What's the worst unsolicited parenting advice you've been given by a stranger?

[Gemed]

I'll go first... I was walking with my nearly 1 year old in the carrier. He loves to look up at the trees and the sky. A stranger said I need to be supporting his head. He's not a newborn for christ sake! I just said he has good head control and walked on. I can deal with the 'no socks' comments but this one got me riled up.

Oh I hate this one! People telling me to be 'firmer' with my one year old child who drops food on the floor or occasionally cries when they are want to be picked up - well, yeah, he's a baby!

By far and away the worst was by the person who took my arm when then 14 month old DC1 was playing up and told me that sometimes they just need a good wallop. This was a baby just about walking.

What a horrible person! I would have been tempted to reply 'your mother should have done the same!'

(I wouldn't really, but she deserves it!)

@CatrionaBalfour

I had similar "advice" don't bed share, put in nursery, bottle feed ... ignored all 3, slept with us until 6 years old and now is an independent adult but too outing to say much more except clingy is definitely not the case, trail breaking more like

Not to worry dd2 will grow out of her peanut allergy 🙄

The only one I remember was a woman who took great delight in telling me that her daughter also had twins, but that her daughter had breastfed them both which was so much better than me bottle feeding.

As it happened I was bottle feeding them breast milk, I was breast feeding them but it's really difficult to do that when you're out and about alone.

Normally I hate criticism and argue back, but for once I just said something like "good for her!" and carried on.

It was so weird because she came over and was so friendly and then went completely hostile.

@narns I live in the Cayman Islands and am also of Indian descent - seems to be a "thing" about the sea curing all ills, because my mum and nana insisted upon salt/sea water being snorted to cure a snotty nose and living here, I confess to getting my kids for a swim at the mere hint of a sniffle!

Being given out too for not going to football matches my daughter was playing in by a women who followed a man with no interest in her to another country and left her teens behind. My husband always went and football was their thing and we were dividing and conquering🙈 I never commented on her choices

That one's got the devil in him! Beware, my dear!

Random old lady at ds2's christening, aged 6 months!!

Bloody hell.
That's scary to give strong spirits to a baby. {to suggest it}

I couldn't take her seriously and just sort of nodded and agreed and said "bless him".
I mean if your dog is too embarrassed to shit in public, take him somewhere private

^

🤣

There was also the woman who gave me unsolicited pelvic floor advice in boots after my 9lb2 ds was born..... but that wasn't parenting advice.

You were wearing boots, or you were in Boots, the chemist?

^

Not sure why, but this is hilarious 😂

I have had LOADS of unsolicited advice off strangers but I actually can't remember anything specific simply because I did not care. It went in one ear out the other. Just walk on by. Or "are you always this rude to people?" with a look of sympathy works nice in some situations.

Are you going to get him looked at for his speech? It's very unclear.

Ummm he's 2 I think he will be ok....

And he was.

Oh and - "you'll need to give him water it's very hot today". My EBF baby aged 6 days.

When telling people my daughter has a tree nut allergy, I have had the … people didn’t have allergies in the past…. Yes they bloody did!

As a parent of an autistic son in the 90s when there wasn't the awareness there is today I have been given no end of unsolicited advice. Lots of "he needs a good smack" to which I would reply "when smacking cures autism the doctors will put it on prescription". I also got advised that I should watch Supernanny and pick up some tips which really annoyed me for some reason, most likely because it had been a bad day but I replied "and you should watch that show on voluntary euthanasia and follow a few tips yourself". The woman actually seemed visibly shocked at that so hopefully she decided it best not to offer unsolicited advice from then on.
I do remember one woman though when I was sat on the floor in the local shop trying to prevent son from smashing his head on the floor because they had moved the smarties just squeezed my arm said "autism? you are doing a great job" I try to do the same if I see a parent who is struggling because I remember how much I needed it that day.

I'm in post natal ward (after spending 5 days in high dependency) and baby is in nicu (prem).

A woman arrives in my room announcing that she is a post natal volunteer here to talk about breastfeeding and baby's first days.

She begins by telling me how important rooming in is. I explain baby is in nicu. She says has has a script to follow and spends 5 minutes telling me how I must sleep beside baby at this crucial time.

Then she starts on about bf. I explain again baby is in nicu and I'm expressing so she can be fed breast milk through a nasal gastric tube.

When she continues about the need to have baby on the breast and skin to skin time I insist that she leaves.

Fortunately it was my second baby. If it'd been my first I'd have been a traumatised basket case after that.

Complaint was submitted.

When my son was 5 months old he was in hospital with bronchiolitis. He was exclusively breastfed at the time but completely went off feeding, and they couldn’t give him a bottle because he’d never had one before (still hasn’t). One of the nurses told me I “really needed to think about stopping breastfeeding”, implying it was my fault he wouldn’t feed. The same nurse berated me for settling him to sleep in my bed (I don’t co-sleep, and was going to put him in the cot when he was in a deep sleep, not that it was any of her business anyway). It made a really stressful night 10 times worse. Thankfully I didn’t take her ridiculous advice and he still breastfeeds now at 15 months.

Oh no, sorry! Just realised I failed in basic comprehension and answered a different question than the one that was asked. My parents aren't, in fact, strangers 😳

Being advised in Tesco that I (the father) shouldn't be out with the baby (3mo at the time) and that his mother should be looking after him instead

Apart from that, despite having now done two lots of long term shared parental leave I've never really had any unsolicited/patronising advice from strangers while out and about, definitely nothing like the stuff in this topic!