Back Cross Carry (BCC), and DONE!

We did it! The odyssey is over :). We finished off with BCC, which I really liked at first, but then realized it is not great for a wiggly leaner. Max was in no mood to be wrapped today and he was all.over.the.place while I tried to get this tight. Minus the initial pass of BWCC, this just didn't cut it. Plus, even with better luck with it in the past, he always seems to be hanging off my back a bit too much with this one. I much prefer the hybrid of this and DH that I sort of invented. (Link to video is on my DH blog entry.)

So here are the pics, in Natibaby Pearl 4.1m:

You can tell this felt awkward by how I'm standing!

Assorted Fun Carries

These aren't on the last COTW sequence, but I've been feeling brave, so I gave them a try. Both are interesting. The 4R's chestbelt has potential uses in other carries, although I wasn't crazy about the "inverted double hammock" carry that it's attached to. The sling ring carry, which is another form of inverted DH, required me to put one pass under Max's leg, and I think I'd have to find a way to get a pass under both legs to feel like it was safe enough. But the sling ring definitely looked interesting, and it has great potential to be highly adjustable.

4Rs carry.

Inverted DH with sling ring. Looks like a weird sweater :)

Jordan's Back Carry (JBC)

Jordan's Back Carry didn't work as well as GBC or SHBC, and that's enough for me. Starting with a shoulder-flip pass made the whole shebang feel uneven, and I had a heck of a time fixing it. And otherwise, it's basically GBC. In fact, I made JBC work by reversing the order of the back passes (start with the over-the-shoulder pass) and wrapping both passes under his legs. Then I realized I had turned it into GBC again. Ha ha. I'm not sad; I just don't think this carry is that great.

 

 

Giselle's Back Carry (GBC) and Secure High Back Carry (SHBC)

These are variations on the same idea: Back carries that start with baby in a rebozo pass. Giselle's calls for ruck straps, while SHBC involves a chest belt (thereby "securing" the baby in place right away).

I used to have big problems getting the tension even in GBC, because one shoulder starts over and one starts under. But I think I tamed it this time! It was high and reasonably comfy. However, the way the straps loop tightly around the shoulders always causes my arms to tingle; it must hit a nerve. I tied off Tibetan to avoid that issue. It worked, but soon I was getting the between-the-shoulder twinges that I described with BWCC. :(

SHBC solved all those issues. I got really brave and tried it in the grocery store parking lot for the first time! It's actually great for public wrapping because of the safety of the immediate chest belt--it's easy to get baby on and off. I found a chest belt with my 3.6m BBSlen much more bearable than with my diggy osnaburg. I wore Max for at least half an hour without any trouble. I did feel like the shoulder passes were too loose, but the chest belt locked that extra fabric in place, so the looseness did not lead to Max sagging. I didn't get any pics at the store yesterday, but did a quick duplication this morning with my squishy 4.1m Natibaby Pearl. This one rocks a chest belt because it is so soft.

I'm pretty sure Max was much higher than this yesterday, but you get the idea.

Back Wrap Cross Carry (BWCC)

My previous attempts at BWCC were disastrous. I just don't like chest belts--they always dig my bony breastbone, and I don't like the restrictive "cap sleeves" that end up over both shoulders. This time, I decided to focus on two things: doing the ruck strap version, and getting Max up high. I hadn't realized before that it was possible to do this carry high, but saw some pics of older babies comfortably riding up high, rucksack-style, so I decided to try it. (Obviously, a small, floppy baby would have to sit lower, with passes going over his shoulders. But Max hates this, and if he isn't high enough to see over my shoulder, he leans ridiculously from side to side so that he can see around me, LOL.)

DH, for height comparison.

It worked! It's a really nice carry, one that I venture to say that I prefer to a ruck, and possibly even a DH if I don't figure out how to keep DHs from sagging. I walked the same course outside that I tried with the ruck earlier, and this carry only sagged a tiny bit (I took before and after pics to make sure!), and some of that is probably because I played around with two different tie-offs. I definitely prefer to tie Tibetan for this one, as the ruck straps dig otherwise. Plus, the tails look really pretty hanging down :)

BWCC

My only complaint is that I got a pinching between my shoulder blades, which I also get when I wear a high ruck. I think I might avoid this by wrapping tighter against my body for support (or wearing him lower, which might happen naturally as he gets taller).

EDIT: Hmm, now looking at these pics, he isn't actually all that high. Maybe the problem is that he's too LOW, and that's why I feel pulling on my shoulders. Hrrmmm....

One trick I want to remember for the ruck strap version of this carry is that I started the carry with Max in a back rebozo, keeping the second tail OVER my shoulder until it was time to move it below and do the over-shoulder flip. This is what made it possible to prevent sagging while wrapping. This video shows it.

Double Hammock (DH)

Down to the last few carries of COTW! I have to admit, I joined in the thread in time to try all of these, but I'll duplicate them here and see if the extra practice changes my first impressions of them.

Double Hammock is my favorite back carry. That said, it isn't perfect, and I've found it extremely challenging. My biggest problem is getting it tight enough. Max always ends up sagging, no matter what I try. So this time, I tried it with my 4m DIY osnaburg, because it is short, requiring a tight wrap job, and it's very grippy. I wrapped, then walked around the block to test saggy-ness. Unfortunately, my stiff, unforgiving osnaburg caused another problem I sometimes run into--the shoulder straps were quickly very diggy, even after sandwiching. So I modified as a walked, turning them into a chest belt. Then, the chest knot dug :(. Plus, in moving the straps around, major saggy-ness happened. I'm not sure how. I ended up tying under bum and dealing with it, but my shoulders were quickly tired out. Hmm. This carry has so much potential, but I can never get it quite right.

Chest belt...didn't like it too much.

I did recently "invent" a modified DH--really a Triple Hammock, with the leg crosses built in and the ability to tie off at the shoulder. The link is to a YouTube demo I made last week. I still have the sagging issue because it's hard to keep all those passes tight, but it is very wiggle-proof, supportive as anything, and it's nice to be able to switch the shoulder positions easily.

Mid-length Hip Carries

My first reaction to these is that they involve too much wrap/fiddly-ness to deal with for a hip carry, which I tend to think of as a carry that should be quick and poppable. (If I wasn't planning on the carry being quick and easy up/down, I'd definitely use a front or back carry instead--they are all more comfy for me than any of these.) But at least twice in the past few months, I've ended up with a long wrap, a fussy baby, and a long checkout line, without enough elbow room to put him on my back. In that case, a fairly quick hip carry that uses up a lot of wrap is really useful.

So, I tried Hip Cross Carry, Coolest Hip Cross Carry (i.e., the hip cross carry with a slipknot), Poppins Hip Carry (which, ironically, is not poppable), and Robin's Hip Carry.

First, my new solution to the long wrap/long line problem described above: Robin's Hip Carry. Basically, it's making a ring sling out of a wrap, minus the rings (although you could pre-tie this with a sling ring). It was pretty comfy. I forced myself to try carrying Max on my left hip, which feel totally backward to me for some reason. It wasn't too hard to wrap, even backward, and fairly easy to adjust on the go. I used my 4.5m Vatanai, but could have used a size 4 if I tied under bum. I preferred the feel of the lexi twist and tying in the back. Here's both:

Lexi twist/tied behind.

Tied under bum. Gonna crop my just-rolled-outta-bed hair out of this one.

Now, the worst one: Poppins Hip Carry. This was also majorly unpopular on the COTW thread, so I don't feel too bad. It seems really unnecessarily fussy, for not much extra support. I think it looks weird, too. Here's our attempt:

Now, back to the first two carries we tried, which fell somewhere in the middle as far as usefulness goes. They are both poppable, which seems like a big advantage for a hip carry. Here's the basic hip cross carry. I found it hard to adjust. The inner rail dug the heck out of my neck and was way too tight, while the outer rail sagged. The only way I could think to fix it was to loosen the whole carry and flip the shoulder, a la Simple Hip Carry. It actually worked OK then, but you can see in the back view how loose the rail would've been without the flip.

Much better: The Coolest Hip Cross Carry, which is exactly the same as above, but adjustable with a slipknot. It's really just a hip-located Semi-FCC, which I already mentioned that I love, so this one's a keeper. A big plus is that it's more supportive than a ring sling, which would be my usual go-to carrier for a poppable hip carry.