Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

What's the WORST parenting advice you've ever been given?

91 replies

MrsMerryHenry · 31/08/2009 14:59

Both from professionals and well-meaning friends.

DH and I were ROFLing today about how having a talkative child apparently means they're ready to get rid of nappies.

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

catinthehat2 · 31/08/2009 22:36

Edam, your MIL was pulling your leg.

Wasn't she?

choosyfloosy · 31/08/2009 22:42

The baby can sense you're finding it (bf) hard and that makes him reluctant to try.

This said by a midwife from the end of the bed when ds was 4 hours old. She appeared, told me that, and disappeared, never to be seen again. Say again, Grasshopper?

Yurtgirl123 · 31/08/2009 22:47

Once when ds was tiny I was feeding him when the doorbell rang
I opened the door to find two JWs there
As part of the hello how are you chitchat, one of them suggested my ds "might like a nice bit of steak"

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Families General parenting

drowninginclutter · 31/08/2009 22:57

Not advice from a person as such but I recently picked up an old edition of Toddler Taming by Christopher Green. It was only 1989 so I didn't think it would be too desperately out of date and it was offered free so I thought it was worth a look.

I slightly at the fact that 98% of parents smack their children and the ongoing discussions about smacking and biting back in the discipline section.

Then I got to sleep issues. I wasn't surprised to find a version of controlled crying but was surprised by the suggestion that if CC doesn't work you should use a sedative. Find it hard to believe people were drugging their children that recently...

dalek · 31/08/2009 22:58

I'e had the one about spoiling newborns by picking them up - "you're just making a rod for your own back" from too many people to mention. Also a number of well meaning friends - "when are you going to put dd in her own room?" We live in a house where she would have been on a separate floor so I wasn't in any rush to do it

piprabbit · 31/08/2009 23:00

Hi MrsMerryHenry....
Apparently there is some evidence that speech and potty training could be linked. Something to do with brain and muscle development....

I think it's because talking is a sign that the child is understanding more complex and abstract concepts, which are what is needed to make sense of the whole 'I've got a funny feeling in my tummy - so I need the potty' process.

It could also be that the fine muscle control/coordination needed to get their tongues round talking is similar to the muscle control needed to make potty training possible.

I've not got any scientific evidence I can refer you too - but I'd love to know if anyone else has come across anything similar...

TeaOneSugar · 31/08/2009 23:01

My mil had a thing about bathing dd downstairs in front of the fire - apparently upstairs in a baby bath next to the radiator in our centrally heated house wasn't appropriate.

She also advised breast feeding even 4 hours, and giving boiled water if dd cried in between.

sushistar · 31/08/2009 23:13

Breastfeeding would make me weak and 'sap my strength' from my mum.

I shouldn't offer DS snacks so often, as if he was hungry it would encourage him to learn the words for food more quickly - he ws 18 months. Again my dear mum, bless her.

DS should have a 3 hour afternoon nap everyday, and if he didn't it would damage his brain development, from a friend.

That DS was 'underweight' because he was travelling along the 25th percentile. All babies should be on the 50th percentile and if they are lower than that they're underweight. I should feed him more often or top him up. (I was breastfeeding on demand). My Health Visitor. I never saw her again, silly cow.

Wonderstuff · 31/08/2009 23:16

I got told to bite my dd when she bit, but her nursery key worker dd has been bitten by another child, she knows what it feels like, yet she still does it occaisonally, surely me biting her would tell her it was ok?

Biccy · 31/08/2009 23:28

To walk away from my 2.5 yr old while she was having a tantrum on the floor in a busy pedestrianised shopping street she'd never been to before. (She was both tired and hungry and had just been told she couldn't have a balloon.) This was my MIL.

edam · 31/08/2009 23:30

catinthehat - no, MIL was quite serious. There was a thread once about how you were fed/weaned, as opposed to your children, and it's amazing what used to go on. Watered down Carnation, anyone?

electra · 31/08/2009 23:31

'They need to cry some of the time to exercise their lungs'

That old pearl of wisdom was suggested to me in hospital. I politely requested that the nursing staff who attended to dd3 in the night did not adhere to that paticular philosophy....

catinthehat2 · 31/08/2009 23:37

I thought she must be a labrador breeder with a sense of humour like mine!

QuintessentialShadows · 31/08/2009 23:42

Midwife told me we should bathe our newborn by dipping his head first into the bath to wash his hair, while still swaddled in a towel, then undress the towel and sit him in the bath.

Of course, our little baby was so traumatised from being held up side down into the bath, he was screamings his wee lungs out in terror, so bathing was quite stressful for us.

Thank goodness MIL(and I never thought i was going to say MIL and thank goodness in the same sentence, ever) saw our "techique" and put us straight - or the baby the right way around, as it were.

edam · 31/08/2009 23:43

No, although they did have an Alsatian at the time, so it was just 'pop another bone on the order from the butcher, will you?'

Admittedly, dh is the least fussy eater ever. But then again he has asthma and eczema and is allergic to fur, feathers, pollen, grass, everything apart from food. (He had an asthma attack once when I mowed the lawn - he was in the house and upstairs!)

Dunno whether his weaned on bones diet might have contributed to his allergies or possibly saved an already generally allergic person from developing food allergies... or had no effect either way, probably.

melpomene · 31/08/2009 23:49

HV told us to do controlled crying with dd1 when she was 6 months old, and claimed that controlled crying ALWAYS works. She then refused to return our calls when it didn't work and dd1 was still bawling her head off every night, leaving all of us miserable as well as sleepless

MarmadukeScarlet · 31/08/2009 23:58

drowninginclutter, you've obviously not read any medised threads on here then.

My Oxford educated MIL, who ran a nursery school for 40 yrs, told me to force my 3 yr old left handed DD to be right handed - after all "it worked for her DS (my DH) and it is such a handicap being left handed" Dear god, no wonder my DH is so screwed up has such crappy handwriting what century is that woman in?

HarryB · 01/09/2009 21:47

Not sure it's advice as such, but MiL told me that I was too nervous and stressed and DS could sense it. He was about 4 weeks old at the time and as a first time mum, of course I was bloody stressed. Stupid old witch.

Original poster

MrsMerryHenry · 01/09/2009 22:53

Hi pip, would love to see some research. However, DS has always talked well for his age but was clearly only ready for potty training when he said so (2.8-ish months), not when I wanted him to (2.4-ish). So it still baffles me that I've never heard anyone say 'if he's asking to use the potty it's a good sign that he's ready'. Seems a no brainer to me, good speech or no!

OP posts:

fiver · 01/09/2009 23:45

I was having probs getting her to take a bottle before I was going back to work. My mother told me to leave DD with DH and a bottle of expressed milk and not come back until she would drink from it. She said DD would get so hungry she'd have to take it

To my shame I tried it but only lasted about 1/2 hour - DH rang me and the sound of DD sobbing in the background made me come came back to BF her. She never did take a bottle but it didn't matter (and no-one told me this - I wish they had).

MrsTittleMouse · 01/09/2009 23:57

SIL via MIL via DH - I was nagged to give DD1 formula in the evenings to "get her to sleep through". It was only after I successfully BF for 10 months that I found out that when SIL tried this trick herself that she completely buggered up her supply and had to give up BF completely.

And DD1 was rubbish at sleeping through when I switched her to formula anyway.

kreecherlivesupstairs · 02/09/2009 08:47

Don't let DD look at her reflection in the mirror or her teeth won't grow.
Put some honey in her bottle.
Bite her back.
Never apply aloe vera to her hair, it will make it grow black.
All the above from a Sri Lankan home help we had.
Give her some oxo and bread if she's hungry. (5 months old)you used to love it. Thanks dad.
Put marigolds under her cot to keep ghosts away.
Keep her cord stump when it falls off. She'll need it when she becomes pregnant.
Shave her head on the 40th day after she's born - again thanks Miss Sri Lankan.

Rindercella · 02/09/2009 12:58

Eh? Don't let your DD look at herself in the mirror or her teeth won't grow? That really was a seriously helpful bit of advice!

christmasmum · 02/09/2009 13:18

I wonder what it is that we do now, and see as completely normal, that we will in time tell our own children and children in law that will be soundly mocked?!

Just a thought...

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 02/09/2009 13:24

My MIL's newborn feeding advice. Weigh the baby before and after every feed (spaced exactly four hours apart) and if they haven't put on exactly 8 oz, top up with formula.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Swipe left for the next trending thread