I bought a heap of parenting books before I had Olivia and read them all, with no idea about what type of parent I would turn out to be.

As soon as I had Olivia, all of the books just sat on the shelf gathering dust and I felt so much more comfortable following her lead and going on my gut maternal instinct.

My mother came to stay with us when Olivia was 3 months old, and through that experience I realised that what Andrew and I were doing was very much along the lines of gentle parenting. I went back and read a lot of the books, and with the benefit of experience I realised that we had adopted gentle parenting in comparison to anything else, and that it felt right and good for us.

I do love routine and so adopt an approach to try and help the children into nice grooves, so that the day has a bit of a pattern, but I don't clock-watch, and I follow both of their leads, adn we are all happy.