Best baby carriers

i hated the Kelty Kangaroo. if you have a bit of a spare tire (love handles, fat) around your waist, the kangaroo might work for you. but the design is such that if your waist is straight (or tapered, as mine is) then the belt is useless and the baby's weight just hangs off your shoulders. i suffered a lot of pain before i finally got rid of the Kangaroo.

for babies unable to sit up, we switched to slings. they are not perfect but they are a danged sight better than the Kelty Kangaroo, especially for in-camp time. they are also more versatile (multi-use) and the baby can be carried more than one way. for crawlers & toddlers they are still a useful item to bring along – close containment! There are many varieties of slings available; we've mainly used simple ring slings. most of the commercially available slings are made from cotton. (blatant self-promotion: if you decide you'd like to try a sling but don't want a cotton one, I sew and sell baby slings and could make you one in a synthetic fabric. fleece slings are nice for cold weather.)

i can't recommend the Kelty carriers. they tend to run on the heavy side and are mostly overbuilt. we own two carriers – an REI Piggyback and a Madden Caravan (which is now the Sherpani Rumba). my husband loves the Piggyback but hates the Caravan, and i am the exact opposite. IMHO, the belt on the Piggyback sucks, and my husband's back is too long for the Caravan. there is a review here on BPL of a Sherpani carrier and i think it was positive.

edit – there is very little storage capacity on the REI Piggyback, but we got around that by tying stuff sacks into the lower half of the frame. my Caravan has an outstanding storage area built into the lower half of the frame. some carriers have a detachable day-pack type thing that hangs on the back, but unless you fill them with very light items they are worse than useless and pull the back backwards. we mostly take these off. older models will not have bladder pockets (if you use a bladder).

There's only one to have if it is going to see serious use: The Tough Traveler. I have four kids. the tough Traveler is the only thing you need to look at. the Kelty's are ok, but the TT is more sensibly designed and when we bought ours (the only one we bought, and used the hell out of for about ten years), it came with a combined sunshade/windscreen to protect your kid. And it worked well for infants as for toddlers. And it is designed like a "real" backpack, and not as an afterthought by a large baby-oriented consumer products conglomerate.

Ours is now passed on to another family and so far as I know, still seeing duty. I have no reservations about recommending it. I haven't checked, but hope it is still available, and made in upstate NY if I recall correctly.

Edit: They do still exist and there is a whole line of them. Another advantage is the "swing out" "leg" at the rear bottom of the frame. We often would remove pack and set it down, with sleeping child aboard, for a rest, or at the end of the day. provided you stay near enough to catch it in teh event your child moves, causing a fall by shifting his/her weight, it is quite stable that way. We never had ours tip with a sleeping child aboard.

Simon

Thanks for your input.

Happy Trails,

Ted

Even though it has been a number of years since I tortured myself with a kid carrier (and torture it was!)…I agree with Tar. Don't use Kelty. The real issue is they are over engineered! When I bought mine for Ford, the model I had was the next to "best" they carried. That thing weighed over 7 lbs empty! AGHHHH! It projected the kid so far back, off your shoulders it just hurt so bad.

Of all the carriers the TT and Madden Mountaineering back then were the best. I learned my lesson…but sadly the reason I had bought the Kelty was due to it's hauling capacity for gear.

Lesson learned: if I have more kids, I will buy a TT and do what I did with Ford: use a jogger stroller with 16" wheels whenever I can instead :-D

This is my favorite right now. Started with a Kelty and agree with the other posts.

http://www.sierratradingpost.com/p/,85181_Deuter-Child-Carrier-Daypack-Kanga-Kid-.html

I want the Kangaroo toy :-D Too cute!

Has anyone used a LittleLife Child carrier?

click here

I’m just curious how it would compare to the Sherpani and others…

They have one that is around 4 lbs and still looks fairly comfortable. It seems that it would keep the child’s weight a little closer to the body than the Sherpani which in my mind would be more comfortable.

I have a 11 month old boy that I would like to take out around Memorial weekend and am looking for the most comfortable way to carry him and gear. I’m not sure yet if I will be going by myself or if my wife will be coming with. She is due with our second end of August, so I don’t know that she would be able to carry much if she goes anyway.

I don’t think the hip belts would work all that well with a preggo belly. ;-) But I guess if we pack light enough, you don’t need hip belts…

We do have a Baby Bjorn as well which I’ve thought about using for my backpacking trip. I think I could put him in the front and a regular backpack on my back. It does have a 25 lb max, so I won’t be able to do it for much longer as he is already 21 lbs. Maybe he won’t yet be 25 lbs by Memorial Weekend…

Has anyone tried this before? I have carried him for fairly long walks in it, but would be curious to see if it’s feasible to do with a backpack.

Just wanted to bump this to see if anyone has any insight…

i have used the bjorn on day hikes and liked it very much. i would use it all the time, grocery store, mall whatever.

i have the REI backpack style. it is good, but not great. can't say as for any other.

Sherpani Rhumba…. it is GREAT. It does exactly what it needs to do…carry heavy slighty off balance weight. I picked mine up on sale a couple of years back for $85 from backcountrygear.com

Here is the one I have

http://www.e-omc.com/catalog/products/3904/Sherpani-Rumba-Unisex-Backcountry-Baby-Carrier.html

GREAT!!!

my wife has backpacked with our son at the time of 6mo
and she liked the versatile Moby Wrap much better than the (overpriced) bjorn. The moby wrap is basically just a 3×15' piece of fabric and costs $30 at some locations.
choice of cotton or microfleece, but any weather you plan on taking a baby into will work with cotton… and as a guy I can say it looks manly enough to go public – any daypack sans waistbelt will work. Even so, a waistbelt can work and the moby has about 10 different tie styles for any position.

http://www.mobywrap.com/

We also have a moby wrap as well… I never thought to use that. I might have to try that out on a day trip with a pack to see how it carries.