bellybelly.com.au published a great article entitled “10 Things Babywearing Parents Get Tired Of Hearing” here. It is a great list of questions that some babywearing parents hear all too often.
I’ve heard from other babywearing parents that they hear snarky comments about babywearing, and I guess I’ve been lucky so far. People smile and wave at my little one when I wear her and generally seem pretty nice.
I have been asked about whether wearing the little one in a wrap hurts my back (which was the first comment on the list). I’ve just explained that it does bother my back when I carry her in my arms, but when I wrap her the wrap distributes her weight and I can carry her a lot longer. I recently took her on a walking tour – we were out over three hours. I was tired when I got back to our hotel, but no more tired than if I had been walking without her! (The only time this question has bothered me is when the person kept asking about it hurting my back even once I explained it didn’t!)
I’ve had people comment that wrapping looks complicated (#3 on the list). In fact, just today I was in the veterinarian’s office with my cat and wrapped my little one after we got signed in. A couple of people watched me and one woman asked how long it took me to learn to wrap. I laughed and said it took me a while for the first few wraps and that I still can’t manage a good back wrap, but I do have several that I can do pretty well now. Others have asked about it, too, and the questions don’t bother me because I think it IS complicated to learn to wrap at first (and like I said, I still can’t get a successful back wrap!).
I get questions about how the wrap works, what it is called, and where I learned to wrap. None of the questions have been sarcastic or ugly, though – they’ve been from people who are genuinely interested. When we were at the airport recently, a woman came up to me and asked how I did the wrap because her daughter wraps but she hadn’t seen one like I was wearing (it was a FCC). I showed her and chatted for a minute.
Babywearing isn’t mainstream, so I think when I’m out with my little one in public I’m an ambassador for babywearing. I love it so much and it has helped me with my little one so much. I get so much joy from this, and I love to share the joy!
I know one day I might get some snarky comments. I just hope I manage to handle them gracefully.