What’s happened is that parents have started listening more to doctors and researchers than to the “wisdom” of the grandparents. Grandparents only know what they were told by the great grandparents, or doctors of old, and a LOT of that information is suspect.
Take one example, tummy sleeping. That used to be the standard of care because babies sleep better that way, and they won’t choke on spit up. Today, tummy sleeping is out because it increases the risk of SIDS, and makes no difference at all with choking. This change, along with other sleep choices (no blankets, etc.) beaten into the heads of parents over the last couple of decades has helped reduce SIDS from 1.5 deaths per 1,000 to .5 deaths per 1,000. One death per 1,000 infants, that’s pretty good for a simple change of technique.
So, when people say “we survived just fine” that’s only true for those who didn’t die from the advice. The dead didn’t survive just fine, but they’re not here to argue the case.
Breast milk can also be refrigerated and warmed up later. Breastfeeding is no reason for a new mother to be able to leave the house every once in a while.
Needing a sanity break and talking with actual adults don’t make you a bad mother.
I know the 9pm news may not be the most quotable source, but according to them, every case of botulism in Spain in the last more-than-20-years has been linked to “improperly sterilized homemade preserves which weren’t detected or discarded”. When this came up in conversation with my-SiL-the-doc (who refused to use any kind of canned goods due to fear of botulism) she said she didn’t think it was true; we asked her to research it a bit (she has the best access of us to medical info)… she started using canned goods. Uhmmmm…
PPD, or any other serious medical issue changes the picture. If mother, father and baby are all reasonably healthy, mom and dad do not necessarily need to have a night out together while someone else cares for the baby. Not during the first few weeks, at least.
Not to mention that I said, “not likely to want to” not that it’s not allowed or it makes you a bad mother if you do want to. Jeesh, way to twist a girl’s words, people!
You know what? A lot of the advice from experts is suspect too. I am pretty sure that if I had followed the advice of my ped instead of my mother and aunties when Eldest was an infant, breastfeeding would have lasted about ten minutes. It was, simply, bad advice if I wanted to nurse.
Tummy sleeping became the standard of care because of medical advice; it isn’t as though all those old wives made it up en masse. Prior to the medical advice, people put their babies to sleep in whatever position seemed to them to work, and mostly they slept with their kids – which either increases or decreases your SIDS risk depending mostly on the situation.
It was not a simple change of technique; it was a number of changes to the modern method of infant sleeping (alone, with certain types of bedding and so on) which has existed for a very short time.
And the fact remains that the risk of SIDS was and remains very small. In the mean time, hosts of parents are doing everything short of strapping their mobile babies down to keep them on their backs, even though the risk after a baby is mobile goes from small to vanishingly small. Not to mention the increase in skull malformation caused by remaining in the same position for extended periods of time.
The botulism spore itself is easily killed. The toxin it may have produced up to being killed is what is heat resistant. It’s the toxin, of course, not the spore itself that does the damage.
If you put baby in his cot with his feet at the bottom, then he can’t wriggle down under the blankets and possibly suffocate.
As to the OP, my mother was my lifeline and my saviour during the first 6 weeks after my daughter was born. She’s no nurse, but she is a mother of four and a grandmother to 6 (including my daughter), and willingly listened to all the expert advice about SIDS prevention, etc. Modern medical advice aside, my mother was exactly who I needed around because, unlike me, she knew what she was doing, but perhaps more importantly, she waited to be asked before she gave advice!
It’s his right etc. etc. etc. but IMO it’s an over reaction.
My Ma would laugh at me if I ever did something similar. She’d go if she could but would break my balls about it first. In fact she could possibly go a different way, she could say that that’s grand as she’s obviously under qualified to look after the sprog and regrets the fact that I’ll have to spend extra money on child care because of it. She’d then break my balls about it and eventually go.
My wife and I joke that when Child #1 drops a cookie on the floor, the parent rushes over; tells the child, “No, that’s dirty;” and throws the cookie away. When Child #2 drops a cookie, that parent picks up the cookie, blows it off, and cites the five second rule. When Child #3 drops a cookie, the parent just sort of kicks the cookie over to the child.
I by no means ever meant to suggest that you had said that, and if I hinted at it, I apologize most profusely. But that particular story makes me instantly nuts and you happened to be the one to take it up. Sorry.
I am not the head of the national association of bee keepers or anything; it’s just that I think the current level of hysteria around parenting (which actually seems to be slacking off a bit, happily) is unhealthy. It’s unhealthy for extended family, unhealthy for the parents too. It’s scary enough to be a parent without every damn thing you do becoming a life-and-death risk to baby. It’s no wonder people get crazy.
I have seen with my own eyes at least one person talking about the danger of honey to babies and the irresponsibility of allowing them to have any (apropos of somebody else natch) while coating a pacifier with corn syrup. erahem, I said…
My mom told me that when Child #1 drops his pacifier, the parent will sterilize it in boiling water for 30 minutes before giving it back to the baby. When Child #2 drops his pacifier, the parent will rinse it off under the tap for a second or two before giving it back to the baby. When Child #3 drops the pacifier, the parent will let the dog lick it off and then give it back to the baby.
I believe the correct response is, “Who died and made him God?”
Now, I think all care-givers should have training courses; we don’t live in extended families were two or three generations of experience are readily available anymore.
But your partner is way out of line to be issuing fiats against a grandmother and a nurse. Tell him he is wrong.
My only requirement when dropping my kids off at my mom’s house was that they still be alive and not on fire (and not have Kool-Aid mustaches - Kool-Aid mustaches on little kids just gross me out) when I came to pick them up. Does that make me a bad mother?
Feed your kid, keep it clean, play with it, let it interact with other people on its own terms, and just relax. Babies are easy. It’s when they grow up and start asking questions about the world that it gets difficult.
If your mother totally dissed the extended family class, she is much sharper than the usual family member. I got hooked into going to one. It is a totally idiotic ritual, something invented to take the place of videotaping a live birth, IMHO. Worthless, pointless, and useless, it is a huge time waster. Your partner should be horsewhipped for signing up your mother. A jillion dollars says your partner hasn’t gone to one. Make partner go to one and then send your mom…with partner.
Your partner is the kind of person that scammers and confidence people love. A good tale and partner goes out and puts all sorts of burdens on family members. 'Hey, I’ve got this great idea…for everybody else". Totally uncool. It reminds me of Janet on the Sopranos.
See neutron star and **Marienee **posts.
Leave mom alone.
