8 of the craziest things I’ve googled since becoming a mum

Posted in Family.
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Google is a lifesaver for any floundering parent (especially when it’s 3am and no one else is up). And while not every piece of advice you find on the internet is from a completely trusted source, as long as you know where to go to get the right information, (ahem, Babyology) then it can be a balm to irrational fears.

But there are some questions I’ve asked Google I never dreamed I’d be typing in before I had kids. Here’s just a few:

1. How do you get poo out of carpet?

Practical and necessary! Even if you’ve had lots of experience with animal accidents, removing all traces of faeces out of teeny carpet fibres is a whole new ball of wax when there’s been a gigantic s#itstorm. Baby wipes? Wet cloth? Stain remover? If you don’t get this right, you will regret it.

Baby lying with head tilted to the side

2. Why is my baby’s head tilted?

Every parent worries there is something wrong with their child at some point. If it hasn’t hit you yet, rest assured that as soon as you spot the slightest potential abnormality you’ll be speed typing faster than you can say Peppa Pig. I was particularly worked up over my baby’s tilted head and although my son’s gangster lean had some serious swagger, I had to know whether it was okay or not. It turns out it was a condition called torticollis (bunching of the neck muscles that improved over time).

3. Why is my breastmilk yellow?

I completely FREAKED OUT when I expressed my breastmilk and was suddenly staring at a fluorescent yellow container of milk. After a quick search on Google I discovered it was the vitamin B tablet I’d had earlier that day. You know how your pee turns bright yellow? Well so does your breastmilk! Apparently it’s completely fine for the baby to drink, but I sure got a shock. As it turns out, breastmilk can come in a huge range of colours, including blue, green and even brown!

4. How many poos should a child do a day?

Your friend says her baby does one poo every eight days; meanwhile, your baby does four a day. Are they a freak?! Are they sick? Are you feeding them the wrong stuff? One question leads to another and another … luckily Google has a whole heap of answers, mostly pointing out the fact that there’s a huge range of ‘normal’ when it comes to babies’ poo! But you could also visit your doctor if you’re really worried.

Hair in brush

5. When will my hair stop falling out?

One of my biggest post-baby body fears was not a mummy tummy or a broken downstairs basement, but female baldness. I’ve always been prone to moulting and have been super scared about being the old lady down the street whose scalp shows when the wind blows.

I knew that you don’t lose hair when you’re pregnant but that you’d better hang on after the baby was born, as you’d shed it all at once. But mine just kept on going and going and going and I stressed over my tresses. Was it ever going to end? (It did – back to normal moulting now).

6. Can you give a child too much fruit?

While drowning in search results on how often my baby should be pooping, I stumbled across fruit as a likely culprit for my son’s Olympic-like ability to poo for Australia – but that just lead to more questions! Was I ruining his insides by feeding him so much fruit? Was he eating too much natural sugar? How much was too much? Talk about panic stations. Now I can barely get that same child to touch a banana.

7. What does a green poo mean?

Once you have kids, you will see poo in almost every colour of the rainbow, but nothing’s more frightening than the green poo. It’s quite common for young babies to pass a green poo in the first few days or weeks after birth, but then as they get older and another one pops up a year or so down the track, it can be quite a shocker. Turns out, the odd green poo is nothing to worry about, however, if they’re all like that then maybe something else is up and a visit to your doctor is advisable.

8. Is it bad for a child to swallow sand?

Kids and babies swallow so much stuff, and if you live near the beach like we do, then sand is definitely on the menu. Even if you watch them like a hawk, they will scarf that golden grain down the next time you blink. I’ve seen my kids shovel fistfuls of it in their mouth, hence the need for Google.

The answer? In small quantities it’s fine as long as there’s nothing else nasty in the sand (you’ll just find it super hard to clean away their next poo-filled nappy). But if it’s a huge amount then it can cause some gut issues and wear away their teeth if they have any to chew the gritty sand with. So yeah, gross – but nothing to sweat over.

Just like most things. Phew!

 


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