HAGERSVILLE—The Barker family is hoping the community will keep on voting for Cohan in the Baby Contest Canada.
“He’s playing leapfrog right now” for the top spot in the monthly competition for July, said the six-month-old’s mom, Taylor Barker; the other baby who Cohan is head-to-head with is in Edmonton.
The Baby Contest Canada is an online competition where parents enter their little ones and the public votes for the favourite baby that month. At the end of the year, the 12 finalists will be in one more round of voting, where the top winner will receive a prize of $1,000 cash, and a $1,000 contribution to their Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP).
If Cohan doesn’t win the July competition, he could be entered into the one for August; the only problem is, “your votes restart,” Barker said, meaning they would have to start all over again in getting public support.
She’s hoping he can secure the top spot at the end of the day on July 31, 2024.
“Our little community has seemed to really bump him up to first during the days, so that’s great,” she said. Initially, she wasn’t sure how far he would get in the competition – after all, Hagersville, and even Haldimand, are much smaller communities than Scarborough or Edmonton, for instance.
But when Barker saw her son has actually been contending for first place, she said she thought, “Maybe he has a shot.”
This is the first time the Barker family has ever entered a contest like this.
Two and a half years ago, when Barker and her husband, Nick, welcomed their first baby, Colson, their experience of being parents of a newborn was vastly different.
“He was very, very sick,” Barker said.
When they first brought Colson home, he was completely healthy, but then two weeks later, they became concerned when he stopped eating properly and was sleeping all the time – not even waking up to eat.
Barker said the first emergency room they took him to said he was probably just constipated, but they decided to err on the side of caution and took him to McMaster Children’s Hospital on Christmas Eve to be seen by a pediatrician. It turned out to be the right decision, as the medical team immediately did a spinal tap and determined Colson had meningitis. He later developed epilepsy as a result and has some frontal lobe damage due to his illness. Colson ended up staying at the hospital for nine weeks, and continues to receive treatments through the hospital; Barker praised the team there for their care.
With all of his medical concerns, Barker said she and Nick didn’t focus on any ‘extra’ things – like entering contests – with Colson.
“We were just so worried about him,” she said, though she added he’s thriving now.
Still, when Cohan came along, “it was kind of nerve-wracking having a second baby, because we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, our first was so sick.’ But Cohan’s been great, and he’s been a light for everybody, for sure – especially his big brother,” Barker said.
Because of their experience with having a seriously ill newborn before, the Barkers are finding a lot of joy in the more ‘typical’ experience this time around.
“We love the newborn stage. We love watching Cohan develop and meet all those milestones, because it’s something we never focused on before,” Barker said, noting that while Colson has met his developmental milestones, his medical challenges have meant they have been at a different pace, and many times as the result of therapeutic support.
The family is grateful for the support from the community members who have been regularly voting for Cohan.
Barker said she hesitated to post about the contest online, because “sometimes you feel almost like a burden,” but a number of people have asked her to send daily reminders so they can help him secure the top spot.
“It’s been really awesome to see, because I don’t know 99.9% of the people that have been voting, and I kind of feel like I know them now in a way,” Barker said. “For them to take time out of their day and to vote for someone that they don’t know is …” she paused, at a loss for words.
“We’re super grateful.”
Anyone who wishes to vote for Cohan can visit: bit.ly/TheBabyContestCohan
Voting can be done once a day.
