Initial impressions were good. The material design was beautiful, of good quality and the stitching around the rings looked secure. The instructions however, were very basic. I needed quite a few attempts at putting the sling on initially and my first outdoor venture was a bit of a disaster as baby was wearing a very slippery snowsuit and felt like she was dropping out.
I then discovered Rockin Baby's YouTube channel and found this really helpful. I also got good tips from internet searches for example spreading the material out in the rings before putting on, ensuring the material is spread across your back and fanning out the shoulder material. I then found it a lot easier to put on the sling and adjust the holds to suit what I was doing. I particularly liked that when wearing around the house, I could easily spin baby around the back for a minute if I wanted her out of the way to chop vegetables etc.
I wore the sling on school runs, supermarket shopping trips, in the swimming pool changing area after getting dressed, around the house and even in the middle of the night when my baby was struggling with teething pain. My 7 year old daughter even wanted to try!
As the sling material is a good thick quality, it initially made it quite difficult to adjust when wearing, the more you use the sling, the easier it gets.
Negatives were: restricted movement on the wearing side and shoulder pain. When I wore to the supermarket I found it difficult to reach the higher shelves and difficult to pick things up off the floor when baby decided to drop things. Also after wearing for an hour my shoulder really ached as my 7 month old is quite heavy. I can wear my Mei Tai carrier on long walks as the weight is evenly distributed, however I can tell my baby much preferred being in the ring sling as you can see by the pictures.
In conclusion, I do love this carrier, I only wished I had discovered when my baby was born as I would have got lots of wear out of it. It seemed a lot more natural to wear baby around the house this way, it definitely calmed her down when screaming at 2am!
- Nadine Warwick from Nottingham.
