Welcome to the February Carnival of Natural Parenting: Love and partners!
This is the second monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month we’re writing about how a co-parent has or has not supported us in our dedication to natural parenting. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.
******
A Love Letter
Dear Tom,
For this month’s Natural Parenting Carnival, I am supposed to write about how a co-parent has supported my own journey in natural parenting, but all I want to do is say thank you.
Thank you for helping me learn about natural childbirth. Thank you for watching countless natural labor and delivery videos with me while I squeezed your hand, for visiting midwives with me in order to find a good fit, for understanding the value in birthing outside of a hospital, and for calming my fears when I doubted my ability to have our baby naturally.
Thank you for walking through 31 hours of labor with me, and for staying in that NICU room with us for the next five days. If anything cemented our bond as a family, it was those long and intense six days.
Thank you for recognizing the importance of leaving our son intact. Thank you reading the research on why circumcision is not a healthy decision. Many, many thank you’s for being comfortable with sharing our decision with friends and family, and for passing information along to your friends who are about to become parents.
Thank you for helping us establish a successful breastfeeding relationship. When Kieran was a newborn you tirelessly helped me to pump, correct Kieran’s bad latch, and work the little feeding tube in while Kieran was nursing in order to supplement him with expressed milk. You rarely complained whenever you had to get me glass upon glass of water, bring me snacks, or dry my hormonal tears. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it without you regularly hugging me close and telling me I was giving our son the best start.
Thank you for helping me feel comfortable nursing in public. How many women can say that a man has helped normalize breastfeeding for them? You have done that for me. You have always been by my side, never to cover me up or make me feel ashamed, but rather to stand with me as one united front against the world. You make me confident.
Thank you for recognizing the benefits of full-term breastfeeding. You act as if you have been around breastfeeding toddlers your entire life – our friends may be surprised to know that Kieran was your first breastfeeding experience ever. You make it easy to forget that we are not living according to mainstream standards – I love that.
Thank you for welcoming Kieran into our family bed. It has been such a blessing to wake up with both of you every day.
Thank you for utilizing our entire babywearing stash without complaint – even the pink and orange tie dye ring sling.
Thank you for listening to me read article after article on gentle discipline, noncoercive parenting, and the benefits of giving Kieran the same love and respect we want ourselves.
Thank you for helping me research our health care decisions (including vaccinations), for listening to and challenging my arguments, and for making sure that we are making the right choices for our family.
Thank you for jumping feet first on the environmental bandwagon with me. The environmentally conscious habits we are creating are already second nature to Kieran.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for believing in the value of having me stay home with Kieran. I understand that losing my income was a struggle and a sacrifice for you, and I’m not sure you will ever realize how very much it means to me.
Thank you for coming around to the idea of homeschooling Kieran. I look forward to both of us having a part in helping Kieran explore and learn about the world.
Thank you for giving me time to recharge my batteries and for encouraging me to express myself in creative ways. Every project I have attempted in the past two years is due in part to you. You help me find balance, and you help me remember that I am an individual on top of being a mama.
I don’t say it often enough, but thank you for the husband and father you have become. I hear mothers worry every day that their partners do not support their choices. It is a very rare occurrence that we disagree about how to best parent Kieran, and I am so happy that we see eye to eye.
This journey of fatherhood has not always been easy for you. You have felt unprepared at times and ostracized at others, but you keep going, growing, and learning. Thank you for modeling that for Kieran.
You are my foundation and my support, and you are an incredibly positive example for others.
I love you,
~Dionna
******
Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
(This list will be updated Feb. 9 with all the carnival links, and all links should be active by noon EST. Go to Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama for the most recently updated list.)
- A Thank You to my Husband — Lactating Girl at The Adventures of Lactating Girl thanks her husband for keeping her grounded and giving her unwavering support in the face of discouragement from within and without. (@lactatinggirl)
- My Reverse Traditional Husband In the Wild — Paige at Baby Dust Diaries gives us a lesson on how dads in the wild parent their young. Can you guess which male animal actually nurses its young? (@babydust)
- TITLE — TopHat at The Bee in Your Bonnet tells us how the patience of a partner can make a difficult breastfeeding relationship succeed. (@TopHat8855)
- Parenting Together — For Alison at BluebirdMama and her husband, parenting is simply an extension of the way they live. (@childbearing)
- If We Had A MIllion Dollars — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! and her husband would both agree to be crunchier parents if they had a million dollars to ease the way. (@bfmom)
- February Carnival of Natural Parenting: Co-Parents — Dionna at Code Name: Mama has written a letter to her husband, thanking him for his incredible support in every aspect of their natural parenting journey. (@CodeNameMama)
- Natural Parenting Fathers — Sarah at Natural Parenting is balancing being all there for her son with being present for her husband. (@considereden)
- Just Wonderful: Love and Partners and Natural Parenting — Zoey at Good Goog let her husband lead her to babywearing and cosleeping. (@zoeyspeak)
- All that stuff I don’t get comes so easy to him — The Grumbles is taking this opportunity to say thank you to her husband for his mad parenting skills. (@thegrumbles)
- The Power of Having a Supportive Co-Parent — Chrystal at Happy Mothering and her husband started with vaccinations and moved on from there. (@HappyMothering)
- February Carnival of Natural Parenting: Love and partners — Lauren at Hobo Mama makes do with babbling incoherently about how her husband practices natural parenting in such an effortless fashion, with bonus video. (@Hobo_Mama)
- Love and Partners — Mrs Green at Little Green Blog shares her husband’s moving account of her birth story, and his testament to the power of a woman. (@myzerowaste)
- labor support… — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children is thankful that her partner has provided her immeasurable labor support through each of their last three unassisted homebirths (and will again for their upcoming fourth!).
- What co-parent? On prams, routines, ideals, sickness, and finding my way alone. — Ruth at Look Left of the Pleiades describes life without a present co-parent: making new choices and taking care of things herself. (@brightravenmum)
- Parenting With Support — How many people can say that their husband talked them into cloth diapering? Darcel at The Mahogany Way can! (@MahoganyWayMama)
- Co-Parenting Support — Summer at Mama2Mama Tips knows the importance of being supported in the face of criticism. (@mama2mamatips)
- Natural Parenting Carnival: Love and Partners — pchanner at A Mom’s Fresh Start has been blessed with an incredibly involved partner. Her husband loves to take part in every aspect of parenting! (@pchanner)
- Daddy’s Little Girls — Kate Wicker at Momopoly finds her husband right at home in a tangle of girls. (@Momopoly)
- How do I love my parenting partner? Let me count the ways. — Sybil at Musings of a Milk Maker is thankful that she and her partner co-parent fluidly and gracefully. (@mamamilkers)
- Interview with a Daddy — NavelgazingBajan brings us a highly amusing peek into her husband’s perspective.
- Being Supported in Natural Parenting — Sarah at OneStarryNight has witnessed both ends of the parenting spectrum, and is grateful she found a father who is comfortable with natural parenting. (@starrymom)
- Moments in time: a love letter — Arwyn at Raising My Boychick will make you cry with the beautiful way she describes the complete relationship between father and son. (@RaisingBoychick)
- TITLE — Jen at Recovering Procrastinator brought her reluctant husband around to cloth diapers, bed sharing, and time-ins as a discipline method. (@jenwestpfahl)
- Breastfeeding Father — Amber Strocel at Strocel.com describes how her husband helped her overcome the breastfeeding challenges she encountered with her premature daughter. (@AmberStrocel)
- A Natural Parenting Village — Acacia from Art, Body & Soul, in a guest post for Jamie at Suddenly Stay at Home, broadens the term “coparents” to embrace supportive extended family on both sides. (@SuddnlyStyAtHme)
- A Natural Dad — Shana at Tales of Minor Interest doesn’t have a husband who merely supports her — she has a husband just as dedicated to natural parenting as she is.
- Love and Support from a Man Without Pants — Joni Rae at Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma describes life with the sometimes bumbling but always lovable Pantsless Man. (@kitchenwitch)
- G-O-T-E-A-M! — Jessica at This Is Worthwhile made sure her future husband agreed with her parenting choices early in their dating. (@tisworthwhile)
- TITLE — Michelle at womanseekingmother dances with her husband around the subject of cosleeping. (@seekingmother)










Most Popular