Sleep

Your baby is irritable, grizzly, hates lying on his back, spits up or vomits often, has hiccups constantly and he is a nightmare to feed: he starts to feed voraciously, then he wriggles, squirms and ‘throws’ himself off the breast or when e isn’t doing this, he wants to be permanently attached to your breast. He screams after and between…

“I was on the phone this morning and the person at the other end heard my baby crying. When I told her I was cuddling him, she said, “well you’ve created a rod for your own back now,” says Jody, mother of an eight week old. When your competence as a mother comes under scrutiny and you feel judged, t’s easy for the doubts to creep in…

“I never realized how many "rules" there are to good parenting. With each comment my confidence was slowly being chipped away. I started to feel that I was doing something wrong or even everything wrong”. (Emma, mother of a three month old) Here you are gazing at your amazing newborn, completely overawed that you could feel so in love and…

A new book for parents (definitely not for children!), ‘Go the F— to Sleep’ has been lauded as a ‘publishing sensation’. A parody of a lullaby-based children’s book laced with the ‘Eff’ word, this delightfully illustrated book by Adam Mansbach, a Rutgers University creative writing teacher, was inspired by Mansburg’s struggle to…

I have just returned from visiting another lovely, intelligent mother who is doing a wonderful job with her baby, but is convinced she must be doing ‘everything wrong’. She feels guilty that she has messed up her baby’s early days (she hasn’t at all!); she feels inadequate because (she thinks) she can’t read her baby’s cues (she is making…