 There's a lot of anxiety that can come along with expecting a brand new baby. So in this video, I brought over two very special guests to talk about it. What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. So if you're into that, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So, yeah, those of you who don't know, I'm a father. I have a beautiful 10 year old boy. Why did I call him beautiful? I don't know. Anyways, he's going to actually be 10 on New Year's Eve. And yeah, like there are so many mental health topics around parenting and I don't do nearly as enough. So I brought over my friend, Dan and his lovely wife, Amanda, who have a channel called Parent Passive Fire to discuss some of these things. So Dan is one of the coolest guys I've ever met. I actually, I've known him for a while, but I met him in person at VidSum a couple months ago. I was like, yo, dude, why don't you come over? Since you have a parenting channel, do some videos about parenting. Cause I know I've done some videos with my son. Like those of you who were around during the Shane Dawson series, I brought him on and people were like, Oh, more videos about parenting. So I thought it'd be awesome to introduce you guys to Dan and his wife, Amanda. So anyways, like just for me personally, I can definitely relate to a lot of stuff in this video because there was a ton of anxiety around when my son was about to be born. But for me personally, like I was in a different situation and I'm not like super unique. A lot of people deal with this, but I was actually still in my active addiction when we found out my son's mom was pregnant and I was unemployed and there was a ton of anxiety around it. But anyways, in this video, there's going to be a lot of tips and please do me a favor. Please, please, please do me a favor. If you are not a parent, like feel free to share this with somebody you know who is expecting a baby or thinking about having a baby. There are so many great tips in here, but also stick around until the end of this video. If you are a parent, because I would love to know your tips and tricks for managing anxiety as an expecting parent. All right. Anyways, I'm going to shut up and pass it over to Dan and Amanda. Hey, I'm Dan and I'm Amanda and we're husband and wife, mom and dad and we are from the parent pacifier YouTube channel and our website is parent pacifier.com. Chris asked us if we could come on and talk about the struggles and anxieties that new parents have. We for sure have experienced the anxieties of being new parents. It's actually why we started our YouTube channel and brand parent pacifier because we wanted to be able to help other new and expecting parents, you know, deal with the headaches and the struggles and just know what works really because when we became parents, it was like did not feel ready. So in this video, we want to be able to give you our tips and share with you our experiences about the anxieties of being expecting parents. Yeah, when I first was told that I was having a baby, I was at a doctor's office and I was just going for a regular check up and so it was right before Christmas and we were only two years married, not planning to have a child right away. We kind of wanted to wait for a little while and I had to break the news, not the cute little Pinterest story way. It was like I'm on the phone with him. He's at work and it's 8 in the morning and I'm about to go to my job and yeah, it was it was crazy, but I'm so thankful that Dan took it so well and he calm me down because I was beat red. I had to go to work, like I said, and I had to calm myself down because I had to function all day and not say a word to anybody. So it was really stressful. I had a lot of anxiety about that and and I had an anxiety about what the next step is. You know, I always knew I love kids. We were excited to have kids one day, but I never knew it was going to be this soon. So even thinking finance, you know, we're in a one bedroom apartment and do we have room for a baby? Do we are we ready? Are we ready to put a crib in here and just our lives were going to be so different, but we were really nervous about are we going to get questions like where are you going to live and you know, how are you going to afford that and you know, well, life is not about you anymore. And so there's so many different things that came up and we really just went to our friends and our family for support. Yeah, I think having support and that would be our first tip would be to have support like a support system of friends, family, your spouse, if you have one and and for us, our church super helpful support system of just to have conversations about baby stuff, but also to have conversations about non baby stuff. There's so much anxiety and so much stress and so much like what is next during that nine month period. Yeah, more like 10 10 month period that it's like I just want to have conversations not about this and that helps really bring down the stress levels and the anxiety and feel like, oh, well, life's still normal. Right. Life is still the same, especially like for us. We weren't expecting it, but it's what happened. And so you just kind of roll with the punches, right? So having that support system of close friends, close family that you can actually talk to. Yeah, it's huge, but what I think is even more important than that, especially for the moms is to have one or two close friends or someone that you can go to that you can be honest with and that they can ask you questions and be unbiased, right? Because family and friends, even spouses, it could be a little biased on how, you know, basically the advice they give you or the question that they ask because you might not feel like you can say the full truth or say that you're really feeling overwhelmed. You might need to say like, oh, I got this, like, especially as a new dad, like as an expecting dad, you know, I'm like, I need to take care of this family now this new baby and my wife who's pregnant. This whole new responsibility and although it was like incredibly motivating, I was like, all right, I need to become an entrepreneur. I need to do something because financially we're not where we want to be in our living space. We're not where we want to be, but at the same time, it's like, I can do this. I could be, you know, the man, but at the same time, I need to be able to go to somebody that could sit down. For me, it was, it was my friend and pastor who I was able to sit in his office and be real with and also family as well. I could be able to do that, but I think it's very important to have someone outside of the family that you can go to and be honest with, especially for moms with, with the amount of things that can happen. Oh yeah. I mean, even just the pamphlet that I was handed that day of what you can and cannot eat. There was so much anxiety about that. And then I had friends who were also pregnant who were giving me advice about, no, you can eat that and no, you can have that. And I'm like, no, I don't want to get just seasonal diabetes cause I'm already pre-diabetic. So, you know, there was so much to learn throughout each step of the process of those nine to 10 months. And I really relied on my doctor as well. And of course, our family and our friends to just be, be real with and, and just be myself with them and say, you know what, it's okay if I don't know everything and it's okay if maybe my pregnancy is not like everybody else. So there was, there was just a lot in the beginning of just understanding and knowing that you're the individual, you're the unique mother. And so, and be proud of being a new mother to be prepare yourself for what the next step is as be confident in yourself. You guys are going to be great parents. You know, it's not easy, but the birthing process was also kind of like the fear of the unknown. So, and I was like, I don't want to have a C-section. Well, I ended up having a C-section in the end, but that's okay. And my healing, my recovery was different than some of my friends and my family. And that's okay too. It made a bit a little longer or I'm still a little sore, but that's okay. That's okay. And get the help, get the, have your spouse do those massages. Have your spouse, you know, let you go get a massage, go get a chiropractor appointment, you know. So, so be excited. I know it's scary, but it is such a sweet journey and enjoy the process. I remember somebody telling me that in the very beginning just enjoy each process. Take your maternity pictures and enjoy being together for just two of you for only a few more months, you know, go on those little dates or go get coffee together and have those conversations with just you two, not just about the baby. So, but we have our second tip. Right. Well, that was a second tip. Oh! Which was having, you know, someone that you can go to and we speak to it as a married couple, but it's so much more, I think, important if you're a single mom that you have support system. You have that one or two people that you can go to every single day and ask those things and take advantage of people who can give you time to go and do the things that you need to do. And our third tip, similar to what we've been saying, is when people ask like, how can I help you? Is there anything that I can do? Because everyone asked that, right? Oh, yeah. Take them off guard and say, yes, like for us, one of the biggest helps is our church. But if you don't have a church, you know, not everyone has that. And for us actually at our church, they set up a meal plan. So anybody who's pregnant or has surgery or anything, they'll do two weeks of bringing meals to you. Every single day, people sign up to bring you meals. But if you don't have that, if you don't have that kind of opportunity, actually when people ask you like, how can I help you? You can say, you know, it'll be great because here this will really help relieve the anxiety of what's going to come in those first two weeks. It's saying, hey, would you mind maybe putting together a few people that can set up some meals like just so I know that I have dinner every night because I don't know what life's going to be like. I'm going to be exhausted and wiped. Can you, would you be willing to do that? And I know it's awkward, right? It's awkward to probably say that. But when people ask, it's like actually do it because it'll help save you that one more anxiety that one more worry about what am I going to do for dinner those days? Because I, who knows, right? Like you had the C-section and we were in the hospital for almost five days and never left. And when we got home, we were like, well, okay, we just knew shopping. Yeah, but we knew one, we had family who was bringing us food and two, we knew we had friends in our church who were bringing us food and they brought us food for a while. They really did. It really helped just not having to worry about it. Because otherwise there's a lot to worry about there. So actually take advantage of when people ask, like, hey, how can I help you? Or have them go and do something for you. Like I said, especially expecting parents, moms in that third trimester if, or anytime, even if you're getting like a lot of morning sickness, right? You could ask people like, hey, I need someone to go food shopping for me. Like here's my list and here's the money. Like here's an envelope or Venmo or something, you know, the money over and just say, can you just take care of these few things for me? Even I'm thinking about the laundry, right? Because when you're getting so big and wide, it's hard to bend. It's hard to lift things. So I suggest have somebody who you're comfortable with, do your laundry for you in the last few weeks of your trimester. You can do a rotation. You can have more than one person that you're comfortable with to do that or help you clean the house even. And I know as a future mom, I was very prideful. I'm like, I have to do everything and I had to lower my pride and let people help me. And they had so much joy doing it because they love you. Now, tip number four is to take advantage of the free classes that are out there. A lot of baby stores, babies are us had a bunch of them near us until they closed, but bye-bye baby and other ones and also some hospitals will give free classes, free advice sessions or Q and A's, opportunities to talk with pediatricians and different things. Take advantage of those free opportunities and maybe some of them are paid. It's still worth I think going because if you don't know nothing like we knew nothing. Okay, there was this little baby, but I knew absolutely nothing. And well, like right after we found out you were pregnant, we were like, let's walk into target and go in the baby section. And we literally looked at the baby section and said, where do you begin? What do we put on a registry? Like the wedding registry was easy. Oh yeah. The baby registry, like what? Oh, so intimidating. We took advantage of things like doing a baby registry walk through with bye-bye baby. We really liked that because we had someone that can walk us through that was not family, that was not friends saying, this is what I like. It was someone that just from the store who was knowledgeable on all the different products and can walk us through what each thing was, what we could find in those sections. And it was like a good hour and a half. Oh no, it was like two hours. It fell so long my feet were hurting. But essentially it was like a free class and it was like where you get to learn like, all right, what's the difference between a glass bottle and a plastic bottle? What's your preference there? The car seats. Yeah, the difference is the car seats. All of the different products to like, making baby formula to all the different baby bath dubs and do you want to go with the expensive one or the cheap one and what's the difference like? What are those things? Take advantage of the free classes, baby CPR classes, things that you could take advantage of at that point. And schedule those things in. Cause it's a great thing to do and I think it does help. Maybe some it will increase anxiety because it's more things you're thinking about. But I think overall it will help you kind of feel more confident. I think that's the important part of like, all right, I feel confident. And it allows you to ask those questions. And tip number five is take a birthing glass. Yes, yeah. We learned so much in just three sessions. They were two hours each. It was three consecutive Tuesdays and we had a wonderful instructor who was sweet, who was very detailed on how much information that she can give you in just those short few sessions. And then we were in a class of, I think there was about six to eight couples and we were all on the verge to pop and actually one person gave birth before the last session. So that was pretty cool. And then we got to talk about her birth because our birthing instructor happened to be there at the hospital at the time and help her with the birth. So that was so cool. But I actually made a really good friend through that class. I have to admit the last two times out of three. I was emotional. I was leaving there in tears or literally in tears in the middle of the session. I felt that overwhelm this because I was so scared. I was so scared of labor and didn't know what to expect. I knew I had a good partner in crime and a good coach, they call them. But me personally, I was terrified. So I will be real about that. I cried half, more than half of the sessions. But what a blessing because I saw other girls feeling the same way and they would talk after class and they would say the same thing, you know, that we're all overwhelmed. We're all nervous. When is it going to happen? Is it going to happen before the 40 weeks? Is it going to be any minute now? And so do you have your hospital bag ready? Like, I waited till the last minute to put that in the car and a lot of people felt like you should be doing it earlier. So, you know, you just never know. But it was a good experience. And what one thing I really loved is that every time I had my internals, sorry to get personal, but every time I had my internals, I understood what the doctors meant because my birthing instructor told me what each station was and the effacement and all these words that you're probably like, what? But I was able to understand what that meant and when I was really, really getting ready and when I was really lowering and it was, so that was kind of cool. That lowered my anxiety because doctors speak to you and you're like, what? I need to Google that, what you just said. So having that birthing instructor tell you what things really mean in detail just really helps. So it was really cool. Yeah, for sure. And a lot of people, you know, say like, oh, well, you forget like all of it when you walk in and sure that could be true, especially if you walk in and it's like the movie scene where you're rushing in and like the baby's like, it's never, it's not most of the time, it's not like that. Yeah, maybe it is for you, but for most people, it's not like this crazy like rushed in thing. It's going to take a while. So having that class for me helped me understand a lot of things that I never had a clue about. Like what, what about any of this stuff? But it helped me have confidence, ones who know what to expect without just going on YouTube and watching a bunch of, like I would never want to go in and watch birthing videos and all that stuff, but to be able to have a class with a nurse who ended up being one of our nurses during the delivery. Tip number six is just be active. Like go out for walks, be in the sun. You know, it could be very, I think especially for moms, you're getting that third trimester, you know, you're on your maternity leave already, if you are, and now it's just kind of you're on the couch and everyone's got different pregnancy. So some it could be really miserable, others are completely okay, but I think it's important to kind of get out and even for dads, get out and go for a walk. Be in the sun, it'll help clear your head. You could think you could just not be stuck in that environment that you're going to be stuck in for three months when your baby is never sleeping and you're never sleeping. So preparing for that, which I hope that doesn't cause more anxiety, just the reality. But you could kind of get that time out, enjoy the time out, enjoy the free time while you have it. It'll help give you some clear clarity of mind and I know for me it lowered anxiety. Yeah, definitely. I was sticking to my Zumba class every week and I had women look at me with such a shocked face and saying, why are you still here? Why are you doing it? And I said, well, I got to stay active, you know? I have to, I can't. Like I said, I was pre-diabetic. So I had to watch how much I ate and I had to exercise still throughout my pregnancy. And so I, with the women trying to convince me to stay home and don't come back, I didn't take their advice. I went with what my doctor said and she said you can do it all the way to the end. Tip number seven, remember to enjoy the small things. Like go out to eat, get a foot massage, right? Or go out and go to the spa or whatever it is you enjoy. You know, for me as a dad, I enjoyed wrestling, watching wrestling like WWE. So having that outlet to enjoy, even though it's kind of stressful, remember to enjoy those small things and that will be helpful. And again, it's always, because it's just a season. Remember it's a season, it feels like forever. And especially every kind of new season with the kids as we're learning, you know, at a year and three months now of having our son, every few months is a new season and new struggles and new things and then new awesome things that aren't a struggle. So remember it's just a season and give yourself permission to enjoy some things because otherwise it's just all about the pregnancy and all about that and you'll be miserable and you're gonna let your anxiety, you're gonna let your, you know, frustrations and irritability take over. And then you're just, you don't get to enjoy it and you said earlier, you know, enjoy the process. I know for me right now, I've been scheduling with my closest friends from church that we're all moms and some are, you know, veterans or some are new moms, but we come together, we try to do once a month and I actually have like two people in that group who are expecting moms. One mom is gonna have her fifth child, the other one's gonna have her first child and we wanted to take time before they went on to the next step with having the baby and we got together and we wanted to embrace and just enjoy the time before that but we're gonna also do it consistently after. We're gonna invite them to come out because we want to tell them it is healthy to come out and to have some mom talk but not just about the baby but have some of you talk and talk about yourself care. That's very important and to also give the opportunity to ask those hard questions about, you know, are you having thoughts of depression and anxiety? Are they, are they, are you stuck in those thoughts and we want to be there to help so and be that support system for you? So I'm excited because from my experience I enjoyed my girl night out and I really needed that and if I was invited then I felt obligated to go and then when I went I felt so good that I went and I felt refreshed and it's okay to do that. I hope this was helpful for you and thank you to Chris for having us on and we look forward to seeing you in the next video. All right, thank you so, so, so much Dan and Amanda for coming over and talking about this. Like there were so many great tips in there and so many things like I was, when I was watching their video like I was looking back and thinking, you know, pretty much 10 years ago when we were expecting Dylan and all these things and all these worries and, and you know, like they said too, like get a support group, get a support group whether it's friends, family or like, you know, we have the rewired soul Facebook group or Discord server or there's tons of parenting groups on Facebook, you know, find other people who are going through this or like Dan and Amanda said, you know, they have their church but also make sure that you're doing things for yourself as well. Like self care is huge. Like something that I've learned as a parent is that if I don't keep this thing on straight, I am not going to be the best parent I can be for my son, you know what I mean? But anyways, like I said, like make sure to leave tips and tricks for all of you parents down there. Like what, what helped you like manage your anxiety and stresses and the worries when you were expecting a child, all right? Let's have a conversation down below. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And if you would like to subscribe to Dan and Amanda over at parent pacifier and they will be doing even more guest videos, click or tap right there and there are also some other links and resources down below, all right? Thanks again for watching. We'll see you next time.