However on the leg thing. I got those bad pains growing up as well. The doctors always said I was having growing pains. I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming in agony. I still get pains mainly in my right leg. I think it is some kind of nerve pain coming from my hip area. Doctors still can’t tell me what is wrong though. Good luck to you, I really feel for your daughter!!!

I do find it interesting that Motrin pulled it so fast.

I used a sling caled Snugli to carry my infant son, 27 years ago. I found myself constantly challenged by uninformed people, teaching people many times daily about the value of the sling in forming a bond with my child and aiding him in learning to deal with this often loud, lonely and cold world.

I never got tired of teaching people. I always believed that what I was doing was the best for my child.

Unfortunately, my son grew so fast, that I, weighing 100 lbs, did experience tremendous amounts of back pain. In just a few months, my 9 lb baby weighed 35 lbs and I was unable to use the sling for more than a few minutes.

Move forward, enjoy where we are today. I’m not hearing too much enjoyment, just women who need some cheese with their whine.

There are alternative pain releivers that are more natural than motrin so who needs them, when you get back pain just take this:
http://tinyurl.com/5mm7kv

I work in a boutique fitting women with baby slings, helping them with breast pumps and bras, etc. I also go to a babywearing group and try to spread the word whenever I can about it. A baby sling isn’t just a cute little accessory; it’s a parenting tool, and I don’t know what I’d have done without mine. Yes, it did help me bond with my daughter, and the ad made fun of that. It also allowed me to breastfeed in public without having to be banished to a bathroom or cover my baby’s head with a blanket. It’s a big part of the way I parent, and ideally all moms would at least try babywearing so they could make their own judgments about it.

That ad, as harmless as it may seem to some people, could make a mom who didn’t know any better rethink her decision to try to wear her baby. It truly doesn’t take much. You wouldn’t believe the ignorant comments I have to put up with at work: “Ohhh, I’m always so worried the women who use those things are going to drop the baby onto the floor!” or “Well, gee, the baby doesn’t look comfortable in there!” or just laughter. I am not just looking for things to get worked up over. All I want is to do a good job raising my daughter and maybe, while I’m at it, help some other moms find their way. Maybe they will find babywearing to be helpful or maybe they won’t, but at least I will have tried. It IS important to me, even if most of these commenters think it’s stupid. It’s helped me be a better mother, and I don’t see how that’s unimportant.

And about the Baby Bjorn… It is not at all surprising to me that you had issues with it. That carrier hangs baby’s entire weight on your shoulders/back, as baby’s body is barely even touching mom’s. A sling or wrap, on the other hand, facilitates the way a mom would naturally carry her child, with the baby facing mom and partially wrapped around her (in a hug-type position) or sitting on her hip. I would definitely recommend trying a sling next time if you haven’t already! You may already know all this but I wanted to mention it, because I see many moms who are mystified as to why their Bjorn/Snugli is so miserable.

I consider myself to be hard to offend, as well, but I have heard lots of comments like the one from GobiM — meant in all seriousness — from men, women, mothers, grandmothers… (I work with new mothers, so I’ve seen and heard it all) So I took it as a real comment, not someone trying to be witty.

I agree that it _seems_ like a trivial thing to get upset about on the surface, but maybe when mothers realize they can band together and be heard — and so quickly! — when they take issue with an advertisement from a pharmaceutical company, well … maybe they’ll realize that spit-up on the shoulder or not, they can band together and be heard on some of the VERY real issues you highlighted.

Don’t rank on them for being upset and speaking up … encourage them to keep at it.

First you say in your own blog that it’s the fault of the “Mommy Wars,” the we spend so much time knocking each others choices that we lose all perspective when it comes from the outside.

I might be able to go there except …

When GobiM essentially labeled “babywearers” as unsexy and ignorant … then accuses them of “not only trying to bring back the excess confinement of the mother role of the 50s, they are trying to bring women back to the stone age” …

You say: that was hysterical… I appreciate your comment.

So, just who is it engaging in the “Mommy Wars”?

But on a different note, do you think Charlotte’s pains could be growing pains? I’ve heard of kids having them around her age; especially in their legs and they are intermittent just like you described. Just a though:)

The ad is stupid. I never felt fashionable. I felt like I was giving myself a break and could finally make a freaking pancake.

If I’d have written the text of the motrin ad in a blog post, I GUARANTEE YOU it would have gotten some laughs.

Somehow the so-called “Mommy Bloggers” (and hey, I’m a mom and I blog about my kids sometimes, but you know the ones I mean”) think that ALL POSSIBLE UNIVERSES revolve around them and their opinions.

I said the same thing as you last night when I was on twitter: if their voices are so powerful, why not use them to accomplish something important like making sure our kids in this country don’t go to bed hungry.

Apparently that would mean being less self-involved.

I think the ad undermines moms- we have finally found a way to get things done AND meet our baby’s attachment needs, and now we’re told we’re doing it for fashion??!

One of my primary concerns is that the ad encourages moms to turn to drugs for help rather than to other moms. When I first started wearing my baby over a year ago, I didn’t know what I was doing and it did hurt sometimes. After getting help from a local babywearing group I learned which type of carrier to use and how, and can now wear my 14 month old for several hours without pain.

If a mom is actually in pain from babywearing, she should get help or stop wearing baby- drugs will just mask the symptoms and she could seriously injure herself.

Instead, their website is still down and Motrin is virtually out of communication. Now who is dragging this out . . .

And lastly, for those who say that Americans are babies because they fight for their voices to be heard on topics that are important to them, well I am not sure what else to say.