Hot Topics and a Hot offer

I hope your New Year is off to a good start.  I have enjoyed an extended break, a 'staycation', with my family.  It has been so good to slow down and just Be.  

This break has given me loads of thinking time (MOTL has been a great sounding board).  I took some time away from the course I have been developing and this week revisited it.  With new eyes, I have made some changes to my approach. I wanted to make the process simple and personal. Investing in your birth preparation and transition into parenting is invaluable, and yet, I had to put a figure on it.  So on my website, you will find a new page: Mentoring Services

Support Group members will be offered a special launch deal for the 'Preparation to Village' package.  There will be just 6 places available for $90 (the energy exchange here is with feedback).  This will also be testing E-course features not yet available.  So if you haven't yet, 'enrol' in the Support Group to access this offer.  ​(PLEASE NOTE: This offer has closed, see the Mentoring Services for details of current offers)

STORYTIME: The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business.

Hot Topics this month in Social Media included Purple Crying.

This article in Psychology Today covers may of the concerns regarding this issue.  One of the primary concerns is the normalisation of crying, particularly by 'crying it out' (controlled crying) advocates.  

If you find your baby is inconsolable, this article may provide some insights.

On my Soapbox! 
The Hot Topic: purple crying 
An announcement was made by ACT Health that a parent course will be available (this is the Canberra Times article).
It seems a good initiative, supporting parents to adjust and provide good information.  Protecting babies.

or is it?

If you have read the Hot Topic article above, you will perhaps see a Red Flag, or perhaps I need my Tin Foil Hat?  

There are several services on offer to help new parents with troublesome babies.  These services are based around feeding, sleeping, and now, crying.  And they are all focusing on 'fixing' the baby.  They are all about getting babies into routines, that conveniently, fit with childcare and work needs.

That isn't a bad thing,surely?

shrug.  you do what feels right to you.

The Red Flag for me is that not all may be what it seems to be.  Just as hospital based antenatal classes are not about informed birth preparation, but 'good patient preparation', are these 'baby fixing' government run classes about 'good citizen training'?

Think about it.

The government does not want stay at home parents.  

The hand that rocks the cradle...

If you raise your own children, you might fill their sweet heads with ideas that lead to critical thinking, self sufficiency or non-consumerism.  We can't have that. *sarcasmisthelowestformofwit*

On it's own, perhaps the purple crying classes are not too bad.  It is when I think of it in the context of the conveyerbelt antenatal ((antinatal)) process, the one-size fits wellness checks and baby-fixing/training classes.  The government-offered pathway does not expose parents to their full options, normalises non-instinctual parenting, encourages disconnected parenting and institutionalisation.

Add into that, the marketing of the baby products industry.  Prepare to be bombarded.  I saw a TV advert for a baby shop declaring it to have all you need to prepare for a baby.  You need a full nursery, pram, carrier, pump, clothes....you get the picture.  Then they offer all you could want: more products.  Stupid toys, and 'distractors', all designed to make actual parenting a thing of the past.  

What if I told you...

Instead of spending up big in the baby shop, you could invest your money into independent childbirth classes, or a doula, or  ABA Breastfeeding Education Classes or Informed Birth Preparation?  

The only items a modern parent needs are a few clothes, nappies, a carseat and a carrier of some sort.

The real needs are food and support.
​with love,

yours in Informed Birth Preparation AND BEYOND,