cuppa tea

The guilt over not breastfeeding is for the individual to come to terms with. If breast milk is nutritionally better then it is good to know that and should inspire new mums and mums to be to continue through the tough bits. Lets face it, everyone has trouble at the beginning. It can be very very tough. When my little one was throwing up blood from my nipples and I was stamping my foot on the floor in pain and on antibiotics for mastitis, I needed to know that I was continuing for a reason. That there would be so many benefits for my baby. We can't tip toe around because it may make some people uncomfortable or have guilt issues. It is sad when women, probably through lack of support, don't continue. The only way to increase that support and help more women to breastfeed is to keep peddling the positive messages about breastfeeding, annoying as that may be for some. If formula is just fine by everybody, then the support won't continue.

Yes i did feel that I admit, but I don't think I have the energy to be drawn into another breastfeeding debate on the EDF! And was regretting my sarcasm (in a bad mood!). I'm not confused about breastfeeding either, but the weight chart issue is something that seriously needs to be sorted out...along with HV's advice.

Sorry, being unnecessarily pedantic! I take it back :)

"This is not about which method is best (I myself couldn't breastfeed so have my own views on it!) but about the mixed messages of how long it should be done for, the benefits of it etc." So it's not going to be unbiased then?!

ironing does have to be THE most pointless household job! I have never done it. When my son started nursery he asked what an iron was in the 'home corner', ha! Which doesn't bode well for his future girlfriends....

Fuschia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hands up it was me who started the discussion, > though it did originate from the SAHM thread. I'm > not getting at anyone, honestly.. just thought it > would make for a bit of lively discussion (which > it has) > > Though I must say it's immensely reassuring to > know that virtually everybody I know who has a > nice clean house also has a cleaner! I was > beginning to worry it was just me who is not > superwoman. I used to get really annoyed at the clean houses with small babies scenario! Then I realised they have cleaners and I'm still a bit annoyed....but it's pure envy! I should post photos of the relative squalid conditions (with no cleaner) that we live in at our house and I think you would all feel better!

Moos Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > To be clear, my ranting isn't aimed at any > particular poster and I think I might be preaching > to the converted anyway. > > I'm just astonished that these questions are being > asked in the 21st century. > > Sorry if this is a major sense of humour bypass > and I need to take a Valium or something. I don't think anyone needs to justify anything. To be honest I was pretty stunned by the original question!! You would think after all this time women have the right to choose what they want to do. Having or not having a cleaner is a financial discussion, not whether someone deserves on or not surely. Who really wants to clean??? I mean really, if you can afford a cleaner, of all the interesting things we could be doing rather than cleaning! And the question of whether SAHM's should/shouldn't put their kids in nursery doesn't even justify a discussion. As someone has said, it's not the 1950s! It's all financial. I can't afford a cleaner, so I don't do it. My little 4 year old goes to nursery 2 mornings a week, where I get the baby to sleep, sit down, take a breath, make a tea, eat a chocolate biscuit and possibly go online. If i didn't do this I would probably have a nervous breakdown instead. To experience the 24 hours a day, 7 days a week of childcare that I have done for 3 years straight is incredibly intense. Surely any mum, working or not, would realise that? Or is it perhaps that they don't value the stay-at-home job?

@ Huggers - No I wasn't implying that you were in any way sexist for employing a woman over a man. I was finding it interesting from a 'wages for housework' point of view. I would guess that there are far more female domestic cleaners than men, because although they are paid above minimum wage (hopefully) I doubt very much that men would do that kind of work for that little money. We are still delegating 'women's work' to another woman. It's more what it says about how society is set up than anything else. I wasn't thinking about it from personal situations. I would say that female cleaners clean to fit in around their children. They probably do then go home and clean their own houses and manage their own families. If parents were paid to look after their own children and do their own house work, women wouldn't have to go out and clean other people's homes and then come back and do their own.

"I believe in old fashioned feminist ideals of wages for housework and so feel no guilt in paying a proffessional to do it for me. As long as that person is paid a proper and not exploitative wage." I would bet all your cleaners are women though?

The best way to teach young boys to clean is by having their dads set a good example by doing the cleaning themselves! You can't underestimate role modelling :)

3) Of course I intend my child (hopefully children) to pull their weight around their house but 6 month old babies can't do this. I am really looking forward to putting little daughter to work: making my tea, rubbing my feet and baking me cakes (this is a joke-ish). Seriously though she is already helping me empty the dishwasher although I have to catch the plates pretty quickly before they hit the floor! She also like to hand me pegs when I put the washing out. Trust me, I do my far bit of cleaning." You may be waiting a LONG time! Mine go through phases of 'helping'...love mopping the floor, washing up etc, but usually it's just a phase. If I attempted to get them to pull their weight I would spend all day nagging. It is x1000 times quicker to do it myself and a hell of a lot less painful! their time will come when they have to clean their own home.

Had this as an email newsletter from Naomi Aldort parenting newsletter. Thought it quite appropriate...although it's regarding our partners. "As long as we, SAHM mothers, believe that we aren?t earning the money or that we are supposed to pay back by cleaning up or cooking, we are creating the reality that empower men to see us as less and as someone who should pay back by cleaning or cooking. You DO earn that money regardless of whose name is on the check. You are both working, only your work is more hours and harder. When my husband returned home from his work (When my children were young I was a full time mom,) I let him know that being with children is a full time occupation and there was absolutely nothing else I was going to do. In fact, I pointed to the opposite: ?When you come home,? I told my husband, ?I need a break.? He often took the children to play or read. Or, if I was breastfeeding and busy with them, he would do the dishes and make dinner (and he shopped on the way home.) In the summer we played together as a family, going to the lake, or playing outdoors. Once back in the house, the children often needed me and not him and so he did the kitchen work and laundry in those early years. The division of work was not gender or expectations based, but simply: As needed and as possible. Being self-respecting and equal does not mean taking advantage of your partner. On the contrary. The more we are equal, the more others respect us and it give them freedom to be equal. Being up or down is enslaving. We need partners. Men often fail to understand what we do with the child/ren all day long. If we try to do many other things, they come home and see that we managed to do it all. They don?t know that the children?s needs were not met. They learn to expect what we accomplish. If you get time to do things, sure, do them and enjoy. But most often, what you do is raise children, and that?s enough. When husbands come home to a full sink and happy children, they will value you more, not less. Are they washing the dishes while they are at work? They can only realize that you are fully occupied with the children, when you actually are."

@ Dudley - what a brilliant post! Especially the point about being a primary educator and the immense priority we place on schools. We are delegating our children's education to the schools after all.

So mum's these days are failures as they are unable to clean the house as well as look after the kids? Looking after young children and meeting their needs is a full time job. There is barely time for anything else. I don't want to spend my day forcing my kids to do housework either....that would not be a good use of time. If you have teenagers, presumably they are at school every day?....this is totally different from having young dependent children. If my kids were at school each day I wouldn't consider myself a SAHM!

I would LOVE a cleaner. I am a SAHM and if I want to clean the house I have to ignore the children....so I don't clean the house. It's an absolute tip! The 'background' must surely be whether you can afford a cleaner. I can't afford one as we are on a single income. If you have young children at home every day, the house is constantly messy. I have about 4 hours sleep a night most nights, the last thing I feel like doing is putting my hand down the toilet to scrub it - I am already spending most of the day cleaning food off the floor. If you are a working mum you are more likely to be able to afford a cleaner. The need for a cleaner is the same. It's a misconception that SAHM's have more time to clean the house. Sometimes I don't have time to take a pee!

"He questions why earning money for a corporation, even when many consider that their jobs aren't that enjoyable, is much more seen as doing 'something for yourself' than raising a family and staying at home while your babies are small." I think this is because we are bringing in a wage and as a society we value money and things more than people, sadly. It's all rather confused if you ask me. Though I can totally understand women wanting to go back to work too. On some days I do because it's bloody hard looking after little kids! Often monotonous. Just to have a lunch hour would be bliss. But it's lovely spending every moment with them too. I wouldn't change it. I always felt that the choice to work was a bit of a myth for me, when you are still chained to a desk. I have a boring job though!

For me it would help being a SAHM if I didn't have the same respect in society as a dustman! (no offense to dustman) I do wonder if we would be treated differently if we were (shock, horror!) paid for looking after our own children, as that seems to be the only thing that commands some kind of esteem. Why am I embarrassed to say what I do for a living? Even if I have to fill out a form and put 'homemaker' I feel myself cringe. Ridiculous I know. I love being a SAHM and sometimes I don't love it, but I am sure I would feel like that about any job this challenging. It is the hardest job I have ever done..and the most important. What can be more crucial that raising the next generation? Wish the government would recognise this! I have found plenty of mums that work part time who can come out to play. Most people work 2/3 days with young children, so you can juggle play dates around and find someone about most days in ED. Though my son is 4 now, so it's taken several years to make lots of friends.

That sounds painful Beagle. My little one will sometimes do it. I think his is more taking pleasure in seeing my reaction than teeth. Like you say it's usually when he's finished the milk on one side. I tend to keep a really close eye on him as I feel the suck lessen and he has to pull back slightly to be able to bite with the front teeth. And then I take him off quickly, say "no" and don't put him back on again. (He also giggles when I say no!) Most babies love breastfeeding so I guess this is not the outcome they want. If he's kicking off and wants to feed, I put him back on and he generally doesn't bite again for that feed. You could try asking at a breastfeeding cafe...they usually have really good advise. It would be a shame to stop feeding if you are still both enjoying it other than this. The biting will pass. My first child also did it for a while also, but we got over it and in the end I fed him till he was 2!

Personally I am glad of the warning. I would not like someone pointing a video camera at my child and walking off into bushes. It would freak me out...and I am not at all paranoid about paedos. Would you like someone pointing a camera at you and filming you going about your business? Would you ask them to stop? Probably. Children cannot do that for themselves, so we have to do it for them. Or if we feel intimidated by them, we can ask the police. Going into the legalities is irrelevant if the person who's child it is did not want them to be filming her son. And really I doubt many people would. So why all the contrariness?

Yes I think it's really normal too. I think perhaps once kids go to school and they are still wet at night that parents don't talk about it out of fear...and so the 'normal' is actually not as early as we all think it is. My friends little boy was still wet at night until he was 8, due to the hormone thing, being a very deep sleeper and not drinking enough during the day to stretch his bladder. In the end they had this alarm device that would wake him up if he did a wee! Sounds bizarre but amazingly it worked within 3 days and he was dry at night!

I don't know I've really got any advice, as don't know much about GERD, but neither of my kids would handle lumps. My 17 month old won't eat lumpy/mashed food either, but he also wouldn't take anything off a spoon, so he's only really had finger food. In fact my 4 year old is still funny about lumps in yoghurts, jam, porridge, etc. I think this is really really common with kids. Why are you worried about his speech and other development? What I would personally do is try and trust my baby and perhaps give him small amounts of varied finger foods regularly in the hope that he selects the foods and quantities that agree with him. Hope this helps in any way. They are a worry aren't they?!

"Stay-at-home-moms and working moms fight about who's raising their children correctly, when they could be banding together to demand reliable, safe, low-cost daycare from our governing bodies. Women instead of men quit their jobs to be full-time parents based on the rationale that their men's salaries are larger, instead of asking why women are paid less than men for the same work. And when it comes to breastfeeding, women sit there battling each other over the evils of formula supplementation instead of lobbying collectively for extended, paid parental leave so early parenthood would be less stressful." This is a really brilliant point. I find this in all areas of mothering. We are so busy getting at each other and defending our choices that we fail to see that we need to be a united front to fight for the freedom of choice. Then we may get somewhere. All the bickering just gets in the way. Personally I don't find "brestapo" helpful either. When you give something a name it then suddenly exists. As far as I know there is not an organised group of militant pro-breastfeeders. There are lots of individuals with different opinions about how to feed babies. Anything that helps support someone's individual choice is good. I found this study unhelpful because it was very dubious science and more opinion than anything else.

Well, I certainly not on my own in having problems relating to my mother! I think that perhaps I am somehow expecting my mum to be able to change and she can't. She's not a horrid person, but she's overbearing and controlling and I suppose I don't want this to continue over how I bring up my kids. She genuinely thinks everything she does has my best interests at heart...and this is what makes it so difficult, as I end up being mean to her myself and I then get given a hug guilt trip. She has said before that she almost feels a bit jealous over me breastfeeding my kids. I suppose the intimacy of it. That she can no longer have this and this part of her life has passed. I understand all these complicated emotions in her, just I don't get how she can feel like this yet not understand how my 4 year old will also have these jealousy feelings. I wonder whether sometimes grandparents, instead of taking on their new role, actually end up mourning a previous time when we were their babies. Certainly my mum acts as though she should be able to be given more control and respect than she does. HH - do you think your mum is jealous? The photos thing is really quite odd. Sometimes my mum behaves like this. Wanting the attention and the glory. Almost like they are her children. I think with my son she struggles, as in lots of ways he is his own person and doesn't generally do things to please other people. She thinks I allow him to be rude to her out of some kind of revenge. He's rude to her because she treats him with no respect. I asked her to talk to him as she would talk to another adult she respected, but she can't do it. He picks up on all the stress and his behaviour is worse when she is around. Yes, we have always had a difficult relationship. I think people with good relationships with their mothers are unlikely to find that they suddenly have problems after they have kids. But with us it is so much worse since my kids came along. I have never been allowed to makes mistakes while growing up and it is the same now, except how can you not make a single mistake when bringing up kids?? It's impossible. But I don't want to make the same mistakes she did...because those ones are easily avoidable. I can remember how it felt from the other side. Anyway, not opening myself up to be critisised is one way forward. Stop justifying and defending my choices, and stopping complaining about how tired and tough it can be. Then there is no reason for anyone to comment. It would be real freedom to not give a damn about what anyone thinks.

Honestly, who funds this type of half baked scientific research? Laughable and annoying. What are they talking about "better behaved"...clingy is considered bad behaviour now? I breastfed my son till he was 2.5 years. He is a total live-wire and needy most of the time!! The are just dredging up research to back up an opinion. You could do it the other way round. I bet they could find plenty of 'badly behaved' (whatever that means) breastfed babies.

Helena - What is amazing out of all this is that despite a somewhat shitty start in life and very difficult early years you have come through it and are a enjoying being a mum with your own son and loving him fully...very aware of what a lack of love does. It's very hard to have the spark of life and rebellion to realise that who someone makes you feel is not actually who you are. I wonder where the energy comes from to be able to do this? I have not totally managed to break free of this. Sometimes when my son pushes me to the limit..and he really really does this regularly, I do sound like my mother and all my understanding and compassion go out the window. It's incredibly hard to get over. When you become a mum somehow your childhood becomes very poignant and it's hard to understand how our parents could behave in such an uncaring way. But I think it's probably helpful, as you can remember so clearly how these throw away remarks build up in a little person's mind to become who they are. Comparisons, shaming, controlling...all these things have a bigger effect than it seems to an adult. I don't think my own mum was happy in her marriage or her life for those first 15 years of my life and perhaps that is some explanation. It's just such a complicated relationship. I am so protective of my own kids. I'm not particularly sure I would want my son to stay over with her without me there. I find this sad, as well as not giving me the break that I could have. That I see other people have. Anyway, good on you for getting through it and getting on with raising your son in a different way.