Ridiculous Crib Mobiles

Like many expectant mothers, I have been creating a baby registry for the things that I think will be useful for when my daughter arrives, including crib mobiles. Since this is my first child, I started with no baby items and have been gradually accumulating some stuff and adding other items to the registry. I’ve also been having to research a lot. Do I naturally know a lot about what makes a crib mobile good versus bad? No…. Then I’ll do the research to figure that out.

One of the things that I’ve found while researching what items I want to put on my registry, is the appalling state of crib mobiles. Sure, a lot of them are cute, but they’re cute from the ADULT’s perspective. The baby, lying flat on his or her back in the crib gets a deplorable view of most of the mobiles on the market. I’m including links below to some of the mobiles I’ve seen. They’re grouped into categories of awful, halfway there, and good. You’ll notice that NONE of these links include pictures of what it’s like to view the mobile from the baby’s perspective.

Please, please, please: when you shop for your baby’s crib mobile, do them the favor of giving them something interesting to look at. Most of the mobiles out there are just going to be seem like monochrome, boring blobs. Consider what it’s like to view the mobile from the BABY’s perspective, not just your adult perspective looking straight at it from beside the crib. Even scooting the mobile a bit down the side of the crib only gives the baby a partial side-view; most of what they see will be looking up at it, the bottom of the mobile, so those pretty, thin shapes you see are almost pointless from their perspective.

A baby’s vision is developing gradually during the first year after they’re born. (Latvala, 2010; Sethi, 2010). When they’re first born, babies can only see about 8–15 inches, “about the distance between their eyes and your face while nursing” (Latvala, 2010; Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, p.150). By the end of the first month, they can see up to three feet. So that mobile spinning above their heads, they can probably make out okay by the end of the first month. A mobile might even help them start to learn to focus their eyes, which they learn to do a lot better by the time they’re three months old. Not being able to focus is one of the reasons you might see very young babies crossing their eyes (Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, p.150). “And while they’re not exactly colorblind, babies do have trouble distinguishing one color from another before 4 months — that’s why high-contrast toys and mobiles are better for their eyes (all those cute nursery pastels are less distinguishable)” (Latvala, 2010). Having different kinds of colors and shapes to look at stimulates their learning about the world and offer comfort (McElroy, 2006).

So, if you want to help stimulate your baby’s vision and learning while also help keep them stimulated, try to find a mobile that lets them see different shapes and colors, regardless of whether your little one is just a few weeks old and can’t distinguish pale green from pale blue or whether she is almost seven months old and her vision is almost mature.

Incredibly dull:

• White circles spinning around and around
• Black and white boredom, though at least they are distinct colors
• More white nothingness
• Usually I’m a fan of purple, but JUST purple blobs? No thanks.
• A baby viewing this from below will see almost NOTHING
• Seems like a bad dream, and I hope Dr. Seuss is disapproving from the grave
• Monotone and dull, even from the adult’s perspective
• Just flat, brown wood

Halfway there:

• Could have been good, and it even partially has the animals tilted towards the baby, but why is there a second lion? There are a lot of other animals that could have been added so that there was one of each, no duplicates:
• Pastel circus animals. Even though the colors aren’t terribly different from one another, at least the shapes add some visual stimulation

Good mobiles:

• Treetop animals theme
• Another treetop animals theme
• Differently-colored animals
• Woodland creatures
• One that actually faces down, towards the baby! Forest creatures

Sources:

• Latvala, Charlotte. “The Five Senses of Babyhood.” Baby Talk. May 2010. Vol. 75, Issue 4. p.54–57.
• Mayo Clinic Family Health Book. 2003. [Focused on Chapter 12, “Infant and Toddler Years,” p.146–186]
• McElroy, Lisa T. “Your Baby’s 5 Senses.” Parenting. June 2006. Vol. 20, Issue 5. pp.76–82.
• Sethi, Anita. “Baby Steps.” Baby Talk. Jan. 2010. Vol. 74, Issue 10. p.29–32.