By Susie Kim •
September 7, 2008
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The buzz word in parenting nowadays seem to be “bonding” and nurturing that bonding can be a lasting effect on having a loving and connected relationship with your child. I am all for bonding; therefore, I am also into baby wearing. Baby wearing has been done for centuries and even dates thousands of years. Hard to know that a carriage or a stroller is a modern invention. The plastic contraption that wheels your baby around is actually counter-productive to this phenomenon called bonding. But I digress, We have a stroller and we happily use it. However, I do notice that we are naturally more connected to our daughter when we baby wear Layla.
So what exactly is baby wearing? Baby wearing is exactly that. Wearing your baby to your body. There are numerous ways to achieve this. A Psling to a long wrap (pictured above) can achieve baby wearing. Many primitive cultures baby wear and scientists have discovered that in those societies, colic is virtually non-existent. Keeping your baby close to you also have great benefits. It frees up your hands so you can get on with your life, WITH the baby in tow. One of the most inspiring thing I heard was from Ergo Baby DVD. A woman worked FULL TIME while keeping her baby in the Ergo Baby. I must say that I was highly impressed with this. Anyone with a newborn knows; there are days when taking a shower is a struggle. So imagine working full time while wearing your baby. This is one of the tenants of attachment style parenting which I am a proponent of. I knew from the beginning that I would baby wear perhaps because It was so common in Korea, seeing halmonies (grandmothers) carrying their grandchildren on their back wearing a podeigi (a korean style wrap). So it was ingrained into my brain that this is what I would be doing when I grew up and had children.
By Susie Kim •
June 7, 2008
After my disaster with the Eco-friendly gdiapers; I decided to transition into cloth diapering. I ordered some Organic cotton cloth diapers before my little one was born; however, it wasn’t enough to go into full time cloth diapering. Buying cloths can be a costly investment in the beginning, (You will eventually save thousands of dollars compared to ’sposies especially if you have more than one baby) but now with Diaper Swappers; Cloth Diaper Exchange Forum; you can mitigate the initial expense.
I came across the Diaper Swappers when I was looking for a used Psling. It was interesting to find a community of cloth diapering moms who traded diapers (along with baby carriers) with each other. There’s a rating system sort of like Ebay, and there’s also a Wall of Shame of banned users. (could be anything from too many negatives to having too many different user names) The forum moderators seem to have a good system in place to protect the cloth diapering, baby wearing mothers to have a safe and friendly place to exchange their unwanted items for something they need. I really dig it.
I’ve never been a big fan of baby showers (my children had Blessing Ways), and the silly baby shower games annoy me. The typical baby shower involves massive amounts of baby paraphernalia gifts that the soon-to-be mom often doesn’t really need. A friend of mine recently asked me to make a list of eco-friendly baby shower gift ideas. This list includes babywearing items, bpa-free bottles, teething toys, clothes, and beauty products for babe. You don’t have to be invited to an “eco” baby shower to give a green gift.
Top Ten Eco-Friendly Baby Shower Gifts
- Moby Wrap Baby Carrier: This wrap is perfect for carrying newborns. It is the most comfortable baby wearing apparatus, and it keeps the baby snugly held against your body and protected from curious strangers and their germs. It is made from a large piece of stretch cotton and can be used as a blanket as well as a wrap. It is available in an organic cotton material too.
- California Baby Shampoo and Bodywash: This all natural, SLS-free baby soap is perfect for a newborn’s first bath. It is so gentle and safe, and it will not irritate eczema and cradle crap.
In searching for ways to green and simplify my families life, I often look to indigenous people’s practices. One such practice is baby wearing, in which parents can avoid the plastic strollers that fill our landfills and create a happy, bonded baby in the process. In fact, the Sacagawea dollar features this famous native woman carrying her child on her back. Many products are available for baby wearing, including some that
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