Parenting changes just like every thing else by what people learn as consequenses for example better car seats for children are being made every day because someone has sued this company or that company when their childs car seat failed to keep their child safe.

As the professionals learn from generation to generation what parenting skills are helpful and what skills are harmful the standards for raising a child change.

Breatfeeding. Yea years ago it was the only way to feed a child so daughter learned from mother as she was growing up and when she grew up she taught her daughter and so on. And each parent taught daughter ways that worked for that parent that is doing the teaching. With the invention of formula more and more people did not bother to learn from their mothers how to breast feed. They no longer saw siblings being fed and so on. Now you have people wanting to breast feed and no role model mparents to teach their daughters how to do it. So the alternative was a parent who was breastfeeding wrote a book of how she did it and another parent wrote another book on how she did it and so on. So now you have all these books with all this conflicting advice.

Bottom line no matter if its about parenting, about a mental disorder, flying an airplane and so on the books aren't etched in stone. Every reader has to decide what in the books work for them and what doesn't.

Yea I can see why your husband is getting upset. Hes trying to be a dad and you are trying to be supermom with books. Next time you have an urge to say "but the book says..." leave out the words "the book says..." and say "I wonder what would happen if we did it this way what do you think?" That leave room for you to explore the book ideas to see if they work for you and also leaves room for his input too.

I can tell you from coming from a big family that the first born child gets the whammys of mom and pop trying to be supermoms and superpops of books. The second child gets a mixture of super mom and superpops and the knowlege of experience of what a real child is like vs what has been read about and the third child the parents have it down to a tee and throw out the books, sees each child as an individual and looks back on raising the first two and says gosh how could I have done that to my child just because a stupid book told me to.

Book learning is fine but you need to leave the door open children are not textbooks. Take my child. My house was babyproof perfect..... at 1yr he fed my vcr a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich his logic it was hungry the mouth was open.first set of stitches was from him throwing himself during a temper tantrum. books say walk away from a child throwing a temper tantrum. second set of stitches my child age 2 running in to the kitchen fell and put his tooth through his lip. third set of stitches 4 yr playing on jungle jim in head start bit his tongue. 5yrs sprained ankle jumping off a rock outside playing with his friends. some books say have the baby sleep with you until they are 2 years old, other books say dont let the child fall asleep in your bed. Some books say rocking the baby is good, other books say rocking the baby is bad because they don't learn to self sooth self nurture. My child well he slept in his own bed to start with and ended up climbing into my bed during the night until he was 5 and then he tried to pick up the habit again at age 8 at which point I put a lock on my door LOL. Sometime I rocked him, sometimes he got rocked by his baby swin and sometimes he just had to cry it out cause sometimes babys just need to cry and no amount of rocking is going to stop the crying.

Nothing I read in all those books prepared me for my child in any way shape or form. LOL

Being a first time mom is scarey but you will be ok I promise. try some rela live parenting classes. Some around her have you bring your children so that you can actually practice what they are teaching you during the classes. I have gone through parenting classes twice and each time it was different and each time I learned so many new things for my son and I to do together.

Hang in there.