And then there is this one:

See more comics on her blog: http://www.mama-is.com

Hands Free Nursing and Pushing Two Girls on the Swings

Let me explain, then I’ll post some pics to clarify.  I loosen the wrap a little, then lift Belle’s body so her weight’s not on the wrap, then I pull one of the crosses down from between her legs and around her body so that both legs are sticking out one side.  If I’m going to nurse her on my left side, then the cross coming over my right shoulder is the one that I’ll remove from between her legs.  Now that cross will be coming from my right shoulder, around her body, and around my left hip.  Her cute little legs will be sticking out on my right side, with the other cross still between them, and her head will be positioned at my left breast.

And I suspect that this is one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words so without further explanation…

Legs sticking out of one FCC cross.

At the nursing end of the Front Cross Carry.

Something about this particular position is very easy for me to get adjusted just so and does not require adjustments thereafter so I’m what you call a fan!

I was never a fan of the Front Cross Carry until now. I don’t know if it is because it shines brightest when wrapping with a newborn, or if my love affair with the FCC will continue as Annabelle gets bigger. I’ll let you know.

What I know so far is that it is the best for pretying, for popping baby in and out of, and for nursing.

It is also very versatile. After tying the front cross carry you can choose whether to wrap baby with legs tucked in or legs out, whether to put baby in a cradle position, or tummy to tummy, or in the high shoulder carry or a sideways position–both of which allow for a view of the world.

My Front Cross Carry instruction page was always lacking because I just wasn’t crazy about the carry. Well, no longer! I’ve done more videos of the FCC than any other, and now several of them are available on my website and demonstrate how to use the FCC for the positions mentioned above, how to nurse hands-free in the FCC, how to raise and lower the baby in the wrap, how to pretie and insert baby, and how to tie the wrap around your baby.

Nursing on the Ferris Wheel

Goat, Annabelle, and I

Sideways in the Front Cross Carry

Above you can see where I put Annabelle in the front cross carry sideways.  I figured it would give her a view while still supporting her in a physiologically safe way, and giving her a way to cuddle against me before she became overstimulated.  I think it’ll work great, but the fact is that right now all she wants to do, especially in a noisy public place, is nurse.  So she soon ended up tummy to tummy again.  Also known as mouth to nipple.

Once or twice we ended up stuck behind a clunky stroller trying to maneuver through the muck of the fair.  I was glad not to be so burdened, and also not to be burdening my fellow fair-goer!

I hastily assured her that Annabelle sleeps just fine in her cradle by day and in our bed at night.  “But not on me,” I assured her.  I was quick to defend babywearing from the implication of spoiling babies.  But upon reflection, I wonder at this obsession with not letting babies get too attached, and I wish I could say that I had answered, “I don’t know how she would sleep without me and I’m not interested in finding out!”

We don’t have to teach infants independence.  They’re incapable of independence– they rely on us completely.  As they become capable their independence will spring from the knowledge of security in our love and support.  Do we want to teach our children that they can sooth themselves by demonstrating that they survive our neglect, or do we want them to learn self-soothing from our loving example?

The fact is that infants are designed to be on their mothers constantly.  Mother and baby thrive this way and the more devices and conveniences separate a baby from his mother, the more benefits are lost.

Perhaps if our culture could shift the emphasis in child rearing away from convenience and toward constant nurturing, we might discover the “convenience” of satisfied, thriving babies; of children who completely trust parents; of neighbors, co-workers, and politicians who have all benefited from an early introduction to a love-filled world . . .

I’m not recommending martyrdom.  In fact, I experience relief from pressures when I remind myself not to worry about my actions “spoiling” my child by allowing her to become accustomed to sleeping in-arms, nursing-on-demand, and having her every newborn whim catered to as best I can.  Once I let those considerations go, I find that I am free to delight in the constant sight, smell, sound, and feel of my baby.  I am free to neglect the dusting, let the machine answer the phone, and wear the same outfit I wore yesterday.  I am free to spend hours relaxing with my baby and I find that catering to her every whim provides an enjoyment and satisfaction beyond anything I could get done while she naps in the cradle.

I’m not going to waste my time worrying that she’ll never learn to sleep by herself.  People all across the globe and throughout history have managed it.

Just my opinion but the only “spoiled” baby is the one whose babyhood is wasted on sleep training and feeding schedules.  Even then, the baby isn’t spoiled–it’s really just the time together that’s been spoiled. And there’s no getting that time back.

I came across it in my search for an acceptable birth control method.  Ecological breastfeeding is free, comfortable, and natural–it fits all my criteria!

Wikipedia reports that it has a 1% failure rate in the first six months of a baby’s life, and only 6% failure rate after that until the woman’s period returns.  Pretty good rates for something I was doing anyway.

According to Wikipedia:

• Breastfeeding must be the infant’s only source of nutrition – no formula, no pumping, and (if the infant is less than six months old) no solids or water at all.
• The infant must be pacified at the breast, not with pacifiers or bottles or by placing a finger in the mouth.
• The infant must be breastfed frequently. The standards for LAM (lactational amenorrhea method) are a bare minimum; greater frequency is better. Sucking should include non-nutritive sucking when the infant cues the mother, not just breastfeeding as a means of nutrition. Scheduling of feedings is incompatible with LAM.
• Mothers must practice safe co-sleeping as it is the proximity of the child to the mother that increases prolactin.
• Mothers must not be separated from their infants. This includes substitutes for mother such as babysitters and even strollers or anything else that comes between mother and physical contact with her child. Babywearing (using cloth carriers) means tactile stimulation between mother and child and increases access to the breast. Any separation from the mother will decrease the efficacy of ecological breast feeding.
• Mothers must take daily naps with their infants.
• A mother must not have had a period after 56 days post-partum (bleeding prior to 56 days post-partum can be ignored).

I don’t nap with Annabelle (I would if I didn’t have a five year old to keep up with) but she does nap on me, and I assume it is the proximity, not the sleep, which contributes to the effectiveness of ecological birth control.

And so I have discovered another benefit to the family of babywearing: it contributes to convenient spacing of babies and helps avoid the use of dangerous or inconvenient birth control methods!

Does it seem to anyone else that so many “modern conveniences” (strollers, pacifiers, cribs, and bottles) end up being more of an inconvenience than anything else?

swaddling

side or stomach lying

shushing, or white noise

swinging/bouncing and

sucking

If the author is correct that these five things trigger a baby’s calming instinct, it does explain why so many of us have had such fine results with wrapping which holds our babies close like a swaddle; which presses our baby’s tummy against our bodies just as with a stomach lying position; which exposes our baby to the constant sounds of our heartbeat, breathing and intestinal machinations; which bounces our baby with incessant human motion; and which contributes convenience to nursing-on-demand.

I say he’s on to something!

4 weeks old, nursing in the FWCC

Soon I tried nursing upright in the wrap because I prefer wearing babies in the upright position, and because this position allows the baby to change breasts without the wrap having to be retied, and it is also the perfect position for burping.

I wrapped Annabelle upright, then lowered her down enough to put her mouth slightly higher than the level of my nipple.  Then I just needed to make sure the parts of the wrap coming around her head were the perfect tension to hold her head right there.  Then tie.  I like the front wrap cross carry best for this, and the front cross carry works great too.

Nursing in the FCC, 1 week old

When nursing upright, Annabelle usually ends up slanted in a cradle/upright hybrid position.  If she is nursing on the right side, then the wrap coming over my right shoulder is more bunched up, coming from behind her head to over my shoulder where it’s bunched away from my neck and right at the ball of my shoulder.  The wrap going over the left shoulder is spread wide, covering Annabelle’s whole body and crossing the entire width of my shoulder to my neck.

In fact, I’ve found that my upright nursing carries sometimes end up looking like a cradle carry, though that wasn’t how I put her in!  She won’t end up horizontal, but she does end up at various angles and rarely straight up and down.  This is how it has worked out for us and it highlights for me the versatility of wrapping and the fact that you don’t need to worry about duplicating a precise position, but finding something that works well, even if it looks unlike anyone else’s version of a wrap job.  So chill out, get your baby nursing and talk that wrap into holding baby in that position so you don’t have to!

The trickiest part of nursing in a wrap, with both cradle and upright positions, is getting the wrap to hold the baby’s head just right so you don’t have to.  You have to realize that the wrap needs to do exactly the same job your hand or arm is doing when you hold the baby there, and the fabric certainly can be made to do that.  Just persist in tightening or loosening or adjusting until you get it.  A lot of adjusting can be done without taking your baby off the breast, and with your baby nursing, you may find you have uninterrupted time to get finicky with your wrap job!

Annabelle Nursing, 1 week old

4 days old, Nursing in a Hip Cross Carry

I began by nursing Annabelle in the cradle position.   With a newborn, I found that intuitively I used the wrap to hold her against me in the same position that my arms held her when we nursed on the couch: cradle.

This was easier than I expected.  I recommend doing it sitting down and using a front cross carry, front wrap cross carry, or hip cross carry–whichever method you are most comfortable and familiar with.

I’d begin wrapping around my baby, whom I held in the crook of my arm, then would latch her on before tightening and tying.  I did find that I almost always had to adjust it again once, sometimes right away, sometimes a few minutes later.

1 week old, nursing FWCC

It usually worked best if the cross that goes over the shoulder on the same side she’s nursing on is bunched up behind her head.  It can be spread across the baby’s body, but where it comes around baby’s head, bunching it behind provides a real sturdy support to hold the baby’s head at just the right angle.

And my baby, anyway, doesn’t like having anything covering her head, she prefers the behind-the-head method!  You can see in the photo above that the wrap on my left side is going around and behind her head, rather than over it.

I’d find that while nursing was essentially hands free in that I could remove my hands from the baby and still be nursing, it felt more comfortable if I kept one arm around her holding her on.  Luckily, it did not take long to observe that when I held her up with my arm, that made some slack in the wrap that, when tightened, replaced the function of my arm.  I just took the slack out while holding her, retied, and then my arm was redundant and I could put it to use on other projects–like actually getting myself a peanut butter sandwich!

4 day old Annabelle Nursing