Slagging Off The Childcare Gurus

[susanmt]

I'll not start it, I just created the thread!!

I think that a lot of baby care manuals fall into either the "single big idea setting the agenda" type or the "general non-controversial guide" type. IME the former- think NATURAL BIRTH or BOYS NEED DIFFERENT TREATMENT 'COS THEY LIKE CARS AND HAVE TESTOSTERONE or ROUTINE or LET THE CHILDREN PLAY or FEED YOUR CHILD MILLET or MUMS SHOULD NOT WORK or tend to be more passionately argued and thus can be irritating or undermining if the USP doesn?t chime much with your own experience. The latter sometimes fall into the trap of being plain dull.

Probably most parenting books have some kernels of truth to a greater or lesser extent but many seem to deny the idea that there are other useful child-rearing truths/tips that fall outwith the scope of their arguments. Or that there are definite downsides to almost every approach. (Feeding on demand for an extended period may result in extreme tiredness for the mother. Equally, a strict routine may limit spontaneous activities. A baby may resent being dragged to a distant health food shop while you search for millet for her puree.) Or that actually some of the big no-nos they advise against affect some children very little in the context of a basically loving home. For example, I take on board the anti-smacking approach, believe hitting children is wrong for me, don't like to see children smacked one little bit but have met very few children who I think have been genuinely harmed in the long term by the occasional smack. I think it's easy to be quite fanatical about things that really worked or didn't work for you and expect that the same will be true for most parents.

I love reading stuff about parenting- I?m slightly addicted actually!- but I aspire to be like Sis, really. I think that playing things by ear and learning from your child and yourself is the only way you can go, whether you admire someone?s book and take ideas from it or not. Maybe every parent has to reinvent the parenting wheel to suit their own personality and child? Many books preach consistency as a key goal, for example, but I love sometimes allowing the controlled chaos of bending the rules? I went to bed with a headache at about the same time as my boys yesterday and fell deeply asleep very quickly. I woke up at about 10pm to find myself in between 2 warm cuddly little bodies which was lovely, even though we?re being pretty firm at the moment about them starting off the night in their own beds. Apparently they had informed my partner that mummy had said it was ok just this once- the liars!- and he bought it with reservations! I?m not convinced that any harm will come of it? Perhaps they?ll get confused about where we stand but equally they might eventually get the message that mummy and daddy want and need their own space sometimes but enjoy sharing that space at other times, which is the truth.

Janh- I have a bit of a soft spot for Spock? I think he?s very supportive of parents even if his tone is a bit patronising occasionally. Hugh Jolly is a new one on me. What?s his gambit?

aloha, i completely agree with you about preferring the bossy books to the earth mother ones - for exactly the same reason, they are soooo patronising, much more so than gf imho. much like the people who argue against gf because of the damage to weak minded mothers who might be overly influenced by her. sheesh.

lol at knit your own uterus! in our house the refrain for this earth mothery stuff is "knit your own baby sling out of your own pubic hair and carry your child in it all times till the age of 6, bf till 12 and co sleep till 18"

i have also formed opinions on certain books and approaches to parenting without having read them or studied them in detail - but you won't find me heatedly slating them on this site. each to their own.

I can't stand Toddler Taming by Christopher Green - one, he's a man and I'm sorry, I just can't take them seriously when it comes to being a child expert. And his humour really gets on my t**s, especially when you look up something that's really getting you down and he just dismisses it with an 'amusing' anecdote.

My favourite book is Raising Happy Children which I think is lovely.

bossykate - we call that Suzanne Olivier book 'the knit your own muesli book'.

The one good thing we found about Penelope Leach when ds was little was that ds did everything far earlier than she said babies would, so it made us first timers feel really good .

scummymummy, Hugh Jolly is an oldish one, he may well be dead too now, he was some kind of senior consultant I think and had a proper "senior consultant" appearance with crinkly hair and specs and a kindly-and-only-slightly-patronising smile.

He was very common-sensical, quite Spockish really.

(Just googled him, he was Consultant Paediatrician at Charing Cross Hospital and died in 1986. Lots of v informative stuff about him over there and apparently he was instrumental in setting up Hospital Playschemes. Good guy I think.)

I don't think you need to read an entire book to know that someone who argues against co sleeping and demand feeding isn't for you (although I have read both Ms Ford's books.

hi bossykate- I'm feeling guilty because I am all too aware that sometimes I have posted things in response to people using Gina Ford's books that were way too judgemental, unconsidered, flippant, unhelpful or plain rude. I feel particularly bad about a reply I once gave to SusanAM when she was struggling at a very early stage. In retrospect I feel I was very tactless and unhelpful and offered no meaningful support because I failed to see things from her point of view, though I really didn't intend it that way. Sorry Susan, if you are reading this. I remember that you posted something really helpful later on that thread, bossykate.
I really feel that mumsnet has given me an insight into the fact that different things work for different people. Now when I say things like "I don't like Gina" it really is shorthand for "She doesn't appeal TO ME personally".

Thanks janh, btw. I may google him myself when I've a spare moment. I'm trying to tidy up/do some writing but finding am Mumsnet a monumental distraction, today!

finding am?! reverse those words

Croppy - you need to read them again.... you clearly didn't read them properly as you draw a very quick conclusion (see p53 and 62 of the CLBB).... which only perpetuates the misunderstanding of what is actually in her book.

Having said that I don't see why I bother defending this book time and time again.

My Mum gave my sister a horrible book years ago that she was given in school in the 1960s. I have read it and it's horrible.

I really must hunt it out next time I go home and share some of it. It's so horrible in places, it's funny.

I do recall references to "the husband" rather a lot. Talk about assumptions. I must get a proper look at it.

I can't even remember what it's called or who it was by now but it had little pictures of matchstick people and it was orange and grey. It also had a woman (of course!) changing a baby on the front.

Oh help, this was supposed to be a 'Slag them Off and have a laugh' thread. Suppose thats impossible with the subject matter involved!

LOL @ Susan.

I've just read something I found in a search engine where this woman's partner was called a "live in lover" and how unhealthy it was for the children.

Slightly off topic that, but the term "live in lover" makes it sound so sleazy to live together.

I have to admit I don't know the names of half of these so-called experts which probably shows how much notice I take.

Going back to the "let them cry" vs "picking them up" thing, it usually depended on the situation. If Jack had been fed, changed etc etc and he was still crying and there was nothing more I could do, then I'd leave him and he'd eventually just fall asleep when he realised I wasn't going to give him his own way and pick him up.

Maybe if Mumsnet would allow it, we could start a thread where we've found advice we liked as well.

I nominate Dr Spock for a big slag-off as all my generations parents used it: enough said! And back in the 70's our phrase was knit their own yogurt.

Well- Spock seems to have produced a fab generationn if you are anything to go by, CAM, so I can't accept that argument!

Pupuce. Page 63 of the first book "While I agree totally that the baby should be frequently put to the breast in the early days to stimulate the breast supply, I think the advice so often given to let the baby suck as long as he wants is completely wrong". Page 64 "I advise all mothers to start off by offering five minutes each side every three hours, increasing the time by a few minutes each day until the milk comes in". "Feeding you baby three-hourly will help build up your milk supply much quicker".
All her routines are of course based on putting the baby in its own cot from day one and she is on record many times for directly arguing against co-sleeping.

I found much of Spock's advice pretty sound - 1980s revised edition mind you, dunno how it differed - but what I liked best was the fact that he had an unresolved issue of his own, with one of his own children's teachers (I assume it was just the one).

He complained 2 or 3 times, in sections on older children's behaviour, about a boy (sexist!) getting the erroneous idea, from a favoured teacher, that red blood cells were larger than white (or it may have been vv) and refusing to believe that his father (Very Well-known, in fact World-Renowned, Paediatrician in this case) might know better than the teacher.

It came up more than once, and in more than one book too (I have another by him, about how to talk to children or something - I have a wide and varied collection too, scummymummy!) - it made him seem so human - you could imagine the dinner-table conversations!

Pupuce, I don't think that just because something doesn't appeal to someone's way of doing things should mean that they have missed the point and need to re-read them (like a naughty school child made to re-do it's homework!!!). While GF has obviously worked amazingly for you and many others, it is not for everyone and I think having it shoved down people's throats when it's not their kind of thing only makes them hate her and her routines all the more. If GF fans were less zealous in their promotion of her and willing to accept that often mixing lots of different routines/advice and taking the best of each can work for some people just as well, I would be much more likely to think well of her and her disciples. As it is, it makes me want to run in the opposite direction.

I would have thought that the reason why other childcare gurus are not as vulnerable to a slagging off is because they don't issue edicts for a 2 week old baby such as "Baby should be awake, nappy changed and feeding no later than 7am" and my personal favourite "You should have cereal, toast and a drink no later than 8am". Not to mention "Babies need lots of cuddling but it should always be done when your baby needs it, not when you need it" or "It is important that your baby is not cuddled to sleep while feeding" and for the grand finale "If you constantly cuddle him during play time he will be less likely to respond to the cuddles that would normall help settle him for a nap". Could a mother ever have written that I wonder?

Sorry Bossykate but that sort of advice can be depressing for someone suffering from a lack of self confidence or "weak minded" as you put it. Most other gurus essentially advise mothers to go with their instincts, not what GF does at all.

Out of interest Pupuce, what is your view on her advice on Page 44 re giving a baby that wakes in the night sugar and water in order to settle him?

And to add to Ellaroo's point, there are a number of gurus attacked on this thread who I happen to admire greatly. Given the title of the thread, I am not going to take exception to any of the views though as the whole point is for people to be able to express their personal dislikes. Cheers Ellaroo - AT LEAST SHE DIDN'T SHOUT AT ME THOUGH (joke).

ellaroo, ouch! i have (virtually speaking) bent over backwards on this site and in life not to push my way of doing things on anyone - gf or other parenting stuff. i take exception to your comments. ime it is many of the antis who are over zealous in criticising - it works both ways you know!