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

The carrycot thing, yes, my first 2 were on the back seat in moses baskets with just the car seat belt looped round them.
The reason I put mine in the back garden to sleep was that I wanted my neighbours to see my fab big cord pram and my beautiful broderie anglais canopy that I was so proud of! The fact that it could have been unsafe never crossed my mind, it was fully enclosed and the only problem was keeping the cat of the cosy quilt. My mother was horrified that the advice then was put them on their tummies. The reason we were given then was that they wouldn't choke if they were sick.

I cant remember any health professionals being at all shocked in the early 80's about early weaning.

Front seat of car was where you sat cozily on someone's knee on way home

It said on the radio this morning that in the 1950's Butlins used to tell campers to tie a handkerchief on the door handle of their chalet before they went out for the evening "so that people would know a child was sleeping there on it's own".How creepy.

Yes I used to make up 6 bottles in one go and put them in the fridge. Strangely enough when my grandson was born in USA last year, although they are mad on "schedules" , they don't sterilise bottles.

My mum used to put olive oil on us (and herself) rather than suncream. Can't imagine it worked.

They have to be next to you while they're asleep all the time?!

I thought I was doing alright keeping him beside the bed at night and being in the same room (or within earshot) during the day but I can't just sit beside the moses basket all day long it's impossible!

My eldest two are 26 and 25. They slept on their tummies, they were fed by the clock and not a minute earlier, they slept during the day in the pram at the top of the garden and at night in the cot in their own room.
They were weaned at 16 weeks (which was late compared to some) using Farleys Rusks and Robinsons powdered baby food because dh got it free.
I hardly ever picked them up other than to feed, bath, change or plonk under the play gym.
I went back to work when ds1 was six weeks old and was sleeping through 10 hours a night. I paid the cm £30pw to have him 8am til 6pm 5 days a week.
It never felt like hard work tbh they seemed to fit in with my life rather than me fitting in with theirs.
My youngest is ten and whilst I weaned at six months and she slept on her back in a cot in our room I still had a strict routine and put her out in the pram to sleep. Old habits and all that I suppose.

I was a 1966 baby. My mother smoked throughout pregnancy. Both parents smoked at home, in the car, anywhere really as they were and still are dyed-in-the-wool smokers.

I was bottle fed from the word go, and sometimes there would be a little whisky/brandy with a teaspoon of sugar in my bottle if I was teething or ill. Rosehip syrup was given as a drink, the polio vaccine was given as drops on a lump of sugar (I remember the boosters given at school that way too). "Solid" food such as rusk and baby rice was given to me from around 8 weeks of age.

With today's "modern" advice and political correctness, it seems such a miracle any of us "older ones" survived childhood at all.

With my own children, born 1995, 1998 and 2002, I also bottle fed from the off. I didn't co-sleep with any of them and I fed them baby rice from 8 weeks (ish) onwards.

I ate peanuts during my pregnancies even though by 1998 and 2002 they were amongst the "forbidden" fruits. They were my only craving, and wild horses could not have stopped me. None of my children have peanut allergies (though I am not trying to claim that as the reason, who really knows).

we were also left outside in the street in the pram after going to the shops, my mum thought a bit of extra fresh air would be good for us & we may wake up if she took us inside.

Actually seeing someone else mention rolled up blanket and sleeping on his side that is ringing a bell.

He was allowed out to play out of my sight with friends from about 7.

& prams never went in shops, they were just parked outside, the little corner shops, greengrocers etc never had room for big prams

oh, dear. I had my daughter in 1992, breast feeding was a pain (okay, inconvenient!) and I decided to move onto bottle feeding at four weeks (?!!!). When I was leaking and it showed through my top my mother didn't hesitate to give me the "cure". Regular doses of Andrew's (do they still sell it?) dried up my milk supply quick sharp!
One of my fondest memories of my contentious father is his crazy 1970's 1980's driving. No seat belts in the back, pure sliding from side to side and him turning around and giving my sister and I the "twinkle eyes" as he drove fast over any kind of hill. That feeling as my stomach went "whaaa" was great. It worked every single time. I can't go past a certain hill on Peckham Hill Street and never think of that part of my childhood.
Oh, and I swaddled my daughter. It worked. (runs for the hills)

Stooshe
I do that over hills with my kids, they love it :)

My mother's mother (R.I.P Nana) used to send us to the shops for her fags. Ten Park Drive or Ten Embassy Number One! Anyone else used to save those cards that came in the fag packs (no, I wasn't a child smoker. I didn't start until I could buy my own!).

Drudge, that still happened in some camps in the early 80's. I did it once and once only and I still feel sick when I remember it. My 2 year old was asleep and we went to the lounge and checked on him every half hour. In between one of our half hourly visits he woke up, got out of bed, unlocked the door, walked across the lawn to the lounge in the dark via an open air swimming pool and appeared smiling at us. I still recall how dreadful I felt 30 years later realising how I could have lost him due to my foolish decision that night.
I am now neurotic and evangelical about young children being left anywhere unattended however safe it seems.
I was a dreadful mother that night. The sad disappearance of Madeleine McCann highlighted the danger.

I had my first baby in 1969. She was a miserable child and used to scream blue murder for most of the first month

I never knew you were on Mumsnet mum!

Oh yes, and I too made up bottles of formula for 24 hours at a time. I also kept them in the fridge door. None of my three were ever poisoned by such a barbarous and neglectful act. I really can't see why it is supposed to be so very different now.

My Mum stuck a teet onto a vimto bottle - voila ! (filled with milk - not vimto )

stooshe I used to go to the shop to get my Dad's fags - 20 No 6 plains

I remember sweet cigarettes. Sweets in the shape of cigarettes. I liked them, and no, they did not turn me into a smoker even though my parents both smoked.

Yy to getting fags from shop and mixing everyone's drinks at parties

Oh and in the seventies, we could play anywhere. The rule for us was "get back by eight o'clock". No school homework in primary school.....there really was more of a demarcation between adult and child. Damn, I really looked forward to being an adult then. It looked much more different than now.

I'm an older new mum but I can tell you that we used to play in the road and my parents left me in a pram outside the supermarket when hey shopped. Every did back then ( personally I think it is a shame we can't do that now. It would be sooooo much easier). My dad forgot me once and went home without me!

In 1981 at the ripe old age of 26 I was classified as 'elderly prima gravida' by my GP. On the maternity ward (6 or 8 beds) after having DC I was the oldest by at least five years!!!!!!!!!!! And regarded as very shockong as ex & I were not married!

Yes, elderly PG used to be 25 think it still is