Why don’t parents let their babies sleep outside anymore?

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www.:boredomtherapy.com/cold-scandanavian-baby/?as=6d23842735449010537

All my four slept outside in the back garden during the day, suitably clothed for the time of year. I did have a big pram, but today’s prams are just as suitable. So why dont your babies sleep outside?

Outside for morning sleep ( 9am ish) inside for afternoon sleep

My dd did and ds did loads. The amount of quiet cups of tea I'd have sat on the door step while they stayed out and slept. It's one of my fondest early memories of having little ones. Although they're only four and two so wasn't long ago.

It was much more awkward with ds. As with dd we lived in a, quiet cul-de-sac with a driveway that led to the garden. With ds we were in a flat. So it involved more faff and less tea.

Speakout "Both my immediate neighbour and the family opposite went to their babies who were sleeping silently - too silently- and found their babies dead. Happened to both families within the space of a month one winter."

Gosh, how awful :( did you ever find out what the cause of death was? Like was it just a freak coincidence (SIDS related maybe) or was it established it was to do with the cold like hypothermia or something, were they left for too long or dressed poorly?

Yes good point re city living.

Mine only ever slept in the garden if I was out there pottering about or having a sit outside. Due to my DS having difficulties in the cold it would only be in warmer weather.

lemon- it was a pretty dire area.

A year after the babies fatality the neighbours 5 year old daughter came to the door in her nightgown saying her mummy's head was cooking.

Background- the family who lived next door- 25 year old women with 5 kids, abusive husband, we could hear her screams- police would not intervene in those days, she even jumped our of the bathroom window and broke her hip as he was battering down the door to give her a beating.
The GP had prescribed heavy tranquilisers because of her "depression". She also liked to go to the local club and drink. An attractive woman, blond, big beehive hair, thick with hair spray ( important).
One Saturday night she had been drinking heavily, took her medication and fell asleep in front of a large coal fire. ( her husband was a miner and in receipt of large amounts of free coal.)

Somehow she fell or stumbled and landed up head first in the grate of the fire. Her hair would have ignited like a fireball. She was unconscious thankfully, and lay there for hours while her head cooked. Sorry for the graphics.
I was 6 years old at the time - my mother and I took the child back into her house where we saw the gruesome incident.
The stench was more sickening than the sight.

Because I had to take DS for a walk to get him to nap, then it was easier to get his buggy through the front door than round the back. He slept lots outside whilst being pushed though.

I doubt well wrapped babies would die of hypothermia. I was outside even in winter as a child with sleep suit, bonnet, lots of warm layers, and bearing in mind colder Scandinavian countries do this as the norm, it won't be the cold.

Mine did.
But previous threads on MN seemed to think this was inappropriate, not safe and child could be stolen from garden.
So I gave up commenting on it.

Loving all this "in the olden days babies were left at the bottom of the garden to scream" stuff. As if love and maternal instinct was only invented 5 years ago....

Mine didn't because I didn't see a reason for them to. I had a perfectly good house for them to sleep in and i could hear them when they woke.

speakout not always, i dont live in a city and im working class having to rent.

LemonShark cold breastfeeding is pretty painful. I did it a few times in the park and it always took a bit longer for let down.

So so sad about the poor babies who died. Their poor families.

That poor woman, speakout. I'm still wondering what the cause of death for those babies was though? I'm guessing you just don't know?

Bertrand: I don't think anyone is implying motherly love and instinct is a recent thing but it's well known that parenting practices and attitudes are shaped by the culture of the time, so it's not surprising that different countries and different eras had parents behaving in very different ways towards their kids in line with what someone is capable of giving and the guidelines/advice at the time. Some cultures praise helicopter parenting while others believe in not mollycoddling too much and prizing independence from an early age. Doesn't surprise me at all if other generations were more or less immediately attentive to babies crying or adhered more or less to routine/comforting or feeding on demand. Even today some believe in controlled crying and sleeping in separate rooms asap while others favour attachment parenting and co sleeping.

Bertrand- I don't think it was lack of maternal instinct but a common parenti ng philosophy at the time. My mum now says there's a lot of what happened when I was young that she did because you were taught in maternity hospital it was the right thing to do for your children (she stayed in over a week "do you think you know all there is to know about babies!?" Was crossly uttered by the matron when mum wanted to just leave and be with the baby.

Similarly only feeding 4 hourly when babies looked hungry (is it a wonder milk "dried up before a year) and not cuddling too much or you'd spoil.

It was counter intuitive to my mum and having seen how I've been able to being kids up she wishes it were different but there was a lot of being told that "experts knew the right way to being up a child. And Yes that included end of the garden to get it out when it was the set time for it.

I had pre natal health visitor round last week. She specifically made a point that although it used to be popular to leave babies outside, they now recommend babies sleep in whatever room you are in.

Our old house was right near a motorway. Pollution was awful and next door smoked in back yard which just blew straight into ours.

"Even today some believe in controlled crying and sleeping in separate rooms asap while others favour attachment parenting and co sleeping."

Exactly. And it was the same "then". It would be perfectly possibly to look at "now" and think that controlled crying is the norm, but we know it isn't. My mother had babies in the 1950s and 60s -my MIL in the 60s and 70s. None of those babies were left to cry ever. And they were not considered unusual by their peers. (I know this because I asked!)

I’m a huge believer in babies spending time outside in the middle of the day (properly shaded from sunburn if applicable) for the reason given in the Telegraph article above. The more daylight you can expose them to, the quicker their bodies will know the difference between day and night and you can all start getting more sleep.

Anecdotally, I went on holiday with both DC when they were very small indeed and spent all day outside sightseeing from 10am - 4pm which transformed their nighttime sleep, and, incidentally, my mild PND. Yes I know that’s of no evidential value without a control group but I found it persuasive. If a baby spends all their time in a twilight world with occasional 10 minute trips in the car to a supermarket/baby centre/friend’s house then it’s hardly surprising if they wake at 2 hour intervals all day and night.

If you’re out and about walking during the daytime then babies will get sunlight exposure naturally but if you’re confined to the house for whatever reason then a nap in the garden might be a good substitute.

On the subject of pollution, unless you live right by a main road, have a good filtration system, or are rigorous about excluding indoor pollution due to asthma then even city air in your garden is probably less polluted than the stuff in your house, because it will have all the external pollutants plus the internally generated stuff. www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/inside-story-guide-indoor-air-quality

I remember when my sister was a baby, my mum used to put her in her pram outside the front door. Almost every house on the street had a baby in it, it seemed, as there were prams out all over the place!

Babies used to be parked in their dozens outside shops too! Prams cluttered and blocked the pavement! Everyone walked to the supermarket in those days, so the problem was finding a parking space for the pram rather than the car!

Nobody ever gave a thought to the possibility of a baby being stolen - and as far as I'm aware, none were.

Because I didn't have a pram.

Yes 80s my mum said the same about walking to town, and often, and prams left outside . Shops weren't accessible for a start.

Both my DC spent/spend hours everyday outside since they were tiny.

Had no effect on their sleep (they're awful sleepers).

DS1 had severe reflux and never slept in the pram until he was several months old and that was only when it was propped up, permanently on the move and there were no sudden noises (motorbikes, drills, sirens) - not easy in the middle of a city! The very second the pram stopped moving he would wake up and scream.

DS2 slept more outside because he slept better than DS1 and we were out in parks for DS1.

They've never slept outside at home though as we live on the third floor flat no balcony.

I was an early 70's baby. I actually remember sleeping outside in a sliver cross pram. Just flashes of short memories like snapshots but I do remember speckled sunlight, peace and quiet and bird song - lovely .

My dcs are teens now. Looking back I wish I'd done this. I was a tense mother, trying desperately hard to be utterly perfect, attending to my dcs every breath and I ran myself into the ground and a bit of a breakdown. I think if I'd done this, I'd have had better nappers and a bit of 'room' in my head.

Yes, I have my own garden.

Trampire I was like you but did want that fresh air thing so did put mine outside. However, being the neurotic mother I was, I did used to watch them like a hawk. That's why I find it laughable to be accused of neglect.... if a leaf had blown in their direction I'd have seen it!

Letting a baby sleep outside in a pram is not the same as shoving it outside and ignoring it.

No garden, live in a flat.