Whatever your reasons for deciding to have a baby, the realities of parenting often turn out to be quite a shock!  Ask yourself which qualities you need to cultivate in order to be a successful parent. Here are some Pristine tips that we hope they will help you!

• Birth preparation classes seldom inform parents just how important it is to relax under any and all circumstances. Tuning into a slower pace of life in pregnancy and your child’s earlier years will leave you saying; ‘I enjoyed that time’. 

• Cultivate a sense of nostalgia for the child in yourself. Rediscover the magic of life through a child’s eyes and remember to think about your child’s perspective.

• Don’t be too hurried. Your baby will register less stress, and so will you.

• Most parents will have a bottomless supply of love for their little ones, although they won’t always like what they do!  This is quite normal – don’t judge yourself for this.

• Never fall into the trap of rating the physical needs of your children higher than the emotional ones.

• If love is easily come by, that is less true of patience. It sometimes helps to remember that children and adults have two very different perspectives on life – children’s priorities are very different from our own. Try to find ways of living amicably together.

• It is especially with our first children that we are constantly part of an experiment – every little thing that comes your way is always for the first time, even if your 25-year-old is asking for romance advice! Be lenient with yourself, but make sure you don’t give harmful advice.

• A little bit of inefficiency is so important for good parenting. Your child is not a tangible task to be dealt with efficiently, as you would a task at work!  Often, we’re used to organising our careers and households with predictable competence, and we try to carry this quality over to our parenting. Don’t!  It won’t succeed anyway.