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!!!