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When you announce to the world that you're pregnant, everyone immediately starts giving you advice: people who've never had kids, people who don't even want to have kids, your parents, your grandparents, your coworkers.

Everyone, even people who have never had children, think that they're an expert on parenting and that you're just dying to hear their opinion about it. It can be overwhelming. The younger you are when you get pregnant, the more likely you are to be inundated with advice from older relatives. If you're in your late teens or early twenties, your parents and grandparents are likely to still see you as a child in an adult body.

I think the best thing to do is to listen to what people say and then do what you want. Many times what was applicable to a certain generation just doesn't work anymore or won't be right for you. It's important to sift through what people say to find the true gems of parenting wisdom that people have to give.

After you get pregnant, everyone starts telling you that you just have to read certain books, that you have to follow the advice of a certain expert who's written about pregnancy and babies. So you go to the library to get the book, but then see another book sitting right next to it, also about parenting.

If you skim through both of them, chances are they will probably give completely opposite advice about everything from sleep arrangements to breastfeeding to choosing a daycare. There are lots of extreme experts in the field and each one has a following among parents who are more than happy to explain it all to you.

In addition, pediatricians also give advice on things like whether to co sleep or not, and tend to present their opinions as if they are scientific fact. The reality is, if you know what your child rearing philosophy is, you can probably find a pediatrician who has similar beliefs.

My opinion is that if you know you're a reasonably intelligent, caring person who knows the basics of child development and parenting, you should listen to your gut. You've been given this kid for a reason, and all parents and kids are different. What works for some families won't work for you and your child. What works for one of your children might not work for the next.

There's no easy answer and I think that is what frustrates a lot of parents, we just want someone to tell us what the right thing is to do. But even if you do find someone to tell you what to do, you know that there are probably five other people out there who would tell you something different.

I recommend trying to learn as much as you can about a given issue and seeing what feels right to you and what is in your child's best interests. We as parents are so lucky to have instantaneous access to a mountain of information about any problem we have with our kids. We can read what the experts say or ask other parents on message boards.

What I've realized after two years is that the best way to make a parenting decision is to get on line and read books and find out what the prevailing theories are on the issue. Then I mull it over, figure out what I think is right, and try it out. If it doesn't work for us, we adjust.

In the past couple of years, two major experts in the area of children's sleep both published new books saying that they were wrong, that each child is different and that you can't be inflexible or go to extremes. If even they don't have a perfect right answer, I guess I don't have to have one either.

Learn more about this author, Helen Richardson.
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