The Direction Your Stroller Faces Could Affect Your Baby's Language Development

Summertime Week post 3 of 5

Are forward-facing strollers having a negative effect on babies’ language development?

Britain’s National Literacy Trust commissioned Suzanne Zeedyk’s research team to look into this question. Forward-facing strollers are by far the most common, but babies in them are the least likely to be interacting socially. Zeedyk, a senior lecturer in developmental psychology at the University of Dundee, described her research in the New York Times.

“Of course, infants do not spend all their time in strollers, but anecdotal evidence suggests that babies can easily spend a couple of hours a day in them. And research tells us that children’s vocabulary development is governed almost entirely by the daily conversations parents have with them. The core message of our findings is simple: Talk to your baby whenever you get the chance — and whichever direction your stroller faces.”

(My thoughts: the "core message" impresses me about this research. The rest doesn't excite me too much.)

Summertime Week Posts:
1. Children gain more weight in summer than during school
2. Summer books: Bad Parenting stories are so funny (not)
3. (From the We-Kid-You-Not-File) Summer Strolls: the direction your stroller faces could affect your baby's language development
4. Seriously, do you call this summer camp?
5. Too much sunscreen and too much paranoid parenting