A mum carries her toddler on her back in a Girasol wrap; the child is dressed as Santa Claus
Santa usually carries the presents, but this Santa is only 20 months old and extremely cute, so he gets to be carried instead.

We've been running a photo competition over on our Facebook page, and this is the winning entry! The lucky babywearer receives a gift certificate very kindly donated by Monkey Mei Tai, who make beautiful slings like the one shown on our page about mei tais.

To find out about future competitions and other stuff only available to our Facebook likers, just come and Like our page!

 
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On Thursday 13th December we got all festive at our Chrimbo sling-meet at the Hallamshire House. Everyone got into the festivities, little and big people alike.

There were Santa hats, Reindeer jumpers, cheeky elves and some crazy specs that Sir Elton would be proud of!

We wonder if this lovely mummy will enter this festive shot in our Advent Calendar competition running over on our facebook page - she could be in with a chance of winning a £20 Monkey Mei Tai voucher if she did! Or just come and have a look at what has behind the doors opened to date!




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It was a lively meet with lots of chat and lots of demos - below, Katherine, aka Mrs Claus, outs her Peer Support Worker qualification to good use to demonstrate a back carry with a Mei Tai.


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And, of course, there was Christmas cake: this was made by one of our members and was one of the prizes in our raffle; along with a voucher for a free loan from Sheffield Sling Library and "Off We Go", a lovely nursery rhyme CD by Jess & Richard Arrowsmith. Charlotte was lucky enough to win the cake but got a bit of a shock when she lifted the beast! We have been told temptation has been resisted and it is being saved for the family on Christmas day.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone! And we look forward to seeing you in 2013, you can find us at MegaKids on Tuesday 8th January. Please check our Upcoming Events for more details and other sling meets planned for January, and beyond.

 
We've got loads of sling meets on at the moment!
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A mum getting to grips with her Manduca carrier at our sling meet
Last Thursday was our regular sling meet at the Hallamshire House, where the talk was all about soft structured carriers and other full buckle carriers. There's so many different brands and they're all slightly different, so the good news is that there's usually one out there for everyone. 

But it does mean that you sometimes have to try a lot of slings on to find your perfect carrier - this is why we love getting together for sling meets, and why we are always so happy that Sheffield Sling Library exists.
We're going to publish the results of our carrier comparisons soon in our babywearing help section, so keep an eye out.
Then this Monday we had our first Hillsborough mini-meet, which was a great success. The library turned out to be a fabulous venue where the kids enjoyed playing and reading (or in some cases, just pulling all the books off the shelf and putting them in piles...).
Four babywearers carry their children at Sheffield Babywearers' Hillsborough sling meet
Four of the babywearers who came to the Hillsborough mini-meet

 
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Sheffield Babywearers are running a Babywearing Advent Calendar competition on their Facebook page and the prize is a voucher from Monkey Mei Tai custom carriers. They kindly lent us one of their beautiful carriers for our International Babywearing Week photo shoot, which you can see here.

Here is the photo that was revealed when we opened the first door of our calendar and we look forward to revealing more as we countdown to Christmas. Please come over and either share your pictures with us (to qualify for the competition you must both like our page and share a photo), or just bob across and enjoy the lovely festive images.