Welcome to my blog, 'Nurturing Stanley'.

Thank you for taking the time to come and view my personal blog 'Nurturing Stanley'.

'Nurturing Stanley' will allow me to write about the subjects I am most passionate about, whilst perhaps giving Stanley something very interesting to read as he gets older, about why we made the decisions we did when he was small.  This is where I will link articles of research which are of interest to me, and justify the parental decisions my maternal instinct has led us to make.

Prior to having Stanley I spent little to no time reading about becoming a parent and the impact it has.  I never considered I would be one to make decisions that go against the norm of society, I just never thought about it; and then Stanley was born.

I was without doubt utterly bowled over by the force of the maternal instinct I felt the evening Stanley entered the world.  The first time I experienced myself going against the norm of parenting in western society was just a few hours after he was born.  It was 11pm, two and a half hours after I had given birth to my baby boy, and I was expected to put Stanley in a cot, a few feet away from me to sleep.  I did not feel okay with this, it felt so wrong to carry and nurture this baby for nine months, then leave it to sleep alone.  Stanley made he quite clear he did not like this set up either and was very unsettled.  So I rolled up some hospital blankets and put them down the sides of my bed, and he spent the night next to me, sleeping in the crook of my arm and on my chest.  This is of course with nurses frequently coming in and telling me this is not where Stanley 'should' sleep.  With hindsight, of course he was unsettled.  I imagine the physical process of being born is quite traumatic for a baby.  They are so safe inside their mother, it's warm, soft and calm.  Then they are squashed very tight, squeezed through a tunnel and arrive in a cold, loud, bright room where nothing is as it was a few seconds before, and all the baby has ever known.  The only constant is the mother.  Being held close, skin-to-skin, hearing mothers heartbeat and breastfeeding is their only comfort in the early days.  The cot would have provided none of these, Stanley would have felt lost.

Since then there have been many other decisions which I have made by just following my maternal instinct, which have caused surprise and disbelief in others; for instance continued bed-sharing and extended breastfeeding. 

Some people have told me outright they think I am wrong, others are more subtle with their undermining comments, but at the end of the day I do not believe for one moment that my natural maternal instinct will guide me the wrong way in raising Stanley.  All I can think is that my vocality on such issues causes them to question the decisions they themselves have made.

I do not believe that the decisions I make in parenting are what everybody should choose.  As a parent you have to make your own informed educated decisions on what is best for your baby, yourself and the rest of your family.

My main hope for this blog is that it can educate others, and perhaps give other parents the confidence to embrace their maternal instinct, which in many cases will go against societies norms.  I would have loved to have read this before I had Stanley, perhaps I would have been less bewildered and surprised by the surge in maternal instinct I experienced, and still experience every single day.

Thank you again for reading,  I would love to hear your comments.

I will post again very soon.