The experiment of the first child

• 
  Our experiment turned out just fine
  
  

Having a child is a huge shock, especially for those who have had no prior experience of babies or what to do with them all day. There are no manuals that come with children, no training courses or anything of the sort; you just have to learn on the job. It's a hard slog, and for every decision to get right there are bound to be two that you get wrong. For us, now we have a second child, we can see the mistakes we made with our first child and are determined not to do the same things second time around.

One of the mistakes we made with our first child was letting him have sweetened drinks. This quickly led to a taste for sweet foods in general and meant he was less keen to eat healthy foods such as fruit and vegetables. Second time around our baby is only allowed water rather than juice, and no sweets or chocolates. He is a much better eater, as opposed to our first child who is really fussy.

Learning from our experiences of our older child and trying to get him to eat at all, we let our second child feed himself finger foods from an early age, and now he is really keen to try new foods. I suppose in this sense, we learned this was from experimenting with foods on our first child. I wish we had known then what we know now.

In terms of behaviour I think our first child was also a bit of an experiment. We hardly ever said "no" to him, and he has grown up defiant and headstrong. If something was dangerous I would simply pick him up and move him away from it, without saying anything at all. With our second child I say "no" to him and let him know I mean it. Already he is showing signs of being more co-operative and understanding what his boundaries are.

A part of me does think though, that experimenting with your first child is natural and the way things have always been. How can you learn if you don't make some mistakes? Hopefully not massive ones, just things that you could have done better. You also need to take into account different temperaments and personality types of children that would exist no matter what sort of parent you are.

Parents on the whole, are trying their best and learning as they go along, that's what makes it so much fun.

Yahoo Lifestyle