Parenting

I was so bowled over to be invited to guest post my extended breastfeeding story for Columns by Kari in her World Mama series. This gorgeous series highlights amazing stories from parents all over the world. It gives a really broad perspective of life as a parent. In the post, you can read my experiences on breastfeeding a baby over 1 year old. Sometimes, it’s lovely to breastfeed an older baby. Often, it comes with challenges, too. You can also find tips on how to make breastfeeding work if you hope to go beyond a year. Have a read! My extended breastfeeding story for Columns by Kari I’ve been a fan of Kari and her blog since we met on Instagram. Her feed is so beautiful! Have you checked out Kari’s blog before? She features beauty and parent life with her gorgeous family in both English and Dutch. Take a…

In this post, I share why I’ll never sleep train my baby. We were gifted an old-fashioned crib by family, but went out and bought a Snuzpod sidecar crib so we could co-sleep safely. When expecting, we said we’d never bed share because we’d read all the advice about how bed sharing could lead to SIDS and was dangerous. We’d never put Jonah’s health at risk! We stayed two nights in hospital to get breastfeeding support, and were surprised that Jonah didn’t sleep well in his crib. He’d cry when we put him down, and found it very hard to settle in that little plastic box. In my ignorant new mother haze, I genuinely believed there was something wrong with him. I even asked the midwives why he wouldn’t settle anywhere but in my arms. The belief that babies sleep in cribs was so strong with me. After Jonah’s birth,…

We’ve just got back from the Global Big Latch On 2017, where families around the world gather at their local event to simultaneously breastfeed and offer peer support. The children are all latched on at exactly 10:30am so it truly is a participatory event. It’s great to be involved in something so big! The Global Big Latch On takes place during World Breastfeeding Week (1st – 7th August). It aims to create a lasting support network for women, their families, and the wider community, and quite importantly sets out to normalise breastfeeding as a part of daily life. We attended the Middlesbrough Big Latch On. We met our breastfeeding friends at Stewart Park, a gorgeous old Victorian park with sweeping views over the beautiful ancient trees. In total, 34 women and their nurslings took part in the event. History of the Global Big Latch On The Global Big Latch On was…

In this post I’m sharing why we choose to vaccinate our children. Poor baby had his one year immunisations yesterday at Norton Medical Centre. Martin took the afternoon off work so we could take him to the appointment together. We arrived in the waiting room, where a little boy was crying after receiving an injection. His mother, trying her best to comfort him, pointed to Jonah and remarked “that little boy isn’t crying”, but we all knew he soon would be – how sad. “The two public health interventions that have had the greatest impact on the world’s health are clean water and vaccines” ~ World Health Organisation The nurses were friendly and helpful, explaining what would happen, providing us with patient leaflets, and asking about previous immunisations. Daddy held him during the four injections, which were performed one at a time, one in each limb. I cupped his head…