Lack of sleep can cause a lot of stress within a family. There are a lot of pamphlets and web sites offering help, but it can be very hard to make the changes needed to enable a child to get to sleep and to stay asleep. Sleep deprivation causes parents to lose their temper and children to perform poorly at home and school.

Dr Sarah Blunden is the Senior Paediatric Sleep Research Fellow at the University of SA and her answer to sleep issues is: “It’s not a problem until it is a problem for you.” So if your child wakes three times a night but you are able to manage a broken night, then it’s not a problem. If you have a small child sleeping in your bed but it doesn’t bother you, then it’s not a problem.
However, if you’d like to be able to make changes to sleep routines that enable a longer, less disturbed sleep for everyone, then it’s a problem and you can do it. Help is at hand! Dr Blunden (sarah.blunden@unisa.edu.au) is running sleep clinics at two locations in Adelaide offering small group and one to one advice and support to enable families to get the sleep they need.

Judyth Roberts
Seaton Central
Community Development Facilitator
jroberts@ucwpa.org.au

Courtesy of www.thefoodcoach.com.au

Dairy free, Gluten free, Low carbohydrate, Low GI, Wheat Free
Here’s a quick salad to throw together for lunch.

Ingredients:
2 cups rocket, washed and dried
2 stalks celery, finely sliced
10 olives pitted and cut in half
½ cup chick peas, drained
1 95 gram can tuna, drained
1 tbs Camelia tea oil
1 tbs Brown rice vinegar
½ avocado
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cooking Time: nil
Ready in: 20 mins

Suitable for:
Lunch, Salad

Preparation:
Wash and dry the salad greens and arrange them on 2 plates.

Method:
In a bowl combine the celery, olives, tuna, and chickpeas. Add the oil and vinegar. Season with black pepper and mix well.
Place the tuna mix on the salad greens and arrange the avocado on the side.

Makes 2 servings

For more delicious recipes from Judy Davie, The Food Coach please visit her website at www.thefoodcoach.com.au

Insight

It was one of those mornings. I woke up to find rats had chewed their way through the long life milk in the pantry; the garden hose had blown a hole and our precious water was running off down the hill. Getting the children ready for school was plain hard work. I was frustrated by the weather. As the days get shorter, I have expectations that the weather will gradually get cooler with the golden leaves slowly falling in the orchard. I carry this European notion in my head of how ‘seasons should be’. Autumn here is different experience altogether, a frustrating combination of cold windy days where you feel the hands of winter at you and then long stinking hot spells where the garden withers yet again. Rain is scarce. The leaves hang on, rarely change colour and fall in one hit of strong wind.
Nature is harsh and extreme at times. This morning I found myself resisting against it all, irritation, shortness of temper and forgetting breakfast were the result.

On the phone later I glanced out the door and caught my breath. A large wedge tail eagle swooped down 10m from where I was sitting and picked up a hare in the paddock. I laughed, nature is harsh at times but also so exhilarating! In that instant the irritations of the morning and the weather left me as I was brought back into the present (in a dramatic fashion). With sudden clarity the realization came of how I had been carrying and building up as irritation all the unexpected turns of events and things outside my control.

Going with what has happened unexpectedly instead of resisting the event brings aliveness and clarity as rewards. Letting go of past events that cannot be changed also allows more tuning in with what is happening now…
See the unexpected and unpredictable in a positive light; as adding uniqueness to your day. If the seasons gradually melded from one into another and the weather was predictable, if getting out of bed brought an identical day as the day before with an identical routine then any aliveness would be lost.

Each day is unique, if not make it so.
Finding the days ‘uniqueness’ only requires stopping for a moment. Watch a child’s face as it ever changes and/or their growing sense of self. Look out the window and watch the sky, the garden, a bird on the fence, the lady walking down the street. Taking time to just observe (even for a few moments) each day will allow for finding something that makes the day ‘different’ and unique.

Until next time,

Rachel Furbank, Sustainable living eco mum

‘Begin with the end in mind.’ S. Covey

It is so easy when a baby arrives and changes your life to lose a sense of proportion, or even a sense of where you are heading. As a new parent you are reacting all the time to your baby - trying to work out if the cry means hunger or overtiredness? This reactivity can spread to other relationships - is my partner faking sleep so he doesn’t have to get up to the baby? Is my mother judging my parenting? Are my friends avoiding me?

Wait a minute… what did you plan when you knew you were having a child? A peaceful home, supportive relationships and a happy baby. The huge changes that take place with the birth of a child mean that as a person you will have to grow and change too. You will learn to cope with less sleep, less money, more time alone with a small child and less time alone with your partner and friends. But what you will gain will be the chance to be a parent, to be the most special person in a child’s life, a chance to love and nurture this small baby into a mature, self-sufficient person.

So when you are feeling tired and under-appreciated, look at your sleeping child and remember what an important job you are doing and try to enjoy the journey with the end in mind.

Judyth Roberts
Seaton Central
Community Development Facilitator
jroberts@ucwpa.org.au

Every week I receive phone calls and emails from parents looking for work they can do from home. Finding great jobs where you can work from home is rare. Your best bet is to negotiate with your current employer because they know you and your capabilities. If you have been out of the workforce for a while, you have to work harder to get it.

My key tips are:

1. Know what you are good at. Specialise in something.
2. Sell yourself. Place an advertisement in your local paper of drop flyers around your neighbourhood. All it takes is a few clients and if you are good enough, you will get referrals.
3. Tell everyone what you want to do - your family, friends, old work colleagues, and previous employers. Great leads often come from close to you.
4. Don’t ever think that working from home is a substitute for child care.

Visit http://www.careermums.com.au and download our article on Working From Home for more information (in the Recommended Reading section). It will also help you to understand if you are the right type of person to work from home.

Kate Sykes
Founder and Director
www.careermums.com.au

Courtesy of www.thefoodcoach.com.au

Low fat, Low GI
Just because it’s healthy, doesn’t mean it looks it! In this simple pasta dish we use basic pesto ingredients with less oil and saturated fat but with the same flavour. Switch regular pasta with wholemeal to boost its fibre content and serve it with an accompanying green salad.

Ingredients
250 grams wholewheat spaghetti
4 cloves garlic, cut into fine slivers
1/3 cup olive oil
2 red chillis deseeded and finely chopped
1 bunch fresh basil, leaves roughly chopped
2 lemons zest only
6 small figs, cut into quarters
1/3 cup pine nuts, roasted
½ cup parmesan, shaved

Method
Cook the pasta in a large pan of boiling water for 15 minutes or until tender. In a frying pan, heat the olive oil to hot. Add the garlic and chilli and cook until the garlic is golden.
Add the lemon zest, basil and figs and cook gently for 3 - 4 minutes.
Drain the pasta and gently toss through the figs and basil mixture. Top with pine nuts and parmesan shavings and season with black pepper.
Serve with a green salad and vinaigrette dressing.
Note: For a speedy way to roast pinenuts, stir them continuously over a medium heat in a dry frying pan taking care not to let them burn.

Makes 4 servings

For more delicious recipes from Judy Davie, The Food Coach, please visit her website at www.thefoodcoach.com.au 

Hi folks,

As the Sun moves into Pisces, we see the western astrological year coming to a close and it is time to wrap up what you can and be ready for the new astrological cycle. The New Moon in Pisces occurred on March 7 and makes contact with Uranus (freedom and independence).

This particular energy pattern allows you to break free of traditional or typical behaviours: be prepared for the unexpected however as it touches Jupiter (luck). If I were you, I’d be considering all possibilities that come your way! The astrological New Year will actually occur with the Aries New Moon on April 6. By this time you should be fully focused for the year ahead.

Under the influence of the Pisces Sun we should slow down, become mellower, more sensitive, and compassionate. As we can be more responsive to the needs of others, this could be a good time to romance your partner. Steal some time and do something quite delicious because if you do your reality will become revitalised!

One of the most positive uses of this energy is to relax, and create space to access your creative inspiration, no matter what form it takes. Try sitting quietly and play mediation or Baroque music, consciously relax mind and body, focus and visualise positive and successful achievement of the goals set earlier in the year. Doing this reinforces a pattern of accomplishment and enables us to ‘slow down in order to move faster’ (Covey). It has a calming effect on unnecessary internal chatter and critical self talk.

Did you know that 20 minutes in a relaxed or mediative state (alpha), no matter what you call it, is the equivalent to two hours sleep? My partner and I learnt this technique when our children were quite young and it has served us well over the years. In this state the body actually repairs itself and you come out of it completely refreshed! Powerful stuff!

Congratulations to Jodie and the new website. I look forward to being a regular contributor and providing you with information through the cosmic connection!

Helen Hartley

consulting astrologer, coach, public speaker, educator, writer, radio presenter

Zodiac Greeting Cards http://www.astrologymatters.com/

Free Monthly Astrological Updates http://www.astrologymatters.com/

Business & Corporate Astrology www.synchronicitymatters.com.au

Email: helen@astrologymatters.com  

Welcome to our brand new website, and our brand new parent wellbeing blog.

Here you will find posts from our fantastic wellbeing bloggers.  Wellbeing professionals with expertise to help you improve your quality of life.

Please read, post comments, and contact us if there are any topics you would like discussed.  Email us at info@parentwellbeing.com

We look forward to your participation!

Jodie Benveniste, Director of Parent Wellbeing