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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:
Motoko · 09/02/2018 12:52

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

I expect that goes right back to the days when rich people used wet nurses to feed their babies. The wet nurses were usually a woman from the village (therefore of a lower class) who had just lost a baby, so they were still producing milk.

Evelynismycatsformerspyname · 09/02/2018 13:30

Hannah the good parts of your gmil's experience are still the reality in many countries - English (can't speak for the rest of the UK) society is generally over anxious and kids are not allowed to do things they'd benefit from.

Evelynismycatsformerspyname · 09/02/2018 13:32

Mokoto I think it probably more a post war get people into consumer roles to boost the economy thing. Prestige attached to paying for things and buying things you could get free pushed as superior and modern.

WhiteWalkersWife · 09/02/2018 14:10

Mum was (and i was too tbf) surprised by sterlising bags and self sterilising bottles. My nursing bras and tops( she said they were far better). Nappy rash cream is so much better. Car seats much better than the carrycot we had.

I was amazed by how much quieter my friends electric pump was! Mine soundded like an animal in labour! And the cosleeping beds, mum made her own when dad tied the cot to the bed.

LakieLady · 09/02/2018 14:33

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!

DP's youngest sister used to travel in the back of his dad's 2-seater open-back Land Rover, on the floor in her carry cot. DP and BIL used to sit on the sideways-facing seats (no seatbelts) and it was their job to make sure the carry cot didn't tip over or anything when the Landy hurtled round corners. DP's other sister used to travel in the front of the Landy on his mum's lap, probably no seat belts there either.

And my 4-year old self used to go on the back of my dad's motorbike while my mum and the dog went in the sidecar.

It's a miracle any of us made it to adulthood.

EmilyAlice · 09/02/2018 14:50

The car seats needed the garage to drill holes in the floor of the car. It wasn’t cheap.

eeanne · 09/02/2018 14:59

Interesting though, my grandchildren in USA have both slept in their own rooms from day one as it is encouraged.

No it isn’t. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends room sharing for a minimum of 6 months, ideally 12.

www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/american-academy-of-pediatrics-announces-new-safe-sleep-recommendations-to-protect-against-sids.aspx

MyKingdomForBrie · 09/02/2018 15:27

Something that clearly hasn’t changed is the amount of criticism between women on the different ways we all do things..

grannytomine · 09/02/2018 15:54

MyKingdomForBrie, my first midwife over 45 years ago told me that the best advice she could give me was to realise a mother's place is in the wrong and other women will make sure to let you know. She was so right.

Crocusqueen · 09/02/2018 15:57

This has been a really interesting thread. I'm pregnant and have an older DC aged 10 and I don't think much has changed in a practical sense, but slings etc are more popular and prams have definitely become more of a status symbol!

Rebeccaslicker · 09/02/2018 16:08

I saw the house my DF was born in recently and was really struck by the facts that:

  • it was mid winter in 1942
  • my grandfather was miles away, in combat, so my grandmother didn't know if her husband was even alive or not (he was!)
  • my aunt, who was 2 years older, had been sent away to a home for some time, to allow my grandmother to deal with the new baby (can you imagine that happening now? Great way to make the older sibling resent the new baby!)
  • no indoor bathroom, just an outdoor toilet
  • no telephone
  • no electricity upstairs
  • very remote Yorkshire moors location

The labour and early days must have been awfully hard! Not least because DF was born with pneumonia and the neighbour took one look at him and sent the priest to give him the last rites (he's 76 now so that was premature thank goodness!!).

storynanny · 09/02/2018 16:32

Eeanne, I think maybe my daughter in law is following a particular method a, maybe Someone Ford?

shoesarefab · 09/02/2018 17:34

My 2 are 9 and 7, for the 9 yr old I was told I could make a days worth of bottles in advance, they changed that for the 7yr old but I still did it anyway. Having a third and I will definitely be buying a perfect prep machine as the amount of times I would boil the kettle and not remember if I had reboiled it etc. Plus it was a PITA warming them up at night. I’m also going to buy one of those car seats that at the flick of a button grows wheels to use as a pram. Nice and easy for the school run!!

And for whoever mentioned the “only 2 school jumpers for the week” thing, mine only have 2 jumpers each?!

shoesarefab · 09/02/2018 17:36

Just seen the comment about the co sleeping cots, I’m gonna get one of those too as I just used to stick my last 2 on a pillow between mine and my husbands pillows 🙈

Confusedbeetle · 09/02/2018 17:38

I dont think there is any need to be nasty to emma

leighb23 · 09/02/2018 17:39

not read tft but can't make bottles up in advance anymore - the manufacturers apparently don't use the preservatives so much now.

smilingontheinside · 09/02/2018 17:44

Thing is even with all the gadgets they don't seem any less stressed or more chilled for having them! My dil stresses about every sound gc makes, changes nappy hourly and wakes gc for feeds!!! No don't wake a sleeping baby Shock she wonders why he's grumpy when woken changed and fed having been peacefully asleep. Hmm

Shell4429 · 09/02/2018 17:46

No pressure to be a working mum when I had my first three. Loved hanging bright Daz white terry towelling nappies, loved the big shiny pram I used for the first four. All of my boys slept on their tummies because they slept better and longer that way. Weaned at two to three months after putting baby rice in the formula milk to fill them up. Sitting in the back seat of the car from age two with just regular seat belts. And guess what, all still alive and healthy.

BackBoiler · 09/02/2018 17:50

I used to make the bottle up with boiling water, put the lid on and then cool in a jug hooked off the drainer with the cold tap running on to it.

Whilst it was cooling i changed the baby and it was cool enough when id finished. Then i fed back to sleep.

AJPTaylor · 09/02/2018 17:57

Dd1 is 23.
I bought a book by Dr Miriam Stoppard and a book of baby names.
Simpler times.

MarvellousMonsters · 09/02/2018 17:58

I’ve read the first page of this thread and I can’t read any more. Clearly none of you grasp the concept of “know better, do better”

Yes we used to make bottles in advance and warm them gently/feed at room temp, but the number of babies hospitalised for gastroenteritis meant we got new guidelines because formula powder is full of bacteria and needs to be mixed with 70° water to make it safe.

We also now know that placing babies on their backs to sleep, and not putting them in rooms alone reduces SIDS risk, so the advice changed.

Attachment theory has shown us that babies carried in slings and held a lot grow up into more secure emotionally resilient adults, rather than left in battery powered rocking chairs, silenced with a dummy.

But hey, whatever. Hmm

AJPTaylor · 09/02/2018 18:05

The whole " we never had seatbelts and we were fine" pisses me off slightly. The rules were introduced due to the injuries/deaths. People exiting the car via the front windscreen, kids through the rear screen. Our neighbours had that in the early 70s, their 4 year old was thrown out the car in a smash and landed on the road. Grim old days i would say

DiegoMadonna · 09/02/2018 18:06

MarvellousMonsters perhaps you were misreading the thread? I don't think anyone was saying things were BETTER back then, just that people got by without things they are the norm now.

curlilox · 09/02/2018 18:06

Vaccinations and antibiotics have changed our lives dramatically. My Mum had 2 sisters, one died of diphtheria and the other fr om scarlet fever.
She also had a brother and he was born disabled because her Mum blew herself up with the gas cooker while she was pregnant- no safety devices in those days.
I feel so sorry for my Grandma. I never knew her, she died of cancer shortly after my Mum was married.
Life has changed for the better in lots of ways in the last 100 years.

DiegoMadonna · 09/02/2018 18:07

The idea of having "got by" is debatable, of course. We "got by" without seatbelts and vaccinations... Except the people who died of course.