Here are the opening paragraphs from a 1998 article in the Harvard Gazette: America’s “let them cry” attitude toward children may lead to more fears and tears among adults, according to two Harvard Medical School researchers. Instead of letting infants cry, American parents should keep their babies close, console them when they cry, and bring…
Category: Child Development
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
Here’s a video of a baby playing on the floor: What’s wrong with the picture? It is only a baby. No mother. No father. No grandma or grandpa or aunt or neighbor or big sister. Babies need adults to thrive and survive. In modern society we often forget about this without even being aware that…
Instinctive breastfeeding position?
Take a look at these girls “breastfeeding” their dolls. They’re both holding their dolls in the way mothers hold their babies when babies self-attach (as described by Dr. Tina Smillie) — or in the “Biological Nurturing” position described by Suzanne Colson. Maybe we should be learning something from watching these girls that (almost certainly) have…
Self-latching
Babies are so smart. They can latch on by themselves when they’re newborns. But they’re even cuter when they’re a little older:
Positions for Breastfeeding
In my birth class the instructor taught several breastfeeding positions: “cradle hold”, “cross-cradle hold”, and “football hold”. This is still the common approach to teaching mothers about breastfeeding. However Suzanne Colson, a UK midwife, has been advocating a new and very effective approach to thinking about positioning for breastfeeding. She calls it “Biological Nurturing” and…
Classic wisdom from LLL
I was reading Ruth’s La Leche League of Wisconsin newsletters from the 1960’s and found some gems. Here’s one of them: Our society is becoming so efficient, we’re so organized… and our living so fast that the whole idea of what mothering is all about is sort of really being lost…It is so important that…
Sit Back and Relax
You know how frustrating it is when your baby is hungry, you offer the breast, and he can’t latch on because he keeps putting his hands in the way? Well maybe it isn’t just that babies don’t know what to do with their hands — it could be that we’re holding them the wrong way….
Kangaroo Care Handout
Kangaroo Mother Care — it’s all about keeping mothers and newborns together so that babies can thrive. Here’s a handout by one of the original KMC advocates, Dr. Nils Bergman. I’m posting it here with his permission. Print it out, share it with care providers, friends, and family. Good stuff. Kangaroo Mother Care Handout
Can you believe what newborns can do?
The more we watch new babies, the more we see how amazing they are. New parents get to see this up close all day long and are usually so proud of their babies. I love the book “Your Amazing Newborn” by Marshall and Phyllis Klaus. It has great photographs of new babies interacting with parents…
Madison Breastfeeding Help 