7 rookie parenting mistakes all new mothers make
"What I didn’t know was that padded highchairs are an excellent depository for hidden stores of rotting food."
You can’t go through raising a child without making mistakes; that’s part and parcel of parenting, and no one will hold it against you. In fact, many mothers will even admit to making these mistakes themselves.
In Melissa Hugzilla’s Mama Mia story, she shares the seven rookie parenting mistakes she’s done.
1. Treating my baby like a science experiment
“There is nothing like that feeling of sheer terror when you finally bring baby number one home for the very first time,” Melissa admits. “What the HELL do I do with this thing? It stands to reason that we do what all rational human beings do: we seek to study the great mystery, to wrest back control from the brink of chaos.”
2. Buying stupid amounts of inappropriate clothing
Babies grow, and they grow fast. The clothes they’re wearing at four months they will no longer be able to wear at eight, so there really is no reason to buy them a wardrobe full of clothing they will soon outgrow.
“I’m not sure what possessed me to think that size 00 skinny jeans and Nike high-tops were a good combination for a three-month old baby with zero muscle tone, and boy did I feel stupid when the kid lived in shit-stained onesies for the first 12 months anyway.”
3. Washing the baby’s clothes in special laundry detergent
“Like any diligent mum-to-be I hand-washed all my baby’s clothing in enzyme-free laundry detergent and carefully line-dried them using unvarnished wooden pegs on days where the UV index maxed out at moderate,” Melissa says. But by the time her second child came, she just busted out some smelly hand-me-downs, washed them with bleach, and tried to remove yellow spew and poo stains.
4. Buying a padded highchair
“What I didn’t know was that padded highchairs are an excellent depository for hidden stores of rotting food, forming a perfect symbiotic relationship with sticky-fingered infants.”
And its moist crevices only cultivate bacteria that are resistant to cleaning agents. It’s not a pretty sight.
5. Needing a sherpa to leave the house
With her first baby, Melissa wouldn’t go out of the house without having with her multiple changes of weather-sensitive outfits, a week’s worth of nappies, fresh water, a selection of healthy home-made snacks, several packets of wipes, sunscreen, baby Panadol, flannels, a manual breast pump and enough contingency items to survive a mid-week zombie apocalypse.
“With baby number two I’d happily leave the house with a packet of wipes, a couple of nappies stuffed in the boot of the car and a nipple shield stuffed down my bra. Everyone survived. There was no zombie apocalypse.”
6. Stocking the playroom with wooden toys
At first Melissa insisted on having her children play with wooden, gender-neutral toys; she hated to think her house infested with plastic toys. But that changed when she realized that children naturally respond to shiny, plastic things. Meanwhile, the wooden toys she’s bought lay on the ground, ignored.
7. Buying a Massive Pram
“I would spend years regretting that decision as I pushed my tank-sized Baby Hummer around, collecting hateful glares from the general public, retail staff and several small canines who stood down the tank and came off second best.”
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