Baby Safe Class

Source

Last Thursday we took our "Baby Safe" Class at the hospital where I will be delivering.

The Baby Safe class focuses on creating a safe home environment for baby and discusses crib and toy safety, safe sleep positions and SIDS prevention, water safety, baby-proofing the home, choking and fall prevention, home emergencies and basic first aid for bleeding, burns, fractures, shock and poisoning. This class only cost $35, so not a huge investment, but I have to say: I wasn't impressed.

• First: The teacher used a VHS (yes...a VHS) probably from 1972 to structure the class. Has there really not been a single informative video on baby safety since the 1970's or 1980's?
  
• The video showed examples of how to keep your baby safe in a crib and showed drop-side cribs in the examples. Those don't even exist anymore!
• Each time our instructor paused the video to talk and add her own piece to the segment she would start off by saying "I'm sorry...I know you're probably sick of hearing my voice...I'll just be really quick and then wrap it up, I just want to quickly add in two little things if you could bear with me...I'm so sorry..." No one was openly groaning, or giving her a hard time. This wasn't a High School math class where we were passing notes about who was going to ask us to prom. This was a class we willingly signed up and paid money for...do not apologize every time you want to say something. If I wanted to pay to watch an out-of-date movie, I'd rent one for far less money or even pull it up on youtube for that matter.
• The class was supposed to be 2 hours, she had us out of there in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Once I saw how things were going, I wasn't disappointed to get out of there early. But really?
• Everything was basic...I don't feel like I learned anything I didn't already know. Don't make water too hot, don't put anything else in the crib with the baby, don't shake the baby, etc. etc.

At the end of the class, she asked us to fill our evaluation forms and bring them up to her. I noticed at the bottom of the form there was a fax number where you could send your completed form. I opted to do that instead of bringing it up to her since I had some "not so nice" things to say about the class. Oh well, here's hoping our 8 hour Lamaze and birthing class next month goes better than this one!

In case you missed it yesterday, don't forget to sign up for the Fall Swap that I'm hosting with some other blog friends! It would be so great to see you all join in to share your favorite Fall items with a fellow blogger!