There is no shortage of books on how to raise your children, but do they really help? Claire O'Connell reports.
Walk into any bookshop in Ireland and you are likely to find a parenting section whose shelves groan under a wealth of expert advice. Books about child-rearing are big business, and fashionable titles regularly appear on bestseller lists.
In a society where many new parents no longer have access to the experience and wisdom of an extended family, well-marketed parenting ideologies are filling a gap.
While such books can provide valuable information and support, experts warn of the danger in following any one approach as gospel and advise parents to take a more flexible approach to suit their family's needs.
Parenting books can be useful, says clinical psychologist Marie Murray, director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital in Fairview, who notes they can provide suggestions, guidelines and approaches to parenting as well as a framework for understanding children's behaviour and adult responses.
"Books may simply confirm what you already know, which is reassuring," says Murray. "Or they may offer an approach you have not tried which may be useful if you are encountering difficulty, or alert you to a need your child may have which you had not already considered."
However, the range of conflicting approaches offered by parenting experts can be confusing. For example, US paediatrician William Sears and former maternity nurse Gina Ford camp at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Sears and his wife Martha advocate an instinctive, child-led approach they call attachment parenting. They claim if you connect early with your offspring, you will help build their self-esteem, minimise behavioural problems and keep the family communicating even through the tempestuous teens.
To encourage attachment, they suggest a foundation of breastfeeding, carrying your baby in a sling by day and sleeping close to them at night. However, these are tools, not rules, and a central tenet is to choose only what feels right and keeps families in harmony.
The Searses are wary of baby-trainers so it's safe to assume they would be on guard around Ford, who maintains that taking the instinctive approach with babies will set up sleep problems for the child.
Ford's renowned Contented Little Baby Book prescribes strict feeding and sleeping schedules that promise well-rested families. She also includes a battery of practical instructions ranging from how to furnish the nursery to swaddling the baby. Slings do not feature.
"Routines are very important," says Anne O'Connor, child clinical psychologist and founder of the Irish parenting website, www.rollercoaster.ie. "Ford's approach is about training and obedience and getting the child into the routine whereas the Sears approach is more about following your child's cues and letting the routine evolve," she says.
O'Connor notes that sometimes books can foster expectations that may be unrealistic, such as young infants sleeping through the night. "Sleep is a great example because if you have a baby that's not sleeping you are going to desperately try whatever's put in front of you," she says. "But there are a lot of factors to take into account before you try an approach, and it has to suit the parents as well as the baby. Some are billed as the only approach and if you do anything else you are somehow damaging your child, which of course is complete nonsense.
"Children and even newborn babies are very different," she says. "They have very different temperaments and very different needs, and really it's about beginning to know your baby's needs and adjusting your approach to that, rather than trying to fit your baby into the one approach you think might work."
Murray agrees there are inherent problems with the one-size-fits-all view of parenting. "People are too complex for one 'fix-it' manual to cover each human and relationship situation," she says, adding that the implication that a single answer exists can undermine parents' confidence.
She suggests the value of parenting books lies not in viewing them as instruction manuals to be followed blindly, but as perspectives on parenting from people who have practical experience, professional insight or who have had personal opportunity to try out the ideas.
"They should be a support, not an alternative to your parenting," she advises. "They also cannot supplant advice from your GP if you are concerned or professional referral if there is an entrenched problem upsetting you or your child."
Murray recommends a responsive, adaptable approach to parenting. "Like the good cook who knows the recipes but also judges when to add an extra sprinkle of sugar here, an extra bit of time there or when the recipe book does not have what the occasion requires, the good parent is informed but flexible to the needs of the child."
Indeed, research has found that successful parents tend to have more flexible approaches, according to O'Connor. Her advice is not to fall for any particular philosophy exclusively, but to find out about a variety of approaches and cherry-pick what feels comfortable.
However, Murray notes that, above all, parents need to be allowed the space and freedom to get to know their children. "At the political level, parenting cannot be achieved without external supports and some stress-free time to bond," she says. "All the books in the world will not ease things for overtired, overstressed, commuting parents with young children, and much more family-friendly structures are needed in our society."