How to Deal with Unsolicited Pregnancy Advice

Getting Out of Those Cringeworthy “If I Were You” Situations

Nothing prepared me for the sheer amount of unsolicited advice that I have received during my pregnancy and now beyond. Being unprepared for the amount of advice, I wasn’t equipped to actually deal with it at first. Overtime I learned how to take it in stride and now I’m sharing my tips for how to deal with unsolicited pregnancy advice here in this post.

What to Expect When Your Expecting

My first tip is to prepare yourself. Accept that you are going to receive advice from everyone in your family, your friends, and complete strangers. Having a baby is the most personal experience I’ve ever gone through – yet its also been the most intrusive at the same time.

Expect people to ask you questions about your due dat and how far along you are. Expect people to make comments about how big or small you or your belly is. Know that people are going to tell you whether your baby is going to come on time or be late. Accept that people will question your choices like ordering a cup of coffee (decaf or not) at a coffee shop.

And yes, even during a pandemic, be prepared for people to touch you or your baby. Blows my freaking mind, but it’s happened. Old ladies, they just can’t stop themselves.

The Advice:

One of my least favorite aspects of this topic wasn’t being questioned. I knew that was going to happen to some extent. It was the unsolicited advice that got me. People told me about diets (not cutting back but what I should eat more of) I should be following. They told me how much I should be drinking and how much exercise I should be getting.

People would even try to diagnose certain things. I’d have some pain and they’d tell me what happened to their sister or whoever and how what I was experiencing was most definitely that. Then of course it would be followed with what to do about it.

If I was tired and didn’t want to move they’d tell me about someone who worked out until the day they gave birth. Even my younger brother God bless him was telling me about the pregnant residents in his program and if they could do it so could I.

What Not to Do

And of course there was the persistent:

• Don’t ride your bike.
• You shouldn’t ski.
• Hiking there isn’t safe.
• You shouldn’t be walking the dog like that.

How to Deal with All of the Advice and Directives

Now that you are prepared for the experience, let’s talk about how to deal with it. Wether you listen to the advice or not, you still have to live through the situation. Some advice will be genuinely good and you’ll thank the person who offered it. But for the purposes of this post, we’re going to talk about the unsolicited pregnancy advice that you’re not going to take.

There are two methods:

Extricate and Move On:

I hate confrontation. In fact, I loath it. I will do anything to get out of a situation that could be a bit uncomfortable. Needless to say I wasn’t the best at dealing with unsolicited pregnancy advice at first. Most often, I would thank the person for their advice, say that I would consider it.

This makes the person offering the advice feel heard, which is I think what they want more than to actually help you with this advice. Sometimes people are just trying to connect with you and make conversation. In this case, they get exactly what they were seeking. They feel like they have contributed to the conversation and you are free to move it along.

And you should move the conversation along. If you don’t progress the conversation, the more the unsolicited advice will remain the topic and the more it will grate on your nerves.

Extreme Candor with Kindness

Your other option, one which I am still working on, is to use candor. What does this mean? This means being upfront and honest with the person that you hear their advice, but that you won’t be taking it. It helps to thank them or to be kind when delivering this response but the choice is up to you.

Now that I have been a mom for almost a year, I am finding my “mom voice” and able to stand up to unsolicited advice a bit more. It’s still an uncomfortable situation but I don’t have the time, patience, or energy to sit here and listen to someone browbeat me with their thoughts and opinions.

For reasons why I didn’t listen to advice like reducing my activity while I was pregnant read this post.