Best baby present ever!

My personal babywearing journey is pretty much over (hopefully just for now). Samuel will be three on Christmas eve and only very occasionally wants to be carried in the toddler tula and certainly doesn't want to be wrapped any more. I am very lucky though to be running the sling library now with some wonderful friends but recently I have become bogged down with the every day goings on of the “business” side of hiring and buying slings, sending emails and sorting out money and I think had forgotten a little bit how kind of magical babywearing can be.

I had a lovely reminder yesterday of how lovely babywearing really is. I popped over to my next door neighbours house (who just so happens to be a babywearing mummy too!) in the morning. She has a gorgeous newborn baby girl and I was getting to have lovely snuggles with her baby while she got on with making some chocolate brownies. Baby got a little bit unsettled and my poor back was sore (possibly because it's not used to holding a baby without a sling?!) so I asked to borrow her (oh so very stunning Oscha) ring sling and popped baby in. The privilege of being able to snuggle someones newborn in a sling brought back to me the memories of my babies when they were teeny tiny. How you mutter silly nothings about whatever you see and walk with a little bounce and gently rub baby's back to try and soothe.

My first “proper” sling was a Moby stretchy wrap which was given to me as a Christmas present. It literally changed my life. I realise that sounds extreme but it did. I remember the first time I wrapped with the Moby how really very comfortable it was and how snuggly it felt with my brand new newborn. It's got me thinking about the other parts of babywearing which have been really important to me. With all three of my babies I have never wanted to put them down or pass them around to other people when they have been tiny. Babywearing gave me and baby a sense of security of being with each other which was certainly reassuring for both of us. When we see mums who are expecting baby number 2,3 or 4 we sometimes joke how at least if you use a sling with a newborn you know where one child is at all times. For me there was an element of truth to that. It's chaos in my house most of the time so babywearing in the early days help enormously with staying in touch with and keeping an eye on the littlest one while still being with the older ones.

I was also amazed when I found out how baby being in a sling counts as “tummy time” and helps with muscle development and balance development from the very beginning. It also helps with their social and emotional development by being close to someone they love and being part of your world – clever stuff. In the early days of having Bethany, I struggled with what to do each day and how to have constructive activities (I know with a newborn I shouldn't have been worrying but the weight of responsibility to teach this tiny being everything she needed to know was over whelming at the time) so this knowledge that babywearing was actually “good” for her development was almost an excuse for me to do it more.
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Thanks to the power of facebook I found this, our local sling library and have made a whole bunch of brilliant mummy friends and now run the sling library with Carol, and we are now in the amazing position to share some babywearing love and I really do love it!