Really living the Continuum

Ok, this is going to upset some people. I've been thinking a lot about how much we're really living in a way true to our human continuum and how we can reconcile it with the society we live in without having to move to the wilderness (although I'm often tempted). So a few days ago on a continuum concept inspired facebook group there was a suggestion that we have a get together for a summer break. Great! I immediately said we would go. Many comments later I realized that it would mainly be the mothers and this children with the partners not interested in going. Maybe I'm just lucky in the sense that my partner is very much a part of a continuum family unit, he sleeps with Mr Baby and carries him as well as being interested in all the books I have read and wanting to experience a different type of parenting from the one we had. We were keen to see how other families were doing it and were very surprised to see that, at least in the UK, it just seems to be the mums doing it. But doesn't that defy the point? A big part of the book was that women should not bring children up in isolation, so if women in the UK are still being left at home alone all day, it's great we're breastfeeding, babywearing and co-sleeping but shouldn't we call it just Attachment Parenting? Saying that we are Continuum families is just not correct. That probably applies to me as well, even though I have a like minded partner we are still a nuclear family (the rest of my family is in Italy and my partner's in Sussex) so my children are not part of a supportive tribe.

Stone age babies

I read something that really touched me this evening in Three in a Bed by Deborah Jackson. Namely that we have come a long way, women now can go for the jobs they want, there is no shortage of childcare arrangements, we live in a modern age. Except for the fact that we give birth to stone age babies whose instincts ask us to hold them close (preferably all the time) day and night and who want to sleep between the two bodies who gave them life in the first place.
This reminds me of when I was reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and I realized that our genes are possibly millions of years old, evolution takes a very long time and our babies will be born expecting the same treatment as if they were born in a jungle, a cave, whatever... So to them being alone means that their life is in danger, no wonder they want to be kept as close as possible.

Disjointed

Feeling very disjointed today, we've all been ill a lot and my two little ones wake up a few times in the night so I'm not sleeping properly. With this being Christmas week I feel I should be doing all these wonderful things like baking and decorating and arts and crafts with the kids but in reality I'm pretty much tired all the time and am behind with the laundry not to mention my Universtiy course... I feel rather alone (but not too much as my partner is wonderful, but when we're ill or need help it's just us...) and miss having a big family around me.

New carrier!!

Done it again! Got a new baby carrier, arrived in the post today and we absolutely love it! It's the best one yet. It's an Ergo (organic fashion range) and is softer than the Oh Snap but more structured than the Connecta, so we're all happy bunnies.

Co-sleeping little ones

Amazingly they never woke each other up!

Research against controlled crying and cry it out

Found a facebook page with lots of links on articles and reseach showing how and why cc and cio are harmful (if it wasn't obvious... more than a few seconds of mr baby crying and I feel like crying myself)

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=51979053447&topic=8773

Co-sleeping definition

Sorry for pinching your cartoon Heather, it was just too good!!!

No nursery for us

I had a conversation recently with a friend who told me I am entitled to 15 hours free of charge for Mr Toddler to attend preschool when he is 3 years old (in January) so she thought it would be nice for me to have a few hours a day to myself. Friends and family in Italy have also mentioned that it's time he was in nursery (just a few hours in the morning) and that he would probably enjoy it.
Well, I don't feel the same. Everyone who has given me this information and advice is very sweet and means well but I just don't want him to go to nursery, preschool, whatever, to be honest I'll struggle when he has to go to school!
Why? Two reasons. The first is me! I absolutely love his company, he's a wonderful little person and I don't like it when he's not around, he is very good at independent play and I have never had trouble doing housework, reading, computer work, whatever, with him in the house. In fact he often follows me around and tries to help (even if it's blowing bubbles when I do the washing up). So what are all these things that I need to do on my own? I'm not sure, I've taken the little ones pretty much everywhere I needed to go. And luckily I don't need to go back to work right now.
The second is that I think he's too young to be on his own, yes he loves playing with other kids and group activities but we do something like this every day (playgroups, swimming, activity groups) and if he gets upset or hurts himself I am there for him, I can't imagine him getting upset and me not being there. Yes he will be looked after, but just looked after, no one there will love him and cherish him. So I think this is what it comes down to, like Mr Winnicott said, children need to feel like little gods to build up good self esteem, they need to feel that the world is a safe and comfy place where all their needs are met, when they grow up they will find that it's probably not so nice, but they will carry that peaceful inner world with them and it will help in times of stress.
And who else is going to give Mr Toddler all this? Not some stranger as qualified and sweet as she might be, I feel that we are still very much attached to each other, when the time comes to move apart it will happen naturally, but for the time being me and Mr Toddler as still very much rowing the same boat.

What is attachment?

I haven't written here lately as we all became very ill after coming back from holiday, and I mean real horrendous flu with high temperature, throat infections, you name it!

I came across this video by Attachment Parenting International a couple of weeks ago and it made me cry it's so lovely. What is attachment?

I told you to...

Today I slipped into traditional parent mode for a minute and the results were very interesting. We're in Cumbria and due to the snow we couldn't do any walking with the little ones or much driving to the various attractions. So the next best thing was a boat ride up and down the lake. A bit cold but lovely, Mr Toddler entertained himself with a bucket (...) when he got bored of looking at the snow. When it was time to get off the boat Mr Toddler got a bit upset as there was a lot of slippery ice on deck and asked for his special blanket, this was in my bag and I couldn't reach it as I also had Mr Baby in a carrier. So by the time we got off the boat and reached the boathouse he was a little desperate, we got the blanket out and he started dragging it across the very dirty floor. I was tired and struggling to get the two little ones back to the car through the slippery path so started telling him to pick the blanket up, to hold it properly. Nothing. The blanket is still being dragged across the snow, I try to pick it up for him. Screams ensue: "It's my blanket!!!!!" and unthinkingly I keep saying: "Come on, pick the blanket up!" to no avail.
Finally the penny drops. I've been encouraging him to make his own decisions and to understand consequences for himself, so finally I say: "Look, your blanket is getting very wet and dirty as it's touching the ground". Like magic the blanket is instantly lifted from the floor, so the key is not telling him what to do but to point something out, to explain a consequence (if you snatch the toy from Mr Baby he will be sad and cry) so he can make the right choice himself, and I have to say that he pretty much always makes a positive one.

Thank you to Martin Zalesny for this beautiful photo of the Lake District in the snow.

Snow

Mr Toddler couldn't sleep last night so we ended up wandering round the house together at about 4am. We looked out of the window and the world was white, how magical. I picked him up to show him the snow and he shouted IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!

Contolling the masses over the centuries

To carry on with the behaviour modification theme, a lovely member of my happy hippie mommies group posted some interesting quotes, I thought I might share (thank you Caroline):

Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished ... The social psychologist of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at: first, that influences of the home are 'obstructive' and verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective ... It is for the future scientist to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen."


Bertrand Russell quoting Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the head of philosophy & psychology who influenced Hegel and others – Prussian University in Berlin, 1810



"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas...

Dr. G. Brock Chisholm, psychiatrist and co-founder of the World Federation of Mental Health



The family is now one of the major obstacles to improved mental health, and hence should be weakened, if possible, so as to free individuals and especially children from the coercion of family life."

International Congress on Mental Health, London, 1948



The techniques of brainwashing developed in totalitarian countries are routinely used in psychological conditioning programs imposed on school children. These include emotional shock and desensitization, psychological isolation from sources of support, stripping away defenses, manipulative cross-examination of the individual’s underlying moral values by psychological rather than rational means. These techniques are not confined to separate courses or programs...they are not isolated idiosyncracies of particular teachers. They are products of numerous books and other educational materials in programs packaged by organizations that sell such curricula to administrators and teach the techniques to teachers. Some packages even include instructions on how to deal with parents and others who object. Stripping away psychological defenses can be done through assignments to keep diaries to be discussed in group sessions, and through role-playing assignments, both techniques used in the original brainwashing programs in China under Mao.

Thomas Sowell, writing in Forbes, 1991

Our PM thinks we don't know what's best for us...

You know when you find out about something and suddenly you realize it's all around you? Like when I found out what the word empirical meant and suddenly it was in every book I read!
Well now that I worked out the link between the behaviourists (and Skinner in particular) and discipline techniques like the ones used by Supernanny (and a lot of schools as well) mainly behaviour modification, Skinner seems to pop up everywere... incredible as he's been dead for over 20 years...

The newest piece of news comes from our lovely coalition government, see link below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2010/11/post_1.html
as it seems that Skinner's ideas have been resurrected to better control us, the idea is that there is no point trusting the British people as we don't really know what's good for us, so why not use a few techniques to "nudge" us into the right direction.

Why do we have all these bedrooms?

I was at the kids' playgroup the other day and was talking to one of the people who run it. He knew that Mr Toddler was having trouble sleeping so asked me how he was doing. I told him we had moved him back into our own bedroom (and don't I feel silly? I read the Continuum Concept a year ago and it's taken me this long to bring the poor boy back in with us...) and that now the four of us are all together.
Instead of commenting on this he said instead: "You know, it makes you wonder why we have all these bedrooms!"
And of course it's true, at the moment my stepchildren sleep together in a double bed in the guest bedroom and my boys are in with us so there's currently two lovely bedrooms which are unused... I suppose it's to do with (supposed) wealth: sleeping together brings to mind poverty and cramped conditions so most of us tend to want to distance ourselves from this, if we all have a bedroom each we must be successful, we must be doing well.

Earlier today I was reading about a study that was conducted amongst the Bangladeshi community in the UK as there seem to be very few cases of cot death (SIDS) amongst them. Of course the vast majority of parents interviewed said they slept with their babies regardless of their financial situation.
One lady, in particular, said: "I like to wake up in the night and see my whole family around me". Isn't that lovely? That's just how I feel.

Buddhist joke

A monk goes to buy a hoover for the monastery, the next day he returns it to the shop, sorry, he says, but we just couldn't keep it: it has too many attachments...

 

This joke was told to me by a Buddhist when I was also a student of Buddhism so I hope no one gets offended :-)

Behaviour modification, surprising discovery!

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather (or more accurately, my jaw dropped open cartoon style) this afternoon when I was studying a chapter on learning (for my psychology degree) and behaviourism in particular.
I'll give you some background: you know these behaviour modification techniques and ideas that we use to discipline children? Essentially punishments and rewards, Supernanny style. They are used in schools and parents are expected to use them as well, punishment/time outs (naughty steps, being sent to a bedroom) for bad behaviour and rewards (stickers, treats) for good behaviour. So much so that it's now common practice, starting with babies (routines, controlled crying, and so on) as if our children are unruly creatures, not to be trusted, with no sense of good and bad who need to be controlled as much as possible.
Now, I did some reading to find out where this behaviour modification came from, is it scientifically valid? Why do we do it? Does it work? And it all leads back to a man called Skinner, he was an American psychologist, a behaviourist to be more exact (he believed in studying behaviour not inner states as these could not be measured) who ran a number of experiments on animals (rats and pigeons mainly) in the 40s and 50s. He realized that these animals responded to things like punishments and rewards (positive reinforcements) and their behaviour changed: they were more likely to do something if there was a reward and less likely if there was a punishment (rat presses a lever and gets food, he will press the lever next time he's hungry).
Psychologists subsequently used this research (calling it behaviour modification) for cases of children with behaviour and developmental problems (not the average child, the ones with "difficult" behaviour). Now, for some reason these techniques became more and more mainstream until they were used for the majority of children, and from schools this trickled into the home, with parents moving away from a strict authoritarian style to behaviour modification.
Just reading this worried me, we are using techniques on children designed to change the behaviour of rats and pigeons...
And this brings me to my discovery today. I vaguely remember studying this last year and reading that, to the surprise of the scientists involved, punishments didn't really work: if a rat got an electric shock by pressing a lever, he would be less likely to press it in future, but a lot of rats still pressed it. So today I'm reading the chapter again and at the end it says that Skinner himself stated that punishments should not be used (only in very extreme cases), behaviour can only be changed through positive reinforcements. Punishments cause stress, anxiety and anger in the subjects and there is no guarantee that the subject will stop the "bad" behaviour. This is psychology degree coursebook, not a fancy hippie text.
So why are we still doing it?????? Why are we still putting kids on naughty steps or telling them off? Why are we controlling little babies by forcing them to eat and sleep at certain times and, most importantly, why are we using controlling techniques like controlled crying to change the behaviour of babies (if you cry no one will come, if you sleep everyone will be happy with you and give you lots of hugs and positive reinforcements).
I will be doing more reading on this...

Example of "Skinner box" for studying behaviour in rats

I'm not content with GF

Ha ha, this made me laugh... thank you happy hippie mommies (who I pinched it from)!

Difference of opinions online

This is not strictly a "real life" problem as I have never had anyone make nasty comments about my parenting choices to my face, well... the closest we got was when the health visitor told us to put Mr Baby in a cot next to us when I had just said we intended to co-sleep, but I bit my tongue, she was just reciting the official mantra.
The problem I'm having is online, on my baby and child related forums specifically. I belong to a few and I mainly go on Babycentre, my favourite group is Happy Hippie Mommies as all the other members share my views on controlled crying and responsive parenting, some of us are more extreme than others but I have never got into any sort of personal argument with anyone. The problem is the more general groups like my birth club (all babies born February 2010) and the toddler group that I have now left as my posts were being removed without explanation or warning. The issues always seem to be the same: I am against any type of baby training, especially leaving babies to cry alone, but god forbid you should mention this or, even worse, back it up with real scientific research. They bite back like religious fundamentalists who think you have insulted their god, in this case their way of life and cultural beliefs.
All I'm saying is, please step away from what is familiar and just look at the evidence, why do these ladies forget we are animals with genes that are millions of years old, our babies expect to be held as this is what their genes tell them, the poor child crying down the end of the corridor in his room alone is not being naughty or manipulative, he's alone and lost, his brain is telling him that alone he cannot survive so those cries are real anguish.
So here it is, how do I reconcile these ideas with the very different ones I come across? I don't feel like compromising, should I just leave the groups where these issues will come up and stick to the safety of the ones who share my beliefs? I don't know...

Mr Toddler gets a new bed

So what happened? Mr Toddler got a new bed, complete with dinosaur bedding (you can't really get any better than that!) and here he is:

It's in our bedroom so we now are all together. I have to make a confession: all the time he was sleeping in his own room I felt it was somehow wrong. I'd put him to bed, say goodnight and go downstairs, as soon as I'd left him I would feel so sad that he was on his own in the dark, but we had gone through all this silly "training" to get him to sleep all night on his own that it seemed pointless changing things and confusing him all over again.
Well, as I write he is asleep in his big boy bed and Mr Baby is in the same room in our bed, in an hour or so we will also go upstairs and we will all be together, this time it feels right!

On my baby and child bookshelf

I was looking at my bookcase and noticed I have a nice selection of baby and child related books, I thought I might share them.

• The Attachment Parenting book - The Sears (basics for the attached parent and child, very nicely written and very popular)
• The good behaviour book - The Sears (good overview but I still don't agree with some of it, instead of coming up with an alternative is pulls the best out of current discipline methods but still better than most)
• How not to f*** them up - Oliver James (I really enjoyed this book, very very well written)
• They f*** you up - Oliver James (not strictly baby related but a good overview of how our initial years make us who we are)
• Raising boys - Steve Biddulph (good book from a family therapist although I disagree with some of it like keeping boys back a year at school and how dads are there to uphold discipline when mums struggle... really?)
• Raising happy children - Steve Biddulph (again good mainstream book but not that great from an AP/Continuum perspective, he doesn't agree with co-sleeping and states there should be some distance between parents as authority and their children otherwise we won't be respected)
• The secret of happy children (as above)
• A secure base - John Bowly (the originator of the attachment theory, a wonderful psychology book)
• How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk - Faber and Mazlish (to be honest I haven't read it yet, bought it to help with older children but not got around to it yet, was highly recommended though)
• The no-cry sleep solution -  Elizabeth Pantley (great great alternative to controlled crying)
• Why love matters - Sue Gerhardt (very technical book, don't be fooled by the fluffy title, about brain reactions in babies and why they should never be left to cry)
• The Continuum Concept - Jean Liedloff (one of the most wonderful books I have ever read, totally eye opening, it was like being slapped awake, some of the science bit is a bit dodgy but the description of an idyllic society is just wonderful, I aspire to it)
• Unconditional parenting - Alfie Kohn (another amazing eye-opener of a book, how punishments and rewards don't really work, I had suspected this for a very long time)
• Letting go as children grow - Deborah Jackson (the author of Three in a bed, have not got round to reading this yet but I bought it as I feel I might need it :) I am rather attached to my kids...)
• The diaper free baby - Christine Gross-Loh (wonderful idea, you don't have to do it all the time, shame that I'm a horrible wimp and my kids are still in nappies)
• Baby Led Weaning - Gill Rapley & Tracey Murkett (THE BIBLE OF WEANING!!!! So cross I didn't know this existed with my first child, no more purees, wonderful!!!)
• What every parent needs to know - Margot Sunderland (started quite well, a lot of information about what happens to babies' and children's brains, so more of the responsive parenting approach, I was surprised though at the mention of tantrums and time outs when it got to toddlers, not very unconditional at all...)
• Three in a bed - Deborah Jackson (another wonderful book, mainly about co-sleeping but with a very good section on how the whole baby training business came about)

The Continuum Concept's Yequana indians

Baby training really does not work

From everything I've read and researched it seems clear that trying to train your baby and child like they were pets really does not work in the long run (or the short one... depends what your aims are), we're still using Victorian methods which are based on very non-scientific assumptions, mainly that children need training as soon as possible to make them fit into our society. Children's needs take second place, it is more important to have them "sleep through" preferably in their own room and to be fed "proper balanced" pureed food, of course you have to put them in a pram and cot, god forbid they get too close to you, they'll still want to sleep with you when they're teenagers... Rods for backs enter the equation and so on and so on.
So this brings me to personal experience, our poor Mr Toddler was put in his room at 6 months after having co-slept with us and been carried in a sling (was breastfed till he was 4 months old), looking back I really don't know why I did it... everybody expected me to and as he was my first I guess I just thought that this is what you did, my sister co-slept with all her children and was branded a messy hippie with no rules and kids running wild, so I also wanted to distance myself from this.
The first year was a nightmare, Mr Toddler woke up repeatedly and would not go back to sleep, much rocking and story reading ensued, culminating in an attempt at controlled crying when he was one. None of it worked, he still woke up! When he was about 18 months old he started sleeping better and was happy to go to bed on his own. So you would think that the job was done, baby trained, all sleeping nicely now! Actually no, what happened was that we conditioned him to sleep at a certain time in a certain place, he was doing it because we made him not because he wanted to.
Fast forward to last week, he finally worked out how to get out of his cot...
No more bedtime at 8pm, no more sleeping in his own room... Can we blame him really? He has now decided to do things his way, which mean going to bed when we go (10pm) and sleeping with us. So at this point we will try and undo the early damage and let him sleep where he wants to, we'll put a single bed in our room (last night it was 4 of us in the same bed, a little cramped) and see if he's happy with this, no more child training for us, it comes back to bite you in the end.

All the pretty little horses

Having a folk moment (well, I don't need much encouragement...), was listening to this wonderful lullaby on one of my kids' cds the other day and decided to find out a bit more, I was in tears when I realized...
Here are the lyrics:

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,


Go to sleepy you little baby.

When you wake, you shall have cake,

And all the pretty little horses.

Blacks and bays, dapples and greys,

Go to sleepy you little baby,

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,

Go to sleepy little baby.

Hush-a-bye, don't you cry,

Go to sleepy little baby,

When you wake, you shall have,

All the pretty little horses.

Way down yonder, down in the meadow,

There's a poor wee little lamby.

The bees and the butterflies pickin' at its eyes,

The poor wee thing cried for her mammy.

It was originally sung by an African American slave who could not take care of her baby because she was too busy taking care of her master's child. She would therefore sing this song to her master's child (Lacy 1986, p. 76). Originally, the lyrics were "birds and butterflies, peck at his eyes" but were changed to "birds and butterflies, flutter 'round his eyes" to make the lullaby less violent for younger children. This theory is backed by the reference to "wee little lamby...cried for her mammy" as slaves were often forcibly separated from their own families in order to serve their owners. This verse is in a very different emotional tenor to the rest of the lullaby, suggesting a particular significance. (from Wikipedia)


Also found some great renditions on YouTube
Joan Baez http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ9FDLSI98k
Odetta http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7QXidR_Aks
And this lovely man who dedicates it to his daughter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clqj1j9PrgQ&feature=related

From the mouth of babes

We were having lunch in a museum cafe today, me, Mr Baby and Mr Toddler who were sharing a cheese sandwich. A lady with a baby older than Mr Baby sat next to us and proceeded to pull out baby food and relative apparatus. Mr Toddler who has never seen me spoon feed Mr Baby (we do baby led weaning) was very interested in the goings on next to us, he finally turned to me and said (rather loudly, the lady next to us definitely heard us): Mummy... what is baby eating? Is is porridge?

Great photography

This is where I shamelessly plug my partner's website, beautiful photography!
http://www.martinzalesny.com/Martin_Zalesny/Welcome.html

Put to the test

You might be mistaken in thinking that my children (after all I have been writing on unconditional parenting) are the best behaved and loveliest in the world (well... loveliest I suppose they are in the running) so you might get some satisfaction in knowing that all my lovely theories were loudly put to the test this evening.
Supper time comes along and Mr Toddler is blowing bubbles in the kitchen while I cook, I put everything on the tray and go to the dining room announcing that said supper is ready. No Mr Toddler, this is not unusual, he is only 2! So I go and get him and as soon as he comes into the room he spots the pirate box on the table (pirate arts and crafts), I curse myself for not having removed it.
Immediately he shouts I WANT PIRATES! I say yes we'll play with pirates after you have eaten (I actually said this to a 2 year old expecting he would get it?) and of course he runs off crying I WANT PIIIIIIIIRATES!!!
As he eats like a sparrow (a small one at that) I insist that he has some food and that we'll do pirates later, he screams at the top of his voice sounding rather like a loud donkey NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Shall I be honest? My first reaction was to give him my old teacher look and march him off to his bedroom, then all I have read and thought about (and written about in this here blog) kicked in, am I also a 2 year old? Is this tit for tat? It did also dawn on me that he probably wasn't hungry otherwise he would've been eating (it was chicken bits with peas, he loves both) so what did I do? Get down to his level and give him a hug (this really shocked him) and said sit down and I'll see what pirates we can play with. So he sat down, picked up a chicken bit and I tried to find the least messy pirate thing he could play with. We both calmed down, some chicken was eaten (not much, I was right he wasn't hungry) and the pirates were forgotten after about 30 seconds... But it was really hard, so hard to go against your anger and things you have done 1000 times before.

Kayan or Kenyah woman with baby in traditional carrier

Thank you to Erwin Bolwidt (El Rabbit)'s photos via Getty Images

Testing limits

Here's another one to go under the microscope! It is widely accepted (by anyone I've spoken to anyway, including my college lecturers) that small children test our limits, in the sense that they behave in a more and more obnoxious manner until we tell them to (or make them) stop. The theory is that what they really want is for us to put them back in their place and restore order, so they feel that their parents are in charge and feel more secure as a consequence.
As you might have guessed I'm beginning to have a problem with this. I agree that small children are not great at regulating their emotions and sometimes need help in calming down when overexcited or upset. But I take this to mean that they want to feel calm again, not to be told off.
I'm looking at my sons as I write and I really don't believe that they have any interest in pushing my buttons just to see what I do, it would imply that they don't trust me, that they have to keep checking that I'm going to look after them properly.

Keep getting in trouble in forums...

Am I particularly insensitive or just very opinionated? I've lost count of the times my posts and sometimes whole threads have been removed by the administrators of the online forums I'm part of. And these seem rather harmless groups, like my birth club group or a toddler group... This last one I had to leave completely as I was getting upset! Even the hippie ones have removed posts of mine...
So what am I doing? Mainly it's about controlled crying, leaving babies to cry for longer periods of time to teach them to go to sleep on their own. We tried this with Mr Toddler and not a day goes by I don't regret it, it's a horrible thing to do to a little kid who needs you so much (and he was over a year old when we did it, some people do it to babies) so I guess I'm very evangelical about it. I have the fervour of the newly converted (to all things unconditional and attachment based) and can be a little insensitive, but I ask myself: why are posts that describe little kids making themselves sick because they've been left to cry ok, why are these not removed? But my critique is apparently offensive, is it not offensive to read about otherwise loving mothers doing this to their kids?
I hope that with the mounting amount of scientific evidence at our disposal, a few years from now this will be seen as a nasty thing of the past, on a par with sending children to workhouses.

Lily Allen

This is a bit of a departure for me as I don't watch television or have much interest in the world of celebrity (although I love cinema and read magazines) but it was hard to ignore the news that Lily Allen has had a miscarriage at 6 months (is it still a miscarriage so far along?).
This upset me a great deal, I know she had a previous miscarriage a couple of years ago and I once read an interview where she spoke about her feelings regarding this. Having some experience myself as well as having had two successful pregnancies I am just horrified at how she must be feeling. I guess it's hard not to put myself in her place and imagine the pain it would cause.
I don't know what the use of this post is really... just to say that I have been thinking about her a lot and even though I don't know her or all the other women who have miscarriages every day of the week, I wish I could give them all the most enormous hug.

Tantrums

Well, I've been thinking... this is one area where absolutely all books, resources and advice go in the one direction (apart from unconditional parenting and the continuum concept) and that is: if a child is having a tantrum you must never never ever give in and let the child have what he/she wants, civilisation will come to an end and it will be your fault for being a wimp. Even books like What every parent needs to know which build on a very positive premise of not leaving your babies to cry as it damages their brain then revert to traditional methods when it comes to toddlers and tantrums.
But I'm thinking that the sweet/tv programme/5 more minutes at the park might not be what's really important, I don't distinguish between different types of tantrum (the distressed and manipulating ones) as I don't believe my child is an evil creature put on this earth to misbehave and manipulate me. I think my child is the loveliest person with the best of intentions and that he is in some way distressed or frustrated and needs my help.
An example: the other morning Mr Toddler was woken up early as he had to go out with his dad, he does not sleep very well and is always a bit grumpy in the morning. When it came to get him in the car he started screaming "I want cake" (meaning a mini swiss roll) after having refused breakfast earlier. So if I had followed the conventional or supernanny method I should not have given in because he was screaming at me and not asking politely? Or just produced his toast from earlier and say if you're hungry eat this?
But from the look on his little face I could see that what he was really saying was: mum I feel weird and uncomfortable, I needed more sleep and that is why I wasn't hungry at breakfast, I've been put in the car and don't know why, I'm getting very upset and hungry now, please help me. Not having the language to express this (and would most adults?) he just cried and screamed for cake. Of course I gave him the swiss roll as well as cuddles and kisses (gosh, real bad mum...) and did civilisation come to an end? No, he calmed down and smiled, did he do it again the next morning as I had been such a pushover? No, he had his breakfast as usual and has not asked for cake since!

Final baby carrier stash

I think I have now come to the end of my baby carrier buying, so I'd like to share my "stash" with you, the pictures aren't us though... well there might be one :)

Babyhawk Oh Snap (the same as the one in the picture but with the pattern below)

Babyhawk Mei Tai

Connecta Integra

And... oh well... ok! Here's one of me and Mr Baby in the Connecta this summer

Unconditional parenting

Carrying on from an earlier post about challenging traditional discipline methods, I ordered the book Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn and am currently on page 26. I am utterly blown away! This man is talking about the exact same things I have been mulling over for the last few months, if not longer...
He likens the "normal" way we have of disciplining children (Supernanny comes to mind, everyone wants to be in charge like her!) to the same transactional system we have in business/economics where you never get something for nothing but everything must be earned, love included. It sounds harsh but if you think about it in practice it is true, here is an example: he mentions one night when his daughter was being difficult, in the sense that she shouted a lot at them and refused to have her bath. After the storm has passed her parents asked themselves if they should still do the night time routine of cuddles and stories before bed. Traditional methods (or conditional ones) tell us that she needs to be punished as being nice to her will only reinforce her bad behaviour, so if she's put to bed with no cuddles or stories she will behave better next time (assuming that children are naturally bad and that they only behave well if we force them to). Conditional parenting will look beyond the behaviour to the child herself, she is only 4 and a new baby has recently been added to the family, she is upset and cross at her parents as she feels they are no longer being with her as much as she has been used to. The unconditional way (I love you no matter how you behave, I love the person not the actions) is to very much give her cuddles and stories as she desperately needs to know she is still loved but to still mention that her behaviour made things hard for everyone.

12 exercises for mindful parenting

Just as I had nearly given up on my Buddhist practice (well, more put aside really) a really useful discussion was emailed to me from Tricycle magazine (the Buddhist review) about guess what? Staying mindful while looking after children... This was a link I found there, lovely "exercises" to keep mindfulness real and not just as part of a Buddhist practice. http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/changing%20parenting/mindfulparentingzinn.html

Babywearing rules!!

Well, ok, I'm biased... But the more I think about it (having carried 2 babies in various slings and carriers) the more I see that this is the right thing to do, on forums and listening to parents speak I keep coming across all the problems that we just don't have, like having to put baby to sleep or the endless hours pacing the corridor at night when baby won't go back to sleep or baby not "going down" for naps. Well we just pop little one in the carrier and he falls asleep on his own while we get on with things.

A shining example is right now: mr baby has a temperature due to two teeth coming out at the same time, he woke up and was too unsettled to go back to sleep, he came into bed with us and had cuddles but no way hose. In the end I put him in his carrier and went down to make a cup of chamomile, came to write on this here lovely blog and he's asleep!!! Need I say more? Oh and thank you to the artist who drew this lovely image, I found it online but don't know where it comes from.

Fallen off the cushion

Well I can really and truly say that my Buddhist studies have come to a sad halt... As well as any meditation I was doing. Tired? You bet! Happy? Very much! Has this got something to do with it? As I feel very contented I no longer need Buddhism? For what I have studied and experienced up to now this is a tricky place to be as things are ever changing and my happiness is by no means permanent (well, it could be but we just don't know) wouldn't it be better if I stayed on the Buddha wagon? I read this today and it mirrored my feelings somewhat:

Consumer Culture and Spiritual Practice

Consumer culture is modeled on instant gratification. We say we want a close relationship with a spiritual mentor, but when that mentor’s guidance challenges our desires or pushes our ego’s buttons too much, we stop seeking it. At the beginning of our practice, we profess to be earnest spiritual seekers, aiming for enlightenment. But after the practice has remedied our immediate problem—the emotional fallout of a divorce, grief at the loss of a loved one, or life’s myriad setbacks—our spiritual interest fades, and we once again seek happiness in possessions, romantic relationships, technology, and career.

- Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron, "Shopping the Dharma"

Challenging traditional discipline

I've spent a lot of time thinking lately about "traditional" discipline meaning punishments and rewards and how I feel it doesn't really work. In the sense that what we have done is trained our kids to do and not do certain things but would they want to behave in the same way if we were not around? Would they still do it if they didn't get a sticker/treat/whatever reward we give? Are they behaving well for us or for themselves? That is my question...
Coming from a continuum concept/attachment parenting way of seeing things I think that mine is just a natural progression, as my eldest moves through toddlerhood I do hope he is truly deciding for himself what is right and wrong for him. I also hope that I am showing him by example, by what I do and not by what I say. I have ordered a book called Uncoditional Parenting so hope to find out more about how others have done it, I also know there is something called Unschooling which sounds very interesting, lots to find out!

EU MP with baby in sling

This made my day!!!

This is a link to the original article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314283/Licia-Ronzulli-brings-baby-EU-Parliament.html and can I be smug? She Italian!!!!

Oh dear...

The baby carrier arrived today and we hated it!!! Uncomfortable to put on and to keep on... I've sent it back. I guess there's a moral to this story, if you already have something that's good and that works why on earth would you want to go searching for the "perfect" thing instead, in our case our lovely connecta is fine, comfy, Mr Baby loves it, yes he is a bit heavy, but I will just have to get used to a back carry instead! No more searching for a perfect that probably doesn't exist.

Done it again...

Bought yet antother baby carrier... But to my defence I have listed an old one on ebay... Anyone interested in a cream padded ring sling? The new one is a patapum in chocolate, can't wait!!! Mr baby is getting very heavy so I like the look of this one.

Mummy wars mark 2

Ok, after careful consideration I have decided to leave all forum groups where I could encounter posts advocating Gina Ford and similar child training stuff, why bother getting upset... A lot of women clearly think this is best for their children, there is a lot of literature out there telling them the opposite but they would rather listen to "experts" who promise an easy ride, what can I do? Getting cross does not seem to work :)

Mummy wars

I feel like Galileo today (well, most days...) having discovered that the earth is round and finding that everyone around him wants him to be quiet as of course the earth is flat and the sun goes around us... The reason for this? Child and baby training. I have just left a group I very much enjoyed on the babycentre forum as the talk of controlled crying and children left to vomit until they fall asleep exhausted has made me as ill as these poor children. I tried this damned cc myself with my first child and not a day goes by that I don't regret it. All the scientific texts that I have read point to the fact that parents need to be very responsive to their babies, this leads to more secure children and adults not the other way round, I was told that attachment parenting is not good as children need to be independent, but silly ignorant woman!! That's what attachment does! It's leaving these poor mites to cry that turns them into needy and clingy children and adults. Why do most parents still believe the earth is flat then, when it comes to childcare? Is it because baby books are big business? Supernanny has great ratings! How sad for all of us...

The one!

I might have found my perfect baby carrier! A connecta integra, he's hardly been out of it, and shall we mention the hood?

Tribal Wives

This programme is really affecting me... just finished watching the third episode and was in tears at the end. It seems as if a lot of the problems that these women are facing due to issues with their families are helped by the acceptance and very real love of their tribal family. The woman tonight struggled to let go of her identity as someone who dressed in a certain way and wore make up, someone who lived in the UK with no restrictions (that's what she thinks... there's a mountain of restrictions but we don't see them as such because we have been brought up with them) and it was so liberating for her when she did manage to let go, at the end she is parading topless through the village in a ceremony and she feels like one of them, saying that it was only a small top that stood in the way.

I'm back!!

Not been very bloggish lately... we went away on holiday (in the caravan) with my little ones and my two stepchildren (also rather little) and we were so tired when we came back it's taken me this long to recover... Things that have made me think since writing here last are more about how attachment parenting changes you as a person and the programme Tribal Wives.
I didn't really know what I was doing with my first son, a mix of instinct (babywearing, breastfeeding, sleeping together, not sending him to nursery) and advice from others (doctors included) which wasn't so good, as well as a slightly anal need to have him on a routine of some sort. My experience with number two is similar in the sense that I follow my instincts but having read about AP I can now trust these, and this has bought me closer to number one as well. I would go as far as saying that AP has pulled down barriers between me and my children, we trust each other and feel completely comfortable together, it feels wonderful. Has it also made me a better person all round? I hope so...
And then Tribal Wives, what a lovely programme! How meaningless our consumer driven lives and our need for more and more possessions seem, how sad that we have lost the wonderful connection with all the other humans around us (including our babies) and are now trying to fill the gap with other (artificial) things. The only thing that makes me cross is the great divide between men and women that still exists in the world.

Tired

I'm sitting in my living room at the end of the day and I am so tired I could cry! The boys are both in bed, the baby was very restless today so we didn't have a nap, he wouldn't lie down, he would only sleep in the carrier which wasn't much help for my nap. I could've had one standing, like a horse maybe? How do parents who don't carry their babies manage? I really feel for them... little one has an average nap time of 20 minutes alone, in the carrier or the wrap he can go for ages. I wanted to post something profound but I'm too tired... I've been wanting to go back to some sort of Buddhist practice but when exactly do I sit down and meditate on my own? I suppose babywearing meditation could be a new technique, or does it exist already?

Weird... in a carrier with a dummy

Not sure how natural this is but my little one will only sleep in the carrier with a dummy... here he is as I write!

Upset with the Sunday Times

A friend of mine bought the sunday times (I would normally have nothing against it, my mother reads it) and I found myself getting rather cross just looking through it. First comes an article (in the main paper) on how bullying is good for children as it teaches them to stand up for themselves... do we want to go there? Then (in the style magazine) there's a review on the latest Penelope Leach's book (the anti-Gina) and I think: great! That's unexpected! Just to find the review a p**s take of responsive parenting. It made me feel very sad, even if people are told the truth they would rather go through the pain of baby training, for what? A glass of wine with the husband at the end of the day? We have that same glass of wine and baby is free to join us with his milk if he wants to. He adds to our evening instead of being seen as a nuisance.

What every parent needs to know

It was suggested I read this book (by Margot Sunderland), it arrived today and I have already devoured 40 pages of it, thanks for the suggestion!!!
It explains in layman terms what Sue Gerhardt in her Why Love Matters covers in her book, and expands it to cover strategies and advice on coping with distressed children.
Effectively it is about how babie's brains are nowhere near finished (so any distress like being left to cry will affect brain development) and how adults need to help children to regulated their emotions, this gives them a model they will use for the rest of their life. So the mother who is always there to soothe her distressed child by picking him/her up is not spoiling the child or making him/her a weaker individual. Far from it! She is regulating his/her feeling and showing the child that no matter how upset you get, there is always a way to feel better and to calm down.

Continuum and stages of development

One thing that really surprised me while reading the Continuum Concept was that the Yequana children did not seem to go through the same stages of development (read Freud and Erikson) that ours do. For example: in the UK we refer to toddlerhood as the "terrible twos", this corresponds to Freud's anal stage where children learn about (and challenge) authority, so toddlers are expected to be little terrors, anyone noticed how many kids t-shirts (for boys at least) there are with "monster" written on them?
So why don't the Yequana children do the same? Is it because they don't fit into the western model of child development? Or is it that they have negotiated the first stage (learning about trust) so well that they don't have the need to challenge the people they trust so much?
What does this say about our unruly toddlers? That they don't trust us?
It could also be our definition of "bad" behaviour that needs looking at. I was recently in Italy and a lady in the playground kept telling off her toddler for all sorts of imaginary misdemeanors, was he really naughty or was the mother the one with the problem?
I find it hard to define what is "naughty" behaviour with my two year old as he has such joie de vivre that any mess he makes is not that important, so when is he challenging? He certainly says no and "don't want to" a lot but mostly I feel that he has a point (like not wanting to wear a specific pair of shoes, how do I know how comfortable they are?). Sometimes he does get upset when our plans don't coincide (me: go shopping, him: keep playing) but I find that after the initial upset (he's still small enough to be carried to the car...) he adapts to the situation quite well. Would a Yequana baby just follow mum blindly?

Stay at home mums

I've just finished reading Why love Matters by Sue Gerhardt and I found the same considerations as the Continuum Concept on stay at home mums. Essentially that our culture does not allow us to be mothers and workers at the same time. Mothers with new babies often find themselves isolated, at home alone with the children, while partners continue to work. This might only be for the time they are on maternity leave or for longer. For women who identify with their working self, this can be very hard, coupled with the feeling that we are letting "the sisterhood" down by not being a productive member of society. If life is too short to stuff a mushroom how come I'm at home preparing the 100th meal/snack this week?
I feel very fortunate in the sense that I've had a very full life before my children were born, I am not in paid employment at the moment but see this time at home as a chance to catch up on a lot of reading and studying (when the kids are asleep) and I love carrying my baby and taking them both to the park and for walks.
But I can see that for a lot of mothers this isn't the case. We love our children desperately but what about me? The woman that was?
The solution according to both books is to integrate caring for children with a social/working life, in more rural situations the children are expected to be with the mother at all times so there's no such thing as child time and adult time, as she is part of a larger family/community others also take turns in carrying and looking after the babies, older children follow the adults and either engage in the same tasks or play independently. In an ideal society the mother would be able to take her baby to work or to spend her day with other mothers. At the moment the only women who can really do this are the work from home mum or the self employed ones.
A good example is my sister: she runs her own tattoo studio, still carries and sleeps with her one year old who goes to work with her every day, he is now crawling so when she is busy he either plays on the floor or is held by one of the other people who work there.

How did this happen?

This is the sad evidence!
As a rule I never buy anything branded, especially not for the kids, the only exception is Peppa Pig which my older son adores, so how come I found myself at home after a shopping excursion with all this stuff? Plastic as well...
It all sort of escalates... I was shopping for cutlery for the kids to go in the caravan, my son spotted a dinosaur (his other obsession) so we had to get toy story cutlery, of course the stepchildren will want the same but one is a girl so what would she like? Oh she likes hello kitty so there goes cutlery for her as well. Now let me think... the older kids have their own plates and cups but my little one doesn't so it makes sense to get him matching toy story ones... but then I know what's going to happen: the others will see the new plates and get upset that they don't have new ones... and so on...
It seems like a silly thing but it bothers me, how did someone like me who believes in all things natural end up with a load of branded plastic, I can't really blame it on the kids, they looked at them and promptly complained that they wanted the sippy cup as well, so making them happy by buying stuff is clearly impossible. Why did I even try? If I'd bought a set of bamboo plates it wouldn't have made any difference to them. I guess that being born and living in a consumer-driven society is more entrapping than I thought. Am I exaggerating?

Sleeping baby, restless toddler

You'd think that having a baby and a toddler in the house would require some work, you would also imagine that the baby is the one keeping you up and the toddler would be used to the concept of sleep by now... But no!!! You would be wrong.
I blame this on the wretched baby books I read while pregnant with my first, how babies need routines and suchlike, how you should put them in a cot to sleep preferably in their own room. Well, this is my experience: number one was in his own room at 6 months (although we had co-slept for a couple of months, then he was in a crib next to us) and effectively "trained" to sleep at certain times (the hardest work you can imagine, especially if you don't want them to cry) and the result? He still has trouble sleeping and wakes up often, he comes into our bed and is uncomfortable, fidgets, cries out and ends up in his own room after an hour or so. Poor thing is in no man's land.
And baby? Baby is as close to the continuum as I can manage, sleeps with us and is carried around in a sling. Sleeps a treat!!!

The caravan

Well... I have truly joined adulthood: today we picked up a brand new caravan! After years of camping and roughing it at festivals my age has caught up with me, as well as having two small children and two smallish stepchildren who tend to get lost or join other familier for supper when we're putting the tent up, the idea is that this way we just turn up and make a cup of tea!
But I have this nagging feeling: would the continuum tribe approve of a caravan (well... they probably wouldn't approve of my dishwasher either...) and would Buddha have travelled round India in a caravan had it been available to him? Am I getting old?
But it is a rather lovely caravan...

So true!!!

The science

The more psychology and general science I study, the more cross I get!!
When I came across Bowlby and the attachement theory during my counselling course I thought: why doesn't everyone know this? We now know so much about child development but this is not filtering through to all parents. Why? My own GP suggested I leave my baby to cry so that we all get a good night's sleep... Was he not aware that during the first year of life (according to a theorist called Erikson) babies learn about trust, they form an idea on how safe the world is based on their carers response to them, so letting a baby cry for an hour does not seem a good lesson to learn.
It has also been mentioned to me that most women won't want to know anyway, women have fought very hard to gain the equality we cherish today so the thought of having to stay at home with the children seems like a step backwards, but all I'm saying is that the information is out there, lets find out as much as we can about our children's development, and it's real science I'm talking about not faddish baby books...

Am I just fortunate?

I was discussing attachment parenting with someone today and I had one of those moments when you hear yourself talk as if from a distance, and I thought that I sounded a little overbearing... I mean, I don't have to go to work so I can happily carry my baby around all day with me. It doesn't matter if I have a crap night's sleep because I'm trying to bring my toddler in line with continuum values (and by the way, that one failed... he's back in his cot and happily sleeping 12 hours a night without a peep) because I can have a nap in the afternoon. So how do working mothers manage it? My other example is my sister who runs her own business and takes the baby to work with her, has done so with all four her children. But is it then that we are just fortunate?

Continuum babies

I read the Continuum Concept while pregnant with my second child and it made a lot of sense to me. It comapares child development in an amazonian tribe and in the west with rather amazing results, it seems we have lost our human "continuum" and are bringing up our children in an artificial way which is convenient to parents but detrimental to the children.
While I was reading I realized that I had made some rather bad mistakes with my first child (now a toddler) mainly trying to put him in his own cot and room way before he was ready, this has caused all manner of sleeping problems and he now still wakes up at night, does not really like his cot but feels uncomfortable in bed with us or in a "big boy" bed of his own.
The problem I feel comes by trying to "train" him and have him conform with the society I live in where children are expected to sleep on their own preferably in their own room, with my second baby we are trying to forget what society expects from us and what is convenient to us as parents, we are doing what is right by him. So I carry him in a sling (I also did this with my first althoug I did feel the pressure from those around me to put him down in a pram or baby seat), he sleeps with us and I will breastfeed him for as long as possible. To my surprise this way of doing things is much easier than the prescribed one of putting him down for naps and feeding him at certain times as I don't have a fight on my hands, he's happy and so am I. I'm not sleep deprived because we sleep together and I don't have to get up to make bottles in the middle of the night as I just roll over to my side and feed him, very often we're both asleep again in minutes...

the good enough mother

This sentence comes from a clever man called Donald Winnicott. It's the imperfectly attentive mother who does a better job than the "perfect" one who risks stifling her child's development as a separate being.

Hello

First post here.
As mentioned in my description, I have two very small boys (2 months and 2 years) and have trained as a psychotherapist. This and some of my other interests (Buddhism, human rights, and most things hippie...) have bought me to question a lot of stuff I earlier took for granted. I hope to make sense of some of it here!