"Modern mums have lost the plot"

I don't agree with the article at all. Being a new mum is difficult enough without the constant criticism from self-appointed know-it-alls. No-one really knows the "right" way to care for a child - it is all just opinion, and what works for one person may not be right for someone else. Also, professional advice changes all the time.

I swaddled my babies and laid them on their sides, because that was what the midwives and health visitors told me to do, but now that there is evidence that babies are safer sleeping on their backs, I think it would be very foolish to ignore it. I ended up having to bottle-feed my first baby and the whole experience put me off breast-feeding so much that I didn't even attempt it for my second. However, I would still agree that breast is best, if possible, and I was glad that both my daughters were able to feed their babies this way. I think the main thing is that, whatever the method used, mothers should be supported for trying to do their best for their baby.

I think you have to have some sort of vague routine when you've got very small children, as it just makes life easier, but I don't like strict regimes. A baby is a person, not a robot. I also think babies should sleep in their parents' room for at least the first six months, for safety, and I support the idea of co-sleeping for as long as the parents and the child want. I also hate the idea of "controlled crying", as it seems to me that it is really just "crying." I share the opinion of the late Claire Rayner who said that, by not responding to a baby's cries, the only training you've given them is that you've trained them to cry and be afraid.

But...that's my way and I realise that other people may feel very differently. I wouldn't denigrate a mother for doing her best, even if I didn't agree with her. What I really object to is the idea put forward by the Gina Fords of this world, the Baby Whisperers and Super Nannies, etc, that babies are manipulative and must be trained to recognise that they aren't the centre of the world. What utter rubbish.

For a start, a tiny baby truly is the centre of its world. It knows nothing of the existence of anything beyond itself. It doesn't even know its mother is a separate being. Of course it is egocentric - what else could it be? Gradually it will learn that others exist and that, even if its needs aren't immediately met, it will be ok. However, you can't force that development, and it doesn't mean that a child whose needs are met will grow up to be an egotist. It also worries me when I read posts from mums who have picked up the idea that their babies are trying to "manipulate" them, e.g. into picking them up when they cry. That's not manipulation, that's what they do to survive!

No, they have not lost the plot. One or two may have but most of them do a pretty good job. They have very different lives and problems these days. Many new Mums have very little experience of babies and young children as the families they grow up in are smaller and they often have no families close by. They are bombarded with so much advice much of it contradictory. I think most of them muddle through and find their own way just like most of us did.

When they have another child to look after they will learn pretty fast. Unfortunately, it will be a shock to big brother when he finds that he is no longer the little emperor but has to share.with a littler one who is even more sweet. That is how childhood resentments are formed - it seems to them that everything has been taken from them by this interloper.

I think they have lost the plot. My 2 1/4yr old GS is still on formula milk......because it has all the nutrients he needs. He is asked what he wants to eat, then changes his mind, several times. He is constantly fed snacks throughout the day. Does not yet drink or be encouraged to drink, from a cup. Is allowed to walk around eating whatever he likes. If he wants to do or have something, he is allowed to do so.......because he is so sweet.......it's nearly driving me nuts. The tension in my house is electric because I want to explode at my son and DIL, who are expecting their 2nd child in September. I could go on but........and don't mention getting him to sleep. Aaaaahhhhhhhggggrrrrr.

I never took my buggy on a bus I walked.

From a very early age (less than a month old) DS2 liked to sleep under a blanket. If anyone lifted the cover to expose his face, he would scream and scream till covered again. Rather like a parrot in a cage.... Feet were always on show though. He didn't seem to mind that. Needless to say this mode of sleeping went against all contemporary advice, but he was adamant in the way that small babies can be.

Modern mums have not lost the plot. They are well informed and the majority work hard - i know as I am babysitting my GC right now whilst mum and dad are out working. I raised mine very young in the early 1980s, not particularly well informed and also lucky enough not to have to work. I have the upmost respect in the way my delighful grandchildren are loved and raised whilst both parents work incredibly hard in and out of the home for their benefit. Cut modern mums some slack - they are doing a marvellous job within the pressures of our modern life, even if they do have larger than life buggies!!

I must say I managed much better when I stopped listening to the 'health advisor'. She didn't pick up on my son's milk allergy and it was only when a friend recommended SMA that, at 4 months old, he was comfortable and able to sleep. By then I didn't care much which way he was laying. He loved being in any pram. Perhaps that's why he's now a 'petrol head'.
My beef with modern mothers is not their bulky pushchairs on buses. It's that they allow their toddlers to SCREAM.

But now, she has an eight month old baby, the advice is still to lay them on tummies.
No Victoria08, that isn't the advice now. The advice these days is to lay babies on their backs.
I'm not an advocate of one method over another - my babies slept on their sides, swaddled and with a rolled up crib blanket behind them. But like the experience of luckygirl, I knew someone whose baby rolled from that position onto her back and began to choke on her vomit, at just a few days old. Nevertheless, the advice today is most definitely that babies should sleep on their backs.

However we parent (it's become a verb , like in-box) we will make mistakes. The children survive in the main. We can only do our best. And I agree, enjoy them while you are the most important people in the world. That surely doesn't last long. I miss those days, although I struggled at times. Like everyone else!

Seasidenana I so agree with you. Today's mums (and dads) are under so much pressure. They have so many commitments and their expectations for themselves and their children are so high. I know we all wanted our best for our children but I don't remember quite so many 'experts' warning us about the harm we might be doing not only to babies but to children as they grew older.

I think lots of mothers today expect the world to revolve around them they do seem to make motherhood sound like a new age invention having said that I'm glad when my children were babies there wasn't the competitive aspects of who was a better mum due to celebrity mums, Facebook and the like.

I had my first baby when I was 24. I was an army wife and we were living in Germany. I had no family to help me. It was so difficult. We lived in a flat. I had to wash nappies daily and dry them on radiators. The neighbours would complain if they heard my baby cry. Hubby was often sent away for weeks at a time. I don't know how I got through it. I envy any young mother who has the support of family around her!

In the 80's when I had my daughter, the advice was to lay babies on their tummies.
So that was what I did. She survived ok.

But now, she has an eight month old baby, the advice is still to lay them on tummies. He seems to be able to roll over on to his back anyway.

Now I have been asked to look after him overnight, I am a bit nervous.

what to do for the best, Aye?

The problem is there is too much advice, oh for the days when our immediate family (mums/grans) were the experts we turned to when we needed advice. We do at least know that they managed to successfully rear us!

I always walked to shops I also had prams which faced me and no mobile phone to have stuck to ear spoke to my children they were both early talkers . They never slept in my bed both slept through at 6-8weeks both bottle fed due to probs in breast feeding . There wasn't cafe s or pubs which encouraged children then so picnics in local park done when whether allowed saying that all my GC love picnics it's mainly parent choice to meet up in cafe we went to mum and toddlers to meet up or own houses but times change and parents will always be inundated with advice from ""experts" I say enjoy your children they aren't little for long

Modern mums do exactly as we did - their best in the circumstances. I was unusual when I was raising my children because I worked and used child care - very few people did that at the time. Obtaining a nursery was very difficult as there were very few around. Nowadays most mums are expected to go back to work when their children are tiny. I think the pressure is huge on families trying to work look after their homes and raise their families. I take my hat off to the modern mum and dad.

Sorry about typos above - my samsung thinks it is a literary genius!

Although we had coach built prams in our day we didn't take them I to cafes,nor did we jostle old ladies off the pavements whilst chatting on our mobile phones. Our McCartney buggies folded up to the size of an umbrella, these days the buggy is the size of our prams. I feel that motherhood is now regarded as a priesthood/sisterhood which gives power and entitlement but no duties! Rant over!

I am with pompa and grannyknot here. I remember my cousins being born in a HOME with an outside loo, no bathroom or hot running water, and certainly no central heating, my grandmother was instrumental in keeping them swaddled, and although bottles was soaked in Milton, that was the most 'care'that was taken. We all survived. My children were swaddled, but we lived in better conditions(no central heating) and were well informed (Call the Midwife and Boomers!), both of them were swaddled, had regular routine, and spent a lot of time in their prams sitting on the balcony, where they could hear me working, and I was always there. I was lucky of course I had learned something from living within a tight family group.
"How to look after baby" has been a topic for years, and every 'expert' has their own view, today there is too much pressure on mums to do it right, whereas quite often common sense is probably all that is needed.

Like most things Ajanela,IF you let it. And like the rest of us,it's an opinion. Anyway isn't the proof in the pudding.Theres more people in therapy today than ever before.

Child care is effected by politics, a few examples:

A generation of mothers lost the art of breast feeding when they had to go out to work to help the war effort in WWII. They were supported in this by being given free National dried milk for other people to feed their babies. They were then unable to support their daughters in breast feeding having lost the art and they believed bottle feeding was the norm. . Free milk for people on low income only stopped about 2005. And many mothers are surprised when they are told baby milk is modified cows milk. The U.K. Has one of the lowest breast feeding rates in Europe.

When banks started lending unlimited money to buy houses, including women's salaries in the estimate of the loan , house prices were able to increase and women had to return to work after having a baby to help pay the mortgage they had helped to borrow to buy there more expensive home. Women were mothers and full time workers and childcare had to change to meet these 2 roles.

Equal rights for women seems in many cases to mean more responsibility.

My knowledge of biology tells me there is no such thing as a single mother just absent fathers which may be the mothers choice but sometimes not.

Disposable nappies and the environment , surely someone must have thought about the waste implications but there was a lot of money to be made and disposable was the norm.

On childcare there are as many different styles as personalities and a confident mother's style will always work.

Sorry I may have seemed to gone off the point but I am trying to show how politics influences how we raise our children.

What an awful woman. Her views were archaic when my children were babies and she isn't much older than me. No animal would treat its babies so horribly. I couldn't bear to finish reading the article because it upset me so much.

I'm only thankful that children don't seem to be able to remember anything that happens to them before the age of about 2 but I can't help feeling sorry for the poor little mites she's had her nasty way with.

I don't have any babies in the family but travel by bus regularly and find that many mums expect priority over everyone else, including elderly and disabled. They don't like other people having shopping, though this takes much less space than a buggy. Most of them are only travelling a short distance. I used to walk everywhere when my kids were small, using my big pram, and still walk when I don't have too much shopping. However, most of the younger generation don't seem to like to walk.
Sorry to rant, but this is a bugbear of mine.

make them eat the same things all the time (even if they hate it)
Preferably cold baby groats and a nice bottle of SMA