A photographer I once saw taking children's portraits in a department store was having trouble keeping a young baby sitting upright. The baby's mother reached into her bag and handed him a recently-filled, rolled-up disposable nappy. Without exchanging a word, the photographer propped the used nappy behind the baby's back, baby smiled, photographer snapped, and mum went away happy. All in a day's work for all three.
This is the kind of resourcefulness that's developed by anybody who spends much time around children. So nannies should be natural experts.
The trouble is, nannies often work for new parents. And the bulk of the baby products market seems to be aimed at new parents, or else status-conscious people with more money than sense. They're the target for all those hand-crafted wooden jigsaws, natural fleece huggy blankets and radial-tyred off-road prams that parents only buy once, until they learn that they can get by even better at the local jumble sale.
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