Concerns with Gendered Baby Toys
You have been invited to a baby shower and are looking for a gift at the last minute. You end up going to a toy store, only to find out they are short on baby items. It appears that most of the boy toys for an infant are gone. Instead, you are faced with a rack of pink items, specifically for a baby girl. What do you do?
If this shower is for a baby girl, you’re in luck – and probably have more than a few items from which to choose. For a boy on the other hand, what in the world do you do?
Rachel Kramer Bussel brings the issue of gendered baby toys up in an article for the Huffington Post. Faced with a dilemma that her favorite baby toy was only found in pink, she sent the pink toy to the parents of a baby boy. Even after the pink baby toy was sent, however, she questions her decision based upon the implications of the color pink. Simply put, pink is for girls only, while blue can be acceptable for both genders, assuming you aren’t giving a baby girl a set of blue army men.
Bussel’s dilemma, however, doesn’t involve the child. Being a toy for an infant, her pink item may be played with for a few months and then forgotten. The parents, on the other hand, may be taken aback – or may think the gift is strange. Worse, they could think Bussel has some kind of feminist agenda to undermine the masculinity of their child.
Concerning gendered toys, there is no concrete answer, aside from knowing the parents. Do you think they could handle a pink baby toy given to their child? If this is the case, go ahead and sent the pink baby toy. If not, find another baby gift as soon as possible.
The comments to Bussel’s piece do not have a resolution, either. Some say it’s fine, others say no, and a few additional voices claim that non-gendered baby toys are the best route.
In this case, finding the lone unisex item at the toy store is your best bet to make everyone happy.
Strollers and Stroller Exercise Programs to Shed Pregnancy Pounds
It seems as soon as you’ve had a baby, everyone wonders when you’ll lose the baby weight. Seeing tabloids depicting celebrities that, within months of giving birth, have their old size-zero bodies back doesn’t help, either. If you are a mother who wants to start losing some of the baby weight reasonably and on your own time, you don’t need to hire a sitter. Instead, using a jogging stroller or joining a stroller exercise program allows you to bring your child along.
WDBJ.com reports on Stroller Strides, a stroller exercise program for mothers that meets at the Valley View Mall in Roanoke. Around for the past decade, Stroller Strides seems like an ordinary exercise class, but the mothers use their strollers for a 50 to 60-minute workout involving cardio and strength and core training. Stretching and ab exercises, without the stroller, close the class. Unlike an ordinary aerobics and cardio class, however, Stroller Strides uses exercises that specifically target muscles new mothers want to strengthen.
If you do not have time to join such a class in your area (or if one is not available), consider doing exercise on your own with a jogging stroller. Designed with a streamlined, three-wheel design, jogging strollers are built to handle uneven terrain, such as bike paths, trails, and running tracks, and allow new parents to bring their child along for a few hours of exercise. Because of the design of the stroller, the child will not be bounced around or be uncomfortable inside.
Other strollers, such as standard models and umbrella models and travel systems, are not built to handle running or varied surfaces. A four-wheel stroller, for example, may be too cumbersome for a parent to push and run with at the same time. An umbrella stroller, however, does not provide the child with enough support. A jogging stroller, on the other hand, is easy to maneuver on all types of surfaces and provides enough support and comfort for a child six months or older.
Are Babies Getting Bigger?
Increased obesity should be a concern for everyone, but rather than address it in the teen or adult years, should you think about it in childhood? An article from FoxNews.com indicates that baby fat past the toddler years is cause for concern, particularly as the amount of children being born bigger and staying that size is increasing.
How do you gauge baby fat? Do not, as the Fox article mentions, ever put your baby on a diet. Fat is natural and helps with a child’s mental development. At the same time, however, do not ignore it. Instead, keep track of it. Some children are born larger and then slim down to an average size. Others end up staying large past two or three years of age, and at this point, a child has a greater chance of being overweight or obese.
The Fox article points out that, years earlier, only 15 percent of all babies born were above the 85 percentile in weight; now 30 percent are. 16 percent of six-month-olds, additionally, now fall above the 96 percentile; ideally, only five percent of babies should be there.
Obesity, however, is not a lifelong sentence and, even if your child becomes a heavy toddler, eating habits can change weight patterns. While, for adults, corn syrup has been blamed as a cause of rising obesity, sugary foods have a similar effect in children. Moderation, as dieters are often told, is important. Consuming too much leads to excess weight, but abstaining completely leads to cravings. What should you do as a parent about your child’s eating habits?
Again, moderation is important, and sugary foods – even ones seemingly healthy, like juice – need to be kept to a minimum. The Fox story suggests leaving out the sugary and fatty foods and, instead, going for vegetables – except for French fries – and other fiber-rich foods.
The Repercussions of the Drop Side Crib Ban
Filed under: Baby Gear, Baby Safety, Baby Sleeping, Day Care, Parenting, Premier Baby Stores
These days, retailers of baby furniture are shifting their stocks from drop side designs to other models. Reacting to the ban on drop side cribs by the CPSC, retailers ranging from the small baby boutique to chain stores are removing drop side cribs from shelves. The effects of this ban, however, spread beyond retailers, and everyone from daycares and hotels to parents and consignment stores needs to make significant changes.
Childcare centers appear to be hit hardest by the ban, according to a story in Bloomberg Businessweek. Daycares and similar facilities have a year to remove all drop side models and replace them with something safer. Although the costs are only an approximation now, 59,555 daycare centers may need to spend $550 million over the next 12 months to replace older drop side models. About 43,000 hotels and inns also need to remove drop side cribs and replace them with safer models and have six months to do so.
Consignment and thrift stores, although seeing increases in general sales, have had their baby product supplies diminished because of the ban. Even with these restrictions in place, drop side and other unsafe designs can lurk in a secondhand store, and parents must inspect a crib for hazards before purchasing.
Drop side cribs were falling out of favor even before the ban, as convertible designs have more appeal, but parents still need to check their child’s sleeping area for any suffocation or fall hazards. Although drop side cribs are quickly on the way out, the ban may have spurred another similar restriction: crib bumpers. As a similar suffocation hazard, crib bumpers have resulted in 14 deaths since 2008, and Illinois wants to remove them. While bumpers have not been banned yet, parents should still look for alternative approaches to cushioning their child inside a crib.