Sophie Fletcher - Mindful Mamma: Mindfulness and Hypnosis Techniques for a Calm and Confident First Year

Any references to writing in this book refer to the original printed version. Readers should write on a separate piece of paper in these instances.

Sophie Fletcher is a clinical hypnotherapist and doula and has been teaching simple mindfulness to new parents since 2006. She has a Masters degree in Language and Culture with a special interest in the psychology of language. Since 2004 Sophie has been specialising in hypnotherapy and mindfulness for birth and parenting and is an expert in her field thousands of couples have read her bestselling book Mindful Hypnobirthing or have been through her Mindful Hypnobirthing programme. Sophie trains midwives, psychologists, doctors and other therapists in this approach and has lectured at universities on the topic of mindfulness and hypnosis for perinatal care and womens health and wellbeing. She lives in Grantham, Lincolnshire with her husband and two teenage boys.

If you want to know more about Sophies work, or get in touch, join her social media community on the Facebook page Mindful Mamma Hypnobirthing or on Instagram @sophiefletcher_author, where you can find out tips and where she is giving talks and running workshops.

To Gordon, Fin and Rory

I am glad that you chose me. (And for teaching me about the miraculous properties of tea and a hug.)

In a family, just one person needs to practise mindfulness for the rest of the family to be mindful

Thich Nhat Hanh

For the purpose of this book I have used the words mother, mothering, parent, parenting and partner interchangeably. Virtually all research in this area is based on the mother and baby. However, I recognise that if you do not identify as female, this may feel uncomfortable in places. If you are interested in listening to any of the tracks without the word mother in, please contact Sophie Fletcher directly. The worksheets that accompany this book are available to download in different formats as well.

This book is not a parenting manual, its a book to nurture and guide you through the life-changing journey of parenthood. Book will support you through the intensity of feeling and experience that is the first year after birth. It wont tell you how to change a nappy, what colour poo your baby should have or what a great latch is. Instead, it offers you places to pause, to breathe and to feel reassured that everything you are doing is okay.

There are tools to help you understand that you have it within you to overcome the challenges such as sleepless nights, colic and feeding, and to illuminate the everyday magic of a smile, a giggle or the tug of your hair. Finding balance in everyday parenting will sustain you and give you the tools to create a strong foundation in the first year, which will make a positive difference in the years to come.

Although it may feel as if everything has led up to this moment of welcoming your new baby, there is no full stop after birth. When your baby is born everything changes overnight; suddenly this little person, who had limited movement, who was nourished and fed from within you, now has a new set of requirements you need to learn. And learn fast. From the first moment you hold your gorgeous tiny human, this little person you made, life takes on a whole new meaning.

Not only that, there are incredible changes happening in your brain that switch on your maternal, parenting, mind, influencing how you instinctively care for your baby. Forget the disempowering notion of baby brain and instead see it as a positive, powerful restructuring of how your brain shifts and reorganises itself in order to nurture, protect, love and care for your baby. It doesnt matter whether you are a mother, father or parent, whether you have adopted your baby or used a surrogate mother; these brain changes will happen when you connect and bond with your baby with focused attention.

Creating a calm environment within you and around you, to allow for these physical and emotional changes to happen in their own time, can help to make your transition into parenthood, and for the first year, as gentle as possible. There are also tools and visualisations in this book that will help with the healing that comes after birth, helping you to heal and grow from the inside out, from the early weeks of the fourth trimester through to the time when you go back to work.

In the first year, becoming a mother and a parent can be an incredibly joyful experience, but it can also be difficult and confusing. Simple, adaptable psychological tools can help you to calmly, confidently and comfortably grow into the mother and parent that you are going to be. Mindfulness and hypnosis skills can be learned quickly and are remarkably effective in helping you to connect with the intense experience of becoming a parent without it becoming overwhelming.

I faced many common challenges as a new mother. The day after my first sons birth I was sent home achy, sore, vulnerable, tired, getting to grips with breastfeeding, getting to know my son. I wanted to be the perfect mother for the little baby curled in my arms. I was scared that I wouldnt, and couldnt, be what he needed. What I didnt know then was that perfect doesnt exist. Instead, a good-enough mother is the perfect mother and there are so many ways you can be a good-enough mother.

With both my boys, sometimes I was slow to pick up, wished I could be alone, put nappies on back to front, and felt guilty that I didnt spend enough time focused on them. Did I listen to them enough? Did I respond quickly enough? Not always. My boys are older now, and I realise now that my good-enough was enough. Yours will be too.

I learned many of these techniques during my second pregnancy, carrying them through to the postnatal period, when I nurtured and nourished myself by adapting and using them to help with the challenges I had faced during the first year. I wanted to make motherhood as easy on myself, my husband and my children as it could be. Second time around was completely different to my first experience; using these techniques I found it easier, even with two children under the age of 18 months.

Self-hypnosis techniques provided comfort and calm when I needed permission to let go, and motivation and drive when I needed to get on with things that Id done a hundred times already that week.

Mindfulness also became a close friend on my parenting journey. Mindfulness was introduced to me after I had my children and I attended a retreat with the Buddhist teacher and monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. It was a transformative experience. As a parent I adapted aspects of what I learned, making it simple and easy to integrate into our busy lives. I didnt have time to do much so I had to learn to use the time I had to introduce these skills into my life in ways that made a difference to my wellbeing. Thats how Ive approached the techniques in this book: they are simple, but they work because they are easy to integrate into your life.

Its not just about how you do things, its also about who you are becoming. Amidst all the nappies, feeding and exhaustion is the person you are, and the mother you are becoming. Connecting with that person, and with the emerging mother in you, needs time, reflection, love and support. Even though a paucity of time as a new parent makes this seem impossible, it