Is there a right way?




Hi everyone!!

Wow its been a long time since I blogged! Life sometimes gets hectic with a toddler which I'm sure most of you will understand lol! But I'm back to write a piece that I have been wanting to do for a while now. 

Is There A Right Way To Parent YOUR child?

You spend your first year of being a first time mam scared to do death to deviate from what is written in the pregnancy books or what the government guidelines tell you is best for your child. I know this was the case for me!
Masons first year of life was spent with me worrying that if I didn't stick to what the  "guidelines" were telling me then I was a bad mother and and doing things wrong.
The first time I felt like this was just 5 days days after becoming a mother. The second night home with Mason I had decided after hours of a screaming baby, and me for that matter, I was going to give Mason a Bottle instead of breastfeeding him.  .....a BOTTLE oh my that's it your baby is going to be ill all the time now because he is not getting your pure breast milk and that formula stuff is full of nasties!!!.....this replayed in my head all night. I think I had developed mastitis when I look back now, I was burning up and felt really sick, and just could bare to touch boobs! I distinctly remember thinking "I have failed!" 
"The breast is best" was constantly drilled into me while pregnant, through antenatal classes, magazines, health visitors ect, so when I finally said "enough is enough, Mason needs feeding and I just cant do it" I did feel very emotional because I thought by feeding Mason with formula he wasn't going to be as healthy as a breastfed baby!. I know now obviously that it was a load of crap and my little boy is a very energetic, healthy 16 month old.

Yes I do understand that breast milk has all the natural ingredients a child needs from birth, straight from 'the cow' sort of speak! BUT I will NOT beat myself up if it doesn't work again with my next child!

I thought I was going to be locked up in mommy prison when I decided to wean Mason at 17 weeks!!
This was another big thing for me to decide to do as I was all for sticking to the government guidelines of 6 months. Once Mason had started showing signs that he was still hungry after 4x8oz bottles a day, I changed my mind! We all do what we think is best for our kids, in this situation what I thought was best for Mason was to let him try some baby rice at 17 weeks to see how he managed. It turned out that he could manage very well and I couldn't get the spoon in his mouth fast enough! Regardless to the fact that it was my decision as Masons mother to wean him early, I still got criticism, and believe it or not it was off a stranger who was also a mother, on my Instagram account! She had commented on one of my early weaning pictures of Mason saying something like "17 weeks is entirely too young to be giving your baby food! their stomachs cant digest it" ect ect ect!
She went on to tell me about how she has open gut syndrome because she was weaned too early!
Her poor parents were probably only sticking to guidelines of that time! and she was blaming them! So without going into too much detail (because there was a lot of 'detail' passed from me too her, and a few of my Instagram friends who were totally with me on this one! thanks ladies!!) we basically told her to stop snooping around strangers pictures from months ago, just to try and tell them they aren't parenting right or the way you think they should do things!
This little episode got to me at first, mainly because I have never had any negativity towards me on social media before especially from a complete stranger! but after a while I thought I'm not going to let people like that make me think I'm doing things wrong! I'm doing things the only way I know how and the way I think is best for MY child!

Very recently I have noticed that I have become a much calmer and more patient mam to Mason, and the reason being....I have stopped listening to others about how I should do things and started to go with the flow. Mason goes to bed really well now I snuggle him up with his bottle on the mattress on his floor and he falls asleep next to me (something your not supposed to do because its giving him a sleep association and he will only fall asleep with a bottle!!) then once he's asleep I lift him into his toddler bed and he stays there till sometimes 3am. When he wakes instead of having a crying match when were both tired I bring him into our bed (ooooooo no don't bring him into your bed, your making a rod for your back! ....yeah because he will still be sleeping with us at 14!??) and we love snuggling him in bed and waking up as a family!

I think the answer to my title question is NO there is no right way to parent YOUR child. Everyone has their own way and I think people should start respecting that not everything they do is right for the next family! 




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