Babywearing Year In Review
Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t we? Yep, it’s a year in review for the Baby Carriers Downunder blog.
My fave photo from 2009 - yes, I do have the most gorgeous wearee ever 
January 2009 kicked off with a couple of sling meets, in Melbourne and Sydney. Sling meets are a great way to keep the kids busy during school holidays, especially as they usually happen in parks rather than busy indoor play centres.
February was when we got stuck into more regular writing. There was the very entertaining It’s Time to Get Serious: Zombies; a run-down on babywearing retail with If these slings are so cool, why can’t I buy them at KMart?; and Babywearing and Post Natal Depression.
By March, the weather was starting to cool down in the southern parts of the country, but Australia being such a big place it was still nice and warm up north. We had a mix of the serious - How do I start - with TWO babies? - and the not-so-serious - Could Angelina Jolie be a tandem babywearer? Yep, we had a bit of a tandem babywearing theme for March. Whether it’s twins, or a toddler and newborn, lots of parents carry more than one kid at once out of practicality.
In April, we discovered why wrappers are really cool froods, how to breastfeed hands-free, and spent the whole month sharing the love - with a series of posts talking about babywearing when the wearer isn’t the child’s parent.
May was Newborn Babywearing Month on the blog. One of my favourites was Can we please go home now? A personal story about leaving NICU with a premmie (or two). I also loved the glimpse into another culture in Kandy, about babywearing in Sri Lanka.
June saw a week in the life of a wrapper. My fave was a great example of Extreme Wrapping - Day 4, wrapping on a moving bus. Coming up to the end of financial year, there were also some great babywearing economy posts like Babywearing Affluenza and How to buy: pre-loved slings and carriers.
There were more great personal stories in July, like the famous Paulus’ Babywearing Birth Story, and Steph’s plan to support her high needs baby with lots of babywearing.
Australian weather (and climate has a big impact on what slings we wear) is quite varied in August: cold and rainy (even snowing) down south, warm and dry up north. We covered advice on how to wash your stash, and a WOE (wrap once every day) challenge - my fave is the ruck.
September, the start of Spring, was huge! We had International Babywearing Week from 21-28 September 2009. There was also the mother all sling-meets at the huge Homebirth Rally in Canberra on Monday 7 September 2009. But among the advocacy and community spirit, there was still time to blog the personal - like Steph’s posts on babywearing in hospital.
I think we were all a little exhausted in October and November, or perhaps just getting out in the nicer weather, because the blog was much quieter. But there was a cute post with photos of mei tai used as a swing harness. And WOE challenge became WOEvember.
We got back on track a little more in December, with a beginner’s guide to using pouches, and a series on travel and babywearing.
Got any ideas on what you’d like us to cover in 2010? Do you have New Year’s babywearing resolutions? Or perhaps you’re doing an end-of-year destash and declutter? Did you have a personal babywearing hightlight in 2009? Post your comments below!
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5 responses so far
My favourite moment was the day I learnt to back wrap my new baby - she was 3 weeks at the time. It saved my sanity and was very special to us all, and still is.
Wow - we’ve had a great year haven’t we? Great reflection there, Emma. My baby wearing win this year was taking the twins in tandem until they were 16 months old. This last few weeks, I have started looking at other options - heat, their combined weight an maybe other factors have reduced my “contact hours”. My baby wearing challenge for 2010 will be to continue wearing the babies in the face of these obstacles - maybe not in tandem, but mindful not to go “cold-turkey”, for my sake or theirs.
Jessie and Ruby, very impressive! Back wrapping a newborn and tandem wearing twins. I don’t have any truly technically impressive moments from 2009, but I do hope to get some more babywearing moments in 2010. My youngest is almost past carrying age, so like Ruby I will be trying to avoid going cold-turkey in 2010.
I agree, my best achievement was learning to back wrap my newborn - and continue to wear her on my back, its made adjusting to having 3 kids so so so much easier. The other highlight for me was discovering how quickly a tantrum can calm down when the person having the tantrum is popped in a carrier - another handy tool in my parenting kit!
Annie, that is so true! Now if only there were a way to calm *me* that quickly when I’m having a tantrum…