Posts Tagged ‘babies’
Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
Having a large family, I’m used to people asking me “How do you do it?” Not only how I physically care for all of them, but also how I afford the needs of five young children. These are some of the things I’ve found most helpful for keeping raising children affordable while still living comfortably.
Think Green
- Many of the things you can do that are good for the environment are also good for your wallet.
- Use cloth diapers, wipes, training pants, and menstrual products.
- Use natural cleaners like vinegar or baking soda instead of expensive pre-made cleaners with potentially dangerous chemicals.
Get by with less.
- Many of the things you thought you “just had to have” will end up collecting dust, taking up precious room in your home and wasting money. if you already have items collecting dust, consign them and use the credit to buy things you will actually use. In the beginning, all babies need is a safe place to sleep, diapers, and a modest layette. I’ve bought plenty of adorable baby clothes only to find them unworn months later.
- Buy clothing, toys, and other supplies used or borrow from friends and family.
- Some items like swings and bouncers have a very limited span of use and your friends would be happy to loan them to you or sell them at a steep discount over buying new. Other sources for quality used items are Multiples club consignment sales (we tend to have LOTS of baby clothes and gear, church swaps, and community garage sales.)
When you do buy new – buy quality items.
- Quality items hold up up better to repeated use and washing and sell well once you are done with them.
- Use coupons, have grandma buy things with her senior discount, and search through the clearance section to get the best prices possible.
- Take advantage of Kids Eat Free, Sibling, and Employer discounts on attractions, shopping, and services.
- If you don’t see a discount explicitly mentioned on their website or in their establishment, it never hurts to ask if they offer a discount for employees of XYZ or if a second child in the same family can receive discounted tickets to attractions or for childcare services.
Choose less expensive outings.
- At a young age, children are just excited by a trip to a new park, mall, or friend’s home as they are going to costly places like Disney. Even as they grow, compare the offerings of different attractions in your area. One may be significantly less expensive but still offer the amenities that are most important to you. Consider year-long memberships if it’s somewhere you’ll go more than a few times a year.
Sarah Scales is a mom of five including two sets of twins in cloth diapers! When she isn’t blogging for FuzziBunz you can catch her at Upper Middle Mom.
Tags: babies, childcare, cloth diaper, cloth diaper benefits, cloth diapering, cloth diapers, eco-friendly, eco-friendly diapers, FuzziBunz, fuzzibunz cloth diapers, FuzziBunz diapers, garage sales, green living, parenting, reusable diapers, save money, save money with cloth diapers, saving money with babies, traveling with children, used baby clothes, used baby toys
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Tuesday, February 5th, 2013
Once you’ve settled into a routine, using cloth diapers is pretty no-brainer. Wash. Rinse. Rinse. Dry. Use. Repeat.
In that challenging period before I figured out not to over-think things, mistakes were made. My No. 1 mistake? Trusting that the other people changing my baby’s diaper would know everything I do. Will someone else be changing your baby in cloth diapers? Be especially cautious. It’s one thing when mom is the rookie. We still read, research, and, well, over-think. Dads, grandmas, and nursery workers might do things, however, that we never even dreamed they would.
Putting On the Diaper
- The best thing you can do if you’re about to leave your baby and your cloth stash in the hands of someone else is have the diapers pre-stuffed and ready to put on. If you don’t it’s quite possible you’ll come home at some point to a baby wearing a diaper with no insert. Even when the diaper is completely assembled, you still might find a rookie is apt to put the diaper on backwards. Something about the snaps throws them off, I think. A FuzziBunz diaper might be more fool-proof than others. I’ve had people put other diaper brands on inside out, too.
What Else They’ll Put On
- There’s something about a day care provider and butt cream. They just love the stuff. There must be some comfort for them in slathering it on generously. But beware: most widely available diaper creams can wreak havoc on your cloth diapers. This happened to me soon after my day care agreed to use cloth for my first son. I’d left his tube of zinc oxide cream with them even after he started wearing cloth. I knew it wasn’t “cloth approved” but didn’t think about them wanting to use it since he was usually pretty clear down there, but boy did they use it. That day’s diapers, though they still function, to this day have some staining left from that incident. Keep the stuff away from your diapers at all costs.
Laundry
- It’s best that anyone who’s going to wash your cloth diapers gets a full explanation of the proper way to do it. A simple laundry mistake can take lots of re-washing to undo. After the rash cream got used with a few of my cloth diapers, I made the mistake of thinking outside the box for ways to wash it out. I ended up trying a degreaser cream from Lowe’s. I have to rinse my diapers countless times to get the orange smell out. My advice? When you’re a rookie, don’t add anything weird to your diaper laundry. It seems simple enough, but it’s important. Also, think carefully about where you wash. I once did laundry at a campground laundromat and ended up with immediate repelling issues.
You’ve done the research and read all the directions (along with a few hundred blog entries!), but make sure anyone else changing your baby gets all the little details, too. You’ll make things easier on your baby that way – and your diapers!
Jessica Wiant is now a stay-at-home mom of two who was once a working mom with a (cloth diapered!) son in daycare.
Tags: award-winning diapers, babies, baby laundry, babysitters, caring for FuzziBunz diapers, cloth diaper, Cloth Diaper Accessories, cloth diaper benefits, cloth diaper detergent, cloth diapering, cloth diapers, daycare, eco-friendly, eco-friendly diapers, fashionable diapers, favorite baby gear, fleece diapers, FuzziBunz, fuzzibunz cloth diapers, FuzziBunz diapers, green living, how to clean a cloth diaper, How To Use FuzziBunz Diapers, parenting, pocket diapers, potty training, prevent diaper rash, reusable diapers, traveling with cloth diapers, washing FuzziBunz diapers
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Monday, December 17th, 2012
As the mother of two sets of twins, both currently in cloth, I feel I have the experience to back up my opinion. There are 3 reasons I know cloth diapering twins is the way to go.
The Cost Savings: Two babies equal double diaper duty. Diapering one baby is expensive, two babies doubly so. Even the cheapest disposables are upwards of 10 cents each; at roughly 170 diapers a week for newborn twins and you’re talking real money- upwards of $18 a week with taxes. Easily double that for “premium” brands. All of a sudden, a cloth diaper stash doesn’t seem like such a huge investment- you quickly recoup your costs. If you live somewhere that you are charged for trash removal, the extra waste created by disposables also comes with that extra expense, which leads me to:
The Environmental Impact: Two babies worth of disposable diapers is not pretty. For us it was an extra garbage can on the curb weekly, just for diapers. Now, I simply wash diapers ever couple days and have a steady supply for our 4 diapered children. Leading me to my last, and perhaps most compelling argument.
The Convenience: Getting around with twins isn’t always easy, especially in the early days. You have two car seats that won’t both fit in a cart; you have the stroller that you can’t pile merchandise in, inclement weather to deal with, and then a steady stream of strangers asking you lots of questions. A “quick” run to the store for diapers isn’t so quick anymore. Which is why, I’m so happy to skip all of that by washing cloth diapers in the comfort of my own home.
Sarah Scales is a mom of five including two sets of twins in cloth diapers! When she isn’t blogging for FuzziBunz you can catch her at Upper Middle Mom.
Tags: babies, celebrities using FuzziBunz®, cloth diaper benefits, cloth diapering, cloth diapers, convenience, eco-friendly diapers, families, green living, save money with cloth diapers, smart parenting, twins
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Thursday, December 13th, 2012
I can’t count the number of times I had to change my sheets in the middle of the night after my first son was born.
During pregnancy, as I performed the tedious task of deciding what baby gear I needed, I made the ill-fated decisions that a changing table was something I could afford to do without. As punishment, my baby showered my bed with pee numerous times during late-night diaper changes.
Throughout his diaper days, I had multiple packages of diapers and wipes – and later, when I switched to cloth, laundry baskets – scattered throughout the house. Most often, he got changed on the floor. It worked out OK, most of the time.
But, when I knew Baby Boy No. 2 was on the way, and that I’d be cloth diapering him from the start, a changing table was at the top of my want list. Why? Mainly because using cloth does involve more… stuff. I desired a central location to keep all the necessities a little more neat during this, my second round, with diapering. I’m not typically very organized, to say the least, so anything to force me to keep it together more helps. Grabbing a pocket and an insert out of a laundry basket is simple enough, but pulling a ready-to-wear diaper out of the drawer just sounded more appealing.
Thankfully, a wonderful friend offered to hand down her little-used table to me. I drove my pregnant self right over in the summer heat and helped load it into my car practically immediately, and not long after started setting up shop in the nursery.
The top drawer now holds pocket diapers and back-up disposables. A few cloth drawers from the dollar store turned the shelf below into a home for cloth wipes, inserts and covers. On the top of the table I keep a spray bottle, to wet wipes during changes, and a pump bottle of baby oil and a bottle of baby soap at hand – I use a squirt of each and then fill the bottle with water for my wipe solution.
 
 
The bottom of the table stores a few other nursery items, like toys, and I snap two wet bags to the side of the table for easy access. When one bag is full, I can wash it with the diapers and still have a clean one to start the process over again.
Having my son that much closer to eye level during diaper changes – and let’s face it, there are a lot of them – has made it one of his favorite places to stretch out, smile and babble with me or my husband.
The only downside to my system is that I have to bring the baby to the table instead of bringing the diaper to the baby like I did with my first son. Keeping my bedsheets dry makes it well worth it.
Jessica Wiant is now a stay-at-home mom of two who was once a working mom with a (cloth diapered!) son in daycare.
Tags: babies, baby boys, changing table, cloth diapers, convenience, families, nursery, organizing
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Tuesday, December 11th, 2012
I’m sure this doesn’t come as a surprise to you reading this blog, but I’m a cloth diaper junkie. I love the look of them, I love the variety of patterns and colors, I love the feel of them, and I love the ease of use. I also love that fact that I can use as many as I want without worrying about wasting my money or running to the store and buying more. If I run out of cloth diapers, well, I just do a load of laundry.
There have been a few times I’ve had to use disposable diapers and I’m glad that they’ve been there when I needed them.
The first time (well, other than the few days we were in the hospital after she was born) was when our daughter was six weeks old. We were moving out of our house in Hawaii and on our way to Alabama. For two weeks, we were living in a hotel in sunny Waikiki (I know, I’m not complaining) and then for the next few weeks after that we were driving across the country from Los Angeles to Alabama, stopping at various friends’ and relatives’ to visit, until we finally got to our new home and our goods were delivered. It was six weeks of disposables for us! It was just easier in the long run for us to pack the diapers and buy as we went.
Of course, once we got our cloth diapers back, I was thrilled and anxious to get her back in them. She was oh so cute too!
The next time was another trip when she was five months old. It was only a couple days at a friend’s house, but with a six-hour drive, I just didn’t want to mess with dragging the cloth diapers with us. Lazy mom, right? It worked out fine though. The next time after that, another trip when she was nine months.
The most recent disposable adventure was about a month ago. Our daughter got a bad yeast diaper rash. I did some research and found that the way cloth works, the yeast could actually multiply on the diapers, so it was best to keep her out of it. There are ways around it, with liners and such, but for us it was just easier to use disposables while I stripped the diapers and treated the rash.
Now we’re back in them, and hopefully for some time! It’s been nice to have the convenience of disposables when I needed them, but I’m still all for cloth diapers.
Chantal Shelstad, a self-proclaimed “crunchy” stay-at-home mom who lives in Alabama with her daughter, Penny and her husband, a pilot in the Army. Chantal is more than happy to own up to the fact that cloth diapering parents have to face plenty of difficulties, transitions, stigmas (and yes, plenty of poop!) …but it is still worth it in the end.
Tags: babies, CD, cloth diapers, Disposable Diapers, environmentally friendly, sposies, traveling
Posted in Chantal M. Shelstad, FuzziBunz Blog | No Comments »
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