A place moms call home
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Kristen Stevens
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Şubat 21, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - At a new mom and baby center that feels more like a laidback beach house, the two Turkish owners speak native English and help moms of babies under three. Thursday in Nişantaşõ, I’Baby will show the award-winning documentary ’What Babies Want’.
Nearly every morning at I’Baby a different group of babies or toddlers joins their playgroup friends in tropical themed playrooms with teepees, miniature kitchens and a creative child care expert. For moms and moms-to-be, specialists provide weekly workshops, counseling and seminars in a setting complete with cushions, coffee and child care.
Not like a preschool and more reflective than Gymboree or Playbarn, I’Baby offers something not found in the rest of the city. It’s Istanbul’s comfort ground zero for a mom seeking a few answers over coffee, education about pregnancy, some quality child care, a baby yoga class or a workshop of her own. Well-known psychologist, Fatma Torun Reid, runs a Wednesday group with a group of international women about raising toddlers each week. Midwife Asude Oflaz meets with expecting couples on Monday nights to discuss topics ranging from attachment parenting and sleep patterns to physiological stages of pregnancy. Oflaz’s next group is due to begin in a couple of weeks. Psychologist Nilüfer Devecigil gives seminars on attachment parenting and art classes for toddlers. The Thursday movie nights have been popular - the last one about birth was packed, owner Ayşe Onursal told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
Motherhood’s supporting cast
Dropping by I’Baby unannounced, the Daily News found two women had turned a down-to-earth concept into a reality in a little more than a year. These two Turkish women who own and run I’Baby, Onursal and Cemre Torun Narin, speak native English and hold degrees in psychology. They are also mothers. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia University Graduate School, Onursal has training in family and child therapy as well as pregnancy and post-partum depression, and has been trained to use the Montessori Method. Raised in the United States, Narin graduated from Georgetown University with degrees in business and French before getting her masters in clinical psychology from Boğazici University. She then established a practice in marital and family therapy.
Onursal and Narin set out to provide a space to rest and play as well as qualified guidance for pregnant women and families with kids 0-3. "We want to be a home away from home for women," Narin said. Raising children is isolating business and many moms struggle to find peers with kids who are close enough in age to play well together, she added.
Onursal meets with clients regularly to delve into cause and effect issues related to pregnancy and post-partum depression. She says most women have difficulty dealing with their own mothers during and after pregnancy. "There are some parts you want not take with you and some you definitely don’t," Onursal said. She added that another hot topic is the challenges posed by in-laws. "You don’t just marry a guy in Turkey; you also marry his whole family. There are boundary issues all the time and it’s difficult to deal with everyone wanting a piece of the baby." She advises couples to write a letter for themselves before the baby comes about the environment they want to create around their child. Women dropping babies off for playgroups also make use of the "mini-sessions" in which either of the two partners who answer specific questions during a 15-minute tea or coffee session. Topics covered in these 50 TL sessions include sleep questions, eating, weaning and toilet training. Most pediatricians don’t give parents guidance on basic parenting skills, Narin said.
Recently, I’Baby teamed up with childbirth educator and doula, Julia Steils who will soon begin offering an eight-class series. The weekly classes look at the nuts and bolts of birth, viewing it as a rite of passage and cultivating a mother’s strengths and instincts to enable strong decisions for what’s best in each family.
The center also offers Steils’ Birth Dance which is similar to yoga and yoga classes for moms and their babies and toddlers plus first birthdays and baby showers.
I’Baby / Valikonağı Cad. Pamuk Apt. N:133, D:7
Nişantaşı (Down the hill from and facing the American Hospital) (0212) 219 5942 / For an up-to-date weekly schedule of activities: www.infobebek.com
Thursday movIe nIght at I’Baby
Join I’Baby this Thursday for a film about babies with childbirth educator and doula, Julia Steils, and childbirth education students Nur Sakallı and Başak Kutlu. In the award-winning documentary "What Babies Want", experts share the latest information on how babies think, feel and assimilate the environment around them during pregnancy and in the first hours, days and weeks after birth.
The film goes into the psychological repercussions of what happens to a child in utero, said Steils, who shows the film in classes for new parents. The filmmakers show how the experience affects a child’s personality and their relations with others throughout his life. "It emphasizes awareness that a child knows what’s going on before he or she is born," Steils told the Daily News.
As viewers learn how early relationships shape the structure and function of the brain, a new appreciation emerges for the wisdom of ancient cultures that understood the importance of welcoming children before, during and after the moment of birth. The film, in English with Turkish subtitles, is narrated by actor Noah Wyle.
Thursday, Feb. 26 at 7:00 p.m. (dinner), 8:00 p.m. (movie) at I’Baby Call (0212) 219-5942 or Nur Sakallı at (0532) 681 5373 to reserve before Wednesday / 25 TL
Not like a preschool and more reflective than Gymboree or Playbarn, I’Baby offers something not found in the rest of the city. It’s Istanbul’s comfort ground zero for a mom seeking a few answers over coffee, education about pregnancy, some quality child care, a baby yoga class or a workshop of her own. Well-known psychologist, Fatma Torun Reid, runs a Wednesday group with a group of international women about raising toddlers each week. Midwife Asude Oflaz meets with expecting couples on Monday nights to discuss topics ranging from attachment parenting and sleep patterns to physiological stages of pregnancy. Oflaz’s next group is due to begin in a couple of weeks. Psychologist Nilüfer Devecigil gives seminars on attachment parenting and art classes for toddlers. The Thursday movie nights have been popular - the last one about birth was packed, owner Ayşe Onursal told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
Motherhood’s supporting cast
Dropping by I’Baby unannounced, the Daily News found two women had turned a down-to-earth concept into a reality in a little more than a year. These two Turkish women who own and run I’Baby, Onursal and Cemre Torun Narin, speak native English and hold degrees in psychology. They are also mothers. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia University Graduate School, Onursal has training in family and child therapy as well as pregnancy and post-partum depression, and has been trained to use the Montessori Method. Raised in the United States, Narin graduated from Georgetown University with degrees in business and French before getting her masters in clinical psychology from Boğazici University. She then established a practice in marital and family therapy.
Onursal and Narin set out to provide a space to rest and play as well as qualified guidance for pregnant women and families with kids 0-3. "We want to be a home away from home for women," Narin said. Raising children is isolating business and many moms struggle to find peers with kids who are close enough in age to play well together, she added.
Onursal meets with clients regularly to delve into cause and effect issues related to pregnancy and post-partum depression. She says most women have difficulty dealing with their own mothers during and after pregnancy. "There are some parts you want not take with you and some you definitely don’t," Onursal said. She added that another hot topic is the challenges posed by in-laws. "You don’t just marry a guy in Turkey; you also marry his whole family. There are boundary issues all the time and it’s difficult to deal with everyone wanting a piece of the baby." She advises couples to write a letter for themselves before the baby comes about the environment they want to create around their child. Women dropping babies off for playgroups also make use of the "mini-sessions" in which either of the two partners who answer specific questions during a 15-minute tea or coffee session. Topics covered in these 50 TL sessions include sleep questions, eating, weaning and toilet training. Most pediatricians don’t give parents guidance on basic parenting skills, Narin said.
Recently, I’Baby teamed up with childbirth educator and doula, Julia Steils who will soon begin offering an eight-class series. The weekly classes look at the nuts and bolts of birth, viewing it as a rite of passage and cultivating a mother’s strengths and instincts to enable strong decisions for what’s best in each family.
The center also offers Steils’ Birth Dance which is similar to yoga and yoga classes for moms and their babies and toddlers plus first birthdays and baby showers.
I’Baby / Valikonağı Cad. Pamuk Apt. N:133, D:7
Nişantaşı (Down the hill from and facing the American Hospital) (0212) 219 5942 / For an up-to-date weekly schedule of activities: www.infobebek.com
Thursday movIe nIght at I’Baby
Join I’Baby this Thursday for a film about babies with childbirth educator and doula, Julia Steils, and childbirth education students Nur Sakallı and Başak Kutlu. In the award-winning documentary "What Babies Want", experts share the latest information on how babies think, feel and assimilate the environment around them during pregnancy and in the first hours, days and weeks after birth.
The film goes into the psychological repercussions of what happens to a child in utero, said Steils, who shows the film in classes for new parents. The filmmakers show how the experience affects a child’s personality and their relations with others throughout his life. "It emphasizes awareness that a child knows what’s going on before he or she is born," Steils told the Daily News.
As viewers learn how early relationships shape the structure and function of the brain, a new appreciation emerges for the wisdom of ancient cultures that understood the importance of welcoming children before, during and after the moment of birth. The film, in English with Turkish subtitles, is narrated by actor Noah Wyle.
Thursday, Feb. 26 at 7:00 p.m. (dinner), 8:00 p.m. (movie) at I’Baby Call (0212) 219-5942 or Nur Sakallı at (0532) 681 5373 to reserve before Wednesday / 25 TL