Keep calm - you're in charge, mum

There are, in theory, few hard and fast rules about looking after a baby, yet there is plenty of advice about how to do it ‘properly’.

As a result, many new first-time mums become anxious about their parenting skills, often preventing them enjoying those precious first few months.

Ellie Cannon, a GP, is therefore passionate about encouraging first-time mums to trust their own instincts. Rather than searching for and relying on ‘expert’ advice, Cannon argues in her new book, Keep Calm: The New Mum’s Manual, that mums can successfully be their own experts.

“This is very much the antidote to all the other baby books, because it's anti-rules, and it doesn’t tell you what to do.

“As a mum for the last 10 years and also as a GP I felt very strongly that mothers and fathers are bombarded by a huge amount of rules and guidance, which is often confusing and conflicting.

“It’s a rebel’s guide to motherhood. I didn’t want to tell mothers how they should be holding and feeding their baby, or whether or not they’re allowed to go back to work. “I wanted to encourage mums to learn to listen to themselves, not to feel guilty, and through that to know what to do for the best, rather than being told what to do.”

In the book which she describes as a “self-help book for mothers”, Cannon covers all the obvious stages of baby development and care, including feeding, crying, weaning, illness and sleeping.

But while sleep is of course vital for both mother and baby, she stresses: “What is definitely not vital is that you follow anyone else’s idea of a sleeping plan.

“The only plan you need to follow is your baby’s. There is no correct, foolproof way to sort out a baby’s sleep, despite what people will claim.”

She accepts there are “clever steps” new mums can take to make the days and nights better – working in shifts with your partner, grabbing daytime naps when baby’s sleeping, and not drinking too much coffee because it could make you too ‘wired’ to sleep when possible.

As for feeding babies, Cannon is keen to point out that despite the huge amount of advice about breastfeeding and bottle feeding, only a tiny portion is scientifically-based, and the rest is “claptrap”.

“If you want to bottle feed your baby or if you want to breastfeed it is entirely up to you, and only you.

“Mothers spend far too much time feeling guilty, confused or upset about their feeding choice and it is quite wrong.”

Cannon frequently repeats this simple mantra: “Keep calm. Trust Your instinct. Listen to the baby expert – YOU.

“The point was to show, with my expert knowledge as a doctor, that parenting is not a science, there is often not a right or a wrong, and being able to make your own decisions is perfectly safe and perfectly valid.

“I want to show mums that they can actually be their own expert.”

They’re allowed to feel ‘normal’ emotions too.

Several chapters focus solely on the mother, not the baby, because Cannon wanted to explore how mums really feel after the birth, not just looking at the obvious issues like postnatal depression, but also what is not usually discussed.

“Like how tiredness makes you feel, the fact that many mothers are bored and want to go back to work, and the conflict that many mothers feel about giving up a career and staying at home.

“It’s realistic about the things new mothers face.”

Cannon, whose children are now 10 and seven, works as an NHS GP and regularly appears on television, including Sky Sunrise and Channel 4’s Health Freaks, as well as writing for national newspapers and magazines, so she is well-placed to be giving advice.

She points out: “I have my own personal experience, and also the very important experience of my clinic, where I see hundreds of mothers and babies.

“It’s very, very important that the person giving this advice has been there and done it. This is why I won’t say ‘you must breastfeed, you must do this, you must do that’, because I know from my own experience and my patients’ that real life isn’t like that.”