The things our Mums did when we were babies.........

[Northerner]

Following on from Coddys boiled egg comment!

According to my Mum I had sugered water as a new born, had a crushed rusk in my bottle from 4 weeks, was put to sleep on my tummy and was potty trained by 12 months and walking at 9 months.

Your turn!

We told my husband's gran that babies had to be put in their cot with the feet at the bottom of the cot - she said "but their legs arn't long enough"!!!!!!

My dad used to feed me choclate to keep me quiet the few times he had to babysit me. And beer.
I'm a chocaholic & really love beer!
Apparently I also had "canned" milk - coronation.

It does make you wonder what we are doing today to our babes that will be taboo in the next 10 yrs.

Another smoking pregnant mother who fed us straight from the fridge milk, cereal in bottle and left in the garden.
Sadly my db has very bad excema and asthma as am adult still and my sister is infertile the type linked to smoking in pregnancy.

First food my mil gave dh was black pudding - at about four months. He was also given bits of beef to chomp on instead of rusks. Have to say he's very strong and never ill. Plus he walked at nine months which I never believed until ds2 did it (without the black pudding, although he does like it now).

My mum was given cow brain on a teaspoon - now that is yukky.

And we were given whiskey for teething (rubbed into gums) and long car journeys (on sugar cube).

Yes I was given whisky for teething too!

lol at this
amazed my brother and I survived
everything was cooked in lard (this is the truth)
always stuck our heads out of the sunroof, sometimes at the same time
hours outside the pub in the car with the dog and a bag of crisps (each!!!)
carnation milk with everything
more hours in the car with the dog outside the bookies (no crisps)(on Saturday mornings when my dad was 'looking after' us)
I am very old though

I also remember that my pushchair had no harness, just a bar to hold onto. Also no hood or rain cover. I hve vivid memories of going out in my pushchair aged about 2 in a snow blizzard, my mum gave me a full size umbrella and told me to hold it in front of my face!

I used to baby-sit for a German mum (child would be about 8 now) and she used to leave bottles of cider for him to get him to sleep (he was child from hell, sleepwise). I was always shocked, not least because she was SO organic, la leche league about everything else.

No Coddy, not all organic at all. Just VERY proper, by the book!! Sorry

Yes but cider does have apple in it. More fruit and veg etc etc

We were given cider to drink from about 7 or 8 on a regiular basis. Used to give me a headache.

aah but also very lazy!

not porper a t a ll actually I thnk

I am quite "relaxed"apprently - is that a euphenism for overly casual?!!

similar tales from my mum - soft boiled egg at 6 weeks ("never did you any harm" left in the slver cross pram outside in the garden all day - and often in the rain ("prams were so much better in my day". Of course I was talking and reciting nursery rhymes at 12 months and counting by 14 months - it is a wonder I am not a genius...AND of course my dd lacks disciplin...son't start me...

Pes, I'm not very old (or so I want to believe) but I also remeber to wait in the car for my mother to do the shopping or sort other issues. I particularly remember one when my aunt was in hospital to give birth, she parked out of the hospital and ask us to wait as she was going to come back in 15 minutes, she left us there for 5 hrs, she just decided to stay with my aunt for the birth and even though I wouldn't believe that she forgot we were waiting for her, I just think that she just thought that staying put was a better idea rather than find a place for us to stay inside the hospital.

Oh, and I also have some friend whose father use to leave them in the car for hours while he was at the pub.

My mother used to leave me and the dog in the car and tell the dog to be good and me to bite anybody that tried to steal the car. (She was a very friendly dog.) And according to my father, I was an omnivore from a very young age which among other things means I gnawed on lamb chops at 5 months.

My mum was down last week, and she told me that she used to leave me sleeping in my cot while she "popped out" to pick my older borther up from nursery. She didn't have a car and the nursery was about 3/4 hour round trip!!!

No wonder things are harder these days, my poor ds2 gets lifted to either drop his brother off or pick him up. Poor thing

Our regular breakfast was white bread soaked in the lard and bacon fat from frying my dad's bacon sandwich, followed by weetabix with as much sugar as we could pile on top (we used to try and build a sort of mountain range, adding tiny amounts of milk to make it stick), with the top of the milk.

Brace yourselves - in the olden days it was thought that discipline and rountine were the best way to 'break a baby in'. To keep babies toilet regular, mums were advised to massage babies Sphincters to make them go!! Horrific!

Oh! My HV still says to do that!!

OMG!!! I think the idea was peddled by Dr Spook (old child rearing expert)years ago. Is your midwife old??!!

I mean Spock - not spook!

Not that old but does say to massage that area if baby won't go!!

carlyb, lol makes them sound like a new pair of heavy boots

I think that giving a constipated baby a bit of orange juice and water is much nicer! I have to ask - have you tried it? Did it work?

Yes, and NO!!

baldrick - either that or a stubborn old horse - you decide!