Things strangers say to you

[luua]

what a great thread! I love to vent.

I get the "is it a little bloke" comment when she's in pink from head to toe too. LOL

My IL are generally good but my MIL does drop lots of hints that she wants to spend more time with Ella. She says:
You dont know who i am do you?? (made to make me feel guilty)
I've bought a new travel cot but you've never tried it have you?
Why dont you two go out and i'll baby sit Ella (she's said this so often and cut out restaurant reviews so we can choose)

I also have the weird cultural things that the chinese community say like:
Shave her head - her hair will grow back nicer!!
Cut her eyelashes off and they will grow back nicer!
Dont hold her too much or she'll get use to it (ummm ok i'll distance myself from my baby)

it's crazy!

[taralee]

I cant believe what i am reading!!! what the hell is wrong with people! calling your granddaughter a b*tch, Cass!! thats unbelievable! if you haven't got anything nice to say then shut the f**k up!! if anyone dare speaks to my daughter like that they'll get a punch in the throat!
I must be one of the lucky ones too. IL's praise my parenting efforts! i'll bask in my own glory for a while longer!
My only advice to nasty IL's is just to smile at those comments, nothing irks people more than not getting a reaction.

[Pandora]

I have also had the gender issues - I haven't cut his hair yet (he'll be 14 months on Friday) and his hair is getting a tad long and is a touch wavy/curly in the back, but I dress him in obvious boy clothes yet I get people asking me if he is a girl!!

Me too. DS has not had a haircut yet either, and he is almost 17 months now. Just last week someone asked if he was a girl, and that was *after* I told them his name.

Still, I would prefer someone asked me if they were unsure, than to just go ahead and guess.

[KarenM]

I had a stranger say to me, "Oh this bit is easy. Just wait til she's 3."
Not the thing to say to a brand new sleep deprived mum. She had no idea of my circumstances or indeed if it as 'easy' or not. Rude.

[*charmalea*]

well I cant believe what some people say... and family can be worse... My aunty told me nixon maybe deaf because he didnt turn his head when she clapped. Mind you he was only about 12 weeks old in a crowded room with music on at a family party....

Some one also told me I was over feeding my son and "hes such a big baby, you must have him on solids" when he was 8 weeks old and fully breastfed !!

[visitor1]

1. What a cute lil man u have there......... (its a girl)...you sure, she looks like a boy

2. What is mummy/daddy doing to you to make u cry?

3. When was the last time you fed her?

4. You should really put her to bed earlier, she is a baby.

5. Why isnt she in a routine.

6. She should be eating solids by now, you started on them when you were a tiny baby?

Man 'advice' *****s me.... ill raise my child how i want.. dont tell me what to do!!

[Eugenia]

Thankfully I don't get too much 'advice', mainly just comments about her hair or how pretty she is. But the other day at the shops she was cranky cause she was tired and I had a complete stranger walk up to me and say she was fussing because she needed a nappy change. I just looked at her in astonishment and walked away, I couldn't trust myself to say anything remotely polite.

[Antheia]

I always get people asking if charlie is a girl and they get shocked when i say he's a boy. i hate it!

Someone i know keeps saying that he IS a girl because Charlie is a girls name. Aren't most Charlie's boys anyway?

One i've had from a stranger when he was in the hug-a-bub... "your cutting off the circulation to his legs" and started pulling on one of his legs! i couldn't believe it. His legs were perfectly fine too!

[Kirsten]

Looks like I've opened a can of worms here

My MIL used to tell me repeatedly that I should give him a bottle of formula as the last feed of the day so he sleeps all the way through.

He is exclusively breastfed and sleeps 9 hours a night and has done since he was about 5-6 weeks old - how much longer does she want him to sleep?

I also get people asking me how old he is and when I say 10 weeks I have had the response "Are you sure?" (he is quite big) Yeah, like I don't know how old my own son is!!

A friend in my mother's group has had people almost dive into her hug a bub and tell her that her baby "isn't able to breathe in there"

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

From strangers, I get them calling their friends over to admire the baby in sunglasses, but I have had a mini-lecture on BFing because, with a chest this size, I'm clearly using formula.

Guess what? You can be a B-cup and exclusively breastfeed!

Oh, and it's "just typical" when I say my son is perfect/good when asked. That doesn't mean he's sleeping through or easy to manage, just that I won't accept a baby can be bad or that my son is less than wonderful, no matter what he does (for the moment). But that's usually from women who see me back in clingy pre-preg clothes and are jealous as hell.

[Deejoy17]

Just on Friday I was out shopping with all 4 boys plus MIL, anyway here we were getting the P & T pram out for the boys, Matthew gets in the from then DSS#1 notices one tyre is flat, okay we can`t use the pram so out Matthew gets and I put the pram back into the car - all this time I noticed an older lady standing watching us, we then happened to walk pass this lady and she says to MIL "They don`t make prams how they use to, ours use to last for years" WTF it`s only a flat tyre, the pram wasn`t broken for good!!!!

So we then go into the supermarket, Adrian is sitting up in the trolley and MIL is pushing it, I`m up ahead with Matthew and DSS#1 & DSS#2 and notice another elderly woman is talking to MIL, Mil then comes up to me quite upset that this other woman siad to her" That baby has a really nasty cold, has he had lunch yet?" MIL said yes even though he hadn`t as she thought she was going to say he was hungry, the woman then replied "well he has wind, he`s blue around the mouth" Grrrrrrrrr.

Why can`t they mind their own business.....

[Fee]

I hate comments about putting Cooper on formula to help him sleep better. Also comments from people I barely know telling me Cooper must be hungry (when he is grizzly). As if they would know!?