When it comes to preparing for postpartum, the spotlight often falls on the mum, as it should. But what about dads?

In this episode, Dr Renee White chats with Jason Seeman, fatherhood guide and founder of Raising Fathers, about how we can better prepare and support men through the transition into fatherhood. With a background in rites of passage, community leadership and over a decade of experience in men’s wellbeing, Jason brings practical tools to help partners feel confident, connected and ready for the realities of new parenthood.

This episode is for every mum who wants to feel more supported, seen and understood in postpartum and for those who want their partner to feel that way too.

You’ll hear about:

• Why dads often feel like the “support act” and how to shift that
• The importance of debriefing birth as a couple
• Jason’s CPR model for connection and communication
• Simple ways dads can bond with bub from day one
• How to work together as a team in postpartum

Links and Resources

📲 Want to chat more about this? Connect with Renee on Instagram: @fillyourcup_

🌐 Want to learn more about Dr Renee White and explore Fill Your Cup Doula services

🍪 If you want to gobble up our famous Chocolate + Goji lactation cookies, look no further!

🔗 Explore Jason’s work at raising-fathers.com

📲 Follow on Instagram: @raising_fathers

🎧 If this episode resonated with you, send it to your partner or share it with a fellow mum. The more we support both parents, the stronger the village becomes. 💛

Disclaimer: The information on this podcast presented by the Fill Your Cup is not a substitute for independent professional advice.

Nothing contained in this podcast is intended to be used as medical advice and it is not intended to be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes or as a substitute for your own health professional's advice.

[00:00:27] I'm Dr. Renee White, and this is The Science of Motherhood. Hello and welcome to episode 182 of The Science of Motherhood. I am your host, Dr. Renee White. Thanks so much for joining me today. This week's episode is proudly supported by Fill Your Cup, Australia's first doula village now we have doulas all across Australia.

[00:01:11] We're like the Mary Poppins of mothers some have said and I absolutely love it. I do it myself. I've been doing this for the past five years, and I'm so lucky and fortunate that I get to do that alongside 17 other amazing women here in Australia. Now, if you haven't heard of Fill Your Cup, as I said, we're Australia's first doula village.

[00:02:00] The second is physical and emotional support. The third is psychological support and the fourth is sharing her experiences in particular with other moms and doulas can provide each one of those four elements, and that is what we do here at Fill Your Cup. We create postpartum plans for you and your family.

[00:02:57] So you can fully embrace the joy of motherhood with confidence. And in fact, we're trying to just do ourselves out of a job because at the end of our, you know, doula program with you, we just wanna make sure that walking out that door and you're like, I got this I totally got this. So if this something that appeals to you, if you're pregnant, you know, a friend who's pregnant and you think, wow, they would really, really benefit from that.

[00:04:16] He's a devoted dad of two, husband of 13 plus years, and Jason really blends his personal wisdom with professional expertise to guide men through what is you know, the transformative journey into fatherhood. That's exactly what we are going to be talking about today. And you will hear in this discussion how Jason's absolutely amazing at helping men embrace the challenges of fatherhood.

[00:05:11] And you know, it's something that we talk about in our postpartum planning sessions. Typically, you find dads like they just sometimes fall by the wayside and yes, we are trying to be very mother centric and mother focused, but they, you know, the support person, you know, has to be included in this and they have to be acknowledged and they have to be part of the conversation in order for it to have like an amazing postpartum for everyone.

[00:06:17] Jason Seeman: Thank you for having me. I'm going great.

[00:06:26] But I was thinking just before I was like, I think I could count on one hand how many male guests we have had on this podcast and it's not really intentional. It's just kind of how it falls to be honest, when I'm, when I'm chatting with people or people put themselves forward for the podcast. But it is so lovely to have you here and we are gonna be talking about, I guess all things fatherhood.

[00:07:19] Like, your partner should be there because they often get forgotten and she, you, I heard her just do this oh, thank goodness because I feel like he's getting really lost along the way. Like, we're going to these appointments and like, you know, was chatting to the obstetrician and, and he like, he's just, he's just like a little accessory that comes along.

[00:08:09] Jason Seeman: Mm. Yeah. Oh, thank you. I mean, firstly, um, acknowledging Yeah. Not many male guests on the podcast, I think is a microcosm of what you're talking about, right? Yeah. And it's fair enough. I mean, birth mostly always has been, and to some degree always should be women's business. Mm-hmm. And that's really important to, to retain.

[00:08:54] Dr Renee White: Okay. I like that

[00:09:17] And then postpartum, as I'm sure we'll get to, is kind of the main show in my opinion, in terms of, yeah, I, I saw you mentioning something elsewhere about how 90% of families prepare for birth and only five for postpartum.

[00:09:31] Jason Seeman: That's fascinating statistic.

[00:09:35] Jason Seeman: I think it really does ring true as well. Yeah. Helping dads in that element as well is, is a big part of what I do because that's where we actually become very useful. And there aren't doctors or midwives or doulas or there are doulas around postpartum, but you know, you are at home like the, the real deal's going when you are there with your kid and that's when you can really shine and, and show up.

[00:10:16] And most recently at the Man Cave, which is a preventative mental health and emotional intelligence organisation that works with teen boys. And that was really what started to influence where I am now, which is Raising Fathers, because I saw what happens when spaces are provided for young boys to feel psychologically safe.

[00:10:54] Dr Renee White: Generally it's like smelly, you know? Yeah.

[00:11:19] We just need to provide them with the space and the tools. And I, I found myself going, you know, we're talking to boys about their rite of passage from boy into manhood. What about the rite of passage from manhood to fatherhood?

[00:11:31] Jason Seeman: Where huge shift in expectation and what skills are men given to. Support their partner, support their child and themselves as they enter family life. But arguably, you know, these skills become even more important. Right. So, mm. That's kind of what give, gave rose to, to what I'm doing. Yeah.

[00:11:59] Jason Seeman: Mm-hmm. Yes.

[00:12:12] Jason Seeman: Nice. Thanks for asking that. That's, yeah. That's really great. Definitely. It was dad first, so I became a dad. And you know, a little bit about my experience and feel free to stop me at, at any point if I,

[00:12:26] Jason Seeman: Yeah. I, I became a dad. I was very excited to become a father. I've, since I was a young kid, loved kids. Like kids melt me, even other people's kids melt me. I just, I loved them and yeah, I was very excited to become a father and we had great birthing support.

[00:13:12] Dr Renee White: it's time to go.

[00:13:32] Mm-hmm. That I, in, in summary, the, the uncertainty, the amount of time that it took, and just not knowing how to be in that space really rocked me. And my default mechanism and my coping mechanism was to keep myself busy. So I cleaned up and the, the kitchen and the home, you know, where we were birthing was spotless.

[00:14:22] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:14:54] And the feeling, I didn't know what help looked like. I felt like maybe it's seeing a therapist or something, but I was like, I feel like this gift of a child that's coming needs the best version of me and I need to be more emotionally intelligent, more conversant with my feelings and more able to hold them.

[00:15:20] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:15:28] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:15:54] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:16:06] Dr Renee White: Oh my God. I just have so much to unpack from that. I'm like, I'm furiously writing notes,

[00:16:13] Dr Renee White: My first question is, and this is something that we always kind of chat to our families and we say, you know, it doesn't like a good, bad or ugly. We think it's so important to have a birth debrief individually and together and you would know probably like, you know, as a mum, you like, you lose track of like chunks of time.

[00:16:45] Jason Seeman: Yeah.

[00:17:13] Jason Seeman: Individually, yes and then together we did it informally. Massively helped. Massively. My wife actually said she didn't fully recover from the, I want to use the the term delicately the trauma of, yeah, first birth until we fully debriefed together. Yeah. And it took a while. And you know, I used, I say I use that word delicately because it can mean different things to different people.

[00:17:37] Jason Seeman: But, we had a very great birth. It was just a challenging in its own ways for us. Yeah debriefing is huge. I mean, that's one of the things I speak to dads about in preparing them for the birth is mm-hmm. The recognition that mum, especially when active labor begins, becomes a different person and her psyche is complete.

[00:18:09] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Right.

[00:18:22] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:18:30] Dr Renee White: Yes.

[00:18:41] Dr Renee White: Yes. Yes. Yeah, a absolutely. I totally get that. We use a tool, uh, in the postpartum where it's like a numbering system. It sound, it's very similar to what you were saying in terms of how you communicate, because you would un, you would know that like your brain is just cooked, you're sleep deprived. And my husband did this to me all the time, and he was like, he's like, what do you want me to do?

[00:19:28] Jason Seeman: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:41] Jason Seeman: Yeah.

[00:20:07] Yeah. So there's, there's like an action plan, but that's so, so similar to what you're saying is that you just need to understand that communication is completely different in these moments. But on that kind of similar vein, you know, like having those moments of communication asking for help, this is something that we equally talk to mums more or less about, and I, I hear this from lots of mums who are just like, I'm really struggling, but I don't know how to ask for help. Like what are your suggestions and recommendations to dads did? Like, okay, first of all, did Dads find it as hard to ask for help?

[00:21:28] So it's, it's pretty compelling research and it basically says these traditional norms of what it means to be a man IE being tough, not showing emotion, having a detest for people with other sexual orientations, all these kind of things you would. I just strummed my guitar by accident. Um, all those things you'd typically associate with traditional masculinity that when we rigidly stick to these norms, it's not good for us and the people around us.

[00:22:17] And so I think at that level, that emotional support, men are typically really bad at it. Mm-hmm. And they're bad at it. Not just from seeing formal support, but also just reaching out to mates and saying, Hey, I'm actually really struggling. Mm-hmm. I just wanna talk, which I believe we can change and I, I think I'm a part of trying to help change.

[00:22:57] So these things might be, you mentioned before, stocking the freezer. Mm-hmm. Super important before. Mm-hmm. Or it's a meal delivery service or something like that. Other might be general housework, like the washing. Maybe if you are having your second or third or fourth kid, it's playing with your toddler and just being there for them.

[00:23:30] And then reach out to the five people that you are closest to with a message or a call and say, Hey, bubs due in X months or weeks. I've selected five people who I feel like are my village that I can really lean on when things are hard, and here's some of the stuff I might need help with are you comfortable with being one of my five?

[00:23:57] Dr Renee White: Yes.

[00:24:00] Dr Renee White: Yeah. You're the VIP.

[00:24:05] Dr Renee White: Yes, they do. They do.

[00:24:18] Dr Renee White: Yes.

[00:24:20] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:24:50] Yeah. It was really something. And I just remember sitting in my car and looking at messages of all the congratulations and how can we help? And I sent this video because I just finally slowed down and I just sent the video to five or 10 people mm-hmm. In the moment. I hadn't done in advance, um, saying, Hey, thanks for asking how to help.

[00:25:33] Dr Renee White: I, I love this. I, I'm, I am a huge advocate for like, prevention is better than treatment, so I am just like, what are all the things that we can do before the baby arrives? Okay, here is the game plan again. Hello. A type personality, I love checklist. I would love to know, you know, in hindsight and also you've given us some really great tools that people can use. What are some of the other conversations you think that, you know, families should be having before the baby arrives? Like

[00:26:34] And let's just assume those are done. Yeah, I think one of the big ones is firstly around birth. Mm-hmm. Um, understanding that mum is the center and it's her choices that are gonna dictate what happens. And what I mean by that is developing together what your birth preferences are you know, are you doing a elective cesarean all the way to a home birth or you know, there are even other options out there, right?

[00:27:22] I think one of the big challenges is there are, but we we're not aware of till we're there. Mm-hmm. Is there are so many decisions to make as parents, and these decisions actually matter quite a lot because they're about how your child is gonna grow up. And I'm not just talking about things like, where will they go to school or will they even go to school?

[00:28:43] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:28:47] Dr Renee White: I, I totally agree, and I love the point around co-sleeping in particular because, and I can't quote the statistic honestly, but it's, it's a huge number. Like, let's, let's say it's like, you know, 80, 80% of people say we're never gonna co-sleep and then like, you know, 70% of those people actually end up doing it, but they do it when they're like super sleep deprived and they haven't like read the, you know, the red Nose guidelines and they're kind of just like winging it and they're just like, oh God.

[00:29:41] Jason Seeman: While we're on that one, I might add just one more. Yeah. Not so much con uh, it is conversations, it's exactly what it is, but it's starting to think about what rituals you might wanna instill during pregnancy that can carry through into postpartum for you and your partner. Mm-hmm. So I'm not talking about date night out at the movies.

[00:30:15] Maybe you light a candle, maybe you light some incense, whatever's your, your vibe and you get a little object that you can hold, like a ball or a stick or something. And that's the talking stick. And it's a one-way conversation with your partner about how you're really going and it's in its own dome or container.

[00:30:52] But what I've found so useful about that, particularly between partners is number one, it's just cordoned off time where you can actually speak and not become that kind of housemate phenomenon where your parents and you just kind of see each other in the hallway from time to time.

[00:31:07] Jason Seeman: It's obviously a precursor to rekindling intimacy is having emotional intimacy and this is a way to help achieve that. And also, again, it's, it's preventative mental health. You just having a check in with someone who cares about you so much and they're just listening. It's a huge one for guys listening without solving

[00:31:24] Jason Seeman: Is massive. And just knowing that mum can check in for her seven minutes or take all 15 whatever she needs and he's just gonna listen. Yeah. It's big. So big things like that that you can even start, you know, it doesn't have to be daily. You might do it every other day or even once a week. To start just means you can have that continuity that, that you do have time for postpartum and it's just this thing that's like, oh, this is our home. This is our like familiar place where we can do this.

[00:32:36] Jason Seeman: Nice. Yes. Beautiful. Beautiful. Love to hear that.

[00:33:11] What could I possibly do to support, like, what could I, what could I possibly do to help out? And like, I just have to sit there and I'm just like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, her, do you want the whole list or like, yeah. So Jason, please tell, please tell us all the things that Dads can do partners can do yeah to help. I'm mum with a newborn baby. Cool. And no, we are not gonna make that a whole nother entire episode. Yeah. But we probably could.

[00:34:05] You've actually heard this is dad says, baby's basically a blob. Yes. So straight away, there's an assumption here that baby can't engage and even if it was a blob that for whatever reason dad requires something in return for being with baby, what if, what if you are right? And, you know, someone was, this was actually quite funny. They said newborns are like a sophisticated house plant. I don't like the message that sends, but it's quite funny. But, you know, let, let's assume you are right, even though you're actually wrong. It implies therefore, that for you to engage emotionally and be present with someone, you need them to give something back to you. Hey, welcome to Parenthood. Yeah. The life of selfless service.

[00:34:55] Jason Seeman: Yeah. So it's like, just, you know, I, I've actually got, and I know we're on on Zoom, but I might share screen with you and just show you something from last night.

[00:35:10] Jason Seeman: So yeah. I'm taking, uh, a group of men through a program at the moment called True North. That's an eight week program to help prep them for fatherhood. Mm-hmm. And a lot of what I speak about it is, yes, understand feeding cycles and c how to change a nappy, but honestly you can Google that pretty quickly.

[00:36:00] Dr Renee White: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:02] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:36:10] Dr Renee White: yeah.

[00:36:31] And the answer is, I don't know.

[00:36:35] Jason Seeman: Still it still helps and, you know, giving resources and understanding is always better than, than kind of this frustration. But I, I tried to paint a picture for them anyway. Yeah. What, what it feels like and I asked them first to do a visualization where I asked 'em to recall the last time they were hungover in their life.

[00:36:52] Jason Seeman: Got through life in the morning when, how did their body feel? How did their mind feel? Where were they? What did they spend the day doing? You know, in all likelihood they were watching a movie and trying to just keep some food down and take care of themselves.

[00:37:07] Jason Seeman: yeah. Like closest thing I can describe to like that, to month of month four of parenting. It's not the first couple of weeks, it's like month four. Every morning you wake up feeling as close to hungover in terms of your body and your emotions. But the difference is you can't just sit on a couch and watch a Marvel movie. You actually need to be on. So you have this combination that I call the parenting recipe for dads that I've got here, that I showed them, which is the ingredients are, we caught a cup of diced sleep, a teaspoon of melted me time, a pinch of stress to taste a hundred grams of return to work, three kilos of house chores, a cup of healing mum, and two cups of a newborn baby.

[00:37:47] Jason Seeman: that's, that's postpartum. And your method as dad is to combine all of that in a bowl lovingly stir and not make it about you.

[00:37:56] Jason Seeman: That's hard, right?

[00:37:58] Jason Seeman: 'cause when it's put like that and you know, if you are a working dad, I can guarantee you'll have all of those things. Like those aren't maybes. They are definitely. And when we combine all of them, it can be hard to remember, oh actually mum has all this as well and more. And your job is to keep things together and make sure it all tastes good and not make it all about your stuff.

[00:38:22] Jason Seeman: Your stuff important, but you are. Center of your universe. Mm-hmm. Your baby is and your partner is. Yeah. Um, which is a lot.

[00:38:50] Jason Seeman: Yes.

[00:38:51] Jason Seeman: Totally.

[00:39:32] Jason Seeman: And then it's dad comes home and goes, gosh, you wouldn't believe the day I've had and just,

[00:39:36] Jason Seeman: all about his situation.

[00:39:45] Jason Seeman: And that's right. And so if you don't know, you behave in this way. And I'll just show you this last one.

[00:39:50] Jason Seeman: As you said the word resentment.

[00:39:52] Jason Seeman: Act. When you behave out of alignment and you're not your best self and you're tired and you go slinging dirt around, you know, you get resentment and mistrust from your partner. And this was a joke, but also real. Yeah. You know, baby gets inherited, dysfunctional behavioral patterns, irreconcilable, self-doubt, and inauthenticity when you are not there, you know?

[00:40:13] Jason Seeman: It's all part of a longer course, so I won't go too much into that. But the really important

[00:40:45] He was like, so do you think I should just start sleep depriving myself now? Like practicing? And they were like, absolutely not like, do not do that. And he was like, but don't you think like, I should just get used to not having any sleep. They're like, no, you need to bank it up. Like before you run a marathon, do you just go and absolutely hammer yourself like the, you know, the couple of weeks beforehand?

[00:41:29] Jason Seeman: I, I get the thinking to be honest I actually

[00:41:36] Jason Seeman: Totally. Totally. Yeah.

[00:41:53] Yeah. But it is definitely something that I don't think a lot of people invest a lot of time in thinking about, like what that shift actually is going to look like. In your experience obviously we've got the tool of sitting down, but are there any other things that. You know, partners can kind of game plan in advance around that.

[00:42:27] Dr Renee White: Okay.

[00:42:54] Mm-hmm. Um, but it will manifest slightly differently I'm sure. But you and and birthing mum. Birthing mum and baby and you and baby. And then the three of you together is family and what I like to talk about is. Each of those relationships require different ingredients in order for them to be successful.

[00:43:33] Mm-hmm. So many. But it requires. It's almost like if we eat sugar and then we eat an apple, the apple tastes sour. Yeah. Because we haven't, our sensors are so desensitized after that sweet sugar hit, we're not actually slow and sensitive enough to feel the apple. A lot like with the baby, we're so hyperstimulated that we expect them to be talking and doing back flips and that's engagement. They're a baby, but they're actually engaging with you very deeply. And my biggest one here would be wear your baby. I freaking love wearing babies. I'll wear other people's babies. They'll give it to me. It's the most beautiful thing at this tiny being on you, on your chest and heart.

[00:44:51] And I dad's really like these kind of practical hacks. Just always think about what is the win-win or what's the win-win for mum and baby. And I'm happy to take the loss 'cause they have a lot going on. Mm-hmm. And just keep understanding how much they have. Connecting with baby, uh, is huge and your, your main priority with bub in that CPR is just connection.

[00:45:34] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:45:35] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:45:52] And we actually get that opportunity as well with skin to skin. Mm-hmm. Um, if we choose to lean in. So Connect is with baby. The, the P is for you and mum, dad and mum and that stands for Protect and reason I say that is I think this newborn phase particularly is probably the most vulnerable time in your relationship 'cause you have the new person involved lots like matrescence, patrescence if we want to go there as well, everyone's changing. Mm-hmm. When we change, that's beautiful. But it's just important that we change together. Yeah. And we don't, you know, we grow together rather than apart. And so tools to protect the relationship are super helpful.

[00:47:13] And she doesn't need any pressure from you around whatever some of those norms might look like. And that's like a very quick ticket to killing intimacy is to make someone feel and to what they're already feeling about insecurity with their body.

[00:47:28] Jason Seeman: Compounding. That's not gonna be good for anyone. And with that, I guess the counter to that, like words of affirmation are so helpful. Just things like, Hey, you're a really great mum and you're doing really well. Like for us, we might hear that and go, oh thanks. But for a mum who might be feeling quite delicate, emotionally quite lonely to hear those words in that first few weeks or frankly ongoing is like the biggest thing in the world for her.

[00:47:54] Jason Seeman: it's massive. Yeah. And she's like, oh my God, am I actually doing well? And then you're like, oh wow, she really needed to hear this. Mm-hmm. Yes you are. Here's why and they're like, they start to sit taller. It's like, it's a huge, huge deal. And then things like becoming a master of house chores, like mum should be able to be with baby and just know that everything's taken care of.

[00:48:33] But yeah, protecting that relationship's critical and the last one, R is for respect and it's just to respect baby and mom's relationship and not try and compete for attention. That can be that third wheel feeling. Mm-hmm. Not try and compare your relationships, but just respect like they do have a unique bond, the birthing mother and baby, and that's wonderful and you can celebrate that, but just respect it and respect the time that they need and that it is gonna look different to yours. And that's fine. It's a beautiful, yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:04] Jason Seeman: Pleasure. Yeah.

[00:49:41] Like, it sounds so good and I'm like this True North program. This is definitely going in our postpartum planning book for, um, all of our families to like do, because we do get, you know, dads who, as I said, like we've got, you know, beers and bubs and, and things like that. But this sounds like it's going a bit deeper and having conversations and I love this whole self-awareness stuff as well. I think it's,

[00:50:11] Dr Renee White: Yeah. So can you just give us a quick snapshot of, of what that looks like, um, and how people can get involved?

[00:50:27] Um, shout out Prote Prepared Dad Foundation for that as well, who do free prenatal education for dads. I haven't done that course yet, but I believe in what they're doing. So I just wanna give you a shout out. But of this kind, which is probably a bit more postpartum focused. Is actually about going deeper beyond the, the birthing process and saying, how is your life and your partners, and therefore your family's life going to change?

[00:51:04] Dr Renee White: Ta da.

[00:51:30] And why I say that is I'll provide information. We learn that information, we reflect on how it applies in our life. We then share with the group what we reflected upon and then we can go and try something at home and see how it lands in our life, and then come back and keep iterating week by week. So it's supposed to be something where you learn the concept and that week you can go home or turn off your computer in this case and start to implement it. So for example, last night we did our section on emotional intelligence and I covered off what some of the research from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence says about what we can do. And there's this five step acronym called ruler the way to really be able to, in the moment short circuit your initial emotional reaction that might not be your best self. Mm-hmm. Come back to yourself and go, how would I actually behave if my kid was watching right now? Turns out they will be watching.

[00:52:21] Jason Seeman: Will inherit how I behave which for me, that's the number one skill a parent can have, like men or women is emotional intelligence 'cause your kid's emotional world will be dictated by how you navigate your own.

[00:53:01] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:53:28] Uh, and then postpartum life as well kind of is laced throughout. But practically, what does the first 24 hours look like as a dad? Yeah. Whereas the first week look like. What, how does your role change across time? Uh, 'cause it does, uh, and that's,

[00:53:44] Jason Seeman: Yeah.

[00:53:59] Jason Seeman: I am. I love it.

[00:54:09] Jason Seeman: Hmm. Nice. Top tip for dads is presence is number one. Uh, and that can be physical and emotional presence. Mm-hmm. And, uh, if you ever need guidance, turn to your partner. Turns out that there's some really good parenting coaches out there, and they're called mum but they don't know everything, but they have a lot of deep wisdom that we can learn from.

[00:54:46] Jason Seeman: Nice

[00:54:53] Jason Seeman: Mm-hmm. It just changed. Can I give a few? 'cause it just changed. Yes. The time. Yes.

[00:54:58] Jason Seeman: gonna go in reverse order. So currently I really love Marianne Rose's work.

[00:55:03] Jason Seeman: Layle Stone wrote, raising resilient and compassionate children. They do aware parenting. It's a really interesting philosophy and approach that I really resonate with. So that'd be my go-to at the moment, particularly as I have toddlers who are, have all the challenges the toddlers come with and learning to navigate that in a, a compassionate way. Parts work or internal family systems therapy as a modality for being with our own challenging emotions 'cause kids will trigger you more than anyone ever has.

[00:55:38] Jason Seeman: Here's another opportunity. Exactly. Exactly. Uh, and so yeah, learning how to navigate your internal world is, is huge. Uh, 'cause your kids, again, they're always watching and absorbing. So definitely anything on emotional intelligence or being with your emotions is huge.

[00:56:15] You can find ones local to you and just having a place where you can go, Hey, I'm going through this at the moment, what do you reckon? And just seeing like 10 other hands go up and saying I've been through that can just mean so much. Um, make you feel far less isolated. Yeah. Those are some

[00:56:36] Jason Seeman: Mm.

[00:56:39] Jason Seeman: As in like a book or

[00:56:50] Jason Seeman: Yeah. Uh, it'll be the book I'm currently reading with my little nightlight thing that clips onto the book. Yeah. I hate, I hate admitting this, but my phone is next to me on, yes. On the bedside.

[00:57:03] Jason Seeman: Bottle a bottle of water. I hate admitting that, but it's the truth. Yeah. A bottle of water.

[00:57:21] Jason Seeman: I've reverted back.

[00:57:24] Jason Seeman: yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:27] Jason Seeman: Yeah. There's no rational reason. Okay. Something about the physical book and holding it. Yes. Which was my resistance to the Kindle. And then I held a friend's Kindle and used it, and I was like, this is way better in every way. Yeah. Uh, and it is, Kindle is better. Yeah. There's something about like, you, I, speaking about Marian's book, like I love that. You know, like, this has been used. You have it. Like it's got, it's just,

[00:58:16] Jason Seeman: Yeah. There's,

[00:58:19] Jason Seeman: I think I'm here and I'm listening. That one,

[00:58:26] Jason Seeman: Oh, great.

[00:59:04] Jason Seeman: thank you

[00:59:05] Jason Seeman: One little caveat to say on it is it is designed for men pre fatherhood.

[00:59:11] Jason Seeman: So, you know, postpartum wise, however, I'm gonna do a postpartum one, but it won't be eight weeks because you don't have the time.

[00:59:21] Jason Seeman: Yeah. That'll come. It'll just look different. Um, but that's okay for things. Yeah.

[00:59:30] Jason Seeman: Um, my website is www.raisingfathers.com. My Instagram is raising underscore

[00:59:41] Jason Seeman: You can find me.

[01:00:04] Jason Seeman: I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Thanks for having me on and you know, exposing people to what I do and also, yeah, just asking you some great questions, really.

[01:00:34] You've just listened to another episode of The Science of Motherhood proudly presented by Fill Your Cup, Australia's first doula village. Head to our website, I fill your cup.com to learn more about our birth and postpartum doula offerings, where every mother we pledge to be the steady hand that guides you back to yourself, ensuring you feel nurtured, informed, and empowered, so you can fully embrace the joy of motherhood with confidence. Until next time, bye.