Podcast: Can you really skip the pureed foods? Try Baby-Led Weaning!

After breast or bottle feeding the next step is pureed foods, fed by spoon, right?

Gill Rapley, co-author of Baby-Led Weaning * says that this doesn’t have to be so.  She advocates letting babies transition to solids by giving them table foods.  She says that skipping the pureed foods is actually more natural and better for babies, and her ideas are catching on.

In this podcast interview, Tanya Lieberman IBCLC spoke with Gill about giving table foods to babies:  why do it, how to do it, common concerns, and some tips for getting started.

You can listen to this interview using the player below, listen with Quicktime, or download it for free at our iTunes store!

*Weaning in the U.K., where Rapley resides, means the transition to solid foods, not stopping  breastfeeding.  We were provided with a review copy of this book.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Have leftover Motherlove Nipple Cream? Here are some great uses for it.

Have leftover Motherlove Nipple Cream?  We hope you won’t throw it away!

Our nipple cream can be used for many other purposes.  It’s safe and effective for many uses.  You can use it to:

• Pass on to a pregnant friend (or buy her a new jar!)

• Moisturize lips (all ingredients are safe for ingestion)

• Moisturize dry skin on elbows, knees and heels

• Heal minor cuts, scrapes, and burns

• Soothe insect bites or sunburn

• Soothe inflamed stretch marks (or try our Pregnant Belly Salve or Pregnant Belly Oil)

• Rub into dry cuticles or chapped skin

• Treat eczema (or try our Green Salve)

• Smooth down a bit of unruly hair

• Use on diaper rash (or try our Diaper Rash and Thrush Salve)

• If you use a nipple shield, put a little a little under the outside edges to hold it in place

• Put it on chapped nose and cheeks during the winter time cold season.

• And finally, Silencia at Motherlove says “I also have a lot of friends who use it to help heal tattoos.”

And please remember that our glass jars are fully recyclable and reusable. Use our jars to hold jewelry, a votive candle, or even your own homemade lip balm.

Honoring the journey to motherhood with a blessingway

Looking for a special way to mark the transition into motherhood?  One that focuses on internal preparation and the support of other women?

A blessingway may be just what you’re looking for.

We have some special blessingway photos to share with you from Motherlove founder and owner Kathryn Higgins!  She had her own blessingway and participated in other moms’ ceremonies.  Her wonderful photos are below.

Kathryn says:

“I believe that a blessingway is the best ‘baby shower’ you can give a mother.  I had blessingways for many of my friends when we lived up in the canyon.  There was a beautiful ceremonial spot in an upper meadow surrounded by rock outcroppings and wildflowers.  We had a perfect place for a throne.  We would gather around our friend and brush her hair with scented oil, adorn her head with a crown of flowers, and wash her feet with an herbal bath.  Our gifts were songs and poems, beads and prayers.  We laid our hands upon her belly, sending blessings and our love.”

To explain what a blessingway is and to hold one, we asked Barb Lucke, co-author of Mother Rising: The Blessingway Journey into Motherhood to answer a few questions:

How is a blessingway different from a baby shower?

The blessingway views the transition into motherhood as a rite of passage and one to be held in sacred ceremony.  Many cultures still honor mothering in this way.  However, in the United States and many of the first world  countries, the concern is less on preparing the mother internally for her role as a mother and more externally with things.  Somehow in our culture we have come to value obtained things for our baby as adequate preparation and have ignored the work of internal preparation.  Women who are choosing to include blessingways as part of their journey into motherhood are saying yes to also preparing internally for the task ahead of birthing and mothering.  They are encouraged to ponder what it means for them to become a mother, or a mother of two or three, and to identify their wants and goals for themselves and what might be in the way of reaching them.  Most often what is in the way is a belief or fear.  The blessing way is designed to help the mother identify these road blocks to having the birth she envisions as well as the road blocks that might be the way of becoming the mother she hopes to be.  These road blocks are minimized or in some cases removed through sacred ceremony.  She is filled back up with affirmations, pampering and the support she needs to reach her goals.  Gifts given during a blessingway are more symbolic versus store bought.

Photo by Kathryn Higgins

Why do you think it’s important to have a ritual to mark the passage into motherhood?

I believe all women need to journey within to mentally prepare for childbirth and mothering by identifying and excavating fears, judgements, and beliefs.  This mental preparation is as difficult as all of the work that goes into preparing to give birth physically, by going to prenatal visits, eating right, exercising taking your vitamins, etc.  It is important and often overlooked.  Women wonder why their birth plans or ideals for how they want to parent go flying so easily out the window.  The work is challenging and warrants the time and energy a sacred ceremony promises as well as the support and from other women.  There is some sort of magic that happens when you combine sacred ceremony with women coming together collectively to honor, witness and support another woman on her journey into motherhood.  The combination works.  If you just get a room full of women together and lack the sacred ceremony you will be missing a key piece to the recipe.  And vice versa, if you sit alone in your home and create a beautiful sacred ceremony without the energy power, and support of other women, you will also not obtain the optimal results.

What are the major parts of a blessingway?

On page 25 of Mother Rising we map out elements recommended  in a blessingway or sacred ceremony and feel it is really best to start there.   I will also sum it up for you in my own words:

Photo by Kathryn Higgins

The Birth Survey: Share your experience, learn from other moms

Are you pregnant and interested in other moms’ experiences at your area hospitals?  Want to know what they think about different OBs and midwives?

Or have you given birth in the last three years and want to share your experience with your providers and hospital?

Then check out The Birth Survey, a project of the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS).  CIMS is a national coalition of organizations and individuals which promotes an evidence-based model of maternity care to improve birth outcomes and reduce costs.

The goal of the The Birth Survey is to give moms they information they need to make informed choices about where they birth, and to give providers and hospitals information they can use to improve their services.  And who is better qualified to describe your experience than you?

The Survey takes some time to complete (settle down with a cup of tea when you do it), but you can save your progress and resume at another time.  We think it’s worth your time.  And other moms will thank you for it!