What is the Weirdest Drive-By Parenting Advice You've Ever Received?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 11:35AM
First: Visit “That Baby Looks Cold.”
Second: Write up the weirdest parenting, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, formula feeding, infant care, discipline or new mom advice bomb ever dropped on you by a stranger.
Third: I don’t really have a third. But it would probably be polite to say “Submit your tale of weirdness to That Baby Looks Cold” so I can’t be accused of hogging all of the cringe-worthy entertainment.
I have nothing to do with the TBLC site, by the way. I just think it’s hilarious because I apparently walked around with “INCOMPETENT MOTHER” tattooed on my forehead for at least five or six months. I wanted to add to the tattoo “…WHO KNOWS ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT HER BABY DOES NOT NEED A HAT TO KEEP WARM ON THIS 95 DEGREE SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON THANK YOU VERY MUCH.”
There is a book called “Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads
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Reader Comments (52)
I was told that to fix my baby's day/night confusion, I should turn him upside down, then turn him right side up really fast, and that would reset his internal clock. I was like, thanks! But I think I'll pass on that.
Today, the check-out girl at the 7-11 in my office building told me that I would have a brain-damaged baby because I was buying a diet caffeine free Coke. I pointed out that it had no caffeine in it, and that I didn't think that brain damage would be the result if it did. She insisted that I was hurting my baby. (BTW: I have about one of these a month because I loved diet Coke before becoming pregnant, and find it to be a treat). I kept my cool, and got her to sell it to me, but it was weird.
When my son was a baby he had really bad eczema. We were traveling with husband for his job and staying at a hotel where this lady came up to me and told me it was easy to heal my son's skin. She told me when changing a wet diaper that I needed to wipe the pee on my son's face and that would cure his skin problems. I just smiled, said 'uh huh' and walked away.
I went back to work 8 months after my daughter was born and and chose a daycare just 5 minutes walk from my office. She's 11 months now, I am still breastfeeding her and I stop by during lunchtime to nurse (my cub refuses all bottles so pumping milk doesn't work for us). At the beginning, when we just started, one other Mom saw my daughter crying as I was leaving and said that my baby is really attached to me (I decided to take that as a compliment) and that I should stop breastfeeding because it would let her get used to daycare faster!!!
My daughter was a week old and I was taking her to visit the pediatrician. We lived in a city and had no car so I put her in a front pack and walked her the few blocks to the peds office. On the way a nosy old lady first asked me if I was carrying a doll. "Um. No, not a doll. She's my daughter." Then when she was convinced that I was indeed carrying a real live child, she said to me, "Don't worry, she'll grow."
I think I just walked away dumbfounded.
A friend of mine was recently informed that her 9-month-old son will be illiterate because he doesn't crawl on all fours (he scootches around on his bottom instead to get around)
Gosh, I think I may have blocked the really crazy stuff from when I had my first baby. Now when people say, "oh, is this going to be your first baby?" I say, "no, fifth," and they pretty much walk away with mouths hanging open, having forgotten to offer whatever advice they had in mind. Kind of handy, actually.
That book looks fun too. I'm ready to have this third baby any day now and luckily haven't snapped to bad at anyone with all the "you're having twins" "you're HUGE" comments. Although that is not really parenting advice just bothersome !
The most annoying parenting junk I get right now is people insisting that we should just eat like everyone else even though my second child is dairy allergic. It just seems unfathomable to some people that
A. we figured this out with out a docotor or a test (so it must not be 'real')
B. Whatever the official diagnosis is giving my child a cup of milk is never worth the hours of screaming and pain he has to deal with when he gets some. (FOR ANY OF US)
But "Where is he getting his calcium" "He must be malnourished" "It is not dairy, it is the almond milk you give him" "Give him some and see if he grew out of it" etc etc etc........ Ugh
When I was in my hospital after having my first daughter, she was in the nursery (I can't recall at the moment why she was there, it was the second night after my first cesarean so I should have been able to room in with her by then) It had been nearly 4 hours since I had fed her, so I rang the nurse to ask if she could bring her to me and she said that "newborns can go up to 6 hours between feedings" and that I should sleep. Wonder if the problems I had breastfeeding can partly be attributed to that?
Random people all the time: "You shouldn't have had your children so close together!" (They are almost 14 months apart) Really? It would have just been easier if you would have said: "your children are screaming and out of control and you look like you are going to lose it lady!"
I think Be Prepared is my favorite advice book ever. The first couple of pages alone are worth the price.
The wackiest thing anyone said to me was when I was pregnant. I was at work and we were all eating lunch together in the break room. I stood up to go back to my desk and stretched with my arms over my head. One of my co-workers shrieked, "What are you doing?! You could strangle your baby in the umbilical cord if you lift your arms above your head!" She was dead serious, and I was so terrified by her tone that I spent the next 4 months with my arms at my side. I thought she was crazy, but what if, you know?
carrying my daughter in the ring sling... "you know they had a recall of those. you're going to smother your kid and kill it."
or "you're too young to have 3 kids!" really?? i've known younger moms than me to have more than me.
OH and i've had people ask me if I knew was birth control was. I said "yeah, but sex is so much FUN." cause if they're going to have the gall to ask that, then i will embarrass them when i can.
I had a lot of weird interactions at Arundel Mills Mall in Maryland with my first daughter. One night I was walking the mall (it was winter and I was trying to lose my PPD) and this very young teenager approached me. She reached out to take my baby from my arms (I was sitting with her in my arms) saying, "Let me hold your baby".
Yikes!
I think I said, "No" and ran off to find my husband.
Airplane travel with babies and preschoolers is always bound to bring out the best and worst in people. Unfortunately, it tends to bring out the worst in the other strangers on the plane when your child is "that child" who starts acting up. We flew with our two children, ages 3 and a 1/2 and 18 months, on a ten hour flight to Europe. It was a nighttime flight, and even though we had purchased seats for both of our children, we got to a point in the evening when our eighteen month old son was JUST. NOT. HAPPY. He wanted to be at home, in his own bed, and nothing else would satisfy him. He had eaten his dinner, he had eaten some snack, he had access to more snacks or a drink and had waved them away while crying inconsolably. He didn't have a soiled diaper, he just did not want to BE THERE ANY MORE.
My husband and I were taking turns trying to get him to calm down and go to sleep, when a well-meaning but probably somewhat annoyed older woman came over. She said to my husband, "I think he's hungry dear." My husband assured her that no, he was indeed not hungry, he was just tired and needed to go to sleep. (Go figure, 11 pm, four hours past the kid's bedtime...you think he was tired?). She came back ten minutes later insisting that he was either hungry or thirsty, and continued this behavior for an hour while my husband and I alternated trying to calm him down enough so that he would go to sleep. She proceeded to offer to share some of her snacks (we had plenty, and they were inappropriate for him at his age) and offered her water bottle. While I appreciate the gesture, it took all my effort to refrain from smacking her while I jiggled my crying child, whom SHE WOKE with her pestering!
Our son did fall asleep on that flight, finally, after about 2 hours of screaming/crying. My husband and I each had a bottle of wine (the little ones). After a flight delay for our connecting flight, some espresso, and bags the size of Cleveland under our eyes, we mutually agreed to never fly anywhere with a child under the age of 2 ever again, so help us God.
I have posted on That Baby Looks Cold ("Busted at the Bus Stop"). In a similar spirit to "birth circles", I think this blog was a wonderful idea. I commend Farah on taking the initiative to start it up!
I asked for advice about weaning my 14-month-old from his pacifier. A woman told me that I should be less worried about the pacifier and more worried about eh psychological damage I was doing by still nursing him. I got a lengthy lecture - from a woman who didn't bother to breastfeed her own children - about how I was sick for wanting the bonding more than his health, didn't I know there's no reason to nurse after 12 months? and if I really thought it was good for him, he should be using a sippy cup by now, I could pump and put it in a cup for him, etc...When I countered with evidence and statistics, she said I was obsessed and she felt sorry for my children!
Ok, I have two stories, but they don't *exactly* fit. (The first one is more rude than weird, and the second wasn't advice.) But I'm gonna tell you anyway, LOL.
One of the rudest comments I've gotten from a stranger was a guy working at the Renaissance Festival who tried like hell to convince me that my children would HATE me for having such a big family when they grow up. Apparently he was the oldest of 8 and didn't like it, and he would not accept my assurances that *my* oldest absolutely adores having so many younger brothers and sisters, and wants us to have more! I was trying to take photos of my kids on the ride he was operating, and I had to walk around to the other side to get away from him.
One of the weirdest comments I've ever received was when we lived in Phoenix and a neighbor (who I had never met before) asked if my then 3 year old and then 2 year old were twins. My 3 year old was almost TWICE the size of his younger brother, and the older has straight hair while the younger has curls. They look hardly ANYTHING alike!! (At first I thought she was talking about my oldest two kids, who are only ten months apart and were both 7 at the time. But no, she had no idea *why* I'd think she thought *they* were twins.)
BTW, mommymichael, I can't count how many times people have asked me if I've ever heard of birth control. I've taken to "warning" them in a conspiratorial whisper that "birth control keeps you from getting pregnant!" Usually they laugh and don't know what to say to that, so they leave me alone. ;)
Oh boy, these are great in an awful can't-look-away-from-the-crash-scene way.
I am flying to Europe with a 3 yo and a 12 month old. By myself. In just a few weeks. Eek.
i've flown to texas (from the north east) with an almost 3 yr old and a 17 month old. AND I was pregnant. Yeah. that was fun. I always get the "oh you must have your hands full!!" I reply "oh, just a little. nothing i can't handle". lol