cost-effective cloth

we own 4 bumgenius and 2 fuzzibunz diapers. i did not buy any of them; they were gifted to us at my husband's diaper party and at christmas. we LOVE them. they work very well, and i love that you can adjust the absorbency with more or fewer inserts. (i like the bumgenius ones better because they are easier to adjust size-wise and the inserts are easier to put in. fuzzibunz inside is very rubbery and the inserts are tough to slide in.)

if you wanted to cloth diaper using only bumgenius, it would probably run you about $400. this would get you about 24 diapers (i have seen several websites that advertise a "buy 4, get one free" deal) and that would last about two days for a newborn, and 3 or 4 days for an older baby or a toddler. because i have never bought disposables, i don't know exactly how much they cost, but it depends on how often you change your baby, too. i'll estimate about $70 for one month (sourcesource) which averages out to about $840 per year ... or you could put that money towards cloth. just 6 months of what you would pay for disposables would buy you all the bumgenius you'll need for one baby .. and perhaps more! if you take care of your diapers they can last for more than one child. and that's for top-of-the-line diapers!!

we use our pocket diapers at night because they are more absorbent than our prefolds. to make our prefolds more absorbent and to help wick the moisture away from my daughter's skin, i purchased a yard of fleece ($8 at walmart), cut it into strips and sewed it on her prefolds. so, for 18 prefold diapers, we paid about $42, a little more than the cost of just 2 bumgenius pockets. 

we also have 3 diaper covers that we rotate between (two econobum and one thirsties duo wrap). i think i like the thirsties cover better because it has leg gussets that help keep moisture in. my daughter has skinny little legs right now, so before they get chunkier the leg gussets are wonderful. the price (around $12 each) is great for these too. 

all of the diapers we own (and probably all the diapers i will ever buy) are one-size. this means they are adjustable and fit baby from birth to potty-training. the only problem with this is that they look HUGE on my 10lb daughter. they don't feel huge or fall off or anything -- there's just a lot of fabric there, and i know as she keeps getting bigger the diaper will look smaller and smaller.

letters to julia: month two

dear julia,

what a month it has been! 

at your 8 week checkup, you weighed 10 lbs 1 oz, and were 22 inches long. that's 50th percentile for length and 25th for weight. (however, right now you are wearing a 3-6 month onesie and 6 month pants?! i blame your big fluffy tush.) 

you also got 3 shots, and you weren't too pleased. you screamed and got bright red, but after it was over, you were fine! you were a champ. you were a little fussy that night, but daddy came to the rescue. 

when you are upset, you stick your bottom lip out like this:

we swaddled you and held you on your side and you calmed down. 

you went to your first funeral this month. papa's mama, gg, passed away on january 28. as far as funerals go, it was a joyous one. gg was almost 95 years old. she left such a great legacy that i am happy to have married into, and happy that my children can be a part of it. she had 9 children, 36 grandchildren, and you, julia, were her 66th great-grandchild. we are so glad she got to see you. because of the funeral, you got to meet lots of daddy's family that you wouldn't have otherwise met. they adored you. 

 

 how could they not?

 

even henry adores you.

 

 

 you are loving the bumbo seat more and more.

 

you got some cute new diapers!

 you LOVE your swing. you love to look up at the birds that rotate on top of it. 

you love that so much that when the batteries went out and the birds didn't rotate anymore,

you looked up at them and pouted.

this is what you look like just before you sneeze.

 

you are great at putting yourself to sleep in your swing,

if this is considered putting yourself to sleep:

you LOVE white noise too, so that and the swing are a perfect combination.

sometimes you put yourself to sleep at night, if you are full enough and tired enough.

you usually wake up about every three hours at night to nurse.

you love the moby wrap, and i love wearing you around the house while i get things done.

 daddy loves the wrap, too.

 

you've started to make all sorts of sounds. you still say "ahh" right after you sneeze. you inhale while making a "haugh" sound when you smile sometimes, and you say something that sounds an awful lot like "hi." 

 you are pretty perfect, julia. we just adore you.

love you so much.

love,

mama

cloth diapers

via pooz cloth diapers

make your own laundry soap

i decided to make our own cloth diaper safe laundry soap!

here's how i did it.

ingredients

you can use just about any bar soap you like. a lot of laundry soap recipes suggest fels-naptha, which is marketed as a laundry bar soap. fels-naptha can be harsh, so i chose not to use it on our diapers. instead i chose baby soap. 

i found these ingredients in the laundry aisle at my local wal-mart.  (the soap was in the baby section.) all of the ingredients cost $8. we used to pay $18 for a small box of tide free and clear, and that's inexpensive compared to other cloth diaper laundry soaps.

1. grate bar soap with a cheese grater

2. i then put it in my old detergent box, and mixed it with equal parts borax (a deodorizer) and arm & hammer washing soda (removes particles and odors). they are both white powders. i think i ended up using about 3 cups of each. the bar soap came out to about two cups after grating it. 

i stirred it with a pasta spoon until it was thoroughly mixed together. we now have about 8 cups of detergent.

for an added boost, you can add a few scoops of oxy-clean or another stain removing powder. 

use one tablespoon for regular loads, or two tablespoons for large or extra soiled loads.
that's $8 for 128 loads of laundry. 
that's $0.06 per load. 

we plan to use this for clothes as well as diapers.

types of cloth diapers

cloth diapering can be intimidating at first because there are so many options: prefolds, fitteds, pockets, all-in-ones, all-in-twos. what do these terms even mean? i will explain them in the way that i understand them.

prefolds are what we use 90% of the time. they are what most people think of when they think of cloth diapering. however, there are no diaper pins or plastic pants anymore! someone invented a genius tool called a snappi that holds a prefold together under a cover. there are many different ways to fold a prefold to put it on baby. certain folds work best for girls and others best for boys. some are better for newborns and others for bigger, older babies who only have 1-2 poopy diapers a day. 

prefold diaper

prefold diaper after i sewed on a fleece liner
the fleece liner helps pull moisture away from baby's bottom to reduce the risk of diaper rash.

prefold diaper on baby

cover on = done

fitteds, from what i understand, are like prefolds, but they are shaped like a diaper instead of a rectangle. they don't have a waterproof outer cover, though, so you have to use a cover with them.

photo courtesy baby milano

pockets are very similar to a disposable. they have a pocket in the back to put inserts in (one for day, two for night) and then you put it on baby, snap or aplix in the front. easy for grandparents, babysitters, etc. most pocket diapers come with two inserts. the bumgenius and fuzzibunz diapers we have are pockets. we only use these at night because we don't have many. they are more absorbent than a prefold, especially with two inserts. 

pocket diaper (bumgenius 4.0 one size)

snapped up "small" vs unsnapped "large"

inserts

slide insert in pocket

done!

pocket diaper on baby

all-in-ones are most like a disposable. they're one piece -- put it on baby, fasten, done. the downfall to these is that they take a long time to dry after you wash them. from the outside, the look exactly the same as the pocket diapers. the only difference is that the "insert" part of the diaper is sewn onto the inside of the diaper. that's why they take longer to dry -- because they are thicker. i also don't think you can adjust the absorbency like you can with a pocket diaper.

all-in-twos have an insert that you lay in the diaper, instead of sliding it in a pocket. this is what the popular gdiaper is, as well as the flip diapers. many brands have reusable inserts and disposable inserts for your convenience. we might look into these with disposable inserts for vacation this summer -- still a cloth outer layer, but disposable inside. it seems like that would be easy for travel but still cheaper than buying disposables. flip diapers also make a great toilet training pant option for toddlers, which i plan to try once the time comes.

letters to julia: month one

(i know this is a little late, but i wrote it when julia was one month old. i just didn't have a blog to put it on then!)

january 16, 2012

dear julia,

the minute you were born, the doctor put you right on my chest and your daddy and i could not stop smiling. 

(daddy cried quite a bit, too.) 

we couldn’t stop staring at you. you were so beautiful and so perfect. 

 grandma, nana and papa, aunt katie and aunt becky came in to see you. they all took turns holding you and they thought you were pretty perfect, too. 

grandpa came to see you the next morning, and so did great grandma and great grandpa lee. 

that night your dad went home from the hospital to sleep in our bed. he took the first hat you wore when you were born home to henry to sniff and get used to the smell of you. when he came back to pick us up the next morning, he left the hat on the bed for henry. when we got home, henry came out and smelled you, and then went in and got your hat for you! it was so cool that he knew you already.

when you were four days old, we took you to meet  grandma gg, papa's mama. the day after that , you met nanamama.

uncle brendan, aunt megan, and your cousins annabelle and elisa met you when you were one week old. your cousins loved holding you. they are so excited to have a new baby to play with! 

then, it was christmas. the wrights, the towns family, the lees and the mccartys were so happy that you were here before christmas so they could meet you. you spent christmas eve with the wrights, and on christmas day we went from our house to nana and papa’s house, to grandma and grandpa’s house, to nanamama’s house. the next day you met the columbus lees and lots of papa's brothers and sisters.

daddy turned 29! 

you bit his nose.

you perfected your velociraptor impression.

the next weekend we traveled to pittsburgh to meet grandpa's family. (for some reason i have zero pictures of this.) then we spent the weekend at david and catherine's house in cleveland where you met lots of daddy and mommy's friends. you spent your first new years eve there.  (no pictures here either. but it really did happen.)

after that, things calmed down. daddy went back to work. you and i got into a routine. you are a pretty good sleeper – you just like to eat a lot, too. right now you sleep from 10 or 11 until 2 am, then you eat, then you sleep from 3 to 5 or 6 and eat again. daddy gets up with you in the morning before he goes to work and gives you a bottle. he also gives you a bath every night. 

he adores you so much.

just a few days before you were one month old, you started smiling at people. it is so beautiful. 

julia, we are so happy that you are in our lives. you are such a sweet and special little girl and we can’t wait to watch you grow.

love you so much.

love,

mama