communication RSS

baby food, baby led weaning, breastfeeding, communication, first foods, food, keeping calm, parenting, puree, solids, toddler, transitions, whole food -

When your 5 or 6 month old baby is watching you eat, gesturing for food, and sitting up (or almost), you are probably asking this question. But, you're confused by popular feeding advice. "Give them iron-fortified rice cereal." suggest many grandparents and pediatricians.  Your friend Hannah's baby loves her homemade purees. Auntie Dani dropped off a bag of jarred and squeeze pouches of commercial "baby food." And, all over the internet, you keep stumbling over "baby-led weaning." Rice cereal, the headless dinosaur is still thrashing its deadly tail of malnutrition. The call to feed your baby rice cereal, as the magic bullet to fill them up and make them...

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anxiety, breastfeeding, breastfeeding barriers, communication, Ember, emotions, expectations, instincts, Lisa Bullard, mama, mothering, nighttime parenting, nursing, weaning -

I have been thinking a lot about trusting my instincts as a mother.

Sometimes that is easier said than done, especially when someone in an authority position (a doctor, a teacher, a specialist,) or someone whose approval I seek (my mother, my partner, my friend,) is telling me that something I am doing, is wrong.

It can be enormously frustrating and it recently happened to me.

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breastfeeding, breastfeeding barriers, communication, Donna Bruschi, lactation, lactation consultant, nursing, weaning, working -

When you are researching, it may seem that using a free or low cost Lactation Consultant is the best way to start. Another way of thinking is that if you never breastfed before, an excellent Lactation Consultant will shorten your learning curve and prevent problems that will cost you even more money. But how do you know?

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communication, creation, Donna Bruschi, expectations, gratitude, grief, joy, mama, mothering, new baby, pregnancy, separation, spring -

By Donna Bruschi   You came to me as a small fish: frantic, untiring, unceasing Swimming upstream to the place of your birth Your only need, to reach the headwaters. At that moment, I knew and surrendered   And a spring deep inside me sprang. And I held you. You asked me to fill a pond and I did. In time, your incessant demands pushed forth a tiny stream. Droplets skittering over my being, your essence seeping into my dust Each day a new gush, another groove, cut and deepened And still you spurted forth, Carving me in ways I...

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communication, Ember, emotions, empathy, expectations, guilt, keeping calm, kindness, Lisa Bullard, meltdowns, memories, mothering, parenting, tantrums, toddler -

By Lisa Bullard (Originally published January 2013) First of all, Happy New Year!!! May 2013 bring everyone much joy, harmony, and love! On a more mundane note, my thoughts have been scattered for, oh, about 17 months now . . . I’m bringing this up because I just couldn’t figure out what to write for the newsletter and I realized it was because this is what was going on: Me thinking: I could write about how amazing language is and I . . Me talking: “Wait! Ember, honey, we can’t climb on that shelf! Yikes! Here. Would you like to...

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