Mother and baby advice from 1960 - ask away!

[TerpsichoreanMuse]

I've been clearing out my father's house (he's sold it) and I've found the baby manuals given to my mother when I was born in 1960.

There are four: the "Glaxo Mother and Baby" book, "From Milk to Mixed Diet" (a guide to modern baby feeding), "Relaxation and exercise for natural childbirth" (1959) and "You and your baby," published by the BMA.

If anyone would like any advice (only 60 years out-of-date!) on this topic, please ask and I shall attempt to answer.

With regard to cloth nappies I was born in 1976 and my earliest memory is of having a wet nappy and a sore leg from the plastic pants. It was red and raw from them sticking into me and my mum had to layer on extra cream. So yes definitely I can imagine how children toilet trained very early. Apparently I was toilet trained when I was just gone two

Yes as was I
I’m talking about cloth nappies now

@VinylDetective

I left mine in his pram outside a shop and was halfway home when I realised he was still there. I’ve never run so fast in my life as I did to get back to him that day!

You have reminded me of Olivia Coleman’ character in Green Wing who frequently realises she has left a baby/child behind somewhere on arriving at work and runs back out in a panic.

A friend's mum told me that after she'd had her son in the 1950s she lived high up in a tower block in central London.

She would put her young baby in his pram, take him down to the ground level and leave him outside on his own to get some fresh air. She would go back up to her flat to get on with housework etc.

She would occasionally look over the balcony to make sure he was ok!!!!!!!!!!!

My aunt left a baby outside the shop once too. He was still there when she returned. Years later she said she thought it was because he was so tranquil that even at home she would forget she had a baby.

As a population we have a collective memory loss that women didn’t stay at home in earlier generations to do childcare. They were at home because before hot water/plumbing/electricity/appliances doing housework was itself a full time job.

I have a pre war household book. Just keeping the coal fires going all day took a lot of work. Laundry was done on a board and dried in a mangle and took all day. The soot from the open fires made everything black and dirty. What went in the bedpan had to be regularly taken out to the open drain. You had to queue (outside) for the communal toilet if you were lucky enough to have one. Shopping had to be done every day. Cooking from scratch on an old stove had to be done every day.

There wasn’t time after these essential tasks to be doing babycare. That was left to usually older sisters.

books.google.co.uk/books/about/Four_Years_Old_in_an_Urban_Community.html?id=qFAngBXfPTMC

When I was doing my BEd in the early 80s we used this book and the Newsom's earlier study 1 Year Old in an Urban Community. The studies were in the 60s and showed how child care practices were based on the environment and community people were in. It included chapters on toilet training when the only lavatories were outside and sometimes communal (hold the baby out over a newspaper and put what it does in the bin if you want to know).

www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Infant_Care_and_Motherhood_in_an_Urban_C/vwT7Bn6ekR8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=inauthor:%22John+Newson%22&printsec=frontcover

This seems to be the book about babies although I'm sure they've changed the name.

That last link gives you access to some pages of the book. The chapter on 'habit training' is very interesting although only part of it is there. Starting on the potty as soon as they are born!! Smacking a one year old for wetting themselves!!

@SparkyBlue

With regard to cloth nappies I was born in 1976 and my earliest memory is of having a wet nappy and a sore leg from the plastic pants. It was red and raw from them sticking into me and my mum had to layer on extra cream. So yes definitely I can imagine how children toilet trained very early. Apparently I was toilet trained when I was just gone two

Yes, similar here - born early 70s. My mum once told me that when my sister was born, although I was no longer using nappies, she'd put a nappy on me overnight because she'd read that sometimes children reverted to bedwetting when a sibling came along - but I didn't, I 'stayed dry'. I was two and a half when my sister came along.

I remember the distinctive pong of my sister's cloth nappies being soaked in a square bucket which was yellow plastic with a white lid that had the Mothercare logo on it.

It's also worth mentioning, although not strictly relevant to the thread, that disposable nappies will still be there in 500 years time.

@CaptainMyCaptain

It's also worth mentioning, although not strictly relevant to the thread, that disposable nappies will still be there in 500 years time.

Our cloth nappies were eventually repurposed as cleaning rags, and hung around for quite some time before they eventually disintegrated. I can remember my mum mopping up my bright orange sick with old nappy cloths when I was nine!

My mum was using terrycloth squares in the 80s and 90s so I remember them very well, the nappy bucket etc

I'm the eldest of a large family all born in the sixties and seventies, so I can remember a lot of this, as unsurprisingly our mother farmed out some childcare tasks onto us older ones as the family grew. I can remember one of my younger sisters was potty trained very early, almost before she could walk, as she scratched her bottom badly while playing in the paddling pool in the garden on a very sunny day naked. Wet nappies obviously hurt her - so she stopped wetting them!

I still use terries for DD2. I used all in one cloth nappies for DD1, but find terries a lot easier. They take up less space, are easy to wash, aren't precious like the all in ones, last forever, and once you get the knack, they're easy to use.

The two dozen terries and dozen muslins that started with me were topped up with another dozen of each when the next baby arrived before I'd stopped needing them, but then kept going all the way through the rest of us. There are still several in the dog towel pile, and one of the muslins is currently in use as my covid safe cloth for opening gates!

What I was trying to gauge, but I don’t think anyone has the answer in fact, is whether those who use cloth nappies now (and there are lots of people - I have a toddler and small baby and I am in contact with many who also do) find that their children potty trained more easily or earlier than those in disposables. Or have modern cloth nappies (less likely to be Terry squares though I do know a few who use them) are similarly more efficient than the old nappies at minimising the damp feeling

I'd have thought cloth nappies must work out much cheaper than disposable ones over the course of 2-3 years although I can see if you're time-poor you wouldn't want the faff of soaking and washing them.

... plus if you have more DCs you can keep using the same cloth nappies!

Yes indeed. It’s one reason why I have used them. They also have good resale value if looked after (the all in ones in particular, and the waterproof wraps also)

I’m interested in the comment about disposables being “too good” and the impact on potty training. How does this compare with those who currently use cloth nappies. Or perhaps it’s just for a minority of children that the less wet feeling of disposables is an issue.

Love this thread! My grandma was a community midwife in the 60's and often spent 48 hours + with mothers in labour at home. My grandad was a SAHD before my mum and aunt went to school!

It would be interesting to see a graph showing average age of being potty trained, alongside sales statistics for disposable nappies to see if there is a correlation.

I'm 30 and my mum still has the cloth nappies! They are now floor cloths!

@Sitt I'd think fleece liners and things like that reduce the wet feeling they'd originally have had as well, but generally from my small circle and personal experience, I think they do train slightly earlier in modern cloth. Or at least, perhaps, we try to train earlier as we want less washing?

Mine stopped pooing in nappies well before 2 and got rid of them during the day completely by 2y 2m. Nights took longer, but I'd switched to disposables for the night due to too many leakage issues, so maybe it would have been sooner otherwise!

I love this and I’m not even a mum

After my Nanna dies I took home her nursing text books. There’s loads of diseases in there that pretty much don’t even exist anymore due to vaccines. It’s a pretty sobering (if fascinating) read.