Dealing with the pressure of others

As a parent you are likely to encounter people who want to give you lots of advice. They may also put pressure on you to parent your children in the way they believe is right. While this may come from a good place, it can bring up a lot of negative emotions and shame around different parenting styles and how much you can manage to do around the rest of life’s responsibilities.

Let me reassure you, good enough parenting is absolutely enough. There is not set way to raise babies and people have been doing it for thousands of years while having to fight of wild animals and learn to make fire. These people did not have special sleep routine apps or new age child rearing theoretic books to read. The main thing they need is to feel loved by you and know you will fulfil their needs: food, hugs and providing them consistently is likely to mean you’re doing perfectly fine!

Babies can tell when their parents are happy or sad, so if you are happy and show that smiling and interacting with baby, they will feel reassured everything is okay and grow up to be perfectly imperfect like everyone else. Remember there is no perfect parent. Everyone has their own instincts and ways in which they want their children to be raised and they have the right to follow that, but it does not mean that you must as well or that your ways aren’t as good.

It might be easier to ignore unwanted advice from a stranger, but sometimes it comes from within your own family or close friendship circle. Some ways to deal with this pressure from others are to set boundaries with them. This can be difficult with those who do not respect them but try to remember this often comes from good intentions, they want the best for your child and yourself, just like you do, they might just have different ideas on how to do that. It might be helpful to clarify what you want from your family and friends: do you actually want advice from them? Or just someone to rant or moan at? It can help to be honest with people; let them know that you feel pressured by them and how that makes you feel.

The tricky part is not getting too defensive during this conversation, it needs to be an open and honest conversation about how you want to be treated and spoken to, not both of you arguing over who was right or wrong. Both of you likely want the best for you and your family.