The Baby Parenting Coach » parenting support

Babies: Trusting Yourself to Parent

Ingrid — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:52:36 +0000

At the end of the day, even with all the parenting resources available today, it’s our sense of trusting ourselves that empowers us. Creating an ongoing format to enhance that confidence is a powerful tool to have in our parenting repertoire. It might be as simple as talking over your options about a particular challenge with a trusted mentor. An ongoing moms group that enables listening and sharing in a supportive way may be a good source of feedback. There are a variety of options for developing this important trait in your parenting.
As with many aspects of parenting, there is opportunity to constantly add to your ‘toolbox’, refine your insights, and upgrade your skills. Raising kids is the ultimate growth experience. They are growing – you can, too! Seeing the inevitable challenges as opportunities for your own personal growth is an attitude worth exploring.
You may wonder how a baby’s sleep habits could be an opportunity for your growth. Well, there are a great many different ways of responding, reacting, and handling sleep patterns and habits. The behaviors of your infant may summon responses that are unique. Singing a particular lullaby may work better with one child than another. The variations and opportunities for creativity are huge. Have fun with it, explore, be flexible and open, and see you own potential expand. That’s the best start to trusting yourself as a parent.

Understanding Parenting As If Our Future Depends On It

Ingrid — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:38:59 +0000

Much of my focus recently has been on educating about the importance of parenting to support optimum baby brain development. The deeper I delve into research that has, in most cases, been around for many years, the more it is validated for me that what we do as parents/caregivers of the very young is inextricably linked to quality of life for us all. It’s interesting to me that so little connection is made in our mainstream media. It’s as if tantrums, behavioral challenges, ADD/ADHD, teen angst, our overflowing prisons, and the myriad of social problems that we have arrive from another planet, are some external ill that is foisted upon us, and are reason to consult ‘experts’ or other resources outside ourselves. It’s my belief that 90+% of these issues could be addressed in very early childhood. Preparing for and supporting ourselves during this monumental task would make a world of difference, not just for you and your child, but for all of us who live in this society and world with you.

Without getting into the highly private, intense, and controversial areas of parenting styles, I still see an enormous benefit to educating about the critical impact, for life, of what a baby and toddler experiences in the 0 – 3 age range. While we can focus on a variety of ’superficial’ issues, one parenting method over another, choices that seem vital to the parenting style we want to endorse, we seldom hear or have an open discussion of the impact of subtle nuances on our baby’s wellness. Even amongst ‘experts’, the importance of clarity of our own values and priorities before we parent is seldom discussed.

Learning to recognize, love, and accept that which is difficult, unacceptable, and challenging within ourselves is a fundamental precept to parenting. Support for that process is vital and easily makes the difference between a parent who suceeds and one who is overwhelmed.

Please encourage all those you know who are comtemplating parenthood, are already parents of babies/toddlers, and who are caregivers to seek their most trustworthy parenting voice from their own essence. As always, I welcome your questions and comments.

Play, play, play

Ingrid — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:28:32 +0000

For your baby and toddler, the optimum way to learn is through play. There are no flashcards, movies, or lessons that are needed. The most valuable source of learning at these early ages is interaction with YOU!

While this obviates an entire segment of what is currently marketed to parents, it is true that you and your baby have everything you need to engage in this activity. Your faces, your voices, your touch, and your attention and interest are truly the best props you could have.

Rather than ‘plugging’ your very young child into an electronic entertainment device, please consider that your time and focus are very well spent interacting with your baby. If you have other tasks you are wanting to accomplish, I’ve found that talking to your baby while you wash dishes, file papers, or do some other task that does not require your complete attention enables you to stay connected. Then you can re-connect fully for another session of play!

All of my anecdotal experience says it it completely worth it to find a way to be available and make the effort to connect. The first few years of your child’s life are crucial to development of lifelong patterns.

www.BabyParentingCoach.com

‘Sustainable’ Parenting

Ingrid — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:10:00 +0000

‘Sustainable’ means carried out over time. In addition to spanning time, you have the option to make your parenting successful, fulfilling, and effective.

In order to parent well over time (and we all know that parenting doesn’t end when they leave for college), your best strategy is to learn and understand your own strategy. Then you have a base from which to be flexible, and that flexibility, combined with self-knowledge, will serve you well. It will enable you to seek out and use varying resources over the years.

Taking control of your own emotions provides a pathway to success in parenting. By control, I do not mean suppressing or repressing emotions. Control means understanding, coupled with effective resources for experiencing your own emotions when it is healthy and productive. For many adults today, this is not an easy task. We are all pretty much trained to seek self-gratification, and seek it soon. Parenthood will derail that usually for a while, but many parents become absorbed in having their child be a status symbol, a possession, an extension of themselves. These are all recipes for failure as a parent. Unless you can set aside your own agenda on a consistent basis, your parenting will suffer.

I call this approach ’sustainable’ parenting because it works well, it works over time, it nurtures you and your child, and it has potential to evolve through all the stages and phases of parenting. When you see your parenting as it is, tell the truth, then see it as better than it is, you can raise the standard, and grow yourself as well as make yourself a better parent for your child.

Creating Self-Directed Behavior in Your Toddler

Ingrid — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:23:00 +0000

Developmentally, your toddler is beginning to emerge as an independent little person, also very much in need of reliable connection to you. Finding ways to balance those two factors while remaining responsive and supportive of the developmental changes are the challenges of this period in parenting. Parents who continue to control and orchestrate every event for the toddler are removing an important learning opportunity.

Of course, we adults realize that we are making pretty much all the significant decisions in the toddler’s life. However, the many small, daily choices that are present are wonderful windows of learning, if you are aware of them and take advantage of them. The ability to discern preferences, beginning with tiny distinctions, like the degree of darkness in the child’s room for sleeping, can set the tone for including the child in decision-making. This grows into more and more participation and input as the child becomes older. Asking for feedback, listening to it, and incorporating it into the daily rhythms are important patterns for the toddler to experience.

Self-directed behavior requires checking in with self first. Toddlerhood is an optimum age at which to model and teach this skill. It has lifelong value, and can be built open at every stage of development. Self-directed behavior precedes other more sophisticated self-modulating techniques that are key to socialization. These skills are valuable for life.

Support for identifying where you are most skilled, as well as areas where you may need help is available to you in individual sessions or convenient packages now available at www.babyparentingcoach.com.

Don’t hesitate to explore the potential of your best possible parenting!

What is Responsive Parenting?

Ingrid — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:06:00 +0000

My young 2-year old friend, Avery, is consumed for long periods of time (more than 30 minutes) with arranging her tiny animal figures, then ‘feeding’ them, then putting them in some prone position (often covered by ‘blankets’) and putting them to sleep, waking them up, asking them if they’re hungry…I watch with delight and amazement every time. She is, at age 2, exhibiting fairly sophisticated nurturing and care taking skills. I lament to myself that I know parents who are not as ‘equipped’ to nurture their children as this very young child already is.

Where does this sensibility, ‘instinct’, or predisposition to be so caring, so interested in the well-being of another emanate from? How does one very young child already have a level of skill and inclusiveness, so that even when we go about another activity, she still checks back to see how her ‘animal’ friends are doing?

She has already learned ‘responsive parenting’, and is very good at it. It has, obviously, been modeled for her since the very beginning of her two years, and it is natural, fun, instinctive, and very beautiful to watch. Observing her ‘notice’ and accommodate the subtle nuances of a pretend friend wanting a little more water, or to go for a ride, truly gives me hope for our future.

Responsive parenting means viewing your role as parent as a constantly evolving, highly attuned endeavor. Knowing your baby’s smallest likes and dislikes, taking a moment to plan an experience so that it is comfortable and secure, and of course, the biggest challenge, learning to put your own ‘instant gratification’ on hold – these are all steps toward responsive (as well as responsible) parenting.

Exploding the Myth of the Terrible Twos – There’s NO Such Thing

Ingrid — Sun, 03 May 2009 17:06:00 +0000

Nothing currently known about babies’ and toddlers’ development substantiates the currently widespread misconception of “terrible twos”. I know that flies in the face of most all parenting “education” in this country. You may want to stop reading right here if you are committed to subscribing to this mis-guided theory. That something suddenly “happens” at this age that precipitates tantrums and unacceptable behavior is just plain false.

Unless you’re ready to look at yourself and your parenting objectively, you probably won’t like what you’re about to read. It is, in fact, your responses to and conditioning of your baby and toddler that lead her to exhibit certain behaviors at age 2. Developmentally for the child, there is individuation and the move toward some independence at this age. Of course, the need for connection and reassurance are also present, as strong as ever. Parents who expect a 2 year old to behave the same as she was behaving at 18 months, or the same as some other child (including sibs), are in for a rude awakening. However, labelling it “terrible twos” and buying into all the generalized misinformation that comes with those terms are sad substitutes for good parenting.

Creating an effective and evolving way to parent the 2 year old would be infinitely more beneficial to the child and parent. This need does not start at age 2, but it can be significantly improved upon at this age. Instead of attaching a worn-out and disempowering label, parents could look for new ways to connect with the emerging independence in their toddler. Creating simple, highly reassuring ways for the sometimes fiercely independent toddler to return to nurturing and supported babyhood would allow the 2 year old to go back and forth between dependence and independence. This, in fact, is what needs to happen in order for individuation to occur.

It’s amazing how many different ways this simple method can be employed in parenting. If you focus your energy on giving your child exactly what she needs in the present moment (by which I mean attention, not physical objects), you often expedite developmental stages. If you do not attach a dysfuntional label to the reaction you get from your child when you are not offering appropriate attention and care, you may end up getting a lot less challenging behaviors. It was infinitely more pleasant for all involved parenting my 3 now adult kids, who grew up as individuals with different temperaments, styles, and needs.

Experience Yourself As a Great Parent

Ingrid — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:58:00 +0000

What’s possible for you as a parent? Have you thought about the options?

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.

Your Baby As Your Mirror

Ingrid — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:39:00 +0000

A week from today I’ll be at Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy in South Boulder with parents of babies and toddlers. Our general topic is how to grow as a person while you’re parenting. Everyone is invited, Friday at 3 pm or Saturday at 12:30. Please tell your friends who live in the Boulder area.

My CD, “OMG! I’m A Parent!!” will be available for only $15 (no shipping and handling, which is included in the website price).

Understanding ourselves and the patterns and behaviors we bring to parenting is more than valuable – it’s an insight into what you will be experiencing in the entire parenting process. The reflection of our most desired, as well as least favorite traits, will invariably be reflected back to us by our children. The sooner that is taken into account, the more choices you have in how to modulate your own behaviors.

Taking time to reflect on where we are on the continuum of self-awareness is time well spent, even in the very early hectic and harried parenting years. As more and more research emerges on baby brain development, it continues to consistenly show that babies brains absorb all that is going on around them. As adults, we have sophisticated strategies in place to be more or less aware of certain things, depending on our orientation. Babies do not have these filters yet, so they are getting everything, conscious and unconscious, to which they are exposed. Keeping that in mind can help motivate parents to examine, edit, and revise their own patterns.

Join us for information and fun-filled time at South Boulder Pharmaca next week!
All your questions and comments are always wecome.

‘Seasonal Baby Syndrome’

Ingrid — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:40:00 +0000

Okay, there is no such “syndrome”, but there is an increased stress level in many families due to the holidays. This wonderful, magical, social, and fun time is also marked by lots of additional stress in our lives.

Yesterday I attended a weekly music class for babies and toddlers that is usually a highly participatory, fun event. The group was large, and both babies and adults were cranky, subdued, and not engaged nearly as much as usual. My ‘armchair diagnosis’ is sensory overload from all the ‘extras’ already going on because of holidays. I heard a couple of Moms comment on their incredibly long lists of extra things they were trying to accomplish because of holidays, and several bemoaned how close together Thanksgiving and Christmas are this year!

While I have no solution to the overwhelm many adults succumb to during this season, I do suggest shielding your baby from it as much as possible. Be aware that your baby absorbs all the ambient ‘energy’, whether or not it is directed at her. Even if you are wisely maintaining the regular routines, she is also picking up the heightened state of excitement everywhere, from the retail buzz in stores to festivities at friends’ homes. If you carefully limit how much you choose to expose baby to, you will have much less stressed out crankiness with which to contend.

Happy Holidays!

Email and phone support available throughout!