Weirdest things you've seen other parents do as they bring up or care for their DC?

[FortunesFave]

Here are mine.

I was in a public toilet in the cubicle and heard a woman come in with a small boy.

They went into a cubicle together and I heard her ask him repeatedly "Do you want to dirt!?"

She meant poo!

"Do you want to dirt???

Omg.

Second is SIL. When her DS was little...around 2 or so, she'd put chips for him INTO A BOWL OF COLD WATER so they'd cool faster.

Dump the cooked chips into a bowl of water. Leave them there for a bit and then drop the soggy pile onto a plate for the poor child.

WHY? What are yours?

i never had to suck snot out of either ds nose? Maybe they never had a cold when little ? Not sure what I would of done as I had never heard of a plastic snot sucker until recently either

@LittleBearPad

The satsuma in cling film for a 21 year old is absurd.

There are also some total miseries on this thread.

It is absurd.

Saying that, as a 5-6 year old I was very sick and my mum brought me dinner in bed, and told me it was a bed picnic.

She had peeled the satsuma for me and it was such a treat!

I don’t remember how ill I was, but 35 years later I still remember that peeled satsuma. And it felt like love.

SIL wouldn't let D nephew do gymnastics when he was younger because it would 'make him gay'.

www.walmart.ca/en/ip/hydrasense-nasal-aspirator-starter-kit-not-applicable/6000203627177

^

This is the snot sucker that we had when the kids were tiny. You give them a good squirt of saline solution before to loosen things up, put the bulb end up the babies nose and then suck on the end. Really works!

I remember nights where the baby could barely breathe they were so congested.

I really hate it when people use 'cute' words for things because that's how the child pronounced that word at 18 months, and continue to use those words.

Mine are adults and we still do this. When they got old enough to know/speak the proper word we kept a few as ‘in-jokes’. Some are painfully obvious (snausage), others I doubt anyone would even know what we are referring to as they seem to bear no resemblance to the actual word.

I'm in hospital with DS, been in 2 weeks now. I'm amazed by the amount of DP's feeding their children....I'm talking kids 10 years old. They may be ill or injured but they can still feed themselves!

Same here. Both drink diluting juice, I’d rather they didn’t! Adding ice to water helps sometimes, at nursery they can ring a bell and be given water haven’t tried this at home yet! I grew up drinking diluting juice and have no fillings and healthy teeth! I’m not overweight. I really don’t want to google aspartame!

My mum used to use leftovers as punishment - if I didn't finish my dinner, instead of wrapping it up and reheating/reusing it she used to make it as cold an unappetizing as possible and serve it up for breakfast. Batshit, absolutely batshit.

My step-MIL thinks I'm really, really weird because I used to wear DS in a sling and take him all over town when I was on mat leave. We were sitting outside at a restaurant when DS was 3 weeks old and she told me she never took her children out of the house when they were that small, and how COULD I? POOR BABY.

She also thinks I'm weird because I don't make separate "kid appropriate" meals for 2 year old DS. She refused to serve him a (non spicy)stir fry last time we were at her house and instead brought the poor kid plain pasta. DS has many faults (he's a danger to himself and others tbh) but fussy eating isn't one of them. Apparently I'm cruel and lazy because I make him eat the same things as we do. Absolute horrors like spaghetti carbonara and ham and spinach omelettes. PESTO faints

(To be fair, I am lazy and CBA to cook two sets of meals.)

When I was a child I quite regularly had sleepovers with my cousin. We would always have a bath straight after tea and then play. We were not allowed to have a poo at any point after the bath and if you did you would get a huge bollocking from my aunt. My aunt was quite scary. I remember a couple of times giving myself awful stomach aches keeping everything in and trying to wait until morning.

This thread is an eye opener.

@EmeraldShamrock

Suck a snot from her newborn child's nostril. I bought her a sucker for baby 2, she preferred her own method.

This is a common practice in many countries worldwide. You don’t swallow the snot. You spit it out.

We were not allowed to have a poo at any point after the bath and if you did you would get a huge bollocking from my aunt.

How would she know you did a poo, as opposed to going in for a wee?

@LabStan

I'm in hospital with DS, been in 2 weeks now. I'm amazed by the amount of DP's feeding their children....I'm talking kids 10 years old. They may be ill or injured but they can still feed themselves!

I find this kind of judgement really weird. If your child is so seriously ill they need a hospital, the natural thing any decent parent wants to do is spoil them surely?

@Clocktopus

William Sears, an American pediatrician and author, were paid by Proctor and Gamble to recommend later toilet training and the use of pull ups. Proctor and Gamble makes Pampers.

Source? Because nowhere can I find proof of that.

Waiting until a child is ready to potty train is much easier so of course for some children this might mean they're older, my four DC all trained between the ages of 2 and 3 and all took around a week to be potty trained because I waited until they were ready. There's a saying that goes the sooner you start, the longer it takes and with everyone I know who started before their children was ready, they spent much more time scrubbing up pee than I did.

That just isn’t true. Most if not all healthy babies potty train by 4-14 mths across Asia. It is started when babies first learn to sit and by the time they learn how to walk they are fully trained (which again seems to be earlier than western expectations eg Indian and Malaysian pediatricians will check a child who isn’t walking by 14 mths). By the time a child is 2-3 the expectation there is for them to be fully cleaning themselves too.

I have the snot sucker thingy. Both times I have tried it on my youngest he has jolted his head and been hurt. So that's that gone. My other two were absolutely fine with it. I haven't done it yet but you had better believe I'd suck the snot out of his nose if he was struggling to breathe! If DH was home I'd make him do it though

Oh and I'll hold my kids hands for as long as they'll let me. I hold DH's hand, and I trust he wont toddle on to the road.

What I did…
I had an irrational fear of cot death so poor baby spent Winter’s outside in just her baby grow, as used to throw off her blankets. I feel very cruel now but child can’t feel the cold!!!

My DH when he had a cold would wear face masks around the house so baby didn’t catch it. This was years ago (pre-Covid) I tease him immensely but it was done out of love!

DD's only 11 months so maybe it'll come but I've never once sucked snot from her nose by any means, mouth or tool. It's never occurred to me too. If her nose is blocked she breathes through her mouth.

Is this really something people do a lot?

It is started when babies first learn to sit and by the time they learn how to walk they are fully trained

Six months to a year from starting the process to fully trained then? Presuming age six months for sitting and 12-18 months for walking? It took a week to potty train my DC. There are also cultural and societal differences between here and Asia that allow for difference in training methods, parents here have far less time available for things like elimination training too.

I'm not saying the methods commonly used in Asia are wrong, before anyone jumps on that, just that methods here are different and waiting until a child is ready works better here.

Does it actually make a difference what age they're potty trained? Six months or 3, as long as they're going to the loo independently by school age surely it doesn't matter that much. Like reading - we all reach the exact same level eventually

SIL ( American) gave us one of those snot suckers when we had our first baby - I thought she was mad. Nurse friend told us it to use it as they can be dangerous - parents over using them. Not that I would as it was disgusting!
SIL also gave me loads of grief in the first month for breastfeeding, constantly saying baby was hungry, baby was too small, baby needed a bottle and I was ‘selfish’ for not wanting to share feeding him. She also bought a pacifier and kept trying to force it on him when I wasn’t around - chucked that straight in in the bin as soon as I found out.
Was relieved when she and PIL s buggered back off to the states to leave us to get on with it. Their visit to see the baby was the longest month of my life…

@ElizaDarcysDeeds

Some of these posts are verging on racist. Early toilet training and using different words for going to the toilet are cultural differences.

Calling racism is a massive leap ffs.

I'm confusing to me how I simultaneously hate this place, but never leave!

@Bentoforthehorde

I'm that weird parent. I don't keep toothbrushes in the bathroom, weirds me out. They go into the dishwasher after use and then into the cutlery drawer.

This is WEIRD!!! Kinda makes sense though

its fully natural for humans to walk around naked no matter how cold it is,

Haven't humans worn furs since we became hairless?

With the potty training issue, the best time is probably somewhere in between the extreme of '6 months old' and the more modern '4/5 years old'. As with everything.