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Old parenting plan: breastfeed cosleep self-wean sleep-train sugar-free low-fat fair-trade all green kind words total trust family team consistent discipline fresh veg homecooked meals ironed shirts cotton socks birthday parties no tv

New parenting plan: Survive

gmh once said "No parenting plan survives contact with the baby," a paraphrase of Helmuth von Moltke's famous statement "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

From http://ailbhe.livejournal.com/241718.html :

"No-one wants a mother who thinks she's a failure. It can't be good for them. So let's start being nice to each other. Let's start trying to feel good about the way we've ended up doing parenting, without assuming that other people haven't achieved the same things through lack of effort. Let's assume that they all tried really hard. Because, you know, they did.

And if they didn't, you're not going to guilt-trip them into trying harder. You'll just make them defensive and miserable, and they'll talk your methods down until they feel sure they're doing it right again.

This community is for parents to support each other. It's aimed at people who want to do things broadly associated with "attachment parenting" - parenting based on forming an attachment to the child so that they can grow independent at their own pace, rather than on forcing independent behaviours from early on. So we support breastfeeding, cosleeping, not leaving your child to cry, child-led education, cloth nappies/diapers and so on. But we don't insist on any one of them. Don't breastfeed? Fine. It doesn't work for everyone. Don't cosleep? Nor do we any more - it worked fine for the two who snored but Mama got mighty tired of being kicked in the stomach and the shins at the same time. Didn't have a homebirth? Also fine. Don't use cloth nappies? I'm sure you can live with yourself. Do your own research on vaccinations and circumcision? No one factor is going to ruin the universe forever.

So what's not fine?

• Personal attacks. Saying "I know it's too late for this advice to be helpful, but you didn't try hard enough and you should have [used whale music and a birthing pool | found a brand of nipple shield only sold in Outer Magnolia | learned to sleep through a toddler jumping on your pregnant uterus at 2 am]."


• Starting sentences with "No offense, but..." or "I don't mean to be rude, but..." if you're not willing to apologise if someone is offended.

Not to say that discussion and debate aren't allowed, but please, attack the facts, not the people. "Your doctor was wrong because..." is ok. "And you should have known that" is not.

This community is for parents to support each other. There are lots of places out there for parents to attack one another.

Please note that the questionnaire/checklist thingie in people's introductory post is NOT compulsory - in fact, it started as a joke! Only answer those parts of it you're totally happy to, if you answer it at all. No-one will mind.

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