Overcoming challenges in parenting
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Alisa Donner, co-founder of Pregnancy Awareness Month, shares her personal challenges as a mother and how she overcame them.
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Alisa Donner: What challenges have I overcome in my own parenting? I’m challenged daily. I’m challenged all the time. If I needed to pick certain things, there certainly are some highlights.
Like when I was nursing my daughter and my breast supply and my nursing milk started to decrease. And I didn’t realize it until it was a little late along the way. Some things just seemed just kind of clueless when you look at it from a different perspective. But at the time, I thought everything was going okay but she wasn’t gaining weight. And I had a real difficult time navigating as to whether I could keep my stance on wanting to breastfeed, not wanting to go to formula and still take care of my baby and feed my baby. So that'sone challenge that was really intense and it actually continues through now. At the end of the day, I was able to bring my milk supply back, and we introduced foods a little early and we figured it out. And I changed my pediatrician. But it’s about, when I think of that time, it’s about me really not quite having the answers. I hadn’t done any, zero, none research. I’m breastfeeding before I had the baby. I knew I wanted to do it, I’ve seen people doing it; but I didn’t read any books about it. I didn’t realize all the important things that are needed. Like pumping and preparing to go back to work. I didn’t think that your milk supply would ever dwindle. I had no idea. So when I was given that challenge, I didn’t really know how to handle it. My husband had no idea how handle it. And the people in our life that are advising us were just trying to solve the problem and telling me just to formula. So it was a very difficult time. And even today, I have an older child, I worry about her constantly. Is she getting enough food? And I’m sure it goes back to me being scared from when she was losing weight at 8 months. It’s a scary thing. But my advice is to be as prepared as possible before you have the baby. There would be a lot of different opinions about how to do things and how to conduct yourself as a mother. Especially that first year. So stop, and consider, and think, and read, and ask before the baby comes. It’s a lot easier.
Alisa Donner, co-founder of Pregnancy Awareness Month, shares her personal challenges as a mother and how she overcame them.
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Alisa Donner, LCSWCo-founder of Pregnancy Awareness Month
Alisa Donner is the co-founder of Pregnancy Awareness Month (PAM) with Anna Getty. The mission of PAM is to empower, inspire and build a community of support for expectant women and families. The four initiatives of the month-long campaign are Education, Exercise, Nutrition & Wellness, and Nurture. Alisa is also a licensed clinical social worker.
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