Books or common sense?

[SuperDuperTrooper]

So I'm often reading through this forum and am often amazed by some of the great advice. As a first time mum of a one year old DS I find myself frequently unsure of the right things to do. It sometimes clouds my judgement and I find myself nervous of making the wrong decisions. So have you all just made it up as you go along using your common sense or have you picked up tips from books. I'm wondering if I should be reading some parenting books or not to bother?

I've worked with kids before having my own but have also read tons of parenting books. My friends parent really well and we have lots of discussions on different parenting methods. Personally I just steal the best parenting bits from various sources and bodge things together. In my eyes the best books are toddler taming by green and the complete secrets of happy children by biddulph. These books inspire me to be the best parent I can.

I think it depends if you feel you have questions that need answering! I was a big fan of parenting books when my baby was born, as I had no idea what I was doing and personally found a lot of reassurance from books like Supernanny and the Baby Whisperer. But I honestly don't think I have read one in months (DD is the same age as your DS). If I have any specific questions, say weaning or health-related, I tend to come on here as I find the advice incredibly helpful, or talk to other mums that I know.

Other than that I don't have any issues that I feel I need to read something about, so I'd say if you don't have any issues then there is probably no reason to read anything? But then when the real toddler issues hit in a while, I imagine I'll be back to the books again!

In terms of trusting my own judgement, I think that as time as gone by and I have been right about things, I trust my judgement more each time.

I've never read any books. Get some fab advice on MN though. The rest is common sense.

I mean to say, I read BOOKS, but not baby raising ones!

I have read a lot of baby books from Dr Spock to toddler taming via Supernanny and The Baby Whisperer however most of what I know comes from raising 2dc and part raising 3sdc and helping with 9dgc and dsgc!!

Both.

We have mostly used common sense, but one or two books have really helped. My desert island parenting books, that really changed our lives for the better, were a baby routines book by she-who-must-not-be-mentioned, and 1-2-3 Magic.

I would say both plus intuition. I think we down play our intuition. Babies tend to let you know what they need!

I had my first child about 18 months ago and read quite a bit to check I was doing the 'right thing'. Was quite anxious to do the job well but found that the more I read the more anxious I became. After I stopped reading and concentrated on doing exactly what I wanted things got much easier. Not the case for everyone I know but I was driving myself mad comparing my routine with 'ideal routines'. That said, it was good to read stuff so I could dismiss it rather than adopt it. Took a while before I had that confidence though.

Mostly muddle along the way I was brought up, so lots of love and cuddles, but I also shout and smack and do things that modern books tell you are wrong.

Unfortunately for the books, I have two feisty, mostly well behaved, confident, DDs who get good reports from school (DD2's are embarrassingly good, she saves all her awkward stubborn side for home) and who have a perfectly reasonable relationship with their parents as DH and I had/have with ours.

DD1 is 14 and she and her friends are the nicest teens you could wish to meet.

Certain books are a total non starter as I'm hopeless at routine and I'm never going to remember rearrange my words the modern way.

So naughty children get called naughty, rather than the behaviour being naughty.

When it's relevant, DD1 is my dyslexic DD1, not DD1 who has dyslexia which takes too long to type.
I will never be PC.

That said Steve B is right in raising happy children, children crave attention, even negative attention.

When DD2 is being her whinny stubborn best, letting her be in charge and choosing what we do, even something very small works wonders.

bit of everything.