to be taken aback by a total stranger telling me off for not putting shoes on a 4 month old baby?

[peedieworky]

Okay! So I had lifted the wee fella out of his buggy and footmuff & he was on the "lying down" style trolley in Asda. He was wearing a winter jacket with hood on top of his day clothes, mittens and thick socks. Having chased his socks & mittens round the shop floor an effing squillion times on more than one occasion, I was waiting at the till when I was approached by a woman in her late 50's/early 60's who exclaimed that it was "a sin that boy's got no shoes on!".

I have to confess, I have no shoes for my 4 month old child - thought it was just another thing to pick up off the floor and best left till he was at least crawling.

YANBU, I didn't put shoes on DS until he started getting amisshapen tonemails from digging his toes in to crawl

Sock-ons are supposed to be very good. I didn't use them but a friend did and recommends them to stops socks being pulled off.

Any recomendations for an almost 3yo who won't keep socks OR tights on and is permanently cold?
She actually complains whilst stripping off....

Actually I think most women of that age don't give a flying fuck what people do with their children.

I suspect they are slightly more inclined to interact in a fairly banal way with those around them because that used to be regarded as good manners. Yet is broadly taken as intrusive.

I think mn likes nothing better than an 'interfering old bat' thread.

Get used to it, there'll be a lot more tut tut judgey rude comments coming your way as your child grows.

My kids won't wear hats, in summer or winter, they won't wear scarved or gloves, and my youngest would much prefer it if he could run around naked all day.

As babies, shoes, socks, muffs and blankets were always kicked off within seconds. I tried to rectify this by using celotape, but they'd still wriggle out. Their feet always felt cold, they never caught colds, chillblains, piles (yes an old boy once siad my kids would get piles, bless him) or suffered any other ill affects of being shoe less.

Maybe they got it from me, I wear flip flops most of the year round and always sleep with my feet sticking out of the duvet and have the window open all year.

I got berated in a lift the other day because DD (11mths) didn't have shoes or socks on. She did when we left the house but after a millisecond she'd whipped them off and her bloody blanket too .

Asda, and most grocery stores are quite cold. She was probably concerned about his freezing little toes! She was quite rude in the way she said it though!

Modules include Random Mother Criticism, Advanced Tutting, Umbrella & Elbow Skills, Waiting Room Eyeball Rolling & optional Checkout Blocking.

I think the Nutty Old Lady curriculum deserves its own thread, Cogito!!

I hate people who think they have the rite to make comments on the well being of other peoples kids. How rude and i would have told her so.

Some people tut

Sock ons are very useful, I have a 10 week old who is incapable of keeping socks on usually but they stay put with the sock ons. Won't work when he starts pulling them off mind!

A sin, no less! She needs to get a life and you need to ignore her.

Take no notice. Shoes for non walking babies are just a fashion accessory and probably damage growing feet anyway.

If you were indoors, the child is hardly going to be too cold.

Bonkers.

She probably has some other fabulous nuggets to impart around what is a 'sin' in her book too.

put an extra pair of socks on him if you think he has cold feet.

I find it much odder that the 4 month old baby in the school playground is wearing designer trainers.

But I would never dream of commenting to his mum.

I walked past a tramp with a sockless DS once - he was around seven months old, so it must have been May or so.....

(Adopts gravelly slurring....."F'in' DISGRACEFUL.....that child should have SOCKS on."

What can you do?

Wait until you encounter a Portuguese grandmother............................

Small children sitting in trollies being pushed round supermarkets are actual old lady magnets. By the law of statistics you will get the odd interfering old bat approaching you with her opinion.

I have had an old lady come over to make sure I dd was breastfed (!), several tell me my child's face is dirty (I am an 'open the packet and let them eat it before it's paid for' type) and recently was told off for giving ds (7 months) a can of deodorant to hold and chew (he was facing me, I wouldnt have let him spray it in is mouth or anything!)

Oh and ds doesnt wear shoes either by the way

My DS3 is 21 months and has only started properly walking in the last couple of weeks.

We had a hospital appointment a few weeks ago, just before he started walking, and i got lots of looks when i said that he didn't actually have any shoes. WTF's the point of buying shoes for a child who isn't going to walk in them?

And a 4 month old baby? They have no need of 'proper' shoes either!

Well save him from sin & buy me a pair then Mrs!!

rolls eyes

Redsky, I took my 7mo DS out in a fetching pair of Replay designer soft trainers the other day as it was cold and otherwise he kicks his socks off. They're not something I'd buy (it'd kill me to part with more than a tenner for glorified baby slippers) but were a hand me down from my neighbour who often buys designer clothes for her baby. I didn't notice anyone hoiking up their judgypants but now I know they probably will, I'll enjoy keeping an eye out for it.

Another shoe and sockless child here!

19 week DD refuses to keep anything on her feet so is more often than not dressed in sleepsuits and occasionally tights under trousers.

MIL keeps buying her socks much to my annoyance as they sit in the drawer unused and I feel guilty.

It's definitely a generation thing.
On one occasion MIL brought her back from a trip to great grandma's (babysitting whilst we were at a funeral) with mittens on her feet as great grandma was so distraught at the thought of her poor little frozen feet and that was all she had to hand...it was July!

14 month ds has shoes, we put them on as it is a fun game distracting, that said they aren't really shoes and quite frankly I always forget them, if it helps I often forget about socks

I'm still smirking at the thought of having a barefoot baby being a sin. Tee hee.

I never bought shoes for my two until they started walking. HV told me that shoes are a bad idea until they are walking confidently as they make it harder for a child to learn balance and pronation of the foot. Socks are fine. Take no notice of the stranger.

When I was 15 I went through a hippy phase involving no shoes (it was a warm summer that year). Walking through my local shopping centre I was stopped by an old man who thrust a fiver in my hands and told me to buy myself some shoes from the charity shop opposite.

my 10 month old doesn't wear shoes. sometimes he doesn't wear socks! Even in this weather! I am a bad mum!