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Original poster

PFB confessions...

207 replies

ForTheSakeOfFuck · 19/03/2017 11:41

Just filled in PFB's "All about me" booklet for starting preschool in five weeks. It has a double-page spread for family photos - comfortably fits about four. I've painstakingly wedged in eleven. PFB grinning. PFB dancing. PFB shoveling food in his face. Then there're sections for writing about what PFB loves, hates, and is good at, word clouds to circle about his personality, tick boxes for how he learns/explores, all that kind of thing. Overall, I have pored over every question and written a carefully considered thesis. The staff going to take one leaf through this and make some (probably fairly accurate) conclusions. And yet, I cannot stop myself. In fact, I am ready to burst into tears at the very thought of taking him in on his first day with his little book all about him clutched in his hands.

Please cheer me up and tell me I'm not the only one who has done/is doing stuff like this. What's your most OTT PFB moment?

(PS. We have twins on the way so I imagine three years from now I'll be howling with laughter at my current self.)

OP posts:
RaeSkywalker · 20/03/2017 19:50

Licking, DS still has a clean baby grow and vest each night Blush In my defence, he does have reflux, so the usually need washing after his morning feed!

RaeSkywalker · 20/03/2017 19:51

^ 'they', not 'the'

glueandstick · 20/03/2017 20:13

Do babies not get clean baby grows and vests each night as standard?!

Imabadmummy · 20/03/2017 20:20

I used to take PFB upstairs for all nappy changes on his change table! Not sure what this actually achieved other than making me tired!

If he didn't wake for a feed I would have to go him (even though I could hear him snoring through the monitor) to check he was OK.

No chocolate until he was 1.
No juice until way after that.
Never had cartoons/TV on.
Was always well dressed, cute outfits etc.
I cooked up lots of fab meals, pureed and frozen for weaning.
Everything was very carefully home made.

Fast forward 18 months & his brother comes along.....
By his 2nd birthday PFB was a tv, fruit shoot and chocolate craving monster!
His little brothers diet even at 3 months was boob juice & fruit juice (I caught him trying to "feed" the baby!).

Ds2 was weaned with jars, yogurt & chocolate.
He was "babysat" by cbeebies with his brother from an early age and I use the ipad as a bribe to be quiet!
Ds2 lived in baby grow's until he was 6 months (and even then only if we went out as I was asked if he needed any clothes as no one had seen him in anything except baby grows!).
Ds2 now has a healthy diet of chicken nuggets & fish fingers most days and can navigate Netflix as well as any adult. PFB doesn't even need me to turn sky on, he can do that and record & watch his cartoons on his own now....he's 5!

I sometimes feel bad for Ds2 that I didn't "care" about him as much....he didn't even have a monitor after 1st one broke cose I could hear him snoring from the other room!
I think I just relaxed my parenting as chasing 2 toddlers was knackering.

I found myself asking my nephew (who's 18 months) what you eating? He opened his mouth to show me chewed breadstick....we were at playgroup and that was snacks.....that had all been eaten or dropped....I just said OK, as you were and left him with it lol.

I dread to think what I would be like if we actually had a 3rd of our own 😂
You know those memes you see on social - 1st child with fab bedroom, 2nd matress on floor....totally me!

KayTee87 · 20/03/2017 20:25

Pretty much everything everyone has said here I think is totally normal!

Derlei · 20/03/2017 20:36

When I give DS a bath, he obviously has his towel on the floor ready for him to be put straight in there from the bath. But in my PFB mind, the bathroom tiles are too hard as a foundation for his towel, I therefore have a special foamy blanket that I put under his towel so that he is in no discomfort for the entire 2 seconds he is on the bathroom floor Blush Blush. Every night we have to fold it away and put it in the airing cupboard..

AudreyBradshaw · 20/03/2017 20:36

Im glad others do clean vest and babygrow each night! DS gets a fresh washed (and ironed) grobag every other night too (but that's more down to habit!) I've only just stopped double sterilising his dummies.

Limitededition7inch · 20/03/2017 20:56

So people change their babygros even if they were clean? Don't get me wrong, I usually had to change DS a couple of times a day anyway due to burping all over himself or because he had shat everywhere, but I wouldn't put a clean one on for the sake of it.

LickingTheButterKnife · 20/03/2017 21:28

We used to put a clean babygro + vest (if needed) combo until DD was around 7/8 months old.

Now, unless dirty, we change it every 2 or 3 nights. Of course, if she's been sweating, or sick, or wet, it goes in the wash.... which means that se more or less gets a clean set every night anyway Wink

I also put something underneath her towel after the bath Blush

WheresYouWheelieBin · 20/03/2017 21:57

My first born were twins. When they started on solids I always insisted on preparing two separate meals with two separate bowls and two separate spoons because I felt it was disrespectful to make them share. I also weighed out their food as I was serving it to make sure they got the same amount so I was t favouring one over the other.

enchantmentandlove · 20/03/2017 22:04

Is it not normal to change the sleepsuit thing every night? I always do that Blush
I also still sit next to dd (9 months) in the back of the car, holding her hand in case. My sister laughed at this the other day when driving us, and made me sit the 10 minute journey in the front with her, where I constantly spoke to dd in case she wondered where I was.

enchantmentandlove · 20/03/2017 22:05

In case she gets upset*

IlPorcupinoNilSodomyEst · 20/03/2017 22:27

I managed to write four pages of a4 paper on how to look after DS when my lovely brother and SIL looked after him for ONE EVENING (they have successfully raised two lovely children of their own)! They were very kind, they didn't laugh at me.

AldrinJustice · 20/03/2017 22:41

I used to do the clean babygrow/vest every night too.

I doubled (or tripled) up on everything from nappies to creams to teethers and medicine just in case one got lost or I couldn't find something urgently.

I just had one now...for the first time told DD off properly Sad it was horrible. But she listened. But I felt like a monster for causing her to cry and go red SadSadSad

gemma19846 · 20/03/2017 22:53

I stuck an.actual picture of an open mouth is ds.baby book and labelled each tooth with the order and date they came through 🙈

theonlygeorgie · 20/03/2017 22:56

With DS1 I changed his clothes every day, and he was wearing clothes (instead of sleepsuitd) from about 2 months. With DS2 (4 months old) he's still in sepsis sleepsuits all the time & is lucky if it gets changed every 3 days... I'll only change it if it's dirty.

That said I am still cleaning DS2's bum with cotton wool and water every day Blush

theonlygeorgie · 20/03/2017 22:57

Sleepsuits, not sepsis Hmm

CoodleMoodle · 20/03/2017 22:59

I was OBSESSED with naps. And I do mean obsessed! I used to wake DD up at 6:30am if she didn't wake by herself, because that meant we would be 'on track' for the rest of the day... In my defence she was a horrendous nighttime sleeper and keeping her on a schedule did help enormously. She did 45min naps and they were at specific times, and she'd only sleep in her cot. Once I SOBBED because I got stuck in traffic on the way home from the shops and we were going to be LATE FOR HER NAP by about two minutes.
(We're TTC #2 at the moment and I'm trying not to think about naptimes. I know I won't be able to have so much control over them with DD around...)

We also tracked her feeding habits for the first couple of weeks, mostly because we had an awful time with bf (lasted three days) and we were worried something was wrong. Turned out she had CMPA which didn't help. Wasn't really necessary to make notes, though!

And we took her to the GP at about 3 weeks because her toe looked a little bit sore. This one is mostly DM - she spotted that her little toe was red, and thought (panicked - PFGC!) that was the reason for her being so unhappy. GP dutifully examined and made all the right faces, telling me to "keep an eye on it". Turned out she was crying all the time because of the milk, but at that point I was desperate for a solution and the toe thing seemed possible. It was probably just a bit squished in her babygrow.

Now she's 3 and my approach is mainly: "Is she breathing? Is she destroying anything? Is she making a annoying anybody? No? Carry on, DD!"

ironmanslady · 20/03/2017 23:10

When my DS was younger and stayed over night with my mum I used to pack up pretty much his entire bedroom for one night literally carrier bags full of stuff Blushthermometer and everything enough clothes to last him a week always a full unopened packet of nappies and strict instructions on how to look after a baby not like she raised me and my siblings or anything
Now he's lucky if he gets a spare pair of clothes.
I also used to think only pampers active fit was good enough for my baby, couldn't fathom ever putting him in 'supermarket' nappies and always used Huggies wipes. Was most upset when my sister bought and used pampers wipes on him Confused
That ended when I realised I was insane spending £7+ on nappies each time and realised pampers aren't actually that great compared to shop ones Wink
My bank balance is much healthier and a wet wipe is a wet wipe ffs Grin

HaveCourageAndBeKind · 20/03/2017 23:33

I've read the first page and come to the conclusion that I'm a terrible mother. I've never done any of this sort of stuff Confused

Rufus27 · 20/03/2017 23:53

Not sure DS counts as a PFB as I didn't give birth to him. PFA, I guess! The first few weeks after we adopted him, I went into his room every time I couldn't hear him on the monitor, convinced he was dead. Woke him up on more than one occasion! I also have a strange fixation with ensuring his socks match his outfit perfectly and have been known to change them two or three times before I get it right.

DP is even worse than me: he tried to get an emergency doc's apt because he was worried DS's teeth were coming through in the wrong order. He has also told me off for pushing the shopping trolley too quickly. Apparently DS doesn't have enough time to take everything in.

LoveDeathPrizes · 21/03/2017 00:16

gemma I think that's really sweet!

Kione · 21/03/2017 08:03

Gemma we get a chart to do that from the Health Visitor!

Shiraznowplease · 21/03/2017 08:12

Ok, some of these are cringeworthy 🙈 Separating out toys other babies had touched so I could anti bac spray them overnight in case pfb caught any germs, refusing to go out if it may rain (living in Wales this was lots), refusing to let HV hold him to put on scales to be weighed as I smelt smoke on her and was convinced it would cause lung damage and crying uncontrollably as I was worried at 12 weeks I wasn't stimulating him enough. On my second I was a whole different mother (much to everyone's relief!) oh and in the first week when everyone came to visit it making them but on alcohol gel 🙈🙊 Think that's why I have a larger than planned gap between dcs as my dh didn't want the crazy lady to come back😂😂

FartnissEverbeans · 21/03/2017 09:04

I change DS's sleepsuit every night! I thought that was what people did...? I thought he might dribble and puke on it in the night and it would dry and I wouldn't notice... I also change the growbag every other night!

I used to change the fitted cot sheet every night, before I realized that I could just put him to sleep at alternating ends of the cot so the fitted sheet lasted TWO nights! But then he got too big for that and his feet would be in the dirty patch from the night before... conundrum lol

I specifically bought a playgym with hoops to hang detachable toys, then bought a bunch of toys to hang from it in addition to the ones it came with. I now have them on rotation and use them in his pram too, but chop and change them so he doesn't get bored.

I have three fb groups just for photos of him. I update daily. To be fair our families are far away.