Parenting experts are destoying my parenting experience!

The BBQ Pit
41

I’m a mother of 5, ages 9,8,7,5, and 2. The most advice I’ve ever had was before I had children, and that advice has decreased with the addition of each child!

I read too many books and asked too much advice myself, and I’m the type of person that thinks I would have to do it all and do it perfectly also! I quickly learned that wasn’t how it was supposed to be or I was a failure. I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t do it all and do it perfectly.

We have come from being able to write a book of advice (about 10 years ago) down to about 5 major points:

  1. Love them! (which isn’t always giving them what they want)
  2. Delight in the things they delight in
  3. Spend quality (and quantity) time doing things that they like to do (not just dragging them through our day)
  4. Let them face some man-made consequences as well as natural consequences for their actions.
  5. Admit when you’ve done it wrong and ask their forgiveness (because it’s going to happen)
  6. Pray for them constantly!

I agree with the many who said - trust your own instincts. No one loves your child like you do, and no two children will be alike. Take each moment as it presents itself. Millions of children have survived formula and vaccinations. Some things are just not in our hands!

42

Thanks to everyone (but esp. hedra and Shirley Ujest) for their great posts here.

Mrs. Cobalt and I just had our first child 9 days ago - a beautiful little girl. We do not fall into the crunchy-granola category, but we got interested in a low-intervention (but still hospital-based) delivery and thought that hypnobirthing had some potential, and wanted to try it. If it didn’t work, we (well, she) could ‘fall back’ onto an epidural. Well, not only in our birthing class, but just about everyone we talked to and everything we read recommended having a “birth plan” to instruct the hospital staff which options we wanted/didn’t want during labor etc. I kept calling it our “birth preferences” because I knew calling it a “plan” was ridiculous, given how variable birthing can be. But all the nurses didn’t know what “birth preferences” meant so I kept having to call it the “birth plan.” We were aiming for a natural-ish/low intervention birth, but not too hard-core. Well, we wound up going through just about every intervention in the book, culminating in a caesarian. And you know what? Everything turned out beautifully, and we don’t mind that things didn’t go according to “plan.” But what I found amusing and weird was that multiple nurses afterwards said that bringing a birth plan was the Kiss of Death – having one pretty much guaranteed that things would not go according to that plan.

I mention the above because it ties in with my impression about baby-raising advice: It seems that those who had the most schooling and are most likely to be called “intellectuals” are the ones who stress most about doing things “right” with child-rearing. I’m from a lower-middle class background, but both my wife and I have advanced degrees and probably now qualify as being upper-middle class. Whatever. The (simplified, stereotyped) impression I have is that it’s blue-collar people, those people who don’t have time to stress with their fellow intellectuals about the perfect way to raise a child, who wind up just doing what comes naturally, and the kids wind up turning out OK anyway. My wife and I have done tons of reading about pregnancy and now about child-rearing, but we’re taking it all with many grains of salt. About the only book I can think of that I love, and which also happens to not have much in the way of specific “you must do X” commandments is the “What’s Going On In There?” book on brain development by Lise Eliot. I can’t recommend it enough. Once you’ve gone through it, you’ll be better positioned to understand why your kid is behaving the way they are, and not stress about it. Then you can think for yourself how you want to help the kid (if you think any help is even needed) mature. Basically, this book serves as more of a map of the territory, and you decide which route to take.

OK, sorry for such a rambling post. But as a new daddy, I had to jump in. :slight_smile: I’ll claim the “lack of sleep” excuse for why my post may not be very coherent.

43

Bad news, Bad News Baboon… my book won’t have any pictures - it won’t even have any info on what baby poop should look like. (though I love the best description I’ve read - ‘like whipped heavy cream, and a good handful is the normal amount’… everyone I know understands exactly how much a good handful is! Really!)

I like the Mayo Clinic pregnancy/baby book, it has pictures of rashes. YAY! Life saver, that. (Chicken pox? Hives? Heat rash? What???)

And Shirley, you’re great. I’ve been wanting to publish a few article-length items in parenting magazines for the sake of my publisher search for the book… but good heavens, WHICH ONE? I’m not natural-parenting-enough for Mothering, and not mainstream enough for Parenting… I either don’t make enough, don’t spend enough, or don’t worry enough for most of them. Now I know exactly why none of them have made sense… (Now, aren’t there any magazines I can publish in without having to rewrite just to get in?)

Sigh.

44

Mothering’s a scary rag all right. It’s a hard market to sell to as well.

If I were to give major credence to experts which I don’t :wink: I’d pick an expert whose philosophy meshed with mine and follow that book. I never read anything by Ferber or by the Ezzos or the Pearls because I know my blood pressure won’t stand it and I won’t get anything useful from them.

You’re the expert on your child. At times this seems woefully unfair especially when you cannot figure out what is going on.

45

Oh, and according to really fresh research, babies sleeping more soundly when formula fed isn’t necessarily based on the formula lasting longer, it is based on a difference in brain arousal pattern during active sleep phases when breastfed vs. formula fed. Breastfed babies have much more sensitive arousal reactions during active sleep phases than formula-fed babies do. In non-active phases, there is no difference between the two. Formula taking longer to digest may play a small role, but the larger one is that breastfed babies simply wake more easily during certain stages of sleep.

The duration of sleep phases is different for kids who were breastfed and formula fed, too. They don’t know what the implications of the difference may be, but breastfed babies spend more time in a single deep sleep phase (rather than shorter spans) when they are older. It may make no difference for the long run, but I thought it was interesting that there is another explanation for the more-frequent waking commonly found with breastfed kids.

(Oh, did I mention that I read a lot of research?)

46

**It happened to MY CHILD AND YOUR CHILD IS NEXT!! **

"My son stuck a banana up his nose when I wasn’t looking at the Mega-lo mart and I just *freaked *. I didn’t know what to do. It took a team of Harvard Educated Lawyers to figure out that I had a class action lawsuit against not only W@lM@Rt, but Chiquita. God Bless America.

Other than his left nostril being larger than the right, we’re $2b richer for our pain and suffering and we get to park in handicap parking now for the rest of our lives because of this debilititating nasal injury. Whatever you do, never, ever take your eyes off your children ever in the produce aisle." - Beth Fartknockle, 28, & Dakota 2, Peoria, IL.

47

My kids are probably going to turn out just fine despite me. My goal is to just not screw them up too badly. So far I’ve done okay.

For many things there are multiple right ways and you have to figure out which right way is the right way for you. Then find a book that says to do it that way and you can say the experts told you so.

Optimizing development? If you are playing with your kids and paying enough attention to them that they are smiling and laughing then you are optimizing development.

Shots, etc.? Consider the source of your advice. I don’t go to my playgroup to advise me on whether or not I should take a certain tax deduction. I don’t read the rags and the net groups to decide about medical advice. Either trust your doc or go to some real expert sources. The burden of proof is on going against the guidelines of those whose job and training is to analyze the data. Default is to follow the expert advice.

The industry of fear. The media is in the business of selling eyeballs and earpans. Lots of salt.

Mutually conflicting guidelines. Avoid the sun. Okay I’ll take the kid out early. Oh but I’ve got to avoid the mosquitos because of West Nile. Okay I’ll stay in. But no TV and you need to promote excercise, get them outside. But then theres the sun! … Ask how big of risks things really are. Some (skin cancer, head trauma from bike falls without helmets, etc) are big. Some are infintessimal (West Nile virus, SARS, etc.)

Control? All an illusion.

48

That’s really interesting Hedra. Since sleep cycles have been linked to intellegence, I wonder in the breastfed/IQ link has at least something to do with sleep cycles.

I do admit that the whole breastfed is better, here are the stats thing drives me nuts. Not because I don’t believe breastfeeding is better (I went through hell to breastfeed my daughter the first month - after that it got easier - but it was always purgatory for both of us). Just because as a mother of one that I couldn’t breastfeed, I know how hurtful those stats are to someone who can’t. Its kind of like saying “Rich kids go to college more often than poor kids” (duh) to a poor parent. You often can’t do anything about not being able to breastfeed, but someone is always ready to throw a stat at you to prove you handicapped your kid right from the start.

49

I’ve also heard that the link is possibly because people who are of higher IQs (and, therefore, possibly better educated about childrearing) tend to breastfeed more. Their kids have higher IQs because of genetics, not the breastfeeding. Has this been discredited as a theory?

If it has, man, my mom really screwed up. Instead of my brother graduating first in his class from law school, he could have…um, something! :slight_smile:

50

Interesting - I didn’t know that about sleep and IQ.

I hear ya on the breastfeeding angst thing - I haven’t had to be in that position, but I have supported women through the weaning process for a wide variety of reasons (as well as partial suppmentation). (People tend to expect me to be a militant breastfeeding cultist, because of nursing for so long, but sanity and reality mean that sometimes the options are limited, and you do the best YOU can, in your situation. Including weaning to formula at 11 days, or 3 weeks, or 8 months). Given how painful my first few weeks nursing Gabe were, I can completely understand how hard it is for some of us to keep going. I also don’t consider formula poison, and I’m really glad they are constantly finding ways to improve it. (I’m always irritated by the bfing mamas who will do ANYTHING to avoid formula, even in toddlerhood, including going straight to soy milk - hello, formula is more nutritionally dense than soy milk, and you can get soy formula if you really want to avoid dairy protiens, dear!)

This is where I generally lean on the difference between guilt and regret. Regret is a very clean emotion. It hurts to not be able to do the very best, but if you truly cannot or could not (even if it was simple lack of data or knowlege at the time), then guilt has no place. Regret, sorrow for things that you cannot change, that’s fine, and reasonable. Guilt is for if you knew better and didn’t bother. Regret is something that every parent I know has experienced in some area - not breastfeeding is just a really LOUD one, socially.

I’ve made decisions in good faith that I’ve regretted terribly later, and I’ve been stuck in situations where there was no reasonable alternative except something I’d rather never have to do, and here I had to do it anyway. Sometimes in retrospect was even the right decision… and sometimes not. If you manage to make it to the second year without some kind of regret, you’re either lucky, or you’ve missed something. Or you’ve got selective memory (I blame mommy brain, myself…).

51

The IQ is because smart people breastfeed thing has been discredited, IIRC.

And as you are probably aware, not breastfeeding doesn’t make (genetically-prone to being) smart people STUPID. So yeah, your brother could have been, um, exactly what he is. The difference of a few points one way or the other when you are already pretty damn smart isn’t going to be really obvious. I find that reasoning (‘so and so wasn’t breastfed, but he/she is brilliant/healthy, therefore breastfeeding isn’t all it is cracked up to be’) just as annoying as the ‘if you don’t breastfeed, your kids will turn out sickly and stupid’ routine.

The statistical difference between breastfeeding and not is 1) primarily seen if breastfeeding is done longer than 8 months, 2) even then only takes it to a single standard deviation’s difference (11 points on the WAIS scale). In other words, it is measurable, but for most people it won’t make a noticable difference. Where it does make a visible difference is when people of lower ‘expected’ IQ were breastfed (preemies with brain damage, for example). The difference between 70 and 81 is significant for function, autonomy, and success. So is the difference between 80 and 91, and 90 and 101. Once you get to 150 vs 161, chances are nobody but someone above that level is gonna notice or care. But even if you get 4 or 5 points difference at the lower end of the scale, you’ve got a real benefit.

And no, that doesn’t make anyone who couldn’t breastfeed their mentally disabled child feel any better. I do wish that banked milk was more readily available in the US - the WHO considers it the secondary food source for all babies who cannot have their mother’s milk. Formula should technically come third, but we have only… I think six(?) milk banks in the entire US? I know plenty of women who would donate if there was any functional way for them to get the milk to the bank. Even pasteurized, it helps.

Sigh. But in the meantime, anything they can do to improve formula is a good thing. Humans are pretty resilient, and women have been using milks other than their own on their babies for centuries (Soranus, 2nd c. AD Greek OB/GYN encouraged women to breastfeed for at least 6 months, or find a wetnurse, rather than going straight to goat milk or giving pap or cereals… and he describes women who just dislike breastfeeding, and those who struggle with it, and whose babies won’t latch, etc… this ain’t nothin’ new!). And we’ve survived pretty well.

Frankly, the IQ think also leaves out a major issue of parenting - teaching your child to use their intelligence intelligently. That makes much more difference than what their raw score is, IMHO.

52

Hee hee hee.

First: Shirley Ujest nailed it all.

Second: The best parenting advice I can give is…don’t be afraid to laugh AT your kids. They’re funny. For the first couple of years they’re little drunk aliens. (Don’t believe me? Watch an 18-month-old walk and jabber.)

I felt GUILTY AS HELL when my first kid was about a month old. He was crying and I was holding him and sorta walk-bouncing trying to calm him down, and I looked over at his little head on my shoulder just as he looked at me and let out a wail.

Anyone ever wake up with a cat or dog staring them in the face from an inch away? And it was really funny because your whole field of vision was filled with ANIMAL FACE, right?

Okay. Now imagine instead of your eyes being filled with ANIMAL FACE, imagine having your vision completely obscured by WET RED TOOTHLESS WIDE OPEN BABYMOUTH.

I busted out laughing my ASS off and felt so so so bad for it…this was my BABY and he was TINY and HELPLESS and UNHAPPY and I was LAUGHING and surely headed DIRECTLY TO HELL. Then I looked at him and got the same view and started laughing again.

Now he’s 9 and thinks I’m weird.

My 6-year-old daughter asked me what a wedgie was a few months ago…so I showed her. “Mom, what’s a wedgie?” “Turn around.” {she turns around.} YANK “Eep!” “That’s a wedgie.” And then…I cackle like a banshee on crack.

9-year-old again. “If you don’t put your papers in a FOLDER I’m going to go UPSIDE YOUR HEAD.” “What’s that mean?” smack “OW!” “Right. So put your papers IN A FOLDER so I don’t have to do that again.” Then we BOTH laugh. Next day: papers are not in a folder. Kid looks at me. His eyes get moist and he says, “Please don’t go upside my head so HARD this time.” I can’t help it. I laugh again. No one’s head is gone upside. He laughs too. He keeps coming home with his papers not in a folder. I pull them out; I look at him; he grins and covers his head with his hands. He’ll probably never get in the habit of putting the papers in the folder, but we both still get to giggle about it.

So I guess MY grand parenting advice is:

  1. Kids are funny.
  2. They’ll get over it.
  3. So will you.

:smiley:

53

Oh, and sorry for continuing the breastfeeding hijack… I must be feeling cranky.

54

I didn’t mean my comment that way. I was just saying that it’s one more of those things that people completely beat themselves up over that, in the end, most likely isn’t going to cause your kid to be a degenerate living in a gutter. Yeah, yeah, it’s the absolute best thing you can do for your kid, but in the end, if you can’t, it doesn’t mean you’ve completely failed as a parent. That’s all I was trying to say. No offense intended. :slight_smile:

55

HIJACK! According to the CDC there are five operating milk banks in the US. BUT, there is good news. They’re opening a new milk bank in the Dallas area. Local demand has been rising and instead of local mothers donating, shipping it to The Mother’s Milk Bank in Austin for processing, then it taking its chances of being shipped back to meet local demand they’re just opening one locally. Lots of the moms in the La Leche League chapters in the area are fairly excited about it. The Mother’s Milk Bank in Austin just couldn’t keep up and we think it is great that so many people are willing to donate and so many are starting to use it. It offers so many opportunities to mothers who are having difficulties themselves or babies with problems with formula or allergies. For the most part the milk is dispensed on a prescription basis and is used for hospitalized infants, most often preemies. A preemie has the cards stacked against them to begin with and the easier to digest human milk combined with the antibodies to supplement their often weaker immune systems is a real boon. A baby born ten weeks early is struggling hard enough to stay alive and it is likely his or her own mother is not producing milk yet so having it banked and available for the preemie is a very good thing.

Enjoy,
Steven

56

Sorry for taking it wrong. Perhaps I shouldn’t post when I’m sick and miserable and cranky. And moody. Very very moody.

Sigh. :rolleyes: (at me)

57

That compensates for the one they closed in my state (two years ago). Too bad it is rather too far for our local moms…

58

Hello, my name is tanookie, and I too was once a brainwashed parent.

We were never supposed to get pregnant in the first place, so when I concieved the munchkin girl I was elated. And I vowed to do everything perfectly for her. Then reality hit.

I got preeclampsia and wanted a vaginal birth. I was told it was ‘better’ a million times and that sections were ‘failures.’ Well fetal distress and shear exhaustion on my part resulted in a section. And then I was determined to breastfeed. I won’t go into the gory details but I only made it two weeks. Somehow she’s still alive and happy at age 3 and I’ve managed to have another, a boy (whom we did not circumcise - you would have thought we committed a crime based on some people’s reactions!)

Somewhere around week three after having our daughter I remember sobbing at 3am while she was up and crying. I had failed everything. I was exhausted hurting and had pneumonia and had determined I had ruined her life already. Then I realized parenting is not an exact science. I couldn’t shake my kids like an etch a sketch and start again. You do the best with what you got and move on. You make mistakes, you do things stunningly right when you least expect it and you don’t have time to perfect anything because as soon as you think you know the rules the kids change them on you.

Oddly, I’ve become the parent others look to for advice! When I give them my opinion they are usually pretty surprised at my low key attitude towards just about everything. “What do I do about climbing on the couch?” “let them - they’ll learn better balance and coordination.” “But they will fall!” “Um - yeah - better off the couch than off the entertainment center - besides kids are used to falling - they fall a lot!”

I think many people get so wrapped up in the job of being a parent that they forget to enjoy their kids. Sing loud and off key. Dance. Color. Build a tower. Corrupt their little minds. My daughter conducts potato inspections on her grandparents’ ears :slight_smile:

Take advice if you want - but don’t be afraid to simply say "know what, that wont work for my kid, and then trust yourself.

59

** This just in on the cover of every parenting magazine published…not**

Whatever you are doing is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

*Everyone Else’s Child Sleeps Through The Night. ** * It’s because you don’t have premium cable or go to GERMboyee you cheap bastard.

**You Dress Your Child Funny. **

**More Foods That Your Kids Will Never Eat! **

**Your Fat and Here are 10 humorous Tummy Exercizes That Will Never Work! ** Guaranteed!

**Exhausted, Broke & Fat? Get Use to it! **

**Husband Humping Your Leg Every Night? ** * Here are five new kung fu grips to Whack him off too while he watches sports. * It’s all he really wants anyway, preferably with a ham sandwich and a beer.

**Here Are some Fashions For The Stylish Mommy of Today, ** * only you had money, the body of a bulemic teenager and cared. *

60

this should read: **if ** only you had money, the body of a bulemic teenager and cared.
Carry on.