Great quote re: Doctors at birth (Barbara Harper)

Another great quote for you:

"Midwives see birth as a miracle and only mess with it if there's a problem; doctors see birth as a problem and if they don't mess with it, it's a miracle!"

~ Barbara Harper in Gentle Birth Choices

If you don't yet understand why that's such a true quote, read "Childbirth Without Fear" (Grantley Dick-Read) and/or "Safer Childbirth" (Majorie Tew).

Great quote re: breastfeeding (Amy Spangler)

Another great quote for you:

"While breastfeeding may not seem the right choice for every parent, it is the best choice for every baby."

- Amy Spangler

15% off in the shop

Between the 19th of April to the 9th of May we're running a promotion in our shop where you can get 15% off all Kids and Baby products!

All you need to do is pick your purchases and then use the coupon code APRILSALE.

This voucher is valid on any size order!

Great quote re: natural birth (Ingrid Bauer)

“Women’s bodies were designed to birth. That’s a simple fact. You were designed to birth naturally. No experience or training necessary. There’s no special esoteric mystery about it. It’s a very simple every day fact of life. Millions of women have done it for millions of years. It’s a tremendous blessing but it’s also completely ordinary and normal and not only for a special few. You can do it too. I have absolute trust in that.”

- Ingrid Bauer

Hope that encourages those of you planning a natural birth!

This is hopefully the start of a new part of the BackRods.com blog, where we try to share stuff we're learning with all of you!

The Peaceful Tree

If you take a look at our website you'll see we've added a new picture to the front page (shown left). The picture is a photograph that I found on Flickr whilst looking for something to brighten up our homepage.

The Peaceful Tree is used with permission of the photographer, Ronaldo F. Cabuhat.

I saw it and immediately saw in it everything that we're trying to stand for - "The Peaceful Tree" represents nature at it's best, but it also represents family (more importantly our beloved children).

BackRods.com is proud to say that it supports natural gentle parenting and eco-friendly living.

Here is Ronaldo's story behind the picture and the name, taken from Flickr:

We were spending the weekend with very close friends' home and this spot at their neighbor's front yard caught my eye. I wouldn't let the day without snapping a shot. My daughter Mary named this the peaceful tree.

Lucy

We're on Twitter!

We're now on Twitter! If you are too, check us out at http://twitter.com/backrods.

We're still learning the ropes, so bear with us as we work our way around!

On top of that, we've got a couple of great designs in the pipeline, so keep your eyes open!

First Blog Post - Welcome

I'm proud to launch BackRods.com to the world.

My wife and I are very much into "Gentle Parenting" - that's the collective term we prefer for all the unpopular parenting methods such as breastfeeding, comforting when upset, co-sleeping, attachment parenting, baby-led weaning etc.

Unfortunately, many people misunderstand the many benefits of such child-rearing methods and will use that well over used phrase "you're making a rod for your back". We disagree, Breastfeeding is easier than Formula (and much better); Comforting your baby at night is nicer for everyone and doesn't do the damage that Controlled Crying does; wearing your baby is easier than pushing them in a buggy; cloth nappies are better than landfill nappies... etc. The list goes on.

We want to help all those other "Gentle" parents to tell the world to shove off and keep their (wrong) opinions to themselves. We want to bring up our children in the best way we know how and this is it.

Welcome to BackRods.com!