Moms, What Did You Do Before Plastic?

Young mothers, did you ever wonder what mothers did before plastic came along? Well we had baby furniture made of metal and wood. I was a true believer in names like Cosco and  Taylor Tot.My children were babies in the late 50s and 60s so they made good use of products by these companies. Much of my baby furniture was handed down to me from my older sister. I thought I would share some memories of what we used for babies in the 1950s and 60s. Of course there was a much different type of baby furniture in years previous to this and certainly many different kinds of baby items in years since, but this is a look at the time before everything was made of plastic.

I had a hand-me-down iron crib painted white. It was serviceable but we had to buy a couple of new mattresses over the years. The side lowered by lifting a hood at each end and pushing the side down. My oldest son could do that before age two and would get out and wonder around. He couldn't put the side back up however. He trained himself before his second birthday and got up in the night to go potty. Sometimes I didn't hear him put the side of the bed down and would find him asleep on the floor in the hallway. I didn't have all the fancy bed linens. I made my crib sheets from good parts of worn flat double sheets. This is as close as I could find to the bed I had for all five babies.

Our changing tables were quite different too. I had a fold up table that also could be used as a baby bath. It had a rubber tub under the lift up table tops with a drain hose. I tried it once and it leaked so I just used it as a changing table. There was storage underneath on a shelf and I used the leaky bath part for baby clothes storage. The table I had was all white and looked a lot like this one.

Baby carriers were pretty much mother or dad's arms in those days. We didn't have "approved "car seats to bring the baby home in. I had a car bed that was a metal frame that fit between the back of the front seat and hooked over it, and had a part of the frame that sat on the hump in the back seat and on the seat itself. The bed part was a heavy canvas and it swayed as the car moved. There was a thin matttress and a strap to put around the baby. Car seats were also just that, a seat with no safety features. Mine was a canvas affair that had a metal frame that hooked over the back of the front seat and had a strap to hold baby. I couldn't even find any pictures of these relics of the past. Isn't is a wonder that so many children survived?  Of course cars also did not have seat belts then.

The playpens back then were made of wood and did fold up. They were heavy to move, but we often had to take ours with us to use as a bed for a toddler. It went through about 12 children( my sisters, her friends, and mine) before it met it's end. It was getting to the place where the bottom would no longer stay in place and it was more of a hazard than a help.

All the afore mentioned items were given to me used and I don't recall that any had a brand name on them. However the Cosco Company made some very durable baby items. My sister also passed on to me her Cosco Baby bouncy seat which was all metal except the seat which was canvas. You could remove the seat part to launder. At one point I had to make a new seat as 4 of her children and my first 3 had worn it out.

When it was high chair time I had saved enough Green Stamps to get a Cosco high chair. It was all chrome metal and the seat and back were covered with a heavy red vinyl. The tray was also metal. This lasted through all five of my children and became a child seat at the table when a tray was no longer needed.  I also recovered the seat and back of this high chair to match my kitchen when I got it remodeled.

The next stop for the child who had outgrown the high chair was the Cosco kitchen stool, also obtained with Green Stamps. I had this stool in my kitchen for over 25 years. It was all metal and had fold down steps.

I was 'lucky' to have my sister pass on her Taylor Tot stroller to me. 

 At least I felt lucky to have it but it was a far cry from today's strollers. It was all metal except the seat which was wood. My hand-me-down stroller was red. It didn't fold up, except for the handle which folded down so you could put in in your car trunk. A child had to be able to sit up well or else you stuffed a pillow in front of them to hold them in place. There was a removable metal tray under their feet. This could be taken off if you wanted to use the stroller as a walker. Living in the country as I did it was used more as a walker than a stroller. It did come in handy when I had to go into town. With 5 children in 8 years is was never empty for long.

Today's baby paraphernalia is much handier to use but it is far less durable. What gets me is that I see now that the items I used are now "Vintage". Yikes!