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?

35 Year’s since the twins were born...
A full week in hospital where we were all taught to bath the baby and change a nappy plus the midwife made sure we were breast feeding correctly.
Midwife visited every day for the first week or so at home.
Regular HV visits at home for several months AND she was nice and helpful.
Made up a days worth of bottles at at time.
No baby monitor.
Putting babies on their fronts to sleep, all swaddled in a big cloth.
No disposable nappies just big terry squares.
No automatic washing machine, I had a service super twin.
No car seats or any sort of fastenings for the carry cot in the car.
Huge pram.
Putting the twins in thepram. outside for a nice nap.
A mouli thing to make purées.
Weaning at 4 months with baby rice.
Cows milk at I think 6 months.

The one about supermarket deliveries made me smile. In the 1960's my mother used to call the local grocer, butcher, fishmonger, whatever, tell them her list and it was all delivered the next day, for free. If she was out anyway, she dropped a list off with them or carried home what she wanted if it was small. When supermarkets became popular she hated it and said she didn't have time for shopping in that way. It was left to my Dad to do the weekly shop.

Travel systems. Imagine pushing those massive heavy old school pranks around. (Or getting them up stairs)

Also iPads or kindles for reading whilst shush patting.

I’m jealous of the lack of parenting books, blogs, websites, methods and manuals in the olden days though - I wonder if it made parents less judgemental of one another than we seem to be today? (Not aimed at anyone, genuine musing)

Phones? I didn't have a house phone until I got pregnant.
And only a black and white tv with 4 channels.

Pranks? Prams....

I think it’s made out as if you need a billion things for a baby when you don’t.

The perfect prep machine is not favoured because it doesn’t heat all of the water, only a “hot shot” so it can’t sterilise the formula. Plus Tommee Tippee have repeatedly refused to address issues with mould in the machine.

It’s the formula that needs to be sterilised, some of the bacteria that can lurk in the powder are really nasty.

Buggies nowadays are scary prices too

When I was expecting DTs there was all this expectation that I’d need fancy video monitors to see them both all the time, breathing monitors, double the fancy nursery stuff, expensive breast pump, PP machine, the list was endless. They didn’t need that much in the end!

An automatic washer (previously had twin tub), microwave and the internet for information.

Disposable nappies were nowhere near as good as they are now. 1 wee too many and it came straight through, so once the terry nappies got too thin (2nd baby), they were sewn together to make lovely, thick night nappies.

DH changed the steriliser every evening and made up 6 bottles. Fridge and then bottle warmer.

I adored my big, shiny pram though. Babies stayed huddled up in them through the winter until they were around 2. Early model McClaren umbrella buggy for the bus. Unsecured carrycot in the back seat of the car .

My DGCs have so much baby equipment, but I don't think they have as much time as we did, so it's a good job really.

Wet wipe warmers 😂

Smartphones and breastfeeding

Seat belts in the back of a car. I remember going with my mum to have ours fitted in the back of the car at Halfords. Also laws in regards to the number of people in a car. I'm sure as kids we all just piled in!

We don't have a lot of gadgets (no perfect prep, no tumble drier, no microwave, for a few delightful weeks no washing machine ), but the thing that blew my mind was a chance conversation with my mum a few weeks ago, when she casually revealed that, when we were born in the early 80s, she was encouraged to put us in our own room from birth.

I knew we had our own rooms, but what I didn't realise (or think about!) was that this meant when we cried, she had to get up, go sit in a chair beside a cot, and breastfeed. And then she tucked us back in, went back to bed, and caught a bit of sleep until the next time. Or if we wouldn't sleep she walked up and down that room with us.

She commented that 'sometimes, your dad would get up instead, and bring you to me in our bed, and that was very nice'.

DD is 10 months and so her newborn stage is pretty fresh in my mind, and it just made me so sad for my mum constantly bobbing up and down from her nice warm bed to sit in a chair feeding. I don't know why - she is only mildly envious of the idea of having your baby in your room with you, and obviously it did us no harm. But it seems really soul-destroying to me!

Online shopping. If you needed anything, you went to the shops.

People "managed" without electricity or running water too...

"Couldn't live without" is just a stupid hyperbolic phrase. Nobody ever uses it about things they actually couldn't live without because it would be stating the blindingly obvious "oh I couldn't live without potable water" well, erm, true...

I’ve often wondered this, especially when I think of my lovely Granny. 10 children, and I think there were times when they didn’t have a washing machine or freezer.

I’ve no idea how she did it!

I don’t have a microwave. I breastfed DD, but with DS I made a couple of bottles with boiling water for the night feed, I wrapped them in tin foil and then in a tea towel and they would be just right in the small hours!

Formula feeding was easy and I didn't have a machine.

Mobile phones. If we were ill at school they had to ring my parents landline. If they were out then tough! I still think mobile phones cause as many problems as they solve.

Paternity leave...unheard of when I had my dcs , and come to think of it decent maternity leave or free nursery places...had to go back to work full time 14 weeks post emcs and 80% of my pay went to pay for childminder

"I’m jealous of the lack of parenting books, blogs, websites, methods and manuals in the olden days though"

I know there definitely weren't all the blogs, but we've had holier-than-thou parenting manuals for ages (with a decent amount of terrible advice by modern standards, of course). There are several scornful references in the Anne of Green Gables series, for example.

Wet wipe warmers 😂

I used the back of the old style TV pure accident but kept them warm!

I brought a prom in 'last seasons' clolours - pure snobbery round prams these days

My nan had to go out in the street with a jug to buy milk from a cart and use glass banana shaped bottles.

Mum left us outside the supermarket in a pram.

Shut yer face WET WIPE WARMER

I knew we had our own rooms, but what I didn't realise (or think about!) was that this meant when we cried, she had to get up, go sit in a chair beside a cot, and breastfeed. And then she tucked us back in, went back to bed, and caught a bit of sleep until the next time. Or if we wouldn't sleep she walked up and down that room with us.

This. We were told the same. The HV visited and checked where the baby would sleep before the birth. I brought both DCs home from hospital and they went straight in their own rooms. When they woke up, bottle was warmed, nappy changed and back in the cot. I still can't believe I agreed to that. I think my young self thought they might take my baby away if I didn't follow the rules. It was absolutely no no to take your baby into bed. What an idiot I was.

With DGCs we monitor their every breath.

Aaah the 80s baby! Milton steralisers, formula feed, farleys rusks at four months and a bottle of cold milky tea and boy/ girl Pampers were the latest must have nappies.

There is always nonsense talked about safely making up formula on Mumsnet.

The guidelines are : first preference and best option, make up each bottle fresh with formula added to boiled water cooled to 70 degrees, cool bottle, serve. Discard within two hours.

There is however also a perfectly safe and officially approved second preference which is make bottles as above, formula hits the water at 70 degrees, then flash cool as quickly as possible and store in the back of the fridge. These can be stored for up to 24 hours. Once taken out to reheat, only reheat once and discard after 2 hours.

For some reason, people like to pretend that the second option doesn't exist or isn't approved. It is.

And yes, boo hiss to the perfect lactating goddesses, we lesser mortals bow down before your wonderful breastfeeding ways.

I had babies in the 80s and each time I kept baby in a crib next to my side of the bed. No one advised me to put baby in her own room. Husband was at the birth of all of them and also used disposable nappies and there were lots of brands around.

When I had twins, 23 years ago, I had no washing machine. I hand washed pretty much everything. If I wanted to go anywhere, I had to walk as there was no way I could fold a heavy buggy with no brakes
and carry two babies at the same time.

3 times a day I'd boil a full kettle, let the water cool, and then make up 6 bottles and put them in the fridge.

However, my mam had me and my twin brothers in the 60s/70s and we were all in terry nappies and bottle fed. I think she had it worse.

The 80s had the earth mother movement - everything totally natural and co sleeping as well. The difference is we didn't have the internet. So I guess you weren't quite as aware of what people did outside your own circle.