What's the best parenting advice you have received?

[Nunyabiz]

Just wondering, if you are a mum or dad, any age children, what would you say is the best advice you have ever received? Any pearls of wisdom? Practical advice? Encouragement? Anything like that. Just something that has really stuck and influenced you personally. Thanks

Firstly 'just wing it', invaluable advice to me!
Second, 'prepare after first yawn, act on second, third yawn you're too late'. That did seem to be the case with dd.

Ignore 99% of the advice you're given!

TBH, once you become a parent everyone seems to think you want to be bossed around - from HV's to your own parents to random old people in the street. Smile, nod and do whatever makes you comfortable. Instinct is a powerful thing, trust it.

And yes, I fully expect you to ignore this

Don't worry so much over potty training - it's unlikely he'll walk up the isle to get married wearing a nappy/diaper

And this was true - they usually work it out and train e v e n t u a l l y

Act on your instinct.

Also, never stand when you can sit, and never sit when you can lie.

Dont sweat the small stuff

Trust your instincts and if you have a boy make sure his willy is pointing down when you put a nappy on him

I came on here to say 'don't sweat the small stuff' too.

Purple- already a parent! Can totally relate, but I must say there were a few (rare) gems that I really did find encouraging- that's what I'm looking for here

Paula I like that lol- definitely my mantra right now (39 weeks pregnant with SPD- I'll be sitting down doing the dishes thank you!) hehe

Try to see things from your child's point of view. And not just simply like "he wants the toy" but all of the things around it - how much he understands about things costing money and whether you can just take anything you see, whether his focus is still very short and he is fixating on this because it literally feels like the most important desperate thing in the world right now, whether he's tired or hungry or hot, whether he wants it for somebody else or for some other odd child-logic reason.

If you think hard enough about how to understand their world, and communicate in the best way to understand better, you'll find them far more willing to communicate and co-operate with you.

It's only a problem of it's a problem to you. If you don't care whether your child isn't sleeping through/out of nappies/counting to 1000, then it's no one else's business.

Don't try and be the perfect parent. Perfect parents mess up kids for the real world!

Funnily enough from a health visitor, who often get a bad name for dishing out bad advice. When DD1 was a baby, she said do as you please so long as you are happy and baby is happy. Dad needs to be happy too and then just go with the flow and trust your instincts. This has been my mantra and seen me through three babies...

From a consultant Paediatrician, when discharging me and my newborn son with Downs Syndrome from a spell in hospital after birth and surgery (his); she had come to know my elder DDs from visiting their brother and me and she looked at them and said to me, just do whatever you did the first two times round! It obviously worked! This was lovely advice and gave me the confidence to treat my newborn, all vulnerable and out of NICU and post surgery, just the same.

Always trust your own instinct, listen to your funny feelings, especially when your children are unhappy or unwell, they will lead you to the right solution. I've acted on mine a few times, always served me well. Oddly enough, this is something my DH has never had, he's taken great care if them all, but I think this 6th sense thing is reserved for the mothers...I think it is evolutionary...worth listening to.

If you are looking for a sensible, baby led child care and development book with lots of useful advice, but no "musts", I'd recommend Penelope Leach's birth to five, it's been reissued several times but has great, useful and gentle advice. It teaches you to consider things from your child's point of view and then you can decide on practical matters such as feeding, sleeping, behaviour etc... I bought it as a brand new mum and it's served me well...

Acknowledge and validate your child's feelings, instead of brushing them under the rug.

I didn't get any good advice but if I could go back and give myself some advice it would be "Chill the fuck out!"

Not to listen to unwanted advice, go with what you feel is best and don't let people tell you you're doing it wrong just because you are doing it different from them

Pick your battles.

Oh, and 'remember children are people too'. Sounds obvious, but veeeerry easy to forget when they are driving one crazy IMHO….

From friends who were already parents :

"You can't do it all so focus on what is important to you"
"Pick your battles"
"Trust your instinct"

From mums at twins club
"Ignore everything Gina Ford says"

Two bits of great advice from my mum...

1. (as already mentioned on here a few times)trust your instincts.
2. No one knows your baby as well as you do (useful when ignoring advice from others!)

I also remember now with very volatile dd2 " it's just a phase" and lo and behold, I immediately chill out and in a few days/weeks, she has moved on

Agree with the sentiment on not fretting over toilet training given there's few people will walk down the aisle in a nappy. Plus they will walk down the aisle. I got in a dreadful tizz about the twins not walking independently by 2. All in good time. Nature knows her stuff; she's been doing it a while.

Actually apply that to everything. We gave birth to perfectly healthy babies in caves. The human race has been very successful when it comes to survival. It's a useful aide when we find ourselves getting too precious/anxious/mollycoddling/competitive.

You are their world; make sure that's a happy one, which means not putting yourself last. In many ways little people are like horses: they'll pick up on you being confidently relaxed or stressed and act accordingly. I prefer my children positively horizontal.

They're also like dogs, in the Pavlovian sense. Beware positive/negative reinforcement. Give in to a tantrum once (tempting as it is) and you're screwed for the next year.

Wet wipes in every handbag.

Invest in a thermos otherwise, at least when they're wee, you'll never have a hot cuppa again.

-from a neighbour 'roll with it'. Its what I always remind myself of when the best laid plans are not working out!

Don't measure yourself by what other parents do/don't do. Everyone s situation is different.

Comparisons are odious and middle class white women tell lies. Johnny doesn't actually sleep from 7.30 until 7am; neither was he potty trained at 2.3. He might have been wearing pants but he was wetting five pairs of trousers a day. This is of course all admitted when they start school and the other mums feel more confident about their parenting.