You know the type. The parent who has had a child (or possibly more than one, let’s not be too exclusive here) and on the grounds of their extensive experience with their own family feels empowered to tell everyone else how to do it with theirs. Lots of them rang in to the Radio 2 show I was listening to earlier today, to explain why the ppl who had done studies on child carriers or buggies were completely wrong. I particularly enjoyed the twerp who attributed pushing his children in a forward facing (ie away from the parent) buggy to why they were now successful adults, one of whom has just driven from Northern Ireland to Mongolia.
*headdesk* Likely to have made such a difference. Let’s discount and ignore the discussion of research by someone something to do with a nursery, who had studied how children engaged dependent on which way they were facing. She said that when the children were facing out, 30% (I think, bear in mind I was washing up, fuming and giving my own child lunch at this point) were engaged with their surroundings, while when they were facing back to their carers, 94% were engaged. She had some theories about why this would be so, but we didn’t get to look into those much.
Because we had to give airtime to the “expert” (yes, I am putting that in quotes) who said that this was rubbish. I didn’t catch the name of this expert, and if I had, it would have been to ensure that I avoided her in future. She said that we need outward facing individuals, and the best way to get that was to have outward facing babies. Because of course, no one ever develops different skills to those they use in babyhood, and we can tell that by the way we’re all still wearing nappies in day to day life….
Honestly, do these ppl listen to themselves? They talk such complete and utter nonsense.
Of course, some children will be happy in forward facing prams. Of couse some children won’t be. It does seem logical to me that young babies will feel better if they can see their carers – most will be even happier being carried close to their carer’s body in an inward facing sling, listening to a heartbeat. But some children don’t like slings – they are all different.
That’s an important thing to point out. All children are individuals. Just because something worked with one of your children, doesn’t mean it will work with another of your children, or that it will work with all children. So don’t ring up the radio and say that it will!
I think the ppl who study children have probably worked that out. I don’t know why it’s so difficult for so many ppl to come to terms with though.
I will go on for a final rant about one thing. The outward facing carrier available on the high street such as the baby bjorn type. These ones I don’t think are good for babies. And this isn’t about which way they are facing, it’s about the type of support it’s giving to them. If you look at a child in one of these, they are effectively swinging from their crotch. Not the way you’d carry a baby, and not the way they should be worn. Pouches, soft carriers, slings, wraps, what they all do is wrap around the baby’s bottom and carry them as if they are sitting, with knees bent up, and the body fully supported. That really is important, and something worth thinking about carefully when you choose a carrier. There are others that are as easy to wear but do support the child better, such as the ergo, or connecta. And those carriers do advise that you wear a small baby facing in, because anatomically, it’s better for them. As they get bigger, you carry them on your back and they look over your shoulder and interact with the world.
And you know what, they can really be quite outward facing as they go…
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