Bottlecentric advertising, "Time Too Baby Tracker"

[pdx.mothernurture]

http://www.timetoo.com/

I was on a parenting message board today, and noticed how bottlecentric Take Too's advertising seems to be. I'm going to write them and suggest they encorporate nursing into their website, product use, advertising, etc. It's these subtle messages that are sent to parents over and over and over again about what's 'normal' or that breastfeeding doesn't work if you have a busy lifestyle.

If anyone else wants to send them an email, that would be great too!

email

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general mail

TimeToo
PO Box 2022
Los Altos, CA 94022

Thanks,

Jen

PS. I sent an email saying this:

I noticed your advertisement on the ----------- website this morning, and was concerned about how bottlecentric it seems. Since breastfeeding is optimal nutrition for babies, recommended by pediatric and health organizations across the globe, it would be wonderful if you'd encorporate a positive breastfeeding message into your website, product info, and advertising.

Busy moms can nurse nurse their babies! Providing the best is worth taking 'time too' to do.

It is these subtle messages that parents see and 'hear' over and over and over again. It's important to reinforce breastfeeding as the normal, standard, best feeding choice for babies.

[MaryJaneLouise]

Thanks, done.

[pdx.mothernurture]

Company response...

Here's their response:

Thank you for your input on our TimeToo advertising. We have a number of advertisements and products, some which are more specifically geared to the needs of nursing mothers.

Based on the information in your email, I am guessing that you viewed our advertisement for our standard Baby Tracker product, which focuses on our easy record-keeping solution for working mom's to monitor a baby's activities and needs while in child care. As you know, many women continue to nurse/and feed with breast milk after restarting work and initiating outside childcare. Our product is most often used by childcare providers to record feedings which are most typically in bottle format, with expressed breast milk or formula. Our format for this product is to be from the point of view of the person recording the information, which is the childcare provider.

Our product most aligned with the needs of nursing moms is the Round the Clock record-keeping journal. It presents daily activity tracking of "feeding" differently from childcare Baby Tracker to acknowledge that many mothers will find this a useful product for easily keeping track of nursing and feeding schedules. The column on the daily tracking page for recording feeding in this product is labeled "nurse/feed". As this product has started to gain momentum with nursing consultants recommending it as an easy way to keep track of feedings---we have started to explore taking this further and are looking into potentially expanding the information in this column and modifying the icon.

I hope this better clarifies our products and gives you some insight into our approach. We certainly want to encourage nursing moms to use our products and we want to design products for those who will do the record-keeping. In the end, we are working to balance the needs of a broad set of needs and uses. We certainly appreciate you taking the time to provide us some food for thought as we continue to develop our product line and offering.

[Treasuremapper]

Unless the baby has a medical problem of some kind, is this sort of detailed recordkeeping necessary?

[Girl Named Sandoz]

Originally Posted by inezyv

Unless the baby has a medical problem of some kind, is this sort of detailed recordkeeping necessary?

It's not only unnecessary, it can lead to anxiety, stress and tension. LLL advises against these types of 'record keeping', time tables, pumping to measure milk supply etc.

I can see it being helpful in specific instances, but they make it sounds as if any nursing mother would need one.

[MaryJaneLouise]

Well, I was using a simple spreadsheet thing for my twins because I really couldn't keep track of who had what when and how many pee / poopie diapers because I was SO sleep deprived. And, we were having issues with dehydration / excess weight loss / low supply.

So, in some circumstances it can be helpful for at least the very newborn period.

BTW I got an identical email back from that company

[Kathryn]

Originally Posted by inezyv

Unless the baby has a medical problem of some kind, is this sort of detailed recordkeeping necessary?

I've had quite a few parents request thing just like this from me for their child (I run a daycare). I think it's silly and I charge them more for it.