Best advice / Worst Advice

[BellyBelly]

What is the best & worst advice you have received from others while you had a newborn?

If you would like to share your best and worst advice (one each), please post below

[AnyDream]

Best advice: It is NORMAL for a baby to have an unsettled time each day and an unsettled day a week. Often it's tiredness. You will get through and the next day they will be OK again!

Worst advice: "That (breastfeeding) is disgusting. Why can't you put her on a bottle like everyone else?" (thanks to my DAD who was promptly told to crawl back under his rock)!

[SSmiles]

Here's mine

Best advice was: do what you feel is right/what works for you and the baby
Worst advice was: flying/travelling with a newborn is easy (not true in our case)

[hannanat]

Best - wear your baby.

Worst - Let your baby cry itself to sleep. And wearing your baby will 'spoil' him. I hate that one.

[Olive]

best: putting baby to bed awake
this is not really bad advise more just ignorance
worst: your using cloth and not going back to work!

[Mumma2three]

Worst Advice: Your baby should be sleeping through by 6 weeks.
Best advice: Your baby will NOT be sleeping through by 6 weeks necessarily and that is perfectly normal!!!
xo

[kmh]

Best advice: cuddles does not spoil them, let them breath and smell you, as they have been apart of you for the last 9 months

Worst advice: that switching to bottle feeding will help them sleep at night, also when are you going back to work.

[shellbell3]

Worst advice: Don't cuddle them too much or feed them to sleep cause your creating bad habits and will spoil your bub.

Best advice: To do whatever works for you and your baby that will keep you both happy and sane!

[Kirsty77]

Best: let your baby led you and let you know when their hungry, tired etc.

Worst: That because your baby is bottle fed it should be sleeping through by 6wks.

[lilprecious75]

Best Advice: (from my dad no less) - take him to bed with you and get some sleep, also several people told me to "do what works"

Worst Advice: Don't hold him so much, after all, he is out of the womb now and needs to get used to it!

[Janie]

Oh, I'm loving this! What a good idea Kelly!

[sonya1]

this is a great chat!!!

BEST: do what YOU feel is right and never be afraid to ask for help

WORST: dont pick bubs up too much as you will spoil them... what a crock!!

[ShootingStar]

Best Advice: Try formula
Worst Advice: Dip his dummy in alcohol to calm him (Um i dont think so!)

[tiggy]

Best advice; Listen to all the advice given to you, be polite and respect each word of wisdom but only take on board what you think will work for you and your babie/s

Worst advice; rub lemon on the gums of teething babies to bring the teeth through quickly!

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Worst: any advice that ends with "if you don't do this you'll kill your baby" or words to that effect. Had this in hospital on day 2 (I'm starving him and if I don't top him up I'll kill him so the evil midwife will take him away and do it anyway) and from my mum (on co-sleeping, which in the first week was the only way to get any sleep at night).

Best: from my DH, just reassurance that even though Liebling is crying and we don't know why, that I'm a fantastic mother and doing the best for him. It really keeps me going if he's really unsettled and he never tells me what to do or informs me he'll just take over, as my mother did. It's also fab we both think Liebling is more important than housework (although the house is kept clean).

Most stupid (had to put these in, advice that is just stupid and isn't even worth mentioning that I'm ignoring it!): from my mum, that DH should "get over himself". He suffers from anxiety, made worse through lack of sleep, so no, I don't expect him to sleep with me when we're still getting up all night, nor do I expect him to keep getting me drinks all night, I can just sleep with a couple of pints of water next to the bed. Neither of us like it, but it's better he sleeps on a camp bed in the nursery for now. And from DH - that although he was stopping with his parents for a bit while my mum was staying, he wasn't going to leave me. The thought hadn't crossed my mind until then!

[Lulu]

Yeah - I think we will have to add a Most Stupid category too.

Best: Do whatever works.
Worst: Give baby water when he wakes through the night from 6 weeks to get him to sleep through.
Stupid: You must drink milk to produce enough to breastfeed.

Although the worst one could also be the most stupid too...

[johT]

worse - feed,play,sleep or any 'routine'- (its play, feed to sleep!:P)
best - follow your instincts and meet your babies needs.

[Anna**]

The Worst: Ohhhh, your baby has teeth, time to wean him off the breast.

The Best: My Mum said this one only the other day "Tell everyone to shove off that say you need to wean from the breast when teeth arrive, I fed you when you had a gob full of sharp toothy pegs with no problems" (not bad from a Mum raising a kid in the 70's when so many others were bottle feeding!)