The hapless mother who innocently mashed up some sweet potato last week, before sliding a spoonful into the mouth of a six-month-old, is now at the centre of national controversy. Although this woman (for it probably was a woman) might have believed she was following up-to-date weaning advice by giving her child their first taste of solid food, it turns out she was wrong. Parents should give their children "solids" from the end of their fourth month, according to an edict from British child health experts.
The revised thinking is that an early experience of different fibres and flavours will help to prevent iron deficiency, coeliac disease and allergies. The theory has gone down badly with many midwives and with campaigners at Baby Milk Action, who point out that three of the four doctors who wrote the report have acknowledged previously receiving funds from the baby food industry.
Whatever the truth of the competing claims, such an about-face in the authoritative advice doled out to parents is only the latest in a long line of contradictory bulletins. A ticker tape of fresh pronouncements seems to be running continuously; a fact that must do nothing to soothe the mood of a mother already contending with a crying infant and a lack of sleep.
Maintaining the weight of a baby somewhere near the median mark was once seen as crucial, then suddenly the graph brandished by many health visitors was discredited. And last month parents were told that running a tidy, ordered home would boost their child's development – but that having a cosy home was even more important. The phrase "mother knows best" has never looked so quaint.
"The single most important point of all in childcare is that none of these prescriptions is the right answer," says Oliver James, whose book on child rearing, How Not to F*** Them Up, is out in paperback in April. In an effort to turn down the heat on parents, the child psychologist adds: "There is an endless searching for a right way to care for a baby or a small child. But there is no right way."
The weeks ahead do not offer a period of calm. Mothers are to be subjected to a volley of rival strategies for the child-rearing years. In spring Rebecca Asher's book, Shattered: Modern Motherhood and the Illusion of Equality, will attempt to raise the consciousness of exhausted British women. They have been complicit, she argues, in maintaining a status quo in which mothers bear the primary responsibility for bringing up children, to the detriment of the rest of their lives.
Next month the much-trailed, highly provocative book by Yale law academic Amy Chua will be taking up a position on the other side of the maternal boxing ring. In Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother Chua aims to shake up western complacency and to highlight what she sees as the superiority of strict traditional Chinese child-rearing methods. It is Chua's belief that modern mothers have ducked their duties by focusing on the emotional welfare of their offspring. Instead, she urges, they should be setting high targets for their children and then haranguing them if they fall short.
"Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently," she says, advocating a strict domestic regimen, with no sleepovers, TV or after-school clubs.
Chua's book, a social formula in the guise of a memoir, reflects a reactionary trend, or a "breath of common sense" as its proponents might have it. There is a growing interest too in letting working mothers throw away those tiresome balls they have been juggling in order to embrace their role at the hearth.
James feels it is a shift in emphasis that is coming from young women. He says he has found that many women in their early 20s or late teens are asking what the point was of trying to do everything. There is no prize awarded for working and mothering hard, James points out, although he concedes that for poorer women and single mothers choices are limited.
"Mothers of young babies should consider whether they are comfortable in their skin," he says. "And that is not an easy thing to achieve, particularly if you have been living like Bridget Jones. It is not an ideal preparation to have enjoyed a career and had little experience of having a status lower than a street-sweeper. It is a huge wrench."
He urges women to consider the kind of person they are. "Do you like babies or do you prefer toddlers? If you are what I call 'a hugger', for instance, you will enjoy being with babies. If you are 'an organiser' you are going to find it stressful. Or you might be 'a flexi-mum', which is a bit of both."
Much of the "new" advice being offered to parents is the blindingly obvious delivered in fresh wrapping. Arguing repeatedly in front of children is bad, apparently, as is moving house frequently – not revelations that are likely to stop parents in their tracks.
After a bruising early experience, writer and new mother Eleanor Birne has decided to dump the books and look after her 22-month-old son, Noah, according to her own beliefs. "I have an ambivalent relationship with all those guidebooks," says Birne, 34, from east London, whose memoir of motherhood, When Will I Sleep Through the Night?, comes out in March.
"None of them seem to relate to my baby or to my life. I stopped reading them quite early on because they made me feel quite depressed and as if I was not doing it properly." Her own book, Birne says, has no agenda and is designed to reflect how it feels to start living in the "amazingly new world" of a mother.
"When it comes to breastfeeding and weaning advice, people can get very upset. Noah had mixed feeding all along because he was small and had to go back into hospital for a while because he was underweight. Then he did not really get into solids until he was nine months old. I think if something doesn't work mothers should just be allowed to move on."
James feels that a fundamental question has not still been addressed: What kind of children are we trying to create? Certainly, one mother's high-achieving prodigy is another's miserable swot.
"The Chinese theory is right on one point at least. There is a lot of scientific evidence to suggest that if you want your children to be prodigiously skilled you need to be this strict," he says. "Surveys have shown that the biggest difference between soloists and orchestral musicians is the number of hours they practise."
James suggests parents should be honest with themselves. "You need to ask yourself what kind of an objective you have. It is a very tough question, but think what you would regard as a successful outcome for your child at 40, not just at four. If you are determined to have a Tiger Woods or a Williams sister, then you probably can follow the advice of the Chinese parenting formula offered by Amy Chua. But if you want your child to be laid back, that is another matter."
While James, like Birne, fears society has become too judgmental about this area, he thinks the growing attention paid to the first six years of life is progress. Recent work on the human genome has proved to his satisfaction that genetics has very little to do with our behaviour and mental health. "So we should be getting more concerned about the quality of life at an early age," he says.
