Skinship

What is skinship?

The concept of skinship was described by Debbie Treijs in the Mothering magazine (september, 1999)...

"Skinship is a Japanese/English word developed during a World Health Organization meeting in Japan in 1940. It describes the physical closeness between a mother and her child. When a child receives an abundance of skinship, the child is better able to handle stressful situations and will mature into an emotionally stable adult."

She goes beyond presenting the importance of physical contact between the mother and a child by introducing a Japanese phylosophy of childhood and parenting. They have an old saying stating that the first three years in a child's life are believed to be the most critical to their development as an adult. During those early, formative years, two basic needs must always be met: food and security. The need for food or nourishment is met through breastfeeding and a healthy diet from the mother; the need for security is satisfied through "skinship."

I am learning more and more about Japanese culture every day and I will share some insights with you in the following posts.

Greetings from fantastic and incredibly baby-friendly Tokyo :-)

Your competent child by Jesper Juul

I am reading Your competent child for the second time already. It is simply fantastic. I could easily write a post for each page in this book, but I will try first to just give you a short review in order to inspire you to read it. It is a life-changing book.

 

Jesper Juul, an internationally renown family therapist from Denmark, starts this book by explaining how the family structure has changed over the years and that we are at important crossroads. He explains why family shouldn’t be built on authoritarian force or democratic tyranny anymore but should rather encourage dignity and reciprocity between parent and child. He argues that children are competent to express their feelings from birth, and they are eager to cooperate. Even more, if they have to choose between preserving their own integrity and cooperation, they would almost always choose to cooperate with us. It is thus the parents who must “teach them how to look after themselves when they are interacting with others”. This book constantly reminds us to listen to and learn from our children. As one reviewer wrote on Amazon.com: “This is a book that helps you see with a child's eye, hear with a child's ear, and feel with a child's heart in ways that feel so natural and obvious, you will wonder why you haven't thought of them before. But trust me, you haven't”.

 

In this beautiful book author is using numerous real-life examples from his experience that bring his ideas even closer to our heart. He challenges parents to see parenting as an exciting time of growth and development. I couldn’t agree more with the reviewer who wrote: “This groundbreaking book should be on the shelf of all parents everywhere. If you read only one book on raising your child, this is the one.”

I can promise you that after finishing reading it you will want to read it again. First time I was reading it I was going through the lines as a child, analysing relationship with my parents. And only this time I am reading it from the parent’s perspective, learning even more about this magic but complex relationship that make us a family.

 

I recommended this book to many of my friends and I got couple of beautiful emails from them thanking me for pointing them to Juul. One friend wrote: “Juul is great. A real revelation. It is something that you already know deep down in your heart. But here it is…black on white, with examples. /…/ I can not thank you enough. And when my son grows up he will draw a picture for you, because this book has changed our lives.”

 

If you are interested you can read more about Jesper Juul and his Family Lab.

What does it take to become "PhD Mom"?

- 10.000 hours of dedicated reading, field research, data analysis and writing, editing, writing, deleting, writing, writing, writing...
- not going to sleep before 2 or 3 a.m. for several months (and waking up at 7 in the morning when one little boy is already fresh and full of energy)
- crying because you don't (yet) have a clue about statistics and your data is completely the opposite of what you've expected
- developing sound theoretical models during breastfeeding (yes, oxytocin helps you to relax and sometimes get some great ideas :-)
- editing your text while playing on the playground with your kid
- living in a complete chaos: no bills payed for the last couple of months, livingroom looks like a national archive after an eartquake and I can not find any of my personal belongings anymore

- 200something pages of text that is supposed to make sense and in someway contribute to science?!

I have submitted my PhD dissertation today and I am so tired that I can not even celebrate. I am going straight to bed to hug my little monkey and finally have a good night sleep.

I really want to thank you all for the unconditional support in the last four years. Especially those of you who had to live with me on those bad "PhD days" :-)))

Anja

Breastfeeding brings more night sleep

Recent Study by Therese Doan, Annelise Gardiner, Caryl Gay and Kathreen Lee reveals that breastfeeding brings more night sleep for parents. In their paper published in the Journal of Perinatal and Neonatal Nursing they explain that parents of infants who were breastfed slept an average 40 minutes more than parents of formula fed babies.

After reading the report of this study in the Mothering Magazine I did a simple pool among my friends and we agreed that in general breastfed babies do eat more often during the night than formula fed babies, but breastfeeding mothers (who are also co-sleeping) do not need to fully awake for nursing. I just pull a shirt and roll on the side...and fall back asleep while the little one has his snack or is calming down after a bad dream.

And every new mother knows how precious are those 40 minutes :-)