Unsolicited advice

[Maybemaybenot76]

I’m due my second next month and currently winding myself up at all the unsolicited advice I received from my family with my first. Really annoying stuff, like taking the time to send them a video of baby feeding from a bottle, only for them to critique my bottle feeding technique.

What is the most annoying unsolicited advice you’ve received and how did you deal with it?

Just don’t send them things or tell them things, then there’s nothing to criticise.

I just rolled my eyes inwardly because it was always well meaning.

Then promptly ignored it.

One time I glossed over their annoying question and they brought it up a few minutes later stating “once again, question” 😡

It depends a bit on what their 'advice' was!

My mum retired before I had kids and she moved abroad, she told me to throw any books away, get them on weetabix mixed with milk in a bottle asap and just treat the babies like we treated horses ... needless to say Ignored her

Brilliant 😬

My 37 yr old daughter is pregnant with her first baby and I’m not planning to give her any advice! If I told her to raise her baby like I raised my children, I think I would be breaking every current parenting book!

Like baby sleeping on tummy, in own room after a month, left to cry for a while, put down in cot for all naps, sleeping in pram in garden in all weathers, bumpers on cot, use of a duvet rather than sleep bags, no heating on in bedroom overnight, weaning beginning at 4 months using puréed food of a spoon, baby rice in last bottle at night to sleep through, making several bottles at a time with hot water and storing in fridge and so on!

Some modern trends like baby led weaning, carrying baby in a sling all day or not letting them cry make me shudder but I won’t be telling my daughter that. My parents and in laws did not force their opinions on me even though I’m sure I was doing things different to them and I was grateful for that. I will do my best to follow what my daughter does.

You need this- print it onto small cards and hand them to the opinionated, or frame on the wall and point to as necessary:

The most eye-rolling ones we had all came from the PILs. "We saw on This Morning the other day they had a parenting expert in and..."
It always ended with some really silly dated advice like "put your baby in the other room when you come back from the hospital" or "you have to stop breastfeeding after 3 months and get them onto baby porridge instead."
If this stuff ever really was on This Morning (I doubt it was), it must have been decades ago.

My DD is 32 and loads of that thinking was common when I was a baby in the 50s! Who put babies outside 37 years ago? Many of our friends have Dc who are over 40 and they never did that. Cot deaths were a thing 30 - 40 years ago too. So my DD didn’t lie on her tummy. All our houses is heated but not overly so. Weaning was 4 months onwards but plenty did what suited them and and baby.

Just don’t tell anyone what you do. Just send baby photos if you must.