Getting Started with a Woven Wrap and a Newborn

If you've got a brand new baby and a brand new woven wrap, look no further!  Woven wraps are amazing with newborns.  They are snuggly, soft, and supportive.  


There are many carries that work well with newborns.  Two carries that are common favorites are Front Wrap Cross Carry and Front Cross Carry.  


Front wrap cross carry can be done with a woven wrap or a stretchy wrap.  It's a very easy carry to adjust and is wonderful for lowering and raising to nurse.  


Front Cross Carry is a poppable front carry that can only be done with a woven wrap.  With this carry, you can pop your baby in and out.  This is a great carry for running lots of errands or for cold days when you want to get baby against your warm body as quickly as possible and then zip a coat up over you.  

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Front Wrap Cross Carry

This is a wonderful video showing how to do Front Wrap Cross Carry with a woven wrap by Kathy who is a babywearing consultant.  Her site is www.kathyheffern.com. 

In the video, you can see how she positions her baby's legs with her knees above her bottom.  She also leaves the cross passes (the two passes in front which each go over one leg and under the other) bunched which creates a nice structure to the carry, especially for a newborn.  Leaving the cross passes  bunched is safe in a woven wrap, but would not be safe in a stretchy wrap.  

Nursing in Front Wrap Cross Carry

In general, you should get nursing down and get front wrapping down before you try to combine the two.  Once you feel you and baby have a good handle on doing front wrap cross carry and are doing well with nursing, you could try nursing in the wrap.  There are two methods for nursing in front wrap cross carry with a newborn.  Some people keep baby upright to nurse, and some people do a modified cradle hold.  In either case, it's important to bring baby back upright and snug the wrap again after nursing.  


This video shows nursing upright.  She basically just lowers a little, shifts baby a bit to one side, and then nurses.  If she wanted, she could also spread the cross passes for a bit of cover.

This video shows nursing in a cradle position.  Note that it's important that you can see your baby at all times and that you move baby to an upright position after nursing.  

Front Cross Carry

Front cross carry is a wonderful poppable front carry.  With this carry, you pretie the wrap, and the put baby in and adjust.  Once it's adjusted, you can pop baby in and out of the carry without retying or adjusting again.  Front cross carry (FCC) is really similar to Front wrap cross carry (FWCC).  In FWCC, you start with a horizontal pass on your front, make x's in the back and front and tie in back.  In FCC, you start with a horizontal pass on the back, make x's in the front and back and then tie in front.  It's almost the exact same carry, except instead of starting the center of the wrap on your front, you start on your back.  

This video shows Front Cross Carry with a newborn.  I love this video, because she shows the carry with the wrap folded in half width-wise and then with the wrap unfolded.  Folding the wrap in half width-wise makes it easier to be sure that you don't overspread a newborns knees. 

Safety

When wrapping, be sure to always remember TICKS: 
Tight
In View
Close enough to kiss
Keep chin off chest
Supported back  

Your baby should be held snugly and well supported, high enough to kiss, easily visible to you (without fabric covering baby’s face) and with chin off of chest.  You should be able to get two fingers under baby’s chin and hear baby breathing normally.  If you hear grunting or snoring sounds, that is a sign that baby is having trouble breathing.  If that happens, remove baby and re-wrap being sure to wrap very snug and tight.  If you have any problems, feel free to contact us.  We can help you trouble shoot via email or facebook until you can come in for the next meeting.


Happy Wrapping!  If you need any help with your wrap, we'd love to help at any meeting.