A mother has said she doesn't force her toddler to share and lets her choose her own bedtime. Zoe Ayre is on a mission to get rid of old-fashioned parenting techniques - in favour of newer approaches.
The 36-year-old uses "respectful" parenting techniques and says her daughter is "rarely overtired, and is well behaved." Zoe and her husband Andrew had Hattie in September 2021 - after her birth Zoe was 'surprised' by the challenges of early parenthood.
The mum says she turned to the internet for advice but found lots of 'misleading' techniques that didn't align with the kind of parent she wanted to be. She describes it as being "very damaging to maternal mental health."
Zoe read a book called Wish Your Parents Had Read, by psychotherapist Phillppa Perry. The book talks about what kind of behavior it is important to avoid - and the dos and don'ts of parenting. After reading it, Zoe reevaluated what kind of mum she wanted to be and how she intended to raise her daughter.
In April 2022 she set up an Instagram page called The Respectful Mum - Gentle Parenting and Honest Motherhood - where she shared her methods, tips, and opinions on parenting. And while she intended the page to be a safe space for parents, Zoe has received some backlash.
Her daughter has been branded a "spoilt brat" for not sharing and choosing her own bedtime. Speaking to Yorkshire Live, Zoe said: "I think it is much more important to make children understand what sharing is and not force them. When that child is playing with a toy that is important to them at the moment you have to respect that that child is learning with it. People think they can just take the toy. If my daughter took a toy off another child I would say that is wrong too.
"I will stand up for her if another child takes away something she's playing with. This tends to elicit reactions from parents who are very pro-sharing." Speaking about a bed time routine Zoe said Hattie "doesn't have one. I don't have a set bedtime for her. My approach is she will go to bed when she is tired. It causes a lot of stress when she is not tired. We are still at a stage where it is really unpredictable. Sometimes she'll need more naps than others. She'll go to bed when she is tired."
The mum added: "Bed sharing is also something people are pressured about. There is talk that it is dangerous and you shouldn't do it. There is a lot of guidance out there that it isn't healthy in the early days. But my little girl would only sleep next to me or on top me or she wouldn't fall asleep."
Zoe and Andy have taught their daughter to say 'no' from an early age, teaching her to reject hugs and affection from people if she doesn't want to. They also do not believe in using the word tantrum, Zoe said: "Last night [January 22] Hattie was having bath time and she was in floods of tears because she didn't want to take her jumper off. My husband spoke to her calmly and explained he understood why she was upset but explained why she needed to take it off, and she stopped crying.
"Most people would call this a tantrum but we want her to express her emotions. Most people would have jumped to discipline but in that situation she hasn't done anything in wrong. It becomes a fight to argue with them when you use that method. We need to recognise her emotions. If my husband came home from work and was upset, I wouldn't tell him to shush get on with it. Recognising emotions is important. That's how children learn to regulate their emotions."
Zoe disputed that this method was "too soft", and said: "The boundary was still there she had to take the jumper off but it was done in a calm way." She said she is still trying out different methods every day, but said "so far everything we are doing is really working". Zoe and Andrew hope to extend their family in the future and say they will implement the same methods with any future children they have.
