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Readers Respond: What was one struggle you had with your newborn and how did you overcome it?

Though they may be bundles of joys, caring for newborns also comes with plenty of struggles, including sleepless nights, difficulties with breastfeeding, crying, and bouts of colic. When we asked about the struggles of looking after your newborn, here’s what you had to say. Rosemary Moreland - My youngest had no idea about breastfeeding. It took a month of dedication to the art before he caught on. Moira Thurgood - My second babe cried continuously for ten months. I just had to be patient and hope things would improve. Christine Veitch - My first baby would scream and hold her breath with wind pain (when) I was breastfeeding her. I stopped eating peas and her wind went away. Mick Gilbert - Colic, she eventually grew out of it nine months later… Marianne Prendergast - Colic with the first, eczema with the second, can’t remember if there was anything with the other two. Lizze Bartlett - She didn’t sleep much and the longest would be an hour and a half. Dan Robinson - My son had colic for 14 months and all you could do is hold him. Then he got quiet. It was a nightmare but my other two boys were great. To read what else you said, head <a href="https://www.facebook.com/oversixtyNZ/posts/pfbid0NA58pWtU6rh4zU4i1ok3GFXYUPMjUMcESbHDxFpr3WfhwaAiNJMb4HdAC51yvNMQl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. Image: Getty Images

Caring

A call out to all 'mum shamers'

Michelle Branch – a popular celebrity mum is calling out ‘mum shamers’ after copping backlash for breastfeeding in public. On Tuesday, the singer took to Twitter after a trip to a playground left her “fuming”. “I just got shamed by another mother (who was holding her own young infant!) for nursing my six-week old baby on a bench at a playground while my toddler was playing,” she said. “She said I wasn’t ‘being modest’. I am in shock that this kind of judgement was coming from a fellow mum!” Fans were quick to weigh in on the situation, with one user saying “A woman did this to my bestie at the Grammy Museum 10 years ago and I’m still mad about it.” Michelle responded, “I was in shock, so I didn’t say anything back. I’m fuming!” <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> I just got shamed by another mother (who was holding her own young infant!) for nursing my 6 week old baby on a bench at a playground while my toddler was playing 🤯 She said I wasn’t “being modest” I am in shock that this kind of judgement was coming from a fellow mom! — Michelle Branch (@michellebranch) <a href="https://twitter.com/michellebranch/status/1503835897237757956?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2022</a></blockquote> In a follow-up tweet, Michelle went into further detail regarding what unfolded: “I had a nursing tank top on and was seated away from others,” she wrote on Twitter. “It’s not like I walked into the crowd and whipped my tits out. “Being a mom is hard enough. Can we not judge one another for how we feed our babies?” Michelle gave birth to a daughter, Willie Jacquet Carney, on February 2nd with her husband Patrick Carney. The couple also have a three-year-old son, Rhys James. Michelle is best known for her 2003 Grammy-winning song Game of Love, featuring Carlos Santana. Images: Instagram

Family & Pets

Baby name theft: Mum-to-be's question sparks online debate

“What’s in a name?” the famous question goes. However, the issue might not be so simple for expecting parents looking to name their newborn, as a woman proves after sharing her baby-naming dilemma. The expectant mother, who was 39 weeks into her pregnancy, said she was toying with the idea of giving her future child a similar name to her friend’s newborn. “I hadn’t decided my baby girl name to use but recently I love a particular name that happens to be very similar to hers (her daughter is Lillian and I like the name Lilia),” she wrote on <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3687042-AIBU-To-use-a-similar-name?messages=100&pg=2" target="_blank">Mumsnet forum</a>. “Do you think it would be unreasonable for me to use this name? She picked first and it’s not exactly a name I had my heart set on from the start so I worry it might ruffle some feathers! “Can I get away with it as it’s slightly different or should I go back to the drawing board? Fingers crossed I have a boy and I won’t have to worry!” The question has sparked a debate, with many advising the mum-to-be against ‘copying’ the name. “I know no one owns a name but there are so many names out there and you already said you aren’t attached to the name and hadn't thought about it for long so it seems a bit like it’s causing drama when there is no need?” one commented. “I think it’s too similar. By all means do it, but don’t expect your friend to be impressed or happy, be prepared for her to distance herself from you,” another wrote. “I really wouldn’t if you value your friendship with this woman at all,” one added. “It’s not exactly the same name but it’s virtually identical … She might not openly admit it to you but I’d be very surprised if she wasn’t bothered and I think there will be some resentment there.” Others suggested that she shouldn’t fret over the decision. “She doesn’t own the name, it’s none of her business what you call your daughter therefore I’d always say go for it,” one wrote. “People who get precious about this clearly don’t have much going on so I’d really go with your first choice and tell her to get a grip if it was an issue!” “I think, if you have your heart set on the name then you should just use it. Life’s too short to be pandering and worrying what others will think,” another said. “Use it, she doesn’t own it. Multiple people have the same name in the world,” one chimed in. Some advised the woman to check with her friend. “Names are not unique anyway. If you love it why don’t you ask your friend what she thinks?” A few pointed out that the name Lilia is reminiscent of a sanitary towel brand. “If you weren’t too fussed about the name until recently then I would choose something else – purely from a sanitary towel point of view,” one suggested. According to Linda Murray, global editor-in-chief of BabyCenter, offspring naming can be “tricky” due to its emotional nature. “Parents spend a lot of time thinking and dreaming about their child’s name, and it’s one way they become attached to their child before they even meet him or her,” Murray told <a href="https://www.today.com/parents/s-my-child-s-name-some-parents-baby-name-theft-t75506">TODAY Parents</a>. “It’s an emotional process, so when you share your favourite baby name with someone and they ‘take’ your name, it feels like theft.”

Relationships

Why we are secretly attracted to people who look like our parents

Have you ever thought there was an uncanny family resemblance between your friend and her partner? Or wondered for a fleeting moment whether the pair walking down the road were husband and wife, or brother and sister? You might not be imagining things. Animals of many species “learn” what a suitable mate looks like based on the appearance of their parents, and so, it seems, do humans. Scientists have long known that species including birds, mammals and fish <a href="http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v82/n4/full/6885270a.html">pick mates that look similar to their parents</a>. This is known as positive sexual imprinting. For example, if a goat mother looks after a sheep baby, or a sheep mother looks after a goat baby, then those babies grow up to <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v395/n6699/abs/395229a0.html">try to mate with the species of their foster mother</a>, instead of their own. It seems humans also “learn” from our parents in a similar way. When you ask people to judge the similarities between heterosexual couples and their parents from photos, a fascinating picture emerges. Women tend on average to pick partners <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/1544/1129.short">whose faces look a bit like their fathers’</a>, while men often choose partners who <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886901001829">slightly resemble their mothers</a>. Resemblance doesn’t stop at faces – you can also see subtle similarities on average between <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/03014460.2011.635695">partner and parent height</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513802001198">hair colour, eye colour</a>, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.1980.9924331">ethnicity</a> and even <a href="https://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/2/419.full">the degree of body hair</a>. But what’s really going on here? We tend to look like our parents, so how do we know that people aren’t just picking a partner who resembles themselves? We know that such <a href="http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2009/08/12/beheco.arp107.short">self-resemblance influences partner choice</a>. But a number of studies have suggested that this can’t be the whole story. One such study of adopted women found that <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/1544/1129.short">they tended to choose husbands who looked like their adoptive fathers</a>. We also know that, in general, heterosexuals are more attracted to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513802001198">those who resemble their opposite-sex parent</a> than their same-sex parent. What’s more, research has shown that it’s not merely appearance that matters: it’s also about your relationship with that parent. People who report more <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/1544/1129.short">positive childhood relationships</a> with a parent are more likely to be <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886901001829">attracted to partners who resemble that parent</a>. Aversion versus attraction This isn’t <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/08/sigmund-freud-oedipal-complex">Freud’s Oedipus complex</a> revisited. Freud believed that children have a suppressed desire for their parents. But this branch of research doesn’t in any way show that we secretly desire our parents, just that we simply tend to be attracted to people who resemble them to some extent. If anything, we seem to find our immediate family members unattractive. For instance, people find the very idea of sexual relationships with their siblings deeply unappealing. This aversion <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7129/abs/nature05510.html">seems to develop automatically</a> through two distinct processes. One process turns off attraction to those that we spend a lot of time with during childhood. The other turns off attraction to any infants that our mother looks after a lot. Sexual aversion to siblings might be nature’s way of ensuring we don’t try to reproduce with someone who is too closely related to us and reproduction with close relatives is linked to an increased likelihood of genetic disorders in any resulting offspring. This aversion to close relatives is known as negative sexual imprinting. However, genetic sexual attraction <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2003/may/17/weekend7.weekend2">can occur between siblings</a> that have been separated and meet first as adults. But when do we develop these preferences? Perhaps we learn that our parents looks are attractive early in life, and then tuck that learning away – only to let it reemerge when we’re ready for adult relationships. Or perhaps more recent experiences override earlier learning? To test this, I asked heterosexual adult women about their relationships with their parents at different ages during their development, and I assessed how much their current preferences matched up with the appearance of their parents. I found that the women who reported a better relationship with their parents after puberty were more likely to be <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513815000598">attracted to partners with similar eye colour</a> to them. In contrast, if a woman was close to her parents earlier in life, she was actually less likely to prefer the eye colour of her parents in a partner. In science, we always like to see replications with <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7302/abs/466029a.html">different samples</a>, methodologies and research groups before we generalise findings too much. So far though, the intriguing pattern of this early study suggests that there may be complex developmental patterns underlying how we construct our idea of an ideal partner. Perhaps we are seeing the actions of both positive and negative sexual imprinting at work. But one question remains. If we’re finding preferences for parental resemblance across different populations, then what is the biological explanation for this behaviour? It turns out that coupling up with a distant family member seems to be the best bet, biologically, <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/319/5864/813.short">to produce a large number of healthy children</a>. One possibility is that if you are attracted to people who look like your parents, then chances are you may get a crush on distant relatives. This might give you better chances of more healthy children, and so this behaviour persists. Despite this research, if you were to tell me that your partner doesn’t look anything like your parents, then I wouldn’t be surprised. Parental resemblance probably isn’t at the top of anyone’s wish list. <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6734712&fileId=S0140525X00023992">Like most people</a>, you probably want a partner who is kind, intelligent and attractive. But if all else is equal, then <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/9/2p2/1/">that comfortable feeling of familiarity</a> might be enough to get a relationship underway, or <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/269/1498/1307">to maintain feelings of trust in a relationship</a>.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54590/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> Written by Tamsin Saxton, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Northumbria University, Newcastle. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-are-secretly-attracted-to-people-who-look-like-our-parents-54590">The Conversation</a>.

Relationships

Woman's hilarious fashion fail goes viral: “Definitely something I would do!”

A blogger and mum-to-be has gone viral for her all-too-relatable mistake. Lori Farrell, who is currently expecting a baby girl, shared her fashion fail story on Friday in a self-deprecating Facebook post. Included was a picture of her wearing what appeared to be a striped skirt. She wrote in the caption, "If you feel like a failure today, just know that I wore a car seat cover a friend gave me because I thought it was a skirt." <iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Flori.crabtree%2Fposts%2F10100779971009176&width=500" width="500" height="639" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe> The post has now gone viral, with more than 36,000 comments and 64,000 shares at the time of writing. Farrell revealed to <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.mother.ly/news/viral-mom-wears-car-seat-cover-as-skirt" target="_blank">Motherly</a> how she mistook the cover for women's attire. "A friend of mine had given me a huge lot of baby stuff, from clothes to baby carriers to a rocker and blankets, and when I pulled it out I was not sure what it was," said Farrell, who told <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/car-seat-cover-skirt-mom_l_5c6aca2be4b033a799453532?ec_carp=1966303021225470550">HuffPost</a> that she is expecting her first child in June. "I debated it but washed it anyway then decided because of the way it pulled on the side it must be a maternity skirt." She put on the ambiguous item before she headed to work. At the office, she grew curious and searched the brand, only to find out that the item in question was in fact a "Mom Boss 4-in-1 Multi-Use Cover", which is to be used to cover car seats and shopping carts. Commenters laughed along with Farrell, with some reassuring her that she was working the 'skirt' just fine. "If it makes you feel better, I INTENTIONALLY did this a few times! I think it looks cute!" one wrote. "This is awesome and you look great in it anyhow," another added. "Definitely something I would do!” someone else chimed in. The seat cover brand, Itzy Ritzy, also applauded Farrell’s post as "the best thing we’ve seen maybe ever". <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt6s50oAwvd/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_medium=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt6s50oAwvd/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_medium=loading" target="_blank">Tag a friend this would totally happen to 🙈 Thanks for the best thing we’ve seen maybe ever, @lcrab1! #momboss</a> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/itzyritzy/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_medium=loading" target="_blank"> Itzy Ritzy 🍋 Chicago IL</a> (@itzyritzy) on Feb 15, 2019 at 1:17pm PST </div> </blockquote> Have you ever made a fashion mishap like this? Share with us in the comments.

Beauty & Style

Prince William’s parenting confession

Prince William has opened up about the realities of parenthood, revealing that even though he’s a royal he still suffers from what every new parent goes through: sleep deprivation. The father of Prince George, four, and Princess Charlotte, two, made the confession as he chatted to fellow attendees at the Wales v Australia rugby game in Cardiff on Saturday. "I do need toothpicks to keep my eyes open because of the kids," he said before launching into a discussion about the match. But there won’t be much sleep time on the cards next year with Duchess Catherine expected to have her third child in April. The couple have not yet confirmed the baby's exact due date but Prince William has previously opened up about the impending arrival. "It's very good news," he said recently at a National Mental Health and Policing Conference in Oxford, England "We need Catherine to get over this first bit and then we can start celebrating. It's always a bit anxious to start with, but she's well." Congratulations again to the soon-to-be family-of-five!

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