The Baby Calmer | Brand

The Baby Calmer

Phone: +61 420 942 256

Add/Update information

Reviews

Tags

• Other
• Brand
• Website
• Mental health service
• Health & wellness website
• Counsellor

25.01.2022 The Defense Cascade and the Cumulative Effect of Controlled Crying on a Baby's Nervous System: The defense cascade is a sequence of responses that escalate as a function of defense during a traumatic event. The individual 'cascade of defense stages' a controlled cried baby has endured, will eventually repeat itself every time the original fear network is activated again. When a parasympathetically dominated 'shutdown' becomes the prominent response to separation from a caregi...Continue reading

24.01.2022 How long did you wait to bath baby after birth? That first bath is pretty special, but delaying it as long as possible is recommended. Keep all the goodness on ...baby's skin and just wash baby down with a cloth around the nappy area and any areas where those little rolls are collecting excess milk. 12 hours is suggested here, but some mothers are waiting days or weeks before that first bath as studies show this is beneficial for breastfeeding and keeping all that goodness protecting baby's skin! See more

21.01.2022 Shaping and Reshaping Our Relational Blueprints Attachment theory pioneer, John Bowlby (1907 1990), introduced the formal term ‘attachment’ to define the ...deep and enduring emotional bond that connects infants and their primary caregivers. Although bonding usually suggests a more instantaneous or at least shorter term process, attachment suggests a more complex, developmental process, which occurs over time. Bowlby believed that when infants form attachments with their primary caregivers, their unique bond provided an internal working model, or blueprint, of how their needs for safety and security can be met. Bowlby also believed that the early attachments, and attachment challenges that babies experience during the critical periods of development, can strongly influence the relational blueprints (patterns of attachment) they will encounter in later relationships with their parents and siblings, as well as their future friends, peers, partners and children. During the first few years of life, babies gradually develop the ability to display a complete range of attachment behaviours, such as protesting when their mother leaves, excitedly greeting them upon their return, steadfastly clinging to their primary caregivers when frightened, and curiously shadowing their caregiver’s every move, when able. These attachment behaviours are instinctual, and rooted in the biological fact that proximity to a primary caregiver, is essential to survival. This intimate physical and relational connection helps to create what Bowlby called a ‘Secure Base.’ Bowlby ultimately identified four distinct characteristics that are essential for an infant to form a healthy attachment with a parent or caregiver. These characteristics are: safe haven proximity maintenance separation distress and secure base Anne Thistleton | The Baby Calmer @oaka___ (on Instagram) Read the full article around this topic in Nurture's Issue 22! Subscribe today

21.01.2022 An overview of how Somatic Sleep Support helps parents support their infant, toddler or young child’s sleep ...

20.01.2022 HOW IS THE BABY CALMER DIFFERENT? Regardless of what some sleep 'experts' may argue, there really is no 'magic' solution to solving a baby, toddler or young child's sleep issues. The Baby Calmer can confidently share with you that the majority of sleep solutions that are currently being peddled by largely unqualified or highly under qualified 'baby whisperers / baby trainers / sleep consultants' are not only harmful to the physical and emotional development and well-being of ...Continue reading

16.01.2022 Anne Thistleton: The Baby Calmer ...

15.01.2022 As a pre, peri, postnatal, and attachment trauma therapist, and play therapist, I’m always on the lookout for toys that can therapeutically support curiosity, story telling and healing - in relation to conception, life in the womb, and birth.

14.01.2022 How sleep training and sleep consultants contribute to BETRAYAL TRAUMA in babies: A baby or young child's autonomic nervous system is programmed to identify allies. Their ANS recognises mother as all-important for biological survival. Father, siblings, grandparents and other caregivers ... including trusted professionals ... are also essential resources. Although the infant and early years ANS is programmed to expect protection and nurturing from these allies, when a threat c...omes from one of these supposed allies, the ANS response becomes more problematic. Unexpected threat or pain from an ally is a form of betrayal trauma, which often sets the stage for lifelong complications. When there is intense fear and urgency in a baby's environment, such as what a baby would experience during sleep training ie controlled crying, responsive settling, timed retreats, gradual withdrawal, gradual retreats, comfort settling, shuffles, etc ... instead of trust and relaxation, the ANS begins its stress response sequences. Babies will naturally turn to the social branch of the ANS as their first stress response strategy. In this state, a baby will search for the expected comfort and protection of their mother, or other significant and available allies. When this comfort and protection is intermittent, or non existent, babies then devolve to their second stress response option, the sympathetic branch. This manifests as agitation, darting eye movements or urgent crying. But babies have few resources for sympathetic, since the muscles are not yet fully developed; and a baby cannot fight or flee. So a third and final card must now be played; the parasympathetic stress response. This strategy is about imobilisation ... 'playing possum' ... in the hope that the threat will pass. Sleep consultants refer to this stage of the controlled crying process as 'sleep'! But these babies are far from sleeping. Not only have they experienced betrayal trauma; they are now stuck in the most primitive ANS state, and are prime targets for long lasting ANS disturbances over their lifetime (adapted from John Chitty, 2016)

14.01.2022 No SLEEP TRAINING offered (that's my guarantee!) ... just SAFE, , SOMATIC-BASED, EMOTION-FOCUSED, TRAUMA INFORMED, THERAPEUTICALLY SOUND, ATTACHMENT THEORY and RESEARCH VALIDATED, SLEEP SUPPORT for you and your baby, toddler or young child ... Any practitioner with an appropriate understanding of the workings of the mother-infant attachment and bonding process, the neuropsychobiology of infant development and the impact of early trauma, would never recommend any form of ‘slee...Continue reading

10.01.2022 There could not be enough space on paper to express in writing what healing miracles we have experienced on our journey with Anne Thistleton, The Baby Calmer. Anne comes highly qualified and holds a wealth of knowledge, that goes without saying. What really sets her apart is her absolute immersion in holding space and allowing a field of healing to emerge from the subconscious, no matter what arises. Not only for us as individuals but as a family collective. ... My child and I have been gifted a second chance at our relationship. It is what I like to call a rewritten path where we have literally been able to start from the beginning and heal our birth trauma at the very core - thanks to Anne’s expertise. Nothing in this world is more valuable to me. Because of that I will forever feel blessed beyond words and recommend Anne to anyone. In my eyes, any baby or child that happens upon Anne’s help has been privy to a divine intervention. Anne has also been an instrumental support in guiding me through my own childhood trauma and how that was impacting my parenting. My only regret is that I didn’t know about Anne before my daughter’s birth. She has seen us at our absolute worst and watched us rise and fall, then rise and fall again and again throughout our ongoing healing. She has accepted us in a way that can only be known internally and not expressed outwardly. If there is anything at all where you are asking if things could be better for your family, do yourself and your children a favour and contact Anne. Her help has been life changing for us both individually and as a family. J.S Brisbane

09.01.2022 SOMATIC SLEEP SUPPORT ... How can Somatic Experiencing help parents support their infant, toddler or young child's sleep challenges? Somatic Experiencing can be well integrated with infant and early years sleep therapy, adding a richness and depth to the work, by providing a more primary focus on the physiological, emotional and cognitive aspects of a young child's challenging experience of sleep. In the SE (Somatic Experiencing) model, infant and early years sleep challenges... can be resolved by acknowledging and supporting nervous system dysregulation. In babies, toddlers and young children, nervous system dysregulation can occur as a result of everyday stressors, along with traumatic experiences such as pre and perinatal trauma, bonding disruption, or medical trauma. The primary focus of supporting infant and early years sleep issues with SE, is to restore the nervous system to a natural state of regulation. Safe sleep support, from an SE perspective, teaches parents how to watch, listen, slow down, notice, and explore their child's challenging sleep presentations. They can learn how to be curious, and how to help their baby or young child access what is happening inside, at the physiological and emotional level, and empathically and compassionately assist them to co-regulate and restore their system back to an organic level of functioning. This process also helps parents to grow in self-mastery, with the SE sleep therapist as merely the guide. By using SE to help support and repair infant and early years sleep issues, the techniques are presented at a pace that helps babies, toddlers and young children to avoid flooding, compensating or dissociating. An infant or young child's nervous system cannot cope with being rushed. Supporting a young nervous system requires lots of slowing down, pausing, allowing, emotion, sensation, bodily reaction, impulse, and defensive reaction to be felt and processed. Models such as cry it out and controlled crying work in the opposite way. They flood tiny, under-developed nervous systems with harmful and toxic doses of cortisol, leaving vulnerable babies in an unsafe, dissociated state known as dorsal vagal shutdown. Somatic sleep support can also be integrated within in a range of other therapeutic approaches such as: somatic touch, sandplay therapy, interactive drawing therapy, play therapy, filial therapy, clinical birth trauma therapy, brainspotting, infant and early years sleep therapy, craniosacral therapy and aromatherapy.

08.01.2022 Is it an emotional cry or a protest cry?! Sleep consultants and parenting experts who encourage parents to believe that they need to determine whether or not their baby's cry is an emotional cry or a protest cry, before deciding whether or not to respond, would never make such recommendations or claims if they had an appropriate education and / or understanding of the role and function of the amygdala, or the role and function of the nervous system, in relation to crying and ...stress. Babies cry to communicate. When babies cry, they are communicating that something is not right for them ... that their nervous system cannot cope with the level of stress they are currently facing. They are alerting their caregivers that they have reached their capacity for overwhelm. They are alerting their caregivers of their need for empathy, comfort and support ... and their need for nervous system regulation. They are 'literally' crying to connect and crying to survive!!! All crying in babies is elicited via the amygdala. The amygdala is the stress and fear centre of the brain. When a baby is crying, the amygdala is not saying 'oh, don't bother responding to this alarm'! The amygdala is saying 'the system is in overwhelm, and it needs immediate support'. When a baby's cry is not responded to, and the crying stops, it does not mean that a baby no longer needs help and support ... or that it was never needed. It does not mean that a baby has learned sleep skills! It means that a baby's survival instincts have been ignored, and that the baby's nervous system has been forced into shutdown. According to Dr Bryan Post, "so many books invest so much time defining these cries. What is that about? What is the purpose? What difference does it make the reason for the cry? These books present ideas about the purpose of a baby's cry as if it's brain were developed enough to have intention beyond survival. The cry is a cry to be soothed and comforted". How we respond to a baby's cry, ought leave a baby feeling safer, more comfortable, more secure, and more deeply seen and loved. A baby's cry is the call of distress! A baby's cry is the call of attachment! Crying is the SOS of every human being ... that we have exceeded our window of tolerance; and that we need to be in connection with our loving source. Controlled crying does not leave babies feeling safe, secure and loved. Controlled crying leaves babies feeling overwhelmed, highly stressed, traumatised. A controlled cried baby is NOT a sleeping baby. A controlled cried baby is in dorsal vagal shutdown. Don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise!

07.01.2022 My lovely client and her two year old made me a beautiful, healthy birthday cake, and some homemade granola. So blessed

06.01.2022 Trauma and the Science Behind Somatic Experiencing: Trauma may begin as acute stress from a perceived life-threat or as the end product of cumulative stress. Both types of stress can seriously impair a person's ability to function with resilience and ease. Trauma may result from a wide variety of stressors such as accidents, invasive medical procedures, sexual or physical assault, emotional abuse, neglect, war, natural disasters, loss, birth trauma, or the corrosive stressor...s of ongoing fear and conflict. SE teaches that trauma is not caused by the event itself, but rather develops through the failure of the body, psyche, and nervous system to process adverse events. In his studies, Dr. Levine found that prey animals in the wild are rarely traumatized despite routine threats to their lives. Yet human beings are readily traumatized. Since humans and other animals possess nearly identical brain- and body-based survival mechanisms, Dr. Levine worked to identify what was interfering with the human threat-recovery process, and to develop tools for restoring people's innate capacity to rebound following overwhelming experiences. All mammals automatically regulate survival responses from the primitive, non-verbal brain, mediated by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Under threat, massive amounts of energy are mobilized in readiness for self-defense via the fight, flight, and freeze responses. Once safe, animals spontaneously "discharge" this excess energy through involuntary movements including shaking, trembling, and deep spontaneous breaths. This discharge process resets the ANS, restoring equilibrium. Although humans are similarly designed to rebound from high-intensity survival states, we also have the problematic ability to neo-cortically override the natural discharge of excess survival energy. Through rationalizations, judgments, shame, enculturation, and fear of our bodily sensations, we may disrupt our innate capacity to self-regulate, functionally "recycling" disabling terror and helplessness. When the nervous system does not reset after an overwhelming experience, sleep, cardiac, digestion, respiration, and immune system function can be seriously disturbed. Unresolved physiological distress can also lead to an array of other physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral symptoms. Anne Thistleton is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and offers Somatic Experiencing sessions at both her clinic and via online sessions.

05.01.2022 Some Friday musical inspiration for all the Mums out there ... you are strong, you are invincible, you are woman!!!

04.01.2022 Do babies need therapy? Babies will always show us the place that was difficult for them, and they need our support as they share their story with us. Watch as Matthew Appleton describes some of the ways that I might work with babies too!!!

03.01.2022 A little Christmas humor.

01.01.2022 Here is a sneak preview of the article I wrote for Nurture ~ Natural Parenting Magazine Issue 22!

01.01.2022 The Safe and Sound Protocol is now available ... I will be posting more on this amazing therapeutic tool in the coming weeks.

01.01.2022 Such a WOW moment in a therapy session this morning!!! Attunement, in a therapeutic relationship refers to the therapist being able to attune to one’s self and also to the client. When working with clients, a somatically trained therapist attempts to focus on connecting with what their client might be feeling like, and allowing their state of mind (and body) to be influenced by the client. This alignment, allows the therapist to have an experience - as close as possible -... to what their client’s world is like, in that moment. You can imagine mine and my client’s shock and surprise when I invited my client to choose two coloured pencils to represent two opposing sensations. So that I could demonstrate the task that I thought might be helpful for my client, I randomly chose two colours from my crayon container, then held up the crayons to ‘air draw’ the pattern she had communicated earlier. All of sudden, my client gasped and giggled with glee. She excitedly held up her selected colours, which she already had in her hands, revealing that she had chosen the EXACT SAME colours as me. Ordinarily, this would be quite a significant shock and surprise. What made it even more jaw dropping ... is that fact that this session was being held online, and I am in Brisbane, Australia, and the client was in Wellington, New Zealand!!!