Emeibaby comes from Austria, directly from the heart of the Austrian Alps, from Ramsau. As usual, the brand was founded by one agile mum with several no-less agile children – she was not able to find an ideal carrier for them so she designed one herself. This carrier is one of those you cannot mistake for anything else at first sight – the system of tightening through the sling rings was unique in the babywearing world for a long time as far as I know (until recently a carrier/sling mash-up Manduca Duo was born) and it is still one of the few carriers that are universally recommended even for newborns. Adjusting of the carrier looks complicated at first, but I had no problem adjusting it after watching the instruction video for the first time on Youtube – the ring system may be unusual but is not complicated at all. Everything else there is to adjust on the carrier (waist belt, shoulder straps) is easy and intuitive.
The Baby size is suitable for babies from 0 to 3 years according to the manufacturer (or up to 2 years according to the group Nosíme děti, i.e. We wear our babies); the minimum weight recommended by the manufacturer is 3 kg.
Uff. It certainly is a very interesting and clever system for little babies – I have never seen a newborn in Emeibaby myself but I can imagine that the wrap around his/her bum would hold his/her knees in perfect ˈM-positionˈ and would embrace his/her back without problems. But with my 16-months-old Emilka, who is rather small for her age (74 cm/9 kg), I was a bit sheepish about the carrier. The ˈM-positionˈ was not that good, however, I probably could live with it, but the back panel was tragically short! It ended somewhere under Emilka’s shoulder blades, while she is, I have to repeat it, really small for her age! Despite all my efforts to pull the back panel up, I could not get it higher – I even had to position Emilka that she was almost sitting on the waist belt and not in the ˈpocketˈ (which is something I normally hate and it really gets on my nerves when I see a baby positioned like this in a carrier). I had to think really hard how to fix her head in the carrier if she fell asleep – the image of the hood over her head with her arms sticking out on the sides was not very pleasing for me. And, the image of a sleeping 2-year-old (well, of an awake 2-year-old, too) in this carrier is from a totally different, unknown dimension of space for me. And with a 3-year-old? Laughing stock.
However – what really surprised me, despite the fact that this carrier ˈsuitable up to 2 yearsˈ is too small even for Emilka, is how comfortable it was for me as a wearer! Wide firm waist belt is something I love when it comes to carriers and this one is just perfect – the width, thickness, consistence and (first of all) the shape, just as I like it. Moreover, the manufacturer had also very slim mums in mind when designing the carrier, I suppose there are none for whom the waist belt is too long. Another little plus for me is that there is a bidirectional buckle on the waist belt and therefore the buckle is in the middle of your back and you can tie in both directions equally. The shoulder straps are padded just enough in my opinion and despite the lack of possibility to cross them (otherwise I am a ˈcross-onlyˈ wearer) they were quite comfortable for me wearing Emilka’s 9 kg. Aesthetics-wise, our verticals unfortunately did not converge – flowers, curls and blue-red colour combination are not something that would make my heart beat faster.
Bottom line – Emeibaby in size Baby is probably a good carrier for small babies, but the back panel is really short and would be OK up to approximately 1 year of age in my opinion (1 year of age in smaller children, to be specific). You can wear a bigger child in it without problems, of course, and it would still be comfortable for the wearer. But up to 2 years – no way, and up to 3 years – absolutely no way of all the ways in the world.
My thanks for the opportunity to test the carrier go to the group Nosíme děti (i.e. We wear our babies).