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Showing posts from August, 2012

Responsive Parenting: Why Tantrums Matter

People make different parenting choices, and that's fine. We don't all want to sleep with our baby in our bed, carry them in a sling, or nurse them until they're three. We might not like the idea of routines, we might despise the thought of spoon feeding a baby purees. But whilst these issues are often a source of interesting and sometimes heated debate, none of them really matter, or at least, they pale into insignificance compared to the bottom line, which is this: Parents need to be Responsive . No matter what other choices you make, as long as you try your best to be consistently and lovingly responsive to your child, you are 'getting it right'. Tantrums - which mostly happen at the toddler age - are a difficult area for all parents and it's sometimes hard to know what to do. But how we respond to our children in these testing moments is very important. I've written a detailed post about responding to distress in general here: Everybody Hurts: Ten Ways...

Do We Dare Teach Our Daughters The Truth About Their Bodies?

This article is on the front page of today's Huffington Post . (16th August 2012) What did you learn about breastfeeding in school? Chances are - not much. Whether you were a pupil in the 1950's or the 1990's, it's unlikely you were told anything at all about nursing a baby, because breastfeeding has never ever been a statutory requirement on the National Curriculum, and it still isn't, even today. Teenagers are taught about alcohol, emotions, contraception, cultural diversity and more as part of their PSHE lessons. But breastfeeding? Telling girls how to do that is dangerous and downright disgusting, according to many commenters in this recent article in the Daily Mail about a pilot scheme in Merseyside teaching the benefits of nursing to 14 year olds. Revolting!! Don't teach them how to read and write but teach them how to breastfeed...ye Gods. Teach them how to respect themselves, how to say NO and how to keep their legs closed, along with teaching them ...

And The Biggest Breastfeeding Obstacle Of All Is...Bad Advice!

For the past few weeks I've been trying to put together a post for World Breastfeeding Week about the various obstacles that women have overcome in order to breastfeed. I had a vision that I could somehow catalogue the stories in a series of posts so that they could be easily found in Google by others with the same issue or struggle. I've been asking you to send me your stories, and as I've been reading them, my original idea for the post has been eclipsed by what seems to me to be a far bigger and more pressing concern. Because what's emerging from your stories is that, whilst many women have various initial difficulties getting breastfeeding established, the most common and recurring theme , and no doubt the great big problem that's making breastfeeding difficult or even impossible for many women is simply a shocking level of ill informed, outdated and downright bad advice , often from the very professionals who are supposed to be helping and promoting breast...

New Water Birth Book edited by Yours Truly...and I need your stories!

I'm extremely excited to announce that I have been asked to edit a book - Water Birth: Stories to Inspire and Inform , to be published by Lonely Scribe . For me, the chance to immerse myself in a subject that I am so very passionate about, coupled with the fact that at the end of the process I will hold my book in my hands...well, it just couldn't get any better! The book will be about nine or ten months in the gestational stage, then spend it's fourth trimester with the publisher, so we are hoping to introduce it to the world around about July 2013. I'll obviously be blogging about the process along the way, and hopefully readers of The Mule will be able to help me out, as I am looking for stories of birth involving water. I'm hoping that the book will offer a wide variety of stories from different perspectives and serve to educate and inspire readers about the use and benefits of water during labour and delivery. This might be - a classic home or hospital ...