Reacting to Your Parenting Assumptions About Me (& Dan) 

I feel a little frustrated by the assumption regarding feminism. I'm a housewife and mostly stay at home mum (part time job out of necessity) as well as future homeschooler, completely out of choice. As a feminist, i hold space for ALL women, including those of us who enjoy a more traditional role.

Hannah, I really love that you don't know what most trendy parenting styles are. I love that you are going with your instincts and feel very little guilt about your choices. Even if you aren't a super "laid back" person you've managed to be a pretty happy, relaxed mom!

My therapist explained that a united family structure is crucial for little ones. As an example, grandma: “mum says you can’t have chocolate but I’ll let you”. As well meaning this is, it’s actually causing a conflict for the child in who they should trust in their family’s structure. It doesn’t matter if the grandparents disagree or don’t understand, their place is to respect the parent’s boundaries. Just made me think of this when you were discussing how you and Dan are a united front on how you guys are parenting ❤️

One of the best suggestions I got on the “constantly saying no phase” was to look at what you were saying no to and decide if you could safely teach them how to do it. We taught my 15 month old at the time how to safely plug things in because she was obsessed and honestly after we taught her she almost completely lost interest in pulling them out. We also taught both our kids how to safely slide down the stairs at 9 months cause they wouldn’t be stopped from going up.

I think I watch too many of your videos because I already knew which assumptions were wrong 😂

I always initially think "eh, I'm not going to be a parent, I'll skip this one" but then I'm always glad I watched! Parents make up so much of society it's nice to get the inside perspective since I'll never experience it myself. Keeps me more compassionate too, since sometimes childfree spaces can be a bit anti child.

The man in a hetero couple taking the bins out may be heteronormative, yes, but my thought is its caused by the bin design - bins are quite tall and bin bags are long, so the shorter person in a relationship (typically a woman in a hetero couple) has to lift the bin bag up higher so it doesnt drag on the ground, and they have to use more upper body strength to do so compared to someone taller who can hold the bag lower and expend less strength. If the patriarchy gave us rubbish bins (pun intended), then its only fair that the men have to empty them! I deeply respect all lesbians who take the bin out, those are the real queens

Really appreciate the reflection on work/feminism/childcare splitting - I decided to quit my job to go part time freelance to spend more time with my baby, and my husband still works full time, and sometimes I get very in my head about how we’re splitting childcare and whether it’s feminist, etc. But this was a helpful reminder that like, we do the best we can with the situation you have! And ultimately I’m happy with our choices and wouldn’t want it to be different, despite the trade-offs.

I always get a bit prickly when people bring up sleep training! We did a gentle, timed crying method (we listened to her cry “types” as well and knew when she was tired vs distressed) and it really saved us at a point where I hadn’t had more than 2 hours sleep in a row since she’d been born 7 months before. It brought her down to 2 wakes in a night which honestly was a godsend and she didn’t sleep through till she was 1! When I have shared my experience, other mums are so fast to call it cruel (or other unhelpful things) and I’m always taken aback by it! I appreciate that you can see both sides and have made a decision that right now works best for your family because really that’s all that matters! ❤

I’ve seen the half crunchy mums be described as scrunchy. Breastfeeding, co sleeping, second hand clothes but also vaccines, some screen time and not bothered about organic food or only getting plastic toys. I feel like I fit into that perfectly Also with the food thing try not to stress out about it too much. I had so much weaning stress and guilt, I found it so hard to go from 24/7 breastfeeding to being a 3 meals a day private chef and my son was so fussy and not eating much until just after his first birthday. Then he went through a growth spurt and just got so hungry, now he eats almost anything. Doesn’t love most fruit and veg on its own but eats banana pancakes, berry porridge, savoury vegetable muffins and occasionally just eats giant spoonfuls or sweet corn and peas. He’ll get there eventually it just takes time!

I'm 27 and not planning to have children for a while, but I have watched your channel since I was a teenager and I love learning from you. I like to think that this will help me prepare for the future! Thanks Hannah 😊

I don't have kids (yet), but I'm the oldest sibling. Apparently I was a champion sleeper and mum thought she had it made. I'd sleep through just about anything including firework displays and nap anywhere. Parenting was easy, she thought. What sleep deprivation? Then she had my sister. Who refused point blank to sleep in a cot, moses basket, pushchair or anywhere but on mum. And she was really fussy about sleep routines. Mum didn't intend to co sleep, but it happened because that was the only way the baby didn't scream the house down all night. So yeah. You can have kids who are just absolute nightmares when it comes to bedtime and just do whatever works and gets them to sleep.

It’s sadly rare for people to realise just how often they default to “he” for toys etc and to make a specific effort not to do that. Of all the gendering in the world, I really wish we could have a societal shift in this

Love your pragmatic and confident approach to parenting. :) I have found that being relaxed is the most helpful for bonding and being present with my child. So that means doing lots of things to look after myself and my relationships - no guilt here.

Hannah please do more baby-related videos! I enjoyed it a lot and curious about more topics.

I'm just so happy that I haven't seen anyone come at you for co-sleeping. It's a tough topic due to the risk. But every parent is taking risks whether or not they see those risks. Every parent is just trying to do what they believe is best for their kid. I firmly believe that co-sleeping can be done with safety in mind. Nothing will ever be 100% safe, but as long as you research and take precautions, there are pros to co-sleep. When my partner and I have a kid, I'm leaning towards co-sleeping because of what the research says about bonding. So yeah, go Hannah for co-sleeping and doing what you and Dan believe is best for Rowan, I'm sure they will be an amazing person because of that.

Honestly seting up a savings account for your kid is a great idea. I come from a big family with lots of cousins, and my mum saved aside all of the money (bar a little for spends during the year) for birthday cards etc. I didn't have access to it until I was 18 but i still have not touched it and having a rainy day fund really has helped my confidence with money as an adult. Especially compared to my peers who were given full access to any money they were given as a kid and spend it on tat, but now have no savings to fall on as they move into the adult world. I am so so so grateful for them making that decision for me

Love your new thumbnails! Feels very playful☺️💕🧡

Halfway between crunchy (it gets wild over there) and silky (plastic toys, mcdonalds, colour explosion, plane journeys, shopping on highstreet wtc) is scrunchy! I'm firmly a scrunchy mum 😊 I will add, from the perspective of a mum who had worked with young children for 15 years, please do the research on toddler years and attachment before you get there, which will be really soon! Most behaviour struggles start between 18-24 months.

Have you looked into baby-led weaning and shared responsibilities around food? It seems to be the best way to expose babies to the most variety of food and raise an intuitive eater.

you really truly seem very chill about parenting! as someone who doesn't have children yet and is a bit (at times a lot) apprehensive about the whole thing - what would you say contributed the most to you being quite calm, relaxed and not overthinking?

Interesting thought about naming toys "he" because it's default in English. It's certainly not the case in my native language (Russian) as every noun has a gender, so for example a bear, a wolf, a bunny, a tiger would probably be "he", but a dog, a cat, a fox - "she". It doesn't help with gender equality though.)

YESSS, THE CHECKERED JUMPSUIT! I love your intentionality around mixing up toy pronouns! You're so right that defaulting to he/him--as well as the general assumption that everyone/everything fits neatly into the gender binary--is an unfortunately insidious part of how much of society operates. What a lovely gift you're giving Rowan by showing him how expansive the world is ❤

As a nanny, I would say Hannah and Dan are definitely not crunchy parents. 😂

i don't have kids and i am single, but one of the things that seem iffy about "traditional" motherhood is not the possibility of defaulting to gender roles if they make sense at the moment. it's the lack of opportunity afterwards to change from it. like maybe one day i'll work less to take care pf a child and that's chill, but more often than not, mothers cannot go back to their paths as muchs as dads do. a man who takes time away from his career due to kids will probably get back to it. a mother won't due to extra pressure and sexism. this is less likely here, obvs, since you work for yourself, i was thinking more in general. short-term, it might be easier for the mom to do most of childcare, but longterm, she will deal with deeper consequences

You are doing a great job as a parent and as a couple. Rowan is luck to have you and Dan as his parents.

Jumping into this one within 5 min of the video being public! Woot!

Hey! Love your videos-and just general personality tbh! 😂 ❤ I have a question: Why don’t you like private schools? Honestly I’m not a fan either but by your answer it sounds like you feel a little stronger about it. I think it’s an interesting conversation to have :)

I would highly recommend learning about attachment theory and interpersonal neurobiology / co-regulation :) Also, from what I understand, sleep training where you don't meet a child's needs by going to them when they're crying can create an insecure attachment style and very stressed out nervous system that can make their life and relationships much worse for decades (if not their whole life). It's important for kids to have access to co-regulation with a safe adult especially when they're upset, because self regulation is extremely difficult and stressful for kids (and sometimes traumatic when required long-term via neglect, a pattern of not meeting a kid's emotional needs, etc).

I relate to you so so much. Like, my responses would have been identical to yours 😅 I love this content

I don’t have kids but your parenting videos are quite fun!

I totally get the mental conflict around sleep training. I think we ended up reading about a whole bunch of different sleep training methods and picking different aspects of each of them that we felt comfortable with. Eventually something worked and her sleep got a lot better (especially getting her to sleep quickly, that was a game changer). Eventually something will work and it'll be amazing! And then Rowan will change and it won't work anymore and then you'll find something else that works.

We didn't sleep train (there's studies about the cry it out method that I find to be horrifying) and we still got two peaceful sleepers in the end. It took between one and two years with each but I prefer that over scared babies essentially playing dead.

Loved this ❤

I recently read that breastfeeding is one of the key factors that create an unequal situation between the carers because the baby has to be fed to sleep etc. and how actually studies show that breastmilk isn’t significantly better for babies than formula. I’d love a video where you debunk some myths like this! E.g. also how people say „vaginal births are the only good births/real births and the baby will only be healthy if it’s born ‚naturally‘“ Or „you need to feel the pain to have the full experience of a birth“ Etc. etc.

Hannah bluey is life!! 🙌

I don't know if this helps but I'm very much of the thinking of giving a positive solution to behaviour instead of the 'no'. It's like if some one says 'Don't think of elephants!' It's immediately what you think of and is difficult to think of something else. Same with a little developing brain, switching it around from 'No, don't climb!' To 'Climb down' or 'Can you show me your walking feet?'

As a way to maybe feel better about saying 'no', you could sometimes do the redirecting thing and turn it into a positive. There's also the benefit of explaining why it's 'no'. E.g. that'll break, it's dangerous etc. Can be better as kids get older (I have to use this with visiting children at work a lot)

Been watching you for years and years and admiring your curiosity, openness, self esteem and courage. They are also what probably makes you a great parent to Rowan! Lately though I have felt a bit of unease watching your vlogs etc. because you seem so exhausted and like you do most of the care work for Rowan. I just worry that falling into the stereotypical roles will make you suffer in the long run. I know obviously you know best and I’m just an outsider but saying how Dan can’t do all of his gaming and how he takes out the trash just makes me cringe because I feel like you don’t realize how you might have a blind spot there / try to sugarcoat an unbalanced situation. I’ve seen it happening with a few of my female friends when they had kids and now their careers are dead and they are really dependent on their partner financially + their kid is super dependent on the mother and they can’t do anything alone because the kid is not used to being with the dad so much.. and also I see how the resentment regarding their partners is growing… I really hope I’m wrong though and I wish you all the best!!! ❤

Yay for Ms Rachel - she is a life saver for us!!

8:16 very interesting, thanks for the update on parenting and gender/sex of the baby topic.

To expose my son (similar age to Rowan) to lots of foods and textures, we created a 4-week food rota to have 4-5 meals a week preplanned on a cycle that covers all different cuisines and stuff! Also massively reduced the mental load not having to think about most meals during the week

So many of these resonated with me, I think my baby is 4 months or so younger than yours, so I kinda feel like you gave me a little bit of a preview with some of the things. I heard about bluey from one of your videos and both me and my partner have spent our respective leaves watching daily episodes... ours only really loves the theme song, but he really really loves it... fingers crossed he gets more into the episodes... do you have the birthday cake book from the duck cake episode? It's possibly the best cake book ever made!

How you and Dan choose to raise Rowan is between you and Dan. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but should it to themselves. Suggestions and ideas are just suggestions. Wherever works for you and Dan now, keep it up and adjust accordingly as needed. Every child is different but can be raised in in a similar patterns together

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Thanks

few days late, but curious about extra language learning since it’s easier to acquire the younger they start… german, yiddish, french?

Such a great video and love these videos⛱️🏝️🏝️🏝️⛱️🩵🌞🌞🌞🌞🩵⛱️💛💛🏝️🏝️⛱️🩵🌞🌞🌞🩵⛱️🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️💛⛱️🩵🌞🌞🩵💛🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️💛💛🩵🩵⛱️💛🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️💛⛱️🩵🌞🌞🌞🌞⛱️🏝️

Sleep training is basically be sleep hygiene for babies, it doesn't really overlap with crying it out ☺️

Every time you talk about Dan, I'm like....... is he like exactly like my husband? to a freaking T so far XD

What will you do when Rowan is old enough to ask to be shown or heard in a video, and what age will you consider 'old enough' to make that request seriously?

I'm trying to remember if you ever had a story/inspo behind Rowan's name?

As the parent of a little girl, if I dress her in anything that Isn't pink/clearly 'girly' is everyone just assumes shes a boy. Which doesn't bother me at all, but is v clear. I defs agree at the moment they are essentially 'agender'. Omg! My daughter is exactly the same! Loves the Bluey themetune! But not so fussed on the show 😋

I am glad you're not following all these parenting styles and just doing what you think is best. I'm also glad you're not super vigilant about how much organic food you're giving Rowan. I sometimes feel bad for not giving my child more organic food, but it is so much more expensive sometimes, and not everyone can afford that. My husband is so bad at referring to my child's toys as he and him, I always try to say she, her or they lol!

I really appreciate the way you talk about the gendered aspects of parenting! You have such a good balance of saying what works best for you and that you’re all doing really well with the set-up, while still acknowledging the statistical realities. It’s incredibly understandable but a little frustrating to see people hyper-individualize their choices as though they alone are exempt from gender dynamics. And what happens is that slowly, almost imperceptibly, we can end up rationalizing our way into justifying unequal society-wide dynamics. I notice this a lot with decisions about last names (still a very personal decision, but a little less so than parenting, so it can be easier to talk about). I personally don’t care if a wife takes a husband’s name, people are free to do whatever they want, and it’s not “anti-feminist” to change your last name, live your best life. But the way feminist women who make this decision go above and beyond to meticulously explain how their choice was the most individual choice to ever be individual, and has *nothing* to do with gender…that can be very true for a specific person, but can it really be true for ALL of us, as an aggregate of people? For example, I’ve seen women say, “I hate my father and don’t want to keep his name,” but how often do husbands who hate their fathers take their wives’ last names? The logic rarely seems to work in both directions. Again, random example, and I have no interest in analyzing specific people’s choices or ranking them along a feminist vs. non-feminist scale; we're all trying so hard to do our best within very subtle and complicated systems. But this is my ranty way of saying that I love that you’re still thinking about the bigger gendered picture and openly talking about it, while not overthinking your particular circumstances and what’s most ideal for the two of you. :)

I had to look thrice to realize that what I identified as pacifier and chuckled "heh, baby-induced chaos" was in reality the microphone. 😅

About the no’ thing, you could just tell him WHY he isn’t suppose to do that, not that he can’t. It takes time but results with understanding kids who don’t have an attitude about rejection in the future. I get that he’s still young but they tend to understand a lot. Just an observation we had with our kid

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when you mentioned Dan taking out the trash, lol, it reminded me of how the chores between me and my husband tend to seem gender normative also, hahahaha, though, I do almost all the cooking and that is more because I'm a much better cook than my husband and my taste in quality of homecooked food is a bit more picky than my husband, lol, just being honest. I also tend to do all the deep cleaning chores because my husband is slightly weirded out by it. don't have kids, don't know if we will, but we live in France and the dominant culture is pro sleep training, it's automatically assumed you'll do it and that kids don't sleep in the same room as parents past 3 months, unlike in Korea where we used to live where they don't really do sleep training and families will more than likely sleep in the same room till the kid is like 10 or so or until the kid asks for their own sleeping space, and I'm from the US when all that stuff depends on family culture and/or regional culture like people will have opinions but there is no automatic consensus on what you should or shouldn't do, which is what I prefer, I don't know if I like the idea of sleep training, honestly my ideal personality of a baby is for them to be chill enough to fall asleep anywhere at any given time, though I know kids/babies need a schedule, heck, my cat is practically sleep trained without us really even doing anything, lol, he's got a pretty strict sleep schedule especially where and how he sleeps

I assumed the 'naked mom' assumption referred to Adam's concept of a 'naked family' from sex education!

I have a degree in developmental psychology, and i'd be really happy to talk to you about the psychological impact of sleep training if you were curious? Im also a first time (single) mum to an exclusively breastfed 1 year old who's never even come close to sleeping through the night aha

Sleep training, 3 nights of hell and 25years latter sleeps like a log and always has. i think you both really love your son and each other and that's a future on the best foundation. Good luck and thankyou for a fantastic and such a helpful site.

hi

When people ask if I'm a crunchy parent, I say I'm an evidence-based parent. If you look at scientific evidence, like half of the stereotypical crunchy parenting things are optimal and half are terrible. There's also some where it really doesn't matter. Modern medicine is good, and whether or not something is natural doesn't tell you much about whether or not it's healthy. Also, a natural home birth is very dangerous because if complications arise, you might not be able to get help, and this is one of the big reasons why earlier generations had much higher rates of maternal and neonatal mortality. However, understanding of breastfeeding is still recovering from the heavy formula push in earlier generations, and there's good evidence to suggest that the optimal length of breastfeeding suggested is a bare minimum and might still be lower than ideal, so breastfeeding longer is good (OFC if breastfeeding isn't an option or the costs outweigh the benefits for your family, formula is a great alternative). As for cloth diapering, it's not a big deal, but it's thought that it can help with toilet training because they can feel wetness in a cloth diaper more easily and therefore make the connection that when they relax certain muscles their diaper gets wet. But IMO a more important thing is to not buy into the nonsense that you have to wait until 18 months or older to start toilet training, because cross-cultural studies suggest that babies can be trained much earlier and that kids who are in diapers longer get into bad habits of incomplete bladder emptying, which is likely to increase UTI risk. As for homemade food, food that's available in stores often has to be formulated in less-healthy ways in order to be shelf stable, which is not a constraint for home cooking, so in general homemade food tends to be healthier. But this also depends on your circumstances, and there are definitely healthy storebought foods and unhealthy homemade foods.

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A government trust fund is only for people born between September ish of 2002 and early 2011 and I don’t know if the same scheme is being implemented again any time soon or has been implemented recently

When I was younger I had a doll that I called Maxi and he was dressed in purple with a purple bow and I remember when I grew up my Mum told me that she used to get a lot of crap from other parents at my first school because how dare she let me a female have a male doll especially when the doll was purple! Which is a traditionally female colour!! I couldn't believe that they had such strong gender stereotypes that my Mum got shunned because I chose that Maxi was a boy 😂

My brother started collecting savings for his daughter for an account when she was born in 2020

Who doesn't like granola??!?😲😲😲🤣

Hope you have a good weekend and your beautiful family relaxing have fun xoxo 😚 💛🩵🏝️🌞🌞🌞🌞🏝️💛🩵💛🌞⛱️⛱️⛱️🌞💛🩵🩵🩵🩵💛🏝️🌞🌞🌞🏝️💛🩵💛🏝️⛱️⛱️⛱️🌞🏝️💛🩵🩵🏝️🌞🌞⛱️⛱️⛱️⛱️🏝️💛🏝️

I think you're not full crunchy. Just a lil crispy ☺

You're looking for Almond Mom I think 😅 at least I'm pretty sure that's it 🤷‍♀️ like the in-between of "crunchy" and the opposite end. Pro modern science, etc, but also parenting in a "natural" way. For example, in my family, we are very pro-science, have noisy plastic toys, eat junk food sometimes, and watch tv, but we also garden, have lots of imaginative wooden toys, lots of reading and books, baby wear, I breastfeed the baby (older kid was formula fed), and I gather helpful plants to use for myself in balance with modern medication (I use peppermint to help my migraines along with ibuprofen - just one example)

Co sleeping no no no don’t even start that And they are definitely not crunchy parents

Why was Dan’s career prioritised over yours?

You look amazing so beautiful and love your outfit Hannah and absolutely so smart and amazing mom and unbelievable unique xoxo 😚 🩵🌞🏝️🏝️🩵⛱️⛱️⛱️💛🌞🩵💛💛🩵🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️🌞🩵💛💛💛💛💛🩵🌞🏝️🏝️🏝️🌞🩵💛⛱️⛱️⛱️💛🩵🩵🩵🌞🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️🌞💛💛

I also wish private schools were abolished (as an aussie) or at the bare minimum, weren't given any govt funding

Love ur fashion style so cute and beautiful love it 💛🏝️💛🩵🩵⛱️⛱️⛱️🩵💛🏝️🏝️🏝️🩵🌞⛱️⛱️⛱️🌞🩵💛💛🏝️🏝️🏝️🩵🌞⛱️⛱️⛱️🌞🌞🩵💛⛱️⛱️🌞🩵🩵💛🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️🏝️💛🩵🌞🌞🩵💛🏝️🏝️💛🩵🌞

Pro Tip: Don't say Don't to a toddler. Toddlers dont understand "Don't do that" / "Don't climb the table" etc -their brains cannot process that sentence. Better to say "I can't let you [do this thing, whatever it is]" or to tell a toddler what you want them to do instead. "Feet on the floor" or "Set the apple down" etc. Neurologically, kids can't understand "Dont don't that" until age 4. -It's a very complicated sentence for a little toddler brain. To understand the sentence, they first have to understand what the word "don't" means, understand that "don't" is an abstract word that can refer to many things, understand what the thing is that you dont want them to do, -and understand that "dont" and "the thing" are related in the sentence, in this context. 🥵 That's a LOT for a toddler and frankly, they dont have the mental facilities for that processing yet.

I don’t make any assumptions about your parenting. It’s none of my business.

Okay, I'm not judging but actually curious: Why is your TV always on? I feel like it's part of a cultural thing which I'm not part of at all. 😅

Never heard of a man taking out trash as heteronormative 😂 not my bubble apparently

genuine question: how do baby clothes rental companies work since babies are so messy? do clothes that get messy not get returned and then you pay for them?

Wow Squarespace seems to haunt me... they seem to work with every youtuber that I watch and it is getting semi annoying!

why the close ups? 😢 soooo frustrating, can't watch the video as they are so distracting. would you please please consider not adding them in the editing?

Would you really truly put Rowan in school that wasn't teaching kids well if you had the opportunity to put him someplace were he could excel? I watched my second cousin stuck in a public school where they were bullied and, there dad is a great person, but he fucked that up, honestly.

aren't you afraid you will end up resenting dan? it sounds like you are the one giving up the most to be a parent (besides having actually carried the baby ofc). tbh it's a bit disheartening seeing a young, educated, progressive couple just follow the same old dynamic where the mental load and the actual weight of childcare fall mostly on the woman.

Hannah - you don’t wear makeup since having your baby . Please don’t be just a mum! It’s a big mistake!

my assumption got answered!

Omg yes to the video games 😂 my partner used to play online multiplayers where matches could last 2hrs and it was so annoying before kids...now he plays pause games, but does so every night once kids are in bed. Bins - absolutely his job!!! But I as a SAHM I do most housework, childcare and cooking. But that's ok because he's out working hard every day. And if I need help he'll never complain to do it. I have a 2.5yo and 14mo and I'm so aware of saying no all the time...but they literally just spend all day every day desperate to do and get into and empty everything they shouldn't 🫠🫠🫠🫠

Sometimes the automatically generated subtitles are just gold - "dental parenting"😁🪥😅