I am very nervous to type the following confession. But I have to be honest. If I try and act like someone I am not, I will get found out sooner or later and will lose the trust of my readers.

Please don’t leave me once you hear this.

I have switched from cloth diapers to disposables. That’s right. I am adding to the landfill problem and putting chemicals on my baby’s tushie.

I bought a box of disposable diapers today. I will be selling my cloth – mostly for the cost of shipping – to some good friends. This is really earth-shattering news! For 2 years I blogged about cloth diapers. I created video reviews of the most daddy friendly brands and wrote about the best cloth diapers for newborns. I connected with other moms in the cloth diapering community and made some amazing friends.

That is why I have to be honest. I still support cloth diapering and think it is an amazing way to save money and cut down on carbon footprints. But will not do this anymore. Before I explain why, let me just answer some possible comments/suggestions I might get.

What was it you hated the most?

Honestly? The smell of dunking and swishing poopy diapers. And the smell of ammonia in my night time diapers or diapers that sat in the pail too long.

Did you try a diaper sprayer?

Nope. We only have one bathroom and a door that does not latch. I have a hard enough time keeping an eye on my 3 kids, I don’t need them spraying each other with such an accessible weapon.

Did you try stripping?

Oh my goodness sakes yes! I tried every single natural detergent under the sun. Tide was all that worked. In fact, stripping is another reason I don’t like cloth diapers. I don’t enjoy spending 1.5 days washing and rinsing and re-rinsing diapers.

Don’t you hate the smell of a disposable more? All those chemicals!

Actually, I really like that I can pitch the poopy diaper in the outside garbage can and not have to smell it again. And the perfumy smell of sposies? I don’t find it overpowering at all.

What about blow outs?

Thankfully Lucy is 13.5 months old and her poop is a lot more solid now. I don’t have to worry about it.

You are potty training. Potty training while using sposies is so much more difficult! Cloth makes it easier.

Tell that to David! LOL! The only way he is successful is if he goes naked. If he wears undies he will pee in them and refuse to go pee if I set the timer. Naked he is perfect! Cloth or sposies, doesn’t matter. His pee does not discriminate.

Don’t you feel guilty about all the money you are wasting on disposables?

I refuse to allow myself to. Mommy guilt is ugly. I think of all the things I can feel guilty for, this will not be one of them. Yes I have spent quite a pretty penny on my cloth diaper stash. I spent countless hours researching the best diapers too. But the truth of the matter is with 3 kids under 4 years old and my new work-at-home jobs, something has to go. All that time I spent rinsing, washing, folding and stuffing my diapers I will now spend with my kids. There is only so much time in the day and I decided to give up the joys of cloth diapering for the convenience of disposables.

So what are your thoughts on cloth diapering now?

They have not changed! The only thing that changed is my life got way too stinking busy so I had to let something go. I still think organic cloth diapers are the best thing for our babies. They sustain the earth and can help support moms that stay home and support their kids with their business.  Cloth diapers remain the most beautiful, soft, squishy, amazing things I ever put on my babies. Nothing beats the cuteness of a cloth diapered bum! I still give cloth diapering advice and share my wisdom to help others cloth diaper successfully.

Perhaps I am over dramatizing it a smidge. Perhaps I am not taking my decision seriously enough. All I know is, when life gets crazy and you make decisions as a mother and a person that benefit yourself mentally, everyone benefits. No one is perfect.

A Merry Fluffy Christmas CLOTH DIAPER **GIVEAWAY**

Welcome to the 2nd Annual “A MERRY FLUFFY CHRISTMAS!”
This is my first year participating and I am very excited! This is a huge blog hop and you can win on every single blog (if you happen to be that lucky) – that is a LOT of fluff! Cloth diapers are not only adorable but they sure do help that budget too!

How “A Merry Fluffy Christmas” Blog Hop Giveaway works:
You will have until 11:59pm EST on December 5th to enter in our prize package below.

There will only be ONE winner for each participating blog.

Please remember to read ALL instructions on each blog, as each blog’s entry methods are different.
And don’t forget to visit ALL OF THE PARTICIPATING BLOGS for more prize packages to win! You can find the Linky at the bottom of this giveaway post.
That’s it! And good luck!

Giveaway!

One Mama Dweeb reader will win One (1) AppleCheeks Little Bundle & $25 to Kelly’s Closet!

Required Entry: 

Comment on this post with your favorite brand of cloth diaper!

Extra Entries: (Leave a separate comment for each entry)

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  #Win AppleCheeks Little Bundle & $25 to @KellysCloset from @MamaDweeb #FluffyXmas #clothdiapers http://bit.ly/uBYJpb

AppleCheeks sponsored the bundle giveaway, I am sponsoring the gift certificate myself. Open to USA & Canada. Giveaway ends December 5th at 11:59pm CST. Winner will be drawn randomly via plugin. Winner has 24 hrs to respond to my email or I draw another winner. 

Linky of other Merry Fluffy Christmas Giveaways

All week these fabulous bloggers have been joining forces to celebrate the grand re-opening of Diaper Daisy! You can visit them for information and even better – Diaper Daisy sponsored giveaways!

Monday – Pickles and Paisleys
Tuesday- One Smiley Monkey and Me as a Mommy
Wednesday- Mama B
Thursday- Baby Dickey
Friday- Mama Dweeb
Saturday- Little BGCG and Dibs!
Sunday- Goodbye Disposable, Hello Cloth

Diaper Daisey now has more products for you to choose from. Plus, they have all the cloth diapering accessories you could possibly need. They have wet bags, pail liners, snappis, and they even sell diaper sprayers. I totally need a diaper sprayer.

I am hosting a giveaway for $25 to Diaper Daisy. This is a fabulous prize – you can purchase your dream diaper or even a handful of useful accessories. So good luck!

I am so excited!! It is almost time for the Printalicious event!  This is a HUGE giveaway event/blog party to celebrate the brand spankin’ new release of prints for AppleCheeks pocket diapers!

Who? AppleCheeks owners and creators Ilana and Amy will be LIVE Streaming on Ustream.tv! They will be chatting cloth, answering questions sent in by YOU, and giving away some huge prizes! (one of which is a Sunshine Kids car seat!! No joke!)

What? UStream is a chat platform in which you can watch Ilana & Amy on live TV while chatting with fans in a chat box! They have embedded this platform onto their Facebook page so you won’t have to go far!

Where? http://ustream.tv/channel/printalicious & http://facebook.com/applecheeksdiapers

When? Mark your calendars for June 8th, 2011 9-10pm EST.

Why? To party it up AppleCheeks style! They want to show their appreciation for their fans with prizes and fun.

How? RSVP on their blog! Your RSVP will enter you to win prizes as well as give them a little info for their records.

I will be one of the lucky bloggers that gets to review their brand new prints! So I will be partying at this event, please RSVP so I will see you there! Plus, I’d love for a MamaDweeb reader to win the Sunshine Kid’s Car Seat

I did it!! I am so freaking excited!!

Do you remember when I was complaining about how disappointed I was that the Rockin’ Green Hard Rock and Funk Rock failed to cure my ammonia? If not, click the link – you can read stories of others who were disappointed as well.  I didn’t have ammonia smell until Lizzie hit closer to 2 years old, then I got rid of it, and it came back when David turned 22 months old. Something about that toddler pee is just super duper laden with ammonia and if you don’t clean your diapers well enough they will stink – especially the overnight diapers.

Am I right?

Well, to cure the ammonia problem I tried Hard Rock and Funk Rock. It didn’t work. I emailed Kim the creator of Rockin Green and followed her directions. Read that post for all I did and it still didn’t work.

So I ordered Eco Sprouts since supposedly it works better than Rockin’ Green. First I stripped with Dawn detergent, then rinsed a bunch of times and then I soaked all night in Eco Sprouts and then washed 3 more times in Eco Sprouts.

The result:  Ammonia smell was mostly dead. (a la Princess Bride).  I wasn’t knocked down by the pungent odor in the morning, but a quick sniff revealed a slight smell of ammonia. Their website says to do a full soak all night in ES detergent when you first get it. I might have ruined that process by stripping with Dawn before soaking, but I can’t imagine how that would do it. And since my water is so hard I used 1 more tablespoon than the package says I should.

Rockin’ Green – FAIL
EcoSprouts – FAIL

Then I bought Crunchy Clean, the hard water version. I also purchased a few additives, since my water is hard.

Wait – what is hard water? How can I tell if I have hard water? And why does hard water affect cloth diaper cleaning?

Hardwater.org.uk defines hard water as:

Water described as “hard” is high in dissolved minerals, specifically calcium and magnesium. Hard water is not a health risk, but a nuisance because of mineral buildup on fixtures and poor soap and/or detergent performance.

In a nutshell, hard water has so many minerals in it, the soap in the laundry is working hard to fight the minerals that it doesn’t even clean the pee/poop effectively. You can tell if you have hard water by looking at your faucets and soap sudsing capabilities. If your faucets have white crusty residue, and/or if it takes quite a bit of soap to make suds then you have hard water.

So that was my problem – my hard water was not cleaning my toddler boy’s pee very well.

My solution!

I washed David’s night time diapers in this exact way and he woke up without even a hint of ammonia!

One regular cycle with 1/4 cup Borax only

One heavy cycle with extra rinse with a sprinkle of Borax, 3-4 drops Tea Tree Oil, and 3 large Tablespoons of Crunchy Clean hard rock version.

********************

That’s it! I had to add Borax and Tea Tree Oil with the Crunchy Clean, that is all!

I am so happy to have this problem resolved and I hope my solution helps you too!

Kinda makes me sad to write this. Everyone loves Rockin’ Green. Heck, I even wrote a glowing review of the Rockin’ Green Cloth Diaper Detergent. But if you read that review I mention, ever so slightly, that I had ammonia with it.

Then I stripped with Dawn and switched to Tide.  I have very hard water and Tide has helped get my diapers clean in the past. I always used about 1/4 scoop for each load and never noticed build up. After switching to Tide I had no ammonia issues for an entire year!

Almost one year to the day, I am discovering ammonia again! I stripped with Dawn (but not the original blue formula) and sprayed Bac-Out on every single diaper before putting it into the pail. Ammonia was still there but not as noticeable, and only in the night time diapers.

Then I really wanted to give Rockin’ Green another chance! Instead of asking to review her Hard Rock and Funk Rock, I purchased them.

I followed the package’s directions and stripped with both formulas. Sniff, sniff. Still there!

I emailed the creator of Rockin’ Green, Kim, my dismay and this is what she wrote back:

When it comes to Tide, it can really take a while to pull it all out honestly. Generally the first few washes does nothing but pull out the old tide that is in your diapers, which can cause the stink to be worse in the beginning. In our lab tests, it has taken up to 20 washes to even start to see a breakdown of the coating that is created with Tide. So it’s pretty heavy duty stuff that bonds with the fabric.

My suggestion would be to soak overnight again with 5-6 tbs, and then follow up with several washes with nothing. Then when you do the funk rock soak, do the 4 tbs as prescribed on the package and do it for about 90 minutes. (if you are doing a lot of diapers that could help) and then do a wash with nothing, then a regular wash with 2 tbs of hard rock and an extra rinse.

Sigh. I was in for a long time of stripping and washing. But I wanted her products to work, so I followed them exactly. Well, almost exactly. Instead of an overnight soak I soaked them for 6 hours during the day (I forgot before going to sleep that night).

Tons of water and soap later, my diapers and washing machine smelled fresh! That is, until David wore his diaper for longer than 1 hr. Then the ammonia was terrible!

I had this problem with another all natural cleaner – Charlie’s Soap.  But they even admit that their detergent doesn’t work with hard water! Stinkin’ hard water!

I just felt like I had to share my frustration – I know that Rockin’ Green and all those products work for lots of people, but just not for me.  Natural soaps mixed with the minerals in my hard water isn’t getting my diapers clean. I have tried Calgon, and that seems to help but it is pricey and it works as well as just Tide.

I am going to try one more thing before resorting to my regular Tide usage – Eco Sprout.  Top To Bottom Baby Boutique is located in Omaha, NE.  They said this SAHD (stay at home dad) created detergent is all natural and works in hard water to effectively clean your diapers and eliminate and prevent ammonia. I even read a review on Queen of the Snot Princess. So, I pre ordered a small bag for $11 and will try it for myself.

I will keep you posted! I want to find an all natural detergent that works, otherwise it is Tide all the way and stripping every so often!

Closed! Out of 470 Comments, the winner is Tamara Sz!

I am participating in the Diapers Etc Blog Party – the hostess is the fabulous Calley from Eco Chic. Her blog is a hub of all things baby and eco-friendly.  I love reading her posts on breastfeeding, cloth diapering, and green cleaning to name a few! And now she is starting to host fun & eco-friendly blog and twitter parties!   This blog party has 20 participating bloggers, and they will all link up at various times this week, and every single one is hosting their own $25 Diapers Etc gift certificate giveaway!  WooHoo!

You see, Diapers Etc just recently went under a site redesign and now they are back, bigger and better!

Every blogger on the tour will have a different post about cloth diapers, mine happens to be about why I love them.

Easy for me!

Since this is the week of love, I thought I’d answer “why does Annie love cloth diapers?”

Because I want to make baby poop fun!

The first time I saw a Goodmama Diaper, it was love at first sight.  But I refused to buy it. Yet. I needed to convince Josh that it was ok to spend $35 on a diaper. That was going to be pooped in. So I did the math and told him we could switch to cloth to save money. I bought prefolds and covers at first. Then he couldn’t use them.  So I bought one Goodmama and he liked it!  Yes!! It fit Lizzie so well (she was a year old) and looked so beautiful on her. That was the end of that! I added cute fabric to my prefolds and bought diapers in bright covers and cheery prints.

Seriously my friends – if I am going to be changing diapers all day long, I might as well have some lovely diapers to fold and be happy as I do it. Disposables are not cute – no matter what jeans print they try to put on them. I really do love folding my cloth diapers! It is one of the few chores I look forward to doing every day.  And it is so fun to put these cute diapers on Lucy and David. Let’s face it – cute clothes are not always comfortable or practical, but cute diapers? Now there is something I can feel good about spending my money on.

No, the baby poop itself will never be fun. But putting the diapers on before the poop – that is the fun part! And Lizzie loves helping me change her diapers and fold the diapers.  I love my cloth diapers, I do!

Buy It!

Purchase all your cloth diapering needs from the new and improved Diapers Etc!

Win It!

One lucky Mama Dweeb reader will win $25 to spend at Diapers Etc!

Required Entry:

Go to Diapers Etc and tell me what you will buy if you win.

Extra Entries: (1 each unless specified, leave a separate comment for each thing you do)

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  You may use this as your tweet or click the Tweet Button beneath the post

#Win a $25 Gift Card to @DiapersEtc on @MamaDweeb! Ends 02/28. http://bit.ly/g0u2xf #giveaway #clothdiapers

Giveaway ends 02/28 at 11:59pm CST. Winner will be picked randomly via “And the Winner Is” and have 24 hours to respond via email before it goes into a live giveaway drawing. Giveaway open to USA addresses only.

All opinions are mine, I received nothing in connection with this post, giveaway item is sponsored by Macy’s PR, and I am solely responsible for this promotion

I will be completely honest – I did not cloth diaper 100% of the time straight from the hospital. I let the nurses put sposies on Lucy at the hospital, and at night I used sposies. I blame the c-section, drugs and total lack on my part of training friends and family on how to care for the cloth diapers before Lucy was born.

But ever since Lucy came home at 3 days old I have used cloth during the day. Today she is 1 week old and I wanted to share a few photos and my thoughts of my favorite diapers so far.

As you see these pictures, Lucy is less than a week old, 8 lbs and 21 inches long.

When David was born I bought 1 dozen Orange Edge newborn prefolds from Green Mountain Diapers. Turns out I actually wish I had bought more! Prefolds are the diapers most people are intimidated by because they have to learn how to fold them. As frequently as I change her diapers, they are the most economical idea, and I end up just folding the prefold in thirds and laying it in the cover.

For those of you wondering how a GMD orange edge prefold fits a larger newborn, here is your photo. I did the jelly roll fold. Basically, I put the prefold down, rolled the edges in towards her legs, folded the front under her belly button and fastened with a snappi.

The jelly roll fold is my favorite for preventing blowouts and reusing covers. Tri-folding and laying in a cover is great but as she gets older the big, runny poos will get all over the cover.

Even though she doesn’t look it, she loves these diapers.

These are the size 1 Applecheeks pocket diapers. I love that you don’t have unstuff them before you wash them – they come unstuffed in the agitation of the wash cycle. I also love the all natural fibers of the bamboo inserts.

As you can tell they are a smidge big on her still, but she will grow into them super quick. I am glad that they are a bit big because she can wear the size 1 diapers longer. I prefer to use them as an all in two diaper because I can use the insert like a prefold. But if a family member is going to change her I make it a pocket diaper so it is much easier for them.

I also use the Nifty Nappy fitteds and pocket diapers.  Vilate said her fitteds are truly one size and are made to fit from birth so I was so excited to put her words to the test.

Without the added insert (which Lucy does not need yet) they are super trim! And with Vilate’s folding technique I am able to get a very snug fit. I really did want to try her newborn diapers since they don’t require a special fold and would have been easier for family to put on Lucy. But since I am the only one that really changes diapers around here I went with the one size.

The pocket diapers fold the same way and with her all natural bamboo inserts they are a very trim option. Plus you can use them like all in two diapers – just put the insert on the outside of the pocket and reuse the cover.

Here is Lucy modeling the Rumparooz One size pocket diapers.  They also sell Lil’ Joeys for newborns, but I read on their site that their one-size diapers are made to fit directly from birth. I just had to put it to the test!

The photos are proof – they really do fit right away. Lucy has those skinny little legs and there are no gaps. I was also pleasantly surprised by the low rise – they fit under her umbilical chord.

The only thing I don’t like about these is that they are a pocket diaper, so I have to stuff them and unstuff them. But they are super easy for my family to use so they are great to have on hand.

And check out the vertical photo to the right – they are very trim. Lucy does not need a lot of bulk right now since she poops more than she pees and I end up changing her so frequently.

Another one size pocket diaper that claims to fit directly from birth is Softbums. As you can see the legs cinch up super small and it fits her very well in the rise.

But I am not impressed with the bulk. Inside this diaper is the dry-touch mini pod. It has 3 layers of mircofiber terry and 1 layer of fleece. They sell a much trimmer Organic Bamboo Mini Pod, which is just 3 layers of bamboo fleece. I really want those because this is just really bulky on her and she doesn’t need all that absorption.

Besides the bulk I am impressed with how easy they are to use and can be used as all in twos, which are my favorite types of diapers.

All in all, my favorite diaper to use during the brief time she is this tiny and filling her diapers so often are the prefolds. I just trofld them and lay them in a cover and then there is no stuffing and they are super trim. Then for family members to use I hand them an AppleCheeks pocket diaper or the Rumparooz. The AppleCheeks will last her a while and the Rumparooz still fit David at 25 lbs and 20 months old.

What are you experiences with newborn cloth diapering? Or do you have a question about it – I want to chat about teeny fluff!

Cloth Diaper Bloggers and Kim from Dirty Diaper Laundry is hosting her monthly blog carnival and this time the theme is Daddies and diapers. I already participated in Beth from Happily Domestic’s Fluff Talk Thursdays with this same topic, so I am going to recycle my post again.

Josh wrote this and I totally appreciate him for it.

So without further ado, my amazing husband’s take on cloth diapers:

My wife likes cloth diapering, therefore I like cloth diapering, the same goes for chocolate. Now you would think that I like ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ by this pattern of thinking, you would be wrong. I like Die Hard and Braveheart. However, I do like cloth diapering partly because my wife likes cloth diapering and partly because it is the best way to diaper.

Not only is cloth diapering wonderfully environmentally friendly, it is easy to do (as long as the wife does the prefolds and I get to use the fitteds – j/k) and it is cost effective. Although I did like to teasingly give my wife a hard time about being addicted to purchasing $30 diapers, I did understand that it will be used over and over and over. That just makes good sense. In fact, if a regular disposable costs $0.25, then a $30 diaper only has to be used 120 times before it has paid for itself and as a bonus has not done anything to hurt the environment. There is certainly a double win there. Already, with just two of the dozen or so children we plan on having most of the $30 diapers have made their money back, just think of having them on 3 or even 10 more children. That’s almost like winning the lottery every day. Sometimes there really is even a prize.

There is also a fantastic community around cloth diapers. I know that if there ever comes a time that information is needed on some diaper fact, there are people ready and willing to answer whatever question might arise. If a person needs to buy or sell a diaper(s), there are fantastic people out there that are looking to trade. To date there has not been a single bad experience with exchanging diapers for diapers or diapers for money. Everyone in this community is respectful and looks out for one another which makes cloth diapering truly fantastic on those merits alone.

Blowouts. I have yet to have to change my kids clothes because the cloth diaper failed to hold it all in. I loathed having to change my kids’ outfit after they had been wearing a disposable and had an up the back disaster. Bless you cloth diapers, bless you.

If you would like to join in or just read some other blogs in this topic, here is the linky to hop around or sign up!

Chari is a wonderful blogging friend of mine – I did an entire post raving about her blog. Little did I know that she was cooking up a huge cloth diaper give away event!

I am a huge fan of one size cloth diapers. They fit David super well right now – he is 8.5 months old and 23 pounds. Yes he is chunky and I need diapers that fit well

I am definitely going to be checking out this event every single day because I could definitely use some new diapers! Plus, she is going to be highlighting some companies I have never heard of before and I am always looking to expand my stash!