Ergo Baby Carrier Blog

No amount of Motrin will take away the pain that McNeil Consumer Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson will be feeling from their dismal marketing video campaign and Motrin Moma-Alogue.  If you haven’t seen it yet check it out at YouTube.  After you are done you can calm down and take your headache away without the use of Motrin with this great video response.  There’s also plenty of tweets for those of you on Twitter.  Just search the hashtag #motrinmoms.  Hopefully there were no moms involved at any point in the campaign development because they have got to be feeling the pain that much more.

For those of you that are annoyed or offended but don’t have the time to jump in on the discussion, the solution I recommend is going to the medicine cabinet and tossing any Motrin products you may have and making a commitment to not purchase them again.  Besides, there’s plenty of alternatives out there.  McNeil will be feeling the pain for awhile since there is a whole print campaign to accompany the web portion - ouch!  They’ve got a brief apology posted on the Motrin website.

For all you baby wearing parents out there keep on wearing however it is you choose.  Keep in mind though that what this campaign is trying to appeal to is a simple fact that whatever carrier you are using for your newborn, infant, or toddler it should be comfortable.  It shouldn’t even have occured to anyone that baby wearing should be anything but pleasurable for the parent.  If you have have a carrier that you don’t enjoy wearing with your child don’t go popping pain relievers - get a carrier that feels good!

“What is better, The Ergo Baby Carrier or the Baby Bjorn Active Carrier?”  This is a question we often get at Little Mountain Outfitters.  New and expecting parents come to us with this dilemma looking for answers.  Nobody wants to make the investment in more baby gear than we really need.  Whether it’s because of budget, not wanting to waste, or just to be living more simply.  Unfortunately, the question of which one is best really doesn’t have an exact answer.

The first mark in the pro column for The Ergo Baby Carrier is that you can purchase just the one carrier for carrying your child from birth to 40lbs.  One small downside to this is that in order to wear the Ergo Baby Carrier with a newborn it does require that you purchase the Infant Insert.

For the Baby Bjorn Active Carrier the first mark in the pro column goes to simplicity.  Loading a newborn into the carrier is a breeze and can be quickly mastered within the first or second try.

The second mark in the pro column for The Ergo Baby Carrier is weight distribution.  The Ergo Carrier places the child close to your body with the weight resting at your hips.  This makes a huge difference in reducing shoulder and lower back fatigue.  For this reason many parents that already own a Bjorn Carrier of some type come to us looking for relief once their child weighs about 15lbs.

The Baby Bjorn Active Carrier gets it’s second mark in the pro column for it’s ability to allow the the child to face out once he or she develops some head control, around 3 months of age.  Many parents feel this is critical.  Often we hear parents say that the child doesn’t want to face in, he or she just wants to look out.  There’s two sides to this.  The Ergo Baby Carrier theory is that parent child bonding is more important and therefore the child should face in.  It is also said that facing a young child out exposes him to more stimulation than his little brain is able to process.  The other side in favor of facing out is simply that the child is hearing noises and wants to twist and turn to see what is going on and becomes frustrated and unhappy when he is not able to.  This is the opinion that seems to win out the most.

Since I’m writing this post in November from Colorado I feel I also have to make some mention of baby wearing in cold weather.  The Ergo Baby Carrier is more accommodating of a child that is wearing lots of layers because you can just loosen the straps more.  The Baby Bjorn does not have quite as much flex room.  However they do have a great cold weather accessory, with the unoriginal name, the Bjorn Cover. It is a windproof fleece cover that is completely worthwhile for cold climates.

Adjustability and fit for parents and child is different on each carrier.  The Baby Bjorn Active Carrier has a really good range of adjustment for parents.  The straps have four points of adjustment, 2 on each side.   The Ergo Baby Carrier only provides the shoulder strap adjustments.  Both work for a wide range of body types without too much challenge.

to be continued…

Shop our entire selection of ERGOBaby Carrier products at www.littlemountainoutfitters.com.