One or more methods for an integrated access and backhaul (IAB) wireless network. At least one of the methods includes determining, by an IAB node including a mobile termination (MT) block and a co-located distributed unit (DU) block, two slot format indications (SFIs) by configuring the co-located DU block, the two SFIs indications including a first SFI that indicates a resource availability for communicating with a parent node and a second SFI that indicates a soft resource availability for communicating with a child node, in which each of the two SFIs include at least one RRCconfigured slot formats; and transmitting the two SFI indications to a second DU block.