Parenting Forums

Posted: 15 August 2007 at 9:54pm | IP Logged

I can honestly say I have never been competitive with CJ and I'd like to think I'm not with Seren either. CJ was very slow to sit, crawl, stand and walk but very good with her speech. They all progress at their own rate and as has already been said they are all different. I do however often compare CJ and Seren, teeth is a good one because Seren has two teeth already whereas CJ didn't get any teeth until she was nearly 8 months old... then they all came at once LOL.

As for other peoples advice. I do listen to what people say and if for example someone is using a discipline method that I think is acceptable and might work with CJ then I will give it a try. I mean I never would have thought of using the naughty step at the age of 2 if it hadn't been for Supernanny... I would have probably waited until about 4 or 5. Also my Mum said that she used to totally ignore me if I'd been naughty as that used to really get to me, MIL said the same about DH as well so that kind of advice I take. Otherwise MIL telling me to give tea to CJ when she was 6 months old was rejected straight away. So in a long winded kind of way I guess if I think it'll work for us then we'll try it, if not then I'll leave it.

What I do hate though is people who tell you that you should be doing something this way or that way rather than suggest... that really gets to me and I'm less likely to use any advice these types of people give me which unfortunately is just my stubborn side.

Posted: 15 August 2007 at 10:06pm | IP Logged

Think I'm much the same really. If I see something that seems to work, I give it a go. I'm certainly not competitive. I worried more when Ethan was little about getting him potty trained etc, not because I was competitive, but because I wasn't very confident and thought that if others were doing it, then it must be the right thing to do. I didn't have the courage to follow my own instincts so much the first time, wheras now I've had more practice I know that no-one knows my children better than me and, while I don't always know the right way to handle something, I will think it through and do whatever I think will suit best based on my children's personalities, not just do what someone else has done.

I'm lucky in that both my mum and my m-i-l have never given me the 'in my day' speech, the only person who's an interfering old bag is dh's auntie (whose children were both apparently clean and dry by 10 months, and who asked my s-i-l if they'd considered getting their son tested for autism as he was so naughty), but I'm quite happy to ignore her. I know that some people don't like the way I do things, and I know that my dad thinks my boys are really badly behaved. He hasn't said as such, but you can tell, believe me. But then he had 2 perfectly behaved little girls (ahem...) so three riotous boys are a bit of a change.

(Well, me and Hazel never got caught, anyway...)

What really gets my goat (who invented that phrase?) is when you get people who have one perfect child, one who sleeps, eats, does everything a little before they're 'supposed' to, and thinks it's down to their perfect parenting technique, and that therefore anything your child doesn't do is because you're doing it wrong. They don't realise that a lot of it is down to the child's inherant personality. There was a mum at my first post-natal group like that, her daughter was literally angelic and she was sooooooo smug and superior. Then she had another child, and it was a totally differnt story! To give her credit, she did apologise that she had been like that before, but she thought she must have just done everything properly, and therefore we were all doing it wrong. But if she hadn't had her more 'challenging' (or normal) second child, she would never have realised that it isn't all about what you do.

Posted: 16 August 2007 at 9:31am | IP Logged

I definitely am!  I don't feel as if I've got any maternal instinct really so feel like I have to borrow ideas from others to sort it all out!  If I like the idea of something, I'll give it a go; if not, then I won't.. for instance, mumsam's ideas in the "omg night from hell thread" saved my life as regards getting ellie into a routine - I just thought "well ellie is a similar age to Ols, maybe that would work for us" and it did(!!) and Ellie was having two good sleeps a day in her cot and I got my life back lol.

As for the nursery rhyme thing, I probably would give it a go too - more so because I don't think I'm a natural with kids so I like to have ideas from others as to how to entertain/teach them..but I'm not competitive at all, in fact it really bugs me when people talk about how old their kids were when they did things..so what, it's bloomin BORING!!  I agree with 3smallboys, I hate it when people go on about how perfect their kids were "slept thru from 2 weeks etc."  as if they're brilliant parents and I'm crap...the amount of people that told me to give Ellie formula to make her sleep thru when I was bf was unbelievable!!  

Posted: 16 August 2007 at 10:26am | IP Logged

Emmm I think I am influenced to an extent.

I was too left to do it my way when he was a baby, got advice and I picked pieces out.  Like Madz, I did feel like Oh Travis isn't doing that yet, what can I do to encourage?  But I always had the thought in the back of my mind, he was more physically active than others crawlling walking etc.

Now that David and I have split, I kind of feel like we made joint decisions.  He's a bit poorly and I felt like I didn't have him to ask, which was a bit unsettling for me.

Posted: 16 August 2007 at 9:55pm | IP Logged

Greedy,

I also hate it when people suggest  you should give up bf so that your child sleeps through the night. I had a nightmare with CJ she woke literally every 2 hours during the night for a feed at first...slowly progressed to every 3 hours when I was bf her. She also did have one formula top up a day as I just couldn't give her enough breast milk.

When I was pg a lot of my friends who have older children asked me what CJ was like as a baby and when I told them they kept saying... 'oh well so  you will be this baby formula then'. Sorry but this is the only time I have been smug. Seren is totally different to CJ and I'm lucky that she has slept through the night from early on and is exclusively bf so I did gladly let them know which blew their theories about bf babies totally out of the window LOL.