to think that not everything is a matter of opinion and.

[seeker]

.."you know your baby best" is absolute claptrap. As is 'happy mother=happy baby"

I don't think the OP was talking about bf specifically either.

/Joins hobnobs et al on comfy chair and passes around popcorn, chocolate cake and wine/

Thumbs up ladies - keep up the good work! Perhaps if I put in enough effort, then one day I too will be able to accurately assess the lives of strangers from on high, with fuck all to go on but the assurances of other self appointed busybodies experts with nothing nice to say.
I live in hope!

I see the MN support is going well... good then. [laughing at the nobbers smiley]

Wow. I'd really doesn't take much to make some people get very defensive does it?

Pictish - quite!

Surely it isn't about the opinions of strangers though, is it? It is when parents are in disagreement with 'experts' who are involved with the child's life. We see that all the time on MN, with doctors, midwives, health visitors and later with teachers.

And it is hard for strangers to make a judgement about whether the 'expert' or the parent know best, because the situations can be so varied.

competitive parenting is for people who are more interested in what other people think of them than their own life

lebof has it better

I'm trying to keep my head above water and not fuck anyone up on the way

love, caring, common sense and a good idea of the guidelines(and the reasons for them)are the things to go on

in my opinion

One persons idea of making an effort can differ considerably from someone else.

When it comes to sleeping I have been very lucky. Both my children slept through from a young age and apart from a blip at between 1-2 with ds1 we have pretty much had unbroken sleep right the way through with both. It's just luck we haven't done anything to make them sleep.

My poor sil has an 18 month old who still wakes 8-9 times for a feed (ff) he has never slept for longer than an hour, she is often playing downstairs with him in the early hours of the morning.

I couldn't cope with that level of sleep deprivation, I have an older child to get to school and I have to work. If he was my child I would have to do some form of sleep-training. My sil shrugs it off, she always says that she never expected it to be easy and just accepts that sleep is a distant memory. I couldn't put that amount of effort in.

By the look of this, in answer to your question OP, Yes, everything is a matter of opinion.
(Unless your my mother then only yours counts )

Agrees with LeBOF. Ultimately anything that prevents the mother from going gaga is the best option.

mind you, I nearly went gag with the lack of sleep from all three of my girls and I could never and would never do cc

so my opinion on something played a massive part in their and my lives but I still stand by my decision as the right one for me and them

Well with PFB, nothing put me into more of a panic than people telling me I knew my own baby best. I had NO IDEA what I was doing for the first few weeks. I thought if I cuddled her she'd stop crying and she didn't and I couldn't work out what she was crying about! Felt I knew nothing and that any random stranger with experience would understand her better than I did...

OP are you going to come back and clarify what it is you mean.

My DC are now 17 and 19 and have survived so far. Part of it is down to me but there are other influences in their lives and there have been times when I have turned to others and asked for advice because I don't always think that I know best.

I'm probably totally wrong but I keep getting the feeling that in-laws and offering advice are somehow involved.

No whatmeworry - they just need to make the effort! It's just a way of justifying extremely crap parenting choices, and an excuse to put parents needs above babies!
Happy mum claptrap is often used to justify lazy, half-arsed parenting!

Can't you read??! These women have it all sewn up and sorted out!

You would if you had to Haziedoll, because you love your child. When it comes to sleep depravation, needs of the parent have to be balanced with the needs of the child. My ds was a crap sleeper too.

You can be aware that you could make more effort without having to justify it with happy Mum happy baby excuses. Most of must feel that we could probably do better with some aspect of parenting at times, but some people with tell the truth and say they couldn't be bothered, and some people will justify it by trying to pretend to themselves that what they are doing is good for their child because it makes them happier.

Like when my dc are hungry for their dinner that they should have had 20 minutes ago but didn't because I chose to spend and extra 20 minutes on MN. That's me being lazy and not getting my arse into gear quick enough, but I'm not going to say that me being happy on MN is going to make my dc happy because I am happy. It's not!

Crap example, and not the same thing at all is it?

The same thing as what? The op didn't refer to bf or ff, it's other posters that have assumed that's what's meant. It could be used in any context.

*gaga not gag tsk

Could all the people who know everything and are so wonderful please spend some time on the Sleep and Feeding boards? Everyone knows what is best and God knows I can't do CC... But when I ask for advice ONE PERSON replies to my thread on sleep. Someone in the same boat so couldn't be very helpful. Obviously everyone knows best here, and on the lentil weavers thread and on the sleep thread a couple of days ago. But no one wants to share so that I can get some sleep. Could you all remove the judgey pants from your arses and help instead of judging everyone unreasonable?

So and tired.

oop i am really sorry OP it wasnt you who mentioned Breastfeed sorry ,

I couldn't put in more effort Slave. I could not function on the same amount of sleep as my sil does. I know that I couldn't.

As I said in previous post we did have a blip with ds1 aged between 1-2. All my peers kept telling me to do cc and give him medised. I wasn't prepared to give him medised as he wasn't ill and we tried cc for 10 minutes but it was too upsetting so we gave up on that. Eventually i discovered that he just wanted to sleep
In our bed and once we allowed him to do that we all slept brilliantly. It wasn't until we came out of this spell that I realised that I had probably been depressed, I fainted once, locked myself out of the house countless times and was incapable of remembering anything. Yet compared to my sil our sleep deprivation was relatively mild. If I had the amount of sleep that my sil has I would be a mental and physical wreck - I can't see how that would be good for anyone,

Maybe slavey maybe.....

I generally apply the rule that unless there is suspected abuse taking place, or the parent in question actually ASKS for your opinion, then you'd do well to keep it to yourself in all cases.
None of us can ever really know what leads a parent to make the decisions they do. You can think you know all about them as much as you like, but unless you want to cause animosity, you cannot say it.

I might be crapper than some of you in one aspect ofparenting, but shit all over you in another. None of you have a clue what other people may or may not excel at as parents!

The accusations of laziness and selfishness on this thread, simply because someone might choose to parent differently to you, are just awful and show quite a few of you right up.

if someone asks for advice i will offer advice on what worked for me! but i will also say that just cos it worked for me and my family does not mean that it will work for anyone else!

plenty of people make choices i wouldnt make, but equally i am pretty sure i make choices they wont make and if they and there family seem happy then its no business of mine! i certainly wouldnt tell someone they are lazy or selfish, we are not them, not living their life, we all have to do what works.

neglect and abuse is something different altogether and if i had to then i would report it.