Choosing between a wrap sling and a Mei Tai.

[suiledonn]

Hi, I am keen to try carrying dd2 who is 5 months old. I have looked online and think I would like a wrap sling or Mei Tai. Just wondering though does the fact that you can do a front facing carry in the wrap mean I will get more use from it than from a Mei Tai? On some sites I looked at it said front facing is not as fun for the baby as it might seem as they get over stimulated that way. Anyone know if that is true or does it depend on the baby? She is already extremely interested in her surroundings.

You can do a front facing out (FFO) carry in a wrap. However, it will be less comfortable for both you and your DD than front facing in or a back carry. There are a couple of main reasons:

If you carry your DD FFI, the fabric of the wrap can be spread from knee to knee - she should be sitting in the sling with her weight fully spread across her bottom and both thighs (bum lower than knees). For that to work, her legs need to wrap around your body. If you carry her FFO her hips just won't bend the right way and so the fabric of the sling will need to bunch between her legs and all her weight will be on her crotch.

Its much easier carrying a weight that's leaning into you rather than one that's pulling away - a child's centre of gravity is such that their weight pulls them forward - so FFI gravity pulls them in closer but FFO gravity is pulling them away all the time. You back will suffer much more quickly if you carry a large child FFO.

DD has just turned 2. I've never carried her FFO and she's always managed to see what she wanted (I'd stand sideways sometimes to make it easier). If she was tired she'd also rest her head on my chest and relax. I still carry her on my back (either wrap or MT), but carried her FFI until a couple of months back. I don't know whether the over-stimulation thing is true or not, but I felt that at least I was giving DD the option. And I liked the cuddles .

Have you used a wrap before? I started with a stretchy wrap when DD was 2-3 months, and the stretch made it very forgiving - but it was starting to strugle with her weight by the time she was about 7 months and I now have a woven wrap and a couple of MTs. A MT probably has a smaller learning curve than a wrap, but a wrap is more versatile once you've got to grips with it. DD prefers the wrap to the MT at the moment, but that changes from time to time.

Have you come across slingmeet? If you could find a group near you you'd be able to get some real life opinions and should be able to give a couple of wraps and MTs a try. Would you consider buying 2nd hand? You can get some absolute bargains that way and if it doesn't work out for you you shouldn't loose much (if anything) selling it on - the UKbabywearingSWAP mailgroup and the naturalmamas forum are both UK based and worth looking at.

i would go for a mei tai for your first sling, simply because they're easy to use, easy to put on/off while out and about and the learning curve isn't anywhere near as steep as with a wrap.

oh and like tangle, i've never really done front facing carries with ds2 either.
he is 18m and still very happy being carried facing me or on my back

Thanks for the replies. It sounds like the Mei Tais are the way to go for a beginner like me.

Tangle Thanks for the info about forward facing and the links. I am not in the UK though and I have looked for slingmeets here in Ireland but nothing local to me unfortunately. There is a sling library so I might try borrowing a couple although I am looking forward to getting started so would love to have a sling as soon as possible.

MeiTais are great. I've always carried DS (now 2.11) and facing in has always been fine. He just turns his head sideways to see things - I'll turn sideways to look at particular things

Oh I've seen the Irish sling library and it looked really good - I was trying to find one in the UK and failed when I wanted to start carrying DD. Hope you find something that works for you

My only comment would be don't be afraid to try a few different MTs if the 1st one doesn't feel quite right. The basic principles are same with all of them, but the finer details (angle of shoulder straps, width of straps, padding in straps, etc) can make all the difference between an acceptable way of carrying your child and a really comfortable carrier - trouble is there's no way of telling what your dream solution is until you've tried a few and started to get a feel for what works best.

Actually I must try and sell on the 3rd MT I bought that just isn't as comfy as the other 2 (and then I can try and persuade DH I need another one )

Any recommendations for Mei Tais Tangle?

I am 5'3, size 16-18 with massive breastfeeding boobs at the moment. Is this going to make it difficult to get a comfy one?

my fave mei tai is my cwtshi

I'm really not a MT expert - I just wanted to try something less enveloping than a wrap while on holiday last summer so got 3 to try. I got a MeiTai Baby (narrow padded straps) a Ball Baby Overall (wide unpadded straps) and a Napsack (shaped wide straps and very pretty ).

I've got narrow shoulders and I expected the MTB to work really well, but I actually find it the least comfortable of the three. The BBO was great, but DD makes it clear she now prefers the napsack - my guess is because its more of toddler size and so gives her more back support. As I said before, though, at the end of the day its hard to predict what will work best for you and your child until you've tried a few on.

I was a 32G last summer - in theory you can cross wide straps over your bust (when doing a back carry) but I could never make it work in practice. However, I find tying it like a rucksack is pretty comfy and also seems fairly common.

You might be best off joining Natural Mamas and asking on there - they have some really expert baby wearers who should be much better placed to steer you towards likely candidates. From what I know there will be plenty of slings that ladies of all sizes use and get on well with so I'm sure you'll be able to find something that works