A guidebook for all of parenting’s nuisances like coordinating soccer games, dirty diapers, and managing a career doesn’t necessarily compile into an easy manual for all the routes parents go.

However, Dr. Monica Dixon of Sequim released ideas of how to handle it all as a mother in the book “Walking the Tightrope: 101 Ways to Manage Motherhood and Your Sanity.”

Dixon focused her work in three parts around mind, body and spirit with questions assessing your current situation as a parent, how-to-nurture yourself and your family, the status of your emotional health, and nurturing your spiritual side.

“Self-care during motherhood in the most vital component,” Dixon said. “Without that you aren’t as effective.”

Dixon, a mother of two grown boys and married to a military man, found her route to motherhood through determination and planning. She started her career as a registered dietician, but moved 17 times in 30 years.

“It was hard for a military wife to have a career,” she said.

So, she became a professional speaker and author. She worked toward her doctorate in health psychology while her two boys were young while living in San Francisco, Calif.

“Walking the Tightrope” has been in development for years, and follows her 1990s book “Love the Body You Were Born With.”

Dixon said “Love the Body” was popular and she was able to promote it on TV, but her goal is not the same with the mothering book.

As she’s spoken to more and more people, about 50,000 a year in lectures, Dixon said she had more things to share especially since 9/11.

“It’s so obvious that people aren’t practicing self-care,” Dixon said. “They don’t even get enough sleep.”

“Walking the Tightrope” covers a multitude of topics like sleep, managing outings to the grocery store with children, making time for friends, nutrition and couples’ love lives.

Suggestion No. 72 from the book encourages mothers to “Find a Safe Chair,” meaning a mother and her child/children should find a chair in the home where the he/she or they can share anything with each other without repercussions from the mom.

Dixon took her own advice and found her sons became more trusting and open through this despite their uncertainty at first. One example in the book shows how her son learned a valuable lesson from a traumatic ordeal regarding peer pressure.

Another suggestion is to find a friend and/or mentor to discuss managing motherhood.

“It’s good to have a mother who has managed multiple roles, and expand on those things,” Dixon said.

“You should reach your goals for yourself along with your motherhood children.”

Through writing and releasing the book, Dixon said she’s quickly learned young mothers struggle to find time to even read her book.

“They don’t have the same amount of time when I first began writing it six or seven years ago,” she said.

Dixon states in the book that Americans are working more hours and sleeping less than other cultures around the world.

She is releasing an audio version of “Walking the Tightrope” through her website in the near future. It’s also available in paperback and hardcover at Pacific Mist Books, Amazon (Kindle, too) and www.monicadixon.com.