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?

Cold! Yes! Oops

I'm not particularly PFB - I did record feeds for the first 6 weeks but I was BFing twins, who both had a rocky start to feedingand who did not sleep, DTS was also jaundiced so it was the only way of remembering if they had gone too long etc.

However, after their 2 months jabs, they were pretty grotty and I got my brother (a final year medical student) to administer their first dose of calpol. Ha ha ah, what a tool I was. Now they get it from the same syringe (which may or may not be washed in between!)

I see this thread has made it on to the facebook page

is it pfb that I wont let dh fold and put away our ds' clothes as he doesn't do it right I wont let him put them in the drawer either

Yes, Steffanoid

oh. then yes I am a proud PFBER a term I thinkwe should use to distinguish ourselves

My pfb was an incredibly sleepy baby. He would sleep for hours and hours and hours day and night. This wenton far longer than the usual newborn sleepy stage.

Whenever I got together with other mums I'd question them in detail about their baby's sleeping habbits, I wasconvinced there was something seriously wrong with ds and I was certain he would never learn anything. I even posted multiple threads on mumsnet asking for advice.

In hindsight I think my friends thought I was gloating about my sleepy baby.

I still sit in the back with pfb. We drove from Sweden to the UK (4 days of driving) I sat in the back with pfb ( he slept the entire way obviously!)

I have never let Dp put pfb clothes away and he is now 5 , every week since he was born i have spent around 3 hours ironing all of his clothes and putting them away in the correct order

I can't even remember the last time I ironed anything of mine

We did the ceremonial carrying of the baby bath from the kitchen to the sitting room - DH sloshing water everywhere while I waited, armed with lots of towels, creams and pfb who would not be undressed until the last second before bathing.we were that paranoid about him getting cold we would have the heating up so high we'd be sat in our underwear, sweating to death while bathing him! God know what the neighbours thought if they ever caught a glimpse

Dp reminded me of another pfb moment. Ds had bronchiolitis when he was 5 weeks old, he was hospitalised for 5 nights.

I called the emergency bell because he was crying and I couldn't settle him ( ds was a really content baby who hardly ever cried just slept all the time

The nurse said don't be silly babies cry, I said not my baby, we cuddle him all the time and he is always happy. The nurse said well he obviously isn't experiencing breathing difficulties as he has enough air in his lungs to cry.

In hindsight I feel guilty/ashamed about that pfb behavior, there were some really ill babies who just lay in their cots all the time, I thought that is what ds should be doing, I didn't realise they lay in their cots quietly because they were so Ill :(

Aw don't feel guilty, you weren't to know, were you?

Ha ha this is very funny. I look back at how I was with DD1 and really wish I had been more relaxed. With DD2 (third child) I have hardly worried about anything and we are all much happier for it I think!

Here are my embarrassing PFB moments:

Going to a family gathering when DD was 2 weeks old and carrying her in a sling the whole time and refusing to let anyone else hold her. In fact I think I even made a family announcement beforehand that this is what I was going to do, as I had read in a book somewhere that this was wise... or maybe it was the germs thing. (3rd child got handed to whoever would have her!)

We had been reading the Baby Whisperer and were doing the 'shush-pat' method, but DD wouldn't settle in her cot, I remember standing next to DH and reading out the instructions from the book word for word while he shushed and patted, as I was convinced he wasn't doing it correctly and that is why it wasn't working....
In fact I would read those damn baby books cover to cover like they were some sort of instruction manual, until one day my sister told me to put the books down and listen to my instincts. Very wise, my sister.

Spending hours cooking and blending organic vegetables and freezing little pots - keeping a food diary of every bit of puree she had eaten - no shop-bought or non-organic food to pass her PFB lips!

Going out for a pub lunch with DH and the home-made food we had taken along hadn't defrosted properly, DD was crying with hunger while we jiggled the food in a pot of hot water and argued about whose fault it was. Why I just didn't take along some shop-bought food for once, I don't know.

By 2nd child, no time for blending so spent a small fortune on Plum Baby.
By 3rd child, no time for blending and no money for Plum Baby so she basically ate the same as the rest of us mashed up a little.

PFB's first birthday - my sister offered to make a birthday cake and I insisted it was sugar-free - what was I thinking? Anyway lovely lady she is, no comment, she made a sugar-free banana cake - which no-body ate...

I will stop there as I could go on .. and on!

Brilliant thread.

We took PFB to A&E one night when she was about 2wks old because we thought she wasn't breathing properly.

Turns out she was just really deeply asleep for the first and only time during the first year of her life

Oooh and I know a couple who kept three separate books for their first: one to record length of sleep, one to record feeds, and one to record poos/wees.

DD was lucky if I remember which boob to use next feed...

Radiatormesh that sounds like me. I kept notebooks of which breast, time started feeding, time stopped feeding, time of nappy change (and contents thereof), time of sleep, time of awaking, almost anything DD did. We have volumes of notebooks which cover the first 7 months or so. I only stopped because I forgot to pack the notebook when we went on holiday cue hysteria at the time.

I always thought I was quite relaxed (I picked up a teat from the floor without even thinking about getting a new sterilized one when DS was back in hospital at 1 week old for jaundice treatment).

But...

... no processed food has ever crossed his lips!
... I am religious about offering him a good variety of food. Got mad at DH when he mistakenly defrosted the same puree DS had had the day before. Worried I would mess up his eating habits forever!
... when he'll be looked after by MIL in a months time for us to have a weekend off, I will take frozen homemade food with me in a cool bag. Nothing SHE cooks will cross his mouth.

Does this count?

I just remembered a really ridiculous one

DS used to hate it when I wiped his face so much that I basically never used to wipe his face. Poor thing looks awful in most of the photos of him before the age of 2! I was convinced "the dirt sweats off at night anyway!" Yes it does but ewwww

I laughed out loud (in public) at hover bath and mystery sweating disease.

I still cut up grapes for my PSB . She is 7 years old.

Not so much a PFB as I-can-do-it-all, took DD2 to a pub lunch with ex-colleagues. I was eating one handed while holding her, as we all do and a lady offered to hold her for me. "No, no it's fine" I said, even though said lady had finished her food - she probably just wanted to cuddle a little baby, I still feel 11 years later! Worse, we have different skin colours and I still hope she doesn't think there was anything racist in my not letting her hold DD2 - I was just trying to show I didn't need help rather than graciously accept it.

Previous newborn had a cold so I decided to try using salt water drops up his nose to help him breathe easier at night. Except getting drops up the nose of a newborn at 3am proved more difficult than I'd bargained for, but I was adamant that I wanted to help him as he sounded so blocked. I was absolutely mortified when I missed his nostril and got his eye, so worried that it would hurt his eyes. I still have an image of myself at 3am putting the drops in my own eyes to test whether they stung. Way too mad and sleep deprived to remember that tears are actually salty water!

I used to HAND express milk each evening for PFB's breakfast in the morning until he was one...

I used to sterilise all cups, plates, spoons etc until over a year old. PFB was only allowed cooled, boiled water to drink, this continued for over a year.

Also did the obsessive breathing checks, still do.

Oh and probably the best of all, used only unscented soap and shower gel on me for at least 6 months so I didn't mask my natural smell and he knew it was me holding him.

No more tears in the eye and hover bath... My favourites!

I used to squirt my breast milk over all my clean clothes so my PFB would recognise me...!!!!

when we brought pfb home from hospital, on a night we kept him in the moses basket downstairs. we would each do a shift so one of us was always awake in case pfb woke up
god knows what we thought would happen if we took him upstairs and went to bed at the same time.

we also had a book where we would write the following;
time of feed
how many oz
wet nappy?
soiled nappy?
we kept this up for months

The only PFB things I can think of are the baby bath palava (why??!) and for every single nappy change spending ages getting water in a little bowl to just the right temperature before tenderly wiping DD's bottom with copious amounts of cotton wool (which I used to tear into 'just the right size' pieces every night before I went to bed ) Once we did progress to wipes I do remember contemplating heating them on the radiator It'll be wipes from day 1 for PSB and minimum night time nappy changes!

On the other hand, I think it is entirely reasonable to heat up PJs (and any other clothes on a cold morning!) on a radiator - still do it for myself and DD!

Also, keeping a slightly obsessive diary of time spent bf, which breast etc is something I probably will do again - I know it sounds a bit crazy but we had such problems with bf and weight loss that I want to keep track of things so that I know whether I need to act sooner on supplementing rather than letting things reach crisis point like they did last time.