Top 5 Bizarre Baby Products

If you're expecting a baby soon, you're probably receiving advertisements every day for products that you never knew you "needed." When it comes down to it, most babies need little more than a pair of boobs and a stash of diapers, but companies have invented hundreds of other products to help you through the journey of early parenthood.

Most of these products are, more or less, practical, but others are odd or even downright disturbing. Here are the most unsettlingly bizarre baby products I've ever spotted.

1. Pee-Pee Teepee

I remember the first time I saw the Pee-Pee Teepee advertised in a parenting magazine. At the time, I was four months pregnant with my daughter. At the moment I saw the horror of the Pee-Pee Teepee, I immediately prayed for a girl. The Pee-Pee Teepee is a bizarre baby product desgned to cap a baby boy's "pee-pee" while his mother changes his diaper, so that he doesn't wet his mother or his clothing. I still don't understand why a diaper can't be used for the exact same purpose, but (thankfully) I did have a girl.

2. The BabyKeeper

You know those handy hooks in public bathrooms, locker rooms and changing stalls? Those are designed to hold your purse or shopping bag while you change clothes or use the bathroom. The inventors of the BabyKeeper decided to apply this principle to childcare. They recommend that you use their specialized straps to hang your baby on a stall-door while you go about your business. Practical? Yes. Safe? Apparently. Disturbing? Absolutely.

3. The Zaky Pillow

This bizarre baby product is supposed to parent for you. If you don't feel like holding your baby, simply lie him down next to these two scary-looking, heated, disembodied arms. I'm sure almost every mother has wished once or twice for an extra pair of arms, but this alternative is creepy and seems to encourage neglect. If you want your child to have the warm comfort of human contact, give her the warm comfort of human contact. Skip the scary blue hands.

4. Credit Card Teether

There's nothing quite like preparing your child for a life of consumerism. You can start by buying your baby girl a credit card teether, issued to "IMA SPENDER" and designed to encourage both consumerism and sexism. I found this product so appalling that I wrote an article explaining my disgust. You can read it here.

5. Baby High Heels

From the same company behind the credit card teether, you can nave any choice of stiletto heels for your newborn baby. In bright-red, leopard print, Barbie-pink and zebra, these grown-up-looking shoes are designed to hurl your newborn into the consumerist world of a spoiled teenager before she is even old enough to crawl. Personally, I'd strongly prefer my daughter's cutesy little hemp shoes. There's no room in my home or bank account for the impractical and bizarre baby products now dominating the market.