I never understand why everyone feels the need to parent other people's kids. I mean parents have their own problems and a lot to deal with. They don't need others coming around and telling them they're doing something wrong. I know a lot of people feel this way. A lot of people would agree, yeah?
To use as an example, let's say there is a brand new mom. She just had her first baby and she has no clue what to do. Instinct kicks in at this point. Of course she has her mother, but what if her mother isn't around as much. Some women don't have strong relationships with their mothers. So she is alone at his point. Here is where it gets annoying. This young mom has multiple friends. Single and parents. Yet all of these friends are telling her what to do. The parent friend seems to push her own habits and styles and the single friend says, "I was raised around kids, I know what I'm doing." "My mom was a nurse, I know about kids." Well let me stop you right there!!! The ONLY person that knows what they're doing when it comes to that child is that child's MOTHER! Not her friend, not her family, the child's mother!! If you are unsure, look it up. There is a ton of information out there geared towards new moms. That being said, I learned that too much information is a bad thing. You can really scare yourself if you listen to every single thing you hear.
I'm gonna throw in my own experience here for a minute.
When I was pregnant with my first child, Mara, EVERYONE felt the need to "give me advice". My mother and I have always been close. I called her for advice. She was my go to. I also called my sister. She had a child too so I figured, we have the same DNA our children will probably be similar, right? For the most part I was right. Anyways, I had several friends that were giving me multiple tid bits of advice. While I appreciated it, it got annoying really fast. I had been doing my own research and didn't care much for others telling me what to do. Even if that wasn't their intent to make me feel bad and unknowledgeable.
One of the girls had two kids of her own. They were older kids so she had been at it a while. She would tell me what to do what not to do. What diapers to get and how many. What soap to use and why I shouldn't use others. What size clothes to get and why I shouldn't get so many of each size. Just on and on all the time. It really shouldn't have gotten to me but it did. I did what I thought was best for my future baby. I would try to explain to her what I was going to do but she would always have a reason to shut me down. Something was always wrong with what I thought would be good. Talk about frustrating!!
Another girl had a little baby boy just over a year. She was my neighbor. We became great friends. She was chalk FULL of baby advice. She said all the same things the first girl said and more. She gave me books and CD's that would "help" me make a good decision. The only problem was, they were her decisions. Things that she did. What made me most upset was she would push and push and push breast feeding. I had already made the decision NOT to breastfeed for my own reasons. No one could tell me different on that one because I wouldn't budge. My own husband couldn't even budge my decision. He questioned it but never made me feel bad for it. So that was cool. Anyways, one day I decided to read the books she had given me. I went to read the breast feeding section. Even though I had already made my decision, that didn't mean I was just gonna disregard what she was saying. EVERYTHING in that book pushed me farther and farther away from breastfeeding. I had this discussion with her how it didn't sound at all like something I wanted to do nor did it even come close to swaying me to the other side. But not to my surprise, she defended her position too. She told me that I may be against it now, but maybe I'll like it if I actually try it. I think one of those times, I actually got upset with her. I exploded at her. I didn't mean to but I did. She told me it was alright and that in the end it was my decision. That calmed me down right away. That's all I wanted to hear. That my decisions were validated in some way.
Some of the things that the second girl told me, I actually did with my first kid. Sign language being one of them. It totally worked. So in that case, I'm thankful for that piece of advice. My daughter started learning sign at 5 months. She could communicate very simple things. Eat, tired, diaper change...etc. It was awesome. I very much plan on doing the same with my son.
That is all a new mom wants. To hear that her decisions are right. That everything she does, even if it the hardest thing to do, is the right thing to do for her and her family. She should take the advice she wants and use it, and take the advice she doesn't like and simply throw it out. That's all I wanted to hear. Now that I'm on my second baby, I don't really freak out as much. I'm more...relaxed. It is just so crazy, the differences between my first pregnancy and my second. Get everything done and bought right now vs meh I got 6 more months. It's nuts!
Now I find myself talking and talking about what I do and don't do, what works and what doesn't to my sister. She has two kids as well and we like to talk about routines and activities we do with our kids. It is fun.
Of course there are many things I would change but for the most part I did alright. I think that is what it is all about. All I had to do was believe in myself, that I could do it the whole time.
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