breastfeeding

Advice that letting your baby fall asleep on the breast will create ‘bad habits’ or that he will never learn to ‘self-settle’ is unrealistic and impractical. There are some magical chemicals in breast milk that induce sleep, but if you want to make changes, try this gentle approach.

Women have been feeding their babies at the breast since time began and yet there is still a plethora of misinformation that can mess up a mother’s experience and feeding her baby can become a huge struggle. How many of these big fat lies have you heard – and what is the actual truth?

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,…

The essence of Attachment Parenting is about forming and nurturing strong connections between parents and their children through kindness, respect and dignity. Recommendations are based on the psychology of attachment theory and also recent brain research showing that early responsiveness to infant needs has positive  lifelong effects on social and…

While advice may be well meant and grandparents are simply be trying to be helpful or feel connected to their grandbaby, some of grandma’s wisdom may now be outdated and even unsafe – even though she did a damn good job of raising you!

Congratulations on your new baby. Taking care of your newborn is a learning curve for you and your partner. The thing is, supporting your lady can be almost as challenging as working out what your baby needs. If you are feeling as though you are opening your mouth and putting your great big foot in it, here is a quick lesson of things to avoid…

“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…

"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’.

I'm not talking about exhausted parents, reaching out for help. Im talking here about rude, self entitled a'holes who talk about their babies as though they are objects – inconvenient objects at that. They use words like ‘stubborn’ and ‘manipulating’ to describe tiny helpless infants.