I bet Ellen was cloth diapered!

Since I started cloth diapering a few months ago, I have come to know a community of other blogging, cloth diapering moms. These women are nothing but sweet and helpful when it comes to another mom's questions about cloth diapers. I attended my first cloth diapers chat on Twitter the other night and it was a lot of fun.

One of the most knowledgable cloth diapering moms I have met is Kim Rosas over at the Dirty Diaper Laundry blog, and she's on a mission to get cloth diapers featured on The Ellen Show. I think that's a great idea!

I have written about cloth diapering for my newspaper column, and I know at least two women have made the switch or at least deeply considered it because of my column. I hope there are others I didn't hear about. I also have considered putting together a cloth diaper information booth for the next Mom 2 Mom sale at my son's school. I love helping to get the word out there about fluff!

Cloth diapering is good for the environment, good for babies' butts and good for your wallet. Aside from an extra load or two of laundry each week, there are no cons, and really, it's not that hard to toss in another load of laundry.

Cloth diapers are way easier than they used to be. No pins and rubber pants are required! Plus, with all the great styles and patterns out there, they are damned stylish. Especially on the bum of a dancing baby! Could you just imagine the sweetness of a sea of fluffy bums bouncing to the beat as Ellen dances to begin her show? I would LOVE to be there with my cloth-diapered boy to witness the joy!

I know there are celebrities out there who cloth diaper their babies. Wouldn't it be awesome to show people that not only CAN it be done, but it SHOULD be done and it's CHIC to do it?

So come on, Ellen! I'd be willing to bet that Betty cloth diapered you when you were this sweet little girl!

(I borrowed this photo from The Ellen Show website.)



And see Ellen? Look how adorable you are in a silver skull and crossbones diaper!



A cloth diapering show would be perfect for Ellen to feature for Earth Day. The environmental impact of cloth diapering is great! It would work for Mother's Day, too.

But really, it would be great for any time at all. Encourage people to take a small portion of their tax refunds and spend it on cloth diapers. They'll never have to buy disposables again!

I personally have spent in the vicinity of $200 on cloth diapering for my son. Disposables cost about $10 a week. I can tell you my son will be in diapers for more than 20 weeks! The savings are indisputable!

Go for it, Ellen! Feature cloth diapers on your show!

Cloth diapering review 3: soakers & longies

OK, this is my last cloth diaper review (at least for now!)

I am the proud owner of three different styles of handmade soakers.

The first one I got was a pair of custom-made blue wool longies from the Snuggle Pants etsy shop.



I was a little hesitant about trying wool, because all I could think about was this horrid pair of itchy socks I have, but I'd heard such good things about wool as a diaper cover. When I contacted Snuggle Pants, she agreed to make me a pair and send them to me for the cost of shipping only, which I thought was extremely generous.

Stephanie at the Sweet Violet's Mama etsy shop also was very generous and offered me the same shipping-only option to try out one of her wool soakers. She made Jordan an olive green one.





After trying these two soakers, I am a fan of wool. This isn't the itchy stuff my socks were made from! Plus, it is AMAZING at keeping leaks contained! I love the longies style, because they are adorable and can be worn as nice, warm pants during this Michigan winter. I would definitely recommend wool as a cover to other cloth diapering moms.

Please check out both the Snuggle Pants and Sweet Violet's Mama etsy shops for your wool cover needs. They both upcycle old sweaters (I LOVE THIS!) to make their covers and oh my goodness, they both offer some incredibly adorable items. They're affordable, too.

I ordered a fleece lizard print soaker from the Wild Child for Babies etsy shop and it is so stinkin' cute, but then I tried it on Jordan and I had ordered the wrong size. It was too small, and I was bummed. On a whim, I contacted the shop owner and she agreed to make me a pair of fleece longies and send them to me for shipping only, even though the wrong-size order was my own fault. Wasn't that super sweet of her? She just requested I pass the too-small soaker on to someone who needs it.

I chose a traffic-print fleece and she made and sent my longies right away. They arrived and I have been using them constantly ever since. They are a little long for Jordan's stumpy little legs, but I just roll them up a bit. It gives him room to grow! They are super soft and comfortable for him and they do an excellent job of containing any wetness that might seep out of the diaper. I love love love them.

Aren't they cute?



I would highly recommend Wild Child for Babies' shop if you're interested in a fleece soaker (long or short). Check out her shop!

So, in all, I am extremely pleased with all three of my wool and fleece soakers and the wonderful women who produced them!

Cloth diaper review Part 2: separates

Welcome to part 2 of my cloth diaper review.

This one won't be nearly as long as the all-in-one review. This review will focus on the separate diapers and covers I have.

First, I purchased a pack of Gerber pre-folds at my local Wal-Mart (No, Wal-Mart didn't pay me to say that.) They were $12 for 12.

If it was the old days and I was stuck with these diapers, pins and rubber pants, I probably wouldn't be cloth diapering. But, these are the days that we have nice PUL covers to go with them, and that is SO much better! (I know this, because I actually tried the pins-and-rubber-pants route before I had any other cloth diapering supplies. It was awful!)

The quality of these prefolds isn't great. I have had them only about a month and a couple of them are already fraying a bit at the edges. However, I just fold them into thirds and use them as liners or doublers inside PUL covers or all-in-ones and I can't complain too much. They are bulkier than all the new-fangled microfiber and bamboo, etc. soakers out there but they do the job.

Next, I was on etsy and spotted this cute three-pack of PUL covers at the Baby Bustle shop.





I decided to purchase them, and inquired about diapers. The seller told me she used to make diapers and had taken them off her shop because they didn't sell well. She agreed to throw in three contoured diapers she had on hand so I could try them out. She sent a two-ply bamboo fleece, a two-ply hemp terry and a four-ply hemp terry, and they velcro inside the PUL covers.



These covers and diapers work pretty well. They don't have laundry tabs, though, so they create a horrible diaper chain in the laundry and the velcro is starting to show signs of wear because of it. I love the camouflage cover best. It's so cute!

Finally, I was in a baby shop in Rochester and found this Tiny Tush diaper, so I decided to buy one and try it out.



It's pretty fluffy and seems really comfy, but it requires a separate cover and that can get sort of bulky. It works well under Jordan's wool and fleece longies, though, because they'll catch any leakage we have and he can wear them around as pants.

The shop also had Imse Vimse PUL covers on sale for half off, so I bought this cute striped one.



It's pretty standard as far as covers go, I guess. It seems a bit fluffy, so it's not the best choice to go over something like the Tiny Tush if you want baby's pants to fit!

So that's that as far as the separate diapers and covers go. Next, I will be reviewing the three different wool or fleece soakers I got.

Bottoms-Up Baby wipes review

At first when I was planning my switch to cloth diapers, I didn't even consider using cloth wipes. It just didn't cross my mind for some reason. I blame it on being overwhelmed by cloth diaper choices.

Then, one day I was browsing through cloth diaper-related posts on Twitter (OK, I will admit, I was looking for links to enter giveaways for cloth diapers! Can you blame me?) and I saw a link about Bottoms-Up Baby wipes, so I clicked on it and was taken to their Web site. It sounded really interesting, especially the all-in-one kit that was supposed to contain everything you could possibly need to switch to cloth wipes.

I contacted the company and they were happy to send me a free all-in-one kit to try out and review here, on my blog.

When the kit arrived in the mail, I was impressed to say the least. These people had thought of EVERYTHING!

Here's what the kit looks like:



It contains the following:

25 all-natural cotton terry cloth baby wipes (5.9" x 5.9")
1 clean baby wipes container
1 clean baby wipes essential oil blend (lavender & chamomile)
1 dirty baby wipes container with mesh bag insert
1 dirty baby wipes essential oil blend (tea tree & lemon)
1 clean baby wipes waterproof travel bag
1 dirty baby wipes waterproof travel bag with mesh bag insert

I hadn't even thought about how I would manage cloth wipes when I wasn't at home, but the Bottoms-Up Baby people had already figured it out for me by providing the clearly-labeled "clean" and "dirty" waterproof travel bags. I thought that was so neat!

The next step was to try them out, so I assembled my kit (basically, all I had to do was put a little water in the "clean" container, a little water in the "dirty" container, add the essential oils if I wanted to, and add some wipes to the "clean" container. Not much assembly required!)

Then I waited for a diaper change. When it was time, I had the baby's ankles in my hand and realized I hadn't opened the snap-off lids on the wipe containers. It was a bit of a challenge to hold the baby still and open the snaps with one hand, but the cool thing is, Bottoms-Up Baby is already working on that dilemma! They are planning a hinged lid style for the next manufacturing run. For now, all I have to do is try to remember to unsnap the lid before I unsnap the diaper!

I squeezed some of the water off the wipe and warmed it in my hand (I'm going to dig out an old wipes warmer I have and see how that works because our house is pretty cold!) and used the wipe, and I can say I feel like it got my baby a lot cleaner than a conventional wipe, and it doesn't have to be thrown away!

Plus, if you use the essential oil, it smells awfully good. You're going to laugh at me, but I actually put a drop of the oil on my wrists as perfume one day. I can't help it, I love lavender!

The "dirty" essential oil blend smells great, too. I have found that if I put a drop or two on a dry wipe and put it at the top of my dirty diaper pail, it helps a lot with the odor when I open the lid.

So far, the wipes wash up nicely. They're soft and the size is just right. The company is looking into possibly using bamboo fabric in the future, which would be great, but I have no complaints about the cotton whatsoever.

The only problem I had with the kit, aside from the lid snaps, was that when I had the dirty wipes container lined with the mesh bag, I did it like a garbage bag with the top of the bag folded over the sides of the container. That caused a little of the dirty wipes water to bleed out and get the floor wet. It was no biggie, though. I just had to make sure the mesh bag was inside the box instead of hanging out. I will probably end up just throwing the dirty wipes in my dirty diaper pail anyway, and using the "dirty" wipes container to store my Snappis and the essential oil bottles, because the baby likes to try to get into them and chew on them. The snap-on lid should keep him out, at least for a while!

In all, I have to say I absolutely love this product and would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who wants to use cloth wipes on their child. They really did think of everything, and it makes the process really easy.

Click here to check out the Bottoms-Up Baby All-In-One Wipes Kit for yourself.

Diaper Dollars: The Cost of Cloth

After a flurry of clicking and buying and paying and researching and requesting freebies to review on my blog, I have everything I need to cloth diaper my baby (well, with a few more items expected in the mail), so this morning I sat down to tally up what I have spent.

The grand total is... $277.75!

Wow... that's a lot of money! It's like 28 weeks worth of Pampers Cruisers Size 3 (at a cost of $10 for 31 diapers.)

For $277.75, I got:
16 diapers that need covers (12 Gerber prefold, 3 contoured diapers and a Tiny Tush)
13 all-in-ones
4 PUL covers
a fleece soaker
a wool soaker
a wool longie
2 Snappis
a lidded 5 gallon bucket for dirties
a liner for the bucket
a Bottoms Up Baby cloth wipes kit (AWESOME! review coming soon...)
a drying rack
3 wool and 2 plastic dryer balls
and a wet bag for dirties

I also tallied per-diaper costs just for kicks and I came up with:
$10.58 per all-in-one diaper (cost includes four extra bamboo soakers I bought)
$2 per diaper that requires a cover
$7.13 per PUL cover
$4.75 per wool or fleece soaker
and $65.50 for various accessories
(But the drying rack and dryer balls were $38 of that and will be used for other laundry as well)

So, looking at that breakdown, I would say I did pretty well. If I cloth diaper for 28 weeks, it will be worth it. And I plan to cloth diaper now until he's potty trained, so it WILL be worth it and WILL save us money in the end. And it's good for the planet.

Yay!

I'm waiting for my diaper pail liner, wet bag, set of 3 Smartipants, one FuzziBunz, and four WAHM all-in-ones in the mail. I think for now I have decided against the diaper sprayer. I found a used one for a decent price, though, and might change my mind.

Now, I've got a lot of fluff reviewing to do in the coming days!

Cloth diapering-Day 1

Good morning!

Sooo... Yesterday was my first day of cloth diapering Jordan from wake-up to bedtime. (It was also the grand arrival day of Tooth Number 5, so I got to HOLD that squirming, squealing fluffy butt all day!)

I am going to be honest here and say I was tempted at times to just throw a disposable on him. But I didn't. I know once I get going and figure out what kind of diapers to use, it will get easier.

One difficulty I didn't even think about was the added frequency of changing. I KNEW I would have to change more often but man! my son pees a LOT! Yesterday was a poo-free day, so at least I was spared that, but I was doing a lot of changing. And he HATES diaper changes, so he's always trying to roll away and he's complaining the whole time.

Another difficulty is just my lack of stash. I currently have a set of 12 TOTALLY CRAPPY Gerber pre-folds (and Snappis, which I'm not great at using yet but the results were better than when I tried to use pins!), then I have an all-in-one that I won on a blog giveaway but I think it's too tight around his thighs, and it always seems to leak. I have one Bum Genius 3.0, one Tiny Tush, Three contoured diapers (one bamboo fleece, one 2 ply hemp and one 4 ply hemp) with cute PUL covers from someone on etsy, three other etsy diapers, and then I have a fleece soaker, a set of wool longies and an Imse Vimse PUL cover that I haven't tried yet.

So, not really a lot to work with. Plus, the one AIO diaper is too tight and a couple others are too big. I'm finding that Jordan has chunky thighs, but a small waist, so I'm going to have to figure out what works. Even using the size charts, I have ordered the wrong size a couple times. However, it's wrong on the large side, so I'll just wait for him to grow into them.

So far, I prefer velcro to snaps, probably because I can adjust the waist more specifically, but I can't seem to keep the velcro from sticking to everything in the wash. It's VERY annoying, and I'm afraid it's going to tear up my diapers!

And then there's the matter of drying! I got some wool dryer balls from etsy and some plastic ones at Wal-mart to help dry these things, and i got a drying rack and set it up for the PUL covers, because I heard they should hang dry. I did my load of diapers last night after J went to bed, and I put the liners in the dryer and the covers on the rack before bed, and this morning it's like I just pulled them out of the washer. I keep putting them back in the dryer. I even put the covers in the dryer because they were still wet.

I am expecting two more diapers and a wool soaker in the mail, and then after I try those and get a little more acquainted with what I have, I will be getting some more of what works for me, except I can't get too many because I've already spent almost $200! (Of course, that's including the dryer balls and rack, which will be used for things other than diapers, so that's good.)

I'm also talking to someone on diaperswappers about buying a used diaper sprayer because my one incident with cloth diaper poo taught me that rinsing in the sink is utterly nasty, and being able to spray it into the toilet would be a MUCH more sanitary option!

I also need to get some lanolin and some sort of wash to treat the longies I got. Ugh, I guess I maybe need a poo spatula too.

So, I'm going to keep plugging along and hope it gets easier. I kind of found it to be a pain in the butt yesterday, but that's to be expected when I don't really know what I'm doing yet!

Here's a couple shots of my fluffy butt boy!

A dreary Friday!

Hello friends!

Well, it is an ugly, rainy fall day here in mid-Michigan. It's too bad because the leaves have reached their color peak. We need a bright, sunny day to appreciate them, but instead there is lots of rain and wind in the forecast, which means they'll likely all just fall and blow off the trees.

Took Logan to school today with a little friend. We found a woolly bear caterpillar on Wednesday evening and he's been living in Logan's little bug box the past few days, eating leaves and pooping. We'll probably snap a few photos of him after school today and then release him to go about his business outside. The kids are studying insects in school this month and are encouraged to bring in bugs to look at, and then release.

Spent some time last night on the couch with Jordan. He cried at about 2, I got up, popped him on the boob and laid us down and fell asleep. Woke up around 5 TOTALLY kinked up from sleeping in a weird position to keep baby from falling off the couch. Put him in his crib and went to our room only to find Logan in bed with my Hubby. Guess it was Sleep With Your Kids night at our house!

I am on my way to cloth diapering. I bought a set of pre-folds at Wal-Mart yesterday and figure if I don't like them, I can just use them as doublers in other diapers. I also am getting a few different diapers and covers from etsy to try out. I will be reviewing the different ones I try. I also want to order a couple better-known brands, like Fuzzi Bunz and Bum Genius because I've heard good things about them from several people. Just trying to decide if I should go with all-in-ones or fitted ones. I would like to try the Gro-Baby disposable liner ones for travel as well.

As far as money goes, it's seeming quite expensive to get rolling, but I figure if I use each diaper 20 times, it will have paid for itself as far as what it would cost to use disposables. Since I'm not getting a TON of diapers, I imagine I will reach that 20-use mark quite quickly.

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NOTE: The above statement clearly indicates WHY I went into writing as a profession and NOT anything involving mathematics.

The correction: If I use each diaper 80 TIMES, it will pay for itself. That's based on a 40-pack of disposables costing about $10, and a cloth diaper costing about $20. Therefore a cloth diaper costs about as much as two packs of disposables, so therefore, in terms of cost, one cloth diaper = 80 disposable diapers. I don't know why I said 20. I am so math-dumb.

Carry on.
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As far as bedtime, I will probably still use a disposable, since Jordan wets a lot in his sleep.

Sorry about all the cloth diapering talk lately! You'll just have to bear with me as I make this transition.

You wouldn't think that something so simple would cause so much confusion, but there are so many more options out there now than there were when I was cloth diapered. My mom needed flat diapers, pins and some rubber pants to cover them. That's all there was! Now there are flat, prefold, all-in-one, fitted, pocket, hemp, fleece, cotton, organic cotton, wool, bamboo, Zorb, PUL, velcro, pins, Snappis, this color, that print, and so on. SO MUCH TO DECIDE!

It's Friday! Logan's last day of soccer is tomorrow. Thank goodness, because the weather has been CRAP the past few times and it might be so tomorrow as well. Hubby will be working on the bathroom this weekend and will hopefully get us a functioning tub at least. That will be so nice!

So, anyway, it will be a busy weekend around here, but that's what life is all about!

Fitness-wise, I would have liked to get up and do a DVD this morning, but it just didn't happen. I was too tired. Everyone was, I guess, because I had to PRY Logan out of bed for school. I'll go to the gym tonight, though, for a workout (probably weights) and a shower.

Lots to do around the house today. Hopefully I can make a dent!

Have a great day everyone!