ANXIOUS first-time parent? Here’s five essential bits of newborn kit from businesses who capitalising on your gullibility:
Baby bag
May resemble a bog-standard hold-all with a few pockets inside, but this is a special baby bag, as confirmed by the price of £200. If you dare put your child’s nappies and bottles in a simple satchel you already own, you will be arrested and your baby taken into care.
Heated changing mat
No baby can be expected to have its arse wiped on a room-temperature changing mat. If their mat doesn’t heat up, the resulting trauma will make them an angry, troubled teenager and cost you a fortune in counselling. You were warned.
Black and white fabric books
Your child can’t even focus, so you definitely need to shake a book filled with jagged zigzags and headache-inducing swirly lines in front of its poor little retinas. How else would you prove to other parents you care more than they do about your baby’s education?
Giant circular activity chair
Essential so your child’s first impression of entertainment can be a deeply ineffective square of plastic mirror and a button that makes the world’s most annoying honking noise. How else will they be prepared for Channel 5?
Combo chest of drawers/changing unit
Babies explode if you try to change them on a normal tabletop, did no-one tell you? You need this £449 version from Mamas and Papas or your child will grow up and blame you for all their problems because you didn’t love them enough.
Scented, automatic nappy bin
Sealing nappies in a nappy bag and putting them in a conventional bin means your house is a poo house where everything smells of poo. You must buy a special bin that seals them into a scentless plastic tomb forever. And doesn’t work, but hey, that’s your problem.
