Are You Holding That Baby?
If you haven’t check it out yet I have a ring sling giveaway going on here. You could win a handcrafted, beautiful ring sling or your choice.
On that note, I found this great article at Forever Parents called Why You Should Hold Your Baby. The article tells one grandmother’s story of wearing her grandchildren and loving it, as well as seeing the benefits first hand of being worn and carried by their family. Most of us have heard “If you hold that baby all time you’ll spoil her”.
What a win-win: happy baby, happy caregiver. Unless she was hungry and only nursing could meet her need, carrying her in the sling would always make her happy, whether it was Mom or Dad or Grandma doing the carrying. Wearing your baby in a sling completely transforms the experience of parenting an infant.
Many of us that got to wear our babies remember similar experiences. Calm and content babies, moony-eyed moms with their babies near by. And, unlike fruit, they don’t spoil. Carrying your baby close to your heart provides you both with a connection, a security that will be very beneficial as they age. And trust me, they do age. Before you know it that sweet, snuggly baby is a fast paced child with no time for long snuggled on the couch.
Contrary to what we have been taught to believe, research shows that babies who are held and carried all the time and get their need for touch well-met in their first year do not become clingy and overly dependent. They cry much less and they grow to become happier, more intelligent, more independent, more loving and more social than babies who spend much of their infancy in infant seats, swings, cribs, and all the other plastic baby-holding gadgets that don’t provide babies with human contact.
True there are some babies who love their space, my oldest needed room to breath more than close snuggles. Luckily a big part of attachment parenting is not following some set of “must do” rules, but following your own instincts and your child’s cues. If your child doesn’t like to be carried in a sling that in no way means you are doing something wrong or not really following attachment parenting. Each child is different and need different things. Just be open to what cues you are being sent.
If your baby loves to be held and cuddled using a sling can be a great way to keep that constant contact.
baby wearing, slings, parenting, babies, infants
April 25th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Thank you for linking to our blog at Forever Parents. I’ll post your link also.