My Cloth Diaper Baby

Here are a couple of pictures of Nolan in his cloth diapers. We use them almost exclusively when he is not at day care. If you missed it here is a previous post in which I discussed cloth diapering. So far we are 10 months into using cloth diapers and are still going strong! I'm showcasing my two favorite brands of cloth diapers. The first, a One Size Pocket Diaper, is from my friend Deb, who makes adorable cloth diapers at her site Made By Mama. The second is the Bum Genius 3.0 One Size Pocket Diaper which I bought at the Peapods Natural Toys and Baby Care store.

Diapers By Deb

Diapers By Deb

Diapers By Deb

Bum Genius

And the Favorite Toy Award Goes To...

For a 6 month old, Nolan sure does have a TON of toys! Most of the time, I have a hard time corralling them and keeping them organized. Some of his toys he won't look at for more than 10 seconds and others he just loves. His absolute favorite toy is the Very Hungry Caterpillar developmental toy.

This toy is guaranteed to keep his chubby little fingers busy during car trips, in restaurants, on long walks, when mom is busy making his banana cereal and just about every other occasion you can think of. It crinkles, has bright colors, has antennae and a green tail for chewing and has a squeaky strawberry. I heard from someone that a good work of art continues to move your focus from one area of the painting to the next, eliciting new thoughts and keeping the viewer interested. Although I bet you don't usually think of squeaky toys as art, this toy sure keeps Nolan interested with new things to look at and play with at every turn. Toy art! Plus, I love that this is the Eric Carle caterpillar. We've been reading this book to Nolan just about every day, and it's nice to have a connection from his book to his toy, even if he doesn't notice the connection himself.

My only complaint is that this toy is supposed to clip onto car seat handles by a plastic hook. Well, Nolan ripped that thing off in the first few days. So, maybe they could have sewn that hook on a little better. Nolan doesn't seem to mind though. He'd much rather hold his caterpillar buddy...how else is he supposed to chew and taste every inch it?!

More On Cloth Diapering

I love Joey-Bunz!

We were having leaking issues with some of our cloth diapers, and rather than ditch those diapers, I wanted to see if an additional insert would help. We were using just one microfiber insert in the diaper and Nolan would leak through after about an hour. I'm not sure if it's just because the insert's ability to absorb was limited or if Nolan is a really heavy wetter. Either way, we were getting a little frustrated about this. I did some research, again with the help of the Diaper Jungle forum, and heard all good things about the Joey-Bunz inserts. They are hemp/cotton jersey inserts made by Baby Kicks. After using the medium size Joey-Bunz now for about two weeks, the verdict is in. They are great! I still use the microfiber insert that came with the diaper, but layer it with the Joey-Bunz. We can now go at least three hours, some times longer, without any leaking. I also love that they are so trim. They add hardly any bulk to my diapers. Next I'd like to try layering two Joey-Bunz to see if this is even more effective.

Joey-Bunz Cloth Diaper Insert

Why I Love Cloth Diapering

We've been using cloth diapers on my son since he was about three weeks old, and so far we've had a great experience with them. We have about half of our diapers from Diapers by Deb. Her diapers are so cute and you can get them personalized in so many ways! Our other diapers are Bum Genius, which are great for overnight. We also use cloth wipes and a natural wipe solution. We love it! My son hasn't had any diaper rash since we started him on cloth. I like that his skin isn't coming into contact with harmful chemicals that do who knows what to him. I love that we throw away so little as a result of diapering. Finally, we will save so much money by using reusable diapers instead of disposables. This weekend I found this great article, entitled "3 Great Reasons to Choose Cloth Diapers," through Simple Mom's blog. This is just a great summary of the three main reasons to choose cloth diapers over disposables. I find it to be very convincing.

Of all the other families we know personally, only one other uses cloth diapers. I definitely feel like I'm in the minority in my circle of family and friends. I've had so many people ask me questions about cloth diapering...how it works, whether I have to dunk poopy diapers in the toilet, how expensive they are and so on. While I don't have a lot of fellow cloth diapering mom's to talk to in person, I do get to communicate with several other women who cloth diaper their children online though on the Diaper Jungle forum. Just the other morning, my husband pointed out that they were doing a big feature on cloth diapering in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, our local paper. To check out the article, click here. What a surprise to see this! Apparently cloth diapering is really getting popular.

Do you cloth diaper your children? Do you think that cloth diapering will continue to grow in popularity?