All Categories - BabyCalm & ToddlerCalm

Is equality and presence in the family an absurd waste of money?

18/6/2018

You may have seen the coverage in the news recently about Kirstie Allsopp flying in business class while her sons (aged 10 and 12, I believe) were seated separately in economy. Her official reason for this, apparently, is so they “don’t get spoiled” and to fly them in business would be “an absurd waste of money”. I want to look at this for a moment. Far from wanting to shame Kirstie, the mainstream media has done enough of that, I feel that her words and deeds are symptomatic of a number of wider societal issues.

If one stops to think about this logically for a moment, her argument has some serious flaws unless of course she denies her children all the other trappings of material wealth such as living in a nice house (I presume they are not banished to a shed at the bottom of the garden, or perhaps something akin to student accommodation until they are earning their own money)?

A broken feeding culture... actually a broken culture

12/6/2018

I read the articles on infant feeding this morning. I read the information from the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) too - and I cried. As someone who calls themselves an "infant feeding practitioner" rather than a breastfeeding supporter, because it is not my business how you feed YOUR baby, I found all of this made me rage and not for the reasons you might think.

My over-riding sensation was how very broken our culture must be for me to be seeing these headlines. What kind of culture do we live in where the RCM felt a need to tell midwives not to shame mothers? What kind of culture do we live in where the media are allowed to take one sentence from a large general document and turn it into a massive assault on both midwives and breastfeeding advocates, without any concern for them or the mothers who now feel pressured and didn't before?

The problem with picky eating

10/6/2018

This image popped up on my newsfeed yesterday, and it got me thinking.

What food would you refuse to eat? Mine would be oysters. They just don’t appeal to me at all. Never tried them. Don’t want to try them. Couldn’t pay me to try them. If I see someone eating them, I feel a bit queasy. But I’ve never tried them and couldn’t tell you what they actually tasted like.

But it’s ok for me to not like oysters (even though I’ve never tried them). If someone offered me oysters and I said, ‘No thanks’, they’d leave me be.

Sleep is not a skill: Why we are asking the wrong questions

26/3/2018

How can I teach my baby to sleep?
When will my toddler learn to settle herself?
How can I help my son learn to sleep on his own?
Can I teach my baby to sleep through the night?

The clocks are changing: How do I cope with my child's sleep?

24/3/2018

With the impending clock change, a few parents have been in touch asking how to cope with it. So we've written down a few top tips to help you navigate it without too much disruption.

Self care sucks, right?

22/3/2018

Self-care. Urgh. Those 2 words. I hate them. I can (almost) literally see them dripping with guilt, oozing with indulgence and selfishness. I hate it when people bandy about the term, telling us that we must practise ‘self-care’ with the underlying accusation that we aren’t enough. We aren’t doing enough. We’re doing it wrong. Whatever that ‘it’ is.

Am I a 'gentle parent'?

8/3/2018

When I applied to train as a BabyCalm & ToddlerCalm teacher back in 2013 I was apprehensive, I didn’t feel like I ‘fit’ or that I was a a good enough ‘gentle parent’ to do this. And without the encouragement of one of my best friends, I wouldn't have gone. Her opinion mattered to me and because she thought that I was 'enough' I took the leap and applied.
When I arrived at training I was terrified that I was inadequate & that I everyone would think I was a fraud, rubbish at this parenting lark & certainly not good enough to go out and 'teach' other parents but I was eager to learn more, if not to teach but for myself and my son.

The truth about snow days

1/3/2018

Now I know that it is pretty treacherous in some places, it can be dangerous, that it’s inconvenient, and it can cost people money. Today it has been inconvenient to me, tomorrow it will be, and this weekend it’s likely to mean I have to cancel training some wonderful new consultants which costs me and the business money. That part sucks BUT I am excited and inspired. I know there are lots of haters of snow out there and earlier in the week when they said it would snow I was both skeptical and a bit frustrated. However today I feel differently.

Why your pre-26 week baby doesn't need food

26/2/2018

A preface to this post – I am talking here about babies who do not have a medical need to be weaned early and who are not under the care of a medical professional

This is Alice. She is 20 weeks old.

In the past week, she’s started doing the following:

Staring intently at anyone eating food in the near vicinity
Tracking the food as it moves towards their mouths and opening her mouth as they open their mouths
Grabbing anything and everything and stuffing it into her mouth, where she furiously gnashes it with her gums
Being more fussy and unsettled in the evenings
Breastfeeding more often
Waking up more often at night

‘Aha!’ many people might be saying, ‘Those are clear signs that she needs food! Milk isn’t enough for her any more! And she’s so interested in watching you eat, she’s desperate to do it too!’

But…

Is co-sleeping really as dangerous as they say?

30/1/2018

You may have seen various news articles being published today and over the weekend in regards to the number of infant deaths 'caused' by co-sleeping. What we are actually talking about is bed-sharing (parent & baby sharing same sleep surface) rather than co-sleeping (sharing the same room for sleeping).

Whilst these figures look alarming and our heart and support goes out to every single family that has suffered from the loss of their baby, it is important to remember that the cause of SIDS remains unknown and in the case of those babies who sadly died no-one can confirm that bed-sharing was the cause of their death.

Our aim is, and has always been to provide parents with evidence-based information so you are empowered to make safe, informed choices for you and your baby. So how can you keep your baby safe and stay sane?

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Photos used under Creative Commons from Ah Wei (Lung Wei), treehouse1977