In this week’s episode of Voices of Your Village I dove into part two of our adoption series. I had the opportunity to chat with birth mom, Annaleece, about her experience being pregnant with her birth daughter, making the decision to place Charlie for adoption, and the relationship that she has with her now. 

Annaleece shared the circumstances that led to her becoming pregnant at the age of 17. Having experienced sexual abuse, Annaleece was working through that trauma. She moved out of her parents’ house and soon after she found out she was pregnant. Initially, adoption wasn’t on her radar. Her relationship with the birth father wasn’t ideal, but she...

In this week’s episode, I dove into the first part of our adoption series with adoptive parent Shelby Dickinson.  Shelby lives in California with her husband and two children. Her 3-year-old son Owen is adopted. She shared with me the process of Owen’s open adoption and the dynamic that she has worked to establish with his birth mom and family. 

Shelby and her husband had a unique experience with Owen’s adoption. From the time they first started pursuing adoption, to the time that they had Owen in their arms was only 7.5 weeks. Adoption is typically a multi-year process. They did use a facilitator rather than an agency, which does tend to speed...

In this episode of Voices of Your Village, I was jazzed to connect with my long-time colleague Teresa Stewart to chat all about nap transitions. Teresa has master's degrees in both child development and maternal and child health. She has always been passionate about supporting children and families. Although she worked in policy and advocacy early on in her career, her own experience of motherhood led her to more direct education and support work. She spent many years teaching classes and overseeing programs for a company called Isis Parenting. Suddenly the company closed, overnight. This eventually led to starting her current business running online groups, sleep consulting,...

In this week’s episode of Voices of Your Village, I’m chatting all about sleep and why sleep is so crucial not only for our health as parents and caregivers but also for the health of our tiny humans! Sleep gives your heart and blood vessels a break. It is the time when the body can slow down enough to repair and heal. While we sleep, the chemicals flowing in our bodies strengthen and fortify the immune system. It’s when your body recharges and refuels. Sleep is also the time when your brain clears out unnecessary information that you don’t need to remember and stores things into long term memory that you do want to remember. 

I also dive into...

In this week’s episode, I had the opportunity to chat with Barbara Demske, IBCLC, about all things breastfeeding. Barbara experienced immense challenges while nursing her first son. That difficult journey became the catalyst that drove her to become an IBCLC to offer support to new moms who may be struggling to meet their breastfeeding goals. She is the face behind @firstlatch on Instagram and offers e-consultations. Barb and I dove right into all of the questions ya’ll sent my way!

What is normal, in terms of breastfeeding, for a newborn? When will my milk come in? 

Barb recommends getting some sort of prenatal breastfeeding education. This can be...

In this week's episode I dove into something I call the triangle of the growth. When I’m looking at tiny human development I’m looking at three things. I’m looking at the sensory system, emotional development, and at speech and language. These systems are incredibly interconnected and in order to get a full picture of development, we really need to consider all three. 

We all use our sensory system all day long, every single day. The feeling of a chair supporting our bodies, the sound of music playing in the car, the feeling of our clothes on our skin. All of these things are processed by our sensory system. If the sensory system is overloaded and...

This week I was jazzed to chat with triplet mom Desiree Fortin about parenting with the grandparents. Two months before Desiree gave birth to their triplets, she and her husband Ryan moved in with her parents. Desiree shared that she was on bedrest and Ryan was working so living with her parents and having her mom take care of her was a real blessing. 

Desiree shares that when her triplets were born her parents sacrificed so much and were totally hands-on in taking care of the babies. The triplets were all diagnosed with GERD and in addition to needing to eat throughout the night, they also needed to be held upright for 30 minutes after each feeding. Her parents dove...

In this week’s episode of Voices of Your Village, I got raw and vulnerable about my experience with anxiety as a rape survivor. After I was raped, I became stuck in a cycle of fear. My anxiety consumed me. Years later, with a wonderful support system, and with the help of therapy, I feel like I am thriving and no longer living in fear. 

An integral part of working through my anxiety was learning to identify triggers. Triggers are things that the brain associates with something else, things that bring back the traumatic experience. My triggers were basements, walking downstairs, button-down jeans, and being alone in a room with a male. Things like having a male massage...

In this week’s episode of Voices of Your Village, I was excited to chat with Anna Sweeney and Meg Steffey Schrier about body positivity and the body positivity movement. Anna is a registered dietitian, eating disorder dietitian, and intuitive eating counselor. She also happens to live in a disabled body, giving her a unique perspective on body positivity. Meg is a registered dietitian, mom of two young kids, sports dietitian, and is especially passionate about the way we talk to our children about our bodies. We dove into the reality of our relationships with our bodies, what body positivity really means, and how the body positivity movement fits into a healthy body...

2018, what a year! Am I right?! Holy moly, you guys, I cannot believe how much happened this year. In this Voices of Your Village episode I am diving into all the amazing things of 2018, the hard stuff this year, and what we have in store for 2019.

Voices of Your Village Podcast

Uhhh, did you know that a year ago this didn’t exist? Not just the podcast itself, but even the idea of doing a podcast was not occupying my brain. In January 2019 I said to Zach, “I would just get to hang out with people and talk about early childhood. That’s amazing. It turns out that’s not all that goes into running a podcast. In fact, we pay a decent chunk of money to...