Are you living life ‘by the book’?

It’s a phrase attributed to many aspects of life, but on this occasion, I’m talking specifically to those people raising a child, because if you’re anything like me, you’re often filled with worry or panic about the fact that your child may have recently arrived with its instruction manual completely unwritten, never mind missing.

Despite the absence of such a manual, you will often hear people refer to raising their kids ‘by the book’ in their approach to tasks such as getting the little angels to sleep, eat or walk.  Now, as a writer, I love books, and so blame it on the hormones all you want, but the one book I detest is the one that everyone else is allegedly raising their kids by.

At six months of age this week, my child is a happy kid, but she’s not an easy one, and never has been.  Part of this is health related (yey to reflux), but part of it is the fact that she’s my daughter, and I’m not exactly the easiest adult to please at all, so it’s possible she gets her divine personality from me.  I love her more than anyone or anything in the world, but I am still no wiser now about how she ‘works’ than I was the day I found out I was carrying her.

My little girl turned 100 days old on Christmas Day.  I only know this because my husband used it as a beautiful foundation to a Christmas present he created for me.  I was too knackered to even think about buying him one at all, if you’re asking.  I spent every single one of those 100 days – and the many that have followed – Googling every question you can think of under such glamourous headings of, ‘How much is too much vomit?’, ‘Should my baby’s shit be green?’, and ‘Why god why won’t my child eat/sleep/stop crying?’.

I’ve been lucky that I’ve been surrounded by some good friends and relatives who have been an amazing support to me as a semi-functioning person in my own right, in addition to supporting me as Lily’s mum over the last six months.  I trouble them for advice and they give it.  I ask them for answers and they’re not afraid to be honest with me and just agree that, yep, unfortunately things can just be a bit shit sometimes.  I’m uncomfortable though that there are people – and actual published books – out there are who are quick to tell you that not only are you doing everything wrong, but that everyone else is doing it better than you anyway, because they’re doing it (you guessed it) by the book.

Although I can’t find this go-to book listed anywhere on Amazon, apparently you have to raise your kids by it or they will end up understimulated, overstimulated and/or in your bed until they’re 14.  So in order to do things by the book, we buy a book – any book.  It’s a staggeringly lucrative business, this baby stuff, and those books are everywhere.  All stating completely different things though, which kind of disproves the theory.

Obviously these books have some worth and will be based on something of an experience, but on the rare occasion I’ve found a solution, tip or technique in one that has actually helped me, my parenting ‘win’ smugness hasn’t lasted long, because just when everything does indeed go by the book and my baby behaves in exactly the way the book, forum or local self-proclaimed mother of the year says she will if I do A, B and C, the very next day, my small child skips straight to the end of that alphabet and starts throwing out Xs, Ys and Zs in all directions, having taken it upon her mini Modus Operandi to do whatever the hell she wants.

“The rules have changed, you mother!” she seems to say…

So, whilst books, films and forums are constantly telling me ‘What to Expect’, all I’ve really learned is what NOT to expect, and it’s this:  I no longer expect my child to look, sound or behave like any of the kids in those beautifully bound books staring down at me from the shelves in Waterstones, because much like any work of fiction, those characters do not exist.  There is no such thing as a textbook baby or a fool-proof model parenting style.  All you have is your baby, and your sanity, and so I think we all just need to do whatever we need to do with the former to keep any grasp on the latter, regardless of whatever any book may tell us.

I’m not closing the door on the bookshop permanently, however.  As soon as a published author on the subject throws in an added benefit on Amazon of ‘Buy now and I’ll come live with you in your zoo of a house for three months as you implement each of my chapters‘, I will be snapping up my copy.  Until then, I’d rather save my money to spend on something that will help me get through each chapter of my life as a parent.

Like wine.

Or earplugs.

Or a babysitter.