Best parenting tip you ever got?

[giantwaterbottle]

Obviously I'm not being unreasonable to ask 🤷‍♀️

Mine was from some friends who had older kids.
Always double the sheets/plastic sheet in baby/toddler bed.

It's saved us in the middle of the night on countless occasions.

Don't look at the time during the night.

Read the headlines Puff. Look to tomorrow. Oh wait.

When it's your first and you don't think you can manage something, ask yourself what you'd do if this was your second child.

It's harsh, but it makes you feed yourself, shower, go to the toilet, go out etc, because leaving your pretend firstborn toddler to starve etc isn't an option.

3 days to make a habit, 3 days to break it.

That one got me past a lot of stuff.

My best parenting advice is get DC into a routine of stripping their own beds early. Mine started at about 5yo when they were still keen to help. As a result I have never handled a teenage boys' bedding. One of the few things I am certain I got right :grin:

This is amazing, definitely going to remember this for when DS is older!

From the first time you feel your unborn baby move.You must realise there is a separate human being inside you.You can do nothing to control those movements, he or she will move when he or she wants to, not when you want him or her to.That is your child showing you he or she is a separate individual even before birth. It is up to you from birth to guide your child to the right path, even though they do not want to!
I read that advice 52 years ago when pregnant with my first baby and for me it has proved right.My now grown up children have brought me both joy and disappointment.They have done their own thing always.

Always wipe up weetabix asap. Otherwise it turns into cement

I like the 'all fed, noone dead' thing.

Whatever age they are, I kind of have a checklist
are they

tired
hungry
angry
lonely

tired and hungry are easy to deal with. often helped by a pot of favourite soup on the stove.

and once you have done the first two
the second two are easier

Yet another vote for making babies get used to sleeping through noise.

I tried. But despite best efforts they were both ridiculously light sleepers between 6 and 18m, it was ridiculous! After that they sleep like the dead.

When going through the phase of my DC's not wanting to wear specific clothes, not wanting to drink from the red cup etc I read on here to always give them a choice, but of 2 things you'd be happy with. For example they could wear the blue T-shirt or the red one but it was their decision.
It worked a treat and saved lots of time and battles when getting them ready

Don’t make baths essential to the bed time routine, so if you have to miss one it’s no biggie.

@Fivetimes

Read the headlines Puff. Look to tomorrow. Oh wait.

You made your choice not to have children, best for you, I'm sure. But don't come on to a parenting site throwing around words like 'death' to those who made a different choice. Bore off.

@vegisaurus it turns out that they do if you make it to the adult ASD assessment. I had to explain at age 43 that I hadn't walked until I was two.

@nildesparandum I absolutely love that!

This has reminded me actually - by far the best parenting book I read when mine were little, 14 years ago, was the Mumsnet book with advice copied from various posts on the forum.

It make me realise there were no hard and fast rules, and that other people’s ideas were well worth trying!

Different cover but probably the same book

www.amazon.co.uk/Babies-Mumsnet-Guide-Million-Secrets/dp/1408801485?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Snap @NoIDontWatchLoveIsland
I was just about to write, I do get the idea behind it but I also feel that people who give that advice maybe just haven't had a bad sleeper.

My first was SO bad at sleeping that the rare occasion he did sleep i wa so desperate that I was silent.

RE breastfeeding. 'Never give up on a bad day'. There were countless but glad I persevered through ALL the struggles.

Don't buy one comforter. Buy 3!

And rotate from birth (you don't have to reveal the trick to the child).
They'll get used at the same rate.

Just be ruthless and don't let them choose a different soft toy as a comforter, even if it means not allowing other sleeping soft toys until they are old enough.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Yet another vote for making babies get used to sleeping through noise.

I tried. But despite best efforts they were both ridiculously light sleepers between 6 and 18m, it was ridiculous! After that they sleep like the dead.

I've got 4, of course I was smug with 3 great sleepers, they sleep through anything I'd smugly say to people whose children wouldn't sleep/would wake if anyone so much as breathed. Then I had number 4 and learned a bit of humility.

Mind you I'd already had the lesson with eating as number 3 lived on fresh air and marmite for years.

Yet another vote for making babies get used to sleeping through noise.

Sadly this doesn't work for all babies in real life. As I discovered with very opinionated on the subject baby number 3.

It’s not a tip I’ve been given but a tip I’d give to someone else through experience….

My ex used to always say ‘When I was little my mam wouldn’t let me get away with xyz, my man always done this, if I don’t that, my man would do xyz.’

He was basically praising his mans disciplinarian ways and crediting her for the amazing person he is and the amazing well behaved child he was 🙄

Mate - She had one child! Had she used the same technique with another child it might not have worked.

It’s nature and nature and some children have easier children… end of.

At least if he had a sibling that was also immaculatey behaved as a kid all the time I’d have had note inclination to listen.

When I was little my mam wouldn’t let me get away with xyz, my mam always done this, if I didn’t do that, my man would do xyz

I mean

Some people have easier children

@SecretKeeper1

Don’t make baths essential to the bed time routine, so if you have to miss one it’s no biggie.

@SecretKeeper1

at some point I used to bathe mine in the morning or early afternoon.
so much more relaxed and lovely than in the witching hour!