The Aware Parenting Podcast

I'm so delighted that Kim Cousins is back on the podcast! Kim is an Aware Parenting instructor as well as a registered nurse who works on a perinatal mental health unit. She is also studying a graduate certificate in family therapy. She was also on episode 136 with her colleague, Erin. Please note that this episode talks about painful experiences in relation to food and feelings. As always, I invite you to listen in to yourself about whether you feel called to listen, and if you need to pause or stop at any time. I loved this episode! Kim shared about her process of learning to trust her children's innate body wisdom in relation to food, and how that has also invited her on her own journey too. Kim shared some powerful examples of how she trusts her children in relation to food, and the amazing effects that she's seen. We also discussed guilt and shame and food and suppressing feelings with food as adults. Kim highlights the cultural and societal effects that leads to so many people eating food to suppress feelings. Kim shares about a painful experience she had as a child and the effect that had on her and her relationship with food. Kim talks about the shift from shame and guilt to self compassion in relation to eating to suppress feelings. She also talks about a challenging experience she had with her daughter as a baby around breastfeeding, and yet, how her daughter now deeply trusts her body in relation with food. In addition, she highlights how much support mothers need in these challenging situations in relation to breastfeeding, and how much understanding about birth trauma and babies' crying can help in these situations. You can find out more about Kim and her work at: https://www.instagram.com/kimberley.cousins/ I invite you to sign up for early bird information and my next book about Aware Parenting and sleep here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

This is the last episode in the series related to my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', before I return to finish the food series, so this episode is a kind of bridge back to that! Then I'll be starting the second sleep series! Today, I share a story from my book, again from a child's perspective. Before that, I talk about how in Aware Parenting, one of the core aims is to help our child/ren stay connected with, or return to, the innate wisdom of their body, including in relation to food. Doing our own inner work in relation to food, and getting clear about our own beliefs and choices, is so vital to this. There's a really in-depth chapter on all of this in 'I'm Here and I'm Listening'. You can buy 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country. Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I talk about why children aren't fighting sleep, and why we're often fighting their natural relaxation response. I share concisely about how we can trust children and follow their lead and can then cooperate with their natural relaxation response. I explain the power of play before bed, and why we can look at the "it'll all end in tears" phenomenon in a very different light. At the end, I share a story from a child's perspective that comes from my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening.' The book has a chapter on sleep. If you want to understand more about sleep and Aware Parenting, there is the first sleep series already recorded, and I will be starting a second series soon, to correspond with my next book, which is about sleep and Aware Parenting. You can find out more about my sleep and Aware Parenting course here: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/sound-sleep-and-secure-attachment-with-aware-parenting-course/ You can buy 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on Amazon by searching on the Amazon store in your country. Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I share about how we can stay connected with children in relation to screens, including with attachment play. I offer some information that I wish I'd had when my children were younger, about loving limits. I also share a touching story at the end from my new book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', from the perspective of a child. Putting ourselves in our child's shoes can really help transform our parenting experience with screens. I talk about one phrase that I found really helpful around screens. There's an in-depth chapter on screens in my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening.' You can buy the paperback or ebook on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I share about what's going on when a child is hitting. I talk about them being in the fight or flight response, and how we can help them move out of that state of hyperarousal, through feeling physically and emotionally safe, to return to homeostasis through healing raging and crying (or laughing and playing) with our loving support. I mention ways we can prevent hitting from happening in the first place, what we can do if we don't get there in time to prevent it happening. I talk about the choice we have between loving limits and attachment play in response to hitting, and what exactly we might choose to say with loving limits. I finish with a story from my latest book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', which is through the eyes of a child who is hitting. You can buy the paperback or ebook on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! You might also enjoy my Loving Limits Deep Dive! The link is here: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/loving-limits-deep-dive/ Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I talk about when children use have a soft toy, blanket or other object as a control pattern. This might be something they use to suppress their feelings when going to sleep or during the day when feelings bubble up. I explain about how they used to be known as 'transitional objects' in Winnicott's work, and how we see them differently in Aware Parenting. I also share my own experience of having a bunny as a control pattern for many years, and the touching experience I had in my early twenties. I offer ideas for how you can help your child if they have a control pattern like this. Then I read out the story from a child who has a bunny control pattern from my latest book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening.' You can buy the paperback or ebook on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I respond to questions about loving limits that parents asked on my social media accounts. They include: What happens when loving limits don't seem to work ? eg, the child moves on to something else and doesn't express any feelings; When loving limits aren't actually the most apt response; When our own feelings come up; When we find it hard to be with the crying and raging that happens after loving limits; When the child experiences the loving limit as a punishment; Whether loving limits are possible in response to shouting; How we can care for two children after a loving limit if one is trying to hit the other one. To celebrate the birth of 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', my updated Loving Limits Deep Dive is 50% off for the next week with the code: UPDATE (all in capital letters). That means it's AUD $55 instead of $111 The link is here: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/loving-limits-deep-dive/ I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www. marionrose.net

In this episode, I share an update on loving limits, after gaining lots of new clarity through the process of editing my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening'. and having conversations with Aletha Solter, PhD, the Founder of Aware Parenting. The update includes: The importance of giving information when offering a loving limit; The language we might use when offering loving limits; The three situations where we don't recommend offering loving limits. I will be updating all my courses with this information and will let you know when that happens. For now, I've updated my Loving Limits Deep Dive, and to celebrate the birth of 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', it's 50% off for the next week with the code: UPDATE (all in capital letters). The link is here: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/loving-limits-deep-dive/ I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www. marionrose.net

This is part of a series of episodes where I refer to topics in my new best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', and I read a story shared from a child's perspective. In this episode, I talk about the process of helping a child move out a freeze state (which in Aware Parenting we tend to refer to as dissociation, or a control pattern) and back into connection with their body and feelings. Once they do that, they can then express the feelings they were needing to suppress or dissociate from, and return to calm presence. I've always seen control patterns as like frozen feelings. Our role as parents is to offer the warmth and safety required to our child can experience those frozen feelings melting into flowing feelings, which can then flow out, generally in the form of crying or raging, but sometimes as laughter. To do this, we need to be relatively present in our own bodies, to support them to know that they are safe to become present in their own body, to feel and then express their feelings. Dissociation can show up in a myriad of ways, including thumb or finger sucking, dummy/pacifier use, repetitive nose picking or hair twirling, screens, eating when not hungry, and so on. In this episode, I share about what we can do as parents to help our child move out of the suppression of feelings into expression. I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www.marionrose.net

Long gone are the days where parents who wanted to leave the park were told to just walk away and say "bye!" to their child. However, it can be so common for us as parents to feel really powerless when we want to leave the park and our child doesn't want to. This can often correspond with times when we're hungry or tired, and our own feelings can easily bubble up and out into responses we later regret. Putting ourselves in our child's shoes at these times can help us be less likely to respond in harsh ways. Free play, explorative play, these are such innate needs for children, and they're ways that they make sense of the world, explore new abilities, making connections, and release stress. For our hunter-gatherer ancestors, children would have been playing freely in these ways a lot. Valuing both our needs and theirs helps us be more likely to feel compassionately connected when we go into the situation of eliciting their cooperation to leave the park. Attachment play, a core part of Aware Parenting, is a beautiful way to create connection, help your child feel deeply valued and cared about, while also eliciting cooperation. In this podcast episode, I read out the child's story of leaving the park from the my new best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening'. After the "Go away!" story that I shared in the last episode, this is one of the ones I love next. In the book, I talk a lot about eliciting cooperation. I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www.marionrose.net

There is an episode called 'Go away" from early on in The Aware Parenting Podcast, AND I felt called to record another one. That's partly because one of my favourite parts in my new best-selling book 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' is where we see this from a child's perspective. In fact, when parents ask about helpful responses to their crying child saying "Go away!" I often ask them to reflect back on a time in their own childhood when they had a lot of big feelings bubbling and they shouted "Go away!" Did they really want their parent to go away? Or would they have loved them to have stayed lovingly present with their big feelings? I invite you to reflect on that, too! When children are moving out of the fight, flight or freeze response, they need to know that they are physically and emotionally safe, so that they no longer need to try to protect themselves and can let go into the resolution of that response and the release of those feelings. Children need the safety of an adult's presence to really know that they are safe. If we leave them alone when they're raging, they may stop, but when we look closer, it's likely because they have dissociated from those feelings. Of course this is a really nuanced process, where we play with the balance of attention, which is providing physical and emotional safety in the present so that they can revisit stressful or traumatic experiences from the past. This requires our attunement and listening to exactly the amount of closeness which will help them feel safe so they can move into resolution, without overriding their need to feel powerful, which is also an essential part of the healing process. In the podcast, I read out the child's story from the book. I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or send me a DM for the direct link! Big love xoxox www.marionrose.net

My new book is out! It's called 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' and is for parents of 1-8 year olds. In this episode, I read the first couple of chapters of the book. The audiobook won't be available for a few months, so I thought I would give you an audio taster! The paperback of 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' became an immediate best seller ? reaching number 1 in the Child Development and the Emotions and Feelings categories (both Best Sellers and Hot New Releases) and number 66 in all books in Australia! I am so willing for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' to continue to be a best seller, and to reach the hands, hearts and minds of many many thousands of parents. If you'd like to support me with that, are you willing to share about the book, such as on social media? If you have been thinking of buying it, are you willing to buy it now or really soon, to support it to continue being a best seller? You can buy the paperback on Amazon by searching for 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' on the Amazon store in your country! Or the direct links are here: AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/0645998524 US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0645998524 UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0645998524 CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0645998524 DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/0645998524 FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/0645998524 ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/0645998524 IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/0645998524 NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/0645998524 PL: https://www.amazon.pl/dp/0645998524 SE: https://www.amazon.se/dp/0645998524 JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/0645998524 Lots of love, Marion xoxox

Welcome back after the festive season! This episode is informed by Aware Parenting, but includes a lot of The Marion Method in terms of our reparenting and reculturing journey. I talk about what may be getting in the way of our deep connection with our innate body wisdom in relation to food: Our thoughts and beliefs and understanding about food and eating; Needs we may be meeting with food; Ways we might be suppressing or dissociating with food. I share about why judging ourselves and coercing ourselves to 'give up' certain foods often backfires, and what we can do instead, for example when we notice ourselves eating or drinking to suppress feelings. I offer some practical suggestions, and how replacing self-judgment with compassion and coercion with willingness can make a profound difference in our relationship with food. My new book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' is coming out very soon and includes a big chapter on food and eating in parenting and reparenting! I still have a couple of mentoring sessions left. Message me for details! I invite you to sign up for earlybird information about my offerings and my new book here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn You can learn out more about my work at www.marionrose.net You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

Hello again! This is a pause in the food, feelings and trust series for a festive season special, all about the opposite of overwhelm. I share about: The importance of connection with yourself and your values; How to prevent overwhelm in the first place (saying no is a big factor here); How you can recognise overwhelm in yourself and your baby/child/teen; How to release overwhelm. I'm sending you so much love this festive season and I'm so willing for you to have plenty of connection, ease, community and rest. I've opened up the doors for 6 and 12 months mentoring in 2024. You can find out more on my social media. Doors for the Aware Parenting Virtual Village are also opening soon. Keep an eye out on my socials or sign up for information about the early bird and my new book ? 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I talk about how to help children who have learnt to eat to suppress their feelings. This follows on from the last episode about helping babies who have learnt to suppress their feelings, and the one before that, about how babies and children learn to feed and eat to suppress their feelings in the first place. If you haven't already listened to episode 160, I recommend listening to that one first. And as always, I want to remind you that it's so understandable if your child/ren have learnt to suppress their feelings with food, for all the reasons I shared in episode 160. I invite you to drop any guilt or self-judgment sticks and be deeply compassionate with yourself. I talked about: Why our own inner work is vital, so we can be more present with our child/ren; How presence and connection are the antidotes to suppression and dissociation; How to help children know they're unconditionally loved when they're eating to suppress feelings; Why it's important not to use attachment play to get children to eat what we think is healthy; What types of attachment play can be helpful if food is used to suppress feelings; Why it's important not to use loving limits with food, apart from in two scenarios; Which other aspects of Aware Parenting are important to help children express their feelings more and suppress them with food less. I'm opening up the doors for 6 and 12 months mentoring in 2024 very soon. Doors for the Aware Parenting Virtual Village are also opening soon. Keep an eye out on my socials or sign up for information about the early bird and my new books here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I share about what you can do if your baby has learnt to suppress their feelings with feeding. If you haven't already, I invite you to listen to the previous episode, where I talked about how babies and children learn to suppress their feelings with food. I said I was going to talk about babies and children in this episode, but I'm separating them into two episodes - so the next episode will be about helping children who have learnt to suppress their feelings with food. I talk about breastfeeding because that's what I'm familiar with, but most of this is also transferrable to a baby having a bottle to suppress feelings. And you're so welcome here if you bottle feed. As with that last episode, I invite you to drop any guilt sticks (a Marion Method term) if you have often fed your baby when they had healing-feelings to express to you. I talk about: Why it's so understandable that we would feed our baby when they have healing-feelings to express; A recap on how we can tell if a baby has learnt to suppress their feelings with feeding; What can happen if a baby continues to suppress their feelings with feeding and food; Why having information is so important; Why having our own feelings heard it so vital too!; How we can observe what's going on for our baby; How to notice patterns and make sense of their cues; How we can offer loving limits; and The power of attachment play. I highly recommend The Aware Baby by Aletha Solter, and reading and re-reading chapter 3 on feeding, where she clearly explains how to differentiate between hunger and healing-feelings, and The Emotional Life of Babies, where I talk a lot about feeding, control patterns and observation. I'm opening up the doors for 6 and 12 months mentoring in 2024 very soon. Doors for the Aware Parenting Virtual Village are also opening soon. Keep an eye out on my socials or sign up for information about the early bird and my new books here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I talk about how babies and children learn to suppress their feelings with food and how we can prevent that or lessen those effects. I share about: The importance of self-compassion; Reassurance that this is one of the most common ways that babies and children suppress feelings; Whatever age your baby or child is, it's possible to help them relearn how to distinguish between hunger and upset feelings; Inviting you to connect in with yourself to see if this resonates; How eating to suppress feelings is often passed down in families; Understanding the two types of feelings - needs-feelings and healing-feelings; Why being able to differentiate true relaxation from dissociation is vital here; The spectrum of stress and trauma for babies; How common it is to feed a baby when we think they're hungry when they actually have healing-feelings; How they learn to interpret that the sensation of upset is hunger; Seeing things from the perspective of the baby; How and why control patterns develop early on; How babies learn to interpret healing-feelings as hunger; How we can tell if a baby is suppressing feelings through feeding; How to differentiate between hunger and healing-feelings; How we might distract children with food when they are toddlers or children; How can we tell that a child may be eating to suppress feelings; How we can prevent or lessen the likelihood a baby learns to suppress their feelings with food. In the next episode, I'll talk about what we can do to help a child who has already learnt to suppress their feelings with food. If you want to learn more, I recommend 'The Aware Baby' by Aletha Solter and 'The Emotional Life of Babies' by me! In my upcoming book,' I'm Here and I'm Listening', which is for parents of 1-8 year olds, I also talk a lot about this! You can find out about my work here: www.marionrose.net The Aware Parenting Virtual Village 2.0 is opening soon too! Keep an eye out on my socials or sign up for information about the early bird and my new books here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn You can also find me here: https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ https://www.instagram.com/awareparenting/ www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

I'm so delighted that Carly Facius is back again! Carly is a Registered Midwife, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and holds a Master of Primary Maternity Care and is an Aware Parenting instructor. Carly has already been on two episodes of The Aware Parenting Podcast: Episode 149 on Communicating with babies and Episode 154 on Reclaiming our power through birth. I absolutely loved this conversation! We are sending so much love to any woman who gave up breastfeeding before they were ready. We discussed: How birth affects breastfeeding; What we can do in the hours after birth to support breastfeeding; The centrality of observing our baby; The research triangle of observation, information and listening to ourselves as parents; Why the parent is the expert; The importance of listening in to ourselves when we are given information about breastfeeding; Learning to trust yourself and trust your baby; How Aware Parenting is based on trusting a baby's innate wisdom; The de-conditioning process in Aware Parenting to unlearn all the ways we learnt to not trust ourselves and our innate wisdom and the wisdom of babies and children; How women often stop breastfeeding sooner than they want to because there is a lack of information or support; Doing what feels right for you in terms of breastfeeding; How any amount of continued breastfeeding benefits both baby and mother; The incredible intelligence of the human body and how breastmilk adapts to protect babies' health; Why mothers might worry that they don't have enough milk; The size of babies' stomachs as they get older; How I helped my son heal from the effects of his fast posterior birth as a newborn so that I could breastfeed him comfortably; How a lot of confusion about why babies come on and off the breast can be clarified when a mother understands Aware Parenting; What's really going on if a parent thinks that their baby is hungry but doesn't want to feed; How understanding Aware Parenting can prevent people from offering solids earlier than recommended; How the goal of introducing solids is building a healthy relationship with food; What parents can do in terms of Aware Parenting it they're thinking of introducing solids early to help their baby sleep more at night; How our culture likes to see babies as faulty or immature and Aware Parenting seens their innate wisdom that they are trying to help us understand; How instead, we can focus on observing our baby to see what they're really communicating; How important it is for us to have our feelings heard so we can actually see our baby's behaviour more clearly; How natural it is for our own feelings related to food from when we were babies will come up when our babies are feeding; How Aware Parenting can support mothers to continue breastfeeding for longer; How Aware Parenting can create more ease and enjoyment in every stage of the breastfeeding journey; Using limits and loving limits with breastfeeding; What happens if a mother is saying yes when she has a no to breastfeeding; How we do offer loving limits with breastfeeding but not solid foods; Supporting mothers to say yes to continuing breastfeeding if they want to, when they might be coerced to stop or not ready to stop; And to say no to a breastfeed their toddler if they have a no, either because of their own needs, or the toddler's; How the journey of breastfeeding invites mothers to connect with our yeses and noes and our innate wisdom and to support our babies to be deeply connected with their innate wisdom with food; Carly normally offers 1:1 sessions on breastfeeding and birth preparation and Aware Parenting but is 35 weeks pregnant and not working until next year. However, you can find Carly and her work at www.seedpodfamilies.com or at https://www.instagram.com/seed_pod_/ If you want to find out more about breastfeeding and Aware Parenting, I recommend The Aware Baby by Aletha Solter and The Emotional Life of Babies by me!

After the last episode, I felt called to share more details about how things get in the way of children's innate body wisdom. If our aim is wanting our child to make the most optimal food choices based on their bodily sensations as well as information from us and from their own prior experience about whether they enjoyed the food and how they felt afterwards, then knowing what can get in the way of that can be helpful, whilst also being compassionate with ourselves that we live in a culture that is set against us being deeply connected with our bodies and that it's hard not to be part of that. I talk about a number of different things, such as shaming, food as rewards, advertising, family stress around meals, shoulding, using food to suppress feelings, past trauma, powerlessness and lots more, and each case, I include suggestions for how we can ameliorate these effects. I also offer parents to practice lots of self-compassion, attachment play and presence. My next book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' is coming out soon, and The Aware Parenting Virtual Village 2.0 is opening soon too! Keep an eye out on my socials or sign up for information about the early bird here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn

I absolutely love that Clare Louise Brumley, PhD, has returned to the podcast. She was on episode 135 about an evolutionary perspective on sleep. She is an Aware Parenting instructor as well as registered nutritionist and Integrative Medicine Practitioner and she did her PhD on this topic. We talk about: Why we are meant to feel a lot of feelings in relation to food; How an evolutionary perspective helps parents; How we can support children to use their sensory system to know what food is optimal for them; How the changes, particularly in the last 200 years, muddy the waters in sensing food; What we can do with Aware Parenting to clear the system to support our children's innate wisdom; The process of supporting children to listen in to what foods aren't a fit; Which foods take longer for children and adults to be able to sense is a no; Why Aware Parenting's centrality of connection and attunement is so vital here; How we are supporting children to be researchers; My favourite phrase of Clare Louise's ? "information without judgment brings choice"; How this is an invitation for even more connection; Why children will tend to go for sweet foods and not bitter foods; What can be going on if children only want to eat a small variety of foods or to keep food types separate; Why children don't need a lot of leafy greens in the early years, especially if they've had a long breastfeeding journey; In a wild food model there is heaps of free choice but lots of natural limits; The protective mechanisms innate in the seasonal eating model; How we can generally feel if our body doesn't want a natural food more quickly than a food combined manufactured food; We would love to hear any questions you have and Clare-Louise will come back for a Q and A follow-up of this! Please come to The Aware Parenting Podcast on Instagram or FB to share your questions! You can find out about Clare Louise and her work on my website: https://marionrose.net/aware-parenting-instructors-in-australia-and-new-zealand/

In this episode, I talk about the self-connected approach to eating, which is officially called the self-demand approach to food or self-regulated eating in Aware Parenting. I talk about children's innate body wisdom in relation to food, and the interplay of that with them needing to learn about the place, family and culture they are born into. I share about what gets in the way of their connection with the sensations in their bodies, and specifically what we can do to help them stay connected with that intrinsic wisdom, or to reconnect back with it. I explain what can make that so hard for us, and what can help us with that. If you're wanting support with this, it's included in my Aware Parenting with Marion Course, https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/aware-parenting-with-marion-course/, and in my next book (I'm Here and I'm Listening) and in 1:1 mentoring. I also highly recommend reading Aletha Solter's book 'Cooperative and Connected' which has a chapter on eating and ailments.

Hello and a big warm welcome to the next series, this time about food, feelings and trust. In this episode, I offer an overview, sharing some information about trusting children's wisdom in relation to food and helping them stay connected with that, understanding how eating can become a way of suppressing feelings, and supporting children who already have control patterns in relation to food. I also reveal the title of my next book, which will be coming out fairly soon, as well as information about my children's books and the audiobook version of The Emotional Life of Babies. If you want support with Aware Parenting, including in relation to food and feelings, the live round of my Aware Parenting with Marion Course starts on the 4th of November (and it's available all year round). You can find information about it and my 1:1 mentoring on my website www.marionrose.net or on Instagram @_marion_rose_ or @awareparenting.

At the end of this series on the effects of birth, I wanted to share an episode about how wonderful birth can be, and the effects of that on a family. In The Aware Baby, Aletha Solter talks about doing what we can to prepare for birth, and I wanted to offer some examples of that through this conversation with Carly Facius who is a Registered Midwife, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and holds a Master of Primary Maternity Care and is an Aware Parenting instructor. We both send you so much love and compassion to women who have had a traumatic birth and invite you to listen in to yourself and whether you might need to pause at any time. Please reach out for support if you do choose to listen and feelings come up for you. Carly shares her own background and the effects of that on seeing the beauty of birth ? her mother is a midwife and was when she was a child, and actually was the only midwife in a very small country town. We talk about how we would all be seeing birth a lot if we lived in a healthy culture and what a difference that would make in this culture if we did. Carly shares about her experience of living in Bali and how birth there is an ordinary everyday event, and the cultural differences in terms of birth and how many people there often are with the birthing woman. She also shares about her own experience of giving birth, going in with the background and the positive imprints she had. She also talks about the power of being willing to receive support, and what an opportunty birthing can be for us in that. She shares about what it's like coming into parenting a newborn having had a powerful, transformative birthing experience. I share about my experience of birth and what a beautiful start it was to be practicing Aware Parenting. Carly shares about the expansion of capacity to tune in to your baby that can then happen and all the after effects of empowering births. We also talked about how important it is for parents who do have a stressful or traumatic birth to be so deeply compassionate with themselves when the whole process goes a bit awry. Carly explains that a lot of the common challenges in the early weeks and months often aren't as evident when people have an empowering birth experience. Birth can be a deeply transformative experience, both for women who give birth, but also to be alongside the birthing woman, or be an adoptive parent, there are so many ways for transformation to occur. Carly also talks about how she supports parents so they are more likely to have a powerful and transformative life experience, particularly in terms of undoing conditioning around knowing and asking for what they need and understanding how powerful they are. We also link this to Aware Parenting and helping children stay connected with their inner knowing and Carly talks about how we can model that to them while we're pregnant with them. I share about the birth video I watched hundreds of times before giving birth and Carly talks about inviting parents to focus on what they want and are willing for before birth. We finish talking about birth being an opportunity to see how powerful we are, to deeply reconnect with and trust our bodies. You can find out more about Carly and her work at www.seedpodfamilies.com or at https://www.instagram.com/seed_pod_/

In this episode, Shelley Clarke returns to the podcast. Shelley is an Aware Parenting instructor, Hand in Hand Instructor, Marion Method Mentor and CranioSacral Therapist. Shelley was on the podcast in episode 146, talking about helping babies to heal from their birth. We talk about trusting that older children can heal from their birth experience and seeing through a different lens so we can recognise that this is what they are doing or trying to do. Shelley offers lots of examples of tangible ways you can see that your child is aiming to heal from their birth and what you can do as a parent to support and facilitate that process. We share about healing through crying and raging, and healing through attachment play. We discuss what a difference it makes both to children and their lives and to us as parents when we understand this information and are able to put it into practice. Shelly explains how important it is to have our own emotional support to be able to be with children in these ways, and we offer examples of how mothers healing from their birthing experiences often coincide with children healing from their birth. Shelley has a 3 hour workshop coming up for people who would like to understand this more deeply and have personalised support in helping their child heal from their birth. It's on Sunday 31st October from 2pm-5pm AEST. The link is here: https://shelleyclarke.newzenler.com/courses/birthtrauma YouYou can find Shelley and her work at: https://www.shelleyclarke.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/_shelleyclarke_/ and https://www.facebook.com/shelleyclarkemindbodyparenting Her podcast is The Mind-Body Parenting Podcast.

In this episode, I talk with Kirsty Fernandes, an Aware Parenting instructor who focuses on postpartum care (or 4th trimester care) and who is mother to a 4 year old and a 6 year old. In the rest of the series on The Effects of Birth, we've looked at the effects on the baby. In this episode, we're talking more about the effects on the mother. If you experienced trauma while giving birth, please connect in with yourself as you listen to this episode and pause if you need to, and reach out for listening support if you have feelings bubbling up. Kirsty shares her experience of coming to Aware Parenting, and then why she chose to focus on supporting families after birth, including her passion for offering a space where people can have their stories heard. She talks about the three main reasons parents come to her for support. Kirsty deeply values honouring the whole process of fertility, pregnancy and birth and supporting parents in that whole experience. Kirsty shares a beautiful example of how she realised that something that happened in her son's birth was showing up in their interactions together in more recent times, and what a difference knowing this can make. Kirsty shares about birth trauma, and includes trauma that has been experienced during the whole fertility and pregnancy journey and what can support families to be less likely to experience trauma, and also talks about what she sees the effects can be when there has been trauma. She then explains the differences she sees in families when parents are able to reach out for support and heal from the traumatic experiences, and in particular, what can happen for the babies or children. She emphasises the importance of loving support and emotional safety for the healing to happen. You can find out more about Kirsty and her offerings at: https://www.honouringmama.com/ and on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/KirstyFernandesHonouringMama/ and on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/kirstyfernandeshonouringmama

This is a very special episode, with a lot of laughter, where I talk with Belynda Smith, who is an Aware Parenting instructor and Hand in Hand Instructor and also copy editor. Belynda shares about her journey to Hand in Hand Parenting and then Aware Parenting, and how she came to be the copy editor of The Emotional Life of Babies, my book which is about to come out. Belynda shares about Listening Partnerships, and I explain why I often tell other parents about how many Listening Partnerships she has. We then go on to talk about the process of editing the book together, including the enjoyment and ease of it all. We talk about the length of it and the cover, as well as the nuanced approach of Aware Parenting with a baby that it describes. I share about the process of feeling called to write it and how and why that happened. We talk about all the parents' stories in the book and I talk about how delighted I was that most of them used their real names. I'm so grateful to everyone who has shared their stories, who has been a beta reader, to my Marion's Books Support Team, and to those who have shared a testimonial, and more. Belynda asks me about how I've sustained my excitement about this long, and I loved responding to that question, about how in our culture we often have not only our sadness and rage suppressed, but also our excitement and exuberance. I share about how much I've enjoyed all the steps and the collaborative process of finding the title and the subtitle and so on, including with the help of the father of my children. We also talked about the invitations throughout the book, including for self-compassion, and the research triangle that I talk about in it too. The book will be out any day now! You can find out more about Belynda and her work at: https://belyndasmith.com.au/ On her website, you can also sign up for her free ebook on book sharing for connected families. Her podcast is called Tales from The Toolbox. https://www.facebook.com/talesfromthetoolboxpodcast If you want to be notified when The Emotional Life of Babies is out, I'll be sharing about it on my main email list. If you're not on it, you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn I'll also be sharing information about how you can support me and this book, both by email and social media. My website is www.marionrose.net

In today's episode I talk with Adrienne Harper-Pike, who is an Aware Parenting instructor who also works in the deaf/blind community as a social worker, works with queer people and their families, and works with families with multiples, including twins, triplets and higher order births. Please note that we discuss things that might help you connect with painful past experiences, including the journey to conceiving through IVF, pregnancy complications, birth and postnatal trauma and complications as well as early separation between parents and babies. Adrienne shares her story of coming to Aware Parenting, which began when her daughter asked her to heal some of her birth trauma through play. She also talks about her journey with IVF and the stressful and traumatic experiences during pregnancy and during and after the birth or her premature twins and how that affected her ? including with postnatal anxiety and depression, and guilt, shame and worry ? as well as the babies and her partner. Adrienne talks about the huge healing they have all done since then, and the hope this gives to other families about what is possible. She talks about how the system isn't set up to support parents to heal so that they can support their babies or children to heal. Adrienne goes on to share specific examples of how her children have indicated that they were healing from their experiences in utero, during birth and after birth, and what she and her partner did to support them. She talks about the information that her partner and she have given their twins about what happened to them and how that has built over time. She finishes by sharing about the wondrousness of the healing that is possible and what she would love to share with other families who might be in similar positions. You can find out more about Adrienne and her work at: www.alongsideparenting.com and on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/alongsideparenting and on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/alongsideparenting/

In this episode about communicating with babies, I talk with Carly Facius who is a Registered Midwife, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and holds a Master of Primary Maternity Care and is an Aware Parenting instructor. Carly starts off sharing about how Aware Parenting supporting mothers to have an emotional intimacy with themselves and their needs, and then goes on to talk about the similarities between being with a birthing woman as a midwife and being with a baby or child who is expressing big feelings. She then shares about how aware and sentient babies are, right from in utero, and the experiences she's had which deeply confirmed that, particularly while working as a midwife in Bali. Babies communicating in utero, during the birth, and after birth. She talks about the ways in which parents can talk to their baby in utero and during birth and if they haven't done that, knowing that it is never too late to communicate in these ways. We also discuss the power for both parent and baby in the parent narrating about what is going on throughout the day. We also talk about guilt and how important it is to put down what I call the guilt sticks both during pregnancy and after birth, trusting that babies can heal from any stress they have experienced. Carly also shares some really interesting stories about families and babies and parents communicating before and during the birthing process. You can find out more about Carly and her work at www.seedpodfamilies.com or at https://www.instagram.com/seed_pod_/

As a preface I'd like to say two things about this episode: Firstly, this is about The Marion Method rather than Aware Parenting, although it is inspired and informed by Aware Parenting and I do talk about Aware Parenting in the episode. Secondly, if you have physical pain or symptoms, please consult with your health practitioner. Given those, let's continue! In this episode, I share two examples of where I healed from physical pain through connecting with feelings related to my birth experiences. The first was just before the Gabor Maté episode. I talk about how emotional and physical pain can share a related emotional tone. I talk about the importance of the balance of attention for us as adults just as it is for babies and children. I talk about how we have an inbuilt movement towards healing from trauma, whether we are babies, children or adults. Aware Parenting offers ways to support babies and children in those innate processes. As adults, we can still heal, and there are many modalities with which we can do that. This can be reassuring for us to know that whatever our children get to heal from, they will still be invited to move towards healing as adults. If you want to sign up to my list to be notified when The Emotional Life of Babies comes out, you can do that here: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn You'll also receive a free intro. to The Marion Method if you do that!

In this short episode, I talk about birth themes - these are themes that we can experience during or soon after our birth and that can get repeated during our childhood and then during our adult life, each time being an opportunity to heal from the original event and receive reparative experiences. I share examples from my own life and my family's life. I also offer some bigger picture perspectives about the relationship between our early experiences and our callings (this part isn't Aware Parenting). I have two offerings if you're wanting support to help your baby heal from stress and trauma - The Aware Parenting Babies Course and The Aware Parenting Babies Q and A Vault. You can find them both on the Aware Parenting Courses page of my website: www.marionrose.net

In this episode, I talk with Shelley Clarke, who is an Aware Parenting instructor, CranioSacral Therapist and Marion Method Mentor. Please note that neither CranioSacral Therapy nor The Marion Method are Aware Parenting. Shelley shares about her experience of practicing Aware Parenting with her three children and how she first learnt about Hand in Hand Parenting when searching for gentle sleep solutions, and then heard about Aware Parenting too. She first found me and my work n 2017 by searching for 'parenting and Psychosynthesis' (I trained and worked as a Psychosynthesis Psychotherapist). She shares about the experience of starting Aware Parenting at different ages with her children, and starting from when her third child was born, as he shared his feelings about his birth. She also did more of her own healing process from her own experience as a baby. She talks about the power of listening to a baby's feelings when being lovingly supported with our own feelings, like she experienced and now offers to parents. From her first baby to her third baby, she became really comfortable with crying-in-arms. Shelley talks about her experience of learning about CranioSacral Therapy and training in it, and how a central part of it is somato-emotional release. As part of that, she has done many birth processes on her own experiences as a baby. She shares about what happens in her work as a CranioSacral Therapist when parents bring their babies with issues related to feeding, sleeping, tension, agitation and digestion. Often the babies will express feelings from their birth during the session. We discuss how Aware Parenting and CST both have a deep trust in the body's innate capacity to heal and return to homeostasis. Shelley shares lots of details about how to be with babies as they are healing from their birth and other experiences. I also reflect back on the time when my daughter was six and had some myofascial treatment and re-enacted her birth experience whilst expressing big feelings - and we discuss how children can also heal from their births, later on than in infancy - and how close to the surface those birth memories are for children as well as babies. Shelley shares an incredible experience of one of her children being a Messenger from Life - this is from The Marion Method, not Aware Parenting. We finish talking about our deep trust in the innate wisdom of human beings and our ability to heal and come back into homeostasis, and the importance of our own inner work as parents so that we can offer a calm presence to support our baby or child's innate wisdom. You can find Shelley and her work at: https://www.shelleyclarke.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/_shelleyclarke_/ and https://www.facebook.com/shelleyclarkemindbodyparenting Her podcast is The Mind-Body Parenting Podcsat.

In this episode of the podcast, I talk with Nicole Moore, international facilitator and trainer of Birth Into Being. We discuss how we met many years ago through Elimination Communication, which Nicole went on to make a film about. She talked about watching the video Birth as We Know it and the huge effect it had on her and her calling as she got completely swept up into Birth Into Being. We talk about one particular scene of a woman giving birth in water and how powerful and beautiful it was. Nicole explains what Birth Into Being is - a philosophy and healing modality which helps people create new imprints in their limbic system, replacing those that were formed in the very beginnings of life. This can be particularly powerful for women before giving birth. She also shares how it ties in perfectly with Aware Parenting. She also talks about the wider social context within which she sees this work and the vision and potential for bringing babies into the world with imprints of being deeply loved. You can find out all about Nicole's work and Birth into Being at www.birthintobeing.com and www.birthintobeing.com.au

In this episode, a P.S. from the last one, I share about my journey of healing from being premature in an incubator for 5 weeks and the modalities, practices and choices I've found helpful, including: Psychosynthesis ~ Roberto Assagioli, Rebirthing, Holotriopic Breathwork ~ Stanislav Grof, Polarity Therapy ~ Dr Randolf Stone, Watsu, Alexander Technique, HypnoBirthing ~ Marie Mongan, Private Subconscious-mind Healing, giving birth and not being scared, holding my babies, co-sleeping, having them close, listening to my babies cry in my arms and heal from stress and trauma when all their needs were met, Buteyko breathing ~ Konstantin Buteyko, and The Marion Method.

This is one of the most powerful conversations I've had! In this episode, I talked with Roma Norris, a Hand in Hand Parenting Instructor who was born at 32 weeks and was in an incubator for 5 weeks. I was born at 30 weeks and was also in an incubator for 5 weeks. We talked about a lot of things, including when we first realised that our experiences as babies had affected us, the effects we've experienced as a result, the healing we've done, and the feelings we've felt. Please note that we talk in depth about terror, panic attacks, painful physical symptoms and suicidal thoughts. However, we also share about the profound healing and transformation we've experienced and the super powers we have as a result of our experiences. We share suggestions for both adults who have had similar experiences, as well as parents of babies and children who were premature and how they can support deep healing. You can find out more about Roma's beautiful work at: http://romanorriss.com/

In this episode, I introduce the new series on the effect of the pre and perinatal period of us as babies, children and adults. This fits alongside the upcoming publication of my book, The Emotional Life of Babies. In future episodes in this series, I'll be having conversations about healing from stress in utero, birth and the postnatal period for babies, children and adults, and the effect of not healing can have. I share about my own journey of realising how much my birthing experience, being born at 30 weeks and in an incubator for 6 weeks, affected my childhood and teenage years, and how, over the decades after that, I reconnected with feelings of grief, loneliness, powerlessness, terror, and the deep pain of my experiences not being understood. I talk about the difference between healing from the effects of our birth in adulthood compared to healing whilst a baby or child, with the support of our parents. I include the work of people like Stan Grof, Thomas Verny and Michel Odent, and the powerful effects their work had on me and my understanding of what babies experience. I share about HypnoBirthing and Calmbirth, and the huge shift I made from being terrified of giving birth to being completely calm during birthing. I talk about posterior birth and The Lifting Technique by Janie McCoy King, who wrote Back Labor No More! I also explain how I supported my son to heal from his very fast posterior birth on the day he was born. I talk about the will work of The Marion Method and how the timing of our birth can also continue to affect us later in life and the patterns that can continue.

In this short episode, I talk about the relationship I've observed between accumulated feelings and nightmares. I offer two hypotheses and share some observations that parents and Aware Parenting instructors have shared with me about feelings and nightmares. My Sound Sleep and Secure Attachment with Aware Parenting Course is now available. You can find that on my website: www.marionrose.net or directly at: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/sound-sleep-and-secure-attachment-with-aware-parenting-course/

In this episode, I talk about my own recent experiences of lots of little stresses accumulating, the raging and crying that followed, and how it affected my sleep. I compare it to when I didn't get to complete the expression of some bid old feelings from the past a couple of days later, and waking up grumpy, with those feelings still at the surface. I liken this to what babies and children experience, both in terms of the effects of lots of small stresses, and also what can happen to their sleep when we listen to some of their feelings but they don't get to express all of the feelings. I also share that my Sound Sleep and Secure Attachment with Aware Parenting Course is available. You can find that on my website: www.marionrose.net or directly at: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/sound-sleep-and-secure-attachment-with-aware-parenting-course/ The sleep series has nearly finished! I have loved recording it!

I'm so delighted that Sarah Mason came back on the podcast. Sarah is an Aware Parenting instructor and came to talk about babies and sleep in episode 132. This time she shared about toddlers and sleep. She talked about how she shifted beliefs in relation to bedtimes, and the effect that had. She also discussed the importance of us as parents tending to our own needs and feelings in relation to bedtimes. She brought in the understanding of the ways as parents we can unwittingly suppress our toddler's feelings during the day and how that affects sleep. She also shared so powerfully and movingly about her own inner healing in relation to her own early experiences and the profound effect that had on her daughter's healing and sleep. She included the powerful story of how her daughter healed from an early experience of being left before sleep (before Sarah knew about Aware Parenting). She talked extensively about the power and importance of mothers honouring their needs and how that can affect their toddler's sleep. You can find out more about Sarah's work at https://awaremum.com.au/ and https://www.instagram.com/awaremum/

In this episode, I talk about how our own capacity to be present in our bodies with each particular feeling affects our capacity to be present with our baby or child as they feel and express that feeling. I share about the cultural effects on which feelings are welcomed, and how we can become more comfortable to be present in our bodies when we're feeling particular feelings, thus affecting our presence with our baby or child's feelings. I also relate that to a child's experience of being unconditionally loved. And finally, I explore how these are connected with sleep. If you want to find out more about Aware Parenting, I invite you to come to my website at www.marionrose.net. You can also sign up for my emails, including about my sleep course 2.0, there on my website.

In this episode, I talk about mild dissociation, how to differentiate it from relaxation, and why that makes a difference to sleep. I describe what mild dissociation is, why it happens, what the experience of it is, how we can tell if a baby or child is mildly dissociated, and how it affects sleep. I also share about the innate relaxation response and how supporting babies and children with this helps them feel more relaxed, and how their sleep is then different as a result. If you want to find out more about Aware Parenting, I invite you to come to my website at www.marionrose.net. If you want to understand more about the fight/flight/freeze response in relation to Aware Parenting, I recommend reading Aletha Solter's book Healing Your Traumatised Child.

In this episode I was so delighted to talk with Erin Dee and Kim Cousins, who are registered nurses who specialise in perinatal mental health. I LOVED the conversation so much and was in tears several times. They both share about their journey with Aware Parenting, and the difference it made in their own parenting, including with sleep, and how they then introduced it to mothers in the unit they work in. They talk about supporting the mothers with expressing their own feelings, and then having the emotional spaciousness to be able to listen to their babies' feelings, and then seeing the difference in their relaxation, connection, feeding and sleep. I loved the description one mother gave of their 'melty' baby after crying in arms! They share about the beautiful shifts they often see in breastfeeding when mothers are supported to listen to their baby's feelings and are supported to put themselves in their baby's shoes and connect with what they might be feeling. They talk about the changes - from mothers feeling stressed in relation to sleep, having their babies 'catnapping' - and then seeing the differences once they understand sleep and Aware Parenting and listening to feelings. We also talked about the bigger picture, about this culture and the normal needs for support and listening for mothers, and what a huge difference this makes to both mother and baby. You can find out more about Kim and Erin's work on Instagram @when.held. They have various group and 1-1 offerings available which can be found on their Instagram account.

I so enjoyed this episode, in which I talked with Clare Louise Brumley, an Aware Parenting instructor who has a background in nutrition and integrative medicine, whose PhD was on Evolutionary Medicine and Optimal Human Health. Clare Louise share about why an evolutionary perspective is important, sleep through an evolutionary lens, and the physiology of sleep and how the modern culture gets in the way. Interwoven through all of this, she talks about the stress response and Aware Parenting and the innate healing response. Our conversation covered a wide range of topics, from the sense of safety acquired from living and sleeping amongst a community of 30 or 40 people, the effect of electricity and other modern conveniences, and cots. We emphasised how this evolutionary context can bring deep understanding and compassion to parents, particularly in relation to sleep. Clare Louise has occasional 1-1 Aware Parenting spaces. You can find her information here: https://marionrose.net/aware-parenting-instructors-in-australia-and-new-zealand/

In this episode, I talk with Steph Fleeton, Aware Parenting instructor and early childhood educator, owner of Spirited Hearts Natural Learning Day Care with her husband Lucas. She shares about her own experience of practicing Aware Parenting with her children, and the ins and outs of sleep with different children who have different life experiences, including how their sleeping arrangement evolved as her children got older. She talks in depth about her own experiences in her Natural Learning Haven daycare, supporting children to sleep with an Aware Parenting approach, through deep connection, understanding their cues, play and listening to their feelings. She also shares about the process she observes when children have come from other daycare centres where they didn't get to choose when to rest or sleep and weren't supported with play and listening to their feelings, and the difference that she observes in them. She talks about parents' surprise when they see how easily their child sleeps whilst in the daycare. Please note that Steph shares about her experience of having a spinal tap after giving birth. You can find out more about Steph's work at https://spiritedhearts.net/, including about her Spirited Hearts Approach to Early Learning Certification Program. You can find her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/spirited_hearts/ You can find The Spirited Hearts podcast here: https://spiritedhearts.buzzsprout.com/

In this episode, I share about how parents can be the researchers with Aware Parenting. I invite a process where you first listen in to whether something resonates with you, and if it does, then to experiment and to observe your baby or child. I share about all the things you can observe to see if what you are doing is helpful for them or not. And if something is happening that is different, then there's an invitation to pause, to find out new information about what might be going on, to listen in again to yourself about whether this resonates and to see if you want to continue experimenting and observing. If you want to sign up for my newsletter, you can do that at: http://eepurl.com/8ifhn or you can find out how to on my website at: www.marionrose.net

In this episode of The Aware Parenting Podcast, I talk with Sarah Mason, an Aware Parenting instructor and mother of an almost three year old. She shares the journey of Aware Parenting that she's been on and all the intricacies of Aware Parenting and sleep that she's learnt along the way. She talks about all the things she tried with sleep before learning about Aware Parenting, including a dummy and a sleep consultant, and all the differences she observed with each approach, including Aware Parenting. She also shares about what happened when they went camping, and the shifts that happened in sleep over time with each step in the practice. You can find out more about Sarah's work at https://awaremum.com.au/ and https://www.instagram.com/awaremum/

In this episode, I talk about how Aware Parenting's overall approach to trusting babies and children in relation to everything also applies to sleep. That instead of them fighting sleep, we are often fighting their natural relaxation processes. And hat these natural processes are the same as those innate ways that they heal from stress and trauma. And the most important thing in supporting sleep is freeing ourselves from our cultural conditioning around sleep, our adultism, and doing our own healing in relation to sleep, including in our own infancy and childhood. If you want more information about my upcoming course, workshop and book on sleep, I invite you to follow me on social media or sign up for my newsletter, which you can do at www.marionrose.net

In this episode, I talk with my dear friend and colleague, Helena Mooney, who is an Aware Parenting instructor and Hand in Hand instructor. She shares about her experience of starting off with Classical Attachment Parenting with her daughter, and how little sleep she had, and how exhausted she was. She shares about how weird she found Aware Parenting at first, and her unsureness in practicing it at the beginning, and how different it was from Classical Attachment Parenting. Then she talks about how that perception changed as she saw what a difference it made to her daughter's sleep. The change took a bit of a while because her daughter had a backlog of feelings, and she explains this process. Along with getting more sleep again, her daughter also stopped hitting once she started Aware Parenting. She then goes on to share about what a huge difference she experienced with her second child and sleep, starting practicing Aware Parenting at the beginning; she expresses the difference in sleep between the two of them being "night and day." You can find out about Helena's work at www.parentingwithplay.com.au and mine at www.marionrose.net

In this episode, I talk with Maru Rojas, an Aware Parenting instructor in the UK who shares about her very different experience with sleep with her first child and second child. The first time around, her baby was very restless all night long or was feeding for most of the night and she had very little sleep. She learnt about Aware Parenting and gradually, sleep changed. The second time around, she started with Aware Parenting from the beginning and her son slept peacefully and for much longer periods. She talked about the time it took to support her daughter to 'catch up' with expressing feelings that had been repressed, the trauma she experienced of having so little sleep, and how she called for help from her mum to support her with listening to feelings with her second child. She also offers parents the invitation to listen in deeply to themselves and to create a sleep set-up that works for their unique family. We also talk about the relief of not needing to try to get babies to sleep quickly, why there's no such thing as 'overtired' in Aware Parenting, and the ease of babies sleeping peacefully when there's noise around or we need to move them whilst they're sleeping. Maru also specialises in Elimination Communication and potty learning. She offers 1-1 consultations, an online mothers' circle and online courses. You can find out more about her and her work at: https://parenttogether.co.uk/ and on social media at https://www.instagram.com/_maru.rojas_/

In this episode, I talked with Joss Goulden, an Aware Parenting instructor who hosts The Aware Parenting Stories Podcast and who co-hosts The Aware Parenting and Natural Learning Podcast with me. Joss shared about her own journey with sleep as a mother, including her son's frequent waking until she found out about Aware Parenting. We also talked about cultural and historical perspectives to sleep, and why that can be so helpful as parents, particularly in terms of co-sleeping, which we also talked a lot about. Joss also offered lots of information about teens and sleep, and how to support teens with the three things needed for sound sleep. You can find out more about Joss and her work at: www.awareparenting.com.au and on social media at Aware Parenting with Joss. You can find out more about my work at www.marionrose.net and https://www.instagram.com/_marion_rose_/ and https://www.facebook.com/MarionRosePhD

In this episode, I talk to Nic Wilson of Peaceful Parenting, an Aware Parenting instructor who shares about her journey of Aware Parenting, going from her daughter waking up every 45 minutes at night for three years, and that changing radically once she found out about Aware Parenting. She shares about all the other methods she tried, including white noise and controlled crying, and also about all the things she was told to do and not do in relation to sleep. If you want to find out more about Nic and her work, you can do that at: https://peacefulparenting.com.au/ You can find out more about me and my work at: https://marionrose.net/