Friday, September 10, 2010

BumGenius rave

I've been thinking about mentioning this for a while. I have tried so many different brands of diapers (and styles) and after about 2 years of cloth diapering, at least 75% of my stash is BumGenius diapers. (BG one-size 3.0 pockets, and the Flip system) I don't know what it is about these, but they just perform better! Not to mention I like the solid, pretty colors, so I can coordinate them with my kiddos' clothes. I try to change often, but I am a busy mommy, and I often forget to do it soon enough. Time after time after time, BG's surprise me with how leak-resistant they are. Sure, we still have leaks, but only when the inner is completely soaked. They really do exceptionally well. The leak-proofness of their new(ish) Flip cover is what convinced me to finally try night-time diapering on Jaina (which I had been afraid of for a year and a half) and I haven't had a single night leak. There was a time between 12 months and 18 months when I thought my kids had outgrown the BG OS fit, but when I picked up CD'ing again (after a 6 month break) Jaina fit pretty well in them, and that's almost all she wears. They have expanded the fit in their new 4.0 diaper (I have one and love it!) and I don't think that will be a problem with Katy. I am so excited to see what new colors they come out with soon. You can be sure I'll be checking my e-mail and cottonbabies website to find out!
These are actually little XS All-in-Ones,
which I loved when Katy was tiny!







P.S. If you look at all the pictures below, Katy is always in either a BG or a Thirsties wrap over prefolds. :) They make up the other 25% of my stash...

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

So you want pictures of our little fluff-bottom?

1 week - BumGenius AIO x-tra small
I didn't use cloth quite as much as I thought I would the first 2-3 weeks, (mostly because her cord didn't fall off until that point, and those Huggies Pure & Naturals had the sweetest little cord dip...) but after that we have used cloth on her about 75% of the time. She wears a disposable at night (because why change her and wake her up when the little sweetie almost NEVER poops at night?) and 3-4 during the week if we're going to be out for several hours sometimes. (usually to avoid changing her in some random public bathroom unecessarily). Otherwise she wears a combination of prefolds and covers, pockets, and AIO's, and we change every hour to two hours. She's a cute one!
Thirsties Duo Wrap with snaps (sz 1) over a preemie prefold. 2 weeks.

That is one fluffy bottom...

5 weeks? - BumGenius AIO small



BumGenius One Size pocket
Thirsties Duo Wrap (sz 1) over a prefold

GMD small unbleached pf, snappied

Flip cover over a stay-dry Flip insert
WAHM pocket, babylegs
GMD Chinese prefold (red-edge), snappied
and the same Thirsties Duo Wrap over that. (unsnapped to its largest size)

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

A Great Article About Cloth vs. Disposable

About disposable diapers and the environment.
               here is the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-grayson/eco-etiquette-how-can-i-c_b_572807.html

Eco Etiquette: How Can I Convince My Husband to Use Cloth Diapers?
Send all your eco-inquiries to Jennifer Grayson at eco.etiquette@gmail.com. Questions may be edited for length and clarity.
My husband has been fine with the green changes I've made in our household. He doesn't complain about composting, taking canvas bags to the grocery store, or even the vegetarian dinners I make. But we're expecting our first child, and he's drawn the line at cloth diapers. He says it's too inconvenient. How can I change his mind?   -Layla

Well, for starters, the cloth diaper argument couldn't be more timely: Last week, I wrote about how the BP oil disaster is compelling Americans to consider new ways to reduce their oil footprint; more specifically, by reducing the amount of petroleum-based products they buy.
Plastic disposable diapers, of course, fall into this category. I regret I didn't think to include them in last week's column, because the statistic is a whopper: Nearly 3.5 billion gallons of oil are used to produce the 18 billion throwaway diapers that Americans toss each year. To put that in perspective, that's more than the amount of crude we import annually from Kuwait.
Need a visual? Picture one of those diaper commercials where someone pours a container of liquid into a nappy to demonstrate absorbency. Now replace the pretend pee in that cup with petroleum -- that's about how much oil (2/3 cup) it takes to make just one disposable diaper.
Of course, relaying these facts to your husband (along with any of the other convincing environmental arguments in favor of cloth diapers, like less landfill waste, water pollution, and destruction of virgin forests) may do little to change his mind if convenience is his priority. We all do stuff that's bad for the environment because it's more comfortable, right? If that weren't true, then 300 million of us would be biking 20 miles each way to work and making home-cooked meals out of the organic produce we planted in our backyard gardens.
So to sway your husband, I enlisted the help of the aptly named Sarah Greenshields, COO of GroVia, which makes one of the most convenient cloth diapering solutions on the market: the hybrid diaper. (Hybrid diapers are essentially Cloth Diapering for Dummies. Gone are the pins and folding of yesteryears: Instead, an outer washable shell fastens much like a disposable diaper; inside, you can attach either a washable cotton pad or an eco-friendly disposable liner to do the dirty work.)
I played the part of the questioning first-time parent (not much of a stretch, as those of you who regularly read my column know); Sarah countered with her case for cloth.

Jennifer Grayson: My mom says she tried using cloth diapers with me, and she gave up after a month, it was such a mess.

Sarah Greenshields: Diapers used to be these big, huge squares that you'd fold into shape, and then you'd use pins, and then you'd get scared that you were going to poke your baby with a pin, and then you'd have to put plastic pants over the cloth diapers. And the plastic pants, they were equivalent to today's shopping bag -- just big and bulky...so what we've done is stripped out all that extra nonsense and made it so, so simple.

JG: But we don't have a washer/dryer in our apartment. Isn't it gross to use laundromat machines for washing dirty diapers?

SG: Not at all. Most laundry cycles are going to finish on at least one, if not two, rinse cycles, so you're cleaning the washing machine out well. Nowadays, laundry detergents are so sophisticated that you don't need to worry.

JG: Don't you have to rinse off the um, more solid matter in the toilet first? I don't think I have the stomach for that.

SG: Even if with disposables, you're always supposed to take the poo and wash it down the toilet, no matter what.

JG: But people who use disposables don't actually do that.

SG: They should. You take the diaper off, you wrap it in a plastic bag, you put the plastic bag in the garbage...I mean, you're making a poop bomb.

JG: But three years of having to rinse off poop in the toilet...

SG: Well actually, your children toilet train much, much earlier [with cloth diapers]. From my personal experience, my daughter started using the toilet all by herself at 15 months.

JG: Why is that?

SG: They do feel the moisture up against their skin. I also think that when you're cloth diapering, it may take an extra minute or two...but that extra time and communication with your child can really encourage the child to become aware.

JG: But isn't feeling that wetness unhealthy?

SG: [With the GroVia hybrid] you have an organic cotton [soaker pad] up against their skin, or you have a corn-based [disposable liner] against their skin. No dyes, no fragrances, no chlorine. Babies who have chronic rashes do much better with cloth diapers. There's a whole thing going on with Pampers right now: Their Dry Max diapers are causing severe diaper rash.

JG: OK, it seems like you win the health argument. What about cost?

SG: On average, a family will spend $70 to $150 per month on disposable diapers. For cloth, it's a lot of money up front, but it's cheaper over the entire time you're diapering. It's about $375 to get your full cloth diaper setup, but you've paid yourself back in the fourth month.

JG: Thanks for giving me the bottom line on cloth diapers, Sarah. Sounds like it's my number one choice (and my number two).

Follow Jennifer Grayson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jennigrayson

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

My newborn stash...

is complete, I think! Once the baby is born I MIGHT get some Kawaii Pure & Naturals, and a Thirsties Duo Cover and a few more snappis (gender-appropriate) but otherwise, this is it!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Pretty laundry

A few weeks ago we finally started actually having some sunshine and warmer days. I also got some Softbums inserts off Diaperswappers FSOT (For Sale or Trade) with some truly ugly stains, and decided to try out the "dry them in the sun" stain treatment claims... This is how my "clothesline" looked the first 2 weeks:
Pretty exciting, huh?
But it worked! It got all the scary little "someone-else's-stains" right out! I've been trying to hang them out more to save some energy, and take advantage of the nice bacteria-killing, stain-removing sunshine. It's getting a little harder now that our trees have nice big shady leaves growing on them, but my "clothesline" also got an update (mostly thanks to our dryer dying...)

Aren't they pretty? Thanks to a "seconds" sale and the recent BumGenius coupon deal that's been going on, I now have all 9 colors that they make. (The light pink and white ones are inside, not dirty yet, with about 1/3 again as many other diapers... I actually have two pink pockets, but one is mysteriously missing, and I am SO curious... at least I'm fairly sure it's CLEAN and missing. At least, I really hope so!)

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Did I ever mention...

that my diapers smell fantastic these days? The things I've changed (since the evil days of stinky "clean, just out of the dryer" dipes) are:
1. I wash at least every 3 days (even though I usually only have half a load at that point - I'm sure that will change with a newborn around!)
2. I try to rinse the diapers ever so slightly before I throw them in the "pail" (just to make sure they -stay- nice and wet, and to dilute the pee and poo a little) I also spray a little Bac-Out on the poopy diapers, but that's mostly just because, and in case it helps with any stinkiness in the pail. Another thing we haven't had a problem with, by the way. It's in the basement, open to the air, and I never smell it when I walk in that room. I don't stick my nose in it or anything, but...
3. I switched our detergent to Tide Free. Tide isn't recommended for cloth diapers, but there are just too many people that use it and find it to be the best for actually getting everything clean! Jaina hasn't shown any sensitivity to it, (that can happen - I hope it doesn't bother the new baby!) and we haven't had any other issues since I started using it. The powder is supposed to work better than the liquid for most people.

So here is my current wash routine:
Cold pre-rinse.  Hot wash/cold rinse (usually on medium) with Tide Free (up to the "1" line or less), extra cold rinse. I sometimes add a little eCover to that last rinse. It is a cloth-diaper-safe fabric softener, and helps keep things squishy. I try to hang my pockets and covers to dry, and put all the prefolds and inserts in the dryer, or on nice days, hang it all outside. The sun is a great stain-remover!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Cloth diaper craziness (and a giveway you should enter...)

I am having so much fun with cloth right now - I only wish I had a cute little newborn to try a lot of these diapers on! I really need to go through everything I have and SELL some stuff to make room (and money) for the new things I'm getting. My current interests are Softbums and the Flip system. Still waiting for my first Flip cover and inserts, but they should get here this week! I'll be sure to let you know what I think... I got one Softbums cover and 6 inserts used on Diaperswappers.com. It is an All-in-Two, which means it's a cover with a snap-in liner. If the liner is just wet, (or, magically, if poo doesn't get on the cover) you just snap it out and snap another one in. If the fleece liner of the cover gets very wet you can let it air dry before you use it again.  Supposedly you can use this thing all day (or even more, if it still smells fine when dry - it sometimes smells a little when wet). I am trying it today - let's see how long we can get it to last. :) Jaina is modeling how trim it is - almost like a disposable! (They have tons of cute colors, I just managed to snag an "oyster.")
You should all enter the great giveaway they're having this month. Find it HERE!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Newborn stash

I've almost finished my newborn stash, I think.  I've got about 8 preemie prefolds, a dozen newborn ones (all from greenmountaindiaper.com - I love them!), 3 XS Thirsties All-in-Ones, 3 flats to try, 5 PUL wraps, 1 tiny adorable fleece wrap, and several fitteds that I've attempted to make myself. Since I don't have a baby to try them on, I don't think I'd better spend time making many more just yet in case they don't work at all...
All I should need now (newborn-wise) are a few snappis and another cover or two. I think I'll wait to see if we need any "pink" or "blue" additions before I order them... As the baby gets slightly bigger, I know I want to try the Flip system from cottonbabies. It sounds great and gets good reviews! If we have a little boy there are also several pink BumGenius 3.0 pockets I need to sell, and I'll probably "need" to buy a few more blue and green... :)

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Newborn (and even "small") cloth

is completely adorable. I've already received all of the stuff I listed before, and it's so cute and tiny compared to the largest stuff I have (which I've been selling off - keeping the one-size and some of the more gender neutral stuff for now, but trying to make a little money to build our newborn stash otherwise...)

Friday, January 29, 2010

So I haven't really been doing any cloth-diapering in like 5-6 months now. Reilly is potty-trained, and Jaina goes through like 3-4 diapers a day, maybe. I think a lot of my stink issues were from waiting 4-5 days to wash, because I just didn't have enough diapers to make a load until then, plus it got annoying trying to fit my rather chubby Little Miss into all her cute clothes. The comination was not a winning one.
BUT since we're expecting a new baby in June, I know I want to do cloth much of the time (though maybe not at night. we'll have to see how it's going). They just go through SO many diapers, that cloth will make a lot of sense, and if I'm havig to wash every other day, I think things will smell much better around here. So I've been looking through my "stash" and seeing what I want to sell and keep, (which is hard, since we're going for "surprise" on the gender) and figuring out what I need to CD a newborn. Jaina was 4 months when we started, so I've never done this! I wish I knew boy or girl, so shopping would be easier, but it's probably just as well, since I shouldn't be spending a lot of money right now. Or maybe I should be more disciplined about selling and THEN buying. :) I even have it in my head that I might be able to MAKE some smaller fitted diapers. (could be interesting, since my sewing level is still at "beginner") I want to do it all NOW, but it really makes more sense to wait until our little June bug is born and we know what colors we can use. These are some things I've already bought:

Yes, I know, if it's a boy Jeremy won't let me use the flowered one, green or not. I wasn't thinking super clearly, and it was on clearance. At least I could -try- it and see how I feel about the FuzziBunz fit. :)