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!

Mirage - our car was a Mini Clubman Estate! Nothing like the Dukes of Hazzard I know but we felt just like Luke and Daisy Duke! I have great memories of that car, we were the envy of our friends. Would you let your kids do it now though?

Anchovies - perhaps yours was a Clubman Estate too as they had wooden frames. Or a Morris Minor Estate - they're called Woodies. That's great what your Dad did!

Mine put honey in some kind of soother which I don't think you can get now. It was like a dummy that you can put stuff in apparently. It was to shut me up because we lived in a flat and the upstairs neighbours were an old couple who complained if I cried too much!! Subsequently, my milk teeth all came through bad.. so I had to have them all out by general anaesthetic at the age of 2. In all my pre schools pics I am toothless!!

Amendment to previous post - Morris Minor Traveller - not Morris Minor Estate!

My Mum smoked and drank (whisky) whilst pg with me (she doesn't smoke and rarely drinks these days). I came home from the hospital (after 10 days) in a carrycot on the back seat of my uncle's car. Left outside in the Silvercross (they don't make 'em like they used to) pram probably in all weathers. Left outside shops and cafes, carried in my Mum's arms on the bus into the town (no sling, no buggy, nothing). My Mum tried to b/f but as soon as a midwife saw she was struggling they gave her a Mogadon (sp? some sort of tranquilliser?) and bound her up. Was weaned on Milupa cereals with soft boiled egg yolk on top. Can remember being sent for fags for both my parents and sitting in between my Mum and Dad in bed having the great privilege of blowing out the matches. Also from a very young age, perhaps 4, 5 at the most?, being left to play alone in the park while my Mum cleaned the communal areas in the flats next to the park.

Oh and Ribena in a spouted cup from four months.

Change "rarely drinks" in my first post to "drinks moderately".

LOL Dememted! I don't think they make kids like they used to either! Today's babies wouldn't survive what we did!

Dh's mum (mil) use to strap DH into a big silvercross pram and leave him to go to sleep in the garden. He was of crawling age so much have been about 8 months I think. On one occasion, FIL went out to check on him and found the pram empty!! Upon further inspection, one side of the reins had come undone and DH was hanging by one strap down the other side of the pram.. quite happy and unscathed!! But he could have been strangled!

On another occasion, age 2, he drank a whole glass of somebody's sherry at Christmas, and they just let him sleep it off.... for almost TWO DAYS!!!!

LOL at your DH Sleepyjess, poor thing dangling there.

Just remember another one. When I was older I was taken to town with the Mclaren buggy (also not made like they used to be, apparently they were lighter and smaller) with no safety straps and I used to frequently stand up in it and fall cracking my head on tiled floors in shops and she lost me a number of times in the shops too, apparently I hated shopping and was always running away!

Rear facing baby car seats came out in the UK in May of 1986. DD was born in Feb 86 & was in a carrycot with harness contraption, then just in time for her christening Mothercare started selling seats for newborns! Before that the older baby seats had to be bolted into the car. We had the Britax ones on a metal frame that were attached with straps to the fixings under the back seat... a real performance.

As a baby in the 60s I was fed every 4 hours, left to cry (for hours) because it wasn't done to "spoil" babies, put outside in the pram in all weathers & later fed with Carnation.

At 6 years old I was crossing the main road to go shopping for my mum. My parents didn't smoke, but there was nothing kids weren't allowed to buy.

Me & my brother used to go out for hours on our own & play in the alleys and in an area with woods, a railway line and a muddy creek. (No way would I let my children play somewhere so dangerous!)

Our car was a bedford van with no seats in the back. We all just sat on cushions on the floor. I can remember taking friends in there as well.

We had a daily dose of codliver oil & a vitamin tablet throughout the winter. Must have worked- we were rarely ill.

I was the youngest of a quite large family, so main impression of childhood is rampant chaos. However according to mama it was really well organised.... I grew up through the era of baby sleeps safest on tummy, should be weaned at 8 weeks and started off with rice in my bottle - which our paediatrician told us to do for ds at 14 weeks (strange to think that this advice was handed out as determinedly as today they tell you the precise opposite - makes me wonder how long it will be before some bright spark discovers that what we have been doing so obediently has some hideous effect!) As we were skint Mum made up some extra dosh by taking a job in a fruit & veg shop (remember those?) and putting me in the spare set of scales all day - nobody tell Health & Safety.....Oh, and my dad came back from National Service, saw me in my pram outside post office and took me for a walk. Mother convinced I had been abducted. This one still surfaces in family rows about male stupidity to this day

Does nobody else put babies outside in the garden for daytime nap anymore? I regularly do so, and they sleep like logs, and seem to love the 'outdoor' noises. Far more healthy than a heated, stuffy room. Even if their hands feel cool, the rest is always lovely and cosy if well wrapped up. I think our parents put us outside because they had so much to do, with no labour saving devices. Imagine having no washing machine, dishwasher, central heating, running hot water, fridges, freezers, microwaves, tumble driers, etc. My mum used to say that bouncy chairs for babies were a wonderful invention. She wished they'd been around when her 4 were babies. My grandmother was epileptic, had 7 children, lived in a 2 roomed cottage, and drew water from a well! One of her daughters had 'bandy legs', so had seaweed wrapped around them. When they had coughs and colds, their chests were smeared with goose grease, and had a layer of brown paper stuck on!

blodwen my dd2 loves being in the doorways or out on the verandah to sleep ( 15 weeks old) I think she is soothed by the gentle breeze and the slight swaying of the trees....

great name blodwen - family name in my mother's family.

Thats great Eidsvold! It doesn't sound much like a British winter - do you live somewhere warmer? I had a 5 week old asleep in the garden quite happily last week, but sleeting almost non-stop today! I do draw the line somewhere!

But they did some things right! My mil (born in the 40's into a poor rural family) was about 21/2 mths premature and weighed 2 lbs. She reckons she was covered in olive oil, wrapped in cotton wool and basically surgically attached to her mother's breast (too poor for anything else) for about 3 mths. Probably saved her life!

Asking JT today what we used to get for tea and basically it was chips and egg, chips and sausage, chips and beans, chips and fish fingers!

Also, Mum and Dad used to leave us 3 in the car while they went round Asda doing the weekly shop I can remember reading the AtoZ it got so boring waiting for them to come back out again!

Also had rusk in a bottle I think and I think she used to just make the hole in the teat bigger with a pin!!!

Oh gdg, I can remember the three of us squabbling for what seemed like hours in carparks outside pubs while the parents had a few drinks. They would come out with a warm flat lemonade or two and a packet of crisps with the little bag of salt in the bottom.
Probably drove home pissed then!!!

I used to have to go to rugby matches every Sat as my Dad was a referee and my mother did the after-match food. They then went and had a few drinks in the club whilst I wandered around with my pop, crisps and a bag of nuts if I was lucky. Hours and hours it seemed and always cold.

I had high hopes of being able to leave DS2 in the back garden sleeping in his pram (in the warmer weather that is), when we moved to a house with a bit of garden when he was 20 weeks but he was having none of it, woke screaming everytime I crept away towards the house.

I slipped on the back step on some ice and dragging my forearm down the roughcast, my arm was a mess and was infected. My Mum put a poltice of green soap and sugar on it (apparently this would draw out the infection}, wrapped it in a bandage and by the time it was finished I needed antibiotics, arm was worse than ever!

Message withdrawn

My grandmother admits that her and her friends used to lock the kids out of the house so that they could natter in peace. My aunt remembers tapping on the kitchen window saying 'Muuuuuuuum, I'm coooooooold. Please can I come in now?'

I had one of those massive Silver Cross coach built prams when I was a baby. Mum used to put me outside for all my daytime naps - and when it was raining she used to stand the pram in the shed at the bottom of the garden with the door open. No wonder I like so much fresh air

Blodwen I am in Australia.

Moondog - my dh goes on when we go to the club for a few drinks - he tells dd1 ( 2.5 yo) that when he was little he was made to sit in the car with his sister whilst his parents went inside the pub. Dh claims all he and his sis had was a bottle of drink and a packet of crisps. I refused to believe him and have yet to ask his mother if it is true.

thought id resureect this one

Of course it's trued,eidsvold!
Used to happen to me and my sisters (and I have very respectable parents! )

Good idea, this was fun!