. Yeah. You'll just never know. And so accepting never knowing and service in whatever way is possible. But I'm knowing it's still nothing in the grand scheme of things. I can't believe this because it was physically just truly the hardest thing I've ever done. I can't even explain to you. Every contraction I was like, I was like, oh my gosh. and then you're telling me I got to push this baby out and like you're exhausted and you're hungry. I sit here now, 15 months later, and I'm excited to do it again. That's what's so crazy. I'm excited. It's jaw dropping. I know, I know. I tell you what.

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23:01I'm recently obsessed with their lemon pepper chicken bowl. I eat it. I can eat the same thing over and over again. And that is my current favorite. So you're going to love Hungry Root as much as we do. For a limited time, get 40 % off your first box, plus get a free item in every box for life. Go to HungryRoot.com slash two parents and use code two parents. That's HungryRoot.com slash two parents, code two parents to get 40 % off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. Okay, like a little bit of a left turn here, and we've touched on this a lot this episode and last episode, but opinions on screen time.

23:38We know screen time is going to be a part of Bub's life. We're great with that. Right now, we're trying not to do it. We haven't done it. And when we do do it, we'll have parameters on it. And I think that's how we feel about it. We're finding other ways to entertain her, whether that's the latest thing being music and headphones to activity boards and so on and so forth. but then the time will come. The time will come, and we'll update you accordingly. Yeah, and I think the framework will be there on the times to watch and the times not to watch. Totally, totally. We want to have parameters on it when we do it.

24:20And where I want to give you a lot of credit and where I want to personally keep getting better and as a couple keep getting better is when I notice how much of this starts at the front and reducing my dependency on the phone and how much time I'm spending on my phone, I want to just like, that is a big focus of me into next year. And so like the way in the mornings I like don't bring the phone down, I want to find more and more moments like that where I'm removing myself from the screen. Because like that's so much to it. If she's seeing me on the phone. And you were saying no to her on her screen.

25:00It's not going to line up. and it's so much easier said than done. Yeah, but what I love too is we don't do screens anytime we're at dinner, you and I, because I don't want to sit across from somebody that's just scrolling. Yeah, you're so good at that. But once again, it's easier said than done. After a long day, sometimes you just end up... I have my times where you just want to brain rot. But meals are not one of them for me. And then the other time is if you're driving and I'm in the passenger seat, because my friend Maggie, she said this, our friend Maggie, she said being secondhand screen time is like secondhand smoke.

25:37If the person next to you is on their phone, it's just like you're also on your phone. And it's like if they're smoking, you're inhaling the smoke. And it was the most accurate description of how it feels when you're not on your phone and you're driving and the person beside you is just, they're not present. And I'm always like, I don't want, and I'll say this to Harrison and Harrison will say to me like, we don't want to be in the car by ourselves. I'm driving with you. So it's moments like that. you just put them down. Yeah. I want to get, I want your, your much better at this than I am, but the dinner thing, like I want to, I want to nip it totally in the back.

26:11I'll, I'll give myself my flowers here. If I go to the bathroom at dinner, my phone stays on the table face down. And, and I think what I, what I'm going to start doing now, like what helps in the morning is just leaving it upstairs. Cause then it's out of sight, out of mind. Totally. I think with dinner, it needs to go in your purse. And that's a great thing to do. Yeah. Because the problem is my pockets, it's too uncomfortable. It's too uncomfortable. So I put it on the, on, on the table when it's on the table, like it's just too easy to pick up. So I think it needs to go in your purse. Totally.

26:46Yeah, totally. Um, okay. So those are our opinion on screen time for bubs and ourselves. Next question. How do you handle parenting and disciplining differences among friends with kids? I like this question because we just had a friend who's expecting ask us this. She's expecting her first baby and she was like, okay, what do you guys do here? And, you know, it's fascinating. It's like with anything. It's like with work. It's like with just who you surround yourself with. You do want to have some form of like mind with them. Yeah. I think that if you look at the parents that we're spending the most time with right now, our parenting styles are very similar.

27:32Within reason. Within reason, of course. They're not perfect one-to-one matches. But I do think one commonality that we do have with our closest parenting friends is an openness to learn and an openness to change things. And so there is that consistent feedback loop where if one of our friends is doing something different, we'll ask or they'll ask us and then we'll consequently either update should we change the way we're doing things or sometimes our friends then change the way that they're doing things. But I think there's like certain non-negotiables where like I don't think, like we wouldn't hang out with parents that yell at their kids.

28:16Yeah, like a ton of yelling, anger, things like that. Just because we also wouldn't want bubs around it. Exactly. Versus like there's the smaller things on like the food or screen time, like whatever. Great. Do your thing. But I, but I, I, I feel like I'm talking too much here. So I'd love you to. no I think that's a really good way to put it because it's it's also like you have friends that if they have like such different values than you like you just don't hang out with them as much yeah and it's the same thing when it comes to parenting like birds of a feather do flock together and I think you know it's so much we constantly talk about building your community what do we call it building your what village build your village yeah in your village like Like you do, people need to have differing opinions, which I think is awesome.

29:02For sure. But I also think it's very important that like the baseline is the same. And so, yeah, it's disciplining differences, parenting differences among friends. You've got some you can tolerate totally in love and respect. And then you've got some where you're like, we're not going to hang out with them. And I just think that that's how it is. Exactly. With anything in life. And then there's also the areas in between where like some people, like not everything is also so extreme. Well, okay. If there's a couple that like their version of socializing is going out till 4 a.m. and doing like hard drugs, that's not ours.