Baby Slings - Eliminate the Terror

If you know about or use baby slings, ring slings, or baby pouches, you are probably aware of and practice the principles of attachment parenting. William and Martha Sears coined the term attachment parenting in their book "Attachment Parenting", published by Little, Brown and Company, August 7, 2001. Conversely, if you know about attachment parenting, you are more than likely already wearing your baby in a baby sling or pouch.

Whether you use baby slings or pouches, the principle is still the same: you provide your baby continuous skin-to-skin contact. That contact, plus the natural movement of the sling or pouch promotes better sleeping, breathing, and learning behaviors in your baby. Baby wearing lessens post partum depression in many mothers as it allows them to keep their babies with them at all times. It also allows the mother a hands free way to care for the new child while still tending to other children or household chores, and helps mother and baby establish a non-verbal method of communicating as well.

The philosophy behind the use of baby slings and baby pouches did not originate with Dr. Sears. Baby slings are a centuries old tradition that we in the west had until recently abandoned in favor of the advances in plastics technology. The idea that a baby in a molded plastic carrier is easier to carry than one carried in a traditional baby sling or pouch is quickly quashed on the first outing. While in a baby sling or pouch, your infant or toddler "molds" to mother's body, in effect requiring only the space of one person, , rather than the two spaces required if baby were carried in a separate carrier.

Using baby slings can allow for longer breast feeding periods as opposed to the three or four month time span currently recommended by modern pediatricians. Slings and pouches also make it easier for the baby to co-sleep with its parents. Having a newborn baby sleep with it parents is another practice pre-dating the modern practice of pushing the baby into a separate bed and/or room long before the baby is ready for such independence.

Baby slings and baby pouches can be used by all babies from birth through toddler hood. The child, not the mother, is usually the first to be ready to give up the sling. Premature babies and extremely fussy babies tend to thrive in the intimate atmosphere of a baby sling. The natural movements of the mother's body as she goes about her day lull the baby into peacefulness or to sleep. The close attachment to the mother gives the baby a strong and long lasting sense of security and a general sense that he is well and truly loved.

Perhaps John Steinbeck said it best in East of Eden, 1952: "The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears."
Attachment parenting with its promotion of baby wearing via baby slings, ring slings, or baby pouches seeks to eliminate that terror.