So what is this Attachment Parenting?

We practice Attachment Parenting in our house.
Have we always? Nope not at all in fact we were pretty much the opposite, detached! 

We used to think we needed to implement routine and foster independence in the kids by having them sleep alone we used to use controlled crying and "cry it out methods" because we were told by so called "experts" to do as little as possible as it would become a habit, not to rock our babies to sleep, to have a strict routine and the like which now I just shudder at the thought of all of that but did I love my baby? yes. and was I doing the best with what I knew? Yes, of course as we all are but sometimes what's recommended by so called baby experts and health professionals isn't always what's best for baby and there is scientific evidence to show this.

I'm not sure why but it seems the trend these days is disconnected parenting which I think has come from us having such busy lives these days lots of families have both parents working ect so society now believes that babies should fit into there lives and dare I say it "scheduled" like everything else in their lives. Society has extreamly unreasonable expectations of babies in regards to sleeping, feeding and just needing love its just compleatly unnatural I've seen it written somewhere else before "were giving birth to stone age babies but putting modern day expectations onto them"  When we have a baby we need to understand they are demanding little creatures and we cannot expect them to fit in with our lives we need to fit our lives into theirs.

Basically Attachment Parenting is just a name for natural parenting how it should be.  Its all about instincts and about meeting you babies emotional and physical needs and responding in a gentle and sensitive way to those needs. This produces a strong, trusting relationship between parent and child and in time produces a well adjusted, confident and independent little person because as a baby their basic needs were met by feeding baby on demand and for an extended period of time, responding to you babies cries, carrying your baby or "baby wearing", co sleeping with your baby and using gentle methods to help you baby to sleep and minimising separation between yourself and baby for the first few years.

For me I feel it was a natural progression I started questioning what we were doing and started following my instincts gradually more and more so which led me to find the fantastic AP community I now have in real life and online and I kid you not its changed my life!!!

 If my little miss is hungry I feed her even if I only fed her an hour ago, if she is crying I pick her up and if I have stuff I need to get done I use my ergo or mai tai so I still have my hands free and can get on with what I need to do whilst meeting my babies needs. 

We co sleep with a side car cot so she starts out in her cot and during the night when she needs to nurse I just pull her over into me and away she goes, Little Miss is now 5 moths and still feeding 2-3 times a night and breastfeeding + co sleeping make this no drama. When she goes down for a nap if she is struggling myself or Pappa B will lay down with her and just chill ourselves until she is nice and relaxed and happy to go off to sleep, we use gentle discipline with our older children and recognise that "bad" (I hate that word) behaviour is often caused by an unmet need or emotional frustration so instead of punishing we look at what led to that behaviour and what we can do to avoid it and help our child express and deal with their emotions.

Since adopting this approach we have been so happy, my life feels so fulfilled I feel like I'm not wasting a day or moment and I get so much pleasure out of watching my kids grow up and they amaze me so much they are just thriving in every way. We just go with the flow and keep it simple and its awesome!

ATTACHMENT PARENTING = NATURAL PARENTING

Its all about Food!!!

When I think about the life I want ones of the first things that comes to mind is food.
Why you ask? Well if you want to live your most happiest, healthiest and fulfilling life you need to be running on the right fuel and sadly most of us are not and a lot maybe even most don't even realise it!

When we watch TV were bombarded with ad's for food and there all full of words like fresh, happy, naturally ect and images of crisp fresh produce, smiling happy people, farmers on there lovely looking farms and so so so much of it is just a lie and it tricks people into thinking when they go to the supermarket that what they are filling there trolley with is actually good for them and their family.

 Some of the ads that get to me most have to be from the chicken industry and Safeway, Pappa B and I were watching TV two nights ago and an ad came on for Baiada poultry who also owns Steggles and Lilydale free range (so when you buy Lilydale products your supporting Baidia and their cruelty) and it all looks lovely and shows a nice big open barn were the chicken roam and its all nice and clean and the farmers are smiling and looking happy ect and its completely false advertising and we get so annoyed about this type of thing cause this is why people think what their eating is healthy.

 The truth of the matter is these chickens are living in factory  environments where there welfare isn't taken into account at all its all about mass production and producing the largest amount in a shorter amount of time so they use  hormones to increase the growth of the chicken in a shorter time span and because the body mass is too big for the poor chickens bone structure it will only be able to stand for short periods of time then fall down again in pure exhaustion and extreme pain.

They are living in extremely close confinement with the current Australian laws allowing 20 chickens per square metre and they are standing in there own faeces all the time, in some sheds they never see any sunlight and can never take part in normal chicken behaviour like scratching in the dirt or roosting ect and sadly Australian current law is not on their side. You can read more here at http://www.voiceless.org.au/the-issues lots of good information here not just on chickens either.

Then you see the ads for Safeway claiming that the fresh fruit and veg is received by Woolworths within 48hrs of it being picked from the farm but that's not to the stores themselves that's to there storage factories were things are kept in refrigeration for weeks on end before they reach the supermarket and you never see any mention of all the chemicals they have been sprayed and washed with to keep them looking nice and "fresh" Yuck!

The next on the list is Genetically Modified foods, now currently in Australia the only GM crops that are grown are cotton and canola but that doesn't mean the food your eating doesn't contain GM ingredients as the Australian and New Zealand food standards allow manufacturers to use a large range of GM ingredients in there products from overseas so if Im buying anything that is commonly genetically modified I wont buy it unless it either says its organic or states it contains no GMO's. Even some baby formula contain GMO's.
Foods that may be genetically modified include:
                                                                      - Soy Beans
                                                                      - Corn
                                                                      - Canola
                                                                      - Rice
                                                                      - Potatoes
                                                                      - Cottonseed oil

Here is some more information I have copied and pasted from Choice online

• Soybean products are used as ingredients in many foods. As well as soybeans, oil and soymilk, soy protein is used in products where you wouldn’t expect soy, such as bread, snack foods and even meat pies. Soy lecithin (additive 322) is used as an emulsifier in a vast range of products, including spreads, cakes and confectionery. Soybean meal is used in stockfeed (particularly for pigs and poultry and in supplements for dairy cattle). Much of this is imported from the US, the world’s largest producer of soy, where more than 90% of the soybean crop is now GM.
• Corn products used as food ingredients include glucose, fructose, maltodextrin and modified starches (1410, 1412). Again, these are often imported from the US where more than 80% of the corn crop is now GM.
• Canola oil is used in margarine-type spreads, dairy blends and as an ingredient in many other foods. Canola meal is used in stockfeed. Australia is largely self-sufficient, and locally-grown canola is segregated into GM and non-GM streams.
• Cottonseed oil, most of which is GM, can be used for food (it’s often used for deep-frying) and cottonseed meal is used in stockfeed.

And another link about GM foods here from Green Peace.

And last but certainly not least is of course chemicals and artificial additives in foods which include preservatives, colours, flavours, thickeners, anti caking agents and the like which are very bad for you and have a lot of bad side effects on our kids not to mention the long term health effects.
 If chemicals in the home are something your worried about I suggest you buy The Chemical Maze or download the Iphone app which is written by Australian Bill Statham so its all relevant to us here in Australia.
 The chemicals in our foods can cause problems that range from headaches behavioural problems, respiratory problems, diabetes, cancer and the list goes on and on and on so it really is important to know what affects the food your putting in your body can have.

A lot of people find it hard to believe that the Australian Government would allow this sort of thing to be going on but its all about the short term gain and money money money sadly not about the health of the people and  future generations.
We hardly buy and processed foods now and make everything ourselves and in the beginning I though it would be hard but it really isn't once you start, we eat as much organic produce as we can and have drastically reduced the amount of meat in our diet.
You get so used to buying the easy to get brands in the shops ect you think it would be hard to find the healthier alternatives but they are out there and its not hard once you start educating yourself you realise the food sold in the big supermarkets really isn't real food at all.

So my top tips for avoiding nasty food are
                                                                - Buy organic and local
                                                                - Avoid all processed foods
                                                                - Have a Vegetable garden
                                                                - Get the chemical maze book or app
                                                                - Research, research, research.

So while your chowing down on that big mac and your little ones are scoffing a cheese burger think about the long term and what's more important cause if by feeding my kids the best healthiest food I can means they will live a longer, happier and healthy life full of less ilness or onset of ilness at a later age then I cant see why I wouldn't be doing that.

Who wouldn't want their children to have the best life they can?

                                                             

I'm Angry!!!!! We love co sleeping

Bit of a "ranty" post ahead, I'm so fed up with the news/media of late, its just pure garbage lacking proper research and is almost always biased. I know this and so do a lot of you but a lot don't and they listen to the news reports and often base their decision on this.

I don't know if its just a coincidence but it seems a lot of AP/alternative parenting type things have been attacked of late almost every week and sometimes more than one topic a week and most of these things I'm very familiar with and have research extensively and the stuff there reporting in the news is just compleatly untrue or misleading and it makes me MAD!!!!

Co- Sleeping, Homebirth, home schooling, vaccinations even breastfeeding have all taken a hit, and then we have the story by ACA just this week saying that Lucas Papaw ointment is a miracle cream which I couldn't believe it seeing as its main ingredient is petroleum, yes that's right folks Its only like 4% fermented paw paw and because its registered with the TGA they don't have to list the base ingredients. You can read more about it here and here.

Pappa B and I were roapable when we just happened to catch the Co-Sleeping story on The Project this week, we were waiting for biggest loser to start and had no idea this was going to be on! It was just a ludicrous report saying " the coroners are urging mothers not to co sleep" they even compared it to not properly restraining you child in the proper child restraint which I just cant even seen how the 2 even compare. They had the gorgeous Pinky McKay on and even though her little bit was positive the overall report was compleatly negative and full of scare tactics rather than proper facts and information.

We need to be educating families on safe co sleeping/bed sharing the same way we do for cot sleeping instead of telling them its dangerous, your baby will suffocate ect ect. It saddens me greatly that there are mothers out there listening to the mchn's that are saying this and watching the news reports and feeling guilty for co sleeping or going against their instincts and stopping co sleeping altogether.

Of course Co sleeping can be dangerous; just as unsafe use of cots, prams, carseats, highchairs is dangerous. If you not following the safety guidelines all these things are dangerous so why do they feel the need to slam one of the most beautiful natural parts of parenting. I just drives me bonkers that there not educating parenting how to co sleep/bedshare safely. Here's a great post from Dr. Momma  7 Benefits of Co Sleeping and the ABA's article on Breastfeeding, Co Sleeping and sudden unexpected death in infancy has a great load of facts and stats along with safety guidelines.

The basic guidelines I adhere to are:
* You should not co sleep if you are a smoker or under the influence of alcohol or drugs
*You should not co sleep if you are extreamly fatigued
*Make sure the sleeping surface is nice and firm, you should not co sleep on soft surfaces like a couch as it poses a suffocation risk
*Make sure any bedding and pillows are away from baby they pose a suffocation risk
* Make sure you mattress is tightly fitting to the bed frame and bed head so there are no gaps baby could possibly get stuck in
*In a sidecar situation make sure the cot is tightly connected to the main bed by either okky straps or something similar or in our case we have the cot pressed right up against the wall then the main bed pushed up against the cot our bed is heavy and there's no way it will move away.

We have co slept with all of our 4 kids at one point or another, especially from birth till about 4 weeks. We love it and there are just so many benefits for mother and baby and when combined with breastfeeding those night feeds are soooo easy.

Benefits include:
* More sleep for baby and mum
*Great for forming a good breastfeeding relationship
*Studies show co sleeping helps regulated babies breathing, temperature and heart rhythms
*Lower risk of SIDS when safe co sleeping guidelines are followed, countries where co sleeping is the norm have a very low SIDS rate in comparison to countries where the cultural norm is to have babies in cots and in a separate room from their parent/s.
*It also has benefits for the child's long term emotional health.

When I wake up in the morning to my little princess's face I feel so blessed and its something I want other people to have the joy of experiencing too. It makes me sad to think some parents will  never wake up to that, its such a special time for me and my daughter, we just gave into each others eyes and let the love flow.

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Happy 3mths baby Hattie

Wow 3 months already, we cant believe just how fast its gone. The more kids you have the faster each one grows up it seems :(

There is so much I could write in here this bubba has brought something very special into all of our lives and that's not to say that the other kids didn't of course they did but there is absolutely something special about our Hattie.
I had a psychic reading done early in my pregnancy and she told us that this baby was more special than we could ever understand, she was from a previous loss we had suffered and that was a very rare and beautiful thing. The psychic had no idea that we had been through a miscarriage!!! I'm sure this is true cause a lot of other people comment on her as well saying when you look into her eyes she seems very wise or that she has never really seemed like a baby cause she is so engaging.

                                                                    

In the beginning Hattie was quite the "velcro" baby which I loved to be honest it was so nice to have such a little snuggler, for the first 7 weeks she was either feeding or being cuddle weather that was in my arms or in one of our baby carriers. The baby carriers were really fantastic it meant I could still get things done around the house and with a family of 6 there's a lot of work to be done plus I was able to still do thing with the kids while Hattie was content and happy.

We did things quite different this time as you probably already know she is the only bub I've breast fed more than 4 weeks (go me!!!) and with the feeding I've never looked at the clock or timed feeds ect she was just fed when she wanted it for as long as she wanted it even now I have no idea how many time she feeds but Id say its about every 2-3hrs sometimes more sometimes less and this has been so great. There is really no need to worry about how often she is feeding and just going with it has been compleatly stress free.

We have bed shared from the start but from about 8 weeks we set up our side car cot and thats fantastic, means we all sleep together but still have our own space but I can pull her in for cuddles whenever and makes breastfeeding 2hrly overnight easy. Its amazing really I can wake and feed her without it really disturbing me but Im still totally aware of her being there the whole time.

Proudly she has been in cloth nappies since birth and has only ever used one disposable nappy! The others were all in cloth but not from birth.

She hasn't been a huge sleeper and all my other were so at first I thought maybe it was a problem and that she needed to sleep several hours in between feeds but then I realised each baby is different just like we are as adults so like everything else we have just let her lead us in what she needs and we go with that.

So what's she doing right now? Well she is a super social bub who is always smiling and happy to have a chat with anyone (or anything for that matter), she is starting to try to roll from back to front and it taking starting to take an interest in baby toys but usually she is just entertained by watching the older kids play around her.
She is feeding max 2 hourly overnight which is totally normal for a breastfed bub and at first it was hard but I'm so used to it now I hardly need to wake up and if I don't wear a top she pretty much can just help herself, during the day she is about 2-3hrs in between but like I have said we don't really watch the clock.

So far she hasn't had any vaccinations, we will be getting her selectively vaccinated having the majority but we are still deciding just exactly which way we are going to go with it so haven't done anything as yet, you can always vaccinate but you can never un-vaccinate so its a decision not to be taken lightly. This is another thing we didn't do with the others because I just didn't know what I do now and I'm in NO WAY anti vax at all (just want to make that clear) but there's a lot more to vaccines than you doctor or child health nurse tells you so it pays to really research it.

So far having her in our lives has been some of the most enjoyable moments in mine and Pappa B's life and I can see just how much joy she brings the other kids too.

Happy 3 months Hattie May, we love you.

                                                                                   

An experience Of A Lifetime- Homebirth Of Hariette May

*WARNING CONTAINS GRAPHIC BIRTH PHOTOGRAPHY*

This was my 4th birth but my first homebirth and Ben and I were really looking forward.

We only organised it with 4 weeks to go we were going with hospital care but at the last minute changed our minds and thanks to a friend and my awsome midwives it all just fell into place, was obviously ment to be.

So my due date came and went but I though I must of been going to go soon with the other the longest I went over was 3days and since about 38 weeks Id been having pre labour symptoms on and off but no this little miss needed more time.

Finally at 41 weeks I felt like this was the day, it was the older 2 kids daycare day I felt like it was the break I needed to get in the zone so to speak. I kept busy all day and after going for a walk around the block was having contractions all day 10mins apart, Yay!

I phoned my midwife about 5pm that evening and told her Id most likely be needing her later on that night or the next morning, contractions were still 10mins apart at this point but 50-60secs long but I knew it was still a fair way off. 

Inlaws came about 7pm to collect the 3 kids and I was so glad I found it very distracting having them around and now I felt my body would finally progress. To fill in time we went down the street and washed the car and got some lollies from the supermarket, we got back home and I was still just the same so I tried to get some sleep cause I was quite tired from all the pre labour I had been having for the week before I hadn't been getting much sleep.

I managed to get some sleep/rest my body seemed to know I needed it and toned the contractions down for me until 3am when I had a shocker and just had to get up and move.

It was quite a cold night so we had the open fire going encase of bubs arrival and I found it great to stand in front of in between contractions to ease the pain and the lovely crackling noise was very relaxing. From this point the contractions went to 7mins then to 5mins and at 6am we called the midwife to tell her to think about coming over soon.

Both my midwives H and A got to our house about 7am and it was all very relaxed and casual, it was just lovely really. A even folded some of my washing for me. 

At this point the contraction were very stong I got through them by breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth quite heavily and thinking about how each contration was opening me up, I was very cool, calm and collected.

Ben or my midwife H would rub my lower back or put pressure on that area if I needed it and the brilliant thing was I didnt even have to say anything its like they were just intune with what I needed. I didnt have any internals done we just went with my body and before long I could tell it was time for my knickers to come off haha. I was starting to get a bit agitated Im not sure if anyone else noticed but I was and I knew it ment I was in transition and I layed down on the floor for a while to get some energy back then I stripped right off to be ready for skin to skincontact when bubs came earthside.

I was leaning over the fit ball on my knees and it wasnt long before I could really feel myself opening up and the baby moving down then my body just started pushing to me this felt like ages but Ben said it wasnt that long I think I was just getting impatient. I had alot of pressure cause my waters still hadnt broken but all of a sudden they went and man was it a relief, not too much longer and the head was crowning and once again it was such a relief once it was out, I was so happy but she was a little wriggler and kept moving around. Youch!

It was only a few more pushes then she was born into her fathers arms, it makes me so happy to know that the first look at the world she got was her daddy there wating to catch her. He immediatly passed her up to me and I was just so happy, so proud it was just exhilarating! It felt so right to have birth my baby in such a natural, calm way in our own home we just sat there for a while taking it all in and enjoying those first cuddles and gazes into each others eyes.

I moved to the couch to lay down and get comfy and as soon as I did she was searching and did the crawl to the breast, was amazing none of my others did it like that. So we had our first feed and waited for the cord to pulse out.

We wanted a physiological 3rd stage but I had lost quite a bit of blood and we all decided it to be safer to have the syntocinon and I was fine with that, Hatties cord had already stopped pulsating so we still got our delayed cord clamping. The placenta was horrible to birth, it had come away from the wall and was sitting there puttnig pressure on my back it hurt so much more than the actual labour and I was sort of numb down there and couldnt feel anything when I pushed. It was really stressing me out but after we determined it had deffinently come away H tugged on it gently as I pushed and it was finally out and I was so relieved and got back to enjoying snuggles with my girl.

Because of the quite heavy blood loss my H reccomended I have some raw placenta, the hormones help stop the bleeding. Before now there is no way I thought I could have raw placenta but I didnt want to have to transfer to hospital so was happy to do anything to help with the bleeding. A cut up 5 pill sized pieces and I had them with strong cordial and it was no where near as bad as I though tastes just like if you bit the inside of you mouth or tounge even Ben tried a bit which we were all very impressed with.

Before we chopped the placenta up A did some blood prints with it which I just love, The tree of life. The rest of the placenta A cut up and popped in the oven to dehydrate so I could encapsulate it.

Afterwards I was  bit dizzy and nauseous cause of the blood loss but overall felt great, had no tearing at all barely even a graze.

Ben and I both agree it was one of the best experiences of our lives, Im so so happy we ended up going homebirth. I hope my story inspires others to choose homebirth.

Belated Intro to Us

Thought I better get an introduction written for anyone who doesn't know me, so Im Mamma J proud mamma of 4 crystal bubbas Mr 4, Miss 3, Mr almost 2 and our Little Miss who is about to hit 3 mths and I'm married to Pappa B my fantastic supportive husband.
This is my diary of our journey into a gentle more natural life.
Learning, Living and Loving together :)
What I post here are just my personal opinions and in no way do I claim to be an expert in anything but wanted to blog our journey for us and to possibly inspire others along the way.
I have a very busy life as you can imagine with 4 bubbas so close in age and right now my Pappa B is part owner of a garden maintenance business which there in the process of selling so he can work in the mines so we can live our dream and move to the south coast of NSW buy a big property and get back to basics and we cannot wait. So this is our main focus at the moment and although in the beginning I wasn't sure Id be happy with the FIFO(fly in fly out) lifestyle we had a good think weighed up the pros and cons and worked out even though it will be hard for both of us while he is away we will still be spending more time together than we do now it will just be split up of course.

And if I'm trying to find positives "Imagine all the sewing Ill be able to do of a night while Pappa B is away "

Life is too short to just wait, were making our dreams come true