To ask what you naively swore you wouldn't do when raising your child - but ended up doing?

[m4rdybum]

Lighthearted really, but curious

When pregnant, we bought a new born bottle set which had a dummy included. Silly old me said "oh well we'll have it for emergencies but I really don't think we'll use it - they're awful don't you know".

DD is now 13 days old and has had her dummy from the first night Because it settles her and gives mummy and daddy a bit of quiet.

I was going to try and raise DD in a more gender neutral way, and definitely no Barbie type dolls or Brownies which just teaches girls to be mini housewives. Limit the amount of pink.

She got her first Barbie as a gift aged 3 and loved it and soon had a huge collection. She loves Disney princesses, loves dressing up in frilly Princess dresses and joined Brownies after the girls at school talked about it and loves every second. She also has a pink bedroom full of pink plastic tat.

(she also loves karate and young engineers club so not a total fail)

Not arguing in front of the baby. We were suddenly going to achieve perfect harmony; problems-no, issues-would be discussed calmly and kindly.

Ten months of no more than three hours sleep at a time (me) early mornings (him), loss of intimacy plus cabin fever (what do young families do at the weekend?) have put paid to that! We're not doing too badly but we're definitely getting a bit snappier and we need to cut it out.

I always said I wouldn't be comfortable changing DDs nappy. First nappy when she got home, guess who changed it

@SimplySteve, is that a joke?

@Yura same. I've developed such a love/hate relationship with slings and carriers. Now on to the Isara toddler on my back as the little treasure still screams blue murder in car or buggy (10 months). I am quite strong now though!

God I worded that so badly.

Loads of things....Mirror , Mirror on the wall, I have become my Mother after all!!

Shout

Beige food. They have a pretty varied diet on weekends but weekdays it's a case of what I can quickly get onto the table when we all get home. I am Captain Birdseye's bitch.

I console myself with the fact they eat tonnes of veg willingly (not through any design of mine, they just seem to like it) and I pay through the nose for them to have really good food at nursery.

Also screen time.

No horrid football shirts/tracksuits only tailored shorts and shirts 😂

Dummies! And only because my parents were so massively against them. DS2 has horrific reflux and we didn't hesitate - just shoved a dummy in to soothe him and snapped back at every snarky comment my dad made. We were all at a festival once and DF said 'take that awful thing out, poor boy!' and I remember saying there were two options - the dummy, or the screaming and vomiting. DF shut up after that.

I said I’d never be a ‘baby wipes mum’ well that went out the window they were a bloody god send and I still always have a pack now and ds is 7 this year 😂

Yes to the sports kits

I managed tasteful navy and striped for years but now we frequent sprots direct

And my youngest wears his football kit all weekend every weekend

Most I can laugh at , the screen time is the only one that really depresses me

And having a NON reader . Who hates reading . Every week we go to the library . And then bloody return them

Swore blind I’d never co-sleep. That went well, I’ve got 5yo DS2 snoring his head off next to me 😂

Everything!! Although I didn't use dummies - not for lack of trying but my kids would never take them.

Hold them up to sniff their butts to confirm nappy change needed.

I thought it was gross when I saw parents do it in my youth. It is gross, but I still did it.

Dummies too. Both mine were breastfeeding fiends, every 20 minutes it felt like with DS2 at the start.

But would those little sods take a dummy or a bottle? Would they fuck.

Ours was there would be no TV and we'd go to the park every weekend.

DS is two and a half and his favourite programme is Blaze and the monster machines. He will watch it all day if we let him

On the upside, it doesn't seem to have hindered his development. He can recognise numbers, something the nursery hasn't started teaching him yet! I think all the numbers in blaze has helped , plus we have number books.

Sometimes were too busy at the weekend to take him to the park, which I do feel bad about :(

I also thought I would have a holiday at least once a year just with my DH and preserve lots of ‘adult’ time and now I’m not really interested. Happily not is my husband! We would feel like they were missing.

I thought I would be fair and firm Mary Poppins style. Yeah right. I don’t have anything like the quiet authority I thought I would have.

Have managed to withstand too much screen time and held onto healthy eating without too much junk I suppose.

So so so many things:
No dummy (stuck with that one but had 'emergency' ones and would have used them if needed
No tv when eating-mr tumble is the only person on this planet to make my toddler eat
No junk food- their absolute fav
Believe me the list goes on and on and on and on

I anticipated patiently explaining my reasoning for telling them what to do, and they would say things like 'oh yes Mummy, I will absolutely drop whatever I am doing to put my shoes on in good time to ensure we catch our train. Here let me pop to the loo, too, because it would be very inconvenient to start wailing about pee at the top of my voice while you drag me to the train station past a load of shops you neither have the time nor desire to take me in to buy an overpriced muffin so we are allowed use the bathroom.'

Needless to say, I have more or less given in and just bark SHOES at my children the requisite 50 times on my way anywhere, with NOW thrown at any child looking for clarification. All that early explaining has bitten me right on the arse though, DS, 8, s like a commercial fucking lawyer, and can find a loophole in any reasonably stated request or suggested rule.

Only home cooked, delicious and healthy food for my daughter, she was weaned on the very best and now eats fish fingers and spaghetti all the time!!

No TV. Lasted till 7 months when she started waking up for the day at 4am and it was winter
No dummies-well in the end I wanted her to take one but she refused to! 😂
Cloth-I did it for a year, then went back to work and it was untenable. It was fun in terms of obsessing over the beautiful nappies but I’m not sure I’d do it again. I would potty train earlier tho.
No sugar. Except it’s in frigging everything.

I wouldn’t need to shout at my kids because they would understand what was happening all the time. We’d be a team who worked together. I was sure kids hated going to bed because they felt deprived of something exciting happening etc. My kids would understand that they were lucky and I only wanted the very best for them so would finish their homework in good time and leap into their baths.
Cut to me last night as ds screams that everyone in the world wants him to suffer and homework was literally killing him. And me saying when he gets a job he gets an opinion. Weekends are too bloody long.

Lol op I’ve been up half the night having to locate and reinsert my 6 month old’s blooming dummy!!! I said I’d never give him it. My sister in law bought them and I was horrified and swore I’d never use them... that lasted till week 4. Now he’s hooked!

So yes DUMMIES!

Oh god, thinking about it. I read all the threads about people who before Christmas tell their children to choose all the things they don’t okay with to give for younger children so they don’t end up drowning in crap. I was so up for it.
It’s like the great escape getting rid of stuff. Ds has spotted “his” things at cousins houses so now I have to drive it to charity shops 2 towns over.

He sounds horrid and spoiled but only in abstract I promise.

@iamnotawitch yes! The nappy sniff!

(Also May be guilty of popping my finger in the side of a sleeping newborns nappy to check if poo or fart rather than risk waking them by picking them up 🤢)