How we think about lactation makes a big difference to how we feed our babies. Bags or glands? If we think about breasts/chests as bags that fill up with milk, and then are drained by the baby, and then take x-amount of time to refill, we are going to believe that we MUST wait a …
Many years ago, a client told me about how she and her partner had felt about caring for their baby in the middle of the night: “Everytime he woke up and needed a diaper change we behaved as though a GOD had landed, and we both had to get up to worship him and cater …
At a conference, in 2005, I met Dr Christina Smillie, a paediatrician and lactation consultant from Connecticut. She introduced me to the idea that, given time and support, babies can latch themselves. Of course, I had seen Richard and Alade’s video from 1990 – Delivery Self-Attachment – but I had never seen anyone allow a …
Spinning the thread – how we learn to feed our babies Read More »
Eva Bild, MA, AdvCD(DONA), LCCE Whether we are exclusively bottle-feeding, breast/chestfeeding-with-occasional-bottles, or doing-half-and-half, it makes sense to feed the baby in the most physiologic, relaxing, pleasant way possible, which helps parent and baby develop a comfortable attachment. This process is sometimes called Paced Bottle Feeding. It involves mimicking the flow that the baby might get …
Why would you want to become a doula? The money’s not great. There is no employment security or benefits. The hours are long, and you have to be on call a lot of the time. It’s not a high-status job, and there are body-fluids involved. And yet… There is the obvious excitement and joy that …
Here is a made-up, but very typical, case-study. Jo and her partner Sky had their baby a couple of weeks early, by cesarean. Because of the cesarean, Jo’s milk took a few days to “come in”. It’s very common, after the extra stress of surgery, for the body to take a little extra time to …
Napping is one of the hottest topics in the Baby Groups I facilitate. Parents seem to worry a lot about how much, how long, how often, how easily their baby naps. I think there are three reasons for this worry. 1. We have been told that our babies must get a certain amount of sleep per …
My motivation in compiling this list was to find Canadian resources for participants in my birth doula workshop. My motivation was to find Canadian resources for participants in my birth doula workshop. As a White Canadian, I do not have lived experience of the effects of racism within our institutions. American or British resources do …
Resource List on Systemic Racism in Perinatal Health in Canada Read More »
These days (December 2017), with the Christmas season approaching, it feels that all I do all day is singing and babies, babies and singing. Of course, babies and families are my work-work, but singing is my play-work and it takes over my life at this time of year. I sing in a choir and I …
Any way you do it, sleep-training your baby is going to be a lot of work. It’s going to involve some crying, and less sleep for a while. It’s going to require that you be clear, and sure, and consistent. Here is a quiz to help you decide if you are ready. Yes No ❑ …
