Hi, I'm Rachel and this video is going to show how to use a ring sling with an older baby.
I'm going to assume that you already know how to thread your ring sling. If you don't, there's a link to a threading video in the video description.
The first thing we're going to do is learn how to put the sling on.
If you want to hold your baby on your right side,
Hold your rings in your left hand, tail pointing toward the left
Put your right arm through and place the rings on your left shoulder.
If you want to hold your baby on your left side,
hold the sling by the rings with your right hand, tail pointing toward the right
and bring your left hand through, and your rings will land on your right shoulder.
First we'll check the size of your sling.
If you put your elbow in and the sling is approximately tightened around your elbow,
that's good sizing.
If it's super loose like this, it's going to be harder to tighten around your baby.
It helps to get the sling set to about the right size ahead of time so there is less tightening to do.
Put your elbow inside the sling and tighten right around your elbow.
Pull slack from the back and tighten the top part, the middle, the bottom.
That's about the right size for a newborn. For an older baby, lift up on the top ring and pull down about 2 inches.
That will give you plenty of slack for an older baby.
The next thing you want to do is check your threading.
To do this, I put my thumbs inside the sling and find the top edge of the fabric.
On my sling, the top edge is dark blue.
I make sure it isn't folded under.
After I find the top edge, I put my thumbs under the fabric and pinch the fabric all the way around,
fanning it out until I can see every single stripe of my sling.
Now I'm going to pull that down and through and my sling fabric is nice and neat.
If I pull outward a bit while I pull it through it won't get bunched back up.
The next thing I do is shape the fabric on my shoulder.
I put the rings right where I want them, just below my collarbone.
I spread the fabric over my shoulder.
Spreading the fabric will help anchor the rings in place and makes the shoulder more comfortable.
I check that the back is nice and well spread out.
I'm going to pull any slack from the back forward.
Now I'm going to pick up the baby.
To put the baby in the sling, hold baby on the shoulder that does not have the rings.
I usually lift my baby up onto my shoulder a bit.
reach my hand under the sling fabric,
and guide her feet through.
Then I seat her down onto my hip. Older babies often like hip carries.
If my rings slide down at this point, I can hold onto baby with one hand and use the other hand to slide the rings back up.
Then I check that she has her knees above her bottom.
Now I find the top edge (dark blue) and spread it over her back.
This sling has stripes, so you can see that the first few stripes are on her back, and the rest are under her bottom.
Next I'll get a good seat. I will check that her knees are higher than her bottom and that the fabric extends from knee to knee.
I take my ring side hand,
to my belly, under her front leg
I slide my hand over to the back knee.
I lift up on her slightly and pull any slack from the back forward.
Then I push the back knee up a bit, lean forward, and slide my hand to the front knee.
That makes a nice deep seat.
In between us you would see the bottom edge of the wrap making a straight line from knee to knee.
You would see a half circle shape between us with the bottom edge making a straight line from the back knee to the front knee.
So, hand to the belly, slide to the back knee, pull any slack from the back forward
Check that the bottom edge goes from knee to knee.
As you slide your hand from the back knee to the front knee, sometimes you find a bit of extra slack, which we'll tighten next.
The next thing you need to do is tighten. If it's well sized, you don't need to tighten much.
You can see that I don't need to tighten much at all.
However if I feel behind me, under my arm, there is a bit of slack caught there that I can feed forward.
I find any slack that I feel behind me, and slide it forward, toward the rings.
There's slack in this gray stripe.
To tighten, I lift up on her slightly with one hand.
I'm not going to pull straight down.
If I pull straight down, my rings will come down.
So if my rings are too high, I could pull straight down to get them a bit lower.
But my rings are right where I want them (just below my collarbone) and I don't want them to move.
So, I'm going to lift up on her bottom and pull diagonally to the side.
So see that I'm pulling a bit out and forward.
I pull back the way the fabric came through the rings.
Keeping a hand on her, I'm going to start by tightening this dark top stripe.
Next I tighten the gray stripe.
Then I find the lighter green bottom third and tighten that as well.
I feel a tiny bit more slack in the top stripe, so I'll tighten that as well.
Now I have a really comfortable hip carry in a ring sling.
Just to check the carry quickly - Baby's knees are higher than her bottom.
The fabric extends from one knee to the other knee.
In between you, the bottom edge makes a straight line from knee to knee.
The fabric is well spread over my shoulder.
It didn't move since I spread it before I started, but if it does,
Lift up on baby and pull the shoulder fabric out away from your neck.
It's also well spread in the back.
I can pull it a bit wider to spread it if I want.
That's key to comfort with an older child.
There you have, ring sling hip carry with an older baby. Thanks for watching!