Come on the journey from womb to walking as your baby finds their feet.
Good health and well-being starts at the feet. From their first kicks in the womb to their first wobbly toddler steps - and every milestone in between - your baby's feet play a crucial role in their physical, mental, and emotional development.
Finding Their Feet is an accessible and practical guide for parents and carers, designed to equip them for the most important role they will ever have - guiding their child's development for life-long success, from the feet up.
Let's hear about the story behind the book, from author Bernie Landels.
The story behind the book…..
It was during the last big lockdown - January 2021 that a friend suggested I write a book so I embarked on exploring topics - of course it would have to have a body, health and foot flavour as that is my area of expertise. Having been a practitioner for over 25 years, and infant massage instructor how could my words be most useful was the big question.
As I began my research it became clear that if I was to really make a difference to people’s lives I had to go back to the beginning and get the newest feet on the right path to success. I had no idea that I would have so much more to learn about the early development of the human body! Most anatomy taught is based on the adult form.
An X-ray of an infant foot convinced me that I had to do something. I hadn’t thought about the fact that bones take time to grow and a child’s foot does not fully mature until they are 15 years old. It became very clear from that point that my mission had to be to share this information with parents as they could really influence the development of their child’s foot by what they put on them (or not).
To explain the importance and why behind ‘barefoot is best’ I expanded my research and content to include how the foot influences each developmental milestone - after all the aim of every child is to eventually get up on to their feet and walk. In doing so this is where my biggest lesson came from.
I had to connect the brain to the foot. A baby’s first movements start in the womb and are involuntary. The brain stem teaches a baby how to move and these movements develop the neural connections through the body. The longest connection to be made in their body is from the brain to the feet.
These involuntary movements are part of the primitive reflex symphony. When my boys were little (22 years ago!) I knew about the grasp reflex in the hand, the rooting reflex in the cheek and a few others - I had NO IDEA how important these were and so my research again expanded my understanding of growth and development.
What we put our children’s feet in matters….from day one.
‘Finding Their Feet - Every parent’s guide to milestones and movement’ describes a baby’s journey from the womb to walking. I’ve included lots of activities, links to videos to help parents navigate this crucially important time in their baby’s life.
As I was researching and writing it - I had waves of guilt come over me - I wish I had known this information when my boys (now 22 &19) were babies…….so many challenges faced by children these days could be avoided with a little preventative attention. I want parents to be confident and understand their baby from day one.
So, I’m on a mission to help the next generation put their best feet forward and the only way this can happen is through sharing with parents the key aspects of physical development - and this is the key bit……gross motor skills come before anything else, baby’s have a blueprint of what they need to succeed…….I couldn’t find any of this information in the parenting books I read. So I had to write about it instead…..
Finding Their Feet is available online https://books2read.com/u/4DKBze
Signed copies are available by contacting bernie@bernielandels.com