I’ve talked a lot about babywearing on this blog. However, one thing I haven’t gone into is how I got into babywearing in the first place, and where things went from there.
I was really lucky. I have a friend from high school that is a couple of years older than me, and had kids a few years before I did, and got into babywearing. She shared about it online—not just about babywearing itself, but also informative articles about why you should wear, and it’s worldwide origins. It was really interesting stuff, and, in an environment where the majority of people were getting some sort of carrier (at least for little babies), when I fell pregnant with my first, I knew I’d want to babywear, too.
At that time, the non-Solly-wrap sphere of babywearing was really huge, but also niche. I tried to learn about the weights of fabrics, and different materials, and length, but it was very confusing, at first, especially when you don’t know what any of the terms mean, and definitions were hard to come by. Initially, because it claimed to be “easy to work with”, I got a stretchy wrap for when my daughter was a newborn. However, we did not find it to be super easy, and were not highly mobile with that carrier.
Once we were out of the newborn and small-baby stage, I decided to get serious about learning about babywearing. To get more information, I decided to attended a local babywearing meeting (which I knew about because my aforementioned friend was the president of hers). There, I told the instructors that my baby was at the weight limit for comfortably wearing my stretchy wrap, and I wanted to move to something else. Because a lot of people don’t like the learning curve of anything other than a buckle carrier, they had me try out those, and rent them, which was informative, but not quite the direction I wanted to go—I was ready to be all-in on babywearing.
We had been saving up for a fancy jogging stroller with off-road wheels for 6 months, but mutually decided that we couldn’t think of a situation where we wouldn’t prefer babywearing to a stroller—with the exception of very long outings, but we only did those together, so we could switch off, if one person got tired. So, we put that money towards getting 2 wraps that were best-sellers, and a water ring sling. To determine what carriers, and sizes to get, I finally discovered some very helpful information on the Didymos brand website. They are one of the top woven wrap shops, which is how I needed up on their site. They had a really great quiz to help you find your base size, and talked about the different fabrics.
Then, I was able to bring my new woven wraps to the next babywearing meeting, and learn how to use them properly. It was really exciting as, on the way to the car, my daughter fell asleep (which was usual), so I got to take a walk around town with my sleeping baby in our new carrier.
I practiced that specific carry until the next babywearing meeting, and then learned new carries in subsequent ones, and it was really fun. Then, when visiting my hometown with my daughter, I met up with my high school friend, and we had a sort of babywearing date, where she had me try a bunch of other woven carriers she loved, and helped me figure out how to wear my baby on my back. I spent a lot of that trip practicing.
There was even an incident where we tried to go to a festival with my mom, and I was determined to try a new, seemly simple carry (just to make a woven wrap work like a ring sling). However, it took me around a dozen tried to get it even passably working. Then, it stared raining. So we didn’t even make it to the festival, and drove back home.
Over time, my daughter came to prefer one carry, because I got very good at it, and then she didn’t have to wait long ot be strapped in. She got fussy and annoyed if I tried other ones. But, I did get really confident with that carry, and working with the fabric, in general.
At my local babywearing chapter, I noticed they talked a lot about Wildbird ring slings, because they were a local company. I love to support local, so I finally decided to try one out. I worked for a long, long time, in their facebook group, to get the ‘one’ ring sling I wanted/planned to get, I finally got a ‘rare bird’ r i g h t before the brand totally exploded in popularity.
Learning to use a ring sling was a learning curve. But I was determined to get it, and, once I did, that because our carrier. For us, it was so simple, and easy to bring anywhere. When I wasn’t using it, I could keep it on (I even got a complement once on my ‘sash’). As my baby grew, I could get her in and out in a jiffy, and it was very easy to adjusted of breastfeeding, and adjust back afterwards.
We were so in love, I began to collect different ring slings with different colors or patterns, materials, and even had a custom double made (which is now my daughter’s ‘legacy carrier’ that I plan to keep for her for her kids one day). At this point, I had also started volunteering with my local babywearing chapter, and, once that organization dissolved, was on the team building up our own, local babywearing nonprofit.
With ring slings, we baby wore everywhere. I was even able to continue using them while pregnant with my son, as my daughter could easily be worn more to my side. I also used my carriers as belly support. Once he was born, I took the babywearing instructor training.
We did end up mostly did use buckle carriers with our son—Happy Baby, to be exact, as we already liked their sleek design, and had one that we put our oldest in while painting our house when she was a toddler. Our son was heavier, and prone to leaning, so the double-shoulder soft-structured carrier just worked easiest. But being in a carrier was his thing. His sister’s thing was breastfeeding, or just me. But he was always happiest, in his first year, if he was being worn. My husband has very fond memories of wearing him for hours a day, and having him just look up at him and smile.
And that’s why I have so many posts about babywearing. I heard from word of mouth, and links from babywearing friends. If I hadn’t found easily-digestible information, I’m not sure I would have had those special times with my children—ones that helped them feel so secure, too. Or learned so much about babywearing, which is such an amazing, and long-standing tradition. I hope this post, and other babywearing posts on this blog, can help you, too.
