I'm a guest blogger!!!

Check out The Cloth Diaper Blog to see my post about my husband and his cloth diapering perspective!

Christmas Giveaway from Diaper Discussions

Man, people have the BEST giveaways ever this time of year!!! Go to Diaper Discussions and check out their amazing, multifaceted giveaway! They're giving away enough stuff to REALLY get a diaper stash going!!!

SWEET Giveaway at Diaper Junction.

They're giving away $300 of store credit! That's AMAZING!!! That's enough to start a cloth stash if you don't already have one, and really amp it up if you do!!! Check it out here!

After too many stained shirts...

Well, I pretty much prefer cloth for everything. When I was shopping for last minute items in the weeks before my daughter was born, I went out and bought a pack of breast pads, assuming that they were cloth. I only got one pack because there were 40+ pads in the pack and since I knew nothing about breast feeding at the time it didn't occur to me that 40+ breast pads would have taken up much more space :-D. I got them home and realized they were disposables and I was so frustrated! So back to Target I traipsed, and replaced the Gerber disposable breast pads for Gerber cloth. The cloth breast pads came in a little six pack and were the only option for cloth breast pads in the whole breastfeeding aisle. I couldn't believe that there weren't more options!! Surrendering myself to Gerber and wanting to make sure I had plenty, I bought a couple of boxes of them. I was proud of myself as I left the store giving myself a little pat on the back for saving myself the extra expense of buying disposable breast pads week after week. A couple of weeks later I had my daughter and eagerly began using the pads and promptly discovered that my breasts had been converted to faucets and the Gerber breast pads did absolutely nothing to contain the gushing fountains of milk. Yikes! I put up with one after another wet shirt, and even waking up in the middle of the night to find myself sleeping in a puddle of milk during the six weeks of my maternity leave. But I realized that when I went back to work to teach high schoolers for a couple of hours every morning, breast-shaped milk stains on my shirt wouldn't do anything to promote learning, so I caved and bought some disposable breast pads. They did the job all right, containing the mess but it was like wearing a maxi pad on my breast. Like a diaper--a disposable. They got all heavy and weird feeling and after a couple of feedings they bunched up so badly. I just couldn't take it anymore. I went on a mission to search for a waterproof breast pad. I looked at lots and lots of different cloth sites. I read one review after another, but even on my favorite cloth diaper sites, finding breast pads with a waterproof layer was difficult. And then I discovered that Knickernappies makes breastpads with a waterproof layer! Now, I may not be a big fan of the way Knickernappies diapers fit my daughter, but I LOVE the layer of fleece inside them that wicks away moisture and I especially love the microfiber/hemp insert. Now, imagine that against tender nipples and you're starting to get the idea of how much I love my Knickernappies breast pads! Plus, they're a generous 5 inches across. Five as opposed to about three inches that Gerber gave me. Now, for a girl with DDD's, Gerber barely covered anything anyway, but these babies give me full coverage! As soon as they came in the mail, I ordered six pairs from another online store (I would have ordered more from the first except that they only had one in stock), and proceeded to wear the first pair for the three days between when I placed my order and when it arrived. Not once during that time were my nipples damp, cold or wet. I'm sure I leaked because I always do, but I was never reminded of it. I am now hooked on my knickernappies breast pads. They're truly the best thing out there that I've seen! I have the wonderful softness and gentleness that my daughter feels against her most sensitive parts, against mine and I have to say I'm quite pleased!!!

I won!!!

I'm such a huge fan of Tweedlebugs diapers so I'm THRILLED to win the Minky Moo diaper from http://diaperdiscussions.blogspot.com/. Woo hoo!!!

A new endeavor

So, My stash of 23 diapers is pretty much all one sized pocket diapers--bumGenius, Happy Heinys, Haute Pockets, Tweedlebugs, FuzziBunz, Knickernappies, Smartipants--I love them. All of them. But I thought I'd try something new and do the old-fashioned prefolds. So I bought some. Yeah, I mentioned that before, I realize. I bought a big size because I want them to last a long time. That was mistake number one. They're HUGE!!! Then I bought my first diaper cover. My daughter just reached 13 lbs (barely) so I bought a medium Green earth cover. That was mistake number two. It is also huge on her. Mistake number three was that I didn't buy any pins or snappies to fasten my cloth diaper. So... when I tried this for the first time my poor little daughter had a HUGE but with a diaper that was nearly falling off of her. Yikes! I didn't realize that prefold diapers were so hard!

I really need a tutorial. I need someone to write a blog somewhere about the ins and outs of prefold diapers and diaper covers and fitted diapers.... because anything and everything that has to do with diaper covers just intimidates me. My husband too (and he's a pretty great cloth diaeprer!). He took one look at me trying to tackle these giant, floppy prefolds that went down to my daughter's knees, and the huge diaper cover (which is a good looking diaper cover, but apparently 13 pounds is different on different babies!) and said,

"No way! I'm not doing that! Becca, why are you even bothering with those when we have all these goood diapers in our stash?"

I could have responded with:

"Well, it's because I'm obsessed with cloth diapering!"

But I didn't think that would bode well for me in the future.

"Because it's supposed to be a cheaper way to cloth diaper, and I want to know how to do it, and I wanted to try it for traveling because they're easier to wash, and what if we run out... we'll just have plenty of these..." and I basically babbled on and on.

So, I'm pretty lost with this thing. How do you do it? I mean, I think my first course of action will be to buy some sort of fastener for the prefolds. I'm good with a pin. I used to use these things ALL THE TIME on my little brother when I was seven (I was a little mommy my whole life on my 6 younger siblings) so it's not like it's new or anything. I think the second thing I need to do is get a smaller cover. OR a one-size. I love my one sized diapers. They have never let me down. The Thirsties Duo covers look great. And I love the Blueberry cover. I'll get one or both of those... and if no one else writes a blog about prefolds and covers, I'll figure it out and write one myself :-)

TweedleBugs Diaper Giveaway

I gotta say, I love Tweedlebugs. I saw that they were cheaper than the average cloth diaper and went ahead to buy one a while back to try them out. They are now EASILY one of my favorite snapping one size pocket (sleeve actually) diaper. LOVE them. Well, Diaper Discussions is giving one away at their site. The Minky Moo diaper--which I haven't tried. So go over there and check it out! It will be worth your while. I promise!!!

Another giveaway!

With the holiday's coming, there will definitely be some traveling for most of us. With traveling comes a new challenge--cloth diapering while away from home. Well, an easier solution than all in ones is prefolds and diaper covers, because the covers don't have to be changed every time your baby wets. Over at Theclothdiaperblog.com, they're giving away 12 Diaper Rite prefolds and 2 Thirsties covers. A SWEET giveaway. Go check it out for yourself here!

Grobaby

I was wrong. I wrote an angry post about how my Black Friday shopping didn't pan out because I didn't end up winning the prizes I so eagerly sought for anyway... but I was wrong!!! At Kelly's Closet, they had an amazing deal. The first 10 people to order got a Fuzzibunz One Size Pocket Diaper. Orders # 11-88 got a variety of other cool prizes and orders 89-100 (I think) got a Grobaby diaper. I would have tried to go for the Fuzzi Bunz had I realized my diaperjunction order hadn't gone through, but I didn't realize that until about 4:30am on Black Friday so I placed my order hoping that the first 100 orders had not gotten through and I could at least get SOMETHING!!! And then I thought I hadn't because I failed to see my name on the list of winners.

So my Indian, unbleached, Premium sized prefolds came last week. And with them.... a GROBABY DIAPER!!!

I was so pleased. The fact that Premium sized prefolds are way too large for my 13lb infant wasn't so bad because it was worth it to get this amazing diaper for FREE! The thing is, Grobaby is unlike any other diaper I've tried. It's sort of like a pocket diaper and a diaper cover combined! If you were to go with all Grobaby diapers it would be cheaper than all pocket diapers becuase you can change the insert a couple of times before having to change the shell! One reason I didn't want to go with Grobaby is that it's a hook and loop closure. But once I received it in the mail, I realized it's a really quality hook and loop closure that will probably last much longer than velcro or applix. Also, the shape of the inserts makes the diapers really trim, and there isn't much bulk between my little baby's legs. I gotta say, Kelly's Closet, that was a brilliant idea to offer free diapers because now that I've tried it, I'm DEFINITELY getting more!! I love it!!!

Free Shipping!!!

I love ordering my cloth diapers and accessories online, but one of my biggest pet peeves with doing this is paying shipping. In some cases, the shipping is a very small amount. At other places they charge flat rate shipping for orders under a certain amount--whether it be $50, or $150. But since I found www.diaperpin.com, I've stopped paying shipping all together if I can help it. Diaperpin.com announces all sorts of sales from different online cloth diaper stores. I have taken to going there any time I want to buy something now. Currently, my favorite place to shop is Nickisdiapers.com because they have free shipping on the items I usually buy, but I needed some washable, waterproof breastpads. They don't offer free shipping on those, though they had the ones I wanted :-(. So I searched diaperpin.com and found that www.babysbottomline.com is offering free shipping until the end of the year!!! They had ONE SET of the knickernappies breastpads I've been eyeing for the past couple of weeks so I picked those up. And I picked up a diaper cover too for under $7. It was a sized diaper cover. That will be the first NON-one sized diaper I've tried, but it was cheap and I really want to try the prefolds i bought on Black Friday so I figured with free shipping I couldn't lose!

Rawr!

So for once in my life I decided to take advantage of Black Friday sales from the comfort of my own home. Never again. I thought since I was at home it would be less stressful (I never Black Friday shop because I avoid crowds of competitive people like the plague) than I perceive in person Black Friday shopping to be. So, I tried to take advantage of the Free Flip Diaper System Diaper Junction was offering and exactly at 12:00 midnight on Thanksgiving, I entered my order. It wouldn't accept my credit card--or so it said... because when we looked at our bank, it took it out 7 TIMES!! I frantically contacted them to let them know I just wanted one order. I discovered at 4:30am on Black Friday that the order hadn't gone through AT ALL so I went over to Kelly's Closet and tried to take advantage of their sales--ordering a similar product that I had tried to order at Diaper Junction. But I was too late. I felt stupid because it wasn't really in last weeks budget to order any more diapers and I didn't even get any of the prizes. I'm not doing that again. Sale shopping just doesn't usually work out for me. I don't even know why!

In any case, I am excited about my order. I bought some prefolds--my first! I'll follow them shortly with the order of a Bluberry One Size diaper cover. I think prefolds and diaper covers might be a better way to travel with cloth over Christmas. Also, they're so much cheaper! I'll be sure to report back how it all works out!