newborn sleep

Unrealistic expectations, pressure to be the perfect mum and too many ‘rules’ are making mums overthink – and blame themselves when they don’t have a ‘good’ baby.

As soon as your baby bump begins to show, it seems that everyone and his grandmother will have a wealth of advice to share with you. They mean well but they probably won't share these five things that you really need to know know - just so you don't worry, 'are we the only ones who 'suck' at this?  Let's bust this conspiracy of silence so you don't…

Of course, all babies are unique little individuals and you may have hit the sleeping baby jackpot. If your baby is sleeping a longer stretch over night and is gaining weight and contented, that’s perfectly fine. However, very few babies can sleep longer than 2 or 3 hours in the early weeks – day or night - so if you are feeling pressure around…

What is with this expectation of ‘bouncing back’ after having a baby? Why do we expect our bodies to ‘bounce back’ after spending nine months growing a baby then birthing and making milk to nourish our babies? Where does this pressure come from that says we need to ‘bounce back’ to our pre baby productivity as soon as the placenta is expelled? And…

Just like us, babies are individuals –and this goes for sleep requirements too. In most infant sleep studies, 'all night' is defined as five hours. If you are thinking that even five hours uninterrupted sleep would be a dream come true, there are some gentle strategies you can try to help your baby, and you, to sleep better:

“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…

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…