Birth & Baby Network

Today we have a guestblog by Rebecca, a busy mum and doula

Babywearing: It sounds like something Vogue would write about. A fad dreamed up by an eccentric designer which we all marvel at and secretly feel sure will never catch on. But we’d be wrong – it has caught on. In fact people have been ‘wearing’ or carrying their babies for hundreds and thousands of years. Probably from the time the first cavewoman wrapped an animal skin round her and her baby to ease the strain on her arms as she ran from an angry woolly mammoth, humans have been tying their babies on to their fronts, backs and hips.

Why?
Why do it now though, when we have Maclaren’s and Bugaboos that will take 100% of the weight off us? Ok, so four wheels and an incomprehensible harness wouldn’t have been terribly practical when legging it from a tribe of Neandethals, but that’s pretty unlikely to happen whilst strolling around Hyde Park.

The reasons I chose (and still choose 15 months down the line) to babywear cover three categories.

1. Practical
   I live in London and take lots of public transport. I do have a nifty buggy but hate manhandling it on to a bus, trying to find space and getting thrown off if there are already 2 buggies on board. I find carrying my daughter much more convenient on many journeys.
   When she was breastfeeding more often I also liked being able to feed her inside my wrap if I was on the bus, or even walking along a busy road.

   I loved the freedom of having my hands back during those hours of endless rocking to sleep in the early days. Somehow it’s easier when you can eat a biscuit at the same time.

2. Developmental
   I often carry my daughter facing me. She looks around at the world and then checks my face for reactions, understanding through me more and more about the world. We also get to chat away to each other as we walk along, pull funny faces and laugh.

   As a newborn I felt I had a much more profound reason to carry her.
   There’s a compelling theory that says the first three months after birth are really akin to a final trimester of pregnancy. Human babies have huge heads in comparison to our pelvis and therefore, much as they’d like to hang out in the womb for a bit longer, they need to be born at 9 months. Dr Harvey Karp, an American paediatrician, talks a good deal about this in his parenting books while the (also American) duo Sears and Sears have been saying similar things for years.
   The essence of this thinking is that keeping your baby close to you, so that she feels safe and secure, helps with the transition from the womb to the outside world and makes babies calmer and more settled.

3. Emotional
   I had a pram-hating newborn. She wouldn’t settle in the pram despite endless laps of the park. She hated being so far away from me and my husband and we spent hours trying to convince her (unsuccessfully) to settle away from us before she was ready. When we started using a wrap life became easier. She was happy and comforted by our warmth, the sounds of our hearts beating, our smell and our voices. She would fall asleep easily and we were able to get on with eating lunch, watching a film, tweeting, doing the washing up while she slept nestled against our chest.
   She was happy. We were happy.

How to do it?
Do a bit of research into different types of slings and carriers. If you can go to a ‘sling meet’ where you can try various types of slings and get advice from experienced babywearers. You can also ask friends or perhaps your doula to let you try out theirs until you work out what’s right for you.

You might also want to check out this brilliant forum: www.naturalmamas.co.uk. It has great links to videos showing you how to use different carriers and wraps, discussions of the different brands, loads of support and second-hand items for sale.

Broadly speaking there are the following types of carriers:

1. Structured carriers like Baby Bjorn. These are very well marketed but not very popular amongst people who carry their babies more than occasionally as they put a lot of weight on the little one’s pelvis and aren’t very good at distributing the weight across your back and shoulders.

2. Soft carriers like the Ergo, Mei Tai and Connecta. These fasten a bit more traditionally like a Baby Bjorn but support the baby’s weight much more efficiently and safely.

3. Stretchy and woven wraps. Initially fiddly to tie (though you quickly become expert) and in my opinion the most comfortable and flexible carrier for you and your baby.

4. Ringslings and pouches. Very easy to use, often great for newborns and carrying toddlers on your hip. Beware of ones that look like giant handbags as they can be unsafe.

My favourite is a Kari-Me wrap for a newborn/small baby. It’s stretchy so gives you flexibility if you don’t tie it perfectly every time at first and it’s easy to gently maneouvre a tiny one in to it.

I also loved my Wilkinet carrier when my daughter was a little older and I find men are sometimes more comfortable with this as it looks a bit more traditional.

I now carry my toddler in a Didymos wrap. She’s 11kg and I barely feel her weight. Once I’ve perfected carrying her on to my back I know I’ll be able to keep babywearing for the next year or two.

All in all I think the cavewomen may not have had great taste in food and their personal hygiene left much to be desired, but, by gum, they knew a thing or two about babies.

www.hackneydoula.co.uk