New Old Baby Carrier

We tried putting Evan in our Ergo baby carrier when we went to the Oakland Museum's White Elephant Sale yesterday, but he was less than pleased. He seems to be a little too small to fit in it comfortably when worn as a back carrier (yes, there is at least one arena in which Evan is too small). We saw some cheap old-style external frame baby carriers there, but we asked ourselves "Do we really need another baby carrier when Evan will fit in the Ergo any day now?" At the time we thought "No," but as the day wore on and Steph had more time to ponder her growing dissatisfaction with the BabyBjörn and digest how much Evan doesn't like the Ergo yet we started to regret not getting one. (We've used the Björn almost exclusively ever since Evan was big enough to fit it - besides the stroller, of course - but I've always liked it more than Steph. Our discussions with several other parents confirm that it seems to fit men better than women for whatever reason. I think it has something to do with men usually having broader backs and bigger shoulders, but what do I know?) After the morning dog walk nowadays Steph usually has a complaint or two about her back aching, and the situation has only grown worse as Evan has continued to pack on the pounds.

So as we were driving away from the sale we already were regretting not getting one of the baby carriers we saw, and later in the day things got worse. We made plans to go hiking/dog-walking at the Fremont Marshes the next day, and even though it was going to be an easy walk ("hiking" is really overstating what we had planned) it would have been the perfect environment to try out a new baby carrier. Luckily, as with so many of our baby gear needs, craigslist came through in the end. Steph found someone who was selling almost the same thing (the frame is aluminum instead of plastic, with the added benefit that the aluminum frame model is a smidge lighter and hasn't been recalled for spilling babies!) for the same price (only $15!), so we went by her house on the way to meeting Chad and Elizabeth (the friends we were walking with) to pick it up.

Problem solved! The new carrier distributes the weight of our ever-expanding baby quite nicely, he seems to stay a little warmer than he did in the Björn (probably because his limbs aren't splayed out as much), he looks more comfortable (again, the splayed limbs), he gets to do a little standing practice on the brace behind the hip belt (or at least he gets to work on his toe raises), and it even has a few small storage compartments for things like keys and water. I'd say its a win-win-win-win-win. Evan seems to like it:


An added advantage of the new carrier from Evan's perspective is that it gives him ready access to Mommy or Daddy's hair:

Two final thoughts about these pictures:

1. Isn't it crazy how blue they are?! The combination of blue jacket, blue bear suit, blue baby carrier, and blue sky in the fading daylight did a number on our camera's color balancer.
2. All of Evan's cold weather outerwear includes bear ears. I can't explain this.