Annoying poorly designed baby products

[WobbleHead]

My 6mo is going through a nap fighting and cat napping phase. I thought I would try attaching the white noise machine to the pram to see if that would help him link cycles and keep snoozing.

But this fecking thing - crap clip (more like just a hook) that won’t attach anywhere useful on the pram or frame. Where it does attach it isn’t secure and rattles and bangs loudly with every bump because its plastic case is crappy and hollow. No way to add your own additional strap because it’s just all stupid and smooth. I might have to just gaffer tape it onto the pram.

The baby monitor - again no way to attach it to the side of the cot so we have a stupid tower of shoe boxes and books on a bedside table we don’t really have room for in the box room nursery - just to perch the camera.

White noise machine in nursery - struggles to connect to wifi even with router nearby - you can control it with an app on your phone but only if connected to wifi! Always chooses to drop connection exactly when you need to turn it on/off at 4am.

Stupid pram hood never bloody stays up. Its wheels are crap and get jammed with mud, so I have to take a ‘mud poker’ tool (satay stick) with me on winter walks.

The list goes on and on. Who are these dolts designing these impractical products?!

Not exactly what you asked but we have a portable white noise machine which is fantastic, it lasts about 14 hours on the battery so you can do nights away without it plugged in, and no need to connect to Wi-Fi etc. I’d then use my phone for white noise on the go if necessary.

We just got it from Amazon, was the best £20 I ever spent.

You can also get baby monitor clips from Amazon too which hold on to the camera then attach on an arm to the cot.

Both I’d highly recommend and will make your life easier!

It’s the sun shades for prams and pushchairs that really annoy me. Don’t attach to the pram securely and don’t provide any shade!

pushchair that requires you to use both hands to adjust a strap to recline/upright the seat. While you are adjusting the strap a second person needs to push the seat up while the first is adjusting the strap.

If you are on your own and need to do it you end up moving the seat with your forehead/nose.

A perfectly normal main brand highchair that has a pointless hairline sized groove around the outside of the tray that is a dirt magnet and requires a stiff brush each and every time to stop it looking manky , a non washable seat cover and little grooves in the seat base that collects detritus and you can't get it out without a vacuum cleaner.

Sophie the giraffe in all her mouldy inner glory

tothemoon fucking yes! Useless sunshades!

pastabest I would also day 5 point pram straps in general are designed by people who have never met a wriggly baby.

Pyri but why the need to buy a second product?? Just sell a monitor with a clip!!!

@WobbleHead

Pyri but why the need to buy a second product?? Just sell a monitor with a clip!!!

Ummmm I don’t actually manufacture the products, I was just making what I thought was a helpful suggestion….

It's a long time since mine were babies but so many things seemed to need you to have 3 hands to use/adjust them when in reality when you have a LO you rarely have even have 2 free hands!

Shoes for children under about 5 years with shoes laces. Why? Why do I want something more difficult than Velcro. And even my 2 year old can do his own shoes if Velcro

You are free to design products if you feel you could do it better.. literally nobody standing in your way.

Haha sorry Pyri it was a rhetorical question, aimed at the manufacturers not at you!

@FTEngineerM

You are free to design products if you feel you could do it better.. literally nobody standing in your way.

So in order to have a well functioning and practical product to use with my baby now, when I need it, I - ME, a humanities graduate surviving on little sleep with a 24/7 job raising a baby, ME - I need to design, specify, prototype, gain funding, source suppliers, manufacture, transport, and then certify my own version of the product because that would be easier - am I getting that right?

Clothes for a new born or young baby with poppers or buttons at the back of the neck!!! Who on Earth thinks it’s a good place to secure clothing when baby has no head control…so you choices are either to prop baby on your shoulder while blindly trying to fasten poppers, or to roll baby over (you can absolutely guarantee baby will kick off big time) if your lucky you’ll help so one of you can hold the baby while the other fastens the poppers, but how often does that happen! You can rest assured that you’ll put baby in this lovely but ridiculous to fasten outfit only for baby to have a poonami, you’ll Chuck the offending outfit in a bucket of napisan and baby will never wear it again.

@tothemoonandbackbuses

It’s the sun shades for prams and pushchairs that really annoy me. Don’t attach to the pram securely and don’t provide any shade!

Yes! I thought I had just bought a shit one. It's useless!

Packets of wipes where you either get all of the wipes at once or getting one out requires two hands which you don't have because you're also trying to hold a baby who is covered in poo.

And packets of wipes where the sticky bit falls off thus drying out the bloody things.

Stupid pram hood never bloody stays up. Its wheels are crap and get jammed with mud, so I have to take a ‘mud poker’ tool (satay stick) with me on winter walks

When baby is a bit older I highly recommend a mountain buggy! The shade is massive, you can take it over mud, sand, rocks, any rough terrain and it barely breaks a sweat. Really easy to push one handed too when on the pavement. I got mine second hand on Facebook for £70.

The only downside is it's enormous and you need a car with a huge boot.

5 point harnesses in car seats where the 2 top straps don't clip together, so you need 3 hands to fasten in tightly.

@Ohmnomnom - really? We have a mountain buggy and I always think the hood is rubbish in summer. Some other brands have built in pull out extra sun shade/ mosquito thing. I’m always pegging an additional muslin cloth to one side so they can breath still but not boil. Actually the mb carrycot shade was worse than main seat admittedly.

You don't have a silvercross pushchair do you OP? Honestly the worst wheels on a pram known to man

Yes to mountain buggy that thing gives my DS a smoooooooth ride! Silver cross has shit wheels and I have to sort of lift it up every fucking kerb. So annoying!!!!!

Erm, I only said design and I didn’t use the word easier

@FTEngineerM

Erm, I only said design and I didn’t use the word easier

Fair enough I’ll design a better baby monitor camera and look at my drawing of it every time the door bangs into the bedside table we’ve jammed in behind it to hold our current baby monitor

@FrenchMustard

You don't have a silvercross pushchair do you OP? Honestly the worst wheels on a pram known to man

No a Nuna Triv. Designed by Italians for gliding over spotless smooth paving stones in inner cities, apparently.

High chair straps that can’t be detached for cleaning.

Baby sleepsuits that are too long in the legs and too short in the torso, and trousers that are too tight around the butt and too long in the legs.

Cots that are too small to comfortably climb into for night feeds and don’t have a stepladder on the side.

Baby baths - hard plastic and no secure head control panel. Baby slips sides-ways so have to hold anyway, by the time baby has some head control the bath is too small. Absolutely pointless, ended up just holding them in the bath.

Babygros that do not have buttons going down the front so you end up wrestling then into it. I would not buy these by choice but these outfits were gifts and so had to get some wear out of them.

Oh terrible fiddly outfits given as gifts are the WORST.

And yes who are these Go-Go-Gadget proportion babies that these places base their sizes on?