To wonder how we got having a baby years ago.

[IsItSummerYet2018]

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?

I used to do online shopping but now I'm retired I quite like a mooch round Sainsburys and Aldis. I think for a busy parents with children and work etc then online shopping is a real blessing.

Agreed, Battleaxe......

Washing machine and tumble dryer. Didn't have a dryer with 1st child. When i got one didnt know how i managed to keep on top of all his washing especially in winter.

"I wonder how people coped with the boredom of cluster breast feeding when there were no smart phones and no TV."

Books?

lrd this is precisely my point. There aren't enough staff to offer advise or reassurance to first time mothers.

After having children it is easy to look back, and think various elements of baby care are easy and don't need explaining, but often first time mothers do require support with these. Some elements of baby care may be harder for some due to various reasons. For example, I found breastfeeding very easy, but was anxious about bathing my baby. As a young single mother living alone I didn't have much of a support network.

We still can't do online grocery shopping (abroad and rural). There just isn't a supermarket that delivers. We even tried using Amazon. That did not go well, and the postie was on the verge of going postal...

hibble - I'm sorry you didn't feel supported.

But, FFS, is there a need to lash out at other people?! It was a joke. It was not intended to be anything more than that. My baby is 10 months old - I know nothing about parenting and it was all scary.

For many of us, a bit of humour makes it easier. Also a bit of information. I do not see why you had to have a go at my post. If it makes you feel better - great. Go for it. But maybe it's worth realising we're all in this together, and there's value to a thread like this where people talk about things.

I do think there was more support years ago. My HV, over 40 years ago, helped me so much when I was struggling with breastfeeding. She would come in first thing in the morning, pop back a couple of times during the day and when she was going off duty. It was only 2 or 3 days but it made such a difference. I really think I would have had to give up without her. Now I rarely hear anything positive about HVs.

I did have one unfortunate run in with another HV who thought my baby was gaining weight too fast so I suppose they were always a mixed bag but in recent years I rarely hear anything positive.

I wonder how people coped with the boredom of cluster breast feeding when there were no smart phones and no TV.

I watched many an OU broadcast in the middle of the night. Some were very interesting, others weren't really for me.

Evelyn.....there was a massive period of time between babies being put to sleep on their backs and the introduction of "tummy time" (about 20 years I'd say) and there aren't masses of kids walking round with floppy necks?!

When I say "tummy time", I mean it being a thing....babies were always put down on the floor of play cots but we didn't give it a name and make out we had invented it.

The biggest change from my first (90's) to last (2006) was weaning advice changed from 4months to 6months.
Also car seat laws have changed so much even since my youngest. Mine all had rear facing as tiny babies, high back forward facing from about 9-18 months, and then booster seats until primary age. Now I think the rules are a lot tighter.. My friends with 7,8,9 year old's are still using high backed boosters it seems.

When I had my first I was advised weaning could start at 6 weeks for a hungry baby. I think it was baby rice or a rusk soaked in warm milk and mashed up. I didn't do it but plenty seemed to thrive on it.

I was also advised to give a taste of baby cereal from 6 weeks. No advice about sleeping position; I used to put mine on their side. I knew how to bath a baby from watching my mother when I was 5, and my aunt when I was 12. No changing table, I changed them on my lap; doesn't anyone do that anymore?

@eddiemairswife I change DD on my lap, we have a changing mat and a drawers with a table on top but it hurts my back,

Sister Laura's baby cereal. Couldn't think of the name last night, that was one of the named products they suggested for 6 week old babies. I think it was very old fashioned, looked like a Victorian nurse on the packaging if I remember correctly.

I wonder how people coped with the boredom of cluster breast feeding when there were no smart phones and no TV.

Day dream! Just like the thread asking what people to in baths- think, day dream, plan....
Boredom is productive!

I could not live without my phone. I would forget vaccination appointments, parents evening, orthodontist appointments etc if my phone didn't beep at me "Purplepenguins you have an appointment today at 3pm" I used to use a diary but I forgot to look in it 🤣

Tummy time was a thing here in 1999. I remember tummy time being advised with every nappy change.

I also used baby walkers. My son was in and out of hospital and the nurses even let me bring it in for him to scoot around the ward in. Which shocks me now that it was allowed. He was a trip hazard.

Presumably you're being deliberately obtuse TabbyMumz - nobody said there were masses of kids with floppy necks, nor that anyone had "invented" putting babies on their stomachs. Giving something a name is simply a shorthand way to refer to pour promote doing something, it isn't a claim to having "invented" it, and pretending to think it is is just daft.

After the 1990s Back to Sleep Campaign (which also didn't "invent" putting babies to sleep on their backs, obviously, but just promoted it as safer) a lot of new parents were afraid to put babies on their stomachs at all any more, and research showed this leading to a rise in all sorts of minor problems, including flat backs of heads and poor muscle development and more babies being slow to reach first year milestones.

Although the babies usually catch up, there are studies suggesting delayed development in the first year can have a knock on impact later in life for some children, and there was no need for the development of those children to be delayed - "tummy time" was then coined as a handy name to promote to encourage parents to put babies down on their stomachs to play when awake and supervised (the same way "back to sleep" was coined in the 90s to encourage people to put babies in a safe sleeping position).

It took a few years for the trend towards flat sports on the back of the head and slower motor development in the first year to be noticed and 2 and 2 to be put together, hence the phase when back sleeping was advised but "tummy time" not mentioned.

Its properly weird to be so snide about a very simple initiative promoted by physiotherapists and paediatricians to help children get a decent start in life.

Most things have been done before since time immemorial and nothing is really "new" but that doesn't mean that people don't sometimes stop doing very practical things due to fashions or peer pressure or shiny consumer products offering tempting promises, or that research breakthroughs aren't sometimes made that do make new ways better (as in sleeping on the back and tummy time).

"No changing table, I changed them on my lap; doesn't anyone do that anymore?"

I've been minding babies "officially" since I was 14 but I'm also the eldest of 3 and the eldest of 12 cousins. I could not get on with changing tables I've changed on my lap, sofa, back seat of cars, in buggies...

Can do it pretty much one handed now even with wrigglers

Dd was a 98 baby and I remember the HV talking about and giving me a pamphlet onthe new fangled tummy time

As Evelynis asserts, initiatives (whether you find them 'new fangled', obvious, silly, contrived) are launched in response to recurring problems identified by GPs, health visitors, midwives, paediatricians etc.
Some may find the term 'tummy time' annoying or patronising, but babies exploring their surrounding from the perspective of being on their fronts, rather than their backs (ie active rather than passive) is essential for their physical and mental development.
However you wrap it, it's essential.

@Graphista - I have one baby and can not pin him down to change his nappy so could you please come live with me?

Perfect Prep machines are not a safe way to prepare a feed for your baby!!! Get a flask and fill with boiled water and dispense from there... also about £100 cheaper than one of those daft, mould growing machines