baby bargainista addresses recent product recalls

In this week’s baby bargainista column, Rebecca Atkinson discusses the recent rash of product recalls on items for babies and young children.

As a parent, one of the things you do not wish to hear about are product recalls especially when they relate to items you own or are using. You also don’t want to think that the very products you use to keep your children safe are not safe.

On Thursday September 30, Fisher-Price announced a recall to more than 11 million toys and items across North America. The recalls are voluntary and are not related to each other, other than the fact that they happen to pose the risk of potential injury.

Consumers are advised to stop using the recalled products and call the recall hotline (800) 432-5437 between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday.

Last Wednesday, articles began surfacing urging parents to stop using popular sleep positioners designed to stop infants from rolling over on their stomachs. What was supposed to be a product to help reduce SIDS, may in fact also cause suffocation.

Babies R Us is among one of several North American retailers and manufacturers that have decided to stop selling or to withdraw the product from store shelves. A check of their websites show they are no longer selling the product online.

As a mother of a child with gastroesophageal reflux disease, we had seen several recommendations advocating we use positioners to help MJ stay off her back, and more on her side (avoid choking stomach acid coming back up). However, with her condition, she was nothing but a wiggle worm so we worried about exactly this problem and chose not to use one. After reading this, I feel good about our choice not to use one.

Since there is no official recall, there is no recourse for parents who own one of these positioners. The good news is they generally retailed for $20 or less so while you might be out of some money, thankfully it’s not an exorbitant amount.

Have you ever owned a recalled product? Do you follow the advice to stop using products (and get replacements where applicable?), or do you continue using them? What if it was your child’s favourite toy – what would you do then?

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Choosing the right baby monitor – rely on other parents

This week’s baby bargainista is from Tamera Kremer. Tamera became a new mom of twin girls in January and in this post, she’ll share her quest for a baby monitor. She also blogs Eco City Mama.

When I found out I was pregnant with twins one of my main concerns was how I would be keeping track of them when I left a room! When I started looking into monitors I was truly overwhelmed… a plethora of choices out there, with video monitors seeming to be everywhere & the new hip thing for parents. With the abundance of choices, I had no clue what the right choice for my family-to-be was. It didn’t help matters that the majority of my friends with kids all had different monitors and no one seemed 100% satisfied.

The one thing I did know was that I was determined to not have the girls be “crib babies” and spend all their early days confined to one spot, in which case a video monitor didn’t seem to be the right answer (let alone trying to find the right angle to capture both girls on camera while they slept). I’d also heard from other parents that static was a big concern with their monitors – the last thing I needed was static waking both girls up in the middle of the night! Portability was also a concern as I wanted to be able to keep track of how the twins were doing wherever I was in the house, or if I ventured outside with my dog during the spring and summer.

Enter online reviews & feedback from other parents on the web.

I spent a lot of time on different websites trying to find what appeared to be unbiased reviews and ended up on Babies ’R Us where the highest rated monitor (13 reviews that appeared to be from real people) was a simple single unit, but with great features from Safety 1st. The reviews were glowing and the price point was reasonable. Static didn’t appear to be a factor, and with rechargeable batteries and 1000-foot range I was willing to give it a shot, even though, with shipping & taxes it pushed close to $100.

Several months in to using it and it’s been truly amazing and has lived up to all the reviews I read. I can leave a room and know the unit will pick up their lightest squeaks clearly, and when the crying inevitably starts the sound quality makes it feel like I’m in the room with them. I honestly cannot recommend this unit highly enough for a new parent – no bells and whistles, just clear sound & peace of mind!

A baby registry primer

In this week’s baby bargainista column, Rebecca Atkinson shares all the nitty gritty details of setting up a baby registry. (Warning: This is a long post but worth the effort.)

Depending on your cultural beliefs, you may decide to create a baby registry so friends and family can purchase things you really need for the baby’s impending arrival. Clothes tend not to get included because everyone buys cute baby outfits. But where is the best place to register?

There are many stores and specialty boutiques where you can register, especially in large communities like Toronto. However, if you have people spread out across the country, like we do, chances are you’ll need to go for one of the big three department stores like The Bay, Babies R US or Sears because they have locations nationally in case some are not comfortable shopping online. We obviously did not want to register at all three stores, so we did some research to try and figure out which store was the best for our needs.

Situation:
We’re busy parents-to-be (who’s not, I know?) – with a large, spread-out family – who purchase as much as we can online after an initial in-store visit to see/touch/feel items for ourselves.

The Bay
Pros:
• Registry completion program: While the materials and consultant we spoke with at the baby show didn’t give specific information, they did indicate that there is special pricing for anything not purchased on your registry after the baby is born.
• Provides registry checklists, which helps for determining number of gifts to put on registry.
• Incentive offer at baby show
• Reasonable prices

Cons:
• Creating the registry online only allows you to choose from only two stores where you can go in and select gifts.
• Can’t create your entire registry online, only the initial registrant information
• Can only add or delete in store, or by phoning/emailing or faxing a gift registry consultant.
• Selection varies store to store, and is very limited.

Babies R Us
Pros:
• Depending on the size of the Toys R Us, the Baby section is almost large enough to be its own store.
• Selection is great.
• Contests to win gift certificate.
• Bag of goodies for registering.
• Can create entire registry online.
• Can add or delete items online without having to go into a store.
• Clearly show you what’s available to be purchased online or required to be purchased at store.
• Reasonable prices (and often lowest of all three stores on comparable items/brands.)
• Tools available online to help you start and complete the registry (popular items, buying guides and checklists.)

Cons:
• No gift registry completion program.
• Bag of goodies varies widely by store and is some what of a lottery.
• Overall sense the company knows it’s got a stronghold on the baby market, so no real desire to woo consumers.

Sears
Pros:
• Completion program.
• Waiting Game Club.
• Add or delete items online (requires knowledge of SKU numbers in most cases.)
• Free Ship-a-gift service for out-of-town family who use the catalogue (and phone) to order your gift. Gifts will be shipped to your local store without additional cost to your family.
• Like the other registries, Sears has checklists available to help you create your registry. In addition, there are some helpful hints (for first-timers) about things to think about when choosing particular items like car seats or change pads.

Cons:
• Adding items isn’t the easiest, as you need to add by product number.
• Prices were generally more expensive than the Bay or Babies R Us.
• In-store selection small and varies widely by store.
• Doesn’t actively promote the Completion program, only told in-store of its availability.

Based on the cost of items and lack of selection, we immediately narrowed down our options to the Bay and Babies R Us. Based on the completion program and that we received a $50 gift card for pre-registering at the baby show, we initially decided to go with the Bay.

However, things did not go according to plan. Arriving at the Bay a few days later to complete the rest of our registry (which would also activate the gift card), we were told that somehow we weren’t “in the system.” Even though I had all the paperwork from the show, they couldn’t start a new registry for us, or our gift card wouldn’t be valid. We were given two options:

1. Wait for them to call us and book an appointment, which they would do if they hadn’t heard from us in a few weeks; or,
2. Come back at another time to see if we were in the system.

Having already had two bad experiences with the Bay in the last couple of years (many of our wedding registry items took over six months to receive, and an online order that was finally deemed as “lost” and refunded three months after placing it), my husband and I decided this was the last straw. No matter how many incentives you offer, it doesn’t make up for horrible customer service. It’s now been four weeks since “pre-registering” and I still haven’t received a call from the Bay. And guess what? Our incentive gift card expires in two weeks. How many bets they call me minutes after the card expires?

Our final choice by process of elimination? Babies R Us. And you know what? Registering was a breeze. We had fun looking at all the items in store and then adding/updating our registry online with other products. The bag of goodies we received at our store was small, but really nice and personal. Among the coupons and some samples, it included a coupon for a free handprint plaque (complete with our baby’s prints), courtesy of our local store.

Of course what worked for me, may not be right for you. What the moral of this post comes down to is to determine what works best for you (can you go local, or do you need to go national for example) and what types of offers/incentives or bargains will help you decide where to register if you choose to do so.

Safe shopping for the little ones

In this week’s baby bargainista column, Jenny discusses BPA (Bisphenol-A) as it applies to baby products.

I’m usually pretty skeptical of alarmist news headlines announcing the latest toxic dangers to our health; but like most parents, when it comes to what my offspring puts in her mouth, I’m a paranoid worrywart. I subscribe to a number of parenting-related e-newsletters and magazines, and newsletter headlines such as “Why your child may be in danger from lead poisoning” are a surefire way to get me to click through.

Most recently there’s been a lot of media coverage on the safety issues surrounding BPA (Bisphenol-A), a commonly used plastic found in everything from food containers to baby bottles to canned goods. Naturally this issue has also been covered in many leading parenting magazines.

Now, it seems from my compulsive reading on this topic that in general, usage of BPA plastic may not necessarily result in chemicals leaching into our food, so long as one avoids heating the item in question – i.e. no heating up baby bottles in the microwave, or washing them in the dishwasher. But, my gut feeling is “better safe than sorry”, and as a result I’m always on the lookout for BPA-free products.

Thankfully, finding BPA-free baby gear is getting easier – if you can’t get to a local crunchy-granola health food store like The Big Carrot or Whole Foods, chain stories such as Toys R Us and Babies R Us now carry glass baby bottles and a selection of BPA-free sippy cups from such reliable brands as Born Free and Evenflo. Toxic Nation has a listing of BPA-free alternatives as well.

Do you have any tips on good sources for BPA-free gear?

UPDATE:
Good news for moms and dads! Shopping for safe baby bottles just got a little easier with the Canadian government’s ban on Bisphenol-A in baby bottles. There’s still the question of its use in other products, most notably the linings of infant formula cans – but this is definitely a step towards easing the fears of concerned parents.