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Sunday Morning Coffee Talk
  • [Deleted User]
    Posts: 1,430
    I will pay someone to get my DD to sleep past 6am. I am going to lose my mind.


    Anyways, good morning ladies- I am desperate for some ~O) this morning.

    Topic on the coffee table: parenting advice.


    Question on the coffee table: what is the best/worst parenting advice you have ever gotten, and what is one piece of advice you would pass on!?
  • OpheliaOphelia
    Posts: 3,275Member
    Worst: "oh, she doesn't listen? Beat her ass, she'll learn."

    Best: "pick your battles."

    I've passed on pick your battles.
    Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.. -Grateful Dead<3
  • LesboMomLesboMom
    Posts: 2,875Confessional Manager
    Morning. I am tired of waking up early on Sunday mornings, too. They are supposed to be the day we sleep in. *YAAAAAWN* 

    I don't know about the worst advice I was ever given, but the thing I hate to HEAR from people the most is, "it's just a phase - this too will pass" UGH! Makes me want to pull my hair out one by one!!!!

    Best: Talk to your kids from day one. This one I love. And I have done. We had a long car ride home when Munchkin was an infant and I would talk to her all the way home, telling her about my day and such. 

    Pass on: Try not to make it to where your child has to have complete silence to sleep. I played music loud, I vacumed, I cooked....I made noise so that I didn't have to tip toe around every time she was napping. 

    confessional-manager

    Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow. -- Helen Keller
  • ZidashaZidasha
    Posts: 830Member
    Hmmm...Worst advice, never yell at your kids and (for the toddlers) they don't understand so you have to be easy on them.  All I say is, have you met my boys?  They sure as hell understand and the little suckers do these things on purpose right down to flat out ignoring me.

    Best advice,  Talk to your kids.  I've gotten a lot of strange looks from people when doing this with my boys when they were infants.

    Advice I like to give, As @lesbomom said, NEVER tip toe around the house with a sleeping infant.  Until they get too big my boys would take naps on the couch in the middle of all the noise and I too blast my music at night and make no effort to keep quiet.

    Another bit of advice would be, no matter how mad you are at your kids, how horrible the day was never let them go to bed without saying I love you and giving them hugs and kisses.
    "I have a theory that placenta is brain matter I push out, so with each child I get dumber and dumber." ~ Unknown

  • tothemoonandbacktothemoonandback
    Posts: 2,129Member
    Good morning!

    Best advice: Cheesy but sweet "You can't hold a baby too much".  Is that why my 2.5 y/o still asks me to hold him?  I think I'll hold him as long as he lets me :o).  "Pick your battles" is a practical favorite.. every minute of the day.
    Worst advice:  This came from my creepy MIL who has a serious Munchausen's history with her own children (in my opinion): "You have to stretch out your son's anus every day so he'll poop better" along with diagrams of muscles/etc.  Fucking psycho.  She is never ever alone with my kid.
    Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. - Marilyn Monroe
  • MarySunshineMarySunshine
    Posts: 5,412Member
    Morning! What's this sleeping in business of which you speak? LOL

    I'm not a coffee drinker, but my asswill be sipping a diet coke as soon as I can put sleeping baby down w/out him waking up.

    Best Advice: as the others have mentioned...pick and choose your battles. Hell, that's good advice for life in general.

    Worst Advice: "Oh I think he'll be fine taking his nap in his t shirt and diaper."- my mom
    Yeah, ok. DS was almost two...kid shit in his diaper, pulled it off, threw it out of the crib (thankfully it was turds and not anything else) and then peed out the side of the crib. NEVER AGAIN.

    Advice I've given: Kiddo will not potty train a second before they're ready to. You can encourage them and all, but they will not piss or shit in the toilet or training potty until they're ready (aka pick an dchoose your battles lol).
    I'm as sexy as a burp mid-kiss. Watch out!

  • BellaBefanaBellaBefana
    Posts: 8,150Member

    ooooo, good one:  worst received:  sleep when the baby sleeps.  What a crock of shit.  I would have starved, stunk, and needed a diaper if I'd done that.  It worked maybe the first day or two home from the hospital.


    best given:  never say "never" you'll eat those words pretty much every time.

    Bite me, cupcake!
  • BellaBefanaBellaBefana
    Posts: 8,150Member
    best:  quit worrying about the bottle, potty training, etc. kid won't go to school in diapers and won't go down the aisle dragging a bottle
    Bite me, cupcake!
  • pennypenny
    Posts: 795Member
    Best: You can't spoil a baby by comforting it when it's crying.

    Given: You know your kid best. Don't force them to do something they're not ready for - potty, swimming, what have you - just because other people (or even you) expect it of kids their age.

    Worst: Anything involving cry-it-out for less than 1yo's. Um, no, I want my kid to know I will be there when he needs me to be.
  • canadamom
    Posts: 876Member
    Best advice - Don't wake a sleeping baby for anything!!  - told to me by the Labor and Delivery nurse with my first as I was worried she hadn't woken up on schedule for her next feeding.  They won't starve themselves and she will wake up when she is hungry.

    Worst advice - Put honey on her soother to help calm her down - NO, I am not putting unpasturized honey on my kid's soother and I am not going to teach her that sweet things mean comfort and soothing or that will just set her up to use food as means of stress releif when she is older - way to encourage a weight problem from the get go!
  • canadamom
    Posts: 876Member
    @Chocoholic - I feel your pain - my DS never slept past 5:30 am until he started school - didn't matter what time we put him to bed the night before.  It was heaven when he was old enough to be trusted to get up and just turn on the tv for awhile by himself - which was about 3 - so we could sleep unitl at least 7am when his hungry tummy would have him coming to get us to feed him.

    We left the tv on a kids channel before we went to bed so all he had to do was turn the power on.
  • BellaBefanaBellaBefana
    Posts: 8,150Member
    hey, that's a great idea, @canadamom!  I'll have to remember that one!
    Bite me, cupcake!
  • lindade
    Posts: 66Member
    Best advice I ever got was do not have children until you're ready. Well I'm 32 years old and have not had any. I think that when I'm around 40 I'll adopt a toddler of around 5 and that way I will satisfy my mothering instincts (I'm not sure I have any).
  • ImWendyImWendy
    Posts: 6,562Member
    Best: don't force them to clean their plate or eat if they're not hungry. Let them listen to their bodies for food, sleep, play, etc.

    Worst: As always, "if you'd beat his ass more he wouldn't act that way." Yeah, not only do I not want to break my kids spirits, with the boys, a spanking makes them worse!

    What I pass on: You don't have to be a perfect mother. You only have to love them and teach them to be good adults. Also, don't try to control the child. Instead, control the situation.

    @chocoholic Can you try a later bed time?
    deus ex machina
  • BellaBefanaBellaBefana
    Posts: 8,150Member
    @lindade:  I knew I was ready when poopy diapers stopped gagging me. :D
    Bite me, cupcake!
  • Luvlyssa
    Posts: 2,858Member
    @lindade I thought I was the token non mom.... you wanna fight for the spot? ;)
    Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.
  • ColonymomColonymom
    Posts: 61Member

    Worst:  Any advice given from grown adults who have never had or raised children.  One example is : "you need to start leaving your child more so they get over their separation anxiety"

    Best:  Don't sweat the small stuff.  Pick your battles.  When a child is being it's least lovable is when they need your love the most.  Take take life too seriously, none of us gets out alive anyways.