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Saturday, January 4, 2014

You Baby What?!?

For almost 17 months now my husband and I have embarked on a journey to be the best parents that we can be. In that journey we have discovered babywearing. Yes, baby wearing, not baby carrying, baby pushing or baby pulling, babywearing. We are those people that you give the side eye to, make snide comments in your head about, or outright laugh at because you don't understand it. Or maybe we are the people that you approach because you have been curious because you have wanted to learn more but didn't have anyone to ask. The people that will happily talk to another family about babywearing and maybe even walk across a parking lot to say hi to a fellow babywearer. We are those people that smile politely if you make comments about how cute our baby is or make comments about how our baby should be down walking. We are THOSE people!! Gasp. 

Truly, there are things that you don't understand until you become a parent. I could write a whole post about the things I said I was and wasn't going to do before I gave birth. Babywearing was on my radar thanks to our Doula and Bradley class teacher but it wasn't something I ever thought I would be passionate about. I just thought it was something I would do, like changing a diaper (although I have chosen to cloth diaper and that comes with a whole other myriad of friends and family shaking their heads and being confused). In our household we do things because they work for us and they make sense for us. Babywearing makes so much sense to us as a family that we don't question it, we just ask "Which carrier to you want to take". I am so passionate about it that I became a Volunteer Babywearing Educator with my local babywearing group. I teach people how to safely use baby carriers and what it out there to fit your needs. It's fun and I love it! I get to meet moms who are just like me. People who don't question my intentions or addictions to carriers. Outside of that group, however, we get lots of questions and comments. Here are an example of just a few:

  • When does your baby walk?
  • Won't that make your child bow-legged?
  • Aren't you spoiling your baby?
  • What is babywearing? That sounds funny
  • Why don't you use a stroller, it's so much easier!
  • Isn't your baby too big to be carried?
  • What kind of crazy person carries their baby after they can walk?
  • Why do you need so many carriers, isn't one enough?
  • Those things are crazy expensive! Why wouldn't you spend  your money on something so useless?
  • Your a volunteer babywearing educator.......(insert confused expression here). What exactly do you teach people?
The comments are probably even better but you get the point. I'm not here to judge people who don't do what we do. In fact, I try really hard as a parent to not judge other parents for the choices they make because we have enough guilt, we don't need more piled on. I will most definitely make comparisons between babywearing and using a stroller. I'm not judging you for using a stroller but I may be confused at times as to why you would want to depending on the circumstance! Hopefully, I can answer some questions, cross out some myths and open your eyes to the awesome world of babywearing. So here we go! 

Yesterday's Babywearing Adventures

Yesterday we started off with babywearing. Hannah got up and I had to take the dogs out to go to the bathroom. So, we move through our usual routine of changing the diaper, changing out of our pajamas and then taking the dogs out back. We don't have a fenced in yard and my dogs are crazy chihuahuas. My child is also almost 17 months old and can run like nobodies business. 


So, in order to accomplish this task and make everyone happy, I put Hannah up in a carrier and take the dogs out. This way, I don't have to chase after her or listen to her scream from the house because I left her behind. Sure, I could put shoes on her and let her run around but why would I put myself through that stress? I have done that before and it usually turns out with Hannah running toward the street and me tripping on the dogs/leashes while chasing after her. Not a good way to start the day. Then after going outside there is feeding time for the pups. Since they don't like Hannah all that much they either get cornered off somewhere that she can't get to them or we have to watch very closely to make sure no one gets hurt. Since Hannah was already in a carrier, I fed them, made breakfast for both of us then we proceeded to eat after taking Hannah out of the carrier obviously. 

Next was a few hours later when I was getting ready to go for the day. Will was watching Hannah and she was being needy. Now all parents know this time. When you have tons of things to do but your child senses that and decides they just want to be held. So, Will's solution...up you go! Usually at the house she quickly gets the snuggles she wants and within 10-20 minutes is ready to  be let loose to terrorize again. BTW, babywearing daddies are sexy!


We decided to have a fun family day since we don't get many days off together so we headed out to the McKenna Children's Museum in New Braufels. I had no idea this even existed until recently but man am I glad someone suggested it. It's AWESOME as you can see in this non-babywearing related picture!

We didn't actually carry Hannah at the museum. We did however take a carrier with us in case she needed up time. What this means is that we strapped a carrier to our waist and continued hands free like normal into the craziness called a children's museum. When you first walk through the doors you see all these cubbies and tons of strollers. Now here is one of those times I don't get it. Why would I want to put all the effort into getting my stroller and belongings out just to leave it at the front door where it creates a barrier for people, leaves all my goodies available for people to walk off with and puts all my stuff at child level so they can dig in and run off with it? I don't get it.
See, carrier attached and not left behind. Genius!

We were able to walk around with everything we needed on our person and navigate through the chaos without bumping into anyone with a giant stroller because the space wasn't big enough to handle 50 screaming toddlers, toys, a parent and a stroller.

 

After this we ended our day at the grocery store. Now, I don't have a picture of this because I would just look weird taking a picture of my husband at the grocery store with a giant camera. I don't want to be that weird person ;-) My husband almost ALWAYS wears Hannah when we are shopping. He just likes it. It hasn't always been that way and in fact he used to insist on the stroller. We will get to that story eventually. You may wonder why we don't just put Hannah in the cart and push her while we are shopping because surely that would be easier. It's not. Every now and then we do make the decision to let her sit in the cart but usually what ends up happening is halfway through she doesn't want to be in the cart so she ends up turning around, trying to stand up, grabbing everything from the cart and throwing it and on and on. Sometimes, those trips even end up with us carrying her in arms while pushing and let me tell you, my arms aren't build to hold a 24lb toddler for more than a few minutes. I applaud you parents who do it but I don't understand why you would want to if you had the choice. So, at the store Hannah goes on daddy's back were she gets to interact face to face with all the people scoping her out and playing with her from afar. She gets to be a part of the grocery shopping trip and enjoy it with the rest of us instead of us all making it into a choatic and less than fun trip like I have both experienced and seen many people go through. Carrying Hannah is a huge bonus for Will because he gets lots of attention, stares and whispers and adoring looks from both women and children alike. As a bonus, we get to keep Hannah away from the creepy people you meet and if they are going to be creepy up close they have to do it within our personal space!





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About Me

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My husband, William and I moved to Austin in July of 2008. We own two chihuahuas and a sickly cat that will never die. We are proud homeowners in a very stepwives looking neighborhood and are friendly with almost all the neighbors (the ones we like at least). We have been blessed with one beautiful baby girl and have another baby on the way of yet to be determined gender.