I know it's me and it shouldn't matter, but I have this friend / acquaintance I have mixed feelings about sometimes.
I have a three year old and a one year old and she has just a one year old. We met through baby class.
Some things we choose to do slightly differently. I don't like to lecture other parents about how they choose to do stuff, but feel like she pulls me up on stuff sometimes and I don't really like it.
For example my babies both had walkers and bouncers ( like a jumperoo ) and when this friend realised she had to remind me that it's not advised and she won't be using them. She also thinks dummies aren't good, both mine have / had dummies.
She's very against any kind of sleep training and thinks it's really cruel to let a baby cry even a little bit, whilst you get something for them ( like milk ).
I only contact napped with my baby when he was really young. I don't have time to do it anymore. She's nap trapped a lot and talks about it all the time and acted surprised that I put my baby to sleep alone from 6 months.
When it comes to weaning, she thinks I do it all wrong and she seems disapproving of how I weaned my children and what I feed them. She's into baby led weaning. I did my own mixed approach with both of mine and they seem fine. My three year old is picky and she has made it clear she thinks it's because I didn't wean her the right way. I did give her a lot of veggies and she just became picky we she grew up. She's insinuated on more than one occasion that it's because of me and even asked me when I first gave her sweet stuff. I said, not before she was well over 1. She clearly thinks I was packing in cakes and chocolate tor her before 1 and that's why she has a sweet tooth now. I don't talk about my 3 year old fussiness, but she's noticed it occasionally and has insinuated that I effed up on weaning her.
When it came to my son, she was also always saying stuff like ' oh is he eaten by XZY big thing yet ? ' like meat off a bone for example. Eh no. I took it really slow with solids with mine and he eats just what every other baby eats now, even if I didn't start him with finger foods as soon as he hit 6 months.
My son now eats what we eat and he's a really good eater at the moment. So was my daughter at his age. We went around for dinner the other day and she kept asking if she should give him some baby food. I said, that he's just fine to eat what we are eating. I had seen the food and saw it being prepared, it was really fine for him to eat. She kept saying ' does he not want to eat this baby stuff here ? ' . I just gave him what we ate and he was happy to munch away. I feel like she didn't think the food we were eating is appropriate for a 1 year old, but to me it was.
I feel on edge and judged for how I choose to parent my kids. For what it's worth, my kids both had a Walker and bouncer and they both walked young. Not that I'm bragging, but they say that using a Walker can delay waking (not in our case).
I do like spending time with her and I shouldn't care. Why does it matter ? So she thinks she's better/ doing better things. So what ?