Some pieces of wisdom get handed down and over, again and again, because they’re just so darn true. Well, I’m waving a flag today to say there are exceptions to every rule.
Here are three parenting tips I have heard over and over again, that have not held up in my individual experience.
1. Engage your child in growing food/grocery shopping/cooking and she will be more inclined to try new things.
Nuh uh. I have not found this to be true. My kids are terribly stubborn when it comes to their food preferences. True, I don’t drive any hard bargains at the dinner table, but I am more committed to having a peaceful meal and keeping power struggles away from eating, so I have not made any progress here.
My son will gleefully plant cherry tomatoes but refuses to eat them. He is exposed to a dirt-to-table gardening and cooking program at school, but will not eat any of the foods they prepare in the Alice Waters-designed class.
At the grocery store, I can show him all variety of grains, fruits, vegetables and beans, but he will only agree to eat from the small selection he already likes.
Yet, everywhere I turn, I read that if I would only engage him more in the food preparation experience, his palate will broaden. I’ve lost faith in this seemingly logical bit of advice. The next person who speaks those words on a morning talk show or to me in person is invited to come over here and prepare meals for us. And good luck to you– if you think you’re serving kale, I might slap you with it.
Scarlett began gardening at age two, apparently too late.
Oh, and the “they like dipping” tip? Not my son. He is fearful of ketchup, forget about Ranch, and never mind soy sauce as a trick to dress up veggies.
2. Play doctor at home to reduce fear of doctor’s visits.
My daughter is absolutely phobic of doctor’s offices and pretty much screams and cries the whole time we are there, even through procedures as painless as having her ears checked. You can imagine how I dread going to the doctor with her. I have taken her with her brother when she’s not being examined; I have taken her to just go to the office, look at the fish and leave; I have taken her with me to my own doctor, all in the name of reducing the terror associated with the office. No dice.
As a result, we are behind on immunizations, haven’t had her hearing tested, and the dentist has not actually gotten a look inside her mouth despite two visits.
If I ask her to play doctor with me at home, no problem! She loves it. What is she going to be when she grows up? A tummy doctor, she’ll tell you. She’ll be the first medical practitioner who has never actually been examined.
Guess we'll never know if that pacifier screwed up your teeth, honey.
3. Sleep training, of any flavor.
Cry it out, you say? After my experience sleep training easy baby Julian, I was a total believer. We broke him of various wake-ups at various stages in his babyhood, with textbook results.
Scarlett was a totally different story. When we felt she was old enough to sleep through the night, we let her cry each night for the allotted time with zero improvement for THIRTY DAYS. It was then that we gave up. I could get more sleep by spending five minutes nursing her back to sleep than forty minutes listening to her cry. Eventually she slept through the night without behavioral training from us. And before her first birthday.
Around her third birthday she put us through another round of insanity with the sleep habits. Again I discovered that introducing a power struggle simply escalated the tension and didn’t help put her to sleep or teach her anything.
For some kids, absolutely. As a tool that works without fail? I don’t think so.
Multiple choice quiz: which baby will respond to sleep training?
Because of my own entrenched gag reflex when I hear these well-meaning tips (over and over and over), I tend to dispense my parenting advice with loads of disclaimers. I feel obligated to say “I understand this may not be your style, or may not work for your baby.” Then again, since no one wants to read a bunch of sentences that start with “If…”, I do frequently throw ideas out there and hope that they help somebody without alienating everyone else.
Tell me I’m not the only one. What parenting tips do you keep encountering that have not worked for you?
So glad to read this! Fully agree! My kids love to help cook in the kitchen but then will usually not eat a bite of what we made unless I bribe them with a jelly bean.
Sleep when the baby sleeps always stuck in my craw.
I’m going to agree with LauraC on the ‘sleep when baby sleeps’. When do I have time to do anything? Or simply get some ‘me time’ on that plan? Also, my daughter is an unpredictable sleeper.
As for the kitchen thing.. my brother in law is a chef. A very good chef…. who only eats pizza pockets and chicken nuggets. He says he knows what tastes good together, so he can cook, but he has no interest in eating any of it.
As for other advice, I dunno.. I’m still exhausted this morning from my 5month old’s 4month sleep regression that’s been going on for 2 months.
there is the one thing I tell all newly pregnant moms: it’s very rare for your water to break and then you go into labor. It’s completely true. Usually it gets broken manually. So, guess who had their water break at the commissary? That’d be me. With no prior signs of labor.
ah well
no-cry sleep solution. feeding to sleep. wearing to sleep. co-sleeping. nothing worked with our kid–nothing. i’d rock and bounce and pace and jiggle and shush to no avail–until 3 or 4 am when finally lucy would decide it was time to go to sleep. ugh. she didn’t fit in any of the boxes all those dang books carefully lay out for eager parents and it drove me mad to get tip after tip from friends and family. now i’m very, very careful about giving sleep advice to exhausted parents. i can only sympathize.
THANK YOU!!!
I totally agree with #1 and the food thing is making me cah-razy right now. Also, going along with this is that you have to expose your child to a food 10 times before they will start to accept it and eat it. Um, yeah, and then the 11th time they will hate it again. My kids don’t care for picking out veggies or helping me cook them, and they have never given a hoot for dip. In fact, I have one who emphatically hates sauces and condiments. All nutritional home runs are completely and totally random, in my opinion, like last night when one child completely and solidly refused to eat lemon chicken with rice, and then ate raw carrots for dinner instead. Go figure.
The piece of advice that irks me the most is that wearing my baby (now 6 months) will help calm her when she’s riled up. I love to wear my baby, when she WANTS to be worn. But as a way to calm her down, forget it! Strapping her to me when she’s not into it makes me afraid for my face and hair.
Generally, any advice that sounds as if it should have an author citation after it is what drives me nuts. We don’t live near many role models or friends with babies, so we turned to books when our daughter was a newborn. One by one, we ended up throwing them out. (Only once did I actually, literally throw a book out of my house.) Ever since then, I’ve daydreamed about writing an “anti-advice” book, with sections like “However you all sleep is fine,” and “Breastmilk, formula, it’s all good.”
Sleep training all the way. I was going to say that before I even read the post. I’m not saying that there aren’t parents who have sleep trained and had “results” of sleeping… but I think that’s coincidence all the way.
I HATE when people ask if he’s a “good baby,” because if I say NO that must surely make me a terrible mother.
Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you!!!!
My son is terrified of the doctor and screams the whole time he is there meanwhile his favorite thing to do at home is play doctor and read books about doctors
I have done so many things to help him get over the fear but as soon as it is his turn to go in that little office he freaks and doesn’t relent until we are back in the parking lot. I am terrified of taking him to the dentist as that will be a whole other gong show!!!!
My oldest son (3years old) also is an odd food eater. He LOVES food – play food, books about food, cook books, grocery shopping, etc. but EATING food that is a whole other story. We tried everything but he will only eat what he wants to eat when he wants to eat it. Many nights he goes to bed hungry since he won’t touch supper. Soooo frustrating!!!!
I truly believe that whether or not your child is a “good” eater is pure luck — or maybe genetics or some other factor that you have no control over — and there’s hardly anything you can do to change that. I feel like I’ve got a couple of kids who are fairly open to new foods for their ages (one more so than the other) but I doubt it has anything to do with things that I’ve done. We’ve also tried gardening, helping in the kitchen and letting them pick veggies to try and it’s had no effect. The only benefit I’ve seen is that there’s less whining about a new food on the plate at dinner time — but that still doesn’t mean the food gets eaten.
I’m totally with you on the food thing! My daughter knows all about growing things, oohs and aaahs over all the pretty produce at the farmers market – and won’t eat any veggies except frozen corn. Happily, she loves all kinds of fruit and will eat any kind of cheese.
And the dip thing used to drive me crazy too. There are TONS of kids who hate sauces and condiments of any kind (or any foods touching each other in any way) but the little tdbit about dipping is always presented as some kind of universal truth.
We threw away all our parenting books when my daughter was a couple of months old and all have all been better off ever since.
One of my “favorites” was “put the baby down while he’s drowsy, but not yet asleep. He’ll learn to put himself to sleep.”
YEAH, RIGHT!
@Kate – I actually, legitimately, think that people would buy that “anti-advice” book. It would make a lot of us feel better about ourselves.
As a twin mommy, I’m gonna go with pretty much the entire twin chapters of every book written by so-called experts who don’t have twins themselves. Neglect the housework? Sure. Exactly how long am I supposed to live in a slum? Nurse them separately? Yes, because everyone knows how patient babies are when they’re hungry. Wait to see if they really need to be picked up so they’ll learn to soothe themselves? Okay, but do you mind picking up the now-awake twin while I listen?
@Kate – I love your book idea! “Breastmilk, formula, it’s all good” could be the name of it’s own book. (Subtitle: Feeding your child without going crazy.)
@Wendy – it’s comforting to know you think it’s genetic. I think we all need to move beyond getting them to try new things and focus on how to have a pleasant meal. I’d rather get a quiet “No thank you” than a whiny “I don’t like wet peas!” and that seems like a more reasonable goal than to get the peas eaten!
Same food things here. And he HATES dipping and any sauces.
He HAS tried things via peer pressure — at school they have gotten him to eat quesadillas (previously the tortilla and cheese had to be SEPARATE) and fish sticks. OMG fish sticks. Seriously.
Don’t have much experience with the other two. But Yes, parenting advice is certainly not always advice. Sometimes it’s assvice.
The food thing: SO TRUE. My kids have gardened, picked out vegetables at the farmers market and assembled our evening tossed salad. But eat said salad? Hell to the no.
I found baby signs to be a stupid waste of time. Why does a baby need any encouragement to ask for “more” “crackers”? But it helped that both of my girls were talking with their mouths by 12 months…
My 3yo is an excellent eater, but I know better to think it had anything to do with our parenting, or how we introduced foods, or blah blah blah. I agree with Wendy – it’s genetic and/or luck. I’m pregnant with my 2nd now, and I just *know* he’s going to be a terribly picky eater…I’m preparing myself for the worst and hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
The one baby book that I found actually quite useful was the Baby Whisperer–mostly for her message that a kid has a nature and you can work within their nature, but you cannot change it. Therefore, if you have an angel/super easy baby, you’ll be pleased at their ability to sleep/eat/get on a routine – but it’s just their nature, not really your parenting. Likewise, if you have a touchy/grumpy and/or WAAAY too energetic baby, then that’s ALSO their nature and in no way a reflection on your parenting.
I get my kids to eat Kale all the time. 4 and 6. Chop it up small. Saute it with onion, and garlic, and scramble it all with Eggs, and bacon. Yummy.
Re: #2. I’m with you. My 8 month-old daughter sees me in my white coat & stethoscope at least a couple times a week (I’m a medical student), and she’s happy to let me listen to her heart from time to time. But she has somehow learned to differentiate between MY white coat and her pediatrician’s…and cries accordingly.
Hi @Ken, I think you missed the point. But I’ll try it on my kids.
My near two year old just doesn’t eat. She eats some, sure, but not a lot. I’ve done it all and she’s just uninterested. Now, she’ll dip her food and then suck it off without actually eating anything.
And, my oncologist, the man who had me poked with lots of needles in my childhood. Yeah, he’s never had all of his vaccines and has fainted from having his finger pricked. There is hope for your little one.
Oh man, I hate the “sleep when the baby sleeps” advice whenever I vent about my kid’s terrible sleep habits and my resulting exhaustion. When am I supposed to do everything else?
And my 16 month old is now picky with food. WTH? We let him try everything, and if he doesn’t like it, he spits it out. How is gardening & cooking with me going to fix that?
I enjoyed today’s post espcially. I felt terrible for much of the first two years of my first son’s life because I felt I must not be able to follow the directions of other mothers or the text books they passed along to me. My kids still do not sleep and eat the greatest, but their mom (me) finially found some peace of mind, and some sanity when a woman like yourself clued me in: it does not work for everyone, or every child. Find your own way, Girl. Leting go saved us! I only wish there had been someone (like you) more willing to let me in on the secret a little sooner. Perhaps your post will save someone else from feeling like a failing mom! thank you.
I remember mentioning that we were having trouble with diaper rash with my daughter and the suggestions I received were change her diaper more often and try diaper rash cream. What? Do people really think I’m that stupid? Yes, of course we already tried that.
I’m only one year in on this mommy thing but so far… I agree. My son is going to the dentist this friday for the first time. They suggested that I talk to him about the dentist and be honest but not to scare him. What am I supposed to say? He’s only 1! HA! We’ll see how it goes.
I think the sleep training rigidity can go both ways — by that I mean, there are an awful lot of die hard “no cry it out” mamas who probably think I’m an AWFUL person for letting my baby cry a little. Well, if my baby cried for 30 days with no improvement, I’d lose it and throw in the towel, too. But since I got easy ones that readily took to the self-soothing idea in a matter of minutes over about 3 days, well, I get tired of being made to feel like I’m an awful person for “putting my baby through that”/ “ignoring my child”. We were both happier for it.
Point is — I agree with you — not everything works for every baby, but people need to remember that. I’m guilty of forgetting it myself.
I’m totally with you on the sleep training! Every baby is different, and I’ve decided it’s just not worth the battle to try to make the “cry it out” method work. My pediatrician recently told me to stop nursing my twins to sleep and let them soothe themselves. I’d like to see him try that!
The other thing I hate is when people tell me I should have swaddled longer. I know swaddling works miracles for some, but my girls hated it after the first month.
OMG…the food thing!! I have taken every suggestion EVER about how to get my kid more involved in food…and making her want to eat it. My kid will help me chop veggies, plant veggies, pick them, buy them at the grocery store, watch cooking shows, read cook books…ANd STILL she only eats about 5 foods TOTAL. Ugh.
And the sleep thing – I think some kids are “good” sleepers and some are not! I did CIO with my first kid…she was asleep the first night in 15 minutes…and never cried again at bedtime. My second…TWO HOURS she cried. She didn’t sleep through the night until she was 3. To this day, my 7 yr old is a “good” sleeper. My almost 4 year old is a terrible sleeper.
I always nursed my daughter to sleep even though I read that I shouldn’t. I was always just so tired I thought I’d let her train “tomorrow”… Well, after several months she would fall asleep and then wake up about 10-20 minutes after I put her in her crib, and either cry for as long as we’d leave her in there, or stop crying when we came to get her.. I think it was a few months of this, but eventually (she’s 18 months now) I could nurse, then put her down awake, and she is fine! I say goodnight, turn off the light, and leave the room. I can hear her talking in the monitor, sometimes for a long time, but she eventually falls asleep. Once in a while she’ll wake up crying , but rarely. Crying it out didn’t work, and I think she just had to grow out of a stage. I like the stage she’s in now the best, she sleeps really well!
Nursing her to sleep worked for a while, mostly when she was really little. And I planned on nursing for a long time so I wasn’t against nursing her to sleep because I figured eventually she’d grow out of it. I still try nursing her to sleep now even though she usually stays awake and falls asleep on her own…
Ahh when I was pregnant, I had all these great ideas. It was going to be so simple. I was going to go all natural – no pacis, no disposable diapers, and cosleeping all the way. Then my son cried profusely because he wanted to nurse…but didn’t want to eat. And he couldn’t figure out how to make that happen, so he got a paci, and slept like a dream. Then he was 6 months and had yeast rashes and nothing but nighttime disposables fixed it. Then he was 7 months and neither of us were sleeping because he nursed all. night. long. So into the crib, and we were happily sucessful with sleep training (sleep easy sleep solution), with almost immediate results.
No one really advised me except myself, but it was disappointing. It took me a long time to realize that a paci isn’t the end of the world. We took it away at 7 months (at the same time as sleep training) and he never noticed. Sleep training seemed so cruel and unnecessary when I was pregnant, but it was what my son needed to get sleep. Case in point? He was trying to crawl for a month, and two days into the sleep training he got it. He needed sleep more than I needed to do the “natural” thing. So did I! And as for the disposables? Eh. Whatever. I’m over it now but at the time it was horrifying.
Moral of the story? Figure out what works for you and your child as you go, and let go of the hangups about what’s best. And ignore everyone’s advice, especially if it is unsoliticted!
You are absolutely correct! I think almost all issues with kids can not be solved with a canned handy dandy tip from anyone. The truth is, each child and each family are unique and so is all the probelm solving.
I get asked a lot of advice about how to handle a whole slew of things. Discipline (spanking or no spanking, time out or Magic 123), teething (use medicine, herbal relief or ignore it) and when to ditch the bottle are three I’ve been hearing a lot on lately. I am probably one of the worst advice givers because I have a huge list of disclaimers about every bit of information I give.
It depends on you. It depends on your kid. It depends on your family’s lifestyle. It seems that for every Mom with the answer you’ll find a Mom that just doesn’t understand.
Thanks for sharing!
Your experience is the exact reason why I always say that everyone should really have more than one child (if possible)
If you happen to be one of the lucky few who gets a very easy child that for example….eats everything without much coaxing etc. then that obnoxious parent thinks they have it all figured out.
What works for one child, very rarely works for another. Its a constant juggling act trying to figure out what works for each personality. You can read every parenting book, but in the end I really believe in doing what works for you and trusting your instincts.
Never wake a sleeping baby. The person who decided that was good advice obviously didn’t have twins!!! If I didn’t wake one when the other woke for a feed, particularly in the middle of the night, I’d be up all night feeding them!
I go with ‘whatever works for your family is the way to go’.
Pretty much every potty training tip I was able to glean equaled “fail.” My kid, a GIRL no less, took till she was 3 months past her fourth birthday to be willing to do the #2 on the potty. I tried bribery of all kinds, and every other tip I couldn’t even start without her become extremely agitated and pressured, a state that all the tips CLAIM you’re supposed to avoid. Finally she just had to get to the age where I could take away her pull-ups and explain the facts of why; they were too small for her, and to continue to use them would start to make her sick from the poop going into areas it shouldn’t go. And even with this…I had tried just taking the pull ups away before, and the result had been that she simply withheld her movements until she was in agony. It was crazy. Luckily for both of us, the last try was the charm.
Also, there was no amount of encouragement or advice that could solve the latch on issue when it came to breastfeeding.
ladies… i’m due in 2weeks with my first. This post is HORRIFYING! I have no advice (obviously) but i did work in a pediatric dental office for a couple of years. And i have seen the worst. All i can say is find one that will work with you. One office i worked at let parents come back and join the children; another office did not let parents come to the back for the cleaning…. (<this was a nightmare!!)
“She’ll be the first medical practitioner who has never actually been examined.” HAHAHA!
Great post- I think the point is there is no one-size-fits-all for children. There rarely is for anything, so why do we assume there will be for kids? I definitely nursed my son to sleep all the time, among other things. You try different things with your child until you hit on what works!
It absolutely makes my skin crawl when people ask me if I love being a mom. My son is 4 1/2 months old and I absolutely adore him. He truly is my world. But do I “love” being a mom? Well, at 8am, when he’s smiling and laughing and blowing bubbles, YES! At 3:30am, when he insists it’s time to eat and I just want sleep… well… “love” is not a word I would use.
The thing that never worked for us, though? Swaddling. I have, I think, half a dozen swaddling blankets and that many velcro swaddlers, too. Used one of each of them twice. He fought, he howled, he napped (fitfully) for 20 minutes and then worked himself loose and slept like an angel. It might be fab for some babies, but my boy needs room to move when he sleeps. We gave up on it when he was 2 weeks old and never looked back.
I have found, over the past 6.5 months of motherhood, that if you start any sentence with the words “My child always…” or “My child never….” you WILL eat your words! Kids are great at proving us wrong!
In the 26 months that my darling daughter has been alive, she has slept THROUGH the night 33-36 times. Not in a row either. I have tried every method, she is not un-happy when she wakes up either. she is just AWAKE.
our doctor even brought up the words: melatonin and herbal sleep remedies.
she’ll sleep when I’m dead. at this point, i am completely adjusted to it.
glad to know that there are many moms that are happier when they go with their own smarts and what works best for THEIR family.
Dear Rookie Moms
Love your site & posts they are engaging and fun:) As a child psychotherapist I wanted to weigh in on Will Role-Playing DR. reduce kids fear of Dr’s visits?
I posted an article on my Blog as in-addition to your comments.
Good Parents, Good Techniques, Improving Implementation! Effective Distract-Ivities and Strategies
Thanks Ava Parnass http://bit.ly/dOKhAC
Hei – i have also heard this. I have also read (can’t remember where)
that if a “tongue” is exposed to a new taste it can take up til 13 times before the “tongue” excepts the new taste as good. Average is 6 times.
Don’t feel bad about your toddler not eating new foods, it is an instinct that stops them from poisoning themselves. By eating only foods that they recognise when they are exploring they are less likely to put a poisonous plant in their mouth.
I 100% agree with you. I have a three, two year olds and a seven month old. When it comes to eating of coarse I have no problem yet with my seven month old but my two year old will eat anything I eat but my three year old is so stubborn and wont eat as much. If I give him something I am sure he will like he will disect it first and then only eat what looks good to him. He even does it to food has eaten before. It can be so difficult and I have tried a lot to get him to eat. He has helped me make meals, shop for groceries and let him watch me trying to show him that what he is eating is going to taste good. I don’t know any more.
Doctor appointments are unbare able. All though I try to asure my children that not all doctor visits will end with them getting shots they still freack out. I did find one thing helpful though when it comes to getting the kids not to be so scared is I don’t let the doctors or nurses say shots around the kids when we go in. I then just have my kids sit on my lap while they get there shots. I also give them something to distract them while the nurse brings out the needle and then I just hold my kids’s hand while they hury and give them the shot. I found that for my kids it was the whole experience of being held down and then having a needle jamed into there leg. From beging to end its a bad experience. Since I just figured this out my two and seven month old are ok going to the doctors office but my three year old still throws a fit every time. Good luck
[...] From Whitney@Rookiemoms Blog ( Thankyou Heather and Whitney for letting me share the story:)) http://www.rookiemoms.com/3-parenting-tips-that-have-completely-failed-me/ Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rookiemoms Twitter: [...]
Of course the article is funny. We’ve all been there, and I understand that what you’re describing is just a snapshot of a moment in time. After reading your blog, I know you’re both great Moms. You may have already done all the things I suggest here. However the child psychotherapist in me can’t resist commenting, as your article provides a great teachable moment.
Just so your readers know, my child cried her way through every doctor’s appointment — and we went every 3 months for many years. It was a stressful, embarrassing nightmare. During each visit I kept reminding myself of all the things I learned in 15 years of child psychology practice, such as: it’s okay for kids to cry, many kids are scared at the doctor’s office, I am teaching her to be brave, and it will decrease in time.
The most important thing not mentioned in the “great advice” you’ve gotten (and you may have already done this!) is the need to address the feelings underneath the child’s behavior. Don’t be surprised if your child doesn’t yet have the language to articulate their emotional state. Many kids will say “I don’t know” if you ask them what they’re feeling. But with practice they’ll be able to name and express their feelings, and eventually the behavior will change.
In the beginning — which may mean years — it’s helpful to give kids choices of feelings they may be experiencing. For example, try saying, “I know this is scary. It’s okay to be scared. You’re brave to do this, and even if you cry, you’re still brave.”
And yes, continue to role-play doctor! It’s helping your child process their fears bit by bit. Even if you can’t see the results now, that doesn’t mean it’s not working. Most parents give up too soon, which is understandable. To read more http://owl.li/80UNt
Hi
Thanks for your post. I really totally agree that well meaning, logical advice does not work for all kids.
My dd refused all sleep trainings. I tried the baby whisper method, the cry it out a lot method, the cry it out then you pick her up, comfort her without nursing, then put her back on her crib and she’s supposed to stay sleeping method, the rock your baby till she’s almost asleep then put her to bed still slightly awake and she should drift off, the nurse her till she’s sleeping then put her down while slightly awake (eyes closing more than opening, lethargic, unmoving limbs) and she should stay sleeping method… etc etc… i gave up and just prayed that she will learn to sleep and you know what, she got the hang of sleeping when she was ready, and NOT ONE MINUTE BEFORE! lol.
what did work? co-sleeping, leaving the breast out for her to drink from while i slept (and no, i never rolled or crushed or somehow hurt her thank God). when she was around one year. dd breastfed till she was more than 2 and honestly, once i stopped following the “logical” advice and noting the “proper” steps she was supposed to follow and just rolled with what she could handle and did the program that worked with her and caused the least stress and i became a much happier momma and she a much happier baby.
today she’s a little girl of 4, sleeping 12+ a night, smart, happy, and enjoying what 4 year olds enjoy.
so in my opinion, its always a GREAT idea to try new strategies but to not feel bound or stressed by them. instead, know that each child IS different and each child will put you through a different wringer but each mother is already equipped with what their child needs, caring for them, loving them, teaching them gently, working and strategizing with them, helping them gently, and just supporting them through every stage of growth, from birth till they are ready to fly from your nest.
OMG THANK YOU!! My 6 month old will NOT sleep through the night for the life of me. AND when I do get advice, asked for or not, the think I hate it the most when overly opinionated people throw reasons for or against cry-it out in my face. I didn’t ask to be rail-roaded with your judgement of how I try to get my child to sleep. All I’m doing is looking for some sympathy that my child wakes up 4 times a night to nurse still. I know they’re mostly well meaning people but really, do you need to shove an article in my face that tells me that if I let my child cry they will feel abandoned or if I don’t let them cry, they will never be independent. Trust me, if one of these methods worked, I’d be doing it. AND I TOTALLY AGREE, I would rather get up and nurse then be awake for an hour trying to get him to sleep! THANK YOU!!!!
Food struggles are power struggles. Getting them excited about a food doesn’t mean a thing. They want to win the battle. we, as parents, decide if the battle is worth it to us. I live by the eat it or go hungry. Harsh to some but whatever. Works for us…he is really a good eater for the most part. Puts the control back in my court. Game on, kid.
Game on, indeed!
I suspect we have more empathy with picky eaters if we are or were picky eaters ourselves. The apple not falling far from the tree, etc. My husband cannot fathom some of my son’s preferences but I remember wanting only peanut butter no jelly for years so I understand.