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We're Kevin + Courtney Gilroy: married best friends turned parent entrepreneurs.

OrganicFamilyCEO.com is the resource hub + like-minded community we were missing in our first days of new parenthood + business ownership.

Becoming a profitable stay-at-home family changed our life. Now, we help other current + soon-to-be parents have a healthy start to parenthood + entrepreneurship.

Learn more about our systems for running the business of family alongside the family business here or ask us questions here.

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Entrepreneurship

The Benefits of Babywearing for Parent Entrepreneurs

We’re sharing the benefits of babywearing so that you can consider the practice for yourself as you move through your days as a parent CEO.

Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Before parenthood, we never even considered being the parent with their kid in a bright-colored wrap sling thing — that hippy stuff was not for us.

But in our pursuit of organic parenthood — being honest with ourselves, following our gut + being open-minded to learning all kinds of parenting styles much like we did for entrepreneurship — we’ve learned that we actually did want to wear our baby in a wrap.

The benefits were undeniable.

Knowing what we know now, we’re sharing the benefits of babywearing (+ our favorite solid grey one), so that you can consider the practice for yourself as you move through your days as a parent CEO.

Let’s get into it!

No. 1 — Babywearing is convenient.

We underestimated how much we use both of our hands throughout the day to do simple tasks. Carrying our baby in a wrap freed up our hands for hours more than we would’ve been able to manage otherwise by simply putting our baby down in a lounger.

If you need to be on the computer for hours a day (emails, anyone?), babywearing will change your life.

[Related: Letting Parenting Be Easy]

No. 2 — Babywearing promotes babies’ physical development.

Regular babywearing helps a baby’s balance + muscle development. Instead of your baby straining to be near you from a play mat or bouncer seat, they have a safe environment for learning head + neck control within the comfort of your arms.

Moreover, instead of babies only laying on their backs or sitting in a reclined lounger position for longer periods of leisure time, this positioning helps babies to not have that flattened skull bone that sometimes can require a correction helmet or additional mobility support.

This is where babywearing can be another big productivity-saver. Consider the possibility of a baby being behind in physical development. There’s likely extra doctors appointments, therapies (physical, occupational, speech + language, etc.), tools + costs associated with such.

No. 3 — Babies that are worn are happier.

Regular babywearing lowers + stabilizes stress hormones. Babies who are carried regularly cried 43% less + 54% less during evening hours.

Can you imagine what that does for your productivity? To have a baby cry significantly less? To have a baby sleep better + longer throughout the night?

[Related: Bedsharing Safety Guidelines]

In daytime, one noisy interruption can cost you 20-minutes of work time to recalibrate your working parent brain. When you babywear + reduce babies crying by almost HALF of the time, you’re saving HOURS of your productive work time.

No. 4 — Babywearing is healthy for parents.

Regular babywearing strengthens a parents’ core muscles, which can be one less postpartum task for moms to have to track post-birth. 

Courtney felt that the pressure of our baby secured to her in those early months acted like one of those natural postpartum belly-bands. She found she walked, squatted + stood more when she wore our baby in a wrap — which is great for postural alignment

Chiropractors advise being in motion + standing rather than sedentary throughout the day because of the impact on our mobility + posture over time. Humans aren’t made to be sitting at a desk all day + babywearing encourages us against that!

To be honest, the bright-colored wrap slings still aren’t our style, but we can tie one of those wraps faster than a cowboy can draw his gun. (Well, maybe not that fast).

Once our baby was older (about 10 months), we transitioned to a harder carrier for front-facing — The Baby Bjorn Original you see in the photo above. We’re tackling our latest fixer-upper here with some sweat equity!

No. 6 — Babywearing helps parent + baby communicate.

Being close to our baby helped us learn her subtle cues. We gained so much confidence learning when she was hungry, full, sleepy, or needing comfort.

Our heartbeats also sync up when close together, which doubles as a calming factor for our baby because that replicates the womb atmosphere.

No. 7 — Babywearing is a bonding tool for non-mom caregivers (fathers, grandparents + caregivers).

This is our #1 suggestion for how partners can increase their bond with their new baby.

No. 8 — Babywearing reduces the need for a space-consuming stroller.

We found that we prefer to wear our baby in crowded places. 

We loved having her close to us + we found that strangers were less likely to try to touch or engage with our baby if she was on our body as opposed to being seated in a stroller.

Now, we LOVE our stroller + it definitely has its place in our family. We use our stroller twice a day around the neighborhood for walks, but in those fragile newborn days, we much preferred babywearing.

Tell us: what benefits have you found to babywearing as a parent entrepreneur?

We have conversations like this one inside of our OrganicFamilyCEO Community - where we offer quarterly business planning + systems edits, monthly family-centered masterclasses + weekly community chats that help you connect, collaborate + co-work as a parent entrepreneur with an online-based business. We’d love to see you inside!