To wonder what my mum was playing at to give me Ribena as a baby?

[Hotmad]

Mum asked me if I gave my 3 month old any Ribena in a comforter type dummy??? She used to do that for me!! Apparently there was baby Ribena about 30 years ago!
What other ideas from the past so you know of that would never be done now?

You can get dripping from our butchers, its amazing on toast :o

I remember having to beg my dad to open the window in the car because his fag smoke was so horrible :( He wouldnt sometimes because it was cold until mum went mental at him. He finally quite when he got COPD, and my sister asked him if we would ever get an apology for all the passive smoking he put us through. He did apologise, but more from embarrassment I think.

quit not quite

Baby Ribena was different to 'normal' Ribena in the 80s. We still weren't allowed it though, milk, water and Robin son's Special R (sugar free) only.

Neither myself or my brother have any fillings at 35 and 37 respectively.

Four of us in the back of a Volvo, seats down so it was basically a big play pen in the crumple zone. To France, from Newcastle and back again. Holy fuck.

Coola the idea that everyone was healthier under rationing is merely a very persistent myth. The biggest drain on our current NHS is geriatric illness much of which can be traced back to very poor diet up until the late 50s when rationing ended. The wartime diet was actually very high in empty carbs and high GI and was low in vitamins (hence the rosehip and blackcurrant syrups as you rightly suggest - precursors to Ribena actually) but that didn't mean that the overall diet was healthy. The national dried milk I mentioned was withdrawn from sale in the 70s after it became clear just how nutritionally bad it was. A whole generation of pensioners now have diabetes and other health problems deriving from that poor diet. For children since the 60s with access to fresh fruit rosehip syrup was indeed harmful because of the high sugar content.

My mum was told when she was pregnant that a tin of mackisons stout was good for her iron levels. She's also baffled at how often I feed dd (demand bf) oh and we were given calpol regularly to help us sleep. I have no idea how often that was. She tells me to give calpol to help ds sleep and I have to tell her that its just paracetamol and there's no sedative in it. Oh and I'm pretty sure we were left to cry as I'm also told its ok as it strengthens their lungs. We were also brought up on a diet of waffles and turkey burgers. I was born in 1982.

It helps that they fluoridated the water round me. They don't do this where I live now, so no eating sweeties to excess for my lo. Shame for her!

I loved Delrosa Rosehip and Orange syrup, bought from the health clinic for my DD1 30 years ago. My sweet tooth probably did her a massive favour as she certainly didn't see as much of it as I did...

I inherited a DSD when I first married, she had been fed Heinz tomato soup in her bottle...poor little soul had really awful teeth, the enamel wasn't formed properly on her adult teeth when they came through. It took a lot of time and patience to encourage her to eat anything typically regarded as normal.

Also remember playing with smoke rising from ashtrays as a PP said, crowds of us aged 7-12 going to the beach on hot days to swim with no adults, taking bottles of soda and jam sandwiches to keep us going....

This explAins why ribena says on the label not to be given to babies! I did wonder.

I am laughing at the freeplay zone in the back of the car - we did the same thing, PLUS my Dad regularly drove when he was very drunk (as in he needed help getting to the car) PLUS the idiot chain smoked the whole time.

We thought it hilarious at the time but it was so stupid.

my Nan was standing by a window having fag as my aunts head crowned. what a woman.

I am 31 and I remember all three of us squealing with glee as we were thrown all over the show being transported in the back of a transit with his tools. he used to take corners aggressively to propel us from our seat much to our delight.

Vic that reminds me of being in my Uncles van with my cousins. It was a small escort van and we fought over the 2 wheel arches as they where the closest thing to a seat in there.

Its a wonder anyone born before about 1995 survived to adulthood really!

My DM was shocked that I wouldn't consider medicating my sleep refusing DD2. Apparently she did it with me all the time, and I slept brilliantly. I think she said it was Phenergyn (sp?). We would be drugged on long car journeys too

I remember brilliant trips in the back of dad's Morris marina estate to my grans in Norfolk, no seat belt on and jumping about in the eighties.

Also there was a common misconception around our older relatives that you could drive after a few drinks, as long as you had an extra strong mint and sucked on a two pence piece driving home apparently it tricks the breath detectors

DD is a demon in her walker for drinking tea out of your cup, she's 10months old and a complete nightmare with wanting your brew.

I remember going to the after school club in primary school, the guy used to take us to the local valley about 10mimutes away and let us run around and play in the river, sometimes he threw the kids in...
Bearing in mind this was late 90's early 00's

A friend who was born in rural Italy says it was (back then) normal there to give babies a puree of poppy seeds to help them sleep through the night.

My dad had a zephyr (sp?) car which had a bench seat at the front, us kids used to roll around in the front seat while he was driving, nobody had seat belts!
I can distinctly remember pleading for junior disprins as I liked the taste of them, mum used to have to put them on top of the kitchen cupboard so I couldn't see them
Also mum used to give us bits of raw sausage while she was cooking
And I remember my cousin giving her teething baby, prob about 1986, a couple of squares of chunky milky bar to chew on!!!

jocktamsons I gave that phenergan to my DD once on the advice of a retired health visitor, I think DD was full of cold and wouldn't sleep so I was ready to try anything, she was about a year old,
WELL, it had the opposite effect and instead of sedating her, it made her hyperactive and she was wide awake at 2 in the morn shouting and shaking her cot that was one hell of a night!!

I'm quite surprised by some of these. My mum had her kids in the 80s (1982 onwards) and with a few obvious exceptions due to the guidelines back then (baby on tummy to sleep, weaned at 4 months) the way she cared for us would be seen as pretty standard even now. We always had proper carseats, never left to cio, ebf on demand, mum coslept/used sling with all of us, definitely no smoking in the house or car. Paternal gm's suggestions of tea in baby's bottle/lucozade for illness was seen as completely crazy and outdated.

Unfortunately my dad then let the side down by feeding us exclusively on potato waffles and tinned spaghetti, and teaching us we only needed to brush teeth once a day - but we survived .

I give ds calpol to help him sleep, because the pain from teething is the thing that keeps him awake (I only give it when he's been chewing his hand, his cheeks are bright red and his nappies are bad before you rush off to SS )

I have fond memories of bouncing about on bench seats in the back of the school transit, no seatbelts and slippery fake leather stuff. And hours spent down the beach at Guides making rope bridges sneaking swigs of pilfered sherry and playing rounders with no adult supervisions :o

My eldest were born in 1980 and 1981 and it was the norm/considered good to give them baby rosehip syrup, orange juice and baby Ribena. Parents were doing what they thought was right. I didn't give it to my younger DC because by the time they were born it was considered a bad thing to do.

The older two survived into adulthood and have produced DC of their own. They also have perfect teeth with no fillings...we did have tooth brushes back then!

I can remember DDad dipping a baby's dummy in the sugar bowl and dissolving a rusk into the last bottle so that the baby slept through.

There will be things loving parents do now that their DC will be

My mum must have been quite forward thinking for her time. I was born in 1982 and never had cola or Ribena and she breastfed me for 14 months

My mother gave us tea! Black tea in our bottles from age 6 months. What on earth was she thinking? Is it any wonder I have never slept more than 3 hours straight?

My mum breastfed us all for a year (quite unusual in early 70s, she reckons).

She often tells me about her friends who would enlarge the teats on bottles in order to give their newborns baby rice, to make them sleep!