Tying a wrap around a baby who is already nursing is often the easiest way to learn to nurse in a wrap, because instead of having a hungry baby becoming frantic and making you frantic while trying to learn a new skill, your baby is happily nursing from the beginning, buying you contented time to figure it out!

I would, however, start in a seated position, and not standing in the middle of a beach!  I made a video of this with Annabelle when she was very young, in our living room–on the very couch that she was born on, in fact! In this video I had already pretied a front cross carry. I sit down and insert her into it, latch her on, and then get everything tightened up so that it becomes truly hands-free.

Usually while wrapping up my nursing baby, he gets jostled off the breast at some point, and I just stop to help him get latched on gain, then continue.

Patience is important as staying calm will get you a lot farther faster than anything else!  If you work at it for a few minutes and it almost works, then baby wants to get down, or needs to burp, or even just because you’ve had enough and don’t want to get frustrated, go ahead and stop.  Work on it more the next time. You’ve made progress–take a win!

A note on nursing in the cradle position: Make sure you can see your baby’s face, and that your baby’s nostrils are clear and have access to plenty of fresh air.

You also need to be aware of your baby’s airway which is especially delicate in very young infants.  In order to keep the airway clear, be sure that your baby’s neck is not bent forward bringing your baby’s chin to his or her chest as that can fold the tube closed that your baby needs for air.  You should be able to fit two adult fingers between chin and chest at any time.

With my 4 month old I’m doing a lot of quick nursing. It seems that nursing is ALWAYS an emergency and once baby starts crying, the pressure is on!

So try to practice a few times when it’s NOT an emergency. In this video, my baby was not yet asking to nurse, so it goes pretty smoothly

This one shows nursing in a Front Cross Carry. This only works if you’ve got baby wrapped up with both legs beneath both crosses, a FCC variation I like a lot as it holds my baby very close to me and is great for impromptu nursing sessions!

So I’m putting up the video for nursing in a Front Cross Carry and a second video showing how I put Cassidy into the FCC variation in the first place. I’ll try to do a similar video for Front Wrap Cross Carry soon.

Switching to a Nursing Carry

Wrapping Baby Under FCC Crosses

We cloth diaper, but we aren’t stuck at home because wet bags make it easy to cloth diaper on the go.

We EC (elimination communication) too, but with a potty in the trunk and lots of bushes and restrooms, that’s easy too.

We homeschool, but that takes us everywhere but home.

Yes, I have a five month old baby, but I’m not stuck at home.  Thank goodness for my wrap!

• I can go anywhere with my baby without the limitations of a stroller.
• In the wrap we can nurse while shopping, wading, chasing, and reading books in the children’s section of the library.
• While wrapped up, Belle doesn’t pee, so it’s easy to take her out when we are near a public restroom and let her pee before slipping her back in the wrap.
• Wrapped up, Belle can eat and sleep on demand–so we don’t need to schedule our activities around nap time.
• Because she’s wrapped up, I have my attention free to point out to my five year old the seahorses at the aquarium.  And you know what, Belle doesn’t have to wait until she’s tall enough to see them too!

2.5 months old, Belle nurses in the wrap while I push Ada and her friend Mia on the swings

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?