#6 - Sifting through the BS and Trusting Intuition when mothering

May 9

Written By Ava

We are living at a time when we are exposed to many information daily about motherhood & parenting, from what we read from who we talk to - whether it is friends, family from books & social media. How do we know these advices are total BS, just a fad or it's something that may work for our child?

In this solo episode, I share my honest thoughts about how we can sift through the BS and trust our intuition in mothering, which includes:

My secret in sifting through the BS & noises about parenting that has helped me to feel more empowered & joyful in parenting
The power of trusting intuition and building strong relationships with our children

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Till then, take care and remember - you are enough and keep on making magic in your own unique ways ✨

+ or you can read the transcript by clicking here

You are listening to Making Mama Magic with honest and authentic conversations about all things related to modern motherhood, wholehearted living and peaceful parenting. Join me and my guests in our chats about redefining motherhood and parenting in a way that focuses on purpose, peace and presence while pursuing dreams and live career and business in our unique, magical way. I am your host - Ava, and I empower moms to parent with connection and curiosity and to own their confidence in motherhood.

Hi, welcome to making mama magic podcast. I'm back from my break After delivering my 2nd child. It has been quite a journey so far, having too little in the house and embracing the ups and downs of having two kids and I'll share a bit more in another absolute. But for today's episode, I'd like to talk about something that has been very close to my heart in terms of my journey as a mother so far and it's been something that I have been hearing from friends and clients, which is what I call sifting through the Bs and trusting intuition when murdering We are living at a time when we are exposed to so many information daily from what we read from who we talk and all this information about what do we do in our lives? How do we parent, what are the tools and tactics that we can discipline our child and get our child to do this and that these are the things that we receive on a daily basis.

And it can be quite overwhelming to many people, especially new mothers because the perspective that a lot of mothers have when they step into the mothering role, when they first got to know that they're pregnant, they want to learn they want to try to understand figure, okay, I want to be a good mother, I want to parent in a good way. So what exactly should I do? And chances are the sources that they look out for this information usually would be from their family members, from social media, from books, hearing from friends, hearing from family, which they have good intentions of wanting us to learn from their mistakes or from their experience. But I think sometimes of hearing all this information, they really find it very challenging to take all this information and know what works. And it really helps to know the key thing when we come to making decisions for our child and our family, which is recognizing that we are the experts of our Children. So knowing that some advices are helpful to center the extent and knowing that these are well intended advice is and knowing that they have worked for other family or have not worked for the other family. I think it will fall to kind of reflect what works and does not work for our child and our family, every child is different. Every family is different. It boils down to knowing what are your values while parenting and what I like to do is to reflect these few questions about what kind of values I want my child at body well Calvin parenting values do I want to honor and what kind of relationship do I want with my child And through this questioning I would be thinking about the answers to this question and asking myself if this situation aligns to what I have indicated in these answers.

So really it's about knowing what the angle is and that's our parenting. I think it's really critical to know this answers because it really helps the guide on the decision making and the considerations day to day that is regarding to our child, whether visitors or engaging them or making decisions about how do we manage tantrums and meltdowns, making decisions about their nutrition and sleep and all. So really asking the questions and if it alliance then great if not then the question is what might work better in terms of the situation that you are considering to make changes or shifts and embrace the power of experiencing because sometimes it's not just a once or try and it works too and as we all know as mothers things change all the time with Children, they brilliant in terms of changing their minds and everything and ready to just embrace the apps and flows of being a parent to young Children, what are the things that

I think a lot of people struggle with is with young Children is about sleep. So there are largely two cares about sleep. One would say that sleep guidance and training is important to ensure Children have enough sleep to develop. Well any emphasizes on routine and structure that helps that you need to sleep. That the child requires based on their age. While the other camp advocates the biological need for sleep where it is childlike and recognizes that different Children have variety, speak needs and is dependent on the various situations and transitions that the family the child goes through for me when I think about how I did shift through the B. S. And the noises in my journey as a mother. So far,

I think infant sleep was a huge struggle for me. So I had difficulties navigating sleep for my first child. I expected that sleep will be patchy for the first three months of his life, but he was very weak full in the first two years of his life. And I was so shocked that he worked out so frequently Sometimes up to 10 times over 12 hours of night sleep Even beyond three months. I read all the information online and books about enormously and there was one period tided calculation of weak times and night's sleep. I had my phone next to me all the time with Excel spreadsheet open and I needed to make sure that there's the optimum number of sleep in the period of the window of the amount of hours to the minutes and I got really stressed out calculating. So I knew that that didn't work for me.

I considered sleep training because I have wonders from some of my friends who did it and I also hear from other parents from the online groups that hurt I am in saying that it really works for them, but I realized that it does not align with my parenting values of being with, which is part of understanding the relationship with the child and holding space for all of their feelings and emotions. I knew that trick training, there is different ways. Some of them are more responsive, some of them are less responsive and one of the things I'm really hold very dear to my heart is I want to be the person that my child will want to connect and feel comfort when he's going through difficult times and difficult feelings. So that was very clearly a no for me for stick training.

So finally I decided that, okay, I recognize that my first bond is a sensitive kid, He has low sleep needs and he's just who he is. So I just really accepted the situation and he finally slept through the night when he was around 2.5 years old, he does wake up every now and then, especially on this, that he's not feeling well when he's feeling warm or he's having a bad drink. So for number two, I said, what I decided to just seize infant sleep totally in a different way and follow his lead in terms of naps and sleep and I can tell you, I feel so so relieved from the pressure of wanting him to sleep longer and better and just really embracing that, that is what it is for infants sleep. And that being said, I know that I come from the privilege that I am able to raise my child well, doing the business. So I have the flexibility of time and I know that others have the situation whereby state training and guidance works for them because they need a schedule to make sure other caregivers can follow or they need to make sure that the baby sleeps through the night because of their hectic workload whatever it's your choice.

My wish for you is that you choose whatever that works for you. And it aligns to what you believe your values, your parenting values are, It also helps to ask yourself and sense the feeling inside you when you make a decision about your child or about your family and just kind of like have a gut feeling of how you feel about it.

I believe that mama intuition can be something super powerful. Intuition sounds like it would be a woo woo, but I feel that it is really like kind of like an inner knowing and it really comes from someone experiences and contacts. The think about intuition is that when we have time crafted out intentionally to connect with your child and observing them to know about the interest needs and emotions that will help us to have that information like locked down in our brain like a computer and that will help to know and make that decision where we need because we know our child's very clearly and it is true, a very objective observation and understanding of our child deeply. And when we tune into this inner voice, this intuition and seek guidance from the people and the sources we trust. We can become more confident with our decisions in parenting and died.

That is really the crux of empowered parenting because empowered parenting is all about knowing your values, knowing your parenting values and really about knowing what you won to be to your child. I think parenting is a relationship and it's not a series of strategy and aesthetics and who we are to our child better so much because no matter what situation that he or she encounters points if our child sees, asked us a guiding force, guiding person, it really makes parenting so much easier and they know that whatever things might happen, good things and bad things, they know that the brother is someone that they can trust and lean on.

So yeah, I hope this has been something that it's useful for you to kind of reflect and really think through what matters to you as a mother so that you have the strength and the reference prowling to shift through the Bs. And to lean into your intuition when mothering. Where we know how to sift through all these noises and B. S. And we trust the intuition while murdering. It really helps us to feel more joyful and not draining on our own energy. And it's so important to know what drains our energy and what gives us joy and like in our own lives because we're so busy as moms right? And we need to have that consciousness when we go through life and parenting.

If you'd like to further the conversation with me to connect me at Instagram @thecuriousmomma or subscribe to my newsletter where I will share a bit more about resources relating to this topic, And if you'd like to show your love for this podcast, please leave a rating on Apple Podcasts. This will really mean a lot to me. Til then, take care and remember that you are enough and keep on making magic in your unique way.

Note: at this time transcripts are automated and unedited, which means errors may occur. But we hope you find them helpful!