The Happiest Baby on the Block and The Happiest Toddler on the Block 2-Book Bundle pdfdrive com

Once Upon a Time: How Parents Have Used the
Side/Stomach Position in Other Times and Cultures
Among the Inuit (Alaskan natives), a very deep hood is
used as a baby bag and serves as an extension of the
womb. The newborn lives in a heated climate, completely
buried inside the mother’s clothing, and curled up like a
half-moon.
Béatrice Fontanel and Claire d’Harcourt, Babies Celebrated
In most traditional cultures around the world, babies hang out—
literally. Their mothers, sisters, aunts, and neighbors carry them in
baskets and sheets on their fronts, backs, hips, and shoulders for up to
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Few parents across the globe place their infants on their backs, but

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when they do, they usually put them on a curved surface, not a flat one.
The arc of a small blanket suspended from a tree or tripod puts a baby
back into the familiar and reassuring rounded fetal position, which
allows him to sleep more restfully.
The Lapp people of Greenland carry their babies curled up in
cradles that hang on one side of a reindeer (counterbalanced
on the animal’s other side by a heavy sack of flour).
The !Kung San people of the Kalahari Desert carry their
infants in leather slings all day long. They keep them in a
semi-sitting position, because they believe that posture
encourages a baby’s development.
In parts of Indonesia, loving mothers never let their babies
stretch out completely; in their culture that is the feared
position of the dead. Infants are compactly bundled in a
seated position and suspended from the ceiling to sleep like
little floating Buddhas. (Even new mothers must sleep sitting
up for forty days after the delivery to evade evil spirits who
are attracted to people weakened by illness or injury.)
The Efé tribe of pygmies in Zaire hate putting their babies
down—even for a moment. They keep their tiny tots happy
by holding them upright or curled up in their arms all day
long, and even while they are sleeping. However, since it’s
such a big effort for one person to do all this carrying, the Efé
believe in teamwork. For the first several months, tribal
members pass newborns back and forth among up to twenty
people, an average of eight times an hour!
Even when women in different cultures take their infants out of their
arms, they hang them over their laps or chests, which allows their
babies’ soft tummies to remain in constant contact with their mother’s
warm, comforting skin.