Advice on how to speak to parents?

post it and don't say anything else. delete any comments. just post it. people can take it or leave it.

I had a "friend" who was talking about how her 4 month old wasn't sleeping through the night because he was breast fed. she had her first and her first slept through early and she wanted to know why the 4 month old wasn't sleeping through. I told her that she could try co-sleeping if she wanted and that'd help it be easier for her at least. so then a bunch of her stupid friends and relatives got on there and completely disregarded what I said and said she should leave the kid to cry and that he was manipulating her -- the kid is 4 months old. he can't figure out his hands. he was not manipulating. so anyways, I feel super strongly about CIO and young babies but I just deleted what I said so that I didn't have to see those notifications on my facebook and left it at that. she knew what I had said and she didn't like it. you can't save all the babies. it's good that you posted that but anything after that, people start to get defensive and feelings get hurt. so it's good you posted that, but just keep it as a post...just coming from personal experience. people will do what they want to do regardless.

I almost deleted my "friend" myself after all of that but I just hid her so I couldn't see anything in the future about her leaving her little baby to cry. we're not friends anyways really -- and if she's going to do that then she can do it. you can't argue with an idiot.

How often do you post these sorts of things?

I have a friend who posts stuff like that on FB _all the time_. You would not think somebody could find something new to post about car seat safety at least once a week, but, she does.

Lovely mother with lovely kids. But on FB -- she can be a bit of a bore, y'know? Part of the problem is that she doesn't think about or research this stuff herself -- just posts links, some of which are not great links. Over-enthusiastic...

And I almost always totally agree with what she's posting about, and still I find it a (gentle) drag on my feed. If I didn't agree...yeah, I'd be in 'I'm going to delete her if I see one more effing nurse-until-pre-puberty link!!' mode, and one little comment would send me to deleting, I bet.

So -- how often are you posting "help"?

Well I can tell you why she was probably standoffish - not trying to offend you OR hurt your feelings, honestly.

But you are not a mother.....so in THEORY if you had a 15 mo old who was FF you would turn then back around. You cannot say from personal experience. She probably feels like you don't completely understand where she is coming from.

Parents get judged all the time for decisions they make, she obviously felt like you were judging her. It all gets old after awhile....I kept mine RF until 18 mo well I kept mine RF until 2 well I breastfed mine for 1 yr, well we did it until 18 mo well I never yell at my kids.........I mean it is constant competition.

I think you should apologize. Just send her an email saying your sorry if you offended her, but you didn't mean too.

"unfourtantly they dont think about kids who are to tall to face backwords my daughter cant cuz she has long legs"

That's exactly how you saw her comment? Um. Yeah...I really don't think Deary is going to listen to logic no matter what you do to soften the blow and protect her ego.

Most parents just want to do what is best for their child, so when they're told that what they're doing is wrong...the fists come up 'I is not stoopid! My baybee iz fiiiine! stop insulting mii!'. If you're doing your job right, you suck up your pride and just do what's best, realizing that it's better to smarten up a few months in than to never try and change at all...but, unfortunately, there is a certain level of intelligence that needs to be had to do that...

I wouldn't have been offended, but I think you know I'm as big a car seat nut as you are lol

I think maybe that girl isn't very confident in her parenting in the first place and seeing that she is doing something that will very soon be considered illegal, she felt attacked.

Most parents I know aren't like that. I can post a link and they will thank me for the information.

You passed the info on in a perfectly acceptable way. She just chose to be sensitive about it.

I think your method of sharing information is fine, but I probably wouldn't have replied after she commented the first time. I completely agree with you, but the bottom line is that people don't like their parenting skills being questioned. Whether you meant to be offensive or not, she probably thought you were crossing the line a little bit. I'm not taking her side, but I'm just telling you why she reacted that way.

Why don't you make it more of a personal statement.. "I'm so glad they released the new requirements, I was starting to feel funny that my son/daughters legs were touching the seat, but now that a PROFESSIONAL has advised it's completely okay!"

That way it seems you're more worried about what you're doing than what other people are doing.

I don't understand why she would get so defensive. You just posted the latest information. Maybe she thought you were attacking her. I would rather have my son break his legs than be internally decapitated, personally.

I have not heard of this. I have many friends on FB that I would like to share this information with, but would like to provide a link.