gentle parenting in action

Disclaimer: I'm not a mum *yet*

My MIL is a foster mum, she had an emergency foster care child when she last came down to visit us, little Kay-Leigh was an 8 month old girl with the developmental level of a 3-4 month old due to her two sisters never putting her down when she was awake (and I mean never putting her down - she even fell asleep in their arms, was fed in their arms). By the end of the weekend they were all here, she was starting to lift her head, holding her own bottle, rolling over and playing with her feet (DH had her standing up when we were at the cafe having morning coffee on the Sat) - she is now crawling, reacting to things moving around, giggles at her reflection in the mirror/window - all in the 4 weeks since MIL was given care of her.

DH, MIL, foster child 1 (Jesse - boy 28 months old) & FC2 (Kay-Leigh) and myself went to the markets one day, I had FC2 in my arms, DH had FC1.

FC2 started throwing a tantrum as she was getting tired and we weren't paying her attention, so I started saying to her "oi stop the tantrum little miss", people were looking at me like I was the most horrible mum in the world because I was not shushing my baby.

DH ended up taking FC2 as I had to go to the toilet, he was doing the same things to her, talking to her, calming her, by the time we got to the car she had settled down wonderfully.

I wish my SIL (brother's wife) knew about gentle parenting when I used to live with her and she had her 4 kids (plus me - I'm 8 years older than her eldest), she used to scream and hit the kids when they threw tantrums, my brother was the gentle parenter. Now the kids are 22 - 28 in age and they still scream at their mother when they get frustrated with her, but will listen to my brother when he talks calmly to them.