why did you chose this lifestyle?

[heathernkids]

I thought it might be interesting how we all got to this place and could share our stories/ideas/etc

When I had my son Bryce 12 yrs ago (wow I feel old at 31!), I was just a baby. I was 19, and my HS sweetheart/fiance was 20. I felt so unsure of myself- and did a lot of what I was told b/c I knew nothing. My mom encouraged me to try and breastfeed. It was my 1st step, and it was SO incredibly hard. I was 19! My friends were at college parties and I'm home with mastitis. I stuck with it though. I didn't realize having Bryce sleep in my bed was cosleeping, but he did sleep with me. I was lazy and it was convenient. He was my everything, I decided to go back to college to make a good life for him. So Bob worked and went to school pt, and I went back to school fulltime while working. I got a job nannying...I said "I'll be the best nanny you've ever had but my 1 catch is my baby comes with me". At first they passed on me "too much baggage" but they called me 2 wks later and gave me a shot and it lasted 5 awesome yrs, I was able to be "home" with him, and went to classes at night yr round.
Then I got pg with my daughter Maeve, my sr yr when I needed to start student teaching. I was under a lot of pressure to just get through it. I quit bf by 6wks b/c of her reflux and my crazy schedule, I let her CIO per my dr, and a lot of other bad habits that I'm sure we'll discuss in the future in depth...I still feel very guilty about my parenting choices for her 1st yr of life. She was sick all of the time, and a very fickle baby and I blame it mostly on myself. I did not parent her the way I did my first, which was the way she deserved too. People say to me
"don't beat yourself up, it's just middle child syndrome". I don't want to hear that excuse, and I blame myself for not being a nurturing enough mom.
So when we decided to try for Brinn, I vowed to do everything the way *I* wanted. I was vegetarian while pg not by choice, but by Brinn's b/c I had severe meat aversions. I would research every step of my pg- and whatever was "forming" I would focus on "it's brain month so eat LOTS of blueberries and pomegranates!" I was completely consumed and did everything I wanted MY way. My family is now getting so close to eating completely organic- except my kids school lunches, I let them eat at school but I know they choose their food wisely due to habit. (I can check their meals online anyway)... As for the baby I decided working wasn't an option. I was going to stay home. I'm lucky I had the choice too and for that I'm grateful to dh. I will bf as long as I want whenever she wants, wear her as long as I want, hold her all day, let her nap where she darn well pleases, it's all about her now. I want my family as healthy as possible, and it starts with baby steps.

My girlfriend came for a visit and said my fridge and pantry freak her out- my milk/cheese/dairy/eggs etc all come from a local farm with no chemicals added etc, my soaps and bath products are organic- including my beauty items and lotions, my laundry detergent...we recycle even though it's not encouraged by our trash pickup which is SO outrageous! anyway...I can't wait to get a new car in a few yrs so I can get a hybrid. I'm lucky that my neighborhood is a new concept one where we can walk to everything everywhere and never leave so at least I don't have to be on the go as much.

So that's my story, that's how I got to this place and I hope with all of your great advice we can all continue to grow together! Sometimes I feel really alone, like I'm some big old freak and no one agrees with my views, but I think I will finally feel accepted and that people will "get" where I'm coming from. 

[mwelsh214]

Hey, I really enjoy this thread. I guess I didn't really choose this lifestyle by choice, or rather, i didn't chose it specifically to be "natural" or "attached". I was 21 when we got pregnant and although I knew I would spend the rest of my life with DH (he was my fiance of 2 weeks at that point) I was really unsure of what our future together would be like- where we'd live, our professions, just our lifestlye in general. When we found out, it was 2 days after the death of Dh's father. It was a huge time of questionning for us, reflecting about how we were raised, what we liked, disliked, what we wanted to give our kids etc. I didn't grow up in a very motherly household, my mum is very detached and didn't look after us during the daytime. From what I'm told now she left us in our cribs from the time our dad left for work in the morning til he came home 11 hours later. While we adapted well later in life, those years have had an effect on us. I determined that I would never, ever do that to my kids. While I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, I knew exactly what I didn't want to do. No junk food for breakfast, no starving my kids during the day, no hiding everything from dad, no letting us walk around dirty in two day old clothes...you get the picture. I just decided to put baby first. DH got on the same page as me when I fell very ill in the beginning fo February and he realized how much he values the family unit and puts us first.
I guess it was after the birth that we really figured out how we would parent and it wasn't until recently that I realized that the way we do things are so different from others. I was shocked to see people on a feeding schedule with newborns, and a strict sleep routine, doing CIO, and not picking up their babies because "it's spoiling them"  Generally, I put myself in baby's shoes and see how I think I would feel, even as an adult, if I was in distress and somone knowingly ignored me, or didn't feed me when I was hungry, etc... I bf round the clock whenever he wants it, I wear him around the house and when we go out, we cosleep -even though I sometimes secretly crave my own sleep space - i'm trying to learn how to prepare my own baby food etc...
The organic end for us came about gradually in our own lives. We hope to move to a home soon, one that we will own and not rent like now, where we can have a small garden for our produce, and possibly raise our own chickens for eggs and meat.

Anyway, I really appreciate the support that I can find here on this board. I hope that I too can help you by encouraging our common lifestyle...
~Mari

mohamed 6-9-6

[Lily84]

I too, am like the PP who says she didnt really choose this lifetsyle, it just happened. My dh and i got engaged and had been plnning our wedding for some time when we fell on financial difficulties and put it off for 6 months. We decided we would be ttc anyways, so at the wedding last november i was 8 weeks preggo. I am adopted and i thank God every day that i was adopted into such a loving, caring, wonderful family when i was only 3 months old. My older brother is adopted from a different family, where he was a twin and one of 13 children that were unwanted. they only wanted girls but kept having kids and kept getting boys. all the boys were horrible mistreated and abused. he was adopted by my parents when he was 4 and he has suffered his whole life from the psycholgical trauma from his early years, despite everything that my parents did for him. When i got preggo i was 21, now i am 22. i read all the books, was vigilient about my diet, etc. i am not vegetarian, and we never ate organic food. i didnt do research on the benefits of cloth nappies vs. disposables, i didnt think i would co- sleep or baby wear... i didnt have a negative opinion of any of it i just didnt think i would be like this. the moment i saw my son, something inside me changed instantly. it is amazing to me. i always thought i would be more of a laid back momma, the cool mom or whatever. i wouldnt let the nurses take him to the nursery, i started co sleeping the first night he was bron! i have neverw anted to let him go. i dont see why i should, he likes being close to me. in the past 4 months i have ebf on demand. BF'ing was probably the ONLY thing i knew for sure that i wanted to do. i knew it would be absolute best for him so i knew i would do it. in the hospital we had no problem he ate like a champ. as soon as we got home we had a ton of trouible, its like he wouldnt latch, and how much that hurt me, it just broke my heart, i think thats what sparked something in me that led to my parenting style. i did get him to nurse after lots of tears from both of us, and my frustrated dh telling me im starving him and just give him fiormula etc. i missed that feeling that i felt when i nursed him in the hospital. anyways... after that i just did everything the way i NATURALLY felt i should do it. i dont know anyone else with babies, so i didnt really have anyone to ask for advice, but then again i felt like i didnt need it. i swear sometimes i think i was a mom in a past life because most of taking ccare of him i was so confident in right from day one...i swear sometimes when i see him doing something for the first time i feel like i know that behavior already so well even though ive never been around babies. i guess im just trying to say this parenting style was very natural for me, no one influenced me into doing this.

i joined bbc when ds was about  2 or 3 months old and realized i did things alot differently from everyone else and started seeking information elsehwere which led me to find dr sears and you guys and now i know where i fit in. My dh has a son who is 8 yrs old from a previous relationship that he did a great deal of the care of him because the mom is a horrible mother, and he has told me many times wow i really like how you do that with shane, etc etc and now he is 100% on the same page as me.

i dont remember when or how i decided to switch to cloth nappies, eat organic foods, make my own babyfood, and now i started EC. i just want to make it clear that i am not following the "trend" as some bbc ladies made it seem, most of this either came naturally to me without any presuation from anyone. Then the stuff like ec, and home made baby food... it just feels right to me. i want to do what is absolutely best for him and i am just following my heart.

[SukeyTawdrey]

ahhhh!  I hit a wrong button and deleted my post!  That's good.  Now I'll be less wordy

I've always been "different" who knows why?  This led me to a hippie lifestyle in high school and I've kept some of those values (but only a couple of the skirts)

As long as I can remember I looked for the right religion for me.  My chldhood neighbors were Old Order (horse and buggy) Mennonite and I spent a lot of time with their family.  I had good parnts but they were busy, not very child centered, and I was an only child.  I thrived in their home with 7 kids, barefeet, gardening, animals, sewing clothing, canning food, no TV distractions, etc.  But my soul seems to need more flexibilty so I kept the family values and continued looking. 

I studied paganism/Wicca and Hinduism (back and forth) and took a lot from those culures- dharma, reiki, herbs, aromatherapy, yoga, veggies, earth cycles, etc.  I have no real religion today but kept what fit me and try to mesh it with the traditional Christian calendar for convenience.  I think having a child will strengthen my spirituality because I need someone to share my beliefs with and help form traditions.  (although she's free to follow any path that chooses her... as long as she's kind!)

So all the parenting choices I make are just common sense to me.  Then my inner beliefs have been strengthened/ validated through my nursing experience- pediatrics and mother/baby.  I saw many different ways of bringing babies into the world and raising them.  Some I admired and some I was horrified by- like bottle propping.  My pet peeve- seeing moms feed their babies while he's lying flat in his crib and she bends over him and hold the bottle in his mouth.  (and looks bored)  Aaak!  Drove me nuts.  Pick him up!  Love him!  My most admired mom of a patient was just too great for words.  And I guess she happened to be an "attached" "natural" parent.  And her baby was born 25 yrs ago.  Wonder if she knew she was starting a "short lived fad"??

And believe it or not I think I looked into cloth dipes about 6 years ago after seeing a "Babystory" mom tour a diaper service.  I wondered if my area had any and was shocked by what I found when I looked up cloth diapers online.  Never considered anything else after that.  I was so sad that I couldn't use cloth dipes that I decided to try Mama Cloth.

Lily- I was adopted, too!!

[kristenp5]

I think that I'm in the minority in that I knew this is how I wanted to raise my kids waaaaay before they were born.  I was always one of those weird, baby freaks though  .  I'd say that my views on parenting were really refined in college.  My BS is in Child Development and my MA is in Early Childhood Special Education so basically, I had six full years of really crunchy professors lecturing about the problems associated with mainstream parenting practices.  I'd say the most defining moment in my views of parenting was reading "Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent" by Meredith Small in an infant development class.   It basically talks about everything wrong with "western" parenting.

In addition to the more academic reasons, the "natural stuff" just feels right to my and my husband.  It never occurred to me to even buy a crib with our first daughter because I knew she would sleep with me.  I'd taught at a Montessori which used cloth diapers exclusively and loved them so that's how I decided to cloth diaper (along with the environmental reasons).  I am just not capable of letting Willa cry and not going to her immediately.  If my older daughter or husband calls me I answer so why wouldn't I answer my baby? 

[moogie]

While i love doing things the AP/NP way, it wasn't a ntural thing for me.  Like many others i grew up in a pretty mainstream family(cio, cots, punishment etc), and i still struggle with some of these things.  I didn't bond very well with my first dd but our bond is growing every day now.  I found it difficult with my first due to some baby blues and other issues i had going on.  While we did do the AP/NP thing i didn't give her enough attention, there was always a lot of people in the house to give her attention and my confidence was low so i guess that is one of the reasons.  With Asha my second dd we bonded straight away which was fantastic.

MIL brought up her kids AP/NP though she didn't have a label for it. We knew that was the best way for us too.  we are fairly active on the environmental front too.  i love my cloth nappies especially my bamboo ones.  we recently decided to not buy "made in China" due to the social injustices that occur there.  we mostly buy 2nd hand goods anyway as they're cheaper and still good quality.

Our family lives by the buddhist philosophy so i think that has influenced our parenting style too.

[wintermaya]

I always knew I would breastfeed my mom breastfed me and always told me that she felt it was sad that more women dont.  It just seems to be a logical choice to me.  My first daughter Winter took to BF like a little champion we never had any issues with eating, however she was so incredibly attached to mommy that we were pretty much together non stop for her first year. whenever I left she would just cry like the world was over.   She nursed until she was 2. Maya nursed until she was nearly 3, we didnt really plan that I just let her decide when she was done.  As far as the cloth diapers my biggest reason was financial at first. We were 22 and totally broke.  I got a good deal on some second hand diaper covers and thought I would give it a try.  We used more cloth with Winter than the other two because I was a SAHM for her first year and with the other girls I was/am working. It is hard to get the husband and grandmothers to go along with the cloth diapers. I dont push it because well, we have never had to use daycare due to generous grandparent and flexible schedules. As far as co sleeping I have a crib and a bassinet even a really comfy hammock type thing called an Amby but have never been able to get any of the children to sleep with them and well Im just not willing to lose any additional sleep to try.  I love to snuggle them any way.  I dont believe that it really forms any bad sleeping habits my 8 year old and 4 year old both sleep just fine in their own beds.  My husband was very bothered by the co sleeping when Winter was a baby but has long since given up on trying to diiscourage it.  I think he has come to like the coziness too.