The Mumsnet guide on how NOT to raise your children.....

[Honeydragon]

I'll start

Never let a toddler drink out a shoe

Never leave face paints unsupervised on a inadequately high surface

If breastfeeding, always return you boob to it's rightful place before answering the door

Do not relent when people say your child will like Knex, it is Satans plaything.

Never let your teen read child rearing books on raising teens, they will use them against you for purposes of evil.

Well thank the fuck she prescribed something else entirely then. Not sure I could have gone through that again.

SDTG - I used something like Deep Heat on my bruised coccyx once, except it was a liquid not a cream and ran down the crack... ring of fire pretty much sums up the experience

Owwww!! - like this?

ho yes! Exactly like that!

Do not allow your naked 3 1/2 year old to play with a rubber band.
Especially, do not allow your naked 3 1/2 year old to loop the rubber band around a drawer pull situated exactly crotch height, and further do not allow him to twang the rubber band looped around said drawer pull.
When, inevitably, the rubber band sproiiiiinnnggggs off the drawer pull, and snaps your 3 1/2 year old directly on his tiny scrotum, do not then piss yourself laughing as you're cradling your hysterically sobbing little boy who is trying to hug you and cup his poor little red scrotum at the same time.
Further, do not look at your DH who looks like he can't decide if he's going to piss himself laughing or cry in sympathy with your poor little DS.

Drinks were needed all around after that.

ooooo, ouchy! poor DS, JM!

oh dear thought of another one,never let your dc see you flossing your teeth or else they will try to copy only they will do it with sellotape not floss & the tape will become wedged in their teeth in various places & you will have to take them to a&e to have it removed

& do not feel very proud that your 2yr old ds can ride a bike without stabilisers near a neighbours newly erected fence,this will result in said small child (he did have a helmet on) going over the handle bars & in an attempt to save themselves will end up with 16 splinters in hands that they will not let you remove only the doctor at local surgery will be allowed.....lots of sniggers from all staff that day

oh dear

Two stellar examples from my mother as a first timer:

Don't have the heating turned on full blast with all windows and doors closed in June... in the summer's hottest heatwave for 10 years... with a newborn and then have the HV come round.

Never give a 6 month old baby with no teeth bacon fat to chew on... your MIL will never let you live it down.

Good news is, I now can survive any heat and love bacon :o

One from my sister - when DD aged 4 complains that she can't get her shoe on, don't ram it forcefully onto her little foot and make her walk home from nanna's house. Next day, when nanna realises she is still saying her foot hurts and takes her to A&E they will XRay and discover two broken toes and you will be blamed, by your mother, forever for What You Did The Time You Broke the Baby's Foot you rotten cow

Do not leave vapour rub on the side of the nappy table overnight, your child will spread it up their nose, in their ears and in all the tiny corners of the room while you sleep. Not only is it very aromatic, it takes really hot water to melt the wax base, and you can't use hot water on babies, so for weeks people will be asking if you have a cold.
Also, never put a pack of cress seeds in the main section of the changing bag to take to a friends house. Those packets aren't always sealed properly, contain around 12000 tiny seeds (I retrieved about 10k of them) and it is really disconcerting finding cress growing in the seams of both the bag and the spare nappies after a rainstorm

that's classic, inmysparetime! love the idea of cress in the spare nappies!

DD thought nappy salad was hilarious, I was losing the joy when the little blighters were still turning up after every damp spell for over a month though

Make sure your razor is out of reach, as your DN WILL come downstairs after a trip to the toilet with a bleeding lip as she was "trying to copy Daddy and Uncle Hedley".

Make sure you shut the back door properly when going to check on home brew in the shed, as your toddler will pry it open and zoom out in his babywalker, bounce down two steps and land on his face, requiring yet another trip to A&E.

Fast forward two years. When outside having a smoke don't move more than 5 yards from the door if you have a ruptured thigh muscle, meaning you cannot run, as your 3 yo DS will run from the living room to the kitchen and lock you out. Little sod.

One from a friend of mine.

When your children are having haircuts at home and your dw has left you in charge, do not let your 3 year old dd1 (who is going to be a bridesmaid in just 3 days time, hence the haircut) take the hairdresser's bag of equipment to play with in the hall, out of sight, whilst you have your hair cut. Your dd1 will cut a chunk out of her hair that will neccessitate some clever pinning with a hair clip (that will have to be specially made by the bride and the bridesmaids on the morning of the wedding) to disguise it!

I was the bride in this story.

Another poo related one.

When changing a nappy full of poo, be sure to dispose of said nappy immediately. If for any reason you choose to leave it on top of a radiator instead, be sure not to turn the heating on. The aroma of sweet baked poo will permeate the air for days afterwards.

Just because your 9mo dd has never done it before do not assume that they can't undress and remove her nappy.

Do not continue to mumsenet work as you hear her squealing with delight, when you put her down for a nap, thinking she will settle down, or you may find that when you enter her room she has shat in epic proportions, rolled all over the cot/bedding, smeared the walls, is covered from head to toe and turned her polar bear brown!

This happened approximaley 20 mins ago.

On a similar note - do not assume that all is well in your toddler's bedroom because she is quiet. She is not napping sweetly as she should be. In fact she has climbed out of her cot and done a huge poo in the potty. She has then taken said huge poo and spread it all around her room. Her cot is plastered in it and she has filled every single little plastic toy she could get her hands on. My friend was scrubbing poo out of little plastic dolly handbags and plastic dolly furniture (chests of drawers etc) for ages!!!

EUGh! what is it with small children and poo?? I am eternally grateful that my DS has never had his hands in his poo and hopefully never will as he does them on the loo now. I have serious poo ishoos as it is - I couldn't have coped if DS had done that! face, not envy.

I suppose it is warm playdoh Thumbwitch! When ds1 was potty-training and ds2 was learning to crawl I didn't clear up the potty quickly enough once and ds2 got into it and had a wonderful time with ds1's poo!

And if ds1 did a poo in his nappy after bedtime he used to take it off and wipe his bum on the furniture then put his pjs back on over his still-pooey bum and go to sleep. When I went in later to check on him I would find the nappy and then have to get him up so I could clean off all the dried poo and put a clean nappy on - as well as cleaning up the bedroom.

On one never-to-be-forgotten night we told him to call us if he needed a nappy change and were impressed when he did call us at about 9pm. Sadly he had already removed his nappy and had coated himself head to foot in sudocrem. I had the biggest sized tub and it had been at least three-quarters full until he got his little hands on it. Most of it was on him and the carpet - dh spent ages scraping it out of the carpet with a spatula whilst I showered ds1 three times to get rid of all the sudocrem.

That was a fun night! But because we decided we couldn't take that much fun on a regular basis we started sellotaping ds1 into his nighttime nappy - which foiled him!

Ahh! Sellotape thats what I need! She promptly tried to take off the clean nappy just after I had uncermoniously dumped her in the bath to hose her down!

Will duct tape work? Its all I have to hand.

Probably! That'll be one for the 18th birthday/first boyfriend/wedding day - "we had to duct tape you into your nappy to stop you spreading poo everywhere"
Get a photo too...

It's a bit late for the photograph Thumbwitch - he turned 18 earlier this month. I bloomin' wish I'd thought of it at the time though!! Evil