The Quilts Zone Blog

Babies in all traditional cultures were carried in a cloth tied to the back, front or hips. Other devices for carrying babies included baskets, cradleboards, portable cradles and travois. In the 1960s the use of slings once again became popular with the introduction of structured soft pack. Toddlers and older babies began to be carried on frame pack. In the 1980s the ring sling became popular. Pouch carriers were introduced in the 1990s. Prams or perambulator has been in use since the Victorian era in the United Kingdom but are not common today. At present there are different kinds of baby carriers in the market. This includes baby slings, hip carriers, frame backpack carriers, mei tais, slings, the hip and soft front carriers.

A stroller or a buggy is used as a means of transport to carry babies and young kids up to three years of age. This is convenient when traveling. It resembles a chair moving on four wheels. The baby is kept safe and secure in the stroller by means of a harness that holds the baby to the stroller by the waist, shoulders or the legs. There are strollers that offer three point harness and five point harness with the latter being more safe. The stroller is provided with either a foot break or a hand break. Besides the common single stroller for carrying one kid, strollers that can carry two kids side by side or one behind the other are available. Strollers that can carry three children too are now available.

There are various brands and styles of strollers in the market such as Chicco Cortina Strollers, Graco Strollers, Inglesina Strollers, Kolcraft Strollers, Maclaren Strollers, Rock Star Strollers, Schwinn Strollers, and Stokke Strollers.

There are several kinds of strollers now in the market. There are the umbrella strollers for the older kids. There is neither a sun canopy nor is there storage facility. The padding of the seats too is less. But this makes the umbrella stroller lighter and cheaper. The standard strollers have both the sun canopy as well as large storage compartments. The seats too are well padded. This makes them heavier and costlier. Similar to the standard stroller is the travel system stroller except that it has a car seat. The child can be detached from the stroller with the seat without any disturbance and transferred to a vehicle for instance. The recent entry into the market is the jogging stroller. This is different from the standard strollers with the four wheels being replaced by three wheels which are also bigger. This is to make the stroller firm on rough terrain as well as when being steered at high speed.

The voices that infants utter are called baby talk, twaddling or babbling. These sounds are attempts of the babies to learn how to acquire the language. They are not in a position to as yet utter words that can be recognized. In the first year the larynx descends which allows the pharynx to develop for the sounds that will soon become words. Baby talk begins when the infant is 5 to 7 months old. They begin by making noise. It is only when the baby is one year old that recognizable words are produced. Syllables begin to be repeated. This is called reduplicative babbling. The variegated babbling is when a mix of syllables is used by the baby to babble. It is when the babies are calm that they babble more rather than when they are excited or upset. Babies prepare themselves by babbling for uttering the basic sounds that they will require for speaking the language. Babbling is natural to humans and this is clear when even the deaf babies babble.

Gurgling and cooing begins at birth up to 4 months. Babbling starts when the baby is 4 to 6 months old. Babbling is enjoyed by the baby up to 12 months or so. Between 12-18 months babbling turns to being meaningful when the toddlers begins to imitate sounds and words. The toddlers begin to repeat words at the age of 18 to 24 months. That is when babbling takes on to becoming meaningful words. They are able to use about 50 words. But they understand many more. They then begin to form short sentences. They may use familiar words incorrectly. The baby begins with crying and begins to coo moving on to vocal play. This is followed by canonical babbling and then on to conversational babbling.

An effective means of communication that the babies use is the sign language. Babies often do not find the appropriate sound which gives them frustration. This can be avoided if they are also taught the sign language so that they can express themselves. Priscilla Dunstan proposed that universally there were only five words that babies use and each of them have a distinct meaning. She then released The Dunston Baby Language DVD in 2006 which teaches how these sounds can be recognized.

Babbling of babies, when responded to with babbling by adults is beneficial to the development of babies. Integrating this with some normal adult speech will assist the baby in the development of vocabulary. It assists in the cognitive development of the baby. Eventually the baby will achieve the ability to normally speak the local language no mater what.