The Green Parent

By The Green Parent

10th December 2019

Many first time expectant parents plan for the baby - but not the transition they are about to take into becoming a family writes Ania Hughes. Runner Up in our 2019 Writing Competition

The Green Parent

By The Green Parent

10th December 2019

The Green Parent

By The Green Parent

10th December 2019

When I found out I was expecting my first baby, like many new expectant parents I threw myself into finding out what I believed I needed to know. I joined the NCT and took what would become a life changing HypnoBirthing course. My pregnancy was healthy and I had a positive, empowering birth experience. After the first two weeks at home with our newborn my husband had to return to work and there I was left literally holding the baby. What now? I was utterly lost.

Before becoming a mother I had considered myself a well educated, resilient woman. But two weeks post-partum that felt like that was a person from a different world. Although I knew how to look after my baby, I felt as though there was something wrong with me. I didn’t feel depressed, I just felt completely at sea. It came down to the fact that I was alone; my parents had passed away years earlier and as an only child I had no other extended family. At 28 I was the first of my friendship group to have a baby and after the first dutiful visits they had returned to my former life of work, weekends and predictable sleep patterns. 80

My first attempts to find my feet as a mother in retrospect were faulty - I threw my belief in “experts” or those whose professions involve babies. Surely they must know the correct way for me to parent my baby? But it soon became apparent that they were not experts on mybaby and all these professionals seemed to contradict each other. My health visitor seemed to be the first person to speak something positive when she uttered the words “remember to look after yourself, a happy mum helps make a happy baby”. Until that point it had honestly not occurred to me that perhaps I needed any form of care. Surely I was just there to feed, care, change, burp, bathe and love my new baby? This was a pivotal point as for the first time someone had looked at me and reminded me that I mattered too—whoever it was that I had now become. It was worth spending time to find out what I needed and I then felt my mothering journey had begun.

On reflection what I needed was emotional support. So I made a pledge to reach out and find it. I contacted my NCT group, we began to meet regularly and soon we shared stories about our mothering experiences. When most of them returned to work I had to reach out again and I found many other parents like me - at playgroups, coffee mornings and the park. I began to meet up with these other mothers for playdates and even drinks in the evening. I was grateful for my new support network and parenting village I had discovered and helped build around myself.

The next challenge in my mothering journey was that I found myself often doubting my parenting decisions or comparing my daughter against her peers and social media ideals. I once again faced the looming fear of parenting the “wrong way”. Then one evening I came across a course called HypnoMothering. Designed almost as a postnatal extension to HypnoBirthing I thought given the positivity I’d had around my birth perhaps it was worth a try. I found the programme a revelation. This was the first parenting related course which did not involve judgement or doing it a “correct way”. It addressed so many concerns that had appeared in my early parenting journey - from the love story with your baby, to how to manage with less sleep and how life will change with a baby in it as well as how to ask for support. What it ultimately gave me was confidence: I know my baby and will parent in a way that has her best interests in mind.

I finally understand that motherhood is an ever changing journey with no single answer and that I will change along with it. We are not the same people we were as teenagers (thank goodness!) and I am no longer a nervous new mother. On my mothering journey so far I have learnt many life lessons. The first is the importance of kindness - both to yourself and others. It is ok to make mistakes it is how we learn - forgive yourself and carry on. This kindness needs to extend to other parents too - everyone is trying their best and we can only build the village that raises a child through love and support. Social media can both be a curse and a blessing - there are many mummy vloggers which provide an extension to the support you may need. However on a bad or challenging day nothing can beat human contact, a cup of tea and a hug. Our children are as beautifully individual as we are and there is no such thing as a one size fits all parenting technique that works. Finding other parents in your support network can be trial and error. It might feel a bit like being back at school and trying to find which social circle you fit into. This time the groups are divided by feeding method, attachment vs routine, stay at home or working parent and so on. Once again there is no perfect fit - I slowly found people I liked, who made me laugh and although some parenting practices were similar it was not what our friendship was ultimately based on.

Unfortunately many first time expectant parents plan for the baby - but not the transition they are about to take into becoming a family. Awareness surrounding maternal mental health and the importance of self care is becoming a topic that is being increasingly discussed and I hope this will extend to the entire family unit . This is not a journey that stops with the baby phase, just as your child grows - you do with them. When you birth a baby for the first time you also birth a mother. This transition period has been termed “matrescence”. You need to give yourself time to discover who this mother is and how best to care for her. I finally feel empowered and (relatively) confident in the parenting decisions I make and most importantly I am enjoying the journey of watching my children grow.

Ania Hughes is a HypnoBirthing and HypnoMothering Educator who is passionate about helping educate and prepare people for their transition into parenthood. Having trained in the Mongan Method, Ania’s mission is to empower people for an easier, more comfortable birthing experience. She has two girls and lives in West London.

https://hughes-hypnobirthing.co.uk/

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