The Aware Parenting Podcast Marion Rose, PhD.

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.