Seven surprises about breastfeeding an older baby


I feel privileged to be breasteeding my ten-month-old. It shouldn't be a surprise as it was for the health visitor who visited us a couple of weeks ago. After all breastfeeding, particularly if your baby is under a year, is nothing if not normal. Read more

Wearing an older baby: woven wrap vs soft structured carrier


While I know people who've worn their babies in stretchy wraps all the way into toddlerhood, I packed mine in when Talitha hit six months. Her weight by then made the fabric uncomfortably bunch up around my shoulders and the more mobile she became Read more

The breastfeeding father


I've just had my first Mother's Day and, funnily enough, it's made me think about fathers. Laurence Talitha bought me La Leche League membership. The LLL is an international charity for breastfeeding mothers and I've just begun going to its Bristol branch meetings. The Read more

Don't label my parenting: struggling with "attachment parenting"


I've recently become uncomfortable with the term "attachment parenting". It's tricky because it very much describes what we're trying to do. Though we do have a routine, we watch our baby and not the clock. We refuse to rush her independence. We respond to Read more

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Follow the rainbow

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Stuff I've tried | 3 Comments

A friend told me that the “problems” you face with your children don’t evaporate. They just keep changing. This is so true. I’m finding that now that Talitha can crawl, stand and even walk while pushing something, I don’t need to hold her quite as much – a relief.

This does not translate, though, into me not needing to entertain her most of the time. So, we do end up with a lot of pick me up put me down, which is fine, but distraction is always welcome.

So the day is a long sequence of Talitha emptying the contents of a bag or splashing in a bowl of water while I wash up for, if I’m lucky, a few minutes, until she tugs at the leg of my jeans full of fuss. If she could say “bored” she would. So I can use all the help I can get.

First we tried it downstairs in the diningroom and it was OK

This rainbow maker is our current distraction. When I selected it from Find me a gift I thought it looked pretty cool. It was the kind of thing we’d enjoy but wouldn’t buy ourselves. I generally think that’s what constitutes a good gift.
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Running for love: Win a bottle of English sparkling wine

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 4 Comments

“I’m going to run the Bristol 10K.” When Laurence told me this I shrugged. Good for him, he could go lose his baby weight as long as I didn’t have to. I couldn’t think of anything worse. I’m really not a fan of running, for pretty much any reason.

Almost every year that I’ve known him, he’s done something like this for charity. Twice it was the London to Brighton cycle ride. Once it was a Rickshaw Run across India. This time he’s running with a group of 500 from our church and they’re calling themselves Love Running.

I really dig the name. I’m drawn to the idea of getting out and physically doing something for the love of others: the poor, the oppressed and the needy. This is how they put it: “Love Running is about seeing love in action, love with legs.”
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To a baby with a flu

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 12 Comments

Dear baby,

I’m sorry you are so ill. It hurts to see you so dazed, worn out, inactive – well, for you, anyway, which probably means your fever’s making you behave like a normal baby instead of an infant mentalist, but I wouldn’t know.

You latch my breast for moments before gasping for air. You wake up every hour, every two hours to feed again. Little and often is all you can manage right now. I am tired but so are you.

I feel like transported back to your newborn life where you mostly slept or screamed. You demand to be in my arms at all times, hardly content even to be carried on my back.

So I get stressed worrying about the laundry and the dishes and at least a dozen other chores to be done around the house. You are unaware and unbothered about these things. You only know that I must hold you.

I rage against being pinned under your tiny, snuffly, sleeping body. I am trapped by your smallness, by your fragility. I couldn’t do this if I had more than one child to look after…
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Yeogurt fit for a baby’s hair

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Stuff I've tried | 10 Comments

Natural yogurt became a steadfast part of my daily routine the week I gave birth to Talitha. I had this huge paranoia about my health for some reason.

Anyway, I ate enough of it to get really picky and set in my ways about it and now when I eat any yogurt, it doesn’t taste right if it’s not Yeo Valley.

So I was intrigued when Yeo Valley invited me to come hang out with them last Friday. I wasn’t sure what to expect though. Would we walk through a factory, dip our faces in yogurt, and maybe wave at a cow?

Anyway I said yes because I welcomed a day out in the Somerset countryside. They’re based in Blagdon across the lake from my in-laws (the lake in the sexy farmer Xfactor advert) so I hoped I could entice my mother-in-law to babysit. She loved it.

Blagdon lake

What mainly sold it to me was that it would be a chance to spend time with other bloggers and with a brand I’d already fallen in love with. OK, maybe it was the allure of death in dairy. You’ve got me.

The day began with a short walk over the Mendip hills in the crisp morning air. Our guide Les gave us a history of the area in rocks, showed us some wild garlic and nettles, and even pointed out an orchard he’d helped plant.

With each step he drew intricate connections between Yeo Valley’s sustainable farming and the stunning nature that surrounds it. His phrase “history, mystery, myth and magic” summed up for me the charm of his storytelling.

Mum2babyinsomniac

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12 things I learned at Cybher

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Blogging | 19 Comments

1. If you don’t pump for a day, even at eleven months into your breastfeeding journey, you WILL live to regret it

I knew this. So my single electric pump was sitting there in my handbag saying “Hey, lactating lady, remember me?” but like a n00b I ignored it because I was having too much fun at Cybher, my first blogging conference. Also, despite working out where to pump with Mummy Limited who’d been organised enough to check it all out days before, I plain copped out. I’d worn a dress with no boob access as I wouldn’t have to breastfeed. Pumping would’ve seen me topless in the Cybher office. Lovely.

2. My daughter is a stubborn boob enthusiast and she will wait

As in, she’ll wait the 14 hours it takes mummy to get back home. I was so stressed out before going about the milk situation because every time we or anyone else offered her a bottle of ANY kind of milk, she wouldn’t have it. Water – fine. Milk? That only comes out of boobs. This from the baby who was combination fed for months. Anyway, people assured me that she wouldn’t starve herself and she didn’t. She ate lots of food, especially yoghurt, and drank lots of water. Then boy did she make up for it, feeding every two hours the whole night. And yet, I’m still pumping the excess for my aforementioned stupidity.

3. If you’re planning to meet someone so you can go in to a conference together, make sure you mean the same place

I ended up standing outside Charing Cross waiting for Mum2Babyinsomniac having totally missed that she’d said Embankment. So no morning coffee before the games began. At the moment I don’t function without caffeine at the start of the day. I soon found myself cutting short a conversation with Mother’s Always Right like a serious junkie in search of a fix.

4. Plan your journey ahead of time

In fact, I hadn’t got coffee at the station because we’d booked train tickets last minute late the night before and written down the booking code wrong. Then I couldn’t get through to Laurence or Talitha’s godfather Kevin (we were down in Brighton this weekend so they were both looking after her – walking along the beach and looking like a modern family as strangers knowingly smiled at them). So in the end I bought a second ticket, making it the single most expensive Brighton to London journey I’ve ever made. Tell me I will outgrow this? That I’ll one day turn into this thrifty, organised, perfect homemaker? No? Well, OK.

5. Always go into sessions with an open mind

When we got there, I spent time looking through the timetable and thinking: “What on earth is that about?” I vaguely picked what stood out but nothing seemed like it was going to be particularly relevant to me or something I didn’t know about or something I couldn’t search for later. How wrong I was. Virtually every talk was stimulating. I was reinvigorated to keep blogging and trying to create something meaningful. I was challenged to think about what would make it meaningful to me.
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Going to Cybher with Wellies and Worms

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Blogging | 2 Comments

At the eleventh hour, friendly Bristol brand Wellies and Worms have stepped in as my sponsor for Cybher. And Cybher’s today! What heroes.

I’ll tell you more about them next week. For now I’ll mention that they’re an ecommerce site selling outdoor clothing for children.

Their products are both pretty and functional, and Wellies and Worms has such a bright feel as a brand. I’m glad they’re the ones sending me to Cybher.

Cybher Meet and Greet

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Blogging | 12 Comments

Ever Caribbean with my timing, I figured I should finally get around to doing my Meet and Greet post for Cybher, the blogging conference I’m attending this Saturday. Actually, I’m still early by Trini standards because the conference hasn’t happened yet. It must be the British peer pressure.


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Baby Led Weaning Carnival 1 – apples, sushi and a lot of mess

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Baby led weaning | 6 Comments

Talitha turns eleven months this week. As if some chemical reaction was timed for the appearance of two teeth, she’s suddenly begun to eat substantial amounts of food. Despite my bravado, opting for Baby Led Weaning from the start, a small part of me worried about her entering her second year of life without much of an appetite for anything but boob.

Mind you nothing’s necessarily wrong with that either. A mere century or so ago it was illegal to feed an infant solids before a year without medical advice to do so. Not that I’m advocating waiting that long either! I digress. On to the carnival.

About two weeks ago I invited bloggers and others to share their baby led weaning experiences as inspiration and encouragement, and generally as a resource for anyone visiting this Circus. Somehow I’ve got my dates mixed up, horrendously. So, this post was meant for this morning but it is now nearly the next day. Alas.

First off, if you’re not sure what I’m on about when I say “Baby Led Weaning”, head over to WAHM-BAM where Tasha gives a clear and thorough explanation of what it entails, with some tips about how to do it. I fully identify with the mess captured in her photographs and envy her the dog.

Next, we’ve got a photo from Molly of Mother’s Always Right. Her gorgeous daughter Frog is just past one here and making good headway with an apple. Unpeeled and unsliced, it was the stuff of nightmares for her unconverted friends. She looks like she’s loving it and it’s almost given me the courage to offer Talitha the same!


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Rub-a-dub-dub

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Stuff I've tried | 4 Comments

Talitha had her first bath when she was three weeks old. Marginally terrified, we let my mum do it. OK, we would have figured it out in the end but she was there and the newborn was screamy so we went for the easy option.

My mother filled the awkward baby bath with water, set it on top of the toilet and showed us how to hold and wash our daughter. Talitha howled the whole time. Mummy assured us that she would one day enjoy bath time. I was doubtful. I couldn’t imagine anything getting easier. You can’t when you’re in survival mode.

Of course, it happened. I think bath time may possibly be her happiest time of day. She plays, she babbles, she drinks the bath water, she tries to stand up. I’m all business when it comes to bathing her but it’s become a real bonding time for her and Laurence.

The tub, however, was quickly abandoned. It just takes up too much room and as I said, it’s awkward. We just got fed up of having it about so stuck it in the garage, possibly for evermore. Our life with a baby bath was at an end, surely…

…except we’re using one again. Whitestep sent us a Real Cool World Flexi Bath bath tub. I agreed to review it thinking it would be ideal for times we go to other people’s houses for the weekend. You know, people who *gasp* don’t have a bath. Not that we can’t then use a sink but that can get a tad annoying and we are SO lazy.
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More of this feminism, please – Katniss and The Hunger Games

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Film and Television, While she sleeps | 14 Comments

I’m late to the party blogging about The Hunger Games but it’s such a luxury getting out to the cinema at all post-baby that I can’t help but mark the event.

We ended up seeing it by accident. We’d actually bought tickets for the wrong viewing of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which was disappointing when we eventually saw it.

We sat for a full 20 minutes towards the film’s end, thinking it must be avant garde, before realising the error. The mix up turned out to be serendipitous.

(Warning: This post contains spoilers)

Assuming The Hunger Games would be gratuitously violent and character-thin, I wasn’t keen to see it. How wrong I was.

Katniss Everdeen, the film’s protagonist played by the talented Jennifer Lawrence is a feminist triumph and a sign to Hollywood that blockbusters led by women do sell. We left the theatre physically aching from the tension of the film but unpacking her character was, for me, the most exciting bit.

That’s saying a lot in a plot-line involving a dystopian future in which twenty-four children are forced to fight to the death for a worldwide television reality show.
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Introducing the Baby Led Weaning Carnival

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Baby led weaning | 22 Comments

The health visitor came for a routine visit. I agonised beforehand about certain choices we’d made that we’re bound to be contentious, especially bed sharing and baby led weaning.

Maybe she’d surprise me but I made up my mind to be suitably vague. I just didn’t want to get into it, you know?

I keep thinking now that I should have.

HV: How many times a day does she feed?
Me: Oh, it varies.
HV: She should be eating more solids by now and demanding less of you.
Me: Mmhmm.

Really, though, why didn’t I say what I was thinking – that actually it’s perfectly fine that Talitha still breastfeeds at least six times a day?

That’s her main source of nutrition for the first year. It’s more nutrient and calorie dense than any other food I can give her. When she’s ready to eat enough to displace milk feeds, she will.

This is yet another reason I love baby led weaning. It ensures that she does what she’s going to do on her own unique schedule.

That said, she really does eat. Even now, it’s exciting seeing her do it. Her dexterity has improved massively and she usually will eat all sorts of things from cereal to squid.

I seriously lack inspiration as to what to feed her, though. Left on my own, I’d eat toast all day long but I want her diet to have more variety than that.

So that’s part of why I’ve decided to hold a bi-weekly Baby Led Weaning carnival*, to gather inspiration. The other is to gather real-life stories of BLW families. Hopefully this will be both an ongoing resource and celebration.

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