I think in the end what REALLY got me hooked on cloth was Diaper Swappers. As I stated before, I LOVE to shop for kid stuff, and I LOVE getting good deals. My cloth-loving Norwex Mama Friend had told me about a website for used diapers she had heard about, so I went cruising the net in search of it. Big B was aware that the cloth wasn't going away in our home anytime soon, but getting him to put a backwards velcro diaper on a squirmy 6 month old wasn't going to happen. So I stumble across DiaperSwappers, and my life hasn't been the same since.
Sure, you could say that buying used diapers is disgusting. And sometimes I guess you get burned - but no more than you do on eBay. And frankly, once you get a diaper clean of your own child's yuck, you're an expert at doing it, and it's just something you do without thinking. The key thing is: Ask questions! Demand pictures, inside and out! There is a feedback system, so check it out on potential sellers. Use this as a way to try different types of diapers at a much lower cost, and an outlet to quickly sell what you're no longer using so you have some extra money to buy what you need. Every baby is shaped differently, and every family has different needs. YES, a lot of cloth diapers are expensive to buy, but if you take good care of them, most have an excellent used resale value.
This website is divided into easy to use sections. My personal favorite (of course) is the For Sale or Trade (or the FSOT as its referred to as on the site). This again is divided into sections such as Pockets (Bum Genius, FuzziBunz, etc), Hybrid Diapers (gDiapers, Flips, etc), AIO/AI2 (all in one diapers like Bum Genius 3.0, bottombumpers, etc) WAHM Wares (great hand made stuff from custom wet bags and diapers to clothing and other great stuff). There is tons of forums for NON diaper related trading, and also a great forum for Q&A on diapers. When you have problems with washing, getting a good fit, questions on what kind of diaper will work for your lifestyle, etc, this is an amazing support group!
About Me
- The Oracle
- Minnesota, United States
- I'm just a stay at home mom with fancies and dreams....
Friday, April 20, 2012
Making The Change
As you can imagine, making the switch from disposables to cloth on a whim had its downsides. For one, I was storing all of my wet pads in a plastic trash bag hanging on B's changing table (holy smell!) and I only had 6 so I was struggling to keep them laundered fast enough. On top of all of this, leaving the house was proving to be a huge challenge. A quart sized ziploc bag for dry inserts, a gallon sized ziploc bag for dirty diapers... not to mention how big B is FREAKING out at me at this point. Not in a mean way - but definitely making fun of me and taking shots about my diapers to his friends and on Facebook whenever possible. I get it. I was there not so long ago! But I was determined to make it work this time. Other people did this every day - it couldn't be THAT challenging for me.
I went on to trusty ol' Diapers.com and even though I was still not committed to spending much money on this venture, I got some huge help. They are a great source for gDiapers. I think they might be the #1 stocked retailer for the g's, so they have bundles, special edition individual covers, deals on bulk flushable liners, etc.
Two days later, I was equipped with two Kushies 12"x14" (large) wetbags for about $10. They were drawstring, big enough for probably 5-6 diapers each, and they did a good job keeping wetness in. What I didn't love, was the drawstring function, as if it tipped over in my diaper bag and a wet insert landed near the hole, it would wick out. Plus they are a bit big for a day out in my opinion. I was using one for wet stuff, one for clean diapers, and I couldn't find anything else in my bag.
My favorite purchase from this day was my $13.95 Safety 1st Simple Step Diaper Pail. It holds 3 days worth of any kind of diapers easily (that's about the max amount of days you want to go between washing), has the foot pedal so you never have to touch anything, which still functions with a thick PUL pail liner inserted, and it has a vented pop-out chamber built into the lid that holds the little Arm&Hammer Baking Soda Nursery Discs perfectly, so all odor is naturally contained. YAY! I recommend this to any mommy who uses cloth.
Of course I invested in another 6pack of gCloth so I had about 2 days worth of inserts, now. I was feeling pretty good about this cloth diapering business!!
I went on to trusty ol' Diapers.com and even though I was still not committed to spending much money on this venture, I got some huge help. They are a great source for gDiapers. I think they might be the #1 stocked retailer for the g's, so they have bundles, special edition individual covers, deals on bulk flushable liners, etc.
Two days later, I was equipped with two Kushies 12"x14" (large) wetbags for about $10. They were drawstring, big enough for probably 5-6 diapers each, and they did a good job keeping wetness in. What I didn't love, was the drawstring function, as if it tipped over in my diaper bag and a wet insert landed near the hole, it would wick out. Plus they are a bit big for a day out in my opinion. I was using one for wet stuff, one for clean diapers, and I couldn't find anything else in my bag.
My favorite purchase from this day was my $13.95 Safety 1st Simple Step Diaper Pail. It holds 3 days worth of any kind of diapers easily (that's about the max amount of days you want to go between washing), has the foot pedal so you never have to touch anything, which still functions with a thick PUL pail liner inserted, and it has a vented pop-out chamber built into the lid that holds the little Arm&Hammer Baking Soda Nursery Discs perfectly, so all odor is naturally contained. YAY! I recommend this to any mommy who uses cloth.
Of course I invested in another 6pack of gCloth so I had about 2 days worth of inserts, now. I was feeling pretty good about this cloth diapering business!!
Revisiting My Nemesis
A few months went by. B slimmed down, grew up a bit, and I meanwhile got sucked (willingly) into the world of Norwex and their chemical free home cleaning products. It really made me want to be more conscientious about what I was exposing my family to at home, where I was in control of that. I loved the stuff so much, I decided to start selling it. And as I researched more to help me better sell my products, the ignorance about chemicals, and just unnecessary exposure in general was backing into a corner whether I wanted it to or not.
So when I was at a playdate with two other Norwex mommies and one asked me if I cloth diapered, I admittedly was feeling guilty for having given up so easily. I mean, I hadn't even experienced a poopy cloth diaper yet!! I hate to admit it, but I sort of ambiguously told her that I used the gDiapers, and tried to melt out of the conversation. A few days later, she emailed me and told me that she had a couple of the gDiapers she had found at her house, and asked if I wanted to have them since she never really used them. Well, who ever says no to (nice) free stuff? I sure don't. And I took it as a sign that I needed to give this one more shot. So here I was, 2 gDiaper shells and a pile of gCloth. It was ON.
And just like that, without really committing to doing it, I switched to cloth exclusively during the day. That's 42 less disposable diapers EVERY WEEK than I had been using. That's $22 a week I was saving.
So when I was at a playdate with two other Norwex mommies and one asked me if I cloth diapered, I admittedly was feeling guilty for having given up so easily. I mean, I hadn't even experienced a poopy cloth diaper yet!! I hate to admit it, but I sort of ambiguously told her that I used the gDiapers, and tried to melt out of the conversation. A few days later, she emailed me and told me that she had a couple of the gDiapers she had found at her house, and asked if I wanted to have them since she never really used them. Well, who ever says no to (nice) free stuff? I sure don't. And I took it as a sign that I needed to give this one more shot. So here I was, 2 gDiaper shells and a pile of gCloth. It was ON.
And just like that, without really committing to doing it, I switched to cloth exclusively during the day. That's 42 less disposable diapers EVERY WEEK than I had been using. That's $22 a week I was saving.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Trying Out Cloth
If you've ever met me, you know that I have a sick, sad obsession with stuff for my kids. Well, stuff for me for my kids. Strollers, diaper bags, baby carriers, clothes, shoes... I've gone through more than ten average families worth of all of these things (not kidding). I love trying new things for my kids. So a few years ago when one of the mommies in L's playgroup was cloth diapering her baby, I took it in with a mixture of appreciation, awe, and amusement (why would you subject yourself to more baby torture than you were already getting?). I brushed it off for the time being. But when I got pregnant with B, I started trolling the internet looking at cloth diapers.
I have to admit it was more of a joke at first. I would tease big B and threaten to start doing it (and he gave me a giant speech about how he would be investing in his Pampers no matter what I did). But they were kind of cute... and you know I love cute....
Meanwhile Pampers changed their 'diaper recipe' and suddenly there were tons of news reports of babies getting burned by the chemicals in the diapers. Well, that was freaky. I started thinking about it a bit more seriously. Pampers were what we had used with L. Huggies were not a good fit, and I'm just not a store brand kind of mama. And let's face it - at the end of the day, we as parents all want to provide the best we can for our kids. Whether it's organic pregnancy, BPA free bottles, organic baby food, or baby food made at home, exclusively breastmilk, 'natural' shampoo, chemical free sunscreen - we all have our 'things' that we do to give them the healthiest start. Some of us get weird - myself included. I had tried the Seventh Generation and Nature Babycare disposable diapers with L, and already knew that for the extra money they cost, I would not be happy with those full time this time around. So it was with a little trepidation that I purchased my first cloth diapers, the gdiapers sweet bundle.
I figured this was a great option for us because they were velcro (or hook&loop as they are referred to in the cloth world) like disposables, and they were what was called a hybrid cloth diaper which means that they can be used with reusable cloths, or disposable pads. Their disposable pads are even flushable or compostable. The bundle came with 6 of the diaper shells, each with its own snap in plastic liner or pouch where you lay the insert, and 12 cloth inserts. I also bought a pack of the flushable inserts for big B who was still just laughing at me for even insinuating that he might use them someday.
When B was born and for many weeks after I would occasionally gather the courage to try one, put it on, then freak out and take it off. He was really long bodied and fat (we will call him a sausage) at this age, and they were SO bulky on him, there was no way I could snap a onesie over the diaper let alone get pants on over it. I was disheartened, and I sold the whole lot of them on Craig's List, and that was the end of my attempt at cloth diapering.
I have to admit it was more of a joke at first. I would tease big B and threaten to start doing it (and he gave me a giant speech about how he would be investing in his Pampers no matter what I did). But they were kind of cute... and you know I love cute....
Meanwhile Pampers changed their 'diaper recipe' and suddenly there were tons of news reports of babies getting burned by the chemicals in the diapers. Well, that was freaky. I started thinking about it a bit more seriously. Pampers were what we had used with L. Huggies were not a good fit, and I'm just not a store brand kind of mama. And let's face it - at the end of the day, we as parents all want to provide the best we can for our kids. Whether it's organic pregnancy, BPA free bottles, organic baby food, or baby food made at home, exclusively breastmilk, 'natural' shampoo, chemical free sunscreen - we all have our 'things' that we do to give them the healthiest start. Some of us get weird - myself included. I had tried the Seventh Generation and Nature Babycare disposable diapers with L, and already knew that for the extra money they cost, I would not be happy with those full time this time around. So it was with a little trepidation that I purchased my first cloth diapers, the gdiapers sweet bundle.
I figured this was a great option for us because they were velcro (or hook&loop as they are referred to in the cloth world) like disposables, and they were what was called a hybrid cloth diaper which means that they can be used with reusable cloths, or disposable pads. Their disposable pads are even flushable or compostable. The bundle came with 6 of the diaper shells, each with its own snap in plastic liner or pouch where you lay the insert, and 12 cloth inserts. I also bought a pack of the flushable inserts for big B who was still just laughing at me for even insinuating that he might use them someday.When B was born and for many weeks after I would occasionally gather the courage to try one, put it on, then freak out and take it off. He was really long bodied and fat (we will call him a sausage) at this age, and they were SO bulky on him, there was no way I could snap a onesie over the diaper let alone get pants on over it. I was disheartened, and I sold the whole lot of them on Craig's List, and that was the end of my attempt at cloth diapering.
Monday, April 9, 2012
The Beginning
I have to say that I've been thinking of starting this blog for awhile now, but it wasn't until a few weeks ago when B and I were at his Little Gym class that I made up my mind. I was talking with another mommy about how hard it is to get baby pants that fit nicely if they're not adjustable waist. I joked (well, seriously) that B's pants would never stay up on his non-existant booty, were it not for the extra padding his cloth diapers provided. To which she exclaimed "What!?! YOU cloth diaper? No way! You're the last person I'd have pictured to cloth diaper their kid!"
WELL.... It has not always been this way. Sure, I buy the kids yobaby and organic milk, and do my best to remember to bring my reusable bags into the grocery store, but that in no way makes me granola mommy. I'm still a screaming, swearing, ziploc bag using, deodorant wearing, hair washing, tampon applying, poop-in-the-tub fearing, meat eating, average every day stay at home mom.
What started out as a do-good passing thought I had when pregnant has turned into somewhat of a life change, but in a way I'm comfortable (and satisfied) with. I don't love playing with poop, I am not breastfeeding B at 18 months, and I didn't home make every ounce of baby food my kids have ever eaten (hardly!). I am here to share my own experiences, roadblocks, support system and addiction to cloth diapers.
WELL.... It has not always been this way. Sure, I buy the kids yobaby and organic milk, and do my best to remember to bring my reusable bags into the grocery store, but that in no way makes me granola mommy. I'm still a screaming, swearing, ziploc bag using, deodorant wearing, hair washing, tampon applying, poop-in-the-tub fearing, meat eating, average every day stay at home mom.
What started out as a do-good passing thought I had when pregnant has turned into somewhat of a life change, but in a way I'm comfortable (and satisfied) with. I don't love playing with poop, I am not breastfeeding B at 18 months, and I didn't home make every ounce of baby food my kids have ever eaten (hardly!). I am here to share my own experiences, roadblocks, support system and addiction to cloth diapers.
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