Really I do. But this? IS RIDICULOUS.
Found in my mailbox. From my local Ocean State Job Lot flyer.
P.S. I am SO SORRY about the horrible blog loading time yesterday. My host swears it was totally random and not a real problem at all so it “shouldn’t happen again.” If you missed entering the giveaway because you didn’t have two hours to stare at a “loading…” page, PLEASE scroll down and do it today or some time in the next week!
Today you get a very, very special guest post from my sister, Carolyn, who is as we speak probably hauling buckets of water to her hut for a bath or saving children from illiteracy. She’s pretty cool.
p.s. If you want to ask her questions in the comments I’ll email them to her so she can answer and post her answers. Her internet access isn’t always reliable (SHOCKING) and I don’t think she has a fast enough connection to respond through the blog.
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Hii! This is Carolyn, Suzanne’s sister in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso (West Africa) and regular reader of this blog. Suzanne asked me to write a guest post ages ago, and today I’m finally going to do just that. Honestly, the reason I was so reluctant to do this sooner (sorry Suz!) was because generally, I don’t think about babies. (This is probably a terrible thing to say on a baby blog, right?) Not really high on my radar. I am very far from being an expert; I feel like I don’t even know enough about them in the states to make legitimate comparisons between there and here. But here goes!
Babies here are extremely cute. Unfortunately, they are usually terrified of white people, so they tend to start screaming at my approach. And making faces to get them to smile only makes it worse, as I discovered VERY early on in my time here. Every once in a while, on a bush taxi in particular (where they have many, many hours to get used to me) I get a baby who makes the sort of shocked face that’s usually a precursor to crying, but on rare occasions leads to smiling and playing peek-a-boo over his mom’s shoulder and all the women making arranged marriages between me and him. That’s when I like babies best.
When women are pregnant here, it’s not usually talked about. Perhaps because of general silence on women’s issues, or maybe because of the risks of pregnancy here, I’m not sure. When a baby is born the customary gift to give the mother is soap. This is because in Burkina, there… aren’t diapers. Babies usually wear little western castoff outfits (very cute ones, actually) with shorts or pants or just fabric wrapped around them, so those layers get washed very frequently. Which uses a lot of soap. As soon as they’re walking, kids are essentially potty-trained because they can squat down wherever they want.
A pagne is essentially just a length of patterned fabric, and is what all women use to carry their babies on their backs. You constantly see women with babies asleep on their backs- working in the fields, at the market, riding motorbikes, everywhere. There’s a routine motion that you notice of women bending forward and hiking their babies up, then re-tying the pagnes. (ed: Carolyn sent me several and I tried to carry Baby Evan Africa-style ONCE. It did not go well. I never made it out of the family room.) In cold season you see bulges on women’s backs with a tiny knit hat on top, the type with the puff ball attached. I should also mention that it’s not only women who carry babies like this. No, I’m not saying that the men do too (they absolutely do NOT.) Often older siblings, or I should say, sisters, carry the babies too. It’s cute, but maybe kind of sad, that you see tiny girls carrying babies almost as big as they are.
I know Suzanne talks about breastfeeding a lot, which I think is great. I was perhaps a little uncomfortable with breastfeeding in practice before I came here, just because I was never exposed to it in the states. Burkina, however, is a different story. Women breastfeed. When babies get a little older there is a type of porridge that they eat, and I see women feeding babies the occasional bit of biscuit or rice or whatever else they happen to be eating, but the main source of nutrition comes from nursing. You see women breastfeeding everywhere: the secretary at my school does it in the office while she’s working, women do it while riding in donkeycarts, and I’ve had, on several occasions, a baby in a bush taxi half-lying in my lap while being nursed by the woman next to me. So I am now VERY accustomed to the idea, in theory and in practice. But here part of it is that breasts, in general, are much less shocking than they are in the states. I still see old women working in the fields or going to fetch water topless (honestly, that’s one of those things that make me remember I’m in a different country, no matter how accustomed I’ve become to other aspects of living here.)
Healthwise: If women go to the health center during pregnancy they can get prenatal care and can give birth with nurses, otherwise there are local midwives or just unassisted home births. Once they have the baby they can go to the health center for vaccinations or to have their babies weighed (and get supplemental formula if the baby is underweight.) Peace Corps has a health sector here and one of the main focuses is child and maternal health, but since I’m a teacher I don’t have much personal experience with it (and even if I did, I imagine I would just have lots of really sad stories to tell.) A lot of child care depends on the economic situation of the family. Poor, rural families often can’t afford the small fees incurred at the health center, so they don’t go.
So overall, babies here are very abundant, and their care is pretty simple. No formula, no diapers, not really any toys, no car seats, no strollers, no cribs (they just sleep on a mat with their mamas.) I actually think it’s quite a nice way to raise a baby, if only you could improve child safety and health care. But I very much like the ideas of breastfeeding, no diapers (or I guess cloth diapers?), wearing the baby wrapped on your back, and co-sleeping. If I ever have babies (yikes) I’m totally following the all-natural, Africa/hippie way of baby-raising (go Suzanne!)
Occasionally (rarely) I get email from a reader. It always makes my day, since just knowing someone took the time to type out my address and spend a few seconds telling me they liked my post or have a suggestion or agree with me makes all the time and energy I spend on this space worth it. What can I say, I’ve got an attention-seeking personality. Aaaaand everyone who new me in high school just said “DUH”.
Even better than “I like you” mail, sometimes people email me asking if I would consider writing about a specific subject. Take for example, this email I got from a lovely (and incredibly loyal) reader named Amanda:
A lot of this will look familiar to my longtime readers, since I published part of it back in October. I’ve gotten several new carriers since then and felt like I should update my guide to include them. I also wanted to share some very important information about what kind of sling NOT to buy. I’ll probably update again in 9 months when I have an infant to show newborn carries, but in the meantime if you have any babywearing advice or posts please feel free to leave links in the comments.
This isn’t a “guide” as much as a “check out all my baby carriers” post, but it may be helpful for anyone still unsure what exactly is going on with all this babywearing. The short explanation is wearing your baby is fun, leads to a calmer happier child, and is an important part of attachment parenting. I find wearing Baby Evan to be much easier than dragging a stroller around all the time, especially in stroller unfriendly places (beaches, farmer’s markets, outdoor events, wine festivals, museums). The only downside to babywearing is once you start you can’t stop buying carriers and that can get pretty expensive. I’m not an expert but I learned a ton from my local babywearing group led by my friend Sarah who’s worn 3 of her kids and teaches classes. Here’s my experience with a few of the most common types.
Ergo – Between $120 – $135 depending on the fabric, although I got mine from BabySteals.com for about $80
The Ergo is a soft structured carrier (SSC) which means it’s got more, uh, structure than a mei tai but holds the baby in a very similar way. There are a lot of snaps and buckles and straps and things to adjust but don’t let that intimidate you – it’s about as complicated as a backpack. The Ergo is supposed to distribute a baby’s weight to both your hips (with the waist strap) and your shoulders so you can carry even a larger child comfortably. Their suggested weight limit is 40 lbs but say it’s safe up to 90 lbs – but who wants to carry a 90 lb kid??? You can carry the baby in three ways, facing you on the front, facing you on the back or a hip carry (link included since I haven’t figured out that last one yet). I actually can’t believe it took me a year to get this carrier. I love it so so so much. I can get Baby Evan on and off my back all by myself even in a rainy parking lot. I can also swing him around from back to front without taking him off, PLUS if I loosen one strap I can get him low enough to nurse while still walking around. The one pictured below is the Ergo Organic Carrier- Black/embroidery
I think the Ergo is the best carrier for places where I’m likely to take the baby on and off, since I can easily wear it even without the baby when he wants to run around.
Please excuse the pj’s – I needed a pic but didn’t want to stall bedtime
Moby Wrap – I bought mine from BabySteals.com for half price, but I think they usually run between $40-$60.
The Moby is my least-used wrap, although some moms swear by it*. (There’s a very similar carrier called a Sleepywrap which I’ve also heard good things about.) I bought my Moby during the very hottest part of summer and the extra layers of fabric were just too much for the New England humidity. Now that it’s finally cold enough to appreciate it’s snuggliness, Baby Evan has sort of outgrown it. The Moby is one long length of stretchy t-shirt-like fabric (mine has a fleece panel in the middle, which makes it a Moby D
Hug Hold – Baby faces mom. Really great for tiny babies. Don’t worry, they won’t suffocate although you will worry they might.
Update 2012: Thanks to a commenter for alerting me that Moby no longer recommends the back carry I removed the photo from my post. I never used it – despite following the instructions in my Moby manual the stretchiness of the material meant it never seemed secure. When I had my second baby I gave this Moby to a friend in search of one and replaced it with a beautiful pink woven wrap. Woven wraps are much less stretchy but still comfortable. You can check YouTube for all kinds of neat carries, but be careful to use your own judgement – despite the title of “expert” or “educator” there is no oversight of babywearing by anyone other than other babywearers who have declared themselves experts. Keep common sense and good judgement in mind.
*The son of one of the mom’s in my breastfeeding support group was born with club feet and has to wear special shoes attached with a metal bar to help reshape them. A sling or mei tai wouldn’t work for her, because the former squishes his feet together and the later separates them too far. She LOVES her Moby because he can wear the bar while she wears him and she swears it’s the only way she can get him quiet while in his “torture device”.
BabyBjorn – Starts at about $6o and goes up, but you can find them on Craigslist pretty often
The Bjorn is sort of controversial among babywearers, since the baby’s legs just dangle without any support. I’ve heard it can be bad for their…hips? legs? feet? I’m not too concerned though, since it remains one of the best selling baby carriers worldwide and it doesn’t seem to bother Baby Evan at all. It’s not the most versatile carrier – you can only wear it on your front, but the baby can face in or out. The weight limit on my BabyBjorn Original
Baby facing Dad – It’s true, I did this whole post just for an excuse to post this picture again.
Baby facing out – Baby Evan falls asleep pretty much without fail in the Bjorn, even in loud places.
A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SLINGS before I get to mine. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently recalled the bag-style slings mostly found at places like Babies R Us and big-box retailers (I’ve also seen them several times at TJMaxx). These slings are unsafe and several babies have died after either suffocating in the fabric or having their airways constricted due to the extreme c-curve the sling creates. Do not buy this kind of sling.
BUT. Please don’t let one irresponsible manufacturer ruin all baby-wearing. It can be done 100% safely with a little knowledge and some common sense. Also, please don’t tell moms in the grocery store they might kill their babies by wearing them, especially when they’re using something that is totally not a sling. And if you DO say something that ignorant to me, please accept my apology in advance for the verbal beat-down you’re going to get.
Ok, on to slings.
Maya Ring Sling - $50 for the basic, $65 for the padded (mine is the Lightly Padded Ring Sling
My mom bought a Maya for me at Papoose when Baby Evan was just a few days old and I’ve used it at least twice a week every since. It’s the carrier I wore while I stood in line for 8 hours auditioning for Deal or No Deal. I keep it in the car for quick runs into the store. It’s great for shopping or walking around and is easy to wash, store and stuff in my diaper bag. It has a zippered pocket in the tail for your keys or wallet so you don’t have to carry a diaper bag for quick trips (one down side of the sling is it’s really hard to carry a purse while wearing it – one shoulder has the ring, the other is trapped behind the baby). The negative for this carrier – or any sling – is all the weight is on one shoulder and not spread out across your back. I also have some trouble keeping the padded part up on my shoulder where it belongs, especially when juggling a squirmy baby in a parking lot. The Maya comes in different sizes to fit different sized people and we bought the largest so E and I could both wear it (and, let’s be honest, so it would fit over my boobs) although that means the tail is longer than necessary. I’ve been told ring slings are the easiest carrier to nurse in but I never did figure out the nursing-while-walking/standing/moving thing, so I don’t have any advice to make that work. Here are pictures of E and I using our Maya Ring Sling at various stages in Baby Evan’s life:
Tiny (jaundiced) Baby Evan tucked in the sling
Medium-sized Baby Evan tucked in the sling
Baby Evan sleeping in the sling at brunch
E cleverly uses the sling to keep his hands free for beer
Now that Baby Evan is sitting up, the hip carry is our favorite. He can see in any direction he wants and if he gets tired I can pull the fabric up over his arms and shoulders and he can sleep comfortably.
Fixed Length Sling – There are a lot of makes and models of pouch style slings (Hotslings and Peanut Shell are two popular brands) and the prices range from very inexpensive to VERY pricey. Mine is an Amy Coe Pink Pucci Sling I got from bTrendie for $15.
I was really excited about this sling, especially since it was such a good deal, but unfortunately it’s not my favorite. I bought the large size since I was afraid something smaller wouldn’t fit over my, uh, chestal area, but it ended up being sort of big. I highly recommend buying one in person (or at least after figuring your size out in person) from someone who knows what they’re doing. I can use the fixed sling now with Baby Evan the toddler sitting up but I doubt I’ll be able to use it with an infant. I might take it to my seamstress and have her shorten it, since it is a pretty fabric and it was a great deal, even if I have to pay someone to alter it. You can use the same carries you would with a ring sling – cradle carry, front carry & hip carry – you just can’t adjust the length.
Mei Tai Carrier – I bought my generic mei tai at Papoose for $30, and my wonderful husband bought me a genuine BabyHawk for Christmas. If you don’t want to spend $90+ you can find tons of homemade ones on Etsy, or if you’re crafty, try Googling for your own sewing pattern.
My mei tai is now my (second) favorite of all the carriers, even though I have the most basic, bottom of the line version. It’s really easy to get on and off, holds the baby very securely, and Baby Evan loves being carried against my chest. (He went through a brief period where he wanted to face out and fought the mei tai but I’ve adjusted the way I stand so he can see what I’m seeing or who I’m talking to.) It folds up very small and has no metal or plastic parts so I can throw it in the washer and dryer for a quick cleaning. The straps spread the weight across my back and shoulders so I don’t feel off balance or get a sore neck. The way Baby Evan sits in the carrier puts his weight on his butt and supports his thighs so you don’t have to worry all that dangling will mess up his…hips? legs? Whatever it is people worry about. There are fewer carries in a mei tai than with the Moby, but you can put the baby on your front or your back. One of the benefits of a mei tai back carry is you can tie the waist strap, pop the baby in while holding the shoulder straps and sort of swing the whole thing around so you don’t need a partner to get situated (although I’ve only dared to do this while sitting on the bed in case he falls out). If you REALLY wanted you could do a forward-facing front carry, but you’d need to cinch the middle of the fabric with a ribbon so the baby’s legs didn’t point in totally different directions. If you really wanted to just buy ONE carrier, I highly recommend some version of the mei tai. Here’s mine at Plymouth Rock and Mystic Aquarium:
Front carry – When the baby was smaller, the mei tai provided plenty of sun/weather protection.
Front carry – The easiest way to carry my 20 lb fattie. I noticed today though that he’s getting too tall for my smallish mei tai. I guess I’ll have to buy a new one!
One of the benefits of this carrier (and all baby-wearing) is the baby is right up at eye level with Mom, so you get to experience things together.
Back carry – The only downside is the hair pulling, but it doesn’t happen very often. Yet.
And here’s my real Baby Hawk. It’s got a different pattern on each side and the blue side also has a pocket so I can tuck my keys and phone in it for quick trips into the store. I KNOW I shouldn’t have picked such a light color for the straps but it’s so pretty and I couldn’t stand another black carrier. It’s a little bigger overall than my orange mai tei so it holds a heavier/larger baby with no problem.
Back carry – I can do it by myself now that he’s big enough to sit on my back himself
Front carry – At 12 months this isn’t my favorite anymore, but when I put him on my back for too long I miss him. Super cheesey, I know.
Backpack Carrier – Many different options and styles, ranging from about $80 – $200 depending on bells and whistles. Check Craigslist before buying one new – it’s the kind of thing people buy and never, ever use.
This was actually the very first baby item I bought EVER, from someone in Navy Housing who was getting rid of all their baby stuff on Craigslist. I paid $15 for the Chicco Smart Support Backpack
Next time I’m making my husband wear him, but I think this was the perfect carrier for hiking a dirt trail in the rain.
For a carrier with a fixed frame it fits both of us surprisingly well.
This is actually my aunt carrying ME in a baby backpack in about 1983. I’m a pioneer baby.
There are many, many, MANY other carriers, all of which I would like to own or at least try out at some point. I just saw a Beco Butterfly
So there you go, all my experience with babywearing. How about you? Do you have a favorite carrier to recommend?
***Disclaimer: All carriers were purchased by me with my own money (I clearly have a serious problem) and reviewed without any consideration for the makers/companies. They have no idea who I am and probably wish I would stop talking about them. Several of the links above are connected to my Amazon Associates account, so if you follow them and buy a carrier there’s a teeny tiny chance I’ll earn a few cents. Please don’t let this knowledge pressure you into buying every single carrier pictured just so I can afford, uh, more carriers. ***
Having spent a great deal of my last few years wasting time on the internet, I’ve developed quite a few online friendships. At least they’re friendships in my head. Sometimes the other person doesn’t exactly KNOW we’re friends (HI HEATHER CALL ME) but I like to think if we ever did meet for coffee we’d chat and laugh like we’ve known each other for years and then braid each others hair. Ok, maybe no hair braiding.
Two of my internet worlds collided this week when one of my favorite people on the internet SarahMC wrote about the Radical Parenting special on Discovery Health that featured The Feminist Breeder, one of my other favorite people on the internet. In case you didn’t see the show, Sarah’s recap covers it pretty well, or you can check out the posts TFB did while the crew was filming for a behind the scenes look at her segment. I was excited to join in the conversation about the show in the Harpyness comments section, since talking about parenting is kind of my thing these days.
The show covered three different “radical” types of parenting: un-schooling, attachment parenting, and gender neutral parenting. Personally, I think the most radical of the three were the un-schoolers, whose 7 year old son and 5 year old daughter didn’t participate in any type of formal education. Instead, they learned through experiences – trips to museums, farms, zoos, etc – and studied whatever they were most interested in. They also claimed their family was a true democracy where everyone had an equal say and the kids got to make all their own decisions. I think I would have been a little more skeptical of those parents if they hadn’t come across as really sort of…normal. The parents both had advanced degrees, the mom seemed to really enjoy spending all her time with the kids, and they were really realistic about how un-schooling would affect their kids in the future. I think we could be friends. One of the things the parents mentioned a couple of times was their son had learned reading and math through his “video games” (I’m imagining V-Tech or something similar) which I was surprised about – I pictured un-schoolers are being totally TV free. I guess when you’re with your school-age kids ALL DAY EVERY DAY you’d almost have to use an electronic babysitter every once in a while.
The third family (I’ll get back to the AP people in a minute) showed The Feminist Breeder and her Hyphenated Husband (he changed his last name to their combined name when they got married) practicing “gender neutral” parenting…but if that was “radical” then I guess I am too, just because my kid had a doll in his toy box. Shocking. Truthfully, I can see how some parents (mostly fathers, I imagine) could freak out if their sons wanted to try on Mommy’s shoes or asked for a dollhouse but none of the parents I know would care. I think if the show had focused more on how the parents DEMONSTRATE gender equality – Dad doing housework, Mom using power tools, sharing childcare duties equally – they would have done gender neutral parenting a greater service.
Most of the discussion on Sarah’s post about those two families was pretty in line with what I just said – maybe there was a little disagreement regarding un-schooling – but since attachment parenting is my (accidental) area of expertise I was most interested in talking about that family. They were pretty by the book AP and practiced co-sleeping, babywearing, extended breastfeeding, elimination communication, and even baby-led weaning, with a touch of TV shock value crazy thrown in when they planted a placenta under a tree. As someone who didn’t set out to practice AP, I remember thinking all those things were weird, hippyish and uber-crunchy. Then I had a baby, discovered slings were convenient, co-sleeping was the easiest way to handle night feedings and made it through those first few awful months of breastfeeding…and became an accidental attachment parent. Which is why it was so strange for me to find myself talking about it like I was some sort of expert and even defending AP online. Although I think the weirdest part was being involved in a conversation with someone who was anti-attachment parenting. My world, both online and real-life, is full of people who support all things AP (much more than I do) so I’ve never really had anyone criticize my parenting decisions before and it was a strange experience. It was more like a discussion than an argument and I felt really good about how I described and explained attachment parenting (with a little help from Sarah’s link to my babywearing post) and even got a super awesome email from another commenter who wanted to thank me for supporting accidental AP parents. In the end, both my online conversation and the Radical Parenting special made me feel more confident that the decisions we’ve made for my family are the right ones for us.
(p.s. Over on Harpyness I use “blondegrlz” as my screen name, since I know them from my old baby-free life on Jezebel. In case you’re confused.)
Bonjour! No I'm not French, it just sounded fancy. Sorry for the confusion. I'm Suzanne, a 30-year-old Navy wife, blogger, baker, and amateur at pretty much everything else. The stars of the show are Evan, born 4/5/09 and Caroline, born 12/19/2010. I love hearing from you so if you have questions, stories or ideas to share, email me at bebehblog at gmail dot com.
