Cloth Diaper Resources

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 I am very passionate about cloth diapering and as a matter of fact, it has become a hobby of mine! Haha! Anyways, I figured I would share some of my favorite cloth diaper resources for those that are considering cloth diapering or would just like more information about them. I'll share some links and documentation that I've pulled from various websites.

• Cloth Diaper Finder - this is literally a master cloth diaper finder. You can search by all different fields to see what your options are with each kind of diaper. You can search by price range, company, sizing, diaper type, closure type, outer material, country of origin, manufacturer type, and a few other options. Once you search, you can get details, where to purchase it, and reviews on the diaper. Note - not ALL diapers on here, but pretty much all of the well known brands are on here

• Cloth Diaper Resource Mother Lode - "Here you’ll find everything from what types of diapers there are (and what ones might work for you) to how to use them, wash them and troubleshoot!" - literally everything you ever wanted to know about cloth diapers is here. Different topics include: Cloth Diaper Washing & Troubleshooting, General Cloth Diapering Questions, Additional Resources by Other Great Cloth Diapering Bloggers

• Printable Guide to Cloth Diapering - "The sheet covers environmental facts, health facts, explanations of the different types of diapers, how to wash (our detergent recipe too!), what’s needed and a whole lot more." - A basic "How-To" for cloth diapering

• The Cloth Diaper Whisperer - This is a go to site for many cloth diaper mama's! You can find an answer to just about everything on here relating to cloth diapers! 

• Dirty Diaper Laundry - Love this website! Tons and tons of different videos on cloth diapering! Her videos are awesome! She also has great articles and pictures to accompany any questions one might have!

Places to shop and/or learn more about cloth diapers:

• Abby's Lane - They're a small company that sells many different brands of cloth diapers. They offer free shipping (yay!) and you earn 8% back in reward points on everything you purchase!

• Cloth-101 - All about cloth diapers!

• Kelly's Closet - Another small company that sells many different brands of cloth diapers. I've ordered from them many times! They offer free shipping over $49 all the time, and many diapers they have coupons where you spend $X and earn a free diaper! They also have a reward system where you earn points on everything you purchase.

• Cloth-101 - Their version of everything you need to know about cloth diapers

• One Size Diaper Store - A sister store of KC that only sells one-sized diapers

• Jillian's Drawers - Another small company that sells many different brands of cloth diapers. They seem to be known for "trying" a bunch of diapers for $10 or rentals. They also have rentals of carriers (yay!). They offer free shipping over $99 & 10% in rewards on everything you purchase.

• New to Cloth - This is a great resource. It breaks it down why cloth diapers are so great. This is actually what I used to present why we should use cloth diapers to Casey! This is what got him on board initially! 

• Chelory - These are my FAVORITE diapers (I'll talk about this in another post!). But this is a WAHM (Work-At-Home-Mom) owned business! Which I LOVE to support! She always has free shipping and you earn reward points as you buy. For every $2.50 you spend, you earn a point that is worth $0.25. So essentially 10%. 

• Green Mountain Diapers - Another small company that sells many different brands as well as their own brand. They have free shipping over $75 and only $4.95 shipping up to $75. 

• New to Cloth - Great info here!! 

• Fresh & Fluffy - Another small company that sells many different brands and has a store in Hamburg, NY (yay!). Stephanie is awesome and is very knowledgeable! She offers special packages, cloth diaper classes, has a layaway and even now has used diapers for sale. You can order online and pickup in store which is awesome! She does have a reward system, but I'm not sure how much it is! 

• Tips - Lots of cloth diapering tips here

Check back to this post, because I'm sure I'll update it as I find new sources (or sources I may have forgotten) and places to buy the diapers. I also highly recommend signing up for their email newsletters as they're always loaded with great information and you may even learn about a special promotion or sale!! :-)

I also highly recommend purchasing the book, "Changing Diapers" by Kelly Wels - it's a great simple, layman's terms guide to cloth diaper. Big writing, short book, sweet and to the point! Click below to purchase!

Please feel free to message me with any questions and if you have any favorite resources that you think I should include, let me know!! 

32 Week Update

Okay, so holy crap I haven’t written a new post in 5 weeks! I tell myself almost every day that I need to write a new post and by the time I get home, I’m either doing stuff around the house or I’m too tired to think! Haha! So a lot has gone on in the last 5 weeks!

We had our baby shower on March 3 where we had 70 attendees and received more gifts than I could ever imagine! It was so amazing andwonderful! We got all the big items we registered for, lots of other items I needed, and tons and tons of clothes!! He’s gonna be one stylish little dude! We also announced his name at the shower. Casey presented me with the first gift which was a onesie that said Henry (_____) Astry. Since we were undecided onthe middle name, we decided to pass out little ballots where people could vote for Alan, Scott, Floyd, or a write-in for the middle name. Alan won, so his name will be Henry Alan Astry. Alan is Casey’s middle name :) We actually call him Hank, so I hope having a nickname won’t be too confusing, I grew up with a nickname my whole life, so I’m not too worried about it! I made top secret favors out of “Oh Henry” bars, they were too cute! So that was the shower excitement!! 

On March 9 we had a 3D ultrasound, where little Hank wasn’t very cooperative! Haha! I should have known because he’s been such a stubborn little boy, I think he takes after his Momma. Anyways, he had his hands on his face almost the whole scan, I think he’s definitely going to be very interested in his hands when he comes out as well, better stock up on those scratch mitten things! He is head down and facing my back, so we tried getting him to turn a little, but he wasn’t really having it! He was hiding! We did get to see his face a little though which was really cool, he’s such a cute boy! I can’t wait to meet him! He also constantly pushes his foot out to my side and we got to see him doing that on the scan which was really awesome, definitely confirmed what I was feeling! The tech also measured him and he weighed about 3.5 lbs and is measuring in the 60^th percentile! 

I’ve been having a lot of pelvic pressure; it even caused me to stay home from work for most of a day. He’s just really low which causes it, thankfully the doctors checked and we have no dilation yet. I realized I need to put my feet up more and relax; I also got a belly support thing which has been helping! 

I picked up the rest of our cloth diaper stash and started prepping the diapers, seeing all the diapers in his dresser ready to go makes me so excited. I’ve also washed all of his clothes and they’re put away ready for him to come. I’ve slowly been working more on his room too. Casey and I made a Babies R Us run and picked up the crib mattress and some other things, it’s getting there!! 

Other than all this excitement, Hank seems to be doing really well, but I think the poor little guy is really starting to run out of room in there. He tries to stretch out a lot and I don’t think he can stretchas much as he wants. His legs digging into my side can get pretty painful sometimes, so imagine he is quite cramped up! His movements have changed from less kicks to more stretches like yoga, I still feel him a lot during the day though, which I love. He gets hiccups multiple times a day, which is cute but then I start to feel really bad for him because sometimes they’ll last 10-15 minutes at a time! Must be he’s got good, strong lungs! :)

 

Tonight is our maternity photo shoot which I am really looking forward to! I can’t wait to see all of her creative ideas! So I’ll make sure to share the photos once I see them! This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time! Each pregnancy milestone we hit has been so amazing; it really makes things more and more real!

Cloth Diapering!

I haven't posted in a few weeks, not a whole lot has changed since our AMAZING NT scan! But I figured I'd do a post on cloth diapering (CD'ing). When I was pregnant earlier this year, I started learning a little bit about cloth diapering. It was VERY confusing. I was interested, but completely confused to say the least! Anyways, this time I started researching again. I got into a couple cloth diapering groups on Facebook and started going to town. I consider myself a "researcher," I think it's from all my years of schooling! Anyways, I like to do the research, then present my case. So I started researching and immediately found Bum Genius diapers to be very appealing. They offer one-size diapers meaning, they'll fit the baby from about 8/10 lbs until 35 lbs (potty training).

Thankfully I met a new friend along the way, Cori, who directed me to a website called Jillian's Drawers where I gained so much more information and valuable research to present to Casey (whom I knew would be skeptical). So I presented him with the information and he said he'd support whatever I wanted to do, but wanted some disposables on hand just in case, I'm okay with that. I think he got a little more excited when I showed him the diaper sprayer (more info below). So the main reasons I want to cloth diaper is that it is extremely cost effective, meaning one could save at least $1,000 (probably more) by cloth diapering, and it is so good for the baby. You don't have to worry about all the crazy chemicals in disposable diapers and babies are also less likely to receive diaper rashes if they wear cloth diapers. Some say babies who wear CD's also potty training faster, plus there!!

So in one of my groups, I discovered that there is a sale going on right now for Bum Genius' Freetime's which are a one-size, all in one diaper. Meaning, it goes on almost exactly like a disposable (i.e. very easy!!) and the snaps make it adjustable by size. I haven't decided which diapers I'll start the baby off in yet, since these are likely going to be too big, I'm currently researching this. So I ordered the Freetimes below from Holistic Parent for an awesome deal to get my stash started!! I'm so excited, I can't wait to try these out!! Good news is that the daycare center where the baby will hopefully be going, supports cloth diapering yay!!

I've already gotten questions and strange looks for wanting to do this, but to me it seems like the right thing to do for us and for our baby. One of the biggest questions people have is, what do you do with the poop? Well when the baby is a newborn and is breastfed (which fingers crossed I'll be able to do), their poop is water soluble, so you just throw the diapers in the washer!! When the baby starts eating more than just milk, you can spray the poop off into the toilet using a diaper sprayer (see video below), then of course when the poop is hard you just plop it in the toilet. When the diapers are soiled, you store them in a diaper can (similar to what you do with disposables), but the liner is washable so every day or two, you wash the all the diapers including the liner.

I know this is going to take some getting used to, but I'm honestly super excited about this!! Another thing I learned in my research is that there is a CD store right in Hamburg that sells just about everything called Fresh and Fluffy Shop. They are offering a CD class on December 8th that I plan on attending to see more diapers in person and to learn even more!! One other website that I've found to be extremely valuable is Kelly's Closet who sells just about ever CD out there as well. I also found one other video (below) extremely useful that explains the different Bum Genius Diapers. I know there's still a lot of research to do on everything, but I look forward to that and learning more and more before Baby Astry arrives in May!

The beginning of my stash!!

How-to install the sprayer

The differences between the different BG diapers