Parent facing, how imporant is this?

[ladymia]

The pushchair I am pretty much set on doesn't have this.

This will be my first so not sure if this is a feature that I would miss out on if I didn't have it?

I had DS facing me until he was at least 1 - didn't bother him, we both enjoyed the interaction, I don't know whether or not it made any difference to anything but it's how I liked it. I quite missed being able to see him when he went forward facing!

In olden times, when small babies were pushed around in prams, they would have been facing you anyway so it's hardly a new concept. Facing away from you is the newer idea, surely.

I have no idea whether it's important as this is all new to me, but that's one of the reasons why I have decided it's one of the key features whatever pushchair I get must have. I don't know what I will like or what will suit our baby so I want the choice.

Speech development and the parent facing pushchair is a great example of research done in extreme situations, which shows that children of parents who basically ignore them all day except to yell at them have speech delays, which is then hijacked by someone trying to sell you something and applied to a situation which is not supported by the research.

It draws a straight line from "if you don't talk to your kids, they will suffer speech delays" to "if you talk to your kids literally non-stop, their speech will develop faster than if you only talk to them intermittently" i.e. more is always better and will yield better results. As any statistician will tell you, not true.

Paranoid mc parents then spend all day engaged in a continual monologue with their baby, in the fear that if they let up, little Johnny will be a 5 yr old mute.

So, buy a parent facer if that's what appeals, but don't worry that your child's development will suffer from it, unless you are pushing them around for hours and hours a day and never talking to them at any other time. If the front facer ticks all your other boxes, go for it.

From the article that crackcrackcrack linked to, 'If your pushchair faces forward, make sure there are other good communication opportunities throughout the day for one-to-one conversations which allow your young child to babble and respond ? perhaps by sharing books, singing songs and playing together.'

I think that a parent facing pushchair is a good idea, but if for some reason you don't or can't have one then the above shows that it is not devestating to your child's development!

Yes I do feel guilty for having a forward facing pushchair (hand me down from my older, early talking dcs) and a child with speech delay, but that is my problem not the problem of the studies into rearfacing!

Some tried to argue parent facing is better for speech development to me the other day but the proportion of time we spend in a pushchair is tiny compared to the children's waking hours - and they certainly aren't silent! I see parent facing important if you spend all day everyday or let's say more than several hours with your child in a pushchair every day. I know we do one off days like this but certainly not everyday.

Wow Crack you sound charming!

as others have stated the research is based on either speaking to your child constantly or barely at all regardless of the environment i.e at home or in a pushchair.

Unless you are pushing a child in a pushchair for hours every day with no other interaction in between then no your child probably won't end up being mute or have speech issues.

I work in childcare and know many children who have speech development problems of various degrees, I worked with one little girl whose tongue was to big for her mouth and a little boy who was a selective mute along with many other degrees of delays along the way.

Pressumably you would try and make their mothers feel guilty because it must be there fault as you would surely assume it was down to which way they were pushed for a few hours... Then I would like to add the fact that these children were both in RF pushchairs until the age of 3...

All research is anecdotal!

thanks for all the info.

i think given the pros of the one i want to go for and this is the only con i am still going to go for it but interesting to hear people's thoughts.

I had forgotten gender nappies....well remembered! That made me smile!

I preferred a parent facing pushchair when ds was little (under 12 months) for a couple of reasons - firstly so I could see him and be sure he hadn't been sick/whether he was asleep/give him food safely. Secondly because I feel some situations, like being pushed into a crowd of people, being at the edge of a busy road or big dogs looming over you could be alarming and overwhelming for a small child.

I'm actually considering a parent facing one this time around to help me monitoring when naps etc are taking place but, that said, DS who is now four had a forward facing one and spoke very early and gained volcanic quickly and I cannot shut him up now even as I type!!

Get what works for you

Vocabulary not volcanic

My son is not an exploding mountain.... Normally!

try to fold with one hand, imagining that it's raining and you're holding your baby in the other, or at a bus stop when you have 15 secs before everyone else on the crowded bus starts huffing and puffing because you're holding up their journey

If you have a problem with doing this then it's because you didn't buy a Babyzen ?

jkklpu - i'd probably just wait for the next bus sounds far too stressy