January 26, 2021

Carrying within childcare

Dragen binnen de kinderopvang
By: Marion How it started... In 2019, the pedagogical coach position was introduced within childcare. In this role, colleague Ingrid and I, within Kideo, are challenged to ensure that our vision and policy are promoted. We also offer support and an advisory role on pedagogical issues to colleagues and we work on quality improvement at our locations. In addition to my work at Kideo, I am a mother of two children. My eldest (Teun) was born as a big baby, who was completely ready for the world. He developed rapidly. I mainly used my baby carrier for practical reasons, because we lived in the city center. This quickly became much too heavy. Little did I know that I was using a baby carrier that was not ergonomic at all for Teun and myself... Daughter Lise was born in 2017. Lise's birth was very difficult for me. I received advice from various quarters to stop breastfeeding, for my own self-care. In addition, carrying would be too heavy for my recovering body. I actually felt the need to start wearing. I now knew that carrying contributes to a secure attachment. Lise turned out to be a completely different child than Teun. She knew very well what she wanted and clearly indicated that she wanted to be with me. Moreover, I noticed that as a mother of two children, you have a lot of balls to keep up. The (now ergonomic) baby sling came in very handy. In 2019, I entered into discussions with Leonie Winkel in my role as pedagogical coach and in the context of quality improvement. Leonie is a babywearing consultant and birth coach. I thought it would be a fantastic idea to introduce wearing within Kideo. We saw more and more parents carrying their children and of course I had my own experiences. But was that actually possible in childcare? Has this already happened somewhere in the Netherlands? And how would parents react to this? After a nice conversation with Leonie, we took up this plan and the challenge. Our baby teachers, and later also our toddler teachers, received a carrying consultation, a carrying protocol was written and parents were given the opportunity during the intake interview to give permission to carry their child. Read more about the importance of carrying here . We are now almost two years further. We are extremely proud of the following results:

💜 Kideo is one of the first childcare centers in the North where carrying is carried out; 💜 Many children have already been carried within Kideo;
💜 Children are allowed to sleep in the sling;
💜 Children are allowed to discharge in the sling;
💜 Children may enter into a bonding relationship with their permanent pedagogical employee;
💜 Children can relax during cramps;
💜 We now offer our own range of ergonomic and beautiful baby carriers and swaddling clothes in our Kideo.store;
💜 ...and we hope to continue to inspire many other daycare centers to start wearing! It is nice to see that a number of daycare centers are already following suit.

In order to expand the above results in the future, Ingrid and I followed the training to become a babywearing consultant at the Institute for Attachment. Within Kideo we can now provide babywearing consultants to our pedagogical staff, assist with questions and also advise parents on this. The Institute for Attachment has now announced that it will soon start the training ' carrying in childcare' . It is fantastic to see that bonding within childcare, and therefore also carrying, is receiving more and more attention. We are happy and proud to contribute to this .