Foolish Advice
– I am pregnant!
– Oh no, here they come, all the absurd and unsolicited advice!
Now everyone seems to be an expert (including those who have never had children, nor plan to have).
One of those absurd tips that people never get tire of repeating is “Sleep Now! When the baby arrives you will not know what sleep is”. There was nothing I hated more than hearing people say that to me over and over again.
I mean, it’s not like I can accumulate “sleep miles”.
Along with that, there are those who feel the need to tell you how to sit, what to eat, what to do or say.
And the worst part is that they don’t end up there. When the baby is born, everyone has something to say and they are often offended when you don’t follow those tips to the letter. Because come on, everyone knows how to take care of your baby better than you (yes, even those who don’t have children).
Apart from the “sleep now”, one of the first foolish advice I received was that I should not cross my legs or I would “cut off” the oxygen to the baby. I remember I was having coffee and almost spit it out.
I swear I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!
When the baby came, they told me if I was going to breastfeed him I couldn’t eat rice because he was going to choke (I kept imagining a grain of rice coming out of my nipple).
They also told me I couldn’t eat grains, raw meats or drink soda because that would cause colic to the baby.
Another tip I remember was that I had to cover my chest so my milk wouldn’t cut off. We were in the middle of summer when my baby was born and they wanted me to walk around in a sweater and hood all the time.
Do not use the oven, do not iron, do not pass the broom, do not use the dryer, and who knows what else. (I mean, if someone offered to pass the broom in my house I wouldn’t refuse).
Then we have those telling you not to carry the baby because you’ll spoil them. Or to let them cry, “their lungs need to mature”.
Put chamomile or cereal in they milk so they sleep better or a little bit of rum on his gums when teeth are coming out. – Hey, that works, because theirs slept all night!
Keep the baby awake longer so that they sleeps better at night.
Others tell you that you don’t have enough milk or that after a while your milk doesn’t feed them enough. And if you’re breastfeeding after the year… well:
– But, woman, take that tit off now!
And as they get older, there are tips on how to raise them.
My favorite, no doubt, is “a smack in time”. – Because it’s okay to hit the child who is learning how to deal with their emotions and behave in society.
Okay, I get that many of these tips more than absurd are obsolete and I’m sure they worked very well for the grannies, but do not get mad when we, as parents, decided not to follow them. Just because you did it 20-30-40 years ago with your kids and they survived, does not mean that it’s okay to keep doing it nowadays. Even when it was fine five years ago, it may not be today.
I will take a short pause here and clarify that not all of these tips come from grannies, to my surprise, many of these tips came from women who were pregnant and/or had just had a baby.
Have you been given any advice like those?
Leave it in the comments, I’d love to read you.
