BIRTH AND RELATIONSHIPS
I’m going to be honest. I adore my husband, however, we’ve had 4 babies and
there have been many times when we have said “That’s enough!”, “I can’t do
this anymore!”, “Who are you?” “I’m leaving!” And all for good reason. Having
a baby tests even the strongest of relationships. So it’s good to do some
preparation before a baby enters your life for good. First baby, or 5th, each
one brings about new challenges for you and it’s worth doing a “Spring Clean”
in your relationships before you give birth to help build your ‘relational
resilience’ and support each other when the going gets tough (and it will and it
does).This includes your relationship with your partner, naturally (If you have one),
but also your relationship with yourself, your family, close friends, work
colleagues and potential new friends (there are bound to be some new Parent
Pals along the way), and of course, your relationship with your
home/environment where you nest and retreat (your safe place).Babies are hard work. Lovely, of course, but they disrupt in every way. Sleep,
Social life and Stuff! No sleep is going to test you to the limits (it’s torturous
at times and brings out the Beast in you). However, a big plus point is you will
appreciate sleep so much more once you have a baby; bed-sheets and a
darkened, quiet room never felt so good. Social life? Think “out with the old,
in with the new”. Those raves will be rare! You will be up all night though,
(that’s a fact) and you will find a new way to socialise that may not have
appealed to you before; baby groups and coffee mornings will become a life-
line! Let’s not forget ‘The Stuff’; babies apparently need stuff (they actually
don’t need anything apart from warmth, food and love, but the Retail World
says they do, so we buy it), and it fills our otherwise adult environment and
takes over our designer bedroom faster than the bloke from ‘BBC Changing
Rooms’ can shout “NOOOOOO”!“All happiness, or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are
attached by love” (Baruch Spinoza)
Written by Sophie Burch (themammacoach)
Actually, a lot. Starting with honesty and reflection. With yourself, with each
other and with your family. What are the good bits? What are the bad? How
do the people closest to you make you feel about yourself? Can you afford to
make changes, have some distance for a while or even move on? If someone
or something isn’t serving you well anymore, then perhaps it’s time to accept
this and walk away for a while. It doesn’t need to be permanent, however, a
new baby will take up space in your life and your heart and you will need
support from people that understand and empathise with this; including you.
Accepting that your transition into parenting will mean that you will be
moving into a new, changed chapter in your life, is the first step.Looking within, what’s your relationship with yourself? Do you like yourself? If
not, why not? What is your inner critic consistently saying and why? Is this
serving you well? Will it make you feel good about yourself when you are a
parent? What are your strengths and weaknesses and how can you address
this. Finding your strengths, your good-points and the little things that you
love about yourself will help. Reaffirming that to yourself when you are at
your most tired, can keep you afloat and bring you up to where you need to
be on a moment by moment basis.Understanding what attachment style you are in a relationship is a real head-
start. The book, “Attached”, (Amir Levine, M.D., and Rachel S.F. Heller, M.A),
has some valuable tools to help you discover what it is you really want and
how you behave in relationships. Knowing this will help as you Love-in-life:
with yourself, your partner and your baby. What a gift you’ll give to your little
one as you set them up with a secure attachment style in the process;
grasping the importance of attachment from day one of their lives.
http://www.onthedoorstep.orgWhy is it important?What can be done?Where can you start?Page 26