to think that what the baby books tell you is evil?

[lowrib]

I'm a new mum. While feeding my 3mo DS he sometimes stops feeding, looks me in the eye and grins with delight. We beam at each other for a few minutes before he goes back to feeding. It is the loveliest thing ever.

But according to some books I've read I'm not meant to make eye contact at night feeds at all . So if I paid any attention to them, we'd either not experience this magic moment, or maybe I'd feel like I'd done something wrong.

Some of the baby books really leave me cold.
Is it just me or is a lot of the advice in them designed get in the way of instinct and the mother - baby bond (and the father-baby bond too) rather than reinforcing or encouraging natural instincts which IMO are most likely there for a reason? It all seems to about working against your instincts as a mother.

Am I being unduly cynical or is it true that a load of damaging rubbish being peddled to women at a time when they could actually do with some decent advice and support?

Well it worked for me, I didnt encourage anything with ds during night feeds, I didnt talk to him, or make eye contact him or stimulate him in any way, that way I knew when he woke up it was for feeding and not for attention or anything else.
He was sleeping through by about 11 weeks and has been a good sleeper most of the time since.

You may think its crazy advice but in 9 months time when youre on here pulling your hair out because your child is still waking 3-4 times a night and you are delerious then you might realise why such 'evil' ideas are out there

I didn't read any baby books before DD was born (well, one para of GF that my SIL gave me - hooted with laughter and put it back in the cupboard) although I did read loads of pregnancy books. However, this is a really interesting book on how affection shapes a baby's brain, I read it when DD was about 6 months. It is well worth a look. Free rein to gaze into your baby's eyes with love any time of the day or night

I found GF very helpful too. I knew next to nothing about babies when I had DS, and, despite being a highly-educated professional, I like to have guidelines to work within. I've never understood why people get so worked up about her being prescriptive - it's not like she's actually standing over you making you do stuff.

Am currently pregnant with DC2, and I will probably do stuff differently this time. Not least because I'll have a 4yo and won't be able to be so rigid about stuff. But if I panic because I've forgotten everything I ever knew about newborns, I reserve the right to use the book again.

I got to 3 weeks and was desperate for any book or any one to give me a magic solution that would make things better - A was unhappy and not sleeping long, and I was plain miserable.
Luckily (!) I live in a town with no bookshop so didn't get carried away, but was given GF. Which two days later I threw across the room in tears, because the wretched woman says nothing about what to do if your baby just cries at you. So having vaguely heard the phrase 'attachment parenting' decided to forget the books and feed A as much as possible.

I'm just glad I wasn't given the Scientologist's guide to babies or something, because I really was desperate enough to try anything.

Luckily I had a breakdown on the lovely local HV, who helped me to bf in her office, recommended going out for coffee lots and if baby got upset he was no worse off than getting upset at home, and suggested a 2-hour rule - if he's fed in last 2 hours, try something else. If he hasn't had a nappy in 2 hours, try that first. If he's been awake over 2 hours, try soothing him to sleep. And to spend most of the evening feeding. Being boring at night - no talking, singing, action rhymes, TV - came naturally!

Local midwife's reaction to any question was "well that worked for 2 of my kids but not the other 2" - infuriating but probably true.
My mum admits to being clueless and having blindly followed Dr Spock, so talks to her sister to get advice on how to be a doting grandma. My aunt is very sensible and has 7 kids, so it's working quite well now.

A bit off topic but just wanted to thank the OP for reminding me of that gorgeous thing babies do when they break off from a feed to give you a grin which says 'this is the best thing EVER'... DS is only 2 but your post just brought it all back to me.

Throw the nasty book away.

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FWIW, I did talk to my baby during night feeds, I did make eye contact and I did cuddle and kiss her. I did all this in a nearly dark room (enough light to see how she was latching but no more). She's also always been an excellent sleeper and was sleeping six hours straight at only 8 weeks. It was just luck. Some babies get the hang of sleeping early on in their lives, some don't. From my unscientific but fairly wide-ranging sample of 'babies I know' it doesn't seem to have anything to do with what you did with them at night, just the luck of the draw. You just have to work with what you've got! Okay, a year down the line there's a case for teaching them a bit more firmly how to sleep, but when they're tiny I honestly don't believe there's a lot you can do other than ride it out and wait for the penny to drop if you happen to have the non-sleeping variety.

Sorrento - my mother had me in those days of regimented hospitals, babies in nursery and injections to dry up your milk because only weirdos breastfed. As a result, when she had my sister, it was a homebirth, b/f and doing what she felt like doing all the way.

Maybe that's why I fell off my chair laughing at TCLBB, because in the back of my mind I had my mother's story about the horrible way she and I were treated in hospital. (Added to the fact that I'd actually spent some time with babies before having my own and was aware they were human beings, not machines.)

I understand that some people really like routine, and that particularly if they don't have any experienced family or friends around then a book laying out a routine could appeal. But it worries me when an authors isn't honest enough to say "here's a routine, you might like to try it if it suits you, but it's not the only way, and by the way there's no science to back it up" Instead you get the message - repeated ad nauseum - that their way is the only way! and the implication that if you don't do this you're getting it wrong.

The routines seem to me to have two glaring omissions - firstly where is the love?!!! It all just seems very cold, and likely to lead to obsession about times and amounts rather than supporting the healthy development of this important new relationship.

Secondly, what about meeting your friends, other mums and babies, going to groups and generally getting out and about? If you follow the routines I've read to the letter, where is the time for any of this? It's so important IMO to meet other mums, to maintain your friendships with your non-parent friends, and for your little one to experience the outside world. My DS is only 3mo and I can already see he gets cabin fever if he's in too long, so I make sure we get out at least once a day - even if only a 20 min walk in the park. It puts him in a really good mood. If I was at home instead trying to make him sleep while he's bored out of him mind it'd be miserable for both of us.

BTW by instinct I didn't really mean practical stuff (when to feed your child, how long etc) but really basic stuff like returning a smile, or cuddling your baby when he/she cries. Isn't it a step too far to tell people to go against their instincts on such fundamental things - unless you have a whole lot of science to back it up - but these books don't do they? I find it heart-breaking to hear of people leaving their very young babies to cry just because a book has told them to, even though their instinct is screaming at them to go to them. This can't be good for anyone surely?

And actually if someone is so out of touch with their instincts that they don't feel inclined to cuddle their baby then I'm guessing the last thing they need is a book focusing on schedules and encouraging isolation at home, rather than encouraging bonding?

I'm now even more convinced that some baby books are indeed evil!!

Some of the book recommendations on this thread look great
So, here's my new non-evil baby book wish list ...

Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain (Sue Gerhardt)
How Babies Think: The Science of Childhood (Alison Gopnik)
Dream Babies (Christina Hardyment)
Your Baby and Child (Penelope Leach)

and that babies in their early days "attention seek" they're getting their needs met FFS, that includes affection, warmth and emotional responsiveness, as a mother in those early days you are effectively your babies mirror, take that away and they are left without any validation of their sense of self and others and need this mirroring to form meaningful attachments.

my dd slept through at 4 months with no help from any books, a mxture of temperament and common sense. I hate this attitude from routine devotees that you'll be clutching at straws re sleep cos you didn't follow some poxy routine. A lot of babies manage to sleep "through" just fine without an unqualified non parent dictating at you how to do it.

"I knew next to nothing about babies when I had DS, and, despite being a highly-educated professional, I like to have guidelines to work within. I've never understood why people get so worked up about her being prescriptive"

I get worked up about GF and other prescriptive baby 'gurus' because they refuse to acknowledge that babies are individuals with a wide variation of normal needs and behaviours. I think that undermines parents attempts to get to know their babies as real people.

I also think it's absolutely appalling that they make people feel that it's biologically normal for babies to sleep through the night from very early on, and that they constantly imply that normal patterns of feeding and sleeping in for mothers and their newborns are somehow pathological.

I think most of the advice they give is damaging to breastfeeding. I think that's bloody irresponsible.

Mosschops - out of interest, where you exclusively breastfeeding? If so, how long did you exclusively breastfeed for? I'd be very suprised if many people could get an exclusively breastfed baby going through at 11 weeks. I bf all three of my babies for between 14 months and 2 and a half years. If I'd stopped bf at night early on I reckon my milk would have dried up long, long before I'd wanted (or they'd wanted) to stop bf, and I can't imagine I could have left weaning until 6 months while only bf my very large babies during daylight hours.

lowrib, add What Mothers Do to that list, at once! It really is the most comforting book a new mother could possibly read.

HortonHatchesTheChocolateEgg you're right it should be there, here goes ...

Non-evil baby books:

What Mothers Do: Especially When it Looks Like Nothing (Naomi Stadlen)
Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain (Sue Gerhardt)
How Babies Think: The Science of Childhood (Alison Gopnik)
Dream Babies (Christina Hardyment)
Your Baby and Child (Penelope Leach)

Do you know what ... the evil-type baby books really remind me of dodgy diets. It's the same kind of thing, isn't it? They're overly prescriptive, not based on real science, peddled by self-appointed experts making money out of convincing us their latest method is a secret wand, and although they might get results in the short term, it's not necessarily the healthiest way to go about things. (Think Atkins / Cabbage only vs eating healthily and exercise) The resulting obsessions with 'how long' and 'how much' etc are similar too.

Just a thought

standanddeliver - my exclusively breastfed baby slept through at 12/13 weeks (although only till about 18 weeks). And he's still breastfeeding now, at nearly four. So while I would definitely agree that the advice isn't optimal for breastfeeding, and can cause problems for some people, that isn't necessarily the case.

I did wean too early (at 5 months) but that was actually more because I thought that reverting to multiple night wakings meant that he needed more than milk - a view reinforced by friends and HVs rather than GF. (I hadn't read all the stuff on here about gut maturity then.)

As for the prescriptive bit - I guess, if you only read GF, you might get a warped view. I didn't, I read a selection of books - GF was the one that chimed most with me, and when DS arrived, it worked, so we stuck with it. Just because it doesn't work for some people, or because some people don't like her writing style (which is very bad) doesn't mean it's evil.

Totally agree with the OP. 99% of baby books are tosh. When you have more than one child you realise this. Babies all different. We are all different people, and are going to make different sorts of mums. That's the way it's supposed to be.

I genuinely don't believe 'baby' guides are helpful and in fact, I believe they can be detrimental to the maternal instinct and bond between mother and baby.

lowrib - I disgree about your analogy. With dieting, I'd agree that there pretty much is a right way to do it (consume fewer calories than you use). I don't think the same is true with babies. Babies are different, and parents are different. And unless someone has PND, or some sort of other serious problem, I honestly don't think that using a method that isn't quite right for both of you has any long term implications. If the baby gets fed, and cleaned, and gets affection, then everything else will work itself out in the end.

Oh come on Starlight! Ruin any chance of a harmonious home?! That is melodramatic and ridiculous.

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