From National Library of Medicine

I remember that anxiety I felt when we brought our first baby home (he’s now in college). Everything in our apartment became a Potential Hazard that might hurt my precious child. New parents are given a lot of advice, and I was all ears. Also, I worked at Sesame Street at the time, so I’d read a LOT of safety articles already. Most of the advice I received seemed pretty reasonable. Stuff like—be sure to swivel pot handles around so they’re not easy to grab off the stove. And—keep small swallowable items like magnets and loose change out of baby’s reach. And—keep chords and window blinds away from baby’s crib.

I came across this site at the New York Academy of Medicine, which includes baby advice from 1924. It’s worth a click-through, but I’ll give you a few highlights on the 1920s version of “How to Keep Well Babies Well.” The list is “Things Which Are Bad for All Babies,” and includes:

• Candy
• Pacifiers
• Soothing syrups [because they often contained opium]
• Patent medicines [see soothing syrups]
• Whiskey, gin, tea and coffee [Must have been an issue if they felt the need to put these on the list—but also, this was smack-dab in the middle of Prohibition, so the whiskey and gin wouldn’t even have been of good quality]
• Spitting on the handkerchief to remove dirt from baby’s face
• Sitting on the floor in winter
• Allowing a person with tuberculosis to take care of the baby
  

  This would be okay because it contains NO LAUDANUM!

I’m guessing some of these situations would have made the list, had they occurred to the writer.