Parenting in the past - what were they thinking?!

[maGicGift]

For example... alcohol in baby's bottle to help him sleep, leaving baby in the back garden/front porch for nap time (so parents can't here him cry) feeding baby condensed milk in a bottle instead of formula.

It's amazing how advise changes so quickly - do you have any more funny/strange past parenting stories? Those above were from my Mum/Gran

I dont feel that leaving my children at nursery is leaving them with strangers, they have a good relationship with the ladies there, and it is like a family enviroment, certainly not strangers

"itsnotacompetition"

"ignorant, at worst neglectful"

How very dare you? We, mostly as in all eras, adored our children; wanted the best for them; encouraged them to be the best they could. At the risk of being "flamed" we did not seem to have the difficulties with our small children as so many we hear of these days. (Teenagers seem to have always been the same!)

Maybe because it was more important in the "olden days" for children to be "seen and not heard"?

itsnotacompetition... God I hope you're not a parent... but I expect you are. Are you one of those people who also suggests who should and shouldn't have children? Funny how those people who say things like 'ignorant, at worst neglectgful' are completely oblivious to their own shortcomings.

I know, I am a terrible parent. My baby must suffer terribly from not being left to cry...

"Itsnotacompetition"

I think you're looking back to Victorian times, not times lived through by MNs.

Playtime at our house was anything but quiet and could include up to a dozen children,especially in the summer when the paddling pool was out. We also always shared the evening meal, even when smallest still being breastfed, and conversation encouraged (although that could be excruciatingly boring when LOs still learning to talk.)

It's not the parents of the past who did things "wrong" (= things we now find unacceptable), but the childcare gurus of the past who made up a lot of unscientific claptrap and peddled it in books in order to make a living.

My grandmother hated the fact that she wasn't supposed to cuddle her children (in the 1930s). Ever. She did sneak cuddles, but couldn't do so in public.

Those ignorant parents and grandparents managed to bring you up.

Half of the 'modern' ideas some people are so proud of are a fashion which will change again.

itsnotacompetition -

you so sure you would have done it any different to all those mums you re criticising?

Oh Bonsoir, that is so sad!

I love cuddling small kids

I like the look of that cage thingy. And I bloody love condensed milk.

No financial pressure to work back in the good old days? For whom? The poor always worked, as did women on farms.

I have a recipe book published in the US in 1976 that has instructions (probably unchanged from a much earlier edition, as the first edition was published in 1901) for infant feeding:
'Usually a newborn is allowed to rest for the first 12 hours after birth. then he is offered sweetened water..'

There is a table with proportions of condensed milk/water and sugar/corn syrup suitable for babies of different ages. Solid food is advised from 6 weeks. There is a recipe for oatmeal gruel . Mind you, the food advised is healthy and actually a balanced diet though of course the idea of feeding a 6 week old food is appalling, and the section on feeding young children is very sensible, just from a quick browse.

I remember exMIL asking me where I kept the orange juice for DD1 when DD was about a week old. Apparently she had fed all her babies on the condensed milk formula but the orange juice was necessary to counteract the constipation and to add what was seen as necessary vitamins to the babies' diet.'

I think one big difference was the very prescribed nature of women's lives back then and their willingness to do what the 'experts' said despite what their common sense or their own mothers were telling them.

My son is 10 and I remember reading you shouldn't cuddle your baby too much or they would be spoilt. I would look at him, longing to pick him up and thinking I couldn't . I had PND too so it didn't help.

When my grandmother found out that my mother was putting her babies on their front to sleep she was horrified, and told her that they could suffocate. My mum laughed at her, and told her that that was an old wives tale. Lying on their front would stop them choking if they brought up milk or similar.....

My grandmother's back to sleep advice was obviously right, though.

Bonsoir, that sounds like the work of J.B. Watson.

I remember looking through an old baby care book I came across as a child and being struck by advice to give a baby a 'sun bath' every day. No hint of skin cancer.

bonsoir that's a good point about child care gurus. I'm sure lots of parents just ignored them, just as many parents do nowadays.
Speaking as someone born just over 50 years ago, I don't agree that everyone gave their babies alcohol, left them at the bottom of the garden to scream or never cuddled them. I can remember my Mum cuddling my little sister, feeding her proper formula [in 1964] and not really doing anything different to how I looked after my babies.
Speaking very generally, I would say that family life was more orientated around the parents, especially the man, and that children were expected to fit in, whereas now many families seem to be more 'child led'. Men and women tended to have more traditional roles and so fathers would be less supportive and mothers would be under more pressure to keep up with the housework, cooking and so on. My own marriage was like this [in the 80's] and so I found it neccesary to get into a routine quickly.
As I said, this is just my experience and I'm sure many others would have different experiences.

I was born over 50 yrs ago. I did sleep in the pram for fresh air, I was certainly cuddled and not left to cry. No way was I given alcohol! I was breastfed. There were as many methods as parents-the same as today.

Babies in Iceland or so it is alleged. And another one.

An American/German couple I know had all sorts of intercultural problems when the German GPs insisted the baby should be left outside to sleep during the day even in the winter as babies 'need toughening up'.

My mother ignored books! Very sensible.

I've come to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with parenting - now and back then - but there's everything wrong with the self-professed (unpaid) 'experts' blethering on to give themselves a feeling of purpose.

I had a chain-smoking childminder in the early 90s... Imagine the horror now!

and, LyingWitch, other parents who like to look down on others, calling them things like lazy and neglectful and ignorant and being arogant twats. They are as bad as the "experts", in fact they are worse as they should have enough empathy to know better.

I think that people who make parenting into a career these days are to blame. They have to be 'right' and 'best' and get so upset about the most trivial things e.g. one fruit shoot in 3 yrs doesn't really matter and your DC will still like sweet things even if they don't get them in the first 3 yrs!
I often think that DCs grow up despite their parents.
The biggest bugbear of parenting in 21st century is over control-physical and mental!

my dd would love a bottle of condensed milk every evening....

Maybe my initial point was a bit strongly worded. I think what puzzles me the most is how so many women were prepared to listen to the advice of HCPs etc and ignored their instincts.