Category Archives: Parenting

Frost Loves: Hape Pound N Tap Bench

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hape, toys, reviews, This glorious musical toy arrived at the weekend. Much to the delight of the Frost toddler. The Frost baby was also fascinated by the colour and the noise, but was swiftly moved along for being too young to play with it. It is a smart idea and well made. As all Hape toys are. Lots of fun is to be had with this and the xylophone also pulls out and can be played with individually. Frost loves….

The Hape pound and tap bench features a pull out xylophone and pounding station. Explore cause and effect as balls drop when they hit the pounding area which sends the balls tinkling over the xylophone. Pull out the keyboard and the xylophone can be played solo. Experiment with playful rhythm patterns for a musical delight and sound experience

 

Suitable from 12 Months+ The Hape Pound N Tap Bench is available from Poppets for £24.95.

The Doula’s Guide to Empowering Your Birth: A Complete Labor and Childbirth Companion for Parents to Be

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Experienced doula, Linsey Bliss, shows you how to prepare physically and mentally for every element of having a child, from pregnancy to fourth trimester in The Doula's Guide to Empowering Your Birth. Lindsey Bliss, who has assisted as a doula at hundreds of births and is herself a mother of seven, reveals here all the wisdom and advice that doulas share with the new mothers who hire them. The Doula's Guide to Empowering Your Birth covers the period from pregnancy through labor and birth to fourth trimester healing. The focus, however, is on preparing for birth--including topics like how to pick the right childbirth class and the right birthing method. You’ll also see how to assemble the team of professionals, family members, and friends who will support you through labor and birth, and how to approach last-minute decisions about pain medications and cesarean sections. Bliss's tone throughout is at once authoritative and confident as well as warm and encouraging. Her concern in her practice as well as in these pages is to listen to and help secure each new mom's own personal vision of a birthing experience that is safe, fulfilling, and meaningful.

This is a truly wonderful book from a doula who really knows her stuff. Linsey Bliss has seven children. Six of those are biological and she has had two sets of twins. She has also assisted hundreds of births. This book tells you all you need to know about pregnancy, childbirth and even what happens after. This well-written book is enjoyable to read and is like having your own personal doula and best friend in one. Essential. 

Experienced doula, Linsey Bliss, shows you how to prepare physically and mentally for every element of having a child, from pregnancy to fourth trimester in The Doula’s Guide to Empowering Your Birth.

Lindsey Bliss, who has assisted as a doula at hundreds of births and is herself a mother of seven, reveals here all the wisdom and advice that doulas share with the new mothers who hire them.

The Doula’s Guide to Empowering Your Birth covers the period from pregnancy through labor and birth to fourth trimester healing. The focus, however, is on preparing for birth–including topics like how to pick the right childbirth class and the right birthing method. You’ll also see how to assemble the team of professionals, family members, and friends who will support youthrough labor and birth, and how to approach last-minute decisions about pain medications and cesarean sections.

Bliss’s tone throughout is at once authoritative and confident as well as warm and encouraging. Her concern in her practice as well as in these pages is to listen to and help secure each new mom’s own personal vision of a birthing experience that is safe, fulfilling, and meaningful.

The Doula’s Guide to Empowering Your Birth: A Complete Labor and Childbirth Companion for Parents to Be is available here.

 

Almost half of new mums suffer from frightening thoughts or hallucinations

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By Gemma Francis

Almost half of new mums suffer from frightening thoughts or hallucinations – but two thirds of these hide how they feel for fear of being judged negatively or having their baby taken away, a study has found.

The images – which include thoughts of killing or harming their child – are still taboo among mums with just 37 per cent admitting to others how they feel.

The most common thought is a fear that ‘something dreadful will happen to my baby’, with 62 per cent vividly feeling this.

A further 44 per cent were plagued by the belief their baby might die, while 13 per cent have imagined killing or harming their own child.

The study by parenting site ChannelMum.com also found one in 50 even believed ‘my baby hated me’ while one per cent were convinced their mother-in-law was trying to take their baby,

Others had visions of their child being eaten by a crocodile or snatched by the Grim Reaper.

Two in five (39%) felt their child and partner would be ‘better off without me’ and 16 per cent considered suicide.

An additional 31 per cent admit to having an irrational fear that someone ‘will steal or harm my baby’, making it impossible for them to meet or talk to strangers.

Yet despite 43 per cent of mums suffering these extreme thoughts, 65 per cent of those were never told pregnancy and parenthood could affect their mental health.

As a result, one in five (19%) feared they were ‘going mad’ when they fell ill.

Half (49%) of the mums who suffered were also scared of being ‘judged negatively’.

Forty three per cent believed others will think they are a ‘bad parent’, while 26 per cent were ‘ashamed’ of being mentally ill.

The stigma is so great that a disturbing 17 per cent of mums who fall ill admitted they thought about self-harm to try to cope, with one in 20 going on to self-harm.

One of the biggest barriers to getting help is the fear your child will be taken into care.

One in five mums (19%) who suffered mental illness after birth reported refusing to access help in case their child was taken away.

Official NHS figures show just ten to 15 per cent of mums experience serious mental health issues.

But as a result, some experts now believe there could be a ‘hidden epidemic’ of maternal mental illness, as 64 per cent of mums who fall ill never try to get a formal diagnosis so are missed by official figures.

Overall, the survey showed the most common mental health ailment suffered by new mums is anxiety, experienced by 68 per cent of women after birth, alongside 48 per cent who undergo insomnia due to worry.

A further 35 per cent battle Post Natal Depression, a third (33%) become agoraphobic and 23 per cent are hit by panic attacks.

On average, women’s symptoms lasted three to six months, but 29 per cent felt mentally low for a year or longer.

Women were five times more likely to spot their own symptoms with 69 per cent realising themselves they were ill, compared to just 14 per cent whose partners detected they were unwell.

However, almost two in five mums who become ill (38%) never tell anybody how they feel and just a third confide in their GP (33%).

The most common way mums covered up their feelings was to pretend to be ‘fine’ when quizzed on how they felt, with 94 per cent admitting they lied about their feelings.

Lack of sleep was seen as the main trigger for mums falling ill, with 55 per cent believing this contributed to their condition.

A further 54 per cent said they felt ‘emotionally overwhelmed’ as a new parent, alongside 39 per cent who admitted they tried to ‘be the perfect parent’.

Two in five (41%) blamed hormonal changes while 14 per cent pinned the blame on ‘the pressure of living up to others on social media.

As a result, a resounding 80 per cent of mums want society to be more open about maternal mental health issues and the extreme thoughts mums can have.

Seven in ten (69%) want ‘society to realise it can happen to anyone’ while 55 per cent seek reassurances that their child will not automatically be taken into care if they come forward for treatment.

ChannelMum.com founder Siobhan Freegard said: “If your body is broken after birth, everyone understand and supports you.

“But when your mind is broken, mums still feel they have to keep it hidden.

“These thoughts are disturbing and terrifying – but very often they are part of becoming a mum.

“We need to talk about it, normalise it and make mums realise they are not alone. You are not different or ‘going mad’ just because you experience it – but you may need professional care and help.

“I suffered from post natal depression and visualised extreme images after the birth of my first child then tried to cover it up, so I know exactly what women are going through when they hide it.

“There is so much pressure to cope and be the perfect parent that when you are crying inside while everyone around you is smiling, it makes you feel you are failing your baby and your whole family.

“Mums need to know they will get the right support and their baby won’t be taken away.

“With care, compassion and the right treatment, you can get better quickly, bond with your baby and go on to be the parent you want to be.”

ChannelMum.com psychologist Emma Kenny added: “This research has highlighted the plight of large numbers of mums in the UK and evidences that even in 2018 post natal depression is still no closer to being effectively dealt with.

“Good maternal mental health is something that every woman deserves, but due to the lack of knowledge and support this simply isn’t the case, leaving women to deal with some of the most terrifying and debilitating feelings at a time when they should be enjoying their positive new beginnings.

“We need to address this subject openly, removing the shame and stigma so that mums no longer feel that they have to cope alone.”

EXTREME THOUGHTS MOTHERS HAVE EXPERIENCED:
I believed my baby hated me and was trying to kill me
I planned jumping off the balcony with my baby
I thought my flat was haunted and would stay outside from dawn til dusk until my husband got home
I thought my baby would die if I didn’t wash up before my microwave pinged
I saw the Grim Reaper outside my bedroom door
I thought my twins weren’t mine
I thought that my mother in law was planning to take my baby
I thought that baby would die because of germs. So I made everyone disinfect themselves before they could touch him. Someone touched my pram in a supermarket once and I couldn’t move due to fear of contamination. I stood in the cleaning isle vigorously disinfecting my pram.
I believed if I went to sleep, someone would break in and smother us all to death
I wanted to throw my daughter out of the window
I thought a crocodile was trying to eat my baby
I wanted to drive the car into a wall and kill my baby and myself
I cut all my hair off as I thought my baby was eating it and making himself ill
I thought everyone would be better off without me
I imagined an iron melting into my baby’s face
Just blackness, despair like being trapped in thick mud.

 

Men’s Bathrooms Need To Have Baby Changing Stations

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baby, shared parental leave, feminism, equality, childcare, leave, maternal, work, working mothers, lean inWhen it comes to sexism parenting is rife with it. Women are asked how they juggle having children and a job, men rarely, if ever. Most parenting events for mother are 9-5 Monday-Friday, and the events for men are on a weekend. Because women don’t work, right? Because men don’t look after their own children? It infuriates me. Anyway, on to the case in point. In America President Obama (and he still is, just. Sniff) signed the Bathrooms Accessible in Every Situation Act. It doesn’t cover restaurants yet, but it is a start. America is behind the UK when it comes to maternity leave, and general maternal care, so we should take their lead on this. It is sexism pure and simple. Sexist against men but sometimes women just want a break. There has been times when I have to change our son because my husband can’t go into the ladies room to change him. It is BS. We have to start lobbying our MP and doing what we can. Ask restaurants and other places to have the baby changing in both bathrooms, or a separate one that both parents can go into. There has to be more equality in parenting, and men’s bathrooms having baby changing is a good start.

mush – a new app that brings mums together

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mush-a-new-app-that-brings-mums-together

Becoming a mother can be incredibly isolating. Which is why Frost got very excited to hear about mush, a free app that lets mothers find each other. It is basically Tinder for mums.

mush is a new free app for mums that was born out of the difficulty its two founders had after having their second babies. Katie was fresh back from New York and Sarah had beaten her other mum friends to a second baby. They awkwardly exchanged numbers in a cold playground on their first chance meeting. Both of them needed to find someone to share those difficult days at home with small children, and felt that the serendipitous approach to making mum friends was just not good enough in 2016 in a world that was so well serviced with other ‘dating’ apps. mush has been described as Tinder meets mother’s group and matches mums according to their location, kids’ ages and mutual friends.

 

The mush app has three core functions:

 

  • Mushmatcher – to find mums based on an algorithm of kids’ ages, location and mutual friends
  • Let’s mush- to plan events with mums and organise your mummy diary, seeing who is free to play right now
  • Mushguides – content written by mum for mums, to inspire mums to make their lives easier and have more fun

 

mush will show which of your connections are free right now, based on the insight that it’s hard to plan ahead with small kids. It will also allow you to create groups of mums for messaging and support as well as having a content hub designed to give practical and positive information to parents and parents-to-be.

 

mush has received backing from a number of private investors and a social impact fund and is available to download from the app store and google play.

 

A survey of 4000 mums showed the following:

  • half of mums find it hard to plan with kids
  • 80% of mums prefer to go to playgroup with a friend
  • 22% mums only have one local mum friend (62% have 4 or less local mum friends)
  • half go to the shops primarily for adult interraction
  • half find it hard to make local mum friends
  • 60% of mums go a full day without adult interaction
  • 82% of mums thinks having mum friends makes you a happier. more positive mum

 

Find out more at www.letsmush.com.

 

More about the founders.

 

Katie Massie-Taylor, 33, Mortlake, London

Katie was an equity derivatives broker in the City having graduated from Bristol University in BA Hons Spanish. She was one of  8 female brokers on a thousand-strong male trading floor, so learnt pretty early that she needed to hustle for her business wins (though not literally, that would be illegal). She joined a currency trading start-up as her first foray into the entrepreneur world, then tried a number of other industries when she tired of the busy City entertaining circus. She worked in a PR agency, a member network subscription service and most recently as a matchmaker in New York for high end clients looking for love.  Mush is an amalgamation of all of her previous skills, having always known she would end up with a business of her own.

She met her husband aged 13 (her brother’s best friend) and got married in 2011. Simon is Commercial Director at England RFU. She has two little girls Tilly, 3 and Lyla, 1. They have lived around South West London and in New York. It was her experience of moving twice with babies that made her realise the world was crying out for mush.

Sarah Hesz, 34, East Sheen, London

Sarah’s experience is from the world of advertising where she led business development and worked with global brands spanning the likes of Unilever and Dell. She has always dreamed of having a start up and previously launched an award-winning marketing agency. She has two kids (Rosie, 3 and Leo,1).

 

How they met

Sarah & Katie met in a playground on a cold and rainy day. They had 2 week old babies strapped to their fronts and sub-2 year olds hanging precariously from climbing frames. Katie was close to tears having moved back from New York, and Sarah was mateless in Mortlake having had babies in quick succession. Sarah approached Katie and asked for her number, with no preamble, which she jokes is the only chat-up line she has ever used. They kept each other sane for the weeks and months that followed, having realised they had facebook friends in common, lived three streets away and had kids of identical ages. Over one celebratory tea time eating pizza and drinking prosecco (celebrating their survival of that ‘fourth trimester’) they talked about the dream of setting up a company together and both landed on the loneliness issue they had experienced.. Mush was born. And then began the adventure.

Working around ad hoc childcare, the first few months were a blur of last minute meetings, breastfeeding and business plans. They secured funding a year after that celebratory tea, and launched in April 2016.

 

The mush start-up story

Mush is the lovechild of Sarah & Katie’s vision that no mum does it alone. They raised money (250k GBP) pre- product from various angel investors (only a few of whom they knew before the journey began- read they kissed a lot of frogs!) with their passion and their pitch deck. One institutional seed investor was Mustard Seed Social Impact, who focusses on companies who do social good.

 

Their app was developed in the Ukraine, and launched in April, and the app got immediate take up locally in SW London from a few flyers and posters in playgrounds. The majority of the 25,000 mush mums are in the UK, with groundswells of activity in New York and Melbourne.

 

Mush has opened its next round of funding for 950k GBP, which they will raise their angel investors and a Crowdcube campaign starting in November 2016. It will allow them to reach their goal: to be the biggest global social media platform for mums.

 

 

Plus One is The Loneliest Number: On The Loneliness of Motherhood

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lonely, loneliness of motherhood, loneliness of parenthood. the loneliness of being a parent, parenting, There are many hard things about parenthood. Some are obvious: sleepless nights, exhaustion, lack of me time, endless nappies. But there is one that is not talked about as much and that should be, and that is the crippling loneliness of motherhood (or fatherhood if the man is the stay-at-home parent). Now some people may wonder how you can be lonely when you are looking after a baby but here is the thing: they cannot talk. Even when they do start to talk you still crave adult company. You yearn for a decent conversation. A moment to relate to another human being can feel like a life-saving moment.

Since I had my son almost two years ago I have had moments of loneliness that were so extreme I felt like they might suffocate me. I have worked from home for years but I also went to a lot of events and reviewed restaurants. I talked to people, I interviewed people. I was important. Now I am just someone’s mother and the only person I have proper conversations with for weeks on end is my husband. I have always been a social person and there were times when I thought the isolation might break me. My family live in Scotland which I have found hard since having a child. My friends mostly work normal working hours.

It is not that I have not tried to make friends with other parents. We moved when my son was a baby and by the time I found groups to take him to people had already formed cliques. I tried to join in and be friends but the mean girl vibe does not wane when (some) women grow up and become mothers. Other times I would connect with someone and think we were going to become friends, only to never see them again. It wasn’t that I did not try. I really put myself out there and the constant rejection only made it worse.

I believe we have to talk more about how lonely being a parent can be. There are thousands of parents struggling to just get through the day. They are isolated and can go for weeks without any other human contact. There are now apps for mothers to meet up like Mush which is a tinder style app for mothers to meet up with each other. It is growing in popularity and I hope every mother who needs someone to talk to joins up.

Now that my son is nearly two I feel I have come out the other side. I take him to numerous events. He has a better social life than I do. Recently I have found that I have become friends with the other mothers from one of the groups I take him to. The mean girls have fallen away, leaving only a hard core group who go at least once a week. Last week we all talked for hours as our children played. I could tell that it made these mothers happy to have someone to talk to. Some were shocked when I started talking to them properly but we quickly got into the swing of it. We even shared tips for making more mum friends. It was a wonderful moment and a long time coming. I hope it is only the start.

 

This article was originally published on Feb 21, 2017. We republished it because it was popular.

Frost Loves: Gender Neutral Baby Grows From Twisted Twee

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equalopportunitybabygrow babatudeboutique unnamedFrost loves these gender neutral baby grows. They are not only gorgeous, but also super soft. The material feels divine: perfect for delicate baby skin. They are climate neutral ‘FairWear’ product made from 100% organic cotton.

Twisted Twee are the leading UK producer of sustainable, carbon neutral, organic, fair trade, energy saving stuff and have a fireplace of awards to prove it.

If you’re fed up with the colour stereotyping of babies, then this presents a refreshing alternative. They come in a blue digger for a girl and a pink deer for a boy. They certainly make a statement. They make a perfect gift. Cheerfully sardonic childrenswear from Twisted Twee. Clever, fun, and well made.

genderneautral babyclothes

The babygrows come in long sleeved and short sleeved. They are fabulous quality and the print will not crack, peel, fade or misbehave in any way even after constant washing. The print is also puffed, so has a lovely squashy 3D texture.

Orders are packed inside a bright, bijou canvas gift bag and can include a gift messages on request.

Boy (with pink deer)

Girl (with blue digger)

Sizes from newborn to 24 months

£16.00

www.twistedtwee.co.uk

 

 
 

Anna And Elsa From Frozen Are Related To Tarzan. Yes, Really

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Okay people, you might want to hold onto your hat for this one; it turns out that Anna and Elsa from Frozen are related to Tarzan. WTF I hear you say, well it is true because Frozen director, Chris Buck, has confirmed the fan theories. Many Disney films have subtle links to each other. Aladdin’s lamp is in The Princess and the Frog and Rapunzel makes an appearance in Frozen. Chris explained all in an interview with MTV:

 

In Frozen we see Anna and Elsa become orphans when their parents appeared to die during a shipwreck.

However, Chris told MTV that they lived, swam to safety and ended up in the jungle. The mother then gave birth to a baby boy.

 

Chris said: ‘They end up building a tree house and a leopard kills them, so their baby boy is raised by gorillas.

So in my little head, Anna and Elsa’s brother is Tarzan.’

 

You didn’t see that coming, did you?