Three things to do when you are feeling alone in your parenting
Being a responsive parent is parenting against the mainstream. It’s easy to feel isolated and as though you are the only one parenting this way when all your friends and family parent from a different philosophy. While they mean well, being the only responsive parent in your support system often means lots of unwanted advice, pressure, and even criticism.
As a Holistic Sleep Coach, I work with so many of these parents, and I was one myself as a new parent.
While we can’t magically transform our society’s approach to early parenting, you can take some steps to help you parent more confidently and feel less alone.
Find some good, evidence-based sources for sleep and parenting and stick with them.
Google is both good and bad. A quick search brings us thousands of articles on any topic we want. Feeding, sleep, parenting….so many of these topics bring up conflicting and confusing information. It’s hard to know what to believe and how to integrate it all. And then there’s the fact that your baby might not quite fit any of it.
More voices are not better! They often simply cause overwhelm and self-doubt. Pick a few sources and get a feel for what they are sharing. Does it feel right to you? Do they give citations at least some of the time? Do they tie their advice back to development and biological norms? Once you’ve found some good sources, use them to anker your research moving forward. Here are a few to get you started:
Surround yourself with supportive professionals if you need individualized support.
Not everyone needs a whole team of professionals supporting them, but I believe that all parents benefit from individualized guidance along the way. When you do reach out to a professional, choosing them with intention makes a difference. Not all professionals approach the early years in the same way. Knowing where you share values and where you don’t is important. Knowing if the topic a professional is giving you advice on is actually their specialty or not makes a difference. I see this so often with sleep and feeding advice being given by professionals who have little to know training in either. So, don’t be afraid to reach out for individual support, but make sure the person feels like the right fit whenever possible.
Find a community of parents who approach parenting with similar values.
We were never meant to parent alone isolated from support systems and community. Parenting is supposed to be more of a collective responsibility than falling solely on the shoulders of the nuclear family. While building the the supportive community most parents lack isn’t always possible, finding your supportive parenting community makes a big difference. Sometimes this community might be in person and other times virtually. Making connections with other responsive parents has so many benefits:
You have others going through what you are going through at the same time and with similar values.
You have parents in the stages ahead to look back, share their experiences, and show you that you’ll get through it…. all without the mainstream advice you are tired of hearing.
You’ll be able to reach a hand out to the parents in the stages behind you which feels great.
And when you’ve found your responsive parenting community it helps you trust your instincts because you are surrounded by so many other parents facing the same struggles and making some of the same choices you are. There is so much validation and encouragement in this!
All of these reasons are why I’m starting the Intuitive Parenting Community.
To create a space for parents of babies and toddlers to have on-going learning, support, and encouragement.
A space to help you filter through the information overwhelm.
To have access to my support over time.
To build a community so responsive parenting doesn’t feel lonely.
Join me in the Intuitive Parenting Facebook group for a free intro week August 16 and help me build the community we all need.