Keep Baby Wrapped Close to Your Heart With a Baby Carrier
Babies love to be held. Even better, they love to be held and in motion! Baby carriers do both, allowing your infant to cuddle into you while feeling the rythmic motions of your breathing and your walking. If you're new to baby wearing, or already own a sling or two, you've come to the right place. You can find a wealth of information and resources on babywearing and carriers, from the best child carrier for you to personal reviews from others.
You can use any sort of fabric to wrap yourself and baby in, though today there are many choices avaliable, from fashionable designer slings and wraps to Baby Bjorn front carriers to special hiking backpacks.
Let's get started! Below you will find some great resources:
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A Guide to Baby Carrier Types A Primer on Babywearing Baby Sling Safety Tips How to Survive Your Airline Trip with Your Baby |
Wearing Your Baby is Great For Bonding and Development
Slings are great for discrete nursing, keeps you mobile and, most importantly, baby is aware as a participant, rather than a spectator in a crib or a stroller. Baby sees the world as mom and dad see it, they listen to your conversations, and they recognize the rhythm of your breathing, your walking and your touch. All this makes for increased awareness and stimulates speech and emotional development, and is known to dramatically decrease crying and sooth colic. Not to mention that you will feel much closer to your baby.
I myself own several baby carriers, and I constantly wear my baby and go for walks around the neighbourhood. Everybody does a double-take seeing a dad with a little infant on him grinning out to the world!
Carry Baby in a Safe Environment
For a hike in the woods, a walk around town, traveling or just going to the mall, keep your hands free by wearing a convenient and safe front carrier or a backpack. A well-designed carrier will keep you cool and comfortable while running your errands. By seeing over your shoulder and participating in what you see, your infant will be stimulated enough to avoid fussing. When he's tired, he can simply take a nap in the carrier. For extra comfort and convenience, many backpacks come with a kickstand to easily load your infant, and you can attach a sun visor or rain cover as shelter against the weather.
Make it a Double: Baby Carriers for Twins
Congratulations! You’ve been riding the multiples roller coaster since you first saw two (or more) cute little bean-shapes on the ultrasound. Months later, they’ve arrived and the questions have surely piled up. Do we feed them at once? Should they sleep at the same time? Will they wake each other up? Will we, their parents, ever sleep again? When are the grandparents coming to help? I know carrying them is a great way to soothe …
Didymos: Weird Name, Wonderful Wrap
Why, you may ask, am I writing a review of a wrap I didn’t buy? Here’s my short philosophy on baby gear. Our family either buys one superior product in a category – say strollers, carrier, or breast pumps, or we buy two or three less expensive and more specialized products from that category.
If we’re sold …
With Kelty, No Child Left Inside
Ranging in price from $119 to $239, six Kelty baby backpack carriers and one convertible carrier round out this company’s baby wearing line-up. My review focuses on the three with external light-weight aluminum frames.
What is an External Frame Carrier?
Kelty offers three easy-to-differentiate models, which I will briefly describe. But other manufacturers like Sherpani, Deuter, and …
Baby Carriers Work… Here’s All of the Reasons Why
The Stroller Set
Before I had my two kids, I had a lot of experience interacting with numerous strangers with babies in malls, on sidewalks, and in grocery stores. Most of the parents I recall interacting with were stroller-pushers and most of our interactions consisted of smashed toes, clipped heels, exasperated sighs, and impatient excuse me’s. Avoiding the ire of stranger is just one of the many reasons that baby carriers work. They make life easier …
Top Seven Questions About Baby Carriers
Scanning my parents’ group message boards, there are certain questions that pop up more frequently than others when moms and dads are discussing which carrier is best for their baby. Here’s a run-down of the top seven questions and their answers:
1. “Is the BabyBjorn safe? I heard it wasn’t. Why?”
Some of what you’ve heard is true for very young infants, birth to eight or twelve weeks. For the smallest and youngest, the Baby Bjorn …
How Babywearing Makes A Difference: 5 Reasons
Wearing your baby has benefits too many to list. But I’ll try. There are five major areas of your baby’s well-being that can be improved by choosing to carry him at least some of the time, from birth through age two.
Most significantly, research shows measurable benefits for baby and parents if babywearing is part of the family’s routine in the first six months. Here are the top five reasons why wearing your baby in a …
Safe Babywearing Practices All Wrapped Up
Wearing your baby does a world of good, yes, but it’s no good if the way you carry your little one in a carrier does a world of harm to your back, your neck, or your posture. It’s also no good to race around wearing baby, doing as much as you can, without a bit of mindful forethought about the types of babywearing task-management that might put baby at risk of discomfort, or even injury. …
Backpacks for Hiking with Baby
Two types of parents take their kids out to experience nature first-hand:
Dyed in the wool hiking types: These are the REI-member parents, the couples who, before having kids, may have met in an outdoorsy setting.
The newly converted nature buffs: These are the parents who want to show their kid the world, want to impress upon their baby the beauty, fragility, and importance of nature.
Whether you’re a 1 or a 2, you need the same type …
Slings Make for Easy Breastfeeding in Public Places
Most women who have tried to breastfeed and met with any degree of success know that it doesn’t come without difficulties. These difficulties range from trouble latching, mastering the football hold and other tried and true methods, learning the lingo of nurses or lactation consultants, wrestling with the noisy beast, er…I mean… breast pump, and figuring out how to squeeze in a shower and some sleep. And this is all before you leave the house. …
Baby Carriers: The Wearable Cure for Colic?
Trapped gas bubbles after eating, tummy upset, painful bowel movements, and acid reflux are all contributors to the discomfort your inconsolable baby experiences with colic. As the digestive system matures, colic tends to disappear between 3 and 9 months. Of the 25% of babies with colic, 90% are free of it by 9 months. With numerous medicinals, swaddling techniques, and “guaranteed” colic remedies circulating in parent lore, its amazing what a simple baby carrier can …
Kangaroo Care: Baby Carriers for Preemies
The benefits of carrying our babies close are well known. But what about preemies? In the first weeks after a premature birth, parents of preemies are often exhausted from monitoring their baby in the NICU, emotionally spent at the delay in taking their baby home, and scared about the health concerns associated with premature birth. When your premature baby comes home for good, Kangaroo care – with the right carrier for low birthweight babies – can …
When your partner is pregnant, it’s a guy thing to want to do everything you can to lighten the load. So you cook dinner, fold laundry, massage swollen ankles. A friend I have has even said he’d go through the pregnancy for his wife, if this was possible. Comforting and pampering your expectant spouse is something you’re probably pretty good at. If you weren’t, she probably wouldn’t be expecting a foot massage, let alone a …
Favorite Shopping Resources
ChildCarriers.com offers a full range of baby carriers and accessories by the most trusted names in the business - from Baby Bjorn sling carriers to Ergo to rugged baby backpack carriers from Kelty, Deuter and Sherpani. Free Shipping on orders over $99!
Babyearth.com, an Austin-based store begun by James and Heather Bendle, a dedicated husband-wife team, is committed to eco-friendly baby products. They have a large selection of baby carriers, from BabyBjorn
