Unpopular Baby Advice

For this blog, I wanted to talk about unpopular baby advices and I know it may not be what most parents want to hear. There are many things that parents love to use or do on their babies but they might not be as ergonomic and great for the baby’s development. These advices are based on my knowledge, experience, and studies as to the reasons why these things should be shared to parents.

I usually give this advice once in the office for post-partum moms who come in or bring their babies in, but I want more people to be aware of it. You do not have to do it because nothing terrible will happen to your babies if you do not do it, but I just want a wider reach regarding these unpopular baby advices in relation to the biomechanical implications of doing things that we do not even think about. We usually do the things I will discuss below because everyone does it or it is convenient. However, it might not be the best for your baby.

First Unpopular Baby Advice: Avoiding Fragrances

You might use fragrant-free detergents, but you still have fragrances in your baby’s soap or bath wash.  If you are also wearing scented stuff or use a lot of fragrance, it will affect your baby’s super sensitive skin and is not great for their endocrine system. For my pre-natal patients, I also suggest that they stop using perfumes that are not essential-oil based or the spritzy stuff they put in their house.

I am also guilty of this as I used a tone of these stuff in the past. However, when I got pregnant with my daughter, I decided to get on the natural band wagon and I got crazy over it. I switched to nail polishes that had lesser chemicals on them, hippie deodorants, lotions that do not have scents in them or had only essential oils on them, and more. Our skin is our biggest organ so if we put chemicals on our skin, it’s sucking into your system and you will be processing that. The same thing goes with babies so you should not put anything on their skin except products that you know what the words mean or those that have no scents because scents can be super irritating to a baby’s skin.

On my kids, I use tallow butter, Emu, and other things that have no scents or essential oils. Essential oils are natural, and although they are a great option for avoiding chemical scents, you should not use them on babies. Babies already smell good on their own so there is no need for slathering them with scented stuff. For the Emu cream, I use it for diaper rash, baby acne, cradle cap, and their whole body.

Another thing in relation to this is not bathing babies often. It might be counter-intuitive to a lot of people but babies don’t really get dirty as they do not do much. It is best to wipe them with a wet Norwex rag or micro-fiber cloth to sponge them off. There is no need to bathe your baby every day and once a week would already suffice. Bathing your babies daily with soap will strip off the oils off of them and they will have dryness and irritation. I did not use soap on my first born until she was over a year old. I just used the Norwex rags and did not use any shampoo because babies do not need it. You would want to keep these in mind because you do not want to strip your baby’s natural oils as these are meant to protect them.

I found that my kids have minimal skin issues and learned more about it through the different courses I took through the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA). Our pediatrician for our children also emphasizes on not using scents ever on babies and has the same thoughts on not bathing babies often.

Second Unpopular Baby Advice: Do Not Put Cute Little Shoes On Your Babies

Never put your baby’s feet in little foot coffins. Think of their tiny feet just like their hands, which are exploring the world with their hands. Every different texture that they touch with their hands is sending their brain awesome new information. Such exciting information helps make the different little furrows and grooves in their brain.

The same amount of receptors in their hands are in their feet, so if you dull their feet with footed pajamas, socks, and stiff shoes, you are going to be dulling all the great information about the new interesting world around them. I did not love footed pajamas because I wanted my babies to feel lots of different texture and I did not put them in hard shoes until they could walk. I also did not want them to learn to walk with their shoes on because I wanted them to get all the great neuro input of walking with bare feet.

During the times that we went out, when it was cold, or if there were rough surfaces, what I did was used shoes with super soft sole. It was a thin piece of leather that would be enough to keep them from cutting their feet. In choosing the right shoes your baby could use during these instances, you also have to consider how wide the toe box of your baby is. Remember also that babies have chubby and splayed out toes and that’s exactly how feet are supposed to look. Our feet only change into a squished look because of the shoes that we wear. It is easy to train your foot to squish up like that and it is difficult reversing that. I’ve had clients who wanted to bring back that neurologic input and awareness to their feet and I can say it is a slow and difficult process. So if you want to avoid that in the first place, keep your baby bare foot and look for minimal shoes and footwear that have wide toe boxes. Some of the best ones I tried are Vivo and Xero.

Third Unpopular Baby Advice: Keeping Them In Infant Car Seat Carriers For A Long Time

My daughter was born in December so I used the car seat carrier throughout the snowy period. Babies cannot have bulky clothes while in a car seat as it is not safe, so it is difficult to have them warm enough to get them to and from the car without being able to wear a coat. That is why I kept her in a car seat carrier for four months whenever we had to go out. Once winter was over, we upgraded her to a car seat that does not leave your car.

This may not be ideal but there is a reason behind it. Babies like being snuggled into the car seat because it is similar to your womb because it is compact. When this happens, there is a tendency that you will leave them for long periods because you can see that they like it in their and it is a good thing for you since you are exhausted and tired. However, you have to understand that your babies spend so much time in these compact things for more time than you think. The problem here is it restricts babies and does not allow good movement. We want babies to be lying on their back so they can learn how to lift their legs up on their own, how to lift their arms up, and learn how to breathe to engage their diaphragm and their core. All of these are the principles of Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization, the rehab technique that I use in my office and videos. Proper moving from one milestone to the next is by not being confined like being in a car seat and not being propped in positions you are not physiologically ready for. It is best to have the baby naturally go from lying on the ground to just breathing over and over again and getting their diaphragm work really well as the keystone of their core. From there, they will be able to lift their arms and legs up, rock side to side, and roll on to their sides and on their stomach. All these things will not happen if babies are restricted and confined for a long time.

This was not easy for me because it was tempting to just let the baby stay in the car seat because they were compliant. But it would really be best if they spent less time in it.

Fourth Unpopular Baby Advice: Do Not Use Walkers

The walkers are marketed as those that you put your baby in and their feet drop down and they are propped up so they can do things and see more stuff. It might be interesting and exciting, but that is putting the cart before the horse. It is similar to the Baby Bumbo product, where people can let their babies sit on their own before they can actually do it. They are sitting in an upright position and all the gravity and force go down to their tailbone. All the pressure on their spine without their core being strong enough is not good for the development of the baby.

Ideally, you should not put your baby into a contraption that puts them into a position that they cannot do on their own. We do that all the time and I did it a little bit with my daughter until I took courses in relation to it. I used to have a bouncer thing where I would put the baby in when I tried to shower or get ready, but I limited the use of it to when I needed my baby to be occupied for a bit of time. I did not leave them in there for a longer time because you want to leave babies flat on the ground and let them work their little bodies out until they can do more movement on their own. They should not be able to sit by themselves before they can roll over back and forth and push themselves into the hunch position so they can sit. We do not want to jump forward into sitting before we are ready. With walkers, we do exactly that.

Crawling is also very important and when you use walkers, you skip that part. Crawling is necessary for brain development and when you hear someone excited about their baby being able to walk before they crawl, that’s not something to be happy about. Babies need to crawl for a long time because it helps with verbal development and the cross-crawl pattern helps with connecting one side of the brain to the other.

You should also pull them away from couches because you want your baby to crawl until they can scoot back into a really low squat. You also should not hold their hands and have them walk with you because although it might be cute, it is not fundamentally good for their development. You want your babies to hit their milestones in the right order and never care about how quickly babies meet their milestones.

Conclusion

Every time I go to a baby shower and see a Bumbo, a swing, a walker, or a bouncer, I always hope that parents will use them very sparingly because these are not the best. It is a convenience thing for parents than it is for children.

They might be ticked or angry when they are laying on the ground and they cannot do the things they want to do or cannot see what they want to see, but that is where they get their drive and motivation to learn the new skills. If you hand everything to them on a silver platter without making them have to work for it, why would they? Babies are just like anybody. So I hope that you keep these in mind and help me spread the word!

If you have any questions, you can drop it in the comment section or you send me a message through Facebook or Instagram. I’d be happy to do another podcast about your questions. Also, if you want me to talk about something specific, let me know!

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Thank you for listening and see you next week!