I’ve had the most fantastic weekend at the Corinbank Festival! I was there to teach babywearing in the Green Kulture village, but I also spent lots of time spotting slings while sipping chai, playing Scrabble, learning about clay-balling, watching circus acts, avoiding infringement notices from the Fashion Police, eating vegetarian feasts, asking chicks in the line for Tableaux Vivants (live nude show - and I spotted a baby in ring sling being breastfed in the audience) if her dreads require much maintenance, listening to Ash Grunwald and heaps of other great bands… well, you get the picture. It was a general festival of family-friendly fun with as little environmental impact as possible. I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story:

Left: Dominique is wearing an Australian brand pouch sling - and her baby is probably keen to grab that coffee because it might have chilli in it from the Mayan Coffee stall!

Centre: Katoomba mum with her big girl chilling out in a blue SSC (soft structured carrier). See, babywearing isn’t just for babies!

Right: I recognised this as an organic Eyes Of The World print fabric (I used to have a woven wrap in this fabric). Turns out this pouch sling was made in Canberra!

Circus Playground looked like a lot of fun - and if you look closely, you might spot a dad with a baby in a camel-coloured SSC on his back!

I had lots of fun demonstrating Ninja Babywearing to save your baby from the invading zombie hoard who want to eat your brain… or just get your baby on your back so you can get on with washing, cooking, chasing other kids, or generally looking good. Even wore my ninja babywearing t-shirt while I did the job I also showed people how to carry a baby with a tablecloth, shawl, or bedsheet so you can rock on at the main stage without losing your toddler, or settle a cranky baby to sleep even when you’re camping in the Brindabella mountains outside Canberra. I had great help from Morgyn (who works at the coolest baby shop in Canberra), plus Moira and Kate from the Canberra Babywearers, who gave me lunch break time. Thanks ladies!

So what did I miss with my camera? A very cool mei tai with feature panel in a brown print, ring slings (only spotted black and blue, where were all the stripes and prints?), and several stretchy wraps and SSC’s. Oh, but I did catch the Fashion Police from Ruby Bloomers Women’s Circus:

In between issuing infringement notices for fashion crimes, these rocking chicks also issued encouragement notices for babywearing and public breastfeeding. And looked damn fine in their leather corsets and stripey tights
I’m already thinking about a bigger and better Corinbank 2011 - what would you want to see in a babywearing demo at a music/arts festival?

Did you go to a Walk Against Warming 2009 event on Saturday 12 December? ABC News says there were more than 90,000 people at rallies around Australia, including over 2,000 at the Parliament House rally in Canberra. I spotted ring slings (hemp and cotton), soft structured carriers (SSCs), and stretchy wraps at the Canberra rally. Check out what the tweeps thought with tags #waw09 or #walkagainstwarming. So what does this have to do with babywearing?

Babywearing is, without a doubt, more environmentally friendly than using a stroller or pram. A good quality baby sling or baby carrier is made from biodegradable, natural materials: cotton, hemp, silk, and wool are the most popular fabrics. Some carriers use padding made from bamboo, cotton, or recycled PET. Other carriers include metal or plastic rings, or hard plastic clips. While PET padding, aluminium rings, and hard plastic clips are not biodegradable at end-of-life, they will take up far less landfill space than the amount of plastic or metal in a stroller.

Traditional-style baby carriers can also support economic development programs in developing countries. Hand-woven cloth, such as the slings made in Guatemala or Timor Leste, or traditional printing techniques such as those used in India and Indonesia, preserve traditional craft skills and usually make use of renewable materials in the artisan’s local area. Making carriers from this cloth also enables artisans to earn a real wage from their work. This means they have an alternative to forms of work that may be less environmentally sustainable.

But the best thing about babywearing is how easy it is to get into nature with the kids. I can’t take a stroller up Mount Taylor, but I can carry a three year old on my back in an SSC when her legs get tired. I can’t push a pram around the cracked footpaths and dirt tracks through the reserve in my suburb, but I can put the newborn in a ring sling and walk him to sleep in the evening. You don’t need the knowledge of a park ranger or make the effort to plan guided activities on bushwalks. Simply being in a place with real trees and grass, checking out birds and lizards and bugs, will pique most children’s curiosity about the world they live in. By showing them there’s a world of living creatures and growing plants, children can begin to understand that their actions have an impact beyond the four walls of their house.

Here’s a nice new video promoting the upcoming International Babywearing Week:

To see what’s happening around your area to celebrate it, see our IBW09 events page.

In celebration of International Babywearing Week 2009 (IBW09), babywearing groups around Australia and New Zealand are organizing local events to celebrate, promote, and advocate the many benefits of babywearing. Below is a list of local events scheduled at this stage. New events may be added between now and then, so please check back if you don’t see any events in your area. If you are interested in organizing an event in your area, please contact us or join our Forum to find other locals near you. For more information on IBW09, please visit www.babywearingweek.org.

NZ:
Auckland
Hamilton
AU:
Brisbane
Adelaide
Canberra

AUCKLAND

Sunday 26 September, 10am-2pm
‘Slings in the Park’ Free Family Event to support the Kangaroo-care initiative at National Women’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. For more details, please visit Slingbabies’ IBW09 page.

HAMILTON

Wednesday 23 September, 10am
Informal sling meet. Contact Kerry at kmacsmith@clear.net.nz or 07 843 7244 if interested.

BRISBANE

Saturday 19 September, 1-4pm

Back Carry Workshop at Brisbane Sling Meet.
Ever wanted to learn how to carry your newborn/baby/toddler on your back? Learn how to do back carry properly with different carriers including a long piece of fabric, and start enjoying the freedom back carrying brings!
Venue: Indooroopilly Library Meeting Room, 4th floor of Indooroopilly Shopping Centre.

Sunday 20 September, 11:30am-2pm

Babywearing Walk and Picnic (CBD).
Join other local babywearers for a BYO picnic/BBQ at the Roma Street Parklands followed by a Babywearing Walk through Queen Street Mall. Take part in a back carry flash mob during the Walk to apply the skills you learned from the previous day!
Venue: meet at the BBQ/picnic area in Roma St Parklands between 11:30am and 1pm. Bring a plate of food to share. We will start walking to Queen St Mall at 1pm.

ADELAIDE

Monday 21 September, 10am-12:30pm
Combined Babywearing/Elimination Communication meet with the ECers from the OzNappyFree group. More details in the Adelaide sling meet page.

CANBERRA

Thursday 24 September, 10am
Gathering at Floriade. Meet at Kid’s corner, near petting zoo (free maps in the program on entry if you’re not sure where to go)

She’s a’coming and she’s going to be a biggun.

Where: Parliament House, Canberra (Australia)

When: 7th September, 2009,  11:30 am.

Why: It’s Homebirth Australia’s rally.

It turns out that a lot of babywearers are either homebirthers or supportive of a woman’s right to birth at home. Many of us are going. Are you coming too?

I believe in the fundamental interconnectedness of all babywearers.  I believe that, thanks to our easy embrace of the internet and our stateas a subculture, we are all just six slings away from any other babywearer.

I mean it. I reckon, that within six slings we can find a connection between any two babywearers. Be it a mutual passion for SPOCs, ownership of the same sling via FSOT or a travelling wrap- every babywearer in the world is connected within six slings.

 Case in point: I was at the Sydney Pregnancy, Babies and Children Expo last week. It was stroller city! So walking around with a baby in a wrap, I was pretty easy to spot. I ran into one woman and complimented on her (fabulous) mei tai. On hearing the brand, I knew precisely who she’d bought it from. One sling, a chance meeting and that was it. A vendor of another brand of mei tais mentioned a passion for fair trade/fair work practices and organic fabrics. It turned out, she was an acquaintence of another member of the mod team for this very blog. Both of those connections were made in far less than six slings.

We’re all fundamentally interconnected by no more than six slings. Trust me on this one.

Have you got a six slings of separation story? Have you got a test case for this theory? Leave a comment, let’s try this one out!