To ask what ridiculous things people have said to you in pregnancy/parenthood?

[GreeneryGrass]

Baby #2 is due imminently and I'd blissfully forgotten about all the unsolicited comments you receive when pregnant / as a parent of a baby. What are some things you were told or criticised on?

Here's one of my favourites - when a (childless at the time) friend asked how I planned to feed my first baby and I said formula feed (lots of reasons for this, including mental health - very glad I did this), she told me the old chestnut "breast is best", to which I responded "fed is best!" And she disagreed. Then she went on to have a baby, breastfed then stopped quickly after as it damaged her mental health. Has clearly forgotten our chat as she tells every parent we see she's a "huge advocate for feeding your baby how ever you need, fed is best". Glad she's had growth but wish it hadn't been after belittling me!

Honourable mention to my mother in law who suggested we let our 10 day old suck a McDonald's chip "just for the flavour"

"Don't have any more kids"

I don't remember now if I was pregnant or had just had a miscarriage, but it upset me.

Haha the older generations had very different advice to us!

My exdp's sister was a lot older than him (he was a menopause baby) and became one of my close friends, she was amazing, but spent her mum's wake giving my 9 week old dd the cream off her scone.

I personally despised all the negativity e.g. things like 'good luck doing anything for yourself for the next 18 years', and 'enjoy never sleeping again'.

In reality my 1 year old is the greatest love I will ever have, and my maternity leave was one of the best years of my life.

Why don't you just nurse the baby instead of pumping milk and putting it in a bottle?
Well that would be usual, wouldn't it, so let's assume I would if I could, but sadly baby has other ideas and refuses to latch, and a stay in NICU didn't help, or on the rare occasion he does it's so excruciating I can't stand it. And yes for the millionth time, I've tried bloody nipple shields.

Joke was on me though really because with my second I found the right nipple shields and she nurses beautifully!

A.doctor said to me " what do you expect, you just had a baby" when I I fact had a prolapse.

With my 3rd my SIL kept saying "God you're really big!!!" As if I was fucking huge or something (looking back at pics I was normal sized, I didn't gain any weight just the baby bump!) This is from a woman who's had 4 kids and her bump was huge with her last. I didn't see her in my 4th pregnancy so I've no idea if I was enormous this time round

With my 3rd i worked at sainsburys. At least 2 or 3 different people said "you know how to have fun" or words to that affect when I said I was having my 3rd

Childfree friend told me she couldn’t imagine that childbirth could be more painful than her periods. (This, knowing that I almost died twice during and after childbirth.)

And don’t even get me started on things the midwives, nurses, health visitors etc said - I despise every single one of them

DH and I were married for 9 years before I managed to incubate a grandchild for my PILs. At one point my FIL took me aside on my own on a family holiday and asked me, "So, are you guys using birth control?" I was so mortified that I just muttered "no" and changed the subject, but I always wish I had said "Oh! Yes! I've been taking the contraceptive pill every day for the last 8 fucking years! I didn't realise that might be the problem, because I'm a complete cretin. Thank you for drawing my attention to this salient detail that 10,000 doctors have managed to miss." Of course I'm not on fucking birth control, and if I was, it wouldn't be any of your fucking business.

When I did eventually manage to get pregnant he said, "Oh MIL and I thought you might not be able to get pregnant because of your abortion (15 years earlier to a violent teenage ex who ended up in prison). Do you think the baby will have any problems because of that?"

Honestly it's a good thing DH is fantastic otherwise I'd have divorced him purely on the grounds of his parents.

Pregnancy 1...

Midwife at booking appointment 'yeah, youre level of sickness is absoutely normal, what do you expect in pregnancy?'.
I struggled until week 20 with hyperemesis because I thought it was normal when in fact id lost over 2 stone and was hugely dehydrated and anaemic.
I was then medicated by a lovely, sympathetic GP.

In laws in first pregnancy - 'stand up and turn round, I want to see how fat youve got'.

Also in laws - sent congratulations card. It read 'congratulations on the birth of our grandchild'.
Nothing to do with us as first time parents, all about them. It really wound me up.

Health visitor when I was struggling with breastfeeding and believed baby had a tongue tie.
'If you spent as much time feeding your baby as you do complaining about an issue that isnt there, there wouldnt be a problem with your childs weight gain'.
Baby had a severe posterior tongue tie which we had to pay to get cut as nobody would refer us to the NHS.

I could go on with pregnancy 2 but I wont.

Had just given birth and upon telling sibling that I had a 3.5 day labour was told 'It comes with the territory.'

Got asked by a lady about my due date when I was around 4 months pregnant, and told them mid September… they replied if it was the coming September or the year after.. 🙉

I must admit I do enjoy listening to the various pieces of advice/comments from people that haven't yet gone through pregnancy/childbirth/the toddler years. They discuss (lecture) about how they'll exclusively breast feed, all food needs to be organic, there will never be screens, the child should just slot into their lives and they'll carry on as before. And there may possibly be people that achieve all of these things. But then they have one, they're knackered, they've discovered that a few quavers and half an hour of Pepps Pig haven't made the world implode and they can't remember the last time a chilled 'drinks and nibbles' evening was achieved. And admit they were chatting a load of bollocks.

I think my most irritating was with my fourth son, who was really struggling to latch on for medical reasons. I was expressing and trying so hard to keep my milk going, but it was drying up. I mentioned to a friend that I was going to have to use formula as well, as he wasn't getting enough, and she told me I just had to try harder. Oddly enough, no amount of pep talk to my breasts, constant food and hydration and sheer determination didn't do the job.

I got asked when heavily pregnant whether I’d thought about empty nest syndrome.

Errrr no, I had plenty of more immediate concerns than that thanks.

Friend - Different pleas for me to have another, up to and including invoking Jesus' name. Well, I'm unmarried so let's first visit the scripture on producing children out of wedlock, shall we 🤨? Never brought it up again.

”Why is your husband going to sleep in the same bedroom as you once baby is here? You’re going to need your privacy… he should be in the spare room.”

”Who is going to be in the delivery room with you?”

Both DM.

Not all directly to me, but.

"We've decided it would be best if you went to work as soon as you're recovered and SIL looks after the baby. She knows what she's doing and you don't. She's already checked with her boss and has agreed a wage reduction to make up for it"

"We don't think the baby is actually yours (said to then DP) as he's blonde and no one in our family has ever been blonde"

"Awww, are they twins?" Asked when out with my 2 year old who was walking and a newborn in a sling.

"OH! I don't realise you're a single parent, your children are so well behaved"

Lost 2.5l blood and had to have a doctor manually remove my placenta. Got asked by a ward assistant of some kind how I was feeling and replied tired, got told “that’s motherhood”. I cried so much they put me in a private room. I thought I already was failing as I wasn’t bright eyed and bushy tailed within 36 hours.

My friend was told by her GP that her daughter had excema because she'd chosen to have her vaccinated, and that in his country children don't get excema because they don't have the vaccines!

Itching like crazy late pregnancy, midwife brushed it off, told me she had years of experience, and to get myself some body lotion and rub it in. And to stop fussing (!)

2 hours later rushed to hospital as liver giving up and told off by different midwife for ignoring it and listening to ' that batshit midwife'

Dsis, on finding I was pregnant quite late in life ' they'll probably be something wrong with it' and ' I suppose that's my dc out of your will now'
Then - in front of dh - ' don't you dare have a boy. I have the boys in our family'

When she came to visit newborn, baby was crying. ' oh, what a shame, he doesn't like you'

We haven't spoken in years.

I have twins and this seems to elicit so many batshit comments but I just waved them away because people always feel they have to say something.

SO many people asked if they are identical (they are a girl and a boy, impossible...) ... including a GP who knew their sexes!!

A man in the post office queue who peered into their pram and said "Twins!" To which I beamed with pride. He then said quite seriously "How DREADFUL! I bet you weren't happy about that" 🤣

If this is true, she should have reported him.

When I had ds1 the midwife told me if I was breastfeeding, not to sleep with him next to me (in a cot) because he wouldn’t sleep, because “it would be like me sleeping next to a bar of dairy milk”. Really you want me to get up and out of bed every time he wakes up?!?!?!

When I had ds2 I had funny comments about having 2 boys. Someone came up to me in soft play and said oooh you have your hands full with 2 boys. Another mum at baby group had 1 baby boy the same age as my ds2 and when I said I had an older boy she screwed up her nose and said “oh I’d HATE having 2 boys, don’t you???” I said no, actually. Funnily enough she went on to have a second boy too 🤣 They are all at school together and she is one of the few mums I won’t give the time of day to. Absolute idiot. Funniest thing about these comments is that that magic year off work with both of my babies was the best of my life 🥰

By far the most hurtful was my friend who I let stay with me for 18 months, the start of it was not long after I had split up with my exh. She said that the kids shouldn’t have nerf guns because they are violent. One afternoon i was feeling horrendous with d&v and lying on the sofa and the kids were bickering. I probably didn’t intervene was quick as I should have but she tutted at me and said “for gods sake” before flouncing off upstairs to her room again. The funniest was saying that my then 8 year old wasn’t old enough to help himself to cereal for breakfast, told me “they are YOUR children, your responsibility”. I called her out on that one saying she had no idea what she was talking about and she said she knew exactly what it was like because she had nieces and nephews. She didn’t have her own kids, but she’d been fired from several nanny positions. There were a few things I was struggling with being a newly single parent and she would say things like “it’s not rocket science” and “it’s been long enough now so just need to get on with it”. This was supposed to be one of my best friends who I had allowed to live with me rent free…