When Grandma Doesn't Know Best

My mother just left after a couple of days visit. I must admit, I don't really need a lot of day to day help, I can take Goo along with me to the supermarket, and I get out a couple of times a week for coffee and he is generally good, so I don't feel the need to have a 'break' from him. Of course, I would love more massages...

I am happy to have my mum come and stay with us because she relishes the time with her grandson. As she lives 3 hours away, it's really the only opportunity she gets. She helps out around the house a little bit, brings lots of junk food (it's her way of showing love... yes, no skinny people in her family). However, every single time he cries she proclaims it is because he has a pain in his tummy, wind, etc. I find it amusing that she is telling me what is wrong with him when she doesn't know what his cries mean... I like to think that having spent 24 hours a day with him for the last 10 weeks somewhat qualifies me a little more.

That's the thing. Our parents decide that they are experts on parenting and babies because they have had them. In reality, they are experienced with their children only (and to be honest, I'm a little dubious about that statement given the way I've turned out!). The only one who really knows your baby is you. Not even Midwives, Doctors or the Maternal & Child Health Nurse really know. They can give you suggestions, offer advice, explain physiological or behavioural traits of newborns. The best people to listen to are the ones that tell you to listen to your instinct.

One of my friends is struggling with her mother taking her child away and telling her that she's doing something wrong. She was deeply insulted by the insinuation that she is an inadequate mother. She knows that her mum of course is not implying this, but when you grow up thinking your parents know it all, it totally challenges the traditional family dynamics you've built over the last 30 odd years.

At the end of the day, sometimes there's nothing anyone can do - you may know your baby well, but remember that it's a human being, imperfect, flawed, spontaneous, complex and completely inconsistent. That is what makes us all so wonderful.