Younger Unschoolers: Including the Baby in the Adventure

We’re going on an adventure. We’re going to have a wonderful time. But wait! What about the baby? We can’t just rush out the door ready to explore when we have little ones in our family. At least that’s what I used to believe.

My first child was not an adventurer. Her sleep habits wouldn’t allow it. Felicity slept at regular times. I’d lay her down at the first sign of tiredness, and she’d quickly drift off to sleep. Usually, this was very convenient. While my daughter was asleep, I could sew or clean the house or even rest. I could do anything I liked, as long as I stayed home. You see, Felicity wouldn’t sleep anywhere but her cot. If we were away from the house when she was tired, she’d cry and arch her back and refuse to be consoled. I’d find myself apologising: “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go home. I need to put my baby to bed.”

It wasn’t my baby’s fault that I had to run home as soon as she became irritable. It was mine. I’d spent a long time training my child to sleep in her own bed. With lots of effort, I’d got her into a routine. And I thought this was good. I’d done well. I’d followed the advice I’d read in the popular parenting books, and now I had a perfectly behaved child. But occasionally, I wondered if routines were as great as everyone said they were.

My second baby wasn’t as obliging as my first. He wouldn’t cooperate with my efforts to turn him into a ‘perfect’ child. I soon gave up trying to fit him into a routine that suited me. I realised I needed a different way to parent my babies. Fortunately, I heard about Dr William Sears and attachment parenting.

Armed with new ideas, I started listening to my children. What were their needs? Babies prefer to snuggle up to their favourite people rather than be by themselves. They like to be carried in our arms and sleep next to us. They also want to feed whenever they’re hungry or feeling not quite right. I realised that it was okay to respond to these needs.

And I found out something else: babies love to be included in whatever’s happening in their family’s life. They want to be in the thick of things, not isolated by themselves in a quiet room of their own.

So we practised attachment parenting. And our babies were very happy. They hardly ever cried. I don’t suppose they needed to. Our babies were never hungry or in need of human contact. They didn’t get bored. And when they were tired, they just drifted off to sleep wherever they happened to be: in a sling, in someone’s arms, on a sibling’s lap, on a father’s back, in the car. But never in a cot.

So we could go out whenever we liked. We could take our babies along with us when we set out on an adventure.

Our babies and toddlers loved adventuring just as much as their older siblings did. They’d travel in a sling or a backpack. Or we’d take turns carrying them or swinging them between us over the ground. A couple of them didn’t even mind rolling along in a stroller.

A Botanical Adventure

One day, when our seventh child Sophie was about six months old, I said, “Shall we visit the garden centre?”

Immediately, everyone looked for their shoes while I fed Sophie and changed her nappy. Then I put a sun hat on her head before buckling her into her car seat. For some strange reason, Sophie loved wearing hats. She never once pulled them off. Maybe when she saw a hat, she knew she was going out on an adventure.

It didn’t take us very long to get to the garden centre. Soon we were strolling amongst the plants, chatting about all kinds of botanical things:

”Can you see how fleshy these leaves are? This plant stores water in its leaves just in case it doesn’t rain for a long time.”

”It would like our garden because we hardly ever water our plants!”

”I love the colour of these flowers!”

”This plant is frost-resistant. I read that on the label.”

”Oh look! This variety of rose is grafted onto another kind.”

”What’s a bulb, Mum?”

We walked through the tree section and I said, “That’s a ginkgo.” My kids seemed impressed by my knowledge. “I had to learn the names of lots of trees when I studied horticulture.” And then I told a few stories of my student days. “I studied botany as well as horticulture.” Then I added, “But I can’t keep plants alive!” We all giggled.

“Shall we buy a few seedlings?” I asked. “You can be in charge of them.”

”We’ll keep them alive!”

”We’ll remember to water them!”

While we were discussing possible purchases, Sophie’s eyes closed. She was soon fast asleep. After we had exchanged our money for a few vegetable seedlings, a block of coconut mulch and some tomato stakes, we headed back to the van. Carefully, we transferred Sophie to her baby seat. She opened an eye as we buckled her seat belt, but she sank back into a deep sleep as soon as I turned the key in the ignition.

As soon as we arrived home, of course, we had to plant our vegetable seedlings.

”Water them well!”

”Will the rabbits eat our seedlings? What about the snails?”

”Do we need fertiliser?”

”How long will it be before we have tomatoes?”

”I bet we’ll soon have lots of beans!”

Another adventure. Heaps of learning. And lots of enjoyable time spent together.

A Question About Babies

I often get asked this question: “Sue, how did you cope when you had babies in your family? How did they fit into your unschooling way of life?”

And my usual answer is, “We didn’t fit our babies into our life. We adjusted our life to fit around them.”

During our baby seasons, there were lots of things we couldn’t do. But we could continue to go on adventures because our babies loved being out and about. They were as eager as anyone to experience new things. And when their curiosity was satisfied and their energy was depleted, they just closed their eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Of course, we chose to explore places that suited our babies. They didn’t want to travel too far in the car. We couldn’t walk a long way with them in a sling or on our backs. We went to places where little fingers and happy noises were welcome.

Some of the Places We Explored with Our Babies

• We visited places like parks and gardens and the bush. We swung on swings, enjoyed the flowers, feed the ducks, identified the birds, walked, had picnics, and took photos
• We ambled around small animal sanctuaries and pet shops.
• We explored our neighbourhood on foot. Sometimes we took along a list of things we were going to look out for: a grey cat, a pink flower, a garden pond, a rusty car.
• We wandered around cemeteries and read all the stories engraved on the headstones.
• We walked along streets full of shops and peered through the windows, pretending to be customers.
• Sometimes we became real customers as we explored such places as fruit and vegetable shops, fish markets, secondhand stores, village markets and garden centres.
• We visited the library and the child-friendly secondhand book shop.
• We stood on bridges and waited for trains to pass beneath us.
• And on an extraordinary adventurous day, we travelled a few stops on a train!

So can we go exploring if we have babies and toddlers in the family? Oh yes, we certainly can!

Note: Perhaps I should add that adventuring was a bit difficult when Gemma-Rose was a very young baby because she suffered from gastric reflux. She experienced pain that couldn’t be helped by feeding or cuddling. She often cried when we were out and about. But as she grew and the pain diminished, she became an adventurer just like the rest of us!

Some Extra Things

A Podcast

In my post, Attachment Parenting and Unschooling, I wrote:

My first child was a perfect baby. She ate and played and smiled, and then when she was tired, she put herself to sleep. She even slept through the night. I thought I was a perfect mother. (What was everyone else doing wrong?) But my second child wasn’t quite so obliging. Cracks began to appear in my perfect mother image. My third child? When he joined our family, all my high opinions of myself fell in a heap. He had no routine whatsoever. It’s just as well I’d discovered attachment parenting by this time.

Yes, my ideas about parenting had changed. I could see that fulfilling a child’s needs, however much work that involves, is much more important than getting her into a routine and being able to boast, “I have a perfect child. She even sleeps through the night!”

Attachment Parenting and Unschooling is also the title of episode 54 of my podcast. Perhaps you’d like to listen!

More Baby and Toddler Unschooling Stories

And have you read the baby and toddler stories in my book Radical Unschool Love? There are six of them:

Babies and Toddlers and Unschooling

The Baby Season of Life

Seeing to the Needs of Our Babies

How to Have Demanding Children Who Rule the House

When Does Unschooling Begin?

Saying No

Photos

I don’t have any digital photos of our adventuring days when Sophie was a baby. The blog post graphic photo is of Gemma-Rose. She’s wearing one of Sophie’s favourite hats!

The other photos of Imogen, Charlotte and Gemma-Rose (our baby!) were taken about three years ago while we were having a brilliant bush adventure!

So, I’m wondering if your baby likes to be included in whatever’s going on in your family. Do you use a sling or a backpack? Have you had any memorable baby adventures?