Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder how we got having a baby years ago.

385 replies

IsItSummerYet2018 · 08/02/2018 17:35

This is totally light hearted.
But reading some people on other sites/ threads/forums saying about things for example : perfect prep machine for milk.
Saying how they couldn't live without it. When its 3am boiling up a kettle is a faff etc.
Don't get me wrong it is and time Consuming when you have a crying baby and sleep deprived.
However they haven't been around forever and everyone just got on with it before hand.

please note I'm not Having a dig it's just a general wondering

Can anyone think of anything else that we have now but didn't before... But just can't live without?

OP posts:
eddiemairswife · 09/02/2018 22:08

Hear,Hear for Doctor Spock. I still have my dog-eared, yellowing, almost loose-leafed paperback published in 1961.

Maireadplastic · 09/02/2018 22:17

Graphista, she just spluttered....

Graphista · 09/02/2018 22:25

Mairead oh ffs - also ties in to my earlier comment re crap customer service

BlackeyedSusan · 09/02/2018 23:10

I remember a kid at school in callipers as they had had polio.

vaccinations would be on my list, swiflty followed by washing machine. mine was out of action for a year, I took the washing to a relative to do, and hand washed and had a spinner at home. I am still catching up on washing now it is fixed.

purplebunny2012 · 09/02/2018 23:12

There weren't even Perfect Prep machines when I had my son 6 years ago!

Sirrah · 09/02/2018 23:20

So much has changed! Even in the four years between my eldest and youngest there were changes - 1988, front to sleep, 5 days in hospital, taught to wash, feed and bath baby, midwife visits at home every day up to 10 days (told me off for staying in bed on day 7!), Health visitor once a week until they were happy. No car seat, baby slept under a thick duvet in winter. 1992, back to sleep, home within 24 hours.

I am now a grandmother, I can't believe the difference! Support is almost non-existent, babies are rarely weighed, parents have to check YouTube for the right way to bath baby, one blanket seems to be the max, and only up to armpits. Slings are like puzzles from the Krypton Factor, how do they work? The list for my DIL's baby shower baffled me, I stuck to things I could make so I didn't have to enter the minefield of slings, grobags, swaddlers etc.

crunchymint · 09/02/2018 23:34

Don't they show mothers now how to bathe babies?

Sirrah · 09/02/2018 23:39

My son and DIL weren't shown! I had to show them how to support the baby so he wouldn't slip if he wriggled.

Stillnotready · 09/02/2018 23:39

I don’t recall a massive ff versus bf divide almost 30 yeas ago.
I bf all of mine, but now realise, thanks to Mumsnet that my eldest had tongue tie. Sheer bloody mindedness got me through that one, together with the moral support of my Dad, a farmer through and through who kept telling me what a great job I was doing, and how hard it could be to establish feeding. I’d seen cows and sheep with sore teats so I knew that natural did not equal easy.
I also used a combination of bottles, expressed milk and formula just so long as my baby was fed.
I was told by my hv that just one bf a day made all the difference and contributed antibodies. Etc so just kept going until my dd got to about 12 weeks and her latch improved and the soreness went away.
My other dc were a breeze by comparison with no tt.

crunchymint · 09/02/2018 23:41

Sirrah That is awful, I hadn't realised.

There were parenting debates but they were nowhere near as bad as it seems to be currently. But I think that is because we did not have the internet or social media.

Stillnotready · 09/02/2018 23:42

I was advised to put my first to sleep on her front in 1989 but it felt wrong to me, so I always put her on her side with a rolled up blanket behind her to stop her rolling

Crocusqueen · 10/02/2018 08:19

Stillnotready I am smiling at your farmer dad, reminds me of some of the old farmers I know, all craggy and not very well house trained, but with a tendency to dispense suprisingly useful advice when faced with a baby. Usually based on their knowledge of lambing Grin

Stillnotready · 10/02/2018 08:36

crocus that would have been my Dad! I know for sure how influential his support was in establishing bf. He would ring me up and just ask ‘how’s it going girl?’ And then listen. He made my SIL feel really comfortable when bf her children around him at home so I spent a lot of time around someone breastfeeding without any embarrassment. He was the same with my sister when my niece was born.
He used to say openly how lovely it was to see a mother bf a baby, the look of contentment when it was going well.
I always feel a bit sad for mums who feel they have to hide away from male family members as they feel uncomfortable feeding in front of them.

hibbledibble · 10/02/2018 08:52

cruchy no, new mothers are not shown how to bathe babies anymore.

With my first, I was in hospital for several days due to peadiatric issues. I asked to be shown how to bathe her but no one was available. Postnatal wards are very short staffed.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 10/02/2018 08:58

But you're also advised not to bathe newborns, which is more to the point.

By the time you get to actually bathing them I don't see what you'd need to be told. Don't immerse product completely? Confused

Evelynismycatsformerspyname · 10/02/2018 09:12

I wasn't shown how to bathe dc1 when she was born in England (was also kicked out of hospital 3 days after a complicated emergency c section unable to walk without stopping to lean on the wall every few steps, but was glad to be out of there because the ward was so very, very hot and airless and loud and full of crowds of other people's visitors, and so understaffed that when I buzzed the buzzer was just switched off and nobody had time to pass me my screaming baby whom I couldn't get to when attached to the bed with catheter, IV lines and drain lines...)

However tbh it's bloody obvious how to bath a baby and anyone claiming they need to be shown is either just insecure and in need of a bit of reassurance, or is asking for the sake of making a family member feel involved - a bathing demonstration is utterly unnecessary. Far, far more useful would be a health care assistant to actually refill water jugs and pass babies to mother's who've just had sections or difficult births and can't physically get out of bed/ sit up unaided!

I had dc2 and 3 in Germany and it was a totally different experience - the first time mum I shared my twin room with had all kinds of support - shown how to change a nappy as well as how to bath the baby, lots of support positioning the baby to feed, and the twin room was quiet and airy and light, and ensuite.

My 2 Nd and third were planned sections and I was still entitled to a full week in hospital (though I chose to check out earlier due to other kids at home) and on my third day I was told off for getting up to change my baby's nappy, as I was meant to rest and buzz for a nurse to change nappies! We also had brilliant little semicircular cot attachments on the bed so coslept in hospital, meaning it was far easier to establish breastfeeding and comfort the baby the night after the c section when it's almost impossible to get yourself from lying down to standing and lift a baby from a separate cot on your own, especially if you're still catheterised and with drips and drains attached.

TabbyMumz · 10/02/2018 09:34

Why do they need tummy time? Does that not make them uncomfortable, frustrated and upset?

hibbledibble · 10/02/2018 09:39

lrd thank you for such a helpful and non-patronising point Hmm

There is a difference between a newborn and a several day old baby, and the reason given for not helping was short staff, rather than not bathing a newborn.

A discussion on what to do with a first time mother who asked would have been helpful, if they couldn't help with a demonstration. The point was I asked for help, and didn't get any because of the ward being short staffed.

Evelynismycatsformerspyname · 10/02/2018 09:46

Tabby tummy time helps build neck, back and arm muscles (for crawling and generally) and avoids flat head syndrome and tightening of the neck muscles, which have become a problem for more babies since babies started sleeping on their backs. Babies lying on their tummies also track moving objects with their eyes and by turning their heads more than when lying on their backs.

Obviously if they don't have tummy time they'll probably still be fine, but it's certainly a positive thing to do for a bit each day as long as it doesn't make the baby very upset.

It's not a crazy new idea which "we managed perfectly well without in our day" because babies used to be put to sleep on their tummies, so automatically woke up in that position and had tummy time by default til picked up.

Sparklingbrook · 10/02/2018 09:50

My two slept on their backs as per instructions and no tummy time as I was never told to and had not heard of it. There have been no ill effects.

grannytomine · 10/02/2018 09:51

When I went to an ante natal group with my 2nd I was the first to have my baby. So one week I was one of the pregnant women, next day I gave birth and the following week I was back at the group with a week old baby. One of the women asked if she could hold the baby, I said of course and she asked me what to do. Now having grown up in a large Catholic family I was puzzled and she said she had never held a baby and would really like to before her baby was born. Somehow I don't think she was likely to immediately feel OK about bathing a baby when she found holding one so frightening.

Evelynismycatsformerspyname · 10/02/2018 09:57

I'm sure Sparkling - it's something that can happen, not something that automatically happens.

Out of the big antenatal class I went to when expecting dc1 13 years ago there was one baby at our get together 6 months after the classes finished who needed a helmet to reshape her flat head. She'd was a brilliant sleeper who hated tummy time. My terrible sleeper who hated tummy time was fine... Possibly because she spent half the night being held! Who knows.

We met up with a lot of the group last summer and that baby is now 13 and as you say hasno I'll effects. She did have a flat head which needed a helmet as a baby though! And her mum did actively do tummy time with her brothers!

It's like the "I traveled in the boot of the hatchback car as a kid and I survived unscathed" argument. I did that - doesn't mean it's a good idea!

LRDtheFeministDragon · 10/02/2018 09:58

hibble - ok, sorry!

DD is 10 months, and I know what over-full wards are like. DP had an emergency section, lost a lot of blood, and DD went septic. No one did anything whatsoever.

I was going for lighthearted with the 'don't immerse product' just because, of all the things you have to figure out how to do, bathing a baby comes very low down the list, doesn't it?!

LRDtheFeministDragon · 10/02/2018 10:00

Oh, and you know, for some of us it is helpful to know they don't recommend bathing new babies any more ... but there we go.

HamishBamish · 10/02/2018 10:02

DH was fed carnation milk when he was a baby. I was formula fed, but bottles were made up once a day and kept in the fridge. My dad used to do it before he left for work each day.

Disposable nappies are a big one I think. Car seats too. I was just put on wh back seat of the car in the bassinet of the prom, no seatbelt or anything! Vaccinations and improvements in healthcare in general.

Swipe left for the next trending thread