To wonder if Sarah Ockwell Smith actually has any useful advice in her books?

[Spicycurry]

I am sure she is a lovely lady and very good parent.

But I read her sleep book and it pretty much just told me to put up with it until my child slept better.

Ordered her toddler book and it seems to be much of the same.

it is helpful of course to understand where my child is coming from if you like but I am not sure it’s particularly useful to read when at the end of your tether!

or will I be flamed by her fans?

The majority of parents realise that, however those reaching for her books often have much older babies/ toddlers.

No the rubbish sleeping didn't last forever, just till she was gone 4. It was hell, and had a massive negative effect on my sleep pattern in the long term. The number of 9 month old babies who would glibly quote her at me when I was up numerous times with a 2.5 year old was ridiculous.

She was (is) however a stubborn old fool and didn't respond to anything.

My eldest was one of those fairy children, which people tend not to believe occurs naturally.

I never read her books, she always struck me as talking rubbish.

I know people who sleep trained who now have school aged children with massive sleep issues, and people who didn’t who don’t. And many people in between. I don’t really care whether people sleep train or not but the one doesn’t follow the other just because it worked out for you and didn’t for the one other person you know who did things differently to you.

So glad to see this thread. I've never read her books but the shite spouted on FB groups and the like of "well Sarah OS says..." has been enough to put me off her.

Gentle parenting is some awful, anti-feminist cult, there I said it.

Completely agree.

@NiceParkingSpotRitaThanksJanet I can't remember the exact details (borrowed her book from the library when my now 6yr old was a newborn) but I remember my jaw almost hitting the floor from how openly she discredited the validity of requiring a c-section then lots of talk about how not being exposed to the natural bacteria in the birth canal/vagina would be of detriment. She then went on to recommend exposing the baby to these bacteria another way (which has been widely discredited too).

As a parent of older children, I agree a lot of books out there are not necessary but I also remember very clearly the desperation in early days and your baby will not feed/sleep/be put down. I was also one who had other illnesses triggered by sleep deprivation - I developed really severe IBS and dermatitis all over my body. Both only happen when I go through a stressful time and the stress of a non-sleeping baby (who was then irritable) plus no sleep myself brought it on. There were too many martyrs on the sleep board who went on about how they had dealt with it for 4/5 years and implied how weak I was for not coping. Coupled with local fb groups also recommending SOS and her co-sleeping recommendations as 'she made a lot of sense'. Thankfully DH made me see sense and life as a parent was SO much better once I had some rest

DC2 was a terrible sleeper in a different way but was the kind of baby I could co-sleep with and just 'roll with it'. Each parent and each child are different. These blanket instructions not to do things are of no use at all

I tend to agree with the "anti-feminist cult" comment. I also hate competitive empathisers. I come across it at work all the time and it's one of the many reasons I'm getting out of that line of work!

Most people empathise with and adore their babies. It's completely natural and does not need to be taught. When they're in pain, you wish you could take the pain for them. Most parents hate leaving their dcs at childcare to begin with, but needs must to prevent homelessness and starvation - the BASTARDS 🙄😂.

To make a very lucrative living selling books instructing women to "be kind" and put themselves last at all times is some shit.

Check out 'How to talk so little children listen' or 'The whole brain child' if you want a book. I did find behavioural books useful for toddler years and beyond to understand how your child's brain works and whether expectations we have for them are realistic or not.

His behaviour probably is normal, usually is the case but when we find the right way to respond to it, you start to notice a difference. I despise the term gentle parenting - people have picked up on it and use it as a reason to not bother enforcing any boundaries. I do believe in understanding what your child is and is not capable of processing and picking your battles so they know what is absolutely non-negotiable

Simple things like giving them warnings they understand (eg you can play on 3 more things before we leave the park rather than you have 5 mins) made a huge difference. Seems so obvious when you write it down but can't always see it when caught up in the moment

I do gravitate to the ‘gentle parenting’ techniques, and also like reading parenting books, but I read one Sarah Ockwell Smith and found it basically useless. Platitudes, guilt tripping, and no real information.

I echo the ‘How to talk’ books (I read the first one ‘How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk’, as the little kids one didn’t come out until my child was older, but I was even able to modify things for that for a toddler). Also ‘raising human beings’ by the guy who wore ‘the explosive child’ (I’ve read both, the newer one is geared towards NT kids who don’t have severe problems, whereas ‘explosive child’ is). And I did like ‘whole brain child’ too, although I don’t remember as many practical suggestions as the other two I mentioned.

I think the issue is also that all children are different and my 2 needed completely different parenting although i was more of benign neglect parent and meet problems when they arose.

Love that you asked Amazon for a refund
But sorry you went through this
Lockdown was shit
Can't imagine doing it with thee kids and non sleeping 8mo

I genuinely believe her books contributed to my PND with my second child. I felt like I had to just be quiet and suffer and tolerate so much otherwise my baby would feel neglected and be damaged forever.

I'd be using the absolute mess he made when he was health secretary as a more comprehensive reason why he's unfit for such an important job.

They really are the most talentless bunch. If what they're saying is "this is the best people we have" then we need to believe them and get rid of the lot.

Sorry I was on a different thread and I don't know how this ended up here !

Agree with most of the posters! All that book did was make me feel guilty for eventually sleep training!
It basically made me feel that I should be a complete martyr and anything other than just completely sacrificing myself until my baby CHOSE to sleep through was unnatural and cruel and damaging her forever!

We did Ferber at 10.5 months and it was amazing! She's now 20 months and apart from illnes and one random 2-week blip has slept 10+ hours every night since.

I also stopped following a few "sleep experts" on instagram, basically realised that if they had only one child, who was 2/3 years and STILL not sleeping, then they were not good examples! (justchillmama I think was one!)
I do follow calmndbright sleep, who seem very realistic and are pro (gentle) sleep training! They each have 4 kids I think who sleep well lol!

I was briefly in her FB group. One poor woman was on her knees, with her mental health in tatters. She dared to ask if sleep training might help. Good grief the responses were just horrific - basically, 'you chose to have a baby so suck it up buttercup', 'you're being selfish', 'your baby needs you so just get on with it.' I was disgusted and left the group. I agree with the 'anti feminist cult' comment. She gives no room for balance or happy mum, happy baby. Apparently we should all push ourselves to our utter limits because we chose to have children. There will always be those who think she's fantastic, but I think many will look back and think, 'what the hell was I thinking?'

Yep, it's all bollocks. These so-called experts are only experts on their own children, but they make their fortune by convincing everyone else they are somehow doing it all wrong and need to pay for their holy advice.

You know everything you need to know about your family and your child. The answers are already in you and they don't cost money.

As soon as I realised this simple truth all of the parenting books, blogs and websites went in the bin and I was a much happier, better and more effective parent.

And agree she is anti- feminist. She pretty much states mothers - and only mothers- must be stay at home mothers. Fathers and other care givers won't do. Imagine if all women took that advice, we would be absolutely fucked.

I think most books about sleep are a waste of paper. Either you decide to be child-led and adjust your sleeping patterns to follow that (co-sleeping, etc). Or you want them in their own room and you have to do varying levels of sleep training to get them there.

The one good thing about her books is it was a bit of an antidote for me to all the material there seems to be about sleep training, getting babies to sleep in their cots. That wasn't the approach for us and actually reading her sleep book I was kinda like 'why am I spending and wasting so much time sitting by the cot soothing and stressing and trying all these gradual retreat, disappearing chair, pick up out down stuff?' And I took DD into bed with me, she fell asleep being cuddled and then I got back up and had an actual evening to myself and we all got plenty of sleep from then on.

But essentially they are all just to make money off sleep-deprived parents when there's no magic bullet to fix things, just your child's temperament and what you are willing to accept/do.

If I did that DD would have been awake and increasingly agitated because what she needed to be was in her cot by herself. She used to make a noise which meant I'm tired and need to go to bed now!

I agree with @Hugasauras - most parenting books are written based on a combo of parental preferences and personality of child and spending time identifying those two factors is your best bet before you pick any book up.

And sometimes, for some parents and some kids, giving up IS all that works - I've got one I sleep trained who is a 12 year old who loves routine and needs a lot of sleep, and one who even at 8 needs much less sleep, wakes all the time and I'm still co sleeping with to get to drop off.

It's the same with discipline - one size does not fit all.

@bruffin Well exactly. So a book advocating cosleeping and bed sharing would have had the same effect on you that books about sleep training had on me!

I live locally to her so she’s quite often on the local mums page peddling her books and seminars on parenting. She released a book recently on child development. Can’t say I’m a huge fan of hers at all.

@morechocolateneededtoday Jesus...I had a c section! I requested it about 30 hours into an induction that was getting me absolutely nowhere with a large, back to back baby who apparently had his arm up in an awkward position too! I have no regrets and think a VB would have possibly gone very wrong.

Your experience sounds awful. The last thing mums need is additional guilt, especially with things out of their control. As someone who also 'failed' to breastfeed I suppose Sarah Ockwell Smith would deem me a shite mother! I had no idea she had those beliefs having just seen snippets of what she has to say and thinking it made some sense to me..

But not breastfeeding isn’t doing the best for your baby? That’s the truth.

@Lesserspottedmama

I breastfed both dcs and I yoir post is hugely goady.

You know as well as I do that it's only "best for baby" if the baby ends up well fed (which isn't always the case) and efforts to breastfeed don't end up causing the mother distress or mh problems (which is sometimes what happens).

It's clearly a lot less black and white than you imply and I think you must know that unless you live under a rock

I found the toddler book good at helping me see things from the toddler’s perspective but not good at helping me actually do anything about the behaviour - and you can’t accept all the behaviour. The section on how to handle hitting and biting, for example, is very thin indeed (from memory), with no plan B as to what to try if it persists. I find a lot of her stuff simply doesn’t work if you don’t have all the time in the world to centre around your precious DC..

I am also not a fan of hours of negotiating/empathising with strong-willed toddlers. I don’t think it does them any good to be handed even more power. It’s sensible to separate responsibilities, eg it being your job to provide good food, their job to eat it (or not). But I don’t have time to spend 20 minutes negotiating about whether we’re going in the car when we need to leave t he house now. There comes a point where you have to just bundle them into their car seat sometimes and power on through, and they need to just get with the programme….