I do not feel guilty.

[Anonymous]

I am so tired of the posts on these boards of people who feel guilty about their Parenting. People asking for help with a marital issue and getting 100 people telling them they're screwed up and need professional help or that they should leave their spouse all together. People who are probably all pretty good Parents and 1/2 decent spouses (if they weren't at all interested in their children and husbands, they wouldn't be reading this board and asking the questions in the first place).

I know that I am a good Mother, but I feel like the way things are now you aren't seen as a good Mother if you're not completely immersed in your child every minute of every day. I feel like the fact that I even consider myself a good Mother, with very little reservation about it, makes me a bad Mother because I should feel like I could constantly be working on Mothering like so many others feel. I can't imagine how people who comment on how smiley and friendly my child is then immediately have something to criticize when they don't even know me. I have a friend who had to bottle feed her child and a stranger said "Oh, I can tell your baby is breast fed because of their demeanor." The baby was fed from a bottle. She told the woman that and then got a dirty look. Now all of a sudden she's a bad Mother when a second ago she was a good one?

I do not feel guilty!

I do not feel guilty that my 10 month old still has a pacifier and I am not going to take it away because you, random woman at the pizza place, told me she didn't need it anymore.

I do not feel guilty that I work three days a week and send my daughter to daycare and I am not going to change my lifestyle because you, friend of a friend that I just met, made a whiney "awwww" sound when you found that information out.

I do not feel guilty that my daughter was fed from a bottle from the day she was born and that I switched to Target brand after my Doctor told me that they're all the same.

I do not feel guilty that only some of the foods she eats are organic.

I do not feel guilty that I didn't even once make her babyfood.

I do not feel guilty that my daughter watched TV sometimes and I watch it nearly all day while she plays and I play with her.

I do not feel guilty that my daughter has no set sleeping schedule except at night, and that even then she stays up later if we're doing something.

I do not feel guilty that I let her cry it out to get her to sleep at night. Not Ferber....CIO.....she now sleeps from 7:30PM - 8AM on average.

I do not feel bad when my baby cries while I am changing her diaper to go to sleep, this is to everyone that has seen her cry while I put her sleeper on and looked at her with pity as if something bad is happening to her. I am TAKING CARE OF HER. It's not like I'm smacking her in the face. I'm changing her diaper, putting cream on her and putting on her sleeper, so stop looking at me like she's being punished.

I only feel a little guilty that my house is not babyproofed at all even though my daughter is crawling. I'm watching her like a hawk to see what she's interested in getting into so that I know how to babyproof it. My nephew figured out how to open the "locked" kitchen cabinets about 1/2 a minute after he figured out how to stand next to them. I can't figure out what to do!

I will not feel guilty either. All that giving me dirty looks and nasty comments is going to do is make me irritated with you. I love my child and my child loves me and I am only trying to be as good a Parent as my Parents....who bottle fed me, sent me to daycare, fed me prepared baby food, didn't baby proof (although I do feel like I have to get on that!) and let us do CIO.

Please stop giving people dirty looks. We all do what we think is best. My baby is clean, fed, loved, played with, snuggled and most importantly of all....she is happy!

[Anonymous]

Hallelujah!

[Anonymous]

Hi OP, I'm making loads of parenting choices that are very different than yours. Guess what? I still think you are JUST FINE and, since I DON'T EVEN KNOW you, I have zero to say to you about your choices unless you ask me!

Very good post!

[Anonymous]

Well put, OP. We all needed to hear that -- especially those who give the dirty looks and unsolicited advice. We're all doing excellent jobs raising our kids and it has not a thing to do with breastfeeding (or not), watching TV (or not), eating organic food (or not), taking regular naps (or not), sucking on a pacifier (or not), etc, etc, etc....

[Anonymous]

Reminds me of when my DS was born and in the NICU because he was a preemie. He was too small to suck so he had to be fed via a feeding tube from milk I was supposed to pump. Anyway to cut a long story short my milk dried up and I simply could not pump enough to feed DS (I later found out that the medication I was given for pregnancy induced hypertension had the side effect of stopping lactation but I did not know that then). I could not understand why all the other NICU moms were squirting out large amounts of breast milk and I got a mere trickle.
I eventually asked the lactation consultant at the hospital about the possibility of formula milk. Well I might as well have asked her how to kill my baby because the look she gave me was so hostile. She went on to tell me that all breast fed babies had nice round heads and she could always tell them apart from the narrow heads of bottle fed babies, that 99% of people in prison were bottle fed, bottle fed babies always get sick blah blah. She told me NOT to use a pump which would never be as effective as using my fingers to pump milk blah blah blah. Leaving her room, I have never felt more guilty in all my life! I still feel sick thinking about it.

[Anonymous]

I want to be your friend OP!!!!

[Anonymous]

You shouldn't feel guilty. Just like I don't feel guilty for wondering how you can watch your baby "like a hawk" while the TV is on all day...

[Anonymous]

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

My nanny watched TV all day. I didn't read until I was 6 and a half but can still tell you every As the World Turns character from 1983. I still managed to somehow go to Yale and lead a successful life. It's a lot of silliness, the things we worry about today. It's a wonder we all survived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reminds me of when my DS was born and in the NICU because he was a preemie. He was too small to suck so he had to be fed via a feeding tube from milk I was supposed to pump. Anyway to cut a long story short my milk dried up and I simply could not pump enough to feed DS (I later found out that the medication I was given for pregnancy induced hypertension had the side effect of stopping lactation but I did not know that then). I could not understand why all the other NICU moms were squirting out large amounts of breast milk and I got a mere trickle.
I eventually asked the lactation consultant at the hospital about the possibility of formula milk. Well I might as well have asked her how to kill my baby because the look she gave me was so hostile. She went on to tell me that all breast fed babies had nice round heads and she could always tell them apart from the narrow heads of bottle fed babies, that 99% of people in prison were bottle fed, bottle fed babies always get sick blah blah. She told me NOT to use a pump which would never be as effective as using my fingers to pump milk blah blah blah. Leaving her room, I have never felt more guilty in all my life! I still feel sick thinking about it.

HOLY COW! I can't believe she said that. Sure 99% of prisoners are formula fed, because breastfeeding didn't come back into fashion until fairly recently. Neither of my parents were breastfed, and they are loving, wonderful people, with round round heads. My oldest sister was formula fed, and she is the most ethical person I have ever met, if I am facing a moral or ethical decision, she is the first one to call. I will also tell you that while I was breastfed for a year, I am in no ways perfect, or completely healthy.

I can not see why someone would say that to you. You were obviously struggling, and there was nothing you could do, and she should have been supportive. Jeez, why are people like this? As mothers we do what we can, and as long as we are not putting our children in danger or neglecting them, who is anyone else to say we are wrong? I have been given some grief on my parenting choices, but I have happy, healthy, active, brilliant children, who are well adjusted, and are not treated like trained monkeys.

[Anonymous]

I agree that people shouldn't make us feel guilty for our parenting choices. I am not perfect. But I am not so comfortable in all my choices that I can't see areas for improvement. Parenting is a constantly evolving lesson. In that respect, OP, do you really watch t.v. "nearly all day"?

I'm sorry to the 11:34 PP. Really awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that people shouldn't make us feel guilty for our parenting choices. I am not perfect. But I am not so comfortable in all my choices that I can't see areas for improvement. Parenting is a constantly evolving lesson. In that respect, OP, do you really watch t.v. "nearly all day"?

I'm sorry to the 11:34 PP. Really awful.

No, I don't "watch" it all day...maybe I should have typed "I leave it on". It is on most of the day. I like the background noise. I used to leave the TV on in College when I was doing my work and my roomates couldn't understand how I could concentrate on what I was studying! I graduated in 4 years with a degree in Computer Science, so I don't think it had much of an effect on my education. I hate when things are totally quiet. If I had music on, would anybody even care? It's the same difference to me. I more wrote that because people have an issue with television and won't turn it on while the baby is around and I don't see any issue with it. My daughter doesn't have much of an interest in it anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reminds me of when my DS was born and in the NICU because he was a preemie. He was too small to suck so he had to be fed via a feeding tube from milk I was supposed to pump. Anyway to cut a long story short my milk dried up and I simply could not pump enough to feed DS (I later found out that the medication I was given for pregnancy induced hypertension had the side effect of stopping lactation but I did not know that then). I could not understand why all the other NICU moms were squirting out large amounts of breast milk and I got a mere trickle.
I eventually asked the lactation consultant at the hospital about the possibility of formula milk. Well I might as well have asked her how to kill my baby because the look she gave me was so hostile. She went on to tell me that all breast fed babies had nice round heads and she could always tell them apart from the narrow heads of bottle fed babies, that 99% of people in prison were bottle fed, bottle fed babies always get sick blah blah. She told me NOT to use a pump which would never be as effective as using my fingers to pump milk blah blah blah. Leaving her room, I have never felt more guilty in all my life! I still feel sick thinking about it.

OP here:

I'm so sorry this person treated you that way. I agree with the poster who stated that most people were bottle fed until recently and that's probably why most in jail were not breast fed. Also, my baby had a perfectly round head despite being bottle fed and a very long vaginal birth, so that's a big crock. When my sister had her son they sent in all these lactation consultants, but they didn't with me. I think they are trying to get away from that because it made so many patients angry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You shouldn't feel guilty. Just like I don't feel guilty for wondering how you can watch your baby "like a hawk" while the TV is on all day...

Oh, you're so clever you found the error in my post. You're right. I let her roam the house alone all day while I sit on the couch with a bag of popcorn.

[Anonymous]

Love this post.

Lactation consultants (while helpful) every day push new moms over the edge into post-partum depression with all the bull---t guilt!
All the best and largest pediatric studies have failed to show any major difference in breastfed and formula-fed children. I bought into it the first time, and it landed me in the psychiatrist's office, after months of pumping in the car (while commuting, clearly a hazard), torturing myself with pumping at work, and literally falling asleep attached to the pump (that didn't do the nipples any good). I will not be bullied again.

Thank you for the wonderful post.