Where did mamatoto.org go?

Oh no! I was at a babywearing meeting two months ago and I was sharing a resource that I've always shared. It's where I learned how to wrap. It was the start of everything for me!

We were at Ruth's house and she pulled out her laptop to bring up the website. And it was.....gone! What? Must be something not right. I knew there were two sites, the other being WearYourbaby.org, but for some reason I could never remember that name so I wasn't able to share that link with the group until later.

A few days later, I had occasion to share again. Only this time, both links were gone! Aaagh! What gives?

I immediately contacted Tracy Dower, and she said that she'd let the registrations expire but that there was no longer a need for these sites as youtube has lots of videos now.

Say what???? I, and lots of others, immediately offered to lend a hand. I would so hate for these amazing resources to have gone away.

Well I just got this lovely email from Tracy.

As you may know, Mamatoto.org and WearYourBaby.org expired while I was drowning in morning sickness (expecting triplets at end of summer). I no longer own the old domain names (Mamatoto.org, WearYourbaby.org), but the web host will recover all the content and place it at this new domain name. If you could spread the word, that would be great.

Thanks. :-D
--
Tracy Dower

And so, you may now find the information here: SimplePiecesOfCloth.com

Babywearing with no baby carrier

The other day, I was out to dinner with all my family in town. The parking lot was pretty close to the restaurant so I didn't bother with carrying my daughter in any baby carrier. But after we were mostly done eating, she got bored and took me outside to wander. It was pretty chilly so I had a light jacket on. She quickly tired of walking and I quickly tired of carrying her.

Ah hah! I remembered the wise teachings of Tracy of the mamatoto project!

I wrapped her leggies around me and zipped the jacket under her bottom and found it helped with her weight. This was just as well - we wound up going to the store and getting some water so I had her like this for quite a while.

Would I have preferred a baby carrier? You bet! But this was still better than nothing.

Babywearing in the news

It's great to see the growing trend of stories about babywearing in the news. I hate to be too terribly picky but in this story, the mom is pictured with the Maya Wrap sling and it's just not looking quite perfect to my uber critical eye. This is a perfect example of how most people wear their babies. Please don't take offence at my critique. This is meant not in a spirit of picking but rather in a spirit of helping people understand that babywearing isn't meant to be difficult. So let me preface my critique by saying that with our older daughter, my husband and I did not know how to babywear very comfortably so we suffered (with grace) for 18 months before we discovered wraps. With my second, I am loving the Ergo baby carrier for it's simplicity and consistent comfort.


The shoulder isn't quite spread enough to be comfortable and will have a tendency to ride up to her neck. And the part where the baby sits isn't quite right - ideally, the baby's knees should be higher then his tush so he can't straighten his legs and fall right out the bottom. Now, I bet what happened is that the camera crew rushed the mom a bit and she herself wasn't thrilled with how this photo turned out because she didn't want to look like it was too difficult to position baby correctly.

There is a learning curve to any baby carrier and at first, it can be intimidating to do in public because making adjustments to get it just right might make it seem like you don't know what you're doing. Many is the time I left baby in a painful position because it just seemed to be taking too long and people were staring. Nowadays, I know what I'm doing so this is no longer the case but if I do find something wrong, I take the time to fix it.

If this nice mama showed up at one of my NINO babywearing meetings, or oh heck, even a park near me, I might walk up to her, introduce myself, and ask permission to make a few adjustments. As I learned from Tracy of Mamatoto, wearing your baby is an art that will be lost of we don't take the time to help each other, one on one.