Newborn Woven Wrap Carries For Beginners

One of the posts I’ve been wanting to write for a while now is my newborn woven wrap carries for beginners. It’s the sort of post that I’d have really benefitted from when I was researching babywearing while pregnant and when I’d first started wrapping. One of the great benefits of both of these carries is that they provide extra neck support for a newborn. I struggled to master the rolled up muslin trick in the top rail, so these carries were ideal for me!

Newborn Woven Wrap Carries For Beginners: Front Wrap Cross Carry Tied At Shoulder

The first carry is a front wrap cross carry tied at the shoulder (FWCC TAS). This is a great carry to do with a base -1 wrap (one size shorter than you need for a standard FWCC tied in back). Using a wrap that’s one size smaller than your base length gives you extra tail to play with and allows you to create really good neck support with the longer tail. Using a longer wrap also gives you a margin of error. So if your middle marker isn’t where it should be, it’s unlikely to cause you too many problems.

It's A Sling Thing, newborn woven wrap carries for beginners, — FWCC TUB

As the title suggests, these are carries that are ideal for beginners, so I’m going to talk you through them step by step (or as much as needed without repeating what others have said way better than I could).

FWCC tied under bum (TUB) was the first carry I learned. I felt a little overwhelmed with the length of fabric that a (long) size 6 gave. Possibly because I’d struggled with a stretchy wrap. So I opted to work on carries with a shorter wrap (my size 4 Baby Monkey Symphony wrap) first. I watched a few tutorials on YouTube and then tried wrapping along with them. I particularly like Wrapping Rachel’s newborn specific video.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS_HWVRVf3w[/embedyt]

However, I didn’t feel this would give Elise enough neck support for the awful pavements we’d be trying to navigate using my wheelchair. So I practiced it around the house until I was a little more confident at tying it. At this point, I started tying a half knot and then working it up carefully to the same level as Elise’s neck, before making it into a square or granny knot. I was then able to tuck the longer tail under and then round the shoulder strap on the opposite side to the knot.

I’m wasn’t keen on using a FWCC TAS past about 3 months. I found that, as Elise got heavier, this carry didn’t distribute her weight as well as I needed. However, it was an ideal newborn carry.

Newborn Woven Wrap Carries For Beginners: Front Reinforced Torso Carry With A Pond Finish

Once I’d got the hang of FWCC TAS and Elise was getting heavier, I started to attempt a Front Reinforced Torso Carry (FRTC) with Pond Finish. This is a fantastic carry to move onto once you’ve mastered the basics of FWCC (one or more variations), because it starts exactly the same way!

Rather than describing how to do this carry, I suggest you take a look a Wraplena’s tutorial. You’ll need a base +1 wrap for this carry, since it uses more material than a FWCC tied behind.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47UbxSXJP30[/embedyt]

The pass that goes under your arm and comes across to create the pond finish gives great neck support. In a very similar way to using the extra tail from a FWCC TAS. Personally, I found starting with a base +2 wrap helpful, as it gave me more tail to grab onto and was more forgiving of a sloppy learner’s wrap job! This is partly because I started with my middle marker in a different place to allow me to tie in front so that I didn’t have a knot on my back when I was sitting down. The extra tails were more forgiving if I didn’t get my middle marker in exactly the right place.