Blog

How to not have a baby shower (and feel even more loved)

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Isolation era means no face-to-face baby showers for now. Some mums will need to grieve that loss of rite of passage, and others will be thankful to skip the expected yet unwanted hoo-haa. From where I sit, this is another opportunity to rethink how we celebrate newborn motherhood and surround families with love.

The options of what to do instead of a shower with cupcakes and bunting are endless. One is to skip the whole thing and make a gift registry on some big store like Baby Bunting. This…

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What Mums Want This Mothers' Day.

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Once upon a time, I sent this graphic from my mum-crush Senator Larissa Waters to my own mum on Mothers' Day. Now as a mother, I want to stand on my proverbial mountain and shout her "gift ideas" even louder. But what can you as a partner get for the miraculous mother of your child, or do for her on her Hallmark Holiday?

Well, we don’t want stuff. We especially don’t want one of those light boxes to dry your painted nails in, and we definitely don’t want a new vacuum cleaner or kitchen applianc…

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Massage for the Sole and Soul

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A massage for many a new mum is the ultimate in heavenly, hormone-boosting, stress-busting care. Even now, merely writing the word "massage" is luxurious. In Indian Ayurvedic tradition, a new mum is to be massaged with warm oil every day for FORTY DAYS after the birth of her child. This is considered essential, not indulgent! There are many purposes of this daily massage in this tradition, including warming and grounding mum. As discussed in my previous blog, postpartum women are considered to b…

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Essential Autumn - Warming Mums from the Inside Out

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The mornings are crisp, the leaves on our maple are turning yellow and the pumpkin vines are dying off - it must be Autumn! In many non-western cultures, Autumn is considered a time of letting go of what we don’t need and turning inward so we can work on hibernation and consolidation over winter. At a time when westerners intuitively turn to nourishing soups and stews over crunchy salads, we are wise to recognise the ancient knowledge systems that encourage this transition. The ancient Indian Ay…

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Babywearing - friend or foe? An exercise physiology perspective.

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In the B.C. (before children) era of my life I was fascinated by seeing women all around the world wearing their babies. Vietnamese mums worked rice paddies with babies on their backs, Peruvian women walked steep streets wearing their children in traditional “manta” blankets, and in the national parks of New Zealand families trekked carting their kids in impressive purpose-built carriers. Then I had my own baby, and I quickly realised that what looked so easy could be a double-edged sword.

Baby…

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The online opportunity - why virtual Mama Circles tick all the boxes.

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Having run many group programs before, I'll admit I was skeptical of how a sisterhood-style bond could be fostered online. Boy, was I in for a shock! It hasn't taken long for me to wish I had been invited to an online circle (or gathering, if 'circle' sounds a bit too hippie) when I had my own baby. Here are a few of my favourite features of online mama circles, starting with convenience and getting to the nitty gritty of deep connection.

1. No travel. For the first 4-6 months of my daughter'…

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The myths and truths of maternal instinct

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Congratulations! You have grown and delivered a baby. A baby that cries and feeds a lot and sometimes sleeps and sometimes doesn't. You thought you had a pattern worked out but today it's out the window, perhaps it's gas but maybe it isn't and do you think we should bath him? You've only just met this person but you're his mum, so you should be able to understand his cues right?

When my baby was small I was bemoaned being unable to soothe her, and questioned why my "maternal instinct" instinc…

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Reclaiming the "nap trap"

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Ever heard mums bemoan their baby's superhuman ability to fall asleep in their arms, yet wake the millisecond they are transferred to their cot? Maybe your baby falls happily asleep while feeding, only to wrestle their way back to the nipple like a little piglet if you dare extract the breast from their mouth? If baby prefers your body to their mattress, you're desperate to "get something done", or believe that your baby is out to make sure you never do the dishes again,  it's worth getting into…

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Lunch - the forgotten hero of newborn motherhood.

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Meals in the newborn period can, like most things, be pretty topsy turvy. When the sun comes up, we remember to eat something that resembles breakfast. The sun sets, and we are cued to eat dinner. Poor old lunch is our often-forgotten friend, and despite his many great qualities, might get missed in the monotony of a day spent feeding, changing and comforting a newborn. Add "home alone" to the daily schedule, or his challenging colleague "home alone with newborn and his siblings under six" to th…

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You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals.

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There’s nothing quite like a horror bushfire season and a pandemic to make me thankful for mammalian breasts (my own, to be precise). Yes the first six or eight weeks of breastfeeding my little leech were relentless, those later patches of cluster feeding were a smash, and then the teeth started coming... but right now being my child’s portable milk bar has never felt so reassuring.

 

Earlier in the year as fires raged across as Australia, a piece from The Conversation about what to pack in b…

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