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?

Slings, like Venetian blinds and tin openers, are something I’ve never been able to get on with. I’ve been to sling libraries and tried different ones and even bought a couple and I find them awkward, uncomfortable, and the DC haven’t been keen either. I feel like I’m missing something as most of my friends couldn’t live without theirs!

Astounded at some of the info presented as fact in the threads here. I had a mid 80s baby as well as an end of 80s baby. Waterbirths were believe it or not available then in some city centre hospitals. Large choice of disposable nappy ranges at reasonable prices, though most people I knew opted for Pampers. The fathers all got up during the night if their child was bottle fed. All the dads I knew did everything including nappy changing, apart from breast feeding
HV couldn't have cared less whether you were dressed or not when they called, they were generally very supportive and helpful, unlike many nowadays. While I was on maternity leave I had regular weekly trips to the baby clinic at the surgery for baby weighing and chatting to the HV. There was always a GP around specially to deal with any baby related medical queries. The baby slept in our room for at least a year and after they moved to their own room we had a baby monitor to listen out when they woke up during the night.
Only main difference was that the accepted advice on weaning was to start from 4 months onwards with fruit puree and baby rice. The 80s feeding advice where I lived was feeding on demand, interestingly my mother in law who had her first baby during WW11 also fed on demand.
People then were a lot more sophisticated than they are given credit for nowadays.

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, like Venetian blinds and tin openers, are something I’ve never been able to get on with. I’ve been to sling libraries and tried different ones and even bought a couple and I find them awkward, uncomfortable, and the DC haven’t been keen either. I feel like I’m missing something as most of my friends couldn’t live without theirs! I used to have Chinese neighbours, granny lived with them and looked after the children when the parents were working. She had the most beautiful silk slings, she made them herself and they were lovely, bright red or royal blue with embroidery. My mothercare one looked very boring.

I remember my GP, lady in her 50s, sending an exhausted mother home for a rest and she kept the baby with her at the surgery. I can't imagine my current GP doing that, even though he is lovely.

Tummy time? Mine did that in the 80’s as they were encouraged to sleep on their front.
Ah the big pram. I loved my beautiful big white broderie anglais canopy as much as the baby underneath it. Walked miles with it with toddler underneath lying on the tray when he got tired.
I tried slings in the early 80’s. As I was small and short and my first 2 babies were over 9lb, I didn’t feel safe, was worried I d fall over with the weight of them.

My oldest is 16 and youngest 3, with my oldest I made up 4 bottles up at a time and kept them in the fridge. My youngest were mostly breastfed but sometimes had formula during the early days and during the night I would use premade formula bottles so we didn't have to make bottles up. When I had my 1st it was expected to stay in hospital for 3 days, my youngest 6 hours.

I went to NCT classes in 1970 and they were promoting tummy time then.

The pp who said this:
'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.'

This is what I do. Because I choose to, (and yes I know it goes against the advice to have your newborn in with you). It just works better for me and baby. And this is the third baby. It's hardly soul destroying, I have a lovely comfy chair with a duvet and when I come back to bed I get proper sleep, plus baby is used to sleeping in his own bed. Win win.

Bonnets. Don't see them any more (thank god IMO)

Watching my children have their own babies, it seems to me that we had more professional support than they do now. A week in hospital, midwife visiting daily until day 10, then a couple of visits from the health visitor, then encouraged to go to the clinic weekly for weighing. Also most of my girl friends were stay at home mums like me so there was a good peer support network.
Not even overnight in hospital these days, one or two visits from the midwife, then only to doctors surgery if you have a problem.

It is funny how things come in and out of fashion. In the 20 year gap between my eldest and youngest my sister had hers. Sleeping babies on their back or side was normal in the 1970s, well it was where I lived anyway. When my sister had hers it was very definitely sleeping them on their front so they didn't choke on vomit. My sister was horrified in 1990 when I put mine down on his back. She said I was so out of date and it wasn't the 70s. I had to point out she was out of date.

So much stuff all born of the necessities of time.
No way could we hand wash, spend ages drying, clothes, not to mention nappies.. all 'mod cons' designed to give parents more time.. only it's not time to spend time enjoying your baby for most parents. It's time traded to spend time working to finance the lifestyle we think we need.
The babies rarely see any benefit to all these labour saving devices.
as (mostly) mum has to go to work.
A generation before parents had less gadgetry but most parents could afford to live well on one income.
Have we really progressed?

Btw I'm a working mum who has never had more than 3 months off for all 3. 25 yrs on I'm wondering if it was worth it.

Fashion probably isn't the right word for health issue but I'm sure you know what I mean.

I keep my perfect prep machines for milk in my bra.

I keep mine in the kitchen.
I think DH would struggle to make a bottle up in the night without waking me if it was in my bra.

I was just thinking today how much of a god-send the video baby-monitor is. I can see if DS is just turning over or if he's properly waking up. I can see if he's lost his toy/muslin.

Gro-bags. DS is the biggest wriggler and a blanket last approximately 0.000003 seconds. He's only 1 but already I dread him getting too big to wear one.

Some of us had none of the gadgets and still had to work so I can say you can do the washing, drying and reusable nappies and go to work.

The price was total exhaustion in my case and I'm sure many others as well.

Re the sleeping in own rooms, mine did that from the start as it was encouraged by the midwife. I think Anne Diamonds baby dying from cot death led to that changing. Interesting though, my grandchildren in USA have both slept in their own rooms from day one as it is encouraged.

The point of tummy time is to ensure babies get used to being on their tummies and start to strengthen their necks etc. Previously, when the advice was to put babies to sleep on their fronts they didn't need this practice. SIDS research has shown that it's safer for babies to sleep on their backs, hence the 'back to sleep' campaign. I think there's more knowledge about cot death now and much fewer incidences of it which is a massive change and probably a weight of parents' minds.

I wish baby monitors had been invented when mine were babies.

No mention ot tummy time in these parts in 1999. Who can I sue?

But thinking about it my MW suggested I had a glass of wine before breastfeeding to 'relax'. So tummy time the least of my worries.

No mention ot tummy time in these parts in 1999. Who can I sue? Probably just not the tummy time year, I was told about it in 1970, never mentioned when I had 2nd in 1975, all important again in 1990.

It is amazing how "the best thing" for baby keeps changing.

Scans. No viability scan, no 12 week or nuchal fold scan, no anomaly scan....none. Not sure when they started but none when I was born. You could request the amnio test, that was it as far as I know. Scary!

Car seats.

When I was born in the 80s apparently I was kept in the footwell of the car as a baby in a moses basket, which was 'perfectly safe'. Lucky my parents didn't have an accident.

My MIL made her own sling in 1970. My mum had one for my brother in 1981 and she isn't at all modern.

I do wonder how my 10 and 7 year olds survived their baby and toddler years with wifi and tablets. They seem a necessity now.

2004 there was tummy time. And we didn't bother with all that perfect prep nonsense, after all they spent all tummy time licking the floor. For a bit I did have a device that kept 2 bottles cold at night, then you added the milk powder and heated it up on a teeny tiny hot plate with a splash of. Water, by a very dim lights. But after a few months I left made up bottles in the fridge and microwaved them. Seems to have grown into a healthy specimen anyway. All this advice is aimed at the weakest baby I always think. Most of them are very tough.