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AIBU?

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Original poster

To wonder how we got having a baby years ago.

385 replies

IsItSummerYet2018 · 08/02/2018 17:35

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?

OP posts:
EmilyAlice · 09/02/2018 06:38

I had my first in 1971. OH sent away as husbands were not allowed to stay in the hospital, let alone the delivery suite. He was told to phone the next morning, by which time the baby was 8 hours old. We had no washing machine so nappies were soaked in a bucket in nappisan, hand washed and put through the mangle. Two years later I had our second one (different hospital) and OH was allowed to be there without question. We also bought a washing machine. We had straps for the carrycot in the car and car seats pretty soon after.
I couldn’t breast feed and used to make bottles in advance.
OH shared all the work. Night feeds, nappy changing, cleaning and cooking. This was not at all unusual in our circle of friends.

speakout · 09/02/2018 06:48

I guess I must be old fashioned- or my babies were.

No formula, no buggy, no bottles.

In fact very simple.

dentydown · 09/02/2018 06:55

My first was 2005 so I made bottles up in advance, weaning was encouraged at 4 months (although he did have a problem with food, but instead of putting it off I was advised to keep trying)
Had no internet at home but had tv and bbc three!
Had no washing machine until recently (1.5 years ago) tand that was an eye opener! If anyone tried to take it now I would bury them under the patio!
I wish I’d of tried reusable nappies but too late now!

stoneagefertilitydoll · 09/02/2018 06:55

Mobile phones/tablets - ipad was released the same time as my first child, and already, it's hard for me to imagine life without tablets (And my kids are completely incapable of it)

Kids TV with adverts - Kids TV where you had to watch what was on one of 2 channels, and at 5:35, it was Neighbours, and kids TV was Over for the day (well, there was Star Trek on BBC 2, or something on Channel 4, but nothing for the littlies).

Kids books were expensive - we have sacks full of the things because they're so cheap now.

hannah1992 · 09/02/2018 06:58

Dh grandma is in her 80s and she’s said to me dads were not allowed in the room when they were giving birth they had to wait outside in the corridor. They swaddled babies. They had no central heating only the open fire in the lounge. No disposable nappies and no washer. Huge prams but couldn’t take them on a bus. No such thing as a weaning guideline. A week in hospital to recover. And then when the children were older there was no car seats or seatbelts. People often drove with numerous people on a 5 seat car. Kids would play in the street as young as 2 years old. Kids ran around naked in the front garden with a bowl of water for a paddling pool. It was a completely different way of life but it’s sad to think that now The only time I let my 7 year old ride her bike up and down our street is if I’m in the front garden and can see her. I wouldn’t dream of letting my 2 year old out on the street ever without me at this age. And I wouldn’t let my kids walk themselves to school until at least 10 years old and that’s a cross that bridge when we come to it age. Whereas back in the day it was common to see children walking to school as young as 5 with a 7-8 year old sibling.

hannah1992 · 09/02/2018 06:59

Also to add to the above I’m 25 and my first phone was a Nokia 3310. It’s crazy how when my kids are 25 they will be saying omg my first phone was an iPhone whatever. How old is that!

TheDailyMailIsADisgustingRag · 09/02/2018 07:09

I remember my granny (in her mid-nineties) advising me to stay in hospital for as long as possible after giving birth as “at least that way, they look after your baby at night so you get a rest” Grin! Had to chuckle at that.

EmilyAlice · 09/02/2018 07:14

I hated the five days in hospital. It was a huge ward, babies were kept in the nursery apart from feeding-time, some unpleasant nurses who wouldn’t discuss when you would be allowed home, OH visit limited to an hour in the evening, ghastly food.
Just awful. It was a former workhouse and felt like it. 😨

SweetheartNeckline · 09/02/2018 07:42

Sometimes I wonder how we managed 35 years ago without ovulation monitors, pregnancy POAS, scans, diagnostic blood tests, waterbirths etc

I'm nearly 30. My mum sadly had a miscarriage when I was 12 months, TTC for a further 2 or 3 more months then went to the GP and got given Clomid. No blood tests or anything let alone a hospital referral. He must have just had the rep round as she said "Everyone at toddler group was on it!"

GreenTulips · 09/02/2018 07:47

at least that way, they look after your baby at night so you get a rest

Yes! My nan was visiting and asked 'when do they take the babies to the nursery?' I said they didn't and she was horrified!

Sparklingbrook · 09/02/2018 08:17

DS1 was taken away to the nursery the night after his birth in 1999 so I could get some sleep. I then got prodded awake at about 2am to feed him.

It was a nice nursery, and they played the babies Classic FM. Grin

crunchymint · 09/02/2018 09:04

Yes they took babies to nursery, but many mothers wanted their babies with them. It was actually women who campaigned against these restrictions.

EmilyAlice · 09/02/2018 09:16

Absolutely. And in my experience of my first they were in the nursery apart from the thirty minutes you were allowed to feed them. It made the initial bonding very hard for many of us. It was one of the things we campaigned about in the feminist movement of the seventies.

EmilyAlice · 09/02/2018 09:18

I remember the lovely lady in the next bed saying that she felt closer to my baby because she had actually seen him, rather than her twins who were in scbu.

crunchymint · 09/02/2018 09:26

It also made breastfeeding far harder to establish.

EmilyAlice · 09/02/2018 09:29

Yup. And I would be amazed if bottles weren’t given overnight in the nursery. I don’t remember anyone being woken up to feed. There were twelve of us in the ward. The babies were brought out before the paediatrician’s ward round as she thought babies should be with their mothers.😮 They were tidied away afterwards.

TenancyTroublesAgain · 09/02/2018 09:30

Electricity!! Pretty much everything runs off it now!

ZivaDiva · 09/02/2018 09:46

FlipflopFifi I used to read books although my kindle would make the experience even better now. 😀

crunchymint · 09/02/2018 10:13

Before TV, most people listened to the radio.

Motoko · 09/02/2018 10:31

When I had my 1st, (1983), you had to stay in hospital for a week. The first night, just after he was born, they wanted to take him to the nursery, but I didn't want him to go as I'd only just had him, I wanted to spend time with him!

The second night, you normally had your baby with you, but I was so tired by then, that I asked them to take him to the nursery so I could get some sleep! It took a bit to persuade them, but they agreed in the end, but that was the only night he was in there.

Sparklingbrook · 09/02/2018 10:36

In the daytime I sat in the nursery feeding DS1, I didn't want to lie in bed and the ward was hot, noisy and there were visitors coming and going all day.

TheDailyMailIsADisgustingRag · 09/02/2018 10:40

Yes they took babies to nursery, but many mothers wanted their babies with them. It was actually women who campaigned against these restrictions

And? Did I say I thought it was a good thing babies were kept in nurseries, instead of with their mothers? As someone who is currently breaking my neck to try to breastfeed my 2 week old, despite him spending time in neonatal when he was born and needing bottles there, (my second DC where this has happened), I can assure you, I am more than aware that if you want to breastfeed, then having your baby in another room overnight is far from ideal.

My granny, who I quoted up thread wasn’t that interested in breastfeeding. She had her babies in the forties and fifties though, so there was probably a lot less expectation that anyone would want to bf and also a lot less knowledge about establishing breastfeeding in the early days. She was of the having-a-last-ciggie-before-she went-into-the-ward-to-give-birth school of thought on childbirth.

ew1990 · 09/02/2018 11:45

@GreenTulips my DD is 3 month old and my Nan said to me you'll get a rest when they take her to the nursery, I said they don't exist anymore

Bluelady · 09/02/2018 12:33

When I was born (1953) breast feeding was looked down on. Apparently it was very "lower class"!

EmilyAlice · 09/02/2018 12:52

I was born in 1949 and I never heard my mother say that. She breast fed and she was obsessive about not being thought lower class or “villagey” . 😮
It is often said that breast feeding was looked down or unfashionable in previous generations, but I am not sure the evidence bears that out. In my experience in the seventies there was no big deal if you couldn’t / didn’t want to breast feed, but lots of people did and the midwives encouraged it. I suspect it was a mixed picture.

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