The Mule

As I get older, some rather interesting and unexpected things are happening.  One rather pleasing development is that some of the crap I've got shoved at the back of my wardrobe is actually coming back into fashion, meaning less trips to Primarni are needed in these credit crunching times.  Even stranger and more shockingly, I find I am beginning to mellow.  Gradually the waves of time are washing over me, and like a piece of glass in the ocean, my sharp edges are slowly being soothed and smoothed and rounded.  Or, to put it another way, as I make cock up upon cock up upon cock up, I am becoming less judgemental of other people's cock ups. Parenting can be a heady mix of both solidarity and judgement.  The vast majority of us are struggling along, fuelled by the most heart bursting levels of passion and love for our children, and desperate to offer them the best that we can.  There's of...

Well, you might have noticed, but although this blog hasn't been going for very long, I've already given Health Visitors a couple of mentions.  I'm passionate about good evidence based care for women during a really important time in their life: pregnancy, birth, and new motherhood.  The Health Visitor plays a vital role in helping mothers to bond with their babies, and care for them night and day.  They can influence the decision to breastfeed and its success or failiure.  They are there for women who may be becoming depressed.  They offer advice on health, sleep, feeding, weaning, growth, and much much more.  And yet in my personal experience, I have been offered some poor advice by them, and I have heard similar stories from many other mothers.  I feel that this is an important issue and one which should be discussed.  Health Visitors surely all mean very well and would want nothing but excellence for new mothers and babies.  I...

Once upon a time, in a very far away land indeed, there was a blisteringly naive but well meaning girl who thought that babies slept through the night after the first few tricky weeks and that then you could get a sitter and go out dancing, whenever you pleased and without a second thought, just like you did in the good old days. Four years ago, that girl was me.  As previously discussed, I thought all babies behaved just like the ones on Eastenders , and trotted gaily off into the dark forest of parenting, confidently swinging my basket of breadcrumbs.  Like every other woman, I was totally unprepared for what lay ahead.  And I absolutely had no idea that my nights, my sleeping hours, that sacred time that I took completely for granted as one of life's essentials, would take perhaps the biggest hit of all. There's absolutely no point writing a blog post about the horrors of sleep deprivation, as this is old news to haggard-faced mothers everywhere.  But the stor...