What goes around comes around

I've been carrying the girl in a sling since she was born. I've always found it a rather sweet way to transport the child. It's a little like a long extended hug, or at least it was when she was very young. Now she tends to be much more active, and will often flip through a book while attached (often swatting my nose or adams apple when turning the pages).

I have found myself planting a kiss on the top of her head at random moments when carrying her in the sling. I'd be just standing or walking around, and, well, why not? Until recently I never really considered if it she liked it or not.

Now, I've been carrying her on my shoulders on occasion. If we're walking around and she's out of the sling, it's sometimes easier to carry her that way than to walk alongside her – given how easily she can be distracted by, well, everything. The past few times she's been on my shoulders, she's occasionally bent down and planted a kiss on the top of my head. I nearly melted the first time she did that. She'll also sometimes swing her head round till she caches my eye and smiles at me.

I think she likes it.

On a similar note, I do wonder how long I can/should be carrying her in the sling. She can walk just fine now, though I'd not be willing to walk down Oxford Street with her this time of year. But I do find that one advantage of babies transported in prams, is that their parents will take them out at any time and they can walk alongside them, or play while waiting in a queue and so on. The sling is a bit of a pain to take her out and put her back in, so I only do it if I'll be a place for a while. I sometimes feel that keeping her in the sling is stunting her ability to deal with the world around her.

I also wonder how big she should get before it's too troublesome to carry her. At this point I already have RSI in one shoulder from picking her up (and she's small for her age), and if I carry her for too many hours in a day, it does start to hurt. How long can I keep carrying her before it starts to be a bad idea for me? And will this happen before she's ready to walk everywhere? And if so, how will we transport her around? I'm not going to start using a pram.