Due to a series of events causing anxiety, fear and confusion in a person who feels all of those very easily … we will be giving HypnoBirthing a go for our second baby.

I’ve been reading many books as you all know, on parenting, but have really only just started reading on birth.

I’ve started with the Sears “Birth Book” which is great and I’ve been reading and re-reading the section on VBAC’s as well as visiting The Human Pacifier who often has really great for inspiration with videos there…most of the time I end up crying over.

I’ve had a few others from my Midwife which I’ve read as well.

Over the past year and a bit I’ve been using Meditainment and have found it very useful in calming me down or getting me to sleep, so I feel that HypnoBirthing will probably do the same for me. (I’m just really sad that Meditainment does not have a Birthing section…oh well)

I found this article PDF interesting with the history as well as the different cultures view points of breastfeeding.

In reading the book Baby Matters  I understand a little more of my own culture I see how we are influenced by marketing from Formula company’s as well as our culture becoming more needful of our perceived ‘own time’.

What is in the PDF
When should weaning from Mother’s milk occur?
When are we naturally intended to begin weaning?

When is our natural final weaning?

How have humans weaned through the millennia?

What do the “experts” say?

What does the research show?

If we read this quote from the World Health Organisation site
“….Breastfeeding is an unequalled way of providing ideal food for the healthy growth and development of infants; it is also an integral part of the reproductive process with important implications for the health of mothers. As a global public health recommendation, infants should be exclusively breastfed(1) for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development and health(2). Thereafter, to meet their evolving nutritional requirements, infants should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues for up to two years of age or beyond. Exclusive breastfeeding from birth is possible except for a few medical conditions, and unrestricted exclusive breastfeeding results in ample milk production….”

I found both the book and the PDF very interesting as well as the recommendation’s from the World Health Organisation…which I would also like to note that the WHO writes for everyone and the last bit of the quote is written for our western culture which is affected by the ‘lack of milk’ syndrome.

This is information is very similar to the Brainwave trust information which I’ve lost but am trying to find again…its telling us how important our attachment is to our children from birth and how this attachment affects our children’s life….click here to pop over to the site and read the full artical 

“…Windows of Development
Because the different systems in the brain develop at different times, specific parts of a child’s brain must be stimulated within a specific span of time in order to develop normally. If the crucial environmental cues are not present during these periods, the parts of the brain that regulate those functions may not develop appropriately.

The window of opportunity for vision, for example, takes place from birth to about six months. Children who are deprived of visual stimulation during this time will not develop the necessary neural connections, and may end up visually impaired.

For speech and vocabulary development, the critical window is open between birth and 3 years of age. The sounds a child hears in those years will largely determine the size of his/her adult vocabulary. In addition, children who are not spoken to regularly early in life do not learn to think conceptually as well as those who are exposed to a lot of spoken language.

A great deal of emotional development takes place during a child’s first 18 months. Infants need loving care from a consistent caregiver. There is no substitute for a nurturing environment. Without it, a child will not attain emotional stability.

Between the ages of 1 and 4, children develop the capacity to understand logic and mathematical concepts. There is also a great deal of evidence suggesting that experience with music at an early age may enhance a child’s mathematical ability. Children whose math and logic capabilities are not exercised during this stage may have more difficulty learning those skills throughout life….”

Please also see the interview with Megan Gunner on the affects of cortisol to the brain and its development. 

A century of experts has destroyed unity on parenting

“…Poor modern-day parents. No wonder so many are confused and defensive about their child-rearing skills. At this point hardly any universally reliable, useful advice still persists on the parenting landscape. To whom can you turn for good counsel?…”

This is a really good article which sums up many issues I have over the historical ideas of raising children.

This is something I’ve often worried about…that I should be doing more.

We do drawing, play dough, cooking, washing, cleaning but what about more

Have a look at this web site for some ideas

Development and Education

“…If you practice a more ‘natural’ style of parenting, whether through conviction or by way of exploration, you could encounter considerable resistance. At a time of life that should be about community support and shared joy; for many who try to parent differently it is a time of excommunication and ostracism. It can be astounding what a passionately hostile reaction ‘natural’ mothering can evoke in some onlookers. The result appears to be a sub-culture of outcastswho are hiding and alone. There is significant social and professional pressure to conform, to not exceed the limits of nurturance that our community feels comfortable with. This has led many ‘natural’ parents to cloak themselves in secrecy….”

Who feels like this?

I know I do many times…but its getting better as Ara is getting older and the Attachment Parenting methods seem to be bringing everything and more…. an independent, brave, questioning, caring child and a heap more.

Suppose parents, for fear of spoiling their baby or letting her manipulate them, restrain themselves from responding to her cries and develop a more distant, low-touch style of parenting. What happens then? The baby must either cry harder and more disturbingly to get her needs met or give up and withdraw. In either case, she finds that her caregiving world is not responsive. Eventually, since her cues are not responded to, she learns not to give cues. She senses something is missing in her life. She becomes angry and either outwardly hostile or withdrawn. In the first case, the baby is not very nice to be around, and parents find ways to avoid her. In the second case, the baby is harder to connect with, and again, parents and child enjoy each other less. Either way, this child will be difficult to discipline. She comes to believe that safety and security depend on no one but herself. Problems in relationships develop when a child grows up thinking she only has herself to trust in. Since the parents don’t allow themselves to respond intuitively to their baby’s cues, they become less sensitive and lose confidence in their parenting skills, another set-up for discipline problems.

You can tell the unconnected baby by his expression – or lack of one. He does not seek eye contact and he does not evoke the warm feelings so evident with connected babies. “He looks lost” is a comment we once heard about an unconnected baby. You can also tell an unconnected baby by the way he holds himself stiff, as if conformed to his baby seat rather than to soft shoulders. As the unconnected child gets older, much of his time is spent in misbehavior, and he is on the receiving end of constant reprimands; or he tunes out and seems to live in his own separate world. This child becomes known as sullen, a brat, a whiner, or a spoiled kid. These undesirable behaviors are really coping strategies the child uses in search of a connection. The unconnected child doesn’t know how to regain a sense of well-being because he has no yardstick to measure attachment. He has difficulty finding a connection because he isn’t sure what he lost. This scene results in path-up parenting, with perhaps much time spent in counselors’ offices.

The unconnected child is less motivated to please; he’s less of a joy to be around. As a result, unconnected parents don’t find job satisfaction on the domestic scene, so they seek fulfillment in professions and in relationships not involving their child. Parent and child drift further apart. Unlike the connected child who is a joy to be around and develops healthy friendships, peers may shun the unconnected child. He may even put off people who can help him form connections. The emotionally rich get richer, and the emotionally poor get poorer. With professional counseling, children and parents can begin connecting and settle into a style of discipline that brings out the best in each other. It will require a lot of energy to accomplish this at a stage when it is naturally designed to happen. Newborns are more into being held than six- or nine-year- olds. The best chance for staying connected later on is to get connected early….”

An extract for Why Love Matters by Sue Gerhardt

“…In that time of early life celebrated by paintings and icons of the Madonna and child, mother and baby may, if all goes well, find themselves in a kind of cocoon of peace and love. Breastfeeding itself inactivates the mother’s own stress response; her amygdala expresses less CRF, presumably removing anxious, fearful feelings; whilst the prolactin generated by breastfeeding provides a feeling of tranquillity. The breastfeeding state of mind facilitates her ability to calm her baby and to manage his stress. Once established (and this is not always easy to achieve), breastfeeding can be a powerful source of sustenance for the mother as well as the baby.

She is then potentially more able to inhibit her baby’s stress response and to ensure that his cortisol levels remain low. This is achieved through her presence, her feeding and her touch. The baby is protected from stress and discomfort and his brain responds by growing more cortisol neurons. A brain well stocked with cortisol receptors through this early experience will be better able to mop up this stress hormone when it is released in future. This furnishes the baby’s brain with the capacity to stop producing cortisol when it has helped deal with a source of stress. The stress response will quickly be turned off when it is no longer needed.

But if the baby doesn’t have this experience of being cocooned in a protective mother’s arms (whether provided with bottle feeding or the breast), or if she is absent for too long, then his stress response can kick in and become active prematurely. The baby may become flooded with cortisol and the cortisol receptors will close down. This means that in the future he will have fewer cortisol receptors. The cortisol secreted at times of stress will not find enough receptor homes to go to, particularly in the hippocampus and hypothalamus, and will continue to wash around his brain, producing the high cortisol levels and the feeling that stress cannot be stopped. A reactive stress response will have been set up. There have been numerous studies linking depression with such a hyper-reactive stress response….”

I’ve wanted to find out what happens if we do have cortisol in excess and what damage it does on the body. I’ve read the final affects on the body once you’ve had it for most of your life. But what happens in the immediate I feel is explained in the above.

“…  If you resent it, change it. If you are beginning to resent your style of parenting and your constant babytending and are feeling at the mercy of your baby’s cries, take this as a signal that you need to make some changes. The key to surviving and thriving with the colicky baby is to keep working until you find a parenting style that meets the needs of your infant, but at the same time meets your needs and does not exceed your ability to give. Yes, you will have to stretch yourself, but not until you snap. Get help with household chores that drain your energy. Also, oftentimes it’s necessary to hand baby over to a caring and experienced pair of substitute arms and go out and do something just for yourself.

A mother in our practice shared this story with me: “One day when my baby was one-month-old, I was talking to my mother on the phone and I said, ‘Mom, I’ve been crying for two days, I can’t stop, and I’m getting scared.’ Mom came right over. We had a talk and she said, ‘Donna, it’s okay to feel resentful that your life has been turned upside down by this precious little baby girl.’ I said, ‘That’s exactly how I feel. I don’t resent her, but I resent the fact that I have no life anymore. I feel isolated and depressed.’ Mom said, ‘I’ll take Lauren tonight and you and Michael go out for dinner.’

In our pediatric office we collect pictures of cute T-shirt sayings. One of our favorites, worn by a two-year-old, is: Mom’s having a bad day. Call 1-800- GRANDMA….”

 This is one thing in the Fussy baby book that has really made me think. We go all out for our children but sometimes we just hit the wall.

This has really worked for me. In the Sears book they suggest lots of different ideas but really its looking at the problem from many different angles…but also making sure your not “hurting” anyone by your changes as well. Some times by looking at what you really resent you can find a way around it. Ara was waking me up too many times in the night…but I could handle a few times so we made a plan to work on teaching Ara to cut back a little…and once we did life became better and I didn’t resent anymore.

Extract from
Why Love Matters How Affection shapes a baby’s Brain By Sue Gernardt
“…Unfortunately, leaving a baby to cry or to cope by himself for more that a very short period usually has the reverse effect: it under minds the baby’s confidence in the parent and in the world, leaving him more dependent not less. In the absence of the regulatory partner, a baby can do very little to regulate himself or herself other than to cry louder or to withdraw mentally. But the pain of being dependent like this and being powerless to help yourself leads to primitive psychological defenses based on two options. …” “… it’s either fight or flight. Cry loudly or withdraw….”

“…The effects of cortisol on the immune system are well documented (Cohen and Crnic 1982; Sternberg 2001). In essence cortisol instructs the immune cells temporarily to slow down the immune response, allowing the body’s energy to be focused on the crisis in hand. As a temporary measure this is tolerable. However, when the stress is chronic and doesn’t get resolved quickly, as in relationship problems or chronic grief, then the continued release of cortisol can have a serious impact on the immune system….”

Extract from
Children Endangered Species by Lesley Max
“…One party has language, maturity and power. The other party has ‘no language but to cry’.
We choose, very often, not to listen to that cry. Sometimes it is inaudible. Children stop crying after a while when their cries produce no response. Very, very few adults are investigating that silence.
Ann Crane, president of the New Zealand Child Psychotherapists’ Association, says, “I could go into any daycare center in the city and find you children who are in shock” …”