Babywearing

The Little Empress was a high need infant who was only soothe by constant carrying; babywearing quite literally saved my sanity by allowing her to stay in constant contact with Mommy while I was able to accomplish more out of her first year of life than having constantly sore arms! She was worn almost constantly from the time she was 3 days old until she was 14 months old. Around then, she became a champion walker/runner and has not been interested in being confined in a carrier. Aside from a few precious moments here and there, I’m quite heartbroken to report that I haven’t toddlerworn as much as I babywore.

Each carrier that I have is used and well loved. In the world of babywearing, my stash is small, consisting of only a handful of carriers. My permanent stash are carriers that I plan on keeping for sentimental reasons and/or the remote possibility that we decide to give TLE a sibling. (If these carriers just end up becoming mementos of a TLE’s tiny baby days, that’s all right, too.)

PERMANENT STASH

Babyhawk in Cranberry straps with Kimono Blossoms (meitai)

BabyHawk - 22 Months

Wearing The Little Empress @ 27mo

One of my first carrier purchases, this is the carrier that held The Little Empress for much of her first three months. It held her during her doctors visits, our rare trips out and about and around the apartment during her seemingly endless bouts of colic. When we first put her in it, she was just five days old and was tucked neatly and securely inside, not a wee bit of her showing. Of all our carriers, this has the most sentimental value. While our babywearing days are mostly done,  this is the one of the ones we will hold on to.

Catbird Baby Pikkolo in Square Deal (soft structured carrier)

This has always been our out and about go-to carrier. As easy as a meitai with extra padding and buckles, this has seen plenty of outings when I’ve needed a quick, already adjusted carrier to pop The Little Empress in and out of. First we used it exclusively as a front carry and then we used it as our first back carrier.

DIY Dupioni silk sling with butterfly applique (ring sling)

This is ring sling was made for us by Cousin L. It’s made of dupioni silk and reversible. So pretty! While we preferred wrapping as we got more proficient at babywearing, this ring sling was both gorgeous and useful.

Storchenwiege Ulli, 4.6m (woven wrap)

I coveted the Storchenwiege Ulli due to its color. I bought it as a birthday present for myself in October and as the weather has turned cooler, we’ve been using Ulli almost exclusively for wrap jobs. Ulli is cushy and cute as well as snuggly wuggly warm for cold winter nights. Ulli helped snuggle and soothe The Little Empress to sleep many a winter night and soothed her through terrible night terrors. This wrap will be forever treasured.

FORMER STASH

These are carriers that I used to have and have given up for various reasons

Maya Wrap in natural (ring sling)

Our first ring sling, passed down to us from Cousin L. It didn’t see much use when The Little Empress was tiny as we preferred the silk RS we got from Cousin L.

Moby Wrap in Lilac Rose (stretch wrap)

This was our very first baby purchase. I knew I wanted to wear even while I was pregnant and got lucky, finding this limited edition Moby. For her newborn and very small infant days, this was the BEST wrap. But alas, it was so long and far too warm for the hellish Delta summer. I knew that I couldn’t use it when she got older so I began using a woven wrap instead.

Vatanai in Kipawa 4.6m (woven wrap)

This is the wrap that helped me to love wrapping. It is wonderfully thin yet supportive and has been cuddling The Little Empress to sleep since we got it when we bought it when she was 3 months old. But I always regretted that I didn’t buy Maruyama and so I sold Kipawa in March 2009 to fund the purchase of Maruyama.

AngelPack LX in Manzanita (soft structured carrier)

Angel Pack LX

Last summer, I decided that I wanted to get another SSC for home and walk use, while using our Pikkolo as our in-the-car carrier. I had heard raves about APLX and bought this without trying it on. Bad mistake. While absolutely gorgeous, I found that I wasn’t crazy about the material used to pad the waist and the straps — it just was not comfortable for me. Around the same time, The Little Empress began her wearing strike. I eventually sold the APLX off to another babywearer in the Bay Area.

Vatanai Maruyama, 4.6m (woven wrap)

While I loved our original Vatanai stripes (Kipawa), I decided that I wanted a different colorway. So after a few months of trolling FSOT for a deal on Maruyama, I finally found it! Perfectly floppy and broken in, I was sure that Maruyama would serve us well during the hot summer months.

Unfortunately, Maruyama sat unused in our laundry room as we all but stopped babywearing when TLE was 14 months old and far more interested in walking and exploring than she was with being carried around in a wrap. I finally found the heart to sell Maruyama to a mama on TBW in February 2010 after it had sat around for nearly a year without being loved.

MORE RESOURCES

For more information about babywearing, I highly recommend visiting The BabyWearer. If you’re local to the San Francisco Bay Area, you can meet up with other babywearing mamas via the BabyWearers International – BayArea chapter which has an active online presence and meetings in the South and East Bay regions.

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