YO MAMA: “It’s just that easy!”

OPINION

It was finally here, that momentous day the kid turned six months old and could, at long last, safely ride in the back carry position of the baby carrier. It was an exciting occasion for both of us; for the kid, it meant a much better view, and for me, an end to the crippling back pain of the front carry position.

I had fully embraced what is called “baby-wearing” during my maternity leave. What a funny term, if you think about it. Tiny humans: the ultimate fashion accessory. Goes with black leggings and spit-up stained t-shirts. There is even a book called “The Art (and Science) of Wearing Your Baby” by celebrity doctor William Sears. There are a long list of benefits to baby-wearing, the most magical of which is the ability to get stuff done.

I’d mastered the front carry position; just buckle up the belt, plop the kid in like a baby kangaroo and away you go. The back carry was a little more complicated. The instructions themselves were cryptic and seemed to presume a prior knowledge of acrobatics.

“Bring your baby to your chest with legs on either side of you and with one hand supporting the baby,” the manual said. “Begin to shift baby’s weight to the back. Bouncing slightly will help.”

The diagram made it look like a Cirque du Soleil act with baby’s life literally hanging in the balance. You had to start in the front carry position and then do a kind of bounce-and-shimmy maneuver to shift your baby to the back, all while sliding your arm through the straps and, most importantly, preventing your little one — who you lose sight of after step 2 — from falling out. It was like a game of trust, and I did not trust my baby to avoid certain death.

I tried putting it on over the bed to “prevent injury” as the manual suggested and ended up with the kid on my head, pulling out my (greying) hair. He had started climbing out halfway through the process, using my hair as a grappling line. The instructions seemed to assume you had a baby who agreed to stay motionless for five seconds.

The second attempt wasn’t much better; I tried to go faster so the kid wouldn’t have time to climb out and we ended up thoroughly tangled with his head sticking out where his arm should have been. The whole thing kind of felt like trying on a complicated dress that’s two sizes too small while getting attacked by a lemur. “Bouncing slightly” did NOT help but it did make me look like a crazed boxer getting psyched up before a match.

By the third attempt, the kid was edgy and annoyed and stiffened his entire body so that I couldn’t get his legs through the openings at all. Turns out, there was an art to this whole baby-wearing thing after all.

I turned to YouTube where I found the following video.

It opens with some obnoxiously chipper music, the kind that you’d hear at the beginning of a kid’s show. Then — surprise! — they have a daddy doing the demo. But he doesn’t look like a real dad. There’s a flat belly — the kind you know has washboard abs under the t-shirt — where the dad-bod is supposed to be. His hair is freshly cut and he has a Colgate smile. He looks like he’s had a solid 9 hour sleep and is probably a vegan.

The child in the demo is Baby Dylan. Unlike my child, Baby Dylan is calm and cooperative.

He looks impossibly mellow and chill, almost like he’s been given some baby Tylenol right before the shoot.

Baby Dylan sits comfortably on Ergo Dad’s hip and the two “bounce slightly” to the music as if they’re at a summer music festival. At this point, the video even goes into slow motion so you can really appreciate the moment they are sharing. Baby Dylan is 100% compliant as Ergo Dad shifts him to the back and buckles him up, no monkeying around whatsoever.

The video ends with the words “It’s just that easy!” Kind of cheeky, like they know they’re lying.

It was demoralizing. Baby Dylan and his fake dad made it look so effortless and easy.

It was in the comments section that I found what I really needed.

“damn. i NEVER smile that much while trying to put this contraption on. its more like trying not to swear in front of the baby…” wrote one parent.

“Step 10, Have an awesomely muscular body to manage all these maneuvers! :)” said another.

“Not only was this super helpful, because I had been doing it wrong, but it was extremely enjoyable to watch - that is one handsome dad!”

”anybody else think that his wife threatened to leave him if he didn't wear his wedding band in the video?”

“Step 8: repeat steps if you were too distracted by this hot dad!”

And on and on…

Just like that, a bunch of strangers on the Internet helped me see the humour in the whole fiasco. As with most parenting skills that seem impossible at first, I knew putting on the carrier would only get easier and easier with time. I’d probably get it figured out just in time for him to learn to walk all on his own.

— Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.

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