Category: cloth diaper

My Best Cloth Diaper Advice After 4 Years in the Trenches

After four years in the trenches I'ms haring my Best Cloth Diaper Advice and what I'd do differently.My oldest child is about to turn 4, and his birthday always makes me reflect on all I’ve learned in these few short years of motherhood. One of my favorite parenting decisions we made was the choice to use cloth diapers. We have saved thousands of dollars using cloth diapers for our kids, and have kept tons of waste out of landfills. Besides the obvious economic and environment benefits, cloth diapers are super cute and great for my babies’ sensitive skin. Today I’m sharing my best cloth diapering advice after 4 hard fought years in the trenches so you can learn from my mistakes.

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Cloth Diaper Hacks: Use {Almost} Any Cloth Diaper as a Swim Diaper

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Summer is in full swing and we are basically living in the pool. Our Pearl Girl is a total water baby and wants to kick and splash just like her big brother. We have a few specific cloth swim diapers for her to use, but I want to let you in on a little secret I learned with the Bear. Almost ANY cloth diaper can work as a swim diaper. It’s true! We have used Bummis, Bumgenius, and Softbums shells as swim diapers and they all work perfectly.

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All I’ve Learned About Cloth Diapers {After Three Years}

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After almost three years using cloth diapers on two children, I’ve learned a lot. We’ve tried 14 different kinds of cloth diapers and found our very favorites. You can read my post about what I learned the first two years here, and my great cloth diaper trials here. Read about our cloth laundry routine here. Our cloth diaper preferences and routines have evolved as we’ve adjusted to two kids, potty trained the Bear, and moved in to a new house. Today I’m sharing our favorite diapers, our simple laundry process, and my favorite things about cloth diapers.

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Five Easy Ways to Entertain Toddlers in the Summer

Summer is officially here and our regular week day events during the school year have slowed down or stopped completely until September and we are constantly looking for ways to keep the Bear entertained.  Today I’m breaking down my favorite toddler entertaining ideas for you that are all free or super cheap ways to beat the heat and keep that kiddo happy.

#1 Fill up a Kiddie Pool in your yard.  We actually have 2, one from Amazon and one from a consignment sale and he LOVES them.  He will splash and play for hours in both of them.  Give a toddler a hose and a few buckets and he will be happy all day.  At the end of the day we take his buckets and water the plants and trees with whatever is left in the pools, so nothing goes to waste.
#2 Visit you neighborhood pool.  Our city has 5 neighborhood pools and membership is super cheap ($60 for the whole family for all 5 pools all summer).  We visit a different pool every few days and swim our hearts out.  The Bear has a great little Puddlejumper life jacket and is already jumping off the wall into the water.  We love it and he always eats and sleeps well after a big swim.  As a former pool rat (shout out to my Leawood pool peeps) there is no better summer getaway than the neighborhood pool.  We use cloth swim diapers in both our backyard and our neighborhood pool.  You can read all about swim diapers here and shop for them here.
#3 Go to Story Time at the Library. Air conditioning + free = awesome.  Our local library has story times for every age group as well as one for the whole family.  We signed up for the toddler class and are so excited to have an air conditioned, fun, educational, and FREE place to get out of the sun all summer long.
#4 Find a free Splash Park in your area.  We are so lucky to have several free splash parks near our house and will be spending lots of time there this summer when the playground equipment is too hot to touch. Check out your city’s Parks and Recreation website to find splash parks in your area.  They typically have several water elements and a soft pad underneath for kids to run on barefoot.
#5 Mall walk and play at the indoor playground.  Several of our local malls have great indoor, air conditioned play spaces perfect for toddlers.  We pack up the fam and a picnic lunch and head to the mall in the morning to mall walk like champs getting a little exercise for mama and then hit the mall play ground to get a work out for the Bear.  Everybody wins and nobody sweats.
How do you entertain yourself and/or your kids in the summer?

Frugal Friday: Cheap Toddler Entertainment

On a recent grocery store trip I accidentally purchased the wrong kind of dried beans.  I was going for kidney but came home with pinto.  I meant to return them but kept forgetting.  Best $2 I ever accidentally spent.  I didn’t get the red beans and rice dish I was craving, but I did create a fresh way to entertain Bear.
We took half the bag of beans and poured them into Bear’s sand pail and got out the rest of his sand toys as well as a few plastic cups.  Every afternoon we go outside and sift, pour, and dump the beans til his little heart is content.
He LOVES them.  I love them because they are super easy to scoop back into the bucket and there is no harm done if a few end up in the grass.  All that scooping and sifting is great for his motor skill development, and keeps him completely entertained.
I’ve seen lots of sensory trays on Pinterest and have wanted to make one for a long time.  Instead we have a cheap sensory bucket.  Yay for cheap entertainment!
How do you keep your kids or yourself entertained on the cheap?

5 Things We’ve Learned From Cloth Diapering (Almost) 2 Years In

We are now almost 2 years into this little cloth diaper experiment.  I’ve learned so much and am still picking up new info every week.  I’ll probably get the whole thing totally mastered by the time Mini Bear potty trains.  Today I’m sharing with you the top five things I’ve learned from our first 20+ months of using cloth.

1. Diapers We Love:
If you read our about Great Cloth Diaper Trials you know that we’ve tried and tested 11 different kinds of cloth diapers.  We are now up to 14.  Out of control.  Not all of the brands we tried worked for us, but we do have a few that we absolutely love and we are always looking to try more.  Our all time favorite brand is Softbums.  We’re obsessed and they make up the bulk of our diaper stash.  We also love the Bumgenius 4.0 and Freetime.  We use our Bumgenius Elemental, but the drying time takes it from a love to a like.  I love Apple Cheeks diapers, but Jed is not as big of a fan.  I loved the 1 size two AC we had so hard the elastic is now busted.  Anyone want to fix it for me?  We love our Bummis swim diaper, and our Bunzuke bandana diaper is still in the rotation as well.  That Bunzuke is so cute and hard to find I will never give it up.  The rest we’ve sold.  Which brings me to #2.

2. The Cloth Diaper World:
Did you know there is a whole underground world of cloth diaper people out there?  We DO exist.  There are Buy/Sell/Trade groups and fan pages on Facebook for every major brand.  There are local cloth diaper swaps.  There are forums where you can learn everything you every wanted to know about every diaper on the market.  I’ve sold all of our used cloth diapers we didn’t love because they work really well for other people.  I’ve bought used diapers from people who didn’t like our favorite brands.  There are cloth diaper meet ups and mom groups in most major cities.  The cloth diaper world is amazing, and I love being part of it.  Before we started this experiment, I looked to blogs to learn everything I could.  That’s why I now post about what I’ve learned to share with you.


3. The Laundry:
The cloth diaper laundry is no longer intimidating.  You can read about our original simple cloth diaper laundry routine here.  We just switched to Rockin Green detergent because of a hard water issue at the new house.  Our new routine is one cold wash, one hot wash, extra rinse.  We use 1 TBSP of Rockin Green in both cycles.  That’s it.  Then we hang the dipes up to dry and dry the pods and inserts on low.  We now have the routine down pretty well and do a load every other day and never run out, even giving the diapers overnight to dry.

4. Over Night Cloth Solutions:
We struggled with this for a LONG time.  Bear is a super heavy wetter and I thought we would never find the right fix.  Bear would literally explode an over night disposable diaper, but we couldn’t find a cloth solution that worked either.  Finally after begging for help from Twitter and Facebook friends as well as in cloth diaper forums, and visiting my two local shops, we have found a solution that works for our super heavy wetter.  We use a waterproof cover (Rumparooz and Tiny Tush), two Grovia bamboo prefolds with one of them folded in half towards the front, two microfiber inserts (one in half towards the front and one flat on top of everything else), and two fleece liners covering the microfiber.  It makes the fluffiest booty you’ve ever seen, but it works.

5. Cloth Diapering Really is Easy, Cheap, and Doable
It’s true.  Maybe not for everyone, but it is true for me.  I had many doubters when I first started talking about cloth, but thankfully I’m stubborn enough to prove them wrong.  If you are interested in using cloth diapers, do your research and go for it.  Don’t buy all one brand though, because that brand might not work for your babe.  There are a few specific things that have made it easier on me as we have gone on.  Our diaper sprayer is magnificent.  We bought the Bumgenius diaper sprayer and have it attached to the toilet in one of our bathrooms.  We keep our diaper pail beside it and after the dipes get sprayed they go straight into the potty.  Totally easy.  We use a simple Ikea pail with a lid.  The other thing that makes it easier is having a bigger stash.  We wash every other day and let them dry overnight, and still have enough to make it through.  It just makes my life better if I’m not doing laundry every day, and is totally worth the investment.  You can do this.  If you want to.  You will save around $2000 per kid and thousands of disposable diapers from the landfill (which don’t biodegrade for over 500 years!).  I believe it’s worth it.

Do you use cloth diapers?  If so, what’s one thing you’ve learned from cloth diapering?

 

Best of Bare Feet on the Dashboard: Baby and Pregnancy Edition

Looking back over my Best of Bare Feet on the Dashboard series I realized I left out a crucial category, baby and pregnancy posts from the last 3 years.  We remedy that situation today.  I have so many baby and pregnancy posts I love so I’ll break them up by category below.  Enjoy and please feel free to share the love.  
Cloth Diaper Posts:
The Great Cloth Diaper Trials: 11 Brands Tried and Tested
We do the leg work so you don’t have to.
Choosing Cloth Diapers
Why did we choose them over disposables?
Our Easy Cloth Diaper Routine
Figuring out how to wash cloth diapers can be complicated, so I show you our simple routine. 
Saving Money with Reusable Cloth Swim Diapers 
One simple change can save you up to 90% on the cost of disposable swim diapers.  
Breastfeeding Posts:
*Cute nursing cover by Hope Springs Etsy Shop
Our Breastfeeding Battle Part 1
Our Breastfeeding Battle Part 2
The Big Latch On
Pregnancy Posts:
The Top Ten Things I’ll Miss About Being Pregnant
My Hometown Baby Shower
Maternity Photo Shoot from My First Pregnancy
Frugal Pregnancy Tips
Taking the 3 Hour Glucose Tolerance Test: What is it like?
Weirdest Pregnancy Dreams Ever
Our Homemade Baby Book with Free Printables
A Big Brother T-Shirt to Announce Our 2nd Pregnancy
A Morning Sickness Cure with No Side Effects
Seriously.
My Postpartum Fashion Crisis
The Battle of the Baby Weight
Child Birth Posts:
The Bear’s Birth Story
Trying for a VBAC: Why?
Saving Big Money on Medical Bills
We saved 20% on Bear’s birth bills!
Decorating the Nursery Posts:
Birds in Flight Nursery Mobile with Tutorial
The Bear’s Nursery Part 1
The Bear’s Nursery Part 2
The Bear’s Nursery Part 3
The Bear’s Nursery Part 4 
A Ribbon Mobile for Baby’s Nursery
I hope you enjoyed my Best of Bare Feet on the Dashboard series.  I have so much more planned for this blog and can’t wait to see what the next 3 years bring.  I’m now accepting sponsors AND swapping ads with other bloggers.  Check out my Sponsor page for more info.  Thanks so much for reading!  

Frugal Friday: Reusable Swim Diapers for Your Wee One

If you are anything like us, you are so over this whole winter thing and ready for summer.  Our new neighborhood has 5 community pools we can use for the whole summer for $60!  So excited…  For this week’s Frugal Friday edition I’m sharing one of my favorite summer money savers, the reusable swim diaper.  No, I’m not talking about reusing the Little Swimmers or Splashers.  That would be nasty and impossible.  I’m talking about using cloth swim diapers that are made to be worn all summer long.  We’ve actually used the same Bummis swim diaper the last two summers because of the wide weight range.  It will probably work again this year.  I also have 2 teeny tiny i-play swim diapers lined up for Mini Bear to wear.  Yay for water babies!  
How much can you really save by using cloth swim diapers? About 90%.  I did a little research, and the cheapest I could find disposable swim diapers for was $11.13 for an 18 count pack of diapers ($.62 each).  For the price of one pack of disposables (or less) you can buy a reusable swim diaper that will last all summer.  You can find a ton of sales right now on many great brands like Bummis, i play, Imse Vimse, My Swim Baby, and Apple Cheeks.  If you are at the pool or beach all summer going through one pack of disposables per week you could spend as much as $156 per kid on swim diapers.  Yikes.  
How do cloth swim diapers work?  Just like disposable swim diapers.  They hold in the poop and let out the pee.  Once they are soiled you just rinse them out (like you would a swim suit) after dumping the solids in the toilet, then hang them up to dry for tomorrow.  Easy.     
Why should I think about swim diapers right now?  They are on sale!!!  Buying off season is a fabulous way to save even more money on seasonal items.  

If you are interested in shopping for reusable swim diapers, I’d love for you to use my affiliate links below to find deals at Kelly’s Closet and Amazon. If not, check out your local cloth diaper shop where swim diapers are probably in the off season sale section right now.  Thanks!
– Swim Diapers from several brands starting at $9.95
Amazon links are below to my two favorite brands of swim diapers.

Do you use cloth or disposable swim diapers?  On a scale from one to “get me to a beach before I hurt someone”, how ready are you for summer?  I’m at a strong 8 right now.

Our Easy Cloth Diaper Laundry Routine

One of the most intimidating things about cloth diapering a child is the actual washing of the diapers.  There’s a different routine for every cloth diapering family, but I’ll share the super easy routine that works for us.  We tried and tested 11 different types of cloth diapers and you can read about that by clicking the link.
Here we go.  We need a few items for our routine, besides the obligatory washing machine.  We use a plastic bucket from Ikea with a lid, bumGenius Diaper Sprayer, and Country Save detergent.
Step One: After The Bear soils a diaper, we spray it off in the toilet with the diaper sprayer.  We spray both poop and pee diapers, to help get the ammonia stink out of the cloth.  The diaper then goes into the bucket, and the lid stays on til we are ready to wash.
Step Two: We wash our cloth diapers every other day.  I turn on the washer on the heavy duty cycle with cold water, and let the water begin to fill.  I add 1/4-1/3 the amount of Country Save detergent I would use for a normal load.  I toss the diapers in, making sure the velcro tabs are closed so they don’t get crazy in the wash.  Close the lid and run that sucker.
Step Three: After the cold wash finishes, I turn the dial back to heavy duty wash, but this time in hot water, with no detergent.  Run it.
Step Four:  We pull out the diapers and hang them on the clothesline if it is nice out or from the shower curtain if it is rainy.
And we’re done.  We’ve learned a few things over this year+ of cloth diapering.  Never soak your diapers because it damages the waterproof liner.  Always double check your velcro/hook and loop.  Don’t be afraid to start using cloth diapers.  You CAN do it.
Do you use cloth diapers?  What is your cloth diaper laundry routine?

 

The Great Cloth Diaper Trials – 11 Brands Tried and Tested

  When we made the decision to use cloth diapers, I had no idea where to start.  I started reading every blog and website I could find that had information to help me.  I entered lots of diaper giveaways and won a few.  I asked the few friends I knew who had tried cloth.  There are so many options out there, and it was hard to know where to start.
Here the Bear is modeling his SoftBums Hot Diggity Dog Diaper.  Does it have wiener dogs on it?  Why yes, yes it does.
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