Someone on the Facebook page asked for help making a quick switch to a nursing position when baby is already wrapped up. Sorry, I don’t remember who asked, but this post is for you, and I hope you see it!
With my 4 month old I’m doing a lot of quick nursing. It seems that nursing is ALWAYS an emergency and once baby starts crying, the pressure is on!
So try to practice a few times when it’s NOT an emergency. In this video, my baby was not yet asking to nurse, so it goes pretty smoothly 🙂
This one shows nursing in a Front Cross Carry. This only works if you’ve got baby wrapped up with both legs beneath both crosses, a FCC variation I like a lot as it holds my baby very close to me and is great for impromptu nursing sessions!
So I’m putting up the video for nursing in a Front Cross Carry and a second video showing how I put Cassidy into the FCC variation in the first place. I’ll try to do a similar video for Front Wrap Cross Carry soon.
The Front Cross Carry is perfect for lots of ins and outs with a new baby, but the two of you will only enjoy it if you wrap baby high on your chest.
If baby tends to sink down deep into the wrap, try holding your baby and putting the wrap on around him or her for more of a custom fit.
As you go, be sure to pull each part snug across the entire width of the wrap. Take it slow and steady. Do it when your baby is happy just being held so that baby stays content while you take the three minutes to get this just right.
Be sure that the middle of the wrap that is behind your back is high on your back–right below your armpits is probably good. Make sure there are no loose or floppy bits of wrap back there. Do this by pulling carefully on each strand of the wrap as you make the first pass over baby, and just as carefully with the second pass.
Front Cross Carry is most convenient when you pretie, but wrapping it around baby for a couple of days can transform your pretied FCC into one that stays snug. Remember that your baby should be high enough to kiss!
The first winner of my photo contest is Melissa. Thanks for contributing to my project with your example of things you can do in a wrap! The pendant you chose is on its way to you for your prize. Anyone else have something to say about the freedom wrapping grants to parents and babies? Two more winners will be chosen, and I am still accepting submissions!
When your little one grows enough that he or she is no longer content always nestling against your chest, pulling one of your baby’s shoulders and arms out of the wrap keeps him close while giving him a little more of a view of the world that is beginning to catch his attention. This age (3 months, in the picture) wonderfully combines the cuddly closeness of babywearing with the burgeoning awareness and absorption of the world and your activities. Before you know it, your baby’s sharp eyes will be taking in everything, whether it’s a natural wonder or how to pay for groceries.
Education isn’t just for big kids–it is a constant process for any human being and the younger you are, the faster you’re learning! It’s no coincidence that my love of wrapping my babies progressed to a discovery of the unschooling philosophy!
Keeping your baby close in your wrap means that your baby is learning from your every move–whether his muscles are learning balance from your muscles, or he is taking in the delicacy of human interaction. When you see an old friend, how does your breath, heartbeat, and body language change? How does your voice sound, and what expressions do you make? How about when you interact with a panhandler in the parking lot. Baby notices the differences and is learning all the time, effortless for both of you.
Now that I’m traveling fulltime in my wrap, I’m inspired by all the places it’s easy to get to with a wrapped up baby. You know, like the middle of a creek:
And isn’t it remarkable, the number of things you can accomplish with a wrapped up baby. Like feeding your older kids, or vacuuming. Even using the computer.
Wrapping makes life easier, and I want every new parent to know it. So I’ve decided to make a slideshow of photographs that demonstrate this. I need YOU to send me your pictures. Where have you been, and what have you done?
From all the submissions I receive, I’ll choose not one, but THREE people to receive a really gorgeous glass mother pendant like this one (or another from my store):
Send your photos to me at diana@wrapyourbaby.com
Send as many as you like, but they should show a baby/child being worn in a wrap (not other carriers):
in an interesting or difficult to access location
at an interesting/unique event
or while accomplishing a task/multitasking.
I won’t use every picture, but please include this line in your email: I give you permission to use this picture (or these pictures) in promotional material.
Our dear friend Robby took us to the most beautiful national park yesterday: Grandview in West Virginia. He also brought his camera so I have a great shot of me, my baby, and the heavenly forest surround. I also have a slightly less picturesque shot of my husband with our one year old beside a breathtaking and treacherous ravine.
So, when wearing your baby out on hikes or other outdoor adventures this summer, I think my family photos can provide an easy to remember babywearing endorsement:
We’re crossing state borders regularly now, and so far we haven’t escaped Summer. Most of the country is HOT right now! Mothers of babies are, perhaps, destined to be a little warmer than the rest of the population. Like pregnant women, it is part of the package: we trade uninterrupted sleep and bodily autonomy for the joys of motherhood.
Well, growing a baby in your womb is hot work, and producing milk on demand is hot work, and holding a hot little bundle of joy is hot work. The last thing you want is to wrap all that warmth up in a thick piece of fabric!
Keep your baby’s comfort in mind, too. Make sure neither of you are getting overheated. If you need to, find an indoor playplace to replace outdoor playground outings. Stay hydrated. Use a hand held fan. There are lots of options, and here are a few more ideas for staying safe and comfy in warm weather.
What tricks do you experienced babywearers have for staying cool while staying close?
Not content to go on supporting a life we don’t love ecstaticly, we are making a BIG change. My husband just quit his day job doing construction, even though construction pays the bills. But that’s the thing—we’re getting rid of the bills, too. We’re trading in work and bills for a life of freedom on the road, traveling, making music, spending our time together and showing our kids everything that’s wonderful in this wide world.
I can not tell you how excited I am. We’ve lived in this city for eight years and all three of our children were born here. Two of them have never been out of the state! June 17th, that’s all changing. That’s the date we drive away. It’s not a vacation, it’s a new life.
We don’t plan to do it forever. We have a long term dream of owning land and homesteading somewhere beautiful. The idea to travel was born of my husband’s music—this is a tour to sell his recently released album Son of Ojito.
Maybe a year. We’ll see how it goes. And we’ll also be looking out for our dream land as we go.
I am excited for Wrap Your Baby, too. Stripping our expenses as we are gives Wrap Your Baby an opportunity to really support us. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with a labor of love, but even better if it can buy groceries, I say! And that’s the point of this change. We want to live on the things we love. If music and babywearing can support our family, how cool is that? Utopian, even!
I’m going to chronicle our adventures at FreeRangeDreams.com where I hope by spelling out how we’re making it work for us, that we might get cogs turning in other people’s minds too. No other family will want to do exactly what we’re doing, but I hope to inspire some ideas about how to live an unconventional life of your choosing. I might even run contests: make a drastic and wonderful change in your life and win a prize! What do you think of that?
Are there others out there living wild and woolly? Will you leave a comment to tell me about it?
The Gypsymama has magiked up three new wraps, each as stunning as all her others. She is a remarkable woman, and for those who don’t know, she is responsible for the Bali Breeze wraps: breathtakingly beautiful works of batik art on gauze for the thinnest, coolest, babywearing around!
Bali Breeze Hope: same wrap job shown below
From her right side . . .
. . . and her left!
Although, most of the credit for the new rainbow wrap Hope has to go to Wendi Stemmons, who designed it and submitted it to the Gypsymama’s design-a-new-wrap contest. The public spoke, and Hope was born. This is my favorite of the three new colors and I think you’ll agree it’s a stunner! But lovers of gray or purple will swoon for Lily, and the pink-brown pairing in Lana has caught many a covetous eye. Aint it great to live in an age of such a wide color selection for wraps? The space program is cool, too, but really, there’s a wrap that matches almost any mother’s dream, and that’s nothing to cough at!
Bali Breeze Lily
Bali Breeze Lana
So, while Hope is my favorite, I believe it’s one of the other two that has been the most popular. Which is your favorite? Or is your dream wrap as yet just a dream? Feel free to describe your perfect wrap in a comment–I’d love to know!
For those that are wondering, I do have the itch to blog many wonderful things now that I have a newborn. And I am doing lots of wrapping, including nursing in the wrap and tandem wrapping with my 18 month old. But I’m so busy and my hands are so full all the time, it’s been tough to get to blog. I probably would manage anyway, but on top of that, I haven’t managed to recharge my camera batteries SINCE CASSIDY WAS BORN! And, btw, he is almost 2 months old. So!
I just can’t bring myself to blog about squishy newborn wrapping without pictures. It’s such a . . . waste.
So, sorry, for the lack of blogging. We’re in a big transitionary phase just now, after which I plan to have my act together and my ducks in a row. No, it’s not a duck act.
I’m going to end off this apology blog and do a couple of real ones now because I have some pictures to go with them. Not pictures of the baby, sorry. My husband has taken some with his phone, though, and when we have a chance to breathe for four seconds IN A ROW, I’ll get him to send them to me and do some retroactive blogging. Deal?
I learned so much and my heart swelled twelve sizes as I read through the comments on my Be Nice To Mommies post. There was so much profound truth to be found in this collection of fifty-some motley experiences!
Marley won a free wrap for her essay (copied in full below), but I benefited from reading every one of the essays, and I can tell I’m a nicer person just for having read them! What I learned:
It turns out that mothers–all mothers–need support, not correction. She knows what’s best for her family, and when you can believe and respect that, then you are in a position to help HER realize it. If you approach other families with the intention of helping them, rather than the intention to change some specific practice, then you have a chance of making a real difference. Be a friend, whether it’s to your sister-in-law, your college roomie, or a stranger in the mall, approaching as a friend will reap the largest rewards. Katie recalls that in one of her desperate mothering moments, her mother advised her thusly: “You know what to do. You’re his mommy.” Katie goes on to say, “It’s hard to explain what that advice meant to me. She had confidence in me even when I didn’t. She knew I could make the right decision. And that even if I didn’t that we’d all learn from the experience and we’d all be okay.”
And simply by being a loving person, and interacting with your own children with ever-present love, causes those around you to want that. Lisa wrote of the person who influenced her parenting, “She showed me how to respect my baby as the person that he was instead of wishing that he could be different.” And Kelly says that the person who influenced her ” taught me that becoming a parent is something honorable and that children are sent to teach US, as much as we are to teach them. She has taught me that in giving through parenting, we are actually receiving, because we develop qualities within ourselves that help us reach our true, whole human potential . . . She has taught me how to love like a river.”
Marley’s essay shows how valuable it is to simply set a good example. Let your loving and happy family be what inspires change in others and in the culture. Realize that the only way people change their minds is by their own initiative. You can be the inspiration, but you can’t change their minds for them:
When I found out I was pregnant in December of 2009, we were so excited! So excited we went out and bought a crib, pack of disposable diapers and wipes, and a couple soothers. I had this idea of what having a baby was in my head. Bottles, sposies, strollers and crying. I was confident because I had watched all of my young friends have babies, and besides seeing them change a diaper or put a bottle in their child’s mouth, it didn’t seem like something I couldn’t do.
Fast forward to the following July and I am three weeks to my due date. My cousin who is nine years older than me invited us to their house for her two year old son’s birthday party. Walking into her house, it was so warm and her little man was such a competant and independant child.
At dinner he drank unassisted out of a cup and asked for help to go upstairs to use the potty. After dinner, my cousin slipped away, and I looked into the living room and GASP, she was breastfeeding him! The look on her face was of pure love as he played with her necklace.
That night I went home and began to really think about what kind of parent I wanted to be to my unborn son. After seeing my cousin, I couldn’t imagine being like my friends from back home who layed their baby in a chair with a propped up bottle. I started to research breastfeeding and stumbled across http://www.drmomma.org That website changed me, my partner’s, and my son’s lives for the better.
Thanks to my cousin just being an attached and intuitive mother, we are now cloth diapering, intactivist, bedsharing, baby carrying, part time EC-ing, babyled weaning, extended breastfeeding fools! I can’t ever imagine making my son cry it out, or missing out on the bond that breastfeeding has given us. Grumpy chap? Throw on the wrap and go for a nature walk! Not to mention not having to change a poopy (cloth!) diaper in months!
I have never told her thank you for what she unknowingly did for our whole family. I couldn’t imagine where we would be if not for my cousin on that one summer day. I am so thankful and grateful, and I’m sure my now nine month old son is too!
If you are planning to buy a wrap in the near future, here’s a short but sweet opportunity to get a whopping 20% discount on a great summer wrap!
After shipping out all the orders from my Mothers Day Sale, I found that I’m low on EllaRoo wraps and I began preparing to place an order. Then it occurred to me, why not offer a big discount to any of my customers who want to pay in advance and it will be especially worth your while because you can choose from a wider selection of colors than I normally stock in my store!
EllaRoo has twenty different wrap designs and only a handful are commonly found sold in US stores. My order with the distributor is your opportunity to pick from ALL TWENTY of their current designs! You can view the available color choices by clicking here.
I need to place my order pretty quickly, so if you want to take advantage of the discount you must order and pay for your wrap tomorrow, Monday, 16 May. It will take approximately three weeks to get from Europe, to me, to you after I place the order, so you’re looking at early June for delivery.
Come back to this blog post tomorrow for the link to the sale-price Ellaroo wraps. I’ll add it right to the top of this blog post.
This is a message of love. I thought about waiting until Sunday to post it, but I think it’s never to soon to spread a message of love. Let’s not wait—let’s start now!
In honor of Mothers Day I propose that we be nice to all the moms we meet (including the ones we encounter only online). I propose that we celebrate the hard work we’re all doing as mothers, no matter what different choices we’re making because, of course, we are all making these decisions out of love and with the best information we have.
We’re also making these decisions under a lot of pressure because this job uniquely positions us to affect the future of our children, and all of mankind! I know I agonize over it, and I bet the mom who made the opposite choice agonized too.
Make mommy love, not mommy war! I know it can be hard, when you feel passionately about a subject—especially one having to do with the treatment of innocents—not to get into an argument when someone disagrees. But think it through now, and make a strategy of peace so that when you encounter other opinions, you will be prepared to respond helpfully instead of angrily.
Here’s what I want you to think through:
You probably feel passionately because you feel that children are being mistreated. When you encounter someone with a different opinion, do you think your angry words, physiological threats on their children, and name-calling will cause this person to change her mind, thereby resulting in better treatment of children?
When your two year old daughter grows up to be thirty-something, do you want anyone EVER to do or say something to her that makes her feel miserable, stupid, or cruel?
Have you made any parenting choices you would do differently now?
Think of a time someone influenced your parenting. No, don’t just think of it, write it down and send it to me. I want to know how someone has influenced your parenting, whether it was a stranger at the grocery store, a good friend, or a relative. I want to know how they approached you and how it made you feel, how it changed your parenting, and how you feel about that change and the person who inspired it.
It will be a contest! I’m not just making this up as I go. Well, I am, but when you own your own business you can do that. It will be an essay contest and I will pick one essay and send the writer of it:
I’m just copying and pasting from above now, so feel free to skip ahead. Your essay should say how someone has influenced your parenting, whether it was a stranger at the grocery store, a good friend, or a relative. I want to know how they approached you and how it made you feel, how it changed your parenting, and how you feel about that change and the person who inspired it.
Write it as a comment on this blog post.
It can be one paragraph or several.
I’ll choose the winner on Monday the 9th of May…
…so your essay must be submitted by the end of Mothers Day (Sunday, 8 May, 2011).
My wrapping style, like my parenting in general, has gotten more comfortable and relaxed now that I’m on the third baby. You know how they tell you that your newborn baby needs to wake up to nurse every two hours, should have 6-8 wet diapers per day, and needs to wear a hat? These are rules designed to help out new, nervous parents, and they’re designed to reassure them too: baby’s peeing enough, thank goodness! The rules are training wheels.
Like riding a bike, once you learn to parent you never forget. And you never need training wheels again. So I haven’t counted diapers, have no idea how often Cassidy is nursing, or how long he’s slept in between. I know enough to know he’s healthy and thriving without those measurements.
Wrapping has rules, too, and once you understand what they’re for and what really matters, you don’t need them anymore. For example, if you know why your baby’s knees should be positioned higher than his or her bottom, you understand enough to know that your baby is positioned well without checking knee-butt level ratio.
Sure a Front Cross Carry is supposed to cross in between your baby’s legs, but as long as your wrap job provides a good seat, you can cross over the legs instead, rebozo style.
Sometimes my baby’s feet are wrapped in the wrap, sometimes they stick out. Sometimes one sticks out.
And when I lower my baby to nurse, in an upright position, he often ends up reclining in more of a cradle position–without my having rewrapped him. And it doesn’t matter whether he’s upright or cradle, just that I know he’s supported ergonomically and can nurse comfortably.
I don’t want to give the impression I’ve given over to lazy wrapping. Rather I feel that it’s effortless (for the most part) and more like improvisation. Maybe I don’t plan exactly what carry I’m doing. I just get my baby positioned where I want him and when I’m done, he’s all wrapped up!
And while I’m worrying less about the details, in a way, I pay more attention to them, too. For example, this baby is my littlest and as such I pay closer attention to his vitals. I’m not worried, I just want to make sure his face isn’t buried in a blanket, since he’s not as buff as my others (yet). And by this point in my babywearing career I understand the physiology behind the danger of letting my baby’s chin fall against his chest. And I recognize that this can happen in an upright position as well as a cradle position, so I am attentive to his chin position and far more likely to tilt his head back, than I am to worry so much about supporting the back of his head.
From this perspective, I have advice for babywearers that perhaps haven’t gained this confidence: RELAX! Yes, it is important to use your carrier correctly for safety and comfort, but remember that you can adjust on the fly, you can take it off and try again, and you can learn something from every attempt. So try to keep it light. And if it’s working, don’t fret over whether it looks just the same as in the picture. In fact, don’t be afraid to mix it up, some! Remember, wrapping isn’t just functional…it’s an art! Art is meant to be a unique expression, not a reproduction!
At our Mom’s Circle, my friend Evelyn has taken the rebozo to my pregnant belly a couple of times. SO RELAXING! I’m looking forward to having this tool ready during labor, when my husband can use our rebozo to help me relax my body and allow the baby to do what he or she needs to do to come out.
This one was super nice too–made me feel real loose, just like I want to be in labor. It was a fast rigorous wiggling of, well, my bottom!
The Wiggling of the Bottom
I remember reading in Spiritual Midwifery about squeezing the hips at a certain point in the birth to open things up, and I bet a rebozo could be used toward that end similarly to how its demonstrated in this video:
Just make sure you know what you’re doing, because as I recall from the book (and no one’s quoting me on this, right?), the squeeze is like squeezing a clothespin–it closes the bones at one end and opens them at the other. You want to make sure you’re opening up the right end at the right time. No need to make baby’s passage any tighter than it needs to be!
I tend to feel a lot of lower back ache during labor, though, so I may have to remember to try it for that, as they’re talking about in the video.
I’ve not used a rebozo in labor yet, but I’m hoping to get the opportunity this month! I’ll be sure to let you know! In the meantime, does anyone else have rebozo-in-labor stories or information to share?
Anyone who sells or promotes a product should accompany that pitch with advice for using the product safely. But it’s lately occurred to me that “babywearing safety” is mostly the same thing as “baby safety” and is good for any parent or caregiver to be familiar with, whether or not a baby carrier is in use:
an infant’s neck should not be curled with the baby’s chin against baby’s chest–this obstructs the airway and has proven fatal in small or weak infants. When your baby is in your arms, crib, carseat, swing, baby carrier, or anywhere else, make sure that you can easily fit your two fingers in the space between chin and chest to ensure that your baby has a clear airway.
as much as possible, you should be able to see your baby’s face. Proximity is the best defense against SIDS both because your baby’s body will take breathing cues from your body, and because you will be there to observe if something goes wrong and can intervene before it is too late. Babies’ faces should not be covered. Even a breathable fabric will leave your baby inhaling stale air and will prevent your being able to see his or her face.
spines have a natural curve that we should support. Keeping a baby’s back straight and flat is not optimum, nor is a concave curve, as often occurs when a baby is worn facing outward (with the baby’s back against the babywearer’s stomach). Teach your baby to lie flat in a baby device only in moderation and stay mindful that each flat baby holding device you use adds up to more flattened-spine time. This may include strollers, carseats, cribs/bed (if baby sleeps on back), playmats, etc. Remember that evolutionarily, that baby’s body expects to be in arms most of the time, where it can curl up into a desirable position.
spines are developing throughout the first year of your baby’s life, and it is important not to put stress on the spine by sitting all of the baby’s weight on the base of the spine. Baby carriers that hold babies upright but do not support their thighs, suspend baby by the crotch, with the entire weight of baby resting squarely on the base of his or her spine. When using a device to carry baby upright, make sure it is in a more seated position, with the carrier coming under to support baby’s thighs at least out to each knee.
when holding, wearing, or otherwise keeping baby close to you, make sure your activities are safe or out of baby’s reach: cooking, cleaning products, etc. Don’t chop veggies if your baby’s waving arm is within reach in either a high chair or a back carry. Ditto with the hot burner, using chemicals with fumes, and other hazards that I’d hope would be obvious!
I was looking over the awards for babywearing advocacy and outreach from Babywearing International. It’s wonderful to see how different groups are reaching out and helping the people in their communities through babywearing.
But I also thought of the influence each of us makes just by stepping out our doors with a comfortable, safe baby carrier. The people who see you may have never heard of such a revolutionary device. You are changing minds about how convenient babies are! You are giving parents ideas of how they can make parenting less stressful, or maybe even leave the house more often. You are normalizing incorporating a baby into your actual life.
This goes against either end of the parenting extremes:
Becoming a parent means giving up your life and you’ll never be able to do anything fun.
With today’s conveniences, becoming a parent doesn’t have to change your life at all.
Instead, we babywearers are casually depicting a third option. We are demonstrating, without preaching, the joy of keeping your baby close, coupled with the convenience of going out for work and fun. Our babies are getting all the nurture they need, from the people they need most, and also being exposed to the world they are growing up to be part of.
Just think, babywearing is a way you have found to improve the quality of life of your baby and yourself; and is also showing others around you how they too can have an easier time of it, and we may even be orchestrating a large-scale cultural shift in the way society thinks of and treats babies and children. Imagine if people in line at the airport or restaurant didn’t groan when they saw us coming. Imagine if they smiled instead, seeing the next generation of amazing, resilient, compassionate, imaginative, humans being raised right in front of them.
And what about our children, and their friends, clever little sponges growing up to wear their babies and change their worlds?
For such worthwhile contributions to individuals, families, and societies, in the action of babywearing and any other mindful examples set by you, I hereby commend each of you and award you with the title Remarkable and Influential Person and encourage you to get an ice cream sunday!
I’m a big promoter of babywearing while pregnant. What a break for a pregnant mother not to have to carry that toddler in her aching arms, awkwardly on one side or the other of her baby bump! How wonderful for a soon-to-be big brother or sister to get to cuddle with mommy in the days leading up to such a major transition.
That’s not the confession part. The confession is that babywearing has gotten to be too much for me. Don’t get me wrong: it’s always been and still is more comfortable than in-arms carrying. I still toss Annabelle on my back in a quick rucksack for the walk from the car to the store…where I put her in a shopping cart. And I still bring the wrap every time we go somewhere in case she insists on getting out of the cart, or on being picked up. But I try to talk her out of it.
The fact is, I’m in a frail zone that was never a part of my previous pregnancies. I attribute this weakness to the fact that my pregnancies were close together (Annabelle was 7 months when the new baby was conceived) coupled with the fact that I am still nursing. Oh yeah, and chasing after a very adventurous one year old (day AND night).
I’m working on getting my strength back with extra attention to nutrition, supplementation, and rest. I think I’ve just hit the point where I’m drained, but I’m confident I can be replenished.
And I hope to locate and dust off my video camera in the next month and make some pregnant wrapping videos because I think pregnant babywearing is a beautiful, valuable, comfortable thing for many pregnant mommas, and an option they should know is open to them.
I was embarrassed at first when I agreed to use the rented stroller at the zoo last week but not anymore. That’s what I’m here to (finally) say: Babywearing is great and should be comfortable when done correctly. But if it’s not comfortable, don’t do it, and don’t be ashamed. Whether you’re pregnant or not, your body deserves to be treated well and you need to find where babywearing fits into your own family’s balance of caring for babies and caring for parents. It might be a greater or lesser tool than in some other family. And if it doesn’t make your life easier, it’s not a tool at all–more of a hairshirt. I do not endorse hairshirts.
Most often, discomfort caused by babywearing can be fixed with practice or the help of a more experienced babywearer. Sometimes you just need to put that baby down. It’s a good time to play on the floor together, or cuddle with a book on the couch. You’re still a super-mommy. Just ask your kids.
Our Moms Circle is wonderful. It is a circle of mothers who come and bare their souls with love and honesty both in the asking of questions, and the answering, the telling of trials, and the listening. We strive to listen with our hearts, and ask questions of the mother in need, to help her find and say her own truth and answers. Sure, we have advice and compassion for getting bit, sick babies, starting solids and every other mom-topic. But we also have a safe place to cry and heal and share understanding.
We’re open to all moms and babies. We don’t bill ourselves as adhering to a particular parenting style, because parenting styles are too generic–too one-size-fits-all–to be applicable to real families. We do encourage and support each other in listening to our babies and responding to their needs in the best way we are able. So, yes, we do tend towards the crunchy, the natural, and the attached…and the popular tenets that those labels accompany.
A brief discussion of circumcision, in which everyone who spoke agreed it was terrible, suddenly culminated in the confession from one of our moms that her baby is circumcised. She spoke about family pressure and a medical history of one family member. Then another mom spoke up. Her baby is circumcised, too. She spoke of her research while pregnant, her husband’s feelings, and the fact that she is embarrassed to change her baby’s diaper at our group. Mom number three instantly spoke up with the same feeling, and expressed regret about her one year old’s circumcision and told how she cried through the Bris.
As we talked, it became clear that just about everyone there had something they were embarrassed about in their parenting choices. Some felt conspicuous for using disposable diapers. Some were embarrassed to formula feed at the group. And several people would get fast food on the way to group and then deliberately NOT bring it in to our crunchy, natural, mom meeting. So we got to laugh at ourselves some.
It was suggested that Evelyn of the Peaceful Birth Project re-institute her opening statement at each group, that there is a lot of information here, and each of us should take what rings true for us and leave the rest.
But in the main, as we discussed what is making various members feel judged, it wasn’t anything another person was doing or saying. It seems to be internal. When we have regret, and wish we could have done something differently, we definitely perceive judgment because we are judging ourselves. But even those parenting choices with which we are 100% sure about can lead to discomfort when we are alone in those decisions among a group who differs.
In the case of circumcision, we talked about how most of us would have circumcised our sons at some point in our lives, and it was only a question of whether we became informed before or after giving birth to a little boy. We talked about finding acceptance and forgiving ourselves. We talked about how to talk to our little boys about what happened, or how to address it if they have siblings who remain uncircumcised. But the fact is that a mother might still intend to circumcise her next son. All of the understanding seemed based in the assumption that no one would want to do this, after they found out. And those of us who feel strongly about it, cannot imagine a mother who WOULD want to do it. But we don’t get to choose for every mother. We get to choose for ourselves and our sons. And our group is open to ALL mothers.
I know that I don’t feel judgmental of mothers who circumcise their sons. But I do feel that it is entirely worthwhile to passionately spread information for that mother’s next son, and for the other women who might have sons. To forebear out of politeness would be cowardly. I never want to make a mother feel badly about her parenting choices. But we can all benefit from gaining knowledge and experience from which we can make better and better choices. The choices are completely up to the individual, but the knowledge is public domain and every mother is entitled to it.
So, our little moms circle cleared the air. And it was really nice. I wish the internet could follow our example and have Mommy Circles instead of Mommy Wars.
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