Taking Babies for Walks, in the 1950's.

I seem to remember my mother saying that girls used to come round and ask to take me out when I was a baby but she always refused. I never did it.
As far as child care changing over the years my mother's mother was one of 13 and every summer they were taken to a house at the sea side and left there. The parents visited at weekends. GGF had to work and GGM stayed home with the baby and looked after him. A hamper of food was sent by train everyday for them.

I was approaching 14 in ‘67 when I was asked to look after an 8 month old baby during the summer holidays as her mother needed to return to work. I remember how proud I was at getting my first weeks wages and how much I enjoyed my job each day.

I was very well used to looking after infants having been surrounded by them throughout my childhood and thankfully was also very practical and could manage well.

I too remember my mother leaving my younger siblings outside our front gate each day so that they could get some fresh air. (We lived in central London and it was quite commonplace to see babies in their prams outside the front door). Meanwhile, my mother would be busy downstairs in the kitchen at the back of the house completely unable to hear or see anything that might be happening on the street. Needless to say each of the little ones survived childhood!

missdeke
TG he was ok!

We always used to 'borrow' babies for walks. I was however, allowed to take my baby brother in the pram when I was only 4, I couldn't see where I was going and when I came to the kerb, the pram tipped over, leaving him dangling in his reins. I decided to run back home to mum to ask for help but got sidetracked by friends on the way. Half an hour later I went back home and mum asked where the baby was and I told her I'd forgotten him and he was up the road, she rushed up there and luckily someone had righted the pram and put him back on the pavement, needless to say it was sometime before I was allowed to take him out again on my own.

I must have been about 12 when I would knock on a door down the street and ask to take the baby out. We had a black family move in down the road. The black baby was so beautiful with tiny plats and wore amazing clothes, all frilly and pink. The pram was all covered in lacy frills. The English white babies just had knitted clothes. The girls in the street used to compete to get to walk the black one. If it started to cry I used to take it to Mum and she would stop it, otherwise I would have to take it back. Different world!!

We lived in a block of flats when I was 9/10 in the 50s and used to take the baby, of the family upstairs, over the park in his pram, with no time restrictions. Also, when I was 13 during the whole of the summer holiday from school, I looked after the 3-year-old son of a neighbour after she had another baby. I absolutely loved doing it and was thrilled to bits when she bought me a paper nylon petticoat (who remembers them) for doing it. I also remember baby-sitting when I was about 12/13.

born in 57,was at a sitters from 6mnths to 9 years but then mom remarried and had a baby brother by 10,he is/was the love of my life.i hated being the only "only child".mom was sick and baby was colicy.got very good at walking,and caring for the little guy.2 yrs later sis came along.
i became the nieghborhood sitter.no other girls around my age.
by 16 i was making more than my mom.sitting after school and weekend.in the winter they would have midnight snowmobile partys and all the kids-infant to 10 were put in one house and i was there til daylight.never any problems.there was always 2 or3 adults that could be called on if needed.
i was tall and gangly and aquired the name bigbird.
forward-am in my late 20s walking down the street and a ford van went by with driver yelling" hey bigbird".he pulled over and he and his gf got out.she was very angry(jealous) until we explained that i had been his sitter from age 1-9. we went to lunch..
where i live now there are no children.my nieces bring thiers to see me so i can get my baby fix.
now my babies are 4 legged and more work than the 2 legged ones ever were.and yeah i became a teacher.

Yes there were lots of babies in our street and I could always find a pram to push up and down when I wasn't trying to get a ride on somebody's bike, my dad didn't think girls needed one. A friend and I also took dogs for a walk although I was a bit frightened having been flattened by one when I was about 4. My brother was allowed to go off with friends for long cycle rides from about 12 years old, he was gone all day.

'Times were so much different then and life seemed much safer'
Probably the biggest difference was much less road traffic.
Also in the days before the 'pill' women had bigger families so harder to cope. More childhood illnesses so poorly children to look after.

Yes I remember this very well. Times were so much different then and life seemed much safer. As children we all played out together in the street, as we only had small pocket sized gardens so everyone knew everyone else really well. Communities were different too, people helped each other all the time out of friendship and neighbourliness. Mothers were quite happy for a girl they knew well in the street to take their babies out for a walk in the pram and it made us feel very grown up. I used to take a baby out regularly called Anita when I was about 11 and had the added bonus that her mum would let me wear her high heeled shoes as well! I felt like a mini mum and loved it...such happy memories.

When I was nine I used to call at a neighbour's house every afternoon to take her baby boy out. He had a huge pram which I could hardly manage. After walking for a while i would take him back to my own house where my mother and gran would take him out of his pram and play with him. The neighbour had four children and didn't seem to care who had her little boy. When the child was three his mother went back to work. He was left roaming the streets all day and was allowed to drink the pint of milk the milkman left on their step. There was a loose arrangement that the neighbours would keep an eye on him. It beggers believe doesn't it.

Yes, I too took babies for walks, and at the age of 10 regularly got two little boys aged four and six washed and ready for bed in the evenings. Neither their mother nor mine saw anything odd in a ten year old girl being a capable nursemaid, quite the contrary.

I'd had practise with my sister, who was 3½ years younger than I and with a little cousin, who was 5 years younger than I.

At 14 I was a mother's help during a whole summer holiday. The four boys were 11, 9, 7 and 5. I seemed to be forever scrubbing knees, necks and ears that summer.

Yes I remember knocking on doors and asking to take babies for a walk it would have been mid 60s and I would only have been about 9 or 10. Unbelievable really! I also remember babysitting when I was about 12 and the child probably around 4. I would have had no idea what to do in an emergency. Or how to cope with a crying baby. I have to say things have changed so much for the better!

Times were a lot safer in those days.

I was never inclined to take anyone's baby for a walk but I do remember taking someone's dog for a walk often, miles across the common when I was only about 9 or 10. He was a Pekingese who 'grinned' with his bottom teeth.

I was 10 when my stepmum had her first child and when she was a few months old i was allowed to take her for a walk to the park which ran along the other side of the road. There was a strict proviso that she was never to be taken out of the pram but as soon as i was in the park and out of sight i did so! I was also allowed to help bath, feed and change nappies. I loved her so much and she is still my favourite sister even though we are now 54 and 64, we get together as often as possible.

I’d forgotten about this! I can remember knocking on doors and asking, but I don’t remember anyone saying yes!

Yes my two friends and I would knock on doors where we knew there were babies and ask to take them a walk. I can’t remember anyone ever refusing.

Even until the late sixties, babies were regularly left outside shops while mothers got their shopping and babies were put outside in the garden while mothers did the housework.

I had a neighbour who used to send her two children, about three and five, outside to play while she did her housework. She used to lock the door on them!

When my two were babies it was the thing to do to take them a walk in their prams or pushchairs every afternoon, weather permittting. Now they are dragged around shopping centres for hours on end.

Grannyactivist, sorry that your memories are so bad. My best friend was the eldest of six and more often than not she had to bring one of her siblings along which didn’t go down too well when we were teeenagers. She only had one child herself and before she died she confided in me that she had no maternal instincts and hated being a mother until her daughter reached adulthood.

1960, Camberwell. One of my 9 years olds, living in a Peabody Buildings flat, described her weekend. ‘We went to see if we could take a baby for a walk but nobody needed us to so we took a dog instead.’
She was a lively girl, good at standing up for herself and for her siblings and her fighting ability earned respect from the boys! Often late on Monday mornings as she ‘took the bagwash’. I wonder what became of her!

I used to look after 3 tiny cousins when I was only about 13 as their mum was unwell. I simply walked them back and forward to the park all day collecting ice lollies every time. The oldest one thanked me for it once and had fond memories of that summer. I wasn't exactly the best babysitter, but someone thought so.

My mother managed singlehandedly to keep me supplied with babies who had to be taken for walks! As I was a bookworm I would much rather have been reading, but looking after the baby was always delegated to me, in spite of me having an older sister. I was 2, 7, 9 and 11 when they were born - then I got sent to live with my father who had a newborn, a 1 year old, and a 2 year old. At the age of 16 I went back to live with my mother briefly and she'd had another baby who was a year old. I spent most of my young life taking care of babies - then had my first at 19!

The winter of 1963 I remember almost crying with cold as I was detailed to take the baby for a walk every day in the snow. I had holes in my shoes, socks on my hands (couldn't afford gloves) and an ill fitting coat that was too small to be buttoned up and honestly believed I might die of cold - but the baby, snugly wrapped in her pram, had to be walked!!!

I've never heard of this. It sounds quite scary. I lived in a community where we all knew each other but never considered asking to take a baby - or a dog - out!

I used to take my baby sister out for walks in her pram. In the '40s.
Interesting how attitudes to child safety have changed. Maybe it was something to do with the war. Children weren't supervised much in those days. Often the father was away for years, rest of adults busy working. Me and my friends got up to some dangerous things and Mum etc never knew about it.
There were 'bad men ' around too. Not saying it was a good thing, just trying to explain.

Oh, I remember doing that when I was a child, think the mums were glad of a break!

Yes! Dogs and babies! My friend and I used to do this all the time so the mum's actually came to know us but they certainly didn't the first time and I was very young (maybe 9 or 10 at most). As you say, can't imagine it in this day and age and I certainly would not have let anyone take my babies out!