Best parenting tip you ever got?

"It's only water" told to me by my Great Gran who was 99years old when she died, my son was 14months old at the time and we have used baths, water fights, dancing in the rain, puddle splashes, paddling in rivers and the sea to help with any mood and situation you could think of. I hardly ever say no to getting wet, regardless if it's fully clothed or stripping off and always have a towel and change of clothing in the car.

Don’t follow any advice that tells you your baby has to eat and sleep in a schedule. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling like a failure because your baby doesn’t sleep like all the books tell you. Or because they won’t fall asleep themselves or need to be held. I drove myself mental with it all until one day I just thought, right, I’ll do what I know works and that’s feeding to sleep, dummies, rocking, patting and cuddling.

I had many contact naps when I was glued to the sofa but I realise now that they were important. It meant I had to chill out and rest and my daughter felt safe and content.

If that’s what works for you, don’t let anyone make you feel bad or tell you you’re making a rod for your own back. They’re likely old school and don’t understand child development.

This is definitely the opposite of my advice. Contact nap for as long as you need to because there’s nothing more stressful than trying to put a baby down to sleep and they won’t do it but someone once told you they should.

My best parenting tip is have a blast kids last! Don’t forget to enjoy your life

Best thing a grandma can say is nothing

Don’t they have lots of questions? Mine would be asking lots of questions. Does she claim to be monitoring their internet activity too?

Never, ever say anything you don't follow through. I've sometimes regretted something I've said, but I've always carried it through. Of course this applies to treats too!

My next door neighbour tells her kids she is a secret professional computer hacker working for a secret department.
👍She never has any problems with her kids visiting unsuitable X sites, gossiping, bullying etc etc.
Not saying this would be a problem anyway but….

It's not a competition. It's okay to feel tired, outmatched, and just beat down sometimes. Admit this. Tell somebody else this(especially family) and ask for help.

Its just a phase 😊

Don't lose touch with yourself and who you are apart from being a mother. Have fun, play games and be silly when you can, and form on the things that matter.

Put your newborn in their own cot in their own room awake from day one.

We did this with all 3 of our dc, and each one slept amazingly well. By 6 weeks they were sleeping 10pm to 6am.

Pick your battles.

Don't

Funny that boyh sides get trotted out as advice for newborns

I was told with ds (first born) to go with the flow (didn't have a huge impact on our lives really, plus lockdown happened when he was 7 months old, so I ended up not going back to work until he was almost 15 months, meaning our life was getting up and going to sleep on a very relaxed schedule) but advice I've been given regarding dc2 (not yet here) is because we already have a routine with ds, the baby would do best to fit around the life we already have, especially as we have school starting in September 🤷‍♀️

I was also told that the baby should fit in with our routine.

It worked well snd it meant we still had our life!

Sorry didn’t realise this was another platform for social media idiots to take things out of context!

Suppose it depends what your life and routine is.
I know a young couple who were determined parenthood would not clip their wings and baby would learn to live their life and have amazing experiences while they rocked living to the max with baby in tow. They were a passionate and ambitious young couple. Very lovely and devoted parents with a vision of this brilliant life they would lead as a family, while very keen a baby should fit round them not the other way round.
They took baby skiing in a papoose on their back, arrived at the bottom of the mountain all hot from the exertion, sadly baby had not being exerting themselves at all and had a face of blasting chilled wind in their face all the way down. Baby was dead. 😭
So being you and living life your way is great, but it needs to be balanced with realistic needs of an infant and denying the limitations effect of creating a life suitable for a baby is foolhardy.

@Kermitgirl81 how interesting. The best rip I got (all those years ago) was to adjust to the baby's routine and go with the flow. It all worked much better when I did that.

We are still going with their flow though and they are 28 and 24 :)

Best parenting tip I ever had is a baby/child should fit around your life.
As we all know when they come along life itself changes anyway but the more we change of our own lives the less routine they actually have.
routine is key from about 3 months to the teenage years so the better we are at maintaining our lives the with routine the better they are ☺️

Very curious why for this one??