While we’re waiting for BabyZRX to arrive, maybe we should share some useful parenting tips with AndrewZRX and SharonZRX. Now’s as good a time as any for them to start getting used to unsolicited parenting advice.
For starters, Andrew and Sharon, you should put a hat on that baby.
This was the single most frequent piece of advice I was given by complete strangers when my son was a baby, and I’m happy to share it with you. I don’t care if there’s a heat wave and people are melting into steaming sticky puddles all over the streets, you should have a hat on that baby. Even if your pediatrician peels 13 layers of clothing off your baby in order to diagnose his prickly heat rash and then submerses him in a vat of cool water to prevent him from spontaneously combusting, you should put a hat on that baby.
And strangers always say it that way too: You should put a hat on THAT baby. In case you’re just confused and have been putting all your hats on some other baby.
So what’s your favourite piece of unsolicited parenting advice?
“Put that baby down!” / “Is she comphy like that?”
… I was always fond of my sling (so fond I started making them :p) – especially once there were 2 kids, and people were always prodding the sling (and the baby) and telling me how strange/wrong it was to carry her all the time / she can’t be comphy etc.
One woman got a flash of boob because she walked up to me, and pulled down the side of the sling “to see what was inside! I thought it was a doggie!” … Riiiight
(The hat thing is important. Never un-hat your child. A gaggle of women will attack you!)
oh yeah, that hat thing, the comfy sling thing, I got both of those.
also was told not to take the baby OUT for the first six weeks!
I like the baby instructions. I’m going to print them all off for my niece.
I can’t remember the actual advice given by people, but I do remember asking them to mind their own business.
You’ll smother him in there! He’s going to loose circulation to his legs in there! “omg there’s a baby in there!” what? qwould be less surprised by a cat or dog? with regards to the sling…the hat thing…the 6 weeks thing (luckily I had a translator with me – those admonishments were offered in chinese with much frowning and clucking)
and
you’ll never get them out of bed if you let them sleep with you … with regards to letting the baby sleep with me…
and new bizarreness from my hospital experience – weigh the baby before and after he eats to see if he is getting enough – ummm listen for swallowing, check for pee and poop, and if he can regurgitate a half gallon of spit up onto your shoulder 10 minutes later … he’s getting enough.
Oh and this may well have been good advise that I never heeded – “you should keep the placenta in something other than an ice cream container you know!”
Actually I DID heed that one and regretted it – I moved Sam’s placenta to Nova Scotia in the non descript container the hospital returned it to me in – it is the only time I’ve had a leaking container!
Oh the people who insist that you’ll never get them out of your bed once you let them in… I remember asking one woman who said that co-sleeping was one of her biggest pet peeves (and seriously I don’t understand how what someone else does in their bedroom at night can possibly make someone peevish — it’s not like they’re not saying thank you when you hold the door open for them) – oh is that what happened to you? And she replied huffily, ‘Well no! I NEVER let my kids in bed with me!” So how would she know?!?
My other favourite was put water in a bottle – that will get him to sleep through the night.
The best good advice I got was to trust my instincts because nobody knows my baby better than me…
I was told (by my sister- and mother-in-law) that I should stop breastfeeding; that my milk was obviously poisoning my baby. (She had gas that day.)
Amazing that we survived as a species before hats, formula, cribs, and strollers huh?
Don’t sweat it.
I was crying from laughing so hard at those Dos and Don’ts. I like the one with the lady wiping the baby’s bum with her skirt! I had to do that once. Better a sh**y skirt than diaper rash. Desperate times. Advice? I got the “hat” thing a lot…from my mother…in fact I think it may be my mother who has said it to all of you. It is her personal mission in life to hat the unhatted babies of the world. She’ll find you. Watch out! My favourite one is for toddlers. You shouldn’t say “no” to a toddler. You should “how about we do “…” instead. This was said to me as I was shrieking “No” and running toward him to save him from some calamity (say, running into traffic). Right, next time, don’t say “no”. Got it.
From my ex-mother-in-law: look his[my now 31 year old son’s] ears are stuck down to his head-you need to pull them away from his head.
Did she seriously think I wanted the baby to have jug handles? What was she thinking?
I’m just a mother-in-law and obviously don’t know anything about babies, so I wouldn’t dream of offering advice
The burly, close to retirement Police Sergeant, heavy duty chain-smoker – this bloke never failed to reprimand me for my (then a baby) son’s devotion to his thumb.
Until the day I told the cop that I was allowing the child to satisfy his sucking instincts, in the hope that he would not need to take up smoking in later life…………
Well, it worked, didn’t it – Erich is a 42 yo non-smoker.
The best bad advice? A little old lady came up in the grocery store and scolded me for not have socks on my daughter in August. I also got in trouble for keeping her in bed with me from lots of people. Breastfeeding was going to turn my son into a mama’s boy. Giving banana as a first food was going to ensure he’d never eat a veggie in his life. When my daughter started to fuss in her exersaucer, a relative told me not to pick her up, “because she only wants attention.” She wasn’t clear as to why attention is a bad thing. Oh, and my breastmilk had been watered down after having two children, which is why the third grew more slowly (this from a friend who is a family doctor!)
Good advice: let go of needing to be on top of the laundry and general housecleaning, because it really is true that when they are older you’ll never wish you spent more time cleaning the kitchen floor, but you might wish you’d spent more time playing with your baby.
You can’t spoil a infant. But toddlers are wild animals who cannot be reasoned with and who need to be forced to be socialized.
You know your baby best.
And my favourite bit of wisdom: cloth diapers or disposable, breast or formula, co-sleeping or in a crib, pacificer or not, they all grow up, turn 17 and steal your car keys.