Natural Parenting for Non-Hippies Babywearing Meet-Up

I finally got to attend a Natural Parenting for Non-Hippies meet up! I was invited by the lovely Miss Emily of Joyful Abode, who has become my mommy networking guru for the Kings County area. The NPNH group is a wonderful source of information for local mothers in the Central Valley. It’s a great place to give and get help – and as a new mommy, I can use all the help I can get!

This specific meet up was all about babywearing, and was intended to allow mothers to share their favorite carriers, slings and wraps with other moms. I fully intend to babywear, so I was excited for the chance to ask questions  and play with other peoples products and babies. (I have to keep reminding myself that soon I will have a tiny little Tessa to play with and I don’t need to steal other peoples offspring, haha.)

I think that I am personally going to go with the Maya Wrap. It seems the easiest and less threatening of all the baby wraps I’ve seen and it would be easy for Jonathan and I to interchangeably use the wrap. I also intend to try and sew a couple of my own slings from tutorials I’ve found online.

I was able to steal a tiny two week old to try on the Maya Wrap sling. I am on such a baby high right now, you have no idea.

After spending a couple of hours picking the brains of local mommies, I realize that I have a lot more research and experimenting to do when it comes to settling on “the” wrap that is best for me, but in the meantime, here are a few reasons that – regardless of sling – Jonathan and I both intend to babywear:

Benefits of Babywearing Include:

–          The parents oxytocin is increased through physical contact with their infant, leading to a more intimate maternal / paternal bond. (Oxytocin is considered the “love horomone” or the “trust chemical”. It is the chemical that is released during orgasm and promotes intimacy and bonding. Some benefits of increased oxytocin: a lowered the incidence of postpartum depression and psychosomatic illness in the mother, overall lowered stress in men and women, men with increased oxytocin experience a boost in romantic urges and studies show that men with increased oxytocin levels are more likely to stay faithful in a relationship!)

–          Infants who are carried are calmer because all of their primal survival needs are met. The caregiver can be seen, heard, smelled, touched and tasted, and the motion of being carried helps continue neural development, gastrointestinal and respiratory health and to establish balance (inner ear development) and muscle tone.

–          Infants are “humanized” earlier by developing socially. Babies are closer to people and can study facial expressions, learn languages faster and be familiar with body language.

–          Studies of parent-child attachment, parental satisfaction and infant crying all point to babywearing as an ideal solution for most parents to provide an optimum environment for attachment between parent and child. Baby carriers and slings help increase the number of hours a day an infant is held, and there is an inverse relationship between the number of hours spent crying and the number of hours a child is held in a given day.

–          Babywearing allows the wearer to have two free hands to accomplish tasks such as laundry (or cosplay crafting, haha) while caring for the baby’s need to be held. It also allows children to be involved in social interactions and to see their surroundings as an adult would.

–          Last, but not least, slings can also be a fashion statement! They come in many different designs and colors and are available in many different types of materials. Can we say hello Comic Con themed wraps??? (Starts eyeing nerdy fabrics…)