Second and third time MUms - what do you cringe with embarassment about with dd/ds1?

[codswallop]

I cringe at

slave to routine - to the detriment of our lives

Taking four adults out to take one baby to the park

taking the baby on pointless trips to places he couldnt appreciate

Being anal about baby food

I think we are talking extremes here - I like my kids to look clean and nice but if its 3pm and they have beans down their top I woudlnt change it unless

a it was wet thro
b they were going out somewhere

I had stairgates everywhere. And used to obsess about shutting them etc. With ds2- not a single stairgate- not that ds1 would have tolerated them anwyway.

I also did that huge bag with entire change of clothes in at all times.

My son was NEVER going to have a dummy
Lasted 2 days!
Steralising said dummies only lasted slightly longer!

My son was NEVER going to have a dummy
Lasted 2 days!
Steralising said dummies only lasted slightly longer!

Marialuisa, "where you do not take your child out of the house in a baby-gro." LOL! That's one on my list. DS1 always went out pristine, fully clothed and fed. DS2 did, on many occasions, arrive at the Playbarn in his PJs with a jar of baby breakfast to eat when we arrived!!

Also, when out with my antenatal group with DS1, we'd all sit and watch our babies sleep in their car seats, asking one another to watch them sleep for us when we dared to go to the toilet. With DS2, if he fell asleep, I left him and did something more interesting elsewhere!

And no, with either of them I'd not change a whole outfit if they'd only spoiled one part of it. Waste of time. Having said that, I do buy outfits where pretty much everything goes with everything else.

Hand washing all ds1's clothes. My friend cringes at the wasted time she spent sieving bananas through a tea strainer!!

I've only just stopped using the monitor when dd is asleep and we're in bed. Her room is about a foot away from ours and we leave the door open. The monitors used to keep us awake as they were so close to eachother they used to screech with interference!

I used to always take five nappies out - that was my rule.

Agree with not knowing when he was tired.

Taking it in turns to eat our tea/look after newborn DS.

When I go to Mums and Toddlers you can definitely tell the difference between the first time mums/babies and the older ones. Generally second/third babies are much happier to go to someone else and obviously more used to it and also if a baby starts grizzling the first time Mums spring up immediately whereas with the others its just as likely to be someone else gets there first.

marialuisa
I was just reading your posts wondering if you had any mediterranean blood!! I've noticed that it's Brits who are particularly scruffy with their kids clothes (ha ha - all attack me now!) and I think it's great but I get loads of stick for the things I let ds go out wearing when outside the UK. Like a slightly dirty top. or no jacket because it's below 20 degrees that day. ds didn't wear anything but babygros for the first 3 months - my best move in my opinion. I'm still shamed by my obsessively uptight sleep routines and sterilising frenzy but hey - new mum hormones!!

I don't feel superior cos my kids are slightly scruffy - quite the opposite. But its hard enough to get out the house with a 3yr old and a 1 yr old without worrying tooooo much if their top has some encrusted weetabix on. It would upset them more to start changing all over again. By the time we are ready to leave I'm so exhuasted I feel like sliding down the wall and gunning them down (only joking). But no, I wouldn't say I feel superior. I admire pple who keep their kids nice (but you might like to try a day at my house)

Thats my excuse anyway........

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yes I am the Queen of dabbing.... faces t shirts whatever - its not superiority - just the idea that you cna create too much hard work for yourself.. I always iron all their clothes Bt then I like ironed things too

Slightly calmer now, I guess it's just a question of priorities and expectations. Due to large family i've been changing nappies since i was 7 so I guess I really didn't find it hard looking after a new baby and didn't fall into the trap of reading all those contradictory baby mags and books. I was just used to babies and assumed that DD would fit in with me (so like the rest of you saying that no.2 on fits in with your other kids). Add to that i'm offensively organised and well, you can see the outcome.

Morocco, it's definitely cultural. My Bisnonna's favourite comment is "never in Milano would you see a child dressed like that", usually in English, very loudly, which makes me cringe.

Oh and for the record, DD doesn't wear frills and never has done. She has on occasion looked like something from a "Young England" catalogue (courtesy of bisnonna)

I didn't iron much of DS1's clothes when he was little but now I am really quite fussy about having their things ironed, I iron vests and babygros, the only things in our house that don't get ironed are pants, socks, nappies, bras and bath towels (I iron tea towels). When DS1 was a baby my entire livingroom was an ironing pile whereas this time round we didn't seem to get into that state even although I iron far more things than I did then (baby clothes, duvet covers, tea towels, DH's boxer shorts ). Nowt as queer as folk!

My god tho ML look at the prices - i think that is slighly crackers - a kids skirt £50?!!

But as I said Coddy, it comes courtesy of Bisnonna who is very proud and likes to shop! You will be relieved to hear that my expensive kids' clothes binges are very much reduced now she's older. At the end of the day Catimini and the rest just don't suit nearly 3 year olds so well.

ML, I do what you do with my second dd, just like I did with first one! If she spilt anything on her clothes they are changed straightaway (into something else co-ordinating!) and if she did the Coddy baked beans thing at 3 pm she would definitely be given new top to wear and baked beans one put in washing machine (they stain!), if it happened near bedtime she would be changed into pj's and dressing gown (co-ordinating of course)! Dressing my dd's cleanly and co-ordinated in one of my favourite bits of being a mummy (but then I am unspeakably shallow)

MariaLuisa: My DH takes great delight in dressing our children in the most mismatched clothes he can figure out. Purple/green plaid trousers under a flowery orange-yellow dress with black-white striped type; that kind of thing. Ocasionally he 'blows' it and actually gets DD in a very cute outfit, to his great disappointment.

I only protest if the clothes aren't actually clean, either.

Cam, a woman after my own heart I have been known to put on the washing machine for a single item of DD's clothing (if i particularly like it) when she's messed her clothes up! I have to say I'm not that bothered about clothes for myself (wear a lot of black!) but I too am shallow and find that dressing DD is one of the good bits of being a mum.

Zebra, now why doesn't your post surprise me?

Again, my point about dressing "scruffy" is mainly down to my job.

My children are "smart" just incase you think I am a complete slob . Older 2 HAVE to wear uniform which again is very smart and CLEAN and tidy!

But I work in a children's day nursery with the 2-3 years old. Almost every day, one parent will come in with a child who is immaculate and then proceed to tell me that "X" should be kept away from the paint/glue/water tray in case they mess up their clothes.

Today, a little girl was dressed in a Moschino top, D&G trousers and D&G boots. She looked fab. but not really suited to nursery!

I have lost count of the amount of parents complaining to us that X, Y and Z got their clothes dirty - even though they are always aproned before messy play. Often asked to keep a special eye on child to ensure they are kept clean! Very difficult when you have 23 other children in the room!

My children ARE clean and tidy but I'm not obsessive about it. Fortunately they like to look nice anyway so not a problem.

My nursery parents are the ones I had in mind when typing my earlier posting!

Slinky, DD now wears uniform to nursey as it's attached to a school, but when she was in daycare I would often change her so she co-ordinated before we went home. The staff were lovely but would do really bizzarre things with her clothes, e.g. put an outdoor fleece inside dungarees. They also would only change the part of her that was grubby which I could understand, time constarinnts and all. DD had nursery clothes (stuff I was sick of seeing her in, or that had been bought in the sales) and home clothes. I think i binned about one item a week in the 12 months she was at nursery. Only complained when I realised they were putting those pointless tiddly newborn bibs on 9months+ babies who were learning to feed themselves. That just seemed daft!

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Secur, as far as I'm concerned it's her money and she can do what she likes with it. She doesn't buy DD skirts though as the poor mite has my stumpy legs and looks a wee bit silly in them. Also, we don't live anywhere near london so couldn't change it if I wanted to! In fairness she is not some elderly lady living on her pension and many of you would have horrors at what she spends on her own gear. Sadly I am not, and never will be, in her league financially!

Zebra's comments about her DH deliberately making their kids wear mismatched stuff struck a horrible resonance with DH. As mentioned his parents used to dress their boys in pink to make a point, refused to cut their hair and basically enforced "individualism" on the kids. They were crap parents but this desire to make them stand out is what DH and his bros really get upset about.

But it's all down to choice, judge not and all that. It just annoys me that it's ok to sneer at people who do spend a lot (relatively) on their kids' clothes but not ok to comment negatively on people who don't (quite often out of choice). Sort of inverse snobbery I think?

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