Beco Butterfly Baby Carrier

I’m fickle.  I’m passionate.  I’m passionately fickle…  especially when it comes to baby stuff.  I fall head-over-heels in love with the latest and greatest only to discover its hidden pitfalls a week or so later and then fall hideously out of love with whatever it was that had me temporarily tricked.  It happens with strollers, it happens with gadgets, and it happens with carriers.  But recently I found a product that stopped this pattern dead in its tracks:  the Beco Butterfly baby carrier. 

When I first discovered the Beco Butterfly online I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  It had the most beautiful fabrics I had ever seen on a baby carrier.  I knew the benefits of babywearing and had heard of some pretty fantastic carriers but had never known that they could look so good!  I wanted it instantly but since my main goal in obtaining yet another baby carrier was to allow me to wear my sucky baby around for hours at a time – my priority had to be comfort.  Wanting to be reasonable yet also wanting that beautiful carrier, I very practically went about convincing myself why the Beco Butterfly would be the most comfortable carrier ever.  I must have been convincing…

My Beco Butterfly arrived when the baby was sleeping so since it claims to carry up to 45lbs, I tossed in my toddler and gave it a go.  Now while I certainly wouldn’t want to run a marathon with my 40 lb kid, the carrier was actually quite comfortable.  When I switched from toddler to baby – shazam! – it was like being in carrier heaven.  The wide hip belt and thickly padded shoulder straps made carrying my little one literally effortless.  I could unload the dishwasher, sweep the floors, or throw in a load of laundry (not that I’d want to) all while comfortably wearing my baby on my back.  It is easy to put on and take off and there is a safety panel that allows you to do a back carry easily, safely, and alone!  You can even pass the baby from one person to another without even taking her out of the carrier (in theory only as I was in no way willing to share)! 

Almost a year has passed since I first fell in love with my Beco Butterfly baby carrier and I am still as enamoured as when our eyes/pretty fabric met across that glowing computer screen.  I use it each and every day of my life and will continue to do so until the day I die (or maybe when the kid hits 45 lbs).  Not only did I discover what I believe to be the best baby carrier around but I also learned a very valuable lesson:  pretty and practical are not mutually exclusive.  Now if only I could convince my husband of that…

WIN IT: Win your very own Beco Butterfly Baby Carrier.   Send an email to contests@wundermums.com with “BECO” in the subject line and the answer to this question: How many different styles of baby carriers does Beco make?   We’ll pick one winner at random. Contest closes November 2^nd, 2008. Good Luck! 

Reviewed by Melanie Morgan for Wundermums.  All rights reserved.

Undercover Baby ~ Custom Baby Bedding and Accessories

You have a little wine.  You have a little fun.  Then you have a little baby.  That was the easy part.  What follows is more trying and wretched than you could ever imagine… decorating the nursery.  Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a tad, but the idea of creating a fun yet peaceful, stimulating yet understated, juvenile yet stylish room for a person that doesn’t even care is not what I call fun.  Add to this trying to find anything not splattered with bears, rainbows, or rattles and I just cringe.

When I was pregnant with my second child, the house we lived in had a small, yellow room in it we lovingly referred to as the junk room.  We hauled out the junk, threw in a crib and bought some cute accessories.  They didn’t go with the yellow… nothing pleasant would go with that yellow.  But being too tired and too pregnant to care, we didn’t repaint.

When I first spoke with Shawnna from Undercover Baby about designing a custom blanket set for the baby I explained the nursery to her.  Much to my surprise, she didn’t hang up on me, but instead took on the challenge with confidence.  She was convinced that she could come up with a cute set that would marry my lousy attempt at an underwater theme with the shocking yellow walls of the junk… I mean baby’s room.

She sent me some mock-ups to give me an idea of what things would look like and let me pick the combination I liked.  Let me tell you it was hard… I went back and forth a few times (unbeknownst to her) because they were just all soooo cute!  A short while later when my Undercover Baby blanket set arrived on my doorstep I was pleasantly surprised again.  It was even cuter in real life!  The fabric was fun without being babyish.  The minkee was so soft that my one year old immediately laid down on it – I kid you not!  Perhaps this was the one thing that would actually get my baby to nap (no such luck, by the way but I had a moment of hope).  Both of my kids were so taken with the blanket that it has in fact never made it to the crib.  They both love to watch TV on it, play tea party on it, use it as a magic carpet, a cape… well just about anything to have it with them.  I did take it into the nursery briefly and it did slightly distract my eyes from the yellow… in all fairness, that alone it a lot to ask of any blanket. 

Undercover Baby makes a mean blanket set.  Shawnna can actually make decorating your nursery fun.  Her stuff washed up like a dream just by throwing it into the washer and dryer and the whole experience was easy as pie.  Granted, the blanket may not be in my nursery but it is used, and loved on a daily basis.  Short of making yellow my new favourite colour… there’s not much else that I could ask this blanket set to do. 

WIN IT: Win your very own Undercover Baby bib made lovingly by Shawnna.   Send an email to contests@wundermums.com with “UNDERCOVER BABY” in the subject line and the answer to this question: How many of each crib set design does Shawnna make?   We’ll pick one winner at random. Contest closes October 17^th, 2008. Good Luck! 

Reviewed by Melanie Morgan for Wundermums.  All rights reserved.