Childcare professionals are highly critical of a UK show called Bringing Up Baby. The controversial show, which airs on UK's Channel 4, compares child rearing tactics from the 50s, 60s and 70s. The Telegraph repoorts that some childcare professionals believe some of the tactics used on the show may be harmful. Verity, 41, is shown recommending that infants be left to sleep in a separate room from their mother. She also recommends that parents feed babies at strict four-hour intervals and ignore the child no matter how much it cries.People are discussing the show here on a Yahoo UK Answers thread. Most are quite disturbed at one of the practices on the show where a baby was left alone in the garden. They are also describing an episode where parents sipped wine downstairs while ignoring the baby crying upstairs. The Telegraph says a Channel 4 spokesman told the Telegraph that they did consult professionals when making the show and they took the welfarre of the babies involved "extremely seriously."
Childcare professionals, including Mary MacLeod, the chief executive of the Family and Parenting Institute, say they are alarmed Channel 4 is broadcasting "such an exploitative parenting series as Bringing Up Baby".
They warn: "Many techniques in these programmes fly in the face of scientific knowledge about brain development in very young babies. That anyone should be billed as an expert and allowed to promote ideas such as not making eye contact with babies and not comforting them in distress is at best irresponsible and at worst dangerous."
MacLeod said that she would be writing to the watchdog Ofcom, urging it to force broadcasters and programme makers to be more responsible. She said: "Bringing Up Baby may masquerade as a very serious programme but it is not. It is using outmoded techniques on babies that after all cannot give their consent."
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