Wearing your Baby
You may not realise that there are so many benefits to carrying your baby in a sling.Here are the benefits that initially attract parents to the practise of baby wearing.
Happier babies who cry less
Sling babies cry less than those who are not simply because all their NEEDS are met. Mother knows when baby is hungry, needs changing, is uncomfortable etc and deals with the situation instantly. Baby just has no reason to cry! Babies who are carried are involved in daily life and are constantly entertained with the activities in front of them. A baby carried in a sling can sleep whenever they feel tired, they close their eyes and allow mother's movements gently lull them to sleep.
A baby that cries is already stressed because their signal for a particular need has been ignored or misread, for example;
A hungry baby will nuzzle his mother in search of the nipple (routing), if he is in physical contact, to signal his need.
A baby that is placed in a pram or bassinet can only nuzzle an inanimate object and then begin to cry when hunger becomes uncomfortable.
Crying produces stress hormones in both mother and baby and can result in a mother who feels inadequate or unable to bond with her baby.
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Happier, more relaxed parents
Parents who carry their babies feel happy, relaxed and more confident with their parenting techniques. Mother understands baby's cues and so can respond before baby even begins to cry. Parents can relax knowing their baby is happy, contended and able to sleep at any time.
A crying baby is trying to signal that something is WRONG. You will NOT be 'spoiling' your baby by responding to their NEEDS.
A crying baby causes natural, hormonal responses in the Mother, which can be extremely stressful and prevent you from thinking and acting in the required manner.
A mother who rarely hears her baby cry is a confident, happy and secure mother who can think on her feet and attend to her own needs as well as those of her baby.
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Premature Babies
Study's have shown that premature babies benefit greatly from baby wearing and a practise called kangaroo care.
Kangaroo care involves a nappy clad baby being held on the bare chest of the mother.
The warmth, regular breathing, heart rate of the mother and frequent feeding helps to regulate the baby's breathing, heart rate, body temperature and weight gain.
BBC News have reported the benefits of Kangaroo care, take a look: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/184480.stm
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Breast Feeding
Slings and wraps can provide you with privacy when feeding in public. Many mothers find it a great help to feed baby in the sling (hammock position) whilst they get on with daily activities!
Having baby close to you helps with your milk production.
Babies who are carried tend to feed more frequently as they have better access to the breast and mothers can identify better when their baby is hungry.
The warmth from your baby's body and the frequent feeding optimises your milk flow and also helps prevent leakage.
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Higher intellect & rate of development
For a baby to reach their optimal level of learning, they need to enter a state called 'quiet alertness'. Carried babies enter 'quiet alertness' far more frequently and easily than babies who are left in cots, prams or car seats. They are busy, quietly learning about the world that goes on around them, which they will one day take full part in. Babies are born to observe not be observed. How else can they successfully integrate into the society to which they are born? If you don't believe it, just try it for one afternoon. Take your baby everywhere with you and let them watch all your activities, you could hang out the washing with your baby strapped to your back for example, or whilst you change the bed or vacuum the living room. You'll probably find your baby peering around you to see how you do what your doing!
A carried baby is in tune with their carers movements, when and how they walk, run, bend, lean, reach for objects and balance. A baby in a sling is practising using the essential muscles needed for all these movements. Just think about it for a moment, a baby placed upright in a sling is learning/practising their balancing skills and holding their head and/or upper body in a comfortable, upright position when you lean forward, reaching for something. As a result carried babies often learn how to support their head, crawl, stand and walk earlier and with greater skill than babies who are not carried.
Learning to talk is a complicated process. Babies need to learn how to shape their mouth, tongue and lips and how to breathe in order to make different sounds.
Babies who are carried benefit from seeing, hearing and feeling their carer speak.
They can watch how the mouth and lips move, hear different sounds and how they fit together to make sentences and they can feel how you breathe whilst talking.
A huge advantage for a complicated skill!
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Secure & Independent Children
Contrary to popular western belief, babies who are carried a lot grow up to be very independent, confident children.
They have experienced security and had their needs met when they were at their most vulnerable and needed it the most.
Carried babies grow up feeling confident and secure to explore the world in their own time knowing they have a secure
parental figure they can rely on rather than crave support and seek protection throughout childhood (and beyond).
Wearing your baby puts them in the middle of daily life without making them the centre of attention.
This supports their natural instinct to be sociable rather than produce an attention demanding/seeking child.
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Practical
Wearing your baby in a sling is practical both at home and when out of the house.
Wearing your baby at home means that you can carry on with daily activities from the vacuuming and washing up to playing with your older children. Having your baby close means that you can concentrate on other things whilst baby sleeps or watches and learns from your movements. You won't have to constantly 'listen out' for a crying baby or worry about what they are playing with, if they are cold, too hot, tired, or hungry.
Slings are fantastic for doing the shopping, catching the bus, walking the dogs or going to the park.
You don't need to struggle through doors or over rough ground with a large cumbersome pram or pushchair and your
baby or toddler will be far happier feeling involved in your conversations and being able to see everything you can see.
Best of all you and baby are snug and warm together, you can smell baby and you can give hugs and kisses whenever you feel like it,
which will be more often than you realize! Baby wearing can be so addictive that you'll choose to leave the car at home just to walk and feel close to your baby.
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Bonding
It's amazing how a mother can instinctively know what their baby needs simply by the sound of their child's cry,
but just imagine knowing what your baby needs before they even get to the point of crying.
Many mothers who wear their babies can do just this.
Mothers are aware of every movement and most facial expressions when they wear their baby all day and so they know their babies as well as they know themselves.
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Natural
We are, by nature, a carrying species just like monkeys. Mothers have a natural instinct to hold their baby and this is for good reason. During prehistoric days (and in many cultures today) if babies were put down or left alone rather than being carried, they would surely have died from loss of body heat or would have been eaten by wild animals! We have evolved over thousands of years to carry and be carried as babies. Mother nature intends for our babies to be held close and through close physical contact a baby can use the carers body as a 'guide' and begin to learn how to regulate their body temperature, breathing and heart rate. Whilst in the womb, babies receive oxygen through the umbilical cord, are kept warm and use the sound of mother's heartbeat to control their own heart rate. This shouldn't just simply stop at birth, it takes time to really master these very important skills.
A baby's place is in warm, loving and protective arms, not a cold, metal or plastic contraption that offers no comfort or real protection.
The pushchair or pram is a relatively new contraption only used in western cultures.
We seem to have lost most of our natural instincts when it comes to our babies and the most natural behaviours are looked
down upon with comments such as "you'll have a clingy baby".
We should begin to embrace our instincts and be proud to show that we are natural, loving parents who are not afraid to hold our children.
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Safety
A baby who is carried is safe and secure, you know they are warm and breathing because they are right there with you.
You don't need to listen intently to a baby monitor, worrying yourself over every sound you hear or don't hear.
You don't need to confine yourself to one room where it's safe for a young baby to play,
spend lots of money on a play pen that takes up too much space and confines your baby's learning experience to a VERY small
space and you don't need to keep running back from daily chores in the kitchen to check your baby is OK.
Your baby can quite simply join you with all your daily activities and learn about safety on the way.
They will learn through your modelling behaviour that a knife is sharp, the oven gets hot,
you hold the banister when walking up or down the stairs.
If you wear your baby in public they will learn about crossing roads, looking both ways and not walking in front of cars.
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Less Colic
The act of wearing your baby gives your baby an all over body massage which helps to dislodge trapped wind
(believed to be the cause of colic) or prevent it from becoming trapped in the first place.
Many parents with babies who suffer with colic often find being carried in the sling is the only way to calm them and help them get to sleep.
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Weight Loss
Carrying your baby will obviously be extra work for your body and can help you loose your 'baby weight'.
If carried from birth, you may not even notice your baby gaining weight because you are slowly increasing your stamina and gradually building your muscle strength.
You should always bend your knees rather than your back when wearing your baby so you are also getting a
daily tone-up for your legs as well as your arms when lifting your baby in and out of the sling!
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Cheaper
Prams and pushchairs can be very expensive and many parents find that they buy more than one by
the time all their children have outgrown them for good. For the price of a fancy pram or pushchair
you could have a selection of slings and they take up far less space both in the home and the car.
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