This may be the best parenting book I have read to date. I intend to share it with all of my mom friends because I think everyone can always use a reminder to go mom yourself

This book has been such a helpful resource for me as I navigate motherhood and marriage with a 2 year old and 3 month old. There is theory and science, but also very easy to implement tools and strategies that have been helpful for me. Thank you Dr. Cutlip!

This book is an absolutely wonderful resource as a mom. It does not feel overwhelming , and many times I felt I was hearing what Dr. Morgan Cutlip was writing from my own therapist. Highly suggest buying this book and giving her an Instagram follow!

I want to thank everyone for this early, gifted copy of Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself by Morgan Cutlip.

I have followed Morgan on Instagram for a few years now, loving her practical ways of getting through motherhood, that aren't always just bashing your husband and your kids. I was excited to see that she was writing a book that really pertained to my current life of raising two littles, but feeling a little unlike myself.

I really enjoyed Morgan's book. There were times when I felt like she was talking directly to me, like she has seen me as a mom, seen me interact with my husband and my kids. I found that this is the type of book that I will want to read at least twice, to highlight the things that meant the most to me, but also read again to mark up and take note of what stood out to me.

I will definitely be recommending this book to my friends with kids, and saving it for my friends who don't have kids yet.

I am the mom of a 10 year old and an 8 year old. I have spent a lot of time over the last several years (partially pandemic-prompted) in self-development, self-recovery, and therapy. A lot of the concepts in this book were not new to me, but I liked the way they were packaged and presented.

Thank you to the publisher - I received a complimentary eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself is for every parent who’s ever felt selfish putting their needs above the rest of the family’s. I highlighted so many parts to reference again when I need them.

I loved the actionable items of evaluating which needs are low and how to know yourself better. I will definitely be gifting this to new moms.

I loved this book!! I had highlights galore in it as I reflected on my role as a mother and how I can be my best self. This book was so delightful and I feel empowered.

Huge thanks to NetGalley to read and review this book. I have to say, I’m not one to read self-help books, but this was EYE OPENING. I highly recommend it for any mom, parent, or guardian- especially those with littles. I wish I had access to the PDF because I honestly would have done the work while reading.

Such a helpful perspective. Relatable and professional all at the same time. Love Dr. Cutlip’s advice!!

Cutlip does a truly phenomenal job of identifying and compartmentalizing the challenges of motherhood. I kept wondering “is motherhood really this universal?” Perhaps, but a lot of the credit goes to the author. I keep coming back to this book. I can’t say this book has necessarily helped me find myself again but it’s helped me think more critically about the way I’m treating myself and that matters too.

Morgan goes through several tangible ways to make life as a mother just a bit more regulated. Mothers who are regulated are better equiped to care for their families and better able to advocate for themselves and their needs. Motherhood shouldn't be a call to martyrdom.

I finally found a parenting book that I like! I cried through the intro cause I felt so seen. Morgan's experiences resonated so deeply with me, both in her actions to regulate herself, her approach to burnout, and her ways of parenting. I really enjoyed this book.

One of my big struggles with parenting books is that they tend to skew towards Stay at Home Moms. As a working parent, it was refreshing to see tips and techniques that will work for me as well as SAHMs.

Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself is unlike any other book I've read about motherhood! Dr. Cutlip outlines a practical way to check-in with yourself and make "microadjustments" to nurture your relationship with yourself. She shares stories from her life as a mother and I could really relate. It was helpful to read how to applied her check-ins in real life situations with her children and I feel equipped to do the same! The book also includes discussion questions and worksheets to take a deeper dive into the information shared in each chapter. I would recommend this book to any mom!

In line with Cutlip's social media presence, this book was affirming and supportive. Parts were a bit slow, and it felt repetitive at portions as well but overall it was an uplifting read.

I grabbed this off of NetGalley more as a preemptive measure. I’m still in the halcyon days of motherhood where I have reassurances that my baby adores me and that I’m doing well enough (although I wish I showered more and that someday he will sleep through the night…or at all). But I am very aware it might not be like this for long.

The honesty in here regarding priorities and balance and kids felt like a breath of fresh air, and if I were a different person I might keep a copy. Self-help books are still not for me, though; even with how potentially relevant this was, the style of the genre is off putting to me. I also disagree with a lot of the marriage advice/examples. If people say hurtful and inaccurate things, for instance (“you’ve been gone a lot”), I don’t think it’s “defensive” or “lacking willpower” to point out how unfair that is.

Great practical questions, though, that might help a lot of parents find their identities again.

Note: This is published by a Christian publishing house. While it’s not the central focus, you can see how the perspective guides the conclusions made, and it’s not really disclosed. Heads up if you’re not into that sort of thing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars. Since I’m about to become a parent for the first time, I’ve read several parenting books recently and though this one isn’t all that unique, it is still good overall.
Cutlip claims to have a completely fresh premise, and although the RAM model is new to me (the five bonds of know, trust, rely, commit and trust), she also gets into the basics of attachment theory and burnout which are concepts I’m already familiar with. For those who aren’t familiar with those ideas or for someone who is needing a pep talk and hasn’t read a parenting book/content in a while, this could be nice.
The most practical parts of the book were the “Ask yourself these questions” sections toward the end of each chapter. I also appreciated some of the scripts and examples of reframing she gave, but it’s hard to know how applicable those are in real life situations until I’m in the thick of parenting.
Overall, I feel that this would be better suited as a workbook with brief explanations and examples followed by her questions. I know she had some tables and graphs, but, at least in my early copy, the formatting on those was either absent or unreadable due to the number of errors.
When reading on the iOS Kindle app, large sections of text were in a font color nearly matching the page color, which made it entirely unreadable. When reading on a Kindle Paperwhite, every other page had pretty major formatting issues and repeated lines. I’m not sure if this has been corrected in the final copy that was recently published.

My last aside, which is a bit of a nitpick, is that the voice was very millennial. An example of this is the verbiage of “momming so hard” used in each chapter. If millennials are the target audience, this may be great. I realize I’m somewhat in the minority as I’m becoming a parent now as a Gen Z-er/cusper (born ‘98) while my peers are waiting longer to have kids. However, I could see my peers reading this and having a similar smirk or eye roll at some of the distinctly millennial language.
Thank you for the advanced copy!

This is a book I will keep forever. I read it twice. Once quickly, and then again -- with a journal and pen to really dive deep through the prompts. It helped me understand where my feelings in motherhood were coming from and gave me knowledge to reframe those feelings to a positive light. Now I have a better understanding my needs and a plan to nurture myself for the betterment of me and my family. I will continue to reference this book again and again.

What is the thing you do that makes you feel most like YOURSELF? And/or, what is your favorite thing to do for “self-care”?

Thank you to Netgalley and Nelson Books for the eARC of Love Your Kids Without Losing Yourself: 5 Steps to Banish Guilt and Beat Burnout When You Already Have Too Much to Do by Morgan Cutlip. All opinions are my own!

I love my fiction, and boy do I, but every once and a while I need to take look at my reality, and I’ll be the first to admit I am overall, overwhelmed! When I saw this book with the longest (and most perfectly descriptive) title on earth, I thought “I need to put down the romances in the AirPods for this one.” And I’m glad I did. Let me put it this way- I highlighted a WHOPPING 21% of this book, according to my Kindle. I really like the author, I LOVE her personal stories and her many, many mothering moments and feelings that I can relate to. I am fascinated by the research and books she mentioned- my favorite nugget of information being about John Gottman’s “stress-reducing conversation”. We hopefully all have friends that we can share our stressors with- no fixing, no solving, just empathy. I have been fortunate to have friends to do this with since I was a kid but I was yesterday years old when I was introduced to its name.

In this book there are tips on how WE can stay regulated, so many questions we can ask ourselves like “what kind of parent did you expect yourself to be?”, “do you think your child’s behavior is a direct reflection of your value and competency as a mother?”, explanations for why we are so exhausted by the end of the night (other than the obvious) and REAL things we can do to help ourselves besides the often mentioned and elusive “SELF CARE”. What we are taught are strategies that can take minutes, and can be ongoing, unlike a “getaway” where you come back to the same old thing. Mothers are told to take care of ourselves and I think this book gives us ways to do that, plus they are free and shouldn’t take long to put into practice.

My only complaint about the book, and this may be my burned-out brain talking, is that I found the five steps confusing. Their names don’t have a clear tie-in to what they represent IMO. If I left this book with them easily memorized, I would rate it higher. I do want to shut the book and move on to my fabulously found self, but it is not a one-and-done, and I will be referencing it often.

My other complaint, and it is not about the book itself, is that I think I got the eARC very early and therefore didn’t have access to the PDFs as I went. I couldn’t print out the questions at the end of the book and I would have liked to. I think there may have been charts I couldn’t see? I NEED all these things and am trying to figure out if I should buy the hardcover or the ebook (both which will come with the PDFs). What I would like most of all is a paperback combo book/ workbook that I can write in. Giving me this free ebook is resulting in me buying it, so I’d say this is a positive review! I recommend this book for mothers or caretakers to read, even before the burnout, guilt and full schedule shows up.

4/5 stars

I have mixed feelings about this book and that's mostly due to my own lack of up-front research.

While I took a lot from this book in terms of parenting and lessons learned, what I didn't like about this book were its roots in Christian principles and messaging. Maybe I should have done more research prior to reading this book so I was aware of that, and wouldn't read it, but being an atheist, the religious components of this novel really took me out of the lessons.

I am sure that this book is helpful for others, but it didn't work for me.

As a working mother of two, I knew I needed to pick up this book. Having a child (and then adding another!) is a huge life adjustment and obviously, a mother's entire world/sense of self changes and it is a relearning process for almost everything in your life.

The author, Morgan Cutlip, did a wonderful job at providing practical strategies to work into daily life. One key takeaway is to "mother yourself like you mother your kids". This is such a good quote! We want the best for our kids and we need to remember to want the best for ourselves, too. She mentions her own experiences as a mom which makes this book feel relateable.

Docking one star because I wish there was more revelational content within the chapters of the book. I felt the best material came from the discussion questions at the end of the book. I think I would have been more engaged in the book had the discussion questions followed each chapter.

Thank you NetGalley & Nelson Books for the opportunity to read to this ARC!

What a wonderful book! This one truly straddles the line or being good but not TOO niche, consoling but not preachy, hard but not Rachel Hollis.

I liked this one. I have four young kids, can’t figure out how to find ME again, and this book really helped some perspective shifts happen in our home. Our kids definitely don’t need us as much as we think, they are allowed to be bored, and fostering myself as my own being actually makes them better, who would have thought!?

So grateful for Cutlip and the team that made this book happen. A must for any working parent, parent of more than one kid, or someone just wanting to DO better and BE better for the children in their lives. A big round of applause, and four solid stars. I’ll be gifting this to so many mom friends when it comes out!

Thank you, NetGalley, for the advance copy!