Flipping, freezing, sterilising and the just plain ludicrous - what daft things did you do with your PFB?

[NorthernLurker]

Talking to dd1 tonight (she is 15 and has two sisters) I remembered how totally inept dh and I were.

We:

Filled the baby bath and then carried it (taking two of us) in to the living room of our flat to bath her because it was warmer than the bathroom. Then after the bath we carried it back, sloshing right and left, to empty it.

The first night we had her at home we were so worried about overheating her we put her in a cradle in a vest with a sheet and single blanket, by a window, in April......then wondered why she cried all night and went to sleep when the sun came up.....

Sterilised the bowl for her breakfast until she was a year old. This was dh's job because I Was At Home All Day With The Baby! When he forgot and tried to get in to bed and go to sleep without doing it we had a row. Dh still complains of the 'tyranny of baby's bowl'

When she was six months old and started to roll she would roll herself on to her front to sleep. So every night we would check on her, find her on her front and flip her on to back. Unsurprisingly this woke her....but we kept doing it till my HV told me we were crazy!

Were we alone in this insanity?

Pine needles in the pram?!?!?!?! You people are KILLING me!!!! Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

My pfb was born in the seventies when bf support and information was pretty much non-existant.

As bottles had to be sterile for newborns I assumed nipples had to be too.

So I thoroughly washed mine before Every. Single. Feed I even took a flask of warm water and some cottonwool when I went out in case there weren't any washing facilities - what a kerfuffle.

I warm my pyjamas on the fire. It isn't PFB, it's living in a house with poor heating.

I wasn't PFB with dd at all. Never recorded a feed or nappy or fretted or fussed. Except for the time I was convinced to go out for lunch with dh, for some grown up time. I didn't want to go and leave dd and it wasn't right for me but my parents and the ILs were adamant we went. I expressed some milk for the first time ever and duly trotted off for lunch. I hated it. The food was like sawdust and I felt anxious, engorged and upset. I endured it though and we returned home, just as my DM started giving dd the bottle of expressed milk. I marched over, snatched it from her and threw it out of the window. It was the sight of dd being offered an artificial nipple. Something snapped inside me. My Mum, Dad and DH all looked horrified. She never had a bottle again.

I typed and saved a Word doc entitled 'troubleshooting Michael' - it was more than 1 page ...... In my defence DS was a particularly difficult baby - cried perpetually and didn't sleep for more than 10 minutes unless on my chest!! He is now nearly 15 and sleeps like the dead!

I also actually nearly died when my friend came to visit, was holding DS and when his dummy fell on the floor licked it and put it back in his mouth ..... I had sterilised ones on hand, she moved too quickly for me!!!

I had none of these issues with DD (DC2), lol

I thought I'd dented my sons head when he was born, then when he was about 4 days old my mum ran her hand gently over his head and said oh there's his soft spot and I said "where?" and she showed me, exactly where I assumed I'd shoved a careless thumb when trying to dress him.

I cried with relief. I honestly thought I had damaged him but didn't know how to ask someone without them thinking I'd done it on purpose. They still laugh at me about it but as my mum pointed out when you have NEVER experienced any of it before, how can you know?!

When DD was about 6 months old she started rolling on to her front to sleep and we would turn her back over for fear of her stopping breathing. Obviously this would wake her up so DH would cuddle her to sleep on his chest (her falling asleep on her front) then we'd do it all over again as we'd try to put her down on her back again. Took us a good week or so to realise that we weren't going to win this one

Hover bath has made my week!!! Crying!

I kept my ds hands covered with mitts for the first 2 months at least....told everyone it was to stop him scratching himself but the truth is, it was to stop him touching germy people and putting his hands in his mouth!!

(Would do the same again to be fair)

I did the keeping keeping a bf / formula diary on my iPhone but was a bit rubbish and never managed to do it for a whole day.

We left DD with a sitter for a night out for the first time at 3 months old. I had a total meltdown about it the day before but thankfully by the time I was leaving at the sitter (a young polish friend) asked if I wanted her to lay /sit in the nursery when mini went to bed I did laugh and assured her I did not!!

I can't believe I'm about to admit this - When DS was about ten weeks old I actually created a family YouTube channel so that we could share our iphone videos of his development with the family, along with detailed explanations of which stage he had reached. 'Here is where we see him move his eyes and try to focus on the mobile'. 'Now he has started saying 'agoo' and trying to smile'.

Thankfully, I had a moment of clarity and realised that not even grandma and grandad were going to be interested in that level of minutae and the videos were best kept for DH and I alone. So I deleted the channel.

Mortifyingly precious!

I babysat for a friend when baby was about 1. He had a specially prepared pre-nap cassette (I can't remember but I think it might have been his mum singing the songs) so I had to rock him whilst he listened to the cassette, then if he didn't settle in his cot, I had to lie on the (wooden) floor beside his cot pretending to be asleep and he would then settle down. The parents were at home but doing some decorating or something so I felt I had to follow the instructions to the letter and ended up lying there for his entire nap. PFBabysitter?

Some.of these I do and didnt even.realise were pfb, like sitting in the back of the car. It’s just nice to be near her! I have been known to hold a muslin in the air to shield her from the sun through the car window. Which reminds me of when she was newborn and DH woukd push the buggy while I held a muslin in front of it 2 inches.in front to shield her

I think DD has quite a pampered pfb bathtime routine,.it takes both me and DH, and she gets a massage every night after her bath and a pedi once a week! Just filing her nails and.massaging a little baby oil. She loves it so I will carry on until she complains

DH must win the pfb award. He converted the feeding and poo chart the midwife made us do to a spreadsheet, complete with graphs and total columns!

Zzzz

That's brilliant

Didn't think I was doing too badly reading these, but I've just caught myself ironing the lining to DD (10 months) pinafore as I thought it might itch her under the chin if it wasn't ironed flat

I have really enjoyed this thread - classic.

For the most part we are fairly laid back, but when DD was really tiny, I had a few tricky post birth complications and was desperately trying to get some sleep in another room, to mend my body a bit, and realised I'd forgotten something from the main bedroom. I went in and found DH watching teletext and reading the sports highlights. DD was asleep in crib, hood up with back of hood to TV. I berated DH is an absolutely furious stage whisper for daring to have the TV on (with above set up as described) as it might 'damage her neurological pathway development'. DH was a bit and very wisely tucked me up back in bed an no more was said about it.

Fast forward 5 months, I now stick DD in front of TV baby cartoon channel while I make her tea.

we also did the poo char until our midwife said we didn't have to. We were very worried stopping it - something might happen to her and if a doctor asked exactly the last time she poor/weed/drank we might not know and what would happen etc.

4week old PFB DD sound asleep and I got through most of this thinking I was actually pretty relaxed, then I realised...

• hubby or I always sit in the back of the car with her. She has been in the car for about half an hour with no one beside her as I was alone but if there is 2 of us,one of us will always sit beside her. I admit I was slowly realising this was daft before reading this as she falls asleep as soon as she is put on the car seat and stays sleeping until you wake her

• hubby and I were visiting our parents with DD over the weekend. I was exhausted and went for a nap while at inlaws and explained 3 times to hubby how to make up her bottle,not as bad as it sounds as she had been getting expressed breast milk up until a few days ago and this was the first time he would need to make one. I then also explained it to my MIL 3 times before offering to write it down. MIL raised 3 kids and both can also read (can of formula was sitting in the kitchen . Also told them numerous times NOT to just reboil the kettle but make sure they used fresh water.

• we stayed at MY mums over the weekend. On Monday morning DD and I got up about ten minutes before mum went to work,left mum holding baby while I boiled kettle for feed,had a pee etc. while I'm in kitchen rinsing bottles to put in steriliser mum comes through without baby to say her lift has arrived and she's leaving,I stop and ask if she has put baby in the pram? Where the hell did i think she had put her? To be fair quick as a flash she said no,she's sitting on the couch with a cup of tea reading the paper!

• I am a self confessed music snob,and can't remember any nursery rhymes so while trying to get baby to sleep was singing Prince to her, raspberry beret to be exact. Once she was asleep felt guilty for an hour because Prince isn't 'baby appropriate'. Because not only can she understand what I'm saying at 4 weeks old but she understands every single word

On a separate note what are these tongs for sterilising bottles people have mentioned,never heard of them. I've been washing my hands,taking teats out the sterilisers and handling them by the astic rim only,away from the actual teat. Should I get some or is this actually the sane thing to do?

DD was bottle fed & I thought that under no circumstances could she have more than 6 bottles in 24 hours. We got stuck in a routine of her feeding around half past midnight, 3am, 7 am & 10am. I would then panic about only having 2 bottles to last the rest of the day. She would sleep a lot (as v full!), feed around 2pm, 7pm.........and then I would pray she wouldn't wake up before midnight. On the occasions she did wake, I would walk up and down with her trying to calm her until the clock ticked past 12. Never occurred to me to give a hungry growing baby a bit extra /emo/te/8.gif

(That was supposed to be embarrassed emoticon!)

My parents met when they were both students. On first going to spend the weekend at her in-laws to be, DM was surprised that her future MIL still mashed bananas for her son & warmed his yogurts!

Anothermrssmith - my avent microwave steriliser came with tongs, bit like sugar tongs but plastic, which you could pick up the teats with and pull them into the ring thing for the top of the bottle. You can buy similar in mothercare. I'm sure they aren't necessary with washed hands but you did ask!

anothermrssmith loving the Prince songs, like in Friends when they were all at Rachel singing "I like big butts" to Emma!

And I am another PJ warmer - also coats before walking to school, including mine! Damn sensible not PFB (though baby wipe warmers - are they stll available? - ARE PFB/more money than sense!)

Would love to rewind time and do it all again with my 3 with minimal equipment and fuss - sort of did that with DD3, the "What To Expect With Your Baby" book didn't even come off the bookshelf

I got another one...

Pfb was hospitalised with bronchiolitis at 7 weeks - which tbf was genuinely a bit scary - and I was staying with him overnight. Unexpected admission so I didn't have any night clothes with me (stick with it, this is relevant).

This meant that when I was anxiously hanging over him in bed watching him breathe, and he had a brief splutter and a choke, my first action was naturally to run out of the room to the nurses' station in my underwear yelling, "Help me! HELP! MY BABY IS DYING!".

A very quick off the mark nurse ran back with me and skidded to a halt next to DS's cot, and took one look at him before fixing me with a glare full of pitying exasperation and saying "he's just having a bit of a cough, sit him up and pat his back!".

I didn't dare raise a single other matter to the nurses the whole time we were there.

I think in the circs that is definitely not PFB punt. Weren't you come though?

Me and Dh weren't very pfb at all! The most pfb thing we did was when Ds1 came home from hospital during a heatwave. It was 28 ºC in our bedroom and 25 downstairs in the living room. We put his moses basket on the floor and slept on the floor ourselves right next to it as we were worried about him overheating. In our defence it was really hot and he was very warm.

LittleBear oh but he really was absolutely FINE. He wasn't even that ill with it, they only admitted him because he was a bit skinny at the time (we had a lot of problems getting him bf properly).

I have given your second sentence considerable thought and decided to answer it thusly: no, I wasn't cold, the hospital was really warm and it was only while I was out of bed anyway.