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Non-birthing Parent Coaching

The Programme

In a world where postpartum care is, thankfully, expanding its focus beyond the health and wellbeing of the new baby, non-birthing parents can still feel marginalised.

Being in the position to perform tasks beyond the intense scope of childcare can lead to feelings of resentment, either through a perceived asymmetry or a lack of bonding opportunities with the newborn.

Do you feel:

  • Unsure of your purpose in your new role as a parent?
  • out of touch with your family unit?
  • Like whatever you do or say isn’t right or isn’t good enough?
  • Like you don’t know how to bond with your new child?

If this is you, I want to help.

If you want:

  • A loving connection with your partner
  • A joyful relationship with your children
  • A household that believes in respect and honesty

You can have them all, we can unlock those doors together.

I believe that communication, trust and recognition are the 3 points of a triangle that form the basis of loving relationships.

Each single point is created by exercising the other 2, meaning that even when one is missing, by building on the other two, you will be led back to the whole.

My one to one “Non-birthing Parent Coaching” programme is born (pardon the pun) from my years of experience as both a working parent and a home-maker.

In conjunction with my training to be a certified personal coach, my life experience gives me insight into what it is to be physically absent and present, mentally available to your partner and your children and what it feels like to go beyond boundaries that you’d never thought to set.

The programme takes place over 12 weeks, and is formed of 1 hour weekly sessions. Across the sessions we discuss what the 3 points mean for you, where you feel your strengths lie and how you can leverage them to complete the triangle.

Coaching is about supported empowerment so within each session I work with you to create weekly targets and commit to your own actionable steps.

By the end of our time together you will feel clear on how you want to use your triangle to strengthen bonds, and create lasting cohesion with your family unit.

I’m currently offering a discounted rate for this package of £720

Email me on: hello@thepersoncoach.com to find out more. I can’t wait to hear from you.

 

If you want to know more about me, read on for my non-birthing parent story…

My Story

My wife gave birth to our son and a switch flipped in me, I knew I had another purpose and I knew I wanted to be REALLY good at it. As the non-birthing parent I made a decision straight away, the watch word that kept flashing in my mind was “support”, yes I thought, I will support her and I will support him, but I didn’t take the time to define what support meant, to me, to her or to him.

I started out as an attentive dogsbody. I fetched things, I researched, I made meals to support her recovery, I was up with the dawn (and the boy) as I knew she’d been feeding him in the night and I walked, pushing the buggy, for miles and miles.

This continued after I went back to work too, up at dawn, playing, feeding, hushing, comforting until the last possible second when I handed him over (plus a cup of tea) to my wife. Then I got on my little 125 motorbike, did a full day of work, rode home, did bath time and made the dinner while she put him to bed.

My efforts did not go unnoticed and I thrived on my wifes gratitude and the rewarding smiles and giggles of my son, but my goodness I was tired and I wasn’t alone in my tiredness. We, thankfully, maintained a good level of kindness for each other during those first months but even so our kindness wore thin and we would snap at each other occasionally. It was at this point that I realised I had forgotten someone in my support manifesto.

I'd had an idea and I'd acted on it...

However, without a plan, boundaries, or resources, my actions were unsustainable, and an emergency meeting was called.

We discussed what support meant for each other and we laid out our physical and mental needs around sleep, time with and time away from the boy, time for just the two of us, and how we would nurture each other going forward. She wanted more for me than working and parenting, and I wanted her to feel free to enjoy the time she had with him and to get back to work, doing a job she loved and that she felt gave her purpose.

And so we each played to our strengths, we vowed honesty and openness with each other and we reiterated our commitments to kindness. Where possible, the various child rearing jobs were assigned to the person who enjoyed/didn’t mind/could cope with them and we agreed the jobs were not hierarchical, each one playing an important part in the whole.

Things change...

Children, it seems, have a habit of growing up a little bit without telling you. I would get stuck interpreting behaviours that should have been developmental successes as irritating, and it wasn’t unusual for me to spend 2 weeks complaining about him before I noticed that what he was actually displaying to me was an incrementally small new level of maturity or independance. In recognising this, I forced myself to ask the question “What is he actually showing me?” before deciding he was being annoying.  A lot of the time he was just being annoying, but it felt good to give him the benefit of the doubt.

When he was about 3 years old, our second child was born, a girl who remained nameless for a week after birth (my wife won in the end). The system we’d agreed upon sustained us again through the double toddler years and by playing to our strengths, I stopped working and she committed to her career that took off at an astronomical rate.

A new set of struggles arrived, the role switch raised new challenges, emotionally and relationally, she felt isolated from the family unit and I felt isolated from the world. Discord reared its ugly head again, and it was through the shared experiences of our times being both the worker and the homemaker, aligned with communication, trust and love, that we found our way.

Four voices...

A decade later we’re now a house with 4 distinct voices, 4 distinct personalities, 4 distinct sets of needs and a matrix of 12 one to one relationships.

My wife’s career continues to go from strength to strength and her relationships with the children are closer than ever. The ubiquity of mobile phones and the myriad methods of communication have done a great deal in assisting their ability to speak to/text each other without me as the intermediary (as it was when they were in bed before she got home).

I chose to use the freedom afforded me by their growth to train as a certified personal coach and I’ve never looked back. The skills and tools I’ve learnt, and continue to learn, have been amazing in every aspect of my family life, from my relationship with my wife to understanding and supporting the children.

The curious, non-judgemental mindset that I practice in every human interaction has taken me to places of trust and respect in my relationships with my children that I never dreamed possible.

It is my belief that communication, trust and recognition are the foundations on which a strong family is built. For even when one of those is missing, by exercising the other two, you will be led back to the whole.