Are you breastfeeding a new baby and not sure if it is going well? Then these 10 important signs will help you determine if there is a problem. If you are breastfeeding in Dubai you are likely doing it without enough help and support from experts or family. Unfortunately, there is no midwife or health visitor turning up to check in on you, and your own mum may be far away, or she may not have any breastfeeding experience. New mothers and babies here can have real breastfeeding problems and not even realize it. The good news is that there are excellent breastfeeding resources in Dubai and most ..read more

Top tips from a midwife on what to watch out for once you take your newborn home from the hospital. Most new parents report feeling one thing as they take their first baby home from the hospital: when do the grown-ups arrive who are going to keep this child alive? Many parents today have little or no experience at all with newborn babies right up to the moment we are handed our own and are expected to be fully responsible for him or her. We usually feel completely out of our depth and often feel terrified that we will not be up to the task. The good news is that your baby is going to teach yo ..read more

Top tips from a midwife on what to watch out for during your postnatal recovery. Having a baby is one of the most profound transformations a woman will ever go through--physically, hormonally, emotionally, and even on a cellular level. You have just been through a major physical feat of labor and/or a major abdominal surgery in order to birth your baby. Now you are being sent home with a baby, and here in the UAE there will not be a midwife checking up on you or a health visitor knocking on your door to make sure that all is going well. Any postnatal care you receive you will have to organize ..read more

Top 10 things we all wish we had known when we first became parents This is for you. The parent who is struggling with sleep, or feeding, or crying, or tantrums or picky eating or sleep again. The one whose friend seems to have it all figured out, or whose doctor was shocked, SHOCKED, to hear whatever it is that you just revealed about how you are parenting your child. The one whose mother-in-law claims that her babies never cried, or potty trained at 9 months or slept through the night from birth. The one who is frantically googling and buying baby books and asking everyone what the magic se ..read more

If you have a small child, then you have been told that you need to be careful not to spoil your baby. You have been told that you shouldn’t create “bad habits” by feeding to sleep, or rocking, carrying, bouncing or walking your crying baby. You have been told that if you let your baby sleep on you or in your bed with you or in your baby carrier that he will never “learn how to sleep” on his own or that she will not learn to “self soothe.” I know you have been told this, because every day parents report to me that this is what they are hearing. I was also told this when my babies were small ..read more

11 reasons why I am proud to be a lazy momma. When I tell mothers in my classes that I am a lazy mom they laugh and seem a little embarrassed to hear me say this. As someone who teaches parenting classes, helps mums with breastfeeding and promotes gentle and attachment parenting principles, they assume I couldn't possibly be serious. Obviously I am not really a lazy mom—I work really hard to be the best mom I can be for my kids (just as you do). But I can honestly say that parenting my kids in an “Attachment Parenting” or gentle parenting approach often involved the least amount of work, and h ..read more

What is baby massage? Baby massage simply means touching your baby, but doing so in a mindful, conscious and nurturing way. Baby massage fosters communication between parent and baby. Parents touch and care for their babies hundreds of times each day, but we don’t often take the time to sit down and do it so consciously. When doing massage, unlike when we are just cleaning or dressing baby, we tune into our baby’s behaviors and cues to understand what she is communicating. We make sure our baby wants to be massaged and we observe baby to see hows he likes to be touched: when in her day is bes ..read more

One of the two biggest misconceptions about Hypnobirthing is that it’s only for natural birthing hippies who want to have a home water birth with Enya singing in the background and dolphins in attendance. Quite often I hear women saying that Hypnobirthing is not for them and it makes me wonder - what is it exactly, that they think is not for them? Is it the word hypnosis – conjuring up images of mind controlling stage magicians? Is it the idea that they have to be good at meditating to be able to benefit from it? Or is it the idea that they will be expected to birth without pain relief and th ..read more

Pregnant in Dubai and want to get breastfeeding off to the best start possible? If you are considering breastfeeding these Top 3 tips will help to maximise your chances of success As an antenatal and parenting teacher I have worked with thousands of new mothers and babies. In our class discussions I always ask what mums have found to be most surprising and challenging about motherhood, and I hear again and again how difficult breastfeeding was in the early days and weeks. Most mothers are very surprised by this, having assumed that breastfeeding, a natural process, will be easy and immediatel ..read more

When to ignore the unhelpful things that breastfeeding "helpers" sometimes say! Mothers are told all the time that the reason they are having trouble with breastfeeding is because their baby is lazy, or too greedy or naughty or is a little piranha. This REALLY burns me up for a variety of reasons, firstly because it is a sign of the speaker's ignorance and lack of skills to identify what is really going on with this baby (and that offends me as a midwife and a lactation consultant). Secondly, it makes me irate because it is untrue, and it often ignores REAL problems that can affect a baby's a ..read more