Posts from — October 2009

My 24 month old has officially outgrown her Northern Baby diapers (version 1 with single row of snaps).  Because my daughter is quite tall, the diaper rise was getting really short and the snaps were starting to leave more noticeable marks on her hips.  As most of you probably know by now, I hate when diapers [Read more →]

Today, I would like to tell you about a wonderful, talented and very busy mom to two little cuties.  Her name is Sarah and she’s the owner of Someday Sarah on Etsy.  She was kind enough to take some time out of her busy schedule to write a little about Someday Sarah and to reply to my questions. This is what she wrote: [Read more →]

Recently, I came across some scary information on polyester. Originally, I discovered that information on the Firefly Diaper website, but then I noticed it was also up on the Diaper Pin site here.

The information in the article that concerned me the most was that polyester slowly emits endocrine disruptors which can promote certain types of cancer. I’ve always believed that natural fibres were better for babies (and adults) however, polyester can be found in so many clothing items that it’s hard to think it might be harmful. I believed polyester was completely safe until my daughter started showing some sensitivity to the microfleece and suedecloth in her cloth diapers at 4 or 5 months of age. After that I became a little more cautious about using polyester clothing. That cautiousness lasted a few months until I needed some warm sleepers for my daughter. I decided to try fleece sleepers which are available everywhere. Finding sleepers made of natural fibres that fit a tall toddler is almost impossible. So, we tried fleece sleepers and my daughter hated them which did not surprise me because I do not like to sleep in fleece anything. I feel almost as if I was wrapped in a tight bag that wasn’t allowing much airflow. Even during the day, I have trouble wearing fleece tops.

So, is polyester safe or not? You decide…

I just completed some bamboo fleece and minky AIO diapers with snap-in soakers (front and back) and really wanted to share some pictures with you.  I’m really excited about these because I haven’t made diapers for anyone other than my daughter in 4 months or so.  In addition, these took me a while because of fabric supplier issues, hip problems and the lack of time thanks to a very energetic toddler and some web design work I’ve been doing in the evenings.  I hope you’ll enjoy these pictures!

Yesterday, I received a blog award from The Cloth Diaper Report. It’s wonderful to hear that a great blogger like Emi from The Cloth Diaper Report enjoys reading my blog.  Thank you so much Emi!

The Best Blog Award rules are:
To accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who gave it to you and his/her link. Pass it on to 15 other blogs you have recently discovered and think are great! Remember to contact the blogs you choose!

1. The Cloth Diaper Report

2. Newly Wed, Newly Bred!

3. The Modish Mamma

4. Domestic Dork

5. That Girl Blogs

6. Grudgemom

7. Mama Notes

8. My Green Family

9. Happy Green Babies

10. All About Cub

11. The Eco Chic

12. thinkPINK

13. The Cloth Diaper Experiment

14. Mama Rose

15. Natural Mommie

The AMP (Annie Marie Padorie) AI2 diaper has been created here in Canada by one of the friendliest women I’ve ever met (via email).  Today, I own three large AMP diapers.  I bought my first AMP diaper, when my daughter was 4 or 5 months old.  I was impressed with the quality and decided to buy two more a month later.

What I like about the diaper:

• Great quality.  The beautiful serging made me a little obsessed about how well I serged my diapers :-)
• It’s quite trim.
• Elastics in my AMP diapers have never left any really bad marks on my daughter’s skin.
• Still fits my daughter at 32 lbs.
• Comes in two sizes – not too few and not too many.
• Easy to clean insert.

What I do not like about the diaper:

• The leg elastics on the first AMP diaper I bought lost some of its elasticity.  It’s possible my early washing routines had something to do with that though.
• The microfleece is not the best I’ve seen however it seems to be a popular one for diaper making.

Overall rating: 4.5 out of 5

NOTE: I bought my AMP AI2 diapers more than a year ago, so please keep in mind that AMP diapers might have gone through some changes since I bought mine.

A few months ago, I decided to buy a GroBaby cloth diaper probably because I wanted to try something new.  I must admit that now, after a few months, the diaper gets used very rarely.  I thought that at least my husband would like the diaper, but it looks like he has more trouble using it than I do.

What I do like about the GroBaby diaper:
1. The insert can be snapped in and out.
2. Can use other inserts with the shell (they will not snap in though because of the different snaps).
3. The diaper is quite trim.

What I do not like about the GroBaby diaper:
1. Elastic at the back is way too tight and leaves major marks on my daughter’s back.
2. Velcro does not stick to the laundry tabs in the wash.  When I take the diaper out of the washer, the velcro is usually stuck to the lining of the diaper and not the laundry tabs.
3. It’s not as absorbent as other diapers I’ve tried.
4. I find that I have to wash the shell after every poop.
5. Can’t make my own more absorbent snap-in inserts for the diaper because of the different snaps.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5

Lately, I’ve been playing a bit with natural disinfectants because chemicals in regular disinfectants scare the heck out of me.  Ever since the birth of my daughter, I’ve been cautious with the use of chemicals, but once she started crawling and putting everything in her mouth, I became almost obsessed with what’s in my household cleaners and disinfectants.

I’ve known for a while that tea tree oil can be used for disinfecting and I’ve been using it on cloth diapers for a few months now.  It’s worked very well for us when we had problems with yeast diaper rashes.  I’ve also used tea tree oil on skin blemishes and insect bites.

Tea tree oil has a very strong smell, so be prepared for that if you decide to buy it and have never used it before.  The smell does not last a long time though and if you use it to disinfect diapers, don’t worry, they won’t smell like tea tree oil after rinsing and drying.

More recently, I’ve started using eucalyptus oil from Wildroot Botanicals mixed with a natural cleaner for cleaning and disinfecting kitchen counters.  The smell of eucalyptus oil will definitely wake you up and clear your sinuses.  If you cloth diaper, you can also use the oil in the diaper wash.

Both oils – tea tree and eucalyptus – are quite expensive, especially eucalyptus.  However, they’re usually used in very small amounts so they last quite a while.  As for availability, tea tree oil can be found in quite a few stores.  I’ve bought tea tree oil at Costco and Zehrs (a Loblaws-owned supermarket store).  Eucalyptus oil is harder to find.  I would love to be able to buy it close to home in larger bottles.

If you’ve been wondering how to dress your newborn for night-time, you’re not alone. For the first few days of our daughter’s life, we had no idea how to dress her to sleep.  After reading online that overdressing babies can be dangerous, we ended up under-dressing her.  Then because she was too cold, we ended up overdressing her.

According to the experts, the ideal nursery temperature is 16-20°C (61-69°F). We kept the temperature at 19-20°C because I thought that anything lower than that would be too cold for our newborn.   At first, we dressed our daughter in sleepers (with feet) and then, mainly because we were tired of undressing her for diaper changes during the night, we decided to try a Grobag sleeping bag.  With the Grobag, I could stop worrying whether my daughter was overdressed or under-dressed.  All I had to do was to follow the Grobag recommendations on how to dress the baby at specific temperatures when using the sleeping bag.  I did find that I had to dress my daughter slightly warmer than recommended or her feet and legs would be a bit cold.

Our Grobag worked well until our daughter got bigger and felt trapped in the sleeping bag.  She started moving a lot during the night and the bag would wrap around her tightly.  So, we decided to switch to sleepers.  The cotton ones we tried, didn’t keep her warm enough and she didn’t seem to like wearing the fleece ones.  I ended up dressing her in a cotton sleeper with a long-sleeved shirt and cotton pants underneath.

Next we tried wool longies from recycled sweaters which would work as diaper covers at the same time, but I found that her belly or back were too exposed.  So, we went back to cotton sleepers with cotton shirt and pants underneath and tried to keep her covered with a blanket as much as possible.

After months of using cotton sleepers, we decided to try fleece sleepers because we keep our new house cooler.  I’m not sure what it is, but my daughter does not seem to like sleeping in fleece sleepers.  Partly, it’s not a surprise because I don’t feel comfortable sleeping in fleece either.  I need something lighter and more breathable.  So, we might be switching to cotton sleepers again.

As you can see we’ve had to experiment quite a bit.  What works for one baby, doesn’t always work for another.  If you’ve found something that works for you, then you’re one of the lucky ones :-)