When you have children, and your new partner doesn't.

[BertieBotts]

How do you deal with the fact you've already basically decided on how you want to bring your children up, and you weren't with the SP at the time, what do you do if you have different ideas? I have one DS and pretty much planned on raising him myself, since XP wasn't interested and then of course I was a lone parent for a while and expected that to be a longer time than it was.

It's early to be discussing this since we don't plan on having any more children for at least the next few years, but we do both want children in the future, and I would ideally like to do the same kind of things that I've done with DS, including some which I know are a bit out of the ordinary - for example I'm still breastfeeding DS, and he's just turned 3. I co slept with him until he went into a bed. And some other things which DP hasn't come across before, and he seemed fine with, up until now, and then suddenly he announces that it does make him feel a bit uncomfortable when I feed DS and he wouldn't ever tell me what to do with my own child but if we had a child together, he'd expect to have input on these things. And while I'm willing to compromise on some things, other things are non negotiable.

How do you deal with these issues?

[BertieBotts]

Yeah, exactly - and I was kind of thinking it's a bit unfortunate in a way, because most people tend to "fall" into AP or extended breastfeeding or whatever, and the same - if I'd have seen a 3 year old feeding before I had DS I probably would have thought Erk!

I was all for just letting things happen and hoping they would turn out, but this has thrown me. But perhaps it's because he hasn't been with it from day 1? And though it's no different (in my view) that DS is feeding at 3 as opposed to 2, it might be that he was a bit weirded out by it in the first place?

[BertieBotts]

I'm blowing this out of proportion because I'm tired and about to start my period aren't I?

[brdgrl]

Well, I'm going to take the other side and say "worry about it". Hammer out in advance of having kids together, how you will make these decisions.

My now DH had two (older) kids when we met. I did not have kids, but wanted one. Our 'arrangements' were a bit unconventional from the start, I guess, because we decided to have our DD before we decided to marry or live together. We talked openly about the fact that I wanted DD to be raised very differently from the way DH's kids were raised. In our case, that was OK - we were able to discuss it, and DH was and still is happy for me to make most of those sort of decisions about her care and upbringing.

We are married now, and DD is 16 months old; so far our 'deal' is working. I've of course had to compromise on some of my parenting ideas, and sometimes get frustrated because it is hard having two sets of kids with different 'rules' (luckily there is a huge age gap so it is possible), but I have mostly stuck to what I believe and done things 'my way', with DH being supportive of that and being very involved in whatever approach we take. For example, I am still breastfeeding, whereas he and First Wife stopped much earlier with the older kids. But he is on board with my choice, and understands why I made it, and now just helps me to do it (not literally, of course :) but he is 100% supportive of it).

He is quite willing to try things a new way, though, and just generally is happy to let me take the lead. When we disagree, and we do, I try to have an open mind too, and listen to his experience. But I am not afraid to remind him that he said I'd have the final word!

[brdgrl]

meant to say in there that I lived on my own with DD for the first six months, while DH lived elsewhere with his kids, before we all moved in together. So that set some of our parameters, maybe.

[brdgrl]

i see what you mean. guess i was thinking more of other issues.