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Cloth Diaper Resourcefulness

Posted by on August 22, 2010 5 Comments

The other day, I packed my diaper bag with four cloth diapers. I was going to be gone for the afternoon to visit a friend, and I had assumed that four diapers would be enough. Usually, I come home from an outing with a couple of extras to spare. We were driving out to visit a friend who lives in South Lyon, which, given that I don’t drive on the freeway, was about a 45 minutes drive from my house. We had a few stops to make first.

At each stop, my little girl would whine, “Dauber!” which for those not fluent in Ayla-talk means “Diaper.”  Even though the diapers can hold a few piddles without overflowing, Ayla has sensitive skin and I change her after each one. You can imagine my fret as we drove into the city limits of South Lyon, a two hour visit and a car ride home still ahead of us, when Ayla requested her third diaper change of the journey. I had no choice, I had to run into a pharmacy and purchase some ‘sposies.
‘Sposies is too cute of a word for such a destructive product. I have often wondered why those of us in the cloth diapering world propagate such an endearing term for an item that promises to be using up valuable land space for our children’s great- great –great-great- great-great-great grand children to deal with.

(1) It’s too frilly of a term to describe a product that we put against our children’s reproductive organs that contains, dioxin, TBT, and sodium polyacrylate. ‘Sposies is too fun of a word to describe the product that with prolonged use will blunt or completely abolish the physiological testicular cooling mechanism important for normal fertility in our sons.

(2) And yet, there I was, at the drug store about to purchase the smallest package of disposable diapers I could find.
And then it hit me. When you cloth diaper, you can turn virtually anything absorbent into a diaper. Granted, I was using Fuzzi Bunz, so they normally would require the shell to be washed after every use, but I could turn it into a diaper cover: Bypass the insertion into the pocket! Lay something absorbent on top of the fleece instead!

I put down the ten dollar pack of plastic diapers, left the baby care isle and went to the bargain shelf, where much to my delight there were hand towels on clearance: a four pack for a dollar.

Cloth diapering wins again!

(1) Link, Ann.  Disposable nappies: a case study in waste prevention.  April 2003.  Women’s Environmental Network.
(2) C-J Partsch, M Aukamp, W G Sippell Scrotal temperature is increased in disposable plastic lined nappies. Division of Paediatric Endocrinology, Department of Paediatrics, Christian-Albrechts- University of Kiel, Schwanenweg 20, D-24105 Kiel, Germany. Arch Dis Child 2000;83:364-368.

Dawn Papple

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Cloth Diapering on Vacation

Posted by on August 10, 2010 3 Comments

The biggest challenge I received when trying to encourage new moms to cloth diaper has always been, “What will I do when I’m on vacation?” Well, you have a few different options. When making your cloth diapering choices, if you go out of town a lot:

  • You could go the hybrid route. Even if you want to do a cool pocket diapering system the rest of the time, for a very small investment, you could still be super green and economical while on vacation. With these, you get disposable inserts and purchase about three covers for them. You one of the super comfy covers (much as you would have used the rubber pants in the old days) for several diaper changes, and only change the insert. When you’re done with the earth-friendly and chemical-free insert, you throw it away.
  • You could make sure you stay at a hotel (or with family) where a washer is accessible to you. Call the hotel ahead of time and see. Often there’s a laundry mat nearby as well. Cloth diapers dry fairly fast, so it would only take about an hour and a half out of your morning every couple of days while you’re on vacation. This is a regular choice for many of us cloth diaper advocates, but I do understand for people on the go it is a less appealing than the first option.
  • You could buy disposable diapers just for your trip. See, when you purchase a cloth diapering package, you don’t have to sign any contracts or promise to use them every day for the duration of your diapering career. There are no oaths that you have to take vowing off disposables forever. You will still be highly regarded as making positive choices, because the other 51 weeks of the year, you’re using cloth. Even if you occasionally use disposables, you’re still putting significantly less waste into the landfills, still saving enormous amounts of money, and still significantly reducing your baby’s exposure to toxic chemicals.

The really great thing with cloth diapering is that, with time, you’ll be able to save yourself enough money to pay for a trip to Disney World.

Dawn Papple

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Crunchy Mom Prioritizing

Posted by on August 7, 2010 7 Comments

When my first baby was born, I wanted to do the right thing, but there were so many life changes needed to be a fully crunchy mom, I was overwhelmed and confused.

Then, I ran across a blog that pointed out when you’re having a new baby, taking baby steps into the green lifestyle is often the best way. The woman explained I needed to prioritize so as not to get overwhelmed. Instead of prioritizing by what was most important to me, I thought about what one choice would have the most impact right off the bat?

Crunchy Priority #1 was clearly cloth diapering. Cloth diapering causes lasting positive impact in so many areas…

My Baby’s Comfort
Realizing that he’d spend 2-3 years in them, I thought about what I’d rather sit in: Paper and plastic or heavenly soft cloth? With the new cloth diapers, there’s almost no need for rash cream either, they were designed to fight rash.

My Finances
Disposable diapering for 2.5 years cost about two grand. Even the greatest set of cloth diapers would end up saving meat least $1500. As it turned out, my FuzziBunz managed to get passed around to other kids and then, I sold them for almost what I paid for them because by then, the different colors and styles of FuzziBunz were like collector’s items.

The Ecological Legacy I Leave for My Children
If I used disposable diapers, I would be leaving a legacy of about 6,000 dirty, non-biodegradable diapers for my kids to figure out how to clean up when they’re my age. Each year, tens of billions of disposable diapers are tossed into US Landfills. Our kids are not going to be happy when they realize we didn’t actually pick up after them when they were infants, be just swept their poop “under the rug.” At least with my diapering choice, I can stand confident and tell my children when they’re grown that I was a part of the solution, not the problem.

Convenience
Instead of cloth diapering being a hassle like I thought it would be, it turned out to be very convenient.  Using cloth meant I didn’t have to buy a huge box of diapers every week. I thanked myself in the middle of the night once when I had run out of clean diapers that I didn’t have to run out to the store. All I did was use a hand towel inside of a FuzziBunz cover until the rest of the diapers were clean! Besides, as it turned out, washing a load of diapers isn’t like washing a load of clothes. The hassles aren’t there. Washing diapers doesn’t involve coat hangers, ironing, matching socks, or folding pants just right.

As it turned out, my number one crunchy mom priority wasn’t that hard to get used to and it wasn’t long before I was able to work on my next self improvement step! I’m just glad I was patient with myself and eased into it so that I didn’t end up frustrated and throwing in the (crunchy) towel.

Dawn Papple

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Weekly Freebie!- Marvels one Size Fitted Diaper

Posted by on February 5, 2010 Leave a Comment

 

Weekly Freebies

 

A great way to donate to the Cause of the Month- Currently Midwives for Haiti  is to enter our weekly raffle drawing.

You can get a free entry by doing either of the following-  do both and get TWO FREE ENTRIES!

When we tweet about the cause of the month in conjunction to the weekly freebie-  just retweet our tweet!

Follow us on twitter    – and then retweet our weekly give away tweet!  How easy is that.

And/Or go to our blog and post a comment about our current cause of the month, or any other post in the same week and you will be entered as well!

Raffle “tickets” can be purchased here for $3.00  All profits from the raffle will go directly to helping the current cause of the month.  This Week’s Drawing is for  1 Marvels One Size Cloth Diaper by Kissaluvs

Raffles will be collected until midnight on Sunday, and the drawings will be held on Mondays!

Help us promote a worthy cause!

This Week’s Raffle for 1 Marvels One Size Diaper By Kissaluvs

 

Quite possibly the highest quality diapers on the planet, our new Marvels truly deserve their name!
 

Some of their wonderful features are:

  • One size; fits most babies from 10-40 lbs
  • Elasticized legs and waist for a leak proof fit (with our proprietary, latex-free elastic)
  • Simple, patent pending, snap-on design helps adjust rise easily to fit babies of different sizes (no multiple rows of snaps or snap down configurations)
  • Three body layers and a micro fiber soaker provides absorbency even for the heaviest wetters
  • Fabulous designer print 100% cotton outer and a yummy bamboo velour inner fabric
  • Currently available in three gorgeous prints: Zoo-Blue, Mocca-Swirl and Two-Hoots 

 Step by Step Guide:

  • Unsnap and lay the diaper flat with the tag on the outside (the tag goes on the outside so it cannot scratch or irritate sensitive baby skin)
  • Lie the baby on top. Adjust the rise to make the diaper fit smaller babies by simply folding the front part outwards and down as far as needed (as shown in the illustration)
  • Use the adjustable snaps to get the best fit for your baby.

Fabric Content: Outer: 100% cotton
Inner: 82% bamboo, 18% recycled polyester.

Just $3.00 a raffle ticket and the proceeds go directly to our Midwifery Cause of the Month:

Midwives for Haiti

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