Have parents forgotten how to trust their own instincts?

There are parents who are going to strap their babies into buggies and car
seats and bouncers as a way of keeping them occupied while they focus on
other "more important" things, but the vast majority of us want to
do the best by our children – we don’t want our babies to be stressed and we
certainly don’t want to cause any long term psychological issues.

And yet, we do need to lead our lives too – the vast amount of admin that a
baby generates cannot be completed during nap times alone (and if you’re
anything like me, you’ll be catching 40 winks when your baby is asleep
anyway). Sometimes, our kids are going to need to be with us when we’re
shopping, cooking, and cleaning, and ironing, and washing, and running
errands and, if we’re lucky, seeing friends. In these cases, our baby may
need to be in a bouncer, a car seat, a pushchair, or a carrier.

The important thing is to keep interacting with your baby at these, and all,
times. Eye contact might not be possible for every waking minute of every
hour but there’s things you can do to let your baby know you’re near and
they’re secure. Talk to them – it’s the sound of your voice they respond to,
and will happily listen to anything from poetry to you moaning about the
state of the economy.

Sing to them – as babies they’re the most forgiving audience you’re ever going
to get (they will get more critical as the years go by). Read aloud to them
what you’re reading: the paper, an article, a bill, the sauce bottle. If
your baby faces away from you in their pushchair, keep talking to them
(never let it be a case of "out of sight, out of mind"), go to the
front and face them when you can, and make sure that when they’re not in the
pushchair, you’re having lots of face time and cuddles.

The thing about baby kit is that it's meant to support and supplement your
role as a parent, but it's no substitute for one-on-one care.

Apparently, Owen
Maclaren
invented the outward facing pushchair in 1965, five years
before my twin brother and I were born. I asked my mum how she used to
travel around with us. In the car, she said, she used to carry us in her
arms, unencumbered by a seat belt (well it was the early 1970s), so we got
to face her all right, but I am sure none of us would want to go back to
those days.

She didn’t have a pushchair, but a massive old pram, that we shared. These
days to buy a pram, or any pushchair where a baby can face their parent, is
significantly more expensive than outward facing models. Interestingly,
Maclaren never intended his designs to be used for newborns, but for babies
over six months who are more inquisitive and need to be stimulated by their
environment.

Don’t get me started on whether that means that babies over six months are at
a disadvantage because they’re not in outward facing pushchairs. I’ve got
enough to worry about.

If you have opinions on this subject, please share them with me in the
Comments below, or on the Commando
Dad forum
. You can also follow
me on Twitter

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