I felt so guilty neglecting my little girl after her brother was born, reveals newsgirl Kate
SHE always knew the arrival of her son Wilbur would have an impact on her relationship with her first-born, Clemency.
Now, nine months on, BBC newsreader kate Silverton has revealed the rollercoaster of emotions she experienced as she adjusted to being a mother-of-two.
the 44-year-old, who has a degree in child psychology, admits she felt torn between nursing Wilbur while not wanting his three-year-old sister to feel neglected.
Confessing there were times when she felt guilty about not giving Clemency enough attention, she said she realised that contrary to people telling her ‘Oh, I raised my children exactly the same’, the truth ‘is it can never be the same’.
Speaking candidly about her experiences, Miss Silverton told the Daily Mail: ‘I couldn’t have been prepared for the amount of love I felt for my little boy, having been so overwhelmingly in love with my daughter.
‘ I wasn’t prepared to feel so protective of him – sometimes even at the expense of my daughter’s feelings. Neither was I prepared for the guilt I would feel at spending my time trying to be the same sort of mother to Wilbur as I was to Clemency.’
She added: ‘It is the psychological aspect of parenting two very young children that I have found most revealing and challenging.
‘ So many people say, “Oh, I raised my children exactly the same”, but the truth is it can never be the same. Clemency had us exclusively – our full attention and love. Wilbur will only ever know
‘Her world turned upside down’
life with an older sister in tow and parents who split themselves between him and her.’
Miss Silverton said that during her second pregnancy she and her husband, former royal Marine Michael Heron, prepared Clemency as much as possible, taking her to some hospital scans and giving her ‘a present from Wilbur’ as soon as he was born. But they saw changes too, with their daughter demanding more of their attention and refusing to go to nursery.
Miss Silverton, who said the experience has re-ignited her passion for developmental psychology, said: ‘Having done some research into it, I realise how it must have felt to her. Her entire world had been turned upside down; she felt she’d “lost” me and was having a tough time making sense of it all.
‘She had more tantrums than ever before – when they can’t express their feelings verbally, a child will typically resort to physical expression: screaming, crying or, i n some cases, hitting. My patience was stretched at times and I found myself saying “no” to her more often than I should.
‘I found though that by staying with her at nursery with Wilbur for a period and gently explaining over and over that her brother was just a baby and could not do things by himself that things started to turn around.’
Miss Silverton added that Clemency has now adjusted to having a baby brother, and likes to dress him up and push him around the kitchen in her doll’s pram.
When Clemency was born in November 2011, Miss Silverton – who lost an ovary in an operation to remove a cyst when she was 29 – had already been through four rounds of IVF and had resigned herself to the fact she was unlikely to become a mother. But within months of stopping the treatment she became pregnant with Clemency, whom she has often referred to as her ‘little miracle’. Wilbur was also conceived naturally.
In the past Miss Silverton has credited acupuncture and craniosacral therapy with helping her become pregnant for the second time, saying: ‘I had no wish to go down the IVF route again … It was an utterly gruelling process.’
She says she i s now f ocused on helping other couples in si milar si t uations as well as returning to her studies in child cognitive development.