Babies in the Workplace

These work babies tend to be overwhelmingly content--for reasons that could transform our culture's perspective on what is "normal" baby behavior. In most of these companies, babies and their parents become part of a social community--with coworkers frequently interacting with or taking care of the babies for a few minutes at a time. Babies in the workplace tend to be held frequently, are often breastfed, and tend to have their needs met almost immediately (so that coworkers aren't disturbed by crying). It turns out that the dynamics of babies-in-the-workplace programs actually mirror cultures in which babies have extensive physical and social contact from birth, have their needs met within seconds, and are breastfed frequently. In those cultures, colic literally doesn't exist.

Executives and managers of these businesses rave about the positive impacts that baby programs have had for their

companies. Babies-in-the-workplace programs offer a viable, inexpensive tool for helping employees return to work sooner, lowering turnover, improving morale, increasing overall productivity, enhancing teamwork and collaboration, recruiting new employees, attracting new customers, and making existing customers more loyal. Babies-at-work programs also offer extensive benefits for families and society, such as helping to alleviate the isolation felt by many mothers who would otherwise be home alone with a newborn, enabling breastfeeding and encouraging highly-responsive care of babies, and helping families to better balance work and family.

The concept of babies in an office environment--on a regular basis--sounds ludicrous at first. But the success of these baby programs has much to teach about how to raise happy, well-adjusted babies, how to implement effective