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

I grew up in the 70's. From the age of 3 we were allowed to play out of sight of my mum, on the street, back street and on the waste ground at the end of the road, supervised by the older children, the oldest being about 7. From the age of 7 we were allowed to roam up to a couple of miles away with our mums having no idea where we were.

I had my first baby in 1969. She was a miserable child and used to scream blue murder for most of the first month. We used to take her out in the car in the carrycot,no baby seats in those days, and drive around all night to get some peace. She started up again as soon as the car stopped. Health Visitor, about 60 and a Miss, said it was colic and to try gripe water. My Mother thought otherwise and advised putting brandy in her bottle as they had done with me. Worked like a charm. When she was about 3 months old the crying started again so took Mother's advice and crushed up a Farleys rusk in her milk.Cow and Gate for chubby babies of course.

During the next few years she fell out a downstairs window, put her hand on a cooker hot plate and gained a scar over her eyebrow where I miscalculated when I trimmed her fringe.

She also claims she was never told what her full christian name was only the shortened version which we all used and was amazed to find out what it was when I took her to start junior school when she was 7. She always used the shortened version at school even though they knew her real name. I have no recollection of any of this but every now and then it comes up.

Not so much myself but Christ I remember the struggle I had to stop my grandparent and parents from wanting to put all manner of things into the bottles then shove my baby at the end of the garden,the day I found out that my mother had been doseing the baby up with phenagan in the middle of the day so she would nap was the day I started paying for childcare. And it was not even that frowned apon (I talked it through with my supervisor at work)

The main difference and thing that sticks in my mind was the shocking amount of babies in the very early 90's that we had child protection meetings for and ended up on the at risk register for very little reason other than the parents not wanting to start solids at 4 months and doing what we now call BLW.

Oh and every older parent I ever met back then had a baby that was toilet trained by 11 months! Weirdly tho they always had massive changing bags full of spare clothes.

That post sounds exactly like the sort of thing my Mum used to saydrudgewithagrudge! I was born in 1969 too - were you all given a copy of the same Parenting for the Disinterested handbook when you left hospital?

While pregnant with PFB I was encouraged to eat liver 2-3 times a week; with No 2 a few years later this was tantamount to foetus abuse. Started weaning both at 4 months much to Mum's horror who thought they should have rice in their bottle from 6 weeks. (Mum also wiped melted chocolate on No2's tongue from about 6 weeks). No2 initiated for baby lead weaning by swiping her brother's McDonald's fries and eating his rejected pizza crusts.

Oh and we always had phenergen on hand to Aid Restful Sleep. Didn't work, should really have just gone for brandy rubbed on to their gums.

.Cow and Gate for chubby babies
tell me it said that on the tin?

My mother swears I was potty trained by 10 months.

Solids from 3 months, from 6 months our own cooked food sometimes blended.
Formula bottles made up for 24 hours and refrigerated.
babies sleeping on tummies

These were the done things, only going back 22 years.

.... nearly as bad ... doctor (though I'm a SAHM now)! Mum wanted me to consider being a homeopath instead.

My eldest born in 1975 and he sat in garden in pram and later i used playpen also reins

I do remember at night if she wouldn't sleep putting her in the pram and going for a walk.

Until the day I was stopped by a policeman and lectured about being indoors at night and controlled crying! He even asked if my mum knew I was out.

For me and my sisters born between 1948 and 58

• screaming in a pram at the bottom of the garden for hours
• mum and dad both on 40+ a day through all pregnancies, and plenty of gin to go with it
• fed on unpasturised skimmed milk left over from the pigs (cream was separated and sold off)
• no car seats or seat belts; I generally travelled sitting on the lap of whoever was in the front seat
• potty trained at one (although mum does confess this really meant we spent a lot of time wearing dresses with no knickers and playing outside, and lots of time sitting on a potty) - but she had to hand wash all our nappies...

morethan

When I had my second youngest the HV made a massive big deal about the whole individual bottles thing and not batch making because things have changed these days

She was quite surprised when I told her I had no intention of even buying bottles.

No suncream we didn't know it existed, but you had to wait a good hour after eating before you were allowed swimming.
Slightly of thread but at school I used to be sent with a friend to the local shop, during our lunch break to buy my teachers cigarettes- which he then smoked whilst teaching us. I was year 3 and this was the late 60's.

nearly as bad ... doctor (though I'm a SAHM now)! Mum wanted me to consider being a homeopath instead.

I have high hopes that my lazy alternative parenting methods will also force dc in to rebellion of a similar sort!

My DM drank Guinness while breastfeeding, for the iron apparently! Not excessively though.

DH's parents once gave him a little bit of whisky in his bottle to settle him. Little did they know he has a reaction to malt so of course it had the opposite effect!

but you had to wait a good hour after eating before you were allowed swimming.

Harsh! only a half hour in my house... science!

We had Ostermilk.
On the tin it said to supplement milk feeds with orange juice several times a week.
If you couldn't afford orange juice, the tins said, boil some swede in the water you are going to use to make up the feeds.
If you can't afford swede, the tins said, wash a RUSTY NAIL and boil that for 10-15 minutes in the water you are going to use to make up the feeds.

This was a free way of adding some iron to the baby's diet.
I think those tins must have been left over from the war though.

My MIL once showed me an old pregnancy and baby care book from the 1950s. It emphasised the importance of relaxing and reducing stress during pregnancy and recommended a few things the expectant mum could do to help with this- have a cigarette, pour a glass of wine at the end of the day.......
She wasn't advocating I do this, my MIL is lovely and very sensible

I asked her once if DH cried a lot when he was a baby. She told me she had no idea, she used to wrap him in his pram and leave at the bottom of the garden all day. Everyone did.

I am a 60s baby, slept on tummy, whisky in milk to make me sleep, travelling packed into car boots with no belts.

the tins said, wash a RUSTY NAIL and boil that for 10-15 minutes in the water you are going to use to make up the feeds.

ha ha ha ha and if you can't do that punch them in the face.. that will harden em up

Re making up bottles for next day, I did that on my last baby nearly 6 years ago. My older 3 are still walking around and healthy so what's changed in the intervening years?

Half of the HV information they dole out is tosh and changes from one minute to the next.

Hot toddies during colds, very nice too I used to love those and egg nogs

travelled through the night to get to our holiday camp annual holiday sleeping flat out on the back seat of the car, no seatbelts we just made up beds in the car.
My mum rolling cigarettes for my Dad while he was driving

On holiday we 'd be put to bed in the chalet after the crocodile club while Mum & Dad went back to the adult only entertainment.
It was OK cos someone cycled around the holiday camp & if your child woke up & cried & was heard by the cycling babysitter the Chalet number was displayed on the board in the club.

We also had an estate car so there was room for my cousins in the boot if we all went out together

Lol at cycling babysitter!