Day Two: The Snappi

Since I already disqualified myself yesterday, I decided to not do this challenge fully.

This choice comes because I have to go to the doctor's office four days out of the five this week, and our doctor is on the other side of the city.

I also don't own any flats, I was planning on using receiving blankets until my flats came in tomorrow.

So we will call this my abridged version =]

I couldn't get the origami fold to work with a receiving blanket, so I used the kite fold, which worked great.

I still can't quite get the snappi to work. I could get the left and right side to work, but the bottom didn't work so great.

I was also a little worried about the diarrhea that Audrey gets for a few hours after she gets her antibiotic shot, but I actually liked the flat better than her regular fitted for the containment of diarrhea.

How did your day 2 go?

Day One: Fail

How did all of your first days go?

Let me tell you about my day.

On April 28th I took Audrey into her doctor, she'd be pulling at her ear, screaming and running a fever for the past several days.

She was had a double ear infection.

So we got our antibiotics and went on our way, and she took them for 10 days.

At the end of 10 days I didn't see much improvement, so I took her back to the doctor.

The doctor told us that one of her ears was better, and the other was still infected.

Second round of antibiotics, and the ear was NOT better. In fact she hasn't been sleeping much, she's too busy screaming at us.

So I took her back in today. Not only is that ear MUCH worse, but the other ear (which had previously healed) was reinfected and not doing well either.

I was told that there was a pretty good chance that her ear drums will rupture in the next few days, and that when it happens, to bring her back so they can assess damage.

We were also given a referral to the ENT doctor, and Audrey started her first round (out of the 3) of antibiotic shots.

I was told this shot will cause diarrhea.

This week I get to go see the doctor 4 days.

So, yeah, I didn't exactly get around to doing the flats challenge. This kind of disqualifies me, but I still plan on doing this challenge, I'll just start later than everyone else.

Do you have a story? I'd love to have you as a guest blogger!

(Oh, and I can't figure out the snappi, any tips?)

Flats & Hand washing Challenge: The Why

Why do the flats and hand washing challenge?

Well, it's simple, in my church we are encouraged to have supplies in case of an emergency. We are encouraged to have 72 hour kits, 1 year of food storage, etc.

With Sydney I always had an extra box of diapers, that I kept in storage. When I bought a new box, I would replace the one that was in storage.

For the past few months I have wondered how to have a storage of cloth diapers. I knew I could hand wash if necessary, and we just added extra water to our food storage.

So I figure this challenge is the perfect excuse to try out using flats, which is something I have never tried to use, and have no knowledge of.

My daughter's skin is very sensitive. If we put her in ANY disposables, she breaks out, horribly. In the event of an emergency, in which water or power would be cut off, flats would be a better choice than our pockets or fitted diapers.

Do you want to learn more about the flats challenge? Maybe do it yourself?
It starts tomorrow. I will be using ONLY flats for 1 week, and hand washing them myself. WITHOUT the use of my diaper sprayer (shocker!)
The exact details are here.
Will you be joining me? :)

Flats & Hand washing Challenge

This challenge starts Monday. Look for my daily posts about using and hand washing
flats! :)

Information is here.

Rumparooz One Size Cover

There were 2 major things I look for in a diaper cover.

1. One Size
2. Snaps

And I kind of wanted the gussets. I thought those were pretty awesome.

And I saw two diaper covers that fit that bill, Blueberry and Rumparooz. Rumparooz were less expensive, so I decided to try them first.

Oh, I love them! It was kind of strange for me at first, there are 4 sizes instead of the usual 3. The diaper also seems pretty tight, which is something that I like, but my wiggly baby did not! (She's got things to bite, don't you know?)

I love all the pretty colors.

Rumparooz are not made with PUL, instead they are made with TPU, which is suppose to be better environmentally (from my understanding.) The TPU is much thicker, which is another feature that I really like.

This is going on my list of current favorites!

Where to buy: I bought mine from Squishy Tushy, simply because they have lots of the pretty colors in stock, and the shipping was free at $50. This was my second order from them, and I plan to make future ones. They have great customer service, and are very quick to ship. Both of my orders went out the same day and were at my house within 2-3 days! :)

Next on my list is to buy some Blueberry Coveralls! I can't wait to try them!

CJ's BUTTer Giveaway WINNER!

Happy Mother's Day to you all! :)

The winner of CJ's BUTTer giveaway is:

#8 is Marsee Family who said: "Love Cj's and hope to win some free stuff"

Congratulations, I will be emailing you shortly!

Thank you to all of you who entered :)

Mama Cloth

I guess this doesn't necessarily apply to everyone.

It depends on why you cloth diaper.

I cloth diaper because of my daughter's sensitive skin. And after doing a bit of research I decided that I would try to avoid as many harmful chemicals as I could.

Autumn over at All About Cloth Diapers has a semi-funny story about disposable pads vs. a flash flood.

Which reminded me of when I was about 5-years-old. I had stolen my baby brother's diaper and put it on one of my dolls. Somehow the diaper got left outside, and as it does so often in Washington, it rained. When I woke up the next morning and went out side to play, I discovered that the diaper had exploded! And there were all these gelly chrystals everywhere. My friend and I proceeded to play with them. And that afternoon we began to steal more of our younger siblings diapers and left them outside so they would explode. I believe this went on for two days before our parents caught on and put a stop to it. Though, I don't believe either of our parents realized we were playing in harmful chemicals, they simply didn't want us wasting their diapers. (ha!)

But, I figured, cloth diapers are softer than disposables, right?
So cloth pads would be softer than disposables as well!

So I bought some from 4 companies, and I attempted to make my own.

All with wings, because I can't stand normal pads without wings. Here was something that was interesting to me though, I normally buy overnight pads and wear them during the day. With cloth pads I was able to buy regular pads and be just fine! They were more absorbent and SOOOOO much more comfortable.

I bought 13 pads, figuring that it would last me through 2 days. I also purchased 2 wet bags, one for home and one for on the go. I was also instructed to use stain remover on them once they are used, so my on-the-go wet bag has a mini spray bottle of Shout in it.

It was just as simple as cloth diapers. I personally didn't wash them twice (unless they were thrown in with the diapers) I just threw them in with my everyday clothes.

Here are the four different types I bought:
Pink Lemonade
GEM
MotherMoonPads
Tamarack Creations

Pink Lemonade: This was the last site I bought from, and the first to arrive! Super fast shipping, and shipping is FREE!! I loved how soft these were, they were a little expensive. About $10 per pad, but they are so soft, and of great quality, and they are extremely pretty! Plus free shipping, which you all know I'm a sucker for! These were my preferred and the first I would grab. I plan on buying 2 more. **I guess shipping isn't always free, it was part of an Earth Day promotion.**

MotherMoonPads: I was slightly disappointed by this site. Shipping was $2.75, I spent $18 on two overnight pads, and $7.75 per pad on regular pads (I bought 2.) The quality is a good, the shipping was also fast, but they pads themselves were kind of blah. But they were super soft and stains came out super easy. I just really liked bright colors.

Tamarack Creations: $7.00 per pad, and $2 for shipping for the first item and $0.75 for each additional item. I really liked these pads, they were so bright and pretty, and had some PUL on the inside. They were great, and my second choice pads. They were nice and soft. :)

GEM: I bought these first, as they were not expensive (I believe I paid $15 for 4 pads) and shipping was included. However, they took about 10 days to get to me, and I only got to use one of them, which it was soft and nice, and they are well made. If you're on a budget, or want to use Mama Cloth inexpensively than I would start with them!

What I Liked About Cloth Pads: They were SUPER soft, they didn't chafe. They weren't hot or uncomfortable.

What I Didn't: I was never sure if I should throw them in with my diapers (as you use stain remover on them) or with my clothes (fabric softener.)

One thing that I learned though, was that using my diaper sprayer didn't work so great with the cloth pads. Instead I use ran it under the sink in my bathroom, worked much better. But I suppose you could always stick the entire pad in the toilet and then spray.