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?

I posted a few weeks ago about our short trip to hospital this month and thought you could all use an update. Firstly, the procedure went well and our results were what we were hoping for. Baby girl is on a specific diet and all her symptoms are clearing up. Turns out, babywearing wasn’t the cure for her insanely high needs, but it did help! (OK, so she’s still very intense, but she’s much better now :))

We had some positive and negative experiences at the hospital while babywearing and this information is probably useful, so here’s our experience: I decided to take a short wrap and a pair of slingrings with me for our day trip. I’m very proficient with short wraps, but I do like to breastfeed hands free in a ring sling, so I thought this would cover me well for back, front, hip and breastfeeding carries.

Actually, instead of my streamlined approach, I wish I’d gone a little overboard and brought another carrier. Since A. needed to go under a general anaesthetic for her procedure, she was fasting for an extended period. A fasting baby smooshed up against lactating breasts isn’t conducive to calm behaviour! My intention here was to ruck (under bum or tie in front), but unfortunately, this isn’t the best back carry for a vigorously protesting child (read: tantrum). Short wraps do have some pretty wiggle-proof options like the strap carry and the short cross carry, however the former isn’t great for snuggling and sleeping, while the latter isn’t so quick to tie on a resistant child. What I really wanted was a wrap long enough to SHBC (or a mei tai!). In the end, I had to make do with front and hip carries to avoid a babywearing accident in a back carry and that wasn’t conducive to settling her quickly.

I also found that my no-sew ring sling idea wasn’t the best option under the circumstances. I spent a great deal of time popping my wearee in and out and these kinds of ring slings have a tendency to twist easily. They’re fine once you’ve got them settled, but take longer than a standard ring sling.

Once I got it settled, I found a ring sling (albeit a no-sew variety) was great for settling a child coming out of her anaesthetic. Wrapped up by the nursing staff like a baby burrito, she was popped into a cradle carry and the requisite monitor was easily accomodated. She slept off the drugs, woke up and demanded milk. After that, she woke up some more and demanded food. From that point, it was obvious she was back to her old self in record time.

Although babywearing was ultimately a very positive part of our hospital experience (and well regarded by the staff), I would do things differently next time. I’d accept from the outset that some carriers do different things better than others and that, even though we were only in hospital for a very short time, it wouldn’t have killed me to have another carrier on the day. Or two. Three at the outside

Have you worn your child in hospital? What was your experience? Leave a comment and let us know!

I’ll be posting a quick babywearing tip every Tuesday - today’s is basic mei tai troubleshooting.

First, tie the waist strap on so baby’s weight will be at your belly button or higher. Better for your centre of gravity, and it won’t drag on your shoulders as much as a low-rider.

Second, you want your baby sitting properly on their bottom. If your little darling is trying to stand up while you put the mei tai on, they probably won’t have their bottom nice and deep in the sling - which means it just won’t feel right when you tie on the shoulder straps.

Third, give a little bounce for back carries as you pull the shoulder straps tight in front of you. This gets baby’s bottom properly into the seat created by the sling, and ensures those shoulder straps are tight so gravity doesn’t drag down on your shoulders and neck. For front carries, I sometimes use one hand to support their weight at the height I want them sitting while I pull the straps tight - for the same reason, I want their bottom staying put while I tie knots and I want those shoulder straps tight.

If in doubt about how tight to tie it, go tighter. My rule is do it up so tight you can’t breathe, then loosen ever so slightly. Loose, low slings are for wusses who only want to babywear for five minutes a day - once you’ve got that slingling tied on, they might want to stay put for a few hours and you need to be comfy!

Welcome to the WOE Ruck (Wrap Once Every Day). Here are Jess’ tips, tricks and internet picks. As always, you can join in the chatter, get some help or admire the wraps, wrappers and wrappees here.

Instructions:

• Picture tute here.
• Video tutes here and here.
• Paulus video tute showing sandwiching of the shoulders here.

Tips and Tricks:

• When wrapping a small baby, align the top of their shoulders to the top rail of the wrap
• Tuck the bottom rail under the child’s butt to make a “pouch” for them to sit into, if possible try to get that fabric up under their needs
• I find it easier to cross the straps at the back together at the same time in one fluid motion
• Focus less on the bottom rail and more on the top - but don’t obsess, it will not be perfect the first few times!
• Don’t forget that final “hop” at the end before you tie in front to get rid of the slack and make it a nice firm carry.
• For smaller bubs who are still “froggied” you can just keep their feet in ala SHBC and wrap over them by first creating a small pocket for the feet by folding up the bottom rail.

Paulus’ tips for a consistently comfortable shoulder  (see Paulus’ video linked above):

• Basically you focus on one shoulder at a time (put the other tail between your legs), get that top rail (one closest to your neck) taut by tucking it under your chin (or use your teeth ;)), and then flip/fold the bottom/outer rail in half from your arm up to the top rail near your neck.
• If you find it still too wide on your shoulder, do another outer to inner fold (so you essentially fold it into quarter length - or four neatly folded layers of wrap on your shoulder).
• An optional step after this is to do a outer-to-inner twist of the tail down  near your armpit to ‘lock’ the shoulder folds.
• Then take the tail back around to the other side as normal, tuck under legs, and repeat with the other shoulder.

Thanks to Jess (and Paulus) for introducing one of my favourite carries for newborns through to preschoolers! Do you use the ruck or are you “ruck challenged”? What helped the ruck “click” for you? Leave a comment and let us know!

Welcome to the WOE Challenge, BWCC (that’s Wrap Once Every Day, and Back Wrap Cross Carry for those not in the know!). Here are Jess and Paulus’ tips, tricks and internet picks! As always, you can join in the chatter, get some help or admire the wraps, wrappers and wrappees here.

Video & Instructions:

• Video here
• Tutorial here
• Instructions to do the carry with ruck straps here
• Instructions to do the carry with chest belt here. (If you have a shoulder injury or mobility issues, this may be your best option.)

Tips and tricks:

• If in doubt, try it first with the chest belt as it helps “pin” babe on your back while you wrap
• If wrapping with a small baby - make sure your babe is not gassy as, although it can be warming in Winter, you really don’t want bebe vomming all down your back

For those doing the BWCC (or any carry that requires you to spread wrap behind baby’s back):

• Don’t toss the wrap onto your back and try to figure out how to spread it out then. You’ll most likely end up confusing yourself on which rail goes where.
• It’s much easier to handle the top rail ONLY and (if you’re handling the RIGHT tail going over the right shoulder using your right arm):
  (a) Pass the top rail from your right hand in front, over your shoulder (and over your baby’s shoulder - this will prevent the leaning back issue), onto your left hand behind you.
  (b) At this point your left hand is holding the top rail behind your back, and you can use your right hand to grab the bottom rail behind you and help spread out the wrap behind baby’s back. Think diagonal when spreading out behind baby’s back - you want the top rail to go from bub’s right shoulder across to her left side, and the bottom rail to go from the top of your right arm down to under your bub’s left leg.
  (c) After a good spread is achieved, pass the bottom rail to your left hand (still behind you, and now holding the entire tail in a bunch) and tuck the tail under bub’s left leg, bring around to your front, and tuck tail under your legs.
  (d) Repeat with the left tail. 
•  If you look carefully at the first BWCC video above,  the wrapper basically did the same steps I described above but faster. I also find these photo tutes helpful to illustrate these steps: Tute One, Tute Two. These are all in our Wrap Instructions Links page.

Thanks to Jess and Paulus for a fantastic intro to the BWCC. Do you BWCC? Do you like it? Which variation is your favourite? Leave a comment and let us know!

We like acronyms down here and we love to wrap. We also know how hard it can be to learn. Welcome to the Wrap Once Everyday Challenge. Jess has organized it brilliantly and outlines the challenge below. Meanwhile, I apologize for being over a week late in getting it to blog!

The challenge set for this month is to wrap once every day.

There Are Only Two Rules:

1. Give every carry a try!
2. Post (minimum, there is no maximum) 2 photos for the entire challenge to the google group. It does not matter if the photos are dodgy, as photo critique is a great way for others to help you out with a carry you may be experiencing issues with.

Timeline of Events: August

1st (Front Wrap Cross Carry) FWCC
4th (Back Wrap Cross Carry) BWCC
7th Ruck
10th (Reinforced Ruck/Ruck tied Under Bum) RR/RUB
13th (Hip Cross Carry) HCC
16th (Kangaroo Carry) KC
19th (Secure High Back Carry) SHBC
22nd (Jordan’s Back Carry) JBC
25th (Poppins’ Hip Carry) PHC
28th Rebozo
30th FAVOURITE CARRY LEARNED

There will be a post on blog for every carry with tips, tricks, tutorials and links. You can join the chatter, ask for help and amire the photographs here.