Parenting with ADHD

Parenthood is hard. Parenthood with ADHD is harder. Adding a child or two to make a family can stress your ability to focus, schedule, prioritize, handle your emotion, etc, etc…

Take care of yourself: ‘Put on your own oxygen mask first’ is a saying for a reason. You can’t help someone if you are struggling. Here are some tips if you have a newborn:  

• If you are not already, take your ADHD medication as prescribed. Try tracking how well it is working and how much sleep you are getting so you can talk to your doctor.
• Having a new baby can seem like you will never sleep again, but try sleeping when the baby is sleeping if at all possible or allowing someone else to do the night feedings.
• Hormonal changes can affect ADHD so after childbirth and menopause (but that is a different blog).
• Schedule downtime for yourself. Even if you don’t want to leave the baby, schedule time for someone else to provide care while you do something for yourself like take a bath,  read or sleep.
• Learn to accept help when it is offered.
• Whether you are nursing or not, eat well.
• Try delegating chores/tasks that seem too much right now.
• Is the crying driving you nuts, wear earphones playing music you enjoy. The baby isn’t going to notice or care and you may keep your sanity.
• Join a new parent group.
• If you think you have postpartum depression or otherwise think you not help, talk to your doctor.
• Get out of the house with the baby in tow of course. Go for a walk, or even into the backyard.
• Develop routines for morning and evening that are calming for you and your baby.
• Babies don’t come with manuals so you are not breaking any rules if you don’t do things the “way everyone else does”. Your baby; your rules. Be creative and have fun! Babies (really any young child) can feel your stress but if you are calm then the baby will do too.

Sometimes when a child is diagnosed with ADHD, a parent realizes the symptoms could be describing him/her too. It happens all the time! You are not alone. Here are some tips if you have children with ADHD and you do too:

• Get your own diagnosis if you truly suspect you have ADHD. We all have ADHD symptoms from time to time but ADHD disrupts your life.
• Become educated so that you understand what ADHD is and isn’t.
• Ask for help when you need it.
• Create family routines for the morning to get everyone out of the house with ease.
• Create family routines for the evening to make the morning go easy and to get everyone to bed on time. That means you too, sleep is important.
• Hire a tutor to help your child with ADHD, you don’t have the patience for homework at the end of the day.
• Have family meetings at the beginning (preferably Sunday night) to go over schedules for the week.
• Post the schedule where everyone can see it. Hidden in the phone often doesn’t work.
• Use your strengths – if you are more auditory, make a recorded to-do list or notes to self, if you are visual, use color-coding to help organize lists, if you are tactile, write your to-do list with a great pen. Whichever you chose to do, get as much information into one trusted location and out of your head.
• Don’t make promises especially to your kids. Failing to follow through will be remembered and damage relationships
• Have a key phrase or another signal for your kids to get your attention for something important; for example a hand on your shoulder or saying “Mom I need you to hear me.”  
• Be forgiving of yourself. There is no right way to parent. Do your best and make sure your kids know you love them.