Carrying your Baby (aka Wearing your baby)
Cultural and Anthropological Support
Babies are not fully neurologically developed at birth: 4 million years ago, some primates shifted to walking upright. When they did this, their pelvises began to narrow. Then, about 1.5 million years ago, the size of the hominid brain grew significantly. Babies had to rotate during birth to get these larger skulls through smaller pelvises, and the labor and birth process had to be triggered before the infant’s head became too large. As a result of this, human babies are born neurologically unfinished. This means they are highly dependent on caregivers for most of the first year of their lives.
Source: Our Babies, Ourselves by Meredith Small
Benefits for Babies. Parents may notice baby’s hunger cues or distress cues more quickly if they are in physical contact, so may tend to respond more quickly to baby’s needs.
Benefits for Parents. Because babies needs are tended to when they give subtle clues, or just begin to cry, they rarely escalate to the kind of full-scale intense crying that is so difficult for parents to manage.
Source: The Baby Book by William Sears. Plus my personal observations based on my children, friends’ children, and children in parenting groups I have led.
Making it Easy to Carry your Baby: Slings, Frontpacks, Backpacks
Making Baby-wearing work for you depends on finding a good carrier. Although many of us would love to hold our babies in our arms all day, this makes it hard to accomplish other tasks, including housekeeping, errands, work, and taking care of other children.
Try out several different kinds of carrier till you find the one that works for you. Don’t give up on the whole idea of carriers just because the first one you try is uncomfortable or impractical. Which one works for you depends on your size, your proportions, the width of your shoulders, and other factors.
My personal favorite carrier is a sling called the New Native Baby Carrier. It was comfortable, I could move well with it, I could use both my hands, I could bend over without worrying about the baby falling out, and it was small, and easy to tuck into a diaper bag so it was always available.
I personally did not like front packs, as I found that despite all the buckles and adjustments, they were never comfortable on me; they’re also bulkier to pack. And I didn’t like the more standard style sling, because in my experience, I had to use one hand to help hold the baby in the sling, so it only freed up one hand. However, other people swear by some of these carriers, so it’s worth checking out several to see what seems to work for you and your baby.
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