Most batshit thing you did with your PFB

[Eastie77Returns]

Chatting to friends today about the funniest/craziest/omg what was I thinking things we did with our firstborn DC.

When DD was a few months old she fell out of a small ‘smart’ baby swing that gently rocked her and played music. It was a very small fall onto carpeted floor and she didn’t even cry. I screamed in panic and took her to A&E. But before leaving I took a video of the smart swing so the doctors could see exactly how it rotated and I measured the distance from the floor to the rocker so they had that crucially important information as well. At the hospital I think I asked more than once if she needed a brain scan and huffed and puffed when the nurse gently said no😭 No-one was interested in watching the video either!

I haven't rtft.
When our wee man was little, my hubby bought him a soft blue baby helmet to wear when he was crawling and then learning to walk.... so that he wouldn't bump his head.
He looks ridiculous and hubby insisted he wore it all the time in the house 🤦‍♀️
I was made up when he learned to tear it off 😆 🤣 😂

PP presentation! 😆😆

I wish I thought to do a PP actually because every (unnecessary) GP appointment etc started with a lengthy monologue about my DD. I have been asked many times if I’m a medic too. 😆 No, I’m not. I just Googled all the illnesses I suspected she had so appeared very knowledgeable about them.

I took mine to the doctors as I thought he had a funny shaped head. Doctor pointed out everyone’s head is a bit of a funny shape when you have no hair…

It was lockdown wfh so we mostly just talked to each other IRL but it does make it look extra batshit. 🤣 I'm sure it was just white noise to him. I showed him just now and he laughed. He was a first time dad too so probably thought that level of bat shittery was perfectly normal.

It was mostly for myself because I kept forgetting which boob I'd just used and had a few mild mastitus episodes so it was also to stop me avoiding my painful boob plus I always felt lefty never produced as much as righty. 😅

This wasn't my moment of PFB madness but my mother's. Luckily we lived abroad so there would be a few months between visits, when No 1 started to move she never crawled, she bottom shuffled and my mother insisted that I should take her to the doctor as 'it's not normal'! Despite pointing out to her that I was still racing dinghies at 7 months and all baby was doing was shuffling, looking over her shoulder for the mark and then tacking mother still though it 'wasn't normal'.

For a long time slept holding my daughters hand whilst she slept next to me in her cot so she couldn't roll onto her front in the middle of the night 🤣🤣

Sounds like I should have written a book, I was using ice cube trays in the mid 1970s so I was apparently way ahead of the trends.

DH & I took it in turns to be awake around the clock for adds first five days home. We were convinced we needed to be watching him continually (no idea why). The midwife who we told about our schedule very gently pointed out that the greatest risk to DS was probably from one of us falling down stairs or crashing the car in our sleep-deprived states!

(Mind you, after that, DS decided sleep was over-rated and we were pretty much awake round the clock; just with a wakeful rather than a sleeping baby!).

My eldest is a teen (I do still have two primary aged too) and I still cut all their grapes in half -I am too scared to stop, I have this fear that the first time I don’t do it, one of them will choke.

It has become a bit of a mental struggle for me, having this conversation in my head ‘they don’t need them cut…. But what if one of them chokes, I will never forgive myself….’

I have to say I really admire all your resilience and ingenuity.
In the early 80s you were kept in hospital for at least 5 days (for a first) to ensure you could bathe the baby, feed the baby, soothe the baby, ask questions and also look after yourself. Then you had a health visitor weekly. It gave confidence before and after being sent home. Now you’re chucked out hours after giving birth no wonder it’s all a bit much - you are all doing a sterling job!!!

Has anyone mentioned the poster that tried different brands of formula to see what they tasted like and ranked the after taste to decide which one to give her LO?

I had 7 days in with my first 2 in the early 80’s, 2 nights in hospital then 5 in maternity home although I could have stayed longer if I wanted. It was like being on holiday! All meals provided and eaten together, nurses and midwives and health care assistants to help you learn what to do, taken to the nursery at night if you chose, post natal exercise classes every afternoon whilst the babies were looked after.
Bit of a shock mid 90’s when I had no 3 and was discharged on day 2!

This has reminded me of our pfb behaviour although quite recent and children are 11 and 9!

PFB - when he went on his first school residential, spent ages with my DH setting up our phones so they’d definitely ring for an incoming call overnight (and still be on silent for everything else) just in case we received a call…

Second child - it didn’t occur to either of us to do this for either night she was away on residential 🤣

Breastfeeding, then formula, then using a breastpump. This went on for 10 weeks. Every 3 hours. I was absolutely exhausted.
At 11 months & 3 weeks old, gave her honey on toast. Took her to the Dr's, convinced I'd given her botulism.
Was so upset I actually cried when she got her first cold, convinced she was going to be hospitalised.
Now we're on number 4, he's been juggling with knives since he was 6 months old

Pureed all manner of foods/frozen them, then kept them in separately labelled bags. Gradually started pureeing less smoothly to introduce texture.

With my son I chewed up whatever we were eating using my own teeth and took it out and gave it to him. Admittedly disgusting but saved me f*loads of time and probably what they did in prehistory when humans had limited access to blenders.

This is such a lovely thread. Sometimes I think back and wonder if I was alone in my batshittery or was the things I done just a normal part of trying to do the best for my kids. Lovely to know there are other batshit parents out there also love the different guidelines over the years and hospital stays compared to the 70s and now. Thanks for sharing everyone

I could honestly write several books on my neurotic ways 🤣 not just for child number 1 but also child number 2 as I had a big gap and things had changed a lot. I used Annabel karmels sp? Weaning book but no frozen ice cubes for my little cherub, oh no cooked fresh becouse who actually knew the harm melting frozen food and cooking it could do? Microwave was binned and banished for eternity all those rays 😱 my pfb would lead the way and on demand was the mantra! My children would NEVER get evil sugar or upfs those were absolutely poison. The fucking stress I gave myself and pressure to get everything right. Oh the tears when dh and pfb had chocolate before 11am one day there was nearly a divorce 😳 🤣

I'm sure this was SIDS advice too - my DC are 13 and 11 and I followed this completely. I always kept them in the room with me when they napped - had a moses basket in the lounge and then a carrycot type thing when they grew out of it, then at night kept them in our room until 6 months.

Have to say, don't think any of my friends followed it, especially if their baby could only sleep in a dark, silent room!

PFB is almost 4 months and we still have the lamp on at night!

Mainly so I can see when she’s upset/night feed/change etc but also a little because I worry she’d be scared if she woke up in the dark!!

I did move it to DPs side of the bed incase it was too bright for her!!

Madness I know but I’m indulging myself

This one has genuinely made me tear up with laughter! It's just so needlessly weird and awkward 😂

Perhaps she just wanted to glug down juice, without having the bother of developing her motor skills when she was thirsty?? 😂

Brilliant idea for a thread BTW. Some of these stories have absolutely cracked me up.

Nothing crazy…. But while I was pregnant I stocked up on nappies whenever they were on sale, also bought lots of baby grows…. She was 9lb 4 at birth.. needless to say the baby grows we’re probably worn once each and she outgrew the nappies in the first 3 sizes VERY quickly!
Her newborn baby grows burst open in hospital when she stretched so some never had their labels removed and became presents later on to friends that had teeny babies (well normal sized)

It’s the advice that they are given now. They don’t appear to have the access to health visitors or weekly clinics that we had in the 80’s. Her pfb is on permanent precautionary antibiotic’s and needs to be weighed regularly to ensure that the right dose is given for baby’s weight, but the clinic stops weighing babies at 16 weeks and she has to make nurse appointments at the doctors surgery to get baby weighed. They call this progress

Permanent antibiotics? Does she have a very specific health condition? Antibiotics are not good for your health at all and being on them regularly is going to cause antibiotic resistant bacteria...

Nope, that's not insane, we did the same.

My infant was in step down intensive care at a well known children’s hospital. It was a long term thing. I had to go out for the evening so I organised for my Mother to come and ‘babysit’ just to make sure they were ok!

it’s actually sad not batshit really the level of care was woeful and I didn’t trust them to actually call me if there was an issue but there you go.