JFF - The WORST Advice Anyone Ever Gave You?

It was here actually, I was asking advice on my daughters horrible eczema, and someone told me to bathe her in bleach.

Errr, no.

My husbands gramma told me to feed my newborn a "sugar tit" A dish towel with a tablespoon of sugar in it, tied with a rubber band. Apparently back in the day, people would let baby suckle that as a supplement the 1st few days until the milk comes down. She was worried I was going to starve the baby to death. I guess granny never heard of colostrum!

oh and no way did I do that!

I was told by my grandmother who was a Southern socialite that if I didn't go platinum blonde (like her) and learn to play golf then I would never catch a man. Hmmm....well, I'm very happy being a brunette and I've never learned to play golf and I am very happily married.

When I was nursing my youngest (who was, and still is, a snacker) my MIL told me I needed to "put him on a feeding schedule and stop letting him choose when he needed to nurse". He was 2 weeks old at the time and this was coming from a woman who never breastfed.

OH- so fun.

1. From my MIL and her Mom (Great G'ma) - "You are holding that baby too much".

2. From my MIL and her Mom - "You are nursing that baby too much - he/she should cry before you feed them".

3. From my husbands Great Grandma "You need to put that baby in a room by himself for at least an hour a day. How is he going to learn to be independent if he's with you all the time?" - this was when baby #1 was about 4 weeks old.

Thankfully my own family tends to keep their mouths shut - and whatever kooky advice they have - I don't hear.

A NICU nurse told me to drug my 4mo preemie with Benadryl while we took a 5 hour flight to Central America. We were moving there for my husbands job. I thought she was insane as my child was only 4mo, around 8lbs and we were flying to a country with horrendous medical care. I did not follow her recommendation.

Wow where do I begin LOL

Lets see how about the two La Leche League "consultants" (read that as a really really bad word that begins with C) who told me if I didn't breastfeed my 2 oldest kids I was abusing them? Yeah guess what I told them.

Or the nurse at the military hospital who told me I HAD to wake my youngest son up every 2 hours to nurse him. Yeah guess what I told her.

Or the next door neighbor, who was an anal retentive control freak who wouldn't let her 14 year old go to the playground because it wasn't in direct sight, home schooled her kids because she didn't want them learning about evolution or birth control and when her hubby considered taking early retirement from the Coast Guard (after 16 years in and 99% of that time being spent on a ship) flat out told him "No, that's the end of the conversation", who told me I should put my kids to bed at 6pm no matter what (their bedtime was 8-9pm). Yeah guess what I told her.

Quit your tenure track job because you are ruining your kids' lives by having them in day care. You have missed so much time with them and are doing permanent damage. Five years later the recession hit and that woman's husband lost his job. She had to go back to work and really struggled.

Working while my kids were very young was not easy and I do admire stay at home mom's immensely, but I would never have walked away from a job that I would never be able to get back.

The WORST:
"I lost ALL my baby weight and MORE after I had a baby, just by breastfeeding and running around after the baby. Don't worry about gaining weight now, it will just melt off. Oh, you should eat something green with that sandwich...here, eat a whole avocado...."

Ha ha, laughing about how clueless I was when it came to nutrition 10 years ago! The advice was from my mom, who apparently went from slim to waif-like after having me and did not exercise or diet; she was just "too busy to eat". So when I got pregnant, I figured I had her genes and could eat whatever I wanted and it would all just fall off. I gained 70 lbs. and have been struggling ever since. Luckily I have learned a lot about what I need to do to be healthy since then.

Husband's Mom told us we were "too protective" because we didn't let our son watch what she wanted to watch on TV (not children's programming). She felt he was sensitive because we "coddled" him in this way. Um no - we "coddle" him in this was because he is sensitive to violent images (as am I). This was a real blessing with his brothers came along. He is happy to watch what is appropriate for them - they are 4 and 5 years younger than him.

And pretty much anything my mother has EVER said (that she thinks is) about discipline - starting with "just turn your back on him when he cries" about my oldest. He was a few months old at the time.

I got really good mom advice for my kids but I did get horrible financial advice once. When I was 21 and got my first "real" job that offered benefits, someone told me to put all my 401k money in the "fixed" fund. Uh ya, like 3 years later, I only had a couple thousand, if even, when it should have been SEVERAL thousand had I been in more agressive funds. =/

The APA that recommends all kids sleep on their backs. My 1st daughter was a belly sleeper so instead of putting her in the crib on her belly I laid with her for at least 5 months on the couch so she could sleep on me on her belly. At the time I felt at least this way I could watch better over her....that lead to cosleeping and 3-4 years of horrible sleep for ME. She is now 6 and finally sleeps in her own room (with her sister).

I wish I had just let her be a stomach sleeper. Sometimes I think the risk of sids was great whether I had let her be a stomach sleeper or doing it my way of letting her sleep on me.

That dill pickle juice, baking soda water, or juicing carrots would cure my kids diabetes. I definitely didn't take that advice!!!!!

Oh, and the "you are eating for two" load of bullcrap that people tell you when you are pregnant. Sorry to say, I *did* take that advice! :)

Just get a credit card to build up your credit - you can pay it off right away. HAHAHAHAHA yep still paying down those damn cc atleast 15 years AFTER getting this advice.

Another one - consolidate all your student loans - they'll give you 25 years to pay them off and your payment will be smaller. Sigh...I've been paying for 10 years and have barely made a dent...if I could go back in time I'd punch that person lol

I think the most random unsolicited advice I ever received was from my own mother. My daughter was about 5 or 6 and had started getting adult teeth. Right in front of my daughter, my mom told me to go to the dentist and have them pull at least one of her bottom teeth. She kept saying it and I thought she was confused.

When I was a kid, my adult teeth would grow up behind my baby teeth and sometimes they would have to pull the baby tooth out because it wouldn't fall out on its own. But my daughter didn't have anymore baby teeth on the bottom. Then I realized my mom was telling me to have them pull out one of the adult teeth because her mouth was "too crowded" and it looked weird. All of this in front of my freaked out little girl!!!! I was like "She's only 5! They'll spread out as her jaw grows!" And my mom just looked at me like I was the one who was nuts!

She wanted me to rip out a perfectly good permanent tooth because she thought it made my daughter look weird!?!?!?!

Needless to say, I didn't follow it.

Not to worry about our son when he was young, that he was just a "very active, typical boy." He wasn't and deep down I knew it. He's since been diagnosed with a host of conditions, including ADHD, OCD and depression. Whenever I hear or read someone saying, "Sounds like a typical boy," I want to scream. You don't always know unless you've been around a child 24/7.

Just about everything my mother ever said about kids. How about, "You should make him face his fears, or he's going to grow up afraid of everything." This was said about a 2 year old who was afraid of many things, but typical of the undeveloped brain of a two year old. So we were supposed to force him to endure things that terrified him - fireworks, swimming pools, animals, etc. Oh, and we weren't supposed to comfort him when he was afraid, either.

This may be more of incompetence than advice, but I've gotten bad advice the both times I've broken both an ankle. (Different ankles, different occasions.)

The first time, an EMT happened to be on-site. I sat looking at my foot, feeling shooting pains, and thinking the angle of my foot to leg looked wrong. The EMT gave me some Advil and said, "It's just a sprain." I didn't believe him and went to the ER. The next day I was having surgery to repair a bi-malleolar fracture.

The second time, I had gone to the ER. The ER doctor told me it was just a sprain and I should stay off of it for 10 days, then try walking. So I did....and 10 days later it was still broken and then it didn't set right so I had to go have surgery because I had waited the 10 days before getting it fixed.

Before we got married someone told me "the first marriage is always a wash." Seriously? Ten years later, no wash in sight!

This probably ISN'T the worst advice I have ever received, but it's the worst I could come up with on a moment's notice.

First, of course, would be my girlfriend in college to told me to dump my high-school sweetheart because he was "holding me back," and the relationship was destined to fail. I didn't dump him, we stayed together through all of college, all of his grad school, I moved out of the country twice without him, and then we got married. And I still adore him. ^_~

Second, I remember one of the nurses at the hospital insisted that I wake my newborn son every 2 hours to feed him. He was not a preemie or in any way sickly, and my own pediatrician said that was ridiculous, at this age, sleep should be encouraged, and since he was waking himself every 3 hours to eat anyway, forcing him awake was just making me more tired. Gee, you think?

Finally, my MIL told me that, by swaddling my newborn son, I was putting him in a straight-jacket and wrapping him like a mummy, and it would damage his psyche in later years. Well, maybe it will show up later, but for now, my son seems pretty well-adjusted. ^_^

I can't think of any for myself (not listening probably lol) But my husband was told by a nurse that he was too old to get Strep throat. Stupid

"Just do it! Go on the blind date! He is so nice."

I went on the date, was bored to death, and never went on another blind date. Lesson learned.

All through my teens and 20's my mother, who had been working at the same company since the late 70's, pelted me with terrible career advice. Some of my personal favorites were that I should march into the office and demand to see the hiring manager, and that I should print my resume on bright colored paper. About 5 years ago her company went out of business and though I was sorry for her to lose her job, I was secretly happy that she finally got a taste of modern day job hunting and finally stopped telling me I don't try hard enough!

someone told me to have another kid (I have 2 girls) because in case "something happened" to one of my kids. What I would want another one because kids a replaceable? Or I wouldn't be as sad because I'd still have 2!?!

I was told by many people that I should try to deliver my twins vaginally. Ummm, no thank you. They ended up being eight pounds apiece, and I would've had to have a c-section anyway due to the position of Baby A. I had no desire whatsoever to push two big babies out.

My mother told me when I graduated high school..........you better go to secretarial school b/c you will never amount to anything Nice right! So I showed her and went to college, graduated and absolutely love what I do.
Now if that wasn't bad enough I AGAIN listened to her when she said...........You are not getting any younger, you are not getting any prettier so you better marry this one. I did and he was an abuser!!! She never helped me out of that situation (I guess not really her responsibility). After a while and getting all my strength together I finally got a divorce. BTW he is now extremely lonely and in a wheelchair. AHHHHH KARMA I thank you! When my mother died I gave her a proper funeral but buried her face down and in short sleeves as I knew exactly where she was going LOL

When I was in HS, there was a guy who was interested in me. He was a year older than me and worked at a local store. I wasn't very interested in him, but while out with my mother, she said - oh, he's so cute - why don't you go out with him? I SWEAR, this is the only piece of advice my mother has ever given me in her 75 years - seriously.

So I go out with the guy. Things were OK for a few months. I had sex with him (as in gave up my virginity - what was I thinking???) I knew pretty quickly he was a little off his rocker. I tried to break up with him repeatedly. He became abusive, threatened suicide and threatened to burn my house down. I couldn't go to my parents because, honestly, they just weren't the kind of parents who would be helpful or concerned for that matter.

LONG story short - the guy stalked me for like 10+ years. He lives less than a mile from me now and I swear he still drives by my house. He gives me the creeps. Nice that my mother advised me to go out with him based on his looks (which, btw, weren't really that great). Sigh.

I was told to "supplement" my breastfeeding with formula because I was NOT ALLOWED TO breastfeed my baby more often than every 3 hours! As a result my milk production totally dried up by the end of 3 months. I'm really sorry I listened to that one.

I have not been given much bad advice, but once on here, someone posted a question about their poor family cat, who had been accidentally run over when someone backed out of the driveway and now could not move her back legs. Somebody else told them if they just kept giving the cat water with an eyedropper and force-feed some raw egg, it would be fine. I was like, are you kidding me??????