Not what your parents did. I'm talking about what your great-grandparents did with their babies.

It turns out that what they did jives pretty closely with what we modern moms do. I was reading "Infant Care" by Mary Mills West from 1923, and most of it was exactly what you read in standard childcare manuals today.

Baby care doesn't really change all too much over time. Being a good mother and taking care of your baby was hard back then:

Oh my god, can I just tattoo that last sentence on my bicep? Or at least have it printed on a T-shirt. Amen sister, amen. Being a good mother and taking care of your baby is still hard today.

I literally fall into bed at the end of each day, completely and utterly wiped out. Chasing after two boys is like running a marathon every single day. Well, Julian is not bad at this point, but Adrian requires constant monitoring, following, redirection and retrieval.

On other topics... breast was best back then, just as it is today. "Artificial milk" sounds pretty bad though, it was basically scalded cow's milk with sugar added.

But look here, what's this?

A soap stick! Yikes, glad I never had any issue with getting my kids to poop on the potty. Well, it took Adrian until he was about 3 months old to get down with the program in that regard, but it turns out that he just wanted to be held on the big toilet, like the big people. Once he wasn't so floppy and I was able to hold him there on my lap, no problem. He started happily doing his daily poops in the toilet like the rest of the family.

Granted, it does say to just use the soap stick for 2-3 days max, to get things started, but wow. That is definitely an old-school idea from another era. My grandparents were all about enemas and suppositories. My grandfather loved to joke with me about this..."Better give her an enema!" he would call out to my grandmother if I was misbehaving, and then shoot me a wink. I thought that was a hysterical joke too, probably because I've never had one. And because it had to do with butts, and butts are always funny.

The manual is totally right though...establishing regularity of habit is a big help, and not just for pottying. As a single person, I used to be very freestyle about things and I didn't like routines very much. I relished doing different things at different times. The longer I mother these kids of mine though, the more I learn how crucial daily routines are to their general well-being. If they can eat, sleep and poop at pretty much the same time every day, they thrive. One day of late meals, late bedtimes or missed naps and all hell breaks loose. Major crabbiness ensues, the burden of which falls squarely on me. And we all know that if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. A crabby Mama does not make for a happy household.

Here's a link to my popular post on pottying your baby part-time . Without the soap stick.

Anyway, not bad for 1923. In some ways I'll bet it's better advice than a manual from say, 1953. You can read the whole manual at the first link in this post. Quite interesting.