Researching parenting styles etc..Make you feel like a shit parent??

[mummysmadhouse]

Title says it all really...someone said to me once;'dont read parenting books you'll they will just make you feel like a bad parent'

I am a deep thinker/worrier and sometimes feel the more info i get the more i feel im failing or doing it all wrong ..starting to think maybe going with the flow is the way forward..so tempting to read etc thou

bump

Not me, I need written instructions

Am about to find out...

Finally caved-in and have ordered 'How To Talk'

We all need to stop bellowing quite so much in our house

There are lots of effective ways of parenting children. The problem with parenting books is that they have never met your child. Some authors have never had children!

I think that the best way forward is to pick and mix. You also have to experiment a bit as what works for your friend's baby will not necessarily work for you.

I wouldn't expect to buy one cookery book and only use recipes from that one book for ever.

So I read lots.

There are things I will never make cause I don't like the ingredients.

Some I can change a bit to suit me.

Some I have a go at but don't work.

But generally I am hopefull that I'll cook all the ones I want one day....

But like all things it takes time.

I'm the same as you, OP, AND I'm a scientist by training so I try to research everything meticulously. Trouble with parenting is that there is a very limited evidence base but that's usually coupled with such an authoritative tone that you feel you must be doing your child terrible damage unless you do EXACTLY what the author says...

I wish I'd never read any of those books. I wish I could stop continuing to read them! And I wish I had some instincts that I could trust. But that's just not me. ANd every time my confidence hits a low, I become absolutely convinced that a particular parenting book will have all the answers!

I love MoonFace's analogy! I suppose I strive to do wonderful elaborate French cooking but end up with jacket potatoes and beans on more occasions than I'd like...

I read lots,because I am a reading kind of person, whenever I get a new interest I turn into a bookworm. I did recently have to put one book aside as it had me in tears. It was explaining the long term benefits if a gentle natural birth. Like the home birth I planned, but had to put aside for mega intervention and emcs for the sake of both our survival. It just rubbed in what we "lost", and a footnote about not feeling guilty didn't stop me feeling very frustrated and sad.

You need to learn how to say 'the past is the past - forget about it and move on'. Live in the present and remind yourself that a good parent - a truly good parent - is always trying to improve. To me that does mean reading lots and learning new tips and taking bits that work for our family and having the confidence to say 'yes, I cocked up, but I was doing the best I could under the circumstances of the time and with the knowledge and understanding I had at the time and that's all I could have ever done'.

You should feel like a better parent for trying to learn more, not a worse parent for making mistakes. No one's perfect.

I've never read a single parenting book, we just reacted to DD, followed her lead, read all sorts of opinions on here, talked to other parents in RL and did what felt right at the time.
she's 3.5 now, DC2 is due in jan and we'll be doing the same again.
I'll be more confident second time around because I've discovered since joining mn that there are plenty of good reasons for doing things like babywearing/demand/extended bfing/cloth nappies/not worrying about a routine, first time we did all those things because it felt right, without knowing why.