Decided on a parenting style?!

[Emmiedarling]

I went to an antenatal class today and the teacher asked us if we had our 'parenting preferences sorted' and she asked me if I was a 'gina ford' or an 'attachment parent.'

Now, I'm expecting my first baby and am 32 weeks. I have literally NO idea what type of parent style I should/ will adopt. Should I?

I mean, I've read gina ford but I've got no idea in reality, how that approach will be for me and bubba, if indeed it will.

Have you thought about all this?

Sorry for unclear rambles. Very hot, sweaty and tired!!!

I go with the style of teaching your children, Love, Respect, mannors and the understanding of others feelings. I want my children to be well balanced good people. The only style you should adopt is what you feel is right. I come across alot of children with very little mannors or respect, surely this should be the basics of any teaching.

Just remember OP, whatever you do, you'll always be in the wrong.

I was an internet parent. Hadn't read any books prior to the birth (which was good because none of them would have described what actually happened) and spent quite a bit of time post-birth googling 'is this normal?'. This led me to mumsnet and I've managed to cobble things together from there.

I would say don't read a book pre-birth and then decide you've got it sorted because baby may well have other ideas. I don't think Gina deals with 'baby that pukes whenever you lie them down' for example.

I'm a firm member of the baby chooses her own parenting style camp.

DD1 was formulae fed, hated co sleeping, didn't like slings and perpetually tried to vaporise the second she learnt to crawl.

DD2 choose a far more attachment stye of parenting, BDing co-sleeping and generally keeping mum in sight.

Most parents make the mistake of thinking that they choose StarBallBunny-they are just lucky if the baby fits in with them.

Agree star bell...

dd1 was great sleeper - whilst i did do the tips to try and encourage that....ie keep it dark and quiet at night - no eye contact at night or smiling, help them know its day etc, i just think i was very lucky.

not expecting same from DD2 could be great - could just be a bad sleeper.

Thinking and reality are two diff things! HOWEVER I think its a nice question to ask to try and make people think about it.

I thikn the best question I saw in a baby book was to think about all the things Dh and i liked about our childhoods and what we didnt like...to try not to repeat the bad and be aware of our behaviour.

DH can make a fuss about a tiny bit of mess as that was big part of his childhood - so we recognise that when it comes out and then make light of it to dd. and some things i do too he can say is this really how you feel or are you bieng your mum!

I remember looking around in astonishment at my post-natal group as baby after baby nodded off on their mother's laps. Mine needed some extended and fairly violent rocking to achieve the same result - in fact the first few weeks were pretty horrible until I figured out that the crying was because he was so very tired but couldn't get to sleep without a lot of help. Things improved when I hit upon the violent rocking solution. I can imagine the mothers whose babies nodded off on their play mats without any intervention smugly doing Gina and it all working wonderfully because their baby was going to fall asleep like that anyway looking at me and thinking I was doing it all wrong, rod for own back etc. In actual fact my DS was simply different to theirs and needed something different.
If I'd read Gina (or baby whisperer or whoever) beforehand and decided that was how it was going to be, I'd have ended up tearing my hair out wondering what I was doing wrong as it wasn't working.