Success with Over the Shoulder Baby Holder
I started out with an Over the Shoulder Baby Holder. Five years ago when I bought it in Canada there wasn't nearly the selection of slings and soft carriers available.
I went back and forth between the OTSBH and the Maya Wrap. I must have read 500 reviews before I finally decided. In the end, I went with the OTSBH because although both had great reviews on sites like epinions, people with no experience or assistance seemed to have fewer problems with OTSBH. Keep in mind, I didn't have much to choose from in Canada in 2004.
I have a small frame (5 foot 7, 115 pounds), and was fine with the OTSBH. Often people with small frames find them bulky or difficult to get tight enough. I used mine mostly with the front facing Buddha hold, which takes up more sling, and baby often had warm bulky clothes on, which take up room too, so I think that was the main reason I didn't have trouble getting the OTSBH tight enough despite my size.
Larger people sometimes find them too hot. Many people do well with them though. My OTSBH was great once I had enough practice. I bought a second one when the fabric in the first wore through after 4.5 years of use.
I practiced for about three weeks before I was confident enough to really start using the OTSBH. I was an absolute novice, didn't have the DVD and didn't know any other babywearers though. DD was 6 weeks old before I started going out with her in the sling, and she was probably about 10 weeks old before I could put her in without even thinking about it. I suspect that her getting bigger during that time helped too. I think that a 6 pound newborn could get lost in an OTSHB unless your really knew how to position them, and cradle carry has never been my favourite even once I was proficient.
With a closed tail sling like the OTSBH the position of the baby matters more. You need to set them in the exact right spot. With an open tail, like a Maya Wrap, where the rails can be adjusted independently, you can adjust the sling to fit around the baby and sort of fix a lot of the position after you've put the baby in. The tradeoff though is that there are more things to figure out if you're new and don't have any help... the position of the baby, how to adjust the rails, threading the fabric, positioning the shoulder, etc. With a closed tail sling you only need to get one thing right, the position.
A good way to start is to hold your baby exactly where and how you'd want her to be. So, if you want to do a cradle hold, cradle her in one arm the exact way you would if you were going to hold her yourself. Have the sling really, really lose, and then hold the back rail in the right spot using the baby. So you are wearing a very loose sling, and the back rail is squeezed between your body and the baby. Now, tighten the sling. The back rail is in the right spot, the baby is in the right position, and the sling tightens up around her to hold her in place.
Once you've got the sling tightened around her, wiggle your arm loose and tighten a bit more to make up for the fact that your arm is gone. If you've done it right, the sling is now holding the baby exactly how and where you were holding her yourself.
If the ring is too high or too low, take her out and do it again. A couple tries and you'll know exactly where the ring needs to be when you start tightening to end in the right spot. Once you have enough practise you won't need to super losen the sling, and you won't need to even think about it. You'll just drop the baby in the right spot every time.
There are several things that I like about my OTSBH :
1. The tail on the OTSBH is small. I found that there was too much fabric in the Maya Wrap sling I eventually borrowed and used for a year interchangeably with the OTSBH. I also have a generic ring sling that is open tailed like the Maya and I got MIL to shorten the tail. Some people use the tail for privacy, I just felt like was wearing a flag.
2. You can't mess up the threading. With an open tail sling you have to learn to thread it properly, and the threading can get messed up gradually with loosening and tightening. It isn't a reason to avoid open tail slings. It's just something else to learn that can put a novice off.
3. The padding forces the shoulder part to stay properly spread. I don't actually find the amount of shoulder padding in the OTSBH necessary, but one thing it does is keep the fabric spread and in the right spot. If you know how to use a sling you know to watch for this, but again, it explains why the OTSBH used to be recommended so frequently to beginners by people in the LLL. It's much less likely to ride up and be hanging off your neck, which will be very uncomfortable.
4. The padding also forces the back to stay spread. If the sling is spread well across your back and worn really tight it helps to distribute the weight. I carried a one year old to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, up more than 500 steps, when I was 5 months pregnant. It can be a very comfortable sling once you get the hang of it.
5. Our babies have always liked the padding in the front rail. They squeezed it and chewed on it and it absorbed drool well. Also it was softer to rest their head on when they feel asleep. In my unpadded sling baby often wakes up with a fabric wrinkle imprint on their head.
In general, I find the trade off with carriers is flexibility versus steepness of the learning curve. I got baby on my back without any help and no instructions in the Beco the first time I used it, but it's not nearly as flexible as my mei tai. I still need help to get DS on my back with the mei tai though. Now that I'm an experienced sling user I don't have any issues with an open tail, lightly padded ring slings, but there can be more pitfalls for a beginner.
Anyway, I do think you can salvage your OTSBH and get some use out of it. I find it really, really good for front facing, upright carries.
