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September 01, 2006
Babywearing Fathers
I have been thinking about the fact that I want to be much more involved in babywearing when our next baby arrives. With our first two I just let DW do all the babywearing for the first several months. Then when the little one would get a little bigger I would do some of the babywearing. I guess my reasoning was that in support of cue feeding it just made more sense to have the baby close to the food.
I think what we have learned is that baby was so used to sleeping on or next to mommy that he could not easily fall asleep with me. My hope is that by wearing from the start and getting baby used to falling asleep with me that on those evenings the DW would like to stay up a little longer that the transition to bed will be a smoother one even though she is not there.
What got me blogging about this today was this article on the male marmoset. What is funny about the daddy marmosets is that they are unique in that they do all the baby care for the first several months. The baby is carried around by daddy exclusively except for feeding, which is naturally mom's job. There are not too many details but evidently father marmosets have significant changes that take place in their brain after being such an involved parent.
I have known that estrogen levels increases in human males before and after the birth, which gives males the needed nurturing boost that they lack. Here is an excerpt from an article in Psychology Today:
The artical is long but interesting none the less.
So my thought is this: I wonder if like marmoset I carry our new baby a whole lot if it will create a more concerned, loving, and gentle me. I'm sure the wife hopes so! :-)
Babywearing | By ChattBabyWearer | 07:46 PM