I love Friday nights…
Bottles can stay in the drying rack…don’t need them til Monday.
No lunches to pack…we’ll eat at home tomorrow.
Don’t have to race to have diapers washed, dried and stuffed before bed…they can wait until morning.
Instead, I’ll get comfy on the couch with the Hubs and enjoy a night off.
So…25 weeks this week. In produce terms, Baby Girl is the size of cauliflower or a rutabaga, whichever you prefer.
I had a midwife appointment last week and everything looked and sounded good. I’m at 5lbs of weight gain at this point and I’m satisfied with that. She suggested a support band to help with my round ligament pains and I ordered one that afternoon. I’ve worn it a couple times and it seems to help. I’ll be doing the ever-so-loved glucose test next time which will now be 4 weeks apart instead of 6. It’s also time to start scheduling any classes I/we’ll be taking to prepare. We have to take a First Time Birth Center class and I’m considering doing another Natural Childbirth Preparedness class. We also made a stop at the Resource Area and grabbed every doula’s business card that was there so we can start the process of choosing one.
I also had a call with a registered nurse to enroll in the Maternity Support Program through my employer. The first call is basically a run-down of questions so she can get an idea of my health before pregnancy and now and if there are any red-flags that they should be aware of. I came away from that call with a few takeaways…schedule a dentist appointment (so important for preggos – hoping to write about that soon), find a source of DHA to supplement my prenatal and look for an infant/child CPR class. I also found out I need to call my benefits department to get info on the breast pump benefit and to do it soon because they are back-logged due to high demand.
As far as baby preparation, we’re making slow steady progess. After I thought we’d finished sorting, washing and putting away all Brooke’s old clothes, we found another tub of clothes as well as a big bunch of blankets. So we got all of that taken care of and I’m pretty sure that now we’ve got everything put washed and put away.
Keith and I toured a daycare center near my office. Since the place Brooke attends only accepts kiddos 12 months and up, we need to find another spot for Baby Girl. So we took a morning to drop in to one of the places we’d considered for Brooke when we first moved to Knoxville. I was very impressed…close enough that I can go for a mid-day nursing session if we want/need, they accept cloth diapers, very accomodating to family schedules/requests for the babies. They even take the babies outside for fresh air!! So we put our names on the waiting list and hopefully things will work in our favor and Baby Girl will be there this fall.
This past weekend, Brooke and I had a girls’ weekend while Keith was away at the SEC Women’s Basketball Championships and got some more shopping crossed off the list. First we hit up a cloth diaper consignment sale and got some good deals!!
Then, armed with a 20% off coupon (!), we headed to Babies R Us to order the crib that coordinates with our crib. Although the crib is in our room, this will actually live in the playroom and act as dresser/changing table combo. I think that finishes up the “major” purchases and we’ll just need to fill in things here and there.
So we’re just chugging along…if you look at my ticker on the sidebar, you can see I’m almost to single-digit days until my due date! Whoa!! Don’t forget you can still put in guesses for Baby Girl’s birth stats at ExpectNet. Just click on the button under the ticker on my sidebar to link to the game.
Until next time!!
A couple weeks ago was “Real Diaper Week” which ended with “The Great Cloth Diaper Change” in various locations around the world. I was aware of “The Great Cloth Diaper Change” but didn’t realize there was a whole week dedicated to the promotion of using reusable diapers. Writing about it was a fleeting thought but I got distracted with something else until it was “too late”
Ever since then its been in the back of my mind that whether it was “Real Diaper Week” or not, I wanted to share our family’s experience with cloth diapers.
I bought our first cloth diapers when Brooke was almost 2 and a half and in the midst of potty training. That is a pretty weird time to start trying cloth diapers, I’ll admit, but I’m glad we did! I’d already intended to slowly stock up little bits at a time in order to prepare for whenever Baby #2 came along. Then an online friend decided to go for it and I needed to buy some baby stuff to keep my Amazon Mom
After they’d been prepped and were ready to go, we put them on Brooke overnight and I was hooked. The only problem was I only had two and I wasn’t really willing to do laundry ever other day. So I HAD to buy more. I don’t remember what order I bought them in but I built a stash of around 12 Sunbaby‘s, 2 GoGreens and 1 Softbum Omni. The Sunbaby’s are our go-tos. We fill in with others when I’m behind on getting diapers in the wash or if we decide to wear them at naptime (I double stuff the bedtime diapers and the Go Greens and Softbum fit better single-stuffed at naptime).
For awhile, we were having trouble with Brooke leaking and waking up wet and switched to disposable nighttime training pants. After a couple weeks of needing to go to the store to buy more and having stinky used training pants to discard, I was eager to find a way to make the cloth diapers work again. Fortunately, a couple detergent-free wash cycles and different inserts have made a big difference and we’re back to cloth diapers every night.
Now for some answers to questions you may have and some myth-bustin’…
There are lots of places you can buy cloth diapers. You can start with Amazon.com
For us, switching to cloth diapers at night has not been terribly expensive. The majority of our stash is made up of Sunbaby’s which are really affordable. I got a dozen covers with two inserts for each for under $60. The Softbums cost more than I would pay on a regular basis but I think I had a coupon code or extra funds in my PayPal. If you want to “upgrade” to cuter patterns, organic materials, etc. you’ll start seeing the prices increase but you certainly don’t NEED any of those things, especially when you get started.
For some, the extra water expense due to more laundry is a concern. We have not noticed any real increase in our water consumption since using the cloth diapers. I’m sure I would have heard it from Keith if we had. We also air dry so there isn’t any more dryer usage for us. Obviously either of those elements could be different for you.
This honestly hasn’t been a big deal to me and I’m not typically too great at keeping up with things. In the morning, Brooke’s wet diapers go in a pail in the laundry room closet. Every 3-4 days, I wash them. First, I run them though a hot wash with no detergent as a rinse. Then I do the same hot wash with a teensy bit of detergent and 2 extra rinses. It might seem strange but when washing cloth diapers, the key is not to use too much detergent. After the last rinse is done, I hang them up on our little drying rack and either take them outside (sun is GREAT for stains!) or leave them in our bedroom to dry.
We’re only using one diaper a night so obviously our volume is much less than those diapering a newborn, infant or non-PTing toddler. I think though that I’d still wash them at the same frequency but would just have bigger loads. We also don’t deal with poop anymore but I don’t really see that having a huge impact either.
So that has been our experience with cloth diapers so far. I may completely change my tune if I find it too overwhelming with Baby #2. It may not work for everyone but if its something you’ve ever wanted to try but were hesitant to take the plunge, I encourage you to give it a shot. I figure the worse outcome is you decide it doesn’t work for your family and you re-sell your diapers.
I am in no way an expert but if you have questions, I’m happy to help!
Have you tried cloth diapers or even just considered it? What was your experience?
