Be Ready to Parent
Running antenatal courses for twins, paediatric first aid courses and training days for maternity nurses - Courses include: working with mothers who may be suffering from PND, Looking after babies with reflux and early allergies, Sleep in children and sleep training, breastfeeding and working with twins and more!
Three under three
This is an article I wrote in August 2012
I wanted to say thankyou to everyone who helped me through my journey,
it is very honest.
I want to start off my saying how wonderful it is to have 3 under 3, actually we had 3 under 18 months at one stage!
It is rewarding, fun-filled and full of adventures. However, I must admit to it not being always like this. I want to be honest in this article but also positive. We have 13 month old identical twin girls, Miriam and Leila, and a son called Joey who is 2 and a half. The girls are delightful, charismatic, busy and beautiful. Joey is charming, sensitive, affectionate and both scooter and book mad in equal proportions!
The first 3 months were actually ok, the girls were born 4 weeks early and they did a lot of sleeping from what I remember, being identical they were similar in their patterns and breastfed without any problems. My son did not seem to remember being an only child and took to his role as big (although I was very careful at remembering he was not so big really) brother superbly.
The difficulty is that this honeymoon stage does not last forever, the girls needed more attention as they developed, and rightly so, they also developed silent reflux which went undiagnosed for a while, and help soon started to disappear after the first few weeks. If I could have done things differently it would have been to organise proper help to start a few weeks into the journey, to help with the running of the household and to help with the twins, giving me proper time with my son and also giving me some well needed rest.
The sleep deprivation I had led to a very low point in my life, and thankfully one I have worked through, and got help with, as well as having a supportive husband, family, friends and an amazing woman called Janne Harrison, a troubleshooter and sleep consultant, that helped. But all this when I personally knew how to navigate the NHS and knew how things worked, being a paediatrician, married to a psychiatrist, of all things. So you can see I am being very honest.
Thankfully the girls and my son are all healthy children, I cannot even begin to imagine what other families go through if they also have lots of hospital appointments as well. Help arrived in abundance while I was not so well and as I recovered I was able to take more control of life, my children and house.
I read somewhere in a twins book that “a visitor is not a guest but a helper” and this motto really applies here. I probably did not take this to heart, and took on a bit too much all round, in addition to the breastfeeding which I stopped at 3 months.
One thing I have learnt is to trust your instincts – by this I mean your maternal ones, you know if something is not right with your children, I wished I had listened to mine a bit more regarding their silent reflux, and this from a paediatrician! Janne Harrison listened to me, really listened. Try and rest, really try and don’t be a super woman, it just won’t pay off.
Saying all this, there is not one inch of me that regrets having them so close in age, it is just fantastic and I love being a mother to my 3 adorable monkeys. They are just delightful, they play together, they eat together, they sleep at the same time both at lunchtime and at night, they swim together – just such fun and I am so glad I have been able to overcome my challenges and can enjoy our children and reap the benefits of having them so close together.
My journey has made me a different person, I can honestly say that hand on heart, and not in a wishy-washy touchy-feely kind of way. It really has made me more sympathetic, confident, insightful and determined; I now know even more what is important in life. I know the value of true friends and family and I am now passionate about supporting others through their challenges.
And our journey to “Be Ready to Parent” – running antenatal courses, paediatric first aid courses and training days for maternity nurses.
Janne Harrison is a night nurse and troubleshooter and sleep consultant. She was recommended from a friend and she was the one who really listened to me and got us all back on the road to recovery. She organised for a maternity nurse to come and live with us for four weeks – she was kind and thoughtful and never judgemental. Her help gave me enough time to rest and recover quicker and a chance for me to strengthen my bond with the girls.
This support was invaluable but without Janne I do not know where I would have looked or how I would have known what I need – in postnatal depression you cannot make a decision, everything is an obstacle and for me, someone who was use to making quick and on your feet decisions, this was just unbearable.
Once recovered, I found myself wanting more time with the children and took a gap from the NHS. I kept being asked for advice about twins or breastfeeding or the NHS or Postnatal depressions and so it seemed the next step was to put my knowledge into a business and to run antenatal courses, designed to empower parents with knowledge. Janne had longed to run courses for maternity nurses and between us we knew many professionals that have since come and taught on our courses, from consultant paediatric gastroenterologists to mothers who run PND support groups, to speech therapists to a consultant psychiatrist.
Here are the links for information on the courses we run and the program of speakers:
http://www.bereadytoparent.com/
"Training days for maternity and night nurses, run by Dr Ella Rachamim (paediatrician) and Janne Harrison (Babycare consultant and sleep trainer). Days include: caring for twins or more, reflux and allergies, sleep in children and sleep training, postnatal depression and breastfeeding. Outside speakers invited who are influential in their field, full resource packs given, certificate of attendance provided. Based in North London. Very reasonable cost. Please see our list of courses: http://www.bereadytoparent.co.uk/courses/ and contact us if interested,ella@bereadytoparent.com There is a £5 course discount for our members - find the discount code in your members section!
Dr Ella Rachamim
ella@bereadytoparent.com
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