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

[Wowzers12]

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*?

My evidence is only anecdotal, but I notice that in the school I work in there are about 5/6 children per year group with allergies that require medication/close monitoring, which is way more than there used to be. Any thoughts?

probably a combination of things. Availability of epipens and awareness means those with true anaphalaxis aren’t dying before they get to school.

a wider and more readily available diet so more likely to come into contact with allergy triggers. As a kid peanut butter wasn’t really the norm in mine or my friends houses, peanuts were a marathon, or my dad had a bag down the pub occasionally.

also generally higher diagnosis. I suspect my dc may have a dairy allergy, but because there’s no food allergies in my family it hadn’t occurred to me at all. Then she cut out dairy to help her skin, her acne improved, she started eating better and feeling better. I’m hindsight the last 16 years of “reflux” as a baby, “fussy” eating- she appears to have a natural aversion to dairy and has never really eaten cheese/yogurt, dislike of pizza and gravitating to plain pasta, rice etc.. and the fairly regular vomiting “bugs” and digestive upsets that no one else got. All makes sense now. Most people would probably have realised years ago 😳

This.

70’s, UK. Definitely the advice my mum was given with both me and my sibling.

she was horrified when I decided to breastfeed.

Quite! It's over 30 years since Anne Diamond began her SIDS campaign and so a lot of Grandparents were doing exactly the same thing as new Mums now when it comes to baby's sleep.

Some advice actually changed between my two babies (only three years apart!) - particularly relating to allergies, specifically eating peanuts while pregnant. One of my children has severe, dangerous allergies and if it's something I could have avoided or did wrong, I would be devastated. I'm not sure we'll ever know though. However, that aside i hardly remember half the stuff i did or didn't do and my kids are still in primary so i doubt I'll be able to tell them how I did things when it comes to future grandchildren! I do remember getting tons of criticism for breastfeeding on demand. I hope I am tactful and sensitive enough as a grandmother one day, if I am one, to not comment on feeding choices - everyone does their best!

There's a big thing at the moment about children staying in rear-facing car seats for much longer than previously - to age 4/5 and sometimes older than that.

Where do they put their feet? What about kids with long legs?

I suspect that in a decade or two, this advice will change again, because they have found it is detrimental to children's joints to have them uncomfortably scrunched up in an awkward position for so long.

You way up the evidence and follow the laws and make your own rules. DD1 was acutely car sick rear facing and long legs I moved her forward at 1 year and 6 months and by the age of 2 it had eased as she was talking.
DC2 stayed until age of 2 as DD1 was in the back with him playing with him.

I couldn’t breast feed DC1 medically - she has no issues
I breast fed DC2 and he suffered with asthma etc

🤷‍♀️

They sit frog legged or cross legged, the way children naturally do anyway. They're a lot more flexible than adults. I also think sitting forward facing with legs dangling down but not able to touch the floor must be more uncomfortable.

Rear facing for longer is one of the things I think will be normal in the future, as well as driving less to reduce the risk. One day parents might be horrified we put our children in cars at all!

My mum breastfed me in 1964 and my brother in 1969. It was not considered unhygienic then.

even today a lot of young people think negatively of breastfeeding so no different to your mum years ago.

Fruit is sugar and sugar is in milk!
in fact most carbs are all broken into glucose in the end as that is the molecule that goes across into the bloodstream - it’s how quickly that happens!

but I love the fruit is natural argument

@Notanotherusername4321

That's really interesting, my DC are 70s babies and both were EBF for 8 months. This was not uncommon amongst my friendship group (south London).

My mum was horrified when I breastfed too she said it wasn’t encouraged etc when I was born or whilst she was pregnant.
I got loads from grandparents etc I just nodded smiled and did it my own way, even with different children advice changed and some things I did the way I felt was right and worked and others I didn’t. As long as it’s safe and works for you do it your way and don’t worry about granny saying her way worked, it probably did but it’s your turn to be a parent and find your way.

thankfuly my mil lived on a northern island so far enough away and my mum moved abroad whilst pregnant so the comments were minimal

It’s probably simply that some hospitals are more up to date than others.

when I had mine the local arse end of town hospital was suprisingly current (I’m a research scientist). they were advising against shaving due to infection risk, had thorough MRSA protocols, were running a GBS trial to examine whether testing improved outcome. Scans were empty bladder as their tech didn’t require it.

yet 20 years later and I’m still seeing hospitals shaving patients, asking for full bladders for scans, and not requiring basic infection control.

same with a&e, stomach pumping was found to adversely affect outcome over 30 years ago, yet some are still doing it.

it could simply be that the hospital I was born in were sticking to old policy, where yours had moved with the times. Or the other way round. Could probably look it up but cba.

anyway nhs is notoriously resistant to change. So not suprising some have differing advice.

I was born in '76, DSis '79 and DBro 87 all breastfed, as were all my cousins born '63- 88. Seems more like something my DGM would have said to DM.

They had loads of odd advice in the 70s we were born in a cottage hospital type thing dsis and I were born three years apart with one of us it was formula feeding? Get in the side room shameful! The other it was breastfeeding? Get in the sideroom SHAMEFUL! 😂

the thing about the 70s though is that the babies were all put in a routine for you they were wheeled out at feeding and changing times and then removed so they weren't "spoiled"

Just go with a generic " I'm doing what works best for my family". The thing is, when you immediately shut down well-meaning suggestions, you are (inadvertently) criticizing their parenting just as you feel they are criticizing yours. The advice changes all the time, so what you're doing will eventually be viewed as outdated too.

But not all though. I was born 1964 and was breast fed. My mum looked after me in hospital except over night as that was the practice ( to be honest with my second baby I could have done with my neighbour’s baby being looked after over night as she slept through all of his screaming keeping me awake). It wasn’t in case the baby was spoiled it was to give mum a proper rest.

Every person has different experiences. We all remember bits and forget others. none of us are 100% perfect and I don’t think there is any need to be rude to advice being given in good faith. Just ignore it and do as you do.

I'm guessing they cross their legs? I'm very much guessing though because I don't think I've ever seen a child older than 2 rearfacing, despite the popularity on MN.

It'll be quite interesting to see how many people do keep it up with their 6/7 year olds.

As regards smoking and "they turned out fine", my brother had appalling asthma. Im sure parental smoking did not help but no one made that connection then. This will continue to be the case. You can only follow the science of the day and hopefully older generations will respect that and I speak a solder generation.

With regards breastfeeding, dm had us late 70s and said she was met with both surprise and a bit of disapproving when she said she wanted to breastfeed. I think she was the only one from her room of 10 mothers (for her first) who even tried it.
But she'd seen her mum breastfeeding in the 60s (younger brother) and wanted to give it a go. I believe my granny was told in the 60s it was something for people to do who "couldn't afford formula".
But Granny's first baby had been born during the war and breastfeeding was encouraged (I think you got quite generous extra rations as a breastfeeding mum) so she was having none of that!

"This is the way I've chosen to do it"