Nappies. What? Nappies? Read on.....

Khannie

So....we have a 6 month old baby....and we change her nappy I don't know how many times a day, but it seems like a LOT, so I was wondering, with large families in Ireland in the past (let's say around the time of the famine, though any time > 150 years in the past would suffice), no disposables, no washing machines, no running water, no money to constantly buy fresh cloth, what the hell did the average Joe do for nappies / baby sanitation?

Did they just get left in the nip? It's a dangerous thing to pick up a naked baby let me tell you.

This is a totally serious question.

brianthebard

Better off in parenting.

Ahem-if its a serious question, the peasant classes would almost certainly had better things to worry about than where people or children took their dumps. The upper classes had maids(lots of maids) to do their dirty work.

looksee

http://www.cnsnews.com/Culture/Archive/200404/CUL20040422a.html

one angle on the question!!

Khannie

Totally serious question. Not better off in parenting IMO as it's a historical question.

Surely people didn't want newborns crapping around the house? Never mind the smell, the health risks associated with that would surely mean that people who did it would be removed from the gene pool.

looksee: :eek:

brianthebard

Em, the concept of "health risks" only come into the equation when starving isn't your number one health risk. I know that in tudor times only one in forty people made it to the age of forty. I don't know what it was like for Irish peasants but tbh we are talking about a third world country around the time of the famine, so I can't see it being much better. Its hard to get an accurate picture since census figures aren't really good until about 1880 or 1890. I don't mean to be rude but you are approaching the question from a 21st century perspective and you need to start thinking about how one survived 150 years ago in order to understand how unimportant it was where your child did its business tbh. You know people slept with their sheep and other domestic animals right?

brianthebard

brianthebard wrote:

You know people slept with their sheep and other domestic animals right?

That sums it up in one sentence, the dirt floor was covered in straw and this was replaced at regular intervals, "mucking out".

Khannie

Thanks for the replies.

Yeah, you're right, I'm approaching it from a 21st century perspective alright. So the answer is: They did nothing. There were no nappies. They crapped on the floor wherever they wanted and this was cleaned out every once in a while. That's what I was looking for.

Red Hand

Well OP, it wasn't so long ago when disposable nappies weren't that popular amongst people in Ireland, so people got by with cloth diapers, which were scraped clean and washed. Had to be done same as any other chore.:)

I remember reading that some types of mosses (or rags) were used as an absorbant inside the cloth diaper back then, though can't remember from where, sorry.

Mrs. MacGyver

Yes terry cloth nappies were used for our family (in the 80's) and in my mothers and grandmothers time (there were 9 children in the family). The nappies were boiled in really hot water for hygene purposes and hung out on the line (although when i was small they were put in the twin tub).