A couple weeks ago I read a post about baby wearing. I have to say, at first I kind of didn’t get it.

But I thought about it in the days following, because, honestly, despite me being on my third child now and being used to wearing my babies, I hadn’t really ever thought about it in terms of the psychological aspect for the baby.

When the baby is facing out, like in a stroller or an outward facing carrier, the stimulus can be overwhelming. As stated by Dr. Evelin Kirkilionis on the Ergo baby site, “In this position the baby cannot make eye contact with his or her parent to evaluate facial expressions, social cues, and so forth to make assessment of the situation.” Which can mean stress and insecurity for the baby. Even in my sling, I realized that it is difficult for my little one to see me, even when she’s facing inwards.

So I thought about it a lot. And then I started watching an amazing video course on attachment parenting, called the Power to Parent by Gordon Neufeld (which I already mentioned before, but I just have to keep mentioning it because it is so amazing. SO. AMAZING.)

Well. One of the things he mentioned was that in all indigenous and tribal cultures, nobody had to teach them how to parent. And nobody ever had to teach them attachment parenting. They just do it instinctively. He said if you need a real live model of attachment parenting, just look to them.

So I thought a lot about that.

And I realized that one thing they all have in common is that they all wear their babies on their back. And as I thought about that, I realized that I didn’t have a proper baby carrier for that. And I didn’t have a baby carrier that was comfortable enough for me to carry Fiona for extended periods of time. Especially when I was in the kitchen, she would just get in the way if she was in the sling.

And then I thought again about the post about baby wearing. I mentioned it to my sister, who also has a baby, and we talked and thought and talked and thought.

The first level of attachment, the way a baby attaches in the first year of life, is though the physical senses. And we wanted to be able to give that physical sense of security and reassurance to our babies. But not at the expense of killing ourselves, being sore, and not being able to do anything in the kitchen.

So yesterday Juliet went out and bought the Ergo baby carrier. I had never seen it before, so I tried it out this morning. It is amazing.

I went out and bought one a few hours later. The amazing difference is that Fiona can actually look up at me and we can communicate and talk while she’s sitting in the front. Not to mention how comfortable it is!

My brother-in-law, Shane, who grew up in what the rest of the world would call “The North Pole” (but we call Nunavut and the Northwest Territories), took one look at us wearing the Ergo with the babies on the back and said, that’s just exactly what the Inuit babies look like when they’re mother’s carry them in hood of their jackets on their back.

Bingo. That’s exactly what we were looking for: a little taste of the attachment parenting that comes so instinctively and naturally to indigenous and tribal cultures.

(photos from the Ergo baby website)