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I don’t know about you, but I like to know a bit about who I’m spending my hard-earned money with. It’s easy at the corner shop, local farmers market stalls or hairdressers, but online shopping can be a little more mysterious! This is where you get to find out a little about us, our business and our lives…

Bit for Bairns is run by us - husband and wife team, Ian and Nicki MacRae. We have three children aged three, one, and a new baby just arrived! We live in a small town by the sea in Easter Ross in the Scottish Highlands (a little north of Inverness for those of you that know the area).

Even though the surname might suggest otherwise, we’re not actually ‘natives’ (although we’ve settled in well and this is definitely now ‘home’), but Ian has historical family connections in the area and it's strange 5 generations later and almost by chance we've ended up back here. We moved here three years ago not long after the birth of our eldest child. We had previously been travelling the Highlands and Islands in our trusty VW camper van working on organic farms and crofts through the WWOOF organic farming volunteer scheme. We had just organised to settle temporarily for 6 months on a croft near Inverness when we discovered, much to our surprise, that we were expecting our son.

After heading back South to the sanctuary of family (and becoming a family of three!) we realised that something wasn’t quite ‘right’ in our lives. We loved being parents but somehow had trouble settling back to life in South West England. We missed our temporary Scottish home and we realised, having recently undertaken one huge life change that another really didn’t seem such a big deal. Within a few months of house hunting Ian’s parents found us the ideal house, with only their word and having seen three or four photos on the internet we decided to put in an offer – we were shocked when it was accepted! A few weeks later we were starting a new life in a house we had never seen, in a town we had never visited with no work lined up – scary stuff, but thrilling too! We’ve been here three years now and love our new(ish) life up North.

When not being ‘Mr Bits for Bairns’ or ‘Daddy’, Ian is one of the local postman – a huge change from a career working in IT and Management, but so much more satisfying than ‘desk work’ and gives him lots of time at home with the family. When time allows he’s a keen mountain biker and enjoys a spot of ‘garden pottering’.

When not tending children or being at the helm of Bits for Bairns, Nicki is a volunteer and committee member for the Highland Real Nappy Project and is involved with running a local Mums and toddlers group. She's interested in the more ‘spiritual’ side to life, attends a meditation group and recently undertook her Reiki Level One attunement.

Bits for Bairns

Our business was born from a local need for more information about baby slings and carriers. We were always getting stopped and asked “that sling looks great, where did you buy it?”, Nicki was also being asked by local friends, groups and health professionals to do information stalls and demonstrations of slings. We knew in order to fully commit to the idea of promoting babywearing we needed to ‘get professional’ to back up our advocacy work and give local parents some way of buying the recommended types of slings easily, and so the idea for an online sling shop was born. After around 18 months of research and careful planning we launched Bits for Bairns in May 2006 with a selection of baby carriers that we loved, had tested throughly and that we’re proud to be able to promote.