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Childcare Consultancy
After being a nanny for over 20 years I had my own daughter. From the moment my daughter was born my life changed, I had looked after other peoples children all this time, but nothing had prepared me for having my own.
Looking after children and having your own are two different concepts, being a mother allows you to place yourself in the position of all the mothers out their, ‘you have those heart strings to now’.
Because mothers have that intense parent-child bond it can be difficult to detach one’s self and look subjectively at the issues at hand. Why is my child behaving the way they are? Have I done something wrong? You can find yourself questioning your ability as a parent and sometimes despite your best efforts the problems are still their.
When someone becomes a parent for the first time; looking after a baby is an alien concept. A lot of the time is spent running on intuition which is a very good thing, but their are times that only experience with children can offer you the answers as to why your child is behaving as they are. I am happy to say in nearly all cases their is nothing wrong at all, it is simply the child has learned unconsciously the wrong associations from confusion around them and by changing this all can be fixed and very quickly.
Children thrive on flexible routine, understanding of their boundaries and explanations by grown ups, with out this they become incredibly confused and this is when bad behaviour sets in. When we say flexible routine, we don’t mean strict day time sleep times with mum in fear of walking outside the house with the pram in case her child falls asleep at an undocumented time or mum feeling isolated because a toddler group happens to be at a time that is documented as sleep time. Being a mum should be a happy time, you should if you wish go out at any time of day, mix with other mums and have your child happy at groups simply by understanding what your child is telling you. After all, if a mother has 3 children you always find child number 3 is incredibly easy going, this is simply because it has realised it has to fit in with its environment and not the other way around.
After having my daughter I was determined to observe her and understand why certain things worked and why, very soon I noticed it was definitely a combination of flexible routine and understanding the child’s individual needs. Realising each child is a unique individual and each family's circumstances are different and that their is no one-size-fits-all solution to any of the issues that come along in your child's development and growth is the key to happy children.
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