Your most batshit parenting moments?

My first had terrible silent reflux (medicated under hospital paediatricians bad) when she was a baby and the hospital asked me to, for a week, write down volumes of milk drunk just to check she was getting enough. They meant over a day. So just 700ml a day, 500ml then next etc.

Well, after the week I thought this was a marvellous idea as I could see exactly what was going on. So I persisted in writing down every since feed, nappy, and sleep until she was NINE MONTHS OLD. Not only me but DH too and anyone else who looked after her. They must have thought I was ducking crazy but they humoured me.

It went like this:

6am Nappy wee
6:05 90ml milk and medication
6:30 70ml milk
7:00 Nappy poo
7:15 90ml milk
9am Nap 1 hr
10:30 Nappy wee
11:00 120ml milk

Etc etc etc.

Then I would add it all up and get a total for the day, and make a note of the daily totals to check and compare week by week.

Definitely had some postnatal anxiety going on there.... I remember a HV coming for a routine check and her being horrified and telling me to stop it immediately that I was going to send myself round the bend. I ignored her. She was right!

I still have the notebooks. It makes me feel really quite sad to look at them! I wish I could go back, give myself a hug (or a shake!) and tell me to chill the fuck out!

Baby 2, no such nonsense although she wasn't ill. She fed when she wanted, napped when she wanted and I've no clue when she went to the toilet!

And at hitting yourself on the forehead 😂😂😂

😂😂😂 at overflowing from the eyes

2 of mine-I had a mild electric shock whilst pregnant, the state of sheer panic I went into was unreal-full on hyperventilating, hysteria that I’d killed the baby. DH phoned the midwife who just said ‘nah, they’ll be fine’

I banned Tom and Jerry for a long time thinking it was far too violent!

Police helicopter one is special!

Also like the town planners shade one.

Hahaha, oh dear. I've done many of these things too. Hands up to the cotton wool balls and cooled water thing.

I also ironed PFBs clothes...all of them. Including vests. I thought people might think I was a terrible mother if he didn't have beautiful, non-wrinkled outfits.

My best moment of new mum batshittery was waiting until the community midwife came round before we took PFB outside. We honestly didn't know if we were 'allowed' to take him out yet as he hadn't had all his jabs..

In my defence, we'd only looked after dogs before

She was very kind but you could tell she was trying not to laugh.

Oh the police helicopter 🤣🤣🤣

Great thread! Really glad that many of you are crazier than me.

Cotton wool and cooled boiled water for nappy changes, later I would warm the wipes on the radiator. Nappy would be placed on baby with millimeter precision and symetry.

After baby arrived early, bought the whole baby isle in home bargains, got concerned the stuff might be sub standard as it was cheap so bought same in Boots as it was expensive thus better. One pack of each kind of wipes, nappies (sizes too), basically got everything in every possible variation, just in case.

Very few photos early on as didn't want camera flash to hurt baby.

Obviously we kept a feed/shit/pee/nappy diary, I insisted we used the finest Japanese paper and filled using a fountain pen, with great ink, so that midwife didnt think we'd neglect baby (OMG!) Minute by minute updates, accurate feed amounts, pee noted, shit would get a review of colour, etc. The diary lasted a year. I would get told off for writing HS (huge shit) instead of BM (bowel movement) as the midwife would think we were neglectful and common!

Would scrub up before midwife visits, Id put on a shirt and jacket... again to ensure midwife didnt think we neglected baby!

Bottle sterilization was done scientifically. Nothing touched sterilized stuff or would be redone, this included drips from inside the sterilizer landing on bottles within. Take out 1 bottle etc, the remaining ones would need redoing as air would have touched them.

Everything dropped would get wiped or sprayed with dettol every time.

Baby was losing weight (she wasnt but midwife couldnt use the scales). Midwife suggested 2 hourly feeds would help. I fed her exactly every 2 hours. Night and Day, for a whole week. Sometimes shed be asleep, or full... but midwife said every 2 hours. When midwife turned up again she clarified her orders, having only meant every 2 hours during the day!

2 hour feeding fuked me up... no sleep etc... one time I was feeding her and I must have dripped milk in her eye, had a real panic that Id filled her with so much milk she was overflowing through her eyes. A quick check for leakage from ears too reassured me.

For the first YEAR myself and DP took it in turns to be with baby... 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We would take shifts at night, one slept while other sat watching baby sleep. Baby lived in living room for first year, we all lived in the living room for a year. So literally for the first year she was always watched by one of us!

Obviously I had a breathing mirror and a meningitis glass always within reach.

I was also scared when out that a Red Kite would steal baby, I got very paranoid about arial assaults.

Im 2 years in now and baby is still alive and still in my care... so all good!

Fun fact:: it's not no tears as in crying, it's no tears as in tearing your hair

oh stray socks. thats pure gold. decaf earl grey.. ha ha ha ha ha

I remember being in a fit of rage whenever dd1 had just fallen asleep and there was noise coming from outside. When she was really small we lived next to a community centre that had all sorts of classes on up until 9pm, the woman or men would come outside afterwards and talk/laugh really loudly. The worst was the elderly lot who would have a tap dancing class with the doors open for ventilation.. I’d be peering out from behind my blinds like a mad woman cursing them and their laughter..the ironic part is that dd would NEVER wake up

Grammar thanks for your clarification, I was just about to google Bashir Syndrome in confusion.

@definitelyshouldknowbetter I did that too.

Once my small toddler bumped his head on a door frame whilst cruising. So I deliberately smacked my head on the same door frame to gauge the pain level and whether I should get him checked out.

He was (and will always be) my PFB

My mum, back in the 80s panicked because I ate a pine needle off the Christmas tree as a baby, called the local hospital asking if I’d be ok (and hearing stifled laughter on the other end of the phone) and ate one herself to see what happened 😂

Oh god I did so many of these. And that was after spending ages on MN confident I'd not be a batshit crazy parent.

I was double batshit. I remember being furious with London's town planners that they had not considered that some streets had NO SHADE.

Yes, non-existent the town planners from the 16th century. I swear if they'd had an email address I would have crucified them.

Will no one think of the babbbbieeesss.

No. No you batshit loon. They didn't.

When DS was about 4 months old or so he was holding a toy hammer and hit himself on the forehead. I panicked about “head injuries” and the possible consequences.

So I hit myself with the hammer in the forehead (harder to “compensate” for the age difference obvs) to see how much it hurt and to see if I felt any “different”.

I’m embarrassed to admit I did it several times to be as “thorough” as possible.

Needless to say I ended up with the red forehead and not him. However, this led me to the happy conclusion that he would be ok.

I wanted DD to love animals as much as I do, so I arranged to borrow the neighbour's dog once a week so they could bond with each other. DD was two months old.

The point of the Cure song is that the narrator is (foolishly) too proud to admit to being emotionally vulnerable, and he loses out in relationships b/c of that, so the song is arguing that boys should feel free to cry.

My stupid parenting things are too many to list, but not about being PFB. Just ignorant how other folk expected things to happen.

SparklingBrook it’s because the chemicals from wipes might irritate their little tush. Except, for most babies they completely don’t.

Aah, this is bringing tears of laughter to my eyes. What a super thread. Thank you for cheering up my day.

What was the cooled boiled water/cotton wall balls about? it's not like you are cleaning up a super sterile area.

I may once have heard myself say in a park cafe when ordering for my toddler, 'he only drinks organic, de-caff Earl Grey'. I am dying right now.

Pmsl at these. We had one stair, in the hall of our third floor flat. And a stairgate on it 😂😂

What a wonderful thread.

I was one of those who used cooled boiled water and cotton wool to do nappy changes, for months. What a faff! And we had a little notebook where we recorded every feed (and how many minutes long it was), wee and poo for the first few weeks. I also used to use the hairdryer to warm up her cot before we put her in it.

Next baby will not be getting this level of servitude

Batshit, not Bashir...