Come to the Cloth Side...

Well I know it's been awhile, SORRY! My Aunt Becky said that she checks my blog all the time and she keeps seeing Camerons blonde wig picture. So I am finally updating it. I am grateful to all those who have read my blog and humored me, and I hope that I may inspire some to come over to the 'CLOTH SIDE'. I am fortunate. Cloth diapering is PAINLESS! I am totally in the groove and haven't had any problems. No poo flinging anywhere, no HUGE mess. You can't really say NO mess, diapers are messy that's a fact, paper or cloth.

A few things we have learned:

1. Extra liners are good at night, they are also expensive like $6 each sometimes, unless you buy them at Walmart.com We did buy some at like $9 for a pack of 5! YES! If you have a super wet baby just put 2 in at night.

2. Lovin the mini shower, to clean off the diapers, no dunkies!! YEAH!!

3. Kushies makes the awesomist (yes I just made that a word) Paper liners that are a perfect size, they ship to walmart for your for free and they are so soft! BUY THEM! WE can't live without them. They look like a toilet paper roll, so we attached a toilet paper roll dispenser above the changing table and we are GOOD TO GO.

4. It's definatly a learning curve. In the beginning the boys were wicking every night so they would wake up all soaky pants. But now I just make sure that their pjs aren't tucked into their diapers and that the inserts are inside the cover and we are good to go!

5. I like washing the diapers every night because then there is FOR SURE no stink.

6. Because we wash every night I think we bought WAY too many liners, we could do with like 12 less. If we were to wash every 2 days, then we would have enough liners but not enough covers. I need to get more covers.

Cameron is awesome with it too! It's wonderful to have a supportive hubby! He changes the kids diapers every day when he comes home and he says that he doesn't even notice it anymore, he's all about it. I gave Cruz a paper diaper the other day and he said, NO MOMMY I WANT THE NEW DIAPERS! It was so funny.

Oh and a side note I didn't go into try to sell my baby slings yet. But I will and when I do I'll let you know how it went.

I made the shirt!

HAA HAA!! I made the 'I'm not a hippy shirt'. It's through www.Zazzle.com Check out the link to the right. It's an organic t!

I love Bunko! It's only every other month but it's hilarious, not the game but all of the women there are so funny and just great to be around. I was talking about my cloth diapering venture and I found out that 3 other women in the group have been cloth diapering for awhile! I was so excited!! I am hungry for diaper tips and Andrea, Holly, and Heather told me there is a diaper service in town that has a store that sells the covers for CHEAP!! Woo hoo!!! The website is http://www.tideedidee.net I checked them out and they are so cool! Holly and Andrea said they used the covers for several kids and they are still holding up. I am definitly going to try them out. They are about $7.50-$10.00 which is great considering there is no shipping and I can just go to the store and check them out. Woo hoo!

Okay a little hippy moment: On Tidee Didee it said: Disposable diapers make up the 3rd largest source of solid waste in landfills (after newspapers and beverage containers). Disposable diapers take up to 500 years to decompose; and unlike any other waste item, they contain raw untreated sewage (which can ultimately lead to an epidemic).

Wow that is mind boggling. So go cloth baby!

My friend Erick said he hated the previous hippy picture for some reason, so I promised to add a new one so here's my hubby again gracing the pages of my blog. Hehe... Erick also wanted a picture of a poopy diaper but that's not going to happen, sorry Erick.

Talking to the fabulous ladies at bunko was so fun!! I also learned that Berts Butt Balm is great for diaper rash.Oh a good reminder! NO bleach, and no FABRIC SOFTENER! If you can hang dry your covers that's going to be the best thing.

I'll let you know how my excursion to Tidee Didee goes when I go there. I am going to the Sacramento Mothers Support Network this week to try to check out their cloth diapering inventory.

This is so cool! I thought this was only on the internet and there were no local resources and I am finding them!! YIPPEE!! I am also going to their Moonfaeries store and try to market my baby slings, and hopefully they'll buy them!!! OOH!! Wish me luck!! Here's the web address for them, http://www.motherssupportnetwork.org/. They are an awesome resource for all types of Mothering needs! Here's my totally cute sister in law modeling one of my slings.

User Error...

I can't eat off of clear plates.... What does that have to do with diapering...? Well I can't eat off of clear plates because I don't like to see the floor through my plate. I don't know why, it just seems wrong. Anyway. It's something that my family has TEASED me relentlessly about, they call me a germafobe and now that I was going to cloth diapers I am sure many of them thought I would last a day just because of the ICK factor.

Okay so it's been almost a week of cloth diapering...

When we started I had a little anxiety. What was I doing?! I was going against the norm... was this really going to work? We found out this week that it does! And there is definitly a learning curve, but it all turned out fine!

Well here are a few tips I discovered. When you decide to cloth diaper, about a week before you do, go to the store and buy a huge BUCKET of ice cream and EAT it. Then use the bucket for your diaper bucket. Awesome transportation thought of by my handsome husband. Watch out ladies he's taken. Heh. Well he said why don't we use the bucket to put the dirty diaper in, finish changing the baby and then transport it to the bathroom. I LOVE IT!! Especially when Corbin likes to kick things, and I know if I had a diaper on the changing table it would be a matter of seconds before there was POO flying everywhere! No bueno. So the bucket has been a life saver. I love the handle, and hey we had this bucket already, but if there is any excuse needed to eat a bunch of ice cream, now would be it!

So the first few days the boys were leaky, LAME. Definitely User Error. We were not being careful enough with the inserts and they were wicking... A diapering term, meaning basically to seep from the diaper onto other clothing. Pretty much a Leak. When I first hear of wicking I thought of a rapper going wicky wicky wicky but then I found out it was completely different. So make sure the prefold and the liner, if you use them, are stuffed inside the cover.

And Oh my poor babies legs. We didn't know exactly how to perfectly attach these diapers to our kids, apparently we were using the tourniquet method, so it seems that their legs were pinched and were sore the next day near their hips. They didn't say anything about it, and Cruz definitely would have complained, but we did see their legs and were much more careful to put them on a little looser. When we made a fuss about it Cruz did see a perfect opportunity ask to wear a band aid, and we consented even though it was completely unnecessary.

After the first few days we were totally in the swing of things. No worries, no poo blow outs. Woo hoo!! It isn't bad at all. I do laundry every night, which I thought would be horrible, but it totally isn't. I put all of the diapers in the laundry with liquid detergent with a little of baking soda (about 1/2 a cup) and do a cold wash. I leave everything in the washer and start a hot wash with detergent, baking soda and then in the fabric softener part of my washer I put about 1/2 a cup of vinegar and I set it for an extra rinse and I am good to go the next day.

I looked up a ton of ways to wash diapers and they say if you use liquid detergent and add baking soda to it, it helps clean the diapers better, and the vinegar helps balance the PH so no PEE smell!!! High five for that! And I found out that you're not supposed to use bleach. NO BLEACH!!! It breaks down your diapers and they don't last as long. Check out the diaper pin link to the right and there is a ton of info about it.

So the boys are happy and content in their diapers, their bums are a little bigger in them though, it's so funny because they wear the same size but Corbins are obviously fitting bigger than Cruz's so he walks with his bootie sticking out all the time, it's so cute.

So with our confidence in check we set out to the real world with our cloth diapers. In my car I have a baby emergency kit. It's awesome! I have bottled water, individually wrapped snacks, disposable diapers, wipes and a few other first aid things. I have used this box SO many times. It's really a life saver! So we were getting ready to go and I had this thought come to my head, that said ' you should refill the disposable diapers, the emergency kit doesn't have any left inside'. So instead of listening, I promptly forgot and got into the busy day.

Cameron had a dentist appointment in Elk Grove so we all packed in the car and thought we would take a little mecca to Kimberly and Aarons and hang out for a bit after his appointment. I packed the diaper bag with 4 prefolds, 2 covers and a bunch of wipes and inserts.

OH!! another tip.. We are all about the toddler flushable wipes for poopy diapers! They rock and then you flush it instead of putting it in the trash, way less stinky. I just got my wipes at Walmart and they are awesome.

So anyway, I packed the bag and thought oh I am good for the evening. Needless to say Corbin pooped, and we apparently prematurely changed him, and then he EXPLODED. Kimberly blames it on the 'miracle' plums in her backyard, and I am thinking it's totally true! The boys shared a plum and after that it was all over. We would have had enough diapers if Cruz hadn't promptly exploded right after Corbin, which left me with not enough covers, naked bums and Cameron running to Rite Aid to get disposable diapers because I forgot to put them in the car when I had the thought!! AH!! So my suggestion, put a bunch of disposables in the back of the car, they are totally compact and you can have 30 in there waiting to be used in times of emergency. Luckily the covers are awesome and no poo escaped into the outside world, but needless to say it WAS a mess!

I guess I am not a hippy...

Hi All,

I have recently ventured into cloth diapering and because I have so many people that said, let me know how it goes... I thought BLOG. So I hope the BLOG isn't BLAG... I know I am a little long winded right now, but don't worry I'll shorten it up after the first blog..

I've felt pretty hippish lately, with my cloth diapering but in reality, I have 2 babies in diapers and this is going to save me about $900 to a $1000 dollars a year. WOO HOO for that!! I told Cameron that I felt like a hippy and he said, no way, you are NOT doing this for Mother Earth, you're doing it to save money. So I guess I am not a hippy... I am a cloth diapering-gardening- clothes making- bread baking-quilt making-recycling-composting-organic food growing-capitalist. (T-shirt soon to come.)

We were out of town when the diapers arrived, so we had a few days to mentally prepare ourselves. When we got the box home it really set in that we were going to do this.... SO after hours of research online and talking to my amazing granola babies diapering friend, I decided to get the diaper covers with the prefold inserts and opted for the flush able inserts. I checked out a ton of websites and I finally landed on http://www.softclothbunz.com/ They had good prices on packages and if you sign up for their newsletter you get 10% off of your purchase!

So with this in hand we ordered these diapers! I didn't mind the white diapers but Cameron said that if we were going to go cloth we had to at least get cute diapers! Heh he cracks me up!

We chose the bummis super whisper wraps through a recommendation from my already cloth diapering friend Beth, whom I consider to be the ultimate expert. She not only cloth diapers but she owned an online store devoted to cloth diapering so I know she knows her stuff. She has an awesome group website called Natural Mommy at http://naturalmoms.ning.com/ It's awesome! Check it out.

Okay now that I have shamelessly promoted Beth.... Here is the rest of the info...

Now the prefolds are essential if you are going with the covers we ordered 40 of them. The disposable inserts were essential to me because I want to prevent dunking in the toilet HELLO!! It's awesome because most of the solid stays on the liner you pull it out and FLUSH!! WOO HOO!! Here are the pics of the prefolds and inserts....

Here is our order:

9 Bummis Super Whisper Wraps: Jungle , Froggy Pond, Star Baby ($12.50)= $112.50

40 Chinese Prefold DiapersSize : Baby Premium ($2.50)=$100.00

2 Citrus Circles Diaper Pail Deodorizer= $1.30
2 Disposable Diaper LinersSize (Price): Toddler ($7.00)= $14.00

Subtotal: $240.30

Discount: $24.03

Shipping: $0.00 (Because my order was uber big)

Sales Tax: $0.00

Total: $216.27

You may think holy CRAP that's a lot of money, but if you are thinking about $95 a month on diapers that you throw away! UGH this large purchase will SAVE us about $900-$1000 a year.

Now a few things that I WISH I had ordered instead of waiting....

Okay the mini shower is going to eliminate dunking ALL TOGETHER!! Yes that totally rocks! Research your diaper rash ointment that you want to use but I think that this Northern Essence is going to be awesome and it comes in a twist up container like a glue stick and is all natural and safe for cloth diapers. The Kushies disposable liners can just be put on a toilet paper roll holder above the changing area and they are super easy to use.

Now I found the cheapest prices for the mini shower and diaper balm at http://www.cottontailbaby.com/ they are awesome with their shipping prices too! Now the Kushies I actually found them at http://www.walmart.com/ and you can order them and have them shipped to your Walmart store for FREE!! WOO HOO for that!

Another really cool resource is http://www.diaperpin.com/ they have washing techniques and product reviews and websites and everything! It's amazing!!

With disposable diapers we were spending about $100 a month well maybe closer to $90 but that's a lot of money, so with these diapers we aren't going to have to buy more diapers again! WOW!!