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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To want people to stop telling me how to look after my baby?

25 replies

Jellybeam · 15/02/2016 00:25

I've had so many annoying comments from people on how I should be taking care of my baby. How often I should wash her, that I'm not feeding her properly, I'm feeding her too much, I should leave her to cry, how I should burp her, how I should clothe her.

She's barely 7 weeks old and I'm so pissed off with other people's advice. I feel like I'm not doing anything right.

OP posts:

KingJoffreyLikesJaffaCakes · 15/02/2016 00:31

Wanky, isn't it? Some people think know everything.

Next time say, "Oooo, you should write a book if you're such an expert."

blueturtle6 · 15/02/2016 00:40

Smile and nod, esp when they tell you your baby is hungry (happily sleeping in pram at the time)

Mumberjack · 15/02/2016 02:41

Oh I had the 'she's hungry!' on a crowded roasting hot bus before by old (able bodied) biddies. No shit Sherlock; maybe if they'd offered to swap seats with me from a side-on seat which had me sliding off it every 2 minutes, I'd have been able to get my tits out and feed her. Which would have either prompted some affectionate memories or more likely, had them clutching their pearls at the audacity because in those days mums stayed at home for that sort of thing.

Smile and nod. Remember just because advice is given, there is no obligation to take it. Saying that, someone once told me to do whatever works til it stops working, then try something else. Stuck with me.
Every baby is different just like every parent.

BatMobile · 15/02/2016 05:17

Welcome to parenting Smile, nod and ignore.

scrivette · 15/02/2016 05:21

It's very frustrating! I love my inlaws to bits but today I kept telling them DS was tired and hungry when they were playing with him.

When I took him off of them he fell asleep whilst feeding and they were amazed. I think people forget we know our babies better than they do!

winchester1 · 15/02/2016 05:35

Wait till they start nursery, at ours at least they all insist they know better than us how much sleep they need, what food they like, how much food they need, what they like to play with etc. Does my fucking head in.

Cheby · 15/02/2016 06:13

Have you had advice from random people in the street who have seen you for all of 8 seconds but still think they know more than you about your baby, yet?!

It's bonkers. I don't know why people feel the need to do this. I saw a baby grow once that said 'if my mummy wanted your advice she would ask for it'. Very twee and PA at the same time but many a day when I wished I had bought it!

littledrummergirl · 15/02/2016 07:23

"Thank you for your advice, I'l consider it along with the rest of it and then decide what I feel is right for us". Big smile

Suzietwo · 15/02/2016 07:34

Really? Isn't it just people trying to re-live their own early parenting days and interact with a new mum and small baby?

And if it's friends and family who have had kids, they probably have more experience than you and want to help/bond/interact etc. It's not about you or your parenting. It's about them.

Why not indulge them in their interest in you and your new baby? You know you don't need their input but it might make their day if they think you do (partic old lady on bus type).

NeedACleverNN · 15/02/2016 08:15

I remember it well!

The worst was with my daughter who was about 18 months and had only just started to walk and therefore wanted to walk everywhere. We were at a bus stop on a busy main road and she was screaming because she wanted to get out.

I had an old lady tell me she was tired. When I said no she's having a temper because she wants to get out and actually she's just woke up from a nap, she got all huffy and muttered loudly, in my days kids wouldn't dare scream like that!

BernardsarenotalwaysSaints · 15/02/2016 08:20

Annoying isn't it! The same people were still trying it with me with baby #4. Most of them only had 1 child some of them 0. As others have said smile & nod.

Anniegetyourgun · 15/02/2016 08:24

The most authoritative advice about sleep training I received was from a single man who had no children, no siblings, not even any younger cousins. I thanked him for sharing the benefit of his experience. It was my fourth child.

I also used to get lots of child-rearing advice from childless SIL, but none at all from other SIL who also had four DC (unless I asked her to share tips). Funny, that.

LillianGish · 15/02/2016 08:26

If you want people to stop telling how to look after your baby, you've come to the wrong place

Lightbulbon · 15/02/2016 08:40

I think you have to just get used to smiling politely when you have a DC at others patenting comments. It doesn't end when they are babies.

Unless they have genuine reasons to be giving you advice...

Paintedhandprints · 15/02/2016 08:46

She looks cold op. Put another blanket on her.

QuiteLikely5 · 15/02/2016 08:50

I hate it when folk moan when people are only trying to be useful or helpful!

If there comments aren't coming from a place of malice then yabu!

BeStrongAndCourageous · 15/02/2016 08:56

Ah, come on now, there's a difference between being helpful and being an interfering baggage, and we all know when we've encountered the latter!

Suzietwo · 15/02/2016 09:01

why not move onto a bit of light health visitor bashing while you are at it.

AliceThrewTheFookingGlass · 15/02/2016 09:15

I think most people generally mean well with their advice but my god it's irritating.

My two worst ones were the woman in a second hand shop who said I must take my baby to hospital immediately because he had the hiccups. I told her that he had the hiccups 3x a day while I was pregnant and it has continued since he was born and is very normal. Nope. She's had four kids and two grandchildren and I must take him right now I just walked out laughing.

The second was from a girl who was in my school year. When my first was around 5months she took it upon herself to message me out of the blue (hadn't spoke in about 4 years) and assure me that if I had any questions about parenting she is more than happy to answer them as she is very experienced and knowledgable because she helps out in a nursery for 4 hours a day 3x a week. I thought it best to just ignore that one completely..

Cheby · 15/02/2016 09:15

I was a nervous new mum, major worrier about silly things, remote possibilities. All as a result of PND. I sought a lot of help from different sources; internet, Facebook groups etc, official guidance, research papers.

My DM and DSis spent the first 4 months of DD's life telling me to stop reading things and just trust my instincts, put those books down etc etc (fairly hard for me as I felt I had no instincts or bond with DD at all at first).

Anyway, I was feeling much better from around 4 months as my ADs kicked in and her colic subsided. Started to find my confidence, my mothering instinct and build a great bond with DD.

Except my instinct was different to theirs (we BF, coslept, baby wearing, BLW, no sleep training etc). So then I got told I was doing it all wrong and to stop trusting my instincts.

Turns out what most people mean when they give un-requested baby advice is please do exactly what I did or I'll feel like you are somehow criticising my choices.

Smile, nod and ignore, carry on as you were, is the best approach I think!

babybythesea · 15/02/2016 09:26

The advice won't stop. It'll just change as they get older!
DD2 is a handful. I know she's a handful, I bloody live with her (she's nearly 3). The techniques I used successfully with DD1 to turn out a confident, but well behaved, 7 year old have little effect. And now I realise that DD1 was naturally a 'good' kid, and it's not down to my brilliant parenting anyway. DD2 will find trouble in an empty, locked room. We're working on it but it's not easy.
I have several family members regularly tell me "You need to get a handle on this/get control of her/stop her doing this." Really? I had thought just to let her carry on with her hurricane of destruction but now you've mentioned it I see it's not the way forward....
I've also had advice to just smack her. Which I might not follow.

toots111 · 15/02/2016 09:44

If it's strangers, I always smile and say 'you'd think after 6 kids I'd have perfected it by now, just goes to show every baby is different' I don't have 6 kids, only 2, but it shuts them up (or gives them something else to clutch their pearls about )

OddBoots · 15/02/2016 09:48

"Turns out what most people mean when they give un-requested baby advice is please do exactly what I did or I'll feel like you are somehow criticising my choices." - You are hitting the nail on the head there Cheby. Many of the threads about feeding/sleep/boundaries on here boil down to the same thing.

CigarsofthePharoahs · 15/02/2016 10:10

You're very much not alone op.
I've had the "Oh, he's hungry" comments in the supermarket.
No he isn't, I fed him right before I left, he just hates being in the baby carrier in the trolley.
"Put a hat on that baby!"
Both my children aren't good with hats. Unless it really is sub-arctic conditions outside, wearing a hat only resulted in a very sweaty had and from the moment they had the co-ordination, the hats just got pulled off anyway. Do people really think I was going to stand there and watch my child freeze? No, they were well dressed, usually with a blanket, they just didn't like stuff on their head.
I got some accidental revenge on one commenter. She seemed to think I was deaf. I was trying to feed my eldest in a café, he was about a year old, iirc, and was, unusually for him, being a bit of a fuss pot. Behind me I could hear tutting and comments about what I was feeding him and how I was feeding him.
I got up to leave and I had his juice bottle in my hand, I hadn't realised the top was still open. Friend of rude commenty woman decided to push past me at that moment causing me to drop my arm to let her through (no excuse me or anything). I spilt squash in commenty woman's bag. I didn't realise straight away as I didn't know the bottle wasn't closed - it had a slightly dodgy sports cap. However the last I saw of her she was wiping her bag with napkins and looking very cross.
Ooops.

CigarsofthePharoahs · 15/02/2016 10:14

sweaty had? I meant head.

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