Getting Bad Advice from Another Mom

A parent doesn't get an owner's manual at the hospital, but we do get advice from every mother around. Some of the advice is good, but some is just terrible.

My mother-in-law wanted to help me by telling me how to insure that my baby would have a perfect complexion both now and in the future. I wondered when does a baby not have a good complexion, but I was willing to hear her out. I nearly busted out laughing when she told me since I thought she was joking.

Her suggestion was to wipe wet diapers across the baby's face. She said the urine was a cleaner- yuck! Of course I didn't do it and then she acted like I was a stupid and ignorant mother. It was at that point I realized that she wasn't joking. Then I thought she was an ignorant person that just happened to be a mother. Apparently the trick didn't work anyway because one of her teenage daughters had bad acne.

It wet from bad to worse when I found out what she suggested I do at bath time. Every mother of a boy knows what a pee hard-on is. Most know it is nothing to be concerned about, but not this mother. Her perception was off kilter cause she was afraid that it meant the boy would grow up to have unnatural ideas about her. So her solution was to flip it hard with her finger. When I told my husband about this, he was mix of anger and laughter because she did it to him as a baby.

She was the one that decided what my baby would eat for his first food- Chicken Noodle Soup baby food. I guess that really isn't so bad, but then I had a hard time getting him to eat vegetables. I was told later by a pediatrician that vegetables should be the first food offered to prevent the aversion to them.

She did try to help, but I learned that it was best to use common sense and at times ask for an expert opinion.