8 Weeks of Baby Carriers

Well Lana is 8 weeks this week, and things still feel a little hectic here.  I keep getting hints of what “could be” in terms of things calming down, being able to balance work, fun, and necessities, but we’re not quite there yet.  It doesn’t help that I’ve been feeling more and more penned in, mostly due to the weather.  I don’t feel very good about attempting to go out places with my newborn in the some-teen degree ice and snow, sigh, so I don’t.  Hopefully I’ll be able to take some advantage of the brief warmer streak we’re going to have the next several days.  I think being able to go places with baby will make me feel more independent again, and also give her something more to do so we can start building a more regular stimulus/rest pattern.

But even if I could feel good about getting out with her weather-wise, I need to figure out how to carry her around.  This will be lots easier when she can hold her head up, but for now it’s a bit of a puzzle.  I have lots of baby carriers to play with (I am almost as addicted to the baby carriers as I was to the cloth diapers, with the same result of things not quite working as I’d hoped now but maybe they will when she’s bigger).  Since Lana doesn’t like to be “cradle-carried” in any of the carriers I have it makes it rough.  I have several: A sling-rider, a snugli, a baby k’tan, and a snugglebug pouch-sling.  I have also ordered a mei-tai carrier from a WAHM, since after my carrying experiences so far I think it will be *the* answer, but I haven’t gotten it yet.

So far the pouch-sling is our mutual favorite.  Everything has potential, though: the baby k’tan is way too snug on the cradle-carry to make this squirmy baby happy, and we need to wait until she can hold her head up before we can explore the other carries.  The snugli was a big hit initially, but now that she can see further she wants to be able to turn her head and look around, and the head supports on the snugli get in the way and it makes her mad (again, when she can hold her head up she may like it once more).  At first I didn’t like the sling-rider, because of the fit of the pocket where baby is sits so low, but since Lana hates to be cuddled close in the cradle hold it may actually work out well for a little while, though it seems hard on my shoulder after a bit: Lana has slept through all sling-rider experiments, so I’m not sure what she thinks yet.

The pouch sling, however, works for both of us – so far.  I seem to be between sizes for most sling carriers, between the medium and large usually, at least in part because I have a larger bust (as Michelle and Gina put it, I’m loaded for bear!) and I’m above average height.  So the smaller size is a touch snug (which from what I’ve read is ideally how the stuff is supposed to fit but is hard on new users) and the bigger size is a tad loose (which is hard for keeping squirmy tiny newborn secure).  I ordered my pouch-sling (think HotSling or New Native) from an online/etsy seller (here or here) and love it: I got a large and immediately washed and dried it so it shrunk, and while it *may* technically still be “too big” I think it fits just right.  Also, it’s spare enough that it’s easy to just wear around in case I want to pop her in it at any time, while the others are all a bit too bulky for that.

Here’s Lana in the cradle hold:

(That hold she never ever wants to do?  Yeah, she did it yesterday for this picture, probably because she was sleepy… I don’t have the seam or sides ideally positioned for it as I wasn’t originally intending to put her in this way, but it seemed to work okay.)

And a few minutes later when she started fussing over being in the sling that way we changed to the tummy-to-tummy hold she seems to love:

(Yeah, she’s asleep in that picture.  She was asleep about two seconds after getting into that position.  And she doesn’t have a bald spot, though the hair is much more fine, fuzzy, and blonde there: for some reason the flash takes out all the blonde in her hair so that patch disappears.)

Which is a great hold except, again, that she can’t completely be relied on to hold her head up.  So it works for around the house but I probably couldn’t go through a store with her like that (though maybe I could if I were careful and didn’t need much).

The mei-tai should let her hang out tummy-to-tummy like that (with her legs up froggied, which she also likes at the moment) but tie in a way to support her head as well, so hopefully that will be the solution for the moment.  If the weather ever cooperates at the same time she’s in a good mood (we may actually have some chances over the next few days) then we’ll get to try something out!

But right now?  15 degrees and “feels like 3″ according to weather.com.  It was 9 when I looked earlier in the day, so I suppose I should be pleased.  Brrr.