to be just a bit annoyed with the lentil weavers?

[buggerybollocks]

Now I'll admit to being a little bit of a LW but I spotted a poor woman on a forum being blasted for asking for advice about sleep training. It was suggested that she just put up with the chronic lack of sleep she was experiencing and that it was all natural and any kind of sleep training would cause brain damage and blah blah blah.....

Ooh I'm just a bit cross with them and their high and mighty, moral high ground co sleeping, organic breast feeding selves.

Going to pour myself another glass of wine and calm down....

Princess what methods would you consider to be better than others?

So now I'm pondering if none of the LW rules apply to you what group of parent can We be classed as? .

Bit of a tangent, but actually you don't neccesarily dress them in Disbey and park them in front of the TV by the time you have three. I'm a lot more relaxed as a mum of three than I was as a mum of one but the basics of extended breastfeeding/ co-sleeping / sling not pushchair / finger food / vegetarian / mostly homemade food (relaxed that for ds2 when Ella's Kitchen came along) / cloth nappies /feeding on request / no cc or CIO has remained. In fact by #3 I added planned home birth and delivering the baby without pain relief - although I didn't mean to do that last one!

So I feel it's a little dismissive to say it's something that people do with pfb and that they somehow grow out of it.

I am rubbish at getting breastfed babies to sleep through but for me (mine self-weaned at 14 - 18 months), cc was not an option so I did what J could to get by (NCSS helped) in the meantime. Not to diminish others' experiences, but you don't automatically collapse with exhaustion after 12 sleepless months - even if you have only had six months of unbroken nights in five years...

Now that my youngest is three I freely admit that I don't viscerally remember how tired I was. I would probably encouraged a tired mum to resist the temptation to use CC - although I would have the sensitivity not to make her feel shit about it.

Oh and my children do watch TV but only a limited amount of CBeebies / CBBC or DVDs a week. They're not allowed to watch TV with adverts.

how do you enforce no adverts rule?and why
leaping about like jive bunny with remote control or BBC only?

Princess what methods would you consider to be better than others?

The ones that had clear and well-researched evidence to back them up, funnily enough.

Whether I could be arsed to put them into practice myself was a different matter entirely tho.....

But I've never been annoyed at other people making a better job of it than me. If I got annoyed at anyone then it should have been- and was- myself for not doing the best that I could've.

I've never felt that other parents do a better job than me tbh

Different but not better

i do what at suits me and family
not some quasi referenced much touted shitsville uni research, and oj and I mean you

Cripes - my parenting methods were the ones that suited me!

Take bfing for example....God what a disaster THAT was!

Ds1 - I bf exclusively for six months, during which he cried and cried and cried for more. I spent those six months either welded to the armchair or lying on the bed while he sucked away endlessly....two hours per feed....then he would drop off, sleep for an hour and wake up crying to be fed again. I attended the bf clinic, sought help from a bf counsellor, cried at my failing, and became ill with exhaustion and lack of sleep. Eventually out of desperation, I gave him a bottle of formula....and the crying stopped. He slept the longest stretch he ever had. Bliss. I phased the bfing out at that point, and had a much easier time of it from there on in, as did my little son.

Ds2 - I bf exclusively for 5 months during which he cried and cried and cried for more, and rapidly lost weight, till he was a pale twig of a thing. I got mastitis and deep breast thrush, which was absolutely agonising to feed with....I used to bite down on a wooden spoon when he latched on, to stop me from crying out and frightening him. Eventually the HV became very concerned at his weight loss and gently nudged me towards using formula. I did....and within a week his weight started to stabalise and he soon thrived.

Dd - couldn't face it all again, so she went straight on to formula, with absolutely no regrets. It was brilliant. Best and most easiest thing ever. Loved it. One happy mummy there!

Who could possibly tell me I did wrong?

eek biting wooden spoon
sensibly you did what worked

BBC channels only here. I remember being a total pestering pain in the arse bothering my mum for crap I'd seen advertised on TV. No way I'm getting on the receiving end of that. We only have the freeview channels anyway. The older two are aware that other children watch other channels but they have never actually asked for them.

It was quite funny when they were plonked in front of Spiderman on a commercial channel at someone ekse's house though: "Mummy, it was a very strange film. Spiderman stopped a train coming off a bridge and then a woman washed her hair and a man drove a car."

I have explained the concept of advertising but obviously in an excessively LW way because #2 child (5yo) is now convinced that anything advertised must be rubbish "Because of it was good you would buy it without them telling you to."

do you seriously feel this is beneficial?
how will you negotiate iPad,laptop, visits to other folks houses
my kids see ads I however am adept at saying nope,that's plastic rubbish and being tight

I never got to the wooden spoon point, but I switched to formula both times after their weight loss and my misery. Fair do's- nobody hands out medals when it's over.

Ok I am sitting here a wee bit drunk on Baileys and whisky waiting for my 15 year old son to come home from a party.

It's a while since I commented on this thread but here are my thoughts on parenting (as if anyone cares!!!)
Most of the time follow your instinct. Breast may be best but don't beat yourself up if you do something else.

Your baby may cry and drive you nuts. take a deep breath every now and again. As long as you have checked they are safe, fed, not in any obvious discomfort and changed walk away for a short while and let your brain settle.
If it is continous seek help but don't ask too many people (MN?) you will get confused with so many conflicting opinions and will feel like shit. Talk to someone you can trust and is expierenced.

Look after yourself first and foremost, that way you can look after others in the best possible way rather than in a haphazard way. If that means co sleeping, using slings, whatever fair enough.
When they get a bit older feed them the best you can but remember the odd fruit shoot isn't going to kill them.
McDonalds is fine once in a while.

If you are relaxed and make sure they are safe, loved and done the very best you can surely that is a good thing.
However every now and again I glance on some of the threads and some of the posters are so militant and thing there is only one way of doing things and that is their own (to misquote the Levellers there!!) That is the biggest fattest lie ever!

(back to my Bailey's and waiting for a taxi to roll up with big son in it!!)

they get to school and nursery no one as ask/care how weans fed
then it leaps onto other uber mummy competitiveness
best to just do own thing

Absolutely. The only real reward is happy, contented, well fed baby, and a mother who is rested and coping. However you choose to achieve that.

I wholeheartedly agree
only competition if you make it so
it doesn't need to be an arduous martyrdom competition

Totally agree!

Do your own thing from the minute you decide on the babies name, to feeding, to going to school, sleepovers, when they can have a drink of alcohol, how much pocket money you give them and what ps3 games they can play.
Everyone will have and opinion and something to say if you let them.
My way is do what i think is right, listen to advice, think about it and then decide. If it conflicts with other people so what, I just shrug nicely!!

have perfected the I'm listening face
when I dont give a hoot or think baby wearing is virtuous, in fact im resolute I'd rather carry a nice bag,than a sling and poopie farty baby

I can do that look too!!

Pushchairs are prisons , why is strapping a baby to your person ok but not into a pram
Moses baskets being the devil
Baby wearing, what all day long? Should you not put baby's down at all and what on earth is a baby wearing guru
Cosleeping vs cot
Blw vs using a spoon

I don't see what is so superior about these things

Haha - babywearing. I tried it. I put newborn ds1 in the sling thingy and decided I would virtuously carry on with the housework while my darling baby could stay snuggled into my bosom.
Within minutes I had clunked his head off the edge of the Belfast sink reaching into the cupboard below for a pan scourer.
Not very practical.

Lentil weaving is the scourge of the middle classes.
Poor people have way too much time concentrating on surviving to worry about organic food for organic milk for organic baby sporting burlap diaper made by some fair trader in a village in Botswana.

Bit of a contradiction there Scottishmummy - you ask me if I 'seriously think it's beneficial' for my children not to watch commercial TV then in your next post you say 'best to do your own thing' - so which is it?

I have already said that they've seen TV adverts in other people's homes. I don't cover their eyes when we pass billboards. I explained that I remember being annoying over toys advertised on TV as a child and I don't want to hear it from my children. I also object to the way commercial children's TV is funded - many programmes pay to go on air because the money is made through merchandising. I prefer my children to watch TV that is designed to educate and entertain, not sell toys.

Since I'm not suggesting anyone else should do the same, 'best to do your own thing' should surely apply...

I fully fit into the lentil weavery category (and there is a bit of smugness among lentil weavers ime), but still ensured that mine knew how to put themselves to sleep.

I see my sister now exhausted by her 20 mo old because he doesn't know how to put himself to sleep, and I cannot understand why people don't teach their babies how to do it. You don't have to do cc to get them to sleep, but the poor baby is knackered as well as the mum so you need to do something.