Books, parenting, and unsolicited advice

I've recently purchased a few books to help me figure out life with a five-month-old: Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron, The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley, and Touchpoints: Birth to 3 : Your Child's Emotional and Behavioral Development by T. Berry Brazelton. Each has been helpful, especially Pantley's book, which came highly recommended by my friend Sarah at Mommy, Ph.D. In a recent conversation with my mother, I mentioned my recent book purchases while we were discussing how S is doing with his attempts to eat solid food (as an aside, why do we call rice cereal and baby food solid food?). She asked me what I fed him first, and I said rice cereal mixed with breast milk and, then a few days later, sweet potatoes. She then told me what she fed me and my siblings first--rice cereal and applesauce. She also reminded me, as she has done repeatedly over the past 5 months, that she gave me rice cereal when I was 4 days old and I slept through the night. I told her that I purchased a book on feeding babies, and it suggested the sweet potatoes because of the low likelihood of allergies to sweet potatoes. I then told her about Pantley's book because, frankly, I'm so ready for S to be able to put himself back to sleep that I was (and am!) excited to have a book that has worked for people I know. My mom sighed and said: "I never needed a book to help me with you and your siblings. I don't know why you can't just try the methods I used. You obviously turned out ok."

In the five months I've been a mother (and the 9 I was pregnant before S was born) I heard similar comments from my mother and C's mother. I gave up trying to explain that it had been 30+ years since they had children and that things had changed. I gave up reassuring them that yes, C and I did turn out fine, but that we wanted to be able to do things for our child without calling them or our pediatrician every five minutes. I gave up wanting to strangle both of them, and I simply reminded myself that they were well-meaning because they are. But it is still frustrating. In this particular instance, I just changed the topic. I know the implicit meaning behind my mother's comments: she feels that I'm calling her a bad mother because I'm not following her advice or doing things precisely as she did. I didn't get that when I was pregnant, but I do get that now that I'm a mother. By buying books rather than calling her and relying on her admittedly bad memory, I'm criticizing the choices she made as a mother. I once tried telling her that I research as part of my career so that it comes naturally to me to research things about my child. That didn't work because she said children can't be researched (which, for the record, was one of the most absurd things I think my mother has ever said). I understand that by criticizing my choices, my mother is defending hers. So now instead of getting annoyed with her criticism of me, I just change the subject. I wish she could understand that I'm just trying to figure this all out on my own and not questioning her choices.

On a different note, I spoke to my grandmother yesterday, and she offered some unsolicited advice too. I told her I plan to give S bananas next because I'd read they are easy to digest. She told me to stock up on the stain remover as bananas stain. That was some useful advice!