A change of direction.

This post has been a long time coming.  We stopped distributing for Babyidea last year, ending a 10 year long association.  Despite having a varied range of products, the majority of our business with Babyidea was seasonal, focussed on their baby-carrying accessories.  I was sad, but I needed to make a change in how I used my time and spread my work out over the year.  And to that end, I'm working to improve my teaching skills so that I can offer baby carrying consultations.  I'm taking part in a Trageschule UK "Advanced" course next month, and I'm busy preparing for this with the required coursework!  This includes a report of a consultation.  Since I'm not currently providing this as a service, I'm struggling a little with how to find a guinea-pig!  There are established consultants in the area, whose toes I don't want to tread on at all, I believe strongly that it's of benefit to all of us to work together, but I don't think it's appropriate to charge for my time when, despite having wrapped my now-13yo and 10yo daughters for the first few years of their lives, I am essentially a trainee.

So I'm putting it out there this way.  If there's anyone local who is happy for me to train 'on' them, who is available in the next few days (but not this weekend, as I'm away) for me to follow through the process, please get in touch via the Contact Us link on BabyArmadillo.

And watch this space for further news about our consultation service.

long time no see!

Well! It's been an awfully long time. Once again I'm prompted by a visit to Harrogate Nursery Fair to blog, but this time it isn't so much a round up of the good, the bad and the ugly (oh boy, the ugly!) as an apology for dropping the ball over here for so long. It's a funny old thing, blogging, it's meant to be about life, whether that's of an individual or some entity like a business or a charity, but then life gets in the way and writing stuff down doesn't seem as important as actually doing it. But then the lack of writing down means that the prompts and reminders, and the feedback, of course, are lost, and so sometimes the living gets a little lost too.

Anyway. Hopefully this is the return of a blog that's about the life of BabyArmadillo, and the life of BabyArmadillo continues to be worthy of blogging.

I'm not going to talk about any specific products from the show, I didn't see any awful howlers and the interesting new stuff, well you will have to see what happens there! It was lovely to chat with Victoria from the School of Babywearing about the European Babywearing Conference, which I will be attending with Babyidea, and Debi and Phil from Slumber-Roo, about the business of babywearing, and business generally, and fun to watch my friend Becky of Big Mama Slings in action in her other role as buyer for Born, with big thanks to The Little Green Sheep for the entertainment towards the end of the day and to Aden + Anais for the lovely welcome and the balm, very welcome for my lips on such a bitterly cold day!

Most of all, thanks to my customers, and to you for reading this today! Stay tuned for more news :-)

A couple of new mei tai and Baby Show report

FrontBackandSides

I've added a couple of new FrontBackandSides Mei Tai to the shop today, hope you like them. Kirsty makes really great slings and carriers, with strong attention to detail and a particular care for the safety of the babies and children in the carrier. When our friends at
Big Mama Slings asked me whether they were well-made I said 'I know how picky Kirsty is.' LOL Watch this space for Solarveil Mei Tai...

The Baby Show

Last Sunday I went to The Baby Show at the NEC, Birmingham. The morning was beautifully sunny and I dressed accordingly, but when we arrived it was freezing and wet, oops! The hustle and bustle inside quickly warmed me up though. It was quite sad to find that while there were cloth nappy stands, who were doing really well (like Geobel who distribute Bambineo bamboo nappies, and had to go home on Saturday because they'd sold out!!) the only slings on display were the BabaSling and the BabyTrekker, alongside a few padded front carriers and framed backpacks. Perhaps there's a gap in the market, there were several people walking around with stretchy wraps and MTs on, but there again I know other retailers who've done shows, so maybe they've found it not worthwhile? I don't know...

So what did I look at? Well there were some old friends, like Morrck, and some really bizarre ideas like the Yes! Superbaby nursing shirt, which, as one forum-poster said, really makes you look like a walking activity mat... I bought some Dryer Balls and went to Subway for lunch, I knew they take plastic and the quality's consistent at least, lol. Mostly I accosted people wearing their babies, either to suggest adjustments or just to chat, and marvelled at the unnecessary stuff that people market, the separation-ist stuff and the downright daft. One woman I talked to, who was wearing her dd in a Calin Bleu microfleece wrap, said 'the only things mothers really need for their babies is arms to hold them and breasts to feed them.' For the most part I heartily agree, though there are women incapable of breastfeeding for whatever reason and for mothers of more than one, sometimes somewhere to put your baby down for a few minutes is really useful, and obviously slings do help take the strain off those arms a bit! But yes, getting used to life with new babies is complicated enough without adding in all the gadgets and gizmos that we get bombarded with. Just boobs and arms is enough to start with.

Jobs for today...

• talk to Trading Standards about something...
• talk to my insurance broker...
• see if it's too late to book a stand at Honley Show
• upload a couple of new 'frontbackandsides' in-stock mei tai
• unbung the dishwasher :-

ah the joys...

what a weekend! or oh how the mighty fall, or something...

Ugh! What can I say?

Friday 13th. I guess it's more bad judgement than bad luck that the lights inside the car were left switched on overnight, meaning my battery was flat when I came to set off. And more bad judgement that I took a wrong turn, and instead of just turning round (which I couldn't do to start with as it was a dual carriageway and no way to cross it) I thought 'there will be a way to get across to the other road.' Well, there wasn't. And somehow I ended up going the whole way round Derby ring road again before coming back to the roundabout. So it wasn't bad luck at all that meant I was setting up for a couple of hours after the show opened :-|

It was definitely bad judgement, but not mine, that chose a venue for a show that only had enough parking for the stallholders and not for customers. That was hard to find, badly publicised and badly set up.

I don't know if I'll do any more shows, and if I do I'll have to do a reccie of the venue first. And I just can't help thinking I could do better myself. But do people really want to go to these things? I'd love to know...

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! I hope today brings the promise of Springtime new beginnings :-)

I'm up at ridiculous o'clock due to my youngest taking herself up to bed for a nap at 7pm, we hadn't even had tea. And while I have lots of jobs to do, sometimes things take a bit more concentration than listening to Dora the Explorer at 2am will allow. Like comparing types of cloth nappy to decide what a realistic and sufficiently profitable RRP would be on the products one can import. Or writing an email in html to send out to previous customers. Blogging doesn't need quite that level of concentration :-)

The email is a bit of a summing-up of news, I'll put the link here when I can get it finished and uploaded. I hope it doesn't annoy anyone, when I haven't had an opt-in-or-out for a newsletter in the past. The setting of RRPs is so that I can distribute a wholesale price-list, which was the point of registering for VAT. I mean, it's pointless and actually could be expensive if it doesn't increase sales.

Another string to my bow will be setting up some local demonstration sessions. This should have been an integral part of the business from the beginning, and any new sling and natural-baby-care retailer really needs to figure out their niche and local interest, because generally-speaking, people like to see how things work and what they look like, especially when the type of product is unfamiliar. The people who know about slings and are confident with the internet already know what they're looking for and how to find it, but there aren't that many of those, and there are increasing numbers of retailers competing for that relatively small customer-pool.

Anyway, enjoy your day, chocolate-loaded or not *grin*

Happy Easter!

urgh

I really hate being poorly. In the past it would be just a case of taking to my bed and coping best as possible with the children, but now it seems especially galling when I've got work to do! My to do list includes changing my bank account, registering for VAT (don't worry, it won't change the prices on the site :) ) writing articles, organising some local events, doing some pr, maybe booking a stand, chasing up suppliers, doing yet more tinkering with the shop... that happens all the time! Kind-of like an itch, can't leave it alone :| go look I've just done some now! Feedback on it would be lovely :)