Controversial Parenting Choices

Parenting is the most personal job on the planet, and we all do it a little differently. Here are my views on some of the most controversial parenting topics out there. That being said, each mama does things a little differently, and I fully respect every mom to make the decision that is best for her family.

For the sake of this blog post I’ve quickly outlined my thoughts, but I go much more in depth in the video below. If you aren’t able to see the embedded video, click here to watch on YouTube.

Circumcision

I do not plan to circumcise if I ever have a son. I do not see the reason for a cosmetic surgery on an infant. Not only is there no consent from the individual being altered, there is no medical reason for the surgery, and there are long term negative impacts from the surgery.

Co-Sleeping

I never ever thought I would end up bed-sharing with my child. I have anxiety, and the dangers of bed-sharing scared the bejeezus out of me. I follow other moms who happily bed-shared and absolutely loved the cuddles, but I always knew it really wasn’t for me.

But parenting has a way of turning things on their head, and so when my previously perfect sleeper just stopped sleeping at 6 months, eventually something had to give. I researched the safe sleep seven, so that I would be prepared for the inevitable night when I just could not stay awake.

Our family ended up bed-sharing for about a month while we navigated my daughter’s sleep struggles. For a part of that time, my daughter slept directly in the bed, and then we switched to the Snuggle Me. Neither of those setups really worked for our family, so we ended up transitioning her into her crib. Her crib is still in our bedroom, and we plan to room share until at least her first birthday.

Sleep Training

After bed-sharing, sleep training was also something I never wanted to attempt, probably more so than bed-sharing. I am a very responsive parent, and do not believe in just letting a baby cry, or that it’s possible to spoil a baby, especially with love and attention.

But again, while struggling through months of my daughter waking up unable to put herself back to sleep, we decided we really had no choice. We weren’t able to be the parents we wanted to be during the day, because we weren’t getting the rest we needed at night. So we decided the benefits for our family outweighed the downsides.

We ended up going with the Taking Cara Babies course, after hearing lots of positive reviews. We did end up tweaking it a bit to fit our family’s needs, but it still worked wonders for our daughter. Within a couple days, she was sleeping through the night again, and able to calm herself back to sleep between sleep cycles.

And I am happy to report that she currently goes to sleep in under 5 minutes, and will sleep a full 11-12 hours every single night. So while it definitely wasn’t easy, it was what our family, and my daughter, needed.

Breastfeeding vs Formula

I have made it 10.5 months at this point exclusively breastfeeding and I absolutely love it. I love the bond that it has built between my daughter and I. I love the convenience of not having to worry about bottles and formula. I love knowing exactly what is going into her body.

That said, I believe fed is best, and formula is a life saving modern miracle.

Pacifier vs Thumb Sucking

Possibly the one issue where I don’t choose the “natural” option. I am team pacifier, just because I do not know how the heck I would break a child of thumb sucking if they chose to start. But once again, my child threw a curve ball at me and no matter how hard I tried, was pretty much not interested in pacifiers and hasn’t touched one since maybe 4 months old.

Spanking

I am strongly against spanking. Not only do I not believe it is an effective teaching strategy (it just teaches the child to be scared of punishment) it has been proven to be extremely harmful to a child’s development. Hard no.

Time Out

This is another outdated parenting strategy in my opinion. I don’t think it really does much to teach the child anything. I plan to follow a more “time in” solution, where I can sit with the kiddo to help explain to them what went wrong, what they can do better next time, etc. I believe this will build a stronger intrinsic understanding and motivation to do good from the child.

Abortion

I am strongly pro choice. No woman should have to go through pregnancy, birth or parenting if they do not want to. Full stop.

Medications

We are very passionate about natural wellness and holistic remedies in our home. We love using essential oils to support our bodies, and believe healthy food is the best medicine we can give our body. However, we also believe that there is a time and place for western medicine, and have no problem resorting to that should it be necessary.

Vaccines

This one is a hard one to truly type out my feelings on because they have gotten a little complicated. I do vaccinate, and do not plan to stop, as the benefits outweigh the negatives for me. My main issues lies mostly with the system for vaccines, rather than the vaccines themselves.

Ear Piercing

I believe it is my child’s choice when and if they pierce their ears. But once they ask for it, I have no problem doing it, and don’t have an age restriction I plan to stick to.

Public vs Private vs Homeschool

I plan to homeschool my children. I absolutely love the flexibility it provides. It will allow us to self pace tailored to my children’s specific needs. We can deep dive into studying topics that my children are interested in. We can travel whenever we’d like and experience the world and other cultures first hand. The benefits are truly endless in my opinion.

Cloth vs Disposable Diapers

We cloth diaper and absolutely love it. Before my daughter was born, I was a little worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with it, but it has turned out to be so much easier in practice than I worried. It really is only minimally more work than disposables (mainly just because you have to wash them) but it is more than worth it to me.

And that finishes it up! I hope you guys liked getting a little peak into my thoughts and feelings around these parenting topics. I’m sure you can tell, but I definitely tend to sway strongly towards the natural side of things, even more so since becoming a parent.

I have also loved meeting other mamas who share my naturally focused parenting mindset. With that in mind, I’m also really excited to share that I have made a Facebook group specifically to connect moms who parent and live life in a natural way! You don’t by any means have to share all the same opinion as I shared in this post, but if you consider yourself a natural mama or just want to learn a little bit more about becoming natural in your day to day life, I would love to have you join Simply Natural Mamas!