Mama Renew

Did you know we have a weekly Mama Renew post on Mothering.com?  Here is this weeks’ offering:

How often do you wish for just one more pair of willing hands in your household – as so perfectly demonstrated by Jessica in her Mothering blog post this week?  Someone else to help with dishes, garden, a good kitchen sweep, and occasional childcare.  You know – someone to drain the pasta while you hold a crying child.

There was a time in our life when we had a maid.  Two maids, actually – they came together every other week and scrubbed my home spotless.  It was amazing.  This is no longer within our budget, sadly, and I have really really missed them.

This summer our family has taken on a new realm of household support – WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms, an international movement of generally young people wanting to travel, spend time on a farm, learn english, and enjoy family life.  We offer room and board in exchange for time working in the home and garden, and they stay for 1 – 3 weeks at a time.

Click Here to Read the rest at Mothering.com – the good, the challenging – all about asking for help, letting go of control, and working through the guilt!

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We published a new article on Babyvibe this month sharing creative approaches to building a healthy relationship with the grandparents, one of the more tension-filled relationships for many young families.  Here is an excerpt and a link to the original article:

Are you are blessed to have grandparents who play a positive, supportive role with your family? Or perhaps you have equally involved grandparents who seem to bring more trouble than support? Conflict and judgment were most likely not on your list of things to look forward to when you were envisioning loving grandparents taking your little ones to the park.

Along with the perks of grandparents comes a new realm of relationships, and mother-in-laws (from your side or your partner’s) can play a particularly complex role in this new family dynamic. Our mothers are not the only mommy now, and as you grow into parenthood, they too are adjusting to her new role.

The result? Sometimes beautiful growth as you get to know one another in new ways. Other times? Crazy-making conflict. The last thing mamas need is tension with grandparents, so here are a few Mama Renew tips:

Click Here for ideas to support a healthy relationship with grandma

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Did you know we have a weekly Mama Renew post on Mothering.com?  Here is this weeks’ offering:

In honour of World Breastfeeding Week I want to explore a bit the emotional landscape of breastfeeding challenges.

In a story I have seen repeated all too often, my early months of breastfeeding featured an achingly low milk supply, conflicting professional advice, and well-meaning but deeply hurtful commentary.  This blessed time in my life also included a not-so-nice dose of postpartum depression, a rented scale to measure intake, a supplementary nursing system, formula, goats milk, a variety of herbs and medications, and the requisite hospital grade pump that became a good friend.

It was hard.  Hard,yes, to wake up every 2- 3 hours for a pre-feed-weigh-in, breastfeed, supplemental feed, pump, post-weigh-in, and diaper change.  That was hard.  I ached for the simplicity of putting my babe to breast and simply knowing that he was being amply nourished.

Harder, however, was the emotional journey of acceptance that this was my reality…

Click Here to Read the rest at Mothering.com

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