October | 2015 | Babywearing International of Tucson

What: Jordan Back Carry and its variations

When: 31 days of October

Where: Start at Tucson Babywearers and take it anywhere you like!

Why: It’s not because you can do it with any size wrap.

It’s not because you can do so many pretty and useful finishes with it.

It’s not because it prevents both leaning back and seat popping.

It’s because JBC is a wonderfully supportive and relatively easy to learn back carry that uses three basic types of passes (rebozo pass, cross pass, and horizontal pass) that would help you move your babywearing skills to a new level!

Now the details. For a basic Jordan Back Carry you need a base-1 size wrap (4 for petite ladies, 5 for average sized, and 6 for plus sized). You can always use a longer wrap if you have one, you’ll just have longer tails hanging from the knot. The other way of thinking about it is that you need a wrap one size longer than what you use for a ruck tied in front.

The carry starts like a ruck. You put your baby on your back by an age appropriate method that you are comfortable with (santa toss for smaller children, superman toss or hip scoot for older children). Then make a good deep seat by pulling the fabric down taut over the baby’s butt and flipping it under the baby. Since the first pass is a rebozo pass, you would bring one of the tails under your arm. Conversely you can start with one tail over your shoulder and one under your arm, and make the seat then.

Now it’s your chance to perfect your shoulder flip skills. Hold the whole width of the wrap taut under your arm, flip it over your shoulder, grab the top rail of the wrap to hold tight and spread the width of the wrap over the baby’s back. Since the second pass is a cross pass, you bring the whole width of the wrap under the baby’s back. Now you have a short tail coming from under your arm and a longer one coming over the same arm.

For the horizontal pass you take the long tail and bring it across the baby’s back so that it comes under the other arm. To finish tie it off in front with a double knot.

Things to keep in mind:

Try to make a good seat from the start. You’ll reinforce it by a cross pass and a horizontal pass later, but having a good seat from the beginning makes the rest of the wrapping easier. Practice making your seat first over a soft surface or/and with a spotter who doesn’t panic easily.
If you feel like your arms are too short to do shoulder flip and subsequently spread the wrap, try to work wide. That is, hold the wrap with both hands, use your elbows. Once it’s high enough you can always tighten the wrap job to your desire.
To make the carry symmetric (since the ways a rebozo pass and a cross pass turn out are slightly different, especially since you’ll be doing them on the opposite sides) make the last pass a reinforcing pass instead of a horizontal pass. To do that, bring the wrap across the baby’s back, but instead of going over the leg, go under the leg.
Don’t forget about pretty and useful variations.
Have fun with it! JBC is a great way to show off both sides of a wrap.

Most useful variations (according to me):

Tied Tibetan: if you feel like the ruck straps fall off, if you have to accommodate a growing pregnant belly, if your wrap is slightly longer and you want to use it up, or if you just got an unseemly stain on the front of your shirt, do the Tibetan finish! To do it, instead of tying off in front bring the tails across your chest and put them through the ruck straps. Then you can tie them off in the middle or do a knotless finish.

JBC with a ring: if don’t like even the idea of ruck straps, like more weight to be on your sternum and not shoulders, and if you have a slightly longer wrap, do the ring variation. To do it, once you have the first rebozo pass put both tails of the wrap through a large ring (use only rings designated for babywearing) and proceed as with the basic carry. You can tie it off in front or do a knotless finish through the ring.

Half-JBC: if you only have a shorty, are on the move, don’t have time to deal with tails, etc., this is for you. All you do is stop after the first two passes and tie off the carry at the shoulder with a double knot, a slip knot or do a candy cane chest belt. Another good thing about the Half-JBC is that it can be done without the shoulder flip.

Now to the instructional videos:

Basic JBC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_6cO_gQctY

JBC with a ring:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai6I1o-sMWE

Half-JBC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcshSFS7HhI

Half-JBC without a shoulder flip: