Somehow, I missed the fact that the last week was national baby wearing week. The cutest photo ever of Sweet Pea over at Mostly Natural Momma let me in on the news.
This year's baby wearing week mostly revolved around a controversial Motrin ad that suggested that women needed pain medication because wearing your baby hurts your back. Now, I'm a big fan of wearing your baby. We have the Bjorn, the Moby wrap, and our Zolo wrap (in black!!).
But Iain weighs about 19 lbs, kids. So while I get it that Motrin's ad was kind of rude, and it certainly implied that moms are frivolous and mostly concerned with fashion...it does give me a backache to carry him around! He's heavy enough to be a real burden, and not yet old enough to hold himself up a bit (except for that one time coming down the stairs, when he was jostled and grabbed on like a rhesus monkey.).
Anyway, here's a nice middle ground: wearing your baby is fun and convenient. I don't know if it will produce a little Rhodes scholar, but it can't hurt. There are a lot of options for wearing your baby, and I find that all of them are pretty good, with some better for some things (ie, as Momma points out over at MNM, the Bjorn is more manly, and as I would add: the Moby wrap is warmer, so that's good right now but was bad in August.).
Baby wearing might give you a backache. On the other hand, with everything you have to do once you have a baby, who notices a back ache? Just don't take Motrin, whatever you do.
4 comments:
I am embarrassed to admit this, but I didn't really know that much about babywearing when Evie was really young. We used the Baby Bjorn for events and walks, but not much else. She was so high-maintenance, I wish I would have worn her more!
Some folks claim that babywearing can soothe difficult babies. I don't know if that's true, but it certainly soothed me.
There was a perdiod where Iain took his afternoon nap (3-4pm) on my chest in the Moby and *only* there. It was quite predictable, which was a rare quality at that time. And I got very happily accustomed to it.
I'll cross my fingers that you will wear Baby #2...
The part of the ad that I didn't like was when the lady said "now I look like a real mom". Moms need to follow what is best for them and their babies. We don't need major corporations giving us the idea that if we don't do something we aren't "real moms".
Personally I love babywearing and think all moms and babies could really benefit from it, but I would never imply that someone isn't a real mom because they didn't do it.
Yeah, that part was definitely not nice. I think the whole idea of a "real" mom is ridiculous. There are a million things you need to do, and decisions you need to make, while taking care of a baby.
And they're *your* decisions. So for anyone to say that this one makes you a "real" mom while that one does not...bite me.
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