Babywearing is a sanity-saving practice that has been around for millennia, providing many benefits for both baby and caregiver. What are those benefits? What are the different carrier types? How do you know which is right for you? What do you need to know in terms of safety,, and can one carrier take you from the newborn to toddler stage? Joanna McNeilly tell us more. Check it out.
To listen here, click the play button on the player above, or click the button below to listen in iTunes.
What we talked about:
- Benefits of babywearing for parents and for baby
- Can you wear your baby too much?
- How is babywearing like going to the gym?
- The different style of carriers and wraps
- Are there some carriers that work better for some stages than others?
- Why what you plan on doing while babywearing matters
- When’s the best time to try out and select a carrier (or two, or 10)?
- Babywearing safety
- With so many choices (and prices), how do you know which carrier is right for you and your baby?
- Busting some babywearing myths
Additional resources and articles*:
- What Is Babywearing?, from Babywearing International
- Benefits of Babywearing, from Babywearing International
- Types of baby carriers, from Wrapsody
- Best Practice Tips for Baby Wearing, from BabyGearLab
- Consumer Safety, from the Baby Carrier Industry Alliance
- Babywearing Safety, from the Babywearing Institute
- Babywearing: Everything You Need To Know to Wear Your Baby Safely & In Style, from Mama Natural
- Watch how to get babies in different slings on WrappingRachel’s or BabywearingFaith’s YouTube Channel
- Educational Statement on Baby Carriers, Seats, & Other Equipment, from the International Hip Dysplasia Institute
- The Oxytocin Factor: Tapping The Hormone Of Calm, Love, And Healing and Oxytocin: The Biological Guide To Motherhood, both by Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg
- Early contact versus separation: effects on mother-infant interaction one year later, research by Ksenia Bystrova.
- Brazelton Touchpoints Center
- The History of Babywearing, from Slingbabies
Related Birthful episodes:
- What’s the Big Deal with Skin-to-Skin? with Sylvia Houston
Courtesy of Joanna McNeilly
About Joanna McNeilly
Joanna McNeilly is the founder of the Center for Babywearing Studies. She teaches, trains, and lectures on all things related to babywearing and the parent-infant relationship. Since 2004, Joanna has worked directly with parents to assist their understanding of their infant, strengthen the bond with their new child, and have an amazing transition into parenthood in large part through the use of a baby carrier. In 2011 Joanna started teaching a unique curriculum using all she’s learned about people, teaching, babywearing, and infants to individuals across North America to enhance their roles as babywearing consultants and educators.
Joanna has been a keynote speaker at natural parenting and babywearing conferences all over the world. She is a founding board member of the BCIA (Baby Carrier Industry Alliance) and has worked on the ASTM sling standard which creates consumer safety specifications for baby carriers. Joanna is a founding board member of the international initiative for global standards for babywearing consultants, the IBCICC initiative.
In addition to her years of working with and teaching parents, Joanna trained personally with “Die Trageshule Dresden”, Germany’s leading babywearing school from 2009-2011. She has trained with the Healthy Children Project as a Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC), The United States Institute for Kangaroo Care for both Preemie and Full-Term certification (CKCP), The Brazelton Institute in the NBO (Newborn Behavioral Observation) technique, completed the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children’s Infant Mental Health Program, and trained personally with Dr. Karl Heinz Brisch in B.A.S.E.® – Babywatching Against Aggression and Anxiety, for Sensitivity and Empathy. All of this builds on her formal education around person-centered communication.
Learn more at www.cbws.org or follow the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, or in their Facebook Neighborhood, or sign-up to receive a free handy guide to babywearing which describes the different infant carrier types as well as where to look for help getting started with the carriers you already own.
Title music: “Vibe Ace” by Kevin MacLeod, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).
Sponsorship music: “Air Hockey Saloon” by Chris Zabriskie, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).
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