How Bubba Moe Slings began

Bubba Moe Slings has been a labour of love since 1985 when we celebrated the birth of my first child Ryan, and my family laughed to hysterics at my first rudimentary attempt of a sling. He was 6 weeks old when I ruined 2 perfectly good sets of sheets in the elaborate making process.
By the end of it, we only had one sheet left to sleep on, 3 useless prototypes, and I was a mess. In my mind it seemed to work so much better, but I didn't give up, I kept going till I finally made one that seemed to work.
When I think about that sling, I cringe, considering what I know now.
Ryan would simply howl whenever I put him down, he was happy only when I was carrying him, I needed to devise something to give me my hands back.
I was convinced that for my very first Mother's Day, I would be receiving the "Most Useless Mother in History" award.

In 1987, I decided to be prepared and make my sling before my second child was born. By the time my second son Drue was 6 months old, 2 more variations had been made.
I worked on improving on all the elements that didn't seem quite right with the previous model and enhancing everything that did make my sling feel right and secure.
What I wasn't prepared for was the backlash from other mother's when I was out and about.
The derogative comments ranged from asking if I was an escapee from some hippy commune from Nimbin, to, and mostly consisted of how my children would grow up to be really bad people as obviously I was an undisciplined and unworthy mother.
Paralysed by politeness I never made a retort.

We were grocery shopping, Drue in the sling and Ryan in the toddler seat of the trolley. Stopping to choose some tuna, a mother with her toddler in the seat as well, stopped next to us, looking for something on the opposite side of the isle. Her son leaned over and punched my Ryan in the face!!. The poor mother aghast at her son's action, smacked him in return, apologised to me and scurried off.
Before I could say a word, Drue leaned out and cradled Ryan's face with his little hand, then started to stroke his brother's face ever so gently, the look that crossed between the two was of cheer love and compassion.
An epiphany hit me like a freight train, Drue had understood at just 8 months of age, the concept of care and compassion.
The day before, we were at the park. Ryan had fallen over and bruised his ego. I held him tight to console him, and when he knew he was alright, he lifted his head, I stroked his face while asking him if he was ok, after a quick nod he raced of again to play.
Drue had seen this as he was right there, if he had been in the pram he would have missed scene.

I waited until early evening to visit a neighbour down the road who is a early childhood psychologist, Joanna Pickford.
We spent many hours talking that night about all things to do with baby behavior, parenting models etc, confirming what I had discovered that day, that babies fully understand and are aware of all that goes on around them even if they can't speak.
All things I knew intuitively, but could never label.
Not only did this event mark the beginning of my tenacious quest into research.


It was also the point where, as a parent, I threw out routine and replaced it with structure and communication. My life as a parent became a whole lot easier and happier.