"parent's instinct. Always go with it'

Great advice, and important to remember at 4am when you look at each other and really really don't know what to do next. It also helps when you "know" that something isn't right and the first/second/third authority figure doesn't get it.

My first experience of parent's instinct in the face of all other advice came with our first child. After 6 weeks of toe curling breastfeeds (and she never took a bottle) and my continued insistence that there was a problem, eventually she was diagnosed. A tongue tie. One small snip and breastfeeding was fantastic!

Several years and another child later, our youngest developed an odd cough one morning (no other symptoms at all). Don't ask me to define odd, but it just didn't seem right. A visit to the after hours centre and the terrifying advice that "we've called ahead to the hospital and its quicker for you to drive than to call an ambulance..." and we had one very sick 1 year old with pneumonia bundled up with tubes and drips and in the care of wonderful paedeatric nurses and doctors (and eventually a full recovery).

Parenting is all the things that everyone has talked about, and has such wonderful moments as well as those ones that just about do your head in - for us, we just try to be the best parents that we can be and trusting ourselves and what works for us has worked well so far.