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?

[NewYearNiki]

Im in awe at Emma being able to keep a perfect prep machine in her bra

She must be a KK+ cup.

Look at the size of the thing 😉😂

[Getoffthetableplease]

When I was little we had no central heating or double glazing, I would hate that now at home with the kids. At least the loo was inside though - my babies have both come with me to bathroom from being tiny, plonked on floor/bouncer in there etc can't imagine the juggling act/leaving baby for an outside toilet.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

who - when in the 80s? I think the advice changed - my mum remembers slightly younger friends who were told different things. It could also just be that (as now) different people were told different things.

What startles me, though, is that she obviously felt it was so much her job to do the uncomfortable sitting in a chair bit. She must have literally have counted her sleep in minutes together rather than hours together.

[NewYearNiki]

Somehow mine managed very well with only the basics (certainly we couldn't have afforded the costs of a designer pram or buggy!)

But housing was affordable in a way it is not now.

Swings and roundabouts

[NerrSnerr]

I keep my perfect prep machines for milk in my bra. 😏
😂that is the smuggest thing I have seen in a long time.

I'd struggle without my phone, especially through those long night feeds.

[Sparklingbrook]

I had no idea that the pram was so important, like a designer handbag or something. Has to be 'this year's colour' etc.

Using a sling (awful things) is now called 'baby wearing' and throwing all the food on the high chair tray and letting baby get on with it is 'baby led weaning'

Neither of my teenagers did 'Tummy Time as babies'. I obviously feel a pang of guilt over that.

[ijustwannadance]

Netflix.
Invaluable at daft o clock when tv is rubbish.

[LemonScentedStickyBat]

I think the official advice against making up bottles in advance has backfired tremendously- now there’s all these people faffing around with prep machines and half bottles of boiling water etc - not to mention those who add the formula to cold water, which is inadvisable (I did it myself a few years ago and I know the overall risks are pretty low, but still!). Making it up properly, cooling it and back of the fridge straight away is safer than all those options.

[trilbydoll]

My grandmother did laundry once a week, for a full day, but because they were well off the sheets went to the laundry and came back perfectly pressed and wrapped in brown paper.

I could probably spend a full day doing laundry with machines

[Situp]

When my sister was born in the early 70s my mum was told to feed her every 4 hours and never sooner. She had to sit and listen to my sister cry for hours. Then the Health visitor told her she wasn't gaining weight faster and recommended raw eggs at about 6 weeks

For me, the biggest thing is access to the internet. If I have worries or concerns I can spend 2 minutes online and find someone who has experienced it and see what can be done. It means if one person gives me advice I can look at alternatives if it goes against my instincts

[dontcallmelen]

@sycamore54321 yy the the second method you described, I really don’t understand all the angst around ff methods this is a safe & convenient way of making up formula.
I did love my beautiful silver cross Pram, with the big sprung body & massive wheels, it had a really long shopping tray that I could fit nearly a weeks shopping in & had a lovely white sun canopy with a green lining that shaded the whole Pram was a thing of beauty, kept me fit as well as I had to walk everywhere.

[Backenette]

Hot water on tap
Central heating
Laundry machines
Electricity
Antibiotics
C sections
IV drips
Vaccinations
Ondansetron

Personally I’m all for technology making life better. Imagine giving birth in a refugee camp - we don’t know how lucky we are.

[Sadiebird]

Love these threads!

I agree with a PP, I’d struggle without online shopping. For as little as one English pound a man will bring the weekly shop to my door? And sometimes the substitutions are awesome (I’m talking a multibag of 12 Wotsits when bet didn’t have any 6s left).

I also love my smartphone, I’ve got so many lovely photos of my DC I think I have over 8500

[Bedknobsandhoover]

My MIL never fed her babies at night. She had to listen to them crying, although they soon gave up and slept all night, because her own MIL said she must never go to a baby in the night.

[Sadiebird]

^when they, thanks smartphone, I just said something nice about you as well

[Namechangedtoscream]

Yy to safe hyperemesis drugs. My mum had HG and was petrified to take anything to manage it as thalidomide was so fresh in public memory. She was hospitalised many times.

Me. I take a few tablets and I can just about keep enough fluids in me to keep the dr at bay. I have lost a stone though but he fluids are staying in thanks to modern science!

[TheFirstMrsDV]

When I made bottles for my babies I could mix up a vast jug of formula and fill bottles for 12 hours.
You can't do that now which is why I would totally go for a perfect prep machine if I had a baby.
Four of mine didn't have bottles till they were 6mths + but one was ff from birth and could only take about 1oz at a time. I would have KILLED for a bottle making machine.


My first was born 26 years ago and my youngest 7 years ago. I have seen an awful lot of changes in that time. nappies are a million times better and a lot cheaper. You couldn't use supermarket brands twenty years ago, You may a well have used damp loo paper. now they are just as good as pampers/huggies.
I say embrace anything that makes life easier. Bottle warmers, microwave sterilisers, self folding buggies, hover cots (ok, I made that last one up).
I also say avoid anything that makes your life more full of worry like home dopplers and medical grade weighing scales.

I couldn't have coped without a washer and a dryer.

[StayAChild]

Neither of my teenagers did 'Tummy Time as babies'. I obviously feel a pang of guilt over that.

It's never too late to start Sparklingbrook

Slings were around in the early 80s as I remember my screamy DC hanging over the twin tub; steamy, soapy vapour going in her face. It was the only way to get anything done.

[grannytomine]

Twenty years between my first and last.

For 1970 baby I didn't have
A fridge or freezer
a washing machine
a tumble dryer
central heating (getting up for a 6 am feed in a house with no central heating or double glazing is not a happy memory)
a telephone (obviously no mobile but no landline)
computer/tablet
disposable nappies (oh the joy of a bucket full of nappies to deal with and the nightmare trying to dry them in bad weather)
a car (not just for me, husband didn't have one either)

Had all the above for 1990 baby except the tablet. I used to laugh when mums at the mother and baby group said how hard it was, so much harder 20 years ago.

I breastfed so no worries about formula or bottles.

[grannytomine]

Thinking about it I had a sling in 1970.

[Sparklingbrook]

I will ring DS1 (18) and tell him to lie on his front for a bit Stay. DS2 lies on his front to play PS4.

I hated the sling. Hot summer with DS1, felt like being pregnant again. So bought one of those battery operated swingy chairs.

[Doilooklikeatourist]

I’m amazed at how people need the internet to help with the boredom of bread feeding
In the olden days we used to watch something we’d videotaped , or even read a book ( how prehistoric )

I was born in the 60s , and remember going on a camping holiday , we drove through France. Down to Spain in a Mini Cooper with a tent in the trailer , dad made a little cover for the footwell in the backseat ( to make it all flat , so me and my 2 siblings could lie down and sleep while mum and dad drove continuously )

I don’t even think they had seatbelts in the front in those days

We didn’t need WiFi and downloaded CBeebies to keep happy on holiday

[barefoofdoctor]

Calpol. Contact lenses.

[Sparklingbrook]

I BF for a bit (1999) and used to watch the TV, but I would use the internet now absolutely. Feeding babies is v boring.

[picklemepopcorn]

I think we had it easier. Less stuff cluttering up the house. Fewer expectations. Much simpler.