I believe parents are the most heavily marketed to group of people on the planet. We are made to believe we can only use cleaning supplies, packaged food, hygiene products that are found in the baby aisle, or else our babies will… I don’t know, suddenly turn into adults? I’m not sure why I thought I could only use hand sanitizer that had baby branding on it, but I did! It’s ok to laugh at ourselves once in a while, right? In this article I’ll be sharing my favorite alternatives to pricey, store-bought baby products so you can skip the marketing traps AND live more naturally in the process.

You can see why child development experts like us did not appreciate the CDC implying that crawling was not a necessary or expected skill for babies to perform. This is arguably one of the most important skills in regards to the number of body systems affected when a baby fails to achieve it. Remember, the CDC did not remove crawling because they found that it wasn’t important. They removed it because they found that many children were not doing it. More on that here…

A consistent trend among babies with delayed gross motor milestones is that they participated in little to no Tummy Time in early infancy. There are fairly predictive outcomes for Baby's quality of movement when they skip this activity.

As you can see, I’ve actually used less equipment as I’ve had more children. It can be done and I’m here to encourage you that you can do it, too! We don’t have to believe the marketing lies about what is good for our children’s development. The truth is, what was good for babies hundreds of years ago, even 50 years ago, is still good for our babies today: time on their back, their tummy, and time in your arms. Anything else is a trade-off.