Carry me!

My daughter and I had a lovely day out with her pre-school last week. To be honest, when she bought the letter home I thought it was a bit optimistic. A day on the beach at the end of September?! However, as you will have noticed, Summer was not ready to say goodbye and it turned out to be a great decision. We had a day on a beautiful sandy beach and they were all able to go in the sea.

We caught the train to get to the beach (the most exciting bit of the day for some of them!) and I had the dilemma of whether or not to take our trusty Mountain Buggy. I knew that she would not need it for most of the day but also knew that the walk home might be unbearable without it! I decided in the end that if I threw in my ERGObaby carrier it would avoid buggy/train issues and would mean she could opt to walk and get a carry when necessary.

I was really glad I had taken it but what was noticeable was the reaction of the other mums. A lot of them had clearly never even considered that a carrier could be useful with a 3 year old, whereas it is still an essential piece of kit in our house! There were numerous comments about how easy it was to use and we avoided the problem of crossing the bridge with 100 steps at the train station....result!

A piece of advice....when looking a baby carriers, think about the long term. Are you just looking for something to pop a newborn in around the house to give you a bit of hands-free time or are you likely to use it beyond those early stages when out and about? Do you plan to have more than one child? Because if you have an active toddler, having a baby in a carrier is far easier than trying to manage the 'baby in a buggy and toddler on the run' scenario. For me a decent carrier would be top of my 'essential baby kit' list.