Five gentle ways to support your baby’s evolutionary design.

One of the hardest things about being a mama in the modern world is the feeling that you’re doing it “wrong”. There’s so much advice about what our babies “should” be doing. They “should” be sleeping through the night, they “should” be able to self-settle, they “should” be independent. The problem with all those “shoulds”? They’re based in cultural norms, not in physiologic norms. In other words, our communities have come to hold expectations of babies and young children that are completely out of alignment with how our little ones’ bodies are designed. That’s why today’s blog post about “physiologic parenting” is something I get pretty fired up about! When we remember that our babies’ physiology is identical to the physiology of their ancient cave-baby ancestors, we can tune out the noise of the modern world and work with nature, work with our babies, and feel confident that when we do, we’re setting them up for lifelong health and wellbeing. In today’s episode, I share two things that every parent needs to know about our children’s physiologic design (unfortunately, these things aren’t widely known in our communities), and then I offer five gentle ways you can support your baby’s physiologic needs. Keen to learn about a gentle and natural way to care for your baby’s toileting needs while reducing the need for nappies or diapers (because spoiler alert: peeing and pooing into a toilet that’s strapped to them isn’t aligned with our babies’ physiologic design!)? Check out my free 5-day training, ‘Get started with elimination communication’, running next week! Get the details, and your free workbook with all the resources you’ll need to get started with EC right away, right here. If you're interested in diving deeper into any of the research or resources I mention in today's episode, you can find all the references in the accompanying blog post here. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it on Instagram with your mama friends who'd benefit from learning all about physiologic birth (and don't forget to tag me at @drjessicahodgens - I'll do a little happy dance to see you've enjoyed the episode!). Until next time - stay wild, mama! Jess xx www.jessicahodgens.com  Intro and outro music: "Bloom", from the album The Jasmani Garden by Deya Dova, with the kind permission of the artist. Cover image by Briony Goodsell, The Nesting Place. I'm living and mothering on the unceded Country of Dharawal people, and I gratefully acknowledge their ongoing work - and the work of indigenous people everywhere - in the service of thriving life on earth.