Podcast: Consciously Preparing for Parenthood with Guest Dr Maryhan
Consciously Preparing for Parenthood with Guest Dr Maryhan
Season 2, Episode 5
What kind of parents do you want to be?
So much of pregnancy is taken up researching prams and cots and car seats and preparing the nursery.. Or considering birth plans and pregnancy complications and baby names.. It's not often that anyone actually consciously considers parenting until they are in it.
Is parenting something you can prepare for?
We think YES!
This week I am joined by Dr Maryhan, experienced psychologist & parenting expert, to discuss what consciously preparing for parenthood might look like for you.
A must listen if you are currently pregnant or parenting a small baby.. but actually tons of takeaways for parents of older kids, like me, too!
If you want to shut out *the noise* that starts the minute you fall pregnant and find a way to do things YOUR way, this episode will help you get there.
TRANSCRIPT
AI GENERATED
I know right now you have no idea what to expect from birth, what it's going to feel like, how it's going to pan out.
And so what you thought was going to be this glowing experience of pregnancy has turned you into a bunch of nerves.
Well, you were in the right place because I am here to hold your hand as you prepare for the birth of your baby through the birth-ed online course, the course that gives you the information you thought you were going to get from your antenatal appointments and didn't.
The birth-ed course opens your eyes to everything you need to navigate your pregnancy and birth choices so you can feel confident, informed, and ready to take back control.
Available worldwide for just £40 or $50, sign up now via the link in the show notes.
This episode of the birth-ed podcast is sponsored by the wonderful Her9.
Her9 supplements women from preconception right through to postnatally.
This fantastic brand supports you, your baby, and your mind with 18 clinically backed vitamins and minerals, cleverly released thanks to modern day science.
I'd love to tell you more about my experience using Her9 supplements, and I'll get to that later.
But for now, on with the podcast.
The birth-ed podcast.
I'm Megan Rossiter from Birth-Ed, and you are listening to the Birth-Ed podcast.
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Ready to meet today's guest?
Hi, everybody.
Welcome back to The birth-ed podcast.
In this episode, we are going to explore some of the conscious decisions that we make around parenting, what kind of parents we think we want to be, what our core values are, what is most important to us, and how we can actually go about exploring this and making some of these decisions as early on as during pregnancy itself.
I'm joined today by Dr.
Maryhan Munt, who is an experienced psychologist and parenting expert as well as a mother of two.
She specializes in supporting children, teens, and young adults who struggle with low confidence and anxiety.
Alongside her work supporting families directly, she is also the host of a wonderful podcast called How to Not Screw Up Your Kids.
So with that in mind, I think she's the perfect guest to chat to us today about preparing to enter the world of parenting for the very first time.
Maryhan, thank you so much for joining us and welcome.
Oh, thank you, Megan, so much for having me.
I'm so excited.
So it's probably sort of safe to say, I suppose, that as parents expecting your first child, you might have begun to consider at least a little bit what to expect from parenthood, what your values are, what you consider to be important.
And again, probably safe to say that sometimes as soon as the baby arrives, this is kind of blown out the water when we sort of face the realities of raising a child.
What do you think about that?
Is parenting something that we can actually prepare for or is it something that needs to be wholly responsive to the sort of child that we end up meeting?
I think it's a classic answer and sort of sitting on fence.
I think it's a bit of both.
I think there's an element of parenting that we can, that we do in advance almost around, you know, what is important to us as parents?
What do we value?
What are the things that we want to instill with our children?
One of the analogies I use that best describes the way we are as parents is that our role is to help scaffold the rising building that becomes our children's home that they then inhabit.
So one of the early things that we do as parents, you know, and when we're pregnant and we're thinking about these things, is actually starting to consider what might be the foundation layers.
What are the values that we want to raise our children under?
What's important to us?
So I think those are things that we can begin to think about when we're pregnant, and actually that's a great time to be having conversations with our partners about actually what are the real important things?
What are the non-negotiables to us as parents right now?
And obviously some of these change.
Gosh, I remember all of those notions of I'm never going to bribe my child, and they're always going to do exactly what I ask them to do, and I'm never going to need to say, well, if you do this, I'll give you this.
And obviously you parent the child that you have, not the parent that you want to have.
Parenting is constantly on the job, but I do think that there are some of those conversations that we can begin to have in advance to begin to think about what kind of parent and what values do we want to impart on our children because that's our role.
We're custodians of these tiny little bundles that then become these adults that go out into the wide world.
And so I suppose tapping into that a little bit, I very much, I don't know if people feel this, but I very much felt this the first time that I was becoming a parent.
And there's so, there's, you know, hordes of information and things out there.
And it's difficult to know kind of which things are correct, which things are important.
And it can very much feel like that you have to sort of pick a camp of what kind, in inverted commas, of parent are you going to be?
Are you going to be the gentle parent?
Are you going to sleep train and go back to work and use routines and bottles?
Or are you going to breastfeed and baby wear and bed share?
And it's like you sort of, it can feel like you have to pick something.
So how do you find the confidence to, I suppose, block out that noise and just kind of tune in to what feels right for you, picking and choosing the different approaches and different aspects of parenting?
Because I think that can be such a challenge.
It's a massive challenge, and it starts from the minute, doesn't it?
From the minute you're pregnant, you're having to make decisions.
And so much of it is framed around this notion of making the right decision.
And I think that one of the things that, as parents, that we can begin, because we're parents from the minute we get that line on that stick and we know that we're pregnant.
So it's about actually making a real conscious effort to reframe every single choice that we come up to.
Rather than it's, I need to make the right decision to instead say, I'm making a decision based on the information that I have right now.
So we place so much responsibility on every single decision that we make that in some ways we're going to have completely screwed up our kids because we've made the wrong decision.
But actually, it's those decisions in those moments.
And it's recognizing, and I know it's a human being thing, isn't it?
We like to just place people in camps.
You're this kind of parent and you're that kind of parent.
But actually, we parent with a massively eclectic mix.
So it's just saying, do you know what?
I'm going to make a decision each moment of each day on this journey.
Sometimes I'm going to reflect back and I'm going to think, I wish I'd made a slightly different decision.
But it was still the best decision that you made in that moment with the information that you have.
So it's just almost repeating to yourself, I'm making a decision, not the decision.
Yeah, that's actually something that we talk a lot about in terms of making, because giving birth obviously also requires like absolutely tons of decisions.
Where are you going to be?
Do you accept this intervention?
Who's with you?
All of the kind of decisions that you have to make.
And it's exactly that.
It's what information have you got?
What circumstances are you in?
And what feels like the right thing to do in that moment?
And it can take a lot of, I don't know really what the right word is, but to be able to forgive yourself for making a decision that then you want to change your mind about, or ended up not being the right thing to do.
And this kind of guilt type thing can play in throughout pregnancy, throughout the early period of parenting.
And what can we do as parents to alleviate that a little bit and make ourselves feel a bit more at ease with the choices that we're making?
Yeah, I think it's about, there's a really big piece here about some of the context that we place things in.
At that time, those decisions that we make feel huge and they feel incredibly impactful.
I can remember those decisions about childbirth, breastfeeding, whether we co-share, all of the decisions that we are having to constantly make.
And there's a lot of guilt that comes with that.
And I think it's just important really from the outset is that we have to kind of take ourselves to one side and almost have that conversation with ourselves.
I am now on a parenting journey, and I am always going to reflect on the decisions that I make, and I am always going to be considering what if I had done X, Y, or Z.
How am I going to manage that journey for me?
How am I going to make sure that I keep myself grounded and remind myself that I'm doing the best job that I possibly can?
And for me, this is the whole notion around self-care, which I think we are probably much better at doing before we then become a parent.
And then it almost becomes something that we abandon because it seems something very frivolous.
And suddenly, actually, everything is about this bundle, whether that's antenatally, this gorgeous little bundle that we're carrying around, or whether it then becomes this bundle that we're raising.
It's being able to remember that there was a quote that a psychiatrist wrote about this idea that self-care is child care.
When we take care of ourselves and check in with where we're at, whether that's a decision that we've made, guilt that we're having or overwhelm, that is the greatest gift that we can give our child.
So if we can get into the habit of that, if we can get into the habit of understanding that that's an important component, and it's not selfish, it's actually the gift that we give our child, then I think we can often offset and mitigate these worries and these guilt trips that we have with ourselves about our parenting.
Yeah, I would actually say that pregnancy is a really good time to start practising that.
I think often, well, in my experience kind of with the clients that I've worked with, people do find the time in pregnancy to do the kind of self-care that even maybe pre-pregnancy they didn't, they might find the time to see an osteopath every fortnight, or go for reflexology appointments, or cook slightly better food than they would otherwise have eaten.
And so actually, and the reason why they find that time is because they feel like they're doing it for the baby, and yeah, to reframe it as actually, yes, going for a walk by yourself, or meeting a friend for a coffee, or whatever it is that makes you feel good after having a baby, that still fits into the same camp as those going to see a reflexologist in pregnancy, because what you are doing is beneficial for you and for your children, because you're going to return, hopefully, with a little bit more patience, with a little bit more enthusiasm, and rather than the kind of tired person that you might have been beforehand.
Yeah, and it's so, I know, the moment a baby is born, it's always like, we get that stamp, don't we, of guilt, and then we give up so much of the self-care.
But actually, it is those moments, and it doesn't have to be spa days every day, but if a regular practice of self-care, a walk, a bath, a cup of coffee on our own, meeting a friend, all mean that we take a step back from the day to day, getting caught up in decisions, and we're able to kind of pause for a moment, check in on how we are, and then when we come back, we parent so much more consciously because we've had that opportunity to kind of remember parenting is one role that we take on.
We have multiple other roles.
Friend, partner, colleague, employee, employer, sister, brother, aunt, uncle.
So we have to remember all of these other roles as part of that self-care.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I suppose that's a conversation worth having before your baby arrives.
Protecting something that we do actually in our in-person antenatal course is we talk about this shift in relationship dynamic that happens after you've had children.
Because it's probably the biggest shift.
I think that most families, it's such a transformational thing, both in how the kind of person that you are can kind of completely change, and the kind of stresses, I suppose, that are put on your relationship can become really big.
And it's really easy to kind of lose sight of yourself and lose sight of if you are in a relationship, you and your partner, the relationship kind of as it stood beforehand.
So when we talk about the kind of conversations that we might have in pregnancy about preparing to be parents, what sort of conversation should we be having?
You know, how do we identify what our values are with the person that we are parenting with if we are parenting with somebody else?
I would say it's almost it's like a reverse engineer.
It's almost considering what are the qualities that you would like the adult that you are raising to have at the end of their parenting journey?
And these are qualities that they have, not occupation, not lifestyle, but actually at their core, what kind of human being do you want to raise?
What's really important to you?
And then it's working back as to how does that then transfer to day-to-day?
So, for example, one of the things that was so important to me raising my children was I just wanted them to be kind and compassionate.
That was, I didn't, you know, what they become as adults is then a byproduct of that.
But if they're kind and compassionate human beings, then that was critical.
So if that is a shared value, it's like that then informs every decision that you make.
It's all about the language that you use, the things that you put in place, the routines that you create, the conversations are all around that sort of basis.
So it's having those conversations around, you know, long term we're raising, we're raising a young adult.
What are those qualities that we want them to have?
How might we view how to get there slightly differently?
What might the differences be?
And having those conversations in advance, because actually, I think it's quite interesting that you, it's not something I had a conversation with, with my partner at all.
We talked about all the practical things of, you know, car seat and those sorts of things, but we never actually talked about the child we wanted to raise.
Yeah, no, and I don't think it's a conversation that comes up because also I think you think very short term when they're small.
You think, you know, initially you're probably thinking the kind of fourth trimester may be the first six months kind of pre weaning stage.
That's about as far as your kind of foresight goes, isn't it?
And then when they start becoming a bit more mobile and moving, you're like, oh, hang on.
They actually now they have like opinions and a personality.
And yeah, this is something that we are sort of responsible for shaping.
And I do, I definitely think there's something to be said that when you approach things second time round, you've done all of that considering.
And so you're much more aware with how the very, very early parts of parenting are shaping their experience kind of of the world.
And poor first baby, it's like the trial run where you're working it all out because you are learning as a parent in the same way as your, you know, your child is learning and developing.
It's a totally new thing to you as well.
And it is this huge responsibility.
And actually, most of us haven't really considered it at all until we are right, right, right in the depths of it.
So I definitely think there's something to be said for kind of laying the foundations and thinking kind of longer term, what is it that we want for our child?
Now, one of the things that often comes up that I imagine falls in line with your work quite well is that when people say, you know, what is it that you want for your child, a lot of the time we say, oh, you know, I just want them to be happy.
And I think this is a kind of realization that we've come to over the years.
So again, not something that you realize necessarily before your first baby is born.
But the happiness isn't like the be all and end all of like an emotionally healthy human and the actually negative emotions, fear, worry, sadness are all like part of human experience.
And you can't keep your child happy all the time.
And it's not a good idea necessarily to keep your child happy all the time.
And so what are the kind of building blocks that we can set really, really early on to help raise, I suppose, an emotionally healthy child?
I think one of the most important building blocks is around this and acceptance and the way that we respond to emotions.
One of these things is we want to raise happy children.
Of course, we want our child to be confident and kind and compassionate.
But actually, as you've rightly said, Megan, it's an unattainable for us to raise a happy child or a happy adult.
What we want, what we're really saying is we want a child who's able to manage those big emotions and know how to respond in situations.
So one of the big things that we really need to be focusing in on is building our child's emotional vocabulary and their emotional literacy and remembering that all emotions are valid.
Jealousy, rage, frustration, irritation, tantrums, all of those are valid emotions.
We all experience them.
There is no such thing, in my view, of a good and a bad emotion.
They're all emotions.
What we want to help our children with is we want to help them manage those big emotions so that they make the best choices that they can make in those moments.
But we must validate how they feel because that's a key component to raising confident, resilient children who can pick themselves up when things don't go according to plan.
So it's definitely building their emotional vocabulary, labeling emotions, acknowledging the emotions and then as a parent, really trying in those moments when they try us to actually respond to the emotion behind the behavior and not the behavior itself.
I often see a child can be super anxious and anxiety is basically a reaction to fear.
And so they can respond in an aggressive way.
But actually the emotion behind that is fear.
So if we then meet their aggression with aggression, we're not responding to the fear that's behind that.
So it's just really it's focusing in on that emotional side, acknowledging it, understanding that all emotions are valid and then really seeking.
And I know it's hard.
We've all been there to respond to the emotion behind the behavior rather than the behavior itself.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I suppose this in line with this, this taps into what we were saying before about kind of trying to feel at ease with the decisions that we're making in the moment.
And this is not, you know, I don't think anybody can wholeheartedly say every single time my child has done X, Y or Z, I have been able to respond in the way that I know is going to be the kind of the best response.
Obviously, you're tired and you have other responsibilities and stresses and things.
But that does really shift, I think, the the approach that we're sometimes kind of, you know, in mainstream TV and stuff, the kind of super nanny type programs, approaching kind of discipline and that kind of thing.
That really shifts how you approach that.
And these are the kind of learning and the kind of conversations that if you can have these while your baby is very small or while you're actually still pregnant and starting to kind of understand what is like their normal development of a toddler, what is the normal development behaviour of a baby, and being able to, yeah, to meet their needs and to respond to them right from the very, very beginning.
It does go against potentially the kind of status quo that we might have been presented or that we might have been parented with ourselves.
And say, you know, I think probably a big part of the kind of parents we become must be shaped by the way that we were parented.
What would you, what's your kind of experience of or understanding of that?
Yeah, I mean, it's hugely shaped by the way that we were parented, because we then make decisions about certain aspects of our, the way that we were parented, that we love and we want to continue with.
And that might be traditions, it might be things that happen, you know, in terms of the way that your parents dealt with consequences when things went wrong.
But it also goes the other way when we are very adamant that, you know, I was parented this way and I am absolutely not going to parent my child that way.
And I think that that's again part of that useful conversation we can have with our partners when we're pregnant because there will be, you know, so many aspects of the way that we were parented that we may have discussed it as part of our relationship, but actually it really only sort of gets switched on.
Some of those subtle nuances, those subtle memories then only come to the kind of forefront when we then begin our parenting journey.
And certainly when we then introduce siblings, and how that then brings in memories of the sibling dynamics that we had and the order of children.
So, yeah, hugely in both ways, both we pick up the positives that we want to continue with, and we pick up on the things that we absolutely do not want to do.
And I imagine if families or partners have kind of been raised in different ways, this could potentially throw up difficulty or confusion.
And how do you, if you're parenting with another, with a partner, what's a good way of kind of navigating the differences of opinion as parents, you know, whether that's to do with feeding the baby or, you know, I'm thinking kind of super early days, the sleep of the baby or something like that.
When your opinions, I suppose, differ, how can, in a relationship sense, how can you navigate those conversations?
It's a difficult one.
And I think you have to, you have to almost work on the assumption that there are going to be differences, and it's better to have those conversations and sort of have those conversations regularly.
I talk about having family meetings on a Sunday, and it sounds contrived and it's not meant to be, you're not sitting there with an agenda, but actually agreeing to just regularly check in with your partner about, you know, what's the parenting journey been like?
You know, what are the challenges been?
What do you think you should move forward with?
Because there will be huge differences of opinion, and they can really bubble to the surface in the heat of the moment.
But actually, when you've made sure that you've had time to sit and just check in with each other, I've noticed that we actually, I had no idea that we thought so differently about co-sleeping or we thought so differently about feeding our baby.
Let's have a conversation about this rather than trying to deal with it in the heat of the moment.
And there will be differences, and there will need to be some compromises, and it's discussing for sometimes there are some things that you both feel incredibly strongly about, and you need to find some middle ground.
And sometimes there's a, well, actually, I thought this was important, but now I've heard your point of view.
I can see how important it is to you and how much you value it, and I'm good with that.
So it's having those regular conversations, but almost making it a part of what you do.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I suppose that's like a good thing to maybe kind of agree, again, before babies born, to be like, right, let's make sure we're checking in regularly with each other.
Even let's put it in the diary, let's say every Sunday night or, you know, every Friday night, maybe we've got a bit more energy, or whenever it is.
And equally, because especially in those early days, that check-in needs to be regular because the needs and behaviour of the baby is going to change.
It changes so rapidly.
And actually, what might have been helpful at two months, now at four months, isn't helpful anymore.
And what your opinion might have been at two months might be different, kind of two further months along the line.
And then with things like returning to work or not returning to work, the time that somebody has available and all of those things are going to kind of shift, and you need to have the conversations about how you navigate that, I suppose.
Yeah, and in those early weeks, it may well be that you'd agree to check in every single evening as you're eating something.
You have five minutes before you go to bed or five minutes at lunchtime with your both at home on maternity and paternity leave.
And then you just space it out as time goes on.
But it is having that regular time.
You can even be doing it when you're pregnant, checking in on how you're feeling.
Your opinions, your views change as you read more and more.
So even just practising that regularly when you're pregnant, you know, where are you at?
How are you feeling?
Are you going to need to get a bit apprehensive about that parenting journey?
What are you most scared about?
What do you think we might need the most support in?
Those sorts of conversations, I think, are really invaluable.
Yeah, definitely.
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Now, back to the podcast.
You mentioned that kind of learning and reading and that kind of thing.
And, you know, there are so, there's so, so much information out there about, I mean, quite a lot about pregnancy and birth.
But when it comes to parenting, like the library that you could create yourself is absolutely enormous.
And some books are really kind of popularized in the mainstream, but aren't necessarily written by people that really know what they're talking about.
And when you have no idea, how do you know, is it possible to know, how do you know if what you're reading is going to be helpful to you or not?
How do you know about where to access your information, who to listen to, what noise to kind of drown out?
Is there, do you have any tips on how to kind of navigate that?
It is really difficult because everybody has an opinion.
You'll know that from the minute you get pregnant.
Everyone's got an opinion about pregnancy and what their experience was like and what their birth was like.
And then parenting is a whole, well, you shouldn't be doing that what I did.
So I think there is a huge amount of noise amongst all of that.
And I think I would just encourage you, I would encourage people to not feel that they have to, when they're reading a book, adhere to everything that's in that book, that they might take snippets from different things that they like.
It's almost like you're collecting.
You're collecting, oh, I like that idea.
That's it.
I quite like the sound of that, but I don't like that idea.
I like this, because it's ultimately the kind of the best way to sort of test it as such is, does this sit with my notion of the adult that I'm raising?
It's this constant, let's reflect back to, if I do this, does that get me closer to the child that then becomes the adult that I want to raise?
Or actually, do I feel that that's a bit moving me away from that?
And I think that it's just having that confidence, and it's really hard, because you don't know, and you want to listen to other people's opinions, and it sounds like a great idea, but so often we have to say, well, okay, wait a minute here.
Does this sound like it's going to get me closer to where I want my child to get to, or is this actually moving me in the wrong direction?
And if it's moving you in the wrong direction, and everyone's raving about it, then it's having that confidence to say, this doesn't feel right for me, and that's okay.
Yeah, and that is really, really hard.
Like, I think it took me at least a year of parenting my first child to reach the point where I was confident enough in myself to go, yeah, I know what I want to do, and this is how I'm going to do it.
And I would probably consider myself to be someone that probably reaches that point sooner rather than later.
So I totally understand that that is a really, really difficult place to get to.
But that, what you said about keeping the kind of long-term goal in mind, I think is a really, really useful tip.
And again, something quite difficult to do, because you think when you're in it and you're facing something difficult, sometimes you're like, oh, I just want the shortest term fixed.
I can only look ahead to tonight or I can only look ahead to this week.
And sometimes, yeah, being able to step back and think, actually, you know, what do I want for them in the next year or the next five years or the next 10 years, the next 20 years?
That's, yeah, being able to step back.
That's a really, really helpful, hopefully useful tip for people.
Yeah, and it's also forgiving yourself if you make a quick win decision that you think afterwards is not getting you anywhere closer to your long term.
Yeah.
It's just be kind.
We all make decisions, and sometimes we need those quick wins.
And then we just regroup and then we focus on the long term goal.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not one single decision that you've changed your mind about.
It's not going to derail the kind of longer term aim that you're having for your child.
And if the rest of the decisions that you're making are still in line with what it is you're hoping for, then I think shaped by social media and movies and everything, there's this idea that there's such a thing as the perfect parent and that there's a correct way to do it.
And if there was a correct way to do it, we'd all know what it was by now, wouldn't we?
There would be a manual that came with them then, wouldn't there?
Wouldn't there?
No, it is.
It's about it is being kind to ourselves as well when we make those decisions.
We have the right to change our minds.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I suppose kind of in line with this then, a big fear amongst parents might be sort of passing down difficulties that they had as children or that they still have as adults.
And this might fall, again, slightly more in line with the kind of work that you do, supporting children who suffer with anxiety.
But yeah, parents that might have suffered with specific difficulties or repeating maybe like negative patterns of behaviour that they experienced as children being parented.
Is there any way of kind of identifying this?
Is this something that people can address before they have a baby?
Yeah, I think it's quite, you know, I think it's an important thing to remember that as parents, we don't always realise where our past is going to come back.
And we're going to often get triggered by a situation that our child might face.
So that our child might come home from preschool and say to us that, you know, nobody wanted to play with them.
And we're suddenly ourselves taken right back to that six-year-old that was in the playground that struggled making friends.
So, you know, whether it's that or whether it's we've, you know, struggled with our confidence or we've had anxiety, I think it is, I think as parents, we have to accept that we bring so much of our past to our parenting, our own childhood, and it's being able to recognise of parenting the child we have rather than our own inner child that we might sometimes project onto our child.
So if we're aware that there were some challenges, then I think definitely in pregnancy is a great time to be conscious of that.
And if there's some work that needs to be done, maybe looking at addressing that, it does not mean that if you've had challenges yourself, that your child is automatically going to have them.
It's just being aware that it is likely to influence the way you parent your child, because it may be that you parent your child in a way that you wish you had been parented.
It may be that you're more mindful of it, so that you might sort of wrap them in cotton wool a little bit more, because you don't want something to happen to them, because you remember it happening to you.
So it's just being aware of that.
And that's where that practice of self-care is so important, where that taking time to check in on ourselves is key, because parenting is so autopilot, particularly those really early days, weeks, months, years, is you're trying to get through sleep deprivation and all of those other aspects of things, is that if we don't take time out to make sure and check in on where we are, we find ourselves just getting into automatic habits that we haven't always necessarily thought consciously.
Is that really the way that I want to parent?
Is that really the way that I want to manage that particular situation?
So yes, it does have an impact.
Yes, we can do something about it antinatal leave before our baby arrives, but it's accepting that it is a journey.
And part of that journey, whilst raising a child, is also taking care of ourselves so that we are even more effective at being the incredible parent that we want to be.
And so in terms of, when you say kind of addressing that, what do you mean?
Do you mean sort of like speaking with a counselor, talking through with your partner?
Like what sort of approach would people take to addressing that?
Yeah, it might be a combination of the two, depending on what the issues are.
So maybe you are somebody who naturally worries about things.
So if you, if that is something that you do, do you have strategies in place?
Do you have things that you can do when your anxiety levels reach certain points?
And if not, is it then worth going to speak to, go speak to a counselor or a therapist that might give you some tools, because then that will help you manage those situations?
Is it aspects of your childhood that you just need to kind of process and go through, and that can be in really easy conversation with your partner, or maybe even a difficult conversation to have with a parent, that there might be something there.
So I think it's not being afraid to have those discussions and to seek the support that you might need at that time, and not seeing it as a failing in any way.
It's part of our, it's part of all of our journey.
I think we all could benefit from having conversations with people about challenges that we've had.
So, you know, it's not a failing.
It's actually incredibly empowering as a parent to be doing that.
Something you said there just lit up a question in my mind actually about, so obviously, you know, we will hopefully be parenting or co-parenting our child.
But there are also, for a lot of people, other people that are involved in the raising or the care of our child.
That might be grandparents, aunties, friends, childcare.
And, you know, something that was one of the kind of big realizations actually that I had when my first, when my eldest son went, started school, was that suddenly there were these adults involved in his life that had such a huge, like they held such a big responsibility in shaping him in so many ways.
And he had this independent, like, thing going on that actually now I had nothing to do with.
And being able to kind of relinquish some of that control as being the only person that's put all of this thought and attention into how we're going to shape him as he grows up.
And so if people are, you know, relying on friends or family or kind of wider support for, you know, childcare or help with raising their child, how can we communicate what our values are as parents with them?
And I suppose this plays in very early on, if you've got grandparents and things coming around and you're talking about feeding your baby or how they're sleeping, and perhaps you might be making decisions that were different to what they did.
I think sometimes the difference can feel like a criticism of the parenting when it might not be, it might just be a kind of different choice.
How do you go about navigating all the other people that might be involved in the kind of raising of your child?
Because as much as we'd like it to just be ourselves and people that we've kind of explicitly chosen to be part of it, that's generally not kind of how it works out.
No, and I think it is all about that communication, is it's communicating the things that are important.
So the decisions that you're making are based around values.
So it's having those discussions, whether that's the way, you know, how your child is fed in terms of sleep patterns, in terms of whether you use consequences rather than discipline, all of those big value-based sort of things.
I think it is about having those conversations and being really clear with those.
But also, don't sweat the small stuff, because ultimately, your child, as they grow up and they go to school and they're making friends and they're at nursery, they're going to be meeting and interacting with people across a whole spectrum of various different values, beliefs, you know, family dynamics.
And our children need to develop and grow in that.
They need to see that.
They need to understand that the rules and what we value in our home may well be different to your friends in another home.
So let's not get too caught up in the small bits, but really communicate around the big things that really feed into the values of how we're trying to raise our child and then allowing that differentiation.
And so when our child comes back and says, well, you know, grandpa lets me have a lollipop before I go to bed, then it may well be in those moments that we can say, well, those are the rules that we have at grandpa's house, but they're not what we do in our home.
So you recognize that there's going to be some of those differences, and our children are able to navigate that, but we stick to the ones that are the bigger core values.
Yeah, no, that's brilliant.
That's a really helpful tip, I think.
I know that that is something that comes up often.
Yeah, how do you accept that support without losing sight of what the kind of most important things to you are, but that's really, really helpful.
So that sort of, I suppose, wraps us up.
We've covered so many different thoughts and ideas and all kinds of things.
If people are kind of looking for more support with this or more of your work, where can they find that?
Well, the easiest way is if you go to the podcast, which is How Not To Screw Up Your Kids, so you can kind of access them.
There's loads of different discussions on there.
And then obviously my blog on my website, which is just drmaryhan.com.
So this is so helpful for whether you are just starting out as parents or if you do have children already, we have a wide variety of listeners, so people that will already hopefully be at that stage as well.
So the final question then that I ask all of the guests on the podcast, I don't know if I've given you this or if it's just going to come out of the blue, but I always say if you could gift a pregnant or a new mum or family one thing, what would it be?
My gift would be to trust their instincts.
And I know it is tough, but if you give yourself that moment and ask yourself, does this feel right?
Then do it.
If it doesn't feel right, do something else.
Yeah, that's so valuable.
And that goes for like pregnancy, birth, parenthood, the whole thing.
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for joining me.
That was really interesting.
Thank you so much for having me.
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