Baby Carrier, Inspiration, Kol Kol Family

Kol Kol Family: My tryst with babywearing and beyond

I had a pretty dramatic start

My babywearing journey started quite early, my cousin who delivered six months before me introduced me to this concept. Her son would never sleep, and a wrap made her life simpler and she shared her thoughts with me and I started researching my options. I got a stretchy wrap delivered a month before I was ready to pop. Had taken it along in my hospital bag as well. However, I started using it only on the 7th day.

The first time I wore my lil Zi, I vividly remember how helpless I was feeling, she was crying inconsolably. No amount of breastfeeding, formula, rocking and tapping would soothe her. At 2 am in the night, I started seeing videos on how to use the wrap on my howling daughter. My parents were flabbergasted, and I just told them to back off. I wrapped her up and lo and behold she became quiet and she settled within minutes!! I sat on our rocking chair and dozed off for a few hours!! Thus, started my tryst with babywearing and wrapping.

In early days, babywearing was my saviour whenever I wanted to have tea. My father would offer to hold her while I would sip on my tea, saying he will have later, but I would just refuse and ask him to carry on. I remember he never used to like this concept. He’d ask why I was stuffing her inside like this. And I would tell him, is she crying? Is she uncomfortable? And, he would have no answer.

I met my work-wife thanks to babywearing

The stretchy wrap naturally gave way to woven wraps. The first attempts were ever so shoddy, and thus I found my wrapping gurus. Closer to home I had Yaman Banerji who would post fancy wrap finishes and carry her then 2 year old Ruhani and another one was Hedwich. I would see her videos on loop and decide which finish to do on that day. My relation with Yaman, started off as a guru, then a friend, then a soul sister and then finally soul sister cum Work-wife. We both thankfully have similar lines of thought, which makes running LLB a breeze.

My child equally loved being worn

The love for babywearing was so much that even being a full-time working mom could not deter me from wearing Zi every day. Be it a wedding or a party she would be on me wrapped on me. My family was not that enthusiastic about me babywearing at social events, they always believed that the child should go from one hand to the other and be entertained. I, however, did not share the same views and continued to babywear her to all social events till well upto 2 years. Only when she would tell me to put her down would, I do that. At 4 years+ we still do babywear, albeit occasionally, but we enjoy it and relish it every single time.

Babywearing helped me expand my horizons

In the last 6 years we have travelled intensively with both our children in tow without giving it a second thought. Long flights, travels, sightseeing, family events and even sickness have always been a breeze to handle because cranky child means wear him in a baby carrier and carry on. To this, I will forever be grateful to babywearing that helped me become the confident parent that I am! 

The love for babywearing was the reason to start Live Love Babywear with Yaman. It has helped us keep our passion alive and spread it to countless moms and touch more than 5k + moms in the last 2 years. The start of this lovely venture was with trepidation and self-doubt, but we made it, we made it this far and now the growth is for all to see. Thanks to LLB we still babywear, may be not our own kids but we do get to snuggle little squishes at our meetups and feel their milky smell on us.

Looking at my guru, I hope I can still continue wearing Zi for at least another year. Someone asked me recently, why babywear now? The only answer I could give was it gives me joy and it gives her peace, so why not? 🙂



Jasmine Randelia Bavan
Jasmine is a full time working mom with one of the major FMCGs in India and the co founder of Live Love Babywear a Babywearing Library with Mommy Support Group of 5.5k moms. All these roles she manages bring her immense joy to her and complete her. She has created a fantastic community filled with people like family, all thanks to Babywearing. She is spreading love, joy and cheer to all these families through LLB.

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