Anne Diamond on the topic of Parenting 'Gurus'

[MmeLindt]

In the DM

It is tragic that the recommendation of letting babies sleep on their tummies led to 2000 babies a year dying from cot death in the 80s and early 90s.

How many of you have books on parenting, and do you follow them?

I had a pregnancy and birth book, by Sheila Kitzinger but it stopped at about 12 weeks I think.

And a breast feeding book.

Had a glance through Raising Boys.

I read the whole lot when pg, including GF.
I am a parenting-book-guru!

Soon realised that most of them are bonkers/money-grabbers/reinventing the wheel in their own little way.

I adore Kaz Cooke and Deborah Jackson.

The rest are all a bit meh in varying doses.

I have read Gina Ford, Tracy Hogg, Miriam Stoppard, Vickie Lovine, Christopher Green and loads more that I have forgotten. IMO they are all a bit crap. They have their good elements but, by and large, the books were written to make money and not to help parents.

Deborah Jackson was good and I haven't heard of Kaz Cooke.

Parenting books are the same as self help books.
You have to take little bits from each and add them to your own self knowledge and common sense.

Some people genuinely are clueless about how to look after a baby/child.

You dont just get in a car and drive do you?
It is the same thing, experience and tuition are needed to be good at anything in life.

I read none with my first i know

but after DS2 was born i read SWMNBN (ebayed), baby whisperer (ebayed) one that suggested physically locking my child in his room (BURNT), supernanny (on permament loan to MIL),

The only one that made any sense and was relevant to me wasn't even a "guru" book it was called something like "the finsh finger years" or some such - it made me Laugh and thats what i needed !!
Oh, i had a breastfeeding book too - binned it - i didn't want to get too caught up on doing it "the right way" - asked for advice here when i needed it

By Ronshar "Parenting books are the same as self help books.
You have to take little bits from each and add them to your own self knowledge and common sense."

This needs repeated on every baby guru book thread !!

i was given penelope leach who i think is the boss of child care.
borrowed christopher green,or someone, about happy children, from library.
that's all.

result 3 perfectly balanced children

now where is a book for this age

Never read a parenting book - I had the very great blessing of older women who had raised children and could pass on their wisdom. A dwindling resource by all accounts, due to the way life is nowadays.

oh and here of coruse, for the current years

I haven't read any of the standard parenting books. I just can't follow a prescriptive way of doing things, in the same way I can't follow a recipe book.

She's absolutely right about the danger of over heating babies and babies who sleep on their fronts. I just wish my ds would have followed her advice - he just would not sleep on his back!

read GF got mniserable. Read Tracy Hogg and effectively stopped breast feeding DD. Miriam Stoppard tries to cover too much so glosses over everything and there are some bits about development which don't sound quite right to me... I tend to rely on my mum's parenting book for child health by Dr Jolly - v/good on symptoms and when you need to worry.

Now read the Elizabeth Pantley books, ,mainly to reassure myself I'm on the right lines for a full nights sleep one day and How to talk. Also obv the MN guide.

Also on food, have thrown away AK and will just do blw with DS. I do, however, have the gill rapley book on blw

Never read a parenting book.
Trusted myself!

Did I read correctly in the article that premature babies are put on their stomachs?

Mine wasn´t so if it was the case, I doubt it ts anymore which is what the article implies.

I do wish she wouldn't take the opportunity to have a dig at women who bf their four and five year olds. I don't see how that is relevant to her article.

But people can never resist giving their own opinions on bfing and judging others in the process.

Didn't read any except for the pick-up put-down section of the baby whisperer solves all your problems (and ignore all her other advice about routines and baby personality types).

Was given CBB from someone on freecycle - hilarious!

I do have to say pick-up put-down actually worked miracles despite my initial scepticism.

I really only used Penelope Leach - who made it clear there is no one right way to do anything, no one-size-fits all manual.

I must say the only really useful parenting book I found was Libby Purves' How Not To Be A Perfect Mother, and that was useful because it contained survival tips for me and didn;t try to tell me much about dd.

That, the purple NHS book and the wonderous article abotu sleep by Jay Gordon and I was done.

Oh yes, I had that too, wonderfully funny - but so NOT a guru book!

I read a load of them when my first child was a baby. I fob them off on pregnant people I know and don't particularly like. They are all shite.

We used Kaz Cooke's Kid Wrangling (after having Up the Duff for pregnancy) as a handy manual with DS. Not so much for "parenting" as for "Why the FUCK is he doing THAT?" type help.

Mostly just made it up as we went along. Still doing so, appears to work, kid isn't too messed up (yet).

Yes, Belgo, I noted her comment on extended BF.

She seems to have done a lot of the things suggested in the books though.

I am very much a trust my own instincts kind of mother.

And for everything else, I trust MN.

I had Penelope Leach and Miriam Stoppard and I read them (in particular the child illness sections).

I found they recommend buying a whole lot of equipment/things which I never needed. I thought they were both had quite sane approaches.

"My first child, Oliver, now 22, was born in the liberal-minded baby days of the Eighties.
We were into birthing pools, feeding on demand and following our own instincts. "
that's the complete opposite of what i've heard!
you did what the doctor told you and fed 4 hourly until baby rice in a bottle at 6 weeks

My Mum bought me Your baby and child by Penelope Leach when i was pg with DD which was the book that she had when she was expecting me.

It's very baby led with is imo the right way to do things.

I think GF and the like are downright damaging.

SPB
I thought that sounded a bit like MN in the last few years, actually. Birthing pools, feeding on demand, trusting your instincts..

I only had time to read from cover to cover one parenting book - an NCT one about breastfeeding. I have a small collection now - I keep them because they make me laugh - and the only ones I'd rate even partially are the William Sears ones. And his can make the most avid lentil-weaver feel guilty, so I never read them much either...

yes, I think it's more late 90s/2000s.
Although if her son is 22 he will have been born in 88 so maybe...