Wearing Your Toddler

Ok, I know what you are thinking already. Here comes one of those “wearing your baby 24 hours a day promotes a bond that is everlasting” kind of vomit-inducing posts. (Insert scene from Away We Go where bed sharing, breastfeeding until they are ten, hippy mom played by Maggie Gyllenhall disses strollers by saying, “I love my children. Why would I want to push them away?” )

Believe me, I think strollers are awesome. The problem is Ella B does not. Since birth this girl has preferred to be in my arms and would stay there 24/7 if I let her. For the first six months of her life, I found solace in the Baby Bjorn, the most important piece of baby equipment I ever owned, next to the Boppy. Every time she needed to take a nap, I strapped her in and did laps around the block. When we went to the grocery store, family parties, or honestly, just walking around the house, she was in there. But at some point, the little nugget turned into a big nugget, and my back felt the difference. We transitioned to the stroller, and there are days when she is perfectly happy to be in it…for about 5 minutes. This makes it difficult to even do one lap around the block, let alone actually go anywhere. She kicks and screams and squirms so hard that I end up carrying her and pushing the stroller at the same time.

So, I started thinking about the summer and how the two of us were going to be spending a lot more time together and how I know we both go crazy if we don’t get out of the house and do stuff. I had visions of going to the park, walking around downtown, and taking leisurely hikes in the woods, and I knew that Beezer would love all of these things, too. But she is just too big for me to carry on my hip all day! (Though I do it quite often and do have one pretty diesel left arm).

Enter the Boba Toddler 2G! It is essentially a backpack that you put your kid in and can be used for kids up to 4 years old. There are lots of baby backpacks on the market, but this one is super light weight and sleek and can travel really easily, too.

So, we got the backpack and it really is awesome. It’s totally comfortable for both of us (believe me, she would tell me if it wasn't). Here is a cute pic of Beezer in the backpack at Veteran’s Park where we took a walk with my parents around the lake. The only problem is that it is difficult to put her in the backpack by myself. It is one thing if we are going for a walk around the block and I can lay her on the bed or the couch and spend ten minutes trying to figure it all out, but if we are already out and about, it is a little more difficult to maneuver, short of asking a stranger to pick up my kid and place her on my back.

So we are still working out the bugs, but once I figure it all out I think the backpack is going to be a great addition to Operation: Awesome Summer. I’ll keep you posted, literally.