Fisher-Price’s iPad baby seat just doesn’t compute

Fisher-Price has released the one piece of baby gear that every parent never knew they needed: a baby seat complete with an iPad holder. For $80 you can strap your tot into the “Newborn-to-Toddler Apptivity™ Seat” and, after downloading the accompanying free apps — complete with soothing sounds and high-contrast images — onto your iPad, watch as they are entertained.

I appreciate that Fisher-Price is trying to come up with a product for babies that also so happens to give new parents a moment’s peace to take a shower or eat a sandwich sitting down. What I don’t appreciate is how the product directly flouts the recommendations of childhood development experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The academy recommends: “Television and other entertainment media should be avoided for infants and children under age 2. A child’s brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens.” The organization also recommends that parents establish “screen-free” zones and limit entertainment media for older children and teens to no more than one to two hours a day.

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Not surprisingly, the reaction by parents to this product has been disbelief and outrage. A petition started by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, with the goal of getting the product pulled from the market, has gathered more than 12,000 signatures.

Of course, parents don’t have to buy this product if they don’t want to; voting with your dollars can be one of the best ways for consumers to make their feelings known. But is this mega-corporation, with brand loyalty from generations of parents and teams of creative people working on new products, so desperate for ideas that it had to create one that runs counter to well-known childhood development recommendations?

Fisher-Price doesn’t seem to understand the pushback. In a statement to tech news site Fast Company, it said:

“Though we knew the product was not for everyone — we have over a dozen seats from which parents can choose — we wanted to offer it as yet another option for those parents who want the added feature of engaging in age-appropriate content with their children.”

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The folks at Fisher-Price also say they “do not position the Apptivity Seat, or any of our other infant seats, as educational products for children,” even though the product description on their website says that the apps for the product will “stimulate and engage” your infant and even “help develop eye-tracking skills.” According to Fisher-Price, the apps were “created with the guidance of child development experts.”

We live in a world filled with screens, which makes the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations of restricted screen time difficult for parents to honor. In many households (and certainly in mine), babies see their parents glued to screens and want to know what all the fuss is about. When they see how cool it is to play with a tablet or laptop, they want one — all the time. So really, it’s about limiting screen time for the whole family, not just the kids. Unfortunately, instead of helping parents with this 21st century conundrum by coming up with a product to redirect these habits, Fisher-Price is trying to profit from of it. And that doesn’t compute.

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Susan Rohwer is a freelance journalist. Follow her on Twitter @susanrohwer.