What was the official feeding advice in the 1970s?

[stargirl1701]

This is a little TAAT.

What was the advice given to mums in the 1970s about feeding their babies? I was a baby then and my mum is dead so I can't ask her. MIL has been quite disapproving of me managing to ebf DD2 (23 weeks now). Is the advice/practice really that different?

Just interested, if anyone knows.

My dm has said it was every 4 hours even if you did breastfeeding feed.

btw I had mine from about a week old feeding every 4 hours it wasn't hard and they didn't scream because they were hungry.

I remember my ex SIL making her pfb go 4 hours between feeds when he was about 2 months old. 15 years ago. I couldn't bear to listen to the howls poor thing. He was on the bottle 3 weeks later.

I think some babies will do the 4 hour thing. Some won't. Mine have both fed every 2 hours night and day like clockwork from birth to 4 months ish... Then every 3 hours! My children don't do sleep....

Fried - lucky for you. It's not common for a bf baby though. Mine were roughly 2hourly, cluster feeding before growth spurts (why I suspect so many people had to stop bf that were strict about 4 hourly as it wouldnt stimulate icreased milk production).

According to my chart I didn't get to be bf until over 12 hours after I was born. It looks like my first feed was dextrose, then formula 4hrs later and again another 4 hours later. Then I was allowed '3x3’ which I guess was 3 minutes bf each side.

It looks like most of my feeds are at roughly 4 hours. How on earth was my mum timing all the 3/5/7 minutes each side?

It looks like she was gradually told to increase as it's up to 10 minutes eventually....

I really feel for us all. Poor babies :(

I just know that in the forties when my sister was born, she was bf every four hours, I know I was bf but I don't know if every four hours. Then when my dd was born in the 1980s the advice was to bf every three hours or bottle feed every four hours.

I've always thought that the hunger my sister must have experienced as a baby contributed to her being seriously overweight as an adult.

I bf my dd on demand and she has a very healthy attitude to food.

It now makes sense why my mum asked about giving baby water. My brother and I were born in the mid 70s and were bottle fed. My mum is pro breastfeeding but always on about not enough milk. It is not surprising after reading this thread. Poor babies. Fed 5 times a day and not at all through the night. And to space feeds out with water. No wonder they felt we are soft.

I wonder if it affected my relationship with food as well as my mother.
Being half starved as a baby isn't right :( We were weaned earlier then though (well we'd have needed it). My mum was surprised I waited until 6 monhts. It explains why my mum/nan were surprised I was "feeding all the time"

My mum recalls feeding me the advised amount and more, then being told I was "small" by the GP. Well I was being fed more often than most! Luckily!!
Mind you I am small as is my dd, dad and both late grans. So the GP clearly wasn't big on genetics either.

In 1981 my mum tried to breastfeed me for a couple of weeks, was put on a four hourly schedule and then I was 'hungry' and needed a 'top up'. And voila, formula feeding. The HV started me on baby rice at 8 weeks. Again, I was 'hungry'. My mother still thinks her 'milk wasn't good enough'. She did go back to work at 6 weeks though, so maybe the writing was on the wall anyway. She said you just did as the HV told you and didn't question it.

In contrast, my grandmother BF all her three (but I think did do an evening bottle).

DP's mum had him in 1969 and breastfed him until 9 months. She lived in the NE, was working class and it was not the done thing, but no one hassled her too much about it. She BF the other four that came later too, for varying lengths of time. She said it was noticeable (she had her last baby in 1982) that HVs became less supportive of BF across that time (in her experience, anyway).

My mother did the four hourly feeding with 10mins on each side right through the 80's. We were all breastfed but were given water between feeds and left to cry. She weaned at 12wks or 12lbs whichever was first. One of my brothers was given baby rice at 6 weeks because he'd reached 12lbs. She says as soon as we were given purees we didn't want milk anymore! Not really surprising when she probably didn't have a good enough supply following that schedule!

Interesting thread
I am really glad for my Mum who breastfed my brother and I. The HV tried the old "your baby doesn't weigh enough, you need formula" with me. My Mum ignored them. She knew her own mind.
My MIL claims to have weaned DH and his sibling at 6 weeks . I'm sure she's exagerrating as wouldnt the baby choke? Surely it can't even sit up?!
DH has perpetual "bad guts" and intolerances. So maybe she did!

I was born in 1978 and my mum bf me until about 6 months. She said it was standard to stay in hospital for a week after the birth and that I was in a 'good routine' by the time we went home. Although I think this was 3 hrly rather than 4 hrly.

I didn't gain weight that fast and at one point lost a little (I have my weight card from baby clinic). My mum was encouraged to supplement but said she tried a bottle and was quite relieved when I didn't take it.

She was also quite proud that she waited until 4 months to introduce solids, as the pressure was on from HV from 12 weeks.

Early weaning to solid foods was not uncommon - food was sometimes liquidised/blended and given in a bottle. Yes, of course it was very damaging to the gut :(

This was not official advice at all, but plenty of mothers did it. We have the figures from the national surveys which began in the 1970s. Can't remember off the top of my head what the exact figures are, but there was a substantial chunk of babies who had solid food by six weeks.

My mum fended off requests to wean us at 12 weeks till 4 months by supplimenting with formula! Probably for the best for our wee tummies, breast then some cow and gate before solids.

Mind you I was chowing marmite toast by 8 months ... I imagine my penchant for salty food started then!

My DM had me in the mid 60s and I was formula fed, as most babies were at the time. Official advice was to feed every four hours, but DM was told to feed me every three hours because I was born by c-section and spent the first few days in special care. She says she never added anything extra to bottles, but she went with her instincts & fed me when she thought I was hungry. She started weaning me at three months.

MIL also formula fed her DC, but started weaning them at six weeks

It would never have entered DM & MIL's heads to breastfeed, they both considered it unpleasant, and also unnecessary because of the availability of formula which many at the time considered to be much more hygienic.

In contrast, my DM's mother breastfed all her children in the 1930s. My grandmother was very encouraging when I decided to breastfeed my children in the 90s, but my DM and MIL were really unsupportive and actually embarrassed by it.

That's really interesting to hear about 1944girl. Things have been so different.

Joking aside I was on placement as part of my 2 year nursery nurse course and found myself in a school in reception year. I confess I was shocked (but I hopefully hid it) to find out that one child still received a last BF at night.

Well this has been a wee blast from the past!

I ended up breastfeeding DD2 to natural term to MIL's horror. I fed on demand for 2 years (the 2nd year was so hard overnight with work). After she turned 2, it was daytime only! DD2 weaned herself just before she turned 6 years old. She is now 10.

We ended up participating in some research. DD2 developed 11 food allergies between 6 and 12 months. With her consultant and allergy nurse, I reintroduced each allergen through my breastmilk and she is was allergy free for years but recently developed a fish allergy!

Her mental health seems so robust and I think breastfeeding to natural term is behind this. I wanted to bf because of the physical health benefits of breastmilk but I think the mental health benefits may be far more long lasting.