Top Book to Keep Mom's Sane

Transformational Mothering was named by SheKnows.com as one of the top ten parenting books to keep mom's sane! So exciting! Read the article here.

Tales from a Traveling Mum

I just finished reading an absolutely delightful book entitled Tales from a Traveling Mum-Navigating Europe with a Babe in Arms by Alice Griffin. It was exactly what I was looking for; an easy and delightful read full of adventure and inspiration. In it, Alice, (along with her husband, Scott, newborn daughter, Isabella and dog, Milla) takes us through France, Greece, Norway and Spain.

I absolutely loved this book. Perhaps it was because I myself once traveled through Spain, or because my husband and I once traveled and lived in a van with kittens, or maybe it was because I wholeheartedly believe in instilling a sense of travel and adventure in my son.

Whatever the reason, Alice’s writing is warm and engaging and difficult to put down. Tales from a Traveling Mum inspires you to engage with the world whether you are going across the ocean or just to the corner store. As she says, travel “is not about escaping from life, but about indulging in life…” As I read her words I was encouraged to dream about our next family adventure and to actually start planning it.

If you are a new mother and looking for someone who will encourage you to keep adventuring with your child, then this is the book for you. It is a practical resource as well as an inspirational one. Alice’s helpful tips range from how to get a passport picture of your child to turn out to what essentials to bring when traveling with a young child. The final chapter of the book is written by four other traveling mothers and gives four other wonderful perspectives on how to travel with multiple children and how to travel on a budget.

I look forward to following Alice on her blog and to hearing much more from her as she continues her journey. Learn more about Alice at http://www.alicegriffin.co.uk

Miracle Mom Sings for Our Children!

(Bangor, ME) Amy Robbins-Wilson is a Maine singer-storyteller and more importantly a mom of neonatal intensive care baby. So it is no surprise that she wants to give back to the caregivers and the hospital that saved her son. That is why she teamed up with the Children’s Miracle Network of EMHS to launch a new music video for her lullaby “Child of Sunshine.”

She wrote the song for her son Clayton when he was about four months old and recorded it on her album The Divine Hours of Motherhood. Every time someone downloads the song Amy is donating 100% of the proceeds to the Children’s Miracle Network from now through the end of the year. The download is only 99 cents you can check it out at www.lullaby-link.com. All the money raised will stay local and help our children in northern, central, and eastern Maine.

“This whole endeavor is a huge leap of faith,” Amy says, “We have no idea if one person will download the song or if a million will. All we can do is hope that others will get involved, download the song and tell as many people as they can.”

Josh Scroggins, director Children’s Miracle Network of EMHS shares, “It is so rewarding to see one of our Miracle children and their family doing so well and for them to turn and want to help children and families – that’s what CMN is all about. I am so grateful – we could not help as many families as we do if it were not for people giving what they can.”

For More Information:
Email-amy@amyrobbinswilson.com
Website-www.amyrobbinswilson.com
http://www.lullabylink.com

Child of Sunshine

I am so excited to announce the completion of our first ever music video! "Child of Sunshine" is the song that I wrote for my son when he was about four months old. His grandmother had begun to call him her "Prince of Sunshine" and I loved the title. I went to a nearby lake where there was a walking path and began to walk around the lake with Clayton in a front carrier. By the time I had finished our walk, Clayton had fallen asleep and I had all of the lyrics. I found a napkin in our car and scribbled them down before I forgot them. I played with the melody for a few months until it settled down into what it has become.

"Child of Sunshine" was what I sang to Clayton every night before bed for years. I hope that this video shows the power of the loving bond between parents and children and that you and your children will enjoy it as much as we do.

If you enjoy it please pass the link on to your friends and family. We invite you also to download the song for your library. We have teamed up with IndieHeaven and are donating 100% of all proceeds from downloads of this song to the Children's Miracle Network from now until the end of the year.

Here is the link! http://www.lullabylink.com

As always, we would love to know what you think and welcome your comments. Thanks!

Lullaby Link

If it seems that my blogging here has been sporadic here you are correct! I hope that you will accept my new site http://www.lullabylink.com as an excuse. I am so excited about this new work!

Music made such a difference in my life with Clayton when he was a baby. It remains one of our greatest ways of communicating. In fact, tonight he was really wound up before going to bed and he began singing about his day as a way to process (it's not fair Old Man Wolf can eat our kitty cat...") and also as a way of knowing what time it was ("it is dark out and my body is tired and I fall down and it is time to sleep..."). I asked him to sing some prayers and tell God what he was grateful for, he did, and he was asleep before I made it to the door to leave his room.

Reading about the decline of parents singing to their children made me even more determined to make LullabyLink easy to use and helpful for parents.

When people ask me why lullabies are important this is my answer. Lullabies are crucial to the development of our entire culture. If we teach our children that WE, that ALL PEOPLE can be the source of music and the arts, then the arts will thrive.

If we allow our children to believe that music comes only from the t.v. box, or only from professional musicians then we teach them to be consumers rather than creators.

Marketing firms want us to believe that the television or that recorded music can teach our children better than we can. This is a lie.

Our children need our voices. We have all that we need to help our children develop. It does not matter if you have a "good" voice or even if you are on pitch. What matters is that your child sees you creating. That your child sees you having fun. Your goofy chants and musical attempts will encourage your child to love music far more than anything recorded.

Recorded and professional music can play a wonderful role in the development of music appreciation and musical enjoyment. However, the key to it all, is in your body, in your arms, in your breath as you sing to your child.

I hope that you will check out Lullaby Link and let me know what you think. I look forward to your feedback!

Giving Birth at Home- an interview with Nicolle Littrell

The Lessons of our Labors- Part 2- Giving Birth at Home

The wonder of homebirth is alive and well in local filmmaker Nicolle Littrell. She beams as she recounts her homebirth in Montville 5 years ago.

“My son’s birth was magical. It was just after Christmas so the lights from the tree shone down on us. There was a full moon and candlelight, fresh snow was falling outside and I was warm inside the birthing tub. The moment I will never forget is looking down at my son for the first time. His head and shoulders were born. His father held his head while the midwife and I each held one of his hands. He looked up at all of us through the water. There was a sense of deep connection even before he was fully born.”

This magical moment was pivotal for Littrell who has become an advocate for choice in birth. “I was amazed that I could do such a thing…that my body was so incredible and powerful. I learned that I could take care of myself and be very strong. I knew that I had everything that I needed to give birth within me. Women are amazing.”

Nicolle credits Donna of Morningstar Midwifery for giving her exactly the kind of hands off support that she needed to be able to give birth. “Support of women is really important in the birth experience. They left me alone in a safe and respectful way. They were sensitive to my needs and that I wanted to do it myself. For me, birth was a metaphor for all the things that women can do. When my contractions got really strong I completely understood why women ask for pain meds. But I talked myself through it. I learned about my strength, my capacity and all that I could hold.”

The lessons of her labor have held Nicolle through many transitions in her life. Now a single mother balancing her mothering with a full time schedule as a graduate student at the University of Maine, she often recalls her birthing experience when faced with a sleepless night. “I remember what I went through, how I handled myself and my strength and I know that I can face anything. Of course I want to be supported in what I am going through but if those supports are not there then I know that I can handle a lot of discomfort in my life on my own. It is about being ok in the difficult places that both motherhood and life put you in.”

As with any birth, Nicolle’s birthing was full of uncomfortable moments. A 7 hour labor required that she open fast. She says that the familiarity of her surroundings was an advantage in her birthing process. “I did not have to go anywhere. Being in my own home gave me the freedom to labor in the way that felt comfortable for me. That meant being naked, moving into different positions, going into different rooms and making all the noise that I wanted to. As a result of this, I was able to really connect to my body and my power in birth. I remember feeling like a goddess, that my body was so powerful and beautiful and that this experience was sacred, even holy.”

Leo’s birth redirected Nicolle’s life and her film work which now focuses on raising awareness about choices in birth. She says, “I want to spread more information and narratives about homebirth. Giving birth radicalized my consciousness. It flipped a switch in me. The world was a totally different place after I had my son. I saw a system that was broken and that was not serving women and that the issues went beyond birth. I saw how key support of women was in birth and of women and mothers in general.”

Littrell is concerned about the number of women who give birth by cesarean section. “I mean, we are at an over 30% cesarean section rate nationally. Something is very wrong here. Women need more evidence-based information about their choices in birth and more support in their choices. There is no way around it, women are the ones who bring the human race into this world. We need to do more in our culture to honor and support women.”

Nicolle credits her birth with teaching her to take full responsibility for her child and her choices. She is a strong advocate for educating oneself about reproductive choices. Her best advice for pregnant mothers? “Educate yourself. Read, read, read. Talk to people about their experiences. Watch films about birth-avoid the crisis “reality” shows. Start building a community of support and resources for yourself. If you are not clear about what you want, meet with different birth practitioners, consider and compare different birth locations. Most important, know and trust yourself. After gathering all of your information, base your choice on what feels best for you and your baby. The birth experience matters not only for your baby, but for you. After all, it is not just a baby being born, but a mother.”

Top Ten Tips on Supporting the Mother of a Premature Baby

People often ask me how they can best support the mother of a premature baby. Here are my top ten tips.

1) Recognize that the family has been through a traumatic life threatening experience. They are stressed and confused and proud and worried and on an incredible rollercoaster of emotions. Be understanding.

2) Be encouraging. Tell the parents what a great job they are doing in managing a journey they never expected to be on.

3) Don’t expect them to keep everyone update on moment by moment changes in their baby’s health. They are just keeping their heads above water. Do suggest that you could set up an account on www.caringbridge.org that they could update or that you could update as a point of contact for the rest of the family.

4) Offer to drive parents to the hospital to see their baby if they are away from the hospital.

5) Offer to collect their mail, feed their animals, or take care of an older child if there is one.

6) Bring them food. Don’t ask them to make a grocery list, it will be too much to think about. Make the food magically appear and it will be gratefully accepted.

7) Honor their wishes in your visits. We really wanted to show our little guy off even when he was in an isolette but more than a couple visits a day with all the testing and decisions we were making was overwhelming.

8) See if you can email the parents a message through the hospital. It meant so much to us to hear that people were holding us in their prayers. Keep messages simple. “Congratulations! We are sending you all our love.” Don’t be sorry about their circumstances or their child’s illness. Parents are protective and they need your support not your pity.

9) Never call parents overprotective or tease them about holding the baby all the time after they get out of the hospital. When a baby is in the neonatal intensive care unit parents can not hold them whenever they want to. My arms ached to hold my baby. Once we were home I would not put my son down and I was nervous about letting others hold him. Once the crisis is over remember to keep in touch with new mothers and listen. Post partum depression or the “baby blues” are an increased possibility in this population and mothers may go through a time of unexpected emotional exhaustion after their baby has stabilized.

10) If you are sick, even with the sniffles, stay home. Parents of premature babies must be hypervigilant about keeping their child away from illness. The first few weeks home they may not even be able to go out to run errands with their baby due to potential exposure. Then it would be a great time to offer to make some trips for them around town.

There are many helpful sites on the web for parents of preemies and for extended families. A few of the links I recommend are:

www.caringbridge.org – a free site where you can make a page for your family and update them on the progress of your baby’s health.

http://www.preemie-l.org/ - a wealth of information for parents and extended families of preemies

www.marchofdimes.com- a wonderful organization and wonderful information.