Ah, its the most wonderful time of the year. Your family and friends gather to celebrate and this year, you get to introduce the newest addition to your family.

So why does it feel like you are taking an exam or have signed up for the debate team?

Family relationships are complex and even friendship groups can have varied experiences and values. Whether you are first, last or somewhere in the middle of contributing to the newest generation, you are going to find yourself the centre of attention. Which can be overwhelming.

It helps to be prepared, have some strategies and gather your support crew in advance.

Menopause never used to be openly discussed. If mentioned at all it was is hushed voices between women of a certain age.

But currently the voices of peri- and post-menopausal women are being heard and society is being asked to acknowledge the huge changes faced by people with female biology.

Yet, even now, the reason humans experience this transitional period between fertility and old age is not really addressed. Which it should be.

Now, this is not the article I thought I was writing! It turned out to be quite the rabbit hole as I discovered why!

… was the response when I explained the five core practices of our online community.

“Babies need to adapt to the modern world,” they continued. As though evolution is a button you can push to enable an upgrade on a model which has existed for millions of years.

If your experience of pregnancy was an overwhelming journey through nine months of symptoms and discomfort you might need to brace yourself for the following:

Humans aren't pregnant for as long as we should be for infant development.

The one difference between homo sapiens and every other mammal is our intelligence. And human intelligence needs a much larger brain. Compared to other primates and animals, the human brain-to-body ratio is significantly larger. A larger brain needs a larger skull. And a larger skull needs a larger exit. But this is where our evolution ran into a problem.

There are three reasons why we do things as parents:

Because we want to

Because we need to

Because we are told to

Ideally, every action we take in caring for our children should be a choice we have made or something which is necessary for the care and safety of the infant. (Nobody actually wants to change a pooey nappy but it is necessary).

However something because we are told to is one area we can filter. Sometimes we are told things presented as options - “You might like to try baby massage” while others are directives: “You must do baby massage every day”

One directive most parents are given is:

“If your baby is fed, has a clean nappy and is happy, you should put them down. It's not good to hold them all the time. “

Good.

What does that even mean? It's bad to hold them all the time? Why? Does this apply to all carrying mammals or just humans because we now have more important things to do?

More important than nurturing a newborn? Really?

You might have been cautioned not to allow your new baby to do certain things, to avoid them becoming bad habits. 

But can an infant actually develop habits, good or bad?