Our Story

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The Shermans July 4, 2010
If you're reading this, you're wondering who is behind Carry Me With Love. So, here is my story. I began babywearing as a teenager wearing the babies I babysat in a sling for hours at a time. At the time, the only type of sling I knew about was a padded ring sling, so when I was preparing for the arrival of our first child in 2006, I of course pulled out the padded sling that one of the moms I babysat for had given me. However, before I gave birth, I discovered a Maya Wrap, which was an unpadded ring sling that offered infinitely more adjustability. Our daughter was a colicky, high-needs infant and needed to be held for hours on end. I don't know what we would have done without our Maya Wrap sling!! When she was about 8 months, a friend showed me her mei tai and I was instantly hooked. I could now carry my chunky baby for longer periods without my back hurting.

I've been sewing since I was 14 years old and once I found a place I could buy reliable

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July 4, 2011
rings for slings, SlingRings.com, I made my first sling in October of 2008 for a friend. Once people started discovering that I could make slings, the requests started coming in. I then started making mei tais and played around with various designs until I found a couple that I really liked. In the meantime, I discovered a whole world of babywearing through The Babywearer.com, a  website with forums dedicated to all things related to wearing your baby. I spent hours researching different carriers, various ways to wear those different carriers and watching videos. As we approached the birth of our second baby in early 2010, I was excited to begin trying out all the different carriers that I had learned about right from birth. I think our son was only a couple days old when he had his first ride in a mei tai (new guidelines now recommend waiting until baby is at least 7 days old before being worn). He was a poster child for a "sling baby." Whenever he was fussy, squirmy or tired, I'd pop him in a sling or a mei tai and he immediately settled down and either would just hang out or go to sleep. I was then able to clean my house, get things done, or spend time with my daughter - all hands-free! 

I started teaching classes about different carriers for a friend's childbirth class as well as at a birthing 

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July 4, 2012
studio and a cloth diapering store, plus helping the girls in my La Leche League group figure out how to wear their carriers. I soon began to be known in my circles as the "babywearing expert" in my area. In May of 2010, I expanded my business to not only include my own custom-made rings slings and babywearing demonstrations, but also several different mei tai companies, then later on water slings and soft structured carriers. Once our third baby arrived in October of 2011, she wasn't put down much between all the different carriers I now owned and I was able to accomplish the tasks of a busy mom while wearing my baby. When we moved to a new house when she was four months old, I spent many hours painting, scrubbing and packing with her perched comfortably on my back in my pikkolo carrier. 

We welcomed our fourth baby in August of 2013 and relied heavily on babywearing to wear our newborn during our busy year as we began homeschooling our oldest daughter and chased two other small children 

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July 4, 2013
around. One thing that is not often talked about when talking about the benefits of babywearing is the emotional stability that it gives to our children. This spring I had the privilege of helping to care for my mother during the last couple of months of her life as her battle with cancer was ending. It was a tumultuous time in our lives as we went through a lot of traveling back and forth to her house and then went through three days of wakes and funeral, during much of which my children were sick as well. I was so thankful that I was able to wear both my infant and my toddler during this time and I don't know how I would have gotten through those long days on my feet without it. It provided us all with a way to stay close and for me to be able to provide for their emotional needs even during the midst of my grief. It also made breastfeeding a lot easier!
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July 4, 2014
Now we once again have a very active soon-to-be toddler who likes to explore and gets into everything. My saving grace is that I can throw him up on my back and still be able to do things like load the dishwasher that he is so fond of emptying. As you can imagine, a house with four young children stays quite busy, especially as we prepare to begin another year homeschooling, this time with two toddlers, a preschooler and a 2nd grader. Babywearing to the rescue!
It is my hope that I can help parents discover the joys of babywearing while helping them bond and be free to get things done! Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions.
Happy babywearing!
~Colleen
August, 2014
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P.S. It is now 2020 and it's been a long while since this page has been updated. Some day in my non-existent spare time I will fully update this page with our babywearing journey and all the pictures since then. But as you can see, since then we have added a couple more kids to our family, all of which have been worn since their birth. The more kids we had, the more indispensable our baby carriers became and we even had our big kids wearing their younger siblings which was a great bonding experience for them. Though we do still use our carriers sometimes, our babywearing days are sadly coming to an end but with nieces and nephews coming up in the ranks, I will still get my babywearing fix occasionally. Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions, I'd love to help you find a baby carrier that fits your needs. Happy Babywearing! 
~Colleen 
February, 2020