Pieces of advice I'm tired of hearing/seeing even when they're not addressed to me

[ailbhe]

If you breastfeed exclusively, your period won't come back until you introduce solids.

If you can talk through them, they're not real contractions.

You mustn't [anything] while you're pregnant or breastfeeding.

It's ok never to sterilise bottle-feeding equipment (especially when it's said to someone seeking advice for a newborn).

You need to prepare your breasts for breastfeeding by [arcane and painful ritual].

You have to / must never attempt to set a routine for the baby.

I forget the rest, because it's hot and I'm very very pregnant today. And I have an NCT coffee social this afternoon with ONE attendee so far. And she has a bump, not a baby, which may well make it even harder to talk. I may scavenge some others up somehow.

Comments

try also...

[squishsplash.livejournal.com]

Birth is completely natural. Just go to a log cabin in the middle of nowhere all by yourself, where there is no chance of doctors interfering, and you will have the most beautiful experience!

You should only put on [sepcified weight] while pregnant.

Re: try also...

[ailbhe]

Anyone trying to talk to me about the beauty of natural birth gets the "tell it to the dead women" thing.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

If you breastfeed exclusively, your period won't come back until you introduce solids.

I read something interesting about this lately, which indicates the early resumption of sexual intercourse is correlated with your period returning.

[ailbhe]

So what's my excuse?!

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

Hormones?

It's one of the things correlated (as is cosleeping, frequency of breastfeeding, etc) but obviously not the only factor...

[ailbhe]

I've pretty much decided that my reason is "the universe hates me".

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

*sympathies*

I've been getting similarly fed up with misinformation on endometriosis. I think that next time it happens, I may have to leave that community for my own sanity (especially since the form in which the misinformation usually occurs implies that my diagnosis is mistaken and that I was deluding myself when I thought I could see the lesions my sonographer was showing me).

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

You need to prepare your breasts for breastfeeding by [arcane and painful ritual].


"To prepare your breasts, you must sacrifice a Kitten to the great god Thrackerzog, and stab your left foot with a sharpened fork!"

[ckd]

No, you must stab their left foot with a sharpened fork. That might actually cut down on the amount of unsolicited advice meddling.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

Annoying advice on PND "Just cheer up & you'll get over it"

[ailbhe]

"You have a healthy baby and that's what matters."

[clare-s.livejournal.com]

or "You have everything you could possibly want, why are you so down"

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

or "If you really loved your baby, you wouldn't feel like this"

...

[squishsplash.livejournal.com]

This strain is frightening...
My current varient on it (how could I have forgotten) is:

"Don't cry while pregnant. If you cry a lot while pregnant, your baby will experience it, and when baby is born, will be melancholly and cry a lot for no reason."

[jentifred.livejournal.com]

If you breastfeed exclusively, your period won't come back until you introduce solids.

Hey! No one told *my* Aunt Flo about that one!

If you can talk through them, they're not real contractions.

Huh. Then I guess I only had a couple of contractions with Liam.

You need to prepare your breasts for breastfeeding by [arcane and painful ritual].

Well, now that is true. If you consider pregnancy to be an arcane and painful ritual, that is.

Hugs.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

In my case, pregnancy is DEFINITELY an arcane and painful ritual.

[webhill.livejournal.com]

if you can talk through them, they're not real contractions.

Huh. Then I guess I only had a couple of contractions with Liam.

I had none, ever :) I mean, I was always able to at least say "motherfucking motherfucking fuck this fucking hurts, motherfucker!" or something :)

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I talked straight through delivery of both my children. Of course most of what I said was, "Dammit I hate this, make it stop!" and similar type grousing, but you couldn't shut me up.

I admit we didn't sterilize bottle equipment with either kid, though. Didn't seem to hurt them any, though I wouldn't recommend it. (We were running them through the dishwasher, though, which heats pretty damn thoroughly; it probably passed for the purpose.)

[surelars.livejournal.com]

Oh, the endless parade of "experts" on anything-to-do-with-children. There's no end to the absolutely-essential-advice that some people just have to give to parents. And, hey - I have a child, so I'm an expert too. I found something that worked for my child in situation X, and surely that will work for all children, in even remotely similar situations.

What really baffled me was when complete strangers who happened to stand next to me in the supermarket offered advice on whatever.

But take heart; while it never goes away completely, it drops to a much more manageable level after the first 12 months.

[ailbhe]

My daughter is 2 and a quarter. People still assume I need advice on the management of my bump.

[surelars.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. That's taking it far too long. I remember considering a T-shirt saying "I know how to ask for help when I need it". Probably would not have helped, though.

Hopefully, being a woman you're at least spared the truly patronizing you-clearly-have-no-idea-what-you're-doing "advice". I once had a little old lady in the street explaining the correct procedure for pushing a baby carriage about.

[ailbhe]

Our experience is that men are assumed to be doing it "wrong" from sweet ignorance, and get kind "it might help if you do it this way" advice. Women get rather nasty "Don't you know you should do THIS?!" advice. The content of the advice is the same.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

This hasn't happened to me yet, but I see it all the time. Mother lets off steam about a tough evening/night with baby/toddler/child. Instant reaction - 'oh, you need a bedtime routine.' Because people with bedtime routines never ever have tough evenings! It's the cure for everything! And having a fractous baby on a particular evening is evidence that you must not have a routine.

[ailbhe]

Or swaddling, or a bit of rice in his bottle...

[barakta]

My mum's cousin is a medical doctor, she was GP by the time she planned to have kids. She believed the 'breastfeeding == contraceptive effect' thing. She got such a shock when she got pregnant with baby number 2 about 3 months after baby number 1 was born... Admittedly this was in the 70s, but meep!

[ailbhe]

The ins and outs of breastfeeding are still not taught in standard medical school. I've met GPs who thought that breastmilk was "a milky drink" that might upset the baby's stomach, or that it was impossible for what I ate to affect the child through my milk. That the contraceptive semi-myth was believed by a GP is extremely easy to believe.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

Mostly agree, but what have you against "it's OK never to sterilise bottle-feeding equipment", assuming that (as usual IME) it's followed by "just put it in a hot dishwasher cycle"? Don't think the infant food poisoning rates are much higher in the US, where hardly anybody seems to sterilise, than here, are they?

[ailbhe]

IME it's followed by "just run it through the dishwasher" without any mention of "on the hottest cycle" and that's NOT adequate for teats even if it might be for bottles. (And according to online news, infant illness rates are higher in the US than in the UK but I couldn't point at figures right now since I can't remember which US news site had the info).

[squishsplash.livejournal.com]

The infant mortality rate (https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html) is one crude reference.