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?

I love this thread it's really made me laugh and feel at ease knowing I'm not the only one to have done and still doing some crazy stuff

There are so many the one time my DH had DS and brought him up and placed him in Moses basket I woke in sheer panic thinking I'd fallen asleep clutching onto my DS and killed him turned out it was my pillow and DH calmly telling me DS was safe in his Moses basket yea sleep deprivation as a first time parent not nice at all

Keeping a diary also of how much milk DS had a day wet and dirty nappies 🤦🏻‍♀️ crazy

If we had to walk past anyone smoking I would breathe faster as if I'd inhale all the bad smoke so my DS wouldn't be affect by it

Another one due to sleep deprivation... I woke up and thought my hand was my baby. I tried to pick up my hand and put it in the cot. Did not realise until I was holding my hand in the air thinking this feels strange.

And a sleep routine one... Baby was napping at bedtime. So I took them to bed and waited until they woke up (just sat staring) and then carried out the bedtime routine...

@Hoppinggreen this reminds me of the time I went out with my toddler (yes toddler not newborn) and realised I didn't bring his gloves. So I didn't wear my gloves either. Only to be fair 😂

@singingmyownspecialsong I once woke up and thought the blanket was covering my sons face so hysterically threw it across the room.. Turns out I put him in his cot facing the other way with his feet by me not his head..

I made DH move us to the (completely full of junk) cellar one day when DD was a couple of weeks old as the Gro Egg was bright red and I was convinced DD would overheat
He had to move everything out, clean it up, bring the cot down the very tiny steep stairs and we slept on the floor next to her for the next week until the temperature fell!

When mil occasionally babysat, I used to write out dc1's routine with hour by hour, minute by minute instructions

I did this to my own mum Who has successfully raised two children of her own, and babysat countless others without incident.

She was very polite about it!

Sitting DS on the end of my knee and feeding him his bottle at arms length so that he didn't confuse "feeding time" with "cuddling time".

Jo Frost has a lot to answer for, although I will admit, it did kind of work!

I was also VERY strict and militant with his routine (again, Jo Frost!).

MIL to this day jokes about it but I stand by it because it worked - we could plan pretty much anything and everything around "the routine" and he slept through from around 8/10 weeks!

(I realise reading this back that I was "that parent" who could only do things that fitted around baby's routine )

Just started weaning my pfb DD. I had all the little frozen pots of homemade purée and all the rest of it.

It was January and blowing a gale. We were half way up a fell when it was 6 mth old DDs lunchtime. I insisted that we halt mid slope, DH had to get his whisperlite stove out and warm water so that her puréed sweet potato would not be cold. Then I proceeded to allow her to spoon it in herself (because that was the Right Thing), with the force 7 flailing around us.

Needless to say she probably got one mouthful in. The rest went all over her top spec Patagonia baby duck down snow suit!

What was I like! Alas poor second born DS never got any of these ministrations from me ....

My DS was born 3 1/2 lb so was very tiny and used to draw a lot of attention when we went out because well, I guess teeny tiny babies are quite rare and seem cute. Obviously in my new mum brain this meant that EVERYONE wanted to steal him....

We had a pram (rather than a buggy) so didn't have any fastening straps and I used to go everywhere pushing the pram with one hand and one hip while the other hand rested on top of DS so that nobody could steal my baby because obviously that's what everyone who ever saw him wanted to do...

Also, DS, like me tans at the drop of a hat, it only had to be sunny outside for an hour for him to tan having sat inside all day. I always put sun protection on him even when cloudy and can remember repeatedly asking the Health Visitor if he was "too brown" I really hope she didn't think I was some sort of crazed white supremacist!

@dontlickthelamp that is a valid concern DS and I were on a bus with hit a bridge once and DS got a head injury from flying debris. So not batshit.

@Sparklingbrook @feelinghelplesstoday I saved the teeth too. When I te found them I briefly marvelled at home tiny they were before being grossed out.

@Hoppinggreen I LOVE your clothing layers logic. Haha exactly the sort of thing I would have done I think.

@JenniferM1989 I love your car seat testing. Because it's excellent new mum logic. These things have been through advanced testing in labs with expensive equipment but how can WE know that they're definitely ok if we don't test them ourselves? Haha.

Wasn't a small baby one, but once when I'd stopped at my house with my mum and DS was asleep in the back, I'd unloaded some stuff from the car, then couldn't see DS in car and my heart missed it a beat and I ran back to my mum saying 'I CAN'T SEE DS, HE'S NOT IN THE CAR!!!'

I was looking in the wrong car.

I used to peel fishfingers for DD so she didn't eat any of the batter.

And yes to the baby wipes for DC2 instead of PFB's cotton wool and water!

When my second baby was a few weeks old I'd been out shopping. As he was in the car seat behind me rather than diagonal to me I couldn't see him in the usual mirror. I immediately became hysterical that I'd put him in the boot of the car still in the pram. I had to pull over and search the car, for some reason starting with the boot rather than the car seat he was fast asleep in.

I still get very anxious that I've forgotten one child and have to stop to check both seats are occupied. I think I need better mirrors.

And I completed an app with PFB to show every nappy change and feed. I was scared that I'd be asked to detail exactly when I'd last done something and wouldn't know. This was all down to a doctor asking how many oz she drank per day and I went to bits trying to work it out. I refused to be caught out again and show what a terrible mother I was.

23/11/2019 12:50 LemonPrism

Fun fact:: it's not no tears as in crying, it's no tears as in tearing your hair

Complete internet myth. It’s tears like crying hence the tear on the bottle and the way they say it in adverts.

My maddest moment was following the GF method for twins. They were very sleepy babies, a few days old, yet for some reason the book advises waking them at 6am (I think - it’s been a while!) feeding, washing etc so you’re all ready by 7am.

Needless to say I did that once then abandoned it - what mad person advocates waking a newborn?!

I don’t remember anything else but that doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen!

I don't have children but I love this thread

I once looked after a friend's 3 year old for 2-days and overnight. On the first day we went jumping around in puddles and playing football on a really muddy field. We got absolutely filthy but it was cracking fun.

I bathed the child and washed/dried her clothes and thought no more of it. The day after she went back, I got a text from my friend berating my carelessness in letting her daughter wade around in puddles/mud which (and I quote) 'could have all sorts of parasites in them' and for washing her clothes in (and again I quote) 'god knows what detergents'.

She genuinely didn't speak to me for three years. One day we were in the pub with different groups of friends and she stumbled over nearly in tears to hug me and apologise. We're great friends again and she's no longer a twat.

I think she's a MNer.... you know who you are, bitch

Oh god @ToeNailSoup that's brilliant 😂😂. I first read it as 3 DAY old and thought WTAF?? 😂😂
I'm a mum of 6 and honestly can't believe that they've all survived relatively unscathed 😂😂

I changed DD’s nappies if the colour-change strip was even slightly blue. A couple of times, I changed them because although the strip was still yellow, it had a green tinge. The HV told me I didn’t need to change nappies that were only slightly wet, but I couldn’t accept this for a long time.

The September after DD was born, she was six months old and I signed her up for a term of multiple baby classes including swimming and baby signing. I called this Baby School and took it very seriously. Unfortunately, DD decided that she hated swimming and she only ever learned two baby signs.

At half term, when there were no classes, I planned to take DD for “an educational outing” to the zoo. It didn’t happen in the end, but only because I didn’t want to take DD on a long journey on my own and no one would come with me. Gosh, I was a knob.

With DC1 I was so concerned he might choke on a blueberry at 7 months old that, rather than simply squish it, as all parents do, or cut it in half, I pureed entire punnets of blueberries and then thought the skin might get stuck in his throat, so pushed the puree through a sieve before allowing him to eat it. FYI pureed, sieved blueberries simply turn into a solid mass of blueberry jelly, probably more likely to choke a baby than the original lone blueberry.

I also used the 'safety' loop on the buggy handle AT ALL TIMES. I was convinced DS was such a uniquely attractive baby he was certain to attract the attention of baby-stealers everywhere, so kept him firmly strapped in the buggy and my wrist through the loop at all times. Meant that I couldn't reach any item on a high shelf in the supermarket because my other hand was attached to the buggy so had to ask people to pass things down to me. But it was worth it in my mind so as not to take the risk of kidnap with my unusually beautiful baby. (I can confirm that I look back at photos now and he looked like Churchill in a Babygro, just like all other babies).

Can’t stop laughing! At my mother in laws house first baby 7 months looked up from my phone what’s on the side in the LOUNGE? His gro egg room thing 😂

When DS was born I remember feeling really sorry for all the other mums in the ward because their babies were ugly and mine was so gorgeous

With poor DD I remember thinking “god she looks like a spud” so the mom goggles were off for her

Oh I’ve just remembered another one. We stayed at a very child friendly place in spain and I got worried that kids tea time was at 6 when my DD was used to having tea at 5. I emailed the owner asking if there might be food available earlier, she very kindly said she could be flexible but pointed out Spain is an hour ahead of Uk time...

I remember when we went for DS' 3 day old check. His first outing. We went down a path that had cobbles on and he wailed like a banshee. I walked on the road with him (dead end at one end) so it didn't hurt his head. I did reason that he'd been a forceps baby so it might have hurt his head.

I think that's about most I can recall. I suffered badly with PND and my bond with him.. whilst i would throw myself under a bus for him.. was distant. Still is.

I have a notebook full of everything DC1 drank, ate and every poo age 3 days to 1 year (he had bad constipation so I kept a food diary)

Sadly DC3 is disabled and was NG fed for her first year so again I had a bloody book of everything she took!

With our first we were obsessed with the gro egg thermometer. If it went red, even by 0.1 degree we'd open all the windows and put fans on. If it went blue, the heating went on. We checked it so much. With our dc2 we didn't even plug it in!!

We didn’t find out the sex of our pfb and painted the nursery a lovely neutral mint green colour.

Upon returning home from the hospital, DH found me sobbing in the nursery because I thought the green didn’t suit the baby and if she didn’t like her nursery how could she be happy in our house?!

I’m ashamed to say, lovely DH got up the next morning, set off to B&Q and painted the room a more suitable duck egg blue.

She’s six months old, she’s been in the nursery approximately 30 minutes for her whole life

This is an addition to him finding me crying in the bath when she was approximately 5 days old because I didn’t think she liked my left breast as much as my right one. (Poor DH had to explain that it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, took about 40 minutes to stop the sobbing.)