Our instructor, Angelique, was awesome. We spent four somewhat long and intense days in a room full of 8 women and a varying number of babies/little ones (in august. in Houston) but all for the love of babywearing. And it was totally worth it.
The first two days covered basics but it wasn't just how to wear or even just how to teach a basic carry. We delved in to so much more than that. We also broke up in to pairs and worked on not just mastering particular carries, but also teaching them.
The second two days we covered a number of advanced topics, from back wearing to special needs. We learned a lot from our instructor but also from our classmates. We talked about physical development milestones and what is actually happening inside a baby's body and how the ways we babywear can affect that.
Now that the three of us have completed the classes we are classified as Babywearing Institute Scholars Beginning & Advanced. As soon as we each complete and pass our exams we will move up to Certified Babywearing Educators.
Because I cannot find my camera cord, I can't share all the "real" pictures I took, but here are a few of cell phone selfies. :-)
Ashley and I both traveled to Houston without our little ones so we used these fantastic weighted dolls we made. I must say, I wish I had made a weighted doll sooner! Despite being slightly more difficult than an live child, which really just makes you work that much harder and get that much better, they are perfect for practicing with. I really felt like I was able to try everything without worrying about if the baby was tired of being messed with and I was able to practice things multiple times. Most of the time a live child will get irritated with that.
Occasionally we borrowed a real baby for a bit. If you are in BWATulsa you may recognize this particular squish. She even took a sweet nap on me for a bit.
We did everything from your basic Front Wrap Cross Carry to the Wiggle Proof back carry to ring slings, as show here. We used long wraps and short wraps. In fact, I personally have a new found love for shorty wraps because of a few carries we tried, one I am going to have to explore in more detail at some point.
This was our little group, just the right size. As you can tell, there might also have been some bonding and silliness between lessons.
Somer Johnson is a Babywearing enthusiast and Momma to E, a bundle of energy. She is also addicted to cloth diapers and makes and sells wool dryer balls as SomerKnits. Occasionally she also carves out some time to knit, spin or weave her main pre-baby passions.
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