Author Archives: Carrie

Getting Children Into Their Bodies – Part One: Birth to Age 2 and a Half

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Steiner looked at the stages of childhood development through seven year cycles.  He further divided the first seven year cycle into three parts consisting of the ages birth through age two and a half, two and  half through age five, and age five to age seven.

Steiner writes about this importance in this passage from “Soul Economy” -(my note: for those of you not familiar with “Steiner – speak”, the ether body refers to the body that maintains your life functions.  It is not visible and is not composed of matter but more encompasses life processes within the body.  When the ether body dies, the result is that the physical body dies as well):

“What children learn during this first two-and-a-half-year period is extremely important for their whole life.  They do so through an incoming activity and from what they have brought with them from prenatal existence.  Just consider how children learn to speak and walk during this first short period.  These are two human faculties that are closely connected with maintaining self-confidence, both from a personal and a social point of view.  These two important faculties are being developed while the ether body is still engaged in shaping the brain and radiating into the rest of the organism.”

One of the principal thoughts for the Early Years from a Waldorf Perspective is that small children under the age of 7 should be in their bodies.  We want to do this not through head oriented commands in the home environment or  the head-oriented verbal commands of organized sports, but through movement couched in fantasy or shown and demonstrated through imitation.

So, without further ado, here are some suggestions. Please take what resonates with you and your family.  The suggestions in this post are certainly not meant as medical advice or meant to substitute for individualized plans formed by you in conjunction with your baby’s doctor or therapist if your baby has developmental challenges.  This post applies to those families with infants who are developing normally, whom do not have medical problems and who were not born prematurely.  For further information regarding a Waldorf approach to children with special needs, please investigate Camphill through this link:  http://www.camphill.org/

For Newborn Babies:  This is not so much about getting your baby into its body, but protecting the baby’s body and the baby’s senses.  Lois Cusick, in her lovely book “The Waldorf Parenting Handbook” ( a great read) says this of the child within the first three years:  “Parents need to defend their helpless child from an over-stimulating environment, from too many sense perceptions.  Their role is to supply a protecting, nourishing nest to replace the safe peace and quiet of the womb.  Quiet, warmth and nourishing mother’s milk are what babies need most when they first enter earth life.”

  • As much as you can, create a calm feeling in your home.   Steiner regarded the first seven year cycle as a time when the child is almost akin to an eye – visual memory dominates.   There are many posts within this blog regarding the creation of rhythm in the home, how to do inner work, and  common marriage and parenting challenges.  Read those and see if they spark any ideas in you!
  • One thing to think about is the baby’s sense of warmth, and while not overdressing the baby, making sure the baby is warm and swaddled if not in your arms or on your body.  Generally, babies under a year should wear hats as well.  Swaddle your baby with the baby’s arms by its mouth to add to further protection of the senses.
  • I know it is not always possible, especially if one has older children, but see if you can avoid taking your newborn to busy supermarkets and stores during the first six weeks.  Try to do without the television and all the blaring noise these boxes provide – I am always amazed when I go into a hospital room to check on a newborn and the whole family is enthralled and listening to some kind of noisy, action-packed show with the newborn baby right there!  It floors me!!  These early weeks deserve to be beautiful with beautiful sounds as well.  So instead of the noisy hustle and bustle of life, try to provide your beautiful baby with soft lullabies and your loving, clear, speech.   Steiner was very clear about no “baby-talk” to a small child, but loving, complex speech with all of its shining words and meanings.  If you can play a lyre or flute, that is lovely as well.
  • Joan Salter writes in her book “The Incarnating Child”, “An upright sling is a real help for a baby with colic, for the warmth of Mother’s or Dad’s body and the vertical position is often the only means of comfort.  But the child does not need to be constantly carried, and in fact, if we observe the child we will see that the natural position for the baby in the first six weeks is the horizontal.”  I do see the wisdom in this statement, the part about the infant’s natural position being horizontal – infants being breastfed certainly spend a lot of time horizontal!    Horizontal, however, by its very nature, does not always mean the baby is on its back.  Breastfeeding usually occurs with the infant in side-lying, and reaching in side-lying is one of the first ways infants often are able to try to reach for an object as gravity is eliminated in this position.  Horizontal can also mean tummy-time.   One way a  young baby can gain the concept of “tummy time” that is so heavily promoted these days (for good reason with the Back to Sleep campaign),  is through laying the baby across mom’s lap for burping or when awake.
  • Your body is the baby’s natural habitat.  Study after study has shown the nervous system of an infant to be regulated by the adult’s body, so please do hold your baby skin to skin!  So, perhaps I disagree a bit with Joan Salter ‘s statement above that babies do not need to be constantly carried in this way:  while I do think it is okay to put your baby down, most babies who are breastfeeding are getting a lot of times in arms with mother  in a horizontal position as they nurse (and this, to me, is nature’s plan!).   If you are feeding your baby with love by another method, please do include a lot of skin to skin time with your baby.  If you are breastfeeding, please quit trying to feed your baby through a tiny triangular-shaped hole of a nursing shirt and nursing bra, and get your baby skin to skin!
  • Things to watch for your baby to do within the first six weeks: see how your infant attains a calm, but alert state; visual fixation on you; visual tracking; auditory orientation (turning to sounds out of visual range); and typical  newborn reflexes.   Newborn development begins with the mouth and the eyes, so pay special attention to these two sense organs.

For Babies Who Are Not Yet Crawling  (About Six Weeks to Six or Seven Months):

  • Yes, I am going to keep saying this in every section:  Make your home the most peaceful place to be that you can.  In “The Incarnating Child” by Joan Salter, she quotes Willi Aeppli from the book The Care and Development of the Human Senses saying, “The power of thinking and of judgment which is not yet in existence cannot form a protective dam against the storming in of sense impressions.  Consequently the child is exposed with his whole body to these impressions in quite a different way, in a far more direct way than at a later age.  All sense-perceptions go deeply into the organism and leave their impressions there…”  The young infant and child needs to be surrounded with perceptions that are good, warm, kind, joyful.
  • Your baby is now physically developing from the head down toward the feet, so pay special attention to these areas, as well as the development  of  hand-eye coordination and reaching.
  • Singing and fingerplays (and toeplays!) are so important!  Talk to your baby without baby talk, but do provide a language-rich environment through singing and verses.
  • When your baby is awake provide lots of time to wiggle and move those arms and legs.
  • Do let your child nap outside if your climate and weather is suitable for that; it is a wonderful way to get your baby connected with nature.  Sit outside with your baby and other children and breathe in with all your senses.   Joan Salter writes in “The Incarnating Child”:  “A well-loved garden is much more than merely a collection of plants.  It has an atmosphere that speaks to the child, and often a restless baby will be calmed by being out of doors in such a place.  To sleep in the garden for an hour or so, or just be there watching and listening, absorbing what Wise Mother Nature has to offer, is a helpful and healthy experience for a child from about two months of age onward.”
  • Much has been written on the subject of sleep, but hopefully during this time you are moving toward more rhythmical nap patterns and bedtime patterns; it is very important that you work toward this with your baby.  If you have a high-needs baby, who by their very nature seems to be irregular and without rhythm, it is even more important that you help them work towards what they cannot do themselves.
  • As an infant moves toward crawling, a parents must be very  patient and also have a rather well-baby-proofed house!

For Babies Who Are Crawling, Pulling to Stand and Learning to Walk (About Six or Seven Months to One Year of Age):

  • Make your home the most peaceful, happy place it can be.
  • Work toward a rhythm of breastfeeding, eating, play, sleeping.  Not a fixed, rigid schedule, but a rhythm.
  • Keep the quality of warmth in mind – babies under the age of one need to wear warm clothes, hats on their bald heads!
  • Joan Salter writes in her book “The Incarnating Child”:  “After about six months of age, other senses start to become more dominant.  The child begins to take in the world more strongly through the eyes and ears….This brings us to the immense importance of visual and auditory sense impressions”  Be a wonderful source of right thoughts, right speech and right action for your child to see and imitate.
  • Get into the habit of starting to use songs and verse for transition times within your day; this will become valuable for toddlerhood.
  • Infants learning to walk need times to practice their sense of balance safely; infant walkers or baby bouncers that hang in the doorway are not appropriate developmental tools for this population. If your child is a normal, healthy developing child, they may not need your coaxing or helping or forcing.  They do need practice and imitation.
  • Once the child is able to walk, he or she may have soft knitted animals or wooden animals as per Joan Salter’s “The Incarnating Child”, page 96.
  • Stranger anxiety may occur during this time period, it is common, and not a sign anything is amiss.

For Toddlers (About a Year or a Year and A Half to Two and A Half Years of Age):

  • Once a child can walk and keep his or her balance, the arms and hands are freed.  Bronja Zahlingen comments in the article, “Movement, Gesture and Language in the Life of the Young Child”:  “This is truly unique to the human being, for the animal, still bound to its physical organization, must utilize its front limbs entirely to serve its body – they must carry and nourish it.  We human beings can perform many different kinds of work. We can work with our hands as artists, we can wave and threaten, give and take, pray and bless.”
  • Gesture and the use of gesture precedes talking from a Waldorf perspective.  This also makes sense from a therapy perspective, since therapists know one must have sufficient muscle tone and muscle control in order to produce speech sounds and a good quality of speech.  Learning to talk is a major part of this time period.  Rahima Baldwin Dancy states in her book “You Are Your Child’s First Teacher:  What Parents Can Do With and For Their Children from Birth Until Age Six”:  “But around a year and a half, children’s language abilities explode, so that most start acquiring new words at the phenomenal rate of one every two hours.  By their second birthdays, most children have mastered 1,000 to 2,000 words and have started stringing two words together.”  Clearly, receptive language ability is developed long before expressive ability.    Steiner viewed mastery of a native tongue as a prerequisite to thinking – we think because we have language.  Whole sentences may appear between ages two and three, according to “You Are Your Child’s First Teacher.”
  • Human speech is looked upon as having three parts by anthroposophists: saying (a one word sentence); naming (dog, cookie); and finally talking (which begins a me-you kind of dialogue with others).  Watch your child for these words and speech development.
  • For speech development, it is so important you talk to your child through song, verses, telling stories of simple sentences that you make up.  Some mothers become great talkers to their children, but then have difficulty slowing this down later on.  Think about what you are actually saying to your child before you just prattle on and on!
  • Early in this year, the child may be ready for a very simple doll of unfinished features.  The doll should be soft to cuddle.  Joan Salter writes in “The Incarnating Child”: “As the child grows, the doll will become a friend to be talked to, told secrets, taken for outings and so on.  It is a first step in developing later relationships.”

For Children of All Ages-

Most of all, protect your small child from overstimulation.

Look at the visual things of beauty in the home, and how your own face is the most beautiful toy to a baby.

Think about the sense of touch and to bring different safe tactile experiences to your small child.

Think about how to bring lovely speech, songs and verses into your home.

Think about pets, gardening experiences and how to get outside in nature.

Give your child lots of chances to practice wiggling their limbs, moving to sit, manipulating objects with their hands,  crawling, balancing while walking on an even surface first and then uneven surfaces.

Let your child work with pouring water, playing with sand and dirt (supervise carefully that they don’t eat all the sand and dirt, of course).

These are just a few thoughts from a Waldorf perspective regarding childhood development and what you should be doing with your child to develop these things.

Nuno Wet Felting Tutorial

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Please do check out this great tutorial from my friend Catherine (and she put it in English!  Thanks Catherine!!)

http://catherine-et-les-fees.blogspot.com/2009/01/nuno-felting-tutorial.html

You will enjoy seeing these creations come to life!

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Form Drawing for First Grade

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Note:  If you have a Kindergartner, a child under the age of 7, form drawing is too awakening for your child.  They do not need to start form drawing until first grade when they are seven years old.  This post is for those parents who have children ages 7 and older, or for those parents who have a six-year-old and are trying to understand form drawing for the following year.

Form drawing is one of the those subjects that is very special to the Waldorf school and Waldorf homeschool environment and completely foreign to the public school environment.  I have had many Waldorf homeschooling mothers tell me they do not like form drawing and this is unfortunate because it is such an important subject.  In fact, I would like to convince you today that form drawing is so important there should be at least 2, but preferably 3 blocks of form drawing throughout your school year in grades one through four, and also continue form drawing once a week throughout some of your other blocks.  Form drawing and numeral literacy should be a large backbone of the early years.

From the book “Form Drawing: Grades One Through Four” by Laura Embrey-Stine and Ernst Schuberth: 

There are many sound reasons which support the feeling that form drawing is good for children.  The simplest and perhaps most straight-forward reason is that it develops the fine motor skills as a preparation, and later a support, for writing.  It strengthens eye-hand coordination, giving the eye practice at being a coachmen for the horses, the hands.  Form drawing also works in the other direction:  the movement of the hand also educates the brain.  Furthermore, it is part of the evolution of art and, as such, develops the aesthetic sense and a feeling for form.  It also teaches thinking but in a non-intellectual way; it trains the intelligence to be flexible, able to follow and understand a complicated line of thought.  The more human beings are trained to think flexibly, the greater the world is strengthened in intelligence.  Finally, form drawing really supports the development of the whole being of the child, guiding it in a healthy way with certain types of  forms brought to the child which are appropriate for his age in the various grades.

Form drawing should be very active – it is not about putting the form on paper at first, not until the very end; it is about getting the form into the child’s BODY.  The form should be expressed in an imaginative way through a small and simple story and then you do everything possible to get it into the child’s body – draw it in chalk on your driveway and walk it, hop it, skip it, walk it backwards, draw it on each other’s skin and guess which form it was, draw it in sand and in rice, draw it with both hands onto two sheets of paper taped down, draw it with a crayon between the big toes on a large piece of paper, shape it with beanbags and walk it on the floor, model it  in salt dough or sand or  beeswax, draw it in the air with your nose, toes, elbow or chin, build the form out of sticks if it is a form conducive to that.  Then, at the very end, have the child stand and draw the form.

We followed this progression of forms so far this year:

  • We started with a line and a curve the very first day of school as per Steiner’s indications and went throughout the entire month of September with forms made up of simple  lines and curves.
  • We did free hand drawing of geometric shapes within our math block as we learned about the qualities of numbers.  For example, for the number one we practiced drawing freehand circles.  For number two we practiced making a yin-yang symbol.  For number three we drew triangles within circles.  For number four we drew squares and rectangles.  For number five we drew pentagons inside circles and for number six hexagons inside circle.  For number five we also drew five –pointed stars and for number six we drew six-pointed stars.
  • We then moved on to more of the simple curved lines and into spirals.  I highly recommend the progression in the book I mentioned above.  I made a series of very short (one to two paragraph stories involving either a little girl walking a very large dog and their adventures or the animal characters and the Merry Little Breezes from Thornton Burgess’s work).  After the simple curves and three types of spirals, we moved on to more complex lines and curves and the lemniscate.
  • Our last bit of form drawing is going to include closed figures/shaded figures and how a figure undergoes transformation to become a different kind of figure altogether. 
  • We will then end first grade with a series of running forms.  I think one mistake people seem to  make includes jumping to running forms too soon without doing all of these other forms.  In my very humble opinion, the other forms really lay the foundation for the running forms.  We will start mirrored forms in grade two in the fall.

Form drawing is a great therapeutic activity and an important component of Waldorf education. Please consider bringing it to your homeschool.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Three Kings Day

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I hope everyone had a wonderful Three Kings Day.  We had a terrific time finding gifts yesterday morning, having a storytelling session around the Coming of the Magi, making crowns, and having rice pudding with those secretly buried almonds for the kids to find!

My friend over at Nature’s Rhythm has this wonderful post up about their festivities, check it out and file the ideas away for next year!

http://naturesrhythm.blogspot.com/2009/01/sternsinger.html

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

When A Child Balks At Rhythm

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Some mothers have asked me what to do when my child balks at our rhythm or a particular activity within our rhythm?  I have several thoughts about this subject,

First of all, in general, if rhythm is new to you, start small around mealtimes and sleeping times and build up from there.  It may be that your child is balking at the rhythm because there is just too much going on that is new and it is all taking place too fast.  It may take several months or longer to really get in a full rhythm of the day and the week.  Your seasonal rhythm may take even longer than that as you start small with festivals and then add things to each individual festival each year or even add festivals each year that you have never celebrated before.

As I mentioned above, some of this depends on age.  If your child is under the age of seven, I would respectfully ask that you look to yourself first.  Are you being rather ADHD about your rhythm and starting things and not finishing them before you are moving on to something else?  Is there one particular activity that is problematic and is this activity one you yourself enjoys or one that you secretly dread?  Your child can pick up on this feeling even if you do not verbalize it!  Is it the right season to be doing whatever activity you have planned – for example, many mothers have told me they do not like to knit in summer.  If this is you, it may be hard for you to teach knitting to your first grader in July!   Is the rhythm so complex that you can’t even carry it?   A rhythm is a gentle flow to the day of in-breath and out-breath activities.  This should include more of an order, blocks of time than a minute-by-minute, play-by-play kind of schedule.  So, the first place to start with a balking child is with yourself.

If your child is under the age of 7 and your child is balking about the rhythm, here are some ideas.  Parents have asked me, “ What do I do when it is gardening time, and my child just won’t get their shoes on to go outside?  They don’t want to garden then.” 

There are no blanket answers for this per say, but here are some ideas:

  • With a small child, the rhythm and the outcomes of things that happen within the rhythm are mainly carried by YOU.  So, if your child doesn’t want to garden, and he or she has gone to the bathroom and had a snack and is generally okay, perhaps YOU garden and they join in, or they just play while you garden.  You may only get a small amount of practical work in.  Rudolf Steiner said somewhere in his lectures that a child seeing even 15 minutes of quality work was worth this effort and time. 
  • The other question to this is:  have you built in time for preparing for the activity and cleaning up from the activity?  If we always put our gardening pants and shoes on while we sing a song about gardening, then it is habit to wear shoes.  Building up anticipation through preparation for a task, singing about the task, and  having an allotment of time to clean-up from a task  is just as important to the child as the task itself.
  • Also, try to look at your task from the child’s point of view.  Yes, the task is for you and being carried by you, but it should also include child-friendly elements.  For gardening, this might include watering, planting large seeds a child can handle, digging for worms.  There should be songs and stories!  The practical work of life should be fun!
  • A child under the age of 7 is at the height of imitation.  Imitate with happiness the task at hand, use songs and wonder, and the activity will be fun. If you start the activity by saying, “Now we will go garden,” and the child envisions hours of you pulling weeds, they may very well not want  to do it!
  • The other question that always begs to be asked is:  Does your rhythm need to be changed?  Maybe your child really wants a story before you go outside.  Can you make up a story about a worm, or a butterfly, or gnomes helping to put the seed babies to bed?  Maybe your child needs a game before they go outside or maybe a game once they are outside before they can settle down enough to do a small task at hand.  Go back again and think your in-breath and out-breath of activities.

For a child over the age of 7, I would think not only of these things, but also the worthiness of authority for this age group, as according to Steiner himself.  Your very gesture and mood permeate the task and the rhythm and sometimes the answer to this is just working with the child’s will to complete something.  This does not have to be as harsh as it sounds, but many seven and ten year olds will grumble at the prospect of doing work, but then are very proud of their accomplishments indeed if you can just help them persevere through it!

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Verses and Songs Throughout the Day

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Many Waldorf mothers lament that while they know they should not use head-oriented commands with small children under the age of seven, they just are not sure how to get through the day without doing this.  One way to think about this is how you could use songs and verses throughout your day for transition points.  For example, instead of announcing all day long, “Now, little Jimmy, we are going to do XYZ”, you have a wonderful song or melody to do this that accompanies YOU starting to DO the physical activity.  (Having small children is not to be directed from the sofa!!)  Once you use the same song or verse for the same activity over and over, the child recognizes what goes with what melody. 

I kept track the other day, and here are some of the ones I use with my family that we enjoy, and maybe this will give you some ideas for your own family!  You will find the songs and verses that work for you!

For waking up in the morning, while I go around and open all the window shades:  The song “Good morning, good morning and how do you do?”  and also the song “Buenos Dias, Buenos Dias, como estas, como estas?”  (sung to the tune of “Where is Thumpkin?”)

For making beds:   The song “This is the way we make the beds, make the beds, make the beds, this is way we make the beds on a “XXXXXX” morning.”

For calling to breakfast and lunch – We sing the prayer “Thou Art Great and Thou Art Good”  from Shea Darien’s book Seven Times the Sun.

For washing dishes:  The song “This the way we wash the dishes, wash the dishes, wash the dishes” as above

For getting dressed:  The nursery rhyme Diddle Diddle Dumpling, My Son John

(I also make up songs sometimes for going potty, brushing teeth or brushing hair).

For being called to start homeschool:  I always call children with a made- up tune on the pennywhistle and then play whatever song is the song of the month.  For example, in November I played “The Pumpkin Pie” song and my kids learned it and sung it for everyone after Thanksgiving dinner while I played.  For this month we are learning the song from the play “The Snowmaiden” from “Little Plays for Puppets” book and also a song about dwarves.  After singing we have a candle-lighting verse and we also use the well-known  Waldorf verse that begins, “Good Morning Dear Earth, Good Morning Dear Sun.”

For quiet time:  We sing one of the quiet songs out of Shea Darien’s book Seven Times the Sun

For ending quiet time:  We use that wonderful folk song that begins, “Bluebird, bluebird (or whatever bird you want!)  fly through my window, bluebird, bluebird, fly through my window.”  It is on Pete Seeger’s CD of folk songs

Favorite verse for going outside:  The nursery rhyme that begins, “The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men, he marched them up a hill and then he marched him down again.”

For practical work, I do have verses for wet on wet watercolor painting, baking, handwork, gardening and housekeeping that can be found in A Child’s Seasonal Treasury,

For dinner we rotate between these two prayers: 

Father, we thank thee for this food before us

Give us strength to do Thy Will

Guide and Protect Us in Your Heavenly Path

For Christ’s Sake, Amen.

or this one:

Bless this food to our use

And us to thy (continued) service

And make us ever mindful of thy blessings

Amen.

For Bathtime- Rub a Dub Dub, Three Men in a Tub

For Bedtime- Prayers (we say four prayers at night)

First we say “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep”

Then we say this one:

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

Bless this bed that we lie on,

Two at our head, two at our feet,

Protect us (bless us) while we are fast asleep.

Then we say a quick prayer to the archangels of St. Raphael, St. Gabriel, St. Michael and St. Uriel, (and we list what we are thankful for from the day)

And then at last we say “Our Father Who Art in Heaven”.

This is just a small sampling, and you can come up with traditional verses, songs and prayers that speak to your own spiritual/religious life.   I also make up many songs on the spot and sing.  My oldest thinks my voice is beautiful, which I assure you it is not, but the point is you do not have to be a great singer to do this!!  It is great fun, the kids learn all of this by heart easily, and it is so much better than walking around like a play-by-play football announcer each day.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Fun For The Seven Year Old Birthday

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This is for those of you who remember turning seven, were once seven years old, who have a seven year old or who have a child who will someday be seven!  Turning seven is something very important within the Waldorf tradition and to me this rite of passage deserves to be marked in a special way.

This is what we did in leading up to our daughter’s seventh birthday (which actually took place awhile back, but I just found these  little notes about her birthday to remind me to share this with you all!)

In the weeks leading up to her birthday we read “The Seven Year Old Wonder Book” by Isabelle Wyatt (this is a Waldorf tradition and must not be skipped!).  The week of her birthday we had our own Rhyme Elves Book.  For those of you who may not have read “The Seven Year Old Wonder Book”, the little girl in the story listens to a story told by her mother (each chapter is sort of a story within a story that takes place around different festival times).   The little girl has a small blank book by her bedside, and when she wakes up, there is a wonderful little poem that the Rhyme Elves wrote about the story the little girl heard the day before.  The stories I told for the birthday week were Little Red Cap (Grimm’s Fairy Tales), The Lake at the End of the World (Ecuadorian Fairy Tale available in the Waldorf book “You’re Not the Boss of Me!”), Maid Maleen (Grimm’s), and the Pumpkin Child (my favorite –  a Persian tale also available in the Waldorf book “You’re Not the Boss of Me!”).  I tried to go for stories that were about the struggle of transformation at an archetypal level.  We made our Rhyme Elves Book just simply by taking two watercolor paintings and binding them on the outside with plain paper in between.  Most of all,  we were so lucky to have some handy little Rhyme Elves who were willing to write poems in her Rhyme Elves book!

The weekend before her actual birthday, our daughter’s aunt came and took her shopping and for high tea at a very fancy hotel downtown, which my daughter enjoyed thoroughly!

On the day of her birthday we presented our daughter with her gifts at breakfast, including a scroll of all the fun things she did the year when she was six and she presented a small gift to her youngest sister.  Then  we went  as a family to Rock City, TN to spend the day.  (If you are not familiar with Rock City, please see this website:  http://www.seerockcity.com/Flash/index.htm    It really is a very magical place, for young and old).  We also made her favorite dinner and had homemade strawberry shortcake for dessert.

On the weekend after her birthday, we had a small birthday party with our closest family friends where the main activity was boat building for the children, thanks to a dear friend and her Master woodworking/carpenter husband.  All the hulls and parts were pre-cut, but the children had a great time hammering extra carved pieces on the hulls, putting a dowel in for the mast and picking sails from a pile of fabric.    I told the story of how our daughter came over the Rainbow Bridge while she wore a crown I had sewed.  Then we had  vegan birthday cupcakes! 

This was a very fun week for our family, and I hope my daughter looks back on it with fond memories.

Maybe something in here will stimulate your own ideas for a special birthday celebration!!

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Waldorf Consultants

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It is that time of the year!  Whether you have questions about finishing up this school year, or questions in regarding planning for your upcoming school year, my dear friend over at Loveyland  (http://lovey-land.blogspot.com/) put together this great list of Waldorf consultants and gave me permission to share it with you all!

David Darcy – David Darcy Consulting:

http://ddarcy.com/

Consulting – contact for fee

Workshops, Speaking Engagements –   *Contact for fee

Resources – Subject guides from $12

Blog – http://DDarcysView.blogstream.com/

Siegline de Francesca – Teach Wonderment:

http://teachwonderment.com/

Consulting –   *Contact for fees

Workshops – See website

Resources – Subject guides from $25

Additional Resources – http://www.kitntales.com/kitntales.html  Stories, Kits, Guides from $4

Barbara Dewey – Waldorf Without Walls:

http://waldorfwithoutwalls.com/

Consulting – *Contact for fee

Workshops, Speaking Engagements   *Contact for fee

Resources – Booklets for K-8 range from $4

Marsha Johnson – Waldorf Home Educators/Shining Star School:

http://shiningstarschool.com/

Workshops –   *Held at Shining Star School in Portland, Oregon

Resources –   *See Files section of forum, Curriculum overview $30

Forum – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorfhomeeducators/

Melisa Nielsen – A Little Garden Flower:

http://alittlegardenflower.com/

Consulting – *Contact for fee

Workshops, Speaking Engagements – *Contact for fee

Resources – Curriculum guides K-5 from $15, DVD, Audio, Handcrafts

Forum – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/homeschoolingwaldorf/

Blog – http://www.waldorfjourney.typepad.com/

Blog – http://www.alittlegardenflower.blogspot.com/

Podcasts – http://www.thegnomeshome.com/

Donna Simmons – Christopherus Homeschool:

http://christopherushomeschool.org/

Consulting – *Contact for fee, do be aware she has several experienced Waldorf homeschooling mothers also working with her on consultations.

Workshops, Speaking Engagements    *Contact for fee

Resources – Curriculum guides from $125, Subject guides from $10, Audio from $14

Forum – http://www.waldorf-at-home.com/forums/    *Cost $15/three months

Blog – http://christopherushomeschool.typepad.com/blog/

Blog – http://christopherushomeschool.typepad.com/highschool/

Eugene Schwartz – Millennial Child:

http://millennialchild.com

Consulting   *Contact for fee

Workshops, Speaking Engagements – Summer Intensives and other workshops  *Contact for fees

Resources – CD-Rom guides from $17.50, Audio lectures from $17.50

Rainbow Rosenbloom/Bruce Bischof – Live Education:

http://live-education.com/

Consulting: Basic included with curriculum, $90/three hours

Workshops, Speaking Engagements   *Contact for fee

Resources – Curriculum guides K-8 from $360

Forum – Clients only

Hope this helps you as you organize and plan your Waldorf homeschooling experience. 

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world, with thanks to my friend!

The Importance of Breastfeeding in the First Few Days

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Okay, here is my second mini-rant of the day:  Colostrum and its benefits!

For those of you who are not as familiar with the early days of breastfeeding, this is what happens within the breasts:  Lactogenesis I occurs midway through pregnancy as estrogen causes the ductal system to grow and progesterone increases the size of lobes, lobules, and alveoli of the breast.  Most women have colostrum during pregnancy.  Lactogenesis II occurs with the sudden drop in progesterone after birth and the  mature human milk comes in within three to five days after giving birth.  There may be a mix of  colostrum/mature milk for up to two weeks post partum

Colostrum has many advantages.  At birth, the infant’s stomach is the size of a marble.  Colostrum is readily available in small amounts to match this.  Colostrum has a laxative effect and promotes the passage of meconium in the early days after birth.

Colostrum contains 60 components, 30 of which are exclusive to human milk.  Some of the most important components for the early days include:

  • Secretory IgA (sIgA), which paints the lining of the stomach and intestines.  This important immunoglobin protects the mucosal membranes in the body from germs, foreign proteins, and harmful invaders. Even as colostrum decreases and the volume of mature milk increases, there is still plenty of sIgA. A woman produces about 2.5 grams of IgA daily for her own use; a baby, who is less than 1/10th of the mother’s  size, receives .5 gram to one full gram while nursing.  Even past the first birthday, there are significant amounts of IgA in the milk and the concentrations of this immunoglobin increase during weaning. The presence of IgA stimulates the infant’s own gastrointestinal production of IgA.
  • High amounts of sodium, potassium, chloride and cholesterol
  • High in protein –three times higher than mature milk
  • Live cells in colostrum, which  survive in the baby’s GI tract and secrete growth factors, hormones and immune regulators.
  • White cells – there are as many live white cells in colostrum as there are in blood in the early weeks
  • Lactoferrin, the main protein in human milk.  Lactoferrin kills certain kinds of bacteria, viruses, fungi and tumor cells.
  • Oligosaccharides, which prevent bacteria from binding itself to surfaces in the respiratory tract.

Do keep in mind these benefits of exclusively breastfeeding your infant within the early days of life:

  • Helps mature milk come in earlier
  • Decreases severity of engorgement
  • Enhances milk supply
  • Helps uterus to involute
  • Bolsters mother’s confidence that she can be the sole provider for her infant
  • Gives mother plenty of practice
  • Prevents nipple confusion
  • Baby can practice at breast on small amounts of fluid before mature milk comes in
  • Colostrum’s supply of IgA coats the mucous membranes of the linings of the digestive tract, keeping harmful pathogens out and helping to activate the infant’s own immune system
  • Colostrum is high in protein, concentrated in volume,  and is easily digestible
  • Colostrum acts as a laxative and minimizes risk of jaundice
  • Assists with bonding and attachment

There are times when supplementation is necessary after birth but please do understand the risks of supplementing with artificial infant milk.  Even one bottle of artificial infant milk can sensitize a newborn to cow’s milk protein.  Formula changes the gut flora by breaking down the mucosal barrier colostrum provides and allows pathogens and allergens to enter. 

So, please have an open dialogue with your health care team if they are advocating supplementation for your healthy, full-term newborn.   Know what levels of bilirubin and blood glucose your baby has, and how breastfeeding can help.  Understand how to nurse your baby with a good latch, and how nursing your baby at least nine to 12  times within a 24- hour period is more likely to lead to breastfeeding success and satisfactory outcomes.  Talk to your pediatrician before you give birth as to what scenarios they would advocate supplementation for and why.  If you are giving birth in a hospital, know your hospital’s policies regarding supplementation of term infants.

Hope this will help some of you out there.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Extended Breastfeeding: Breastfeeding Beyond A Year

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Okay, here is my mini-rant of the day!  I have had three separate mothers come and talk to me about their pediatricians telling them that human milk has no nutritive value after the first year of an infant’s life!  I cannot believe these pediatricians are in practice, I really can’t.  This is such misinformation to be spreading, and while these particular mothers were educated enough to know this isn’t true, what about the mothers who do not know the facts, hear this, and prematurely wean their child based on this information? 

So, let’s talk about the facts.  If you want to breastfeed your child beyond a year, here are some facts about the advantages of extended nursing.

First of all, many organizations around the world recommend nursing beyond a year:

  • The World Health Organization recommends nursing for a minimum of two years.
  • The United Nations Children’s Fund also recommends a minimum of two years.
  • The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends nursing for at least a year and for as long after that as is “mutually desirable”.
  • And the best organization, the organization of motherhood,  has this to say :  the estimated median age of weaning throughout the world is between three to five YEARS.

Why Breastfeed Beyond a Year?

  • At one year of age, a baby’s immune system is functioning only at 60 percent of the adult levels. A child’s immune system is not fully functioning at adult levels until six years of age. Nursing toddlers grow better and have better resistance to infection.
  • In particular, secretory IgA, an immunoglobin, appears to remain low for the first 18 months of a child’s life, so breastfeeding is an important source of this immunoglobin.  Breastmilk contains IgA, IgG and IgM to augment a child’s immune system until it is functioning at optimal levels.  Human milk still contains nutrients, growth hormone factors and immunoglobins after the infant is one year of age.
  • From the wonderful site www.kellymom.com:  “Human milk expressed by mothers who have been lactating for >1 year has significantly increased fat and energy contents, compared with milk expressed by women who have been lactating for shorter periods. During prolonged lactation, the fat energy contribution of breast milk to the infant diet might be significant.”
    — Mandel 2005
  • Also from www.kellymom.com:  “Breast milk continues to provide substantial amounts of key nutrients well beyond the first year of life, especially protein, fat, and most vitamins.”
    — Dewey 2001
  • In the second year (12-23 months), 448 mL of breastmilk provides:
    • 29% of energy requirements
    • 43% of protein requirements
    • 36% of calcium requirements
    • 75% of vitamin A requirements
    • 76% of folate requirements
    • 94% of vitamin B12 requirements
    • 60% of vitamin C requirements

    — Dewey 2001

  • Studies done in rural Bangladesh have shown that [human milk] continues to be an important source of vitamin A in the second and third year of life.
    — Persson 1998
  • Better skin.
  • There is no easier way to comfort a sick child.  A sick child will almost always nurse, even if they are not eating.
  • Nursing may help improve the dental arch
  • Comfort nursing can be a fundamental part and advantage of nursing a toddler.
  • Enjoyment of  the connection and closeness with your child!  Closeness and loving attachment are very important for all babies, children and teens, but the turbulent toddler years provide a special opportunity for love and reassurance that nursing can provide.
  • Norma Jean Bumgarner writes in the LLLI book “Mothering Your Nursing Toddler” :  “Some children are very shy and tend to withdraw from close interaction with people, even mother.  The shy child who is still nursing has a ready-made assertive behavior – asking to nurse-  that can help him learn how to get his other needs met, too.  Other children are so active that nursing is the only quiet, calm time in their busy waking hours.”

The Myths Surrounding Extended Nursing:

  • “If a child can ask to nurse, there is something wrong with doing so.”

THE FACT:  If we biologically compare human mammals to other mammals, the natural weaning age would be somewhere between 2.5 years and 7 years.  Please see this article by Katherine Dettwyler here: http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detwean.html.  This article will clear up many of the biological comparisons for you regarding the physiological age of weaning.

  • “Once a child no longer needs mother’s milk solely for nutritional purposes, there is no sense in breastfeeding.”   or “Your child should be drinking whole milk now instead of human milk.”

THE FACT:  While human milk does not provide all the nutrients a nursing child may need, see the truth regarding the child’s immune system in the above section and the benefits human milk provides. 

Norma Jean Bumgarner does write in her book, “If your child eats very little besides your milk and is anywhere past his first birthday, you should make a point of offering foods that are rich in minerals.  The little bit he eats should not be cheese or other dairy products that contribute nothing beyond what he is already getting from your milk.  His food should be mineral-rich and easy for people his age to eat, foods like tender meat, eggs, raisins, dried apricots, and foods made with wheat germ, including whole-grain breads……..Except for making iron-rich food attractive to your child his second or third year, it is usually best to trust your child’s preference for nursing or for eating.”

If you are concerned regarding Vitamin D and extended nursing in your toddler, please see this link from La Leche League International: http://www.llli.org/Release/vitamind.html  and here: http://www.llli.org/NB/NBJulAug04p124.html

  • “Your child would eat more solid food if you would just wean him.”

THE FACT:  Norma Jean Bumgarner writes in “Mothering Your Nursing Toddler”:  “Children in the second and third years are notorious for eating nothing, or so it seems to mother….[Nursing] should be more a comfort than a worry that a child has a regular source of nutritious food through nursing.”

  • “After a certain point, the nursing relationship is more for the mother than the child.” (This is especially said regarding 4, 5 year olds who still nurse)

THE FACT:  Uh, any mother who has nursed a child in this age range can tell you it is not for the mother….The child still wants to nurse, and the child is the other person within this relationship.  How would your child react if you tried to stop now?   As a parent you weigh your child’s need for nursing, connection and closeness to you with your own feelings and needs and come up with a plan that hopefully works for the both of you.  Look at your child and see what happy confidence is there from extended nursing, and go from there.

  • “Extended nursing will spoil a child.”

THE FACT:  Just based upon historical accounts of nursing children all over the world, we know the most treasured, precious children were nursed the longest so they would not be afflicted with the diseases that sometimes accompanied weaning; so I guess in that sense extended nursing does spoil your child (because preventing illness and death is obviously spoiling, LOL).

ANOTHER THOUGHT:  Children come into this world without inhibitions about their bodies or other people’s bodies. Extended nursing gives them an opportunity as they grow to learn boundaries of when nursing is accepted and when it is not.  Nursing often provides the first opportunities to practice gentle discipline and set boundaries while guiding and teaching your child.

  • “A toddler who is still nursing is too dependent on his or her mother.”

THE FACT:  See the comment above.  People who are critical of breastfeeding often say things such as that.  Above all, realize it is not other people’s  business and in fact, you do not have to mention your child is still nursing if you do not want to!  Talk to people who will support you and be encouraging!

A toddler or even early preschooler is still a very young child.  This child would be dependent upon you whether you were still nursing them or not!

  • “If you weaned your child, your child would not be (insert behavior here)”

THE FACT:  It is interesting how whatever behavior comes up, this is due to and completely caused by  breastfeeding whereas bottle feeding is never mentioned as a cause of behavior.  Funny how the world works, ain’t it??

  • “Comfort nursing encourages the toddler to turn to food for comfort”

THE FACT:  The composition and quality of human milk (along with the quantity) changes throughout a twenty four hour period and within a feeding.  Many times toddlers nurse for comfort for only a few minutes and are off and running again; they are not sitting down to the eight-course nursing buffet the way a one-month-old does!

Handling Pressure to Wean

If a one year old is still not walking, chances are a pediatrician will reassure mother that the unfolding of this skill will happen in time and not to worry. Weaning is also a biological function and yet we think nothing of encouraging a child to wean. Weaning in the United States often does not have the same dangers as it does in other parts of the world, but it still deserves thought and respect as an important rite of passage in a child’s life.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.