Old advice

[JennyBlueWren]

Just wondering what advice you have heard from parents, in-laws or other generations which would be well out now.

My mum believes babies should sleep on their front as then they have to lift their heads to scream loudly making their necks stronger. I pointed out the risk of cot death and she pointed out that 3 of us survived it. She also took to leaving baby downstairs as my dad would fuss at every sound or movement. No monitors in those days!

She is quite accepting that it is up to us on how we bring up our own children but has said it'll all change again after a while.

[seasavage]

My mum used to put me at the bottom of the garden when my colic was really bad (as did her mum). She despaired of my sling/ brisk walk solution as she was convinced nothing would stop the screaming. I am pretty sure SS would be knocking on the door these days.

[squizita]

Thankfully my mum worked with small children and babies up till retirement so is fairly 'in the loop'.
She does roll her eyes at trends though and has done for years - she said ignore the books and new 'fashions' ("don't be routine obsessed or too middle-class-posh-hippy, do what works for you and your baby" her precise words).

[Toadsrevisited]

My parents: Have you tried zinc and castor oil to waterproof his bum before bed?

Everyone I meet seemingly: Why not give him some baby rice? It will help him sleep.
And the classic- he's a big lad, you'll not feed him yourself.

FFS.

[PickleMyster]

Mainly to do with milk and weaning. She couldn't accept there were other formulas on the market except for Cow and Gate. When DS had a reaction C&G I put him on Aptimel which he was much happier with, she kept asking me when I was going to put him back on C&G.
When DS was 8wks she started badgering me to wean him, she really struggled to accept it was 4mths at the earliest. She nearly had a fit when I said "it's recommended to stretch them out to 6mth.

[ThinkIveBeenHacked]

My DM (who is a CM still active with kids of all ages) was horrified by me putting dd straight onto finger foods. She would be an inch from dd any time she had even a soft bit of brocoli.

[lizhow14]

My gran bless her soul put loads of sugar on everything as 'it helps baby digest the food better'. From my mother in law when baby didn't sleep through at a few months "your milk probably isn't good enough!"....when we bed shared she also used to ring every day to check my DD was still alive as she assumed only she had her best interests at heart!

[FreeSpirit89]

I was told to ween at 4months. And not to bother avoiding caffine, eggs, seafood, pates, or things x

[Keepthechangeyoufilthyanimal]

Oh I'm hearing them all from either DM, MIL or SMIL (DH's step mum)

DM and SMIL especially just cannot accept that it is no longer recommended to give babies water to drink, they are despairing in this heat, assuming that DS is dying of thirst!

DMIL can't understand why I don't plan on using all manner of lotions and potions on DS, (Her response was 'oh but you HAVE to have a johnsons baby' ) er....no I don't.

SMIL just cannot get her head around the concept of car seats and why you need one and thinks I am mad for spending £175 on an isofix car seat.

I daren't tell any of them I plan to do BLW when he's older....I just know how that will go down.

[JennyBlueWren]

Lizhow my grandparents did the same. When my parents first took my older brother to visit them she was horrified when they dipped his dummy in sugar and sprinkled sugar on his scrambled egg "otherwise he won't eat it". We loved visiting our grandparents as we got all sorts of things we weren't allowed at home.

[Jaffakake]

My mum was fairly obsessed with us letting ds cry. She used to park my pram in the porch at home and let me cry.

I've rarely let ds cry, we've not really needed to & I can count the times on one hand, in three years we've had him cry for more than 10 minutes & we kept popping back in. Now she commends me on my patience & tells me I'm a more natural mother than she was! It's nice she can now see there are other ways!

[Blueuggboots]

My mother was utterly obsessed that I should have a "cat net" because cars want to kill babies by lying on them......
My poor poor cat was shit scared of my DS for the first 18 months....she would have rather gone head to head with a dog than lie anywhere near him!!!!

[Blueuggboots]

Cats not cars!!!

[Tangoandcreditcards]

DP's aunt told me to "shut DS in the nursery to exercise his lungs".

She also told me how on the first night when her first grandchild had come home from the hospital she took him for the night to let her daughter rest and gave the 3-day-old baby nothing but water to drink... "He screamed and screamed and screamed all night"

[Memphisbelly]

My mil said dh slept through from 6 weeks and if he cried she wouldn't go into him anyway, she told me to do the same

The other day my friends mil refused to believe they now tell you not to eat liver due to high vit A and she was told to eat it raw (50years ago)

[WiggleGinger]

Ha! I'm glad I'm not alone!

From 12 weeks my DM was obsessed with weaning!
Give her a rusk you silly girl your milk isn't enough etc etc.
"She's only got colic because your milk isn't right."
Or
"Here look I bought some cow & gate let me make her a bottle " (whilst DD was feeding from me!!!!) I almost swore at her for that!

"All babies need a dummy" DM bought every type of dummy she could find as I'd said 1. DD refused them & 2. I wasn't to bothered that she didn't want one. (Apparently I wasn't trying hard enough! WTF!!!)

She thought I was mental for making my own food for DD & for waiting to wean her!

DM was a fan of telling me how much better DD would sleep if I put a rusk in some formula & bottle fed her! Geez!!!!!!!!


DM also said she longer for the day I would stop BF DD as she "was desperate to feed her herself"

Well that just fuelled my BF determination

oooh it feels better to get that lot out

[MB34]

My friend (who is 3 years younger than me and has a 16 year old DD) told me she put weetabix or baby rice in her bottle in the early weeks to fill her up and help her sleep through.

My DS is 20 months and has only just started sleeping through on the odd occasion!

Another friend who has a 20 year old asked me had I started weaning DS when he was 3 months old! (It was the done thing 20 years ago)

[stargirl1701]

MIL popped DH into the Silver Cross after a feed (formula, of course) and then parked him at end of the garden for four hours. Then the routine started again. For months

[Deverethemuzzler]

Mil and seven SILs asking r every time I saw them 'have you put her on Carnation milk yet?'
Mil asking me if I had given her cod liver oil on a daily basis.
SILs pointing out how 'surprised' they were that I 'allowed' oh to take dd out alone.
I had about 10 years of that crap before I learnt how to stand up fr myself.

[MrsGiraffe12]

I got told by MIL I developed pre eclampsia in DS pregnancy because I was vegeterian and didn't have enough iron!!

Then that DS had colic because he was formula fed SMA and not cow and gate!

Then that I should let DS be outside for an hour each day regardless of the weather in his pram for fresh air as his lungs are immature due to being premature!

This was 6 years ago and she better now be so annoying this time!

[squizita]

Although to be fair my DM is really bemused (and insulted) at all the 20-30somethings declaring no-one breastfed in her day. She says this is actually a myth, it was just the exclusive BF guidelines ended sooner and mixed feeding was openly talked about. More women FF but by no means was it unheard of to BF.
"Oh, it all would have been formula" and telling her how people breastfeed - which some have done - will get you short shrift indeed.

As will the idea that if a child 'vocalises' it is always crying and must be ostentatiously dealt with in Starbucks. This is her bugbear with some 'modern' mums: she'll mutter about how the baby isn't crying, isn't cueing to be fed- they're making sounds as part of their development and shouldn't have a dummy shoved in their mouth or be fed (if not hungry) to shut them up. She's a slight old hippy and to be fair knows a lot about speech and language development, which she believes is currently - more than ever, she thinks - stifled by some parents keen for either a socially acceptable baby or to be 'seen to be' loving/attentive, so some kids get smothered when they are actually just copying sounds and learning their voice.

So it works both ways I suppose...

[JennyBlueWren]

My mum breastfed all of us but there was a lot of pushing of formula. Have tags from when we left hospital with general info (name, address, weight) on one side and an advert for formula on the other with space to write in the amount of formula to be given and how often.

[squizita]

Jenny That's interesting because my mum describes it as 'unusual' even at the time that she FF me (I was in the SBU for some time and very small, suckling issues etc' in contrast to my siblings) and it seems EBF for a short while followed by mixed feeding was the norm/expectation.

I wonder if, like now, it was a regional thing?

She is now infuriated when my friends tell her what 'her generation' thought - which they've been told at NCT and it's more like what HER mum was told!. When back in her day NCT existed, women did use slings, there was a natural birth movement (which she says was quite aggressive and asked her to 'justify' her epidural when she had twins!! Blimy, sounds like a secret society), and a huge number of theories and so forth out there. This was the late 70s-mid 80s when she had her family.

Mind you her experiences with early, very high-pressure militant natural birth stuff (which left a friend of hers with injuries and an oxygen-starved child) has made her suspicious of philosophies and theories now. I can't imagine someone asking you to 'justify' pain relief now like you'd let their side down!! I reassured her that nowadays NCT don't do that!!

[Lalalax3]

My father and brother informed me that my breastfeedinv my child in front of them would make them 'very uncomfortable' (still gonna do it, obvs). My siblings and I were all 80s kids and my mum said that bottle-feeding was pretty-much the norm then.

[squizita]

It must really vary area by area then. Some of the things coming up on this thread are much more like my grandma's generation than my mum's (and I'm a relatively old pregnant lady myself!).

[micah]

Dc's are 6 and 9 and still in car seats (high back boosters).

None, and I mean none, of their friends still use even boosters. Many are allowed to sit in the front seat.

I had a comment of a six year old last night as to why my 9 year old still had a car seat.

I kind of thought they were the law these days..