Parenthood
As we are both first time parents to be it is very important for us to prepare ourselves as much as possible for the arrival of our child. We both found reading an enormous help in the task of becoming a fulfilled parent. Of course I am a firm believer in the fact that nothing is as good as learning from practice, but studying does help. We started of with Dr Yehudi Gordon’s, nearly 600 pages “Birth and beyond”, which is concentrating on the 9 months of pregnancy and, then first 9 months of the child’s life. It is a great book for anyone who is a beginner. We understood what changes to expect in our life’s and how to prepare for them. Also for me, the explanations of my physical state during pregnancy and labour were very helpful and the book made me feel more aware and able to be more in charge of my life and future.
Then a few weeks ago we received a present from Warwick’s brother Mark and his fiancee Nicola. A book by Peter Mayle “Baby Taming”, which is just brilliant! I would recommend it as an easy read to any new parent to be. The other one is Steve Biddulph’s “The Complete Secrets of Happy Children”, I will agree that the title is scary! But the book is great. It really goes through the stages in the child’s and parent’s life and gives authentic, straight forward advice, that sound so obvious it is difficult to understand why so many people do not just follow them naturally. Any of you already parents might say – “Easy to say, wait and see when you will have a crying baby!” I think the most important message in this book is these three main rules for parents
1. take care of yourself;
2. take care of your partnership;
3. take care of your kids;
It is so easy to forget yourself and just compromise everything for the children, but it is as important for their health to have happy parents. Another thing, the children come second very close, after your relationship! That’s so important! I can not re-write the book. But I would recommend it to anyone it does make things so much clearer and we can not wait to put this into practice.