We were lucky enough for Tasha, from “Wahm-Bam!” to send us her account of being a work at home babywearing mum! Thanks Tasha!
Our first baby, Rosemary, was adorable, beautiful, bright and needed lots of attention. It is, of course, quite probable that she needed lots of attention because she was given lots of attention. We hardly ever put her down. She frequently slept on our laps or in our arms. She was almost exclusively breast-fed to sleep and then put down, and put down, and put down… in her crib until she would settle. Often, we just left her in bed with us, as it was much easier to do so. We were never any good at putting her in her crib/cot to fall asleep of her own accord. One cry and we’d pick her up.
Eleanor, our second baby, is now four months old. She’s also adorable, beautiful and bright. She doesn’t need quite as much attention as her sister did; almost certainly because she has to get less attention due to having an older sister. As with her sister before her, we are still fairly rubbish at putting her down in her crib/cot to fall asleep. We can wait for a few shouts, or even a bit of crying, if we’re having to deal with Rosemary, but we still pick her up pretty quickly. Controlled crying (or things of the sort) is clearly not for us.
However, Eleanor falls asleep in a number of different ways, not just on the breast. She’ll fall asleep in her buggy, she’ll fall asleep sitting on someone’s lap, she’ll fall asleep in her bouncy chair, but most of all she’ll fall asleep in her sling.
Our main reason for getting a sling, apart from having heard wonderful things about them from many on-line friends, was for carrying Eleanor around while running after Rosemary. We were given a ring sling by a friend, which worked OK for a while, though I never really got the hang of it and would often get frustrated trying to find the right position. I sensed, though, that there was a lot of potential there, so read up on the different kinds of slings and also looked at and tried some at the local breast-feeding group.
I settled on a stretchy wrap style sling and went for a Kari-Me, though there are plenty of others available in this category. I decided to buy a new one, rather than getting one a bit cheaper off eBay, as we had been given money for Eleanor but had no real need for anything new, already having an atticful of girls’ clothes and boxes and bags of baby and toddler toys. This would be mine and Eleanor’s special treat. And my was it worth it! Whenever anyone asks me what my best baby buy was I answer, without any hesitation, the sling.
Here are some of the things the sling does for us:
- It puts Eleanor to sleep. If she’s having any trouble getting to sleep (which occurs less and less as the months go by) we just need to stick her in the sling and march round the dining table for a few minutes, or even just sway in place, and she’ll go to sleep.
- If she won’t settle in her crib, cot, buggy or anywhere, we can keep her in the sling and sit down and do some work (we both work from home).
- We can take her on buses, trains and tubes without having to fold and unfold a buggy.
- We can dash up to playgroup or along to nursery school with ease, and bring Eleanor in with us when dropping Rosemary off, instead of leaving her outside in the buggy. And it’s a lot easier to hold Rosemary’s hand when crossing roads, too.
- We can walk through the snow, safely and easily carrying Eleanor, instead of struggling with a non-off-road buggy over the crunchy, icy drifts (something which came in very useful during the cold snap). We can walk along muddy, uneven footpaths and up and down grass- or rock-covered hills, which we certainly couldn’t do with the buggy.
- Eleanor can sit facing out when she’s awake and then quickly and easily be swapped round to snuggle in when she’s ready for sleep.
- Eleanor’s eyes can easily be shaded, and her head covered when out and about, rather than struggling with the, very unwieldy, raincover.
- We can wander round the house tidying up, hoovering, and even emptying and filling the dishwasher, while she sleeps or watches (though I probably wouldn’t try cooking at the stove!)
- We can walk up and down steps easily, instead of bump-bump-bumping with the buggy. I always use the sling when going to breast-feeding group and usually when taking Rosemary to ballet, as they both involve lots of stairs.
- This particular sling is incredibly easy to put on and to learn how to use. I put it on twice, looking at the instructions and have not had to look at them since. Everyone else who has tried it (Chris uses it regularly and his mum has used it, too, when she was visiting) has found the same.
For two parents who work from home and struggle to find enough hours in the day to get everything done now that we’re a two-child family, having a sling has made a huge difference. And the biggest benefit of all, has been giving us another way of getting Eleanor to sleep, and a quick one at that.
We really wish we’d discovered them when Rosemary was a baby.
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