"Should" I sling my baby?
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 12:55PM 
(Picture: the only photograph I have of Nudi in a sling)
Knowing that I have spent (and still spend) a lot of time carrying Mollusc, a friend sent an article to me just after I gave birth to Nudi, entitled "Why human babies should be carried". I have to say, although I am sure it was written with the best intentions, it rankled with me just a little bit as I don't like being told why I "should" do anything - I prefer to work it our for myself, thank you! I also question any post that purports to explain "why babywearing is the best way to meet our infant's needs" when each infant is a unique human being.
The thrust of the post was embedded in the tradition of evolutionary psychology, offering evidence to support the notion that human infants evolved to be carried and therefore carrying our offspring is not just practical, but in fact what we "should" do in order to "best meet their needs".
Which is great if you have a "normal" baby who wants to be carried: in the face of cynical health visitors who might tell you that a child will not develop properly and worried mother-in-laws who are convinced it will make your child "clingy" then it's a sensible way to explain why your child is demonstrating such a preference and why meeting this need is perfectly reasonable.
However. Let's consider writing this blog post: "Why Women Should Bear Children".
Yeah, good luck with that one. Really? All women? Even the child haters? Being in possession of breasts, ovaries and a uterus does not a mother make. How on earth would a blog post like that make women who were unable to have children feel?
Probably a lot worse than I felt, but I still felt pretty bad. Because, after around two years of limpet child Mollusc, who lived, breathed and slept either in a sling or attached to my breast, I had birthed a baby who did not want to be slung.
No, it was not that I lacked the right sling. From birth I experimented with stretchy wraps, gauze wraps, woven wraps, ring slings, cloth mei tais, padded mei tais and pouches. Front, back and side. Cradle carry and upright. Legs froggy, legs out. High and low. No joy, apart from the odd occasion where he deigned to let me hang a single load of washing before squirming frantically, screaming hysterically and tearing me to shreds with his fingernails. The same manoeuvre almost killed me on his journey out into the world, so I didn't much appreciate the repeated reminders.
So, reading why I should carry my baby kind of ticked me off. And smug reminders that babies who are carried and contented are the smart babies, the ones who won't get eaten by bears or wolves, kind of ticks me off too.
Because we are so bloody incredibly fortunate to live now, in a time where there are no bears. Or wolves. At least, not prowling the streets around here. And even if there were, I do not have to worry about my open cave entrance, because I live in a semi-detached house with lockable front door and UPVC windows.
Which is my point. Evolutionary psychology: great for becauses, but not so great for therefores and shoulds.
Great: This baby likes to be in the sling because dependent human beings were originally designed to be carried by their primary caregivers and I am therefore meeting a deep-seated need.
Not-so-great: Dependent human beings were originally designed to be carried by their primary caregivers, therefore all babies retain this deep-seated need and should be slung by their parents.
I am grateful to live in a world where my "unnatural" child is not automatically consigned to nature's rubbish dump, along with babies born with severe disabilities and all of the women who would have died during or after childbirth (myself included) were it not for expert emergency medical intervention.
Thank you modern world for blood donations and the infrastructure to collect and store two bodies' worth of a rare blood type, retrieve it from 30 miles down the road, and pump it into me before I bled to death. Thank you modern world for our reliable car, the children's car seats, the double buggy and the sturdy slings that allow me to get out of the house safely and comfortably with both children for hours each day to show them just how amazing and blessed their lives really are.
I just don't get this desire to shun modern progress as though it is unreservedly a bad thing, destined to ruin our children with its nasty gadgetry. Along with all of the pointless devices that do get pushed to unsuspecting and naive parents (I am thinking about baby wipe warming machines and this utterly wrongheaded iPhone application for a start) we have so much that makes our life safer, healthier and easier.
The 21st century sees us with comparatively excellent standards of sanitation, nutrition and healthcare. We and our children have access to a vast choice of toys, crafts, entertainment and clothes from around the world. We have decent transport systems that take us out of our local communities and into others, near and far. We can choose whether to seek employment, set up our own business, and/or stay at home with our children. For goodness' sake - we have the internet. That alone enables us to learn pretty much what we want, when we want.
Our children will eventually grow up to be active human beings in this wonderful world of possibility, not a world of caves, bears and savage, premature death.
So tell me which child is better off:
- The child whose parent feels that she should do things the way that they were done hundreds of thousands of years ago because it's "natural"?
- The child whose parent feels that modern advancement can replace the way that things were done hundreds of thousands of years ago?
- Or the child whose parent trusts her instincts and counts her blessings that today's world offers other ways of doing things that were simply not an option hundreds of thousands of years ago?
Because, when there's something beyond my intuition that I don't understand and I want to find out more about it, then I don't imagine what I would have done as a cave woman. I open my laptop and start a Google search.
[This post was inspired by Debs' attempt to sling Rowan and her excellent post on Poppycock, Jax's post on the sling thing and other parenting stuff, and Tech's post on feeding babies. I am happy to report that he's happier in a sling and a pushchair now, which makes my life a lot easier.]
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Reader Comments (13)
Baby wipe warming machines? I had to clean off the drink I'd spat on my screen before I could go and check they really existed.
Our first baby loved the sling when attached to my wife. When attached to me in it, she just screamed, and having a screaming baby attached to you is not much fun at all. I had to carry her, which was fine except it was for 23 hours a day for the first 9 months or so, at which point she promptly started walking.
Baby number two wasn't particularly keen on the sling regardless of which parent was doing the slinging, but on the other hand he would lie in a cot and even go to sleep. By contrast, number one co-slept until the age of 3 and although this seemed right and natural to us anyway, there was no other option. I frequently wonder how there was a baby number two at all, given the baby number one experience, but there you go.
In short, I'm saying they are all different. But you know that!
HEAR HEAR! and yup, all different :D
Agreed too.
Babywearing was a difficult experience this first time around, although that was also in part to my bad choice of slings!
Baby #1 co-slept part time for 9 months ( first half of night squezed in a moses basket- then into our bed), but then suddenly at 9 months wanted OUT of our bedmost decisively. It was quite had to take, a rejection of sorts, but the best choice for himself that we went along with.
Baby#2- sling happy, bed happy, pushchair happy. So very different. :)
*big round of applause* Once again, you've said what I've wanted to say for a long time, but not quite had the brain power to get the words in the right order! Brilliant post - one to print out and stick up on the wall and go to for a good dose of common sense when the "should"s get too much. :) xxx
Ciaran - heh! I think G struggled with M sometimes in the sling but we really had reached the point where I was desperate for some sleep. He used to get stopped by the police for having a baby in a sling. Sigh.
mamcrow - hope you are all doing OK - with your lovely family you will know as well as anyone that they are all different! What was your ration of "easy" babies to more challenging ones? Or did they not fit into either of those categories?
Lisa - the curse of the Tomy carrier! And C is still ike that re. bed sharing isn't he? I know how he feels ;-)
Debs - it has taken me a long time to be able to articulate what bothers me about the whole evolutionary psychology thing, and the bit that made it click for me was the idea of nature's rubbish dump... if you project that onwards you could argue the same for every bit of difference that makes human beings non-"average" (see my next post on M for a prime example) but now we have a greater capacity than ever to accommodate difference and diversity. Shame people like my so-called friend and Badders don't get that.
Oh tell me about it! I had a *friend* tell me that no baby under 6 months should ever be put down - it should always be carried/cuddle be someone. Well yeah, my son was like that, child number 4 not so. She loves cuddles, but she also loves her own space (hmm, like her mother maybe!!) and she would make it clear from VERY early on when she needed her own space!
No one is an expert in all children, mothers are experts in their individual children, eventually, but not immediately it takes a little bit of time to get to know the quirks of each individual baby, funny that even babies don't fall into the *one size fits all* thinking!
Lisa - none of my babies have been massively 'difficult' as it were - no 1 was a tough time as it was unplanned, i was at Uni and just massively sleepdeprived after a loooong labour and never really caught back up for a loooong time. But even so.... I only discovered ring slings with no 2, and that when he was big enough to sit on my hip...
so it's difficult to say really. they've all had their little differences - liking being wrapped in a blanket, NOT liking being wrapped in a blanket, falling asleep to Meat Loaf, falling asleep to Sigur Ross, not minding being in a dirty nappy but HATEING being in wet one, and vice versa, and hating both... Posseting a little/never/ALL THE TIME! etc etc.. After number two I had worked out that it was a case of sussing out the signels and likes/dislikes of that particular baby. Haveing more babies means you discover more options/things to try out, not that you 'know it all' (as some people seem to think of me - I assure you that's NOT the case!)
It's going to sound slightly wiered but my horse mad years really helped - all the principle is totally transferable.
Generally speaking - it was hard work after no 1, easy after no 2 (there was a four year age gap which may explain that) hard after no 3, and 4,5,6 all fairly easy really, because one more just dosn't notice so much anymore! Well certainly not AS much anyways :)
we're all doing fine by the way - Dot will be 10wks tomorow if I've kept count correctly, I just had to admit her clothes are getting too small and start switching out to the 3-6mnths size :-O
It's one of the reasons I opted out of the natural mommy forums. There were way too manyy shoulds, and that word doesn't belong in my vocabulary at all. Cannot STAND the one view of everything attitude.
My girl adored the sling, that's HER style. My girl would not breastfeed, that was HER journey in this life. My girl will NOT eat solids as most kids do.... and on and on. She SHOULD do this and that is not only illogical, it disconnects us from our intuition.
"baby wipe warming machines" ??!! BLINK
Tech - sounds a lot like me too ;-) I just can't imagine that people who have slung, breastfed and co-slept easily have ever had a baby who clearly communicates that their preference is no physical contact. I have read of some really extreme cases where close contact and containment is incredibly distressing for the child in question... It would not feel very "natural" to ignore such circumstances!
Mamacrow - oh my goodness, already! Bless her. Your description of your family is absolutely fascinating, especially the points at which you found it easier and harder. I remember reading a post about family size and spacing (can't remember who by) when I was pregnant with N and it struck me then that I wasn't going to know anything until I was actually there - one woman said something like "with two children close together it will hell on earth for the first year"! Happily that has not been the case :)
Mon, I think I would go a bit nuts if I read the kind of stuff... probably a good job I've steered clear, huh?! It ties in with the judgement post I wrote recently - it's one thing to support people undertaking those parenting practices and reassure them and others that they are perfectly safe/healthy/normal/whatever, but another thing entirely to insist that everybody does them! Very glad I have connected with you and others like you along my journey...
I guess the only thing a mother "should" do is listen to her own instincts and trust that she knows (or can work out) what her baby needs. All four of my babies were different and had different needs. The only time I felt compromised as a mother was when I let other people tell me what to do/not to do. It hurts, physically, to deny your own immensely strong feelings about how to be with your baby.
Liz, I just could not agree with you more. I've just had a related conversation with a woman today about the very real physical sensations that are caused when you deny those feelings. Not good!
I think mothers should listen to their own instincts and go with them. Easy to say if you have natural instincts but there are so many women who become mothers (myself included) who have no idea. You have this small bundle of person and a book issued by the midwives (Ready, Steady, Baby - any one else get this gem?)
I learnt mostly by trial and error and by having that rarest of things, a fantastic health visitor. The first time I saw her my boobs were engorged, my house upside down and I felt a mess. She walked in, looked at my baby and said, with absolute sincerity "she's fabulous, aren't you doing a fantastic job." It was the affirmation I needed and I could have kissed her.
When my fourth baby was born, I was put on a ward with another lady who had just had her first child. I was woken in the night by her crying. I went to see her and found out that she had been in the hospital for three days and was unable to go home because she couldn't get the hang of breastfeeding. Every day the midwives were sending the breastfeeding support worker to this poor woman, and every day her baby was barely feeding, and she was getting more upset. I asked her if breastfeeding was really important to her and she said she just wanted to see her baby feed - from her, a bottle, anything. When the midwife came to see her, I stood with her whilst she asked for a bottle. TWICE the midwife asked her if she was sure, and used the kind of tone reserved for some one contemplating an overdose.
She stood her ground. All I said was this was her baby to feed as she wished. As it happens I breastfed all of my babies for varying lengths of time. I am aware breastfeeding is best for babies, but not necessarily for mothers. I feel like this about every aspect of parenting - slinging, cloth nappies, co-sleeping, the list goes on. Thanks for writing about this.
kellyi - what a blessing that health visitor and her absolute sincerity must have been. And I feel terribly for that poor mother you describe - it sounds as though she was being bullied at a very vulnerable time. When you say that breastfeeding is best for babies, but not necessarily for mothers, that is precisely what I mean about the human complexity of situations. TBH I sometimes wonder how emotionally damaging it might be for a baby to be breastfed by a mother who resented every feed. it is funny - after having a child who gets so much emotional sustenance from the breast, I feel a little bit hurt (? don't know if that's the right emotion) by the baby who sees it only as a means to a meal. Already (just approaching 6 months) he is throwing himself on people's food with gusto and I am having to think very carefully about how the baby led weaning thing will work for him. But that's another blog post!