Announce your pregnancy, and you will be bombarded with all kinds of advice:

• "Don't let the baby sleep in your bed!"
• "Letting the baby sleep in your bed makes her feel secure!"
• "Feed the baby whenever he seems hungry!"
• "Keep the baby on a strict three-hour schedule!"

It's enough to make you hide out in the hospital with a full nursing staff to help raise your baby through the teen years.

Here is some advice – advice that no one ever mentions, but mothers know it's true – "The Jinx." What is the Jinx? Let me give you some examples:

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