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?

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

Haha! I wish I could. I miss looking after babies so much. Last one I babysat regularly just turned 8 - a friend's son. Superlative wriggler there too he still is in his own way, he's been diagnosed since with asd and can be a bit of a wanderer, but he's still very cute and so much fun to talk to.

It just takes a lot of practice.

Off the top of my head I've probably changed the nappies of over 100 babies. Fuck that makes me feel old!!

Graphista, you should market a method, you'll make your fortune 3 dc and I still hate nappy changing, and not because of the wee and poo either.

Evelyn (catching up with upthread a bit), I got shouted at after getting out of bed on I think day 2 after having ds1 in Germany because I'd had a PPH (ventouse birth). I was in a little cottage hospital that was sort of in transition from old- to new-school - they took ds1 to the nursery on the first night but brought him to me to feed, the rest of the time he was in with me. They nearly fucked up my bf by making me test weigh and then forcing top-ups on us, and they had a 'pumping room' rather than me expressing in my room, but they were very good during the birth about pulling out all the stops to avoid CS, which I had said I really didn't want if possible. I had all sorts of interventions and passed out briefly afterwards but they looked after me really well and a birth which definitely had the potential to be traumatic wasn't at all.

I had one of those semicircular sidecar cot things the two nights I was in with ds2. With dd I hotfooted it out of there with her in the sling four hours after the birth (we were obv both fine to leave), to the bemusement of the MWs who asked if I wanted to stay for a couple of days and have a rest

Nurseries!
No nurseries where we lived in the 80s so when you had a baby you just left work unless your parents could look after it!
No option!
Terrifying! (No childminders either!)

Yes I don't remember any paid childcare. Maybe there was in London? So if you didn't have relatives or neighbours who could look after your kids, you could not work.

I was a childminder in London in the 80s and early 90s. And my children started in the nursery class at school when they were three and a half. So there was provision.

Haven’t RTFT so apologies if already mentioned but soft play. It’s a godsend on a cold rainy day with a hyperactive climbing-loving 17 month old. Yes, you can pile up sofa cushions etc but I am sure his gross motor skills have really come on leaps and bounds since he’s been able to throw himself up and down slides and softplay steps and scramble nets and things. And it tires him out. (We have a nice one near us with no food and an upper age limit of 5).

motoko it wasn't widespread and certainly not in the provincial town we were in. That was my point. It wasn't accessible or common enough to be relied upon.

Nursery provision was massively increased during WW2 so that women could do work that men were no longer available to do. During the 50s and 60s much of that provision ended and in the 1970s it was scarce but it was there, just hard to access. There definitely were childminders but not as well supervised as now.

One of the great things about the reduction in childcare was the playgroup movement in the 1960s and 70s. Women getting together to self help.

Playgroups were great for the children and providing a supportive community for parents (mainly mums) but weren't useful for working parents.

Hear, hear to the playgroup movement! It may have started in the 60s but it kept my sanity in the 00s and I'm sure continues to do so for other parents today.

I did get recruited for childminding. A lady from children's services turned up in the playground while we were waiting to pick the children up from school, and went around asking the mums if they wanted to become childminders.

It was a lot easier to become one then. I had to go to a few meetings, have a chest x-ray (to check for TB apparently), did a first aid course, had a visit at home from the environmental health officer, and police records check.

Record keeping was minimal, and we didn't have to follow a curriculum, as it was more a case of the children being in a home environment. I did the same with the minded children, that I did with my own. Took them out to the park or shopping, did crafts with them, read books, they played with toys and sometimes watched videos, such as Postman Pat, or the nursery rhyme video we had that had something like 79 nursery rhymes on it (starring Floella Benjamine). The kids (minded, and my own) loved that one as they could join in with the songs. I'm surprised that video didn't get worn out the amount of times it got played!

Yes I am talking about 70s and early to mid 80s. I know there were no nurseries in the town I lived in. There were playgroups but they did not provide childcare. There were a lot of latchkey kids though.

Motoko TB would still have been a big concern then.
It is the late 80s and 90s I really remember suddenly there being a lot of childcare, although lots of nurseries were of a lower standard than now.I know, I worked in one and it would not have met current OFSTED standards for the building.

God yes! We went to a childminder in the 80's but I think she was basically just a friend of mum's.

I became a childminder after having dd for a few years. I had to do LOADS before I was allowed to even advertise! First aid, health & safety, accountancy, legalities, record keeping courses, home & garden inspection, provide the right toys and books, have liability insurance, background checks for me and then husband (even though he would not be having contact with the children), medical records checked...

And I hear there's even more to do/organise now.

Really pisses me off when I see people commenting/thinking that it's "easy", that child minders are little more than babysitters.

Took about 6 months before I could even start advertising!

Playgroups were started in the early 1960s so that pre school children could get together and play with each other. You would go for about 2 hours once or twice a week. They were organised by local mothers.

When I was looking for a nursery/after school care place for dd I was shocked how poor some were and this was in 2005.

I saw overflowing nappy bins with open dirty nappies, rotting food, nails sticking out of fence board in garden areas, loose floorboards...

How the hell they passed inspections I don't know!

Luckily I found a lovely place that dd adored.

I was born in the late 70s. We went to a church playgroup in the mornings from age 2 yrs (we weren’t religious, it was just the only provision around) and the the school nursery from 3 yrs old (still only half days). My grandmother did the rest of the childcare, as my mum trained as a teacher when we were small.

Once we were at school there was no breakfast club, so my mum made a special arrangement with the headteacher that she could drop me and my sister to school at 8am and we would read or draw in her office until school started at 9am. We were the only kids there, so no idea what other working parents did?!

On the plus side, the school had a free ‘play centre’ after school until 6pm every day. You just had to bring 20p if you wanted crisps and a glass of squash

The most important thing we have now, IMO, is relatively safe births, with C-sections, foetal monitoring, ultrasound, etc. I was horrified to learn that, even in Victorian times, 1/3 of women died during childbirth. Can you imagine how terrifying that must have been?

I'd have died with DS1 back then. He didn't want to come out, due to a huge ovarian cyst blocking his exit! He was 10 days' overdue before they gave me a c-section. We'd both have died without modern medicine - I'm eternally grateful.

Whatsgoingon

Glad you and ds1 ok but actually uk maternal mortality rates while reduced/reducing are still worse than those of many other developed countries.

I had dd overseas and almost died, if I'd had her in the uk (particularly in the hospital local to where we first moved when we came back to uk) in not entirely convinced I'd still be here.

The details are far too outing but there were tests and checks carried out in the country I had her in that aren't here.

I also have a friend who's child was stillborn due to a condition which is routinely tested for in a number of other developed countries, isn't expensive to test for and is easily treatable.

@Graphista - that's awful! I had no idea. I'm so sorry about your friend's loss. I'm glad you're OK.

You Tube. You can learn how to do anything by watching You Tube. Tying slings, bathing the baby, cutting a toddler’s hair....I found it particularly helpful to refine my position for breastfeeding while lying down.

I was a latch key child - went to school with a key around my neck in a ribbon. Juniors though. I never thought it was a problem then. I walked to school on my own from age five. So no school run! This was in the 70s

Agree that modern medicine is the single biggest thing we have to be grateful for.

My paternal grandmother was having babies in the 30s, 40s and early 50s in rural, poverty stricken Ireland. She had 16 children - two died in childbirth, 2 died of childhood illness (diphtheria), 12 surviving. She told me shortly before she died that she had had several miscarriages and buried the foetuses in their back field, which was quite common apparently.

I can't imagine what her life was like . And she was one of the lucky ones who survived childbirth.

I was a latch key kid too. My mum had to work. No afterschool clubs though.

My first two babies:

• no disposable nappies
• no baby wipes
• ghastly smelly buckets with nappies soaking in them
• nappy liners
• grim plastic pants with uncomfortable elastic round the thighs
• endless nappy rash - it was inevitable however hard you tried
• no baby/child car seats
• no tumble dryer

Different practices:

• advised to put babies down to sleep on their fronts for safety
• weaned early, usually starting with egg yolk
• baby rice used to settle babies to sleep
• babies put in their own rooms at a few weeks old
• babies left to cry initially when put down - they usually fell asleep - honestly!
• toddlers fed at the table with the family and no snacks between meals
• babies left outside shops without a second thought

I could go on! They survived and are lovely adults.

What seems different now with the upbringing of the GC and other children I have contact with is that they have more attention and are taught less about their place as part of the family and the need to consider others' needs - they dash up and speak to you when you are talking to someone else and expect you to stop and attend to them. My children were expected to be involved in the household chores from a very young age - e.g. helping to put clothes in the washing machine from the age of about 2; making their own school packed lunches from the start of school etc.

I also think that we felt less guilty and pressured - we thought that good enough was good enough and were not bombarded with "shoulds" and "should nots" in quite such quantity; and on different media platforms (which did not exist!)

I remember the birth of my baby sister and watching my Mum hand washing nappies; and having them draped all round the house to dry.