Misguided Assumptions

Last week we went on a Road Trip.

We traveled three hours east, spent three hours there, then traveled 6 hours south west of there, hung out in the van for another 3 hours, and then finally checked into the motel. The trip back mirrored the trip there, and all of this I knew ahead of time. I knew these would be 12 hours of in the van days. I knew this was going to be the case, and so I planned accordingly, or so I thought.

It turns out I made some misguided assumptions in packing.

I assumed that the prolonged stretches in the car would probably lead to more "fluffy fail" than we run into at home. Knowing I wouldn't have easy access to a washer, as I mentioned before, I decided to bring 3 GroBaby shells and some biosoakers. Have I mentioned the biosoakers work pretty well, but like disposables, when they fail, they fail big? Quick rundown- with cloth diapers, when they fail, it's a slow creeping fail of moisture wicking out, due to oversaturation and then slowly transferring to the clothes, and such fluffy fail is often discovered by picking a baby up and thinking, "hm, you feel ever so slightly moister than I expected." With disposables and hybrid systems, failure is sudden and complete. When absorbing powers run out, so does the pee.

So, knowing there might be unusually long stretches between diaper changes, and knowing how utterly and completely biosoakers fail when they do fail (I'm not saying they're prone to failure, they actually hold quite a bit,) I decided that we'd likely be going through at least two outfits a day, and pjs at night.

Calculating at a rate of 2 day outfits and one sleeper, leaving Monday morning at 5am and returning late Friday night, this would work out to 13 total changes of clothing.

What I neglected to mention is I'm one of those practical and lazy moms. If Snapdragon is dry and clean at bedtime, has a fresh fluffy on, and is comfortable, I am not going to make him change into a sleeper. He can sleep in his overalls if he's dry and happy. It doesn't bother me.

So we drive all day Monday without fluffy incident, and he sleeps in that outfit. In the morning, he strips off his diaper and whizzes on the floor. Well, he also whizzed on that outfit, so he got to change. The outfit into which he changed stayed dry until what turned out to be an over vigorous sippy cup shaking incident, and I only ended up changing his pantalones, because we were in a hurry to get to somewhere.

The next day there are no incidents and he goes all day, and all of the following night in the same outfit. Did I say all day and night? Yeah. Most of the next morning too, at which point he was playing in the bathroom while I took a bath (okay, we were playing "splashy splashy" and peekaboo...) and he got wet, so it was time to change again. By this point it is Thursday, and we're on outfit 3.5 since leaving the house on Monday morning, and it occurs to me, I way overpacked.

The rest of the trip progressed with the same pattern, and I now have a weeks worth of outfits put together and ready to go in his little backpack. I suppose I can save myself the trouble of going to the dresser for a while.

Do you overpack, or is it just me?

essential to diapering- essential saltes baby

Do you remember when I blogged about Random Acts of Kindness? Well, this right here is what I was talking about. When Snapdragon was a tiny baby, only some 11 lbs and very new to the world, one of my "twitter pals," as Mongoosine loves calling them, Christine, (@es_baby) sent him a fluffy. Now, I want to be very clear about the fact that she sent it as a gift for Snapdragon, and not as a "hey, plug my awesomehood" bribe. Granted, I am kinda a fluffy whore, so I'd have been all about that too, but she didn't. That, and I kinda like having the street-cred that you guys all know that if I say "hey, this is great" I mean "hey, this is great," and if I say "hey, this looks great and here's what folk say," it's because I don't yet know and I'm trying to give you the best info I have.

Got it?

So, now let me continue.

My nephew decided he had to be in the picture too. :-)

I heart Snapdragon's esbaby jungle fluffy. Yes, Mongoosine named diaper. Why did she name the diaper? Because it's that cute!

It has a PUL lining, and a layer of flannel over that which is covered in jungle animals. Now before you say "but giraffes lions and zebras are animals of the savanah," let me point out that Mongoosine has declared them jungle animals and so jungle animals they are.

I was really concerned that the hemp inserts didn't look like they'd hold very much when I first got it, and it looked so tiny. Snapdragon mostly wears OS pocket diapers, so this sized diaper just seemed ridiculously small. Well, it was a size small, so that shouldn't have surprised me. What did surprise me was that it fit him so well. At this point it's getting snug because he's a ginormo baby, weighing in at over 14lbs today, but the legs fit so perfectly, frankly, it's one of my favorites.

That said, it was a learning experience. It turns out that being accustomed to wash and go microfiber, I wasn't yet prepared to venture into the realm of hemp, bamboo, or even organic cotton for that matter. Now, Snapdragon's jungle fluffy is one of the esbaby QDAIO (quick dry all-in-one) diapers. That means the soaker snaps into the body of the diaper, which is lined in a nice fluffy fleece, but it snaps out without having to do the icky poopy pocket fishing that a truly craptastic bowel movement leads to. Thank goodness. And it really is quick drying. The layers of the soaker are sewn together down the middle as opposed to around the edges so that there is more surface area, thus reducing drying time.

Back to the learning experience. With the soaker snapped in place, I couldn't resist just puting it straight on him. I've been sewing for 20 years and figured she'd surely washed all the materials before making the diaper and so surely there weren't any nasty chemicals on it that I needed to worry about. Well, it fit cutely, but within half an hour it was leaking all over the place. I was a little disheartened.

Did I mention that microfiber is wash and go? It never occurred t me that I needed to prep the soaker. Doh!

Well, after I'd washed it a few times it quickly became my absolute favorite. It absorbs like nobody's business, looks cute as can be, and fits so well that he can wear sizes intended for babies his size instead of having to size up to account for fluffy butt! I love that his esbaby diaper means that he has a trim enough posterior that it doesn't look like someone padded his bottom like those funky undies they used to sell designed to give you back where baby had none. This diaper lets baby have just enough fluff to stay dry and just enough fluffy butt to look like a baby.

Perfect.

Beyond my immediate experience with the QDAIO diaper, there are other reasons I'm all squeeful about the awesomeness that is essential saltes baby. As I said during a recent #clothdiapers chat on twitter (Mondays at 8pm, be there or... well.. just be there, okay?) they're cloth diapers art. You can check out her etsy shop, or the essential saltes baby website. The number of outer fabric options is dizzying, and if I had to choose my favorite, I couldn't, because she has some of the most spectacular prints from some of my favorite textiles designers like Amy Butler and Alexander Henry Studios. (I'm secretly a quilting junkie.) Further, on top of the vast array (ever notice how arrays are always vast) of fabric choices, she offers a mind boggling number of different diaper styles with customizable absorbant layers so that you can find exactly the diaper you are looking for, front or side snapping, true all in one, quick dry all in one, quick dry all in two, wrapping cover, or even the "Lights Out" cover with two layers of PUL, just in case. Sound confusing? It isn't. To help you figure it out, she's compiled the best cloth diaper explanatory chart I have ever seen. The cloth diapering overview chart in and of itself makes her site more than visit worthy, and since her diapers are spectacular, you simply must go and look. I highly reccomend buying something while you're there.

Now I hear you thinking "but I only like one size diapers" or "but my baby is about to outgrow diapers so I really don't need any more." Well you should go look anyway because I keep hearing rumors (from the source even, so does that make them rumors?) that an es baby one size is in the works, and she also makes wet bags and cloth pads for mama! While you're there, check out the custom cloth wipes and adorable little doll diapers. Admit it, you'd love to diaper your little baby girl and her dolly in matching diapers. She also has a line of organics that are more than well worth a gander. See? So there is a reason for you naysayers to go have a look too.

Snapdragon: Undercover Baby

"Hello, my name is Slee, and I'm addicted to twivaways."

Just thought I'd get that out of the way, because I wouldn't have ever figured out that I <&hearts> fluffy covers.

With Mongoosine it was strictly flats and prefolds, pinned with either her pink or blue Winnie the Pooh diaper pins (yes, we had precisely four diaper pins, and never lost track of them) all stuffed into a big white balloon known as Gerber plastic pants.

So, when I found out I was pregnant with Snapdragon some ten years after the same incident with Mongoosine, I have to say, that's where my mind immediately went. When I found out that there were more modern options, I was thrilled beyond all logic. I was extatic! I was over the moon in love with the concept of this wild and crazy thing called a One Size diaper. I was tickled pink while learning this military like and seemingly unending string of alphabet soup. AIO OS, QDAI2, it goes on and on. Did you ever stop to think about the sheer volume of nomenclature involved in cloth diapering? Seriously.

I knew a lot about what I thought I wanted, and diaper covers weren't going to cut it for me. I was going to embrace all the advances and never look back. Those prefolds in the bottom drawer were going to be strictly for emergencies and overdue laundry day.

But then, like I mentioned, Twitter giveaways... well, I can't turn them down. So one late night sitting up for #clothdiapers chat, @TOTwearhouse was giving away a Berry Plush diaper, and the giveaway gods were smiling on Snapdragon, and we won. Well, it works like an AIO, only the hemp soaker in the middle snaps in and out, and when you're through using it, you can use the outer as a cover over a prefold.

Turns out, covers are WIN! I have been able to use the same ultra-cute cover through 4 changes today, two of which were pooptastic, without any leaks! Sure it makes for a fluffy butt, but I am loving this newfangled take on the way things used to be.

Snapdragon likes him some covers.

Apple Cheeks!

If you haven't been to the Applecheeks website, go. I've spent a lot of time on it today because I keep running into giveaways aimed at getting the word out about a great diapering option for those of us who found the concept of disposables to be, well- disposable.
Their awesomeness can be seen at http://www.applecheeks.ca/ I admit it, I'm partial to the Mrs. Robinson and St. Lucia blues, and these all have me cuted out. Even my husband felt inclined to comment that he just loves how colorful all these "newfangled" diapers are. I also love that these don't have to be unstuffed, because let's face it, that's the least pleasant part of pocket diapers!

There are some really great giveaways which I highly reccomend jumping on, asap.
http://www.ourlifeupstate.com/2009/05/applecheeks-review-and-giveaway.html?showComment=1243829551871#c3902566867801721277

http://www.themombuzz.com

http://ourlincolnlog.blogspot.com/2009/05/giveaway-applecheeks-diapers.html

http://www.themombuzz.com/2009/05/win-apple-cheeks-diaper-system-more.html#comment-form

http://monkeys-on-the-bed.blogspot.com/2009/05/review-and-giveaway-apple-cheeks-cloth.html

I admit it, all the hype has me really wanting to try these, and I suspect you will too. So go, try to win some, and spread the word, even if you are like me and can't do a lot of the entry methods because you're surfing from your phone.
Goodluck.

So any day now I'm going to be double dutying the whole mom thing, and here's one of my pet peeves.
Everytime someone asks me questions about the upcoming baby, when I tell them we're going to be using cloth diapers, they're nearly all inclined to say to me "it won't last," or "you don't want to do that."
Granted, most of these women diapered their kids a loooong time ago, but why the negativity ladies?
First of all, its not just flatfolds and prefolds, its contours, fitteds, AIOs and one size pockets. Yes, right now my stash is 99% the good old fashioned Gerber flatfolds and plastic pants , with one spectacular One Size pocket, but that's not necessarily the way its going to stay.
More importantly, where exactly do these women think sposies end up? And how many resources go into making them?
I know that I'm still fairly young. The way I look at it, I have a lot of time left on this planet, and little boy who's a comin' has a lot longer.
So, when a mom 2 be says she wants to use cloth, really ladies, don't discourage her.

So there is an awesome GroBaby giveaway at http://bananapeelsdiapers.blogspot.com/2009/04/gro-baby-giveaway.html
I only am posting this because I really really want to try these out. Not only are they the uber-convenient One Size pocket diapers, they also come in some of the most fabulous colors I've seen in baby diapering! Also, I've read that they don't use fail!velcro but a hook and loop system that actually holds up, and that'd be just spectacular.