Best/Worst Advice on Raising Kids

[Astrid]

Worst Advice from MIL - "You only need to breastfeed 6 weeks" as if.
Worst Advice to DH from MIL "Don't listen to her, she is hormonal and stupid"

Worst advice from book - "Accept all offers of help" should have read "accept all positive offers of help". The help I received came with loads of bad advice (see above for examples), I would rather had not had it.

Best Advice - same as some of the others, sleep when the baby sleeps.

[Krisvee]

There are so many people that don't have a clue - the scary thing is when they've got kids!hehe.

Worst advice - Mostly from my mum/sister who made me feel horrible because he didn't sleep well and their solution was to give him food and formula. This was from about 3m old...Neither of them b/f for long and gave up as soon as they had the first dip in milk supply. Proud to say that I'm still bf and didn't listen to them (which was very hard as I was very unsure of myself)
Now that I'm p/g again they are still at me saying well shouldn't I be stopping now because Louis won't like it etc. They basically are in the school of thought that it's disgusting to bf past about 6m...so stupid!!!!!
Other bad advice - letting him scream to sleep as a small baby, don't hold him too much or he'll get clingy etc etc

I truly think I've had more bad advice than good and pretty much any good/positive advice has been from this site!! So thanks everyone!!

[mumofbundlezofjoy]

I had a stranger tell me in safeways, that rubbing my pg belly meant I would have to pat the baby to sleep "forever" so NEVER rub your tummy

[Krisvee]

Vanita - How crazy is that!!!! As if you're not going to rub your tummy when there's a beautiful bubba in there!

[EllyBoo72]

I hate reciveing advice from people, about raising children, who dont have kids of their own!!!

[bon]

The worst advice I got was from a midwife after I had Harry. He was 1 day old and she told me that the reason he was crying and unsettled was because he was being held too much and I need to put him in his bassinet and leave him alone!

[Kellee]

OMG - there have been some doozies in here!

The best advice I have ever read was in a Kaz Cooke book, and it went something along the lines of this...

When you can't figure out why your newborn cries, remember that everything is new to him - the feeling of clothes against his skin, digesting milk, breathing... it's like us being thrown onto a brand new planet where we have no idea what's going on. So no wonder he's upset!

This advice really stuck in my head for the first few weeks until the crying abated! I think if I had read that it would have been easier the first time around. Sometimes babies are going to cry and you won't ever know why. Best to just give them lots of cuddles to get them through.

Great thread, girls!

[Debbie Lee]

I have to agree with everyone about the good advice. In those first few hellish months, I ended up just going with the flow and it all kind of fell into place....

I can't think of any completely horrible advice that I have been given?? I must have escaped the busy-bodies somehow! LOL

[Tracey]

My Best advice was... "YOU do what YOU think, it's YOUR baby!"

Bad advice would be...: I also got told that rubbing my belly whilst preg would mean the baby wouldnt self settle & would need patting to sleep!

But the worst advice at all is any advice from anyone else other than DP/DH!
I cant stand ppl telling me what to do & when they do I rebel big time!!!

[Naomi]

The strangest advice i have been given was by MIL, she told me to boost my milk supply, i had to drink Milo!!!
She was so sure this would work that she went out and bought me 2 huge tins of it
Safe to say, it did nothing for my milk supply, but at least i didn't need to buy it for a while

[BellyBelly]

Can you share both the best advice and worst advice you were given?

[MummyOfTerrors]

bad advice - you both didnt die SIDS
we changed to grobags from swaddling and our parents told us we were wasting our money as we didnt die in our sleep WTF???? after awhile we gave up trying to explain that while we didnt die, many babies did and we are trying to reduce our childrens risk!

all newborns/babies must be washed at least once day! (MIL)
well 1 my son cat napped so while he was sleeping i was trying to
2 his got bad skin and bathing would flare it up
3 he didnt move today and i washed his bum!

i recieved some shocking bad advice

my mum was told by her mum to prepare her nipples for BF before i was born by scrubbing them with steel wool! (my mum didnt dare)

good advice a midwife gave me for engorged boobs was fill 2 disposable nappies with water and freeze them and apply to boobs when hot and painful and then refreeze (cabbage leaves are good but dont last she said)

[little_mrs]

I was told by one of my nurses in hospital just after I had G to not give her anything except breastmilk straight from the boob until she's 6 months old. Umm no lady, I need her to take a bottle of ebm for when I'm not there and it's not gonna hurt her, she's still getting fed.

But that same nurse told me to fill condoms with a little bit of water and freeze them, then when the hoohah stitches were feeling a bit on the rough side to break open a maternity pad and put the frozen condom inside it, then into the undies. THAT my friends, was some GOOD advice!

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

All from my wonderful mother. She didn't let up once Liebling was here.

"You can't co-sleep, it just isn't safe and you'll kill Liebling."
"You mustn't breast-feed on demand, it's ridiculous, he doesn't need it and you'll kill yourself."
"Cloth nappies are too much hard work." (Walking to the shops in the rain is harder: cloth means I always have nappies in the house.)
"He's not sleeping through [at 8w old]? You must be doing something wrong. My mother was good with babies, she had all hers sleeping through at 5w. What are you doing that's so wrong?"
"You must be so uncomfortable in that sling, take it off at once."
She also thought me avoiding caffeine whilst BFing was stupid: I have seen my child post-caffeine and he is hypersensitive. Or was, not sure about now but don't want to find out the hard way.

I did stop talking to her when Liebs was about 4m old until she promised to stop it. So she just doesn't say it to me now.