Niina from Liinalapsi

About me, my family and my business

I'm 37 years old, have 2 kids ('07 and 09) and a husband. We live in Southern Finland now but I was born in Northern Finland and spent my childhood there. I started babywearing with my first child when he was about a month old and continued wearing a baby with our little girl at the very first day of her life.

For me babywearing is a natural way of living: it just feels right. Of course wearing a baby makes my days easier: I can get some housework done and cook a meal for my family. I can go out with my older child, have an adventure in the near forest and play with him at the back yard and the little one is always safely with me – usually on my back. My husband carries our kids also willingly.

We try to carry out also other means of attachment parenting: co-sleeping and long breastfeeding are essential for us and we show our love to the kids unconditionally. I have found attachment parenting quite easy with a baby but now with the 3 year old it has become more challenging.

I started my business in year 2008. I had been daydreaming about my own business for a long time. At first my dream was to set up a pet shop because I love animals - especially reptiles and fish – but this dream never came true. Gradually along with my new passion, babywearing, I started to think of starting a babywearing business. Finally I got a change to buy the rights for a bunch of beautiful Finnish Girasol exclusives from Katin Puoti. And at the spring 2008 my webshop Liinalapsi – Wearababy was born.

Liinalapsi inherited 9 exclusive design from Katin Puoti and now 2010 we have 14 gorgeous wraps. Most of our designs are striped and weaved with the ”cross weave” technique. But a few designs are of the ”old weave” with two different sides. These wraps are always two-colored: one color on each side of the wrap. Some of Katin Puoti's wraps were designed by Kati – like the most beloved Earthy Rainbow – but some of them have been designed by other people. My own exclusives are products of my imagination and some are a mix of an old design with some new ideas like new weft color. In the future I will probably need some help with baby wrap designing since my imagination is not unlimited :) So you can expect a contest or baby wrap vote in the future.

At Liinalapsi we try to keep as many of our designs in stock as possible but not all the sizes are available at all times. We offer both diagonal (tapered) ends and fringed ends for our Girasols. The most popular of our design - Earthy Rainbow – is weaved every 2-3 months so the waiting time is not very long, if a certain size is out of stock when a customer claims for it. We keep waiting lists and send customers e-mail when the wrap they asked for is in stock again.

Niina