My blog has the hiccups
December 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
If you’re following this blog, please pardon my recent addition of several podcast posts. You see, you don’t have to be all that brilliant to have an online business. LOL! I’ve forgotten to post my podcasts here for almost two months. Silly me. 
Regularly scheduled blogging will commence soon.
Natural Moms Podcast #33
December 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
This week Nancy Politis of Heirloom Wooden Toys joins me to talk about the value of high quality toys.
Natural Moms Podcast #32
December 28, 2006 | 1 Comment
This week Aviva Pflock and Devra Renner of Mommy Guilt join me to talk about their book Mommy Guilt: Learn To Worry Less, Focus On What Matters Most, And Raise Happier Kids
You can also read the transcript below.
Carrie Lauth: This week on Natural Moms Talk Radio I am joined by Devra Renner and Aviva Pflock, co-authors of the book Mommy Guilt: Learn to Worry Less, Focus on What Matters Most, and Raise Happier Kids . I read your book about a year ago. I was sitting there with my little newborn, my fourth, and it just felt like a big warm hug.
Aviva Pflock: Well, good. Because that is the way we wanted it to come across to people. It is an idea about reassuring and being encouraging and empowering. That is great that we hugged you.
Carrie Lauth: So what brought you together to make you want to write this book?
Aviva Pflock: Well, being moms, first of all, we found probably that the talk around the daycare centers, around the preschools, around the grocery store, was about all of these things: we were not sure if we were doing right as moms and there seems to be all of this guilt hanging over being a parent.
At that time, we grabbed a paper and pen and made up a survey and started surveying around the circles that we hang out in to see what kind of responses we would get to this feeling of guilt with parenthood and then being busy moms of young kids, with other things in life.
They literally sat on the shelf for 10 years and 10 years later, moms who are moms with older children, we were in different venues. Devra was now a social worker and I was working with families. I am doing home visits, facilitating different play groups, giving different discussions.
We found that the talk was the same. There were still all of these guilt feelings associated with being a parent. Then we expanded the survey, we did this big internet survey. We were able to get responses from all across the country, even a few in other parts of the world. We found out that this guilt feeling was not just the people we were hanging out with. This was a serious issue that parents were dealing with.
We decided guilt really is not what parenthood is about. Let us try to have fun with this and took the approach that parenting really is a gift that you give to yourself and you should be able to enjoy it. So, we decided both to take the survey a step further and see what we can do with the answers and see what we can do to work with people that turn parenting back into a more enjoyable experience.
Carrie Lauth: I think that is an important message. I love how in the book you talked about how people are so wracked with stress and guilt when they have a newborn. They are so afraid to harm their baby, but if they just viewed it as: “I have this little person who acquires so very little and they are like a big old snuggly sweet smelling little present to me. I just need to relax and enjoy it.” It is like playing house. It is the ultimate fun thing. All they want is to be fed occasionally and stay warm and they live for you. They cry when you leave the room. I love that.
Devra Renner: Aviva likes to say that kids as newborns, their main goal in life is just sleep, eat, and excrete. That is what they do! You are along for the ride with them and trying to get accommodated. Getting to know each other is really important. Part of getting to know each other is utilizing yourself as that person to have fun with your baby, enjoy the idea of parenting, and to realize that your baby does not have the same viewpoint as an adult. We say in the book that newborns do not go into your kitchen with you and say, “Hey lady, what about those dishes?” They do not notice that stuff. It is us who notices it, but if we just kind of see the world through our baby’s eyes we can realize that that is not what is important to those kids.
Carrie Lauth: Yeah, they do not even care if you have like brushed your teeth in the morning! J That is a good point. I think that we misuse guilt because guilt has its place in the range of emotions. If I know that I could not deal with the guilt of getting in a car accident and my children being harmed, I will make sure that my car seats are installed properly. I will have a car seat check-up or something like that. It makes us proactive. But this idea that because we are less than perfect, that we have to wrack ourselves with guilt, it is not useful because it actually robs our children. It robs us and it robs our children, don’t you think?
Aviva Pflock: Absolutely, yeah. We do talk in the book about — we are not saying your life is going to be guilt-free and you are absolutely right, it should not be guilt-free. That is a valid emotion and it absolutely serves the purpose, but when you are totally consumed by it and it begins to dictate your life, then yeah, you are sort of smothered under this constant feeling of guilt. Sure, your kids are going to pick up on that. Devra likes to say kids are like horses. They sense fear. They sense guilt. They sense all these emotions that are going on. It turns what could be a helpful learning experience into a negative experience because it is so all consuming.
Devra Renner: But that’s not say that you are feeling guilty that you are somehow damaging your child by those emotions. It is normal. That is a part of your normal range of emotion to be worried, to have anger, to have fear. All of these things are quite normal. What we are talking about is that debilitating guilt that prevents you from making decisions, your basic decisions that really would benefit you and enhance your life if you are able to make them without second guessing yourself.
Carrie Lauth: Like what kind of things come to mind when you are talking about those decisions?
Aviva Pflock: Well, I think we are talking about new parents that just try leave the baby alone for an hour.
Devra Renner: Like can I leave the baby in the care of someone else whether it is a dad or whether it is another family member or friend and take some time to go get my hair cut? Because there are people who freak out about that decision when they are consumed by the guilt. They are grabbed by the guilt. They get the guilt or what we like to say is their guilt-o-meter has been maxed out. They feel uncomfortable making any decision that is not as they would think baby-centric.
In reality, taking care of yourself is a very important part of being a parent. It also shows your children that when they grow up and they become adults, there are things that adults get to do. They need to learn how to be an adult and one of the ways they learn that is from you and watching what you do.
Aviva Pflock: We are also living in a time where we are bombarded with answers to questions that maybe before we did not even asked because there are a million options out there. You can now sit down at your computer, you can go to the library, you can do so much research that, again, you feel like, “Oh my gosh, there are so many answers, what if I pick the wrong one?”
Devra Renner: Oh yeah, we call that paralysis by analysis.
Aviva Pflock: Part of our book was to say, “You know what, there are lots of options and the key is you are the only one who lives with your family. Devra and I will not move in with you. You don’t want to have to take care of us, too. Here are things that moms all over the place are doing. These are responses that we have gotten back and we are not saying this is the right answer, this is the wrong answer, we are saying these are options and nobody knows your family better than you do. Soak it all up. Keep what you want. Get rid of what you do not want. Your gut probably knows a lot more than you are giving it credit for.”
Carrie Lauth: I think it is difficult nowadays for parents to give themselves permission to use their intuition and their gut and because of that. We are overwhelmed with information. I like how you said; we have answers to questions that we did not even ask before. That is true.
There are so many things that we can learn about as parents and we have so many options. I will give you an example: our mothers and grandmothers did not feel guilty if they did not take the time to teach their baby sign language, but because we know about baby sign language, “Oh, if I don’t do that, I’m robbing my child”. Now, it is great to know about baby sign language, if that is something that you want to do, but like you said we may not have asked that question, 40, 50, 60 years ago so because we have all of this information. It almost is a glut.
Devra Renner: We like to remind people that Einstein and Mozart succeeded without having Baby Einstein and Baby Mozart.
Carrie Lauth: That’s right, very true. I like how you two all have a slightly different story and a slightly different style.
Aviva Pflock: Yeah, it worked well for the book. It really does.
Carrie Lauth: You were not like carbon copies of each other as far as your mothering style.
Aviva Pflock: Yeah, we thought it was important to bring that aspect into our book because we have over 1300 responses to our survey and we also included these stories that a lot of our survey respondents gave to us. We figured that these moms are sharing the truth of what their parenting is like so we will do the same thing. So, if there was some sort of point we are trying to make in the book and we did not have an anecdote from one of the survey respondents to use, we threw in from our own life. It would have been easy for us to make up a character and say this was her story, but we felt the three of us are moms with our own set of experiences as well, so why not make that contribution to our own book, too?
Carrie Lauth: Well, one of the things that, according to your survey, many parents feel guilt about, is screaming, raising their voice and yelling at their kids. You had some really good information to help parents to deal with that, to control that. Do you want to share some of that?
Aviva Pflock: We definitely found it interesting that the number one thing, generally speaking, that moms are feeling guilty about is yelling to her kids. Thee one thing that you really have ultimate control over is your voice. You can decide how loud you are going to be but stepping back, when you are in the middle of the situation, the easy knee-jerk reaction is yell. It makes head turn. So, we talked a lot in the book about having a big toolbox of tools to choose from and part of that is, if it is not a safety issue, if it is not a danger concern, it is okay to take a few minutes and say to yourself if you have a very young child or even to your child “I’m not sure what I’m gonna do about this situation right now. Give me a minute to think about it.” The whole timeout thing as opposed to putting a kid in timeout because they have done something horrible, giving yourself a few minutes to think “okay, what’s the best way to handle this?”
Devra Renner: Maybe I need to regroup, maybe I need to take a deep breath, maybe I need to sing a song to myself, maybe I need to whisper, completely just change the way I am talking to my child.
A whisper will get almost as much attention as a yell would. It certainly does not hurt as much to someone’s feelings to be whispered at as opposed to be yelled at because some of the time we yell because we are frustrated and finding out what it is that is frustrating us. Is it behavior from your children? Is it something that they are not listening to? Is it because you feel you have repeated yourself over and over again and then you just yell it?
Look at the situation too when you are not yelling. Because after we yell, I do not think most of us say, “Well, that felt really good. I’m really glad I handled it that way.” No. What happens is we usually feel even more mommy guilt because we raised our voice.
So, taking that time after you have yelled and when you are feeling lousy and kind of doing that personal inventory, actually sitting down and writing what was going on in that time that I was yelling, what was the scenario, what was going on, and thinking about and doing some brainstorming with yourself of other ways that you could possibly handle it. That way, you have those tools for the next time. You may not have had them that time, give yourself a break. Our kids always say to us: ”do over!”, but we do not really use that concept a lot when you are a grownup. I think in parenting it is really important to allow yourself a do over.
Aviva Pflock: Talking to your children about that — at the end of the day when things are hopefully quieted down a little; say, “You know? This is kind of a crummy day. I’m really sorry that things went that way. I’m sorry I yelled at you. We had this situation come up and I wasn’t sure what to do when we were both yelling at each other and it didn’t feel good, did it? How could we have handled it differently?”
Obviously, depending on the age of the kid, you would have to adjust that conversation, but apologizing to your child after you feel that is also teaching them a great skill that we all mistakes, we are all human, and sometimes we need to just face up and go “you know what, I screwed up. I’m sorry.” Let us figure out what we can do differently next time.
Carrie Lauth: That really is teaching them an incredible life skill, something that they can take with them with other relationships. That is very important.
Devra Renner: We offer seven guilt-free principles in our book. What is interesting is when we have gone and done presentations and speaking that moms ask us, “Okay, you have seven principles. Do we have to do them in order? What if we can’t do all of them?” The purpose of the seven principles was not to stress anybody else out or make them feel guilty. Certainly, Aviva and I will not be coming to your home to check, to see if you have done the principles and what order. Even if you do not do any of them, that is fine, too. They are just a way that we organized in the book to give some structure and help to those parents who may not be sure where to begin. You may feel a little overwhelmed with the whole idea of talking about mommy guilt. So, this just of does a little bit of a roundup for the top issues that we saw in our survey that were creating the most guilt in moms. So, that is why we have the seven principles of mommy guilt and those seven principles are…
Aviva Pflock: Number one, you must be willing to let some things go. Prioritizing, the whole idea like we mentioned earlier, your newborn does not notice the dirty dishes, that kind of a concept.
Number two, parenting is not a competitive sport, not getting caught up in “my kid walked at 11 months and my child has all these teeth…” And then also the idea of not using peer pressure to get your children to try something when they are young, and then when they are older telling them peer pressure is a terrible thing, and not to give into it!
Devra Renner: And also included in parenting not being a competitive sport, is not competing against the person you are co-parenting with. That also is an area that seems to produce a lot of angst in families when parents get to the same end but may use a different style to get there. Different styles are okay. Our kids learn the first grade teacher’s way. They learn the third grade teacher’s way. So, we know that they can adapt to different ways of doing things.
Carrie Lauth: Yes. When you talk about focusing on what truly matters, it reminded me of something that happened to me when my first was just tiny. I was sitting there in church. When you have this new baby, it is so difficult to get out the door. How do I shower? How do I get myself ready and him ready and get him fed and everything on time? I was sitting there and I looked down and his little baby fingernails are dirty. It is amazing how a newborn can get such filthy fingernails, just digging their little fingers into your skin and stuff. I looked over at my mom and I have got tears in my eyes and I am like, “Mom, I can’t believe he’s got dirty fingernails.” She looked at me and she said, “Carrie, you’re going to take your children out many times and they’re gonna have dirty fingernails. Don’t worry about it.” That is comical to me now, now that I have four, because I do not know how many times we get to the store or something and we are all climbing out of the car and I have to get the boogers and eye crunchies off of somebody’s face.
Devra Renner: Hold them down on the way in.
Carrie Lauth: Exactly.
Devra Renner: You have actually skipped over to one of our next principles, which is look toward the future and the big picture. Principle number three, do not become overly hung up on the here and now because the big picture is that most child protective referrals are not done for dirty fingernails. In the big scheme of things, we think that some of our foibles or mistakes are horrible crimes and they are not, but they feel that way. We just kind of magnify them because with a new baby, you have got hormones crashing through you. You have got this changing your schedules, sleep deprivation, all of these things add to our feelings of inadequacy as parents. Looking at the big picture saying, “Okay, my child has been fed. I actually did get out of the house. These are good things.” Then principle number four is …
Aviva Pflock: Learning to live in the moment. It almost sounds like the opposite of the whole look at the future and the big picture, but really it complements it. The easiest examples for learning when and how to live in the moment is that little walks to the mailbox that you could do yourself in 20 seconds, taking your child with you, turning over the rock, getting those fingernails dirty, playing on the way, talking about all the things you see and enjoying each small moments because really our kids do not want to play with us for hours on end. They want undivided attention for five minutes to do something that they think it is the coolest thing in the world and then, “Mom, you’re not playing this game right. Go away.” So, enjoy those little moments with them.
Devra Renner: Then number five is: get used to saying yes more often and being able to defend your no. That is a big deal because sometimes we are worried very much about how someone else is holding our baby, how they are positioning them, is the baby comfortable. All of these things that we are worried so much about how the other person is holding them, we are not enjoying the fact that we have some moments to ourselves, where somebody is not attached to us and not hanging on us that we can maybe run to the bathroom by ourselves or something like that.
It is important to say yes if the situation is not going to be something that is going to be harmful or unsafe. As our kids get older, if we reserve no for the big stuff, for the things that truly matter the most and we are not using no just as a knee-jerk reaction because it is easy to say, our kids will realize the impact of the no. They will not try to wear us down as much and beg or manipulate as much. They will still do it, absolutely, that is part of being a kid and learning how to be independent, but when your kids know that you mean no, I think that they are more apt to be appreciative of that and respect that boundary that you are setting. Also, when you are saying yes, you will definitely go up a few notches in that, “My mom is cool. She is a fun person. She wants me to have fun.”
Aviva Pflock: It is very encouraging to kids with your yes. A lot of times they will say some things like, “I want to go paint.” It is easy to say no and then this great vision they have of all this imagination they were going to play with and have a good time with, it is kind of crushed with one word. Whereas even though no would be easier because there is no mess, giving them that yes and saying, “Okay, it is nice out. Go outside and paint so I won’t have to worry so much about the mess. When you’re done with this we’re gonna put it away.” You are giving them skills about setting up that controlled environment, cleaning up, and you are also giving them that positive feedback of “I had an idea that was really cool and that’s being supported. I can go do this now. I can try something that I think is going to be fun.”
Carrie Lauth: Yeah, I remember that point from the book and like you said it is easier to say no, but when we say yes we can also open up dialogue with our children and help them to understand our feelings as well. It may be, “Oh, I’d love for you to paint. Make sure that you put down some newspaper on the table first so that mommy doesn’t have a big mess to clean up,” or something like that.
If we are really feeling tired and we want to say no, instead of saying no as a knee-jerk reaction we might set some boundaries with it like “Oh, sure you can. Promise me you will clean up after,” or something like that to help them understand “everything I do also affects mommy and what I do affects the people around me.”
Devra Renner: Number six is laugh a lot especially with your children. My favorite example is this: I think in our society we worry a lot about the discipline of our children, the decorum, how people are civil to each other outside of our home, and how our children act in public. I think one of the big issues that people said they felt guilty about was when their children misbehave in public and they are being given the evil eye in grocery stores because their children are whining or tantrumming.
One of my favorite examples about laughing a lot with kids is about discipline. Not that discipline is funny, but you can use your sense of humor. One of my favorite examples of that is my son and I when he was 3, we were in a grocery store and he was going to have a tantrum. It was pretty clear that he was winding up to do this.
There was a man down at the end of the aisle trying desperately to find what he needed and get out because he knew that storm was coming. Well, I went over to my son and I just said to him quite simply, “Hey, what did Mick say?” My son looked up at me from the floor where he had thrown himself and he got up, grabbed my hand, we start walking down the aisle, and this man looks at me and he says, “I just need to stop you for a minute, who is Mick? Why does he have so much power?”
I explained to him that when my son was an infant and he would cry and I wanted to know why are you crying, what do you need, I do not know to make myself feel better I would sing the song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. As my son got older, I started singing it to him. Yeah, you cannot always get what you want, you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need. That is what Mick Jagger says. Good enough for Mick. It is good enough for us. It is great.
So, it got to the point where by the time my son was 3, all I needed to say was: “What does Mick say”? He knew I was referring to that song. He knew he needed to knock it off. This guy looks at me and he says, “Mick Jagger as parenting tool?”
Carrie Lauth: Anything can be a parenting tool.
Devra Renner: Whatever works! You utilize what works and then 10 years later we were watching the Super Bowl last year. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones performed at the Super Bowl. We were watching on TV. My 10-year-old is sitting t here with me and he looks at me, he sees that it is Mick Jagger, and he says to me, “Oh no, kids don’t like Mick Jagger.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Because he doesn’t let them get what they want.”
So, it became an inside joke. It is really important to establish some of these things with your kids because as they grow up, the joke changes, and it is still funny, yet the point is still there. It helps. It helps a lot. It relaxes parents and it relaxes your kids, too, when are disciplining them to remember that a sense of humor is a really important parenting tool.
Then the last one is make sure you set aside specific time to have fun with the family. Sometimes people freak out about that because they think that we are trying to tell them that you need to schedule yet something more with your family. That is not what we mean. Aviva, you want to expand on that?
Aviva Pflock: Sure. My favorite example of that is my son last summer we were trying to figure out what to have for dinner. It is the great dilemma in my house. What do we eat tonight? He says, “Let’s have a picnic.” I am like, “Sounds great, what do you want?” All he wanted was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Well, family of five, picnic out on the lawn, no dishes, no cleaning, no cooking, and that was just a fun way to have dinner. It did not take any extra time. It saved us lots of time, quick and easy, but it was something fun that we did together as a family. It was just part of something daily that has to get done anyway.
Again, it is sort of finding those moments and enjoying them. It does not need to be a vacation to Mexico. It could be a sleepover in your family room. The whole family decides to sleep in the family room and watch movies and eat popcorn and just have a good time together.
Devra Renner: It can be as simple as during the hurricane hour when you are getting a meal prepared, when everyone is either coming back from the end of the day or if you have been home with the kids all day, I do not think anyone really says the hours between 4:00 and 6:00 are their favorite time to be a parent because it is crazy. You are trying to get a meal put on the table. What we like to do is throw on the music and really dance around our kitchen while we are preparing food. It is a lot of fun. We dance, we sing, we talk, and like Aviva said it is not adding more time. It is something we were all really going to do. We got to eat just like Aviva said.
Carrie Lauth: I was reading something the other day talking about the problem that we have in our society. It is called affluenza. Parents are working so hard to provide a lifestyle and the interesting thing is when their motives are queried, most of the time the bottom line feeling that they want to get out of this crazy schedule is that they want to feel closer to their family. For instance, daddy will work overtime to afford the boat. He wants the boat so that he can have these leisurely fishing trips with his kids. His motive is good, but it turns out that he cannot get what he wants. He cannot get that feeling because he is gone all the time. By the time he can get the boat, the children are kind of detached from him.
I thought we can have that feeling and we can get that end result without all of that work because children really have simple needs like you mentioned the peanut butter and jelly on the lawn. Most kids would rather go to the park and kick a soccer ball with dad than to have some elaborate expensive vacation that he might be working hard towards. Do you say stop stressing and start enjoying your children? I think that is such an important message.
Devra Renner: Also getting behind the idea that we got rid of child labor in the country, sweatshop hours for children. With did that with child labor laws. Now that we can work 24 hours, seven days a week, thanks to the technology of computers and everything else, we have now contributed those sweatshop hours to our adult life and it is crazy. We are all sleep-deprived. I think our country is very grouchy because we are tired. I think that it is important when we are talking about the issues of time and families to also focus on the idea that there are some great child care initiatives and some other flexibility initiatives that are coming forward in congress. We should as parents take a look at some of that stuff and see if our company that we work for or if our congress people, our representatives, are supporting any of these types of initiatives and if they are letting our voice be heard. One-third of the voting population is parents. We have a lot of voting power. We should be out there trying to figure out, “Okay, let’s get some policies in place so we all can be enjoying our families,” everyone including whether you are taking care of your elderly mother or if you are taking care of your baby.
Carrie Lauth: Thank you so much for talking today with me and I have enjoyed our conversation and I really loved your book.
Aviva Pflock: Thank you. We enjoyed being here.
Natural Moms Podcast #31
December 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
This week Charlotte Penenberg of Lila Bean talks about her stylish nursing cover for breastfeeding in public.
Natural Moms Podcast #30
December 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
This week Laura Uplinger of Birth Psychology talks with us about the latest findings in the field of Prenatal Psychology. Laura is the Chairperson for the 13th International Congress of APPPAH, the Association for Pre- & Perinatal Psychology and Health.
Download mp3 here or read the transcript below.
Carrie Lauth: You are back with Carrie at Natural Moms Talk Radio and I have on the phone with me today Laura Uplinger. Hi, Laura!
Laura Uplinger: Hello! Hello, Carrie.
Carrie Lauth: So, Laura, today we are going to be talking about pre and perinatal psychology.
Laura Uplinger: Yes.
Carrie Lauth: Now, when I say that — I know the first time that I saw that phrase I thought “what is that?” Exactly. The psychology of an unborn child, basically, is that what we are talking about?
Laura Uplinger: Yes. They often ask me, “Who’s gonna be in therapy, the mother? The baby? We’re done.” Well, it is not about the therapy in the beginning. It is the recognition that we have in mind even before we have a brain it seems. It is true that it is a branch of transpersonal psychology that does rebirthing and the take back through hypnosis or other means a person to the time of pregnancy and sometimes conception or prior to that. Then, we can learn a lot about our behaviors during adult life. Seeds that were planted in those moments and somehow we keep the memory of those way deep in our vein.
Carrie Lauth: Well, you are the congress person for a neat, a fascinating event that is taking place in February in Los Angeles, California, called Birth & the Human Family: Embracing the Power of Prenatal Life. So, tell us more about this event and some of the research behind it, some of the findings about prenatal psychology.
Laura Uplinger: Yes, in 1983, this Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health was founded, it was in Toronto, by Dr. Thomas Verny the author of The Secret Life of the Unborn Child and Dr. Chamberlain. Dr. Thomas Verny and Dr. Chamberlain and other professionals in the realm of psychiatry and psychology had understood each one on their own, in their little place of the world, this was before the Internet — they had understood that there are things that happen in our daily life that do not pertain only to our early childhood like a classical psychology had taught but seems to pertain to a universe before birth or even before verbal capacity.
Babies were supposed to be borntabula rasa when I am myself that is psychology, which means a blank slate. From then on, life would begin. Well, many professionals had realized with their patients that there were events previous to birth that seem to count a lot. Since 1983, the association has had an international congress every two years, very interdisciplinary. We go from cell biology to the findings of meditators. All findings showing us that the way we are conceived, the way are carried in the womb, the way we are born are ways that will influence us through life.
Carrie Lauth: Yeah. Well, I certainly believe that and it is interesting to hear about that research. So, what kind of things will be going on at this conference?
Laura Uplinger: Well, we have many plenary sessions. First, it is about very early parenting because once we understand that the core of self-esteem is already developing itself before birth, what does it mean for a mother? For a father? What does it mean for those who are not in research behind to the real application, which is having babies and having children? What trends can we derive from this knowledge that yes the world of my imagination, the way I perceive life can have an impact, will have an impact on the development of my child, not only the brain, not only the liver, but the whole psyche of my child? What can I offer?
Also, what can society do to offer mothers, pregnant mothers, a better environment so that they perceive life with more harmony. There are — you know in science, we often study first the tragedies. So, of course, sociologists went to prisons, interviewed, 18-19 years old, in jail for life. They had committed violent crime. They did not have any kind of psychopathology but they were reactive individuals and they had killed. They interviewed, they sociologists. Not only these young men, but also they are families and they are communities, and try to trace their life into the womb also and they realize the amount of stress that has contributed in the formation of these young men.
Well, when you have a lot of stress and we are talking about a constant stress, not just one day that you are fed up with something, but a permanent stress. The irrigation of your organs, the blood circulation will not be the same in adult body, but of course also in an embryo or in a fetus. So, the very formation of the brain will be impaired. By that I mean the connections between the lower brain, the reactive brain, the mammalian brain, and the neocortex which is this new part of our brain that we have developed. The capacity for saying, “Oh! I can’t stand this, but of course I am not going to hit the person. I am not even going to kill anybody. I am just really fed up! Why can’t I control myself and why can’t others not control themselves? Hmm…” Their brain circuitry was not perfect. There was too much crying after birth. There was too much stress. With that the cortisone levels in the blood went up and some brain activities and brain formations did not take place.
Now, it is never too late. I do not want to be your voice of terror here. We can always, should I say in a very unscientific term, we can always re-grow patterns even in our brain, but it takes time. It takes therapy. It takes a lot of will. It takes determination and awareness. It is much harder later on to give ourselves a good brain for a mother during pregnancy. Talk of a tower.
Carrie Lauth: Yeah. Well, you might think this has nothing to do with our conversation but it is interesting that I just finished reading the autobiography of Lance Armstrong and it is called It’s Not about the Bike. He talks so much in the book about his mother. He talked about his mother twice as much as he talked about his wife. What I found so interesting was that so much of his personality and so much of his life can be traced to the way that his mother obviously felt about him when she was pregnant.
It is very obvious to me that that shaped his life and his successes as an athlete because she was single and she conceived him. She was very young. She was only 17 when she gave birth to him. Everyone discouraged her from having him and from keeping him, but she was absolutely determined. He said that she was a very tiny woman physically.
He was this huge baby that she gave birth to and that giving birth to him was very, very difficult for her physically. She was sick afterwards because he was just so big, but she just like imbued into him this determination to win and that it just impelled him his whole life to win on the bicycle and to battle cancer. It was just very interesting to me that it reminds me of things that he said in that book.
Laura Uplinger: Yes. I think we are right there in the core of the subject, Carrie, because if we look around us, how many of us are really determined to live out our true potential? How many of us can pledge to respect life, to have kinship with life, and not just with the humans, with the elements, with the animals, and the plants, very few of us. It is interesting.
Again, science has studied the prenatal life of Saddam Hussein, for instance. We know little about the prenatal life of Ghandi. I read in the New York Times when Saddam Hussein was in the womb of his mother, he had been conceived in love and wished for, desired, dreamed of. During the pregnancy, his mother loses her husband and a brother of Saddam Hussein. The woman became so desperate. She wanted to die. Not just to have an abortion but also to commit suicide. Throughout the rest of the pregnancy, the family prevented her from doing any of these two, but one side on her vein was born. Well, then he was dismissed. She never took care of him. He was even brought up by military people.
So, here we have a man who comes with that strength, that force of the desire of the passion welcoming on earth. Then there were change of plans which is equivalent almost as a betrayal. I invite you and then I am not here for you. Then, of course, during the very formation of his womb life, she really has this strong desire for death, his and hers. How much respect could that man have for life? When came a disagreement with his sons-in-law, he killed them both. They were the husbands of his very own daughter. Exactly the way how could his mother want to get rid of him and get rid of life in herself. So, we know about Hitler. We know about Mao Zedong. This is carefully studied.
Of course, afterwards after the fact, but see what you said there with this athlete, Armstrong, it is wonderful to know that. Throughout history, here and there, like Shakespeare, Shakespeare the end of Midsummer Night’s Dream, the king of fairies, Oberon, fence his people, to bless the place where the couples are going to make love that night so that nine months later no baby is born with any defect. Already associating conception with the malformation or an outcome at birth, it is fascinating, fields, intuitively artist, God is good, had that. Plato implored the man not to conceive under the influence of alcohol. Now, very recently, we have understood that alcohol in conception might give you some cleft palate and some deformities.
Carrie Lauth: Hmm… Yeah. Well, funny you mentioned Hitler because I was trying to say I wonder what we know about his prenatal life because we know that as a child that he suffered some pretty sadistic abuse. So, I can imagine that that began the day he was born. It was probably inflicted upon his mother during the pregnancy.
Laura Uplinger: Yes. At the age of 12, he had to bring his father back from special bars. He was drunk, that father. What happened with Hitler, Alice Miller described it very well, but what is really striking is that he was conceived out of wedlock. It is only afterwards that his mother married his father. You know it was a big deal at that time.
We have to go backwards to a society for if you were conceived out of wedlock, you were out of — I mean you did not have a place anymore in society. It is a lot of anguish. So, here again a strange combination quite explosive, passion, love, attraction, wanting, and [unintelligible]. How can I transcend the [unintelligible]? That is not easy. On the other hand, this is for the scientists, but for us mothers, what is there for us is “Aha! I knew that.
When I was visited in my dreams by this child who told me which name she wanted or he wanted and I wanted to love that baby and I was told by my doctor have a nice life, eat well, sleep well, but right now your baby is under the protection of the placenta and nothing can happen to the baby.” Well, the mothers were right. The doctors were wrong.
The placenta of course protects the baby, but it also an organ that amplifies all the biochemical messages in the blood of the mother. If I drink a little cup of coffee, if my baby is 20 times smaller than I am, my baby is drinking 20 little cups of coffee. Any thought or feeling that is expressed into my bloodstream in a specific biochemical formula is now being part of the composition of the very organs of my baby. I should say placenta is like a loud speaker. The protection — my foot is an organ of transmission of information.
Carrie Lauth: Yeah. Well, I had always heard the placenta compared to a sieve, not a filter, but you are saying that it is an amplifier.
Laura Uplinger: Right now, yes. Right now, it would be an amplifier. I have seen a little video from the March of Dimes where a mother, a smoking mother, pregnant of a 7- to 8-month. They asked her not to smoke for two hours. They put to her belly all these microphones. I mean that belt to register the heartbeat of the fetus. Then, they tell her, “Okay now, go for a cigarette.” As she is reaching for her lighter and barely lighting the light of not yet the cigarette, immediately the little heart of the baby goes way up, the baby knows that a big whip of nicotine is getting to him, but what is pleasurable for the mother because our brain enjoys that amount of blood that rushes comes gushing in because there is a contraction of the arteries because of the nicotine.
The baby’s brain is not well formed yet and for him it is excruciating. The heart system, the body would do everything not to be there. The baby in the womb of a mother, they have no choice, they have to be there. So, of course, we often hear if you are pregnant, do not smoke, do not drink, get your rest, get your food. Those things are fundamental. Those are the basics, without food, without resting — but then opens up a huge universe for us to explore.
Some traditions would say a pregnant woman should surround herself with beauty. Well, easier said than done. Sometimes we have the luxury of living in a beautiful place and we can admire beauty around us, but we are talking about the very look a woman has onto life and that she can muster. Even watching the news on TV, she can say, “Oh baby! What a mess we’re in? My goodness! Did you see all this violence? Well, my little one, this is the world we have chosen to be born into. I’m here to help you. Maybe you can bring some solutions.” You know, like a different way of talking to yourself and to the baby and dedicating what you understand of life, about life, to your baby.
Out of millions of women that specific baby has chosen specifically you. So, the main mission during pregnancy would be for our mother to be herself, which means not to be concentrating on the baby she has never seen yet. Of course, she will have her thoughts visiting the baby, but it is her look onto life that she should develop. She should be — I remember when I was pregnant, I wanted to be at my best of my best. Maybe I was 10% of my best, but at least I was striving. I was enthusiastic about discovering even who I was and dedicating that to the making of the baby.
Carrie Lauth: Hmm… Well, this is all very fascinating. So, tell us more about what this means for a mom. If a mom is sitting here listening and she is pregnant, what advice do you have for her? It sounds a little intimidating. I mean would she be concerned about every little thing that she is thinking or every situation that she found herself in? What advice would you have for her?
Laura Uplinger: I understand what you are saying. Yes, maybe the first then advice would be relax woman, enjoy, be happy. Joy is certainly one of the most beautiful things we can offer life to ourselves even if we were not pregnant. When situations are difficult and we are pregnant, it is also wonderful to know that that baby is a companion of yours. It is not a one-way street. Our baby also protects us. So many women — I mean during the wars in Europe I had read a lot of that, but also recently I have heard of women who were pregnant and were able to say that baby was telling me that everything was going to be okay. I could trust and relax. So, open up to your baby.
There are messages also from the womb. Many say that the consciousness of each child is not in the body. The body has been made, maybe even visited by the child as far as consciousness, but as far as our consciousness is not complete in our body, the mother should be very happy of her power over the formation of this body. Yes, it is intimidating. Everything is intimidating when it is well done. I mean I can imagine a sculptor starting a sculpture, or a painter starting a painting, or a writer in front of a white page. Creation is intimidating.
When we form something, it is intimidating, but we can take delight. Maybe the strongest quality for pregnancy, labor and mothering and parenting is surrender. That is something that we, women, love doing when we surrender to a mystery, to a force, to beauty. I believe this conversation we are having is being heard by some mothers who are having kind of a confirmation, their intuition had already talked on that. We were fetuses one day. We were embryos. We went through that. We were born. So, it awakens in us just to speak about this subject a lot of memories even if they are subconscious, they have such an echo in us. I am sure that some are saying “Aha! See, I knew that there was something and everybody around me was making fun of me.”
Carrie Lauth: Yeah. My sister always said that she knew the day after she had conceived the child and everybody would say that she was crazy.
Laura Uplinger: Exactly. Exactly. There are dreams. There are physical sensations. It is a huge science. I would not be into this field if there was not therapy for those who had severe traumas but I also know how much healing we get through a good pregnancy. Then when I hold my child in my hand, a newborn child or a 1-month-old child, the little one I was at that same age is also awakening me. A lot that I will do for that child, maybe that was never done to me because my parents were too busy or this was not the fashion like we would not breastfeed and things like that in the 1950s.
Well, a lot that I will do still can transform this child I was once. I know this is a bit philosophical but it as if there was no past. There is an eternal present. At anytime, I can assess the state of my being and repair, re-edit. Those scars are not like the scars on our skin. They would be like when I put my hand in the water and I take it out, you do not see where the hole was anymore. There was no scar. So is the psyche of the human being. So, psychologically, any gesture, any effort we make towards the well-being of a baby, we also make it towards the baby we were once at that age and that is beautiful.
Carrie Lauth: Yes. I think that is so true. I think mothering can be very healing. I was just reading an article earlier today about counseling breastfeeding mothers who have been victims of sexual abuse and how they can have some difficulties with birth and with breastfeeding but at the same time those experiences can be deeply healing as well.
Laura Uplinger: Yeah. Exactly. Life is therapeutical like art. So, from beauty, from health, from one effort, we can derive a lot of energy. It is quite amazing. It feels strange to speak about those very deep subjects very quickly in a small conversation, but those are seeds for people to ponder because we do have the answers within us. As much as education is not something center on the child, pregnancy is not center on the baby.
Psychologically, we are offering ourselves to the baby. So, we have to be something not just the baby in us. What I would advice mothers is yes, go speak with your best friends. Take the walks you like. Nurture yourself the way you love it. Your child will be learning health from you. Same thing when we are bringing up a child, we have to be somebody ourselves. Otherwise, if the child only sees us looking into them, it can be anguishing for a child. “Doesn’t my mother have a life? I might yet, I don’t know things enough.” When we relax, when we show our children the way we see the universe, we take them by the hand and we explain them how we see life, the same we thing we can do with lots of honesty when we are pregnant.
Carrie Lauth: Well, the website with more information about the Birth & the Human Family is birthpsychology.com. Laura, thank you so much for talking with us about this subject today. This is so interesting.
Laura Uplinger: You are welcome, Carrie. It is beautiful to be on radio. Thank you very much.
Natural Moms Podcast #29
December 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
This week I’m talking about the benefits of CoSleeping with Sharon Forshpan and Thelma Lager of Arms Reach Concepts, a company that designs products to help make co sleeping safer and easier for Moms and babies.
Download mp3 here or read the transcript below.
Carrie Lauth: This week I am joined by Sharon Forshpan and Thelma Lager of Arm’s Reach Concepts. Hi, ladies! Well, first of all, tell us what Arm’s Reach Concepts is.
Thelma Lager: Okay. It is basically a company that specializes in providing a safe and secure system so that a mother, particularly a breastfeeding mother, is able to remain in her bed during the night and at night get up for feeding. They focus on a selection of products, patented products that accomplish that.
Carrie Lauth: Okay. I know a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with the Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper, and we are going to be talking a little bit more about co-sleeping. You guys have some pretty well-known and respected advocates. I know Dr. William Sears is an outspoken advocate of your product and of co-sleeping, but there is a lot of misinformation out there I know about co-sleeping.
Thelma Lager: That is true. Dr. James McKenna who is head of the Sleep Laboratory at Notre Dame University believes that co-sleeping is the only natural way for a mom can take care of her infant. He has written a great deal on this subject because there are many scientific papers on this subject. Actually, McKenna ends up saying it is natural to place the baby down the hall in a separate crib from the mother.
Carrie Lauth: Yes. You know I have observed that co-sleeping is something that people do when they do not know better. It is just an instinctive type of behavior. I have been trying to get Dr. McKenna on the show for months and he is a very busy man.
Thelma Lager: Yes. There is a difference between bed sharing and co-sleeping. Even McKenna cautioned about bed sharing where you might get an overly parent showing an arm or leg over an infant. That is not what co-sleeping does. It places an infant alongside the adult bed not in the adult bed. That is the big difference.
Carrie Lauth: So, in your estimation, what are some of the biggest benefits of co-sleeping?
Thelma Lager: Obviously, breastfeeding becomes much, much easier. Incidence of breastfeeding for co-sleepers is way, way up. It is over 75%. The other obvious benefit is mom gets a great deal more rest. It is the time of her life when she really needs to sleep. Those are the big benefits.
Carrie Lauth: Yeah, definitely. I once heard a wise mother say that the best place for the baby to sleep is the place where everybody in the family gets the most sleep.
Thelma Lager: That is right. More and more hospitals are beginning to have arrangements so that the infant is in the room with mother rather than down the hall in an incubator. So you see more and more hospitals providing that service.
Carrie Lauth: Well, what do you think are the main objections that some parents have with co-sleeping? If you read any mainstream parenting magazines, they have nothing good to say about co-sleeping and that is kind of a reflection of how the general society feels about it. What are those main objections?
Thelma Lager: Well, overlay which is one of the great fears, the incidence is very low. The other one is lack of privacy, but that infant is not going to remain in an adult bedroom for the first 14 years of his life. Our co-sleepers, they normally will stay until the baby is able to sit up or stand up and then they move them down to a separate nursery, a separate room.
Sharon Forshpan: I would also like to address that issue. I think we may talk about co-sleeping mainly when we are talking about bed sharing and the co-sleeper bassinet made by Arm’s Reach provides the best solution for the two worlds. It is not bed sharing and so there is no danger to the baby, but it is still close enough to the parent. The baby is sleeping in the co-sleeper bassinet safely, securely.
A mother or caretaker or the father can scoop the baby out of the co-sleeper bassinet easily at night for comforting, for feeding, for diaper changing without waking everybody up. The baby sleeps more soundly without having to be moved around, picking up after, the crib, so they do not have to be fully awake to be cared for and to return to sleep much easier. It is all reported both in Dr. Sears’ and Dr. McKenna’s report.
Carrie Lauth: Okay. You personally entered my next question because I was going to ask how the Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper helps address some of those concerns and you mentioned Dr. McKenna’s report. Is that available on your website, or do you know where our listeners could…
Thelma Lager: The rather large paragraph that he has contributed to the site. Also, we have a very, very active site and another fact he has a new book coming out. Within days, it will be out.
Carrie Lauth: Excellent! Great! Maybe that is why I have had a hard time getting in touch with him. Okay. So, you know the American Academy of Pediatrics came out with the statement some time back and it kind of shook up, stepped on some toes if you will. What is your answer to that? What have other sleep experts and parenting experts said about their stand against co-sleeping?
Thelma Lager: Sharon, do you want to take it?
Sharon Forshpan: Well, basically I believe that would be against the profession, is it not, co-sleeping.
Thelma Lager: They finally say in that statement that while they do not recommend bed sharing, they do suggest that a separate co-sleeper bassinet alongside the adult bed is an acceptable alternative. Even the American Academy says that.
Sharon Forshpan: You know, that brings to mind an article appeared in Newsweek back in May of this year about Dr. Robert. Thelma, would you like to comment on that?
Thelma Lager: Yeah. That was a very strong recommendation in that article. Actually, in the world — the worldwide stance about co-sleeping, we are the only country that does not endorse co-sleeping.
Carrie Lauth: Yes, it is true.
Thelma Lager: But you see the changes come about in this business where you now see a recommendation for the use of — I have forgotten the word — pacifiers. For years and years and years, we never used pacifiers. Now, they are recommended. I believe that a change will come about safe co-sleeping which is the Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper.
Carrie Lauth: Well, that is interesting that you have mentioned that about the pacifier. You know, potentially learning the SIDS risk. I am not a scientist or a doctor, but I personally feel intuitively that it may be the actual sucking, the act of sucking that keeps the baby stimulated.
Of course, a breastfeeding infant who is sleeping near his mother, as you mentioned earlier is going to be suckling more at night, which is something that young infants need. They are not meant to sleep for 8-10 hours without feeding. So, I wonder if down the line as that is researched more, if they find out that it is actually the sucking that is what helpful not the pacifier itself.
Thelma Lager: Another factor in that is by having an infant suck closely, autonomic breathing system is not perfect in every infant. Having an infant very close by, a mom catches the breathing and any changes in the breathing and she is there instantly. You have a baby down the hall and you missed all that even with the monitor. It is an added safety feature to having it right there.
Carrie Lauth: Yeah, I definitely believe that because one thing that I have noticed and I have heard other parents say those who practice co-sleeping that oftentimes the mother would just inexplicably wake up and there may be nothing wrong. The baby is not stirring. There is no sign of danger, but just within moments, the baby will wake up and either need a feeding or perhaps even is sick. I know it personally.
It has happened to me when my toddler who is still nursing and sleeping nearby, I would wake up and then within seconds, the child would sit up and vomit. I would have time to pick him up and to react appropriately, but there was really no explanation for that other than just being in tune because of sharing that sleep. What about the baby? Does that same benefit translate to the baby? In other words, is the baby more in tune with mommy? How is his breathing affected?
Thelma Lager: Probably, the end result of this people research coming from all [unintelligible] in such places. These are better-adjusted adolescents, better adjusted adults. That is what is coming out of this close relationship between a nursing mother and an infant. The Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper Bassinet encourages that behavior. In my case, my son had a terrible time in the early stages of teething. I think that is the period when comforting an infant is very, very important. It is very painful. He eventually had to have his gums lanced so it would come out. I think it is the things you observed that the baby is there.
Sharon Forshpan: I just would like to say that on the report either by Dr. Sears or Dr. McKenna that the pleasing synchronization between the infant and the parent or the mother are quite helpful. What they reported is that it is a fact that after a while, the mom and the baby are so supervised to each other. Perhaps that is what you are talking about, the intuition of the mom?
Carrie Lauth: Yeah.
Sharon Forshpan: There is such closeness and bonding that developed between the two. There is nothing bad to say about co-sleeping in the safe environment such as using the Co-Sleeper Bassinet. Well, again, I am trying not to talk my horn, but from hearing from so many, many parents writing and calling to tell us what a life saving it is for them and for their infants, I just cannot help but trying to tell everybody this is the best thing that you can do for yourself and your child.
Carrie Lauth: Yeah. Well, I have noticed that pregnant parents and new parents are very, very concerned about sleep and this is an alternative for parents who are willing to give it a try. For families that practice co-sleeping, they really seem to enjoy it.
Thelma Lager: Another fact, we should mention our special needs children and we received authored mail from people, children with very definite needs to be near mom. This means that this mother is going to still get some rest and that is very, very important.
Carrie Lauth: Yeah, that is true. I know I had a good friend who had three children and one of her — I think it was her third, the youngest, absolutely did not sleep well near mom. It was a new experience for her because they have been such advocates of co-sleeping and the other two really thrived to being with their mom at night, but this one just did not sleep well near mom. As soon as they put her in a different room, she just slept great.
Thelma Lager: They are all individuals.
Carrie Lauth: Yes, that is right. They like to shake things up.
Sharon Forshpan: I am laughing because that is pretty unusual, but it sounds great that the child is always independent. By the time they are out in this world, is not that what everybody wants?
We have lots and lots of information and product information on co-sleeping and a lot of testimonials over the years from customers who are users. That is just only a small portion of what you will receive. I think it will be very beneficial to read about them. Sorry for my voice.
Carrie Lauth: Okay. Yeah, there is a lot of great information on your website. Well, thank you so much, Sharon and Thelma, for sharing this information to our listeners. I really appreciated the night. I think it is wonderful that you filled this need for parents.
Thelma Lager: It is perfect for natural moms.
Sharon Forshpan: Thank you, Carrie, for having us.
Learn more about the Arm’s Reach CoSleeper and read reviews from parents.
Natural Moms Podcast #34
December 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
This week Jenn Sprague of AllNaturalMommies joins me to talk about natural parenthood and being a work at home Mom.
Mentioned on the show: The WC – free offline mini mag
Article marketing tips for wahms
Motherwear Discount Code
December 28, 2006 | 1 Comment
Did you know that when you order nursing clothing, bras or other supplies from Motherwear, you can help other Moms and babies?
Their innovative charitable program is designed to help nursing moms and their families in need, in local communities and around the world. When you place an order, 3% of your total will go towards various charities that work directly with nursing mothers.
PLUS, I have a special discount code that can get you an extra $10 off. The code is: WN51 Don’t forget to enter it at the end for your discount! Tell your friends and family too, they can also use the discount.
Go here to start browsing ===> Motherwear
My parenting goals
December 13, 2006 | 13 Comments
Welcome Breastfeeding Carnival Visitors
A lot of people are making resolutions this time of year. I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions (partly because I don’t celebrate the holiday), but I do set goals for myself on an ongoing basis, including my parenting.
Do you set goals with yourself when it comes to your kids?
Right now I’m really working on my voice… lately I’ve been giving a lot of thought and focused attention on how the words come out of my mouth. I ask myself, if I said this to anyone else, would they be bothered by my words or my tone? Would I want my child to speak to me this way? Would I speak to a dear friend like this?
I’ve found that I’m not always as kind as I wish, and my tone doesn’t always reflect how I truly feel inside. For instance, if I need cooperation, I don’t want my voice to sound too cutesy or wishy washy, but I don’t want to sound mean either. I want to make sure that my words are calm and loving and yet clear and resolved where necessary.
What are your parenting goals? Here’s what some other natural mommas are aiming for:
~ Get some exercise (Breastfeeding123.com)
~ Plan ahead for quality family and couple time (BreastfeedingMums Blog)
~ Work on manageable goals (drink more water, volunteer, not overextend) (The Lactivist)
~ Get organized (Mama Knows Breast)
~ Do at least three things to support breastfeeding (Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog)
~ Consider what’s best for your child first (Momma’s Angel)
What’s in a toy?
December 11, 2006 | Leave a Comment
How do you decide what kinds of toys to buy your children?
I would guess that by the time your child is 18, I would guess that you’ll spend thousands of dollars on toys, so why not learn what will prove to be the wisest investment? You know how disheartening it is to spend money on toys only to have your kids play with the cardboard box they came in!
Today on the show, toy expert Nancy Politis has some great tips to help you pick toys with lasting play value and educational worth.
You can visit Nancy’s site and read more of her great articles on picking great toys at: Heirloom Wooden Toys
