AIBU to ask your most ridiculous PFB moment...

Being a doctor with paediatric experience was massively helpful - either that or I was just a careless mother full stop.

I gave my PFB dates at 9 months and then was confused where the stones had gone (she ate them too). I also gave her milk straight from the fridge - my grandmother had conniptions but it did no harm 🤷.

While pregnant, I remembered a nasty mosquito bite I had on holiday in Greece last year. Became CONVINCED I had Zika virus and that my baby would be born with microcephaly. I remember grilling the lady doing my scan and when she mentioned that baby was slightly big for his age I broke down in tears.

I was also convinced that something was wrong with him when he was a week old or so because he looked so red faced all the time. The midwife came to the house and told me he was just really hot because I had him in so many layers. We had the heating up full blast, a babygrow, knitted cardigan, woolly hat and then layers of blankets. The poor little thing. I'm not sure why I thought he would need to be so warm - probably after experiencing how hot they keep the maternity wards.

LuckySantangelo35
Can anyone tell me why some people wouldn’t want someone with nail varnish on holding their baby?
Nail varnish and nail extensions increase the risk of disease transmission - pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29533568/

Wow that must be minimal risk though! It’s not as if you’re poking your fingers in the baby’s mouth either

I left my baby at a few months old with my mother in law to go for some food with his dad. I was convinced that she wouldn't be able to look after him properly. I wrote out four A4 pages of instructions on exactly what to do and when. I was so worried about her not looking after him properly so kept texting for updates. When we got back she said "oh he seemed a bit hungry so I gave him a banana" and it was OUT of his routine! I hadn't provided a banana! I was so angry I bundled him up, took him straight home and refused to speak to her for a week or so.

For some reason, when I told my own mother about this incident, she agreed with me and said that my reaction was perfectly reasonable... I suspect she was a little jealous about the other nan getting some baby time and was hoping she'd get him all to herself in future. I feel so embarrassed now when I think about it.

Baby DS hated baths, would scram an scream whenever he had one. Turns out I was so terrified of scalding him that I was basically dunking him in tepid water and he hated it and was freezing .

I'd read that you shouldn't sleep with your baby if you had been drinking alcoho. I wouldn't let my husband sleep in the same room as me and PFB if he'd had a beer, even though I didn't co-sleep and the baby slept in a crib. I thought the baby would breathe in the alcohol my husband breathed out if we all shared a room together.

Can anyone tell me why some people wouldn’t want someone with nail varnish on holding their baby?

First time I left my PFB, she was with my wonderful mother. My Mum has 4 adult children and my PFB was her 6th grandchild.
I left my mum with routine, a sheet of things to look out for (rashes, temp etc)
When my mum said 'I think I know what I am doing darling' I got cross with her and said 'no you have never had a breast fed baby in your care, you need to make sure the bottle is held right and that she is fed on demand so don't think there is a 2/3 hour wait'
My mum just said 'yes, iput, I will follow all instructions' I felt like she was mocking me so I spent half an hour telling her I won't go to the wedding and will make sure my baby is looked after properly.

When I was at the wedding I spent a lot of the time texting mum to check in, I got annoyed if she text me back instantly as I was worried she wasn't looking after DD. I then got worried if she didn't text me back in good time.

I refused to walk down the fridge/freezer aisle in the supermarket with my ten day old baby 😬 despite the fact he was wrapped up cosy in his buggy

I rather embarrassingly had an issue with anyone naming their child the same or similar name to DC1. Not like his name is totally unique or anything weird, it’s a perfectly usual name just not super common and not top 50. I hated hearing anyone use the same name, it just pissed me off.

I've been laughing along at these then I remembered this

Don't give ds (10 now) caffeinated drinks (lemonade etc fine occasionally).

Was in a chip shop with ds (then 7) at lunchtime. Couple of boys ages 10-12 were buying chips and cans of irn bru. Ds watched them leave and then remarked "those boys don't look 18 but they must be because they have irn bru"

Turns out he thought our rule was because irn bru was a beer and for grown ups. Worrying, because I drank it every day (sugar free!) and he must have thought I was a right boozer!!!

DC1 is 3 and we potty trained last summer. I went with the method of putting her on the potty/toilet every hour and for days I kept a diary of every attempt to use the toilet, every accident, whether it was a number 1 or 2, etc. I kept that up for about a week until DH found my potty training notebook and asked what on earth I was doing. Apparently trying to see some kind of pattern in potty training a 2 year old...I abadoned it after that conversation.

Some memorable ones

a) a mum of a child in a pram on the bus telling my partner that she wouldn't tell my partner his name "as they might be a paedophile" - to be fair, they were just making conversation
b) a mum (with PND, as we later discovered) asking someone who looked a bit odd to leave a party "as she was upsetting my child" - it wasn't even her party
c) a dad asking everyone on a very crowded London bus to stand at least 3 feet away from their new born (this was pre-Covid!)
d) a mum ringing up school admissions and asking me if there would be a place for her child at a vastly oversubscribed school if she applied early enough. I explained that it didn't work like that in the state sector (you would be surprised how many people think this is the case) and asked how old the child was - "2 weeks" came the reply :-O

I took my PFB to my Dad's whilst I went to an appointment. Bearing in mind I'm one of six and he was a very hands on dad. I went with two sides of A4 instructions, bottles of cool boiled water, enough food and snacks to feed an army and strict instructions not to give him water from the tap at any point (in fact I boiled the kettle and filled a jug to cool in case he drank the three bottles I had prepared. I expected to be gone less than an hour

I love this thread! Those hormones make us all go a little bit crackers.

DD went to my Mums for a weekend and I made my Mum write down all feeds and nappy changes and naps. Surprisingly she agreed, I must have scared her.

I do remember reading that the HV would want to know how many words he could say at his 18-month check and religiously noting down every new utterance in a numbered list in a Word document, which I printed out to show her. She looked at me as if I were completely insane

I love this!

@AmericanStickInsect - I insisted on my DS having colour-blindness tests done at the hospital when he was about 2 because he could name colours fairly confidently but had started to describe all his toys as 'reen', and I was convinced he had some weird kind of red-green colour-blindness and everything looked green to him. The ophthalmologist very politely went through the motions but said that he was far too young to do a reliable test. A week or two later, DS pointed at a photo of himself and said 'Reen!' and I realised that it was his way of saying his name (a slightly fiddly Welsh name that begins with R and ends with N), and that he'd just been saying that the toys were his

@Laiste

I wouldn't allow horror films on in the evening while DD1 was in the living room with us (fair enough. nasty noises) but then when, for a while after she was 6 months+, and old enough to be upstairs asleep in her room, i still refused to have them on on the TV downstairs

I think if you'd asked me why back then i might have muttered about 'bad vibes'.

I did get over it.

Unbeknownst to me, DH then watched the entirety of a v. gruesome crime drama when he got up with her in the early mornings!

Wouldn't use the electric toothbrush while PFB was in the room, was worried about damaging their hearing.

This thread triggered a memory of an email I sent BIL and SIL - who have two children of their own AND SIL is a trained and highly experienced early years expert - when they were looking after DD overnight. I did at least open it by saying that I trusted them completely and they didn't have to stick to the instructions - but I then went on to write out a detailed schedule (in some places with five minute increments to the timings!) including the following gem about bedtime:

"Give her a cuddle goodnight, put her in her cot, turn on her My Hummy white noise machine (just squeeze its tummy for a few seconds), put her dummy in her mouth and give her a muslin (saying "here's your dummy and here's your cuggy"), then pat her on the tummy and say "Night night precious girl, night night [DD]", turn the light off with your hand still on her tummy, pat her again and say "Night night [DD]" and then walk straight out."

I am cringing myself inside out even reading it.

Just before Covid, I did an 8 week check on a first born (no health concerns). She was dressed head to toe in white frills, her travel system was bright, perfect white, and both parents washed their hands before lifting her out, despite only touching her through her clothes. Bless. I wonder what colour that buggy is now?