Best Baby Slings and Carriers
By Klarna
How to choose the best baby sling and baby carrier
Some of the parents had previous experience of carrying a baby with a sling, while others were pretty much beginners. Whichever experience you have there are some things to bear in mind when choosing a baby sling:
Use: What’s the sling like to use and tie?
Material: What is the sling made from, is it warm or cool?
Function: How stable is the sling and how long can it be used?
Babylonia Tricot-Slen Organic
The Babylonia Tricot-Slen Organic baby carrier is a wrap-type sling made from organic cotton which is GOTS and Oeko-Tex 100 certified. The fabric is thick and sturdy, while simultaneously being soft and shaping itself to the baby and wearer’s bodies. The Tricot-Slen gives very good support and is recommended for use up to 18 kg, which means the sling can be used for several years. The sturdy fabric means that the sling is on the warmer third.
There’s also a cool version of the Tricot-Slen, but the normal version is probably best if you aren’t particularly sweaty and works best in the cooler seasons of the year than in the middle of summer. As always, it’s important to remember that the baby sling is like an extra layer of clothing, so you shouldn’t dress the child too warmly. If you’re using the Tricot-Slen on a really warm day, you may find it’s enough to just have your baby in their nappy.
The sling is available in a wide range of colours and has a clear centre marking, so you know where on the fabric you should start to tie it. With a width of 60 cm at the broadest point, the Babylonia Tricot-Slen is a sling with lots of fabric. With a newborn baby, it can feel as if the child disappears into the material, but babies grow quickly and you can always fold the fabric to the sides so the child’s face is always visible. The Tricot-Slen is easy to tie and distributes the weight very well across the wearer’s body.
If your baby has an accident or you spill food on the sling, you can machine wash it at 40 degrees. The sling is available in many different colours and comes with instructions for several different ways to tie it. The Babylonia Tricot-Slen Organic is attractive and high quality – quite simply a baby sling that can be used for a long time and feels just as nice for the child as for the parent.
Pros and cons
+ Sturdy
+ Long period of use
+ Distributes the weight very well
- Can be warm if used during the summer
Ergobaby Aura
The Ergobaby Aura is an ultra-thin baby sling in cool viscose, perfect to use in the summer but works just as well all year round. For parents who tend to be warm, it’s a particular relief to carry their child with the Aura, which doesn’t get anything like as sweaty as many other wrap-type slings. The baby sling is available in a wide range of colours. The material is very soft and you can carry your child just with their nappy on without there being a risk of hard edges that can chafe their skin.
The Ergobaby Aura has a built-in storage pocket, so when you’re not using the sling you can easily fold it into its own pouch. This makes the sling easy to store in the baby changing bag or under the buggy so it’s always near to hand. It can also be used as a thin blanket to lay over the child or to create shade.
As always when it comes to baby slings, the technique used for tying it is key. If you’re unused to this you have to practice over and over, but you finally get it right and with the Ergobaby Aura it’s easy to understand how the sling should sit. As the material is very stretchy, it’s important to remember to tie the sling tight so the child is always sitting up against your rib cage at the height where you can kiss the top of their head. The flexible material makes it easy to spread the sling out over your back for maximum weight distribution, and convenient to fold the fabric out of the way over the shoulders so the child is never covered by the sling.
The fact that you can machine wash the Aura at 30 degrees is a bonus, as babies have a tendency to create stains of all kinds. The sling is recommended for use up to about 13.5 kg. For carrying heavier children it’s better to use a stiffer fabric. But for the first couple of years, the Ergobaby Aura is a fantastically comfortable and good value sling that can easily be used by parents of all heights and sizes.
Pros and cons
+ Very cool and thin
+ Comfortable to carry with
+ Integrated storage pocket
- Works best during child’s first year
Baby K'tan Baby Wrap
It may seem contradictory because babywearing is all about tying the sling right, but the Baby K’tan Baby Wrap is a baby sling for those who don’t want – or don’t dare – to do just that. It’s also useful if you want to put the sling on outdoors without dragging all the fabric on the ground where it can get wet and dirty. The Baby K’tan consists of two fabric loops held together with a fabric band and a separate piece of fabric that also works as a storage pocket when you turn it inside out.
The wrap is available in five different sizes, from XS till XL, and these correspond to standard jacket sizes for men and dress sizes for women. You should choose the size you had before the pregnancy. If you’re normally between two sizes, Baby K’tan’s recommendation is to choose the smaller one, and we agree with this advice. Because you can’t tighten the wrap, it’s better to have it a bit tighter to start with and then allow it to stretch a bit as the child grows.
The Baby K’tan Baby Wrap comes with clear instructions for how to use it. It works a bit like putting on a sweater. You hang the two loops around your neck, insert one arm in each and then you can start to put the baby into it. After this you tie the extra piece of fabric around for support. For more visual guidance, there are good video instructions online. It takes a few goes before you get everything right, but once you've got the hang of the technique you can get your baby into the wrap in no time. The Baby K’tan allows you to carry your child in five different positions, including on your hip.
The Baby K’tan distributes the weight well, and feels very comfortable to use with a newborn – but perhaps not as effective as a normal sling when the child gets larger and heavier. This makes the potential period of use shorter. If the parents have very different body shapes, you’re also going to need a Baby K’tan each, as you can’t share the same one like you can with a normal wrap-type sling. But if you’re curious about babywearing and don’t feel confident about tying a sling yourself, the Baby K'tan Baby Wrap is the perfect introduction to the world of slings.
Pros and cons
+ Requires no tying knowledge
+ Quick to get on
+ Good for beginners
- Can’t always be shared between parents
- Shorter period of use