Ten Things about Cloth Diapers.

I've known since I was senior in high school that I would cloth diaper one day. That may seem a little crazy, but we had a debate in my Environmental Science class and I was convinced. The decision wasn't a big deal and figuring out what cloth diapering entailed was as easy as turning to my awesome cloth diapering aunts. By the way, cloth diapers are way, way different now than when we were babies. I don't claim to be an expert, as I've only been doing this for two months. This isn't as much of a how-to post as it is a how-and-why-I-do post. (For how-to guides, this is a great starting point, as is this.) I will try to answer any questions you have, though!

1. I don't have enough. But I don't have the money to buy more right now. Maybe we'll get some for Christmas? Our current stash is seven one-size and three smalls (mostly gifts). We do a load of diapers every or every other day, with some disposable supplementing thrown in.

2. Washing isn't gross at all. Since he only consumes breast milk, his poop is water-soluble and the diapers can just be thrown in the washing machine, no pre-rinsing required. If you can handle wiping a baby butt, you can handle dumping a bag of dirty cloth diapers in the machine. Promise. Our set-up involves this pail liner. You could probably just use the same trash bag over and over, too.

3. One-size FuzziBunz are my favorite. Now, I've only tried three types - FuzziBunz one-size, FuzziBunz perfect size and GroBaby one-size. My aunts have tried them all and found that FuzziBunz were the best for not leaking and have snaps instead of Velcro, and since I intend to use these diapers for future babies, I prefer snaps since they don't wear out like Velcro can. The GroBaby diaper inserts take longer to dry and tend to bunch up. Plus, FuzziBunz are soft fleece. I think I'll also try BumGenius 4.0, since they also have snaps.

4. Newborns CAN wear cloth diapers! Once he reached eight pounds - he was maybe 10 days old? He grows like a weed. A chubby weed. - I threw cloth diapers on him. We just made it work - adjusting the snaps as tight and small as possible.

5. He doesn't wear cloth overnight. In order to get our beauty sleep, I put a disposable diaper on him for 10-12 hours a night. Disposables hold more pee and wick the moisture away from his skin. (I think I've gone over the importance of sleep here before. When I was a rookie, I'd change his diaper and re-swaddle him and sit up to nurse him...now Gabe and I stay half-asleep while he nurses. Sleep is priceless!)

6. No more poop explosions or diaper rash. Period. (Though there is still some pee leakage now and then.)

7. We've saved money. Like, a lot. I've only had to buy two packs of diapers since he was born, which is sort of amazing since most people go through that much in a week. Saving money is the number one reason I cloth diaper (waste and keeping Gabe away from yucky chemicals are the other reasons).

8. So. Much. Less. Waste. I am amazed at how much waste we created when we used disposable diapers for a weekend while traveling. It's a little crazy, really. Babies create so much extra waste already (har har), no use in adding to it with disposable diapers!

9. We cloth diaper on the go. Usually. It's easy to throw used cloth diapers in a wet bag like this, and just bring along a few extra cloth diapers. If I'm leaving him with my mom, I bring disposables.

10. Big baby booty. The cloth diapers add some bulk to Gabe's behind, which means he tends to grow out of onesies more quickly.  No loss, really, since I get impatient for him to wear his cute clothes in the next size!

Shampoo Free. Seriously.

If you follow me on Twitter or read my blog, you may think that I am consumed by my pregnancy. Not so. (Okay, mostly so. Let’s not address my complete and utter inability to focus on anything work-related. Ask me my opinion about a project that’s happening in September and I’ll probably stare at you with glazed over eyes. I’m busy Googling birth stories, thinking about maternity leave, and wondering what taking care of a newborn will be like. Sorry, boss.)

I’ve done lots of non-baby or pregnancy related things this summer. I had a tire blow out on the highway. We went camping. I worked a lot. We redecorated our apartment and I love it. We went across the state to visit with Mike’s niece and nephews. I created a new budgeting system. We saw my extended family a lot. My commute became really freaking long. My sister moved back across the country and asked me to be her maid of honor (yay!). I continued to take on blog design work and have new hopes and ideas for how to grow my little business. And I stopped using shampoo nearly four weeks ago.

Let’s talk for a minute about that last one. First, I promise you I’m not a scuzzball. See?

So maybe I haven’t used shampoo or conditioner from a bottle, but I have used baking soda, apple cider vinegar, and water to keep my hair clean.

Why?

I ran out of conditioner and was trying to figure out if there was a plastic-free option for conditioner when I stumbled across this great post (the whole website is fabulous, by the way). Intrigued by the idea that baking soda and apple cider vinegar could get my hair clean, I figured I’d give it a shot. If it worked, I’d be saving tons of money, not using any chemicals, and reducing my waste. If my hair became greasy, tangled, or dirty – I’d just wash it. No commitment, nothing to lose.

That was on July 22nd. I haven’t touched my (giant!) bottle of shampoo since.

How?

Tsh recommends a mixing a tablespoon of baking soda per cup of water for the shampoo part. (I have thicker, wavy hair, so I increased the baking soda.) I keep the mixture in a plastic squeeze bottle that used to hold chocolate syrup. Just squirt and rub into your scalp, massaging as you go. The baking soda acts as a clarifier on your scalp and removes dirt and oil.

For the conditioner, mix a tablespoon or so of apple cider vinegar per cup of water. I keep this mixture in an old conditioner bottle and apply mostly to ends of my hair. I have even stored it in a cup and dipped the ends of my hair in the cup to really make sure they get good and conditioned. I have pretty dry hair, so I make sure and apply lots of it and leave it in for a few minutes while I finish showering.

Since my hair is typically pretty dry, I sometimes use a teensy bit of coconut oil (we’re talking a dab on my finger) and rub it through my hair to get rid of flyaways and such. It’s sort of like this stuff, minus the cost.

What are the results?

My hair is soft, clean, and manageable. I don’t have to choose between chemically-laden, but cheap or expensive, natural shampoo. My new ‘shampoo’ and ‘conditioner’ cost me very little and create hardly any waste.

I am going to continue on my happy shampoo-less existence until a problem arises.

Wanna try?

I've told a few friends what I've been doing, and one of them tried it out as well. Here's what she said:  "Also, Teej and I have been 'poo free for a week now! Just baking soda and apple cider vinegar! I LOVE the vinegar as conditioner... I think it works WAY better than store bought conditioner."


Check out this post for more details, ideas, and links to other blogs. And let me know how it goes!

A Gift Guide with Heart.

The holidays are rapidly approaching (hurrah!) and I put together a few ideas for those who haven’t finished their gift shopping. This time of year can be a lot of fun, but can get out of hand when we think about how much stuff is consumed. From the gifts no one really needs to the insane amount of wrapping and cards to the numerous big family dinners, there is a mass consumption of stuff.

I think a bit of indulgence is allowed, and I certainly don’t want to be Scrooge. But instead of feeling like we need to get bigger and better presents to express our love, we can still buy gifts, but ones that are more thoughtful and in line with our values. Sprinkle this season with a few gifts and lots of family time.

And copious amounts of hot chocolate and cookies, of course.

Fair Trade

Last year, along with making most of my presents, I got lots of Fair Trade goodies to give to my family – chocolates, teas, and coffees. It was my little way of supporting Fair Trade with my money and introducing family members to Fair Trade goodies. If you’ve been trying to convince your dad for-ev-er to drink Fair Trade coffee, this might be your chance to introduce him to it! Equal Exchange has put together some baskets – some fabulous, last minute deals! (Although, they expire TOMORROW, December 15th, so you’d better order fast!)

Eco-Friendly

Think reusable. Reusable shopping bags, reusable water bottles, reusable travel coffee mugs (or, if they shun drinking from reusable coffee mugs, get them one of these), and reusable towels (boo to paper towels!). Break your brother's disposable habit by filling a (reusable!) bag with lots of these goodies.

Local

Got a friend who's addicted to big box stores, chain restaurants, and corporate coffee shops? Introduce her to what your town or city has to offer with some gift cards to a local business or two. Soon she’ll see how much more fun shopping local can be!

Healthy

Maybe your mom keeps talking about going on some crazy fad diet (as she does every year) – encourage her to eat healthy (and eat, period! Crazy diets…bleh) by purchasing a share of a CSA. Depending on the CSA, she’ll get some form of delicious, local fruits and vegetables every week or month. Check out Local Harvest for more information or to find a CSA near you.

Clean & Green

Is your sister a tad OCD? As in, you’d rather eat off her bathroom floor than your kitchen table? If she’s using lots of bleach and other nasty chemicals, help her break the habit and keep a healthier home by giving her a basket full of fabulous cleaning supplies without all the nasties. Some of my favorite are this, this, this, and this. She will appreciate it, I promise.

Et Cetera

A few more ideas that may be a bit more sustainable than the average gift :

• A donation to charity
• Soy candles
• An experience – a concert, dinner at a nice restaurant, or a play.
• A microloan on Kiva.org.
  
• Essential oils
• An iTunes gift card – digital music is less waste than a hard copy.
• Shop around on Etsy and support handmade!
• Paraben-free make up or nail polish without formaldehyde (um, ew)
• Anything from Heifer International.
  
• Homemade anything – from food to pampering kits.
• Wood toys are much better than plastic ones for the kiddos in your life – they last longer and are more durable. (Bonus points if it’s sustainably forested!)

A note on waste

During the weeks from Thanksgiving to New Years, about 1 million additional tons of garbage to our landfills each week in the US. EACH week. As in, in ADDITION to the waste we already create. That is just crazy ridiculous. To help reduce this waste, give your gifts in reusable gift sacks or wrap your gifts in newspaper or other reused material. I promise, with a little creativity, they will look even nicer than those glossy wrapping papers!

I'm Scared of Non-Dairy Creamer.

I saw lots of tweets about how delicious Coffee-Mate and International Delight coffee creamers are. With flavors like Pumpkin Spice, Peppermint Mocha, White Chocolate Mocha, Caramel Macchiato, and Tiramisu, everyone was exclaiming, "No more pricey coffee shop for me! This is just as delicious! Yay!"

My usual grocery stores don't carry the stuff, and I'd never bought a container of it in my life. But one day last week, I found myself in a conventional grocery store (the overwhelming kind with gleaming rows of twelve different kinds of Oreos and 32 flavors of Coffee-Mate) and remembered how delicious they were heralded to be.

I picked up a bottle of yummy-sounding tiramisu and noticed it was labeled lactose-free, which made me wonder just what the heck was in it, as I had assumed it was cream and sugar.

Ooooh, no.

No cream. At ALL:

Water, sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil, and less than 2% of the following: sodium cassienate (a milk derivative), disodium phosphate, mono- and diglycerides, cellulose gel, cellulose gum, color added, natural & artificial flavors, carrageenan.

So, it's chemically produced cream. Awesome. To learn more about what exactly those ingredients do to you check out this post or this one.

I usually use sugar and half and half - not anything healthy, but at least it's only three ingredients: sugar, milk, and cream. All I've heard of and can pronounce.

I tried convincing myself that maybe the taste would be worth the chemically produced cream. Maybe it really would taste like a caramel macchiato (which: it's the way you make the drink that makes it a macchiato, not the taste. /end rant.).

After five minutes of hemming and hawing, I just couldn't bring myself to put the bottle in my basket. I satiated my need to get some sugary, creamy substance for my coffee by grabbing a bottle of some organic hazelnut coffee creamer. The first ingredient was organic non-fat milk, followed by organic cane syrup - so I felt a bit less apprehensive about the purchase. (Totally not as good as plain old half and half with sugar).

Like flavored yogurt, flavored coffee creamer will no longer find it's way into my fridge. Sorry, Coffee-Mate, but you're creepy.

Hair Tuesday

I've had long hair my whole life. Last Thursday, I took a plunge (after being featured on Hair Thursday) and got about half a foot chopped off. I absolutely LOVE it and couldn't be happier.

I'll admit, I'll also be happier to stop finding reallly long strands of brown hair around our apartment. And on my clothes. And in the car. Um, yeah. Maybe shorter strands will be easier to deal with. :)

It got me thinking, though - is shorter hair better for the environment? I think yes! Now, maybe this is a stretch, but the less hair you have the less shampoo, conditioner, mousse, hair spray, and such you need. Plus, it would require less electricity to dry, straighten, or curl less hair.

In my case, I used to throw my hair back into a ponytail or messy bun about 80% of the time, and now I'll be forced out of laziness and into regular hair product usage. That means more plastic containers and metal tubes of mousse goodness. Yuck. I wish I knew a better way to make my hair curly (but not frizzy!) than loading tons of chemicals onto it creating extra waste.

I own neither a blow dryer NOR a curling iron. Doesn't that count for something?!

Remember the One Where Rachel Was Laundry Virgin?

Let’s talk for a moment about laundry. I’ve already told you that I’m cheap and lazy.

But! I do spend a little more money on detergent because, like, did you know how nasty the chemicals are in regular detergent?

At my job, I’ve recently been learning about water pollutants with the middle schoolers (taught by the local college students). When they mentioned laundry detergent causes a main source of phosphates in the river, I was shocked. Too much phosphate means plants and creatures in the river are killed, and biodiversity affects everyone. (I know it’s hard to really care about river health when you can’t imagine how it could ever affect you.) Anywho, it shocked me that something so very common could be polluting the water. Shouldn’t there be more of an effort to encourage the public to NOT use the synthetic chemically laden laundry detergents?

Besides keeping chemicals out of the water stream, we’re also consuming less petroleum. Most laundry detergents are petroleum based, so using vegetable based saves tons of oil (Whhhhy didn’t anyone tell me these things?). As a bonus, our detergent is fragrance, chlorine, and dye-free, so it will never irritate our skin, is gentler for our clothes, and the planet. ☺ That’s a pretty great deal for a little more change. (As an added measure, we also get powder instead of liquid detergent to avoid non-biodegradable and possibly non-recyclable plastic.)

PS: I think I (might) overuse (parentheses). Maybe I should, use commas for the (clauses) and asides; more often. ☺

At Least You Burn 200 Calories An Hour

Like Maggie mentioned, many common household cleaners have really gross toxic problems. We don’t want to have those kind of chemicals in our apartment, nor do we want to put those chemicals in our environment. You can go out and buy new, safe alternatives - or if you’re broke like us – learn how to make cleaning products with kitchen supplies like white vinegar, lemon juice, and baking soda! It’s super cheap and creates less waste (especially if you buy a HUGE jug of vinegar).

The internet is FULL of ideas*. We use mostly white vinegar and/or baking soda to clean our counters, shower, toilet, mirrors, and floors (all 3 square feet of them). A spray bottle with half vinegar and half water and a rag or sponge is all you need! As well as some baking soda, which acts as a natural scrub on the stove or counter top. For the toilet, we pour some vinegar in, sprinkle a little baking soda and let it effervesce (remember making volcanoes with this stuff? It makes cleaning the toilet more fun!) for a few minutes before scrubbing it clean. Baking soda can also be used as a deodorant in smelly places (like most people use it for in their fridge or freezer.) Lemon juice is also helpful, especially for its yummy smell. It's actually kind of fun to create your our cleaning products. :)

Speaking of smells, we use Method aroma spray, mostly because we seem to have an ever-present stench of something in our apartment. We bought some Glade glass air fresheners, but they are kind of overpowering for our small space. They do smell fantastic though (and we're psyched about the use of recyclable glass instead of plastic). The Method air freshener is much lighter and helps eliminate the Smell. We have also tried boiling vinegar on the stove and putting a cotton ball with vanilla extract in the fridge to get rid of mysterious smells. Both worked pretty well. Oh! I just thought of another trick – pour some vinegar and water in your reusable coffee mug and let it sit for a few hours to get rid of that nasty stale coffee smell. Just don’t forget to wash it afterwards or your coffee will taste funky…I still cringe when I remember thinking the coffee pot was filled with hot water and using it to brew some tea…Yeah, that was nasty.

Time to get our apartment presentable for my sister’s visit this weekend. Happy cleaning!


*Seriously, best website EVER for this kind of stuff. It's not frilly at all, not actually as much a website as a very long list of cleaning ideas. It's really great though, honestly!