Browsing Tag

babies

Parenting

Health Visitors and their sinister sleep complex

15 October, 2013

As we flew into London* last week, on a bumpy, hot, late flight from Milan my almost-three year old, Ramona, began busting out her catalogue of Terrorist- Siege-of- London songs at maximum volume. “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down!” “London’s Burning, London’s burning, fetch the engine, fetch the engine!” Her voice boomed out across the sweaty heads of all the other flustered passengers… “FIRE, FIRE!”

Sweet little Nursery rhymes, which are, y’know, a bit dark. Sinister. Death, danger and fear flinging gleefully out of the angelic mouths of babes.

I bet there is one single word in German for this kind of thing… I’m going to call it Menacing Benevolence. (Menachinguten.)

Like a gun made out of chocolate. Or a gift wrapped turd.

Or Health Visitors.

Oh yeah. They turn up, all smiles and kindness when you’ve just had your baby. Breastfeeding is going well, and they coo over your bonny bundle so you don’t feel the need to get cross when they slip a Bottle Feeding guide into your sheaf of papers. You see them a couple of times for a weigh-in, they are pretty good at telling you not to worry about the snuffley nose. And then your baby turns six months and you get given a Sleep Programme to stop your baby waking in the night.

The title seems innocuous. Helpful. You didn’t ask for it but then, you DO kinda like sleeping and baby IS still waking up. The doubts creep in. Is my baby getting enough sleep? Am I stopping my baby from developing healthy sleeping patterns? How many other babies sleep through? Is lack of sleep causing my tiny one brain damage?!

You scan it….

20131015-210853.jpg

(A sheet recently given to the mother of a six month old baby by their Health Visitor)

What the flipping jolly heck?! SICK?!

There must be very, VERY, serious implications for babies that wake in the night because these recommended methods of stopping night wakings are enormously extreme. They are so extreme that you need to warn the family and the neighbours about what is going to happen. Letting them cry alone, repeatedly, for periods of time possibly longer than any period they have cried for yet. Allowing them only a one hour nap in the day. You are told what to do if the child cries so much THEY ARE SICK. Nothing to eat or drink all night despite the simple fact that they could very well be quite hungry. These are some hardcore suggestions for babies that in almost every other species are still inside the womb.

Luckily you have Google; your Health Visitor and that slip of paper isn’t your only source of information.

What ARE the implications of babies waking in the night? Oh… Nothing? Just a little bit of evidence that suggests they are MEANT to? That sleeping lightly is a survival technique? That babies who have all their needs met throughout the day and night are better wired for love and empathy?

Ah.

We have a sleep complex here in the UK and it is sinister. Not quite in the way that Nursery Rhymes are- I don’t imagine enough people have attempted to blow up London Bridge to impress a young lass to warrant a fear that singing these songs could cause actual damage. But Health Visitors and other NHS propaganda, along with the myriad of “expert” advice around sleep IS actually harmful.

Parents who feel the pressure to employ the techniques in this guide risk losing a real trust and connection with their little one. They risk flooding their baby’s brain with stress hormones released through ignored and continued crying. They risk missing out on valuable nursing time and vital bonding cuddle time. They risk having to move aside their precious baby, the very one they grew in their own body, the one who looks up at them in love, who slips their trusting hand in theirs, this perfect, unique child, they have to move her aside and clean sick from her skin and her bed because she cried so hard she vomited, and they have to do this without a cuddle, without a word, without a glance.

Seriously. I’m just so cross at the people who wrote this and the people who hand it out. I could swear like a Mother right now.

Sleep is an area in which parent’s are so vulnerable. We place so much weight on it when actually there is little we can do. No one can make a baby or a child sleep- we can simply create an environment where they might. The real spectrum of how many hours babies and children sleep is vast, I know babies happy and thriving on each end of it. The last thing parents need is guilt heaped on about something they don’t have too much control over.

What parents really need to hear from Health Visitors is a voice, louder even than my daughter’s singing, booming out a big, fat “Don’t worry!”

This waking at night thing is a tiny window of your life. Breastfeeding and cuddling through to the dawn will be over in a flash. They WILL sleep all by themselves, soundly and without needing you to comfort them. There are loads and loads and loads of parents who don’t worry about schedules or even routines, who just use their child’s cues and communication to plan bed times. And there are whole nations who sleep in the family bed, happily altogether, waking for cuddles.

You are not setting them up to have sleep issues their whole life long- exams and then a mortgage will probably be the cause of those. Soon they will be teenagers who will sleep more than you could ever imagine, corpse like on the bed; their feet with their shoes still on and their hands still gripping the kebab wrapper, and you won’t have to worry about a thing.

(Apart from that they come in too late and they spend all their money on takeaways and they smell a little bit like booze, oh crumbs, and also they are probably trying to bomb London Bridge because you sang them too many nursery rhymes.)

PS For more parenting/ travelling / thrifty blogging follow through Facebook or Bloglovin or even just enter your email to get them pinged into your inbox. I don’t rant and rave THAT much…


*Yeah I KNOOOW… We are we back in London… Of all the places! We came home after Croatia to pick up a repaired Betty the Campervan, which was meant to arrive 3 weeks ago. We were meant to be here 5 days before getting the ferry to Spain. But Betty is still in Italy! And now we’ll be 3 weeks late to Spain. We have been massively let down by the AA and now Tim is actually flying out there again tomorrow to pick it up while I stay here with Juno and Ramona. *mutter, mutter, throws mug of tea at wall in rage*

Attachment parenting

Playful parenting with a baby- 5 ways

28 August, 2013

My eldest daughter, Ramona, talks a lot. She said only 7 words or so until her second birthday, at which point the flood gates of speech opened and they haven’t stopped since. Most of it is either hilarious or insightful, and the rest of it involves a variation on “LET’S PLAY!” (spoken exuberantly, in caps, just like that.) She wants to play ALL DAY (spoken aggressively, like Schmidt.)

It is only right; play is how children discover, process and communicate. Play is a crucial way that kids let us know what is going on, and one of the primary ways we can build a strong connection. So I want to nurture that, to be a playful parent. (Most of the time. Sometimes I want to curl up in a corner with a good book while she unravels the toilet roll, puts it in the sink and makes papier mache. Sometimes I think 70p spent on a wasted loo roll is the best 70p ever spent.)

My second child, Juno, is only 4 months old so has no words. But I feel she is communicating the same thing- she’ll shoot me a mischievous look, an invitation; “Let’s play!” She’s been doing it since she was a few weeks old, I’m sure they are born with the same playful ways, and we’ve been playing since. I figure many of the benefits of playful parenting can be ours even now, and it is a habit we can form together that will stay with us for her whole childhood. Here is how we play…
image


Follow the giggles!

In his book, Playful Parenting, Lawrence Cohen suggests that playful parenting can be led by the children, that their laughter will show you what they are enjoying so simply go with whatever that ridiculous thing is. Ramona’s first giggle came at 12 week, as Tim danced with her in the loung. It poured out of her like a waterfall- probably one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard in my life.


Noises and expression combination

Juno’s first laugh came when she was lying on my lap looking into her face and doing a PAH! sound with a crazy open mouthed face. There is no diginity at all in playful parenting- the more expressive your face is and the more unnatural the noise is the more your baby will be delightes!

Baby roughhousing
At the International Gentle Parenting Conference I had the privilege of hearing Larry Cohen (it’s Larry to friends, yeah) speak. He spoke about the importance of rough play for kids- how wrestling with us physically helps them work out extra energy, anger, big feelings, and explore new strength and physical potential in a safe place. He described how it can be done with babies too and Juno loves it! I push her around with my head, rolling her over. She grabs my nose and ears and pushes at me.

Nuzzling kisses
This is a softer version of the above, and just as mammal- like! It is simply tickly kisses all over and growls in to her neck. A few parenty authors talk about the danger of tickling (you never thought you’d see that sentence in your life, eh?) and it is true, we must be so sensitive. Tickle fests can be hard to communicate within, kids can like it, but very quickly not. And if we go too far it can be a real invasion of physical boundaries and incredibly disempowering. Tickling babies must be done in tiny doses, softly and with great sensitivity.

Peekaboo
This is the most natural game we all play with babies. At the conference, Laz Cohen (just what his best mates are allowed to call him) discussed a study of Peekaboo. Parents are instinctively amazing at it- knowing exactly, by the milisecond, how long to stay hidden for to get the best response. Beginning to play Peekaboo early is amazing because you can see a babies sense of object permanence develop right in front of you. One day is is like “Boo!” “Whatever, mum.” The next it is like “Boo!” “HAHHAHAHA YOU ARE BRILLIANT MUM! HAHAHA! BRILLIANT I TELL YOU! YOU WERE THERE, THEN NOT, THEN THERE AGAIN! GENIUS!”

How do you engage in play with your babies?

Attachment parenting, Cosleeping, Parenting

Eight approaches for happier sleep

5 November, 2012

Yesterday morning Ramona woke up at 4:30, full of beans. She planted some kisses on our faces, did a morning fart, followed by a belly full of giggles, and began climbing all over the bed. “Awake! Me! Pojo??” Pojo is her word for porridge, she was ready for breakfast and up for the day.

Grumpy is not the word. I was mad all day. Mentally flipping the bird at every stupid email I received, I stomped around the office, grizzled under my breath my whole cycle home. I was reminded what it is like to be deeply unhappy with a child’s sleep patterns.

I spent many of Ramona’s first months feeling this way. She’d take forever to go to sleep at the sensible time of 7 pm and then wake at the crack of dawn. I disliked spending an hour doing a night time routine and getting her to sleep, bobbing up and down the stairs to her throughout the evening, and then peering out of the bed covers at the clock and seeing 6 am shining back at me just a few hours after I rolled under them.

It was only when Ramona was a year old that I realised I wanted to take a more relaxed, less structured approach to her sleep, and since then we have all been much happier. Of course, we still have the odd terrible night, an evening with a wired tot who won’t sleep, or a crack of dawn morning. But on the whole my mind is free of sleep anguish, and that deserves a celebratory doughnut.

I’d say adopting eight different approaches helped me feel much happier about our sleep situation.

  • I got the “sensible bedtime” idea out of my head. The most sensible bedtime for a child is when they are tired. Sometimes, due to a late start or long nap this is ten pm. Mostly for us it is somewhere between 8:30 and 9:30. It took me a while to get this, even 8:30 pm seemed outrageous to me, so I’d try and try and try to get Ramona in bed at The World Will Approve O Clock. Once I let go of this, our evenings got a whole load more relaxed.
  • I decided that beds were overrated. For a year, Ramona took her naps on me in the sling or on the sofa, but always began her night time sleep in bed. Once I realised she was often much happier falling to sleep at night time on the sofa I began to see the benefits. We’ll cuddle up amongst the cushions, then after she has drifted off, while my husband and I read or chat, we can put a film on, or continue the get-together with our friends. Because she is right with us she’ll rarely stir much and then I just take her to bed when we go.
  • We abandoned the routine. Sometimes the bath, songs, story schedule worked. Mostly though, Ramona hated the idea of going upstairs and leaving behind her crate of toys, the lovely people in the lounge and a kitchen of food. She’d be upset about being carted off somewhere else, or we’d end up doing story after story until she was ready to snuggle down. Not making such a palava of bedtime made the transition to sleep so much more natural
  • I watch her cues and set the scene. Sometimes Ramona will ask for “bed”, sometimes she’ll just ask for “mummy milk” (as opposed to “Daddy milk” which is what she she calls dairy! Mahaha…) or sometimes she may yawn, get a bit angsty. At this stage I will put the lamp on, quieten down the house and settle on the sofa with her. This transition is much easier for her mind to cope with!

  • I accepted that kids all have different sleep needs, and they are fairly good at meeting that need if we allow them. Ramona can rarely sleep more than 11 hours at night. If she goes to bed at 7 then that is a 6 am wake up call. ER, NO THANKS! Getting up at 8am makes us all happier but that does mean I have to accept that traditional bedtimes don’t suit us! She still naps for an hour, an hour and a half. But if she has a few short naps then she might go for a number 14 hour night sleep!! I just trust her in all of this and shrug off the concept of a 12 hour night.
  • I accepted our new normal. Once I got used to the idea that Ramona would continue to stir at night, and would continue to need me, my mind calmed down and my new state of contentment really helped! Instead of waking up and thinking “She woke 4 times and she is nearly two!!!” And being appalled at my poor parenting, I now simply recognise that she just has superior survival skills….because obviously, we are built to stir all night so we can respond to danger and stoke the cave fire! Also, perversely, the few times she has slept all night I’ve had a rubbish sleep due to a lack of lovely nursing hormones. Wrong, that is, I tell you!
  • I rejected the “creating good sleep habits” rhetoric. Mainstream parenting advice claims routines, sleeping through, self-soothing and sleeping in a separate space sets our children up for a lifetime of excellent sleep. Erm. There is an MAJOR flaw in this in that we have been repeating this record for decades and we are some of the worst sleepers in the world!!! Nearly 40% of us suffer from insomnia. Mainstream advice is clearly doing something wrong.
  • I embraced a “live intuitively” philosophy. I try as much as possible to let Ramona be self-directed, to eat when hungry, cuddle when she needs it, jump on the bed if she fancies it, and sleep when she is tired. I hope all of this stuff will allow her own gut to be the loudest voice when it comes to making important decisions, that she will be less reliant on the sways of peers and external evaluation. Learning to respond to her body and its need will surely give her a confidence and a wholeness that will give her a much needed resilience. Knowing that I may be suffering a little less undisturbed sleep than others for the big picture, the future well being of my daughter, makes it a tiny, insignificant suffering!

These ways aren’t for everyone, I know.  If you are content with the fixed way you do thing, please, don’t change a dot!!! But maybe some of you are like us, and do want to take a more abandoned approach to sleep and parenting, and I hope our story will encourage you to do that. For me, stumbling across other families that did this gave me the freedom I needed to parent this way boldly, and not secretly! I liked these two pages, especially…

This collection of quotes from homeschool families who just roll with it, sleepwise. 

Letting kids find their own sleep patterns

Finding a bit of freedom around this whole sleep situation has been a part of my attachment parenting journey. For me attachment parenting is all about choosing connection, over control.  I am down with boundaries- i.e, I wouldn’t give Ramona sweets before bedish time, or have a massively exciting game of tickles just as she began to yawn, but integral to my parenting is a relinquishment of my need for high control. Allowing Ramona a certain amount of autonomy is important to me, and these approaches to sleep extend that philosophy to her bedtime.

So… *asks timidly, trying to be brave* … what do you reckon?!

Attachment parenting

A sibling on the scene

25 October, 2012

Every morning when my daughter Ramona opens her eyes, she snuggles up to my face and whispers “Hello, mummy”. These days, this tiny tradition is followed up by her scuffling down and pulling apart my pyjama top and murmuring “Hello, baby” into my tummy. With no bump to reveal my 4 month pregnancy just yet my belly button is getting all the attention.

Ramona is two and loves babies. She loves babies, imaginary babies and Things that Will Do.

Ramona Babywearing

Ramona constantly has to be either pushing a buggy or wearing a baby in the sling, and I normally have to accompany her, with a Cabbage Patch Kid tied to my front.

As I cooked dinner yesterday I could hear her singing sweet nothings “Oh, baby. Good? Baby? Oooh. Baby” and looked over my shoulder to see what she was caressing with her soft words and hands.

It was a bulb of garlic.

Obviously.

Minutes later, I had to help her undo the zip on her jumper because the garlic wanted “milkies.”

(Mind you, a few months ago it was me that had to nurse the obscure objects she chose so I’m quite happy she has taken on that responsibility herself. My days of breastfeeding toy cars and lego are over for a while, thanks.)

When my mum first heard our new baby news, she exclaimed “Crumbs, Ramona will have her nose put out, won’t she?!” I guess it was in reference to the intense attachment we have, and the practices that, for us, are a big part in it. When the baby comes along Ramona will have to deal with not lying starfish like along our bed between us, she’ll learn to share Mummy’s milkies (with a human and not a bit of plastic) and she’ll have to adapt to another little mite being limpet-like in the sling.

And of course, while I feel blissfully relaxed in this pregnancy and perhaps naively optimistic about a second baby, I can’t help but feel a leeetle bit intreipidly curious about what tandem nursing will be like, and keeping them both happy during the night times.

I am fairly confident that all those juicy hormones will smother everything in glazey eyed love for a while, making it all okay for me.

And hopefully Ramona’s love for babies (and I hope she loves the new one a little bit more than the ones she frequently sits on/ covers in Marmite) will help her ride out the changes. We just have 5 months to get her used to the idea that the new kid on the block will be a bit noisier than the garlic and a bit more demanding than my belly button!

Activism, Parenting

Why the Occupy LSX protest is the perfect place for kids

29 October, 2011

I really believe in activism. I am absolutely sure that protesting changes things, so bringing the baby on board was always gonna happen. But today I realised that sometimes a protest is the perfect place for the baby. Not just as there is an extra amount of people she can woo and then phones she can steal and chew.

We had a wonderful time with the nippers up at St Pauls for Occupy LSX today- facepainting, parachute games, poetry, juggling, one of the dads even turned up with a bouncy castle. While some of the older kids reflected on and drew their ideas of utopia all around us debate, speeches and conversation took place about how we can change the utterly bankrupt society we live in right now.

I’m no stranger to the shaper edge of protest. In fact (don’t tell my mum this) the first protest I took Ramona on saw us sitting down to breastfeed in a cafe just as a Black Bloc walked past- they picked up a bus stop and smashed the entire front window with it. About 3 feet away us. I have also been in peaceful, sitting down crowds as riot police have bought their truncheons down on heads.

I realise it is not always balloons and bubbles.

But the cost of our younger generation NOT being there is higher than the tiny, one in a million chance of them actually getting hurt.*

For it is here that the little ones learn that there is HOPE – that people do believe in an alternative to the economic apartheid we currently live in. Here they see true, live,  democracy – people listening to each other and voting together. Here they hear the melody of diverse voices, discussing problems and solutions.

But it is also the perfect place for them as it reminds us why we do it. Because they are the generation who will either inherit all this- greed (and the inequality greed gives birth to) – stretched and bloated, many time worse then we have even now, or they will inherit a much fairer and more beautiful society. It is completely up to us.

Someone told me today that there are over 900 occupied cities in over 82 countries. There is an incredible global connection happening that is totally unprecedented. The Occupy movement is gathering momentum and could become enough to change things. As a friend pointed out this week, anti-apartheid protesters couldn’t envision the world beyond apartheid- all they could do was say ENOUGH, enough of this injustice. It doesn’t matter that Occupy LSX doesn’t have a list of policies, we are simply saying ENOUGH.

We have had enough of a world where FTSE 100 directors experience a pay rise of 49% on average compared to 0% increase in the public sector. Enough of a world where CHEESE is the top shoplifted item, because people just literally need to eat (baby formula is the FIFTH, the FIFTH!!!!!) and ENOUGH of a world where one years worth of bankers bonuses could pay for 23 years of the youth service being shut in every poor community in the UK. (More on all this in Polly Toynbee’s excellent article here.)

For our children’s sake. We have had enough.

If you’ve had enough too but weren’t sure about bringing your baby along to Occupy London, please get in touch and I can introduce you to some of the coolest parent and kid activists in town.

There.

I’m sorry, all seriouspants once again. I promise my next post will be about poo.


* There are safety measures you can take, I for one would almost certainly leave with my baby at the first whiff of the riot police or other violence.

**Also, beware of the haters who can be equally vicious. Someone told me off today for taking Ramona to Occupy LSX, suggesting I was teaching kids about squatting and oppressing the rights of others. (Eh?!)  Thankfully it was only on Twitter so I was able to take a breath and graciously respond about how we were actually teaching kids about equality, justice and a loving, fair society. (While mentally taking his 140 characters and flicking them at his ragey right wing eyeballs of course.)

Our recycled home, Parenting

Bubbles: the last word in lazy parent tricks

16 August, 2011

When I am feeling a bit weary and Ramona is in need of entertainment I put something ethereal on the boombox, say, Fleet Foxes or a bit of classical, and then I lay on the sofa, her in the crook of my arm, and I blow bubbles. We can do this for a good twenty minutes. It is sublime and, nearly always, just the ticket. Needless to say, I am also become  wicked at blowing big bubbles.

My friend Dan Fone took these:

These close ups of Ramona would be classics if it wasn’t for the delicious but crusty smudge of Boursin on her forehead.

Another time I will go Next Level with my own bubble mix and enormous homemade wand.

PS I am actually on ‘oliday in France right now but with my technical wizardry have managed to post this in my absence so you, my dear readers, don’t think I have fallen off the blagon. (New word- blog and wagon. You’re welcome.)