Gear

With a new warning, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is finally addressing an issue many of us had long suspected: Slings can be dangerous. The CPSC issued a warning yesterday advising parents and caregivers to be cautious when using a sling for babies younger than four months.

The Commission looked at 14 deaths associated with sling-style infant carriers in the past 20 years, three of the cases in 2009, and found that these baby carriers pose two types of suffocation hazards.  The first is for the youngest babies who can’t control their heads because of weak neck muscles. The fabric of the sling can press against a baby’s mouth and nose and suffocate the baby within a minute or two. Slings that keep a baby in a curled position, bending his chin toward his chest, can also restrict the airways, limiting the oxygen supply and hindering a baby’s ability to cry for help.

Of the babies who died in slings, 12 were younger than four months and many were either a low-birth-weight twin, born prematurely or had breathing issues (such as a cold). The CPSC urges parents of twins, preemies, babies in fragile health and those of a low weight to consult a pediatrician about using a sling.

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Recently, the Commission added slings to the list of durable infant products that require a mandatory standard and is investigating whether to take further action. The CPSC recommends that people who are going to carry a baby in a sling:

- Make sure the infant’s face is not covered.

-Make sure the infant’s face is visible at all times.

-Moms who nurse a baby in a sling should reposition the baby after feeding so the baby’s head is facing up and is clear of both the sling and her body.

In a press release, the CPSC said it is “interested in receiving incident or injury reports related to infant slings.” To do this, visit https://www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.aspx or call the CPSC hotline at (800) 638-2772.

Diagram source: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

The Boon Flair Highchair is truly a chair grownups will covet. Made from BPA, Phthalate, and PVC-plastic, the Flair looks kind of like a modern barbers’ chair. The orange button at its base even controls a pneumatic lift, so you can plop baby in comfortably at a low level, step on the button, and lift him right up to feeding-height. Ready to take her down again? Zziiiip goes the lift. Aaah, goes Mommy, with the non-strained back.

Other features: the Flair seat is made from one solid, molded piece of plastic; there are no seams to gather grime and force you to come at them with Q-tips (or just ignore a whole lot of encrusted food). The seat’s also on wheels, allowing you to roll it anywhere you want in your house. Wheel it onto the balcony and feed baby alfresco!

The Flair is good for kids up to age 4 (or 50 pounds, whichever comes first), so it makes a good chair for preschoolers, too. Oh, and once they figure out how to use the pneumatic lift button, you try keeping them out.

Boon Flair Highchair, $230

It takes a lot to impress us. As parents of urban babies, with access to the latest and greatest props and paraphernalia of parenthood, we’re often left with that been-there-done-that feeling when we see what is billed as the new, must-have baby gear. And then a product comes along that literally stops traffic and our blase attitude.

Taga is part bike, part stroller and part genius. It’s a “multifunctional urban vehicle” - an MUV! - that’s coming stateside from the Netherlands this April. You secure your little guy in the stroller seat (with your helmets), hop on the bike and ride. Taga is the equivalent of a jogging stroller for the cycling set … only lighter and easier to use. Within seconds, you can convert the Taga from bike mode to (premium) stroller mode. And if you decide to stop for a latte after a few laps, just park then pop out the portable seat unit with Junior. With three wheels, Taga is like a giant tricycle, so you don’t need to be Lance Armstrong to feel confident about riding it. And note: It converts to a double and comes ready for a child aged six months to six-years-old.

Ride, baby, ride.

Pre-order now at tagabikes.com.

Before having children, the forward-and-back clock-moving of Daylight Savings Time was a minor hassle. Sure, you might oversleep occasionally, or have to drink an extra cup of coffee to get through the day, but not a big deal. Fast-forward to the breeding years, when you made a terrible discovery: Daylight Savings Time throws your strict schedule straight into the garbage can. You can look forward to several weeks of the children waking up at 3 and 4 a.m., refusing naps, and throwing gigantic tantrums at mealtimes.

Well, the Good Nite Lite can help you with the early wakings, anyway. Plug it into your wall, program in a bedtime and a wake-up time, and the friendly lit up face on the light changes from a moon to a sun right on cue. Maybe, just maybe, a child who wakes up at 3 a.m. will look at the light, see the sleepytime moon, and just go back to sleep without coming to poke you. We can devoutly hope, can we not?

Good Nite Lite, $34.99

The ERGO has long been at the top of the heap of structured baby carriers–you know, the kind Daddy will carry? It’s a mighty schlep-partner, to be sure, but learning how to navigate its straps and whirligigs to move baby from front to back to hip is complicated, particularly for the sleep deprived. The sleek new FreeHand Baby Carrier by TogetherBe appears to have (almost) all of the advantages of the ERGO, without the drawbacks.

The FreeHand is styled much like the ERGO, with a big pouch for the baby and then padded straps that wind around the shoulders and hips. There’s a sweet little crossover support structure at the front that keeps baby’s butt secure and snuggles the weight close to the body, and some ingeniously designed leg openings at the front, so that babies can be worn front- or outward-facing. Wearing baby on the back is a simple matter of turning the carrier around so the pouch is on your back and the carrier buckles in the front.

Unlike the ERGO, which requires a special insert, the FreeHand works for newborns. But one downside: unlike the ERGO, the FreeHand doesn’t convert to a hip carrier. Still, with its simplicity and sleek styling, it’s one to consider.

FreeHand Baby Carrier, $120

Uber-chic baby gear and the umpteen parenting websites and apps have done little to lessen the schlep factor that’s par for the course when traveling with a bambino. As we head into spring break and then summer travel season, you still need to be smart about what you pack.

One item you’ll want to have at the top of your diaper bag is the Pipila. It’s a portable pacifier sterilizer. This gadget uses a UV/ozone lamp that penetrates and kills 99.9% of germs. Developed in Australia, the Pipila is powered by two AAA batteries and doesn’t distort the shape, taste or smell of the pacifier nipple. It takes six minutes to sanitize a paci so it’s best to have a spare for interim sucking. And if you subscribe to the “three-second rule,” consider what a pacifier can collect in the three seconds it’s on a train platform, city sidewalk or supermarket floor.

Would you eat your ____ (fill in the blank with your fave food) if it came into contact with any of the abovementioned surfaces?

Now available at target.com and pipilausa.com.

Having an urban baby means you’re not as likely to get sucked into a world drenched in pastels and overpopulated with little ducks just because you have a bambino. You still need to retain some sense of your pre-baby mod self. And what better person to help you achieve this goal than Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres.

The newest offerings from Torres’ Rock Star Baby company are bottle and pacifier sets decked out in black, red and white images of a skull and crossbones. Choose from Pirate Baby (pictured), Tattoo Pirate Baby, and Heart & Wings. These design antidotes to the more mundane and hue-challenged light pink and blue also have all the right “frees” going for them; they’re free of BPA, lead, PVCs and phthalates. Torres founded Rock Star Baby at the beginning of the last decade after his friends starting having kids and he wasn’t able to find any hip baby presents. And then there was his drum tech, a new dad, who came in one day sporting a diaper bag with blue elephants. Torres recounts: “He goes, ‘Tico, can you make me a bag? This is so embarrassing to walk around with this.’” Torres, a father himself, says his products obviously aren’t just for rock stars. “Most people are hip in general.” Just think of our own preferred mode of dress for going out: the LBD. And the “LB” certainly doesn’t stand for “light blue!”

Let it rock.

Available at rockstarbaby.com. Check out the UK side of the Rock Star Baby site if you want to see what other RSB products will soon be coming stateside.

Tico Torres photo credit: www.scholtenstudio.com.

If the essence of great gifting is to buy something for someone they want yet wouldn’t buy for themselves, surely the best gifts for new parents are gadgets that are over-the-top yet simplify their lives a tad.

For instance, the Itzbeen Baby Care Timer, a replacement for the battered school composition book Mom’s been keeping by the nursing chair. The reasonably priced ($26) handheld device tracks diapering, feeding (even time spent on the right or left side!), baby’s naps and nighttime sleep, and medication schedule (if any). The buttons are so intuitive to use that even a frazzled parent groping for the device at midnight can work them out, and the tracking saves a whole lot of middle-of-the-night anxieties. Oh, and it comes in pink, blue, and green for the indecisive.

Looking for a bigger-ticket item? Slide $69.96 Brookstone’s way and they’ll hand you back the Tranquil Moments White Noise Sound Machine for Baby, a sleek little bedside companion that offers a plethora of baby-friendly sounds: the loud whooshing of the womb, a soothing heartbeat, dolphins. Dolphins? Sure. Babies like it. They also like the Car Ride setting. No need to tiptoe around during naps with this baby on.

The loving relationship you once had with your mobile device has suffered quite a setback since your little bambino arrived on the scene. They both need so much attention! Pushing a stroller while manning your PDA is an accident waiting to happen. Ditto for steering a stroller with one hand as the other digs through your purse to locate your ringing phone. When did life get so hard?

Enter the texthook, “a dashboard for your mobile life.” It’s a smartphone holder for your stroller. It fits single- and double-handle strollers as well as a bicycle handlebar (don’t even want to think about that one). This fab contraption rotates 180 degrees for convenient viewing. The texthook works with the iPhone, BlackBerrys (but not the Pearl Flip or the original BB’s) plus a number of other mobile devices. You can check texthook’s site for a full and regularly-updated list of compatible phones. Still unsure? E-mail the company and they can figure it out for you. This sanity saver works both with and without PDA protective cases.

Because nothing gets between you and your texts.

Available at thetexthook.com.

Urban legend has it that red velvet cake was invented at New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. A customer was so impressed with the dessert, she asked for the recipe. After being charged $100 for her unusual request, the enraged patron, hell-bent on revenge, circulated the recipe for free. Whatever its origins, this strangely-hued, baked confection is a perennial palate pleaser … and looks just as delicious as a handbag.

Petunia Picklebottom, the pioneering company that first broke through the utilitarian (ugly) diaper bag barrier in 2000, is out with a limited edition Red Velvet version of its Cake collection for the holidays. Cake by Petunia is the company’s high-end line. The Red Velvet Cake, as the name suggests, is a delicious crimson and cranberry. It combines a vintage-inspired, floral, European cut velvet with a coordinated wool tweed. The Cake comes in three chic styles: the Cosmopolitan Carry-all, the Cameo Clutch and the Society Satchel. They all (even the adorable clutch) have pockets galore for baby paraphernalia, water resistant lining, a plastic wipey case and changing pad. They’re a fusion of fashion and function so a woman doesn’t feel like she’s carrying a diaper bag. Hey, vanity is allowed to come into play here.

So you can have your cake and wear it, too.

Available exclusively at petuniapicklebottom.com through January 1, 2010.