Mums who had kids spread out over time - how did advice change?

[Echobelly]

Also interested in what anyone else has noticed if their kids are a bit older now?

I do pop my head in on pregnancy/baby advice now and then but I realised than now my youngest is 8 things have probably moved on some.

The whole 'count the kicks' thing just seemed to be starting to be talked about when I was pregnant with DS, and I seem to see a lot more mums concerned about how much their unborn babies are moving - which I guess is a good thing in terms of potentially saving lives, but potentially just a big a cause of anxiety in others.

With my PFB I was given a "kick chart" to colour in every day from about 30 weeks on. My due date was changed three times and nobody seemed overly bothered.
I was advised to use aspirin for pain relief, on no account take paracetamol.
I started weaning him at 6 weeks on the advice of the health visitor who provided free samples of baby food.
Nobody noticed that I had pnd and thought I was going mad.
With my younger children, the advice was paracetamol and on no account take aspirin. Weaning advice got later with each one. There was at least lip service and a questionnaire paid to check for pnd.
With my second one the midwife advised me not to stop smoking if I found it hard because the stress of stopping did more harm than the smoking did...
PFB born 1990, youngest born 2006.

loads!
eldest born 2002 youngest 2017

weaning at 3 months to 6 months.
hadn't heard of growing phases when baby's cry more! there's proper term but one is arpund 4 month... regression!
that's it.
never heard of sleep regression till my youngest.
absolute nonsense tjey are hungry... wean them

I’m a foster carer. My eldest birth child is 26 and I’ve looked after 20 babies in addition. Bottle feeding advice has changed a lot, specifically how bottles are made, and also the availability of made up formula. About 7 years ago it was possible to buy 7oz premise bottles with a sterilised year - terrible for the environment but great for spontaneity!
Weaning advice has changed. I warned my son at 10 weeks and now it’s baby led at 6 months. I haven’t found this beneficial, infact there seems a lot more anxiety around weaning now, and faffing.

SIDS advice has also changed - particularly around dummies, sleeping on the back and what should be in the cot.

The demise of surestart has had big effects. It was great for good toys and play opportunities. Now it’s £10 for a baby sensory classes so they are more cliquey and middle class. There was a much more diverse group at surestart.

Libraries have also declined. We used to go to all sorts of library based baby groups but lots of our libraries have shut, and again it’s been taken over by private organisations.

Weighing has also changed. When I had my son we went to clinic every 2 weeks. Now baby clinics have really been scaled back.

Sorry that should say permafrost 7 oz bottle and sterile teat!

I mean sterile! There were no smartphones back then either!

I forgot one! PFB and I were on the ward for a week and he would projectile vomit every feed like a fountain. Midwife would tip half his (hospital supplied ready mixed) bottle down the sink and fill it up from the kettle as it was "obviously too rich". Then he was propped up at the head end and laid on his back "so he won't choke" ...

Oldest was born in 95 when it was quite normal to wean anywhere from 3 months

Ds2 was 2003, by then advice was 6 months

Ds3 was 2011 and it was make formula as you go along and ds4 2013 nothing had changed

Oh and by ds3 we were advised to use a dummy due to SIDS

When id had ds1 the midwife sneered at my dummy use

Put them on their front to sleep so they didn't choke on vomit. The advice changed during the six days between being born, when she was carefully placed on her front by the midwives in the hospital to the first post natal midwife visit.

Put them in another room if possible at six weeks so they didn't get woken up by you. Put them to bed in the evening and then come back to have your evening meal/couple time in peace.

Don't ever have them in bed with you. Ever. Not because of squashing, not because of suffocation, but because they'd become 'a rod for your own back', especially if you made it worse by picking them up if they cried.

Give BF babies cooled boiled water at night from 6 weeks so they don't expect food and sleep through. If they wake up, you don't have good enough milk, so stop BF and switch to hungry baby milk at 8 weeks.

Don't ever, ever, ever, let the baby have a bottle from somebody else if you wanted to BF, as your supply would dry up and baby would prefer the teat because it was easier from just one bottle.

Thicken formula with rice if they still wake up. If they cry in less than four hours during the day, wait until they are crying properly before picking them up - or wait it out for the extra ten minutes until it's 4 hours.

Start giving them food by 16 weeks.

6 months BF was more than enough for any baby. In any case, you'll be back to work by 12 weeks, so there's no point in making it harder on yourself. If they bit you, it was proof that they were too old to BF anymore.

The weaning advice varied from 16 to 20 to 26, back to 16 and probably a few more besides in the five years between #1 and #2. And each time they would always deny that there had ever been any different advice, they didn't know what you were talking about and you must be mad. They also denied there had ever been any advice to lay them on their fronts.

The not picking up changed to never let the baby away from your body ever, take them into the toilet with you or they'll be distraught, don't let anybody hold them until they were old enough to cry at being away from you, etc. In the five years, this changed to 'they'll manage if you have a shower without them if they're safe in a cot or with somebody else'.

Not baby advice but when my DD was about to start Year 7 she needed a black skirt. She chose a pleated one do I bought her two. Then someone advised us that they weren't allowed pleated skirts (boys can look up them? Or something?) so we had to send them brand new and unworn to the charity shop.

We got the "school recommended" skirt instead, a fitted one. A year later that was made the compulsory school skirt. Five years after that, that one was scrapped and replaced by a compulsory pleated skirt which is identical to the banned ones I had to bin brand new in 2012.

x 1000

I remember my (lovely) Health Visitor reminiscing that back in the day a treatment for nappy rash was to apply raw egg white to the affected area.

As a mum to a baby with both bad nappy rash and anaphylaxis to eggs that idea fills me with complete and utter horror. . . can you imagine the pain and distress an allergic child would experience? I want to cry just thinking about it.

I've got two dc born in 2009 and 2018.
Weaning has definitely changed, I think baby led weaning was just beginning to become a big thing in 2009 but I was too nervous to try it first time round. My Hv recommended I try weaning at 4 months and I don't remember half of the sleep aids like white noise and sleepypods etc being a thing. I don't really remember seeing many people use slings etc either. There seems to be a lot more breastfeeding information and support online this time round too. I would have really valued that back in the early days with my eldest:

Full stop fail 😂

First pregnancy in 2002 and latest in 2013.

Alcohol - the booklet I was given said a few drinks were fine by my last pregnancy it was none at all.

Food - tuna was added to the list of foods to limit I think between my 2002 and 2004 pregnancy

Induction - with my earlier pregnancies you were given your induction date at your 20 week scan which was two weeks to the day after your EDD. With my youngest, they just said it would be arranged by your midwife post dates.

Sweeps - they weren't a thing until my 2013 pregnancy, you just waited to see what happened (which was better in my completely unqualified opinion!)

Delayed cord clamping - again not a thing until my latest pregnancy

Weaning - no earlier than 4 months to 4-6 months to at least 6 months.

Bottle prep as mentioned

And sadly breastfeeding support - with my youngest, although I was feeding, the midwife left me pre made bottles in case I fancied using them so I didn't need to disturb her through the night. With previous babies, you had to ask for them.

Oh and the Internet and social media.

I found myself Googling everything and asking on forums all sorts with my youngest. God knows why, with the others you just kind of got on with it or asked other Mums.

It has its advantages though.

I had 2 of mine in January 2015 and November 2016, when i had my 2nd the advise was you could make all your bottles in advance and store them at the back of the fridge, they would last 24 hours

When i had my 3rd the advise was to make bottles on demand & they had to be used in 1 hour or thrown away and that you couldnt store them in the fridge anymore

I ended up with PND with my 3rd and i know it was down to the DV in the relationship but i suspect the making fresh bottles every 2 hours made a difference. DS was 3 weeks early and weighed 4lb 13oz and fed small amounts every 2 hours, i was so tired. Looking back now i wish id of made his bottles in advance. Id have saved myself a lot of upset

I remember my SIL being gobsmacked I was eating peanuts during my pregnancy as 3 years previously, during her last pregnancy, peanuts were a no-no.

Yes, baby-led weaning was just becoming a thing when DD was a baby (b.2008). MIL, who is very anxious, was of course very anxious about doing it, but then she's also very big on socialising and etiquette and when we all went on holiday together when DD was 6 months old, MIL decided she loved how BLW allowed DD to be much more part of the meal with everyone else, so she overcame her anxiety about it.

To me, the only vital bits of advice seem to be the older ones - I don't think anything since 'lie baby on back' has really been significant in terms of life safety and most new bits of advice seem to be over-caution rather than essential - it does sadden me to see MTB losing sleep because of something they ate or took as though it's a total disaster rather than something that maybe carries a slightly heightened risk