Diaper Diaries II Goodmama and Sustainable Babyish Review

It's been a few months now that I have been using Good Mama diapers and the Sloomb, or Sustainable Babyish diapers. These diapers are both excellent and not to mention are cute to boot as well. I was fortunate enough to score two Goodmamas off of diaperswappers that were in excellent like new condition and I purchased one Sloomb diaper in the color sprout from Sustainablebabyish.com. In the photo, the Sloomb diaper is on the left, and the Good mama is on the right. The Sloomb diaper is a fitted size large, and the Good mama is a one sized fitted diaper. What are the differences of these diapers? The Sloomb diaper is more of a nap-time diaper or an overnight diaper than the Goodmama. It is obviously has more fluff to it and it comes with one snap in liner and an additional soaker, and it is made of organic bamboo/cotton fleece with a soft jersey outer. This diaper is plush, soft and does an excellent job of keeping in super soaker number ones when the baby wets. Sloomb diapers are sized diapers, so you will have to take your baby's measurements and choose a size accordingly and did I mention these diapers are cute too? Sloomb offers fitted diapers, flat diapers, wool covers and a variety of other diaper accessories in their store website. Also, the costomer service is awesome. Sloomb uses low impact dyes and all the diapers are made by hand in the USA.
The Goodmamas are a one sized fitted diaper and are also made of organic bamboo /cotton fleece/velour. GM's are soft, plush, have a snap in soaker and offer a trimmer fit than the Sloomb diapers. GM's also come in a huge assortment prints, colors and types of stitching. The Goodmama diapers are also made of organic bamboo /cotton fleece. Goodmama's printed diapers are the cutest diapers I have seen and they are very popular due to the prints being on a limited run. In addition to printed diapers, Goodmama also offers, good nights, serged fitted, turned fitted, prefolds and trimfolds. Goodmama diapers are also made in the USA. Both of these types of diapers require a cover of some sort. I use Gen Y covers and they work well and come in all kinds of cute prints.

Biking & Helmets

I am not sure if everyone knows this or not but on Father's Day, I spent my weekend in the ER. Chris was mountain biking on a trail, and his front tire hit a slick spot with running water and algae growing along a concrete embankment. He instantly lost traction and did not have time to react and fell on his side, hitting the side of his head on the concrete and his hip as well. He returned home earlier than usual from biking and all he said was," I need a new helmet." I asked why and he calmly said, "I fell headfirst on concrete and I was kind of out of it for a few minutes, my head hurts but my helmet didn't break." I decided that it was my job to take him to the ER to get him checked out. On the way to the ER we stopped at Whataburger to grab lunch, and he went to the ice machine put ice in his cup and then went to put soda in the cup and he noticed his coordination was a little off. The ER Dr. examined him and recommended a MRI of his head and luckily everything was alright no serious head trauma. Also, for him to take 2 weeks off from biking. I watched the scan on the monitors with the technician, it was pretty cool. I saw inside his head, now if only I could figure out how his mind works that would be really cool. Thank God he was wearing a helmet, it could have been much worse if he hadn't been wearing one. All I can say is Thank you to Giro helmets! Exactly two weeks later with a new Giro helmet, he went biking on the same trail and rode over the same spot where he crashed with no problems. Now if I only I could figure out a way to get him a new Pivot- his current dream bike that would be huge.

Diaper Swappers

I recently discovered that the Diaperswappers website is addictive to anyone who is looking for cloth diapers. I found this out myself when I went searching for information and reviews on a particular brand of diapers. Normally, I would not have thought to look there. But I wanted to save some money and I was hoping that I could find diapers that were cheaper than retail price. Diaper Swappers is a huge online community of moms who are into cloth diapers. They refer to each other as 'mama' and chat about everything from how to launder diapers correctly, whats on sale at online diaper stores, what diapers worked for them, those didn't work, post diapers they have for sale or trade and everything in between. This online community is thriving mainly because the modern cloth diaper has evolved into a fashion statement and it is easier to deal with than the cloth diapers from 30 yrs ago and there are many choices of diapers to choose from. Also, Ebay has contributed to it's growth as well due to it's rule of not allowing the sale of used diapers on it's site. On diaperswappers a 'mama' can list her diapers for sale, list any that she wants to trade, buy and sell diapers and leave a rating for the seller or buyer, like Ebay. Just one look at this online community and you will learn about all the different kinds of diapers there are. For example, there are fitted diapers, all in ones, pockets, diaper covers, hybrid diapers, all in twos, organic diapers and good old fashioned flat folds & pins, and snappis which are used in place of traditional diaper pins. Not to mention all the adorable prints and variety of fabrics that diapers are made from with names like Ooga Booga, Gumdrop, Celebrate and colors like grasshopper green, girly stripes, spellbound, twilight, and moonbeam. Doesn't that sound better than putting something on your baby's bottom that is made with plastic polymers, wood pulp and adhesives? It does to me! There is nothing wrong with a parents decision to use disposable diapers but when I was basically forced into using them when my little one kept getting persistent diaper rashes that would not go away, I didn't have much of a choice. After learning about all the options and asking around about what works and what doesn't, cloth diapering isn't that bad. There is a learning curve to cloth diapers which is to be expected and it's easy, green, saves money and its better for the baby and the environment.

Hair Cuts and Hair Bows

It seems as though every two weeks one of my children needs a hair cut mainly because they end up getting bangs in their eyes. I guess I can consider that a good thing, at least I know they are growing and are healthy kids. One thing that I noticed after becoming a mom is that I stopped going to get my hair cut every 6 weeks like I did BC (before children). I would think nothing of going to get my hair done every six weeks and easily spend about $100 on my hair. Now, I get my haircut whenever it starts driving me nuts, which is whenever I can't stand messing with it anymore. On the other hand my kids need haircuts all the time, which is easy enough for me to do on a toddler, but my 4 yr old has inherited my thick fast growing hair so she goes to a stylist. I just hope that she doesn't get my freaky wavy frizzy hair when she grows up because it is a maintenance nightmare to deal with all the time & expensive to keep up with.

And what about hair bows? I am no hair expert but how do other moms manage to get their daughters hair nicely braided or put up in all those cute hair bows? I am lucky if I can just get a pony tail or little pig tails and that is about the extent that I can do with their hair. My mom didn't spend a lot of time putting my hair up in bows or braiding it or putting it up. No French braids for me, I was too busy pretending to be horse trainer and fighting with my two older brothers (one in particular, you know who you are) to care what the heck my hair looked like. My mom was lucky if she could get my hair washed without a big ordeal. She will gladly share that story with anyone, but I don't want to share it. All I can say is that in involves an upset Daddy and a haircut......

Diaper Diaries

Four months ago, I decided to try G diapers due my little ones diaper rashes. She would get diaper rashes right after one another and seemed like she was constantly battling diaper rash. The G diaper is a cross between a cloth diaper and a disposable diaper which consists of a little gPant and a plastic-free biodegradable diaper gRefill. After using the G diapers for one day, there was an immediate improvement and no more diaper rashs. The g diapers have worked successfully for us for 4 months, however now that the little one is approaching 30 lbs and 2 yrs old we haven't been doing too well in the g's. Not to mention the costs of always having to buy the flushable inserts. She is going through a tremendous growth spurt and the little g's can't handle more than an hour with the super soaker wet diapers she's been producing. So, this past month I tried out some cloth diapers called Knicker Nappies One Size, and Bum Genius 3.0. The the Knicker Nappies worked well for about a while and now those are all getting super soaked too. I have been double stuffing the Knicker Nappies diapers and that seems curtail the super soaker leaking problem. Then, I learned that there is an insert called a Super Loopy Do that is for heavy wetters that will solve the problem. So, I get a few of the Loopy Do's and guess what? Problem solved. The Bum Genius 3.0 worked well but I don't think it will fit her long as it is almost out of room to fasten the applix tabs and the elastic cuts into her back and legs and leaves bright red marks, which is annoying because this diaper is supposed to be one size diaper. I can't imagine that the BG one size diaper will fit a baby to potty training age as they claim because my little one isn't quite 30 lbs yet. The Knicker Nappies fit well and left no red marks anywhere. I also chatted with Elizabeth at Gen-Y diapers about what is good for heavy wetters and she suggested using a Sloomb bamboo fitted or a Goodmama bamboo/hemp fitted. We shall see how the next diaper trial goes...LOL!

So another diaper trial is in the future. Next up will be the GEN-Y diaper cover with a Sloomb fitted. My search for cloth diapers started when my baby daughter started getting severe diaper rashes that kept returning, and for a while the G diapers were a perfect solution until she got bigger and started having super soaker diapers the g pants could not handle. It is nice not having to go the the store in the middle of the night to get diapers. If I need diapers I just toss in the diapers and the wetbag in the washer & hang to dry or put everything in the dryer and we are set for more diapers.

Piggy Paint

For those of you with little girls who like to have painted toes, I found this wonderful non toxic finger nail polish that is safe for children. My daughter likes to have her toes painted just like mommy and after reading about how dangerous some of the ingredients that in traditional fingernail polish are, I decided not to paint my little girls nails. But now, all mothers with little girls who want their toes and fingers painted can now relax and paint those little piggies and digits without worrying about dangerous ingredients.

http://www.piggypaint.com

Our Tuesday Mornings

Tulle is all over my family room. My toddler is cheerfully grabbing spools of tulle and dragging it all over the family room leaving a trail behind her. Her older sister has changed her outfit for the 50th time and attempting to wear an ensemble that consist of boot cut jeans, a light colored skirt with ruffles at the hem and a long sleeved t-shirt and amazingly it looks quite trendy. U2 music is playing the background from the ipod speaker dock in the kitchen and all are dancing to It's A Beautiful Day. This is our Tuesday morning.