Crunchy? Who me?

Apparently, I am becoming the crunchy mama in my circle.  Who would have thought?  Recently, I've been getting a lot of questions about some of my crunchier ways (cloth diapers, babywearing, and baby food making to be specific).  I am certainly no expert in any of these categories, but since I've received so many questions on the subjects  I thought I'd put together some of my favorite resources for those who are interested. Since I don't want to overwhelm anyone I'll stretch these out over a few days.  Today's topic: cloth diapering.

Let me just take a moment to get on my soapbox and say that disposable diapers take approximately 500 years to break down and they are the third most common item in US landfills. Ok, now that we've gotten that out of the way, here are some of my favorite cloth diapering resources:

PinStripes & PolkaDots has a wealth of information.  I especially like their charts for laundry detergents and rash creams.

(By the way, we currently use liquid Planet detergent on Isabella's diapers, but I'm having trouble getting it to rinse clean from our diapers, so I don't know that I'd recommend it.  We also have hard water and a front-loader so those could both be contributing to our issues.  I think I'm going to order some samples of Rockin' Green detergent in both the Classic Rock and Hard Rock versions and see how they work for us.)

Diaper Pin- Another nice source for information on cloth diapering.  The reviews are really helpful.

So far I have purchased from Abby's Lane, Kelly's Closet, and Cotton Babies and have had wonderful experiences with all three.Abby's Lane and Cottton Babies   Abby's Lane and Kelly's Closet both offer rewards both offer free shipping on all orders and Kelly's Closet has free shipping with orders of $49 or more.  I am a total cheapskate when it comes to paying for shipping and will do pretty much anything to avoid it.  Abby's Lane and Kelly's Closet both offer rewards points for every dollar spent that you can later redeem for store credit.

I hope you all find this information to be useful, and if nothing else I hope it helps some people to see that cloth diapering has come a long way and is no longer restricted to Gerber prefolds, pins, and plastic pants.  It's also really not that much work, just an extra load of laundry here and there.  For those of you concerned about the smell, don't be.  We use a regular 13-gallon plaatic trash can with a lid and a pail liner and I wash diapers every other day.  We have no smell issue, and in fact I think it was worse with disposables.  If you're wondering what to do about the poop, we just dump it in the toilet and flush.

Next time: Babywearing!