Babywearing
Also called baby wearing, babywear, wear your baby, babywearer
Babywearing means carrying a baby close to your body in a sling, wrap or carrier. People also turn it into a verb and say they wear their baby.
How it's said
Ok, I quite fancy giving this babywearing thing a go.
I have trained as a babywearing peer supporter with School of Babywearing, and as a babywearing consultant with Slingababy.
To understand both the benefits and risks of babywearing, we first carried out a systematic review.
Who says it
Where it came from
Carrying babies in slings is ancient, but the word is recent. Pediatrician William Sears says babywearing was born in his own household, when his wife Martha made a sling from an old bed sheet and said she enjoyed wearing their son Mathew.
Sears is a proponent of attachment parenting, and his The Baby Book (1993) advocates babywearing into toddlerhood. Babywearing has grown more popular in industrialized countries in recent decades, partly through attachment parenting advocates.