How dangerous is this DIY baby rocker 'parenting hack'?
Reddit users questioned the safety of one mum's way of automatically rocking her child to sleep...
While the internet is full of brilliant little parenting hacks, one mum’s homemade rocker hack has been slammed over safety worries.
An anonymous mum shared on reddit her do-it-yourself automated baby rocker, which featured a KitchenAid food mixer linked to a bouncer chair by what looks like a band or cloth ribbon.
But quickly, fellow parents took to the comments to point out how unsafe it is to leave a baby unattended near a moving mixing blade.
"Not to be a downer but someone should tell these people how f****** dangerous that is,” wrote one user.
"When - not if - that piece of cloth catches, it will dump the baby into the mixing paddle where an arm or leg will likely catch, spinning the baby around in the mixer until baby dies or someone stops the mixer, whichever happens first."
"Just picturing that thing flipping up and the baby falling into the mixer," added another.
While one unimpressed commenter quipped: “This is monumentally stupid."
And we've gotta say, it may look cute but this definitely doesn’t strike us as a safe no-hands way to rock your baby.
Surely if mum or dad were watching their baby closely near the mixer, they wouldn't even need it, as they could just rock the bouncer with their foot? We've all been there with the foot/arm ache.
The Mirror reported safety advice from the International Association of Child Safety (IAFCS), which urged parents to follow manufacturer instructions when using products - a solid rule of thumb that should very much apply here.
Shiela Merrill, public health advisor for Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), also told us:
“This is a very novel idea but when using any electrical item the manufacturer’s instructions should be followed. The constant use of equipment that is intended to be used in short bursts could result in the motor overheating, increasing the risk of fire.
“Supervision is key to keeping very young children safe, and we would suggest that any ‘hack’ designed to allow the parent to be elsewhere is risky.”
It seems everyone these days is battling it out to post the handiest ‘parenting hack’, and have it spread far and wide across the web.
After all, many of these time-saving tricks are rather ingenious, and really do make the little tasks of parenthood run a bit smoother.
But if this homemade hack is a genuine idea (and of course, it was posted on reddit), then it seems the mum failed to realise that actually, it missed the mark.
Hopefully, this is something we can all learn from. ?
Images: reddit/imgur, Giphy
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