Pinky McKay -

Regardless of how she is feeding her baby, the mother hasn’t let her baby down at all but this is so hard to rationalise as she reframes her entire self-image as a mother. she may have seen herself as the earth mother breastfeeding anywhere and everywhere, being outspoken about women’s rights to breastfeed, she may have been breastfed herself, so…

According to physicians at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore babies younger than six months old should never be given water to drink. “Even when they’re very tiny, babies have an intact thirst reflex or a drive to drink,” Dr. Jennifer Anders, a pediatric emergency physician at the center, told Reuters Health. “When they have that thirst…

Shaming people into exercise and to support a zillion dollar diet and supplement industry hasn’t worked in the past, as our obesity and inactivity rates continue to grow. But what it does achieve is continue to support a culture that puts the emphasis on what we look like, rather than acknowledging the diversity that is health and well being on an…

“I was incredibly stressed and I knew something was very wrong but I thought, I am a mum, I should be able to cope,” says Sandy, a Melbourne mother of two who was diagnosed with postnatal depression when her first baby (now three) was three months old. Sandy’s bubble of pretence burst when, after a few days in a mother baby unit, she was told it…

It is all too easy to feel overwhelmed by pressure to make this time special for everybody around you, often at the expense of your own well-being. After all, just because it’s ‘that time of year’, you don’t have any more hours in each day. The ‘silly season’ can be enough to try the patience of the most well-intentioned super-mummy and instead of…

Parent preference is a normal stage of development for babies, toddlers and preschoolers and it isn’t just about exerting control. At this stage, the frontal cortex is not yet fully developed and they can only manage to focus on one relationship at a time.

"Postnatal depletion can happen whether this is your first baby or a subsequent child and this depletion can be an accumulative process – you conceive a baby, grow a baby, birth a baby then breastfeed, then throw in some sleep deprivation and the emotional stress of adjusting to this new role along with unrealistic expectations that you should be…

"I believe that with every baby that is comforted instead of abandoned to self-soothe, every toddler that is gently guided instead of reprimanded, and every kindy aged child who is supported through their separation anxiety – we CAN change our world – one responsive, accountable, intuitive decision at a time."

Mostly, night time breastfeeds feel precious and beautiful. You know in your heart that these sweet moonlight cuddles will end soon but there are niggling doubts about night time nursing, especially if your baby is a ‘certain age’.

Around the middle of your baby’s first year, that is at about six months, your baby will start showing signs that he is ready for family foods: he will be able to sit up in a high chair or on your lap; he will have lost the tongue thrust reflex (that protects him against choking in the early months, but also means food gets thrust out of his mouth,…