Your most batshit parenting moments?

Also I used an app to document every single feed/nappy/bath/sleep of pfb. I felt I had to monitor her routines and wanted to see how long her feeds were and how often she was pooping etc. I did this for about 10 months.

With dd2 I did this for around 2-3 days and then cba.

When I came home with dd1, I felt so overwhelmed and felt I couldn't be away from her for even a second and starting panicking about how I'd ever get a shower again! I genuinely didn't know what to do with her.
It never occurred to me that dh could watch her while I was in the bathroom. 🙄

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners
My 81 yr old father still does this to me in my late 40s

This thread is making me smile and feel sad in equal measure. I had PND and this is bringing back a lot of the irrational things I did with DS, despite already having a much older DD (15 year gap). I still don't think I've truly got over the damage it did. I should have just got a dog

I gave my PFB a bath, I was so insanely scared of doing it, I’d made my mum do it up until this point. She was 4 weeks old, I bathed her, sloshed water across her face by accident. She screamed, I started hysterically wailing, got her out of the bath and wrapped her in all the clothes I was wearing whilst hysterically calling to my mum that I’d drowned her, and then stayed awake for a full 48 hours checking for signs of secondary drowning. My mum looked a bit worried because I’d gone batshit. She was repeating over and over that my baby was fine, but I couldn’t be convinced. I even phoned my other half in tears. It turns out my mum had phoned him first and told him there was nothing to worry about, but to give him credit where it’s due, he stayed on the phone listening and reassuring me. I then accused them all of not caring enough. Being a mum makes you batshit I’m sure 😂

During the last heat wave I googled hotels with air conditioning near to me hysterically in the middle of the night, convinced DD would overheat (despite her being sound asleep next to me, and generally coping pretty well with the heat). Became all the more hysterical that there was only one hotel in our town that had a/c and the website wouldn't let me book it for that night as it was past midnight.

I got so used to walking on the road side when DS started walking so that he was less likely to be injured if a car mounted the pavement, that I carried on do it. Last week we were in London and DS (a strapping 19 year old built like a brick shithouse and nearly a foot taller than me) laughed at me when I tried to make him swap places so he was in the"safe" position

I was 18 when I had my first DC and it was at the time when SIDS was on TV a lot during my pregnancy. I was so utterly paranoid that even though I had followed all the advice r.e. mattress, no cot bumper, sleeping with toes touching bottom of the cot etc... that I slept with the cot right beside my side of the bed and my arm through the cot bars with my hand on her stomach for 18months!!!!! I was knackered, thankfully calmed down a bit for DC2 & 3

Ah I have remembered another one. DS’s second Christmas. He was nearly 2. I bought him a tea set and some chopping fruit stuff. Unbeknownst to me (because we hadn’t discussed it) my lovely sister had also bought a tea set for him. She’s a lovely auntie and we have a fab relationship. I cried when the gifts were opened. She rolled her eyes at me a bit. I was such a dickhead about it all and huffed and puffed. God I am cringing thinking about the whole ‘but I wanted to give him his first tea set’ tantrum I had. Her own kids were well into their teens by then so she was quite indulgent of my lunacy.

These are brilliant. It’s a wonder any of us are in one piece to tell the tale!

One which makes me cringe was being on holiday on the south of France with my inlaws when dd was maybe 18 months old. It was hot and she was thirsty and had drunk all the water in the bottle I brought. My wonderful MIL skipped into a shop and returned with a bottle of mineral water. For reasons I genuinely don’t recall I insisted that it had to be Evian as I had googled that it was lower in sulfates. My DH was perplexed and tried reasoning with me but I kept wittering on about salt. My MIL without any further comment purchased a bottle of Evian. It still makes me absolutely cringe.

Excellent post. I was obsessed with routines too and Gina Ford. She had me frantically expressing between feeds and obsessing over the thickness, colour and quantity of my expressed breast milk. I was pureeing vegetables I've never even eaten for weaning times and DD1 didn't touch chocolate until she was well past 18mths. We had a 'bedtime routine' with soft lighting, peaceful music, bath, story and feed and woe betide anyone or anything that got in the way of it!!

She never slept well (probably because of all the lights and music and rocking and attention!) and we spent many hours stroking and patting her and as she got a bit older, holding her hand through the cot bars. DD2 got none of this as I was still bloody pandering to DD1! It came to a head one night when I put DD2 back to bed around 2am after night feed (having stayed awake waiting for said feed because what's the point of going to bed early just to wake up 2 hours later?!) only to find DD1 up and waiting for me. I was so utterly exhausted I refused to pat/stroke/stay any longer (she was nearly 4) and in the end I found her curled up on the floor by my bed in the morning. (Talk about guilt!)

Cue several weeks of her sleeping on a duvet and pillow on the floor next to me before she got bored of that and realised her bed was a far comfier option!

I also find it hilarious that I would be so precise about sterilising bottles but would whip out a breast with nipple gel and fluff from the breast pads which probably had old milk crust added in for good measure and jab it in her mouth. Ain't nothing sterile about that!

Didnt keep dd's toothbrush in the bathroom in case microscopic poo particles contaminated it.

Made my MIL wear a surgical mask a week after she had gotten over a cold and wanted to hold dd.

Went home from work because someone else had tonsillitis and didn't want to risk catching it!

Wiped every single swing or trolley dd sat in with antibacterial wipes, then again with normal wipes to wipe away the chemicals. Then a normal muslin to wipe away wetness

There were more, so many more!

I was obsessed with routine.

One evening DD rolled off the bed onto the floor. I remember thinking I should get her checked at A & E.

But it was nearly bathtime and I was worried about the routine

DH won't flush the toilet at night when DS is sleeping. This is batshit because DS is our wecond born, we never worried about flushing noises waking DD (mind you she was never asleep), DS is almost 3 years old, and most importantly... DS has reasonably significant hearing loss, wears a hearing aid, and couldn't hear if 10 toilets all flushed at once!

Not letting my DC's have chewing or bubblegum. I relented in their early teens only for them both to tell me they'd been having it for years.
And sending DS (about 7 at the time) to school after he'd fallen off his scooter the evening before. In my defence he seemed fine. Until after school when he came home...a visit to A and E showed a fractured collar bone.

We had a special glass we kept handy to test for meningitis. Probably used it 2 or 3 times a day week

And for the first couple of years, I wore the same clothes in terms of quantity of layers and length of sleeves so I'd know if she was too hot or cold, so interesting to read on here that baby is supposed to wear a couple of layers more than you. Mortified

I had a baby who slept through the night from just shy of 6 weeks. Solid 7-7.
I used to pick her up from her cot at 10pm, 2am and 5am to feed her, because I was paranoid she was not getting enough milk. I actually set an alarm. And then again, at 11, 3am and 6 am to check her nappy, just in case she is sitting in her own poo. God!

Our DS was born end of Feb and our first proper walk out and about with the pram was first week of March so not exactly known for sunburn risk.

I knew that babies were very sensitive to sun having never been exposed to it before but got carried away and was very worried he'd been burnt because the sunlight got on his face a couple of times. His face was just a bit red from crying.

I wanted to add mine to this spectacular list.

Our first floor flat had a Juliette balcony and I had a chair positioned close enough so that when the doors were open, they just missed the chair. When DS came along I sold my dining room table so I could move the chair back 8 ft from the window just incase my preemie, newborn baby could somehow fall out. The doors were always locked and I don't even think we had they key.

I also constantly carried around a room thermometer (paper version and my groegg if I had space) because I never believed one.

I also remember an elderly lady coming over to my pram with a shiny £2 coin and I threw myself over the pram to protect him. I was so startled at my reaction (so was DH....and so was the lady!) that I cried then and there.

Enjoying this thread. 😀 I insisted on sterilising all PFB's rattles in our microwave steriliser.... when they inevitably melted, I sterilised the steriliser with those tablets that dissolve because I was worried the steriliser wouldn't be... well we.... sterile 😳
I also sterilised all things I could when cooking... & worries that I couldn't sterilise my pans because they were too big 🤦🏽‍♀️ PFB is almost 20 & has clearly survived my bat💩 ways and turned out commendably 'normal' in slight of them.... pleased to report the 3 subsequent DC's have also made it... without having everything ----melted ... sterilised!

I nominate the SIL from the current thread where she is insisting the OPs approx 6m old baby not be allowed to sit at the Christmas dinner table in a high chair because this will cause her PFB 8 week old to be left out as he/she cannot sit in a high chair too.

THAT is the most batshit PFB thing I've ever read, I think!

I love this thread, especially the poster who was putting her strapping 20 month old in the sink as she couldn't bear to put him in the bath, crying laughing at that one, good on your Mum for teaching you how to give your DC a bath

I have one, I have done a fair few batshit newborn PFB ones myself but this is from my SIL. We were visiting my PILs and SIL was there also with her DS, he was 2. I was giving my 2 DC (2.5 & 4.5 yrs) a bath after dinner, say 6.30 p.m. They were happily playing away in the bath, I was in the middle of washing their hair - heads all bubbly type of situation. SIL walks into the bathroom and says it's her DS's bathtime, I say sure, he can jump in with my 2 or wait 5 mins and I'll be finished with them. She says no, her DC won't go in the bath with my 2 (as he's PFB and cannot share a bath with others) and he has to go in right now as it's part of his routine. I asked if she wanted me to pull my 2 DC out of the bath right that instant to allow her access and she said "yes". I was so shocked and decided I wanted to prove a point at how ridiculous she was being (this was one of many batshit things she did that holiday - loads more since to be fair) and instead of me insisting she wait 5 mins I, annoyed, whipped my 2 DC out of the bath, covered head to toe in bubbles, and marched them out of the bathroom. Poor things didn't have a clue what was going on. She proceeded to empty the bath and refill it with fresh bath water, PFB cannot share water. My MIL and DH were at me bringing two half washed children out of the bath. I explained that SIL needed the bath right that instant, for the routine to be exactly right. I wrapped the DC in towels and waited for her to finish her PFB bath and popped my 2 back in when she was finished. She was completely clueless about the whole thing, thinking she had done nothing wrong. MIL was mortified for me! DH was fuming. SIL can be a PITA.

Moving a thread to classics kills the post, anymore?

• peeled grapes
• Part chewed apple for them
• Took a baby out in at least 3 layer, including a snowsuit, then buttoned my coat around him
• Used 3 cat nets simultaneously
• Years later, prepared lunchboxes for a pop concert , which was considered hilarious

Don’t forget to use the sterilising tongs Hebe just to be sure. 😂