With all the new guidelines etc how did we ever survive infancy?
Question by Munchkin’sMa-ma!: With all the new guidelines etc how did we ever survive infancy?
This isnt a rant, but a bit of a mockery. I know certain things reduce the chances of things (like back to sleep reduces SIDS, and breastfeeding reduces childhood illnesses). But I guess with all this new information, does it ever make you wonder how we and our parents survived infancy?
For example, I was put on my stomach to sleep, all the time, throughout my infancy, since being brought home. my parents put me in blankets as well, thick ones too. Back then in 1983 it was the guidelines to put them on their stomach to sleep bc of the risk of aspirating on spit up on their back. Now it’s been discovered in the alst decade or so that stomach sleeping can increase the risk of SidS.
My dad also smoked around me and my brother—he got asthma but I am one of the healthiest ppl you will ever meet.
My parents put me in daycare at 2 1/2 months—now so many ppl are saying daycare is dangerous and horrible.
My parents gave me different brands of formulas—never stuck to one—and of soy AND dairy. I told my mom when she tried to give my baby a different brand, “no she can only be on this one’ and she said “its compatible with life” and told me how she did that with me.
so, I guess my question is, what types of things did your parents do with you that you’re aware of that would now be considered/labeled “risky’ yet you came out fine from it? And do you ever wonder with all these new guidelines that sometimes scare the crap out of us new parents, how people of a past generation, ourselves included, survived infancy in the 1st place?
and will you ever do that with your baby/ I personally will not, just to be on the safe side. my baby’s 6 1/2 months and has never slept on her stomach or been given a different formula.
oh yes AiM-e that i also forgot about…I’m pretty sure my parents had said at around 5 months actually I was put forward facing.
Best answer:
Answer by AIM+e plus a Melody
Yeah, I wonder that too.
My brothers and I were all put to sleep on our tummies, all smoked around by various family members, started solids at 2 months…etc. Oh, and I’m almost certain we weren’t rear-facing for the first 2 years of our lives…All of the above are things I would never risk with my daughter though, and although my mom wasn’t quite as picky about our safety as I am with my daughter, they were just different times I guess. It’s hard for me to imagine smoking around my daughter though, ugh.
What do you think? Answer below!
I totally agree but amazingly i do pretty much the same as what my mother did. But my grandmother is totally different and just loves putting her two cents in. The sleeping on the back thing…..My grand mother always says “we were told they should sleep on their side so they don’t choke if they vomit”.
Seriously it makes me wonder how different our own children will be at parenting because scientists keep coming up with new evidence all the time that contradicts the old evidence.
You don’t have to take all the guidelines with a grain of salt. You should mostly listen to your instincts and have common sense.
My mom put brandy on my gums when I was teething. I slept in a swing hammock type thingy, instead of a crib.
since we were kids there has been alot more clinical studies done which is a good thing and then there have been parents who have had a incident with their little one and now its has to been reported ,,
just like side effect for medication because 1 person out of 1000 has a head ache it has to be listed as a side effect or like parents who were given their baby’s to much cold medicine and now its pulled of the shelves not because i was not effective but because parents over used it.
i think if you dont feel safe with something its best not to do it.
i do things pretty close to what my parents did except i waited longer for foods and i nursed and nurse my son logner than they would have ever even thought of-
but hey my youngest brother is 5 and my older sister is almost 25. all of them breastfed and back to sleep. i think my parent’s smoked around me but not my little brother they learned their lesson with the million ear infections. my little brother who they did not smoke around did not get one until he was 5
ym son is 21 months and still rear facing- abck when i was little there was no real car seat laws so i think i was in one until i was about 2. my brother who is 5 though is still in a 5 point harness car seat
You know, this is exactly why i dont live by those silly guidelines. Obviously the smoking is a no-no… but things like how to place your baby to sleep is crazy i think…my daughter sleeps however most comfortable.
Also the pregnancy guidelines..their even worse! Things that are supposed to be bad now were actually recommended back then.
I just use my common sense and mothers instinct.
Its done me pretty good so far!
My mum tells me about my 1st checkup appt…my Pediatrician was smoking!! lol!
our parents didn’t have internet articles and chat rooms to make them hysterical. they went off their instinct, common sense and the advice of their own parents who sucessfully managed not to kill them.
don’t get me wrong, I love all the new info and ways to learn, and we have learned tons and tons that make our babies safer.
but, sometimes you just have to clear your perspective and think “we can’t all be perfect.”
Vaccines.. No one bothered to disagree with your doctor or opt for a different vaccination schedule. We used walkers, and quite frankly so does my daughter.
Yuppers. My mom said I slept on my tummy from day one with at least a little blanket. ( I was also born in 1983..august. )
I was formula feed and my mom was never made to feel bad about that choice. I know now a days if you pull out a can of formula to make your kids bottles your looked upon as some kind of crazy lunatic horrible monster mom.
I wasn’t in a daycare but my mom worked overnights and so I stayed with a sitter ( I believe she came to our house )
I also remember my step grandmother saying that she brought home her kids on her lap from the hospital ( her husband was driving )…she can’t even remember if they had car seats.
i know i had a carseat, however it was only til i was abotu 1. i teethed on the gearshift to my moms truck, so apparantly i wasnt buckles intoo well. our first major trip we took from NC to MN me and my brother who is 2 years older than i wereint he cab where as my other brother and sister were in the bed of the truck (it had a camper) with the dog and the luggage. I remember laying int he rear window, and i seriously remember getting spanked. Mom said i slept on my stomach or side at first.
my daughter is 3..obviously i havent killed her. she was getting cereal in a bottle at 3 weeks. she was getting cereal from a spoon at 2 months and she was off the bottle at 10 months(her choice). she slept on her tummy or on the couch with me for the first year til she got a crib. she slept and still sleeps with many blankets and evenhad a pillow in her crib. we have cats and she gets spanked as well. she is healthy. she goes to preschool(kinda) and plays outside in the cold. she also likes to dig in the dirt and find bugs. i thinkshe ate one last summer..and guess what like you and me shes still alive. we used to slide off the roof and we rode our bikes (ALONE) almost a mile to the lake and even swam without our parents there.
I do however sometimes look back and wonder how i managed to survive….some of the things i did were crazy…..like holding a brick on my stomach underwater to see who could do it the longest…..gee can you say drowning there?
oh well….im still here.
Times have sure changed!
I’ve been pretty surprised at the way things were done when we were infants to the way they are now. With new research has come new rules and guidelines to follow.
My mother smoked the entire time when she was pregnant with me. I was born at 5 lbs 4 oz (small) but healthy. Smoking back then wasn’t a big deal as it is now. I would have never smoked while being pregnant or even be around people who smoked. I quit smoking the day I found out I was pregnant.
Another thing that I learned was my Mom put us on homo milk earlier than the now recommended 12 months of age. I believe we started it around 9 months. Some people also fed their kids rice cereal as early as 6 weeks old. (some even do that now).
The thing that surprised me the most was how the put us on our stomach to sleep when they later find out that it is safer to sleep on the back. My mom was babysitting my daughter when I came home to see her sleeping on her belly. I’m like “mom your supposed to put her on her back!”. It is kind of funny looking back because shes been a Mom for over 20 years and Im the one telling her the way things are supposed to be.
I believe things are always going to chang because studies are going to prove things we don’t even know today.
I kinda wondered about that too. I have also wondered on how come when I was little that you didnt really hear about babies dying of SIDS and now you hear it all the time. Is it because they werent so much aware of SIDS back then. I pretty much raise my daughter how I was raised. My daughter hated sleeping on her back I had to put a blanket under her to get her to sleep on her side. That was the most comfortable place to sleep. I was always leary about her sleeping on her back and spitting up. Newborns dont have that reflex to turn to the side if they spit up. So I had her sleep on her side. Now she sleeps on her stomach or side. Because she chooses too. My daughter is 11 1/2 months and has been on 3 different formulas. The reason being is because she had a hard time digesting the first 2 and then we got one that worked for her. But my theory is if it works stick with it. The foward facing part. I was foward facing at 10 months I think.. My daughter neither any of my future kids will be forward facing until they reach the age and weight requirements. I trust my driving but I dont trust other people. I dont want to be the one who is about to kill the person who hit them or made me hit them because my daughter got a scratch on her.