To Harness Or Not To Harness...

I can't believe how much debate I've read over this subject of child harnesses and was it not for me contemplating it for our upcoming trip, I probably would have not even known about it. I think back in the day pre-Riley/Ronan, I was the person that swore they would never ever "leash" their child out in public. I know I never snickered about it, but I'm sure I thought it looked pretty strange.

Things have changed dramatically, though, since Ronan came into our lives. The boy is fast, he's sly and surprisingly strong for just 16 months and could easily be out of our grasps if we let him for a second. So, being that I am over-protective and "neurotic" (as Ryan describes me), I researched these harnesses to see if they would work for us.

This subject could not have been more stressful. Discussion forums I found either praised the harness or made you feel like you were abusing your child if you even thought about having them wear it. Honestly, I can see how some parents could become complacent about it, feeling that it would take the place of truly having to keep an eye on their kid the entire time -- but NOT ME! So after much thought and internalized debate, I decided that the safety of our son outweighed the possibility of looking like cruel parents that have to "walk their kid on a leash" in the eyes of people that don't know any better. I'm not saying that if you choose not to harness your kid, you aren't a good parent, I just know that for US, this is an option we need to have available for us, if we don't want to constrain Ronan to the stroller all day at WDW.

So, I went out the other night and picked up a doggy backpack harness from good ol' Walmart and although it took the little man a few minutes to warm up to the idea, he finally gave it a go and let Riley "walk" him around the house. He looks pretty cute with it on and hopefully will be okay with it when we go on vacation.

This child harness clips in the front with two buckles and what we would hold onto would be the tail of the dog. It even has a little pocket on it to store goodies...

I do hope that we won't need to use it all the time, but realistically, I know that Ronan will run toward any shiny object he sees or bodies of water he spots. I think that this will at least give me the peace of mind that I won't lose grasp of him and it'll also give him a couple feet of freedom from having to be held in momma or daddy's sweaty arms.