Babies crawl, scoot and shuffle when learning to move. Here’s what to watch for if you’re worried, writes Charmaine Bernie Early gross motor (or whole body) movements such as crawling and walking are exciting developments and clear markers for parents watching their child’s development. But what...
Exhausted, disconnected and fed up – what is ‘parental burnout'? asks researcher Alan Ralph. For many parents, the reality of juggling the demands of caring responsibilities on their time, energy and resources leave them with little time to take care of their own well-being. This can...
Tiggy Johnson finds that selling your house can be hard when your kids live in it I don’t recommend that you sell a house that small children live in. This is the kind of advice that I wish I’d been given before I had small children....
Kerry Littrich has finally found the right answer to the dreaded question. It’s the question every stay-at-home parent dreads: “So, what do you do?” Pause. Slow intake of breath. I cook and clean and shop. I buy gifts and organise parties. I sing nursery rhymes and dance...
Meghann Birks asserts her free will by freewheeling… just for a while. I am playing roller derby, a sport where women from all walks of life strap on rollerskates, dress up in wacky (and sometimes provocative) clothes, create alter egos and battle it out on the...
Like them or loathe them, Neha Shukla discovers how validating a mothers’ group can be. “Try and stay in touch with each other after your babies are born,” the midwife told everyone in our antenatal class. I remember thinking, ‘We’re not going to have time to...
Evelyn Lewin questions the dodgy definitions that are often applied to baby behaviour. Let me start by saying that I hate baby labels. No, not the extraordinarily expensive tiny pieces of cloth that little boutique shops sell at ridiculously marked-up prices because they are a ‘brand’....
Lucinda Bertram reminds us of the joys of child’s play. If my lounge room is looking neat and no form of craft is filling up the dining-room table, then you can pretty much guarantee we’ve been on holiday or the TV has been on for too...
Andrea Travers wonders if over-protecting our children is harmful. From advertising to the evening news, the message is ‘Be afraid’. We can never let up, never let go. Our children are always at risk in so many aspects of their lives, from educational underachievement to stranger...
Covering your baby’s pram with a dry cloth can increase the temperature by almost 4 degrees. Here’s what to do instead, reports James Smallcombe, Mohammad Fauzan Bin Maideen, and Ollie Jay We like to think of babies as tiny versions of ourselves. But babies aren’t simply...
