I'm a mother of twins, RDA accredited Cloth Diaper Circle Leader, and an RN discussing parenting tips, green living, and products I love!
In keeping up with my job as an Incredimom, I have a review for you! I received a free shipment of cloth wipes from incredibum to review a while ago and I’m loving them! These wipes will last long past our diapering lifetime. They are so plush and thick we will definitely be using them as washcloths for years to come. The incredibum wipes are the size of your normal wash cloth which is handy when cleaning up a poopy bottom. I can wipe once, fold, wipe again, fold and wipe another time. Much nicer than the cloth wipes I had made myself that only had one to two swipes per wipe. I also love the fact that they are thick enough that I don’t worry about anything soaking through to my 
hand from the side that is messy. If I do a first cleanup swipe with toilet paper to remove any large areas of stuck on poo, I’m able to completely clean DS’ bottom of poo with one incredibum wipe. I don’t even have to spray the wipes with my sprayer. They get perfectly clean in the wash! Remember, if you ever have staining, just hang or lay your wet wipes in the sun for all natural bleaching.
Stats: incredibum wipes are 9×9 and are made of 90% bamboo and 10% polyester. I love bamboo as a diaper material! Not only is it naturaly antibacterial AND very absorbant, but it is an amazing plant which will not deplete our environment of excessive amounts of 
resources for growing. Bamboo is my favorite diapering material because it is so environmentally friendly and has been so good to my babies bottoms! You can buy incredibum wipes at sandbox lane in a 4 pack for $4.95.
Image from www.kissmyface.com
The research that I’ve done on the safety of deodorants and antiperspirants has yielded some varied results. Isn’t this the case for all topics? Is there anything that is guaranteed safe? Drinking water? Uh, nope. Anyways, I know that many people will tell you that using deodorant or antiperspirant is completely safe and you have nothing to worry about. I disagree, along with many others. These are products that many of us use daily. Daily, long term exposure to chemicals, pose a much greater risk to your health than single or infrequent exposures to those same chemicals. (I’m not suggesting that single exposures to some chemicals are not just as bad for your health – only that exposure to chemicals found in many deodorants and antiperspirants long term is worse for you than short term, infrequent exposure to those same chemicals.) This means that, stopping the use of these products is better for you than continuing to use them.
A well detailed (4 part) article discussing the chemicals of concern in deodorants and antiperspirants is on ControlYourImpact.com. Please check it out and read about why we should be concerned about the aluminum, and parabens in many deodorants and antiperspirants and their possible link to diseases like breast cancer and Alzheimers disease.
I have been on the search for a good deodorant for some time. I decided a while ago that I wouldn’t use an antiperspirant. If there was any chance at all that I could avoid the Alzheimers that my grandmother suffered from, I would take it! I also noticed that antiperspirant would sometimes damage clothes. Sometimes it would bleach clothes in the area it contacted them regularly. I noticed this in particular, on my husbands shirts. These shirts were also very difficult to get scent free in the armpit area. Some shirts would stain with that mild scent of antiperspirant scent mixed with a bit of body odor. Isn’t this what we are trying to avoid with antiperspirants? That strange scent that occurs when our body odors mix with the un-natural perfume chemicals really bothers me. I’m sure many of you have thrown away deodorants after finding their scent isn’t a good “match” for your own body scents.
After finding Kiss My Face Liquid Rock, a deodorant free of parabens, aluminum, phthalates, and artificial perfumes, and using it for a few months, I finally convinced my husband to get rid of his widely advertised antiperspirant and give my roll on a try. I had never used a roll on before, but found that giving it a few minutes to dry wasn’t a big deal. I apply it right after showering so it has time to dry while I get ready. It never irritated my freshly shaven pits and I noticed a dramatic difference in the first week of use. Surprisingly, my husband has stuck with this deodorant (even after years of only using antiperspirants), which has made me feel like I have made another leap in keeping my family safer and healthier. A $5.99 investment (same price as my husbands previous brand) that could mean better health but definitely means less laundry work for me!
Last year I heard about this challenge just a bit too late. This year, I’m all in. What is the flats challenge? Kim over at Dirty Diaper Laundry devised this challenge to show all of us cloth diaper users how ANYONE can use cloth diapers no matter what their financial situation, with or without a washing machine and dryer. A little more detail… A flat diaper is a single layer of fabric that is folded to fit your baby. It is not waterproof and requires some kind of cover to keep clothing dry. Imagine a dish drying towel and you have a good idea of what I’m talking about.
The great thing about flats is that they are the most inexpensive kind of diaper you can buy and they are the easiest to wash and keep clean! What’s the challenge? Those participating must hand wash their diapers for the week of the challenge. Here are the rules in detail from Dirty Diaper Laundry blog:
“Materials Allowed
The following diapering items can be used:
Materials Not Allowed
I ordered some official flats just to make sure I had a true grip of what the challenge is all about. I also plan on using some flannel receiving blankets for the majority of the challenge. I’m reserving all my pocket diapers (stuffed with flats) for the times that DS is at preschool. My main concern was, “how am I going to use flats overnight?”. Today was my first day using flats ever. I doubled them up for naptime and, would you believe, both the kids woke up dry? Tonight is my test run for nighttime flat diaper use. I folded one flat in an origami fold and then padded it with a flannel receiving blanket, topped with a fleece liner to keep them feeling dry. I can’t wait to see how the diapers held up tomorrow morning! I found it very funny that BOTH kiddos told me “I like this diaper mommy!” after I snappied them closed. I asked them if they were comfy and they nodded excitedly. They are too funny.
Why on earth am I so excited to hand wash my diapers and take this challenge on? When I think about all the families out there that struggle financially to diaper their children, my heart breaks. How awesome is it that I could buy a 6 pack of flats for $12.95, and Kawaii covers for $6.50 each? And that’s buying name brand flats – which is completely unnecessary for diapering use. Many of the moms taking the challenge are using nothing but receiving blankets or cut up sheets that they already have. You can diaper your child in old t-shirts! You can use ANY absorbant material! Trimmer material is better if you are worried about your child’s clothes fitting over your diaper cover, but anything will do. Knowing that you can get into cloth diapers for under $100 AND being able to share personal experience with hand washing will be an invaluable experience when I speak at workshops and cloth diaper circle meetings.
I can’t wait to share this experience with you readers!!!! If you cloth diaper I ask that you give this challenge a try. Stop by Dirty Diaper Laundry and sign up. I plan on entertaining you with this challenge. I’m even going to attempt to make an upcycled wool cover to give it a shot for night time use. (That should be interesting – considering my untrained sewing skills!)
Will you join me? Kim has pledged to donate $1 to Giving Diapers Giving Hope for everyone that completes this challenge, up to $200! Lets spend her money! 
If you are looking to save money and increase your health through eating better, I suggest you look into a local farming cooperative or Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA). Programs like these offer you a box (size varies) of fruits and vegetables on a regular schedule for you to either pick up or have delivered to your home. We have been using a service called Abundant Harvest Organics for several months now and are loving it. We decided to order a large box (which is about enough to fill 2 grocery bags) every week and split the order with my sister-in-law and her fiance.
I have learned SO much from our co-op. Not only do they send a newsletter with recipes, but they send veggies I would never have thought to buy at the store. This has forced me to learn how to use these veggies and has greatly increased our vegetable intake. At first I worried that I wouldn’t use all of our veggies and that they would go to waste. I have found that this is not something that occurs very often at all. If we get too many of one kind of veggie for us to use right away, I prep the veggie for cooking and then freeze it. Sometimes I’ll shred a bunch of carrot or parsnip and have it ready to add to any casserole or sauce for added nutrition. I have a stir fry mix in the freezer that is ready to go whenever we need a quick meal. I have used all of the large leafy veggies like kale, collard greens, and chard to make “kale chips”. I sliced up potatoes and froze them a while ago and made a wonderful casserole with these potato slices as the bottom layer just the other night. I freeze the spinach we get and use it for smoothies. The possibilities are endless.
Just last night DD & DS declared that snap peas are their favorite food in the world! While I was prepping them, I gave DD a couple to snack on. DS tried one raw and was not pleased. I decided to saute them in coconut oil and garlic. When we sat down to eat them with dinner, DS did not want to try them again. I showed him how you could open them to get the peas out just like edamame, and he was intrigued. When I asked him if he wanted one of my peas (just the inner pea) he said yes and then grinned and said “yummy!”. It was all over after that. He started by shucking the peas of their shells but then quickly decided that eating the entire pea was just as good. The loved the crunch of the peas and sautéing mellowed the flavor of the snap peas a bit. I love that a slight change in presentation of food can turn kids from refusing to digging in elbow deep.
I find myself going to the store with much less frequency since using the cooperative. I also find that getting a box of veggies inspires me to cook. It’s like a mini Christmas! Cooking used to feel like quite a chore (it still does occasionally) but having all these inspiring foods to pick up weekly makes me want to find recipes to use them. It’s fun exploring the world of cooking! Do a quick search to find a Co-op or CSA near you!
I’d like to start this post by saying I’m still exhausted! We had an amazing weekend away with the kids for my brother’s wedding but it was complicated with many factors. First and foremost, the kids were sick with colds. Joy! Second, it rained during 99.9% of the AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL cliff top wedding ceremony. Third, DD’s shoes hurt her feet and gave her a large blister on the back of her heel. Fourth, and lastly, our little ones are still learning to use the potty.
Since this isn’t a wedding blog, I won’t go on and on (like I could) about what a beautiful and meaningful time it was. I do want to talk to you about preparing for the trip and using all cloth diapers and trainers while we were away. The past couple of times we traveled, we used hybrid diapers on the twins and honestly, looking back, I’m not quite sure why this was such a big deal.
Last week was jam packed with our regular schedule and all the trip preparations that added to it. The kids were missing a school day, which wouldn’t be a big deal, except for the fact that this particular school day was their first picture day. I really didn’t want them to miss pictures, so I took them to school for a couple hours before our regularly scheduled Kindermusik class. While they were at school I ran to the grocery store and then ran home to drop groceries off and then ran back to pick them up. Then we were off to class. After class we headed home for lunch and then the kids went to sleep for nap. Don’t ask me why on earth I scheduled my phone interview with the RDA, for THAT day (THAT day being the one where I was constantly breathless from being over scheduled), but I did. So while I waited for my phone call I worked diligently to complete a crafty project for my mother’s of twins club (who happen to be hosting our semi-anual Southern California Mother’s of Twins Club convention THE SAME weekend as my brother’s wedding). I am working towards becoming a certified cloth diaper educator with the RDA and this phone interview is one of the steps in this process. Anyways, her phone call came, we talked about my family’s cloth diaper usage and I realized that while we diapered 100% cloth at home, we had yet to use 100% cloth for travel. My interviewer asked me about this choice and we discussed why this had been the case. I guess, even though I know how natural and easy cloth diapering has become for us, I was still somehow intimidated at the thought of traveling with cloth. How could this be? So, I made the decision to leave the hybrid inserts at home, for donation, cloth diaper cakes, and gifts, and to travel with 100% cloth diapers and trainers. It was only after the interview was over, that I realized why I had fatefully chosen to overbook my schedule with this interview. I NEEDED to have this discussion and try using all cloth on this weekend’s trip.
I realized that because I was so used to our cloth routine, I was actually MORE comfortable than I was with hybrid diapers. I knew what to expect of them. I wasn’t worried that there would be an overnight leak because it had been so long since the kids had slept in the disposable inserts. I brought our large wet bag to hold all the dirty diapers in and kept it in a drawer in the hotel. I brought a couple extra, just in case, but found no unexpected surprises. It was just like being at home minus the diaper sprayer. If I had done this while the kids were still in diapers full time I would have probably packed diaper liners to make poo disposal easy – even without the diaper sprayer. I really don’t know what I was worried about. I could have done this when I went to visit our friends in Colorado. She offered up her washer for my use. If we had stayed another day in a hotel I could have easily found a laundry mat and run the diapers through the wash or asked the hotel if they had a washer available for guest use.
Apparently, no matter what your experience, (and while I have a decent amount of CD knowledge – it is undoubtably not without end), there are always things that will intimidate and surprise you! If you have EVER given cloth diapering even the smallest thought, want to learn about your diapering options, want to spend less on diapering, or want diapering your baby to have a minimal environmental impact, PLEASE reach out to a cloth diapering resource like me! We are here to help, not judge. I want you to be informed and I want to support you through what may seem like an intimidating endeavor. I don’t want you to feel like you are alone in your frustration, confusion, or intimidation. Life is a journey and it helps to have a guide, support, or a friend to listen!
(This is a repost from 11/15/12)
