Slingading

There's a whole new world out there and its name is wholesale. I've made the first tentative steps on the long road of setting up my new business today by contacting several baby sling suppliers and asking if I can stock them in my website shop. And they said yes!

I felt strangely proud that they're willing to let me sell their products. And then I remembered that's how they make their money... but still, they believe I'm a real business and I'm actually starting to feel like that myself!

Imagine, one day I might be able to go along to a dinner or (more likely) a mother and baby group and when people ask what I do, I can say I'm an entrepreneur! And if they don't laugh at the pretentiousness (is that a word?) of that comment I can probably add in some more detail...

So, back to the life of a mumpreneur in the making. Today I went swimming with the munchkin - well, wading with her anyway; met a friend for lunch; contacted 10 wholesalers who agreed to let me sell their products...and decided to start small by stocking just one supplier!

Yes. Perhaps a strange decision, but I've found a company that makes and sell slings and carriers wholesale and have no distributors in the UK yet. Sounds like it could be ideal. They have a growing reputation in their own country and the US so I could even end up becoming their UK sole distributor.

I have bitten the bullet and (gulp) ordered my first supply. I've decided not to worry about the potential loss I could make, especially when after having a baby,moving house and dropping to statutory maternity pay, I am not exactly flush - these things are best ignored.

It seems almost mandatory these days - you have a baby you set up a business. There are features in every one of the parenting magazines I now seem to have developed an addiction to, articles in the press, even on the TV. These women are designed (seemingly) to make me feel inadequate - they always have happy families, incredible careers, money in the bank... pretty much the opposite of me in almost every respect. So it comes as something of a personal surprise to be attempting to join their ranks.

After having my baby at Christmas last year (a whole other story) I soon found myself embroiled in an entirely new world - one where I regularly sit in groups singing and shaking rattles, worrying about everything and feeling like I'm making this entire thing up as I go along. Initially, in the dark days I refer to as The First Two Weeks, I made a pact with her: if she finished the day alive, then I win. As time passed I found to my delight that I kept winning. Although I am still very much at the amateur mum stage (a secret I'm trying to keep from her) I have hopes of soon passing my first parenting award - the bronze certificate: 'Successfully surviving the first year'.

Although I love being her mum I find that my days have become very similar. When my husband comes home and asks how my day is I used to be able to reply with the odd anecdote about work and gossip about my colleagues, but suddenly I found myself stuck. 'Er, she slept for two hours today...'

I found myself reading the articles about mums starting businesses and beginning to think that maybe I can do that too... but what shall I do?

The answer seemed obvious at 3am one morning while encouraging my baby to realise that dark = sleep. The one thing I have become passionate about in the last 8 months is the use of baby slings. After spending long weeks researching and buying the perfect travel system I find myself using it about once a week - but the sling I bought on a whim, I have used every single day since she was born.

Well, OK. I admit it, not just the one sling that I originally bought. My sling count now stands at 5 as I looked for the perfect one! Sorry hubby...

They do have magical properties though. I am truly not a hippy kind of girl. I promise. I have a car and everything. But slings really are incredible - when she was born she was what you might call a grizzly baby. But as soon as I put her in the sling and walked round the block she went to sleep. Without fail.

I have decided my perfect small start-up will be to sell baby slings and help convert other mums to the joys of snuggling a baby hands free. I have even come up with my business name - Slingading. Now you have to admit, that is catchy.