Janine is mum of 2 children, who are now 10 and 12. She runs her own business helping coaches and consultants with their marketing and sales.

We spoke to Janine about:

• Whether there is such a thing as a natural born parent and Janine’s feelings on this.
• The stress of getting children out of the house - mum guilt and shouting at children!
• How taking an online parenting course when the children were around 2 and 4 changed things for Janine.
• ‘Feeling maternal’ - the expectation that everything should come naturally to parents and how we haven’t replaced the ‘village’ that helped us to raise our children.
• Having a growth mindset and how this helped Janine to develop in her parenting.
• How Janine felt that she lost her identity and that her world had shrunk when she had her children. How having her own business helped her to get her identity back.
• Three things Janine would say to herself as a new mum.

Instagram - @bespokefamily / Facebook - @bespokefamily

For information about a Bespoke Family Parent Consultation click here: https://www.bespokefamily.co.uk/parent-consultations

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Founder of Onle Networking (an online business network) Kelly West, talked to us about her daughter Kennedy (16) who has global development delay (she has a cognitive age of 2-3) as well as about her business which she founded 5 years ago with her husband and her older daughter.

We discussed:

• How they love people which is why the business was founded (Kelly met her husband at networking!)
• All about Kennedy the signs the family first saw in her and the challenges the family had and still face especially with the lack of support the family have received.
• The experiences Kennedy had in mainstream school and how this currently looks for the family moving forward.
• How Kennedy will never be able to live independently and how Kelly navigates this for the future, including how this and other sensitive topics (like death for example) can be communicated to Kennedy.
• A behaviour (PBS) group that Kelly attended and how helpful she found it.
• The challenges of going out and about with Kennedy and how Kelly deals with situations that arise. Using the sunflower lanyard.
• The autistic spectrum and the huge difference between the ‘severity’ of how this affects different people.
• How Kelly manages the demands of the business alongside the needs of Kennedy and how exhausting it can be day to day.
• How Kelly does (or doesn’t) look after herself...and how she is OK with that.
• The positive support networks that Kelly would recommend and how she also is very open to having conversations with people in the same kind of situation.

Kelly’s business – OnleNetworking

Linked in - @KellyWest

Instagram - @bespokefamily / Facebook - @bespokefamily

For information about a Bespoke Family Parent Consultation click here: https://www.bespokefamily.co.uk/parent-consultations

‘Your Guide to...’ (our downloadable webinars including

behaviour, toilet training, sleep and more)

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Rebecca started her business when her children were quite young (the youngest was starting school) and she wanted to ‘find her thing’.

We chatted about:

• Rebecca's background – she set up an outsourcing agency ‘Get Ahead’ in 2010 working with companies to provide Virtual Assistants (VAs).
• Having an open mind and a confidence to see where things go and how setting up a business feels like nurturing another child!
• Balancing having a family and young children when setting up a business and how Rebecca managed it.
• The challenges Rebecca faced along the way, how she tackled them and the impact this has had on the children and how they have developed.
• How Rebecca transfers what she did when setting up her business to the VAs (who Rebecca calls ‘Virtual Experts’) working in the business empowering them to also work around their families.
• Lockdown and how nothing really changed for Rebecca during that time (except for having the children at home!) and how the authenticity of working from home has been made so much easier since then.
• Work / life balance and whether there is such a thing for people running their own business.
• The joy of WhatsApp!!
• Empty Nesting, the children in your life and how that feels for Rebecca and other business owners.
• Rebecca’s proud moments and 3 tips for parents setting up their own business!

Get Ahead VA (Rebecca’s company) - https://getaheadva.com/

Get Ahead VA on Instagram - getaheadva

Instagram - @bespokefamily / Facebook - @bespokefamily

For information about a Bespoke Family Parent Consultation click here: https://www.bespokefamily.co.uk/parent-consultations

‘Your Guide to...’ (our downloadable webinars including behaviour, toilet training, sleep and more)

This podcast is produced by Decibelle Creative

Cate is a Senior Associate at Kingsley Napley and spoke to us about what’s involved when parents divorce.

We covered:

• The 3 strands to a divorce – the divorce itself, the finances, the children.
• No fault divorce and what it is / what it means.
• What happens when courts get involved in terms of making an order about how the children spend their time between parents and whether there is any flexibility.
• Particular patterns of how to share the care of children that Cate would recommend to parents.
• How long the divorce process can take particularly when children are involved.
• Mediation and how that works as part of the process.
• What happens if you aren’t married and have children but want to separate.
• Whether there is such a thing as common law marriage in the UK.
• Child maintenance, what it is and how it is calculated (link below).
• Cate’s tips for communicating your breakup with your child/ren and managing the relationship going forward.
• Cate’s tips for trying to avoid an acrimonious divorce including making sure you have lots of people and systems around to support you both.
• Having goals in place for the future with your children and the importance of communicating these to your lawyer.
• Pre-nups / post-nups – the law around these and how they work.

Instagram - @bespokefamily / Facebook - @bespokefamily

Kingsley Napley Family Law - https://www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/insights/blogs/family-law-blog

About Cate - https://www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/our-people/cate-maguire

Child maintenance calculator - https://www.gov.uk/calculate-child-maintenance

One of the Apps Cate recommends – Our Family Wizard

Our co-parenting blog - https://www.bespokefamily.co.uk/blog/coparenting

For information about a Bespoke Family Parent Consultation click here: https://www.bespokefamily.co.uk/parent-consultations

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Laura was born and raised in Southern California and has been in London since 2021. She is the daughter of an Occupational Therapist (OT) and now runs a private practice – Kid Kind Collective and works with children as a Paediatric OT.

We spoke about:

• What an OT actually does (Becks had no idea!) and why they do what they do in terms of outcomes for the children.
• How OTs help people be adaptive with how they get to the end goal.
• All about sensory processing – what this means and how an OT can help as a ‘sensory detective’ and getting the whole family involved with this.
• How an OT can help when children just can’t sit still (more detective work!)
• How you can get your child referred to an OT and what happens at their first appointment (often work can start before an ADHD or Autism diagnosis for example).
• The link with emotional regulation and how the work that an OT does to support children can impact on this.
• Laura’s top 3 things that she loves about being an OT.
• What Laura’s childhood was like as the daughter of an OT and what she learnt.

Instagram - @bespokefamily / Facebook - @bespokefamily

Laura’s website: https://www.kid-kind.com/

For information about a Bespoke Family Parent Consultation click here: https://www.bespokefamily.co.uk/parent-consultations

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This is a topic close to Becks’s heart as she starts to prepare for both of her children leaving home for university. One of Becks’s friends asked us to record this episode – so here you are!

We spoke about:

• How it’s a different milestone to going to childcare / school for the first time.
• The social media phenomenon of making the most of ‘18 summers with your children’...what we think!
• The feelings and emotions that you have and the stages that you go through when your child/ren leave home.
• How Claire felt sad for her parents when she left home for college and how it’s important to think about how you manage the situation as a parent.
• Preparing for the empty nest and the importance of planning for you; what can you do that you have always wanted to?
• Teaching your child/ren life skills and how key this is to prepare them!
• How they will still need you (and the fact that they might come back..!!!!!)!

Instagram - @bespokefamily / Facebook - @bespokefamily

For information about a Bespoke Family Parent Consultation click here: https://www.bespokefamily.co.uk/parent-consultations

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This podcast is produced by Decibelle Creative

Please note that Meriel was a surrogate in the US and rules in each country are very different – to find out more about surrogacy rules in the UK you can find them here and more information on surrogacy in the UK here.

Meriel is a three times surrogate from the United States. She was blessed to help two families achieve the dream of completing their families through surrogacy. She currently works for an agency as a surrogacy journey coordinator, where she is passionate about helping to create families and supporting other women who wish to embark on the amazing and fulfilling journey of becoming surrogates.

We spoke to Meriel about:

• What made her decide to become a surrogate and how her family and others reacted (including some funny stories!).
• What surrogacy is, who might use a surrogate and why that might be.
• Some terminology and the process for both the family and the surrogate.
• The contact that the surrogate has with the family throughout the pregnancy and beyond.
• The labour experience and who shared the labour room with Meriel when she had the babies and how special she tried to make it for everyone involved.
• What being a surrogate means to Meriel, the joy she took from it and how it has shaped her and her life as it is now as a surrogacy journey coordinator.
• Some of the rules around surrogacy and being a surrogate as well as the support that there is for surrogates.
• Keeping in touch with the families after the birth of their baby and whether that happens.
• Who is on the birth certificate and legalities (spoiler it can be quite complicated – especially in the US!).
• How research into the best surrogacy path is SO vital!

https://www.collectivesurrogacy.com/ - the agency where Meriel works and where you can find her blogs

Meriel on LinkedIn

Read our blog where we talked to Simon Berney Edwards about his experience of surrogacy here.

Instagram - @bespokefamily / Facebook - @bespokefamily

For information about a Bespoke Family Parent Consultation click here: https://www.bespokefamily.co.uk/parent-consultations

‘Your Guide to...’ (our downloadable webinars including behaviour, toilet training, sleep and more) - get 25% off any guide with the code ‘PODCAST’

This podcast is produced by Decibelle Creative

We spoke to Hayley and Becky from Paths to Parent Hub. We first came across Paths to Parent Hub when we listened to their podcast following a recommendation from a friend.

We started with Hayley and Becky sharing their own stories with us. Hayley is a donor conceived person herself and is also a parent of twins through sperm donation. Becky was diagnosed with early menopause at 28 – she and her husband did 5 rounds of IVF and then decided to use an egg donor to have her 3 children. Both Hayley and Becky shared their stories on the internet and found each other there.

Becky created Paths to Parent Hub (a membership platform) during lockdown to support people in similar situations to themselves and it now has over 1000 members.

We also talked about:

• When and how Hayley found out that she was a donor conceived person and the reasons she talks about her story now.
• Talking with donor conceived children about how they came to be and dealing with their questions, and those from family and friends.
• The laws around donor conception and the parallels with adoption.
• The experience that Becky had abroad in finding an egg donor and how she feels now about having chosen to have an anonymous donor.
• Whether there is a limit on how many families one donor can produce and how this differs around the world.
• The reasons someone might want / need to use a donor.
• Hayley’s experience when finding her parent sperm donor.
• Terminology around donor conception.
• The information you get about a donor when choosing and how the matching works.
• What Hayley and Becky would say to people considering donor conception.
• About Paths to Parent Hub and the support, information and connection opportunities.

Instagram - @bespokefamily / Facebook - @bespokefamily / @pathstoparenthub / @definingmum @dcp_journey_2_rp

Paths to Parent Hub website

All things donor conception - Hayley’s website

Paths to Parent Hub podcast

For information about a Bespoke Family Parent Consultation click here: https://www.bespokefamily.co.uk/parent-consultations

‘Your Guide to...’ (our downloadable webinars including behaviour, toilet training, sleep and more) - get 25% off any guide with the code ‘PODCAST’

This podcast is produced by Decibelle Creative