Exploring the world together: Buggies, slings and carriers

Providing babies with the confidence to explore the wider world starts with providing them with a loving and secure base*.  The pushchair direction and the direction with which your child faces when being carried in a baby carrier is an element of that opportunity to explore through the reassurance of seeing the Mother/Father/Carer whilst out and about, as highlighted by a recent article in the press.

Recent comments regarding the negative consequences of forward-facing buggies, and outward-facing carriers, have been made by Professor Cathrine Fowler, from University of Technology, Sydney, and backed up by a 2008 study at Dundee University by Dr Suzanne Zeedyk (Daily Mail article - please ignore sensationalist title - and see also the Dundee 2008 press release):

‘Imagine if you were strapped to someone’s chest with your legs and arms flailing, heading with no control into a busy shopping centre – it would be terrifying...Outward-facing baby carriers and prams give babies a bombardment of stimulus, creating a very stressful situation... In not considering our baby’s perspective, we are inadvertently quite cruel to children’  - Cathrine Fowler

We could have had it all

To return to my opinions, "Having it all", and the associated checklist is something that I loathe. The pressure it puts on women is ridiculous. I say women, because it seems to primarily describe the lives of women, rather than considering whether men can have it all, (or assumes they are already?) but I'll return to that. 

Billie Piper and her son

"Having it all" seems to be something along the lines of having a career (but not just any career, something BIG, IMPRESSIVE); having a partner (but not just any partner...); having a family (but not... you probably get it now); maybe even having good looks and a good sex life to boot. Woweee. It's there for us to see whenever any, some may say (and I am one of them most of the time), poor celebrity women get pregnant - the pressure is on to tick those boxes. To quote Emma Thompson, "Having it all is a revolting concept".

Same but different

I've been writing a lot of blogs lately. I suppose they're like buses - thoughts, ideas and opportunities to write come along at differing frequencies. Last week, my husband was away with work. It left me with time to think and write in the evenings - I've also been encouraged to do this because of there being very little else to do (TV is a load of rubbish mostly and housework is only a partial priority, unless there is a mouse-on-the-carpet emergency or something).