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Raising Babies: Demand Feeding and Emotional Eating

Many new mothers consider demand feeding “the right way to feed my baby”. Every new parent considers the various choices: breastfeeding vs. giving the baby formula, feeding every 3 hours, maybe 4, vs. feeding on demand, waking the baby to feed vs. letting him or her wake up when hungry, giving water vs. not giving water, using a nipple shield vs. not using one, using a dummy (pacifier) vs. not using one, and many others.

These are serious decisions when you have your first baby and the more you ask around, the more confused you become. My oldest daughter recently gave birth to my first granddaughter (she is GORGEOUS). Watching her, I have discovered a relationship between breastfeeding on demand and emotional eating. It was amazing to notice things I never thought of when I had to make a decision how to feed my own daughter when she was born.

The stories I have from the last six weeks, since my granddaughter’s birth, can spread over hundreds of posts about raising babies. Today, I want to discuss one of them, which is demand feeding.

This post is part 7 of 7 in the series Raising Babies

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Attachment Theory: Insecure Attachment Style

What Causes Insecure Attachment Between Parents and Babies?

The attachment between babies and their parents in those first few years of life becomes the blue print for the child’s future relationships. Insecure attachment style happens when parents cannot give their child the feeling of security that he or she needs. Usually, this happens completely unintentionally.

There are several causes for insecure attachment. Here is a list of reason. Each of them on their own, or in combination can interfere with a healthy bond and secure attachment.

Separation from the primary caregiver – One of the main reasons for this separation is if the baby is sick. Premature or sick babies often stay intensive care, where their main caregiver cannot care for them. This can result in challenges in developing secure attachment. In other cases, sickness in the mother will prevent her from attending to her baby and can result in separation and insecure attachment. Other reasons may include divorce, death of the main caregiver or being given up for adoption.

Inconsistency by the primary caregiver – Having a consistent caregivers is essential to developing healthy and secure attachment. If a child changes caregivers often, either at home (e.g. nannies) or in day care, this may results in feeling insecure. This is one of the biggest reasons why we should aim for consistency in a child’s first year of development.

This post is part 3 of 6 in the series Attachment Theory

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Attachment Theory: Main Characteristics of Attachment

Baby boy in a sailors hat sitting in a lifesaver float

The emotional bond between people depends on their ability to connect and the style of the connection. The attachment we have with the people in our lives (partners, children, siblings, friends and even our own parents) are strongly associated with the attachment we formed in our early years of life, with our primary caregiver (usually our parents). Similarly, the challenges we experience in our relationships as adults are shaped by the patterns of challenge from our early attachments.

According to John Bowlby, attachment is the connection a baby forms with its parent to ensure their basic needs of safety, comfort, care and pleasure are met. He described this attachment as “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings”. Bowlby believed that the style of the relationship between the parent (mainly the mother) and the child in this critical period of the baby’s development becomes a blue print for later relationships.

The main idea of attachment theory is that the caregivers provides the baby with a safe and secure base from which to explore the world. The baby knows that it is safe to venture out and explore the world, and that the caregiver will always be there to come back to for comfort in times of stress and discomfort.

This post is part 1 of 6 in the series Attachment Theory

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Raising Babies: Baby Food

Baby about to eat white and blue icing-covered cake

One of the scariest things about having your first child is baby food. What do babies eat? How do you feed them and when? The answers are not always straightforward.

Every two or three years they change the philosophy about feeding babies. I have to say, as a mother of 3 kids, this can get very confusing. When Eden was a baby, the philosophy was breastfeed full time until the baby is 4 months old, introduce fruits slowly for one month and then introduce mashed vegetables with chicken (no dairy, no egg and no nuts until 12 months of age). I did exactly this and it worked fine.

When Tsoof was born, we lived in California and the philosophy was different: breastfeed until 6 months old, substitute with formula if you needed and introduce cereals at 6 months. Fruits, vegetables and chicken were introduced much later. I was totally confused. There was about 7 years gap between Eden and Tsoof. Papers and books kept saying that what we know today is not the same as what we knew a few years ago. I didn’t know what to do. While I was still breastfeeding, I debated whether to stick with what I knew or give the new philosophy a try. I asked around. A much older and more mature mom told me that the philosophy changes every 2-3 years and that she thinks it is better to stick to whatever works for you. I decided to take her advice and stick to what I knew. I did the same with Tsoof as what I did with Eden and it worked perfectly fine.

This post is part 5 of 7 in the series Raising Babies

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Raising Babies: Extended Family can be Bliss

Your extended family can be a great help once a new baby arrives. I didn’t understand just how much until Eden was born. I was in my last year of university and working full time. My parents lived over 3 hours drive from us.

I never had a close bond with my mom. When others talked about having their moms around when you had a baby, I didn’t really know what to think about it. When Eden was born, I was in hospital for 10 days. I got a terrible infection and my mom came to stay with us after we were discharged from hospital because I had to go back every day to change my bandages.

We got home and I didn’t really know what would happen. But my mom incredible. She had already had 5 kids of her own and she knew exactly what to do. She said to me, “You focus on eating, sleeping and breastfeeding” and that is exactly what I did. Meanwhile, she cooked, cleaned and played with Eden, massaged her and sang songs. I never knew my mom could be like that. She was awesome.

This post is part 4 of 7 in the series Raising Babies

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Raising Babies: What about Dads?

Dads are a very important part of parenting. They are often neglected in discussions on parenting.

When I do parenting workshops, they are often filled with moms who come because dads are pretty much “hands off” when it comes to raising kids, not to mention raising babies.

It is very natural that moms who breastfeed their babies spend most of the time with them. Society is very accommodating towards moms. Sadly, not that much is invested in supporting dads. It is so bad that when Gal and I lost our baby, most people came to me to offer condolences and nothing to Gal. For them, I lost the baby because I carried the baby but Gal didn’t.

A dad’s role in raising a baby is very important and crucial in the success of the parenting experience. There are many things dads can do that do not require having boobs and breastfeeding.

In those first few months, when the baby comes home, the family goes through a time of bonding. This happens mainly through caring. Taking care of a baby is the way to make this bond stronger. The main caregivers become the most important people in the baby’s life.

This post is part 3 of 7 in the series Raising Babies

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Raising Babies: Crying

When babies cry, it is not always a sign that they are hurt or in pain. Think about it. Babies cry as a way to communicate. They can be telling you about an itch, hunger, thirst, or they are cold, hot, tight. They might be calling out, “Mommy! Daddy! I need a cuddle!”

The great thing about babies is that their cry is very gentle. It is an instinctive action and a very healthy one. As parents, we need to teach our babies to develop and prefect this instinct. It is best to respond to it as a form of communication rather than reacting to it as if it is bad (even a type of bullying, perhaps).

Try reacting to your baby’s cry as if they are calling out to you. Always answer it with words. “I’m coming” is a good way to teach babies that you have heard them and that you welcome this communication.

There are many ways to respond to a baby’s cry. Remember, our goal is to teach our babies that they are saying something. Research shows that over time, mothers can tell the difference between a hungry cry, a wet cry and a scared cry. Think of it as something you both learn. Your baby learns to cry differently with different needs and you learn to distinguish between them. It is an adventure that you both share. With the feedback you give each other, you can refine both the cry and the response.

This post is part 2 of 7 in the series Raising Babies

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Raising Babies: Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is one of the greatest tools when raising babies. It is the easiest way to “take your kitchen with you” and feed your baby wherever you go. You don’t need to measure quantities or temperature, no containers, no washing afterwards and you don’t need a pharmacy to help your baby with its immune system.

When Eden was born, I had a huge infection and a very high fever. For a week or so, I was not allowed to breastfeed her. In the nursery, they gave her a bottle every 4 hours, like clockwork. We stayed in the hospital like this for 10 days. Once I was released home, everyone told me I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed. I was so disappointed.

I quickly decided, “No way! I will breastfeed!”. Eden was so used to the bottle, I had to use a plastic nipple but I persisted and she breastfed beautifully. No problems at all. I was even extra lucky. She was used to the 4 hours cycle, so breastfeeding was easy and on a schedule. Let me tell you, having 3.5 hours of sleep in between feeds for a new mom was a luxury.

This post is part 1 of 7 in the series Raising Babies

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Good Relationship with Loving Affirmations

Relationships and the way we connect with others are very important and essential to our happiness and success in life. Research shows that people who are in good relationships are healthier, happier and they live longer. So, good relationships are the best prescription for a long life. I would take two prescriptions of that kind of medication.

We learn about relationships from the people closest to us – usually, our parents, later on our siblings and much later, from friends. If they model good relationships, we copy them. If the model bad relationships, we model that as well. Why? Because as kids we don’t have any way of filtering bad examples. It is only as we grow that we start developing critical thinking, and we start noticing that relationships at our house are different to other houses. Often times, that can make us frustrated because we don’t have the skills to make things change.

I once worked with a woman who was 37 years old. She had so many partners and no stable relationships. We checked her beliefs and found the source of the problem. We discovered that the origin of it was from her dad leaving her mom and her siblings when she was about 10 years old. He left to be with another women and she adopted a belief that “all man are assholes” (I am quoting). As a result, she did not trust men. With a belief like that, it is hard and even impossible to find a relationship, not to mention keep it.

This post is part 5 of 6 in the series Affirmations

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You Kick Like a Girl

As a young girl, I grew up in a small town where kids played in the street until their parents called them home for dinner. It was a small street and playing there was much like playing in your front yard. You could count about 10 steps from your front door to the street. It was a generation when most people had many kids. My family was one of the smallest – only 5 kids. Most of my friends had 6 or 7 siblings.

I was very much a tomboy and never did things “like a girl”. I played with the boys, mainly because there were more of them than girls. It seemed very natural for me to hang around them, even at night, when we went to the orchards to make bonfires. I think they did not notice I was a girl until I started wearing a bra. Until then, I was their equal – chasing one another on the street, riding bikes, fighting or playing soccer, there was no difference between us.

At home was another matter.

In my family, the roles of boys and girls were very clear – boys played rough while girls cleaned and cared for the family. My mom could not bear the thought of me hanging around the boys so much. So she told me I should act “like a girl”, because with so many bruises and cuts I would never be allowed to learn ballet.

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