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 …

Baby Carriers – A Dad’s Guide

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 …

Baby Carriers Past and Present: Herstory is History

Did you know that they’re older than money?  Yes, older than currency.  Back to the days of bartering.   Something to think about when you’re forking over fifty to one hundred hard-earned dollars for a baby carrier that promises you bonding, soothing, and multitasking all in one.  A relatively recent phenomenon in the West, where women’s roles evolved from either rearing children at home or leaving children in the care of another to go to …

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 …

The No-Brainer Baby Carrier

Give me the easiest baby carrier, the one that needs no instruction booklet, has no list of warnings, requires no specialized lingo, and I’ll give you a bazillion dollars.  That’s the number my three year old says when he tells me, “Mama, I want a bazillion more jelly beans.” Oh yeah? I think to myself, Well, I want a bazillion more hours of sleep.
Three Kinds of Easy
If you’re the kind of parent who cowers at the …

Costumes for Your Baby-in-a-Sling

If you miss the trick-or-treating candy-collecting days of yore, bundle your little one up in a sling or carrier, grab a flashlight and bag, and get read to help baby celebrate her first Halloween.  Does it really matter that she doesn’t even have teeth or that she can’t eat chocolate?

Here are some costume ideas for baby only and for baby-parent combos.  I’ll also provide a list of sling-friendly costumes and do-it yourself ideas you can …

Finding Your Eco-Friendly Baby Carrier

Thank goodness it’s not as hard to be environmentally conscious as it was, say, for our friends who had kids ten years ago.  These friends may now be flaunting the fact that their kids are sleeping through the night.  Well, you can just flaunt right back, so to speak, with your eco-friendly, chemical free, sustainably manufactured baby carrier.  Yeah, I wouldn’t wait for them to turn green with envy either (pun intended).
What Makes a Carrier …