Beco Baby Carrier adventures continue in Maleny, Australia.

Went looking for platypuses (platy-pie?)

Didn’t find any.

But we went up to our knees in mud!

And saw 2 tiny green tree frogs!

The Big Daddy took a video of Beco Butterfly back carrying!  In the middle of a river!  It’s loud, so you may want to mute it!      Beco Back Carry using the hip scoot with a very happy 15 month old!

Beco Back Carry

With 5 kids under 7, my husband and I have a lot of small people with short legs who depend on us to carry them!  Through our hike, on our beach walk, scrambling down rocks,  & looking for kangaroos, we each carried a child on our backs, with 3 more kids in tow!  They take turns “riding” on us except for the baby who is always up!  It’s his right as the baby to be worn all day every day!   The kids say “It’s MY turn to be on Daddy’s back!”  “No, MY turn!”  It’s pretty sweet!

Baby #3 actually fell asleep in the hiking stroller this time which was good since huge forest spiders had built webs across our path!  We were all freaking out - quietly so we didn’t wake the 3 year old - and my husband was wielding a long stick to knock the webs out of the way.  At 1 point, his plan backfired!  When a spider swung back out of a web after my husband had passed by and landed right in front of 2 of the big kids, me, and a sleeping baby in my Beco, we all gave a VERY muffled scream, and the Big Daddy came back to rescue us!

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We decided to climb down a pile of rocks to walk back on the beach instead of through the bush.  So we each carried kids down the rocks, and last but not least, my husband carried the HUGE double stroller down the rocks!  It was a sight!  He had semi-collapsed the stroller, and carried it on his back like a turtle shell!  The kids and I below on the sand were hooting with laughter, but they were VERY grateful for the plastic canopy on the stroller 1 minute later when it began to pour!  Cats and dogs kind of rain!  And there we were,  30 minutes walking distance from shelter, drenched, but still laughing!  So, we headed for our van, trudging through the rain, 3 little kids squeezed into the stroller, and each of us wearing a wet kid under our rain jackets. We would have taken pictures, but the rain would have gotten into the camera!  10 minutes later, the sun came out, dried up all the rain, and the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again!  Hahaaa, dunno actually because we were too busy watching the kangaroos on the beach!

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As a vendor, and a very special person, hahaa, I tried on a prototype of the new carrier from Beco last September at the ABC Kids Show. I have been waiting patiently, OK, not so patiently, for more information! We now know that it will be called Gemini and is due to be released this spring!

The Gemini is a smaller bodied carrier than Beco’s previous models, and designed to carry babies on your front, back, hip, or, gasp!, front facing out! The facing out position is somewhat controversial, but some mamas swear that their babies will not tolerate facing towards them. So, a great rule of thumb for younger babies to avoid over-stimulation is to limit facing out time to 15-20 minutes and if you see baby’s head turning to the side, that usually means that they are trying to block out some of the action and should be turned back around to face mommy.

Although the Gemini can be used with young babies, I comfortably wore my then-10 month old on my front and back in this prototype Gemini!  In the tradition of the Beco 4th Generation, the shoulder straps could be unbuckled under the arms and re-fastened as crossed straps across your back.  The headrest can be folded down, and the edges of the body of the carrier can be folded inwards and fastened, making the body narrower and more comfortable for smaller babies. (All of these details were true for the version of the Gemini I tried in September 2009. We will, of course, give you the full scoop on the Gemini as soon as more information is released!)

Only time will tell if mainstream moms will adopt this new chic baby carrier for their front facing babies, or whether the blase Bjorn ( that’s bla-zay, ladies!) will continue to be the generic go to carrier.

The part I’m most excited about??? The luscious purple straps that may be available on the first round of Beco Geminis!  Stay tuned for more information, a pre-order special, and more Beco news!

Try the Beco Butterfly II!!!  It has a built-in insert so basically you put the carrier on your front, load baby in, and scoot it around to your back!  No worries about baby falling or learning tricky techniques called the Hip Scoot or the Superman or the Santa Toss, LOL!! Those things are really fun to learn later on, but if you are just starting out, try the Beco!

Getting my 3 month old baby on my back in my Chloe Beco I!!!

Didn’t even wake him up