Today on the blog is the gorgeous Paolo Espinel, nutrition and life coach from Be Wise Be Healthy. She is sharing with us the three mistakes she made as a first time mum.

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Three Mistakes I Made As a First Time Mum

When we women start a family, all the attention is focused in the pregnancy itself, the preparation for birth and the welcoming the baby home but little thought is given to the new life as a mum looking after a new tiny creature.

We are never taught formally how to be a mum, we do not know what to expect and how to best get ready to be responsible for another little human being. Yes, there are millions of books and information online, but this only creates confusion, guilt and doubt about the way we raise our children, especially those first couple of years.

Unfortunately, we tend to ignore the perfection and wisdom of our universe and the advice from the wise older mums; and as we walk on the self-discovery journey of being a mum we naturally do things that we regret later. For me, these are the top three mistakes that I made as a first time mum:

MISTAKE #1 – Not following a routine – I never believed in routines and was VERY flexible about how and when things were done. During the first two years of life, I took my daughter everywhere and she slept easily in the car or pram but rarely at home. There was no schedule for eating, bed time or any kind of bed routine at night. She used to cry a lot, especially when tired but I did not follow her cues. Days were long and I was tired. After many sleepless nights and exhaustion, I decided to follow routine and things changed overnight.

MY WISE ADVICE – Babies (and children in general) like a predictable world. Activities that happen at about the same time and in about the same way each day provide comfort, security and emotional stability and help children to learn to trust caring adults. Being able to anticipate what will happen next give also children opportunity to build their confidence and self control. Most importantly, routines allow you (the mum and carer) to have a rest, experience less stress in your days and live a more organized happy life. So, start by evaluating what routines you have in place and how well these are working for everyone. Keep in mind that every family is different, and you must create unique routines that suit your circumstances.

MISTAKE #2 – Wanting to control everyone – I created a stressful environment at home, as I was always complaining how my hubby was doing his job as a dad and how my little girl was developing and behaving. I had in my mind another picture and HIGH expectations and forgot that they were separate individuals whose behaviour I could not control. I had to learn the hard way to let go and accept that we all are different, we all do things differently. I had to remind myself about how lucky and blessed we were as a family.

MY WISE ADVICE – A large majority of us want to control the world because of FEAR! Yes, our own fears and insecurities are what make us behave like this. But it is only when you let go of control and surrender that you can enjoy all life’s possibilities and strength family bonds. By stopping trying to control others, you start to focus on yourself and in the process rather than in the outcome. So if you are feeling that you want to control everything and everyone around you I invite you to pause for a moment and ask yourself what is that you are afraid of. Is that true? Think how you can relax more, lower your expectations, and accept things as they are. Enjoy the feeling of freedom and peace that this shift brings into your life.

MISTAKE #3 – Being with my daughter 24/7 – I took a year of maternity leave and I spent most of the time with my little girl. I was pretty much with her ALL the time and did not give her much space or opportunity for independent play or self-soothing. She wanted mummy all the time, and after 4 years she still does. While being indispensable for a little cutie is an amazing feeling, it is also very tiring. I was craving help and some time for myself. Learning to separate from my girl was very hard but creating space and time for me and giving the opportunity for my hubby to interact more help him to strength the relationship with our daughter.

MY WISE ADVICE – As a mum you will be irreplaceable and your children will tend to prefer you over dad during those first years (most of the time). Give yourself permission to enjoy that feeling but create a healthy relationship with your children by letting them enjoy some time alone (always under close supervision!) and by allowing them to spend time with other family members or carers. And stop feeling guilty! You are doing your best, you will always love your kids and they know that.

Well, I could keep on going but I want to invite you now to share in the comments below what mistakes you made as a first time mum and what do you wish you have done differently.

Before you go, please grab a collection of my best freebies. You don’t want to miss out on the ‘Self-care Manifesto for Busy Mamas’ and the ‘Be Wise Be Well Mama’ recipe!

About Paola:

Paola Espinel is a Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach at Be Wise Be Healthy. As a mother of two young girls, her mission is to empower mums of young children to reconnect with their inner wisdom, develop new skills and love themselves truly so they can thrive in life, experience abundant health and become great role models for their love ones.

Through her supportive coaching, she inspires overwhelmed and tired mothers who are finding challenging to lose the baby weight and look well after themselves helping them to make small gradual positive changes in their diet and lifestyle to create long lasting healthy habits. Visit her website for more inspiration, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Paola is currently working on an 8 weeks ecourse called ‘Busy Mamas Shine: Give Birth to the New You and Live Vibrantly While Raising Young Kids’, and hopes to share it with the world earlier next year. Get on her mailing list today to be one the first to know when it launches.

Today’s guest post is from the gorgeously talented and beautiful Allison Davies, music therapist at Oh My Musical Goodness. She has two beautiful kids and signs with them as a way to communicate. It’s really interesting and in this post she will give us some more info and tell us the benefits. You may remember Allison being on the blog before telling us about music therapy.

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Teaching your baby to sign.

Why would you teach your baby to use sign language?

Are my Children Deaf? No.

Sensory difficulties? No.

Developmental Delays? No.

Language Deficit? No.

Cognitive delays? No.

Can they still benefit from sign language? A big fat YES!!!

I have such enthusiasm for this language and the powerful effect it can have on you, your child and your attachment/relationship. Sign language is one of the most powerful gifts of communication you can offer your child.

I taught my daughter how to sign at around 12 months and now I am teaching my son. Read some more about that here.

OK, so what’s so great about it?

AUSLAN (our Australian sign language) allows for both verbal and non-verbal communication, it allows your child to express their needs before they can talk, it helps with physical development and it just gives so much joy!

Generally children develop their gross and fine motor skills before their verbal communication skills and therefore the gift of sign language is a very beautiful, empowering and practical tool for children to have.

And perhaps most importantly, the highly interactive nature of sign assists in strengthening the bond in your relationship. When you sign you face each other, make eye contact, you gesture and are animated – these elements are often eliminated from verbal language as we text, talk on the phone, call out from the next room or chat whilst doing other things – yet these elements are integral to our relationships and we should be embracing them!

And just how does giving children an outlet, whereby they are NOT required to verbally speak, encourage speech I hear you ask?

Well, sign stimulates neural development and, as opposed to spoken language, engages both hemispheres and various cerebral lobes, which in turn strengthens their capacity for learning language and communicating verbally. It will reinforce your child’s language skills by giving them visual cues, a tactile experience and greater emphasis on facial affect and body language. In young children a second language is highly recommended by pediatric specialists and sign is a fantastic option for this very reason.

So how do you start?

When your baby starts to display gross motor coordination they may be ready to start sign. It’s not something you actively TEACH them, it’s something YOU learn – then you do the signs as you speak to them and they just kind of pick it up over time. And they often pick it up very, very quickly! You may be amazed at how early on in life your baby responds to you with moments of facial recognition because they’ve understood your sign. And these moments usually start happening before they’ve developed the skill of signing back to you. (And are so completely heart warming!!!)

Introduce just a few signs to start off with, stick with half a dozen that are key words you like to use – Thankyou, please, more, finished, stop, bed, hungry, milk etc. are ideal signs to begin with.

Be patient with the process, there’s no rush for your baby to start signing back or for you to learn every word under the sun. Make it fun – learn a couple of nursery rhymes, find some AUSLAN apps to play with, look things up on Youtube, make up some sign games. Take a look at this video I did with my kids:

Don’t worry too much about whether you or your child’s signing technique is perfect – you aren’t aiming for fluent dialect – just basic communication skills. Most young children and infants will adapt signs to their own little mindsets regardless! That’s all part of the fun of it!

I guess what it comes down to is that, for a very small amount of input, (ie. the use of half a dozen signs in your routine) you can achieve extremely significant outcomes. AND IT’S SO MUCH FUN!

Where can I learn some basic AUSLAN?

Well you’re in luck because I am a Registered Music Therapist and through my business, Oh My Musical Goodness, I offer online signing workshops catered especially for you. Face to face on skype over an hour you will learn up to 100 basic signs and a few nursery rhymes. Each session is valued at $70, makes a fabulously unique gift and will leave you feeling very clever indeed as you realize how simple sign can actually be! To find out more about these workshops or for a list of other exciting sessions visit here then go ahead and book your session today!

About Allison:

Allison Davies (BMus/BTeachMasMusThy) is a registered music therapist with The Australian Music Therapy Association and owner of ‘Oh My Musical Goodness’. She lives and works with her little family in Tasmania, specialising in the areas of early childhood intervention and mental health. Alli is especially passionate about bringing music and sound based services to those in isolated and remote areas and therefore offers an array of online educational sessions.

Find out more about Oh My Musical Goodness on Facebook or on her blog. Alli can be contacted by email at ohmymusicalgoodness@gmail.com.

Special Offer:

In the spirit of the end of one year and the beginning of another Alli would love to treat NNAM readers to 20% of any online session booked in 2014. Your session can be scheduled for next year but make sure you book it this year to claim your discount! Just email to secure your space!