Babywearing Benefits

ANSWER: “Wearing our babies actually does not make them less independent. In fact, it does quite the opposite. Especially with neonatal and newborns, wearing them, gives us an excellent and easy opportunity to have our baby skin to skin, which is huge for breastfeeding, temperature regulation, sleep regulation and even breath regulation. Babies don’t really know how to do any of these things when they’re first born and they depend on us, their mothers, adult bodies to help them do this. So babywearing gives us the opportunity to do that easily.

Also, when we’re wearing our babies, we’re in a much better position to meet their needs efficiently and quickly when they’re right in front of us and attached to us. We know their needs and we can satisfy them immediately, whether it be that they need to be held or they need food or they just need comfort. We’re right there to give them what they need and therefore they build that basic trust that we’re going to take care of them. So as they get older, they have a very solid foundation of basic trust in us and they really exercise their independence a lot better as older children than if we spent a lot more time putting them down and letting them kind of work it out. That would teach a child to trust themselves more than just trust their parents.”