Introducing Fanny Fanackapants...

I started this post back in October. Well October was a bit busy for us, and I really got out of the old blogging habit. But anyway. We moved some stuff around and got some new stuff in and we now have another online shop, which we called Fanny Fanackapants. 'Dillo is still about slings and breastfeeding, the potty and nappy-ish stuff has been moved to Fannypants, as some wag (that's wag as in joker, not W.A.G.) called it, along with a bunch of merino and organic cotton clothes from Babyidea. They're all made with the usual attention to detail and with an eye to getting the most possible use, with adjustable this and turn-up-and-down-able that and stretchy the other. I think they're all fantastic, of course! Not enough to have another baby to model them though.

Anyway, better late than never I guess!

MaM Coat 2007

I've just had some news about this year's version of the coat. It will be available in 2 colours, solid black and 'chocolate/hazelnut' (brown/sand.) Alterations to the construction include:

• soft fleece cuffs at the armholes
• zips all have panels behind for improved windproofing
• slight enlargement of the armholes for easier dressing
• internal pocket
• back panel drawstring restraints snap fastening instead of elastic
• adult-side 'dickey' now adjustable to two sizes
• dickeys made of fleece
  
• hemp/cotton dickeys available as optional extra, with more stretch than the fleece dickey and in a choice of colours

The standard child-side dickey in the brown coat is estimated to fit up to 18m, the black should fit any child that fits in the coat.

A major change is that the child-side hood is now designed to be removable to be worn separately as a balaclava-style cap. The caphood fastens to the coat with oval buttons and can be adjusted in height with a D-ring and strap construction. Elastic to the rear and face gives the cap a snug fit and the neck closes with Aplix 500, a soft-touch closure that does not catch other materials. Straps can be attached to the hood and secured on the front of the coat for use as a head support for sleeping children.

Babywearing Covers will also be provided with caphoods. Coat caphoods have 'Bambi-style' ears and covers have cat ears, pictures below.

New stuff and specials for August

First up, the new stuff...

Just in time for the sunshine we're getting now, we've finally got some Solarveil in! Courtesy of Kirsty at FrontBackandSides...

FBS Solarveil Ring Sling
FBS Solarveil Mei Tai

For anyone unfamiliar with Solarveil, it's a fab lightweight fabric with built-in sun protection, so you don't need to use any nasty gunk on your baby's delicate skin. It's naturally wicking and quick-drying so it's also ideal for use in the shower or pool.

Kirsty makes really great slings and MTs, with a fantastic eye for detail and meticulous care over the construction, plus she's local to us here at BabyArmadillo which cuts right down on those pesky product miles.

And now for those Specials...

Thinking ahead to the school run? Wondering how you'll keep dry and warm along with your younger offpring or mindees? Or just want to enjoy being out and about without worrying about the weather? Well we're having a bit of a clear-out of our cooler-weather stock in preparation for new items arriving in the Autumn, so take a gander at these:

20% off MaM Coat, Babywearing Winter Cover, Babywearing Dickey and Äiskä, plus The Tube and Fresh Mums Long-sleeved Top

These special prices run 'til the end of August, so get them while they're snug and warm ;)

it's funny what one finds at 3am...

I was fiddling about with a favicon for my new site, which I won't add the link to here since I'm having issues switching domain nameservers... there's always a reason why something is cheap... Anyway I found this nifty site that converts square bitmaps, gifs or jpegs into favicons, which if you don't know are the little pictures that you see on your tabs or bookmarks/favourites list that make it nice and easy to find the site you're after. V handy. I'm off for a browse round their gallery now...

Birth Club boards

Antenatal club boards are popular but often the clash of parenting styles means that those who make less mainstream choices end up feeling marginalised and in lots of cases leaving the group altogether. So I've set up some boards on the forum on BabyArmadillo, hopefully to give people a space to share information and experiences and support each other. Hope you enjoy them :-)

going... going...

Posted out the last sparkling pink 'The Pot' potty today. I have 2 each left of the blue and silver, wow they're nearly all gone! I'll feel very sad when they're gone, I had really high hopes for them as a sellable product and as a concept. Astrid Bartsch, if you're out there and know who has the design rights, please get in touch!!

All systems go!

Woohoo! I've got my VAT number!! And after long hours slaving over margins and mark-ups and net and gross and zero rated and standard rated and pack sizes and minimum quantities (and taken a breath!) I have a new wholesale pricelist.

All I need now is companies interested in the products to send it to, lol. But seriously, if you are interested then drop me a line to info at babyarmadillo dot com There are lots more products there than are currently listed on the shop, including breastfeeding tops, cloth nappies, blankets and soft shoes. All Babyidea products are made with an eye for sustainability and fair working conditions, so if that's your bag, so to speak, do have a look at what we do :-)

Server issues part deux

Server now sorted, though there may be some short periods of downtime over the next few days while things are ironed out. Do let me know if you find any problems, and thanks to our hosts for sorting it promptly in what's been a really tough few days for them.

Server issues

Just a quick note to say that anyone looking for BabyArmadillo at the moment won't find it as the server is broken :-( I can be contacted via tracy.oldfield@ntlworld.com or by phone on 07861 245932

Thanks for your patience.

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!

a movin' and a shakin'

We had a busy week on the admin side of things last week, a new bank account, working on a merchant account and chip and pin machine, ordered some new accounting software and registered for VAT. The latter meant that this weekend we did a complete stock-take, during which I found something I knew was around here somewhere (the pinks and purples longies found here) and I appear to have misplaced some potties. Most disconcerting.

Registering for VAT also means that it will be easier to market my wholesale items to other businesses. So watch out, I may be spamming your inbox soon, lol.

BabyArmadillo went to the fair...

I drove through the lifting mist and braved the traffic round Bradford this morning to get to Harrogate, to go to the Nursery Fair. Thought I'd have a look-see at what other people were doing and see if there were any interesting products that I wasn't aware of. In particular I was looking for anything sling-related, and something suitable to replace the Helly potties.

There were the usual pushchair, car-seat and cot brand-names. I had a look at the bebe-confort creatis, the car-seat we used for dd4, which now has a quick-fix base which I'm not convinced by... but then I never used ours as a travel system thing. I also had a look at the Britax CosyTot which is meant to have a support cushion of newborns so that they lie flatter and dont have the risk of breathing problems that can arise for particularly small and/or vulnerable babies, but the cushion's not as good as the one in the Creatis IMO.

I wandered round the cot stands, hoping to find a co-sleeper but sadly no. It surprises me really. But I did talk briefly to the woman from The Wool Company, they sell some lovely stuff including wool-filled duvets, really light and v warm apparently (I didn't lie down to test them! Think I would have been asleep, lol.) And this lovely lush underblanket. They go up to super-king-sized. Mmmmmm...

What else did I see? Oh yes...

• Baby Cubes which are clever little boxes designed for storing home-made baby food. Being a BLW-er I wouldn't want to use them for that but I will be suggesting them to Merry at BeadMerrily as bead sorting containers :-) Maybe they'd be useful for EBM too?


• Close Baby Carrier which looks great, organic cotton, lovely and soft, I like the adjustability thing :-)


• The Peanut Shell pouch and the lovely lush ju-ju-be bags from Jellybean, nice, but then so are Sleepytoes ;-)


• Great Kids Toys stock the Learning Tower which I've known about for a good while, rave reviews from unschoolers in the US, and the Knee Rider... has to be seen to be appreciated, lol!


• The PurFlo mattress. Dust mite free, like hammocks, and supports the baby's natural curvature, like hammocks :-)

There was more stuff but I either can't find the brochure I picked up and therefore can't remember what it was, or it's stuff I might be stocking in the future. Watch this space ;-)

slingifantastico!

We are pleased to announce, in partnership with frontBack&Sides, a new service for our valued customers! Buy a wrap from BabyArmadillo and you can have it slingified :) Select your wrap and choose from a range of shoulder styles on the wrap slingification page. We also offer this service for pre-owned wraps, simply send the wrap to us and return postage is included in the price. Please note that we do not offer the 7-pleat SBP shoulder on pre-owned wraps as we don't wish to take business from our friends at Angeltails

We also have a range of FrontBACK&Sides Mei Tai baby carriers in stock, including the delicious 'fluff'!

We'd love to hear your views on our site, please feel free to use the comments function here or post on our forum

Helly potties

The official, calm and collected part:

Helly closed on 31st of December. My current stock, and that at Tiddlybums in the UK and The EC Store in the US are, as far as I know, all that will be available of the Babywunder Deluxe and The Pot potties. There may be some available from European companies, while stocks last.

The mini-rant:

It's taken me 2 months to find out that one of my suppliers ceased trading. Sod's Murphy's Law states that of course they make my currently most popular products, and one that I was going to take to shows and really push this year, and they didn't even have the decency to let me know that they were closing. Gah!

a funny old week

I love it when we get repeat customers, but not so much when the products don't suit them for one reason or another. *sigh*

An enquiry came in for aluminium sling rings (an upcoming product and part of the MaM range) in lots of 1,000. My mind is completely blown that someone out there might be manufacturing 500 slings at a time. I want some of that traffic!!! Sadly we couldn't get the price quite low enough to meet the company in question's current supplier of nylon rings, boo :( The other major frustration has been the disappearance of a supplier, seemingly dropped off the planet entirely, this is not fun as it's one of our more popular products and I'm desperate to place another order!

But on the upside we may soon be offering local workshops and working with local play-gyms to demonstrate slings and carriers and promote babywearing, in conjunction with our 'neighbours' FrontBackandSides so if you're in the area watch this space! The shop is being twiddled with some more (I can't leave it alone, lol) and as the home-page says, there will soon be articles to read as well as the forum and this blog. As usual, if anyone has feedback or suggestions, please feel free to post a comment here or on the boards.

A good friend is in hospital next week for exploratory surgery. I don't want to go into details but I do want to wish her the very best possible outcome and experience. She really deserves an upturn in health fortunes!!

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 :)

Choosing a baby carrier or sling

I came across an article earlier that was headed 'Choosing a baby carrier or sling.' Now excuse me for my bias of experience but I would have thought, with a title like that, there might be mention of different types of sling and carrier. I was disappointed. So I wrote this:

Choosing a baby carrier or sling

There are many different kinds of baby and toddler carriers and slings. Most people will be familiar with the front-pack style baby carrier, which has a formed seat for the child and padded straps for the parent or carer. These are easily available in many high-street and online stores, as are framed backpack style carriers, generally available in outdoor-pursuits shops. Less commonly available are pouches, ring-slings, Asian Baby Carriers (ABCs), and stretchy and woven wraparound slings. There are several online outlets for these and a few independent baby shops stock a small
range. There is also the one-shouldered 'baby bag' type carrier. Finding a sling or carrier to suit you depends on how much carrying you'll be doing, how big your baby or child is, your baby's body strength and developmental stage, your own physique, whether the carrier will be used by more than one person and last but not least, how it looks!

A few things to look for:

Padding can make slings and carriers more comfortable but it can make them less adjustable, also it can make the space for baby too small and constrictive. It may stop the carrier from holding the baby snugly to the parent or carer.

Carrying babies is generally more comfortable if they're close to your body and high up. Carriers and slings with straps that tie or wraparound slings (essentially long pieces of fabric designed to wrap around the baby and the wearer) are the most adjustable and flexible to use since they can be tied to fit any size or shape. Pouches must fit snugly to be comfortable. Carriers and slings with buckle fastenings must be easily adjustable to keep the baby or child close to the parent's body.

Babies' backs are naturally curved. Baby carriers which form around the baby's back will support the natural shape and allow the baby to develop a more upright posture normally.

Your baby may prefer to be lying down or more upright, some slings and carriers only allow one position where others are more flexible. Upright carrying is known to be particularly useful for babies with reflux.

Baby carriers can take some time to get used to, eventually you should be able to use it by yourself but please don't be afraid of asking around for help. www.slingmeet.co.uk has details of local and regional meet-ups for sling and carrier users to get hints and tips, compare notes and generally enjoy their baby carrying.

I wanted to keep it short, because the original article was short too, but of course there's much more I could say about choosing slings. Most of it has been said already in other places though, like The Babywearer Seems like it's going to take a bit more effort to disseminate the information to the masses...

New stuff at BabyArmadillo

En route from Finland are some new products, the MaM Coat (in sizes S, L and XL, if you want M, please lmk ASAP as there is limited availability and I need to order within the next day or so.) and the MaM ECO Wrap in Sea-Blue, Cocoa, Wine and Lime, in the L/XL size. I've been looking for a stretchy wrap to stock for some time so I'm desperate to see this!

Happy New Year to all BabyArmadillo customers, returning and new :)