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Between calming her screaming baby, and keeping up with her curious 5-year-old, she could barely get anything accomplished.
Then she discovered babywearing.
When the Meridianville woman began toting her daughter Lauren close to her body in a soft sling, Lauren became a happier, quieter baby. Plus, Zimmerman's hands were now free to keep pace with her older daughter and perform other tasks.
"It started out as a convenience thing, but it's turned into more of a lifesaver, really, more of a comfort thing," said the stay-at-home mom and former social worker. "I had to do something."
Other babywearing fans say the practice had the same comforting effect on their babies.
Babywearing proponents say babies are soothed by the rhythmic breathing and heartbeat of their caregivers that simulates the womb, which some studies confirm. Plus, slings allow for easy, modest nursing for moms and greater bonding between caregiver and child.
River City Slingers
Zimmerman's story is similar to that of other local families who also discovered babywearing and were drawn to the River City Slingers of Decatur.
Some drive nearly an hour to attend the monthly meetings of the year-old group. Meetings are open to all caregivers, though moms dominate the group.
When group founder Veronica Cummings of Decatur discovered a babywearing Web site a couple of years ago, she was fascinated. Before she learned about babywearing and started the River City Slingers, she was a wallflower.
"It just opened my eyes," she said. "I actually woke my husband up at 2 a.m. and said, 'Honey, I want to wear my baby.' He really thought I was crazy, but once he saw how useful it was, he was like 'We'll never have a stroller.' " Ditching the strollers
For babywearers, bulky strollers and traditional "crotch dangler" baby carriers are so yesterday. Parents seem overjoyed to escape the dizzying ride on the whirring carousel of car seats, shopping carts, playpens, infant seats and strollers.
At the group's monthly meetings, caregivers test an array of slings, learn how to use them safely, and also enjoy the rare opportunity to leave the house and bond with other mothers.
"I think everyone should join some type of group when they're a mom," said co-leader Elizabeth McDowell of Cullman. "You're so isolated already. To have other moms to bounce things off of, it's such a relief."
McDowell is infamous in local mommy circles for recently getting kicked out of a Cullman restaurant for breastfeeding her son, which prompted breastfeeding advocates later to protest outside the business.
The River City Slingers hope to create sister groups in Huntsville and Cullman. The next closest group is in Birmingham.
Old and new of babywearing
The age-old practice of babywearing -- or using soft baby carriers that hug tightly to the body, including Asian mei tais, African-inspired wraps, or ring slings -- has been popular in other countries for centuries
Yet it has only hit the mainstream in the U.S. in the past five years, said Babywearing International President Susie Spence. With celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Maggie Gyllenhaal sporting slings, it's even becoming trendy.
"The growth is absolutely exponential," said Spence, a self-described "recovering" ex-lawyer and mother of two. Spence lives in Birmingham and is also president of the River City Slingers' sister group, the Magic City Slingers.
"When my daughter was born in 2001, there really was not the selection of slings and there was not a lot of information how to carry a baby with a sling or anything else," Spence said. "It just wasn't a movement."
But when babywearing Web sites started to emerge in 2003, and American pediatrician William Sears began espousing attachment parenting (which promotes babywearing), the practice began to catch on in this stroller-happy culture.
River City Slingers meets monthly at the Decatur Public Library, but members recently gathered at Cook's Natural Science Museum in Decatur for a spring-break field trip.
Members created a spectacle in the parking lot as their older children ran around and the little ones calmly looked on from their mothers' fronts or their fathers' backs.
"OK, bounce with feeling now," Cummings instructed as she strapped a baby into one inexperienced mother's sling and fitted it properly. The group emphasizes safety, ensuring that caregivers know how to use their slings properly so the babies (and caregivers) are safe and happy.
While it typically takes some experimenting to find the right carrier for each person, babywearers say slings are comfortable because they distribute weight effectively. Many slings are for children up to 40 pounds. Male babywearers
Veronica's husband Jeremy showed off the reversible mei tai he uses to carry their 18-month-old. The carrier features patterned butterflies on one side for his wife, and black with silver crosses on the other for him.
A stocky corrections officer well over 6 feet tall, Jeremy does not worry about looking less manly when he wears his children.
But some of the women's husbands aren't so confident.
"Husbands don't want to wear anything that remotely looks like a purse," McDowell said.
"They really market to girls in the industry, so slings often have silk brocade and flowers and stuff on them."
Strange looks
Male stigma aside, female babywearers receive plenty of strange looks when they're out in public, too.
While some people politely ask babywearers about the practice, others are abrasive and assume a mother just rigged fabric to hold her child and think it's unsafe, Spence said.
"They think ... maybe she couldn't afford a stroller and made it herself," she said. "When in fact, she's wearing a German sling that probably cost $150, and yeah, she has a stroller but doesn't want to use it."
But most babywearers understand the public's confusion.
"Babywearing is new to America for the most part," McDowell said. "Mainstream American way of thinking is 'Oh, you need a stroller. Oh, put your child in the car seat and carry them around.' "
Luckily, increased media coverage on the practice is slowly helping educate the public about babywearing, Spence said. She recently spotted slings in the aisles of Target.
"There are so many new and wonderful things out there and people are finally grasping it," McDowell said. "It's finally, 'I'm not going to do what my mom did' so people learn new and interesting things. Now we're going back and asking, 'What worked for people years and years ago and why did we stop doing it?' We're coming back to ourselves."
And the babies seem to appreciate it.
At least little Laura Zimmerman seemed to at the Slingers' recent museum trip, when she happily cooed from the warm safety of her mother's chest.
What is a sling?
Slings come in all shapes and styles, such as the Asian mei tai or the simple pouch sling, and can be worn on the back, front or hip. Slings can be used for newborns or toddlers up to 40 pounds. Styles range from an elegant, patterned $200 silk brocade ring sling, to a $20 homemade wrap made from material found at the local craft store. Many babywearers shop online for the greatest variety, or make their own slings. TheBabyWearer.com is a destination spot for babywearers, where you can learn about and buy slings and talk to other babywearers. To learn how to use a sling properly, many sling-lovers visit local groups like the River City Slingers for help or consult how-to videos on YouTube.com. Below are some of the most common types of slings and how they're typically used:
A ring sling is a strip of fabric with two rings attached to one end. The end of the fabric is threaded through the rings, which hold the fabric securely in place while still allowing the user to adjust the sling. In a ring sling, a baby can recline in the "cradle" position, sit upright against the user's front in the "tummy to tummy" position, face out in the "kangaroo" position, sit on the user's hip or straddle the user's back.
A mei tai (pronounced "may tie") is an Asian-inspired carrier consisting of a main body (usually a rectangle), long shoulder straps, and shorter waist straps. The waist straps are tied around the user's waist, the baby is held in the body of the carrier, and the shoulder straps are wrapped in one of several ways and also tied. A mei tai can be used for front, hip or back carries, from birth on.
A soft structured carrier typically has a thick, padded band that buckles around the user's waist, a main body, and padded shoulder straps and resembles a backpack. It has no rigid frame, holds the baby directly against the user's body. Soft structured carriers can be used to carry a baby or toddler on the user's front, back or hip.
A wraparound sling, or "wrap," is simply a strip of fabric; it has no buckles or other fasteners. Dimensions vary; most users can do the basic front carry with a 5-yard wrap. Shorter wraps are often used as tie slings, similar to the way a ring sling is used but secured by a knot instead of with rings. They can be used to carry a baby in several positions on the user's front, hip or back.
Source: Susie Spence, President of Babywearing International
On the Net --To learn more about the benefits of babywearing, visit www.askdrsears.com.
--www.geocities.com/rivercityslingers
Slings for Spring
What: Birth Stories meeting with the Alabama Birth Coalition and River City Slingers
When: April 16, 11 a.m.-noon
Where: Huntsville-Madison County Public Library auditorium, 915 Monroe St., downtown Huntsville
Cost: Free and open to the public. Veronica Cummings and others will speak about babywearing.
River City Slingers
What: Monthly meeting
When: April 17, 10 a.m.
Where: Decatur Public Library, 504 Cherry St. N.E., second floor conference room
Cost: Free and open to the public. Children welcome. Bring a sling if you'd like to learn how to use it.
To see more of The Decatur Daily, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.decaturdaily.com Copyright (c) 2008, The Decatur Daily, Ala. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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