AIBU to ask about bizarre parenting advice you've received?

[squeakyballs]

It's been a long week with a teething DS and I though this would be a lighthearted way to get to the end of today!

I'll start. I'm British but live in Australia. We took our 7mo DS to a daytime birthday party recently. It was sunny and although mostly in the shade, I was putting sun cream on him to be extra cautious. A friend's mother who was there (native Aussie) advised us to put him in the sun for 30 minutes without sun cream to 'toughen up' his skin to the climate. She had done it with her children. She was being deadly serious, definitely not joking .

What whacky advice have you been given?

My mother told me that it was the most heartbreaking thing when you leave your babies to cry for hours but that you have to do it because it's good for them. [fuck off]

Funnily enough she is a shit mother.

Don’t hang the washing out.. it’s feckin boring
I completely agree with him there i hate doing it😀

I love this thread

Repeatedly advised to 'just try ginger biscuits' by doctors/MIL/colleagues whilst pregnant, seriously dehydrated from diagnosed HG and basically unable to move without vomiting. Was made to feel like I was being difficult/wasn't willing to help myself when I tried to explain how impossible the idea of eating a biscuit was.
I remember desperately trying to get DS to latch in hospital, tearful, sleep-deprived, super vulnerable, and in a lot of pain from c-section. I asked for help from a midwife who told me that I'd 'never manage' to feed him myself now and that I should switch to formula. That was supportive. (DS is now 6 months old and ebf - albeit via me exclusively expressing)
BIL advised to put whisky on DS's dummy to get him to sleep. He was promptly told to fuck off.

I never understood the one about not being allowed to take the baby outside at all till it's back to it's birth weight. I understand that crowds might be a bad idea due to germs but so many people have told me that it's not allowed outside AT ALL (so how they took the babies home I have no idea). I don't see the difference between sitting inside next to an open door on a hot summers day or sit 50 cm further just outside on the veranda in the shade. It's the same temperature and no sun. No wind there in my garden either. I don't get it.

My brother went blue around the mouth.
It was not wind!
It was his extremely serious heart condition

There's a difference between blue around the mouth due to a serious medical condition and blue around the mouth due to wind. With wind the inside of the mouth is still pink and it comes from them clamping their mouth shut in discomfort.

My Mum advised me to put mushed up rusks or baby rice in a bottle for my DC when they were babies. She apparently did this to my brother and I to make sure we slept through the night .

My nan still insists that my dd should have been potty trained by 11 months old. She also fed me smashed up boiled eggs from 6 weeks old. I have several diet issues and food intolerances, I don't want to blame my nan entirely but that couldn't have been a good thing.

I was told I had to stop bell ringing, because of having to lift my arms above my head.

Got told when DD was teething to rub a drop of whiskey along her gums

Not an advice as such, but that boys are lazy and mine wouldn’t walk early... he was crawling at 5 months, standing up at 6, and walked properly at 10months... but didn’t talk until he was passed 18 months...

Don’t lift your arms above your head when pregnant, the cord will wrap around the baby’s neck .

Dip his dummy in sugar if you need to shut him up.

Both my elderly Nan. She had 12 kids .

A nasty rather than old fashioned one was to bite DS back when he went through a biting stage at 18months. Said to me by quite a few people really .

Last summer in Greece almost everyone advised giving bf 4mo daughter water "it's so hot, she must be thirsty" My mum in particular would not shut up about it!

"My Mum advised me to put mushed up rusks or baby rice in a bottle for my DC when they were babies. She apparently did this to my brother and I to make sure we slept through the night"

You do know that baby rice is not actual rice and is actually extremely thin flakes thinner than tracing paper that melts in milk? It just makes the milk a tiny bit thicker. This was common practice not so long ago and does help the baby sleep through when they are getting to that stage when milk is not enough to keep them satisfied. It's actually not that outlandish.

"Got told when DD was teething to rub a drop of whiskey along her gums"
This actually works because its alcohol and has a warming effect on the gums. I've never tried it though.

"The cat will kill him!
Why?
Cats are bastards. (Apparently dcat is plotting against all children in some gang ring)"
This is a bit more common than you might think. My elderly relative said the same thing, it was thought they seek the baby out to lie on them because they are warm and then unintentionally smother them. I think it must have been in the news back in the 50s or something.

Give my baby who was teething a chicken bone to chew as that's what they did. An old lady to be fair.

"Dip his dummy in sugar if you need to shut him up." - when I was a new mum who had to go back into hospital with a poorly newborn, the lovely children's hospital nurses used to give my DD a dummy dipped in official little tubs of fructose. Worked a treat and may have saved my sanity! (She refused a dummy ever since leaving hospital though...)

My MIL went mad when I bought my toddler a play kitchen and let him play with a pram at playgroup. She said it would make him gay, Can't stand her.

Baby rice is ground rice! Not for putting in bottles to fill a baby up but for weaning.

I remember as well my auntie used to look after her Grandaughter a lot and would give the baby a taste of whatever she was eating, I was gobsmacked when I saw her dip her finger in gravy and put it in her 3 month old granddaughters mouth. She did it with everything...curry, yoghurt, mash etc etc. Apparantly it doesnt hurt as 'it is only a taste' and makes the baby a good eater!

Being told not to have the animals around dd at a few months old, and under no circumstances should she be around the horses. Not because of any concerns about my safety precautions, but because it was apparently bad for her immune system and as I'd done it since she was born, I was 'asking' for her to have lowered immunity.

The person was a health visitor. Surprisingly she wasn't too popular for the brief time she inflicted herself in a rural area with lots of parents that consider stables/ barns/ farmyards normal daily life.

Advice to get dd 'tested' for adhd incase she'd inherited it so I could prepare before she got symptoms. She was about 9 months old at the time. By the self appointed disability/ sn expert, a font of knowledge on every condition known to man, because she had some vague link to someone with Aspergers.

@TabbyMumz putting rice in a bottle isn't outlandish, it's utterly dangerous.

when I lived in the Mediterranean... But in the early morning- for Vitamin D.

Sadly all too common for this advice to be given here too. And they wonder why skin cancer is on the rise.

Give a supplement for vitamin D and slap on the sunscreen. There isn’t a “safe” level of sun exposure.