Hey Mean Moms, Zip It!
Posted by Laurie
Moms can be meanies. It’s no surprise that when I wrote about this sad fact on my blog, I had nearly a dozen responses of women sharing their experience of being attacked by other moms.
Jen, who has a 5 year old son with Autism explained that when he was younger she would keep him on a baby harness so he wouldn’t run off on her outside, which he had done many times. She had one mother telling her she was treating her son like a dog. Another told her she was cruel.
Georgia wrote that she was attacked during her pregnancy for gaining too much weight and deciding to induce labor. But everyone has their reasons.
For Georgia, she induced because the week of her due date her mother would be out of the country for work, her husband was going to be on the other side of the country for work, and her doctor was going on vacation.
Since I wrote that blog post I started to wonder, how might I be making decisions for my son, not because I think it’s the best decision, but because I’m afraid of the wrath of the mommy world?
When my son turned 15 months I took away his bottle gradually over a one week period. He’s not a strong eater or drinker (except he loves milk in the bottle), but I was told by his pediatrician and my mommy friends that my son would adjust within two weeks. He’d get thirsty and drink more from his straw cup or sippy cup. Didn’t happen. I tried seven types of cups.
Four weeks later I was still running around after him trying to get him to take sips just to reach a meager 12 ounces of 
daily fluid intake. I pushed fruit on him meal after meal because it’s high in water content. Still, he really wasn’t getting enough liquids. Was I doing something wrong?
Thankfully, I talked to my husband about what was going on. He knew our child wasn’t adjusting well to the no-bottle life. Why not give him the bottle a little longer, he suggested. Because it’s not normal I told him. Because the doctors say to take it away at 12 months and we’re already late on that. Because Katie Holmes was crucified in the press when 2.5 year old Suri was caught drinking from a bottle.
My husband brought me back to reality. He put the situation in context: We cannot make decisions for our son because of what other people think. Duh! That’s just what I was doing. (I highly recommend talking to your husband or partner about your fear of doing something wrong or being rejected by other moms. Men are not in that mommy world and can sometimes offer a clear perspective).
So I’m outing myself. My son is 19 months and he drinks from a bottle twice a day. And I refuse to be afraid of what anyone else thinks.
How would you “out” yourself?
(This post originally appeared as Laurie’s guest post on Babycenter.com’s Momformation blog)
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 11:43 am and is filed under Emotional Support, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.
My son is 3 and he’s not potty trained yet. That’s how I would “out” myself. I had one lady laugh at me. I really wanted to say, “My son can speak two languages, how many do you and your daughters speak?” but since she is technically family, that probably would not have gone over well.
Great attitude! Every kid potty trains at his own speed. We can’t make them sleep, eat or poop on the toilet!
Mean moms can suck it!
I think bottle feeding is the same as breastfeeding. Plenty of kids breastfeed to 19 months. What you are doing is respecting the emotional needs of your child, and you should be proud of yourself for listening to your gut!
My 19 month old daughter sleeps in our bed for more than half the night.. and i kinda like it!!
I found this to be the worst with potty training – I ignored all of it and my girls were over 3 years old before they gave up the diapers during the day! And they are fine two years later, of course! The good news is the mommy peer pressure appears to me to wane as the kids get older.
Ethan still breastfeeds at 19.5 months and I get so much judgment for that (forget that nursing even past 2 is the norm in most of the world) you would NOT believe it. I like this post, it’s like AA!
I don’t see much difference between a bottle and a sippy cup.
The concern is, or should be, sipping on juice/sweet liquids all day, which is terrible for the teeth.
sipping on water all day via bottle or sippy cup = harmless.