Podcast: Parenting without a village

It's been a long time dream to have my own podcast where I can freely educate about parenting issues dear to my heart without being limited by the 30 second watch time of Instagram reels. And I'm so glad that I have launched the Modern Indian Parent Podcast to do exactly that. 

We release episode every Friday on various parenting topics and offer a modern age take on them to bust myths and guide young parents to own their modern parenting choices.

You can find and subscribe to the podcast on Youtube and Spotify 

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Episode 8 - Parenting Without Village; Learn from Expat Indian Moms how to raise kids with little support

Introduction:

In this episode, Rinie and Sanchita discuss the challenges of parenting without a village, where families are living away from their extended family support. They share personal experiences and practical tips for managing parenting responsibilities in a nuclear setup. The key takeaways include getting partners involved in parenting, hiring help such as nannies or childcare centers, investing in courses and coaches for guidance, and joining parenting communities for support. They emphasize the importance of self-care and lowering expectations to avoid burnout.

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Prefer to read? Here is the full transcript of the episode:

Rinie (00:11)
Hello and welcome, our modern Indian parents. Welcome to the ninth episode of our podcast. I am Rinie, I'm a pediatric sleep consultant.

Sanchita Daswani (00:20)
And I'm Sanchita, a pediatric nutritionist, and every week we bring you episodes where we are redefining parenting in Indian families. Let's bust some myths and own our modern parenting choices, even if Nani and Dadi don't agree with them.

Rinie (00:34)
And today we're going to be talking about a very interesting topic which is parenting without a village. Now this topic is honestly very close to my heart because I gave birth while it was the middle of the Covid lockdown in Singapore. So I genuinely didn't have anybody around. I didn't have my parents, my parents -in -law. Nobody could come in and help us out when we had our baby. And that experience taught me a lot.

It also made me realize that the situation that I was in is not very unique. A lot of families, parents, young parents are moving away from their families, from their parents, from their siblings. They could be moving away for work. They could be moving away for education. They could be moving away for marriage. But they are moving away, which is making their village that they were supposed to have leaner and leaner.

And this is what we're going to talk about today.

Sanchita Daswani (01:46)
Yeah. So, you know, everyone needs a village. I think there is this stigma where, of course, mom guilt comes in, where we feel like we need to do everything. It's difficult to have a spotless home, cook all the meals, have a career, an amazing relationship you know, with our partner, great friendships, also self -care. You can't, and we all know kids are so demanding, especially in the first few years.

We are now as parents, which I love, we are accepting that it's okay to delegate. It's okay to take that step back. Of course, that mom guilt keeps coming in, which we're gonna talk more about today, but it's nice to have a village that all have the same purpose, which is to help raise our kids.

Rinie (02:33)
You know, Sanchita, the thing that you're telling me, it sounds so amazing. Like, I wish I had that. I wish I had the people around me who I could very confidently delegate to and have that same peace of mind that, they're going to take care of my children or my child the same way as I would. But sadly, the society that, a lot of us are living in, the nuclear families that we are in, the expats life that we are living, we don't necessarily have that support.

And in this episode, this is exactly what I want to talk to parents about, the ones who are living in these nuclear setups, on how they can make the most out of their parenting journey without having the traditional village that we were supposed to have back in the days.

5 Practical Tips to Handle Parenting with Little / No Support

And I'm going to go into these five very practical tips that they can implement in their life to have a balance that I think all of us are craving to be able to beat that mom guilt, to be able to make time for yourself as well as take care of your children in the best possible way. So these are the things that we're going to dive right into today. So let's get right into it.

Tip #1 - Get your partner/husband more involved

The first tip that I want to give parents who are, you know, parenting without a village is you need to get your partners involved. And I think this is specifically for mums who are listening, I want to let you know that the village starts with your partner.

And they are going to be the primary member of it. And in many of the traditional families, where parents are staying and a lot of members of the family are helping out, you can see that dads may not be actively helping out as much. But if you are a nuclear family, believe me, dads need to step up and step in from day one.

I'm talking making baby sleep, burping, cooking, bathing, going out, diapering, every single thing in the early months. And even in the later years, when your focus is on their development, their education, their engagement, dads need to be extremely hands on. Because I'll tell you something, when you are parenting village less it's very normal to kind of slip into these what people call them the biological roles, right?

Where the mom is the nurturer and the dad is a protector. But in more modern terms, it looks like that the mom becomes the default parent and the dad becomes the helper. So I see so many moms in my work that I do as a sleep consultant where the moms are praising their fathers. They're like, my husband helps out a lot.

I'm like, that's great. I'm so glad that your husband is involved. But at the end of the day, the ideal setup for a family that doesn't have a lot of support is the parents need to be partners. you have one parent who is just the default for everything and one parent who is just helping out wherever they deem fit or wherever they find space to help out. Sanchita, do you feel about this?

Sanchita Daswani (05:38)
You know, I love it because you are also talking about you see it with the people you work with. And actually, I was just telling someone that day that I would say about 50 % of my consuls, the dads come on the call. And every time I tell someone that, they are very fascinated. And I think times are changing now and the husbands are realizing that they need to play an equal part. And everyone's like, why are they bothered with the meal plans?

And I said, they want to be involved. They want to be there at meal times. They want to eat with their kids. They want to be involved in the meal prep. So every time they come on, I'm so proud of them. I'm like, thank you for being on this call. And I think people are realizing that important. It's so great. And for me, my experience, my husband keeps joking. He's like, the reason I've helped so much is because we had twins. I didn't have a choice. So I keep telling him, but that seems to still be that mental block there that for dads that, you know, I know dads who not even changed a diaper because they said, that's not for me. I'll take my kids out to the park.

I'll do this, but I'm not going to do that. But I think there's a lot of husbands who are realizing, like my husband also, like he won't even think twice now if he has to change a diaper or do these things that normally only the moms are supposed to do. So I really enjoy seeing the shift personally and professionally.

And it's so important, especially if you're in a nuclear family, there's no way that the mom can handle it all. So it's quite a beautiful thing to see that these times are changing now.

Rinie (07:12)
Most definitely, I think times are changing, but even in the most, I would say progressive, educated families, you mentioned that mental block, right? no matter how involved the dads are, there is still that whole understanding of like, you decide where you need my help and I'm happy to help you, but you need to be the one delegating it to me.

And that's exactly where the invisible mental load of the mum starts to grow and it actually starts to make the whole parenting so much harder for mums who don't have a lot of support. So I'll tell you a very simple system that my husband and I started using when our baby was very young because I realized this very early on that because of the whole maternity leave concept and also, you know, just the way things were with the feeding and everything, we were slipping into that role of me being the default and my husband helping out.

So we really sat down one day and this is something that I encourage parents to do is sit down, mark time for yourself where you list down everything that needs to be done around the house. Whether it's the cleaning, the cooking, the baby care, every single element of it. And I'm talking about down to restocking diapers because all of these small, small, small, menial tasks, they add up.

Now from there, what you could do a very simple exercise office, have a piece of paper, have three columns in it. And I'm talking about families who, let's say, don't have a nanny or something. Let's say if it's just mom and dad, then have those three columns where you have a task list for mom and the departments that she's in charge of. You've got a task list for dad, the department that he's in charge of. And then you've got both, where it's possible that you could be taking turns to do this just to kind of have that equal distribution of tasks.

Rinie (08:58)
So, and let me tell you something, I don't mean to do this, I don't want to do this exercise for you to get into a competition with each other. Because the thing is, we don't want to get a 50 -50 out of it. It's not a you go, I go situation. It's more like you have to look at everything that needs to be done inside the house and outside the house and finding an equitable balance.

So it's possible if my husband's work commitments were a lot higher than mine, there were longer hours, more meetings, longer travel. His plate was fuller on the work front. So his home tasks were lesser, but it's not that they were absent. You know, it's not that he was only helping out when he had the chance to or when he felt like it was, there were some things that were very much his responsibility. And if he needs my help, he will let me know but they are not my default tasks. And when I unburdened those default tasks from my head it made the world of a difference on how stressed I was feeling and how the whole parenting journey kind of panned out for us.

Sanchita Daswani (10:08)
I really love how you said to write it down because for moms, I think, and I was talking to you about this earlier, right, that we have this mental load. even if our husbands have taken the kids out for the day, we are always, our minds are racing. Did they eat a snack? Did we pack a jacket? You know, what are they going to come home and do? What time are they going to sleep? So we are constantly working, even if we're not physically with our child, that mental load is there. So for me, what I

always helps me release that is when I actually write it and I see everything in front of me, then also I realize it's not as intense once it's in front of you. So like even deciding which school for our kid to go to, or like sometimes on the weekend, if like my kids have two birthday parties and then they have to go there, I just tell my husband, I'm like, look, I just need you to sit with me.

And I want to just discuss it. I know I can handle it, but I just want to bounce it off of you on how are we going to go through our day. Just having that support around is so good. And I love that idea of just writing it down and discussing it because it just makes it makes us feel lighter.

Rinie (11:11)
Most definitely. I think that sharing that mental responsibility is something that even if physically, you don't have to, let's say, I've got a dog and physically I'm not the one giving my dog food. But then if I am the one constantly keeping a track of like, okay, it's 8 a We need to give her food. If it's 10 p I have to give her food. It's like, if my husband is doing that, I know that there's one lesser thing for me to think about and that actually helps a lot with this. So this was my first big tip on how to manage if you have not much of a family support.

Tip #2 - Hire the "village" by getting nannies / cleaners / daycare support + plan a budget for it

Let me bring you to the second very big tip that I have. I value this the most out of all the things that I'm gonna share with you is if you can't have a traditional village, hire one. And hear me out on this. What is a village at the end of the day?

A village is basically a group of people, who have the same goal of taking care of your child And if you're unable to have family members or friends who are able to help you out with that, that doesn't mean that's the end of the world. There are village members who you can hire and it could look as simple as having a weekly cleaning service and that just kind of reduces one task off your plate. It could be a nanny or a babysitter who comes in a few times a week. It could be a full -time live -in nanny, which is the case for a lot of the countries such as India, Singapore, Hong Kong, UAE, but not so much in other countries. Or it could be an external childcare center. No matter what level of support you choose, it is important to have a hired form of village to ease your load of parenting. Otherwise, it's going to become too much for you.

Sanchita Daswani (13:02)
I think now parents are accepting that they need help. How would we go about even like starting? Like how do you even like, where would you find a nanny? Or how do you know where to look? Or how would you go about it?

Rinie (13:13)
So Sanjita, the first thing we did, well, we started off by planning a budget for it. Because every single kind of support that I just discussed, whether it's the meal service or the cleaning service or the nanny or the child care center, they all come with a very different price tag. And especially as you move out of India, these costs can add up quite quickly. So this is what we did is that even when we were pregnant,

We did do a budget of things, you know, and how we're gonna do this thing. Are we gonna have a part -time helper? Are we gonna have a full -time helper? Are we gonna go and send our child to childcare? And the system that we ended up at, which was perfect for our budget and perfect for our needs, was that we're gonna have a live -in helper with us, and the privilege of living in Singapore is that live -in helpers are easily available. And I know for you as well, you live in Hong Kong and that is the same situation for you.

But let's say I work with families in Australia and UK, US. For them, finding a live -in helper is not the most financially viable option. So for them, they probably need to start looking at babysitters who are coming in part -time or childcare centers near them. But the first step would be to plan a budget and to start saving for it. And this is where I see a lot of parents go wrong, is that they do plan budgets.

and start saving money when they're planning to have a kid. But what they are usually planning for is stuff. So they're planning budgets for, okay, this is my nursery renovation budget. This is my crib budget. This is my budget for the car seat. This is for the stroller. This is for feeding supplies. They are planning budgets for things, which are important, no doubt. You need a lot of things when you have babies, but what they don't plan budget for is support. And that is the problem.

that parents run into when they actually have the kid, they're like, okay, I've got all these things, but I have nobody to actually physically help me out. I need that extra set of hands. And, you know, I didn't plan for that. So this is why I would tell like, you know, parents, if you know you're gonna be in this situation where you don't have a lot of help around you, plan that expense during your pregnancy, or even earlier, depending on how high these costs are in the country that you're living in.

Sanchita Daswani (15:33)
Yeah, I remember for me also, like we knew, okay, I'm pregnant, we're gonna have twins. So we already knew like, okay, we need a nanny. So we had planned for that. And we even had her come in, you know, a month or two before so she could get used to the whole house and the way we ran and like just get comfortable with everything. And, you know, another important thing is how do you choose the right nanny? Because it's so interesting because I've had experiences where...

you know, the first nanny I had, she was great with the kids, but I felt a lot of, I was a little bit anxious around her. Sometimes you just get that vibe because I always felt my kids liked her more than me.

And it was just that vibration I was getting from her and I remember talking to cousin and I told I said you know what I'm not feeling good about it and she's like look either you accept that you have help and Embrace it and know that they will of course have a bond with her because she's spending so much time or You do it all by yourself, and I think that was a wake -up call for me I was like I think I don't know I was just thinking too much and I realized you know what I really

I appreciate her. I appreciate the help. And in fact, I want her to be loving with the kids. I want my kids to like her. But of course, as moms, you always second guess. So picking the right nanny, how would you any tips on that to make sure to kind of hope that we get the right person?

Choosing the right nanny for your children

Rinie (16:43)
You know, Sanjita, like what you are sharing about having that level of insecurity when the nanny is really great with the kids, I've experienced it. I just felt that like, my God, is it going to affect my bond with my child? But that's the thing, right? It doesn't hurt to have multiple attachment figures in the house. And, you know, it's just good for our children. Now, in terms of how to pick the right nanny, there are the best two ways of going about it, and this is from my personal experience as well, is either you go by references or you go to a right agency.

Because I'll tell you, there are a lot of underhanded ways of finding nannies. And I did that. I knew I had to look for a nanny because that's what we had decided on in terms of our childcare. And just then, the borders were closing down. In Singapore, they were kind of blocking flights from every possible destination especially India because COVID cases were rampant across India and I was in such a rush on doing things that I actually found someone through Facebook. There was a Facebook group for hiring helpers and I found her through that. She messaged me. We did like one or two video calls. I tried to do a reference check but it was kind of like half -baked but because I was in such a rush and I didn't do my due diligence,

I ended up flying her down. And I'll tell you this. And you know what, Sanchita, the funny thing is that the reason, one of the reasons I trusted her was because she was a twin mother herself. And I was like, my gosh, she would be a pro at this. If she has handled twins, then a single baby would be like, no issues. And that's what made me trust her.

But when she actually came down, I realized that her experience and her methodologies, the way she handled my baby, was so different from what I wanted and what I was comfortable with. And that actually made the first few months that I had of my baby actually very much less than desirable. They were actually very difficult.

And that's where I learned my lesson that going through a reliable agency, even if you have to pay more money upfront, because agencies will charge you that money, but they will do that background check for you. They will do that referral check for you and they make sure that the person who's entering your house has got the right qualifications to be there.

So this is something that I would advise parents to do that even if it costs you a little bit extra, believe me, it really matters who you're welcoming into your house. And I think another very important step of that is having thorough interviews.

So having a list of questions as laid out in terms of, you know, what are the things that you're looking out for? How would they handle such a situation? What is the vibe? that you're getting from them. I think all of these things really matter in picking out the right nanny. you have had two nannies like you mentioned so far, right? How did you go about selecting them for your babies?

Sanchita Daswani (19:50)
Yeah, so the same process where we have agencies in Hong Kong and my mother -in -law is actually very good. Like I'm not very good at questioning or assessing personalities, but she was good at it. So she was the one who spoke to them on the phone. She asked the right questions. And also even when they came, she made it very clear that this is the way we work in the house. And, you know, she was very loving, but also stern, which is something I'm still trying to learn.

But we went through that and we've been very lucky with the help we've gotten. They've really been great and loving and hardworking. So yeah, I think definitely go through a trusted source and check with references as well. But I wanna ask you if a nanny is not an option, because of course some places in the world, it's just very pricey to have that. And if you choose to send your kid to a childcare instead, what would be the few things we should look at? Because I know from you and I send my kids,

The first thing I looked at was like, look, I didn't send them to childcare, but I sent them to play group. It was only like two or three hours a day. But for me, the main thing was decent school where they spoke English and it was nearby because I'm like, they're so small. I need them nearby in case something happens or if I'm going with them. So location for me was a big one. The budget was pretty much the same everywhere. Like the schools were all similar price, but location was the major one for me.

Rinie (21:14)

That's great. I think with the play group, if you've got kids going only for a couple of hours, there are definitely lesser metrics you need to look at, right? Because they're mainly going there to play as long as they've got good interactions, you know, in English, especially if you're in a country where English is not the main language. If you've got those things going, that's amazing.

But if we look at, let's say, a family who would be living abroad in other countries, even in Singapore, it is very common to send your child for a full day daycare because maternity leave, sadly in Singapore, the government sanctioned maternity leave is only for eight weeks. That's two months. And after that, if your company chooses to give you a longer maternity leave, amazing for you, but the government sanction maternity leave is only that short.

So there are a lot of mums who are compelled to go back to work, to be able to support their families, their careers. So in Singapore, we do have infant care facilities that start as early as two months old.

And then they can go on all the way till six and then after that your child is into full -time school. Now, personally for me, I chose to send my child at 18 months, but then things kind of didn't go as planned. So we tried again when she was two and a half years old and now she's in full day -day care. She goes at nine in the morning and comes back at 4 .30 in the afternoon. She does her meals, naps, everything over there. And this is what the childcare looks like for us currently.

And the families that I worked with, a lot of them have very similar childcare arrangements where the child is going to a full day daycare, five days a week, and they pick them up in the evening so that during the working hours, the parents are free to go to office or work from home, however they choose to.

Choosing the right Childcare/Daycare/Nursery for your child

Now, the process of going about picking the right childcare center, the first initial filter you need to do is the two things that you just mentioned, the location and the budget.

Location, it has to be something nearby exactly as you mentioned. If something happens, you need to be easily be able to access your kids instead of like having to drive down an hour, take a train down for 30, 40 minutes. So that is a very important factor.

The other thing is the budget because maybe in Hong Kong the playgroups are all priced similarly but in Singapore there's quite a range. You have daycare centers that can cause as little as $300 a month all the way to two, two and a half thousand dollars a month. So you can imagine just that variability is so intense.

that you need to do your proper research, you need to figure out your household expenses and see how it fits into it. I know even the US as well, there are so many different kind of daycare centers and the facilities they provide, the kind of care they provide, they really differ. So of course you wanna give the best to your child, but a $2 ,000 daycare may not be a feasible option for you. So limit the search to the daycares that you feel really fit into your budget and then look at the further criteria.

Now the other criteria is then you can go on and look at is, what is their pedagogy like? Which is basically how are they teaching your child? Are they following very play -based methods? Are they following very academic methods? Which one suits your parenting style better?

I would 100 % look into the punishment policy for schools. I know in most schools it's not illegal to punish babies. But even like, you know, are they doing things like timeouts? Are they giving, are there like naughty corners or things like that where, you know, they shall sign the child for reflection. So I do want to know a little bit more about that.

Having transparency with the school system, like, you know, how well are you able to communicate, how many pictures, photos, like what are the things that you are able to get from the school and, you know, the thing that your child is participating in? Because if you're sending a very young child in, they're not going to be able to share with you. What they went through in the day. It probably won't even start happening until they're four years old. So you need to have a very good understanding with the school that what kind of transparency are you expecting from the school in terms of updates?

 

Is sending my child to daycare impact attachment?

But the main thing I'll tell you is when you're picking your child care, right, one thing that you will definitely question yourself is, is it too early? Is it going to break the attachment that I have with my child? Is this separation is going to cause my child to become anxious?

So you are going to have these concerns. And recently, Dr. Mona Amin from Peds Doc Talk, she put a reel about this where, you know, there is this like wave of controversy that people are saying that like, it is torture to send your child to childcare. Look at that, they are crying, they're crying when they see you, when they meet you at the end of the school.

And what Dr. Amin means is so accurate that, you know, children, just because they're separated from you for whatever number of hours during the day, doesn't mean that they're going to be tortured over there. There are so many schools that take wonderful care of your children. They become a secondary, attachment figure in your child's life, nurturing the same connections having the same kind of relationship that you would want to have with your child and that's amazing.

I think that's where one of the things that I would say look out for is also the teacher to student ratio in your child's school. So if you've got like 15 kids under one teacher then you know possibly the level of care that they would get might be lesser. Not bad but just lesser so do look at that but at the end of the day is it going to traumatize your child in any way? No because you are still that loving caring figure in your child's life. know?

Sanchita me, like, you started sending your children to full day day care at what point?

Sanchita Daswani (26:49)
In kindergarten now and honestly because of COVID everything was like closed. So we didn't send them to school till they were two and a half and we sent them to a play group and that was just like two, three hours. But what I liked about Hong Kong and I'm sure a lot of places is you can go see the schools, you can do a tour. And I think for us as parents, a lot of it is like listen to your gut and intuition. And even when I talk to my friends, like when you go to a school, you just know.

You get that feeling. Like I went to one or two and I was like, no way, this is not my vibe. And when I went to other one, I'm like, wow, I like it, I like the teachers. So I think that's really important.

And, you know, I want to talk to you, I want to shift gears a little bit now to talk about sleep training and how that has helped you. Because I think also when you're in a nuclear family and you're living on your own, a lot of the responsibility is all on you.

So how did sleep training help you to parent without a village?

Tip #3 - Sleep Training to help your child sleep through the night

Rinie (27:47)
just for, you know, listeners who may not know what sleep training is, sleep training is just a process of helping your child how to learn to sleep on their own so they can sleep without rocking, nesting, bottle feeding, you know, patting. And they're able to sleep independently in their crib. And because of that, they're actually able to sleep all night.

And what that looks like for babies is that, you know, it could be that they go down to bed at like 7, 8 p in the evening and then they wake up straight away in the morning at 6, 7 a And this is what I had once my daughter turned six months old. So until six months, we were just in the trenches of sleep deprivation. I was very much on the verge of PPD. I already had a lot of anxiety. But then because of the sleep deprivation, it was just getting worse.

As we were going through it and I was like, you know what, I can't take this anymore. And finally we did sleep training when she was roughly six months old. So from the age of six months, she was sleeping 11 hours straight at night.

And I tell you the transformation that it brought about in my life because I felt I had the energy to conquer it all. Like everything that we just spoke about earlier, which is everything from the career to your friendships, to your partner, to your home, to focusing on self care.

Because I was getting the sleep that I needed, which supported my body physically and mentally, I just, I felt like superwoman the next day, you know, going from this sleep -deprived mom -bee who was just kind of like going through life in this hazy manner where I didn't know what was going on. I was frustrated with everything. And going from that to this person who is just energized, ready to take on the day. That is what sleep training did to my life.

Sanchita Daswani (29:27)
That's what I always say. I'm like, OK, at least if we can sleep in the night, then we can handle whatever happens in the day. But we just need to get good rest and we can tackle it all because we really can do a lot.

So, you know, my experience with the night is something that my husband and I made very clear from the beginning that, you know, we have a nanny, we have help but we're gonna make sure that they're there during the day, but I wanted to make sure that they would rest at night. So we always said that the two of us would handle the night.

And so of course for that then we were exhausted when our kids were waking up at night and of course going through all their phases, but it was something that even though we had a village, we didn't have one at night. So sleep training really helped us get that piece of sleep that we needed. So I want to say that sleep training really helped me a lot. In the beginning, I followed a book and my kids were sleeping quite well, but especially later on when they're one and a half and waking up every two hours, it was just too much. And that's where I was like, you know what? I need an expert. I need someone. It's OK to ask for help. It's OK to approach these different ways of parenting that our parents are not used to.

And this is when I really felt like, wow, investing in courses, investing in coaches is so, so important.

Tip #4 - Learn from coaches / courses / experts about parenting

Rinie (31:00)
Yeah, and I think that brings me to my tip number four to all the parents who, you know, one of the key things that we get from the village is advice. You know, your parents are there or your uncles and aunties or your cousins are there who have had kids before. They're able to look at a situation, offer you some valuable advice. It may not always the best advice, but at least you have people offering you advice. But what do you do? Who do you turn to when you have questions?

About sleep, about nutrition, about potty training, lactation, there are so many things that you have to navigate as a parent. This is where I would say investing in the right coaches and courses is going to save your life. Because as we mentioned earlier, parents, are budgeting and they are planning for the things they need to get, but they're not planning and investing in the right knowledge that they need to get because

Believe me, parenting is a learned skill and where you choose to learn it from, that will actually make a very big impact on how it actually turns out for you. And you know, it's a very stressful experience because when my child was just not sleeping at night, I was reading hundreds of blogs. I was up to late at night and I was wasting all that time and energy trying to figure it out by myself when, and I didn't have anybody else to support me during that period.

when if I had just gone to the right coach right away, that could have made my journey so much easier with sleep. So, Sanchita how about your journey when it comes to nutrition with your children?

Sanchita Daswani (32:30)
So even with them, I remember staying up to like 5 a reading this book about how we should offer our kids liver and egg and my kids were vegetarian. And I remember stressing out and I was like, I wish there was someone who would have just told me it's okay. And this is what you follow that works for your family, that works for you. And that's why I said, I need to do something about this. And even for the sleep consultant, I was like.

I need someone to tell me what works for my child. And that's why these courses and coaches are so, so helpful. And that's what even now I just tell people, I'm like, you're struggling with your child's sleep, ask for help. And we're so lucky that there's so many experts and coaches out there Or I did a course called Big Little Feelings when my kids were one and a half and they were screaming the house down.

I was like, I have no idea how to talk to them or navigate it. And that it was life changing. So it's so nice to be able to have access to that today.

Rinie (33:27)
Yeah, that's I think that's like one very, very important thing to invest into.

Tip #5 - Find an online or offline community of parents in the same life stage.

And the fifth and the final tip that I have for parents who are navigating the parenting world without a village is to have a physical village of people of like -minded people, of people in the same life stage as you by joining parenting communities. There are so many mom groups out there that could be just about with people who are in the same situation as you. You know, there could be the groups that could be your ethnicity. So let's say if you're an Indian parent, I'm sure there are Indian mom groups in your local area. Or let's say if you're a twin parent, so there could be twin mom groups.

They could be both online and offline. I would encourage you to join an online and offline group with my daughter. None of my friends had kids when I had her. So when I was looking for support or when I was looking for a community of mothers, I then turned to these kind of groups. And during the COVID times, of course, I couldn't go for offline activities. So it was a lot of online engagement that we did. But once the COVID restrictions lifted,

and we could meet for things like walks in the botanical park, or we could meet for baby music classes and gym classes. That made such an amazing difference because you were meeting people who are going through the same experiences as you could talk about it, find that solidarity and experience. And that definitely made things a lot easier for me.

Sanchita Daswani (34:55)
Even for me, I remember there was a twin group that I joined on WhatsApp. And for all the Indian parents in Hong Kong, the year your child is born, you're put in that group. And I remember a lot of my close friends now are ones who I met through this, who I met at play dates. And because you're going through the same stuff, so you can always kind of vent, you know, they understand what you're going through. It's so important to have that. And sometimes, you know, in the family, like you have your...

little village that you set up at home as best as you can. But it's also nice to just talk to someone from the outside and just get a different perspective of what's going on.

Rinie (35:33)
Yes, that's so important to do that as well. And I think that brings us to the end of this episode. And if I could give you one last thing that I want to leave you off with if you are parenting without a village is you have to be kinder to yourself. You need to lower those expectations because if you try to do it all, you will end up so stressed and so burnt out. So it's okay to have a messy home. It's okay to have easy to go food options.

It's okay to just have a compromise that you made at work to be able to attend to your child or have a compromise that you make with your child to be able to attend to work. These things are going to happen and you need to forgive yourself for them instead of holding yourself to very high standards of perfectionism all the time.

Sanchita Daswani (36:19)
And to that, I wanna add on guys, don't be afraid to ask for help and delegate. It took me a while. I was trying to do everything in the beginning.

I've been able to be more present with my kids as well when I'm not thinking of a hundred things, when I know some things have been delegated. So don't feel bad. We're all doing it. And I think it makes us stronger. It makes us happier as well as parents when we do like.

Rinie (36:48)
That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that with us, Sanchita. And just like that, we are at the end of our ninth episode. Sanchita, do you want to tell everybody about what's in store for the 10th episode?

Sanchita Daswani (36:59)
Yes, Rinie has been like asking me all the time to talk more about this, which is basically how I've survived the first year with twins and my whole experience and journey with having two kids from pregnancy to the delivery to raising them in the first year and navigating all of these things in parenthood times two.

Rinie (37:22)
my God, I'm so excited for this. So stay tuned and join us for our 10th episode on how Sanchita will coach you on how to survive the first year with twins. See you, bye.