DO: Babywearing Tutorial of XOXO Buckle Wrap

Brief About The XOXO Buckle Wrap

[TRANSCRIPT OF ANSWER]

“Hey y’all, it’s Britt Beason, your babywearing coach here on Birthpedia today we’re going to bring you a full tutorial of the XOXO baby co buckle Wrap. Let’s get started. So here’s our XOXO baby co buckle wrap. This is an amazing carrier that allows for infants from seven to 35 pounds. Uh, it’s got a really, really simple design, very streamlined. There’s not a ton of buttons and whistles, so there’s not a ton to learn. It’s pretty simple. 

So the first thing that I notice about this carrier is its convenient buckle. So it’s just a strap with webbing and a buckle. We also noticed that it has two very low long pieces of wrap that are connected to the buckle. So basically they took a wrap and they chopped it in half and made it a little skinnier and attached it to this great waistband.

Some Key Features of the XOXO Buckle Wrap

So it gives you the feeling of a wrap very similar to a front cross carry or front wrap cross Carry. But it’s with a buckle carrier. So let’s get started on how you’re going to put it on and how you’re going to put the baby in. 

So this carrier is going to apply flush at the waist with the label facing the wearer’s body. You’ll come behind you and fix the buckle, make sure that it clicks, and then pull any Slack out of the webbing around you. 

When we organize the carrier, we want to make sure that it’s in our natural waist position. We need the baby to be nice and high and close enough to kiss. 

The piece of fabric that comes first is going to go over our left shoulder and the piece of fabric that comes second, We’ll go over our right shoulder, creating a seat for the baby here.

The Right Direction to Wear this Carrier

When I was brand new to using this carrier, I frequently forgot which side was which and there’s a really easy way to tell XOXO to put this label. They want it to be front and center. If you happen to make them go the opposite way, they’re fancy brand names. Label would be on the outside and it wouldn’t be very visible. Surely they would not have designed it that way. 

So this goes in the middle, meaning if you’re doing a front carry, that outside piece would go over the right, which means that the inside piece must then go over the left. 

If you were wearing the carrier on the back, it would absolutely very simply be the opposite. The piece closest to you would come over your right shoulder and the piece further away from you would come over your left shoulder. That would be for an older baby.

Babysitting unassisted is when we recommend that you could start a back carry. But on Birthpedia, newborns are our focus. So today we’re going to be working with a newborn doll weighted at about six and a half pounds. 

Initial Mechanism to Start with the Wrap

So we’re going to take the first piece of fabric and we’re going to pass it over our left shoulder and give ourselves just a moment to make that it’s straight and not twisted or folded. Because when we reach back, we need to be able to grab on the other side and make sure that we’re grabbing the top. We need those two to communicate. And then, of course, the bottom would communicate. Also, ..this is going to allow us to effectively tighten the carrier in the right location. So a woven wrap does a really neat thing. You can tighten this side of it separately from this side of it, even separately from the middle.

So when we get the baby in, you’re going to see me talking about pulling on different sections of the wrap there. And that would coordinate or contract. Well, it would communicate with the piece on the front that you were trying to tighten. So you’ll see what I mean. Let’s get started. 

Protect and Support Baby

Pick up your baby and place your baby on your right shoulder, which would be opposite the first piece of fabric that’s already spread over your left shoulder. You would just support the baby with your right hand, allowing the baby anytime to settle or soothe if needed. Take your left hand and go underneath the pass and you can welcome the baby’s leg and bottom-right into this half of the carrier that is ready and waiting. My hand is still on the inside supporting the weight of the baby and I’m going to use my right hand on the outside to smooth the fabric and pass the excess over my shoulder.

Slack Adjustments

Once I feel like this is smooth, I can support the baby’s weight on the outside and remove my right hand, which allows me to add any additional straightening and tidying. So now if I just kind of shift the baby’s weight a little bit over to that left side, I can support them very easily with the left hand and I leave my right hand free to just go right along my waist and come underneath this last layer of fabric. And we’re just going to smooth that over so easily. It just goes right where it’s supposed to go. Pick up the Slack here. We’re going to make sure we’re tucked under the baby’s knees. We don’t want to hold the leg up. Baby should be able to bring their knee forward so we scrunch that in wherever it needs to be and pass any remaining Slack back towards the back.

So notice I’ve been supporting baby’s weight fully this entire time with one hand or the other. If the baby’s fussy at all, I would stop and give them a moment to settle. There’s no need to be in a hurry and there’s no need for anyone to get stressed out while we’re wrapping a baby. 

Left Side Slack Adjustments

All right, so once we’re ready to proceed, I want to work with the left side first because that’s the piece closest to the baby’s body. So I’m going to take my right hand and reach back and I should very easily be able to grab that piece on the side and I’m going to pull on top and then pull on the middle and then work it all the way down and kind of pull on the bottom piece. All this time my hand is supporting the baby right here. I can hand this piece of fabric into this hand right here. So I’m supporting the baby’s weight and I’m holding this piece tight, All with my left hand here, leaving my right hand free to do some magic. Again, I need to reach back here in this piece that is tight and pull any remaining Slack.

I want to show you this, a little wiggle of the shoulder. We’ll often give you that Slack release that you need. The trick with the XOXO, this bottom rail on both sides will always be the hardest to tighten and the whole front of the carrier will feel great and you’ll tie off and you’ll realize you’ve got some Slack here. So I always coach people to do yourself a favor before you tie and just check this outside extra and make sure it’s tight. Mine slipped out of my shoulder. I don’t want to wear it that way. I’d like to wear it up here, a little cooler and it gives me a little bit more range of motion. So I’ve got that. It seems snug so this side is nice and secure. 

Right Side Slack Adjustments

Now I’m going to shift the, I’m going to hold, the tightness here and I’m going to shift the baby’s weight into this right hand, which is my left hand to do the same to the other side.

So I should be able to grab it. It’s twisted, but that’s okay if I pull it around, I can see, I want to see the underside of this wrap here and make sure that the top is on the top. If I pick it up and it’s backward, it’s not going to tighten effectively. So take a second, use a mirror if you need to, and make sure that the top is still the top. All right, so you’re going to pull the top, hand it to yourself, grab the middle, pull the middle little shoulder, wiggle there, and then grab the bottom. Now we talked about the bottom on the other side, so let’s see. I’m going to pull the bottom here, watch around my back. As that tightens in, you can see it right there.

Hold The Tie, Adjust the Slacks

All right. So from here, everything’s nice and snug. Both sides, the inside layer as well as the outside layer stretch from baby’s knee all the way around to the opposite knee. The outside layer does the same knee to knee. Nice rounded seat here. So we’ve got, we can hold this with either hand if I need to do any adjusting. 

Secure the Baby’s Airway and Head

If a baby is struggling with open airway, you always have the option before you tug off. As long as you’re holding this tie, you can fiddle with things a little bit and open up an airway, If you need to encourage the baby to look to the side. A lot of times newborns tend to want to go straight into the body and they just kind of bury their face in your chest. And it’s a little alarming when we’re babywearing because we worry that they could suffocate. So a really great tip, if that’s a problem, just hold your baby’s head but drop away.

So, the weight of them falls into the carrier, which I’m holding tightly or I’ve already secured. But it allows their head to fall away and often they’ll just naturally turn their head and you can lay back and they’ll be turned to the side. And then, of course, you can always give yourself a little Slack and open up that side. 

Okay, so the baby’s airway is visible. Baby is kissable. There’s a couple of different ways you can tie this off. 

Tie the Knot 

XOXO says you can just tie this in a nice, neat knot down here. I’m a little bit of a smaller around person, so I’ve got a lot of extras, it’s also perfectly okay to just crisscross here under the legs. 

Also for even smaller babies, you do have the option to criss-cross over the top of their back and come around here wherever the support you need is where you can put it.

So either way, we come around, we’re going to tie this into a nice tight, double knot. 

All Right, So there is the XOXO baby co buckle wrap. We’ve got a nice secure wrap for a newborn, close enough to kiss, nice rounded spine, knees above the hips. Baby moves with us. Good to go. It’s absolutely very comfortable. 

XOXO Buckle Wrap Accommodation

This carrier allows for children from seven to 35 pounds. It will accommodate front carries for newborns, hip carries for children with upper back control, and then back carries from sitting on assisted. 

Know The Speaker

Thanks so much for watching. I’m Britt Beason, your babywearing coach from tropical babywearing. Check out all the rest of our tutorial work on Birthpedia. I can’t wait to see you there.”