to ask for the most bizarre advice you've been given after this gem from my mum (lighthearted)

[CherryChasingDotMuncher]

I'm due baby no 2 in 5 weeks, I work in the hospital I'm giving birth in, and my mum also used to work there about 10 years ago.

I work closely with the chief executive in my job and am in the office next door. My mum has told me that when I go in to give birth, to get "star treatment" and a room of my own in postnatal, I should tell them that I work next door to the chief exec and they will give me what I want.

I actually giggled as I could imagine just how obnoxious I'd sound rolling in mid-contraction and saying "I work with the chief exec you know. What you gonna do with that information?" And then having midwives flocking round giving me pedicures and the like

She is adamant she's right! I joked that he's universally disliked to they'd probably put me in the corridor if anything! Even if I did have the brass neck to say this, I really would rather a side room go to a woman who needs one, and although I'm a high-risk birth it probably wouldn't be me! I'd rather have one on the premise of actually needing one, not because of who I "know".

It inspired me to ask the members of MN for the most bizarre advice you've been given?

No shoes on table is good advice if said shoes have been worn outside...

I got PC World to knock £20 off for a cash purchase so ner.

Cherry people did used to give babies bones to suck on when they were starting solid food, bones and crusts. Big enough and tough enough that baby couldn't choke on them but helped them learn how to hold food, suck, chew, etc. It was only with the invention of formula and the subsequent idea that babies needed food earlier did pureed first foods come into use.

Foggy that was also back in the day when meat animals had strong bones rather than the intensively farmed animal bones you can get today which are much more fragile

The older I get the more I believe that having connections is advantageous.. It might come up in a convo about how you work there.

Does anyone else who was a teenager in the 90's. Remember the problem pages where they would ask if using a tampon meant they were no longer a virgin? Seemed to have been a common question back then

My mum is absolutely adamant that you can't keep your curtains closed after 9am.

She'll come to our house on a Sunday and go round opening the curtains saying, "Come on Bowiefan, the neighbours will think somebody's died!"

Never mind that our nearest neighbour doesn't even overlook us!

Dnwig. When I first qualified 12 years ago there were still nurses who swore blind that egg white and oxygen was the best thing for severe nappy rash.

My ex MIL who tried to put diluted whisky into my baby's formula to 'help her sleep'. My DD was 5 WEEKS OLD!!

My mother who, on learning that I had sciatica (and actually now a long term major health problem with my spine) and couldn't weight bear at all, told me to 'take some paracetamol and just go back to work'. I couldn't even get out of the flat without two people to help me.

When I was pregnant I told my superviser at work (not my direct line manager but still someone in charge when she isn't around) that I was having the whooping cough vaccine and if I could leave early on x date.

He told me I shouldn't have it done because his wife didn't have it done, and I should go online and read all the "research" about why you shouldn't have it.

I said "just to reiterate the appointment is x time on x date" and then changed the subject.

Janey there is some merit I think to diet coke/drinks and arthritic joints symptoms but I wouldn't go as far to to say it's the only cause.

It may be purely placebo but I have met people who had joint problems and were regular drinkers of diet drinks and thier symptoms vanished when they gave them up and lead to them no longer needing medication to deal with it.

I haven't got any old wives tales to share that hasn't been mentioned already.

My mum said the best way to get DS1 and DS2 to sleep was to give them a little bit of Baileys before bed. That's what she used to do with us apparently.

No wonder we're all raging alcoholics. (Joking!)

Sitting In a draft will give you a stiff neck.

Cherry - I got a £6,000 discount when paying cash for a new car. So it can still work.

DMIL was talking about ceiling lights, lamps, that sort of light - not the sun. She always was v sweet but rather irrational, pretty much believed any old wives tale going.

Yes Batteries but I was just explaining where the older woman was getting it from.

This one's a corker from my dear departed gran.
Treatment to make short hair grow quickly.

Cover head with salt. Hold head over a bowl of water. The salt will make the hair thirsty so it will come out for a drink. Quickly tie the hair in knots to prevent it going back in your scalp. No. I never tried it.

Just had a conversation with my elderly dad who has advised me never to drink Lambrusco because it's got poison in it that sends you mad ! He read that a woman drank it and ended up doing cartwheels all over the place !

Yes Dad because she was pissed not poisoned

According to my mother the tumble dryer is the root of all evil and convinced me that poverty followed its use. Even now I twitch when it's on and I never tell her I use one.
she walks around the house after you turning off lights to the extent people trip up and fall over in the darkness. Apparently this saves a fortune.
She doesn't believe in nut allergies, thinks they're 'attention seekers'

Snowballs thank god for that ! I luffs Lambrusco

Should have guessed it was from the Fail , my parents are forever repeating shit interesting stories from it .

My mum is convinced that I will get head lice if I use dry shampoo. She also thinks that you can get head lice if you are too stressed. I tried to explain to her that you need to be in contact with someone with head lice in order to get them but she insists she knows better.

My mother believed you couldn't overdose on painkillers as long as you took them for different things as they targeted the area you'd taken them for. So if you took some aspirin because your arthritis was playing up you could take a second dose for a headache as one dose would go to your joints and the other would shoot off to your head. You could even take another dose if you suddenly developed a fever as that would aim itself at your "temperature glands". So you couldn't get an overdose as all the different doses would be in different bits of your body and not stack up together! I'm often amazed that I survived standard childhood illnesses!

My dear departed great-aunty swore that the reason she never had to go to the doctor's was because she had a shot of Navy Rum every night.

Mind you, she died last year at the age of 107 and hadn't been to a hospital or the doctor's since she had her son in 1939, so maybe there was something in it. Died peacefully in her sleep of natural causes and had been doing her shopping the day before as normal.

Runs off to buy a bottle of Rum