[orangeiron]

sooooo....
after visiting us for 6 days, my MIL calls dh and says:
you must let her CIO
you have to put her in a crib
it is the only way you will ever sleep
kids only learn independence when forced to do it on their own
she's sensitive because you made her that way (namely me)
you better let me hold the next baby more than this one

it makes me hurt form the inside out even thinking about doing any of this her.

BTW dd is 2

so, she IS open to reading about the way we 'do things', interested in learning about 'the other side'. she is also a social worker who places adopted kids with parents and GIVES PARENTAL ADVICE!!!!!! i don't want to think about how many poor adopted kids were left to CIO when they REALLY needed some AP lovin.

i am definitely giving her continuum concept, i don't care if it makes her feel like a terrible mother for formula-feeding-CIO-crib-sleeping-absolutely-UNattachment-parenting!!!!

so what else? i need a good AP for beginners, one that really describes the reasons behind it and is easy to read and covers everything: breastfeeding, co-sleeping, parenting to sleep etc.

thank you very much.

 

[Ravin]

I'd send her The Baby Book by Dr. Sears.

Our Babies, Ourselves by Merideth Small is really good, too. It has a lot of the same messages as The Continuum Concept, but it's more scientific and less anecdotal.

 

[Arwyn]

I usually don't recommend the Sears, but I looked through and did like their Attachment Parenting Book, and think it would make a great intro for the currently more mainstream person.

For younger babies (maybe in prep for the next one?) The Happiest Baby on the Block is pretty good, too - very good scientific explanations for basic AP practices in the early months (I just hate how it's marketed - but that's a different topic!).

Good luck!

 

[captain optimism]

Whatever books you give her, she is going to have issues. I know. My MIL read plenty of books, and on an intellectual level understood that responding to the baby creates attachment and resilience. That didn't stop her from bugging us every time she visited in the first year to quick, get a playpen and put the baby down so we could clean the house. Every time I asked her about it, she admitted that yes, every authority she read said that our way was better. But then it just disturbed her so mightily that we were not cleaning the house! Couldn't we SEE that having a clean house was more important than the baby?!? This really bugged by dh since he was the stay-at-home-parent.

Some things are just visceral. They want to see you do things the way they did them. It doesn't matter if you persuade her that your way is the right way, because it's your baby, not hers.

The part about letting her hold the baby more--that's something you need to figure out with her. It sounds like she wants a closer relationship with her grandchild, and you are the one who can work on that with her. That's a good thing, that she wants to hold the baby.

 

[FireWithin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by captain optimism That didn't stop her from bugging us every time she visited in the first year to quick, get a playpen and put the baby down so we could clean the house. Every time I asked her about it, she admitted that yes, every authority she read said that our way was better. But then it just disturbed her so mightily that we were not cleaning the house! Couldn't we SEE that having a clean house was more important than the baby?!?

It is interesting that you mention this. A while back my mom said that she wished she did things differently with her kids (held us more, played with us more, read books to us, etc) She said she spent a lot of time cleaning the house with us in the playpen or in the highchair. The message that she received from society was that having a clean house equalled being a good mother. She no longer agrees, and I am relieved to know that she appreiciated our messy house.

 

[orangeiron]

thank you for the suggestions,
i should read them myself before i pass them on to her.

about holding the baby:
i agree with her holding the baby as long as the baby is up for it. dd has always been a very sensitive child in every aspect and did not like anyone else holding her when she was a baby. she would cry so hard and it would take an hour for me to calm her down again. MIL is convinced that she only did this because i wouldn't let other people hold her, not the other way around.
so yes, i hope she can hold the next baby more too, but only if it is a less sensitive kid.

 

[luckylady]

rather than having her read a book she probably won't read, give her short insightful articles, like the Harvard research on mother-child bonding, or from here:http://www.ttfuture.org/services/, or from zerotothree.org.

My attitude toward my MIL was that I just didn't give a rip what she thought about my child rearing. But she is also not in a profession that is supposed to help chldren. Now DD is nearing 3 and MIL constantly says what a delightful child she is.