Interesting Read:

‘If you hold that baby all the time’ (Follow the link to read the article in full)

“Contrary to what we have been taught to believe, research shows that babies who are held and carried all the time and get their need for touch well-met in their first year do not become clingy and overly dependent. They cry much less and they grow to become happier, more intelligent, more independent, more loving and more social than babies who spend much of their infancy in infant seats, swings, cribs, and all the other plastic baby-holding gadgets that don’t provide babies with human contact. We had all those baby-holders for my granddaughter and she spent a little time in all of them, but she spent most of her infancy in her sling because she was happiest there, and we loved carrying her and being close to her.”

Slings are different than front carriers. A sling is like a hammock. From newborn to the sitting-up stage, babies’ spines are best supported in slings because their weight is distributed along the length of the spine. Front carriers that hold the infant upright with their legs hanging down, can stress the spine because they put all the baby’s weight at the base of the spine.

We have learned that carrying infants is a vital part of nature’s biological plan for mother-infant bonding, and that it is critical to the development of trust, empathy, compassion and conscience. Carrying or wearing an infant in a sling, keeping the infant in constant human contact, and breast feeding on demand are the biological design for optimal physical, intellectual and emotional human development. Research confirms that carrying human infants develops their intelligence and their capacity for trust, affection, intimacy, and love and happiness.

I think what the article says is true. I would love to carry my baby around and keep him in constant contact. That’s why I bought a sling intending to carry him when he’s awake and doing my stuff hands free around the house. Once I’ve seen a very young infant (only one or two months) in a stroller and the much older brother was pushing him around rather fast. The poor little infant was shivering and his legs were shaking and his mother still didn’t bothered checking on him when we entered the lift together. I wondered why the mother did not carry the infant but instead put him in a stroller which is bumpy.

There are some mothers who advocate not carrying the baby or toddler even though they are crying and to keep a distance as they believe the child will be too clingy and will not be independent. I don’t like this theory and support attachment parenting as I believe every child loves a hug especially by their own parents.

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