Advice on Bitty....

Hello lushness,

I've been thinking today about 'Advice'. I'm always very conscious about not offering people too much in the way of advice. Actually I'll rephrase that. I'm keen not to offer 'Justification of my own existence and insecurities about the decisions I've made through the medium of encouraging others to do as I do at every opportunity and masquerading it as sound advice'. 

I'm not saying it's an active strategy to get people to copy you when they ask for help, but it's commonplace. It's rare you hear someone say to you; "well, I did that and if I'm honest, I'd probably not do it the same way if I was you". More often than not you hear; "you definitely need to do it that way". Without a mention of the fact this is the way they did/do it. 

I'm generalising, of course. But, I'm very aware that when babies & parenting are concerned, it's something everyone has an opinion on, and I'm yet to hear anyone suggest they did a crap job. Our ears are ringing from 'advice' we've had about pushchairs, sleeping patterns, babygrow materials etc. But, no more than the subject of breastfeeding. My God, what is everyone's obsession on this subject? We've had every type of advice, from  the 'Breast is Best' milliant hairy armpit extremists, to the 'Formula is Fab' titty protector nihlists. Everyone wants a piece of the action, everyone has an opinion. Everyone has 'advice' to give. 

Honestly, we're keeping our own council, making our own decisions and not listening to anyone we've not invited to share their thoughts with us. Even you, reading this, probably feel compelled to put your tuppence worth in. Don't, keep your private things for your own blog, not mine. If we listened to all of you we'd be putting bottles of someone else's breast milk inside Fi's bra to decieve the babies into thinking this was a natural bottle. Exactly, there are so many conflicting thoughts out there. I've read today online (although it was Daily Mail Online so God only knows what the actual agenda of the article was), that in test, it's been proven that formula fed kids smile & laugh more and sleep better than breast fed kids. Then, found another one suggesting Formula should have a Government Health warning on it. Both total garbage obviously, but it's an example of the fact that no-one really knows what's best, especially not for my kids (yep, not even me!). So much 'advice' based on justification of ones own journey and the precious belief that we're all the best parent(s) in the world. Great thing is that we are. Everyone is different, every child is different, every child needs a parent that works with their own instincts. Everyone I know with kid(s) is a great parent, I'm worried I'm going to struggle to live up to the high standards my male friends have set especially. The group of childish hedonists I know have grown up into great dads, of which I'm pretty much the last and have so much to aspire to. 

Grateful as we are, we'll ask if we need 'advice'. We just want to roll with this in the most free minded way we can and that's only possible if we come to our own place, our own groove without society, loved ones and statistics telling us how to perform the most basic and natural thing in the world; feeding our own children. 

So, expect a blog post about a week after the birth begging you all for your help after no sleep and no idea what we're doing is making us rue all the missed opportunites to learn from the wonderful advice we spurned. This isn't a 'please leave us alone', its a 'thanks, but we've got it covered for now, but the odds are we'll be in touch soon enough' kinda message.

One Love

Jez

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