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Actress Mayim Bialik Discusses Motherhood In 'Beyond The Sling'

STUDIO CITY (CBS) — Actress, mother and neuroscientist  Mayim Bialik stopped by the KCAL9 studios Tuesday to talk about her new book!

Bialik stars on the hit CBS comedy, "Big Bang Theory" and recently wrote "Beyond the Sling."

Mayim Bialik was the child star of the popular 1990s TV sitcom Blossom, but she definitely didn't follow the typical child-star trajectory. Instead, Mayim got her PhD in neuroscience from UCLA, married her college sweetheart, and had two kids. Mayim then did what many new moms do—she read a lot of books, talked with other parents, and she soon started questioning a lot of the conventional wisdom she heard about the "right" way to raise a child. That's when she turned to attachment parenting, a philosophy and lifestyle popularized by well-known physicians like Dr. William Sears and Dr. Jay Gordon.

To Mayim, attachment parenting's natural, child-led approach not only felt right emotionally, it made sense intellectually and instinctively. She found that when she followed her intuition and relaxed into her role as a mother instead of following some rigid parenting script, both she and her children thrived. Drawing on both her experience as a mother and her scientific background, Mayim presents the major tenets of attachment parenting, including:

CO-SLEEPING
How to avoid "sleep training" and get a great night's sleep for the whole family.
BREASTFEEDING
Learn how to listen to your baby's cues rather than sticking to a rigid schedule—and why people on airplanes love a nursing mother.
BABY WEARING
How to "wear" your baby in a sling or a wrap to develop a closer bond with your child—it's possible even for mamas with bad backs (and with big babies)!
GENTLE DISCIPLINE
How to get your child to behave without yelling, threats, or time-outs—it really can be done.
Mayim describes the beauty, simplicity, and purposefulness of attachment parenting, and how it has become the guiding principle for her family. Much more than a simple how-to parenting guide, Beyond the Sling shows us that the core principles underlying attachment parenting are universal and can be appreciated no matter how you decide to raise your child.

Bialik will be signing copies of "Beyond the Sling" at the following locations:

SANTA MONICA, CA
Tuesday, March 13, 2012; 7:00 PM
Barnes & Noble (1201 3rd Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401)
*Talk/Reading/Signing

PASADENA, CA
Thursday, March 15, 2012; 7:00 PM
VROMAN'S Bookstore (695 East Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91009)
*Talk/Reading/Signing

LOS ANGELES, CA
Sunday, March 18, 2012; 2:00 PM
Skirball Cultural Center (2701 North Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049)
*Dave Goetsch, Co-Executive Producer and writer, The Big Bang Theory, moderates conversation with Mayim Bialik. Please RSVP to attend by visiting www.skirball.com or call (877) 722-4849. Books available for purchase by Book Soup.

For more information, visit Mayim online.

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