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

My parents are Indian but I was born and brought up here in the UK. DH is white and English. My SIL (married to DH's brother) gave me the Baby Whisperer when pregnant and loves it. I (in my naivete) thought it was the manual for bringing up a baby and spent ages trying to put DD down in the crib and following the breastfeeding routine. I got seriously depressed, was nearly the end of breastfeeding and then thought 'sod it' and just went with my indian instincts. My English DMIL and DSIL think I'm completely mad for the following:

1. DH and I don't leave DD to cry - even for 5 minutes.
2. I'll (and DH) rock, cuddle and sing her to sleep (I also used to feed her to sleep before she self weaned at bedtime) - they think we've made a rod for our backs. What they don't realise is that we actually really enjoy this time with her (we are also slightly evil for working full time and commuting).
3. We co-sleep with her (she's 14 months). Again, I love it - that's when we bond but I'm also really lucky that she doesn't kick or squirm. This is the way she also sleeps through.
4. I didn't wean DD until she was 6mo and I didn't puree everything (spoon refuser!).

Halfling I think it's very true that the generations have a bigger gulf than cultures sometimes. My DM and DF are both older parents (they were around 40 when I was born) and they think breastfeeding is so important for as long as the baby/child wants it. DM even remembers nursing from her mum (so she must have been at least 3yo) and gets a little teary - it was a really special bond for her. When DD wasn't really that interested in solids at first, my DParents were the ones reassuring me that she got plenty of nutrition from BM.

I'm going to nominate this for classics. :) Great thread.

I know a Nigerian woman who used to chew her baby's food and spit it back into her mouth (in a mama-bird-like, nurturing way) when she didn't have baby food to hand.

Also another that sucked the snot out from a baby's nose rather than use a tissue.

Both sound vile but actually for a baby it's probably more effective than using unsterilised utensils and rough tissues.

I remembered something else - practically bubble wrapping kids

When Dnieces were about two I bought them (an age appropriate) wooden toy - I think it was an ark with animals. They were playing away nicely and one of them managed to nut herself with a wooden elephant. Cue a short lived burst of tears which abated fairly quickly but I was descended on by dbro, his wife and my mum who confiscated the ark for being 'too dangerous'. I just sat there slightly stunned.

I also had the whiskers cut off any cuddly toy by my dm in case I poked myself in the eye with them.

The waiter considered for a moment and then recommended the lemon sole. I love it.

My parents and grandma are Indian but live in the uk.
When my dbros twins were born my gran was aghast that they'd need carseats to come home from the hospital ('why? She has a perfectly good set of arms to carry them. Plus when enormouse was born 25 years ago we put her on the parcel shelf/in the footwell/boot)
Also much alarm when my dbro changed nappies and made up bottles as men didn't do that. Men also can't know woman have periods.

I remember the kajal in the eyes a pp mentioned. To make the eyes more beautiful, apparently.

An old Indian lady I met a few days after DS1 was born told me I needed to shave off (his full head of dark curly) hair so it would grow back thicker. Needless to say, I didn't and DS1 has so much hair he needs monthly trims.

I also shouldn't insist on DS1 being in his own bed at 2.5 and DS2 being put down in his own crib. They need to be in bed with me, whenever I decide to go to sleep is fine. DNieces needed a double bed each, with a parent each to do this. They're almost 5 and as far as I'm aware still do this. (I'm not against co sleeping btw, did it with DS for 10 months but bed sharing with him as a toddler would mean no one would sleep)

My spanish cousins' babies are weaned on cereals mixed into their bottles (with the teats cut bigger) until they move onto beef steak chops at around the age of two years. One had his secons birthday party in a cider house.

Hi my Dh is Albanian and i am English I have managed to shock by
Not dressing my children in enough clothes - I helped my niece with the loo and she seven layers on and it was in the late teens
Bottle feeding my youngest - this caused great concern and we had to explain the regulations etc
Putting my children in their own rooms at 6 months
Having a routine with bedtime at 7 - unheard of
Blw - this again caused great concern
Having slim children - the fatter they are the healthier they are. My nephew is 8 and. 46kg
Saying no - but it makes them cry
Putting them in car seats - safer in my arms apparently
Not agreeing to circumcise my boys - culture rather religion
Putting baby down on rug on floor
Having toys out and leaving them to play

With regards to food the only thing we agree on is no honey before one other than that we are at loggerheads. They see no harm in salty food or excess sweets or chocolate. No lumps before 2. My sil, who lives here, says she can't believe the variety they eat or that I give them the same food as us. My boys are one and four.

To be honest we did get strange looks from my English in laws about BLW, whilst my German mother thought it was a great idea. So whilst the English don't tend to worry about minute details of what's in the food, the idea that a 5 months old can just chew on an asparagus spear instead of being spoonfed mush does discombobulate them too.

I'm loving this thread!

I got horrified looks from my French relatives at my BLW 11 month old eating proper "adult" French food (smart girl).

Then at 20 months when I was pregnant again and still BFing her, I thought my older aunties were going to pass out when I mentioned it! My younger cousins were less visibly shocked, but still very surprised. oh and DD was the only child among 5, including some 2 years older, who ate her food without any fuss

YY to the tights - we also got told off at the nursery for not having wooly tights for DS and once again they are incredibly practical.

Oh and the wool breast pads (definitely a wool theme in Norway) when I read up on them and started using them they are brilliant - self antibacterialising and you guessed it incredibly practical.

My relatives live in Italy. I think because the birth rate is so low the children are total little prince and princesses. You often see one child + parents + four grandparents + several aunts/uncles out and about. The child is never having a particularly nice time as they are trussed up like a 17th century aristocrat and being shouted at not to scuff their 200 Euro shoes.

Agree that state employees are having a laugh. One relative discovered gleefully that her ds had a milk allergy. This afforded her five years off work.

And yy to the eternally young children. I know so many 40-somethings living in the sitting room. Mamas feel really sorry for anyone who has actually got married or had a baby and consequently feel the need to do absolutely everything for them.

Bulgaria - one rule I liked for clothing for babies - one layer less in the summer, one layer more in winter.

DP from Scotland made dd wear a balaclava through most of her babyhood (in London).

I would not call British way slack arse, quite the opposite actually. During playdates or similar, British parents are supposed to hover over children, interact with them constantly, follow them around playgrounds, manage issues with other children etc. Anything else and you will read threads on MN about neglectful parents just sitting there, while someone else had to entertain their children.

French children are just left to their own devices while parents have coffee. Anything else and you're an overprotective hen mother, who won't allow the child to become independent.

The WHO feature is called Great Expecatations and was from 2005, it's still on their website.

I lived and worked in Germany for a couple of years a fair few years ago and was shocked at the rigidity and the obedience to rules over there.

Having to stand at the pedestrian crossing until the green man came on despite a totally empty road was completely confusing!

No experience of child rearing there but the slack arse way us Brits drag free and intuitive way we bring up our children must be most confusing!

This thread is great.
There was something on the World Health Organisation website a few years ago that followed 6-7women across the world, they had an interview during pregnancy, after the birth and when the child was a few months old. That was really interesting.

In Poland:
Babies and children wear hats, covering their ears well, even in July if it happens to be slightly windy.
You are supposed to keep strict diet when breasfeeding, so for instance cabbage, beans are not allowed as they might give baby a tummy ache. The list of forbidden foods goes on and on (including dougnuts, cherries, any fried food, chocolate, etc). But apparently milky tea (not normally drunk) is very good for mother's milk.
Tights (for both boys and girls) are a must, even when the weather is mild, or if child stays indoors (it's a winter outfit and simply must be worn).

In Algeria
I got stange looks for putting my children to bed at a resonable time of 8 pm. Also insisting that my younger one is in a car seat got me bad reputation. They thought I was strange because I always made sure my 6 year old had her seatbelt fastened when travelling in the car (completely alien idea to them).

Mine were born in the UK but I lived in germany when they were little. Mainly I got fed up with having to see a paediatrician for everything.

I do remember going for dinner in France when DS was about 13 months and asking what they had as a child's menu, thinking they would find us some hideous chicken nugget or something. The waiter considered for a moment and then recommended the lemon sole .

Once deboned, it was indeed just the job.

DBro is having a baby with his Hungarian gf. She's panicked because she had to wait to register with a gp before getting a midwife appointment. Apparently over there they get a check up when they discover the pregnancy to 'make sure they are capable of carrying a child' - I have assured my bro that this is rally unnecessary and pointless, but it must be really odd if you come from a country where pregnancy and birth is very medicalised, and probably paid for, to a country where there is a very non interventionist approach like the uk.

Oh I forgot the aerosol thingy. I am the only person in town with neither an aerosol or a hairdryer.

lol- and yes, yes, yes to the uncle Tom Cobbley and all going to the doctors.

I was, at 37, rather chuffed though to hear the woman in the opposite bed's mother (who of course stayed all night in the hospital with her) whisper theatrically loudly "is she a ragazza madre?" (about me) My youthful good looks I expect....

My friend, aged 33, still takes her own mother with her to everything because "I'm so young the teacher/doctor/hairdresser/greengrocer won't take me seriously". Not while you keep letting them think you are some sort of care in the community case love, no they won't.

Another friend took her dd for the annual check up every year, on the child's actual birthday. Well, it was the 3yr check wasn't it? So had to be done on that day....

Oh yes, the hospital required me to weigh my newborn before and after each feed. Only when she began to regain weight was I allowed to leave. Not helped by her being kept in a nursery (in which the nurses had full on screaming matches over rota assignment) and no possibility of rooming in.

Your child requires a medical certificate (€20 cash to the pediatra) before being allowed to register for any kind of sporting activity - including baby swim classed.

• Local women in Hong Kong still have a confinement period of a month post-birth where they eat certain foods, can't wash their hair or bathe and have to stay inside.

• Babies under 6 weeks old don't go out. My colleague didn't take her baby out for 6 months. That is totally normal. When the baby finally went out, it screamed the place down because it was so overstimulated.

• Yes, yes, to levels of clothing. We get "cold weather warnings" here when the temp dives below 15 degrees centigrade. Chinese grannies will chastise you if you go out in August without a baby blanket on the push chair.

• If your kids aren't free reading in English and Chinese aged 5, they may as well apply to wipe tables McDonalds now because that's all they'll be good for. Most of DS's Chinese classmates at his "free play" focused English Kindy lead a double life and go to Mandarin kindy in the afternoon where they copy characters in flawless calligraphy.

• Seat belts are wholly optional. Most people don't have cars and you can just get in a cab with a baby/ toddler on your lap or in a sling.

• Also, not a parenting one, but my helper, who is Filipina, won't iron if her hands have recently been wet, as she thinks it makes you sick.

YY to Malaysian bedtimes being late! DH was that my relatives were making arrangements to meet us, including 4-yo DTDs, for meals after shopping centre closing times so after 10pm. It may have led to a few, um, domestic arguments between us

And also the spoon-feeding of mush until an advanced age. We had people staring and commenting (impressed, mostly) that DTDs were completely self-feeding. OTOH, there is no acceptance of food fussiness (good) nor any concept of allergies (bad). No special children's menus except in very upmarket, Westernised, restaurants.

Oh yes and in morocco a 12 hour labour is unheard of if you give birth in a private hospital (and if you can afford it you do, public hospitals are...not great). SIL had a c sec because she had been labouring for almost 12 hours and they were all panicked it was going on too long. I know an English ex pat who almost gave birth in the car park because she had a dread of going in too early and being pressured into a c sec.
You don't get birth partners either. Fathers would be absolutely not allowed but you can't even take your mum in. Other SIL was 19, terrified, induced birth and had horrible intervention I think because she was unsupported and scared. The midwives shouted at her!