For anyone who becomes a mother within nine months of a major holiday season (and, taking into account all of the holidays within every faith and cultural tradition, that means almost everybody!) I have a radical idea for you: Simplify your idea of how the holidays will look this year. Better yet, let yourself let someone ELSE handle everything. {Read more at mothering.com}
Image:
JodyDigger through a Creative Commons license | Flickr
Since August is the month with the most babies being born, let’s talk about what you really need when preparing for baby. It’s probably not what you think!
I remember the fun of “shopping for baby.” All that pastel was sooooo appealing. But truth be told, most of what we think we need to buy in advance of baby’s arrival is an illusion conjured by our shop-happy culture, an alluring but costly response to the most natural of pre-parenting instincts—to nest.
What you don’t need—at least for now—is a crib. If you go the family bed route you may never need one; otherwise, a cradle by your bed will provide the closeness you both need for many months. While attachment parenting doesn’t mean wearing your baby 24/7, on-body carriers like snugglies and slings can be wonderful. If possible, borrow some to try; together you and baby will know which to buy.
Radical but true, there is always time later to purchase what is needed! In fact, waiting is a great way to begin developing the essential parenting tools of intuition and discernment. YOU will become the expert on your baby, discovering if she prefers sponge baths to “real baths” in the plastic contraption, or… if the sound of Velcro frightens him, or… if she is enchanted by the color purple. {Find out what you REALLY need by reading the rest of this post at Natural Baby Pros}
Image (through a Creative Commons license:
Paulo Rená
To anyone looking in, I was the always-gleaming, highly achieving mom of a darling baby boy. For me looking out, I felt like I was drowning. While inside I struggled, outside I strained to present a status-quo face. I wore J. Crew, prepared organic baby food, went to Mommy & Me, clenched my teeth, and tried to keep it together. I looked good on paper.
I was living what Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls the grinning depression. My mounting inner conflict made me feel like an alien in a world of seemingly happy mothers-who-adored-mothering.
The first person who helped me feel like not an alien? Not any of a stream of therapists, nor any of my studies toward my doctorate in early human development. Not my OB/GYN. I have Brooke Shields to thank for my big ah-hah. {Read the whole post at Natural Baby Pros}
Exactly 23 years ago I marveled at my 7-hour-old daughter, my Eve. In those blissful early moments I thought I might have slipped the skin of pain that had cinched me for a long time after my son’s birth 3 1/2 years earlier. But it was not to be. After a momentary grace of one season…three months…of empowered, unfreighted mothering, Life circumstances stepped in to pull me down again. Into postpartum depression, again.
As odd as it sounds, my children were both in their teens before I realized that I had experienced postpartum depression with both of them. What led to this tardy epiphany? Not the several years of deep therapeutic work with two different therapists and a variety of bodyworkers; not the many years of deep scholarly work pursuing my doctorate in early human development, including the study of pregnancy, birth and postpartum issues; and as you can probably guess, not from my own OB/GYN.
I have Brooke Shields to thank for my big ah-hah. {Read more at mothering.com}
For anyone who becomes a mother within nine months of a major holiday season (and, taking into account all of the holidays within every faith and cultural tradition, that means almost everybody!) I have a radical idea for you: Simplify your idea of how the holidays will look this year. Better yet, let yourself let someone ELSE handle everything. That way, your holidays with a new baby can be marked by joy, connection and peace — just as they’re meant to be!
This doesn’t mean that I don’t think you are up to the task of balancing the needs of your infant with brining the tenderest turkey, setting an exquisite table and hostessing with the mostest-ing. Far from it — many new moms I meet are awesomely equipped to perform impressive feats of multi-tasking magic while bouncing baby on their hips. {Read more about this at mothering.com}
Image:
SheKnowsPregnancy&Baby
When I was pregnant with our daughter, I took prenatal yoga with the renowned Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa. Gurmukh’s wisdom encircled and empowered me through my pregnancy, and nourished me through the tender postpartum period — inviting us to engage an ancient wisdom prescription: cocoon at home for forty days.
We closed each class by singing a Kundalini farewell blessing (originally lyrics from an Incredible String Band song):
May the longtime sun shine upon you,
all love surround you,
and the pure light within you
guide your way on.
Isn’t this perhaps the highest aspiration we can hold as parents — to nourish, protect and support that pure light within our children, as it guides them on their singular life paths? Call that light what you will: spirit, soul, singular personality and temperament, unique intelligences. It is indeed all of these things plus infinite others that weave the human mystery. (more…)
My life explorations as an adopted person and my studies of the foundations of human wellbeing have consistently turned up a key element of health: the experience of and capacity for connection. Birth presents us a momentous opportunity to foster connection. It is also important to understand the costs of not staying connected after birth — whether it is due to adoption, NICU confinement, health issues in the mother, or other circumstances preventing mother-newborn connectedness. This is not about guilt or blame, but the empowerment that comes with understanding what happens with neonatal separation. {Read the rest of this post at mothering.com}
For anyone who becomes a mother within nine months of a major holiday season (and, taking into account all of the holidays within every faith and cultural tradition, that means almost everybody!) I have a radical idea for you: Simplify your idea of how the holidays will look this year. Better yet, let yourself let someone ELSE handle everything. That way, your holidays with a new baby can be marked by joy, connection and peace — just as they’re meant to be! (more…)
This author of What Mothers Do — Especially When It Looks Like Nothing changed the tone from the statistical, socio-biological, and clinical bent of the morning session to the immediacy of direct experience and the narrative of mothers about the “special time” in the early months after baby’s arrival. She highlights the importance of a parent’s sense-making of the early months, marked by such themes as an “extraordinary mixture of chaos and love,” “…like being inside a bubble…” “…like having a thin skin enclosing themselves and their babies buffering them from the rest of the world…” (more…)
Free 7-Step Guide: Help Your Child Release Stuck Behaviors
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