Learn a little about us!!!

[purple_socks]

ooow just spotted this thread...great idea!

I'm Caroline. I'm 25 (altho i weirdly 4get my age all the time so i might b wrong abt that!) I'm a SAHM and plan to be 1 for as long as we can afford (altho i'm hoping to start a little home business soon selling some stuff i've made so what this space!) i've been married to DH for just over a year, together for 4 years altho we've known each other for a looooong time. Kian was our little surprise 9that we found out abt when we got home from our honeymoon!!!) He was born july 21st by emergency c-section after 37 hours of labour...i had planned a homebirth so most of that was spent at home using hypnobirthing techniques. I love him to bits and am loving being a parent more than i could ever have imagined!

Apparently i'm a hippy mum (or so people have told me lol). I attachement parent, baby wear- i currently use my ring sling most of all but plan on making some new slings soon, part time co-sleep, BLW and generally go with Kians flow when it comes to parenting.
I FF- but i'm really sad abt it! i really struggled with BF- i spent a little while in hospital after Kians birth and i didn't get a lot of help (infact i got some terrible advice) and it all went rather wrong in that department i tried relactation without much success. If i were BF tho then i am very pro extended BF and allowing LO to self wean.
We've just started using cloth nappies part time (with the plan to go full time when we have enough nappies). i am currently attempting to grow some of our own veg in the smallest garden ever! and i love arts and crafts and making things...especially 4 Kian.

I have 2 rescued black cats called bruno and lucy (if i had my own way i'd b a mad cat lady and adopt millions!) and a gecko...called 'the gecko'! I'd luuurv some chickens if when we get a bigger garden! infact my dream is to have a small holding one day!

thats abt all i can think to say abt me

 

[buttonnose82]

I guess I can officially join this part of the forum now

I am currently expecting our baby due october 1st, we will be using cloth nappies (which makes sense since I am setting up my own business making & selling them hehe), we will be baby wearing although we will also be getting a pram. I am interested is using the bradley method for the birth so I have emailed the only person in the UK that offers the course to get details! Basically we want to go as natural as possible with our parenting however we will not be co sleeping

guess thats it

 

[saraendepity]

welcome to everyone, nice to meet you all! little bumpy for more new crunchy mamas

 

[Kbee]

hello.....
I'm Kate 27....I live with Si and our gorgeous bambino Billy in a village on the south coast.......ummmmmm we both baby wear and I am enjoying building up the stash ........billy is exclusively bf at the moment but after the 5th lot of mastitas I think our bf journey is coming to an end soon.......we part time co sleep and try to use natural remedies for all of lives ailments ( including the odd glass of vino ).
Am beginning to lurk in here to find out more info on fluffy bums as this is our next road.
ummmmmm I'm a nurse I work in child and adolescant psychiatry.......will have to go back p/t later in the year, I'm veggie.......and we grow veggies....badly
.

 

[saraendepity]

:wave: welcome!!

 

[Oushka]

Hi all, Im Katie, 28 (almost 29) married to N, 40 for 2 years. I have 4 stepchildren, the youngest being 13.
Ive always been a laid-back, mothering type - I learnt from the best! My mum, who had my 2 little sisters with a 20 year age gap between me and the youngest... so have found motherhood quite easy so far and feel so lucky to have had the pratice & support of family & friends.

A riding accident at 9 weeks pregnant has left me able to do less than Id hoped but we're coping and loving every day.
Isobelle is the light of our life, we lead a baby-led life , Im with her 24/7 and she sleeps in an arms reach crib (we tried cosleeping but she took up too much room!) and have exclusively BF since birth, tho Ive had some issues recently thanks to the return of af :boo: and a strange lack of milk for 3 days during it but seem to have come thru the other side by spending those 3 days with bubs permantly attached to boobs and hubbie bringing me food & tea

We have always been socialble types and often spend an evening at a show (opera, orchestral, stage etc etc) and having a baby has not stopped this. Belle has already been to see Iolanthe and a choir at the sage and loved them (and we onyl had to leave the room once when she started shouting at the stage! )
We grow our own veg & keep chooks, we dont buy or eat any pre-prepared foods and I love cooking... and am upset at missing out on enjoying last autumns elderflower 'champagne' - its a little too potent to enjoy when BF

We aim to blw & BF for as long as Belle wants to (and will continue to battle the local HV team who keep insisting otherwise), once she self weans Ill get my shoulder fixed.
I babywear occassionally, due to dodgy shoulder Im unable to for long periods.
Isobelle is an absolute joy and we are so blessed to have such a laid back baby.

We live in County Durham with 2 working labs; Laddie & Harvey, 3 cats; Oscar, Fennie & Maggie and 3 horses; Rae, Molly & Herbie (well, there are 9 horses really but 6 have been staying with friends since pregnancy & accident) & 3 chickens; Melody, Honey & Marge.

So thats us! I will admit I didnt even realise there was a natural parenting section but now Ive found you

eep, sorry that was soooo long!

 

[celine]

Ahh Im not as natural as some of you mums and but I am a little (I like to think so)
We dont fluff-bum (although i may be tempted if we have another one day..)

but we battled an epic battle to bf in which I hardly slept for the first 2 weeks cos I gave him formula from a syringe with my pinky finger in order for him to learn to suck to get food as we were very paranoid about nipple confusion! So lo never had a bottle (except one at the hospital NOT by choice) until 6 months where he now has 2 a week to keep up the memory of how-to & to give dad a chance at feeding (all ebm as i pump every night)
I (try) to grow my own herbs and would LOVE to try to grow some veggies (any tips on here?)
I love to cook and do alot of my own foods from scratch with veg bought at farmers markets.
We have a juicer so in summer months I cant wait to throw in the fruit and get fresh juice yum! I look forward to lo coming with me to the market and choosing his fruit to juice-up.
I do a mix-up traditional & blw by i give him puree of mostly what we are eating and a piece of what we are eating if it suits eg a roasted carrot or slice of snitzel.
Its March and i cant wait to start planting sunflowers & more herbs

 

[Jchihuahua]

Hi, I lurk in here a bit and although I'm not as much into natural parenting as many of you I thought I'd introduce myself.

I'm Jeanna and have an absolutely amazing, perfect husband and a gorgeous 10 week old daughter, Daisy. I also have lots of fur/feather babies as I am animal mad and animal rights issues have always been a major part of my life. I have 3 dogs, 2 cats, 5 guinea pigs and 2 homing pigeons. I've been vegetarian since I was at primary school, which was my own choice. I won't raise Daisy vegetarian but I intend for her to only eat organic and home made produce. I already try to grow my own veg! She is currently breastfed and is really thriving, having almost doubled her birth weight already !

I'm currently on maternity leave but am a reception class teacher 4 days a week and 1 day a week I work for the education authority going around schools and helping and advising and providing support and teaching model lessons for early years teachers that are struggling/newly qualified/new to the role/set in their ways etc etc. I love my job! Children learning through play and practising positive discipline are things that I am passionate about and are very important in my job, and also now with Daisy as she grows up. Seeing a teacher shouting at children is something I cannot bear and I feel should really never be allowed. Positive discipline is something I give guidance on in my advisory role.

I do have a pram but am baby wearing more and more often. I have a baby bjorn and a baba sling.

I love seeing babies in cloth nappies but havent used them myself yet although I am tempted. We don't co-sleep as I am a very, very restless sleeper so would worry too much about doing it.

 

[Nic1107]

:wave: Hey, I'm Nic and I only half-belong here lol. I'm from USA, going to be 25 in May. My husband is Bee, who is going to be 25 next month. We've been married since April '09 and together a total of three years. He is a sailor in the US Navy, currently in the middle of a homeport change and hasn't met our little girl yet. Our daughter is C, born in January.

We used EBM for the first two weeks and now exclusively FF (C can't latch, milk dried up and I'm never talking about feeding again until she's on solids). We use disposable chlorine-free nappies and "natural" disposable wipes, BPA-free bottles and pacifiers. We are just getting into baby-wearing now that C will put up with it , but we also use a pram because she overheats in the sling; will be using it more when I don't need as much fabric over her to hold her up.

We co-sleep for now with a Snuggle Nest but will have to stop when DH comes back in September because he has night terrors and can be dangerous even for me to sleep next to. C eats on demand, sleeps when and where she wants (for now!), and uses a pacifier for comfort though she usually doesn't want it.

I am a strict person and hope to raise C with rules and boundaries, but I firmly believe in communicating with children with respect, and that even the "little" concerns of children should be taken seriously so they know they can come to me and their father with any issue, big or small. My experience on the ASD spectrum has affected my views on parenting, I just hope to do right by my kid by remembering what it was like to be little.

 

[vanessayogini]

hello! i'm vanessa and i'm 25. i've been with my soul mate for 1 and a half years, i was on birth control when we got pregnant! ahh, but it seemed so natural, like it was supposed to happen. i knew from the beginning that i wanted a homebirth, i hate hospitals and the more i learned about how they tend to treat women in labor the more i was glad for my decision. i became VERY PASSIONATE about birth (and what happens to some women in this day and age) and i became a registered birth doula, a lactation consultant for WIC, and i am sloooowwwlllyyyyyyyy studying to be a midwife (things have been put on hold since my babe has been born).
i labored at home in a tub and after 12 hours she came! it was a crazy amazing experience that i am looking forward to experiencing again. i had wonderful support. (which adds to why i am so passionate about giving other women wonderful support)
i wear my baby, she sleeps with us, she is full of love, she is a free range organic baby. she is exclusively breastfed and will continue to be so until she doesn't want to anymore. she will begin to eat solids when she's ready, and i plan to make all of her food for her.

 

[Kota]

It would appear I fit into this section.
Hi, I'm Adele and my OH is refered to as 'Monkey'. We've kinda fallen into the whole AP thing... or as Monkey calls it.. We're hippy bohemiem parents.
My litte boy was born on the 15th Jan and had his first experience in a wrap at 1 day old being transported home from the hospital, we now have a baby bjorn which Monkey uses often and loves, a babyhawk that I use, and a home made moby which i use around the house.
Phoenix is now exclusively BF after the first 5wks being combination feeding due to a tongue tie which wasn't picked up by the hospital or MW's at home visits, despite my asking numerous times if he had one. Since thats been snipped we've been able to drop the FF and I'm loving BF'ing my boy.
We have an arms reach co sleeper however thats not close enough for the LO and he normally ends up in next to me each night.
We plan on BLWing when the time comes and my OH is just as supportive and excited about this as I am.
We're not using cloths yet but I plan to switch over once we get settled in Australia which we're moving to in 3 months.

I'm also looking at doing baby signing with Phoenix.

 

[Monkeh]

...my OH is refered to as 'Monkey'. .

 

[sugarpuff]

i figured it was about time that i posted on this thread !

i'm sarah, 29 from the great north of england, i'm married and have 6 year old parson russell. audrey is my first baby and as it took 2 years to conceive her, i had plenty of time making plans for how i wanted to bring her up - i wanted to use cloth nappies and breastfeed her for the first year.

well i failed miserably on the breastfeeding front - she couldn't latch on (we later discovered that she has torticollis and can't turn her neck to the left - which was how i always tried to feed her... ). i expressed for a while but started getting less and less and just couldn't cope with trying to breastfeed for an hour, expressing for an hour, feeding ebm for 30 mins and then having 30 mins before it all started again.

i had hoped to get going on the cloth nappies after about 2 weeks but had to wait till she was a month old as she was a midget (5lb 2oz at birth) and didn't fit any of the btp nappies that i had ! i panicked at first that i wasn't going to get on with them and wanted to go back to disposables but i persevered and now LOVE them

i'm now obsessed with cloth nappies and can't stop buying the darn things. i think i have 55 already and have 6 more nappies on order, some flip stay dry inserts and 2 blueberry covers..... my hubby would kill me if he knew !

i'm also a vegetarian since i was 15 but don't plan on bringing audrey up as one (hubby is a big meat eater), i'll let her decide for herself when she's older. i also part time wear my little munchkin in a close baby carrier which i love - i would do it full time but my pram is awesome

umm, i think that's about it, so hi

oh yeah i forgot - i had also planned a lovely natural water birth with just tens for pain relief. i ended up with my waters breaking 24 hours after they discovered that she was breech, got abandoned for an hour with no pain relief till they realised (after i pointed it out !) that her heartrate had dropped, they examined me and found that i was 8cm dilated and then whipped me off for an emergency section

 

[BabyHaines]

What a great thread!!

Well....here goes.....
My name is Emma and I am married to Danny. We live in sunny Suffolk (although originally from Essex) with our beautiful, long awaited baby boy George, a dog called Reggie and six rescued ex-battery hens, who free-range round our garden and get under your feet!!
We had planned a home water birth, but it couldn't have been any further from it if we tried, as I ended up with pre-eclampsia and a very traumatic birth.
Anyhoo, we now exclusively BF, after having combination fed at the start due to amassive delay in my milk coming in.
I like to wear George in a Wilkinet I've borrowed or our gorgeous cow print Mei Tei, although the MT is a bit big for him at the moment.
I've kind of half swapped George into pocket cloth nappies, although I'm not convinced about the fit, so need to sort out trying some different types.
I also have a massive stash of bamboo terrys, but they are huge on him too....!!

I'm good friends with Vici and glong88 and we meet up weekly with our bubbas. I've also met Bee26 who's due to have Charlie bump soon xxxx

 

[sjbno1]

Hi Ladies,

Thought I would introduce myself here too I'm sarah, 27 and married to Sam 30 - we have a beautiful little girl called Izabelle (Izzie for short). We are bit late to NP but had planned on using CD when Izzie was first born (all bought when pregnant) but due to a very different birth than what I wanted I was very poorly and these things went out of our heads Also due to events after the birth I struggled to BF - I did feel guilty to start with but have decided to leave that peice of guilt behind and move on this makes me determined to BF baby no.2 though.

Anyway we have just started using CD (loving these LOTS), we babywear I have a baby bjorn carrier which I adore and we BLW although we did do purees to begin with but Izzie loves finger foods and has been having them since she was 6 weeks. I didnt co-sleep with Izzie as I was worried about rolling on her - although we have fallen asleep together many times and i've never rolled on her

Erm think thats it really - its been lovely reading about you all