Setting boundaries...

Tikka,

Always a pleasure to read your posts.Over the last months, I must have memorised every post from you,Dubbi, Aadhusmom and many others here.

Am a new mom, baby boy is 64 days old. Have a slight shortage of my milk, so supplement it with formula. Which according to paed's advice, he is fed with a cup and spoon. As his intake increases, we find it difficult, especially at night. But, have been told not to introduce bottle till 4 months. If I had a rupee, everytime, an aunty,granny advised me to stop cup-spoon and use the bottle, I would be a rich woman in 64 days. Most of these women feel that I am trying to prove a point (I wonder which point) by feeding him so.

I have more pet peeves. He was not bathed till he left the hospital after 5 days.That caused enough horror in our family. The hospital advised against using a cradle or traditional joola thooli, so baby sleeps next to me for skin contact. Even when I had a cold, I nursed him with the milk I had. All this was reproached. Baby has colic, so he wails in the evenings. The theoretical and practical advice that I have received to counter this will fill pages.

While, I am prepared to tolerate all this, I still cannot forget or forgive, the terror that the paed, nurses and other hospital staff instilled in me and my son, over breast feeding on the third and fourth day. My baby was forcibly made to undergo 'breast feeding lessons' with sessions every hour. Three nurses would come to give lessons, looking like Hitler's angels. One nurse would hold the baby in front of me while I sat on a chair, terrified to move a muscle, totally stressed out (which is so bad for BF). The second nurse would hold his head like a fork lift while he desperately tried to latch and wailed pitifully. Baby would kick vigourously with his legs, so a third nurse was later introduced to hold his legs. I am not at all surprised that these lessons were most counter productive for baby and me.I still have not got over that experience.One day, when I do, it is a full post---

I guess the law of averages has to work, always. These irritants knead out the drishti on the joy of motherhood---

 

some people think they are/were better parents just coz they were one well before us. krithika - relax. (just for the heck of it, i am interested in knowing how you were holding him, and how, acc to them, he were to be held :crazy) just like you do now, offer a smile (if possible) and leave the place... or better, act as if you never heard anything. with me, i do whatever gives me peace for the rest of the day. i couldn't have handled those constant second-after-second pet peeves when DD was a baby, if i hadn't ignored most of them.

one of the recent ones with DS's creche caretaker -
SHE: i have been asking you to send biscuits for Adi every day
ME: will do in sometime. but, i haven't started biscuits for him yet, and i wont do it until i am done with the other more important stuff. he is already given 3 feeds a day, why more now?
SHE: (stares)
ME: (smile)
SHE: You come for bf-ing in the evening. what if you have some meeting? (shrugs her shoulders) ok, let your baby starve and go thinner
ME: (smile more) yes, this exactly was my motive in getting pregnant and bringing him into this world
SHE: (never looks back at me, feeding another baby)
ME: (looking at Adi).. jujulibaa.. chinnu... kuttima.. jilluppu... SHE enge?? SHE enna panraanga?? SHE daan unakku mammam kuduthaangalaa?
ME: (looking at SHE) bye SHE


vidya - enjoyed every bit of your post, esp the one on becoming a millionaire in 64 days.

 

Krithika,

I just have to share this one.:rotfl

Once, somebody started saying we do this for our kid, we do that, you have to do it this way..we were very patient..suddenly out of nowhere Veda says

"Sorry, it was not part of our syllabus in CA, maybe it was in yours:bonk:bonk.."

Another i took a page out of V,
there was this lady, telling me how i should help some x take care of her dd..I told her I am not the moral police around here, looking for faults, and i also don't believe in tirupathi laddoo in the fridge.you have to see that lady's face..she has stopped interfering and gossiping too..:thumbsup. (actually, i am sure you would have heard about it..V says to the kids always. that advices are like the ladoos..if you go to tirupathi, stand in the line, and go through all the jaragandi and are given one per person as prasad, you relish it, but when you pick it from the sweet stall and store it it does not have much value..the same for advice...)

setting boundaries is all about how much you can tolerate i suppose...

 

and mine begins now When my DS was 5 months old we came to India for a function and ofcourse I got a lot of advise from everyone about everything starting from how I am torturing the baby with diapers to, how I am not holding his head correctly and one uncle in particular made this comment when I was handing over the baby to some one, some thing to this effect - "does not even know how to carry him!!" I think have moved past the comment. But thankfully for me my FIL was very supportive and after a week or so of people offering advise he put a stop by simply saying "she has managed her pregnancy, delivery and brought home a beautiful baby after raising him for the first 6 months which are the most difficult. so my DIL knows what she is doing" and he literally used the term shut up to his immediate family. I have no MIL but he is a blessing, most of the times. Now everyone fears his tongue and I get away.

Your comment

brought back two memories in particular. When I was hugging my DS and humming in a parking lot, a man I hadn't noticed came up and said "ain't motherhood great!!" and one time when I was blowing kisses to my DS from the rear view mirror at a red light, the car next to me honked and asked it it was for them!!!! That was the most embarrassing moment ever for me!!!

This kind of offsets every bad experience in a way. I still get a lot of advise on what I should be doing for my son/DD and how I am not doing the best for them starting from the school district I am in to everything else. I take joy in breaking rules every now and then and seeing the look of horror on people's faces.

The one bright side I see is moms like us never offer suggestions/advise and simply spread the joy of just being moms, by just letting other mom BE I guess.

 

A never-ending issue; K. I guess we will be surrounded by advices how to raise our kids from infancy till they get married.
I remember once I was giving banana to chinnu. Immediately a friend and her DH started shouting "don't give it like that; squash it finely; she will choke on it". It was so irritating. I told chinnu is ok. That didn't stop them from lecturing on "you will understand when kids chokes". How mean and hurful is that. I angered me and I told she is used to eat like that since her 10th month and she is still living. Not just this incident; I have been getting advices from the moment chinnu was born on holding; breast-feeding; solid-feeding; bathing; diapering;sleeping; socialising even getting shots)
If it comes from elderly family members; I used to say; oh yeah; I tried it but it is not working on chinnu. She doesn't respond to it etc etc. When dealing with my parents and J's parents I put blame on J. J doesn;t like it. He will get angry. Wrt strangersl; the solution to an extent is being confident in our way of parenting and sounding it too. To an extent our confident tone will deter from further advises. And if strangers are getting too interfering; in a loud tone tell you didn't ask for advice. After all they are strangers and you are doing a public service. At least they will think twice before advising someone else))
Well; I should confess I got some good parenting advises unsolicited
-Nitha

 

You and me both. Sometimes I swear I do things just to get people riled up

V.

 

Let's have you back then :thumbsup