So last weekend marked the beginning of two seemingly unrelated events - the launch of our cloth diaper wipes and Little Man's foree into solid foods. Not sure that this was the best way to do things, but our life changes are often times born out of shear necessity.
We had decided to work our way through the disposable wipes in our stash before we started using the cloth version, and this gave us the ability to ease into the cloth diaper world. For some reason, and its completely lost on me now, it seemed extra gross to use cloth wipes when we were beginning this adventure, not to mention more difficult when it came to hitting the road. Looking back, thats just silly.
Around week two, it donned on me that the longer we used disposable wipes, the more likely it would be that someone, out or habit, or ignorance, would end up throwing one of the disposable wipes in our pail with the diapers. If you are reading this and thinking that that isn't the end of the world, then you clearly have never done it. To be honest, we never had either (knocking on wood currently), however, I can just imagine how this would go down. There would be me, an enormous pile of cast off lint roller tape at my side, as I attempt to remove all the disintegrated wipe lint from my entire diaper stash. Its just not like me to continue to tempt fate like that. Combine my over developed sense of fear with my practical side, and it just seemed like this was the next logical step. Transitioning to cloth wipes would mean that we could remove the other pail in the babes room; its sole purpose at this point was to catch used wipes. Also, as the stigma associated with using cloth, and the lack of knowledge on the subject, changed, so did my fear of the cloth wipe; realistically this isn't any more gross than what we were doing, and in fact, this transition has streamlined the changing process.
As I mentioned in my last post, I stumbled upon some cloth wipes on clearance, so I purchased about 40 wipes in total. All of mine are knit terry on one side and fleece on the other, and while I am not sure how these compare to the others (since they are all I have right now), I can say that these seem to work amazingly! The terry is great at gripping nasty messes and the fleece is wonderful getting into the nooks and crannies since its softer on the skin, and since we have started solid foods, they have really gotten a workout this week. Part of me is glad that these two events happened simultaneously because it gives me a realistic appreciation of the cloth wipe experience, the other part of me is thinking that it would have been easier to just go for it before hand….
Anyways, I am currently "making" about 20 or so wipes in the nursery at a time. I take a recycled Huggies wipes container and fold my wipes over each other to create the pop up effect. We started out just using some water to clean LM's bum, but that tended to leave him a little pink, so now I am diluting California Baby Diaper Area Wash 10:1; its really a wonderful cleaner - smells AWESOME, not too perfumey, does a fantastic job of cleaning, and because of the Tea Tree, Calendula, and Lavender oils, it has some anti-microbial properties. You could certainly use a spray bottle and make them as you go, but LM is already such a mover and shaker (plus, he seems to especially like the freedom that comes with peeing sans diaper), so I prefer to have the wipes locked and loaded.
I got a humorous email from my friend Heather…HI HEATHER…this morning and she was kind enough, if you find brutal honesty kind, and I do, to remind me that "all poop is not created equally." What I am dealing with right now is not an accurate representation of what we will be handling in the months to come. Also, I have been strongly advised to purchase some diaper liners, this is advice that I intend to heed.
I suppose I'll start with Gro-Via BioLiners first, but for now, off to make some baby food for LM's breakfast!
Showing posts with label Gro-Via. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gro-Via. Show all posts
7.23.2010
7.17.2010
What are we doin!?!
So our one month experiment in cloth diapering had turned into an all out obsession. For those of you who are on the fence about trying them or can't image that this could be the case, I am not joking…consider yourself warned. Before we even make the transition, there were many, albeit one-sided, conversation on the subject. If you were curious, my husbands harassment is where the title of this blog originated.
For those of you who don't know about my neurotic ability to turn even the simplest decisions into overly complicated, overly complex, too thought out, and stress full, life or death situations whereby an inability not to over think the most minute detail takes over, consider yourself blessed. The rest of you can image how much research was really done, and after clocking entirely too many hours in front of a computer screen researching what diapers would be the best for us, and let me tell you there are some choice now, we decided on the Gro-Baby/Gro-Via system for day time and pocket diaper for night time.
I had only intended to purchase a few diapers, but when I went to BumRite diapers they were clearing out all the Gro-Baby diapers to make room for the re-branded version (Gro-Via). This was too good a deal to pass up, so we ended up with the beginning of a pretty decent stash…6 shells, 20 soakers, and 6 boosters. I also ordered two FuzziBunz pocket diapers, for night time. When I placed my order, I was naive enough to think that was old the diapers I would need (and want). While I waited for my order I researched what soap was best for washing…no fragrances, dyes, or optical brighteners. Charlies soap was available locally, so we grabbed that and waited.
So, my box showed up with our new fluff and I was blown away by how soft it was. I mean this is the first thing that you notice…the difference between these and disposables! These guts of the diapers needed to be prepped, which is basically washing the oils off of the organic cotton soakers so that will absorb water instead of repel it. Now, I am way to practical to be doing a bunch of small loads of just diaper parts, so this took me some additional time. I was determined to do these with the other laundry for the house. Finally they were ready, so, off we went.
Day one, not so great. I am so glad we decided on a Saturday launch date, cause I would have NOT wanted to take this show on the road. There is a major learning curve when you switch to cloth, I assumed that going in, but the first day is really demoralizing. You spend all this money on diapers, its really an investment, and you want them to work. They leaked, we had trouble with the fit, every time Max peed his shell and outfit were soaked in the font, and number two was worse! Aaron was looking at me like, oh nice work, these are really worth the trouble, glad we did this. Not a great start, and to make matters worse, I had sworn we wouldn't be doing TONS of extra laundry, but at the end of day one we had produced a load of baby clothes, one dirty changing table cover (word of warning, have the diaper ready to put on the baby, don't take the cloth diaper off and count on having 2 minutes to stand there fumbling with the insides and prepping a new cover-especially with boys), a rug that needed to be clean, and we were down more than half of our diapering supplies. So, after we got our "night time" diaper stuffed, and got Max ready for bed, I went ahead and started our first load of dirty diapers. By the way, it was with great hesitation, but much resolve, that we decided to CD at night. See, Max sleeps well at night-not great-but pretty darn well. He goes a minimum of 5 hours, so we needed this sucker to, well, suck it up! Well, around roughly 2A Max woke up to eat, but first there was a diaper change, clothes change, and change of sheets. (In case you are wondering, YUP, we put on the other FuzziBunz diaper, just call me a glutton for punishment.)
Now I would like to be able to tell you that then next couple of days were amazing, that we quickly figured things out and were fully embracing this new lifestyle, but that would not be the case. Lots of laundry was done, Aaron had decided in his mind that CDs would not require touching the pee soaked insides (this is not the case by the way) and I was terrified to leave the house with out a few extra changes of clothing. And mind you, at this point we were still using regular baby wipes, we hadn't even decided to tackle that logistical challenge yet.
Finally, when we were taken to our limits, about to call quits on this whole adventure, day 6 was SUCCESSFUL! Now, looking back, I am not sure why it hadn't occurred to me at the time, but the reason we were having leaks is because the soakers were not absorbing as well as they should…novel i know. See, we use a HE front loading washer, and while its great (and better for the environment :P) it doesn't strip the oils off the cotton as well. Our washer didn't need the 5-8 washes recommended, no we needed to wash our soaker pads 10-12 times to reach full absorbency.
Looking back seems like a lifetime ago. The more we use the pads, the more they seem to hold. Max loves them, and his occasional bouts with pink bottom have become history. The other quirks that go with diapering have become second nature as well--the difference in how clothes fit him, the look of "front butt" when he wears a pocket diaper, the need to plan ahead when leaving the house, the transporting of soiled nappies to and from work, and the blank stares you get when you change his diaper in public--it all seems to be worth it since its better for the environment and his bum!
Anyone considering trying it, be sure you are willing to stick with it for awhile while you figure things out…PROMISE it gets easier! I am glad we had promised ourselves to sick with it for four weeks, it made us work the hitches out instead of jumping ship.
Now, on to the next thing - cloth wipes. I was at Edelweiss in Boonsboro on Thursday and they were clearing out their diapering supplies, so I scored 4 packs or cloth wipes for nothing. I'll let you know how it goes. Also, ordered a Gro-Via shell set and shell on Friday. They published a coupon code for a free shell with purchase of shell set in Mothering Magazine. GroGreen! Can't wait to review these!
For those of you who don't know about my neurotic ability to turn even the simplest decisions into overly complicated, overly complex, too thought out, and stress full, life or death situations whereby an inability not to over think the most minute detail takes over, consider yourself blessed. The rest of you can image how much research was really done, and after clocking entirely too many hours in front of a computer screen researching what diapers would be the best for us, and let me tell you there are some choice now, we decided on the Gro-Baby/Gro-Via system for day time and pocket diaper for night time.
I had only intended to purchase a few diapers, but when I went to BumRite diapers they were clearing out all the Gro-Baby diapers to make room for the re-branded version (Gro-Via). This was too good a deal to pass up, so we ended up with the beginning of a pretty decent stash…6 shells, 20 soakers, and 6 boosters. I also ordered two FuzziBunz pocket diapers, for night time. When I placed my order, I was naive enough to think that was old the diapers I would need (and want). While I waited for my order I researched what soap was best for washing…no fragrances, dyes, or optical brighteners. Charlies soap was available locally, so we grabbed that and waited.
So, my box showed up with our new fluff and I was blown away by how soft it was. I mean this is the first thing that you notice…the difference between these and disposables! These guts of the diapers needed to be prepped, which is basically washing the oils off of the organic cotton soakers so that will absorb water instead of repel it. Now, I am way to practical to be doing a bunch of small loads of just diaper parts, so this took me some additional time. I was determined to do these with the other laundry for the house. Finally they were ready, so, off we went.
Day one, not so great. I am so glad we decided on a Saturday launch date, cause I would have NOT wanted to take this show on the road. There is a major learning curve when you switch to cloth, I assumed that going in, but the first day is really demoralizing. You spend all this money on diapers, its really an investment, and you want them to work. They leaked, we had trouble with the fit, every time Max peed his shell and outfit were soaked in the font, and number two was worse! Aaron was looking at me like, oh nice work, these are really worth the trouble, glad we did this. Not a great start, and to make matters worse, I had sworn we wouldn't be doing TONS of extra laundry, but at the end of day one we had produced a load of baby clothes, one dirty changing table cover (word of warning, have the diaper ready to put on the baby, don't take the cloth diaper off and count on having 2 minutes to stand there fumbling with the insides and prepping a new cover-especially with boys), a rug that needed to be clean, and we were down more than half of our diapering supplies. So, after we got our "night time" diaper stuffed, and got Max ready for bed, I went ahead and started our first load of dirty diapers. By the way, it was with great hesitation, but much resolve, that we decided to CD at night. See, Max sleeps well at night-not great-but pretty darn well. He goes a minimum of 5 hours, so we needed this sucker to, well, suck it up! Well, around roughly 2A Max woke up to eat, but first there was a diaper change, clothes change, and change of sheets. (In case you are wondering, YUP, we put on the other FuzziBunz diaper, just call me a glutton for punishment.)
Now I would like to be able to tell you that then next couple of days were amazing, that we quickly figured things out and were fully embracing this new lifestyle, but that would not be the case. Lots of laundry was done, Aaron had decided in his mind that CDs would not require touching the pee soaked insides (this is not the case by the way) and I was terrified to leave the house with out a few extra changes of clothing. And mind you, at this point we were still using regular baby wipes, we hadn't even decided to tackle that logistical challenge yet.
Finally, when we were taken to our limits, about to call quits on this whole adventure, day 6 was SUCCESSFUL! Now, looking back, I am not sure why it hadn't occurred to me at the time, but the reason we were having leaks is because the soakers were not absorbing as well as they should…novel i know. See, we use a HE front loading washer, and while its great (and better for the environment :P) it doesn't strip the oils off the cotton as well. Our washer didn't need the 5-8 washes recommended, no we needed to wash our soaker pads 10-12 times to reach full absorbency.
Looking back seems like a lifetime ago. The more we use the pads, the more they seem to hold. Max loves them, and his occasional bouts with pink bottom have become history. The other quirks that go with diapering have become second nature as well--the difference in how clothes fit him, the look of "front butt" when he wears a pocket diaper, the need to plan ahead when leaving the house, the transporting of soiled nappies to and from work, and the blank stares you get when you change his diaper in public--it all seems to be worth it since its better for the environment and his bum!
Anyone considering trying it, be sure you are willing to stick with it for awhile while you figure things out…PROMISE it gets easier! I am glad we had promised ourselves to sick with it for four weeks, it made us work the hitches out instead of jumping ship.
Now, on to the next thing - cloth wipes. I was at Edelweiss in Boonsboro on Thursday and they were clearing out their diapering supplies, so I scored 4 packs or cloth wipes for nothing. I'll let you know how it goes. Also, ordered a Gro-Via shell set and shell on Friday. They published a coupon code for a free shell with purchase of shell set in Mothering Magazine. GroGreen! Can't wait to review these!
CLOTH DIAPERS V. DISPOSABLES. Why we made the transition.
When my son, Max, was three months old, a friend encouraged my to look into cloth diapers. This recommendation seemed so unreasonable to me at the time; my husband, Aaron, had been (and still is) working in Missouri and we own two small businesses. Needless to say, time is precious in our house, and the convenience of disposables seemed like the only way to go.
However, dealing with farmers and persons in the agricultural industry has made me more acutely aware of our environmental impact, so with a few words of encouragement and about a half an hour on the web researching, my interest was peaked. Everyone, husband and mom included, thought that I was suffering from some sort of hormone induced psychosis, however, I was determined to try cloth diapering for a month and see if we could do it! Below is some information that I found regarding the pros and cons of cloth diapering….hope you enjoy our journey!
DISPOSABLES DIAPERS: No discussion of diapers would be complete without mention of the poopy-fator! The first thing that most people think when they think cloth is "eeeewwwww, you want me to do what with that". A few months, who am I kidding, just a few weeks into motherhood and anyone who has been there will tell you, the prospect of handling bodily fluids of ANY kind is not is disgusting as it had once seemed. Being peed on, pooped on, spit up on, and and drooled on changes your perspective on things to say the least. Husbands and other caregivers, however, are not so eager to handle littles poopy diapers! This was an extremely tough sell for the husband, and definitely influenced the diapers that we decided to use, but on with that later. Another thing to consider is how often you can feasibly wash the diapers, another bone of contention with Aaron. The last thing that anyone needs is to have diapers laying around their house for any length of time. Also, forget about just throwing some diapers and wipes in diaper bag and running out the door. We aren't just talking about vacations mind you, we are talking every time you plan on leaving the house. Oh, and don't forget about the extra laundry, not just just the diapers either, but the clothes that you have to wash if those cloth diapers leak on you. Disposables can hold way more mess and in my experience are less likely to leak; they have a tighter more trim fit, and there is a major learning curve when it comes to using cloth. At first blush, disposable diapers seemed to have the upper hand, at least when it came down to convenience.
That being said, disposable diapers were definitely going to cost significantly more if used from birth to potty training. I estimated that we would change over 5,400 diapers in just two years! At birth, we were using Pampers Swaddlers, so based on that math, we were looking at an approximate cost of $1,700 in those two years, and those are conservative estimates; this estimate doesn't take into consideration things like Max's explosive teething butt! And worst of all, all of those diapers, plus disposable swim diapers, and training pants end up in landfills every year. The Clean Air Council actually estimates that "each year, parents and babysitters dispose of about 18 billion of these items. In the United States alone these single-use items consume nearly 100,000 tons of plastic and 800,000 tons of tree pulp […] and, to top it off, these diapers will still be in the landfill 300 years from now." Those figures translate to an estimated 49 million diapers per day.1 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW…ok, so thats a lot of plastic and chemicals floating around out there, not to mention untreated waste! Sorry, the figures don't lie. Cloth diapers are way more cost effective and are way, WAY more environmentally friendly!
CLOTH DIAPERS: Most of the online resources I found suggest having enough cloth diapers to last for two days, that way you are only washing diapers every other day or less. This was important to us, so that we weren't alway washing, but also so that the diapers that we were investing in would hold up. I mean, you wouldn't wash and wear that expensive lacy bra everyday and expect that it will last 2 plus years, just sayin! So, based on those same 8 diaper changes a day, that means that we were looking at no less than 16 diapers to start out with. I opted to have 20 diapers on hand, so that there was some wiggle room with those numbers; we purchased 6 diaper shells and 20 inserts as well as two pocket diaper for nighttime. These diapers meant an initial investment of $275…way more economical than their disposable counter parts. Don't get me wrong, I do expect to purchase some more along the way if this transition is successful, but we are still ahead of the game.
Now for the nasty truth, and I appologize in advance for the technical nature of this paragraph. This is the info that the diaper companies don't what you to know about…the info that I didn't know about until I started looking. Cloth diapers are better on babies skin and are a healthier choice. According to Greenpeace, disposable diapers contain traces of Dioxin, a by-product of bleaching the papers in disposables. It is listed by EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals and it is banned in many countries, but not in the US.2 Greenpeace also mentions that disposable diapers, including Pampers, which, we had been putting on Max's bum, contain Tributyl-tin (TBT) - a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals as well as sodium polyacrylate, a type of super absorbent polymer that turns to a gel when it gets wet in doing so, it increases the risk of toxic shock syndrome by increasing absorbency and improving the environment for the growth of toxin-producing bacteria.3,4 Aside from those reasons, this gel means that baby's bum is in contact with moisture for extended periods of time which would increase the likelihood of rash. I am a chemist, so don't get me wrong, I am not anti-chemical. I do believe, however, that there are times in life when natural is a better alternative. I also FIRMLY believe in correctly disposing of these chemicals; were a big corporation to dispose of such large quantities of chemicals or if there were a leak that lead to the introduction of that much human waste into the environment, the public would be FURIOUS. Logically, I just can't justify at least trying cloth since cloth diapers don't contain these chemicals…you don't have to worry about them coming into contact with baby's skin, but you also don't have to worry about them ending up in the environment.
Knowing all of this, I am not sure why everyone wouldn't at least consider using cloth. There is no judgement in that statement, I fully realize that every family has to do what works for them, but the statistics are staggering. I encourage everyone to give it at least a try. We have just finished the first 6 weeks of cloth diapering and my family thinks its just as easy as disposables are and I love knowing that we aren't adding to the landfills. Even the naysayers have gotten on the bandwagon; its pretty amazing how far cloth has come!
My next article will be about the diapers that we chose and what we have found works and doesn't. The good, the bad, and the ugly!
1. Clean Air Council. Waste Facts and Figures. 17 July 2010. http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html
2. Allsopp, Michelle. Achieving Zero Dioxin: An emergency strategy for dioxin elimination. September 1994. Greenpeace. http://archive.greenpeace.org/toxics/reports/azd/azd.html
3. Greenpeace. New Tests Confirm TBT Poison in Procter & Gamble's Pampers: Greenpeace Demands World-Wide Ban of Organotins in All Products.15 May 2000. http://archive.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/toxics/2000may152.html
4. Armstrong, Liz and Adrienne Scott Whitewash: Exposing the Health and Environmental Dangers of Women's Sanitary Products and Disposable Diapers, What You Can Do About It. 1993. HarperCollins.
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