To think that saying “You know your baby best” ..

[BertrandRussell]

on threads where people are asking advice is hugely irresponsible?

Yep. Also ‘happy mummy, happy baby’ is in the same vein.

Yup. I saw someone tag it on to a grain of wisdom about adding rusks to a 3 month olds bottle, as if the mother “knowing” her baby would stop it choking.

Definitely. When my twins were little one had an inguinal hernia which caused a huge amount of pain but which was unlikely to be serious. However, there was a very small risk of a life threatening emergency complication. Our GP (and later the hospital) told us to go to A&E every single time he was inconsolable with pain because I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between normal and urgent. I can tell the difference between minor and major pain from the way my children cry but I am not a clinician so I can't tell what that means.

I suppose it depends on the individual, doesn’t it?
Mums often know best, in that they can recognise that something “isn’t right” with their baby, before any obvious diagnosable symptoms of infection etc appear, and their concern shouldn’t be fobbed off.
But if they’re asking for advice because they genuinely don’t know what they should do, then it’s a silly thing to say! And we shouldn’t encourage the occasional completely batshit mother to do some daft hippy woo instead of getting medical attention, just because she thinks she knows best!

I shouldn’t but I laugh when I hear people say this to parents of babies that aren’t even a week old. No you don’t know them yet. It’s a learning curve.

I agree, I can remember being discharged from the hospital with ds1 and sort of being agog that they were trusting me to look after him when I had never had a baby before. (I know that's silly really but I sort of had a secret thought it was like letting someone with no experience jump straight into a job day 1 with no training or induction)

Of course I had read up and tried to learn , I had done an antenatal class but frankly I didn't know what the hell I was doing, so no way did I know best about my baby.

(You'll be pleased to know both DC are now 6 and 3 and excluding minor obsessions with trains that mostly are ok in terms that I kept them in one piece)

If i need advice on carpentry i go to a carpenter, if kitson children I go to an expert.

Now yes I do know my DC better than anyone else...but how in hell do I know what some of the behaviours mean? It's a combination, I know my DC norm but I'm not a child rearing expert.

I find it amazing when people claim they know what's right for their baby because so and sos sisters dogs babysitter did it with their kids.

Nope...experts, and real research, yes with a dash of my own common sense but all in balance.

I am in care...dementia yes , substance misuse yes, mental health yes...all of which I'm your girl.....

When DC 1 sobbed with unending constipation....damn right I turned to advice from people who knew.

What worries me is when people use it to give validation to people who want to do things which are against the guidelines- there’s one at the moment about putting babies in their own rooms. And there are always threads about early weaning.

YANBU at all.
Particularly because it's probably impossible to make a truly objective decision/opinion where strong feelings like love are concerned. Sometimes, an objective opinion is needed.

I agree, it’s terrible advice.

I’ve noticed it’s usually used by people who are knowingly going against professional advice as well. As in they actually know better, but for whatever reason they’ve decided that their granny is more of an expert than midwives or paediatricians.

It’s used to justify early weaning and unsafe sleeping arrangements v often.

I think it very much depends on the context.
When it comes to someone deliberately following dangerous advice - for example rusk in a bottle as mentioned above - and then having that validated with “you know your baby best” then yes, I’m inclined to agree with you!! It’s the worst form of idiocy. Guidelines exist because the scientists who spend years and millions of pounds to research them do in fact know better than you!!

But then when I look back at my situation with DC2 as a newborn, I really did know my baby and knew something wasn’t right from the off....but there wasn’t a single healthcare professional that would listen to me, and just started questioning my mental state rather than trying to figure out what was wrong with my baby.
In the end it took him going into anaphylactic shock and having to be resuscitated at 5 weeks old for them to actually listen to what I had been saying since he was about 3 days old.

I think it's used to excuse/ justify making unsafe choices. Like being in their own room straightaway/ risks in bottles/ weaning at 12 weeks kind of thing.

Like posters above have said, if you want an in depth learning needs assessment of your Learning disability care service I am your woman. In depth knowledge of paediatric medicine, less so...

But I do often know when something is up with my two - just not what it is.

I think in can be good advice for toddlers and up where you know their personalities...but not for medical stuff more for things like...should I persevere with swimming lessons or will DC prefer primary school A or B

But it's usually terrible advice for things like weaning...your 3.5m DC might seem ready for weaning but you can't exactly see how ready their tummy is etc.

It depends very much on the context.

Weaning is a bad example to quote, as the NHS guidelines are probably wrong and about to change!
There is some evidence that the massive rise in peanut and other food allergies in young children may be caused by late weaning at 6 months.
Countries that wean early rarely see a case of peanut allergy, British immunologists have been met by baffled foreign colleagues at overseas conferences who see it as a very niche interest not a common problem.
The working theory at the moment is that late weaning means the baby first contacts the allergen via its skin, provoking an immune response, instead of via its gut, where the immune system correctly identifies it as a harmless foodstuff.
It’s an even higher risk in babies with eczema and therefore damaged open skin.
So in the case of weaning, older generation mums really probably DO know best!

I agree that it depends on the context. I always knew when something was up with my baby. It wasn't a magical mummy sense, it was just that I spent all day every day with her and I would pick up on tiny changes in her behaviour without consciously registering what was setting off alarm bells.

It definitely gets used as a crap excuse for dangerous judgement calls, though. (Although as far as weaning is concerned, I believe that the NHS says "around 6 months" not "on the dot of 6 months" and lists various developmental markers indicating readiness, so I think it's certainly an area where it's fine for parents to exercise some discretion based on their knowledge of their baby's development).

YANBU. Preschool flagged up some things with dd that lead to a referral to paediatrician. Paediatrician suspects autism but we are waiting to see how she settles into school before having another appointment. A few friends and family have told me she definitely isn't autistic and that the preschool were wrong, they have backed this up by saying that I know her best so should know if she's autistic. Well yes I know my 4 year old and know what is normal for her but that is where my experience of 4 year olds ends. So I will trust the opinion of people that have worked with hundreds of 4 year olds and also a paediatrician that is trained in knowing what is and isn't typical behaviour of a NT 4yo. I will listen to what they think rather than ignoring them and possibly making life an awful lot harder for my dd.

The thing about guidelines is that they are just that.. guidelines. They are not rules. I hate the way people get hung, drawn and quartered on here for doing their own thing, trusting their own instincts and doing what is right for them.

Another +1 for PP's suggestion that this is context-specific. It's very obvious (or should be) that going against the grain when it comes to issues like putting a baby to sleep on their backs is very ill-advised, or that co-sleeping or baby-wearing in accordance with any practice other than current safety recommendations would really be a special kind of stupid.

In relation to rigid adherence to certain parenting philosophies, theories and ideologies, or in relation to those tedious SAHM -v- WOHM questions and their like, the suggestion that they know best what fits their own child's needs and temperament is hardly an unreasonable assertion.

Surely it depends on what the issue is but yes it can be used in absolutely batshit ways.

Yes- sorry, of course it’s context related. But it does seem to be some people’s knee jerk reaction to anyone questioning any guideline. Along with “they change every 5 minutes” about things which have been more or less the same for 20 years!

Bertrand oh god the “but the guidelines change all the time” thing drives me batshit
Yes they do.
But along with everything else in life: you know better, you do better! You don’t just carry on with old advice just because it’s the way it’s always been done!! If that were the case, our doctors would still be telling us that cigarettes were good for us and prescribing pints of Guinness to pregnant women!!

I think a lot of people simply don't trust the medical establishment. It's like how there is a tendancy to prefer anecdata to real statistics

‘You know your bub hun’

Fucking hate it!

I always see it with regards to early weaning and sleeping in their own room... basically anything against the scientific advice- it’s insane.

@babdoc with the late exposure isn’t it more that people were told to not give peanuts and other potential allergens until the age of 2? Rather than it being not pre 6months? So not introducing food until 6months is still beneficial for gut health but then introducing things then and not too late but not prior to 6months