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.

What tiktok said.

And Halia, the word "retarded" is extremely offensive.

Being told or given the impression? The two aren't interchangeable. "Given the impression" depends a lot on how sensitive you feel about the things you've done. As for "retarded" - jeeeeez!

die thread, die!

halia, everyone does know it is best to breastfeed, they also know it is best to have a baby in your room for the first 6 months, and not to feed your child for at least 17 weeks etc.
You know why? RESEARCH PROVED IT.
Doesn't mean you have to do it.

There is a huge difference between, for example, me saying to a friend 'You do realise why you shouldn't wean your baby yet don't you?' when said baby is nearly ten weeks old to make sure she is aware of the facts before making a decision and me telling her that she has to do what I think is right and looking 'smug' for doing it differently.

a friend of mine texted me last night to say she had started giving her 15wk baby some baby rice. I jokingly said she is obviously not following the guidelines but im sure she wouldnt take too kindly to my comments as she is a far more experienced mother than me with this being her fourth!

People need information, not advice. The trouble is, information can be cherry-picked and presented in different ways. I'd rather have access to information, no matter how imperfect, than the "just leave it to the professionals and don't question them" attitude of yesteryear.

I agree with elasticwoman. The more information we have, the better off we are when it comes to making decisions about our own children. I think it's so important to question everything we're told and not just do things because someone says so, or because "everyone else does".

For example, saying "Mix-feeding carries some risk compared to exclusive bf" is true, not as a stick to beat other parents with - just a neutral fact. But it's not very helpful advice for someone trying to decide what to do.

Much more useful to ask why this is, because then you find out that the main risk is an increased chance of being hospitalised for gastro and chest infections in mix-fed babies.

So Sally might say "Well, I'm having a terrible time and I need to mix-feed to keep sane and that's more important than a theoretical risk of infection", and Susan might say "Well, I have a really chesty baby and the risk of another chest infection isn't worth it to me" - and they've made different decisions but they've both made the right decision.

Information is power.