Or do you sometimes feel like you need to be committed?

Let me explain…

During my first pregnancy I decided to commit myself to a range of books and empower myself through positive messages. By the time I finished reading 3-4 books I felt like I was starting to go insane; everybody had something to say about every aspect of pregnancy & childbirth, or parenting. And most of it was different.

There was one book that stood out to me, “A Modern Woman’s Guide to a Natural Empowering Birth” by Katrina Zaslavsky.

Chapter 2 started with a quote by Tom Robbins that reads:

“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach”

This really resonated with me. In modern day we can sometimes overcommit ourselves to activities, work, friends / family, which can sometimes send us insane and feel like we are heading straight for the nearest psyche unit.

It got me thinking about all the commitments we make once we decide to start our own family. It doesn’t matter where you are in the parenting cycle, there are always plenty of decisions and commitments to make.

Wanna-be Parents

I am lucky in that despite a couple of suspected miscarriages, pregnancy eventually happened for me. I have always known that I was destined to be a mum. At the same time, I didn’t want children just for the sake of having children, I guess I was waiting for the ‘right’ man / ‘right’ moment in time.

Unfortunately though, there are many couples out there that do struggle to start their own family; and even if they’re not struggling but, waiting for the right moment, there are many commitments that need to be made pre-pregnancy.

Wanna-be parents need to be committed to:

• Change
• Health
• Losing excess weight if needs be
• Improving their fertility etc.

Are you prepared to do what it takes? To go from being a wanna-be to a soon-to-be parent?

If so, and you are struggling to conceive….

This is THE ONLY resource I recommend !

Natural Fertility Breakthrough with Gabriela Rosa – some that have failed on IVF have been successful with her approach.

Soon-to-be Parents

The biggest commitment I had to make as an expectant mother was, my relationship with my partner & getting his support in committing to things like birth plans etc.

• Would our parenting styles be similar or worlds apart?
• Would we agree on how to discipline? Vaccinations? Style of childcare?
• Breastfeeding – how often, how long for? 6 months, 1-2 years?

And much more…

Having run a health practice for many years, I was concerned my partner might be daunted by my approach to health / life, especially when it came to birth plans. This is something I knew I needed him to fully support me in.

Come the big day, I didn’t want to be stressing about things that the midwives were doing to myself or our baby. I needed someone I knew would stick up for me, my wants and needs during the birthing process; but I was also aware the birth plan needed to be sensitive to his needs / wants during this time.

I guess this is when the quote from “A Modern Woman’s Guide to a Natural Empowering Birth” really hit home. I needed to make decisions about how I wanted the birth to go, but, I also understood I needed to be flexible if things changed.

Sometimes, I think we get so caught up in the decisions we’ve made that we forget to be flexible. A wise Hawaiian once said, “People don’t fail, plans fail”, he was right. When things don’t go our way, we blame ourselves or the circumstances, when really all we needed was to be more flexible in our approach.

Parents

How often have you thought a day would go a certain way? Then, all of a sudden plans change and you need to change your day…

Parenting is like that, so the only commitment you need to commit to, is being flexible! Otherwise you might well find yourself at the local hospital.

Life changes and can change often, how you approach and handle those changes will affect your child. From an early age children learn by example; if you become a stress head every time life changes direction / plans change, you will encourage your child to be an anxious little stress head in their own right!

It is the same with discipline, your child needs to know where they stand; commit to your decisions, but stay flexible at all times….

So when working out where you need to be flexible, ask yourself:

• Is it safe?
• Is it respectful?
• Does it feel right?
• Does my decision come from a place of love?