Giveaway: Monkey Foot Designs

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!

CONGRATS TO CARRIE HAUGHEY!!!

Anyone who cloth diapers knows that a wet bag is a *must*.

I mean, how else would you be able to tote around a dirty diaper in your Petunia Pickle Bottom bag?

And puhleease...don't *even* suggest a plastic grocery bag!

Just because it has a poopy diaper in it doesn't mean it can't be cute! :)



But Jeannett...I don't do cloth diapers...in fact, my kid is well beyond the diaper stage! I have no need for this!

Really now...

-Summer's coming up. Swim lessons? Beach trips? Running through sprinklers at a friend's house? A wet bag is a PERFECT way to haul the dripping stuff home.

-In the middle of potty training your toddler? Accidents happen. In public. 'Nuff said.

-No kids? Do you go to the gym? Need a place to toss your stinky clothes in? Or maybe your own swimsuit after a few laps in the Olympic sized pool? (I can't relate since I don't exercise, but I can imagine this being a problem...)

-And really, with as cute as these bags are, you can just use it AS. A. BAG. for whatever. It doesn't *have* to carry wet stuff just because it's called a wet bag! ;) Lunches, snacks, coloring books...whatever!

Monkey Foot Designs not only makes wet bags, but they make THE wet bag...

"...the lining material has sealed seams (which means that the wet and odor stay *in* where they belong!). The seals are permanent, so you can wash the bags time and again and the seams will stay sealed and wet-proof! (it's impossible to make a truly "waterproof" bag, but this bag comes close!). My bags also have snaps on the straps, so you can attach them to your stroller or where-ever else suits your fancy :)"




Kris at Monkey Foot Designs wants to give YOU one of her large wet bags (14" x 14") in Almond Sparrows (one of her most popular prints!).



As always, you have five ways to win.
Be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry.

1) Visit Monkey Foot Designs and tell me how you would use your wet bag.
2) Follow me on Twitter
3) Tweet about this giveaway
4) Facebook about this giveaway
5) Blog about this giveaway

Winner to be announced first thing Friday morning!

Cloth Diapers: Final Verdict

Now that I've been using cloth diapers for a while, and since a couple of my pregnant friends have asked my official opinion, I thought I would give you an update on what I think of this whole cloth thing.

• I see a substantial cost savings. However, keep in mind that I have TWO babies in diapers...I'm not sure that the cost savings are quite so significant if you only have one babe. Also, keep in mind that I bought the bulk of my diaper stash used via Craigslist. The retail price on cloth diapers is quite high...which would still be worth it for multiples, but definately less of a savings for a singleton.
• No diaper rashes. Neither of the girls has ever had a diaper rash and I have had no issues with them reacting to the diapers. While Henry never seemed sensitive to any of the disposable brands, there are many children who react to certain brands (apparently I had a perpetual diaper rash as a baby until my mom switched me from Pampers to Huggies!).
• They're cute. I know this is lame, but I like them better than the Sesame Street characters. :)
• If you are concerned about the environment, they save landfills. Apparently no one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to biodegrade...but estimates range from 250-500 years. I don't think you have to be a hippie to find that worrisome.

BUT:

• They are bulky...both underneath clothes and in your diaper bag. In fact, I've taken to just packing disposable diapers when we go out. I have a wet bag so I'm not concerned about having to carry around a dirty cloth diaper...but when you have to pack a minimum of 4 diapers...and they don't fold down as compactly as the disposables...they take up a HUGE amount of space in my bag. Again, if you have a singleton this may not be a big deal since you don't have to pack as many diapers to begin with...
  
• They leak at nighttime. I was supposed to buy hemp inserts a while back to see if that solved the problem of the regular inserts not holding 12 hours of pee...but I was lazy and we just put the girls in a disposable for nighttime. Remember, my major motivation is financial...so using 2 disposables per day is fine by us...and I just didn't want to fiddle with it to be honest.
• They leak if you keep them on baby longer than 2 hours. Here's my biggest issue with cloth: if you don't stay ahead of it, you'll find yourself changing baby clothes and crib sheets a lot. The cloth diapers hold just fine...but you know how in disposables they get all mushy when they are overfull and you go "oops! you need a new diaper!"...yeah, well, there's no grace period with cloth. You really have to stay on top of things and be sure to give the baby a fresh diaper about every two hours. If you lose track of time, you'll have a leak on your hands. As long as you can keep track of time and not end up totally side tracked...you are fine. I have a harder time with this...not sure if it's because I have three kids 2 and under or what, but I find myself swapping clothes a lot. Maybe if I only had one baby at a time this would be less of an issue. But for now, losing track of time is the story of my life. Which is a bit of a bummer. Incidentally, the fact that they can't stay on too long is probably why you end up with no diaper rashes...

A few weeks ago, I stayed at my grandma's for 4 days. I used disposables while I was down there so that I wouldn't have to lug laundry soap and deal with it at someone else's house. At one point I thought: "Gee, this whole throw it away and never have to see this diaper again thing is kinda nice..." And then I realized that I went through about 65 diapers in 4 days. Not counting Henry.

Eh, it's not THAT nice.

Notice how none of my cons have anything to do with laundry? HONESTLY, truly...the laundry thing is NO BIG DEAL. I end up doing about 2 extra loads of laundry per week. And really, my washing machine does 90% of the work. I just have to push a few buttons and then stuff inserts in about 10 minutes' time. The laundry thing is a complete non-issue...so if that's your worry...don't let it be. I *hate* laundry and this doesn't phase me so you should be fine.

Oh, and it's not gross...not much of an icky factor either. But I'm a mom...it takes a lot to gross me out by now.

Summary: I highly recommend cloth for moms of multiples. Just be sure to change frequently. If you do that and use disposables at night, you are golden. If you are only baking one baby??? Well, I'm not sure it's entirely worth it. The cost savings is definately less...especially if you have to buy the diapers at full retail price. And if you are a first time mom...you might not need another "project", you know?

IF we have a fourth baby (and it comes without a mate) would I use cloth? Um...probably not. It is more work...not a TON of work...but it is more work than just tossing things away. I guess it all ends up being just one. more. thing. Not a big thing or a difficult thing, but another THNG. So, you either have to really need to save that money or you have to really want to be "green".

It's not awful, it's not terrible, it's not difficult. The laundry is a non-issue. It's not gross. It's just an extra thing to keep track of...which can be a pain.

Adventures in Cloth - Part 2

So, remember how I was having trouble with leaking and I had to strip my diapers?

Well, it worked. No more leaks!

Oh wait.

Except at nighttime.

No matter what I did...doubled the inserts...etc...the girls still woke up SOAKED. PJ's...blankets...crib sheets. Ick.

I don't change diapers at night unless they are poopy. So they have to hold 12 hours worth of baby pee. That's a lot.

Reading around online, I found that hemp inserts tend to be the key to this problem.

Hemp, I know. Seriously, could it GET more granola?!

Watch out, we might start smelling like patchouli pretty soon. Not.

But apparently, all "green"-ery aside, hemp is super absorbent and not bulky, so it works great for overnight. I'm gonna order a couple and try it out. If it works, great...I'll order more. If not, we'll just stick to disposables for nighttime. (Which is what we are doing now).

I have no problem doing disposables at night. It's easy and cheap to only be using 2 diapers per day. I'll try out the hemp, but I'm not going to fiddle with it too much.

Otherwise, I am LOVING cloth diapers! Seriously. They are easy, the laundry is no. big. deal., and let's face it, the fun colors are waaaayyy cuter than Elmo. I highly recommend cloth to anyone. Truly.

As for laundry, I'm only really having to wash dipes about once a week. Adding one load of laundry per week is negligible in my book. Plus, there's no real "folding" of laundry with it...just stuff the inserts in about 10 minutes, and you have a nice fresh stack of diapers!

Easy peasy.


I've dried the diapers out in the sun a couple of times. Something about the sun bleaches any stains and it keeps your diapers/elastic lasting longer. It's a bit of a pain to haul them downstairs and out into the backyard, rather than pop them into the dryer...so I don't think this will be my regular routine. But I figured we live in California, it's a nice day...why not? It borders on more work than it's worth, so this will be hit or miss depending on my mood.

All that said, I think that the cloth diaper experiment is a success! It seemed kinda overwhelming when I was first researching, but in the actual implementation...it's super easy!

Adventures in Cloth - Part 1

I finished doing a simple strip of my diapers, and got the inserts re-stuffed into the covers. (I was interuppted about 400 times, but I think the stuffing took all of 10 minutes to do all 42 diapers).

Got the girls into their diapers and...

Jill is NOT in the mood for a photo shoot.

Mom! I do NOT get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day!!!

Fine. Just get it over with.

There's my little Slim.

...about five minutes later, Jill pooped.

Nice.

It leaked out a little...and I was disappointed...but then I remembered...my girls have blow outs in Pampers regularly, so this isn't exclusive to the cloth. We'll see how it goes next time. (They only poo about every few days...hence the blow outs...so it'll be a bit before I get to see again).

I hosed off the solids (that's code for poop) with the special cloth diaper hose that attaches to the plumbing on your toilet and put it in the lidded container until laundry day.

(I told you this wasn't your grandma's cloth! We're high tech around here!)

Girls slept through the night and no leaks. Yay!

And then...the next diaper change...they leaked through everything.

Everywhere. Pee. Soaked. Crib sheets. PJ's. Everywhere.

What happened???

Last night...same thing. I even used double the inserts and everything was still soaked.

Ugh.

I put a fresh diaper on Jill, set her on my bed, and ten seconds later my bed was soaked in pee.

Huh??? THAT WAS A FRESH DIAPER! There's no way it was full!

And then...an epiphany. (Whew! Big words. Watch out.)

The first diapers I put on them were the brand new ones I had gotten as gifts. After I had run out of those, I started using my stash from Craigslist...I ran a fresh one of the Craigslist diapers under the sink...and the water beaded up and ran right off the diaper...like rain on a freshly waxed car.

A-HA!

Apparently, my simple strip didn't do the trick! The "old" diapers have a residue build up of detergent on them (still) that is keeping the liquid from absorbing! (The guy said they had been in the attic...I wonder if the heat up there had something to do with it?)

The good news is that my experiment isn't a lost cause. The bad news is that I have to figure out a harsher stripping method...and actually DO it. Oh well, still worth the cost savings.

So far.

Oops...snapped Lu's diaper too tight!

A smile from Jilly. Scowls all around from Lucy....

Aaahhh...much better!

Gonna do some looking around online and then try again. Once I get them stripped sufficiently I think this whole thing is gonna work...the new diapers proved to be absorbent, easy, and even CUTE!

(P.S. this is my 500th post!!!! Holy moly!)

(P.P.S. You have NO IDEA how many photos I took to get these few...gotta love digital cameras!)

Okay, gotta hop in the shower...we have a doc appointment this afternoon. Gonna take ALL. THREE. KIDS.

Alone.

Wish me luck.

Let the Experiment BEGIN!

672

9 Weeks

That's how many diapers we've gone through so far.

And that doesn't count Henry.

Remember this post way back in the day when I said we were going to try cloth diapers?

Well, I wasn't kidding. (Besides, blogging about doing something holds you accountable to follow through!)

I TOTALLY scored on my cloth diaper (edited because no one could figure out what CD stood for!) stash via, my ever-favorite, Craigslist.


Long story short, I was able to buy 36 (used) FuzziBunz diapers for $200!!!! (For reference, they are normally $17.95 EACH...which would have cost me $646...plus tax and shipping!). A friend of mine also bought me some as a baby shower gift, so I have a stash of 42 size small FuzziBunz!!!! That's a lot. Sweet. (The more you have, the less often you have to do laundry. I'm hoping to go 2-3 days).

FuzziBunz are pocket diapers. Basically, there is a pocket in the diaper where you put an insert. This is good because you take apart the diaper for washing and it dries much faster...and you can double the inserts for nighttime use when kids tend to be in diapers longer.



I also got about 25 homemade All-In-One CD at a yard sale for $1 each. I don't plan on using these unless I'm in a bind and haven't done laundry, since AIO's tend to take A LOT longer to dry since they are so thick. (The "insert" is sewn into the diaper...so you don't take anything apart. Saves you a step in the laundering process, but takes 2-3 times as long to dry.)


I decided to strip my diapers this morning since they are used (even though I don't think it really needed it). Basically, even with the proper laundry soap (and you have to use the right kind or it ruins the absorbency), after a while you end up with a build up of soap residue. This residue can make the diapers less absorbent and stinky. Stripping is easy...just wash with no detergent in hot water 4-5 times with 1/4 cup of vinegar in the first wash only. You don't have to do this very often...just when you notice your diapers acting wonky or stinking the minute they get wet.

We are starting our new adventure tomorrow.

I'll keep you updated. Via a multi-part series. :)

Speaking of being "green"...

...we are seriously considering cloth diapering the girls!

I know, I know...it sounds certifiably IN.SANE.

I remember when I was pregnant with Henry, someone asked me if I was going to go cloth, and I thought to myself: "Are you crazy??? Why on EARTH would I do that to myself???!!!"

But now with two in diapers (and for a while we will have three in diapers!), I am thinking of trying it out. Apparently, cloth diapering is *really* popular with moms of multiples because of the sheer cost associated with two in disposable diapers. (Which, is the motivation behind this idea...not necessarily for the purposes of being "green"...in fact, there is huge debate over whether or not the additional water, electricity, gas and soap used in the laundering process is actually equivalent to the environmental impact of disposables. You can spend all day reading both sides of the argument, both of which swear that the other side is wrong and their data is skewed...go figure.) There are no laundering services nearby, so I'll be doing the laundry myself...which again, is supposedly not that bad. We'll see.

From everything I've read online about cloth diapering, this is the basic conclusion from moms who do it:

"Today's cloth diapering is NOTHING like what your grandma did. It is SUPER user friendly and they've made it about as simple as could be. It IS obviously more work than just throwing away a disposable, but it really isn't THAT much work and is significantly easier than you think it will be once you get the hang of it. And the cost savings is astronomical."

Either way, I think we are going to give it a shot. I'll buy all the gear and see how it goes. If it turns out that it's just way too much work, then I'll say I gave it the old college try and move on (and apparently I can sell all the stuff on ebay). But, I figure that it's worth it to give it a shot. We won't be cloth diapering Henry...it's just not worth it to do it for him at this point (although it might be a good way to hasten the potty training process???).

Unfortunately, cloth diapers don't really work for tiny newborns...so we'll stick with disposables for the newborn stage (which, ironically, is when they will use the most diapers). I haven't decided on which brands/styles/types we'll go with. I'll use some of my maternity time off to really do the research on that side of things...I have a feeling that will take HOURS.

I figure that we'll try it out...if it works, great. If not, then I won't beat myself up over it. I just think that it's worth it to give it a go and then we will have made an educated decision.

I'll keep you posted on how it works out.