What is parent – infant counselling?

Bonding
Bonding with your baby, feeling that you have truly become a parent, is an ongoing process. This gives you many opportunities to learn to love your baby, as you get to know him or her. Every time you hold, feed, comfort and care for your baby, is another chance to communicate and find out about each other. If you have been neglected or just not loved enough as a baby this may effect your ability to bond and enjoy your baby now.

Feelings after giving birth
After the birth a woman has to make a radical physical and emotional transition from a pregnant to a non-pregnant state. It is a time when you may feel empty, vulnerable and isolated. Everyone may expect you to be full of joy, but all you want is a good night’s sleep and not having to hear a baby cry again. It is at this time when support is often most crucial. Fathers also may find the adjustment to becoming a parent more challenging than they had expected.

The importance of the first year in a baby’s life
Research has established that the first year of a baby’s life is most important in the formation of trust and positive relationships with others. If your baby has been held, fed, nurtured, contained and regulated well enough and consistently, s/he learns to grow up with secure attachments. The part of your baby’s brain, which is responsible for social interactions will grow. This will influence the quality of your child’s relationships with others for the rest of his/her life.

Mixed feelings towards baby
Often new parents experience intense and conflicting feelings towards their babies, partners, themselves. Sometimes a parent’s past experiences will intrude into their current relationships. These are called ghosts in the nursery. For instance we may find it difficult to empathise with baby, because we forgot or even repressed feelings of being small. The sounds of a crying baby can be disturbing, if we don’t understand what baby wants (and all parents experience those moments). We might hear it as accusing us of not being a good enough parent. We may think that baby is angry. Also s/he may remind us of someone, who has been nasty to us in the past. There can be many reasons why we struggle as new parents. This is why reflecting on one’s own experience of being parented is useful in order to avoid repeating old unsuccessful ways of parenting.

A friendly space for parents and babies
The baby friendly advice is to keep mothers and babies together (as opposed to the past when mothers and babies were separated immediately after the birth). The parent – infant counselling space is meant to be a continuum of this idea. It is a friendly space where you and your baby, in the presence of an older woman, who has specialist training and experience, can sort out some of the confusion that is an inevitable part of becoming a parent.

What happens during a counselling session?
Parent – infant counselling sessions offer you an opportunity to look for ways of how to better understand your baby and to become emotionally present to him/ her. To this aim I also use video feedback to jointly with you look at the ways you and your baby interact and think about your and your baby’s needs.

Change is possible
Women’s feedback tells us that an appropriate and supportive form of parent – infant counselling, can enable parents to change their attitudes, feelings and ways of being with their babies and so make the experience of parenting more joyful and satisfying.

Consultations with Monika