Your most batshit parenting moments?

[Hassled]

For some reason today I remembered the MNer years ago who confessed to squirting no-tears shampoo directly into her eye to make sure it really was no-tears before using it on her baby.

I think my equivalent is probably banning DH ( who seriously loves The Cure) from ever playing Boys Don't Cry in case the DSs grew up thinking boys don't cry. The ban was in place for a solid 15 years.

Anyone else looking back and wincing at themselves?

When DS was about 4 we went on holiday to Menorca and decided to let him spend a few hours at the Kid's Club.
When we took him along there were only about 5 other kids in the group and 3 play leaders who announced they were taking them to the beach to collect shells.
DS was mad keen so we gave in.
We then crept to the beach and 'hid' so we could be certain they weren't going to take their eyes off him and allow him to be swept out to sea!

We did the no flushing the toilet once ds was asleep. If he was asleep downstairs at any time of the day we had to have the tv/radio silent.
If any visitors arrived and DS was asleep then we didn't speak to them, just hand gestures.( 'V'sign was what I really wanted to do). I would be fuming someone dared attempt a visit when my DS was napping. Very rude if them I thought.
If anyone arrived and DS was feeding I would make them stand in the hall until he had finished. ( This continued whilst DS was 18 months old and sitting with snacks in his high chair). Some people were standing silently in the hall for up to an hour😁.

I was worried about DS sleeping in his pram in the garden because a buzzard might fly off with him or might peck his eyes. I asked a naturalist friend of mine whether he thought it was safe
Much more relaxed with DD, even though she had a heart problem that we had to monitor with a stethoscope.

Mine are probably not as bad, just standard stuff, my friend bought my son a toy gun and when she left I removed it from us as I did not want to promote violence "shooting mummy" to corrupt his innocent mind. He also didn't taste chocolate until he was around 3 and no macdonalds until around age 4, didn't take the sides off his cot until he was 3 😬, would worry if he didn't finish his food, and would be obsessed with him starving to death. second DS, is wild, had his first nugget around 11 months old, courtesy of his big brother, in a lot more chilled out with him and I think he gets away with murder, I'm still over precious with my first born and he is 8 now. Why do you think we do this with our first and then chill out with our second?

I was paranoid that my son would overheat at night. Once I put him down to sleep in a long sleeved baby grow and then hours later I CUT OFF THE SLEEVES WITH SCISSORS WHILE HE WAS SLEEPING

Oh so many! In my defence, newborn DS nearly died and I had to resuscitate him, so it’s made me a bit twitchy.

When DS had chicken pox I used pox kin and got some in his eye. He screamed his head off so I had to put some in my eye too to check it was ok. He wasn’t even a baby at the time - he was 2!!

We had a wipe warmer too, but in fairness he was born in winter and would scream like a banshee if you used a freezing cold one on him.

I made all his food from scratch and had to introduce a new food every meal.

wonder if people were fretting about these PFB sorts of things or anything equivalent in 1819 or 1919?

I don't know about 1819 but I've read a circa inter war years copy of Mrs Beeton housekeeping book which has guidance on exactly the food you should feed your children by age, and sample weekly menus. I think we would recognise the same worry over correct food for our children today (although we would probably not choice to feed them her father bland diet which lacks fruit but does include sweetbreads and brains for 1 years old and up!)

I think the internet gives us access to a lot more information which is both a positive but also when you are massively sleep deprived it can hard to tell what advice you're reading is worth comply and what is batshit.

When my DD1 was 3 weeks old I noticed a red raised rash on the top of her left arm. I put a glass over it and the rash didn't go away, so DH and I legged it to Childrens A&E totally demented and convinced our baby had meningitis.
Turns out it was a strawberry birthmark 🤦‍♀️
Then I cried because I hadn't noticed it before and thought I was a bad mum. Sleep deprivation makes you batshit!

Having a massive rant at DH about putting PFB’s dummy in his own mouth to clean it after it was dropped, and then handing it back. Telling him that the spread of his oral bacteria would absolutely lead to tooth decay in my previous child, and that I couldn’t believe as a parent he had done something so terrible.
At this point PFB has exactly zero teeth.

Odd one this.
I was so worried Dd aged 3 months would NOT be exposed to safe bacteria, that asked my DH who is a doctor but was doing research at the time, to collect some ( v safe) Petri dishes of bacteria, so I could dot them round round her body and boost her immunity.
Yes, I too was diagnosed with PND ( +/- Bashir syndrome)

When I was pregnant, I read that a drug addict had been arrested at 3am for vandalising a fountain in a nearby park. I vowed and declared that my pfb would never go to that park because of it.

The fact that it was 3 am, he had climbed over the fence to get in and that it wasn't done during normal park hours was beside the point.

Batshit, not Bashir...

What a wonderful thread.

I was one of those who used cooled boiled water and cotton wool to do nappy changes, for months. What a faff! And we had a little notebook where we recorded every feed (and how many minutes long it was), wee and poo for the first few weeks. I also used to use the hairdryer to warm up her cot before we put her in it.

Next baby will not be getting this level of servitude

Pmsl at these. We had one stair, in the hall of our third floor flat. And a stairgate on it 😂😂

I may once have heard myself say in a park cafe when ordering for my toddler, 'he only drinks organic, de-caff Earl Grey'. I am dying right now.

What was the cooled boiled water/cotton wall balls about? it's not like you are cleaning up a super sterile area.

Aah, this is bringing tears of laughter to my eyes. What a super thread. Thank you for cheering up my day.

SparklingBrook it’s because the chemicals from wipes might irritate their little tush. Except, for most babies they completely don’t.

The point of the Cure song is that the narrator is (foolishly) too proud to admit to being emotionally vulnerable, and he loses out in relationships b/c of that, so the song is arguing that boys should feel free to cry.

My stupid parenting things are too many to list, but not about being PFB. Just ignorant how other folk expected things to happen.

I wanted DD to love animals as much as I do, so I arranged to borrow the neighbour's dog once a week so they could bond with each other. DD was two months old.

When DS was about 4 months old or so he was holding a toy hammer and hit himself on the forehead. I panicked about “head injuries” and the possible consequences.

So I hit myself with the hammer in the forehead (harder to “compensate” for the age difference obvs) to see how much it hurt and to see if I felt any “different”.

I’m embarrassed to admit I did it several times to be as “thorough” as possible.

Needless to say I ended up with the red forehead and not him. However, this led me to the happy conclusion that he would be ok.

Oh god I did so many of these. And that was after spending ages on MN confident I'd not be a batshit crazy parent.

I was double batshit. I remember being furious with London's town planners that they had not considered that some streets had NO SHADE.

Yes, non-existent the town planners from the 16th century. I swear if they'd had an email address I would have crucified them.

Will no one think of the babbbbieeesss.

No. No you batshit loon. They didn't.

My mum, back in the 80s panicked because I ate a pine needle off the Christmas tree as a baby, called the local hospital asking if I’d be ok (and hearing stifled laughter on the other end of the phone) and ate one herself to see what happened 😂

@definitelyshouldknowbetter I did that too.

Once my small toddler bumped his head on a door frame whilst cruising. So I deliberately smacked my head on the same door frame to gauge the pain level and whether I should get him checked out.

He was (and will always be) my PFB

Grammar thanks for your clarification, I was just about to google Bashir Syndrome in confusion.