Enjoy Stillness Massage & Bodywork

06/12/2025

09/02/2022

09/02/2022

And partners need post natal massage too! It’s hard work caring for a newborn!

08/18/2022

The Balance After Baby

08/11/2022

Does this look familiar?

credit: Common Wild

❄️❄️ Our gorgeous winter issue is out now, packed full of treats for you and your little ones! You can pick up TNP from your local countdown or selected stockists in NZ or for our Aussie Friends - check out your local newsagent. Plus it’s available to purchase locally and internationally online here: https://thenaturalparentmagazine.com/product.../magazine/ ❄️❄️

06/07/2022

❤️

via Anna Cusack

🍂🍁 For support in your gentle parenting journey, pick up a copy of our gorgeous autumn issue which is out now!. Grab your copy from supermarkets throughout NZ and newsagents throughout Australia! To find your local stockist, or to subscribe, visit https://linktr.ee/TheNaturalParentMagazine 🍂🍁

05/23/2022

We see you

03/24/2022

"Training"⠀
⠀
Night waking is biologically normal. Night weaning does not ensure no wake ups. Sleep training does NOT ensure a good sleeper.⠀
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Sleep is a biological function, it cannot be forced. Just as if someone sat you on the toilet and demanded you p*e right then.⠀
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"Just give him rice cereal before bed. He's almost 3 month's, he'll be fine."⠀
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"Put them in bed, close the door, don't go back in until morning."⠀
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"If they are so upset they throw up, go in and change the sheets. Don't make eye contact or speak to them."⠀
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"She's getting too used to being comforted every time she wakes."⠀
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"Get out of the house when you put him in his crib, this way you won't hear his cries."⠀
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"Let them cry, they're just manipulating you."⠀
⠀
Complete. And. Utter. BS.⠀
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Not to mention, DANGEROUS.⠀
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And many women believe that their baby, that only wakes a few times a night for nourishment and/or comfort, has a problem that needs to be solved.⠀
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Waking frequently is a protective measure against SIDS, and also helps to maintain breastfeeding. ⠀
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It's expected that they need feeds throughout the night. (Have you ever doubled your weight within a few months before? Or had rapid brain development and growth, so much so that you can't even rest?)⠀
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It's unrealistic to expect babies to sleep BETTER than adults. ⠀
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Why do we need studies, and facts, and statistics to show how it is or is not damaging. How it is or is not ok to hold your baby to sleep, nurse your baby to sleep, rock your baby to sleep.⠀
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What happened to following our instincts? What happened to parenting from and following what you feel is right and good in your heart?⠀
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If you need to p*e, do you wake? If you need to adjust the covers, do you wake? Do you wake when you're thirsty, had a bad dream, need to roll over?⠀
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Let's normalize normal behaviors.⠀
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Babies and children don't have sleep problems.⠀
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Society has expectation problems.⠀
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Needing comfort isn't a problem that needs to be fixed. It's part of being human.

01/31/2022

“It’s all fun and games
And sexy breathing exercises for birth
And romantic plans about how he’ll take the baby while you do yoga every day

Until you’re 10 days postpartum
Still bleeding and soaked in breastmilk
Riding a roller coaster of hormones and sleep deprivation
And your lovely partner forgets to pick up a smoothie on his way home from the grocery store

And you lose your sh✨t
Like sobbing into the bathroom sink
Like cursing his mother
Like wondering why you ever procreated with someone capable of such unimaginable selfishness

And then, when the storm has passed, and you’ve had a snack- you realize
Two shaky, raw, sleep deprived humans
Trying to be life rafts for one another
While sinking into the depths of exhaustion and stress
Keeping the tiniest, most fragile, precious being afloat
Is hard AF

We weren’t meant to do this alone
We were not meant to be sent out to sea on a tiny little life boat with no map
Even the most loving, stable partnership can sink under the weight of operating in survival mode while finding your footing as parents

So, if you’re out there, treading water
Buried in laundry and breastmilk
Surviving on freezer pizza and three hours of sleep
Thinking mildly unkind thoughts about the person you chose to parent with
Because he can’t seem to calm the baby or remember your smoothies or grasp the depths of the earth shaking transition you’re navigating
You’re not alone
And it will get easier
One sleepy, shaky day at a time.”
Image and words by:

01/18/2022

01/12/2022

What if we saw children sleeping on us as a positive? What if we viewed the babies who refuse to go down to nap as a sign that we need to slow down?

What if we changed our perceptions on contact naps, and instead viewed them as an opportunity to relax?

Baby has just fallen asleep on me. I spend a few minutes browsing Facebook and then, my mind wonders towards the dishes piling up in the sink. The pile of laundry stacked up in the bathroom. The dust that has settled on the tv. I start to feel guilty. I start thinking about work that could be done. Or food that needs to be cooked. I try to put baby down, but no way. Baby is having NONE of it.

But what if, just say, WHAT IF this is how it is SUPPOSED to be? Alright yes, we know that evolutionary babies are designed to want to be close to their mothers, but what if that is also meant to work out for the mother to rest too. It’s meant to be for OUR benefit.
To sit back for just a moment, and forget about everything else going on in life.
To take in the beauty of our children, and REST.

Rest our minds.
And rest our bodies.

Childbirth has put our bodies under some serious stress. And there are always a million things that need to be done before the day is over. Perhaps our babies and children needing us to be still with them is natures way of telling us to slow down for just a moment.

Rest mama.
Take the opportunity ❤️