Crazy parenting? Social media fad?

[bananasinabowl]

What’s with the new ways of parenting?
All those new toys like the black and white books etc.
Baby led weaning with 3 courses in one plate?
is it all social media fad?
We had none of these growing up and majority of people turned out okay, intelligent etc.
So what is the point of all these new ways of parenting? Is it all for social media content ?

I used black and white books with both my children, they came as part of the Scottish Government baby box. Both little ones were transfixed by the book and would track along with it.

I did baby led weaning with my second child as I found it a lot easier to balance feeding time with two children. I didn’t know they were new ways of parenting but I also didn’t do it all for social media. I did it because it worked well for my children.

Sorry I don't mean baby led weaning as such. I mean on TikTok, the meals look quite elaborate and fancy.

I know baby likes black and white books. I’m just saying, is this a new thing as I didn’t have any when growing up?

I did baby led weaning, is it a fad? didn’t realise. I liked it, it was easy, and my toddlers now a good eater 🤷‍♀️

Things change. People learn new things about child development all the time. It doesn’t make any of it a ‘fad’, things have just moved on.

Same. My daughter is 15, we did all this. My nephew is 27 and my sister did it.

Somehow nowadays everyone does everything “just for social media” and yet people have been doing the same things for decades.

Black and white books are the result of research teaching us more about how baby’s eyesight and brains develop. We know stuff we didn’t know before and use that to inform choices.

Baby led weaning, aka just giving your baby normal food, is how babies have learnt to eat across all time and geography. Purees and special baby food is the anomaly, a western capitalist experiment of about the last 100 years. Not sure how just giving babies normal food is ‘content’.

Sleeping babies prone on their stomach used to be the done thing, now we know they’re a safer on their backs and way fewer babies die. More new fangled parenting?

My dd is 21 and we had black and white books.

I don’t know what meals you are talking about because I don’t have TikTok but my DD’s favourite food when she was weaning was dehydrated fungus and pomegranate so that’s quite weird overall.

I don’t know about the elaborate meals though as I don’t have Tik Tok. I just gave my babies some of whatever we ate, I didn’t puree anything.

Me too. If anything it’s special baby food that’s the fad.

This was all a thing 15+ years ago when I had a baby. Could you maybe take up a hobby like knitting rather than getting irked about how people plate their babies food? It might be a better use of your time.

Years ago we didn’t have car seats…is this just a fad? Or the development of new guidelines for keeping children rear facing?

Is new advice on not using fancy cot bedding and padded bumpers a fad?

Or are we just learning and changing what we do as we learn?

Im chuckling imagining a Victorian mum tutting at all the new stuff she didn’t have in her day…

Define a “fad”? Both the trends you reference arose from research suggesting there are benefits for the infant. I think that’s called progress, like the fad for putting babies on their backs which dramatically decreased the incidence of SIDS/ cot death.

Of course if further research debunks current practice then current practice will change but lots of parents are very invested in providing their babies with the best possible start so it’s not surprising they don’t just passively and unthinkingly raise their babies how they or their parents were raised. My mum read Dr Spock when pregnant with her first in the 1960s, it’s not a new thing to look outside the family or beyond instinct for guidance.

Okay, I get everyone’s point!
Sorry, I’m a sleep deprived mum who’s wondering if she’s doing enough! And some days I wonder if there’s any point using the black and white books or if I’ll be feeding my child enough!
I didn’t mean to cause offence.
I probably should lay off TikTok for a while… it does make me feel like a crappy mum looking at what the mums do all day or everything they cook.
Hopefully when I am less sleep deprived, I can look back at this post and think why did I post this!!

This was all a thing 15+ years ago when I had a baby. Could you maybe take up a hobby like knitting rather than getting irked about how people plate their babies food? It might be a better use of your time.

This

Definitely lay off Tik Tok! There will always be people you perceive as doing ‘more’. Just concentrate on what you’re doing! Things like black and white books… they’re pretty cheap and easy to get hold of, so that’s an easy win! With regards to weaning, no one needs to be cooking fancy elaborate 3 course meals for their baby. Just feed them bits of what you’re eating, taking care not to add salt or give too many sugary fruits etc.

Black and white books have been a thing for at least 14 years. I also BLW my child and gave him a selection of foods on one plate.

The rest...it's called new knowledge and understanding of development. years ago everyone was putting babies to sleep on their fronts. Now we know better and do better. That's how we make progress.

Things change with research? For example you might notice there are lots of very neutral coloured toys for babies I think it's a Swedish thing. Apparently babies don't like too many bright colours when they are young as it over stimulates them. Social media probably makes information easier and quicker to access and distribute. Before individuals would have had to take the initiative to read a copius amount of books.

My eldest is 21 and we had black and white books and baby led weaning.

Never worry about being a crappy mum as long as they’re fed, loved and played with that’s all they need.

Organic only carrots, sugar free diets, no TV is largely academic. You end up picking them all up off the floor of a bar/pub/club at some point in their life.

I'm a grandmother and completely support baby led weaning which makes perfect sense and isn't a particularly new fad I did something very similar in the 1980s with my children and all my grandchildren have been weaned using baby led weaning and the eldest is now 12 .
Black and white books are because the contrast helps new borns focus better. Again they have been used for at least 12 years.
Why do you object?. Things change and in most cases get better as we learn more. It's progress.

I had a black and white crib mobile for my babies back in the 90s. It had circles and squares with different black and white patterns on it, that rotated slowly.

I had read some research to the effect that babies loved deep or contrasting colours, and was thrilled to find a mobile that wasn't the usual pastel style.

Baby led weaning isn't new either. My mum basically offered regular family food to me and my siblings, chopped or mashed, as weaning foods, back in the 1960s. Plus rusks, chopped fruit, chopped well cooked veg, etc. Jars of food were pricy and she didn't trust what was in them.

One thing I never had, nor did my mum, was the likes of tiktok.

That is one development we could all do without.

But this is exactly what the algorithm is there to do.

It knows that you are interested in baby stuff and so it sends you more and more baby stuff. A lot of people on TikTok now monetise their channel - you're not going to buy THE latest baby self-feeding spoon if you're not incentivised to do so. The incentive is that you can buy it in the hope of emulating those chirpy, trim mums with babies who enthusiastically eat sugar-free cookies made of samphire that mum harvested from the sea front before an hour's yoga, with the converse side being heavy hints that if you don't follow their advice (and buy the spoon) your child is doomed for childhood obesity, an eating disorder and Type 2 diabetes. What those mums "do all day" is not cook, it's content creation, and I would baby-led eat my own hat if half of those "what my baby ate in a day" clips are composed of a single day's filming. It's an absolute menace particularly in the early years when you're sleep deprived and your brain is fried.

I do the fancy 3 meals on a plate. Except I call it 'snack plate' and use it to get fruit and veg into my child by stealth. It takes less planning OP and is less stressful

None of this is new. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I think maybe you just discovered TikTok. And you have a lot of time on your hands. My MIL is newly retired and has recently discovered Facebook and is astonished by all sorts of things that have been happening for 20 years. 😂

The fact that you’re worrying you’re not doing enough shows you’re doing everything you can for your kids!

It’s so easy to compare ourselves to tik tok mums but remember it’s all for show! Balance is key, my baby led weaning is pretty much cut up versions of what I’m having for dinner. I’m just trying to make everything easy for all of us but today I was running in barely any sleep and was stressed so we had a McDonald’s for dinner and I don’t feel guilty in the slightest.