The headlines in today’s newspaper scream, “Breastfeed until school book sparks debate and divides mums “

According to the article, ‘PAEDIATRICIANS have slammed a controversial new book by Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik, proclaiming the benefits of breastfeeding her three-and-a-half-year-old son.”

Paediatrician Dr Scott Dunlop says most in his field would recommend breastfeeding for between six and 12 months. “There are no medical benefits. My personal feeling is that children who breastfeed for that long tend to over-identify with their mother, and so can struggle to separate,” Dr Dunlop said.

I wonder if Dr Dunlop and colleagues who share his beliefs actually know any kids who have breastfed beyond 12 months – or even six months, seeing he seems so unsupportive to breastfeeding women. In my own personal experience, the two greatest gifts we can give children are ‘roots’ and ‘wings’ – when the roots ( bonding and attachment) are secure and strong, the wings (independence ) come naturally, whether mothers are ready or not!

While it may not be everybody’s cup of tea (or drink of milk) to breastfeed beyond babyhood, I would like to explain a thing or two to those ignorant health professionals and journalists who sensationalise and create fear about what is a normal, natural, biological need for infants.

I would also like to offer support to women who choose to breastfeed their babies beyond that ‘acceptable’ six or twelve months that Dr Dunlop mentions. You see, I have been there, breastfed older babies (yes, a 3 year old is still an infant – they aren’t supposed to be ‘independent’ of their mothers, just yet!). I have also copped the sort of flak that these learned men are dishing out – and some of this flak came from women as well as men.

While I was breastfeeding my own toddlers, I was told:

‘You will make him gay’ (Interestingly nobody suggested I would make my daughters gay, but it certainly made them all happy!)

‘You will be going to school to give him lunch.’ (Only if I’m on tuckshop duty)

‘He will be wanting a breast on his 21^st Birthday.’ (He might, but it won’t be mine!)

‘It’s taking too much out of you.’ ( Mostly just milk)

As well as being a mum of five, I am also an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.  However, when I breastfed my first two babies, I wasn’t aware of the nutritional benefits of breastfeeding older babies and toddlers; with my first, I didn’t know anybody else who was breastfeeding beyond three months. I simply kept nursing them because it felt right. In fact, with each of our children, breastfeeding has been an integral part of my relationship with them and not just a matter of sustenance. As newborns, breastfeeding gave them a gentle beginning, and as toddlers, it soothed life’s little knocks, easing the discomfort of swollen teething gums and picking them up when they fell (or fell apart emotionally). Breastfeeding provided a quiet space in the day if they (or I) felt overwhelmed, no matter where we were. Even a few minutes ‘touching base’ at the breast seemed to nourish our toddlers at a deep, soulful level, reassuring them if they felt challenged. When he was three, my last baby told me, ‘Mummy, booby makes me feel brave when I get scared.’ And breastfeeding not only soothed my little ones but calmed me as well. Once, when our youngest was little and I was dealing less than coolly with a teenager, the youth in question looked at me with a grin and suggested, ‘Why don’t you go and feed the baby!’ I’m convinced that if prolactin could be bottled, pharmaceutical shares would skyrocket.

Although extended breastfeeding raises eyebrows in our culture, the world average age for weaning is 4.2 years. The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding (that is, no fluids or food other than breast milk) for the first six months of life and that infants continue to be breastfed for up to two years of age and beyond.

The nutritional and immunological benefits of breastfeeding last for as long as breastfeeding continues – as your baby grows, the composition of your breast milk changes to meet her growing needs. Some immune compounds in breast milk have been shown to increase at around six months (just when babies become mobile and are exposed to a greater range of germs), and as they get older and are breastfed less. In many instances, the long term protective effects of breastfeeding are related to its duration. Children breastfed for more than six months have one-third the number of middle-ear infections in the first three years of life than formula-fed babies, the incidence of allergies is reduced sevenfold, and they are also protected against bacterial meningitis in their first five years. While the risk of a number of serious disorders (such as coeliac disease, insulin-dependent diabetes and leukaemia) increases when babies aren’t breastfed, your milk also protects your baby against childhood lymphoma, multiple sclerosis and chronic liver diseases. When you breastfeed your baby girl for at least six months, you reduce her risk of developing breast cancer later in life by 25 per cent.

Mothers, too, benefit from extended breastfeeding. Women who breastfeed for a lifetime total of two years have a reduced risk of developing breast cancer. The risk among mothers who breastfeed for a total of six years or more is reduced by two-thirds, and because maternal bone density increases with each child who is nursed, breastfeeding mothers experience less osteoporosis in later life.

Because brain development is incomplete for several years, there is particular interest in the role of breast milk and children’s intelligence levels. One study in New Zealand demonstrated that children who were breastfed as babies performed better in school and scored higher on standardised maths and reading tests – and that the longer they had been breastfed, the higher they scored.

Although research into the effects of extended breastfeeding on psychological development is scarce, another New Zealand study, which dealt specifically with babies nursed longer than a year, showed fewer behavioural problems in six- to eight-year-olds. According to the test results, the longer the children had been breastfed, the better they tended to behave.

So you see dear learned men, there are sound scientific reasons to keep breastfeeding if mothers and babies are happy. How long mothers continue to breastfeed is a very personal choice between mother and child.It is also about much more than ‘the milk’- nurturing through breastfeeding is not just about immunity or nutrition or intelligence, it is also about communication, comfort, p and pleasure. Above all, it is about love: Breastfeeding is a physical expression of the love between a mother and child and it should be respected and supported.

Perhaps next time you make headlines about how babies are fed, you could consider that only 14% of Australian babies are fully breastfed to six months as recommended by the World Health Organisation and you could offer support so that all mothers who want to breastfeed get to enjoy the experience for as long as they choose without criticism, judgment or fear of screwing up their child if they dare to make a choice that’s outside your narrow perspective.

Your baby’s cues, or non-verbal language, are his way of trying to tell you what he needs.  Although it may take a few weeks to get to know what your baby is saying, if you do some baby watching and trust the connection between you and your little one, you will be amazed at how even very young babies can give clear signals that say, ‘I’m feeling tired’ or ‘please feed me, I’m hungry,’ and ‘I want to play’ or,’ please give me a little break to be by myself.’

 Sadly, there is  enormous pressure to train even tiny babies to conform to convenient feeding and sleep routines by delaying the response to their cries or ignoring them altogether for extended periods.  By responding to your baby’s cues (day and night), you are not ‘spoiling him’ or creating ‘bad habits’ as so miuch of this advice claims. Instead, by having his needs met, your baby is learning to love and above all, that he is loved and lovable.  Responding to your baby’s cues  will help him develop a sense of trust in his ability to influence his environment, and will help him form a secure attachment to you. These are important prerequisites for later emotional development and relationships.  

Your responsiveness will also help your baby learn what psychologists call ‘emotional regulation’, which is the capacity to understand that we have control over our emotions. As you soothe your baby, you are teaching him that when he is upset, he can calm down. When a baby’s signals are ignored, and they escalate to cries that are not responded to, the baby fails to develop the understanding that he can regulate his own emotions.

While understanding your baby’s language and responding sensitively may seem a tall order – especially at first – and a huge responsibility, please don’t feel stressed if you are a bit confused about what your baby is trying to tell you or if you get it wrong sometimes. Parents are constantly getting slightly out of sync, then getting back in tune with their littlies – in fact, this process is so common that it even has a label: ‘rupture and repair’. When your baby has an occasional yelling bout at a difficult time – perhaps you are driving the car and can’t pull over to attend to him or you need to get the last potato peeled in order to feed your other children – it might feel awful, but don’t worry that you will ‘damage your baby for life’. This process is well recognised and even has a name: psychologists call these occasional interruptions to your connection with your baby ‘rupture and repair’ because that’s exactly what is happening  – sometimes you will ‘get it wrong’ but then you will reconnect and get back in ‘sync’ with your baby and, as long as this is occasional and not a deliberate effort to ‘train’ your baby by ignoring her cues,  she will be able to trust that you are here for her when she needs your help.

I’m hungry

Babies give a lot of subtle cues that they are ready to feed, long before they begin to cry – from rooting with their mouths to making sucking noises and trying to suck on their fists, as well as little noises that say, ‘I’m working up to a cry’. If these signals are ignored, they will yell. Crying is a late hunger cue and when we repeatedly wait until a young baby cries (sometimes it is unavoidable), we can set ourselves on a path to unnecessary feeding problems. Notice where your baby’s tongue is when she is yelling – a baby can’t latch on to feed when her tongue is up against the roof of her mouth, and if you do manage to calm her enough to latch on and feed, her suck is likely to be disorganised, or she may be exhausted from crying and only take a small feed before falling asleep. This, of course, means that she will probably sleep for a very short time then wake for another feed as her tiny tummy quickly empties.

Play with me

Tiny babies have very short periods where they can actually ‘engage’ and interact with you, but as she grows, your little one will be able to play for longer periods and her signals will become much clearer. When your baby wants you to play, her eyes will become wide and bright and she may purse her tiny lips as though she is saying ‘ooh’ as she turns towards your voice or looks at your face. Movements of her arms and legs will be smooth (as opposed to jerky) as she reaches out to you – she might grasp your finger or hold onto you. If you respond, your baby will make eye contact and smile, coo, babble or talk. These signals, or ‘engagement cues’ are your baby’s way of saying, ‘Please play with me.’

Give me a break

When your baby needs a break from what she is doing, she will give very clear ‘disengaging’ signals such as looking away (little babies can only maintain eye contact for short periods so may look away then continue gazing at you after a break) or turning her head away, squirming or kicking, coughing, spitting up or arching her back. Some babies will even put up their hand in a sort of ‘stop’ sign. More subtle cues that your baby is tiring from playing or needs a change of pace or perhaps a change of activity, may be yawning, wrinkling her forehead or frowning, and hiccuping. If you keep playing when your baby tries to tell you she wants to stop, she will become agitated and make thrashing movements, or she will start fussing and crying.

I’m sleepy

None of us like being kept awake when we are craving sleep, so rather than waiting until your baby is ‘past it’, put her to bed as soon as she shows sleepy signs such as becoming quiet, losing interest in people and toys, making jerky movements (in small babies) or becoming very still (these babies relax and fall asleep easily), yawning, frowning or knotting her eyebrows, clenching her fists into tight balls, rubbing her eyes and ears and fussing. If you miss this window of opportunity, your baby is likely to become grumpy and find it difficult to settle. If you miss your baby’s tired signs, she may become hyped up and will be much harder to settle.

 Although these cues are typical signs that most babies use to elicit the care they need, individual babies will not use all of these cues all of the time. Each baby will develop his own mix of signals. For instance, one tired baby may lie still and watch her tiny fist as she becomes increasingly drowsy, another may have less control over his movements which could be jerky if he is young, or seemingly uncoordinated if he is already mobile, and yet another baby may rub his eyes and fuss. As you play with your baby you will often notice a mixture of engagemen t and disengagement signals, so take your time getting to know your baby’s way of communicating when she is enjoying playing, when she is feeling a bit overwhelmed and needs a break, and when she is becoming hungry or tired.

Your baby’s signals may seem unclear but by spending lots of time just watching your baby and being present with her, along with some trial and error working out what your baby is telling you, you will soon become attuned to each other. Your baby will develop his own unique way of communicating with each person in his world and you and your partner will learn to respond in just the way that suits your baby.

Just as his fingerprints are his alone, your child’s personality is a unique blend of emotions, activity and sociability. As parents we wonder, can we take all the credit (or blame) for our child’s temperament? Could he be a ‘chip off the old block’ or is it the fantastic environment we have provided that makes our child so easy-going? Or have we inadvertently caused our child to be ‘super-sensitive’ or too ‘dependent’?

Your child’s temperament and enthusiasm may be a neat fit with your own, or not: if you happen to be a ‘bookish’ person who imagined reading endlessly to your little one but instead, you are the parent of a little bundle of energy who never sits still or, if you are an athlete who imagined teaching your little fellow the finer points of football as soon as he could stand but have a sensitive, cautious child who flinches whenever you throw a ball at him, you may be wondering, ‘where did this little alien come from?’ It would be more enlightening to ask yourself, ‘what has this little being come to teach me?’
Whether you can mould your child’s temperament or whether he is born with a particular tendency to be easy going and calm or more serious and sensitive ( but also more thoughtful), a natural leader and organizer ( but perhaps strong willed) or a dare-devil, act now, think later child (with a winning smile that will get him out of most scrapes), his personality will either blossom or be bruised by your acceptance of the unique individual that he is, and the loving encouragement that you give to his positive traits. It is up to you to channel and develop your child’s special qualities. For instance, a sensitive child may need extra doses of reassurance and support to feel secure, while an active child will need constructive outlets for his energy and a quieter child may need encouragement to get involved, rather than be a spectator.

It isn’t a good idea to label your child, because whether it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ your child’s self image will be coloured by his label, and he will probably live up to it. It can be reassuring to note that often the characteristics that parents find most challenging in toddlers can be highly regarded attributes when their child is older: when your ‘wilful’ toddler is six feet tall, people will be praising his ‘drive’, ‘commitment’ and ‘perseverance’; people will admire your active toddler’s ‘energy’ when she is a grown woman; and your super sensitive child could become the most caring adult. In fact, it is more productive to start rethinking descriptions of your child right now. To appreciate the positives: try and see your little daydreamer as ‘imaginative’; your noisy child as enthusiastic; an argumentative tot as independent and the inattentive wee soul as a global thinker with a wide focus! If you are at a loss for positive labels some days, ‘unique’ or ‘motivated’ are perfectly acceptable labels as long as they are meant with appreciation and love.

Do you feel as though you are ‘managing’ your baby and children? Is your life all about ‘staying in control’ because the alternative is just too scary to contemplate? Or are you having fun with them?

Are you racing on a treadmill as you strive to get ahead in your career or business? Do you feel energised or exhausted by the work you do? Or do you feel as though you are constantly running a race against the clock, with no finishing line in sight?

The beginning of this brand new year is a great time to re-evaluate your life – how do you want to be as a parent and partner? I’m not asking you to make resolutions – you have probably already broken the ones you made on new year’s eve anyway. But I am asking you to pause for a few moments and do a ‘health check’ of the ‘fun versus frantic’ factors in your life because:

• We all know babies and children are little barometers of our own stress. If you are a frantic mum, your child is more likely to be frantic: if he senses your disconnection, his efforts to reconnect with you can present as ‘difficult’ or unsettled behaviour. A need for ‘attention’ is just asvalid as a need for food and nourishment – your touch, your eye contact, listening attentively and being present are nourishment for your little (and not so little) one’s soul and self- esteem. They tell him, I am valued. Then he can value himself. He will feel safe and loved and he won’t need to do ‘silly things’ to ‘get your attention’.
• Fun parents who seize the moments to create fun create happy memories – for you and your child – that will last long after your littlies have grown. What do you remember as the most fun when you were a child? How can you create some of these precious memories for your own family?
• Happy families are healthy families – stress affects your immune system and your child’s. On the other hand, laughter really is the best medicine! Making time for laughter and joy will save time and money on health care for stress related illness – from runny noses and cranky behaviour in children to more serious stress related disorders in adults.
• We can never get back this moment, this day or this week with our child at this age right now. While it’s great to have lifelong goals and aspirations, it’s important to take off the blinkers and stop pretending that we are ‘doing this for our kids’ if these goals are really stealing time and energy from being present and being aware right NOW. Babies and children don’t care whether they have an ‘inheritance’ when they’re twenty one. They don’t care if you are the leader of the free world if you are so busy you are always saying, ‘in a minute’ or ‘hurry up!’ They need you RIGHT NOW – to love; to laugh; to have fun; to teach them and model values, so they can make their way in the world with confidence and joy.

So please, take a moment to visualise the kind of family you want, the kind of things you can enjoy with your little ones and the values that are important to you. Why not create a fun board –cut out pictures, collect articles and advertisements for activities that you and your child can enjoy together. Write lists of all the things you could enjoy with your family: things that you can do spontaneously in a few minutes – blow bubbles, wrestle, dance to happy music, jump on the trampoline together, plant some seeds or pick flowers or berries from the garden, paint each others’ faces, bake a cake, eat a picnic lunch outside or on the floor inside if it’s raining, make a ‘cubby’ from old sheets pegged onto a tree, ‘paint’ the fence with a small bucket of water and a large house painting brush.
Now, think of things that require a bit more time and perhaps money – then schedule at least one day a month all this year to spend on a fun family activity with no interruptions. This is sacred time that can’t be put aside – whether its’ a trip to the beach, a pizza and DVD night or a live concert, this is FUN time!
Above all, guard your own energy by learning to say ‘no’ to activities and people that will sap your energy and ‘YES’ to activities that nourish you – your child needs a model of fun and joy, as well as fun time with you. Life is about choices – make the choices that fill your own tank so you have energy to enjoy your family. Delete, delegate and simplify and say, “YES” to fun because fun mummies have FUN families!

Could YOUR diet be contributing to sleepless nights for your baby (and you)? The chances are, if you or your partner suffer from allergies such as eczema, asthma or hay fever, or if there is a family history of allergies, there is a stronger possibility that your baby’s restlessness and poor sleep could be due to food sensitivity or allergies – and he could be reacting to foods passing through your breast milk (your baby is never allergic to your milk).

Food allergies in exclusively breastfed babies are caused by foods that pass into your breast milk, not to your breast-milk itself. Allergies in infants may cause symptoms including: colic, nausea, vomiting and reflux, wheezing and respiratory congestion, dermatitis, eczema, and various rashes (although other medical causes should be ruled out for these symptoms). Because babies may be sensitised to foods in utero, it is wise to avoid non-essential foods that are common allergens and eat others in moderation during pregnancy and for the first year after birth if you are breastfeeding. The most common culprit is cow’s milk protein (found in milk, cheese, yoghurt).

In one study at a UK sleep clinic, 12 per cent of thirteen-month-old infants who presented with persistent night-waking for which no other causes were found, were taken off all milk products when cow’s milk intolerance was suspected. In most of these children, sleep normalised within five weeks, with night-time awakenings falling to nil or once per night .A subsequent milk challenge (double blind) induced the reappearance of insomnia and, after a year, when the challenge was repeated, all but one child reacted as before.

Other foods that may cause allergies are peanuts, eggs, soya products, fish, wheat, citrus and chocolate. However, reactions to foods seem to vary widely among individuals. Some sensitive babies react even to small amounts of certain foods in their mothers’ diets, so allergy symptoms (including frequent night waking), can be alleviated by the elimination of offending foods from the mother’s diet.

The best way to protect your baby from allergies is to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months. If you are bottle-feeding and suspect allergies to cow’s milk, consult your doctor. about trying a hypoallergenic formula (these are available on prescription).

Food additives are present in ever-increasing numbers in almost all processed foods and these can dramatically affect sleep patterns and behaviour. Some babies and children can also become restless after eating foods containing salicylates. These are naturally occurring chemicals which are found in otherwise healthy foods such as broccoli, grapes, apples, oranges and tomatoes as well as in some processed foods.
I have seen remarkable changes in babies sleep patterns with simple tweaks to either mum or baby’s diets. For instance, a very unsettled 4 week old baby whose mother cut out orange juice, became calm and slept soundly within 48 hours! An eight month old who loved broccoli but was waking up to ten times a night settled and woke at around 10 pm and at 5 am (but resettled after a breastfeed), when broccoli was eliminated. Other babies have slept well after the elimination of grapes and berries (also high salicylate foods) from their own and mum’s diets.

Tracking down offending foods in your child’s or your own diet may take some effort, especially for already exhausted parents, but in the long run it could gain you more sleep. If you think that sleeplessness may be related to foods in your diet passing through your breast-milk, keep a notepad handy and jot down your baby’s crying times and what you eat to see if they are linked. If there appears to be a ‘cause and effect’ between foods in your diet and your baby’s crying, an inexpensive and simple solution is to eliminate the suspect food for at least a week, preferably two weeks. If your baby’s sleep patterns improve, you can either be thankful and avoid the suspect food, or you can reintroduce a small amount of the food into your diet – if the night-waking or allergy symptoms re-occur, you can be pretty certain you have ‘nailed’ the culprit. Elimination of foods may take anywhere from a few days to several weeks to make a difference to your baby’s behaviour so allergies are difficult to prove or disprove, but if it calms your baby (and you), modifying your diet is a small sacrifice.

Sometimes, sleep will be elusive without major dietary changes but in other cases it will just be a matter of balance, perhaps taking care not to overload on certain foods that seem to affect your child. A good guide to sensible eating is to include a wide variety of foods in as close to their natural state as possible. This means that eating fresh vegetables, whole grains, fish, meats and free-range eggs,
and drinking plain milk or water instead of filling your supermarket trolley with frozen chicken nuggets, snack bars, coloured yoghurts and juice boxes, could see you and your little ones all sleeping more soundly. If you find the thought of changing your diet overwhelming, seek help from an appropriate professional such as a dietician.

‘We’ll meet at the pool,’ they said. ‘Bring your bathers.’

They were twenty-something mums. I was a forty-something mum with a ‘bonus baby’ (the baby you have when your other ones are big enough to tie their own shoelaces, run their own baths or even drive their own cars).

I used to be a twenty-something mum. I used to spend most of the summer at the pool with my other babies. Then, ‘forty-something’ meant kilos to me. With a bikini top nicely rounded out by lactating bosoms, I didn’t have a body image problem. Nowadays, if it wasn’t all so soft (and so far south) I’d be nicely rounded all over. The babies I had when I was a twenty-something mum do nothing to enhance my fragile body image. ‘Blue goes with everything,’ they tell me. It’s the varicose veins they are referring to. Today I’m a mistress of camouflage. I know just what to wear to conceal my biggest assets. But – at the pool? T-shirts over bathers are fine – until they are wet!

Before the Bonus Baby became a socialite, I used to put him into the pool with the big kids. Later, he loved being taken to the pool by a big brother (the bonus for the big brother was that the Bonus Baby was a babe-magnet). But this time I was trapped. Big sweet-eyes with his curly lashes looked trustingly up at me. It was bathers on for both of us – no excuses – and into the pool with all the trim, taut, terrific twenty-something mums and their kids. And the nanas (or were they also mothers of Bonus Babies?). And the granddads (or were they just older fathers?). Splashing and playing, laughing and yelling and playing ‘ring-a-rosie’. Well, at least I could keep my face out of the water, couldn’t I?

Uh-oh. Big sweet-eyes with curly lashes looked trustingly up at me, begging me to go under. Down I bobbed, with all the tots and their young mums. Up we came again. There I was, hair dripping, mascara running – completely unmasked. Big sweet-eyes looked up at me, smiling. I was smiling too. It felt just as good as it used to when I was a trim, taut, terrific, twenty-something mum.

Being bashful about body image isn’t a bonus. And, just to remind myself, I cut out a passage from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and stuck it on the fridge.

‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, then you become real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ said the rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are real, you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges or have to be carefully kept.

‘Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop off, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all because once you are real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’

Debra’s baby is 3 months old and it’s been a rewarding but rough trot – busy days, broken sleep, a few hiccups with breastfeeding, baby’s had a cold, she’s run down. She plops down on the sofa next to her husband after finally getting bub asleep and a really long day (he’s been away on a work trip – again), and he can’t take his eyes off a vital-looking curvaceous blonde on the screen. Feeling like a handful of very small change compared to the on-screen babe who looks a million bucks, she loses it.

Of course, Debra is exhausted and overwhelmed by the relentlessness of caring for a baby and a mountain of domestic responsibilities as well as an often absent husband. Her partner sounds like many guys who are exhausted themselves from working long hours. He may even have the notion that she has the easy job –a whole day to herself to sip lattes with her mums’ group.  While it doesn’t help to have your man ogling a babe on the television when you can’t even recognise the body you see in the mirror, it is a sad reflection on the pressures women with new babies face when you feel you need to live up to some ideal of a yummy mummy as well as a perfect mother and domestic goddess.

According to relationship counsellor Lisa Fettling (www.lisafettling.com.au, Debra’s reactions and concerns speak volumes about her own self-image and the state of her relationship. Lisa, who specialises in helping new parents says, “a new mother has her eye on every ball at once, she can’t take care of her baby unless she is cared for herself.  She needs to be able to sit with her partner and talk about how she feels and to ask for the support she needs from him – and to be understood. After caring for a baby all day, many new mothers want to ask for a cuddle, but they are afraid that this will be a green light for sex, so instead she either withdraws or gets angry and a wall goes up between the couple.  Nothing is going to happen unless she is feeling emotionally supported by her partner.”

Lara, mum of a now two year old says, “when I was overwhelmed in the early months and feeling less than ‘hot’ it wasn’t so much about my body image – I never looked like the babes on television before I had a baby so why would I expect to look like one now?  If I could get a bit of space for myself, even to read a book in bed for half an hour without either a baby or partner making demands of me, I felt much better. I didn’t have the energy to care about trying to be hot: I figured that my partner was a bit like a starving man, he would be grateful for any crumbs he got. And the more supported I felt, the more likely he was to get ‘dessert’.”

If you are feeling less than a wee bit ‘hot’ right now, let go of the pressure. Perhaps comments in an interview with Angelina Jolie might help: Angelina said, “I’m with a man who’s evolved enough to look at my body and see it as more beautiful because of the journey it has taken.”  And, if your man seems less evolved than you would like, consider – do you think he is comparing himself to Brad Pitt and wondering even the teeniest bit how he might measure up in your eyes?

When my kids were small, I generally embraced a philosophy of ‘benevolent neglect’: it went something like, ‘if my children are happy I am happy to leave them alone so I can seek my own happiness (translated, this usually meant ’ go and play’).

I figured, if I am happy, I will radiate happiness towards my family. It was a ‘win/win’ situation all round. And, there are benefits to the kids when we embrace benevolent neglect. Children not only develop independence and initiative if they are left to their own devices (in a safe environment with a watchful eye in the background), but they may also aquire some valuable entrepreneurial skills. One evening, I was somewhere between baby feeds and producing the family dinner. My kids and the neighbours’ kids had cleaned out the garden shed and were collecting bottles to sell. The bottle pile had grown slowly, until this particular evening, when I noticed a couple of bike trailer loads of bottles come past the kitchen window within an amazingly short time. I wandered out to check: the pile was enormous and the gang was almost ready to have the bottles collected. They just had to get ‘one more load’. I made eye contact and asked a few tricky questions. It seemed they had discovered the scouts’ bottle collection depot!

Yes, I did make them return the bottles. Yes they did work long after dinner that night (stacking all the bottles back onto the bike trailer and returning them – bless daylight savings time!). However, the consequences of their actions in no way stifled their entrepreneurial aspirations.  Nor did  this ‘escapade’ or future ‘projects’  turn me into a helicopter parent -hovering over every move they made.  I still believe strongly in the adage ‘in freedom we create ourselves’  and that taking a step back  and trusting (but keeping an eye on them- and rounding them up if things go too far) – aka ’benevolent neglect’ really is healthy for the spirit of children.

What do you think? Are we becoming ‘over protective’ ? Should we micro manage children? Or should we allow freedom to explore? How much freedom is too much?

“My five month old feels as though she is super-glued to me,” says Antoinette. “She screams if anybody else holds her and if I dare to leave the room she gets hysterical!  She is my third baby so, even though there are days when I just want to run from the room screaming, “LEAVE ME ALONE!” I know ‘this too shall pass’. But I am sick of everyone telling me I am spoiling her or that I should just let her cry and she will get over it.”

If, like Antoinette, you too have a ‘velcro baby’, please be reassured, your baby’s clingy behaviour is not your fault – you have simply been responding to the baby you have.  Although it can be stressful to contend with a highly sensitive baby who wants to be constantly held, especially if she only wants to be held by you, it can help to see things from your baby’s perspective. Paediatrician, Dr William Sears says, “in baby’s minds, mother is a part of themselves, and they are part of mother. Mother and baby are one, a complete package. These babies feel right when they feel at one with mother; they feel anxious and frightened when not with mother. These emotions are normal feelings inside a little person who knows that he needs the presence of his mother to thrive and to feel complete.”

Clingy times

Most babies go through clingy phases and these are often due to developmental changes. For instance, newborns depend on close contact to adapt to the world outside the womb and carrying your baby will not only help him feel secure but will regulate his immature heartbeat, rhythmic movements and respiration, helping to balance irregular waking, sleeping and feeding rhythms.  As they grow, it is common for babies to become clingy at significant developmental stages and, just as babies have physical growth spurts, they also achieve neurological milestones such as being able to perceive distance, which typically happens at around 25 weeks. This may result in clinginess as your baby realises, mummy is moving away from me. Studies show marked increases in brain development as babies reach these new milestones and, according to Dutch researcher Professor Frans Plooij, author of ‘The Wonder Weeks’ , although calmer babies cope with these stages relatively easily, in others, confusion, frustration and anxiety may  make them so unsettled they cling to the only safety and security they know – you!

Around six months (but this can vary with individual babies), is the beginning of an important emotional developmental process known as ‘separation anxiety’ which means that your baby now realises you are a separate being. Because babies don’t have any concept of constancy (when you disappear they think you don’t exist), this phase commonly lasts up to two years when they can understand that when you disappear, you will come back.  Separation anxiety is part of normal childhood development, and shows that your baby has developed a healthy attachment to you.

Although there is a wide variation of reactions to this stage and how long it lasts for individual babies, Dr Sears has more reassurance for parents of babies who become distraught about separations. He says, “loud separation protests reveal that these babies have a capacity for forming deep attachments — if they didn’t care deeply, they wouldn’t fuss so loudly when separated. This capacity is the forerunner of intimacy in adult relationships.”  Rachel Haley, mother of two Velcro babies who have now outgrown her arms and started school without a backwards glance,  says, “I prefer to think of velcro babies as babies with a healthy survival instinct who know how to insure their needs are met.”

Sharing the care

The best way to deal with your clingy baby is to help her feel secure by holding her, carrying her in a sling where she is protected from poking by strangers, and introducing other people gradually. You can hold her as others interact with her then, as she gets used to family members and close friends, let them hold her for short periods with you close by, eventually increasing the distance and separations as she feels comfortable. If you do need to leave your little one, leaving an article of your unwashed clothing  (such as your dressing gown or a tee-shirt) can be comforting for her, while her carer is holding her. It is also important to be honest and say goodbye: it is helpful to have a goodbye ritual and a return greeting so she can learn that although you may leave sometimes, you do come back.

Daddy rejection?

It is normal for babies and toddlers to favour or be comforted more easily by one parent, usually mummy, if they are upset or hurt. This isn’t a rejection of the other parent, although it can seem this way. It is a good idea though to encourage time with the parent who isn’t the primary carer. With small babies, this can be done gradually – perhaps with Dad carrying baby in a sling when she is happy or massaging while mum holds baby at first and later, doing an activity such as bathing that is solely Dad’s domain. This way, dads become more confident and have an opportunity to bond deeply too.

Copping the flak

If you do receive flak about your Velcro baby, remember, your baby’s needs are more important than your critics’ opinions.  You are not spoiling  your clingy baby, you are teaching her to love and, all too soon, this really will pass.  In just a few short years, she will be too embarrassed to even kiss you goodbye!

As Ali, mother of a toddler says, “My son was a Velcro baby right up until he was 2 years old. Now he is happy to say goodbye to me and give me a kiss. It was demanding and frustrating at times, especially when I had almost everyone telling me I was spoiling him, getting him into bad habits. But now, he is so well adjusted, so happy, so confident and happy-go-lucky. He is a wonderful little man. And I know it is because I just accepted him and went with it.”

It can be so difficult as a parent to sift through a minefield of conflicting advice, can’t it? Who do you trust? Which advice is ‘right’?  Where is this advice coming from? Almost as soon as you baby bump begins to show, it seems that everyone is an expert about YOUR baby!

Whenever you hear advice that doesn’t feel quite right to you or if you hear about a new approach and you aren’t quite certain about it, it is good to put this through your filters and do a check in.  To make this simple I have three questions you can ask yourself:

Is it safe? Is it respectful? Does it feel right?

You can also ask, what messages do I want to give my child?  (this one is great at any age).

Let’s take a look at how this works with advice around baby sleep, for instance , since this seems to be a huge issue for most new parents. A lot of advice about baby sleep, is presented in a very authoritarian or patronising manner  with dire warnings that you will set yourself up for ongoing problems if you don’t follow whatever ‘proven advice’ is  being recommended at the time.

There is a range of options to help you create a positive sleep environment and the responsibility for deciding which options will suit your child and your family is yours. But here’s how to apply these three questions as you make your decisions regarding your child’s sleep environment:

1. Is it safe?  Obviously, your child’s safety is the number-one prerequisite for making any choices about sleeping practices.  From choosing a sleeping environment to implementing a bed time routine, you will always need to assess whether this is safe for your baby at every level: here’s an example for you –  although you are certain to hear various advice about leaving your baby to cry for a prescribed length of time, nobody has actually researched how long this is safe, if at all.  That’s probably why advice varies so much – from six minutes to ten minutes to an hour or whatever!  Babies – especially small babies – can become over heated when left to cry and this can lead to febrile convulsions or there is a risk that they may choke on saliva or mucous.

Even if these potentially life threatening risks don’t eventuate, there are potential risks to infant mental health through leaving your baby to cry. This is partly due to elevated levels of stress hormones on a developing infant brain and the possibility that the only ‘learning’ your baby will be doing through this kind of ‘teaching’ is that there is no point crying for help because nobody is coming: this is learned helplessness.

Crying is your baby’s language and a communication that he needs something or someone to help him feel safe and secure

Your BABY”S sense of safety is important too – he is biologically programmed to feel safe when he is in proximity of his carers. This is a deep and legitimate need and when we consider a stone-age baby it is easier to grasp how important being close to a carer is to your baby: if a stone age baby was left alone in a cave to sleep, he would be at risk from predators – lions, eagles, crocodiles perhaps. This is why babies are programmed to cry out when they are left alone. They are saying – where are you? And they are desperately stressed because being alone could be life threatening – at least from a baby’s perspective.

Even though our ‘stone age’ baby is safe from predators in this space age world, HE doesn’t know he is in a safety standards approved cot,  in a warm room inside a safe house with a monitor on the wall so his carers can hear every tiny whimper. To a baby, feeling safe is knowing somebody is nearby and he will do this through his senses of smell, touch, sight and hearing. And, if he needs help to settle or he feels ‘unsafe’ he will let you know through his cries.

2. Are we being respectful? We do many things to small children and babies without even considering how intrusive or disrespectful it might feel to them. For instance, can you imagine being woken from a sound sleep and having food stuck into your mouth, regardless of whether you are hungry or not, just because somebody else decided it was convenient for them to feed you right now? Or having your legs whipped up in the air and your pants pulled down without even a please or thankyou? And yet this is often how we approach every day tasks such as changing a baby’s nappy – talk to your baby about what you are planning to do whether this is dressing, bathing, or implementing a bed time routine and please remember, you are the grown up here –your baby is a small vulnerable person whose most important task in the first year is learning to trust. This is a prerequisite for future relationships and he needs love and respect to develop this trust in you.

3. Does it feel right ?

If anything you are advised to do with your baby doesn’t FEEL right to you, step back and listen to your inner voice. Notice how you feel – you may feel tight in the stomach or a bit goosebumpy – or the feeling may just be a kind of ‘knowing’ that this isn’t  right for your baby right now.

Another thing to consider if you are still a bit confused or if you have energy to go a bit deeper is  WHAT ARE WE TEACHING?

It may be difficult when you are utterly exhausted, but try to think about the bigger picture and consider what messages you want to send to your child. Will you be teaching your child that sleep is a lovely, nurturing space where he is safe to go, and that he can trust you to soothe his fears and mend his hurts whatever the time of day or night? If you can do this, you will not only be investing in sound sleep, but you will be creating a precious bond with your child that will outlast these early sleepless nights.

So, is it safe? Is it respectful ? And, Does it feel right? If you can answer these three questions and you would like to try something new with your baby, go ahead and see how your baby responds. If you and your child are happy and it is working for you without creating stress for your baby or you, then it’s probably just right for you both.

Pinky McKay, International Board certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), runs a private practice in Melbourne specializing in gentle parenting techniques. A sought after keynote speaker and best-selling author with 4 titles published by Penguin, including her recent book Parenting By Heart, she’s an expert source for media appearing regularly on major network TV and quoted in various publications. Pinky’s books, parenting resources and her free newsletter ‘Gentle Beginnings’ can be found on her website www.pinkymckay.com.au