I am back! With a new baby boy! Here is my birth story...

My new year's resolution is to start this blog again. But shorter posts this time! Two months ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Solomon. So while I am on maternity leave I will make time for my writing. And as he is teaching me so much, as is seven year old Jemima and 4 year old Bella, I will share it with my readers. What better place to start than with my birth story. Ok this one is long because I wrote it for me, not for a blog :-)

Birthing Solomon 4th November 2011
The scene at home was beautiful and candle lit. The midwives were wonderful and the girls there for the pushing and my yoga music - so from outside it was perfect and exactly as I had wanted – I even made the muffins I had wanted to make for everyone while in very early stages! And I had a lovely acupuncturist come to the house and treat me – after the muffins! While rushes still only 20 mins apart. The whole thing lasted about 12 hours. Soli was born at 450am on the 4th.

I was deeply self reliant and in control this time thanks to yoga, meditation and the practice of mindfulness. And hypno birthing too. This and the water meant I did not use Gas and Air as I have in the past (with a love-hate relationship to it).

BUT! The pain I experienced was as intense as always. More so at times. My pelvis and hips and legs felt like they might break in two. It really was agony. It is simply that I didn't say it was this time! In the past I have yelled out “I’m going to die!” or “I can’t do it!” but this time I didn't voice my fears or my pain. Instead I just thought to myself “It hurts now but in a moment it will feel different.” “This is now, in a min you will be blissfully relaxed again.” “Don't be afraid you have done this before you know you are not going to split it two really.” “Work harder! This baby is not coming out anywhere but in this pool!” Etc etc!

I hardly needed James although I absolutely needed his presence, his love and his hand to squeeze in pushes. (Sorry but they were pushes! Bearing down yes, but I still roared thru most, some quiet breathing down too.) And James was wonderfully loving and gentle and present as he always has been. Water was wonderful in the breaks but it didn’t make a difference to the pain in my legs during each surge.

The midwife was totally calm, shared my approach and was confident in my body. She kept saying “your body is working beautifully for you, everything is going perfectly, just as I would have hoped” That was very comforting.

And my doula training meant that I knew exactly what was going on at each stage. So when I vomited and ripped off clothes and weeed in garden under the stars and wanted to be alone, I knew I was well dilated and ready to get in the pool! I asked to be examined and the midwife did it beautifully and quickly and was so cool cos she said I was 5 cms and when I said “that means I am probably 7cms when not being examined” she said, “yes, exactly, absolutely. Happy for you to get in the pool!” And that was the only examination and even that one was at my request. I could have got in pool without it but I wanted to be sure myself.

It was great to be so informed but it did mean I had my own doula voice in my head all along - mostly a very good comforting doula coaching me through! I would like to have me as a doula! Which is good from a professional point of view!

But I also has a less helpful voice in my head: “Aren’t you supposed to be quiet this time? Isnt it supposed to be gentle and less painful?!” That was less helpful but then I was quite good at saying back “Oh be quiet! It is what it is! You are who you are!”

The actual birth was beautiful despite extreme intense pain. I saw his head come out in the water beneath me. The midwife could not see so thought I was not there yet! Then I looked again once shoulders out. And then again when torso out. (He was so big that the final exit was slow and hard! – Bella just slopped out after the head!) And then when his legs came out I said “He’s all out, shall I just lift him out now?” and everyone was totally surprised when I lifted him out of the water! It was so dark and he was coming out under me so no one could see. Disappointing for girls and James but lovely for me as I didn’t really see the girls come out. James did.

A boy! Hooray! Twenty mins skin to skin in water and then the girls and James had cuddles while I struggled out of the pool. Agony still in my legs and hips and no momentum anymore to get me through it. I felt very low then until the placenta finally came out and with it came total relief and bliss and flood of love and peace which has yet to leave me!

And after that it was party time. Breakfast of tea and muffins and an hour of feeding and chatting to midwives (three now! Student had been there all through, and now back up midwife here). And then to bed – heaven - where I pretty much stayed for two weeks, naked under covers with Solomon, running James off his feet fetching and carrying and cooking! Then, at two weeks, Solomon’s long career of school runs began. Luckily for him he sleeps through the in and out the car business and lucky for me Jemima loves doing that bit and can do up car seat buckles no problem. So all as good as it could be. 

And one more precious gift… Jemima - after watching 50 mins of me roaring my head off in 2nd stage and then baby born - grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote me this poem:

“Mummy you are lovely. WOW! Like fireworks! You are so brave! You are so strong!”

Four weeks later and I feel sooo blessed. The girls are totally in love with Solomon and hold him and kiss him constantly but are very caring and sensitive towards him so it is not too much at all. They are helpful and caring towards me and I keep thanking them for being such incredibly loving, giving individuals who have made having a third child pure joy and no stress at all. School runs have been (mostly!) happier and calmer than ever – and they were the thing I was thinking would be the biggest challenge. And bonus of bonuses! We can get three children in the back of our 3 door Clio so my fears of third child meaning bigger, more expensive, more polluting car unfounded! Just need get a trailer for the nappies and the tent now! Happy days despite sleepless nights.


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Bella has friends! Cambodia to Kington part two... can hardly believe how different our lives have become

This is what I think about five times a day here. E.g. When I walk out the door to teach yoga with two jumpers on and my white yoga trousers -white enhances your aura - tucked in to wellies to avoid the mud and drive through the cold foggy night to the village hall early to heat it up before my students arrive, (instead of jumping on a tuk-tuk vest top worrying about how dirty my flip flopped feet are). Or when I cover each student up in their blankets for relaxation (rather than watching hot sweaty students collapse down hoping to finally cool off). Or when Bella falls asleep and I leave her with James while I walk up the hill with the dog and look around me at the 360 degrees stunning views of hills and farm land (instead of hiding in the lovely Comme a la Maison for a mosquito accompanied coffee & croissant under a fan pretending to study). Or when Jemima reports that today, grandparents day, only two in her class of 24 pupils did not have a grandparent come in for the celebrations (ah, she did so miss our family in Phnom Penh). Or when I realise that only three people have responded to posters about yoga in at least a month (how many requests did we get to teach a class every day in PP, Mindy? Oh for a local version of the Cambodia Parents Network!) Oh, one more... but I won't even go there... it relates to washing up, cleaning the bathroom, hanging out the washing, hoovering the stairs, shampooing the dog after he has rolled in dead rabbit(???) etc etc etc..

There are days when I can't believe how lucky I am to be living in such a beautiful friendly peaceful place and there are days when I ask myself what on earth am I doing here in the middle of nowhere where the sun sometimes forgets to say hello all day and you have to actively seek people out. We have yet to share Kington playground with another child! I guess once Spring begins that will change. Anyway, here we are, boxes finally collected from the ship (quite literally - they gave us a crow bar and left us to hack our way into huge wooden crates holding 30 boxes, reminding us to take the wood away with us when we left! 12 hours later that same day we unloaded the 30 boxes from our hire van into the house at 2:30am, under a star-lit freezing sky. This is the cheap way of moving country to country, when the resettlement package is non-existent. I don't recommend it even if it did give us an excuse for a whole day without the girls.)

So nice to open our boxes though and settle in and... creme de la creme.. Bella finally has some friends! (Jemima made about ten in the first two days of being here) We have found the most wonderful childminders, Kate and Sam, a gorgeous young couple who live in the hills and are green and peace-loving and totally child centred and, basically Bella's new favourite people! They drive their own kids to school (Jemima's school) every day and pick up Bella and her friends from in their child-seat equipped van and drive them back to their children's paradise for a few hours of heaven, feeding guinea pigs, scrambling around in their garden, trampolining, baking and lots lots more. Bella has only been twice but talks about them as if she has known them all her life. She comes home snotty and painty and floury and muddy and utterly joyful. And she is actually walking instead of asking to be carried all day (tuk tuks = door to door delivery service = very lazy toddler). She told me today that she walked because "that's why she has feet". Thank you Sam! She is still breastfeeding and pretends to be a baby for about 99.9% of her day but is far too irresistible for me to want to do anything to change that. Long may it last. Actually, these days she is mostly a cat, one which Jemima pulls along on a lead with great glee.

Jemima's school continues to be totally cool and the head teacher is so open and brings so much into the school. We are excited about me teaching yoga there as part of their Enrichment afternoons and I am really looking forward to working more closely with the lovely staff there. Yey!

I know there was something else I wanted to blog about but it has escaped me and it is late so I shall sign off for now and will will will put some photos up soon I hope! Send me all your news lovely friends, near and far xxxxx


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Love hurts...

Ok. I’m back to tell my story. I haven’t much to say really. It is simply that every night for the last two weeks I have had a glimpse of what it must have felt like to be Aphrodite. In the paintings I mean, not her real life. And if you leave out the men. I am talking in sensual, emotional and devotional terms here, not sexual. Sorry, what I mean is that I now know how it feels to be lavished with adoring, caressing female attention from girls who simply cannot get enough of your body. Yes, I am talking about my daughters.

Since the girls started to sleep together our bedtime routine has evolved, or regressed, depending on your parenting point of view. I no longer meditate on Jemima’s floor while she falls asleep. Instead I lie down between them both and wait for them to fall asleep. I know that many parents - though probably not my blog readers - will be shocked that I still do this with my four and a half year old daughter. Especially back in the UK where most parents I know have perfected the art of a simple ‘Night night! See you in the morning’ bedtime routine.

And while that does sound rather nice and orderly – hmmm, there are nights I would kill for it actually - just think what I would miss out on? For as I lie there between my two sweet honey pies, I get to feel like the most loved and adored and deliciously juicy woman that ever graced the earth. On one side Bella breastfeeds, mmmming and aaaahing as she goes. While she feeds, her free arm is thrown across my body and she squishes and squeezes and squidges the flesh on my tummy in her hand. Hmm, actually this is very painful and something I could do without.

When I say: ‘Gently Bella!’, she pulls off the boob (ouch), sits bolt upright and starts to stroke Jemima’s and my hair. She thinks ‘gently’ means ‘stroke hair softly’. It is very sweet. Then she throws herself on top of me, buries her head in my belly and blows big, deep, sticky raspberries. She generally has a lot of fun at the expense of my bodily flesh.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Jemima is snuggled up whispering sweet somethings in my ear. “I love you Mummy. Let’s have a conversation”

“Ssssh, its bedtime. No talking”. Short and sharp. I try to be strict. Very business like. “Oh, I love you too”

Nowit is her turn to sit up, resting (read: digging) her elbow comfortably in my ribs. Owwww... every night!

“How much do you love me?”

Here we go. You all know that game, like the book: “How much do I love you?”? I love you as much as the sky, all the water in the sea ... Last week Jemima threw herself at me so violently I had a blood blister on my lip for a week. But I actually wanted a scar to remind me forever of the words she uttered just as her forehead came crashing onto my mouth “I love you as much as all the stars in the sky Mummy!”

A few bruises later things finally quieten down and at some stage, when their breathing becomes heavy and deep, I carefully disentangle myself from the mass of hair, limbs and lips that seem to be pinning me to the spot, shake out my pins and needles and sneak out like an excited child, “James! They’re asleep! We can eat chocolate!”. Other times though I just stay put and wallow in all that love for a while. Until my legs go dead.

Or until I get kicked out. Their loving doesn’t stop once they are asleep. At least three times before we go to bed I will hear one of them yelp in their sleep as a result of some smack, squash or kick. Once I found Bella up and awake, chatting very loudly, with some of her fingers inside Jemima’s nose, to get a good grip, and some of them inside Jemima’s eyes, how else could she prise them open? Jemima slept on, unaware. I have watched Bella roll on top of Jemima and stay there, the two of them continuing to snore gently to themselves. And the cushion boundaries stacked around their mattress never go high or far enough. One of them almost always ends up on the other side of the room, asleep on the cold tile floor with one leg flung up and resting in the cupboard. Perhaps cots and child seized beds are a good idea after all. But then there’d be no room for me.

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Bella’s co-sleeping adventures continued...

So many of you have got back to me about the fact that Bella started to
co-sleep through the night that I feel I have to keep you up to date with how it is all going. Mostly because this morning I woke up at 6am feeling spookily well-rested and then realised that I had not woken since 9.30 last night. Something must have been up. It was only when I looked around the bed for Bella that I remembered the monumental decision we took, and then acted upon very excitedly, yesterday. Of course! Bella has a new co-sleeping partner. And judging by her absence this morning, they get on well together too!

It was after five nights by the beach, where Bella and Jemima shared one bed and we slept blissfully and peacefully in the other, entirely free of little bodies. You know the ones – they are tiny by day but then strangely transmogrify into huge gangly other-worldly manifestations the minute they fall asleep in your bed? They definitely have more limbs than is normal, and feel decidedly sack-like (sand-filled) when draped across you.

Well, it was the absence of these bodies that made us finally admit to ourselves that although Bella has been effectively co-sleeping through the night, in that she rarely feeds between the hours of 7 and 6 any more, her very presence in the bed (read: on my head, under my leg, finger up my nose... go on, make up your own, they’ll all be true), not only woke both of us about three times a night, but also made it the first place Jemima thought of coming whenever anything happened to wake her (there have been a lot of night time storms lately). To put it plainly, it didn’t matter that Bella was sleeping through, we still weren’t.

So we wasted no time. Yesterday we gave Jemima’s bed back to the landlady and put her mattress on the floor. Today I will put a fairy-like mosquito net up and they will have their own little palace. Jemima was thrilled as she will no longer be on her own and Bella, well, she slept there all night cuddled up to her sister, so I am presuming she has no real objections either. She still goes to sleep on the boob and this morning at 6 she snuck into our bed for a snuggly feed and then we went back to sleep together for a while - heaven.

Should I feel sad that this era is over for us? Well, four years experience of attachment parenting has made me a realist at last. She still has many teeth to come not to mention bad dreams, illness etc... But one night of full, deep, undisturbed sleep is worth celebrating no matter how it goes from here.

My overwhelming feeling, apart from the awake-and-not-tired one, is relief. I have done something essentially for myself, and I don't feel guilty! If you are a mother you will share my astonishment. Imagine getting the reward and being able to enjoy it guilt-free! This is thanks to Jemima. With one child, if you believe in co-sleeping, the day you stop is filled with angst about letting the child down or pushing them away. Bella would probably be with us for another year if she were an only child. The fact that she has a big sister and so can continue to sleep alongside another warm and beloved body makes the whole decision so easy. And it is probably far more likely to work because it is true that if either wakes, provided they feel emotionally and physically well, seeing or feeling their sister curled up with them is enough to make them just go back to sleep rather than come looking for us. Hooray. Life feels good today. I hope yours does too.
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How do full-time working mothers do it?

Last week I walked in the shoes of a full-time working mother – well, I ran actually, and frantically so, never quite managing to keep up. This week as my life resumes its gentle pace I am still recovering. The weekend is definitely not long enough to meet everyone’s needs. As a result I am filled with respect, horror, pity, envy and so many other emotions, when I think of all the mothers of small children who work a 40+ hour week. Mind you I was on the first leg of my Foundation course in the Healing Arts, which felt something akin to a week in group therapy, so you might have to excuse the overload of feelings which may spill themselves onto these pages...

Actually, mostly what I feel right now is an overwhelming sense of chaos. A week of being mostly absent from this house and family bears its physical marks wherever you look. There are piles of crumpled clean laundry, but no clean nappy covers and no shirts for James. There are sticky pink hand prints (pink factor infinity sunblock) all over the mirrors... and there are mirrored cupboards in every room of this house. The kitchen is overflowing with dirty plates and the ants come marching one by one. Jemima’s school book did not make it back into her bag, I daren’t look at my emails and I’m behind on my yoga homework. And this is today, and from just a quick surface glance around me.

Ask James what it was like here last week. Or put it this way, I am not the only one who is extremely happy not to be working full-time. The poor guy would reluctantly offer to make dinner, very quietly, no doubt desperately hoping I would not hear him. There was no milk for breakfast, pasta and tomato for dinner four days in a row, (I did hear him), Cham who runs Matthe’s playgroup has still not been paid... And Bella would physically prise Jemima off me when I made my daily dash back home for lunch and breastfeed.

The only member of our family who was happy to see me at work was the cat. She got to eat tinned tuna every day because it took me a whole week to get round to getting her biscuit. And notice that despite having acknowledged all the mess and the neglected children, I am not dealing with any of it but instead hiding away blogging about it while Bella has gone to Cham’s again? This is how bad it got.

But I am acknowledging it. And this is a relief to me. Because for a while last week I found myself slipping so easily into another world, where my priorities were what I would wear each day to look respectable for my course, taking time before leaving the house to prepare myself for the course, or do some yoga to help deal with my aching body and thudding heart and head (I was being serious about the group therapy thing!) By day three I was starting to consider not coming back for lunch so I could get to know my colleagues, thereby pretty much stopping breastfeeding Bella all day, and not putting her down for her nap myself.

Ok, ok. I know lots of mothers would think nothing of all this. But this is me! The same me who has written a whole chapter in my never-to-be-published book about the joys and importance of at least half-time but preferably full-time motherhood for children. Me who keeps a blog mostly in order to regularly extol the virtues of responsive parenting. And this is the thing. Controversial though it may be to say this, it is impossible to be a truly responsive mother and work full-time. Actually wait, probably if you are a truly responsive mother and you do not have to work full-time you would not, for that very reason. I know very responsive mothers who have no choice but to work full time here, usually because their partner is not here to help, and I bet/know they find it very hard... not just for their kids but for themselves. They co-sleep, they devote every minute of spare time to their children, they do an amazing job raising happy children. Respect!

So perhaps what I mean is that for ME it is impossible. Because I know, being there, normally, on and off all day apart from a few hours teaching here and there, what the needs and demands of my children are. And believe me, last week I did not meet any of them. I ran out of the school each morning leaving Jemima in mid-sentence, asking me if she could show me her pictures in the class room. I ran out of the house after our hurried lunch each afternoon leaving Bella calling me and telling Jemima I would help her make Sigrid’s birthday card later (it got made ten minutes before the party yesterday). I ignored all polite requests to possibly eat something else for breakfast other than banana.

Now I know Jemima is a mature four (sounds like a graded cheddar) and can cope perfectly well with a lot of this and so she did. She made me proud. But she also told me she loved me about ten times on every occasion that she managed to snatch some time with me, and she asked to go to bed with us most evenings. Not only was I absent physically, but she knew my mind was elsewhere. And probably the chaos in the house and the absence of some of her staple diet (!) had an unsettling affect on her too.

I can imagine at this point people reading this are also feeling glad I am not working! I sound pathetic I know! This is why I am writing... to truly express my awe at anyone who manages to work and take good physical and emotional care of their children! How do you do it? When you get home at dinner time, need to feed them and bathe them and get them to sleep then and there, can you really muster up the energy to go and buy food at 8pm at night? I tell you I was so exhausted I fell asleep with them most nights. No wonder nothing else was achieved. If you are still unsympathetic remember we have no car, cannot walk out at night for vague fear of getting mugged at gunpoint, and when I did get to the bloody supermarket there were no oats because the one monthly stock was bought up by some other wiser expat who knows they only have a monthly stock. (I must find out who that is and make friends with them. I am not cut out for not being around my children.) And this is here! Where I have Sophy at home to look after Bella and take her to play with friends. If I had to drop my 14 month daughter off at childcare for nine hours a day? Well a little of the mother in me would die each time I am sure. I am so lucky to have a set up where she can be at home.

Anyway enough excuses and enough gratitude. I fully accept that I would be a hopeless working mother and whatever my circumstances I never ever plan to do this as long as we can scrape by on James’s meagre living... People use finances as a reason but I do not actually have any western friends with children on a lower salary than us. I say this not for pity, we live a great and full life, no complaints, but because for us lucky middle-income westerners with partners, it basically boils down to choice. And my choice is that I will grow my own food and stir cow poo into biogas before I become a full-time working mother. (I’ve done this before, on a farm in the Bolivian rainforest. Believe me, a truer example of love for my children does not exist. And yes I am perfectly aware that if this did become our reality they would probably ask me to stop loving them so much and go and get a decent office job, 9-5. Let’s hope it does not come to this.)

Back to reality. Bella bore it well, as far as I could see, but I was not there so how do I know? Sophy always tells me she is happy but how sensitive is she to Bella’s moods? How do I know she read her tiredness, anger, frustrations, boredom or anxiety correctly and acted upon it appropriately. I trust Sophy with caring for Bella for short periods of time and I find her kind and mostly responsive. But the Khmer approach to children is a very different one to mine. I am usually distinctly unimpressed with the way nannies care for children here in Phnom Penh when we are out and about. I often see children having tantrums that are entirely ignored by their nannies. The child’s stress levels become painful to watch and I wish I could get the parents’ number so I could call them and let them know. In their shoes I would definitely want to know about this. I sometimes catch Sophy jigging and tickling and rousing a very tired or fussing Bella, who in return gets angry and screams. She would respond far better, I try to show her, if given a soothing, gentle hug, maybe a nap or a cup of water, a pot of raisins and a cuddly story on the sofa. However much she cares for Bella she does not know her like I do and she does not read her like I would like her to. And she was affected too. She became reluctant to let go of me when saying goodbye and every night, in her sleep, when we plopped her in her little bed at the end of ours she would get up and walk back to me and collapse back down to continue her sleep draped across my body. It was very sweet, for about a minute.

Yey it’s ten o’clock. Bella will be back in a minute to help me clear this place up! I’d better wrap this up. It is really far too long to be considered a blog post. If you have got to the end thank you! And if you are a full-time working mother how on earth have you found the time?

I suppose I might have loved full-time working – I know many women can’t think of anything worse than the domestic scene I mostly find myself in. There is room for all of us luckily! I can only say how thankful and happy I feel to be back in the world where I can take time out to breastfeed Bella and make it last a chapter of my book or a ten minute snooze. Where I have the energy to make going food shopping or hanging out the washing an exciting thing to do with Mummy for the afternoon. Where I can make cooking a proper dinner last all afternoon... Bella’s a dab hand at peeling onions and garlic, if only I could find them once she has finished with them. Where I can find just enough time to myself to blog, study, teach and practice yoga without missing the girls or them missing me. Where I can spend afternoons with my friends and the kids. But mostly so that I can ban the phrase ‘maybe later darling’ from my vocabulary. For this week anyway.

Oooh, talking of which, did I tell you I have started reading the English dictionary? It’s so interesting. Hmm, reading over that does this sound a bit sad? Too bad, I love it. I get tired of using the same old words over and over. For a writer my vocabulary is not very wide really. Trust me, it’s a brilliant read, you should try it. I have only got half way through the first page of A’s so far, but I hope to make better progress now my life is back on track. I shall be back soon to show you my new improved use of the English language... lest you should feel profligate:-).

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She’s co-sleeping through the night! Ha! They said it would never happen...

Woo hoo! I’m writing to spread good news and hope to all co-sleeping and other mothers out there whose babes are currently all night-wakers and feeders. At 13 months Bella started to sleep through the night! With no crying, no training (not formal anyway)... i.e. no misery and guilt. Wow. Phew. I did wonder if it would ever happen but I am so, so glad I held out now. After the soul-destroying experience of following the crowd and training Jemima at only six months (I know, a mere newbie. T’was gentle training but still, I’ll always regret it), I have fed and cuddled a co-sleeping Bella countless times every night since the day she was born, in good faith that one day it would pay off. And it has... here’s how. This one is for you Kat! I have only just seen your comment on last post... sorry and hope this lifts your spirits!

I suppose in a way you could call it training. Not really though, and it was accidental. After two weeks of sharing two single beds pushed together with my husband and two babes, at my dad’s house, (actually there was also a ‘nest’ of duvets etc on the floor, where one child would start the night but often where either James or I would end up by morning), I was getting a bit rattled. So the minute my sister’s family left us I announced that I was starting the night in the spare double room all on my own and when Bella woke James could bring her to me. We’d then spend rest of night in there together (me and Bella only I mean). I was so excited to have some space and fell asleep stretched out like a star fish, super happy - albeit with the usual slight downer of knowing that soon I would wake up for the first of many of our midnight love-ins.

When I woke to find Bella being handed to me smiling and laughing by James, I was about to groan, “The fun begins”, when I noticed it was light outside.
“What time is it?”
“6:30”.
“Ah... hang on? What time is it? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

This was quite honestly the first time I had slept for more than three hours in a row for nearly 18 months (sleepless latter half of pregnancy included in calculations). Not only had I just slept for seven hours undisturbed but after she fed we both went back to sleep until 8am. Oh. My. God.

This was the same child who, all that week, had been waking hourly and feeding in a frenzied, upset way, unable to sleep without my boob, but too tired to feed properly. Or she was just teething? Who knows, and who cares anyway now! It is history. For three nights we did the same thing, Bella snuggled up (read: squashed between) with James and Jemima, me blissfully spread out in my own bed. Each night she woke, murmured a bit, sort of cried a bit once or twice, James shsssshed her and she went straight back to sleep. I spent my days dancing around the house, rejoicing in my new well-slept self. I was convinced I had less wrinkles and looked positively 10 years younger, having been complaining all year of looking like an old woman thanks to loving Bella so much. There was only one thing that worried me. While I had absolutely no desire to return to the all- night feeding, I did want to go back to sleeping and cuddling up with Bella and James. Would she start waking again once I came back?

No! Hoorah! We took it slowly, starting with her in the nest on the floor for a week, where she woke once a night, two nights, and not at all the rest of the time. Amazingly for us, one of those nights she did not even feed but cuddled up to me instead. Then she came back into our bed and continued to sleep through. She sometimes wakes but mostly goes straight back to sleep. Once or twice she has fed once, which I can handle, no problem. Three weeks have passed now and the pattern continues. Joy.

Post script – (For those of you who, although this post was designed to give hope and encouragement, are simply too exhausted and milked out to rejoice with me, and are still in the stage where you feel more comforted more by other’s suffering than other’s successes) - There is one blip... jet lag. We came back from the UK to PP two days ago and put it this way, it is 10pm and Bella has been walking (oh yes, she is walking now too!) around the house and helping me type for the last hour that it has taken me to write this. She is now having a bath with James. Even if we do get her to bed before midnight she will wake a few hours later to romp around for a couple of hours... they say children are affected by jet lag for the same number of days as there were hours in the journey... i.e. 2 down, 10 more to go...

Have faith, take courage, stick with it... it will happen to you.

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Having two children

We are off to the UK tomorrow. I can’t believe it is one year since we were there to welcome Bella into the world. I had not even started this blog (this is my 101th post!). Just over a year ago there I was for a lazy month on my own with Jemima, Bella still on the inside and James still out here, wondering how I could ever love any child as much as my first child. I had pangs of guilt at what it might mean for Jemima to share me with a new sibling. The night she left to stay with my sister Alex, as I was going into labour, I wept at the thought of never having that life with just her again. I am writing this post for my friend J, who is pregnant with her second child. Because I just want to say “Don’t worry, nature takes care of it”.

These last few months, as Bella has begun to be more active, nearly walking, talking constantly and fluently - in what could be Russian, I am not quite sure - I have been deeply touched by Jemima’s response to her little sister. They have never been inseparable like some siblings. I mean they both seem to happily go off and do their thing. They are interested in each other of course, and play together for limited periods, but neither idolizes the other (not yet anyway). Actually I am almost relieved at this – I had visions of Bella constantly being hurt or left out as her big sister got bored of playing with her or ignored her advances. All of this may be yet to come I suppose, but at the moment it is quite beautiful to watch them together.

I have a stinking cold at the moment and it has been good for me. It has forced me to just sit still, watch the kids play, and feebly join in when required. I could watch them for hours. Bella is hilarious and keeps us constantly entertained with her games. She likes to go out of the front or back mosquito screen and hide for a minute before popping her head round and screaming with delight because she knows how easily she can make us laugh. Even when she doesn’t try we still can’t peel our eyes off her. She is just so yummy and squishy. Even when she cries she looks sweet. She pours over books for hours, stopping and peering close up at a particular picture for several long seconds before saying “hmmmm” and then something in Russian that I think means “That is so fascinating”, turning the page and doing the same all over again. She always has something in her arms. She’ll find something random – yesterday it was Jemima’s pants – and holds onto them loyally for an entire day. And when she is tired woe betide anyone who tries to separate her from her chosen item of the day.

All of this she does while Jemima rearranges the furniture around her and does gymnastics, jumps from one island to another and makes a ‘baby school’ a la ‘gymboree’ for Bella. I just have to sit there with my tea and assume a range of undemanding roles such as mummy mermaid, crocodile or friendly monster. Actually we made the mistake of watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang last weekend so now I am the child catcher. Apparently I have a ‘nice big nose’ so the role suits me perfectly.

Jemima always addresses Bella as ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’ and laughs when she does something sweet, strokes her face and tells her she is ‘such a sweetie’. She seems to genuinely rejoice in Bella making us laugh, looking lovely in a dress, enchanting all the Khmers we meet. I’ve no idea how long it will last but I am determined to enjoy and cherish and nurture the lovely friendship they have. They adore each other and it makes me wish I could remember the early years with my sisters. I have three older sisters and it is lovely to think that when I was a baby I was fussed over as much as Bella is today.

As for me (and James feels much the same), once Bella was born I never had to think again about whether I would be able to love another child as much as Jemima. It just happens. But I am not saying it feels the same second time round. It is a very different thing I find, loving a little baby, than a three year old child with a mind of her own, which she expresses loud and clear and often. I know Jemima so much better than I know Bella. Or at least there is more of Jemima to know, if that makes any sense. So while my love for Bella is deep and protective, it is still very physical. I still breastfeed her on demand, sleep with her, pick her up whenever she or I need. Of course we play and talk and listen to each other a lot as well, but I don’t understand Russian. Jemima’s relationship with me feels a lot more emotionally intimate. It feels strange writing this because as a mother of just one baby I am sure it would be hard to understand. Until your child begins to talk and share their view of the world and life within it with you, and then you have another baby to remind you what it is like loving a baby... then you will understand. Hmmm, do any other mothers of two share these feelings or relate to what I am saying? Ho hum... anyway my point is, dear J, it is different but all good. Lovely. Cherish what you have now but relax in the knowledge that you have something to really look forward to and be excited about.

I am off to steam my cold away. Yesterday Sophy made me lie in a boiling hot bath full of Kafir limes and lemon grass and sweat it out. I recommend it actually – as long as you have lots of drinking water at hand. She is telling me to do the same today so that I am well for the flight tomorrow. So that’s what I’ll do. And I will try to blog from time to time from England. Bye all 

If you like this post have a read of this one too, about Attachment parenting for making life with siblings easier.

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Being allowed to love motherhood... and a yoga meditation to help us!

Thanks so much for all your comments and emails everyone. You keep me going. You also distract me when I should be studying, like right now. But I'm tired and have thoughts I just have to express. The good news is that my Khmer friend is breastfeeding after all!

I do not know if she is mixed feeding with the formula that her parents bought her. She did not answer that question and I did not want to push her. But her text said something along the lines of "We are so happy. We are breastfeeding successfully and will carry on". Hoorah! I'm so happy. Not just for the baby but for the mother.

We often think we are putting pressure on mothers when we advocate breastfeeding. I think we forget just how many mothers, who do not end up breastfeeding, really, really wanted to at the beginning, but did not succeed for lack of support, reassurance and lanolin sore nipple cream.

The Kundalini Yoga teachings say that the baby shares the mother's aura, or electromagnetic field, from birth until they are three years old. They specify that the mother and child should remain very close for the first 40 days outside the womb. This is not only to make the baby feel safe and secure. The modern pressures on new mothers are to get their life back, let their baby cry a little, allow the father to bond with a bottle, use a cot, get back to work... They all seem to be in favour of the mother, but I think they simply prohibit bonding, encourage resistance to what a mother's instinctive role is meant to be, and cause frustration, exhaustion, even post-natal depression.

All the mothers I know who have truly followed their instincts, who have stayed close to their babies through co-sleeping, baby-wearing, breastfeeding where and when either mother or child feels like it, are the happiest mothers I know. They have no conflicts, they are not trying to follow any prescribed method or hurry back to life as it was before. These are the women I hear using expressions like: "I feel like I have come home", or "I have found my purpose", or "I have found peace". I know a lot of mothers - surely this can't be a co-incidence. Mothering as nature intended, with the support and encouragement of our social network, is usually without any of the trauma that both mother and child so often seem to experience in western child-raising cultures. (Arrgh writing this reminds me why I wrote my book! To encourage mothers. I've lost faith in it but I must work on that one day. Hmm, I digress, sorry.)

So, having said all this I thought I would share a lovely moment I had with Jemima last week. It was just the usual morning Tuk Tuk ride back from school. But it was one of those moments when you want to give thanks to the universe for being alive. Jemima was on my lap cuddling me and telling me she loved me 'soooo much'. She was laughing and throwing her head about and her hair was blowing in the wind. I know that of all the memories I want to hold onto forever, this one will never fade. It's not corny to admit it. Being a mother is the most valuable gift I could have ever wished for. I want to live my life as mother in a way which ensures that, whatever happens to me, I will never, ever look back and regret not having spent enough time with my children, or cuddled them enough, smelt them enough, listened to them or looked at them. As I write this my sister is in England supporting the husband and children of her dear friend who is dying of breast cancer. We should live every moment as fully as we can and never take our blessings for granted.

I know, I can hear lots of stressed out mothers screaming at me already. So here are two things to appease you. One is simply that not all our school runs are so lovely. On Friday we walked to school and Jemima had to step over a huge dead rat. Today at exactly the same spot, though I had forgotten, she said: "Where's the rat?" We looked down and there was its skeleton, stinking in the heat of the sun. OK, not a such a great story but a little bit of description is always nice.

This one is much better. Also last week, we had one of those horrible evenings when everyone was crying, no one got to sleep on time and I was hot, bothered and at the end of my tether. I wanted to scream and shout and throw things in a way that only tired and hormonal mothers do. But, for a change, I did not. Instead I lit a candle, sat on the floor and looked through my meditation files from my course notes. Three minutes later I was calm, could be civil enough to help my children to sleep despite their protests and focused enough to recognise that I needed a bath and an early night. (A miracle for me as I am the world's worst late night phaffer. I never get to bed before 10:30, and that's on a good night). The result was so effective that even James was calm and receptive to my mood. He offered to let me sleep in the spare bed while he did Bella duty. I was asleep at 930, fed Bella once at 12 and slept on until morning. That is the best night's sleep I have had since she was born. Here is what I did:

It is called Meditation for Emotional Balance (Sunia Antar). You could look it up on the internet for a picture or more information before practicing it, or just follow my instructions and enjoy the benefits. It can take as little (no less) as three mins, and as many as eleven (no more).

Drink a glass of water. Water imbalance is often a cause of emotional discomfort or lack of focus.
Sit cross-legged with your arms crossed across the chest and hands placed under your armpits. As though you were hugging yourself. Keep your head straight and raise the shoulders right up to the ear lobes without cramping the neck. The action of pulling up the shoulders and tightly locking the entire upper area creates a solid brake to the four sides of the brain.
Breathe slowly and deeply. Long, slow and deep breathing gives us indirect control of our minds. This eliminates obnoxious behaviour and promotes a calm mind regardless of circumstances.

After three minutes of this healing meditation you will find that while the thoughts will still be there, the feelings will not. Every mother should know this as they and their children will benefit. Life is too short to keep on feeling negative, when allowing ourselves a few minutes of stillness can help us regain positivity and calm.

Sat Nam. Love, Peace and Light.


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You thought your in-laws were bad! On breastfeeding...

Last Sunday night, just as I was putting the girls and myself to bed for an early night, a friend from my breastfeeding group called. Her Khmer friend was in hospital with her six-hour-old baby and having problems breastfeeding. Her first baby (now one year old) was not breastfed because the woman’s mother insisted that her daughter had wrongly shaped nipples for breastfeeding. The baby was given rice milk from birth.

So off I went to the hospital. I have done this before but I am always amazed by the sheer number of people congregating in the maternity units. There is one benefit to be gained from not offering food or drinks in hospital – your family rallies round. Each room, not to mention the corridor, was crammed full of family members, from small children to grannies, all fussing around the mother, offering home cooked food, another blanket, and lots and lots of advice. Did I say benefit? Well I do love the idea in theory. In practice unfortunately, the sheer volume of people can interfere with the mother’s bonding with her new baby, and the well-meant advice is often harmful and misguided.

My new friend’s room was just as packed. I was nervous that they would wonder who this western woman thought she was, coming in and offering advice about breastfeeding. Little did I know that her father was interrogating James outside:

“Is your wife a doctor?”
“No”.
“oh, she’s a nurse right?”
“Urm, no”
“What is…”
“She’s a breastfeeding counsellor!” he sort of lied.
“Oh, good!”
Apparently a peer counsellor, untrained but experienced, might have been confusing, what with the language barrier… so James explained to me later. But I know he was just scared. There were a lot of people.

They were all very friendly however and it was quite clear that the mother herself desperately wanted to breastfeed her second child. So we chatted, I helped her latch her baby on, reassured her that her nipples looked perfectly normal to me and that her daughter was latching on and sucking perfectly. Then it became clear that the whole family thought that she did not have enough milk, so I explained about colostrum and the fact that her milk would not really come through until day three or four. Then I encouraged her to take off the baby’s clothes, and her own layers, and hold her skin to skin for as much time as possible. This actually goes against Khmer culture where they believe that a newborn baby and mother lose dangerous amounts of body heat during labour so they each wrap up in several layers of towels and blankets, which of course prohibits the breastfeeding hormones from doing their job. In the countryside they still practice ‘roasting’, whereby mother and child spend a month in a hut lying over hot coals, sauna style. Luckily this woman was educated enough not to throw away the colostrum, which many Khmers believe is dirty and bad for the baby.

I left the hospital feeling hopeful that she would enjoy a happy breastfeeding relationship with her new daughter. The next day she called again with the same concern. “I have not got enough milk”. I went over the facts once more and received a text a few hours later: “My baby is now absorbing milk. Thank you so much for your help”. Hoorah! I knew she would need lots of encouragement but it seemed as though the case were closed. I got distracted with other things and that was that. Until this evening, when my friend updated me on the woman’s progress. I am gutted. Despite her education, her parents have convinced that her milk is too yellow after all. It must be bad, they thought, so they went out and bought a tub of formula and that was that. Gutting.

I know it is no use getting upset or too involved (although I have texted her of course and offered to meet up with her tomorrow!) but it is hard not to feel angry. It was so disheartening in the hospital to see the number of brand new babies on bottles all along the corridors, and more so because the grandparents and mothers offering them were so proud of the fact. “Formula” they said to me happily, as I cooed over their babies. The laws against advertising formula milk mean nothing in a country like Cambodia. The image of a fat, formula-fed baby is desirable - just that morning James’ colleagues were expressing disapproval and disappointment over how small Bella is. (She is not small. She is just slim and long…but there were no tubby rolls for them to pinch and squeeze.) I am not angry with Cambodians. It is the formula companies I feel disgusted with. Infant mortality in Cambodia occurs at a rate of 65 deaths per 1000 live births. In 2000 it was 95 per 1000, so the situation is improving thanks to breastfeeding awareness campaigns. But while the formula companies continue their aggressive advertising campaigns, babies and children continue to die unnecessarily. In a country as poor as Cambodia, women, babies and children need all the health benefits offered by breastfeeding that they can get.

Grrrr. I'm off to bed. For a far more articulate read about very naughty formula companies check out Baby Milk Action. Good night all.

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Backpacking with the kids in Vietnam...

Time to tell you all about our travels. I have just written to friends and family - one of my long letters home I write every so often. Forgive me but I am more or less cutting and pasting. So this will be a bit more letter like than my usual blog posts. Still have to sort out photos. And my baby for that matter. Bella woke every 20 minutes last night for most of the night. Something is up and I have no idea what. Anyway enjoy this and look out for my top tips on travelling with kids that will follow some day soon.

What an adventure. I felt like I was in my early 20s again, except with a husband and two kids. We took three night trains, a thousand buses (including a very cool brand new, still tagged sleeper bus decked out in pink floral duvets, pillows, walls – a bus with beds! You can imagine how exciting I found that, let alone what Jemima thought of it all!) For those of you who know Vietnam and want details we spent 3 days in beautiful Hanoi, 5 in the mountains round Sapa, 3 in Halong Bay, via Haiphong, a couple in the old capital Hue, a few more in gorgeous Hoian, then made our way to the My Lai massacre site and spent some days at the beaches near there and around Quy Non. Then bussed back to Ho Chi Minh and on again to PP. We covered a lot of ground now I think about it.

The highlights: Jemima’s general excitement at nearly everything we proposed. She could not contain herself on the night trains and even got excited for bus journeys long after she should have become bored by them (our shortest journey was about 3 hours “I don’t mind Mama, I’ll have a little rest") stumbling across music and dance and water puppet shows in at least half the places we went to; a boat trip around Halong Bay; exploring the old quarters and spice markets of beautiful Hanoi (amazing architecture) by cyclo; swimming with Vietnamese tourists on stunning golden sand beaches off the tourist trail, watching local boys catch crabs and make fires and cook them, and squatting on stools by the road side eating roasted sweet potato, sticky rice and mango on tiny barbeques tended by Montagnard ethnic minority groups in the mountains near Sapa.

I loved seeing these people carry their babies everywhere (I have come back with three beautifully woven, colourful baby carriers! We had six carriers with us overall while we travelled). They breastfeed on demand until at least two years and generally I observed that their babies never cried and were totally chilled out. It was sadly typical actually – the town of Sapa itself has been colonised by Vietnamese people who have migrated there for the tourism (which developed around the attraction of the mountain people and their traditional way of life, stunning crafts etc) but the local tribes would be very unlikely to get jobs in restaurants, shops etc. They wandered through the town selling their wares with excellent English. They presumably need to be kept as they are or they would not be so interesting. For their sake I hope they can preserve their unique cultures, but it seemed unfair that the modern world remains largely inaccessible for them should they choose it. What I found most fascinating and sad was that as soon as you hit the town there were children in buggies, with bottles, or in play pens in shops. That is the modern way of doing things the Vietnamese people have adopted from us Westerners. These babies were so different and often crying from boredom or lack of physical touch. It was so interesting to see it right along side the ‘attachment' parenting approach. Well, at least it is if this is your main passion and interest as it happens to be for me! it was a true testimony to all I have read, studied and experienced, laid before my eyes. Vietnamese were all surprised that I was breastfeeding and carrying – they probably saw me as very primitive, like their mountain folk who they look down upon! Ho hum…

The blips… hmmmm, in no order of priority… Jemima’s long-awaited hard-roasted egg (on said Montagnard barbeque) exploding in a fountain of blood, yolk and tiny baby chick embryo before her eyes. She was cool, I became a vegan (well vowed to, one day soon) and we didn’t order a replacement egg. Have I told you that unhatched chicks in their various stages of in-utero development are a delicacy here too? That and duck’s webbed feet; the 6 hour journey leaving PP on our first day turning into a 12 hour one as the bus stood still in a mile long, five-car wide traffic jam in rural Cambodia, 37 degrees Centigrade, middle of day, for 6 hours while we waited for a ferry capable of carrying about 8 cars at a time to cross the Mekong river. Surreal. We moaned a lot but the kids seemed oblivious. It got worse - at the border we discovered that our ruck sack was covered in pee from the leaking loo on the bus. Disgusting. The start to our holiday was no reflection of the rest of the trip you will be glad to hear.

On travelling with kids: We were amazed. Everyone says it, but you can still never quite believe the children will be ok and tolerate it all until you experience it. But they were just totally cool with everything. Jemima's mantra became: "I am loving this holiday so much I can’t bear to go back to Cambodia!” (She only kept repeating it because it made us laugh so much the first time and she loves to entertain).

Bella had a ball because we had nothing else to do but carry her (gorgeous climate so not TOO sweaty to wear her all day unlike here) and go and see things. So she was fed a hundred times a day, cuddled/held non-stop by us and a hundred very forward, frankly very annoying, in-your-face Vietnamese and Chinese tourists. She didn’t care, she loved it, in fact she positively encouraged it by flashing one of her smiles and reaching out to them. Jemima on the other hand was often to be seen running away, shrugging off and shouting “NO!” as she defended herself from the onslaught of grabbing, drooling and general mauling from people just desperate for a feel of white skin and blonde hair. And James and I became practiced at reciting: “Thank you, yes they are, aren’t they? 9 months, 3 and a half, no sorry no photos today”. We managed to keep smiling most of the time though I was tempted to scream “Children don’t enjoy being laughed at and chased and manhandled by total strangers!! Back off you maniac.” I lost it only once when I had to have the usual argument about the fact that Bella is not a boy – they were insistent every time “Girl? Girl? Really? No…she looks like a boy!”. They carried on long after I had turned my attention elsewhere as if we would eventually change our mind and say, "oh actually you are right she is a boy after all." On one such occasion after I did not change my point of view they grabbed Bella’s nappy protected groin to find out if I was really sure... and then Jemima’s! Argghhh! They made me appreciate how gentle and shy the Khmers are, despite their equal adoration for fair skinned kids. We were tourists but often felt like the main attraction.

Jemima did miss her friends. She talked about them a lot and was excited at the thought of coming back home and to school, but she made friends everywhere we went, with gentler Vietnamese women and nearly every western backpacker in sight. She also became adept at evaluating public loos, on a scale of: “Oh this one is not very lovely is it Mama?” to, “Hmm, I think I’ll pee on the grass, yeah?” Yogis out there, the Breath of Fire has another use – it is totally lifesaving when you don’t want to smell. Really it got me through some of the most nauseating stenches out there… the only one it did not work on was that of rotting fish in a sweet little fishing port where we negotiated a trip to an island.

Vietnam is an amazing country and very sad when you see how much has been destroyed by the various wars. Really the legacy of the American war is hard to accept. We visited the famous My Lai massacre site – where the Americans landed in a village in broad day light and raped and killed women, children and grandparents – hundreds, I forget how many exactly – and then tried to burn the evidence. The site was very moving – the houses that were burnt down were left like that, some reconstructed so we could imagine what it had been like. The whole thing was documented by an army photographer – how weird. He must have just stood there and filmed the lot. There were shocking pictures of terrified women and children standing against a tree with the caption: “Moments before being shot down dead” or similar. It made you face the darkest, most horrific capabilities of humankind. The village today looks exactly as it must have done then. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, people were working in the rice paddies, it was a scene of peaceful medieval activity in a way. I imagined soldiers sneaking up on women and children working around the house… and realised that as I was imagining it, it was happening in the Middle East… No one has learnt anything from history. It could be Iraq now. (Actually if the US had done their history before invading Vietnam they would have also seen that they would never win against such a battle-hardened, always victorious nation…)

Despite all this Vietnam today is so much more developed and wealthy than I had imagined. It was like going to Europe compared with Cambodia. I have got so used to living here but I was reminded that it is arguably the poorest, least developed and most damaged country in the region. And the gap between rich and poor seems so much more visible and shocking here as well. In Vietnam there were lots of local tourists – it seemed a middle income country although of course I know there are areas of real poverty too- rural mostly. Yet I did not see much extreme wealth or poverty – if it exists it is not as widespread as here. In one morning in PP you will see naked kids on the street high on glue or mothers begging with their babies sharing the same road as the most expensive SUVs on the market.

So there you are. I have written way too much and Bella will wake from her nap any minute. It is overcast and cool here and I'm inhaling the damp dusty ‘about to rain’ smell I love so much. I'm so excited! I will make some tea and curl up and watch the rain drown out the ants with Bella. Jemima is playing at a friend’s this afternoon. The sky has darkened since I started this paragraph and there are now terrifying cracks and booms followed by various children’s screams from around the neighbourhood! I love it but it does sound rather like war. In a minute the down pour will begin and I will not be able to hear myself think - when it drums on the tin roof you have to shout to make yourself heard. I won't hear Bella either so better go see what she is up to. Practical travel tips will follow one day soon (Have I said that already?)

If you like this post, read this.
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Natural remedies for babies and children

As I have said already Bella and James have both had bad coughs and colds this week. The house, infused with garlic or cloves depending on which room you are in, is strewn with little pots and jars, each containing olive oil and some combination of essential oils. I have broken the lemon squeezer and grated my fingers in with the ginger. And we are out of honey. I thought I may as well share a few natural remedies I am using. I do not have very many so would love to hear your ideas as well. And, for those of you reading from Cambodia, I have to tell you about PP’s only and most wonderful homeopath, Sally Anne Matthews, who also gave me many of the ideas below.

Ok, here is a (rather hurried, sorry) description of what poor Bella’s has been made to endure every day this week. Thanks to all this and the wonders of homeopathy, we have managed to avoid antibiotics or drugs. Hope you find some of it useful and look forward to your ideas!

Eye
Bella had fluorescent green and yellow gunge oozing from her eyes for seven days. I managed to get rid of it eventually by cleaning her eye every few hours with cooled boiled salt water and cotton wool, followed by dropping or squirting (!) breast milk in her eye.

Snot
Each morning Bella has woken full of green mucus and snot, which is making her cough a lot. I have held her over a steaming sink full of boiling water and cloves. I would add eucalyptus and lavender if I had not used them all up in another remedy, but cloves works brilliantly on its own actually. I have held her in a towel so that she does not put her hands in, lying face down in my arms, with her head over the sink. She does not exactly enjoy this experience but it works wonders and is a lot less stressful for her than the nose sucker which she hates. Doing this once a day has got all the night’s build up of snot out of her system.

At her next feed I then drop or squirt breast milk up her nose. They say to do this at the beginning of a feed because they sniff it right up. Not sure why, perhaps in anticipation of the drink to come!

Chest rub
I have then rubbed a mix of eucalyptus, lavender and cloves in olive oil onto her chest and back. This is replacing the usual massage she gets, with citronella and olive oil to ward off the mossies.

Ear
Because she occasionally rubs her ear as though it might be sore or slightly infected, I have been sticking garlic down there. I chop it up with olive oil and drop into the ear. You can stop up with cotton wool if necessary. Do not push it far into the ear! It really helps with any pain and seems to prevent the development of an ear infection.

Food
I have been giving Bella ginger water to drink and garlicky vegetables – ginger and garlic are tow great natural antibiotics. Have filled her up with citrus fruit and tried to keep off wheat and dairy, though not exclusively. She has had oat porridge made with fresh orange juice which Jemima now loves too so that’s a good way to cut down her intake of milk. (Here we buy long life milk generously donated by some poor hormone pumped cow. As a breast feeding mother I am feeling solidarity with dairy cows! If it were not for my daughter’s love of everything dairy I would consider going vegan. Maybe when she is a bit older. I do miss British organic milk! It may be very expensive but milk is something I really think is worth buying organic.)

I also came across this this on natural remedies which has taught me a lot about using diet to prevent and cure almost everything. Trouble is, change is hard! James looked at me as though I were trying to torture him when I told him he needed to go on a fruit juice fast for two days and then only eat fruit. It is true that on his metabolism he would probably die if he did not eat a good meal every few hours, but I bet he would have fought off his cold before he did (die of starvation that is).

Potions
Jemima never gets ill. She gets run down and shows signs of getting ill, but she never seems to succumb. But just in case, this week she has feasted on 3 daily doses of echinacea, two daily spoonfuls of olive leaf tonic and a one a day probiotic!

Now it’s time to get Jemima and I have not told you about my homeopath, Sally Anne. Actually she needs a post of her own so I will write more next week. But suffice to say she has treated me and Bella twice now and it has been a wonderful healing experience both times. In a country where the kids get sick so often, having a homeopath in town is totally brilliant. Three times now we have avoided antibiotics (which we fell back on rather too often last year) thanks to Sally Anne’s remedies. I will tell all next week. Have a good weekend!

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Night waking is normal... sleep training for mothers

Yesterday I woke up feeling rather desperate after another night of incredible activity. Bella woke so many times I lost count. She is teething, so unlike the usual quick cuddle or feed back to sleep, she stayed awake for ages each time. In a panic that she will never ever sleep through the night I posted a question on my two favourite forums, www.iwantmymum.com and the Continuum email forum: Has anyone successfully trained a co-sleeping babe? The answer was no. I am so glad I asked.

I am serious. The responses I received restored my faith in what I already knew to be true: 1) that babies are supposed to wake at night and 2) that eight months is way too early for sleep training. I just needed reminding.

To spend long hours in a deep, lone sleep may be desirable for western parents but it is not a natural state for a baby. It is the result of being placed far away from human warmth and physical contact and, as expert James McKenna clearly explains below, is biologically entirely inappropriate for several very good reasons:

“(Physiologically): Born with only 25% of its adult brain volume the human infant is neurologically the most immature infant primate of all, the slowest developing and the most reliant on its mother for the longest period of time for physiological regulation and support. Indeed, nothing that a human infant can or cannot do makes sense except in the light of the mother’s body.

(Breastfeeding): Human infant milk composition, characterised by its low protein and fat content and high lactose, necessitates short intervals between breast feeds making human mother–infant co-sleeping not only expectable but biologically necessary.

(Security): Moreover, mammal infants whose mothers leave them to sleep alone in nests neither cry nor defecate until she returns (to lick them) so as not to attract predators. Human infants cry and defecate spontaneously when their mothers leave indicating that the constant physical association between them is evolutionarily stable and appropriate.

(SIDS): The supine infant sleep position evolved in tandem with both breast feeding and mother–infant co-sleeping (an integrated adaptive system). It was only after breast feeding was replaced by bottle-feeding and solitary infant sleep environments replaced maternal–infant social sleep that recommendations to place infants prone (i.e. on their stomachs) for sleep made sense, or was even possible. But it was a tragic mistake that led to the deaths of thousands of Western babies from SIDS. Several studies show that without instruction, the supine infant sleep position is universally chosen by the breast feeding–co-sleeping mother as it is extremely difficult for the breast feeding infant to move to initiate and receive a breast feed while sleeping next to its mother on its stomach, the most dangerous position for an infant to sleep. Western parents paid a big price to learn that!”

I have already written about co-sleeping here and here and you can read the whole of Mckenna’s argument at http://www.naturalchild.org/james_mckenna/cosleeping.pdf. So rather than extol the virtues of co-sleeping again today, I just felt like saying how lovely it was to receive so many responses that reminded me that allowing my baby to do what comes naturally to her, waking to feed or cuddle, is the best thing I could possible give her right now.

The usual reaction to my confession that my eight month baby wakes every two hours at night to feed is: “What are you going to do to change this?” When I say “Nothing, look how happy she is!” I feel that somehow this is not the answer they were looking for.

“But what about you?” they reply. And they are right. As caring friends they remind me that I need to look after myself. I do tend to look exhausted and sorry for myself when I talk about Bella’s sleeping habits, so I can hardly blame them. This is where another response came to my rescue: sleep when your baby does, rest when you can, concentrate on as little else as possible other than your baby. (I.e. Bella is not the problem, I am!)

I felt ashamed when I read this response because this is advice I am constantly giving out to other mothers, but have ceased to practice myself. I have written a whole bloody book about letting go, and allowing my baby to lead me; about giving up control and living in the moment, for me and my baby’s sake. Four years ago I chose not to earn any money for the foreseeable future in order to allow my children to develop as naturally and peacefully as possible. And yet here am I considering training my baby out of her natural, biological, behavioural patterns for the sake of a good night’s sleep, so that I can carry on with life as normal!

I have learnt a lot of lessons today, which both Bella and I are going to benefit from. She will be able to carry on as normal and I am going to enjoy the moment instead of worrying about the future. Beginning right now. I'm off for a nap.

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Travels with my children (2)... thank heavens for my breasts

Yesterday I breastfed Bella about one hundred times. This is a calculated estimate, not a wild exaggeration. Honestly, I don’t think she left the breast for longer than about 20 minutes at a time all day. This is not entirely her fault, I should say. It is quite true that my answer to pretty much any sign of discomfort with my babies has always been to try the boob. She has had a very snotty cold for nearly a week now and as a result I have found myself sofa- or sling-bound with boobs on permanent stand by. I simply cannot imagine how people cope with a sick baby if they are not breastfeeding.

And the same goes for so many other aspects of attachment/continuum parenting. My trip back to the UK, alone with two children, would have been hell were it not for breastfeeding, baby-wearing, co-sleeping and baby-led weaning. Actually it simply would not have been possible. As it was I had one baby on my back, one toddler walking, her own small rucksack on her back, and holding on to the strap of one small wheely suitcase, while my hands were occupied pulling said suitcase and carrying my hand bag (you know what I mean – I don’t actually have a hand bag, but my shoulder bag whatnot thing filled with all sorts of things I should have left behind – really, I carried four copies of the Guardian Weekly and a thick novel around with me for three and a half weeks. I finally read the papers in an airport delay on the way home, and the novel is waiting by my bed) … oh and an inflatable booster seat thing that folds up small and straps onto chairs to act as high chair. I know that was a long sentence - it was a long trip.

This was all perfectly manageable, provided Jemima was in a good mood, until the moment we stepped inside the underground/train/bus/plane and started to overheat because I had cunningly dressed all of us in most of our clothes so that I could fill the suitcase with eco-disposable nappies that you can’t buy in most corner shops. Inevitably we would emerge from the underground/train/bus/plane with ten items of clothing tied around waists, onto suitcase handles, hanging out of the sling pockets, and me wearing Jemima’s rucksack on my front. Depending on the length of the walk then necessary to reach our final destination all our layers would then have to be put back on again… arrrggghhhh just writing about it exhausts me.

I suppose had we been able to afford to hire a car, take regular taxis, not cared about eco-nappies and not have friends and family strewn inconveniently across the entire country then this trip would have been a little easier. But had we needed to add travel cot, bottles, formula, a buggy, jars of baby food, baby toys and dummies (the latter two replaced by having fun looking out of sling, and my boobs, respectively)… to the equation, well I would never have left the house. The fact that Bella could eat whatever we were eating, could feed whenever she was hungry wherever we happened to be, and we could all share one bed made the whole thing possible, and more likely to be invited back.

So was it worth it? Absolutely. We got to spend lots of time with nearly all members of both our families, and my two friends with their new(ish) babies. I could not manage the expat existence without these regular trips home, so I would happily do the whole thing again tomorrow. Even Jemima agreed. I asked her after collapsing onto the tube one evening. She was exhausted and sobbing because she had had to carry her rucksack for five minutes more than she wanted because I simply did not have a hand free to take it from her.

“Jemima? Do you enjoy these trips back to England to see family or are they just too tiring?”

“I enjoy it!” she sobbed dramatically, “I really enjoy it!” I made sure the following day was a quiet one.

There were a few hiccups along the way. After arriving at Bangkok airport the night we left home, where we were due to wait for three hours before boarding our 12 hour over night flight to London, Jemima managed to shut her hand in the lift door. The doors jammed half open, her hand acting as an indestructible wedge. She screamed for what felt like three minutes before I could finally slide the doors to release her hand. Her fingers were squashed flat a la Tom and Jerry but no harm was done. Having no arms free to lift her, as I was pushing an overloaded luggage trolley, I had to convince her to walk with me to the lounge where I was planning to plead my way in.

Have you ever been to Bangkok airport? It is huge. So we walked side by side, Jemima howling with pain and exhaustion (it was 11pm), stopping for cuddles along the way, for about 15 minutes, while helpful passers by threw me disapproving looks because I obviously did not love my children very much to be putting them through all this. Her tragic condition did secure us a nice sofa and all we could eat for free in the first class lounge though. Good old Thai airways, BA would never stoop so low. Of course this brought us more unwelcome peers from above the laptops of some fifty be-suited business men. Apparently it is not customary to have to share your air mile privileges with a stressed out mother changing her baby’s nappy on the plush velvet sofa while her unruly toddler spills cake and hot milk all over the carpet. We blagged our way in on the way back as well :-).

I also nearly lost Jemima in the London Underground at one heart stopping moment. She simply stepped out of the doors at the wrong stop and luckily they stayed open longer than usual so that I could grab her and pull her back in. I cannot think what I would have done otherwise. She had no name tag or mobile number on her and I had not even discussed with her what we would do if she lost me because that simply was not going to happen. Oh god… Having Bella on me meant that I could have easily jumped out with her of course. If she were in a buggy? You see? Slings are gold dust. I love them like other women love their shoes. So much so that I now have the updated Ergo, softer, cosier and cuddlier, in beautiful blue to add to my collection. Another reason going back to the UK was such a good idea.

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Contented Mother... (6)

This is from Chapter 5 on sleep. It is a favourite with my readers. This is the beginning, before it all went pear-shaped, when we buckled under pressure and tried sleep training. And then I write about the whole co-sleeping experience. But for now enjoy the positive stuff...

Over the last two years Jemima’s sleeping has been one long journey up a very steep learning curve. It is in this aspect of motherhood that I have felt least confident in what I was doing and in what I was being told to do. This does mean that we pretty much tried everything and learnt a lot along the way, but it feels pretty messy when I look back on it all. Of course you could say that by the end of the first year all of this becomes pretty irrelevant – since then she has slept like all nearly all other toddlers I know – usually through the night, with a long nap after lunch. But as they say, it’s not the end result but the getting there that counts. Our sleep adventures show just how hard it can be to stick to your guns in the face of peer pressure, and how easily you can lose touch with your instincts. We cocked up several times but lived to tell the tale. It’s kind of a long story, but then again I don’t think I have ever heard parents talk about anything in as much detail as they do sleep. Who can blame us? If our kids aren’t getting any then nor are we! It’s a pretty important subject.

Lazy bones
Jemima’s first few weeks were a haze of long sleeps on the sofa or in the sling during the day, short naps on James’s chest in the evening and then she would come to bed with us at about 11pm. She would sometimes settle in the Moses basket to begin with, if she was already asleep. Then I would wake up to hear her stirring and bring her into bed for a feed.

Those night-time feeds at the beginning took about an hour, sometimes two. Sometimes I would put her back in her Moses basket but often we would just cuddle all night. I remember it was roughly sleep for three hours, feed for one and half, sleep for two, feed for one and a half and then she would wake at about 7am. I would feed her again and hold her or lie her on the bed next to me until she went back to sleep again and we would often stay that way until about 10 or 11 am. So although the nights were very broken I was getting lots of sleep and spending ten to 12 hours resting in bed each night.

As I have said a thousand times already, I recommend this to all new mothers. Even now, when we get the occasional disturbed night but have to get up and go in the morning because I am working or Jemima has play school, I look back to those days with longing. Spending the mornings in bed is a luxury that is also unlikely to be possible the second time round. Not only did this help me catch up on sleep, and help us to bond, it also taught Jemima to go back to sleep easily in my arms. Whether or not this is a result of those lazy mornings in bed I do not know, but, whatever time she goes to bed, Jemima never gets up before 7am, and it’s usually more like 8 – 8:30am. If she does wake at 7 she often sends herself back to sleep for an hour. This is great for weekend lie-ins and, I have since discovered, common behaviour for babies who sleep with their parents. She is also a very flexible sleeper, perhaps after having learnt to go back to sleep when I do, or perhaps she was just going to be this way anyway. If we have to get up at 7am one day it is not an issue - for her I mean. For me getting up in the morning at any time is an issue. However, if we have a big night and she stays up a bit later (she loves a party) she will sleep in until 10am which makes holidays much more restful.

To begin with I loved the whole night time experience and not being tired helped enormously. Sleepless nights are easier to cope with when you have a miracle new baby in your arms. I would watch her feed in the middle of the night, with James sleeping by my side, and experience emotions so intense they were almost unbearable. Childless folk will laugh at this but ask any new, breastfeeding mother and I bet nine out of ten of them would say the same thing. It’s those hormones again. Of course we are soon longing for a whole night’s undisturbed sleep and I pretty quickly stopped gazing at her and tried to sleep while she fed.

James had an easy time of it too. There were mornings when he actually dared ask: “Did she sleep through?!” If he didn’t have to get up and go to work, while I had a lie in with Jemima, I would have been seriously unimpressed with this question. On nights when she would not settle in her Moses basket from the start we took our midwife’s advice and just put her in the middle of us, on top of the duvet so that we would not roll on top of her or smother her with the covers. I slept so lightly when she was with us that the slightest movement James would make would alert me to how Jemima was. Once I woke up to see James rolling over and Jemima, because she was on top of the duvet, just rolled over with him into my arms. Sleeping lightly wasn’t too much of a problem for me because not having to get out of bed meant that I never woke up properly so would fall back asleep easily. The hormone Prolactin, released when breastfeeding, helps mothers to quickly fall back into very a restful sleep. I later discovered we were part-time co-sleepers, but at the time it was just what worked for all of us and we continued like this for several months.

Somewhere in Jemima’s second month I woke one night to hear her waking up in her basket. I reached out and laid my hand on her and the next thing I knew it was morning. I still do not know why I decided that night not to pick her up straight away. Perhaps it was sheer exhaustion. It just felt right at the time and when she did not cry I went straight back to sleep. This became a regular thing. She would wake in the night and I would hear her making noises and then she’d send herself back to sleep. I have no doubt that for Jemima, hearing, feeling and smelling us close by was enough for her to lull herself back to sleep. It was the beginning of our most restful period of parenthood until now. She was sleeping through! She would be awake most of the evening which suited us fine as she just lay there while we had dinner or got on with whatever it was we were doing. This also gave James more time with her. It also meant we could go out to dinner with her, something that becomes far harder when they get into their early bedtime routine and you have to worry about babysitters etc. Then she would go to sleep with us, at about 11pm and not wake until 10am. I was getting more sleep than before I had her.

At the end of this chapter...

Ten lessons learned about sleep
1. Enjoy the early months when all my baby does is sleep – wherever she happens to be.
2. Accept that babies are famous for sleeping badly! They have shorter and lighter sleep cycles than adults and it is normal for them to wake two or three times a night from birth to six months, once or twice from six months to one year; and may awaken once a night from one to two years.
3. Remember that they all sleep through eventually, whether at one two or three years old. The exhaustion will pass, even if for some later than others!
4. Babies want and need to sleep with their parents. We should all give it a try as emotionally-responsive adults willing to put our needs second to our babies. If it doesn’t work for us we should make every effort to make our baby feel calm and safe in their own bed, and always welcome in ours, if only for a cuddle in the morning.
5. Rubbing of eyes is not a sign of being ready to sleep but of over-tiredness. Try to anticipate the rubbing eyes stage.
6. Teething creates havoc with babies and sleep. Go with it, it passes.
7. Babies often start waking at night more often when they go through periods of developmental change such as walking or crawling, or when separation anxiety occurs, around eight to twelve months.
8. If my baby is sleeping badly at night it might mean they want more cuddles by day.
9. Most babies need lots of day-sleep. Usually, the more they sleep by day, the better they sleep at night.
10. Keep some kind of relaxing, nurturing routine leading up to bedtime, such as a soothing bath or massage, singing, or reading a book, to help prepare a baby for sleep. Young children who have their own bed will often go to sleep more willingly when parents lie down with them in their bed until they are very drowsy or until they go to sleep. Many parents have found that their children soon outgrow this need and happily go to sleep on their own.

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Contented Mother ... (5)

This is a very long excerpt from Chapter 4 on Breastfeeding (The lazy mother's best friend)...

Jemima and I are unashamedly passionate about breastfeeding and I am lucky to have had a mostly easy time of it so far. I know that this is not the case for many women so I hope my positive experiences will encourage new mothers and that what I have learnt along the way can be of some help.

Quick rant
Before I get positive though, I just have to get a few things off my chest. Breastfeeding has had a pretty bad press in Britain over the years. Things are slowly changing but nine times out of ten if you confess to being pro-breastfeeding you are immediately stereotyped as a hippy, bra-less mother whose leaky boobs swing low beneath her milk stained T-shirt as she marches against formula companies, banner held high, her still feeding 10-year old on her hip. I object. I am no militant lactivist. Just because I believe breast is best does not mean that I look upon bottle-feeding mothers with scorn in the park, or ‘tut-tut’ loudly behind them in the formula aisle of the supermarket. For a while I belonged to a breastfeeding group, (don’t laugh) and we really were a fairly conventional bunch: there was me, a hairdresser, two midwives and several businesswomen. Half of us had gone back to work part-time. Yes really, contrary to popular belief the smart lady on the commuter train dressed in a suit and heels could well be going to breastfeed her child that night when she gets home from work.

So fed up am I of the way breastfeeding is portrayed by much of the press in this country, that I hope to train to be a breastfeeding counsellor one day. I think it is a subject shrouded with great ignorance and judgement, in the place of more education, information, and most of all – support. 99.9% of women are physically able to breastfeed. It’s the most natural thing in the world right?

Somebody help us!
It was only when I became a mother myself and began to hear other women’s stories that I realised that breastfeeding can be the cause of much pain, guilt and unhappiness to many women. This is particularly so in industrialised nations where we have less personal support from family and friends and more professional advice and intervention. We still hear horror stories of women being sent home from hospitals without having properly latched the baby on yet, health professionals forcing the mother to give a bottle of formula against her will (or even knowledge!) or midwives trying so hard to make the baby take the breast that both mother and child end up utterly distressed and put off for life. Of course there are many wonderfully supportive and sensitive health professionals and NHS and NCT breast-feeding counsellors out there, and the incidence of breastfeeding at birth has increased significantly in the last five years, largely thanks to them. However without the continued support networks that many other societies have, is any wonder that so few women in the UK continue to breastfeed beyond the first few weeks?
I read recently that 90% of UK women who stop breastfeeding by six weeks would have liked to have continued for longer. The most common reasons for stopping are pain and concerns about not producing enough milk. Both of these are largely avoidable with the right information and support.

Take my breastfeeding group for example. (I believe I asked you not to laugh). Organised by the NCT, we were basically a group of women who were still breastfeeding after five months and beyond. Some of us were happy about continuing, others were not sure and wanted to talk about it or just meet other women doing the same thing. We met at each other’s houses each month for an evening of informal chat, with or without our babies. Sometimes we had a breastfeeding counsellor with us but usually it was just mothers who came and went according to their need.

Why five months? This is the time when many women are thinking about continuing to feed beyond six months, but are feeling pressured to stop because everybody else is. Feeding beyond six months is still relatively uncommon in Britain. I think people confuse the advice to exclusively breastfeed for six months with stopping when you get there. I remember one friend saying: “I’ve done my bit – he can have real food now”. She seemed to think that one replaced the other, when actually this is not the case. The World Health Organisation recommends mothers continue to breastfeed until her child is at least two years old.

Five months is also the time when babies start to wake at night. This is a time of great developmental change. Many babies start to sit up and generally become more mobile. Sometimes they wake simply because of the extra stimulation brought about by the developmental changes, and sometimes the extra activity means they are burning more calories and getting hungrier. There are myths, upheld by many health visitors and doctors, that if you start to give solids at this stage it will help them sleep. Sometimes women came to the group because they are tired from waking at night but want to continue to feed anyway, and just need to hear from other people doing the same thing. Five months is also the time when many women start preparing their return to work and want to know if they can continue to feed.

I realised how important a group like this can be the night that Pip, midwife and mother of an eight-month baby girl, told us that if she hadn’t joined the group three months earlier, she would have definitely given up breastfeeding. Not because we are a bunch of bullies, I hasten to add, but because she was struggling and thought it would always be hard. She had no idea that she was, at five months, just weeks away from the stage when everything gets easier, the feeds get quicker and are less frequent. She had not wanted to give up but needed to hear that it would get better.

You just can’t beat sharing in this way with other mothers. We are all different. We range from the very nervous: “how do I know how much milk she is getting?” to the pissed off: “he’s using me as a dummy” to the positively horizontal: “I spent all day cooking for a party today with baby in the sling helping herself to milk whenever she liked! She kind of got in the way a bit when I was serving drinks though!” The first was Pip, which we all found fascinating because we naively presumed that as a midwife she would be more relaxed, but I suppose it’s a whole different ball game when it comes to your own baby. As she points out, she is in the business of delivering babies, but after one week she has no more contact with them. The last was Nicky, the incredibly cool hairdresser, who washes, cuts and blow-dries while wearing her baby. And the middle one could probably have been any one of us on a particular day.

The things I have learnt from this sort of forum are invaluable. For example, for a while I had very painful blocked ducts and what felt like the on-set of Mastitis. I was about to ask the doctor for antibiotics when someone suggested I try feeding Jemima on all fours. Hmmmm… well despite feeling very indelicate - down-right bovine actually - straddling my baby in this fashion, I have to say it worked. I also discovered that if a woman has had a really tough time breastfeeding at first and has decided to give up, she can try again a few weeks later when things have calmed down. That is surely something that all women should be told by their midwives right from the start?

I know there are many excellent ante-natal breast-feeding workshops about but the one I attended left much to be desired. Did anyone else find the plastic doll with a closed mouth less than ideal preparation for latching a real a baby on? Someone could make a fortune by designing the model baby doll, with moveable mouth and neck. I would definitely recommend you choose a class where they invite a real mother with a real baby to demonstrate breastfeeding. When Jemima was four months old, the NCT invited us to a breastfeeding workshop, so that several very pregnant women could watch and ask questions. As I told them my story, showed them how to feed and described how it felt, I realised how little I knew before having Jemima, compared to what they were learning then.

Before attending my own NHS workshop, I had had little reason to give much thought to breastfeeding. I assumed it was natural, right and something everybody did. Although it might be hard to begin with, it would very likely turn out fine in the end wouldn’t it? My only real experience of it was being around my sister Alex who breastfed both her children (her third was born soon after Jemima) until they were both a year-old. She had made it look like the simplest thing in the world. I don’t think it ever occurred to me to ask her how it felt. I hardly noticed she was doing it most of the time. Apart from when Tom decided to try out his new teeth. I do remember the odd scream now I think about it! So at the workshop I was surprised at how many women associated breastfeeding with pain, embarrassment, exhaustion and awkwardness.

Rather than address these fears openly, the trainer tried to convince us that these were all myths, and brushed over them quickly. There was little realistic discussion of what ups and downs one might expect, what it might feel like to fail at first, how long it might take, and how to negotiate with your midwife. Nor were there any first-hand stories from breast-feeding mothers.

The best bit was the video we were shown, Breast is Best. This classic depicted middle-class Norwegian mothers feeding their new-borns in bed, with their beautifully chiselled, loving husband looking on adoringly in the middle of the night. That’s just not normal. When I was up feeding in the night James, tired-eyed and with several weeks of stubble, would grunt, mutter something about the light and roll over and back to sleep. That’s normal! The guy had to get up for work the next day for goodness’s sake. Mind you Norway does have some incredible maternity and paternity policy so maybe this husband didn’t have to go to work. This might explain how he was also capable of bringing his wife flowers and breakfast (containing all the right food groups) in bed, the next day. Oh yes, and then there was the four-year-old in uniform tugging up her mother’s shirt on her way to school for a vigorous suck.

These were hardly images likely to convince the average woman attending this workshop in South London. We mainly fell into two categories. Very young, black African/Caribbean, and Asian women, some without partners, most on low-incomes, and white 30-something professionals thinking they will have to go back to work to pay the mortgage and maintain their financial independence. To my embarrassment I noticed I was the only one crying at the images of newborn babies finding their way to the mother’s breast – that was just so incredible to watch! I also seemed to be the only one taken in by the fairytale portrayal of breastfeeding. I just hope I was not the only one who ended up enjoying feeding as well. Because I have to say it – breastfeeding really is the lazy mother’s best friend.

The great thing about boobs is that you can whip ‘em out anytime, any place and at night you needn’t get out of bed, let alone go down stairs to warm up bottles. Some of my happiest memories of Jemima are of long hours, sometimes days, in bed feeding, playing, cuddling and feeling an overwhelming closeness to my new daughter. Jemima took her time to get round to feeding, so I tried to relax and trust that she would feed when ready. I spent many hours holding her skin-to-skin, offering her my breast, and letting her refuse it. I also expressed some Colostrum, which we gave to her by syringe. When seventeen hours later she did latch on I was filled with awe and an unexpected joy. After all the anticipation I was able to feed my baby. You just can’t beat that drunk look babies have when they finally pull off the boob, totally saturated and content.

There are countless other benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and child. It enhances the physical and psychological bond between mother and child for many reasons: the intimacy of breastfeeding; the prolonged cradling of the baby; the physical dependence of a child on its mother for milk, and gratification that she is able to provide it, and the constant source of comfort, are all obvious benefits. The ‘love’ hormone Oxytocin, that is produced the moment the baby takes the nipple in its mouth, brings on a sudden feeling of contentment and pleasure for many breastfeeding mothers as well as aiding sleep and protecting against breast cancer. Breast milk is biologically designed for the human infant, contains the right amount of the right nutrients, is easy to digest, gives immunity to certain diseases and viruses, protects against some cancers, helps strengthen jaws, eyes and formation of teeth, and helps ward off allergies! Breastfed babies are five times less likely to end up in hospital than formula-fed babies with gastroenteritis, and half as likely to end up in hospital with respiratory disease in their first seven years of life. Breast milk also protects against diabetes and obesity. Oh and it’s cheap, saves time, and makes travel easy. It’s pretty amazing stuff!

Even when we know all this though, it is not always easy, which is why so many women can not get on with it and decide that using formula is the best thing for them in order to enable them to enjoy their new baby. At first it can be excruciatingly painful and sends your hormones all over the place. Expect to cry, especially around the third day, or whenever your milk comes in. Remember what I told you about Legally Blonde? For a long while it also feels as though you never leave the sofa. I’m sure this is nature trying to make us rest and recover from childbirth. Whenever anyone asks me for one piece of practical advice to give to a new mother, I say this:

“Don’t fight the sofa confinement! Relax and enjoy it, because when they start moving more and feeding less, boy will you miss it. Get in all your favourite DVDs, and books, chocolates, loads of water, and a Teasmaid (do they still exist? A Norwegian husband might be even better, if you can find one) and snuggle down with your baby. And hang on until beyond six months because that is when breastfeeding becomes really enjoyable.”

Yes it’s true. The best-kept secret about breastfeeding is that it just gets quicker and easier the older they get. If only they told you this at ante-natal classes. It is ironic and seems unfair that so many mothers manage to feed until six months, surviving the days when it feels as though you, your cracked nipples and spreading bottom will never rise again, only to give up just when it starts to get easy. After six months the feeds get quicker, your boobs stop changing size and your milk supply easily adapts if you take a day or two off. By eight months Jemima took about three minutes to feed during her daytime feeds and longer at night because she likes to be cuddled close to me before bed. If I added up her feeds over twenty four hours they probably took less than an hour in total. In fact I even found myself trying to convince her to stay for longer so that I could have a rest.

At the end of this chapter...

Ten lessons learned about breast-feeding
1 Breast milk should be worshipped – almost as much as chocolate.
2 Breastfeeding mothers need support to make it enjoyable and easy. 99% of us can breastfeed with the right support.
3 It is entirely normal that the baby wants to sleep and not feed straight away after birth. If I found childbirth traumatic and exhausting, it is likely that my baby did too. We both need time to sleep it off and recover.
4 It is entirely normal for a baby to try to latch on but not succeed straight away. This need not be a problem for the first few days, as long as they are getting colostrum and my milk production is set in motion through regular pumping.
5 When getting the baby to latch on gently offer the breast, without exhausting myself or my baby and without causing stress. Never force it. Try to switch breasts so that the baby does not develop negative associations with one breast.
6 Lots of skin to skin contact is vital to get my milk production going. Keep my baby near my breast at all times
7 Check nappies. If it is coming out, I know it is going in.
8 When your baby bites you (they all try it at some stage) firmly take them off the nipple with your finger and look away. Make it clear that they cannot enjoy the privilege of feeding if they do not respect the boob!
9 If feeding in the night sends them straight back to sleep enjoy it and don’t worry about it becoming a habit. Everything is a phase.
10 It gets easier and easier after six months so don’t give up before experiencing her stroking my face while feeding. Bliss…

Read on - a snippet from Chapter 5

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