Introducing the Joint BabyCalm™ & ToddlerCalm™ Conference 2013:

"Gentle Parenting: From Birth to Child."

Saturday July 20th and Sunday July 21st 2013. Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK

After the resounding success of our 2012 conference we are proud to introduce the first joint BabyCalm™ and ToddlerCalm™ two day conference, focusing on gentle parenting from birth to childhood.

We will be studying how this critical period can shape the psychological and physical health of the child as well as have a profound effect on the lives of the mother and father and their subsequent relationship with each other. We will study the psychology of communication, bonding, birth trauma, sleeping and feeding and consider research into the impact of the beginnings of life upon the personality of the future individual.

The conference will be an exciting and informative weekend for all those involved with new families including Antenatal Teachers, Doulas, Midwives, Health Visitors, Family Therapists and those who run other baby and toddler classes as well interested parents, providing an opportunity to meet and network with like minded individuals.

Guest speakers include:

 Dr. Laura Markham

Visiting us all the way from the USA, Dr. Laura Markham trained as a Clinical Psychologist, earning her PhD from Columbia University.  But she's also a mom, so she translates proven science into the practical solutions you need for the family life you want. Her relationship-based parenting model has helped thousands of families across the U.S. and Canada find compassionate, common-sense solutions to everything from separation anxiety and sleep problems. Laura is the hugely respected author of Aha! Parenting.com and the soon to be released book "Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting".

Dr Lawrence Cohen

Visiting us all the way from the USA, Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., the author of "Playful Parenting", is a licensed psychologist specializing in children's play and play therapy. In addition to his private therapy practice, he is also a speaker and consultant to public and independent schools, and a teacher of parenting classes and classes for daycare teachers. Dr. Cohen attended Haverford College and received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Duke University. After an internship at Tulane University, he began a research and private practice career in Madison, Wisconsin. His treatment innovations have included the first groups in the country for husbands and boyfriends of sexual abuse survivors, as well as one of the first therapy groups for male survivors of sexual abuse. All of his work -- with children, parents, couples, abuse survivors, and families -- has pointed him towards writing about human connections.

Gill Rapley

Gill Rapley worked as a health visitor for 20 years; she has also been a midwife and breastfeeding counselor. She pioneered baby-led weaning as a successful approach to solid feeding after studying it as part of her MSc. She has also produced a series of DVDs on the subject. She lectures widely to health professionals and parents and continues to research the introduction of solid foods for babies. Gill is the author of several books including "Baby Led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food".

Oliver James

Oliver James trained and practiced as a clinical child psychologist and, since 1988, has worked as a writer, journalist, broadcaster and television documentary producer and presenter. His books include the controversial parenting book "How not to F*** Them Up" and the hotly awaited new release "Love Bombing: Setting Your Child's Emotional Thermostat". Oliver is a columnist for the Guardian Newspaper and is latterly more famous for his exchanges with Gina Ford concerning the dangers of baby training. Oliver lives in Oxfordshire with his wife and two small children

Sheila Kitzinger

Sheila Kitzinger campaigns for women to have the information they need to make choices about childbirth. She is a strong believer in the benefits of home birth for women who are not at especially high risk. Sheila is also concerned to give a voice to pregnant women and new mothers in prison and has worked to free them from chains during birth, to keep mothers and babies together unless a woman can be shown to be a danger to her baby, and to provide woman-to-woman help to prisoners during birth. Sheila Kitzinger lectures to midwives in many different countries. She is honorary professor at Thames Valley University and teaches the MA in midwifery in the Wolfson School of Health Sciences there. She also teaches workshops on the social anthropology of birth and breastfeeding and on unhappiness after childbirth for birth educators and postnatal counselors, too.

Dr Charlotte Russell - Durham University Sleep Lab

Charlotte received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Durham in 2007, having graduated with a BA in Human Sciences in 2001. Her doctoral thesis focused on a craniometric analysis of British and Danish archaeological populations, while her undergraduate dissertation addressed issues relating to the use and knowledge of traditional (folk) and complementary medicines in a North Yorkshire village. Having spent 3 months working as a research assistant in the Sleep Lab in the summer of 2001, Charlotte returned in 2007 as NECOT (North-East Cot Trial) project manager.

In 2011 Charlotte and Professor Helen Ball obtained ESRC follow-on funding to set up the ISISonline (Infant Sleep Information Source - online) website. This website will provide a means by which up-to-date, evidence-based information about infant sleep can be disseminated to parents and health-care professionals.

Dr Aric Sigman

Author of "Remotely Controlled: How Television is Damaging Our Lives" Dr Sigman is a Chartered Biologist, Fellow of the Society of Biology, Chartered Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, a recipient of the Chartered Scientist award from the Science Council and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He recently addressed the European Parliament Working Group on the Quality of Childhood in the European Union, in Brussels, on reducing alcohol misuse among children and adolescents. Dr Sigman lectures on PSHE health education and talks to schools and parents on the effects of alcohol and other health issues, he writes the Brain and Behaviour column for The Times Educational Supplement magazine TESpro.

Francoise Freedman

The Founder and Director of Birthlight, Françoise Barbira Freedman is a medical anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, where she does research and teaches as an affiliated lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology.
After spending long periods of fieldwork in Peruvian Amazonia, including two pregnancies and stays with her young family, she was inspired to share the gentle approach to parenting of her Amazonian hosts among friends in the UK. As a trained yoga teacher and therapist, Françoise used the idiom of yoga to create an original programmer of movements and nurturing relaxation for mothers to be and new mothers with their babies.

Anne McEwan

Anne McEwan is a Carrying Consultant and Educator and one of the partners at www.borntocarry.com. Anne works from home whilst home educating her 3 children and is also the co owner and community manager for www.naturalmamas.co.uk the largest natural parenting forum in the UK.

Sarah Ockwell-Smith

Sarah Ockwell-Smith is a well known UK based parenting author. Famed for her gentle, science rich, yet easy to read books BabyCalm: A Guide for Calmer Babies and Happier Parents and the shortly to be released ToddlerCalm: A Guide for Calmer Toddlers and Happier Parents, which are recommended by thousands of parents and professionals alike worldwide. Sarah is also the founder of both BabyCalm^TM and ToddlerCalm^TM. Sarah joins us on both days to share an introduction to both the BabyCalm and ToddlerCalm philosophies and her vision for a parenting paradigm shift around the world.