Читать книгу Truly Happy Baby ... It Worked for Me: A practical parenting guide from a mum you can trust - Holly Willoughby, Holly Willoughby - Страница 5

I knew I would write this book when I had my first son, Harry. I couldn’t believe how many times I thought – and indeed heard fellow parents say – ‘Why didn’t anybody tell me about this?!’ There’s no two ways about it, becoming a new mum or dad can be incredibly daunting. There’s no other job on the planet this important where you wouldn’t be given first-class training to prepare you, but as babies don’t arrive with an instruction manual, this is me passing on all the things that I found worked for me, in the hope they might help you too. I’ve been blessed with three very different babies, so whilst I don’t profess to have any official childcare qualifications (although all the advice in this book has been checked by a medical professional), I have had a lot of varied experience, coping with, and getting to know, each of my children. In this book I’ll share all the best bits I’ve learnt along the way for how to look after my family.

The best piece of advice I can give you, and which you should try and keep at the forefront of your mind, is YOU KNOW BEST! Albert Einstein himself said, ‘The only really valuable thing is intuition,’ and who are we to argue with a genius?! Listen to intuition, switch off fear. When you first have a baby, you might feel bombarded with advice from friends, family and medical professionals, and some of that advice can be conflicting. This is when you have to sift through what you’ve been told, and then listen to you. I’m going to be really honest with you throughout this book about the decisions I made for my babies and my reasons for making them, but I can’t stress enough how important it is that you go through your own thought processes, filter all the information and make the decisions that are right for you and your baby. Don’t just do things because I’m saying that’s what I did, and don’t avoid doing things because someone else tells you not to. No one knows your child better than you, and the sooner you learn to trust and follow your gut, the more empowered, confident, relaxed and happy you will become as a parent. And, remember, no parent on the planet gets it right all the time. I certainly didn’t, and more often than not the questionable decisions I made were not my own.

In this book, I’ve tried to give the best overview I can of the first year of your baby’s life. Hopefully you’ll find the more baby-led chapters such as Feeding, Sleeping and Wellbeing a really helpful but gentle guide for how to care for your baby, full of the tips that particularly worked for me. Then I’ve talked about Lifestyle and the changes for you and your new family, and what things you can do to make the transition smooth and the outcome even better than before. Lastly, I’ve tried to be as honest as I can in the Looking After You chapter, as at a time when life is so completely different, so are you, and this can feel utterly overwhelming sometimes.

It’s important to say here that this isn’t a rule book. One size most definitely doesn’t fit all when it comes to babies so you need to spend time getting to know your baby to find out what works for you both. You might have to go through ten different soothing methods before you find one your baby likes, for example, and even then it’ll probably be one you made up – see, I told you to listen to your gut! If you’re at that point where nothing seems to be working and you’re at your lowest ebb and most exhausted, try to remember that nothing lasts forever! You’ll be in a completely different place in a month or so – just hang in there.

One final thing I should stress is that new mums don’t always feel an overwhelming surge of love for their new baby when they first give birth. If that’s you, you’re in good company! Please don’t beat yourself up about it. Just make sure you look after yourself and that little baby; you’ve got plenty of time to watch the love flow in – a whole lifetime in fact!

Best of luck to you and that new little baby! Let’s go through this together … deep breath …

Love