To ask for the most inappropriate unsolicited advice you received from a random person about your child?

[Adviceagains]

I’m feeling sensitive today. Stood in a queue and dd asleep in her pram. Women behind me starts talking to her husband/partner saying that baby looks too hot, how ridiculous she is in a hat indoors in this weather… obviously I could hear. I didn’t say anything. She then taps me on the shoulder and shows me an NHS page on clothing/temperatures for babies and said I might need it. What the fuck? I am a new mum and already stressing over making the right decisions. Am I alone in this? I actually cried when I got in the car.

Hello and I am very sorry you had to put up with this interfering know-all! I hope you feel a bit better now and please know that you are doing a fantastic job!

I have forgotten a lot of the unwanted advice I used to get, but I remember feeling highly irritated that once I had had babies, random strangers began to treat me like an child and thought that because I was in public with a baby, I seemed to be wearing a sandwich board that said, "Please advise me". I remember one woman saying I should never rock a baby as I was "making a rod for my own back". I was waiting in a queue with my first in his pram and was pushing the pram to and fro as I knew it helped him get off to sleep. I couldn't believe it. On another occasion, a friend insisted on letting my baby sleep for three hours one afternoon as she was enjoying holding him...I kept saying please, he's been sleeping for too long, he'll be awake all night....she knew better of course and kept telling me I was being silly. Of course, he was awake until 4 am. I remember sitting with my first in a cafe and a woman at the next table leaned over and said, "Oh you poor thing, do you only have the one child?" I was heavily pregnant with my second at the time and when I stood up to leave and she noticed, and said, "Oh", and looked away, embarrassed. Some people are such opinionated idiots!!!

My two were close in age and I had them in a double buggy for a while. People used to feel it was their place to comment in the street. "Ooh. You've got your hands full" was a particular favourite. And once from a random old man, "The one at the front's awake. The one at the back is asleep". Ah thanks, that's so helpful! My favourite was when I was pushing my first home in his pram, having been to the shops leading up to Christmas. It was 5 pm and dark. A man came out of a pub and shouted out, "It's disgusting taking a baby out this late at night! That baby should be in bed!"

Everyone has an opinion, it seems. But YOU are the best person for the job and you are doing a marvellous job. Don't let the bastards grind you down.

I rushed into M&S to pick up a last minute birthday cake for my son's birthday party. A woman came up to me and told me to put the cake back on the shelf or I'd get fatter! When I ignored her she grabbed the cake out of my basket and put it back on the shelf. I had to call security who escorted her out of the store.

I’ve had loads (two disabled children attract unwanted advice) but my favourite was the woman who stopped me to tell me I was TUBE FEEDING my three month old baby ALL WRONG. I mean seriously, I have a three month old baby with more medical equipment than the local NICU so you can probably guess that my life is a bit difficult at the moment. And you know absolutely FUCK ALL about tube feeding but you feel compelled to stop me in the street and criticise. Luckily I was on my way to hospital with him and a doctor overheard and told her she could fuck off.

I still get unsolicited advice about my son who has special needs and he's an adult now. It's upsetting every single time.

I haven't got any kids but my mum often reminisces about a neighbour of ours who was very prone to dishing out unsolicited advice about all sorts of things. She once told my mum, when I was about six, that our rabbits shouldn't be allowed to hop around freely in my company because it was 'well-known' that rabbits can kill children by jumping up and kicking them in the throat.

Another woman on the estate where we lived also told my mum, with complete seriousness and genuine concern, that she should go back to the hospital and make sure they had given her the right baby to bring home because I don't look anything like my older siblings and 'sometimes they do get swapped over'. Now, admittedly I do look very different to both my siblings, but that's literally just because they look like my mum and I look like my dad?!

Im sorry this made me laugh so much. Not at your distress but the stupidity of the comment.

I Imagine you just being like, “oh my god! No! I never considered talking to him. I didn’t know you were meant to speak to your child! Thanks Kevin”

My aunt, who admittedly was well into her second bottle of wine at the time told me that I was doing an ok job (cheers, I guess) but most new mothers had "no fucking idea what they were doing and shouldn't be allowed to have kids" unlike her who apparently knew exactly how to be a parent the second hers arrived.

"HES SO SMALL!! You'll never build him up feeding him just THAT, get some baby rice or rusk in milk in a bottle"
Said by a random to me while breastfeeding my admittedly small preemie baby.

that is insane! 😱😱

The two areas of my life I’ve gotten the most unsolicited (and shitty) advice about:

anything child related (even when I was a teenager babysitting my little sister and was somehow mistaken for the mum 🤨)

my weight

It started before DD was born...

I was on my last holiday taking in cultural sights in a Hamburg Museum, heavily pregnant

decided to visit an exhibition of war sketches, in an art gallery...

A woman came up to me and advised me quite sternly (in German which I speak) that 'I should not be looking at the drawings, otherwise my baby would turn out to be very unhappy and depressed...'...

Continue throughout her life on and off:

DD aged three I took for a routine sight test - the person doing it used one of those opticians charts you know with the letters...

I was dumbfounded at this, but they sagely advised me that she had sight difficulties because she couldn't read the letters...and offered me an appointment with an eye specialist...

'Erm...I said, she is only three ...she can't READ yet'...

Another time my now estranged sister ....took a sample of my DD's handwriting when she was seven and announced she was 'educationally dysfunctional' (also making DD cry I wasn't there...

No wonder we are estranged...

Ten years later DD got nine a stars at o levels and carried on in that vein since.

There have been lots of other examples from complete strangers and so called professionals....

Oh and recently having been diagnosed with osteo arthritis a complete stranger said to me

'you do realise it is a heart problem, don't you?

Similar - random woman in the supermarket, in her 60’s maybe. My firstborn daughter was crying. She often did as she had silent reflux. And the woman stood watching me disapprovingly commenting loudly to her friend, “That baby needs feeding”, repeatedly and tutting/ eye rolling. My daughter had been fed ten minutes previously and that’s WHY she was crying. I didn’t give the woman time of the day, just continued to pay for my shopping so I could get outside and get her out of the pram to ease her discomfort.

@ManateeFair maybe your (absolutely bonkers!) neighbour thought Holy Grail and the rabbits of Caerbog was factual?!

Hahaha yup that's pretty much how it went!

My sibling (childless with no other nieces or nephew at this time) repeatedly told me I should be taking my (autistic) son to more toddler groups and I was not socialising him enough. She still believes his antisocial tendencies are due to me keeping him away from events, groups and family things. When in fact it would have caused him extreme distress to attend and he would have hated it. Also she has no bond with him as she spend no time with him getting to know or understand him but blames me for this and says he is weird. We are no contact now.

I can’t remember much but I do remember whne I was pregnant with my first and even random people in town woudl tell me ‘hell be early, he’s dropped down already, deffo nearly here’ I was about 30weeks!

okay so I did go into Labour at 35 weeks but still, everyone turned into a fully trained fuckin midwife with a eye into my womb!

Got told off for pushing my DS round in a buggy, and not letting them walk! It was Christmas time, and my response was to snap that he'd had 12 brain surgeries and to have 'merry fucking christmas' before doing a masterful flounce!!

DS then 8 (ASC) having a meltdown in Tesco because his football training was cancelled. (To non SEN parents I understand this seems OTT but any changes to routines like this really, really have a negative impact on children with ASC)

An older man told me ‘he just needs a good smack’

Also during covid, ds3 has one lung ( congenital tumour in lung and had it removed closely after birth). His one lasting symptom is a dry cough.

Constsntly had to explain he didn’t have covid.

Ive had multiple comments about having my 7 month old daughter in the sling on morning school runs, started when she was about 3 months... 'you need to get a buggy for that poor baby' 'shes clingy because you never get her out of that thing, shove in her dummy and just let her cry in the pram, shel soon get used to it' ' you need to turn her round so she can see out' 'shes squashed in there' i just used to completely ignore the comments because i couldnt be bothered to explain that school run was nap time and she loved being cuddled up. She was always in a buggy on pick up aswell and those people would see that and still feel the need to comment.

It stresses me out but after reading some of these comments ive had it pretty mild. Some of these are shocking,

Colleague told me that my son is autistic as l didn't pray enough for him to be healed.

I laughed

A stranger came up to me when DD was a few weeks old to ask if she was a "good" baby. Obviously a meaningless question, so I politely offered the meaningless reply of "she has her moments." To this, the random woman snarled, "What you need is a ROUTINE!" before angrily storming off leaving me speechless 🤣

A few months later, DD had a screaming fit in a cafe (reflux), and lots of grandmotherly ladies comforted us both. When all was calm again, one stern-looking lady said, "I'm off to meet my grown-up daughter now. I promise you, it's all worth it." 🥰

@PrincessHoneysuckle Similar to yours but I hate when people tell me to just leave my baby to cry or stop picking her up. I bought a sling as she cries when in her pram and I do get the “she’ll get in the habit of being clingy!!!”

Oh yes I’d forgotten all the sling stuff. When your child is still young enough that they have to face you in a front carrier people are convinced they can’t breathe.

There was no point assessing and diagnosing my son with autism as there's no medicine to fix it.