Rebecca_In the Slow Lane

Dear Team Night Feed, I'm writing this particular blog as I was very anxious about this transition and wanted to hear about other parents' experiences, especially mothers who'd chosen to feed their babies and toddlers to sleep, maybe for two years or so, but were interested in gentle night weaning. I can't believe we made it this far, especially after writing this last summer!  I hope our story helps anyone else in the same position, even though every child/parent/home is unique and different. There's a background story to our first night of night weaning which you can read here , but in short, little one was 26 months with good communication skills, he'd stopped asking for "mummy milk" during the day and in the morning, and was only waking up once in the night.  He's got a big brother who's almost 4 years old and fully weaned (at 18 months).  I had routinely fed our youngest to sleep for every bedtime, back to sleep after every wake up a

Our boys nursing their bunnies to sleep Four months ago, I published an article all about my rejection of the sleep training culture , extolling the virtues of following my baby’s lead, the second time around. The liberation from rules and schedules was the birth of my maternal instinct and true enjoyment of motherhood. When my eldest was just six months, he slept through the night, 7pm-7am every night. To outsiders, we’d discovered the holy grail of parenthood. Yet there were major cracks under the perfect, unbroken surface of sleep.  To achieve this, I had to leave him to “self soothe”; I rarely witnessed that magical moment of watching him pass from wakefulness to sleep; I had to rouse him if he fell asleep at the breast for fear of “bad sleep associations”, but I didn't dare break out of this, too worried about giving our child "poor sleep habits".  But if you’ve read my other blogs, you know all about this. When our second boy was born, all those rules went

Published First on The Motherload, 15.4.18 My confession: we tried sleep training. Is he sleeping/feeding/crying/playing too much/too little?  Like many other first-time clueless parents, coping postpartum with newborn life broke me.  The critical effects of the sudden onslaught of sleepless nights, anxious days and sore nips were far worse than I’d romanticised.We soon reached for books preaching routines and promising contentment. We read that feeding/cuddling/rocking to sleep would cause long lasting bad habits. We tried the recommended schedule and my husband took over bedtime duties.  After a breastfeed and a story, I’d ninja-step out of there as he'd sashay into the nursing chair.  Little one got cuddles galore with his Papa, along with all the rugby anthems he asked for.  I never knew that ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ had so many verses.  But after much perseverance, he managed to achieve the impossible: put down in the cot, sleepy, but awake.  By the time he was seven

Published first on The Motherload, 6.11.2017 Our parents did it. Our parents' friends all did it.  The Royal family routinely do it.  Having your children two years apart always seemed like a good idea. They get to grow up together, have the same  friends, share toys(!)... Sixteen months into being a mother to two, and I'm now able to see the light. However, I can say with recent experience, that it is so much harder than I ever imagined it could be. Our parents can only remember the good times. "My eldest (fourteen months older) used to bring me the nappies and wipes," my mother in law told me. "Your brothers were always the best of friends," my mum reminisced.  However, in our merry little foursome, my husband usually returns from work to find me a broken human.  Still standing, but only just. There's been times when all three of us have been crying, feeding off each other's misery. It was hard to define what the matter was; it was all just

First Published on The Motherload , 17.1.18 Dear Grandparents, We moved far away from the family home, far from the shire where you invested your careers, friendships and lives.  We preferred the bright lights of the big smoke with higher salaries, bigger shops and more take-away options, selected from an app on our phones.  We used to call you up in the evenings for an uninterrupted natter.  We used to visit "home" at weekends with flowers or new partners for you to meet.  You'd meet us at the station and there would always be smiles, hugs, a cuppa on arrival with homemade treats and home-cooked feasts.  My old bedroom, a relic from my childhood, readied with fresh linen and towels.  We loved our weekend visits for the peace and fresh air, the leisurely brunch, the heated debates around the kitchen table, mum-daughter trips to the shops, trips to the tip and a proper starry night sky. A decade on, we're parents and we're tired all the time.  Our evening

Published first on  The Motherload  19.12.17 I'm lucky to have good friends; we're in and out of each others' homes.  Our homes vary greatly in size, noise and tidiness.  In early motherhood, I used to apologise for the mess and do a quick clean up when backs were turned.  Three years in, and I realise that I'm not sorry at all; i wouldn't do anything any differently at all.   It’s 1pm.  I’m back from the afternoon pre-school drop off.  My three-year-old is happily at his nursery and my 18month is snoozing in the buggy after a pretty precarious journey over ice sheets and puddles, over looked by tenacious zombie snowmen with gouged out eyes, their disembodied carrot-noses sinking in the slush.  After an elaborate role-play of pretending to be various Arctic animals, we successfully made it out this morning to our toddler music class and returned for lunch and more play.  I survey the house. To a stranger, our house may look as though it’s been recen