PRP016: Becoming a Mother

Show Notes: Becoming a Mother

Dr Koa Whittingham (Parenting from the Heart - www.koawhittingham.com) shares some wonderful advice and tools for smoothing the transition when becoming a mother, through a discussion of her book "Becoming Mum".
Summary

Psychological transition to motherhood includes:

Recreating a rich and rewarding life.
Constantly keeping track of another dependent person.
Forming a new relationship.


Becoming Mum

Evidence-based guide through the transition to motherhood

Grounded in ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and other Cognitive Behavioural Therapies including:

Compassionate Mind Therapy
Behavioural activation


Incorporates Attachment Theory.
Fourth Trimester.


Mindful Practice - Keeping yourself in the here and now - while you are doing anything.

Particularly enriching during interactions with children.
Find the rewarding elements of settling crying babies - focus on the moment not what you want/need to be doing.
Mindful walks.


Listen for the Mindfulness of Child Meditation from the book.
Role of Values.

Values are what matters most to you. They can never be acheived, they guide you every day.
There are many different ways to live the same values.
Mindfulness is powerful, but needs Ethics or Values to direct you in the direction you want to go.
Listen for a values-finding exercise.






Links

Becoming Mum can be bought directly from the Becoming Mum Website, is on Amazon, and most other online bookstores. If it is not in your physical bookstore, please request it.
Parenting from the Heart: www.koawhittingham.com.
Dr Koa Whittingham's Meditations.
Possums Sleep Intervention: Possums Online, and Feed your baby to sleep - The possums sleep intervention new recommendations and Podcast Episode PRP017.

For more great resources on Mindfulness and ACT for parents, check out these links:

Free Mindfulness Meditation App for pregnant couples: Mind the Bump .Org .Au
9 Tips for Mindful Mothering
ACT: Taking Hurt to Hope – Struggling with attachment with Newborns

This is the 3rd Episode in the series, here are links to the rest of the series:

PRP014: Angry Parents Part 1 Acting inline with values despite anger
PRP015: Angry Parents Part 2 Acting inline with values despite anger
PRP016: Becoming a Mother
PRP017: The Possums Sleep Intervention Part 1
PRP018: The Possums Sleep Intervention Part 2
PRP019: The Possums Sleep Intervention Part 3
PRP020: The Possums Sleep Intervention Part 4

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Have you read Becoming Mum? What was your experience? Please start a discussion in the comments.