Ingrid likes her buggy. We like her buggy. Now, while the buggy is en route from England to Sweden, we’ve let her walk as much as she wants, but after a few hundred metres she generally shows us that she’s had enough and wants up. She weighs over 11kg and that’s more weight than I want to be carrying unaided for longer than 5 minutes or so. Perfect, put her in a sling, you might think! Unfortunately Ingrid is becoming a sling resister. She has no objections to sitting on my hip, but carrying all that weight on one side of the body is not at all comfortable after about 5 minutes. I would much rather have her on my back, but she doesn’t want to go there. On a few occasions I’ve actually put her on my back (because we had to go out and I’m not strong enough to carry her any other way all day) while she is yelling and pushing me away, and that felt awful… I’m forcing something that should be all fun and pleasure. It’s like force feeding ice cream to a child, or forcing them to hold a cuddly puppy.

Two more days until we get the buggy back, and slinging can again be voluntary and fun for everyone involved. I never thought I’d miss the buggy so much.