Will you access your authentic ‘voice’ as you evolve and explore?

Do you feel as if you could do better?

Do you feel overwhelmed with all the choices, or with differences with your partner?

How would it feel to experience yourself as a great parent? What’s possible?

I’m offering sample coaching sessions to help you tap into the compelling, irresistible vision you have (even if it’s buried!) of yourself as a great parent. Together we will discover some of the qualities that are important to you. I’ll help you compile a “mini toolbox” of strategies for accessing these qualities when you feel challenged, overwhelmed, and not in touch with yourself as a great parent.

Free, VERY limited time offer of intro 45 minute sessions now scheduling. Call 303.776.8100 or email babyparentingcoach@gmail.com today.

See yourself as a great parent, learn to develop the skills that will take you there.

Why does it matter?

Today the gamut of choices in how to parent your baby range from ‘attachment’ parenting to turning over your infant to full time childcare at age 6 weeks. Every imaginable variation in between is evident, with stay-at-home dads, nanny-sharing, parents who work from home, grandparents who raise babies, and many other adaptations.

Finding your ‘parenting style’ can be daunting. Because being a parent is a uniquely multi-layered undertaking, your choices for parenting will affect you, your child, your family, and the rest of us in ways that are difficult to fully comprehend at the start. Some time in the distant future, if you have the opportunity and inclination, you may look back and reflect on the underlying patterns and behaviors you helped create. Most of us are so involved in dealing with the immediate aspects of becoming a parent (“Am I really completely responsible for this tiny, dependent being? I’m scared, overwhelmed, clueless. Why don’t I instinctively know what to do? Who left ME in charge?”) we seldom fully explore our fears and insecurities that get triggered.

In an ideal world, when contemplating becoming parents, you would set aside plenty of time to spend with friends and family who are parents, experience and explore the different approaches, try on what feels authentic to you, and mindfully, and in complete agreement with your partner, choose what would work best for you. Then when your baby entered the world, you would smoothly and seamlessly implement that plan. Needless to say, that is far from what happens for most of us.

Reality looks more like taking wishes and dreams you have about how you’d like to parent, compressing them into your real lifestyle (you and your partner may or may not agree on key parenting issues, you may have taken a parenting class and resonated with the approach or not, your reading may have offered some interesting options). Some combination of resources and choices land you in the orientation where you start your parenting experience. Throw in the unpredictability of the individual baby’s temperament (which may be entirely different than siblings!), and you are in a fairly ‘wing it’ mode.

You can see how being flexible can greatly increase your odds for success. How comfortable are you with trying something that was not in your original plan? Where do you go for resources to find a different approach, if your current one is not working so well? How do you keep track of what you may want to implement when you are overwhelmed, tired, and stressed?

It’s easy to see that an effective ‘parenting style’ requires both a high degree of flexibility and a keen self-awareness. It’s a work in progress, and if your parenting style is not continuously evolving, it probably is not working very well. There are no concrete plans or programs for effectively raising a child. Many valuable resources exist for reference, but your challenge is to manifest your own unique ‘parenting style’ that is authentic and effective for you, your baby, and your family.

The more clarity you have about your own values and beliefs, your partner’s values and beliefs, how they mesh and how they don’t, and what your various support mechanisms are, the better you start. With that, ongoing support and flexibility are key.

Ongoing individualized support is available by email and phone. Contact me to hear about the ’spring start’ special for March.

When we are not able to identify the particular need of our baby in a given moment, we can still validate her choice of how she feels at that moment, and connect with love, affection, and understanding. This is a large part of what being a parent to an infant is about – making yourself available to another who is physically very limited in her ability to take care of her own needs.

There is an enormous amount of misinformation available to parents about ‘teaching’ babies to comfort themselves. As they get older, children gradually use more words instead of cues or crying. As a parent, it’s pure wisdom to understand and encourage this. Your child deserves to be taught that it is okay to express physical and emotional pain. An emotional pattern for her lifetime is created by how you respond to her while she’s a baby.

It’s a pretty good analogy to say that your baby is like a ’sponge’ at these ages, and developmentally, taking in everything in her surroundings is part of the plan. “Pruning” of brain synapses happens, with or without our input. For optimum brain development, reducing or eliminating negative stress for your baby is a huge gift you can give. This means minimizing sensory overload, modulating loud or new experiences, and develping an awareness of what your baby does and doesn’t like to be around.

It’s documented with ‘hard’ science now that if a baby’s brain is unduly overloaded with stress, there is a cascade of events that result in your baby actually ’shutting down’ and learning that the world is a hostile, unfriendly environment. The cumulative effect of these kinds of experiences result in a young child out of touch with her own internal feedback. It sets up young children to be dependent entirely on outside sources for making decisions about what they need and want (easy to see how this can be a precursor to a lifetime of eating disorders, substance abuse, behavioral difficulties, etc.)

Please educate yourself as a parent about the extremely dynamic growth happening in your baby’s brain. Your choices in how you interact and the environments that you create for her will shape her lifelong experience.

Of course, our own child’s behaviors trigger us at times. She may exhibit a pattern or habit that we don’t like in ourselves. He may somehow remind us of a relative or person we have memories of, and that may be pleasant, joyful, sad, or annoying. Every time such an event comes up, it’s a chance to choose what we do.

Many parents revert to the pattern established by their own parenting. Others have studied approaches that may have appealed to them, and are trying to implement those. Some are influenced by friends and peers, others allow their own parenting style to emerge as they meet their baby.

The choices today in parenting styles are many. How do you choose the way that is right for you? What do you do if the way you have chosen isn’t working?

How do you best use parenting to grow yourself as a person? The results you experience are very much up to you. Having excellent support increases the chances of the outcome being what you desire.

When you decide to become a parent, you sign up for all that, as well as all the rewarding and heart-warming moments that make up being a parent. The rewards are huge, and so are the challenges. Preparing ahead of time is wonderful, and I encourage you do that. However, the best preparation in the world does not anticipate the unforeseen developments that come with a new baby.

Whether it’s a temperament or patterns that are not what you were told about in your parenting class, your baby is almost sure to bring you some unexpected challenges. Also, the predictable pieces can still create stress and discomfort for parents. How you handle this will determine the overall quality of your parenting experience.

Lining up excellent support is a wise decision before your baby is born. Knowing that there is experienced and wise support available is important. Call upon it when you need it.