AIBU: "It's your baby, you can do what you want."

[Lelophants]

Is this an entitled thing with us brits? I've seen so many posts about people who either think this (or argue against people who think this). I also had a conversation with a health visitor recently. I 100% listened to her but even she said "you don't have to listen to me though, you can do what you want with your child". "No! I most definitely should not!"

Weaning at 14 weeks, putting your tiny baby in a forward facing car seat, putting them in their own room on their front at 5 days old and letting them cry it out until they're vomiting (I don't agree with CIO ever but even American doctors argue it's unsafe before 6 months old!) All of this isn't "it's your baby, you can do what you want."

If there is actual health and medical advice saying you do these things and you will DAMAGE your child in any way, it's not up to you to decide whether to do it or not! You are responsible for their welfare, you don't own them and have your fun picking and choosing when to care for them properly. There's a difference.

(Adoptive parents go through so much and yet if you can have sex and have a baby it's like you can do whatever you want to them! Awful).

I also think that when you have a baby and are in the first throes of parenthood, it's easy to become really rigid and judgemental of people who don't parent the same as you do. I know I was guilty of some of those thoughts when DD was a bit younger, smugly knowing that I was following all the guidelines and being a bit scathing of those who did things differently, but then at some point you kind of realise that parenthood is all about risk and managing that risk in your own individual way and that you're going to deviate from this guideline or that guideline because it doesn't work for you or your child and that's OK.

I think this is really true and insightful. I was also a bit like this, I think, if I'm totally honest. I also had very strong opinions on things I hadn't yet done - e.g. I knew exactly how I would wean, based on all the best evidence, until I actually did it and DS disagreed! And I was horrified, just horrified at the very idea of sleep training when I had a little baby and couldn't imagine how people brought themselves to do it. I felt quite differently when I hadn't slept for 9 months rather than 9 weeks and then sleep training seemed like a great idea (and I still think it was the right decision for us, personally).

YANBU. See also "happy mum, happy baby" which whilst is sometimes appropriate, can also be used to justify choices that are not in the child's best interests.

Yes, I had really fixed ideas of what I was going to do: zero screen time, home cooked meals all the time, baby-led weaning, no co-sleeping. But now I've just got into bed beside 15mo DD who had beans on toast for dinner and watched three episodes of Sarah and Duck while I made it and cleaned the kitchen But she's happy and healthy and DH and I are too.

I think sometimes the stress is not so much the way things are, but the pressure of trying to make things the way you think they should be.

I like SArah and Duck, it could be worse.

I think your HV was trying to do the right thing and be supportive/empower you/acknowledge the limitations of her role perhaps.

I’m in a Facebook group where a woman recently posted that she gave her 3.5 month old baby, who she knows is allergic to dairy and is on special milk, a bit of chocolate and was worried that her baby immediately came out in a top to toe rash. I mean, that’s just fucking stupid. I was judging so hard I nearly injured myself. She was inundated with supportive comments telling her no one is perfect, she was doing her best, we all make mistakes, all babies love chocolate, they gave their babies Easter eggs at a few months old.

Ur bubz ur rulez, etc.

There are some people who think giving your child white bread is equal to child abuse. Everyone is different and has different opinions about child rearing. As others have said, sometimes the way we plan to do things doesn't work out because the baby flatly disagrees. It is about being flexible.

BTW I am still here and my DM but me on my front to sleep and left me sleeping in the pram at the bottom of the garden, even in the winter

I’m in a Facebook group where a woman recently posted that she gave her 3.5 month old baby, who she knows is allergic to dairy and is on special milk, a bit of chocolate and was worried that her baby immediately came out in a top to toe rash.

This is a good example of what wouldn’t be classed as risk management: chocolate + milk allergy obviously = allergic reaction. Maybe this is what the OP was talking about then because in this case that person is plain and simply causing harm to their child.

Biologically speaking, parents and wider family are responsible for their own babies. Natural selection would have weeded out the terrible parents. Nowadays the state steps in to try and help us all to be better than we would have been which is great, but there's no way of removing that biological right to choose on behalf of your child. (Unless things are really dire obviously - but the outcomes for children in state care, by carers ticking all the health and safety boxes, are thought to be worse than even pretty poor parenting, which ought to give us pause when we judge other parents )

The thing with raising a child is there are many ways to get to the same point.

There obviously some that are wrong .

Some advice doesn’t work . I was given advice on getting my Ds to sleep through as a toddler. I am sure her advice may of helped but as a Lp by 3am if he slept somehow I was beyond caring - it also turns out he had adhd so was never going to be a great sleeper .. just one example.

Lots of cases though where advice changes constantly and following guidelines blindly is not the best idea. I’ve had some very ignorant advice from health professionals over the course of my DCs lives.

I'm older. My children haven't had children so I don't have experience of being a grandma. I decided long ago, when I hoped I would have grandchildren that I would do things the way they wanted and modern guidance directed.

I hated it when my mum (successfully raised 7 kids), in the late 70s criticised my way of doing things. Luckily, as a qualified paediatric nurse, I found it relatively easy to override her experience of having brought up 7 kids.

My ways were more modern than hers but most kids of my generation survived that era - all of us that are alive now even.

I gave birth in the late 70s. We ate soft cheese etc etc. We put our babies into their own rooms pretty well straight away. In line with the current advice we laid them on their fronts to reduce cot death. I breast fed but we made up 8 bottles once a day and refrigerated them until needed. Weaning was recommended from 12 weeks (10 for a big baby) Babies were put in carrycots on the back seat of the car. Child seats were becoming available BUT you couldn't fit them without removing seats and drilling holes so we didn't bother - none of us wore seat belts anyway - front seat belts became compulsory in 1983 when my kids were 5 and 6.

If I was a parent or grandparent now I would absolutely follow the most up to date guidance and law BUT children did survive before these things were available never mind compulsory.

We should all follow current guidelines but they will change. By the time young parents of today become grandparents there will be different, new and sometimes contradictory guidelines. Some things are safer than others but most children will survive regardless.

My sister was nearly 12lb born, was bottle fed and had farex (baby rice) mixed into her bottle from birth because of her size and she was hungry. She's now 5ft 4in and a size 10. I was breast fed for 6 months and have always struggled with my weight.

I'm not suggesting anyone doesn't follow current guidelines and it is far better to do so but even if you don't, it is highly likely your baby will survive - AND following guidelines doesn't guarantee that your child will never have an accident or get some horrific medical condition.

I think you might be taking it a bit overly literally.

Thing is, I've also been criticised by other parents for: being vegetarian whilst pregnant (and bringing DS up as vegetarian). Taking him on public transport (subway) instead of buying a car. Putting him in nursery when I returned to work (aged 14 months) instead of sponsoring a Filipino nanny/housekeeper (not in UK). Using a sling. Breastfeeding. Letting him walk on the pavement (holding my hand) instead of using a pushchair, or driving him. Taking him to swimming lessons. Letting him eat raisins aged 3 (choking risk). Letting him have peanut butter on toast (allergy risk - he has no allergies, there is no history of allergies in the family, early introduction is thought to reduce the risk of allergies). Letting him out without a coat (it was in my hands, he wouldn't put it on, I wasn't wearing one myself because not actually that cold).

None of this was in the UK, parenting cultures vary massively from country to country. some of this "feedback" was from pediatricians, some from randoms accosting me in the street, some from "concerned" colleagues.

People will criticise your parenting choices left right and centre. Whether you follow guidelines or not. At the end of the day it IS up to you how you parent your child. Guidelines exist for a reason, but you actually don't need to follow them all, all of the time. How many of us follow the WHO guidelines to breastfeed to age 2? I managed 20 months, and I am a very earth-mother type of mum. I bet there are plenty of guidelines you aren't following OP, and if there aren't yet I'm sure there will be when your DC is not a baby any more.

YABU. Thing is though, the advice is different everywhere, even across first world countries. I'm in the US and we do all kinds of things differently to the UK. I don't know anyone who hasn't sleep trained, but learned the hard way that it's extremely frowned upon in the UK. That's just one example.

(Sidenote: loads of US pediatricians tell you to sleep train at 12-16 weeks. 6 months is seen as pretty late. I was given an "extension" to sleep train DS because he was really skinny and needed to chub up a bit first.)

Yabu. If course you can do whatever you want because It is your own baby. Within reason obviously though. You sound like a first time mum :)
I think you just go by the rules as a parent . But see them as guidelines. And divert from them to whatever fits your babies needs best. Because these so called rules are made for the avarage baby. And most baby's aren't avarage. They all have their own needs. And they will def not follow any rules when it comes to feeding /sleeping/anything. So as a parent you adjust. For the better

YANBU. Its very naieve to assume that people always do what they think is best for their baby. What's the benefit of shoving them in their own room at 5 weeks? I can see as t they get close to 6 months doing it a tad earlier as you start disturbing eachother, but what benefit for the baby that young? When there is a lot of research about early weaning, but the vast majority of it mentions 17 weeks being the earliest it's safe (and even then it's best to wait); unless under medical advice, what benefit to the baby is there? It's because mummy wants to. RF i kind of get because the seats can get very expensive, but having attended accidents involving babies and young children, why anyone who actually could doesn't RF is astounding. Don't get me wrong, as long as the children aren't coming to any harm then honestly couldn't give a crap what other people do, but when people know best and fly in the face of lots of research just because, it's ...odd.

The thing is, lots of decisions are naunced and the line between good and bad is mutable, ill-defined and subject to continuously evolving data and fashions

This is where I sit.

Also bedsharing is perfectly safe if done via the guidelines
Yet I could find a bunch of studies that suggest otherwise. Does that make YOU one of the people you are ranting about in your OP?

Not that I care what others do for the most part. I really don't. I'm at the other end and have almost finished raising my children doing what I felt was right. A lot of that followed the advice of the time, some of it came after I removed the PFB stick from my arse and relaxed and a lot of it came from ongoing experience and lessons. One of which is not to judge and to accept that just because I believe it is right, doesn't mean it's right for everyone else.

Studies can and do get it wrong and there are very few that conclude definitively that damage WILL occur if you do xyz. I would like to think that if it an action is that conclusive, noone I know is doing it anyway.

Also bedsharing is perfectly safe if done via the guidelines
Yet I could find a bunch of studies that suggest otherwise. Does that make YOU one of the people you are ranting about in your OP?

^^this

I gave birth in three different countries.
Guidance (not ‘rules’ because there aren’t any) changes constantly over time and is different wherever you go. Reading militant mamas on mumsnet makes me smile. With a few more babies and a bit more life experience, militancy fades to mellow.

I cringe when I see some of the advice on here especially on sleeping.

No, propping the baby up to stop reflux, taking it into your bed to sleep, using blankets, putting it to sleep on those stupid boppy pillows are not good ideas. I don't care what your nurse told you, babies have died in all of those circumstances and if you take the risk, you're putting your baby in danger.

That whole "safe seven" crap has been thoroughly debunked.

I would never ever come to mumsnet for advice on babies, because people just follow whatever crap they've been fed without doing any actual research.

There are plenty of evidence based groups on fb that provide links to research and I always check them before I do anything regarding my baby.

I really hope unsafe sleep becomes as taboo as not having a car seat.

"Guidance (not ‘rules’ because there aren’t any) changes constantly over time"

Just because there are cultural differences doesn't mean they are safe.

Check out actual research papers and quit the whole "oh first time mums are so SILLY" with their rules.

It's pure survivorship bias.

Yabu

I hate use of the word 'entitled', what does it even mean? You are entitled to do lots of things, if you mean 'exercise agency'. It's a way to slap people down.

Raising kids is based in culture, kids are adaptable, science reveals new stuff all the time. People are doing their best and you can stop your judgey shit right now.

I was very strong in the way I felt about things with my first baby, when I weaned him, where he slept. My biggest thing was sleep training, I thought it was utterly cruel. In all honestly he was a terrible sleeper and I spent the first year of his life trying to get him to sleep and stay asleep, literally hours and hours out of my day and it led to other less safe decisions like bed sharing because I was utterly exhausted.
I had my second abroad and the guidance there was so different. It was a hot country and I was yelled at by a nurse for having the ac on with a new baby. He didn't feed and they were worried that I stripped him off to do skin to skin in stead of having him wrapped in vest, plus and swaddled in 2 blankets (with hat) at all times. I cannot tell you the amount of mums who had their babies wrapped in thick fleece blankets in 35 degree heat

Sorry posted too soon.
So I do think a lot of these guidance followed has a cultural aspect.
Also I let this baby fuss in his bed before running to him (not cry it out). And it has made for a much more easy going baby who seems to enjoy life much more than my clingy first born!

The health visitor was probably giving current advice and guidance but ultimately it’s your choice and most normal people follow the current advice but may deviate slightly to suit their baby. It’s not black and white bringing a child up and both mine were so different one size didn’t fit all.

Are you taking her words too literally? I bet there aren’t many ten pound babies to six foot parents that would be happy on breast milk alone until six months. Do you just have one child?