Babywearing: Woven Wraps

In the previous post in this series, I highlighted stretchy wraps. In this post, we'll talk about woven wraps. Again, this is a wrap because it's a long piece of cloth that you wrap around your body and tie. Woven wraps are not stretchy. They're woven pieces of cotton, linen, silk, and even cashmere (or a blend--cotton/linen is popular). These wraps are workhorses. Why? Well...

Babywearing: Stretchy Wraps

Stretchy wrap. Sometimes referred to as a Moby, because of that particular brand's popularity. It's one of the easiest to find in stores (other than the abominable Baby Bjorn).

Stretchy wraps are so named because, well, they're stretchy. Shocking, right? And they're a wrap, so named because you literally wrap them around your body. Because of the stretch factor, these make a fantastic carrier for newborns and small babies. They're also great because, since they stretch, you can tie the wrap on before you leave the house, and then just pop the baby in and out of the wrap as needed. Incredibly simple. Small learning curve, since it is a wrap, but really, quite simple.

Babywearing: Overview

Topic like this are so huge, it's really impossible to cover everything without an extremely long, uninteresting, information-overloading post. So I'm going to break it up, which will hopefully help it to be a little less daunting. This post is a (very) brief overview of babywearing in general.

What the heck does "crunchy" mean?

So, what exactly does it mean to be "crunchy"?

It includes a wide variety of parenting and lifestyle choices. Some people are definitely crunchier than others. I'm not, like, super-crunchy, but I've got a definite crunch going on. In my mind, parenting is all about doing what is best for you and your family, and that includes factoring in convenience and your comfort zone.

How it all started...

How I started down my crunchy road of hippy-ness is kind of a long story, so I'm gonna try really hard to keep it short.

It took us a while to get pregnant. Brett doesn't really like to admit it, but it took us almost 2 years to get pregnant. (My issues, not his.) It was really hard on me, especially emotionally, because I knew I was supposed to be a mother, and it just wasn't happening. After several rounds of drugs, we finally managed to conceive. During my quest to get preggers, I happened upon a certain website called Babycenter. I've always loved message boards, so I pretty immediately loved this site. Through it, I started to become aware of some parenting choices/styles I hadn't heard about before.

Introducing....

...my new blog!

I've been thinking recently about my gradual trend toward being a crunchier mama, and I wanted to start posting about it. But I figured my personal blog wasn't really the best fit--I doubt that most of my family is really interested in this stuff, so now they, and other followers of my personal blog, have the opportunity to read this, or to ignore it. :)

I'll be getting a few posts up slowly. I want to sort of introduce the beginning of my "crunchy" journey, because I'm a writer, and everything needs context!