Cloth Diapers

A while back I did a post happy to be back in the business of cloth diapering again. Someone asked me to do a follow-up post about cloth diapers, so here it is. :) Sorry it took so long.

I need to start out by saying that today's cloth diapers are nothing like your momma's cloth diapers. (Well, actually you can still get cloth diapers that ARE exactly like the ones your momma used....but why would you want to do that?)

Cloth diapers these days run the gamut from super-simple to "I need a degree in rocket science to figure this thing out." Me, I like to stay with the simple stuff.

I'm not going to go into every type of cloth diaper, but I will tell what I've used and what's worked for us.

There are pocket diapers like these.

They come with an insert, and you can buy separate inserts if you like different kinds. (Like these.)
We've got a number of these types of diapers. They have a waterproof outer layer and an inner layer that helps the baby feel dry. You put the inserts into the the diaper and that's what holds all the pee. Once it's stuffed, it goes on just like a disposable diaper. These diapers come in some really cute prints and colors. I really liked them at first, but then came to the realization (after a lot of trial and error trying to figure it out) that Lady is allergic to the fleece liner (the "stay-dry" part). So I stopped using them on her. I've just started trying them out on June and it looks as though she may have the same problem. My kids are known to have extra-sensitive skin, though. I know a lot of babies that don't have an issue at all with these diapers. You can get these in a one-size-fits-all or you can get them in the different sizes.

Another kind is the "dad-friendly" cloth diaper. The All-in-One diaper (AIO). This is similar to the pocket diaper except the absorbent layer (the insert) has already been sewn in between the outer and inner layers. This kind is the most disposable-like diaper there is. They can be a bit trickier to get clean since you can't separate the layers. So some people have a problem with them getting stinky. I've never had a problem with ours, but I don't use them that much. Mostly just for church or if I know somebody else will be changing my child. They now make them with a pocket also so that you can add absorbency if needed.
Here's an example of an AIO:

The kind we use the most is just prefolds with a cover. Prefolds are the "workhorses" of cloth diapers. Here is an example of prefolds:
There are a few different ways to use these. You can pin them on like our parents used to do. You can "snappi" them on using a snappi:
Like this:
These need a cover over them to make them waterproof. And since I don't want to bother with pins or snappis, I just fold them in thirds and lay them in the cover and put the cover on like a disposable diaper. SOOO easy!

I do leave the back part of the diaper open (instead of folding it) on June to better catch her breastmilk poops. And I haven't had to deal with a blow-out yet using cloth diapers and I've got a bunch of stained onesies to prove I dealt with them daily when using disposable diapers.

My favorite covers are Bummis Super Whisper Wraps. By the way, prefolds and covers are also the least expensive way to go when cloth diapering. :)

I would highly recommend getting a diaper sprayer and hooking it up to your toilet. It's certainly not necessary, but I found it makes my job a LOT easier. You can get one like this, or you can just buy a kitchen faucet sprayer attachment at Home Depot and hook it up to your toilet line. (That's what we did.)

For a diaper pail, I bought a garbage can with a pop-up lid from Target similar to this. And I bought a couple of diaper pail liners like this to rotate. And I bought a couple of wetbags for when we're out and about.

The up-front cost of cloth diapering may seem like a lot, but you'll definitely save money in the long-run.

The reasons I cloth diaper are:

1) My baby's bum is cute now! :)
2) My baby isn't being exposed to yucky chemicals 24/7 anymore. (Did you know that the same chemicals that are in tampons and cause Toxic Shock Syndrome are also in disposable diapers?)
3) I'm not sending hundreds and hundreds of nasty plastic diapers to the dump every year anymore.
4) I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on disposable diapers anymore.
5)It's fun. I know that sounds crazy, but I really do enjoy cloth diapering.

There are some things to know before starting to cloth diaper. You have to change cloth diapers more often than disposable since they're not filled w/chemicals. Once they're wet, they're wet. I don't find it to be that much more frequent, maybe a couple of extra diaper changes a day. No biggie.
You'll obviously be doing a bit more laundry. Cloth diapers add about 3 loads of laundry a week for me. I wash every other day. After the kids go to bed, I throw the bag of dirty diapers in the washer and run it through a rinse cycle. Then I wash on hot and add an extra rinse. Then I pull them out before bed and hang them to dry. You can definitely machine dry them, but I choose not to so that they last even longer. You can't use certain detergents with them (whiteners and brighteners make them less absorbent). And you can't use fabric softener with them. It also makes them lose absorbency. About once every 3-4 months I put a little bit of bleach in when I wash them, just for good measure.

All pictures thanks to bumgenius and www.greenmountaindiapers.com

Should your child be in a booster?

I'm going to start out easy.....there's nothing too controversial about carseats, right?

Oh, how I wish that were true......


(Besides, I've been meaning to do this post for a while now.)

One of my future posts will be about vaccinations. And I often like comparing carseats to vaccinations. It never ceases to amaze me that people think I'm crazy for not vaccinating my child against Hepatitis at birth and then they turn around and put their "safe" (aka: vaccinated) kid into a car without being properly restrained. I love how people think of their cars as an extension of their living room that magically takes them places without the chance of any harm. Or they think putting their kid in just any carseat will do....after all, carseats are magic bubbles that keep kids safe no matter what, right?

The truth is, 4 out of 5 carseats are installed or used incorrectly. Luckily, they do still manage to save lives, even improperly used. AND YET-- CAR ACCIDENTS ARE STILL THE #1 KILLER OF CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 14! What this means is that your child is more likely to die in a car accident than any other cause of death!
And still, some people are more worried about their child getting Hepatitis. Amazing.

I discussed the issue of extended rear-facing in a previous post. If anybody has any questions, feel free to ask. I do want to mention, though, that carseat companies are starting to get the clue. Sunshine Kids just came out with a new version of their carseat (the Radian XTSL) that can rear-face a child to 45 lbs (or until they outgrow it by height....whichever comes first)! I LOVE IT! (I know it's expensive, but it should go down in price over the next few months. Also, you can find coupons online.)

In this post we'll talk about extended harnessing and proper booster-use, since they kind of go hand-in-hand. It used to be that you could only find harnessed carseats that went up to 40 lbs. And then the next step was a booster. I found out about this when AJ hit 40 lbs. She was just under 4 years old and I couldn't stand the thought of putting her in a booster yet. She just didn't seem big enough to me. So that's when I started to do some researching and found 2 companies that made carseats with higher weight limits. Since then, most other carseat companies have gotten on-board with extended harnessing and started making seats with higher weight limits. It's great!

I want to mention really quickly about how harnessed carseats are outgrown. When a child is forward-facing, the carseat is outgrown when:
a) the child reaches the maximum weight limit
b)the child's shoulders are above the top harness slot (except on one particular carseat which allows the shoulders to go 1 inch above the top harness slot before being outgrown (the Radian))
c) the tops of the child's ears are level with the top of the seat

There are still a lot of carseats available right now that will be outgrown too early. With 40 lb. weight limit seats, most of the time the child outgrows it by weight first. With over 40 lb weigh limit seats, the child usually outgrows it by height before hitting the weight limit and they last much longer than 40-lb seats. There are a few seats that go up to 50 lbs. These may be a good option for you if your children are quite skinny. There are a number of others that go up to 65 lbs. These are great for average-size children. And there are a few that go up to 80 lbs. These are great for huskier children.

After learning about extended harnessing, I was able to keep AJ harnessed until she was almost 8. Unfortunately I had to also move Roo to a booster shortly after that, so he only made it to 6 1/2 in a harness.

There are a number of reasons why extended harnessing is safer. Most 4-5 year olds can't sit correctly in a booster seat for an entire car ride. In order for the seatbelt to do its job, the child needs to be sitting straight with their back against the booster the whole time. But for a lot of kids it's just too tempting to move out of place and fidget and squirm.

Also, it can be downright dangerous to put a small child in a booster. The booster isn't designed for a small child (even if the minimum weight limit on the booster says it is). What happens in an accident is the lap belt is pulled against their bellies and they can have terrible internal damage from that. They can "submarine" under the lapbelt and get terribly hurt that way. Here's a video about a little girl whose parents didn't know any better, but wish they would have.

So if you have a child who's outgrowing their 40-lb weight limit seat, consider getting another harnessed seat with a higher weight limit. There are some really good choices out there now, and there are a few that can be used as a booster once the child has outgrown the harness. (Note: I'm NOT talking about these or these carseats. Those are HORRIBLE in terms of booster-fit on children and usually have a 40 lb weight limit anyway. I'm talking about this one and this one.)

Before you put your child in a booster, read this and watch the videos linked in the thread.

When you decide your child is ready for a booster, please try to make sure the belts fit properly. Watch this for some guidelines.

The new guidelines for booster seats are that children need to be in a booster seat until age 12 or until they reach 4 ft 9 inches in height. But there's a better, more accurate way to know if your child is ready to be in a regular seatbelt. It's the 5-step test. (The only thing I disagree with in that link is that 4 year olds should be in boosters. It's rare that a 4 year old is big enough AND mature enough to be in a booster.) Keep in mind that your child may fit well in one car, but not in another. You may need to continue using a booster in one car and not another, depending on the fit of the seatbelt.

AJ will remain in a high-back booster until she outgrows them and then will be in a no-back booster until she's able to pass the 5-step test (as will the rest of my children). I prefer high-back boosters over no-back boosters because they:
1) provide more support for a wiggly child who might slip out of the belt in a no-back booster.
2) provide more support for sleeping children on long trips
3) provide much better side impact protection (Watch this. Now imagine that crash in a no-back booster.)
4) provide whiplash protection in vehicles with no headrests or built-in (low) headrests.

And one more video to show why booster seats are so important (even for "big" kids).

And one more to show why lap-only belts are dangerous. (Luckily most vehicles being made today have lap/shoulder belts in all positions. But if you have a lap-only belt in your car, consider installing a carseat there so that children/adults don't have to use it. (A harnessed carseat installed w/a lap-only belt is safe as long as it is a rear-facing carseat or if it is a forward-facing carseat used with a tether.))

And as always, I recommend getting your carseat installations checked by a Child Passenger Safety Technician (CPST) in your area. I can help you find one, or you can find one on this website.

Different

I know I haven't posted in a while. Life has gotten fairly busy and when it gets busy, the "extra" stuff gets dropped first. And unfortunately, this blog falls under that category. But just because I haven't updated, it doesn't mean I haven't thought about what new posts I want to write. I have a ton of them swirling around in my brain.

For the next little while, though, I've decided to write about all the things that make us (Brent and me) "different" and why we have chosen these things in our life. Some of the topics are fairly controversial and so I would suggest that if you are one to get riled up easily or feel upset when someone has an opposing view on things, you may want to skip over those posts.


A few months ago, in a conversation with my brother about homeschooling and being vegetarian, he suggested that --from the outside-- it looked as though Brent and I just automatically disregard anything mainstream and choose the alternative paths. (I think the term "hippie" was used more than once.) I appreciated that he felt comfortable enough to tell us this and I have pondered about it often since then. After explaining to him our thought processes, and time spent researching, studying, and often praying, why we'd come to the decisions we have, he was better able to understand us and respect our decisions. He still disagrees with us on a lot of the topics, but he's at least able to understand our point of view.

This is my goal with the next few posts. A lot of people in our lives tend to disregard what we have to say because, well, we're "Brent and Ann." (aka: "weird" or "hippies") We see the eye-rolling and ears-shutting-off whenever one of these topics is brought up. And we're fine with that. We know that we sometimes approach these conversations in the wrong way. When Brent and I feel strongly about something, you definitely know it when we talk about it. We can get "intense." It's one of our weaknesses. (And unfortunately it's a weakness we both share.) So in bringing these things up on a blog, the hope is that it takes the "personal" aspect out of things, and just *maybe* there's someone out there who can learn something from what we've learned. And if not, then at the very least, maybe there will be some who have a better understanding of us, and hopefully a little more respect for our decisions, knowing we haven't just made them willy-nilly.

A few years ago, I was about 1 year shy of getting my bachelor degree when we up and moved to Michigan. I haven't been able to go back to school since. I still plan on finishing at some point, but in the meantime, I've focused my education efforts on all things "mother." I've always loved to learn. And I didn't want to stop learning when I stopped going to school. So about a year after we moved to Michigan, I made the decision to start researching and learning about different topics that fall under my jurisdiction of "decisions to be made as a mother."

It really all came about after my disenchantment with the medical community as a whole after Roo's birth and the subsequent agonizing months dealing with his reflux (and no doctors believing me that there was even a problem). I came to the realization that my children were sent to ME for a reason. *I* am their mother. And *I* know my children better than anyone else, including doctors and other professionals. I began to take my role as a mother a lot more seriously than before. I began to question things that before, were just a given "because the doctor (or insert any other professional here) said it was best." I began to see that what may be best for some is NOT best for all. And I began to question a lot of the decisions I had previously made and was going to make in the future.

So in the posts to follow I will share what I (and subsequently, Brent) have learned from my (our) studies and experiences. And hopefully I can do it in a way so that we won't lose too many friends along the way. :)

The Basement is DONE!!!

Besides a few small projects like caulking and washing windows, our basement is complete! I'm so happy, I can't even tell you. For the first time since we moved I feel ORGANIZED! And coming from the gene pool that I came from, that's a very important way to feel.

We're now done with 2am bedtimes, midnight runs to Wal-Mart for more primer and ceiling paint, and Saturdays full of trips to Home Depot. I am ecstatic!

Now maybe I can get back to blogging about other things. The basement has taken over our lives for the last month and I can finally concentrate on something else (including my children). :)

Here are some pics of the final product.

Kids' new playroom (a huge hit w/the littles)

Schoolroom (huge hit w/the teacher) ;)
And the bathroom (huge hit w/anyone who feels the urge)

There's also an extra bedroom and an exercise/storage room, but they're pretty much empty at the moment, so I didn't get pics of them.

Of course nothing is really decorated yet, but it's all functional and that's good enough for me right now.

Come on by for a visit if you're in the neighborhood!

Busy, busy, busy

(Can anybody name what movie the title's from?)

That's what we've been around here lately. So much so that my dear blog has been neglected. What have we been up to, you ask? Just small stuff like finishing a basement and starting school. You know, nothing huge.

We started school on Aug 24 and I think this is going to be my favorite year so far. I really do love teaching the kids and watching them learn and grow. Tink is more involved now and is having a great time with it. They're all learning Spanish this year. Isn't that fun? Roo keeps calling his sisters "nina." (How do you put that little symbol on top of the second "n" to make it Spanish?)

First Day of School 2009

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit that night and bring us our most-comfortable-and-most-economical-flooring-ever. (They get it at Sam's Club.) You can see it in the pics of the exercise room below.

Some before and after pics of our basement.....more "after" pics to come as soon as there's more "after" to show. ;)

Playroom before:
Sorry, no pics of the playroom after....hopefully later this week. It's got paint up except for 3 walls which we're going to paint some fun colors. And the carpet's being installed next week.

Exercise room before (Brent putting down the cheapest-most-comfortable-flooring-ever):
This was the flooring we used in the playroom at our last house, except we used the colorful sides. :)

Exercise room after:

School room before (floors were down, but no paint yet):
School room after:
Bathroom after (sorry, no before):
Brent's parents and brother helped us get the first coat of paint up last night. And we're having another "painting party" on Saturday to get the second coat up. Brent and I will paint the accent walls in the playroom sometime this week and then carpet's coming next Tuesday! I'm getting SOOOO excited! I think I'm more excited for the school room than anything else. I'll have space for everything! And the kids will get to do crafts again (most of the craft stuff has stayed "packed" since the move. Too much mess to deal w/in the kitchen).

So hopefully after next Tuesday there won't be anymore 2am bedtimes for Brent and me after working long hours in the basement after the kids go to bed. Although I do love working side-by-side on projects with Brent, I prefer them to end by midnight at the latest.

I have a ton more posts in my head, so hopefully I can squeeze some more time in for them sometime this week.

Song in my head

Thank you to Brent for showing me this song. Love it!

This is why I'm "crazy" about carseats and seatbelts

As many of you know, I'm a member on a carseat forum. Recently there was a car accident involving a woman who is a CPST (Child Passenger Safety Technician...one of the experts who checks carseat installation). So word spread quickly among the different carseat boards. The woman's name is Casey and she posted a quick version of her story from the hospital. She's since been released and has written up everything that she remembers about the crash. It's every parent's worst nightmare. But because her children were properly restrained, they all walked away from the accident with only minor bruises. Casey, her husband, and her brother all had a few injuries, but they will also "walk away" from the accident. The people in the other car weren't so lucky. There were 6 people in a vehicle not equipped to safely hold 6 people. Only 2 of them were wearing seatbelts (2 of the survivors). 3 of the occupants died-- 2 of them were kids (15 and 11). All 3 that died were brothers. (The video of the newscast I posted below doesn't have all the correct info....they said all but 1 person died. There were 3 survivors. The story of the mother of the 3 boys is here.)

Here is her quick version of the story:
"We took the family camping this weekend. We were towing the boat. Nobody was in front of us. About 15 minutes after we left the campground, we were coming up on some cars heading the opposite direction. When we almost passed the first vehicle, a 4 door Jeep Wrangler swerved into our lane and hit us head on. We were going about 50 mph, not sure how fast they were going.

The other vehicle went into a ditch. There were 6 people in the other vehicle. I think 3 of them died (although the news story I posted says all but 1 died...). Only one person in that vehicle was wearing a seat belt.

We stopped right at the edge of the ditch. We were all wearing our seat belts, and the girls were all properly restrained.

Dan broke his leg and had surgery to put a titanium rod in it. He also had a big gash on his other leg. He's ok, he's in my room with me. My brother is in another hospital, he broke his wrist and had surgery. I am OK... I was in immense pain, they did scans on me and there is a little bit of fluid (not blood) in my abdomen. I had a huge gash on my right hip from the seat belt buckle, it required about 15 stitches. I have some very serious seat belt burn. Its very painful. Im weak, and my neck/shoulders/back are still sore. I will most likely be discharged tomorrow, we'll just have to see how I'm doing.

The girls? Walked away from the crash, which IMO was pretty much a miracle. They were all properly restrained (Kelsey in the 3rd row in a high back turbo booster. Sarah in the 2nd row in a ff Marathon. Megan next to Sarah in a rf Marathon. I was sitting in the 2nd row. Kelsey has a little bit of belt burn on her shoulder, but she's not complaining. Sarah has it on her shoulders from her harness, she is not complaining. Megan doesn't have a single mark on her. We are all extremely lucky to be alive right now.

Here is a link to the video. We are the first story. We aren't sure what is going to happen now though."

And here is the link to her longer write-up of before, during, and after the accident. It's pretty incredible. As a warning to some, she goes into detail about the experience and what she saw, so there are some pretty sad parts.

People sometimes tease me because I'm so protective when it comes to car safety. But the reality is that car accidents are the #1 killer of children. (And they rank pretty high in adult fatalities too.) If there are measures I can take to prevent any of my children from dying in a car accident, I'm going to go above and beyond the minimum requirements so that my kids are as safe as possible. I was going to do another post on carseat safety soon -- specifically related to boosters. This just gave me more motivation. Look for that in a few days.

I'm glad that Casey was well-informed about carseat safety and because of that, her children's lives were saved. I wish more parents cared as much as Casey did.