what are the most absurd bits of advice you've received as mums

[hushshessleeping]

dd's great grandmother on dh's side has helpfully advised me 'not to stoop'when pregnant, to tie a cord around the top of my stomach so the baby wouldn't go too far up, to 'stretch' the baby's neck so it doesn't stay too short, to harden up my nipples using methylated spirits. She's from Guyana. She also told me that putting salt under her baby's tongue soon put a stop to his biting. It's a wonder the MIL and uncles ever survived!!

These are good!

I got told I was "cheating" when I was chugging milk while bf. It was from a friend, though, and he was kidding.

don't eat while you're bf, otherwise crumbs will fall in the baby's eyes and make her go blind...

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Don't take baby out when it is windy. When he feels the wind on his face he will forget to breethe.

ROFL at babies forgetting to breathe!!!

mind you, harpsichordcarrier, my dcs often had crumbs in their hair when they were bf as babies...ahem, where could those have come from?
but they seem to have survived

Giving a spoonfull of baby rice from 6 weeks will make DS sleep through the night. Not one person wasnt shocked when I said "im waiting until 6 months" - they thought I was barmy!

Also, the reason DS was crying and pulling away from the breast was the tiny bit of garlic on my food.

That baby squash from 4 months was totally ok because "it says so on the bottle"

DS would get dehydrated and needed squash/water as I was BFing.

Dont BF after 12 months, or after they can talk as its controlling

Tickle newborn's feet to wake them if they fell asleep while feeding. Has this ever worked for anybody?

Similar to QueenQuootieSpookypieBee - "you MUST give your baby water if b/f otherwise she'll dehydrate."

Also "are you still b/f? What that girl needs is real food" (3mths)

"You should be able to stretch out the feeds to 4 hourly now, try and distract her" (at 1mth - and as if distraction would work!)

"We thought it would be easier for you if we visited at different times" So, overall visiting time took 3x longer and involved 3x making cups of tea etc.

The HV told me that if I didn't wean my dd before she was 6 months old, she would "get lazy and not want to eat solids"

I was told to "flick his ears" to wake him up if he fell asleep during his feeds. I didn't.

I was also told very regularly that I was over-handling and mollycoddling my babies for holding all the time and picking them up every time they cried.

I wish I could get lazy and not eat solids myself for a week or two. Might get a bit of weight off me arse.

Put a box on the table and tell your toddler not to touch it. Every time he does touch it, you slap his wrist. That's to teach him not to touch when you tell him when there really is something on the table he is not supposed to touch.
Odd..

Who on earth told you to do that? Weirdos.

"You must wake her up every 4 hours for her feed inc through the night" - i was thinking 'Do u really think im gonna wake my 10 weeks old DD up in the middle of the night when she had been sleeping thru the night 2 weeks ago...nah dont think so!!!!!'

but then again that was from my midwife!!

recorrection - 'since 2 weeks ago'

From my mum - "she must be allergic to your breast milk!" (dd screamed ALL the time and my mum was convinced a bottle or formula woud do the trick)

"I lost count of how many people told me to sleep when baby sleeps!!!! " Yeah right! Like I was going to waste that time sleeping. I was too busy trying to recapture normality then.

I was also scuppered by the 4 hourly feed thing. I was bfing and used to be sooo upset when DS#1 didn't wait 4 hours between feeds and took longer than 15 mins on each side. I used to sit watching the clock . Learnt better fairly soon.

Some very sensible advice was given me in a totally absurd way by one of DH's friends wives. 'Twas New Years Eve 3 days before DS#1 was born and I was like a beached whale in a bar full of drunken people - said wife turned up and stood with her face an inch from mine and proceeded to give me a lecture about child-rearing. Gist was that you had to compromise with kids - ie shopping should be followed by trip to park - which made sense but it took about an hour to tell me by which time I was worried about passive drinking from her breath DH and mate thought it was very funny

my "lovely" HV told me not to bother with armbands/rubber ring/baby float things when we went on holiday with DS (13months at the time). Just teach him to swim! Poor thing couldn't even walk then, but i guess maybe if i'd chucked him in the deep end, like my aunt did to my cousin it would all have worked out fine.

Funnily enough, that was the last time I asked her anything

My GP - "Your just not good milking stock. Like some cows don't make good dairy cows."

You're

[mortified emoticon]

That I shouldn't bf my sick 9 month old baby because 'breastmilk contains nothing' , said by my sister in law who as a breastfeeding mother should know better - another one of her gems:

'is she never going to move out of your bedroom?' said about my four month old baby! (we moved her to her own bedroom at the age of eight months as planned).

My antenatal teacher adviced that if we were scared to cut our new babies fingernails using scissors, then to bite them off instead! Has anyone successfully done this? I tried and was far too scared of biting my baby's finger!

Not to eat too much soya sauce or dark food (eg Marmite) when pregnant or baby's skin colour will be uneven/tanner than usual!!!!

Not to tickle baby's feet or they may develop a fear of heights in future!!!!!