My baby Ruby aged 6 weeks.
I thought it was about time I finally let you know why I started this Business. As you may know I trained in the UK to be a nanny. I always loved playing with younger children and started babysitting at the age of 13 years old. I knew that I wanted to work with children from early on and my parents weren’t over the moon with my choice until I decided to become a Norland nanny. They wanted me to the best I could at whatever I chose to do.
I was blessed to have some really great long-term nanny jobs which I loved when I finished at Norland college. I became Godmother to one of my charges and when I met my now husband he was welcomed into my work family whole heartedly. I only left because we decided to go travelling which helped us grow as people.
I have grown and developed and learnt so much from those early days of nannying. I have changed from being very capable at looking after babies and children from a textbook approach, to learning to use my intuition, know how to listen to the baby and what they are trying to teach me. I am more compassionate and understanding on the journey of parenthood and how that affects us, because caring for a baby should be about the family unit as well.
Why I do what I do.
I volunteered for Plunket when I first arrived in New Zealand to help me connect with the community and stay in touch with what I love. In the early days I used to take the couples who had just finished their antenatal classes out for coffee so that they could get to know each other better. I saw so many couples expecting their first baby away from family and a good support network. This is hard. It’s hard not having somebody to ask advice and it’s hard having to be ‘on duty’ 24/7 with no end in sight. This is where the idea started from.
In my own experience, I was very lucky to have a lot of family support on the most part. My Mum came and stayed with me after each of my babies was born for a couple of weeks and my sister didn’t live too far away so would give us a night off every now and then. My breastfeeding journey wasn’t the smoothest with a very sleepy baby first time around and just generally a low milk supply. Unfortunately, I didn’t know where to find help for this and my babies all went to partial formula at some point because they weren’t gaining weight. I now know that I could have tried other things and the intervention of a lactation consultant might have been the magic ticket! I can use my past to help parents achieve a better outcome than me and I can use my mistakes to help. I do not regret them; they were part of my journey and it makes me who I am today.
I had an accident that gave me severe concussion and I was off work for 18 months. It was completely life changing for me and my family. At the time it was horrendous, and I never want to experience something like that again. I had no idea how much it would rock our world and not in a good way. On the flip side it ended up giving me time to reassess where we were going and how we lived. I was also able to let go of some things, for example, I used to be a control freak and the house had to be clean and tidy and most of the time, this is practically impossible to achieve with four children and it would cause a lot of stress and anxiety for me. Now I’m much more relaxed about it and if you drop in randomly you may find a mess! I was also incredibly particular about my children’s diet, when I was ill I couldn’t cook so they ate way more ready meals/take away etc and they are fine. I still normally cook fresh because that’s my personal choice, but I’m not as fussy about it anymore. I have loosened up on some of the things that I thought were incredibly important and realised it’s far more basic than that. I aim for happy children, happy husband, preferably clean clothes and a safe home to keep my family healthy in. Sometimes we need to let go of perfect and understand that just fine is good enough. We are not perfect, and our children are not going to be perfect. We will all make mistakes, acknowledge this and let go of the guilt and pressure.
The accident has made me grow so much more as a person. I never judge people. You don’t know their personal stories and what is going on behind closed doors. During my recovery, there were not many people (including my extended family) who had any idea what the journey was like because we kept it to ourselves, often because it was too painful to share. I am here to try and understand and listen to whatever you may wish to share with me and support you through your journey.
Why I offer the services I do.
I offer a range of services which all complement each other. The idea being that they are there to support parents, build their confidence in their parenting abilities, encourage a strong bond with their baby and make for a smooth transition and beautiful journey into parenthood.
I offer a range so that people can find the services that are right for them but also, so they don’t have to go looking in multiple places. I work closely with Hannah the IBCLC lactation consultant who partners with me, so that we can provide a comprehensive care. We follow the same values and ideals and discuss controversial topics that come up from time to time. We also discuss different approaches and ideas on how to care for babies as they come up. New advice is always appearing, and our understanding grows and develops. We both do a lot of extra research and study so that we can provide the best and most up-to-date information available. However, we are also open to other ideas and suggestions and if we don’t have the answer we will tell you when we’re not sure and happy to go look it up for you. We’re hoping to grow the team, but I am taking my time to find the right person who has the same values as we do because I want to continue offering the best possible support that we can.
I think what makes me great at my job is that I am empathetic and have a good ability to recall what things felt like as a child, adolescent and as a young parent as well as having the ability to put myself in somebody else’s position. I listen and observe and try to offer suggestions when required. I am not perfect, but I really do want to help you in whatever is best suited to you.
If you think you could do with some extra support or just want to chat more about how I could help you or a loved one, email me on jo@blissfulbubs.co.nz or check out my website www.blissfulbubs.co.nz. We’re here for you. Take care.
