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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To want to bash parents who underdress their kids in winter!

83 replies

Stinkyoldclottedcatspus · 27/10/2010 11:39

If I see one more toddler in a pram wearing no socks and barely any clothes when it's parents are wrapped up in coats and scarves, my head is going to explode. Mottled skin and purple fingers make my blood boil!

OP posts:

thefirstmrsDeVeerie · 27/10/2010 12:33

Hang on what are we talking about here? Teenagers or babies? Because my thoughts differ widely depending on the age group.

6 weeks old - dress your child appropriately, no excuse

13 - up to them if they want to freeze and look like a right tit.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 27/10/2010 12:36

I can't tell you how sick I used to get of "well-meaning" people coming up to me when the DC's were little to tell me "her feet are cold". None of my DCs would ever keep their shoes and socks on. None of them would ever keep their jackets on. I would put them on, they would pull them straight off. This is very common toddler behaviour. YABU OP, and rather smug and priggish too.

SummerRain · 27/10/2010 12:38

dd doesn't feel the cold, never has. It's freezing here today and she put on a strappy top and skirt with bare legs today and is giving out now that i've forced her into a long sleeved top. She was outside playing and still didn't get cold. When she was a baby there was no keeping clothes on her... she'd often strip herself down to her nappy even in winter and could remove shoes and socks from a very young age and threw them out of the buggy in shops... we lost hundreds of shoes and socks before i gave up and just started stashing them in the change bag.

The boys are human iciles like me though and are huddled under blankets with 3 layers on like me today

nancy75 · 27/10/2010 12:40

my dd always took her socks off, i bought her tights.

SummerRain · 27/10/2010 12:41

I'm far more botered by seeing little babies sweltering in far too many layers... my neighbour was wrapping her newborn up in loads of clothes and blankets during a heatwave while she strolled around in skimpy tops... bloody dangerous as babies are far more likely to die from overheating than being a bit chilly

theyoungvisiter · 27/10/2010 12:41

hee hee sorry off topic but I had to ROFL at MrsdeVeere's "It's not rocket surgery" - I might use that next time I need a putdown!

PutTheKettleOn · 27/10/2010 12:41

another guilty one here... DD is 2.5 and likes to wear as few clothes as possible! A friend came over the other day and said to her 'ooh, you must be cold, why don't we put some socks on?' To which DD ran off, found her socks and let my friend put them on her, even though she never lets me near her with socks in the house! Bloody kids...

And when DD2 was a newborn in the summer and wearing scratchmits I got told off by old ladies for putting her in 'gloves'!

RockBat · 27/10/2010 12:42

Yep, you sound like the woman who accosted me for a rant one day last winter. DD had no shoes or socks on. I showed her under the buggy where there was a pair of tights that DD had screamed until I removed before she made herself sick, socks that she had pulled off, boots with a furry lining which are bought deliberately to combat the sock hating issue and the footmuff that she kicked off until the zip broke. Told the woman to knock herself out.

theyoungvisiter · 27/10/2010 12:44

I was in the park the other day when a lady told me off for not "making" DS2 wear his coat. I held it out and said "would you like to try?"

She looked at DS2 (angel-child with a wicked glint in his eye) and then edged away without a further word! What a wuss

MaMoTTaT · 27/10/2010 12:45

I finally discovered why DS2 would scream and cry and get upset everytime we went out when he was little , despite him willingly putting on hats, gloves, jackets, blankets etc. He was never the "throwing them all off" type.

One day I had to rush out and didn't dress him "properly" for the very cold day. He was happy and didn't cry, although he looked freezing. I was - so had a few more "controlled" trials and discovered that he was happier being cold ~(or at least looking it to me!)

This has continued to this day, and I often look in worry at him when we're out and he's dressed in 20 less layers of clothes than I and his brothers are.

We hate the cold, he seems to thrive in it. HE's always complaining he's too hot when the heating is on and the rest of us are sat with a blanket and jumper on. In the summer he hides inside the house most of the time as he's "too hot" outside. And he's a right miserable sod most of the summer

I think he should have been an Inuit

Hulababy · 27/10/2010 12:48

Sorry but YABU. Every person, children included, are different and they feel the heat/cold differently.

Even as a baby and toddler my DD would she'd clothes all the time. She is now 8y and is still the same. me and DH will be wrapped up in coats and scarves and DD is happy in a hoodied cardi. My dad is exactly the same - infact not sure he even owns a big coat!

BTW, on the whole, it is more dangerous to over dress a baby and cause them tooverheat than it is to underdress them. I personally hate to see little ones bundled up to such an extent they are red from heat.

I used toget very fed up from little old ladies telling me my DD needed a coat on, when she was perfectly fine and able to let me know if she was too hot or not - normally by removing her clothes!

Rhian82 · 27/10/2010 12:58

I'm the opposite - I get annoyed when people dress toddlers in 20 layers and a snowsuit at the slightest hint of cold weather. They're only going to grow up with no resistance to the cold!

My mum feels the cold badly, so our house growing up was kept really warm - now I'm an adult I get cold really quickly and always wear several more layers than my husband when going out. I don't want that to happen to my son! He wears a thick jumper for most autumn outings; in winter we'll add a thick coat. I would put him in gloves but we won't keep them on.

MsSparkle · 27/10/2010 12:59

I always find it odd when i see parents who have wrapped their children up ott! Sometimes you see a little toddler going along in a really thick coat/hat/scarf/gloves etc and they can barely move!

Appletrees · 27/10/2010 13:05

Magic: they do say in England there's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing!

However.

GoreRenewed · 27/10/2010 13:11

My granny live in Australia for years. Mum was born there but came back when she was 3. This meant that my granny was always always cold! She would stand over the radiators rubbing her hands and saying how cold it was even in midly cool weather. And she nearly finished my DB off when he was a baby because she was convinced he was cold. She was babysitting one night and she wrapped him up in front of roaring fire. He cried because he was too hot so she put more layers on him and eventually he stopped crying When mum came back his little eyes had rolled back in his head and he was fitting. Not sure how mum forgave her tbh.

Being too hot is way more dangerous than too cold.

Crazycatlady · 27/10/2010 13:15

If any 'well-meaning' person happened to comment that my toddler DD has no socks, shoes, hat, gloves or cosytoes on I would challenge them to put them on, and keep them on her for more than 5 minutes .

On a really cold day (ice, snow, minus degrees) she will tolerate it, but on a mildly chilly day, not so much...

It's only in the buggy that this is an issue, she's happy to dress appropriately when walking .

pinkjello · 27/10/2010 13:35

Nowhere near as bad as babies without either hats or a sun visor on their prams when the sun is strong.

mitochondria · 27/10/2010 13:36

Mine were the same. Bare feet in winter, no sunhat in the summer.

Now I've got one who runs hot and one who runs cold, so you'll see one boy in winter coat, hat and gloves when it's still mild outside, with his brother running about in a t-shirt.

Oblomov · 27/10/2010 14:00

Are you worried thye are going to 'catch a cold' OP ?
because that doesn't happen, does it ?
Ds2 takes wellies and socks off on school run. Have put them on 10 times by the time I get there.
What do you suggest ?

FooffyShmoofer · 27/10/2010 14:20

I was shocked and judgy with DS (because he kept his things on) until DD came along who wouldnt keep a damn thing on. Then I was the subject of a 'kill you stone dead' look from 3 old witches ladies at DD bare feet in November.Wanted to shout 'I tried, I really did'.

I get more concerned about little ones all red faced with streaming eyes in Summer being pushed in buggies with no sun shade or clearly no sun screen.

Psychommead · 27/10/2010 14:23

Hmmm. After my course today I watched as all the other mums put their babies into snow suits and maxi-cosi footmuffs for the 50 yard walk across the car-park. If I bundled DD into the car in anything more than a cardigan she would be dripping with sweat in minutes.

When she was born, a neighbour diplomatically commented that English babies must have warmer blood than German ones because she only had on a small coat and two blankets. She just never gets cold. Although I do make sure she is wrapped up well in the pushchair, but I think it's rather colder here than in the UK right now. She's still about two layers behind the German kids, mind.

LadyLatherOfIndecision · 27/10/2010 16:32

Guacamole - tights are indeed the answer

narkypuffin · 27/10/2010 16:46

A family of sock strippers here. And shoes. I wander around barefoot at home.

I was worried about a baby I saw being pushed around the (indoor) shopping centre last weekend. The poor thing had mittens, a wooly hat, a snow suit type jacket, blanket and was in a huge fleecy foot muff.

theskiinggardener · 27/10/2010 17:13

I used to teach at a dry ski slope, and the number of times people would turn up with very young kids in snow suits to ski in the middle of summer was unbelievable. The fact that they were doing a high energy sport in a heatwave was irrelevant apparently, they were going skiing do had to wear snow suits.

Far more dangerous than kids being a little bit chilly. I too have a sock refuser most of the time. He will only condescend to keep his socks on or his blanket over his feet if it is very cold.

RespectTheDoughnut · 27/10/2010 17:32

OP - you'd have loved me the other day then DS (18 months) went running off to play in a big fountain in town & ended up soaked from the thighs down. I ended up having to strip him of his trousers, socks & shoes & wrap his legs in feet in my scarf & a blanket. Which he just about kept on until we went into shops, where they promptly got pulled off. So he was being pushed around with his chubby toddler legs & feet on show while everyone had hats & scarves on. Oh, the looks I got!

I did make sure he was wrapped back up before going outside, & got us home in a taxi (which we can ill-afford) because it'd been a while since he got wet at that point, & I wanted him home & in dry clothes ASAP. Plus I couldn't face taking him on public transport naked, but for a nappy, from the waist down

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