My mum told me something that made me a bit sad recently...

[sushistar]

I'm still breastfeeding my 9 month old. My mum said I was a very 'difficult' baby, and I bit her when I was about 4 months old when she was feeding me, so she put me on whole cows milk and weaned me onto solids. I've always been told stories about how much I cried and how I had awful colic, and now I wonder if it was because I was fed on cows milk. I know babies are not supposed to have cows milk as their main drink until one - what's the reason? Would it cause tummy pain in a baby? Maybe that's why I was so 'difficult'. I don't think my mum meant any harm,. I just think she didn't have access to good information.

Carnation baby here too - I think that's all I ever had - from birth (will have to check with my mum now)

Interestingly, neither me or my 2 sisters can drink milk now (and haven't since babyhood).

I don't think I stayed on silver top - but it was certainly what I had for the first few days when my mum couldn't manage to breastfeed. Once she decided that was it, I think I had formula from then on.

in fact a very old lady told me that she had her baby at home as was the norm ...after a day her milk still hadnt 'come in' they called for the doctor who said he would sort it out presuming he was going to come armed with carnation cream she sent her dh to borrow 'a glass titty bottle'from a neighbour .......the dr came with his wife who proceeded to feed the howling infant!!!1

dont get that service with the NHS do we?

my mum was ordered by HV to wean my DB at 8 weeks. She reluctantly put him on solids at 10 weeks as HV kept pressurising her. Don't worry about it. Things were different in those days and there was no internet!

I can understand why you would be sad to hear that Sushistar. I think it's hard to think of yourself as a helpless baby being fed something continuously that probably caused you physical pain. Of course that's sad. I say poor you, and I guess your only consolation is that your mum didn't do it knowingly.

I have a good housekeeping book on Baby care from the 1960s (bought at a car boot. It has recipes for making cows milk suitable for babies and also evaparated milk. Lots of sugar involved I seem to remember. If you like I can look for it and see what it says exactly....

I was feed on cow's milk in the mid 50's by my grandmother. Mum was ill after the birth. Granny boiled the milk and then diluted it 50/50 with cooled boiled water. She was born in 1895 and that's what was done when mum couldn't BF and couldn't afford a wetnurse.

I can remember many babies being feed on Carnation milk (It used to come with a 'dilution table' printed on the tin).

I was fortunate to be able to BF. My DC did however have very occational cow's milk feed (as per granny's instructions) usually given with a cup and spoon by DH.

My children were born between 1980 and 1997. The advice when I weaned DS1 was only milk until 4m old or 15 lbs in weight which ever came first. I stuck to this but know of many who fed solids much earlier .... all the babies survived!

it's a wonder any of us survived, esp. us 70s babies - early weaning, carrycot on back seat of car, placed on tummy to sleep, etc.
DS had colic and was BF. Having had 2nd child now who is v easy, I do wonder if ds's colic was exacerbated by my inexperience and inability to 'read' him easily. But your post does warn me not to go on about how he screamed all the time. Guess it's not nice to hear your mum say that.

You can tell my 3 DS get their dyslexia from me ! Sorry about the spelling!

It's only very recently that mothers were told not to give their babies cows' milk until they were a year old. When DS1 (now 16) was born it was 6 months. 3 years later, when DS2 was born it had changed to 12 months.

DS1 was a colicky baby, but only for his first 14 weeks, during which time he was exclusively breast fed. He was weaned onto solids and cows' milk at 16 weeks with no ill effects and has been the picture of health ever since.

Sushistar, that sounds like fairly standard advice for the 1970's. I guess the research hadn't been done at that point.

My first baby was born in 1975. I only bfed for three wks (got rubbish advice) and began weaning onto solids at 6wks, although in fact it was my sil who made that decision for me.

By six mths ds was on cow's milk, boiled, diluted and sweetened with sugar and drunk out of a cup. Bottles were dispensed with by that age. Yes, really, it did happen like that! Istr he was raised on a diet of scrambled egg, marmite on toast and mashed bananas. He doesn't have any allergies except hayfever - exclusively bfed ds2 is the one who specialises in allergies!

The formula back then was probably a lot cruder than today's formula, so maybe going onto cow's milk wasn't such a huge step as nowadays, iykwim. There used to be a govt formula called NDM - National Dried Milk - which was cheap to buy from clinics. It was withdrawn from sale eventually when it was found to have horribly high salt levels and some babies had become ill with kidney failure, if not died, from being fed with it.

Don't think anyone's answered the bit about why babies aren't supposed to have cow's milk as a main drink until 1 year. AFAIK, there is nothing bad for babies in cow's milk (after all, formula is modified cow's milk!), it's just that it doesn't have enough vitamins/minerals for little ones. I think it's too low in iron, for one thing?

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Like others, I and my two sibs were breastfed but according to my parents we all had terrible colic... docs still don't really know what causes it. On the other hand most of my mum's brothers and sisters (large family!) ended up on cow's milk mixed with sugar at a few weeks old, as her mum had problems with her milk supply after the first few kids and they didn't have formula back then; and they all survived and were pretty healthy considering! Plus as others said, colic is usually worst at under 4 months when you were still BF. It really seems to be just "one of those things", some babies get it and others don't but it's neither the baby's nor its parents' fault. The good thing is that you all came through it as a loving family, and to your parents the whole episode is now just a story from the past; I would try to see it in the same way if you can!