To ask about contentious parenting choices...

[InFlames]

Inspired by the thread the other week about having Very High Standards For Myself As Future Mother.....

Before I had DS there was a (long) list of things I thought I'd never do / didn't agree with / researched and wanted to stick to guidelines / had big judging pants on when I saw others doing....:

• Exclusively breastfeeding - had expressed milk at 4 weeks and a couple of formula feeds at 5 while I was in hosp, 1 a day from then onwards.
  

• Not weaning until 26 weeks....lasted til 21 THEN researched thoroughly and changed our minds
  

• Not using a dummy - lasted 3 weeks with DS sucking his thumb anyway....
  

• Not use jars / puches but homecook organic food..... OK so he has SOME homecooked food...
  

• Only using the extortionately priced cloth nappies we bought prior to his birth....About 50/50 spilt.
  

• Moving DS out of our room at 26 weeks ..... jury's still out on that one but thanks for ALL the advice :-)
  

There will be SO many more as he gets older.

Just wondered what 'standards / choices / rules' you all had prior to child's birth that went out of the window / changed / were found to be Slightly Unrealistic.

AIBU for thinking that the above things do not make me a terrible parent, and wishing I had known this BEFORE so I was less hard on myself when the first time came up with all these things and more flexible in my approach?

[TheSnickeringFox]

Of course they don't make you a terrible mother!

YABU though to think there was ANY way of avoiding the whole bloody process...it's something new mothers (in our culture at least) are doomed to repeat endlessly.

[SomersetBelle]

No telly
No non organic food
No jars
No chocolate
No crisps



Doesn't make you a bad parent at all OP, just a real one.

[Tee2072]

I try to live most of my life with an attitude of 'if you have no expectations you'll have no disappointments' and let things muddle along.

But the one thing I wanted to do was breastfeed. Guess what? I am part of the 2% of women who don't produce milk. I cried for 2 days, shook myself off and got over it

Other than that, I had nothing I was or wasn't going to do.

Keeps me sane!

[whiteglovetest]

Breast feeding....the cunts of midwives started him on formula in the post natal ward
No jars - home cooked not allowed at the nursery

[SomersetBelle]

Oh and definitely no co-sleeping. Never ever.

[Makeminealarge]

not at all!! i was the same, especially as a first time parent, we want the utter best for our kids (and for me I wanted to bring my kids up better than i was brought up).

My high expectations were always short lived and different expressions of advice were always thrown at me left right and centre. So of course baby didnt last a month before a dummy was introduced, breast feeding didnt work due to a very hungry baby, homecooked meals didnt happen straightaway due to overtiredness, chocolate avoidance didnt last long thanks to overbearing grandparents, gender neutral coloured clothing (i wanted to avoid gender stereotypes as well as peppa pig t shirts) lasted two days, my 'advanced' child is now the last to learn to crawl, 'no kids tv for two years' approach was soo unrealistic! what else entertains my LO at 6 in the morning will i am clutching the coffee?!

does it make me a bad mother? no. but i have learnt to lower my expectations a little :D

[JakeandtheNeverlandPirates]

DD1 had giant dummy in tiny mouth before she left hospital
DD2 and DD3 never used one

Ebf DD1.
FF DD2
EBf DD3

Cotton wool and water DD1 ...wetwipes all others

All in cot in bedroom until 52 weeks

It changed froward and backward according to the child and what was working for them. Never had any wetwipes problems but was very sniffy about parents who used them

DD watch much more television than I thought I would ever allow

[exoticfruits]

It is much better to be open minded from the start.
A relaxed mother with a sense of humour is better than a whole loads of ideals.
Keep off the books!

[InFlames]

Cotton wool and water, forgot that one :-)

It is tricky though- I'm de more relaxed now and much more flexible, but would I have listened when DS was tiny and I was sleep deprived.... Prob not! Hard to get balance of opinion/ experience/ fact/ fiction/ advice.... :-)

[DuelingFanjo]

the only thing I have done which I said I wouldn't is give Calpol.

[DuelingFanjo]

oh, hang on - I also said I wouldn't co-sleep but I am.

[Zimm]

Hi OP,

IMy list was similar to yours and here is how I fared:

• Exclusively breastfeeding - Yes, bar top ups for first two weeks as we had a slow start
  

• Not weaning until 26 weeks - Yes but mainly because I figured weaning = extra work!
  

• Not using a dummy - Yes, but only just!
  

• Not use jars / puches but homecook organic food - DD 10 months and is Ella's kitchen best customer! I feel bad about this, but I'm just too flippin tired/lacking imagination to cook all her food. She dos have some home cooked food and I have only ever given her EK or plum - not the yucky sugar filled brands.
  

• Only using the extortionately priced cloth nappies we bought prior to his birth....Used cloth until 6 months except at night, now 50/50 as the post weaning poos are so foul.
  

• Moving DS out of our room at 26 weeks ....- She's still in at 10 months..
  

My other 2 are:

No TV - she gets 20 mins of waybooloo or so so I can cook/clean up!
No playpen - she's in it as I type!

[FrumpyPumpy]

Character anything. PIL searched and searched for a ball with no characters on. Fast fwd 12m, he has 2 Timmy time t shirrs, a peppa one, and gruffalo duvet set. I can excuse Gruffalo as literature and some of others were gifts... Apart from those I bought!

[noid]

DS1 fed on home-made recipes out of the AK book. Much slaving, much food on walls. Fussy eater later on.

DS2 religiously baby-led-weaned. Little wakey cakeys and porridge pancakes crafted daily. Fussy eater later on. More so than DS1.

DD fed jars. Bit of homemade when I've made something suitable anyway. Time will tell if she's fussy or not.

Before Children I thought that jars were EVIL and made me a BAD parent. ha ha ha

[SpecialFriedRice]

Presumed I would breastfeed and never even bought bottles or formula... DD decided she would just scream and scream and wriggle and push away when I tried to get her to latch on... Still dunno what happened and why she refused - But a combination of becoming dehydrated and slight jaundice meant I had to give her formula.

No dummies... She cried unless she had something in her mouth so dummies were introduced pretty quickly!

No co-sleeping... She cried unless she was being held so I ended up co sleeping for about 3 months...

I sometimes wonder why I look back on the newborn phase so fondly!!

[Fernie3]

I remember sitting in the waiting room of the hosptial while pregnant with my first child. There was a child of about 2 or 3 with his mother who was running around, shouting and having a tanrtum. When they left I leant over to my sister and said "I will NEVER let my child behave like that". 4 children later I still cringe at that.

[Zimm]

UURRGHG character stuff. Got all that to come I suppose. She has hungry :o tops now, but that is ok of course as he is vintage..... :o

[Zimm]

That should be a caterpillar not a smiley after 'hungry!!!!

[QueenofDreams]

I had no expectations before ds was born. I really didn't have a clue. I was determined to use the cloth nappies though, and I actually did although he now uses dispos at night and potty in the day. DD now in cloth too.

I managed to exclusively breastfeed (seriously considered formula more than once though) also cooked all his food. He never used to have tv, but since DD came along that's gone out the window somewhat

However, I am still a shit parent because I didn't do extended breastfeeding/tandem breastfeedig. I didn't do BLW properly (used spoons for sloppy food eg soup) I use detergent on the nappies, I don't co-sleep or do baby-signing. All this courtesy of an acquaintance. when our DSs were about 3 months old she went on about how much her DS lived his exercise. Had me womndering if I was missing something important in not giving ds exercise. turned out that 'exercise' meant singing row row row your boat

[exoticfruits]

I was clueless.I thought I would bf and didn't buy bottles-that was as far as it went.

[InFlames]

3 month old exercise .... hmmmm!!

Detergent on nappies - how are you meant to wash them?? Where am I going wrong there??

'Friends' geniius for well-intentioned making you feel rubbish sometimes - best mate has 3 DS's, she's FAB as she has seen and done most things, very chilled, doesn't mind me ringing with random queries ('DS is SCREAMING after his 16 week jab, has been for 15 minutes, is he having a reaction?' 'No ... he's annoyed at having 3 bits of metal stabbed in him'.... 'Oh, ok, thanks!')

Another friend has 1 DD, bangs ON AND ON in a VERY JUDGEY manner about how she's 'Doing The Right Thing' with no dummy / no disposables EVER (until I found DD's stash under her cot...) / waiting on weaning then Baby Led (I am 'inflicting' food on DS by using a spoon .... no really, that's the word she used) / no chocolate or biscuits for DD EVER (except for days with a 'Y' in them) / ONLY used a sling, never a buggy....the list goes on.

Interestingly, this friend found BF really difficult and constantly feels the need to defend that she only BF for 2 weeks then 'was forced' by HV to give expressed from a bottle, then formula from 14 weeks. In this sense I really feel for her as it was very stressful and she heaped so much pressure on herself. That sympathy ebbed slightly when she accused me of 'deliberately trying to undermine my efforts at BF' by feeding then-20 week old DS in front of her. We had words. She is a little more relaxed about this now!

[Stangirl]

I was pretty much the last of my friends to have a baby so had seen them all go through everything. Consequently I had very low expectations of myself as a mother - andI haven't exceeded them. DD seems as happy as can be though and I drew many admiring comments from friends about how laid back I was about everything - it was all thanks to them though! For the record - I did exclusively bf till 6 months (more luck than judgement), never used a dummy but DD thumb sucks, never co-slept (I would hate it), left DD to settle herself to sleep from about 3 weeks (she sleeps 12 hours a night uninterrupted), she was weaned exclusively on Ella's kitchen, only ever used disposable nappies. I am currently desperately trying to get her to watch more telly as DC2 is due in a few weeks - and and she is in nursery 5 days a week since 1 year.

[QueenofDreams]

oh yes, forgot DS had a dummy. It's limited to sleep times but he still has the thing and we're too chicken to take it off him :S

flames the mum in question uses ecoballs. She does a prewash, followed by a cold wash, followed by a hot wash followed by and extra rinse and spin. Apparently this whole process takes five hours.

And you are so right about the pressure - I sort of just bumbled along, doing what felt right for use. She has this massive pressure on herself to be a 'perfect' mum. And her vision of perfect is the whole attachment parenting, co-sleeping, extended bf, babywearing, home educting thing. BUT (in the words of a mutual acquaintance) 'she's making a bunch of rods for her back and expecting everyone else to beat themselves with them'. She is the most stressed out mum I know, but expects everyone else to bow to her pressure and her vision of 'perfect' as well.

[QueenofDreams]

oh god pardon typos - one handed while sorting dd out!

[DuelingFanjo]

I have thought of another {blush}

I haven't used any re-usable nappies yet, though I always planned to introduce them after the pile of disposables my DH bought were used. We have 3 boxes left!

I vowed to Breastfeed and have stuck to it, and he's not had a dummy.