Carrier Addiction

I've heard it can happen-if you baby wear, you may end up addicted to baby carriers-wraps, slings, carriers, etc. It has happened to me and I'm not even a die-hard baby wearer. I don't even have a baby any more-she's a big girl! However, with our upcoming trip, I broke down and bought an Ergo today, in hopes that it may restrain her in airports, museums, and train stations.


I had just nicely gotten home and unpacked from our shopping trip and was about to try on my standard, burgundy ergo, when I checked my email and found one from the seller of an unused black organic with embroidery ergo, selling for the same price. Ooops.

You know you have a problem when you start to think about buying the second one and running around town to do so, and making up excuses for why you should be able to return an item that is "final sale". I decided to be rational and not buy the beautiful black one.

Now we have a new ergo and when we got around to putting it on, Scarlett refused to go in it. I'll try again after her nap. She sat in it so nicely when we tried it on in the store.

I've heard that people love their ergos (and beco's even more), so I hope we develop that relationship over the next several weeks. I feel a little like I'm betraying my old wraps since I have left them behind. Maybe there is one true love for every stage of babyhood.

For instance, we bought our soft and stretchy Baby Buddha wrap when Scarlett was only days old. And loved that one until Scarlett was around 6-9 months old. I'm sure that we used it daily, for naps, walks, chores, cranky time, non-cranky time, everything. Then came the Hotsling, which I've seen used from newborns up, but I loved it for the hip carry stage. Finally we had a true wrap-an Ellaroo. Admittedly the least used of them all, but still helpful when I could strap her on my back, until she figured out how to wriggle out. We used it most around the one year mark and up to about a year and a half. If I had used it more, I would probably feel more comfortable with the tying and wrapping.

That's all we own. So maybe I'm not too bad because I have heard of some moms that own in excess of a dozen. We will either have many options of how to carry any future babies, or a few items to sell on Kijiji! (I've heard they keep their value-thank goodness!).

Wish me luck getting my big girl into her new carrier!

Unusual Sightings

I've seen a few things that have caught me off guard this week:

1. A pair of jack rabbits in our local park/playground. (Yes the same park that was sprayed with Killex before the rains.) We've seen them three times in this park and about 2-3 more in the neighborhood. First it was one rabbit, hopping around the playground equipment and along the fence. On Tuesday it was two rabbits lounging in the grass. Today, in the rain, it was three playing around the playground equipment. Just like in a kid's counting book. Scarlett doesn't say the word for rabbit or bunny, but will say "hop hop hop".
2. Walking by Bowness High School, I saw a teen get out of a cab. Do some kids really take cabs to school?
3. After our swim class, I saw a woman walk by with a preschooler, and a baby tucked into a shoulder bag. I looked at her repeatedly, because it was not a baby carrier, or sling, but a plain old bag carried over one shoulder with a baby sitting in the bag, at her belly button height. Has anyone seen this before? The baby could hold its head up, so it must have been over 6 months or so, but how could it's body possibly fit? Needless to say, I don't think that is very safe for any one involved.

And I don't think this is unusual, but yesterday at the office, somebody asked, "Why are there all of these kids around here?".

I had not thought that this may be viewed as unusual because we do tend to see a number of babies, and moms with pregnant bellies, and kids of various ages. But for this man, it was apparently as unusual as my unusual sightings. Do you think it is unusual to see kids at a chiropractic office? I can't possibly cover all the reasons that I see kids at the office, but for more information on this, please visit http://www.icpa4kids.org/, which is the International Pediatric Chiropractic Association. It's something that should be viewed as usual!

Wear Your Baby to Work

I'm a little late on commenting on the sling recall, but better late than never I hope. I had mixed feelings about the baby carriers/pocket slings that were recently recalled, and the little blip in the media that followed. I loved (and still love them, of course!) the slings and carriers that we used for Scarlett. In fact, I don't think we could have managed taking her to work with us for the first year, without them. We tried to learn how to carry her properly-and are still learning-and I think that is the most important message we can take out of this recall. It is important to wear baby properly & learn as much as you can about it. Unfortunately, we (moms and society at large) have not been raised with babies in slings, so many of us are learning as we go. It is sad that its more common to see babies in car seat carriers than slings.
I try to encourage new moms in our office to wear their babies, as there are so many benefits: to make life easier for parent & baby, to give the parent his/her hands back, to help attachment, less colic and crying, to enhance learning/cognitive development & really to just continue on with life! (Dr Sear covers this so well in The Baby Book). Not to mention that wearing baby is better for mom's spine than lugging around an awkward car seat, and has anyone seen all these babes with flat heads from car seats? (I'm sure the plagiocephaly is the least of the baby's concerns).
Not to be side tracked, here are some of the important rules about baby wearing:

• It should feel like you're holding baby in your arms, but without your arms there!
• Keep baby close enough to kiss (that means pretty high on your chest)
• Be able to see your baby's face-no fabric covering his airway.
• Knees higher than bum (or at least keep knees bent and like a frog leg position)
• No chin on chest
• No c-curves allowed in baby's back-put a small receiving blanket behind his mid back.
• http://babywearinginternational.org/pages/safety.php covers many more. I'd like to think that no one drives while wearing a babe, or jogs... but who knows.

I always packed our sling or had it available for Scarlett. My goal was that I wouldn't need to use it when I saw clients, but I could put her in the sling for all my paper work & phone time. Usually if she was in it and we were moving around, all was good. On our lucky days, she would sleep in the sling when my husband wore her and I worked. I've even used my sling to hold a client's baby, as she was trying to receive a massage and baby was crying non-stop in the car seat carrier.

We've made it so far with carriers from Baby Buddha, Ellaroo, and Hotslings, and of course there is a long list of carriers that I wish I had tried or purchased. Here in Calgary, we try to send everyone who is looking for a carrier to Babes in Arms, or Bo Bebe, because they are both so helpful in sizing for carriers and offering classes or pointers. I'm a little sad that we rarely put Scarlett in her sling anymore-occasionally she'll cooperate with a back carry, but its fun that she likes to run around instead and will usually/sometimes follow in the same direction we are heading.