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By Lenny Lamb is known for great quality and reasonably priced slings and carriers.
In recent years they have expanded their range massively, now selling stretchy and woven wraps, meh dais and wrap dais, ring slings, onbus and a bucket load of accessories. Last year (2015) they introduced their second generation of your baby (from 6kg) and toddler sized ergonomic full-buckled carriers. Having not been won over by their first generation carrier a couple of years ago, I wanted to check out this new, improved version.
So how does their ergonomic carrier stack up against all the other carriers out there?
Pretty darn well, actually.
WRAP CONVERSION
First off, it’s a wrap conversion. Many off-the-shelf buckled baby carriers are made from hardwearing cotton canvas. Lenny Lamb’s carrier is made from their woven wrap fabric so it’s incredibly soft. Not only is it lovely to touch, but the fabric – in this case, a 100% cotton broken twill weave – moulds nicely around your baby’s body. This fabric design is called Luna. I’m not normally a rainbow person but this is a lovely colour for spring and summer.
The waistband is only lightly padded and a lovely scalloped shape with some pretty leaf-shaped stitching. It’s 5 inches deep in the centre but gently curved to 3.5 inches at the sides. There’s no stiffness at all yet it’s very supportive. Unlike some other baby carriers with padded waistbands, there’s little chance of this digging into your squidgy bits and it’s very comfy to sit down in (if baby lets you).
Like the Manduca, the big fat safety buckle on the waistband has an additional safety catch that needs to be pressed in to undo the waistband. Good for extra security but does mean you can’t unbuckle with one hand.
LIGHTLY PADDED SHOULD STRAPS
The shoulder straps are also lightly padded but at 3.5 inches wide they still distribute baby’s weight well. The first 4.5 inches of the strap has no padding at all and is folded in on itself using the fit buckle adjusters. While I find this fractionally annoying, it does make the carrier suitable for a wider size-range of wearers. It also means you can make the straps even tighter when back carrying.
In a front carry, you can either wear the straps rucksack style – straight over your shoulders with the ‘chest’ clip holding them together across the top of your back – or crossed over each other. I love crossing straps! It means I can get the carrier super tight and snug around your baby. Rucksack vs crossed straps is one of those matters of absolute personal preference, so being able to do either is a big selling point for this carrier.
The only downside is that you can’t remove the chest strap, so when I’m wearing this on the front with crossed straps I do have some black webbing and two halves of a buckle dangling down. Luckily I’m usually wearing a rucksack so it covers up the messiness. But a least when you move baby onto your back you haven’t got to hunt around for a chest strap that you’ve misplaced!
Once the straps are done up you can tighten them by pulling in either direction, giving it brownie points ahead of those carriers that can only be tightened by pulling forward or backwards.
LENNY LAMB HOOD
Hoods on carriers can be ingenious or annoying. This one is, mostly ingenious. It is very long but can be neatly adjusted with a fine nylon drawstring on either side, so you can tighten and ensure it actually stays on baby’s head. It does mean you have some wayward nylon loops floating about. These can be (a) mindlessly stretched out with your thumbs like a pair of braces as you walk along but also (b) get caught in the buckles if you’re in a rush.
They do, however, make it easier to pull up the hood over baby’s head when they’re on your back. They can then be held in place by looping them around the two small plastic clips sown onto the shoulders.
CONTOURED PANEL
The panel is highly contoured at the base and sides, and there are no seat darts (see the picture below). This seems to be one of the biggest adaptations from the first generation carrier. This means you can settle baby’s bum into a very deep seat, keeping their hips and legs in an optimum ‘M’ position, and the sides won’t gape open either.
The panel is slightly narrower and shorter than other newborn-to-toddler carriers. It’s likely to fit smaller babies well, I’d say from around 3-5 months. With a lower weight limit of 6kg, it’s not suitable for newborns and there is no newborn insert available.
Though the weight limit is 20kg for this carrier, you may find bigger or longer-legged babies (12months+) stop sitting knee to knee in this carrier before they hit this number. But if it’s still comfy and supportive for you both, you don’t have to stop using it. If you then decide to upgrade then Lenny Lamb also makes a generously sized toddler version.
The gentle padding on the sides is softer and wider than the ‘legs out padding’ on other baby carriers and makes it a super soft and smooth ride for baby. Most lengths of black webbing can be neatly tucked away into their own little elastic loops.
It does feel a bit of shame that there is so much black webbing on such an otherwise pretty carrier, but this tends to be the case for many carriers. The vibrant colours of this one just make it more of a notable contrast.
LENNY LAMB ERGO
Altogether, I love this carrier.
This ‘Luna’ design in baby size retails at around £95. Those more complex designs made from jacquard woven cotton come in at around £100- £135. For a wrap conversion ergonomic carrier this is a brilliant option and still great value for money. (NB: prices accurate at time of publishing in 2016)
Lenny Lamb LennyUpGrade Baby Carrier
I take my baby carrier testing very seriously: Lenny has been our primary carrier for well over a month. (That might not sound like a long time, but I wear Little Miss multiple times per day, every day.) He s come to the grocery store, on walks to the library and hikes (I use the term hike here lightly) in and around Calgary. He also gets