As caregivers who choose to babywear, we are modeling nurturing and loving behavior. As we wear in our communities, we are educating others about the numerous benefits of babywearing whether it be by simply providing exposure to babywearing when others see us out and about or by actively engaging in conversation about babywearing. But perhaps the most important people to whom we expose the benefits of babywearing are our own children.
Keeping this in mind, Patuxent Babywearing is so excited to announce the launch of a new program: Little Babywearers.
Little Babywearers is a lending library kit specifically for our littlest members! We hope to further encourage the natural caring tendencies of toddlers and children by providing them with carriers of their own so that they may babywear their own loved littles. Whether they wear a favorite teddy bear, doll, unicorn, dump truck, or blankey, the goal is to foster nurturing behavior and have fun while doing it. By normalizing babywearing early in life, by wearing our kids and showing them how to wear, we foster a new generation of caring and loving people that may one day be caregivers themselves. Siblings can wear their lovies just like their younger brothers and sisters are worn, or the toddlers that love to be worn can see what it is like to tote around a little extra weight for a while! By demonstrating safe wearing ourselves, our Little Babywearers have a role model from whom they can learn a sense of responsibility for their own lovies.
Little Babywearers Kit benefits:
- It’s fun for the whole family!
- Children wearing their own lovies reinforces caring and nurturing behaviors.
- Exposure to different ways of babywearing around the world- as learned from Carry Me- helps in learning about cultures that may be different from their own.
- Mini carriers can teach responsibility by holding children accountable for the safety, “needs” and whereabouts of their lovie just like their caregivers are responsible for the real babies they wear.
- Normalizing babywearing!
- Can help new siblings participate in the process of caring for a new baby by wearing and attending to their own baby
Each library location will have a Little Babywearers Kit (LBK) available for checkout. The same rules and guidelines that apply to checking out a baby carrier apply to checking out a LBK. A member may check out one baby carrier AND the Little Babywearers Kit at a meeting, both of which must be returned per the rules and regulations at the next meeting at that particular location. The Little Babywearers Kit contains a Boba Mini doll carrier, a Little Babywearers laminated benefits card, and Carry Me, a board book about babywearing around the world, all within a beautiful Girasol wrap-conversion drawstring bag that happens to be the perfect size for our littlest wearers to carry. Please keep in mind that the carriers in our Little Babywearers Kits are NOT meant to be used with real babies; Boba explicitly states that the Mini carriers are for toy use only.
Patuxent Babywearing would like to send a huge THANK YOU to Boba for their enthusiastic and great-hearted donation of Boba Mini carriers and to Starbright Books who generously donated the beautiful board books for our kits. These two companies were quick to jump on board and are so excited to be a part of this unique program! Please be sure to stop by their websites and Facebook pages to say thank you and to tag them in any pictures you’re comfortable sharing.
We can’t wait to see our littlest members enjoying these kits when out checkouts resume in January!
Happy Babywearing!
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