It’s Not Really a Baby Sitter

It’s a baby chair. More specifically, it’s a sit up chair designed especially for infants.

It’s called the Bumbo Baby Sitter (again, a bit of a misnomer), and we bought one last week.

You’ve probably seen one in the aisles of your local Target; it’s got a picture of an infant sitting in one of the chairs, looking uncomfortable. The sides of the hat-shaped box have a staged picture of three babies at a faux birthday party.

They, too, look uncomfortable.

So, as you might imagine, I was a little reticent to purchase this item for The Squeaker. If I want to see my daughter with a prickly look on her face, I’ll simple introduce myself as her father.

But my sister swears by it. She says the Prince of Wails loves the Bumbo. My sister also likes Markie Mark and the Funky Bunch, Vanilla Ice, and a host of other white ‘80s rappers, so you have to take her recommendations with a grain of salt.

Since Squeaker was getting bored with her bouncy chair, and we were already spending money on the Jumperoo, P.Pie decided we should pick up the Bumbo too (again, based on my sister’s recommendation).

My initial thoughts were to avoid the rush and start hating it immediately. Unfortunately, I couldn’t.

Once I actually held the Bumbo in my hands, I decide it probably wasn’t as uncomfortable as the babies on the box made it look. Apparently the Bumbo is made in South Africa, which might explain the odd marketing materials.

Perhaps the images scored high with SA test markets. Or maybe SA’ers are just a little strange. Who knows.

Anyways, the Bumbo chair is made of a soft polyurethane, much like the material of a life preserver (not that you should take it the lake and use it as a flotation device). The raised back help support the infants back so they don’t slump over like a wet noodle.

Both the box and the website tout that it is approved by pediatricians and orthopedists. Of course they don’t list these pediatricians and orthopedists… I imagine these are the same type of doctors that recommend Trident to their patients who chew gum.

What is most important, is that The Squeak seems to enjoy it. She’s able to look around unimpeded by hanging toys or distracting blips and beeps.

So we’ve decided to keep it, but where we’re going to keep it another story.

I can see in the not-to-distant-future, the house exploding from toys. But that’s a post for another day.