(Warning: this rant really has nothing to do with anyone who reads this blog, and it’s probably not even worth reading. Heck, it’s probably not even worth posting, but I wrote it and this is my journal. So there.)
There are times when I just need to take a step back, take a few breaths, look at my peacefully napping daughter and realize that, well, gosh, I must be doing everything wrong because she’s so healthy, happy, and perfect.
I suppose everyone has an opinion about everything, and if I go read someone’s treatise on the internet about how starting solids before a baby turns at least 6 months old guarantees that she’ll have lifelong allergies and wean early and it makes me feel guilty, it’s probably my own fault. If some stranger in the diaper pail aisle of Babies ‘R’ Us lectures me about using “plastic” diapers and single-handedly destroying the planet just for my own convenience and I let it get to me, I suppose that’s my own fault too. And if I allow well-meaning comments from someone about my baby’s inability to sleep through the night if I don’t put her to bed (because I’m nursing her and bottles just aren’t a substitute for that) to undermine my confidence that what I’m doing works well for us, that’s my fault as well.
It’s obviously all my fault that my baby is thriving.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect people to keep their opinions to themselves. I certainly don’t. Unsolicited advice given in the form of “this is what I did when my kids were that age” is perfectly acceptable, because I can choose to ignore it. What annoys the living daylights out of me to constantly be bombarded with “you must do this” advice. Especially the kind that’s phrased in such a way as to imply that not doing whatever it is will have serious, far-reaching consequences.
The bottom line is, every choice I make will have consequences. And I’m sure there will be things I do that if I had known more I might have done differently. But I’m declaring here and now that I refuse to feel guilty about making any of those choices, because I am making them as best as I can. And if in 20 years Carrie’s in therapy because she wore “plastic” diapers instead of cloth, so be it.
You are her mother, and know the most about her. Don’t let the “drive-by” comments (as I’ve seen them called on other sites) get you down.
As someone without kids (which will hopefully change soon), I admire from afar the job you’re doing with Carrie.
Hey, don’t let other’s comments bother you! Rest assured that there will always be something one could have done better or different or whatever. No matter WHAT you do :) We all did that (the wrong things) and our babies survived the parenting anyway. Do what you feel is good and right and it’ll be perfect for you and your little girl :)