In a 2011 survey, British consumer magazine voted baby slings as the most useless of all baby products. Apparently parents just didn’t like them. I’d have to disagree on two counts – firstly, slings are a complete lifesaver when you have a baby and especially when you have more than one. Secondly, there is a cornucopia of far more useless products out there that they could have picked on. So I’m going to pick on them now. Prepare to have your credit cards maxed to the limit if you’re investing in our Top 10 Most Pointless Baby Products.

 

10. Walking Wings

For years, babies have learned to walk. Nearly all of them do it of their own accord, and there’s a variety of techniques – cruising along the furniture, staggering from one fixed point to another, holding an adult’s finger – but largely, they don’t need the intervention of gadgets to help them walk. Until now! In gender-stereotyped pink and blue shades, the walking wings act like a little harness to help guide the baby while they walk. No longer will you need to “tug at little arms” as you drag them along, or suffer from backache as you bend down for all those hours of baby-walking you do. And none of that pesky baby-led navigation that sees you circling the same room several times. No, put them in some kind of contraption and take the power back! Sitting down with a gin and tonic while they figure it all out for themselves is obviously not an option any more….

 

9. Nuby Nibbler

One baby product that you might find useful is a little mesh bag for bath toys – it hangs them up and drains them when not in use. But would you also fancy sticking some fruit in the mesh and giving it to your baby to munch on? No, me neither. But clearly the makers of the Nuby thought they were onto a winner with their little mesh feeder, where you put food in and the baby sucks on it through the mesh “without the risk of choking”. Unfortunately, you also lose the risk of the baby enjoying their food or learning to handle it for themselves. Choking is a hazard, that’s true, and especially with frozen fruit, which seems to be a favorite recommendation of Nuby users. But why does any baby need to eat frozen fruit? Surely a slice of fresh mango is much nicer and doesn’t taste of mesh? So a useless product and a nightmare to clean too, by all accounts.

 

8.  The BabyKeeper

For those that agree with the uselessness of slings, there’s always a problem when it comes to restrooms. You can’t fit a stroller into a cubicle, so what do you do? Hang them from the door like you hang your coat! The BabyKeeper does just that – clipping over the edge of the toilet door so that your baby can dangle there and watch you pee. It doesn’t look particularly comfy, but the baby in the adverts looks happy – he must love being strung up like a handbag. Not one for forgetful mothers cause, let’s face it, how easy would it be to just leave them there?

 

7. Milkscreen

Now, this one caused huge amount of controversy when it launched and was withdrawn a few days later, after a vigorous campaign by parents on Facebook. The aim was to help mothers breastfeed, by checking their supply, but the method was deeply flawed. It relied on mothers being able to pump as much as they produced but anyone who has ever tangled with a breast pump will tell you that they’re aren’t the easiest or most natural of contraptions. Consequently, it’s rare that a woman will be able to pump out every last drop of milk that she’s produced. Babies are much more efficient at extracting milk than pumps are! Breastfeeding mothers were concerned that the product only fuelled paranoia about milk supply and would do more harm than good, The company eventually agreed, and recalled it from sale.

 

6. Diaper Stacker

Now these are a pretty addition to any nursery – fabric diaper holders, in a variety of fabrics to co-ordinate with your decor. But there’s quite a big flaw. When you have a baby, it’s a 24-hour job. There are 8 feeds a day, 8 changes a day and a lot of burping, pacing and rocking in between. When you get that precious 5 minutes away from the baby, what are you going

to do? Shower? Pee? Make a cup of coffee? Or arrange a fresh supply of diapers neatly in the fabric hanger thing? Basically, they’re the kind of thing pregnant people buy and the kind of thing that only a pregnant person would be bothered to fill. Once the baby is here, you soon find that life is too short.

5. Warm N Go

But life isn’t that short. Not so short that you need to warm a bottle on the go all the time. No stopping at gas stations to heat a bottle! We must keep moving! Hence the urgent-sounding name of the “Warm n Go”. Of course, if your life was like that you’d be sorely disappointed in this in-car bottle warmer which,according to reviews, takes 30 minutes to get milk to an even acceptably warm state. So, a product that’s designed for people on the move but which is painstakingly slow? Sounds like a bit of a misfire. Especially when babies seem happy enough to glug room temperature formula straight out of those ready-made cartons. No tricky, breakable heating elements or long waits – just need a pair of scissors.

 

4. Wet Wipe Warmer

Talking of things you never knew you needed to warm – here’s the wet wipe warmer, a huge piece of equipment with just one function, and that’s to warm baby wipes. It sounds overly precious but maybe your baby’s bottom needs to have wipes of just the right temperature or it’ll collapse in protest? I’ve always found that room temperature works just fine, and if they don’t like having their diaper changed the warmth of the wipe will make not a blind bit of difference. If, like one baby book suggests, you find your wet wipes are on the “chilly” side, I’d suggest not leaving them in the fridge. That generally helps.

 

3. Squirt Spoon

Some would say that the whole process of purée weaning is a bit pointless, seeing as a combination of milk and finger foods is enough to see them through the transition to solids. But the majority of parents still feel that a bit of mush is essential and so slavishly go through the routine of boiling, blending and spooning every day. So if you’re doing all that already, you might as well add an extra step and squeeze it all into another device. Modestly described as “genius” in its product description, it claims that it “takes baby food, removes the jar and the mess, packs it into a single utensil and with one squeeze—boom!”. How you avoid making mess while transferring food from jar to Squirt is subtly skipped out. A truly perplexing product.

 

2. Shopping Cart Cover

And now for another problem you never knew you had – dirty, cold shopping carts that will infect your child with both germs and coldness. But you’ve guessed it – there’s a product out there to solve just that problem, or lack of. The shopping cart cover provides your baby with it own smooshy cocoon of loveliness so they can play with their toys rather than grabbing things off the shelf like those other, poorly behaved babies (clearly jealous because they don’t have their own cart cover).

One brand caused outrage when it supplied a cart cover without a belt, suggesting you use the belt in the cart provided. Germ-phobic parents responded with rage as, in their opinion, it completely negated the point of the cover. As one person put it, “We all know how nasty those shopping cart belts can be”. Absolutely. But here’s a piece of out-of-the-box thinking – if you’re that freaked out by shopping carts, why not just shop online? Or use your own stroller? Just me?

 

1. Peepee Teepee

And now for the Number One most useless baby product, as voted by me. First, an experiment. Go and stuff a cotton wool ball up a tap. Then turn the tap on full blast. Observe as the small, light object is propelled away by the power of the liquid. Congratulations, you have just done the product testing that the makers of the Peepee Teepee never did.

Simply put, this is a small, tent-shaped piece of fabric that you put over a little boy’s extremities while changing his diaper. If he pees then, in theory, it goes into the “teepee”. In practice, it will fly across the room and you will have to pull it out from the back of the sofa while you, he and it are all covered in pee. Even the best case scenario involves having to wash tiny bit of urine-soaked fabric. Just don’t even bother. There’s only one thing that stops you get peed on during a diaper change and that is speed. Don’t give him a second longer than absolutely necessary. And good luck to you!