Ridiculous parenting advice

[GreasyHairDoNotCare]

Aibu to ask you what the most ridiculous bit of parenting advice that you've ever been given is?

I can think of a few but these stand out to me

'It's good for him to cry like that, gets the air to his lungs, leave him for a while'- DS was screaming with teething pain and wanted comforting

'Can't you just lay him in the bath, he'll hold his breath obviously' - no DS will drown if I do that

ArDali1 - people without children always know best!!! 😒😡

Put baby to sleep on its back, NOT on its front as it could overheat.
Put baby to sleep on its side, NOT on its back as it might be choke on sick.
Put baby to sleep on its front, NATURAL position.
Three children, 5 year gap between each one and conflicting, judgemental advice each time. Wtf

Crying and being stressed when pregnant will give my child life long problems with depression and anxiety so I’ve already made their life more difficult than it ever needed to be.

K. Cheers. Calmed me right down. 🙄

Milvusmilvus

That was me too, with the added bumper/ no bumper, sheets/no sheets, cot toys/no cot toys.
I am going to have to do a lot of reading up before I offer anymore baby sitting.

How do they sleep now and are bumpers in or out.

@SchoolMoney

@knockknockknock My son used to do that every time he had wind - once winded it would go back to normal so maybe not as mad as you think 😀

My midwife told me the same thing when dd2 was born. She would also go a bit blue round the mouth and once winded it went away.

Pull on baby's nose to ensure they can breathe properly.

My DS had severe allergies as a baby and had lost lots of weight and was in the minus centiles due to excessive vomiting. MIL argued with my OH as she and the FIL said they would take my DS home with them aged 6 mths and sort out his allergies!

I think this thread proves that parenting is an art, not a science!

My HV's advice on me not being able to stop my baby's non stop crying, after I'd tried/checked everything was alright, "Just put her at the bottom of the garden then".
And a weird (voodoo?) doctor who suggested I bury a chicken bone in the garden to rid my daughter of the mole on her foot.

My HV told me (Don't try to change a nappy with one hand, get someone else to do it). Despite the fact that "yes" I only have one hand, and trust me I have learnt to live with it. I do everything one handed and cope pretty fine. Dunno how she expected me to do it with two hands or forfeit being a mum n shout hubby every time DS wanted nappy changed. The other thing she told us was that my husband (who is deaf) should learn to hear when DS is crying and respond. That he shouldn't leave it to me to listen out for him. Again don't think we can change his deafness and when DS was a baby we lived in a small bungalow where he could literally see him 24/7 so he was hardly at risk.

The other was when I was breastfeeding DS wouldn't latch and was refusing feeds we realised that this was due to me having a severe infection which I had passed over to him. He didn't get as ill as I had been thankfully thankfully due to refusing my milk, but Maternity staff tried to insist I carried on breast feeding after they stabilised his condition despite me been still very ill. They said "He wont catch it twice" doctor later confirmed if that if I carried on and not insisted on trying Formula DS would have either lost weight through not feeding and bot developed or worse become seriously ill

The ultimate one is "Put a nip of whiskey in his bottle he will sleep"

My m told me to start potty training when DS was 6wks old!-Hold him over the potty after feeding, I did it with you and it worked. We almost fell out over this.

Lots of these bits of advice are barmy, but sometimes there is a grain of truth there, so for example if you are being driven crazy by non stop crying and it is pushing you to the brink, provided your baby is safe and not unwell, putting them at the end of the garden in a pram or in their cot is not going to do them a great deal of harm, if it lets you drink a cup of tea and wind down, before you go back to them.
Likewise the granny’s advice about not going out one day after giving birth whilst mis directed at preventing a cold in the vagina, is quite sensible at preventing or reducing the risk of post partum haemorrhage especially as most new mothers come home so quickly these days. There again, that’s why my grandmother died.

And of course in China, potty training still
goes like this
www.nacd.org/potty-training-infants-an-ancient-chinese-secret/

DS was 10 months old and we were going for Christmas dinner at the (now) exMIL. She always added so much salt to her food it was all you could taste and as I didn’t give him salt I asked if she could do a separate pan of potatoes and veg for him. She point blank refused! Told me my food must be insipid and that if he’s never had salt a little bit wouldn’t hurt.

We fed him before going so we knew he wouldn’t eat her dinner and took it home with us, where it went straight in the bin.

She did make a big deal about her dogs not having a turkey leg as they can choke on the bone. Then proceeded to give DS one to chew on.

Ex DH would never stand up to her.

Dd clearly had SEN and couldn't read by age 6 - I was told by a teacher to 'cuddle her in tight, give her special attention and she would start to read'

Gilly
I wouldn't have a clue how to babysit a baby today. I wouldn't want to get it so wrong.
Where does all of the wisdom of baby rearing go?

Brocka that's bonkers! Wtf was she thinking?!

Funnily enough on another thread I was saying I can change a nappy with one hand due to I've changed quite possibly thousands over the years. I've only the one but I've been a nanny and childminder and babysat LOADS.

I was told that I should not listen to doctors or health professionals. They are wrong. Instead, I should listen to older [her ethnic group] women because they know best. About every baby thing. Ever. And her babies slept completely through by 6 weeks and were completely potty trained at 3 months. Because [that group's] women know. They really know.
Of course given some of the advice from HV on this thread...

@Mammyloveswine that is brilliant

How about any practical lessons you have received?

My 80 year old grandmother visited this week and decided to demonstrate how to "properly" wind my 4 week old DS.

Swung him over one arm head unsupported and patted hit him really hard on the back.

I wouldn't have a clue how to babysit a baby today. I wouldn't want to get it so wrong

You could just ask the parents

The idea of flat coke to sort constipation probably came from brown sugar dissolved in water way back when. I used it for my dd (now an adult) but recognise it isn't appropriate advice now. My dd was weaned on solids (homemade never jars) at 3 months as per general guidelines and guess what? She's fine! But again I recognise It's not the done thing now. Advice does change. Older generations don't necessarily keep up with recent recommendations so maybe what they say comes from a place of helpfulness and love and not nastiness and maybe doesn't deserve to be mocked?

Oh cheval what a hideous thing for the doctor to say to you 😧

gilly cot bumpers are out again and they should be put down on their backs these days, but if they roll themselves over it's fine.

brocka maybe your DH should have learnt to be able to hear the baby. Once he'd cracked that he could go on to learn to be able to hear everything! Deafness cured! I literally don't understand...did she think dead people just weren't trying hard enough to hear??

Re the tickling feet, my nanna told me not to tickle her feet or she’ll get a stutter

From my mum, hold him on the potty from about three months so he gets used to it.

I know that mn mums don't believe that you can potty train a child before 3, but I used to live in Central Asia, where they don't use nappies, and all kids use a potty by 12 months. I was pitied because mine were running round in those bulky uncomfortable nappies at 18 months.

It isn't the same as we would describe potty training, what they do is after feed they hold the baby over the ground/potty and wait for them to wee (which most babies do within about 15 minutes of a feed), they make a hiss/whistle noise while the baby wees. In a surprisingly short time the baby associates the noise with weeing, so if you hold the baby over the potty and make the noise, they will wee. If you do that regularly enough, then the baby does all wees in the potty.

All my friends babies were trained by 12 months, and by then they would also begin to grab themselves when they needed a wee, and tuned in mum stuck them on the potty.

It isn't the same as we know it, ie a child KNOWS when they need to wee and choses to go to the potty, and yes, there are a lot of accidents, but I do get irritated at the mocking of this, it is real in many cultures and it does work.

I chose not to do it, but 1 of mine self trained at 18 months, another at 2 and only one was according to UK timetable.