To think some modern parents make unnecessary work for themselves

[Vintageclock]

My aunt, who reared ten children and at one time had five children under four years of age (including 2 yr old twins) has just spent a day minding her first grandchild and said it was harder work than anything she had experienced before. The baby came with a list of instructions as long as your arm, a huge bag full of lotion for this and ointment for that, a rigid timetable of naps and snacks and drinks, rules about sterilising anything the child looked at, and complicated sleeping bags and play suits to be zipped in and out of.
I have seen this with a few friends as well - they can't meet you for lunch until 2.30 because the baby has to be fed at 1.28 on the dot, no one can visit between 3.00 and 4.30 because that's nap time and the baby will wake up at the slightest noise, are constantly pulling things out of their baby's hands because of 'germs' etc etc etc.

AIBU to think some mums just go over the top, obsess about every detail of rearing a child. and are turning it into an overly complicated science when previous generations managed perfectly well without half of the nonsense some modern parents go on with?

Just because your aunt raised 10 kids, doesn't make her a perfect parent....

The comment of babies are easy is laughable. Some babies are easy but equally, some babies are hard work. Many people (babies are people too!) thrive on routine but of course, many do not.

big changing bags are about 'showing how much money' a parent has spent??

Pick them judgeypants out of your judgey bum crack!

DS1 had bad relux - pukey galore, we used to call him - a trip out meant several changes of clothes for him, hopefully just a change of top or two for me, but sometimes the jeans too....

Lugging all that plus umpteen muslins around was a big pita, but unavoidable. Well, I could just have stayed home and never gone out WITH MY BIG CHANGING BAG so as not to upset people who are strangely obsessed with money.

hmm. I hear this all the time from MiL, about how we should just 'relax' about our DS's routine. They like to then fill him iwth sugar, not get him to nap etc and tell us that he is much happier with them than with us as we are too inflexible etc. It drives me a bit crazy because a) of course he is temporarily happier being allowed to do whatever he wants and b)they can just hand him back and not deal with him when he is overtired, sugar crazy etc. Having a routine is much more relaxing for me as I know he will have a nap in the middle of the day and I will get a break and will sleep relatively well at night. I don't find toddler unpredictability and overtiredness relaxing and enjoyable. But that's just me. I have a friend who has no routine for her toddlers and she finds that much more enjoyable as she can go anywhere she pleases and not be a slave to nap times etc. Horses for courses.

I think the people who are scoffing at rigid routines are really rude. Most people are just trying to get through the day in the best way they can.

For those who jumped on my post... Yes, I worked when dd was a baby, and yes I had 3 and never had a routine with any of them, the baby had to fit around what was going on around them... Far more so when they weren't the pfb!

Dd was 18 months when ds1 was born and we just got on with our normal day to day activities. Other mothers left toddler group after half an hour as baby needed to sleep at home. Whereas I let the baby sleep in my arms so dd could keep playing. We used go to a toddler group at a soft play centre and I'd often scramble around with dd with ds1 asleep in his sling whereas other mothers would drag their older toddler home in tears as the baby had to be put down at home for a nap. Dd was incredibly easy going as a toddler, she'd eat wherever we happened to be, she loved strolling around leisurely whilst ds1 slept, she could amuse herself happily while I fed him. If she'd been routine based I think I would have struggled a lot more with my second and third. And ds1 and ds2 could fall asleep anywhere... Ds2 once dozed off at the circus much to our amusement despite the strobe lights and loud music, he was just that used to sleeping in noisy environments.

As I said, I have no doubt routine works for some, but I have seen many examples of families enslaved by a routine that doesn't appear to be making anyone happy, for us as a family it was important that our babies were portable.

My mother would much have preferred I had a routine for her to work from. Telling her 'just feed her when she's hungry' resulted in her stressing out and spending an entire evening trying to shove a bottle in dds mouth as she couldn't tell if she was hungry or not!

My grandparents raised eight kids in a house with no inside loo and only a crust of bread to share for supper. These modern parents with their fancy ideas about sterilising feeding equipment and spoiling their children with snacks. . Honestly. They should all be sent up the chimneys. Never did me any harm.

Oh, and I had a huge changing bag as I was often out of the house all day and tend to cart everything but the kitchen sink around with me. So there goes that 'relaxed = packing light' theory!

When I have a baby, I'm going to create a changing bag out of black bin liners.

Changing bag? I had a boot full of essential items they couldn't do without

Also. Cannot see the term " modern parents" without thinking of "Viz"
Anyone?

Quite Robot unkind and unnecessary.

I did BLW with DS1. My Grandma did baby training and worked in a nursery in the 50s and thought I was totally off my rocker giving him great chunks of real food, and was terrified of the choking risk having looked after others and raised her own on a complicated system of purees. She can't believe what a fab eater he is and how unfaddy. Probably daddy's gutso genes at play, but she now understands the logic of the theory. Likewise my mother thought the theory sounded genius after my brother totally went off food at the introducing lumps stage of puree. She thought by-passing that was much simpler and intuitive.

My SiL makes parenting look like hard work. Her youngest is 6+ months older than mine but still needs sippy cups, special cutlery etc, etc. When my DS was 1, she served up a gloopy shepherds pie with no texture for dinner, then said (with very helpful and well natured intentions) that she'd mooshed X's down- it slopped like PVA glue. I ungraciously thought "pants, I'm going to have to spoon it in" as it was beyond DS's ability to feed himself. Her DCs seem to be mid-range children, she just seems to need to do things in a certain way for her own benefit, rather than their needs. She is very PFB with both and I wonder if it's triggered by a combination of being very maternal, and having a long and complicated journey to get her family. She is also very focused on her family without the types of sideshow that I have in my life that my family has to fit together with. In the end, we both do the job well. I just don't have the patience to do things her way. We're very different people but I love her (even if I do get superficially bugged occasionally!)

I've got two changing bags. A small one for popping out or DS2 on his own that I can get a baby-grow, and a few cloth nappies and reusable wipes in. For longer days out, I have a bigger bag that can deal with two in nappies. I've actually found cloth saves bulk as I'm less likely to encounter leaks into clothes, especially from DS1 who has a volatile digestive system. I keep reserves of simple clothes, coats, sposie nappies, wipes in the car so I have back-up without the bad back. I do seem to lug less now than I did first time, although weaning is around the corner which will change the goal posts.

When DS1 has been looked after, he hasn't needed complicated lists as he is fairly flexible, and my friend knows him well enough to get on with it. She's had to break away from the usual methods and adapt to particular circumstances before- whatever allows them to survive together is fine by me!

And those of you saying that subsequent children don't have a routine, heh. Presumably they fit around an existing routine/school run etc. So they do.

DC2 will have to be in a reasonably strict routine from day 1, mostly because DC1 needs to get to school and has set times for things already. Consistency isn't a bad thing.

I've never packed light for anything in my life.

Robot... 4 years between my eldest and youngest. Ds2 was 7 months old before I did a school run, and we live across the road from school. So no, he didn't have to fit into a routine. He often slept til 10/11 am. In fact he's 4 and still does!

Well... Congratulations.

My second was, and still is, in a routine. She slotted into DC1's routine which was great as they napped together. Saved my sanity and helped DS too as he knew what was to be expected.

Routines are brilliant. We all have routine - eg get up at the same time, eat at roughly the same time, go to bed at the same time (ish) with occasional deviations. I don't believe anyone who says they don't have any routine - you will have a loose one at the very least.

MrsMook, what are mid-range children?

By the time you have reared 10 children you have had ample time to forget how uncertain and nervous you felt with your first. And even with fewer children, what you remember feeling 30 years later is not necessarily what you felt at the time. I can remember times in my own childhood when my own mother was clearly a good deal less confident than her present recollections of that time would suggest.

Yes, YABU IMO

1. What business is it of yours to judge other peoples' day to day parenting?
2. Parenting is SUPPOSED to more 'involved' as generations pass. It's called evolution.
3. Those "complicated sleeping bags" as you call them are actually a key factor in the huge reduction of SIDS over the last 20 years - they avoid overheating, strangulation and suffocation

My pfb had to sleep in the cot for her naps. I soon realised the rod I had built for my back with that daft idea.

DD2 can and does sleep anywhere because I didn't stick to the cot routine. She is 2.7 now and if we're indoors and shes getting ratty I can ask her to go upstairs for a nap and she will take herself upstairs (obv I go with her). Equally she can sleep in the car, in the buggy etc. She still sleeps 12hrs a night - as does dd1.

Some people turn their children into tricky sleepers by forcing a routine.

Some people turn their children into tricky sleepers by forcing a routine

Napping in a cot isn't really routine though? Napping at the same time is - which I'm guessing you did loosely. Also some children are just tricky sleeps and routine brings them back.

Routine, even loose routine, is good for children.

And those of you saying that subsequent children don't have a routine, heh. Presumably they fit around an existing routine/school run etc. So they do.

And Robot as I said above, you can bet your bottom dollar the OP's aunt's 10 kids fitted in to a routine to include school//housework/permanent pregnancy etc. It's laughable to think 10 children weren't in a routine.