My Journey To Loving Babywearing

I really believe 98% of parenting, especially in regards to babies, is intuition-based. As soon as a woman becomes pregnant her instincts kick in, telling her what foods to eat and how to “nest” to prepare for the baby. After birth, this continues with mom’s milk letting down at the exact moment the baby starts fussing and that special feeling that your baby is the cutest in the whole entire world. The latter is especially helpful because it makes moms want to hold and touch their babies (the importance of touch link). Babies reciprocate with the instinct to cling to their mamas while being held.

When I had my first child I didn’t know about baby wearing or attachment parenting.

Luckily I had strong instincts and the sense to listen to them. Well-meaning family and friends told me that tending to my baby too quickly would spoil him, but this just didn’t seem right. When he fussed or cried I just couldn’t ignore him, so I nursed on demand and carried him everywhere in my arms when he wanted to be held. This wasn’t much of a problem since he was my only child. I got things done while he was sleeping or when my husband was around to help.

By the time I was pregnant for the second time I had learned that following the needs of the child in the way that I had was an actual parenting style. I was excited to use slings and baby carriers for my next baby. When I found out I would be having twins I was slightly deterred at the thought of carrying two babies at the same time, but I was dedicated to giving my babies the best start I could, so I looked into ways of carrying both babies together.

I started out using a ring sling with my twins in an upright position next to each other. This was great while they were infants but once they started getting bigger it became really hard on my back. Luckily, right around this time I met my amazing friend Elizabeth. She saw me struggling with carrying my girls and she happened to be working on a prototype for a wrap style carrier. I had never used a wrap before and after trying it once I was sold! It was so much more comfortable for my back and shoulders than the ring sling and I could easily carry one baby in a wrap on the front and one in a structured carrier on the back.

It really changed my experience of parenting my twins naturally.

Fast forward five years and I was pregnant with my fourth baby. I was very excited to have another baby after all my experience. I felt like I really knew what I was doing this time and felt that it should be super easy to have a single baby after twins.

My fourth is nine months old now and she has been everything I’d hoped and more. She virtually lived in Boba Wraps for the first six months! I especially loved carrying her in baby wraps as an infant since I never got to try that with my twins. Now she mostly prefers the soft structured Boba Carrier, we use it for hours every day, even more on days when we are out of the house.

It is a blessing to our family to be able to meet the needs of the baby wanting to be carried while caring for the other children simultaneously.

Baby wearing has changed my parenting experience for the better so much and I can’t imagine doing it any other way.