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

[cheesecrack]

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

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!

I recorded DD’s sleep to the minute on an app for the entire first 18 months of her life. Possibly not so much PFB as bordering on PPD and needing to feel in control of something - it was a desperate search for a pattern.

I do love data though and you can pinpoint to the day when I first did some (gentle) sleep training!

I did baby led weaning with my first and was so militant about it. I cringe now when I think of it 😳 I wouldn't use a spoon at all to feed DS, even things like porridge and yoghurt! I remember telling the creche that if they were feeding him yoghurt (natural, organic of course) they needed to spread it on toast for him.

I wouldn't mind but he's an incredibly fussy eater now so it clearly didn't work!

I didnt put my baby on grass until he was about 9 months old. I was out with a then relatively new friend on a sunny day and she suggested we let the babies crawl on the grass. I was incredulous "on the grass? With like, their bare hands?!". He is now 2 and recently licked the underside of a slide at a park...

I wrote lists for my parents and inlaws for his days routine, with exact bottle making instructions, when they had him.

He didn't eat a ready meal until he was about 18 months and even now I still think the m and s one is healthier than the tescos one

I logged every sleep, nappy and milk intake for about 6 months.

Im actually very pro positive risk taking now, much to the horror of my family!

Love this thread!

I’m definitely bad for obsessive routine and recording PFBs nap schedule but I cringe that during my pregnancy, if we were going somewhere noisy, I would put on an extra thick jumper, to drown out the noise to baby. I was bloody boiling all the time!

[quote OhTheRoses]@JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff warming the baby's bed and clothes just made me laugh. My mum still insists I have a hot water bottle if I won't have the electric blanket on when I visit and still puts my nightie on the radiator when I visit. I'm 60 [/quote]
This is so adorable!

My first were twins, I in general didn't have the time to do a lot of the PFB stuff noted here. I was given a GF book which I followed for three days before I wondered wtf I was waking newborn twins at 6am when I had nothing to get up for .

I did insist on cotton wool to wipe bums with (DS3 had wipes from birth) and when they started weaning, I was absolutely manic about keeping things clean. I steralised everything and was meticulous about feeding them from different bowls with different spoons and not cross-contaminating them. I don't think it took long before I realised they were dribbling all over each other so it probably made no difference!

PFB was EBF. I meticulously logged every feed on my phone for about the first 6 weeks e.g. right side 3:19pm-3:31pm

I was the same. Can’t remember the app but I realised it was not good for my mental when I logged about 12 hours of feeding one day. 12 f ing hours. No one needs a record of days like that. I deleted the app immediately.

Craniosacral therapy for our 11 month old.

In my defence, I had been reduced to a near suicidal wreck by his lack of sleep and was completely unable to make a coherent decision. We used a sleep consultant who was insistent this was an important part of the process, so we went with it.

higunny I recall joining a BL weaning group on Facebook and they kicked me out for saying I helped my babies with eating yogurts with a spoon. They're obsessed, militant, and ... quite dull

I can't think of anything I did like this for my babies, but I have a PFC (precious first cat) story.

The first night we got the cat home the kids went to bed and DH went out. I'd never had a pet before so had no idea what to do with this thing! So I put on Supervet so he could see some of his animal pals...

DH came home and I had to explain why I'd watched a whole evening of Supervet and was bored shitless.

My mum had a massive coach built pram in her house for my PFB when she babysat. Except that it was kept in the living room which is on the first floor. One Spring afternoon when I was at work she dressed him in his outdoor clothes, moved all the furniture and rolled the pram out onto the balcony to take a photo of him propped up in the pram.

Unlike others on here I didn't trust myself to prepare food for my PFB so he was walking before he ate anything that I cooked for him. With the others I never used bought food.

But you know what? These are all acts of love. I seriously believe that for the babies what comes through is that warm attention and support. The organic unicorn tears are just incidental!

Yes!

Can I also say that understandably sometimes these actions come from a place of grief/fear too.

I lost 3 before dd and she was in scbu for a time herself, I'm sure that's why I was so over-protective, I've noticed that friends and family and clients who'd experienced fertility issues, pregnancy and infant loss were also the ones more likely to be over-cautious. 

Totally understandable to feel on high alert and cautious with preemies.

And yes @PyongyangKipperbang as I originally alluded to, my ocd went into overdrive as soon as I was home with dd, even the hv commented with concern that my home was too tidy!

@OhTheRoses mine still holds my hand when we cross the road if we're out together! I'm 48 

Mind you my brother (46 year old, strapping lump of a police officer who in his spare time apparently has a sodding death wish with his hobbies - scramble racing, bungee jumping etc) still won't go for a jag without mum! 

@meow1989 oh that reminds me of when I was babysitting dds new half brother (exs first with ow) and I was given strict instructions not to let him on sand...we were going to the beach! he was fine btw if you discount his trying to eat the stuff!

@Fairymaryprincess

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 😂

This has reminded me of one.

I was only 17 when I had PFB, he will be 30 this year

But it was around the time that little baby was abducted from hospital and another small child was abducted through an open caravan windown on holiday. So when he was about 8 months old and I went with him and my parents and sister on holiday in Devon, in a caravan, I insisted that we all must sleep with the windows closed in EVERY room despite it being the hottest week of the year. I realise now that keeping our rooms window shut was sensible, but not absolutely everyones. Oh and no we couldnt use fans as it might wake him up.

Crazy.

@firesong

higunny I recall joining a BL weaning group on Facebook and they kicked me out for saying I helped my babies with eating yogurts with a spoon. They're obsessed, militant, and ... quite dull

Haha 😁 Thankfully I had copped on to myself by the time DS2 came along! It was spoons all the way with him, I wasn't dealing with the self feeding yoghurt mess again!

A neighbour saw me with a drill in hand around 1pm on a sunny Saturday afternoon and realising I was about to put up a wall trough, asked me to wait as her baby was asleep. I did too! She also asked some window fitters at another house to down tools at a certain time to not interrupt the nap. They refused. This was the woman who pre-kids would leave her dogs barking at 5am outside waking neighbouring kids, and shrugged that dogs will be dogs. I have so many stories of entitlement about this neighbour

Wrote out a schedule for my MIL, a mum of five and grandmother of 11, to look after PFB for a day

Stopped being such a twat as soon as I had more kids.

However, some close relatives of ours would never, even if it was a special family occasion, be out of the house in the afternoons so their (only) child could have a nap. This went on till he was well past 3 years old.

I did a cook up of pureed meals for pfb's extravagant meal planner. We spent a fortune on organic everything. I then had a major outburst because dh said he had used half a normal stock cube instead of a reduced salt one. I binned the whole lot!

I agree that these things come from love. But also from our need to have even a tiny bit of control when our lives have just been turned upside down.

We cannot do ANYTHING about most of it, but dammit we can make sure our baby doesnt eat anything that came out of a tin!

@OhTheRoses

ROFL *@pyonyangKipperbang* might be imagining this but did you once go to a London meet-up - years ago. Zombie and SGB were there. Just your name is familiar and I recall meeting a lovely lady who had struggled with her MH.

I didnt, but to be honest, it would probably have done me the world of good if I had. I will definitely be there if there is another one!

I had a different username in the Zombie/SGB era too.

@OhTheRoses I had to come on and comment - seeing Zombies name was so nice, I often think of her.

Some of this has been a lovely reminder (I mean to be fair DC are 4 and 7 so not quite planning to move out yet). With ds1 , oh dear lord I was cringey in so many ways. The constant moving of the sun parasol every three seconds walking down the road was very much a feature as well as the replacing of the sun hat (whilst ds1 was also under the parasol and the buggy hood ) every three steps because he kept throwing it off (understandably really at that point I had gone so overboard on sun protection he must have thought it was midnight in November at 2pm in July). I refused to allow exdh to have anything on the TV with swearing or anything scary if ds1 was in his seat in the room (which was turned backwards just in case he accidentally watched TV and it caused untold trauma for seeing the screen before a year old ).

I once rang 111 or the equivalent can't actually remember who but it was out of hours because ds1 had banged his head against the back if his swing (note...not an accident...while he was comfortably sitting and swinging in it he would jerk his head backwards and bump it ) so many times I was worried he had hurt himself . Regularly used to wake up in the night just to check he was breathing ok (on top of the angelcare monitor strict adherence to every single side prevention rule).

I was a bit insane. Actually I was better but still a bit insane with ds2 but in my defence he was very early and we nearly lost him and me during the birth. However it probably was excessive for me to glare so sharply at the women reaching in to his pram to touch him in asda...4 months later that she snapped her hand back and backed away slowly ...just from a look.

Oh and apparently I inadvertently growled at the paediatrician when he suggested he take ds1 to examine him....away from me. Exdh was slightly concerned I was going to bite the doctor exdh assures me I didn't but he does claim I bared my teeth slightly

I was nuts.

I didn't do anything PFB and my 4 year old is literally a walking nightmare, wish I had more rules now!

So many silly things! Probably the most ridiculous was me keeping multiple containers of sterile water for cotton balls that I would use (separately!) to wipe one eye, then the other, then all separate ones for each part of her body! I would only use cotton balls and sterile water to change her nappy as well... this went on for the whole first year!!

I'm now a mother of 4 and unsurprisingly my youngest gets no such treatment!

I was 17 when I became a mother and so desperate to prove myself I suppose.

In my defence though, she's now 20 years old and has the most beautiful skin ever!

@Changethetoner

Taking the "feet to foot" safe sleeping advice a bit too seriously, and placing my PFB way down the pram, so her head was under the outer cover, but at least her feet were at the end. lol. Granny complained she liked to "see what I am pushing", but I was firm. [embarassed]

I did this too!!!

@RoxytheRexy

My DD never slept so I was very tired. I took her to a Rhyme Time at the local library. A Mum asked her name and I said ‘Lauren’. Don’t know why, it’s not her name or anything like her name. The other Mum went ‘Oh that’s my name!’. I then realised what I had done and apologised and told her the correct name. The Mum obviously looked at me like I’m a complete lunatic.

Though fortunately Lauren is really sound and we are quite good friends now

Love this