Cindy, I'm not suggesting you take their advice. I'm suggesting you observe them.

If a frazzled, exhausted new mother is willing to read a total stranger with a hair up their ass about breastfeeding, and be expected to figure out which parts of the advice in the book are good and which are the writer jerking off on her Very Spceial Podium, why shouldn't she be expected to look at six or seven other real live breathing frazzled exhausted new mothers, and their real live babies, and do some informed separating from the living examples?

Why is the page written by the stranger, who has never seen my child, supposed to be so much more useful, or worthy?

edit: and looking at a couple of examples confirms me in that opinion. If the mother who hasn't refrigerated the formula (why are people who don't or won't read labels on food breeding? A whole other issue) is rushing her infant to the hospital with invasive salmonella, there's a pretty vivid example of What Not To Do right there.

Why is the page written by the stranger, who has never seen my child, supposed to be so much more useful, or worthy?

It might not be more worthy, but it could be valuable to some degree, no? I mean, for instance, Penelope Leach has never met my kids (and I've never met her) but everything she's ever written about child care has struck me as sensible and honest. I like her book Your Baby and Child for the sick-baby stuff and some observations on eating and behavior, and I've turned back to it with each child because all three of mine have been very different little people.

Amy, definitely. But there are a shitload of baby books out there and where, after all, did you find out about Penelope Leach? (I've heard the term sensible about her a lot, BTW - she sounds excellent.)

I mean, did you stumble across her by accident, or was she recced to you by a living breathing human being?

What AmyLiz said. In my case, it's Dr. Spock and I don't take everything he ever wrote as gospel, or even always sensible, but medically speaking (when to call the doctor) he knows what he's talking about, where random mom at playgroup is no more likely than I am, to have a clue, and probably actually less likely than I am, to have that same clue.

Heh. Cindy, I never had the slightest hesitation about calling a doctor when Jo was a kid. She looked or felt sick, boom, I was on the phone. If they thought I was neurotic, tough shit. This was my kid.

And yep, I agree with Amy, too. But I still am curious about how she came across Penelope Leach, in the welter of seven million books on attachment parenting and Breasts Rool and the rest of it: accident, or rec?

X-Post with Bureau:

Do we have any suggestions for a name for the new Great Write Way? "Volume II" or "Second chapter" are the obvious.

"Chapter Two: Twice upon a time..."

I don't know. I used Spock, because my own mother did, and she didn't kill me (and because she gave me the book at my baby shower). Lots of times, the pedi gives recommendations for sensible books.

where, after all, did you find out about Penelope Leach?

Hmmm. You've got a point there. And now I don't remember. Could be someone recommended her, or I seem to remember maybe seeing her on TV or something? But I've had her book since Jake was a baby -- 13 years now. She is that perfect balance of laid back and wise -- a lot of "not to worry, baby's supposed to do that" is in there.

And you're right about recs, too -- although there are friends I'll take them from, and some I won't, based, of course, on what I know about their parenting (or whatever the subject is).

although there are friends I'll take them from, and some I won't, based, of course, on what I know about their parenting (or whatever the subject is).

But that's my whole point! Observation, real life looking, can tell us the "what NOT to do" as well as the "what to do", and they're equally necessary, surely?