If you’ve been following the Baby Carriers Downunder blog, you may have noticed we don’t write a lot of posts along the lines of “OMG! I so love [insert brand here]“. In fact, we don’t have any posts that sing the praises of a particular brand. It’s not because we don’t want the sponsorship dollars, or because we are all hard-core DIY-only babywearers. It’s because Baby Carriers Downunder is independent. And to quote Stan Lee, “with great power comes great responsibility”. Which is far more relevant than my other favourite thing to tell my kids, “with pants comes dignity”.

Being independent means we can talk about the features that make a carrier fabulous or FAIL, or the ways to use and abuse a particular style of carrier. But because we don’t name brands, we have no financial incentive to promote one carrier over another, nor risk the wrath of a manufacturer for suggesting a variation on their instructions. And we can more easily get Baby Carriers Downunder working with other non-profit parent support organisations, because we’re here to promote ALL forms of babywearing that support healthy babies and parents/carers.

If you’ve been following my posts on this blog for a while, you might also have picked up that I work in the industry. And yet I cannot post about my own business here. So why do I spend time writing for Baby Carriers Downunder? Because every person that is helped along the way to successful babywearing is a good thing, regardless of where they get their gear. I’m an addict that wants to get more users hooked, and I don’t care what dealer they go to.

Babywearing needs to become mainstream, it needs to be normalised, if we are to have a viable long term industry. More importantly, babywearing needs to be normalised so that parents can more easily find and use a tool that makes their job easier. Nothing makes me happier than having someone tell me how much better their baby sleeps, or that they no longer wear baby chuck five times a day, or that they can now get out of the house with their baby, or simply that their back feels good now that they have a good sling and the skills to use it.

If we’re going to normalise babywearing, we need independent blogs and support groups. It’s not hard to tout your own brand all over the interwebz. But we have bigger things to consider here. Things like the concept behind babywearing, safety tips that apply to ALL carriers, and what makes a well-constructed carrier at home or in a commercial factory. People who want to discuss the many brands do so in our Google Group forum. But as bloggers, we realise that what we say carries a different level of credibility, and is rated differently by search engines. We want blog readers to take this material as a starting point in their search for the perfect sling for their needs - not just look up a list of the Top 5 Best Baby Carriers Ever and buy the one that’s in their price range.

So if your comment recommending a brand name carrier disappears from our blog, or we don’t bother publishing your media release about your new baby carrier product, please don’t be offended. We’re just enjoying our babywearing independence in a brand-free zone. And if you’re looking for the Top 5 Best Baby Carriers Ever, here’s the list in my personal order of preference (which will change tomorrow, as I feel about baby carriers the way most women feel about shoes):

• Mei Tai
• Short Wrap
• Soft Structured Carrier (SSC)
• Long Wrap
• Ring Sling

Oh look, useful information without brand names! See, it is possible Now go argue the crap out of my top 5 list…

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!

Thanks for bearing with us. I’ve shovelled my way out and I’m back to blogging!

 Stay tuned for babywearing while injured (ask me how I know), slip knot tutorials, high needs kids, more on breastfeeding hands free, the mother of all slingmeets and plenty of other exciting babywearing blogging!

As you’ve probably noticed, we’re running a series on breastfeeding hands free. This is a “bookmark” post with links to all of our hands free topics and will be updated as we add to the series.

Breastfeeding hands free, instructions by carrier:

• Ring sling
• Mei tai
• Long wraps: Part One
• Long wraps: Part Two
• Short wraps

Have you got the skills and time to do a breastfeeding hands free post? Have we not covered your favourite carrier yet? Are you a size larger or smaller than average? Do you or your nursling have special circumstances that need to be taken into account? We’d love to feature your know-how on the blog. Please drop us a line in the comments section!

That’s right, it’s words and pictures here at BCD blog now! Do you own a camera? Do you own a carrier? Do you have a kid somewhere around your place? Then get snapping now!

The competition is going to be a monthly endeavour at the blog and we want to see all your best babywearing photographs. The prizes are phenomenal. Get this… wait for it… the grand prize is our uneneding admiration and the (virtual) honour of being BCD’s prime photographer! Runners up will receive slightly less admiration and honour, but still a large amount of it nonetheless.

OK, so we’re poor here at BCD blog. We don’t do advertising because we feel it’s important to be an independent voice, so we don’t have a prizes budget. But we do have a lot of admiration to go round.

This month’s theme is new to babywearing. Feel free to interpret the theme broadly and let us know what you come up with. If you have a photograph, upload it to the BCD flickr page and send an email to sacredchickens [{at}] rocketmail [{dot}] com - we’ll put it up on the blog. At the end of the month, the blog mods will come up with a shortlist and it’ll be up to our readers to vote on a winner.

Remember that in order to enter the competition, you must have the permission of the parents of the child you’re photographing and anyone else in the photograph. You must also own the rights to your photograph and understand that they will be hosted on BCD blog.

Get snapping!

April sped past pretty quickly here at BCD blog. There was the Carnival of Breastfeeding, we shared the love in words and pictures and I confessed my addiction to FSOT. We paid homage to Douglas Adams and learnt how to back carry in a pod.

May is full of more fun times: specifically squishy newborn wearing fun times! May is newborn babywearing month and we’ve got posts on the how-tos of wearing a newborn, safety, babywearing after c-section and a whole lot more. We’ll also be continuing with our breastfeeding hands free series, because there’s nothing a newborn likes to do more than chow down!

We also have something very special to announce tomorrow, so check back in for more in May!