Michelle Tant

Your new baby never seems to stop feeding and people seem to be giving conflicting advice. Some say baby feeds so often because you don't have enough milk - baby is hungry so best to think about topping up... But consider this. What if, your baby was a human being with feelings, moods, preferences and social needs as well as physiological needs? Think for a moment about when you eat and drink. Is every time simply about nutritional value? No! We sit and eat together, we go out for coffees together. It's often a social part of our lives. Babies are social beings with social needs. Sometimes we just would like a chocolate bar... why? Just because. Take a piece of paper and give it a couple if headings; 'Time', 'food/drink consumed' and 'Duration'. Now think about a 24 hour period in a normal day according to you. Then note down every single thing that passes your lips, it may look a little like this. 6.45am - Coffee - 3 mins 8am - cereal and frui...

There has been a bit of a revival around this subject over the last few years. However its not a new topic by any means. Before breastfeeding books and gurus, new mothers had to rely on their instincts and on the women around them. Women and girls would have seen breastfeeding happening all the time, it was perfectly natural and to be blunt, there was no other choice. Babies who were not breastfed, either by their own mother or by another lactating woman in the group, would die. Choice was not a luxury of the pre modern woman. So back to instincts. Suzanne Colson wrote about biological nurturing and the principle of breastfeeding being a continuation of the baby being in the womb (source: Womb to World, A Metabolic Perspective in Midwifery Today, 2002) and I've long found the idea that a baby is born with all the 'tools' it needs to breastfeed truly fascinating. Mothers have historically misread the signs of a newborn baby. Where thrashing hands and feet are seen, ...

Can we say excited? Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9

When we started this babyled weaning onto solids journey, my only clear aim was that I wanted to follow Daisys instincts and to go at her pace and I have been surprised daily with her progress and at how well she has done. She is really eating as part of the family now, joining in our roast dinner on Sunday and showing us how much she enjoys it with her beautiful smiles and giggles. Watching my lovely bonny breastfed baby, I've become convinced that if she is left to her own devices as with how she controls her breastfeeding habits, then she will find her own way so I have been following her lead. If she looks interested in something I have then I've been letting her give it a go (salt and sugary foods excepted) and that's how she came to try the corn on the cob and loved every gummed morsel. It has been with some debate then that I considered using a spoon at all. Inevitably though I figured that cutlery will ultimately form part of her eating habits so I gave her...

Daisy is 3 months old today. I now have a 5 year old with verbal leakage about to start year 1, a 2 year old with communication issues would you believe (hard to imagine I know with my family...) and now, the icing on the cake. my daughter. Her two brothers thankfully idolise her, we'll see how long that lasts once she starts naffing off with their toys. Reuben can actually say her name which is very sweet if a little galling as he called me 'daddy' until short while ago, in fact reverts to that every now and then for some reason. Both boys never miss an opportunity to cuddle her but they are so gentle too and this is a relief indeed. Although she does now sleep through the night I an still exhausted though. Take this evening cfor example, I really need to have been writing up the amendments to an essay and really getting cracking on my final essay but here I am braindead lying on the sofa unable to put enough sensible words together for my diploma. You might ask then...

Waiting rooms, queues, waiting lists, resturants, cinemas, amusement parks. Us British will wait for anything it seems. It's like one of those great British traditions. If someone queue jumps then immediately those of us who are patiently waiting in line will look round at each other, momentarily united in our 1) disapproval of the queue jumpers totally unacceptable behaviour and 2) wry acceptance of this queue as our lot in life. People get REALLY upset about queue jumpers in Post Offices. Perhaps it's the demographic, though that would be a very sweeping statement and not one I have any empirical evidence to back it up with but I've definately noticed a lot of queue hate in Post Offices. Considering how emphatically British Post Offices are, there's a lot of non-British-like anti-queue behaviour going on. Of course the kind of waiting I'm really getting at though in this blog is the kind of waiting I'm experiencing at the moment. I'm pregnant. Make that VE...

Today I found out that baby number 3 is a girl. I have two boys already and I was convinced that this one would join the blue club. Or perhaps I convinced myself that because I secretly did want a daughter. So it would seem that I am possibly not destined for a house full of testosterone for the rest of my life (of course the ultrasound technician might be wrong yet!) and I was happy before but now I have another kind of happy to add to it. I lay on that bed/gurney and when it came to it, all I really wanted to see was a beating heart and all the parts in the right places, doing the right thing. We saw the brain inside the skull, the perfectly formed spine, the four cavities of the heart, pumping away quickly. Two wiggly legs and hands bashfully hiding her face. She flicked a switch and we saw the flow of blood in the cord, that was amazing. Watching life literally flowing through her. A round tummy with a 'full' bladder and the technician told us that all her 'inner bits...