Hello beautiful readers, I want to introduce you to Ellen today. I met Ellen through my online network community SSH.
I really wish I had met Ellen when I had my second baby a million years ago as I would of been all over this!!!
I cannot wait to share her with you all. Ellen is a qualified and insured Babywearing Consultant. She helps you choose the right type of carrier for you and your family and feel confident and happy carrying your children. Ellen provides online courses as well as 1:1 sessions. You can buy wraps or even hire them from her too.
Ellen also happens to be the most beautiful soul, she's open, kind, gentle, patient and loving, she is the perfect teacher!
So now I am going to hand you over to Ellen as she has written this beautiful post for us all. If you would like to connect to Ellen you can contact her via her website or via her instagram account.
---------------------------------------------------------- Over to Ellen -------------------------
Stillness and parenthood are not two words you would normally associate with each other...but I do think becoming a parent can have the effect of forcing you to slow down.
When my eldest daughter arrived nearly nine years ago, I went from a busy and fun 9-5 job in Central London to suddenly being alone for large parts of the day, just myself and the baby. Time becomes sort of irrelevant with a baby. Night time merges into day. The hours either disappear and you suddenly notice at 5pm you're still not dressed, or they drag and feel vast and unmanageable. What I did decide quite early on is that I was going to have to go with the flow. My baby didn't have a watch or care for one for that matter. And that was ok.
Four years later my youngest daughter came into the world. Before she was born I decided I was going to need a sling. If I was going to approach things like I did the first time round and 'go with the flow', I would be needing an extra pair of hands. I tried quite a few different types with varied success. But when my youngest was six months old I discovered woven wraps. And I fell in love. I fell in love with the fabrics, the textures and most importantly the process. Using a woven wrap is not a wham bam there we have it kind of sling...learning how to use it takes time. It takes patience. Patience and parenthood are not two words you would normally associate with each other either. But in those moments when the four year old was asking for something, the baby was crying and the living room was in turmoil, I would get a wrap out and just start. I would take a moment to wrap it around myself and my baby. And these moments were moments of stillness. Taking a bit of time to concentrate on something for a while. Feeling the fabrics, noticing how this particular wrap felt compared to others, how it wrapped differently. Whether it was grippy or if it had glide. How thick it was, how soft it was, how the pattern changed once it was wrapped. Each time I wrapped I learnt something, I got a little faster, a little more agile. (Don't get me wrong, I still had absolute disasters of wrap jobs where I ended up throwing it across the room, I'm only human!)
Woven wraps are not a click and go option. But the process of putting them on gave me those moments of relative stillness...to think for a moment, to take some time to breathe. And once the baby was in the wrap, nine times out of ten, she would instantly relax. She was close to me, where she wanted and needed to be. And I could go and help the four year old.....and forget the living room, maybe even go and make myself that cup of tea I had been planning to make for the last few hours. Something for me.
1 comment
Ellen this post is beautiful… what a wonderful offering you have found within yourself to offer to the world… xxxx