The LuxMob Info Tags

With so many options out there for baby carriers it is hard to choose the right one for your needs. Listed are all the different types of carriers with the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Each carrier style listed below supports the baby rather than having the baby hang at the crotch like most carriers in stores. When a baby hangs at the crotch it effects the spine and can cause damage. The carriers below the baby is supported by having the bum lower than the knees. The baby’s weight is on the bum instead of the hip joints and spine. The baby’s are also held tight to your body making it easier on your back and muscles. It also leaves them feeling more secure and safe.

Pouches
Styles - Padded - can provide cushioning for wearer and baby

Unpadded - can be more comfortable for some wearers, cooler
Stretch - allows you to keep the baby closer to you.
Non-Adjustable - quickest to get on and learn how to use.

Adjustable(zippers, rings, or snaps) - allows more than 1 sized wearer to use it.
Reversible - gives you 2 pouches in 1, also makes it look nicer when using a shoulder flip.
Fabrics - Cotton, Flannel, Fleece, Organic, Solarveil, Hemp, Mesh, Silk.
Carries - Cradle, Kangaroo/Buddha, Hip, Back, Tummy-To-Tummy.
Advantages - Easiest to learn how to use. Compact. Quick to put on and get a baby/toddler in. Easy to breastfeed with. Deeper pocket allows a nicer fit for the baby without fabric bunching. Inexpensive.
Disadvantages - Most are not adjustable, you cannot use them for different sized wearers. Some babies do not like them. They are worn on 1 shoulder which can cause a strain on the shoulder/back with heavier babies or when wearing for long periods.

Ring Sling
Styles - Padded - Gives cushioning to wearer and Baby.
Unpadded - easier to tighten, not as hot.
Open Tail - Allows wearer to adjust top and bottom rails separately. Can use the tail as a sun shield/blanket.
Closed Tail - No loose fabric to get in the way. Only have to tighten 1 piece.
Fabrics - Cotton, Fleece, Solarveil, Mesh, Silk, Organic, Twill.
Carries - Cradle, Kangaroo/Buddha, Hip, Back, Tummy-To-Tummy.
Advantages - Adjustable. Can be used for different sized wearers. More compact than a wrap. Easy to use.
Disadvantages - 1 shouldered which can cause strain on the wearer. Not as comfortable as a wrap. For some, the rings can slip a bit.

Long Wraps (4+ Metres/Yards)
Styles - 4Metres/Yards up to 9/10Meteres/Yards
Tapered - makes it easier to tie the knot and leaves less fabric hanging.
Stretch - Allows a wearer to leave it on all day, popping a baby in and out as needed.
Woven - Doesn’t have the bounce a stretch wrap does.
Fabrics - Cotton, Fleece, Cotton Knit, Organic
Carries - Cradle, Kangaroo/Buddha, Hip, Back, Tummy-To-Tummy, Cross Carries.
Advantages - Distributes child’s weight over entire upper back. More comfortable. Larger variation in carries you can use.
Disadvantages - Can be trickier to learn how to use. Alot of fabric. A bit harder to breastfeed with. Tied with a knot.

Short Wraps(3-4 Metres/Yards)
Styles - 3Metres/Yards up to 4Meteres/Yards
Tapered - makes it easier to tie the knot and leaves less fabric hanging.
Stretch - Allows a wearer to leave it on all day, popping a baby in and out as needed.
Woven - Doesn’t have the bounce a stretch wrap does.
Fabrics - Cotton, Fleece, Cotton Knit, Organic
Carries - Cradle, Kangaroo/Buddha, Hip, Back, Tummy-To-Tummy, Cross Carries.
Advantages - Easier to get on than a long wrap. Less fabric than with a long wrap.
Disadvantages - Fewer carries that you can use compared with a long wrap. Only goes over 1 shoulder. Learning curve is harder than with a ring sling or a pouch. Tied with a knot.

Soft Carriers
Styles - Asian Baby Carriers - 4 straps to tie to hold the baby. Tied with a knot.
Korean Carrier - 1 long strap, tied with a knot.

Constructed Carriers - Use buckles, velcro and snaps.

Onbuhimo - 1 strap and rings. Tied with a knot.
Podaegi - A small blanket with a strap. Tied with a knot.

Fabrics - Canvas, Twill, Cotton.
Carries - Front(facing out), Back, Hip.
Advantages - Quick to get on. Not as bulky as a wrap.
Disadvantages - Most cannot be used for hip carries or for laying down carries. Can be difficult to breastfeed with a small infant.

Hip Carriers
Styles - Hip/Waist belts and buckles.
Fabrics - Canvas, Hemp, Cordura
Carries - Hip, Front(not all hip carriers), Back(not all hip carriers)
Advantages - Easy to get on. Not alot of fabric.
Disadvantages - Can only be used for babies who have excellent back and neck control. Most cannot be used in any carry other than the hip. Some are not handsfree.

In general,

It’s all a matter of personal preference.

Which Carrier? This is always the big question, which one to get. The options are numerous. If you are new I suggest starting with a pouch. They are the easiest to learn with and are inexpensive so you can move up to ring slings, wraps, and soft carriers without having spent alot of money on the pouch. Pouches, Ring Slings and Wraps all have the same basic idea behind how to use them, they are just secured differently. If you buy one and find it does not work, do not give up. Some carriers are not well liked by some babies and wearers. There is a large market for used carriers and you can get your money back and try another one. Soft Carriers are the closest to mainstream carriers like a snugli or Baby Bjorn. They are relatively easy to use and have the look of them but also have the added advantage of wider seats so the baby is supported and not just hanging from it’s groin.

Fabrics? Some people like the woven fabrics of a wrap better than a knit. Some people choose a specific fabric due to a specific outing they are attending. Flannels and heavy wovens and cottons are not a widely used during the summer months as a lightweight cotton, solarveil or mesh sling would be.

Mesh slings are good for pools, lakes, the beach and the shower. Solarveil are also good for them but have the added advantage of sun protection.

Tying Methods? Some people find the knots in a wrap to be bothersome. Rings are easy, but some have concerns about their babies hitting their heads on them. Snaps and zippers in an adjustable pouch give it more uses, but it isn’t as easy to adjust as a pouch with ring slings.

Padding? It can be a huge advantage, but also a disadvantage at the same time. Leg padding helps keep red marks from material cutting in away, shoulder padding helps keep strain off your shoulder, top rail padding can be used as cushioning for the baby’s head, but padding can also be hot, make it harder to adjust tightly and make things more uncomfortable. If you have a sling with padding and are having difficulty with it, look closely at how it is made and see if you can remove some(or all) of the padding and re-sew it shut. If you find the unpadded sling is hurting you, you can either sell it and get one with padding or see if the sling maker has optional padding available.

Accessories? Depending on the sling maker, some comes with various accessories. You can get built in diaper bags, toy hooks, pillows and pockets. If you find a diaper bag is too cumbersome to bring along, a sling with pockets will probably be useful. Toy hooks can keep a fidgety baby occupied. Pillows are helpful in pouches if you have a small baby or a newborn. They can prop the baby up so they don’t look so “lost” inside the sling. Pillows can make a difference in whether a newborn likes or hates a pouch.

Lastly, if you buy a sling and are having problems getting it to work do not hesitate to ask questions. There are many ladies quite knowledgeable about babywearing here at Mothering, but you can also contact any LLL(or other breastfeeding group), Midwife or Doula and they should be able to point you in the right direction on where to go for help. You can also find babywearing classes in most larger centers. A little help can make the difference in becoming a babywearing family.

Carrie Hirtle
Mother, Doula and Owner of Natural Blessings an Attachment Parenting store specializing in Baby Carriers, Cloth Menstrual Pads, Breastfeeding Supplies and a variety of other products for moms and tots.

I am a Childbirth Educator, Childbirth Doula and Lactation Counsellor specializing in Natural, Drug Free Childbirth. For my services visit Natural Blessings Childbirth Services.

For more information on my products or services email me at ezine@natural-blessings.com

Remember the days when you could throw a few things in a suitcase and hop on a plane? Now that you are a parent, things are more complicated. Flying with a baby or toddler is not for the faint of heart or the unprepared. But, with careful planning, you can make your next airplane ride smooth sailing.

Tips for air travel with a baby:

Check with your pediatrician to make sure your baby does not have an ear infection
before leaving on a trip. One of the most common causes for a crying baby on a
flight is ear pain.

Give your baby something to suck on during take off and landing to relieve ear
pressure. (breast, bottle or pacifier)

Traveling at night or during nap time increases the odds that your baby will sleep
during the flight. Make sure you also have along their favorite blanket or snuggle
toy.

Most parents find it worth it to buy a seat for their baby and bring along a car seat.
Most airlines only charge half price for a child under 2. Not only is it safer, but you
will have more room.

Covering the car seat with a blanket (draped like a bird cage) can block out the light
and help your baby fall asleep more easily.

Travel non stop if at all possible.

Prepare for the unexpected. Remember to bring plastic bags to seal poopy diapers
in and extra wipes for messy diapers which are no easy feat to change on a plane!
Extra clothes for baby and mom are also helpful.

A bag of Cheerios goes a long way. If you need to bring a meal, be sure to pack
disposable feeding supplies.

Pack plenty of small, light weight toys for entertainment. Suction toys that can
adhere to the tray are especially good.

Use an umbrella stroller or stroller in which the car seat snaps onto the wheels.
Strollers can be checked at the gate just before stepping on the plane

Look into renting large items such as pack and plays or high chairs rather than
taking them with you on a flight. Call Baby’s Away at 800-571-0077 for more
information.

Tips for air travel with a toddler:

Give yourself plenty of time to get to the airport and terminal. Your toddler picks up
on your stress and will likely react in a manner that will bring you even more stress.

Let your child do something active before you leave for the airport. Wearing them
out physically increases the chances of them sitting still or sleeping on the flight.

Bubbles are a good distraction while waiting for the plane to arrive.

Request bulkhead seating. There is more room here and your toddler can play on
the floor if necessary.

Take your car seat! Not only is it the safest place for a child to be, but your child is
used to being confined to a car seat. They are more likely to stay content being
confined in their familiar seat and are more likely to fall asleep there than in a
strange place.

Pack comfort items such as a blanket or stuffed animal in an accessible place.

Letting a child drink out of a sippy cup or suck on a pacifier helps relieve air
pressure during take off and landing. Many moms also swear by using an
antihistamine to relieve the air pressure. Be careful though, about 10% of kids have
the opposite reaction to the drowsiness an antihistamine usually produces. If your
child is in that 10% and gets “wired” from the antihistamine, it can be a long trip!

Using a backpack to carry supplies and your purse frees your hands for other tasks.

Bring lots of single size snacks. Bring them out every 30 minutes or when they
become restless. Things with lots of little pieces such as Cheerios or Goldfish last
longer.

If you are potty training your child, be sure to request an aisle seat and insist that
your child wear a pull up. This is not the place for an accident!

A laptop or portable DVD player with headphones can distract a toddler for quite a
long time.

Bring a yard or two of 1/4 inch elastic. Tie one end to your wrist and the other end
to a toy. This way you can “reel” it in when your toddler throws it instead of
spending the whole trip searching under your neighbor’s seat. You can also create
other games with the elastic that your child will enjoy. Be sure to supervise to
reduce the risk of choking.

Pack plenty of new toys or toys and books your child hasn’t seen in awhile. Keep
them small and inexpensive and wrap them if you want to add to the excitement.

Toddler favorites for the plane: cups with ice in them, play dough with a plastic
knife, puppets, colored paper clips for making chains & bracelets, big, fat crayons &
a coloring book, travel Magna doodle, velcro (which can be attached to anything
small and lightweight) and a piece of felt to stick it to and stickers.

Susan Stewart is a professional organizer and the founder of Perfectly Placed
Professional Organization and Design in the Phoenix area. Perfectly Placed specializes
in bringing peace and order to busy families through organization. You can find out
more about Susan and Perfectly Placed at her website: http://www.perfectlyplaced.org

I recently began doing training in the banking industry. Across the board, successful bankers close between 2% and 6% of the prospects they call on, starting from their first prospecting call.

Not only are those numbers abysmal, they are considered normal. In other words, bankers are expected to fail at least 94% of their time. The insurance industry has the same odds.

In general, every industry closes less than 10% of the prospects they call (first call to close), with over 90% falling in the 7% category. And, since there is no scientific way of knowing which prospects fall into the 7%, we continue running after all ‘hot’ prospects until they disappear. And then we make excuses for those we lost while having no earthly idea why we actually lost them.

Basically, we are out of control; the only control we seem to have is over product pitch and our ability to chase seemingly hot prospects.

While I’m being a bit harsh, these are the realities that are built into the system of selling. Sellers expect failure and work to overcome it.

Why is it ok to have such a low closing ratio? Why have we built failure into the sales system? Why do we accept a 90% plus failure rate - and hire an over-abundance of sales people to make up the difference? Why do we continue to teach sellers the same-old same-old techniques that continue getting them the same-old ratios? And why is it ok to have an entire profession that wastes over 90% of their time?

Because we don’t know any better.

THE PROBLEM WITH SALES

For millennia we have based sales on our need to sell that which we get paid to sell. We have watched buyers disappear and go into some quiet, silent space that remains hidden from us while they … while they do what?

Where do they go when we leave them? Why don’t they call us back when it’s so obvious they have a problem that our product can solve!

We have had this long standing belief that we can fix problems, that our products are the necessary solution, and that we know what a prospect needs (based on what we can see from our vantage point outside of the prospect’s environment.

But do we know? How do we know for sure? How can we ever know what another person needs in order to solve their problem? How can we know what a group or a team or a company needs? Just because we can see the problem, and just because our product could solve the problem, doesn’t mean the buyer needs it, or is ready to buy it, or doesn’t have other choices.

Or wants to leave the problem the way it is.

What makes us think we have the answer?

Let’s take a good look at what we’re doing here:

1. We enter our prospect’s status quo with a solution, and as a result become a solution looking for a problem.

2. Our calls, our questions, our communications - marketing, advertising, pitches and presentations, needs analyses - are all biased, and constructed around getting our product sold, even though we profess to be mindful of buyer’s needs.

3. All of our conversations are based on different ways to encourage a prospect to understand their need for our product.

4. We assume that if the prospect has a problem in the area our product solves, that they need us to supply them with our solution.

5. We assume that because there is a need, that the prospect just has to be made to understand that they will save time/money or whatever if they use our product - and of course it’s our job to get the prospect to understand they have a problem that we can fix.

What is going on? Until or unless a buyer can recognize, align, and manage their own internal variables - their culture, if you will - they will do nothing. And we are left waiting in a void with nothing but guesses to make sense of what seems to us to be an obvious decision.

BUYING FACILITATION: A WAY TO SUPPORT THE BUYING SYSTEM

I’m here to tell you that there is a way to support the buyer on her side of the equation. Rather than sell, we can actually help buyers make buying decisions without selling anything. Not only that, we can close 50% of the prospects that show up, 12% - 15% of the prospects we solicit, and close the sales in the normal time frame.

But to do that, we must stop selling. In the mid 80’s Larry Wilson wrote a book called Stop Selling, Start Partnering. Even then he knew that sales wasn’t the answer. While he didn’t have a model to teach us how to do that, his ideas were sound and refreshing. But being the egotistical lot that we are, we assumed that what we had to do was partner in order to sell.

I’m going to make a different assertion: I’m going to suggest that we truly STOP SELLING and help people buy instead (and after all, selling and buying are two different activities).

Selling doesn’t work: it doesn’t get us anywhere; we never know when our buyers are going to come back - or even if they will; and we continue trying to add bells and whistles to the same basic process, hoping to get different results.

These are the realities that are built into the system of selling. We actually expect failure and work from there to overcome it.

Take a look at Buying Facilitation. It will give you skills to help you help buyers make purchasing decisions based on their own buying criteria. It’s a systems view of the buying process; a sequencing system of facilitating decisions. It’s got nothing to do with selling, and everything to do with solving problems within a system so the system can remain congruent and not disrupted.

Sales is antiquated. It’s very possible than better than a 10% success rate. It’s very possible indeed - but it won’t be by selling.

Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of New York Times bestseller Selling with Integrity. She is the visionary and thought leader behind a wholly original sales model based on the systems of how people change and decide. She has taught this system to 13,000 people in the fields of sales, customer service, negotiating, coaching, and change management. Sharon Drew is a keynote speaker and decision strategist, helping companies change their internal practices to embrace collaborative decision making, ethics, values, and integrity. She can be reached at 512-457-0246 and http://www.sharondrewmorgen.com and http://www.newsalesparadigm.com

What is Stigma?

Stigma is the use of stereotypes and labels when describing someone, and it is often attached to people who suffer from mental health issues. We don’t fully understand how the brain works yet, but one thing we DO know is that it is an organ. Yet our society doesn’t readily accept brain disorders the way we accept other organ disorders. Why is this so?

Stigma is a harsh reality for people who have mental health problems, because it prevents them from enjoying a normal and productive life. So many people today feel uncomfortable about mental health issues, despite the fact that there is growing evidence that more and more people are developing these problems. In fact, many people are so uncomfortable with the stigma that they would rather suffer in silence than get help they need.

Here are a few of the most common misconceptions about mental health problems:

The media has only further fuelled our distorted beliefs about mental health issues. Frequently, characters on television and in the movies that have a mental illness are depicted as dangerous, unpredictable and violent.

What Are the Effects of Stigma?

If you became ill you would go to a doctor. Once you got better, you would expect to get on with life as usual. But it’s not that easy for people who suffer from mental illness. Often, they can suffer from persistent rejections and exclusions by ill-informed members of the community. Some people have been denied loans, health insurance and jobs because of their history of mental health issues. Consequently, these people lose their self confidence and may develop further anxiety or depression, on top of the issues they are already facing.

I witnessed this first hand many years ago, when my brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The majority of his friends deserted him; they weren’t able to comprehend or cope with his altered personality and erratic behaviour. Within months he went from being a popular, vivacious and outgoing young man to a shattered, isolated loner. Over the following months, I watched my brother sink deeper into debilitating depression, which ultimately became so unbearable that he took his own life.

What Can We Do?

All of us have times when we feel depressed, anxious or angry. We might even have a series of bad days, where we think that nothing will ever go right for us and the world is against us. For a mentally ill person, these feelings do not go away.

So the answer lies in education and understanding. If you know someone who seems very emotional, down or upset, then lead by example; show compassion and understanding, and encourage them to seek help. And if you’re suffering silently yourself, take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone and that there is hope.

Sonia Devine is a qualified professional hypnotherapist and success coach with a caring and committed approach to healing, who lives in Melbourne, Australia. You can find more of her information on mental health, self image, love, relationships, phobias and much more on her website Manifest Your Success