Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Wordless Wednesday: Old-timey bottle feeding

Baby with Bottle -- Wisconsin Historical Society

This Victorian-era studio portrait of a bottle-fed baby was taken by Charles Van Schaick and posted by the Wisconsin Historical Society.

I'm a breastfeeding advocate, but I'm nonetheless fully aware that we're not by far the first culture to seek alternative means to feed our young. Check out this bottle in the picture that allows for the minimum of parental contact — the baby can be propped up and suck his drink through a long flexible straw attached to an artificial nipple. It reminded me of many of the items on display in the Baby Bottle Museum, which aptly titles this type of bottle "The Killer," since it was so hard to keep clean. Makes you appreciate a little more today's bottle-feeding culture that encourages parents to cradle their young, to use expressed breastmilk or an approximation thereof rather than pap, and all the tedious but recommended sterilization involved in modern bottle usage.

So, have things changed, or stayed the same? Or both?

5 comments:

BK said...

It just shown how lazy we were from then. And yet a positive way to look at it; we had always been looking at ways to improve our lives. :)

Lauren Wayne said...

Ooo, I like your positive spin. I bet those bottles were the new inventive breakthrough of babyrearing at the time.

Lisa C said...

Wow, fascinating website that you linked to. Makes me grateful for the knowledge available to us these days.

amy friend said...

Oh, those eyes...so sad.
Interesting site. Makes me thankful and less critical of the options we have now. Just joined your blog!

Melodie said...

Wow! That's amazing! I have never sen or heard of a bottle like this before. Thanks for sharing!

Related Posts with Thumbnails