which generally " accepted" parenting protocols do you not go along wiht

[codJane]

here

cleanign babies teeth - never really bothered

spikejack, my ds1 had a full bottle of milk every night until he was nearly 3 and he really liked it so I didnt stop him. He stopped of his own accord just in time for him to start wanting to not wear a nappy in bed!! he is 11 now and his teeth are fine, no decay or fillings, I always thought milk was ok to drink after teeth cleaning, just avoided any juices.

The other 2 stopped milk at bedtime before 1, it just shows how different they can all be.

re alcohol & breastmilk:
if you have ONE alcoholic drink then you should wait 2 hours before breastfeeding - or so the experts say. i just don't drink in general. think i've had about 4 drins since i found out i was pregnant - and one of those was at my wedding.
anyone else have a mil who suggested rubbing whiskey on gums to help with teething pain? what a thought!

When pregnant I had one glass of Asti at xmas and new year. I also have the odd glass now and again, and am still breastfeeding. We brush Toms teeth (all 4 of them!) every bath time, which is twice a week.

As far as routine goes, Tom is usually up at 10am and goes to bed around 11pm, as I work 3 nights a week and don't get home with him from the in-laws till 10pm. So he has breakfast about 10:30am, lunch about 2:30pm and dinner about 7pm. I do want to change that though, so hoping to change my hours at work soon.

We have a stairgate on our front door (we live in a flat and Tom has already made a bid for escape!) and one on the bathroom. I sterlised for 8 months and we still haven't put cupboard locks on all kitchen cupboards or sockets. Up until a couple of months ago, Tom never put anything in his mouth, now I catch him doing it with odd bits of food on the floor after hes eaten.

katebignumber

'feeding whilst your drunk is disgracefull'

who onearth said anything about feeding while drunk????

Forgot this which often raised a few eyebrows ..

Once off breastmilk onto bottle milk it was generally given straight out of the fridge, chilled.

If using jars it was also served straight out of the jar. I figured that if I warmed these things then they would demand it that way all the time so if I was ever caught short somewhere with no heating facilities I'd shot myself in the foot.

cat is sleepy
'I drink wine before expressing and have breastfed whilst drunk' by blissieblue

bexie im so glad someone elses ds goes to bed late. i always get funny looks when ds is out with me at the pub with me at 10 o clock. does he go to bed that late even on the nights you aren't working too cos ds does.

also all of those without cupboard locks do you move cleaning stuff so it is out of reach or not? ds is commando crawling atm and i was thinking i should maybe move it to the top cupboards.

nappyaddict, i dont have cupboard locks but i do have a stairgate on my kitchen so they cant get in....but saying that i have bathroom cleaning stuff on the floor in the bathroom (which they have access to) and they've never touched it! however dd did take it upon herself to lick the toilet brush the other day (thats vomiting not envious btw !)

nappyaddict - thats Toms routine everyday, much to my mums dismay. But as someone else on here says 'it's great that they can fit into our routines like that'. Thats ok for now, but not when he starts school, lol!

i know i got ds into that routine on purpose. i like to have a lie in!

I found this thread marvellous - i absolutely do not have bath,bed routine. DD (10yo)has a mane of long, thick hair so she has bath every other day after school but way before bedtime to dry it properly. DS (1yo) loves baths and has hyper trauma fits when we take him out - this is in no way relaxing so every other day about 1-2 hours before bed.
Washing clothes - they wear them until they need washing. Do I wash my jeans every single day? no. Plus not ecoloigcal anymore to use washing machines constantly. Mine gets plugged in twice a week.But I do use non-bio.
Never sterilised. Plenty of hot water and bottle brush enough.

Thread has lost its funny side towards the end though with mention of smoking in front of kids and drinking or b/fing while with hangover etc. I def don't want to be a harpy or judge but at 38 if you allow me wisdom with age blahblah can I please say to mums you only have one shot at giving your kids a healthy foundation - you can smoke and drink all you want later on so please just be a bit patient - don't smoke around your kids and please don't get tipsy even with small babies. It's not the alcohol content thing that bothers me it's the inadvertantly snoozing off and smothering the baby that is a devastating thought. It happens, it really does. A few tipples is def not worth a lifetime of guilt and tears.

Sorry for monster post and thanks everyone for being so normal, too!!! Feel great

Good grief, I'm so slack I didn't realise how many 'rules' I'd broken!

We didn't go to any baby classes - but mostly because I'm lazy/broke rather than on principle.

I've never warmed milk - DD was born in hottest summer for years & seemed to like it chilled (that's what I'm telling myself, anyway).

I breast fed occasionally after a glass or two of wine - although I'd usually try to express beforehand instead as I'd be sleepy enough b/feeding without adding booze!

I stopped sterilising as soon as DD became mobile - if she can cope with licking the wheels on her pushchair, she can cope with a clean-but-not-sterile spoon.

Eating just-dropped food off the floor is ok - as long as it's my floor.

I use 'no' all the time - oops, didn't realise you weren't supposed to!

We definitely didn't follow a strict timetable - I know some mums swear by that sort of routine but I'd have gone mad. The only routine I imposed was a bath-milk-story-bedtime pattern, the rest she's set for herself (and is now nicely predictable but thankfully can also be varied without tantrums).

And no, I don't always brush her teeth after the milk. Though 'brush' is a bit of a misnomer anyway given that (like other mums here have already said) it's more like suck-toothpaste-off-brush-then-chew!

Oh btw, a couple of random facts and figures to support/contradict/inform our non-conformance to parenting protocols.

Alcohol peaks in your system ~30 mins-1.5 hours after drinking so that's the very worst time to b/f. - ie. although you may get dirty looks if you b/f with a tipple in your hand, it's far far better than waiting for an hour after your drink.

Also, in the UK, three-pin plug sockets are designed so that until the earth pin is put in far enough, the other two holes won't open. ie. to electrocute itself, a child would have to first insert something of the right sort of size/shape into the earth pin socket, then insert something metallic, wet or similarly well-conducting into one of the others. If your kid is clever enough to work that out, they'll probably be gifted enough to remove the plug-guard anyway.

"If your kid is clever enough to work that out, they'll probably be gifted enough to remove the plug-guard anyway" - LOL

DF or his brother were messing around with sockets when they were younger and one of them ended up flying across the bedroom! They didn't mess with them again!

my dd goes up to plugs with pencils and things, or pens, or wet fingers......im keeping my plug guards!

why are we not meant to say no again?

This thing about no saying 'no' is ridiculous. If your kids are such angels that they don't ever need to be told right from wrong, bully for you. For those of us whose kids need to be set boundaries, 'no' is something you can't really avoid. Unless you say 'nay' or 'cease and desist'?

Spoilt children make spoilt teenagers make spoilt adults- and that's not attractive!

Things I didn't bother with:
Arranging food into pretty pictures as the baby & toddler recipe books tell you to - total waste of time.
Daily baths, testing temp with elbow, putting cold in first. Need to know how hot the hot is before adding the cold!
Baby signing, massage, music etc (but preschool music yes)
Organic baby food - what's the point for a few short months?Prefer homemade, even if not organic. Can make extra and turn it into soup with a few herbs etc. so it's worth the trouble
Ice cube trays - decant puree straight into plastic containers and freeze. Then defrost, warm and serve straight from container.
Measuring feet every 6-8 weeks. Shoes before walking properly (14 mths). New shoes only every 6 months or so or when they feel tight, or when there's a sale on.
Separate meals for adults & child after 12 months of age.

i regularly leave ds unattended in his high chair.

Stairgates (taught ds to go up and down staris safely - he was even more safety aware then we were!)
Bathing - lucky if he got one bath a week
Nursery - slept in the "spare" (read "junk") room between 6 motnhs and 3 years
Food - is allowed fruitshoots (although he doesn bring home the empaty caron so we can re-fill it with diluting Hi-juice) and also the occasional Macdonalds, and (whisper) cheesestrings
Playing outside unsupervised from an early age (he's now 6, nearly 7, and I often don't know where he is - although he never leaves our garden)
Playing inside unsupervised (while I am in our garden - and can't see the inside of the house)
Drinking alcohol while breastfeeding (including deliberating giving ds EBM that had been expressed following a special celebratory meal and kept until I wanted to encourage him to sleep)

.... yes, I am officially a baaaaaaa mother

my DD's 3rd word was NO - used it alot. she know's what it means now.