‘Thriving in the First Year’ Parenting Series (online)

WORKSHOP #2: Cultivating Connection: Babywearing & Responsive Feeding

Join us this March Break for a deep dive into everything parenting! Each day will host a session aimed to help you make the best most informed choices possible throughout the first few years of your baby’s life.

BABYWEARING

Your baby is here, and LOVES to be held, cuddles and to sleep on your chest! For a new parent, this can feel overwhelming, even though it is normal and even good for our babies. Let me show you how to safely wear your baby in a carrier, so you can meet his intense attachment needs while stealing a hands free break yourself! Letting your baby feel safe on your body, similar to where he lived for his first 9+ months, is OK and will not spoil him! But needing it to be easy and sustainable for you is OK too. Try on wraps, slings, mei tei’s and structured carriers, and discover what the best fit is for you! Or bring along the carrier you already have and learn the safest most comfortable ways to use it.

RESPONSIVE FEEDING

Supporting a positive culture around food and helping your baby learn to listen to their body requires an awareness of your baby’s needs. Learning how to read, respond to and encourage your baby to listen to themselves when feeding is the start of a wonderful journey with food. However you choose to feed your baby - whether it be bottles, breast or other methods - you can always support a connection between them and healthy eating patterns. In this class, you will learn how to offer food in a way that allows your baby to lead themselves into a healthy relationship with food.

PAYMENT: You can register for one class, or all 5! Investment for one session is $30 +hst ($33.90) - a 25% discount!! Or bundle and save 40% with access to all 5 sessions for $120 +hst ($135.60). . Please fill out a contact form at my contact me page with the day/topic you will attend. You can simply write “all access” if attending the full week. I will send you the payment link. Payment is required to complete registration. .

‘Thriving in the First Year’ series synopsis

Parenting can be tough, but you don’t have to be! In this series, we will learn how to navigate the most common parenting topics and challenges while maintaining our intuition wisdom and connection.

We will start on Monday with Breastfeeding Basics, to help expecting families or those struggling with breastfeeding get off to the best start possible – or to improve on where you are! Our next session will focus on connection in both responsive feeding techniques and in babywearing to provide closeness and security. The aim is to help create connection and healthy relationships with food from the very start – for all feeding types and abilities. Wednesday will bring us together to discuss biologically normal infant sleep needs, and how to bring more connection into your relationship to your baby’s sleep. We will then discuss starting solid foods and Baby Led weaning, learning how to use the division of responsibility in infant feeding to guide healthy eating and then end the week with a chat about returning to work! This will include how to get through finding care, easing into care, and preparing your self (Yes YOU! You are important too!) for the transition back to work while maintain that beautiful attachment you have built with your little one.

Ashley Pickett is a feeding specialist, lactation consultant, sleep educator, retired doula, babywearing educator and parenting coach and has been serving the Halton-Peel community for almost 20 years! Her aim is to help families preserve connection and responsiveness in all they do, while making sure everyone’s needs are being met. She has three amazing teenagers who are proof that gentle, connected and responsive parenting is both challenging and worthwhile!!