to ask the older parents on MN

[VegetariansTasteLikeChicken]

what you did in your day that would have got you sacked from MN today and potentially a visit from ss

I slept on my tummy, mother smoked when pregnant. .. and my nan thinks asprin is the best thing to give a baby for teething. And rice in my bottle from probably day one to get me off to sleep

Also, she gave my brother phenergen 'to help him sleep'

The doctor told me to do this for ds as he never slept. He was only born in 2000! (it didn't work though, just turned him into a total loony for 24 hours so never again!).

And ah yes, the door bouncer. I remember my sister being in one of those in 1968, and I had one for my own dcs. They were so alike as babies that I have a photo of one of them in the bouncer wearing a plain white vest and I couldn't tell you which one it is .

I remember my sister having a yellow high chair that converted to a little chair and table. The chair part had two big hooks on the back so you could hook it over the back seat of the car (still with the tray attached to keep her in). No other fixings, just the big hooks so not exactly safe. I also remember sleeping all the way to the New Forest amongst the camping gear with the seats flat in our Morris Traveller. My dad used to sit me on his lap and let me steer the car and work the gears while he did the pedals. He also took us to work on Saturday mornings if he was doing overtime. It was a great big printing and bookbinding place, the smell of new books always takes me back there. I can't believe we were allowed to run about the factory floor and zoom up and down between the machines on the pallet trolleys. One of the men used to give us ball bearings out of the machines to play marbles with and we would paint the PVA glue all over ourselves so we could peel it off. I liked licking the brown parcel tape because I liked the taste of the glue (it wasn't sticky like it is now,it was gummed you had to run it over a wet sponge) Can you imagine 'elf and safety even letting small children inside a factory now? I don't think we were even school age.

jebus..I thought Phenergen had been outlawed years ago

Does anyone remember having that awful molasses stuff out of a jar; Virol? I hated it.

Just remembered buying powered baby food and also tubs of dried rosehip or fennel drinks for my PFB. Not sure who made them (Milupa?)

My mum was very old-fashioned. In the 60s she breastfed up to 9 months, then we went straight onto cow's milk in a cup. She put us on our front to sleep, in sleeping-bags and blankets, in unheated bedrooms. She made all our food then sieved it for babies.
Nappies had to be soaked then boiled. Babies had to be out of nappies by 2 years. They stayed in cots much longer then, up to 3 or 4 years.
I was the eldest and remember all this. I used to take the baby out in his pram when I was still in junior school.

phlebas

I love your mam.

:( one hour visiting times for children.. that's horrible

I used to sit on the front bench seat of my grandparents car, in between them, there was no such thing as a seatbelt!
My mum gave me a lightly boiled egg yolk as my first solids....at 8 weeks old!
I have lived to tell the tale, more by luck it appears.

I was born in 1972 and apparently given mashed up rusk at 3 days old in hospital to stop me crying!!

I'm clearly well behind the times, could confess to doing lots of the things on this thread as recently as the last year. Refusing to confess to which ones though for fear of flaming

I remember, aged about 7 (so turn of the 70s), at a friends house, neighbour came running in hysterical with baby severely burnt legs from dog knocking cup of tea from sideboard, and friend's nanna smothering the baby's legs in butter!

I used to love Virol. I would have a spoonful of it or sometimes I'd have it on toast. I bought some a couple of years ago, only it's not called Virol any more it's just malt extract and cod liver oil. It tasted greasier than I remembered but I soon got the taste for it again. Next time I'm near Boots I think I'll pop in and get some .

I used to eat junior orange aspirins like smarties

John
Yes! Malt, we had three massive jars of the stuff and were apparently supposed to eat three tablespoons of it a day!
We had loads of seventies fads like soda siphons etc

i co-slept with both mine, but it was recommended with the first (18)
Also gave the 18y old solids at 4 months (also recommended)

My mum left my sister alone in the house during her nap when she was a baby, whilst she went on a 2 hour errand around town Still doesn't see anything wrong with it.

I went to kindergarden on my own, 10 minutes walk, when I was 4, and had a key to let myself into the house at age 6.

We used to eat Good Boy dog treats while training the dog

This is def turning into a MP sketch!

I literally walked home from school alone from reception.

made a days worth of bottles in advance and stored them in the fridge gave her a bone to chew when she was teething brown sugar in boiled water for constipation used talc (apparently its child abuse according to one social worker in the news a couple of years ago) let her eat bread rolls (people thought i should put butter on them but she hated the stuff) i let the cat sleep next to her when she slept on the sofa (so many things wrong with that sentence i was there too it was a big sofa!)

Boffin

There are some blessings to the modern times . Unbelievable what some of my lecturers got away with. And teachers too - we used to go round to one art teachers house and he'd teach us how to skin up aged 15!

DH talks of a Doctor who used to drop ash from his pipe onto the patients as he peered over their open wounds.

This was in the 80's.

when i was a child we had ovaltine in bottles (not tea my mom thought it looked low class) when she took my sister to the doctors because she was a screamy baby they told her to give her two baby aspirin in her bottle of ovaltine put her in her cot close the door and turn the tv up! we had whisky for sore gums brandy for a bad head my parents did drink and drive one time they were so drunk they tried there keys in cars to find out which one was theirs and drove home they came in laughing (trying to be quiet) and i had to go out get the dog out of the car and lock the house up! i would chop wood with an axe deal with open fires i was even messing about under a tree that was being chopped down and had a branch land on me! i also used to jump off roofs onto the lawn

My mum was weaned on milky tea... from about 3 months :/

Oh yes, my auntie almost used to dip my cousins dummy in syrup for teething/generally keeping him quiet! Needless to say it's a good job you get a second set :/

Better than the late 19th/early 20th C though, when babies were given cocaine tinctures for teething...

I slept on my front too... actually did work my way down to the bottom of my cot once, my sister heard my muffled cries and saved me :/

1970s we all lined our prams up with sleeping babies outside the shops and did our shopping quite carefree. Some even tied the dog to the pram and shouted STAY .
There was great pride in hanging snowy white nappies to blow in the breeze after steeping in Napisan and boiling .

Going to the weekly weigh in at the local clinic was a must ....nothing good advice wise really but you met the other mums.
I loved those days truly did .