To ask what you've done in the past as a parent and now cringe about

[CherryChasingDotMuncher]

We've just celebrated our son's first birthday, he's our 2nd baby. We had a lovely chocolate cake made for him and of course plated him up a little slice. DH reminded me of our PFB DD's first birthday. We did the same - had a chocolate cake made for her 'party' (parents and siblings came round) which we dished out to everyone, except DD. Then we produced a sugar free disgusting muffin for the birthday girl herself as we didn't want her having any chocolate until she was much older what a pair of wankers. She's 4 now and today she had 3 Freddo's.

We also took her to the doctors when she was eight months old - because she shivered. It was January in northern England, and we'd just returned from living abroad, in the desert. Idiots

OMG, this thread is hilarious! I would always have thought of myself as a worrier TBH, but I'm felling ultra relaxed now in comparison to some of you

to be fair:

recording all the medications is a very good idea. Only one adult in our house is normally in charge of giving medication, but there's a notepad next to the bottles so a sleep deprived parent won't give 2 doses or forget when the last one was given.

making a note of the time you feed is not that silly either, I used to do it with bottles and made sure I would wake up the baby when it was feeding time, so he had enough feeds through the day and would sleep through the night. It worked for us!

I think we are too casual about sugar and junk food. My primary school kids eat sweets pretty much every week between birthdays, parties. It's too much. They've never had a fizzy drink either, fruit juice is enough to destroy their teeth and healthier

Some of the stories on the thread are just priceless!

I kept a notebook detailing all of ds's feeds, it made for such interesting reading....

7.23 - 120ml
8.04 - 45ml
9.36 - 62ml
10.45 - 105ml....

I did this FOR A YEAR.

I still have it upstairs in the loft with his baby bits. He's 23 now.

We had one of those Angelwings monitors that checks for breathing movements. The pad goes under the cot bed mattress and ‘alarms’ if no breathing movements are picked up. This in addition to a normal camera baby monitor. The baby would wedge herself in the top right hand corner of the cot, alarm would go off as she was off the sensor pad. EVERY feckin night.

Not me but my brother told me that if I wanted to look after his daughter, I'd need to receive his and DP's 'training'. Despite the fact I have a 6yo DD already and they rather need help with childcare. I politely declined their offer.

We moved out of a city to the countryside because the pavements were too bumpy for our baby DD 😬😬

highlystrung that's amazing
in the top stories with the shampoo in eye/ fridge and the layers!

God I think I was truly insufferable. We panicked that PFB was too close to the fumes in her pushchair. I had those ridiculous Baby Einstein DVDs. I was smug central that she would eat puréed sweet potato. Now she's nearly 13 and is showing no signs of being a genius and wouldn't eat a sweet potato if you paid her. And she appears to have survived her short time on the mean streets of Manchester 😁😁

This thread has had me howling!!!!

I'm laughing and cringing in equal measures. Some of my worst are:
When he was 3 years old going to a party of another 3 year old where they gave fruit shoots as drinks. Emptied out one of the fruit shoot bottles and refilled with water. THEN gleefully told the mum of the birthday girl what I'd done as I thought I'd been so clever
Had baby breathing monitor mat. Worried it wouldn't go off so weighed a box of stuff and put it in cot to check it was the stillness rather than the weight.
The utter utter worst one though was MIL'S 60th birthday celebration PFB was 10 months. Worried the noise would upset PFB so refused to take him. Went in morning for an hour and then went home leaving DH there on his own. So so shameful, surprised MIL ever spoke to me again.
What a total dick!

When ds went into his cot for the first time we rocked him to sleep and then dh carefully... slowly.... carefully lowered him onto the cot mattress. As he carefully and slowly removed his hand from under ds's tiny head his head slipped back half a millimetre and thunked down slightly harder than planned. Probably the same impact as a fly landing on your hand. Dh was almost in tears "I've brain damaged him...". Ds didn't even wake up and ten years later seems unaffected :o

I phoned my sister to look after pfb when i needed to put the washing on the line, as i didn’t want to take her outside or leave her inside on her own. She was asleep
My sister tried not to laugh.

Howling at some of these

I have a friend who still does most of these things - minimal sugary stuff, no maccy ds, no fruit shoots etc. Very much PFB . However my favourite is the fact they still use a baby monitor. Child is Aged 9.

In hospital for 5 days after ds1. Dh took him over to the window and I made him come back because I thought he would drop him out of the window.....I was genuinely panicking.

Didn't allow anyone to use their phone's near him because of the 'deadly' signals. That one didn't last for long though.

Completely different with ds2!

What does PFB stand for!?

What does PFB stand for!?

Precious First Born.

God I must be shit. I don’t think I’ve done a single one of these

I was very very smug when DD was tiny because she was such a good eater, ate everything put in front of her, never made a fuss. Then she got to 4/5 years old and I suddenly getting her to eat her dinner like a hostage negotiator. I can’t even remember exactly why that happened. She used to eat porridge and banana for breakfast back in the day. Nowadays I’m pleased when her and her little brother polish off half a pack of chocolate digestives between them before 8am on a Sunday because a) at least it’s not kitkats and b) they’re sharing.

I did exactly the same as OP for DD1 1st birthday. Lovely shop bought sugary cake for guests, sugar free homemade (with vinegar) cake for DD as she too was allowed no sugar until she was at least 3. Currently 2 and seems to exist on biscuits!

Oh I also said I was going to limit how much tv they watch. Ha. Hahahahaha. It’s true I did when DD was a baby/toddler because it was easier as she was at nursery.

Then I had DS. He has ASD. Screens are a.... passion/fixation of his. Phones, tablet, tv he doesn’t care he just wants to watch something all the time. And mostly I let him get on with it. I am one of those awful parents that has on occasion Attached their child to a phone or tablet in a restaurant (with headphones on) so I can eat my dinner in peace. People judge. The me from 10 years ago would have too. I don’t care as long as I get my money’s worth and no one is screaming blue murder.

homemade (with vinegar) cake

Please please share that recipe!

Mine isn't funny, just cringey looking back. I think I used to do that thing where parents talk too loudly to their baby or toddler when out and about. As if our mother and baby experience was so unique and amazing the whole world would want to hear it all and see what a fabulous time I was giving my child...

@iamyourequal

Ahhhh the performance parenting...I remember it well. If it makes you feel any better, I used to do it in 4 different languages. I don’t even speak one of them, got my phrases off Babel.

Luckily I was too sleep-deprived to notice the looks I must have getting.

I didn't let my PFB eat any sort of crisps or biscuits until he was 5 .. even then He only had them because I got told by the doctors he NEEDED to eat them because he had his tonsils taken out and they wanted him to eat something hard / sharp to knock the scab off of the back of his throat( ) .... i ( very reluctantly ) placed a bag of crisps in front of him and he sat looking at them like they were something from another planet .. so much so I had to get his cousins to come around and EAT crisps in a hope he would copy ., he did!

Many years later crisps are his main diet and I can't get anything else into him( apart from custard!)