ok, i probably am, but the way new mothers do thing s now, and there attitude is really getting on my nerves.

[pukkapatch]

rant alert
te entire holier than thou attitude. huge genreralistaion, i know. but whats so speical about waiting till the baby is six months old before weaning that will garantee said mothers a direct ticket to heaven?
from what i recall, upping the age to six months didnt happen because of some amazing scintific breakthrough. no new data was used t o make the decision. (a mnetter showed the evidence of this on some thread.
and then the whole breast bottle thing. the ones spouting statistics at everyone, with their smug expressions. it doesnt matter. every mom does what she sees as best for her baby. we dont constantly need to have information shoved in our noses.

my eldest is ten, and youngest four, so i'm not that far away from these subjects, but, some peoples attitudes just really really get on my tits.

yes - i agree -that's pretty much what i think too.

I think there's nothing wrong with people giving their personal experience and what's worked for them, as long as there are plenty of posts which may give different personal experience and what worked for them and then the whole thing is referenced by data, statistics and links to useful information. That way, the person seeking advice has a wide range of advice to choose. If you choose to ignore up to date information, that's entirely your up to you of course, but what the thrust of the OP seems to be, is that only personal experience should be used and no real information should be referenced, so that those of use who actually want real information, should not have it provided for us, because it's irritating for those who would prefer the site to be a much narrower talking board with no reference to anything meaningful.

Which I simply find bewildering. Why would anyone want such inadequate advice? Why would it be useful? The reason I'm here and not on a fluffy site, as I said before, is because I know I'll either get real info here, or I'll get directed to a port where I can get real info.

THAt wa a bit of a sarky comment tiktok.What i meant was i know a couple of obsessive parents who get on my wick, but i thought they were just isolated baby bores but it seems there are many more out there who dont seem to use common sense sometimes when parenting, but rely on guidelines to tell them what to do.

Nieceys post made perfect sense to me. There are a lot of other influences that are important not just what happens in the early yrs.

welliemum [applause emoticon]

gosh, you lot still at it?
perhaps we can get mn to rename this thread, as the original title no longer seems appropriate. it has become a thread about parenting techniques and advice, and where to get it, and where not to.

im definitely finished!

Yes, it was sarky, BJB, but in the best possible taste

BJB, I don't think anyone suggested using guidelines completely instead of common sense, just as well as.

i really think bj and neicie are ignoring most of what's been written here...
noticeably neicie has ignored my post saying personal expeiences are not only fine, 'they're GREAT' and is using a post i made specifically to bufobufo where she had said that discussing this was boring because she was past it in terms of her parenting. i asked why should she care but pointed out that those who do care don't go and call parents of older kids boring for giving a shit about their education. which of course it it, toweringly boring to me, but i don't go onto the threads.

clearly BJ has issues with parents who like reading research, and i'm inclined to go along with Monkeybird's theory that this is because it represents a challenge to her authority. much better to undermine them and call them 'too serious'...

as for neicie, i don't think there's much to argue about given that her entire premise, that a. new mums look down their noses at older mums who didn't follow guidelines (which weren't Even In Existence), which i don't believe they do. and b. that anyone has seriously said that older mums should not give their experiences, which simply isn't the case.

the problem arises, as hunker said, when older mums come on and scoff at new mums for trying to follow new guidelines on the grounds that their kids have reached the majestic ages of 7 and 10 without any serious ailment so x or y 'obviously never did them any harm'. hunker did suggest you didn't ignore that bit, but i see that you did.

I have experience of putting guidelines into practice - can I post about that? [smug]

I just want to clarify the whole knowing guidelines thing btw. DP has never read a book, a website, or a leaflet, he has never been on mumsnet, he has never spoken to a HCP about babies, yet last night I mentioned that my breasts hurt, he said 'is that because the milk is starting to come in? how long are you feeding for when the baby comes? it's recc'd for two years inst it' I said 'yes, but obviously that's not exclusive, that includes normal food' he said 'Yeah, weaning is mean to be about 6 months know isnt it?'.
So it really can't be that hard to pick up these guidelines we are suppsoedly obsessed with.

*now

you must've Shoved Them In His FACE, VS.

the guidelines, i mean.

loving your work Zealot...

sorry i couldnt resist when i saw my namw mentioned! Zealot i do not feel threatened at all. i Encourage people to question hcp's. As long as these people keep an opem mind. its easy when preg or with a small baby saying we are gonna do this, this and this by the book, but difficult in real life. How many people say they will never give sweets or allow telly then do for example?

And VS youR ds doesnt sound unusual. my dp is the same he knows some of the the guidelines, he knows when weaning should be and laughs at the thought
of ds2 lasting till 6mths (hes a fatty), but im sure he will. I think most parents are aware of the guidelines roughly, just not in the depth of some mumsnetters.

but that's the whole point, bj, we're not content to be simply aware of the guidelines, we want to know why the guidelines are in place before following them. or not.
and in all seriousness, i have never met anyone who has said that they will not allow their children sweets or telly. most of my friends think that by making something a big no-no it'll only turn round and turn into a big yes-yes the minute they get to school and are in charge of the tuck money, so allow things in moderation.
so it's not as black and white as you make out, far from it. i want to know why the guidelines are in place precisely so that i can understand how lax i can be with them. don't tar me with your weirdy friends' brush.

It's easy enough to say 'oh, I'm going to make sure I do the bottles this way because there is a risk I'm not willing to put my baby through' or 'my baby is not sleeping a certain way because of the SIDS risk'.
It's also not extremely hard not to wean til 6 months, bfing is the only one of the talked about guidelines I would say could be harder than the other possibilites.

im with you pukkapatch- this is why i couldnt stick mother and baby groups, i cant think of anything more dull than sitting around talking about whos baby is doing what first.

people would ask me how much my ds weighed when he was about 8 months, i said i didnt know as i hadn't had him weighed in weeks...............well they all looked at me as if i was mad! they all religiously had baby weighed every week. as far as i was concerned he was gaining weight- i dont really care how many oz he put on, and i dont care how many oz their babies put on either! then you get the mums who lecture you with their condescending tones. its just sooooo boring!

oh jesus.

...you'd think, zealot, with all our lecturing tones, we could even start charging 3 grand a year, doncha think?

mimi, would you believe the ones that were 'ooh my baby has done this before yours' were probably the same people were probably the ones weaning their babies too early because they wanted them to be 'first'!

Zealot, I wondering if you read anything at all I said or just the a few words, rearranged to suit your own argument. You seem to have completely ignored most of what I have been saying in the last 2 days.

This is a waste of time - there is actually a lot of agreement here now this has moved away from the OP but people are arguing about semantics.

Semantics? Shit, what is that? I thought people were arguing about weaning, feeding etc. Bugger, have never heard of semantics...is it a new thing? Is it a recent guideline? I really should keep up to speed with developments.....and here was me thinking I was doing well cos I know what BLW is!!

there was always a lot of agreement, except with yours and pukka's points that new mums are looking down their noses at anyone.