Baby Carrier Sales and News at QuirkyBaby, June 2011

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• Memorial Day Sale continues for a few more days! Take 10% off and enjoy free US shipping on most baby slings and baby carriers at Quirkybaby. Baby sling and baby carrier brands on sale: Babyhawk, Kozy, Boba, Scootababy, Pikkolo, Maya Wrap, Moby Wrap, Hotslings AP, and Wrapsody. Baby accessories on sale including BabyLegs and Sunday Afternoons Kids Play Hats. Sale doesn’t apply to sale items, Ergo, Beco, and Sakura Bloom products, but you can still qualify for free BabyLegs on orders over $100!

• Need to protect those tender little arms and legs from the sun? Check out the new designs in BabyLegs Cool, with a UPF protection factor of 50+! Other great sun protection items: Moby Wrap UV baby wraps, and the best kids’ sun hats ever from SunDay Afternoons that are cool, comfortable, and actually stay on!

• Need a cool, lightweight, and portable baby sling or baby wrap carrier for hot summer days? A woven cotton ring sling from Maya Wrap or a single layer linen ring sling from Sakura Bloom will keep you and baby cool and ventilated.  Need two-shoulder support? The Wrapsody Bali Stretch is a great option for those who want a traditional all-in-one carrier for newborns through toddlers, while the Ergo Performance gets rave reviews for its high-tech breathability and support.

• New Beco Gemini patterns coming soon! Lucas on Espresso and Aiden on Espresso will expand the boy-friendly/gender-neutral range of this extremely popular buckle carrier that enables forward facing out, forward facing in, hip, and back carries.

• In other Beco Baby Carrier news: Beco Gemini and Beco Butterfly in the sunny, cheerful Luna organic print have been discontinued. Limited Edition Beco Butterfly in Ever and Duke are in stock only while supplies last! And there are still a few Beco Butterfly carriers on sale for $20 off with free US shipping in Aiden, Lucas, and Natalie prints.

• The new Pikkolo 3.0 in Ginko is available in extremely limited quantities, while the Pikkolo 2.0 in Cafe Au Lait is a great deal at the sale price of $99 with free shipping!

New Beco Gemini in Ginger

Beco Gemini Ginger

The super-popular Beco Gemini is now available in a new print for Spring 2011: Ginger. This 4-in-1 buckle carrier enables baby to be worn in four positions: forward facing in, forward facing out, on the hip, and on the back. The Beco Gemini will cost $129 (with free US shipping and free gifts, too) and also comes in prints familiar from the Beco Butterfly II: Paige, Lucas, Natalie, Metro Black, and Espresso Brown.

QuirkyBaby Quick Pick: Choose the Beco Gemini if:

• You want a carrier to adapt from infancy through toddlerhood
• You want to do a comfortable & ergonomic forward facing out position
• You’d like a stylish carrier with multiple wearing options

How do the Beco Butterfly and Beco Gemini compare? Click to find out!

Follow QuirkyBaby on Facebook for Mother’s Day Giveaways!

Are you a fan of QuirkyBaby on Facebook? If not, join now, because you won’t want to miss the Mother’s Day giveaways starting next week! (Plus, even when I’m not posting great giveaways, there’s always news about new products, pre-orders, sales & deals, and items of more general babywearing interest. And you can ask questions, post photos, and hang out with a great bunch of babywearers!)

Fan QuirkyBaby on Facebook now!

New Hotslings AP Adjustable Pouches in Designer Fabrics

The new Hotslings AP adjustable pouch has been a runaway hit, combining the adjustability of a ring sling with the sleek simplicity of a pouch in one simple one-size-fits-most size. Just in time for Mother’s Day, it’s now available in ten more gorgeous fabrics, featuring best-selling patterns from the Designer and Reversible lines of the Original as well as some brand-new — and very chic — designs.

Click here to see how beautiful they are (and enjoy 10% off and free US shipping on all Hotslings AP)!

Avebury

Mayfair

Canterbury

Kyoto

Leaves Noir

Zoie

Order Your Custom BabyHawk Oh Snap! or BabyHawk Mei Tai Now!

QuirkyBaby is offering free US shipping plus free gifts with purchase on all custom BabyHawk Oh Snap! buckle carriers and all custom BabyHawk mei tais ordered through my site from now through Wednesday, May 5th, 2010. The sky is the limit on your design (but please choose carefully as custom orders are final sale)!

New Kozy Prints Stocked

The Kozy Carrier is arguably the first modern mei tai design and still one of the best. The large body and flexible yet supportive curved top make it perfect for tiny newborn snuggles through tall toddler carries and every stage in between.  If you’re really motivated to have your hands free with your new baby, the Kozy does an excellent high back carry — with practice, of course!

Now Kozy is updating its image with a bunch of fresh and funky new fabric designs — you’ve never seen Kozys look like this before! Check out the Kozy page at QuirkyBaby for Tanglewood, Pulaski, Prince George, Byrdton, and — hot off the presses — Burnt Chimney and Salem, too! (In case you’re wondering — all Kozy designs are named after towns in Virginia where Kozy is based).

New Babywearing Safety Fan Page on Facebook

I blogged in October about Consumer Reports warning of the dangers of bag-type carriers such as the Infantino SlingRider. An article published this week states that the parents of Derrik Fowler, a baby boy who died at 6 days old from suffocation in an Infantino SlingRider are suing Infantino for damages. Although nothing can bring back their precious baby boy, I truly hope that by bringing this lawsuit, Derrik’s parents can help force Infantino to take their inherently dangerous SlingRider and similar designs off the market.

One concern that I share with many other babywearing advocates and enthusiasts, though, is that parents will take the wrong message from this type of publicity: namely, that all soft fabric slings and carriers are unsafe. The good news is that there are many types of slings and carriers that can be used safely and comfortably and don’t suffer from the design flaws of bag slings. There are also many great reasons for carrying babies in slings over and above convenience, in addition to the risks of leaving babies for too much of the day in baby containers such as carseats, swings, and strollers.

Parents need to have good information on choosing appropriate types of slings and carriers and on using them safely, especially for vulnerable newborns and small babies. To help bring awareness to the dangers of bag-type carriers made by Infantino and other companies, as well as to educate parents on how to choose and use baby carriers safely, I’ve started a Facebook fan page on babywearing safety. Please visit the page, fan it, contribute whatever resources you can, and spread the word to your friends!

New Pikkolo in Leaf and CatBird Baby Fleece Covers for Winter Babywearing

CatBird Baby’s limited edition Pikkolo in Michael Millers’ Leaf print fabric is now available at QuirkyBaby. This is a wonderful, vibrant print in rich blues and white — but only available in very limited quantities. When it’s gone, it’s gone! I’ve also got a sneak peek at another limited edition Pikkolo, Georgia, up on my site.

I’ve got lots of CatBird Baby all-fleece and microfiber-fleece winter carrier covers in stock and ready to ship. The cover is easy to use — it simply snaps around the shoulder straps of any two-shoulder carrier, including mei tais and buckle carriers, and baby’s legs get tucked into the pocket. It keeps baby’s body and legs toasty warm and dry, although you’ll want to put a sweater or coat and a hat on baby depending on the weather. Available in all-fleece in charcoal/grey and in microfiber/fleece in brown/pool blue (with black/pool blue coming soon).

Wrapsody Bali Stretch Wraps Debut at QuirkyBaby

I am delighted to welcome Wrapsody Bali Stretch Wraps to the QuirkyBaby line up!  Back in the days when these were known as GypsyMama Bali Baby Stretch, it was a gently used Aphrodite Bali Stretch that persuaded me to give her a new home and to give wrapping another try once we’d outgrown the Moby Wrap. I’d tried — and given up in frustration on — too many big-name brand woven wraps to count. The Wrapsody was like a wrap with training wheels; once I’d practiced with it for a while, I was able to move on to the challenges of heavy-duty woven wraps such as the Storchenwiege.

The Wrapsody Bali is essentially a hybrid between a woven and a stretchy wrap — more supportive than a regular stretchy wrap, and thus appropriate for back carries, but cushy and forgiving of less-than-perfect wrapping skills. (It’s also a lot cooler than most woven wraps, so it’s a great choice for warm weather.) The Wrapsody is a great beginner or intermediate wrap — perfect for a newborn, but also perfect for a bigger baby when the Moby just isn’t supportive enough any more.

These stunning wraps are batiked in Bali, Indonesia, under fair trade and environmentally friendly conditions.

Review of New Hotslings AP Adjustable Pouch Sling

I just got the chance to try these out today and they. are. AWESOME.  I haven’t been able to get my almost 2-year-old, 29 pound daughter into a pouch comfortably in ages, but this was the perfect combo of the simplicity of the pouch and the adjustability of a ring sling.

Although the directions say to do all the adjusting with baby out of the pouch, I popped dd in with the pouch a little on the loose side so I could squeeze her long and chubby legs through, then held her weight up off the carrier and snugged the adjuster straps up. (Pouch was sitting on my right shoulder so adjuster tabs were in front). The pouch spread nice and flat across my back and cupped my shoulder really well. Because it’s sewn together at the shoulder, a shoulder flip isn’t possible — but given the adjustability, it also isn’t necessary.

Having padding on both sides is really nice — no need to flip the carrier other way out if you’re going to switch shoulders! It also made it snug and cozy for my dd.

I think the adjustability factor will also help the issue some people have of needing to lower baby to nurse but lift baby higher for carrying, which can be challenging in a non-adjustable pouch.

I have rediscovered the pouch love!