When Do You Hold the Baby?

When you go to the store and register for baby items, it is often overwhelming. It seems that there are endless products that you and the soon to be arriving six pound, non-verbal bundle of love and poo will need to survive. Will the baby be traumatized if her bum comes in contact with a cold wipe? How will she stay warm without the special 54-snap sack? Look at all the places for baby to sit. Do you ever get to actually hold the baby?

Recently slings have been in the news and several have been pulled from the market permanently. Like many other issues in human history, the current sling movement will likely experience a generalized suffering. This is unfortunate as many are well designed and scads of babies have been safely carted in slings for a very long time.

When you are expecting a baby it is difficult not to get caught up in all the stuff but be aware of the precedent you are setting. While it is inevitable that our children will become consumers of one kind or another, teaching them early on that they “need” all this stuff is a dangerous idea. The reality is that when the baby first comes home, and for several months afterwards, you’ll need very little besides plenty of burp clothes, onesies, diapers and several changing pads. They won’t even spend a lot of time in their crib initially. In fact, it makes an excellent changing table while you wait for the blessed moment when it becomes a sleeping area with convenient bars all around it.

When making decisions about what a baby needs, hark back to the days of early humans. Did the cave mommy have any of it? No and look, we’re still here! We have come a long way and learned a great deal. There are certainly items that help us keep our babies safe and healthy but a lot of that is being taken care of by the naturally well-equipped mom. While we are well designed to withstand a cold wipe on our bum, we are also wired for warmth, contact and general proximity that fabulous woman. You can’t register for that and it is all available for free.

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