I would be a bad mum... if I still lived in Germany! Or: differences in traditions and guidelines

I went to a small park when in Hungary a few years ago, and there was a group of children who looked to be about 5 years old playing, while their two teachers sat on a bench talking. Some of the children even went outside the park. When it was time to go, the two teachers simply stood up and called for the children to follow them. No head counts. There were a few stragglers running to catch up. The teachers would have been sacked in the UK, but it all looked very relaxed.

Germans are obsessed with draughts and the fact that moving from different changes in air temperature will immediately make you sick. A very close German friend when she found out we had air-conditioning in our house in America asked if we weren't constantly getting sick from moving between cold air inside and hot air outside? She explained how while on holiday at LakeConstance/Boedensee they had an air-conditioned cottage and immediately all fell ill.

However this doesn't seem to apply if you rush from the indoor warm pool to the hot pool outside on a winter's day and then immediately into the sauna and then back into the hottub at your local German swimming pool complex. Strange.

Everyone rides bikes including children, very healthy. The same society has machines selling cigarettes on the streets accessible to all age groups. Not uncommon to see Germans smoking a fag while riding their bike on the way to the Spa.

Just thought of a few more.
Boys in tights is very common. I found it weird at first but winter here is very cold so it makes sense.
Sadly, for me anyway, smacking is the norm, even for very small children. I find it hard to make friends with people as most of them smack their kids and it makes me angry. I was told by someone that people here think British kids are spoilt because they're not smacked!
Five year olds play out alone or walk to a friend's alone, which I find shocking. Kids start school at six and often walk home from there alone or with a friend.
Some things are a bit like my own nineteen seventies childhood. I think the better summers do mean kids can be a bit more outdoorsy, which is nice.

On the whole I would say that the USA is more of a child and youth centred culture while Germany is an adult centred culture. When I arrived in Germany that is what first struck me - Wow I am in the land of the Grown-Ups! It was quite a relief.

Interesting that although there is great emphasis in Germany on your children being indendepent at a young age, once they get through secondary level and are in college/university/apprenticeships parents are still financially responsible for them. It is normal to have grown adult children still living at home way into their twenties.

Despite a more structured and disciplined lifestyle I would say German children have more personal freedom than those in the USA and UK. Still considered a very safe society by its citizens, German children can wander at will around their neighborhood and in our case the enormous woods behind our village.

About overdressing: I don't think there is such thing as overdressing. The perception of hot/cold is def cultural. If you are used to tough it out, then of course people from different countries will appear as overdressed.

On the other hand, as an Italian, I used to at so many Brits for moaning in heat waves, when it was never hotter than 26 degrees!

I am British but live in the Czech Rep. Quite a lot of differences I've found.
Most baby girls have their ears pierced. When asked why mine didn't I said I didn't like it. Her first gift from inlaws was earrings.
Temperatures taken anally when she was a baby. I hated it and it made feel very weird.
I didn't give birth here but homebirths are virtually unheard of.
Doctors and nurses generally seem bossier and more brusque although that could just be my take on things.
We live in a small village where I have seen people on scooters with a small child sat infront of them with no helmet on. I see kids in front seats and not in car seats regularly. There seems to be some odd belief that there can't possibly be a car crash or accident in our quiet village.
Weirdly though, in the boiling hot 30 degree plus summer heat you see babies wearing wooly hats. My father in law went mental at the sight of my sockless baby during the boiling hot summer.
Funnily enough though, my Dad used to always go mad about the wet hair and he was a Yorkshireman. It 'gives you pneumonia'.

I now want to live in Norway.

YY tanterose my DH walked an hour to his school all through elementary. It was normal then for kids to accept lifts home from strangers, too.

Eurotrashgirl - Seattle area, pretty crunchy and one of the most highly educated parts of the US.

Good thing in Japan is most ladies toilet cubicles have a small fold-out seat in the corner for you to put your young child in when you are using them.
DH told me you aren't supposed to cut your baby's hair until 1 year old or they won't speak.

one more thing - far from being spoonfed, Japanese children are encouraged to start using chopsticks early. They even have kids chopsticks with easy to use grip function

Sunnysummer I kind of agree with the overdressing in Japan, but on the other hand, they always have the baby's feet bare (so they can control their temperature better)

also in Japan, during pregnancy, you are often VERY strictly monitored about weight gain and get told off for putting too much on.
Conversely, some things that are no-no's in the UK, like eating raw fish, are positively encouraged here, because sashimi is low-fat, high-protein.
Always have to cover your tummy when pregnant - there is a special belly warmer that you have, which you take to the local shrine to have blessed at 5 months or so.
always have to wear socks, even in the summer when it is BOILING hot.

Interesting about Ireland being obsessed with teething - in Japan, teething isn't even a "thing". There is no word for it, no-one thinks your baby is crying because of its teeth coming through - apparently, it just causes the gums to itch a bit, not painful at all. They recommend frozen washcloths as a chewing toy (wet a cloth, squeeze it out, put in freezer, give hard cold cloth to baby to chew on).

Also here in Japan, out and about, I see more babies being held - i.e. not in a pram, not in a sling, just in dad's arms as they walk around the supermarket.

By the time of primary school (starts at age 6), the kids are walking to school by themselves. Famously, if you are Tokyo, you see tiny school children, with enormous backpacks, running through the underground stations to catch their tube train to school!

Great thread!

I was in Romania when mine were babies. Baby rice came with instructions of how to make it up to add to a bottle. Baby food jars (Hipp) came aged "from 9 weeks". Lots of different herbal teas were given to babies - eg fennel tea for colic or wind. We had a honey pharmacy that used to give you different honey depending on the illness. Gripe water had alcohol in it (oh what blessed luck!) and would be made up for you sometimes by the pharmacist.

You had to dress your baby in a snow suit all year round. A hot summer's day with your baby in a pram with a cotton dress and a sun hat, and all the grannies would stop you and tell you off - your baby was cold, would not grow properly, would not be healthy and needed more layers.

Tiny babies were swaddled to make them sleep better.

Oh... agree with the cod liver oil and obligatory weaning porridge mentioned by a pps

I have obviously been living in Norway so long I had forgotten these might seem wierd.

Norway:
Mothers stay in the maternity ward until breastfeeding is well established (if they want to). An extra day or two is no problem.

Babies and children well into school age wear wool underwear for at least half of the year

Not wearing a hat is a bad thing, even in summer

Babies sleep outside, at least down to minus 10 degrees

It is normal to sleep with your windows open at night, even in winter.

Children do not die if they are left at home alone. OK to pop out and leave children at home for a short time from about age 6-7

After school care available until year 4 (age 10). After that children are home alone until parents get home from work.

Knives are tools, not weapons. Children learn to use them at nursery. Axes too.

Children have rain clothes and snow suits and are expected to be outside several hours a day at nursery, even before they can walk. Indoor playtime due to bad weather is an unknown concept. They are expected to keep a set of rain clothes at school.

Nursery playgrounds have rocks and trees. Children climb them, and survive.

Nurseries and schools can take children outdoors without filling out risk assessment paperwork

Breast feeding is the done thing. BF in public is normal.

10 weeks of maternity leave has to be taken by the father, or you lose it.

Children are much less micro-managed than in the UK. Parents just let them get on with things to a greater extent.

English living in the US, at first NYC and now in commuter territory.

In NYC, you either:

Have an elective c-section.
Pump and monitor the number of ounces of milk your baby is getting, or else breastfed with the assistance of a gigantic feeding tent. If breastfeeding, 12 months is the general goal and not the 6 months more common in the UK.
Sleep train using controlled crying at twelve weeks. Ferber is still the sleep training bible of choice.
Buy every contraption known to man to get your child to sleep in a crib.
Absolutely 100% use a "paci" (dummy).
What the hell is baby-led weaning?
What the heck does a midwife do?
Enroll them in baby classes for music/gym etc. from a young age.
Send yourself insane by applying for a dozen preschools for the "2s Program" (preschools which have a lower acceptance rate than Harvard University).

Or you live downtown or in Brooklyn and:
Co-sleep for many years
Breastfeed for many years
Knit all your kids' clothes
Plan to unschool or homeschool
Encapsulate your placenta

Connecticut is much more like type one NYC parent. Very conventional, with parents calling their paediatrician for the slightest thing (no-one goes to a GP for their kids). I am considered quite odd for not having my baby on a schedule, for not using a pacifier, and for having used a midwife rather than an OBGYN.

Honey what part of the US were you in?

Israeli kids are feral. No one ever says no to them! But they still seem to grow up quite mature (auto correct said Maureen - ooerr) and well balanced.

Yes, I liked (mostly) how people just come to children and talk to them or touch them. My little very white skinned, blue eyed, blond curly haired child had strangers follow him and pick him up, take photos (had whole busload chase him up a beach).

I sounded critical earlier with my comments on smacking, shouting, car seats,ver tutoring, etc - but I understand they love their children and just have a different way.

Peppin .... I usually put DS in a pull up if I need to change him when we're out, and change him on my lap/standing up somewhere discreet. His christening, in a very posh restaurant with no highchairs and no changing facilities, I put 2 rubbish bins together with a change mat over.

Often mums (not me) will wait until they get home. Always remember my DN having done a hummer of a poo, and me telling SIL. Was summer and boiling hot, yet SIL said she'd leave it until we got home (talking in about 30mins time if not longer). I think DH and I shamed her into changing her then, hated to think about her poor sore bottom sitting in a pooey nappy in a boiling hot car.

YY to peanuts and weaning in Israel

Great thread btw.

I'm German and had 2 dc there, then moved to the UK and had another one.

I think I was more the weirdo over here, having a proper Fußsack in my pram, which was fleece lined.

I didn't do any baby led weaning. I breastfed exclusively for 6 months, but can honestly say I had zero bf support here in the uk, and loads in Germany.

All our children slept in our bed when they were little. They had a cot in our room but slept between dh and me. We have German style separate duvets and the babies were in their sleeping bags.
I had no end of comments about that from English friends.

The wrapping up in Germany is understandable, I think. When my eldest was little, and born in winter, we had -15 degrees for weeks.

I grew up skiing every single day in Winter after school. On my own, aged 8 upwards. Together with loads of other kids. I walked to school aged 6.

I hate the fact that the roads in the uk aren't really safe for children, especially riding bikes.

When in Germany I get abuse if I cross an empty street when the lights are red. Been here too long