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Original poster

Best responses to "we did it my day and child is fine"

171 replies

Wowzers12 · 30/12/2022 19:52

New mum here - getting fed up of the generations above me (my mum, DH mum and Aunt) making comments like "we did it in my day and my children are all fine" about things to do with my DD that are now advised against by NHS, professionals etc.

Or the other way around, for example BLW - "all mine had purées and were fine"

What's a good response to this that shuts the conversation down without losing my s*?

OP posts:
Daisybuttercup12345 · 30/12/2022 22:07

PritiPatelsMaker · 30/12/2022 19:59

You could smile and nod bad then do it your way, you could say the old MN phrase "this works for us" or if you're really peed off you could tell them that there been 30 odd years of research since they had their LOs and you'd be daft to use what we now know are dangerous practices Grin

Puree is a dangerous practice?

AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair · 30/12/2022 22:07

dolor · 30/12/2022 22:04

"I must have missed the part where it was any of your business."

This thread is bonkers, what actual real person talks to family members like that?

Cuwins · 30/12/2022 22:08

Cuwins · 30/12/2022 22:06

@AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair
I didn't send my mum links (that's beyond her tech abilities I think!) but I certainly looked up the why's and figures and discussed with her.

  1. it was interesting for both of us,
  2. It ended the debate when I could list the drop in SIDS since the sleeping on the back advice
  3. I can be sure she will follow it when she is looking after DD if she understands why

And also because I would find the nod and smile strategy so many have suggested incredibly patronising.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Families
Yaslana · 30/12/2022 22:09

My stock answer is yes, and marital rape didnt exist, and you had to leave work when you got married.... a lot has changed

Diversion · 30/12/2022 22:10

Things have changed so much since my children, I now have a new DGS and asked my DDIL what the latest recommendations on weaning are. She was only too happy to share her knowledge. I asked about baby led weaning and she advised that as a former nursery nurse she hated baby led weaning and was scared of choking so would be feeding puree only from 6 months minimum (DGS was 6 weeks early). I will follow her lead and when she is happy for us to have DGS on our own we will stick to her rules, he is not our child and I remember being very annoyed by "advice" given to us by our in laws when our children were little.

FartWrangler · 30/12/2022 22:10

TheYearOfSmallThings · 30/12/2022 20:17

There is no need for you to lose your shit - it is actually useful to understand that there are fashions in these things. The way we do things now, which we are so sure is "correct", will raise shocked eyebrows in 25 years.

This, absolutely. My oldest child is 21 and lots of the things we did with our DC are now things that are frowned upon. Actually, some of them were probably frowned upon then, too (baby rusk at 3 months, swaddling in muslin etc), but they worked well. If/when my DC have children, everything I did will presumably be completely outdated, even if it's not deemed harmful. I'm surprised by the PP who's advocating having her child in a rear-facing seat until they're 7. One of mine would have been throwing up, for starters.

Spectre8 · 30/12/2022 22:11

The thing is they had their children, they haven't gone on to have more as advice chnahed so know that its changed and who would spend time keeping up on the latest if they aren't raising a child.

They just don't know.

Bit like when I recently when to buy a car, mine old one was 20yrs old, engineering has moved on leaps and bounds since my old car which I had to explain to my dad about why smaller engines can still be as powerful as my old car which had a larger engine but was not as powerful.

It might seem annoying but its not their fault for not knowing all the new advice. Either feel free to engage in a deeper conversation about it with them or just have a easy breezy standard response to say if it bothers u so much

Cuwins · 30/12/2022 22:11

Diversion · 30/12/2022 22:10

Things have changed so much since my children, I now have a new DGS and asked my DDIL what the latest recommendations on weaning are. She was only too happy to share her knowledge. I asked about baby led weaning and she advised that as a former nursery nurse she hated baby led weaning and was scared of choking so would be feeding puree only from 6 months minimum (DGS was 6 weeks early). I will follow her lead and when she is happy for us to have DGS on our own we will stick to her rules, he is not our child and I remember being very annoyed by "advice" given to us by our in laws when our children were little.

Let's hope the baby agrees. I wanted to do a mix of BLW and purées. Unfortunately DD disagreed and refused to have anything to do with a spoon! 😂 She had clearly not read the plan!

NeverDropYourMooncup · 30/12/2022 22:14

mikado1 · 30/12/2022 20:12

Well if an expert/health professional told you, you'd have assumed it was OK, tbf. My friend's mum was told to put baby rice in n her bottle and she did. Friend has coeliac disease..

Rice isn't wheat.

Turkeytwizzlerz · 30/12/2022 22:14

I get a lot of comments about my choice of parenting emotionally i.e labelling all our feelings, so my children know what/how they’re feeling and that it’s ok to experience them all and also apologising to them when I feel like I’ve gone over the top or shouted unnecessarily. Recently I asked a family member not to attach “well that makes me sad” when asking my child for a hug which they didn’t want to give. Why would you put that emotional manipulation on them? My child isn’t there to please you or make YOU happy, that’s your own responsibility. I don’t want to raise a people pleasing child who does things out of fear of “upsetting” an older relative. Anyways, when I have these conversations about how I want to parent my kids and make them emotionally aware and open, I’m always met with “well we didn’t have that growing up and we turned out just fine.

“…You’re not fine though, are you? Most of you are harbouring some deep-rooted trauma and struggle to talk about your feelings at your grand old age. I don’t want this generational cycle to continue so your “Fine” isn’t what I’m after”

mikado1 · 30/12/2022 22:17

NeverDropYourMooncup · 30/12/2022 22:14

Rice isn't wheat.

Show quote history

Didn't say it was! But it is now believed that early weaning, which I didn't even mention now I see (rice was in bottle from 6 weeks!), can damage the gut wall and leave you more susceptible to gut issues like coeliac disease, ibs etc.

wherearebeefandonioncrisps · 30/12/2022 22:22

I felt like you do 29 years ago.
It never changes.

My only beef about parenting now is baby led weaning.

If my children have babies and if I'm helping out, I'd be terrified. And I won't do it .

NeverDropYourMooncup · 30/12/2022 22:25

mikado1 · 30/12/2022 22:17

Didn't say it was! But it is now believed that early weaning, which I didn't even mention now I see (rice was in bottle from 6 weeks!), can damage the gut wall and leave you more susceptible to gut issues like coeliac disease, ibs etc.

Show quote history

Coeliac is an autoimmune disease, not a gut disease, though. And that's not what research indicates. Coeliac UK don't suggest it either.

Bumply · 30/12/2022 22:28

I'm
60.
My boys are in their 20s and no signs of girlfriends, so I've not reached the stage of giving advice, bad or otherwise.

I know some things have changed: weaning at 6 months, car seats staying reversed for longer, formula made up for the day and kept in the fridge.

Big things like babies put on their backs to sleep were already in place when DS1 was born

I can't think of anything that's different that I'd be fighting against.

I'm of an age to remember the scars on my nieces face when she fell out of a moving vehicle (no child lock or seatbelts). To count myself lucky the times I travelled similarly or even loose in the boot of a car, but survived. To have a colleague same age as me who has COPD from a childhood of sharing house and car with chain smoking parents (he never smoked).

Apart from telling me her method of coping with me crying as a baby was to put me at the bottom of the garden where she couldn't hear me my Mum mostly had horror stories of her time as a parent in the 40s.

Being allowed to dangle legs over the bed only on day seven after giving birth in hospital.

Four hourly feeds which in hospital meant being apart from your baby until they were brought round in a trolley screaming their heads off. My aunt was waiting for her first born to arrive on said trolley and asked where her baby was. "Oh, perhaps yours was the one that dyed in the night"

Being terrified when it was polio season before vaccinations were a thing (I as the youngest born in the 60s was given all the vaccines in huge relief)

mikado1 · 30/12/2022 22:29

Ok 👌 It's my friend who is a coeliac that suggested it to me but nevermind if it's incorrect. I still wouldn't be putting rice in a bottle at six weeks! ☺

Ansy38 · 30/12/2022 22:31

Whenever my MIL made any comments (and she did and still does) I said "times have moved on since your Dickensian parenting"

EconomyClassRockstar · 30/12/2022 22:32

I think if your Mum, MIL and Aunt have raised great adults then maybe they do have some great advice to offer. I mean, you married one of their kids! So, just smile, nod, ignore and carry on but listen when it matters.

LittlePearl · 30/12/2022 22:42

It works both ways actually!

I’m now a grandmother and am learning to bite my tongue VERY hard when my son talks to me about child- rearing as if I know nothing at all 😂

What I would like to say is, yes I know….. I had three babies remember? But instead I smile sweetly and keep my mouth shut. Then OH and I have a giggle later on when we’re on our own.

brusselspout · 30/12/2022 22:49

Ansy38 · 30/12/2022 22:31

Whenever my MIL made any comments (and she did and still does) I said "times have moved on since your Dickensian parenting"

Nice

IneedanewTV · 30/12/2022 23:05

I made my own purées at 6 months in 2004 Grapes, bread sticks, banana etc for hand eye coordination. No sugars or juices just water. My two are now 21 and 18, over 6 foot and eat anything but very healthy too. Lots of fruit, veg, kettle meat. Each baby round is different but we all try our best.

ladygindiva · 30/12/2022 23:06

I tend to bite my tongue and just think " I was an anorexic self harming teen who had to have years of therapy " as I can't be bothered to go into it.

TofuonToast · 30/12/2022 23:13

‘Nope. I’m doing it my way.’ That’s what I used to say. And they generally stfu after that!

user58202018484482910ugog19293843910 · 30/12/2022 23:29

I'm honestly surprised with the "advice" my mil gave me that my husbands alive. Snipping the top off teats/chunky rusk to help him sleep/sleep on his tummy/better for them to be too hot than too cold/honey on the dummy type advice.

In one ear and out the other.

F4chrissakes · 30/12/2022 23:48

Times change. My grandmother advised feeding babies copious amounts of sugar because "they need the calories", and that was the advice when she was a new mum. And my mum told me she was advised that babies should sleep on their sides, never their backs.
Surprising really that we all made it to adulthood, isn't it?

BewitchedBotheredandBewildered · 31/12/2022 00:11

I found a very good way to shut my father up when he gave advice on the way I dealt with my children.

Behaviour rather than feeding or safety, because any of that was way beneath him.

I said I was very flattered that he thought I was perfect (he didn't) but personally I thought there was room for improvement.

It is a bloody minefield, and I do so agree with PPs who have said read the books, listen to the current advice, and the old, and go with your instinct.

Because one thing is absolutely certain; not all babies are the same.

And the advice changes all the time.

When DD1 was born in 1986 the advice was put baby on their front or side, never on their back.
She always hated being on her front so was swaddled and pinned on her side.
Did the same with DD2

By the time DC3 was born in 1991 advice was whatever you do do not put baby on front!
Very hard to go against previous categorical advice so he got swaddled on his side too.
I now learn upthread that they mustn't be put on their side either!

Wouldn't be surprised if swaddling is considered unkind or something now, but it made sense to me that they would like some restriction for a few weeks after being restricted in the womb.
And it really made them jump to find they could flail around willy nilly, they looked frightened.

My tentative advice would be listen to your instinct and your baby.