motherhood

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What No One Tells You About Bonding With Baby

http://www.mothering.com/articles/what-no-one-tells-you-about-bonding-with-baby

(click to read the entire article on mothering.com)

If we spend time thinking about it (which we often don’t), most of us believe we’ll transition into motherhood easily. I’m sure lots of women have no problems in those early heady days of being a first time mom. But I’d also be willing to bet that even the moms who look like they were born to smile at their babies (and manage to find time to take a shower) have ups and downs at the beginning.

With the vantage of hindsight, a lot of parents confess that the early days of life with a new baby were hard. Many moms I’ve talked to over the years have had trouble bonding with their babies, a process they assumed would be natural and easy. (I’ve written about my difficulties bonding with my second born here.)

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Asking for Help Doesn’t Make You Less of a Parent

http://wellroundedny.com/asking-help-doesnt-make-less-parent-2/

(click link above to read the entire post on wellroundedny.com)

A mom of twins explains why she said yes to every offer.

I was 40 years old when I got pregnant with my twins. Because of my age, I would have been happy to have one baby. Having two was icing on the cake. I was really excited to be a mom. I would daydream about all the fun I was going to have with my babies — what we would do, where we would go. Only joyful thoughts. It never occurred to me to be nervous or that having twins was going to be incredibly hard. I just assumed that I was going to be able to do it. The plan was for my husband to go to work while I stayed home (alone) with the babies and took care of them. Naive? Crazy? Maybe. I like to think I was blissfully unaware.

When I came home from the hospital with my babies (my little guy came home the same day as me, my little girl spent a few days in the NICU and then came home) I was so happy to take care of them. I was happy to feed them, bathe them, hold them and so on. I was running on pure adrenaline.

Within a few days, the adrenaline wore off. I was tired. I was doing all of the feedings (both day and night) and taking care of them for the most part by myself. I thought I could do it all and actually believed that it was my job to do so. I was wrong.

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Dear Mothers: We’re Not Meant to “Bounce Back”

http://revolutionfromhome.com/2016/08/we-arent-meant-to-bounce-back-after-babies/

(click link to read the blog post)

We’re not meant to “bounce back” after babies. Not physically, not emotionally, and definitelynot spiritually. We’re meant to step forward into more awakened, more attuned, and more powerful versions of ourselves. Motherhood is a sacred, beautiful, honorable evolution, not the shameful shift into a lesser-than state of being that our society makes it seem.

The very notion that we are meant to change as little as possible, and even revert back to the women we were before we became mothers is not only unrealistic, but it’s an insult to women of all ages, demographics, shapes, and sizes. It makes a mockery of the powerful passage into one of the most essential roles a human can live into, and it keeps women disempowered through an endless journey of striving for unattainable goals that wouldn’t necessarily serve us even if we could reach them.

The world needs the transformation motherhood brings about it us. The softening, the tenderness, the vulnerability, the shift in prioritization, the depth of love — these are some of the qualities our hurting world needs most.

 

(click link to continue reading this beautiful post on revolutionfromhome.com)

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19 Things No One Tells You About Having a Newborn

http://blog.cricketscircle.com/best-things-about-newborns/http://blog.cricketscircle.com/best-things-about-newborns/

  1. It’s totally normal to catch yourself standing, with no baby in your arms, yet still swaying side to side (and maybe whispering shhh).
  2. You’ll make up horrible, ridiculous songs revolving around your baby’s name. (I’m just gonna Nate Nate Nate Nate, Nate it off, Nate it off.)
  3. You’ll have trouble remembering if a conversation took place an hour ago, a week ago… or, frankly, ever.
  4. You might pee in a public restroom with the door open because you can’t close it behind your stroller, and like hell you’re going to leave that baby unattended….

Cute. (Click link above to read the rest…)

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PERFECT IMPERFECTIONS: EMBRACING AND EMPOWERING POSITIVE BODY IMAGE | KER-FOX PHOTOGRAPHY

 

 

 

slide_430694_5591780_freeo-BEAUTIFUL-IMPERFECTIONS-900

http://kerfox.com/perfect-imperfections-embracing-and-empowering-positive-body-image-ker-fox-photography-st-francis-midwives-birthsource/ (click to see all of the stunning images)

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No, Please Don’t Visit My Newborn

http://www.mothering.com/articles/please-dont-visit-newborn/

“My husband’s grandmother left a message saying she was coming over. Right. Now.

I’d been putting her visit off. I wanted the first week with our newborn to be a closed circle made up only of new mother, new father, and new baby. Benjamin was a wonder to us with eyes that hinted (I swear) of ancient wisdom. This time was our initiation into family life. It felt sacred to me in the way that life-changing experiences can. I didn’t want it muddied with polite conversation or awful clichés like “you look great.” (click link to read entire post)

– See more at: http://www.mothering.com/articles/please-dont-visit-newborn/#sthash.HRLBZKhT.dpuf

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Parents Misled by Cry-It-Out Sleep Training Reports

Parents Misled by Cry-It-Out Sleep Training Reports

*First author is Angela Braden, journalist at Science Mommy

Mainstream parenting media are asserting once again that the cry-it-out sleep paradigm is harmless to babies—this time in the form of a two-paragraph morsel as one of the “sleep myths” Parentsmagazine “sets straight” in “Rest Assured” (July 2014 issue). The myth is listed as “crying it out is bad for your baby” and goes on to conclude that au contraire, “whatever sleep training method feels most comfortable for you is just fine.” Never mind how the baby feels. “Just fine”? Yikes! Parents typically does an excellent job educating and supporting parents to raise healthy, happy kids. But alarm bells went off for us when we read this lapse. (click link above to read the article on psychologytoday.com)