Page 11 - Motherhood
Family & Parenting
Lifestyle
Motherhood
Expert Tips for Parents
March 23, 2020
Everything you need to know about parenting, from early pregnancy to toddlerhood
From our partners:
We all need a little help from time to time, no one more so than parents-to-be and new parents. Organic baby food brand Piccolo has launched a free-to-join Family Club, with a panel of family health and wellbeing experts set to help parents with everything from boosting their mood post-birth to weaning and meal inspiration.
Monthly emails will be packed with practical advice from the experts, as well as real mums and dads, for parents from early pregnancy up to two years old - alongside a whole line-up of offers on baby essentials and activities. Experts already in the line-up to share their first-hand advice include pre and postnatal fitness expert Shakira Akabusi, writer and men’s mental health expert Jamie Day, and hypnobirthing and positive birth guru Megan Rossiter.
As if you needed another reason to sign-up, members of Piccolo’s Family Club will be treated to an exclusive discount
Postpartum
Motherhood
Expert Tips for Parents
March 06, 2020
What to Expect from your First Postnatal Physiotherapy Appointment
Are you thinking about postnatal physiotherapy, either due to a GP referral or simply because you're curious about what it could do for you, but aren't really sure what it might entail? Then this blog post is for you! Pelvic health physiotherapist Lucy Allen explains what to expect from your first postnatal physio appointment.
This is a question I get asked regularly and it can be a daunting experience even more so if you don’t know what is going to happen.
At the beginning your physio will start with asking you questions about your symptoms, how things have changed from your normal i.e. pr-pregnancy/delivery, childbirth details and also explore how it’s affecting your health and overall wellbeing. We will also ask a bit about your medical history as there can be things from the past that are relevant to symptoms you may now have.
After the initial conversation your physio will offer an assessment of how you
Family & Parenting
Lifestyle
Motherhood
Expert Tips for Parents
February 04, 2020
Originally posted at ergobaby.com
Introducing your new baby to your family is a magical time. Traveling, though, maybe inevitable. So if you want to survive visiting family with your baby, follow these 11 tips for traveling with a baby.
How to Survive Any Method of Travel
1. Pack the Baby Travel Essentials
Bring familiar toys and comfort items, such as a blanket, teddy bear, books, dummies, etc., in your change bag. Also, pack some surprise toys for when, or before, tears start brewing. If your baby is eating solids, be sure to pack baby food, snacks, and spoons. Other must-have items for traveling with a baby include bibs, muslin cloths, bottles, nappies, wipes, disposable changing pads, extra clothes, a car seat, a baby carrier, and a stroller.
SHOP BABY CARRIERS
2. Pick the Right Time to Travel
Whether flying or driving, travel during your baby’s nap time or a time when she is well rested if you think she won’t sleep well while traveling. A sleep-deprived baby is a cranky baby, and
Family & Parenting
Motherhood
Expert Tips for Parents
January 15, 2020
For many parents, working out how they’ll go from one baby to two is a daunting prospect, and a common worry is how their toddler will react to the new baby.
We’ve split our ten top tips for a smooth transition into five things to do before baby arrives/at the hospital, and five things to do when you’re all at home together to help you navigate your way through.
Before baby arrives/at the hospital
1. It’s never too early to start planning – Do as much of your preparation in advance as you can, there are going to be a lot of changes happening and the more you can get your little one used to in advance the less they will ‘blame’ on the new baby. This also gives you more time for trial and error, if things don’t go to plan now it’s easier to fix them while they can still be your main focus.
2. Routine is key – Once you have your new routine then do your utmost to stick to it when baby arrives, this will help reassure your toddler that not everything is changing, they will still have classes
Health & Wellness
Fitness
Motherhood
Expert Tips for Parents
January 06, 2020
From our partners :
Delivery type, diastasis recti, pelvic floor. When you look to return to exercise after the arrival of your baby you are going to be bombarded with all sorts of information and some quite conflicting opinions. It was a desire to put all the info that new mums new from a range of cross medical and fitness experts that led us to create CARiFiT 4 ALL our free RCGP backed postnatal scheme.
For now let us take you through some simple and safe guidelines and things to consider and get you into the mindset that slow and steady wins the race when you’ve had a baby.
We’re stating the obvious here, but birthing and keeping alive a small human is an all-consuming task. With cluster feeds, nappy changes and sleepless nights on repeat, exercise slips way down (or falls right off) a new mum’s agenda. And that’s absolutely fine.
Slowly though, that newborn fog lifts (trust us), routines take shape and the thought of fitting in a workout doesn’t feel like climbing Everest. You want
Baby Gear
Babywearing
Motherhood
December 13, 2019
originally posted at ergobaby.com
“The emotional labor pains of becoming a mother are far greater than the physical pangs of birth; these are the growing surges of your heart as it pushes out selfishness and fear and makes room for sacrifice and love. It is a private and silent birth of the soul, but it is no less holy than the event of childbirth—perhaps even more sacred.” — Joy Kusek
A dear friend shared this quote with me about two weeks after I came home with my newborn baby.
My heart was grasping for something, anything, that could help me define what the heck was going on with everything around and within me. This woman’s words defined this sweet and difficult season so perfectly. I became a mother by title when the test turned up positive. I looked like a mother-to-be for the better part of nine months. But I wasn’t a mother in my core—yet.
The fourth trimester (giving birth and the few first months afterward) is a crash course, sink-or-swim, best thing ever but ohmygosh-it’s-hard
Family & Parenting
Lifestyle
Motherhood
December 02, 2019
originally posted at ergobaby.com
Why is asking for help so hard for us? I think we have it in the back of our mind that we should be able to take care of it all, we should be able to handle everything, and it feels really outside of our comfort zone to start asking for help.
So, if you are watching this, I’m guessing you probably have already done a little bit of research on the fourth trimester, you’ve done a little bit of research on postpartum and what your needs are going to be, and I’m sure by now one message keeps coming through again and again, and that is you have to ask for help, and you have to be open to receiving it.
So, I’d like to talk a little bit about why that’s hard for us. Now, our ultimate goal is how to have a happy and healthy fourth trimester. So, this is a transition, especially when it’s your first child, to going from being a fully functioning capable adult, you got all those adulting skills down, but now all of a sudden we’re throwing parenting into the
Ergobaby Community
News
Motherhood
November 28, 2019
originally posted at ergobaby.com
We have all heard about new car smells, but what about new baby smells?
You know, that earthy, new baby smell, that one that causes dopamine to release in your brain and makes you feel so good – what is it?
Smell can be the most potent sense to strike up an emotional response. The smell of a newborn is likely thought to be a combination of chemicals secreted through sweat glands, lingering amniotic fluid and vernix caseosa, the white cheese-like cream that covers babies at birth; all this combined, is thought to create a combination of intoxicating medley aroma that nature designed to pull you in. Whatever it is, that distinct smell provides a pathway to our brains and to ultimately our hearts and binds us to that little life in front of us.
Although the newborn scent eventually fades (usually around six weeks of age) many parents (including this one) are known to take a deep whiff of their child’s head (regardless of their age) and savor the unique
Baby Gear
Babywearing
Motherhood
November 22, 2019
originally posted at ergobaby.com
We often hear the phrase “trust your instincts” but life as a new mother can be a puzzling time for knowing what impulse, gut feeling or knowledge is or is not coming from within. Life with a newborn is wonderful and equally daunting. The learning curve can feel more like a hair trigger jump directly upwards instead of a nice sloping curve. No matter how many books you read, classes you take or parents you talk to, becoming a mother in real time is a whole new ball game.
Up until that time when we walk through the portal from maiden to mother, everything is theoretical. With most topics concerning motherhood, it is layered and often paradoxical. So asking the question “how do we trust our instincts?” is not an easy answer that applies to all. We need to look at the time before we gave birth. Did you trust yourself? Did you grow up trusting others? All of our behaviors surrounding trust can be triggered as we become mothers. It can feel isolating and destabilizing
Baby Gear
Babywearing
Motherhood
Expert Tips for Parents
November 14, 2019
originally posted at ergobaby.com
Slow ride. Take it Easy. When I think of the silly words of Foghat, the song somehow always makes me think of the ideal state of mind for what’s called the 4th trimester, the first three months of a baby’s life. The focus on the 4th trimester is not only nurturing the newborn baby but also the post partum care and mental health of the healing mother.
Let me take a step back for a moment. Human development is a well-studied and documented field. What’s indisputable is that human babies enter the world totally dependent on their caregivers. Experts continue to theorize as to why babies are born at the gestation period when they are born (at approximately 40 weeks.)
Some theories emanate from anthropologists who generally have thought that an infant’s brain must be sized against the pelvis length of the mother. Peter T. Ellison of Harvard University supports what he calls a metabolic crossover hypothesis, which is to say, “energetic