Evenflo Easy Comfort Baby Carrier

Ah, I have fond memories of the Baby Backpack, as we've affectionately christened it. I got a lot of use out of it and was always very pleased with its performance... well, until the kids grew too big for it. Now they put their stuffed animals in it and carry them around!

First of all, this particular carrier is riddled with straps. It took me a while to figure out exactly which buckle went to which strap, and after I got it properly assembled, I was very protective of the thing because I certainly wasn't about to try to figure it out all over again. From an aesthetic viewpoint, I really like the color scheme--ours was blue with hot magenta and some sea green. As its name suggests, the carrier can be used three ways. What is not readily obvious is that it should be used in all three ways, at varying stages of the baby's development.

The first stage is to use it as a front pack with your child facing you. There is a firm upholstered cardboard backing to support the baby's head, and he has his own little shoulder straps to wear. This is also the easiest configuration to get the kid into, at least by yourself. The carrier comes equipped with an "accessory loop" to hold a pacifier or other toy with a Velcro fastener, but I never found it very useful since it was difficult to locate the strap once my baby let go of it. The two pads designed to hold my baby's head up relatively straight didn't work all that well, and I found myself constantly adjusting the pads.

You can also have the child face forward by sliding the cardboard backing toward your body. This position is ideal once your child can hold his head up by himself--which works out nicely because that coincides with the time he begins to notice the greater world around him and wants a better view than your neck. Using the carrier as a front pack put a strain on my back, particularly when I was trying to carry groceries or a baby bag as well. Sometimes I wore my backpack to counterbalance the weight, but it was still rough going. My kids' heels were also prone to colliding with my legs with every step I took, which was not fun if my passenger was wearing shoes!

The last position is to reverse the carrier and use it as a backpack. The important things to remember here are that unlike the frontpack position, your shoulder straps do no cross over each other. Also, the child should never be facing backwards when the carrier is used this way. I'm used to toting a heavy backpack around, so the monkey on my back was virtually no strain on me this way--unless I happened to be dragging our other child along in her carrier, that is. The only real problem with using the carrier this way was that I had a tough time putting it on if I was alone. As the instructions suggested, I usually suited him up in in on the bed, then knelt down and attached the straps around me. It's much easier when you have help.

After my boy got to be around 16 months old he was far too heavy to even consider wearing on my back, and so that was the end of the carrier. We certainly took enough trips to the doctor, supermarket, and toy store that it was worth every penny we spent on it, though.