Hannah Witton

[Coffeeismysoul]

Ok, so I don't really like Hannah, but reading that her husband was playing an effing board game and waited to finish it off whilst she went into labour infuriates me for her.

I would dump a man who did that to me for our FIRST child, and I'm not being funny, but Hannah isn't exactly an able-bodied pregnant woman - she has a stoma bag and missing part of her digestive system. Whilst it's not a debilitating condition, she's not exactly on the same level as someone with a full digestive system. Being pregnant takes a hell of a toll on the body, and labour is incredibly stressful on the body. Additionally, for all I know, Hannah may have trauma regarding hospitals after her experience going through all of that - to leave her alone at a frightening time for any woman is just peak jack-ass.

Whilst I'm sure it's very safe, as a concerned partner with more of an anxious mindset, I'd be nervous about something happening, and that four-day labour says it all.

As a husband, you're supposed to be there to support your partner first and foremost, not when it's most convenient for you.

 

[Livelaughlove123456]

My understanding is that she was fine labouring alone but then decided it was too much and needed Dan for support and he said “great, I’ve only 10 minutes of my game left”…

So instead of dropping everything the second she decided she needed him he finished his game. I’m genuinely shocked. My husband would never hear the end of it if he did that

 

[Westeryonder21]

It's funny cause when I watched that video I got the impression she had just kinda started labouring and was unsure/knew the contractions weren't strong yet and told him but acted like she wasn't very far along/it wasn't that bad. I'm sure in those 10mins if she went back and expressed the contractions were very strong and was concerned or wanted to go to the hospital there and then he would have stopped sooner.

He was with her the ENTIRE rest of the time of her multiple days labour supporting her ffs and people are saying they would have dumped him there and then madness. Maybe I'm too chill. Maybe she is too. Really we know very little of their relationship, she seems very Type A and he is very Type B and opposites attract I guess.

 

[imtakingabath]

It's funny cause when I watched that video I got the impression she had just kinda started labouring and was unsure/knew the contractions weren't strong yet and told him but acted like she wasn't very far along/it wasn't that bad. I'm sure in those 10mins if she went back and expressed the contractions were very strong and was concerned or wanted to go to the hospital there and then he would have stopped sooner.

He was with her the ENTIRE rest of the time of her multiple days labour supporting her ffs and people are saying they would have dumped him there and then madness. Maybe I'm too chill. Maybe she is too. Really we know very little of their relationship, she seems very Type A and he is very Type B and opposites attract I guess.

I agree, personally. I wonder if some people don’t realise how slow and boring labour can be at first (especially with your first birth!) and that’s where some of the difference in opinion is coming from. I remember my partner and I both just watching separate TV shows on our own tablets while I was trying to distract myself and wait for my contractions to become more regular - it really wasn’t a big deal that he wasn’t holding my hand/rubbing my back the whole time!

 

[Westeryonder21]

I agree, personally. I wonder if some people don’t realise how slow and boring labour can be at first (especially with your first birth!) and that’s where some of the difference in opinion is coming from. I remember my partner and I both just watching separate TV shows on our own tablets while I was trying to distract myself and wait for my contractions to become more regular - it really wasn’t a big deal that he wasn’t holding my hand/rubbing my back the whole time!

I know a few people who had their first babies born within an hour of starting labour, though all admit they have small waves for days that must have been contractions and they were not painful so brushed it off until birth was imminent. However most were labouring at home for a day at least before dilated enough to continue labour at the hospital.
As newly pregnant with my first I anticipate a labour like Hannah's much more likely.

Hannah is strong minded, I 100% think the suggestion (by someone else not you) that due to her stoma she is reliant on Dan and therefore lets him get away with more is a silly suggestion, she seems very independant and confident, earns her own money from home...I'm sure she can hold her own in a relationship.

And I say this as someone who isn't that keen on her. Quite liked the video, but maybe just because I am also expecting.

 

[astridivy]

I feel like that’s a bit unfair. I’m not yet a mother, but afaik, breastfeeding is a VERY hard, time intense full time (and much more) job. So if you bf, your life gets clearly dominated by it, and that reflects in Hannah sharing her life online honestly. There’s no other possibility I guess? (Not saying, nourishing your child without breastmilk is any less of an achievement ofc.)

Once you have a baby and any genuine exposure to people who can’t breastfeed (if you have any empathy ofc) you realise it’s a very triggering topic for many. I’m in an online mum discord group with a couple of hundred people and nursing discussions are spoilered because many on there find it so triggering. Regardless of whatever reason we analyse Hannah as having for posting so much it’s annoying af, even separately from the trigger points. Even if I breastfed I just don’t want to see a picture of her pumping without any warning (I did pump and I still don’t want to see it).

 

[fallenwinchester5]

Once you have a baby and any genuine exposure to people who can’t breastfeed (if you have any empathy ofc) you realise it’s a very triggering topic for many. I’m in an online mum discord group with a couple of hundred people and nursing discussions are spoilered because many on there find it so triggering. Regardless of whatever reason we analyse Hannah as having for posting so much it’s annoying af, even separately from the trigger points. Even if I breastfed I just don’t want to see a picture of her pumping without any warning (I did pump and I still don’t want to see it).

I feel this way about her pregnancy and baby content in general. She says that her content is going to go back to ‘normal’, but it most likely won’t. Rowan will likely always be mentioned in every video in some capacity. I think being a mother is an amazing thing, but it must be triggering to those with infertility issues.

 

[sippingthetea]

Agree with all the concerns that this will change her content because if her Instagram is any indication of how her YouTube channel will run going forward, it'll be babies and breastfeeding 24/7 which is understandable given she's a new mom and this is her first baby, but I think she needs to recognize that not all her viewers are interested in this content. Also, to echo what's been said above, I wish she was more cognizant of those who are triggered by her content. Even if that's just including a bundle of pictures where the landing pic isn't her breastfeeding or including a warning before showing herself breastfeeding in videos. I've seen many YouTubers provide sufficient trigger warnings on both platforms, so it's really not that hard.

I'm curious about her schedule going forward and how she plans to fit in work. It seems she's outsourced some video-making to the "hosts" she mentioned - makes me wonder how she's able to afford an assistant and to presumably hire all these hosts, or perhaps they're doing it for free for the exposure on her channel. I know she's done a deep-dive into her finances, but I'm so nosy!

I don't recall her mentioning a plan for content/work post-mat leave (pls correct me if I'm wrong), but I got the impression that things were not going accordingly to her plan, which for a Type A person can be overwhelming. I only say that because she seemed reluctant to put her baby in childcare and didn't seem to think she had enough time to work in the hours she had left.

 

[Blahblah93]

I can't have a child. Quick hide all babies from me as I find it triggering.

 

[Fillyjonk]

The thing about the breastfeeding is that it absolutely consumes you. It becomes your entire life and your entire world, and at times it becomes the only thing you do. It's boring, repetitve, exhausting process but there are obvious results which are pretty amazing. This generally leads to expecting everybody to care about it the way you do. But really, nobody does. Really, not even breastfeeding mums give a tit about anything but their own journey. Nobody needs to see the pump or a full grid of brelfies.

I don't know how I feel about trigger warnings on breastfeeding content, though. That feels more like "I need to address my distress at not being able to breastfeed" than "I need somebody to feel like feeding their baby is distressing".

 

[Daisymai]

Off topic, but I really want to know what her husbands hair looks like from the back

 

[sheleg]

The thing about the breastfeeding is that it absolutely consumes you. It becomes your entire life and your entire world, and at times it becomes the only thing you do. It's boring, repetitve, exhausting process but there are obvious results which are pretty amazing. This generally leads to expecting everybody to care about it the way you do. But really, nobody does. Really, not even breastfeeding mums give a tit about anything but their own journey. Nobody needs to see the pump or a full grid of brelfies.

I don't know how I feel about trigger warnings on breastfeeding content, though. That feels more like "I need to address my distress at not being able to breastfeed" than "I need somebody to feel like feeding their baby is distressing".

There should not be trigger warnings on breastfeeding photos. If you couldn’t breastfeed your baby or chose not to, tough tit - other women can and do. We need to start accepting that some people can’t or don’t do things, and seeing others being able to do them isn‘t “invalidating” or “unsafe”. Social media has turned us all into simpering victims.

 

[Fillyjonk]

There should not be trigger warnings on breastfeeding photos. If you couldn’t breastfeed your baby or chose not to, tough tit - other women can and do. We need to start accepting that some people can’t or don’t do things, and seeing others being able to do them isn‘t “invalidating” or “unsafe”. Social media has turned us all into simpering victims.

Troof!

 

[éman]

It’s a bit of a side point but while I’m not contemptuous of trigger warnings as a concept because I think they were, originally, very kindly meant, I sincerely believe they’re crippling women. They’re a road to self-flagellating levels of aimless, counterproductive empathy, in particular because it’s definitionally incredibly subjective where is reasonable to draw a line between “needs a trigger warning” and “doesn’t need a trigger warning”, and it’s basically inevitable that the people whose voices are loudest during those conversations are the ones with the most extreme views in that regard. People very enmeshed in their own trauma are often — very understandably! — extremely myopic, and I think as a society we’ve got a bit tangled up in this idea that experience of something necessarily means that someone is ideally equipped to determine which system works best for everyone.



The only way, IMO, to get close to a subjective standard (and even here there’s some room for argument) is to go for a system where things that would be considered distressing for most people – either generally or, if in a specific group, then in the particular context of that specific group — get a trigger warning, but other stuff doesn’t. Breastfeeding is not an inherently distressing subject. It’s not RARE to have trauma or sensitivities around it, but it’s also not rare to have trauma or sensitivities around pregnancy, and pregnancy is how literally all of us got here. It’s obscene to impose the need to self-censor on people talking about pregnancy, and also just pragmatically ridiculous.


Someone I know wrote very movingly a while ago on this whole subject, after having suffered several miscarriages in a row (one quite far into the pregnancy) in a desperate bid to have her first baby. She said that at the peak of her misery and anxiety, she would step out of her door onto the busy street, or go for a coffee and look at the waiting queue, or turn on the news and see coverage of various world leaders shaking hands with each other, and every person she looked at, she would get a pit in her stomach and miserably think “you were the result of a successful pregnancy”. She said it was this that made her realise that it could only ever be her responsibility to deal with her trauma, and other people ultimately owed her nothing more than tact, because what can anyone do to accommodate trauma associated with simply seeing other human beings and knowing that they were once successfully brought to term - burn down the entire world?



Breastfeeding falls into a similar category really. There are basically two possible outcomes of forcing constantly cautious discussion of it - either you tabooise it, in which case no mother is really free (and make no mistake - men are not forcing this tit on each other), or, far more likely, it doesn’t really take off as a custom, so you’re doing a total disservice to everybody that gets used to being constantly accommodated in this way, because as soon as they get out into the wider world, they can’t cope. Worth remembering too that more or less every phobia treatment involves exposure, not shielding.

 

[sheleg]

while I’m not contemptuous of trigger warnings as a concept because I think they were, originally, very kindly meant, I sincerely believe they’re crippling women. They’re a road to self-flagellating levels of aimless, counterproductive empathy

This really drives to the crux of the issue, I think. Your whole post is incredibly insightful and incisive.

 

[LydiaDeetzHat]

Off topic, but I really want to know what her husbands hair looks like from the back

It's the first I have seen of him and sorry but he looks well rank. Reminds me of the Streetcat Bob homeless guy.. not the sort of bloke I
d be wanting a child with.. he looks like he's never had to be responsible for anything in his life

also sidebar I wish she'd put the twins away.. it looks like she's been shoplifting Gala melons and it's super distracting

 

[sparklellama]

also sidebar I wish she'd put the twins away.. it looks like she's been shoplifting Gala melons and it's super distracting

Not sure if you meant in general (as someone with bigger boobs, its kind of hard to put them away and it’s also 10000 degrees this summer) but I am also so sick of the breastfeeding content. I’m not yet a mother, not ttc, think breastfeeding is wonderful etc. But I am so sick of seeing it. Also annoys me that a lot of influencers are really proud of themselves for pumping etc. When so many women deal with it every day.

 

[Fillyjonk]

Not sure if you meant in general (as someone with bigger boobs, its kind of hard to put them away and it’s also 10000 degrees this summer) but I am also so sick of the breastfeeding content. I’m not yet a mother, not ttc, think breastfeeding is wonderful etc. But I am so sick of seeing it. Also annoys me that a lot of influencers are really proud of themselves for pumping etc. When so many women deal with it every day.

Exactly. Pumping is a normality for so many people, who just get on with it rather than make a big song and dance about it every time they do it.

Yes, there's something to be said for normalising and destigmatising but really, showing us once is enough.

 

[BoreDeForce]

What tends to irk me about women who say they want to normalise breastfeeding is that they don't often bring anything to the table on the topic, it's just endless photos of "look at me eating a burger and breastfeeding, aren't I amazing". Information about support that's helped, tips to increase supply, massage, the general faff that comes with baby feeding and what people can do to assist mothers would be infinitely more helpful. For example "guys, did you know that breastfeeding burns about 70 calories per 100ml of milk? It's worth offering a nursing mother a snack because she probably needs it!" because that's tit I didn't know but would have helpful in supporting my breastfeeding friends.
It's like when people think they're challenging beauty standards by pretending they have tummy rolls

 

[imtakingabath]

I hope Hannah is doing okay with Rowan in childcare now - I'm a freelancer myself and originally planned to go back to work after 6 months, but when it came to it, I just didn't feel ready and ended up pushing it back to 8 months. It's such a difficult decision whenever you make it.