Washing

We have gone full circle with the current popularity of washable period pads and pants. I used a Mooncup for most of my fertile life, and now in my 70s I use washable mini/teen pads as panty liners. I hated the thought of all those disposable pads and tampons going into landfill.
www.ethicalsuperstore.com/category/beauty-health-and-wellbeing/menstrual-care/reusable-sanitary-pads/

You will be so glad you did crazy
Money well spent imo.
And so comfy
The light /medium. You hardly notice a difference to normal undies.
Happy shopping 😃

Sorry missed out the H crazyH !

eddiecat78

Not long after I started my periods mum had a stay in hospital and I was running out of supplies while she was there. I was so desperate I walked from school (4 miles) to visit to tell her my predicament - I had no clue how to buy more. She said she would sort it and the next day more supplies - bought by dad - arrived. I was amazed that he would go into a shop and buy them, and appalled that he knew I needed them

Dad used to buy mine. We lived in a village so supplies were limited, Dad passed a pharmacy on his way to and from work (and he came home for lunch) so he did the honours.

I’m so glad I don’t need panty liners, an unforeseen benefit of an emergency c section I guess.

My mum didn't have a back yard they had to cross the back lane to the loos and the cords[Washing lines ]went across as well. She soaked her towels in a bucket of salty water and then hung them on the line. My dad cycled to see her and nearly choked himself he was so busy looking at the washing he rode into the line.
My great-grandmother lived beside the sea and had a grocery shop. I have been told she walked along the tide line picking up rags took them home and boiled them and sold them to village women for sanitary towels. People asked for some of Mrs..specials.
In Cumbria, we had dish clouts and floor clouts and you got one on the back of the legs for being cheeky boy did it sting

Modibodi produce washable underwear for periods and incontinence problems. Not cheap but should last few years.

I have wondered what ladies used way back in history andd searched on you tube....... there are many different films about these things.

Oh I remember those days so well. I was the Youngest of 3 girls. I was told nothing about periods until they happened. I was then told it would happen every week and I was told Don't let any boy make a fool of you.That was it. It was terrible, I had no more information than that.

Lindyloud, weekly swimming lessons? We were allowed to miss them once a month. Of course, I was the unlucky one who had periods lasting longer than a week, so I often needed a note from my mother.

I was just given a booklet and told they were in the airing cupboard (luckily, I could ask my older sister). I was painfully thin and hated the belts and huge rectangular looped pads - as the bulges were so obvious. I lived in mortal fear of them leaking, so wore three or four pairs of knickers - just in case! Tampax? - no, not allowed.

We are so much luckier than our grandmothers but it would be nice to think we are getting beyond the disposable stage. I'm glad that my youngest DGS had cloth nappies. I stopped using disposable pant liners, for slight bladder issues, some years ago. I made pads (the same shape as the disposables) from a few layers of flannelette and stitched them into the gussets of my pants. They are very comfortable. Thankfully the pelvic floor exercises are working and the dribbles are very few, so the pants can just be washed as normal.

My daughter buys period pants from M and S and says they are great. Much better for the environment and she says very comfy.

A young Mum near me has three kids all in disposable nappies and she just opens the back door and piles them outside until she can be bothered to bin them. My husband said it absolutely stank out there the other day in the heatwave!

I hated pads, they were like weggies between my legs. Then came tampons which were a lifesaver to a degree. I wished I had known about mooncups earlier on but they weren't advertised and I didn't see them. I finally read about them in a magazine, and tried got 2. I never looked back.

The only embarrassing thing was, I was staying over with a boyfriend one night and his dog rummaged around in my holdall. It found my spare mooncup and chewed it to bits. There were small pieces of it around the room. Oops!

I read my mum's women's magazines every week and saw adverts there for tampons, well before I needed such a thing.
The descriptions were quite circumspect but I got the idea and decided that's what I'd have.
I didn't start till nearly 16 and always bought my own supplies, from my own money.
It didn't cross my mind to mention anything to my mum.

My daughter got a talk at school when she was about 8 or 9 and told me she was keen to start.
I asked her to think about how old she was then, and how many years she might have periods - and she was then less keen.

a friend with older sisters told me about periods and I was horrified but thought, once a year is okay but she corrected me and said once a month! my mother just said 'you've got your courses then! she was an older mother and that's what they were called.

I was very skinny 15yr old trying tampax. the agony sitting on the bus to work... I didn't realise they had to go right up you.

I moved on to Tampax fairly early, certainly by 16 - despite my mother saying she didn’t think you could use them until you were married! I had no trouble, even before I was up to no good with my boyfriend.

Had to buy them myself, IIRC - I had pretty derisory pocket money but topped it up very nicely with babysitting.

My mother turned up at school break with packages and just handed them to me. I hadn’t a clue what to do. Evidently she had noticed my pyjamas in the morning. I came home from school with my skirt dried rigid and she explained reluctantly. I thought it was never going to stop.

Like others here, when my periods started my Mum bought me that belt and pads and got told NOT to let any boy touch you.

My own children (including four girls), were very sporty - gymnastic, diving and swimming -so it was important that they had good proection but nothing bulky.

Before they reached the age of periods, I would show them tampax (Do not remember anyother makes back then), in their baths so they could so how it swelled when moist. All of them used these from their very first periods without any problems at all.

I was late starting, nearly 16 and my mother said “I think I’ll have to take you to the doctor”. I was very skinny and now think a borderline anorexic.
When they did start, I was the office junior and they were very heavy. The boss (very tight-fisted) actually ordered a taxi for me one time, I was so unwell. That started a lifetime of heavy periods, ugh.
I too hobbled round the office with a half in half out tampax😁

I often wondered how ballerinas coped before the pill. It can be so limiting.

As I wanted my daughter not to be at all stressed by periods, I told her what a good sign it was as it meant she could have children. In fact she hasn’t had any and is now nearly 50.

My DM said something similar, Franbern - ‘This means you’re now capable of having a baby, so you must be very careful with what you’re up to’ - or words to that effect.

As my maternal GM used to quote from the old music hall song, ‘Keep your hand on your ha’penny!’
She once said to me, ‘It only takes a minute!’

When I started I called my mum into the loo and showed her. She said “ oh, you’ve got a pain.” That was her word for a period. I was lucky and almost never had any pain. She gave me Dr Whites, she called them “ things”. If they were running out, I would say,” Can you get some more things?” Sometimes she sent me to the haberdashery, run by two old ladies in black, and they wrapped them up in brown paper to take home.
We weren’t allowed to have a bath or wash our hair during a period. Times were so different.

Cabbie, I wonder where that idea came from. I was very startled when I realised that my German exchange girl’s mother had the same idea (this was in the mid 60s) - I well remember the younger daughter virtually having a tantrum at the dining table because she wasn’t allowed to wash her hair. ‘I can’t bear it any longer!’ (I still remember the German - and her mother’s sighing response of, ‘Always a drama…’

I was v glad that my mother (who was old-fashioned in some ways) was at least modern in that respect.

My mother had to get a Dr Whites from her maternity bag, she was expecting my brother any day.
All she said, was: don’t go near the boys 😂 I just went back out to play with my girl and boy friends.

When My school-friend aged 13 started her periods, her mother told her not to let any boy touch her now she had periods. She told us this a couple of years later with her own interpretation of the warning which was that you could only get pregnant if you had sex during a period!!! We soon put her right.

Also I was always puzzled by the 'no sex now you have periods' dictac, which seemed to imply that you were OK to have sex before you started periods.

My own, never forgotten, embarrassing moment, occurred when I went to the pharmacy to buy pads. My usual brand was out of stock, so the pharmacist displayed all the brands available with a commentary on the pros and cons of each. I chose one and turned to go, which was when I realised that the next customer was a lad from my class at school, who had heard every word.