If someone told you they knew a secret to help your baby sleep better, cry less and learn better, you would certainly be interested....

Babywearing, the practice of carrying baby in a soft carrier close to our body as we go about our daily business, is parenting's best kept secret. Good things happen when we wear our babies. Babies who are worn cry less, are more calm and content, sleep more peacefully, nurse better, gain weight better, enjoy better digestion and develop better.

Babywearing benefits parents!  It enhances parent-baby bonding, is practical, facilitates breastfeeding, helps working parents reconnect, and makes transitions from one caregiver to another easier.

Most importantly, it allows you to meet your baby's need to be held while allowing you to meet your need to get things done!

Anyone can wear baby - mom, dad, sister, brother, grandparents, baby sitters, day care workers. The more baby is worn, the happier the baby is. And, a happy baby makes for a happy family

Dr Maria Blois

author of "Babywearing: The Benefits and Beauty of This Ancient Tradition"

Babywearing for Australian Mums

By Kylie Pash

Walk through any shopping centre or past any large playground and you'll see at least a few babies tucked snugly inside a carrier, held against their mother's warm body. Safe and happy, they sleep or feed, or contentedly gaze at the world around them.

It's part of a growing movement that's become known as baby-wearing, as more and more Australian mothers - and fathers - discover the convenience and intimacy of slings and other baby carriers.

Jenny Norton first became interested in baby-wearing when pregnant with her second child.

"I read about it in a baby book and it just made a lot of sense to me," she says.

"It's a way of really concentrating that time you have with your baby.

"You learn their cues, like when they're tired or hungry, and they learn yours, much more quickly than would otherwise be the case. They also learn to trust you."

Jenny says as a result of using slings and carriers her second child, a daughter, was a much happier, more settled baby than her first-born.

Having her baby constantly carried by herself or her husband also allowed Jenny to relax further into her role as a parent.

"With my first I was a very anxious parent. With my second I started wearing her from when she was a newborn and it just seemd to be so much easier and she was much happier."

For most parents of new babies, sleep - or lack of it - is a major issue.

Jenny believes having her daughter in a sling helped settle the baby to sleep more easily.

"She always had comfort, warmth, and she always had her sleep with us, while in the sling or carrier," she says.

"She got a lot more sleep than my first child because of that and she was always a better sleeper."

After her daughter was born, Jenny and her husband loved carrying the little girl around so much that they purchased a range of slings and carriers.

Jenny is now studying the effects of baby-wearing as she works towards her PhD.

Proponents of baby-wearing say its benefits are manifold:

• It fosters trust and attachment,
• More comfortable for your arms than constant carrying,
• Leaves your arms free for other tasks around the house or shopping,
• Comforts babies by imitating the womb's constant warmth and motion,
• Helps in bonding with foster or adopted children,
• Enables hands-free breastfeeding
• Can increase the mother's hormone levels and therefore encourage milk production
• When out and about, protects your baby from unwanted touches from strangers..

Although it's an ancient practice - tribal societies have been carrying babies in slings and pouches throughout history - baby-wearing has really only taken off in Western society during the last five years or so.

"In 2002, when my daughter was born, there wasn't much available," Jenny says.

"At that time I lived in country NSW and I couldn't find a sling or carrier anywhere. When I finally tracked one down through the internet, I certainly didn't see any other parents carrying their babies."

It's become much more common in recent years to see parents carrying their babies tied to their fronts or riding in a backpack.

"In our society there seems to be a general attitude that babies need to be independent - in their own bed, in their own room, riding in a stroller rather than being carried," she says.

"We're just starting to see that change."

In fact, Australia was a pioneer nation in the baby-wearing field.

When the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) first launched as the Nursing Mothers' Association in 1964, founder Mary Paton and a core group of foundation members gathered around kitchen tables throughout Melbourne to sew baby slings called Meh Tais, selling them to raise funds for the fledgeling organisation.

In perhaps the first tiny step towards moving baby-wearing into mainstream Australia, Mary was pictured on the front page of the Melbourne Herald in 1965 wearing her baby Nicholas in a Meh Tai while vacuuming her loungeroom in stiletto heels.

ABA spokeswoman Barb Glare says in her view, women should not attempt motherhood without the use of a sling.

"If you look through history, mothers have always used sarongs, scarves, some device, to tie their babies on to their back and keep moving," Ms Glare says.

"It's a practical way to do the things a mother needs to do.

"Human babies are little primates, they're that class of animal that need to be carried.

"They can't walk or move around independently for some time after they're born - a lot of people who work with little babies consider the first three months of a baby's life to be like a fourth trimester of a pregnancy, except they're on the outside so they need that constant care and holding."

Slings and carriers include adjustable ring or clip slings - worn over one shoulder to sit baby on your front, back, or side; wrap-style slings - a long piece of cloth tied over the adult's shoulders and around the torso, into which baby is tucked either upright or prone; structured back-pack and front-pack carriers; and pouch-style slings, which can be tied or clipped on to the body.