Forward facing pushchairs - Do they hinder your childs devellopement?

[ScandinavianWoman]

Seeing that 90% of pushchairs in the UK (unlike in Scandinavia) have the child facing forward so there was no eye contact between child and parent, I have for a whilewondered how this difference in "pushchair culture" affected children and also felt that it must be truly scary for a tiny child to be pushed towards huge grownup strangers and frankly (sorry, but in the Nordic countries we say it like it is) be on the same level as these strangers "bums" and "crotches" and facing them without the reassuring/familiar face of a parent? While the child in the forward pushchair is bravely facing "the world", the UK parent is usually busy on the mobile behind and it seems that not much parent/child communication is going on and as the parent can not see the childs face, she/he can not know how the child feels unless the child gets really upset and screams or cries.
The other day I voiced my worries concerning this with a child psychologer I happened to meet at a party and it turned out that she had thought about this . She said the child/parent face contact is very important for the childs devellopement and that forward facing kids could well be scared.

I think it's nonsense. But I don't use a pushchair, just a sling (DS 22 months).

I think I agree with the psychologist.
I remember reading a piece in a psychology journal about the detrimental effects of forward facing buggies and it was quite interesting reading

Not if my dd is anything to go by, but Ive a sample size of one

I have heard the same argument for swings. You should push a child from in front and not behind so you can see their face and their reaction
Obviously we are talking very young children here when their brains are still developing

There is quite a lot of research now to suggest that forward facing buggies have an effect on children's language development. www.literacytrust.org.uk/talk_to_your_baby/resources/1573_buggy_research-latest_campaign_news

I agree with this 100% and never use a pushchair for this reason. When I am people watching it amazes me seeing young children thrust forward into crowds, often looking glazed with the parent out of sight with no interaction.

Are 90% of pushchairs in the UK forward facing? Ours can go either forwards or parent facing, and at 10 months old I still have DD facing me. All my friends with similar ages babies have them parent facing too. I like to see her and chat to her when we're out and about. I haven't read the research on how it affects the babies development but it just seems like common sense to me that they will learn more if you're chatting to them.

I agree and that's why I'll be buying the Stokke Xplory for my child. I don't know if it does any harm of course because I think babies get used to it either way. But I prefer the mother/father to baby eye contact.

I think it's a load of rubbish.

I expect if your child is in a pushchair for hours and hours every day, it could have an effect. If they only spend a little while in there and the rest of the time doing stuff like, say, sitting on your lap and being played with and talked to, then I don't really see that the direction of their pushchair could have any meaningful effect. You don't have to continually interact with your child, surely?
There may well be a population wide effect, but as for the effect on an individual child, that could be hugely variable.
Also a forward facing pushchair isn't a magic pill- you still have to talk to them and it'd make no difference if they're asleep!
I see plenty of children in forward facing buggies pointing out things they are looking at to mum, smiling and waving at people walking the other way. They don't all sit there looking glazed :-)

If this board is anything to go by approx 90% or more of the mumsnet population is looking for a parent facing pushchair. So the 90% forward facing pushchairs and "usually busy on the mobile" parts don't ring true for me.

I think it depends on lots of factors.
First of all, it depends how much you use a pushchair for each day. If you walk miles, then yes, not interacting with your child for long periods of time may well impact on their development. However, if you only do short outings a few times a week, then you will be spending far more time at home interacting, than you will be for the short time periods which you are out for. We used to spend more time in the car often than we did in a pushchair - and believe me my eldest NEVER stops talking and is way above her years with language.
I personally have tried to keep my children parent facing until at least 12 months old, but on occasions I have turned the eldest round and she has loved it. She was confident as a child / baby (she walked at 9 months old). Meanwhile DS had major separation anxiety around the age of 2 and he HAD to be parent facing, and even now he is parent facing when possible. I also choose my moments. Large crowds are not the best for little legs where they can get knocked. I also put the hood up to protect their heads.
I see parents feeling guilty that their children are only forward facing, but unless they are unhappy, or are in their pushchairs all day every day, then I see no harm. I think it probably does a lot of children good to see the world from a different perspective for a while, and it probably increases language if the parent is still interacting from behind.

Research of this issue has been around for while. My youngest child is 16 now and I think the research dates from his childhood. We almost always had a forward facing pushchair. Our 4 sons are very 'engaged' and always were - even the one with LDs and the one with an ASD. I think a large part of this 'success' was awareness of the only pushchairs we could afford perhaps being an issue - so we took steps to make sure we redressed the balance. I haven't looked for a while but my impression still is the cheaper pushchairs are the front-facing ones - McLaren umbrella folds, for example. We lived in small flats when the children were small - so had stairs to negotiate and not much storage space - and we had a low budget and needed to use buses. And we both need quite high handles, DH and I, and McLaren was better. We couldn't afford expensive.

To redress the balance a bit we talked to the children as much as possible, took every opportunity to engage with them (we had no TV which I know is an unusual option, but it was our choice and meant we talked and read more), used slings when we could still carry them in one, tried to limit the length of times they were 'stuck' in a buggy, treating it as a means to get about not as a 2nd home!!, always made sure mealtimes were together at least once a day (still do though fewer of us here now) with radio off.

It's all a question of balance, I think. In fact all parenting issues are. There's no point in parents feeling bad about prams if that's all they can afford.

Whatever you do they will be fine. I mean they're not in buggy all time, you do talk to them at other times. And sometimes some time to watch the world and take it all in is vital.

Very few modern DCs spend very long in their pushchairs. Most spend far longer stuck in car seats staring at the back seat. Which must be unbelievably dull.

I'm a bad, bad mother. I've always let my DCs take turns in the front from as soon as they were in high backed booster style seats and talked to them then.

I used to chat to them in the forward facing buggy (parent facing fuss came after mine were too old). Mostly they'd just look bored and return firmly to watching the world go by, they saw far too much of boring old mummy.

May be if your child spends a lot of time in child care, they appreciate staring up at mum from their buggy, mine would much rather watch the world go by.