Today saw the last of our meetings at the St Mary Magdalen Community Centre for the time being. In fact, we didn’t even last it out for the entire afternoon as we couldn’t resist the sunshine and blue skies and migrated en masse to the nearby St Ann’s Well Gardens.

The Centre has served us very well since our launch back in October last year, but a change of season is afoot and with it a change of rhythm for BubHub meetings.

As of next week, we will be meeting outdoors (weather permitting) for a few hours every Thursday afternoon. This will mean that the social community of BubHub will be more of a focus than the resource centre. Although, we are thinking about holding a monthly indoor meeting where people can still access our library, sling collection and nappy display.

You can stay up to date on when and where we will be meeting on our special events page or our Facebook group.

Changes have been stirring for a while amongst myself and the other volunteers who keep BubHub running. Personally, my energy levels have been changing as I adapt to the needs of my increasingly active toddler. I feel as though life in this new phase leaves me with little time to do anything else but mothering. So, I will be grateful for a bit more of an easy-going flow over the summer months.

Beyond that, it is unclear how BubHub will evolve. Life with a young child is so unpredictable that I think we will have to take the next few months as they come and see where we go from there.

In the meantime, let’s just hope for more sunny days like today so that we can share more beautiful afternoons in the park with our beloved little ones and each other.

The St Anne’s Well Scented Garden was the perfect location for our first ever outdoor BubHub event.  As well as our usual gang of toddlers and babies, we had a handful of older children in attendance who seemed to really enjoy scampering around the underbrush in search of eggs.  I say eggs, of course these were the very special paper mache objects that we decorated the week before at BubHub.  These were then traded in for chocolate eggs (or kept to be treasured for all time) and to top it all off the weather was warm and bright, making for a very successful afternoon indeed. 

Last week, Crafty Jac came along to show us how to make really funky bibs and shoes and snowsuits. It seems that pretty much anything that we can imagine – we could be sewing.

It was a very inspiring session and by the end of it a few BubHubbers had made bibs for their little ones to take home. I dusted down my sewing machine that weekend and whizzed up a little number.

So thanks Jac – that was great fun and really inspiring!

If you have a project in mind or just want to try your hand, Crafty Jac is there, in the North Road Painting Pottery Shop, offering classes that you can attend with your bubba or on your own.

As we headed home after a very relaxing afternoon, Roshnii and I noticed that it was still light enough to see the starlings swoop and shuffle above our heads.
It seems the onset of Spring is beginning and, with it, ideas for future events are budding.

We had our first Open meeting last week, which generated some great ideas about how to take the project forward.

As BubHub has been mainly self-funded and dependent on small donations up to this point we were also looking at ways to generate income to keep the group running.
With Spring just around the corner we’re looking at a year of activities and events that should help to raise some money and keep our spirits soaring.

So keep your eyes peeled and ears to the ground as there are several events sprouting.

And don’t be shy!
If you have any suggestions, whims, fancies or enthusiasms please email them to us and we’ll try to put them into action at BubHub.

At this time of year so many of us seem to be dragging ourselves through the short days searching for those few rays of sunshine to give us a little pep. Blowing the whole family’s noses and reaching for another chocolate biscuit to dunk in our coffee to fight off that sluggish feeling …well there is another way!

Jessica Fenton came along to Bubhub to give us loads of manageable ways to improve the health and vitality of the whole family by incorporating more raw foods into our diets.

Struggling to get fresh greens into your baby’s diet?
Jessica recommended juicing greens with some fresh apple and seeing how the little one takes to it.
I’ve already heard several mum’s interpretations; Sophie’s little Ellie wolfed down quinoa and kale juice porridge and Surya had a few sips of a potent beetroot and green juice cocktail, absolutely packed with goodness.

Many of us long-term feeding mums know that familiar cotton wool feeling often referred to as milk-brain when we can’t think of a date or the right word, well apparently it’s to do with insufficient Omega oils in our diets. Jessica gave a few really simple recipes for making omega rich milks from nuts and seeds and also recommended an excellent Omega supplement that should begin to lift that fug.

Jessica also donated a copy of her DVD “Delectable Desserts” which is now available to loan from the BubHub library.

So a big thanks to Jessica for her time and advice!!
And thanks for helping us to get through these harsh winter days and to remember the name of that thing we’ve been trying to think of for days.

How great to welcome in the new year in a friendly environment in which I can breastfeed my toddler and chat about such fascinating and complex topics as natural immunity.

Recently I was very concerned when my little boy was ill with vomiting and a high temperature and my doctor sent me to the children’s hospital. The staff at the hospital were very busy as any symptoms that resembled swine flu were being treated as such and required isolation units.

Understandably the doctors erred on the side of caution recommending Tamiflu and penicillin as they couldn’t rule out swine flu but suspected tonsillitis.

I couldn’t help but feel that the weight of the decision fell slightly more heavily on the need to cover all bases in case of repercussions. This was understandable in the circumstances with so many cases coming through but, as a breastfeeding mum, I would always prefer to avoid giving my son strong medication unless necessary.

My lack of experience of childhood illness left me feeling anxious.

In the light of all this it was great to have Carmel O’Dell come to BubHub to host an Arnica meeting. Arnica is a network for parents looking for help and support in making difficult decisions about their children’s health.

It was an opportunity to talk about the tough choices parents face, such as vaccinations. An opportunity for parents to discuss opinions and concerns openly in the hope of making informed decisions in raising our children.

Last week, BubHub hit the headlines by appearing in an article on the BBC News website.

The article focused on how parents have been affected by the current economic situation. So, the emphasis was more on what we are doing to help promote sustainable family living rather than BubHub’s ethos of child-centred parenting.

It was a great opportunity to spread the word about our project beyond the limits of Brighton and Hove.

Thanks to Kevin Peachey for coming along to BubHub and putting us in the news!

‘Community’ has become a bit of a buzz word of late. There must be a good reason for it.

I think that many people are realising the importance of support networks in their lives. Since becoming a parent nearly one year ago, I have certainly gained a greater appreciation of what it means to have a community around me. Thanks to the meaningful connections that my partner and I have made with other young families in our local area over the past months, I now feel part of a fledgeling community.

Within a short walk or short bus-ride, I now have a number of people I know that I can turn to for moral and practical support. Other new parents walking this path of joys and challenges and looking at it from a similar perspective to me.

Just this last week, I have been part of a couple of enjoyable examples of community life.

One was the Hand-Me-Down Hub that took place at BubHub last Thursday. Several mums brought along the baby clothes, toys and books to pass on to other families.

So simple and yet, what easier way to get maximum use out of our baby gear, save money and give to your neighbour at the same time. Keep it in the BubHub family!

Another experience took place earlier this evening. Crimbo (another BubHub starter-upper) and her son, Louis, came by for a spontaneous cup of tea this afternoon after we all met accidentally at the library.

I offered to make our boys some dinner, so while Crimbo kept the two little ones occupied on the kitchen floor with a colander and a couple of spoons, I chopped and cooked the veggies.

The two boys happily ate their evening meal alongside one another. Then, just as our guests were thinking about heading home, they decided to stay for bath time. The two kids splashed about in the tub together. It was my son Surya’s first experience of a bath shared with someone close to his age.

Our friends departed in the autumnal darkness. As I was breastfeeding Surya before sleep, I reflected on the sweetness of the evening. It felt like simple village life, with mothers preparing meals collectively and the babes washing together in the same bath.

Crimbo and I agreed that we must do it again some time soon.

In the coming months and years, I hope that I will be part of many other experiences of a living community; where the daily lives of adults and children are woven together.

On Thursday, BubHub opened its doors for the second time. The NewBubs session was pretty quiet. If you are a pregnant or new mum, we would love to see you. We know that pregnancy and the first months with a new baby can be a time full of questions, so bring them along and have a chat with other mums over a cup of tea while you browse through our collection of books, slings and nappies.

After lunch there was a steady stream of adults and littl’uns. I really enjoyed the friendly, family atmosphere and got to chat with people and be more present than the previous week when the afternoon seemed to pass me by.

As well as the feeling that BubHub is becoming known and bringing like-minded families together, I am really excited about some of the connections we have been making with the wider community.

From the outset, our vision for BubHub was that it would be a social space where people, big and small, could meet, and a resource for parents to find out more about child-centred approaches to raising their bubs.

We were hoping that we would also make links with other local groups and professionals, working within the field of natural parenting. So that the space would become a real hub of experience, knowledge and activity focused around this topic that we feel so passionately about.

And the connections are already being made…
So far, we have been in contact with Fiona, a Dru Yoga teacher specialising in pregnancy and post-natal yoga postures; Carmel, a homoeopath who coordinates the Arnica Parents Network; and Jess, a specialist in raw food.

All of whom are interested in bringing what they do into the BubHub space.

If you are involved with a project or line of work related to pregnancy, birth or child-centred parenting then let us know. We would like to help put you in touch with local parents and we’d love for you to come and run an activity at BubHub.

Parents and carers out there, keep an eye on our special events page for upcoming activities and keep up to date with what’s going on by joining our announcements email list.

BubHub has officially launched! What a great feeling to see it get off the ground after the work that has gone in over the recent weeks.

Three of us arrived to an empty room on Thursday morning with boxes and bags full of toys, books, cloth nappies, slings and teabags. We got busy setting up the space, while our own bubs played amongst the toys on the floor.

Just before midday, our first guest came through the door with her little girl, and so began BubHub’s first session.

The Newbubs session was reasonably quiet, with some conversations about infant massage, baby-led weaning and Jean Liedloff’s ‘Continuum Concept’, plus a demo of how to use a wrap sling.

When the Everybubby session officially started at 1.30pm, the door kept on swinging open with parents, babies and toddlers joining the space. The play area expanded in all directions as the number of children grew. People sat in small groups chatting; the murmur rising to a hum, and then to a hubbub.

Midway through the afternoon I ducked out with my little boy to get some fresh air and help him have a short nap. When I returned, the room was quietening down again and I couldn’t believe that the hours had passed in such a blur.

There were smiles and thankyous as people left the community centre to make their way home.

With a great team effort, helped along by a few extra pairs of hands, we cleared up the space and returned it to its original state.

I came away tired but buzzing, and with a handful of reflections on how to expand and improve on BubHub’s first day in existence. I hope that over the coming weeks we can build on what we have started and make it a unique space for people to participate in.

If you came along, do leave a comment to tell us what you made of the experience. If you have any ideas or suggestions, you can add them to the BubHub wiki.

And, for those of you who didn’t make it to week one, we hope to see you next time!

We have graduated from beavering to revving!

BubHub’s opening date – Thursday 22nd October – is ten days away and the pace is picking up.

Last week we went to visit the community centre and started to visualise what the physical space would look like.

After a long, collective labour, the flyers and posters are going off to the printers tonight. We hope to be spreading them around the town in the days to come.

And all manner of other bits and bobs are going on. Cloth nappy samples are arriving, we are gathering interesting books for the library. You may have noticed that this website has grown by a few pages in the last few days. You can now read what BubHub is all about and, you can sign up to our email group.

Much of this work is taking place (like now) in the dark hours of the night while our little ones are fast asleep and us mums have a bit of time to get glued to our computer screens. We have been having a good time using a wiki to plan the project. There will be one added to this website in the near future so that anyone can share ideas and resources with the whole BubHub community.

So, put the 22nd in your diary and come along and join us for the first of many meet-ups at BubHub.

If you can’t make it to the first one, don’t fret, we are going to be open every Thursday afternoon!

Over, out and off to bed. (Well, it is nearly midnight.)