Milijana Miodanic Manojlovic is a babywearing consultant from Derventa (Bosnia and Herzegovina), living in Novi Sad (Serbia). Her son Marko is 4,5 years old and her daughter Mila is 2 years old. She says: “I carry my kids when they want it, even now.”
Nestwärme: How popular is babywearing in your country? Milijana Miodanic Manojlovic: Babywearing is getting more popular, day by day, month by month. Parents from Bosnia and Herzegovina are new in all of this.
Why did you want to become a babywearing consultant and which school did you visit? Since I had positive babywearing experiences with my first child, I wanted to learn some babywearing advice from the real instructor and finished the Die Trageschule Dresden course. I have seen a lot of parents with carriers that don’t support baby’s body as they should. So, I decided to do something to change this. 🙂
How important is it for you and/or your clients to wear babys ergonomically? Wearing babys ergonomically is ideal, because baby/child is in optimal position and it doesn’t create too much load on the wearer. Parents who contact me want to know more. They ask a lot of questions. There weren’t ergonomical carriers on the Bosnian market, but now there are multiple options.
How many parents are you „teaching“ per month? The number of parents varies. Usually, there is one babywearing workshop in two months (up to 8 parents+8 babies/toddlers per workshop). Since I work full time as software engineer, I need more time to organize it. Each workshop was in different city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, because I want to spread babywearing love. I “teach” 50-70 parents per month online.
What’s the thing, most parents ask or have trouble with concerning babywearing? Well, that’s an interesting question. Some of the questions are: “Does my one month old baby sit in the wrap?”, “Will I know how to tie that wrap?”, “What is the best carrier for my baby?”, “Which one is the cheapest?”, “Can I wear my child faced forward?” and so on.
How big is your «consultancy stash»? My stash contains 2 strechy wraps, 2 ring slings, 9 woven wraps, 2 mei tai carriers, 6 SSCs, 13 rings (in different colours and sizes), one newborn babywearing doll, 2 babywearing jackets and 1 winter cover. I run a babywearing library, so I send 7 carriers all over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
What’s your favourite wrap and/or carrier and what’s the favourite product chosen by your clients? I don’t have a favourite wrap, but my favourite babywearing product is a woven wrap, because there are endless possibilities with it. My clients usually choose soft structured carriers because they think it is the simplest method.
What’s «babywearing» in your language? Babywearing is “nošenje beba“.
