AIBU to dislike the whole PFB syndrome espoused on mumsnet?

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It pops up again and again and I think it is a load of old codswallop. It irks me.

Is only your PFB precious?

Is it used as some kind of badge of honour for those who have more than one baby? Oh - she is being PFB?

You miss the point. The "precious" part does not refer to the child, or their relative importance. It refers to the preciousness of first time parents and their occasional air of believing that no-one has ever had a baby before.
Examples of PFB behaviour abound on MN, the likes of "My MIL gave my little darling cows milk to drink, and her 1st birthday isn't until tomorrow! How could the crazy old bag put her in danger in this way!"

I often see it used in a condescending way, and it winds me up no end.

Dd2 is a totally different child to dd1 and I still worry myself stupid about things that to others would seem pfb-ish.

Before having children I hated that, 'oh you wait until you have children, you'll see the truth' attitude, it is the same as the pfb thing, and the 'oh you wait until their older' etc etc.

AIBU to have had to look up what PFB means?

But I honestly believe that most people using it are recalling their own PFB history.

I never read a PFB type posting without grinning at my own PFB behaviour.
And sometimes it does help to have it pointed out.
I recall my mother ever so gentlky breaking it to me that DS1 would not be damaged forever if i did not reach him within 0.3 seconds of his starting to cry.

I had just leapt off the loo and nearly killed myself falling down the stairs in what I thought was a rational response to his gentle mewling.

Most of us have done it.

I have seem it used in a nasty way but not nearly as often as I have seen posters getting very hissy at the suggestion that their reactions may not be entirely reasonable

I love PFB parents. I love the nostalgia

Pfb behaviour can go two ways - the rather endearing panics we've all had (Oh my God! He ate something off the floor!) and then the My Child Is Better Than Yours attitude displayed by some people which probably does elicit a few less than charitable pfb comments.

pinfizzle, when someone says PFB the normally mean OTT. the mum is being over-sensitive, over-precious, unrealistic etc etc. its good because it means so many things.

and i disagree with everything that sloanypony wrote. including "someone simply has higher standards than you or does things differently."
do you think thats how its used ? because i don't. its got nothing to do with higher standards. when someone says, i won't let my daughter play with ..... play-doh, sticklebricks incase .... we all say PFB. but thats not because the poster has riled me with her higher standards than my slobby ones. thats not how its used. not by me. not by most people.

agree with pag. i've done a few pfb things. thtas why i can laugh at others.I ran into the nursery and complained, bitterly, when ds1 was bitten on the face and had 16 teeth marks, in the shape of a complete jaw, whch went black and remained for over a week.
i eat off the floor all the time. i laugh at some of the pfb ones though. sorry. buts its true.

I understand it to a certain extent. With DS1, although I did not check his breathing every 10 seconds or not let others pick him up, etc, I did have a temperature monitor in his room, and Angelcare monitor under his mattress, didn't sleep a wink for the first few nights he went to his own room (he was snoring away btw), followed him around every step of the soft play area, made him listen to the War of the Worlds CD when he was days old because I loved it . And on and on...

However, he was 3.5 by the time DS2 came along, so DS2 did not get half of that kind of attention lavished on him...and he survived. And then when DS2 was 22 motnhs, DS3 came along...

Like someone else said earlier, we have masses of photos of DS1, a lot of DS2 and not many of DS3 as a baby or on his own. Does not mean I love him any less, just that parenting gets in the way .

The only thing I don't really understand with the PFB syndrome is the 'not letting others hold the baby'. I was more than happy for others to cuddle all three of mine. It showed me how much they wanted to get to know them.

I think there's a very funny pfb thread in classics, with everyone remembering their pfb moments. I cried when dd was 2 weeks old becuase she had no books and I thought she would suffer long term damage as a result, another poster put a stairgate across a single step in a corridor, and another poster had the fabulous idea to take the pfb on a trial flight from London to Manchester before booking a holiday involving a longer flight...

The pfb concept is simply very very funny - but I suspect only truly appreciated by those who have been through it.

You're not unreasonable. You feel the way you feel.

However, PFB refers to the anxious, floundering first time mum who read all the pregnancy and birth and baby books and treats them like bibles. I did it. Most of us do it.

It comes from in some cases a deep feeling of not having a clue what you're doing I remember looking down at mine and thinking shit, what the hell do I do with this and in other cases forgetting that you are not the only person in the world to have ever had a baby and that in fact other people do know how to handle them!

You have all this theory that you try to put into practise and it just doesn't work. my baby will never...my baby will always... this will happen... this will be done that way...

All great in theory but let's face it, we just didn't have a bloody clue

You're just ott with your first, generally. There's nothing wrong with that, it's normal, but it is something that is funny when you look back on it.

And the mother of one 2 month old who knows more than the mother of 5 teens? Nah. Just not going to happen. But we think it at the time. ahem.

I thought it was just me ? Puuh.. I love my dd2 to bits and she is growing on me more and more - but then so does my relationship with my son - and he simply has been around 2 years longer. So our relationship is more established in a way. I crave him- I love him so much and I can only hope that in a few years time there wont be a much of a difference anymore.I think they are two special different people that deserve to be loved in their own special way anyway but I do fear that my ds1 will always be the one I love just that tiny bit more..... Writing this makes me sad - as in a way it makes it true and I would never ever addmit that out in the open when asked. So there you go - you know my secret !

Actually, and i know that this is going to sound conceited, but i don't think i ever was particularly pfb about ds1. even though i never had a clue what i was doing. i never checked on his breathing. always assumed that no harm would come to him. never followed him around at softplay etc etc, all the pfb normals that you hear of

i think it depends on the mums personality. some people are just naturally over-anxious.

It exists. I am yet to meet a first time mother without PFB syndrome.

It's not totally derogotary - I see it more as humourous, in fact. It's the way first time mums (and dads) are anxious / obsessed about every minute detail of their firstborn's existence. You just don't have the time for it with subsequent children.

I think 'PFB' is a good phrase.

I think however calm and relaxed you are with your first - you will be more relaxed with your second because you have been through it before and know what you are doing.

DS1+2 are equally adored and precious to me - and as a doctor I've quite a bit of experience and knowledge about teeny tinys (the midwife asked me where my elder children were because I was dressing DS1 so quickly )but......DS2 spent the morning in the sling at the park while DS1 played with his friend and I chatted to mine - benign neglect at its best. When DS1 was 5 months old I would have spent the morning singing to him and playing with him lying on the floor - DS2 doesn't get the same kind of experience but is no worse off for it.

DSIL is due her first DD in a few months and I am sure there will be some PFB behaviour. I've reminded DMIL what I was like about DS1s sleep and routines etc and to cut DSIL some slack if she seems to have some crazy ideas at first - we all do things differently and our PFBs are when we get to learn and make the most mistakes. I see it as an endearing thing - like the fact that no mum-to-be can understand just HOW tired she will be and how life will change no matter how often you tell her.

it doesn't bother me, but I feel about 'smug' on MN as you do about PFB

I offer a definition of a PFB - and of a NSC from my own experience.

My dd had her first (small) piece of organic chocolate cake under carefully controlled circumstances at nearly 3.

My ds found a Malteeser under the table at a party and ate it at 9 months.

lol!@swallow and seeker.

Totally with you both.

Oh, and dp used to warm baby wipes on the Aga for both of ours. How I laughed!

In my opinion PFB syndrome refers to the state of mind that many (myself included) people develop after becoming parents. You feel that no one else understands what it's like to have a child, you wonder why the universe isn't geared to accommodate you and said child, your conversation is solely regarding parenting type stuff, you overthink everything...

I was chatting to someone once who was cringing about her PFB-ness. She used to force visitors to watch her birthing video... after number 2 she no longer had the time or energy to proselytize about the wonders of childbirth!!!

i think some people just go OTT with their first kids - i know couples who have
a) taken over 100 photos a day of their first kids, but 'had to, because they change so much at this stage'
b) been convinced that they had a child prodigy who spoke their first sentence at the age of 11 months
c) told everyone their kids was 'so very sensitive' that he couldn't start school yet' because it was too rough for him - it took 2 years, before they ralised that he would cope, after he'd hit most the other kids first.

The list goes on.

However, not ALL parents are like this, in fact, I'd say it's a minority who are like it. I think, in a lot of cases, it's people who didn't have much contact with babies before their own, so they're just gobsmacked by the whole process.

I get annoyed when people assume that I'm like this with dd - she ws the result of IVF after many years. however, i grew up with a huge raft of younger cousins, so no, i didn't pick her up like she'd break when i changed the first nappy. nor did i cry on her first day at nursery (or school), i happily handed her over to parents/aunts/uncles without a barrage of instructions, even at just 2 weeks old. i didn't go round teling everyone 'she's sitting for ages now, so well developed' when she could sit for a few minutes (another friend was wittering on about her ds - apparently he could sit for 23 seconds - she timed it), nor did i take her to hospital/docs etc for every sneeze - in fact, the hv thought some paperwork had been lost cos there was so little.

i'm not careless or offhand about dd, but i have just had loads of experience around babies & kids, it's not some mind altering experience.

so, yes, i get POed when people make pfb comments - not everyone is like that, so don't assume that they are. of course, some people are, but it's kind of condescending to snigger at them. annoying though it is when a new dad takes their child out your arms (cos said child only likes being held by strangers for a few seconds, apparently) you just have to accept that this is how some people are, and that, hopefully, they'll grow out of it.

thinking about it, there's about 3 or 4 couples i know who were really bad, otherwise most people i know seem to be quite rational.

When it's addressed to someone else it is generally, as commented above, a sort of shorthand for "You are being ridiculously OTT, precious and totally unreasonable" but in an affectionate way (with overtones of "...but most of us have been there too").

If someone makes a "PFB" comment merely on the basis of a child being a firstborn without any evidence of PFB-like behaviour then that would be smug and rude, but as a comment on someone's description of their own neurotic behaviour it's a heck of a lot more gentle than MN's response to other unreasonable behaviour, which tends to be quite... robust.

I actually see it more here with posters applying it to their own behaviour (either describing a past event with the benefit of hindsight or requesting an objective assessment of a current situation).

I think I was reasonably into benign neglect even with DS, but I worried more behind the scenes.

We've got only one, but a lot of people commented from the outset that we handled her like she was our second. Still not sure whether that's a compliment or an accusation.