Lenka’s View:
You could have come across the Slovakian brand Rischino at this website several times already – although it is mainly a carrier manufacturer, we have tested only their wraps so far – Mint Diamond, Blue Starlight, and Rainbow Paisley Folk.
I was very excited about the first two, about the third one not that much, but I thought it would make a great material for a wrap conversion carrier (well, why not, considering its manufacturer is primarily a carrier manufacturer). Finally, we had the opportunity to test one of the Rischino carriers, too.
According to the manufactur and also the legends we have heard about Flexible, this should have been a really ˈgrowingˈ adjustable carrier – the one and only carrier that grows with your baby from his/her birth up to the preschooler age, i.e. from the size 50/56 to exorbitant 92/98 cm. And you may already understand that I will growl about this – maybe a bit surprisingly not about the minimum size; it is possible to adjust Rischino to a very small size and the mini-baby looks quite fine in it in my opinion (not that I have become such a fan of carrying newborns in carriers – newborns are, were and will be supposed to be in a wrap), but about the maximum size. Funfact – if you watch the instructional video, Mrs. Rischino first says that the carrier is adjustable up to the size 92/98 and about 30 seconds later she states that the carrier should be O.K. up to the size 80. Well, now I would agree on that. 😀
Emilka wears size 74 and we did not need to adjust the width of the back panel at all – I suppose it would be fine up to the size of 80, but not up to 98, like – not at all.
As far as the adjusting of the back panel goes – I applaud standing, although the adjusting system is my ˈfavoriteˈ cord system. This one is however a bit different – for vertical adjusting, there are two parallel tunnels with cords (a similar system I liked very much on Moyo carrier). I am also very glad that Rischino is not afraid to use ˈnormalˈ shoelace-like, durable polyester cords instead of stiff cords made of a wrap that are sometimes a real pain in the neck to work with. They even went so far that they used this parallel tunnel system also for adjusting the width of the back panel. I was worried at first that the knot would press on the wearie’s bum and/or the wearer’s stomach but it is tiny and is not perceptible at all while wearing. This would probably be the only problem of the ˈone-sidednessˈ of the adjusting system, otherwise I think it is great as it overcomes the possibility that you adjust the back panel unevenly and the baby’s back would bend to the side. All our 8 testing thumbs up for the system of the back panel adjusting!
Sadly, I was not that happy about the waist belt – it is soft, horizontally through-stitched and despite all of my adjusting efforts I was not able to prevent it from bending in the upper part – it pressed on my hips and felt uncomfortable. The shoulder straps are padded adequately in my opinion and also adequately comfortable; anyway what decided about the overall comfort was the waist belt – after an hour of wearing I was very relieved to let my 9kg Emilka out of the carrier.
As my hips were not satisfied with the waist belt, I was not satisfied with it as well because of the position of the wearie – because of its tendency to bend, Emilka had her knees almost horizontally, no ˈMˈ position of the thighs really happened here, to be honest. What a pity, otherwise the wearie’s position is exemplary – the back panel embraces him/her, there is no excess or lack of the panel’s fabric anywhere. If it was not for the unfortunate waist belt…
Jana’s View:
Imagine that you have just returned from a very beautiful and, mainly, long holiday … and almost on your doorstep, two wonderful carriers from Slovakia are waiting for you to test them. Could you resist such a challenge? 🙂
First up, we tried on Rischino Flexible. Until that time I have never met the brand in person, although it is familiar to me, of course. The manufacturer says in their instructional video that the carrier is suitable even for newborns (size of clothes 50) until approximately 2 and half years of age (size of clothes 98) – naturally, the body size of individual babies matter here. I am not able to judge the suitability for the littlest objectively because I did not manage to ˈcatchˈa small enough baby. In contrast, I certainly cannot agree with the upper limit because I tested the carrier with my wearie (currently 25 months old, 12 kg, size of clothes 92) – the width of the back panel is not sufficient for such a big child, missing quite a lot of centimetres on both sides …
However, let’s go back to the first impression for a moment. The carrier is made of a very elegant wrap – as far as the colour is concerned, it is exactly my cup of tea; although, I would be happier if the blue was a bit bluer. The pattern of waves is decent, yet attractive. Unfortunately, the wrap is rather prone towards pulls, which does not make it an ideal candidate for a wrap conversion in my opinion. The waist belt is unusually wide, quite soft and very stitched – mainly lengthwise, which evokes a feeling that it could break easily (but this is only my guess, it may not be the truth). I really missed an elastic band at the end of the waist belt’s strap (the one you can use to secure the rolled excess of the strap) – it is true that there was an elastic band directly on the waist belt, which the excess could be tucked under, however, in my case still a piece of the strap was loose flowing in the wind like a little tail – I really do not like this (by the way – the elastic bands were missing on the shoulders straps as well, which upset Štěpán because he does not like the straps touching and rubbing against his thighs). The shoulder straps are narrow and richly padded. There is an interesting detail on the carrier – the strap protectors are sewn in one ˈtunnelˈpiece, therefore there is neither velcro nor snap fasteners – I really appreciate this interesting solution. The hood is, unfortunately, firmly sewn on.
The most interesting feature of the whole carrier is the system of width adjustment – it is composed of two cords in two separate tunnels which can be pulled from one side only. I have never seen such a solution and I was a bit suspicious about it at first but it proved to be very functional. I applaud to Rischino for this idea! 🙂
As I have already mentioned above, the carrier was already small for Štěpán. Even though we did not abandon the testing itself and took the carrier for a walk in the shopping centre. My fears about the waist belt were unfortunately confirmed – not that it really broke when I was wearing, but it was not comfortable at all. The shoulder straps were comfortable enough, although I personally prefer a bit wider ones.
I would recommend this very well-made carrier as adjustable until the size of clothes 80. Thanks to a very clever system of width adjustment and the presence of cords adjusting the width behind the neck as well, I would not be afraid to try it with 4-6 months-old babies, which is of course the choice of every individual mother. 🙂
We hereby thank to the group Nosíme děti (i.e. We Wear Our Babies) for the opportunity to test the carrier!