Welcome to the first of my special guest interviews on why gentle parenting matters to parents around the world. For this special first interview I chat with multi gold winning Paralympian Dame Sarah Storey about breastfeeding, bedsharing, tackling tantrums and postnatal bodies.
Category Archives: Mothering
The Real Reasons Why You Cannot Teach Babies to Self Soothe to Sleep
The mainstay of almost all baby sleep training is the idea of teaching ‘self soothing’ or ‘self settling’. This approach believes that if babies are put down ‘drowsy but awake’ and parents do not rush in to feed or rock when they wake, that the baby will learn to settle back to sleep without parental input.
Aiming for 70/30: When ‘Good Enough Parenting’ is Enough
All parents make mistakes, all parents have days that they are not proud of. All parents make sacrifices and compromises. No parent is perfect. It is these mistakes that are the most important in terms of our growth as parents. Each time we don’t quite do our best we can learn and we can teach our children how to handle disappointm
What is Gentle Parenting – an Excerpt from The Gentle Parenting Book
Let’s get this out there right now. Gentle parenting isn’t permissive parenting. For those who are new to gentle parenting, perhaps practitioners of more mainstream methods, the most common criticism is relating to supposed permissiveness. They are wrong. Boundaries, limits and discipline play a crucial role in gentle parenting. If you do not discipline your child how can you be truly respectful of them?
How to Get Your Baby to Nap in Daycare
For many mothers, who practice gentle or attachment parenting, their return to work can be fraught with worry. Concerns about how the baby will settle and sleep for the new caregivers usually top the list. In this blog post my aim is to hopefully reduce these fears a little and help you to prepare your baby for naps without you as much as possible.
The Epidemic of Baby Sleep Training
The same sleep patterns that have been handled without trouble or ‘expert advice’ for thousands of years have now become a source of big business. It is in the benefit of industry for babies to be seen as having sleep problems.
When Should Children Get Their Ears Pierced? (and musings on body autonomy).
Yesterday my daughter, who is eight and a half years old, got her ears pierced and it got me thinking about the ‘right age’ to do it. I am strongly against piercing the ears of a baby or toddler. Although relatively minor, ear-piercing is still mutilating the body in some way. Making holes in any partContinue reading “When Should Children Get Their Ears Pierced? (and musings on body autonomy).”
Two Under Two? No Problem! The Real Difficulties of Welcoming a Second Child
When my children were small, I had four children under four years of age. My first and second were both 15 months apart, my third followed 14 months later and my last 2 years after number three. Adding a new baby into the mix of a toddler is exhausting, especially if the firstborn is stillContinue reading “Two Under Two? No Problem! The Real Difficulties of Welcoming a Second Child”
What is Gentle Parenting?
What is Gentle Parenting? In my opinion it can be summed up with just four words: 1. Empathy 2. Respect 3. Understanding 4. Boundaries 1. Empathy Parenting with your child’s feelings in mind as much as possible. Using empathy (or what some psychologists call ‘mind-mindedness’) to gain insight into your child’s behaviour and using empathyContinue reading “What is Gentle Parenting?”
When Gentle Parenting Doesn’t Work
It seems like everyday I come across a comment from a parent proclaiming “gentle parenting doesn’t work”, that their baby “still cries all the time” or their toddler “tantrums constantly and still hits his brother” – this despite all of their effort to understand and practice gentle parenting, which can be so much more timeContinue reading “When Gentle Parenting Doesn’t Work”
Sarah Ockwell-Smith 
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