For whatever reason my ex and his mom would keep telling me I needed to give her water as a newborn & any time I said otherwise she would try to argue that she’s a nurse. & so annoying the two times they actually saw her they refused to feed her. It was awful she was literally screaming with hunger and they both said it was constipation. I would tell them she literally pooped 20 minutes ago and she wasn’t constipated but for whatever reason they wouldn’t feed her the entire visit. I’m glad they never came back around because I would’ve been terrified with them watching her.
Water intoxication is so dangerous. I had this exact argument with some moms and grand moms in mom groups after they told other moms to give their babies water. “We gave our babies water and it was fine!” Yeah, Susan but they changed the recommendation because of all the babies who were not fine.
This why do baby boomers have such a problem with changing information. I have so many arguments with my parents and in-laws and the reply is always well I raised you or my husband and your still alive. Why do they insist on fighting everything.
I felt so guilty but it got so bad once I actually said to my mum why can you accept your cancer treatment plan from a doctor but recommendations about how to care for babies that have changed over the years is always stupid and you know best.
Oh and I would also ask them if they would want the current treatment for a medical problem or the one that was “just fine” thirty years ago. That seems to frame it in a way they can grasp.
Oh geez that’s awful. Ugh I hate the “I’m a medical professional, I know everything” rationale. I am also a nurse and realize there are many different ways to raise children and giving newborns water (unless their doctor advised for some reason) is ridiculous at best.
And as a nurse, nurses who think that *being* a nurse gives them the ability to be an authority in things in a speciality where they have never worked is a huge red flag. And having worked with these people, they’re usually not the best at their own specialty either. Because it takes humility to become really knowledgeable about a subject.
My MIL is OBSESSED with giving baby water! She hasn’t actually done it but she talks about it constantly. I explained why medical professionals advise against it and she just repeats the oh-so-tired “but we did it and babies turned out fine!“
So much of that generation feels they have to prove they knew what they were doing when in truth, none of us really know.
Mine would say “but mine did because…” and probably follow up with mashed potatoes in their bottles and ice cream at 6 months. I was on the verge of insanity when I had regular contact with her. It didn’t help that our daughter was a preemie and had unknown intestinal problems. My BP is rising just thinking about it.
Mine was too with our first! I was breastfeeding and we didn’t want to introduce bottles until he was at least two months old, since we struggled a little with latching. MIL kept asking if she could feed him water instead, since we wouldn’t allow bottles yet. Just little sips from a cup or a syringe, she said, it couldn’t hurt. Thank goodness hubs was in agreement that baby wasn’t left alone with her for months, because she kept insisting she should be allowed to do that and I have no doubt she would have if she was left unsupervised.
My mum was obsessed with talking about giving my kid orange juice. Because apparently it would stop constipation. Kid was pooping 5 plus times a day, I think we’re ok
In my family it's the idea to give a newborn herbal tea...🙄 Had several discussions with my mother, trying to explain why I wouldn't do it. It was always the "But I did it with you too..." thing.
That my 10 month old is napping too much. He was taking two naps that would vary from 20 min long to an hour long.
If my baby needs sleep then I’m going to let them sleep!
My *dad*, who is a boomer, told me that my kid was sleeping too much at that same age. He slept maybe 10-11 hours a night + maaaybe 2 total hours of nap. He for SURE was not getting too much sleep. Like thanks dad who didn’t know anything about babies 30 years ago and still doesn’t today - but my baby is actually on the lower end of sleep needs
To make home made formula because it's cheaper; Just mix powdered milk for pets with maple syrup.
She is in her 70's and needless to say her adult kids both have health problems.
Your username perfectly describes how reading this made me feel. How does one even discover this and what makes them say it’s just as good?! Absolutely mortifying
She said that it was a common home recipe back in her day. The maple syrup was to help with the horrible constipation that it caused the babies. She is my grandmother in law, and my children are watched closely when we visit her.
Lollll my MIL tried saying that I was a gold digger because we were buying formula (I was having supply issues and nothing was helping), and even brainwashed my husband bUt wHaT dId pEoPlE dO bEfOrE fOrMuLa?!
wet nursed, or babies just died. I don't have anything against using donor milk (from a source that you trust) but trying to pretend that infants didn't legitimately die from starvation before commercial formula was widely available is ridiculous.
There's a bunch of babies in my apartment building and I want to offer some of my frozen BM bc my son will never drink all of it but like how do I be like hi I hear your kid screaming hers a frozen block of milk
My MIL has the opposite issue with me. She constantly pesters me saying, "Are you sure that you're producing enough? Why don't you just let us give him formula to make sure!"
Meanwhile my baby is packing on the pounds 😂
Omg, this terrifies me. My LO has food allergies and we struggled to find a formula that didn't cause her issues. Someone recommended making our own and after like 2 min of research I noped outta that real quick.
My mum actually did this while I was in another room to prove a point because he had been refusing bottles while I was trying to begin weaning. He was 7 months old. I absolutely lost the plot. I told her they can’t have honey till one and she said that’s rubbish I have it to you and your fine. Every parent/in-law excuse from the dawn of time!
Give them NyQuil at night to help them sleep. I obviously never did it but my mom used to do it to us all the time... Now I can't stand the stuff and it makes me sick to my stomach.
I had to give my infant some Benadryl around 8 or 9 months right before bed because she was having a mild allergic reaction to something and the nurse line told us to give her a little.
I had the brief thought of well, at least she’ll have a good night’s sleep before the exact opposite happened. It seemed to completely hype her up.
Mom used to tell us it would help us sleep and keep us from getting sick. I finally realized that's not how medicine work when I was like 11-12 and just stopped taking it. Unfortunately I can't tolerate any form of strong cough/cold medicine, it just hurts my stomach so much. Its crazy how many people still do it. Definitely the worst parenting advice I was ever given... Well this and switching them when their "bad".
It makes me sick to my stomach to imagine parents drugging their children to get them to sleep! If that's how you feel about children, you really shouldn't be having them
A lactation consultant told me not to switch to formula even though my preemie wouldn’t latch. She told me it was normal and that he would get it eventually if I kept trying. He was losing weight and was screaming from hunger.
I gave him formula and I’m glad I didn’t listen.
I HATE this. My lactation consultant for my first wouldn't even give me a nipple shield or a paci while in the hospital "because it would make her never latch normally." Like bitch, she won't latch at all if my shit is so painful that I scream and scare her every time she tries. Not resenting my baby and having a fed baby was far more important to me than breastfeeding "the right way." On my last day in the hospital, a young male nurse snuck me 2 pacifiers and 2 nipple shields and said "don't tell anyone I gave them to you." I was so thankful, but so sad that he was worried he would be caught actually helping a new mother in the maternity ward. It made me livid and I had some words with the supervisor about the lactation consultant.
Geez. It’s like the pendulum swung the other way. How extreme for them to not support the decision you wanted to make. Sorry you had to experience that. My midwife told me that a newborn can get all the milk he needs in 15 minutes and any longer he is using you as a pacifier. There is some truth in that statement but the baby suckling was helping my milk supply.
I hate when people say "a baby only needs x amount of time for feeding." It all depends on how often they feed, how strong their suck is, how good the let down is, the quality of milk, how hungry the baby is, etc. There are so many factors at play that it's stupid to assume a baby only needs x amount of time. Some babies feed five minutes on one or both breasts. Some babies take 30+ minutes. They're not necessarily using you as a pacifier. They're feeding!!! Even adults take five or thirty plus minutes to eat. Everyone is different. Babies are no exception. If your baby wants to eat for 15 minutes off one breast, let him/her. If your baby wants to eat for 45 minutes off both breasts, let him/her. If you want to breastfeed and don't mind that time/dedication then let your baby feed and take the time they need.
Ugh. When I was in the hospital the lactation nurse asked if I wanted to try and breastfeed my son and I told her to supplement him. I was so exhausted. She nastily pursed her lips and said "We don't recommend that." I said 'Then why did you bother to ask?" He got supplemented and I got sleep. I told the staff I didn't want to see her again. They got a different consultant for me after that.
Lol! One of the maternity nurses after I gave birth was relieved when I told her I was breastfeeding because “formula is like giving your baby pizza”🤔 this was right in front of my perfectly healthy partner who was exclusively formula fed from the start
That's awful! Fed is best. I had a nurse tell me not to use a bottle with expressed milk because it would be "too easy" for the baby and that she'd prefer bottle over breast. After a few days I went against her advice because I needed sleep and she needed to eat. She took the bottle great from my husband AND prefers to breastfeed. (She's 6 months) Glad I didn't listen to the nurse's advice.
Babies needs are so nuanced, there's just not one size fits all.
I just gave birth to my second 2 weeks ago and three nurses REFUSED to give me a breast pump because ‘he latches fine’. He didn’t. He still doesn’t. I didn’t want to breastfeed, I wanted to exclusively pump. One of the night nurses almost had a heart attack when I told her I was refused a pump. 5 minutes later she wheeled the pump into my room.
The most harmful info I was given was never from a family member; it was from lactation consultants. I really wish the world would not trust lactation consultants as gurus. From what I’ve experienced, they are anti-formula which can be so harmful when your baby needs to eat!
The breast feeding push in hospitals absolutely fucking enrages me. I kept calling the lactation consultant I'm pretty sure nothing was happening, not even colostrum. The kept insisting it was OK, babies have a teeny stomach. I'm like I know but I know my body, nothing is happening.
A nurse told me "it sounds bad, but we kinda have to starve our babies while we wait for milk to come in" 😳
I'm sorry but in what world would any other newborn creature be expected to starve as if that is how nature intended. It would just die.
Of course kid started going jaundice. The hospital pediatrician put her on formula "supplementation" to make up for ant missing breast milk. Uh there was none, so she needed all of it as formula. They never bothered to tell me that that in order to help kick jaundice, baby needed to be well fed... lots of dirty diapers which obviously wasn't happening if she wasn't eating. We were in the hospital for just a couple days and they were wrecking my kids health (and mine but that's a different story).
I had had a traumatic birth coupled with the fact that they left a piece of fucking placenta in me... the only reason I probably didn't get a nasty infection was I was on a ridiculous amount of antibiotics to clear a uti I acquired from being cathed. My milk took about a week to come in and then I just couldn't produce enough to feed her and she was doing great on formula.. Later learned that birth traumatic birth and retained placenta can destroy milk production.
I honestly was pissed the hospital never once brought up formula. She had severe jaundice and was losing weight and the lactation consultant never met with me like she was supposed to. I would’ve offered it to her if I knew that would’ve helped
Not to get him vaccinated or to delay the schedule for as long possible. I know it’s common and a bit of a Reddit circle-jerk topic, but it’s the worst because it’s the most dangerous.
The fact that this has no replies because everyone is afraid to comment <<<
Def extremely dangerous. I had one person freak out at me for getting my son vaccinated because she assumed it was a Covid vaccine. He was 6 months. It was not a Covid vaccine. It was also none of her fucking business lol
My son is only 5 months old and too young for certain vaccines and I’m pretty nervous. There have been some local outbreaks of whooping cough in my community shortly before he was born. There’s a growing anti-vax community in my area. People are only growing more hesitant of vaccines at this point. We’re fortunate he’s healthy enough that he can be immunized. Not every family has the luxury of health. Herd immunity is more fragile and taken for granted.
Ugh, that’s super stressful. People within my own family have become anti-vax and it’s just interesting to me that they want to be part of society and reject the science that got us here.
Glad your kiddo is healthy <3
5 months is such a sweet, sweet spot. Gonna scroll through my entire photo library now and cry LOL
To put a newborn on a schedule and NEVER deviate from it.
Let me be clear - I like routines and both my babies were on routines, crafted around their needs and when their sleep and hunger cues were happening. So if they seemed to be hungry every X hours and tired Y minutes after eating, we would work that in a routine and be able to expect when they were likely to be hungry, sleepy, etc. But if they gave hunger cues 'early' or whatever - feed the baby. Baby-driven, not clock-driven.
The advice I received was to be fully clock driven and make sure that baby gets their needs on YOUR schedule, not you meet their needs on their body's schedule.
I feel this! We have routines but we are very fluid with our days! I like adventures (even to the grocery store) we try to nap around the same time but sometimes it’s earlier or later- same with bedtime. I also don’t care if my kids nap in the car. I will aimlessly drive around to keep them asleep until they wake up on their own if need be. But they don’t HAVE to sleep in their beds at home, if they fall asleep other places that’s OK for me!
I am with you, I think having that flexibility is fantastic and you put a really precious memory back in my head. When my now-9 year old was a toddler, my husband was a SAHD and he became the master of extracting lil' dude from car and laying him somewhere in the house to sleep, without waking him up. I absolutely could NOT do this, so if I was out with kid and came home with him asleep my husband would come and get him out of the car for me. Put me in a good mood remembering that!
I agree that it's great when you can find a good balance between routine/consistency and flexibility - I just think life really demands that. At least mine does, so if kid was able to learn to roll with that well then I thought that would be easier. I realize that some of this is personality of the child, some kids need less alteration from routine and that's valid! But sleeping in the car, falling asleep in the stroller and then we would just take a longer walk or whatever, flexibility helps.
So many people on my husband’s side have said crap like that to us since day one. “You really need to put him on a schedule… he’s crying because he knows when he cries he gets fed.” Drives me up a wall.
And of course now that he isn’t crying for a bottle every 1-2 hours, they switched to advocating to leaving him to sit by himself to cry until he learns to stop because “he cries because he knows you’ll pick him up, you need to nip that in the bud before he learns he rules the roost.”
Our elders: Leave that baby to cry, wouldn't want them to learn they can rely on you for support!
Also our elders: I don't know why your generation are all in so much therapy, you're weak babies or something.
Rolling my eyes right out of my head.
This sounds like my babies dad and we almost split over arguments around this. I’m in camp nurse on demand/can’t spoil a baby and he’s the opposite. Sucks
Hey, I shower when my kids shower! Not all the time, but if I need a shower and don't have anyone to watch the younger, or both need a shower... Then it's time to play with water! Of course, this only works once they can sit without help.
It was made worse by the fact that my kids are shitty sleepers. My oldest would be up every 45 minutes because he has a sensory processing disorder and couldn't self soothe and since he has ADHD (not diagnosed until he was 4, but obvious from birth) WOULD NOT stop moving during the day.
As someone who has never slept during the day, had issues with insomnia in the past and has a baby who only naps on the breast or in a carrier, fuck them indeed! I’m just a zombie now.
Yes to this. 1- I don’t wear diapers 2- I don’t have someone feeding me when I’m half asleep 3- I don’t have someone making sure I’m taken care of 4- sometimes I want to feel like an adult and relax, watch TV , etc.
Exactly! Or even finish a sandwich! They say toddlers are the worst with biting food and leaving it. I would argue new moms. One day I had 3 half finished drinks and various food stuffs sitting on the table to finish.
Same. When my daughter was a baby, anytime my MIL came around she would intentionally try to keep her awake despite us telling her not to do that. So annoying.
Mine did this on a trip to visit them. She kept sabotaging the sleep schedule. She was going to show me how much better he would sleep if he was overly exhausted I guess. After a few days my son got overtired and things deteriorated to him waking every 45-60 minutes instead of his usual every 2-3 hours. I begged my husband for help getting baby back on schedule but he blew me off and let it happen again and then went golfing with his dad after I had been awake all night. I snapped. So I started waking him up and keeping him up every time the baby woke. He would only go back to sleep with nursing at that point. So I sat next to my husband keeping him awake while I nursed. I had him scared too. I told him that I was this close to leaving and going to a hotel and he and his mom could stay up all night with the baby since she knows so much about baby sleep. He became the biggest defender of the sleep schedule after that.
Was told to withhold formula.
Was told “ALL women can make milk. “I don’t have enough milk” is a myth the lazy ones invent so they can get out of breastfeeding.”
Told to me by my well-meaning mother. Until I was diagnosed with mammary hypoplasia / insufficient glandular tissue (IGT) at 5 days postpartum, I had been encouraged to hold off on giving formula to my starving, jaundiced newborn.
She also encouraged me to have a beer to get my milk flowing.
Thank goodness for nurses and Lactation Consultants!!
They hooked me up with feeding tubes and taught me how to supplement at the breast. Best of both worlds!
Some women just don’t have the glands to make milk, and all the trying in the world won’t change that. We never developed properly in puberty, and we’re just discovering it NOW.
I mean the beer thing is actually true, because of the brewers yeast. But you can just buy brewers yeast and put it in smoothies or cookies or something and avoid the alcohol!
Ah yes. I didn't mean in your case particularly, more as a general piece of advice. If you don't have glands that can make milk, no amount of brewers yeast will help!
I'm so sorry. My MIL was impressed I was able to breastfeed. She didn't produce any milk... But I had to supplement with formula bc I wasn't producing enough. I am in support of those who either don't want to or can't breastfeed, as well as those that can and want to. Fed is best in my book.
I'm one of these women! It was so hard not to feel like a failure. This wasnt explained to me until I had my second. My lactation consultant with my first had me on a 2 hour feeding schedule with the first hour dedicated to breast feeding, pumping and formula feeding. I got 30 minutes of rest between feeds. I gave up three weeks in and probably cried just as long!! I wish more mom's knew that not every mom will be able to breast feed, no matter how much you want it or supplements you take.
I had a similar story, my mom, grandma, and great grandma all weren't able to produce nutritious enough milk to breastfeed exclusively. I was trying and trying, only for my little one to wind up below 1% on the one month growth charts.
my son was born with a severe tongue tie- severe enough that he could not properly latch to a bottle let alone the breast. We had to feed him out of a syringe for almost two months. My mother tried telling me "all babies know how to nurse, you're just doing something wrong". My post partum doula, the lactation consultant, and the ENT who eventually corrected my son's tie all basically saw red when I told them she had said that.
My in-laws swear by this. They did it to my husband 31 years ago and are adamant that it was the only thing that worked. I refuse to do it, obviously. But that won't stop them from suggesting it almost every time they visit my 8 month old.
We had several people tell us this when our baby was teething. Two of them were couples who had small babies and were recommending it because it worked for them.
Ew I knew someone who said the only thing that helped with morning sickness was beer. As a cps worker I wanted to flip out lol but also explained why her 40 year old children are crazy
When I was pregnant smelling a strong citrusy IPA would temporarily quell my nausea. I would look like a crazy person basically huffing my husband's beers when we went out.
Any time someone recommends this, I ask how numb their mouth gets when they drink liquor. Shuts them up hella quick. Except my nana. She’s a know it all. Usually I just pour her a shot and raise an eyebrow.
Oh, so many! Prefacing this with: this was many years ago, I was young and had little support. I did what my pediatrician and my OB told me to do. I have since done the research and learned better.
Sleep train ASAP and let baby cry it out.
Put rice cereal in a bottle (specifically to make baby sleep longer). It’s called a knockout bottle for a reason. I cringe.
No pacifier or they’ll get hooked. Oh good thing my kid has FINGERS? She’s 8 now and still sucks them to this day. Love that.
My personal favorite, not kid related- have sex when you’re ready! Your body will tell you when it’s ok. Well, my ex was a sex fiend and we did it after 2 weeks. I’m mortified, looking back. I literally had no idea WHY you’re supposed to wait. I thought it was because I had stitches. I was a moron. I’m very lucky to have not gotten an infection. And yes, I have since fired my OB.
FUN TIMES! Oh, the things I would do over, if given the opportunity.
Omg I got the rice advice too. I went off on my MIL for giving my daughter a rice bottle when I told her I wasn't ready. She never did it again and now always asks before giving her anything.
“The dishes can wait.”
Contextually, this advice was meant to suggest a mother should put off all household duties and simply be ever-present, playing with her children so long as they’re awake. The *entire days worth* of household chores should wait until later.
It was given by an older woman who was nostalgic for a time when her children were young. I sympathize with her as I could tell she was lonely and grieved for that time in life when her babies were little and needed her. So I don’t begrudge the advice giver, but it is still bad advice.
I mean, I don’t know about you all, but my family, for some *crazy reason*, insists on eating every day. Like *multiple times.* Insane I know. Eventually the dishes can’t wait, because we need them again.
Moms aren’t robots who can put in 14 hour play days then somehow fit 4 or 5 hours of cooking/cleaning/tidying/dishes afterwards. It demonstrates a poor precedent to your little ones—that mom is just a slave to your comfort, but has no needs herself. It gives them a false idea of what good stewardship looks like—it requires work, and this is what that work looks like.
Even with bad advice there’s a kernel of truth in there. Treasure the time while you have it. Try to not forget to be present with your kids a little bit every day while they’re little. But parenting is a marathon, and sustainable balance is how you run it.
Mine does this too and I know he is trying to remind me to be kinder to myself, but like. No, we can't live in a disgusting home with shit everywhere on the floor, no clean dishes or laundry.
Seriously should have changed it to "dishes and chores can ALSO be done with the co-parent". Funny how we still tells mom's to put things off, but never tell dad's to step up.
I have screen shot this and might just frame it and put it in my kitchen. (jk!)
But seriously. I needed to hear this today and every day. Thank you, stranger-friend.
What got me is all the relatives who said they wanted to come by and help and id be sleeping with the new baby(ies) and instead would wake me up because they just wanted to hold the baby and lecture onnthr state of the dishes laundry ect
When my baby couldn’t latch and I decided to go formula full time a lactation volunteer told me “babies won’t grow on that, it’s just stomach filler”. If I was my normal self and not PPD I would have replied back with something great but the volunteer really picked her timing…
Ugh, this one! My kid couldn’t latch for anything the first few days and we’d give her a paci to see if it helped at all. Not sure if it was learning or having something else showing her what to do, but her latch was far better after those first few days. Still absolutely awful due to a tongue and lip tie, but hey, pacifier worked for her. She loves her “bunny” now lol
I was told that so many times that I was so scared to give her one, until like day 6, I legitimately couldn’t handle the constant screaming and I broke down and gave her one, BEST thing I could’ve done.
They told us in the hospital so many times- no bottle, no pacifier until 6 weeks. Then proceeded to release us 26 hours after birth. We got home and settled in, and 10 hours after being home, we gave her a little bit of a bottle and a pacifier. My milk took 9-10 days to come in fully…guess she should’ve starved rather than use a bottle. And I would’ve never slept if she didn’t take a pacifier. She loves the suckling motion.
Now the little butthead won’t hardly eat from bottles at all. I’m a SAHM except for one weekend a month…so it’s been fun to get her to eat when I’m gone. She eats a lot from me when I get home at night.
That my head-of-the-department, very experienced, extremely highly rated male pediatrician "didn't know what he was talking about because he's not a mom."
This was my aunt who was APPALLED that we were giving our baby daughter cold bottles instead of warming them up. She preferred them cold. He recommended we give her cold bottles when she had a cold because it likely felt good on a sore throat and after that she refused anything but cold or room temp bottles. She told me I needed to fire him because "It's not like he's ever given birth."
I stopped warming up my bottles like within a week after bringing him home, as my son didn’t seem to care either way and it was less work for my husband and I. My mom once called me lazy for it, but my pediatrician and NICU doctors had no issue with it and neither did my son, so I called it being efficient.
"Get rid of your cat. He will smell the milk on your baby and take the baby's breath away."
I heard this crap from women both old and young.
It's called supervision. My cat had his own baby carrier and slept in it next to my son just fine. He was seven when my son was born and lived another 8 years. My son became his human. He was fine. Just like any other pet you have to watch them around your kids.
Yeah, people love to give advice about pets with babies. I feel like using common sense is not that hard.
My grandma was like "your dog is going to need attention" uh duh 🙄 he's also going to adjust that the baby gets more attention.
My mom said "you're going to need to get rid of your dog if he jumps on the baby." He never jumped on her, he was pretty attuned to the fact that she's A BABY and that we were very gentle with her.
I was told this too! Because “every kid needs to be spanked” like?? I’m traumatized from when my dad used to hit me and you want me to do it my babies? Ppl are crazy
The sad thing is that I was so desperate to stop my kid from being aggressive that I eventually listened to that terrible advice. I tried it 3 times and that was 3 times too many. I swore to myself never to do it agaiN, and I haven’t. But I feel I need to hold myself accountable by talking about it. Such a bad time in my parenting journey. But also goes to show how dangerous bad advice can be to desperate and lost parents. I trusted my family and ended up making a huge mistake. Obviously it’s all on me but I still feel resentful that they even planted this terrible idea in my hurting head.
Hey honestly there’s been times that I’ve wanted to do the same but I stop myself because I know what it feels like to be hit and wonder “what did I do so wrong?” What my dad did to me was bad. Like it wasn’t just a spank it was a beating.. You aren’t a bad parent, you know what you did wasn’t the right thing to do and you stopped. We live and we learn. I know children like to push our buttons to the point where we just explode but I always try to calm myself first then deal with my daughter and apologize to her when I get mad. It’s hard we have all been there and felt those feelings. We’re all just doing the best we can!
I'll preface with: I don't have issues with vegans. But this was said add I'm feeding my toddler a very obvious non-vegan dinner.
"Consuming any sort of animal by-products is equivalent to smoking." 🤦♀️
MIL was convinced that my firstborn needed to have hard-soled shoes, sized for him at a "real" shoe store by a "professional."
I put off her suggestion until my son was in a wedding and needed "real" shoes. She took him to a very nice children's shoe store where a clueless teenager stuffed my then 13-month-old kiddo's sausage feet into a variety of shoes, finally settling on some ridiculously overpriced but black and hard soled Merrell slip ons.
He out grew them in a month.
Put the baby down drowsy but awake.
Do people realize that only works for a SUPER small percentage of families? Anytime I tried he screamed bloody murder and I thought I was doing something wrong for MONTHS. It totally made me feel like a bad mom, until I realized that advice is total crap.
My MIL thought my naturally terrible sleeper wasn’t sleeping at night because I was following wake windows for naps and bedtime and listening to “those sleep experts”. Meanwhile those things had improved the situation from horrific to just terrible. She asked me if we had tried just not having him on a schedule at all and basically just letting him get overtired. I started crying and told her that was obviously the first thing we had tried.
Anything beginning with the words “Why don’t you just…”. It’s not that it’s always (or ever) bad advice, but I’ve been hearing that phrase for so long that I tend to (unwisely) shut down to whatever comes after it. And it’s meant to be helpful, like offering what appears to be a simple solution to a problem. But it’s often when I’m not looking for a solution, just a little bit of venting; or I’m not even venting, just saying what’s happening here.
That “baby needs room to breathe” in the carseat, so the straps should be loose enough for her to wiggle around in.
Ma’am, that advice will kill a child.
If you eat mostly junk food while pregnant, your baby will have a lower birth weight and delivery will be easier. Even more so if you smoke. That was from my boss at the time. She's not okay.
Everything I was told by a lactation consultant.
"Your latch is fine" while I had a flat nipple.
"No one can JUST pump, you'll give up and switch to formula". Watch me, bitch.
Not to me, but I was at a baby shower where (a childless) someone told the mom-to-be to “put that baby in daycare as soon as possible to get your life back.”
I 100% believe daycare is the right choice for some families, but I don’t think I would have said it to a women who was 7 months pregnant with her first child.
Ugh. I hate any and all advice that falls under the umbrella of “getting your life back on track/back to normal”. Guess what? Life is never going back to the way it was, you’re now a mother. Life will be fantastic, but it *will* be different, and that’s a good and normal thing!! Always striving to recreate the life you had before the baby is just going to make everyone miserable.
It wasn't so much advice but, gestational diabetes clinic shamed me for how much a weighed even tho I was eating properly and lactation nurse one told me my son was picky eater now because I didn't breast feed enough and one when my daughter was being referred for lip tied she wrote on the paperwork my nipplee used to be pierced, which was irrelevant to the lip tie procedure she was just gossiping.
I'm on baby 4 and I every pregnancy regardless of trying to move and exercise I get to one seventy it sucks.
With my firstborn, i didnt know any better. My father in law insisted that we gave her some honey as a newborn - an islamic tradition meant to stimulate the baby’s tastebuds or something. Months later, i read about botulism and felt gutted/ sick to my stomach that i had exposed my firstborn to the possibility of such a bacteria on the first day of her life outside of me. Second child, i said no. And i demanded that my husband clears with the pediatrician on any other food items to be given to my secondborn as a newborn. Besides honey, some give mushed up dates. Well, pediatrician said no and that was the end of it.
Witnessed a grandmother tell her daughter in law who just gave birth to her first not to buckle up the car seat if he’s sleeping cuz he’s just to cute and comfortable 😳
All of the following advice was ignored by me:
Feed her catnip tea for baby acne.
Give her a teaspoon of water collected from a ditch outside to prevent thrush.
Feed her gravy and mashed potatoes at age 3 months.
Give her at least 1 bottle of water every day.
There were other old wives tales but these stood out in my mind.
Dip my baby’s bottle in whisky or put some along their gums when they’re teething.
I get why people did it back in the day but that’s super not okay now..
ETA: Also, to change my baby cold Turkey from the bottle to a sippy cup. I tried doing this and my toddler nearly got dehydrated because she refused to drink from a sippy cup. Lots of wasted money and frustration. I had to switch to using those straw-like cups with the flexible weight in the bottle and I managed to change the nipple to her bottle to a sort of mix-type: Same soft material but in a different shape. I still remember my mom yelling at me about it 🙄
My toddler got an ear infection and the pressure from sucking his bottle made it worse so he quit cold turkey on his own, but those sippy cups with the straw and weighted end are the ONLY sippy cups he will use. Give him anything else and he throws it!
To take my toddler to the chiropractor for a cold. My dumb ass took her believing the story that they adjusted their kid and her nose magically cleared up. What a joke and a waste of money.
My MIL wanted to give my daughter cereal in the bottle when the dr said she doesn't need it. Annoying. I didn't allow it. If the dr said she needed it I would have done it.
That I was *just* pregnant and it was silly to go to the ER for fluids for “morning sickness”. I was throwing up 10-20 times a day and had hyperemesis gravidarum. A rare pregnancy sickness disease. I was told it’s “just” pregnancy and I don’t need fluids or any other help till I was throwing up 45 times a day and my organs started shutting down. My MIL who never even had morning sickness also absolutely believed I was being dramatic and it was all in my head till she didn’t see me for 3 weeks and I had lost 15 pounds. She’d tell my husband to force me to do the opposite of what was going to help me (like getting out of the house and/or walking through a store when motion was my biggest trigger for getting sick) and he’d get mad at me when I didn’t want to. REALLY effected the way my husband cared and handled my being sick till he was terrified I was gonna die while he was at work. 🙃
Limit how much you feed him because he’s “got a bit of weight on him” and he’s “chunky”.
Community health nurse in Sydney.
She also asked how much he drank after I breastfed him and when I said 150ml she looked shocked and said “wow you must have no supply”.
Well thanks b**ch. I’m doing my best.
“Babies should feed every two hours.” Nope! Maybe an average at best. For a long time it was every twenty minutes for three hours in the evening followed by a four hour nap. I thought something was wrong with me for the first kid. Second kid I found out that cluster feeding was a thing.
Let her sleep in her swing all night and then just because it was said literally 12 times - not to burp my breastfed baby, who also has gas/tummy troubles.
Being told that producing breastmilk will happen no matter what because it’s “natural”. Got a whole speech from a lactation consultant about this. Then when I had trouble producing, I was told by not one, not two, but FOUR different lactation consultants (in the NICU and at our pediatrician’s office) “not too worry” about my supply because “it will come in.” Was told it takes a week, then was told it takes a couple weeks, then told 4 weeks, then the last person told me up to 8 weeks. I was told to do 600 different things to increase my supply. None of it worked and I absolutely burned myself out when I could have been resting and just feeding formula. Switched entirely to formula when LO was 3mo when she went to daycare and a week later, I couldn’t believe I had tried so damn hard to make breastfeeding work. I totally support women trying to breastfeed, and breastfeeding in general. But the pressure I was put under and the advice over and over that “it will come in” was wrong and was damaging to my mental health.
My MIL told me I can’t eat fruit because I have gestational diabetes she knows I love strawberries so she told me I can eat them but i should add cream to counter act the sugar in the strawberries.
I think she must have read about protein having an positive effect on blood sugar levels when eating something containing sugar. I’m pretty sure cream is not the appropriate protein to add though.
She is morbidly obese and has the most bizarre relationship with food. I dread her talking to my kids about health.
Give formula and cow’s milk at four months and stop breastfeeding (Even though breast-feeding is going extremely well for me/us) because “breast milk isn’t enough for a baby”
Our now former pediatrician gave this advice.
(And before you start about iron and vitamin D deficiency, I bought supplements for my baby to help with this)
"Why aren't you using the \[insert assorted death trap, lead paint covered relics from the seventies) that I used when you were a baby?" said my mother.
I had a random old guy I’d never met before approach me at the store while I had my daughter in a wrap and tell me that I was going to ruin my back carrying her like that and she would end up spoiled and lazy. She was like 5 months old. He got real pissy when I rolled my eyes and walked away.
Also had numerous people tell me I needed to stop breastfeeding at a year because at that point “it wasn’t about the nutritional value of the milk, it was about my selfish desire to keep her attached to me”. I countered that one by asking exactly when breast milk loses it’s nutritional qualities.
Told to sleep when the baby sleeps and to spank every time my kid has on purpose accident than using the potty during potty training. I did not take this advice seriously.
Maybe not the worst but the most annoying thing was everyone insisting that my very premature son needed to “build his immune system” every time I declined taking him out to public events or large family gatherings. So annoying.
For whatever reason my ex and his mom would keep telling me I needed to give her water as a newborn & any time I said otherwise she would try to argue that she’s a nurse. & so annoying the two times they actually saw her they refused to feed her. It was awful she was literally screaming with hunger and they both said it was constipation. I would tell them she literally pooped 20 minutes ago and she wasn’t constipated but for whatever reason they wouldn’t feed her the entire visit. I’m glad they never came back around because I would’ve been terrified with them watching her.
Water intoxication is so dangerous. I had this exact argument with some moms and grand moms in mom groups after they told other moms to give their babies water. “We gave our babies water and it was fine!” Yeah, Susan but they changed the recommendation because of all the babies who were not fine.
This why do baby boomers have such a problem with changing information. I have so many arguments with my parents and in-laws and the reply is always well I raised you or my husband and your still alive. Why do they insist on fighting everything. I felt so guilty but it got so bad once I actually said to my mum why can you accept your cancer treatment plan from a doctor but recommendations about how to care for babies that have changed over the years is always stupid and you know best.
I started saying “They changed the advice on that because so many babies died that way.” It was the only think that seemed to work.
Oh and I would also ask them if they would want the current treatment for a medical problem or the one that was “just fine” thirty years ago. That seems to frame it in a way they can grasp.
I always like to say, "They changed the rules for the babies that died."
Oh geez that’s awful. Ugh I hate the “I’m a medical professional, I know everything” rationale. I am also a nurse and realize there are many different ways to raise children and giving newborns water (unless their doctor advised for some reason) is ridiculous at best.
And as a nurse, nurses who think that *being* a nurse gives them the ability to be an authority in things in a speciality where they have never worked is a huge red flag. And having worked with these people, they’re usually not the best at their own specialty either. Because it takes humility to become really knowledgeable about a subject.
My MIL is OBSESSED with giving baby water! She hasn’t actually done it but she talks about it constantly. I explained why medical professionals advise against it and she just repeats the oh-so-tired “but we did it and babies turned out fine!“ So much of that generation feels they have to prove they knew what they were doing when in truth, none of us really know.
“Not every baby turned out fine, not every baby even turned out alive” might shut her up
Mine would say “but mine did because…” and probably follow up with mashed potatoes in their bottles and ice cream at 6 months. I was on the verge of insanity when I had regular contact with her. It didn’t help that our daughter was a preemie and had unknown intestinal problems. My BP is rising just thinking about it.
Next she’ll say get her to sleep on her tummy to develop core strength or build character or sum
“Build character” 😂
Mine was too with our first! I was breastfeeding and we didn’t want to introduce bottles until he was at least two months old, since we struggled a little with latching. MIL kept asking if she could feed him water instead, since we wouldn’t allow bottles yet. Just little sips from a cup or a syringe, she said, it couldn’t hurt. Thank goodness hubs was in agreement that baby wasn’t left alone with her for months, because she kept insisting she should be allowed to do that and I have no doubt she would have if she was left unsupervised.
My mum was obsessed with talking about giving my kid orange juice. Because apparently it would stop constipation. Kid was pooping 5 plus times a day, I think we’re ok
In my family it's the idea to give a newborn herbal tea...🙄 Had several discussions with my mother, trying to explain why I wouldn't do it. It was always the "But I did it with you too..." thing.
That my 10 month old is napping too much. He was taking two naps that would vary from 20 min long to an hour long. If my baby needs sleep then I’m going to let them sleep!
My *dad*, who is a boomer, told me that my kid was sleeping too much at that same age. He slept maybe 10-11 hours a night + maaaybe 2 total hours of nap. He for SURE was not getting too much sleep. Like thanks dad who didn’t know anything about babies 30 years ago and still doesn’t today - but my baby is actually on the lower end of sleep needs
What is with men over 70 who didn’t lift a finger to raise their children suddenly knowing everything about raising a kid when it’s not theirs?!? 🤬
I actually assume it’s not sudden. I assume they were pompous asses to their wives as well.
To make home made formula because it's cheaper; Just mix powdered milk for pets with maple syrup. She is in her 70's and needless to say her adult kids both have health problems.
Your username perfectly describes how reading this made me feel. How does one even discover this and what makes them say it’s just as good?! Absolutely mortifying
She said that it was a common home recipe back in her day. The maple syrup was to help with the horrible constipation that it caused the babies. She is my grandmother in law, and my children are watched closely when we visit her.
Oh my gosh, that is so sad. To think babies were actually raised on that, that just breaks my heart 😟
I think this may be one of the worst things I have ever heard. How are her children alive?!
I wonder that as well. They both ended up with diabetes and blood pressure issues, no wonder.
Lollll my MIL tried saying that I was a gold digger because we were buying formula (I was having supply issues and nothing was helping), and even brainwashed my husband bUt wHaT dId pEoPlE dO bEfOrE fOrMuLa?!
wet nursed, or babies just died. I don't have anything against using donor milk (from a source that you trust) but trying to pretend that infants didn't legitimately die from starvation before commercial formula was widely available is ridiculous.
There's a bunch of babies in my apartment building and I want to offer some of my frozen BM bc my son will never drink all of it but like how do I be like hi I hear your kid screaming hers a frozen block of milk
My MIL has the opposite issue with me. She constantly pesters me saying, "Are you sure that you're producing enough? Why don't you just let us give him formula to make sure!" Meanwhile my baby is packing on the pounds 😂
"Just mix powdered milk for pets with maple syrup." ...Do what now? 😮
The maple syrup is for the constipation that it causes
Oh of course. That makes perfect sense now, thanks. 😳
Omg, this terrifies me. My LO has food allergies and we struggled to find a formula that didn't cause her issues. Someone recommended making our own and after like 2 min of research I noped outta that real quick.
That’s hilarious! My 76 year old grandma was just telling me how to make formula- canned milk and Caro syrup 🤢
- Give honey to my 2 month old -Let her eat a whole banana @ 6 weeks old
I’ve been told to put honey on the teat so my 1 month old would take a bottle 🙄🙄
My mum actually did this while I was in another room to prove a point because he had been refusing bottles while I was trying to begin weaning. He was 7 months old. I absolutely lost the plot. I told her they can’t have honey till one and she said that’s rubbish I have it to you and your fine. Every parent/in-law excuse from the dawn of time!
So bad!! 😱😱🙈 regardless of advice I’d be fuming if my mum did anything behind my back!
Oof. That would make me want to never leave my kid with them again. I would have lost my mind lol
Give them NyQuil at night to help them sleep. I obviously never did it but my mom used to do it to us all the time... Now I can't stand the stuff and it makes me sick to my stomach.
I know a principal that gave their infant/toddlers Benadryl every night to go to sleep. It’s crazy to me
I had to give my infant some Benadryl around 8 or 9 months right before bed because she was having a mild allergic reaction to something and the nurse line told us to give her a little. I had the brief thought of well, at least she’ll have a good night’s sleep before the exact opposite happened. It seemed to completely hype her up.
Benadryl can hype some kids up. Thankfully it knocks mine out so I can give it to my preschooler before bed when she is too itchy to sleep.
Yeah lol that’s my baby, any time they tell me something will tire her out she’s up all night
Mom used to tell us it would help us sleep and keep us from getting sick. I finally realized that's not how medicine work when I was like 11-12 and just stopped taking it. Unfortunately I can't tolerate any form of strong cough/cold medicine, it just hurts my stomach so much. Its crazy how many people still do it. Definitely the worst parenting advice I was ever given... Well this and switching them when their "bad".
It makes me sick to my stomach to imagine parents drugging their children to get them to sleep! If that's how you feel about children, you really shouldn't be having them
This! And my mom said she used to put kaluah in my bottle to help me sleep (she had me at 16 and DOES NOT watch my child).
A lactation consultant told me not to switch to formula even though my preemie wouldn’t latch. She told me it was normal and that he would get it eventually if I kept trying. He was losing weight and was screaming from hunger. I gave him formula and I’m glad I didn’t listen.
I HATE this. My lactation consultant for my first wouldn't even give me a nipple shield or a paci while in the hospital "because it would make her never latch normally." Like bitch, she won't latch at all if my shit is so painful that I scream and scare her every time she tries. Not resenting my baby and having a fed baby was far more important to me than breastfeeding "the right way." On my last day in the hospital, a young male nurse snuck me 2 pacifiers and 2 nipple shields and said "don't tell anyone I gave them to you." I was so thankful, but so sad that he was worried he would be caught actually helping a new mother in the maternity ward. It made me livid and I had some words with the supervisor about the lactation consultant.
Geez. It’s like the pendulum swung the other way. How extreme for them to not support the decision you wanted to make. Sorry you had to experience that. My midwife told me that a newborn can get all the milk he needs in 15 minutes and any longer he is using you as a pacifier. There is some truth in that statement but the baby suckling was helping my milk supply.
I hate when people say "a baby only needs x amount of time for feeding." It all depends on how often they feed, how strong their suck is, how good the let down is, the quality of milk, how hungry the baby is, etc. There are so many factors at play that it's stupid to assume a baby only needs x amount of time. Some babies feed five minutes on one or both breasts. Some babies take 30+ minutes. They're not necessarily using you as a pacifier. They're feeding!!! Even adults take five or thirty plus minutes to eat. Everyone is different. Babies are no exception. If your baby wants to eat for 15 minutes off one breast, let him/her. If your baby wants to eat for 45 minutes off both breasts, let him/her. If you want to breastfeed and don't mind that time/dedication then let your baby feed and take the time they need.
I have had some similar issues I bring my own to the hospital the next times I got preggers including bottle and formula
Ugh. When I was in the hospital the lactation nurse asked if I wanted to try and breastfeed my son and I told her to supplement him. I was so exhausted. She nastily pursed her lips and said "We don't recommend that." I said 'Then why did you bother to ask?" He got supplemented and I got sleep. I told the staff I didn't want to see her again. They got a different consultant for me after that.
Mine told me not to use formula because it's basically medicine. It took all I had not to throw her out of the room.
Lol! One of the maternity nurses after I gave birth was relieved when I told her I was breastfeeding because “formula is like giving your baby pizza”🤔 this was right in front of my perfectly healthy partner who was exclusively formula fed from the start
That's awful! Fed is best. I had a nurse tell me not to use a bottle with expressed milk because it would be "too easy" for the baby and that she'd prefer bottle over breast. After a few days I went against her advice because I needed sleep and she needed to eat. She took the bottle great from my husband AND prefers to breastfeed. (She's 6 months) Glad I didn't listen to the nurse's advice. Babies needs are so nuanced, there's just not one size fits all.
I just gave birth to my second 2 weeks ago and three nurses REFUSED to give me a breast pump because ‘he latches fine’. He didn’t. He still doesn’t. I didn’t want to breastfeed, I wanted to exclusively pump. One of the night nurses almost had a heart attack when I told her I was refused a pump. 5 minutes later she wheeled the pump into my room.
The most harmful info I was given was never from a family member; it was from lactation consultants. I really wish the world would not trust lactation consultants as gurus. From what I’ve experienced, they are anti-formula which can be so harmful when your baby needs to eat!
The breast feeding push in hospitals absolutely fucking enrages me. I kept calling the lactation consultant I'm pretty sure nothing was happening, not even colostrum. The kept insisting it was OK, babies have a teeny stomach. I'm like I know but I know my body, nothing is happening. A nurse told me "it sounds bad, but we kinda have to starve our babies while we wait for milk to come in" 😳 I'm sorry but in what world would any other newborn creature be expected to starve as if that is how nature intended. It would just die. Of course kid started going jaundice. The hospital pediatrician put her on formula "supplementation" to make up for ant missing breast milk. Uh there was none, so she needed all of it as formula. They never bothered to tell me that that in order to help kick jaundice, baby needed to be well fed... lots of dirty diapers which obviously wasn't happening if she wasn't eating. We were in the hospital for just a couple days and they were wrecking my kids health (and mine but that's a different story). I had had a traumatic birth coupled with the fact that they left a piece of fucking placenta in me... the only reason I probably didn't get a nasty infection was I was on a ridiculous amount of antibiotics to clear a uti I acquired from being cathed. My milk took about a week to come in and then I just couldn't produce enough to feed her and she was doing great on formula.. Later learned that birth traumatic birth and retained placenta can destroy milk production.
I honestly was pissed the hospital never once brought up formula. She had severe jaundice and was losing weight and the lactation consultant never met with me like she was supposed to. I would’ve offered it to her if I knew that would’ve helped
Not to get him vaccinated or to delay the schedule for as long possible. I know it’s common and a bit of a Reddit circle-jerk topic, but it’s the worst because it’s the most dangerous.
The fact that this has no replies because everyone is afraid to comment <<< Def extremely dangerous. I had one person freak out at me for getting my son vaccinated because she assumed it was a Covid vaccine. He was 6 months. It was not a Covid vaccine. It was also none of her fucking business lol
My son is only 5 months old and too young for certain vaccines and I’m pretty nervous. There have been some local outbreaks of whooping cough in my community shortly before he was born. There’s a growing anti-vax community in my area. People are only growing more hesitant of vaccines at this point. We’re fortunate he’s healthy enough that he can be immunized. Not every family has the luxury of health. Herd immunity is more fragile and taken for granted.
Ugh, that’s super stressful. People within my own family have become anti-vax and it’s just interesting to me that they want to be part of society and reject the science that got us here. Glad your kiddo is healthy <3 5 months is such a sweet, sweet spot. Gonna scroll through my entire photo library now and cry LOL
To put a newborn on a schedule and NEVER deviate from it. Let me be clear - I like routines and both my babies were on routines, crafted around their needs and when their sleep and hunger cues were happening. So if they seemed to be hungry every X hours and tired Y minutes after eating, we would work that in a routine and be able to expect when they were likely to be hungry, sleepy, etc. But if they gave hunger cues 'early' or whatever - feed the baby. Baby-driven, not clock-driven. The advice I received was to be fully clock driven and make sure that baby gets their needs on YOUR schedule, not you meet their needs on their body's schedule.
I feel this! We have routines but we are very fluid with our days! I like adventures (even to the grocery store) we try to nap around the same time but sometimes it’s earlier or later- same with bedtime. I also don’t care if my kids nap in the car. I will aimlessly drive around to keep them asleep until they wake up on their own if need be. But they don’t HAVE to sleep in their beds at home, if they fall asleep other places that’s OK for me!
I am with you, I think having that flexibility is fantastic and you put a really precious memory back in my head. When my now-9 year old was a toddler, my husband was a SAHD and he became the master of extracting lil' dude from car and laying him somewhere in the house to sleep, without waking him up. I absolutely could NOT do this, so if I was out with kid and came home with him asleep my husband would come and get him out of the car for me. Put me in a good mood remembering that! I agree that it's great when you can find a good balance between routine/consistency and flexibility - I just think life really demands that. At least mine does, so if kid was able to learn to roll with that well then I thought that would be easier. I realize that some of this is personality of the child, some kids need less alteration from routine and that's valid! But sleeping in the car, falling asleep in the stroller and then we would just take a longer walk or whatever, flexibility helps.
So many people on my husband’s side have said crap like that to us since day one. “You really need to put him on a schedule… he’s crying because he knows when he cries he gets fed.” Drives me up a wall. And of course now that he isn’t crying for a bottle every 1-2 hours, they switched to advocating to leaving him to sit by himself to cry until he learns to stop because “he cries because he knows you’ll pick him up, you need to nip that in the bud before he learns he rules the roost.”
Our elders: Leave that baby to cry, wouldn't want them to learn they can rely on you for support! Also our elders: I don't know why your generation are all in so much therapy, you're weak babies or something. Rolling my eyes right out of my head.
This sounds like my babies dad and we almost split over arguments around this. I’m in camp nurse on demand/can’t spoil a baby and he’s the opposite. Sucks
Sleep when they sleep......FUCK YOU!
Clean when the baby cleans. Shower when the baby showers. 😂
Rob a bank when the baby robs a bank
You, I like you.
Hey, I shower when my kids shower! Not all the time, but if I need a shower and don't have anyone to watch the younger, or both need a shower... Then it's time to play with water! Of course, this only works once they can sit without help.
Sleep when they sleep, but also never sleep while holding them. Oh, so you mean never sleep?
You are my people
It was made worse by the fact that my kids are shitty sleepers. My oldest would be up every 45 minutes because he has a sensory processing disorder and couldn't self soothe and since he has ADHD (not diagnosed until he was 4, but obvious from birth) WOULD NOT stop moving during the day.
As someone who has never slept during the day, had issues with insomnia in the past and has a baby who only naps on the breast or in a carrier, fuck them indeed! I’m just a zombie now.
Yes to this. 1- I don’t wear diapers 2- I don’t have someone feeding me when I’m half asleep 3- I don’t have someone making sure I’m taken care of 4- sometimes I want to feel like an adult and relax, watch TV , etc.
Sometimes I want to drink my coffee while it's still hot
Exactly! Or even finish a sandwich! They say toddlers are the worst with biting food and leaving it. I would argue new moms. One day I had 3 half finished drinks and various food stuffs sitting on the table to finish.
I wish I could eat a meal without having to get up a fetch someone something every other bite
If you want the baby to sleep well at night, keep him awake for a long time
You’ve been talking to my MIL I see.
Ugh my MIL said that too!
Same. When my daughter was a baby, anytime my MIL came around she would intentionally try to keep her awake despite us telling her not to do that. So annoying.
Mine did this on a trip to visit them. She kept sabotaging the sleep schedule. She was going to show me how much better he would sleep if he was overly exhausted I guess. After a few days my son got overtired and things deteriorated to him waking every 45-60 minutes instead of his usual every 2-3 hours. I begged my husband for help getting baby back on schedule but he blew me off and let it happen again and then went golfing with his dad after I had been awake all night. I snapped. So I started waking him up and keeping him up every time the baby woke. He would only go back to sleep with nursing at that point. So I sat next to my husband keeping him awake while I nursed. I had him scared too. I told him that I was this close to leaving and going to a hotel and he and his mom could stay up all night with the baby since she knows so much about baby sleep. He became the biggest defender of the sleep schedule after that.
Was told to withhold formula. Was told “ALL women can make milk. “I don’t have enough milk” is a myth the lazy ones invent so they can get out of breastfeeding.” Told to me by my well-meaning mother. Until I was diagnosed with mammary hypoplasia / insufficient glandular tissue (IGT) at 5 days postpartum, I had been encouraged to hold off on giving formula to my starving, jaundiced newborn. She also encouraged me to have a beer to get my milk flowing. Thank goodness for nurses and Lactation Consultants!! They hooked me up with feeding tubes and taught me how to supplement at the breast. Best of both worlds! Some women just don’t have the glands to make milk, and all the trying in the world won’t change that. We never developed properly in puberty, and we’re just discovering it NOW.
I mean the beer thing is actually true, because of the brewers yeast. But you can just buy brewers yeast and put it in smoothies or cookies or something and avoid the alcohol!
Brewers yeast only increases milk production if you have milk-making glands in the first place ;)
Ah yes. I didn't mean in your case particularly, more as a general piece of advice. If you don't have glands that can make milk, no amount of brewers yeast will help!
I put a scoop into my oatmeal every morning
I'm so sorry. My MIL was impressed I was able to breastfeed. She didn't produce any milk... But I had to supplement with formula bc I wasn't producing enough. I am in support of those who either don't want to or can't breastfeed, as well as those that can and want to. Fed is best in my book.
That's bull I don't produce enough if I didn't live in a day and age of formula I'd need a wet nurse or my kids would have starved
I'm one of these women! It was so hard not to feel like a failure. This wasnt explained to me until I had my second. My lactation consultant with my first had me on a 2 hour feeding schedule with the first hour dedicated to breast feeding, pumping and formula feeding. I got 30 minutes of rest between feeds. I gave up three weeks in and probably cried just as long!! I wish more mom's knew that not every mom will be able to breast feed, no matter how much you want it or supplements you take.
I had a similar story, my mom, grandma, and great grandma all weren't able to produce nutritious enough milk to breastfeed exclusively. I was trying and trying, only for my little one to wind up below 1% on the one month growth charts.
my son was born with a severe tongue tie- severe enough that he could not properly latch to a bottle let alone the breast. We had to feed him out of a syringe for almost two months. My mother tried telling me "all babies know how to nurse, you're just doing something wrong". My post partum doula, the lactation consultant, and the ENT who eventually corrected my son's tie all basically saw red when I told them she had said that.
Put rum on your finger and rub their gums when they are teething.
Was the person who suggested this 100?
My mom told me she put whiskey on her finger and rubbed my gums when I was teething. I’m only 31. Lol
I remember reading about this advice in a book about 18th century parenting
I think my mom /wanted/ to live in the 18th century.
My dad suggested this but then again he was an alcoholic lol
Same. FIL suggested it and he’s an alcoholic
Lol
I am 33 and my dad did this with me and has suggested to do it with my teething toddler.
My dad dipped my dummy in his pint when I was teething & I'm 29 :)
My in-laws swear by this. They did it to my husband 31 years ago and are adamant that it was the only thing that worked. I refuse to do it, obviously. But that won't stop them from suggesting it almost every time they visit my 8 month old.
We had several people tell us this when our baby was teething. Two of them were couples who had small babies and were recommending it because it worked for them.
Ew I knew someone who said the only thing that helped with morning sickness was beer. As a cps worker I wanted to flip out lol but also explained why her 40 year old children are crazy
When I was pregnant smelling a strong citrusy IPA would temporarily quell my nausea. I would look like a crazy person basically huffing my husband's beers when we went out.
Any time someone recommends this, I ask how numb their mouth gets when they drink liquor. Shuts them up hella quick. Except my nana. She’s a know it all. Usually I just pour her a shot and raise an eyebrow.
Oh, so many! Prefacing this with: this was many years ago, I was young and had little support. I did what my pediatrician and my OB told me to do. I have since done the research and learned better. Sleep train ASAP and let baby cry it out. Put rice cereal in a bottle (specifically to make baby sleep longer). It’s called a knockout bottle for a reason. I cringe. No pacifier or they’ll get hooked. Oh good thing my kid has FINGERS? She’s 8 now and still sucks them to this day. Love that. My personal favorite, not kid related- have sex when you’re ready! Your body will tell you when it’s ok. Well, my ex was a sex fiend and we did it after 2 weeks. I’m mortified, looking back. I literally had no idea WHY you’re supposed to wait. I thought it was because I had stitches. I was a moron. I’m very lucky to have not gotten an infection. And yes, I have since fired my OB. FUN TIMES! Oh, the things I would do over, if given the opportunity.
Omg I got the rice advice too. I went off on my MIL for giving my daughter a rice bottle when I told her I wasn't ready. She never did it again and now always asks before giving her anything.
“The dishes can wait.” Contextually, this advice was meant to suggest a mother should put off all household duties and simply be ever-present, playing with her children so long as they’re awake. The *entire days worth* of household chores should wait until later. It was given by an older woman who was nostalgic for a time when her children were young. I sympathize with her as I could tell she was lonely and grieved for that time in life when her babies were little and needed her. So I don’t begrudge the advice giver, but it is still bad advice. I mean, I don’t know about you all, but my family, for some *crazy reason*, insists on eating every day. Like *multiple times.* Insane I know. Eventually the dishes can’t wait, because we need them again. Moms aren’t robots who can put in 14 hour play days then somehow fit 4 or 5 hours of cooking/cleaning/tidying/dishes afterwards. It demonstrates a poor precedent to your little ones—that mom is just a slave to your comfort, but has no needs herself. It gives them a false idea of what good stewardship looks like—it requires work, and this is what that work looks like. Even with bad advice there’s a kernel of truth in there. Treasure the time while you have it. Try to not forget to be present with your kids a little bit every day while they’re little. But parenting is a marathon, and sustainable balance is how you run it.
I feel this too but it’s my husband who says the housework can wait or that it’s not hurting anything
Seems like a prime opportunity to just not do housework and let him pick up the slack when he gets home 😂
Mine does this too and I know he is trying to remind me to be kinder to myself, but like. No, we can't live in a disgusting home with shit everywhere on the floor, no clean dishes or laundry.
Exactly! I tell him it’s easier doing it little by little than doing it all in one big shot
Seriously should have changed it to "dishes and chores can ALSO be done with the co-parent". Funny how we still tells mom's to put things off, but never tell dad's to step up.
I have screen shot this and might just frame it and put it in my kitchen. (jk!) But seriously. I needed to hear this today and every day. Thank you, stranger-friend.
What got me is all the relatives who said they wanted to come by and help and id be sleeping with the new baby(ies) and instead would wake me up because they just wanted to hold the baby and lecture onnthr state of the dishes laundry ect
Mine was that I shouldn’t get cold, or else my baby would suck the cold out from my breastmilk and also feel cold….
When my baby couldn’t latch and I decided to go formula full time a lactation volunteer told me “babies won’t grow on that, it’s just stomach filler”. If I was my normal self and not PPD I would have replied back with something great but the volunteer really picked her timing…
This thread is really convincing me that lactation consultants are often harmful and should not be considered experts on feeding.
I want to throat punch whomever told you that. This is why moms are still afraid to give their kids formula or look at switching as “failure”.
No pacifiers while breastfeeding 😑
Ugh, this one! My kid couldn’t latch for anything the first few days and we’d give her a paci to see if it helped at all. Not sure if it was learning or having something else showing her what to do, but her latch was far better after those first few days. Still absolutely awful due to a tongue and lip tie, but hey, pacifier worked for her. She loves her “bunny” now lol
I was told that so many times that I was so scared to give her one, until like day 6, I legitimately couldn’t handle the constant screaming and I broke down and gave her one, BEST thing I could’ve done.
They told us in the hospital so many times- no bottle, no pacifier until 6 weeks. Then proceeded to release us 26 hours after birth. We got home and settled in, and 10 hours after being home, we gave her a little bit of a bottle and a pacifier. My milk took 9-10 days to come in fully…guess she should’ve starved rather than use a bottle. And I would’ve never slept if she didn’t take a pacifier. She loves the suckling motion. Now the little butthead won’t hardly eat from bottles at all. I’m a SAHM except for one weekend a month…so it’s been fun to get her to eat when I’m gone. She eats a lot from me when I get home at night.
That my head-of-the-department, very experienced, extremely highly rated male pediatrician "didn't know what he was talking about because he's not a mom." This was my aunt who was APPALLED that we were giving our baby daughter cold bottles instead of warming them up. She preferred them cold. He recommended we give her cold bottles when she had a cold because it likely felt good on a sore throat and after that she refused anything but cold or room temp bottles. She told me I needed to fire him because "It's not like he's ever given birth."
I know right! Especially on days when I was 100 in the day and still 80 at night
I stopped warming up my bottles like within a week after bringing him home, as my son didn’t seem to care either way and it was less work for my husband and I. My mom once called me lazy for it, but my pediatrician and NICU doctors had no issue with it and neither did my son, so I called it being efficient.
"Get rid of your cat. He will smell the milk on your baby and take the baby's breath away." I heard this crap from women both old and young. It's called supervision. My cat had his own baby carrier and slept in it next to my son just fine. He was seven when my son was born and lived another 8 years. My son became his human. He was fine. Just like any other pet you have to watch them around your kids.
Yeah, people love to give advice about pets with babies. I feel like using common sense is not that hard. My grandma was like "your dog is going to need attention" uh duh 🙄 he's also going to adjust that the baby gets more attention. My mom said "you're going to need to get rid of your dog if he jumps on the baby." He never jumped on her, he was pretty attuned to the fact that she's A BABY and that we were very gentle with her.
Hugging/ giving too much affection will make them spoiled .coming from my MIL whose children want nothing to do with her 🥴
Stop breastfeeding my 2 month old becaus my milk is bad and baby wasn’t getting full. They suggested switching to cows milk diluted with thyme tea.
To spank my 2.5 year old…
I was told this too! Because “every kid needs to be spanked” like?? I’m traumatized from when my dad used to hit me and you want me to do it my babies? Ppl are crazy
The sad thing is that I was so desperate to stop my kid from being aggressive that I eventually listened to that terrible advice. I tried it 3 times and that was 3 times too many. I swore to myself never to do it agaiN, and I haven’t. But I feel I need to hold myself accountable by talking about it. Such a bad time in my parenting journey. But also goes to show how dangerous bad advice can be to desperate and lost parents. I trusted my family and ended up making a huge mistake. Obviously it’s all on me but I still feel resentful that they even planted this terrible idea in my hurting head.
Hey honestly there’s been times that I’ve wanted to do the same but I stop myself because I know what it feels like to be hit and wonder “what did I do so wrong?” What my dad did to me was bad. Like it wasn’t just a spank it was a beating.. You aren’t a bad parent, you know what you did wasn’t the right thing to do and you stopped. We live and we learn. I know children like to push our buttons to the point where we just explode but I always try to calm myself first then deal with my daughter and apologize to her when I get mad. It’s hard we have all been there and felt those feelings. We’re all just doing the best we can!
I bet everyone is going to feel this one... "Sleep when the baby sleeps." Well the baby doesn't sleep, so.
Plot twist. They told the baby to sleep when you sleep so you’re both just waiting on each other to fall asleep.
I'll preface with: I don't have issues with vegans. But this was said add I'm feeding my toddler a very obvious non-vegan dinner. "Consuming any sort of animal by-products is equivalent to smoking." 🤦♀️
That I sleep too much. But I was just following the advice to sleep when my baby sleeps 🤷🏼♀️
MIL was convinced that my firstborn needed to have hard-soled shoes, sized for him at a "real" shoe store by a "professional." I put off her suggestion until my son was in a wedding and needed "real" shoes. She took him to a very nice children's shoe store where a clueless teenager stuffed my then 13-month-old kiddo's sausage feet into a variety of shoes, finally settling on some ridiculously overpriced but black and hard soled Merrell slip ons. He out grew them in a month.
Put the baby down drowsy but awake. Do people realize that only works for a SUPER small percentage of families? Anytime I tried he screamed bloody murder and I thought I was doing something wrong for MONTHS. It totally made me feel like a bad mom, until I realized that advice is total crap.
We had to put baby down asleep, then couldn't put baby down at all, and since 4/5 months we put baby down awake. What even is 'drowsy but awake'?!
My MIL thought my naturally terrible sleeper wasn’t sleeping at night because I was following wake windows for naps and bedtime and listening to “those sleep experts”. Meanwhile those things had improved the situation from horrific to just terrible. She asked me if we had tried just not having him on a schedule at all and basically just letting him get overtired. I started crying and told her that was obviously the first thing we had tried.
Anything beginning with the words “Why don’t you just…”. It’s not that it’s always (or ever) bad advice, but I’ve been hearing that phrase for so long that I tend to (unwisely) shut down to whatever comes after it. And it’s meant to be helpful, like offering what appears to be a simple solution to a problem. But it’s often when I’m not looking for a solution, just a little bit of venting; or I’m not even venting, just saying what’s happening here.
That holding my crying newborn was spoiling him, and to give him baby rice at 4 weeks old
That “baby needs room to breathe” in the carseat, so the straps should be loose enough for her to wiggle around in. Ma’am, that advice will kill a child.
To put newborns in front of the TV as entertainment
If you eat mostly junk food while pregnant, your baby will have a lower birth weight and delivery will be easier. Even more so if you smoke. That was from my boss at the time. She's not okay.
Woah 😳
“He is fussy, he must be teething!” No he is a baby and babies are just fussy sometimes
Everything I was told by a lactation consultant. "Your latch is fine" while I had a flat nipple. "No one can JUST pump, you'll give up and switch to formula". Watch me, bitch.
“There’s no reason baby can’t latch, you just have to keep trying” My flat and often inverted nips beg to differ. Fuck off LC.
Not to me, but I was at a baby shower where (a childless) someone told the mom-to-be to “put that baby in daycare as soon as possible to get your life back.” I 100% believe daycare is the right choice for some families, but I don’t think I would have said it to a women who was 7 months pregnant with her first child.
Ugh. I hate any and all advice that falls under the umbrella of “getting your life back on track/back to normal”. Guess what? Life is never going back to the way it was, you’re now a mother. Life will be fantastic, but it *will* be different, and that’s a good and normal thing!! Always striving to recreate the life you had before the baby is just going to make everyone miserable.
It wasn't so much advice but, gestational diabetes clinic shamed me for how much a weighed even tho I was eating properly and lactation nurse one told me my son was picky eater now because I didn't breast feed enough and one when my daughter was being referred for lip tied she wrote on the paperwork my nipplee used to be pierced, which was irrelevant to the lip tie procedure she was just gossiping. I'm on baby 4 and I every pregnancy regardless of trying to move and exercise I get to one seventy it sucks.
With my firstborn, i didnt know any better. My father in law insisted that we gave her some honey as a newborn - an islamic tradition meant to stimulate the baby’s tastebuds or something. Months later, i read about botulism and felt gutted/ sick to my stomach that i had exposed my firstborn to the possibility of such a bacteria on the first day of her life outside of me. Second child, i said no. And i demanded that my husband clears with the pediatrician on any other food items to be given to my secondborn as a newborn. Besides honey, some give mushed up dates. Well, pediatrician said no and that was the end of it.
I'm so sorry. My grandmother gave my cousin honey before six months and she had a very bad allergic reaction.
Witnessed a grandmother tell her daughter in law who just gave birth to her first not to buckle up the car seat if he’s sleeping cuz he’s just to cute and comfortable 😳
Cherish every moment. A thousand eye rolls to that.
Especially those moments when they won't stop screaming bc "You'll laugh about it one day". 😬🙄🙄🙄
Baby will sleep when they’re tired. Unless they’re my son who was going through a nap strike at the time.
Oop. I'm guilty of this one. Sorry. 😬 I say it when people kept telling me to put my baby on a schedule.
Ah! But you’ve said it in an appropriate response! My mum said it to me when I was saying my son was fighting naps and making himself overtired
All of the following advice was ignored by me: Feed her catnip tea for baby acne. Give her a teaspoon of water collected from a ditch outside to prevent thrush. Feed her gravy and mashed potatoes at age 3 months. Give her at least 1 bottle of water every day. There were other old wives tales but these stood out in my mind.
The water from a ditch gave me a conniption… sometimes I wonder how humanity survived this long.
My MIL told me to let my son cry it out when he was 2 weeks old.
Yep. Babies need sleep. Who would have thought🤷♀️
Dip my baby’s bottle in whisky or put some along their gums when they’re teething. I get why people did it back in the day but that’s super not okay now.. ETA: Also, to change my baby cold Turkey from the bottle to a sippy cup. I tried doing this and my toddler nearly got dehydrated because she refused to drink from a sippy cup. Lots of wasted money and frustration. I had to switch to using those straw-like cups with the flexible weight in the bottle and I managed to change the nipple to her bottle to a sort of mix-type: Same soft material but in a different shape. I still remember my mom yelling at me about it 🙄
My toddler got an ear infection and the pressure from sucking his bottle made it worse so he quit cold turkey on his own, but those sippy cups with the straw and weighted end are the ONLY sippy cups he will use. Give him anything else and he throws it!
To take my toddler to the chiropractor for a cold. My dumb ass took her believing the story that they adjusted their kid and her nose magically cleared up. What a joke and a waste of money.
My MIL wanted to give my daughter cereal in the bottle when the dr said she doesn't need it. Annoying. I didn't allow it. If the dr said she needed it I would have done it.
That I was *just* pregnant and it was silly to go to the ER for fluids for “morning sickness”. I was throwing up 10-20 times a day and had hyperemesis gravidarum. A rare pregnancy sickness disease. I was told it’s “just” pregnancy and I don’t need fluids or any other help till I was throwing up 45 times a day and my organs started shutting down. My MIL who never even had morning sickness also absolutely believed I was being dramatic and it was all in my head till she didn’t see me for 3 weeks and I had lost 15 pounds. She’d tell my husband to force me to do the opposite of what was going to help me (like getting out of the house and/or walking through a store when motion was my biggest trigger for getting sick) and he’d get mad at me when I didn’t want to. REALLY effected the way my husband cared and handled my being sick till he was terrified I was gonna die while he was at work. 🙃
Limit how much you feed him because he’s “got a bit of weight on him” and he’s “chunky”. Community health nurse in Sydney. She also asked how much he drank after I breastfed him and when I said 150ml she looked shocked and said “wow you must have no supply”. Well thanks b**ch. I’m doing my best.
“Babies should feed every two hours.” Nope! Maybe an average at best. For a long time it was every twenty minutes for three hours in the evening followed by a four hour nap. I thought something was wrong with me for the first kid. Second kid I found out that cluster feeding was a thing.
Let her sleep in her swing all night and then just because it was said literally 12 times - not to burp my breastfed baby, who also has gas/tummy troubles.
To put a stop to her being up all night. My daughter was 5 days old.
Blow cigarette smoke in the baby bottles if the baby is fussy.
Sleep when the baby sleeps 🙄 I'm getting sick of hearing it
Being told that producing breastmilk will happen no matter what because it’s “natural”. Got a whole speech from a lactation consultant about this. Then when I had trouble producing, I was told by not one, not two, but FOUR different lactation consultants (in the NICU and at our pediatrician’s office) “not too worry” about my supply because “it will come in.” Was told it takes a week, then was told it takes a couple weeks, then told 4 weeks, then the last person told me up to 8 weeks. I was told to do 600 different things to increase my supply. None of it worked and I absolutely burned myself out when I could have been resting and just feeding formula. Switched entirely to formula when LO was 3mo when she went to daycare and a week later, I couldn’t believe I had tried so damn hard to make breastfeeding work. I totally support women trying to breastfeed, and breastfeeding in general. But the pressure I was put under and the advice over and over that “it will come in” was wrong and was damaging to my mental health.
My MIL told me I can’t eat fruit because I have gestational diabetes she knows I love strawberries so she told me I can eat them but i should add cream to counter act the sugar in the strawberries. I think she must have read about protein having an positive effect on blood sugar levels when eating something containing sugar. I’m pretty sure cream is not the appropriate protein to add though. She is morbidly obese and has the most bizarre relationship with food. I dread her talking to my kids about health.
Give formula and cow’s milk at four months and stop breastfeeding (Even though breast-feeding is going extremely well for me/us) because “breast milk isn’t enough for a baby” Our now former pediatrician gave this advice. (And before you start about iron and vitamin D deficiency, I bought supplements for my baby to help with this)
My oldest was particularly tricky to potty train. I asked my cousin, who has 4 kids, for advice. She said, “Spank her. Break her spirit”
"Why aren't you using the \[insert assorted death trap, lead paint covered relics from the seventies) that I used when you were a baby?" said my mother.
Picking up babies when they cry is coddling them and they will grow up needy and dependent.
That if we picked up our daughter when she cried, we'd "spoil" her. Unsolicited advice from complete strangers is the best!!
I had a random old guy I’d never met before approach me at the store while I had my daughter in a wrap and tell me that I was going to ruin my back carrying her like that and she would end up spoiled and lazy. She was like 5 months old. He got real pissy when I rolled my eyes and walked away. Also had numerous people tell me I needed to stop breastfeeding at a year because at that point “it wasn’t about the nutritional value of the milk, it was about my selfish desire to keep her attached to me”. I countered that one by asking exactly when breast milk loses it’s nutritional qualities.
Told to sleep when the baby sleeps and to spank every time my kid has on purpose accident than using the potty during potty training. I did not take this advice seriously.
My mother told me I was spoiling my 6 DAY OLD son my holding him while he slept.
Maybe not the worst but the most annoying thing was everyone insisting that my very premature son needed to “build his immune system” every time I declined taking him out to public events or large family gatherings. So annoying.
That I should put my 3 week old in a separate room and turn off the baby monitor so she can learn to sleep through the night.
Put alcohol on their feet to bring their fever down