BabyWearing - by: Emma Primrose

Greetings All,

I am so very excited to introduce to you my very FIRST guest blogger, Emma Primrose.  Emma is a family friend of mine that currently resides in the UK and is very passionate about babywearing.  I also LOVE babywearing my own two children and support others in babywearing as much as possible.  It makes everything for Momma (and Daddy) so much easier...being able to use two hands, carry a heavier baby for longer periods of time, ease of use, no stroller or bulky equipment required!  So without further adieu, here is what she has to say!

Emma wearing her baby boy!

 

Natalie has asked me to write a guest blog post about my parenting. I am a work from home Mum who runs a small UK based shop www.PrimroseBaby.com selling baby slings and a few other bits; so as you may have guessed we are very into attachment parenting. I have an almost 2 year old son and am due with our second baby in just a few weeks.

Today I’m going to talk about my first love of parenting which is babywearing (or toddlerwearing as we do now). We kind of just fell into our baby wearing journey.  The original plan was to use a baby carrier while walking our dog, so we started with a generic mainstream carrier that turned out to be the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever attached to myself.  With my son only 8 days old I was finding him nearly impossible to carry in it.  So my research started and I found out there was a whole world of slings out there I’d never even heard of...an obsession began which slowly grew into a business.  Last June (2011) I trained as a sling consultant with Trageschule and started my business plan.  In October (the day we discovered we had a new arrival on the way) I opened Primrose Baby.

So over the past 2 years we moved from a mainstream carrier to a ring sling (which was a cheapy off eBay and I wouldn’t recommend).  It did the job for a while but wasn’t suitable material for long term use; at the time I just thought it was the one shouldered carry. But once we reached toddler hood I discovered a true love for ring slings because they were so quick and easy for a baby w ho wants to walk but can only manage short trips. I’m sure all of you with toddlers remember that stage where you were out for the day and toddler wanted to walk, then they wanted to be carried, then to walk again; and if you try put them in a buggy (stroller) they act like your trying to murder them.  Plus the ups and downs are difficult and trying to push a buggy with one hand and holding the toddler in the other is near impossible.

Daddy using a Ring Sling!

 

I found that my baby sling was also snugly enough for a quick nap on the go even at 21 months old.

All snuggled down in the sling taking a nap!

Our next discovery was a mei tai, which is a traditional Asian style carrier, when my son was about 6 months old. We found it so much more supportive; it was like my son had no weight to him.  It also enabled me to start back babywearing (instead of just carrying him) for long periods of time once my son started to get a bit too heavy.  My husband thought they was too girlie for him to use (even the black one) so we ventured into soft structured carriers (SSC).  I was a bit dubious about them as they are the most similar to the mainstream carriers we found so difficult to use in the beginning, but we discovered how much difference good positioning made.  Unfortunately my husband still didn’t get on with them as he found some of the clips too difficult to do up buy himself and I was too petite for off the shelf carriers.  We simply couldn’t afford a custom one with petite straps. By this point we had moved to Scotland and our pram (stroller) was near impossible to get around with the dog (as our walks became much more adventurous with lots of woodland trails near by), and we loved being able to get out without the fuss of the pram, so we started carrying our son more and more in our everyday lives.  Eventually the pram became a very expensive coat rack am I started to get curious about wraps but wasn’t sure how to tie them and was worried that I wouldn’t do it safely.  I went on the hunt asking local Mums and discovered a local sling meet.  This is where things started to get a bit addictive and we fell in love with wrapping.

Wrapped up in a Mei Tai!

 

At almost 2 years and 30lbs we still use a wrap almost everyday especially if we are out over a nap time. Look at all these pics of my beautiful son in lots of different beautiful slings.

The basic rules of a good carry are:

1. You want the sling to support your little one from one knee to another with there knees slightly higher than there bottom to provide good hip support and hold your little one closer to your center of gravity.

2. Always carry as high and as tight as possible in a front carry; you want to be able to kiss the top of their head.

3. For a back carry their head should sit about the height of your neck so you can see them when you turn your head and look back.

4. Keep their chin off of their chest.

5. Make sure their back is well supported.

Warm and safe, even in the snow!

There are some fantastic websites to get loads of information about carrying your baby or toddler including:

www.slingguide.co.uk (UK site but loads of information)

www.thebabywearer.com (US forum)

www.naturalmamas.co.uk (UK forum)

As well as loads of specialist shops and work from home Mums who will always help you find what will work best for you and your family. If you can't find exactly what you like, there are also loads of work from home Mums who make beautiful custom carriers.  Our latest is a lovely Pod (Korean style carrier) from softai.