5 benefits of having skin-to-skin with your baby

Posted on July 21, 2017 by sara

In our BabyNatal Practical Baby Care classes we talk about the ‘Golden Hour’, which is the term used to describe the first hour after the birth of a baby. We love talking about what typically happens during this time, and one of the things that we encourage parents to consider, if at all possible, is to have skin-to-skin contact with their babies.

Having skin-to-skin contact simply means having your baby’s bare body on your bare skin (normally on your chest). If your baby has literally just been born, they may still be partially wrapped in a towel, which helps them stay warm.

Skin-to-skin contact isn’t just for the first few minutes or hours after birth though – when you’re at home with your baby in the first few days and weeks of their lives, you can continue to take some time to enjoy skin-to-skin contact with them – and it’s ok for them to be wearing a nappy… because you just never know! In order to keep yourself and (especially) your baby comfortable and warm, you can always cover yourself with a light blanket or large muslin, depending on the temperature in the room you’re in. Continue reading →

Amber and teething – does it really work?

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Steph

Baltic amber anklet for baby

Looking around in the last few years, you must have noticed more and more babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers wearing amber necklaces, bracelets and anklets. Have you ever wondered what they are or what they are for? Did you put it down to a ‘tradition’, a ‘lucky charm’ or a new ‘craze’? Well, parents who choose to use amber for their children are doing so with a very particular reason in mind – they hope that amber will ease their little ones’ teething troubles.

Yes, that’s right. Teething.

That process that each baby goes through to transform their cute gummy smile into an even cuter full-of-teeth one. Continue reading →

Diary of a sleep deprived mum – Laura’s story

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Steph

The situation

My daughter Emily is 19 months old, and up until a couple of weeks ago, she would wake somewhere between 1 to 4 times in the night between 9pm and 7am. The wakings would vary between 20 minutes to over an hour at times, and with each waking she would only settle with me (mum) with a breastfeed. We tried having Daddy going in to her to settle her back to sleep, but she would just screams and screams until I would go and feed her back to sleep. We tried many different ‘gentle’ things to help her sleep – later bedtime, earlier bedtime, later naps, earlier naps, baby massage, more food, banana before bed, more drinks, warmer clothes for bedtime, a comforter, white noise, night light, bedtime routines, bedtime story, no TV in the run up to bedtime… You name it, we tried it! Continue reading →

Babywearing and the stretchy wrap

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Steph

Many of us here at The Natal Family have used or are using stretchy wraps with our babies, and if you’ve been to one of The Baby Shows lately, you would have also seen our teachers wearing and demonstrating stretchy wraps for parents. We have noticed that stretchy wraps seem to attract a lot of attention from other parents, so we thought we’d tried to explain why we (and our babies!) love them so much! Continue reading →

The Natal Family, Boba and why you should learn about wearing your baby!

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Steph

We are very excited to announce that we have agreed a partnership with Boba, who have come on board to support our fantastic BabyNatal programme! Boba is a well known babywearing brand, with a range of wraps, carriers and other products to support parents to ‘wear’ their babies. They started as a family-run business, just like The Natal Family did, and have grown to be a very well-known brand, which is respected internationally. Continue reading →

Win tickets for the Birmingham Baby Show with BabyNatal!

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Steph

Where is this year going? It’s May already, which means two fantastic things to look forward to this month…. firstly, we are counting down the days to the release of our first book The Expectant Dad’s Handbook by BabyNatal co-founder Dean Beaumont. The book will be released on the 16th May and we are so excited about it!

Continue reading →