The Mule

"How come you have stopped blogging?", someone asked me recently. Short answer: I had a baby. Slightly longer answer: I had my third baby, my life is chaos, I got a job as a columnist and it's all I can do to get that done every week, I'm a perfectionist and it takes me ages to write anything, oh, and my baby got eczema and it's pretty much taken over our life. Eczema? Isn't that just like, a rash? A bit of dry skin, the odd bit of redness behind the knees. That's what I thought, and almost laughed when the community nurse suggested I apply for disability allowance shortly after the eczema started. Four months on, it has nearly broken me. I can't describe to you how awful it is just to see your baby not looking right. This might sound awfully superficial, but I'm sure it's much deeper than that. There must be something hard-wired into the deeper, older parts of a mother's brain, to feel ill-at-ease if her baby looks sick. The skin of...

Dear Daughters Brace yourselves, I have a confession to make. It may or may not surprise you. Here goes... I don't like being woken up in the night! I REALLY don't like it! I can't stand it! Maybe you thought it just washed over me - all part of the service - like chopping cheese into chunks or sitting through Waybaloo - well you're wrong. Being woken up and dragged from the delicious depths of sleep two, three, four, five times a night is WAY more irritating than that! WAY MORE! And, quite frankly, I'm bloody well sick of it! It's not just the nights - which are bad enough - it's the evenings too. For five years now I have had my enjoyment of every single evening compromised in some way, either because I've been trapped in a bedroom breastfeeding, singing, storytelling or simply begging you to go to sleep, or because I've had to abandon my delicious food / fascinating film / other grown-up activity, and go back upstairs to soothe you back to...

I lie with you until you are asleep, Ten minutes, twenty, thirty, often more, Clocks tick, frustration builds, yet still I keep, And stay with you on your side of the door. Out there, my old life tempts, a voice cries, "Fail!", And tells me there are better things to do, Release: the world shrinks down, we both exhale, And drift together, touching souls, we two. In age, perhaps, you'll do the same for me, And hold my papery hand, and stroke my hair, You'll know the worth of love's proximity, The gift we give by simply being there.   A final kiss, a sigh, a comfort deep:   I lie with you until you are asleep. If sonnets about parenting peel your potato, see here for another: Sometimes I Pass the Place Where We Once Lived .

Sleep training, controlled crying, and crying it out: is it ok, or isn’t it? New research has just been published in the American Journal of Pediatrics suggesting that: “Behavioral sleep techniques did not cause long-lasting harms or benefits to child, child-parent, or maternal outcomes. Parents and health professionals can feel comfortable about using these techniques to reduce the population burden of infant sleep problems and maternal depression.” The research is already being hailed as a victory by those who claim that sleep training is an essential parenting rite of passage and completely harmless to the child involved. The Daily Telegraph headlined: ‘ Leave your baby to cry, scientists say ’, whilst the good old Daily Mail claimed, ‘ Letting babies cry rather than rushing to comfort them is secret to longer sleep (for infants AND parents) ’. This is not a new debate. The fight over whether or not sleep training is harmful rages constantly amidst parents, faceboo...

Everyone is suddenly talking about Attachment Parenting . As the world recovers from the shock of a mother breastfeeding her three year old on the cover of Time , the media spotlight is being shone on this parenting approach, and it seems like everyone, even Alanis Morissette , has got something to say. As someone who breastfeeds toddlers, has a good sling collection and shares her bed with a two year old, it's great to follow the debate, but it also makes me wonder - what do babies really need? In an ideal world, would all children be 'attachment parented'? Is this what we are aiming for, all babies snuggled into their Ergo's, a sort of 'mass conversion', a 'de-buggying'? Would this make the world a better place? Parenting websites, Facebook pages and forums are consistently bogged down with people debating the right and wrong way to parent, and never more so than now, as we all wonder what we need to do to be 'mom enough'. People can get pre...

I hold my baby every time she cries...just for comfort. I know she isn't really hungry, but I let her come close and nurse anyway...just for comfort. As she falls asleep, I'm always there; singing, rocking, nursing...just for comfort. And most nights, she sleeps in my bed...just for comfort. By day, I notice her, noticing the world, and if she looks lost or confused, I pick her up...just for comfort. I let her move away, branch out, explore, until she falls, or hesitates, or looks to me, and then I offer her my arms...just for comfort. When she's scared, or sad, or cross, or lost, I try to understand, to be there...just for comfort. And any time she wants to snuggle, day or night, I stop everything else and hold her...just for comfort. --- I write...just for comfort. I paint, I dance, I sing...just for comfort. I take a book, light a lamp, and get cosy...just for comfort. I laugh with friends...just for comfort. I walk, I run, I dream, I plan, I travel...just ...

This week I've been running a special series of posts on one of my favourite subjects, Birth. On Monday, Michelle told the story of her empowering VBAC , and on Tuesday we heard Anna's story of her adoption experience, with a very surprising twist. On Wednesday Maddie from Developing Doulas shared some passionate thoughts about motherhood and pointed us in the direction of the fantastic website, One World Birth . On Thursday, Awen Clement wrote about the Red Tent Project , which hopes to create a travelling space in the UK for women and their many rites of passage.  During the week an artist friend of mine has also been busy making a beautiful painting inspired by women's words about their 'post baby' bodies, especially for this blog. Late last night I shared images of her art work, and took the rather bold (or foolish?!) step of including a photo I took of my own tummy button, in the post Acceptance Nude . I'm so thrilled to introduce the f...

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...