Every mum receives all sorts of “mum advice” on how to raise young children and what to do. Here are tips for mums who face it and what to do.
1. Add a pinch of salt.
Take everything others try to tell you about life with young children with an enormous pinch of salt. You will be given so much mum advice that you could write a book, with chapter about eating, sleeping and play but stick to your mum guns and gut feeling and repeat after me “I know best”.
2. You know best.
Don’t forget (and perhaps help remind others) that no one knows your child the way you do and no one else can truly understand what life with your children is really like. Every single child and every single family is different.
3. Team up with your partner.
Try to maintain a shared responsibility with your partner. It’s all too easy to end up in a situation where one parent knows more about the child than the other and the gulf only gets wider from then on. Tackle hurdles together and be your own inner circle of trust and advice.
4. Disagreeing is not the end of the world.
make a no-divorce pact until your child is two years old. Sleep deprivation does strange things and can unleash versions of ourselves that we kind of wish we never met. It’s a huge relief to know that anything said in the heat of the moment is ‘privileged communication’ that won’t inevitably lead to separation. Don’t let the hard part of parenting ruin a good thing.
5. Research is key.
Do your research and know where you stand. People will try to give you so much advice, some of it might be fantastic but let’s be honest – some of it will be rubbish. Make your own educated decisions about your own children, don’t let the media and world dictate how to raise your child.
