I believe it is important to raise children with a healthy junk food free diet. We practice this in our own home and I think it’s important to encourage others to do the same.

At Beyond The Baby we have decided to make a commitment to you. We will never promote or advertise any ‘junk food’ company or product on our site. We will only display healthy recipes with minimal fat and sugar content and will will continue to provide you with education and a wonderful resource to help you make healthy choices for your family.

We will give you recipes you can make yourself with no preservatives, low sugar and fat. We will help you with ideas for healthy snacks, lunches and dinners.

Your childs eating habits in the first 5 years of life are the blueprint for the rest of their lives and we will help you build a solid healthy foundation for a wonderful happy life.

Jen and the team at Beyond The Baby

After a 2.5 week holiday I am finally back on board! We just spent a beautiful 2.5 weeks in the USA in both New York and San Francisco. We had a wonderful time, met some amazing people and visited some beautiful places.

My husband and I call New York our second home. We travel to New York once a year for the past 5 years and never get tired of it. Each time we go back it feels more and more like home. If it wasn’t so far away and we didn’t have Cooper we would move there in a heartbeat! We love walking the streets and know our way around really well so each time we visit we never have a hard adjustment time. Walk out of the hotel and hit the streets!

We spent a week in San Francisco meeting up with some friends. It’s such a lovely city. We spent 2 days at the amazing Yosemite National Park. It was so beautiful and we will definitely be back again!

So all the fun and holiday aside I have come back refreshed and really looking forward to the future on Beyond The Baby. I met some amazing people in New York who have given me so much inspiration to keep moving forward.

Stay tuned for some amazing things to come in the future!
Jen xx

Here is a sneak peak at some of our competitions this month!

A gift pack from www.cherubbaby.com.au worth over $180.

A gift pack from www.haggusandstookles.com.au worth over $40

We will also have regular Facebook giveaways over the month so make sure you keep an eye on our page! www.facebook.com/beyondthebaby

Don’t forget our forum competition ends at the end of this week! All you have to do is be a member of our forum and we will be selecting random regular posters who will win an Aromababy travel pack thanks to www.aromababy.com

We hope you love all the prizes we have lined up for you all and thank you to our wonderful sponsors!

Jen xx

Baby feeding is always a controversial topic – breast or bottle, when to start solids etc. We have decided to stop all of the silliness! We all know breast is best but we are realists and we understand breast is not always possible for a multitude of reasons. So we have put together some fabulous articles to help you in all areas of baby feeding, no matter what you choose!

We have kicked off our feeding month with some fabulous articles!

Frequently Asked Formula Feeding Questions -We have gathered the most popular questions about formula feeding and answered them for you!

Health and Nutrition While Breastfeeding – What should you eat and what should you stay away from during breastfeeding?

We will also have some awesome giveaways that will be announced over the month!  Including a breast pump package and other baby feeding supplies!

We hope you enjoy our baby feeding month and we would love your feedback! New articles will be up every 3 days so make sure you keep an eye out!
Jen xx

So much is happening here at Beyond The Baby I thought I better fill you all in!

As you already know we have launched our directory! We have some fabulous businesses already! So please check them out and if you have bought from them please review them! http://directory.beyondthebaby.com.au

Our forum has also re-launched last week! We have a fabulous new moderation team who are doing a wonderful job! The forum is buzzing with excitement, questions and loads of chit chat! All the girls are having a blast!

We have a competition on our forum right now! Thanks to www.aromababy.com we have 5 travel packs to giveaway! All you have to do is join our forum and post! We will select winners at random over the next 2 weeks! So happy posting! http://www.beyondthebaby.com.au/forum

I have decided to do a Vlog once a week starting on Friday. For those of you that don’t know a Vlog is a video blog. I will record a short video each week letting you know what’s happening around Beyond The Baby and any other news, tips or ideas I have to share with you. We will have our own Youtube channel so you can subscribe to us! So that is super exciting!

Next month is our baby feeding month! We have loads and loads of information for you including a few giveaways! We also have real Mum feeding stories to share with you! It’s going to be so much fun! We have put together guides to help you in all areas of baby feeding such as – Selecting the right breast pump, a guide to baby bottles, a guide to baby formula and so much more!! It is going to be a huge month and packed full of information!

We have announced that September’s feature theme will be about “The Birds and The Bees and How To Conceive!”. Everything you need to know about conception! How to calculate ovulation, all different fertility treatments, we will tell you all the tried and true conception information as well as old wives tales! We will try anything once wont we?

So the next month is going to be jam packed! I am also off on a holiday for 2 weeks so I am going to be kept very busy adjusting to a new time zone and keeping the site running!

Have a great week, see you Friday for our first Vlog!

Jen xx

We are really committed to providing unbiased unique information for all of our members. Next month is baby feeding month and we have been working hard to write new articles on all areas of baby feeding – breastfeeding, formula feeding and solids.

We believe everyone has a right to access information on all options and we are going to provide it! Every women has a right to choose how they feed their baby and while breast is best it is also not always possible.

When I had my son I wanted more than anything to breastfeed him for atleast 12 months. That was my plan anyway. My birth didn’t go to plan and by 6 weeks I was on medication for PND and insanely stressed. No matter how much I fed or pumped I just didn’t have enough milk. We were comp feeding from 4 weeks and finally at 14 weeks we were down to 1 breastfeed per day. My husband and I decided the stress of me trying to feed him was enough and we put him on formula for all feeds. Since then he has thrived, gained weight and grown to a beautiful 19 month old full of life energy.

When I was looking into formula feeding I found the lack of information disgusting. It was like formula was a dirty word and no matter how many questions I asked or what I searched no one would give a straight answer and just kept telling me to keep trying to breastfeed. From that day I knew I had to make Beyond The Baby and unbiased site for all mothers, no matter what their feeding choice.

I believe breastfeeding is the best start a mother can give her child, but I am also a realist and understand sometimes it is not possible. Women should not be judged.

So next month is Baby Feeding month! Everything you need to know about Baby Feeding!! I hope you enjoy the articles and information as well as reviews and hopefully a few giveaways!

Jen xx

Our Forum is almost due to relaunch!

A couple of months ago I made the decision to close the forum for a while. Beyond The Baby was created out of love and I wanted a community where everyone feels comfortable to share their stories and experiences without fear of judgment. Slowly over time the forum became a place where members felt it was ok to judge each other and abuse each other for choices in parenting and beliefs. During this time after many emails from upset members I decided to implement new rules and guidelines to help protect everyone and I also created a motto for Beyond The Baby that outlines what we believe in -

Our aim here at Beyond The Baby is to support everyone’s right to choose the way they birth and parent. All parenting and birthing styles are encouraged and supported.

Essentially we believe in birthing healthy babies and we believe in baby feeding. No matter how these are achieved. Women have a right to feel comfortable with their choices and have a right to have access to information on all options.

Beyond The Baby believes in ….

Baby Feeding – No matter which form that may be – Breast, Formula, Cows Milk or Solids.

Keeping The Poop Contained! – No matter how you choose to do this with your child – disposables, cloth nappies or elimination communication. As long as the poop is contained that’s all that matters!

Baby Sleeping – Cots, cradles, toddler beds, co-sleeping! As long as your baby is safe and comfortable!

Choice In All Areas Of Life – immunizations, nappies, sleeping, baby feeding, food/shopping choices, brands/products etc. We support everyone’s way of life!

Information Sharing Without Preaching - We believe everyone has valuable information to share and we provide a non judgmental place. We believe in everyone’s right to share information not push beliefs on to others.

Beyond The Baby is a supportive group of mothers who want the best for their child in a parenting environment that works well for them. We accept all parenting styles and provide a safe community for everyone to share their information, stories and ideas without feeling pressured to conform to others views.

Beyond The Baby is all about choice, no matter what that is!

Even though I was supporting my vision and goals for a peaceful community there were still members who wanted to see Beyond The Baby travel down the same path of other unsupportive and biased communities. So after a lot of thought I decided to close the forum until I could develop a community I believed in 100% and was proud to put my name to.

I strongly believe in giving all of your strength and energy to causes you believe in rather than using your energy to judge others. As long as we all raise healthy happy children in a loving home environment with access to education, food, clean clothes and lots of cuddles then nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter if a child sleeps in a cot or in the family bed or if a child is breast or formula fed etc. We choose what is best for our child and we allow other parents that same right.

The forum is about to be open again in the next few weeks. We will have all new moderators and a brand new forum. All previous posts and threads are no longer available. We have also removed all closed forums by popular request to allow us to gain more of an online family feel. I have decided it is best that I am not an active part of the community, moderators will handle all forum matters and our management team will take care of any matters they can not deal with.

We will have a general list of rules with the basic being “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all” we want everyone to be supportive of each other, if you don’t like a topic or thread we ask you to express your opinion and then leave it be.

All members will need to sign up again as all memberships have been reset.

We really hope to have a wonderful forum and get past all of the formalities and nastiness and create a community we are all proud to be a part of. I stand by our motto and all members should too. If our motto or forum rules are not something you believe in then Beyond The Baby community is not for you. We only want members who want to be supportive.

Thanks so much everyone and I will keep you post with the official launch date of the forum!

Jen xx

This is something I am super excited about! Our new directory is launching in 2 weeks! We have worked really hard with our development team to get this directory perfect and offer something no other parenting site offers!

For members our directory will be easy to navigate and will showcase the best businesses locally and online! It will be easy to navigate and will also include a special classifieds area where you can post listings for all of your baby, household and any other items you can think of! There will also be a special area for events that will notify you of different events and activities happening – sales, markets, fete’s etc.

For advertisers it is a cost effective way to showcase your business to our members. You will have a choice of two listings

Premium Listing

Our premium listing is a featured listing and will always be at the top of all search results. All premium listings are listed in alphabetical order. Each listing will include:

* Full contact details – business name, phone number, email address, website, address etc.
* Up to 10 images
* Full description
* Free submission of 1 article ($15 value) – articles must comply with our submission terms
* 20% off all banner advertising
* Customer reviews section

We will also be adding features in the near future – you will be able to add a youtube video to you listing, Google Maps and much much more! How exciting is that!?!

Regular Listing

Regular listings will show under the premium listing results and will be ranked in alphabetical order. Each listing will include -

* Short description
* Contact details
* 1 photo or logo
* 5% discount on all banner advertising
* Customer reviews section

Right now we have 50% off our listing prices! This offer will never be repeated again, so if you are thinking about it take the plunge and sign up! You wont regret it!

Click Here to book http://www.beyondthebaby.com.au/directory-special-offer.html

Our directory is going to be a feature point on our site and we are really excited about it!

Jen xx

I thought it was time for an update on Beyond The Baby. There have been loads of changes made and many more coming so I thought it was time to share!

As you would have seen the forum is closed. Never fear! It’s not forever, just for now. We have decided to close it and re-launch with a whole new forum! We will have a great moderation team and a lovely community again.

We are busy gathering up loads of information articles to share with you all! We are committed to making Beyond The Baby a wonderful site with lots of information on every area of parenting! We want you to have a huge resource of information, if there is something you would like to see please let us know and also if you would like to contribute please send us an email!

We are also running some fabulous competitions on our Facebook Page – Click Here including a cute/funny faces competition this month! Each month we will do something different and the winner will be crowned our baby/child of the month! So head on over and check it out!

We also have a new management team who are organising everything on the Facebook page and also the forum when it’s up and running. I have decided to work more behind the scenes and will be focused on providing great content!

So everything is moving along nicely here at Beyond The Baby we hope to see you around and also we love your feedback so please email us!

Jen and the team! xx

A little over a year ago we saw a need for a baby/parenting site. We saw the success of Beyond The Bride and decided to create Beyond The Baby! We started with a forum and now we have a thriving community!

This week we have launched our full site! It’s only new, but in the coming months we hope to have it filled with great information for everyone and about all stages of parenting!

We want to fill it with real stories, so if you have a birth story, parenting story or anything you would like to share with others please email them to us!

Thank you so much to all the women in our forum, we could not do what we do without you. A special thank you to our admin and mod team, these girls are the heart and soul of Beyond The Baby.

We hope Beyond The Baby will continue to grow and be a leading Australian parenting website!

Jen xx