GF: Love her or hate her? the Great Debate. Please leave all weapons at the door and NO stomping off, offended. OK?

[SoupDragon]

OK, to avoid the Great Debate cluttering up other threads where pro-GF mums are asking for help, I've started this one. It may have been done before...

If you read another thread and have nothing helpful but want to share your GF feelings, do it here!

I guess it could get heated here so please don't get offended and storm off in a huff as has happened elsewhere with other contentious issues - just avoid this thread

OK, for what it's worth, I have no problems with GF except for the fact that all babies are different so her rigid routine may not fit in with your baby. You should maybe see her routines as flexible - half an hour or an hour either way isn't going to make much difference is it? And I think that before 6 weeks is way too young to be messing with feeding routines, especially if you're breastfeeding. It can mess up your supply in theose important first weeks and I think this is why breastfeeding counsellors seem to hate her so much.

Right, I'm off to duck beneaththe parapet and let you get on with it!

Here Here Croppy! Chill out Tracyhay and stop slagging off other mothers. We're all here for support and not abuse.

I'm glad you have a happy life Croppy. It would be lovely if i'd gone to work and not felt guilty! My partner at the time only earned 15k so i couldn't really afford to quit. I was jealous of mums who managed it. Sorry if there is something wrong with me! I was in the media as i was approached by full time mothers org, i was an example of someone who gave uo their career to stay at home. I carried on in misery because i felt i should, society dictates we should be a working mum and if we aren't we are stupid! I felt if there was another mum out there missing her child thinking that if she gave up people would think bad of her, or that she was a failure, that if she saw my story she'd realise she was not the only one.
I am not being smug or nasty, you tell your story of going to work, i've told mine about quitting. This is the way I am. We are all different and I am sorry i don't go along with the majority of the mumsnetters.

To suggest that a nursery, nanny, childminder would be "bringing your child up" is obviously absurd. Your views on working mothers don't offend me as they have no relevance to my life.

Tracyhay, you seem to infer that my happiness at my choice to work by necessity somehow implies there is something "wrong" with you for not wanting to work. Nothing could be further from the truth. You will never find me questioning a woman's decision to stay at home. I think its great if a parent of either sex wants to do that they are able to.

Tracyhay

Mumsnet is here for discussion. I don't think that anyone is annoyed at you for deciding to stay home with your child. I think what has annoyed many Mumsnetters (and it has annoyed me) is the way that you have put things. The undercurrent of your postings seems to be that bottle feeding a child makes you some sort of monster, and going to work makes you heartless. We all make choices, for ourselves, and for our children. We all do the best that we can. The choices differ from family to family. You seem to be so judgemental

I am not trying to be judgemental and sorry if it comes across that way. You can't see the tone i'm using in a message. I've just told my personal opinions on things that I know are right for me. I am not saying you are bad to bottlefeed or work. As long as you and your children are happy is what is important.
We are all good parents on here otherwise why would we bother discuss their upbringing!

And Suedonim I agree totally with you. I find it frequently hilarious that I am lumped into the "earth mother" category because my son slept with us for the first year or so!. Anyway, time to slip on my Manolo's and teeter home...

Hear hear Croppy on all fronts, including your most recent point - and SueDonim too. Co-sleeping does not imply you are a slack disciplinarian, does it?

Maybe I'm not the one to say this, but it seems to me that an awful lot of people are taking offence that wasn't intended, just because others don't agree with them. This is a debate, if you can't handle anyone questioning your views then maybe this isn't the thread for you.

Moving on, Tracy: "your baby knows nothing but his parents, you are their world. Imagine how scary it would be thinking you'd been left alone by those you love to cry and cry. They don't understand that you'll (eventually) come back. As they don't understand that teddy is still there when you hide it behind your back.
Even disney knew what children need! GF is Katy nanna, i prefer Mary Poppins!
What's so wrong in spoiling your baby? i've never known love like that you feel for your child. "

Very nicely put.

Thanks for everyone else who has backed me up! Was beginning to feel like a lone voice in the wilderness!

Right, Bozza, I think your situation is different from the one I quoted. Offering a child a bottle and having it refused is very different, in my book, to just denying a child anything when he clearly wants it.

While I agree that what I quoted are probably not things that happen regularly with GF (ie, I understand that following routines does not mean you go to these extremes) these are actual case studies. They are things she has chosen to write about to convince people of her routines. She has done these things to these children, and this is not some poor worn out mum who has misunderstood and gone to great extremes in her interpretation. This is the actual woman who devised these routines. The woman you are listening to and taking advice from. And this is the kind of behaviour she is advocating. As TracyHay said, your baby knows only you, and if they feel abandoned by you they must feel as if their whole world is caving in. Tracy's words make a lot of sense to me.

Sorry Suedonim, I didn't mean everyone who has a relaxed approach ends up with little monsters! But you must have come across those parents whose children wreak havoc everywhere they do, whose only goal in life seems to be to destroy and harm, and their parents respond with a pathetic "Oh don't do that Jake, please stop pulling Kylie's hair. Now then, you've made her cry, would you like to say sorry? No? Oh dear, did mummy upset you? Come here and have a nice huggie wuggie!" And I often hear from mothers who have let their darlings sleep in bed with them only to moan when their darlings are older that they cannot get them out of the parents bed and into their own, I just think they are making a rod for their own backs. Every parent needs space to be an individual and every child needs to learn that they are not the centre of the universe. My personal feeling is that your child will respect you more if you have a life outside of children, if you follow your dreams and ambitions and don't lose sight of who you were before children.

Anais - I bet you're dead quiet in real life!

One more thing (well for now!)my ds had terrible colic as a baby. For the first 3-4 months of his life he spent most nights screaming and was very, very miserable. At 4 months, everything changed (he went from cup-feeding to squeezy-bottles (ebm, just for the record!)) he was a different baby. Calm, placid and very happy. He started sleeping through, and has done ever since. He really was a changed child. Now, I am prepared to accept that this was either due to the change in feeding, or just a natural progression. But what if I had, at that stage, worn out and at the end of my tether, introduced GF (over my dead body...)? How easy would it have been to believe that the miracle change was down to her routines?

Goodness I think I'm glad I've never read these GF books!

On the subject of placid parents producing monster children, I would like to point out that there is a very big difference between what you might call "permissive parenting" and "positive parenting". Positive parenting does not mean that a child has no boundaries, no discipline and no punishment, only that it can be done in a way that is not dictatorial. It certainly doesn't mean that you let your children walk all over you!

However, I too have run into those parents who watch from a bench languidly calling "No Tommy, don't hit that girl" and doing nothing about it. It's a very frustrating situation!

Rhubarb, the sort of parents you describe drive me mad too. I certainly don't feel that, as what has been described as 'an earth mother,' I am guilty of this. I think this is not so much Attachment Parenting, but more lazy parenting - or the kind where the parents are intimidated by their own child. I don't think it;s healthy for the child.

I do believe children need boundaries. But I also don't feel you can spoil small children, and certainly not with love and compassion.

Oh, and yeah, I am pretty quiet really!

Ah Corbin, you posted while I was still typing. That's exactly what I was trying to say, only you said it so much better

scatterbrain - no you didn't miss something... that is unless you were in the same postnatal ward at the same time as my friend a couple of years back. Yes, the woman really did offer her newborn crisps.

not my friend... the woman in the bed opposite her!

Whoosh.
I go out for the day and look what I missed! You all seem to have calmed down now. I think I understand what tracyhay means about not wanting to leave her children to go to work (nice to have a choice). Every time I've expressed reservations about childcare and being upset at leaving ds1, I've been shouted down. I even tried to explain what it felt like from the child's point of view, since I hated being in f/t chilcare myself, but was shouted down (by jbr!) so I do think that perhaps we are a little bit sensitive on this issue. Some mother/child pairs cope with returning to work very well - others don't. It's horses for courses. Those who didn't cope should be able to say so (carefully, without insulting anyone).

Three things from me.

1. You all obviously love your children very much and they all sound healthy and happy, so none of you should feel the need to justify the way you choose to bring them up.
2. I think instinct and confidence are often confused. New parents may well know what their baby needs but lack the confidence to go with that instinct, so childcare books are used as a support network, like extended families were years ago.
3. I think the best thing for all baby rearing books is to read them if you want, pick the bits that suit your needs then throw them away!

I'm retreating to a safe distance now!

p.s I love co-sleeping too.

Message withdrawn

Franklymistershankly your post a while back about slapping 20something upstarts wins my mumsnet post of the year award.I fear I might wake the baby with my soon to be forty something cackling.

Bloss thank you for that, it was very well explained.
It is good to know I am not the only one still awake (yes I know it's daytime in your part of the world! )
Hope your new babe is doing well.

Bloss, I agree with the spirit of your post. The whole idea should be to go with what works for your baby, and what you feel is the answer. No one answer is perfect for everyone!

I had never heard of GF before joining mumsnet, but I tend to agree with you bloss - my baby responded very, very well to structure and routine. The first couple of months are always a bit unpredictable but I found that once he was in a routine of having naps at a certain time, being fed at pretty much the same time, and going to bed at the same time, he was just wonderful. People used to comment on how contented he was, and I had no problems getting him to sleep through the day or at night. It really did work for me and I just felt that both myself and the baby knew what to expect, and I could plan my day around it. Occasionally it was a nuisance that he had to have a sleep at certain times, but it was worth it to have a happy, well-rested baby. He's now 2 and is still a great sleeper and a contented child. Everyone may not agree with the 'routine' thing, before I had a baby I didn't agree with it either! But then I realised that it worked, and I was willing to put up with it if it meant less stress for me and a happier baby.

Droile, just to say that I only responded to Tracyhay because she made a direct comment on MY ciscumstances, with which as it happens, I am entirely happy. I don't know the thread you are referring to but I have seen loads of supportive discussions on Mumsnet before about the understandable upset some mothers feel on leaving their children to go back to work.