Feeding
Wind
Weaning
Crying
Teething
Growing
Playing
Nursing
Developmental disabilities
Loving
Smiling
Recovery
Debriefing
Caesareans
Stress and anger
Feeling down
Being yourself
Self-image
Sleep
Nutrition
Exercise
Making time for yourself
CHAPTER FOUR – YOU AND YOUR PARTNER
Expectations
Realities
Role reversal
Time
Time for you as a couple
Changes in your relationship
Sex
Difficulties
Single parents
CHAPTER FIVE – YOU AND THE WORLD
Back home
Getting about
Balancing the budget
Friends
Boredom
Relatives
Experts
CHAPTER SIX – YOU AND THE FUTURE
You are now a parent
Working
Broadening horizons
Picking up where we left off
Protecting your child
Looking forward
CHAPTER SEVEN – BECOMING A FAMILY
Ceremonies
Assisted reproduction
Adopting
Step-parenting
The next child
Being a family
A chapter-by-chapter guide to support and information
OTHER BOOKS BY
THE NATIONAL CHILDBIRTH TRUST (NCT) offers information and support in pregnancy, childbirth and early parenthood. We aim to give every parent the chance to make informed choices. We try to make sure that our services, activities and membership are fully accessible to everyone. Donations to support our work are welcome.
THE WORDS of the parents in this book have been drawn from the conversations and interviews I have had with parents over the past six years, eight months and twenty-five days. I can pinpoint this time so accurately as this was the date our son was born. No sooner had he arrived, than I was plunged from the relatively ordered world of singles and partners to the chaos of babies and families.
Being a parent is one of the most difficult and demanding jobs we will ever be asked to undertake. It is also one of the most rewarding. But steering a path between the difficulties to reach the rewards is sometimes harder than we would ever have dreamed possible.
Becoming a family is something most of us undertake as a couple, relying on the strength and support our partner can give. For some, choice and circumstances mean that we take the step alone, or carry most of the responsibility alone.
Nevertheless, whether you are with a partner or a lone parent, the way our society is structured, and the way the world works, means that a great deal of the shock of babies is borne by the mother. Very often the proud father can return to work, accept the congratulations, and get on with business as usual. It is the new mother who needs to negotiate her way around this new world … usually without СКАЧАТЬ