How can I specify points attached to a sprite that move with the animation?

I'm creating a 2D platformer with a parasitic enemy. The parasite will cling to the player's feet upon contact. Contacting more parasites will put them at the player's feet, pushing the rest of them up along the player's body. With ~5 parasites the player's figure should be engulfed in the parasites.

What's the best way to implement this?

I'm thinking of making an array of child GameObjects for the player, attaching a parasite to each GameObject's transform and shifting the parasites along the array as more are gained. But the transforms must be adjusted for every frame, which could get tedious. Is there another away?