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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think slings vs prams is a daft debate.....

200 replies

crackcrackcrak · 15/10/2012 12:38

I have both so what do I know.....
But I have friends now almost at war about it. AIBU to think its just a personal preference based in ease of use (both) that's just been hijacked as a superior parenting choice?

OP posts:
PurplePidjin · 15/10/2012 21:29

:o

crackcrackcrak · 15/10/2012 22:07

Gosh and I was impressed dd likes smoked salmon......escargot you say? (Pfb envy!)

OP posts:
GreenPetal94 · 15/10/2012 22:59

Most people who are very pro sling have babies who are not on the 98th percentile for weight like mine was! Yes, they just walk in the end and he's now a slim 11 year old.

misdee · 16/10/2012 06:34

Rainbow spiral, you'll be surprised, my 6month old is a big baby, ( I don't get her weighed but is in 9-12 month stuff). We have a few heavier/bigger than average babies at our meets.

scottishmummy · 16/10/2012 06:42

it's not slings it's sling parents.gushing on about efficacy of sling,corticostimulation,rapport,cognitive development.blah di blah
went to a sling meet thing, prams were considered wheeled prisons

it's just a sling,not fast track to superior development and woo hoo.dint let a product be so defining

fuzzypicklehead · 16/10/2012 06:50

Some of the sling-devoted folk are following a whole ideology like "Continuum Concept" or Attachment Parenting, and get pretty evangelical about it. Thus the sling meets can become a golden opportunity to compare the weave of their lentils and find out who has the crunchiest granola.

I used to lurk on a forum devoted to breastfeeding, and all the posters had tickers with their credentials: EBF (extended breastfeeding), BW (baby wearing) AP (attachment parenting) CS (co-sleeping) CD (cloth diapering) etc.

But somehow I found mumsnet (the shit pouffe thread, to be specific) and was immediately drawn in by the gratuitous swearing. Grin

FamiliesShareGerms · 16/10/2012 07:15

I have never ever ever come across the sling vs pram debate. Maybe something that has emerged since it was something for me to worry about.

Mind you, I do wonder when I see people pushing an empty pram and carrying the baby in the sling. Unless the pram's full of shopping (which it rarely is), that's the worst of both worlds (inconvenience wise), isn't it?

theodorakis · 16/10/2012 07:39

Fuzzy, each to his own I suppose but I know what you mean by Evangelical.
I am entitled to 11 days maternity leave, that isn't working days. I have a maid/nanny. I didnt and wouldn't co sleep, have to get up for work at 4. Ditto BF, for no better reason than I just don't want to. As for EBF, we had fish fingers and mash for tea last night. I am a great person and have a lovely familiy. I would have become very depressed if I had had to do it that way as I am sure a lot of the evangelical modern women would feel mortified by my lifestyle.
If I lived in the UK, would I be murdered?

jaggythistle · 16/10/2012 08:02

i love my sling and carrier, but it's a convenience thing, not an "i am awesome" thing.

i also got a lovely new pram for DS2.

will something explode in the universe if i am walking along with my toddler on reins and giant baby in sling? Grin

we had a playpen for DS1 too, he seemed to love it and still liked to play in it till he was nearly 2 Hmm

it was originally somewhere safe for him to play while we ate our tea in peace sometimes. Blush

i like wearing a sling, it's nice, it's handy (especially with toddler and new baby), but it's not a lifestyle FFS!

it does look bonkers having an empty pram and baby in sling, but it is handy to have one under the pram to calm them. or to put baby in if toddler is tired or silly.

i took to wearing my stretchy wrap under my jacket to the supermarket. if baby DS2 cried halfway round, or DS1 complained about him "touching me, mummy!" with his flappy baby hands i could put him in and get on with it.

TandB · 16/10/2012 08:22

I don't think there is a "sling vs pram debate" at all.

It's not like BF vs FF where you have all sorts of studies and an NHS campaign and experts arguing about the benefits. It's just one of a hundred and one parenting choices that some people use to feel vindicated and superior.

You are going to get people in all areas of life who think that their choices are the right and only ones and who try to push them on others who they perceive as making inferior choices.

So you get some pushy sling-users in real life, just as you get insensitive, pushy BF proponents, or rabid baby signing fans, or people who think that everyone should be vegetarian, or recycle more.

But the only place I ever see "debates" about most of these things - ie people actually discussing the pros and cons, or having a go at people who do things differently - is on forums. You only have to look at this thread to see a whole load of posts about how daft sling users and sling meets are - which is a bit ironic given the title of the thread!

I've been to three slingmeets - two in one area and one inanother. Two were great. Everyone was nice and welcoming and it was just about trying out different slings and learning how to tie them properly. I was FFing DS2 at the time and no-one batted an eyelid and I heard no negative discussion about prams or formula or anything "non-crunchy". The other one was less great. Most people there were new to slings and wanting to try them out and just chat generally, but the group leader was a bit of a pain as she was very, very evangelical about various "alternative" parenting practices and kept preaching about them. Unfortunately I was her main target because I already used slings/cloth nappies etc so she seemed to assume that I would want to "do" all sorts of other non-mainstream things. I've come across her since at a standard baby class and she clearly struggles massively to fit into any mixed group and is only comfortable with people who do things exactly the same as she does, so it is clearly a personality thing, not a "sling thing".

I have only come across one other very pushy sling user in real life. I was out and about with DS2 and had got out of the car somewhere and done a very hurried tie of the sling because I was only going in and out of a shop and didn't need to faff around tying it properly. I was rushed at by another lady with a baby in a sling who was desperate to show me how to do it properly. I kept saying I knew how to do it but was in a hurry, but she kept going on about how it would be more comfortable if I did it this way. I finished up getting quite snappy with her and pointing out that this was the second baby I had used a sling for, that I didn't own a pram and could pretty much tie any method of carrying blindfolded.

On the flip side, I've been nagged constantly by people about using a pram since I first started using a sling with DS1. Complete strangers seem to think it appropriate to tell me that my sling is dangerous/going to stop them walking/bad for my back/a daft idea/not as good as a pram/delete as appropriate. My first NCT group never stopped going on about how I should be using a pram.

There are people, particularly online, who seem to consider sling-use as a box to be ticked on the way to uber-natural parenting. I've seen people coming up with more and more obscure ways of doing things and almost seeming determined not to do anything that more than 1% of the population do. Equally, I've seen people who are happy to discuss the latest limited edition bugaboo and the relative merits of fancy changing bags till the cows come home.

I suppose the point of this long ramble is that there are pushy people everywhere, but that is about how those people are, not about the thing they are pushing.

theodorakis · 16/10/2012 08:37

On the plus side, having a baby can be very lonely. so what if you get a bit absorbed in something and meet people with a common interest? As long as it is a culture of support rather than judginess. Would I as a working, FFer etc be welcome at a sling meet? I hope so. I do draw the line at amber though. My dogs happily shared their chews and I shudder to think what that meant on the occasions we found them happily chewing on a half eaten rawhide!

theodorakis · 16/10/2012 08:37

And to be fair there isn't anyone on this thread who sounds like a loon to me.

misdee · 16/10/2012 08:42

theodorakis def welcome at my slingmeet. my only onjective is to help people, who want to, to carry their babies in a way that suits them.

though anyone seeing me yesterday with small boy on my back (20months old) may have been put off. he was being a pickle and determined to break out of any carry, and bopping his sisters on the head with a balloon, which some kind heartened stall had given him earlier. [sighs]

bigkidsdidit · 16/10/2012 08:52

Don't spose you're in Scotland misdee

I carry my 98th centile 22mo on my front every day to and from his CM but I'm pregnant now and need to work out how to do a back carry buy it terrifies me!

Must find a sling meet

misdee · 16/10/2012 08:54

i'm herts, so a bit far.

try naturalmamas.co.uk under the meets/local section.

bigkidsdidit · 16/10/2012 09:03

Thanks

misdee · 16/10/2012 09:05

also if you are on facebook join slings and things fsot, and ask on there about local meets :)

LadyMargolotta · 16/10/2012 09:10

I used both slings and prams for my children. I preferred the slings.

Interestingly, I have never had any comments from people about using a pram, but have had plenty of people making negative comments about using a sling - telling me it's bad for my back, bad for my baby. I even had a woman shout at me for using a back sling, and she whacked my mum on the arm to emphasise her point!

theodorakis · 16/10/2012 09:11

misdee, your kids sound great! I hate bloody free ballons, the bashing and fighting followed by the tears when it either bursts or flies away. Or in my house the dog eats it.

TenThousandGoodMornings · 16/10/2012 09:15

I think that was part of my problem with slings too RainbowSpiral. I'm 5'1 and was under 8 stone a week after birth, my baby is 91percentile for height and 98percentile for weight. It is not easy carrying her at all, in a sling or out of a sling and a pushchair is much easier. She doesn't like to go in a sling or a pram though which is another story

GrazingAndNotReadingTheDM · 16/10/2012 09:15

I was the most blinkered new mother ever. Didn't realise about all the mum tribes, that people genuinely judged FFers, didn't know the BLW was good and purees were the devil's work, didn't know that co-sleeping was a crunchy etc etc

So much that when I went to my local sling library, I thought it was a bit like a tupperware sale where they'd model them all for you and you'd be able to complete an order form. Ha! Arrive at crunchy lady's woo house, lots of dungaree-clad mums with their boobs out (not being judgy on the boob thing, that's fine, I'd just led a very boob sheltered life up to that point!), cracked a few inappropriate 'Christ I hate my baby' jokes and got lots of sympathetic looks ('poor thing must be in the grips of PND'). To be fair they were pretty nice in the end, just not my thing. I love my Bugaboo!

GrazingAndNotReadingTheDM · 16/10/2012 09:16

oh and didn't know I'd done a Naughty Thing getting a massive epidural!

misdee · 16/10/2012 09:19

theodorakis do you want one of them? i have 6 childre, am sure i can spare one Wink

TenThousandGoodMornings · 16/10/2012 09:21

I was at my sling meet with a baby that screamed blue murder at any attempt to put her in a sling, all the other babies seemed happy enough. Cue me getting more and more stressed as people tried to suggest different carries etc, she would not have it!

Final diagnosis was she hadn't been put in one earlier enough - she was 3 weeks old when I first went! Lots of mums telling me their baby had been in them since birth... I think it's a lovely idea but it doesn't work for every one just like lots of baby related things - breastfeeding / natural birth etc.

theodorakis · 16/10/2012 09:21

I'll swap you for a Great Dane. How I have ended up with the blasted thing I will never know. Last time I ever look into a hedge on my way to work again. He is huge and will be able to wear the other 5 no problem but he might chew the straps.

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