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!

@LouH1981 i had similar, the week before my 12 weeks scan I started haemorrhaging every ten minutes and ended up as an emergency admission on the gynae ward where I was hooked up to an IV line to be induced to ‘expel the contents’ as they said.
I was told that I could not be treated as pregnant as I had not had the 12 weeks scan. No kindness or sympathy. I passed my much longed for pregnancy into a cardboard receptacle in a commode. I was going to pick it up but a nurse came in and took it away saying ‘that’s what we wanted!’ Adding that it would be sent down for examination. Still no compassion.
I still cannot see those artists’ wooden manikins in shops without thinking about my miscarriage.

I love this one. Fricking hilarious! Or you could pump and sell it!

I’m sorry the insensitive creatures treated you in such an appalling way. I had similar ‘oh well, at least you have a child already!’ Women who have experienced miscarriages are treated in a terrible way which feels normalised in the medical profession.

When I was pg with DD my fingers were swollen so I took my rings off.
A lady behind me in the queue at Tesco asked if I was married and when I said I was she told me I should wear my wedding ring so nobody would "get the wrong idea" about me.

A random woman in the queue in Morrisons asked me if I made sure I got married before I fell pregnant.

“Oh god no. I can’t be bothered with all that rubbish. ” was my response.

I don’t actually think marriage is a load of rubbish but I wanted her to think I was going to hell 😄.

Someone I work with, a middle aged man, told me he knew more about pregnancy than I did. I was nine months pregnant at the time.

Amen.

Absolutely loathed the man who told 8 months pregnant me to “get plenty of sleep now as you won’t get any afterwards!” Particularly as he and his wife had 4 kids and he ought to bloody know no one is getting a good night’s sleep at that stage. But in any case it’s just so negative. Having a child is amazing and I’d been through quite a lot to have her, she’s my absolute best person.

DF when visiting days after giving birth to my first DC “oh you’ve still got a bit of a belly haven’t you”

when pregnant with DC1 a colleague asked if it was a “happy accident” because DP and I are not married - it wasn’t!

when I was struggling to come to terms with my unplanned third pregnancy (my first two were a handful!), MIL brazenly told me “you can’t get rid of the baby though, it would be wrong”

Also, you wouldn’t believe how many people asked “are you having any more” when DC3 was still a newborn!!

Explaining my IVF with PGD to a friend, including the fact that the PGD was to make sure I wasn’t going to pass on my genetic neurological condition to my child. She immediately commented “oh just relax and it’ll happen naturally!” And went on to tell me about a family member who had multiple failed rounds of IVF and then got pregnant naturally when they stopped trying. Clearly hadn’t listened to a word is said.

Probably a common one, but the consultant who came in while I was in labour. I’d been in hospital for nearly 3 days at this point, with start-stop labour and then failure to progress. I remember being so so tired, with contraction after contraction with only a few seconds between, but I was stuck at 7cm. The gas and air did nothing for me and I really started to think the contractions were going to snap my spine in half (turned out she was back to back but no one told me that at the time). A consultant was brought in to approve induction. The only thing keeping me going at that point was getting a bit angry with the pain, which came out as a sort of growling noise. The consultant told me to be quiet and save my energy for pushing. That absolutely broke me. I felt so belittled and put in my place all the fight just left me. It took away the last bit of coping ability I had left. I ended up with forceps on the operating table halfway through being prepped for an emergency c section, haemorrhaged nearly 2litres of blood while listening to someone shouting “the transfusion won’t get here in time!”, followed by severe PND, mostly based around the feeling I’d failed.

Not helping on the PND front was my mum commenting “is that all you’ve got? You’ve been at that for ages!” When I was back in hospital with double mastitis that went septic, after I’d been trying to hand express for hours.

Or the midwife who came to my home, saw me breastfeeding in a way that was working for me, immediately turned to her student, gestured at me and said “now what can you see wrong with this picture?”. She changed my position around and then left. I tried to feed in the new position for 13 solid hours, with DD screaming every time I tried to stop. Then went to hospital with the aforementioned septic mastitis.

Finally, not to me, but the woman in the waiting room at the Peri-natal Mental Health centre saying to a shellshocked looking young woman with a tiny baby, “make the most of enjoying these newborn days!” …errr I suspect she may be here precisely because she’s NOT enjoying them…

I overheard two immaculate mum's of newborn's chatting in a cafe today.

Their babies slept in their prams throughout. They spent the whole time snarking about other mums they knew, criticising their parenting, saying that it was their fault their babies weren't sleepy potatoes that let them have a long relaxed lunch with a lovely styled blowdry.

They sounded like utter pricks.

I hope you replied that he definitely wouldn’t be a good husband or father if he’s in the habit of touching people when they don’t want him to.

What a colossal prick.

Loads of stupid things have been said to me.

Most recently last week at work someone i haven't seen for about a year came in and saw im heavily pregnant and proceeds to ask me if this baby is with the same dad as my other child. Yes they are but is it really any of your business?!

The biggest cunt move a person can make is when you are sleep deprived and struggling with a baby and someone throws in "you think this is hard wait till the teen years!" Laughs and walks off. Honestly I can't even write what I want to do to people who do this.

Heavily pregnant and went into work wearing a stripy tshirt which was pretty much the last item of clothing I owned that still fitted around me. A colleague asked how I was feeling and I said oh fine, just a bit enormous you know. She looked at my bump and said maybe the stripes don't help.

Relative told my mum it was antisocial to have three children... when she (my mum) had just had her third baby.

"Stop breastfeeding, it has no benefit anymore"
"Let him cry it out"
"Don't give him anything else if he refuses to eat something"

When my first child was born 10 weeks premature and had to stay in scbu, the people who said “that’s lovely, no night feeds”.

"You're definitely having a girl because they steal your beauty"

(I had a boy)

i was out with my mum and breastfeeding my newborn under a cover. My mum seeing this for the first time told me to check the baby was breathing - I could feel the baby sucking fgs. She BF two babies and this baby was also my second! You think I would know what I was doing by now!

The one comment I had a few times that really stuck with me even two years later I still find it hard :
’at least you’re getting to go home and have a good sleep’

Twins born at very early and very poorly, had to leave them in Nicu as no parent rooms available, was at home waking up to pump milk and cry. there was no ‘good sleep’ to be had.

That I should have another child incase my only dies.

If you have one child people repeatedly ask if you are having another. If you have two they ask if you are finished or would like another. But if you have 3 they all say 'oh you are definitely done then!" It's as if having 4 or more is an unbelievable concept. Many of my friends who have 3 kids say the same, it's like we have finally reached the quota so no one will ever comment again.

I had an elective c-section because ds1 was transverse. It would have killed him if idc had a vaginal delivery.

"Well, you got the easy option then"
"Too posh to push"
"You could have had a natural birth anyway"

6 weeks of recuperating after major abdominal surgery was really not taking the easy option.

"Will you be trying again, you know, for a normal one"
I gave birth at 25 weeks, year in hospital and she has disabilities...... second child has disabilities too

First trip out with my first born, all proud with her on her oxygen and feed tube and a twat leaned over the pram and said "she would be better off dead" before walking away. I went home and cried and didn't take her out again for 2 months

When I was pregnant with my first, my mother kept telling me about people she knew who - wait for it - ‘planned’ to have postnatal depression!!! She was just making sure, in advance, that I wouldn’t ‘pull that trick’.

When I bought the pregnancy test and the lady behind the till said ‘oh is this going to be good news or bad news ‘

years ago u could take ur wee to the supermarket pharmacy and they would check it to see if u were pregnant. I did and it came back positive. I spend a horrible day ( I was 19 at the time ) getting doctors appointments and freaking the hell out. Turns out they were wrong. And when I went to complain they told me off for possibly being pregnant at 19.