Feel empowered to become the mother you want to be.
From birth to your baby's first steps, this soothing book will support you to open your heart to the highs and lows of mothering and adjust to your new role. It offers everyday meditations and visualisations, postnatal yoga, natural remedies, and nutritional advice to help you care for yourself with the same love and commitment you give your precious baby.
As a new mum, you may secretly wonder: "Am I up to the job?" With pressure on mums to parent perfectly and "bounce back" effortlessly and unsupported, all amid sleep deprivation, and brain, body, and relationship changes, it's no surprise women struggle. You are not alone.
Compassionate, evidence-based psychological ideas from clinical psychologist and mum, Dr Caroline Boyd, will ground you amid the storms, enhancing everyday connections to you, your baby, and the world around you both.
"Compassionate and powerful tools are delivered in such an accessible way. I hope this book finds its way into the hands of every new mum." - Anna Mathur, Sunday Times bestselling author of Know Your Worth and Mind over Mother.
This holistic book will help you understand:
- Significant brain, body, and identity shifts during this transformation known as "matrescence".
- The intense, emotional rollercoaster of this first year - explaining what can shape your ideas of the "good" mum, and why experiencing feelings such as anger and anxiety doesn't make you a "bad" mother.
- Why it's important to learn to self-soothe, with practical psychological strategies to help you nurture yourself, as well as soothe your baby.
- Why couple dynamics shift with the arrival of a baby, and ways to stay connected.
- How to use your values to guide your decision-making, making choices that fit for your family.
Caroline offers gentle, realistic advice with a focus on mindful compassion - supporting you to develop a kinder relationship with yourself. She offers natural remedies to help manage interrupted sleep and strong emotions, healthy foods to boost energy and improve low mood, affirmations to soothe and support, and mini-meditations and longer meditative practices to calm and centre you and to share with your baby. Enjoy gentle, targeted yoga, with your baby and alone, to ease the aches and pains of early motherhood and build strength and flexibility. Use mindful massage to bond with your baby and nourish your body.
Mindful New Mum will help you find more head and heart space - empowering you to become the mum you want to be.
Clinical psychologist Dr Caroline Boyd has an MA in classics, MSc in psychology, and a doctorate in clinical psychology. She has over 10 years' experience working in the NHS and mental health settings, and specializes in supporting new parents in her independent psychology practice, Parent Therapy Hub. Caroline works with parents from pregnancy to childbirth and beyond. She adopts a holistic approach to wellbeing, and her published research explores mothers' experiences of intrusive thoughts about their babies. Caroline speaks at conferences, including the annual Birth Trauma conference, and shares psychology ideas on Instagram, her blog, and podcasts such as Motherkind to help parents feel more connected - to themselves and their children - and less alone. You can follow Caroline on Instagram @_drboyd
