Cloth diaper reviewers needed!

Midnight Mommy is looking for cloth diapering Mommy bloggers to review and test out some cloth diapering products. Go here to sign up! I'm hoping to get to do some reviews and giveaways here or on my other blog.

A fold down changing table

I've been itching to get Miss C and Mr K back into cloth diapers but I had a couple of problems I needed to figure out before I could get that started. The first problem was that the movers lost the changing table. The next problem was that the best space for a changing station is too small for a changing table. What to do? A friend suggested a fold down changing table.

Rob is so great, he made one for me! We were both just wanting to get it done, so he put it up without worrying too much about how it looked. In a few weeks we will get around to figuring out how to make it pretty. I've got some ideas, but I'd love to hear suggestions. The bathroom is off of the laundry room next to the kitchen. I don't want to spend much $$$, and I want it to be on the brighter side since the room is small and the cloth diapers will be out (brightly colored). This is a room I'll be in regularly, I want it to look happy so I can look forward to coming in here!

sewing wet bags

The past week or so I've been working on sewing some wet bags. I was a bit nervous about sewing these, knowing the zipper part could be tricky. This tutorial was great, and made this project so much easier. Even so I started off with a practice bag. I'm glad I did, I had a bit of trouble with the zipper by sewing a bit too close to it. Even after taking the stitches out, it still sticks a bit when opening and closing it. This will be our "back up bag" that will be waiting in the car with a girly outfit that will work for either one of the little girls.

Then I moved on to making three more wet bags. I made one to match my diaper bag; since the one I have been using is pink and I just could not use a pink wet bag for little boy diapers!

I also made this wet bag for a friend who is about to have her fifth baby (a boy) and move to Hawaii! I thought the fun colors would work well for her and her little one(s). I love how cute the whole gift looks together in this little bucket!This one is for a new mama that has a classic elegant style; she just had a little girl.

These bags were fun to make, I'm glad I tackled this project. They really came together much faster than I expected. As I mentioned, the tutorial really made this project easier for me. One thing I did to differently was to avoid using pins in my water proof layer so that the only holes would be from the stitches, not pins. I used paper clips instead. I also added the pocket to the front of the bags, which really comes in handy!

New diapers

The last of the new diapers I had ordered a couple of weeks ago came in last week! I had so much fun looking at all of the colors and prints.

Miss C was so excited to see new diapers, she sure loves her cloth!

I color coordinated the diapers in groupings of 4-6 diapers. This helps me organize them in the cabinet, keep track of what I have, and just makes me happy to see them nicely organized and matching!

The pastels are mostly bumgenius diapers, but there is also a Kawaii (the pink heart print) in there.

Animal prints! I picked up a couple of the bumgenius "noodle" colored diapers to fill in the animal prints. I'd like to pick up the Blueberry cow print diaper to complete this set.

Green/yellow- These are a mix of bumgenius and blueberry diapers. The prints and one of the yellow diapers are the Blueberry diapers, Miss C likes those the best (I think I do too)!

Blue/green/yellow- this is one of my new sets. I love the fun print, darker colors, and the fuzzy yellow minky!

Owls and giraffes- I just loved the new owl and giraffe prints when I saw them on the Blueberry site, so I picked those up along with several bumgenius diapers that I knew would coordinate with them. I also have this set in newborn sizes.

With this set up I'm very well set for diapers and can go a bit longer than I used to between washes. I've been doing nearly all of the diaper changes again, but my guess is that Miss E will start helping more in a month or two when my belly starts getting bigger. She was very excited about the new diapers as well.

My wish list is now very short, but there are a couple of things that I may decide to get; like...

a new wet bag for the diaper pail, I like the look of the blueberry cow print one.

a new small/medium wet bag for the diaper bag since the one I'm using is pink, but then I may just make one to match the diaper bag.

maybe a few more newborn sized blueberry or bumgenius diapers? Its so hard to know though, since some of my babies start out fairly big. I had/have quite a few that I used for Miss J and Miss C but about half of those are pink/purple so Mr. K will not be wearing those!

Back in cloth!

We took a break from cloth diapering during the first trimester of this pregnancy, though we were able to keep it up for a while (thanks Miss E, for offering to help out with diaper changes and laundry!). A few weeks ago we started easing back into using cloth again. Boy was Miss C happy! She loves her cloth diapers!

As we got back into the swing of using cloth again I started evaluating our stash. The pre-folds were looking pretty bad after three kids, we were going to need some new diapers. We've always had a mix of pre-folds and pocket diapers, but now was the time to re-evaluate our reasons for cloth diapering and what worked best for our family.

When we started these are some of the things we considered.

-I started using cloth diapers to help make potty training easier, the cloth diapers (mostly pre-folds) allow the baby to feel wet and have a better understanding of what is going on with their body.

-Pre-folds are harder to use, but less expensive.

-Pocket diapers are more expensive but easier to use (they go on just like a disposable would).

-I like that we are not adding many diapers to landfills (we do use disposables at night and on many trips). Since we use the diapers for multiple children and line dry the energy use is reduced as well. For us, cloth diapering is a way we can be good stewards of our environment.

Some things have changed since starting to use cloth diapers five years ago. I had to consider that I now have some very willing helpers when it comes to changing diapers, but they could not use the pre-folds (at least not very well). While I would not mind continuing to use pre-folds, I'd much rather allow my big kids to help me in this area! After talking to Rob about all of this it was decided that we would switch over to all pockets! I've had some fun looking and shopping (Miss C was excited to look at diapers on the computer too, she was a fun shopping buddy!). I'll post later on what I looked at, what I purchased, and my (short) wish list!

bumgenius snap conversion

I cloth diaper. Some of my favorite diapers are the bumgenius one size pocket diapers. They are so easy to use, and fit from newborn to potty training! However, I do not like the hook and loop on them. So I did the snap conversion that I had read about on various forums/blogs. This has saved me having to trash some very good diapers that still had plenty of life in them, and so has saved me quite a bit of $$$$$!

This is a picture of the worst one. The hook and loop was barely holding the diaper on anymore. Now this is one of my oldest diapers, and the only one like it to have survived the attack of the laundry fairy (link fixed), but the others would have started to look like this in time.

I removed the hook and loop from the diaper body and the tabs.

Made a template and made the marks on the diaper.

 

put the snaps on *thanks for the cool snap pliers Rob!

Added some cute "ooga booga" snap caps that made me smile! *they come in all of the bumgenius colors, so they all have them!

And my diapers were all set and ready to go! I love them with the snaps!

*I have a few more that either were not finished yet, or in the wash at the time I took the picture.