Awakening to Conscious Parenting

by Anna Boon

Parenting prompts continual personal evolution in us all.  Cameron and I have learned so much since our first child was born five years ago.  We are both motivated by the responsibility and privilege of looking after our precious children and despite less time for ourselves, we are both becoming the people we have always wanted to be and starting to do the things we have always dreamed of doing.  Being parents challenges us to live up to our ideals.  Looking after a child who is suffering in some way has led us beyond the confines of conventional wisdom to search for answers that sit comfortably with our instincts.  As a result I guess we practice attachment parenting but really, we are just doing what comes naturally fuelled by that incredible love fostered by having our own children.

The first beacon on the path that led me to search for answers that felt right to my style of parenting came when our firstborn, Ella was three weeks old.  My mother-in-law, Angela, who was staying to help us through those early days encouraged me to visit the community health nurse.  I didn’t know such a person existed but off we went together to this person who was supposed to help us on our way.  I was on cloud 9 and so proud and in love with my baby girl.  The first thing the nurse asked me was “How’s it going?”  “Wonderful” was my reply.  She frowned, shook her head and said “Don’t worry, things will get better”.  Angela and I exchanged glances in disbelief – then she wouldn’t allow Angela into the consultation room with us even though I said I wanted her there.  Once she had me and Ella alone she proceeded to ask me a list of questions about the pregnancy and birth, most of which had a negative slant – did my husband and I drink too much, had I taken drugs during the pregnancy .  When I said no, she then went through a list of possible drugs as if she couldn’t believe that I hadn’t taken any.  “Have you got postnatal depression?”  No.  “What about your mother”  No.  “Oh well, they didn’t talk about it in those days did they?”

Then she got to Ella – and at last she had something to pin on me.  At three weeks, Ella hadn’t regained her birth weight.  Aha, she had me now.  I was exclusively breastfeeding Ella and we spent most of our time with Ella attached to my nipple, blissfully enjoying milk and closeness to me.  The community health nurse didn’t like that at all – I should start to time the feeds – wake Ella up if she slept more than 4 hours to feed her.  Change breasts.  Stop her falling asleep there – think about using formula to supplement the breastmilk.  By the time she’d finished with me she had completely destroyed the confidence I had developed about breastfeeding and she told me she wanted to see Ella the next week.  “If she hasn’t regained her birthweight by then we’ll have to look at supplementing with formula.”

I went home and cried all night.  In the morning I rang and cancelled the appointment.  That was the beginning of my new consciousness and the search for answers as how best to nurture this child and do what felt right to me.  But I still worried and questioned my own knowledge which was three weeks new.

Nevertheless it was a turning point.  And it led to my later decision not to have anything further to do with anyone offering advice about control crying or adhering to a strict routine or ‘making a rod for my own back’ or various other putting-children-in-a-rigid-box type theories.  I am very lucky that Cameron and I have always been aligned on this issue and the immediate family surrounding us has supported our decisions, not always without question but certainly with acceptance.  It would have been a lot harder with a partner who had a different point of view.

As it turned out, Ella had food intolerances to wheat and dairy products, and possibly eggs and soy but it took me a couple of months to search those answers out.  While the community health nurse probably identified that there was a breastfeeding issue,  I doubt that she would have condoned the way I dealt with it. 

Luckily my paediatrician was pro-breastfeeding.  He put me in touch with a lactation consultant, then I joined my local Australian Breastfeeding Association group, then found another lactation consultant who identified the food intolerances and my network burgeoned from there.  It’s amazing how you seem to cross paths with others who are facing the same issues – I have met some wonderful people from diverse backgrounds who have faced similar problems with their own children and I have been motived to search for answers for why Ella was so unsettled all the time.  I have also learnt that everyone’s issues are slightly different and following your own instincts and your own heart for your own particular set of problems is the most important thing to do.  I do have friends who don’t have the same philosophy about parenting as I do, but I find that sometimes it’s easier not to mention the intricacies of my parenting to everyone, because I know that in myself I feel confident and comfortable about the decisions that I have made privately for my own family. 

Those early days with your first newborn, however, are not the most confident of times.  Would I do anything different if I had my time over?  Possibly not but if I knew then what I know now I wouldn’t have gone through as much anguish.  But that’s what transforms you into a parent so I feel like all those experiences have been valuable.

Five years on, with another child, Nina, who has just turned two I am still learning and putting more pieces of the jigsaw together. Second time around I hoped to guarantee good health and an easy time for mother and baby and in many respects those goals were achieved but now we are facing new and unexpected challenges with her health, and so our search and our personal growth continues. 

Nina was born easily at home.  The pregnancy was a breeze, the birth was quick with no complications.  She had a lotus birth.  We took to our breastfeeding relationship with ease.  She has never been vaccinated.  But from 18 months, Nina has been experiencing irregular but ongoing ‘episodes’ where she goes absent, limp, sometimes her eyes quaver and she seems to lose her balance and equilibrium for a brief period before returning to normal.  We’ve spent long hours at hospital emergency, consulted a wonderful paediatric neurologist, had follow up visits at paediatric clinics, had every test under the sun, and while the word ‘epilepsy’ is bandied about, no-one is willing to diagnose it as such because all the tests have come back negative.

In my continual search for answers to make us all as well and vital as we can be, I’ve found Heather Bruce – acupuncturist, Chinese herbalist, mother, wise woman.  She has put us all (including Cameron) on zinc.  Within days Ella’s mood improved and a sometimes grumpy demeanour became delightful and positive.

She then suggested the girls take a multivitamin and in addition Nina have Chinese herbs.  Ella and Nina are noticeably better, both physically and emotionally.  When my children are clingy or whingey I tend to make excuses for them like it’s teething, or their age or think it’s something to do with my parenting of it’s developmental or it’s their personality or perhaps it’s because of the moon!  That sort of behaviour creeps up on you and after a while you don’t notice it as anything out of the ordinary.  But since we’ve all been on the new regime the clinginess and whingyness has declined dramatically.  I’m sure they are both feeling so much better in themselves and their spirits are soaring as a result.  The gorgeous, endearing, bright, fresh, enquiring characteristics of their young selves are showing themselves again and we are thinking of the clingyness and whingyness as the exception rather than the norm.  More than once recently, people have commented to me what a calm child Nina is and I am starting to take it for granted. 

I’m also taking magnesium and Vitamin B and Chinese herbs.  After five years of continuous breastfeeding I had low energy, achy joints, sore and itchy eyes and I was starting to snap at the girls more and more often.  I thought it was just because I was over 40 but after 24 hours on the new supplements, the aches in my joints had disappeared and within a few days I had stopped snapping and was feeling better and better.  My milk supply is much better too.  Combined with the changes Cameron and I are experiencing, our family is certainly a more lighthearted happier place.

So with such positive changes I thought that Nina’s episodes would disappear but this week she shook me out of my complacency with another one.  What now?  We will visit a homoeopath who will detoxify Nina’s (and Ella’s) body of the mercury she would have absorbed from my fillings.  And then what?  Will we never have to worry about health again?  I think not.  We are merely at the beginning of a long journey which thankfully is teaching me to trust my instincts more and more.  And that can’t be a bad thing!


Ann Boon lives with her husband, Cameron and their daughters, Ella and Nina.  The transformative process of birthing and raising these beautiful children is currently the central theme of her life.