To believe this? - Is this just an old wives tale? 50's baby routine. My partner thinks I'm stupid to believe mums used to do this..

[NinaJade666]

So I've heard from lots of people that 'back in the day' (specifically the 50's) that new mums were advised to get baby into a strict routine, which involved parking babies in their pram at the end of the garden and bringing them in every 3 or 4 hours for a feed. Crying or not.

My partner says don't be an idiot and believe that, that's just an old wives tale. QUOTE - "They never would have done that. Put baby as far away as possible from mum? In the garden alone? They weren't stupid back then you know."

Anyone know if their parents or grandparents did this or were advised to?
Any links anyone can provide to 'prove' I'm right? Or wrong?

TIA

My next door neighbour did this, about six years ago.

Not left out to cry. Just to nap in fresh air.

"In 1983 it was normal to do what your parents said."
Err, no - I think there was a youth revolution, certainly from the 1960s onwards. I think it would be fair to say that, as today, children would listen to what their parents said, but do what they thought right.

I was left in the garden,and I'm only 27.

My mother says the cat would come and bite her ankles when I cried

My dad was definitely left out in the garden - he likes to tell a tale that apparently one day it snowed..and Nana forgot she'd put him out there. When she realised and went to get him, there was 2 inches of snow on the pram and him !!

Yes my ndn used to do this with both her dd. In bad weather she used to park the pram in the shed, poor baby was stuck in the shed when it snowed. The midwives back then were incredibly harsh.

My parents looked after 8mo ds today. When I got home he was conked out in his pram at the bottom of the garden. He hadn't been left to cry though and was only at the bottom of the garden as that's the shady bit. He looked contented enough to me!

My daughter is 6, my midwife told me to do this. I used to wrap her up and put her pram in the garden, not all day, but at least twice at nap times and she slept really well!

I always put a cat net on and didn't do it if it was raining of course!

My mum told me that her mil left my sister in a pram outside a shop one dayShe never let her mind any of us again!

My MIL and SIL put SIL's DS in his pushchair in the garden for all his naps and have done since he was tiny (he's now 2). It isn't something I would do personally but each to their own.

Mondayschild78 (and some others lol)

My partner and I weren't really talking about just 'napping outside' but the strict advised routine (in the fifties or earlier) of not feeding outside the times the routine prescribed and leaving the baby at the bottom of the garden (out of earshot because of the crying)
Crying which presumably was because of hunger and because mums were also advised not to pick up the baby or give it any attention so as not to 'spoil' it, and so they could get on with all the household chores without a screaming baby nearby.

I honestly don't know why people would follow a 4 hourly strict routine - I mean honestly, babies grow incredibly fast in such a short space of time compared to adults so of course they need to eat more. And emotionally developing so need cuddles

My MIL was shocked and disgusted with me for bf on demand! She was a strong advocate for 4 hourly bottle feeding. She did everything she could to try to put me off! This was in 1992 and 1997. By the time my third was born in 2000 she gave up trying

There was a programme where different couples had to follow different parenting styles eg attachment parenting to see which was best and the woman following Truby King had to leave her baby twins in the garden as the were bawling and so was she

My MIL was surprised we fed every 3 hours (that was when DS demanded it). She was adamant that she fed DH and BIL every 4 hours. When i asked how she stopped them from crying she looked baffled and said "well they just cried".

I didn't believe her and thought she was remembering wrong but after reading since about the suggested routine back then (she's in her 80s) she probably did.

I agree with the garden napping though, sometimes put DS out there if we've got back from a walk and he's still asleep.

A nap outside in the shade seems so lovely and idyllic, I want one!

I have a silver cross coach built pram. When I get my next baby, it will spend naptime outside whenever possible.

There wasn't very much understanding of babies in the 50s. They used to do operations on babies without anaesthetic because of the risks of GA to babies, and because it was genuinely thought that babies could not feel pain. I don't know if this was as recent as the 1950s but it would have been in the first half of the last century - I doubt babies were operated on at all before the wars since the infant mortality rate was quite high in those days.

Also until Bowlby's work on Attachment in the 60s it was quite normal to separate children from their parents when the mother went to have another child or when the child themselves needed to stay in hospital. It also radically changed the way that orphanages and children's homes were run.

Robertson films documentary footage from the time of very usual situations; young children attending hospital alone, children whose mothers did not have family support going into temporary foster/nursery care when the mother had a second child (of course, the father was simply incapable!) - unthinkable today, but that is in part due to scientific research which has become common knowledge.

Fifties baby here ....and family tell me that I spent the first year of my life predominantly at the bottom of the garden behind the raspberry canes.... "because it was far enough away not to hear the crying".

Have to admit I thought it was just my mother, but suppose it could have been a trend at the time!
Feeding was strictly by schedule, and babies were placed on potties immediately after feeds from a couple of weeks old .... "so they trained properly"!! ....and lets not even start about the tying babies into cots, thing!!

Luckily, parenting patterns don't have to be repeated.

Dopey question - but what does 'coach built' mean?
I assumed it meant a sturdy high carrycot.....

I got left in the pram in the garden apparently - early 70s. And babymakes funnily enough I saw something on tv at the weekend about the baby cages - apparently they had to stop during the war!

Coach built basically means what it says. Originally, the body was attached to the chassis with leather straps like a horse drawn coach, giving the pram suspension and shock absorbers. Later prams were all metal chassis but worked on the same principle.

coach built prams from Silver Cross

My mum used to say "my mother would say that you were spoiling that child" when I bf DS on demand and cuddled him just for fun, rather than put him straight down to bed not at all passive aggressive, noooo