Brainpower Boost While Breastfeeding?

When is the insanity going to stop? Everywhere you look these days, there are some new things out there – products, services, whatever – that are supposedly designed to boost your child’s brainpower. Now even nursing babies have to be “smart” enough by exercising their poor little brains while having a splash of milk. Let’s start creating multi-taskers early!

According to a company in the UK by the name of GROE Baby (Growing, Recognizing, Observing, Exploring), their special nursing t-shirts are designed to stimulate a tiny newborn’s brain. The t-shirts have a black and white spiral over each breast and one right in the center.

(As an aside, I find it hilarious that they also try to tout it as a shirt which allows for “modest public nursing” because nothing says “don’t look at my breasts” like a big old spiral over each one.)

Anyway, the spiral looks like this on the shirt:

Meanwhile, apparently babies see it moving. To spare your eyes, I’ve tucked the baby’s view below the cut so keep reading if you’re curious as to what babies will see while nursing.

Babies see the spirals like so:

Augh! Can you imagine? Babies generally spit up as it is, but how much milk will come back up Exorcist-style if they have to look at THAT while they’re nursing?! Worse, what if they can actually see two or all three spirals? They’ll end up dizzy as hell halfway through their meal.

And never mind that nausea-inducing spinning. Is this REALLY necessary, even if it does work? Do you really think that stimulating your baby’s brain while nursing will be what gets him into Harvard down the road? The most perfectly stimulating thing in your baby’s life as a newborn is something you don’t go out and buy – it’s your own self. There’s a reason babies love staring at a parent’s face up close and listening to Mom or Dad’s voice. THAT is stimulating and it won’t make your baby pass out from vertigo either.

When did we get to a point where we’re supposed to help make them smarter every second of the day? Why can’t we just let them be babies and kids? Kids learn just fine by exploring, touching, and later on, asking questions. They don’t need spinning bulls-eyes on your breasts to boost their brains. Let’s just let nursing babies NURSE.

(Source)