Attachment Parenting

"To trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves...and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted." John Holt

Wednesday 28 May 2014

Bedsharing Myths and Truths

Source: Gentle Parenting

Bedsharing Myths

1. Bedsharing is Always Dangerous
Bedsharing can be very dangerous, so can most things in life. Sleeping with a baby on a sofa, sharing a bed with a baby if you formula feed, smoke (or smoked during pregnancy), if you have drunk alcohol, if you have taken prescription medication or recreational drugs can all be incredibly dangerous.
Sharing a bed with your baby following some simple rules (see our article here) has not been shown to be dangerous in any research. Sadly there have been no studies done to date that include all of the variable contained in sensible bedsharing advice. The research is always missing important variables.
 
2. Two Thirds of all SIDS Cases Occur When the Baby Was Sleeping With a Parent.
As mentioned above research that categorically states that bedsharing is far more risky than a baby sleeping alone is sadly deeply flawed. It misses so many important variables and while these studies have provided a good opportunity for scientists to clear up the issue of bedsharing safety sadly all they have done to date is confused the issue. It is naive at best and deceiving at worse to use these studies to tell parents not to sleep with their babies. Many are concerned that anti-bedsharing research may actually put some babies at more risk as their parents may fall asleep with them in bed accidentally, having not been made aware of what the risks are or how to reduce them.


3. It’s Not Good for the Baby, They  Need to Learn Independence
Before independence first comes dependence. When a baby is born they need us, they cannot survive without us, indeed they do not even realise they are a separate entity to us until they are 3mths old. So much research speaks about the importance of infant attachment, baby-carer bond, and how if an infant is allowed to be as attached to their parent as they need then we can help to create a confident toddler, child and adult. Separating an infant from it’s parent before he or she is ready to separate does not make him autonomous or independent, it deprives him of a basic need.
 
4. Bedsharing Kills Marriages
Stress & exhaustion with a non sleeping crying baby is more likely to affect a marriage than a small person in the bed. In fact most marriages break down because of a lack of communication or simply growing apart. Babies are small for such a short time, if parents agree on a parenting strategy and communicate well with each other this clearly isn’t an issue.
What about sex? is really the undercurrent here though, for most new mothers sex is the furthest thing from their minds. After the birth hormones are haywire, bodies are sore and tender, where the baby sleeps is almost irrelevant in this respect. This also presumes that it is only possible to have sex in bed at night, which is clearly not true.


Bedsharing Truths
Ethnic Hispanic Mother breastfeeding her son
1. Bedsharing Can be Safe
In many countries bedsharing is the cultural norm. During the 1990s, in Japan the SIDs rate was only one tenth of that of the West and in Hong Kong, it was only 3%. Interestingly bedsharing is normal, and very common, in Japan and Hong Kong. All around the world parents sleep with their infants in their beds, bedsharing rates are as high as 60-70% in some societies, the SIDS rates do not correlate with this.
To quote William Sears, MD:
“Until a legitimate survey is done to determine how many babies sleep with their parents, and this is factored into the rate of SIDS in a bed versus a crib, it is unwarranted to state that sleeping in a crib is safer than a bed. If the incidence of SIDS is dramatically higher in crib versus a parent’s bed, and because the cases of accidental smothering and entrapment are only 1.5% of the total SIDS cases, then sleeping with a baby in your bed would be far safer than putting baby in a crib. The answer is not to tell parents they shouldn’t sleep with their baby, but rather to educate them on how to sleep with their infants safely.”


2. Bedsharing May Save Lives
There are many reasons where it may be safer for a baby to be in close proximity to its parent(s) including the concept of limbic regulation and gaseous exchange, decreased levels of infant apnoea, and the increased arousability in breastfeeding mums (resulting in heightened awareness to their infants). Research has found infant apnoea decreased by up to 60% in studies when babies are near to someone else breathing whilst sleeping.


3. Bedsharing Can Mean More Sleep For Everyone.
Many parents spend hours fighting their babies, returning them to their cribs and moses baskets as soon as they fall asleep, where they awaken and cry. Conversely many comment that their babies will snooze for hours in their arms. Babies are likely to wake more regularly and feed more regularly during the night when in their parent’s bed, however the awakenings are shorter and often parents aren’t fully aware of all of them.
 
4. Bedsharing Helps Breastfeeding & Milk Supply
Bedsharing and breastfeeding go hand in hand, indeed we know the research says it is only breastfeeding mothers who should co-sleep with their babies (due to their heightened states of arousal to their infant), we know that the close physical contact – oftentimes skin to skin – that comes with bedsharing can make the breastfeeding experience easier. We also know that breastfeeding alone candecrease SIDs risk – imagine what a powerful combination we have in terms of decreasing SIDs risks when we combine safe bedsharing and breastfeeding.
 
Click Here for More on Safer Bedsharing.

By Sarah Ockwell-Smith – Our resident Baby and Toddler Expert.

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Do you love your child?

This very interesting article gives a good argument against 'time-out' or 'naughty step' techniques.

Source: NYTimes

When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do as I Say’


Published: September 14, 2009

More than 50 years ago, the psychologist Carl Rogers suggested that simply loving our children wasn’t enough. We have to love themunconditionally, he said — for who they are, not for what they do.
Wesley Bedrosian

Well

Share your thoughts on this column at the Well blog.
Go to Well »
As a father, I know this is a tall order, but it becomes even more challenging now that so much of the advice we are given amounts to exactly the opposite. In effect, we’re given tips inconditional parenting, which comes in two flavors: turn up the affection when they’re good, withhold affection when they’re not.
Thus, the talk show host Phil McGraw tells us in his book “Family First” (Free Press, 2004) that what children need or enjoy should be offered contingently, turned into rewards to be doled out or withheld so they “behave according to your wishes.” And “one of the most powerful currencies for a child,” he adds, “is the parents’ acceptance and approval.”
Likewise, Jo Frost of “Supernanny,” in her book of the same name (Hyperion, 2005), says, “The best rewards are attention, praise and love,” and these should be held back “when the child behaves badly until she says she is sorry,” at which point the love is turned back on.
Conditional parenting isn’t limited to old-school authoritarians. Some people who wouldn’t dream of spanking choose instead to discipline their young children by forcibly isolating them, a tactic we prefer to call “time out.” Conversely, “positive reinforcement” teaches children that they are loved, and lovable, only when they do whatever we decide is a “good job.”
This raises the intriguing possibility that the problem with praise isn’t that it is done the wrong way — or handed out too easily, as social conservatives insist. Rather, it might be just another method of control, analogous to punishment. The primary message of all types of conditional parenting is that children must earn a parent’s love. A steady diet of that, Rogers warned, and children might eventually need a therapist to provide the unconditional acceptance they didn’t get when it counted.
But was Rogers right? Before we toss out mainstream discipline, it would be nice to have some evidence. And now we do.
In 2004, two Israeli researchers, Avi Assor and Guy Roth, joined Edward L. Deci, a leading American expert on the psychology of motivation, in asking more than 100 college students whether the love they had received from their parents had seemed to depend on whether they had succeeded in school, practiced hard for sports, been considerate toward others or suppressed emotions like anger and fear.
It turned out that children who received conditional approval were indeed somewhat more likely to act as the parent wanted. But compliance came at a steep price. First, these children tended to resent and dislike their parents. Second, they were apt to say that the way they acted was often due more to a “strong internal pressure” than to “a real sense of choice.” Moreover, their happiness after succeeding at something was usually short-lived, and they often felt guilty or ashamed.
In a companion study, Dr. Assor and his colleagues interviewed mothers of grown children. With this generation, too, conditional parenting proved damaging. Those mothers who, as children, sensed that they were loved only when they lived up to their parents’ expectations now felt less worthy as adults. Yet despite the negative effects, these mothers were more likely to use conditional affection with their own children.
This July, the same researchers, now joined by two of Dr. Deci’s colleagues at theUniversity of Rochester, published two replications and extensions of the 2004 study. This time the subjects were ninth graders, and this time giving more approval when children did what parents wanted was carefully distinguished from giving less when they did not.
The studies found that both positive and negative conditional parenting were harmful, but in slightly different ways. The positive kind sometimes succeeded in getting children to work harder on academic tasks, but at the cost of unhealthy feelings of “internal compulsion.” Negative conditional parenting didn’t even work in the short run; it just increased the teenagers’ negative feelings about their parents.
What these and other studies tell us, if we’re able to hear the news, is that praising children for doing something right isn’t a meaningful alternative to pulling back or punishing when they do something wrong. Both are examples of conditional parenting, and both are counterproductive.
The child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, who readily acknowledged that the version of negative conditional parenting known as time-out can cause “deep feelings of anxiety,” nevertheless endorsed it for that very reason. “When our words are not enough,” he said, “the threat of the withdrawal of our love and affection is the only sound method to impress on him that he had better conform to our request.”
But the data suggest that love withdrawal isn’t particularly effective at getting compliance, much less at promoting moral development. Even if we did succeed in making children obey us, though — say, by using positive reinforcement — is obedience worth the possible long-term psychological harm? Should parental love be used as a tool for controlling children?
Deeper issues also underlie a different sort of criticism. Albert Bandura, the father of the branch of psychology known as social learning theory, declared that unconditional love “would make children directionless and quite unlovable” — an assertion entirely unsupported by empirical studies. The idea that children accepted for who they are would lack direction or appeal is most informative for what it tells us about the dark view of human nature held by those who issue such warnings.
In practice, according to an impressive collection of data by Dr. Deci and others, unconditional acceptance by parents as well as teachers should be accompanied by “autonomy support”: explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view.
The last of these features is important with respect to unconditional parenting itself. Most of us would protest that of course we love our children without any strings attached. But what counts is how things look from the perspective of the children — whether they feel just as loved when they mess up or fall short.
Rogers didn’t say so, but I’ll bet he would have been glad to see less demand for skillful therapists if that meant more people were growing into adulthood having already felt unconditionally accepted.
Alfie Kohn is the author of 11 books about human behavior and education, including “Unconditional Parenting” and “Punished by Rewards.”

Saturday 10 May 2014

Babywearing


A good to read article:

How Babywearing Makes A Difference: 5 Reasons
Source: Baby In a Sling, USA


Wearing your baby has benefits too many to list.  But I’ll try.  There are five major areas of your baby’s well-being that can be improved by choosing to carry him at least some of the time, from birth through age two. 
Most significantly, research shows measurable benefits for baby and parents if babywearing is part of the family’s routine in the first six months.  Here are the top five reasons why wearing your baby in a carrier or sling is beneficial:

Physical Benefits

For both full term and premature infants, the benefits of wearing your baby are multiple.  First, baby is made relaxed and at ease, being close to a parent.  Baby’s awareness of the parent heartbeat actually helps her to regulate her own heartbeat.  The same goes for respiration.
The upright holds that can be used in wearing your baby will lessen colic, because gravity will keep nourishment in the baby’s tummy, reducing acid reflux. 
Finally, baby learns to regulate body temperature and avoids getting overheated or chilled when carried close to the mother’s breast.  Scientists found that the breast can rise two degrees Fahrenheit in a matter of several minutes when the mother’s body senses her baby is cold.

Cognitive Benefits

Even in the womb, a baby is regularly exposed to a dynamic environment of changing sounds, lights, shadows, voices, and movement.  Imagine entering the world only to find it a lot more boring than the womb.  Such is the experience of babies swaddled and placed in cribs, pack-n-plays, bassinets, strollers, and swings for extended periods of time. 
Now, I’m not suggesting that you never put your baby down.  However, regular carrying around the house, on walks, and on errands provides crucial cognitive stimulation.  Baby’s sight is developing, including depth perception and color differentiation.  Providing stimulus for this visual development can only help.
Finally, consider all of the brightly colored toys marketed to parents.  These toys are meant to attach to car seats, strollers, crib railings, or bassinets.  But what babies really want is a first class one-on-one tour of the world with you, their favorite tour guide.  The world, with all its moving and noisy parts, is baby’s ideal toy.  Being carried on your chest or back is baby’s best vantage point to see, touch, and interact with this toy.
To this day, my sixteen month-old daughter loves to be front carried on walks so that she can touch leaves, branches, bark, and the occasional flower. Of course, she also loves to break into a toddler-tumble-run and touch all these things on her own.

Emotional Benefits

By wearing your baby every day, the two of you will learn a great deal more about each other at an amazing rate.  You will feel more and more like a parent as you learn the various sways and bounces that soothe your baby when she’s distressed or tired.    This is especially confidence-building for first time parents during baby’s first eight weeks.
When an infant is born, doctors recommend almost immediate skin to skin contact to provide a sense of security, after being removed from the most secure place she’s ever known.  The first three months, sometimes called the fourth trimester, show baby’s continuing need for the love, closeness, and security of a parent.

Development Benefits

Especially in colicky or premature infants, Kangaroo care – the practice of carrying at-risk infants almost all day, every day – has been clinically shown to speed up weight gain, reduce dependence on respiratory support, and decrease rate of infection among these infants.
While not as dramatic for healthy full term infants, babywearing provides developmental benefits for them too.    Babywearing enhances your awareness of baby’s hunger cues, prompting more timely and sometimes more frequent feeding.

Parents’ Benefits

I can’t remember how many times I looked into the co-sleeper when my daughter, now nearly four, slept in it in the first few weeks after her birth.  Every parent is sensitive to that desire to know what baby’s very sound, cry, and squirm might mean.  My wife and I used to wonder whether we’d ever know what our daughter’s cries meant.
The more we wore her around the house to do simple tasks, or around the neighborhood to get some exercise, the faster we learned.  The learning curve for parents of newborns is steep enough.  Babywearing helped us to climb the curve with less effort.
Being hands-free was also a plus not to be overlooked.  While I couldn’t cook an omlette, I got very good, and very grateful, that I was able to wear my baby while taking regular walks, going through the mail, cleaning the house, talking on the phone or reading a book.

Bottom Line

We live in a country where the dominant culture prizes independence and that go-it-alone attitude,  which is passed along to our infants early on, with books that promise to train a baby to sleep on her own at eight weeks, to self-soothe, or to cry it out. 
Yet, research proves that going it alone does not provide the substantial benefits to baby’s well-being that are experienced by babies who are regularly close to parents  in a sling or carrier.  Developmental, emotional, cognitive, physical, and parental benefits show what a difference babywearing inarguably makes.
- See more at: http://www.babyinasling.com/articles/how-babywearing-makes-a-difference-5-reasons.php#sthash.z3E4TCfA.dpuf

Wednesday 7 May 2014

The history of babywearing



An interesting article about the history of babywearing from Victoria Ward, Director of Shcool of Babywearing UK.

Source: Gentle Parenting

The History of Babywearing

If you use a sling or carrier, you will probably have had at least one person tell you that “those things weren’t around in my day” – they are both wrong and right.
Slings have been described as one of the very first pieces of technology, an absolute necessity for nomadic peoples for whom carrying their babies in arms was both impractical and would have meant that mothers needed even more energy, which was in scarce supply. Yet it is true that most of the slings and carriers we see today were produced by companies that were established in the last 40 years. The last twenty years have seen the creation of new products such as stretchy wraps and hybrids and a huge growth in the number of companies making and selling slings and carriers.
How did ‘babywearing’, as we may now know it, come about?
It’s thought that natural materials like bark, leaves and animal skins were initially used to fashion very simple one-shouldered carriers, which helped support some of the child’s weight while adults were moving around from place to place or looking for food. Later, after weaving was used to create cloth, simple pieces of cloth were used to tie the child close to the adult (or to a sibling, as many babies were and still are carried by older children). Sometimes these were very ornate, such as in Asia, where carriers were often heavily embroidered or made from fabric such as the silk of kimonos or kimono sashes in Japan.
iStock_000016863137MediumIn Africa, kanga and kitenge fabrics were part of dress fabric used as an apron, a blanket to sit on and a general carrying aid. In Mexico, the rebozo, which was a general purpose ‘carrying cloth’ which each woman carried at all times, was used to carry babies in. In India, women tied babies into part of their saris and in Borneo rattan baskets were used. Closer to home, in Wales the Welsh blanket was used by both men and women regularly to carry babies until the 1950s, when the mass production of strollers meant that their usage virtually died out.
Styles of original baby carrier vary from climate to climate – in hotter climates, babies have a greater need to feed frequently and carriers that keep the baby close to mother (or to another woman who will feed it) tend to be more practical as they allow the baby to have very frequent, short feeds, avoiding dehydration. In colder climates, babies tend to feed less by day and can be left for longer periods so carriers that can be left hanging on tree branches or strapped to sleds may be more practical. The Inuit amauti is a carrier and coat, where the baby is carried inside the coat, which is tied at the waist, less practical for nursing but a great way to keep warm.
In the late 1960s, an American woman invented the Snugli baby carrier after seeing African women carrying their babies on their backs, when she worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa. In the 1970s, the first German woven wrap company, Didymos, was established after its founder was given a Mexican rebozo.  In the early 1980s, the ring sling was invented by a man in Hawaii for his wife. He sold his idea to Dr William Sears, who invented the term ‘attachment parenting’ and whose wife, Mary invented the term ‘babywearing’ after using a sling with their son and describing the sling like an item of clothing that she put on in the morning and took off at night.
Since the 1980s, the number of types of slings and carriers has grown hugely (the pouch and soft structured carriers are Western adaptations of traditional carriers), as have the number of new companies, from very large manufacturers to smaller work at home parents making custom-designed carriers. The choice really can be overwhelming though perhaps thinking back to the origins of baby carrying and how the focus should be on the practice of baby carrying and less on the product, may help parents make the right choice.
At Babywearing UK you can read much more about different sling & carrier types, find out which brands offer which types and find a sling library, meet or babywearing consultant near you.
By Victoria Ward, founder of Babywearing UK.

Sunday 4 May 2014

Biting and Hitting: 16 Ways to Stop it

I find this article from Dr. Sears' website very useful, tough, I am not in agreement with all the steps he recommends.

Source: Dr. Sears



Growing teeth and hands often find their way into trouble. Toddlers often bite and hit with little regard for the consequences of their actions. Bites and hits hurt and should be corrected, before serious harm is done to bodies and to relationships.
1. Understand why babies bite and hit. Don’t take it personally. Babies do bite the hands (and the nipples) that feed them. Everything babies do revolves around their hands and mouth. The hands and teeth are their first social tools, and they learn how to use them from the responses they get. As soon as teeth erupt and hands flap, babies experiment and use these instruments on different objects to see how it feels. What could be more familiar and available then parents’ skin? Baby’s job is to use these tools; your job is to teach him how. These early nips and slaps, as awful as they look and feel, are playful communications, not aggressive, disrespectful conduct.
Aggressive biting and hitting is most common between the ages of 18-months and 2½ years when the child doesn’t have the verbal language to communicate his needs. Instead, he communicates through actions. Biting usually stops as the child’s verbal skills grow but hitting doesn’t.
2. Understand why toddlers bite and hit. What are simply socially- incorrect gestures in infants can, if unchecked, become aggressive behaviors in children. That’s why you want to purge these from baby’s repertoire before they become part of the growing child. Children become aggressive in order to release pent-up anger, to control a situation, to show power, or to protect their turf in a toy squabble. Some children even resort to obnoxious behavior in a desperate attempt to break through to distant parents.
Most aggressive toddler behaviors will lessen once the child is old enough to communicate by words instead of actions.
3. Consider the source. What triggers aggressive behaviors? Keep a journal (at least mental notes) identifying the correlation between how a child acts and the circumstances prompting the action. For example: “Kate bit Suzie during play group. Suzie had Kate’s favorite ball. It was almost nap time. Lots of kids in a small place. Suzie is very bossy.”
4. Child hurts parent. Face-slapping is a socially-incorrect gesture babies experiment with. Redirect the slapper into a socially-acceptable alternative: “Give me five.” Likewise, redirect nipping: “No biting, ouchie, hurts Mama! (put on your unhappy face); then redirect the behavior: “Hug mama. That’s nice!” (smile and hug back). Once your child’s face-slapping becomes an expression of frustration (for example, the toddler in your arms becomes angry and hits you because you won’t let her have candy), you’ll have to show her the natural consequence. Firmly but calmly announce “You may not hit” and put her down. She’ll still be angry about the candy, so you can verbalize that for her. Do not allow your toddler to use you as a punching bag. Give her the message that you will not let her hurt you. If you don’t allow your child to hurt you when he’s very young, he will be less likely to let others hurt him when he’s older. You will be modeling to him how to say “no” to being hit, for example, by holding up a hand to stop the blow but not hit back.
5. Toddler hits babies. If your one-and-a-half-year-old bangs his toy hammer on the heads of other babies in the group, remove all objects that he can hit with. Show and tell him not to hit and give him an alternative gesture: “Be nice, pat baby” as you gently guide his patting hand.
6. Don’t bite back. “But the child needs to learn that biting hurts,” you may reason. Yes, but there’s no way your child will decide that she shouldn’t bite if you bite. Try this alternative tooth-for-tooth method: Take your child aside and ask her to let you show her how teeth feel on skin. Press your child’s forearm against her upper teeth as if she were biting herself, not in an angry revengeful way, but as a parent making a point, “See, biting hurts!” Give this lesson immediately after he bites you or someone else. You want your child to learn to be sensitive to how others feel – an early lesson in empathy.
7. Hitting models. Katie hits Tommy. Katie’s mother (embarrassed and irritated) quickly goes over and smacks Katie on the arm saying “Mustn’t hit.” Are you as confused as Katie is right now? Have you ever been driven by embarrassment or anger to do something illogical? We all have. So plan in your mind ahead of time what you will do when your child hits someone.
8. Child hurts child. You notice one child hits (pushes or kicks) another to get a toy. Show and tell an alternative way to get the toy. “We don’t hit other people. If you want the toy, wait until your friend is finished with it or ask Mommy and I’ll set the share timer. When I want something from you I don’t hit you, I ask you nicely.” If the hitter doesn’t cooperate, ask the victim to say, “I’m not playing with you anymore until you say you’re sorry and stop hitting.” Two-year-olds may not be able to say all these words, but they’ll understand them; so you say the words for them and follow through with the consequence. Also, impress upon the biter: “How would you feel if Tommy bit you.”
9. Timeout the aggressor. “Biting hurts, and it’s wrong to hurt. You are going to sit by me.” Usually by two years of age the child can make the connection between being aggressive and the consequences. Encourage your child to say “I’m sorry.” If he’s not angry anymore, he might want to give a kiss or hug.
10. Model nonaggression. A child who lives with aggression becomes aggressive. How do you communicate disappointment, handle conflicts, and get your point across? Aggression is contagious. Toddlers and young children also pick up aggressive behavior from older siblings. If the younger children see the older ones hitting each other, they conclude that’s the way you treat other people. Make this a teachable experience for the older children. Point out their modeling and tell them for their own benefit and the benefit of the little ones to clean up their act.
Grabbing is a common aggressive behavior in toddlers and young preschoolers. (Watch that you don’t unintentionally model this by snatching things from little hands) Calmly explain why he can’t have the item he grabbed and ask him to hand it back to the other child or give it to you. You may have to offer a replacement for what he has to give up. If your child is about to damage something valuable, or is likely to hurt himself with an object, use a no- nonsense voice and show by your body language you expect him to give it up immediately.
AVOID SETUPS
Avoid situations that bring out the worst in kids. At a birthday party a mother setup a scavenger hunt for a bunch of boys — inside her house, of all places. To fuel the frenzy, she offered a prize for the winner. You can imagine what happened. Both the house and the children were a wreck. They hit and shoved each other and trashed the house in pursuit of the hidden treasures. Bruised skin and bruised feelings resulted.
12. Mellow a mean streak. Watch the toddler who habitually bangs toys, bashes dolls, kicks cats, and pounds on walls. While some of this acting out is normal, it can be a red flag for tension and anger. The child is at risk for treating humans this way. Besides delving into the roots of the problem, encourage more gentle play: “Hug the bear,” “Pet the kitty,” “Love the doll.”
13. Reward. Children over three respond well to rewards, such as a no-hitting chart: “Every day you are nice to your friends, put a happy face on the chart. When you have three happy faces we’ll go out to lunch together.”
14. Program self-control. Some impulsive children hit before they think. For children over three, help them control these impulses by suggesting substitute behaviors that the child clicks into at the first thought of hitting: “As soon as you feel like hitting, grab a pillow and pound on it or go run around the yard.” You can model impulse control for your child. For example, next time you feel like hitting, let your child see you think your way out of it. Grab your hand and talk to it: “Now, hand, you should not hit people.” He’ll pay attention, especially if he’s the one you felt like hitting.
15. Apply double discipline. When hitting becomes disrespectful and undermines your authority, it deserves a double-dose of correction from Mom and Dad. Four-year-old Timmy got angry and hit his mother. She immediately sat him down, looked him squarely in the eyes, and impressed on him that under no circumstances was he ever to hit his parents; that behavior was intolerable and would be firmly corrected. She sent him to his room. After this time-out they talked about his anger. Later that day she shared this incident with her husband who had a talk with Timmy. He reinforced the seriousness of this situation and told Timmy that it would not be tolerated: “I will not allow you to hit the woman I love.” This wise father got some extra mileage out of his discipline by communicating his feelings for his wife.
16. Supervise. It’s neither fair nor safe to allow aggressive toddlers to play with potential victims in close quarters without a parent on watch. If your child is aggressive, share your concern with the other parents or teachers in the playgroup, and seek their help in tempering your child’s aggressive behavior. Don’t hesitate to tell them about the problem. You can bet they have also struggled through an aggressive stage with their own children. Your candidness shows your concern for the other children. Otherwise, aggression, especially biting, may destroy friendships. The parents of a biter are embarrassed, while the parents of the bitee are angry that their child has been hurt. The biter’s parents get blamed for the child’s misbehavior (“bad parents of a bad kid”), and the adult friendship cools.
Teachers and day-care providers also need to be vigilant in supervising the aggressive child, lest this attitude infect the whole group. In a group setting children learn what is socially-acceptable behavior. If they see and feel that aggressive behavior is tolerated — especially if the biter is in the spotlight (“Watch out, he’s a biter”) — they pick up on this label and may try making it part of their repertoire. While the aggressor’s behavior requires immediate attention, be careful not to give the other children the idea that this is the way to get attention. Be sure to find opportunities to praise the other children for their good behavior.

Saturday 3 May 2014

A cruel experiment in the 12th century



....There are also important social dimensions to the carrying of children. The child’s primary experiences of the world come from the mother. Close to her, it gets to know its new environment. Following birth, the child continues to feel the rhythm of its mother’s movements, and these form part of the child’s perception of the world. Also the mother’s scent, voice and warmth are comforting. The separation of a mother form her baby is not conducive to its development. 

Evidence of this was found as early as the twelfth century: and experiment was conducted at the behest of Frederick II. Holy Roman Emperor and King of Germany and Sicily. His chronicler, Alimbene, wrote ’He wished to discover which language and in what manner children would speak if they grew up never hearing anyone else speak. He therefore ordered that a number of foster mothers and wet nurses only feed, bathe and clean the children in their care and not babble or talk with them. In this way he wished to discover which language they would speak: Hebrew, the most ancient language, Greek, Latin, Arabic, or most likely that of their biological parents. He never found out because all the children died. They could not stay alive without being lovingly spoken to or being cuddled and smiled at by their foster mothers.’

It is now generally accepted that a lack of contact and affection while growing up is detrimental to children. After carrying out research into several children’s homes, the American child psychiatrist René A. Spitz came to the conclusion that small children who spend a lot of time alone and receive minimal attention from carers tend to lag behind in development. They exhibit restless, introverted behaviour. They do not learn to eat independently or become toilet-trained....


Source: I.C. van Hout: Beloved Burden, Baby-wearing around the world

Friday 2 May 2014

Breastfeeding mum was not welcome

Nurse in
A mum was asked by staff to leave from the Sports Direct in Nottingham. She was breastfeeding her little baby. That is why she had to leave and continue feeding outside the store in the rain.


Mums all over the country support her now. Mums in Derby got together, too, to protect our rights to breastfeed our babies and children in public. They nursed their children in the sport shop today in Westfield Moll. You are beautiful mamas!!

If you want to support, sign the petition here:
http://action.sumofus.org/a/sports-direct-breastfeeding/3/3/?sub=fb

Read more on BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-27253488

or

https://www.facebook.com/freetofeeduk


Thursday 1 May 2014

Breastfeeding in public

How To Deal With The Rudeness of Strangers

For all its difficulties, expensive accessories, and judgmental inquiries, breastfeeding my babies brought me a sense of satisfaction, calm, and relaxation unique unto itself.

This is not to say that I never encountered invasive and ignorant strangers.  It is lawful to breastfeed in any public place where food is served or allowed.  You probably don’t want to get into a conversation with a rude person who makes a comment while your feeding your baby.  It can’t be good f0r the letdown, so ignoring the remark and turning your head the other way is best.

But if they persist, however well-meaning they may (or may not) be, tell them any of the following (these go from tame to mildly tenacious):

1. “Please take up your concern with the management.”
2. “I’m not in the habit of taking advice from strangers, thanks.”
3. “Please be courteous and allow my child to eat.”
4. “Oh,” (in a surprised tone, like something just dawned on you) “you must not be aware of the law, which allows babies to eat anywhere you can.  Now you are.  Have a good day.”
5. “Did your mother refuse to feed you as a child?”

Okay, so maybe the last one’s a bit cheeky.  But it takes only one invasive remark to transport most moms from meek to militant on this subject.  Where ever you are on this spectrum, make the process as easy as possible with friendly places, cozy spaces, and snug ring slings, then shut the world out feed your baby in peace.


- See more at: http://www.babyinasling.com/articles/slings-make-for-easy-breastfeeding-in-public-places.php#sthash.NzCtyDSi.dpuf