Amber

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

October 11, 2012

When my children were babies, I was with them almost constantly. I breastfed and co-slept and wore them. When they started to talk they learned to say “dada” ages before they learned to say “mama”. I joked with my husband that there was simply no reason to learn my name. I was just there, a [...]

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Making the Best Sleep Choices for my Family

September 17, 2012

This week someone got in touch with me to talk about a new study in the journal Pediatrics, which suggests that there’s no long-term harm associated with certain methods of sleep training. These methods use controlled crying in order to encourage babies to fall asleep on their own. They followed two groups of babies at [...]

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Mama’s Night Out

June 18, 2012

Yesterday evening I had the chance for a night out of the house on my own. Today, I’m recalling another evening a number of years ago when I really wanted a night out, but I wasn’t in the place to make it happen. Let’s compare and contrast those two evenings. Yesterday Evening My children were [...]

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Bedtime Routines: Not Just for Children

May 16, 2012

As parents, many of us find routines helpful. For example, over time some lovely bedtime routines have evolved for my children. We don’t adhere to them religiously, but most nights we do things in more or less the same order, at more or less the same time. These flexible routines help my children ease into [...]

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Children Talking to Adults

May 30, 2011

My two and a half year old Jacob is very friendly. It could be because he’s my second child, and so he has benefited from my more relaxed parenting this time around as well as being doted on by his adoring older sister. It could be because he’s a Leo, the sign of nobility. It [...]

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Teaching Environmental Responsibility

April 26, 2011

Earth Day happens in April, which means that many of us are thinking about our environmental footprint. And our kids may be, too. My 2-year-old Jacob is totally oblivious to all of the talk about saving the planet, but my 6-year-old Hannah is very interested, and she’s picking up cues from school and the media. [...]

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Striving After Balance

February 15, 2011

The eighth principle of Attachment Parenting International is Strive for Balance in Personal and Family Life. I like this principle, because it recognizes that everyone’s needs matter in a family, including the parents. Obviously, at certain times one person’s needs will be more urgent than others, like a newborn’s need to breastfeed. You just can’t [...]

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What I Will Miss

December 17, 2010

I have two children. My daughter Hannah is 5 1/2, and my son Jacob is 2. While I like to believe that I’ve parented them in the same way, they are two very different little people. From their very first days, they have made their individuality clear. I have found this very freeing, as a [...]

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