November is a big month for me. Last year I completed the NaNoWriMo challenge, writing a novel during the month of November. I’m tempted, but probably not going to do it this year. Instead, I signed up for the NaBloPoMo challenge to blog every day in November. To start the month off on a high note, I bring you the Thankful for Fluff Giveaway!!!
As a gift to my readers (thank you!), I am giving away 1 dozen newborn prefold diapers from Green Mountain Diapers. These were my go-to diapers for months and you can get so much use out of them as diapers, swiffer covers, burp cloths and more. My favorite! I’ve blogged about Green Mountain Diapers here, here and here. The winner will be announced on this post by November 16. Don’t forget to visit the links below for other great giveaways!
*** Due to shipping restrictions by Green Mountain Diapers, giveaway is only open to U.S. Residents *** a Rafflecopter giveaway
To celebrate its new e-commerce site, FuzziBunz is offering a discount to affiliates and our contacts! Use coupon code ONEDAY to take 10% off of your entire order.
If you are new to cloth and considering purchasing FuzziBunz, I recommend the one size starter sets for the best deal. FuzziBunz also offers discounts when you buy in bulk and free shipping for domestic orders over $30.
Disclosure statement: I received no compensation or free products to write this post. However, I receive a small percentage of any FuzziBunz sales generated from this site. I love the FuzziBunz product and would recommend it regardless of my status as an affiliate, which I fully explain here.
I recently posted about how I wash my cloth diapers. Now that summer is basically here, I’m going to take some advice Etta@Cheerful Homemaker left in the comments and add line-drying to my washing routine. I should have line-dried the pocket diapers and covers from the start. The pocket diapers and covers are almost dry when they come out of the washer. Line-drying preserves your diapers (for future children or re-sale) and reduces energy use. For a little more time, you can save money and the planet. So, I am changing how I wash my diapers. And this song has been in my head for 6 days.
The inserts take longer to dry, but I’ll occasionally line-dry them, too. I hear that the sunshine is great for stains, smell, and possibly yeast (source).
Some of you might have noticed a new ad on my sidebar (probably not). Here’s the story.
When Fuzzibunz sent me an email introducing its new affiliate program, I was excited! Then, I realized they probably sent it to all of its customers (or people who enter its contests?). But that’s ok, I’m still excited. If you want to become an affiliate, you can sign up here!
What is it? Basically, if people click on the Fuzzibunz link from my blog, I’ll receive a small portion of any resulting sales. I only have two friends who use cloth diapers, so I’m not thinking this venture is going to make it rain on my blog; but I already recommend Fuzzibunz to anyone wanting to try cloth, so I really have nothing to lose. They don’t require a thing (the sidebar ad is just for fun).
Fuzzibunz diapers were the first pocket diapers we used and I love them. They are absolutely my favorite daytime diaper- functional, trim, snug, and soft. I prefer the BG diapers for nighttime. Out of my friends who use cloth, one uses the Perfect Size Fuzzibunz exclusively. We have two Perfect Size, two One Size, and one Elite. The Perfect Size are my favorite diapers, but OS and Elite are definitely more cost-effective longterm. When Q grows out of her PS, I plan to replace those with either new PS or OS (hopefully by winning a contest, ha).
Do you want to do something fun and a little on the green side for an upcoming baby shower? Wrap your gift in something the new mom can use, flannel receiving blankets! It’s simple, but looks great and there’s no wrapping paper to throw away.
I rushed and was not thrilled with my final result, but everyone at the party loved it. I also learned some tips from my mistakes, and next time, I’m sure it will look perfect .
Tips:
Iron the blankets.
Use rubber bands, clothes pins, safety pins, and/or ribbon to secure the blankets. Scotch tape really doesn’t work well.
Add smalls toys or a large ribbon for additional decoration.
We started using white vinegar in lieu of harsh chemical cleaners a few months ago to be more baby and environmentally friendly. But then everything smells like vinegar! I just read this tip to get rid of the vinegar smell. It’s simple, yet brilliant. Basically, add citrus peels to your vinegar. Time to finish those clementines!
It’s true that you can ditch the cloth when traveling and pick up a case of disposable diapers, but I find it easier to stick with one diaper system. If you’re like me, you may not even know which size of disposable diapers to buy. Maybe you use cloth diapers for health reasons and switching to disposable diapers for an out-of-town trip isn’t an option. With a little planning, traveling with cloth is easy.
During my three months of using cloth diapers, I’ve gone on three trips, two by car and one by plane with my cloth diapers. I’m somewhat lazy and disorganized. If I can do it, you can, too.
How long are you traveling? You need to take inventory of your stash, count your daily diaper changes and decide if you have enough cloth diapers to get you through the trip. If you don’t, you have two options: invest in an extra set of prefolds and a couple of covers, or plan to do laundry. Six prefolds and a couple covers will cost you about the same as a case of new disposable diapers ($40-$50). A third option is to borrow diapers from a cloth-diapering friend, if you’re lucky enough to have any.
Where are you staying? If you are staying at a hotel, call ahead to find out if there are washing machines and dryers available for guests to use. Likewise, if you are renting a townhouse, cabin, or house, you should easily be able to find out if there are washers and dryers from the owner. If you are staying at someone’s home, you should ask before you travel if they will allow you to use their machines for your diapers. No luck? You can find a public laundry mat or hand wash. Pack quarters!
Plan ahead. Plan when you are going to do your laundry before you leave and during your trip. I felt gross packing dirty diapers in my checked luggage, so I waited until the last possible moment to wash all my cloth diapers. Because of a lot of luck and little planning, the timing worked out perfectly. I washed the diapers on the third evening and only traveled home with a couple of dirty diapers.
Pack early. Make a list of everything you use for your cloth diapers. Check it twice. Pack what you can a few days before the trip to alleviate stress and decrease the chance that you’ll leave something behind.
Example Checklist
- Wet bag(s)
- Cloth diapers
- Reusable wipes
- Detergent
- Wipe solution (or just use water)
- Diaper rash cream
Have you used cloth diapers while traveling? How did it go? Leave a comment and tell me about it!
A commenter from my previous post said that she got 80-90% of her cloth diaper investment back. That’s awesome!
For two reasons:
1. You might be able to give cloth diapers a try and resell them for almost full value. There is some risk involved. You might get stuck or lose a good chunk of change.
2. If you want to try cloth diapers, there are people selling their gently used cloth diapers out there. You just have to look. Buying secondhand is earth and wallet friendly.
So are you looking to try cloth diapers? Tell everyone you know and see if some gently used ones pop up.
Did you try cloth diapers and decide they weren’t for you? Tell everyone you know and try to sell those suckers! Maybe I’ll even take a few off of your hands.
There is a group of people who are going to hate me for writing this, but I’ve had this rant in my head for a month and now I’m getting it out on the Internet. Feel free to stop reading anytime or post a comment about how you love diapers and hate me. I welcome open discussion. I’m writing this to help stop the waste that happens when people invest in cloth diapers, then switch to disposable diapers. Be honest with yourself. Are cloth diapers really a good fit for your family?
I hate diapers. I hate cloth diapers. I hate disposable diapers. Who loves diapers? People on the Internet. Then why potty train? The truth is, no one loves diapers. You use diapers until you can get away with not using diapers. Maybe you like one kind of diaper more than another. I’ll give you that. But professing undying love for diapers on your websites and blogs is weird and annoying. No one writes about trying to use cloth diapers and failing. I know some mommy bloggers who tried cloth, decided it wasn’t for them, and just never mentioned it again. You wouldn’t know unless you followed their blogs for a while.
Pop quiz: What is more wasteful than using disposable diapers?
Answer: Investing in cloth and realizing that it’s not all double rainbows and butterflies, and then switching back to disposable diapers.
Sure, you might be able to sell some of your used or unused cloth diapers on Craigslist, but you won’t get retail for them. If you go into cloth diapering unprepared and switch to disposables, it’s money down the drain, possibly a lot of money.
I recently read a list of celebrities who use cloth diapers. That’s neat. Do their nannies have blogs? I’d like to read them.
I’d like to sit here and tell you that we use cloth diapers to save the world, a bit at a time, but that’s a borderline lie. Maybe an outright lie. It’s not that I don’t care about the environment. I try to reduce my impact on the earth and I’m slowly learning how. I’m mostly wallet-friendly with a bit of eco-friendly on the side.
People often tell me that cloth diapers are worse for the environment than disposable diapers.A snarky professor once wrote, “From the earth’s point of view it’s not all that important which kind of diapers you use. The important decision was having the baby.”
I think cloth diapers are better for the environment, but the bottom line is using cloth is cheaper and money counts as a resource in my book.
You will save money using cloth diapers. You might even have fun picking out new, cute designs and colors. You will also do more laundry and spend more time at the changing table.
The Internet, which I’m convinced is filled with cloth diaper propaganda from people who are getting some sort of profit from the cloth diapering industry, is chockfull of guides, blogs, and websites that downplay the amount of extra work that goes into using cloth diapers. Everyone admits to more laundry, most people claim to do about two additional small loads per week. Does it matter that the load is small? For the earth, yes. For your workload? Not really. Also, think hard about how much laundry you do now. Just for practice, why don’t you do two loads of your sister’s/neighbor’s/friend’s laundry in addition to your own for a couple of weeks? Wash, dry, and fold.
For us, that doubles how much laundry we do per week. An extra two loads when you only do two or three loads per week is a significant increase.
We use pockets, prefolds, all-in-ones, and an occasional disposable diaper when it’s too cold to go outside to get the clean diapers out of the dryer. We haven’t bought any disposable diapers, but we received some as gifts and sometimes use them. No one ever said using cloth diapers has to be all or nothing. Parenthood is not a contest.
All of our cloth diapers take longer to put on than disposable diapers. Neither one of us knew how to put on a diaper before we had our baby. Disposable diapers are much faster to put on, even though we’ve both improved our speed on the cloth. Seriously, diaper changes take forever and stuffing the pocket diapers takes longer than using the prefolds and covers. We mostly have diapers with snaps, but even the ones with Velcro take longer than a disposable. The snaps definitely do.
To save time at the changing table, I spend 15-20 minutes stuffing and organizing the diapers after I get them out of the dryer. If you add that to the extra time at the changing table, loading the washer (pulling out all the inserts), and running the washer/dryer, I estimate cloth diapers take about an hour and a half more than disposable diapers per week, especially since my mommy friends get their disposable diapers delivered to their doors through AmazonMom. Who needs more things to do after they have a baby?
I hate disposable diapers more than I hate cloth diapers. Disposable diapers have a funny, chemical smell that I hate. Disposable diapers force me to take out the trash, which is a chore I hate more than doing laundry. Disposable diapers are more expensive.
Perhaps the elimination communication people are on to something. Diapers suck. They’re gross and they smell. I wrote this post to give some balance to the cloth diapering debate. Cloth diapers are more work. You can’t hide this behind cute designs and mommies who claim to be addicted to fluff. Some are just trying to have fun with diapers to make them less sucky, and some are making money. People get their babies out of diapers as soon as possible, so you have to decide for yourself what to believe.
For us, the extra work is worth the savings. You have to decide if it’s worth it for you. Are you really a cloth diapering family?
For fun, I used the Pros and Cons template on Excel to compare diapers. Cloth and disposables tied for equally sucky. If I could have made $$$ higher than a 5, cloth would have won, but you get the point. You should do a pros and cons list for yourself. Leave a comment with the result!
P.S. Don’t be mad! Look at my cute cloth diaper and bow wearing baby!
.
