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!

Oh yes, I was a child in the era when the sun was GOOD for you so no suncream necessary; was put outside all day for the whole of my childhood whatever the weather; no wonder I have so many wrinkles now!!!

now i am only still young but my mum used to out me outside all weathers, put rusks in my bottles when i was 4 weeks old, gave me lemonade for colic, never used to let me sit on concrete cos of getting piles, potty trained me at a year old, made me walk absolutley everywhere, gave me carnation milk on almost everything, and rubbed whiskey on my gums when i was teething. I would never do that to my kids!!!!

We used to play outside with no sunscreen because "we thought brown babies were cuter". Lived on a farm so would play in haystack, up trees and - v dangerous - in the silos (did get in trouble for that one).
My brother was potty trained before I was born (before 15 months) and I could read before I started school at 4.
We used to have a spoonful of malt extract every day. Not quite sure what for but it was quite nice

Had malt extract and halibut liver oil capsules every day (you'd have thought we got enough Vitamin D from being outside all day every day!)

I remember being sunburnt raw as well as a child before the trend of 'suntan lotion' as it was called back then. And it used to be the lowest factor you put on as well, there was a brown clear bottle of 'factor 2' oil. Can't remember what it was called. It was literally cooking oil!

That malt extract was called "Virol" -yummmmmm!

I was an 8lb 8oz baby but put on the strict 4hour feed routine with 15mins from each breast, needless to say I was a very unhappy baby. Mum used to pump me full of cooled boiled water rather than feed me again, with hindsight she says I must have been hungry as once I started solids at 4months I was much happier and started to put on weight!!
P.S. My mum was a nurse!!
P.P.S. My brother was 9lb 10oz and was demand fed - Thank God!

my grandmother told me that when my mother was a baby,(born c. 1942) she was skinny and small. Another baby girl, born in the same week as my mother, was being brought up by her grandfather, as her mother had died in childbirth. This little baby was bonny, bouncy and rosy-cheeked. My grandmother asked the grandfather what his secret was and he replied that he emptied all the oil from tinned sardines into the baby's milk bottle, and she drank the lot!

Left out in the garden, while my mum went shopping in the village, a good ten minutes away by foot. Also in the snow, and the snow came all the way up to the top of the pram cover return.

Lit fags too and slept on the back seat of the car all the time.

Sunburnt until I got huge blisters which we then had huge fun popping!!!!

Sent off on my bike (with fat white wheels) so couldn't have been more than 6/7 with my phone number in the back and a 2p for the phone, to call if I got lost!!!!

Still, love my mum more than anything and am/will probably be as bad, (but I won't realise about what) until they tell me when I'm 75!!!!

Wow, bzmum. I wonder what happened to that little girl. She's probably a genius, what with all those Omega3 acids. Either that or dead.

My mum lost me twice and my sister once. Proper lost ie going to the police station and there we were. Careless I say...

My MIL put baby rice in DPs bottle at 2 weeks. He WAS a big baby.

Lots of babies (6 months +) near us used to have bottles full of TEA rather than milk......

Big brother kept trying to walk into the river at the age of 1 and a half. Got fed up with trying to stop him, he ran in, stopped as he realised how cold it was. They then ran home with him and chucked him in the bath.

It's funny reading all of these because it makes it all sound strangely more fun than nowadays. I remember we used to love all rattling around in the luggage space of an estate car (or even better a ppickup truck, this was in the States)hmmm. Does anyone else's mother insist that doctors used to turn babies in the womb? Mine does and a friend's mother does. Maybe they did? Maybe they still do..

My Mum always put rusk/baby rice in with our bottle of milk.

I wonder when baby car seats got invented? I remember my little sister sitting in a sort of plastic chair (not strapped in) in the car seat well... Thnaks Dinosaur will look up the turning babies thread...

we all had rusks in our bottles at night feeds from day one!we were also bathed in fairy liquid no oilatum for us just itching all night in our nylon sheets!

Yes, they do still turn breech babies in the womb -- except now it's called 'External Cephalic Version', and they have ultrasound to tell them where the placenta is, so they can avoid damaging it.

Feel slightly lacking in anecdotes to contribute to this thread what splendidly disfunctional childhoods you all had. I do remember my mother using some kind of harness to keep my sister lying flat on her back in the cot this would have been the seventies. I still have some very old French grobags of this vintage with odd little tabs at the waist and bottom, presumably for some similar fixing. Wonder what that was all about...

We were also covered in talc we looked like little ghosts!According to my mum a squirt of fairy liquid is the same as bubble bath

just remembered - if we got out of beds at night, she would tie a soft dressing gown cord to the bedframe and threated to tie us in, if we got out once more.... sounds awful once written down, but have been tempted by same said threat more than once....

Threat never carried out!!! by either of us.

Also allowed my grandpa to smoke his pipe in the car when we picked him up from his home (2 hours away) for Christmas. We came back from the trip smelling like kippers!

I don't remember car seats for us but I am sure PILs had one for either Dh or BIL - and they say that they were actually fixed to body work of car - had to have it drilled into the metal work!

Just done a search and amazingly the first ever child car seat campaign wasn't launched in the UK until February 2001!
Can't find anything about when the first child car seat was launched though.