a day for fear of spoiling the child.
Babyhood was about eating, sleeping
and growing – any bonding could
come later.
When it came to
feeding, formula – given
in a glass bottle – was
(literally) just what
the doctor ordered.
Formula had recently
become more available,
affordable, and was seen
by many – including
some doctors – as
superior to breast milk.
By the mid-50s, only 20
per cent of US mums
breastfed. As commercially produced
baby foods became available (ranges
included ‘strained meat’ – yum!), some
doctors suggested weaning babies onto
solids at four to six weeks.
The 50s mama-to-be would
have worn:
practical, boxy-shaped
clothes. Lucille Ball became the first
woman to show off her pregnancy on
screen – although the word “pregnant”
was considered too vulgar to be used
on air.
The 60s
By the 60s, the previous decade’s rigid
routines were becoming passé, and
in their place came a more relaxed
approach championed by paediatrician
Dr Spock. Dr Spock’s
Common Sense
Book of Baby and Child Care
sold over
50 million copies in the US in the
twentieth century, and was second only
to the Bible in the non-fiction bestsellers
list. Although the book was written in
1946, it gained momentum over the
next decade until, by the 60s, millions
of mums – my own included – swore
by it. Dr Spock’s central message to
parents was: “Trust yourself. You know
more than you think you do.” Dr Spock
was concerned that the strict schedules
of the previous decades had ignored the
baby’s emotional needs, and he wanted
parents to give “natural loving care”
as the best way to produce confident
children who could form strong
relationships. Cuddling babies was now
allowed – even encouraged – and if it
suited all for the baby to sleep in a cot
next to the parents’ bed, so be it.
Mothers in the US and UK were
still mainly bottle-feeding. Formula
for newborns was still promoted,
and the practice of taking babies
to the maternity hospital’s nursery
overnight during the whopping
10 days that mum and bub
spent in hospital post-delivery
(which was usual in the 50s,
60s and 70s) can’t have helped
in establishing breastfeeding.
But formula wasn’t the only
substance to be found in babies’
bottles. Many 60s babies were
fed on watered down condensed milk,
others were given a nip of whisky or
brandy with their milk to help them
sleep, and a bottle of sugar water was
an accepted way to soothe an unsettled
baby. It was also normal to dissolve
baby rice or a rusk into formula and
feed the baby this lumpy substance
from a bottle at around two months.
Obviously, do not try ANY of this at
home…
The 60s mama-to-be would
have worn:
a shift dress, perfect for
hiding a baby bump.
The 70s
As flower power and peace and love
seeped into society, parenthood took
a turn for the Earth Mother. Two
books reflected this zeitgeist. Penelope
Leach’s
Your Baby and Child
, which was
first published in 1977 and has sold
more than two million copies, opened
by saying it was written “from your
baby or child’s point of view”,
and its message was that
babycare should be baby-led
– rigid routines were out. A
second book
The Continuum
Concept
was written by
anthropologist Jean
Leidloff, who
had spent two
years observing
a remote tribe in
South America, and saw
that the constant physical
contact between babies and parents
resulted in happy babies who grew into
independent children with high self-
esteem. She advocated “attachment
parenting” for Western parents, too – a
baby should be carried in a sling at
all times, breastfed on demand, and
should sleep in his parents’ bed for as
long as he wanted to.
Now, as more mums were cuddling
and carrying their babies, rather than
leaving them outside for hours on
end, there was less time to wash cloth
nappies, so disposables were starting
to find their way onto babies’ bottoms.
Bottle-feeding (in newfangled plastic
bottles) was still the norm, but as the
decade wore on, breastfeeding rates
started to rise.
The 70s mama-to-be would
have worn:
anything! Mini dresses,
maxi dresses midi dresses, and those
stretchy polyester flares which were
perfect for a growing bump.
The 80s
For the 80s mummy, absorbing all the
theories about how to look after your
baby when he was eventually born
was no longer enough. Now, with the
arrival of
What to Expect When You’re
Expecting
by Heidi Murkoff (which
has sold 14.5 million copies, and still
regularly tops the
New York Times
bestsellers list) mamas-to-be got a
week-by-week, blow-by-blow guide to
their pregnancy, with endless advice on
optimising baby’s time in the womb to
get him off to the best possible start in
life. Now women could worry, in detail,
about everything they were eating,
everything they were doing and just,
well, everything – before the
baby was even born.
Once the baby
arrived, via a generally
shorter hospital stay
than in previous decades, he
was more likely to be breastfed as
new studies supporting its benefits
were publicised. By the 80s, cloth
nappies were well and truly out, and
disposable nappies were in, and many
parents rejoiced in the fact that they
March 2015
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