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Original poster

PFB stuff you did that you look back on and cringe.

206 replies

cheesecrack · 21/09/2020 17:13

I remember a thread about the stuff people did for their precious first born that was pretty bonkers.

Please share - I need a laugh.

Mine are:

Knee pads for my precious crawler Hmm

And pre cutting a banana (in half) as I was worried my MIL wouldn’t do it correctly. No idea how I thought my baby could over dose on banana but there you go!

OP posts:
Original poster
cheesecrack · 21/09/2020 20:29

Ah yes the log book. Thrilling reading that had no pattern of anything whatsoever!

OP posts:
Graphista · 21/09/2020 20:35

@WombatChocolate I've been a nanny and a childminder and while I'm not going to post specific examples yes we are very used to pfb instructions and pages of schedules!

Henrysfakebarns · 21/09/2020 20:36

Hand peeled peas to mash... In case pea skin got caught in his throat... Why didn't I just wait until he was old enough to eat them safely as they are? Grin

ilovebagpuss · 21/09/2020 20:37

I was really terrified that when bottle feeding we would burn DD’s mouth. We would never pre make bottles either so we would end up with a hysterical screaming baby while we tried to cool the bottles under a cold tap desperately checking them on our wrists!
Finally realised we could make them up and microwave them carefully without killing her it was a revelation.
God I can still remember swirling it round under the tap in the middle of the night freezing my hands off! What a berk!!

C8H10N4O2 · 21/09/2020 20:37

The sterilising of everything and religious data capture about food, weight, anything which could be measured

#4 chewed on any rag within reach and I had no idea about weight beyond "backache level" or "not yet backache level".

GrumpySausage · 21/09/2020 20:39

When pregnant with my first I remember saying to my mum whilst shopping 'oh I'll never let my kid wear joggers, I'll only dress them in proper clothes'.

Ha. Currently knee deep in ds5's joggers and dd2's leggings. Don't own a pair of 'proper' trousers between them.

Itllbeaninterestingchristmas · 21/09/2020 20:44

I was only going to have wooden or Steiner style toys. these are lethal in the hands of a small child so we only have a few. The house is full of plastic toys

LeafyGreen333 · 21/09/2020 20:45

I didn't wear perfume for the entire first year of pfb's life. I didn't want him to be confused about who I was by smelling different. I have since discovered that it apparently only takes a couple of days for a newborn to recognise your smell and to know you are their mother.

Henrysfakebarns · 21/09/2020 20:45

Oh also when PFB started crawling and would occasionally slip and bump his head, I remember trying to work out how hard a bang it was relative to an adult, and then banging my own head on the floor to test whether he was really hurt! Ashamed to admit I did this several times, and BFP was up without a single tear each time.

Graphista · 21/09/2020 20:47

Hand peeled peas Grin love it!

Even now when I see threads on here about ff mums not making up ahead I think they're making more work for themselves than necessary.

I made up 24 hrs of bottles of an evening, still hated ff though as compared to bf I found it a total pita in the middle of the night as dd was a fussy bugger who wanted it "right now" and would only take it warm and would scream blue murder till she got it! Bf especially while we were still co-sleeping so all I had to do was pop a boob out was so much easier!

Pros and cons to both of course though, ff was good for meaning other people could feed her and that gave me a bit of a break. Especially of a weekend morning as ex and I took turns to have a "lie in" and so at ff point that meant I didn't even have to stir to give a feed so got a proper lie in.

Lookingbackatme · 21/09/2020 20:48

Didn’t bath DS for the first month, or wash his hair, because we were told at ante-natal classes that even water is too harsh for a baby’s skin. He had dried blood flaking and coming off his scalp for the first month as we were only using wet cotton wool balls to clean him Blush

SIL had DNiece and was obsessive about adding info to an App every day - logging feeds, sleep, nappies, grumpy or happy, when she cried and for how long etc. We looked after DNiece while they went to a wedding when she was about 10 months old and we kept getting texts throughout the day and evening saying why hasn’t she had her bottle, nappy changed, a nap, is she happy or crying etc. It was every hour or two, and follow up texts asking the same question if it wasn’t answered in ten minutes. We had our own DS, then aged 20 months, to care for too so logging an App wasn’t top priority, but we were caring for DNiece she was our own (she was told all is fine and followed her instructions but that wasn’t good enough). She carried on logging until DNiece was about 2.5 years.

Clevs · 21/09/2020 20:51

@icedaisy

I have hit myself over the head with a object after she did so to see how sore it was.

Ps my favourite from the last thread was the lady who got into the pushchair, put the rain over on and made her husband hose it to see if it was waterproof.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Frazzled13 · 21/09/2020 20:57

Everything for DS1 was home steamed and mashed at home. My freezer was filled with pots of all sorts of concoctions.

Is that a pfb thing to do? I made purées because it was cheaper than buying it.
We do still (DD is 15 months) avoid flushing the loo at night. Although I think this is less “pfb” and more “pm” (precious mummy) because I cannot deal with her waking up after I’ve spent ages getting her to sleep!

Browniegal13 · 21/09/2020 21:00

I made my pfb an album of photos of us for when she went to nursery. In case she forgot us ...

OhTheRoses · 21/09/2020 21:01

As wanky as listening to classical music and opera for an hour a day from about 1w weeks pregnant and whilst bf. I am not in the least bit musical (DH is). Funnily enough DH was identified as musically gifted but gave up after grade 5 to focus on rugby. DD got grade 8 voice distinction and has carried on and is becoming incredibly good. Sings publicly and stuff.

So, it was really wanky but might not have turned out so Grin. I was a bit obsessed at the time but mainly because I wanted them to identify with the mathematical scores. Neither give a flying fuck about maths so missed my genes pConfused

nildesparandum · 21/09/2020 21:02

It is now over 50 years since my PFB was born.
I used to wake him up, yes wake him up, every night when I went to bed and give him a full bottle of milk feed in case he starved to death during the night when we were asleep.I was very surprised to get a ticking off from the health visitor about him putting on large amounts of weight.
When his brother arrived two years later I never got a chance to wake him up he was waking every three hours during the night till he was 6 months old.I used to pray he would sleep the night through.I would never allow anyone to look after my PFB, much to my MIL's disgust.
I was pleased to hand his brother to anyone just to get a bit of peace.

icedaisy · 21/09/2020 21:02

@Clevs which one, the head hitting or the pushchair. Ha. If I hadn't read about the pushchair on here I'm sure it would have been me. Blush

SanFrancisco49er · 21/09/2020 21:11

@cheesecrack the 'no more tears' made me laugh out loud! Just brilliant. I wonder if there were tears?!

Love all these stories, I am due my first soon and wonder how the crazy will come out in me!

UnitedRoad · 21/09/2020 21:13

We lived across a quiet little road from a newsagent.

I’m ashamed to admit that when my first daughter was born I’d take a changing bag with nappies and a change of clothes just to pop to the shop for a paper or a pint of milk. I did this for MONTHS. So embarrassed now.

Ginflinger · 21/09/2020 21:15

"His name is Joseph!"

Brilliant

TiptopJ · 21/09/2020 21:19

Was watching a TV series featuring WW2. I turned it off as I didn't want my 2 week old to know what gunfire sounded like.

firstimemamma · 21/09/2020 21:20

@LeafyGreen333 oh my god, I thought I was the only one to have done the perfume thing! Very happy to know it wasn't just me!

AriettyHomily · 21/09/2020 21:20

Not so much me but mil used to detail my poor dogs feet if she watched Dts while I took him for a walk.

Fairymaryprincess · 21/09/2020 21:21

My 1st was summer born and both me and dh prefer to sleep with the windows open but all summer long I made us keep the windows closed over night in case someone put a ladder to the window and took him away and we didn't wake up, I don't know how I came up with this but I remember at the time mentioning it to my mum who thought it was hilarious, I was a really light sleeper once he was born and we had a very loud dog so even if someone had tried they never would have managed it 😂

AriettyHomily · 21/09/2020 21:21

Dettol!