To think that a lot of looking after a baby is just guesswork?

[Moulesfrites]

Looking for some reassurance here, and also need to have a mil related rant.....

Ds is 18 weeks old. Most of the time when he is whinging I can figure out what is wrong - hungry, tired, wet, wind etc. But sometimes I can't. Sometimes he gets himself into a state, I try all manner of things to soothe him, then he calms down and I am unsure which, if any, of the things I tried made any difference, and so am left none the wiser about what was wrong. Is this normal? Or does it mean I dont know/haven't bonded with him well enough? (I feel I have bonded, he is amazing and I am tired but also loving motherhood).

It is my mil who has triggered these worries, I think, as she is always so absolutely certain what the problem is. Eg " obviously his teeth are bothering him...." etc? Really? How can she be so sure?

At the weekend I was bf ds, and at the minute he is getting really distracted during his daytime feeds, pulling off, looking around etc, and I explained this to mil. Not long after, he fell asleep. Then later on, I was feeding him again, and he was less distracted. Mil pipes up " he's feeding much better now, he was too tired to do it before. Well, um, I feed him to sleep every night so I don't get how he can be too tired to feed, but she was so smug and certain that she had correctly diagnosed the problem, as if she knows him better than I do!

So, is it normal to feel as if this is a guessing game most of the time? Will I get better at it? feeling my confidence has been knocked ATM.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Sounds normal to me. Babies are people just like the rest of us. They have good days and bad days. What's good one day, they don't like the next day. You do what feels right at the time. You trust your judgement. You finally get to know each other and you muddle through best you can. And, if it all goes pear-shaped, chalk it up to a 'bad day' rather than think it's anything you've particularly done or not done.

[spiderlight]

It's virtually all guesswork at first - I didn't have a clue. This was my approach and it worked most of the time!