They aren't contractions, they're 'birthing waves'. Birth Story according to a Dad.

[hackneybird]

Here is the link

It's actually a craft blog I read regularly, but the owner recently gave birth and the father has written an amazing account.

For those of you that are inclined to alternative teaching methods, you may also find the child's Montessori room interesting, or be totally fascinated/laugh your head off at her intended parenting philosophy, which includes 'diaper free infant hygiene'. Yes, they are American.

I'm still puzzling over how she could possibly consider the room to be 'aesthetically pleasing to a young child'. I thought it was adults who liked tasteful art prints and beige and brown furniture. All the children I know like garish orange and green lumps of plastic.

Joking aside, I do hope that reality doesn't bite too hard, they clearly want what's best for their child and are caring parents. They have put so much thought into every single decision that it could be rather painful when little Finn wrecks it all.

DS1 wants me to paint his walls bright blue with big (floor to ceiling) dinosaurs on each wall.

DD1 has the naffest, tackiest lack of taste going.

She likes COLOUR, bright, bold colour.

Bless their cotton socks. OK, everyone who has said they are pretentious nutters who really don't have a clue (and scaredycats - all that diving under the covers with your phone becaus of a firework, fgs) is right. But they will find that out all by themselves.

their organic, fairtrade, hand-woven cotton socks, natch.

that they knitted out of their very own cotton, grown in their own garden (with no pesticides, obviously)?

that they harvested whilst chanting.

ooommmm.

did the chanting come in waves, do you think?

this guy probably speaks in chant.

i mean, these people are the definition of ernest.

As you said, ommmmmmmmm...

there was a couple very like this in our antenatal class. DP, who is normally a very mild man who rarely dislikes anyone, was moved to say that he could cheerfully strangle the dad if he saw one more of his handknitted jumpers ever again.

I have actually puked reading that blog. Seriously.

my poor boss was like this pre baby.... then he came- no pain relief, just 3 hrs labour and no problems...

and then he didn't wake up for 6 weeks and didn't feed and didn't grow and she was beside herself with stress and worry. He was in ICU twice.

she is alot less smug now- i'm hoping it'll make her realise us lesser mortals have problems.
I'd never ever wich the stress she has had on anyone btw - i'd hate that comment to be misconstrued.
I jst mena it is a learning process and sometimes the first casualty is idealism when you have kids.

The bit that really gets me - as pain relief during labour she had her first glass of wine since they started trying for a child. Surely DH and I can't be the only people whose child was conceived with the aid of a glass of wine or two?

I'm surprised actually, in a good way - MN might be bitchy, but bitchy in a nice way! On another website ages ago someone posted about their friend who kept on and on about the baby she was expecting and how she was going to have a drug free labour and breastfeed and never use nappies and her baby would be the most perfect PFB ever, and the comments on the thread were mostly things like "It's ok, you can laugh at her when she comes to you saying she ended up having a c-section and bottle feeding, LOL!!!"

Yeah I do wish them all the best despite the rather self-inflated blog (and maybe it's a cultural thing because they seem to have a lot of positive comments from other American's - maybe us Brits are just a bit less tolerant of all that airy fairy stuff?) but I do think they'll feel a bit silly looking back, because we all do a bit and they are the king and queen of pfb!

Oh bless, she reminds me of a US friend, who is equally earnest and idealistic, and decided post-PhD that she had a vocation to teach maths to deprived kids in NYC. She lasted a term before the horror broke her and she went back into academia - but she was, and is, a complete darling. She's called Destiny - was actually named thus as a newborn, which explains much.

That room is beautiful, but it's been created for a very tidy, sweet 5 year old. Not a crawler who will want to chew and bash everything in his path. And surprisingly tiny babies can roll - pre-head supporting stage in this house - I'd not want my kid napping his way onto a polished wooden floor without pillows to break the landing, because that drop is not nothing to a very tiny baby.

What a lovely room...my 5yr would love it!

I wonder what mum will do when she sees that Little Finn has pulled off his dirty nappy & smeared the shit all over his bed, walls, chair, mirrors, other mattress....hmm!

Lets face it, at least in a cot you can contain the shit spreading!

As a non parent at the moment, I'm actually intrigued as to other mumsnet opinions. Do you think setting up yourself in advance of the baby's arrival to be an earth mother and doing up the room with quite specific ideas of how it will be used etc means that you will be more likely to be able to do things like breastfeed, or be more likely to be disapointed when/if things go awry?

For example, if you planned to be very organic/breastfeeding/sling wearing/natural birthing - and then things don't follow that plan, do you feel a bit let down by the whole business?

I say these things as somewhat of an earth mother wannabee!

"Little Finn has pulled off his dirty nappy & smeared the shit all over his bed, walls, chair, mirrors, other mattress....hmm! "

She'll be fine, brown tones nicely with the rest of the room and poo is antural and organic....

As much as I am laughing my head off I also think it's quite sweet (And organised!), he is there PFB after all.

Am also worried about baby falling off bed onto wooden floor, DS was a wiggler from quite early on.

Ozziegirly, interesting, perhaps a subject for a new thread! I really planned to be very lentil-weavery. Most of my decisions which I made before birth only half-materialised ie the home waterbirth turned into hospital birth (most of labour in pool) with only G&A, I loved my stretchy wrap sling but since he's grown out of it I haven't got anything as comfortable (and I do love my buggy as well) and although I have done BLW he was 21 weeks when I started and the food is certainly not all organic

At times I felt a bit like I'd failed, especially if I had read someone's blog where they'd managed to do everything I hadn't! But then I came to realise that, actually, DS is happy, I am doing the best I can and what somebody else does has no reference to that. You wouldn't start running and get upset because you weren't up to Linford Christie's standard! And I think the people who do best with the Earth Mother type things are fairly natural living/lentil-weavery people anyway, with supportive (ie equally hippyish) husbands. (And in fact the same for people who read Gina Ford et al religiously while pregnant and insist they will stick to the routine - it works better if you're an organised, routine-loving person anyway.)

Ozzie, I think that depends on how resilient you are

a friend of mine was very earth mother at first (though not like this couple), but she has had the strenght to adapt as she has gone along

earth motherism is fine, but I would never let in interfere with safety (agree with Qually that that mattress is potentially dangerous for a small baby) or with common sense (a toddler will indeed have those pictures off the wall) or with the simple realisation that shit happens (my dd was born with a genetic condition we didn't know about and consequently struggled to breastfeed)

and they also need to remember that as your baby reaches the young child stage he needs to socialise with other children, which means finding out how the other 99% live:

what will they do if his friends can't afford to get him those expensive catalogue organic birthday present, but turn up with some well meant plastic tat?

or when little Finn himself decides he wants his wall decorated with garish crayon drawings of Spiderman- are they going to stifle his creativity () or sacrifice the soothing colour scheme?

They do sound quite sweet- but they are still at the stage where the birth of a child seems like an opportunity to express their personality. Over the years they will find that this is only half of the equation.

I think she's planning on co-sleeping so the mattress won't be used for sleeping for a while yet.