March 22, 2016 Dana

We love the Beco Ring Sling! A baby carrier review

Ring slings have been around for quite some time, but we haven’t carried one for a while, until we recently picked up the Beco Ring Sling! I’m super excited about it, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorites for a few reasons:

It’s easy to use
It’s travel friendly
It’s suitable for use from birth
It has a reasonable price point

The Beco Ring Sling is comparable, in terms of feel and function, to a wrap carrier. Lots of people love the comfort of the Moby Wrap or Ergo Wrap, especially for those first few months. You can keep your new baby exactly where they want to be: with you! What the Beco Ring Sling has over other wraps is that it holds your child with less fabric, and doesn’t require you to learn an elaborate wrapping technique. The Ring Sling will also allow you to nurse while wearing it and even has a built in nursing cover!

Here’s how you use it:

I’d recommend getting familiar with how to thread your ring sling (it’s simple accordion folding) though it comes “ready to wear” right out of the box. I made a “how to” time lapse video that will give you a quick idea of how it works!

Put the ring sling on whatever side you’d sling a cross body bag over. Although I’m a righty, I put the ring sling over my left shoulder. You want the ring sling to be fairly loose at first, so you can fit baby in there and then tighten up later. I find it to be more comfortable with the shoulder cap spread out on my shoulder – but you do what’s comfortable for you. Pro tip: if you have long hair like me, put it up before tightening your sling!

For new babies, you can keep their legs inside the sling in the “froggie” position. For older babies, 6 months and up, you may want to have their legs outside of the sling. To do this, slide your toddler into the Beco Ring Sling from the top, and guide their little legs through the sling from the bottom. Once you have them situated in a heart to heart or hip position, you’re going to want to pull up some extra fabric up and in between their legs, to create a seat for the child while they’re in the sling. It’s important that the fabric goes from behind the knee to behind the other knee – this keeps their hips in a happy spot and creates a seat for their little bums.

Once you have the fabric where you want it, tighten it from the bottom (or back) up, starting with any loose fabric from your back, and bringing it forward then tightening. I find that it’s easier to tighten by pulling across your chest, versus up or out. The hanging piece of fabric closest to the ground will be the bottom part of the sling, and the piece of fabric closest to the ceiling will be the top. Once you tighten these pieces of fabric around your child, you’re good to go! It really is that simple. (You can see a great demonstration of this carry position with a different wrap carrier in this video.)

Because the sling is much less fabric than a wrap, it’s incredibly travel friendly and even easy to put it on in a mall parking lot! (I remember the horror I felt as I was wrapping my nephew in a Moby Wrap while my extra fabric dragged all over the South Shore Plaza’s parking lot…) The Beco Ring Sling weighs nearly nothing, so whether you’re running to Target or traveling to Europe, it’s light enough that you won’t even notice it in your diaper bag.

Lastly, and I think a lot of people’s favorite aspect of the Beco Ring Sling, is its price point: $55. That’s right: a baby carrier that’s suitable from birth for UNDER $60. I’m in love.

If you have any questions about the ring sling – don’t be shy! Email us at questions@mbeans.com, and we’ll help you decide whether it’s the right baby carrier for you. Or, if you’re in New England, you can visit me at Magic Beans Fairfield, or our other experts in our five Massachusetts stores, and we’ll help you try on our favorite carriers in person. A baby carrier test drive will help you really get a sense of which carrier will fit perfectly into your lifestyle as a new parent!