georgia straight article about child wearing

Sling it to singapore

By Pieta Woolley

Publish Date: September 6, 2007

Have babe, will travel with chic next-gen carriers.

East Van new mom Alison Cross wasn't about to let baby Coco tame her travel bug or dampen her yoga fetish. The 35-year-old costume designer, however, couldn't see herself shoving a stroller the size of a shopping cart over the dirt roads of Laos, or wearing a pastel-bunny-covered sling to salute the sun. So she teamed up with Emily Carr industrial-design grad Paula Violi to came up with a 21st-century take on an ancient idea: the Baby Buddha Together Sling. It's made with stretch fabric, comes in three modular parts, and looks like a comfy wrap shirt when it's on. No baby fuss, no baby muss.

"When I was pregnant, I knew I didn't want to look like the stroller moms looked," says Cross, who gives the impression of an artsy Julie Andrews. "They're frustrated. They don't fit through doors. Pushing a stroller voids any sexy outfit you might wear, because you look like you're pushing a plastic mountain."

Cross, who says she's travelled comfortably to 10 Asian and European countries wearing her sling, is at the forefront of a Canadian sling revolution. Babywearing, a term coined by pediatric guru William Sears, promises less crying, more interaction, and faster social learning than leaving the kid in a stroller or car seat.

In looks, slings have come a long way. In Chinatown and Richmond, traditional Chinese tie-on slings are well-used by grandmothers and still for sale. But Canada is also a hotbed for innovation; just witness Vancouver's Maya Wrap, Abbotsford's Pillowslip, Cranbrook's Nurtured Cub, Winnipeg's Peapod, Ontario's CXD Baby and Heart to Heart, and New Brunswick's Little Star. Langley's the Baby Sling Shop (www.thebabyslingshop.com) even offers its version of Tupperware parties in the Fraser Valley.

Wearing up to 16 kilos of baby places obvious strains on the body. Richmond-based chiropractor Heather McLeod has been seeing moms with back pain for 25 years. Slings, she said, can be fine, but they can also damage the neck and back. The trick is to find the right one. "Try them on in the store," McLeod advises. "If they feel right, have thick straps, and support you and the baby, they're probably okay."

McLeod notes that she sees more new moms with back problems now than when she did when she started her practice. She attributes this more to parents waiting to have kids than to the use of slings themselves.

Sales of the Baby Buddha have been so good that Cross and Violi have capped the number of stores they sell to. (See www.babybuddha.ca.) This fall, though, they're planning to take it across Canada. They're also developing a sustainable hemp/organic cotton/Lycra fabric, which will be manufactured cooperatively in a village in China. Their little baby's

all that power in one little banana

A professor at CCNY for a physiological psych class told his class about bananas. He said the expression 'going bananas' is from the effects of bananas on the brain.
-Bananas contain three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.
-Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes.
-But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit. It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.

Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia : High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school ( England ) were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey.. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.
Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychologyin Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and chips. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a 'cooling' fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand , for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking &Tobacco Use: Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes: According to research in The New England Journal of Medicine, eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!

Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!

So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, 'A banana a day keeps the doctor away!'

Last Child in the woods

( my Friend DJ made notes from this very interesting book about how children need nature. I totally agree and it makes me want to move the family out to the country )


NOTES From - Last Child in the Woods – Richard Louv VPL 155.418 L89L

- Natural play a quaint artefact
- Kids now aware of environmental issues but have little physical contact with nature
- nature now is more abstract than reality
- Contact with nature may be as crucial to childhood development as good nutrition and adequate sleep
- Early experiences of nature bind us to nature forever
- Unlike tv which steals time, nature amplifies it
- Nature offers healing, fantasy, escape, creativity, senses, privacy
- Nature is a place of archetypal power, teaching, and challenge; offers wonders , calm and focus but also excitement
- Book identifies the current generation as the 3rd frontier (of America), displaying the following characteristics:
o 1. Separation from food source/origin
o 2. Merging of machines, humans
o 3 Increased awareness about environmental information but less intimacy with it
o 4. Increasing numbers of wild animals in cities
o 5. Increase in suburban lifestyle
- Children in this age display a “know it all” attitude
- In one study, a child, asked to list her weekly activities does not list her soccer games or practices as playtime
- Current life is less a life of the senses than previously
- Shift since the 1970s from activity orientation to knowledge orientation
- Cultural autism (tunnelled senses, feelings of isolation and containment)
- Narrowing of true experience
- We’re losing our ability to experience the world directly and this impoverishes us.
- John Dewey in the early 20th century said that the worship of secondary experiences (tv, video, computer as opposed to real life experiences) in childhood came with the risk of depersonalizing human life
- Children live through their senses
- Sensory experiences link kids to their exterior world with their interior hidden world
- The natural enviro is the principal source of sensory stimulation
- Freedom to explore and play outdoors is essential for a healthy inner life
- Self-actuated, autonomous interaction with nature
- Children test themselves by interacting with their enviro and reconstructing human culture
- Depression. Loneliness reported in adults who did not spend free play time outdoors , especially in wilderness
- New technology moves us further from direct experience
- Physical touch is essential for human health – and ultimately for peace in the world (think of hand-shakes)
- Medical students have trouble understanding how the heart works because they’ve never used a pump or a siphon
- “that which can’t be googled doesn’t count”
- The “know-it-all” attitude is really quite fragile; breaks down with real-life experiences with nature
- Deepest friendship evolve from shared experiences, especially in environments where all the senses are enlivened
- Natural settings stimulate all the senses; these help build cognitive constructs in children’s brains
- Nature stimulates the imagination limitlessly
- TV and electronic media displaces the primary experience of nature
- There is more creative play in natural environments vs. build spaces (playgrounds)
- Children use more imagination, retain a greater sense of wonder, are more egalitarian, and have a greater ability to concentrate when they play in natural environments without imposed structure
- The developing consciousness of all children involves a dynamic sense of relationship with their place
- Nature is used as a restorative therapy for children with ADHD
- Too much (adult) directed activity leads to attention-directed fatigue in children, leading to impulsive behaviours, agitation, irritation, and inability to concentrate because the neural inhibitory mechanisms become fatigued by blocking competing stimuli
- In 1990, children roamed over was five times less area than did kids in 1970;
- Stranger danger scare (94% of abductions are actually perpetrated by family members or friends) is now blamed for increased shyness among children and adults as well as the retreat from social interaction into electronics; a high price to pay for the perception of guaranteed safety
- Too much education/exposure to enviro abuse/degradation may make kids feel overwhelmed; they associate nature with catastrophe, not wonder
- More environ-based OR place-based education recommended (currently PCs sucking up education dollars)
- Knowledge of local vegetation and environment decreasing; how can we notice if some organism is changing or in the wrong place if we don’t know what should be there??)
- Concern re waning sense of awe
- US national park usage decreasing; camping down especially among the under 30s
- Development and energy interests are moving in to fill the void (by exploiting natural resources in the national parks)
- Environmentalists are looking increasingly old and white
- In US, Girl Scouts now have more programs to do with stuff other than nature (including marketing, product-developments, interviewing skills)
- In the middle Ages if you said you were bored you were committing a sin of devaluing the world and its creator; would have been considered self-indulgent
- In pre-modern times, life wasn’t considered interesting or exciting either, it just was
Kids need day-to-day contact with he elements (not necessarily dramatic, or picturesque wilderness – it’s better to know one mountain than to climb many
- Modern life narrows the senses; nature accentuates the senses
- The child in nature has to make decisions not encountered in a constricted, planned environment; ones that present danger but also opportunity
- The natural environment is more complex than any sports field
- Nature is where the inner life can develop at its own pace
- Advocate for joy and wonder with respect to nature (over the educational)
- Fear of liability adds another layer of deterrence to encouraging natural play

:: The Power of Inner Freedom ::

THE DAILY GROOVE ~ by Scott Noelle
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove

:: The Power of Inner Freedom ::

You live in an abundant universe of endless creative
possibilities. So the good news is... whatever you
desire, you can have.

The *other* news is... You can't have what you want
unless you're free *not* to have it. More precisely:
you can only have it *to the degree* that you're
free not to have it.

For example, if you want to feel *successful* as a
parent, get free to *fail* as a parent. Why? Because
if you're resisting failure, your mind is focused on
what you *don't* want, and whatever you focus on
becomes your experience. (That's the Law of
Attraction.)

As soon as you decide that you're free to fail, you
stop resisting failure, and that frees your mind to
focus on creating success.

The more you feel free to fail, the easier it is
to succeed... Go figure! :-)

http://dailygroove.net/inner-freedom

Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2008 by Scott Noelle

"Inspiration & Coaching for Progressive Parents"
http://www.ScottNoelle.com
http://www.EnjoyParenting.com

1044 Water Street, Suite 342
Port Townsend, WA 98368
USA

Baby Betsy

Canadian Parents

Sometimes I look around the web and I find something out in Cyber space about the baby buddha'a stretchy baby carrier, Here is a posting from Canadian parents dot com I just had to share. By the way getting this kind of positive feed back makes me jump out of bed every morning with a sense of real purpose ' BABY BONDING BLISS'
Here's the post:
___________________________________

Right before Christmas I bought a Baby Buddha 3 piece sling। For those that aren't familiar with it, it is basically two slings and a support band, that can be worn together for a "wrap" type effect।

I've always LOVED how cuddly babies look in wraps, but was very intimidated by the actual "wrapping", therefore the baby buddha seemed like the perfect solution.

I LOVE IT!! It's so easy to use, and it holds my son nice and close! It's made out of a spandex material (like yoga pants). So it's nice and stretchy so both my husband and I can wear the same size (they only come in two sizes). My husband is 5,11', and 190ish lbs and i'm 5,7' and 130ish lbs (just for comparision reasons.)

Anyways, I just wanted to share my short review.. and include a picture of my husband (he'd kill me if he knew I posted this) and my son (3 months old).

Enjoy!!

Sheena